Mesopotamia & Near East

10,000 BC wooden reaping knives w. flint blades in Palestine
9000 BC end of Ice Age, domesticated sheep in N. Tigris valley
7500 settlement in Jericho, weaving fortifications, agriculture
7000 BC pottery
6500 BC copper in Turkey
6000 BC farming in Macedonia
7700-5700 Çatal Huyuk in Turkey, obsidian, fertility cults

Sumerians (5000-2000 BC)

• Sumerians came from Iran or Persian gulf
• "the dark-headed," heavy bones, short, long and narrow heads,
• huts in marshes, clay blades, dikes and canals, houses of mud bricks, terraced temples, sailboats, wheeled vehicles, animal-drawn plows, potter's wheel,
• City of Eridu before 4000 BC
• 3300 BC temples
• 2800 BC metal tools in graves at Ur
• 2100 BC law book of Ur-Nammu, king of Ur
• Sumerian proverb: "you go and take the field of the enemy; the enemy comes and takes your field",
• Cities: Lagash, Ur, Kish, Nippur, Uruk,
• coexisted with Akkadians (came from Syria) from around 3000 BC
• Writing, agglutinative language, pictorial, schematic symbols, rebus expression, syllable as unit of writing, business and accounting records; fish=HA, syllable signs and word signs, reed on clay, wedge shaped marks
• earliest literature; Epic of Gilgamesh

Akkadians (3000-2600 BC)

Semitic people
2800 BC Akkadian conquest of Ashur and Diyala
2350 BC Sargon I of Agade
2250 fall of Sargon dynasty
2100-2000 supremacy of Ur
2100 laws of Ur-Nammu

Amorites (2000- ?BC)

Semitic people

Assyrians

• Semitic people
• 2400 Sumerian script used in Assyria
• 1800 Assyrian temple of Enlil
• period of dominance 1350-609 BC
• conquest of Arameans and Chaldeans;
• 2400 BC mixture of Akkadians and Amorites gave rise to Babylonians

Babylonians

• period of dominance 1792-50 BC
• 1750 Hammurabi
• 1600 fall of Hammurabi dynasty
• Elamites (non-Semitic) occupied Iran
• Aryan invaders (Medes, Persians) during first millenium conquer Elamites and adopt their cuneiform script

Sample of Babylonian Cuneiform Script

Persians

• Cyrus c. 540 BC
• 525 BC Cambises conquers Egypt
• Darius I (550-486 BC)
• cuneiform inscriptions at Persepolis, built 500-464 BC by Darius and Xerxes
• 539 BC capture of Babylon by Persians
• 516 BC Behistun Rock, Darius memorial (multilingual inscriptions: Old Persian, Babylonian, Elamite?)
• area became part of Greek kingdom in 4th c. BC
• decline of ancient script, latest specimens in 1st c AD

The Behistun Rock, Darius Memorial, 516 B.C.

Hebrews

• 1900 BC, migration from Mesopotamia
• 1200 BC Moses, exodus journey from Egypt to Palestine
• Phoenician signs (twenty-two signs for consonantal sounds) used by Hebrews to record Old Testament; Greeks added vowel signs to Phoenician alphabet in 8th or 9th c. BC; myth of Cadmus, king of Tyre who taught Greeks how to write
• 1005-925 BC, period of expansion under David and Solomon
• 1000 BC Torah text assembled, Psalms
• religious literature written between 8th and 2nd c. BC;
• 586 BC conquest of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, deportation to Babylon; exile period, teachings of Ezekiel and second Isaiah; exile ended by Cyrus's conquest of Babylon and release of Hebrews from bondage in 539 BC;
• return to Palestine, rebuilding of temple, canonical version of Pentateuch or Torah, first five books of Bible
• conquest by Macedonian Greeks after 300 BC, then by Rome
• revolt crushed by Titus 70 AD
• revolt against Hadrian (AD 131-134), removal of Hebrews from Palestine, Diaspora