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 Era 10,000 – 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 BCE Catalhöyük, 7400 BCE communal, subsistence oriented

2. “Eden” - alluvial plain Physical, metaphorical place 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. Mesopotamia The Land Between the Rivers

A. Hot in the city 1.Sumer 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. Religion 1.Gods and goddesses - bound to “cycles” - impersonal - “un” ethical See Hammurabi’s Code Inanna

2. Indo-Europeans ca BCE “Sky gods” exs. Enlil & Anu, Ra or Amon-Re, El, Zeus, Yahweh - external morality/social order

D. Consolidation and fall 1.Akkadian Empire 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 Dynasties BCE god-kings less innovative

B. Old Kingdom 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 BCE 1.Economic expansion 2.Literature 3. Resurrection cults - Osiris / Isis - funeral culture Hyksos ca BCE

D. Imperial Egypt Beyond the Nile - Hittites - Phoenicians - Hebrews - Assyrians - Greeks Thutmose I BCE

2. Power and purpose - Hatshepsut 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