Early Civilizations

• Civilization


  A complex human society, usually made up of different cities, with certain characteristics of cultural and technological development
• Characteristics of civilization


  • Government
  • Religion
  • Skilled people
  • System of writing
• Early civilizations


  • Commonly developed and established in river valleys
  • Fertile soil
  • Water easily available for irrigation
• Mesopotamia


  MESO - between, POTAMOS - rivers, "land between two rivers"
• Mesopotamia


  • Tigris River
  • Euphrates River
  • Flooding was a problem
  • People made use of river water efficiently
  • Agriculture
• Groups in Mesopotamia


  • Sumerian
  • Akkadians
  • Babylonians
  • Assyrians
  • Chaldeans
  • Hittites
  • Persians
  • Phoenicians
  • Lydians
  • Hebrews
• Ur-Nammu Code


  Oldest known code of laws
• Code of Hammurabi


  Most popular code of laws, "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth"
• Religion in Mesopotamia


  Polytheistic, gods have human-like qualities such as weakness and aggressiveness
• Skills of Mesopotamians


  • Algebra
  • Calendar (360 degrees in a circle, 1 hour = 60 minutes, 1 minute = 60 seconds)
• Writing system in Mesopotamia

  Cuneiform, consisting of 600 symbols representing ideas, objects, syllables, or sounds
• Egypt


  • Civilization arose on the bank of the Nile River
• Periods of ancient Egyptian history


  • Old Kingdom
  • Middle Kingdom
  • New Kingdom
• Characteristics of Egyptian kingdoms

  • Old Kingdom: Pharaoh had absolute power, source of law, owner of all lands, mines, and water, hieroglyphics, pyramid age
  • Middle Kingdom: Stimulation of art, construction of an irrigation system, canals were built
  • New Kingdom: Expansion of borders, more contact with other cultures, Egypt was under the rule of the Hyksos, the Hyksos were driven out, trade expanded, empire expanded to its greatest size, some traditional religious practices changed
• India's caste system


  • Brahmin
  • Kshatriya
  • Vaishya
  • Shudra