A Succession of Empires

The period of Phoenician and Hebrew independence ended with the rise of the Assyrian Empire. The Assyrians were a Semitic-speaking people who had been important in northern Mesopotamia in the

second millennium B.C., then declined, and reemerged around Nineveh in about 900. They began a series of campaigns that carried them to Persia in the East and Egypt in the West. Their success was facilitated by a huge army, iron weapons, and cavalry. In 722, the Assyrians conquered Israel and deported its inhabitants, the Ten Lost Tribes. Their policies were cruel; state terrorism was their normal practice. Even their art glorified fear and destruction.

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Sacking of Susa by Ashurbanipal

The Assyrians eventually evoked a challenge from a coalition of peoples who were seen as
liberators by those whom the Assyrians had conquered. One key group was the Neo-Babylonians. The dynasty of whom Nebuchadnezzar (r.605–562 B.C.) was the most famous built a large realm in Mesopotamia after the fall of the Assyrians. The main achievement of this dynasty was the massive rebuilding of Babylon. The Hanging Gardens were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Minor players were the central Anatolian Lydians. The Lydians’ main historical achievement was the invention of coinage around 700 B.C. Their most famous king was Croesus, whose wealth—probably because he heaped up coins—was legendary. The greatest members of the anti-Assyrian coalition were the Medes and Persians.

The Medes were from the Zagros Mountains, and the Persians were from the Iranian plain. They were ethnically related and spoke similar languages. Until Persian Cyrus (r. 559–530) assumed leadership, the Medes had generally been the dominant partner. Cyrus began a series of lightning campaigns that
were continued by his successors, Cambyses (r. 530–525 B.C.) and Darius (r. 521–486 B.C.). They
built the largest empire the world had yet seen. There were several reasons for Persian success. The Persians had a huge army—up to 300,000 men—with an elite core of 10,000 “Immortals.” They practiced brilliant cavalry tactics and were the first to understand the significance of the cavalry. They were tolerant of the customs of local peoples and often left their own people in charge. They were highly skilled at administration. The Persians set up an elaborate administrative network under satraps. They developed common systems of weights, measures, and coinage; the Persian imperial post; and great roads, including the “Royal Road.” They also used the widely known Aramaic language instead of Persian.

The chief manifestation of Persian culture was the religion Zoroastrianism. Scholars dispute the dates for Zarathustra. He may have lived circa 1000, 750, or 550 B.C. His teachings are revealed by gathas (songs) preserved in the Avesta, the holy scriptures of Zoroastrianism. Zarathustra taught of a single, benevolent god, Ahura Mazda, who was the creator of all. But he also was much intrigued by the problem of evil.

Zarathustra taught that Ahura Mazda had twin children, one benevolent and one evil. These two played out a great cosmic challenge between good and bad, truth and falsehood, and so on. Human beings are endowed with free will to choose one path or the other. Zarathustra stressed superiority of the spiritual over the material. This dualism would recur time and time again in the West, such as among the Manicheans, Bogomils, and Cathars. The Assyrians and Babylonians left some impressive ruins but not much else. The Persians left a legacy of civilized rule, ideas about kingship and government, and a profound religious heritage that interacted reciprocally with Judaism and Christianity.

The Hebrews—Small States and Big Ideas

After the Egyptians and Hittites exhausted themselves, and before other large, powerful states emerged, there was a brief period of importance for some small states and peoples. Sea peoples, most famously the Philistines, attacked along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean after about 1200 B.C.

The Phoenicians managed to avoid conquest. They were Canaanites who spoke a Semitic language and who had been present in the region of what is today coastal Syria and Lebanon for centuries. After about 900, they created one of the first great commercial empires the world had seen, anticipating the Athenians, Venetians, and Dutch. Creating colonies all over the Mediterranean, including at Carthage and Massilia, the Phoenicians played a role in spreading Mesopotamian culture and in beginning the creation of a Mediterranean cultural network. By 600 B.C., they had almost certainly circumnavigated Africa and, by about 450, they had reached Britain.

The other significate people who emerged in this big-power pause were the Hebrews. Again, much of the Hebrews’ history is shrouded in legend. A pastoralist, Abraham, who has been dated between 2000 and 1550 B.C., was the leader of a people who were on the outs with the settled city-dwellers and grain farmers of Sumer. Abraham and his God made a pact, and Abraham was told to leave Ur for the land of Canaan/Palestine. For some centuries, Abraham’s descendants farmed the land, quarreled among themselves, and tried to ward off enemies.

Eventually, they were swept up in the struggles between the Egyptians and Hittites. The familiar story says that the Hebrews were carried off in bondage to Egypt. Some probably were prisoners of war, but others doubtless migrated there voluntarily because the area was more peaceful and prosperous. Moses arose as a leader who forged a people during the Exodus, a long process of departing from Egypt and reentering the “promised land.”

For a time, the Hebrews lived under numerous independent judges, but the threat of the sea peoples, chiefly the Philistines, induced them to choose kings, first Saul, then David, and Solomon. Under Solomon, the kingdom reached its high point, and considerable commercial wealth flowed in. But a distaste for strong central authority led to a division of the kingdom into Israel in the north, with its capital at Samaria, and Judah in the south, with its capital at Jerusalem. Eventually, these small kingdoms were conquered by more powerful neighbors: Israel fell to the Assyrians in 722 and Judah, to the Neo-Babylonians in 586. The Assyrians in particular physically dispersed the Hebrews all over the Near East: the “Exile.

Never has a people been so politically insignificant, yet culturally so critical in the history of Western civilization. It is the religion of the Hebrews that has left so deep an imprint. Our knowledge of the beliefs of the Hebrews comes from a collection of writings that in some ways cover the period from about 2000 to 200 B.C., but that were mostly written down after 1000 B.C. These writings are properly called the Hebrew Bible, or the Hebrew Scriptures. To Christians, these materials are the Old Testament. The Hebrew Bible consists of three major kinds of materials:

The Torah: The first five books, sometimes called the “Books of Moses.” The name means “the teaching,” and these books contain the prescriptions that governed the life of the Hebrews.

The Prophets: This group of books contains both historical books, such as Kings, Samuel, and Chronicles, that reveal God’s unfolding relationship with His people, and the more obviously prophetic books of the “Greater Prophets,” such as Isaiah and Jeremiah, and the “Lesser Prophets,” such as Amos and Micah.

The Writings: This is a catchall designation for the poetic material, such as the Psalms and Canticles, and for the beautiful and moving advice literature, such as Proverbs and Wisdom. Three central religious ideas contained in the Hebrew Bible, taken together, constitute the key foundations of Western civilization.

The idea of the covenant was created between Yahweh and Abraham— between God and a tribe—and renewed between Yahweh and Moses— between God and a people. It was redefined by the Prophet Ezra during the Exile—between God and a people adhering to the Torah. The unique notion of reciprocity appears here for the first time. The covenant also embodies the unique notion of a chosen people: One God for one people, not a god for a place or a state.

The idea of exclusive monotheism has a long evolution, from henotheism, still present in the time of Moses, to monotheism in the time of Isaiah. This occasioned a profound tension between the idea that Yahweh was the only God and the God of the Hebrews, and the possibility of universalism. The idea is seen most vividly in the Book of Jonah.

The idea of ethical monotheism is the profound sense of social justice that runs through the prophetic books is unprecedented in the previous religious experience of known peoples. God demanded a particular kind of behavior as a guarantee of his continuing benevolence. This idea is seen in the Decalogue and Shema, in Micah.

Philosophers and theologians have long acknowledged the importance of monotheism for everything from natural philosophy to political ideology. Numerous peoples in the West have called themselves a “New Israel” as a way of claiming a unique, chosen relationship with providence. Historically, social justice has sometimes been a secular concern, but much more often, one with religious roots. Western literature is unimaginable without its fundamental, formative text: the Bible.

Egypt - The Gift of the Nile

The Greek writer Herodotus called Egypt “the Gift of the Nile,” and so it was. The Nile is a long, powerful river running in a northerly direction some 750 miles from the last cataract to the Mediterranean.
It floods—annually and predictably—an area five to 15 miles wide. About five percent of Egypt is habitable. Without the Nile, there would be only barren desert. From as early as 5000 B.C., small communities along the Nile began to drain marshes, irrigate, and plant regular crops (mainly cereal grains).

Slowly, these communities coalesced into nomes (the word is Greek; we do not know what word the Egyptians used) under nomarchs. Then the nomes of the south—“Upper Egypt” because it is nearer the source of the Nile—and the north—“Lower Egypt,” nearer the mouth of the Nile—formed as larger entities. It seems that a need to control irrigation led to political organization on a larger scale. Much about this period is shrouded in legend, but about 3100 B.C., Menes united Upper and Lower Egypt. This unification ushered in the historical period.

Historians divide Egypt’s historical period into 30-some dynasties, or families, of rulers. The dynasties
are grouped into the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms, with intermediate periods in between. 

The Old Kingdom (2695–2160 B.C.) was an era of great vitality, security, and prosperity. Egypt was isolated and untroubled by invaders. A distinctive Egyptian kingship evolved. The word pharaoh comes from per aa, meaning the “Great House.” Pharaoh was one of the gods and guaranteed Egypt’s prosperity and security. In turn, Egypt’s prosperity and security legitimized the pharaoh. The Great Pyramids at Gizeh symbolize the Old Kingdom.

The Middle Kingdom (2025–1786 B.C.) was a period of more widely dispersed rule. Pharaohs shared power with local notables. This period was important in the elaboration of Egyptian religion because the emphasis moved beyond the royal dynasty to nobles and even ordinary people.

Around 1700 B.C., the Hyksos, Semitic-speaking peoples from Palestine, conquered Egypt. Hatred for foreign rule eventually led a dynasty from Upper Egypt to drive out the Hyksos and inaugurate the New Kingdom (1550–1075 B.C.). Fired by ambition and a desire to ward off future conquest, the Egyptians now built an empire that extended into Mesopotamia and along the shore of the eastern Mediterranean. This was a brilliant and cosmopolitan period. After about 1400 B.C., the Egyptians confronted the Hittites, a powerful and expanding people from Anatolia and the first Indo-European speakers in recorded history. In 1274, at Qadesh in northern Syria, the Egyptians and Hittites fought a battle that left them both crippled and declining.

Religion

Everything starts with the pharaoh in a two-class society (the pharaoh and everybody else). Egypt first displayed an abstract sense of rule—the separation of ruler and office and the complete removal of the ruler from the ordinary realm of humans.

Religion grew more complicated over time. The peace and prosperity of the Old Kingdom led to a happy, optimistic outlook. The concept of the afterlife—as a continuation of this life, not something better!—was reserved mainly to the pharaoh, his family, and perhaps a few key advisers. The Middle Kingdom saw a profusion of temples and new cults. Herodotus called the Egyptian the “most religious of all people.” This might have been a reemergence of predynastic religion or a response to unsettled conditions. At this time, the afterlife seems to have been considered available to all. The New Kingdom
saw the remarkable religious experiment of Akhenaton. He abandoned traditional worship to promote the cult of Aton (henotheism or monolatry), but this died with him.

Myths

The concept of Ma’at became crucial, that is, the idea of truth, justice, balance, and order.  The myth of Osiris revealing the Middle Kingdom was popular.

Science & Writing

Scientific and artisanal advances were striking. The use of papyrus facilitated writing and record-keeping. Hieroglyphic (= pictographic) writing gave way gradually to demotic, which was more efficient than cuneiform. The desire to preserve bodies intact (mummification) for the afterlife led to advances in medical science, including surgery and knowledge of anatomy.

Legacy

Greeks and Romans were impressed, even dazzled, by the Egyptians, as have been most visitors to Egypt since antiquity. Seeing just what influence Egypt actually had, however, is not so easy. Political control lasted a short time. Divinized kingship recurred but not necessarily because of the Egyptians.
No new literary forms were added. Monumental architecture as propaganda recurred, but this idea is not “Egyptian.”

Early Egyptologists were eager to claim the ancient Egyptians for the West. After World War II, as colonial empires crumbled and black consciousness arose, some people claimed that Egypt was an African civilization, indeed, that Egypt was Africa and vice versa. In its most extreme forms, this view has held that Western civilization was stolen from the Egyptians by the Greeks. This view again puts a sharp focus on Egypt but without solid reasons for doing so. Perhaps these historical mysteries explain the mysterious smile of the Sphinx.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osiris_myth

History Begins at Sumer

Although Mesopotamia is all the land between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, the earliest traces of civilization appeared in Sumer, in what is now southern Iraq, and possibly, at Tell Hamoukar, in what is now northeastern Syria.

The Uruk period (3800–3200 B.C.) was tremendously creative, with the invention of the wheel and plow; the planting of the first orchards (of dates, figs, and olives); and the development of metal casting. Perhaps most significant was writing: cuneiform.

People built cities with walls—circuits up to five miles—and buildings of mud brick. The most impressive early buildings were temples: ziggurats. Temple priesthoods dominated society.

In the “Dynastic period” (2800–2350 B.C.), fierce competition between cities, and perhaps inside them, too, led to the emergence of local strongmen—lugals—who evolved into kings. Kings claimed to be the representatives of the gods and to rule by the favor of the gods. This process introduced theocratic kingship. As warfare became more important, large landowners formed a military aristocracy.

Mesopotamia is a broad, open plain surrounded by deserts and, beyond the deserts, by mountains. The region has no natural frontiers to ward off migrants or conquerors. Areas beyond Mesopotamia were inhabited by people of lower cultural development who coveted the comparative riches and security of Mesopotamia. After about 2350 B.C., Sumer was several times overrun by outsiders.

Sargon (2371–2316) conquered Sumer from Akkad to the north, then expanded his holdings, as did his son after him, to the east and west. This first imperial state demanded little of its subjects and, ironically, was itself conquered by Sumerian culture. After Akkadian rule eventually weakened, there was a period of relative independence for Sumerian cities, followed by Babylonian conquest. Hammurabi (1792—1750) was the most famous and powerful of the Babylonians (or Amorites). His law code was influential for centuries. Like the Akkadians before them, the Babylonians adopted and spread Sumerian culture.

In religion, people were polytheists and syncretistic. Sky gods were generally thought of as male and related to power; earth gods were thought of as female and related to fertility. Individual forces of nature were also invested with divine power: Animism is a habit of mind that sees nothing as wholly
lifeless. Gods and goddesses differed from humans in supernatural powers and immortality. They were capricious. Religion sought to propitiate them. Religion was pessimistic and fatalistic; it had no ethical dimension at all. This outlook was perhaps related to the geography and politics of the region.

Law was issued by councils of notables in conjunction with priests and kings. Law was not abstract and philosophical. Publishing laws in public places established the important principles that all are subject to the law; that the law belongs to all; that law rules, not men.

In literature, The Epic of Gilgamesh was a remarkable achievement. The Epic is a Sumerian
work dating to around 2500 B.C. that survives in later versions dating to around 800 B.C. (A
tribute to its dissemination!). Gilgamesh is a tale of the adventures and friendship of King Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu. It contains a mythical account of the civilizing process and a poignant reflection on mortality as the irreducible element in the human condition. There were other works, too, for example, short poems by Enkheduana, Sargon’s daughter and the world’s first known woman writer.

Sciences probably derived from watching the heavens, measuring fields, and regulating irrigation hydraulics. Sumerians developed the decimal and sexadecimal systems (hence, we still have 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and so on). Sumerians understood place value in numbers, that
is, the difference between 35 and 53. They anticipated Greek developments in mathematics.. 

Sumerian culture gradually spread over much of western Asia and directly or indirectly influenced all the peoples who emerged within or who conquered those lands, including the later empire-building Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, and Turks. Specific Sumerian practices and beliefs were adopted and
adapted for millennia

See: 

Scientific American: Why is a minute divided into 60 seconds, an hour into 60 minutes, yet there are only 24 hours in a day?

Sparknotes: The Epic of Gilgamesh Plot Summary

Sparknotes: The Epic of Gilgamesh Tablets Summary

Epic of Gilgamesh: Summary of Events Leading to the Flood Story: Tablets 8 - 11: Kenyon.edu