Cities and Civilizations Review
What is a civilization?
What caused the shift from hunting & gathering to farming?
How did this affect mankind?
Around 8000 B.C. a shift began…
It was called the
Neolithic Revolution
This brings in the “New Stone Age”

What is the REVOLUTION?
A TOTALLY new way of living:
Going from Hunter Gathers to Agriculture

The invention of Agriculture changed the way people lived.
Agriculture (Farming)
Growth of Cities
Division of Labor (Specialization)
Trade
Writing and Mathematics
---Why does ‘trade’ bring about writing and mathematics?

Mesopotamia – Fertile Crescent
Sumer – The Earliest of the River Valley Civilizations
Sumerians grew up along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in what is now Kuwait.

What is the “Fertile Crescent.”?
A well-watered and fertile area, that arcs across the northern part of the Syrian desert.

The Fertile Crescent * Greeks called the northern part of the Fertile Crescent …Mesopotamia which means “The Land Between Two Rivers” (Tigris River and Euphrates River) * The southern part of Mesopotamia was called Babylonia, originally Sumer.
Which country is Mesopotamia today? (Iraq)

Sumer - Sumerians (Kuwait) ca. 3500 to 3000 BC. * Sumer gave us the city-state. * Political unit made up of a city and the surrounding lands. Each city state has its own government, even when it shared a culture with neighboring city states.

Sumerian Writing: Cuneiform
Cuneiform is created by pressing a pointed stylus into a clay tablet.

Sumerians invented: * Brick technology * Wheel * Base 60 – using the circle . . . 360 degrees * Time – 60 minutes in an hour, 60 seconds in a minute * 12 month lunar calendar * arch * ramp * ziggurat

Babylon
Gave us the first know written law code and was the first civilization where the citizens live by the “Rule of Law”
The rule of law implied that government authority may only be exercised in accordance with written laws, which were adopted through an established procedure.

Hammurabi’s Code - 1792 BC
Hammurabi’s Code - 1792 BC
Hammurabi’s Code was this law code.
Hammurabi ruled the Babylonian Empire for 42 years. At the end of his long reign, Hammurabi’s legal decisions were collected and inscribed on a stone tablet in a Babylonian temple.
The 282 laws of the Code of Hammurabi represent one of the earliest known legal systems.

“If a man stole the property of church or state, that man shall be put to death; also the one who received the stolen goods from his hand shall be put to death.”
The laws governed such things as lying, stealing, assault, debt, business partnerships, marriage, and divorce. In seeking protection for all members of Babylonian society, Hammurabi relied on the philosophy of equal retaliation, otherwise known as “an eye for an eye.”

EGYPT “The Gift of the Nile” (Herodotus)
Question for thought: What did Herodotus mean when he said that Egypt is the “gift of the Nile?”
Because of the geography of the area, without the Nile River, there would be no Egypt.

Egyptians invented: * Hieroglyphics * Pyramids * Geometry * Advances in medicine and surgery

Hieroglyphics Early Egyptian writing found on tombs was indecipherable. Hieroglyphics Sacred Carving
No one could read these sacred carvings until Napoleon invaded Egypt and his archaeologists found the Rosetta Stone.

Papyrus is one of the first examples of paper. It is created from reeds growing along the Nile River.

Indus River Valley 2500 BC – 1500 BC Around 2600 B.C. the various regional cultures in Southern Asia were united in what is called the Indus Valley Civilization. It is also commonly referred to as the Harappa culture after the town of Harappa.

Excavations at the ancient Harappan and Mohenjo Daro mounds revealed well planned cities and towns built on massive mud brick platforms that protected the inhabitants against seasonal floods. In the larger cities the houses were built of baked brick while at smaller towns most houses were built of sun-dried mud brick. Each city is laid out in a grid pattern and shows signs of stunningly modern plumbing systems.
Much writing has been found at these sites, but it has not yet been translated.