Chapter One Flashcards
Types of Societies
Occupying at least 90 percent of human history
Hunting and Gathering
Types of Societies
Simple gardening, supplementary to hunting and gathering
Horticultural
The domestication of animals in a semi-nomadic lifestyle
Pastoral
Societies whose economics are based on producing and maintaining crops and farmland
Agricultural
A belief that all objects, whether animate, or inanimate, such as animals, trees, and rocks, possess an impersonal supernatural power
Animatism
Coined Money
Specie
The belief in worship of more than one god
Polytheism
By around 3000 BC, the sumerians had established 12 independent “city-states” in southern Mesopotamia, in a region called the
Fertile Crescent
Sumerian cities- significantly recurring problem, that of the spread disease
Contaminated water
Never really developed
A system for waste disposal
Devastating floods
Sophisticated Irrigation System
Necessitated the creation of a centralized government
The need to organize workers for construction and maintenance of the canals
Kings supreme responsibility was to
ensure justice
Main structure in every city was the temple to the gods called a
Ziggurat
Metallurgy
Constant raiding which could conclude with the virtual extermination of the losing side
Bronze Age
3 main reasons for slavery
Prisoners of war
Voluntarily selling themselves (escape starvation or satisfy debts)
Born a slave
In 3500 BC the Sumerians invented a form of writing called
Cuneiform
Worship of more than one god
Polytheistic
The more important the god
The more power over humans
Sumerians built the ziggurats
to pacify the gods thus avoiding divine punishment
Sumer’s greatest contribution to Western Civilization
Invention of a Written Language
The Assyrians first major impact on Western Civilization
The development of long distance trade
The Babylonians major impact on Western Civilization
Established written laws known to the people
Around 1600 BC the Canaanites invented an
alphabet
It’s Western and Eastern borders are protected by the deserts
It was also a source of tremendous wealth with
large deposits of metal ores
The river produced/left _________ that enriched the soil and diluted harmful mineral salts
silt deposits
A crucial crop secured Egypt’s diplomatic relationships with other countries, and contributed to economic stability
Wheat
Around 3000 BC the Egyptians developed their own form of writing called
Hieroglyphics
creates the first recorded Empire in Western Civilization
Sargon the Great
Egyptian art clearly illustrates how the Egyptians valued
order and predictablity
Mehes made his royal capital
Memphis
Great Pyramids were built not by slave labor but by
Free Egyptian laborers
The capital city of the Middle Kingdom
Thebes
Second Intermediate Period
Hyksos
The Hyksos brought several items that significantly influence the Egyptians in the New Kingdom period
Bronze making technologies
Humpbacked cattle
Composite bow
Horse drawn chariot
Especially noted for abandoning traditional Egyptian Polytheism
Akhenaten
Regarded as the greatest, most celebrated, and most powerful pharaoh of the New Kingdom/ Egyptian Empire
Ramses II (The Great)
Ancient worlds largest chariot battle
Battle of Kadesh
The Ptolemy’s made their royal capital at
Alexandria
Egyptian and Sumerian Life
Compare
Polytheistic
Egyptian and Sumerian Life
Contrast
Sumerians built the ziggurats to pacify the gods thus avoiding divine punishment
The pyramids were constructed as burial complexes at which Egyptians could worship Egypt’s god-kings after they die
Egyptian and Sumerian Life
Contrast
Sumerians built the ziggurats to pacify the gods thus avoiding divine punishment
The pyramids were constructed as burial complexes at which Egyptians could worship Egypt’s god-kings after they die
