Earliest Civilizations

Cards (35)

  • The river and irrigation systems allowed the Egyptians to grow enough food to support a large population.
  • Around 3000 B.C.E., Egyptian civilization grew under the rule of Egypt’s kings, or pharaohs. Believing their pharaohs to be part god, Egyptians built the famous pyramids to house these rulers in their next lives.
  • Many who built the pyramids and did the hard work to build this civilization were slaves.
  • Around the same time, in the Fertile Crescent—an area northeast of Egypt —Sumerian city-states were also developing irrigation and flood control methods. They also created a system of writing
  • In about 1800 b.c.e., the Sumerians were conquered by the Babylonians.
  • One of the Babylonian kings, Hammurabi, is remembered for codifying laws.
  • The Code of Hammurabi was written on a huge stone in a public place so all Babylonians could know and follow the law.
  • The civilization of ancient Greece did not develop around a river, but around the sea.
  • Classical Greece was not politically unified. As its city- states fought for control of each other’s land, Sparta, a particularly warlike state, took over a number of other city-states.
  • Athens, another city-state, is known as the first political democracy.
  • All Athenian citizens could vote— but less than half of Athenians were citizens. Women could not vote, nor - could the many slaves.
  • Classical Greek civilization lasted only a few hundred years, but its original ideas, such as democracy, and its stunning arts, including architecture and literature, remain influential even today.
  • Greece was eventually conquered, first by Philip II of Macedon, and later by the Romans.
  • Rome began as a city on the Italian Peninsula, governed by its wealthy citizens through an elected Senate.
  • the Romans believed that a person accused of a crime was innocent until proven guilty.
  • Roman leaders built systems and infrastructure to make their empire strong: schools, roads and bridges, hospitals, a tax system, and an army. The ancient Roman Empire lasted until 476 C.E.
  • The power of Rome grew, and the Romans took over many lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, pushing north as far as England and east into Asia by about 100 C.E.
  • The Inca Empire in South America had a sophisticated system of government.
  • The Incas built amazing roads and bridges in their rugged mountain lands.
  • In Mexico, the Aztecs invented a written language and a calendar system and expanded their farmlands by dredging mud from lakes.
  • The Mayans also created a complex calendar based on cycles of the moon and sun.
  • Mayan cities were connected by trade routes and had large markets where people bought and sold goods.
  • The Mayans developed a writing system using hieroglyphics (pictures) on bark paper or stone tablets.
  • The Maya made advances in mathematics and astronomy.
  • A civilization is more than a group of people; it represents the next step toward social organization.
  • To sustain human life, two things are required: a temperate climate and ready sources of food and freshwater.
  • Human beings began to create civilizations around 3500 BCE (Before the Common Era).
  • The Fertile Crescent (present-day Iraq, Syria, and Egypt) was home to the early civilizations.
  • This period is called the Bronze Age for the copper-tin alloy people discovered around 3000 BCE
  • Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) gave the world its first written language, its first organized religion, the basics of modern mathematics, the wheel (used first for making pottery, then for transportation), and the first literary epic (The Descent of Inana).
  • the first city-states were created in southern Mesopotamia by a people called the Sumerians.
  • Archaeologists have unearthed many luxury objects at Sumerian sites, including musical instruments, game boards, and jewelry. These artifacts allow us to conclude the existence of a wealthy class of Sumerians:
  • The use of metal in a region where no metal exists proves that the Sumerians traded with other civilizations.
  • The Babylonian Empire came into being around 2000 BCE.
  • Babylonians could plot the fixed stars, follow the course of the sun, and predict lunar eclipses.