Western Civilization I

Notes from 1/24/01

We concluded our discussion of religion in Bronze Age societies such as Egypt and Mesopotamia.  I emphasized the centrality of belief in an afterlife, as well as protection from natural disaster and misfortune, such as flood, famine and pestilence.  We also discussed religion as a tool for social control, and the absence of any distinction in these societies between secular authority (government) and religious authority.  

We then discussed some of the material in Chapter 2, which focuses on the development of stronger, more centralized kingdoms and empires during the Bronze and Iron Ages, as well as the endemic warfare and the increasing importance of armies in the ancient world.

I discussed the emergence of Egypt as a unified kingdom around 3100 B.C.E.  A king named Narmer (also referred to as Menes) united Lower and Upper Egypt at that time, establishing a capital at Memphis, in Lower Egypt.  Like later ancient civilizations, Egypt was a monarchy, which literally means "rule by one person."  Monarchy: from the Greek, mono (one); archon (ruler).

We discussed some of the reasons why monarchy was the prevalent form of government in the ancient world.  Certainly, subjects looked to single, authoritarian rulers as a source of stability, particularly given the endemic violence and warfare of the times.  We had previously discussed the role of religion, and the development over time of the theory that kings ruled by divine right.  We should also consider technological constraints; people had simply not yet developed more complex forms of government and so societies tended to be ordered along fairly simple lines, with authority concentrated in the hands of a single, all-powerful individual.

By 2700 B.C.E., (400 years after Narmer), most of the important features of Egyptian culture and society had been established.  Egypt enjoyed a long period of remarkable stability, during which it accumulated vast wealth and doubtless influenced the development of other peoples.  The period of stability from 2700 B.C.E. to about 2050 B.C.E. is known as the Old Kingdom.

Meanwhile, in Mesopotamia, Sargon (r.c. 2334-2279 B.C.E.) was building the ancient world's first centralized empire (by empire, I mean he had absorbed under his rule people outside his own kingdom).  Establishing a capital at Akkad, Sargon and his successors were known as the Akkadians.  Their language became the dominant tongue of the Middle East for the next 1000 years.  Akkadian was a Semitic language, meaning it was one of several tongues spoken by people who had originally migrated to the Middle East from North Africa around 5000 B.C.E.  From Arabia they began to span out to other parts of the Middle and Near East.  Of course, Semitic people also included the ancient Hebrews, who I had discussed last time, and who we will revisit in a couple of weeks when we talk about Christianity.

The other people to come into Europe and Asia Minor were the Indo-Europeans.  From the area north of the Black and Caspian Seas, these people swept into both western Europe and Asia during the Bronze Age.  They were different than their predecessors in a number of respects, including language, religion, methods of warfare and patterns of authority.  For our purposes, the two most important Indo-European kingdoms to emerge out of the Bronze Age were the Hittites and Mycenaeans, whose kingdoms came to dominate the region around the Aegean Sea.

 
The Hittites established their kingdom in Asia Minor (Turkey).  They may have been the first people to successfully smelt iron, bringing in the Iron Age (starting around 1500 B.C.E.).  The availability of iron, which could be made more cheaply than bronze, had important consequences.  Improved agricultural implements meant more food and population growth, and iron weapons allowed for the development of stronger, more centralized empires.

The Mycenaeans established a presence in Greece.  They were greatly influenced by an earlier people, the Cretans. who had established a civilization on the island of Crete around 2200 B.C.E.  (Archeological evidence from Knossos on Crete demonstrates a fairly advanced society; the Cretans had at least two forms of writing, known as Linear A and Linear B, and the Palace of Minos (which is why Cretan civilization is also referred to as "Minoan") would give rise to many of the legends of the ancient Greeks, including that of the Minotaur, the half-man, half-bull that protected the palace from invaders.)

Around 1380 B.C.E., Cretan society collapsed; we're not sure exactly why.  There's evidence of a massive earthquake on the island, but the collapse may also have been brought about by invasion or civil unrest.  The Mycenaeans established the next great civilization, centered in Mycenae, on the Greek Peloponnese (see map).

Mycenae reached the height of its prosperity between 1400 and 1200 B.C.E.  Consistent with Indo-European patterns of authority, Mycenaean civilization was comprised of cities that were more or less independent from one another, each having its own "palace-centered" king.  (These cities may have been united in a successful war against Troy (the Trojans), in Asia Minor, which appears to have been the basis for Homer's Iliad).

Somewhere around 1100 B.C.E., Mycenaean civilization also went into decline.  Pottery, burial sites and buildings gradually become much cruder from the period between 1100 and 800 B.C.E., and the Greeks may also have "relapsed" into illiteracy during this time.  (Linear B writing disappeared altogether.)  This period, from around 1100 to 800 B.C.E., is often referred to as the Greek Dark Ages.

Next time, we will talk about how the Greeks emerged out of their Dark Ages after 800 B.C.E., and the rise of the Greek city-states (Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes, etc.) whose history, culture and politics would so greatly impact western civilization.