Early Civilizations

The Nile Delta at Night

Geography

• Mesopotamia: In the Fertile Crescent. Yearly floods of Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.

• Egypt: On the banks of the Nile River. Yearly – predictable – floods created fertile soil.

• Indus Valley: Fertile plain between Indus and Ganges Rivers. Yearly floods leave fertile soil – but have to deal with monsoons.

• China: Plain between Huang He and Yangtze Rivers. Huang He floods deposits loess.

Record Keeping

• Mesopotamia: Developed Cuneiform. Tablets show maps, scientific investigations, medicine and a number system.

• Egypt: Hieroglyphics developed, wrote on stone tablets, temple walls and papyrus

• Indus Valley: use of seal to mark items, Had a written language – not able to decipher.

• China: Earliest writing from oracle bones. Pictographs developed (can read without speaking). Number characters.

Complex Institutions

• Mesopotamia: GOVERNMENT: City-state, Hammurabi’s Code, dynastic rule. Priests rulers but eventually military leaders take over power.

• RELIGION: Polytheistic people servants to the gods, gods like humans but immortal. After death go to “land of no return” – gloomy. Sacrifices to gods.

• Egypt: GOVERNMENT: Menes king that united Upper and Lower Egypt. Pharaohs ruled – considered a god.

• RELIGION: Theocracy – pharaoh responsible for kingdom’s well-being – rules even after death. Polytheistic (2,000 gods), built temples to honor them. Belief in afterlife – possible to live in beautiful Other World.

http://www.culturefocus.com/pyramids-2.htm

• Indus Valley: GOVERNMENT: Not much is known about it. Organization of city-planning suggests a strong central government in place.

• RELIGION: Polytheistic, evidence shows links to modern Hindu culture.

• China: GOVERNMENT: Dynastic Rule, Mandate of Heaven – ruler has divine right to rule. Feudalism – nobility granted land from king has servants work land and pays king with military service and crops.

• RELIGION: Spirits of ancestors had power to bring good or bad fortune to family. Pay respect to father’s ancestors. Polytheistic.

Specialized Workers• Mesopotamia: priests, military leaders,

government workers, judges, merchants (trade), artisans, farmers, slaves

• Egypt: Royalty, landownerd, government officials, priests, army commanders, merchants, artisans, farmers, slaves

• Indus Valley: artisans, military, merchants, farmers – not much known

• China: artisans (bronze, weapons, jewelry, silk cloth), royalty, civil servants, military, farmers

Advanced Technology

• Mesopotamia: irrigation, wheel, sail, plow, use of bronze, writing, some medicine, geometry, columns, arches, ramps

• Egypt: Papyrus (paper), hieroglyphics, numbers and geometry, stone columns, calendar, practical medicine (checking heart rate, splints), Pyramid building

• Indus Valley: Sophisticated city-planning – grid system, plumbing and sewage system, citadel, oven baked bricks.

• China: Silk cloth, roads, canals, coined money, cast iron, sickles, knives, spades, bronze work, pictographs

Advanced Cities

• Mesopotamia: Cities grew prosperous from farming and used surplus to increase long-distance trade. New cities grew and culture spread

• Egypt: Cities grew along Nile with trade, protected by deserts around them. Large cites and tombs built up and down Nile.

• Indus Valley: streets laid out on grid system. Had plumbing and sewage system. Urban housing shows social division not great. More than 100 cities along the Indus River.

• China: large cities connected with roads and canals – trade flourished; all built within China’s heartland. Leader in center of city. Upper class timber framed houses with walls of clay and straw inside city walls.