Ancient Near East

Egypt, Mesopotamia, & The Hebrews

Egypt

• Nile: World’s longest river

• Herodotus: Egypt=“gift of the Nile”

• Overflowed on regular, annual basis:– Fertile land– Sense of order

• Egypt protected by desert & sea

• From about 3100 BCE, for 3000 yrs.

Mesopotamia

• Tigris and Euphrates Rivers—Fertile Crescent

• Mesopotamia=“the land between the two rivers”

• Overflow unpredictable– Sense of instability

• Exposed plains– Open to invasion

Mesopotamia

• Beginning with Sumer, about 3500 BCE

• First cities: Uruk, Ur, Kish, Nippur, Lagash

• Unlike Egypt, Mesopotamia was a series of civilizations

Hebrews

• Tribal people who migrated from Fertile Crescent to Canaan (Israel) after 2000 BCE

• After 1700 BCE migrated to Egypt, and enslaved

• Around 1300 BCE returned to Canaan (the “Exodus”)

Religion

God & Creation

Egypt: God & Creation

• At beginning of time, Nile produced mound of silt and sun god emerged from it

• this sun god (Amon, Re, Aten) gave birth to the other gods (19)

• Amon gives ankh (“life”)

Egypt: God & Creation

• Akhentaten’s Reform (30): monotheism

• The power of the sun’s rays: in 1.17 the rays end in hands

• marked by a change in the visual arts, movement toward realism

Queen Nefertiti

Mesopotamia: God & Creation

• Man created through violence & strife

• Apsu (sweet waters) and Tiamat (bitter waters) give birth to Lahmu and Lahamu (Note: As in Egypt, silt precipitates)

• Anshar and Kishar (horizon of sky and earth) give birth to Anu (god of sky) who gives birth to Ea (wisdom).

Mesopotamia: God & Creation

• Tiamat prepares for war.• Marduk is Supreme Commader to fight

Tiamat (bitter waters). • Upon slaying Tiamat, Marduk splits open

Tiamat’s body to make sky and earth. • Marduk makes man as a work of

“cosummate art” for the “faithful service” of the gods.

Statuettes, Abu Temple, Iraq

Ziggurat

Hebrews: God & Creation

• Supreme Creator, who existed before the physical world, with ethical charge (47): ethical monotheism (48)

Genesis

• Genesis 1: God created “man” last. God created “man” male and female: put them over the earth to subdue/master it.

• Genesis 2: God creates man first (out of the soil), then the garden, the animals, then the woman.

Religion

Morality & Afterlife

Egypt: Polytheism

Anubis

Egypt: Isis & Osiris

• Isis—Osiris Set (Osiris’ evil brother): chopped Osiris into pieces and threw in Nile

• Isis: puts Osiris back together again and brings him back to life

• Horus: revenge on Set—becomes ruler of Egypt

Osiris: king of the dead

Isis: mother goddess

Horus: the falcon god

The Eye of Horus

Myth of Isis & Osiris

• Pharaohs associated with Horus, the avenging son of Isis & Osiris

• The myth supported a belief in resurrection of the dead—not only for the pharaoh but for commoners as well

The Step Pyramid

Pyramids at Giza

The Valley of Kings

Book of the Dead

Mesopotamia: Epic of Gilgamesh

• Gilgamesh, 2/3 god and 1/3 man, has lost his best friend Enkidu.

• Gilgamesh is heartbroken, and he also fears his own death, so goes on a journey to his father Utnapishtim, who has eternal life, to see if he can gain it too.

Epic of Gilgamesh (2)

• First he needs to seek out the permission of Man-Scorpion to pass through the mountain

• He hangs out with Siduri, maker of wine, for a while, then eventually reaches Utnapishtim, who informs Gilgamesh that all is impermanent.

Epic of Gilgamesh (3)

• Gilgamesh asks Utnapishtim how he got everlasting life, and Utnapishtim relates the story of the flood and how he managed to survive and save mankind.

• Gilgamesh goes with Urshanabi the Ferryman to check out the plant that brings everlasting youth, but in the end a serpent snatches it away.

Hebrews: Morality & Afterlife

• Ten commandments: the consequences for bad behavior are not in an afterlife but in this life and in future generations—see 49; See also Jeremiah on 51.

• “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” (49)

• responsibility to enemies (49)

Hebrews: Afterlife

• Hebrew attitude toward the afterlife was uncertain: see Job 53

Government & Social Order

Egypt: Gov/Society

• Union of Upper and Lower Egypt shown on Palette of Narmer (22-23).

• Narmer was the first pharaoh. Pharaoh: “great house”

• Theocracy: pharaoh ruled in the name of the sun god

• Pharaoh identified with Horus and symbolized by the falcon

Horus→ sky god; god of Egypt

Egypt: Gov/Society

• Land was sacred: ruled by the pharaohs in the name of the gods—worked by the peasants and slaves.

• System: theocratic socialism: harvest shared by community

Egypt: Gov/Society

• Authority went from the pharaoh to the husband of the pharaoh’s daughter—thus sometimes sons would marry their sisters in order to get the thrown. (Property passed through women)

Egypt: Social Structure

• Pharaoh

• Vizier: top bureaucratic official

• Merchants traders, builders, scribes (middle class)

• Peasants

• Slaves: unfree: captured enemies, criminals, debtors

Canon of Proportion

Mesopotamia: Gov/Society

• City-states united under Sargon I, creator of first empire

Sargon I

Stele of Hammurabi

c. 1760 BCE

The Standard of Ur (ca. 2700 BCE)

Hebrews: Gov/Society

• after 2000 BCE : Abraham: covenant: “I will be your God; you will be my people”

• Chosen People

• Abraham, Isaac, Jacob (aka Israel=“soldier of God”)

Hebrews

• After 1700 BCE: into Egypt

• C. 1300 BCE Moses leads out of Egypt to Canaan, but Canaan is occupied

• Samuel, Saul, and David battle the Canaanites; David conquers them

Hebrews: Gov/Society

• 960-920 BCE—Solomon establishes Jerusalem, builds a temple for the Ark of the Covenant (50)

• Israel divided North and South– North: Israel– South: Judah

Babylonian Captivity

• Nebuchadnezza invades Jerusalem, takes Hebrews (Jews) into captivity in Babylon (586-538 BCE)

• Book of Job probablywritten during this time

Hebrews

• 538 BCE: return from captivity

• Jews later ruled by Persians, Greeks, and—after a short independence—by the Romans

• 70 CE: Temple destroyed again, this time by Romans after Jewish revolt

• 1948 CE: state of Israel established

Hebrews: Gov/Society

• Social order reflects covenant between God and the Hebrews.

• The Jewish father has a patriarchal bond with his family; the Hebrew king represents God, divinely appointed

• Prophets (50)