Teaching resource

1. THE ANCIENT
WORLD

2. DEVELOPMENT OF CIVILIZATION
SUMER

3. SUMERIAN HISTORY
• Sumer may very well be the first civilization in the world
• From its beginnings as a collection of farming villages around
5000 BC, through its conquest by Sargon around 2370 BC and its
final collapse under the Amorites around 2000 BC, the Sumerians
developed a religion and a society which influenced both their
neighbors and their conquerors.
• Sumerian cuneiform, the earliest written language, was borrowed
by the Babylonians, who also took many of their religious beliefs.
In fact, traces and parallels of Sumerian myth can be found in
Genesis.
• Sumer was a collection of city states around the Lower Tigris and
Euphrates rivers in what is now southern Iraq.
• Each of these cities had individual rulers, although as early as the
mid-fourth millenium BC the leader of the dominant city could
have been considered the king of the region.

4. The history of Sumer tends to be divided into five periods:
• Uruk period, which saw the dominance of the city of that same name, the
Jemdat Nasr period,
• the Early Dynastic periods,
• the Agade period,
• and the Ur III period - the entire span lasting from 3800 BC to around 2000
BC.
In addition, there is evidence of the Sumerians in the area both prior
to the Uruk period and after the Ur III Dynastic period, but relatively
little is known about the former age and the latter time period is most
heavily dominated by the Babylonians.
• As the traditional first capital of the Sumerians, Kish was an early center of
civilization.
• In ancient times, the area was fertile. The Sumerians settled along a bend
of the Euphrates River. They built a fortified city, more than 5 miles (long
and almost 2 miles wide.
• Until as late as the time of King Sargon I (about 2300 BC), Kish dominated
the Near East. Then it declined because the Euphrates changed its course.
• Finally it was abandoned, and desert sand covered its ruins.

5. BABYLON
• The Babylonian civilization, which endured from the 18th until the 6th
century BC, was, like the Sumerian that preceded it, urban in character,
although based on agriculture rather than industry. The country consisted
of a dozen or so cities, surrounded by villages and hamlets. At the head of
the political structure was the king, a more or less absolute monarch who
exercised legislative and judicial as well as executive powers.
• The Babylonians modified and transformed their Sumerian heritage in
accordance with their own culture.
• The resulting way of life proved to be so effective that it underwent
relatively little change for some 1200 years.
• t exerted influence on all the neighboring countries, especially the
kingdom of Assyria, which adopted Babylonian culture almost in its
entirety.
• Fortunately, many written documents from this period have been
excavated. One of the most important is the remarkable collection of laws
often designated as the 'Code of Hammurabi', which, together with other
documents and letters belonging to different periods, provides a
comprehensive picture of Babylonian social structure and economic
organization.

6. THE CODE OF HAMMURABI – LEGAL
SYSTEM
• The Code of Hammurabi consisted of a
collection of laws and edicts of the
Babylonian King Hammurabi, and the
earliest legal code known in its entirety.
• A copy of the code, engraved on a block
of black diorite nearly 8 ft high, was
unearthed by a team of French
archaeologists at Susa, Iraq during the
winter of 1901-2. The block, broken in
three pieces, has been restored and is
now in the Louvre in Paris.
• The 'Code of Hammurabi' contains no
laws having to do with religion.
• The basis of criminal law is that of equal
retaliation, comparable to the Semitic law
of "an eye for an eye."
• The law offers protection to all classes of
Babylonian society; it seeks to protect
the weak and the poor, including women,
children, and slaves, against injustice at
the hands of the rich and powerful.

7. Ashurnasirpal ll
killing lioans, 850 B.C.
• The wheel appeared
as a transportation
device in Sumer as
early as 3000B.C.
• By the same time
Sumerian technology
had accomplished
bronze casting and
the invention of glass.
• Pottery was mass-
produced, first know
use of the potter’s
wheel.

8. Writing
• Clay tablet with cuneiform
writing from Palace G,
Elaba, c. 2400 B.C.
• Babylonians developed an
abstract form of writing
based on cuneiform
symbols.
• Their symbols were written
on wet clay tablets which
were baked in the hot sun
and many thousands of
these tablets have survived
to this day.
• It was the use of a stylus
on a clay medium that led
to the use of cuneiform
symbols since curved lines
could not be drawn.

9. Writing
Egyptian
Hieroglyphics,
c. 1950 B.C.

10. PREHISTORIC ART:
THE STONE AGE
The Paleolithic Period (10,000 BC – 8000 BC)
The Mesolithic Period (8000 BC – 6000 BC)
• Domestication of animals
• Beginnings of agriculture
The Neolithic Period (6000 BC- 3500 BC)
Protoliterate Period (3500-BC – 3000 BC)

11. Chauvet c. 32,000 - 30,000 BC
• The Chauvet cave was discovered in a valley in southern France in
1994. Its walls are a spectacular gallery of prehistoric art and the
depictions of wild animals - rhino, lions and bison among others -
are so sophisticated that specialists in ice-age art first assumed
they must be relatively recent. Certain features, such as animals
shown face on, also suggested that the cave paintings were about
15,000 years old
• A complete study of the cave took several decades. There is a
succession of four big "vestibules" with about or more than 300
paintings. They are in a remarkable state of preservation. At
present the paintings are the oldest known on the Earth (about 32
millennia). Even the first investigations shook the established
notions concerning the art of the Upper Paleolithic period and
pushed its beginning almost 5 millennia to the back
• A striking feature is the fact that most red animals of Grotte
Chauvet are drawn with great experience. The artists would be
able to show the animals realistic and three-dimensional, i.e. with
four legs, one behind the other in correct perspective, like the
painters of the black series.

12. Chauvet c. 32,000 - 30,000 BC
• 25 or 30 thousand years ago,
a barefoot boy -- thought to
be about 9 years old --
probably wasn't paying too
much attention when he
walked in the moist clay that
lined the cave floor. He left
behind four footprints that are
probably the oldest human
footprints in Europe,
according to researchers at
the French research
institution CNRS (National
Center for Scientific
Research).

13. Chauvet c. 32,000 - 30,000 BC
• Running Bison. The artist has
shown movement by drawing
extra legs.

14. Chauvet c. 32,000 - 30,000 BC
Rhinos

15. Chauvet c. 32,000 - 30,000 BC
Fighting Rhinos.
• Charcoal taken from the two fighting rhinos produced
radiocarbon dates of around 31000-32000 BC

16. Chauvet c. 32,000 - 30,000 BC. Hyenas

17. Lascaux,
c. 15,000-13,000 B.C. Dordogne, France

18. Lascaux,
c. 15,000-13,000 B.C. Dordogne, France

19. The Chinese Horse. Lascaux,
c. 15,000-13,000 B.C. Dordogne, France

20. Horse. Lascaux,
c. 15,000-13,000 B.C. Dordogne, France

21. Altamira. 16,000-9,000 BC
• The paintings at Altamira primarily focus on bison. We can infer
that bison were important because of the hunt. The ceiling
painting is of 15 large bison with a few interspersed animals
including a horse. These pictures are of the animals only and
contain no landscape or horizontal base.
• The technical skill is further reflected in the accuracy of the
physical proportions of depicted animals.

22. Altamira. 16,000-9,000 BC
• Another advance in technical
development at Altamira is that
many of the animals are painted
on natural protrusions from the
rock face; most samples of cave
painting ignore the natural
character of the rock
concentrating on only one
dimension.

23. Venus of Willendorf. 25,000-
20,000 BCE

24. Sculpture
Sumerian Statuettes, from the
Temple of Abu, Tel Asmar
c. 2700 - 2600 B.C., Iraq Museum

25. Sculpture
He-goat from UR, 2600 B.C.
Ram (Billy Goat) and Tree,
Offering Stand from Ur (to
male fertility god, Tammuz),

26. Sculpture
Prince Rahotep and his
wife Nofret, c2580 B.C.E.

27. EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY
• PRE-DYNASTIC PERIOD: c.5000-3100 BC This period predates the
unification of the northern southern parts of Egypt
• EARLY DYNASTIC PERIOD: 3100-2686 BC; Dynasties 1/II
• FIRST INTERMEDIATE PERIOD: 2181-2040 BC; Dynasties VII-X
• MIDDLE KINGDOM: 2040-1782 BC; Dynasties XI/XII
• SECOND INTERMEDIATE PERIOD: 1782-1570 BC; Dynasties XIII-
XVII
• NEW KINGDOM: 1570-1070 BC Dynasties XVIII-XX
• THIRD INTERMEDIATE PERIOD: 1070-525 BC; Dynasties XXI-XXVI
• LATE DYNASTIC PERIOD: 525-332 BC Dynasties XXVII-XXXI
• MACEDONIAN/PTOLEMAIC PERIOD: 332-30 BC
• ROMAN PERIOD: 30 BC-c.AD 450

28. • Civilization began in Egypt around 3100 B.C. along the course of
the Nile River.
• Originally divided into two parts, Upper and Lower Egypt, an early,
somewhat legendary king, Menes united the two into one
civilization.
• Culturally, Egypt was isolated from the rest of the ancient world
by deserts, mountains, and seas.
• This isolation resulted in the development of a unique and
dynamic culture.
• Ancient Egyptian history is divided up into three main periods, the
Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms.
ARCHITECTURE

29. Zoser Pyramid. Old Kingdom, Dynasty III,
c. 2675-2625 BCE. designed by
Imhotep
• The pyramid was built in six steps, it
rises to a height of 204 feet.
• The original limestone facing is gone.
• Zoser's burial chamber is at the
bottom of a shaft more than ninety feet
under the base of the pyramid.
• A thirty-five acre mortuary complex
contains the pyramid, a small temple,
courtyards, a palace, shrines, altars,
storehouses, and tombs. T
• he complex is surrounded by an
enclosing or perimeter wall. There is
one entrance, a simple doorway.
• This is the first true pyramid. It
standardizes the shape of all pyramids
to come.

30. • The Great Pyramid of Keops is
one of the 7 wonders of the
world. It’s the biggest, the most
perfect, the most mysterious of
all pyramids enumerated in
Egypt. All the others built after
are only copies less worked
out.
• Construction system: bearing
masonry (cut stone)
Great Pyramid of Keops, Giza, Egypt, 2680-2565 B.C

31. Tutankhamen
• This picture
shows just a
portion of the
wealth
that was found
within "King
Tut's" tomb

32. Tutankhamen

33. Tutankhamen. Innermost Coffin
Inside that were three coffins - the innermost being made of 110
kilograms of solid gold. Inside that lay the pharaoh himself wearing
the famous gold mask.

34. Tutankhamen

35. Tutankhamen

36. • This is the mummy of Ramses
II. The Egyptians mummified
their dead, believing that
preservation of the body was
essential for experiencing the
afterlife.

37. • The internal organs of the
mummy were stored in
canopic jars. Each canopic
jar had the head of a deity
gracing the lid to protect the
organ from evil. The sons of
the sky-god Horus were
usually assigned this duty.

38. The Ziggurat at Ur, built around 2100 BC, was 150 by 200 feet.