...Western Governor’s University Geography and environment plays a significant role in the development of early societies. The development of the early societies occurred as people from different regions interacted with one another as they shared and extend acquired knowledge. As a result, primitive people began to establish and populate regions of the ancient world forming structures of the early society. As societies expand, they form into civilization with sophisticated form of communications and development of technologies. Physical geography as well as natural resources can shape the cultures and societies around us. We know that early societies have adapted their ways of life for survival. The success or failure of the society can lead to expansion or downfall of a civilization. Environmental and geographic factors are known to contribute in the development of early civilizations such as Mesopotamia as well as the development of the United States through the process of diffusion from people and ideas over time. In the early civilizations, the presence of water symbolized life. Mesopotamia was the birth of early civilization due to its significant geographical characteristics, the rivers. The accessibility to water source from the Euphrates and Tigris rivers provided the early civilization with the knowledge to bring forth dependable food source. Mesopotamia was located in between two rivers (Soomo, 2013a). The Tigris River, which is shorter compared to the Euphrates...
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...VALEN, Aira Geyle C. --- AC402 * Political System A political system in which government is controlled by a king or queen is called a monarchy. In Sumer and Babylon, the king was often the monarch and the high priest. The position of these so-called priest-kings was relatively unstable. If the god(s) didn't provide for welfare of the citizens, the people often held the king responsible, and deposed him. Ancient Mesopotamia was a region that contained several city-states, much like Italy during the Italian Renaissance period. Mesopotamia at this time did not have a centralized government but, instead, had many smaller regions with their own separate governments. The early kings ruled over only their own city-states. Lacking a centralized government and leader, the ancient region was prone to internal fighting among the kings for land and resources. The Mesopotamians believed their kings and queens were descended from the City of Gods, but, unlike the ancient Egyptians, they never believed their kings were real gods. Most kings named themselves “king of the universe” or “great king”. Another common name was “shepherd”, as kings had to look after their people. Sumerians: Gilgamesh (c. 2650 BC) - Gilgamesh was the 5th king of the Sumerian city of Uruk. He became known as a demigod with superhuman strength in later legends and tales such as the Epic of Gilgamesh. Akkadian Empire: Sargon the Great (reigned 2334 - 2279 BC) - or Sargon of Akkad, founded the world's 1st...
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...first civilization and founder of the many methods and ideas we hold today, now lay in ruins under the desert sands of present day Iraq. Mesopotamia is home to the invention of writing, our twelve month lunar based calendar, the wheel, the division of minutes to seconds, and the opening of the first routes to import and export trade. The Sumerians of Mesopotamia were enveloped by environmental conditions that constantly tested their skills and intellect for survival. This need for survival served as the basis that called forth the invention of methods and ideas that overtime increased and spiraled into the creation of a higher human society. Nature threatened the Sumerians with the very essentials needed to help sustain life. They were shadowed by the constant challenge of floods, droughts, winds, and heat. Faced with these hardships, they took the sources that made them vulnerable and invented ingenious methods and strategies to overcome their complex situation. The construction of canals, reservoirs, dams, and the wheel made it possible to control and deviate the rivers into selected areas. In result, such things as wheat and millet became abundant and a stable food supply was soon possible. Prosperity increased and groups began to colonize along the rivers and the population grew, gradually expanding their habitable land. Mesopotamia is a Greek word meaning 'between the rivers'. The rivers are the Tigris and Euphrates which flow through modern day Iraq. Thousands of years...
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...The Significance of Agriculture in Early Human Civilization Over the course of human evolution, there has been no greater single development with as profound and far reaching effects as that of the development of agriculture. Sustainable agriculture drove human civilization from a hunter-gatherer society to the settled and centralized society we know today. The advent of modern agriculture techniques enabled early man to settle in one area and develop their own food and raw material needed for survival and sustainment. Such developments eliminated the need for small bands of hunters and gatherers to forage for food. Hunter-gatherer societies were constantly on the move in search for food and shelter. Constant movement and migration precluded any significant societal and technological development and made population expansion all but impossible. The sedentary lifestyle and social structures we know today would be impossible without the development of efficient cultivation techniques. For early humans, almost all time and energy was devoted to gathering plants for food and hunting animals. Once agriculture became the primary method for cultivating food, societies and governments began to form and the modern notion of the nation state (or city state in some cases) began. The development of agriculture also had a heavy hand in influencing early religions. Religion would go on to become one of the most dominant forces throughout human history; influencing everything from...
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...The Civilizations and Cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt Mesopotamia has been called the first civilization, forming around 2500 BC, but there was also another civilization being formed around the same time; the Egyptian civilization was formed by 3000 BC along the Nile River. Both civilizations were strongly influenced by geography, natural resources, and social class. The development of two great early civilizations were guided by the geography, natural resources, and social classes but these broad categories branched off in different directions for each civilization. Geography had a large impact on the successful development of these two civilizations. Both largely depended on nearby rivers for their success and were called the river civilizations. Mesopotamia translates to “land between rivers” which is exactly what it was. It was located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. These rivers provided for the Sumerians to develop an extensive irrigation system. They were also able to use the flooding of the rivers to their benefit, and all of these developments lead to them having things to trade which they also used the rivers to do. Goods were able to move from place to place along the river along with ideas. Similarly, the Egyptian civilization was strongly dependent on their river, the Nile, and they would have not made nearly as much advancement without it. When the Nile flooded it helped farming and agriculture by providing silt, helping the soil. Their irrigation...
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...Geographic and environmental factors have a momentous impact on the development of trade and migration systems. Those systems and migration patterns lead to correlations among diverse people and their cultures. Therefore, geography and resources have an influence on the growth and relations between societies. Two of the most significant geographical and environmental factors that have led to the development and expansion of the United States is the growth of industry after the Civil War, and the abundance of agriculture. After the Civil War, the population in the United Sates more than doubled and industrial growth was also rapid because of the large quantity of natural resources. The United States had enormous assets such as coal, copper, petroleum, iron, water power and timber. Due to this immense supply of natural resources, many immigrants came to the States for work and many rural workers traveled many miles to flourish as well. There were many jobs like coal mining, constructing railroads, and silver and gold mining that promised wealth, like in the California Gold Rush. When gold was discovered in 1849 in California, people came from all over the world and with such an influx of people and the following development, California became an official state in 1850. Gold wasn’t the only abundant resource in the U.S. With the production of coal and other minerals, exporting to other countries was in high demand and expanded the trade industry for...
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...Comparison of the Civilizations of Mesopotamia and Harappa Mesopotamia and Harappa were both early river valley civilizations that boasted power and progress in their peaks. Beginning around 3000 BCE, Mesopotamia flourished between the Tigris and and Euphrates Rivers and the Harappa developed along the Indus River in South Asia. While Mesopotamia and Harappa were similarly geographically positioned on water sources, there are significant differences and similarities in the respective societies’ cultural developments in terms of architecture and technology. Mesopotamia and Harappa were both able to make advancements in architecture as evidenced by the construction of the architectural forms. Similarly, most of the buildings and homes of Mesopotamia and Harappa were comprised of mud bricks. Due to the civilizations’ locations near rivers, mud, which could be dried into uniform bricks, was an abundant resource. Architecture between the civilizations have differentiations as evidenced by their cities and their construction. In Mesopotamia, cities were built around temples, or ziggurats, dedicated to a god/goddess in order for the city to receive the protection from that deity. Ziggurats were multi-staged pyramids dominated and represented Mesopotamian architecture, indicating the emphasis and importance of the polytheistic religion in Mesopotamian culture. In Harappa, similar religious structures to the ziggurats were not present. Rather, the noteworthy dominating...
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...Sumer “The Land Of civilized Kings with help by Gods?” Sumer, located in the southern region of what is now modern day Iraq and Kuwait was once a region known as ancient Mesopotamia. It is thought to be the cradle of civilization which lied between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. The word Mesopotamia means” between the rivers” in Greek. Sumer was inhabited around 4500 BC, but this claim has been contested or the years by archaeologists, due to artifacts unearthed in excavated mounds. So, the Sumerians were not the first settlers in this region, according to the dates of the artifacts it was the Proto-Euphrateans, inhabitants of the Euphrates River. These inhabitants moved from being hunters-gathers to agrarian society evidence by the stone tools from hoes, knives and clay aircrafts! So, when did the Sumerians enter this era? The first ruler of Sumer was a king named Etana of Kish, who came to throne as early as the third millennium B.C. According to the kings list, he is described as the one who stabilized the land. The (kings list) is a scribe document located in the city of Lagash, time frame 2100BCE, that list all of the kings and their great accomplishments during their reign, in other words an attempt to show the continuity of order in their society dating back to the beginning of civilization. Both the Mesopotamians and the Sumerians believed that civilization was a result of the god’s triumphs of order over the chaos of men. Who were these Gods? The Sumerians called...
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...Events/Important/key Dates • 7,000~ 4,000 BCE: Spread of agriculture through most of Middle east. • 5,000 BCE: Farming along Nile River • 4,000 BCE: Sumerians settle in Tigris- Euphrates valley • 4,000 BCE: Sumerians (a people who had migrated into the area from the north) provided final boost toward establishing civilization • 4,000 BCE: cumulative effects of agriculture & technology → civilization as a new organizational form (wheel, bronze use, and writing facilitated) • 3,500 BCE: Writing is introduced. (based on new needs for commercial property and political records → celebration of the deeds of proud local kings) • 3,500 BCE: Early Sumerian alphabet • 3,100~2,700 BCE: Initial kingdoms in Mesopotamia and Egypt • 3,000 BCE: Introduction to bronze tools • 3,000 BCE: Mesopotamian husbands veiled their wives on marriage → to protect the wife’s honor • 2,700~2,200 BCE: Old Kingdom period , Egypt • 2,600 BCE: First great pyramid • 3,400~2,200 BCE: Akkadian Empire conquers Sumer • 2,052~1,786 BCE: Middle Kingdom period → civilization spreads to Upper Nile. • 2,000 BCE: Sumerians wrote the Epic of Gilgamesh ( world’s oldest story) • 2,000 BCE: Sumerians produced the potter’s wheel, invented glass, introduced useof fertilizer and silver → Trade expands → Sumerians had trading contact with India • 1800BCE: Babylonian Empire rose again • 1600BCE: fall of Babylonian Empire • 1,300 BCE: (Egypt) Queen Nefertiti → role in religious reforms → men and women have equal...
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...Ancient Egypt vs. Mesopotamia The decision to write this Paper came about as soon as I read the subject. I am in love with Ancient Cultures. It is very interesting to me to study and learn new things about the style of life peoples of ancient times lead, the type of housing and furniture ancient peoples possessed, the foods and resources they had at hand, as well as the religious and other daily values which ancient peoples believed in. To compare the Ancient Egyptian civilization to the civilization of Ancient Mesopotamia is surely going to be a task which will not be easy, especially since it is my personal believe that both of these grandiose civilizations cannot be compared to one another. Comparing the Ancient Mesopotamian Civilization to the Civilization of Ancient Egypt is not really possible once you think about the difference of years between the beginnings of each of these Civilizations. Mesopotamia is considered to be at the least 5000 years older than Ancient Egypt. The earliest civilized form of Human development in Mesopotamia is known to Historians to have occurred between 10500-3500 BC (Mayan Archeology), whilst Historians believe the Ancient Egyptian Civilization to have started between the years of approx. 5500- 3100 BC, which is what is considered the Pre-dynastic Period. (Experience ancient) While Ancient Egypt started to develop Mesopotamia already made big progress in forms of Farming, building the first settlements...
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...Brandon Gordon Professor J. Gonzales HIST 100 21 February 2014 The Factors Enabling Civilization to First Appear in Mesopotamia History shows us that Mesopotamia had many key factors that played a significant role in allowing the first civilization to develop there. Despite the word being highly debated by subject matter experts worldwide, most would agree that “a civilization is a culture capable of sustaining a great number of specialists to furnish the economic, social, political and religious needs of a large social unit” (Edgar, Hackett, Jewsbury, Molony, Gordon 10). From the beginning to the end, key advancements have set it apart and made it a widely studied world area. Due to Mesopotamia’s geographical advantages in farming capability and advancement in technology, language and laws, it sustained long enough and in a matter to be regarded as the world’s first civilization. After the Neolithic period and Agricultural revolution, people migrated southeast from the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. These people, mostly farmers, settled on the plain between where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers almost connect and modern day Iraq is. The name Mesopotamia is Greek meaning “between the rivers”. Rainfall was inadequate for farming however and these new settlers, out of necessity, developed irrigation techniques that would then allow the rivers to help water their planted crops. This required much teamwork and cooperation from these people though in order to use...
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...changing. Early human societies did not have the amazing technological advancements that we are privy to in today’s society. Early societies had to rely on the earth and environment for a stable, profitable foundation. There is an area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that once was the pinnacle of human society. In fact, this area is now known as Iraq; the birthplace of the world’s first civilization known as Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia is from Greek origin. It is translated to “Land between the rivers”, and these rivers were the main factor in the development and success of this thriving civilization. The biblical location of what many refer to as the Garden of Eden was located in Mesopotamia. These two rivers gave life to many civilizations in many ways. The Kingdom of Assyria, which is derived from the ancient city of Assur, was born from the banks of the Tigris River. The rivers flow from the north and run parallel to each other. Mesopotamia’s soil was so enriched over the years by the layers of silt left by the flooding and eventual receding of the two rivers making the soil left after the flooding perfect for crops. The flat plains of Mesopotamia proved to be very fertile thanks to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The hot, dry land of Mesopotamia was fertile due to the rich soil and with the use of irrigation crops were flourishing along with the people. The two rivers formed the foundation of the civilization, but the intuitiveness of this early civilization...
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...The people who lived in early Mesopotamia (the Sumerians) were more advanced than one may think a civilization from this time period would be. Located in a sweet spot between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, with access to the Persian Gulf, the Mesopotamia civilization enjoyed a luxury of soil that was “made fertile by the flooding of the two great rivers” (4). Living here brought a sophistication to farming that had not been practiced before. These settlers engineered levees, reservoirs, and irrigation canals to produce crop yields that are “comparable to that produced by American farms in the first half the 20th century” (4). Accomplishments in agriculture brought forth a truly organized civilization, which would develop an urban lifestyle with the growth of cities. The cities that developed were often built of brick and were surrounded by moats and fortifications for protection. Much of the cities were dirty, with no sewage systems or much clean water to drink. The cities were also littered with temples, built for the deities. With the rise of cities, greater amounts of labor were required to keep up with the increased demand for food. All of the...
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...A. Discuss the origins of Christianity? Who was Paul of Tarsus? What Contributions did he make to Christianity? Why did it ultimately survive and succeed? The Origins of Christianity originates from when Judea came under Roman rule in 6 C.E. The roman didn’t really care for the Jews and their beliefs, in turn, the Jews turned to religion and the wanting or waiting of being saved from the Roman oppression. The Jews believed in one god, unlike the Romans, and they believed that this one god would sent a messiah or chosen one, that would help free them from the Roman Empire and their ruling power. In other words, the Jews believed a military leader anointed by God to lead the Jews and drive out the Romans from the Jewish holy land. Out of this rebellion of sorts, a man named Jesus rose to the task of trying to reform the beliefs and practices of the Jews. Many people believed that Jesus was a Rabbi of a teacher, but in fact he was a young Jewish carpenter from Galilee in Northern Israel. Jesus was also a Jew, but his teachings were somewhat out of the ordinary for Judaism. Jesus believed that as children of God that his followers should go back to religion in its purest form of spirituality and personal faith. Jesus was also not very fond of how the Jewish religious were corrupt and living in excess, while so many others were poverty stricken. Jesus was offended with how the current Jewish political and religious leaders were obsessed money and power. Jesus was...
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...Mesopotamia (from the Ancient Greek: Μεσοποταμία: "[land] between rivers"; Arabic: بلاد الرافدين (bilād al-rāfidayn); Syriac: ܒܝܬ ܢܗܪܝܢ(Beth Nahrain): "land of rivers") is a name for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, corresponding to modern-day Iraq, the north eastern section of Syria and to a much lesser extent southeastern Turkey, smaller parts of south western Iran and Kuwait . A cylinder seal is a small round cylinder, typically about one inch in length, engraved with written characters or figurative scenes or both, used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally wet clay. Cylinder seals were invented around 3500 BC in the Near East, at the contemporary sites of Susa in south-western Iran and Uruk in southern Mesopotamia Ishtar was the goddess of love, war, fertility, and sexuality. Ishtar was the daughter of Ninurta.[2] She was particularly worshipped in northern Mesopotamia, at the Assyrian cities of Nineveh, Ashur and Arbela (Erbil).[2] Besides the lions on her gate, her symbol is an eight-pointed star.[3] The history of the ancient Near East spans more than two millennia, from the Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age, in the region now known as the Middle East, centered around the Fertile Crescent. There was much cultural contact, so that it is justified to summarize the whole region under a single term, but that does not mean, of course, that each historical period and each region should not be looked at individually...
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