The Mediterranean and Middle East

 City of Carthage= present-day Tunisia, dominated commerce of the western

Mediter…
 Dido, a member of a royal family of the Phoenician city-state of Tyre= fled with her
supporters to the western mediterr.. after her husband was murdered by king of Tyre.
 Territory for Kart Khadasht= the new city (called by Carthago).
 Migration and resettlement of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age.
 The end of second millennium BCE= iron age (begun to use iron instead of bronze,
single metal, simpler to obtain, higher temperature, amount of carbon, harder and
sharp edges.
 Late Bronze Age= 2nd mille, cosmopolitan network of states in the Middle East
 Irong Age= 1000 to 500 BCE
 Assyrians of northern Mesopotamia, the Israelites of Israel, the Phoenicians of
Lebanon and Syria of

The Cosmopolitan Middle East, (1700-1100 BCE)

 Late Bronze Age in the Middle East= Cosmopolitan era ( time of widely shared
cultures and lifestyles)

Western Asia
 1500 BCE= Mesopotamia divided into two political zones= Bablylonia in the south
and Assyria in the north
 Babylon= gained political and cultural ascendancy over the southern under the
dynasty of Hammurabi (18th and 17th centuries BCE)
 Kassites, people from the Zagros Mt. who spoke a non semitic language= had come
to the power in Babylon (1460 BCE)
 Assyrians= (20th BCE) Ashur, leading urban center on the northern Tigris, a busy
trade route across the northern Meso plain and onto the Anatolian Plateau.
 Textiles and Tin= used since about 2500 BCE, to make bronze, exchanged silver with
Anatolia
 Old Assyrian Kingdom= 18th cen BCE, gained control of the upper Euphrates River,
trade routes connecting meso to ana
 Middle Assyrian= (after 1400 BCE), campaignes of conquest and expansion of its
economic interests
 Ambitious states= Elam in the Southwest Iran and Mitanni
 Hittites= speaker of an indo European language, who became the foremost power in
Anatolia from around 1700 to 1200 BCE,
 Capital= Hattusha= new techonology of Horse- drawn war chariots, rich
 Were the first to develop a technique for making tools and weapons of iron.
 Akkadian= became the language of diplomacy between govs.
 Elamites and Hittites= adopted cuneiform,
 Syrian coastal city of Ugarit= 30 cuneiform symbols.
 New Kingdom Egypt
 Egyptian middle kingdom= declined in the 17th century BCE.
1. High level officials became increasingly independent and new groups migrated in
to the Nile Delta.
2. Entered a period of political fragmentation and economic decline.
 New Egypt= around 1640 BCE, came under foreign rule, at the hands of the Hyksos
(meaning Princes of Foreign Lands.)
 Semitic peoples= migrating from Syria-Palestine region
 Hittite Empire= Anatolia, Mitanni Assyria, Mesopotamia, and Babylonia
 Hyksos= possessed military technologies
1. Horse-drawn war chariot= greater range and velocity
2. Composite bow= made of wood and horn, had greater range and velocity than the
simple wooden bow.
 Hyksos= intermarried with Egyptians and assimilated to native ways
 Used Egyptian language, culture
 Egyptians= strong ethnic identity, regard the Hyksos as foreigners
 Kamose and Ahmose= expelled the Hyksos from Egypt and inaugurated the New
Kingdom (1532 to 1070 BCE)
 New Kingdom= aggressive and expansionist state
 Buffer zone= protecting Egypt from attack, Nubian territory
 New Kingdom= period of innovation, participated in diplomatic and commercial
network
 New tech= improved potter’s wheel and weaver’s loom
 Hatshepsut= after Pharaoh Tuthmosis II died, his queen, (1473~1458 BCE)\
 Wearing the long, conical beard of the ruler of Egypt
 1460 BCE= naval expedition down the Red Sea, fabled land (Punt)
 Seeking the myrrh= a reddish brown resin from the hardened sap of a local tree,
burned on the latars of gods and used as an medicines and cosmetics.
 Mortuary Temple= built for herself at Deirel-Bahri.
 Amenhotset IV= Akhenaten (1353~1335 BCE) meaning beneficial to the Aten= disk
of the sun, Aten as the supreme deity
 Closed many temples, challenging the old supremacy of the chief god Amon
 Invention of monotheism- belief in one exlusive god, superiority of the king over the
priests and to renew belief in the king’s divinity.
 Built a new capital at modern-day Amarna= to construct the site and serve the ruling
elite.
 His wife= Nerfertiti
 Tutankhamun= boy king (1333~1323 BCE), immediate successors of Akhenaten and
famous soley, the only royal tomb found by archaeologists. (beautiful in life is
Amon)
 In 1323 BCE= general Haremhab, seized the throne, new dynasty (Ramessides)
 Ramesses II, the great= ruled for 66 years (1290~1224 BCE), many wives and
concubines

Commerce and Communication

 Ramesses II= major battle against Hittites at Kadesh in norther Syria (1285 BCE)
 Ramesses’ marriage to a Hittite princess.
 Inland cities of Syria- Palestine= Mari, active centers of international trade.
 Coastal powers= Ugarit and the Phoenician towns, transshipment points for trade to
and from (Mediterranean Sea)
 Late Bronze Age= commerce of metal
 Horses arrived in western Asia around 2000 BCE
 1600 BCE= brought to Egypt through Zagros mountains.

The Aegean World, 2000~1100 BCE

 Aegean Sea= a gulf of the eastern Med.
 Minoan civil= on the island of Crete, Mycenaean civil= Greece (unique paths of
cultural evolution)

Minoan Crete
 By 2000 BCE= Minoan civil, centralized government, bronze metallurgy, etc…
 Greek legends about King Minos= monstrous Minotaur (half man, half bull),
mazelike labyrinth built by Daedalus.
 Statuettes of women= colorful frescoes (painting done on a moist plaster surface),
portrays women in frilly, layered skirts engaged in conversation or watching rituals
or entertainment.
 Young acrobats vaulting over the horns and back of an onrushing bull (religious or
sport)
 Tastes of the elite than about the reality of daily toil.
 All the Cretan Palaces except Cnossus ( the houses of the elite and peasants)=
destroyed around 1450 BCE by Mycenaean Greeks. Culprits?

Mycenaean

 Indo-European language ancestral to Greek= migrated to Greek peninsula around

2000 BCE
 1600 BCE= life changed in the life of Greece
 Heinrich Schliemann= German businessman, Iliad and Odysseys were true (epics to
the poet Homer who lived shortly before 700 BCE)
 1876= schli discovered at Mycenae a circle of graves at the base of deep, rectangular
shafts.
 Shaft graves= contained bodies of men, women, and children filled with jewelry.
 From 1600 to 1150 BCE= civilization advanced
 Adopted Minoan cultures and civilizations
 Profits from trade and piracy also the pay and booty brought back by mercenaries,=
soldiers who served for pay in foreign lands. )
 The giant one eyed Cyclopes (legend)= lifted forts into place.
 Additional information provided by 4000 baked clay tablets written in a script called
Linear B.
 Linear B= undeciphered Minoan script (linear A), uses pictoral signs to represent
syllables.
 Tables say almost nothing about individual people= very little about political and
legal systems, social structures, gender relations, and religious beliefs.
 Iliad, Agamemnon, the king of Mycenae= expedition of Greeks against the city of
Troy in northwest Anatolia.
 Iliad= revolves around the difficulties Agamemnon has in asserting control over
other Greek leaders.
 Linear B= give strong indications of independent centers of power (Mycenae, Pylos,
and else where
 Cretan merchants pioneered trade routes, Mycenaean merchanges= surpplanted them
in the 15th century BCE
 Producst, amber= a hard, translucent, yellowish brown fossil resin used for jewelry,
ivory carved in Syria
 Copper and tin= needed to make bronze
 Ships sunken= transporting from Cyprus to the Aegean.
 Mycenaeans= conflicts with Hittite kings of Anatolia in the 14th and 13th centuries
BCE.
 Archives at Hattusha, the Hittite capital, refer to the king and land of Ahhijawa, most
likey a Hittite rendering of Achaens.

The Fall of Late Bronze Age Civilizations

 1200 BCe= someone invaded Hattusha.
 1190 Ramesses III of Egypt= checked a major invasion of Palestine by the “Sea
Peoples.”
 Philistines were able to occupy the coast.
 Invaders of Egyptians= Ekwesh, who could be Achaeans.
 Collapsed in the face of external violence and internal weakness.
 Entered “Dark Age” of poverty, isolation, and loss of knowledge.

The Assyrian Empire, 911~ 612 BCE

 chief force= powerful and aggressive Neo Assyrian Empire (911~612 BcE)
 Sumer and Akkad to the South.
 Peasant farmers= against marauders
 Westward across the desert as far as the Medi, north into mountainous Uratu, east
across the Zagros range onto the Iranian Plateau, and south along the Tigris Riber to
Babylonia.
 Secured vital resources such as iron and silver.

God and King

 Ancient city of Ashur= high priest anointed the new king by sprinkling his head with
oil and gave him the insignia of kingship; a crown and scepter.
 States war carried out in the name of Ashur= the chief god.
 Popular support for military, art, royal palaces at Kalhu and Nineveh

Conquest and Control

 King Tiglathpileser (744~727 BCE)= created a core army of professional soldiers.
 Iron weapons= more advantage over many opponents.
 Used terror tactics to discourage resistance and rebellion.
 Mass deportation= forcibly uprooting entire communities and resettling them
elsewhere
 Single, enduring method of governing an empire that included nomadic and
sedentary kinship groups, temple-states, city-states, and kingdoms.
 Ancestral capital and religious center at Ashur and new royal cities= Dur Sharrukin,
the Fortress of Sargon.
 Assyrian Society and Culture
 Three classes= 1. Free, landowning citizens, 2. Farmers and artisans attached to the
estates of the king or other rich landholders, 3. Slaves= debtors and prisoners of war.
 All people were referred to as “human beings.”
 Silver= basic medium of exchange, in a time before the invention of the coins.
 more than 25000 tablets or fragments of tables
 The Library of Ashurbanipal= library, contained official documents, avid collector of
the literary and scientific heritage of Mesopotamia, and “the House of knowledge.”

Israel, 2000~500 BCE

 1. Loose collection of nomadic kinship groups became a sedentary.
 2. Transformed the austere cult of a desert god into the concept of a single
 Israelites, the land they occupied in antiquity as Israel.
 Negev Desert and the vast wasteland of the Sinai lie to the south.
 Rock strewn hills of the Shephelah
 Galilee to the north, narrow ribbon of the Jordan River
 Dead Sea, named because its high salt is toxic to life.

Origins, Exodus, and Settlement

 Hebrew Bible (old testament by Christians) compilation of several collections of
materials that originated with different groups
 10th cen BCE= borrowed from the Phoenicians script
 Speech of the Israelites until about 500 BCE, Semitic Language
 The story of the family of Abraham= the city of Ur, rejected the traditional idol
worship, covenant or pact with the Israelite god Yahweh.
 Son= Issac, grandson= Jacob,
 1. 1700 to 1500 BCE, when Egypt was dominated by the Hyksos
3. Complain about Apiru, a derogatory term applied to caravan drivers, outcasts,
bandits, and other marginal groups
 The period of alleged Israelite slavery with the era of New Kingdom Egypt
 Israelites were led out of captivity by Moses, wilderness of Sinai
 Chosen People, choose to worship Yahweh
 Ten Commandments= basic tenets of Jewish belief and practice
 Joshua led Isralites from the east side of J River into the land of Canaan.
 Attacked and destroyed Jericho and other cities
 “Children of Israel”= divided into 12 tribes sons of Jacob and Joseph
 Daring in war or genius in arbitration= judges
 Hill country at Shiloh= housed the Ark of the Covenant, a sacred chest contacting the
tablets that Yahweh had given Moses.

Rise of the Monarchy

 Brought philistines to Israel, conflict
 Long haired strongman Samson, who toppled a Philistine temple, shepherd boy
David, felled the towering warrior Goliath
 Samuel recognized the need for a stronger central authority= appointed Saul around
1020 BCE, passed to David 1000~960 BCE.
 From a confederacy to a unifed monarchy
 Making the captured hill city of Jerusalem, capital
 Ark of Jerusalem, religious, powerful
 Solomon= (960~920 BCE), hiram= the king of Phoenician Tyre, commissioned a
fleet to Red Sea and brought back gold.
 Visit= queen of Sheba, reality of trade with Saba in South Arabia.
 First Temple of Jerusalem, central shrine and an impressive set of rituals.
 Fiery prophets, claiming revelation from Yahweh, accused the monarchs of
corruption.
 Groom, in order to show financial worthniess, gave a gift to the father of the bribe.
 Woman could not inherit property or initiate divorce.\
 Deborah the Judge= led troops in battle against Canaanites.

Fragmentation and Dispersal

 Solomon’s death around 920 BCE= split the monarchy into two kingdoms
1. Israel in the north, capital at Samaria
2. Judah in the south, Jerusalem
 Foundation of monotheism= the absolute belief in Yahweh as the one and only god.
 721 BCE= Assyrians destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel
 Judah survived for more than a century longer
 Neo- Babylonian Kingdom (626~539 BCE)
 Babylon monarch= Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem in 587 BCE
 Persian monarch Cyrus, Diaspora= dispersion, scattering outside homeland of many
jews
 Institutionsw like the synagogue (bringing together) a communal meeting place that
served religious functions
 Built the temple and drafted the Deuteronomic Code (meaning second set of laws)
 Forbade the eating of pork and shellfish
 Women= required to take ritual baths after menstruation.
 Venerated the Sabbath (Saturday, the 7th day of the week) following the example of
Yahweh.