Chioma Anita Agwu Chapter One September 6, 2008
Over the years Middle Eastern Civilizations, being one of the first early civilizations, have provided the basic characteristics of what a civilization should be. Through their achievements, developments, and new discoveries they were able to show how an organized civilization should be and help with their everyday lives.
Mesopotamia meaning the land between two rivers (Tigris and Euphrates) was developed from scratch. By 4000 B.C.E. farmers were exposed to bronze and cooper and had already invented the wheel for transportation. With the bronze and cooper the farmers were able to have different tools which made farming easier. Also they had a well established pottery industry with their own artistic forms.
Next were the Sumerians, who were invaders. At about 3500 B.C.E. they’d developed a cuneiform alphabet. Their alphabet consisted of pictures to represent various objects. The alphabet went from 2000 symbols to 300, but reading and writing were still complicated skills and so was science which helped form a complex agricultural society. Sumerians also developed complex religious rituals. To go with their complex religious rituals, the Sumerians had enormous ziggurats which formed the first monumental architecture in this civilization. Rituals took place inside of the ziggurats.
The Egyptians also had something similar to the ziggurat but was called a pyramid where they buried their pharaohs who were their kings who had great power. They also had a more advanced economy than majority of the Middle Eastern Civilizations. They traded and had help with technology from the influence that the Mesopotamians gave.
The political structure of the Sumerians had tightly organized city-states ruled by a king who claimed all authority. To add on to the Sumerians agricultural success, they used wheeled carts, learned about fertilizers, and used silver as their form of money. Other Middle Eastern...