Page 46 - Western Civilization A Brief History, Volume I To 1715 9th - Jackson J. Spielvogel

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Sahara
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LOWER EGYPT
Black Sea
ASIA MINOR
Çatal Hüyük
ASSYRIA
Ashur
Ebla
PHOENICIA Tyre
IRAN
Cyprus
a CANAAN Jerusalem
SINAI
Jordan R.
Jericho
Dead Sea
Syrian Desert
Arabian Desert
Eridu Ur
600 Kilometers 400 Miles
Persian Gulf
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MAP 1.2 The Ancient Near East. The Fertile Crescent encompassed land with access to water. Employing flood management and irrigation systems, the peoples of the region established civilizations based on agriculture. These civilizations developed writing, law codes, and economic specialization.
Q What geographic aspects of the Mesopotamian city-states made conflict between them likely?
the gods and supervised the temples and their property. The priests and priestesses had great power. The temples owned much of the city land and livestock and served not only as the physical center of the city but also as its economic and political center. In fact, historians believe that in the early stages of a few city-states, priests and priestesses may have played an important role in ruling. The Sumerians believed that the gods ruled the cities, making the state a theocracy (government by a divine authority). Ruling power, however, was primarily in the hands of worldly figures known as kings.
KINGSHIP Sumerians viewed kingship as divine in origin; they believed kings derived their power from the gods and were the agents of the gods. As one person said in a petition to his king, “You in your judgment, you are the son of Anu [god of the sky]; your commands, like the word of a god, cannot be reversed; your words, like rain pouring down from heaven, are without number.”2 Regardless of their origins, kings had power—they led armies, initiated legislation, supervised the building of public works, provided law courts, and organized work- ers for the irrigation projects on which Mesopotamian
Red Sea
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8 Chapter 1 The Ancient Near East: The First Civilizations
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Nineveh
Babylon Uruk
AKKAD Lagash SUMER
Umma
Caspian Sea
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