Part 1 (2/2)
10,000 BCE BCE.
Polar ice caps begin to melt, raising sea levels four hundred feet.
9000 BCE BCE.
The Natufian culture domesticates wheat, inventing agriculture.
7500 BCE BCE.
The world's first cities emerge at Catal Huyuk and Jericho.
5,300 BCE BCE.
The Sahara has become a desert.
5000 BCE BCE.
Catal Huyuk and Jericho are mysteriously abandoned.
4500 BCE BCE.
The first Sumerian cities, Eridu and Ur, are founded.
4000 BCE BCE.
The first cities are founded in Egypt.
3100 BCE BCE.
Egypt is united by the pharaohs and becomes the world's first state.
3000 BCE BCE.
China's first civilization begins (Longshan culture).
2600 BCE BCE.
Harappan civilization flourishes in the Indus River Valley.
2530 BCE BCE.
Egyptians complete the Great Pyramid of Cheops.
2200 BCE BCE.
Babylon is founded by the Amorites.
1900 BCE BCE.
China's first royal family, the Xia dynasty, rules.
1750 BCE BCE.
Abraham leaves Ur for Canaan.
1700 BCE BCE.
Harappan civilization disappears.
1600 BCE BCE.
Indo-Europeans establish Hitt.i.te and Mitanni kingdoms in Mesopotamia.
SPINNING THE GLOBE.
The Highly Fertile Crescent
The first first large-scale settlements in the world were Jericho, in modern-day Israel, and Catal Huyuk, in modern-day eastern Turkey. Both were founded around 8000 BCE(ish), in the western half of the ”Fertile Crescent,” a rich agricultural belt straddling the Middle East whose eastern region includes Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq). These settlements were like a ”first try”: they never grew as large as the civilizations that followed them, eventually fading and disappearing under mysterious circ.u.mstances. large-scale settlements in the world were Jericho, in modern-day Israel, and Catal Huyuk, in modern-day eastern Turkey. Both were founded around 8000 BCE(ish), in the western half of the ”Fertile Crescent,” a rich agricultural belt straddling the Middle East whose eastern region includes Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq). These settlements were like a ”first try”: they never grew as large as the civilizations that followed them, eventually fading and disappearing under mysterious circ.u.mstances.
Between 8000 BCE and 7000 BCE, Jericho probably had about two thousand inhabitants, living in rectangular houses with plaster walls and floors and encircled by protective stone walls. The people appear to have practiced some form of ancestor wors.h.i.+p, venerating skulls adorned with seash.e.l.ls. Catal Huyuk was larger: The oldest layer yet discovered, covering thirty-two acres, dates to about 7500 BCE, when it probably had a population of six thousand. Catal Huyuk connected a network of villages stretching hundreds of miles around, and was a major center of religion and trade. It was inexplicably abandoned around 5000 BCE.
SLAP HAPPY.
At the Akitu festival marking the New Year, the kings of Babylon had a special responsibility: getting slapped so hard their momma felt it. The ritual was part of a ceremonial purification of the city. According to protocol, the king would enter the temple of Marduk, Babylon's chief G.o.d, and tell the G.o.d that he hadn't done anything wrong in the last year-for example, slapped the cheek of any of his subjects. The high priest then slapped the king but good; if the king's eyes teared up from this unjust punishment, he was telling the truth, and Marduk approved him to rule for another year.
Jericho and Catal Huyuk were followed by a collection of city-states in Mesopotamia that were all part of the Sumerian civilization. The big players were Eridu and Ur, founded between 4500 and 4000 BCE, Uruk and Lagash (3500 BCE), Kish (3200 BCE), and Nippur (3000 BCE). Though these cities quarreled endlessly, they shared a common language, culture, and religion.
SARGON BUT NOT FORGOTTEN.
Sargon the Great was the first in a long line of people with the same idea: conquering everything. But like most of the others, his amazing success was fleeting.Legend has it that Sargon's mother was a ”changeling,” meaning either a demon or a prost.i.tute, who gave birth to the future conqueror around 2350 BCE. According to Sumerian stories, in his youth, Sargon served as the royal cup-bearer for the king of Kish, named Ur-Zababa. Believing Sargon was favored by the G.o.ddess Inanna, Ur-Zababa tried to have him killed, but Sargon escaped. He built up a following among local tribesmen, founding a new city, Akkad, as his capital, and then went on the warpath. After conquering all of Sumeria, including Kish (sweet, sweet revenge), Sargon symbolically washed his sword in the Persian Gulf-Sumeria's southernmost boundary-to symbolize his total control over the area. Still hungry for power, he headed north to conquer a.s.syria, Lebanon, and southern Turkey, before finally turning east to conquer Elam, in Persia (now Iran).A clever ruler, Sargon understood the importance of trade and of controlling the long-distance trade routes between cities. His empire dominated the trade routes connecting the Harappan civilization of India to Sumeria, Egypt, and the Mediterranean basin. These trade routes made Sargon and his successors fabulously wealthy.Sargon tried to continue his empire by placing his children in positions of power, but after his death, key territories rebelled against one of his sons, Rimush, who was then a.s.sa.s.sinated by his brother Manishtushu. Sargon's short-lived empire was finished.
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