5,000 years ago...

 Section in the Middle East  A rich, food-growing area in a part of the world where most of the land is too dry for farming  Shaped like a boomerang  Extends from the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf  Some land is located between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers  The area became known as Mesopotamia – meaning “land between the rivers”

 Moved to the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers around 3500 B.C.  Probably nomads who discovered this fertile land  Developed a civilization  Learned that planting seeds and plowing allowed crops to grow  Domesticated animals to help with plowing  Learned to use irrigation to help water crops  Invented the wheel  Polytheistic – believed in many gods  Worshipped in temples called ziggurats

 Food Surplus  Division of labor  Organized government and religion  Writing  Sumerians began using pictographic symbols etched in clay; the clay was then baked and made hard (hot climate made this easy)  Called cuneiform – wedge-shaped – because the pictures were wedged  System worked well in simple societies; however, it soon became difficult to represent abstract ideas such as justice or liberty

 Writing allowed:  Record keeping  Messages to be sent to far away places via couriers  Knowledge to be passed on to future generations

 King of Babylon  Developed the Code of Hammurabi  Engraved into stone and placed in a public location  An example of the law: “An eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth,” meaning whoever commits an injury should be punished in that same manner  Early attempt at law

 Poetry  Myths  Epic Poetry  Works were written across many tablets

 2 types of the epic  Folk  Literary  Folk epic  About heroes  originally recited or sung as entertainment at feasts  Passed down orally through generations  Eventually written down  Literary epic  Written by a specific author  Some styles were borrowed from the folk epic  About well-known stories, characters, and myths  Passed down orally  Examples  The Odyssey and The Illiad – Homer  Gilgamesh

 Epic hero  The larger-than-life main character  Strong, brave, loyal, and virtuous, but also flawed  Maintains an elevated position in society  Epic conflict  Plot of an epic that is usually centered on the hero’s struggle against an obstacle or series of obstacles  Success in battle and/or adventures proves the epic hero’s bravery, wisdom, and virtue  Heroic quest  Often the hero’s adventure takes the form of a perilous journey or quest  The hero is usually in search of something of value to his people  Divine intervention  The epic hero sometimes receives help from a god or some other supernatural force

 Opening statement of theme  Invocation  In media res (in the middle)  Serious tone and elevated style  Helps reflect the importance of the characters and theme  Epic simile  Extended comparisons of things using “like” or “as”  Epithet  Stock descriptive words or phrases  Homeric epithet  Compound phrases such as “the gray-eyed goddess Athena,” “man-killing Hector,” and “the wind-dark sea”

 Focus on the hero  Analyze his virtues, strengths, and weaknesses  Understand what the hero is seeking on his quest  Consider how the object of his quest will help his people  Identify cultural values  Consider the values the epic conveys about the culture that produced it