History

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The Middle East

• History

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Dating

• B.C. Before Christ
• A.D. Anno Domini, Latin for Year of our Lord
• Intellectuals have started using BCE and ACE
• Early dates given here could be off by 1000 years

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Tigris and Euphrates River Valley

• The Fertile Crescent
• The Cradle of Civilization
• Mesopotamia between the rivers
• Where modern day Iraq is

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City-States of Sumer

• About 3200 B.C.
• Ur
• Erech
• Independent City-States battled each other for
  control of resources
• Each City-State had different forms of government

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• 2300 B.C. Sargon of Akkad invaded and conquered
  the City-States
• Regarded as the first empire
• After his death the empire fell apart

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Hammurabi

• About 1790 B.C.
• King of Babylon
• Brought much of Mesopotamia under his control
• Set up a unified system of laws known as the Code
  of Hammurabi
• Carved Laws on stone pillars so that the people
  would know them
• Laws would seem harsh to many of us (e.g. if a
  house collapsed because of poor construction the
  builder was put to death)

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• Hittites conquered Mesopotamia around 1400 B.C.
• They were less advanced than the people of
  Mesopotamia, but knew how to extract Iron from
  ore. Before people used bronze or copper. Iron
  was harder, sharper and more plentiful.
• They tried to keep this knowledge secret but by
  1200 B.C. it spread

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Sumerian Culture

• Built Ziggurats temples that reached toward the
  sky
• Built with bricks of mud

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• Sumerians developed the earliest known form of
  writing
• Cuneiform wedge shaped
• Wrote in clay tablets
• The Epic of Gilgamesh
• Developed algebra and geometry
• Divided their hour into 60 minutes and a circle
  into 360 degrees

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Nile River Valley - Egypt

• People built around Nile River
• Used it for farming and travel
• Black Land Fertile land no more than 10 miles
  wide
• Red Land barren land after black land

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The Nile

• Flows north
• Divided into Upper Nile and Lower Nile (red)
• Upper Nile is in the south
• Lower Nile is in the North

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Menes (Narmer)

• Around 3100 B.C. Menes, a ruler, united the Upper
  and Lower Nile

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Egyptian Empire

• People ruled by Pharaohs
• Divided into 3 ages
• Old Kingdom
• Middle Kingdom
• New Kingdom

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Old Kingdom

• About 2700 B.C. 2200 B.C.
• Pyramid Age
• Pharaohs became powerful rulers, claimed to be
  gods
• Had the people build many tombs and monuments to
  themselves

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Middle Kingdom

• About 2050 B.C. 1800 B.C.
• All the building cost a lot
• Nile didnt rise as regularly as it had
• Crop failures
• Pharaohs not as strong
• 1700 B.C. the Hyksos invade and take over for
  about 100 years

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New Kingdom

• About 1550 B.C. 1100 B.C.
• Conquest and empire
• Queen Hatshepsut 1503 B.C. 1482 B.C.
• Encouraged lots of trade

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• Ramses II 1290 B.C. 1224 B.C.
• Many military victories
• Signed peace treaty with Hittites
• Egypt starts to decline after his reign

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Egyptian Culture - Religion

• Afterlife your soul would be weighed on a
  scale. Worthy souls would go to the Happy Field
  of Food. Unworthy souls were devoured by the
  Eater of the Dead.

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• Mummification was done to prepare bodies for the
  afterlife

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• Many treasures were put in the tombs of the
  rulers to be with them in the afterlife

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• Polytheistic worship
• About 1380 B.C the pharaoh Akhenaton and his wife
  Nefertiti challenged the priests of Amon-Re
• Tried to worship the god Aton only

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Egyptian Culture Social Life

• Many farmers
• very dependant on the Nile
• Women had more rights than most ancient cultures
• Slaves
• Hieroglyphics
• Papyrus
• Practiced medicine, mathematics, astronomy,
  painting and sculpture

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• Played a lot of games Senet
• http//www.ancientegypt.co.uk/life/activity/main.h
  tml

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Assyria

• 1100 B.C. Assyrians conquered the surrounding
  people.
• Very warlike and cruel
• King Assurbanipal founded one of the first
  libraries at Nineveh

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• 612 B.C. Chaldeans (Babylonians) revolted and
  gained power
• Nebuchadnezzar began a new Babylonian empire

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The Persian Empire

• 539 B.C. Babylon fell to Cyrus the Great
• Persian Empire was huge
• They respected the traditions and customs of the
  people they conquered, so life wasnt too bad
  under Persian rule.
• Darius encouraged the use of coins instead of
  barter
• Eventually defeated by the Greeks led by
  Alexander the Great

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The Battle of Issus, 333 B.C.
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Persian Culture Religion Zoroasterianism

• 600 B.C.
• A Persian Religion started by Zoroaster
• Monotheistic believed that a single wise god,
  Ahura Mazda ruled the world
• Ahriman prince of lies and evil
• People choose which side to follow

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Phoenicians

• Sea traders
• Developed an alphabet using 22 symbols to
  represent sounds
• Later, it was taken and slightly changed by the
  Greeks
• Foundation for our alphabet

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One more group
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Hebrews

• Around 2000 B.C. Abram (later Abraham) lived near
  Ur
• Said he was called by God, moved to Canaan,
  (Palestine, Israel)
• Around 1800 B.C. famine caused Jews to move to
  Egypt, where they were eventually enslaved
• About 1491 B.C. (Egyptian New Kingdom), Moses
  brought people out of Egypt
• Around 1000 B.C. Kingdom of Israel established
• King David
• King Solomon
• 586 B.C. conquered by Nebuchadnezzar
• 70 A.D. scattered around the world Diaspora

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Hebrew culture Religion

• Possibly the oldest religion in the world
• Monotheistic possibly a forerunner to Akhenaton
  and Zoroasterianism
• Old Testament
• Christianity around 30 A.D.
• Islam 622 A.D.

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Moving out of the Cradle of Civilization

• From the Middle East people eventually spread out
  throughout the earth
• As time passes and people move to different
  places, parts of their culture change (e.g.
  language), however
• even today, different cultures have many things
  in common
• Also, as populations settle, inbreeding causes
  many shared traits for the different people
  groups

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Continuing on with our history

• Greeks conquer the Middle East
• Later Romans conquer
• Later, it becomes relatively unimportant

yawn
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Rise of Islam

• 622 A.D.
• Muhammad starts new religion of Islam
• Mecca and Medina become important holy cities
• Muslims start conquering surrounding areas,
  eventually they even invade Europe and conquer
  Spain

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• Eventually defeated by Charles Martel (France) at
  the Battle of Tours 732 A.D.

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• By 1200 A.D. Muslim empire fragmented
• 1300 A.D. rise of the Ottoman Empire (Turkey)
• 1453 Ottomans captured Constantinople (Istanbul)
  and much of Greece
• 1914-1918 WWI Ottoman Empire on the losing side
• Britain took over much of the Middle East
• After WWII 1939-1945, Britain let go most of its
  colonies, including those in the Middle East

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• 1948 Israel declares its independence from
  Britain
• Israel fights a number of wars with the
  surrounding Muslim countries over the next few
  decades
• By 2009 all of the countries in the Middle East
  were friends and got along
• Just Kidding!