Now that you have read chapters 1 & 2 of Wiesner-Hanks as well as the selection from Hammurabi’s Code, you are ready to write a short (250-500 word) essay on the following topic:
Consider the laws of Hammurabi in the document assigned as well as those reproduced in your textbook. What do Hammurabi’s laws tell us about the role of the Babylonian government in regulating family life? Does this seem the same or different from the other societies (Egyptian, Akkadian) that you read about in your Wiesner-Hanks? Be sure to use names, dates and examples to support your essay! You DO NOT need formal footnotes, but do give short citations (Wiesner-Hanks, p 35) or Hammurabi, Law 21). If you are using an electronic version of the textbook itself, give the location number (loc 2544).
1-3Society and Law in Ancient BabyloniaThe Code of Hammurabi (ca. 1780 B.C.E.)
As king of Babylon, one of the first great cities in the world, Hammurabi (hahm-moo-RAH-bee) (r. ca. 1792–1750 B.C.E.) created an empire that extended throughout Mesopotamia. During his reign, Hammurabi compiled a well-known law code and ordered it to be carved on stone tablets and set up in a public space. The inscriptions were in Akkadian, the daily language of the people. Although it is not known how many Babylonians were literate at this time, ordinary people might have had a general sense of what was written there.
3. If any one bring an accusation of any crime before the elders, and does not prove what he has charged, he shall, if it be a capital offense charged, be put to death….
5. If a judge try a case, reach a decision, and present his judgment in writing; if later error shall appear in his decision, and it be through his own fault, then he shall pay twelve times the fine set by him in the case, and he shall be publicly removed from the judge’s bench, and never again shall he sit there to render judgment….
15. If anyone take a male or female slave of the court, or a male or female slave of a freed man, outside the city gates, he shall be put to death.
16. If anyone receive into his house a runaway male or female slave of the court, or of a freed man, and does not bring it out at the public proclamation of the major domus,1 the master of the house shall be put to death.
17. If anyone find runaway male or female slaves in the open country and bring them to their masters, the master of the slaves shall pay him two shekels of silver….
25. If fire break out in a house, and some one who comes to put it out cast his eye upon the property of the owner of the house, and take the property of the master of the house, he shall be thrown into that self-same fire….
30. If a chieftain or a man leave his house, garden, and field and hires it out, and some one else takes possession of his house, garden, and field and uses it for three years: if the first owner return and claims his house, garden, and field, it shall not be given to him, but he who has taken possession of it and used it shall continue to use it….
108. If a tavern-keeper (feminine) does not accept corn according to gross weight in payment of drink, but takes money, and the price of the drink is less than that of the corn, she shall be convicted and thrown into the water.
109. If conspirators meet in the house of a tavern-keeper, and these conspirators are not captured and delivered to the court, the tavern-keeper shall be put to death.
110. If a sister of a god2 open a tavern, or enter a tavern to drink, then shall this woman be burned to death….
128. If a man take a woman to wife, but have no intercourse with her, this woman is no wife to him.
129. If a man’s wife be surprised with another man, both shall be tied and thrown into the water, but the husband may pardon his wife and the king his slaves.
130. If a man violate the wife (betrothed or child-wife) of another man, who has never known a man, and still lives in her father’s house, and sleep with her and be surprised, this man shall be put to death, but the wife is blameless.
131. If a man bring a charge against one’s wife, but she is not surprised with another man, she must take an oath and then may return to her house.
132. If the “finger is pointed” at a man’s wife about another man, but she is not caught sleeping with the other man, she shall jump into the river for her husband….
137. If a man wish to separate from a woman who has borne him children, or from his wife who has borne him children: then he shall give that wife her dowry, and a part of the usufruct of field, garden, and property, so that she can rear her children. When she has brought up her children, a portion of all that is given to the children, equal as that of one son, shall be given to her. She may then marry the man of her heart.
138. If a man wishes to separate from his wife who has borne him no children, he shall give her the amount of her purchase money and the dowry which she brought from her father’s house, and let her go.
139. If there was no purchase price he shall give her one mina of gold as a gift of release….
141. If a man’s wife, who lives in his house, wishes to leave it, plunges into debt, tries to ruin her house, neglects her husband, and is judicially convicted: if her husband offer her release, she may go on her way, and he gives her nothing as a gift of release. If her husband does not wish to release her, and if he take another wife, she shall remain as servant in her husband’s house….
144. If a man take a wife and this woman give her husband a maid-servant, and she bear him children, but this man wishes to take another wife, this shall not be permitted to him; he shall not take a second wife.
145. If a man take a wife, and she bear him no children, and he intend to take another wife: if he take this second wife, and bring her into the house, this second wife shall not be allowed equality with his wife….
195. If a son strike his father, his hands shall be hewn off.
196. If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.
197. If he break another man’s bone, his bone shall be broken.
198. If he put out the eye of a freed man, or break the bone of a freed man, he shall pay one gold mina.
199. If he put out the eye of a man’s slave, or break the bone of a man’s slave, he shall pay one-half of its value.
200. If a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out.
201. If he knock out the teeth of a freed man, he shall pay one-third of a gold mina.
202. If anyone strike the body of a man higher in rank than he, he shall receive sixty blows with an ox-whip in public.
203. If a free-born man strike the body of another free-born man of equal rank, he shall pay one gold mina.
204. If a freed man strike the body of another freed man, he shall pay ten shekels in money.
205. If the slave of a freed man strike the body of a freed man, his ear shall be cut off….
209. If a man strike a free-born woman so that she lose her unborn child, he shall pay ten shekels for her loss.
210. If the woman die, his daughter shall be put to death.
211. If a woman of the free class lose her child by a blow, he shall pay five shekels in money.
212. If this woman die, he shall pay half a mina.
213. If he strike the maid-servant of a man, and she lose her child, he shall pay two shekels in money.
214. If this maid-servant die, he shall pay one-third of a mina….
From James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 3d ed. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1969), pp. 166–175. Permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. Human groups have long made distinctions between themselves and
others. Some of these distinctions are between small groups such as
neighboring tribes, some between countries and civilizations, and
some between vast parts of the world. Among the most enduring of
the latter are the ideas of “the West” and “the East.”
Describing the West
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Ideas about the West and the distinction between West and East
derived originally from the ancient Greeks. Greek civilization grew
up in the shadow of earlier civilizations, especially Egypt and
Mesopotamia. The Greeks de ned themselves in relation to these
more advanced cultures, which they saw as “Eastern.” They were
also the rst to use the word Europe for a geographic area, taking
the word from the name of a minor goddess. They set Europe in
opposition to “Asia” (also named for a minor goddess), by which
they meant both what we now call western Asia and what we call
Africa.
The Greeks passed these ideas on to the Romans, who saw
themselves clearly as part of the West. To Romans, the East was
more sophisticated and more advanced, but also decadent and
somewhat immoral. Roman value judgments have continued to
shape preconceptions, stereotypes, and views of differences between
the West and the East to this day.
Greco-Roman ideas about the West were passed on to people who
lived in western and northern Europe, who saw themselves as the
inheritors of this classical tradition and thus as the West. When these
Europeans established colonies outside Europe beginning in the late
fteenth century, they regarded what they were doing as taking
Western culture with them. With colonization, Western came to
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What do we mean by “the West”
and “Western civilization”?
mean those cultures that included signi cant numbers of people of
European ancestry, no matter where on the globe they were located.
In the early twentieth century, educators and other leaders in the
United States became worried that many people, especially young
people, were becoming cut off from European intellectual and
cultural traditions. They encouraged the establishment of college
and university courses focusing on “Western civilization,” the rst
of which was taught at Columbia University in 1919. In designing
the course, the faculty included cultures that, as far back as the
ancient Greeks, had been considered Eastern, such as Egypt and
Mesopotamia. This conceptualization and the course spread to other
colleges and universities, developing into what became known as
the introductory Western civilization course, a staple of historical
instruction for generations of college students.
After World War II, divisions between the West and the East
changed again, with Western coming to imply a capitalist economy
and Eastern the Communist Eastern bloc. Thus, Japan was
considered Western, and some Greek-speaking areas of Europe
became Eastern. The collapse of communism in the Soviet Union
and eastern Europe in the 1980s brought yet another re guring, with
much of eastern Europe joining the European Union, originally a
Western organization.
In the early twenty- rst century, Western still suggests a capitalist
economy, but it also has certain cultural connotations, such as
individualism and competition. Islamist radicals often describe their
aims as an end to Western cultural, economic, and political
in uence, though Islam itself is generally described, along with
Judaism and Christianity, as a Western monotheistic religion. Thus,
throughout its long history, the meaning of “the West” has shifted,
but in every era it has meant more than a geographical location.
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What Is Civilization?
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Just as the meaning of the word Western is shaped by culture, so is
the meaning of the word civilization. In the ancient world, residents
of cities generally viewed themselves as more advanced and
sophisticated than rural folk. They saw themselves as more
“civilized,” a word that comes from the Latin adjective civilis,
which refers to a citizen, either of a town or of a larger political unit.
This depiction of people as either civilized or uncivilized was
gradually extended to whole societies. Beginning in the eighteenth
century, European scholars described any society in which political,
economic, and social organizations operated on a large scale, not
primarily through families and kin groups, as a civilization.
Civilizations had cities; laws that governed human relationships;
codes of manners and social conduct that regulated how people were
to behave; and scienti c, philosophical, and theological beliefs that
explained the larger world. Civilizations also had some form of
political organization through which one group was able to coerce
resources out of others to engage in group endeavors, such as
building large structures or carrying out warfare. States established
armies, bureaucracies, and taxation systems. Generally only
societies that used writing were judged to be civilizations.
Until the middle of the twentieth century, historians often referred to
the places where writing and cities developed as “cradles of
civilization,” proposing a model of development for all humanity
patterned on that of an individual life span. However, the idea that
all human societies developed (or should develop) in a uniform
process from a “cradle” to a “mature” civilization has now been
largely discredited, and some historians choose not to use the
term civilization at all because it could imply that some societies are
superior to others.
Just as the notion of “civilization” has been questioned, so has the
notion of “Western civilization.” Ever since the idea of “Western
civilization” was rst developed, people have debated what its
geographical extent and core values are. Are there certain beliefs,
customs, concepts, and institutions that set Western civilization apart
from other civilizations, and, if so, when and how did these
originate? How were these values and practices transmitted over
space and time, and how did they change? No civilization stands
alone, and each is in uenced by its neighbors. Whatever Western
civilization was — and is — it has been shaped by interactions with
other societies, cultures, and civilizations. Even so, the idea that
there are basic distinctions between the West and the rest of the
world in terms of cultural values has been very powerful for
thousands of years, and it still shapes the way many people view the
world.
How did early human societies
create new technologies and
cultural forms?
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Scientists who study the history of the earth use a variety of systems
to classify and divide time. Geologists and paleontologists divide
time into periods that last many millions of years and that are
determined by the movements of continents and the evolution and
extinction of plant and animal species. During the nineteenth
century, European archaeologists coined labels for eras of the
human past according to the primary material out of which
surviving tools had been made. Thus the earliest human era became
the Stone Age, the next era the Bronze Age, and the next the Iron
Age. They further divided the Stone Age into the Paleolithic and
Neolithic eras. During the Paleolithic era, people used stone and
other natural products to make tools and gained food largely by
foraging, that is, by gathering plant products, trapping or catching
small animals and birds, and hunting larger prey. This was followed
by the Neolithic era, which saw the beginning of agriculture and
From the First Hominids to the Paleolithic
Era
Using many different pieces of evidence from all over the world,
archaeologists, paleontologists, and other scholars have developed a
view of human evolution that has a widely shared basic outline,
though there are disagreements about details. Sometime between 7
and 6 million years ago in southern and eastern Africa, groups of
human ancestors (members of the biological “hominid” family)
began to walk upright, which allowed them to carry things. About
3.4 million years ago, some hominids began to use naturally
occurring objects as tools, and around 2.5 million years ago, one
group in East Africa began to make simple tools, a feat that was
accompanied by, and may have spurred, brain development. Groups
migrated into much of Africa and then into Asia and Europe; by
about 600,000 years ago, there were hominids throughout much of
Afro-Eurasia.
About 300,000 years ago, again in East Africa, some of these early
humans evolved into Homo sapiens (“thinking humans”), which had
still larger and more complex brains that allowed for symbolic
language and better social skills. Homo sapiens invented highly
specialized tools made out of a variety of materials. They made
regular use of re for heat, light, and cooking. They also migrated,
rst across Africa, and by 130,000 years ago, and perhaps earlier,
out of Africa into Eurasia. Eventually they traveled farther still,
reaching Australia using rafts about 50,000 years ago and the
Americas by about 15,000 years ago, or perhaps earlier. They
moved into areas where other types of hominids lived, interacting
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animal domestication; this change occurred at various times around
the world, but the earliest was around 9000 B.C.E., so this date is
often used to mark the transition between the Paleolithic and the
Neolithic.
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with them and in some cases interbreeding with them. Gradually
other types of hominids became extinct, leaving Homo sapiens as
the only survivors and the ancestors of all modern humans.
In the Paleolithic period, humans throughout the world lived in ways
that were similar to one another. Archaeological evidence and
studies of modern foragers suggest that people generally lived in
small groups of related individuals and moved throughout the
landscape in search of food. They ate mostly plants, and much of the
animal protein in their diet came from foods gathered or scavenged
rather than hunted directly. Paleolithic peoples did, however, hunt
large game, often hunting in groups. Groups working together
forced animals over cliffs, threw spears to kill them, and, beginning
about 15,000 B.C.E., used bows to shoot projectiles so that they
could stand farther away from their prey while hunting.
Paleolithic people were not differentiated by wealth. Most foraging
societies that exist today, or did so until recently, have some type of
division of labor by sex and also by age. Men are more often
responsible for hunting and women for gathering plant and animal
products. This may or may not have been the case in the Paleolithic
era, or there may have been a diversity of patterns in different areas
around the world.
Beginning in the Paleolithic era, human beings have expressed
themselves through what we would now term the arts or culture:
painting and decorating walls and objects, making music, telling
stories, dancing alone or in groups. Paleolithic evidence of culture,
particularly from after about 50,000 years ago, includes utes,
carvings, jewelry, and amazing paintings done on cave walls and
rock outcroppings that depict animals, people, and symbols. Burials,
paintings, and objects suggest that people may have developed ideas
about supernatural forces that controlled some aspects of the natural
world and the humans in it, what we now term spirituality or
religion. Spiritually adept men and women communicated with that
unseen world, and objects such as carvings or masks were probably
thought to have special healing or protective powers. (See
“Evaluating Visual Evidence: Paleolithic Venus Figures.”)
Total human population grew very slowly during the Paleolithic.
One estimate proposes that there were perhaps 500,000 humans in
the world about 30,000 years ago. By about 10,000 years ago, this
number had grown to 5 million — ten times as many people. This
was a signi cant increase, but it took twenty thousand years. The
low population density meant that human impact on the
environment was relatively small, although still signi cant.
EVALUATING VISUAL EVIDENCE
Paleolithic Venus Figures
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Written sources provide evidence about the human past only after the development of writing,
allowing us to read the words of people long dead. For most of human history, however, there were
no written sources, so we “read” the past through objects. Interpreting written documents is dif cult,
and interpreting archaeological evidence is even more dif cult and often contentious. For example,
small stone statues of women with enlarged breasts and buttocks dating from the later Paleolithic
period (roughly 33,000–9000 B.C.E.) have been found in many parts of Europe. These were
dubbed “Venus gures” by nineteenth-century archaeologists, who thought they represented
Paleolithic standards of female beauty just as the goddess Venus represented classical standards. A
reproduction of one of these statues, the six-inch-tall Venus of Lespugue made from a mammoth
tusk about 25,000 years ago in southern France, is shown here.
EVALUATE THE EVIDENCE
1.
2.
As you look at this statue, does it seem to link more closely with fertility or with
sexuality? How might your own situation as a twenty- rst-century person shape your
answer to this question?
Some scholars see Venus gures as evidence that Paleolithic society was egalitarian
or female dominated, but others point out that images of female deities or holy gures
are often found in religions that deny women of cial authority. Can you think of
examples of the latter? Which point of view seems most persuasive to you?
Domestication
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Foraging remained the basic way of life for most of human history,
and for groups living in extreme environments, such as tundras or
deserts, it was the only possible way to survive. In a few especially
fertile areas, however, the natural environment provided enough
food that people could become more settled. About 15,000 years
ago, the earth’s climate entered a warming phase, and more parts of
the world were able to support people who did not move very much
or at all. Archaeological sites in many places begin to include
storage pits and grindstones, evidence that people were intensifying
their work to get more food from the surrounding area, becoming
sedentary or semi-sedentary rather than nomadic. They also
acquired more objects and built more permanent housing.
In several of these places, along with gathering wild grains, roots,
and other foodstuffs, people began planting seeds in the ground and
selected the seeds they planted in order to get crops that had
favorable characteristics, such as larger edible parts. Through this
human intervention, certain crops became domesticated, that is,
modi ed by selective breeding so as to serve human needs. Scholars
used to think that crop raising was the cause of sedentism, or a
sedentary way of life, but they now know that in many places
villages preceded intentional crop raising by thousands of years, so
the primary line of causation runs the other way: people began to
raise crops because they were living in permanent communities.
Thus people were “domesticated,” meaning settled down, before
plants and animals were.
Intentional crop planting rst developed around 9000 B.C.E., in the
area archaeologists call the Fertile Crescent, which runs from
present-day Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan north to Turkey and then
south and east to the Iran-Iraq border. Over the next two millennia, a
similar process — rst sedentism, then domestication — happened
elsewhere as well, in the Nile River Valley, western Africa, China,
India, Papua New Guinea, and Mesoamerica.
Along with domesticating certain plants, people also domesticated
animals. Dogs were the rst to be domesticated, and in about
9000 B.C.E., at the same time they began to raise crops, people in
the Fertile Crescent domesticated wild goats and sheep. They began
to breed the goats and sheep selectively for qualities that they
wanted. Sheep and goats allow themselves to be herded, and people
developed a new form of living, pastoralism, based on herding and
raising livestock. Eventually other grazing animals, including cattle,
camels, horses, yak, and reindeer, also became the basis of pastoral
economies in Central and West Asia, many parts of Africa, and far
northern Europe.
The domestication of certain large animals had a signi cant impact
on human ways of life. Cattle, water buffalo, donkeys, and horses
can be trained
What kind of civilization did the
Sumerians build in Mesopotamia?
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The origins of Western civilization are generally traced to an area
that is today not seen as part of the West: Mesopotamia (mehs-ohpuh-TAY-mee-uh), the Greek name for the land between the
Euphrates (yoo-FRAY-teez) and Tigris (TIGH-grihs) Rivers (Map
1.1), which today is in Iraq. The earliest agricultural villages in
Mesopotamia were in the northern, hilly parts of the river valleys,
where there is abundant rainfall for crops. By about 5000 B.C.E.,
farmers had brought techniques of crop raising southward to the
MAP 1.1 Spread of Cultures in the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000–1640 B.C.E. This map illustrates the
spread of the Mesopotamian and Egyptian cultures through the semicircular stretch of land often called the
Fertile Crescent. From this area, the knowledge and use of agriculture spread throughout western Asia, North
Africa, and Europe.
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Framed by the Caucasus Mountains to its north, the Arabian Desert to its south, the Mediterranean
Sea to its west, and the Persian Gulf to its east, Mesopotamian culture ourished in and around the
Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Three Neolithic sites have been uncovered in this region, and one has
been unearthed in the southeast coastal region of the Persian Gulf. In a similar fashion, Egyptian
culture was framed by the Mediterranean Sea to its north, the Red Sea to its east, and the Sahara
Desert to its west. The fertile area was fed by the Nile River. Two other Neolithic sites have been
found to the North of the Mediterranean Sea, just west of the Mesopotamian civilization.
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southern part of Mesopotamia, called Sumer. In this arid climate
farmers developed irrigation on a large scale, which demanded
organized group effort but allowed the population to grow. By about
3800 B.C.E., one of the agricultural villages, Uruk (OO-rook), had
expanded signi cantly, becoming what many historians view as the
world’s rst city, with a population that eventually numbered more
than fty thousand. People living in Uruk built large temples to
honor their chief god and goddess, and also invented the world’s
rst system of writing. Over the next thousand years, other cities
also grew in Sumer, trading with one another and adopting writing.
From the outset, geography had a profound effect on Mesopotamia
because here agriculture is possible only with irrigation.
Consequently, the Sumerians and later civilizations built their cities
along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and their branches. They used
the rivers to carry agricultural and trade goods, and also to provide
water for vast networks of irrigation channels. The Tigris and
Euphrates ow quickly at certain times of the year and carry silt
down from the mountains and hills, causing oods. To prevent
major oods, the Sumerians created massive hydraulic projects,
including reservoirs, dams, and dikes as well as canals. In stories
written later, they described their chief god, Enlil, as “the raging
ood which has no rival” and believed that at one point there had
been a massive ood, a tradition that also gave rise to the biblical
story of Noah:
A ood will sweep over…. A decision that the seed of mankind is to be
destroyed has been made. The verdict, the word of the divine assembly,
cannot be revoked.
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Judging by historical records, however, actual destructive oods
were few.
In addition to water and transport, the rivers supplied sh, a major
element of the Sumerian diet, and reeds, which were used for
making baskets and writing implements. The rivers also provided
clay, which was hardened to create bricks, the Sumerians’ primary
building material in a region with little stone. Clay was red into
pots, and inventive artisans developed the potter’s wheel so that they
could make pots that were stronger and more uniform than those
made by earlier methods of coiling ropes of clay. The potter’s wheel
in turn appears to have led to the introduction of wheeled vehicles
sometime in the fourth millennium B.C.E. Wheeled vehicles, pulled
by domesticated donkeys, led to road building, which facilitated
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Environment and Mesopotamian
Development
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settlement, trade, and conquest, although travel and transport by
water remained far easier.
Cities and villages in Sumer and farther up the Tigris and Euphrates
traded with one another, and even before the development of writing
or kings, it appears that colonists sometimes set out from one city to
travel hundreds of miles to the north or west to found a new city or
to set up a community in an existing center. These colonies might
well have provided the Sumerian cities with goods, such as timber
and metal ores, that were not available locally. The cities of the
Sumerian heartland continued to grow and to develop governments,
and each one came to dominate the surrounding countryside,
becoming city-states independent from one another, though not very
far apart.
The city-states of Sumer continued to rely on irrigation systems that
required cooperation and at least some level of social and political
cohesion. The authority to run this system was, it seems, initially
assumed by Sumerian priests. Encouraged and directed by their
religious leaders, people built temples on tall platforms in the center
of their cities. Temples grew into elaborate complexes of buildings
with storage space for grain and other products and housing for
animals. (Much later, by about 2100 B.C.E., some of the major
temple complexes were embellished with a huge stepped pyramid,
called a ziggurat, with a shrine on the top.) The Sumerians believed
that humans had been created to serve the gods, who lived in the
temples. To support the needs of the gods, including the temple
constructions, and to support the religious leaders, temples owned
large estates, including elds and orchards. Temple of cials
employed individuals to work the temple’s land.
By 2500 B.C.E. there were more than a dozen city-states in Sumer.
Each city developed religious, political, and military institutions,
and judging by the fact that people began to construct walls around
the cities and other forti cations, warfare between cities was quite
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common. Presumably their battles were sometimes sparked by
disputes over water, as irrigation in one area reduced or altered the
ow of rivers in other areas.
The Invention of Writing and the First
Schools
The origins of writing probably go back to the ninth
millennium B.C.E., when Near Eastern peoples used clay tokens as
counters for record keeping. By the fourth millennium, people had
realized that impressing the tokens on clay, or drawing pictures of
the tokens on clay, was simpler than making tokens. This
breakthrough in turn suggested that more information could be
conveyed by adding pictures of still other objects. The result was a
complex system of pictographs in which each sign pictured an
object. These pictographs were the forerunners of the Sumerian
form of writing known as cuneiform (kyou-NEE-uh-form) (Figure
1.1), from the Latin term for “wedge shaped,” used to describe the
indentations made by a sharpened stylus in clay, which was invented
about 3200 B.C.E.
FIGURE 1.1 Sumerian Writing
Source: S. N. Kramer, The Sumerians: Their History, Culture and Character. Copyright ©
1963 by The University of Chicago Press.
A chart of Sumerian writing shows a pictograph, ideogram, and phonetic sign for ve different words/
meanings: star, woman, mountain, slave woman, and water in.
Pictographs were initially limited in that they could not represent
abstract ideas, but the development of ideograms — signs that
represented ideas — made writing more versatile. Thus the sign for
star could also be used to indicate heaven, sky, or even god. The
development of the Sumerian system of writing was piecemeal, with
scribes making changes and additions as they were needed. Over
time, the system became so complicated that scribal schools were
established; by 2500 B.C.E., these schools ourished throughout
Sumer. Students at the schools were all male, and most came from
families in the middle range of urban
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How did the Akkadian and Old
Babylonian empires develop in
Mesopotamia?
The wealth of Sumerian cities also attracted non-Sumerian
conquerors from the north, beginning with the Akkadians and then
the Babylonians. Both of these peoples created large states in the
valley of the Tigris and Euphrates, and Hammurabi, one ruler of
Babylon, proclaimed an extensive law code. Merchants traveled
throughout the Fertile Crescent and beyond, carrying products and
facilitating cultural exchange.
The Akkadians and the Babylonians
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In 2331 B.C.E., Sargon, the king of a city to the north of Sumer,
conquered a number of Sumerian cities with what was probably the
world’s rst permanent army and created a large state. The symbol
of his triumph was a new capital, the city of Akkad (AH-kahd).
Sargon also expanded the Akkadian empire westward to north Syria.
He encouraged trading networks that brought in goods from as far
away as the Indus River and what is now Turkey. Sargon spoke a
different language than did the Sumerians, one of the many
languages that scholars identify as belonging to the Semitic
language family, which includes modern-day Hebrew and Arabic.
However, Akkadians adapted cuneiform writing to their own
language, and Akkadian became the diplomatic language used over
a wide area.
Sargon of Akkad This bronze head, with elaborately worked hair and beard, might portray the great
conqueror Sargon of Akkad (though his name does not appear on it). The eyes were originally inlaid with
jewels, which have since been gouged out. Produced around 2300 B.C.E., this head was found in the ruins
of the Assyrian capital of Nineveh, where it had been taken as loot.
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Sargon tore down the defensive walls of Sumerian cities and
appointed his own sons as their rulers to help him cement his power.
He also appointed his daughter, Enheduana (2285–2250 B.C.E.), as
high priestess in the city of Ur. Here she wrote a number of hymns,
especially those in praise of the goddess Inanna, becoming the
world’s rst author to put her name to a literary composition. (See
“Thinking Like a Historian: Addressing the Gods.”) For hundreds of
years Enheduana’s works were copied on clay tablets, which have
been found in several cities in the area, indicating that people may
have recited or read them.
Sargon’s dynasty appears to have ruled Mesopotamia for about 150
years, during which time the Tigris and Euphrates Valleys attracted
immigrants from many places. Then his empire collapsed, in part
because of a period of extended drought, and the various city-states
became independent again. One group of immigrants into
Mesopotamia were the Amorites (AM-uh-rites), who migrated from
the west. The Amorites were initially nomadic pastoralists, not
agriculturalists, but they began to raise crops when they settled
throughout Mesopotamia. They founded several city-states after
Sargon’s dynasty ended, one of which was Babylon along the
middle Euphrates, where that river runs close to the Tigris. Babylon
became more than a city-state, growing to include smaller territories
whose rulers recognized the king of Babylon as their overlord.
THINKING LIKE A HISTORIAN
Addressing the Gods
Hymns and incantations to the gods are among the earliest written texts in Mesopotamia and Egypt,
and sculpture and paintings also often show people addressing the gods. The sources here are
examples of such works. What ideas about the gods and the way humans should address them are
shared in all these sources, and how do ideas in Egypt differ from those in Mesopotamia?
1 Enheduana’s “Exaltation of Inanna”
Enheduana (2285–2250 B.C.E.), the daughter of Sargon of Akkad, was appointed by her father as
high priestess in the Sumerian city of Ur, where she wrote a number of literary and religious works
that were frequently recopied long after her death, including this hymn to the goddess Inanna.
Your divinity shines in the pure heavens…. Your torch lights up the corners of heaven, turning
darkness into light. The men and women form a row for you and each one’s daily status hangs down before
you. Your numerous people pass before you, as before Utu [the sun-god], for their inspection. No one can lay a
hand on your precious divine powers; all your divine powers…. You exercise full ladyship over heaven and
earth; you hold everything in your hand. Mistress, you are magni cent, no one can walk before you. You dwell
with great An [the god of the heavens] in the holy resting-place. Which god is like you in gathering
together … in heaven and earth? You are magni cent, your name is praised, you alone are magni cent!
I am En-hedu-ana, the high priestess of the moon god…. Mercy, compassion, care, lenience and homage are
yours, and to cause ood storms, to open hard ground and to turn darkness into light. My lady, let me proclaim
your magni cence in all lands, and your glory! Let me praise your ways and greatness! Who rivals you in
divinity? Who can compare with your divine rites? … An and Enlil [the chief god of Sumer] have determined
a great destiny for you throughout the entire universe. They have bestowed upon you ladyship in the assembly
chamber. Being tted for ladyship, you determine the destiny of noble ladies. Mistress, you are magni cent,
you are great! Inanna, you are magni cent, you are great! My lady, your magni cence is resplendent. May
your heart be restored for my sake! Your great deeds are unparalleled, your magni cence is praised! Young
woman, Inanna, your praise is sweet!
2 Babylonian cylinder seal showing a man addressing the deities
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Dating from the Old Babylonian period (1800–1600 B.C.E.), this seal shows a man (left) addressing
two deities, the one on the right holding the rod and ring, symbols of authority. The cuneiform
inscription reads, “Ibni-Amurru, son of Ilima-ahi, servant of the god Amurru.”
3 Pyramid text of King Unas
This incantation, designed to assist the king’s ascent to the heavens after his death, was inscribed
on a wall of the royal burial chambers in the pyramid of the Egyptian king Unas (r. 2375–2345) at
Saqqara, a burial ground near the Nile.
Re-Atum [the sun-god], this Unas comes to you,
A spirit indestructible
Who lays claim to the place of the four pillars!
Your son comes to you, this Unas comes to you
May you cross the sky united in the dark,
May you rise in lightland, the place in which you shine!
Osiris, Isis, go proclaim to Lower Egypt’s gods
And their spirits:
“This Unas comes, a spirit indestructible,
Like the morning star above Hapy [the god of the ooding of the Nile],
Whom the water-spirits worship;
Whom he wishes to live will live,
Whom he wishes to die will die!”
…
Thoth [the god of law and science], go proclaim to the gods of the west
And their spirits:
“This Unas comes, a spirit indestructible,
Decked above the neck as Anubis
Lord of the western height
He will count hearts, he will claim hearts,
Whom he wishes to live will live,
Whom he wishes to die will die!”
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4 Hymn to Aton
When the pharaoh Akhenaton (r. 1351–1334 B.C.E.) promoted the worship of the sun-god Aton
instead of older Egyptian gods, new hymns were written for the pharaoh to sing in honor of the god.
Thou appearest beautifully on the horizon of heaven
Thou living Aton, the beginning of life!
When thou art risen on the eastern horizon,
Thou hast lled every land with thy beauty.
Thou art gracious, great, glistening, and high over every land;
Thy rays encompass the lands to the limit of all that thou hast made
…
Thy rays suckle every meadow.
When thou risest, they live, they grow for thee.
Thou makest the seasons in order to rear all that thou hast made,
The winter to cool them,
And the heat that they may taste thee.
Thou hast made the distant sky in order to rise therein,
In order to see all that thou dost make.
While thou wert alone,
Rising in thy form as the living Aton,
Appearing, shining, withdrawing or approaching,
Thou madest millions of forms of thyself alone.
Cities, towns, elds, road, and river —
Every eye beholds thee over against them,
For thou art the Aton of the day over the earth…
Thou art in my heart,
And there is no other that knows thee
Save thy son Nefer-kheperu-Re Wa-en-Re [Akhenaton],
For thou hast made him well versed in thy plans and in thy strength…
Since thou didst found the earth
And raise them up for thy son
Who came forth from thy body:
The king of Upper and lower Egypt, … Akhenaton … and the Chief Wife of the King … Nefertiti, living and
youthful forever and ever.
5 Relief depicting Akhenaton, Nefertiti, and their daughter,
Meritaton, making an offering to Aton
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This carved alabaster relief comes from the royal palace at Tell el-Amarna.
ANALYZING THE EVIDENCE
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
In Source 1 from Mesopotamia, what powers and qualities of the goddess Inanna does
Enheduana praise? In Source 2, what qualities do the deities in the cylinder seal
exhibit?
In Sources 3–5 from Egypt, what powers and qualities does the sun-god exhibit?
What common features do you see across all the sources in the powers ascribed to the
gods and the proper attitude of humans in addressing them?
Continuing to think about similarities, bear in mind that Enheduana was a member of
the ruling dynasty of Akkad, and Unas and Akhenaton were kings of Egypt. How did
their social position shape their relationship to the gods?
The pharaohs of Egypt were also regarded as gods; how does this make the
relationship of Unas and Akhenaton to the sun-god distinctive?
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
•
Using the sources above, along with what you have learned in class and in this chapter,
write a short essay that compares ideas about the gods in Mesopotamia and Egypt.
How do these ideas re ect the physical environment in which these two cultures
developed, and how do they re ect their social and political structures?
Sources: (1) J. A. Black et al., Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (http://
etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/), Oxford 1998–2006. Reprinted by permission of the University
of Oxford Oriental Studies Faculty; (3) Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian
Literature: A Book of Readings, vol. 1, The Old and Middle Kingdoms (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1973), p. 31. © 2006 by the Regents of the University
of California. Republished by permission of the University of California Press;
permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.; (4) John A. Wilson,
trans., in James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old
Testament — Third Edition with Supplement, pp. 370–371. Copyright © 1969 by
Princeton University Press; permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance
Center, Inc.
Life Under Hammurabi
Hammurabi of Babylon (r. 1792–1750 B.C.E.) was initially a typical
king of his era, but late in his reign he conquered several other
kingdoms, uniting most of Mesopotamia under his rule. The era
from his reign to around 1595 B.C.E. is called the Old Babylonian
period. As had earlier rulers, Hammurabi linked his success with the
will of the gods. He encouraged the spread of myths that explained
how Marduk, the primary god of Babylon, had been elected king of
the gods by the other deities in Mesopotamia. Marduk later became
widely regarded as the chief god of Mesopotamia, absorbing the
qualities and powers of other gods.
Hammurabi’s most memorable accomplishment was the
proclamation of an extensive law code, introduced about
1755 B.C.E. Like the codes of the earlier lawgivers, Hammurabi’s
law code proclaimed that he issued his laws on divine authority “to
establish law and justice in
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How did the Egyptians establish a
prosperous and long-lasting
society?
The Nile and the God-King
No other single geographical factor had such a fundamental and
profound impact on the shaping of Egyptian life, society, and history
as the Nile River. The Nile ooded once a year for a period of
several months, bringing fertile soil and moisture for farming, and
agricultural villages developed along its banks by at least
6000 B.C.E. Although the Egyptians worried at times that these
oods would be too high or too low, they also praised the Nile as a
creative and comforting force:
Hail to thee, O Nile, that issues from the earth and comes to keep Egypt
alive!…
He that waters the meadows which Re [Ra] created,
He that makes to drink the desert…
He who makes barley and brings emmer [wheat] into being…
He who brings grass into being for the cattle…
He who makes every beloved tree to grow…
O Nile, verdant art thou, who makest man and cattle to live.
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The Egyptians based their calendar on the Nile, dividing the year
into three four-month periods: akhet ( ooding), peret (growth),
and shemu (harvest).
Through the fertility of the Nile and their own hard work, Egyptians
produced an annual agricultural surplus, which in turn sustained a
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At about the same time that Sumerian city-states expanded and
fought with one another in the Tigris and Euphrates Valleys, a more
cohesive state under a single ruler grew in the valley of the Nile
River in North Africa. This was Egypt, which for long stretches of
history was prosperous and secure behind desert areas on both sides
of the Nile Valley. At various times groups migrated into Egypt
seeking better lives or invaded and conquered Egypt. Often these
newcomers adopted aspects of Egyptian religion, art, and politics,
and the Egyptians also carried their traditions with them when they
established an empire and engaged in trade.
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growing and prosperous population. The Nile also uni ed Egypt.
The river was the region’s principal highway, promoting
communication and trade throughout the valley.
Egypt was fortunate in that it was nearly self-suf cient. Besides
having fertile soil, Egypt possessed enormous quantities of stone,
which served as the raw material of architecture and sculpture, and
abundant clay for pottery. Moreover, the raw materials that Egypt
lacked were close at hand. The Egyptians could obtain copper from
Sinai (SIGH-nigh) and timber from Lebanon, and they traded with
peoples farther away to obtain other materials that they needed.
The political power structures that developed in Egypt came to be
linked with the Nile. Somehow the idea developed that a single
individual, a king, was responsible for the rise and fall of the Nile.
This belief came about before the development of writing in Egypt,
so, as with the growth of priestly and royal power in Sumer, the
precise details of its origins have been lost. The king came to be
viewed as a descendant of the gods, and thus as a god himself. (See
“Thinking Like a Historian: Addressing the Gods.”)
Political uni cation most likely proceeded slowly, but stories told
about early kings highlighted one who had united Upper Egypt —
the upstream valley in the south — and Lower Egypt — the delta
area of the Nile that empties into the Mediterranean Sea — into a
single kingdom around 3100 B.C.E. Historians later divided
Egyptian history into dynasties, or families of kings, and modern
historians divide Egyptian history into periods (see the chronology
“Periods of Egyptian History”). The political uni cation of Egypt in
the Archaic Period (3100–2660 B.C.E.) ushered in the period known
as the Old Kingdom (2660–2180 B.C.E.), an era remarkable for
prosperity and artistic owering.
The focal point of religious and political life in the Old Kingdom
was the king, who commanded wealth, resources, and people. The
king’s surroundings had to be worthy of a god, and only a
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magni cent palace was suitable for his home; in fact, the
word pharaoh, which during the New Kingdom came to be used for
the king, originally meant “great house.” Just as the kings occupied
a great house in life, so they reposed in great pyramids after death.
Built during the Old Kingdom, these massive stone tombs contained
all the things needed by the king in his afterlife. The pyramid also
symbolized the king’s power and his connection with the sun-god.
After burial the entrance was blocked and concealed to ensure the
king’s undisturbed peace, although grave robbers later found the
tombs fairly easy to plunder.
To ancient Egyptians, the king embodied the concept of ma’at, a
cosmic harmony that embraced truth, justice, and moral integrity.
Ma’at gave the king the right, authority, and duty to govern. To the
people, the king personi ed justice and order — harmony among
themselves, nature, and the divine.
Pharaoh Khafre This statue from around 2570 B.C.E. shows Pharaoh Khafre seated on his throne, with the
wings of the falcon-god Horus wrapped around his head, a visual depiction of the connections between the
Egyptian rulers and the gods. Khafre built the second-largest of the great pyramids at Giza as his tomb.
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Kings did not always live up to this ideal, of course. The two parts
of Egypt were dif cult to hold together, and several times in Egypt’s
long history, there were periods of disunity, civil war, and chaos.
During the First Intermediate Period (2180–2080 B.C.E.), rulers of
various provinces asserted their independence from the king, and
Upper and Lower Egypt were ruled by rival dynasties. There is
evidence that the Nile’s oods were
How did iron technology shape new
states after 1200 B.C.E.?
If the Bronze Age Collapse was a time of massive political and economic disruption, it was also
a period when new technologies spread, especially iron. Even though empires shrank, many
small kingdoms survived that shared a common culture across a wide area while also following
their own local traditions.
Iron Technology
Along with migration and drought, another signi cant development in the centuries around
1200 B.C.E. was the spread of iron tools and iron technology. Iron is the most common
element in the earth, but most iron found on or near the earth’s surface occurs in the form of ore,
which must be smelted to extract the metal. This is also true of the copper and tin that are used to
make bronze, but these can be smelted at much lower temperatures than iron. As artisans
perfected bronze metalworking techniques, they also experimented with iron. They developed a
long and dif cult process for smelting iron, using charcoal and a bellows (which raised the
temperature of the re signi cantly) to extract the iron from the ore. This procedure was
performed in an enclosed furnace, and the process was repeated a number of times as the ore was
transformed into wrought iron, which could be hammered into shapes.
Iron smelting was developed independently in several different places, including western Africa
in what is now Nigeria, Anatolia (modern Turkey), and most likely India. In Anatolia, the earliest
smelted weapon has been dated to about 2500 B.C.E., but there may have been some smelting
earlier. Most of the iron produced was too brittle to be of much use until about 1100 B.C.E.,
when techniques improved and iron weapons gradually became stronger and cheaper than their
bronze counterparts. Thus, in the schema of dividing history into periods according to the main
material out of which tools are made (see Chapter 1), the Iron Age began in about
1100 B.C.E. Iron weapons became important items of trade around the Mediterranean and
throughout the Tigris and Euphrates Valleys, and the technology for making them traveled as
well. From Anatolia, iron objects were traded west into Greece and central Europe, and north
into western Asia. By 500 B.C.E., knowledge of smelting had traveled these routes as well.
Ironworkers continued to experiment and improve their products. Near Eastern ironworkers
discovered that if the relatively brittle wrought iron objects were placed on a bed of burning
charcoal and then cooled quickly, the outer layer would form into a layer of much harder
material, steel. Goods made of cast or wrought iron were usually traded locally, but ne sword
and knife blades of steel traveled long distances, and the knowledge of how to make them
followed. Because it was fairly plentiful and relatively cheap when compared with bronze, iron
has been called the “democratic metal.” The transition from bronze to iron happened over many
centuries, but iron (and even more so, steel) would be an important factor in history from this
point on.
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The Decline of Egypt and the Emergence of
Kush
Although the treaty between the Egyptians and Hittites in 1258 B.C.E. (see Chapter 1) seemed
to indicate a future of peace and cooperation, this was not to be. Groups of seafaring peoples
whom the Egyptians called Sea Peoples migrated and marauded in the eastern Mediterranean.
Just who these people were and where they originated are much debated among scholars. They
may have come from Greece, or islands in the Mediterranean such as Crete and Sardinia, or
Anatolia, or from all of these places. Wherever they came from, their movements and their raids,
combined with the expansion of the Assyrians (see “Assyria’s Long Road to Power”), led to the
collapse of the Hittite Empire.
In Egypt, the pharaoh Ramesses III (r. 1186–1155 B.C.E.) defeated the Sea Peoples in both a
land and sea battle, but these were costly struggles, as were other military engagements. Egypt
entered into a long period of political fragmentation and conquest by outsiders that scholars of
Egypt refer to as the Third Intermediate Period (ca. 1070–712 B.C.E.). The long wars against
invaders weakened and impoverished Egypt, causing political upheaval and economic decline.
Scribes created somber portraits that no doubt exaggerated the negative, but they were effective
in capturing the mood:
The land of Egypt was abandoned and every man was a law to himself.
During many years there was no leader who could speak for others. Central
government lapsed, small of cials and headmen took over the whole land.
Any man, great or small, might kill his neighbor. In the distress and vacuum
that followed … men banded together to plunder one another. They treated
the gods no better than men, and cut off the temple revenues.
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The decline of Egypt allowed new powers to emerge. South of Egypt was a region called Nubia,
mostly in present-day Sudan, which, as early as 2000 B.C.E., served as a conduit of trade
through which ivory, gold, ebony, animal skins, and eventually iron owed north from subSaharan Africa, with wine, olive oil, papyrus, and other products owing south. Small kingdoms
arose in this area. As Egypt expanded during the New Kingdom (see Chapter 1), it took over
northern Nubia, incorporating it into the growing Egyptian empire. The Nubians adopted many
features of Egyptian culture, many Nubians became of cials in the Egyptian bureaucracy and
of cers in the army, and there was signi cant intermarriage between the two groups.
Nubian Cylinder Sheath This small silver sheath made about 520 B.C.E., perhaps for a dagger, depicts a
winged goddess and the Egyptian god Amon-Ra (not shown in photograph). It and others like it were found in
the tombs of Kushite kings who ruled from Meroë, and they suggest ways that kings even long after Taharqa
adopted and adapted Egyptian artistic styles and religious ideas.
The Kingdom of Kush, 1000 B.C.E.–300 C.E.
Kush was located to the west of the Arabian Sea, south of Egypt surrounding the Nile River, anked
by the Sahara Desert on the northwest separating it from the Mediterranean Sea, and the Red Sea
separating it from the Arabian Desert in the far northeast. The important cities Napata and Meroë lie
along the banks of the Nile River, in the central and southeast regions of Kush, respectively. A globe
map in the inset highlights the area.
Later, with the contraction of the Egyptian empire in the Third Intermediate Period, an
independent kingdom, Kush, rose in power in Nubia, with its capital at Napata. Kush had a rich
supply of iron, which it used for weapons, tools, personal adornments, and other products.
Researchers in archaeo-metallurgy (the study of ancient metals) are now using advanced
technologies that detect magnetic elds and electrical resistance underground to locate and study
Kushite iron production centers. The Kushites conquered southern Egypt, and in 727 B.C.E.,
the Kushite king Piye (r. ca. 747–716 B.C.E.) swept through the Nile Valley to the delta in the
north. United once again, Egypt enjoyed a period of peace and prosperity. The Kushite rulers
understood themselves to be a new dynasty of pharaohs and were devoted to Egyptian gods such
as Amon-Ra. Piye’s son Taharqa (r. 690–664 B.C.E.) launched the biggest building campaign
since the New Kingdom, with temples, monuments, and pyramids throughout the Nile Valley.
(See “Individuals in Society: King Taharqa of Kush and Egypt.”)
Late in Taharqa’s reign, invading Assyrians (see “Assyria’s Long Road to Power”) pushed the
Kushites out of Egypt, and the Kushite rulers moved their capital slightly farther up the Nile to
Meroë, which was surrounded by iron ore deposits and forests for producing the charcoal needed
to smelt iron. Meroë became a center for the production of iron, which the Kushite kings may
have controlled. Iron products from Meroë were the best in the world and were traded to much of
Africa and across the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean to India.
INDIVIDUALS IN SOCIETY
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King Taharqa of Kush and Egypt
Bronze life-size statue of King Taharqa.
Like his father Piye, who conquered and united Egypt after a long period of political disruption,
Taharqa (r. 690–664 B.C.E.) was the king of Kush who was also the pharaoh of Egypt, ruling for
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twenty-six years after being crowned in 690 B.C.E. in the Egyptian capital of Memphis in what was
termed Egypt’s Twenty-Fifth Dynasty. An able military commander, he ensured peace for the rst
part of his reign and used the time to build and expand temples and monuments to the gods
throughout the Nile Valley, especially to Amon-Ra, a powerful Egyptian god whom the Kushite kings
also especially revered. These buildings were lled with statues, busts, paintings, and plaques with
Taharqa’s name or image, showing the black-skinned king as a sphinx or warrior, or as worshipping
the gods or being protected by them. He presented himself as heir to the powerful New Kingdom
pharaohs who had ruled eight centuries earlier, another period during which rulers had expanded
their territories and built monuments and temples. Taharqa’s construction boom included pyramids,
the rst built since the Middle Kingdom. Ultimately there were more pyramids in Kush (modern-day
Sudan) than there were in Egypt.
During the sixth year of his rule, the Nile swelled the perfect amount from spring rains: enough to
ensure excellent harvests, but not so much that any villages were ooded. Taharqa ordered this
fortunate event recorded on tall columns called stelae, which noted that the oods had killed the
snakes and rats, but no people, and thanked the gods for favoring Egypt and its king.
While he was a young man, Taharqa had apparently led Kushite troops against the Assyrians, who
were expanding their empire in Lebanon and Judah. In 701 B.C.E. the Assyrians under King
Sennacherib initially defeated the Kushites and their allies, and then turned against Jerusalem, the
capital of Judah. According to biblical accounts, the Jewish king Hezekiah asked the Egyptian and
Kushite troops for assistance, and there is a brief mention in the Bible (2 Kings 19:9; Isaiah 37:9) of
“King Tirhakah of Kush” (older translations use “Ethiopia,” a translation of the Greek word for this
area) whom scholars have identi ed with Taharqa, setting out to ght the Assyrians. There is also a
longer discussion of God sending an angel who slew thousands of Assyrians. Whatever happened to
cause the death of Sennacherib’s troops (and some modern scholars think this might have been a
plague), he abandoned his siege and left, and the city was spared.
In 679 B.C.E., during the middle of Taharqa’s reign, the Assyrians under Sennacherib’s son
Esarhaddon began expanding again, occupying Judah and Lebanon. When they invaded Egypt,
Taharqa’s forces initially defeated them, but on a second attempt the Assyrian forces captured and
sacked Memphis, killing many members of the royal family or taking them away as prisoners to
Assyria. Esarhaddon ordered a commemorative pillar showing Taharqa’s son kneeling in front of him
with a rope piercing his lips. Taharqua himself escaped south, however, and the Kushites held to
their Egyptian territories south of Memphis until he died. For several more decades Kushites,
Assyrians, and others fought in the Nile Valley, and gradually a native Egyptian dynasty reasserted
control. Both they and the Assyrians attempted to destroy any record of Kushite rule, erasing
inscriptions and records and destroying art and artifacts. Much of what we know about Egypt’s black
pharaohs has only emerged in the last several decades, as statues and stelae long buried have
been excavated.
QUESTIONS FOR ANALYSIS
1.
2.
In what ways is Taharqa similar to earlier Egyptian pharaohs? In what ways is he
different?
Why would the Egyptian dynasty that succeeded Taharqa’s Kushite Dynasty be eager
to destroy the record of its existence?
The Rise of Phoenicia
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While Kush expanded in the southern Nile Valley, another group
rose to prominence along the Mediterranean coast of modern
Lebanon, the northern part of the area called Canaan in ancient
sources. These Canaanites established the prosperous commercial
centers of Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos and were master shipbuilders.
Between about 1100 and 700 B.C.E., the residents of these cities
became the seaborne merchants of the Mediterranean. Their most
valued products were purple and blue textiles that were dyed with a
compound made from the secretions of murex sea snails, especially
prized because the brilliant color did not fade. From this originated
their Greek name, Phoenicians ( h-NEE-shuhnz), meaning “Purple
People.”
The trading success of the Phoenicians brought them prosperity. In
addition to textiles and purple dye, they began to manufacture goods
for export, such as tools, weapons, and cookware. They worked
bronze and iron, which they shipped as processed objects or as ores,
and made and traded glass products. Phoenician ships often carried
hundreds of jars of wine, and the Phoenicians introduced grape
growing to new regions around the Mediterranean, dramatically
increasing the wine available for consumption and trade. They
imported rare goods and materials, including hunting dogs, gold,
and ivory, from Persia in the east and their neighbors to the south.
They also expanded their trade to Egypt, where they mingled with
other local traders.
Phoenician Coin This silver Phoenician coin shows an animal-headed ship containing soldiers with shields
and helmets above the waves, and a hippocampus, a mythical beast, below. Phoenician gold and silver coins
have been found throughout the Mediterranean, evidence of the Phoenicians’ extensive trading network. This
particular coin was most likely not used very often, as the images on it are still sharp; silver is soft, and
frequent handling would have rubbed off the edges of the images.
Moving beyond Egypt, the Phoenicians struck out along the coast of
North Africa to establish new markets in places where they
encountered little competition. The Phoenicians planted trading
posts and small farming communities along the coast, founding
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colonies in Spain, Sicily, and North Africa. Their trade routes
eventually took them to the far western Mediterranean and beyond
to the Atlantic coast of modern-day Portugal. The Phoenicians’
voyages brought them into contact with the Greeks, to whom they
introduced many aspects of the older and more urbanized cultures of
Mesopotamia and Egypt.
In the ninth century B.C.E., the Phoenicians founded, in modern
Tunisia, the city of Carthage, which prospered to become the
leading city in the western Mediterranean; by the sixth
century B.C.E., it was the center of an empire that controlled many
other Phoenician colonies. Here ironsmiths began smelting and
smithing wrought iron and steel on a large scale for use and export,
specializing in transforming partially worked ore into nished
products. They developed new technologies to improve their
products; for example, they recycled the shells of murex sea snails
left over from purple dye production into a ux, a chemical
compound that helped rid the iron of impurities. As in Meroë, the
iron industry was controlled by the state and was a source of power
that would help Carthage continue to expand its empire. In the third
century B.C.E. this empire was brought into con ict with an
expanding Rome (see Chapter 5).
Phoenician Settlements in the Mediterranean
“The map shows nearly twenty areas of Phoenician settlements along the coasts of the
Mediterranean Sea.
The Phoenician settlement regions Byblos, Sidon, and Tyre lie along the eastern Mediterranean
coast and to the south of Anatolia. The other settlements like Carthage predominantly ran along the
southwestern coastal front of the Mediterranean Sea besides a few around the southern coastal
front of Spain and two near Italy. The trade routes across the Mediterranean Sea connected Byblos,
Sidon, and Tyre to the western settlements and back. A globe map in the inset highlights the area of
Phoenician settlement.”
The Phoenicians made many technological advances, and their
overwhelming cultural achievement was the spread of a completely
phonetic system of writing — that is, an alphabet. Writers of both
cuneiform and hieroglyphics had developed signs that were used to
represent sounds, but these were always used with a much larger
number of ideograms. Sometime around 1800 B.C.E., workers in the
Sinai Peninsula, which was under Egyptian control, began to write
only with phonetic signs, with each sign designating one sound.
This system vastly simpli ed writing and reading, and it spread
among common people as a practical way to record ideas and
communicate. The Phoenicians adopted the simpler system for their
own language and spread it around the Mediterranean. The Greeks
modi ed this alphabet and then used it to write their own language,
and the Romans later based their alphabet — the script we use to
write English today — on Greek. Alphabets based on the Phoenician
alphabet were also created in the Persian Empire and formed the
basis of Hebrew, Arabic, and various alphabets of South and Central
Asia. The system invented by ordinary people and spread by
Phoenician merchants is the origin of most of the world’s phonetic
alphabets today.
How did the Hebrews create an
enduring religious tradition?
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The legacy of another people who took advantage of Egypt’s collapse to found an independent
state may have been even more far-reaching than that of the Phoenicians. For a period of several
centuries, a people known as the Hebrews controlled rst one and then two small states on the
western end of the Fertile Crescent, Israel and Judah. Politically unimportant when compared
with the Egyptians or Babylonians, the Hebrews created a new form of religious belief
called monotheism, or worship of a single god. They called their all-powerful
god Yahweh (YAH-way), spelled YHWH in ancient Hebrew because the written language had
no vowels. (In the Middle Ages, different vowels were added by Christian scholars, rst in Latin
and then in other languages, which resulted in “Jehovah.” Most English-language Bibles now
translate YHWH as “LORD.”) Beginning in the late 600s B.C.E., the Hebrews began to write
down their religious ideas, traditions, laws, advice literature, prayers, hymns, history, and
prophecies in a series of books. These were gathered together centuries later to form the Hebrew
Bible, which Christians later adopted and termed the “Old Testament.” These writings later
became the core of the Hebrews’ religion, Judaism, a word taken from the kingdom of Judah, the
southern of the two Hebrew kingdoms and the one that was the primary force in developing
religious traditions. (The word Israelite, often used as a synonym for Hebrew, refers to all people
in this group, and not simply the residents of the northern kingdom of Israel.) Jews today revere
these texts, as do many Christians, and Muslims respect them, all of which gives them particular
importance.
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The Hebrew State
The Hebrew Exodus and State, ca. 1250–800 B.C.E.
Arrows show the possible route of the exodus of the Hebrew people from the area of Cairo, Egypt,
south to the area of Sinai. The possible location of Mt. Sinai is in between two gulfs to the north side
of the Red Sea. The movements of the Israelites continued northeast, near the Dead Sea, to the
east of the Mediterranean Sea. Their kingdom was at its largest under King Solomon in circa 950 B
C E. In circa 800 B C E, the land of Israel was split between Israel to the north with Samaria as its
capital and Judah to the south with Jerusalem as its capital.
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Most of the information about the Hebrews comes from the Bible, which, like all ancient
documents, must be used with care as a historical source. Archaeological evidence has supported
many of its details, and because it records a living religious tradition, extensive textual and
physical research into everything it records continues, with enormous controversies among
scholars about how to interpret ndings. The Hebrews were nomadic pastoralists who may have
migrated into the Nile Delta from the east, seeking good land for their herds of sheep and goats.
According to the Hebrew Bible, they were enslaved by the Egyptians but were led out of Egypt
by a charismatic leader named Moses. The biblical account is very dramatic, and the events form
a pivotal episode in the history of the Hebrews and the later religious practices of Judaism.
Moses conveyed God’s warning to the pharaoh that a series of plagues would strike Egypt, the
last of which was the threat that all rstborn sons in Egypt would be killed. He instructed the
Hebrews to prepare a hasty meal of a sacri ced lamb eaten with unleavened bread. The blood of
the lamb was painted over the doors of Hebrew houses. At midnight Yahweh spread death over
the land, but he passed over the Hebrew houses with the blood-painted doors. This event became
known as the Passover and later became a central religious holiday in Judaism. The next day a
terri ed pharaoh ordered the Hebrews out of Egypt. Moses then led them in search of what they
understood to be the Promised Land, an event known as the Exodus, which was followed by
forty years of wandering.
According to scripture, the Hebrews settled in the area between the Mediterranean and the
Jordan River known as Canaan. They were organized into tribes, each tribe consisting of
numerous families who thought of themselves as all related to one another and having a common
ancestor. At rst, good farmland, pastureland, and freshwater sources were held in common by
each tribe. Common use of land was — and still is — characteristic of nomadic peoples. The
Bible divides up the Hebrews at this point into twelve tribes, each named according to an
ancestor.
In Canaan, the nomadic Hebrews encountered a variety of other peoples, whom they both
learned from and fought. They slowly adopted agriculture and, not surprisingly, at times
worshipped the agricultural gods of their neighbors, including Baal, an ancient fertility god. Like
the Hyksos in Egypt, this was an example of the common historical pattern of newcomers
adapting themselves to the culture of an older, well-established people.
A Golden Calf According to the Hebrew Bible, Moses descended from Mount Sinai, where he had received
the Ten Commandments, to nd the Hebrews worshipping a golden calf, which was against Yahweh’s laws. In
July 1990 an American archaeological team found this model of a gilded calf inside a pot. The gurine, which
dates to about 1550 B.C.E., is strong evidence for the existence in Canaan of religious traditions that
involved animals as divine symbols.
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The Bible reports that the greatest danger to the Hebrews came from a group known as the
Philistines, who were most likely Greek-speaking people who had migrated to Canaan as part of
the movement of the Sea Peoples and who established a kingdom along the Mediterranean coast.
The Philistines’ superior technology and military organization at rst made them invincible, but
the Hebrews found a champion and a spirited leader in Saul. In the biblical account, Saul and his
men battled the Philistines for control of the land, often without success. In the meantime, Saul
established a monarchy over the Hebrew tribes, becoming their king, an event conventionally
dated to about 1025 B.C.E.
The Bible includes detailed discussion of the growth of the Hebrew kingdom. It relates that
Saul’s work was carried on by David of Bethlehem (r. ca. 1005–965 B.C.E.), who pushed back
the Philistines and waged war against his other neighbors. To give his kingdom a capital, he
captured the city of Jerusalem, which he enlarged, forti ed, and made the religious and political
center of his realm. David’s military successes enlarged the kingdom and won the Hebrews
unprecedented security, and his forty-year reign was a period of vitality and political
consolidation.
David’s son Solomon (r. ca. 965–925 B.C.E.) launched a building program that the biblical
narrative describes as including cities, palaces, fortresses, and roads. The most symbolic of these
projects was the Temple of Jerusalem, which became the home of the Ark of the Covenant, the
chest that contained the holiest of Hebrew religious articles. The temple in Jerusalem was
intended to be the religious heart of the kingdom, a symbol of Hebrew unity and Yahweh’s
approval of the kingdom built by Saul, David, and Solomon.
Evidence of this united kingdom may have come to light in August 1993 when an Israeli
archaeologist found an inscribed stone slab in northern Israel probably dating from the second
half of the ninth century B.C.E. that refers to a “king of Israel” and also to the “House of
David.” This discovery has been regarded by most scholars as the rst mention of King David’s
dynasty outside of the Bible. The nature and extent of this kingdom continue to be disputed
among archaeologists, who offer divergent datings and interpretations for the nds that are
continuously brought to light.
Along with discussing expansion and success, the Bible also notes problems. Solomon’s efforts
were hampered by strife. The nancial demands of his building program drained the resources of
his people, and his use of forced labor for building projects also fanned popular resentment.
A united Hebrew kingdom did not last long. At Solomon’s death, his kingdom broke into
political halves. The northern part became Israel, with its capital at Samaria, and the southern
half became Judah, with Jerusalem remaining its center. War soon broke out between them, as
recorded in the Bible, which weakened both kingdoms. The Assyrians wiped out the northern
kingdom of Israel in 722 B.C.E. Judah survived numerous calamities until the Babylonians
crushed it in 587 B.C.E. The survivors were forcibly relocated to Babylonia, a period
commonly known as the Babylonian Captivity. In 539 B.C.E., the Persian king Cyrus the Great
(see “Consolidation of the Persian Empire”) conquered the Babylonians and permitted some
forty thousand exiles to return to Jerusalem. They rebuilt the temple, although politically the area
was simply part of the Persian Empire.
The Jewish Religion
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During and especially after the Babylonian Captivity, the most
important legal and ethical Hebrew texts were edited and brought
together in the Torah, the rst ve books of the Hebrew Bible. Here
the exiles rede ned their beliefs and practices, thereby establishing
what they believed was the law of Yahweh. Fundamental to an
understanding of the Jewish religion is the concept of the Covenant,
an agreement that people believed to exist between themselves and
Yahweh. According to the Bible, Yahweh appeared to the tribal
leader Abraham, promising him that he would be blessed, as would
his descendants, if they followed Yahweh. (Because Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam all regard this event as foundational, they are
referred to as the “Abrahamic religions.”) Yahweh next appeared to
Moses during the time he was leading the Hebrews out of Egypt,
and Yahweh made a Covenant with the Hebrews: if they worshipped
Yahweh as their only god, he would consider them his chosen
people and protect them from their enemies. The Covenant was
understood to be made with the whole people, not simply a king or
an elite, and was renewed again several times in the accounts of the
Hebrew people in the Bible. Individuals such as Abraham and
Moses who acted as intermediaries between Yahweh and the
Hebrew people were known as prophets; much of the Hebrew Bible
consists of writings in their voices, understood as messages from
Yahweh to which the Hebrews were to listen.
Jewish Blessing on Silver Scroll This tiny silver scroll, dating from about 600 B.C.E. and found in rockhewn burial chambers near Jerusalem, contains the oldest known citation of texts also found in the Hebrew
Bible: “May Yahweh bless you and keep you, and make [his face] shine upon you.” It was worn as an amulet
to provide protection against evil.
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Worship was embodied in a series of rules of behavior, the Ten
Commandments, which Yahweh gave to Moses. (See “Thinking
Like a Historian: The Moral Life.”) These required certain kinds of
religious observances and forbade the Hebrews to steal, kill, lie, or
commit adultery, thus creating a system of ethical absolutes. From
the Ten Commandments a complex system of rules of conduct was
created and later written down as Hebrew law, most likely
in uenced by Hammurabi’s code (see Chapter 1). This code often
called for harsh punishments, but later tradition, largely the work of
the prophets who lived from the eighth to the fth centuries B.C.E.,
put more emphasis on righteousness than on retribution.
Like the followers of other religions in the ancient Near East, Jews
engaged in rituals through which they showed their devotion. They
were also expected to please Yahweh by living up to high moral
standards and by worshipping him above all other gods. The rst of
the Ten Commandments expresses this obligation: “I am the Lord
your God … you shall have no other gods besides me” (Exodus
20:23). Increasingly this was understood to be a commandment to
worship Yahweh alone. The later prophets such as Isaiah created a
system of ethical monotheism, in which goodness was understood to
come from a single transcendent god, and in which religious
obligations included fair and just behavior toward other people as
well as rituals. They saw Yahweh as intervening directly in history
and also working through individuals — both Hebrews and nonHebrews — that he had chosen to carry out his aims. (See
“Viewpoints: Rulers and Divine Favor: Views of Cyrus the Great.”)
Judging by the many prophets (and a few prophetesses) in the Bible
exhorting the Hebrews to listen to Yahweh, honor the Covenant,
stop worshipping other gods, and behave properly, adherence to this
system was a dif cult challenge.
Like Mesopotamian deities, Yahweh punished people, but the
Hebrews also believed he was a loving and forgiving god who
would protect and reward all those who obeyed his commandments.
A hymn recorded in the book of Psalms captures this idea:
Blessed is every one who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways!
You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands;
you shall be happy, and it shall be well with you.
Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house;
your children will be like olive shoots around your table.
Lo, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord. (Psalms 128:1–4)
The religion of the Hebrews was thus addressed to not only an elite
but also the individual. Because kings or other political leaders were
not essential to its practice, the rise or fall of a kingdom was not
crucial to the religion’s continued existence. Religious leaders were
important in Judaism, but personally following the instructions of
Yahweh was the central task for observant Jews in the ancient
world.
THINKING LIKE A HISTORIAN
The Moral Life
Ancient peoples developed various codes of behavior and morality, which included how they were to
treat other humans and often also how they were to act toward the gods. What similarities and
differences do you see in the ideas of a moral life for New Kingdom Egyptians, Hebrews, and
Zoroastrian Persians?
1 The Egyptian Book of the Dead
During the New Kingdom and afterward, well-to-do Egyptians were buried with papyrus scrolls on
which were written magical and religious texts, now known as the Book of the Dead, designed to
help the deceased make the crossing to the afterlife. These included a standardized list of things the
deceased had not done during life, what modern scholars have called a “negative confession.”
To be said on reaching the Hall of the Two Truths so as to purge N [here the name of the deceased was written]
of any sins committed and to see the face of every god:
Hail to you, great God, Lord of the Two Truths!
I have come to you, my Lord,
I was brought to see your beauty….
I have not done crimes against people,
I have not mistreated cattle,
I have not sinned in the Place of Truth.
I have not known what should not be known,
I have not done any harm.
I did not begin a day by exacting more than my due,
My name did not reach the bark of the mighty ruler.
I have not blasphemed a god,
I have not robbed the poor.
I have not done what the god abhors,
I have not maligned a servant to his master.
I have not caused pain,
I have not caused tears.
I have not killed,
I have not ordered to kill,
I have not made anyone suffer.
I have not damaged the offerings in the temples,
I have not depleted the loaves of the gods,
I have not stolen the cakes of the dead [food left for the deceased].
I have not copulated nor de led myself.
I have not increased nor reduced the measure,
I have not diminished the arura [arable land],
I have not cheated in the elds.
I have not added to the weight of the balance,
I have not falsi ed the plummet of the scales.
I have not taken milk from the mouth of children,
I have not deprived cattle of their pasture.
I have not snared birds in the reeds of the gods,
I have not caught sh in their ponds.
I have not held back water in its season,
I have not dammed a owing stream,
I have not quenched a needed re.
I have not neglected the days of meat offerings,
I have not detained cattle belonging to the god,
I have not stopped a god in his procession.
I am pure, I am pure, I am pure, I am pure!
2 The Ten Commandments
According to Hebrew Scripture, where they appear twice, the Ten Commandments were given by
Yahweh to Moses. HaShem (which means “the Name”) is one of the names of God in Judaism, used
as a sign of reverence and respect, as is writing “G-d.”
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7.
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9.
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Exodus 20
And G-d spoke all these words, saying:
I am HaShem thy G-d, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.
Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any manner of likeness, of any thing that is in
heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth;
thou shalt not bow down unto them, nor serve them; for I HaShem thy G-d am a jealous G-d, visiting
the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me;
and showing mercy unto the thousandth generation of them that love Me and keep My
commandments.
Thou shalt not take the name of HaShem thy G-d in vain; for HaShem will not hold him guiltless that
taketh His name in vain.
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work;
1.
2.
3.
4.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
but the seventh day is a sabbath unto HaShem thy G-d, in it thou shalt not do any manner of work,
thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy
stranger that is within thy gates;
in six days HaShem made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested on the seventh
day; wherefore HaShem blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which HaShem thy G-d
giveth thee.
Thou shalt not murder; Thou shalt not commit adultery; Thou shalt not steal; Thou shalt not bear false
witness against thy neighbour.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house; thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.
3 Zoroaster’s teachings in the Avesta
The sacred texts of the Zoroastrians, collected in the Avesta, include some written by Zoroaster
himself as liturgical poems that priests were to recite during divine services. This one tells believers
about aspects of Ahuramazda they should understand, such as Right and Good Thought, as they
decide what to do in their lives.
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Now I will speak, O proselytes, of what ye may bring to the attention even of one who knows,
praises for the Lord [Ahuramazda] and Good Thought’s acts of worship
well considered, and for Right; the gladness beheld by the daylight.
Hear with your ears the best message, behold with lucid mind
the two choices in the decision each man makes for his own person
before the great Supplication, as ye look ahead to the declaration to Him.
They are the two Wills, the twins who in the beginning made themselves heard through dreaming,
those two kinds of thought, of speech, of deed, the better and the evil;
and between them well-doers discriminate rightly, but ill-doers do not.
Once those two Wills join battle, a man adopts
life or non-life, the way of existence that will be his at the last:
that of the wrongful the worst kind, but for the righteous one, best thought.
Of these two Wills, the Wrongful one chooses to do the worst things,
but the most Bounteous Will (chooses) Right, he who clothes himself in adamant;
as do those also who committedly please the Lord with genuine actions, the Mindful One.
Between those two the very Daevas [the traditional gods of Iran] fail to discriminate rightly, because delusion
comes over them as they deliberate, when they choose worst thought;
they scurry together to the violence with which mortals blight the world.
But suppose one comes with dominion for Him, with good thought and right,
then vitality informs the body, piety the soul:
their ringleader Thou wilt have as if in irons:
and when the requital comes for their misdeeds,
for Thee, Mindful One [Ahuramazda], together with Good Thought, will be found dominion
to proclaim to those, Lord, who deliver Wrong into the hands of Right.
May we be the ones who will make this world splendid,
Mindful One and Ye Lords, bringers of change, and Right,
as our minds come together where insight is uctuating.
For then destruction will come down upon Wrong’s prosperity,
and the swiftest (steeds) will be yoked from the fair dwelling of Good Thought,
of the Mindful One, and of Right, and they will be the winners in good repute.
When ye grasp those rules that the Mindful One lays down, O mortals,
through success and failure, and the lasting harm that is for the wrongful
as furtherance is for the righteous, then thereafter desire will be ful lled.
ANALYZING THE EVIDENCE
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
In Source 1, what religious duties and personal actions does the negative confession
suggest were important to Egyptians?
In Source 2, the Ten Commandments, what actions were required of or forbidden to
Hebrews?
What does Zoroaster call on believers to do in Source 3?
In these moral codes, what will be the rewards of those who do what they are
supposed to do? What will be the fate of those who do not?
What seems to be the most important moral duty in each of these codes?
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
•
Using the sources above, along with what you have learned in class and
in Chapters 1 and 2, write a short essay that discusses similarities and differences in
ideas about the moral life for New Kingdom Egyptians, Hebrews, and Zoroastrian
Persians. What is the basis of morality for these three groups, and how does this shape
how people are supposed to act?
Sources: (1) Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature: A Book of
Readings, vol. 2, The New Kingdom (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1976), pp. 124–126. © 2006 by the Regents of the University of California.
Published by the University of California Press. Reprinted by permission; (2) The
Tanakh, JPS Electronic Edition, based on the 1917 JPS translation, https://
www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Bible/Exodus20.html; (3) M. L. West, The
Hymns of Zoroaster: A New Translation of the Most Ancient Sacred Texts of Iran.
Copyright © M. L. West, (London: I. B. Tauris, 2010), used by permission of
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
VIEWPOINTS
Rulers and Divine Favor: Views of Cyrus the Great
In Mesopotamia — and elsewhere in the ancient world — individuals who established large empires
through conquest often later proclaimed that their triumph was the result of divine favor, and they
honored the gods of the regions they conquered. King Cyrus the Great of Persia appears to have
followed this tradition. A text written in cuneiform on a sixth-century B.C.E. Babylonian clay cylinder
presents Cyrus describing the way in which the main Babylonian god Marduk selected him to
conquer Babylon and restore proper government and worship. Cyrus is also portrayed as divinely
chosen in the book of Isaiah in Hebrew Scripture, which was probably written sometime in the late
sixth century B.C.E. after Cyrus allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem. Because Cyrus was not a
follower of the Jewish God, however, the issue of divine favor was more complicated for Jews than it
was for Babylonians.
The Cyrus Cylinder
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I am Cyrus, king of the universe, the great king, the powerful king, king of Babylon, king of Sumer
and Akkad, king of the four quarters of the world….
When I went as harbinger of peace i[nt]o Babylon I founded my sovereign residence within the palace amid
celebration and rejoicing. Marduk, the great lord, bestowed on me as my destiny the great magnanimity of one
who loves Babylon, and I every day sought him out in awe. My vast troops marched peaceably in Babylon,
and the whole of [Sumer] and Akkad had nothing to fear. I sought the welfare of the city of Babylon and all its
sanctuaries. As for the population of Babylon, … [w]ho as if without div[ine intention] had endured a yoke not
decreed for them, I soothed their weariness, I freed them from their bond…. Marduk, the great lord, rejoiced at
[my good] deeds, and he pronounced a sweet blessing over me, Cyrus, the king who fears him, and over
Cambyses, the son [my] issue, [and over] all my troops, that we might proceed further at his exalted command.
The Book of Isaiah, Chapter 45
Thus said the Lord to Cyrus, His anointed one — whose right hand He has grasped, Treading down
nations before him, Ungirding the loins of kings, Opening doors before him, and letting no gate stay shut: I
will march before you, and level the hills that loom up; I will shatter doors of bronze and cut down iron bars. I
will give you treasures concealed in the dark and secret hoards — So that you may know that it is I the LORD,
the God of Israel, who call you by name. For the sake of My servant Jacob, Israel My chosen one, I call you by
name, I hail you by title, though you have not known Me. I am the LORD, and there is none else; beside Me,
there is no God. I engird you, though you have not known Me….
It was I who roused him [that is, Cyrus] for victory, and who level all roads for him. He shall rebuild My city,
and let My exiled people go, without price and without payment — said the LORD of hosts.
QUESTIONS FOR ANALYSIS
1.
2.
3.
How would you compare the portrayal of Cyrus in the two texts?
The Babylonians worshipped many gods, and the Hebrews were monotheistic. How
does this shape the way divine actions and favor are portrayed in the texts?
Both of these texts have been very in uential in establishing the largely positive
historical view of Cyrus. What limitations might there be in using these as historical
sources?
Sources: Cylinder inscription translation by Irving Finkel, curator of Cuneiform
Collections at the British Museum, www.britishmuseum.org. Used by permission of
The British Museum; “The Book of Isaiah” in Tanakh: A New Translation of The Holy
Scriptures According to the Traditional Hebrew Text. Copyright © 1985 by The
Jewish Publication Society. Used by permission of the Jewish Publication Society.
Hebrew Family and Society
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The Hebrews were originally nomadic, but they adopted settled
agriculture in Canaan, and some lived in cities. The shift away from
pastoralism affected more than just how people fed themselves.
Communal use of land gave way to family or private ownership, and
devotion to the traditions of Judaism came to replace tribal identity.
Family relationships re ected evolving circumstances. Marriage and
the family were fundamentally important in Jewish life; celibacy
was frowned upon, and almost all major Jewish thinkers and priests
were married. Polygamy was allowed, but the typical marriage was
probably monogamous. In the codes of conduct written down in the
Hebrew Bible, sex between a married woman and a man not her
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husband was an “abomination,” as were incest and sex between
men. Men were free to have sexual relations with concubines,
servants, and slaves, however.
As in Mesopotamia and Egypt, marriage was a family matter, too
important to be left to the whims of young people. (See “Evaluating
Written Evidence: A Jewish Family Contract.”) Although speci c
rituals may have been expected to ensure ritual purity in sexual
relations, sex itself was understood as part of Yahweh’s creation, and
the bearing of children was seen in some ways as a religious
function. Sons were especially desired because they maintained the
family bloodline, while keeping ancestral property in the family. As
in Mesopotamia, land was handed down within families, generally
from father to son. A rstborn son became the head of the household
at his father’s death. Mothers oversaw the early education of the
children, but as boys grew older, their fathers gave them more of
their education. Both men and women were expected to know
religious traditions so that they could teach their children and
prepare for religious rituals and ceremonies. Women worked in the
elds alongside their husbands in rural areas, and in shops in the
cities. According to biblical codes, menstruation and childbirth
made women ritually impure, but the implications of this belief in
ancient times are contested by scholars.
Children, according to the book of Psalms, “are a heritage of the
lord, and the fruit of the womb is his reward” (Psalms 128:3), and
newly married couples were expected to begin a family at once. The
desire for children to perpetuate the family was so strong that if a
man died before he could sire a son, his brother was legally obliged
to marry the widow. The son born of the brother was thereafter
considered the offspring of the dead man. If the brother refused, the
widow had her revenge by denouncing him to the elders and
publicly spitting in his face.
The development of urban life among the Jews created new
economic opportunities, especially in crafts and trades. People
specialized in certain occupations and, as in most ancient societies,
these crafts were family trades. Sons worked with their father,
daughters with their mother. If the business prospered, the
family might be assisted by a few paid workers or slaves. The
practitioners of a craft usually lived in a particular section of town.
Commerce and trade developed later than crafts. Trade with
neighboring countries was handled by foreigners, usually
Phoenicians. Jews dealt mainly in local trade, and in most instances
craftsmen and farmers sold directly to their customers.
The Torah set out rules about many aspects of life. Among these was
the set of dietary laws known as kashrut (from which we derive the
English word kosher), setting out what plants and animals Jews
were forbidden to eat and how foods were to be prepared properly.
Later commentators sought to explain these laws as originating in
concerns about health or hygiene, but the biblical text simply gives
them as rules coming from Yahweh, sometimes expressed in terms
of ritual purity or cleanliness. It is not clear how these rules were
followed during the biblical period, because detailed interpretations
were written down only much later, during the time of the Roman
Empire. As with any law code, from Hammurabi’s to contemporary
ones, it is much easier to learn about what people were supposed to
do according to the laws of the Torah than what they actually did.
Beliefs and practices that made Jews distinctive endured, but the
Hebrew states did not. Small states like those of the Phoenicians and
the Hebrews could exist only in the absence of a major power, and
the beginning of the ninth century B.C.E. saw the rise of such a
power: the Assyrians of northern Mesopotamia. They conquered the
kingdom of Israel, the Phoenician cities, and eventually many other
states as well.
EVALUATING WRITTEN EVIDENCE
A Jewish Family Contract
During the time of Persian rule in Egypt, Jewish soldiers were stationed in Elephantine, a military
post on the Nile. Historians have since recovered papyrus documents from that location, known as
the Elephantine papyri, which provide information on all sorts of everyday social and economic
matters, including marriage, divorce, property, slavery, and borrowing money. The text below is an
agreement by a Jewish father regarding a house he had given to his daughter, probably as part of
her dowry. It was written in Aramaic, the language of business in the Persian Empire.
On the 21st of Chisleu, that is the 1st of Mesore, year 6 of King Artaxerxes,i Mahseiah b. Yedoniah, a Jew of
Elephantine, of the detachment of Haumadata, said to Jezaniah b. Uriah of the said detachment as follows:
There is the site of 1 house belonging to me, west of the house belonging to you, which I have given to your
wife, my daughter Mibtahiah, and in respect of which I have written her a deed. The measurements of the
house in question are 8 cubits and a handbreadth by 11, by the measuring-rod.ii Now do I, Mahseiah, say to
you, Build and equip that site … and dwell thereon with your wife. But you may not sell that house or give it
as a present to others; only your children by my daughter Mibtahiah shall have power over it after you two. If
tomorrow or some other day you build upon this land, and then my daughter divorces you and leaves you, she
shall have no power to take it or give it to others; only your children by Mibtahiah shall have power over it, in
return for the work which you shall have done. If, on the other hand, she recovers from you [in other words, if
Jezaniah divorces her], she [may] take half the house, and [the] othe[r] half shall be at your disposal in return
for the building which you will have done on that house. And again as to that half, your children by Mibtahiah
shall have power over it after you. If tomorrow or another day I should institute suit or process against you and
say I did not give you this land to build on and did not draw up this deed for you, I shall give you a sum of
10 karshin by royal weight, at the rate of 2 R to the ten, and no suit or process shall lie. This deed was written
by ‘Atharshuri b. Nabuzeribni in the fortress of Syene at the dictation of Mahseiah.
How did the Assyrians and NeoBabylonians gain and lose power?
The Assyrian Empire originated in northern Mesopotamia, from where it expanded to
encompass much of the Near East in the tenth through the seventh centuries B.C.E. After
building up their military, the Assyrians conquered many of their neighbors, including
Babylonia, and took over much of Syria all the way to the Mediterranean. They then moved into
Anatolia, where the pressure they put on the Hittite Empire was one factor in its collapse.
Assyria’s success allowed it to become the leading power in the Near East, with an army that at
times numbered many tens of thousands. Internal strife and civil war led to its decline, allowing
the Neo-Babylonians to build a somewhat smaller empire.
Assyria’s Long Road to Power
The Assyrians had inhabited northern Mesopotamia since the third millennium B.C.E., forming
a kingdom that grew and shrank in size and power over the centuries. During the time of Sargon
of Akkad (r. ca. 2334–2279 B.C.E.), they were part of the Akkadian empire, then independent,
then part of the Babylonian empire under Hammurabi, then independent again (see Chapter 1).
Warfare with the Babylonians and other Near Eastern states continued off and on, and in the
thirteenth century B.C.E., the Assyrians slowly began to create a larger state.
The eleventh century B.C.E. — the time of the Bronze Age Collapse — was a period of
instability and retrenchment in southwest Asia. The Assyrians did not engage in any new wars of
conquest but remained fairly secure within their borders. Under the leadership of King Adadnirari II (r. 911–892 B.C.E.), Assyria began a campaign of expansion and domination, creating
what scholars have termed the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The next several turbulent centuries were
marked by Assyrian military campaigns, constant efforts by smaller states to maintain or recover
their independence, and eventual further Assyrian conquest.
Assyrian history is often told as a story of one powerful king after another, but among the
successful Assyrian rulers there was one queen, Shammuramat, whose name in Greek became
Semiramis. She ruled with her husband and then as regent for her young son in 810–
806 B.C.E. Although not much can be known for certain about the historical Queen Semiramis,
many legends grew up about her. Some emphasized her wisdom, beauty, and patronage of the
arts, while others portrayed her as a sex-crazed sorceress. These stories cannot be used as
evidence for the lives of women in the Assyrian Empire, but like the stories of Queen Cleopatra
of Egypt (see Chapter 5), they can be used as evidence for the continuing fascination with the
few women who held political power in the ancient world.
Eighth-century kings continued the expansion of Assyria, which established its capital at
Nineveh (NIHN-uh-vuh) on the Tigris River. In 717 B.C.E. Sargon II (r. 721–705 B.C.E.) led
his army in a sweeping attack along the coast of the eastern Mediterranean south of Phoenicia,
where he defeated the armies of the Egyptian pharaoh. His successor king Sennacherib (r. 705–
681 B.C.E.) besieged many cities in Judah, which was under the leadership of King Hezekiah
(r. ca. 715–686 B.C.E.). Sennacherib’s account of his siege of Jerusalem in
701 B.C.E. provides a vivid portrait of the Assyrian war machine:
As to Hezekiah, the Jew, he did not submit to my yoke, I laid siege to 46 of
his strong cities, walled forts and to the countless small villages in their
vicinity, and conquered them by means of well-stamped earth-ramps, and
battering rams brought thus near to the walls combined with the attack by
foot soldiers, using mines, breaches as well as sapper work…. Himself I
made prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage. I
surrounded him with earthwork in order to molest those who were leaving
his city’s gate.
2
fl
What he does not mention is that the siege of Jerusalem was not successful, a fact he also left out
of the carvings and artwork that he ordered for his palace. (See “Evaluating Visual Evidence:
Assyrians Besiege a City.”) Although they had conquered many cities in Judah, the Assyrian
armies gave up their attempts to conquer the entire kingdom and went home.
Sennacherib’s campaign is also recorded several times in the Hebrew Bible. The biblical
accounts attribute Judah’s ability to withstand the Assyrian siege to an angel sent by Yahweh, but
they also describe Hezekiah as taking practical measures to counter the Assyrian invasion,
including making weapons and ordering the building of a tunnel that would divert water from the
springs outside the walls of Jerusalem into the city, thus both limiting the water available for
Assyrian troops and assuring the city of a steady supply. The tunnel was completed and worked
as planned and is now a major tourist attraction, with water still owing in it at certain times of
the year. In addition to weapons, water, and possible divine favor, there appear to have been
other reasons as well for the Assyrian withdrawal. The biblical texts also mention attacks on the
Assyrians by Kushite and Egyptian troops (see “Individuals in Society: King Taharqa of Kush
and Egypt,”) and modern scholars also suggest that there may have been a plague among the
Assyrian troops.
Despite this one loss, in general by means of almost constant warfare, the Assyrians created an
empire that stretched from east and north of the Tigris River to central Egypt (Map 2.1). Revolt
against the Assyrians inevitably promised the rebels bloody battles and cruel sieges followed by
surrender, accompanied by systematic torture and slaughter, or by deportations. Like many
conquerors, the Assyrians recognized that relocated peoples were less likely to rebel because
they were forced to create new lives for themselves far from their original homelands and that
simply relocating leaders might be enough to destroy opposition.
MAPPING THE PAST
MAP 2.1 The Assyrian and Persian Empires, ca. 1000–500 B.C.E.
At its height around 650 B.C.E., the Assyrian Empire included almost all of the old centers of power in the
ancient Near East. By 513 B.C.E., however, the Persian Empire was far larger.
ANALYZING THE MAP How does the Persian Empire compare in size to the Assyrian Empire? What
other differences can you identify between the two?
CONNECTIONS Compare this map to Map 1.2. What changes and continuities do you see in the centers
of power in the ancient Near East?
The Assyrian homeland began as a small area on the northern banks of the Tigris River around the
cities Nineveh and Calah. The growth of the Assyrian Empire up to 660 B C E stretched to the west
throughout Syria, Israel, Judaea, and south …