Craig10e ch01 ppt_ops_final

Editor's Notes

• #3: A carved or etched limestone statue from about 2500 b.c.e., believed by scholars to be a king or a priest from Mohenjo-Daro in the Indus valley in present-day Pakistan.
• #13: An image depicting cloud and rain spirits from Chamberlain Gorge in western Australia, painted perhaps 12,000 years ago.
• #15: The diagram reconstructs part of Catal Hüyük on the basis of archaeological findings.
• #21: Two river valley civilizations thrived in the Ancient Near East: Egypt, which was united into a single state, and Mesopotamia, which was long divided into a number of city-states.
• #22: The victory stele of Naram-Sin, king of Akkad, over the mountain-dwelling Lullubi, Mesopotamian, Akkadian period, ca. 2230 b.c.e. (pink sandstone). The king, wearing the horned helmet denoting divine power, strides forward at the head of his army. This is one of the finest sculptures to survive from the Akkadian period.
• #24: Cartography was among the many intellectual achievements of the Babylonians. The map illustrated here was inscribed on a clay tablet about 600 b.c.e. and appears to be the earliest surviving map of the world. The Babylonians did not intend this map to be a precise or literal picture of the universe or even of the land on which human beings lived, for they omitted any representation of such important and numerous peoples as the Egyptians and Persians whom they knew very well. 1. What can we learn from this map about how the Babylonians saw the world around them and their own place in it? 2. Why do you think this map locates some of the Babylonians’ neighbors but ignores other important neighboring cultures? 3. Why has cartography remained so important throughout the ages? 4. Is the subjectivity reflected here confined to this map, or is it a general characteristic of cartography throughout history?
• #29: A hallmark of the early river civilizations was the development of techniques to increase harvests. This statue from the Old Kingdom in Egypt (ca. 2700–2200 b.c.e.) shows a woman kneading dough for bread.
• #30: The three largest pyramids of Egypt, located at Giza, near Cairo, are the colossal tombs of pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty (ca. 2640–2510 b.c.e.): Khufu (right), Chafre (center), and Menkaure (left). The small pyramids and tombs at their bases were those of the pharaohs’ queens and officials.
• #31: About 1400 b.c.e., the Near East was divided among four empires. Egypt extended south to Nubia and north through Palestine and Phoenicia. Kassites ruled in Mesopotamia, Hittites in Asia Minor, and the Mitannians in Assyrian lands. In the Aegean, the Mycenaean kingdoms were at their height.
• #33: One of the hallmarks of the early river valley civilizations was the development of writing. Ancient Egyptian scribes had to undergo rigorous training but were rewarded with a position of respect and privilege. This statue from the Fifth Dynasty (ca. 2510–2460 b.c.e.) is of painted limestone and measures 21 inches (53 cm) in height.
• #35: The Egyptians believed in the possibility of life after death through the god Osiris. Before the person could be presented to Osiris, forty-two assessor-gods tested aspects of the person’s life. In this scene from a papyrus manuscript of the Book of the Dead, the deceased and his wife (on the left) watch the scales of justice weighing his heart (on the left side of the scales) against the feather of truth. The jackal-headed god Anubis also watches the scales, while the ibis-headed god Thoth keeps the record.
• #43: This eighth-century b.c.e. relief of a Gilgamesh, the legendary king and eponymous hero of the epic poem, gripping a lion formed part of the decoration of an Assyrian palace. The immense size of the figure and his powerful limbs and muscles is indicative of Assyrian royal power.
• #50: Indus culture likely influenced the Vedic Aryans, although the influence cannot be proved. Some scholars surmise, for example, that the fortified Aryan city of Hariyupiya, mentioned in later texts, may have been the same site as the older Indus city of Harappa.
• #52: Note the familiar humped bull of India on this stone stamp seal.
• #59: Anyang was a late Shang dynasty capital. Sian and Luoyang were the capitals of the Western and Eastern Zhou.
• #61: Inscribed oracle bone from the Shang Dynasty city of Anyang.
• #64: After the fall of the Western Zhou in China in 771 b.c.e., large territorial states formed that became increasingly independent of the later Zhou kings.
• #65: The Chinese system of writing dates back at least to the Shang Dynasty (1766–1050 b.c.e.), when animal bones and tortoise shells (the so-called oracle bones) were incised for the purpose of divination. About half of the 3,000 characters used in Shang times have been deciphered. They evolved over the centuries into the 50,000 characters found in the largest dictionaries. But even today only about 3,000 or 4,000 are in common use. A scholar may know twice that number. Characters developed from little pictures. Note the progressive stylization. By 200 b.c.e., the writing had become standardized and close to the modern form of the printed character.
• #66: Other characters combined two pictures to express an idea. These examples use modern characters.
• #67: It was a matter of convention that the sun behind a tree meant the rising sun in the east and not the setting sun in the west. Characters were formed in several other ways. In one, a sound element was combined with a meaning element. Chinese has many homonyms, or words with the same sound. The character on the left, for example, is read tai and means “elevation” or “to raise up.” But in spoken Chinese, there are other words with the same sound that mean “moss,” “trample,” “a nag,” and “idle.” In each case the sound comes from the character shown above as tai, and the meaning from the other element. Note that the character may be at the bottom, the top, or the right. This positioning, too, is a matter of convention. Source: Tables by A. Craig; calligraphy by Teruko Craig.
• #72: This colossal Olmec head, now in the Museo Nacional de Antropologia in Mexico City, was excavated at San Lorenzo. Carved of basalt, it may be a portrait of an Olmec ruler. Olmec civilization thrived between 1500 and 800 b.c.e.
• #74: Both Mesoamerica and the Andean region of South America saw the development of a series of civilizations beginning between 1500 and 1000 b.c.e.