Early River Valley Civilizations Flashcards
What where the contributions from the Phoenicians?
- Phoenician alphabet (phonics)
- shipbuilders
- ## purple dye from snails
Who were the Phoenicians?
- gods who wanted sacrifices
- polytheistic
- main God: Baal
Where is Phoenicia modern-day?
Modern-day Lebanon located above Palestine
What kind of economy did the city states of Phoenicia have?
- great at trade
- sea farers
- ## traded goods like weapons wine precious metals ivory and slaves
What was Nubia/ the Kush located?
On the upper Nile (so farther south)
What did the Nubians do?
- Egyptians captured Nubians and made them slaves but the Nubians rescued Egyptians from the Libyans
- chased out the Libyans
Who were the Assyrians?
- used IRON
- made chariots
- brutality
- traded all over
- at the end defeated by the kingdom of Aksum
Who were the Hebrews and where did they come from?
- come originally from Mesopotamia, city state of Ur.
- asked by God to move to caanan / Palestine
- settles between Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River valley
- shared the area with Phoenicians
What did the Hittites do first?
Iron smelting
What is the holy text of Judaism?
The Torah
Who was the founder of Judaism?
Abraham
Who was the prophet of Judaism?
Moses
What did Moses do?
Led the Jews out of Egyptian slavery
What was the Exodus?
When Moses led the Jews out of Egypt
What is the ethical code of Judaism?
The 10 commandments
What is the holy city of Judaism?
Jerusalem
Where is Jerusalem modern day?
Caanan (modern day Israel)
What is Judaism mono or poly?
Monotheistic
What is Hebrew
The spoken language of the Jews
What was the Exile?
- banishment
- the Babylonians put Jews into exile for 49 years
- Cyrus the great freed Hebrews and helped them rebuild their temple
What was the Diaspora?
The scattering of the Jews. Because of the exile, they were scattered.
What was the 1st empire ?
Akkad- when Sargon of Akkad conquered Sumer
Where is Mesopotamia?
The land around and between the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers
What are the 5 key characteristics of Sumer?
- Advanced cities
- Complex institutions
- Advanced tech
- Specialized workers
- Record keeping
What was the first form of writing?
CUNEIFORM
What were some Sumerian city states
Uruk Kush lagash umma ur
What was Sumerian religion? Mono or poly? Places of worship?
Polytheistic. Served their gods. Built ziggurats as temples. They were pyramids.
What type of rule (- cracy) did Sumeria have
Theocracy
What is theocracy?
Ruled by religious authority who’s also head of the political state
What did all of the river valley civ. have in common? (Hint: ruling)
Theocracy
Egypt: pharaoh
China: “son of Mandate of Heaven”
Meso: priests
They all believed the gods had given them power to rule
Why didn’t people rebel against a theocracy?
They believed the gods had ordained their leader with power to rule
What is a dynasty
A series of rulers from a single family passed down to the eldest son or closest male relative
Divine Right
Power to rule is granted by the will of God
Which 1 River valley civ didnt follow an all male dynasty?
Egypt
What was Sumerian like
Nobles
Commoners (90%)
Slaves (pow debtors crims)
Women: could own property had basic rights but not legal rights or an education
What was the epic of Gilgamesh?
The world’s 1st epic
What was the world’s 1st epic
The epic of Gilgamesh
What was the language and number system of Sumeria?
- cuneiform
- a base 60 # system
Inventions in meso?
wheel, sale, plow, potters wheel, first to use bronze (copper + tin), First system of writing (cuneiform)
What was the Akkadian empire?
- Semitic speaking people
- SARGON THE GREAT: CREATED 1ST EMPIRE FROM CONQUERING CITY STATEs
What did Hammurabi do?
Codified and collect the laws of the region with them down, they were house and punishments that apply to everyone, but they have different standards for the rich and poor and men and women.
What were Hammurabi’s steles?
Wrote down all his laws on the steles, United all of Mesopotamia under the Babylonian empire he said “the strong might not enjoy the week”
Who were the Hittites?
FIRST TO HAVE IRON SMELTING
Invented chariot
(Later fall to the Assyrians)
How did the Assyrian empire fall?
To the chaldeans (Neo Babylonian) were responsible for the defeat of the Syrians.
Who put the Jews into slavery
Nebuchadnezzar
What were gifts of the Nile?
Fertile soil and flooding
Who unites Egypt is 3100 B.C.E.?
Menes - established capital at Memphis. This was Egypt’s first dynasty
Book of the dead
Guide for the souls in the afterlife similar to the e pic of Gilgamesh
Stratification of Egyptian society
Pharaoh Govt officials Merchants and artisans Unskilled laborers Slaves (not citizens)
What technological stuff did Egypt give us?
Solar calendar 365 days
- splints
- hieroglyphics
- NOT PAPER
- ideograms
- Rosetta Stone
Who were the Hyksos
Rulers of the plans ended in the middle Kingdom
What were the two major cities in the Indus River Valley
Harappa and mohenj-daro
Ancient China what are the 3 dynasties in order?
Xia
Shang
Zhou
What did the Xia contribute?
Founded by yu the great
Flood control and irrigation
Polytheistic
Human sacrifice
No writing
Shang
Founded by Chang tang?
- capital: anyng and was moved 6 times
- produced bronze (tin + copper)
- animal husbandry
How did the Shang dynasty decline
Defeated by Zhou at the battle of Muye
Political: Shang
- king was supreme ruler
- theocracy
- aristocracy- rule by an elite few
- Kings divided land and territory among generals
Social: Shang
- patriarchal
- family was very central, chief loyalty was to family
- women treated as inferior
Culture: Shang
Oracle bones: communicated with the gods
Pictograms
In the Shang dynasty, the characters represent a idea
The Zhou dynasty
- founded by king wu (he claimed Shang rulers lost support of the gods)
- longest dynasty ever
- established: mandate of heaven, dynastic cycle, and feudalism
Feudalism
Feudalism is when the nobles granted that the use of their land to serfs. The supreme ruler still rules but pwr is dealt out
Dynastic cycle
When a person would claim that the previous trailer had lost the favor of the gods and so the people and follow them anymore so and start all over again
How did the Zhou decline?
- feudal lords grew in pwr then fought
- 7 major states emerged
- a complex bureaucracy formed and centralized government’s and clear legal systems
Warfare contributions in China
Infantry (peasant foot soldiers) and cavalry
“The art of war” by Sun tzu
New weapons of iron such as swords and crosspost
Who developed the world’s first alphabet
Phoenicians
Where is the Kush
Located in Africa along upper (southern) portion of the Nile river. Became a trading partner with Egypt
What was the earliest form of writing
Pictograms
What was the first monotheistic religion?
Judaism
What was the first River Valley civilization
Mesopotamia
Why was Phoenicia so easily conquered
There was no unity they were just rich city states that traded they had no land armies and only traded but did not war
Who united Egypt
The pharaoh Menes
What civilization had a city state name tyre?
Phoenicia
The success of the rulers of the Kushite kingdom of Meroe when was largely based on what?
Their wealth from trade
What is a covenant
A promise between a person and God
Which Chinese dyn established feudalism?
Zhou
