Lecture Slides, NVCC, His 111 001W, Spring 2020

1. Rivers, Cities and Civilizations
Week 2

2. Overview
• c. 4000 – c. 2000 BC
• Civilization
• River Valleys
• The Bronze Age
• Mesopotamia
• Egypt
• The Indus
• East Asia
• Homework:
– Read Ch 2
– Read Primary Sources
– Quiz Ruins of Uruk

3. Civilization
• Urban focus
• Distinct religious
structure
• Political and military
structures
• Social structure based
on economic power
• Writing
• Artistic and intellectual
activity
Göbekli Tepe, c. 9000 BC

4. CHRONOLOGY: The Birth of Early Civilizations

5. Archaeological Periods
• Tools and Weapons
• Neolithic Age (c.
10,000 – 4000 B.C.)
• Bronze Age (4000 –
1000 BC)
– Copper + Tin
• Iron Age (1000 BC –
Middle Ages)
– Technology

6. Birth of Civilization
• End of the Ice Age
• Agriculture
• River Basins/Valleys
– Flooding
– Silt
– Irrigation
• Cities
– Technology
– Social Hierarchy
– Tributary Mode of
Production
– Urban-rural divide
Catalhoyuk c. 6000 BC

7. River Valleys

8. Why Move to a City?
Sumerian Votive Figurine,
c. 2900 – 2500 BC

9. Mesopotamia

10. Sumeria, 3200 – 2000 BC
• City-states
• Lugal
– Legitimacy
– Dynasty
• Redistributive economy
– Trade
• Polytheism
– Theocracy
• Classes
• Women
– Patriarchal
• Cuneiform
– Scribes
• Monumental Architecture Sumerian Votive Figurine,
c. 2900 – 2500 BC

11. Royal Standard of Ur,
c. 2700 – 2600 BC

12. Royal Standard of Ur,
c. 2700 – 2600 BC

13. White Ziggurat, Uruk, c. 3200-3000 BC

14. Uruk

15. Ziggurat at Ur, c. 2100 BC

16. Ziggurat at Ur, c. 2100 BC

17. Writing
• c. 3300 BC
• Cuneiform
• Literature
– En-Heduanna (2285 –
2250 BC)
• IOUs
Left: Sumerian Cuneiform, c. 2500 BC

19. The Akkadians
• Semitic Peoples
• The Akkadian Empire
– Sargon (c. 2340 –
2279 BC)
– Territorial State
– Naram-Sin (c. 2260-
2223 BC)
• Third Dynasty of Ur
(c. 2125 – 2000 BC)

20. Some Semitic Languages
Akkadian
Arabic
Aramaic
Assyrian
Babylonian
Canaanitic
Hebrew
Phoenician
Syriac
Note: Languages in italic type are no longer spoken.

21. Head of Sargon?, c. 2300-2200 BC