50 UNIT ONE

COMPARATIVE WRITING SYSTEMS:CUNEIFORM AND HIEROGLYPHICS

tarnian Epic of Gilgarnesh

Religious Beliels

Botli Mesopotamian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphics made use

pictographs, or picttires representing animals, people, a1a lUjecls Iwritirig system that depends on pictures was convenient fcrr keeping tl

records, but was very cumbersolle for cot1,lmunicatrng abstract ideas.

B;gi*;i,rg about 2900 B.C.E. Sumerians began using graphic syrnbois

repiesent-ideas, sounds, and syllables, and Egyptians' too' sttpplementr

thli, hi"roglypirics with syrnbols representi.g abstract ideas. The Eg1

writing remaineci rnore pitteographic than cuneiforrrr, but in both soci

the writing systelns *"r" "ornpl"*, and their use was iargely restricted

priests. Egyptians developed a new material to write o1l' papyrus' mr

iio,, ,trip, oia plant pressed together. Despite their sophisticated writi

system, the E,gyptiarrs created no epic literary works' such as the Mesop

Like Mesopotamia, Egyptian reiigion was polytheistic' and its chief

were associated strongl"y with agriculture. Gods included Amon-Re, the

the sun; Isis, goddesr-ortn. Nile and of fertiliry; osiris, ruler of the a

and Horus, son of Osiris and Isis, represented by the pharaohs' The Eg

were very concemed with death and preparation for life in another world

supreme happiness could be achieved' They carefully mummified bodi

todayasTheBooko.ftheDead.Dividedintomorethanl50chaptert,rus.-prnduced for a prosperous clientele who each purchased

a scroll'

held elaborate funeral rituals, especially for rulers and bureaucrats' In tl

lier days, these rituals were inscribed on coffins and pyramids of tnt,''

they blcame mucir more commonplace in later times. During the New

dom, many incantations of these rituals were collected into papyrus texts

the name of the deceased, and buried it with the person's body

E,ARLIESTCIVILIZATIONS 5I

PRIMARY DOCUMENTS:THE NEGATIVE CONFESSION

Negative Confession is part of The Book of the Dead, a compilation:ijf incantations for use in burial cererrronies in Ancient Egypt. The sceneiis the Hall of the Two Truths, or the Double Ma'at, where Osiris, kingof the Underworld, presides ovcr an assenrbly of minor deities. All

the deities judge the suitability of the deceased 1o become anr eternally blessed spirit, The deceased rnakes the following statements

,,1'l have not done crimes against people,

I have not mistreated cattle,

I have not sinned in the Place of Truth fany holy place],I have not known what should not be l

57 UNIT ONE

Indus Valley civilizntion. Mohenjo-Daro is the largest city that has been discovered, housing100,000 people at irs peak, protrably between 2500 and 2000 B.c.E. Harappa was probablybig.

Indo-European langlrages. and that some of them moved southeast into Indii

escape. More recent evidence, however, does not support a sudden

bocly types or civilization patterns during that tirte, so there is still much to

about tliese early people and and the changes they may have experienced.

Geographical Features

Today the area around the Indus River is desert, with rnany ancient

now driecl up. However, in ancient times it was forested, green' andplenty of game animals and good pasture for dornesticated animals. The:

system was formecl by water mnning frorn melting snow in the world's

n.rountain range, the Hirnalayas to the noftheast, and the Hindu Kush

to the northwest. Tlie rivel and its tributaries have been fed by monsoon

that are createcl by seasottal winds that blow frorn the seas toward the In

subcontinent. Like the Nile, Tigris, and Euphrates Rivers, the Indus Riveil

riecl rich soil to the plains around it, allowing extensive agriculture to

The mountains providecl some protection from invasion, but very early

ple discovered passes that allowed them to cross, parlicularly through the

Kush. The Aryans probably used these passes as they travelled to the

and eventually made their way into many parts of the Indian

cluding the Indus River ValleY.

EARLIESTCIVILIZATIONS 53Characteristics

and towns in the Indus River valley were supported by an advancedsystem based on wheat, ry/e, peas, and perhaps rice. Cotton r.l,as

and many animals were domesticated, including chickens, cattle,ts; and sheep. As in Mesopotamia and Egypt, abundant crops allowedspecialization in the cities to develop. Beginning in the l g50s, archaeolo-

g discovered the remains of the largest city, Mohen jo-Daro; a second ciry,lrrppa; and a huge complex of towr]s and villages connected to them. Be-

the cities were not constructed in the same way that cities in Mesopota-and Egypt were, they almost certainly were r.rot colonies but were part of

t civilization.

cities were major trading centers, with contacts in china, Southeast Asia,:rn lndia, Afghanistan, and Mesopotamia. Jade from china and preciousi from southeast Asia have been excavated in the Indus River Valley, and

ts stone seals have been found in Mesopotamia. Small clay wheeled cartsd by oxen have been found at various Indus sites, suggesting that theyused as Iand transportation among cities, towns, and villages in the valley.ng by the size ofthe cities, job speciahzatron had to be extensive, yet their

appear to have been inferior to those in Egypt and Mesopotamia.cast tools and weapons in bronze, but they lacked swords, used stone for

and bronzed the tips of their spears so thinly that they could notvery effective.

Development

is known about political systems in the I,dus River Valley, but theof the cities suggests that a well-organized govemment planned

.The main thoroughfares in Mohenjo-Daro were 34 feet wide, and a so-sewage system with canals that ran fiom each house to a connecting

in the street carried off household wastes. Some scholars speculate thatand Mohenjo-Daro were trvin capitals, or that there may be other un-

cities that each ruled the countryside around it. The two cities bothifications and iarge granaries that were probably controlled by govenr-

but the pieces of evidence do not vet support a good knowledge o1'whoand to what ends.

54 UNIT ONE

HISTORICAL EVIDENCE:ANCIENT SEALS

The most irnporlant clucs for unlocking the mystery of tlte ancientHarappan script are the u-rany seals from the Irrdus Valley culture thathave been found all over the area, as well as in other trading centersfrom Mesopotamia to China. Seals were fixed to rnany different objin ancient civilizations, includi:rg pottery, boxes, doors, baskets, andleather bags. In Mesopotamia, seals were cylindrical in shape, and inthe Indus Valley they were square, soft stones, with impressions of ,animals and a written script. They were used by lraders as a way to

'insure that containers weren't opened during transit, or perhaps toidentify the merchants.

These seals are the best clues that archaeologists have for uthe language of the Indus River Valley people, but because the inscriare very briel-, it is difficult to find consistencies that would allow therto decipher it. FIowever, the fact that the distinct seals have beenin Mesopotamia, China, Southeast Asia, and Afghanistan tells us that'trade was a significant part of the lndus Valley economy.

Society artd Culture

Although Iess is known about social distinctions in the Indus River Valleyin Egypt and Mesopotamia, the evidence points to the existence of clearclasses. For example, house sizes in Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa varied

siderably, with most people living in single-room dwellings in largerlike structures. The wealthy had individual houses of two and thr-eewitli several roonts arid an interior courtyard. Most of the larger housestheir own wells and brick ovens. Indus River Valley society wasby a powerful priestly class, whrch rLrled from the crties. The priests

between the people and a number of gods and goddesses, although veryis knou,n aboLrt the religron. One popular god depicted on the seals isamale with a horned head, souretitnes pictured in a postr"rre of meditation,some to speculate that the lotus positioti and/or yoga oliginated here. :

to have been worshipped byEARLIBSTCIVILIZATIONS 55

' ordinary people, whereas theis little evidence to suppoft arrcarved figurines of people and

was favored by the pnests. There"in artistic endeavors, other than a fewthat reflect a strong interest in fertility.

ffiffitr'If$the Indus valley writing system could be cleciphered with any consisrency,

would know much more about the civilization. Egyptian hieroglyphicsdecoded with the very fortuuate discovery of the Rosetta Stone, a tableta relatively long script in three languages: forrral hieroglyphics, an infbr-

lEgyptian writing, and Greek. Since Greek was known. the tablet was usedfind many parallel symbols in hieroglyphics. with that heacl start, scholars

able to decode most of the hieroglyphic writing sanrples that have beenArchaeologists have had no such lucl< in the Indus Valley, but neu,,

may unearth solne colnparable clr"re in the firture.

of the Indus River Vallcv Civilization

Indus valley cities were abandoned sonrerirle after 1900 B.c.E., althoughreasons for their decline are unceltairr. No evidence of an invasion has been

so one theory is that the civilization suffered systems failure, a break-of the political, social, and econornic systents that supported it. Therehave been a precipitating event, such as an earthquake or a flood, but

ecological changes appear to have occurred as well. The cities ma1,grown too fast, so that the large population put stress on the environment,

ing trees to bake mud bricks for construction and fanning land too intense-'some argue that a radical change to a much drier climate occurred, or thatcourses of the rivers shifted sigr,ificantly, or that the population may have

victim to malaria. The decline rvas relatively gradual, with Mohenjo-Da-,abandoned in about 1200 B.C.E., and Harappa somewhat later. Almost

nly, the civilization was under stress by tlie tirne the Aryans came into thegy"across the Hindu Kush Mountains sometime around 1500 B.C.E.

ENTCHINA

people of eastAsia probably domesticated rice sometime about 7000E:,and by 5000 B.C.E. rice had become the staple of tlie diet in the yang-ver Valley. In later centur'ies, the people fartlier north around the yellow

He) River domesticated wheat, barley, and eventually rnillet that hadnbly anived from Mesopotamia. After abor,rt 3000 B.C.E. villages along

ivers communicated and traded u,ith others thror.rghout the region, and byilltil7OO B.C.E. they had established cities ancl cornplex political, cultural,L"social systems that served as the fouudatron lbr crvilization in Chrna anci

parts of east Asra

He and Yangzi River Valleys were rich with river silt, and were quite coto agriculture, whereas much of the land space that eventually becamewas far less habitable. The Gobi Desert stretched to the north and west of more productive so that it could support a larger urban population'

rivers; the Hirnalaya Mountains lay to the southwest; and the vast Tarim Basihrgh, dry, and cold - occupied the west. These geographic features havethe development of Chinese civilization, and even today, the vast majorityChina's population lives in the east along the rivers or the coastline.

Geographical Infl uences

Ancient China rose in a part of the world that was a long way away fromother centers of civilization. Although trade did exist befween China andothers, distance and geographic barriers separated the areas so that inways east Asia developed independently from the others. Both agriculturemetalworking apparently were independently invented in China. The H

The rivers absorbed a yellowish-brown dust (giving the Yellow River itsfrorn central Asia so that it forrned loess, a thick mantle of fertile and softeasy enolrgh to be worked with wooden digging sticks. Like tlie TigrisEuphrates Rivers, the East Asia rivers were prone to irregular flooding, anrpeople responded by building dikes, channels, and basins to store river watei'and rainfall.

AncientChina. GeographyshapedthedevelopmentofChinesecivilization,wrthmostpeoplelivinginriver valleys in the east. The first known dynasty, the Shang, ruled an area around the Wei River, and theZhou Dynasty extended its control over a much larger area.

I it had a wide, flat base. A later improvement was the four-pronged hoe that

used to turn over the soil for cultivation. Its use made chinese agriculture

t rrtrn, China's growth was also spurred by mastery of metallurgy, particularly

{;ttr. proar.tion-of bronze weapons. and^tools. Ruling elites corfrollo:"::.--- r

,oppu and tin ores, and employed craftsmen to produce bronze axes' spears'

ivrs, ara arrowheads. Bronie was also used for fittings for horse-drawn char-

L,iots, u t..t nology probably flrst invented in Mesopotamia that diffused across

..;;rl.f Otlu to irr. river vallevs' A higf leve.l.of t'?ft?Tu':lll ]: t*Xl-tl

ffi;; ".5.fr created for religious rituals and househoid use by wealth fami-

iLii'.i ,Ln l.portant development that was to be of immense importance in the

i.r;f.p,".ri of China *ai th" pioneering of the key processes of silk manu-,iu.toring, raising silkworrls on rnulberry trees and carefully unraveling

their

,cocoons to Produce silk thread'

Cities were centers of political control and religion, and were surrotrnded by

greur*utt, of hardened earth. Large pLrblic builclings were constructed, such as

ialuc.s, political centers, storehouses, royal tombs' shrines of gods and ances-

iors, and'houses of the nobrlity. Ordinary pcople lived in villages outside the

city walls. The cities were laid olrt on a grid plan aligned with the north polar

,or, ,r.,. gates opened to the carclinal directions, and all major buildings faced

itfouth, reflecting a concertl for order'

I Development

ic DeveloPment

use the Huang He (Yeilow) River was so prone to unpredictabie flooding,

,Chinese fanners and leaders lrad to come up with rnethods to control it.

ingly elaborate irrigation systems kept up with expanding agriculture''gre.ti.rtt * dikes weie constructecl to manage the flow of the river' An im-int tutfy innovation was the hoe, a vast improvement over the digging stick

f'.*l{i, .,'

f'bv tt. lgth century B.C.E. the areas north and west of the Huang He River

', 'were home to many nomadic groups who followed domesticated animals from

.,;;;;;;;;rr*...'o, would continue ro happen for thousands of vears, these

i,,nomuAi, gioup, often came into conflict with people that had settled into agri-

cultural rittugl, along the river valley. According to legend, an ancient dynasty

iirrifr-U^.[ t irgOJr, called the Xia came to control much of the area, but

gQu,{rcheologtcal srtes connected to it have beel.foyd,:1]::,::':t::t^tl: ::11;;;;"Th; history of china may be traced to the flrst written

records that

i;U. u distinctive culture wit6 its owtt cuisine, beliefs, and practices that

;ffi;;;;.;; 1750 and is00 B.C.E Tlie culture is known as the Shang