WESTERN CIV. I A Mesopotamia Egypt Mesopotamian and The Catastrophe of Egyptian World Views 1200 B.C. and the End of the Bronze Age Page 4 Page 9 Page 14 Page 19 WESTERN CIVILIZATION: AN INTRODUCTION This course is called Western Civilization I, so perhaps the first thing that we should do is define what this means. The “Western” part means that we won’t look at the history of areas of Asia that had civilization like China, Japan, India. We will look at part of Western Asia – the Middle East and the Near East, because that’s one of the areas where European civilization arose. We also won’t be looking at Sub-Saharan Africa, because not much happened in terms of civilization there except fairly late historically, and what there was had virtually no effect on European civilization. We will be looking at Egypt in North Africa which is one of the oldest and longest enduring civilizations in the West, and had some effect on the growth of European civilization. So, that takes care of the “Western” part. Next, what about “civilization”? This one is a bit more difficult. The Oxford English Dic- tionary defines civilization as “the action or process of civilizing or of being civilized; a developed or advanced state of human soci- ety.” Well, that’s not a very satisfying defini- tion. Various people have tried various ways to define civilization. The Greeks had an easy one, for instance, they defined as civi- lized all Greeks, and later, begrudgingly, the Romans. Everyone else was a barbarian. We can probably do better than that. Lef: Circle shows approximate area of focus for this course. P a g e 1 o f 24 What are Civilized Societies? The best way to define civilization is to say that civi- lized societies have certain traits – do certain things – that pre-civilized societies don’t. So, what are they? 1. Civilized peoples are organized: they cooperate to do things that require a lot of labor, like build dams and levies and temples and other great structures. They also divide their labor to do other things more effi- ciently. Division of labor creates specialists who do specific things well. There are farmers, craftsmen (like carpenters, brickmakers, jewelers, blacksmiths), there are doctors, priests, scribes, administrators, and other specialists, all of whom contribute in their own way to the continuance of their society. 2. Civilized societies are builders: they live in permanent structures which they build themselves from wood or Evidence of Civilization brick or stone. In addition to family homes, they also Civilized societies are capable of regimenting their population in build monumental structures like temples, palaces, forts and walls, and sometimes great tombs. This stuff re- order to create monumental structures like the Egyptian Pyramids quires a lot of effort and the ability to mobilize and above, built around 2500 B.C. as tombs for the Egyptian god- control large numbers of people in a group effort. kings, the Pharaohs. 3. Civilized societies have some form of metal crafts. Civilized societies also divide their They possess at least rudimentary skills at smelting and forming tools and weapons from metal. The earliest labor in order to do a lot more stuff civilizations were skilled at crafting bronze (copper, tin) more efficiently. In this picture, tools, so the earliest period of history is called the Egyptian bakers are producing Bronze Age. bread in an organized and efficient 4. Civilized societies are producers. They possess agricul- fashion in order to feed an enormous tural skills, and are able to produce a surplus of food- work crew. stuffs in order to have seed to plant the next season and to get by in poor farming years. 5. Finally, civilized peoples are able to tell stories through art, and more importantly, through writing. The more advanced the civilization, the more complex the stories and mes- sages they can tell. Every civilization has had the ability to keep records and tell stories through some method of writ- ing. Individual Characteristics Now, just because every civilization has these traits in common, that doesn’t mean every civilization is the same. As we study various civilizations, we will observe that every civilization has its own individual characteristic way of carrying on civilized activities. That is, every civilization is in some way different. Let me give you a simple example. We have seen that one thing civilizations have is big buildings. To construct a big building requires wealth, manpower, organization, and certain technical skills – none of which pre-civilized societies have. When the early Egyptians acquired what was needed to create large buildings, what did they build? Pyramids, enormous tombs for single individual. Modern Americans would never think the building such an enormous tomb. What do we build? The Super Dome, the Washington Monument, or perhaps a pyramid shaped casino in Las Vegas. So big buildings created by great civilizations differ widely in design, purpose, size, and even ownership. The same differences exist in al- most all of the more complex functions of civilizations. P a g e 2 o f 24 So, why do civilized people act in such different ways? Because every civilization has different ideas about what is important and what is not. These ideas are based on the particular civilization's world view – a particular civilization’s notion of what the world is like and what man's place in the world is. We could say that each civilization has certain problems to solve. These problems are imposed by conditions of climate, of geography, or conditions within the culture itself as it develops through time. In solving these problems, the civilization uses ideas, techniques, and institutions - that is various forms of organizations. And each civilization, to some extent, comes up with slightly different ways of solving their problems. Stone Age Societies And in the process, each becomes a bit more unique. Early human societies subsisted by means of hunting food and Origins of Civilization gathering wild seeds and fruits. they were pretty successful at it up So, I’ve defined Western Civilization. Now I want to until about 40,000 years ago when the Ice Age began. As game spend a few minutes talking about where that civilization became scarce and the came from. First, I should note that human beings, that is, weather got colder, people not very different from us in the scientific ways that Stone Age humans count – DNA and stuff like that, originated in Africa well wandered and sur- over 150,000 years ago. vived, or not, until Some of them arrived in western Asia and Europe by the end of the Ice about 40,000 years ago, just before the Ice Age began. This period is called the Mesolithic, the middle Stone Age. Age, about 12,000 These humans were hunters and gatherers. They used years ago. stone tools and stone-tipped weapons to hunt and fight. The Ice Age was pretty tough on these folks especially in Europe and northern Asia because most of the Northern Hemisphere was covered in ice and snow. Weather condi- tions tended to push some of these wandering hunters further south toward warmer climates and a greater food supply. They wandered around Europe, just making do, as the herds thinned and food became scarce until the Ice Age ended about 12,000 years ago. Around 12,000 years ago, in what today is Turkey, Syria and Israel, humans began to domesticate some game animals and some wild grains and to settle down and raise their own food instead of hunting it. In short, they created agriculture. Now these were still Stone Age people, what we call Neolithic -- that is “New Stone Age. They had not yet begun to use metal, but they did build permanent settle- ments of mud brick, and we think that they began to divide their labor. They cer- tainly used art at least in their religious ceremonies. Your book discusses several of these very early settlements — Catal Huyuk in Turkey for instance. Their villages and towns were a bit like built cave complexes, homes and other contained spaces all interconnected, and attached to each other. Nevertheless, they were proper set- tlements, with homes, temples, storage areas and other kinds of public and private spaces. These primitive cities grew and prospered for a time with the rudiments of civilization and faded into obscurity. But they are important because they form a sort of bridge between those wandering tribes and other small groups of the Stone Age and the bright shiny new Bronze Age civilizations that we will start looking at A “floor-plan” of Catal Huyuk in next time. Turkey. Note the interconnected- ness of the village. P a g e 3 o f 24 Mesopotamia Our story today begins on a chunk of desert real estate in the area of Western Asia called Mesopotamia (Greek. “between the rivers”). At first glance, it seems pretty surprising that the earliest civilization on our planet should appear in such a hostile environment. Average summer temperatures on the Mesopotamian plain hover around 104 degrees Fahrenheit and may reach as high as 120 degrees. There is little rainfall, and no natural barriers protect against the windstorms and floods, and hostile intruders that may sweep across the flat, open landscape. Resources are few: no stone, no metal ores, and no trees sturdy enough to provide lumber. There was, however, an abundance of deep, rich soil deposited over eons by the annual flood- ing of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Most of the primal civilizations (Sumer, Egypt, India, and China) sprang up along great rivers.