Mack-fucken-daddy Ancient Civ Notes

In the Upper Paleolithic era, Homo sapiens sapiens began to slowly improve its lifestyle in terms of diet, clothing, and tools, but remained nomadic. They built some temporary shelters, but they had to follow migrating animals around to hunt them.

It all began with the Neolithic Revolution, also known as the agricultural revolution. Humans learned to:

We were able to learn to farm because of a climatic change. In more trying regions, like the Arctic, Africa and Australia, native people are still hunting and gathering.

The first farming villages were probably north of the Mediterranean, or south of the Black Sea. There grew wild wheat and barley. The domestication of wheat was a very important development. Its Asian equivalent is rice. In Central America, it’s all about maize.

They learned to follow the seasons of planting, tending and harvesting, which we still follow today.

Advancements occurred in pockets. Practices were tried and revised everywhere until lifestyle was permanently altered. Agriculture became popular in areas along river valleys and shorelines, and from there advanced inland. It never reached the mountains.

Domestication of Animals

A 15,000 year old cave painting in France depicts a horse with a line over its head, possibly resembling a harness.

Cattle was probably domesticated in Kenya 15,000 years ago. However, widespread domestication of animals probably first took place in the Fertile Crescent: the Middle East, along the coast of Israel and down the Tigris and Euphrates to the Persian Gulf.

The principle of pastoralism is that of breeding out unwanted characteristics in animals. For example, most of the domesticated animals like pigs, sheep, cows and goats, are furrier, have horns, and other negative attributes.

The Neolithic Revolution increased populations sixteen times.

Kernels, grinding stones, and stone blades with the silica of plants were found in Egypt, dated between 18,000 and 12,500 BCE, but it is doubtful that the Egyptians were very agricultural. Even if they were developing agriculture, it was probably lost during a series of Nile floods in 10,000 BCE. At that point, the Egyptians reverted to fishing and hunting.

Jericho

Jericho is on a tell, meaning it is a city built on the ruins of countless cities before it, creating a large mound. This location was so popular because it was along four distinct trade routes (for the exchange of obsidian, one of the most valued materials in the prehistoric Middle East), near a spring, and near the Dead Sea, which could provide salt to preserve meat. It was first excavated by John Garstang in the 1920’s, and it was later excavated by Kathleen Kenyon in the 1950’s. She offered Mr. Gropper some gin. She also said to him, “Scarabs, Mr. Gropper. Scarabs.”

The earliest inhabitants of Jericho were the Natufians, who were hunter-gatherers with temporary shelters. However, they did have sickles to harvest wild plants. Between 9000 and 8000 BCE they began the practice of true agriculture. They had sheep and goats.

The most striking feature of Jericho is its 2–3 metre thick wall and 10 metre watchtower. Apparently its residents feared attack.

According to the textbook, civilization is the result of a large group of people working together to sustain themselves. They usually settle in one area, and devise systems of coordination and organization. These lead to legal codes, religion, money, government and language. People become specialized, and therefore mutually interdependent.

The development of civilization depended entirely on whether or not the group had developed the ability to produce enough food to create a surplus. This would usually require the technology of irrigation. It would also be nice if the land were fertile enough to support large population densities. For this reason, the valley between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and the banks of the Nile, are both considered “cradles of civilization”.

The University of Chicago came up with seven criteria for civilization:

1. writing

2. cities of over 5000 people

3. monumental ceremonial centres (e.g. the Vatican, the Pyramids)

4. a social hierarchy

5. a political hierarchy

6. technology (at least a little math and science)

7. craft specialization (everyone has a job and works together codependently, to accomplish more as a group)

Civilization has also been summed up as “time to think between meals”.

Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia is the valley between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Several civilizations grew up here. The land changed hands many times.

The first civilization was that of the Sumerians. They populated the Plains of Sumer in 4000 BCE.

The Sumerians were polytheists. They built temples out of clay bricks, and as each fell down, they would built another atop its ruins. The buildup of temples eventually evolved into ziggurats, which were specially designed to compensate for the optical illusion that causes straight lines to appear curved, so these ziggurats appeared unusually straight and true. The only ziggurat remaining to be seen is that at Ur. Other Sumerian city-states are Kish, Lagash and Nippur.

Sumerian city-states were made up of a city and farmland surrounding it. 12000 to 36000 people inhabited any one of these. The citizens could take on many specialized jobs, including merchants, artisans, priests, farmers, herders and tax collectors. They did have slaves.

The Sumerians had dams and canals to irrigate their farmland. They also invented the plough and the wheel, which increased yield and transportation.

In 3200 BCE, they developed a pictographic form of writing to keep their records, which were according to the sexagecimal system. This was called cuneiform. It was traced on tablets of wet clay with a wedge-shaped stylus.

Unfortunately, the Sumerians were still a bit messed up. They used to have a practice of having all the retainers of a Sumerian prince commit suicide by drinking poison, so they can die in the tomb alongside him and serve him even in the afterlife.

Professor Thorkild Jacobsen determined the governmental evolution of the Sumerians by studying one of their great works of literature: the Epic of Gilgamesh. (This story also describes a cataclysmic flood, comparable to the Hebrew flood story. It is also a work of wisdom literature, like the Bible.) In the Early Dynastic period I (from 2900 BCE to 2350 BCE), there was a primitive democracy: a council of elders. In EDII (2700–2500) there were elective kingships; they chose their most respected warrior to be their king. In EDIII (2500–2350) there developed hereditary kingship.

The first empire was the Akkadian Empire. In the 24th century BCE, Sargon took control of a Sumerian city-state. He developed a military force with bronze weapons and chariots drawn by donkeys. From Akkad, he conquered the entire Fertile Crescent. Then the Gutians invaded Mesopotamia in 2200 BCE.

The Sumerians revolted against the Gutians in 2112 BCE. Ur-Nammu established the successful Third Dynasty. The great city of Ur was ringed by canals and walls, and contained a huge ziggurat. There was developed the first ever law code. This law code was unique, because it included fines alongside the far more popular physical punishment. Then the Elamites conquered Ur.

The village of Babylon was founded by Amorites in 1850 BCE. It included a temple to their god, Marduk. It grew humongous. One of the great leaders of the ancient world was Hammurabi, king of Babylonia. He conquered all of Mesopotamia. He drew up a much more expansive code of laws than had ever been seen before, based on the “eye for an eye” principle, and using tricks like fines, physical punishment, and trial by ordeal. These are all still used today, some less than others.

While in Babylon, the Jews wrote up the first draft of the Bible.

At the death of Hammurabi, there was internal rebellion, and they were invaded many times. They were invaded by the Hittites, who had iron weapons and horse-drawn chariots. They were later occupied by the Kassites. But meanwhile, in Assur, some cool dudes picked up on the Hittite style of fighting, and they were ruthless (and patriarchal). These Assyrians conquered Babylon in 700 BCE, and eventually ruled the Fertile Crescent, southeastern Anatolia and the Egyptian Nile Delta. That was the largest empire in the world. Their capital was at Nineveh, where there was the world’s first library (but of cuneiform). Nineveh was discovered by Austin Henry Layend. They were eventually overthrown by rebels.

One thing the Assyrians are well known for is the Treasure of Nimrud. There was tremendous wealth storedin the tombs of Assyrian queens. They had incredible goldsmiths.

All of these nations were mentioned in the Bible. That’s why everyone got all excited to discover proof of them. The first confirmation of biblical history was the Moab Stone, which describes a battle also described in the Bible. Another corresponding source is the Assyrian description of the battle of Lachish.

Egypt

The Egyptians were very dependent on the Nile. The Nile flowed through the desert, creating a narrow band of fertility 1.5 to 22 km. wide. Sometimes it would flood and recede, leaving kemet: a deposit of fertile black soil that could sustain three crops a year. They also used the Nile for drinking water, irrigation water, the papyrus reeds for paper to write their hieroglyphs, and for transportation. The Egyptian boats could travel both up- and downstream.

The Egyptians grew crops where the Nile left deposits, and where there was irrigation. Other water-moving technology they knew are the oxen-powered water wheel, and the shaduf (a pivoted pole with a bucket on one end and a stone weight on the other).

The desert also sustained them, because it protected them from foreign invasion and outside influence.

They were a very organized civilization. Nilometers (notches carved into rock at regular intervals to measure the flow of the water) were used by officials to set taxes and by farmers to see when they can begin planting.

Egyptian religion was originally custom-made for each community. Each community had a favourite deity and accompanying mythology, and chieftains who would invoke this deity. The gods were usually represented by animals that reflected the god’s strengths. Anubis, the guardian of tombs, has the head of a jackal. Horus, a god originally of a different, invading nation but eventually included in the Osiris myth, had the head of a falcon. As time passed, the gods became more human-like. Osiris appears fully human. Pharaohs would encourage worship of their hometown, but each village still maintained its original one. Eventually, a set of gods was standardized, so every village had to worship that set of gods alongside its unique one.

The idea of preserving the dead comes from a myth that stated that every mortal king is a representation of Horus, son of Osiris and Isis. When these mini-Hori died, they became Osiris in the underworld. They probably learned to preserve corpses from natural phenomena. The climate was so dry that if anyone died in the desert, they would be naturally preserved in the dry sand. This wouldn’t work in the tombs, so they learned to wrap the bodies in resin-soaked linen. The process is called mummification.

The Pharaohs had the divine obligation to maintain maat: justice, truth, order, righteousness, and the cosmic order of Creation.

They packed everything into these tombs, because they thought the dead person would need all that stuff in the afterlife. Unfortunately, almost all of the tombs were raided. The bodies remained, and they are in excellent condition. The skin, hair and teeth were preserved!

Originally, Egypt was divided into Upper and Lower Egypt. Upper Egypt was the southern part, from Cairo down. Lower Egypt was the delta region, which was ravaged by floods. According to tradition, King Menes of Upper Egypt captured Lower Egypt. Archaeology, however, says that it was the work of Narmer and later Aha. Egypt was finally unified in 3100 BCE, making it the oldest unified nation on Earth.

Egypt’s lifespan can be divided into dynasties, and grouped into Kingdoms: the Early Dynastic, the Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom. Between these are intermediate periods, in which not much happens. The last intermediate period, between the Middle and New Kingdoms, was when the Hyksos ruled Egypt. They were semitic, and could possibly be Hebrews. One leader was named Yakob Har.

Old Kingdom

The pharaohs were regarded as religious symbols, so people wanted to erect monuments to them. These monuments would be the best representation of their skills as a nation-state, so as their skills got better, the monuments got more extravagant.

Originally, their idea of a tomb was a mastabas: a squat mud-brick building with a flat roof and sloping sides. It had compartments for food, furniture, tools and weapons for the king’s afterlife.The burial chamber would be underneath the mastabas, carved into the bedrock, and reached by a vertical shaft. The mastabas also used to be accompanied by burial pits for courtiers and attendants, who would die to keep the pharaoh company, but they later abandoned that practice.

From 2650 to 2631 BCE, Zoser was the Pharaoh.His advisor, Imhotep, who was a brilliant mathematician, doctor, writer and architect, designed the first pyramid as six mastabas on top of each other. The burial chambers became a maze. The structure was stepped, but then covered with limestone, which was smoothed out with limestone to form straight sides. This first pyramid, although not the first true pyramid, was 62 metres tall. It was also the world’s first public building made entirely of stone, aside from the tower at Jericho. It was surrounded by a huge walled complex.

Later, Pharaoah Snerfu wanted pyramids. He built two simultaneously, at Meidum and Dahshur. They were both pyramids from the start, not mastabas. The one at Meidum collapsed, either because the angle was too steep, or because they never finished it at all.The one at Dahshur is known as the “Bent Pyramid”, because near the top the slope becomes gentler. (They probably saw what happened at Meidum.)

Later, he built the Red Pyramid at Dahshur. This was the first true pyramid, with a square base and uniformly sloping sides.

Khufu (also known as Cheops) was not to be outdone. He built the Great Pyramid: the biggest ever.It was part of the Gizeh monuments, with two other pyramids and the Sphinx. The Great Pyramid aligns almost exactly with the points of the compass. Blocks of granite were imported from at least 700 km. away to line the burial chamber, which was aboveground, contrary to tradition. Its outer casing is made of highly polished limestone blocks, which fit together without mortar, within millimetres of each other!

Now you must ask yourself, how the hell did they do that??

There are many opinions on the controversial Great Pyramid. Herotodus says that it was the teamwork of over a thousand workers over twenty years. Erich von Dänken says that it was the same aliens who helped us out at Easter Island, Mexico, and South America. Joseph Davidovitz says that the Egyptians knew enough about chemistry to cast stone from moulds on the site. Nobody knows.

When Khufu died, his body was transported by boat from Memphis to the Valley Temple at Gizeh. There, over ten weeks, his body was purified and mummified by priests. After he was done, they took him to his pyramid, along with his boat, so that he can sail to heaven every day. They sealed up the entrance to the pyramid, to prevent tomb raiders, but nobody can stop Angelina Jolie.

Other pharaohs who made pyramids are Khufre and Mycerinus.

No bodies have been found in any of the 86 pyramids along the Nile.

The pyramids exhausted Egypt’s wealth, and caused the downfall of the Old Kingdom.

The class system of the Egyptians was very clearly defined.

The chief priest had control of the temple treasury.

The ruling class lived in incredibly wealthy and luxurious homes.

Scribes were trained for five years, starting at the age of nine. They were free of taxes, and could join the priesthood and hold important offices. They kept all the records of the kingdom and the Pharaoh’s daily “heroics”.

The working class were given no rest, even on the off-season. Then, they worked in temples and palaces. They were obligated to maintain their own irrigation canals and serve in the military. They were taxed over half of their harvest.

Slaves were usually prisoners of war.

The Egyptians were unusually hygienic. They washed before and after meals. They washed their clothes. Ruling class women were bathed by their servants. Priests bathed several times a day. They shaved their bodies, including eyelashes and eyebrows. Fake beards were status symbols. Pharaohs had long, square beards. Only gods could have pointed ones. They wore wigs, and wealthy women could sometimes braid their hair. They loved using kohl as eye makeup, even on men.

The Middle Kingdom (2000–1750 BCE)

Nebheptre Mentuhotep reunited Egypt. This led to commercial expansion. There were new armies, canals, and more land. Irrigation was at a high, with a great artificial lake: Lake Moeris. Trade extended from Nubia to Palestine and Syria, even to the Minoans on Crete.

The Pharaohs, however, would never again regain the prestige of the days of the pyramids. Immortality became something attainable by all faithful to Osiris.

The Middle Kingdom ended when the Hyksos came and took over.

The New Kingdom (1550–1100 BCE)

The New Kingdom began when there was a resistance in Thebes to the Hyksos regime. It was led by Ahmose.

Particularly strong pharaohs led in the New Kingdom, such as Thutmose III and Ramses II. They adopted Hyksos composite bows and chariots, which were more advanced. They conquered parts of Sudan, Sinai, and west Asia. Tributes from conquered lands made lots of money.

The reign of Queen Hatshepsut, wife of Thutmose II, was one of peace and prosperity. She was depicted in male clothing, including the decorative beard.

Amenhotep IV was the heretic pharaoh. He declared that the sun-god Aten was the most important god, and changed his name to Akhenaten. He closed all other temples and erased the face of the previous sun-god, Amun. It seems that he was trying to promote monotheism. Unfortunately, the population was enraged by his actions, and after his death, they tried to deny his existance by eliminating all traces of him. His son, Tutankhaten, tried to repair the damage. He changed his name to Tutankhamun.

Tutankhamun is one of the most popularly known pharaohs, because his tomb was discovered with almost all of its riches intact. His tomb was hidden in the Valley of the Kings (and Queens) (the exquisite temple of Hatshepsut is the only one to a queen, and it was so scandalous that they destroyed all her statues); pyramids were no longer used, because they were too attractive to tomb raiders. It was discovered by Howard Carter on November 5, 1922, complete with over 5000 items. There was an incredible amount of gold.

Tutakhamun was a rather insignificant pharaoh. He died at eighteen. It makes us wonder; if there are such riches in the tomb of a relatively insignificant pharaoh, what was it like before the raiders struck the tombs of the truly great pharaohs??

Ramses II was the military pharaoh. He attacked the Hittites. The war was so terrible that they ended up negotiating the first nonagression treaty in history. Syria was divided, and Egypt got the lower half.

The New Kingdom ground to a halt, due to internal and external pressures. The mysterious Sea Peoples1 were attacking, and defense was very costly. The high priests monopolized the power. They were left behind as the Iron Age arrived in Europe and the Aegean. Eventually, they were conquered by the Libyans, then the Nubians, then the Assyrians, then the Greeks. The spoken language was lost forever.

The Egyptian hieroglyphics are very hard to decipher. Everyone was stumped, until one day, at Fort Rushid, when Napoleon’s troops were preparing to fight the British, they found the Rosetta Stone, which has on it inscriptions in hieroglyphics, hieratict (a more abstract form of hieroglyphics) and demotic (a linear script), in both ancient Egyptian and Greek! This made things very easy. So by 1821, Champollion deciphered the Rosetta Stone.

We know so much about Egypt because the desert climate preserved the papyri.

Evidence of the Hebrews in the Egyptian empire

At Tell El-Amarna, tablets were found from the reign of Akhenaten referring to Jerusalem and the “Habiru”.

The Merneptah Stela, from 1207 BCE, mentions Israel for the first (and only) time, referred to as a people, but not a nation.

Frank Yurico from the University of Chicago identified pictures of Israelites trampled under the wheels of the Pharaoh’s chariot in 1990.

Greece

The only oral legend recording events in Greece between 3000 and 1100 BCE are Homer’s poems. They were widely regarded as purely entertainment, except by Sir Arthur Evans and Heinrich Schliemann.

Crete was originally inhabited by Neolithic farmers who lived in caves and mud huts. While the Egyptians were building pyramids, these Cretans (named Minoans after the mythical King Minos) had better stone and metalworking, and a unique tradition of pottery and art. People moved from the smaller islands to the larger island of Crete.

Products from all over the Middle East, Egypt and the Cyclades are found on Crete, indicating a vigourous trading system that must have developed very quickly. The Egyptian goods found on Crete and the Minoan goods found in Egypt make it easier to coordinate the age of each civilization in a process called synchronism.

By 2000 BCE, there were six large political centres on Crete, each with a palace, the largest one being Knossos. The others are Phaestos, Mallia, Hagia Triadha, Katozakro and Kommos. Kommos was discovered by a team from the University of Toronto! Knossos was discovered by good old Sir Arthur Evans.

In Knossos, over four hundred jars (pithoi) were stored. These pithoi were huge: some taller than a person. They stored grain and oil. Thus, the palaces were probably distribution centres too.

They were a beautiful maze of rooms, accomodating royalty, administrators, civil servants and artisans. They were several storeys high.

The Minoans had super sewers. They were made of terracotta pipes that directed water from fifteen kilometres outside of Knossos into the city. Rain gutters were designed with right angles to slow the water as it moved.

The Minoans did have a system of writing, but they didn’t use it to record government issues. So all we know about their system of government comes from frescoes, altars, and evidence of wealth distribution. They had a small elite led by a priest-king.

They were a peaceful bunch, because they all needed to work together to get maximum output from the small island. There were few fortifications on the palaces. The Minoan navy was strong enough to defend them from neighbours.

The Minoans had at least two prominent symbols: the double-headed axe, and the bull. They liked to jump over bulls. Minoan art was mostly miniature, in contrast to Egypt. Also in contrast to Egypt is that there was no writing on any of the Minoan tombs.

Women had equal rights. YEAH! Goddesses and gods were equally important.

The Minoan civilization came about in a series of two horrible disasters. First, in 1700 BCE, all of the palaces were destroyed simultaneously in what looks like an earthquake. They were rebuilt, only to be destroyed again in 1500 BCE when Thera erupted. Its immense ash cloud may be connected to the pillar of smoke in the story of the Exodus. Only Knossos survived. It became occupied, and then destroyed.

The question is, were the Minoans Atlantis?

Plato describes Atlantis a thousand years later as an island empire. It would sacrifice bulls every five or six years. He also describes violent earthquakes and floods, culminating in a “single day and night of misfortune the island of Atlantis disappeared into the depths of the sea”. Of course, people criticize and theorize, but it’s possible that he was describing the Minoans.

The Myceneans

The Myceneans mostly lived inland in small, independent kingdoms. The eruption of Thera didn’t hurt them much until the cloud of ash disrupted agriculture.

After a while, the small kingdoms of Pylos, Mycenae, Athens, Thebes and Tiryns became palace-states. They feuded with each other. When the Myceneans occupied Knossos, it was probably destroyed in one such feud. Their insecurity is expressed in the thick walls and fortifications around Mycenae.

They replaced the Minoans as the primary influence on the Aegean. They controlled the Cyclades, Rhodes, Miletus, and Cyprus. They traded with Asia Minor and travelled all the way to Egypt. According to the crowding in gravesites, their population was as large as in the Golden Age of Athens.

Mycenae was the focal point of power. It was adjacent to the plain of Argos, which gave them farmland, while the rest of Greece is mostly mountainous.

Between 1250 and 1150 BCE, all of the Mycenean palace-states were destroyed. They were probably destroyed by the Sea Peoples (despite that they used to fight alongside the Myceneans), who had also attacked the Hittites and the Egyptians.

On a hill near Mycenae is a citadel, which was used as a ceremonial burial location for royalty.

The Myceneans are affiliated with the story of the murder of Agamemnon by his wife’s lover.

Sir Arthur Evans discovered three types of scripts in Crete: a pictographic, and two linear scripts (A and B). Michael Ventris deciphered Linear B as an archaic Greek from tablets of inventory lists, with the help of Emmett Bennett, who figured out that the tablets were inventory lists.

These inventory lists were also interesting because they included sacrifices to Greek gods that were still worshipped in the great Greek empire, much later.

Unfortunately, Linear B is Mycenean, not Minoan.

Good old Heinrich Schliemann wanted to find evidence of the Trojan War (involving the Myceneans) and of Agamemnon’s tomb, even as everyone else wrote the stories off as fiction. So then he found what he thought was Troy. He was looking for a mound of cities piled on top of each other, and he did. He even found evidence of fire, and there, a wondrous treasure! But it’s still probably not Troy.

Professor Gregory Nagy of Harvard explains:

Myth is society’s way of formulating what is universally true to them.

Mythopoeic thought is myth with fantastical aspects.

An epic is a humanized myth: a myth without the fantastical elements. The Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic. Homer’s Iliad, describing the Trojan War, is an epic.

Ugarit

Cuneiform was found at Ugarit. It’s a good thing, too, because otherwise they would have assumed that no one wrote in Palestine, which would say that the Bible was written much later.

The Hebrew alphabet and its poetry is very similar to the Ugarit alphabet and poetry. the same phrases are used to describe gods.

This alphabet came 500 years before the Phoenicians.

Ugarit was probably invaded by Myceneans.

After the Myceneans were wiped out in 1000 BCE, mainland Greece became controlled by the Dorians, who suck because they didn’t even write. Thus began the Dark Ages.

The Gropper Thesis:

Western Civilization has its roots in the 9th–8th century BCE.

1 They were probably early Greeks. The Philistines were undoubtedly one of the groups included in the Sea Peoples.


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