The Super Summary of World History Page 5
The Egyptians maintained a stable society for thousands of years, and this stability was the hallmark of their culture. As the sky and the Nile were stable so was life in Egypt. The dynasties did change, and periodically invaders came from outside their land to harass and overcome them, but the Egyptians quickly (in historical terms) re-established their control and continued their old ways of life. Their art forms reflect this stability. The Egyptians established rather unique artistic methods, and painting or carving these highly stylized depictions of people and animals resisted change for over two thousand years. This kind of stability is remarkable, and it is what allowed such a grand culture to develop and sustain itself for thousands of years.
The Egyptians enjoyed a perfect setup in the Nile River Valley. The Nile River flooded dependably, and those yearly floods deposited rich silt upon a level floodplain on which the Egyptians planted their crops yielding wonderful amounts of grain that all but guaranteed a surplus year after year. The Egyptians developed extensive canal and irrigation systems off the Nile River. In addition, the isolation protected them from invaders, and consequently allowed them to avoid a standing army (during the Old Kingdom), thereby saving funds normally spent on military protection. Instead, they spent their surpluses on civic projects. For many years the only consistent threat to Egypt’s way of life came from the south—the kingdom of Nubia(also known as Kush). The Egyptians pushed south, past the great waterfalls of the upper Nile (cataracts), and established a series of impressive forts to protect their southern borders. For thousands of years these prevented incursions that would otherwise threaten the peace of the Nile Valley. The Nile River Valley and its surrounding area offered up riches beyond farming. From the area of Syene (Assuan) came gold, granite, sandstone, and copper; from Heliopolis limestone; from Hermopolis alabaster; from the Red Sea’s western coast granite, gold and emeralds; and from Sinai copper, garnet, and turquoise. These riches (and beer) allowed Egypt to build a large trading empire.
The Egyptians liked to study the world around them, especially the sky (well, it is a desert—what else can you look at after dark?). From these studies they developed sophisticated astronomical data and ideas about the afterlife that would deeply influence their civilization and others that would follow. Christian and Hebrew sacred texts feature Egypt prominently. These sources tell us how the Hebrews became slaves in Egypt, and then—around 1200 or 1300 BC—how the prophet Moses led them east, out of Egypt to Palestine.[12] During the journey to their new homeland, Yahweh (God) presented the Hebrews with the Ten Commandants at Mount Sinai. God later gave the Torah to the Hebrews. These writings found their way into the Christian Bible as the first five books of the Old Testament. These five books help form the religious foundations of the Western World.
The Egyptians developed hieroglyphics, a form of writing using pictures and symbols for whole ideas rather than individual words or letters; thus, no alphabet was developed. Since each symbol or picture stood for an idea this made hieroglyphics exceptionally difficult to decipher (much like the written Chinese language).[13] The Egyptians also invented a simpler, faster way to write for everyday use, and that writing style eventually traveled to the land of Phoenicia transforming itself into an alphabet. To write upon something besides stone the Egyptians invented papyrus, an early form of paper. A lot of their records and day-to-day events were recorded on this medium which, unfortunately for us, deteriorates rapidly. As a result, countless Egyptian records were lost over time.
The gigantic pyramids and complex burial practices leave the impression that Egypt was a land seemingly living for the dead, but this is not the entire story. The Pyramids at Giza are immense stone monuments built to house dead Pharaohs (current theory). The Pharaohs wanted their tombs’ built out of exactly cut limestone stone blocks. Within the mountainous structures the ancient architects constructed passages leading to various chambers, one of which held the Pharaoh’s sarcophagus. The pyramids, along with the colossal and mysterious underground tombs in the Valley of the Kings, tell us of a society focused on the afterlife, and willing to expend enormous resources to ensure safe passage of the Pharaoh into the heavens; however, this safe passage into the heavens had an earthly impact.[14] Ancient Egyptians believed in a balance between earth and heaven, and the tombs of their Pharaohs were designed to help maintain that balance in both realms. The Pharaoh’s passage to the stars helped maintain the critical heaven-earth balance that guarded against chaos. The old reborn Pharaoh in the heavens would continue the divine order there (or “maat”), and the new Pharaoh would maintain maat on earth. In times of chaos the Egyptians thought the heaven-earth maat was disturbed.
The pyramids of the Old and New Worlds had different construction methods and vastly different functions. The Aztec pyramids in the New World were massive but rubble-filled construction, and only the structure’s exterior surface had cut stone. Atop the Aztec structures were temples where bloody sacrifices took place to honor and appease the gods; thus, the Meso-American pyramids were not tombs, rather they were places of slaughter where the living encountered a horrifying end to life. Aztec society required the victim’s heart be cut out, and while still beating, held up to the sun. The Aztecs thought blood alone fed the gods and prevented them from ruining the earth. The Aztecs seem to have inherited these beliefs from their predecessors.
In Mesopotamia, the pyramids were stepped structures constructed of sun-dried brick. Called ziggurats, the stepped construction method allowed tall and stable structures to ascend skyward, toward the desert sun. On top of their man-made mountains the priests of Mesopotamia performed rituals to appease and honor their somewhat fickle gods, trying to keep the gods tranquil and generous toward their people. Since the ziggurats were substitute mountains for ritual purposes there was no reason to bury people in them. Strangely enough, over time the bricks melted into the desert and today they look like small mountains. Along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers the inhabitants stuck with the ziggurat structure and the mountaintop idea, but the stepped construction’s influence on early Egypt may have been important because the first Egyptian temple structures were also stepped.
Egypt’s pyramids eschewed mountain top rituals; rather, they were both a tomb for their god on earth and a passageway for the Pharaoh to the heavens. For the Egyptians the pyramid connected earth and heaven. In Egyptian pyramids the stones inside and out were closely cut—so closely cut a playing card could not be slid between them. The outside surfaces of the three great pyramids at Giza were originally smooth and faced with white limestone so each would brilliantly reflect the desert sun. Inside the pyramid the Pharaoh rested in safety until securing passage to the sky and the world beyond, thereby ensuring a tranquil life to those remaining behind in Egypt. In a sense, while the Egyptian tombs focused on the afterlife they also focused on the present, because as order was maintained among the stars so order would be maintained on earth. Some commentators say the pyramid was an eternal life machine guiding Pharaoh’s journey to the stars.
Egyptians believed in life after death and judgment after death for one’s actions in life. Nonetheless, not everyone bought off on the Pharaohs being gods or on judgment after death, because the riches of the tombs were plundered on a regular basis. The problem was so severe a new underground burial location was constructed in the Valley of the Kings. Here the Egyptians created elaborate underground tombs rivaling the pyramids for spectacular construction. The Pharaohs entombed in this valley received extra protection from patrolling guards. In the end even this failed, and pillaging of the splendid underground tombs went on. Even so, the tombs in the Valley of the Kings are every bit as amazing as the oft-visited Great Pyramids. It was here that Carter found the now famous King Tut of Egypt.
The Egyptians may have constructed the Great Pyramids to conform to the stars in Orion’s belt, and they may have seen the Nile itself mirrored in the sky by the Milky Way’s band of stars crossing near the constellation of Orion. The ancient Egyptians sti
ll veil their secrets about why they placed the Giza Pyramids as they did. Strangely, the great pyramids on the Giza plateau contain no hieroglyphics or other writings inside. In addition, large boats are buried right beside the pyramids. Written records of how and why the great burial chambers were created are nowhere to be found. Modern scholars speculate on the methods of construction, and the experimenter’s mud ramps show practical ways to accomplish the task, but such experiments are not definitive. Much smaller pyramids contain pictures of pyramid building, but they show only small pyramids under construction. We cannot be certain of anything; not how, when, or even why Egyptians’ built the Giza pyramids leaving all our “facts” in the realm of speculation.[15] It is human nature to brag about deeds that stun the world. The missing writings deepen the Egyptian riddles, but the finely cut stone mountains stand with us still reminding us of Egypt’s remarkable stability.
Note that Egypt overcame at least two outside invasions during the intermediate periods, and then re-established their former way of life. Compare this to the fall of Rome where the Roman world totally disappeared. Why did Egypt eventually prevail over the invaders while the Romans did not?
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia, the land between two rivers, was the location of many a mighty empire. Mesopotamia was the centerpiece of the Fertile Crescent area of the ancient world. The Fertile Crescent began at the Persian Gulf, continued up the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, then turned south down the coast of the eastern Mediterranean and thence to the border of Egypt, thus forming a kind of crescent (Well, it does sound better than “the fertile upside down U”). In Mesopotamia the rivers flooded irregularly so life was a bit unsettled in the food category. In addition, the area is open for invasion from all sides, again showing the importance of geography. Perhaps the gods were thought to be capricious because of the unsettled nature of existence along the narrow corridor of urbanization. Nonetheless, great empires were common on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers because the soil was fertile and previous occupants constructed sophisticated irrigation systems.[16]
Another reason Mesopotamia prospered was trade. The two mighty rivers were freeways to the ocean, then India, Egypt and beyond. The copper trade was so busy on the Euphrates River that the ancients called it the Copper River.[17] From the north came lapis lazuli (precious stones), from the west stone and wood, from the south copper, and from the east the luxuries of India all flowing into the Tigris and Euphrates River valley. Through all of history trade will mean prosperity to those who have it, and privation for those who do not. In addition, trade escorted the spread of another astounding concept, the alphabet.
On the western edge of the Upside Down U . . . oops . . . Fertile Crescent, assembled a group of seafaring traders known as the Phoenicians. They established their trading cities on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea at Tyre, Sidon, and other locations, about 1100 BC. The Phoenicians established spin-off trading towns throughout the Mediterranean world, including Carthage which was one of the ancient world’s most remarkable cities. Even though their sailing ships went west with trade goods the cargo itself was coming from inland; that is, the Fertile Crescent and its attendant trading partners. The Phoenicians developed the alphabet (theirs was only 22 letters) from informal Egyptian script. With an alphabet, a few letters are easily assembled into millions of words because the letters stand for sounds rather than ideas. The assembled words are the ideas, and when the words represented by the letters are spoken out loud they sound like the spoken language. Thus, one does not have to commit thousands of picture ideas to memory. All that is necessary is to sound out the word from the letters. This connection between the spoken word and the written word was a brilliant stroke, and from the Phoenicians’ central Mediterranean trading location this idea quickly spread east and west (never made it to China). This Phoenician alphabet leads to Aramaic and Greek scripts, and eventually Latin which was the foundation of many modern western languages (English, French, Spanish . . .).
Walled cities were common in Mesopotamia, and the larger the city the higher the wall. The open nature of the area and its nearness to the Caspian Sea, either side of which was a common incursion route from the plains of southern Russia, caused it to endure constant raids and outright invasions. Picture this roll call of changing kingdoms: the old Babylonian empire (1792 BC) was overthrown by Hittites (1595 BC), the Hittites departed after being vanquished by the Peoples of the Sea (1200), the Assyrians (694 BC) eventually filled the void left by the Hittites; the Assyrians were overthrown by the Chaldeans (neo-Babylonians or Medes) (626 BC), which were replaced by the Persians (539 BC), who were conquered by the Greeks (331 BC). And we have not listed all the empires, just the major ones. The Romans came later, then the empire of Parthia, and on and on. It never really ends. More than a little of this turmoil came from nomads around the Caspian and Black Sea.
For about three hundred years, Assyria was the dominant military and political power in the Middle Eastern region. Assyria began to expand in 911 BC and held on to an empire reaching from the northern Tigris River (Turkey) to the Persian Gulf (Mesopotamia), including Egypt, until its defeat by Babylonian Nabopolassar in 626 BC. The Assyrian capitol at Nineveh fell in 612 BC. The Assyrians used iron weapons, much harder than bronze, and excelled at siege warfare and the use of cavalry. The Assyrians were ruthless beyond compare. An area refusing their demands for subjugation had their cities razed and every inhabitant butchered. For example, the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal boasted he overthrew a city, skinned some leaders alive, walled some of them up alive, impaled others, beheaded some and had their heads hung from tree branches around the city, burned the young men and women alive, and the rest, he bragged, were driven into the desert to die of thirst. Not the kind of fellow one chooses to have over for tea. Walled cities often refused demands by invaders because sieges commonly failed; however, the Assyrians invented siege machines that breached the walls and brought cities down quickly. Nevertheless, all the empires, whether benign or ruthless fell one after the other. Whether Babylonian, Egyptian, Hittite, Persian, or Greek, no one could gain power and hold it indefinitely.
Figure 5 Babylon, The Hanging Gardens
In Babylonia, King Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC) set forth a code of 282 laws governing his empire. His were not the first laws, nor were they the first written down; however, they are the most complete set of laws found from this era. Most of the laws would make sense in the twenty-first century because they deal with common problems and have common-sense solutions. For example, if a person injured another’s property, restitution was in order; or if a builder constructed a house that fell down, he was to pay the homeowner for damages. Obviously, people in the ancient world had problems similar to ours, and their solutions were exactly like ours, in that the governing body took steps to reach equity in disputes. In our modern world law continues to play a critical part in our societies, showing some things never change. Hammurabi’s Code, chiseled into stone and placed in a prominent public place, gave notice to all what the laws were so his subjects knew the rules and the punishment for breaching the rules. It might show that the king would settle all similar problems in a similar way, no matter who was involved. Enforcing laws in such a manner would be a new way of thinking for eastern rulers. Oriental kings normally exercised the power of life and death over their subjects, and they could be as fickle as they wished.
Thus, in Mesopotamia, we have the rise and fall of numerous empires. King after king, and empire after empire, conquered, grew wealthy, and then grew weak, eventually becoming the conquered. This cycle continues even today, on both a local and worldwide scale. Will governments always continue in this fashion?
The Bronze Age Collapse
In approximately 1200 BC, there was a widespread collapse of eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age civilizations. This collapse threw the eastern Mediterranean world into a Dark Age, and it took hundreds of years to recover. The shattered empires include the Minoan civilization on Crete
, cities around the coast of Turkey, the Hittites of inland Turkey, and civilizations along the Palestinian coast. Their protective walls fell, the interior structures collapsed and burned, plus the population of the area decreased rather substantially. Egypt repelled a mighty invasion; however, the conflict substantially weakened the kingdom. Some scholars believe a physical disaster struck the area and destroyed these sophisticated civilizations. The massive super-eruption of the island of Thira may have caused the destruction of the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete about 1450 BC; although others think the Dark Age came due to invasions launched in 1200 BC by a mysterious Iron Age group named the “Peoples of the Sea.” Warriors with iron weapons could have easily defeated opponents wielding bronze weapons. The evidence for invasion comes from the extension and heightening of walls protecting cities in the area almost simultaneously with the rise of problems. The cities fell after the walls were improved, which implies some warning of an invasion and an attempt to prepare. In Egypt, the Pharaoh and his advisors decided to meet the invader at sea. This change in strategy may have saved the Egyptians, who won a significant naval victory by destroying the invading force before it landed. Whether or not these invaders were the same “Peoples of the Sea” or “Sea Peoples” described by others is unknown; however, the Egyptians repelled the invaders after cities around the Mediterranean fell in sequence from Crete, to Turkey, and then Palestine, leading to speculation the invaders proceeded around the northern and eastern Mediterranean before descending on Egypt. In addition, after the Egyptian victory the Peoples of the Sea disappear from history.