Egypt

and

the

Levant

(modern

Israel,

Palestine,

Lebanon)

The invention of writing ca.
3100 BC paralleled and may
have contributed to the
political unification of Egypt
under the first pharaohs.

The story of human development begins in Africa,
where anthropologists have found the fossilized bones
of a variety of hominids extending back more than 5
million years. The most important fossils have been
found in the modern countries of Tanzania, Kenya,
Ethiopia, and South Africa.

western afar rift - where lucy and cousins were found

the Ubaid
culture was the first
to establish
settlements in the
alluvial plain of
Mesopotamia, in
what is today
southern Iraq.

a precursor to
Sumerian civilization. The sites of many Sumerian
cities were first settled by the people of this culture,
who built large, but nameless, temples and left behind
figurines

 The land of Sumer in modern
southern Iraq is extremely arid
and blazing hot in the summers.

Southern Mesopotamia had few minerals, trees, or other natural
resources. But it had plenty of water from the region’s two great
rivers. tigress and euphrates

digging of canals for irrigation and as a result exponentially larger agricultural yeilds

Ancient Israel in geo-political perspective

The story of the Israelites: the Hebrew Bible (Christian Old Testament)

Israel under the United Monarchy

The Divided Monarchy and a new storm on the horizon

Samaria

and

Judah

Crossing the Jordan River and the Ark of the Covenant

Winnowing the wheat
in Syria with a grinding stone

Skeleton of young
woman from
Neolithic village in
north Syria prone to injury

To convert wheat into flour and then bread required intensive labor. Skeletons from Abu Hureyra suggest that women performed the bulk of this back-breaking labor.

 The plastered heads (with cowrie-shell eyes) found
beneath the floors of the Neolithic houses at Jericho
are both fascinating and disturbing to the modern eye.
They may have been used for some form of ancestor
worship

Many aspect of neolithic culture remain puzzling to modern viewers. hundreds of "eye idols" have been found at Tell Brak and other Neolithic sites in Northern Syria

Painted ceramics from
Tell Halaf, north Syria
ca. 6000 BC

In Syria, Hittite
expansion brought
it into direct
contact and
conflict with New
Kingdom Egypt.

France (1940)

Since the discovery of the cave
paintings at Altamira in the 1879,
the corpus of European caves with
Paleolithic art has grown to more
than three hundred sites. Note on
this map the location of Altamira,
Lascaux, Rouffignac, and (in the
inset box) Chauvet. See below for
images from each of these caves

For more than two decades, the caves at Lascaux were
open to the public, attracting visitors from all over
Europe. Here, the prehistorian Henri Breuil, a Catholic
priest, lectures in the Hall of the Bulls. The boys sitting
in front of the group discovered the cave after their dog
fell down a deep hole.

More than 900 animals are depicted in the paintings of the Lascaux. Horses, deer,
and wild cattle (aurochs) are among the most commonly depicted animals

Jerusalem established as David’s capital

Kathleen Kenyon

stone tower at jericho 8000 bc

The plastered heads (with cowrie-shell eyes) found
beneath the floors of the Neolithic houses at Jericho
are both fascinating and disturbing to the modern eye.
They may have been used for some form of ancestor
worship

The fall of Jericho: its population placed “under the ban”

Neolithic Anatolia (ca. 7400-6000 BCE)

Largest Neolithic sites
in the world from ca. 9000 BC

The current international
excavations at Çatal Höyük
begun in 1993.

Obsidian

Group burial beneath the floor of
one of the houses at Çatal Höyük.

Child burial at Çatal Höyük.
Note the use of colored stone in
the child’s bracelets. Finds of
turquoise and other imported
stones at Catal Hoyuk attest to a
trade network in luxury goods
extending across Anatolia and
beyond.

Human
figures are far more common at
Catal Hoyuk than in the cave
art of the Paleolithic era, but
the animals still dominate the
scenes.

. At
other Sumerian sites such as Ur and Uruk, over-farming exhausted the land,
leaving a dusty and barren landscape at the site of the world’s earliest cities
 

Urbanism and temple building

the white temple at uruk 3400 bce

This massive mudbrick temple at Uruk testifies to the
vigor of the city’s urban development already in the
prehistoric period, hundreds of years before the full
development of the cuneiform writing system.

Temple of Anu the Sky God and his daughter Inanna (Ishtar)

Gilgamesh is a legendary figure, but the city where he ruled was
identified and excavated by archaeologists already in the early
20th century. These excavations suggest that Uruk was already
a major city with far-reaching commercial ties by ca. 4000 BC,
nearly a thousand years before the invention of writing.

 . At
other Sumerian sites such as Ur and Uruk, over-farming exhausted the land,
leaving a dusty and barren landscape at the site of the world’s earliest cities

Temple of Nanna (Sin), the Moon God

After the collapse of the akkadian empire, the city of ur re-emerged as teh ruling city of mesopotamia under the so-called "Third Dynasty of UR" or UR III" for short, founded by king ur-nammu, a vigorous temple builder and law giver

King Ur-Nammu
pours a libation
onto a small altar
placed before the
enthroned
Sumerian Moon
God Nannai
(brother of Ishtar
in Sumerian
mythology).

 The Sumerian revival under the Third
Dynasty of Ur ended with a series of
incursions by the “People of the West,”
Semitic speaking tribes of nomadic
origin whom we call the Amorites.

The great ziggurat at Ur: A Sumerian revival during the 21rst century BC

Built under the
third dynasty
of Ur during
the 21rst
century BC (!),
the ziggurat at
Ur was
frequently
repaired by
subsequent
rulers. The
only major
restoration in
modern history,
however, was
under the
Baathist regimeof Saddam
Hussein, who
liked to present
himself as the
legitimate heir
of Iraq’s
ancient kings,
especially
Hammurabi of
Babylon.

Sumer and Sumerians

sumerian cities and their gods

The principal cities of ancient Sumer and
Akkad were scattered across a relatively
small region between modern Baghdad and
the marshes at the northern end of the
Persian Gulf.

The city-states of Mesopotamia shared a common Sumerian culture, but clung proudly to their independence. Later (esp. after ca.
2000 BC), Sumerian culture became increasingly blended with the political and linguistic traditions of Akkad in central Mesopotamia.

Sumerian temples were understood to be the
homes of the gods. Each god or goddess had a
principal city, where they were worshipped and
where their sacred images were kept. A priestly
elite tended these images, while ordinary
worshippers participated from below. Ziggurats
attached to temples were like giant outdoor
altars, from which the priests could observe and
study the movement of the astral bodies.

Eridu: Home of Ea (Enki), God of the Apsu

Nippur: Temple of Enlil, chief of the Gods

Sippar: Temple of Utu (Shamash), the Sun God

Uruk: Temple of Anu the Sky God and his daughter Inanna (Ishtar)

Ur: Temple of Nanna (Sin), the Moon God

• Geography of: The Fertile Crescent extends from the Levant across
  northern Mesopotamia to the western flanks of the Zagros
  Mountains (Try to commit this map to memory. I may ask
  you to draw the Fertile Crescent on the first map quiz).
• On this map of mean annual
  precipitation, note how the
  mountainous coastal zone of the
  Levant receives ample rain (and
  snow in the mountains), but the
  interior beyond Damascus is
  parched and sparsely settled.
  For comparison, see any map of
  the average annual precipitation
  in Washington State (though you
  will have to convert from inches
  to metric to make sense of the
  comparison!).
  The mountains of Lebanon receive
  as much or more rain than Seattle
  (ca. 92 cm per year), but Damascus,
  only 80 km inland, receives less
  rain than Los Angeles. Further
  inland it is as dry as the deserts of
  the American Southwest
• By ca. 6000 BC, the entire Fertile Crescent was dotted with villages
  whose populations were fed by a combination of farming and the herding
  of domesticated animals (sheep, goats, cattle, and pigs).
• 
  

(Ras Shamra, Syria) and the cultural world of the Canaanites

Languages and scripts (writing systems)

Ancient Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra
in northern Syria), not impressive
today, but once a thriving Bronze Age
port. French excavators found here
documents in 7 languages.

Stories of the Canaanite gods
preserved in Ugaritic documents
have many elements in common
with the depiction of Yahweh in the
Hebrew Bible. One of the chief gods
at Ugarit was Dagan, the same gods
worshipped by the Philistines, the
coastal rivals of the Israelites.

The world’s earliest alphabet was found at
Ugarit. After the fall of Ugarit, the alphabet
was developed by the Phoenicians, and
eventually adopted by the Greeks and Romans.

Anatolia, the Amarna letters, and the discovery of the Hittites

Anatolia is a
mountainous land, rich in
relatively accessible
metal deposits. The
region’s inhabitants
developed sophisticated
metallurgy and silver and
bronze art by 2000 BC

The Hittite Empire with its capital at Hattusas (Boğazköy)

The Hittites were an Indo-European speaking people who built an empire in the region of
Anatolia (modern Turkey). Their arrival in this region is first attested in cuneiform
documents from Kanesh (marked in red), a trading colony of Assyrian Empire, ca. 1800 B.C

Imperial expansion under the
18th dynasty by both trade
and conquest brought
enormous wealth to New
Kingdom Egypt. Following
the principles of Egyptian
society, much of that wealth
was then “invested” in the
temples at Karnak and Luxor

In Thebes, as in many places in
Egypt, modern development has
almost completely engulfed the
ancient ruins. Here, in the
foreground, the temple of the god
Amon-Re at Luxor.

The rediscovery of Knossos: Arthur Evans on Crete in 1900

Neolithic
Flint Blades
from Megiddo
(northern Israel)

At Natufian village sites, archaeologists find
a variety of stone and bone tools. But the
most revealing objects are the small flint
blades like this: their serrated edges were
designed for the task of cutting grain.

Thutmose’s most important
victory took place here, on the
plain of Megiddo, where the
Egyptian army with its 1000
chariots defeated a coalition of
Canaanite city-states and their
allies.

Lucy the Australopithecus

Ethiopia's afar rift:

Where the bones of Lucy and many of her “cousins” have
been preserved. next to awash river

“Lucy” the australopithecus (literally, the  “southern ape”)
ca. 3.2 million years ago

Lucy (named after the song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”) is the world’s best preserved representative of the australopithecus family. Though her anatomy preserves many ape-like features, she walks upright, anticipating the stance of modern men and women.
Bipedalism was a crucial development, since it freed up the arms for other functions, such as carrying food or children.

Paleolithic cave art

Paleolithic man also started to
carve objects from softer
materials, like bone, ivory, and
horn. As this assortment of
portable art illustrates, animals and
fertility were prominent themes in
the art of the Ice Age.

Bone and horn
tools and
ornaments,
ca. 20,000 BC

Since the discovery of the cave
paintings at Altamira in the 1879,
the corpus of European caves with
Paleolithic art has grown to more
than three hundred sites. Note on
this map the location of Altamira,
Lascaux, Rouffignac, and (in the
inset box) Chauvet. See below for
images from each of these caves

The roof of the Altamira cave is covered with
red bison. Although painted ca. 12,000 BC,
these images were not discussed until their
“discovery” in 1879. The Spanish landowner
who found them with his eight-year-old
daughter died in humiliation, unable to
convince scholars of his generation that the
paintings were made by Ice Age artists.

The “Neolithic Revolution”

From its origins in the
Levant, ca. 9,000 BC, the
new technology of farming
gradually spread through the
Mediterranean world,
Europe, and the Middle East.

Diffusion of the Neolithic Revolution

Rock art or petroglyphs suggest that the
Neolithic Revolution proceeded more
gradually in Egypt than it did in the Fertile
Crescent

Animal domestication

where, when, how, and why

Once domesticated, both sheep and goats were
also milked, and from that milk, Neolithic
societies made a variety of dairy dishes. Some
of you may be familiar with the modern versions
of these Neolithic products, especially feta and
goat cheese (chevre).

Domestication
of the aurochs

Hitched to a wooden plow,
domesticated bulls allowed late
Neolithic farmers to plow more
land than ever before. Similar
farming techniques have endured
in isolated rural areas of the
Middle East until today.

The same basic technology of the ox-yoke plow,
developed in the late Neolithic era, continues to
be used in many parts of the world, for example,
in Peru, where domesticated cattle were first
introduced as part of the “Columbian Exchange”
that developed in the wake of the arrival of the
conquistadors and their animals. On this theme,
see esp. the book or documentary by Jared
Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel (1999).

Mesopotamian kingship

Ishtar/Inanna

Hammurabi of Babylon

Hammurabi was a ruler of Amorite
descent (i.e., his ancestors were
people of the desert), who became a
great patron of Mesopotamian
culture. Using his skills of diplomacy,
Hammurabi built an empire that
stretched from Sumer
to the northern Euphrates River

Hammurabi is best known for his law code, which
was carved onto a large basalt stele, which is
now displayed in the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Your textbook includes a useful discussion of the
code’s contents. Above, Hammurabi stands before
the god Marduk.

Hieroglyphic writing system

literally, the “sacred writing”

Narmer Palette

Horse domestication

 (Ukraine, southern Russia, western Kazakhstan)

Horses are the most commonly
depicted animals in the Lascaux
cave. Their coats and marking
are often reminiscent of ancient
horse species, which survives
today only in Mongolia.

Przewalski’s Horse (Mongolia), the closest
surviving relative of the wild horses that
once roamed Asia and Europe; its coat and
markings recall the horses depicted in
Paleolithic cave art.

True wild horses are now extinct, but in
some areas, such as the American
Southwest, groups of domesticated horses
have gone feral, returning to the open
grazing lifestyle of their wild ancestors.

region above and between caspian and black sea where archaeologists have found
the world’s earliest evidence for horse
domestication, ca. 6000-4000 B.C, in the
form of horse burials and horse teeth
whose wear patterns reveal the use of bits
and bridles.

The teeth of domesticated horses
found in southern Kazakhstan
reveal wear patterns consistent
with the use of bits and bridles.

Like other domesticated animals, horses can be milked, though as
one ethnographer in Mongolia observed, milking a mare required
considerable patience and skill. Note here how a mother and son
in Kazakhstan work together to convince the mare to release
her milk. During its summer milking season season, a healthy
mare can produce more than 1000 kilograms of milk, about half
of which is given to its foal.

In general, nomads often convert animal milk into more
portable forms, such as yogurt or cheese. On the
Eurasian steppe, they fermented horse milk to make a
mildly alcoholic beverage called koumis (or a variety of
other regional names). I think this kid may have gotten
in his mother’s sample.

After an extended period in which the people of the
Eurasian steppe lived with their domesticated horses, some
groups living in the area of what is today southern
Kazakhstan began to ride horses. This development did
not occur until ca. 3500 BC.

The domestication of horses helped the nomads of
the Eurasian steppe herd their flocks. In some
areas, they herded horses, in other areas, sheep
and goats (as in this photo from the Fergana
Valley in eastern Uzbekistan). Possession of
horses also gave the nomads the means to
migrate long distances in search of fresh
pastures in times of drought.

Amarna tablets

Bronze Age diplomacy

The Amarna letters reveal Egypt’s wide-ranging
diplomatic correspondence during the reigns of
Akhenaten and his father Amenhotep III. Most of
the letters deal with Egypt’s relations with the
minor client states of the Levant; a smaller number
describe Egypt’s negotiations with the other major
powers of the era: the Hittite kingdom of Anatolia;
the Mittani in northern Syria, and the Babylonians
in central and southern Mesopotamia.

a sign of internationalism

During the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1600-1200 BC),
the various states and empires of the Middle
East and Eastern Mediterranean became
increasingly interconnected through trade,
diplomacy, and warfare. The shipwreck found
at Uluburun off the southern coast of Turkey
and the port city of Ugarit in northern Syria
offer important evidence for the international
connections of this period.

Copper ingots like the
one held here by two
archaeologists have
rarely been found on
land; the Uluburun
shipwreck held more
than 350 of them.
Chemical analysis
indicated the copper
was originally mined
on the island of
Cyprus.

Amarna

Architects of the pharaoh
Akhenaten laid out, on
virgin ground, a new
imperial capital. After
his death, the site, known
today as Amarna, was
quickly abandoned.

The archaeology of Amarna (Akhetaten: “The Horizon of Aton”)

The Amarna style: bold experimentation in depictions of royal power

The art of Amarna age
includes more scenes of
children than any other phase
of Egyptian royal art. Here, a
painting of two daughters of
Akhenaten and Nefertiti.

The artists at Amarna
created some of the finest
sculpture of any stage of
Egyptian history. Here, a
fragmentary face made of
hard, polished jasper stone.

Nefertiti

• art: One of the most famous art works of antiquity, this bust of Neferiti was found at
  Amarna in 1880s by German archaeologists. It resides today in Berlin, despite
  numerous petitions by the Egyptian government to have it returned to Egypt.
• history

Akhenaten H. Carter and the tomb of Tutankhamon

Howard Carter with
his patron Lord
Carnarvon, who
financed his
seasons of
treasure-hunting in
the Valley of the
Kings. Carter had
to beg and plead to
receive funding for
“one last season.” It
proved to be a very
good investment by
his patron.

The still-intact seal on
King Tut’s tomb, as
found by Howard Carter
and his crew in 1922.

Howard Carter cleans the
sarcophagus of King Tut -- what
would become 55 years later the
grande finale of the “King Tut”
exhibit.

Isis and Osiris

The Egyptian pantheon: Osiris, Isis, Horus, and other deities

In the earliest phases of pharaonic
history, Osiris came to be revered as
the foremost god of the Egyptian
pantheon. He was closely associated
with his role as king of the dead. He is
shown here with his shepherd’s crook
and flail, which were signs of his royal
power. According to Egyptian
mythology, he was the son of the Earth
god Geb and the sky goddess Nut.

Egyptians believed that the god Osiris
was murdered by his brother Seth. Isis,
who was both his sister and his wife,
showed her love by gathering all the
fragments of Osiris’ body and
reassembling them (with addition of a
golden penis!) to bring him back to life.
Isis was widely worshipped throughout
ancient Egypt. She is often depicted, as
she is here, with the horns of a cow

Horus, according to most
accounts, was the son of Isis
and Osiris. He was depicted in a
variety of forms, though often
as a falcon. Here, you see one of
many signs that Egyptian view
of the animal world was
profoundly different from that
of early Mesopotamia.

Minoan Civilization

The Lost World of Minoan Crete

“There is a land called Crete in the midst of the wine-dark sea, a fair and rich land, surrounded

by water, and therein are many countless men and ninety cities.” Odyssey, 19, 172-74.

Mythic Crete: distant memories of the Bronze Age

Geography and natural resources of Crete: the Mediterranean triad

Exodus narrative

Exodus (literally, “going out”): Flight of the Israelites from Egypt

Exodus as story and paradigm in Western Civilization

Moses the deliverer: Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments

The Exodus: Moses leads the Hebrews to the Promised Land

Forty years in the wilderness and Moses’ death at Mount Nebo

The Promised Land

Moses, Joshua, the Promised Land

Samson and Delilah

Israelites and Philistines:

Abraham

Indo-European language family

celtic latin germanic greek and sanskrit

Historical linguistics and the discovery

William Jones, a British judge in late 18th century India, was one of the first scholars to
recognize the similarities among the Indo-European languages, such as English, Latin,
Russian, and Persian.

Modern distribution

William Jones, a British judge in late 18th century India, was one of the first scholars to
recognize the similarities among the Indo-European languages, such as English, Latin,
Russian, and Persian.

Debates over the Indo-European homeland

Semitic language family

• in Europe since ca. 300,000 BC
• When man walked out of Africa into Europe and the Middle East, they also soon discovered that they
  were not alone. A closely related human species had been living in these same regions for more than
  200,000 years. We call them Neanderthals after the Neander River in western Germany where the
  bones were first found in 1856,
• Comparison of
  Neanderthal and
  Human Anatomy
  - N. skull larger, but slightly flatter
  - N. have larger nasal openings
  and clavicles
  - N. have thick chests (less
  cylindrical in shape)
  - Humans are about 6 inches
  taller on average
  
• Anatomically, Neanderthals were very similar to modern
  humans, but slightly better adapted to the cold, with
  shorter limbs (a feature found in many cold-weather
  species), strong jaws for chewing animal hides, and a
  prominent ridge on their brow to protect their eyes from
  frost. For recreated scenes of Neanderthal hunters, see the
  BBC special “Walking with Cavemen.”
• Some of the best evidence for the complexity of Neanderthal
  social patterns comes from burials. Unlike earlier hominid
  species, Neanderthals buried their dead, even laying flowers on
  their graves (as attested by a Neanderthal burial in northern
  Iraq); they were also sometimes buried in family groups.
• Note the extensive spread of the
  Neanderthals across Europe and the
  Middle East, prior to their
  replacement by early man between
  100,000 and 30,000 BCE.
  

ca. 2350 -2294 BC

King Sargon was not a Sumerian, but an Akkadian from central Mesopotamia.
Following his conquest of the Sumerian cities in southern Mesopotamia, he created an
empire that stretched from the “Upper Sea to the Lower Sea.”

Woolly mammoths were once widely distributed throughout the northern hemisphere. Skeletons and tusks are still found on regular basis beneath the permafrost of Siberia. But you don’t have to travel that far to see mammoth remains. The Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria has the remains of more than 50 mammoths, including 22 recovered from Vancouver Island! The mammoth on display in Victoria weighed ca. 6 tons, making it slightly larger than the largest species of modern elephant, the African Savannah elephant

In 2007, mammoth bone hunters found a frozen baby
mammoth exposed by the melting permafrost. It is now
being studied by Japanese scientists, and there are serious
discussions underway about the viability (and wisdom) of
extracting enough mammoth DNA from such frozen
specimens to attempt to clone them and bring them back
from extinction.

And they hunted together, using thrusting
spears to bring down a variety of large game.
Some scholars think Neanderthals were only
scavengers of mammoth carcasses, but I find
this implausible given the other evidence for
the complexity of their social life.

A tell or hoyuk created by centuries
 of human settlement in the same location,
thereby creating a large artificial hill

An urban tell: Aleppo (Syria)

TELL ARCHAEOLOGY
Stratigraphy of a large tell
in Israel Jericho Kathleen Kenyon

Sumerian cylinder seals, depicting scenes of worshippers being presented before
seated deities. Note the horned helmets worn by the gods.

Each of the major cities of Mesopotamia possessed a
temple associated with a particular deity. The chief
temple of the moon god Nanna (Akkadian Sin) was in the
city of Ur, while the city of Eridu had the temple of Enki,
master of the subterranean waters. Uruk had the temple
of Anu the sky god and his daughter Ishtar, and Nippur
(further north) was home to the E-kur, the “Mountain
House,” chief temple of the god Enlil. The sun god Shamash
had his main temple in Sippar in the region of Akkad.

from the Latin word cuneus for wedge

The Warka or Uruk Vase shows gifts being brought to the temple of the goddess Ishtar
(Sumerian Inanna), who is depicted in the upper register of the reliefs. The vase was stolen in
the looting of the Iraqi Museum following the American-led invasion of Iraq in March, 2003.
Fortunately, this item was recovered and has been returned to the Iraqi National Museum.

The cultural system rooted in the cuneiform system of writing spread from the Levant and Central
Anatolia to SW Iran and lasted more than 3000 years in its Mesopotamian homeland

The invention of writing ca.
3100 BC paralleled and may
have contributed to the
political unification of Egypt
under the first pharaohs.

The real key to the decipherment
was Champollion’s recognition
that the names in the cartouches
had to be the royal names of
Egypt’s Hellenistic rulers, the
Ptolemaic dynasty.

5000 years of human history with writing just the tip of the iceberg

Early man, Homo sapiens wins out over earlier hominids

Man walks out of Africa and migrates north, ca. 100,000 BC

Arrival of modern man and the eclipse of the Neanderthals

Stone tools of the Paleolithic era

("Old Stone Age")

Stone axes like this one from southern Europe were useful for cutting the carcasses of the
large herbivores (caribou, bison, etc.), which formed a significant part of the Neanderthals’
diet. The tools on the right were found at Neanderthal sites in Romania. Neanderthals also
used simple flint tools for cutting and scraping; tools shown here include a scraper, knife, core,
hammer, and an awl.

In the Ukraine, Neanderthals
lived in huts made of
mammoth bones -- just as
humans who lived in the
same region would do after
the extinction of the
Neanderthals.

It takes great skill and patience to produce
high-quality stone tools like these. In an
age long before metallurgy,
knives and spearheads like these were
prestigious and valuable objects

The invention of needles also made possible the
making of clothes. No more simple furs! This local
leader was buried in the equivalent of a Paleolithic suit
decorated with thousands of mammoth ivory beads.

Bone carvers of the Paleolithic
era produced finely polished
needles, like the one shown
here, and even musical
instruments like the bone flute
recently found in Germany.

The cave painters,

A selective interpretation of the natural world

Debates over the purpose of the cave paintings

The caves at Lascaux
are also decorated with
patterns of dots and
squares, perhaps some
kind of clan marking.
Despite numerous
attempts, no scholars
yet have been able to
discern a system behind
these signs

The meaning of this enigmatic
painting is much debated.
What do you notice about this
human (?) figure and the injured
buffalo that faces him?

Only image of a human being in Lascaux Cave paintings

New discoveries: Chauvet, France (1994)

In December 1994, three French cave explorers were
the first people to step into the Chauvet cave in
thousands of years. The cave’s paintings are nearly
15,000 years earlier than those at Lascaux! For the
remarkable story of this discovery, see on the
reserve shelf the beautifully illustrated book, Dawn
of Art: The Chauvet Cave.

The dating of the paintings at Chauvet, established by
Carbon-14 analysis, came as a shock to many scholars,
who assumed that such sophisticated painting must
have been produced later. The Carbon-14 dating of
ca. 33,000 BC indicates the sophistication of the
human population at that time, giving some insight
perhaps into why modern man was able so quickly to
supplant the Neanderthals who had long been resident
in the same regions.

The Neolithic Revolution: From

The Natufians

(modern Jordan, Israel, Palestine)

The Natufian culture,
which emerged in the
Levant from ca. 9000
BC or earlier, forms a
bridge between the
Paleolithic era and the
new patterns of
human settlement
made possible by the
Neolithic Revolution

The invention of agriculture and beginning of village life

As soon as people began to farm, they
also began to build huts and other
dwellings to shelter themselves
through the year. This mud and
thatch hut is in modern East Africa,
but its construction techniques are
not unlike those first developed in
the Middle East as part of the
Neolithic Revolution.

From its origins in the
Levant, ca. 9,000 BC, the
new technology of farming
gradually spread through the
Mediterranean world,
Europe, and the Middle East

Milk, cheese, and the human metabolism

Legacies of the Neolithic Revolution:

Pots and peoples: or how archaeologists use ceramics

These Neolithic villages also produced
some of the world’s earliest painted
pottery, like these fragmentary
examples from the Tell Halaf culture
whose villages have been found across
the whole of northern Mesopotamia.

Another marker of the Tell
Halaf culture are figurines
like this one -- often called
“fertility goddesses,” though
their exact meaning remains
elusive due to the absence of
textual evidence.

6000 BC

Pictogram, ideogram, phonogram

The problem of Sumerian origins (and why Akkadian helps)

“History begins at Sumer”: The world’s earliest texts

: Home of Ea (Enki), God of the Apsu

Nippur:

Temple of Enlil, chief of the Gods

The building on top of the ruined ziggurat at Nippur
was built by American archaeologists in the early
20th century

Sippar:

Temple of Utu (Shamash), the Sun God

BUILDING INSCRIPTION OF
KING HAMMURABI

“I raised the top of the foundation
of Sippar’s city wall with earth so that
 it was like a mighty mountain.
That mighty wall I built. From the distant past
 no king among kings had ever made such a wall
for my Lord, the god Shamash.
I named the wall
‘At-the-command-of-the-god-Shamash,
may-Hammurabi-have-no-rival.’”
Numerous copies of this inscription
were found by archaeologists excavating at Sippar.

The beginnings of literature: Innana (Ishtar) goes to Hades

The story of Gilgamesh was well-known throughout the
Ancient Near East.

The narrator also claims that the
story of Gilgamesh was recorded on tablets of lapis
lazuli, one of the most precious and durable materials
known to Sumerian society.

Cylinder seals and other art from
ancient Mesopotamia preserve several
images that appear to represent
particular episodes in the Gilgamesh
legend. Literary fragments of the
legend have also been found at many
sites in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran.

Gilgamesh and the walls of Uruk

Enkidu:

Gilgamesh's dreams and his bond with Enkidu

Manly adventures:

Gilgamesh’s search for immortality

Mesopotamian Flood Epic

Kish, Lagash, Ur, Uruk, and other cities in early dynastic period

Duties and honors of Sumerian kingship

The stele of the
vultures, erected ca.
2460 BC by a ruler of
the city of Lagash,
provides an even more
impressive image of
Sumerian warfare. The
stele takes its name
from a scene on
another part of the
stele, which depicted
vultures carrying off
the severed heads of the
king’s enemies.

This famous standard, buried with one of the
early kings of Ur ca. 2500 BC, shows scenes of
peace on one side and war on the other. This
juxtaposition concisely conveys the intimate
bond that the Sumerian saw between military
strength and the king’s ability to enjoy a life of
well-served leisure.

The rise of Akkad:

Sargon and his grandson Naram-Sin

The code of Hammurabi

Saddam’s Babylon: Archaeology and modern nationalism

Built under the
third dynasty
of Ur during
the 21rst
century BC (!),
the ziggurat at
Ur was
frequently
repaired by
subsequent
rulers. The
only major
restoration in
modern history,
however, was
under the
Baathist regimeof Saddam
Hussein, who
liked to present
himself as the
legitimate heir
of Iraq’s
ancient kings,
especially
Hammurabi of
Babylon.

Saddam Hussein, an avid patron
of reconstruction efforts at the
site of ancient Babylon, also
built one of his own (numerous)
palaces in the vicinity

In direct imitation of ancient
Mesopotamian rulers, Saddam had his
inscription recorded on the bricks of the
palace of ancient Babylon as restored by
Iraqi archaeologists.

Cuneiform culture beyond Mesopotamia

Egypt and its place in the "Western" tradition

Hollywood has long presented Egypt
as a place of wonder and seductive charm

Another side of Egypt in the Western
imagination -- as a dark, cursed, and
dangerous place -- takes center stage
in a recent set of (in my view)
appallingly stupid movies.

. Note
how Barnett Newman’s 1963 sculpture Broken
Obelisk reconfigures iconic elements of Egyptian
architecture. If you are ever in Houston, you can
go see the companion piece placed in a reflecting
pool in front of the Rothko Chapel.

Nile River, shown
here at Abu Simbel, where the
creation of Lake Nasser threatened
to submerge a famous temple of
Ramses II; we’ll see what happened
to the temple in a later lecture.

The world’s longest river, the Nile flows
northward from the highlands of East Africa
to the Mediterranean Sea. The cataracts or
rapids located in modern Sudan separated the
upper and lower parts of the river

The primary tributaries of the
Nile are the Blue Nile, which
originates at Lake Tana in
Ethiopia, and the White Nile,
which rises from Lake Victoria
in southern Uganda. The two
rivers meet near the modern city
of Khartoum (Sudan).

The Blue Nile, which originates in Lake
Tana in Ethiopia, flows with great
intensity downward and to the north.
Already in the time of the historian
Herodotus, some scholars realized that
the rains of Ethiopia were what caused
the annual flooding in Egypt.

The slow-flowing and muddy waters of the
White Nile collected tons of silt, which were
later deposited in Egypt during the annual
inundation, when the Nile overflowed its
banks south of the cataracts.

Modern engineering has
interrupted the ancient rhythms
of the Nile. The construction of
the Aswan Dam with the help of
American engineers in the 1950s
created Lake Nasser and
curtailed the annual flooding of
the river.

Three seasons: 

inundation (akhet)mid-July to mid-Nov.

; emergence (peret)mid-Nov. to mid-March

; dryness (shemu) mid-March to mid-July

Black Land and Red Land

The end result is clearly visible from space. The divide between the cultivated land
of the Nile Valley and the harsh deserts that enclosed it could not be starker. This
contrast was embedded in the deepest layers and linguistic roots of Egyptian
civilization. See in the course pack Kemp’s discussion of the hieroglyphs for “land”
and “desert.”

The end result is clearly visible from space. The divide between the cultivated land
of the Nile Valley and the harsh deserts that enclosed it could not be starker. This
contrast was embedded in the deepest layers and linguistic roots of Egyptian
civilization. See in the course pack Kemp’s discussion of the hieroglyphs for “land”
and “desert.”

Neolithic farming and ceramics (Gerzean culture)

Egyptian monarchy: first pharaohs buried at Abydos

The invention of writing ca.
3100 BC paralleled and may
have contributed to the
political unification of Egypt
under the first pharaohs

In the earliest phases of pharaonic
history, Osiris came to be revered as
the foremost god of the Egyptian
pantheon. He was closely associated
with his role as king of the dead. He is
shown here with his shepherd’s crook
and flail, which were signs of his royal
power. According to Egyptian
mythology, he was the son of the Earth
god Geb and the sky goddess Nut.

narmer pallette

A selection of the names of the earliest pharaohs, each represented by
their official name written inside a cartouche (On cartouches, see pages
8-9 of the course pack). Na‘rmer, ‘Aha (literally, “Fighter“), and Den
(“Killer“) were rulers in the 1rst Dynasty

Pharaoh Den (“Killer”) of the First Dynasty,
(ca. 2980 BC) bashes his enemy’s skull
From the royal sandal label found at Abydos

The Kings of the 1rst and
2nd dynasty were buried
at Abydos in Upper Egypt,
where archaeologists
have found evidence for
human sacrifice in their
honor. Predynastic rulers
such as “Scorpion“ (ca.
3150 BC) were also
buried at Abydos.

. Djoser, builder of the great step
pyramid at Saqqara, was a member of the 3rd dynasty.

Beginning with Djoser, the
pharaohs of the Third and
Fourth Dynasties ruled
from the city of
Memphis, building their
tombs — pyramids — on
the west side of the Nile
at Saqqara and then Giza.

Note also the
cartouches of Snofru, founder of the 4rth dynasty, and his son Khufu,
builder of the Great Pyramid at Giza.

Archaic period (3000-2715 BCE); Old Kingdom (2715-2170 BCE)

Middle Kingdom (2000-1683 BCE)

An

era

of

restoration:

; New Kingdom (1550-1075 BCE)

Kingship and the gods: Egyptian-style

Only a tiny fraction of ancient
Egyptians became literate,
perhaps 1% according to one
modern estimate. Scribes,
though, were honored figures,
since literacy played a
prominent role in royal
administration.

Depictions of the pharaohs almost
always show them wearing some kind
of crown. Here, Djoser, wears the
elaborate Nemes headdress, which was
decorated with gold and lapis lazuli;
we will this again in the King Tut
lecture! Pharaohs also wore fake
beards as another key symbol of their
royal authority.

Animal gods and the Egyptian view of nature

Burial and grave goods in pre-dynastic Egypt

Mastabas as homes of the dead

Egyptian burial houses known as mastabas seem to have imitated domestic
architecture. They were designed as houses of the dead for eternity and often
stuffed with materials, which the deceased might need in the afterlife.

Typically, the actual burial was placed not in the mastaba
itself, but in a shaft extending beneath the building.

Material, human, and animal companions for the afterlife

Egyptians carefully prepared animal
corpses, just as they treated human
corpses to ensure their longevity. Animals
were mummified for different purposes:
some as pets, others as offerings to the
gods, and others as food for the afterlife.
Modern archaeologists have found many
different kinds of animal mummies: birds
(especially ibises), cats, crocodiles, baboons,
and bulls are the most common.

Hieroglyphic labels
identify the wide range
of goods which
servants bring to
sustain their master in
the afterlife.

In 1950, a stunning discovery
was made in the shadow of the
Great Pyramid, a massive pit
containing a 40-foot wooden
ship, which carried the pharaoh
to his grave.

The solar barge of the
pharaoh Khufu, buried next
to the Great Pyramid.
Constructed with any use
of nails, the boat was
designed to carry pharaoh
to the Afterworld.

Elite tombs from Abydos and Saqqara (necropolis of Memphis)

Tomb scenes and Egyptian social history

Elite Egyptian tombs normally included images of
the deceased. Quite a few of these statues have
survived, allowing us to look into the eyes of the
men who prided themselves on their service to
the pharaoh. Often shown together with their
wives and children, they boast of careers lived
according to the principles of ma’at.

Low reliefs carved into the wall of Old
Kingdom tombs include numerous scenes
of servants bringing along everything
the deceased might need for nourishment
and pleasure in the next life.

Other tomb scenes show elites engaged in
their favorite activities. This nobleman
clearly hoped to hunt for all eternity!

Some tomb scenes depict the daily life of the Egyptian countryside with evocative realism.
Note how the artists here recall the sight and sounds of a group of domestic cattle being
herded across a stream

The Step Pyramid (ca. 2650 BC) of King Djoser at Saqqara

The architect Imhotep (later worshipped as Greco-Roman healing god Asclepius)

In the temple erected in
his honor at Saqqara,
Imhotep, architect of the
Step Pyramid, was
depicted as a scribe.
Writing skills were
restricted to an
estimated 2% of people.

During the third dynasty,
pharaohs began to build for
themselves more elaborate
funeral complexes. The pharaoh
Djoser, depicted here in the guise
of the god Osiris, ordered his
leading architect, the scholar
Imhotep, to design his tomb

Imhotep was not only an architect, but
also a scholar. Some modern scholars
believe that the medical papyrus shown
here, written in hieratic (the cursive form
of hieroglyphics), should be attributed to
him. The papyrus describes how to
diagnose and treat various types of
traumatic injuries.

This is what Imhotep is reported
to have created for his royal
master, a new type of funerary
monument, which ascended
toward the heavens.

Royal power in the Fourth Dynasty

scale,The scale of the pyramids is
stunning and hard to grasp.
Khufu’s pyramid, which is the
largest of the three, covers about
13 acres and is made of more than
2 million stones.

design,The enormous scale of the
pyramids should not lead us to
forget the evidence for the
sophistication of their
engineering. The National
Geographic documentary “Into
the Great Pyramid” is goofy and
sometimes annoying, but includes
fascinating pictures from the
inner chambers of Khufu’s
magnificent pyramid.

Modern awe at the sheer size and complexity of the pyramids’ design has led to a
variety of crackpot theories about how they were made. The reality is more
prosaic, belonging squarely to the realm of earthly resources and human expertise.

Another theory (more
plausible than aliens) claims
that the pyramids were built
by slave labor. But there is
very little evidence to
support this theory.

During the period of the annual
inundation of the Nile, the fields of
ordinary Egyptian farmers were
underwater. Some scholars believe
-- and I find this persuasive -- that
many of these same farmers were
persuaded (or forced) to work on
pharaoh’s tomb during the period of
the inundation

 and

purpose

The pyramids at Giza were built during a period of less than a
century with midpoint of their construction ca. 2500 BC.

Excavation of workers’ necropolis discovered in 1990

The solar bark buried next to Great Pyramid

Pyramids:

Peoples of the Eurasian steppe and nomad archaeology

Horses were first domesticated on the Central Asian Steppe north of the Black and
Caspian Seas in what is today southern Ukraine, the region of Russia immediately
north of the Caucasus Mountains, and western Kazakhstan. This region formed
part of the larger Eurasian steppe that stretched from Ukraine to Mongolia.

Eurasian steppe, which occupies an
ecological niche between the forests of Siberia and the much more arid zone of the
Middle East and Central Asia. This steppe -- like the prairies of the American
Midwest -- is characterized by rolling grassy plains with few trees, but enough
seasonal vegetation to support grazing.

The first stage in the domestication of horses
(ca. 6000 BC) required people to live where the
horses lived, that is, on the steppe. By
studying modern horse-herding nomads, such
as those depicted here in modern Kyrgyzstan,
we can gain insights into traditions of nomadic
life on the steppe that have roots extending
back into prehistory.

Today the site of Kanesh is just a dusty little Turkish village. The site’s
giant tell, however, attests to the city’s size and wealth during the
Bronze Age, when Assyrian traders came to shop.

where hittites first met assyrians

Today the site of Kanesh is just a dusty little Turkish village. The site’s
giant tell, however, attests to the city’s size and wealth during the
Bronze Age, when Assyrian traders came to shop.

Hittite religion as revealed by archives of their capital

In 1906, German archaeologists rediscovered and began excavating the ruins of the ancient Hittite
capital. Known today as Bogazkoy (“Cow village”), the site attracts thousands of tourists each year.
German and Turkish archaeologists continue to excavate in the area of the ancient citadel.

Hittite religion
integrated weather
gods with many of
the old gods from
Mesopotamia. They
also borrowed the
cuneiform writing
system.

The Hittites’ adoption of the
cuneiform writing system
provides modern scholars
with a wealth of information
about their culture and
religion -- which combined
elements from Mesopotamia
with Indo-European beliefs
and traditions (some of them
reminiscent of Greek myths).

Mursilis I sacks Babylon in 1595 B.C.

After an extended period in which the people of the
Eurasian steppe lived with their domesticated horses, some
groups living in the area of what is today southern
Kazakhstan began to ride horses. This development did
not occur until ca. 3500 BC.

Warriors on horses posed a terrible menace to traditional village communities,
which had little warning when a band of nomadic attackers might ride into town.
To get a sense of this dynamic, watch THE SEVEN SAMURAI by the renowned
Japanese director Akira Kurasawa. The remake of the movie as an American
Western, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, also captures some of this dynamic, but not as
well as the original.

Hittite tablets and art also
attest to an intense interest
in the training of horses and
chariot warfare. Here, an
image of a Hittite light
chariot from the seventh
century B.C. The Hittite army
was employing an earlier
version of such chariots by
1600 B.C.

Hittites and New Kingdom Egypt

The major sites of ancient Egypt
were all located along the narrow
strip of the Nile Valley. But Egyptian
civilization extended its influence
through warfare, trade, and
diplomacy. Looking at Egypt’s
geography, can you guess where
Egypt would build its empire? To
understand this process, we will need
to think about the relationship
between trade and empire along
Egypt’s southern (Nubian) and
northwestern (“Asiatic”) borders.

The mines and quarries of the Eastern Desert
and the Sinai yielded many of the raw
products essential for elite display in ancient
Egypt, including gold, emeralds, turquoise, and
granite and other hard stones used for
sculpture and building.

These pottery fragments
are covered in Egyptian
curses written in the
cursive hieratic form of
hieroglyphics. While
cursing Egypt’s foreign
enemies, they also reveal
considerable knowledge
about them.

Their opponents in the south included a
variety of tribal groups in Nubia (modern
Sudan). We have no Nubian accounts from
this period, so most of our knowledge of their
society comes from hostile Egyptian accounts
and archaeology. Here, a “National
Geographic” reconstruction of Nubians at war.

Fortifications,

frontiers,

and

Nubian

mercenaries

Middle Kingdom Fortress
at Buhen (*reconstruction)

The remains of this large and
important Egyptian fort now
lie completely submerged
beneath Lake Nassar, which
was created by the
completion of the Aswan Dam
in 1970. The only record of
the fortress thus comes from
the American excavations of
the site in the 1920s.
Founded in fourth dynasty,
the fortress was expanded
and strengthened under the
12th dynasty ca. 1850 BC.
Its mud brick walls stood more
than 30 feet high and ten
feet thick and were enclosed
by a moat. With an
estimated population of 3000
people, it had the size and
resources to control the area
around the 2nd cataract and
defend Egypt against invasion
from the south.

Tomb figurines of African regiments suggest that Egyptians also
hired some African groups to fight in their army as mercenaries.
These figurines appear to hold throw-sticks with long sharpened and
likely poisoned darts.

Queen

Hatshepsut,

the

Queen

Pharaoh

(r.

1473--‐58

BC)

Women were, in principle, excluded
from becoming pharaoh, but a few
women challenged this taboo. Here
Queen Hatshepsut (1473-1458 BC)
is depicted as a male pharaoh with
beard.
She was the daughter of one
pharaoh (Thutmose I), the wife of a
second (her half-brother, Thutmose
II), and regent of a third (Thutmose
III), before she seized the throne and
ruled as sole pharaoh.

Her

funerary

chapel

at

Deir

al--‐Bahri

valley of the queens near thebes

Nestled into the cliff, the
tiered funerary complex of
Queen Hatshepsut is among
the most elegant examples
of Egyptian architecture.

In contrast to many pharaonic
monuments, its interior is filled
not with pictures of war and
slaughter, but a trading
expedition that represents a
different kind of imperialism.

The

queen

as

collector:

the

expedition

to

the

Land

of

Punt

In a bold but failed experiment in
ecological imperialism, Hatshepsut had
incense trees brought back from Punt
and planted in front of her tomb. inscense bushes

Hatshepsut

and

the

Egyptian

version

of

damnatio

memoriae

An

Egyptian

war

of

liberation:

Sack

of

Avaris

and

fall

of

the

Hyksos

The

professional

army

of

the

18th

dynasty:

the

war

chariot

Campaigns

of

Thutmose

III

in

Palestine

(r.

1479--‐25

BC)

No pharaoh campaigned
more often or vigorously
against the “vile Asiatics”
than Thutmose III, who led
his troops on 14 campaigns
against the city-states of
the Levant.

1479-25 BC

Thutmose’s most important
victory took place here, on the
plain of Megiddo, where the
Egyptian army with its 1000
chariots defeated a coalition of
Canaanite city-states and their
allies.

Obelisks

and

the

Temple

of

Amon--‐Re

at

Thebes

Notice the obelisks
depicted as part of
this victory relief.
The erection of these
tall monoliths
(literally, made from a
single stone) required
sophisticated
engineering.This obelisk of Thutmose III was
brought to Constantinople (now
Istanbul) in the early fourth century
A.D. We will revisit this obelisk in the
final week of the course.

In Thebes, as in many places in
Egypt, modern development has
almost completely engulfed the
ancient ruins. Here, in the
foreground, the temple of the god
Amon-Re at Luxor.

The mosque of Abu Haggag stands today amidst the ruins of the temple of Amon
at Luxor. The saint’s annual festival preserves echoes of ancient Egyptian
rituals. For an evocative and insightful documentary on this festival, see “For
Those Who Sail to Heaven.”

Now one of the
principal touristic
destinations in Egypt,
the temples of Luxor
continue to inspire
marvel for their scale
and beauty.

Egyptomania and Egyptokitsch

King Tut in America, 

1977 (55th anniversary of Howard Carter’s 1922 discovery)

The Treasures of Tutankhamun” was the most successful
museum exhibit of all time. It opened in London in 1972,
where it attracted more 1.8 million visitors. Approval for
the American leg of the exhibit came from the highest
levels of government. The president of Egypt, Anwar
Sadat, suggested the possibility of the loan to President
Richard Nixon during an official state visit in 1974. Two
years later, “King Tut” came to America in a grand tour
organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. More
than eight million visitors saw the exhibit during its
American tour, which included a stop in Seattle.

The enormous popularity of the initial 1976-79
exhibit has spawned frequent later iterations of
the famous exhibition

Putting Tut in context:

Why Tut matters (or not)

The historical King Tut was a minor figure in Egyptian history, a child-pharaoh lifted to the
throne following the death of his father Akhenaten, the so-called “Heretic Pharaoh”

The religious revolution of the pharaoh
Akhenaten introduced a striking new style of
portraiture. He began his reign as Amenhotep IV,
but then broke away from the temples at Thebes.
For this innovation, later Egyptians thought of
him as an impious ruler, or as modern scholars
have called him, the “heretic pharaoh.

and
Akhenaten’s wife Nefertiti. Here you see the names of all three written in hieroglyphs
enclosed in cartouches.

Content and significance of Tut's tomb

Tut’s afterlife: Egyptomania, American-style

The dawn of the Amarna age:

Amenhotep IV becomes Akhenaten

Architects of the pharaoh
Akhenaten laid out, on
virgin ground, a new
imperial capital. After
his death, the site, known
today as Amarna, was
quickly abandoned.

Aton the sun god promoted over Amon-Re

The collapse of the Amarna-era experiment

After Akhenaten’s death
and the accession of
Tutankhamen to the
throne, Amarna was
abandoned, and Thebes
again became the capital
of the New Kingdom.

Tutankhamon and the return to Amon-Re

Three types of internationalism:

the birth of underwater archaeology

George Bass (Texas A&M)

In the early 1980s, a
Turkish sponge diver
spotted the remains
of the oldest known
shipwreck in the
world. George Bass
led the excavation.

Correspondence of Amenhotep III and Akhenaten

-

Ramses the Great came to the
throne a child and ruled Egypt
through most of the 13th century
BC. He campaigned frequently in
Syria and was the patron of
buildings erected throughout Egypt,
including a pair of monumental
seated portraits of himself at the
entrance of the Temple of Amon-Re
at Luxor.

His campaigns in Syria
included a major chariot
battle against the Hittites in
central Syria in 1274 BC.
Here, the celebration of his
victory as depicted in low
relief.

Egyptians, Hittites, and the Battle of Qadesh (1286 BCE)

His campaigns in Syria
included a major chariot
battle against the Hittites in
central Syria in 1274 BC.
Here, the celebration of his
victory as depicted in low
relief

Following the battle, the Egyptian
and Hittite courts signed a peace
treaty. Here, the Hittite version of
the treaty discovered in the
archives at the Hittite capital at
Hatussas.

To celebrate his “victory” at the
Battle of Qadesh, Ramses
commissioned he construction of
this magnificent temple at Abu
Simbel, to the south of the first
cataract.

The completion of the Aswan Dam in
1970 led to the inundation of many
ancient Egyptian sites. An intense
international efforts ensured that the
Temple of Ramses II at Abu Simbel was
not among them. In a marvelous feat of
modern engineering, the entire temple
was carefully disassembled and moved to
a safer location of ground just above the
level of the newly-formed Lake Nasser.

Later cultures that
emerged in the wake of
the Bronze Age collapse
ca. 1200 BC, shortly after
Ramses’ death, would
preserve his name as
Egypt’s greatest pharaoh.

The Decline of the New Kingdom and the Age of the Sea Peoples

Inscription of Ramses III (1186-1154 BCE)

Archaeology of the “Sea Peoples”

King Minos and the Minotaur

Nature comes alive! Minoan palace frescoes

The enigma of the bull jumpers

Minoan religion:

 the end of Minoan civilization

The Mycenaeans inherit many aspects of Minoan culture

Memories of Minoan civilization:

Israel in the land of Egypt:

Manna from heaven and water from the rock

Plagues and the parting of the Red Sea

Yahweh, Sinai, and the commandments

Whining, grumbling, and the Golden Calf

Israelite archaeology:

The origins of Israelite kingship

The prophet Samuel and King Saul

David vs. Goliath

Fortifications, trade, and the Queen of Sheba

Solomon builds the Temple

Samaria,

King

Ahab,

and

the

‘Jezebel

factor’

The

rebukes

of

the

prophets:

Elijah

Judah,

keeper

of

priestly

tradition

The

Assyrian

heartland

of

NW

Mesopotamia

Assur,

original

capital

of

the

Old

and

Middle

Assyrian

Period

The

Neo--‐Assyrian

Empire

(883--‐627

BC)

Austen

Henry

Layard’s

excavations

at

Nimrud

Literature,

religion,

and

culture

of

the

Neo--‐Assyrian

Empire

Sumerian

and

Assyrian

gods

The

king

as

hero:

The

royal

hunt

“Your

cities

burnt

down”:

Warfare

and

the

Assyrian

army

Assyrian

imperial

policy

and

the

Levant

Assyrian

imperial

policy

and

the

Levant

Israelite

version

of

the

events:

Isaiah

36--‐37

(cf.

2

Kings

18)

“Purple

and

gold:”

Lord

Byron

on

the

slaughter

of

the

Assyrian

army

From

splendor

to

ruin:

Nineveh

sacked

in

612

Neo--‐Babylonian

(Chaldean)

Empire

of

Nebuchadnezzar

Nebuchadnezzar

and

the

Ishtar

Gate

(now

in

Berlin)

Babylonian

capture

of

Judah

and

the

Babylonian

Captivity

Daniel

and

dreams

at

the

Babylonian

court

The

three

Hebrews

in

the

fiery

furnace

Iranians

in

the

Zagros:

Medes

and

Persians

The

Achaemenids:

The

Empire

of

Cyrus,

Darius,

and

Xerxes

The

Great

King:

The

view

from

Behistun

in

western

Iran

Darius

erects

trilingual

inscription

at

Behistun

Henry

Rawlinson

and

the

decipherment

of

cuneiform

Ahura

Mazda

and

the

religion

of

the

prophet

Zoroaster

Zoroastrianism:

its

theology

and

ethics

Administration

and

toleration

of

local

customs