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World History 1

<OpenstaxParagraph>
	The term <OpenstaxEm>Mesopotamia</OpenstaxEm>, or “the land between the rivers” in Greek, likely originated with the Greek historian Herodotus in the fifth century BCE and has become the common name for the place between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in what is now Iraq. The rivers flow north to south, from the Taurus Mountains of eastern Turkey to the Persian Gulf, depositing fertile soil along their banks. Melting snow and rain from the mountains carry this topsoil to the river valleys below. In antiquity, the river flow was erratic, and flooding was frequent but unpredictable. The need to control it and manage the life-giving water led to the building of cooperative irrigation projects.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Agricultural practices reached Mesopotamia by around 8000 BCE, if not earlier. However, for about two millennia afterward, populations remained quite small, typically living in small villages of between one hundred and two hundred people. Beginning around 5500 BCE, some had begun to establish settlements in southern Mesopotamia, a wetter and more forbidding environment. It was here that the Sumerian civilization emerged (<a href="#fig-00001">Figure 3.8</a>). By around 4500 BCE, some of the once-small farming villages had become growing urban centers, some with thousands of residents. During the course of the fourth millennium BCE (3000s BCE), urbanization exploded in the region. By the end of the millennium, there were at least 124 villages with about one hundred residents each, twenty towns with as many as two thousand residents, another twenty small urban centers of about five thousand residents, and one large city, <OpenstaxTerm>Uruk</OpenstaxTerm>, with a population that may have been as high as fifty thousand. This growth helped make Sumer the earliest civilization to develop in Mesopotamia.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00001" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/4508f48ef54aa33a222db12eb11f125c1de4f77c" alt="A map is shown. The Mediterranean Sea is shown to the west, the Red Sea to the southwest, the Persian Gulf in the southeast, and the Caspian Sea to the northeast, all highlighted blue. The Euphrates River and the Tigris River are labelled in the middle of the map. Unlabeled masses of water are shown to the northwest and to the southeast. The land is highlighted off-white. An area in the middle of the map just northwest of the Persian Gulf is indicated with a red circle. The cities labelled inside the red circle are: Babylon, Nippur, Uruk, Ur, and Eridu. A black oval encases the red circle at the bottom and extends northwest covering land almost to the Mediterranean Sea." mediaType="image/jpg" width="901" height="988" />
<OpenstaxFigureText width="901">
	Figure 3.8 By the end of the fourth millennium BCE, urban areas of varying sizes dotted the landscape in Sumer. Uruk was the largest. (attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC BY 4.0 license)
</OpenstaxFigureText>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	The fourth millennium BCE in Sumer was also a period of technological innovation. One important invention made after 4000 BCE was the process for manufacturing bronze, an alloy of tin and copper, which marked the beginning of the <OpenstaxTerm>Bronze Age</OpenstaxTerm> in Mesopotamia. In this period, bronze replaced stone as the premier material for tools and weapons and remained so for nearly three thousand years. The ancient Sumerians also developed the plow, the wheel, and irrigation techniques that used small channels and canals with dikes for diverting river water into fields. All these developments allowed for population growth and the continued rise of cities by expanding agricultural production and the distribution of agricultural goods. In the area of science, the Sumerians developed a sophisticated mathematical system based on the numbers sixty, ten, and one.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	One of the greatest inventions of this period was writing. The Sumerians developed <OpenstaxTerm>cuneiform</OpenstaxTerm>, a script characterized by wedge-shaped symbols that evolved into a phonetic script, that is, one based on sounds, in which each symbol stood for a syllable (<a href="#fig-00002">Figure 3.9</a>). They wrote their laws, religious tracts, and property transactions on clay tablets, which became very durable once baked, just like the clay bricks the Sumerians used to construct their buildings. The clay tablets held records of commercial exchanges, including contracts and receipts as well as taxes and payrolls. Cuneiform also allowed rulers to record their laws and priests to preserve their rituals and sacred stories. In these ways, it helped facilitate both economic growth and the formation of states.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00002" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/2cbacb08efbee83799eef31a25e3494881258c72" alt="A picture of a brown and black cone-shaped clay object is shown on a gray background. It is rounded and worn at the corners and has an intricate design carved into the middle." mediaType="image/jpg" width="900" height="525" />
<OpenstaxFigureText width="900">
	Figure 3.9 Cuneiform, from the Latin cuneus (meaning “wedge”), was created by pressing a stylus of reed into wet clay to create a meaningful arrangement of wedge shapes. This clay cone from circa 1934–1924 BCE includes a dedication to the ruler of the city of Isin in southern Mesopotamia. (credit: &quot;Votive cone with cuneiform inscription of Lipit-Eshtar&quot; by Anonymous Gift, 1971/The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Public Domain)
</OpenstaxFigureText>
<OpenstaxNote>
	<OpenstaxNoteTitle> Dueling Voices </OpenstaxNoteTitle> <OpenstaxH3> The Invention of Writing in Sumer </OpenstaxH3>
	<OpenstaxParagraph>
		Writing developed independently in several parts of the world, but the earliest known evidence of its birth has been found in Sumer, where cuneiform script emerged as a genuine writing system by around 3000 BCE, if not earlier. But questions remain about how and why ancient peoples began reproducing their spoken language in symbolic form.
	</OpenstaxParagraph>
	<OpenstaxParagraph>
		Archaeologist Denise <OpenstaxTerm>Schmandt-Besserat</OpenstaxTerm> argued in the 1990s that small clay representations of numbers and objects, often called “tokens,” date from thousands of years before the development of cuneiform writing and were its precursor. These tokens, she believed, were part of an accounting system, and each type represented a different good: livestock, grains, and oils. Some were found within hollow baseball-sized clay balls now called “bullae,” which were marked with pictures of the tokens inside. Schmandt-Besserat believed the pictures portray the type of transaction in which the goods represented by the tokens were exchanged, and thus they were a crucial step toward writing. Over time, she suggested, the marked bullae gave way to flat clay tablets recording the transactions, and the first truly written records emerged (<a href="#fig-00003">Figure 3.10</a>).
	</OpenstaxParagraph><OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00003" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/22d5f53481830de4a40cf22cdd8b3fa994fcc6e3" alt="A picture of a thick, brown, square piece of clay is shown. It is irregularly shaped and broken off on the bottom right corner. Five rows of etchings are visible on the front of the piece, separated by a thick groove. Two oval indentations are shown in the third row. The piece sits on a wire stand against a gray wall." mediaType="image/jpg" width="1650" height="780" />
	<OpenstaxFigureText width="1650">
		Figure 3.10 One theory holds that the antecedents of Sumerian clay tablets inscribed with writing like this one (a) were small clay tokens (b) and the pictures of them on the clay “bullae” vessels that held them. (credit a: modification of work &quot;Sumerian Cuneiform Clay Tablet&quot; by Gary Todd/Flickr, CC0 1.0; credit b: modification of work &quot;Clay accounting tokens Susa Louvre&quot; by Marie-Lan Nguyen/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.5)
	</OpenstaxFigureText>
	<OpenstaxParagraph>
		Schmandt-Besserat’s linear interpretation is still one of the best-known explanations for the emergence of writing. But it is hardly the only one. One scholar who offers a different idea is the French Assyriologist Jean-Jacques Glassner. Glassner believes that rather than being an extension of accounting techniques, early writing was a purposeful attempt to render the Sumerian language in script. He equates the development of writing, which gives meaning to a symbol, to the process by which Mesopotamian priests interpreted omens for divining the future. Writing allowed people to place language, a creation of the gods, under human control. Glassner’s argument is complex and relies on ancient works of literature and various theoretical approaches, including that of postmodernist philosopher Jacques Derrida.
	</OpenstaxParagraph>
	<OpenstaxParagraph>
		Many disagree with Glassner’s conclusions, and modern scholars concede that tokens likely played an important role, but probably not in the linear way Schmandt-Besserat proposed. Uncertainty about the origin of writing in Sumer still abounds, and the scholarly debate continues.
	</OpenstaxParagraph>
	<OpenstaxUl>
		<OpenstaxLi>
			Why do you think Schmandt-Besserat’s argument was once so appealing?
		</OpenstaxLi>
		<OpenstaxLi>
			If you lived in a society with no writing, what might prompt you to develop a way to represent your language in symbolic form?
		</OpenstaxLi>
	</OpenstaxUl>
</OpenstaxNote>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	<OpenstaxTerm>Cuneiform</OpenstaxTerm> was a very complex writing system, and literacy remained the monopoly of an elite group of highly trained writing specialists, the scribes. But the script was also highly flexible and could be used to symbolize a great number of sounds, allowing subsequent Mesopotamian cultures such as the Akkadians, Babylonians, and many more to adapt it to their own languages. Since historians deciphered cuneiform in the nineteenth century, they have read the thousands of clay tablets that survived over the centuries and learned much about the history, society, economy, and beliefs of the ancient Sumerians and other peoples of Mesopotamia.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	The Sumerians were <OpenstaxTerm>polytheists</OpenstaxTerm>, people who revered many gods. Each Sumerian city had its own patron god, however, one with whom the city felt a special connection and whom it honored above the others. For example, the patron god of <OpenstaxTerm>Uruk</OpenstaxTerm> was Inanna, the goddess of fertility; the city of Nippur revered the weather god Enlil; and Ur claimed the moon god Sin. Each city possessed an immense temple complex for its special deity, which included a site where the deity was worshipped and religious rituals were performed. This site, the <OpenstaxTerm>ziggurat</OpenstaxTerm>, was a stepped tower built of mud-brick with a flat top (<a href="#fig-00004">Figure 3.11</a>). At its summit stood a roofed structure that housed the sacred idol or image of the temple’s deity. The temple complex also included the homes of the priests, workshops for artisans who made goods for the temple, and storage facilities to meet the needs of the temple workers.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00004" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/9ade2d486fd803c9b1bda28cfa1de74d4f779c97" alt="A picture of a very large brown brick structure is shown against a clear blue sky and dark, sandy ground. An immense staircase is shown in the middle front with brick walls on both sides. Lines run vertically in the front of the structure on both sides of the staircase. Square and triangular tiers can be seen on both sides and small rectangular windows are scattered on both sides. Rocky piles can be seen at the middle and right tops of the structure." mediaType="image/jpg" width="1100" height="480" />
<OpenstaxFigureText width="1100">
	Figure 3.11 The partially reconstructed remains of the once-great ziggurat of Ur (near the modern city of Nasiriyah in Iraq) demonstrate the size of these huge temples and the enormous human resources spent on their construction. When it was completed in the twenty-first century BCE, this structure had additional tiers upon the large base shown and was about one hundred feet high. (credit: &quot;Ziggarat of Ur&quot; by “Tla2006”/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
</OpenstaxFigureText>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Sumerians were clearly eager to please their gods by placing them at the center of their society. These gods could be fickle, faithless, and easily stirred to anger. If displeased with the people, they might bring famine or conquest. Making sure the gods were praised and honored was thus a way of ensuring prosperity. Praising them, however, implied different things for different social tiers in <OpenstaxTerm>Sumer</OpenstaxTerm>. For common people, it meant living a virtuous life and giving to the poor. For priests and priestesses, it consisted of performing the various rituals at the temple complexes. And for rulers honoring the gods, it meant ensuring that the temples were properly funded, maintained, and regularly beautified and enlarged if possible.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	By the Early Dynastic Period (c. 2650 BCE–2400 BCE), powerful dynasties of kings called <OpenstaxEm>lugals</OpenstaxEm> had established themselves as rulers of the cities. In each city, the <OpenstaxEm>lugals</OpenstaxEm> rose to power primarily as warlords, since the Sumerian cities often waged war against each other for control of farmland and access to water as well as other natural resources. <OpenstaxEm>Lugals</OpenstaxEm> legitimized their authority through the control of the religious institutions of the city. For example, at Ur, the daughter of the reigning <OpenstaxTerm><OpenstaxEm>lugal</OpenstaxEm></OpenstaxTerm> always served as the high priestess of the moon god Sin, the chief deity at Ur.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	The <OpenstaxEm>lugals</OpenstaxEm> at Ur during this period, the so-called First Dynasty of Ur, were especially wealthy, as reflected in the magnificent beehive-shaped tombs in which they were buried. In these tombs, precious goods such as jewelry and musical instruments were stored, along with the bodies of servants who were killed and placed in the tomb to accompany the rulers to the Land of the Dead. One of the more spectacular tombs belonged to a woman of Ur called Pu-Abi, who was buried wearing an elaborate headdress and might have been a queen (<a href="#fig-00005">Figure 3.12</a>). The most famous <OpenstaxEm>lugal</OpenstaxEm> in all Sumer in this early period was Gilgamesh of Uruk, whose legendary exploits were recounted later in fantastical form in the <OpenstaxTerm><OpenstaxEm>Epic of Gilgamesh</OpenstaxEm></OpenstaxTerm>.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00005" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/a94ef495756414ac14fd2daebb726f73efe143a3" alt="A picture of a U-shaped piece of jewelry is shown decorated with a double strand of black, round, rectangular beads and red circular beads in a pattern. Fourteen gold leaves, some whole and some broken, extend from in between the beads. String can be seen at both ends of the strand in knots." mediaType="image/jpg" width="900" height="590" />
<OpenstaxFigureText width="900">
	Figure 3.12 The striking beauty and quality of this gold and lapis lazuli headdress from circa 2600 BCE have convinced some that the woman wearing it in the Ur tomb where it was found might have been a queen. Others believe she was simply an attendant, though an elaborately dressed one. (credit: modification of work &quot;Headdress&quot; by Dodge Fund, 1933/The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Public Domain)
</OpenstaxFigureText>
<OpenstaxNote>
	<OpenstaxNoteTitle> Link to Learning </OpenstaxNoteTitle> 
	<OpenstaxParagraph>
		The <OpenstaxEm>Epic of Gilgamesh</OpenstaxEm> is one of the world’s earliest examples of epic literature. To understand this ancient tale, first written down in the form we know today around 2100 BCE, read the <a href="https://openstax.org/l/77gilgamesh">overview of the <OpenstaxEm>Epic of Gilgamesh</OpenstaxEm></a> provided by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has a notable collection of ancient Mesopotamian artifacts.
	</OpenstaxParagraph>
</OpenstaxNote>

3.2.1 The Rise and Eclipse of Sumer

1 Understanding the Past

1.1 Developing a Global Perspective

1.1.1 World History as Preparation for Life after College

1.1.2 World History and Global Citizenship

1.1.3 Features of This Textbook

1.2 Primary Sources

1.2.1 Learning to Evaluate Documents and Images

1.2.2 Documentary Sources: Competing Narratives

1.2.3 Textual Sources: The Importance of Language

1.2.4 Hidden in History

1.3 Causation and Interpretation in History

1.3.1 Levels of Causation

1.3.2 Interpretation in History

2 Early Humans

2.1 Early Human Evolution and Migration

2.1.1 Human Evolution

2.1.2 Why Did Humans Move and Where Did They Go?

2.1.3 Early Human Technologies

2.2 People in the Paleolithic Age

2.2.1 Ice, Ice, and More Ice

2.2.2 Life in the Paleolithic Age

2.2.3 Diverse Paleolithic Peoples

2.3 The Neolithic Revolution

2.3.1 The Development of Agriculture

2.3.2 How Farming Changed the Human Experience

2.3.3 Neolithic Peoples

3 Early Civilizations and Urban Societies

3.1 Early Civilizations

3.1.1 Attributes of Early Civilizations

3.1.2 The First Urban Societies

3.2 Ancient Mesopotamia

3.2.2 The Rise of the World’s First Empire

3.2.3 Later Empires in Mesopotamia

3.2.4 Society and Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia

3.3 Ancient Egypt

3.3.1 The Origins of Ancient Egypt

3.3.2 The Age of Pyramid Building

3.3.3 A Second Age of Egyptian Greatness

3.4 The Indus Valley Civilization

3.4.1 The Origins of the Indus Valley Civilization

3.4.2 Trade, Writing, and Religion

3.4.3 The Era of Decline

4 The Near East

4.1 From Old Babylon to the Medes

4.1.1 Power Politics in the Near East

4.1.2 Foreign Affairs and Trade

4.1.3 Daily Life and the Family in the Near East

4.2 Egypt’s New Kingdom

4.2.1 The Hyksos in Egypt

4.2.2 The Pharaohs of the New Kingdom

4.2.3 Egypt’s Foreign Policy

4.3 The Persian Empire

4.3.1 The Rise of Persia

4.3.2 Darius I and the Reorganization of the Empire

4.3.3 Persian Culture and Daily Life

4.4 The Hebrews

4.4.1 The History of the Hebrews

4.4.2 The Culture of the Hebrews

5 Asia in Ancient Times

5.1 Ancient China

5.1.1 Prehistoric China

5.1.2 Early Dynastic China

5.1.3 The Zhou Dynasty

5.1.4 The Warring States Era and Qin Unification

5.2 The Steppes

5.2.1 The Nomadic Culture of the Steppes

5.2.2 Tribes, Confederations, and Settled Neighbors

5.3 Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia

5.3.1 Ancient Korea

5.3.2 Ancient Japan

5.4 Vedic India to the Fall of the Maurya Empire

5.4.1 Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro

5.4.2 The Aryans and Brahmanism

5.4.3 Buddhism

5.4.4 The Mauryan Empire

5.4.5 The Gupta Dynasty

6 Mediterranean Peoples

6.1 Early Mediterranean Peoples

6.1.1 The Late Bronze Age World

6.1.2 Phoenicians, Greeks, and Etruscans

6.2 Ancient Greece

6.2.1 Archaic Greece

6.2.2 Sparta and Athens

6.2.3 Classical Greece

6.3 The Hellenistic Era

6.3.1 The Kingdom of Macedon

6.3.2 Hellenistic Culture

6.4 The Roman Republic

6.4.1 The Foundation and Function of the Roman Republic

6.4.2 The Expansion of the Roman Republic

6.5 The Age of Augustus

6.5.1 The First Triumvirate

6.5.2 From Republic to Principate

7 Experiencing the Roman Empire

7.1 The Daily Life of a Roman Family

7.1.1 The Structure of Roman Families

7.1.2 A Day in the Life of a Roman Family

7.1.3 What Family Meant in Rome

7.2 Slavery in the Roman Empire

Question	Answer
the period from 3500 to 1110 BCE when bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, was the preferred material for manufacturing tools and weapons	Bronze Age
a phonetic writing system based on the sounds of words and invented by the Sumerians in about 3000 BCE	cuneiform
people who worship multiple gods, usually associated with different aspects of the natural world	polytheists
an immense stepped tower with a flat top built of mud-brick that served as a temple in Sumerian cities	ziggurat