San Diego State University Wk 2 Law Code of Hammurabi Discussion

Ancient Civilizations

Required Reading

We will all read Chapter 2 in The Human Journey as well as other readings and videos specific to the Discussion Board topic you choose. Those readings can be found in the Discussion Board itself. To access the required reading, click on the Discussion Board link below and then on the Week Two Discussion 1 link.

There are two topics for each Discussion Board this week but you only write on one topic. It should take you about a day to read the materials for a Discussion Board. To help you follow what is happening historically to whom by whom and where, be sure to consult the time lines at the start of each chapter and the maps printed throughout the book. They will help orient you to the main developments we are studying.

At the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Determine the changes that led to the Bronze Age urban revolution
• Explain the key characteristics of the Bronze Age
• Determine the changes that led to the end of the Bronze Age and the start of the Iron Age
• Explain the key characteristics of the Iron Age
• Assess the significance of Bronze Age and Iron Age innovations

Lecture Notes and Key Terms

Lecture Notes from the Instructor

Being Civilized

For many years we taught history as a long narrative of progress ending in our own industrialized, market-driven democracy. We thought we’d reached the pinnacle of civilized life.

We emerged from the 20th century with our thinking fundamentally changed. Industrialization led to cramped urbanization and urban sprawl. Pollution made us question our stewardship of the wild and untamed aspects of life on earth.

After seeing the horrors of the Holocaust and other attempts at defining or creating a superior race, we realized that all people really must be seen as equal. In the aftermath of civil rights and anti-colonialism movements around the world, we had to re-think how we categorize and classify people from all parts of the world.

And so we grappled with the idea of “civilization” and of being “civilized” and had to consider what words like “primitive,” “barbarian,” and “savage” mean.

As you read the first few chapters of Reilly, you see his approach to this issue. There is a progressive pattern to some human development from nomadic to settled, from hunter-gatherers to farmers, and from small villages to expansive city-states and empires.

The question is, does this progression necessarily classify one group as more advanced than another? Are people in the cities more civilized than people in the villages? And most importantly, do advanced technologies, agricultural economies, monumental architecture, writing, and science make one group “superior” to other groups?

Some scholars like Robert Wenke in his book, Patterns in Prehistory argue that pre-historic nomadic hunter-gatherer groups might be considered more advanced than so-called civilized groups. They were egalitarian, they lived off their resources without depleting them, they had little war, and once food production was taken care of they even had leisure time left over for music, dance, and art. They did not overpopulate and managed to live for tens of thousands of years like this.

Civilizations have a history of war, overpopulation, disputes over men’s and women’s roles, class struggles and oppression, poverty and want, and destruction of habitat and resources. Which sounds more civilized to you?

Consider this as time goes by during the period of history that we’re studying. Groups of people advance to different stages of social organization and then hold, fail, or move on. By the end of our timeline the earth will have every type of human social group imaginable, from hunter-gatherers to technologically advanced civilizations. Is any one group inherently superior to another?

The following material pertains to the graded assignments for this course.

Key Terms, People, Concepts, Events, Periods, and Geographic Locations (Helpful for Weekly Quiz):

Key Terms:

Ahura Mazda
Akkadian
bronze
iron
Isis
Law Code of Hammurabi
Osiris
satraps
wheeled chariot
Zoroastrianism

Key People:

Darius
Gilgamesh
Hammurabi
Moses

Key Concepts:

alphabetic writing
citizenship
collpase of Bronze Age empires
horticulture
irrigation
monotheism
Pharoah’s Dream
plow
polytheism
universalism/universal truths

Key Events:

Pastoral Revolution
Urban Revolution

Key Periods:

Bronze Age
Iron Age

Key Geographical Locations:

Babylon
China
Egypt
Greece
Middle East
Persian Empire
Phoenicia
Uruk

Study Questions

To get the most out of the textbook, you should consider the following questions as you do the reading:
Questions

1. How did cities come about? Where did the urban revolution begin? In what areas of the world did cities first develop? What role did plows and irrigation play in the development of cities? How were the cities of the Americas similar to, and different from, the cities of Eurasia? What were some of the “firsts” of the first cities?
2. How did cities change the ways people lived? What sorts of people benefited from cities? Who did not? What new kinds of people did cities create? How did social relations change in the cities? How did religion change?
3. What was the difference between a city state and a territorial state? How did social inequality come to be accepted in cities?
4. Did cities make people more “civilized?” Did the achievements of ancient civilizations outweigh the drawbacks? What were the achievements? What were the drawbacks?
5. How were the lives of pastoralists different from the lives of city people and farmers? How did the lives of pastoralists change during the first three thousand years of cities? What inventions or innovations do we owe to pastoralists? How did pastoralists bring about the great ancient empires? How did the bronze-age empires collapse towards the end of the second millennium B.C.E. (1300-1000)?
6. How was the Iron Age different from the Bronze Age? What advantages did iron have over bronze? What links does the author draw between iron-age tools and weapons and changes in society and politics? How were these new societies more likely to engage in trade? What does the author mean by “t is for trade?”
7. What is the relationship between iron and monotheism or alphabets? Compare the iron-age societies of the Hebrews and the Persians.
   

   Ancient Civilizations

   Required Reading

   We will all read Chapter 2 in The Human Journey as well as other readings and videos specific to the Discussion Board topic you choose. Those readings can be found in the Discussion Board itself. To access the required reading, click on the Discussion Board link below and then on the Week Two Discussion 1 link.There are two topics for each Discussion Board this week but you only write on one topic. It should take you about a day to read the materials for a Discussion Board. To help you follow what is happening historically to whom by whom and where, be sure to consult the time lines at the start of each chapter and the maps printed throughout the book. They will help orient you to the main developments we are studying.At the end of the module, students should be able to:

   • Determine the changes that led to the Bronze Age urban revolution
   • Explain the key characteristics of the Bronze Age
   • Determine the changes that led to the end of the Bronze Age and the start of the Iron Age
   • Explain the key characteristics of the Iron Age
   • Assess the significance of Bronze Age and Iron Age innovations

   Lecture Notes and Key TermsLecture Notes from the InstructorBeing CivilizedFor many years we taught history as a long narrative of progress ending in our own industrialized, market-driven democracy. We thought we’d reached the pinnacle of civilized life.We emerged from the 20th century with our thinking fundamentally changed. Industrialization led to cramped urbanization and urban sprawl. Pollution made us question our stewardship of the wild and untamed aspects of life on earth.After seeing the horrors of the Holocaust and other attempts at defining or creating a superior race, we realized that all people really must be seen as equal. In the aftermath of civil rights and anti-colonialism movements around the world, we had to re-think how we categorize and classify people from all parts of the world.And so we grappled with the idea of “civilization” and of being “civilized” and had to consider what words like “primitive,” “barbarian,” and “savage” mean.As you read the first few chapters of Reilly, you see his approach to this issue. There is a progressive pattern to some human development from nomadic to settled, from hunter-gatherers to farmers, and from small villages to expansive city-states and empires. The question is, does this progression necessarily classify one group as more advanced than another? Are people in the cities more civilized than people in the villages? And most importantly, do advanced technologies, agricultural economies, monumental architecture, writing, and science make one group “superior” to other groups?Some scholars like Robert Wenke in his book, Patterns in Prehistory argue that pre-historic nomadic hunter-gatherer groups might be considered more advanced than so-called civilized groups. They were egalitarian, they lived off their resources without depleting them, they had little war, and once food production was taken care of they even had leisure time left over for music, dance, and art. They did not overpopulate and managed to live for tens of thousands of years like this. Civilizations have a history of war, overpopulation, disputes over men’s and women’s roles, class struggles and oppression, poverty and want, and destruction of habitat and resources. Which sounds more civilized to you?Consider this as time goes by during the period of history that we’re studying. Groups of people advance to different stages of social organization and then hold, fail, or move on. By the end of our timeline the earth will have every type of human social group imaginable, from hunter-gatherers to technologically advanced civilizations. Is any one group inherently superior to another?The following material pertains to the graded assignments for this course.

   Key Terms, People, Concepts, Events, Periods, and Geographic Locations (Helpful for Weekly Quiz):

   Key Terms:

   Ahura Mazda
   Akkadian
   bronze
   iron
   Isis
   Law Code of Hammurabi
   Osiris
   satraps
   wheeled chariot
   Zoroastrianism

   Key People:

   Darius
   Gilgamesh
   Hammurabi
   Moses

   Key Concepts:

   alphabetic writing
   citizenship
   collpase of Bronze Age empires
   horticulture
   irrigation
   monotheism
   Pharoah’s Dream
   plow
   polytheism
   universalism/universal truths

   Key Events:

   Pastoral Revolution
   Urban Revolution

   Key Periods:

   Bronze Age
   Iron Age

   Key Geographical Locations:

   Babylon
   China
   Egypt
   Greece
   Middle East
   Persian Empire
   Phoenicia
   Uruk

   Study Questions

   To get the most out of the textbook, you should consider the following questions as you do the reading:Questions

   1. How did cities come about? Where did the urban revolution begin? In what areas of the world did cities first develop? What role did plows and irrigation play in the development of cities? How were the cities of the Americas similar to, and different from, the cities of Eurasia? What were some of the “firsts” of the first cities?
   2. How did cities change the ways people lived? What sorts of people benefited from cities? Who did not? What new kinds of people did cities create? How did social relations change in the cities? How did religion change?
   3. What was the difference between a city state and a territorial state? How did social inequality come to be accepted in cities?
   4. Did cities make people more “civilized?” Did the achievements of ancient civilizations outweigh the drawbacks? What were the achievements? What were the drawbacks?
   5. How were the lives of pastoralists different from the lives of city people and farmers? How did the lives of pastoralists change during the first three thousand years of cities? What inventions or innovations do we owe to pastoralists? How did pastoralists bring about the great ancient empires? How did the bronze-age empires collapse towards the end of the second millennium B.C.E. (1300-1000)?
   6. How was the Iron Age different from the Bronze Age? What advantages did iron have over bronze? What links does the author draw between iron-age tools and weapons and changes in society and politics? How were these new societies more likely to engage in trade? What does the author mean by “t is for trade?”
   7. What is the relationship between iron and monotheism or alphabets? Compare the iron-age societies of the Hebrews and the Persians.
      

      Ancient Civilizations

      Required Reading

      We will all read Chapter 2 in The Human Journey as well as other readings and videos specific to the Discussion Board topic you choose. Those readings can be found in the Discussion Board itself. To access the required reading, click on the Discussion Board link below and then on the Week Two Discussion 1 link.There are two topics for each Discussion Board this week but you only write on one topic. It should take you about a day to read the materials for a Discussion Board. To help you follow what is happening historically to whom by whom and where, be sure to consult the time lines at the start of each chapter and the maps printed throughout the book. They will help orient you to the main developments we are studying.At the end of the module, students should be able to:

      • Determine the changes that led to the Bronze Age urban revolution
      • Explain the key characteristics of the Bronze Age
      • Determine the changes that led to the end of the Bronze Age and the start of the Iron Age
      • Explain the key characteristics of the Iron Age
      • Assess the significance of Bronze Age and Iron Age innovations

      Lecture Notes and Key TermsLecture Notes from the InstructorBeing CivilizedFor many years we taught history as a long narrative of progress ending in our own industrialized, market-driven democracy. We thought we’d reached the pinnacle of civilized life.We emerged from the 20th century with our thinking fundamentally changed. Industrialization led to cramped urbanization and urban sprawl. Pollution made us question our stewardship of the wild and untamed aspects of life on earth.After seeing the horrors of the Holocaust and other attempts at defining or creating a superior race, we realized that all people really must be seen as equal. In the aftermath of civil rights and anti-colonialism movements around the world, we had to re-think how we categorize and classify people from all parts of the world.And so we grappled with the idea of “civilization” and of being “civilized” and had to consider what words like “primitive,” “barbarian,” and “savage” mean.As you read the first few chapters of Reilly, you see his approach to this issue. There is a progressive pattern to some human development from nomadic to settled, from hunter-gatherers to farmers, and from small villages to expansive city-states and empires. The question is, does this progression necessarily classify one group as more advanced than another? Are people in the cities more civilized than people in the villages? And most importantly, do advanced technologies, agricultural economies, monumental architecture, writing, and science make one group “superior” to other groups?Some scholars like Robert Wenke in his book, Patterns in Prehistory argue that pre-historic nomadic hunter-gatherer groups might be considered more advanced than so-called civilized groups. They were egalitarian, they lived off their resources without depleting them, they had little war, and once food production was taken care of they even had leisure time left over for music, dance, and art. They did not overpopulate and managed to live for tens of thousands of years like this. Civilizations have a history of war, overpopulation, disputes over men’s and women’s roles, class struggles and oppression, poverty and want, and destruction of habitat and resources. Which sounds more civilized to you?Consider this as time goes by during the period of history that we’re studying. Groups of people advance to different stages of social organization and then hold, fail, or move on. By the end of our timeline the earth will have every type of human social group imaginable, from hunter-gatherers to technologically advanced civilizations. Is any one group inherently superior to another?The following material pertains to the graded assignments for this course.

      Key Terms, People, Concepts, Events, Periods, and Geographic Locations (Helpful for Weekly Quiz):

      Key Terms:

      Ahura Mazda
      Akkadian
      bronze
      iron
      Isis
      Law Code of Hammurabi
      Osiris
      satraps
      wheeled chariot
      Zoroastrianism

      Key People:

      Darius
      Gilgamesh
      Hammurabi
      Moses

      Key Concepts:

      alphabetic writing
      citizenship
      collpase of Bronze Age empires
      horticulture
      irrigation
      monotheism
      Pharoah’s Dream
      plow
      polytheism
      universalism/universal truths

      Key Events:

      Pastoral Revolution
      Urban Revolution

      Key Periods:

      Bronze Age
      Iron Age

      Key Geographical Locations:

      Babylon
      China
      Egypt
      Greece
      Middle East
      Persian Empire
      Phoenicia
      Uruk

      Study Questions

      To get the most out of the textbook, you should consider the following questions as you do the reading:Questions

      1. How did cities come about? Where did the urban revolution begin? In what areas of the world did cities first develop? What role did plows and irrigation play in the development of cities? How were the cities of the Americas similar to, and different from, the cities of Eurasia? What were some of the “firsts” of the first cities?
      2. How did cities change the ways people lived? What sorts of people benefited from cities? Who did not? What new kinds of people did cities create? How did social relations change in the cities? How did religion change?
      3. What was the difference between a city state and a territorial state? How did social inequality come to be accepted in cities?
      4. Did cities make people more “civilized?” Did the achievements of ancient civilizations outweigh the drawbacks? What were the achievements? What were the drawbacks?
      5. How were the lives of pastoralists different from the lives of city people and farmers? How did the lives of pastoralists change during the first three thousand years of cities? What inventions or innovations do we owe to pastoralists? How did pastoralists bring about the great ancient empires? How did the bronze-age empires collapse towards the end of the second millennium B.C.E. (1300-1000)?
      6. How was the Iron Age different from the Bronze Age? What advantages did iron have over bronze? What links does the author draw between iron-age tools and weapons and changes in society and politics? How were these new societies more likely to engage in trade? What does the author mean by “t is for trade?”
      7. What is the relationship between iron and monotheism or alphabets? Compare the iron-age societies of the Hebrews and the Persians.

      Please click on the above link to reach the course Discussion Boards. Scroll down the page until you reach the Week Two Discussion 1 Discussion Board. Read the General Directions and then enter the Discussion Board by clicking on the link to Week Two Discussion 1.