HIST 1001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Kingdom Centre, Amarna, Monolatrism
Week two
The Birth of Ancient Civilizations:
Egypt, Israel and Asia Minor
First writing began in Mesopotamia
• Euphrates
• Tigris
o Irrigation
o Dangerous unpredictable floods
Look at cities for signs of civilization
Cuneiforms
• For record keeping
Mesopotamian Civilization’s
• Sumerians
• Akkadians
• Assyrians
• Babylonians
Two Main Western Language groups
• Semitic
• Indo-European
o Sumerian is not a part of either group
• Semitic language tree pic
Law code of Hammurabi
• Information on Moodle
• God gave him the law
I. Egyptians
• Nile river flows north into the Delta
• Different political system
o Pharaohs were considered gods
• Strong sense of positive afterlife
o Mummified them
• Eras of ancient Egyptian history
o Old kingdom
▪ No slavery
▪ Memphis was the capital in lower Egypt (which is by the delta)
o Middle kingdom
▪ Center shifts and capital is now Thebes
▪ Same crops and culture but no more pyramids
• Mummifications and tombs but now under ground
▪ Evidence of trading
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• Tombs that have stuff from other places around them
▪ Horses imported from Asia and carriages
▪ Desert not far from river
o New kingdom
▪ Expansion and end
▪ Period where there were incredible conquests and expansions
▪ Also centered in Thebes
▪ Conquered Nubia, Kush, Syria, Libya, etc
• Now have slavery
▪ Bronze weapons now
▪ Akhenaten
• King born as Amenhotep IV
• Closes down many temples and starts his own worship of a sun
god
o Monolatry – worship of one god
▪ Doesn’t deny there are more gods
• Makes own capital between Memphis and Thebes
o Amarna (Akhetaten)
▪ Builds it and invites people to come
▪ Abandoned with all treasures after his death
• Wife is Nefertiti
• Son is Tutankhamun (tut) became king after dad dies
o His tomb was the only one not robbed discovered in 1922
by Howard Carter
▪ Ramses II
• Ruled 1279-1213 BCE
• Battle of Kadesh against Hitties
• Pyramid
o Only built in old kingdom Egypt
▪ Used for tombs
▪ Made of limestone which was transported up and down the river by
special sails
• Pharaohs were seen as gods because they caused floods
o Floods were very predictable so they planned agriculture around them
o These floods were not bad like those in Mesopotamian
• Crops
o Barley (brewed beer)
o Palms (fruits)
o Flax (linen)
• Pyramid of kind Djoser 2680 BCE in Mesopotamia?
o Ziggurat
o Used for
o Made of mud brick
• Hieroglyphs
o Form of writing
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