1 Prehistoric times and the First Civiklizations.pptx

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1. History of Civilization 1st Lecture Beginnings of Humanity The biological and cultural evolution of humankind took place against a complex environment of constant climatic change. The first signs of glacial cooling occurred about 35 million years ago. There was a major drop in world temperatures between 14 and 11 million years ago, and another about 3.2 million years ago, when glaciers first formed in northern latitudes. It was during another glacial period, about 2.5 million years ago that, in Africa “human-like” beings able to use tools began to evolve (that is why they are called homo habilis (able man).

2. More developed Homo erectus (upright man) fossils are found in East Africa and date to around 2 million years ago. Homo erectus k new to use fire, and used more diverse and sophisticated tools than its predecessors. Most scientists agree that the “modern human” homo sapiens (wise man) began to exist about 200,000 years ago also in Africa. The best-known early Homo sapiens populations are the so-called Neanderthals,

3. But they were replaced in their homeland by more modern humans between 40,000 and 25,000 years ago.

4. The use of stone tools seems to have progressed very slowly but beginning around 50,000 “technology” starts to change at much greater speed. They bury their dead, make clothing from animal skins, develop sophisticated hunting techniques and decorate their houses! (cave paintings)

5. Periods of evolution Philosophers , historians and scientists have tried to divide prehistory into meaningful periods in terms of technological or organizational changes. One of the most long-lasting subdivisions of the prehistoric past is a “three age” system: the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. These three ages are subdivided further. The Stone Age, for example, is conventionally divided into three periods: the Paleolithic , or Old Stone Age (Greek: from palaios , old and lithos , stone), which applies to societies who used chipped-stone technology; the Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age), which is a transitional period; and the Neolithic (New Stone Age) when polished stone tools and objects are used, and agriculture begin.

6. Prehistoric societies are also classified on the basis of political and social development: like pre -state or primitive or hunter-gatherer evolving to state or sedentary societies . Hunting and gathering From emergence till the “Neolithic” period human beings lived by hunting animals and gathering eatable plants. That is why such groups are called “hunter-gatherer” in social science terminology .

7. Depending on the season of plant foods and the movements of animals, human groups were also moving after their food. In such small, continuously moving communities, there was little opportunity for technological as well as social change. Life was communal and knowledge and skills were equally diffused. There were no sharp social distinctions and the only obedience was towards custom and traditions, transmitted by the legends and myths of the group. In such a structure the rules are simple, clear and the conformity to the norms is closely watched by all group members.

8. A fundamental difference between hunter gatherers and agricultural societies is that the latter needs manpower for production so agricultural populations tend to increase. ( We may even observe this in contemporary societies. Those living in big cities are obliged to move, leave their homes each day to their works (hunting) and obtain the needs from markets (gathering). Inevitably they have to limit the number of children of the family. On the other hand in rural areas children are desired as they are the necessary no-cost elements of agricultural production).

9. The “Neolithic Revolution” After the last ice age a global warming began about 15,000 years ago. As glaciers melted river and sea levels rapidly rose, hunter-gatherers were faced with the problem of adapting to the changes in the flora and animals. For example most of the large animals like mammoths became extinct, as a result of this rapid climate change.

10. Human groups adapted to the challenges by developing and refining the methods of hunting and look for alternative sources. Some of these societies , especially those living in areas with rich and diverse food resources like fish and other local animals. Domestication: Approximate dates and locations Dog 15000 BC multiple locations Goat 10000 BC Asia & Middle East Sheep 8000 BC Asia & Middle East Pig 8000 BC China Cow 8000 BC India & Middle East Donkey 4000 BC Egypt Chicken 3500 BC Southeast Asia Camel 2500 BC Central Asia & Arabia Horse 2000 BC Ukraine

11. The terms “Neolithic Revolution” is used for the beginning of agriculture and domestication of animals, and “Urban Revolution” is used for the beginning of cities, writing, and literate civilization in Mesopotamia and Egypt.

12. With a certain retard about 5000 B.C. similar developments are observed in the Yellow River Basin in China and Indus River basin in India. All these developments required a new mode of social organization, emergence and centralization of a “state” authority and specializations in the economy. Hierarchies of wealth, status and power began to characterize these new societies.

13. New ways, new frontiers Approximately at the same period when agriculture emerged out of hunting and gathering, a parallel specialization appeared: societies particularly living by herding of domesticated or partially domesticated animals. The necessity to move the herds continually in search of fresh pastures makes this a semi-nomadic way of life. On the other hand, for many groups around the world this mode of life became stable over long periods of time and reached until our days.

14. Pastoralism tended to develop often in semi-arid regions like Central Asia. Wherever agriculture and pastoralism existed near one another, a trade usually formed between farmers who had grain, metal and fabricated objects to exchange with the hides, wool, meat, and milk products of pastoral nomads.

15. States emerged because they were necessary for the organizing production, irrigation systems and fulfill other functions, to assure a certain social order and social peace. The Neolithic revolution is also remarkable for the development of trade that linked hundreds of societies with one another.

16. Trade was inevitable due to the specializations forced by natural resources and ecological conditions. Such interregional trade relations can be traced back as early as 6000 B.C. in the Near East and Anatolia where agricultural goods were exchanged by stone, metals and timber. During the next millennium long-distance trade even expanded over the boundaries of the Near East, linking societies all the way from the India, Iran, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the Nile Valley. You may consider this as a “globalization” of the “known” world of the time.

17. Progress towards “civilization” “Civilization” as a term comes from Latin civilis (of or proper to a citizen) as a derivation of civis (townsman) . The Turkish term medeniyet has also a similar correlation as it is derived from the Arabic word medina which means “town”. The emergence of civilization in human history by the development of agriculture and sedentary way of life, dated back to about 6,000 years BC . The characteristics of these early civilizations are: food production in permanent habitations, processing metals and other natural sources, a division of labor in terms of occupational specialization and the development of writing.

18. More significant than all the establishment of a complex form of organization, the state and the development of hierarchical administrative bureaucracies are the central characteristics of all civilizations. Societies with the above distinctions appeared in several different parts of the prehistoric world more or less independent from each other and at different time periods like Mesopotamia, Egypt, China and India. Civilizations in history had the following common particularities :

19. 1. Intensive agricultural techniques, such as crop development and irrigation permitted a surplus of food beyond the subsistence. This allowed the sustaining of a group of population in other fields, such as administration, industry, war, science or religion etc. 2 . Those not in agriculture constituted the population of the cities. By time a government and its bureaucracy in charge of coordinating the tasks of production and protecting the whole community began to concentrate in the cities.

20. 3. This institutionalized control of production by a “ruling” class became more complex in time and other formal social institutions such as organized religion, education, permanent army and markets and money as forms of economic exchange developed. More or less a similar organization appeared in all early civilizations which continued to exist until today : “The State”.

21. 4. A significant aspect of civilization is considered to be the invention of “writing”. The distinguishing of pre-history and history is generally based on the appearance of written documents. The invention of the first writing systems is in late 4th millennium BC in Sumer and 1000 years later developed into cuneiform.

22. The invention of the first writing systems is in late 4th millennium BC in Sumer and 1000 years later developed into cuneiform. The first phase in the development of cities began around four thousand B.C. Settlements developed in Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in modern-day Iraq , the Nile valley of Egypt, the Indus Valley region of modern-day Pakistan and North India, and in the Huang He (Yellow River) and Yangtze River valleys of China. The Harappan civilization of the Indus River valley developed in the middle of the third millennium B.C.E. approximately at the same time as the river civilizations of the Middle East. The first Chinese civilization developed along the Yellow River in the middle of the second millennium B.C.E. In this text, due to practical reasons of forced by the course hours and curriculum, only Sumerian and Egyptian civilizations will be studied.

23. The early cities were located on fertile flood plains next to large rivers and had access to pasture land for raising animals. They also benefited from a warm climate and a permanent supply of water. Over time, small and simple settlements grew into larger and more complex centers with a variety of activities, from agriculture to trade to manufacturing. Labor became more specialized and this made production more efficient.

24. History of Civilization Lecture 2 By time a greater collective organization particularly the management of irrigation systems and controlling the redistribution process took shape. The regularity of agricultural production necessary for the survival, depends on the regularity of water supply. A regular supply could be achieved by the control of the water in irrigation systems and canal networks. Such a task made necessary the common and organized efforts of the communities. This aspect inevitably led to a more centralized organization of the communities.

25. Mesopotamian Civilization - Sumers The earliest known “civilization” Sumer, is believed to have begun around 4000-3500 BC. In Mesopotamia (meaning land between the rivers in Greek) where Tigris ( Dicle ) and Euphrates ( Fırat ) flow in a valley and finally meet before arriving to the Persian Gulf.

26. Communities had also developed in the northern regions but since rainfall in that area was so unpredictable, after 5000 B.C. communities began to spread towards the rich alluvial plains of the south. The economy of these early communities was primarily agricultural and approximately 100-200 people lived in villages.

27. The alluvial plain in southern Mesopotamia was more fertile than the north but there was much less rainfall, and to remedy this, irrigation canals had to be constructed. The construction of canals demanded cooperation between different social groups in construction, regulation, and maintenance. Due to such a necessity, a common decision organ constituted by the representatives of the communities.

28. Later on, the “representation” eliminated and replaced by a hereditary administrative elite with a ruler at the top. During the early stages these rulers were priests. Besides controlling the religious life of the community, they were also managing the economy, land ownership as well as organizing the defense and external relations of the “state” .

29. At the center of the city a temple building called ziggurat served also as the headquarter of the administration.

30. Later on, the power began to be represented by a more secular king. However. the priests continued to represent the upper class in the society. Below the ruling class were the scribes and the officials in charge of supervising every aspect of the city's economic and social life. In brief the society was divided between an elite group of a ruling class, an intermediary group of merchants, artisans, and craftsmen and the free peasants who composed the majority of the population.

31. War captives turned into slaves also existed in households as well as in various areas of services and production. A brief history to 2000 BC This first historical age, called the Old Sumerian (or Early Dynastic) period starting around 2800 B.C was characterized by frequent warfare as each city sought to protect or enlarge its land and water rights.

32. Each city-state was a theocracy, for the chief local god was believed to be the real sovereign. The god's earthly representative was called “ ensi ”, the high priest and city governor, who fulfilled both religious and secular functions.

33. The main land was divided in two parts. A part of the land belonging to the temple called 'common' was worked by all members of the community, while the remaining land was divided among the citizens

34. After 2600 B.C., these common lands started to become the private property of great landowners called lugal meaning "great men”. (Does this remind us the decline of the Ottoman “ timar ” system and rise of ayan and derebeyi’s ).

35. In later periods “ lugal ” will be the political title given to the "king". Warfare between cities eventually led to the further empowering of “ lugal”s . Their authority replaced that of early priestly rulers. Sumeria became a more unified state, with a common culture and a centralized government. This led to the establishment of a professional bureaucracy and an army. By 2375 BC, most of Sumer was united under one king, Lugal Zaggisi of Umma .

36. One of the best known lugal is Urukagina , who declared himself lugal of Lagash near the end of the Old Sumerian period and ended the rule of priests and "powerful men".

37. Urukagina’s reform edict condemns people acting “for their own benefit" and after describing the reforms conclude by the following remarks: "… freed the inhabitants of Lagash from usury, burdensome controls, hunger, theft, murder, and seizure (of their property and persons). … established freedom. The widow and the orphan were no longer at the mercy of the powerful man."

38. In about 2340 BC King Sargon of Akkad conquered Sumer and went on to build an empire that stretched westward to the Mediterranean Sea. The empire, though short-lived, promoted further art and literature.

39. A picture of the daily life If someone could narrate his impressions of a Sumerian city state of 2500 BC, the picture would be somewhat like that: Farmers working in their fields with ox-drawn plows and some of the workers use bronze sickles. The cities surrounded by fields where agricultural goods produced. These lands were thought to be "owned" by a local god.

40. An official organized groups of farmers to work on the land and provide crops for the community. In all directions, irrigation canals led to grain and vegetable fields. Dominating the flat countryside is the image of a ziggurat placed at the center of the city. Citizens lived in small, one-story houses constructed along narrow alleyways. The river is dotted by boats carrying produc ts to and from the city.

41. Inside the city, a large number of specialists pursue their appointed tasks as agents of the community and not as private entrepreneurs. Some casting bronze tools and weapons, others fashioning their wares on the potter's wheel. Scribes would be at work writing clay tablets carrying the orders of the administration addressed to the district administrators. Some would be registering the inventory of the goods received that day as donations to the temple.

42. Also in these clay tablets will take place the announcements of price and wages, production figures, lists of taxes, contracts and other subjects of organizational life in the community. Some scribes would be occupied in writing basic texts to be used for the purpose of teaching future scribes reading and writing at schools built just for his purpos e.

43. Sumerian contributions The instability of natural phenomenon was side by side with the regular patterns of seasons. These conditions made necessary the observation of the celestial objects, learn their regularities. Early cultures identified celestial objects with gods and spirits. They related these objects (and their movements) to phenomena such as rain, drought, seasons, and tides.

44. Calendars developed to mark the movements and phases of the Sun and Moon and other bodies of the space. This knowledge was of importance to agricultural societies because a good harvest depended on planting at the correct time. The calendar developed by Sumerians was adjusted to the phases of the moon. This lunar calendar was adopted later by the Semites, Egyptians, and Greeks. An example demonstrating how improvement could be enforced by actual needs is the following: The Mesopotamian plain had no stone, no metals, and no timber except its soft palm trees, these materials had to be transported from Syria and Anatolia.

45. Water transport down the Tigris and Euphrates solved the problem. The oldest sailing boat known is represented by a model found in a Sumerian grave of about 3500 B.C. Soon after wheeled vehicles also appear in the form of ass-drawn chariots for warfare as well as the transport of goods overland. Another important invention was the potter's wheel, "the first really mechanical device." used in Sumer around 3500 B.C. Earlier, people had shaped pots by molding or coiling clay by hand .

46. And the first “written” law We owe the first written law code to a Mesopotamian king Hammurabi (1792–1750 B.C.) As the king of Babylonia, he founded an empire that was eventually destroyed by raids from Asia Minor. To Hammurabi also attributed the building of the legendary “Tower of Babel”. His code of laws is carved on a column, in 3,600 lines of cuneiform; it was found (1902) at Susa and is now at Louvre Museum in Paris.

47. The code, which addresses such issues as business and family relations, labor, private property, and personal injuries and other regulations of everyday life. A well known aspect is the nature of the punishments, which is reflected in the popular culture as “an eye for an eye”. Much of the code is drawn from earlier Sumerian and Semitic laws and reflects the social conditions of the Mesopotamian culture and daily life.

48. Hammurabi Law at louvre Museum Paris

49. End of Sumer and after Immediately to the north of Sumer , where the two rivers came most closely together, the plain was less subject to flooding but made fertile by rainfall and irrigation. This area, known first as Akkad.

50. A Semitic people called the Amorites conquered the area about 2000 B.C. and founded a great new capital city of Babylon . The area hereafter came to be known as Babylonia. Except for invasions of Hittites , Babylonia continued to dominate Mesopotamia for a thousand years.

51. The third region, called Assyria , stretched from the north of Babylonia to the Taurus range. The Assyrians, were able to conquer the whole of Mesopotamia in the eighth and seventh centuries and setup a commercial network including Anatolia.

52. Thus the history of Mesopotamia can be pictured as a shift of the center of power northwards, from Sumer to Babylonia and then to Assyria. The Babylonian Empire was able to establish a unified trade and cultural zone incorporating much of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys. About 1600 B.C.E., Hittite invaders from Asia Minor crushed the Babylonians and established their own empire.

53. Hittites, in turn, were displaced by a series of smaller kingdoms that disputed the control of Mesopotamia between 1200 and 900 B.C.E. During this period smaller regional cultures, such as the Hebrew and Phoenician, flourished. After 900 B.C.E., a new series of empires the Assyrian and Persian controlled the region.

54. Third Lecture – Egyptian Civilization. Ancient Egypt The Nile River, longest river in the world, forms a line of life through the sterility of the giant Sahara desert in North Africa. Nile begins at near Khartoum in today’s Sudan and ends at the rives of the Mediterranean sea. Along this narrow strip, one of the greatest and most enduring human civilizations established itself.

55. Around 5000 BC, people began to live in villages up and down the Nile Valley, and one thousand years later Nile culture began to flourish. From 3900 to 3100 B.C., the villages along the Nile valley grew. The unification of Egypt, took a few generations and finally the first dynasty of Egypt founded. This led to a centralization of authority and capacity through which massive administrative and building projects could be realized.

56. Large-scale irrigation projects begun as well as large-scale distribution of food and regulation of trade. At the same time, the Egyptians invented writing. The need for record-keeping for the control of lands and production motivated this development. This early form of writing was by pictures which developed into hieroglyphics. Below is a simple chart of early hieroglyphic alphabet.

57. The most important consequence of unification was the establishment of a state system. By time the institutional structure went beyond the Individual king (pharaoh) or his administrators . The pharaoh began to be considered an incarnated god. As a god, he brought life, fertility, order, stability, and rationality to the Egyptian state just as the gods could do and the pyramids represented also this divine force.

58. This institution of the divine king lasted for almost 3000 years and gave to the Egyptian state a stability unseen by any other early civilization. During the period called The Old Kingdom, (2650-2134 BC) agricultural production had been revolutionized by the building of massive irrigation projects and the population increased exponentially.

59. This period, is considered to be the richest and most creative period in Egyptian history. The trade within the county as well as with other regions developed and transport on Nile was made by boats.

60. Almost all the pyramids were built at this time; the growth in population and wealth allowed the kings to assign vast amounts of labor and materials to these monuments. The first pyramids were almost entirely symbolic in nature to exhibit the power of the central administration.

61. An intermediate period (2134-2040 BC) came when, due to certain climatic conditions the level of Nile reduced causing a production crisis so hunger and death. All the administrative organization that held the country together during the Old Kingdom fell apart and the country divided into dozens of chiefdoms.

62. For one hundred years after the decline of the Old Kingdom order and the institution of the Egyptian king was re-established and this period is named as the Middle Kingdom (2040-1640 BC .) . Trade with foreign countries began again, irrigation projects were repaired, and the writing of texts started. As the kings of Egypt slowly regained the authority of the monarchy, Egypt again grew in wealth and population.

63. Large-scale immigration of foreigners into the Nile Valley during the Middle Kingdom also caused end of the Middle Kingdom in Egypt. In time, as their numbers increased, they threatened the power of the Egyptian monarchy itself and Egypt fell into disorder. This period, called the Second Intermediate Period, saw Egypt ruled by foreign kings for almost a hundred years. The Egyptians, called these kings Heka-Khast , or "Rulers of the Foreign Lands." The Greeks later altered this word to “Hyksos”.

64. 1550 BC. an Egyptian general who finally drove out the Hyksos, founded a new dynasty, and started a new era that is named as the New Kingdom, which will last 500 years. It is towards the end of this period that a young Amenhotep IV rejected the pantheon of Egyptian gods and brought the belief to one and only one god deserved to be worshipped: “ Aten ” the sun-god.

65. Renaming himself Akhenaten, with his wife famous Nefertiti, he is considered as the founder of the first monotheistic religion we know of in human history . Also during this time the Hittite empire began to gain ground towards the Egyptian frontier. The warfare between Egypt and the Hittites resulted by a treaty signed between Ramses II (pharaoh of Egypt) and the Hittite King Hattusili after the Battle of Kadesh , in what is now modern day Syria, around 1272 B.C. This is the earliest treaty ever signed in history.

66. The peace treaty was recorded in two versions, one in Egyptian hieroglyphs and the other in Akkadian using Cuneiform script. An interesting note : although the majority of the text is identical, the Hittite version claims that the Egyptians came to them asking for peace whereas the Egyptian version of the same text say it was the other way round. Above

67. Around 1000 BC. Egypt fall into another period of political chaos when no-one was really in charge of Egypt. This period is called “The Third Intermediate Period”. In 728 BC, after three hundred years of chaos, Egypt was invaded by the Nubians from the south. Since then Egypt lived under the domination of different powers like Assyrians and Persians. In 332 BC they welcomed the Greek conqueror of Persia, Alexander the Great, into their country as their great liberator.

68. At its height, Alexander's short lived empire included all of Egypt, Greece, Thrace, Turkey, the Near East, Mesopotamia, and Asia all the way to India. After the death of Alexander the short lived empire divided among his most powerful generals, and Egypt came under the control of one of his generals and his dynasty will be called the Ptolemaic period. Even though they adopted Egyptian customs to a certain degree, during the reign of Ptolemaic kings Greek became the state language, and cities were renamed.

69. Final queen of the Ptolemaic line, is the famous Cleopatra. She fell into a dispute with her half-brother over the succession and invited Julius Caesar and the Romans to intervene. However, when she sided with Mark Antony against Augustus Caesar and lost in the naval battle of Actium in 31 B.C., Egypt became a Roman province. In Egypt anti-Roman sentiment soon crystallized around a new religion, Christianity, introduced in the middle of the first century AD. These Egyptian Christians, called "Copts," saw this religion as a tool to use in anti-Roman struggle but Egypt never recovered as an independent state .

70. Egyptian Religion Religion played a very important role on Egyptian political, social, economical and artistic aspect of life. Religious beliefs were the basis of Egyptian art, medicine, astronomy, literature, and government. The great pyramids were tombs for the Pharaohs, man-gods. Magical utterances pervaded medical practices, for disease was attributed to the Gods. Astronomy evolved to determine the correct time to perform religious rites and sacrifices. The earliest examples of literature dealt wholly with religous themes. Polytheism-Monotheism-Polytheism (evolution of Egyptian religion)

71. Egyptian POLYTHEISM took many forms, including the worship of animals, for the people believed that gods manifested themselves in both human and animal shapes. The Egyptians also believed great powers in nature-sky, sun, earth, the Nile-to be gods. Thus, the universe was teeming with divinities, and human lives were tied to the movements of the sun and the moon and to the rythm of the seasons.

72. AFTERLIFE A crucial feature of Egyptian religion was the afterlife Through pyramid tombs, mummification to preserve the dead, and funerary art, the Egyptians showed their yearning for eternity and their desire to overcome death. To the Egyptians, the other world offered the same pleasures as those enjoyed on earth-friends, servants, fishing, hunting, paddling a canoe, picnicking with family members, entertainment, by musicians and dancers, and good food. But since earthly existence ws not fundemantally unhappy , Egyptians did not long for death.

73. The religion of the ancient Egyptians went through various stages: from simple polytheism to the earliest known expression of monotheism, and then back to polytheism. In the beginning each city or district seems to have had its local deities, who were guardian gods of locality. The unification of the country resulted in a fusion of divinities . All of the guardian deities were merged into the great SUN GOD RE. Under the Middle Kingdom this deity was called AMON or AMON-RE from the name of the chief god of Thebes. The gods who personified the vegegative powers of the nature were fused into a deity called OSIRIS, who was also the god of the NILE.

74. During the period of Old Kingdom the solar faith, embodied in the worship of RE, was the domina n t belief. It served as an official religion. Its main function was to give immortality to the state and the people. The pharaoh was the living representative of this faith on earth. RE was not only a guardian deity. He was in addition the god of righteousness, justice, and truth. THE CULT OF OSIRIS, began its existence as a nature religion. It personified the growth of vegetation and the life-giving powers of the Nile.

75. OSIRIS LEGEND: In the remote past, according to belief, OSIRIS had been a benevolent ruler, who taught his people agriculture and other practical arts and gave them laws. After a time he was killed by his wicked brother SET, and his body cut into pieces. His wife ISIS, whı was also his sister, went in search of the pieces, put them together, and miracoulusly restored his body to life. Horus, his posthumous son, finally grew to a manhood, and avenged his father’s death by killing SET.

76. Originally this legend seems to have been little more than a nature myth. The death and resurrection of OSIRIS symbolized the recession of the NILE in autumn and the coming of the flood in the Spring. More important still, the death and resurrection of Osiris came to be regarded as conveying a promise of immortality .

77. The Egyptian religion attained its fullest development about the end of the Middle Kingdom. By this time the solar faith and the cult of Osiris had been merged in such a way as to preserve the best features of both. The province of AMON as the god of living, as the champion of of good in this world, was accorded almost egual importance with the functions of Osiris as the giver of personal immortality and the judge of the dead.

78. Soon after the establishment of empire, the Egyptian religion underwent a serious debasement and corruption. Its ethical significance was largely destroyed, and superstition and magic gained the ascendancy. The chief cause seems to have been that the long and bitter war for the expulsion of the Hyksoses fostered the growth of irrational attitudes and correspondingly depriciated the intellect. The result was a marked increase in the power of the priests, who prayed upon the fears of the masses to promote their own advantage.

79. THE CULT OF ATON The degradation of the religion at the hands of the priests in to a system of of magical practices finally resulted in a great religious upheaval. The leader of this movement was the Paharaoh AMENHOTEP IV, who began his reign about 1375 B.C. And died about 15 years later. He resolved to crush the system entirely. He drove the priests from the temples, hacked the names of the traditional deities from the public monuments, and initiated the worship of a new god whom he called ATON. He changed his own name from Amenhotep to AKHENATON, which meant “ Aton is satisfied”. His wife NEFERTITI became NEFER-NEFRU-ATON: “ Beatiful is the beauty of Aton”.

80. More important than these cahanges , was the new set of doctrines : He taught first of all a religion af a qualified MONOTHEISM Aton and Akhenaton himself were the only gods in existence. Like none of the gods before him, Aton had no human or animal shape but was to be conceived in terms of lifegiving , warming rays of the Sun. He was the creator of all, and thus god not merelyog Egypt but of the whole universe. While the pharaoh and his wife worshipped Aton, others were to worship Akhenaton as a living deity.

81. Akhenaton restored the ethical quality of Egyptian religion at its best by insisting that Aton was the author of the moral order of the world and the rewarder of mankind for integrity and purity of heart. He enviseged as a heavenly father who watches with benovolent care over all his creatures. Conceptions like these of the unity, rightoussness , and benevolence of God were not attained again until the time of the Hebrew prophets some 600 years later.

82. Despite the energy with wich Akhenaton pursued his reşigious revolution it was a FAILURE. It gained little popular support and following because the masses remained devoted to their old gods. The new religion was too strange for them and lacked the greatest attraction of the older faith: the promise of an after life. Moreover the pharaohs after Akhenaton, were allied with the priests of Amon and accordingly restored the older modes of worship.

83. Fourth Lecture – Greek Civilization Most historical observations as well as contemporary approaches revolve around the structural as well as cultural and ideological differences between east and west. Even today the prediction on a certain “clash of civilizations” is somehow based on this long-lasting approach to “the other”. From the start of history “the East” was the advanced region with prosperous cities, developed economy within relatively centralized states. On the other hand West was “underdeveloped” with weaker towns, rent-exploited or enslaved peasantry and in most cases with a weak central authority. Feudalism and Capitalism evolved in such a region.

84. Greek and Roman societies political universe is initially based on small independent cities with their economies depending on a slave labored agriculture and trade. Agriculture (throughout all periods) is the dominant area of production furnishing the main income of cities. The “citizen” land owners constitute a small segment of the population as the rest being mostly slaves deprived of any material means. Production limited mostly to simple textile, pottery, furniture and glassware is narrow due to limited demand and expensiveness of transport.

85. A common particularity for Greece and Rome is the Aegean and the Mediterranean seas serving a big geographical zone with the best seaport possibilities. This situation made possible an urban growth, concentration and complexity with a developed interregional trade. Slavery is the only form of “labor” common both in Greece and Rome. While various forms of slavery were also existent in the “Eastern” societies but it was mostly occasional due to war captivity and mainly limited to household production.

86. In the Greek city states by 5th century B.C. and in Rome by 2nd century B.C. slavery became a dominant form. It was the high number of slaves used in all production that permitted a "freedom" and "democracy" to a non-laboring population. However these systems couldn't reproduce themselves due to the lack of incentive for productivity and invention which also caused their rapid disintegration and evolution to other systems.

87. Classical Greece and the Hellenistic World: A Brief Survey “ Classical Greece” till now is considered as a cultural ancestor of “the” Western Civilization. It is a tradition continued by the Roman culture, Islamic science and philosophy, “rediscovered” by the Renaissance and so forth. Greek culture itself was based on the heritage of Minoa, Mycenae as well as Egypt and the other Middle Eastern civilizations.

88. Internal warfare, invasions and probably some natural disasters had destroyed the earlier settlements but by 800 B.C. a new civilization named as “classical” began to emerge and flourished until 400 B.C. With the empire of Alexander the Great called the “Hellenistic period”, this civilization spread in the whole Mediterranean region. Later, the cultural scientific and philosophical heritage will be transmitted by Roman and Islamic civilizations.

89. The Greek society was mainly based on private property thus a further stimulus to Greek civilization came from the development of sea trade in the Mediterranean. Increased wealth with population growth and social change in Greece encouraged new political forms.

90. After 800 B.C. the society revolved around city-states (polis), varying in size. Originally the polis constituted by a city and its agricultural hinterland was ruled by landowning aristocrat-warriors through a more or less “direct democracy”. After 700 B.C. the system of aristocratic control was challenged as a result of commercial expansion.

91. Many city-states founded colonies along the coasts of the Mediterranean and Black Sea. These colonies relieved population pressure, provided particularly grain supplies, and served as markets for various products.

92. However this “capitalist” expansion resulted by a severe loss for small landholders and an increased gulf between the rich and poor. By the 6th century B.C. urban commercial groups and dispossessed farmers sought reform. And reformers, like Solon of Athens, developed new laws to regulate the social environment. By 500 B.C. most city-states were based upon principles of loyalty to the community rather than to an individual ruler.

93. A participation in public life of every male citizen and the dominant principle of “rule by the people” was called democracy in Athens. A popular assembly of citizens was the sovereign authority. Citizens formed the army and served as jurors. Offices were chosen by lot and were responsible to the assembly. Women, slaves, and foreigners - were excluded from political rights.

94. In Ancient Athens only men were citizens, and only citizens could govern. As young boys they were trained in reading, writing, arithmetic, poetry, music, dance, and athletics. Women were not seen as citizens, they stayed home and did the housework, which included washing, cleaning, and taking care of the children, but men were not expected to share the work . (Among others we have inherited this tradition also)

95. Greek political life was based on individual participation quite different from other centralized states of the Middle East and Asia. The growing power of a democratic, commercially active Athens led to competition with oligarchic, conservative, and militaristic Sparta. They fought from 431 to 404 B.C. in the Peloponnesian War. A weakened Athens surrendered to Sparta in 404 B.C. and this marked the end of the dominance of the polis culture.

96. The Peloponnesian Wars had destroyed all basis for Greek unity which will be realized for a brief period by a conquering northern state, Macedonia in 338 BC. Taken the control of Greece and expanded into the Middle East and Egypt, short-lived empire of Alexander the Great greatly helped to the expansion of Hellenistic culture.

97. The new empire of Alexander quickly fragmented into states run by former generals. The three principal dynasties were the Ptolemy in Egypt, the Seleucids in Persia, and the Antigonid in Macedon and Greece.

98. Early History: the missing Minoans Today still limited information is known about Minoan civilization of Crete whose name derives from a figure of myth rather than history: the Minotaur, a monster with the body of a man and the head of a bull. Minoa is famous for its colossal palaces built from around 2000 BC as the administrative centre for a large local population estimated as between 15,000 and 50,000 people. Minos

99. Minos and Minotaur at the Garden of Tuileries, Paris

100. Administrative records and accounts are kept on clay tablets in a script known as “Linear A” is yet not deciphered. Archaeological discoveries reveal that, trade was carried on round the entire Mediterranean coast, from Sicily in the west to Egypt in the southeast.

101. Among the outposts of Minoan state is the city of Akrotiri , on the island of Thera in the Aegean Sea. The end of Minoa is attributed to two consecutive disasters. The eruption of the island's volcano in about 1500 BC and all the towns and palaces of Crete, except Knossos itself, were destroyed by fire in about 1400 BC.

102. It is not known whether this latter is due to a natural disaster or whether it was the Greek invaders which destroyed Minoan Crete. But it is certain that the next generation of rulers introduced the culture of mainland Mycenae.

103. The first Greek civilization: The rulers of these early Greeks to have been warlike as described in Homer’s famous epics Iliad and Odysseus. A significant trait is their fortress palaces, protected by walls of stone blocks so large that only giants would seem capable of heaving them into place. This style of architecture has been named Cyclopean, after the Cyclopes

104. Cyclopean walls

105. In the latter half of the 13th century, according to the oral tradition, the rulers of Mycenaean Greece combined forces to attack the rich city of Troy whose remains are located in Hisarlık , Çanakkale . Some four centuries later the oral tradition will be written down as the Iliad of Homer.

106. In Homer's poem it takes many years before Troy is finally subdued however the victory of the Greeks will not last long. Mycenaean civilization will come to an abrupt end in about 1200 BC. This sudden destruction of Mycenaean is part of a wider chaos in the eastern Mediterranean caused by raiders whom the Egyptians describe as “sea peoples”. Their origin remains a mystery until now. The same invaders had attacked the Hittites as we had seen earlier.

107. The final blow to Mycenae, later in the 12th century was by the Dorians from the northern regions. They had the advantage of iron technology, which helped them to overcome the Bronze Age Mycenaean. The Dorian invasion resulted by a period referred usually referred to as “dark age”. The Spartans will claim the Dorians as their ancestors, and model themselves upon them. While a rival tradition in classical Greece is linked with Athens resistance to Dorians.

108. From about 900 BC, colonies start to be founded on the west coast of Anatolia called Ionia. In the following centuries “Ionian“ will be a name to define Greeks. In contemporary Turkish we are using this name as “ Yunan ”. The impulse to establish Greek colonies derives partly from the desire for trade but also from population pressure. In both Greece and Anatolia the easiest way of expanding from coastal valleys is outwards, by sea. By 600 BC there were around 1500 colonies on the coastline of Mediterranean, Aegean and the Black Sea. Also during this progressive period coinage and a new alphabetic script taken from the Phoenicians began to be used

109. Trade Colonies

110. The most energetic colonists to spread towards the Black Sea and the Mediterranean then on will become the Ionians, from Anatolia. An example is the case of the trade colony founded by Phoceans (Turkish Foça ) about 600 BC in southern France which later will develop and become the famous Marseilles. On the other hand, Lydia emerges in the 7th century BC as a rich and powerful state in the interior of Anatolia, with its capital at Sardis. The last king of Lydia, Croesus, has survived in popular memory as a man of legendary wealth (he is the first ruler in history to mint coins of gold and silver).

111. Lydia will raid into Ionia with increasing pressure and success. By the mid-6th century Croesus controls Ephesus and many other Greek cities in Asia Minor. But in 546 he is defeated by a greater conqueror from the east, Cyrus. Within a year or two the Persian Empire has swallow up Ionia. Greek civilization is confronted with a new enemy.

112. Governing by “the Polis” Governing by “the Polis ” Citizenship important in all aspects of Greek life is restricted to a small proportion of the people living in a city: the free males. Neither women nor children and outsiders were considered as citizens. Slaves, who constitute the majority of the population and the totality of the work force were not even considered as human beings. By the 7th century further expansion of trade colonies increasing the prosperity a new class acquires wealth, and military strength.

113. A frequent event in the Greek city-states of the 7th and 6th centuries is the seizing of power by individual members of this class. They rule with a personal authority as absolute as that of the kings whom they replace. The Greek word for such a man, coming to power by a military coup, is turannos , a tyrant. But on the whole they fail to establish dynasties. Their authority dies with them.

114. The tyrannical rule cause certain unrests and revolts due to the discontent of traditional members of the community losing their status. Increase in population narrows the possibilities of allocation and causes a social disequilibrium. Reforming the system for interest of popular majority and the regulation of the citizenship rights becomes a necessity. A famous reformer, Solon (640 -550 BC) was also a tyrant. Among his reforms was the abolishing, of debt bondage on land and formation of a new political and military organization based on a wider participation.

115. 5th Lecture We will continue today with the remaining part of the Greek civiliziation. In later history of Greece, citizens with a passionate interest in the affairs of their city-state, play the “art of politics”. The debate is mostly on the three rival forms of government. One extreme is the rule of a single powerful tyrant called “tyranny”. An intermediate form is the “oligarchy”, or rule by a few. Finally the very virtuous solution of “democracy”, in which power is shared by all the “people = demos” that is the citizens.

116. By the 5th century the days of the tyrants are over. The subject of Greek politics is now a dispute between oligarchy and democracy which also reflect a broader conflict between rival alliances: Athens and Sparta. The two most powerful states, Sparta and Athens, are associated respectively with oligarchy and democracy. Those seeking democracy will refer to Athens for help. Similarly those oppose democracy will look to Sparta.

117. In 480 the threat from Persia brings Sparta and Athens together, with most of the other city-states of mainland Greece. During the Greco-Persian wars the leading position of Sparta is acknowledged by all. By the end of 480 the defeated Persians withdraw, Sparta's military reputation has been enhanced at Thermopylae and Plataea.

118. The Athenians, most damaged by the Persians soon emerge stronger than before due to their navy and the control of the Aegean Sea. It was evident that control of the Aegean Sea was also the best defense against Persia. In 478, representatives of Athens and other Aegean states meet on the island of Delos to form a coalition, subsequently known as the Delian League to liberate the territories held by Persia on the Anatolian coast.

119. Athens begins to treat the League as an Athenian “empire”, and makes provocative alliances with two city-states opposed to Sparta. Open hostility breaks out in 460, the start of the First Peloponnesian War. In 446 a temporary peace is agreed.

120. These wars will also create a famous hero of Athens, Pericles who will even today be remembered by his famous speech defining the principles of becoming a virtuous citizen However the war continues in stops and starts for more than twenty years. From 414, the Persians intervene on the Spartan side and by 404 the Athenian fleet has been destroyed. Sparta is once again the undisputed leader of the Greek city-states.

121. Athens recovers again to put together, in 377, a revised version of the Delian League to defeat Sparta and by the mid-century, with the military reputation of Sparta faded, Athens is again perceived as the leader. Now a new threat from the north, of Philip II of Macedon becomes victorious, persuading all the Greek cities (except Sparta) to enter into a treaty for military cooperation known as the League of Corinth. One of the resolutions of the League of Corinth is to launch a war against Persia

122. Again against Persia Confederate forces from 336 BC, with Philip as commander sets off eastwards. When Philip is murdered by one of his man the League immediately elects his son, Alexander, in his place as commander. After this the Greek culture is considered to be entering its most triumphant period: the Hellenistic age. During this time, Greek culture and power extended itself and “Hellenized” a large area across the world.

123. At the root of Hellenism were the conquests of Alexander, exporting Greek culture in terms of politics, law, literature, philosophy, religion, and art. This will deeply influence all the civilizations and cultures the Romans, the Christians, Islam that will later shape the history.

124. Alexander

125. Alexander, who was only thirty-three years old when he died, had made no preparations for his succession. So the generals who had aided him divided the empire among themselves in order to preserve the empire for the future.

126. They soon fell into conflict with one another and by 300 BC. all that was left of Alexander's empire were divided into smaller empires, each controlled by military generals who declared themselves kings. Greece and Macedonia fell to Antigonus , who founded the Antigonid dynasty which would eventually control Anatolia.

127. Mesopotamia and the Middle East came under the control of Seleucus , who crowned himself Seleucus I and began the Seleucus dynasty. Egypt came under the control of Ptolemy, who crowned himself Ptolemy I and began the Ptolemid dynasty.

128. Despite the constant conflict, the Hellenistic world was a prosperous one. Alexander and his successors had liberated an immense amount of wealth from the Persian Empire, and with this new wealth in each of the empires scholarship, arts, literature and philosophy developed. For example the Ptolemies built a huge library in their capital city of Alexandria which will be reputed throughout the whole history. Spread from Italy to India, from Macedonia to Egypt the Hellenistic cultural sphere became under the domination of a new power rising in the west, the Romans.

129. Pre-Socratic Philosophy " Philosophic thought" in Greece first appeared in , Theogony , written by Hesiod about 725 B.C. on the myths of the gods, the origins of things and the order of the universe. However what is generally called "Greek philosophy" was derived by the Greeks from Egyptian culture, particularly the part involved with natural sciences like physics and mathematics. In the latter half of the fifth century, a group called the Sophists started the inquiry from towards the nature of morality and society. Socrates followed the tradition of the early Sophists in making ethics his primary topic. With Plato's concern with ethics, Greek philosophy became primarily concerned with ethical and civic virtue.

130. The early Greek philosophers who preceded Socrates, generally called “Pre-Socratic” are divided up into several schools. The Milesian (from Miletus in the Aegean region) or Ionian School. Miletus, in the 6th century was a prosperous trading center with numerous colonies. The philosophers in Miletus sought to discover or describe one primary, material substance as the base or elemental foundation of all natural objects and the source of all motion.

131. Thales (early 6th century) postulated that this primary substance was water, Anaximander defined the primary substance as "the unlimited" or "the indefinite" (in Greek: apeiron ), Anaximenes defined it as air.

132. The Pythagoreans began towards the end of the 6th century in the cities in southern Italy; this school sought an intellectual foundation for a certain religious way of life, and was more abstract and mathematical and heavily influenced by Egyptian thought. Much of their thought remains completely obscure and impenetrable. They principally sought to purify the soul by strict rules of life and believed in the transmigration of souls to animals and even plants. For the Pythagoreans, the one thing that formed the substrate of all the infinite things in the universe was number.

133. Anaxagoras (of Athens; perhaps 500-428) taught that all things come to be from the mixing of innumerable tiny particles of all kinds of substance, shaped by a separate, immaterial, creating principle, nous ("mind").

134. Origins of “dialectics”. Heraclites of Ephesus saw change as the unity of all things. The unity underlying all change and opposition, but not existing outside of change and opposition called the Logos or God. He taught that all things carried with them their opposites, that death was potential in life, that being and not-being were part of every whole, therefore, the only possible real state was the transitional one of becoming. He believed fire to be the underlying substance of the universe and all other elements transformations of it.

135. Heraclitus is perhaps the most important philosopher before Plato and has formed the foundation of Western thinking ever since. He is famous for the expression “change alone is unchanging” expressing the notion that no man can cross the same river twice: "We both step and do not step in the same rivers. We are and are not."

136. The Atomists like Democritus (of Abdera, in Thrace, born about 460), held that void (space with no matter) exists (against the Eleatics, who held that what is not there cannot exist) and that this void contains an infinite number of indivisible units , atoma , which means "indivisibles" .By random movements in which similar atoms come together and form the sensible world. This theory was taken over later by the Hellenistic philosopher, Epicurus.

137. Socrates Most of our knowledge of Socrates (469-399) comes from the works of Plato. The most accurate of Plato's writings on Socrates is probably The Apology. The word "apology" comes from the Greek word for "defense-speech" and the work is Plato's account of Socrates’ defense at his trial in 399 BC.

138. In it, Plato outlines some of Socrates’ most famous philosophical ideas: the necessity of doing what one thinks is right even in the face of universal opposition, and the need to pursue knowledge even when opposed .

139. Socrates' method of philosophical inquiry consisted in questioning people on the positions they asserted and working them through questions into a contradiction, thus proving to them that their original assertion was wrong. Socrates himself never takes a position; in The Apology he radically and skeptically claims to know nothing at all except that he knows nothing.

140. Socrates and Plato refer to this method of questioning as elenchus, which means negation and is the way of arguing that oppose another argument by proving the contrary of its conclusion. The Socratic elenchus in time gave rise to dialectic, the idea that truth needs to be pursued by modifying one's position through questioning and conflict with opposing ideas. It is this idea of the truth being pursued, rather than discovered, that characterizes Socratic thought and much of our world view today. The Western notion of dialectic is somewhat Socratic in nature in that it is conceived of as an ongoing process.

141. Plato Plato (427– 347 BC is the most famous of Socrates’ pupils and carried on much of his former teacher's work and in time founded his own school, the Academia, in 385. The Academy would become in its time the most famous school in the classical world, and its most famous pupil was Aristotle.

142. We know much about Plato's teachings, because he wrote dialogues between Socrates and others that would explore philosophical issues. These dialogues would be used in his school as starting points for discussion. Plato carried on the philosophy of Socrates, concentrating on the dialectical examination of basic ethical issues: what is friendship? What is virtue? Can virtue be taught?

143. The fundamental aspect of Plato's thought is the theory of "ideas" or "forms." Heraclitus had said that there is nothing certain or stable except the fact that things change, and Parmenides and some other philosophers claimed that all change, motion, and time was an illusion. Plato combined the two.

144. The most famous of Plato's dialogues is an immense dialogue called The Republic, one of the single most influential works in Western philosophy. His inquiry is shaped into the questions what is justice in the State, or what would an ideal State be like, and what is a just individual? This type of thinking, that is, speculating about an ideal state or republic, is called "utopian" thinking (utopia is a Greek word which means "no-place").

145. Plato's metaphysics divides the world into two distinct aspects: the intelligible world of "forms", and the perceptual world we see around us. The perceptual world consists of imperfect copies of the intelligible forms or ideas. These forms are unchangeable and perfect, and are only comprehensible by the use of the intellect or understanding.

146. Anything arising from reason alone, such as abstract definitions or mathematics, makes up this intelligible world, which is the world of reality. The intelligible world contains the eternal "Forms" (in Greek, idea) of things; the visible world is the imperfect and changing manifestation in this world of these unchanging forms.

147. Aristotle Aristotle (384-322 BC) is one of the "big three" in ancient Greek philosophy, along with Plato and Socrates. Socrates taught Plato, who in turn instructed Aristotle. Aristotle spent nearly 20 years at Plato's Academy, first as a student and then as a teacher. After Plato's death he traveled widely and educated a famous pupil, Alexander the Great, the Macedonian who nearly conquered the world. Later Aristotle began his own school in Athens, known as the Lyceum, from where comes the name we use for our “ lise ”.

148. Aristotle placed great emphasis on direct observation of nature, and in science he taught that theory must follow fact. He considered philosophy to be the finding of the self-evident, changeless first principles that form the basis of all knowledge. Logic was for Aristotle the necessary tool of any inquiry.

149. Aristotle placed great emphasis on direct observation of nature, and in science he taught that theory must follow fact. He considered philosophy to be the finding of the self-evident, changeless first principles that form the basis of all knowledge. Logic was for Aristotle the necessary tool of any inquiry. Knowledge of a thing, beyond its classification and description, requires an explanation of causality, or why it is.

150. He posited four causes or principles of explanation: the material cause (the substance of which the thing is made); the formal cause (its design); the efficient cause (its maker or builder); and the final cause (its purpose or function). In modern thought the efficient cause is generally considered the central explanation of a thing, but for Aristotle the final cause had primacy.

151. He used this account of causes to examine the relation of form to matter, and in his conclusions differed sharply from those of his teacher, Plato. Aristotle believed that a form, with the exception of the Prime Mover, or God, had no separate existence, but rather was immanent in matter.

152. Aristotle's ethical theory reflects his metaphysics. Following Plato, he argued that the goodness or virtue of a thing lay in the realization of its specific nature. The highest good for humans is the complete and habitual exercise of the specifically human function— rationality. Rationality is exercised through the practice of two kinds of virtue, moral and intellectual.

153. In the Politics, Aristotle holds that, by nature, humans form political associations, and he explores the best forms these may take. After the decline of Rome, Aristotle's work was lost in the West. However, in the 9th cent., Arab scholars introduced Aristotle to Islam. It was largely through Arab and Jewish scholars that Aristotelian thought was reintroduced in the West. His works became the basis of medieval scholasticism.