Early Civilizations

Sumerians

The first peoples to organize themselves into complex communities were the Sumerians. Between 4000-3000 BCE, these peoples gathered into city-states. During the Early Dynastic Period, the Sumerians shared a common language, culture, and religion, but they were politically fragmented and constantly warred against each other over land and resources. Each city was ruled by a king, who controlled significant resources to organize armies and go to war, to undertake building projects (particularly temples), establish codes of law and judicial institutions, and regulate the local economies. The Sumerians were the first peoples in Mesopotamia to exploit the rich soil and manipulate the environment widely to produce sufficient quantities of food annually. Yet, both the Tigris and the Euphrates were unpredictable and meandering, and though they deposited the rich silts that were essential for farming, they were also regularly prone to destructive flooding. The Sumerians explained such events as acts, and even punishments, of the gods.

Science

Advanced understanding in the fields of mathematics (arithmetic and geometry), astronomy, and engineering had far-reaching political and cultural implications. Ancient peoples recorded the movements of the sun, moon, and stars, as well as the change of seasons. Knowledge of basic engineering and mathematical principles enabled them to build agricultural tools and enormous temples, chart the planets, create accurate calendars, and divide time into segments. The most notable early invention was the wheel, which revolutionized the development of tools and technology that followed.

Social Order

As food supplies increased, greater efficiency meant that fewer people were needed to produce adequate food for the group, allowing some individuals to pursue other skills. Small groups of people developed specialized skills for different professions. Over time, the professions separated into a social order with slaves, laborers, and farmers at the bottom, tradesmen (builders and craftsmen) in the middle, and leaders, priests, and landowners at the top.

Agriculture

Most ancient civilizations were founded on agriculture, which can be defined as the purposeful manipulation of a fixed piece of land so as to produce quantities of food. Farming helped to establish communities and made it possible for people to develop skills in areas not directly related to food production.

Civilization

A densely settled, agricultural society that was based on innovation.

Neo-Assyrian Empire

Although the Old Assyrian Kingdom collapsed, the Assyrian people combined with the more recent Aramaeans and created a new state that would surpass all previous Mesopotamian empires in terms of geographic scope, military success, and institutions. The initial phase of state organization and expansion began c. 900, but it was under Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BCE) that the Assyrians undertook aggressive imperialism. For the next two centuries, all of the lands that made up the Fertile Crescent as well as Egypt were brought under Assyrian control. This control was based on military power often reinforced through brutality and terrorism. The empire was divided into a series of provinces, each ruled by a governor who collected taxes and tribute from conquered peoples and used that money to pay the Assyrian military to crush resistance. The last phase of expansion was undertaken by the most famous of the Neo-Assyrian rulers, Ashurbanipal (668-627 BCE). To celebrate his military victories he built a huge palace at Nineveh, which also had a library that housed a considerable number of Sumerian, Akkadian, and Babylonian texts, allowing for the diffusion of cultures throughout the Neo-Assyrian empire. Assyrian military success was a result of two important innovations. The first was the widespread use of iron, rather than bronze, for tools and weapons. Easier to obtain than copper and tin, iron was much cheaper to mine and forge into different shapes and was much more durable than any other metal or alloy. Assyrian soldiers, using iron weapons and chariots, could not be matched in battle. Assyrian soldiers also invented siege towers—elevated fighting platforms—in the ninth century BCE, to topple the defensive walls of a fortified city. The brutality toward their enemies is clearly illustrated in well-recorded sculptured reliefs discovered by archaeologists. They took pride in eliminative strategies. Technology and military prowess did not guarantee political longevity. Civil war and rebellion broke out following the death of Ashurbanipal, and an alliance of Medes (an Iranian tribe) and Babylonians destroyed Nineveh in 612 BCE. The remnants of the Neo-Assyrian Empire would be taken over by the city of Babylon and its able kings.

Hittite Kingdoms

Between 2000-1800 BCE, various Hittite tribes occupied Anatolia (modern-day Turkey), just north of Mesopotamia. The Hittites remained politically fragmented and warred with each other until the rise of Hattusilis I (1650-1620), who through conquest, assassination, and bribery brought all of the tribes under his single political control. Thus, the beginning of the Old Hittite Kingdom. Although their culture, language, and some political institutions were unlike those of Mesopotamia (they were an Indo-European people), the Hittites embraced the Mesopotamian writing system, gods, and other aspects of culture to the south. In 1595 BCE, one Hittite king took advantage of Babylonian weakness by raiding southern Mesopotamia and destroying the city of Babylon. The Hittites soon fell into civil war and the political unity of the Old Hittite Kingdom collapsed. In c. 1420, political unity was restored, ushering in a period known as the Neo-Hittite Empire, which was much more aggressive than its predecessor. Although it waged war in Mesopotamia against the Assyrians and Kassites, it chiefly competed with Egypt for control over the cities along the Mediterranean coast. The most famous of these conflicts was the Battle of Kadesh (c. 1274), which involved thousands of chariots and resulted in a Hittite victory. Nonetheless, like other kingdoms in the ancient Near East, the Hittites would collapse under the weight of internal and external pressures c. 1180.

Urbanization

Cities became the heart of most civilizations because they contained all types of activities: governmental, commercial, religious, educational, and entertainment activities.

Religion

Civilizations did not invent the notion of belief in nonhuman spiritual forces, but they made religion increasingly complex and entwined with centralized political authority. Because the ethics and religious beliefs of a civilization make their way into mythology, religious doctrine, and formal laws, studying religion helps us understand the beliefs and customs of a civilization.

Government

Civilizations relied on centralized governments to enforce laws, maintain order, establish trade rules, and handle diplomatic matters such as aggression and conquest. No society could have maintained its complexity without a central governing authority. In some societies, the governing authority claimed to be a living god on earth. Many early governments were built from a centralized military figure while concentrating power in the hands of a few elite and expanding land holdings.

Sea Peoples and Aramaean Migrations

Climatic and environmental changes and their subsequent effects on agriculture helped to weaken the various kingdoms of the ancient Near East. As a result of these various changes, a number of peoples began to move or undertake widespread raiding of the great powers. Along the coast of the eastern Mediterranean, mixed groups of peoples known as "the Sea Peoples" plundered cities all the way to Egypt. Inland, a large group of peoples known as the Aramaeans, from northern Arabia, migrated north and east in great numbers. The kingdoms in their paths were incapable of dealing with this demographic and military pressure and collapsed. Yet, of the two groups, the Aramaeans would eventually settle and lay the foundations for the next phase of civilization in the ancient Near East by embracing Mesopotamian culture and institutions and merging them with their own.

Mesopotamia

Comes from two Greek words: mesos, meaning "middle," and potamos, meaning "river," or more precisely, "land between the rivers." It describes the rich valleys of land that lie between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in modern-day Iraq, which is part of a larger agriculturally rich region called by modern scholars the "fertile crescent" (Mesopotamia and the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea). Mesopotamia is sometimes referred to as the "cradle of civilization," as the Sumerians, the world's first society to exhibit the qualities listed above, were located within its general borders.

Metallurgy

Farmers and craftsmen used hard, sharp, and efficient tools made of metals such as brass and tin. Metalworkers revolutionized agricultural societies when they learned to forge together copper and tin to make bronze, a much harder metal, allowing for farmers to plow the land more expertly, build better irrigation systems, carve wood to form small boats, and construct effective weapons.

Phoenicians

Following the collapse of the great powers in the eastern Mediterranean, the cities along the Mediterranean coast of what is today Lebanon asserted their independence. These city-states had existed for a long time, but from c. 1100-700 BCE they had reached high levels of prosperity brought about by maritime trade and economic and colonial expansion. The Phoenicians established markets or colonies throughout the Mediterranean and even along the Atlantic coast of Spain and Africa. The most famous of their colonies was Carthage in North Africa, which became a great power later and rivaled Rome for supremacy of the western Mediterranean. The Phoenicians were famous for their craftsmanship and their creation of purple dye. They also served as middlemen in trade between the Near East and the rest of the Mediterranean. Most famously, the Greeks adopted Phoenician script to create the Greek alphabet. The efforts of the Phoenicians are an ideal example of diffusion as both a cultural and economic phenomenon, as they were able to bridge cultures who otherwise would have remained isolated. Because they lacked significant military resources, the Phoenicians were absorbed into the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and later empires.

Kassite Kingdom

Following the destruction of Babylon in 1595 BCE, a group known as the Kassites occupied and controlled central and southern Mesopotamia. Little is known about these people, but they continued Mesopotamian civilization. They rebuilt Babylon and cultivated the arts and sciences, religion, and maintained the political institutions of their predecessors. Eventually, they would succumb to the same systemic breakdown that affected the various kingdoms of the ancient Near East around 1200 BCE.

Writing System

Imprinting symbols on a durable surface to represent trade goods, numbers, and eventually sounds and abstract ideas, served as a catalyst for commercial and cultural growth. People used writing to record governmental orders, treaties, contracts, religious information, taxation, business transactions, laws, and family data to pass to the next generation.

Trade

Technological advances in shipbuilding and the extensive use of domesticated animals allowed civilizations to extend commercial ties across vast distances. Indeed, globalization began in ancient times. Merchants and political leaders looked for new markets in which to sell their goods and traveled across oceans and continents to find raw materials. Trade brought with it economic, cultural, social, political, and religious changes throughout early civilizations. This variety of diffusion had a significant impact on the ancient world.

The Old Assyrian Kingdom

The Assyrians began as a small kingdom in northern Mesopotamia and gradually fell under the authority of Sargon. Following the collapse of the Akkadian Empire, the Assyrians expanded and took over a large portion of northern Mesopotamia. The founder of a unified Assyrian state was Shamshi-Adad I (r. 1813-1781 BCE), who defeated rivals and undertook a campaign of expansion. The success of Hammurabi to the south and the arrival of the Hittites to the north restricted the growth of Assyria. They took advantage of the collapse of the Old Babylonian Empire, however, to create a large state that challenged the Hittites and Kassites. It's capital was Assur. The Assyrians embraced the culture to the south and combined many of its aspects with their own, allowing for the diffusion of cultures. Although its fortunes would fluctuate over the centuries, the Old Assyrian Kingdom collapsed c. 1200 BCE.

Hebrews

The study of the Hebrews (a nomadic culture that lived in modern-day Jordan, Israel, and the Sinai Peninsula), Israelites (Hebrews who settled in Palestine), and Jews (Israelites who settled around the southern Palestinian city of Judah) is important if for no other reason than that this culture was largely the bedrock of monotheism, or the worship of a single god. Although they founded no great empire and were often subjected to incursions and outside rule, the story of the Hebrews, Israelites, and Jews demonstrate how a commitment to cross-cultural exchange and an innovative approach to religion could unite a civilization. The origin of the Hebrews is uncertain and cannot be confirmed by the historical record, hence many scholars refute its veracity. However, according to the Hebrew Bible (also known as the Christian Old Testament), their patriarch, Abraham, lived in the city of Ur in Mesopotamia in the nineteenth century BCE. Perhaps due to political instability in Mesopotamia, Abraham and his followers migrated to the land later known as Palestine, on the Eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea (modern-day Israel). Their holy scripture (The Torah) also mentions their later migration to Egypt, where they lived several hundred years until atrocities committed against them compelled their leader, the prophet Moses, to migrate to Canaan, the province of Palestine, at about 1300 BCE. It was this departure from Egypt and the sense of community and common faith that launched the unification of the twelve Hebrew tribes into a united kingdom under King Saul (r. 1049-1007 BCE). The height of the Israelite civilization took place during the reigns of King David (r. 1000-970 BCE) and his son, King Solomon (r. 960-930 BCE), both of whom ruled from Jerusalem. Although the unified kingdom later split into two after the death of Solomon, both father and son created a stable kingdom that stretched from today's Syria to the Sinai Peninsula. Commerce and trade flourished under both kings; however, regional and local disputes and rivalries ended the economic prosperity and, with it, the sovereignty of this civilization. The lowest point of the Israelite reign would be their political demise and the well-known Babylonian captivity under King Nebuchadnezzar II (r. 604-562 BCE).

Neo-Babylonian Empire

The vacuum created by the collapse of the Neo-Assyrian Empire was filled by the kings of Babylon, who undertook military campaigns to bring much of the Fertile Crescent under their control. The most famous of these kings was Nebuchadnezzar II (604-562 BCE), who conquered many lands and people, most notably the conquest of the kingdoms of Israel and Judea. Jerusalem was sacked in 586 BCE and its inhabitants forced to move to Babylon—a period known in Jewish history as the Babylonian Exile or Captivity. Nebuchadnezzar II was also responsible for large scale building projects in Babylon. The course of the Euphrates was changed, temples rebuilt, and monuments celebrating the wealth and prestige of the king were built—most notably the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World). Despite this glorious period, the Neo-Babylonian Empire would succumb to a new power arising in the east—the Persians—in 539 BCE.

Akkadian Empire

The wars between the Sumerian city-states were in the long-run destructive and cost them their independence. During the Early Dynastic Period, local kings relied increasingly on foreign mercenaries (hired soldiers) to obtain a military advantage over their neighbors. Attracted by the wealth of the Sumerian city-states, one group of mountain tribes known as the Akkadians, who had served as mercenaries and knew the Sumerian societies well enough, were led by their charismatic leader Sargon to invade Sumer. He relied on a large, organized, and specialized army to conquer the city-states one by one until the entire region was under his control. He became the first king to rule a unified Sumer, but he did not stop there. He pushed his army north and conquered all of Mesopotamia up to Assyria, thus creating the first empire in Mesopotamian history. He reigned from 2350-2315 BCE and was succeeded by his talented grandson. The success of the Akkadians was not just due to their military, but also due to a flexible policy that took the best of Sumerian culture and institutions and incorporated them into Akkadian culture. Thus, a new phase of Mesopotamian culture was born and the Akkadian language would become the dominant administrative language in the region for the next 1500 years. Although Sargon's dynasty was short-lived (until 2160 BCE), his legacy of unification endured. Subsequent kings in the region continued to transform Mesopotamian city-states into empires governed by a centralized authority.

The Old Babylonian Empire

With empires come resentment, competition, and eventual dissolution. The unification of Mesopotamia by Sargon of Akkad was unprecedented, and it faced numerous insurrections from within, leading to its eventual takeover by a new, but very short-lived Neo-Sumerian empire, which lasted from c. 2100-2040 BCE. When the Neo-Sumerian Empire collapsed, Semitic invaders from Syria, known as the Amorites, invaded Mesopotamia. The founder and most celebrated king of the Babylonian empire was Hammurabi (r. 1792-1750 BCE), who built the new capital Babylon, an ancient city-state that dominated a large portion of Mesopotamia in the second millennium BCE. Upon his accession to power, Hammurabi conquered all of Mesopotamia. As a matter of policy, he embraced the rich cultural traditions and political organization of the Sumerians and Akkadians, using these attributes to his advantage to expand and control his empire. From diplomatic and administrative clay tablets, we learn that Hammurabi adopted Sargon's techniques of efficient bureaucracy to bring the various city-states under his authority. He collected taxes directly from representatives without personally traveling from one city-state to another. He used the existing cuneiform writing system to facilitate written communication between the government and his officials. A series of incompetent leaders ruled the Babylonian empire in the seventeenth century BCE, and the Babylonians endured corruption, bureaucratic inefficiency, and economic decline. The empire was finally invaded by the Hittites, an Indo-European-speaking people originally from southern Russia (The term Indo-European is a linguistic term and refers to a language family; it is not associated with race).