World Literature Timeline: The Ancient Period

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World Literature Timeline The Ancient Period

• Prepared for English 2332
• Central Texas College
• Dr. Brenda Cornell

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B. C. E. (Before Common Era) 7000-2000

• 7000-1500 Farming communities mother goddesses
  were worshipped weaving and metallurgy were some
  of the early art forms practiced.

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3500-3000 Beginning of Cities

• Sites along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers of
  Mesopotamia ( Greek for between the rivers),
  which is now Iraq, and the Nile River in Egypt
  founded the first cities.
• Though primitive societies, these cities saw
  important developments in irrigation,
  mathematics, calendars, bureaucracies, and
  patriarchal institutions.

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Ziggurats

• These structures stood in front of a temple as a
  kind of sanctuary to the gods. In addition to
  its religious function the ziggurat also served
  as a granary and/or storehouse for other valuable
  goods.

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Farming

• The inhabitants of Mesopotamia raised crops on
  this rich but dry land by developing and using
  complex irrigation systems so successful that
  they resulted in a surplus of food.

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Feeding the People

• A societys ability to produce food was one of
  the most fundamental criteria for the development
  from tribal and nomadic hunter-gatherer societies
  to more sedentary civilizations. It was possible
  only with the development of a number of
  significant innovations in early science, such as
  in astrology and astronomy (at that time not as
  separate as they are seen today).

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Feeding the People (Continued)

• Without the ability to organize workers according
  to reliable patterns beyond day and night, like
  the measurement and organization of the seasons
  or the use of heliacal stars to increase the
  precision of the agricultural year, the
  consistent production of a food surplus would not
  have been as effective.

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No Boundaries

• Since Mesopotamia had no natural boundaries (such
  as mountain ranges or large rivers), the
  inhabitants were physically and psychologically
  open to external cultural influences. The
  advantage was Mesopotamias stature as one of the
  first significant multicultural societies in
  history. It boasts 3,000 years of development
  and 4 major periods under different ruling groups
  (Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian, and Persian).

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Mother of Culture

• Mesopotamias culture also influenced its
  neighbors the Egyptians, the Ancient Hebrews,
  and, to the east, India. Furthermore, the
  domestication of wild plants and animals was
  accomplished in Mesopotamia around 8500 B.C.E.,
  well before any other nascent civilization. We
  might call Mesopotamia the mother of
  civilization and culture.

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Women in Mesopotamia
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Rules for Women

• During the earliest period, the Sumerian women
  enjoyed the greatest social and sexual freedom,
  although their strongest and most respected
  positions were within the temple, as priestesses,
  caretakers, or temple concubines. Each year they
  enacted the sacred marriage rite of the fertility
  goddess Inanna and the high priest or king
  represented the god. Such sexual freedom did not
  extend throughout the society. Adultery was
  punishable by death and a woman's social "value"
  was based on the number of her children.

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Beginning of Writing Cuneiform

• History (from the Greek historía meaning
  "investigation") relies on written records. The
  invention of cuneiform writing in Mesopotamia
  empowered humans to hold onto aspects of their
  past in a form other than the fluid tales of the
  oral poet. With the recording of those stories,
  the development of mythology, cosmology,
  metaphysics, philosophy, literature, and other
  valuable pursuits was established.

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Nonliterary Messages

• Pottery, sculpture, and other artworks can tell
  us just as much about a culture as its written
  records. They can help bring life to the dry
  facts of royal succession, wars, trade disputes,
  and laws. Museums and libraries are intended to
  protect these priceless objects and keep them for
  posterity. By giving everyone the chance to view
  records of the past, as well as specialists a
  place to work and advance prior scholarships,
  they allow a community to publicly question and
  understand its past.

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Works Cited

• Mesopotamia The Formation of Cities and the
  Earliest Literatures . World Literature Online.
  20 Aug 2006. http//bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/worl
  dlit/default.asp?b1criuid0rau0