VII.  Mesopotamia 4000-1600 BCE

Mesopotamian Civilization--Is the name given to a group of cultures that flourished on the Tigris Euphrates Rivers in modern-day Iraq.  The Sumerians were the first to develop city-states and irrigation systems.

Hurrians created the Kingdom of Mitanni 1800 - 1350

Kassites ~1600 - 1100 B.C. settled in Babylon.  Kassite Dynasty in Babylon 1550 - 1100 B.C.E.

Hittites ~1750 -  1200 B.C. settled in Anatolia (modern day Turkey).  From ~1400 - 1200, they ruled a powerful empire that competed and warred with the New Kingdom of Egypt.

IX.  Egyptian Civilization:  3100 - 1070 BCE

 

Egyptian Civilization--is the name given to the culture that flourished on the Nile River.

    Egypt is the "Gift of the Nile."  Nile starts in the Lake Victoria and the highlands of Ethiopia.  It flows north some 4,000 miles to the Mediterranean Sea.  Ancient Egypt included the 750 miles from Aswan to the Sea.  The Nile used to flood regularly each year during September and October.  In modern times, Gamel Nasser built the Aswan High Dam, which has stopped the regular inundations.

    Ancient Egypt was divided into:

        Upper or Southern Egypt
        Lower or Northern Egypt

    Ancient Egyptians also differentiated between the Black land--the fertile area around Nile--and the Red land--the desert cliffs and plateaus bordering the valley.

    In Hellenistic times, Egyptian history was divided into thirty-one dynasties from the first to the last deriving from Alexander the Great's conquest. 

The legendary pharaoh Menes (about 3100 BCE founded the First Dynasty when he unified Upper and Lower Egypt.  Cleopatra of the Ptolomaic (XXXI) Dynasty was the last pharaoh.  After 30 B.C., Egypt became a Roman Province.

      Early Dynastic (I & II) ~3100 - 2700 B.C.
        Menes founder of the First Dynasty

      Old Kingdom (III-VI) ~2700 - 2150 B.C.
        Djoser, III dynasty, built the first six step pyramid of stone.
        Snefru, founder of IV Dynasty, built first true pyramid.
        Khufu (Cheops) built largest pyramid ever.
            Cheops Pyramid:  481 feet high; 756 feet square at base:
                13.1 acres; 2.3 million stone blocks weighing average
                2.5 tons each;  10,000 workers labored over 20 years;
                built on plateau of Giza near Memphis.
        Khafre (Chephren), built pyramid and also Sphinx
                Sphinx:  part lion and part human
        Menkaure (Mycerinus), built pyramid

        Country divided into Nomes

        Solar cult.  Belief in an afterlife.  Mummification

      First Intermediate Period (VII-X) 2150 - 2040 B.C.

      Middle Kingdom ((XI & XIII) 2040 - 1640 B.C.
        XI Dynasty centered of Thebes,
            defeated X Dynasty based near Giza; reunifed Egypt.
        Amunemhet I, founder of XII Dynasty.
            New capital city near Memphis, the old capital

        Pharaoh is never as absolute as he appears to have been during the period of the Old Kingdom.  This is a more sophisticated society.  More diverse.  More power centers.  More commercial.

      2nd Intermediate Period and Hyksos Invasion (1640-1550 B.C
        XIII - XVII Dynasties.
            Overlapping Dynasties
                XIII Dynasty divides.  Western Delta ruled by XIV
                Dynasty.  XIII moved from Memphis to Thebes becomes
                XVII Dynasty.  Eastern Delta taken over by Hyksos, who
                form XV Dynasty.  Minor Asiatic Kings form XVI Dynasty.