Unit 1 Study Guide

Akkadians

- A Semitic-speaking people called the Akkadians overwhelmed the Sumerian city-states around 2350BC, establishing the Akkadian Period, which lasted to about 2100BC - The Akkadians had lived for several centuries along the upper Tigris trading with the Sumerians and the people of Syria. - They respected Sumerian culture and adopted its language, institutions and religion. - The most successful of the Akkadian kings was Sargon I who conquered everything from lower Sumer to northern Syria all the way to the Mediterranean.

Pharisees

- A third group of religious Jews were known as the Pharisees. These men were scholars who studied Biblical texts. - The believed that what mattered was living honestly and ethically with mercy and compassion. - They also believed you didn't have to be a member of the priesthood to communicate with God. Anyone could access God through study. - Unlike the Essenes, Pharisees did not believe in withdrawing from the world. - They taught people how to live right in the context of Roman domination

YHWH/Yahweh

- According to the Jewish conception, there is one God, Yahweh - the creator of the world and everything in it. - Yahweh means "he causes to be."

Christians

- After his death in 33 AD, Jesus followers began preaching to everyone who would listen that Jesus was son of God who had risen from dead. - Christians did not mourn loss of Temple or rituals because God had decided to sacrifice his son to replace all this. - Churches sprang up alongside synagogues in Jewish communities throughout the Roman Empire. - Because of their common roots, Christians and Jews initially got along well - there was kinship among them.

Babylon

- Although the Sumerians and Akkadians achieved much success in mastering their physical environment, they were unable to master the steady deterioration of the soil caused by mounting 7 salt content - irrigation brought salt deposits from the rivers which remained when the water had evaporated - by 2000 BC region in full economic depression. - Unable to produce ag surpluses, southern Mesopotamian cities could not support priests, administrators, armies and region declined. - This led to the rise of a new Amorite kingdom based at Babylon. The Old Babylonian era lasted from about 2000 to 1600 BC. - The Old Babylonian era came to fullest around 1770 BC but culture not drastically different from Sumerian or Akkadian culture - it was distinguished mostly by geography and language. - The Amorites were a Semitic speaking people. Semitic-language peoples (today including Arabs, Israelis, and Ethiopians) trace descent to a point of origin in the Arabian Peninsula. - The Amorites were the most successful Semitic tribe who advanced into Mesopotamia around 2000 BC - they adopted most aspects of Sumerian culture. - Amorites made the city of Babylon the capital of their empire so are commonly called the Babylonians to distinguish them from the Chaldeans who ruled Mesopotamia a millennium later also from Babylon. - Assimilated the Sumerian-Akkadian culture and worshiped Sumerian gods under Semitic names. - They also adapted old Sumerian epics and myths

Assyrians

- Assyria was the region in the Near East which reached from Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) through Asia Minor (modern Turkey) and down through Egypt. - The empire began modestly at the city of Ashur (known as Subartu to the Sumerians), located in Mesopotamia north-east of Babylon, where merchants who traded in Anatolia became increasingly wealthy, and that affluence allowed for the growth and prosperity of the city. - According to one interpretation of passages in the biblical Book of Genesis, Ashur was founded by a man named Ashur son of Shem, son of Noah, after the Great Flood, who then went on to found the other important Assyrian cities. - A more likely account is that the city was named Ashur after the deity of that name sometime in the 3rd millennium BC; the same god's name is the origin for `Assyria'. - Historians have divided the rise and fall of the Assyrian Empire into three periods: The Old Kingdom, The Middle Empire, and The Late Empire (also known as the Neo-Assyrian Empire), although it should be noted that Assyrian history continued on past that point, and there are still Assyrians living in the regions of Iran and Iraq, and elsewhere, in the present day. - The Assyrian Empire is considered the greatest of the Mesopotamian empires due to its expanse and the development of the bureaucracy and military strategies which allowed it to grow and flourish

Animal cults

- At many sacred sites, Egyptians worshipped individual animals, which they believed to be manifestations of particular deities. - These animals were selected based on specific sacred markings which were believed to indicate their fitness for the role. Some of these cult animals retained their positions for the rest of their lives. - Other animals were selected for much shorter periods. These cults grew more popular in later times, and many temples began raising stocks of animals from which to choose a new divine manifestation. - A separate practice developed when people began mummifying members of a particular animal species as an offering to the god whom the species represented. - People with problems would buy mummified animals to serve as messengers to the gods. - Millions of mummified cats, birds, and other creatures were buried at temples honoring Egyptian deities . - Worshippers paid the priests of a particular deity to obtain and mummify an animal associated with that deity, and the mummy was placed in a cemetery near the god's cult center. - Animal cults were accessible to the masses which made them particularly popular. - Below cult temples were rooms packed with jars of mummified remains of animals sacrificed to the gods. - In galleries belonging to the Ibis cult alone, there are a million and a half such jars. - Ibises were bred in captivity and killed when they were needed to be mummified. - The popularity of the practice and the mass numbers involved created the potential for corruption in this industry. - People who wanted hawks were often given parts of Ibises with hawk parts or sticks to look like hawks because hawks were hard to catch. - In 172 BC a scandal broke out when three priests were tried for selling fake mummies. - Regulation and inspection followed to prevent this kind of corruption.

Professional dreamers

- At night, sleepers and dreamers descended into the underworld to commune with the gods. - Dreams were revelations of truth, but they were hard to interpret. - Egyptians consulted specialist who were gifted at interpreting dreams. - By 300BC dreams were an industry in Egypt and interpreting them was big business. - One priest named Hor near Saqqara left an incredible record of his work as an interpreter of dreams. - He documented his success on pot shards. - At point, he recalled his own dream about the fourman of a labor gang and a ghost at the temple where he worked. - He interpreted the dreams to mean he was supposed to move to Saqqara to work at the temple of an Ibis-headed god. - He worked as a scribe by day and was an official dreamer at night. - If you couldn't afford a specialist or prefered not to, you could buy a book with readymade dream interpretations. - For instance, the book indicated that if you saw yourself dead, that was a sign of a long life. If your bed was on fire, you would drive away your wife. If you were drinking warm beer, that was a sign of suffering. - Egyptians with problems could pay others to dream for them

Constantine

- At the end of the third and beginning of the 4th centuries, the Roman Empire gained a new lease on life through the efforts of 2 strong emperors, Diocletian and Constantine, who restored order and stability for a time. - Constantine continued and even expanded the autocratic policies of Diocletian. Both rulers greatly strengthened and enlarged the administrative bureaucracies of the Roman Empire. - Civil and military bureaucracies were sharply separated and each contained a hierarchy of officials who exercised control at various levels. - The emperor presided over both hierarchies of officials and served as the only link between them. - The army was also enlarged to 500,000 and included more barbarian units. - Constantine was especially interested in building programs despite the strain they placed on the budget. - His biggest project was the construction of a new capital city in the east on the site of the Greek city Byzantium on the shores of the Bosporus. - Eventually renamed Constantinople (modern Istanbul) it was developed for its strategic location. - Calling it his "New Rome" Constantine endowed the city with a forum, large palaces, and a vast amphitheater. - The political and military reforms of Diocletian and Constantine greatly enlarged 2 institutions the army and the civil service that drained most of the public funds. - The population of the Empire was not growing so tax base could not be expanded. - Diocletian and Constantine devised new economic and social policies to deal with these financial burdens but like their political policies they were all based on coercion and loss of individual freedom. - Though temporarily successful, authoritarian policies in the long run stifled the very vitality the late empire needed to revive. Constantine - Oct 26, 312 AD, rival Roman armies massed outside the city to do battle over who would control Rome. - One of the commanders was Constantine, the other was a rival general challenging Constantine's right to be emperor. - The day before the battle, Constantine looked up into the sky - saw a cross of light with the words, By This Sign, You Will Conquer. - He had crosses painted on the shields of all his troops. - Next day at the battle of the Milvian Bridge, he smashed the armies of his rival, and solidified his position of Emperor of Rome. - Constantine declared himself to be a Christian and repealed Diocletian's ban on Christianity. - Romans were stunned - most saw Christianity as a small Eastern sect - now the emperor was a Christian. - Constantine saw how Christianity could unify an empire coming apart at the seams. - Constantine presented himself as a new Moses, leading his people to a promised land. - It does seem as though he saw himself as guided by God, his actions were not all for show. - Constantine liked that there was one God, like there was one emperor. - Under Constantine, Roman unity was reborn, but there not much Roman about it. - Constantine grew up in the Balkans, in the imperial city of Trier, Germany. - He had no liking for the city of Rome and recognized that it had become strategically irrelevant. - All of the important conflicts were along the frontier to the east and north. - This influenced his decision to move the empire's capital to the ancient city of Byzantium and rename it Constantinople. - This marked a political, cultural, and economic shift from Italy toward the eastern part of the empire. - Constantine ruled like an oriental sultan than a Roman emperor. - His power was absolute. - Before he died, he had 13 coffins placed in his tomb - 12 for the apostles and the last one for him, suggesting that he was the 13th apostle.

Importance of mummification Ba (Egyptian soul)

- Because of their belief in an afterlife, Egyptians of the Middle Kingdom made elaborate preparations to prevent the loss of their earthly remains. - Bodies mummified by the wealthy were left rich endowments to provide their mummies with food and other essentials. - Existence after death without some connection with the body was unthinkable. - When someone died, his soul or what the Egyptians called ba, fluttered around the tomb and depended on its contents to sustain it. - Contracts were made and corporations formed to see that the dead were supplied with all the essentials needed to sustain them. - Even the passer-by was urged to supply a dead man's need if he was neglected by those who were supposed to care for him. - The art of preserving a body was sacred and instruction for how to do it were never recorded by the Egyptians. - Anubis was the god of embalming and presided over the ritual. - Spices, resins and oils would be prepared by the embalmers. - First, they would remove the brain through the nose with a metal hook. - Hot oil, resin mixed with beeswax was then poured into the skull to help it keep its shape. - Then incisions were made in abdomen to take out internal organs - this had to happen quickly because organs are the first things to decompose. - Organs were mummified separately. They were washed, dried and anointed with oil and resin, wrapped in linen and placed in 4 canopic jars with inscriptions and appeals to the gods for protection. - The heart was left in the body because the Egyptians viewed it as the seat of wisdom. - The kidneys were ignored - the Egyptians didn't know what they were for. - The body was then packed with natron, a natural mixture of sodium chloride and sodium bicarbonate to draw moisture out of tissue. - After 40 days, the natron was removed and body anointed with oil and filled with linen to keep its shape. - Mummification was a very technically advanced process and when done well, it results in very well preserved bodies. The hair and fingernails are often intact. - The process took up to two weeks. - Once mummified, the body was completely wrapped in linen along with amulets of varying types. - The most important amulet was a scarab beetle placed over the heart. - It assured that the heart would not betray the dead on day of judgment. - For the wealthy, a mask of gold was placed over the face helped assure eternal life. - For average Egyptian, it took 2 months wages to pay for embalming and 2 months more to pay for the mask. - It was worth the cost because the body was essential for a good afterlife. - The mummy was insurance policy against oblivion. - Before the process of mummification developed, as early as 4000 BC, Egypt's dead were buried in shallow graves in the desert. - The hot dry sand naturally preserved the bodies. - Later corpses were put in deep chambers but decomposed quickly without dry heat of the sand. Mummification developed out of a need to prevent this decomposition.

Joshua ben Sira - adapt to Greek culture

- Ben Sira was deeply influenced by Socrates and Plato. - He is frequently considered the first Jewish philosopher - lover of wisdom - and had a great respect for wisdom. - Rather than rejecting either Greek or Jewish culture, he combined them. He applied the Greek tradition of study and debate to the Bible. - He believed that using Greek methods, Jews could learn more about how to live from Moses than from Socrates. - For him, Bible stories were not just stories about the past - the Torah was the great book of divine wisdom. - Ben Sira taught that the writers of the Bible were divinely inspired and everything in the Bible was true. - However, it was hard to determine exactly what God was trying to reveal - the Bible's meaning was open to interpretation, and new beliefs developed from these interpretations. - This strengthened the tradition of debate, discussion and interpretation in Judaism

Jesus

- By 30 AD, there were many preachers responding to the apocalyptic mood in Judea - some claimed to be the messiah - others taught followers how to live amidst the violence. - Jesus was one such preacher. - Jesus taught his followers to turn the other cheek to enemies. - He encouraged people to respond to the chaos in Palestine with gentleness, mercy, being pure in heart, and peacemakers. - People should strive to make the world a better place. In this, Jesus was part of a long Jewish tradition that stretched back to the prophets of the Old Testament. - Jesus was Jewish - his telling of parables was a Jewish tradition, his form of rhetoric was Jewish, his message was Jewish in many ways. - Jesus also deeply influenced by prophesies in the Bible. - He preached that the kingdom of God was about the beginning and everyone needed to be ready. - Roman authorities were constantly arresting those who were seen as troublemakers. - In 33 AD Jesus was one of those. For the Romans, he was one more would-be messiah who might cause a revolt so they executed him. - Even after his death, Jesus followers continued to grow. - These Jews became known as Christians.

New Kingdom

- By about 1560, the last foreign invaders had been driven out of Egypt. - The New Kingdom followed (1560-1087 BC) during which time Egypt was ruled by 3 dynasties. - Under the New Kingdom rulers, state policy was no longer peaceful or isolationist - rather a spirit of aggressive imperialism prevailed. - The military machine that had been created to expel the invaders proved to be too valuable to the pharaoh's power to be discarded. - With one of the most formidable armies of ancient times, succeeding pharaohs eventually made themselves masters of a vast domain extending from the Euphrates in western Asia to the southern parts of the Nile including the rich territory of Nubia. - However, the Egyptians were never successful in molding conquered peoples into loyal subjects, and this weakness eventually led to revolt against them. - Then, in 525 BC Egypt was conquered by the Persians and Egypt absorbed into the Persian Empire. Later, it would be ruled by the Greeks and then the Romans

Treatment of women, children and the elderly

- Compared to women in most other ancient societies, Egyptian women were not entirely subordinated to men. - Polygamy was permitted but not common - the basic social unit was the monogamous family - men took another wife if the first wife did not have children. - Women were not secluded and could own and inherit property and engage in business - queens could act as regents. - The husband was the master of the house but wives were respected and in charge of household management and the education of children. - From a book of wise sayings came the advice: If you are a man of standing, you should found your household and love your wife at home as is fitting. Provide her with food and clothe her. Make her heart glad as long as you live. - Marriages were arranged by parents, the primary concern being wealth and property - purpose of marriage was to produce children, especially sons. - Only sons could carry on the family name, although daughters were well-accepted. Daughters were represented in art the same as sons so no sense that sons were necessarily preferred or treated better. - Marriages could and did end in divorce, which was allowed apparently with compensation for the wife. - Adultery was strictly prohibited especially for women and severely punished - women could be burned at the stake. - Children were expected to care for parents in old age and daughters were obligated by law to do so. - Egyptians had significant interest in ancestors, and genealogies were maintained in family archives. - The dead could be powerful allies, and many people maintained ancestor shrines in their homes. - The dead had access to gods and could intervene on behalf of families. People wrote letters to the dead with problems, requests and greetings. - Not all ancestors were helpful - some could come back to haunt the living so it was important to treat them with respect. - The average lifespan of an Ancient Egyptian was about 40 years, so childhood ended at puberty and young Egyptians quickly learned their roles in society. - By age 14, ancient Egyptians were considered adults and would have been involved in jobs, marriage, and children of their own. - For the typical Egyptian child, pets were a wonderful form of entertainment, including dogs, kittens, ducks, and pigeons. - While wealthier children had access to dolls and a variety of other toys, most children learned from what was around them. - Children who were not of the upper classes mirrored their parents roles in performing household chores (for girls), or working in the fields (for boys). - These children did not attend school as we do today, but they did begin learning their family's trade, as early as age four. - For royal children, education was taken seriously and included reading, writing and mathematics. - Other wealthy boys might have trained to become scribes while attending temple schools or trained to become army officers. - Girls, however, did not attend school, but many did learn to read and write.

David Goliath Bathsheba

- David like many of the heroes of the Old Testament, was a seriously flawed person. - In the Bible's early stories about David, he is only a peasant boy, but God had greater tasks in mind for him. - God sent the prophet Samuel to to a man named Jesse of Bethlehem because God had chosen one of Jesse's sons to be king. - Samuel went to Bethlehem to meet Jesse's eight sons. - God told Samuel to ignore the older son despite his size and kingly appearance. - God instructed Samuel to take no notice of his appearance. God had weighed his heart and had rejected him as king. - Seven of Jesse's oldest sons were rejected. Instead, God chose David, the youngest. - Israelites already had a king named Saul, but he was a tormented man who had angered God. - Unaware of David's destiny, Saul brought David into his palace to play the harp to soothe his spirits. David became like a son to Saul. - One day, word reached the palace that the greatest warrior of the Philistines, Goliath, had challenged the Israelites to send someone to fight him one on one. - No one offered to take up the challenge except David, who was still a very young man. - David took a sling and some rocks to meet Goliath. - Goliath was not impressed and made some pretty serious threats, but David responded that God was on his side. He hit Goliath in the head with a stone then used Goliath's own sword to cut off his head. - It is the story of an underdog killing a giant. - It stressed the idea that there is something more important than physical power. - David's fame spread through the kingdom, and Saul began to see him as a threat. - Saul tried several times to kill him so David fled and became an outlaw. - When Saul died in battle with the Philistines, David became king. David as King (c. 1020-1000 BC) - With Saul in his grave, David became king and initiated the most glorious period in Hebrew political history at least until modern times. - He establish a unified kingdom, and advanced relentlessly against the Philistines, reducing their territory to a narrow strip of coast in the south of Canaan. - David incorporated native Canaanites under his dominion to such a degree that during the next few generations, they lost their separate identity and became fully merged with the Hebrew people. - As this process of amalgamation progressed, the Hebrews increasingly put aside pastoralism and took up either farming or urban occupations. - Once David fully established his position as absolute monarch, he exacted forced labor from some of his subjects, instituted a census as a basis for collecting taxes, then started collecting taxes. - His ultimate goal was to build a splendid capital and religious center at Jerusalem, but he died before the work was completed. - David did not always use power wisely. - He liked women - had many love affairs. - The most famous affair was with a woman named Bathsheba. - One day, while standing on the roof of his palace, David saw her bathing on a nearby rooftop. - She was the wife of one of his close friends, but that didn't prevent David from having an affair with her. - When she got pregnant, David arranged for her husband, his friend, to be killed in battle so he could marry her. - God sent a prophet to David and David confessed his sin. Nonetheless, David and Bathsheba's son died as punishment, and God cursed David's descendants. - The message was that not even a king can be above the law. - David's breaking of the law and God's curse helped explain to the writers in later Jewish history why they experienced such hardship.

Solomon

- David was succeeded by his son Solomon who ruled from 973 to 933 BC, the last of the three kings of the united Hebrew monarchy. - Solomon was said to have walked in the way of the Lord and been given extraordinary wisdom. - God appeared to Solomon in a dream and told him he would grant Solomon's request soon after Solomon took power - Solomon asked for wisdom to rule the people, and God gave him more wisdom than anyone before him as well as riches and honor equaled by no other kings. - Solomon was determined to finish his father's work in building Jerusalem. - If the Hebrews were to take their place among the great nations of western Asia, they had to have a magnificent capital as a visual manifestation of their greatness. - Second they also needed a splendid temple to reaffirm their national religious commitment. - Until then, the "Ark of the Covenant" the biblical name for the chest containing the stone tablets given by the Hebrew God Yahweh Jehovah to Moses on Mount Sinai, had been carried by them in their wonderings in a tabernacle actually a portable tent. - To house an exalted shrine in a tent may have been barely satisfactory for a nomadic people, but not for settled agriculturalists of a great nation. - Instead, the ark, the physical token of a special relationship with Yahweh, had to be located in a mighty capital and housed properly in the innermost precincts of a splendid temple. - For these reasons, Solomon spared no expense in building his capital and especially in building the temple that would be the central monument of Hebrew national and religious life. - In the long run, this policy contributed fundamentally to the survival of the Hebrews, for Solomon indeed succeeded in erecting a splendid temple, and Solomon's Temple thereafter served as an inspiring symbol whenever they were faced with the possibility of national and cultural obliteration. - However, not everyone was happy with Solomon's rule, especially those in the north of Canaan.

Class system

- Egyptian society was divided into 5 classes for most of history - (1) royal family, priests, nobles, (2) middle class of scribes, merchants, artisans, wealthy farmers, and (3) peasants - eventually class of (4) soldiers and (5)slaves - A huge gulf separated the upper and lower class although even the poor were relatively well cared for compared to other areas. - Egyptians had very positive attitude toward daily life on earth and followed the advice of wisdom literature which suggested that people marry young and establish a home and family. Art shows happy families and couples in happy relationships

Ancestor worship

- Egyptians had significant interest in ancestors, and genealogies were maintained in family archives. - The dead could be powerful allies, and many people maintained ancestor shrines in their homes. - The dead had access to gods and could intervene on behalf of families. People wrote letters to the dead with problems, requests and greetings. - Not all ancestors were helpful - some could come back to haunt the living so it was important to treat them with respect.

Epic of Gilgamesh

- Equal in fame to Hammurabi's code was the poem known as the Epic of Gilgamesh - written in the same time period as the Code. - Even though written a long time ago, it deals with issues that are still very familiar to us today. - Gilgamesh was a real historical figure, a Sumerian king who ruled around 2600BC - Stories about him grew over the centuries. - Sometime around 1900BC a Semitic speaker wove 4 or 5 Gilgamesh stories into a loosely structured "epic." - As the story goes, Gilgamesh had a best friend, Enkidu. - Gilgamesh angered the goddess of love Istar, and she fell into a rage. She and her fellow gods decide that Enkidu must die. - Enkidu is stuck by the gods and dies a slow painful death with Gilgamesh at his side. - Enkidu dies in shame slowly in bed as opposed to on the battlefield. - Enkidu tells Gilgamesh that he used to be afraid of dying on the battlefield but that seems preferable to dying slowly of sickness. - The story poses questions about what it means to die a good death, which we still ask today. - Once dead, Gilgamesh refuses to have Enkidu's body buried for 7 days and wept over it, but he had to give up the body once it started to degrade. - After his friend's terrible death, Gilgamesh is overcome by fear of death. He doesn't want to die like his friend. - So, he goes on a quest to find a god who had been give immortality. - After engaging in mighty battles and amorous encounters Gilgamesh, seeks the secret of immortality from an old man and his wife who had been saved by taking refuge in an ark when the gods had decided to destroy the world by a flood. - The aged couple assured him that immortality is unobtainable, but they do disclose the location of a plant that at least will restore his lost youth. - Unfortunately, after gaining this plant by heroic effort from the floor of the sea, Gilgamesh laves it unguarded while asleep and a snake eats it (According to the poem, this is why snakes gain new life every year when they shed their skins). - Gilgamesh is finally forced to acknowledge that he should enjoy each day as it comes.

Middle Kingdom (2050-1786 BC)

- First intermediate period ended with the rise of the Eleventh Dynasty which restored centralized rule around 2050 BC from its base in Thebes (Upper Egypt) - Middle Kingdom ensued. - Throughout most of its life, the government of the Middle Kingdom was more socially responsible than that of the Old Kingdom. - It succeeded in forging an alliance with officials, merchants, artisans and farmers. - This alliance kept the nobility in check and laid the foundations for unprecedented prosperity. - During the rule of the 12th Dynasty (1990-1786BC) public works that benefited the whole population such as extensive drainage and irrigation projects largely replaced the building of pyramids which had no practical use. - There was also a democratization of religion which extended to common people a hope for life in the afterworld that they had not been allowed before. - Religion now emphasized proper moral conduct instead of ritual dependent on wealth. - 12th Dynasty generally called Egypt's classical or golden age

Bastet - goddess of goddess of cats, protection, joy, dance, music, family, and love Taweret - goddess who protected pregnant women

- For most individuals, the greatest threat to life came at birth - 1 in 3 babies died at birth - pregnant women seen as magnets for demons. - Giving birth was a joyful event, but like creation, it was surrounded by danger. - Mothers sometimes gave birth on outside of front of house to prevent demons from overrunning the home - In many homes, there was a magical birth box designed to protect mother and child. - It was decorated with fierce deities such as the goddess Taweret who had the body of a pregnant hippo, tale of a crocodile and often carried a knife - hippos were known to be fierce protectors of their young. - As birth drew near a magician used a wand to draw a protective circle around bed of mother and child. - The goddess Bastet presided over the ritual. - Egyptians believed that hardships of life could be overcome by evoking gods who had overcome their own hardships, especially Osiris, Isis and Horus. - One of most popular amulets in Egypt was eye of Horus for healing - it represented the eye that Horus lost in battle with evil god Seth as he avenged his father Osiris. - Amulets were common to ward off evil and bring good luck. - The scarab representation of the dung beetle - a symbol of renewal - It emerges from earth daily seemingly reborn, and rolls ball of dung around symbolizing cycle of the sun. - Spells in papyrus could also be worn around the neck - one spell could quell a headache and get rid of demon causing it.

Hyksos

- From 1750 BC onward waves of emigrants and invaders from Syria and Canaan began to move to Egypt. - They were known to the Egyptians as the Hyksos. - They settled in the delta area and eventually had sufficient power to set up an independent kingdom there. - Early in the next century, these foreign kings were able to extend their control throughout all of Egypt. - Their strength lay partly in recently introduced horse-drawn chariot, which came from Western Asia. The Egyptians had never seen one before. - The occupation of Egypt lasted about 150 years. - From 1560 BC on the Egyptians fought a series of wars of liberation and the Hyksos were driven out.

10 Commandments

- God gave laws to Moses in only face to face meeting ever recorded between God and a human. - Once the Israelites had left Egypt, God called Moses called up to Mount Sinai and gave Moses the Ten Commandments. - The Bible says that when Moses came down from the mountain, the skin of his face was radiant because he had been in the presence of God. - The revelation in 10 commandments was not in how humans treat God (that was pagan ideal) but in how humans treat each other. - Treating other people with kindness and respect was the way people could honor God. - This summarized the essence of the Jewish message. - After leading people out of Egypt, the Hebrews, complain about everything, get involved in idol worship and made God mad. - As a result, they were forced to wander in the desert for 40 years as punishment before being led to the promised land of Canaan by Joshua after Moses death.

Divination

- Gods animated all aspects of the universe, sky, wind, water, soil, mountains. - Mesopotamians believed that they were manipulated by divine beings - created to do manual labor for the gods. - No one could never be sure of the gods' actions or will, but humans did make attempts to circumvent or relieve their anxiety by discovering the intensions of the gods - these efforts gave rise to the development of the arts of divination. - Divination took a variety of forms including the sacrifice animals to examine their organs - one handbook predicted that the shape of animal organs could predict the outcome of a military campaign. - Diviners also interpreted patterns of smoke from burning incense and the patterns that formed when oil was poured into water. - Mesopotamian arts of divination arose out of a desire to discover the purposes of the gods. - When misfortune befell them, people attributed it to the gods. This helped explain the uncertainty and danger that filled life in Mesopotamia. - Unpredictable waters of the rivers broke through the dikes, insufficient flow deprived the land of water, great windstorms and heavy thunderstorms wreaked havoc. - Unlike Egypt which was protected by deserts, Mesopotamia had no natural barriers to invasion so natural disasters could be compounded by invasion from hostile forces. - Contributing to this sense of insecurity was the belief that the gods cared little for humanity. - Humans were basically slaves and games for the gods

Hammurabi's code

- Hammurabi is best known for the extensive law code he created. He promulgated the earliest extensive collection of laws surviving in the human record - 282 laws written in stone. - It was the first law code intended to provide an example for an entire region covering many people with different law codes. - There was no notion of equality before the law - slaves had no rights and were subject to horrible mutilations for trivial offenses. - In some respects, it was harsher than earlier Sumerian codes - Death or mutilation became punishment for crimes previously punished by fines. - However, it was progressive in some ways. - Offered protection to women and children from arbitrary treatment, poverty and neglect. 8 - Men had to provide alimony if they divorced a wife for no reason. - Otherwise 3 legal classes appear: Men of the aristocracy, all free people, and slaves whom the law treated badly but gave some rights. - Crimes of men against their inferiors were punished less severely than crimes of men against equals or superiors. Crimes against slaves were punished only to the extent that it resulted in "property damage" to the slave owner. - Some of the most famous principles of the code are "eye for an eye" and "let the buyer beware." - Hammurabi's code aimed at different ends than modern jurisprudence - the law was promulgated primarily to stop fights - Hammurabi belief that a person tempted to act violently might refrain if he knew violence would be meted out to him. - Some social welfare was also included - if a man's property was stolen and the robber was not caught, the city would reimburse the victim.

Alexander the Great

- In 332 BC, the Greeks invaded the Middle East led by Alexander the Great. He would go on to conquer much of the world. - The Greeks had created the most sophisticated civilization in history. - Greeks revered the mind, which led to flowering of philosophy, art, architecture and math - For the Jews, the Greeks culture was a serious threat. - As Jews became part of the Hellenistic empire, their assimilation triggered a struggle within Judaism. - Would they assimilate or maintain their separate Jewish identity. - The Greeks brought great technological advances, they used money instead of barter. - Greek culture offered exciting new opportunities and opened up new markets for goods such as olive oil. - The Greeks also brought stability and infrastructure to the regions they controlled. - Devout Jews faced significant challenge - how could Judaism compete with what the Greeks had to offer. - This question led to an astonishing transformation within Judaism. - This transformation began with teacher in 2nd century BC named Joshua ben Sira (200- 175 BC)

Zealots/Sicarii Rome

- In 52 AD big changes came to Palestine. Jewish rebels had mostly operated in the countryside. - However, a new group arose determined to bring fight against Rome to Jerusalem. They were known as the Sicarii or Zealots. - The Sicarii carried sicae, or small daggers, concealed in their cloaks, hence their name. At public gatherings, they pulled out these daggers to attack Romans or Roman sympathizers, blending into the crowd to escape detection. They were one of the earliest forms of an organized assassination unit or cloak and daggers. - Anyone not fighting the Romans were collaborators and deserved death. - Their first victim was the Jewish high priest of Temple. - A wave of assassinations followed and fear spread through Jerusalem. - In response, the Roman governor of Palestine ordered an attack on the Temple. This was the only thing that could have united all Jews. It was a terrible decision on his part. - In 67 AD Roman soldiers plundered the Temple - soldiers killed everyone in their way. - Jews united to repel assault and the small Roman garrison was overwhelmed. - Jerusalem was briefly freed of Romans. - The Zealots then made a public declaration of war against Rome - The Romans were determined to crush rebellion before it inspired others to join. - The Roman Empire sent its greatest general Vespasian with 60,000 men to Palestine. - They had no mercy on any age and killed everyone. - Jews fled to Jerusalem as the Romans approached. - He put the city under siege with 100,000 people trapped inside. - Jerusalem was surrounded by 3 walls. It was a formidable fortress. - However, civil war began within the city between rival Jewish rebel groups. People quickly ran out of food and water and people starved. - Many decided that only hope was to flee Jerusalem but the Zealots executed anyone who tried to get out and the Romans killed anyone who managed to escape. - The Romans crucified men, women and children - stories say the areas around the city were deforested to make crosses for Jews. - After 4 months, the Romans broke through first wall of the city. - The Zealots fought but could not stop the Romans

10 Plagues

- Moses went to Egypt and inflicted 10 plagues on the Egyptians in response to Pharaoh's refusal to release the Israelites. - On the 10th plague, the Israelites were instructed to put sheep's blood on their doors so that the angel of death would pass over - the first born was killed among the Egyptians. - This gave rise to the celebration of Passover among Jews. - After the 10th plague, Pharaoh let the Israelites go. - Moses led them to the Sinai desert, where they angered God and wandered for 40 years

Nineveh

- Nineveh was an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, located on the outskirts of Mosul in modern-day northern Iraq. It is located on the eastern bank of the Tigris River and was the capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

Herod - sent by the Romans to crush Jewish rebellion 40BC - King of the Jews

- In 63 BC, the Romans under Pompey the Great conquered Judea. - By 40 BC, Jewish rebels began launching raids against the Romans from mountain hideouts. They believed God would grant them victory again. - The Romans chose an Arab prince named Herod, known for ambition and cruelty to fight the Jews. - Herod's mother was an Arab princess, his father worked for the Roman government. - Herod was proclaimed "King of the Jews" by the Roman Senate and returned to Judea to claim the throne. - For many Jews, crowning a king who was not a descendant of David was blasphemy. - Rebels decided to lead people of Judea in all out revolt - Herod had Rome behind him and decided to make example of the rebels. - The historian Josephus wrote that Herod slaughtered masses of people with no mercy for anyone, young or old. - He marched on Jerusalem, hoping to capture the city and bring a swift end to the war. - Faced with corruption among his Roman officers, mutinous Roman troops and guerrillas, however, Herod was forced to abandon his siege of Jerusalem. - He operated in Judea, Samaria and the Galilee instead, fighting against both insurgents and bandits. - By late 38 BC, reinforced by several Roman legions and having fought two years of counterinsurgency, Herod was finally able to pacify the Galilee and march south towards Jerusalem. - Herod the Great's Siege of Jerusalem (37 BC) was the final step in his campaign to secure the throne of Judea. - Aided by Roman forces provided by Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony), Herod was able to capture the city ending Maccabean rule. - The last of rebels fled to caves in cliffs where they thought Herod would not be able to find them but Herod tracked them down and killed them. - Once he tightened grip on throne, he decided to rebuild the Temple. He understood the importance of the temple in Jewish life. Rebuilding was a way for him to consolidate his power and make Jews who didn't want to revolt happy. - The Temple in Jerusalem became one of the wonders of the world - lots of gold - tourists, even non-Jews came to see it and make offerings.

Masada - last Jewish holdout after destruction of the temple in 70AD

- In 70 AD, the Romans set fire to the Temple and it was completely destroyed. - Soon, the Romans had all of Palestine except a tiny spot of desert on the Dead Sea, a fortress known as Masada. It had been built by Harod to allow a small force to hold off a much larger army. - The Sacari continued to fight from here. - The Romans began to build a ramp up the cliff to the fortress - it took two years while the Sacari waited. - To avoid capture and death, the Sacari decided to kill their own wives and children to avoid having them captured by the Romans - probably not a bad idea - they then chose 1 men to kill the rest of the men - then one was chosen to kill the other nine then kill himself. - Romans found everyone dead when they reached the fortress. - Rome conquered everything. - The Essenes had been killed by the Romans as well. - Only the Pharisees remained.

Magic

- In Egyptian myth, magic (heka) was one of the forces used by the creator to make the world. ● Through magic, symbolic actions could have practical effects. - All deities and people were thought to possess this force in some degree but there were rules about how it could be used. - Priests were the main practitioners of magic - They were guardians of secret knowledge given by the gods to ward off the blows of fate. - Most respected users of magic were the lector priests who could read the ancient books of magic kept in temples and palace libraries. - In popular stories, these men were credited with power to bring was animals to life or roll back the waters of a lake. - Lector priests performed magical rituals to protect their king and to help the dead to rebirth. - Healing magic was a specialty of the priests who served Sekhmet, the fearsome goddess of plague. - Lower in status were the scorpion-charmers who used magic to rid an area of poisonous reptiles and insects. - Midwives and nurses also included magic among their skills and wise women might be consulted about which ghosts or deities were causing a person trouble. - Amulets were another source of magic power - they were obtainable from protection makers who could be male or female. - Only foreigners were regularly accused of using evil magic Magical techniques - Dawn was the best time to perform magic and the magician had to be in a state of ritual purity. - This might involve abstaining from sex and avoiding contact with people who were deemed to be polluted such as embalmers or menstruating women. - Ideally, the magician would bathe and then dress in new or clean clothes before beginning a spell. - Metal wands representing the snake goddess Great of Magic were carried by some practitioners. - Semi-circular ivory wands decorated with fearsome deities were used later. - The wands were symbols of the authority of the magician to summon powerful beings and to make them obey him or her. - Only a small percentage of Egyptians were fully literate so written magic was the most prestigious kind of all. Protection - Angry deities, jealous ghosts and foreign demons and sorcerers were thought to cause misfortunes such as illness, accidents, poverty and infertility. - Magic provided for a defense against these ills. - All classes wore protective amulets which could take the form of powerful deities or animals. Magical Healing - Magic was a complementary therapy to medicine. Curses - Magic was mainly protective or healing but Egyptians also practiced destructive magic - The names of foreign enemies and Egyptian traitors were inscribed on clay pots, tablets or figurines. - These objects were then burned, broken or buried in cemeteries in the belief that this would weaken or destroy the enemy. - In major temples, priests and priestesses performed a ceremony to curse enemies of the divine order such as the chaos serpent Apophis who was eternally at war with the creator sun god. - Images of Apophis were drawn on papyrus or modelled in wax. - These images were spat on, trampled, stabbed and burned. - Anything that remained was dissolved in buckets of urine. - Human enemies of the pharaoh could also be cursed.

Jewish migration

- In centuries that followed, whole communities of Jews began to leave Palestine to look for better life. - They headed for Jewish communities that had flourished for centuries in Babylon, Greece, Rome and other places.

Creation Myths

- In the Enuma Elish (When on high), the Akkadian creation myth, the universe at the beginning consisted of undifferentiated, watery mass. - There were two basic elements - fresh waters (the male principle) known as Apsu and salt waters (female) known as Tiamat - From these two original deities, the other gods were born. - However, the children of the creator gods were unruly and difficult to control so their parents, Tiamat and Apsu, decided to destroy them. - These children had become gods themselves and found out their parents wanted to destroy them. - To prevent their own destruction, the god of intelligence and wisdom, Enki or Ea succeeded in putting his father, Apsu in a trance and killing him. - Enki then constructed his home on top of the monstrous remains of Apsu which became earth. - Tiamat was disturbed and rounded up the forced so chaos to continue the war against her children. - But, the storm god Enlil, defeated Tiamat and used part of her body to form the sky then created the rest of the universe including humans. - Even though the gods had defeated the forces of chaos, there was no guarantee that the forces of chaos might not recover strength and overturn the orderly creation of the gods. - Gods and men alike were involved in perpetual struggle to restrain the powers of chaos. - Each had their own role. - Mesopotamian cities provided the gods with everything they needed to run this world. - Without this support, the gods could not perform their proper function and the universe would descend into chaos.

Essenes

- In the midst of the fighting, another group of Jews came to believe that God did not want them to fight the Romans but to prepare for the end of days. - On shores on the Dead Sea lived a group of Jews called the Essenes. - Essenes had withdrawn from civilization to an apocalyptic landscape near the Dead Sea that reminded them that the end was near. - For them, that was the only possible explanation for why God had allowed the Romans to conquer Jerusalem. - Essenes followed the cleanliness rituals of the priests and rejected sex and personal possessions. They were determined to live as perfectly as possible until the end came. - They spent much time making copies of the Bible and other sacred texts so their eternal wisdom would survive the final battle between good and evil. - They believed everything was preordained by God - expected a 40 year war between good and evil - good would win. - They stored their writings in cliffs above the Dead Sea. - Dead Sea scrolls are some of the oldest copies of the Bible that exist.

Mattahias Maccabees Judah Maccabee Hanuakkah

- Mattathias Maccabeus, a local leader, refused to worship the statue of Zeus. - Greek officials tried to reason with him and even tried to bribe him with gold. - Maccabeus refused and killed the king's commissioners then tore down the altar and fled into the hills. - This began the first war of religious freedom or freedom of conscience. It also gives us the Hanukkah story. Hanukkah Story: Story is that although Jewish rebels were vastly outnumbered, they took up arms to protect their community and religion led by Mattathias and his son Judah Maccabeus (the hammer). The rebel armies became know as the Maccabees. After three years of fighting in about 164 BC, the Maccabees victoriously reclaimed the temple on Jerusalem's Mount Moriah. They removed all Greek influenced from the Temple and 40 prepared it for rededication. In Hebrew Hanukkah means "dedication." In the temple they found only enough purified oil to kindle the temple light for a single day, but miraculously the light continued to burn for 8 days until more oil could be made. The lighting of the menorah is the most important Hanukkah tradition. The menorah is a candle stand with nine branches- the middle one is used to light the other eight candles for each day of Hanukkah. Each evening one candle is lit with a special blessing. - The Greeks soon counter attacked and crushed the rebels - Judah Maccabee was killed. - His brother Jonathan took over the rebels and by 152 BC, he had 10,000 soldiers under his command. - Instead of starting a new war, Jonathan made a bargain with a general who wanted control of the Seleucid Empire. - In return, Jonathan was made high priest and ruler of the Jewish people. - The bargain was successful and made Judea independent. - The Maccabee's victory against overwhelming odds was proof for Jews of God's favor - if you fight to remain with God, God will help you.

Medicine

- Medicine from ancient Egypt is some of the oldest documented and was highly advanced for its time. - Egyptians could do simple, non-invasive surgery, setting of bones, and dentistry. They also possessed an extensive set of pharmacopoeia. - Egyptian medical thought influenced later traditions including the Greeks. - There are several sets of extensive medical documents from ancient Egypt. - There is a textbook on surgery with detailed anatomical observations probably written around 1600 BC but the information probably dates from much earlier. - Another text is full of incantations meant to turn away disease causing demons. - A third treats women's complaints including problems with conception. Pharmacology - Like many civilizations, Egyptians discovered the medicinal properties of plants. - There were many recipes to heal stomach problems, and some specifically for women's health concerns, and to improve skin condition. - Honey and pomegranate juice were frequently used for their medical properties. - Berries from the castor oil tree, Male Palm, and Gengent beans were used to cure constipation. - Egyptian doctors prescribed ostrich eggs mixed with tortoise shell and thorns to cure internal ulcers. - A headache recipe called for the inner of onion, fruit of the am tree, natron, setseft seeds, bone of the swordfish cooked, cooked redfish, cooked skull of crayfish, honey, and abraointment. - Some treatments made use of cannabis and incense. - Also used animal feces and some metals for treatments and included incantations along with other remedies. Medical practices - Egyptian doctors had a good reputation in Egypt and in other parts of the world. - Physicians had some knowledge of human anatomy, partly because of mummification process. - They were aware of the existence of the pulse and the connection between pulse and heartbeat. - They believed that channels carried air, water and blood to the body, like the channels of the Nile - if those channels became blocked, problems developed. - Quite a few of their medical practices were effective. - Advice for staying healthy included washing and shaving the body and avoiding raw meat. - Other practices were ineffective or harmful. - Many treatments included animal dung which carried bacteria. - Surviving papyrus documents show that some treatments must have been predictably reliable and others not. - Physicians could effectively set bones, and they had some success with surgery. - Part of their importance lies in their efforts to alleviate pain and enhance health by natural means rather than just spiritual ones. - Medical advances developed largely out of desire to preserve bodies after death. Surgery - The oldest metal surgical tools were discovered in an Egyptian the tomb. - Surgery was a common practice among physicians as treatment for physical injuries. - They used knives, hooks, drills, forceps, pincers, scales, spoons, saws and a vase with burning incense. - Circumcision of males was the norm. - The only known depiction of the procedure in the Tomb of the Physicians, burial place of Ankh-Mahor at Saqqara, shows adolescents, not babies. - Prosthetics, such as artificial toes and eyeballs were also used - they were mostly decorative. - In preparation for burial, missing body parts would be replaced, but most would not have been useful or even attachable before death. Dentistry - Dentistry was an important field for the Egyptians. - Egyptian diet was high in abrasives from sand left over from grinding grain and bits of rock which made it into bread. - Condition of teeth was poor although improved grinding techniques made things better over time. - If an individual's teeth escaped being worn down, cavities were rare due to rarity of sweeteners. - Dentistry consisted mostly of teeth pulling. - Teeth replacements have been found and might have been used or might have been just post-mortem cosmetics. - Medical practice was distinguished by the view that diseases came from natural rather than supernatural causes and hence that physicians should provide accurate diagnoses and predictable reliable treatments.

Pyramids

- Old Kingdom: period that saw the building of the first pyramid. - Pyramids had a number of functions, one of which was to help the spirit of the dead pharaoh to be reborn. - Pyramids were part of the quest for immortality. They served as tombs for Egypt's royalty. - The pyramids built at Giza were most impressive. - There are 3 million blocks in the largest Great Pyramid - some weigh up to 15 tons a piece. - No one knows how they were built. - The concept of pyramid had origins with the beginning of time. - Egyptians hoped that by uniting their spirits with the sun god they could be swept into the cycle of eternal life. - Pyramid was vehicle to immortality - resurrection machine. - Pyramid walls were covered with text to aid the pharaoh in the trip to the afterlife. - The walls were filled with formulas and spells - one to rid pharaoh of all wrongdoing - another to protect him from scorpions and snakes, another to announce his arrival to the sun god Ra. - Buried pharaohs were also surrounded by gold. Gold had supernatural powers, and Egyptians believed gold to be the flesh of the sun god Ra. - By surrounding body with gold, a pharaoh would be guaranteed eternal life. - Most tombs were robbed in antiquity and the mummies removed, but in 1922, archaeologists made a spectacular discovery. - The tomb of the young pharaoh Tutankhamun's had been missed by previous grave robbers. - Tutankhamun died in 1327 BC - he was about *** His is the only tomb discovered intact in the Valley of the Kings - When found in 1922 was most stunning archeological find of all time. - It showed the riches and power of Egyptian civilization.

Sennacherib

- One of the greatest Assyrian kings, Sennacherib, built an incredible capital at Nineveh on the banks of the upper Tigris - it was the most impressive city anyone had ever built in Mesopotamia. - Within walls whose circumference was 7 ½ miles lay magnificent temples and a royal palace with at least 71 rooms. - Outside the walls were orchards and zoos with rare trees and exotic animals that Sennacherib ordered brought form great distances. - Dissatisfied with the quality of the local water supply, the king supervised an extraordinary engineering project whereby water was led to Nineveh by channels and aqueducts from fresh mountain springs 50 miles away. - The palace at Nineveh had a library of clay tablets containing a vast repository of practical knowledge and religious lore. Many of the tablets came from Sumer and Babylon after those cities were conquered by the Assyrians. - When Assurbanipal finished the library at Nineveh, it contained almost all available Sumerian and Babylonian learning and literature

Wheeled transport

- One such innovation was wheeled transport around 3200 BC - Egyptians didn't have wheels until at least 1700 BC. - Earliest Sumerian wheeled vehicles were 2 wheeled chariots and 4 wheeled carts.

Importance of spells and symbols

- Private collections of spells were treasured possessions handed down in families. - Protective or healing spells written on papyrus were sometimes folded up and worn on the body. - A spell usually consisted of two parts: the words to be spoken and a description of the actions to be taken. - To be effective, all the words, especially the secret names of deities had to be pronounced correctly. - The words might be spoken to activate the power of an amulet, a figurine or a potion. - Music and dance could also form part of a spell.

Book of the dead Underworld

- Regular people also wanted to secure a good afterlife. - This could be achieved in many ways. - Ordinary Egyptians were promised an afterlife, but getting there had many hurdles. - The Book of the Dead was essential for successfully navigating the texts that stood before the dead person and paradise. It contained lists of magic spells that helped the dead navigate the underworld. - The book was placed in tomb with the dead because it also served as a map of the underworld. - To achieve good afterlife, an individual had to travel from west to east through gates in the underworld. - The deceased would go before 42 judges to be tried - spells helped with this trial, and the Book of the dead provided information about how to address each of the judges. - Once past the judges, the deceased would go through a heart-weighing ceremony, in which the heart was weighed against the feather of truth by Ma'at, the goddess of truth. - The jackal-headed god Anubis, guardian of the underworld, checked the balance while Thoth, the Ibis headed god of knowledge and truth prepared to record the result. - A monster known as Ammit, part crocodile, part lion, part hippo looked on, ready to swallow the heart laden with sin. - If the deceased was found worthy, Horus presented the dead person to Osiris, the lord of the underworld. - All of the departed who met the tests entered a realm of physical delights. The unfortunate ones whose hearts revealed their vicious lives would be utterly destroyed. - Paradise contained marshes of lotus-flowers in which people would hunt geese and quail with never-ending success - build houses in the midst of orchards with luscious fruits - find lily-filled lakes to sail on pools of sparkling water. - Many people also left curses outside their tombs to dissuade grave robbers. Some curses threatened that anyone disturbing the tomb would be eaten by wild animals.

Ra - sun god Apep - giant snake

- Religion played a dominant role in the life of the ancient Egyptians, impressing politics, literature, architecture, art and the conduct of daily affairs. - Egyptians believed that in beginning there only existed darkness and a formless ocean of chaos. - Out of it arose a mound and on the mound appeared the sun god Ra - the embodiment of life, energy, and warmth. - In Egyptian belief, the sun god Ra rose daily and traveled across the sky to the western horizon. He then plunged back into the abyss of the underworld. - Many demons waiting in the underworld to stop him from rising the next day. The worst was Apep, a giant snake. - After fighting off the forces of chaos and disorder, Ra emerged the following morning with renewed strength and repeated his daily passage through the sky. - Egyptians also believed that the Nile passed through a cycle of birth and death each year. - For months it lay reduced to a muddy stream. - Then miraculously it gathered force and swelled until it overflowed its banks and spread a great mantle of water over the dry countryside. - Egyptians believed that this orderly world had been brought into existence by the gods and fixed by them or all time in the first moment of its creation. - The world experienced no evolution or development, just repetition. - The interworking of its parts and the balance of its elements was described by the term ma'at - translated order, justice, truth. - What lay outside this was exceptional, an aberration that had to be endured until the gods once more restored order again. - The universe was not infallible. The gods were always victorious in the struggle to maintain order but the struggle had to be renewed. - To maintain ma'at of Egypt, gods delegated Horus, son of Osiris to be the guarantor of this balance and harmony. - His job was to ensure the continuing existence and activity of the gods on earth by means of religious acts.

Tigris and Euphrates

- The two rivers in which between them lay the valley Mesopotamia - This is where the origins of Western Civilization lie, in what is today Southern Iraq

Division of Israel 1. Kingdom of Judah 2. Kingdom of Israel

- Solomon's death was signal for open revolt - northerners refused to pay taxes and quickly seceded from the united Hebrew state to set up their own kingdom. - The northern kingdom came to be known as the Kingdom of Israel with its capital in Samaria, while the remnant of the south was the Kingdom of Judah with its capital at Jerusalem. - Even as a united kingdom, the Hebrew state had not been that strong but divided it was very weak. - The Kingdom of Israel managed to survive for 2 centuries until 722 BC when it was annihilated by the Assyrians. - Bible says and archeological record confirms that in about 722 BC the Assyrian army conquered the northern 10 tribes of Israel and deported them to the far-flung reaches of the Assyrian empire. - These scattered Israelites assimilated into their new environments and most of the Israelites were lost. - Since the Assyrians followed a policy of leveling all the important buildings of conquered nations and scattering their populations, the Kingdom of Israel never rose again. - As for the Kingdom of Judah, it just barely eluded the Assyrian massacre partly because of its insignificance, but in 586 BC it was conquered by the Chaldeans under Nebuchadnezzar who plundered and burned Jerusalem and its Temple, deporting Judah's leading citizens to Babylon. - The prophets Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah declared that the destruction of Judah was a punishment that the Hebrews had brought on themselves by violating God's laws - It was a very dark time in Hebrew history. - It is incredible that the Israelites survived as a people. - Judeans seemed destined to disappear. - However, in Babylon, a vision of who they were was transformed as they read and studied the Bible. - Gave people an identity to hold on to. The Bible showed that they had overcome serious adversity before. There were many stories about liberation and freedom. - The Bible also provided the message that God is fair, if you are punished, there is a reason for it. - For those who recognized sin and repented, God will take you back - redemption is possible. - The earliest forms of modern Judaism emerge here - they really embraced idea of one God, and developed a conviction that their God would allow them to return home to Canaan.

Agriculture

- Sumer's accomplishments were preponderantly influenced by its climate and geography. - The soil was very fertile, but irrigation was essential because received almost no rainfall for 8 months each year. - Collective work on irrigation projects demanded careful planning and assertive leadership which led to social stratification and professional specialization. - Unlike Egypt where the Nile flooded at a time that's convenient for crop cycle, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers flood too late for summer planting and too early for winter planting. - Agriculture was only possible with artificial irrigation and careful crop management. - This required the building of deep canals to channel water. - Salinization was another big problem. *** In South, the low water table encouraged salt to collect and rise to surface when fields were not properly leached by fresh water. Soil could become sterile quickly.

Cuneiform

- Sumerians also developed a form of writing using symbols - around 3500 BC Sumerians had begun to carve pictures in stone or stamp them into clay as ownership marks. - Start out with pictograms that become increasingly simplified over time and became a phonetic system over the course of 6OO years. - We don't know what the Sumerians called their writing system - it never formed into a complete alphabet. - The Sumerian writing system reached its fully developed form around 2500 BC. We know it as cuneiform - it's based on wedge shaped characters impressed on wet clay by a reed stylus with a triangular point - in total, there were about 500 characters and many had multiple meanings making the system rather difficult to learn. - Cuneiform served well enough to be used as the sole writing system in Mesopotamia for 2 millennia - most surviving texts are business or administrative records but others are proverbs, hymns, and fragments of mythic tales. - Schools for scribes were in operation by 2500 BC. - Much time was needed to master the cuneiform system of writing. - The primary goal of scribal education was to produce professionally trained scribes for careers in temples and palaces, the military, and government. - Students were boys and mostly from wealthy families. - Writing was important for keeping records, but also for literature.

Lunar calendar

- Sumerians also devised the first lunar calendar - in its perilous climate it was absolutely essential to have a calendar that could map planting and harvesting cycles as well as flooding and rain cycles in the region - they needed reliable way to mark the passage of days. - The easiest way to do this was to use the cycles of the moon since the moon moves from the thinnest crescent and back over the course of 29 and a half days - when the moon passed through 12 cycles Sumerians knew a year had passed and it was time to start planting - the calendar became more sophisticated over time.

Ziggurat

- Temples were places where the gods lived - they varied in size, shape and function. - The main god or goddess of the city had the largest temples and lived there with his or her family and relatives. - Other smaller chapels and religious sites were also scattered around cities. - One of most popular building styles of the time was the ziggurat, a stepped pyramid. - Mesopotamians saw them as staircases between heaven and earth, connecting links between humans and gods. - Mesopotamian temples loomed mightily over cities throughout the period from 3200 to 2200 BC - temples dominated cities and the entire flat skyline because they were built on huge platforms intended solely to lend themselves height. - Some ziggurats were so massive that it took 1500 workers working 10 hours a day for 5 years to complete one - the work was accomplished mostly by volunteers as acts of religious devotion. - In most rooms of temples were statues of the gods surrounded by offerings - they were guarded by lions, bulls and griffins. - On feast days, statues of the gods were taken in solemn procession through the courtyard or the streets of the city.

Hammurabi

- The Amorites in Babylon rose to prominence under Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC dates of rule). - At the start of his reign, Babylon was simply one among many Amorite kingdoms. It was not the largest or the strongest. - Hammurabi was unable or unwilling to challenge his neighbors on the battlefield. - Instead, he managed to convince all of them of the existence of numerous conspiracies against their crowns. - He passed endless false rumors, usually of his own making, and reiterated in person by his many ambassadors. - Believing the lies, the other Amorite kings continually attacked one another for nearly 2O years. - Once they were all exhausted, Hammurabi went on the offensive and in less than a decade conquered them all. - He emerged as the sole ruler of virtually the entire Tigris-Euphrates region, thus building the Babylonian Empire. - He called himself the King of the Four Quarters of the World. - He was a good general, savvy diplomat and a good administrator, and consolidated all of Mesopotamia under his control.

Sumer

- The Greeks spoke of the valley between the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers as Mesopotamia, the land "between the rivers." This is where the origins of Western Civilization lie, in what is today Southern Iraq. - Sumer was the first region with features that historians associate with civilization. *** These include consistent use of ag, domestic animals, cities and writing. - Sumer was an unlikely place for civilization to begin *** Soil is sandy, summertime temps regularly surpass 110F and the area gets 8 in of rain a year. *** There is no stone to quarry, no metal ores, little timber, and it was exposed to raiding groups from Iran. - Although the region receives little rain, but the soil of southern Mesopotamia was enlarged and enriched over the years by layers of silt deposited by the 2 rivers. - In the late spring, the Tigris and Euphrates overflow their banks and deposit their fertile silt, but since this flooding depends on the melting of the snows in the upland mountains where the rivers begin, it is irregular and sometimes catastrophic. - In such circumstances, farming could be accomplished only with human intervention in the form of irrigation and drainage of ditches - A complex system was required to control the flow of these rivers and produce crops. *** Large scale irrigation made possible the expansion of ag in the region, and the abundant food provided the material base for the emergence of civilization in Mesopotamia. - Around 3200 BCE Sumerians developed an early form of writing. - About the same time, people in Mesopotamia also developed a calendar and mathematical multiplication. - Mesopotamians were profound thinkers who pioneered in the life of the mind to such an extent that their innovations in technology, jurisprudence, astronomy, and narrative literature became fundamental for subsequent developments in these areas of thought and expression.

Saul

- The Hebrews chose a man named Saul as their first king (c. 1020-1000 BC). - He initially achieved some success in the ongoing struggle against the Philistines, but he was a very emotionally disturbed man. - He eventually died in a disastrous battle with the Philistines, and his successor David took power.

Enslavement in Egypt

- The Hebrews lived in Canaan (Palestine) for many years, but the Bible says that eventually, a famine drove many Hebrews out of Canaan and into Egypt, - They lived there peacefully for many years but were eventually enslaved by the Egyptians. The Bible suggests that this enslavement lasted for 400 years. - Even as slaves, the Hebrews flourished grew as a people. - Eventually, they became so numerous that the Pharaoh decided to do population control by killing all the baby boys

Palestine - Hebrews

- The Hebrews moved into Palestine sometime around 1200 BC. - The Bible tells of 4OO years of enslavement in Egypt, followed by a long march and the conquest of Canaan (Palestine} - The march out of Egypt was led by Moses to whom was given the first elements of the Torah

Philistines

- The Hebrews preserved the political autonomy of each tribe as long as they could, but eventually, attacks from a group called the Philistines forced them to mount a united defense. - Around 1O5O BC the Philistines demolished the main Hebrew sanctuary at Shiloh and carted off the Ark of the Covenant - the chest that held the stone tablets of the Torah as received by Moses. - After that military catastrophe, the bulk of the people called for the creation of a Hebrew monarchy. - They wanted a central command that could hold the federation together and destroy the Philistines.

Nile

- The Nile is a unique river beginning in the heart of Africa and coursing northward for thousands of miles - it's the longest river in the world. - The current flows south and the wind blows north which helps with shipping both ways. - In ancient times, the Nile was the fastest way to travel through the land, making both transportation and communication easier. - Often when headed downstream, people used long poles or paddles to propel their boats forward. -Nile was responsible for creating an area several miles wide on both banks of the river that was fertile and capable of producing abundant harvests. - Outside the delta, the land is only habitable land for 15 miles on both sides of the river so Egypt was easy to protect from foreign invasion. - The "miracle' of the Nile was its annual flooding - the river rose in the summer from rains in central Africa, crested in Egypt in September and October, and left a deposit of silt that created an area of rich soil. *** Egyptians called this fertile land the Black Land because it was dark in color from the silt. Lush crops grew in it. - Unlike the floods of Mesopotamia's rivers, the flooding of the Nile was gradual and usually predictable and the river itself was seen as life enhancing not life threatening. - Although Egypt still needed an organized irrigation system, the small villages along the Nile could make the effort without the massive state intervention that was required in Mesopotamia - Egyptian civilization consequently tended to remain more rural with many small population centers congregated along a narrow band on both sides of the Nile. - Egypt's important cities developed at the tip of the delta and even today, most of Egypt's people are crowded along the banks of the Nile River. - The surpluses of food that Egyptian farmers grew in the fertile Nile valley made Egypt prosperous but the Nile also served a unifying factor in Egyptian history.

Hittites

- The Old Babylonian Empire lasted only a century and a half after Hammurabi's death in 1750 BC. - For unknown reasons, the Babylonians gradually abandoned control over some of the major southern cities. - By about 1712 BC, the Babylonian empire had lost most of its holdings to the south and east in Mesopotamia. - The ancient power centers of Sumer had mostly been destroyed and lay almost deserted. - Around 23OO BC, an Indo-European tribe had spread through the entire western side of Asia Minor along the Halys River. They probably came from between the Caspian and Black Sea areas. - While Hammurabi was storming through Mesopotamia, uniting it by force, the villages of the Indo-Europeans in Asia Minor were coalescing into small kingdoms under various war leaders. - The Egyptians called them Ht, a designation taken from the people's own name for their homeland - For us, they became the Hittites. - The Hittites learned to write from the Mesopotamian merchants who lived nearby, so their early inscriptions and accounts are all in the cuneiform script. - Hittites gradually coalesced into a nation, partly through war, and began to make armed expeditions out of Asia Minor into western Mesopotamia. - By 1595, the Hittites had arrived at the walls of Babylon, which put up little resistance. - The Hittite army demolished the city of Babylon in 1595BC. They did not stay in Babylon but moved north leaving chaos in their wake. - Next 3 centuries were a "dark age" in Mesopotamia that historians know little about - there were no noteworthy contributions made to history of civilization during this period.

Simon bar Kokhba - led final Jewish revolt against the Romans Destruction of the Temple

- The Romans and Jews lived in uneasy peace in the 6O years after the destruction of the Temple. - However, in 13O AD, anger over refusal of Emperor Hadrian to rebuild the Temple reached a boiling point and rebellion began again among rebels living in countryside. - The rebels were led by Simon bar Kokhba (died 135 CE) leader of what is known as the Bar Kokhba revolt against the Roman Empire in 132 CE. - The Romans saw him as a thief, many Jews saw him as a freedom fighter and some thought he was the messianic leader from the Bible who would liberate the Jews. - He was a great military leader and almost kicked the Romans out of Palestine. - However, the Romans put together a huge army - one of largest in their history - send 13 legions when 3 had destroyed the Temple in 70 AD. - The Emperor Hadrian ordered them to kill everyone who stood in their way. - This became the most disastrous single event that had every happened to Jews - 600,000 Jews were killed and it looked like Jewish history might be over. - After the defeat of the Jews, the Romans banned all Jews from Jerusalem and changed its name to Halia. They dedicated the remains of the Temple to Roman gods

City-States

- The creators of the first Mesopotamian civilization were the Sumerians, a people whose origins remain unclear. - By 3000 BC, they had established a number of independent cities in southern Mesopotamia including Eridu, Ur, Uruk, Umma and Lagash. - Not much known about these early Mesopotamians. They seem to emerge into history with languages and cultures wholly formed. - Most groups in Mesopotamia adopted some form of Sumerian city state and adapted the Sumerian technique of writing to their own languages. - As cities expanded in size, they came to exercise political and economic control over the surrounding countryside, forming city-states. - These city states were not peaceful. They frequently engaged in wars as each city state tried to dominate the region. - Sumerian cities were surrounded by walls, Uruk, for example, occupied an area of approximately 1000 acres encircled by a wall 6 miles long with defense towers located every 30 to 35 feed along the wall. - City dwellings, built of sun dried bricks, included both small peasant flats and larger dwellings of the civic and priestly officials

Osiris - god of afterlife, death and resurrection Isis - goddess of lover and fertility Horus - god of sky and kingship Seth - god of storms

- The gods who personified the vegetative powers of nature were eventually fused into a deity called Osiris who was also the god of the Nile. - The cult of Osiris began as a nature religion. - According to belief, he had been a benevolent ruler who taught his people ag, practical arts, and gave them laws. - After a time, he was treacherously slain by his wicked brother Seth and his body cut into pieces. - His wife Isis who was also his sister went in search of the pieces, put them together and miraculously restored his body to life. - The risen god Osiris regained his kingdom and continued his beneficent rule for a time but eventually descended to the underworld to serve as judge of the dead. - His son Horus avenged his father's death by killing Seth. Horus lost an eye in his battle with Seth. - Originally this legend seems to have been little more than a nature myth - The death and resurrection of Osiris symbolized the drying of the Nile in the autumn and the coming of the flood in the spring. - During the Middle Kingdom, the Osiris legend began to take on a deeper significance. - The human qualities of the deities concerned, the paternal care of Osiris for his subjects, the faithful devotion of his wife and son appealed to the emotions of average Egyptians. - The death and resurrection of Osiris came to be regarded as offering a promise of personal immortality for everyone. - As the Osiris had triumphed over death, so might the individual who worshiped him inherit everlasting life - The victory of Horus appeared to foreshadow the ultimate ascendancy of good over evil. - These two great powers who ruled the universe, Ra and Osiris were the supreme gods - other deities had a subordinate place. - Worship of Re gave immortality to the state and to the people collectively - Osiris gave immortality to the individual. - Ra was not simply a guardian deity, he was the god of righteousness, justice and truth but he offered no spiritual blessings or material rewards to people as individuals. Osiris aided the individual.

Moses

- The march out of Egypt was led by Moses to whom was given the first elements of the Torah - One family had a beautiful baby boy who they managed to keep hidden for a while in their home. - When this no longer worked, they made a basket for him and placed him in the Nile river among some reeds. - While floating there, he was discovered by the Pharaoh's daughter, who took him in and raised him as her son. - Moses never forgot his origins or rejected his Hebrew identity. - One day, Moses saw one Pharaoh's slave overseers beating a Hebrew slave. Moses killed the Egyptian then fled into the desert. - He married a nomadic woman and tended his father-in-law's sheep. - Eventually, God came to Moses in a burning bush and told Moses to rescue the Israelites from Egypt. - Moses didn't want to do it and argued with God to find someone else - Moses said he wasn't smart and not a good speaker. - God made him go anyway but send his brother Aaron with him as the spokesperson.

Nebuchadnezzar

- The most famous New Babylonian ruler was Nebuchadnezzar II (604-562 BC) who conquered Jerusalem and transported large numbers of Judeans to Babylon. - The city of Babylon during the era of the New Babylonians is the Babylon best known to us today, partly because of familiarity brought by early twentieth century excavations and partly because of surviving descriptions from eyewitness Greek travelers. - Babylon's size alone during this period was astounding, 2100 acres in comparison to the 1850 acres that had been Nineveh and the 135 acres of the typical Sumerian city - More astounding still was Babylon's color, - New Babylonians had learned to build their major monuments in brightly colored glazed brick. - The most famous example was the city wall build by Nebuchadnezzar - one of the Seven Wonders of the World. - Against a background of brilliant blue, lions, bulls, and dragons in shades of white and yellow promenaded the entire length of the wall and strutted in tiers along the entire height of the Ishtar Gate. - Nebuchadnezzar II also constructed Babylon's Hanging Gardens another of the seven wonders - ascending terraces of gardens from the Euphrates outward each with plants and trees - legend has it that he built them for his wife who came from Iran and hated the flatness of Mesopotamia

Sargon I

- The most successful of the Akkadian kings was Sargon I who conquered everything from lower Sumer to northern Syria all the way to the Mediterranean. - Sargon constantly boasted of hid cruelty as a matter of policy but it's unclear how cruel he actually was. - He may have been the first ruler who found that simply maintaining a reputation for savagery could hold a population in check as effectively as actual savagery. - Sargon I is particularly important to history because he is credited with creating the first empire. - The Sumerians had fought plenty of wars, but their custom had been to defeat and neighbor then allow them to return home and send an annual tribute. - Sumerian leaders never actually tried to govern the lands they conquered. - That changed with Sargon I. - He understood that huge power and wealth could be obtained from controlling grain-rich Sumer and commanding the trade routes of upper Mesopotamia. - He also changed the way people thought about their ruler. *** Sumerians had commonly referred to their rulers as shepherds of the people. - The Akkadians appear to have introduced the cult of king worship.

Ezra

- Then a priest named Ezra arrived in Jerusalem, sent by a Persian king to restore order in Jerusalem. - Ezra the priest in the Book of Ezra, was a Jewish scribe and a priest. According to the Hebrew Bible, he returned from the Babylonian exile and reintroduced the Torah (first 5 books of the Old Testament) in Jerusalem. - He also set up an effective government. - Ezra had to be smart and creative to deal with the massive problems he found in Palestine. - By the time he arrived, Jews in Palestine were mostly illiterate and didn't know much about the Bible or its stories. - Ezra brought the Bible with him and made it the foundation of Jewish civilization. - He had the Torah read to people so they would know how to live and understand their relationship with God. - He made people tithe so the poor could be cared for. - Jews in Palestine were asked to sign a contract agreeing to live according to the laws of the Bible. Ezra created a democratic religious revolution within Judaism. - There was no secret knowledge - everyone knew everything about how the religion worked. - Everyone knew what the priests and teachers knew. - God's revelation was for everyone - there was no religious hierarchy in knowledge. - Everyone could seek God and understand God's teachings. - Ezra revitalized Jerusalem and transformed the Temple.

Forms of Egyptian entertainment

- There is much evidence for leisure activities among the ancient Egyptians. - Men engaged in physical sports, such as hunting, fishing, archery, wrestling, boxing, and stick fencing. - Long-distance races were organized to demonstrate physical prowess, and both men and women enjoyed swimming. - Board games were popular, and games boards were constructed of a number of materials: wood, stone, clay, or simple drawings scratched on the ground. - Moves on board games were determined by throw sticks, astragali (animal anklebones), or after the late New Kingdom, cubic dice that were usually marked in the same pattern used today. - One of the most common games was senet, which was played on a board of thirty squares divided into three rows of ten squares. - Like so many other aspects of Egyptian culture, senet had a religious significance, and the game was likened to passing through the underworld. - The Egyptian national drink was beer. Many varieties of beer existed in different strengths. - Beer was safer to drink than water because the process of making beer killed bacteria that caused water-born diseases. - Egyptians were also great consumers of wine. There were 14 different wine producing regions in Egypt. - Wine producers used mostly grapes but also other fruit like pomegranate. - There is some evidence that drugs were occasionally added to wine. Tomb paintings show wine jars draped in lotus flowers, suggesting that the Egyptians understood the narcotic qualities of blue lotus flowers.

Exodus

- There is no good archeological evidence to support this story. Jewish scholars argue that what is important about the Exodus story is not whether it is factual but that it expresses truths about the human condition - what does it mean to be in the wilderness?, to hope for a promise land?, to escape slavery?- to be bewildered and exhilarated by the prospect of freedom? - It story by which people can learn to lead their lives.

Class structure

- There were 4 primary ranks. *** At the top were priests, kings, warriors and members of those families. *** Second came specialists in the temple complexes - these men served as administrators, merchants and artisans. They were relatively well-off. *** Third were free farmers who usually farmed the worst land and were often in debt. *** At the bottom were slaves - little is known about their lives, which were certainly miserable - Mesopotamian classes were not exactly fixed. - It was best to be born into a good family with status but status could change. - Catastrophe or good luck could change a person's status overnight. - War or economic hard times could make nobles slaves. - It was also legal for the father of a family to sell wife and children into slavery for up to three years - could sell himself as well. - The status of slave was not immutable. Slave could work to escape from bondage by setting aside income earned while a slave. There was also the possibility of being freed. - Slaves could sometimes own property, engage in business activities, and give evidence in court. - If a freeman took a slave as a mistress and had children by her, she could not be sold and on his death she and her children were automatically free. - If a free woman married a slave, her children were born free.

Thoth- god of wisdom, writing and magic

- Thoth was the god of writing but also the god of wisdom and magic. - He measured the earth, counted the stars and recorded the deeds of every man brought to the Hall of the Dead for judgment.

Old Kingdom (2770-2200 BC)

- Until around 3100 BC was divided unto the Upper and Lower Egypt with different kings in each area. - Unification of the two kingdoms was essential to provide centralized direction of irrigation projects and free flow of traffic along the entire Nile. - Egyptian unification was achieved by a warrior from the south called Narmer, the first of the pharaohs who brought all of Egypt north of the Mediterranean delta under his control. - For 400 years after about 3100 BC a succession of 2 ruling dynasties held sway over a united Egypt. - This initiated a period of vastly greater state power and royal absolutism. The power of the pharaoh was virtually unlimited. - This is the period that saw the building of the first pyramid. - The pharaoh was considered to be the child of the sun god and by custom married one of his sisters to keep the diving blood from being contaminated. - No separation of religious and political life existed, but the king's power and success depended on his properly fulfilling his religious obligations. - The government of the Old Kingdom was founded on a policy of peace - unique among ancient states. - The Pharaoh had no standing army - each local area had its own militia but militias were commanded by civil officials and when called into active service generally devoted their energies to labor on the public works. - In case of threat of invasion the various local units were assembled at the call of the pharaoh and placed under the command of one of his civil subordinates. - The Egyptians of the Old Kingdom were content for the most part to work out their own destinies and let other nations alone. - The reason for this attitude lies in the protected position of their country, in their possession of land of inexhaustible fertility, and in the fact that their state was a product of cooperative need instead of being grounded in exploitation. - After centuries of peace and relative prosperity, the Old Kingdom came to an end with the downfall of the Sixth Dynasty around 2200 BC. - Government revenues became exhausted because the pharaohs invested heavily in huge projects such as pyramid building and overall Egyptian prosperity was affected by climatic disasters that caused crop failures. - In the meantime, provincial strongmen usurped more and more power until central authority virtually disappeared. - The era that followed is called the first intermediate period. - Disunity prevailed, strong men created their own rival principalities and political chaos aggravated by internal brigandage and invasion by desert tribes.

Palestine

- When the Hebrews moved to Canaan (Palestine), they brought with them an unshakable conviction that God had given that land to them. - The Hebrews initially divided themselves into 12 tribes ruled by judges. - They remained semi-nomadic but carved out zones for different tribes. - Those tribes in the hilly south called themselves the people of Judah and those in the north Israel. - Religious life centered on the family, with daily prayers and rituals to observe. - The judges and a cast of priests led communal services that frequently involved some form of animal sacrifice. - the Hebrews did not proselytize but focused on broadening the acceptance of YHWH (God's name) among their own peopled - The Hebrews preserved the political autonomy of each tribe as long as they could, but eventually, attacks from a group called the Philistines forced them to mount a united defense. - Around 1O5O BC the Philistines demolished the main Hebrew sanctuary at Shiloh and carted off the Ark of the Covenant - the chest that held the stone tablets of the Torah as received by Moses. - After that military catastrophe, the bulk of the people called for the creation of a Hebrew monarchy. - They wanted a central command that could hold the federation together and destroy the Philistines

Women's rights

- Women could own property, engage in business, appear in court, and own slaves. - Marriages usually arranged and men frequently had concubines. - Betrothal was recognized when a groom presented his father-in-law with gift of money - the groom lost the money if he broke engagement. - Upon marriage, the bride assumed possession of these gifts and the dowry given her by her family - the dowry was hers. - Divorce was easy for men but difficult for women

Hieroglyphics

- system of writing known as hieroglyphics (Greek for priestly carving). - Experts are uncertain whether the Egyptians arrived at the idea of writing on their own or whether the idea came from Mesopotamian cuneiform. - The sudden appearance of hieroglyphic suggests that certain Egyptian administrator priests decided to work out a record-keeping system on the basis of their knowledge of a foreign precedent. - Writing allowed for a greater governmental efficiency and apparently was a precondition for the greatest event in ancient Egyptian political history - unification of north and south. - Hieroglyphics was a system of writing using pictograms or small pictures to represent ideas and words. It never really evolved into an alphabet although the symbols did become more phonetic over time. - Even after the hieroglyphs became phonetic symbols, pictograms continued to be used for religious writing. - For Egyptians, hieroglyphs contained magical power and writing could bring immortality. - Writing was a magic form in which the lines carried life and power. - Some hieroglyphs were too powerful to be carved in magic place, they could only be written in less powerful areas lest they bring unwanted forces into existence. - The name of a king, carved in hieroglyph on a monument or statue gave him a presence that went on past his death. - To deface the carved name of a king was to kill him eternally. - Egyptians believed that writing had been created by a god, Thoth, the divine scribe who created himself with the power of his own word - Some hieroglyphs were designed to be indecipherable unless you possessed the key to their meaning. - The Egyptian priests were guardians of this information. - Sumerians had a patron deity of scribes, Nisaba, who also seems to be the goddess of grain, but writing didn't have the same magical qualities for them so they moved away from pictograms more quickly. - Once the knowledge of hieroglyphs disappeared, the writing of the Egyptians remained obscure until the 1790s when a band of Napoleon's soldiers, digging out the foundations of a fort on the Nile Delta, uncovered a 7OO lb slab of basalt with the same inscription written in hieroglyphs, Greek, and a later Egyptian script. 17 - This is called the Rosetta Stone and it allowed linguists to decipher hieroglyphics. - Hieroglyphs continued to be magical but the Egyptians eventually invented a new, easier script for everyday use. - Hieratic script was simplified hieroglyphic writing - Egyptians also developed paper to write on instead of carving stone or printing clay..

Foreign Invasion During The Middle Kingdom

- the geographic isolation and cultural superiority of Egypt had allowed its inhabitants to maintain an attitude of superiority toward the outside the world. - However, the emergence of powerful Amorite coalitions in Syria and Canaan and weakness of ruling dynasty meant Egypt was no longer able to keep distance from outside world. - From 1750 BC onward waves of emigrants and invaders from Syria and Canaan began to move to Egypt. - They were known to the Egyptians as the Hyksos. - They settled in the delta area and eventually had sufficient power to set up an independent kingdom there. - Early in the next century, these foreign kings were able to extend their control throughout all of Egypt. - Their strength lay partly in recently introduced horse-drawn chariot, which came from Western Asia. The Egyptians had never seen one before. - The occupation of Egypt lasted about 150 years. - From 1560 BC on the Egyptians fought a series of wars of liberation and the Hyksos were driven out. - In order to better control its borders, Egyptian rulers extended control to the Euphrates River.

Nebuchadnezzar - Hebrew

As for the Kingdom of Judah, it just barely eluded the Assyrian massacre partly because of its insignificance, but in 586 BC it was conquered by the Chaldeans under Nebuchadnezzar who plundered and burned Jerusalem and its Temple, deporting Judah's leading citizens to Babylon

Abram/Abraham Sarai/Sarah Hagar Ishmael Isaac Canaan

Creation story of Israel - The story of Jews begins with a man named Abram born in the city of Ur in Mesopotamia. - The people of Abram's land worshiped the sky and each city venerated a different star. - Abram's father made and sold idols to the people of the city of Ur. - A famous legend says that when Abram was a young boy, his father owned a shop full of idols. - One day he asked Abram to watch the store for a while. - When he came back, Abram had smashed all the idols except the largest. - Abram's father was furious but Abram claimed that the largest idol had smashed all the others. - His father that's crazy, they are wood and stone - Abram responded "that's the point, they are not real gods." - Sometime between 18OO and 17OO BC, according to the Biblical story, a tired old man in the city of Ur began to hear a voice in his head - he was about - Abram learned that there was only one God in the Universe. - According to stories, once Abram began to voice his belief that the universe was ruled by a single God, that God gave him a mission. - God told Abram to leave his family for a new country - God promised to make Abram a great nation in a land chosen by God even though Abram and his wife Sarai had no children. - 12 years or so later, God renamed them Abraham and Sarah and promised again to give them a son. - However, Abraham and Sarah got tired of waiting for God to give them a son and took things into their own hands. - Sarah gave Abraham her servant, Hagar so he could produce a child with her, even though this is never what God intended. - When the child was born, God ordered Abraham to circumcise himself and Ishmael and to promise to circumcise all their male offspring on the 8th day after birth. - After the baby arrived, Sarah became jealous and beat Hagar badly. She banished Hagar and Ishmael into the desert to die but God had mercy on them and promised to make Ishmael a great nation too. - Ishmael is considered the father of modern Arabs. - A short time later, when Abraham was 99 and Sarah 9O, their son Isaac was finally born. - God led Abraham to a land called Canaan in present day Israel. This was the land God had promised Abraham as a homeland. - In Canaan, God tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his son Isaac. - Right before Abraham killed Isaac, an angel of the Lord stopped Abraham - he had passed the test by being willing to sacrifice his only son. - Because of Abraham's obedience, God made a promise to shower blessings on Abraham and his descendants. - Abraham represents turning away from idolatry - one people worship one God. - Abraham is embraced as a founding father of Islam and Christianity as well as Judaism.

Assyrians - Hebrews

Division of Israel: - The Kingdom of Israel managed to survive for 2 centuries until 722 BC when it was annihilated by the Assyrians. - Bible says and archeological record confirms that in about 722 BC the Assyrian army conquered the northern 10 tribes of Israel and deported them to the far-flung reaches of the Assyrian empire.

science

Egyptians were most interested in branches of science aimed at practical ends - astronomy, medicine, and math. Astronomy - In the realm of astronomy, the Egyptians greatest achievement was their discovery of a way to avoid the imprecisions of a lunar calendar. - They rejected the cycles of the moon model and by around 2000 BC had noticed that the brightest star in the sky, Sirius, rose in the morning once a year in direct alignment with the sun. - Constructing a calendar on this observation so that "New Year's Day" began with Sirius solar alignment they could foretell the coming of the Nile's floods and produce the best calendar in antiquity before that devised by Julius Caesar. - Calendar had a year of 365 days with 12 months and three seasons. - Each month had three 10 day weeks for a total of 30 days - The last 5 days of the year corresponded to the birthdays of 5 deities. - Since the Egyptians did not take leap years into account, their calendar got further and further away from the seasons. - At one point, the summer months actually fell in winter. - Only every 1460 years did their calendar year synchronize with the seasonal year

Judea

In 63 BC, the Romans under Pompey the Great conquered Judea. Rebels decided to lead people of Judea in all out revolt The rebels were too weak to overthrow Rome but they plunged Judea into chaos.

Josiah

Josiah or Yoshiyahu was the sixteenth king of Judah who, according to the Hebrew Bible, instituted major religious reforms. Josiah is credited by most biblical scholars with having established or compiled important Hebrew Scriptures during the "Deuteronomic reform" which probably occurred during his rule.

Deuteronomy

The Book of Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Jewish Torah, where it is called Devarim, "the words [of Moses]". Chapters 1-30 of the book consist of three sermons or speeches delivered to the Israelites by Moses on the plains of Moab, shortly before they enter the Promised Land.`

Isaiah Ezekiel Jeremiah

The prophets Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah declared that the destruction of Judah was a punishment that the Hebrews had brought on themselves by violating God's laws - It was a very dark time in Hebrew history. - It is incredible that the Israelites survived as a people. - Judeans seemed destined to disappear

Torah

first 5 books of the Old Testament The religiously conservatively Sadducees insisted on a strict interpretation of the Mosaic Law (Torah) and the perpetuation of temple ceremonies - They were the wealthy members of Jewish society who rejected the idea of an afterlife and resurrection of the dead arguing that God only meted out rewards and punishments on earth.