John S. Ott
Portland State University
HST 101
O-2

Foundations of Civilization:  Mediterranean and Eurasia, ca. 3000-1200 BCE

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I.  Overview: The contours of early civilization

Terms: Homo sapiens sapiens (Homo (Latin) = man; sapiens (Latin) = wise, thinking); domestication (10,000 BCE and forward); Neolithic Era (New Stone Age, ca. 8,000-6,500 BCE) and early settlements at Jericho (Jordan River Valley), Catal Huyuk (modern Turkey) and elsewhere (ca. 9,000-8,000 BCE)  | Lascaux Caves site, with fantastic Stone Age drawings |

II.  Ancient Egypt

1.  Nile Valley - probably settled in Early Neolithic Period, ca. 7000-6500 BCE, earliest examples of cultivation date to ca. 10,000 BCE  | Map of Nile River Valley (with links to sites from this page) |

2.  Periodization of Egyptian Empire

                ***Nomes and nomarchs on the Upper and Lower Nile (3500-3200 BCE)

                Ca. 3200 BCE – 2770 BCE – Predynastic or Protodynastic period
                ***Writing: pictograms, hieroglyphs, phonograms, alphabets

                Ca. 2770 BCE – 2200 BCE -- Old Kingdom and first six dynasties

                    Ca. 2200 BCE - 2050 BCE --  First intermediate period.  Rise again of nomes, use of bronze, 7th-13th       
                    dynasties

                Ca. 2050 BCE - 1800 BCE -- The Middle Kingdom, so-called Eleventh and Twelfth dynasties with capitol at                     Thebes

                    Ca. 1800 BCE - 1570 BCE -- Second Intermediate Period.  Conquest of the Hyksos in 1730 BCE (expelled                         ca. 1570 BCE)

                Ca. 1570 BCE - 1090 BCE -- New Kingdom, 18th-20th dynasties
 

    3.  Religious cult: highly refined conceptualizations of life, death, and the divine pantheons

                Multiplicity of gods and assimilation (e.g., Amon-Ra) Ra or Re

                Particularistic and pan-cultural

                Naturalistic basis for ancient cults

                Political uses – the ruler cult of the pharaoh

                The afterlife

                        Pyramids, Imhotep and Zoser (Djoser), mustabas
 

III.  Mesopotamia (Meso + potamos; Gr. between rivers) – today part of Turkey, Syria, and Iraq

               Origins (4000 – 3000 BCE) | Thumbnails of ancient Uruk | Map of ancient Mesopotamia |

                Early Dynastic Period (ca. 2750 BCE – 2300 BCE) - Mesopotamia was dominated by city-states (Uruk, Ur,
                Lagash the most important)
 
                Hegemons, ensi and city-states in Sumeria (lower Mesopotamia)
                         Ex: Sargon of Akkadia (Sharrum-ken, “The King is the True One”), and the Sargonid dynasty.
                         Centralization on the upswing

                Third Dynasty (ca. 2111-2003 BCE) of Ur

                Old Babylonian period (ca. 2000 – 1600 CE)

                ***Hammurabi (1792-1750) and his legal code

                Destruction of Mesopotamia polities by Amorites and Kassites
 

IV.  Conclusion: survival in the Antique World

               General themes:

                    Slow manifestation of change
                    Ongoing struggle between central authority and control versus peripheral independence.
                    The necessity of adaptability and borrowing
                    The reuse and reintegration of tradition and myth