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2700–2200 B.C.E. Egyptian Old Kingdom

ca. 2370 B.C.E. Sargon established Akkadian Empire

2052–1786 B.C.E. Egyptian Middle Kingdom

1792–1750 B.C.E. Reign of Hammurabi; height of Old Babylonian Kingdom; publication of Code of Hammurabi

ca. 1700 B.C.E. Hyksos’ Invasion of Egypt

1575–1087 B.C.E. Egyptian New Kingdom (or Empire)

ca. 1400–1200 B.C.E. Height of Hittite Empire

ca. 1400–1200 B.C.E. Height of Mycenaean power

ca. 1100–615 B.C.E. Assyrian Empire

ca. 800–400 B.C.E. Height of Etruscan culture in Italy

ca. 700–500 B.C.E. Rise and decline of tyranny in Greece

ca. 1,000,000–10,000 B.C.E.

Paleolithic Age

ca. 8,000 B.C.E. Earliest Neolithic settlements

ca. 3500 B.C.E. Earliest Sumerian settlements

ca. 3000 B.C.E. First urban settlements in Egypt and Mesopotamia; Bronze Age begins in Mesopotamia and Egypt

ca. 2900–1150 B.C.E. Bronze Age Minoan society on Crete; Helladic society on Greek mainland

ca. 2000 B.C.E. Hittites arrive in Asia Minor

ca. 1200 B.C.E. Hebrews arrive in Palestine

ca. 1100–750 B.C.E. Greek “Dark Ages”

ca. 30,0000–6000 B.C.E.

Paleolithic art

ca. 3000 B.C.E. Invention of writing

ca. 3000 B.C.E. Temples to gods in Mesopotamia; development of ziggurat temple architecture

2700–2200 B.C.E. Building of pyramids for Egyptian god-kings, development of hieroglyphic writing in Egypt

ca. 1900 B.C.E. Traditional date for Hebrew patriarch Abraham

ca. 750 B.C.E. Hebrew prophets teach monotheism

ca. 750 B.C.E. Traditional date for Homer

ca. 750 B.C.E. Greeks adapt Semitic script and invent the Greek alphabet

ca. 570 B.C.E. Birth of Greek philosophy in Ionia

539 B.C.E. Restoration of temple in Jerusalem; return of exiles

Politics and Government

Society and Economy

Religion and Culture

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Sargon the Great

The Venus of Willendorf

Sumerian Clay Tablet

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612–539 B.C.E. Neo-Babylonian (Chaldean) Empire

594 B.C.E. Solon’s constitutional reforms, Athens

586 B.C.E. Destruction of Jerusalem; fall of Judah (southern kingdom); Babylonian Captivity

559–530 B.C.E. Reign of Cyrus the Great in Persia

546 B.C.E. Persia conquers Lydian Empire of Croesus, including Greek cities of Asia Minor

539 B.C.E. Persia conquers Babylonia; temple at Jerusalem restored; exiles return from Babylonia

521–485 B.C.E. Reign of Darius in Persia

509 B.C.E. Kings expelled from Rome; Republic founded

508 B.C.E. Clisthenes founds Athenian democracy

490 B.C.E. Battle of Marathon

480–479 B.C.E. Xerxes invades Greece

431–404 B.C.E. Great Peloponnesian War

392 B.C.E. Romans defeat Etruscans

362 B.C.E. Battle of Mantinea; end of Theban hegemony

ca. 750–700 B.C.E. Rise of Polis in Greece

ca. 750–600 B.C.E. Great age of Greek colonization

ca. 500–400 B.C.E. Great age of Athenian tragedy

469–399 B.C.E. Life of Socrates

ca. 450–385 B.C.E. Great age of Athenian comedy

448–432 B.C.E. Periclean building program on Athenian acropolis

429–347 B.C.E. Life of Plato

ca. 400 B.C.E. Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian War

384–322 B.C.E. Life of Aristotle

342–271 B.C.E. Life of Epicurus

335–263 B.C.E. Life of Zeno the Stoic

ca. 287–212 B.C.E. Life of Archimedes of Syracuse

ca. 275 B.C.E. Founding of museum and library make Alexandria the center of Greek intellectual life

750 B.C.E.–275 B.C.E.

Pharaoh Sety I

Female athlete, Sparta

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338 B.C.E. Philip of Macedon conquers Greece

336–323 B.C.E. Reign of Alexander III (the Great)

330 B.C.E. Fall of Persepolis; end Achaemenid rule in Persia

323–301 B.C.E. Ptolemaic Kingdom (Egypt), Seleucid Kingdom (Syria), andAntigonid Dynasty (Macedon) founded

287 B.C.E. Laws passed by Plebeian Assembly made binding on allRomans; end of Struggle of the Orders

264–241 B.C.E. First Punic War

218–202 B.C.E. Second Punic War

215–168 B.C.E. Rome establishes rule over Hellenistic world

133 B.C.E. Tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus

123–122 B.C.E. Tribunate of Gaius Gracchus

60 B.C.E. First Triumvirate

431–400 B.C.E. Peloponnesian War casualties cause decline in size of lowerclass in Athens, with relative increase in importance of upperand middle classes

ca. 300 B.C.E.– Growth of international trade and development of large cities150 C.E. in Hellenistic/Roman world

106–43 B.C.E. Life of Cicero

70–19 B.C.E. Life of Vergil

65–8 B.C.E. Life of Horace

59 B.C.E.–17 C.E. Life of Livy

43 B.C.E.–18 C.E. Life of Ovid

9 B.C.E. Ara Pacis dedicated at Rome

ca. 4 B.C.E. Birth of Jesus of Nazareth

ca. 30 C.E. Crucifixion of Jesus

64 C.E. Christians persecuted by Nero

ca. 70–100 C.E. Gospels written

ca. 150 C.E. Ptolemy of Alexandria establishes canonical geocentric modelof the universe

303 C.E. Persecution of Christians by Diocletian

312 C.E. Constantine converts to Christianity

Politics and Government

Society and Economy

Religion and Culture

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46–44 B.C.E. Caesar’s dictatorship

43 B.C.E. Second Triumvirate

31 B.C.E. Octavian and Agrippa defeat Anthony at Actium

27 B.C.E.–14 C.E. Reign of Augustus

14–68 C.E. Reigns of Julio-Claudian Emperors

69–96 C.E. Reigns of Flavian Emperors

96–180 C.E. Reigns of “Good Emperors”

284–305 C.E. Reign of Diocletian; reform and division of Roman Empire

306–337 C.E. Reign of Constantine

330 C.E. Constantinople new capital of Roman Empire

376 C.E. Visigoths enter Roman Empire

ca. 150–400 C.E. Decline of slavery and growth of tenant farming and serfdom in Roman Empire

ca. 250–400 C.E. Coloni (Roman tenant farmers) increasingly tied to the land

325 C.E. Council of Nicaea

348–420 C.E. Life of St. Jerome

354–430 C.E. Life of St. Augustine

395 C.E. Christianity becomes official religion of Roman Empire

46 B.C.E.–400 C.E.

Alexander the Great and Darius III

Roman amphitheatre


History, in its two senses—as the eventsof the past that make up the human ex-perience on earth and as the written

record of those events—is a subject of both inter-est and importance. We naturally want to knowhow we came to be who we are, and how theworld we live in came to be what it is. But beyondits intrinsic interest, history provides crucial insightinto present human behavior. To understand who

4

K E Y T O P I C S

■ The earliest history of humanity, including thebeginnings of human culture in the PaleolithicAge, the agricultural revolution and the shiftfrom food gathering to food production, andthe emergence of civilization in the great rivervalleys of the Near East and Asia

■ The ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt

■ The great Near Eastern empires, 1500–486 B.C.E.

■ The emergence of Judaism■ The difference in outlook between ancient

Near Eastern and Greek civilizations

THE BIRTHOF CIVILIZATION

THE BIRTHOF CIVILIZATION

1C H A P T E R

■ PALESTINEThe Canaanites and thePhoenicians • The Israelites

■ GENERAL OUTLOOK

OF MIDEASTERN CULTURESHumans and Nature

■ TOWARD THE GREEKS

AND WESTERN THOUGHT

■ IN PERSPECTIVE

■ EARLY HUMANS AND THEIR

CULTUREThe Paleolithic Age • TheNeolithic Age • The Bronze Ageand the Birth of Civilization

■ EARLY CIVILIZATIONS

TO ABOUT 1000 B.C.EMesopotamian Civilization •Egyptian Civilization

■ ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN

EMPIRES

The Hittites • The Assyrians •The Neo-Babylonians

■ THE PERSIAN EMPIRE

Cyrus the Great • Darius theGreat • Government andAdministration • Religion • Artand Culture

1


5

we are now, we need to know the record of the pastand to try to understand the people and forces thatshaped it.

For hundreds of thousands of years after thehuman species emerged, people lived by hunting,fishing, and collecting wild plants. Only some10,000 years ago did they learn to cultivate plants,herd animals, and make airtight pottery for storage.These discoveries transformed them from gatherers

to producers and allowed them to grow in numberand to lead a settled life. About 5,000 years agohumans learned how to control the waters of greatriver valleys, making possible much richer harvestsand supporting a further increase in population. Thepeoples of these river valley societies created theearliest civilizations. They invented writing, which,among other things, enabled them to keep inven-tories of food and other resources. They discovered

This depiction of the Pharaoh Tutankahmun (r. 1336–1327 B.C.E.) and his queen comesfrom his tomb, which was discovered in the 1920s. “King Tut” died at the age ofeighteen. Robert Frerck/Odyssey Production/Woodfin Camp & Associates


the secret of smelting metal to make tools andweapons of bronze far superior to the stone imple-ments of earlier times. They came together in townsand cities, where industry and commerce flourished.Complex religions took form, and social divisions in-creased. Kings—considered to be representatives ofthe gods or to be themselves divine—emerged asrulers, assisted by priests and defended by well-organized armies.

The first of these civilizations appeared amongthe Sumerians before 3500 B.C.E. in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley we call Mesopotamia. From theSumerians to the Assyrians and Babylonians, a seriesof peoples ruled Mesopotamia, each shaping andpassing along its distinctive culture, before theregion fell under the control of great foreign em-pires. A second early civilization emerged in the NileValley around 3100 B.C.E. Egyptian civilization devel-oped a remarkably continuous pattern, in partbecause Egypt was largely protected from invasionby the formidable deserts surrounding the valley.The essential character of Egyptian civilizationchanged little for nearly 3,000 years. Influences fromother areas, however, especially Nubia to the south,Syria-Palestine to the northeast, and the Aegean tothe north, may be seen during many periods ofEgyptian history.

By the fourteenth century B.C.E., several powerfulempires had arisen and were vying for dominance inregions that included Egypt, Mesopotamia, and AsiaMinor. Northern warrior peoples, such as the Hittites

who dominated Asia Minor, conquered and ruledpeoples in various areas. For two centuries, the Hittiteand Egyptian Empires struggled with each other forcontrol of Syria-Palestine. By about 1200 B.C.E., how-ever, both these empires had collapsed. Beginningabout 850 B.C.E., the Assyrians arose in northernMesopotamia and ultimately established a mightynew empire, even invading Egypt in the early seventhcentury B.C.E. The Assyrians were dominant until thelate seventh century B.C.E., when they fell to a combi-nation of enemies. Their vast empire was overtakenby the Babylonians, but these people, too, wouldsoon become only a small, though important, part ofthe enormous empire of Persia.

Among all these great empires nestled a peoplecalled the Israelites, who maintained a small, inde-pendent kingdom in the region between Egypt andSyria for several centuries. This kingdom ultimatelyfell to the Assyrians and later remained subject toother conquerors. The Israelites possessed littleworldly power or wealth, but they created a power-ful religion, Judaism, the first certain and lastingworship of a single god in a world of polytheism.Judaism was the seedbed of two other religions thathave played a mighty role in the history of theworld: Christianity and Islam. The great empireshave collapsed, their power forgotten for millenniauntil the tools of archaeologists uncovered theirremains, but the religion of the Israelites, in itselfand through its offshoots, has endured as a powerful force. ■

6 PART 1 ■ THE FOUNDATIONS OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

EARLY HUMANS AND THEIR CULTUREScientists estimate the earth may be as many as6 billion years old and that creatures very much likehumans appeared perhaps 3 to 5 million years ago,probably in Africa. Some 1 to 2 million years ago,erect and tool-using early humans spread overmuch of Africa, Europe, and Asia. Our ownspecies, Homo sapiens, probably emerged some200,000 years ago, and the earliest remains of fullymodern humans date to about 90,000 years ago.

Humans, unlike other animals, are cultural be-ings. Culture may be defined as the ways of livingbuilt up by a group and passed on from one genera-tion to another. It includes behavior such ascourtship or child-rearing practices; materialthings such as tools, clothing, and shelter; andideas, institutions, and beliefs. Language, apparent-ly a uniquely human trait, lies behind our abilityto create ideas and institutions and to transmit

culture from one generation to another. Our flexi-ble and dexterous hands enable us to hold andmake tools and so to create the material artifactsof culture. Because culture is learned and not in-herited, it permits rapid adaptation to changingconditions, making possible the spread of humani-ty to almost all the lands of the globe.

THE PALEOLITHIC AGE

Anthropologists designate early human cultures bytheir tools. The earliest period—the Paleolithic(from Greek, “old stone”)—dates from the earliestuse of stone tools some 1 million years ago to about10,000 B.C.E. During this immensely long period,people were hunters, fishers, and gatherers, but notproducers, of food. They learned to make and useincreasingly sophisticated tools of stone and perish-able materials like wood; they learned to make andcontrol fire; and they acquired language and theability to use it to pass on what they had learned.

Q


CHAPTER 1 ■ THE BIRTH OF CIVILIZATION 7

These early humans, dependent on nature forfood and vulnerable to wild beasts and natural dis-asters, may have developed responses to the worldrooted in fear of the unknown—of the uncertain-ties of human life or the overpowering forces of na-ture. Religious and magical beliefs and practicesmay have emerged in an effort to propitiate or co-erce the superhuman forces thought to animate ordirect the natural world. Evidence of religious faithand practice, as well as of magic, goes as far back asarchaeology can take us. Fear or awe, exaltation,gratitude, and empathy with the natural worldmust all have figured in the cave art and in the rit-ual practices, such as burial, that we find evi-denced at Paleolithic sites around the globe. Thesense that there is more to the world than meetsthe eye—in other words, the religious response tothe world—seems to be as old as humankind.

The style of life and the level of technology ofthe Paleolithic period could support only a sparselysettled society. If hunters were too numerous,game would not suffice. In Paleolithic times, peo-ple were subject to the same natural and ecologicalconstraints that today maintain a balance betweenwolves and deer in Alaska.

Evidence from Paleolithic art and from modernhunter-gatherer societies suggests that human lifein the Paleolithic Age was probably characterizedby a division of labor by sex. Men engaged in hunt-ing, fishing, making tools and weapons, and fight-ing against other families, clans, and tribes.Women, less mobile because of childbearing, gath-ered nuts, berries, and wild grains, wove baskets,and made clothing. Women gathering food proba-bly discovered how to plant and care for seeds.This knowledge eventually made possible the de-velopment of agriculture and animal husbandry.

THE NEOLITHIC AGE

Only a few Paleolithic societies made the initialshift from hunting and gathering to agriculture.Anthropologists and archaeologists disagree as towhy, but however it happened, some 10,000 yearsago parts of what we now call the Near East beganto change from a nomadic hunter-gatherer cultureto a more settled agricultural one. Because theshift to agriculture coincided with advances instone tool technology—the development of greaterprecision, for example, in chipping and grinding—this period is called the Neolithic Age (from Greek,“new stone”). Productive animals, such as sheepand goats, and food crops, such as wheat and bar-ley, were first domesticated in the mountainfoothills where they already lived or grew in thewild. Once domestication had taken place, peoplecould move to areas where these plants and ani-

mals did not occur naturally, such as the river val-leys of the Near East. The invention of pottery dur-ing the Neolithic Age enabled people to storesurplus foods and liquids and to transport them, aswell as to cook agricultural products that were dif-ficult to eat or digest raw. Cloth was made fromflax and wool. Crops required constant care fromplanting to harvest, so Neolithic farmers built per-manent dwellings. The earliest of these tended tobe circular huts, large enough to house only one ortwo people and clustered in groups around a cen-tral storage place. Later people built square andrectangular family-sized houses with individualstorage places and enclosures to house livestock.Houses in a Neolithic village were normally all thesame size and were built on the same plan, sug-gesting that most Neolithic villagers had about thesame level of wealth and social status. A fewitems, such as stones and shells, were traded longdistance, but Neolithic villages tended to be self-sufficient.

Two larger Neolithic settlements do not fit thisvillage pattern. One was found at Çatal Höyük, ina fertile agricultural region about 150 miles southof Ankara, the capital of present-day Turkey. Thiswas a large town covering over fifteen acres, with apopulation probably well over 6,000 people. Thehouses were clustered so closely that they had nodoors, but were entered by ladders from the roofs.Many were decorated inside with sculptures of an-imal heads and horns, as well as paintings thatwere apparently redone regularly. Some appear todepict ritual or festive occasions involving menand women. One is the world’s oldest landscapepicture, showing a nearby volcano exploding. Theagriculture, arts, and crafts of this town were as-tonishingly diversified and at a much higher levelof attainment than other, smaller settlements ofthe period. The site of Jericho, an oasis around aspring near the Dead Sea, was occupied as early as12,000 B.C.E. Around 8000 B.C.E., a town of eight toten acres grew up, surrounded by a massive stonewall with at least one tower against the inner face.Although this wall may have been for defense, itsuse is disputed because no other Neolithic settle-ment has been found with fortifications. The in-habitants of Neolithic Jericho had a mixedagricultural, herding, and hunting economy andmay have traded salt. They had no pottery, butplastered the skulls of their dead to make realisticmemorial portraits of them. These two sites showthat the economy and the settlement patterns ofthe Neolithic period may be more complicatedthan many scholars have thought.

Throughout the Paleolithic Age, the human popu-lation had been small and relatively stable. The shiftfrom food gathering to food production may not have



been associated with an immediatechange in population, but over timein the regions where agriculture andanimal husbandry appeared, thenumber of human beings grew at anunprecedented rate. One reason forthis is that farmers usually had larg-er families than hunters. Their chil-dren began to work and matured at ayounger age than the children ofhunters. When animals and plantswere domesticated and brought tothe river valleys, the relationship be-tween human beings and nature waschanged forever. People had learnedto control nature, a vital prerequi-site for the emergence of civiliza-tion. But farmers had to work harderand longer than hunters did, andthey had to stay in one place.Herders, in contrast, often movedfrom place to place in search of pas-ture and water, returning to theirvillages in the spring. Some scholarsrefer to the dramatic changes in sub-sistence, settlement, technology,and population of this time as theNeolithic Revolution. The earliestNeolithic societies appeared in theMideast about 8000 B.C.E., in Chinaabout 4000 B.C.E., and in India about3600 B.C.E. Neolithic agriculture wasbased on wheat and barley in theMideast, on millet and rice inChina, and on corn in Mesoamerica, several millen-nia later.

In 1991 a discovery in the Ötztal Tyrolean Alpson the border between Italy and Austria shed newlight on the Neolithic period. A tourist cameupon a frozen body, which turned out to be theoldest mummified human being yet discovered.Dated to about 3300 B.C.E., it was the remains of aman between 25 and 35 years old, 5 feet 2 inchestall, weighing 110 pounds. He has been calledÖtzi, the Ice Man from the place of his discovery.He had not led a peaceful life, for his nose wasbroken, and several of his ribs were fractured. Anarrowhead in his shoulder suggests he bled todeath in the ice and snow. He wore a fur robemade of the skins of mountain animals, andunder it he wore a woven grass cape. His shoeswere made of leather stuffed with grass. He washeavily armed for his time, carrying a dagger offlint and a bow with arrows also tipped in flint.He also carried an axe whose blade was made ofcopper, indicating that metallurgy was alreadyunder way. His discovery provides a vivid evi-

dence of the beginning of the tran-sition from the Stone Age to theBronze Age.

THE BRONZE AGE

AND THE BIRTH

OF CIVILIZATION

Neolithic agricultural villages andherding cultures gradually replacedPaleolithic culture in much of theworld. Then another major shiftoccurred, first in the plains alongthe Tigris and Euphrates Rivers inthe region the Greeks and Romanscalled Mesopotamia (modern Iraq),later in the valley of the Nile Riverin Egypt, and somewhat later inIndia and the Yellow River basin inChina. This shift was associatedinitially with the growth of townsalongside villages, creating a hier-archy of larger and smaller settle-ments in the same region. Sometowns then grew into much largerurban centers and often drew popu-lation into them, so that nearbyvillages and towns declined. Theurban centers, or cities, usuallyhad monumental buildings, suchas temples and fortifications.These were vastly larger than indi-vidual houses and could be builtonly by the sustained effort of hun-

dreds and even thousands of people over manyyears. Elaborate representational artwork ap-peared, sometimes made of rare and imported ma-terials. New technologies, such as smelting andthe manufacture of metal tools and weapons, werecharacteristic of urban life. Commodities, likepottery and textiles that had been made in individ-ual houses in villages, were mass produced incities, which also were characterized by socialstratification—that is, the grouping of people intoclasses based on factors such as control of re-sources, family, religious or political authority,and personal wealth. The earliest writing is alsoassociated with the growth of cities. Writing, likerepresentational art, was a powerful means ofcommunicating over space and time and wasprobably invented to deal with urban problems ofmanagement and record keeping.

These attributes—urbanism; technological, in-dustrial, and social change; long-distance trade;and new methods of symbolic communication—are defining characteristics of the form of humanculture called civilization. At about the time the

Ötzi is the nickname scientistshave given to the remains of theoldest mummified human bodyyet discovered. This reconstructionshows his probable appearanceand the clothing and weaponsfound on and with him. WieslavSmetek/Stern/Black Star



peared only long after urban civilization had al-ready developed, so major waterworks were aconsequence of urbanism, not a cause of it.

MESOPOTAMIAN CIVILIZATION

The first civilization appears to have arisen inMesopotamia. The region is divided into two ecolog-ical zones, roughly north and south of modern Bagh-dad. In the south (Babylonia), as noted, irrigation isvital; in the north (later Assyria), agriculture is possi-ble with rainfall and wells. The south has high yieldsfrom irrigated lands, whereas the north has loweryields, but much more land under cultivation, so itcan produce more than the south. The oldestMesopotamian cities seem to have been founded bya people called the Sumerians during the fourth mil-lennium B.C.E. in the land of Sumer, which is thesouthern half of Babylonia. By 3000 B.C.E., theSumerian city of Uruk was the largest city in theworld. (See Map 1–1, page 10.) Colonies of peoplefrom Uruk built cities and outposts in northern Syriaand southern Anatolia. One of these, at HabubahKabirah on the Euphrates River in Syria, was built ona regular plain on virgin ground, with strong defen-sive walls, but was abandoned after a few genera-tions and never inhabited again. No one knows howthe Sumerians were able to establish colonies so farfrom their homeland or even what their purposewas. They may have been trading centers.

From about 2800 to 2370 B.C.E., in what is calledthe Early Dynastic period, several Sumerian city-states, independent political units consisting of amajor city and its surrounding territory, existed insouthern Mesopotamia, arranged in north-south linesalong the major watercourses. Among these citieswere Uruk, Ur, Nippur, Shuruppak, and Lagash.Some of the city-states formed leagues among them-selves that apparently had both political and religioussignificance. Quarrels over water and agriculturalland led to incessant warfare, and in time, strongertowns and leagues conquered weaker ones and ex-panded to form kingdoms ruling several city-states.

Peoples who, unlike the Sumerians, mostlyspoke Semitic languages (that is, languages in thesame family as Arabic and Hebrew) occupied north-ern Mesopotamia and Syria. The Sumerian lan-guage is not related to any language known today.Many of these Semitic peoples absorbed aspects ofSumerian culture, especially writing. At the west-ern end of this broad territory, at Ebla in northernSyria, scribes kept records using Sumerian writingand studied Sumerian word lists. In northern Baby-lonia, the Mesopotamians believed the large city ofKish had the first kings in history. In the far east ofthis territory, not far from modern Baghdad, a peo-ple known as the Akkadians established their ownkingdom at a capital city called Akkade, under

earliest civilizations were emerging, someone dis-covered how to combine tin and copper to make astronger and more useful material—bronze. Ar-chaeologists coined the term Bronze Age to referto the period 3100 to 1200 B.C.E. in the Near Eastand eastern Mediterranean.

EARLY CIVILIZATIONS TO ABOUT 1000 B.C.E.By 4000 years B.C.E., people had settled inlarge numbers in the river-watered lowlands ofMesopotamia and Egypt. By about 3000 B.C.E.,when the invention of writing gave birth to his-tory, urban life and the organization of society intocentralized states were well established in the val-leys of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers inMesopotamia and of the Nile River in Egypt.

Much of the population of cities consists of peo-ple who do not grow their own food, so urban life ispossible only where farmers and stockbreeders canbe made to produce a substantial surplus beyondtheir own needs. Also, some process has to be inplace so this surplus can be collected and rede-ployed to sustain city dwellers. Efficient farming ofplains alongside rivers, moreover, requires intelli-gent management of water resources for irrigation.In Mesopotamia, irrigation was essential, becausein the south (later Babylonia), there was notenough rainfall to sustain crops. Furthermore, therivers, fed by melting snows in Armenia, rose toflood the fields in the spring, about the time forharvest, when water was not needed. When waterwas needed for the autumn planting, less wasavailable. This meant that people had to builddikes to keep the rivers from flooding the fields inthe spring and had to devise means to store waterfor use in the autumn. The Mesopotamians be-came skilled at that activity early on. In Egypt,however, the Nile River flooded at the right mo-ment for cultivation, so irrigation was simply amatter of directing the water to the fields. InMesopotamia, villages, towns, and cities tended tobe strung along natural watercourses and, eventu-ally, man-made canal systems. Thus, control ofwater could be important in warfare, because anenemy could cut off water upstream of a city toforce it to submit. Since the Mesopotamian plainwas flat, branches of the rivers often changed theircourses, and people would have to abandon theircities and move to new locations. Archeologistsonce believed that urban life and centralized gov-ernment arose in response to the need to regulateirrigation. This theory supposed that only a strong,central authority could construct and maintain thenecessary waterworks. However, archeologistshave now shown that large-scale irrigation ap-



been found in the ruins of Sumerian cities. Afterlittle more than a century of prominence, thekingdom of Ur disintegrated in the face offamine and invasion. From the east, theElamites attacked the city of Ur and cap-tured the king. From the north and west, aSemitic-speaking people, the Amorites,invaded Mesopotamia in large numbers,settling around the Sumerian cities andeventually founding their own dynas-ties in some of them, such as at Uruk,Babylon, Isin, and Larsa.

The fall of the Third Dynasty of Urput an end to Sumerian rule, and theSumerians gradually disappearedas an identifiable group. TheSumerian language survivedonly in writing as the learnedlanguage of Babylonia taughtin schools and used bypriests and scholars. So greatwas the respect for Sumer-ian that seventeen centuriesafter the fall of Ur, whenAlexander the Great ar-rived in Babylon in 331B.C.E., Sumerian was stillused as a scholarly and reli-gious language there.

For some time after thefall of Ur, there was rela-tive peace in Babyloniaunder the Amorite kingsof Isin, who used Sumer-ian at their court andconsidered themselvesthe successors of thekings of Ur. Eventually,another Amorite dynastyat the city of Larsa con-tested control of Babylo-nia, and a period ofwarfare began, mostlycentering around attackson strategic points on wa-terways. A powerful newdynasty at Babylon de-feated Isin, Larsa, and other rivals and dominatedMesopotamia for nearly 300 years. Its high point wasthe reign of its most famous king, Hammurabi (r. ca.1792–1750 B.C.E.), best known today for the collec-tion of laws that bears his name. (See “Hammurabi’sLaw Code,” page 14.) Hammurabi destroyed thegreat city of Mari on the Euphrates and created akingdom embracing most of Mesopotamia.

Collections of laws existed as early as the ThirdDynasty of Ur, and Hammurabi’s owed much to ear-

lier models and different legal traditions.His collection of laws, now referred to as

the Code of Hammurabi, reveals a soci-ety divided by class. There were nobles,commoners, and slaves, and the lawdid not treat all of them equally. Ingeneral, punishments were harsh,based literally on the principle of “aneye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,”whereas Sumerian law oftenlevied fines instead of bodily mu-tilation or death. Disputes overproperty and other complaintswere heard in the first instanceby local city assemblies of lead-ing citizens and heads of fami-lies. Professional judges heardcases for a fee and held courtnear the city gate. InMesopotamian trials, witness-es and written evidence had tobe produced and a writtenverdict issued. False testimo-ny was punishable by death.Sometimes the contestingparties would submit to anoath before the gods, on thetheory that no one wouldrisk swearing a false oath. Incases where evidence oroath could not establish thetruth, the contesting partiesmight take an ordeal, suchas being thrown into theriver for the god to decidewho was telling the truth.Cases of capital punish-ment could be appealed tothe king. Hammurabi wasclosely concerned with thedetails of his kingdom, andhis surviving letters oftendeal with minor localdisputes.

About 1600 B.C.E., theBabylonian kingdom fellapart under the impact of

invasions from the north by the Hittites, Hurrians,and Kassites, all non-Mesopotamian peoples.

Government From the earliest historical records,it is clear that the Sumerians were ruled by mon-archs in some form. The earliest Sumerian rulersare shown in their art leading an army, killing pris-oners, and making offerings to the gods. The typeof rule varied at different times and places. In laterAssyria, for example, the king served as chief

The Victory Stele of Naram-Sin, the Akkadian ruler,commemorates the king’s campaign (c. 2230 B.C.E.)against the Lullubi, a people living in the northern ZagrosMountains, along the eastern frontier of Mesopotamia.Kings set up monuments like this one in the courtyards oftemples to record their deeds. They were also left inremote corners of the empire to warn distant peoples ofthe death and enslavement awaiting the king’s enemies(pink sandstone). Victory stele of Naram-Sin, King of Akkad,over the mountain-dwelling Lullubi, Mesopotamian, Akkadian Period,c. 2230 B.C. (pink sandstone). Louvre, Paris, France/The Bridgeman ArtLibrary International Ltd.


A CLOSER LOOK


priest; in Babylonia, the priesthood was separatefrom royalty. Royal princesses were sometimes ap-pointed as priestesses of important gods. One ofthe most famous of these was Enheduanna, daugh-ter of Sargon of Akkad. She is the first author inhistory whose writings can be identified with areal person. Although she was an Akkadian, shewrote complicated, passionate, and intensely per-sonal poetry in the Sumerian language, in whichshe tells of important historical events that she ex-perienced. In one passage, she compares the agonyof writing a poem to giving birth.

The government and the temples cultivatedlarge areas of land to support their staffs and ret-

inue. Laborers of low social status who were givenrations of raw foods and other commodities to sus-tain them and their families did some of the workon this land. Citizens leased some land for a shareof the crop and a cash payment. These lands werecarefully surveyed, and sometimes the crop couldbe estimated in advance. The government andtemples owned large herds of sheep, goats, cattle,and donkeys. The Sumerian city-states exportedwool and textiles to buy metals, such as copper,that were not available in Mesopotamia. Familiesand private individuals often owned their ownfarmland or houses in the cities, which theybought and sold as they liked.

British Museum, London, UK/Bridgeman Art Library

The Royal Standard of UrThis mysterious object, dated about 2500 B.C.E., was found in one of the largest graves in theRoyal Cemetery at Ur, a major city of the Sumerians, who created the earliest civilization inMesopotamia, perhaps in the world.

We do not know the original function of the Standard. The archaeologist who discovered itthought that it was carried on a pole. It is made of a wooden frame carrying a mosaic ofshell, red limestone, and a blue stone called lapis lazuli. It was found in damaged condi-tion, and the present restoration is only a guess as to how it originally appeared.

The main panels are known as “War” and “Peace.” “War” shows one of the earliestrepresentations of a Sumerian army. Chariots, each pulled by four donkeys, trampleenemies; infantry with cloaks carry spears; enemy soldiers are killed with axes,others are paraded naked and presented to the king who holds a spear.



Writing and Mathematics Government, busi-ness, and scholarship required a good system ofwriting. The Sumerians invented the writing sys-tem now known as cuneiform (from the Latincuneus, “wedge”) because of the wedge-shapedmarks they made by writing on clay tablets with acut reed stylus. At first the writing system wassketchy, giving only a few elements of a sentenceto help a reader remember something he probablyalready knew. Later, people thought to write wholesentences in the order in which they were to bespoken, so writing could communicate new infor-mation to a reader. The Sumerian writing systemused several thousand characters, some of which

stood for words and some for sounds. Some charac-ters stood for many different sounds or words, andsome sounds could be written using a choice ofmany different characters. The result was a writingsystem that was difficult to learn. Sumerian stu-dents were fond of complaining about their unfairteachers, how hard their schoolwork was, and theirtoo-short vacations. Sumerian and Babylonianschools emphasized language and literature, ac-counting, legal practice, and mathematics, espe-cially geometry, along with memorization of muchabstract knowledge that had no relevance to every-day life. The ability to read and write was restrict-ed to an elite who could afford to go to school.

The “Peace” panel depicts animals, fish, and other goods brought inprocession to a banquet.

Seated figures, wearing woolen fleeces or fringed skirts, drink to theaccompaniment of a musician playing a lyre.

Picture Desk, Inc./Kobal Collection



Success in school, however, and factors such asgood family connections meant a literate Sumer-ian could find employment as a clerk, surveyor,teacher, diplomat, or administrator.

The Sumerians also began the development ofmathematics. The earliest Sumerian records suggestthat before 3000 B.C.E. people had not yet thought ofthe concept of “number” independently of countingspecific things. Therefore, the earliest writing useddifferent numerals for counting different things, andthe numerals had no independent value. (The samesign could be 10 or 18, for example, depending onwhat was counted.) Once an independent concept of

number was established, mathematics developedrapidly. The Sumerian system was based on the num-ber 60 (“sexagesimal”), rather than the number 10(“decimal”), the system in general use today. Sumer-ian counting survives in the modern 60-minute hourand the circle of 360 degrees. By the time ofHammurabi, the Mesopotamians were expert inmany types of mathematics, including mathematicalastronomy. The calendar the Mesopotamians usedhad twelve lunar months of thirty days each. Tokeep it in accordance with the solar year and theseasons, the Mesopotamians occasionally intro-duced a thirteenth month.

LAWS

If a son has struck his father, they shall cut offhis hand.

If a seignior has destroyed the eye of a memberof the aristocracy, they shall destroy his eye.

If he has broken another seignior’s bone, theyshall break his bone.

If he has destroyed the eye of a commoner orbroken the bone of a commoner, he shall payone mina of silver.

If he has destroyed the eye of a seignior’s slaveor broken the bone of a seignior’s slave, heshall pay one-half his value.

If a seignior has knocked out a tooth of aseignior of his own rank, they shall knockout his tooth.

If he has knocked out a commoner’s tooth, heshall pay one-third mina of silver. . . .

EPILOGUE

I, Hammurabi, the perfect king,was not careless (or) neglectful of the black-

headed (people),whom Enlil had presented to me,(and) whose shepherding Marduk had

committed to me;I sought out peaceful regions for them;I overcame grievous difficulties; . . . With the mighty weapon which Zababa and

Inanna entrusted to me,with the insight that Enki allotted to me,with the ability that Marduk gave me,I rooted out the enemy above and below;I made an end of war;I promoted the welfare of the land;I made the peoples rest in friendly

habitations; . . . The great gods called me,so I became the beneficent shepherd whose

scepter is righteous . . .

Pritchard, James; The Ancient Near East. © 1958 Princeton University Press, 1986 renewed PUP. Reprinted by permission of PrincetonUniversity Press.

H A M M U R A B I ’ S L AW C O D E

kHammurabi (1792–1750 B.C.E.) ruled the great Babylonian empire that stretched fromthe Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. Building on older Mesopotamian laws, hecompiled one of the great ancient codes, the most complete collection of Babylonianlaws. His legal decisions were inscribed in the Semitic Akkadian language in cuneiformscript placed in Babylon’s temple of Marduk. It contains 282 case laws dealing with eco-nomic (prices, tariffs, trade, and commerce), family law (marriage and divorce), criminallaw (assault, theft), and civil law (slavery, debt). The stone was discovered in the ancientPersian capital of Susa in 1901 and can now be found in the Louvre Museum in Paris.

■ What principles of justice underlie the cases shown here? By what rights did Ham-murabi claim to declare the law?

KAGANMC01_xxxii-037hr 12/12/05 12:50 PM Page 14


Religion The Sumerians and their successorsworshiped many gods and goddesses. They were vi-sualized in human form, with human needs andweaknesses. Most of the gods were identified withsome natural phenomenon such as the sky, freshwater, or storms. They differed from humans intheir greater power, sublime position in the uni-verse, and immortality. The Mesopotamians be-lieved the human race was created to serve thegods and to relieve the gods of the necessity of pro-viding for themselves. The gods were considereduniversal, but also residing in specific places, usu-ally one important god or goddess in each city.Mesopotamian temples were run like great house-holds where the gods were fed lavish meals, enter-tained with music, and honored with devotion andritual. There were gardens for their pleasure andbedrooms to retire to at night. The images of thegods were dressed and adorned with the finest ma-terials. Theologians organized the gods into fami-lies and generations. Human social institutions,such as kingship, or crafts, such as carpentry, wereassociated with specific gods, so the boundaries be-tween human and divine society were not alwaysclearly drawn. Because the great gods were visual-ized like human rulers, remote from the commonpeople and their concerns, the Mesopotamiansimagined another more personal intercessor godwho was supposed to look after a person, ratherlike a guardian spirit. The public festivals of thegods were important holidays, with parades, cere-monies, and special foods. People wore their bestclothes and celebrated their city and its gods. TheMesopotamians were religiously tolerant and read-ily accepted the possibility that different peoplemight have different gods.

The Mesopotamians had a vague and gloomy pic-ture of the afterworld. The winged spirits of the deadwere recognizable as individuals. They were con-fined to a dusty, dark netherworld, doomed to per-petual hunger and thirst unless someone offeredthem food and drink. Some spirits escaped to haunthuman beings. There was no preferential treatmentin the afterlife for those who had led religious or vir-tuous lives—everyone was in equal misery.Mesopotamian families often had a ceremony to re-member and honor their dead. People were usuallyburied together with goods such as pottery and orna-ments. In the Early Dynastic period, certain kingswere buried with a large retinue of attendants, in-cluding soldiers and musicians, who apparently tookpoison during the funeral ceremony and were buriedwhere they fell. But this practice soon disappeared.Children were sometimes buried under the floors ofhouses. Some families used burial vaults; others,large cemeteries. No tombstones or inscriptionsidentified the deceased. Mesopotamian religion fo-

cused on problems of this world and how to lead agood life before dying. (See “Encountering The Past:Divination in Ancient Mesopotamia,” page 16.)

Religion played a large part in the literature andart of Mesopotamia. Epic poems told of the deedsof the gods, such as how the world was created andorganized, of a great flood the gods sent to wipe outthe human race, and of the hero-king Gilgamesh,who tried to escape death by going on a fantasticjourney to find the sole survivor of the great flood.There were also many literary and artistic worksthat were not religious in character, so we shouldnot imagine religion dominated all aspects of theMesopotamians’ lives. Religious architecture tookthe form of great temple complexes in the majorcities. The most imposing religious structure wasthe ziggurat, a tower in stages, sometimes with asmall chamber on top. The terraces may have beenplanted with trees to resemble a mountain. Poetryabout ziggurats often compares them to moun-tains, with their peaks in the sky and their roots inthe netherworld, linking heaven to earth, but theirprecise purpose is not known. Eroded remains ofmany of these monumental structures still dot theIraqi landscape. Through the Bible, they have en-tered Western tradition as “the tower of Babel.”

Society Hundreds of thousands of cuneiformtexts from the early third millennium B.C.E. untilthe third century B.C.E. give us a detailed picture ofhow peoples in ancient Mesopotamia conductedtheir lives and of the social conditions in whichthey lived. From the time of Hammurabi, for ex-ample, there are many royal letters to and from thevarious rulers of the age, letters from the king tohis subordinates, administrative records frommany different cities, and numerous letters anddocuments belonging to private families.

Categorizing the laws of Hammurabi according tothe aspects of life with which they deal reveals muchabout Babylonian life in his time. The third largestcategory of laws deals with commerce, relating tosuch issues as contracts, debts, rates of interest, secu-rity, and default. Business documents of Hammu-rabi’s time show how people invested their money inland, moneylending, government contracts, and in-ternational trade. Some of these laws regulate profes-sionals, such as builders, judges, and surgeons. Thesecond largest category of laws deals with landtenure, especially land given by the king to soldiersand marines in return for their service. The letters ofHammurabi that deal with land tenure show he wasconcerned to uphold the individual rights of land-holders against powerful officials who tried to taketheir land from them. The largest category of laws re-lates to the family and its maintenance and protec-tion, including marriage, inheritance, and adoption.


Divination in Ancient Mesopotamia

studied the resulting patterns for signs. They foundomens in how people answered questions or in whatthey overheard strangers say. They collected claytablets—their books—that described people’s appear-ance and what it might tell them about the future.

The heavens were another source of omens. As-trologers recorded and interpreted the movementsof the stars, planets, comets, and other heavenlybodies. Mesopotamia’s great progress in astronomyderived in large part from this practice. The studyof dreams and of unusual births, both human andanimal, was also important. Troubled dreams andmonstrous offspring had frightening implicationsfor human affairs.

All these practices derived from the belief thatthe gods sent omens to warn human beings. Oncethe omens had been interpreted, the Mesopotami-ans sought to avert danger with magic and prayers.

■ How did the Mesopotamians try to learn whatwould happen in the future, and what did theytry to do about what they learned? How wouldthey explain their great interest in omens?

E N C O U N T E R I N G T H E PA S T

16

Astrological calendar. From Uruk, Mesopotamia.Babylonian, 1st mill. B.C.E. Museum of OrientalAntiquities, Istanbul, Turkey. Astrological calendar.From Uruk, Mesopotamia. Babylonian, 1st mill. B.C.E.Museum of Oriental Antiquities, Istanbul, Turkey.Photograph © Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY

Divination attempts to foretell the future bythe use of magic or occult practices. Theancient Mesopotamians put much thought

and effort into discovering signs that they believedwould indicate future events, interpreting themeaning of these signs, and taking steps to avertevil. Mesopotamians believed in divination theway many people today put their trust in science.

One of the earliest divination methods theMesopotamians used involved the sacrifice ofsheep and goats. Seers examined the entrails of thesacrificed animals to look for deformations thatcould foretell the future. Clay tablets recorded par-ticular deformations and the historical events theyhad foretold. The search for omens in the entrailsof sacrificial animals was especially important forMesopotamian kings, who always performed thatceremony before undertaking important affairs ofstate.

But animal sacrifice was expensive. MostMesopotamians, therefore, used other devices. Theyburned incense and examined the shape of thesmoke that arose. They poured oil into water and

KAGANMC01_xxxii-037hr 12/12/05 3:32 PM Page 16


You wrote to me saying, “You’ll need to safe-guard the bracelets and rings which are

there so they’ll be available [to buy] food.” Infact, you sent [the man] Ilum-bani a half poundof gold! Which are the bracelets you left me?When you left, you didn’t leave me an ounce ofsilver, you picked the house clean and tookaway everything! After you left, there was a se-vere famine in the city. Not so much as a quartof grain did you leave me, I always had to buygrain for our food. Besides that, I paid the assess-

ment for the divine icon (?); in fact, I paid for mypart in full. Besides that, I paid over to the TownHall the grain owed [the man] Atata. What is theextravagance you keep writing to me about?There is nothing for us to eat—we’re the onesbeing extravagant? I picked up whatever I had tohand and sent it to you—today I’m living in anempty house. It’s high time you sent me themoney realized on my weavings, in silver, fromwhat you have to hand, so I can buy ten quartsof grain!

Translation, Benjamin R. Foster, 1999.

A N A S S Y R I A N WO M A N W R I T E S TO H E R H U S B A N D, c a . 1 8 0 0 B . C . E .

kThe wives of early Assyrian businessmen were often active in their husbands’ busi-ness affairs. They made extra money for themselves by having slave girls weave tex-tiles that the husbands then sold on business trips. Their letters are one of thelargest groups of women’s records from the ancient world. The woman writing thisletter, Taram-Kubi, complains of her husband’s selfishness and points out all thematters she has worked on during his absence on business.

■ What functions did this woman perform on behalf of the family? How do you judgeher real power in regard to her husband? On what evidence do you base that judg-ment? What does this document reveal about the place of women in Assyrian society?

Parents usually arranged marriages, and be-trothal was followed by the signing of a marriagecontract. The bride usually left her own family tojoin her husband’s. The husband-to-be could makea bridal payment, and the father of the bride-to-beprovided a dowry for his daughter in money, land,or objects. A marriage started out monogamous,but a husband whose wife was childless or sicklycould take a second wife. Sometimes husbands alsosired children from domestic slave women. Womencould possess their own property and do businesson their own. Women divorced by their husbandswithout good cause could get their dowry back. Awoman seeking divorce could also recover herdowry if her husband could not convict her ofwrongdoing. A married woman’s place was thoughtto be in the home, but hundreds of letters betweenwives and husbands show them as equal partners inthe ventures of life. (See “An Assyrian WomanWrites to Her Husband, ca. 1800 B.C.E.,” below.)Single women who were not part of families couldset up in business on their own, often as tavernowners or moneylenders, or could be associated

with temples, sometimes working as midwives andwet nurses, or taking care of orphaned children.

Slavery: Chattel Slaves and Debt Slaves Therewere two main types of slavery in Mesopotamia:chattel and debt slavery. Chattel slaves werebought like any other piece of property and had nolegal rights. They had to wear their hair in a certainway and were sometimes branded or tattooed ontheir hands. They were often non-Mesopotamiansbought from slave merchants. Prisoners of warcould also be enslaved. Chattel slaves were expen-sive luxuries during most of Mesopotamian history.They were used in domestic service rather than inproduction, such as fieldwork. A wealthy house-hold might have five or six slaves, male and female.

Debt slavery was more common than chattel slav-ery. Rates of interest were high, as much as 33.3 per-cent, so people often defaulted on loans. One reasonthe interest rates were so high was that the govern-ment periodically canceled certain types of debts,debt slavery, and obligations, so lenders ran the risk oflosing their money. If debtors had pledged themselves



MAJOR PERIODS IN ANCIENTEGYPTIAN HISTORY

(DYNASTIES IN ROMAN NUMERALS)

3100–2700 B.C.E. Early Dynastic Period (I–II)2700–2200 B.C.E. Old Kingdom (III–VI)2200–2052 B.C.E. First Intermediate Period (VII–XI)2052–1630 B.C.E. Middle Kingdom (XII–XIII)1630–1550 B.C.E. Second Intermediate Period

(XIV–XVII)1550–1075 B.C.E. New Kingdom (XVIII–XX)

its sources in Lake Victoria and the Ethiopian high-lands, the Nile flows north some 4,000 miles to theMediterranean. Ancient Egypt included the 750-mile stretch of smooth, navigable river from Aswanto the sea. South of Aswan the river’s course is in-terrupted by several cataracts—rocky areas ofrapids and whirlpools.

The Egyptians recognized two sets of geographi-cal divisions in their country. Upper (southern)Egypt consisted of the narrow valley of the Nile.Lower (northern) Egypt referred to the broad trian-gular area, named by the Greeks after their letter“delta,” formed by the Nile as it branches out toempty into the Mediterranean. (See Map 1–2.) Theyalso made a distinction between what they termedthe “black land,” the dark fertile fields along the

Nile, and the “red land,” thedesert cliffs and plateaus border-ing the valley.

The Nile alone made agricul-ture possible in Egypt’s desert en-vironment. Each year the rains ofcentral Africa caused the river torise over its floodplain, crestingin September and October. Inplaces the plain extends severalmiles on either side; elsewherethe cliffs slope down to thewater’s edge. When the flood-waters receded, they left a richlayer of organically fertile silt.The construction and mainte-nance of canals, dams, and irriga-tion ditches to control the river’swater, together with careful plan-ning and organization of plantingand harvesting, produced an agri-cultural prosperity unmatched inthe ancient world.

The Nile served as the majorhighway connecting Upper andLower Egypt. There was also anetwork of desert roads running

The Great Sphinx has the body of a lion and the head of a man. It was carved atGiza in the reign of the Pharaoh Khafre (c. 2570–2544 B.C.E.). SEF/Art Resource, NY

or members of their families as surety for a loan, theybecame the slave of the creditor; their labor went topay the interest on the loan. Debt slaves could not besold, but could redeem their freedom by paying off theloan. True chattel slavery did not become commonuntil the Neo-Babylonian period (612–539 B.C.E.).

Although laws against fugitive slaves or slaveswho denied their masters were harsh—the Code ofHammurabi permits the death penalty for anyonewho sheltered or helped a runaway slave to escape—Mesopotamian slavery appears enlightened com-pared with other slave systems in history. Slaveswere generally of the same people as their masters.They had been enslaved because of misfortune fromwhich their masters were not immune, and theygenerally labored alongside them. Slaves could en-gage in business and, with certain restrictions, holdproperty. They could marry free men or women, andthe resulting children would normally be free. Aslave who acquired the means could buy his or herfreedom. Children of a slave by a master might beallowed to share his property after his death. Never-theless, slaves were property, subject to an owner’swill and had little legal protection.

EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION

As Mesopotamian civilization arose in the valley ofthe Tigris and Euphrates, another great civilizationemerged in Egypt, centered on the Nile River. From



north and south, as well as routes across the easterndesert to the Sinai and the Red Sea. Other tracks ledto oases in the western desert. Thanks to geographyand climate, Egypt was more isolated and enjoyed farmore security than Mesopotamia. This security,along with the predictable flood calendar, gave Egypt-ian civilization a more optimistic outlook than thecivilizations of the Tigris and Euphrates, which weremore prone to storms, flash floods, and invasions.

The 3,000-year span of ancient Egyptian history istraditionally divided into thirty-one royal dynasties,from the first, said to have been founded by Menes,

the king who originally united Upper and LowerEgypt, to the last, established by Alexander the Great,who conquered Egypt in 332 B.C.E. (as we see inChapter 3). Ptolemy, one of Alexander’s generals,founded the Ptolemaic Dynasty, whose last ruler wasCleopatra. In 30 B.C.E., the Romans defeated Egypt, ef-fectively ending the independent existence of a civi-lization that had lasted three millennia.

The unification of Upper and Lower Egypt wasvital, for it meant the entire river valley could ben-efit from an unimpeded distribution of resources.Three times in its history, Egypt experienced a

Mediterranean

Sea

AegeanSea

Black SeaCaspian

Sea

Gulf

Red Sea

Hellespont

Ha

lys River

Euphrates Tigris

River

River

River

Nile

Herm us R i ver

Maeander R. Lake Van

Dead Sea

Sea of GalileeLIBYA

GREECE

IRAN

ELAM

BABYLONIA

A R A B I A

LOWER EGYPT

UPPER EGYPT

NUBIA

HATTI

LYCIA

SINAI

Alishar

Kültepe

PALMYRA

ARMENIACilician Gates

Memphis

Amarna

Thebes

Ur

Uruk

Babylon

Susa

Assur

Nineveh

Tanis

Ascalon

Jerusalem

JerichoJoppa Megiddo

TyreSidon

ByblosBeirut

Aradus

DamascusKadesh

Ugarit

Tadmor

Aleppo Carchemish

EnkomiNuzi

Arbela

Tell HalafHarran

Nippur

Larsa

Eshnunna

Alalakh

MersinTarsus

Tyana

Hattusas

Miletus

Ialysos

Troy

Pylos

AthensMycenae

Mt. Sinai

Mt. Carmel

Mt. Ararat

TaurusMts.

Mts.

Zagros

300 KILOMETERS

300 MILES

Mycenaean Expansion

Hittite Empire

Egyptian Empire

Kingdom of the Mitanni

Babylonia under the Kassites

Mediterranean Sea

Aegean

Sea

Thebes

Athens

Agia TriadaPhaistos Gournia

Zakros

PalaikastroMallia

KnossosTylissos

PylosTiryns

Mycenae

Argos

Orchomenos

GREECE

CYPRUS

CRETE

Crete

E X P L O R AT I O NM A P

Interactive map: To explore this map further, go to http://www.prenhall.com/kagan/map1.2

Map 1–2 THE NEAR EAST AND GREECE ABOUT 1400 B.C.E. About 1400 B.C.E., the Near Eastwas divided among four empires. Egypt extended south to Nubia and north through Pales-tine and Phoenicia. The Kassites ruled in Mesopotamia, the Hittites in Asia Minor, and theMitannians in Assyrian lands. In the Aegean, the Mycenaean kingdoms were at their height.



century or more of political and social disintegra-tion, known as Intermediate Periods. During theseeras, rival dynasties often set up separate powerbases in Upper and Lower Egypt until a strongleader reunified the land.

The Old Kingdom (2700–2200 B.C.E.) The OldKingdom represents the culmination of the culturaland historical developments of the Early Dynasticperiod. For over 400 years, Egypt enjoyed internalstability and great prosperity. During this period,the pharaoh (the term comes from the Egyptian for“great house,” much as we use “White House” torefer to the president) was a king who was also agod. From his capital at Memphis, the god-king ad-ministered Egypt according to set principles, primeamong them being maat, an ideal of order, justice,and truth. In return for the king’s building andmaintaining temples, the gods preserved the equi-librium of the state and ensured the king’s continu-ing power, which was absolute. Since the king wasobligated to act infallibly in a benign and benefi-cent manner, the welfare of the people of Egypt wasautomatically guaranteed and safeguarded.

Nothing better illustrates the nature of Old King-dom royal power than the pyramids built as phar-aonic tombs. Beginning in the Early Dynastic period,kings constructed increasingly elaborate burial com-plexes in Upper Egypt. Djoser, a Third Dynasty king,was the first to erect a monumental six-step pyramidof hard stone. Subsequent pharaohs built otherstepped pyramids until Snefru, the founder of theFourth Dynasty, converted a stepped to a true pyra-mid over the course of putting up three monuments.

His son Khufu (Cheops in the Greek version of hisname) chose the desert plateau of Giza, south ofMemphis, as the site for the largest pyramid everconstructed. Its dimensions are prodigious: 481 feethigh, 756 feet long on each side, and its base covering13.1 acres. The pyramid is made of 2.3 million stoneblocks averaging 2.5 tons each. It is also a geometri-cal wonder, deviating from absolutely level andsquare only by the most minute measurementsusing the latest modern devices. Khufu’s successors,Khafre (Chephren) and Menkaure (Mycerinus), builtequally perfect pyramids at Giza, and together, thethree constitute one of the most extraordinaryachievements in human history. Khafre also builtthe huge composite creature, part lion and parthuman, that the Greeks named the Sphinx. Recentresearch has shown that the Sphinx played a crucialrole in the solar cult aspects of the pyramid complex.

The pyramids are remarkable not only for thegreat technical skill they demonstrate, but also forthe concentration of resources they represent. Theyare evidence that the pharaohs controlled vastwealth and had the power to focus and organize

enormous human effort over the years it took tobuild each pyramid. They also provide a visible indi-cation of the nature of the Egyptian state: The pyra-mids, like the pharaohs, tower above the land; thelow tombs at their base, like the officials buriedthere, seem to huddle in relative unimportance.

Originally, the pyramids and their associatedcult buildings contained statuary, offerings, and allthe pharaoh needed for the afterlife. Despite greatprecautions and ingenious concealment methods,tomb robbers took nearly everything, leaving littlefor modern archeologists to recover. Several full-size wooden boats have been found, however, stillin their own graves at the base of the pyramids,ready for the pharaoh’s journeys in the next world.Recent excavations have uncovered remains of thelarge town built to house the thousands of pyramidbuilders, including the farmers who worked atGiza during the annual flooding of their fields.

Numerous officials, both members of the royalfamily and nonroyal men of ability, aided the god-kings. The highest office was the vizier (a modernterm from Arabic). Central offices dealing withgranaries, surveys, assessments, taxes, and salariesadministered the land. Water management waslocal rather than on a national level. Upper andLower Egypt were divided into nomes, or districts,each governed by a nomarch, or governor, and hislocal officials. The kings could also appoint royalofficials to oversee groups of nomes or to supervisepharaonic land holdings throughout Egypt.

The First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom(2200–1786 B.C.E.) Toward the end of the OldKingdom, for a combination of political and eco-nomic reasons, absolute pharaonic power waned asthe nomarchs and other officials became more in-dependent and influential. About 2200 B.C.E., theOld Kingdom collapsed and gave way to the decen-tralization and disorder of the First IntermediatePeriod, which lasted until about 2052 B.C.E. Eventu-ally, the kings of Dynasty 11, based in Thebes inUpper Egypt, defeated the rival Dynasty 10, basedin a city south of Giza.

Amunemhet I, the founder of Dynasty 12 andthe Middle Kingdom, probably began his career asa successful vizier under an Eleventh Dynastyking. After reuniting Upper and Lower Egypt, heturned his attention to making three importantand long-lasting administrative changes. First, hemoved his royal residence from Thebes to a brand-new town, just south of the old capital at Mem-phis, signaling a fresh start rooted in past glories.Second, he reorganized the nome structure bymore clearly defining the nomarchs’ duties to thestate, granting them some local autonomy withinthe royal structure. Third, he established a co-



regency system to smooth transitions from onereign to another.

Amunemhet I and the other Middle Kingdompharaohs sought to evoke the past by buildingpyramid complexes like those of the later OldKingdom rulers. Yet the events of the First Inter-mediate Period had irrevocably changed the natureof Egyptian kingship. Gone was the absolute, dis-tant god-king; the king was now more directly con-cerned with his people. In art, instead of thesupremely confident faces of the Old Kingdompharaohs, the Middle Kingdom rulers seemthoughtful, careworn, and brooding.

Egypt’s relations with its neighbors becamemore aggressive during the Middle Kingdom. Tothe south, royal fortresses were built to controlNubia and the growing trade in African resources.To the north and east, Syria and Palestine increas-ingly came under Egyptian influence, even as forti-fications sought to prevent settlers from theLevant from moving into the Delta.

The Second Intermediate Period and the New King-dom (1630–1075 B.C.E.) For some unknown rea-son, during Dynasty 13, the kingship changedhands rapidly and the western Delta established it-self as an independent Dynasty 14, ushering in the

Second Intermediate Period. The eastern Delta,with its expanding Asiatic populations, came underthe control of the Hyksos (Dynasty 15) and minorAsiatic kings (Dynasty 16). Meanwhile, the Dy-nasty 13 kings left their northern capital and re-grouped in Thebes (Dynasty 17).

Though much later sources describe the Hyksos(“chief of foreign lands” in Egyptian) as ruthless in-vaders from parts unknown, they were almost cer-tainly Amorites from the Levant, part of thegradual infiltration of the Delta during the MiddleKingdom. Ongoing excavations at the Hyksos cap-ital of Avaris in the eastern Delta have revealed ar-chitecture, pottery, and other goods consistentwith that cultural background. After nearly a cen-tury of rule, the Hyksos were expelled, a processbegun by Kamose, the last king of Dynasty 17, andcompleted by his brother Ahmose, the first king ofthe Eighteenth Dynasty and the founder of theNew Kingdom.

During Dynasty 18, Egypt pursued foreign ex-pansion with renewed vigor. Military expeditionsreached as far north as the Euphrates in Syria, withfrequent campaigns in the Levant. To the south,major Egyptian temples were built in the Sudan,almost 1,300 miles from Memphis. Egypt’s eco-nomic and political power was at its height.

SHE: Love, how I’d love to slip down to the pond,bathe with you close by on the bank.

Just for you I’d wear my new Memphis swimsuit,made of sheer linen, fit for a queen—

Come see how it looks in the water!Couldn’t I coax you to wade in with me? Let the

cool creep slowly around us?Then I’d dive deep down and come up for you

dripping,Let you fill your eyes with the little red fish that

I’d catch.And I’d say, standing there tall in the shallows:Look at my fish, love, how it lies in my hand,

How my fingers caress it, slip down its sides . . . But then I’d say softer, eyes bright with your

seeing:A gift, love. No words.Come closer and look, it’s all me.

HE: I think I’ll go home and lie very still, feigningterminal illness.

Then the neighbors will all troop over to stare, mylove, perhaps, among them.

How she’ll smile while the specialists snarl intheir teeth!—

she perfectly well knows what ails me.

“Love, how I’d love to slip down to the pond” and “I think I’ll go home and lie very still”, from Love Songs of the New Kingdom, translated from theAncient Egyptian by John L. Foster, copyright © 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974 by John L. Foster. By permission of the University of Texas Press.

LOV E P O E M S F RO M T H E N E W K I N G D O M

kNumerous love poems from ancient Egypt reveal the Egyptians’ love of life throughtheir frank sensuality.

■ How does the girl in the first poem propose to escape the supervision of her par-ents? What ails the young man in the second poem?



Egypt’s position was reflected in the unprece-dented luxury and cosmopolitanism of the royalcourt and in the ambitious palace and temple pro-jects undertaken throughout the country. Perhaps tofoil tomb robbers, the Dynasty 18 pharaohswere the first to cut their tombs deep into therock cliffs of a desolate valley in Thebes,known today as the Valley of the Kings. Todate, only one intact royal tomb has been dis-covered there, that of the young Dynasty18 king Tutankhamun, and even it hadbeen disturbed shortly after his death.The thousands of goods buried withhim, many of them marvels of crafts-manship, give an idea of Egypt’s mater-ial wealth during this period.

Following the premature death ofTutankhamun in 1323 B.C.E., amilitary commander namedHoremheb assumed the king-ship, which passed in turn tohis own army commander,Ramses I. The pharaohsRamessides of Dynasty 19 un-dertook numerous monumen-tal projects, among themRamses II’s rock-cut templesat Abu Simbel, south of theFirst Cataract, which had tobe moved to a higher locationwhen the Aswan High Damwas built in the 1960s. Thereand elsewhere, Ramses II lefttextual and pictorial accountsof his battle in 1285 B.C.E.against the Hittites at Kadeshon the Orontes in Syria. Sixteen years later, theEgyptians and Hittites signed a formal peace treaty,forging an alliance against an increasingly volatilepolitical situation in the Mideast and easternMediterranean during the thirteenth century B.C.E.

Merneptah, one of the hundred offspring of RamsesII, held off a hostile Libyan attack, as well as incur-sions by the Sea Peoples, a loose coalition of Mediter-ranean raiders who seem to have provoked and takenadvantage of unsettled conditions. One of Mernep-tah’s inscriptions commemorating his military tri-umphs contains the first known mention of Israel.

Despite his efforts, by the end of Dynasty 20,Egypt’s period of imperial glory had passed. The nextthousand years witnessed a Third Intermediate Peri-od, a Saite Renaissance, Persian domination, con-quest by Alexander the Great, the Ptolemaic period,and finally, defeat at the hands of Octavian in 30 B.C.E.

Language and Literature Writing first appears inEgypt about 3000 B.C.E. Although the impetus for

the first Egyptian writing probably came fromMesopotamia, the Egyptians may have invented it ontheir own. The writing system, dubbed hieroglyphics(“sacred carvings”) by the Greeks, was highly sophis-

ticated, involving hundreds of picture signs thatremained relatively constant in the way theywere rendered for over 3,000 years. Many ofthem formed a syllabary of one, two, or threeconsonantal sounds; some conveyed a word’s

meaning or category, either independentlyor added to the end of the word. Textswere usually written horizontally fromright to left, but could be written fromleft to right, as well as vertically fromtop to bottom in both horizontal direc-tions. A cursive version of hiero-glyphics was used for business

documents and literary texts,which were penned rapidly inblack and red ink. The Egypt-ian language, part of the Afro-Asiatic (or Hamito-Semitic)family, evolved through sever-al stages—Old, Middle, andLate Egyptian, Demotic, andCoptic—thus giving it a histo-ry of continuous recorded usewell into the medieval period.

Egyptian literature includesnarratives, myths, books of in-struction in wisdom, letters,religious texts, and poetry,written on papyri, limestoneflakes, and postherds. (See“Love Poems from the NewKingdom,” page 21.) Unfortu-

nately only a small fraction of this enormous litera-ture has survived, and many texts are incomplete.Though they surely existed, we have no epics or dra-mas from ancient Egypt. Such nonliterary docu-ments as lists of kings, autobiographies in tombs,wine jar labels, judicial records, astronomical obser-vations, and medical and other scientific texts areinvaluable for our understanding of Egyptian historyand civilization.

Religion: Gods and Temples Egyptian religion en-compasses a multitude of concepts that often seemmutually contradictory to us. Three separate expla-nations for the origin of the universe were formu-lated, each based in the philosophical traditions of avenerable Egyptian city. The cosmogony of Heliop-olis, north of Memphis, held that the creator sungod Atum (also identified as Re) emerged from thedarkness of a vast sea to stand upon a primevalmound, containing within himself the life force ofthe gods he was to create. At Memphis, it was the

Seated Egyptian scribe, height 21′ (53 cm)painted lime-stone, fifth dynasty, c. 2510–2460 B.C.E. One of the hallmarks ofthe early river valley civilizations was thedevelopment of writing. Ancient Egyptianscribes had to undergo rigorous training, butwere rewarded with a position of respect andprivilege. “Seated Scribe” from Saqqara, Egypt. 5th Dynasty, c. 2510–2460 B.C.E. Painted limestone,height 21′ (53 cm). Musee du Louvre, Paris. Bridgeman-Giraudon/Art Resource, NY



god Ptah who created the other gods by utteringtheir names. Further south, at Hermopolis, eightmale and female entities within a primordial slimesuddenly exploded, and the energy that resulted cre-ated the sun and Atum, from which the rest came.

The Egyptian gods, or pantheon, similarly defyneat categorization, in part because of the commontendency to combine the character and function ofone or more gods. Amun, one of the eight entities inthe Hermopolitan cosmogony, provides a good exam-ple. Thebes, Amun’s cult center, rose to prominencein the Middle Kingdom. In the New Kingdom, Amunwas elevated above his seven cohorts and took on as-pects of the sun god Re to become Amun-Re.

Not surprisingly in a nearly rainless land, solarcults and mythologies were highly developed. Muchthought was devoted to conceptualizing what hap-pened as the sun god made his perilous way throughthe underworld in the night hours between sunsetand sunrise. Three long texts trace Re’s journey ashe vanquishes immense snakes and other foes.

The Eighteenth Dynasty was one of several peri-ods during which solar cults were in ascendancy.Early in his reign, Amunhotep IV promoted a sin-gle, previously minor aspect of the sun, the Aten(“disk”) above Re himself and the rest of the gods.He declared that the Aten was the creator god whobrought life to humankind and all living beings,with himself and his queen Nefertiti the sole me-diators between the Aten and the people. For reli-gious and political reasons still imperfectlyunderstood, he went further, changing his name toAkhenaten (“the effective spirit of the Aten”),building a new capital called Akhetaten (“the hori-zon of the Aten”) near Amarma north of Thebes,and chiseling out the name of Amun from inscrip-tions everywhere. Shortly after his death, Amarnawas abandoned and partially razed. A large diplo-matic archive of tablets written in Akkadian wasleft at the site, which give us a vivid, if one-sided,picture of the political correspondence of the day.During the reigns of Akhenaten’s successors, Tu-tankhamun (born Tutankhaten) and Horemheb,Amun was restored to his former position, andAkhenaten’s monuments were defaced and evendemolished.

In representations, Egyptian gods have humanbodies, possess human or animal heads, and wearcrowns, celestial disks, or thorns. The lone excep-tion is the Aten, made nearly abstract by Akhenat-en, who altered its image to a plain disk with solarrays ending in small hands holding the hieroglyph-ic sign for life to the nostrils of Akhenaten andNefertiti. The gods were thought to reside in theircult centers, where, from the New Kingdom on, in-creasingly ostentatious temples were built, staffedby full-time priests. At Thebes, for instance, suc-

cessive kings enlarged the great Karnak templecomplex dedicated to Amun for over 2,000 years.Though the ordinary person could not enter a tem-ple precinct, great festivals took place for all to see.During Amun’s major festival of Opet, the statueof the god traveled in a divine boat along the Nile,whose banks were thronged with spectators.

Worship and the Afterlife For most Egyptians,worship took place at small local shrines. They leftofferings to the chosen gods, as well as votive in-scriptions with simple prayers. Private housesoften had niches containing busts for ancestor wor-ship and statues of household deities. The Egyp-tians strongly believed in the power of magic,dreams, and oracles, and they possessed a wide va-riety of amulets to ward off evil.

The Egyptians thought the afterlife was full ofdangers, which could be overcome by magicalmeans, among them the spells in the Book of theDead. The goals were to join and be identified withthe gods, especially Osiris, or to sail in the “boat ofmillions.” Originally only the king could hope toenjoy immortality with the gods, but graduallythis became available to all. Since the Egyptiansbelieved the preservation of the body was essentialfor continued existence in the afterlife, early onthey developed mummification, a process thattook seventy days by the New Kingdom. How lav-ishly tombs were prepared and decorated variedover the course of Egyptian history and in accor-dance with the wealth of a family. A high-rankingDynasty 18 official, for example, typically had aTheban rock-cut tomb of several rooms embell-ished with scenes from daily life and funerarytexts, as well as provisions and equipment for theafterlife, statuettes of workers, and a place for de-scendants to leave offerings.

Women in Egyptian Society It is difficult to assessthe position of women in Egyptian society, becauseour pictorial and textual evidence comes almost en-tirely from male sources. Women’s prime roles wereconnected with the management of the household.They could not hold office, go to scribal schools, orbecome artisans. Nevertheless, women could ownand control property, sue for divorce, and, at least intheory, enjoy equal legal protection.

Royal women often wielded considerable influ-ence, particularly in the Eighteenth Dynasty. Themost remarkable was Hatshepsut, daughter ofThutmosis I and widow of Thutmosis II, who ruledas pharaoh for nearly twenty years. Many Egyptianqueens held the title “god’s wife of Amun,” apower base of great importance.

In art, royal and nonroyal women are convention-ally shown smaller than their husbands or sons (seeillustration). Yet it is probably of greater significance



that they are so frequently depicted in such a widevariety of contexts. Much care was lavished on de-tails of their gestures, clothing, and hairstyles. Withtheir husbands, they attend banquets, boat in thepapyrus marshes, make and receive offerings, andsupervise the myriad affairs of daily life.

Slaves Slaves did not become numerous in Egyptuntil the growth of Egyptian imperial power in theMiddle Kingdom (2052–1786 B.C.E.). During thatperiod, black Africans from Nubia to the southand Asians from the east were captured in war andbrought back to Egypt as slaves. The great periodof Egyptian imperial expansion, the New Kingdom(1550–1075 B.C.E.), vastly increased the number ofslaves and captives in Egypt. Sometimes an entirepeople was enslaved, as the Bible says theHebrews were.

Slaves in Egypt performed many tasks. They la-bored in the fields with the peasants, in the shops ofartisans, and as domestic servants. Others worked aspolicemen and soldiers. Many slaves labored to erectthe great temples, obelisks, and other huge monu-ments of Egypt’s imperial age. As in Mesopotamia,slaves were branded for identification and to help pre-vent their escape. Slaves could be freed in Egypt, butmanumission seems to have been rare. Nonetheless,former slaves were not set apart and could expect tobe assimilated into the mass of the population.

ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN EMPIRESIn the time of Dynasty 18 in Egypt, new groups ofpeoples had established themselves in the NearEast: the Kassites in Babylonia, the Hittites in AsiaMinor, and the Mitannians in northern Syria andMesopotamia. (See Map 1–2, page 19.) The Kassitesand Mitannians were warrior peoples who ruled asa minority over more civilized folk and absorbedtheir culture. The Hittites established a kingdomof their own and forged an empire that lasted sometwo hundred years.

THE HITTITES

The Hittites were an Indo-European people, speak-ing a language related to Greek and Sanskrit. Byabout 1500 B.C.E., they established a strong, central-ized government with a capital at Hattusas (nearAnkara, the capital of modern Turkey). Between1400 and 1200 B.C.E., they emerged as a leading mil-itary power in the Mideast and contested Egypt’sambitions to control Palestine and Syria. This strug-gle culminated in a great battle between the Egypt-ian and Hittite armies at Kadesh in northern Syria(1285 B.C.E.) and ended as a standoff. The Hittitesadopted Mesopotamian writing and many aspects ofMesopotamian culture, especially through the Hur-

The Egyptians believed in the possibility of life after death through the god Osiris. Aspectsof each person’s life had to be tested by forty-two assessor-gods before the person could bepresented to Osiris. In the scene from a papyrus manuscript of the Book of the Dead, thedeceased and his wife (on the left) watch the scales of justice weighing his heart (on the leftside of the scales) against the feather of truth. The jackal-headed god Anubis also watchesthe scales, and the ibis-headed god Thoth keeps the record. British Museum, London, UK/TheBridgeman Art Library International Ltd.



rian peoples of northern Syria and southern Anato-lia. Their extensive historical records are the first tomention the Greeks, whom the Hittites called Ah-hiyawa (the Achaeans of Homer). The Hittite king-dom disappeared by 1200 B.C.E., swept away in thegeneral invasions and collapse of the Mideastern na-tion-states at that time. Successors to the empire,called the Neo-Hittite states, flourished in southernAsia Minor and northern Syria until the Assyriansdestroyed them in the first millennium B.C.E.

The government of the Hittites was differentfrom that of Mesopotamia in that Hittite kingsdid not claim to be divine or even to be the cho-sen representatives of the gods. In the early peri-od, a council of nobles limited the king’s power,and the assembled army had to ratify his succes-sion to the throne.

The Discovery of Iron An important technologi-cal change took place in northern Anatolia, some-what earlier than the creation of the HittiteKingdom, but perhaps within its region. This wasthe discovery of how to smelt iron and the decisionto use it to manufacture weapons and tools in pref-erence to copper or bronze. Archaeologists refer tothe period after 1100 B.C.E. as the Iron Age.

THE ASSYRIANS

The Assyrians were originally a people living inAssur, a city in northern Mesopotamia on theTigris River. They spoke a Semitic language close-

ly related to Babylonian. They had a proud, inde-pendent culture heavily influenced by Babylonia.Assur had been an early center for trade, butemerged as a political power during the fourteenthcentury B.C.E. The first Assyrian empire spreadnorth and west, but was brought to an end in thegeneral collapse of Near Eastern states at the endof the second millennium. A people called theArameans, a Semitic nomadic and agriculturalpeople originally from northern Syria who spoke alanguage called Aramaic, invaded Assyria. Arama-ic is still used in parts of the Near East and is oneof the languages of medieval Jewish and Mideast-ern Christian culture.

THE SECOND ASSYRIAN EMPIRE

After 1000 B.C.E., the Assyrians began a second pe-riod of expansion, and by 665 B.C.E., they controlledall of Mesopotamia, much of southern Asia Minor,Syria, Palestine, and Egypt to its southern frontier.They succeeded, thanks to a large, well-disciplinedarmy and a society that valued military skills.Some Assyrian kings boasted of their atrocities, sotheir names inspired terror throughout the NearEast. They constructed magnificent palaces atNineveh and Nimrud (near modern Mosul, Iraq),surrounded by parks and gardens. The walls of thereception rooms and hallways were decorated withstone reliefs and inscriptions proclaiming thepower and conquests of the king.

Relief, Israel, 10th–6thCentury: Judean exilescarrying provisions. Detailof the Assyrian conquestof the Jewish fortifiedtown of Lachish (battle701 B.C.). Part of a relieffrom the palace ofSennacherib at Nineveh,Mesopotamia (Iraq).British Museum, London, GreatBritain. Copyright ErichLessing/Art Resource, NY



The Assyrians organized their empire intoprovinces with governors, military garrisons, andadministration for taxation, communications, andintelligence. Important officers were assigned largeareas of land throughout the empire, and agricultur-al colonies were set up in key regions to store upsupplies for military actions beyond the frontiers.Vassal kings had to send tribute and delegations tothe Assyrian capital every year. Tens of thousandsof people were forcibly displaced from their homesand resettled in other areas of the empire, partly topopulate sparsely inhabited regions, partly to di-minish resistance to Assyrian rule. People of thekingdom of Israel, which the Assyrians invaded anddestroyed, were among them.

The empire became too large to govern efficient-ly. The last years of Assyria are obscure, but civilwar apparently divided the country. The Medes, apowerful people from western and central Iran, hadbeen expanding across the Iranian plateau. Theywere feared for their cavalry and archers, againstwhich traditional Mideastern armies were ineffec-tive. The Medes attacked Assyria and were joinedby the Babylonians, who had always been restiveunder Assyrian rule, under the leadership of a gen-eral named Nebuchadnezzar. They eventually de-stroyed the Assyrian cities, including Nineveh in612 B.C.E., so thoroughly that Assyria never recov-ered. The ruins of the great Assyrian palaces layuntouched until archaeologists began to explorethem in the nineteenth century.

THE NEO-BABYLONIANS

The Medes did not follow up on their conquests, soNebuchadnezzar took over much of the Assyrianempire. Under him and his successors, Babylon grewinto one of the greatest cities of the world. The Greektraveler Herodotus described its wonders, includingits great temples, fortification walls, boulevards,parks, and palaces, to a Greek readership that hadnever seen the like. Babylon prospered as a center ofworld trade, linking Egypt, India, Iran, and Syria-Palestine by land and sea routes. For centuries, an as-tronomical center at Babylon kept detailed records ofobservations that were the longest-running chronicleof the ancient world. Nebuchadnezzar’s dynasty didnot last long, and the government passed to variousmen in rapid succession. The last independent kingof Babylon set up a second capital in the Arabiandesert and tried to force the Babylonians to honor theMoon-god above all other gods. He allowed dishonestor incompetent speculators to lease huge areas oftemple land for their personal profit. These policiesproved unpopular—some said that the king wasinsane—and many Babylonians may have welcomedthe Persian conquest that came in 539 B.C.



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Map 1–3 THEACHAEMENIDPERSIANEMPIREThe empire created by Cyrus had reached itsfullest extent under Darius when Persia attacked Greece in 490 B.C.E.It extended from Indiato the Aegean, and even into Europe, encompassing the lands formerly ruled by Egyptians.Hittites. Babylonians, and Assyrians.

Interactive map: To explore this map further, go to http://www.prenhall.com/kagan/map1.3the Persian religion but claimed to rule by thefavor of the Babylonian god. Instead of deporting defeated peoples from their native lands and de- stroying their cities, he rebuilt their cities and allowed the exiles to return. The conquest of the Babylonian Empire had brought Palestine under Persian rule, so Cyrus permitted the Hebrews, taken into captivity by King Nebuchadnezzar in 586 B

.C.E., to return to their native land of Judah.This policy, followed by his successors was effective but not so gentle as it might seem. Wherever they ruled, Cyrus and his successors demanded tribute from their subjects and military service, enforcing these requirements strictly and sometimes brutally.DARIUS THE

GREATCyrus’s son Cambyses succeeded to the throne in 529 B

.C.E . His great achievement was the conquest

of Egypt, establishing it as a satrapy (province) that ran as far west as Lybia and as far south as Ethiopia.

The Persians ruled, as the Bible puts it, “from India to Ethiopia, one hundred and twenty-seven provinces” (Esther 1:1). (See Map 1.3, above.) On Cambyses’s death in 5229B

.C .E., a civil war roiled

much of the Persian Empire. Darius emerged as the new emperor in 521 B.C.E.On a great rock hundreds of feet in the air near

the mountain Iranian village of Behistun, Darius had carved an inscription in three languages, Baby- lonian, Old Persian, and Elamite, all in the cuneiform script. They boasted of his victories and the greatness of his rule and, discovered almost two thousand years later, greatly helped scholars decipher all three languages. Darius’s long and prosperous reign lasted until 486 B

.C.E ., during

which he brought the empire to its greatest extent. To the east he added new conquests in northern India. In the west he sought to conquer the nomadic people called Scythians who roamed around the Black Sea. For this purpose he crossed into Eu- rope over the Hellespont (Dardanelles) to the

K A G A N M C 0 1 _ x x x i i - 0 3 7 h r 9 1 2 / 1 2 / 0 5 9 1 1 : 4 5 A M P a g e 2 7


Danube River and beyond, taking possession ofThrace and Macedonia on the fringes of the Greekmainland. In 499 B.C.E., the Ionian Greeks of west-ern Asia Minor rebelled launching the wars be-tween Greeks and Persians that would not enduntil two decades later. (See Chapter 2.)

GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATION

Like the Mesopotamian kingdoms, the Persian Em-pire was a hereditary monarchy that claimed divinesanction from the god Ahura Mazda. The ruler’stitle was Shahanshah, “king of kings.” In theory allthe land and the peoples in the empire belonged tohim as absolute monarch, and he demanded tributeand service for the use of his property. In practice hedepended on the advice and administrative serviceof aristocratic courtiers, ministers, and provincialgovernors, the satraps. He was expected, as AhuraMazda’s chosen representative, to rule with justice,in accordance with established custom and theprecedents in the Law of the Medes and Persians.Still, the king ruled as a semi-divine autocrat; any-one approaching him prostrated himself as before agod who could demand their wealth, labor, and mil-itary service and had the power of life and death.The Greeks would see him as the model of a despotor tyrant who regarded his people as slaves.

The empire was divided into twenty-ninesatrapies. The satraps were allowed considerable au-tonomy. They ruled over civil affairs and command-ed the army in war, but the king exercised severalmeans of control. In each satrapy he appointed a sec-retary and a military commander. He also chose in-spectors called “the eyes and ears of the king” whotraveled throughout the empire reporting on whatthey learned in each satrapy. Their travels and thoseof royal couriers were made swifter and easier by asystem of excellent royal roads. The royal postalsystem was served by a kind of “pony express” thatplaced men mounted on fast horses at stations alongthe way. It normally took three months to travel the1500 miles from Sardis in Lydia to the Persian capi-tal at Susa. The royal postal service made the trip inless than two weeks. Ruling over a vast empirewhose people spoke countless different languages,the Persians did not try to impose their own, but in-stead adopted Aramaic, the most common languageof Middle-Eastern commerce, as the imperialtongue. This practical decision simplified both civiland military administration.

Medes and Persian made up the core of thearmy. The best of them served in the 10,000 Im-mortals, while an additional 4,000 composedthe Great King’s bodyguard, divided equally be-tween infantry and cavalry. Royal schools trainedaristocratic Median and Persian boys as military

officers and imperial administrators. The officerscommanded not only the Iranian troops but alsodrafted large numbers of subject armies whenneeded. A large Persian army, such as the one thatinvaded Greece in 480 B.C.E., included hundredsof thousands of non-Iranian soldiers organized byethnic group, each dressed in its own uniforms,taking orders from Iranian officers.

RELIGION

Persia’s religion was different from that of itsneighbors and subjects. Its roots lay in the Indo-European traditions of the Vedic religion thatAryan peoples brought into India about 1500 B.C.E.Their religious practices included animal sacrificesand a reverence for fire. Although the religion waspolytheistic, its chief god Ahura Mazda, the “WiseLord,” demanded an unusual emphasis on a sternethical code. It took a new turn with the appear-ance of Zarathushtra, a Mede whom the Greekscalled Zoroaster, perhaps as early as 1000 B.C.E., astradition states, although some scholars place himabout 600 B.C.E. He was a great religious prophetand teacher who changed the traditional Aryanworship.

Zarathushtra’s reform made Ahura Mazda theonly god, dismissing the others as demons not tobe worshipped but fought. There would be no morepolytheism and no sacrifices. The old sacrificialfire was converted into a symbol of goodness andlight. Zarathushtra insisted that the people shouldreject the “Lie” (druj) and speak only the “Truth”(asha), portraying life as an unending struggle be-tween two great forces, Ahura Mazda, the creatorand only god, representing goodness and light, andAhriman, a demon, representing darkness and evil.He urged human beings to fight for the good, in theexpectation that the good would be rewarded withglory and the evil punished with suffering. (See “AHymn of Zarathustra About the Two Spirits ofGood and Evil.”)

Traditions and legends about Zarathustra aswell as law, liturgy, and the teachings of theprophet are contained in the Avesta, the sacredbook of the Persians. By the middle of the sixthcentury B.C.E., Zoroastrianism had become thechief religion of the Persians. On the great in-scribed monument at Behistun, Darius the Greatpaid public homage to the god of Zarathustra andhis teachings: “On this account Ahura Mazdabrought me help . . . because I was not wicked, norwas I a liar, nor was I a tyrant, neither I nor any ofmy line. I have ruled according to righteousness.”2

2J. H. Brested, Ancient times: a history of the early world.Boston, 193 p. 277.



(1) Then shall I speak, now give ear and hear-ken, both you who seek from near and you fromfar . . . (2) Then shall I speak of the two primalSpirits of existence, of whom the Very Holy thusspoke to the Evil One: ‘Neither our thoughts norteachings nor wills, neither our choices norwords nor acts, not our inner selves nor our soulsagree.’ (3) Then shall I speak of the foremost(doctrine) of this existence, which Mazda theLord. He with knowledge, declared to me. Thoseof you who do not act upon this manthra, evenas I shall think and speak it, for them there shallbe woe at the end of life. (4) Then shall I speak ofthe best things of this existence. I know Mazdawho created it in accord with truth to be the Fa-ther of active Good Purpose. And his daughter isDevotion of good action. The all-seeing Lord isnot to be deceived. (5) Then shall I speak of whatthe Most Holy One told me, the word to be lis-tened to as best for men. Those who shall give

for me hearkening and heed to Him, shall attainwholeness and immortality. Mazda is Lordthrough acts of the Good Spirit . . . (8) Him shallI seek to turn to us by praises of reverence, fortruly I have now seen with my eyes (the House)of Good Purpose, and of good act and deed, hav-ing known through Truth Him who is LordMazda. Then let us lay up supplications to Himin the House of Song. (9) Him shall I seek to re-quite for us with good purpose, Him who left toour will (the choice between) holy and unholy.May Lord Mazda by His power make us activefor prospering our cattle and men, through thefair affinity of good purpose with truth. (10) Himshall I seek to glorify for us with sacrifices of de-votion, Him who is known in the soul as LordMazda; for He has promised by His truth andgood purpose that there shall be wholeness andimmortality within His kingdom (khshathra),strength and perpetuity within His house.

From Mary Boyce, ed. and trans., Textual Sources for the Study of Zoroastrianism (Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press, 1984),p. 36.

A H Y M N O F Z O ROA S T E R A B O U T T H E T WO S P I R I T S O F G O O D A N D E V I L

kThe focus of Zoroaster’s reform was the supremacy of Ahura Mazda (the “WiseLord”) over all the deities of the Iranian pantheon. He is pictured in the hymns, orGathas, as the greatest of the ahuras, the divinities associated with the good. Theworld is seen in terms of a moral dualism of good and evil, which is represented onthe divine plane in the twin spirits created by Ahura Mazda, both of whom are giventhe freedom to choose the Truth or the Lie. The “Very Holy [Spirit]” chose Truth(“Righteousness”), and the “Evil [spirit]” (Angra Mainyu, or Ahriman), chose theevil of “the Lie.” Similarly, humans can choose the side with which they will allythemselves—the good spirit and the ahuras, or the evil spirit and the daevas (“thefalse gods”). This selection is from a gatha in Yasna (“Worship”), section 45 of themain Zoroastrian holy book, the Avesta.

■ What lesson or values does this passage teach? Is there a conflict between theseeming omnipotence ascribed to Ahura Mazda and the existence of Ahriman, theEvil, Spirit? How does the sharp choice offered here compare to the Buddha’s MiddlePath? (see “The ‘Turning of the Wheel of Dharma’: Basic Teachings of the Buddha,”in Chapter 2.)

ART AND CULTURE

The Persians learned much from the people theyencountered and those they conquered, especiallyfrom Mesopotamia and Egypt, but they shaped it tofit comfortably on a Persian base. A good example

is to be found in their system of writing. Theyadapted the Aramaic alphabet of the Semites tocreate a Persian alphabet and used the cuneiformsymbols of Babylon to write the Old Persian lan-guage they spoke. They borrowed their calendarfrom Egypt.



KEY EVENTS IN THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN EMPIRES

ca. 1400–1200 B.C.E. Hittite Empireca. 1100 B.C.E. Rise of Assyrian power732–722 B.C.E. Assyrian conquest of Syria-

Palestine671 B.C.E. Assyrian conquest of Egypt612 B.C.E. Destruction of Assyrian capital

at Nineveh612–539 B.C.E. Neo-Babylonian (Chaldean)

Empire550 B.C.E. Cyrus the Great unites

Persians and Medes546 B.C.E. Persia conquers Lydia

521–486 B.C.E. Reign of Darius the Great

Persian art and architecture contains similar el-ements of talents and styles borrowed from othersocieties and blended with Persian traditions toserve Persian purposes. In describing, with justifi-able pride, the construction of his palace at Susa,Darius says:

The cedar timber—a mountain by name Lebanon—fromthere it was brought . . . the yaka-timber was broughtfrom Gandara and from Carmania. The gold was broughtfrom Sardis and from Bactria . . . the precious stone lapis-lazuli and carnelian . . . was brought from Sogdiana.The . . . turquoise from Chorasmia. . . . The silver andebony . . . from Egypt . . . the ornamentation from Ionia . . .the ivory . . . from Ethiopia and from Sind and fromArachosia. . . . The stone-cutters who wrought the stone,those were Ionians and Sardians. The goldsmiths . . . wereMedes and Egyptians. The men who wrought the wood,

those were Sardians and Egyptians. The men who wroughtthe baked brick, those were Babylonians. The men whoadorned the wall, those were Medes and Egyptians.3

Probably the most magnificent of Persian re-mains are those of the Royal Palace at Persepolis,built by Darius and his successor Xerxes(r. 485–465 B.C.E.). Its foundation is a high platformsupported on three sides by a stone wall 20 or 30feet high. This was reached by a grand stairwaywhose sides are covered with carvings.

The complex contained the Hall of a HundredColumns where the kings did their judicial duties.Better than any other tangible objects, the columns,stairway, and the gateway with winged bulls revealthe grandeur of the ancient Persian Empire.

PALESTINENone of the powerful kingdoms of the ancientNear East had as much influence on the future ofWestern civilization as the small stretch of landbetween Syria and Egypt, the land called Palestinefor much of its history. The three great religions ofthe modern world outside the Far East—Judaism,Christianity, and Islam—trace their origins, atleast in part, to the people who arrived there a lit-tle before 1200 B.C.E. The book that recounts theirexperiences is the Hebrew Bible.

THE CANAANITES AND THE PHOENICIANS

Before the Israelites arrived in their promisedland, it was inhabited by groups of people speak-ing a Semitic language called Canaanite. The3T. Cuyler Young, Jr., “Iran, ancient”, Ecyclopaedia BritannicaOnline.

Persian nobles pay homage to King Darius in this relief from the treasury at the Persiancapital of Persepolis. Darius is seated on the throne: his son and successor Xerxes standsbehind him. Darius and Xerxes are carved in larger scale to indicate their royal status.Oriental Institute Museum, University of Chicago



THE ISRAELITES

ca. 1000–961 B.C.E. Reign of King Davidca. 961–922 B.C.E. Reign of King Solomon

722 B.C.E. Assyrian conquest of Israel(northern kingdom)

586 B.C.E. Destruction of Jerusalem; fall ofJudah (southern kingdom);Babylonian Captivity

539 B.C.E. Restoration of temple; return ofexiles

Canaanites lived in walled cities and were farm-ers and seafarers. They had their own writing sys-tem, an alphabet that may have originated amongpeople who were impressed by Egyptian writing,but wanted something much simpler to use. In-stead of the hundreds of characters required toread Egyptian or cuneiform, their alphabet usedbetween twenty and thirty characters. TheCanaanites, like the other peoples of Syria-Palestine, worshiped many gods, especially godsof weather and fertility, whom they thoughtresided in the clouds atop the high mountains of

northern Syria. The invading Israelites destroyedvarious Canaanite cities and holy places and mayhave forced some of the population to movenorth and west, though Canaanite and Israeliteculture also intermingled.

The Phoenicians were the descendants of theCanaanites and other peoples of Syria-Palestine, es-pecially those who lived along the coast. Theyplayed an important role in Mediterranean trade,sailing to ports in Cyprus, Asia Minor, Greece,Italy, France, Spain, Egypt, and North Africa, as faras Gibraltar and possibly beyond. They foundedcolonies throughout the Mediterranean as far westas Spain. The most famous of these colonies wasCarthage, near modern Tunis in North Africa. Sit-ting astride the trade routes, the Phoenician citieswere important sites for the transmission of culturefrom east to west. The Greeks, who had long for-gotten their older writing system of the Bronze Age,adopted a Phoenician version of the Canaanite al-phabet that is the origin of our present alphabet.

THE ISRAELITES

The history of the Israelites must be pieced togeth-er from various sources. They are mentioned onlyrarely in the records of their neighbors, so we mustrely chiefly on their own account, the HebrewBible. This is not a history in our sense, but a com-plicated collection of historical narrative, pieces ofwisdom, poetry, law, and religious witness. Schol-ars of an earlier time tended to discard it as a his-torical source, but the most recent trend is to takeit seriously while using it with caution.

According to tradition, the patriarch Abrahamcame from Ur and wandered west to tend hisflocks in the land of the Canaanites. Some of hispeople settled there, and others wandered intoEgypt. By the thirteenth century B.C.E., led byMoses, they had left Egypt and wandered in thedesert until they reached and conquered Canaan.They established a united kingdom that reached

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Map 1–4 ANCIENT PALESTINE The Hebrews establisheda unified kingdom under Kings David and Solomon in the10th century B.C.E. After Solomon, the kingdom was divid-ed into Israel in the north and Judah, with its capital,Jerusalem, in the south. North of Israel were the greatcommercial cities of Phoenicia, Tyre, and Sidon.

Interactive map: To explore this map further, go tohttp://www.prenhall.com/kagan/map1.4



its peak under David and Solomon in the tenthcentury B.C.E. The sons of Solomon could notmaintain the unity of the kingdom, and it splitinto two parts: Israel in the north and Judah, withits capital at Jerusalem, in the south. (See Map 1–4,page 31.) The rise of the great empires brought dis-aster to the Israelites. The northern kingdom fellto the Assyrians in 722 B.C.E., and its people—theten lost tribes—were scattered and lost forever.Only the kingdom of Judah remained. It is fromthis time that we may call the Israelites Jews.

In 586 B.C.E., Judah was defeated by the Neo-Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II. He destroyedthe great temple built by Solomon and took thou-sands of hostages off to Babylon. When the Persiansdefeated Babylonia, they ended this Babylonian cap-tivity of the Jews and allowed them to return totheir homeland. After that, the area of the old king-dom of the Jews in Palestine was dominated by for-eign peoples for some 2,500 years, until theestablishment of the State of Israel in 1948 C.E.

THE JEWISH RELIGION

The fate of the small nation of Israel would be oflittle interest were it not for its unique religiousachievement. The great contribution of the Jews isthe development of monotheism—the belief in oneuniversal God, the creator and ruler of the uni-verse. Among the Jews, this idea may be as old asMoses, as the Jewish tradition asserts, and it cer-tainly dates as far back as the prophets of theeighth century B.C.E. The Jewish God is neither anatural force nor like human beings or any othercreatures; he is so elevated, that those who believein him may not picture him in any form. The faithof the Jews is given special strength by their beliefthat God made a covenant with Abraham that hisprogeny would be a chosen people who would berewarded for following God’s commandments andthe law he revealed to Moses. (See “The SecondIsaiah Defines Hebrew Monotheism,” page 34.)

Like the teachings of Zarathushtra in Iran, Jew-ish religious thought included a powerful ethicalelement. God is a severe, but just, judge. Ritual andsacrifice are not enough to achieve his approval.People must be righteous, and God himself appearsto be bound to act righteously. The Jewish proph-etic tradition was a powerful ethical force. Theprophets constantly criticized any falling awayfrom the law and the path of righteousness. Theyplaced God in history, blaming the misfortunes ofthe Jews on God’s righteous and necessary inter-vention to punish the people for their misdeeds.The prophets also promised the redemption of theJews if they repented, however. The prophetic tra-dition expected the redemption to come in theform of a Messiah who would restore the house of

David. Christianity, emerging from this tradition,holds that Jesus of Nazareth was that Messiah.

Jewish religious ideas influenced the futuredevelopment of the West, both directly and indi-rectly. The Jews’ belief in an all-powerful creator(who is righteous himself and demands righteous-ness and obedience from humankind) and a univer-sal God (who is the father and ruler of all peoples)is a critical part of the Western heritage.

GENERAL OUTLOOK OF MIDEASTERN CULTURESOur brief account of the history of the ancientMideast so far reveals that its various peoples andcultures were different in many ways. Yet the dis-tance between all of them and the emerging cul-ture of the Greeks (Chapter 2) is striking. We cansee this distance best by comparing the approach ofthe other cultures to several fundamental humanproblems with that of the Greeks: What is the rela-tionship of humans to nature? To the gods? Toeach other? These questions involve attitudes to-ward religion, philosophy, science, law, politics,and government. Unlike the Greeks, the civiliza-tions of the Mideast seem to have these features incommon: Once established, they tended towardcultural uniformity and stability. Reason, thoughemployed for practical and intellectual purposes,lacked independence from religion and the highstatus to challenge the most basic received ideas.The standard form of government was a monarchy;republics were unknown. Rulers were considereddivine or the appointed spokesmen for divinity.Religious and political institutions and beliefswere thoroughly intertwined. Government wasnot subject to secular, reasoned analysis but restedon religious authority, tradition, and power. Indi-vidual freedom had no importance.

HUMANS AND NATURE

For the peoples of the Mideast, there was no simpleseparation between humans and nature or even be-tween animate creatures and inanimate objects.Humanity was part of a natural continuum, and allthings partook of life and spirit. These peoplesimagined that gods more or less in the shape of hu-mans ruled a world that was irregular and unpre-dictable, subject to divine whims. The gods werecapricious because nature seemed capricious.

A Babylonian story of creation makes it clearthat humanity’s function is merely to serve thegods. The creator Marduk says,

I shall compact blood, I shall cause bones to be,I shall make stand a human being, let “Man” be

its name.



I shall create humankind,They shall bear the gods’ burden that those may

rest.4

In a world ruled by powerful deities of this kind,human existence was precarious. Disasters that wewould think human in origin, the Mesopotamianssaw as the product of divine will. Thus, a Babylon-ian text depicts the destruction of the city of Ur byinvading Elamites as the work of the gods, carriedout by the storm god Enlil:

Enlil called the storm.The people mourn.Exhilarating winds he took from the land.The people mourn.Good winds he took away from Sumer.The people mourn.He summoned evil winds.The people mourn.Entrusted them to Kingaluda, tender of storms.He called the storm that will annihilate the land.The people mourn.He called disastrous winds.The people mourn.Enlil—choosing Gibil as his helper—Called the (great) hurricane of heaven.The people mourn.5

Both the Egyptian and the Babylonian versionsof the destruction of humankind clearly showhuman vulnerability in the face of divine powers.In one Egyptian tale, Re, the god who had createdhumans, decided to destroy them because theywere plotting evil against him. He sent the goddessSekhmet to accomplish the deed, and she was rest-ing in the midst of her task, having enjoyed thework and wading in a sea of blood, when Rechanged his mind. He ordered 7,000 barrels ofblood-colored beer poured in Sekhmet’s path. Shequickly became too drunk to continue the slaugh-ter and thus humanity was preserved. In the Baby-lonian story of the flood, the motive for thedestruction of humanity is given as follows:

The land had grown numerous, the peoples hadincreased,

The land was bellowing like a bull.The god was disturbed by their uproar,The god Enlil heard their clamor.He said to the great gods,“The clamor of mankind has become burdensome

to me,“I am losing sleep to their uproar!”6

6Foster, pp. 170–171.

Utanapishtim and his wife survived because hewas friendly with Enki, the god of wisdom, whohelped him to pull through by a trick.

In such a universe, humans could not hope tounderstand nature, much less control it. At best,they could try by magic to use uncanny forcesagainst others. An example of this device is provid-ed by a Mesopotamian incantation to cure sick-ness. The sufferer tries to use magical powers byacting out the destruction of the powers he thinkscaused his illness:

As this garlic is peeled off and thrown into thefire,

[And the Fire God] burns it up with fire,Which will not be cultivated in a garden patch,Whose roots will not take hold in the ground,Whose sprout will not come forth nor see the sun,Which will not be used for the repast of god or

king,[So] may the curse, something evil, revenge, inter-

rogation,The sickness of my suffering, wrong-doing, crime,

misdeed, sinThe sickness which is in my body, flesh, and

sinewsBe peeled off like this garlic,May [the Fire God] burn it with fire this day,May the wicked thing go forth, that I may see

light.7

HUMANS AND THE GODS, LAW, AND JUSTICE

Human relationships to the gods were equallyhumble. There was no doubt that the gods coulddestroy human beings and might do so at any timefor no good reason. Humans could—and, indeed,had to—try to win the gods over by prayers andsacrifices, but there was no guarantee of success.The gods were bound by no laws and no morality.The best behavior and the greatest devotion to thecult of the gods were no defense against the divineand cosmic caprice.

In the earliest civilizations, human relationswere guided by laws, often set down in writtencodes. The basic question about law concerned itslegitimacy: Why, apart from the lawgiver’s powerto coerce obedience, should anyone obey the law?For Old Kingdom Egyptians, the answer was sim-ple: The king was bound to act in accordance withmaat, and so his laws were righteous. For theMesopotamians, the answer was almost the same:The king was a representative of the gods, so thelaws he set forth were authoritative. The prologue

4Benjamin R. Foster, From Distant Days, Myths, Tales, and Po-etry of Ancient Mesopotamia (Bethesda, MD: CDL Press, 1999),p. 38.5Thorkild Jacobsen in Henri Frankfort et al., Before Philosophy(Baltimore: Penguin, 1949), p. 154.

7Foster, p. 412.



425 Thus says God, the Lord

who created the heavens and stretched themout,

who spread forth the earth and what comesfrom it,

who gives breath to the people upon it andspirit

to those who walk in it:6 “I am the Lord, I have called you in

righteousness,I have taken you by the hand and kept you;I have given you as a covenant to the people,

a light to the nations,7 to open the eyes that are blind,

to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,from the prison those who sit in darkness.

8 I am the Lord, that is my name;my glory I give to no other,nor my praise to graven images.

9 Behold, the former things have come to pass,and new things I now declare;

before they spring forth I tell you of them.”

446 Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his

Redeemer, the Lord of hosts:“I am the first and I am the last; besides me

there is no god.7 Who is like me? Let him proclaim it,

let him declare and set it forth before me.Who has announced of old the things to

come?Let them tell us what is yet to be.

8 Fear not, nor be afraid;have I not told you from of old and declared it?And you are my witnesses!

Is there a God besides me?There is no Rock; I know not any.”

49

22 Thus says the Lord God:“Behold, I will lift up my hand to the

nations,and raise my signal to the peoples;and they shall bring your sons in their

bosom,and your daughters shall be carried on their

shoulders23 Kings shall be your foster fathers,

and their queens your nursing mothers.With their faces to the ground they shall bow

down to you,and lick the dust of your feet.Then you will know that I am the Lord;those who wait for me shall not be put to

shame.”24 Can the prey be taken from the mighty, or

the captives of a tyrant be rescued?25 Surely, thus says the Lord:

“Even the captives of the mighty shall betaken,

and the prey of the tyrant be rescued,for I will contend with those who contend

with youand I will save your children.

26 I will make your oppressors eat their ownflesh,

and they shall be drunk with their own bloodas with wine.

Then all flesh shall knowthat I am the Lord your Savior,and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of

Jacob.”

From the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, (New York: Division of Christian Education, National Council of Churches, 1952).

T H E S E C O N D I S A I A H D E F I N E S H E B R E W M O N OT H E I S M

kThe strongest statement of Hebrew monotheism is found in these words of theanonymous prophet whom we call the Second Isaiah. He wrote during the Hebrewexile in Babylonia, 597–539 B.C.E.

■ How is the deity in this passage different from the deities of the Mesopotamianand Egyptian societies? Are there any similarities? Many peoples have claimed thata single god was the greatest and the ruler over all others. What is there in this se-lection that claims a different status for the Hebrew deity?



to the most famous legal document in antiquity,the Code of Hammurabi, makes this plain:

I am the king who is preeminent among kings;my words are choice; my ability has no equal.By the order of Sharnash, the great judge of heaven

and earth,may my justice prevail in the land;by the word of Marduk, my lord,may my statutes have no one to rescind them.8

The Hebrews introduced some important newideas. Their unique God was capable of great angerand destruction, but he was open to persuasion andsubject to morality. He was therefore more pre-dictable and comforting, for all the terror of hiswrath. The biblical version of the flood story, forinstance, reveals the great difference between theHebrew God and the Babylonian deities. The He-brew God was powerful and wrathful, but he wasnot arbitrary. He chose to destroy his creatures fortheir moral failures:

the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and thatevery imagination of the thought of His heart was evilcontinually . . . the earth was corrupt in God’s sight andthe earth was filled with violence.9

When he repented and wanted to save someone,he chose Noah because “Noah was a righteousman, blameless in his generation.”10

The biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrahshows that God was bound by his own definitionof righteousness. He had chosen to destroy thesewicked cities, but felt obliged by his covenant toinform Abraham first.11 Abraham called on God toabide by his own moral principles, and God sawAbraham’s point.

Such a world offers the possibility of order in theuniverse and on this earth. There is also the possi-bility of justice among human beings, for the He-brew God had provided his people with law.Through his prophet Moses, he had provided hu-mans with regulations that would enable them tolive in peace and justice. If they would abide by thelaw and live upright lives, they and their descen-dants could expect happy and prosperous lives.This idea was different from the uncertainty of theBabylonian view, but like it and its Egyptian part-ner, it left no doubt of the certainty of the divine.Cosmic order, human survival, and justice all de-pended on God.

11Genesis 18:20–33.

12Benjamin Farrington, Greek Science (London: Penguin, 1953),p. 37.

TOWARD THE GREEKS AND WESTERN THOUGHTGreek thought offered different approaches and an-swers to many of the concerns we have been dis-cussing. Calling attention to some of thosedifferences will help convey the distinctive out-look of the Greeks and the later cultures withinWestern civilization that have drawn heavily onGreek influence.

Greek ideas had much in common with theideas of earlier peoples. The Greek gods had mostof the characteristics of the Mesopotamian deities.Magic and incantations played a part in the lives ofmost Greeks, and Greek law, like that of earlierpeoples, was usually connected with divinity.Many, if not most, Greeks in the ancient worldmust have lived their lives with notions similar tothose other peoples held. The surprising thing isthat some Greeks developed ideas that were strik-ingly different and, in so doing, set part of hu-mankind on an entirely new path.

As early as the sixth century B.C.E., some Greeksliving in the Ionian cities of Asia Minor raisedquestions and suggested answers about the natureof the world that produced an intellectual revolu-tion. In their speculations, they made guesses thatwere completely naturalistic and made no refer-ence to supernatural powers. One historian ofGreek thought, discussing the views of Thales, thefirst Greek philosopher, put the case particularlywell:

In one of the Babylonian legends it says: “All the landswere sea . . . Marduk bound a rush mat upon the face ofthe waters, he made dirt and piled it beside the rushmat.” What Thales did was to leave Marduk out. He,too, said that everything was once water. But he thoughtthat earth and everything else had been formed out ofwater by a natural process, like the silting up of theDelta of the Nile . . . . It is an admirable beginning, thewhole point of which is that it gathers into a coherentpicture a number of observed facts without letting Mar-duk in.12

By putting the question of the world’s origin in anaturalistic form, Thales, in the sixth centuryB.C.E., may have begun the unreservedly rationalinvestigation of the universe and, in so doing, initi-ated both philosophy and science.

The same relentlessly rational approach wasused even in regard to the gods themselves. In thesame century as Thales, Xenophanes of Colophonexpressed the opinion that humans think of thegods as resembling themselves, that, like them-selves, they were born, that they wear clothes liketheirs, and that they have voices and bodies like

8James B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Related to theOld Testament, 3rd ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press,1969), p. 164.9Genesis 6:5, 6:11.10Genesis 6:9.



theirs. If oxen, horses, and lions had hands andcould paint like humans, Xenophanes argued, theywould paint gods in their own image; the oxenwould draw gods like oxen and the horses likehorses. Thus, Africans believed in flat-nosed,black-faced gods, and the Thracians in gods withblue eyes and red hair.13 In the fifth century B.C.E.,Protagoras of Abdera went so far toward agnosti-cism as to say, “About the gods I can have noknowledge either that they are or that they are notor what is their nature.”14

This rationalistic, skeptical way of thinking car-ried over into practical matters. The school ofmedicine led by Hippocrates of Cos (about 400B.C.E.) attempted to understand, diagnose, and curedisease without any attention to supernaturalforces. One of the Hippocratics wrote, of the mys-terious disease epilepsy:

It seems to me that the disease is no more divine thanany other. It has a natural cause, just as other diseaseshave. Men think it divine merely because they do notunderstand it. But if they called everything divine whichthey do not understand, why, there would be no end ofdivine things.15

By the fifth century B.C.E., the historian Thucyd-ides could analyze and explain human behaviorcompletely in terms of human nature and chance,leaving no place for the gods or supernatural forces.

The same absence of divine or supernaturalforces characterized Greek views of law and jus-tice. Most Greeks, of course, liked to think that, ina vague way, law came ultimately from the gods. Inpractice, however, and especially in the democraticstates, they knew that laws were made by humansand should be obeyed because they represented theexpressed consent of the citizens. Law, accordingto the fourth-century B.C.E. statesman Demos-thenes, is “a general covenant of the whole State,in accordance with which all men in that Stateought to regulate their lives.”16

QIN PERSPECTIVE

The statement of the following ideas, so differentfrom any that came before the Greeks, opens thediscussion of most of the issues that appear in thelong history of Western civilization and that re-

16Demosthenes, Against Aristogeiton, 16.

main major concerns in the modern world. What isthe nature of the universe, and how can it be con-trolled? Are there divine powers, and if so, what ishumanity’s relationship to them? Are law and jus-tice human, divine, or both? What is the place inhuman society of freedom, obedience, and rever-ence? These and many other matters were eitherfirst considered or first elaborated on by theGreeks.

The Greeks’ sharp departure from the thinkingof earlier cultures marked the beginning of the un-usual experience that we call Western civilization.Nonetheless, they built on a foundation of lorethat people in the Near East had painstakingly ac-cumulated. From ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt,they borrowed important knowledge and skills inmathematics, astronomy, art, and literature. FromPhoenicia, they learned the art of writing. The dis-continuities, however, are more striking than thecontinuities.

Hereditary monarchies, often elevated by theaura of divinity, ruled the great civilizations of theriver valleys. Powerful priesthoods presented yetanother bastion of privilege that stood between theordinary person and the knowledge and opportuni-ty needed for freedom and autonomy. Religion wasan integral part of the world of the ancient NearEast, in the kingdoms and city-states of Palestine,Phoenicia, and Syria, just as in the great empires ofEgypt, Mesopotamia, and Persia. The secular, rea-soned questioning that sought to understand theworld in which people lived—that sought explana-tions in the natural order of things rather than inthe supernatural acts of the gods—was not charac-teristic of the older cultures. Nor would it appearin similar societies at other times in other parts ofthe world. The new way of looking at things wasuniquely the product of the Greeks. We now needto see why they raised fundamental questions inthe way that they did.

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. How would you define “history”? What differ-ent academic disciplines do historians rely on,and why is the study of history important?

2. How was life during the Paleolithic Age differ-ent from that in the Neolithic Age? Whatadvancements in agriculture and human de-velopment had taken place by the end of theNeolithic era? Is it valid to speak of a Neolith-ic Revolution?

3. What were the political and intellectualoutlooks of the civilizations of Egypt andMesopotamia? How did geography influence thereligious outlooks of these two civilizations?

13Henri Frankfort et al., Before Philosophy (Baltimore: Penguin,1949), pp. 14–16.14Hermann Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 5th ed., ed. byWalter Krantz (Berlin: Weidmann, 1934–38), Frg. 4.15Diels, Frgs. 14–16.



4. To what extent did the Hebrew faith bind theJews politically? Why was the concept ofmonotheism so radical for Near Easterncivilizations?

5. How did the Assyrian Empire differ from thatof the Hittites or Egyptians? Why did the As-syrian Empire ultimately fail to survive? Whywas the Persian Empire so successful? Whatwere the main teachings of Zarathustra? Howdid his concept of the divine compare to thatof the Jews?

6. In what ways did Greek thought develop alongdifferent lines from that of Near Eastern civi-lizations? What new questions about humansociety did the Greeks ask?

SUGGESTED READINGS

C. ALDRED, The Egyptians (1998). Probably thebest one-volume history of the subject.

P. BRIANT, From Cyrus to Alexander: A History ofthe Persian Empire (2002). A scholarly accountof ancient Persia with greater knowledge of thePersian evidence than is usual.

T. BRYCE, The Kingdom of the Hittites (1998). Afine new account.

M. EHRENBERG, Women in Prehistory (1989). Dis-cusses the role of women in early times.

BRIAN M. FAGAN, People of the Earth: An Intro-duction to World Prehistory, 11th Edition (2003).A narrative account of human prehistory up tothe earliest civilizations.

W. W. HALLO and W. K. SIMPSON, The AncientNear East: A History, rev. ed. (1998). A fine sur-vey of Egyptian and Mesopotamian history.

A. KAMM, The Israelites: An Introduction (1999).A brief, excellent, and accessible account.

R. MATTHEWS, Archaeology of Mesopotamia: The-ories and Approaches (2003). A fascinating inves-tigation of the theories, methods, approaches,and history of Mesopotamian archaeology fromits origins in the nineteenth century up to thepresent day.

J. B. PRITCHARD, ED., Ancient Near Eastern TextsRelating to the Old Testament (1969). A goodcollection of documents in translation with use-ful introductory material.

R. RUDGLEY, The Lost Civilizations of the StoneAge (1999). A bold new interpretation thatclaims that many elements of civilization werealready present in the Stone Age.

H. W. F. SAGGS, Babylonians (1995). A general ac-count of ancient Mesopotamia by an expertscholar.

I. SHAW, ED., The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt(2000). An up-to-date survey by leading scholars.

W. K. SIMPSON ET AL., The Literature of AncientEgypt: An Anthology of Stories, Instructions,Stelae, Autobiographies, and Poetry (2003). Afine collection of writings from ancient Egypt.

D. C. SNELL, Life in the Ancient Near East,3100–332 B.C.E. (1997). A social history with em-phasis on culture and daily life.

DOCUMENTS CD-ROMThe Ancient Near East

1.1 New Theories of Human Development1.2 An Egyptian Hymn to the Nile1.3 The Epic of Gilgamesh1.4 Hittite Laws1.5 Hammurabi’s Law Code1.6 Laws of the Hebrews1.7 The Instruction of Ptah-hotep


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