Honors World History Notes Unit 1 part A

Reading Assignment A handout is the first part of your unit 1 notes--don't lose it!

Notes continue:

After the fall of Sumer, a series of foreign invasions swept the region.

•Semitic nomads moved into northern Mesopotamia and settled at Akkad (just north of the major Sumerian city-states) around 5000 BC
•2300 BC Sargon I seizes power and launches invasions across Mesopotamia
•Adopted Sumerian customs while maintaining Akkadian language

After the death of Sargon’s grandson, Naram-Sin, the empire began to collapse.

•Another Semitic group from eastern Syria, the Amorites, conquer the region
•Conquered the Sumerian city-states to the south
•Established capital at Babylon
•Greatest expansion and growth under King Hammurabi

•Strong leader who united most of Mesopotamia
•Growth of trade and agriculture
•Hammurabi is most famous for his written code of laws--282 sections with laws from around the region—created a type of equity of law
•Specific laws with harsh punishments kept harmony

•Similar class system to Sumer with laws/punishments differing for each class
•Borrowed heavily from Sumerian culture and adopted cuneiform to their Semitic language

•After Hammurabi’s death, empire collapsed
•Successors unable to keep empire together
•Hittite invasion destroyed Babylon

The Egyptians

•Kemet (Black Land) of the Nile River Valley
•5000 BC, nomads began settling along the Nile
•Farming villages that grew wheat and barley
•Series of tribal kingdoms develop

•Early Egypt divided into north and south
•Lower Egypt in the north where Nile empties into Mediterranean
•Upper Egypt in the south bordering Ethiopia
•Narmer (Menes), king of Upper Egypt conquered Lower Egypt around 3000 BC w/capital at Memphis

•2700 BC to 2200 BC the two kingdoms began to merge identities under one central government
•Theocracy evolved with a king and his bureaucracy
•First pyramids built during this time as tombs for the kings

•Old Kingdom collapsed due to infighting of nobles
•First Dark Ages from 2200 BC to 2050 BC
•New Dynasty seized power in 2050 BC to establish the Middle Kingdom with capital at Thebes
•Expansion of territory into Nubia (Sudan) and Syria

•Around 1700 BC, invaders from southwest Asia attacked Egypt, beginning the Second Dark Ages
•Hyksos conquered Egypt with bronze weapons and horse drawn chariots (Egyptians fought on foot with copper and stone weapons)
•Around 1600 BC, Ahmose led the revolt against Hyksos rule and drove them out

•Ahmose was the first ruler of the New Kingdom, first to use the title pharaoh (great house of the king)
•Ahmose rebuilt Egypt to even greater glory

•Around 1480 BC, Hatshepsut came to power when her husband Thutmose II (her half brother) died.
•Her stepson (born to Thutmose II and a harem girl) was too young to rule
•She became Regent of Egypt

•About 7 years into her regency, she proclaimed herself pharaoh and wore men’s clothing and the false beard
•Why? Now believe there were several coup attempts against her and her stepson
•Had to take on the persona of a male pharaoh to gain legitimacy and acceptance

Huge building programs under her reign, including the Valley of the Kings

•Thutmose III became pharaoh upon her death
•Unlike his stepmother, focused on military and conquest
•Conquered northern Mesopotamia and parts of central Africa
•Huge wealth came into Egypt from conquered areas

•After Thutmose III died, series of weak pharaohs brought about decline
•Saved from destruction by Ramses II who fought off Hittite invasion at the Battle of Kadesh
•Treaty signed between two nations calling for truce and alliance

•After Ramses II died in 1237 BC, Egypt began to decline and later destroyed by Seafaring raiders from the Mediterranean
•Finally conquered by Libyans from the west and Kushites from the south

•Similar to Sumer:
a)Upper class—nobility and priests
b)Middle class—artisans, merchants, scribes
c)Lower class—farmers and laborers
d)slaves

•Polytheistic
•Greater focus on afterlife
•Idea of god/king
•Religion evolved over time to include afterlife for all people
•Originally only royalty and nobility had an afterlife, but by the New Kingdom the concept was universal

•Writing with pictures
•Also hieratic for day-to-day transactions (simplified version)
•Scribes
•Papyrus paper

•Mathematics—geometry
•Calendar with 365 days
•Embalming and surgeries
•medicines

Ancient China

•Oldest continuous civilization in the world
•Began around 3000 BC along river valleys
•Most important along Huang He (Yellow) River
•Developed in virtual isolation from rest of the world “Middle Kingdom”—center of universe

•Mountains, sea, and desert provide some protection and isolation
•Vulnerable to northwest
•River valleys 1. Yellow(Huang Ho) earliest civilization - damaging floods 2. Yangtze- very important in unification- transportation- irrigation

•According to legend, China founded by Yu the Great, who began the Xia Dynasty.
•No archaeological evidence
•First documented dynasty is the Shang (1700-1000 BC)

•Earliest- Neolithic- Ban Po- similar to other parts of the world/ one of the oldest
•Shang Dynasty 1500-11 BCE in N China along the Huang He- raised silk worms- silk part of lure and fascination of China, famous for bronze sculpture, daggers, jade jewelry paid homage to ancestors- family important
•Chou (Zhou) 1027-256, longest-developed foundations for Chinese society

•Mandate of Heaven—good/bad events were result of rulers abilities
•Created Divine Right concept, but with idea that bad rulers would lose mandate and should be deposed
•Dynastic kingdoms
•Complex written language
•Bronze tools and weaponry

•Shang Dynasty plagued by weak rulers in later years
•Finally overthrown by Wu, who established the Zhou Dynasty which lasted over 800 years

Indus Valley (Harappan) Civilization

•Outside contact more limited
•Kyber Pass connection to outside via trade
•Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro
–Largest Cities (40K – 100K)

•The cities are well known for their impressive, organized and regular layout.
•They have well laid our plumbing and drainage system, including indoor toilets.
•Population of between 100-200k each
•Over one hundred other towns and villages also existed in this region.

•Nanga Parbat and numerous other glacier draped mountains of the Himalaya, Karakorum and Hindu Kush provide a continuous source of water for the Indus and its tributaries.
•These mountain ranges also provided important timber, animal products, and minerals, gold, silver, tin and semiprecious stones that were traded throughout the Indus Valley.

•Literate society (writings on bricks and seals)
•Master-planned cities as focal point
•Water system
•Strong central government
•Polytheistic
•Written language
•Pottery, cotton, cloth
•Standard weights and measurements
•Grain storage

•Artifacts and clues discovered at Mohenjo-Daro have allowed archaeologists to reconstruct this civilization.
•The similarities in plan and construction between Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa indicate that they were part of a unified government with extreme organization.
–Both cities were constructed of the same type and shape of bricks.
–The two cities may have existed simultaneously and their sizes suggest that they served as capitals of their provinces.
–In contrast to other civilizations, burials found from these cities are not magnificent; they are more simplistic and contain few material goods.
–This evidence suggests that this civilization did not have social classes.
–Remains of palaces or temples in the cities have not been found.
–No hard evidence exists indicating military activity; it is likely that the Harappans were a peaceful civilization.
–The cities did contain fortifications and the people used copper and bronze knives, spears, and arrowheads.

•The Harappan people were literate and used the Dravidian language.
•The Indus (or Harappan) people used a pictographic script. Some 3500 specimens of this script survive in stamp seals carved in stone, in moulded terracotta and faience amulets, in fragments of pottery, and in a few other categories of inscribed objects.
•In addition to the pictographic signs, the seals and amulets often contain iconographic motifs, mostly realistic pictures of animals apparently worshipped as sacred, and a few cultic scenes, including anthropomorphic deities and worshippers.
•This material is of key importance to the investigation of the Harappan language and religion, which continue to be among the most vexing problems of South Asian protohistory.

•The Mesopotamian model of irrigated agriculture was used to take advantage of the fertile grounds along the Indus River.
•Earthlinks were built to control the river's annual flooding. Crops grown included wheat, barley, peas, melons, and sesame.
•This civilization was the first to cultivate cotton for the production of cloth. Several animals were domesticated including the elephant which was used for its ivory.

•Cities abandoned, reason unknown
•domination of an indigenous people ?
–who rebelled ?
•foreign invasion?
•gradual decline ?
•climate shift: the monsoon patterns
•flooding
•destruction of the forests
•migrations of new peoples: the Aryans

•Climatologists have recently discovered that the monsoon patterns changed dramatically during the period 2000-1500 BC.
•Long term drought with few monsoon storms
•Conclusion: Harappan civilization most likely fell victim to climate change
•Population shifted southward and eastward

•Beginning 2000 BC, an Indo-European group began migrating from central Asia (modern Turkmenistan) toward India.
•One branch settled in modern Iran/Afghanistan, another moved further south and eastward through the Khyber Pass into India/Pakistan.

•From Caucasus Mtns. Black/Caspian Sea
•Aryans – Lighter Skinned
•Dravidians - Darker
•Nomads who settled
•Vedas, Upanashads, Rig Veda
•Sacred/historical texts of Aryans
– basis for Hinduism
•Caste system
•warriors, priests, peasants
•later re-ordered: Brahmins (priests), warriors, landowners-merchants, peasants, untouchables (out castes)