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ANCIENT HISTORYLanguage families:
1. Semitic language:
- Akkadian
- Amorite
- Hebrew
- Phoenician
- Arabic
- Egyptian
2. Indo-European languages:
- Sanskrit
- Hittie
- Persian
- Greek
- Latin and the languages derived from it
- Slavic languages
- Celtic
- Germanic languages
- Armenian
3. Languages of unknown families:
- Sumerian
- Kassite
Chapter 1: introduction
transhumance : seasonal migration
Transhumanists and agriculturalists exchanged their products
Geographical conditions of Egypt and Mesopotamia were similar in the sense that :
- Both areas were dependent on their river water because of the lack of rain
- Both were poor in metals and timber
Both are different in the sense that:
- Conditions of agriculture were better in Egypt than in Mesopotamia
- Egypt had to sow their crops in the fertile deposits of the water left by the river while the
Mesopotamians had to go through the effort to conduct the water to their field via canals
- Water in the Nile was better quality while Tigris and Euphrates contained harmful salts
- Their surroundings: Egypt transitioned from fertile land to desert instantly while
Mesopotamia had a more gradual transition between the desert and fertile land
- Egypt was less accessible than Mesopotamia because it was surrounded by desert (this
difference then created big political consequences
Chapter 2: third millennium
Early bronze age: (2600 c-2150c)
- The history of ancient Egypt is divided on the basis of ‘dynasties’ and ‘kingdoms’
- Dynasties: devised by the Egyptian priest Manetho, he divided the chronology of Egypt
between thirty dynasties or royal houses
- Kingdoms: more of a modern term. The kingdom period consists of when Egypt enjoyed
prosperity and political unity
- Alternating with intermediate periods of political fragmentations: in these periods Egypt
was ruled by several local governors (who had independence on their own province)
instead of one king
- The three kingdoms:
OLD kingdom (2600-2150 C)
MIDDLE kingdom ( 2000-1800 C)
NEW kingdom (1550-1100 C)
- The LATE period (750-332 C) where the country was frequently ruled by foreign dynasties
- Old kingdom: Egypt was united into a single realm known as the early dynastic period
(3000-2600 c the first and second dynasties)
- Kings of the old kingdom decided to build the pyramids
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, - The pyramids show the power of the kings in the old kingdom and their hold over
manpower and material resources, it also showed the great organisational capacity of the
early Egyptian state
- For the pyramids, groups of workers around the country were brought to take turns in the
constructions. Their commitment was understandable because they regarded the kingship
as a divine institution
- The largest monuments were built in the 4th dynasty (2500 c ) and were made of all stone.
They have preserved many hieroglyphic texts, religious and autobiographical (archives
gives us glimpses of a highly complex temple)
- While the younger pyramids were built from mudbrick
- The old kingdom lasted for 5 centuries and by the end of it the governors had become too
powerful that the pharaoh was no longer able to keep his central authority
- The governors were given land as a form of salary and this land would be passed on from
father to son over generations
- So as a result, the pharaoh has completely lost his hold on his officials
- It remained unclear what was more important: regional power, ecological stress or
dynastic crisis
-
Mesopotamia, Sumer and Akkad:
- Temple and palace were the two most powerful organisations in Mesopotamia
- Foundations of Mesopotamia had been laid in the 4th millennium but it was the Sumerians
and the Akkadians who brought it to function in the third millennium
- Sumerians and Akkadians made Mesopotamia great, they also made extensive use of the
art of writing for keeping accounts in their temples and palaces and for composing
religious and literary texts
Sumerians:
- we dont know where exactly they come from
- they did not create one kingdom but rather a few small ones — Ur, Uruk
- Sculpture, religious imagery, literary styles and views on kingship, law and more were all
developed by the Sumerians
- Sumerians: laid the groundwork for many sciences; arithmetic, astronomy, botany and
medicine. Children learnt complex scripts by copying all types of texts
- The long list of professions in those days enabled major economic improvements brought
by the introduction of irrigation
- Passed on their culture from one generation to another in many countries in the ancient
near east
- Sumerian language and texts were studied in schools everywhere which caused the
cultural history of western Asia to become infused with the Sumerian civilisation
- This was not achieved by military expansion
- The Sumerians revolved entirely around the temple that was led by a priest-ruler
- Later, a division gradually occurred which resulted in a secular ruler (not religious) whose
job included leadership in war operating. Marking the birth of kingship while the temple
arose a palace with its own bureaucracy, estates and workshops
- The Sumerians regarded kingship as a matter of course, something that had come down
from heaven in the very beginning
Akkadians:
- Became the centre of the empire around 2300 BC
- Founded by king Sargon
- This empire embraces the whole of Mesopotamia and extended all the way into Asia minor
- Semites: speakers of Semitic language (would now be considered Hebrew and Arabic)
- They borrowed a lot from the Sumerians; scripts, religious imagery, scientific principles,
and literary styles
- BUT they continued to worship their own gods and use their own language
- Sargon’s successors claimed leadership over the entire world called themselves ‘king of
four quarters of the world’
- But they were unable to present local revolts and invasions of tribes from the east that
were ultimately to cause the downfall of the empire
The collapse of the Akkadian empire:
- Followed by the revival of many Sumerians cities known as the ‘Sumerian
renaissance’ (2100-2000 c.)
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,UR:
- The kings of Ur, known as the ‘third dynasty of Ur’ founded another great empire in
Mesopotamia.
- Hundreds of tablets were discovered which were part of the administration of the palace,
they show that the palace has eclipsed the temple and had acquired complete control
over the economy
- The Ur empire was overthrown by invaders, Elamites from southwestern Iran
- But before that, the empire had been weakened by other invaders from the west (Amorites
and nomads)
- The third millennium BC ended with a period of great confusion in the two most important
cultural centres of the near east: Egypt and Mesopotamia.
- But a firm basis was created
Chapter 3: second millennium:
The middle bronze age (c. 2000-1600)
Egypt, the middle kingdom (2000-1800 c.) and the second intermediate period (1800-1550)
- A dynasty of provincial governors in Thebes restored unity in Egypt which made Thebes
the new capital of the unified realm
- Kings of the 12th dynasty were the most powerful: led military campaigns, known for their
exploits in their home countries (brought Fayyum Oasis into cultivation and made it the
centre of their government.
- In their campaigns in the south, the Egyptians were more successful
- The middle kingdom was the golden age of Egyptian culture mainly in literature (period
where hieroglyphic acquired their shape and literary works and made them classics)
- 1800 the power of the king started to decline and unity was lost once again
- The end of campaigns and fewer building projects marked the beginning of the second
intermediate period (1800-1500)
- This is the period where Egypt was ruled by foreigners: the Hyksos (maybe came from the
Levant, they settled in the Nile delta). They gained control over the delta and established
their own dynasties, other rulers were then forced to acknowledge the suzerainty of the
Hyksos dynasty.
Mesopotamia, the old Assyrian and Old Babylonian periods:
- Early second millennium in Mesopotamia: the growth of Babylonia and Assyria
- Their rise to power was due to foreign people, namely the Amorites, they gained control
over Assur, Babylon and Mari but they never gave up on their nomadic way of life.
- Their hybrid position was seen by the titles some of the rulers assumed, calling
themselves ‘king of the city of X, chief of the tribe Y’
Northern Mesopotamia: the city of Assur and the kingdom of Shamshi-Adad I (c. 2000-1769)
- The city of Assur had already existed in the early third millennium under the domination of
the Akkad and ur empires
- It gained independence around 2000 and developed into a great city-state.
- Profitable in trade meaning it was brought to great wealth and prominence in the 18th
century
Southern Mesopotamia, the old Babylonian empire (c. 1800-1600)
- After the fall of third dynasty Ur, southern Mesopotamia fell back to its old situation of
independent city-states
- Babylon: fairly insignificant, acquired strong political power (which is kept for many
centuries afterwards)
- It exserted influence over Mesopotamian culture even in its weakest times
- Foundations of the Babylonian culture were laid down by the Amorite king Hammurabi
- Hammurabi conquered the whole of southern Mesopotamia and the Euphrates valley, he
was also mainly known for his code of law
- Hammurabi code: highlights the social structure of this period, became one of the
standards of works read at Babylonian school, had a long-lasting influence. Written in
cuneiform script. Became a model for later Mesopotamian writing
- The empire began to crumble under Hammurabi’s successors, slow loss of military power
and authority.
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, - Babylon was taken by Mursilis, a king of the Hittite kingdom, he led plundering expeditions
into Mesopotamia.
- After having sacked Babylon he returned to his native country and from then on the
cuneiform record dry up and it is hard to understand what happened next
- The Kassites then took over, these were people that originally came from Iranian
mountains but had already intruded in Babylonia.
- The kassite language is hard to study as they used Sumerian and Akkadian for their
inscriptions and letters and so adapted to local transitions.
The late bronze age (c.1600-1200)
Concert of powers:
- The centuries between 1600-1200, were characterized by a stable balance of great
powers which kept contact with one another through the exchange of letters and
embassies
- Powers were: Egypt, Mitanni, the Hittite empire, Assyria and Babylonia
- This period also contained the flourishing of Crete and the Mycenaean civilisation of the
Greek mainland
- The power of all these states (from largest to smallest) was mainly based on a new
invention that spread across the entire near east: the war chariot, owned by the privileged,
aristocratic elite.
- Without large amounts of chariot warriors, it was impossible for a state to safeguard its
authority
Egypt, the new kingdom (1500-1100)
- The dynasty of Theban rulers restored unity in Egypt.
- The eighteenth dynasty was the most famous. its kings were referred to as pharaohs,
immediately set about building up an empire.
- They expanded to the Euphrates in Syria and deep into Nubia.
- Nubia was of particular interest to Egypt because of its gold
- Nubia was controlled by a viceroy and stood under the fairly direct control of Egypt
- Egypt had a lot of influence in nubia in terms of culture: Egyptian temples, Egyptian artistic
conventions, religious practices, and written culture was adopted in nubia.
- In Palestine and Syria, Egypt had much less direct control because their kings retained
authority but they still had to use Egyptian Topps and controllers in their territories and
they had to pay regular taxes
- Egyptian culture was largely restricted to coastal cities like Byblos, tyre and Ugarit
- Akhenaten: attempted to transform Egyptian polytheism into a religion based on the
worship of only one god, Aten.
- Other cults were suppressed and some were even expunged from all records
- He transferred the capital from Thebes to a new site which he called Akhenaten
- Changes took place in Egyptian art: figures were given more individualistic traits and
compositions became less formal.
- The el-Amarna letter allowed Akhenaten to be better known for international contacts
- The city-states in Syria and Palestine were suffering from increasing harassment from
nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes, they began to take matters into their own hands
- So, Akhenaten sent very few or no troops to assert his authority.
- Egypt managed to recover its unity once more in the thirteenth century. Thanks to the
efforts of Ramses II (1279-1212) one of Egypt’s more ambitious builders. He put in order
the building of the temple at Abu Simbel
Babylonia and Assyria:
- After the fall of the Babylonian empire around 1600, the Kassites took control of Babylon.
- They governed Mesopotamia for over four centuries
- The Kassites adjusted themselves to the Babylonian culture which was basically a mix of
former Sumerian and Akkadian civilisations.
- Assyria was weak at first but shortly after 1350, the kings expanded by profiting from the
weak city-state of Mitanni
- Mesopotamia was then governed by two medium-sized states, Assyria and Babylonia in a
more stable balanced power, which lasted only until the 8th century
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