Cradles of Civilization

The Near and Middle-Eastern Origins of Human Society

Myth & history

The Epic of Gilgamesh 2100 BCE

Gilgamesh

Enkidu

mythopoeic

I. Neolithic Era10,000 – 3300 BCE

A. The Fertile Crescent

1. Nutritious plants- cereal grains

2. Cooperative animals- “big four”

Geographical determinism?

B. Prelude to Civilization

1. Division of labor- spare time

- fired-pottery- copper

Jericho, 8400 BCECatalhöyük, 7400 BCE

communal, subsistence oriented

2. “Eden”- alluvial plain

Physical, metaphoricalplace of transition

3. Hydraulic Societies Karl Wittfogel

4. Flood culture

- Flood Myth – “divine right” (3000 BCE)

- historicism – cycles, determinism

- pessimism – the gods must be crazy

Terms (from notes and text)

• Epic of Gilgamesh• Fertile Crescent• Hydraulic Society• Mesopotamia• Sumer• Bronze/Iron Ages• Cuneiform writing• Indo-European “sky gods”

• Code of Hammurabi• Sargon the Akkadian• Old Babylonians

• Old/Middle/New Kingdoms

• Narmer Palette• Imhotep• Maat (ma’at)• Hatshepsut• Upper / Lower Egypt • The Nile River• Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV)

• Osiris

II. MesopotamiaThe Land Between the Rivers

A. Hot in the city

1. Sumer 3200-2360 BCE Ur, Uruk, Eridu

2. Good neighbors- household rule ↓ kings

↓ dynasties

B. Tools

1. Bronze Age (3300BC – 1300BC)

2. Cuneiform Writing (Sumerians, 3500 BCE)

“Whoever has walked with Truth generates life”

Evolved Hieroglyphs – separate meaning from symbol

Alphabets (Phoenicians) 1600 BCE

C. Religion1. Gods and goddesses

- bound to “cycles”- impersonal- “un” ethical

See Hammurabi’s Code

Inanna

2. Indo-Europeans ca. 2200-2000 BCE

“Sky gods”

exs. Enlil & Anu, Ra or Amon-Re, El, Zeus, Yahweh

- external morality/social order

D. Consolidation and fall

1. Akkadian Empire 2300-2200 BCE

standing army nepotism soil salinity

Sargon the Akkadian“basket case”

2. Old Babylonian Empire

Hammurabi’s Code (1700s BCE)

“If…then…”

III. Egypt

A. Land of the Nile

1. Ecological stability

2. Semi-isolation

3. Early Dynasties3100-2700 BCEgod-kingsless innovative

B. Old Kingdom 2700-2200 BCE

1. Old Pharaoh Maat (ma’at)

- optimism / eternity

2. Bureaucracy

3. Life and death- Nation-building “out of many, one” - orderly universe

Djoser / Imhotep 2650 BCE

C. Middle Kingdom 2025-1630 BCE

1. Economic expansion

2. Literature

3. Resurrection cults- Osiris / Isis- funeral culture

Hyksos ca. 1600 BCE

D. Imperial Egypt 1550-1075

1. Beyond the Nile- Hittites- Phoenicians- Hebrews- Assyrians- Greeks

Thutmose I 1504-1492 BCE

2. Power and purpose- Hatshepsut 1478-1458 BCE

She is one girl, there is no one like her.

She is more beautiful than any other.

Look, she is like a star goddess arising

at the beginning of a happy new

year.

3. Limits to power - Amenhotep IV / Nefertiti (ca. 1350s BCE)

- Aten Cult “Sky god”?

King Tut

cultural lethargy