Chapter One Lecture Notes
(Divided by lecture)

Lecture 1
Chapter One
•	Introduction
•	The First Europeans: The Paleolithic Era
•	The Neolithic Revolution
•	Mesopotamia: The Social and Economic Structures of Mesopotamian Life
–	The Sumerians, Akkad, Babylonia, and Assyria
–	Mesopotamian Culture, Law, and Religion
•	Ancient Egypt
–	The Social and Economic Structures of Ancient Egypt
–	Egyptian Culture, Science, and Religion
•	Canaan, Phoenicia, and Philistia
•	The Historical Development of Ancient Israel
–	The Origins of Judaism
–	The Social and Economic Structures of Ancient Israel
Introduction
•	Western civilization rests upon many ancient societies.
•	Peoples of the Ancient Near East (ANE) were the first to learn how to:
–	Domesticate animals, grow crops, and produce useful artifacts of pottery and metal.
•	Mesopotamians and Egyptians developed:
–	Writing, mathematics, and engineering.
–	At the same time they contributed richly to:
•	Legal, scientific, and religious ideas.

Introduction
•	Phoenicians invented the alphabet and facilitated culture borrowing through trading.
•	Israel gives birth to religious concepts:
–	Judaism, Christianity, Islam.
Introduction
****DISCLAIMER****
I know we were all created by God. The next few slides will tell of archeological time not necessarily biblical time. But, this is history. It will be covered and is open for testing.
****DISCLAIMER****
Introduction
•	Archeological Time
–	Marked by survival of human remains and artifacts
–	Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) 5 million–9000 BC
•	Food gathering lifestyles
–	Hunting, gathering fruits
–	Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) 9000–7000 BC
•	Improved food gathering 
•	Domestication
Introduction
–	Neolithic (New Stone Age) 7000–4000 BC
•	First occurs in the "Near East" - in stages
•	Food production 
•	Pottery 
•	Weaving 
•	Village life/Tribes 
•	Early cities
–	Jericho and Troy
–	Copper Age 4000 – 3000 BC 
•	Increased use of metal. Copper is easiest to extract and mold. 
–	Bronze Age
•	Use of Bronze
–	Strong enough to be used as an effective weapon.
–	Iron Age
Introduction
•	Historical Time
–	Marked by survival of human written records.
–	Ancient (Before 500 AD)
•	[CE means "common era" and is an increasingly common way of referring to the usual dating system without using the abbreviation "AD", which means "In the Year of Our Lord" and thus might be inappropriate to use about non-Christian peoples and societies. BCE means "Before the Common Era".] 
–	Classical
•	Those periods within ancient history which produced art and literature which later achieved great acclaim. 
–	Greece in the fifth and fourth centuries BC
–	Rome in the first century BC and the first century AD.
Introduction
•	Historical Time
–	Medieval (Between about 500 – 1500) 
–	Early Modern (1400 – 1789)
•	European history from about 1400 (there is an overlap with "medieval") until 1789, and the French Revolution.
–	Modern 
•	History since the French, American, and Industrial revolutions of the late 18th century.
The First Europeans: The Paleolithic Era
•	Neanderthals
–	Race of bipeds; shorter, heavier, stronger, and hairier than modern Homo sapiens
•	Thick-boned skulls, long from back to front and low from top to bottom, with heavy brow
–	Hunted mammoth, bison, wooly rhinoceros, and reindeer
–	Lived in caves
–	Knew how to make stone tools and weapons 
•	(also used wood, ivory, and leather)
–	Buried their dead with flowers and other objects
•	Suggestion of some form of religious belief.
–	One thing the Neanderthals seemed to lack was a sense of art. 
–	Replaced by modern humans about 30,000 BC
The First Europeans: The Paleolithic Era
•	People who replaced the Neanderthals around 30,000 BC had similarities with their predecessors:
–	Hunter-gathers
–	Lived in caves
–	Buried their dead
–	Used stone tools and weapons
•	Their diet consisted of wild game and fish accompanied by fruit, berries, nuts, and wild plants.
The First Europeans: The Paleolithic Era
•	Lived in extended families
–	Extended vs. Nuclear
•	Extended  siblings, parents, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, and grandparents.
•	Nuclear  children and parents only.
•	Tribes  several nuclear and/or extended families that claim common descent.
•	Division of Labor
–	Men  hunted and made tools
–	Women  cared for children, preserved the fire, and gathering.
The First Europeans: The Paleolithic Era
•	Art
–	Cave paintings
•	Animals 
•	Hunting
–	Possible magic?
The First Europeans: The Paleolithic Era
•	Art
–	Small clay figurines
•	Exaggerated female features
•	Suggestion of worship of a fertility goddess
–	Goddess of Willendorf
•	Found near Willendorf, Austria
•	c. 25,000-30,000 BC
•	Oldest known human representation
The Neolithic Revolution
•	The invention of agriculture marked the beginning of the Neolithic or New Stone Age.
•	c. 10,000 BC the first efforts made in agriculture. 
•	Domestication of animals began:
–	Dogs, probably the first, used in hunting
–	Sheep, goats, and cattle all herded as source of protein.
•	Domestication of animals and invention of agriculture among one of the greatest turning points in human history.
The Neolithic Revolution
•	Agriculture
–	By 7000 BC farming was well established from Iran to Palestine.
–	By 5000 BC spread into Nile valley and the Aegean
–	By 3200 BC, spread to Balkans, up the Danube into central Europe, finally reaching Britain
•	Agricultural techniques increased:
–	Borrowing through cultural contact
–	Migration
–	Developed in response to local conditions of land, peoples, and climate
The Neolithic Revolution
•	Herding and crops became essential to survival after game began to become scarce due increase of human population and the effects on ecology.
•	As human population grew, herding diminished and forced agriculture to be the primary source of life wherever land could be tilled.
•	How could this happen?
The Neolithic Revolution
•	Agriculture became dominant through: 
–	Predictability
•	Repetitive growing of similar crops provided more food and was more predictable than hunting
–	Increased technology
•	Wheel and wooden plow
–	Both around 3000 BC
The Neolithic Revolution
•	Though agriculture was a huge success it does have a cost:
–	Bread became the staff of life
•	Large quantities of grain grown allowed more bread to be consumed.
•	This increase in grains turned nuts, meat, and fruits into luxuries for the Neolithic man, while these “luxuries” were a part of the typical diet of a Neanderthal.
•	This overabundant source of carbohydrates indicates, through skeletal remains, that Neolithic peoples were shorter and less healthy than their Paleolithic ancestors.
The Neolithic Revolution
–	Disease
•	Establishment of permanent farming increased the spread of disease.
•	Hunter-gathers of Paleolithic times were nomadic and lived in smaller groups.
–	This moving in pursuit of game and small group living conditions helped decrease epidemic disease.
•	These “permanent” settlements/villages had:
–	no methods of ridding themselves of human waste and often had their water supplies contaminated.
–	Problems with rats, flies, lice, and cockroaches.
The Neolithic Revolution
•	Biological Old Regime
–	A demographic pattern that prevailed until the mid-nineteenth century.
–	Disease kept death rates high while poor nutrition kept birth rates low.
–	Malnutrition caused:
•	Increase in age of first menstruation, preventing ovulation in mature women, thus reducing rate of conception.
•	High rate of stillbirths and complications during pregnancy.
•	If a child were born, mother faced possibility of not being able to nurse the child.
•	Infant mortality possibly ranged from 30% to 70% in the first two years of life.
The Neolithic Revolution
•	Compared to modern times, the Neolithic people were:
–	Younger (died sooner)
•	Life expectancy at birth was 30 years for both genders.
•	Of those who did survive to “mature” years (age 30-50)
–	Men outnumbered women, due to women who died during childbirth.
•	Those who survived their fifties had as good a chance as today of reaching “advanced” years.
–	Shorter working lives
–	Reproductive lifetime shorter
The Neolithic Revolution
•	Invention of agriculture expanded the idea of property:
–	Included land and domesticated animals to show worth.
–	Paleolithic times measured worth through personal ability and skills from which entire tribe profited.
–	Neolithic began to measure worth through 
•	Flocks
•	Herds
•	Fields
The Neolithic Revolution
•	This new view of wealth affected humans in three important ways.
–	Social stratification
•	Successful farmers began to use the poor as laborers.
–	Status of women
•	Women expected to provide heirs
•	Image of purity.
–	Beginning of subjugation of women and evolution of feminine behavior characteristics thought to have arisen during this time.
–	Beginning of warfare (use of force to control others)
•	As population grew, people needed a place to live. Warfare brought neighboring peoples in through “forcefully annexing” their land.
•	Warfare made possible the development of slavery
–	Nomads had no need of slaves, but farmers could use them to grow more and more crops.
The Neolithic Revolution
•	Early communities were organized along tribal lines and ruled by a chief.
•	Function of a chief
–	Military leadership
–	Allocation of goods and labor
–	Religious duties; one was building of burying places (i.e. Stonehenge)
•	Chiefs ruled in return for a share of surplus from farmers.
The Neolithic Revolution
•	As agriculture developed farmers began to specialize their crops.
–	Mediterranean Crop Triad
•	Wheat
•	Wine
•	Olives
–	Some farmers grew diverse types of crops as a form of protection against crop failure.
•	If the major crop fails, there is something to fall back upon.
The Neolithic Revolution
•	Neolithic Technology
–	Pottery
•	Primarily as means of storing liquids
–	Metallurgy
•	Copper
–	Used for jewelry and personal items before 6000 BC.
–	By 4500 BC, was being smelted and forged into tools and weapons
•	Bronze (c. 3500 BC)
–	Mixture of copper and tin
–	Introduction of bronze brought an end to the Neolithic Age and the beginning of the Bronze Age
Civilization
•	Large-scale construction projects, like Stonehenge, indicate that Neolithic societies could achieve high levels of organization and technological sophistication
•	Civilization  the establishment of political and cultural unity over a wide geographic area and the development of elaborate social, commercial, and administrative structures based upon high population densities and the production of substantial wealth.
–	In most cases it also mean the development of mathematics and written languages.
–	Writing gives names to individuals and permits the dead to speak in their own words. 
•	Without writing there is no history.
•	By 3000 BC, at least two civilizations had begun to emerge:
–	Mesopotamian
–	Egyptian

Lecture 2
Mesopotamia: The Social and Economic Structures of Mesopotamian Life
•	Mesopotamia  the land between the rivers
–	Tigris and Euphrates
–	Modern day Iraq
•	3000 BC, the Sumerians became dominant
•	Sumerians
–	Came from India
–	Introduced large-scale irrigation
–	Built first true cities
•	Ur (home of Abraham)
•	Uruk
Mesopotamia: The Social and Economic Structures of Mesopotamian Life
•	Sumerian Cities
–	Built on a tributary
–	Farmed area
•	Cereals
•	Beer
–	Ziggurat
•	Raised, pagan temple
•	Similar to shape of a pyramid
•	Dedicated to god or goddess who was patron of city
Mesopotamia: The Social and Economic Structures of Mesopotamian Life
•	Sumerian Government
–	Kings with city assemblies
–	Kings were hereditary and had system of clientage
•	Clientage  a system of mutual dependency in which a powerful individual protects the interests of others in return for their political or economic support.
–	They were a free, land owning, separated class
–	Had a vote in city assembly, but did not vote against those who controlled their economic lives
Mesopotamia: The Social and Economic Structures of Mesopotamian Life
•	Cuneiform
–	Sumerians were the first Western people to create a written language.
–	Cuneiform  the wedge-shaped marks left by a stylus when it is pressed into a wet clay tablet.
–	All of Mesopotamia adopted this form of writing by 2000 BC.
Mesopotamia: The Social and Economic Structures of Mesopotamian Life
•	Empires!
–	Sargon of Akkad was the first non-Sumerian to rule over all of Mesopotamia.
–	Although he did not rule for more than 50 years, he helped spread Mesopotamian culture throughout the area.
•	The Akkadian language became the standard
•	After Sargon was overthrown, Babylon was the next major political and cultural power.
–	Ruled by many, but most famous are
•	Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar
Mesopotamia: The Social and Economic Structures of Mesopotamian Life
•	After 1600 BC a series of invasions came upon Babylon.
•	The Hittites and the Assyrians both attacked Babylon.
•	Assyrians
–	Fierce warring people
–	First to coordinate the use of cavalry, infantry, and missile weapons
•	The Assyrians eventually defeated Babylon.
Mesopotamia: The Social and Economic Structures of Mesopotamian Life
•	Achievements
–	More practical than anything (i.e. writing)
–	Mathematics (based on sixty rather than ten6:1)
•	Produced reference tables for multiplication, division, square roots, and cube roots.
•	Place-value system of notation
–	Made describing large numbers easier
–	Legal codes
•	Code of Hammurabi
Mesopotamia: The Social and Economic Structures of Mesopotamian Life
•	Code of Hammurabi
–	Basic principles were
•	Retribution
–	Literally “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”
–	However, revenge and/or vigilantly justice prohibited
•	Sanctity of contracts
–	Punished for fraud or negligence
–	i.e. Tavern keepers who watered down drinks were drowned
–	Contracts governed everything and could not be broken without paying a heavy fine
–	No lawyers, therefore you represented yourself
Mesopotamia: The Social and Economic Structures of Mesopotamian Life
•	Babylonian Marriage
–	Arranged by parents
–	Bride received a dowry
–	Duties of marriage specifically detailed in marriage contract
•	Family System
–	Patriarchal
–	Father could sell wives and children into servitude (2 or 3 years) to pay for debts.
Mesopotamia: The Social and Economic Structures of Mesopotamian Life
•	Babylonian Religion
–	Polytheistic  belief in more than one god.
•	Most gods represent natural forces or the spirit of a particular locality
•	Power of gods was absolute
•	Humans depended upon them and tried their best to please the gods
•	Babylon had Marduk as its patron
–	Marduk  creator who brought the universe out of primal chaos
Mesopotamia: The Social and Economic Structures of Mesopotamian Life
•	Religion Continued
–	Afterlife
•	No hope of relief
•	Portrayed as grim
•	No idea of personal salvation
–	Mesopotamians enjoyed life, but constantly kept their grim future in mind.
•	Memento mori  Remember that you must die
–	Latin phrase

Lecture 3
Ancient Egypt
•	Egyptian civilization developed along the Nile.
•	Egyptian’s depended on agriculture.
–	Learned to manage the annual flood of the Nile.
•	Constructed levees and network of ditches
•	Done to protect settlements and preserve water
•	Politics before the First Dynasty (c. 3100 BC)
–	Little is known other than there were two kingdoms.
•	Upper Egypt (southern) – Thebes, capital city
•	Lower Egypt (northern) – Memphis, capital city
Ancient Egypt
•	History divided into three kingdoms
–	Old Kingdom (2686-2181 BC)
•	Ended with massive crop failure and collapse of Sixth Dynasty
–	Middle Kingdom (2133-1786 BC)
•	Amenemhet I, ruler of Upper Egypt, reunited and established Middle Kingdom
•	First standing army created during Twelfth Dynasty
•	Hyksos (foreign dynasty) replaced native rulers and ended Middle Kingdom
–	New Kingdom (1567-525 BC)
•	Restoration of native dynasty
•	Ramses II  pharaoh during Exodus
•	Ended when they fell to the Persians and then the Greeks
Ancient Egypt
•	Pharaoh
–	Middle Kingdom term meaning “great house”
–	Authority was absolute and god-like
–	Acted according to ma’at
•	A concept of justice or social order based on the balance or reconciliation of conflicting principles.
–	When the pharaoh died his spirit or ka would take its place with the gods and become one with Osiris, god of the dead.
•	This was the purpose of the pyramids
Ancient Egypt
•	Pyramids
–	Funeral monuments for pharaoh
•	Held remains and served as central temple dedicated to worship of said pharaoh.
–	Examples of pharaoh’s wealth and power
–	Largest built at Giza by the Fourth Dynasty (2613-2494 BC)
–	After Fourth Dynasty, pyramids began to grow smaller and less expensive.
–	Seem to have invented post-and-lintel construction in masonry.
Ancient Egypt
•	Society
–	Slaves
•	Most captured in war
•	Found in fields and houses of the rich
•	Belonged to the pharaoh who gave them to others
•	Could own property and often freed
–	Farmers
•	Majority of Egyptians were farmers
•	Lived in small villages
•	Paid taxes as well as social services
–	Conscription to army and labor
»	Building of the pyramids.
Ancient Egypt
•	Women
–	Often, but not always, portrayed as equals to men
–	Privileges 
•	Hold property
•	Initiate divorce
•	Make contracts
–	At least one queen ruled Old Kingdom Egypt and two in the New Kingdom (Hatshepsut and Tawosre)
–	Heredity determined through mother, not father like in Mesopotamia.
Ancient Egypt
•	Writing
–	Hieroglyphics  usage of pictures to represent both the object/idea and its pronunciation.
•	No standardized spelling
•	Can be read vertically or horizontally in any direction.
–	Figures always face the beginning of the line.
•	Mathematics
–	Based upon ten
–	No place-value system
–	Understood squares and square roots
–	Knew approximate value of π at an early date
Ancient Egypt
•	Religion
–	Earliest gods and goddesses were nature spirits
•	Usually portrayed as animals
–	Vulture goddess Nekhbet  Upper Egypt’s patron
–	Cobra goddess Buto  Lower Egypt’s patron
–	Over time, deities acquired human bodies while keeping animal heads.
–	New deities began to emerge concerning qualities
•	Ma’at  goddess of good order
•	Sia  god of inteligence
–	Sought to include every aspect of the divine
Ancient Egypt
•	Religion continued
–	Resisted monotheism
•	New Kingdom pharoah Akhenaton banned all worship except that of Aton, the sun god
–	Banned after the death of Akhenaton
–	Eternal Life
•	A continuation of life on Earth
•	All dead would merge identities with Osiris
•	Fate of wicked not good
–	Sins were weighed against the feather of ma’at, and if the scale tipped, their souls were thrown to the crocodile-like “devourer of hearts”, named Ammut, thus ending their existence
Lecture 4
Canaan, Phoenicia, and Philistia
•	Skilled crafstmen
–	Furniture carvers
•	Wood, ivory, and metal
–	Decorative glassware
–	Purple dye  symbol of royalty
•	Governed by a king
•	Phoenicians began to colonize due to overpopulation
–	Utica and Carthage
–	Wherever they went they would carry their system writing
The Historical Development of Ancient Israel
•	c. 1200 BC the Hebrews left Egypt and arrived in Canaan
–	Joseph and the Hebrews left Canaan c. 1800 BC
–	Moses brought them back
•	Abraham
–	Father of the Hebrew nation
–	From Ur (Sumerian)
•	Migrated to Egypt
–	Probably during Hyksos rule
The Historical Development of Ancient Israel
•	Moses
–	Lead people out of Egypt
–	Egyptian name confirms biblical story
–	Ten Commandments
•	c. 1200 – 1020 BC
–	Loose confederacy of tribes united by a common religion and military necessity
•	Saul (reigned c. 1020 – 1000 BC)
–	Established monarchy
•	David (reigned 1000 – 961 BC)
–	Truly created the kingdom of Israel
•	From Beersheba to Galilee
The Historical Development of Ancient Israel
•	Solomon (reigned 961 – 922 BC)
–	Israel became regional power
–	First Temple built in Jerusalem
–	At his death Israel divided into two kingdoms
•	Israel  North
–	Richer
•	Judah  South
–	Poorer
•	Assyrian conqueror Sennacherib took Israel c. 722 BC
The Historical Development of Ancient Israel
•	587 BC Babylonian took Israel and Judah
–	Destroyed the temple and carried leadership off to Babylon
•	539 BC Persians defeat Babylonians and allow Israelites, or Jews, to return and rebuild Jerusalem
–	Ezra
The Historical Development of Ancient Israel
•	Achievements were mainly religious
–	One, indivisible God who could not be represented or understood in visual terms
•	Yahweh or YHWH
–	Eternal and changeless
–	Creator and omnipotent
–	Personal God who took interest in the lives of the individual
–	Worship demanded ethical behavior
–	Ten Commandments formed the basis for legal and moral code
•	Not only legislation, but also a prescription for the godly life
•	Kept not in fear, but awe of God’s majesty and holiness
–	Torah  first five books of Hebrew Bible
Discussion Questions
Comparing the Egyptian creation epic on pp. 4-5 of the Tierney book with the Mesopotamian version on pp. 5-7:
What existed before humans?
How was man created?
How does this relate to the Hebrew version on pp. 7-9?
Discussion Questions
Comparing the Egyptian ethics/law on pp. 17-18 with the Mesopotamian version on pp. 18-21:
What kind of sins did an Egyptian avoid?
How was daily life controlled in Babylonian society with this law?
How are these related to the Hebrew version on pp. 22-24?