The River Civilizations Flashcards
What are the five hallmarks of a civilization?
- Advanced cities dependent in part on trade
- Specialized workers
- Recordkeeping, usually in the form of writing
- Complex institutions, like religion and government
- Advanced technologies, such as metalworking
Where was Çatal Hüyük?
Çatal Hüyük is in southern Anatolia and was one of the first city-states, dating from the late Neolithic Era. Çatal Hüyük thrived from 7500 B.C. to 5700 B.C.
Çatal Hüyük relied upon sedentary agriculture for food and contained a high degree of social stratification.
Where did the first civilization arise?
The first civilization was Sumeria and rose in Mesopotamia, which is the region between the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers in the south of modern-day Iraq. Sumeria was a collection of city-states and dates from around 4000 B.C.
Define:
city-state
The earliest civilized centers were city-states, such as Ur in Mesopotamia.
City-states consisted of an urban center that exercised control over a surrounding agricultural hinterland. City-states were ruled by an urban-based king, who inherited his power dynastically.
What were ziggurats?
Ziggurats were religious temples that dominated Mesopotamian cities. Ziggurats could be massive and served as a temporal reminder of the power of the city ruler and priests.
Where was the Fertile Crescent?
The Fertile Crescent refers to the lands between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, stretching down into Palestine.
The land between the rivers was exceptionally good farming land, and the region provided the home for many powerful ancient civilizations, including Sumeria, Assyria, and Babylon.
What is cuneiform?
Cuneiform refers to the wedge-shaped writing developed by the ancient Sumerians around 3300 B.C.
Initially developed for the purposes of recordkeeping, cuneiform became a way to transfer early literature and legal codes.
Why does Sargon the Great deserve the title “Great”?
Around 2200 B.C., Sargon conquered several of the Sumerian city-states of Mesopotamia, merging them into the Akkadian Empire.
The Akkadian Empire was the first of the world’s empires. Some 150 years after Sargon established the empire, it collapsed for reasons historians continue to theorize about.
Following the collapse of the Akkadian Empire, Mesopotamia divided into two Akkadian-speaking nations. What were they?
Although it took centuries, the remnants of the Akkadian Empire combined into Assyria in the north and Babylonia in the south.
What is the Epic of Gilgamesh?
Composed around 2000 B.C., the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the world’s oldest literary works and was probably conveyed as oral tradition for centuries before it was written down. The epic describes a great flood in which all of humanity is wiped out and also describes the interactions of Gilgamesh with the gods.
______ created a law code containing various punishments, including the famous “an eye for an eye.”
Hammurabi
A powerful Babylonian emperor, Hammurabi’s law code is among the earliest recorded legal systems, and it could be quite harsh. The famous “eye for an eye” required the loss of an eye if one caused someone else to lose an eye, even accidentally.
Although he was not the first king of the city-state of Babylon, Hammurabi was more successful than his predecessors, expanding his territory to conquer much of southern Mesopotamia. Why was Hammurabi so successful?
Hammurabi possessed two tools, which his predecessors and competitors lacked. First, the Babylonian Army was well disciplined, enabling it to achieve military victory over other city-states. Secondly, Hammurabi established an efficient Babylonian bureaucracy, which enabled the state to thrive and support military efforts.
Hammurabi’s territorial conquests became part of Babylonia and were ruled from the administrative center and capital of Babylon.
The ancient Mesopotamians proved quite adept at math. Why did they develop this skill?
Math is a prerequisite for understanding and predicting the movement of the planets. Planetary movement was an essential component of Mesopotamian religion.
As part of their mathematical development, the Mesopotamians developed the base-60 numbering system, which is still used in navigation and to tell time.
What empire developed in Anatolia in the 1300s B.C. before going on to conquer much of Mesopotamia and go to war with the Egyptians?
The Hittite Empire conquered much of Mesopotamia between the 1300s and 1200s B.C. They were among the first to use iron weapons and pioneered the use of chariot warfare.
The Battle of Kadesh, which took place in 1274 B.C. between the Hittites and the Egyptians, is the first historical battle for which sufficient records exist that historians can analyze tactics and formations.
Who were the Assyrians?
The Assyrians conquered much of Mesopotamia between 900 and 500 B.C. and developed a powerful empire that rivaled the Babylonians.
Known for their fierce battle tactics and use of cavalry, the Assyrians also developed their own monumental architecture, including sculptures of winged bulls that guarded their capital at Nineveh.