Before History

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Before History

• Lecture Outline

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Review Questions

• What is History?
• What is its method?
• What is its purpose?

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Before HistoryNotions about the Past in the
Ancient Near East
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The Egyptians

• c. 3200 B.C. recorded deeds of kings as relief
  sculptures
• c. 2600 B.C. Kings Cheops and Chephren kept
  libraries
• c. 2500-2300 B.C. annals and king lists going
  back to the 4th millennium
• songs describing military victories
• Some descriptions of events
• Autobiography (in form of obituary)
• Travel literature

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Egyptian writing about the past

• Not history in modern sense
• No word in Egyptian langue for history
• Past and future seen static and as being
  controlled by the gods
• Everything depended on the pharaoh, gods
  representative on earth
• Notion of divine controlling human existence
• No conception of cause and effect

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Sumerians and Babylonians

• Belief that human existence was controlled by
  gods
• Notion of past as providing clues for the future
  ancient Sumerians looked for signs from the gods
  in the past in order to learn from them and avoid
  mistakes and disasters such as floods in the
  future.
• From 3rd millennium onwards large number of
  records of political, military, economic events
  kept.
• View of their civilization as static the gods
  planned it to always be like it is.

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Nature of narratives

• Ca. 2000 B.C. at Lagash palace and temple
  archivists collected variety of narratives of
  events.
• Narratives of events have divinities in leading
  roles
• But contain some historical background

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The Epic of Gilgamesh

• Oldest version believed to be from 3rd millennium
• Contains oldest version of flood story
• Also variety of topics
• Oldest heroic epic story of Gilgameshs journey
  to wisdom. From denial of death, search for
  immortality to acceptance of human condition
  debate on nature and nurture benefits of
  civilization over nature and its cost.
• Particularly relevant to Babylonian and Assyrian
  audience debate on what constituted a good and a
  bad king.
• Historical element King by name of Gilgamesh
  listed on Babylonian king list

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The Hittites

• c. 1700 B.C. (modern Turkey)
• Their writings closer to our idea ofhistorical
  writing
• In Hittite capital library of 15,000 tables and
  fragments found
• Reflects advances on historical ideas of
  Mesopotamia and Egypt
• After 1400 B.C. political treatises include
  reports on previous events with attention to
  cause and effect
• Empire broke up after 12th century B.C.

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1_1/Hittite_Empire.html
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The Phoenicians

• After fall of Hittite Empire new small states
  formed bordering Asia Minor, Mesopotamia and
  Syria all areas influencing way of life and
  culture of Phoenicians.
• Made largest use of writing
• Recording ordinary affairs of life and public
  events
• Brought writing to Greek World

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• Traditions of Ancient Near East transmitted to
  Greek World
• By Phoenicians
• By Persians
• By cultural influences of other neighbouring
  states in Asia Minor
• As seafaring people, Greeks always in contact
  with other cultures throughout Mediterranean
  World

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The Greeks and the Birth of History

• Homer 8th century Iliad, Odyssey
• Hesiod ca. 700 B.C.
• Ionian Philosophers - Pre-Socratics
• Ionian Intellectual Revolution 7th and 6th
  centuries

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Ionian Thinkers also called Pre-Socratics

• Philosophers before Socrates
• Work only survives in fragments quoted by others
• Sought natural explanations for natural phenomena
• Explored 1. The origins of the universe, 2. The
  composition of the universe, 3. The plurality of
  phenomena

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Pre-Socratic Schools

• The Milesians Thales (624-546 BCE), Anaximander
  (610-546 BCE), Anaximines (585-525 BCE)
• The Pythagoreans Pythagoras (582-496 BCE)
• The Eleatics Xenophanes (570-470 BCE),
  Parmenides (510-440 BCE), Zeno (490-430 BCE)
• The Pluralists Empedocles (490-430 BCE),
  Anaxagoras (500-428 BCE)
• Heraclitus (535-475 BCE)

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The Greek Historians

• Hecataeus of Miletus ca. 500 B.C.
• Journey round the World
• Genealogies
• Herodotus of Halicarnassus c 490/480-429/5 B.C.
  The Histories
• Thucydides c. 460/55-399/8