Transcript WORLD HISTORY I

WORLD HISTORY I
Early Civilizations
Professor Thomas M. Page
FROM VILLAGE
COMMUNITY TO CITY STATE
What Are Cities?
Why Are They Important?
THE MEANING OF CITIES
Food First:
The Agricultural Village
Pottery Ban Po
China 4500 B.C.E.
AGRICULTURAL VILLAGE
Why Did They Change?
Hunter Gatherers
AGRICULTURAL VILLAGE
• 12,000 Years Ago
Nomadic “follow the food”
• 10,000 Years Ago
Systematic Practice of Agriculture
• Production:
Textiles-Pottery-Metallurgy-Architecture-Tools
• New Opportunities:
Economic, Social, Political, Artistic Creativity
AGRICULTURAL VILLAGE
“Changed Humanities
concept of Life’s Necessities
and Potentials”
Spodek
Ban Po Food
Storage Pits
THE FIRST CITIES
Mesopotamia
The Nile
The Indus
The Huang He
The Niger
Gulf of Mexico
Andes Mountains
The Meaning of Cities
“Cities Transform Human Life”
The Bronze Age
Indonesian Bronze Age bangles,
found in Sumba
The Meaning of Cities
New Class Hierarchies
Emerged
The rafts were made of
a log platform on top
of inflated animal
skins
These boats were
usually made of
bundles of reeds lashed
together
Grain
Lapiz Lazuli
The Meaning of Cities
With the Growth of the City
the Early State was Born
The Meaning of Cities
Centralized Rule
Powerful Armies
This is a section of wall relief
from the palace of the Assyrian
king Ashurnasirpal II.
The Meaning of Cities
The World’s First
System of Writing
Evolved
The earliest
writing was
based on
pictograms
Over time, the
need for
writing
changed and
the signs
developed into
a script we call
cuneiform
SUMER
The Birthplace of the City
SUMER
The Cities of Sumer Died Out
Having Fought Each Other to
Exhaustion
SUMER
Birth of Civic Loyalty
Loyalty to Blood Relatives Now
Extended Beyond Kinship to
Civic Identity
SUMER
The Concept of State is Born
Political Power and
Organization were both
Centralized and Sanctified
SUMER
The Priesthood and the
Cosmo-Magical City
Ziggurats
By 4000 B.C.E.
large temples
were being built
in
Mesopotamian
towns on top of
mud-brick
platforms.
By the end of the
fourth millennium
B.C.E. enormous
mud-brick platforms
with temple
buildings on top
were built in Uruk,
one of the largest
cities in the world.
Scribe
Curriculum
Tablet
Cuneiform
Inscriptions
Cylinder
Seal
Writing
Board
Mathematical
Text
Envelope
and
Contract
The Sumerians believed the gods
came from the mountains they
could see in the distance across
the plains. Some people think
that the temples were built on
platforms to look like mountains.
One of the
responsibilities of the king
was to give the gods
offerings and keep their
homes (temples) in good
condition.
When a building was repaired
the king would often leave his
name carved on objects buried
in the foundations or stamped
on the bricks. In this way he
hoped the gods would bless him
and his kingdom.
SUMER
Occupational Specialization:
The Emergence of Class Structure
SUMER
The Emergence of Class Structure
“Gave the Cities a Far More
Sophisticated Hierarchical Class
Structure than Villages Possessed”
SUMER
Arts and Invention
“Creativity Flourished;
Surpassing Village Standards in
Beauty and Technical Skill”
Astronomers of Babylon
.
Daily Diaries
Kings Letter
Of Lunar
Eclipse
Enuma Anu Enlil text
Shumma Alu
Diviner's
Manual
Mul Apin
Tablet
Invention
Trade and Transport
Grain
Textiles
Architecture
and Adornment
Writing and
Literature
Gilgamesh Epic
The Flood Stories
of Mesopotamia