EARLY CITY STATES: MESOPOTAMIA AND EGYPT

I.                Emergence of Civilization

a.    Defining Civilization

                                         i.     Urban Centers

                                       ii.     Economic Specialization and Social Stratification

                                    iii.     Common Social Bond: Government, Religion, and Language

b.    Role of River Valleys – The Tigris, the Euphrates, and the Nile

                                         i.     Water and Desert

                                       ii.     Yearly Floods and Early Agriculture

 II.             Mesopotamia: Emergence of First City States

a.    “The Land Between the Rivers”

                                         i.     Sumer and the Semites

                                       ii.     Sumerian City-States – Uruk

b.    Military Expansion, Trade, and the Establishment of Early Empires

                                         i.     Sargon of Akkad and the Akkadian Empire (~2,340-2,100 BC)

1.    Military Superiority

2.    Control of Trade Routes

3.    Chronic Rebellions and Fall of Akkadians (~2,100 BC)

                                       ii.     Hammurabi and the Amorite (Babylonian) Empire (1894-1595 BC)

1.    Disciplined Military

2.    Centralized Bureaucracy and Regular Taxation

3.    Code of Hammurabi – Laws, Morality, and Lex Talionis

Bust of Hammurabi

                                    iii.     Rise and Fall of Empires in Mesopotamia

1.    Crossroads of Trade and Conflict

2.    Violence and Death in Mesopotamian Culture

c.     Mesopotamian Culture

                                         i.     Mathematics, Science, and Cuneiform Writing (~3,100 BC)

                                       ii.     Polytheistic Gods and the Epic of Gilgamesh (~2,000 BC)

1.    Death and Pessimism in the Afterlife

2.    The Flood Story

III.          Egypt: Geographic Isolation and Government Centralization

a.    Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt

b.    Centralized Government Authority and Social Stability

                                                   i.     Menes (died 2,884 BC) and United Egypt

                                                 ii.     Egyptian Empires

1.    Old Kingdom (2,664-2,180 BC)

2.    Middle Kingdom (2,080-1,640 BC)

3.    Hyksos Invasion

4.    New Kingdom (1,570-1,075 BC)

                                              iii.     Pharaoh and Egyptian Kingship: State, Gods, and Bureaucracy

c.     Egyptian Building – The Pyramids

                                                   i.     Burial Palaces for Pharaohs

                                                 ii.     Khufu (Cheops)

Sphinx and pyramids

d.    Egyptian Culture

                                                   i.     Sciences: Simple Math and 365 Day Calendar

                                                 ii.     Writing: Hieroglyphics – Pictographic “Holy Inscriptions”

                                              iii.     Religion

1.    Amon-Re

2.    Akhenaten and the Cult of Aten (1,353-1,335 BC)

3.    The Quest for Immortality and Mummification

4.    Cult of Osiris

a.    Evil Seth and Loving Isis

b.    Death and Resurrection

c.     Feather Test and the Hope for Eternal Reward

d.    Osiris and the Nile