Inquiry 2 Emergence of a Civilization

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Inquiry 2 Emergence of a Civilization

• Writing
• Its a means of communicating.
• Plays a big part of our lives!

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The Importance of Law in Our Society

• What is the importance of law today? In order to
  establish this we must first establish what the
  point of law is. Law and order is essential in
  all communities. In an orderly law-abiding
  community people can plan ahead, work in safety
  and do business in trust. In most modern
  societies order means stability. The guarantees
  of this order take place in the form of laws.
  Laws are rules and customs that the citizens of a
  community regard as binding upon them and can be
  enforced by the courts. Laws provide boundaries
  so that people realize where and when they are
  committing an offence. One of the principal
  objects of the law is to safeguard (make safe)
  the rights of citizens. Our basic rights are what
  give us our freedom in daily life. The freedom of
  speech, the right to a fair trial etcRead
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First seeds of civilization

• The Nile Valley Civilization (green)
• The Mesopotamian Civilization (purple)
• The Indus Valley Civilization (red)
• The Chinese Civilization (blue)

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Irrigation use in agriculture

• All four (4) civilizations developed on fertile
  land and near rivers.
• Each spring, the water levels rose and spilled
  over the banks and flooded the area for several
  months.
• Water levels eventually receded and left behind
  fertile mud (silt) on the ground.
• Farmers now had fertile soil to grow crops.

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Major Irrigation projects

• Farmers were forced to develop an irrigation
  system because of dry seasons no water!
• Floods occurred once a year they were periodic.
  
• An irrigation system involves capturing water
  and sending it across the crop fields on a
  regular basis throughout the year.

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Irrigation projects involved

1. Building canals to get water to fields.
2. Building dikes to retain water in canal.
3. Building a reservoir to store floodwaters.

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How did agriculture affect civilizations?

• It allowed more people to be fed and families to
  grow in numbers.
• Small villages grew into large cities.
• Large cities required a leader.
• A chief would rule and pass laws which everyone
  had to follow.
• Written laws were formal, permanent and
  undisputable.
• These cities became organized.
• This is what a civilization is!

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Why did the Mesopotamians invent writing?

• Mesopotamians needed to record and communicate
  information to others.
• Keeping track of food surpluses would be
  impossible without recording quantities.

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Food surpluses lead to the creation of more trade
groups

• Trade groups needed and relied on each other.
• They provided each other with goods and services.
• Labour was organized into four (4) trade groups
• Peasants
• Artisans
• Merchants
• Soldiers

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1. Peasants

• They produced food.
• These crops included wheat, barley, sesame, and
  millet
• They raised livestock.
• Most of the population was peasants.
• 2. Artisans
• Made tools, pots, weapons, bricks, etc.
• Built houses, public buildings, boats and wagons.

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3. Merchants

• Bartered with other Mesopotamian cities and with
  people living outside of Mesopotamia.
• 4. Soldiers
• Protected the goods and territory from robbers.
• Protected roads travelled by merchants.

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Trade

• Merchants travelled long distances to trade.
• Mesopotamia traded food surpluses for products
  that they did not have.
• What products did other civilizations give to
  Mesopotamia?
• Hittites offered copper, lead, silver, iron

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• 2. Canaanites offered copper, bronze, tin, gold

3. People from the Zagros mountains offered
iron and steel
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Evolution of Writing

• People began writing around 3,500 BC.
• They started by drawing objects, and engraved
  their drawings (called pictograms) on moist clay
  tablets.

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Pictograms

• Pictograms represented animals and objects (i.e.
  number of cows, bags of grain).
• What about more complex explanations that
  involved emotions and detailed thoughts?
• Pictograms were simple and quite limited in what
  they could describe.

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From Pictograms to Cuneiform Writing

• A writing system invented by the Sumerians in
  ancient Mesopotamia.
• It pre-dates letters by 1500 years.
• It is the earliest known writing system in the
  world.
• It was often inscribed on damp clay tablets using
  a special shaped tool called a stylus.
• Cuneiform had approximately 700 symbols.
• Only scribes knew how to read and write in
  cuneiform.

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How was the Mesopotamian Society Organised?

• It was a hierarchical society.
• A persons hierarchical position depended on his
  wealth, his job and/or who he knew.
• An artisan was considered more valuable than a
  peasant because he was skilled and harder to
  replace.
• The peasants, who simply worked the fields, were
  unskilled and less valued than highly trained
  warriors who were given the important role of
  defending the city from invaders.

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Political Power in the Cities

• Mesopotamia had 10 major cities.
• Each city was
• Independent from the others
• Built near crop fields
• Surrounded by protective walls
• Composed of two (2) parts
• Lower city
• Higher city

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• Lower city
• This part of the city was inhabited by the
  peasants. In the event of an attack, the lower
  city would be overtaken by the enemy and the
  peasants would be killed.
• Higher city
• This part of the city was inhabited by all the
  important people. It was harder to get to because
  it was built on a mound. Its where all of the
  important institutions/buildings were located
  (temples, the ziggurat, the royal palace and
  food/supply warehouses etc.).
• It was safer to be in the higher city because the
  enemy would have a harder time overtaking it
  because it was more elevated than the lower city.

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Social groups in Mesopotamia

• The king (inherited this position)
• He was the supreme ruler of all major
  Mesopotamian cities.
• He managed the army, irrigation projects and food
  supplies.
• He represented the Gods on Earth.
• The Elite
• They were the high priests, army commanders, rich
  merchants.
• They advised the king and carried out his orders.

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• The Free people
• Priests, artisans, peasants, merchants, soldiers,
  and civil servants.
• Peasants gave part of their harvest to the king
  in the form of a tax.
• The slaves
• They were prisoners of war.
• They had no rights.
• They received no wages () for their work.

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Law and Justice

• The kings authority ensured stability and unity
  within society
• Written laws ensured/guaranteed that justice was
  served!
• Anyone caught violating/breaking laws were
  punished.
• These laws applied to everyone.
• The Code of Hammurabi
• It is the oldest written law code that exists.
• Hammurabi had these laws engraved on a stele.

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Were these laws just? Fair?

• These laws were not fair because the punishment
  for breaking the law was not the same for
  everyone.
• What you did for a living, who you knew and what
  you owned played (called social status) a big
  part on the severity of the punishment for
  breaking a law.
• The punishment was harsher for a peasant than a
  member of the elite.
• For crimes against persons
• The code applied the law of retaliation (an eye
  for an eye!) which meant that the criminal would
  receive the same damage he had inflicted onto his
  victim.
• Family issues
• The code sought to protect women and children.