From Village Community

1
From Village Community
to City-State
2

• Transition to settled communities began about
  10,000 B.C.E.
• Why change?
• Villages promoted agricultural productivity as
  well as cultural creativity

3

• First villages appeared in Fertile Crescent
• Based on domestication of plants and animals
  (peas, lentils and goats)
• Different regions of world focused on other
  species
• Era of villages labeled Neolithic or New Stone
  Age

4

• Tools needed for cutting, grinding, chopping,
  etc.

• Pottery developed for storage
• Variation of pottery design and decoration is one
  way to identify the people who occupied early
  villages

5

• The Fertile Crescent

The Tigris and Euphrates rivers gave life to the
first known agricultural villages, about 10,000
years ago, and the first known cities in human
history, about 5000 years ago.
6
The Fertile Crescent

• Parts of Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Syria,
  and Iraq
• Eastern part was called Mesopotamia

7
Tigris Euphrates Rivers

• Flooded often
• Caused destruction swept away villages fields
• Mesopotamians cooperated to control floodwaters
  built dams, escape channels, canals, ditches

• Easy to invade led to constant war

8

• The First Cities
• Appeared on sites of early villages
• Mesopotamia site of earliest city
• Appeared in seven separate places around the
  world

9

• Cities transformed human life with innovations
• New transportation modes (wheel)
• Metallurgy (led to era known as the Bronze Age)
• New ideas for administering daily life
  (bureaucracy)
• Armies and diplomats
• In short specialized organizations, centralized
  state, and a powerful army

10
Traits of a Civilization to accompany that rise
of city-states

• Specialization of labor (from surplus of food)
• Record keeping with a written language
• Complex institutions government, social
  hierarchy, religion
• Trade technology
• Advanced cities

11
MesopotamiaThe Sumerians
12
Indo-European Migration
13
Sumerian Civilization

• Settled in the lower part of Fertile Crescent
  a.k.a. Sumer
• Birthplace of cities
• Created 12 city-states
• Including Ur, Uruk, Eridu
• Science astronomy, calendar (aided agriculture)

14
Sumerian City-States

• Sumer region included 500,000 people, with eighty
  percent living in cities by 2500 B.C.E
• Shared a common culture

• Built ziggurats for religious purposes
  dedicated to chief deity of the city

15

• Religious leaders strongly supported city leaders
  vice-versa
• Priests built imposing temples--ziggurats--to
  reflect their power and impress the population
• Rituals reaffirmed power with public ceremonies

16
(No Transcript)
17
Sumerian Culture

• Practiced polytheism
• Had one chief god for each city-state
• Gods were unpredictable, angry, selfish

18
Sumerian Government

• Competition for land and water rights with
  foreign invaders led to the development of a
  monarchy (king)
• King was a religious political leader
• King enforced law and set penalties (usually a
  fine)

19
Sumerian Culture

• Men could sell wife and children to pay a debt
  could divorce easily
• Women could buy and sell property operate own
  businesses own slaves

20
Writing!

• Developed pictograms, then cuneiform 1st known
  writing system in the world

• Epic poem Gilgamesh story of a godlike man who
  performs heroic deeds

21
1st used for record keeping, Sumerians were soon
producing literature and government decrees!
22
Invention/technology

• Invented wagon wheel, arch, potters wheel
• Developed a number system based on 10,60, 360
  (for degrees in circles) and 12 month lunar
  calendar
• Silver coinage
• etc

23
Famous Leaders

• Sargon I built the Akkadian Empire by uniting
  all of the Mesopotamian city-states (predated
  Egypt)
• and..

24
The Code of Hammurabi

• Hammurabi created a code of law
• Dealt with most aspects of daily life
• Penalized wrongdoers with an eye for an eye, and
  a tooth for a tooth approach

25
The Code of Hammurabi

• Protected the less powerful property
• Laws varied according to class

26
The First Cities What Difference Do They Make?

• Cities facilitated important accomplishments
  including population increase, economic growth,
  organized life, new technologies, legal codes,
  and literature
• Not all cities succeeded
• Cities raised new questions of appropriate size
  and how best to achieve the good life

27
(No Transcript)