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2. Specialized Workers
Workers became skilled in one particular job.
Ex. Artisans: Workers who made goods by hand. Farmers were able to produce more than what was needed for themselves. They had a surplus of crops and were able to trade their extra goods for a different good or service. (An end to subsistence farming.)
3. Record Keeping/Writing
Enables people to make records of data. Merchants needed accounts of debts and payments.
The Sumerians created Cuneiform, which is a system of writing with wedge-shaped symbols. (Around 3,000 B.C.)
Cuneiform Tablet
Imprints of the signs, called cuneiform, were made by pressing a wedge-shaped stylus into wet clay.
5. Complex Institutions
Having an organizational system to run a city. (This is a key trait that is essential for a civilization.)
Government is an example of a complex institution.
Why is it important for people (especially farmers) to settle near rivers & streams? Farmers need their villages near water because they need it for their crops.
Mesopotamia
The region between the Tigris River and the Euphrates River is known as Mesopotamia. One of the first villages to emerge was Sumer. The villagers were called Sumerians.
Sumer
Sumer was neither a city nor a country. Rather, it was a collection of separate cities with a common way of life. They shared a common culture. Historians believe that Sumerians built the worlds first civilization.
Sumerian Solutions
1. Sumerians created irrigation ditches.
2. Defense Problems- Very flat landthere were no natural defensive barriers to prevent raids by nomads.
Above: Mud brick homes are still built today in the Middle East because of the lack of timber.
Slaves: By working obediently day & nightthey could hope to earn their freedom.
Sumers Downfall
For 1,000 years (3,0002,000 B.C.) the citystates of Sumer were at war with one another.
All the fighting weakened the city-states so much that they could no longer ward off attacks from outsiders (nomads). 2,000 B.C. Nomadic raiders swept through Ur, leaving it in ruins, thus ending the last of the great city-states.
Carving shows the sun god Shamash giving the laws to Hammurabi.
3 Fundamental Principles:
1. Principle of Retaliation to punish crimes. (Eye for an Eye) 2. Principle of Punishment (Double Standards existed between social classes). 3. Principle that the Government had a responsibility for what occurred in society.
Phoenicians
Around 1100 B.C. the Phoenicians were the most powerful traders around the Mediterranean Sea.
300 Phoenician cities sprouted up around Africas Mediterranean Sea The highly prized purple dye for which the Phoenicians were renowned was extracted from a gland of the murex snail. Each snail yielded only a drop of yellow liquid which darkened on exposure to light. Processing required slow simmering for about two weeks. Up to 60,000 snails were needed for each pound of dye.
Phoenician Contribution:
Around 900 B.C. the Phoenicians developed a writing system with 22 symbols (versus the 600 symbols in Cuneiform). The alphabet is born!!
Capable Kings:
Saul, David, Solomon Their kingdomIsrael.