1. Homework Bell Ringer
What time is the Homecoming Dance?

2. Early River Civilizations
Summary Notes
Use your PERSIA-G chart and fill in with these notes. Notes available online at wikispace.

3. Politics Theocracy – rule by priest-king
Egypt: Pharaoh – long lasting rulers in dynasties. Considered to be reborn god Osiris; supported by viziers and scribes
Owned all the land
Able to conscript labor to build things like pyramids
Build monumental architecture/sculpture that glorified pharaoh and insured people following them.
So isolated and protected by deserts and cataracts they were able to create an empire and conquer other lands.

4. Politics (continued)
Sumerians (Mesopotamian) – competitive city-states, ruler only of city-state not the entire region due to lack of natural barriers
Responsible for major public work projects like dykes, dams, and irrigation canals
Monumental architecture - ziggurats
Queen Puabi’s grave shows power of elite monarchy – human sacrifice and gifts for afterlife
Laws (Hammurabi Law Code) – retributive “eye-for-eye” punishment - harsh
Indus River (Harappan) – empire, strong central authority shown by standardized weights and measurements throughout empire, urban planning at Mohenjo-Daro
No monumental architecture – instead focus on public goods (ex. Granary)

5. Politics (continued) China (Yellow River)
Dynasties – long lasting due to geographic barriers
Empires – strong emperors who will command peasant armies
Mandate of Heaven – method by which one family of rulers can be replaced by new family since families get the right to rule from the gods/ancestors (divine right).

6. The Dynastic Cycle Generations go by, New Dynasty becomes…
brings peace
rebuilds infrastructure
gives land to peasants
protects people
Generations go by, New Dynasty becomes…
The Dynastic Cycle
Old Dynasty
taxes people too much
stops protecting the people
lets infrastructure decay
treats people unfairly
New Dynasty claims Mandate of Heaven
Problems
floods, earthquakes, famine
peasant revolts
invaders attack empire
bandits raid countryside
Old Dynasty loses the Mandate of Heaven

7. Economics Subsistent farming of domesticated plants and animals.
Barter/Traditional economies
Taxes that are collected for public works and redistributed
Little foreign trade – but some evidence in the creation of standardized weights
Eventually near end of period some currency is created.
Indus has some suggestion of more “socialist” tendencies by sharing of grain (granary)

8. Religion
Polytheism – nature spirits – some animals but many anthropomorphic (human-shaped)
Afterlife Important
Egyptians – Book of the Dead, Mummification, Pyramids
Sumerians – Queen Puabi’s burial
Indus – grave goods found with dead
China – use Oracle Bones to contact dead ancestors

9. Social
Social Stratification – priest-king at top, scribes, artisans, peasants and slaves
Women become more restricted with less rights. Patriarchal societies that occasionally practice polygamy (for more children)
Some women gain political power (Egypt – Hatshepsut/Cleopatra, Sumeria – Puabi)

10. Intellectual/Technological
Farm Tools
Plows, Hoes, Seed Drills
Irrigation, Dams, Dykes, Terrace Farming
Writing – hieroglyphics (Egyptians – translated with Rosetta Stone), cuneiform (Sumerians – Epic of Gilgamesh), Indus untranslated seals, Chinese Pictographs/Ideographs (Oracles Bones)
Pottery – wheel mass produced
Urban Planning – sewers, standardized weights (bricks)
Jewelry – Jade (China), Gold (Egypt/Sumeria)

11. Art / Architecture/ Literature
Monumental architecture (pyramids, temples, ziggurats) funded by government to promote dynasties
Public Works to promote community
Portraits of Leaders (Egypt, Sumeria, and India)

12. Art/Architecture/Literature (Cont)
Private art (jewelry, tomb paintings, pottery)
Literature – Egypt: Book of the Dead, Sumeria: Epic of Gilgamesh
Shang, China – Bronze and Jade Decor

13. Geography Along Rivers – Nile, Tigris/ Euphrates, Indus, Yellow
Modifications Required: irrigation, dams, dykes, terrace farming
Egypt – natural barriers (cataracts, deserts – Nubian/Lybian, Sahara) will impede trade/cultural diffusion but protect
China – natural barriers (Himalayas, Gobi Desert, Pacific Ocean) create ethnocentrism and protection
Sumeria – no barriers – constant political upheavals
Indus – monsoons impacts farming and trade, mountains protect and isolate