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Home of the The Hall of Ma'at on the Internet
Preface

I am in the process of revising this document and it may differ each time
you access it over the next few months. The most noticeable change is the
division of the document into this file which contains a PREFACE, an
INTRODUCTION, and a TABLE OF CONTENTS which currently contains ten
segments with others likely to be added in the next five months.

As of January 13, 2003, the major changes include incorporating the
Appendices into the appropiate sections of the body of the text. I have
enhanced descriptions within the text, though this process is far from
complete. I have already added one new section on "The Americas" and an
abundance of web site pointers which offer additional information for
those interested in such.

Many of the links are to Bibliographies, though I find students
increasingly reluctant to make the effort necessary to find books. For
those who fall into the latter category I suggest extreme caution. I have
omitted commercial sites, unless they contain useful information, and
those with ideosyncratic frameworks and obvious misinformation. I know of
no method that one might use to evaluate web sites other than to consult
books by scholars in the field.

That too can produce serious problems in validation. Egyptology is a good
example: a high percentage of the books available - and most of the
television films based on them- are written by those attempting to prove a
preexisting bias. Be wary of titles containg the words "secret",
"mystery", or "the unknown", and be exceptionally wary of authors who
claim to have solved some historical problem or to have revolutionized a
field of study. Avoid books that trace origins to Lost Continents like Mu,
Lemuria, or Atlantis. You should also be skeptical of books that propose a
radical idea and challenge you to disprove it. The burden of proof always
lies with the author - never with the audience. These cautions also apply
to web sites.

Usenet newsgroups are a wasteland where valid information is virtually
impossible to distinguish from trash. Fortunately there are alternatives
similaR to news- groups called MAILING LISTS. Some of these have
membership restricted to scholars in that field but most will allow
students. For the purposes of this study guide I recommend ANE in its'
Digest form. To subscribe or unsubscribe via the web, visit ANE For those
of you not online the URL is
[https://listhost.uchicago.edu/mailman/listinfo/ane] - ANE.

The most extensive coalition of History and Social Science Mailing Lists,
also called Listservs, may be found at H-NET. The URL is
[http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/] - H-NET. See Mailing Lists for some List
searchers. [http://www.hist.unt.edu/09-ml.htm] - Mailing Lists. Databases
like YAHOO have own versions of mailing lists established by persons
interested in a field. The owners are amateurs, but some, like the one on
Egypt, is rather good but may generate a hundred or more emails per day.
_________________________________________________________________

INTRODUCTION

The Nature and Limits of History

I will not attempt to define History except in mere practical terms.
History is not what happened. It is a written story of what the writer
thinks occured. The author makes use of whatever information is available
in an attempts to construct coherent stories about the subject being
addressed. The preferred information is contained in written material but
writing only exists since about 3500 BCE. Writing was developed in
Mesopotamia after 3500 and nearby Elam not long after. Egypt developed
literacy around 3200, the Indus River valley around 2750, China after
2000, the Aegean area about the same time, and MesoAmerica after 300. The
Peruvian civilizations never did develop a writing system.

Writing evolved at different times around the world and some peoples never
developed the ability. Even in those areas where writing did exist few
people learned to use it. Literacy rates remained below ten percent except
for about a hundred fifty years during the great age of the Roman Empire.

Those who did become literate were either members of, or servants to, the
elites of politics, religion, or the military. Early records were rather
mundane and showed no awareness of any historical intent. Their records
were bureaucratic and served only economic and vanity needs of the elites.
That which was written represented the view of the elites. The ideas and
attitudes, the beliefs, of the common peoples were not recorded and do not
necessarily agree with those of the elites. In spite of the fact the
common people left no written records of themselves writers assume they
accepted the elite points of view.

Written records are not the only form of evidence recovered from
antiquity. Those who write history make use of the fruits of
archaeological investigations. The lives of ancient peoples can be
understood almost as well from the artifacts recovered by excavation of
their dwellings as from their writings. The presentations of the texts may
be confirmed or modified by physical remains. Archaeological remains
constitute the only information about the common people available to
historians.

By utilizing archaeological information and what we know of historic
civilizations it is possible to create a reasonable construct of the lives
of pre-historic peoples - those who lived before writing. Even after the
invention of writing years passed before a coherent reconstruction became
possible: this is the time of Proto-History when writing must be
supplemented by archaeology to develope an acceptable view.

Because history does not require specialized jargon, anyone may write
history even though they have no specific training in research and
validation techniques. As a result thousands of histories - including
biographies - are available written by authors whose standards are
somewhat lax. Many "histories" are produced to support or propose views of
the past which are not subject to proof. Nonetheless after the author
presents his/her argument he/she then demands that those who disagree
prove him/her to be wrong. When you read a book, article, or especially a
web page which makes such a demand remember that the burden of proof
always lies with the author, never with the reader.
_________________________________________________________________

Part I: PRE- AND PROTO- HISTORIC ROOTS OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS: THE
INTELLECTUAL AND SPIRITUAL UNDERPINNINGS OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS

Paleolithic

Neolithic

AncientWorldview



A. Evidence of early Accomplishments

Archaeology is the primary source of information about the Paleolithic
period. Material recovered by excavation must be interpreted and there is
always the possibility that the interpreter's intellectual framework will
influence the interpretation. It is not uncommon for an archaeolo- gist to
announce that his/her latest discovery is the oldest of its' ki nd or
prooves a particular claim. In fact equally reasonable conclusions a re
usually available. The problem is confounded by the understandable urge of
a discoverer to establish priority by announcing his/her find before th e
material is subjected to rigorous evaluation. Information outlets which
carry the first announcement rarely provide equivalent coverage to late r
refinements.

Evidence of more questionable value comes from transposing observations of
remaining stone age cultures into an archtype of Paleolithic tribal
peoples. Analyses of myth, legend, and early "artistic" expression also
contribute to views of how Paleolithic peoples lived and what they
believed. The perceptions resulting from combining all types of evidenc e
may, or may not, approximate past realities. If you are uncomfortable i n
working probabilities rather than certainties employ the suspension of
disbelief that you unconciously invoke when reading fiction or watching
films [movies]. That makes it possible to understand and enjoy that whi ch
never happened. I suppose "historical" fiction would be a better analog y:
some of the people and events happened, but not necessarily in the mann er
the author presented them. So far as the web is concerned

A major source is PreHistory which has dozens of resource links to a
comprehensive world PreHistory. The site addresses the world before
writing. ADAM, APES AND ANTHROPOLOGY by Ken Van Dellen, is a review of of
book which "discusses the place of fossil man within Christian theology."
There is a synopsis of each of the eleven chapters and an Appendix:
Chronology of Human Technology.

1. The PALEOLITHIC to 45000 BCE. The matter of human origins is a stud y
appropriate to ARCHAEOLOGY, the BIOLOGICAL Sciences, and to such
METAPHYSICAL studies as THEOLOGY. This survey begins at that po int in
time where archaeology supplies sufficient information to provide some
insight into the mind of NEANDERTHAL and early CRO MAGNON [i.e. , Modern
Man]. For a general, but perhaps offbeat, approach see The Alekseev
Manuscript - from the Paleolithic to the Iron Age. For a discussion of the
Anatolia during the period 600,000 to 10,000 BCE read Toprak Home Page. 2.
The Late PALEOLITHIC, 45000-10000 BCE. Homo Neanderthalensis, or Ho mo
Sapiens Neanderthalensis as he was called for a short period before
genetic evidence suggested he was after all a separate species,
disappeared at the beginning of this era, but he left behind evidenc e of
his Spiritual perceptions. This is most clearly seen in

a. Neanderthal Burials at SHANIDAR in northern IRAQ, excavated by Richard
Solecki, and in [the former] Russian Turkestan. The Shanidar grave
contained the body of a forty-two year old man, sprinkled with flowers.
The Turkestan grave contained a four year old boychild buried with the
accouterment of a warrior.

Homo neanderthalensis has eight sets of photos from Shanidar, but no text.
Human Ancestors Hall: Shanidar 1 has a brief revue of Shanidar. Bulletin
No.5 and Bulletin No.6 are extensive reports of Shanidar and related Near
Eastern Caves, chiefly in Syria. Another site, Excavating the News -
Shanidar Cave questions the assumption that the old man in Burial IV was
actually buried with flowers. Counterpoints discusses Neanderthals
including those the Near Eas t. The article Athena Review 2,4: The
Neanderthal demise: Love or Wa r? is a broad view. The site History Heads
has much on Shanidar and a p ointer to Excerpts from articles about
Shanidar Cave in northern Iraq with links to other sources and a map. See
Solving the Mystery of the much Maligned Neanderthals for a recent
statement on the status of the Neanderthals.

A specialized site on The Role of Beads in Technological Change examines
beads beginning with the valley of Shanidar 12000 years ago.

b. The Meaning of Grave Goods. The Shanidar burial is not in and of itself
evidence of a belief in an Afterlife. But in the case of the boy from
Turkestan, one must ask why a boy, who could not hav e been a warrior,
were buried with such equipment unless there were an expectation that he
might need it? This is the best evidence o f a belief in an afterlife
45,000 years ago, though it is not proof . The article, Neanderthals - the
first to Bury their Dead asserts that burial is evidence of a belief in an
Afterlife. You might find Burial and Mysticism in Prehistory and its' many
internal links worth a visit.

The significance of burials is the subject of Burial Ceremonialis m.
Burial Rituals and the Afterlife of Ancient Greece by Kristina Bagwell,
"as seen in the literature of ancient Greece, tombs and rituals..." See
also Anglo-Saxon Heathen Burial, the American Town Creek Indian Mound -
Burial Hut Exhibit, Egyptian Belief in the Afterlife, and Ancient
Afterlife Views.

Though some argue that the act of burial and the presence of grav e goods
offer proof of a belief in an Afterlife, artifacts found in burials may be
used to establish social standing and also wealth. GRAVE GOODS at Catal
Huyuk by Naomi Hamilton is the subject of th is site. Grave goods at Lerna
in southern Greece are described in Chapter 5 and Chapter 5 continued.
There are links to other mater ials but not to the other chapters. Klin
Yar says that the "cultural contacts shown in grave-goods are
wide-ranging, from Central Asia to Mesopotamia and Byzantium." This
excavation of an iron age Kob an and the later Sarmatian/Alanic graves
explore one of the importan t uses of grave goods - to show connections
between different cultu res.

c. The "Bear Cult" of central Europe and the intriguing cave art of
southwestern Europe provide a suggestion, but not proof, of a belief in
life after death. At the very least the paintings scattered around the
world, especially those of western Europe, reveal that ancient man was
concerned with both beauty and communication. This lengthy MESSAGE has
information on cave buria ls and a little on bear cults. The Spiritual
Awareness message deals directly with Neanderthal Bear Cults. There is
evidence tha t the bone beds which gave rise to the idea of Paleolithic
bear cul ts may be the result of actions by bears uninfluenced by humans.
See the English abstract at ZfR. Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaf t

The Bear Ritual of the Ainu states that "The Ainu practiced an elaborate
bear cult into the 1920s which immediately calls to min d the Paleolithic
bear cult and the epiphany of the Great Goddess.. ."

d. Alexander Marshak and ICE AGE Time-Factoring. After Marshak identified
the ISHANGO Bone [B.1, below], he investigated scratched pebbles and other
materials from the last Ice Age in EUROPE and discovered inconclusive
evidence of time-keeping [time factoring] as far back as about 45000
years. The conclusion to Section A is that late Neanderthal and early
Modern Man were spiritually and intellectually more sophisticated than the
popular image of them suggests. This was certainly true of the people of
the Neolithic period.


B. NEOLITHIC Man, to 8000 BCE

1. The Ishango bone from the border of Uganda and Zaire in equatorial east
Africa and dated from 9000 to 20000 BCE is best described online in the
discussion of an old Mathematical Objec t, and was identified by Alexander
Marshak in The Roots of Civilization as a Lunar Calendar which he dated at
9000 BCE. A peculular view can be found in How Menstruation Created
Mathematics. Lunar calendars measure the recurrent changes in the face of
the Moon. The se changes repeat approximately every 28 days. A lunar
calendar can onl y treat time in segments of 28 days. After many Moons
even the best memory would be unable to correlate an event and the Moon
within whi ch it occurred. Sun defined the Day. Moon defined the Month.
Subdivisio ns of the month were defined by the Phases of the Moon roughly
corr- esponding to the Week: New Moon to Crescent Moon, Crescent to Full
Moon, Full to Crescent, Crescent to New Moon. Some means of defining
longer period of time was necessary before the Year could be delinea ted.
The Flood-based year of Egypt, though correlated with the star Siriu s,
corresponded to the Solar Year. The Solar year became (and remains) the
basic unit of time, but the discovery of the solar year may have come 6000
years after the discovery of the lunar month.

For thousands of years mankind attempted to correlate the Month and the
Year with other recurrent phenomena such as the unreliable wet/ dry
seasons of the tropics, the unreliable four seasons of temperate lands,
the complex but unreliably measured interplay of the fixed and mobile
lights in the Sky. The periodicity of the Sun may not hav e been
discovered by the residents of the Nile Valley. The builders of Stonhenge
knew of the solar year by about 3000 BCE. Other peoples probably knew of
it just as soon. Recognition of periodicity in the movements of the Sun
was followed by an effort to count the number of days in a solar year.
MAYAN time keepers knew the correct number of days (and parts-of-a-day) in
a solar year perhaps as early as 250 BCE. The prediction of a Solar
Eclipse by THALES of MILETUS in 586 B CE does not prove that some Near
Easterners knew the length of the sola r year but only that they were
careful observers of the movements of the sun. This knowledge may not have
been widely shared.

The 365 day solar year is still not universally employed in calendar
making.

2. The UR [meaning first] CULTURE developed during the Neolithic Age and
became global in expanse by 8000 BCE. It involved the use of MAGIC in the
practice of WITCHCRAFT, or SHAMANRY.

a. MAGIC was a means of contacting the Spiritual World for the purpo se of
influencing or controlling the actions of Spiritual beings. Such contact
was frequently accomplished through the consumption of intoxicating or
hallucinogenic substances [See the works of Michael Harner and Gordon
Wasson]. The SHAMAN might make contact by way of a self-induced trance or
madness [Consult the works of Mircea Eliade ]. It is not now possible to
determine the degree to which hallucinogen ic plants and fungi influenced
the worldviews of early humans and the religions that grew out of that
worldview. John Allegro's Sacred Mushroom and the Cross and Gordon
Wasson's Russia, the Mush- room, and History and Soma are suggestive but
obviously not persuasive. Wine and beer also played a role in the
spiritual practices of early humans but that does not mean that they
influence d spiritual perceptions.

b. SHAMANRY, which some still call Witchcraft, had/has two faces. Some
Shamans practiced only good magic, such as healing or findin g lost or
stolen objects. Others practiced evil magic, called black magic. These
Bewitching Shamans used their special talents to pla ce curses on a
client's enemies, or to cause illness. The presentati on of Voodoo and
related practices in the popular media tends to lea ve the mis-impression
that all Shamans [witchdoctors] were/are evil.

c. All the above must be assumed to be part of the cultural and
intellectual symbology embedded in the world views of late pre- historic
and early historic peoples. Part II of this document was previously an
Appendix.
_________________________________________________________________


Part II: An Outline of a Worldview within which the Intellectual and
Spiritual Phenomenae of Protohistoric Near Eastern peoples may be made
coherent.


There is no evidence prior to the 5th century BCE that anyone considered
the brain to be the center of thought in the body. Without any known
exception the Heart was considered the thinking organ. There are
references to other internal organs influenceing the emotional ambience of
a situation. More often than not the reference was to the bowels. Do not
assume that the term "bowels" referred to solid waste disposal systems.
The word was used in the sense implied by the use of a term like "bowels
of the Earth," meaning the innermost recesses of the body. In a sense this
reflected a belief that only those parts of the body with noticeable
behavior independent of intent contributed to thought or feeling.


A. To our intellectual ancestors, the PHYSICAL REALM was a HIERARCHY of
BEING.

1. The Earthly Beings

a. Earthly Things seemed not to possess Life, at least not in the
biological sense, but they did have positive or negative attributes, and
some possessed POWER in their own right, or as conduits linking worlds.

[1]. Rocks, Minerals, and Gems were the more useful of the lifeless
things. Though they were without life, they did possess SPIRIT. Almost any
dirt, when mixed properly with water, could produce living things. Clays
were transformed into

[2] Bricks and Ceramics [Pottery]. By themselves, or together with other
Gems and/or Metals, gemstones could become Jewelry. Rocks like Flint had
long been used to make TOOLS, and stone tools continued to be of use.
Metal tools and utensils were now available, some made from natural metals
like COPPER. Others were made from the oldest man-made metal, BRONZE, an
alloy of copper and tin. Much of the EARTH was merely Physical: rock,
sand, and soils seemed dead unless mixed with water.

Flints, Metals, and Gemstones suggested a hierarchy within mere substance,
and observances of the fertility of watered soils suggested the conclusion
that a blend of Earth and Water gave Living things their physical Being. A
Force or collection of forces which bound Body to Soul and generated
Living Beings intruded into the Physical Realm from the Spiritual Realm.
It created, and revealed itself in, plants and animals and in Man. It, or
other forces from the Spirit world invested

b. Things of the Earth, such as

[1]. Mountains, Deserts, Seas, Rivers, and their offspring

[2]. Volcanos, Earthquakes, Tidalwaves, and Floods with essence, with
being. The Lifeforce imparted HIERARCHY as well. True, Life was most
readily observable in higher orders of beings such as animals and humans.
Life endowed its hosts with Power. Some of them received great Power; and
that Power might as readily reside in the baser Orders of Being as in the
highest. Volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tidal waves, and floods were
ample evidence of the powers resident in the Earth. There were also

c. Things from the Earth, such as

[1]. Plants, which made Animal and Human life possible. Plants possessed
their own heirarchies:

[a]. Staple domesticates such as wheat, barley and easily preserved fruits
and vegetables such as dates and onions were supplemented by

[b]. edible herbs and greens, legumes, roots, bulbs, and nuts. Along with
the food plants came the

[c]. Weeds [plants growing in a place you do not want them occupy]. There
were also

[d.] special plants used in Medicine and Magical practices as wel l as in
the preparation of intoxicants, and

[2]. The Fungi. Along with some of the plants indicated above, some fungi
contained spirits/essences [psychoactive chemicals we would call them]
which provided

[3]. A Mystic Bridge to the Spiritual Realm used by

2. Beings on the Earth, such as animals and humans. Men and Animals shared
more than the ability to move about the face of Earth at will; they were
perceived by pre- and proto-historic humans as being both physically
[sometimes even in a genetic sense] and spiritually akin. Though animals
were generally considered to be lower in the Physical Hierarchy than Man,
animals had their hierarchies and some of the more Noble animals along
with their mythic extensions [i.e., the Horse mythologized into a Unicorn]
were as highly prized as most human beings.]

On the other hand, some animals, such as the Serpent, partook of the
DEMONIC. Though it might possess the Power to harm man or to kill him, its
lowly station suggests that the determinant of position within a hierarchy
lay in the Essence imparted to it by the Lifeforce, or in the quality of
the earthly substance whence came its body.

Human perceptions of animals suggest they were divided into parallels of
human classes. The peoples of Egypt and Southwest Asia did not know the
horse until after 2000 BCE. Their Noble animals included their domesticat
es such as dogs (ca9000 BCE), cattle (by 6500), sheep (by 7000), goats (by
7000), cats (by 3000), and chickens (after 3000). The mythology of cattle
led to the Father of all Bulls and the Mother of all Cows. They also
included the Wild cousins of the Cat, such as Lion; and elephants,
crocodiles, serpents, and any animal humans feared or admired. Reptiles,
fish, insects, birds, the dwellers in the sea, all contributed mythic
symbols. Each animal possessed its own mythology.

a. ANIMAL HIERARCHIES were based on utility, power, and character of
Spirit, though the response to swine amongst many of the Semitic peoples
suggests the latter might be sufficient in itself to determine position.

b. HUMAN HIERARCHIES, first divided people on the basis of

[1]. US, usually identified by a term traslatable as "people," "real
people," or "the people of god(dess) X;" and THEM, usually labelled with
terms imputing inferiority or even subhumanity. They then sub-ordered
their

[2]. SOCIAL HIERARCHIES into LORDS, FREEMEN, SLAVES and other UNFREE
persons on the basis of position gained by power but legitimatized in
terms of

B. The SPIRITUAL REALM.

The Spiritual Realm was the Repository of great Power, perhaps of All
Power. The Gods originated there. Emanations from the Spiritual Realm
suffused all that could be seen and all that could not be seen. Some
DIVINITIES were regularly

1. Visible, such as SUN, MOON, PLANETS, and STARS; others could only be
observed during HALLUCINATIONS. Still other Divinities were sometimes
visible, as when AIR showed itself in its aspect of CLOUD. The

2. Detectable Gods, such as the AIR, separated Earth from the SKY. Air's
presence surrounded all things and gave beings the Breath of Life. The Sky
either contained the Visible GODS above, or separated them from the Air
and the Earth. Another class of Spirits, those which caused DISEASE, were
detectable only when they exercised their Powers. There were also
thousands of Gods whose exercise of Power might reveal their existence,
but they were only

3. IMAGINABLE.

a. LIFE and DEATH were not in themselves Gods. Rather, they were perceived
as conditions of existence bestowed upon Beings by one or more of the
greater Gods. Much the same is also true of the

b. FORCES GUIDING NATURE, the Natural Laws which kept the Universe orderly
[the MEs of Sumerian Theology, the MAYET of Egypt]. ORDER was imposed by
one or more of the Gods. The Belief that all humans had

c. SOULs seems near universal. Souls were the gift by God of a portion of
His/Her Spiritual essence. The entry of DIVINE SPIRIT into BEING brings it
into contact with the PHYSICAL and its potential for corruption. To
Mesopotamians the gift of a Soul did not carry any connotation of Divinity
or SALVATION; while the people of EGYPT believed the SOUL contained enough
of Divinity to become the Dynamic force allowing Salvation. GHOST seems
synonymous with Soul but on a supertitious level they were perceived to
have been souls separated from their living bodies under circumstances
which would not allow them to attain their destined repository.

d. Forces Afflicting MAN, most notably DISEASE, also belonged to the
Spiritual Realm; some were the result of divine disfavor; others resulted
from the entry of "unfriendly" agents into the human body. Finally, there
were unpleasentries which stemmed directly from the willful breach of a
Divine Command ("sin").

3. The SPIRITUAL REALM contained dichotomous HIERARCHIES

a. DIVINE HIERARCHIES included a "PURE" line reaching from HIGH GOD to the
least consequential. The IMPURE line ran from the King of the UNDERWORLD
to the common DEMON.

b. In HUMANITY the PURE and the IMPURE merge, but do not balance. Some
persons, the "priests," are closer to being Pure than is the common member
of the group. Secular ELITES called themselves LORDS and NOBLES , and
ranked themselves from KING - GREAT KING - KING OF KINGS to the lowliest
of Knights. The Commoners distinguished themselves through Profession,
Possession, and Position: from the privileged and wealthy to the Peasants
and the Slaves.

c. ANIMALS displayed the same range of dichotomous SPIRITUALITY as was
evident amongst Divines and Humans. The same range existed in

d. PLANTS and was mirrored in

e. Non-living things. The above resulted in

C. SPIRITUAL DICHOTOMIES INTERPERMUTATING with PHYSICAL DICHOTOMIES

and

SPIRITUAL HIERARCHIES INTERPERMUTATING with PHYSICAL HIERARCHIES.

This molded speculations about the SOURCE of

1. GOOD and EVIL, and whether they were BALANCED or EQUAL in power; or
were the two IDENTICAL?

a. Is the SPIRITUAL REALM the Source of GOOD? Is it the source of All
Good? Is it the Only source of Good?

b. Is the PHYSICAL REALM the Source of EVIL? Is it the source of All Evil?
Is it the Only source of Evil?

c. Both Good and Evil seemed evident in the Spiritual Realm. The HIGH GOD
of Sumer killed most of Mankind with a weeklong flood. The same God raped
his Consort before she became his Consort. Were these evil actions? The
other Gods had consented to the Flood but agreed they had made a mistake;
the High God promised he would not try to destroy Mankind again. Though
the other Gods were only peeved at Enlil over the flood, they banished him
to the Underworld for the rape of the Lady. The flood was deserved
chastisement; the rape was a violation of HONOR [a quality present only in
Gods and Human Elites]. The Gods of the PURE Line were not infallible, nor
were they Evil. Spiritual Evil resided in the IMPURE Line of Gods,
especially those of the Underworld.

The Physical Realm was dead unless animated by Spirit. Therein lay the
possibility that the appearance of Evil in the Spiritual Realm emerged
from its Interpermutation with Physical Beings. Consequently, both Realms
might partake in Good and Evil, but Good came into the Physical Realm
through the Spirit. The Source of Evil remained the most important
theological mystery, until solved by the MANDATE of successful
Monotheistic religions: Evil results from Defiance of THE GOD; punishment
varies according to degree of obtained [or regained] forgiveness. The
people of the third millennium BCE thought the same Afterlife awaited all,
be they Good or Bad, King or Commoner. The only exception was in Egypt.

d. Physical Beings contained too much of the Physical in proportion to the
Spiritual to escape Death. But some animals and Humans possessed the
capacity to transcend the Physical Realm and enter the Realm of Pure
Spirit.

2. BODY/SOUL: The SPIRITUAL Role of HUMANITY

a. The Body of a person, depending on each cult's affirmations, came from
Earthly dust [itself partly spiritualized by the Divine inter-
permutations with Earth] brought to Life by order of God/Gods; or created
by Holy Water [God's tears] mingling with dust; or made at Divine order
from other mixtures of Spiritual essence and Physical substance.

b. The Soul of a person varied in strength depending on its level of
Purity. Some persons were perceived to be Gods, or at least God-like.
Purity of person came to be used to justify the exercise of power by those
who possessed power, and underpinned the social systems and conventions
which allowed the structuring of CLASS, or CASTE, and the continuance of
ELITE control.
_________________________________________________________________

Part II: PROTO-HISTORIC Man, 8000-2400 BCE

Neolithic Revolution

Rise of Cities

Epic of Gilgamesh

Gilgamesh Bibliography

Canaan et al



I. The Neolithic Revolution: The Transition to settled living. The idea
behind V. Gordon Childe's term, The Neolithic Revolution is that the
domestican of plants and animals made settled living and therefore
Civilization possible. The idea is part of the Middle East & Inner Asia
WWW Research Institute: Part 1 C td., on Pre-Sumerian Mesopotamia. More to
the point is Mike Shupp's essay The Current Status of Childe's "Neolithic
Revolution". The subject area is addressed in Lecture Outline; numbers 1-5
apply to our Unit I. The 321gold: Elliott Wave series FOUNDATIONS OF
WESTER N CIVILIZATION is an annotated essay of the phases of development
in Me sopotamia and adjacent areas. Be sure to follow the links in the
footnotes. For an Old World view see the appropriate chapters in Bret
Wallach's Human G eography. The 12,000 YEARS OF ELLIOTT WAVES AND WHAT
THIS MEANS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY has the complete series of of this
ideosyncratic vie w. See also P380 From Foraging to Food Production for a
brief review. 108Plants & PeopleS02 is an extensive outline of
domestication. The Centers of Domestication elaborates on the areas of
first domestication of animals and plants around the world.

The greatest challenge to the idea of a Neolithic Revolution in the Near
East is summarized in the article, NEOLITHIC AGRICULTURE based on a twenty
year study presented in The Origins of Agriculture in the Lowland
Neotropics which found 12000 year old squash and 7700 year old maize
[corn] in America.

There is also evidence of 12000 year old rice from the central Yangtze and
refinements in the dates for Near Eastern cultigens. The obvious
conclusion, even if the older dates do not hold up, is that the transition
to settled living was not revolutionary. The Mesopotamian History has
chapters covering the history of the region from Pre-Historic times to the
end of the Sumerians. A visit to this site could be a rewarding
experience.

A. NOMADS: Hunters and Gatherers. Prior to 10000 BCE all humankind lived
by harvesting what nature offered, be it animal or vegetable . By the end
of the last great Ice Age [ca. 8500 BCE], most of the large game animals
had disappeared, possibly hunted to extinction. The great age of the
hunter neared its end. Hunting never disappea red, but its role in
providing food for mankind was increasingly cons- tricted. Fishing
remained an important means of procuring animal food, but even this
activity suffered from the increasing desi- cation of large portions of
the Earth. The problem of spreading deserts was especially acute in North
Africa and Southwest Asia. Nevertheless, even after the development of
food management in the form of domestication of plants and animals,
hunting and gathering remained the method of food acquisition for most of
the world's people for hundreds of generations. There is a good essay by
Marsh all Sahlins on The Original Affluent Society of Hunters and
Gatherers. THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE SACRED HUNT is a group devoted to
"reenacting" the animal spirit hunting societies of Northern Europe as
described in The History of Pagan Europe by Nigel Pennick and Prudence
Jones (Routledge 1995). The organization was founded by Reinhold Clinton
to learn as much as he could about the importance of those societies to
the welfare of their tribes. This involved participating in an actual
hunt. Oddly, the group used "steel-tipped spears" rather than authentic
flint-tipped ones. Thi s site represents very late hunting societies and
should not be thou ght to represent Paleolithic or Neolithic hunting
peoples.

B. AGRICULTURE: Domestication of Plants. This site, THEORIES ABOUT THE
ORIGINS AND SPREAD OF FARMING is the thought-provoking examination of the
explanations of the or igins of agriculture. It will require a lot of time
to read the pages and c heck the links but it will be time well-spent. The
following web page i s a good Bibliography of Agriculture and Pastoralism
- Archaeology. The Origins of agriculture is a good general essay, but set
your browser to your colors or you will have difficulties reading the t
ext. For a scholars' approach, the Evolution of Crop Plants, a course by
Paul Gepts of UC Davis is the most comprehensive treatment I ha ve seen.
Greg Wadley and Angus Martin have an excellent analysis of The origins of
agriculture-a biological perspective and a new hypo thesis, which
discusses chemical substances in common foods and their possible effects
on peoples and their cultures - not casual readin g. This course outline
on Agriculture deserves attention It has lists of regions and the plants
domesticated therein and some excellent links. Of particular interest is
the essay by Jared Diamond on The First Farmers to which is attached a
1997 article by John Noble Wilford, New Clues Show Where People Made the
Great Leap to Agriculture.

The ORIGINS OF AGRICULTURE in the Old World is a solid outline of the
Neolithic Revolution and Technological Changes. Early Agriculture is an
excellent source on world agriculture though slanted toward the Americas.
There is a photo gallery of sm all pictures of some American food stuffs,
and links to an excellent article on the Origin of Rice Agriculture, to
early squash, the Near East, and others. The conversion from a diverse
diet resu lting from hunting and gathering was not entirely favorable to
those who made the change. The Health Costs of the Shift from Foraging to
Agricul ture are examined by G. Rebecca Dobbs in this paper she wrote in
1994.

A rather ideosyncratic view may be found in Robert Wright, NON ZER O. The
Logic of Human Destiny in TOC, Chapter 6. See also The Origins of
Agriculture as a Natural Experiment in Cultural Evo lution, and New
Perspectives on Agricultural Origins in the Ancient Near East. In my
opinion the best of the online Bibliogra- phies of plant domesticates may
be found at Archaeobotany-Iraq and its sister site Archaeobotany-Index.
Information about early plant use in the Near East can be found in the
very useful Gardening History Timeline: From Ancient Times to the 20th
century which also includes domestic animals and Noteworthy Publications,
Person s, and Events in the History of Gardening. Many foods are found in
th e Food Museum, amongst them it comments that archaeologists found
lentils at Qalat Jarmo, Iraq, nearly 9000 years old. Sites in Gree ce and
Turkey also have ancient lentils. Ancient Western Asia and the
Civilization of Mesopotamia addresses the question of why hunters and
gatherers turned to agriculture.

For those interested in such try this site on a food common in Jar mo by
6750 BCE Vegetarians in Paradise/Pistachio history, Pistachio n utrition,
More important foods are discussed in Economic Botany: Cereal Plan ts,
first cultivated in the Fertile Crescent (Near East); earliest records
archeologically are grains excavated from Jarmo. The Origin of Agriculture
and Human Nutrition consists of lecture notes for an Undergraduate Program
in Plant Biology at the University of Maryland. The outline is extensive
and includes many references to American agriculture and even more detail
on Nutriti on. PLANTS AND HUMAN HISTORY is an outline with some graphics
indicating the places where common foods were domesticated and others
which show the genealogy of plants like the cabbages. There is also a list
of the production of the top 25 food plants. Note that sweet potatoes are
listed separately from the Yams

There are many specialized pages on the status and origins of beer
including The Sumerian Origins of Beer which has Miguel Civil's
translation of the Hymn to Ninkasa, the Goddess of Beer. There is an
almost identicle page from Finland on Sumerian Beer. In the 1990s a
Sumerian recipe was used to bottle a beer called Ni nkasa, but it was
consumed at a conference on whether or not barley was domes ticated for
the purpose of making beer. There is an in-depth discussion of the
question of whether barley was for beer before bread issue at BT -
Archaeological Parameters for the Beginnings of Beer. For a related
beverage see The Origins and Ancient History of Wine. Art and Artifact as
Ethnobotanical Tools in Ancient Near East with Emphasis on Psychoactive
Plants delves into a subject most scholars prefer to ignore because it is
suggestive of an aspect of the sacred most find unacceptable. Beer and
wine have found acceptance in popular society and, in the case of wine,
ritual use. The same cannot be said for the opium poppy, some mushrooms,
cannabis, and various members of the nightshade family. These substances
were associated with witchcraft but not with "religion. "

1. SWIDDEN [slash and burn] farming was the earliest extensively u sed
method of farming. Fields cleared in this way remained producti ve only
two to three years; then the farmers moved to a new site. This type of
agriculture could not support permanent settlement, nor large communities.
Even rain-watered open lands, where farmers also practiced, could only
support small groups who had no assurance of regular annual harvests.
Swidden farmers spread rapidly from th e Near East through Europe to the
Atlantic and the British Isles before 3000 BCE. In the well-watered areas
of Europe and its is lands, small groups were able to exist in the same
place indefinitely, barring human predation or natural catastrophe. They
even devel oped villages and common-ground ceremonial centers, but no
cities. Farmers grew wheat, barley [possibly in order to make beer], da
tes, onions, and many vegetables and fruits which could not be prese rved
over long periods of time.

2. IRRIGATION. When people learned to manage their water resources ,
chiefly River water, permanent settlements became possible. The earliest
form of irrigation was partly or wholly natural, such as at CATAL HUYUK in
southwestern Turkey. Catal Huyuk lay near the foot of mountains and at the
edge of a seasonal "river." Every spring the river not only watered the
soil but also enric hed it with its silt, making it unnecessary for the
inhabitants of the community to relocate every two to three years. Rivers
and Wate r became powerful symbols in the thinking of ancient man, especia
lly as cities grew along the river banks.

C. HERDING: Domestication of Animals. During the same time period,peo ple
also domesticated animals such as sheep, goats, cattle, and pigs. Some
groups became herders andmgatherers and thus remained NOMADS, while others
combined herding with farming. The result of sedentar y farming or it in
combination with sedentary animal husbandry was permanent settlement with
excess food which allowed occupational specialization and the development
of cities, as well as an increa se in population, though population may
have increased before sedenti sm.

A list of tamed species is in Domestication of animals. Zawi Chemi
Shanidar shows evidence indicative of domestic sheep. The domestication of
goats is the topic of Old Goats in Transition and The role of domestic
goats in the development of agriculture argues that in the countries of
the Old World, domestic goats have three different maternal origins and
might have played a great rol e in the development of agriculture in the
Ancient Near East. Cattle were native to much of the Old World and were
domesticated in sout h- west Asia, south Asia, and apparently
independently in Africa. See Gene Study Traces Cattle Herding in Africa
for details. For a technical report see Bones hold key to mysteries about
domes tication of animals. Dr. K. Dobney is a leading researcher into
animal domestication. This is his curriculum vitae which a list of his
works and confere nce partipations. There are a few links; otherwise this
a basic vita.

The same is true for Dr. Peter Rowley-Conwy, another zooarchaeolog ist at
Durham University with his Curriculum Vitae on the web. The Cultural
Transformation of the Environment concerns both anima ls and plants.
Learning the past from old bones with Anshe is a review of Simon J. M.
Davis, The Archaeology of Animals, London: Yale University Press, 1987.
There is also a section specific to the city of Nippur with numerous links
to aspects of human-animal relationships including the issues of
domestication and co-existen ce. The Religion Room with its' annotated
bibliography is especially interesting as are most of the material
accessable through the lin ks. Archaeozoology of South West Asia and
Adjacent Areas is the the program of a Conference from the Fall of 2002
whose proceeding s will be published. Explore the site for information
about the sponsoring Association and the participants of the conference.




II. The Rise of CITIES, 8000-3000 BCE The Urban Past: An International
Urban History Bibliography has sever al sections on the Ancient World. The
Archaeology and Ancient Latvia claims that their Archaeological Record
places the Latvian cemetary at Zvejnieki on a chronological par with Catal
Huyuk in Anatolia and Jericho. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Timelines
allow access to the regions of the world. It includes maps, chronological
charts, and tex t.

A. Early Development to 5000 BCE. It is unlikely that we will ever
determine which of the "cities" currently contending for the honor of
being oldest is the more ancient. It is indeed probable that none of the
settlements now being considered was the first to develope into a city.
The evidence now available suggests 7000 BCE as a likely date for the
beginning of cities - 20,000 years after the oldest known "villages."

1. One of the leading contenders is JERICHO. This city, located ne ar a
permanent spring seven miles west of the JORDAN River and the same
distance from the Dead Seea was excavated by Kathleen Mary Kenyon and
Members of the Jericho Contingent of Kenyon. There were indications of
settlement after 9000 BCE. This settlement grew to city status by 7000
BCE, and was/is thought by many to be the o ldest discovered city on
Earth. It was frequently vacated and rebuilt . More information and a
Bibliography can be found at Kathleen Ke nyon. The History of Jericho is
one of the better web sites about the city. Most web sites on Jericho are
only interested in validating an existing bias by equating one of the
periods of conquest with t he arrival of the Hebrews even though there is
no agreed chronolog y.

The Jericho project is basically sound but light on archaeology . The
Michael C. Carlos Museum contains items from his participat ion in the
expeditions of the American Scientific Mission, and material fr om Dame
Kathleen Kenyon's excavations of the ancient site of Jeric ho. Stone Age
Jericho. Look at his links to the World History Chron ology and Arther
Ferrill's Neolithic Warfare. You may also be interes ted in THE ORIGINS OF
THE KILIM, an essay on early rug weaving. A weaving bibliography may be
found in the Textile Arts of Anti quity The smaller community of Beidha
near Petra was a Pre-Ceramic Neolithic site which continued into the
Ceramic period and has evidence of the beginnings of the domestication of
goats.

2. See this site for a comprehensive list of Archaeological Projec ts in
Turkey. The Neolithic Age in Anatolia saw a change in life style of the
people similar to the rest of the Near East. The two develo pments that
pruduced this change were the domestication of plants and of wild animals
previously acquired by hunting and gathering. The resul t was the
beginning of "permanent" villages. A lot of information app ears in the
Historical Approach to Form Development in Anatolian Cerami cs, by Kadir
Demir of Mimar Sinan University in Turkey examines the role of ceramics in
Anatolian art and their implications to culture.

The first Jewelry describes the ancient art of gemology in Turk ey. For an
excellent bibliography ckeck out the site Archaeobotany- Turkey. The the
museum of anatolian civilizations deserves a visit; Museum2 discusses
Anatolian villages; and Museum3 concerns tech nology. The settlements at
Cayonu, Catal Huyuk, Hacilar, Norsuntepe, an d Kosk were typical Neolithic
towns and villages. Catal Huyuk in Central Turkey was the most advanced
and as the result of new and ongoing excavations is now considered the
oldest. Cayonu in eastern Turkey dates to ca. 7,250-6,750 BCE. The town of
Cayonu Tepesi remained an important center of trade into the reign of
Shamsi Adad of nineteenth century Assyria. A brief description may be
found at the University of Minnesota's Emuseum's Cayonu. THE JOINT
PREHISTORIC PROJECT has 8 annual reports from Cayonu field work overseen
by Robert Braidwood in his search for early domesticates. You may note
that many of the Cayonu publications claim that it is the oldest Anatolian
community, not the oldest city. Until a concensus emerges I will consider
Catal Huyuk the oldest known "city". What is clear is that by the 8th
millenium BCE Southwest Asia was home to many settlements and that many o
f them lay claim to evolving into the first city.

CATAL HUYUK, in the dry interior of southwestern TURKEY, and the city of
Hacilar which lay even further to the west, prescribe the westernmost
limits of the region likely to contai n the first city. The concensus now
favors Catal Huyuk, which beg an before 7000 BCE, as the oldest discovered
city. The settlement of JARMO, in the foothills of northern IRAQ, dates to
about 6800 B CE. The History of the Near East Electronic Compendium, a
fine sour ce has a page on PreHistoric Qalat Jarmo, August 05, 2002. The
Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago offers selections from
four letters that the excavator of Jarmo, Prof. Robert Braidwood sent
about the 1950/51 season at Jarmo in LETTERS FROM THE FIELD, 1950-1951:
EXCAVATIONS AT JARMO. Another useful site is the Electronic Museum of
Minnesota Unive rsity's Jarmo. The next site uses Jarmo to develope A
Scenario for the Birth o f Civilization. Jarmo defines the northeastern
limit of the "likely region," wh ile TEPE YAHYA in east central IRAN
[dated before 5000] lies at the eastern limit. To the south and southeast,
the limits are defin ed by the ARABIAN DESERT, and the deserts of SINAI
and SUEZ. The cities named above, except for Jericho, were abandoned
before c ity living became common in the valley of the EUPHRATES and
TIGRIS rivers.

B. The URBANIZATION of MESOPOTAMIA, 5500-2400 BCE The Iranian Prehistoric
Project with its Annual Reports should be given some consideration since
southeastern Iran is a functional part of Mesopotamia.

Cities, or settlements which became cities, existed in Mesopotamia from
5500 BCE. The earlier cities lay in the northern part of Iraq , in
northeastern Syria, and adjacent parts of Turkey. City living quickly
spread down the EUPHRATES River and over to the valley of the TIGRIS
River, reaching the swamps at the head of the PERSIAN GULF before 4000
BCE. ERIDU, to the south of UR and close to the Gulf, built its first
temple before 5000. By 4000 BCE the combined valleys of the Tigris and
Euphrates were dotted with small cities whose peoples ruled over the
built-up area and its supporting agricultural lands. The document called
THE SUMERIAN KING LIST, though it dates to the 18th-19th century BCE,
suggests frequent warfare between CITY STATES, as one city after another
was "smitten with weapons, and its kingship carried off" to the victor's
capital. Please look at the John Hoopes' lecture outline, Major Theories
for the Origins of the State. It is very worthwhile.

Pottery-making had existed in the Near East perhaps since the 7th
millennium (7000 to 6000 BCE). By the time the Sumerians entered
Mesopotamia, around 32-3500 BCE, most of the Technology of Ancien t
Mesopotamian CIVILIZATION was already there. Copper was already in use, as
was gold and silver. Bronze, already available in southern Canaan and
Thailand, was a later addition. Most scholars think the Sumerians added
the wheel, the brick-mold, the pick-axe, and the sailing ship; and that
they invented, or at least developed, WRITING to the point where it came
to play an essential role in their public and private lives.

The origin of the Sumerians is unknown. Their language is not related to
any other language thus far discovered. The Sumerians drove out the
earlier residents (or, as is more likely, they kept the PEASANTS in their
previous status, and made collaborators of of some of the "city folk.").
The peoples driven from the Valley by the Sumerians may have been the
Subartu. Whoever they were, they may have been the first of the Valley's
residents to become LITERATE.

In the period before 2700 BCE, the Sumerians considered most of their
KINGS to be GODs, or at least HEROs. The Deification and Heroization of
kings mostly ceased after GILGAMESH, king of URUK around 2700 BCE. The
Gilgamesh of the EPIC was predominantly a Heroic, but tragic, figure. He
was no GOD, though his father, Lugalbanda, was. Some early Sumerian tales
about Gilgamesh make him appear ambivalent. He was not a GREAT KING. The
story, Gilgamesh and Agga of Kish, shows him forced to acknowledge the
overlordship of the Great KING OF KISH, possibly Mesannepada of UR. The
Epic about Gilgamesh is a story of man coming to grips with his own
mortality. It reaches the Secular conclusion that Salvation (becoming one
with God) being beyond hope, the "Immortality" of man lay in his deeds and
the remembrance of them. This solution differs dramatically from that
reached in Egypt.

At approximately the same time as the Sumerians moved into the valley, a
Semitic people from the west, known as the Akkadians, began occupying the
section of the valley where the two rivers came close to one another -
immediately north of Sumer proper. They established there own cities but
shared an almost common culture and religion with Sumer. Sumerian
influence reached beyond Akkad as far as Ebla in northwest Syria and the
foothills of the Zagros in west-central Iran.
__________________________________________________________________________





The Epic of Gilgamesh:


Introduction


The only nearly complete version of the story called The Epic ofGilgamesh
comes to us from the collection of the 7th century BCE Assyrian king named
Ashurbanipal. The original from which the Assyrian version was copied was
composed in Old Babylonian times but was based in legends and stories from
older Sumerian sources about a real King of the city of Uruk on the
Euphrates River. This epic is the most important literary product of
Ancient Mesopotamia. Translations tend to equate each of the eleven
tablets with a separate chapter of the story. I have abandoned that
practice in favor of Episodes not confined to one tablet. The Outline,
Bibliography. and a set of links are in Gilgamesh on the Web

OUTLINE of the Epic


EPISODE 1. Gilgamesh and the Coming of Enkidu [Tablets 1-2]

A. Gilgamesh as Builder and an Adventurer whose exploits endanger ed the
youth of Uruk. The Epic begins with reference to his last journey before
reverting to the issue of how to protect Uruk's young men from the king's
dangerous intentions. A council of elders requested the creation of
someone equal to Gilgamesh in strength so the two could go on adventures
together and leave the young safely at home. The result was the

B. Creation of Enkidu. Enkidu was born in the wild amongst wild animals
whom he befriended and rescued from herdsmen's traps. To rid themselves of
this creature, the herdsmen asked for a temple prostitute to be sent from
Uruk. A lady did arrive and immediately seduced Enkidu. For a week they
spoke Latin to eac h other. [Until recently sexual details were translated
into Lat in rather than English. Alexander Heidel's translation listed in
the Bibliography below is the classic example: the text is in English
except for this encounter, which is in Latin. In that fashion the
commonfolk who could not read Latin were spared an y embarrassment from
reading the description of the week-long orgy.]

Enkidu discovered after the orgy was over that the animals no longer
trusted him. Discouraged by their rejection he agreed t o accompany the
prostitute back to Uruk. Incidently, no time had passed in Uruk even
though Enkidu had come to be as old as Kin g Gilgamesh. On his arrival in
Uruk

C. Gilgamesh met Enkidu. They immediately began fighting to see who was
the stronger. Neither could best the other in battle so they developed a
close and lasting friendship.

EPISODE 2. The Raid into the Land of Humbaba (Huwawa) [Tablets 3-5].
Gilgamesh decided to journey upriver [the Euphrates] to obtain timber -
the trees of Mesopotamia were unsuited to building boats and interior
facings of temples and palaces.

A. Enkidu and the Elders objected to his decision. The forest Gilgamesh
intended to cut down was sacred to the high God Enli l and guarded by the
monster, Humbaba, who would allow no one to enter the forest. Somehow
Gilgamesh managed to get the blessin g and protection of the God Utu, the
Sun and guarantor of justic e.

B. When the heros reached the Gate to the Forest Enkidu again cautioned
against entry because that would require killing Humbaba, a being
operating directly under the instructions of Enlil. Gilgamesh insisted.

C. There followed a battle in which the two killed Humbaba. They proceeded
to harvest the timber and float it downriver to Uruk .

D. Their return to Uruk was a joyous moment. They had accomplishe d a
great feat and procured wood of enormous value.


EPISODE 3. The Bull of Heaven [Tablet 6]

A. Ishtar [Inanna] offered herself to Gilgamesh. He insulted her with a
catalog of her errors and references to her treatment o f her previous
consorts. Gilgamesh's refusal of the goddesses' offer may well have been
motivated by a reluctance to challeng e the authority of the current "King
of Kish." Marriage to Inann a was the means by which one King asserted his
claim to kingship of all Sumer. See the Evolution of the Heieors Gamos
Ritual is an odd name for the study of the Great Goddess. Part II
describes the Sacr ed Marriage of Inanna and Dumuzi with a vivid and
perhaps too lit eral translation. Do not access this section if you are
embarrassed by graphic descriptions of ritual sexuality. Samuel Noah
Kramer i n The Sacred Marriage offers a translation of the ritual as used
in the elevation of King Shulgi to the Great Kingship. See also the
Entrance to the shrine of Inanna, Sumerian Mother-Goddess and Queen of
Heaven (Ninanna) who appe ars in the Gilgamesh Epic and was the most
powerful of Goddesses. The introductory materials are the important parts
of the site. They provide many sources of information includin g
Gilgamesh's refusal of her marriage offer.

B. Ishtar's Anger. She rose to Heaven and threatened to open the Gates of
Hell unless the High God Anu [An] sent the Bull of Heaven to destroy
Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh and Enkidu killed the Bull and further insulted
Inanna.

C. After the death of the Bull of Heaven. Ishtar/Inanna demanded the death
of Gilgamesh, but he was protected by Utu, so the Gods decided that Enkidu
must die in his place.

EPISODE 4. The Death of Enkidu [Tablets 7-8]

This is the critical event in the Babylonian Epic. Gilgamesh was guilty of
a major offense against Enlil and Inanna but because he fell under the
protection of Utu he could not be killed.

Enkidu, though innocent of any capital offense, was doomed to die by the
Gods. He gradually wasted away. After his death Gilgamesh a Vision of the
Underworld in which Enkidu the dreary existence of the dead. Gilgamesh was
horrorified by watching his friend die and by his subsequent vision.

The event forced Gilgamesh to evaluate his own situation and to realize he
must face his own mortality.

A bio-theology of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh, we are told, was one-third man and
two-thirds god. Such a division is incomprehensible in terms of modern
biology, but seems not to have concerned the ancients. Gilgamesh's father,
Lugalbanda, was a God, "the divine Lugalbanda," who ruled Uruk for more
than a thousand years. His mother was a temple priestess. Priests and
priestesses are human in origin, but in ritual situations they take on the
aspect of the god or goddess they serve. The Essence of the Goddess
descended into Gilgamesh's mother and she became Her Hierodule; she became
both Goddess and Woman. As such she augmented the divine portion of her
son but also bequeathed to him the mortal one-third of his ancestry, thus
assuring his eventual death.

EPISODE 5. The Search for Immortality [Tablets 9-10]. Gilgamesh had heard
that one man and his wife had achieved ever- lasting life. He also knew
that they currently lived on the islan d of Dilmun - the home and
playground of the Gods. Dilmun lay at th e point where the Sun rose each
day. Gilgamesh undertook a difficul t journey to the Garden of Dilmun. To
get there he journied to the mouth of the cavern wich ran under the Earth
from the place where the Sun set in the west to the point where it rose in
the east.

The tunnel was inhabited by dangerous Scorpion men but Gilgamesh fought
his way through and emerged near the sea in which Dilmun lay. There he
encountered the barmaid, Siduri. These two encounte rs add nothing to the
essence of the story, but apparently resonated with the Mesopotamians who
listened to the Epic. [few could read but all could listen - that was the
usual method of transmission for ancient literature.]

At the edge of the sea Gilgamesh found a boatman, Urshanabi, who ran a
ferry. Strange as it may seem the ferryman had orders to take no one to
Dilmun. Gilgamesh forced Urshanabi to ferry him to Dilmun. There he met
the ancient king of Shurrupak, Utnapishti m, and his wife. The king told
Gilgamesh

EPISODE 6. The Story of the Flood [Tablet 11].

A. In the distant past Marduk/Enlil decided to destroy Mankind. Unlike the
Flood of Noah, Enlil's decision was not based on moral considerations. He
dictated that a Flood would destroy all humans because they were too
numerous and too noisy. They disturbed his sleep, therefore they must go.
The decision was not supported by most Gods, but Enlil was their
commander. He ordered that no human should be informed of the impending
disaster.

B. Ea/Enki followed the literal orders but violated the spirit of it by
whispering the information to the reed hut in which King Utnapishtim of
Shurrupak slept. The hut told the King.

C. Having learned of the impending inundation Utnapishtim proceed ed to
build a boat and invited those who believed him to come abo ard. Soon
after the boat was completed rain fell and ground waters welled up. The
storm flooded all but the highest mountains. Ev en the Gods were
frightened and fled to the high mountainsv where they "cowered like dogs."

D. The storm lasted a week. After the Flood subsided the boat cam e to
rest atop a mountain. Utunapishtim built an alter and made a burnt
offering to the Gods. They hovered around the incensor "like flies,"
except Enlil. The other Gods led by Inanna were so hungry they chastised
Marduk/Enlil and would not let him ea t until he promised not to try to
destroy mankind again. They ma de Enlil reward Utnapishtim and his wife
for their role in saving mankind. He granted them immortality but were
then confined to the island of Dilmun to spend Eternity in isolation.

The story devastated Gilgamesh. Since the circumstances which led to
immortality for Utnapishtim and his wife would never be replicated, no
more humans could attain eternal life. Resigned to the fact that he would
eventually die, Gilgamesh prepared t o leave. Utnapishtim told him about a
"plant makes old men young again" which grew at the bottom of the sea.
Gilgamesh found th e plant and began

EPISODE 7. The Return to Uruk [End of Tablet 11]

with the ferryman, Urshanabi, who had been exiled because he took
Gilgamesh to Dilman. The had the Plant of Rejuvenation with them. One
evening as they bathed in a pool a serpent appeared, ate the Plant they
had left on shore, sloughed its' skin, and disappeared .

As they approached Uruk Gilgamesh pointed to the walls of the cit y which
he had built and, he bragged, which would last forever. The re lay the
human route to immortality. One would live so long as he was remembered by
his progeny, for his great deeds, or for the great things he built. That
idea was commonplace in southwest Asi a and is still part of Judaism.

Gilgamesh actually became immortal - 4700 years later we still read and
talk about him.

NOTE: Some versions of the Epic contain a Tablet 12. In some cases this is
an older and dramatically different version of The Death of Enkidu. It
presents a view of Enkidu's death and the reasons therefor which is not
consistent with the "Epic's" spiritual framework. Like the story of
Gilgamesh and Agga of Kish, it was not a part of the preserved Epic.

There is also a Tablet XII on "The Death of Gilgamesh" which experts judge
to be tangential to the Epic. It is rare in translation, but it is
included in the web page following the Kovacs translation. [See Gilgamesh
on the Web]
__________________________________________________________________________





Bibliography


Best, Robert M., Noah's Ark and the Ziusudra Epic: Sumerian Origins of the
Flood Myth, Fort Myers, FL: Enlil Press, 1999. Click for a Re view.

Dalley, S. Myths from Mesopotamia. Creation, The Flood, Gilgamesh and
Others. A New Translation. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press,
1989.

Ferry, David. Gilgamesh: A New Rendering in English Verse. Noonday Press,
reprinted 1993.

Gardner, John and John Maier, Gilgamesh. Based on the Sin- leqi- unninni
version from Old Babylonian times. New York, N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984.
The following article by John Maier was originally printed in ARAMCO WORLD
MAGAZINE (July-August 1983). It is reprinted here with the permission of
the author; the article remains copyright protected...See Gilgamesh-by
Gardner.

George, Andrew R., The Epic of Gilgamesh: A New Translation. New York,
N.Y.: Barnes and Noble, Inc. Includes the Sumerian and Old Babylonian
texts.

Heidel, Alexander, The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963. Most copies of the "Epic"
included in "Readings" texts are taken from Heidel's book.]

Kluger, Rivkah Scharf, et al. The Archtypal Significance of Gilgames h: A
Modern Ancient Hero. 1991 Jungian analyses See a discussion of this book
at The Gilgamesh Epic by Rivkah Kluger - Introduction "It was at the
instigation of C.G. Jung that Dr. Kluger undertoo k the interpretation of
the Gilgamesh Epic, the oldest known epic-m yth. A classic in world
literature, it originated in the Sumero-Babylo nian culture, a vital root
of modern Western civilization. Rich in poe tic imagery and archetypal
content, it has not lost its meaning for modern man."

Kovacs, Maureen Gallery,The Epic of Gilgamesh . (Stanford: Stanford

University Press, 1989), Available online - see Gilgamesh on the Web.

Jackson, Danny P.,ed.  The Epic of Gilgamesh. Wauconda, IL:
Bolchazy-Carducci, 1992. Second Edition, 1997. Woodcuts by Thom Kapheim.
See The Epic of Gilgamesh by Danny P. Jackson Robert D. Biggs
(Introduction), Thom Kapheim (Illustrator). Sales information. See also
The Epic of Gilgamesh. Danny P. Jackson ver se rendition; Robert Biggs
introduction; James G. Keenan, appreciation; Thom Ka pheim, illustrations.

Maier, John ed.  Gilgamesh. A Reader. Wauconda, IL: Bolchazy- Carducci,
1997.

Mason, Herbert.  Gilgamesh. A Verse Narrative. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1970. [This version is the most widely available, but I do NOT recommend
it because it presents an anachronistic spiritua l framework for
Utnapishtim's story.]

Oriental Institute Recommended Reading on the Ancient Near East from the
Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.

Sandars, Nancy K. The Epic of Gilgamesh. Harmmondsworth, UK: Penguin
Books, 1968, 1971. [A basic version with a good introduction.] See The
Epic of Gilgamesh A New Translation Latest UK edition, or The Epic of
Gilgamesh An English Verison... Latest US edition.

Silverberg, Robert. Gilgamesh. [A novel based on the Gilgamesh legend.]

Temple, Robert, He Who Saw Everything: A Verse Version of the Epic of
Gilgamesh. London: Rider, 1991. See Robert Temple - Home Page. Most of
Temple's more recent work deals with the more arcane aspe cts of
chronological revisionism in Egyptology.

Thompson, R. Campbell. Gilgamesh: Text, Translation, and Notes. Oxford:
Clarendon, 1930.

Tigay, Jeffrey H., The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982. [An excellent historical study of
the development of the Epic with translation].

Web page The Green: Mythological Booklist - Mesopotamia A Bibliography of
Mesopotamian myths with many other booklists referenced in the index on
the left side of the page.

Web page Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven: bibliography. The Electronic
Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature


Web page Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld: bibliography. The
Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature.

Web page The Gilgamesh Epic: Bibliography. The Gilgamesh Epic:
Bibliography by Stephanie Dalley, 1989. Myths from Heidel, Alexander 1949
The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels.

Web page The Epic of Gilgamesh Danny P. Jackson, verse rendition; Robert
Biggs, introduction; James G. Keenan, appreciation; Thom Kapheim,
illustrations.

Web Page Mythology: A Web Directory of online resources Includes search
engines, Mythology FAQs, Link lists, and other myth-related sites.

Web page FOUNDATIONS OF PSYCHOHISTORY This is an online book with some
relevance to Gilgamesh and the Ancient Near East, as well as all history.
I consider it a curiosity piece like Jaynes' Origins of Civilization in
the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.

Web page A History of Drama has a section on the campaign against Humbaba
and Enkidu's mis- givings.
__________________________________________________________________________




C. CANAAN and PERSIA, 5500-2400 BCE: ELAM, adjacent to SUMER in
southwestern PERSIA and frequently treated as an extension of Mesopotamia,
reached Literacy by 3000. Its capital, SUSA [Shushash ], exercised
considerable influence in Valley affairs. This region an d adjacent areas
may have been the Anshan of the Sumerian King List. CANAAN, the coast and
interior of the eastern Mediterranean, had m any cities by 2400 but was
not generally literate. The city of EBLA, i n northwestern SYRIA
[excavated in the mid-1970's], had recently ado pted Sumerian writing and
wrote in Sumerian more often than in its own language [a SEMITIC language
related to modern HEBREW and ARABIC]. Ebla was excavated in 1975-76. The
archaeologists found some 16000 clay tablets; 80% were written in
Sumerian. The remainder, written in a previously unknown language, contain
the oldest reference to Jerusalem and several Hebrew proper names.

D. The EGYPTIAN Model to 3000 BCE. Prior to ca. 3000, EGYPT seemed t o
have been divided into a large number of small priestly-governed states
each with its own names for commonly accepted divinities. About 3000 Egypt
was unified by a conquering family out of the southern city of THEBES. The
new dynasty placed its capital in the city of MEMPHIS which lay at the
point where the narrow valley of the NILE broadened into the DELTA. This
was the boundary, the Balance of the Two Lands, Upper and Lower Egypt,
also called the Two Ladies. Half the usable soil of Egypt lay up-river
(south), the rest lay down-river (north).

E. The "Old Ones," SEMITES, and INDO-EUROPEANS: In addition to the
Sumerians, who have no known Linguistic Relatives, the Ancient Near East
was the home of the SEMITIC FAMILY of languages. The Semitic Family
includes Dead Languages such as AKKADIAN, AMORITIC, BABYLONIAN, CANAANITE,
ASSYRIAN, and ARAMAIC; as well as modern HEBREW and ARABIC. The language
of ancient Egypt is probably not Semitic, though it may be a member of a
super-family to which the Semitic family also belonged.

There were also "The Old Ones," whose languages are unknown to us. Some
presume their speech ancestral to modern [Russian] GEORGIAN, and call them
CAUCASIAN. Let's call these peoples Subartu, a name given to the people of
the North after they were driven northward by the Sumerians and other
conquerors of Mesopotamia.

Indo-Europeans spoke languages ancestral to all modern European languages
except FINNISH [and Estonian], HUNGARIAN, and BASQUE. It was also
ancestral to modern IRANIAN, AFGHAN, and most of the languages of
PAKISTAN, Bangladesh, and INDIA. They were not native to the Near East,
but their intrusions into the area made them increasingly important after
2500 BCE.

F. The Development of WRITING to 2400 BCE. Though writing is still
presumed to have evolved in Mesopotamia, it is possible that the
pre-Sumerian inhabitants of the valley, not the Sumerians, were the first
to use it there. New evidence from Egypt re-opens the possibility that
Egyptians may have started writing as early as th e Mesopotamians. By 2400
writing was in use throughout the Near East from HARAPPAN INDIA westward,
possibly as far as the Mediterranean island of CRETE. Do not interpret
this to mean that everyone withi n the described area knew how to read
and/or write. To the contrary, the vast majority of the peoples who lived
before 1900 CE/AD never learned reading and writing. Because literacy was
so narrowly confined to a small ELITE of LORDS and SCRIBES, it was easy
for entire civilizations to lose literacy. Such a loss was experienced by
the Harappans of the Indus River valley from about 1700 BCE to 1000 BCE,
and by the peoples of Turkey and the AEGEAN area from 1200 to 800 BCE.
__________________________________________________________________________




Part III: The Ancient Near East ca 3000 to ca 1200 BCE


Sect I: SOUTHWEST ASIA



Mesopotamia

Babylon and Indo-Europeans

Mesopotamian Religion




I. Mesopotamia in the middle of the third millennium BCE

A. Agricultural technology and settlement patterns

1. Water management - the Ensi: The need to build and maintain irrigation
canals placed great power in the hands of the man who organized the human
resources to accomplish it. In several cities the Ensi developed into a
head of state. By historic times the only large city to be ruled by an
Ensi was Lagash.

2. Land management - the En: All the land in a Sumerian city- state
belonged to the city's god. Consequently, the EN, or high priest of that
god was entrusted with the management of the god's property. The high
priest was an economic official and temples were warehouses for storing
the produce of the land. That produce was disburshed as deemed necessary.
This great economic power allowed many ENs to become heads of state.

3. City Defense - the Lugal: As cities developed resources of food and
other wealth they attracted the attention of the many non-sedentary
peoples. In addition, as population grew, land became more and more scarce
and border disputes became commonplace. The Lugal [big man] evolved into
the essential defender of the city. Control of military power allowed
Lugals to seize political power. By historic times most states were
military dictatorships regardless of the title used. Religious
institutions served to legitamatize the rule of the dictator-king.

4. Farming and Animal usage: Most residents of the valley were peasants
who worked the god's lands and turned over most of the produce to the
god's temples. In the absence of fencing, few animals were kept in farming
areas. Cattle were used to draw plows and wheeled carts. Sheep and goats
were kept away from farms. Chickens, a recent import from south Asia
proved manageable, but swine were forbidden, perhaps because they could
destroy field crops very quickly. The prohibition against pigs became a
religious principle amongst most southwest Asians. Farm implements
included the plow [both human and bullock drawn] and the pickaxe - so
important that the high god, ENLIL, got the credit for inventing it.

B. Cities: Construction, Social Structures, and Function The cities of
Mesopotamia began as community centers where area farmers brought their
durable produce for storage under the protection of the God and his
priests. The temple store- houses were there along with the dwellings of
the priests, the Ensi, and later the Lugal. Support personnel and servants
also resided there. Gradually the dignitaries of the city took on
political roles and became managers of society. Those who did not work
controlled the affairs of those who did. The ziggurats [temples]
replicated artificial mountains but the residences were rarely more than
on story tall - the roof being part of the living space. Most were made of
brick or adobe, but reed houses were probably present [the Epic of
Gilgamesh says the King of Shurrupak lived in a reed hut].

Three classes evolved: an elite class of Lords [rulers, priests, military
leaders and their relatives], Free Men [craftsmen, bureaucrats, lower
ranked priests, and soldiers], and the unfree [urban workers, bondsmen,
slaves, and village peasants]. Women had few rights; children had none.
Note that merchants were absent as were markets. The priesthood controlled
much of the economy, supplemented by barter. Trade was largely conducted
specifically for the benefit of the elites.

Cities controlled all the land of the state including the peasant
villages.

C. Inter-city Relations: There were more than one hundred city- states in
the valley and warfare was indemic. Victorious cities extracted tribute
from those they defeated.

II. Mesopotamia, to 1200 BCE

A. The SUMERIANS

1. The STATE: The Sumerian city-states were

a. KINGDOMs. When one king conquered several other kings he became a King
of Kings and created a TRIBUTARY SYSTEM which continued so long as the
conqueror remained strong enough to keep control. Kings who controlled all
or most of the valley cities became a Great King, perhaps called by the
name King of Kish [the city where kingship came from the gods to earth].
b. When a King conquered peoples of an enthic group different from his own
and developed a system of ongoing control the term EMPIRE can be used. The
first known Empire was that of Sargon of Akkad.

2. Education: Sumerians developed formal schools, the edubba, to educate
young men to be scribes, surveyors, and some other fields. It took perhaps
two years to master the cuneiform script of the Sumerian language. Both
professional teachers and older students conducted the education of the
young. The school libraries provide us with syllabaries and documents
which provide much of the information we have recovered about Sumerian
religion and mythologies.

B. AKKAD and SUMER: The SUMERO-AKKADIANS

1. The Status of

a. KISH: According to the "King List" Kish was the city to receive
KINGSHIP as a gift from the Gods. Its' early kings were credited with
incredible reigns, some in excess of 25,000 years. Nine times Kish ruled
the valley and the title "King of Kish" seems to have become synonymous
with Great King. In historic times Kish had only symbolic importance.

b. NIPPUR: Nippur was the home of the greatest of the Gods, Enlil - Lord
Air - so powerful that if he withdrew from one that person would die
within a very few minutes. Each year the Gods assembled in Nippur to hear
Enlil's plans for the coming year. Though Nippur was not politically
strong it asserted enormous spiritual power. See also Learning the past
from old bones with Anshe, a review of Simon J. M. Davis, The Archaeology
of Animals, London: Yale University Press, 1987. There is also a section
specifi c to the city of Nippur with numerous links to aspects of huma n-
animal relationships including the issues of domestication a nd
co-existence. The Religion Room with its' annotated bibliogr aphy is
especially interesting as are most of the materials acces sable through
the links.

c. URUK: [Called Erech in the Bible.] Uruk was seven times the ruler of
the valley. It was a combination of two cities, one owned by An, the
father of the Gods, the other by INANNA, th e Queen of Heaven. Any king
who wished to become a Great King must legitimate his conquests and the
high title by going to Uruk and undertaking a ritual marriage to Inanna.
The Sacred Marriage to Inanna guaranteed the king the right to rule so
long as he was strong enough to do so. The most famous king of Uruk was
Gilgamesh, hero of The Epic of Gilgamesh.

d. UR: Ur was the southernmost of the great Sumerian cities and the last
Sumerian city to rule the valley. The owner was Nanna, the Moon - son of
Enlil and father of Inanna and Utu, the Sun. Ur controlled the smaller
city of Eridu which was owned by Enki, the father of Enlil, the organizer
of the Universe, the inventor of writing, co-creator of mankind, and the
God who saved humanity from Enlil's flood. In the Bible the city was
called Ur of the Chaldees and was the cit y whence Abraham departed on his
journey to the promised land.

e. LAGASH: Lagash is not mentioned in the King List as having been a Great
kingdom. The city lay between the two great rivers and not far from the
smaller city of Umma. Records recovered from Lagash claim a Great King and
speak of many wars with Umma over a disputed patch of land. Lagash claimed
victory in all but the last of these wars.

2. The Rise and Fall of LUGALZAGISSI, ca. 2400-2350 BCE: Lagash controlled
the small town of Nina where a former priest raised his own army and took
the name Lugalzagissi. He captured the city of Umma and then attacked
Lagash. The current Ensi of Lagash was Urukagina. He left us a truly
remarkable "testament" in which he claimed that when he became Ensi of
Lagash he discovered that his predecessors had overtaxed the citizenry and
had allowed the lords of the city to extort wealth from the people. He
attempted to stop such practices and thereby lost the support of the
lords. A copy of Urukagina's testament in English appears in Samuel Noah
Kramer, The Sumerians.

It was at that point that Lugalzagissi attacked. Urukagina admitted defeat
- something most kings would never do. He was allowed to continue as Ensi
of Lagash but had to pay tribute to Lugalzagissi. Lugalzagissi then
captured Uruk and made it his capital. During the next few years he
created a kingdom that included all "52" of the Sumerian city states. His
Great Kingdom was perhaps 10,000 square miles in area, but he wanted all
of the valley. That ambition led him to confront an equally ambitious king
from the Semitic region immediately to the north known as

3. SARGON of AKKAD [AGADE], Ca. 2375-2330 BCE. The words Akkad and Agade
are the same. To avoid confusion Akkad will refer to the region and Agade
to Sargon's capital city.

a. Origins: Sargon was the son of a temple priestess and a visiting
dignitary. At birth he was placed in a basket and set adrift on the
Euphrates. He was rescued by an official of the "King of Kish" and raised
as his son. In his youth Sargon was also attached to the royal service but
decided to strike out on his own. He and his followers moved to a new
location and built a new city named Agade. The location is still unknown.
He developed a professional army and set out to conquer the world. By the
time Lugalzagissi had put together his 52-city Sumerian kingdom, Sargon
had created a 52-city Akkadian kingdom. In the insuing war the Akkadians
won and created

b. The Empire of Sargon. After subduing Sumer, Sargon took over Elam in
southwestern Iran and added parts of Turkey and most of Syria as far as
the Mediterranean. Sargon subdued the city of Ebla. When that city was
identified in Syria near the Mediterranean his claim was finally accepted.

Sargon kept tighter control over his subject cities than had previous
conquerors. He placed relatives in key positions in the more important
cities and used his army to collect tributes and coerce loyalty. The
Sumerians and Akkadians became accustomed to a common rule. The Akkadian
language became commonplace in Sumer and the two peoples were becoming
Sumero-Akkadians. There were still linguistic differences and Akkadians
allowed for private ownership of property which was rare in Sumer.

4. The Empire after Sargon: Sargon the Great was succeeded by two of his
sons who lacked their father's abilities. Tributary cities broke their
allegiance to Akkad and the city of

a. EBLA invested Agade and extracted tribute from that once great city.
Akkad endured some twenty years of hardships until Sargon's grandson

b. NARAM SIN became king of Akkad. He immediately began the recreation of
the old Empire. Many cities were damaged repeatedly but Naram Sin
destroyed Ebla. He invaded the city: some Eblaites escaped but most were
slaughtered or enslaved. The buildings were pulled down and the city left
in ruins. After the Akkadians left a few refugees moved into the ruins but
by about 2300 the ruins were covered by sand and not rediscovered until
the 1970s

During the reconstruction of the Empire Naram Sin's soldiers occupied the
city of Nippur and damaged the temple of Enlil. Though Naram Sin
refurbished and enhanced the Temple the damage to it was used after the
expulsion of

C. The GUTI, ca. 2240-2140 BCE, to explain why bad things happened to good
people. The argument espoused in the story called The Curse of Agade held
that Enlil had sent the Guti to punish the people for allowing the damage
to his temple. The same idea underlies the Hebrew claims that their
defeats were God's punishment for their sins. The danger in this argument
is that the victors can always retort that they were being rewarded for
their virtues.

The Guti were barbarians from the Zagros Mountains to the east. During the
hundred years of their occupation they built nothing and apparently had no
interest in writing. They seemed to have had a new king each year. Their
expulsion led to the rise of

D. The THIRD DYNASTY of UR [UR III], 2127-2006. The downfall of the Guti
began when

1. GUDEA of Lagash refused to pay tribute and drove the Guti from his
lands. He was credited with the defeat of the Guti and busts of Gudea
abound in Sumer. Regardless of reputation it was not Gudea but

Utuhegel of Uruk who completed the expulsion of the Guti and established
the seventh dynasty of Uruk to rule the valley. Less than ten years later
the king of Ur, possibly his son,

2. UR-NAMMU, usurped the Great Kingship and founded the Third Dyna sty of
Ur, called Ur III for convenience, about 2127 BCE. Ur-Nammu produced the
oldest known law code, though only fragments of it survive. Under Ur-Nammu
and his grandson

3. SHULGI, the city of Ur achieved wealth and power previously unknown.
During Ur III, the valley traded with distant but unknown lands which
probably included the Indus River valley and the coasts of Arabia as far
as Yemen.

4. The fall of Ur III resulted from a combination of circumstances . The
city of Ur became so large that food had to be brought in from other parts
of the Empire. Thousands of years of irrigatio n had produced a more salty
soil and an elevated water table. Plants collected salts on their roots
and productivity was dramatically reduced. To make matters even worse,
imports of food from up-river were disrupted by the appearance of a new
group of Semitic migrants from the margins of the Arabian Desert called
the

Amorites. At first they came in small numbers and were no threa t. By the
2020s Amorites flooded into the Mediterranean and the valley. The last
king of Ur III,

Ibbi Sin, tried to obtain food by sending

Ishbi Erra to collect grain and bring it back to Ur. Ishbi Erra obtained
the grain but delayed delivery. Meanwhile food riots a nd starvation
affected Ur and thousands fled the city. Ishbi Erra agreed to deliver the
food if Ibbi Sin made him king of Isin. Ibbi Sin agreed, but Ishbi Erra
took the food to Isin to impres s his new subjects. The letters from Ishbi
Erra are translated by Samuel Noah Kramer in The Sumerians.

Ur was ungovernable. The king of Elam took advantage of the chaos and
raided the city. They killed many, took movable wealth, and left the city
in ruins.After the Elamites left, Ishbi Erra arrived and annexed Ur to his
new kingdom. There followed III. The period of chaos, 2006-1800 BCE.
Generally called

A. The ISIN-LARSA Period, because those two southern Mesopotamian kingdoms
were the stronger of the remaining polities in the valley. Amoritic
kingdoms were developing in the center but were not yet powerful. The
Sumerian King List was composed near the end of this period and Sumerian
disappeared as a spoken language, though it remained in use in some
religious groups for hundreds of years.

B. The Old Assyrian Empire, ca. 1950-1800 BCE emerged as the stronges t
state in northern Mesopotamia. Under Shamsi Adad who died ca 1820 the
kingdom occupied the Tigris Valley in northern Iraq and parts of Turkey
and extended into Syria to include the cities of Harran and Mari. Assyria
had trade relations with central Turkey and had arrangements with traders
there to accept an instrument resembling a letter of credit rather than
carry bullion with them.

After the death of Shamsi Adad the Empire weakened and lost much o f its
territory to the Indo-European Hurri around 1800 BCE. Assyria remained a
tributary state with some exceptions until the late 13t h century BCE.




IV. Babylon and the Indo-Europeans

A. BABYLON Babylon was said to have been established by Amorites in 2000
BCE but the water table prevents archaeologists from excavating prior to
about 1800 BCE. Babylon developed its enduring reputation with the
succession of

1. HAMMURABI, who ruled from 1796 to 1750 BCE.

a. Early in his kingship Hammurabi formed an alliance with king Zimri Lim
of Mari on the Euphrates in Syria. With Mari's hel p Hammurabi defeated
and annexed the Valley States of Isin, Larsa, and Eshnunna. He then turned
on Mari and destroyed it so thoroughly that it was never again a city.
Mari was exca- vated in the 1930s and provided over 40,000 printed
tablets, including the diplomatic correspondence between Mari and Babylon.

b. Hammurabi is best known for the Code of Hammurabi which is the oldest
nearly complete Law Code. The essential premis e of the laws is not
reciprocity [eye for an eye...]. It was Class that determined punishment.
Where the offender and the victim were of the same class punishment was
reciprocal. If the offender was from a class higher than the victim a
payme nt of silver was the punishment. If the victim were from a clas s
above that of the offender punishment was severe and usually led to
execution.

2. After Hammurabi's death, ca. 1750, the Empire continued to prosper. The
reputation of Babylon was so great that much of Mesopotamia came to be
called Babylonia. Scholars of the Empire established by Hammurabi
concatenated various stories about the the Sumerian king Gilgamesh and
edited them to create the famou s Epic of Gilgamesh.

They also produced the Sumerian-influenced story of the creatio n of the
Gods called When on high or The Babylonian Genesis. Another famous story
was The Descent of Ishtar into the Underwo rld, which parallels the
Sumerian story of Inanna's visit to the Underworld except for the role of
the Goddess - a villain to the Sumerians but a heroine to the Babylonians.

3. The Fall of the Old Babylonian Empire was the result of long decline
and the appearance of new military equipment and tactic s the Babylonians
were slow to adopt. In 1590 BCE a new Empire, that of the Hittites raided
Babylon and around 1530 BCE the Kassites took over the valley. These new
players in Southwest Asian politics included

D. HITTITES, IRANIANS, and KASSITES, all of whom were Indo-European
speaking peoples.

1. INDO-EUROPEAN intrusions into IRAN and ASIA MINOR/ANATOLIA/ TURKEY
began before 2000 BCE. The Indo-European tribes spread from their
homelands in the great central EURASIAN Plains into the DANUBE RIVER
valley possibly as early as 4500 BCE, where they may have been the
destroyers of the Vinca Culture.

The Indo-Europeans had domesticated the horse perhaps as early as 4500
BCE. For 2000 years they rode horses to expand eastward to what is now
northwest China and westward to the Atlantic. By 2200 BCE unknown tribes
along the borders of modern Russia and Kazakhistan re-invented the wheel.
Instead of the heavy solid wooden wheel of the Sumerians they produced
light-weight spoked wheels. In addition they redesigned the heavy cart and
produced the chariot and the trappings necessary to harness horses to th e
chariots. The Hittites brought the horse-drawn chariot into Turkey about
2200 and clay images of such have been found in Syria dating to the 22th
century.

Iranian tribes entered the plateau which now bears their name in the
middle of the third millennium BCE [3000-2000 BCE], and reached the ZAGROS
Mountains which border Mesopotamia to the ea st perhaps as early as 2000
BCE. The GUTI may have been Indo-Europ ean. They entered India and
destroyed Indus River civilization about 1750 BCE, though this long-held
Western assumption is rejected by some Indian scholars.

2. HITTITES and related tribes began entering ANATOLIA [modern Turkey]
from both the northwest (the European BALKANS) and the northeast (Russian
GEORGIA) after 3000 BCE. They conquered and partially absorbed the former
residents [the HATTI, from whom t he Hittites drew their name]. Small
kingdoms were formed and there was some trade with OLD ASSYRIA. At some
time after 2000 BCE th e separate Hittite kingdoms CONFEDERATED under the
leadership of a KING called KING, GREAT KING, KING OF KINGS whose capital
was at Hattusas in the great bend of the Halys River.

This title was common in the ancient world and is frequently translated as
EMPEROR. Like many other early Indo-European KINGSHIPS, the top position
waselective, not passed by way of PRIMOGENITURE; the successor could be
any male member of the ruling family. As a result, civil wars frequently
determined th e succession; and the "Empire" of the Hittites could not
maintain a consistent strength because of quarrels over succession. The sa
me is true of related peoples like the Hurrians and the Mitanni. I n 1600
BCE the Hittite Empire was very powerful, but after the successful

3. Raid on Babylon in 1590, the Hittites entered a period of weakness.
Consequently, their allies in the raid took over and around 1530 created
the

4. KASSITE KINGDOM OF BABYLONIA, which endured almost four hundred years
in spite of comparative economic and military weakness and a lack of
social or technological innovation. Kassite Babylonia was one of five
Great Kingdoms between 1530 and 1200 BCE. They valued Babylonian culture
and sought to preserve and imitate it. They were frequently at odds with
Elam and, after 1320, Assyria. Semitic peoples called CHALDEANs
infiltrated the south, intermarried with Kassites, and took over in
Babylon abo ut 1137. The Chaldeans remained tributary to Assyria until 625
BCE .
__________________________________________________________________________



The Spiritual Systems of the Sumerians, Akkadians, and Babylonians


Sumerians and the Semitic speaking Akkadians shared the central and
southern portions of Mesopotamia from earliest historic times until their
conquest by Amoritic barbarians after 2000 BCE. Long before that date, the
two peoples had developed a common culture and an acceptance of common
leadership. Their religious structure, outlined below, was adopted and
adapted by later conqueror s, such as the Babylonians. Much of the
information below, especially the structur al materials and the stories,
is based in an OLD BABYLONIAN document called ENUMA ELISH, or The
Babylonian Genesis. The presumption is that the models for these documents
were originally Sumerian.

A. PRIMORDIAL ENTITIES: These were Beings more powerful than most Gods but
who are not represented as Gods. They are preexisting forces whose
mingling produced the Gods. Gods were the first Beings on Earth, and th ey
reproduced quickly, [not always with Goddesses]. It is impossible to
determine which of the Gods and Goddesses were direct descendants of

1. TIAMAT, the Mother of the Gods, who is somehow identified with Salt
Water; possibly a metaphor of the salty marshes between Sumer and th e
Persian Gulf. There the Mother of the Gods was fertilized by her consort

2. ABZU, whose seed was the Fresh Water flowing out of the Tigris-
Euphrates river system. This presumption is supported by a story of ENKI
astride the Tigris filling it with his seed-water.

Enki killed Abzu after Abzu had attempted to kill all the Gods becau se
they were too numerous and too noisy. Though Tiamat opposed Abzu's plan,
she decided to punish her consort's killers. Some Gods, led by Kingu,
sided with her. Those Gods previously led by Enki, found thei r new
defender in his son, ENLIL [Marduk/Assur/Bel], who killed Tiamat and
Kingu. Out of the bodies of the dead Gods came man, to provide the needs
of the Gods. By the time of the "ENUMA ELISH," [17th century BCE], the
sources for much of this structural information wa s obscured. Mesopotamia
had been conquered dozens of times. This produced such a complex of mythic
overlays that one of the few certain things about Mesopotamian religion is
that an older river- based farming oriented set of divinities was
displaced, partially assimilated, and replaced many times. Each set of
conquerors plugged their own High God into the third generation, the
generation of the Dominant God amongst

B. THE MAJOR GODS, the victors in the "War in Heaven."

1. AN [ANU], was the SKY. He is not the daughter of Air, as in Egypt; he
is the grandfather of Air and the father of ENKI. An ruled the Gods when
Abzu decided to kill them. An retired in favor of

2. ENKI [EA], because only Enki was wise enough and strong enough to
defeat Abzu. After Enki killed Abzu, Enki took over his realm of power,
Fresh Water, and some of his creative functions. Enki was the father of
Writing and the patron of Learning. In spite of his name, which means Lord
Earth, Enki does not function as Earth. The Lady of the Waste Places,
NinHursag, shared the Earth with the Lord of the Earth-made- fruitful by
its mixture with Sweet Water, Enki.

While Enki was ruler of the Gods he assigned the other Gods to their
spheres of power by issuing the divine ordinances called MEs. His own
Domain included the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and the farm lands made
fruitful by his Sweet Waters. This is a thoroughly masculine system in
which both Earth and Sky are male. Enki ruled the Gods when Tiamat decided
to kill them. He retired in favor of his specially-begotten son,

3. ENLIL [MARDUK], the only God capable of defeating Tiamat. Enlil agreed
to save the Gods only if they granted him absolute power over the universe
and the Gods. His name means Lord Air. Enlil had no intention of giving up
power to any of his children, some of whom were gods in the underworld.
[In later times when Marduk, or Assur, or Bel occupied his place, the name
Enlil was sometimes assigned to a god of uncertain, but clearly minor,
stature.] Enlil's first-begotten, but not first-born, son,

4. NANNA [SIN], was the first of the visible Gods. He was the MOON. An
[the sky] could be detected but not seen; Enki [the Life Force in Fresh
Water] who mingled with the soil to irrigate and fertilize it and in this
fashion to spiritualize and become it could be experienced, but never
seen. Enlil [air] could be detected flowing around you. You breathed him
in and out.

Sometimes Enlil showed an angry aspect of himself as GIRSU, the Stor m,
such as when he decided to destroy Mankind by sending a flood. Nanna was
clearly visible though not at all times. He had his one day of
invisibility and waxed and wained in between. Like all the Gods abov e the
Earth, he could be obscured by Enlil at will in his aspect of Cloud or
Storm.

This late appearance of visible Gods, or aspects of God, contrasts sharply
with the Egyptian and Hebrew assertion that Sun, Moon, Air, and Sky were
created before Earth. The Sumerians and their successor s in the valley of
Mesopotamia do not speak of Earth as if it were a God but rather as if it
were a preexisting, but death-giving, entity . All who partook of Earth
were mortal, would die, and go to an Underworld ruled by the darker Gods.
Some parts of Earth were made Holy by intermingling with the divine Sweet
Waters of Enki. The unusable portion of the world was assigned to the
Goddess NINHURSAG, the Lady of the Waste Places. One story has Enki [the
fertile soil] and Ninhursag [the wasteland] amusing themselves while
intoxicated by playing a game of making people: deformed, defective,
laughable people. The besotted divines discarded their experiments, though
som e survived, and the best product became ancestors of the good people.

Nanna owned the great city of Ur which three times forced its will on the
rest of the valley. Nanna's theological position is uncertain . He was
conceived when Enlil raped the Lady of the Air, NINLIL. As punishment, the
Council of Gods confined Enlil to the Underworld. Ninlil decided to
accompany him. The Gods did not wish the Moon to be born in the
Underworld. To ransom themselves and Nanna from the Underworld, Enlil and
Ninlil produced three other children who were left in the Underworld so
that Nanna would be born where he belonged . Nanna's son

5. UTU [SHAMASH], was the SUN. Utu was the God in charge of Justice. Those
under his protection were safe from the wrath of all the Gods except his
sister,

6. INANNA [ISHTAR], the highest ranking Goddess in the Pantheon, the Queen
of Heaven. Her role transcended the bounds of the normal Pantheon, for she
was not one the intruding Sumerian's divinities. In the tale of Enki
Ordering the Universe, Inanna grew angry as Enki announced the decrees
called MES, assigning more than 160 Gods to their roles in the Universe.
Inanna asked what he intended to give her, and he responded by giving her
all that was left over. By way of this bequest, and as daughter of the
Moon, Inanna took over the female related powers usually associated with
the Moon. She became the Goddess of FERTILITY and of strong emotions such
as LOVE and HATE.

Inanna did not need Enki's permission to be All that she was. Her power to
confer upon a human King the legitimate right to rule the whole valley as
KING OF KISH is evidence of her strength, but it did not stem from Enki's
bequest. Kings loyal to intrusive theologie s found it necessary to
undertake a Ritual Marriage to Inanna in her sacred precincts, and in her
city of Uruk, in order to make their rule legitimate in the eyes of the
valley community, and to authenticate their claim to rule by Divine Right.
Inanna was a dangerous WIFE to the Kings of Kish; her range of Powers
included Fortune, and its opposite.

Inanna's power stemmed from the antiquity of her presence in the valley.
Earlier agricultural residents of the valley engaged in orchardry, chiefly
dates, as well as traditional grain and vegetable farming. Fruits and
grains made year-round living in the valley possible because they were
relatively easy to store for use in the fallow phases of the year. Long
before the Sumerians and Akkadians entered the valley, the riverside
dwellers had already evolved some enduring responses to the Life Forces
involved in the Fruiting of plants and the Preservation of their produce.

The Life Force which allowed plants to set fruit and thus provide
sustenance to man and beast, was DUMUZI. It is likely that he had a
dynamic connection to water, for his Domain lay in that portion of the
valley which intermingled with the fertilizing waters of the Rivers. His
consort/wife was Inanna. She was the fertile soil and the Spirit which
guarded the Storehouse: the mother/protector of the produce of the land.

There are several layers of mythic symbolisms embedded in the rituals and
stories about Dumuzi and Inanna. It is tempting to see Dumuzi as Sweet
Water and Inanna as the fertilized and Spiritual Ear th. But by historic
times, Sweet Water was the Domain of Enki; Inanna ha d become the Queen of
Heaven with enormous power; while Dumuzi had tak en on much of the
character of the Egyptian Horus without the Horus' divinity. Dumuzi was
the Spiritual husband of Inanna who descended into the body of an earthly
king during his ritual marriage to Inann a, a ritual which conferred upon
the King the Divine Right to rule all he could conquer for so long as he
could keep it.

That Dumuzi [the Babylonian Tammuz] was still essential to life on earth
is illustrated by the Sumerian and Babylonian tales of Ishtar' s Descent
into the NetherWorld. Though they differ as to why Dumuzi came to be
consigned to the Netherworld and who replaced him, they d o agree that
good things did not grow in his absence.

There were hundreds of other divines in the Sumero-Akkadian pantheon. Some
were ASPECTS of the great gods; some were local remnants of earlier
pantheons. All are usually assumed to be parts of a system. This may not
be the case.
__________________________________________________________________________




Part III: The Ancient Near East ca 3000 to ca 1200 BCE

Sect II.  EGYPT to 1200 BCE

See >Ancient Egypt for links to Egyptology and >Non-Traditional Egypt
ology for links to fringe sites with some traditional Egyptological sites
f or balance.

Pre-Pharoanic Egypt consisted of many [42?] small states centered aro und
a community religious compound. All of them possessed many divinities in
common but differed in their perceptions of the relative power of the
individual divinities. Upper Egypt [to the south of the Delta of the Nile]
had stronger kings and were more zenophobic than their contemporary r
ulers in Lower Egypt [the Delta]. All considered themselves divine.
Communi ties in the Delta allowed resident foreigners and had considerable
commerce w ith non-Egyptian peoples.

The kings took servants with them when they died; i. e., subjects wer e
ritually buried in the king's burial precinct - a practice called Sat i.
Other Egyptians [and foreigners in the Delta] had separate cemetaries . In
Upper Egypt royal cemetaries were much grander in relation to thos e of
other Egyptians than in the Delta.

Around 3200-3000 BCE Egypt was unified by a king from Thebes in the south.
His traditional name was Menes and he may have been one of the two men
depicted on the Narmer Pallette, Narmer and his presumed father identified
as Scorpion. These two kings began

The Early Dynastic Period, 3100-2686 included two dynasties and 8-11 kings

A. The OLD KINGDOM of Egypt, ca. 2686-2181 BCE: and chose Memphis, a town
at that point where the narrow valley of the Upper Nile broadened into the
Delta. Memphis was the balance- point of the two Egypts - the fulcrum of
the universe.

[1]. The Old Kingdom consisted of Dynasties 3 through 6.

a. 3rd Dynasty - best known for Djoser who built the first Pyramid, the
Step Pyramid at Saqqara.

b. 4th Dynasty - Snefru who built first smooth-faced Pyramid , Khufu
(Cheops), builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza, Khafre, responsible for
the 2nd great Pyramid at Giza and the Sphinx, and Menkaure, builder of the
3rd and smaller of the great pyramids at Giza.

c. 5th Dynasty - saw the possible construction of a canal fro m the
Mediterranean to the Red Sea and the introduction of the Pyramid Texts
which adorned the royal tombs of Old Kingdom Egypt.

d. 6th Dynasty - Pepi I established control of Sinai while Pepi II is said
to have reigned from age 6 to over 100.

1. THEOCRACY, or rule by God or by terms dictated by God, describe s
Egyptian government. Each of the Forty-two nomes [provinces] of Egypt were
the property of a Divinity and all of Egypt belonged to the Divine
Pharoah. Gods were territorial and people in the land of a particular God
must give him/her priority deference. Since Memphis was owned by the God
Ptah, Ptah was recognized as the national diety. The following should not
be viewed as a comprehensive explanation of Egyptian religion. The
hundreds of Egyptian gods not mentioned below may be aspects of, or the
sam e as, those who are included. However, this outline addresses onl y
the first and second of the official cults of Egypt. From time to time and
place to place in Egypt, one or the other of the go ds or aspects of god
might be advanced as the High God. The Memphi te Theology predominated
before about 2700 BCE, while the HELIOPOLITAN perception predominated
intermittently thereafter. (Michael Poe says "Throughout its [Egypt's]
4,000 odd year old history there is no systematic account of the doctrines
used... But all had one thing in common: a concept of Organic Totality.

Organic Totality: the physical environment, human organizations ,
conscience, language and ultimate goals, all make up this total ity.

Egypt did not have a central dogma or sacred book. But the one thing that
prevented them from losing their individuality and from coalescing into a
common unit is the belief in more than o ne set of gods. Egyptian
religions were both personal and national - istic. It was personal to each
individual or family; private an d interwoven with a sense of personal
right and wrong; with a personal shrine or "niche" in every house to the
personal gods or goddesses. It was nationalistic because usually the place
of th e national seat of government determined the overall thought and
public morality of the period.)
__________________________________________________________________________

The MEMPHITE THEOLOGY

1. The SHABAKA STONE, discovered in the 19th century, contains the text of
a document from around 28-2700 BCE. In the 8th century BCE the Pharaoh,
Shabaka, ordered it transferred from leather to stone to preserve it. The
center section was later destroyed by farmers who used the stone as a
millstone to grind grain. The text contains most of a theology from the
city of Memphis. The Memphite theologians based their thought in the
recognition of

2. PTAH, the GREAT INVISIBLE ONE, the SPINDLE [AXIS] OF HEAVEN, as

[a]. THE ONE GOD, though he could appear in any of his ASPECTS. The Great
God, Ptah, was the only God. However, parts of himself were granted
autonomous, separate existences, but were reassuma ble into Ptah. Ptah,
the Great Invisible One, lived at that point i n the northern sky [the
north celestial pole was not occupied by a star] around which all the
stars revolved. The SUN, the MOON, a nd the PLANETs did not appear to obey
him. Therein lay an immense theological flaw. Memphite astronomers might
point out that the se apparently independent movements of Sun, Moon, and
the Planets exhibited recurrent patterns against the backdrop of the stars
which revolved around Ptah, and that this confirmed Ptah's superiority.
[The extant text does not specify this argument.]

[b]. The theologians of Memphis affirmed a belief in a HEART-CENTERE D
INTELLECT. The Shabaka Stone clearly indicates a belief that the Eyes and
Ears and Nose report information to the HEART whic h then deliberated
before announcing its response by way of the TONGUE. The Memphites refer
to three of the "five senses" recognized by moderns. This reflects a
division of the "senses" into at least two categories.

[1]. Sight, Sound, and Smell are extra-personal senses. They function
through the Space which separates the person from the item perceived. Each
has its peculiar limitations governed by the perceptual medium within
which it operates , but they have the common ability to function over
Distance .

[2]. Touch and Taste function only when there is physical conta ct between
the perceiver and the perceived. Perhaps the categ ories should be called
Sensory and Sensual.

[c]. CREATION became by way of the WORD. What the Heart of Ptah thou ght
and the Tongue of Ptah announced came into Being. The Tongue of God
performed the creative act after the Heart [Mind] of God conceived it. The
THEOLOGY of Memphis prospered during the earl y centuries of Egyptian
unification, but was replaced as the Offi cial, Pharoanic, cult by

The HELIOPOLITAN SCHEME


elaborated by the priests of HELIOPOLIS, a religious center now underneath
a suburb of Cairo. (By the time of Herodotus the Temple in Heliopolis was
devoted to Ra. Probably the largest temple in the world, it was about 2/3
of a mile long, and a 1/4 of a mile in width. The courtyard was made with
polished black basalt stones, so polished that it reflected the stars
above and made it look as if one were walking amidst the stars. In the
middle of the courtyard was a full size tree, its trunk and branches were
made of Lapis Lazuli, its leaves of Turquoise. -- source, Michael Poe.)

The theology of Heliopolis recognized the ABORIGINAL existence of God and
Entities sometimes spoken of as if divine. These were the

1. PRIMORDIAL ENTITIES,

[a]. NUN, The UNIVERSAL WATER, a metaphor of the Womb, and [b]. APOPHIS,
the NIGHT, the ENCIRCLING SERPENT. This was a metaphor of the placenta
and/or the umbilicus. Apophis was also the limi t of the universe: the
black deep beyond the stars. ATUM pre-exis ted and co-existed inside Nun,
and brought himself into consciousne ss. He was the first, and ALL, of

2. THE GODS OF HELIOPOLIS.

[a]. ATUM contained All that would be. There became God's

[1]. EYE. Its visible self was the SUN and it was called by many names,
including RE or RA, AMON RE/RA, and ATEN. Atum's HEARING alerted the Heart
of God; SEEING informed it. Eye frequently displaced Atum In Pharoah's
favor. Atum might also project Aspects of itself through Eye, suc h as
[a]. SEKHMET, the STORM, and [b]. HATHOR. Hathor was, and was motivated
by, Passions su ch as Love and Hate, and by considerations of fertility.
[c]. Atum was an ANDROGYNE, the GREAT HE-SHE.

[2]. THE HAND OF ATUM. Finding himself alone Atum used his hand and
brought out of himself the first generation of Gods,

[b]. SHU [AIR], and his sister/wife TEFNUT [MA'AT/ MAYET]. The root
meaning of Ma'at is right- thinking or ORDER, but she was also SPACE. They
then wandered off into the endless body of Nun. Atum sent Eye to find them
an d return them. While Eye was gone, Atum created a second eye, possibly
the Moon. When Shu and Tefnut returned, Tefnut gave birth to

[c]. GEB [EARTH], and his sister/wife NUT [SKY]. Geb and Nut were born in
sexual embrace. Shu forcibl y interposed himself between them, thus
separating Earth from Sky . Nut gave birth to two sets of twins:

[d]. OSIRIS [the NILE, GOD of the DEAD] and his sister ISIS, who was his
wife [the Fertile soil, the star SIRIUS]; SETH [DISORDER, FOREIGN PLACES],
brother to NEPTHYS, his wife, and to OSIRIS and ISIS.

The son of Isis and Osiris was

[e]. HORUS [the PHARAOH, the FRUIT OF THE LAND]. An older God,

[f]. THOTH, who was reborn as the son of HORUS and SETH, was the LAW [of
GOD], the WORD [of GOD], the SEED [of GOD].

C. THE CONTENDINGS OF HORUS AND SETH: Father Geb faced a unique problem.
Atum had resigned his rule to his only son, Shu; Shu in turn gave way for
his only son, Geb. Geb had two sets of twins from Nut's one pregnancy.
When it came time for him to turn over control of earth [EGYPT], he had
two sons from which to choose the next ruler. Some stories suggest he may
have divided Egypt; others say he gave it all to Osiris and gave the rest
of the world to Seth. Whatever the circumstance may have been, Seth was
unhappy with his lot. He murdered his brother, Osiris; cut his body into
small pieces, and threw them into the NILE. There, Osiris merged with, and
became the River. Isis, assisted by her sister, Nepthys, found all the
pieces of Osiris except the phallus. Isis hovered over him imploring him
to arise and impreg- nate her. Miraculously, Osiris did revive, and did
impregnate his wife before passing to the West, the home of Atum, where he
became the Spiri t in whom the souls of the righteous dead would
eventually find salvation .

In term, Isis gave birth to Horus. She hid him from his uncle, Seth, until
he was eighteen. Then she presented Horus to the Council of the Gods
arguing that, as the only son of Osiris, Horus ought to be given his
father's realm [Egypt]. Geb was unable to decide whether the young Horus
or the older and stronger Seth should rule. There followed a series of
contendings between the ex-ruler's brother and his son to determine which
of them was best suited to rule Egypt. In the process, Seth was tricked
into admitting that a son's rights of inheritance took precedence over the
rights of a brother; and into the appearance of having dishonored himself.
As a result of these contendings, the following conventions evolve.

1. HORUS became PHARAOH, and Pharaoh was King of Egypt by RIGHT of
DIVINITY. (In actuality, not all Pharaohs claimed to be Horus; some
identified with Seth, especially if they were envolved with foreign lands
or their capitals lay in Seth's land; others identified with their own
preferred gods.) The idea of a Divine King persisted in th e Mediterranean
basin until the triumph of monotheistic religions more than 3400 years
later.

2. PHARAOH, at first possessed sole right to enter Heaven, but by 2200 BCE
the spiritual dynamics of Salvation were understood and the
DEMOCRATIZATION OF HEAVEN completed. The phenomenon called the
Democratization of Heaven took place during an Egyptian Dark Age called
the First INTERMEDIATE PERIOD, ca.2400-2200 BCE. Previously, Pharaoh,
because he was the INCARNATION of Horus, had a right to ascend to Heaven
at death. His soul returned to Osiris, but retained its Earthly identity
as well. Other Egyptians could acquire Heaven only at the invitation of
Pharaoh, whom they would serve in death as they had in life. Some local
theologies had their own "heavens," but only after the Democratization
were they all joined into the "national" heaven.

By 2200, a refined understanding of the dynamics of salvation allowed all
Egyptians an independent right to Heaven. Horus was continually
reincarnated in each new Pharaoh. In turn, Horus extended his Soul to each
Egyptian. Each Egyptian possessed not only his Horus-given Soul, but also
a second Soul which contained his/her individuality. If the proper
mortuary rituals were performed at death, the person's identity-soul was
carried by his or her Horus-given Soul to a union with Osiris, where the
dead merged with and became Osiris. At the end of time, when Atum resorbs
all his creations into himself, only Atum, Osiris, and Horus will retain
their identities.  But, the souls of all Egyptians who followed the proper
death rituals and joined Osiris, will retain their identities as a part of
Osiris and remain forever One with God.

This complex salvationist theology only worked in Egypt because it was
tied inextricably to the life cycle of the Nile [Osiris]. Annually and
predictably as his wife, Isis, in her celestial form as Sirius, hovered
over him, Osiris rose from death and fertilized Isis in her aspect as the
flood-plain made rich and black by his floodwaters. Their son, Horus, grew
abundantly from their co-minglin g. He was the life in the land, the
Spirit incarnated in the person of Pharaoh. Though Horus wore many bodies
in his aspect as God-King of Egypt, he remained the Horus. His human
heirodules [Pharaohs] merged with him, but retained their autonomous
divinity, and through him ascended to Osiris. This dynamic made possible a
perception of Salvation as the transition from the Physical Realm to the
Spiritual Realm.

3. The Rule of PRIMOGENITURE was another victor in the struggle between
Horus and Seth for the birthright of Osiris. Horus, Isis, and their
supporters used the argument that Osiris, the first born son of Geb,
rightfully owned Egypt and that his Domain should pass intact to his Son,
not to his brother. Horus' victory was, retroactively, a victor y for
Osiris' contention in his earlier quarrel with Seth.

The Institution called Primogeniture has endured for more than five
thousand years, but has declined in social acceptance with the decay of
the Institution called the Nobility.
__________________________________________________________________________



2. Egypt as a SLAVE Plantation: Since all the land of Egypt belong ed to a
God and to Pharaoh, the people upon those lands were also in possibility
property. But in actuality they were not property a nd not slaves. Slavery
did exist in Egypt but slaves were a smalle r percentage of the population
than in any other civilized countr y. The great monuments of Egypt were
built by free, paid, labor. T he pyramids were definitely not built by
enslaved Hebrews - that w as a theatrical anachronism since the pyramids
were built before t he arrival of the Hebrews. Even the men and women who
died to asce nd to heaven with the god-king were less likely to have been
slave s than volunteers taking advantage of their only chance to get in to
heaven.

3. The Decay of the Pharoanic Monopoly on Heaven: The god-king wen t to
heaven because he was a God. Other Egyptians could only ente r heaven as
servants to the dead king. The power of the king came from his divinity.
As God he must guarantee that the universe worked properly, that the Nile
flooded on schedule and deposite d the optimum amount of water and silt on
the lands of Egypt. The re were a few years when the river rose too much
and when overflow was insufficient to produce enough food to feed the
population. So long as these lean years were rare no one questioned the
power of the king. Around 2400 low overflow became more frequen t and
royal power suffered. Nomarchs began to build their tombs i n their home
precincts and used the ritual pyramid texts in those tombs as "coffin
texts." Gradually central authority decayed an d Egypt descended into the
chaos called

B. The FIRST INTERMEDIATE PERIOD, 2181-2055 BCE: Dynasties 7-10. It is not
possible to discover how many Pharaohs ruled [or claimed to rule] nor can
we know how many dynasties there were. The numbers 7-10 are conjectural.
Even the presumed capital, Herakleopolis ruled only Upper Egypt.

For two centuries Egypt suffered disunion, partial occupation by
foreigners, and social upheaval. The most curious remnant of the period is
The Admonitions of Ipuwer which consisted of many pithy complaints about
the loss of the old ways. The most importan t development was the
evolution of an understanding of the dynamics which allowed ordinary
people to enter heaven provided they were buried in Egypt with the proper
rituals - a process called the DEMOCRATIZATION OF HEAVEN.

C. The [MIDDLE] NEW KINGDOM, 21st-17th centuries BCE included:

11th Dynasty 
 - Capital at Thebes Mentuhotep I-III: Resumption of sea and caravan trade
routes

12th Dynasty
 - Amenemhet I sponsored cult of Amon-Ra; Sesostris I (Senusret)
Institutes co-regency with son Amenemhet II
 - this is the period of the Sinuhe story.

13th Dynasty

14th Dynasty - invaders and introduce the wheel and horse

1. The Theban Reunification of Egypt, 21st-17th centuries BCE: After a
century and a half of disorder a Theban dynasty under Mentuhotep I
reunited Egypt. The Nomes were replaced by two provinces, Upper and Lower
Egypt, governed by a vizzier chosen by and responsible to the King. Again
Egypt prospered but because of its confinement to the Nile valley and its
zenophobi a [dislike of things foreign] Egypt fell behind neighboring
peopl es in Asia in the technology of war. The decline of the Middle
Kingdom actually began during the last years of the 13th Dynast y. There
was an obscure 14th Dynasty ruling the Eastern region of the Nile Delta.
There were other families in opposition to the accepted list of Pharaohs.
By the end, the 15th Dynasty [Hyksos ] was already emerging in the eastern
delta and the adjacent desert. There are no dates for their rulers. There
was also a shadowy 16th Dynasty of minor kings who existed in the alongsid
e the Hyksos. All this is illustrative of the political chaos resulting
from the lack of a strong central authority.

2. Canaan, the east coast and interior of the Mediterranean, had an area
of small, insignificant Semitic states during the Old Kingdom. It was
still an unruly country of farmers and trading cities dominated by
intruding warlords in the 20th century when an Egyptian member of the
court of the younger brother of the co-regent and intended successor to
the throne took exile for fear that he might be implicated in a plot to
usurp the rights of the co-regent. Sinuhe crossed into Asia where his
station in Egypt was recognized by the Canaanites. He was taken to the hig
h king who offered him a daughter in marriage. Sinuhe became an important
lord in his new land and his description of it in the Story of Sinuhe
revealed a barbarian land of near feudal relationships. After forty years
[ca. 1950] Sinuhe was invited to return so he could receive a proper
burial ritual.

After Sinuhe left Canaan the people there came to be influenced by
Indo-European intruders. They adopted the horse and chariot and the bronze
weapons of their new neighbors and formed an alliance of many kingdoms
which the Egyptians later called

3. The Hyksos: Second Intermediate Period, 1700s-1550 included

15th Dynasty with new Capital at Avaris

16th Dynasty Kamose - Upper Egypt becomes autonomous.

17th Dynasty survived in lower Egypt until ca 1560.

After 1750 BCE warriors from Canaan invaded and conquered Egypt . They
belonged to perhaps three dozen different princedoms and developed a
war-making capability built on the Horse and Chario t and an abundance of
bronze weapons. They annexed Egypt to their existing Empire and built a
new capital near the northwestern edge of the Nile delta. That capital,
Avaris, is under excavati on but very little has yet been discovered.

There are those who think the Hyksos were allied with Babylonia , but no
hard evidence supports that. For a century and a half th e Hyksos exacted
tribute from Egyptians and even intermarried int o some prestigious
Egyptian families. Thebes remained partially autonomous and produced a
line of kings as the Hyskos increased their control in the north. This
marked the beginnings of the 17th Dynasty. The souther kings generally
maintained peaceful relations with the Hyksos until after 1600. In the
1570s BCE, The Theban kings triumphed, established the 18th Dynasty, and
created the New Kingdom, also known as

D. The Empire of Egypt, ca 1550-1069 BCE

1. The Theban Expulsion of the Hyksos and Conquest of Canaan 18th Dynasty
- Ahmose, Amenophis [Amenhotep] I, Tutmosis I [sponsored Temple of Karnak
and cult of Amon-Ra];  Tutmosis II married his half sister Hatshepsut who
became Regent for her step-son and usurped his rule for 20 years,
including using mal e clothes and a false beard to validate her power;
Tutmosis III extended empire, art, and culture; followed by capable
emperors Amenophis [Amenhotep] II, Tutmosis IV, and Amenophis [Amenhotep]
III.

The Pharaohs of the pre-Akenaton 18 Dynasty and their approximate reigns
were

Ahmose I 1570 - 1546 Amenhotep I 1551 - 1524 Tuthmosis I 1524 - 1518
Tuthmosis II 1518 - 1504 Queen Hatshepsut 1498 - 1483 Tuthmosis III 1504 -
1450 Amenhotep II 1453 - 1419 Tuthmosis IV 1419 - 1386 Amenhotep III 1386
- 1349

2. International Relations in the Imperial Age. During the period of the
Empire Egypt maintained a consistent military presence in Canaan. The
boundry of Egypt extended into Syria but Hittite, Mitanni, and Kassite
resistance kept Egypt from conquering and keeping all of Canaan.

3. The Atenist Heresy - 18th Dynasty continued:

Amenophis [Amenhotep] IV & Nefertite. The Pharaoh disestablishe d the cult
of Amun and declared Aten the only God. He changed his to Akhenaten and to
rid himself of the contamination of Amun created a new capital at an
unusued place and named it Akhetate n, now known as Amarna. After his
death his successor, Smenkhkare, returned to Thebes and restored Amun as
the royal cult. He died soon thereafter and was followed by the nine year
old Tutankham en, the most famous Pharaoh though he died at age 19 having
achieve d nothing. He was followed by a commoner named Ay who held power
for four more years.

At his death the military leader, Horemheb, seized power and began an
almost successful effort to destroy all trace of the heretic pharaoh. The
Pharaohs of this phase of the 18th Dynasty and their approximate dates
were

Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV)  1350 - 1334 Smenkhkare 1336 - 1334 Tutankhamun
1334 - 1325 Ay 1325 - 1321 Horemheb 1321 - 1293

4. The Late Empire and Ramesses II to 1069:

19th Dynasty - Ramesses I moved the Capital to Tanis at the edg e of the
northeastern Delta. He was followed by Seti I and

Ramesses II, The Great. A great warrior and builder, he was unsuccesful in
destroying the Hittites at Kadesh, ca 1286, though his official history of
the battle proclaimed him the glorious victor. As a result of his
inability to defeat the Hittites he signed the first known international
treaty. He was followed by Merneptah, his 13th son. After the death of
Ramesses II, the power of Egypt dwindled and under Seti II the Delta was
subject to intrusions and Canaan was lost.

The kings of this dynasty were

Ramesses I 1293 - 1291 Seti I 1291 - 1278 Ramesses II 1279 - 1212
Merneptah 1212 - 1202 Amenmesses 1202 - 1199 Seti II 1199 - 1193 Siptah
1193 - 1187 Queen Twosret 1187 - 1185

20th Dynasty - king Ramses III fought the invasion of the Sea Peoples but
without the success he claimed. Though the dynasty continued through 10
more kings, the Empire was effectively dead by 1069.

The kings of this dynasty were

Setnakhte 1185 - 1182 Ramesses III 1182 - 1151 Ramesses IV 1151 - 1145
Ramesses V 1145 - 1141 Ramesses VI 1141 - 1133 Ramesses VII 1133 - 1126
Ramesses VIII 1133 - 1126 Ramesses IX 1126 - 1108 Ramesses X 1108 - 1098
Ramesses XI 1098 - 1070

5. Third Intermediate Period, 1069-747

21st Dynasty - A chaotic period and probable locus of The Story of Wen
Amun. 22nd Dynasty - A period of civil disruption and foreign rule. 23rd
Dynasty - overlaps the 22nd. 24th Dynasty - partial recovery and peace
with Assyria.

6. Late Periods 747-333 BCE 25th Dynasty - The Nubian Period, 747-670
Shabaka restored Thebes as his capital and began a brief ren ewal of
Egyptian grandeur. It was he who rescued the Memphite Theology by having
it transferred from decaying leather to the Shabaka Stone.

Assyrian Period, 670-625 26th Dynasty - Necho usurped power as an ally of
Assyria, followed by brief independence. Psamtik I favoured Greek
immigration to the delta. Necho II reconstructed Red Sea Canal and may
have sponsored a circum-African voyage by the Phoenician navigator, Hanno.
Psamtik II reconquered the Nubian gold mines.

Early Persian Period, 27th Dynasty, 527-333 BCE Conquest by Cambyses and
Darius I
__________________________________________________________________________




Part III: The Ancient Near East ca 3000 to ca 1200 BCE

Sect III. CANAAN, ARABIA, TURKEY and the BARBARIANS to 1200 BCE

A. CANAAN consisted of the lands bordering the eastern Mediterranean Sea
and its' immediate hinterland to the beginnings of the desert in modern
Jordan and Syria.

1. Before the AMORITES arrived around 2000 BCE Canaan had many very
ancient cities. Jericho, about seven miles northwest of the point where
the Jordan River flowed into the Dead Sea, is at least the second oldest
city so far discovered. Travellers into Egypt from Mesopotamia and Turkey
must pass through one of two routes through Canaan. One ran along the
coast while the better watered route followed the Jordan River to a point
just north of the Dead Sea, like Jericho with its fresh water spring .
From there they turned west-southwest to the coastal route or eastward to
the hills of Jordan thence southward beyond the Dea d Sea and from there
westward into Sinai and Egypt. Because Jeric ho lay on the favored route
it was frequently destroyed by wanderi ng conquerors. Sometimes it was
uninhabited for a century or more before being rebuilt.

Some of the towns in Canaan possessed workshops and other clear
indications of organized trade. Dozens of small towns and city- states
dotted the region, including the Sumerian-influenced city-state of Ebla
which was literate by the 24th century BCE. Canaan remained ununited
because of intrusions by

2. Arabia's migrant Conquerors. The Semitic speaking populations o f the
margins of the Arabian Desert periodically outgrew the ability of the land
to support them. When that happened they moved into better lands to the
east, north, and west. The earliest known migration was that of the
Akkadians into Meso- potamia around 35-3200 BCE. Continual small scale
migrations continued throughout the Sumero-Akkadian period culminating
with the massive intrusions of the Amorites near the end of the 21st
century BCE which completed the destruction of UR III. The Amorites - and
probably their predecessors - also moved into Canaan. Migrations of this
nature remained a feature of Near Eastern life into the Islamic era [post
600 CE].

B. The Role of BARBARIAN MIGRATIONS before 1250 BCE. Semitic invaders were
not the only intruders into the civilized core of the Ancient Near East.
Far beyond the lands known to Near Easterners a collection of nomadic
tribes speaking dialects and languages derived from a common parent now
called Proto Indo- European were spreading across the vast interior of
central Eurasi a. Around 4500 BCE the Indo-Europeans domesticated the
horse and by 2200 they had developed the technologies necessary to ride
horses.

This gave them the mobility needed to extend westward to central Europe
and eventually, perhaps by 2000 BCE, throughout most of tha t continent.
Indo-Europeans also moved eastward as far as Mongolia and the western
parts of China. In the process tribes living along the borders of Russia
and Kazakhistan developed their own light- weight spoked wheel, a
light-weight chariot, and the trappings needed to harness horses to the
chariot.

At some time after 2000 BCE the nomadic charioteers adopted the use of
bronze in the manufacture of weapons. By that time they had begun their
invasions of settled lands. Between 3000 BCE and 2000 BCE one group of
closely related tribes had moved into

C. Turkey. There they found and conquered a people known as the

1. Hatti. Over a few centuries as the invaders created their own kingdoms
and Empires they came to be called by same name. To avoid confusion we use
the name

2. Hittites to describe the Indo-European conquerors of central an d
western Turkey. The Hittite Empire became one of the GREAT KING - DOMS of
the second millenium BCE. While the Hittites developed their Empire a
related people people variously known as

3. The Hurri and later the Mitanni moved into southeastern Turkey and
adjacent parts of Syria, Iran, and Iraq. They destroyed the older Assyriam
Empire and made the reduced Assyrian Kingdom a tributary for most of the
period 1800-1400 BCE.

For much of the period 1800 to 1200 BCE, but especially after 1600 BCE,
the Near East was dominated by GREAT KINGDOMS which included Egypt, the
Mitanni, Kassite Babylonia, the Hittites, and the Mycenaean confederation.
The days of the Great Empires ended as a result of weakness produced by
incessant warfare and the appearance of Barbarian Broze Age warriors and
opportunisti c nomads such as the Hebrews and Aramaeans who destroyed the
great empires and created their own small states. The net resul t was

D. The End of the BRONZE AGE Empires and The GREAT DARK AGES of the
ANCIENT WORLD which lasted from 1250 to 800 BCE depending on the area
involved.
__________________________________________________________________________




Part IV: From the Great Dark Age to 500 BCE




Civilization and Barbarism

Dark Age Developments

Rise and Fall of Assyria

Assyria to Persia

Sect I. CIVILIZATION and BARBARISM, 1250-800 BCE

A. AEGEAN area had seen the rise of sophisticated Civilizations. We know
the earliest of these as

1. MINOAN, 26th-15th centuries BCE. The name is anachronistic sinc e it
most properly applies to the late phase of the civilization rooted in the
island Crete. The early language is undecypherabl e [Linear A] but Linear
B is Greek. The Minoans dominated trade with other Aegean lands and
introduced writing to mainland Greece around 1500 BCE. Weakness resulting
from the explosion o f the island of Thera [now called Santorini] in the
15th century and the increased power of the mainland kingdoms led to the
transference of dominance to the mainland Greeks.

2. The mainland of Greece had been subjected to repeated waves of invasion
by Greek-speaking Indo-Europeans beginning perhaps as early as 2200 BCE.
bY 1500 BCE the greatest of the Greek cities was MYCENAE in southernmost
Greece. Between 1500 and 1200 BCE Mycenae was the leader of a
confederation of more than 160 city = states and was officially recognized
by the Hittites as one of the five Great Kingdoms. The confederation
included cities on the mainland and most of the islands of the Aegean. We
know the confederation chiefly through through the Epic oral composition s
of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey. The first is the more important
because after its was converted to a written document about 800 BCE it was
used as a text to teach Greeks the traditions and moral assumptions of
their ancestors.

The Iliad was an Epic description of a war with the city of Ilios, known
to us as Troy. Troy lay in northwest Turkey. It comanded the entrance to
the waterways leading to the Black Sea . Troy maintained friendly
relations with the Hittites and sold horses bred by Trojans to the
Hittites. There is no record of Troy in surviving Hittite archives. Years
of war weakened the confederation. Victory was followed by internal strife
in which the two northernmost of the five great city-states of the con-
federation. At this critical moment a new wave of uncivilized Greek tribes
invaded and overran much of Greece.

B. The new and last wave of Greeks to invade were the DORIANS. They
destroyed the larger cities. Thousands of refugees moved into the plain of
Argos and/or took to the sea to find safer places to live on the Aegean
coast of Turkey. This produced a flood of new refuge es who fled inland
and helped topple the Hittite Confederation. That once mighty Empire was
reduced to illiteracy with only one or two small states surviving along
the Syrian border. Greece too lost literacy and for 400 years the
northwestern sector of the civilize d world could not read nor write. Some
of the Greek refugees reached Egyptian-controlled Canaan and the Nile
Delta. The Egyptians called them the "SEA PEOPLES". One of the tribes
included in this designation we know as the Philistines and they arrived
by 1175 BC E.

C. SEMITIC and other Invasions, 13th-12th CENTURIES BCE

1. The invasions of the SEA PEOPLES not only created several small
kingdoms in southwest Canaan but acculturated to the language, culture,
and religion of the Canaanites. Their most famous city - state was the
Gaza of Samson and Delilah. It is likely that

2. The HEBREWS invaded Canaan at about this time. a. Moses, Joshua, and
other Hebrew leaders interpreted their religious theology/mythology such
that Canaan was the land PROMISED to them by their God. Under b. Saul and
David the Hebrews created a large regional state that included all the
twelve Hebrew tribes and some non- Hebrews. The kingdom of David was a
Divine Right Monarch chosen by God to rule. His son Soloman succeeded him
and reigned over a prosperous kingdom. After his death c. The single
kingdom divided into the Kingdom of Judah and the northern Kingdom of
Israel.

3. The PHOENICIANS appear as such around 1200 BCE. They may have descended
from local Canaanites or have moved from the hinter- land to the coast and
islands during the Dark Ages. Phoenicia was a collection of several
independant kingdoms with the city- state of Tyre being the most famous.
Phoenicians were seafarers who traded widely throughout the Mediterranean
coastlands. They adopted the alphabetic writing developed in the city of
Ugarit and introduced it to the Greeks.

Phoenicians colonized many parts of the western Mediterranean and built
cities on the Atlantic coasts of Spain [Gades, modern Cadiz] and Morocco
around 825 BCE. Other colonies were planted in western Sicily and in
northwestern Africa. The most famous colony was Carthage, started about
801 BCE. By 500 BCE Carthage was the dominant city of the western
Phoenicians.

4. A new group of desert nomads, the ARAMAEANS, chose the occasion of the
Dark Ages to expand into Mesopotamia and much of Canaan. Their Semitic
language became so widely spread in southwest Asia that it was the
language of choice for commerce and govern - ment - even during the
Persian period.

D. There were several important developments during the GREAT DARK AG E.

1. The spread of iron working was the most important technological
innovation. Bronze ceased to be the metal of choice during the Dark Ages
because of a dramatic decline in the availability of tin. Research in the
late 1990's revealed that the tin mines of eastern Turkey were abandoned
after 1200 BCE for lack of usuabl e ore.

Iron working probaly began in Turkey well after 2000 BCE. The techniques
for extracting iron were understood but required a kiln which would
accomodate much higher temperatures than those used in bronze making. The
Hittites had begun to build kilns fo r iron extraction as they realized
the decline in tin production, but they were unable to use this technology
before their demise . The destruction of the Hittite Empire coupled with
the increase in the cost of bronze allowed those who knew how to make iron
t o introduce that technology to other peoples. Once the startup cost was
amortized, iron was cheaper than bronze. Iron ore and the other substances
used in its' preparation were more readily available than copper and tin.
The use of iron spread rapidly. It reached Italy about 1000 BCE and
central Europe about 750 BC E. India acquired iron about 900 BCE and it
reached China about 60 0.

2. The use of alphabetic writing also spread quickly. It reached the area
of Yemen by 1000 BCE and India 100 years later. Greeks learned it from
Phoenicians about 825 and made the important addition of vowel signs which
were and are absent from Semitic scripts. China never adopted an alphabet:
much later China developed a script which all Chinese could read even if
they could not speak each other's language.

3. The Camel, the Cistern, and the use of arid lands

Sect II. The Rise and Fall of ASSYRIA. Until archaeologists began digging
in Mesopotamia in the mid-19th century Assyria was the oldest country
known to West. Our information came from the Old Testament [the Hebrew
sacred books] and it carried a distinctly hostile bias toward Assyria.
Assyria was thought to be a predatory nation who persecuted God's "Chosen
People." After more than a century of archaeology a different different
picture began to emerge though the old bias led many to interpret the
evidenc e to support the ancient view of a bloody and predatory nation.

An objective analysis might suggest that Assyria was more successful than
most countries but not significantly different in the way it treated other
peoples. The unfortunate fact is that kindness, peace, or altruism toward
others were simply not characteristic of ancient peoples. Respect for the
value of other peoples lives and different beliefs had not evolved. Even
now power-mongers wrapped in the belief in their own moral superiority
over their "sub-human" enemies are capable of atrocities no less
deplorable than slaughters commited by the ancients.

It would be improper and incorrect to refer to "the" Assyrian Empire.
During their 13 centuries of political importance Assyrians created many
great kingdoms. Some lasted only one lifetime. The borders of Assyria were
rarely stable from one king to the next. Their longest period of came as a
result of the collapse of the Great Kingdoms at the beginning of the Great
Dark Ages of the Ancient World. Assyria profitted from that collapse and
soon emerged as the strongest of the new kingdoms. Driven by a missionary
imperative to prove that Assur was the greatest of Gods [at least that was
the justification] Assyria extended it's power over Mesopotamia, Syria,
Canaan, parts of Iran and Turkey, and briefly annexed Egypt to the Empire.

A Brief History of Assyrians has some useful information but the history
begins with the ancient cities of Nineveh, Irbil [Arbel], and Assur though
it is unlikely that the Semitic Assyrians inhabited those cities in the
6th through the 4th millenia. Irbil may be the oldest continuosly occupied
city in the world but because it is still inhabited the kind of
archaeology necessary to prove conti- nuity cannot be done. Like many
modern Assyrian nationalists, this site considers Sargon of Akkad to have
been Assyrian. The founder of the first Assyrian Empire was Shamsi Adad in
the 19th century BCE.

Better information is available through paul Halsall's Internet Ancie nt
History Sourcebook on Mesopotamia. Click Assyria and explore. Most web
sites about Assyria seem devoted to recreating an Assyrian nation. The
authors seem motivated to annex great men and development s to the
Assyrian experience. At this point the Assyrian nation exists only in
cyberspace.

Sections A and B are woefully incomplete and will be modified as time
permits. The king list will be selective.

A. Assyria 1400 to 900 BCE. During this period Assyria again emerged as
great power - at least intermittently.

Tikulti-Ninurta, a 14th century king known to later Greeks as Nino s,
ruled from the city of Assur. He briefly overawed the Babylonians and
perhaps allowed foreigners to erect temples to their own Gods in Assur's
home city. Legend reports that he built a royal residence across the
Tigris from Assur where his enemies walled him in and burned the palace
with him in it. His death came near the end of the 14th century.

Shalmaneser I, is best known as the founder of Nimrud ca 1250

Tiglath Pilesar I, 1115-1077, took Babylon after the fall of Kassi te
Babylonia about 1130 and its' takeover by the Chaldeans. For much of the
next 600 years Assyria dominated Babylon and Mesopotamia.

B. The Assyrians created an Empire after 900 that endured with some major
advances and minor retreats until 625 BCE.

Shammu-Ramat [Semiramis], 810-06, may have served as Queen but Adad-Nirari
III, 811-783, seems to have been the actual ruler. Kings Shalmaneser IV
[783-73], Assur-Dan III [773-55], Assur-Nirar i V [755-45], and Tiglath
Pilesar III [745-27] continued to expand t he state.

Shalmaneser V, 726-722, in spite of his short reign, is remembered for the
destruction of the Kingdom Israel and the deportation of the population
the ten different regions of the Empire. The ten tribes merged with the
people amongst whom they settled as did mor e than two million defeated
peoples dispersed by the Assyrians. Ther e were those who refused to
believe Hebrews could lose their sense o f community. Therein lay the
origins of the Legend of the Lost Tribe s of Israel. The non-Canonical
Fourth Book of Esdras may be the earliest expression of the claim that the
ten tribes reunited and journeyed to a far-off land [Arsareth]. The most
important modern expression of this legend lies in its incorporation into
the Book of Mormon.

Sargon II, 722-05, placed the Empire in a strong position and his
successor Sennacherib forced Judea to pay tribute and become an al ly in
701. This paved the way for Esarhaddon, 688-69, to invade and annex Egypt.
His early death allowed Egypt a brief independance. That ended under the
last and perhaps the greatest Assyrian Empero r ASHURBANIPAL, 668-26,
whose Library contained a wealth of document s including the only nearly
complete copy of the Epic of Gilgamesh. One year after Ashurbanipal's
death the tributary king of Babylon, Nabopolaser, began a war against
Assyria. He was assisted by the Medes, Lydia, and the Scythians. By 609
Assyria ceased to exist an d Nabopolaser's Babylon took most of Assyria's
empire. Sect III. The Neo-Babylonians of NEBUCHADNEZZAR, the MEDES and
ANATOLIA

A. The Neo-Babylonians [Chaldeans] had long been subordinant to the more
powerful Assyria. Though an "independent" kingdom, Babylonia paid tribute
to Assyria. One year after the death of Ashurbanipal the king of Babylon,
Nabopolaser [625-05], revolted against the ne w Assyrian king. He made an
agreement with Cyaraxes of the Medes to assist him. Cyaraxes recruited the
barbarian Scythians to raid the Assyrian cities. When King Ardys realized
Assyria's weakness he to o went to war. Babylonia bore most of the war
effort and Nabopolaser 's son, Nebuchadnezzar II [605-560], commanded the
armies in the latt er years of the war. By 609 Assyria was gone, most
Assyrians were dea d, and its' cities destroyed.

Nebuchadnezzar II is the most famous of Babylonian kings because o f his
conquest of Judea and the exile of Judeans into the infamous Babylonian
Captivity of the Jews. See the segment on that Captivity in the Aside at
the end of this file. Nebuchadnezzar figures prominently in several books
of the Hebrew cannon which wa s adopted by Christians as the Old
Testament. Hammurabi was absent from that cannon and had to be resurrected
by archaeology. Nebuchadnezzar and his contemporaries were known to
hundreds of generations whose understanding of ancient was garnered from
from the Hebrew holy books.

Because of the source of that understanding the political importan ce of
the Hebrews was magnified. Nebuchadnezzar was the most powerful man of his
time. He annexed much of the Assyrian Empire and moved even deeper into
Egypt. Nonetheless, his Empire never reached the size of Assyria because
expansion into Iran and Turkey was blocked by the Medes and the Lydians.
Bel [or Ba'al or Marduk] replaced Assur as the strongest God, but
Nebuchadnezzar was replaced by wea k kings - three of them in five years.
Unity and strength returned with

Nabonidas, 555-39. The new king began his rule with the appearance of
strength but after six years the influence of his mother who wa s a moon
worshipper led him to spend much of his time at a desert oasis devoted the
the God Moon [Sin in Aramaic]. For the last ten years of his reign Babylon
was goverened by a man [who may have be en his son],

Balshazar, who served as regent from 549 to 539. Balshazar, or Belshazer,
was also high priest to Bel, the official God of the Neo-Babylonian
[Chaldean] state. During a religious festival in 539 while the city's
dignataries were feasting and drinking, dis- loyal elements [including
many involuntary residents] opened the gates of the city and allowed the
army of Cyrus, first emperor of Persia, to enter and capture Babylon.
Babylonia became a Persian province.

B. The MEDES were one of more than a dozen Iranian tribes who migrate d
into what is now Iran, eastern Turkey, India, and south-central As ia.
About 850 the tribes ranging from eastern Turkey, all of Iran, and parts
of central Asia as far as the Oxus River confederated into a great kingdom
under the leadership of the king of the Medes [or Media]. The Medes
controlled northwestern Iran and Turkey east of the Halys River from their
capital at Ectbatana [modern Hamadan]. The kings were elected from the
Median royal family. The most famo us King of the Medes was Cyaraxes,
625-585, who assisted the Babylon- ians in the destruction of Assyria. His
successor was Astyges who took office about 585. Between 560 and 550 the
kingship was taken by a Persian king. By way of this usurpation the
Kingdom of the Medes became the PERSIAN EMPIRE under CYRUS the Great.

C. Anatolia. The western half of Turkey underwent restoration of
civilization by 800. Indo-Europeans from the Balkans established the
kingdom of

1. Phrygia around 800. The capital was at Gordium, destroyed by Cimmerians
about 680. Some Greeks thought Phrygia the oldest of civilizations. Out of
wreckage of Phrygia the kingdom of

2. LYDIA with its capital at Sardes emerged in 680. The first king was
Gyges, 680-52, followed by Ardys, 652-05 who benefited from the
destruction of Assyria and extended the kingdom eastward to the Halys
River. At some point in the history of Lydia the king began minting silver
into coins with the king's profile on the coin as a guarantee of its'
value. [The coins had smooth edges rather than milled/serrated edges and
tiny amounts of silver could be filed off without much evidence the act.
The last of the Lydian kings was Croesus, who ruled from 568 to 546.
Croesus was reputedly the richest man in the world and the saying "as rich
as Croesus" was common even in rural America as late as the 1950s.
According to legend Croesus decided to test the strength of the Persians.
Before crossing the Halys to attack Persia he is said to have asked the
Oracle of Delph i what would happen if he crossed the river. Her response
was "A great empire will fall." Croesus thought she meant Persia so he
crossed, suffered a disatrous defeat, and his entire kingdom was annexed
by Persia.


Sect IV. The Rise of PERSIA. After the Median kings were replaced by

1. Cyrus, 560-27, known as Cyrus the Great, king of a Persian trib e, the
Kingdom of the Medes was transformed into the Persian Empir e and
immediately started expanding. Cyrus attempted to bring the northeastern
Iranians and the Aryas of India into his Empire bu t with little success.
He had more triumphs in the west. He defea ted and annexed Lydia in 546
and divided it into several provinces. As a consequence of the acquisition
of Lydia the many Greek cit y states along the Aegean and Black Sea coasts
of Anatolia. They were allowed self-government so long as they paid taxes
and kep t the peace.

In 539 Cyrus conquered the Babylonia Empire though he did not immediately
occupy all of it. Many of the peoples deported by the Babylonians -
including the Judeans - were allowed to retur n to their former homes
provided they remained loyal to Persia. Cyrus' empire reached the borders
of Egypt but he turned his attention back to the northeast. He died in
battle against wild Iranians in 527. His successor

2. Cambyses, 527-24, conquered Egypt rather quickly but died soon
afterwards and Egypt reverted to independence. For the next two years
there was a struggle for the Imperial crown. The contest by

3. Darius I, 522-486, from the Achaemenid branch of the Persians. Darius
immediately reoccupied Egypt and scandalized the people by roasting their
divine Apis bull and feeding it to his army. Darius also conquered India
as far east as the Indus River and in 517 crossed into Europe and created
the Satrapy [province] o f Thrace whose borders were Macedon and the
Danube River. Darius failed his primary mission which was to defeat the
Scythians north of the Black Sea. He was unable to fight his way across
the Danube. Darius returned to Asia as the first ruler to hold land in all
three of the Old World continents.

Darius devoted much of the remainder of his reign to organizing the
Empire. The official capital was the new city in the Persia n homeland
[ancient Anshan and Elam] called Persepolis. There was a summer capital
Ectbatana and winter capitals at Babylon and Susa/Shushash in ancient
Elam. Shortly after 500 a rebellion by the Ionian Greeks in northwest
Turkey brought him back to Lydia and into Europe.

Sect V. Egypt fared poorly during the days of Assyria, Neo-Babylonia, and
Persia. The country enjoyed a brief independence Aater expelling the
Nubians. Around 670 Esarhaddon of Assyria conquered Egypt but died in 669.
Seven years later Ashurbanipal reconquered Egypt and established the

A. Assyrian hegemony in 662. During that period Assyria used the

B. Native ruler

Psamtik, 663-609, as a puppet governor. When Babylon revolted again st
Assyria in 625 Psamtik remained neutral and ruled Egypt on his own. By the
time of his death he was beginning to fear that Babylon migh t replace
Assyria as his overlord. His successor

Neccho, 609-594, led an unsuccessful effort to relieve the seige of
Harran. He forced the reluctant Judeans to accompany him thus earni ng the
hostility of Nebuchadnezzar. Neccho retained independent contro l of Egypt
for 15 years and is reputed to have sponsored a voyage by the Phoenician,
Hanno, around Africa. Some eight years after Neccho died Judea fell to
Nebuchadnezzar and the people were deported. Six years later
Nebuchadnezzar established

C. Babylonian hegemony over Egypt. For more than 20 years, 580-559, Egypt
was dominated by Babylon. When Nebuchadnezzar died in 560 tha t dominance
began to wane. When

Amasis became Pharaoh in 559 he effectively ruled in his own right. For a
while he "cooperated" with the Babylonian army but even that ended well
before the fall of the Babylonians to Persia in 539. Fourteen years of
anticipation ended in 525 when Cambyses invaded Egypt and established

D. Persian hegemony over the land. Cambyses died the following year
touching off a struggle for the Great Kingship. Egypt ceased to recognize
Persian control so the new King, Darius I, reconquered the country. He
showed no mercy to the "rebels."
_________________________________________________________________

Part V: INDIA to 500 BCE


Here are a few general websites about India. Many others are integrate d
into the body of the text. If online click WWW-VL History Index: INDIA. An
impressive guide. [http://www.ku.edu/kansas/india/india.html - WWW-VL
History Inde x: INDIA]. Itihaas: The History of India
[http://www.itihaas.com/ - Itihaas: The History of India], or Several
links to the history of India
[http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Harbor/8761/history/ - Several l inks to
the history of India] Ancient India [http://www.ancientindia.com/ -
Ancient India] Internet Indian History Sourcebook
[http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/india/indiasbook.html] - Interne t Indian
History Sourcebook] Languages & Vedas actually takes you to a site called
Languages with more than 30,000,000 Speakers as of 1993. Place your cursor
over the colored words and click the "hot" one s. The amount of
information about East, South, and Southeast Asia is is truly astonishing,
[http://www.friesian.com/upan.htm - Languages and Vedas]
__________________________________________________________________________

A. HARAPPAN [INDUS RIVER VALLEY] CIVILIZATION, ca. 2750-1750. Settled
living in India/Pakistan is not very well researched. The Pakistani site
on History Through The Centuries reports that the first village was found
at Mehergarh in the Sibi Districts of Baluchistan was comparable in age
with the earliest villages of Jericho in Palestine and Jarmo in Iraq.

The first civilization in India, now mostly in Pakistan, was named for the
site where it was first identified, a Punjab site called Harappa. We
traditionally call it the Indus River Valley Civilizati on but in the
Vedas the Sarasvati River figures prominently. Many of India's researchers
call it the Sarasvati-Sindhu Civilization and claim that it lay mostly in
India. At this point I will stay with

1. HARAPPA, though the city of MOHENJO DARO just west of the centra l
Indus is the most famous city of this culture. A good introducti on is
Harappa. The site is informative and contains numerous illustrations. A
text essay with some non-English segments is at Sarasvati-Sindhu
civilization (c. 3000 B.C.). Paul Halsall's Internet Indian History
Sourcebook provides sources on the history and religion of the Indian
subcontinent from ancient to modern times, including several pointers to
earl y civilizations. Indian History: A Passage Through Time has a section
describing the civilization and the demise of its' primary centers due to
desertification. I suggest the text versi on though a shockwave version is
available. Another worthwhile page is Harappan Civilization.

An article by S. P. Gupta on The Saraswati Controversy on the Indian
Archaeological Society web site employes a variety of disciplines to prove
the Saraswati was a living river until about 2000 BCE and that more of the
sites associated with the Harappan civilization were in India than in
Pakistan. I am un- friendly to the use of scholarly disciplines to
establish an essentially nationalistic result. There is also no references
in the nationalistic literature to the intricate association of the
Indo-Europeans with horses and, after 2200 BCE, with chariots. There are
too many loose ends in the assertion of an Indian home - land for
Indo-Europeans. These are yet to be addressed.

The Library of Hindu History has several links to early Indian
civilizations. It also has pointers to arguments about th e Dravidian vs.
Aryan question.

The founders of this civilization are unknown. They built well planned
cities and even developed plumbing to bring water into their towns.
Writing also appeared in the valley but too few samples survive. The
script cannot be read. On this matter see On the Deciphering of the Indus
Valley Script by Anand M. Sharan of the Memorial University of
Newfoundland. The author claims that tribal peoples in Bihar province
still use the Indus Valley script.

One popular theory holds that the Dravidic peoples of south Indi a created
this sophisticated civilization. The Dravidians are blac k in skin color
but have a caucasian physiognomy. Because of their color many
Afrocentrists assert that this is proof of an African origin of early
Indian civilization. [The more extreme exponents also claim the Shang
Chinese, the Canaanites, and even the Olmec of Mexico were of direct
African origin. There are also those wh o claim a Chinese source for the
Olmec!] I am inclined toward a Dravidian origin, but not convinced. One of
the more prolific of the extreme Afrocentrists is Clyde A. Winters.

Though this is his page on "Decipherment of Indus Valley Script, " it
serves as an entry-point to an extreme Afrocentrism. Example: "The
founders of this civilization were Proto-Dravidian speaking people from
middle Africa." See also Clyde Winters' site on the The Proto-Sahara where
he says of the Dravidians: "Now mainly situated in South India, these
people earlier lived in Central Asia, and even China." See also Mr.
Winters' page on the Shang Dynasty . His home page is

Clyde A. Winters which contains some Sample Afrocentric Ancient History
Links.

There is a growing debate over the collapse of Harappan civili- zation.
Analysis of Hindu epics and the obvious Indo-European nature of Indian
languages, other than the Dravidian Tamils, led to the conclusion that
India suffered a catastrophic

2. ARYAN Invasion variously dated from 1750 to 1500 BCE. The Aryan
Invasion Theory is now being seriously questioned. First though try The
Saga of the Aryans is a Zoroastrian religio us novel - for a change of
pace.

Paul Halsall's Internet Indian History Sourcebook provides sources on the
history and religion of the Indian subcontinent from ancient to modern
times, including several pointers to the opposition to the Aryan invasion
theory. The Library of Hindu Hi story has several links to research and
assertations which "disproove" the Aryan Invasion Theory. The Timeline of
India, a chart described as a "wall of historical events and related
stories/ sites, covers all of India and has link to an essay which casts
doubt On the Identity and Chronology of the Rigvedic River Saras vati. It
offers some other possibilities which seem to support an Arya n invasion
into territory that may have already been abandoned.

Shrikant G. Talageri strongly supports the position that the Ary as were
native to India as were the Indo-Europeans. As a result of his analysis of
The Rigveda he localized the homeland of the Indo-Europeans [and the
Aryas] as the Punjab. I am no Indolo gist but I am reluctant to accept
analyses of relatively recent relig ious epics as a valid method of
historical reconstruction. N. S. Raja ram, in his India invasion presents
several articles detailing the history of the European-inspired Aryan
Invasion theory. He assumes the Aryans were present in India as early as
4000 BCE - that the Aryan Invasion theory is the result of imperialist
Euro - centrism. He appends a bibliography with detailed reviews. He do es
not present any books contrary to his own position.

The Aryan Invasion Theory may not need to be abandoned, but it w ill need
to be modified.

B. Aryan India [The Vedic Age] to 500 BCE There are those who think
Harappan Civilization was destroyed by natural and internal sources. This
scenario is used in the descrip- tions in Indian History: A Passage
Through Time. See also Aryans in ancient India which shows the derivation
of the word, implying superiority, and its' relationship to Iran. The pare
nt page Ancient India is a comprehensive collection on ancient India.

1. Development of Hinduism If online click Caste System in ancient India
[http://www.snu.edu/syllabi/history/s97projects/india/caste.h tm - Caste
System in ancient India]. Another entree to early socie ty are Manu, The
laws of Manu, translated by G. Buhler. The Laws of Manu represent one of
the more ancient sources of information about early Indian social
structure. Though the L aws were probably written in the first or second
century BCE, the traditions they reveal are much older, perhaps as old as
the period of Aryan invasions some fifteen centuries earlier. The Vedic
Experience - Hinduism's Contemporary Holy Bible - by Professor Raimon
Panikkar, is the complete online text. Anoth er collection of religious
documents including a review of Harappan s is Vedas and Upanishads with no
timeline. The Library of Hindu History is a good source for this topic. as
well as the following sections.

2. Other Indian religions and developments. See Manas: India and Its
Neighbors - scholarly view of history, politics, culture, and art of
India/Indian sub-continent.

3. India remained disunited until the third century BCE. During tha t
period a writing system reappeared in India around 900, about th e same
time as iron-working was introduced.

a. The Mahabharata War also took place about that time. The Epic The
Mahabarata, was composed about 800 at the start of

b. Epic Age. The first version of the Ramayana was also committed to
writing at this time though the

d. Composition of the Upanishads came 250 years later.

e. Buddhism originated from the teachings of Siddartha Gautama who was
born in the middle of the sixth century BCE though so me date his birth as
late as 490. For more information see Aside.

f. Jainism. An Outline of Jain History by Yashwant K. Malaiya for
information. See also Aside.
_________________________________________________________________

Part VI: China


For web links consult The Fossil Evidence for Human Evolution in China
[http://chineseprehistory.org/index.htm] The Fossil Evidence for Human
Evolution in China. China History To Qing Dynasty A resource page for the
history and archaeology of China to the Qing Dynasty.
[http://www.usc.edu/isd/locations/ssh/eastasian/toqing.htm] China H istory
To Qing Dynasty A resource page for the history and archaeology of China
to the Qing Dynasty. Su Tzu's Chinese Philosophy Page
[http://uweb.superlink.net/~fsu/philo.html] Su Tzu's Chinese Philos ophy
Page WWW-VL History Index of Chines History
[http://www.ku.edu/history/VL/east_asia/china.html] WWW-VL History Index
of Chines History Internet Resources on the History of China
[http://newton.uor.edu/Departments&Programs/AsianStudiesDept/china-
history.html] Internet Resources on the History of China Condensed China:
Chinese History for Beginners. [http://www.asterius.com/china/] Condensed
China Ancient Dynasties [http://www-chaos.umd.edu/history/ancient1.html] -
Ancient Dynastie s Languages & Vedas actually takes you to a site called
Languages with more than 30,000,000 Speakers as of 1993. Place your cursor
over the colored words and click the "hot" ones. The amoun t of
information about East, South, and Southeast Asia is is truly astonishing.
If not online try [http://www.friesian.com/upan.htm - Languages and Vedas]

A. Pre-Imperial China to 221 BCE

1. Xia: c. 2200 - c. 1700 BCE The first prehistoric dynasty. Excavations
at early bronze-age sites at Anyang, Henan Province, in 1928, helped
separate myth from reality. Since then, archaeologists have uncovered
urban sites, bronze implements, and tombs that point to the existence of
Xia civilization in the same locations cited in ancient Chinese historical
texts. The Xia period marked an evolutionary stage between the late
neolithic cultures and Chinese urban civilization of the Shang dynasty.

2. Shang: c. 1700 - c. 1027 BCE Archaeological finds in the Huang He Henan
Valley, cradle of Chinese civilization provide evidence about the Shang
dynasty, (also called the Yin dynasty in its later stages). Founded by a
rebel leader who overthrew the last Xia ruler, its civilization was based
on agriculture, hunting, and domestic animals. Noted for the development
of a writing system and the use of bronze metallurgy, many of the vessels
have inscriptions from the Shang period. Shang kings ruled over much of
northern China, and Shang troops warred with neighbors and nomads from the
inner Asian steppes. The king was the head of the ancestor- and
spirit-worship cult, and many people were buried alive with the royal
corpse.

3. Western Zhou: c. 1027 - 771 BC The last Shang ruler was overthrown by a
chieftain of a frontier tribe called Zhou, from the Wei Valley in modern
Shaanxi Province. The Zhou dynasty had its capital at Hao, near the city
of Xi'an, or Chang'an as it was known in the imperial period. Sharing the
language and culture of the Shang, the early Zhou rulers, through conquest
and colonization, gradually extended its culture through much of China
north of the Chang Jiang or Yangtze River. The Zhou dynasty first
enunciated the doctrine of the "mandate of heaven" the idea that the ruler
governed by divine right. Dethronement would prove that he had lost the
mandate. The doctrine is commonplace in pre-modern societies and justified
the rule and demise of dynasties and provided legitimacy to present and
future rulers. The early Zhou system was more sophisticated version of
earlier tribal organization, in which effective control depended on
familial ties. The Zhou city-states became centralized with impersonal
political and economic institutions. Cast bronze inferior to the Shang.

4. Eastern Zhou 771 - 256 BCE, In 771 B.C. the Zhou court was sacked, and
its king was killed by invading barbarians allied with rebel lords. The
capital was moved eastward to Luoyang in present-day Henan Province. The
power of the Zhou court gradually declined. The period is subdivided into
a. The Spring & Autumn Period, 770 - 476 BCE, and the b. Warring States
Period: 475 - 221 BCE Decentralized power led to disintegration. Produced
Lao Tze's Daoism, Confucius [most prominet much later], and the
politicized Confucianistic Legalism.

Part of the above and the remainder of the Outline of Chinese history
below belong to Units II and III.

B. Early Imperial China, 221 BCE - 589 CE

1. Qin: 221 - 206 BC

2. The Han Dynasties, 206 BCE - 220 CE a. The Former [Earlier] Han, 206
BCE - 8 CE b. The Wang Mang Interregnum, 8 - 25 CE c. The Later Han, 25 -
220 CE

3. Disunion, 220 - 589 CE a. The Three Kingdoms, 220 - 265 CE and the b.
Dynasties of the North and South, 317 - 589 CE
_________________________________________________________________

Part VII: The Americas


I. The Arrival of Peoples in America. Early Europeans assumed that the
Biblical Chronology was correct. Under that assumption, people could not
have been anywhere in the world until after the Flood of Noah, dated about
2200 BCE. Columbus mistook the lands he discovered as islands off the
coast of India and called the inhabitant s Indians. By the time Vespucci
successfully argued in his Novus Mundus [1504] that the western Atlantic
lands could not be Asia and the Magellan expedition proved the new lands
were more distant from Asia than from Eur ope, it was too late to change
the label "indio" for the people. In the meanwh ile German editors
updating a world geography text gave the new lands the nam e AMERICA
because Amerigo Vespucci's pamphlet convinced them in 1508 that t he new
lands were unknown to the Old World.

If the New World were not conjoined with the Old then how did the people
get there and whence did they come? Most Old World peoples had someone wh
o argued that they were the ancestors of the Americans. All such arguments
were set aside by José de Acosta in his great work. Historia natural y
moral de las índias published in Latin in 1588 and in Spanish the
following year. By 1610 it was available in most west Europea n languages.

Acosta affirmed from the start that his arguments would be based in the
rule of reason. He quickly eliminated trans-oceanic migrations because th
e animals in the New World would have to be brought aboard ship. Why would
sailors bring deadly animals but not useful ones? His conclusion was that
men and animals must have come by way of a common land connection. Acosta
was aware that Tierra del Fuego was an island and that there was no land
connection in the North Atlantic. He concluded that people and animals
must have come by way of some as yet undiscovered place in the north Paci
fic where the continents were either conjoined or narrowly disjoined.
Acosta' s conclusions were adopted by most European scholars, but there
were always those who argued that the Welsh, the Irish, the Egyptians, the
"Lost Trib es of Israel," or dozens of others were the ancestors of the
Indians.

By the beginning of the 20th century Archaeology was emerging as a scienc
e in its own right. Acosta's idea of a "land bridge" accross the Bering
Straits was generally accepted and geologists had identified a few time
periods when that land bridge could have existed - the last was about
12000 BCE. Since the Eskimo had entered America over the frozen sea a lan
d bridge was theoretically not essential. Nonetheless American
Archaeologis ts held that large scale migrations needed the land bridge.

Those who worked in the Old World had no reluctance in accepting up to
600,000 years of hominid presence, but American datings were held to a
more rigorous standard. It was not until Ales Hrdlicka visited the newly
discovered Clovis site and gave it his stamp of approval that American
Archaeologists had an ancient date - about 12000 BCE - roughly coinciding
with the last land bridge.

It was obvious that if humans were in Clovis, New Mexico, by 12000 BCE
they must have been elsewhere in the Americas long enough to travel to
Clovis. Older dates were suggested such as the Lewisville, Texas, site at
43000 BCE but none could be unconditionally validated. For more than half
a century the "Clovis barrier" and the rigid standards to which American
archaeologists held prevented any general acceptance of the older dates.
In the interim trans-oceanic migration enjoyed wide popular acceptance due
to misinterpretations of the work of people such as Thor Heyerdahl. A
variation of this idea in which the migrants were thought to have moved in
boats along the coasts gained some logical acceptance. By 2000 CE the
Clovis barrier seemed on the verge of crumbling as dates from Chile and
the Amazon gained credence. Though conclusive evidence is tentative, by
2002 archaeologists and historians who had long held that Clovis was a
technical barrier could reasonably foresee a time when the Antiquity of
humans in America long before Clovis would be the concensus.

There remains the question of the biological and geographic source of the
ancestors of Americans and the separate question of Old World visitors and
settlers. Thus far only the Vikings provably visited America and it seems
unlikely that their brief presence had any genetic or cultural impact. The
claims by Barry Fell and his followers Libiyan Arabs and Phoenicians,
amongst others, penetrated deeply into the heartland of America remain
untenable. The same is true of the 35000 years old rock art from Brazil.
Leaving aside these unresolved issues it is clear that around 10000 years
ago population levels in certain areas had risen to the point that control
of the food supply became critical. It is time to investigate

II. The Origins of Settled Living in America The Foraging and Ethnobotany
Links Page addresses the time before far ming. See also the Origins of
Agriculture in Eastern North America and the FLORA OF NORTH AMERICA Table
of Contents page. There is also the Food and Culture: Indigenous Peoples
of Borth America Biblio graphy. Agriculture began in the Near East not
long after 10000 BCE, at the beginnings of the Neolithic. The people of
America began to practice agriculture at about the same time. Early
investigators concentrated on drier lands where they found evidence of the
domestication of bean s and cucurbits [squashes] prior to 7000 BCE and
maiz [corn] around 400 0. Origins of Agriculture II offers an outline of
domestication in the Americas.

The Old World Neolithic developments are clearly summarized in the
article, NEOLITHIC AGRICULTURE which has considerable material on the
Americas. It was based on a twenty year study presented in The Origins of
Agriculture in the Lowland Neotropics. The authors found 12000 year old
squash and 7700 year old maize [corn] in America . Early Agriculture is an
excellent source on world agriculture slanted toward the Americas. There
is a photo gallery of small pictur es of some important American plant
food stuffs. Another site, a lecture on the Origin of Agriculture and
Human Nutrition consists of notes for an Undergraduate Program in Plant
Biology at the University of Maryland. The outline is extensive and
includes many references to American agriculture and even more detail on
Nutrition. Another cours e PLANTS AND HUMAN HISTORY is an outline with
some graphics which indicate the places where common foods were
domesticated and others which show the genealogy of plants like the
cabbages. There is also a list of the production of the top 25 food
plants, many of which are o f American origin. Note that sweet potatoes
are listed separately from the Yams which are an entirely different plant
confused by marketing practices in American food stores and grocers. The
Canadian site, Origins of Agriculture II has a heavy American content.

III. The Civilizations of North America to 500 BCE

A. The Cultigens of MesoAmerica See The Origins of Food Production in the
Americas (c. 5000 BCE. The Course Page at Rutgers lists the major
cultigens. New World Foods identifies and describes dozens of American
cultigens. America lacked animals suitable for domestication. The dog
appeared rather early and was used as a food source in parts of Mexico.
Most animal foods came from hunting and fishing. The majority of the foods
consumed were from plants. Dry climates preserve evidence of plants so
early investigators ignored the more humid regions even though the variety
of edible plants, seeds, and fruits was far greater there.

1. Beans and Squashes are amongst the older cultigens. Beans could be
dried and used during the fallow months. This course at Purdue, Phaseolus
Beans - Notes - HORT410 - Vegetable Crops describes the o rigins as
Central and South America. They widely disseminated in North and South
America before European exploration. A brief history of the common bean is
in Two New Beans from America. You can find this link on the previous page
under Bean History. The Purdue page also has links to numerous vegetables
of both Old and New World ori gin including beans and peas, peppers,
squash, potatos, sweet corn, and sweet potatos. The continued importance
of beans is made obvious by the site Common, but not forgotten. The South
African site on Phaseolus lunatus (lima bean / butter bean) briefly
relates the origins and growth habits of Lima beans. Black Beans are the
co mmon bean of Mexico beyond the Isthmus of Tehuantepec but rarely used
in the Nor th.

Squashes have been found in America dating to 10000 BCE. Summer squ ash
were soft bodied and consumed seasonally. Yellow squashes like the
crook-necked were easy to grow and very popular. Modern varieties include
Summer Squash: Zucchini - Information and Recipes bred in Italy from a
squash that was thousands of years old. The University of Texas' FLORA of
MIDDLE AMERICA has an outline addresses many American and Old World plant
foods but little detail . Oregon State offers a good and extensive
bibliography on Squash. The best descriptions are in Floridata: Cucurbita
spp. which treat s four of the 27 species in detail. These are technical
descriptions. Spaghetti Squash is one of the least known squashes. This
site has three pages of information on the use of this curious member of
the squash family, including many recipes. The Calabaza, a green
pumpkin-like squash, is the subject of this web site. FoodTale: SQUASH has
a full list of both summer squash and the durable winter squashes which
preserve well for out-of-season u se. Pumpkins and Squash also has a full
listing of the various squashes with growth habits and nutritional content
for many of the m. Ancient food for thought analyzes evidence of
unexpected modes of food production ancient America from an archaeological
perspective. The article is well written and fully annotated.

The most important crop throughout America was

2. Maiz, or maize, called Corn in the US. Maiz was native to Mexico and
Guatemala, possibly derived from the wild grass teosinte. The concensus
was that maiz became a fully captive plant by 4000 BC E. Maiz was so
important that MesoAmericans thought it the substance from which humans
were made. Not only was it the staple food crop, in Peru a sweeter version
was bred so as to make a better corn beer , chicha. Mexicans soaked the
grain and pressed it into a masa from which tortillas were made. Peruvians
ground it into a meal. Oregon State has the best set of links and
Bibliography on Corn. The 4000 date now seems too early. Corn, or Zea
mays, is a site wit h with mostly technical and commercial links. Maize,
(American Corn) is most significant in terms of agronomy and world wide
economic impact of all American cultigens. The site has a list of 15 of
American foods adopted worldwide. The web site Maize has a description of
maiz. Check out the link to "The Maize Page." The best site on maiz is
ANTH 506 Lecture: Origin and Domestication of Maize, by John Hoopes. This
site, Migration and Global Disease, explores the consequences of the
arrival of Europeans and the export of American cultigens. NativeTech's
Native American History of Corn is more concerned with modern usage and
recipes than early history. Hotcakencyclopedia's Maize not only describes
the plant but also presents links to some interesting native stories and
myths.

3. Tomatoes An excellent starting place to research tomatoes is Oregon
State University's page with links and references called simply Tomato.
Tomatoes are usually ranked as the most popular non-staple vegetabl e. The
two most widely used sauces, ketchup and salsa both have tomato es as
their primary ingredient. That is also true of pasta sauces. Thi s
American cultigen is one of the many succesful contributions of the native
American farmers.

Chiles, called chile peppers or hot peppers to distinguish them fro m the
black pepper of Asia, were widely used in the Americas and were readily
adopted in most old world countries. They have become so integral to local
cuisines worldwide that many peoples assume they have always had them. The
influence of Mexican Style Food is addressed in a separate page. Oregon
State University has a superb collection of Links and References to the
Chile Pepper which I reco mmend. The Chile Pepper Institute Homepage,
updated Oct, 2002, from New Mexico State University site has information
on varieties on chili, chili pungency, photos, links, and most anything
you might wish to know about Chiles. Equally important is the Chile Pepper
variety da tabase which has detailed technical and historical information
on more tha n a hundred varieties of Chile peppers. The Growers of Chile &
Sweet Pepper Plants offered 444 varieties of peppers in 2002 and expects
500 in 2003.

Chocolate was of great value to MesoAmericans. Chocolate beans were used
as both food and as a medium of exchange. CACAO BEANS were gro wn
throughout tropical America and used to make a bitter-tasting drink called
xocoatl by the Aztecs but heard as "cocoa" by the Spaniards. This History
of chocolate claims the Amazon basin as the original home of the tree. It
is now cultivated in most tropical regions and is the primary cash crop in
several west African countries. The Exploratorium Magazine: Chocolate
pages has excellent coverage of the history and use of chocolate. The
article, Research Unearths Origins of Chocolate is mis-named since it
reports on an incomplete exploration of the Ulua Valley in Honduras but
does not conclude that chocolate was domesticated ther e.

Vanilla is Mexican in origin. This site has a very brief review of The
Origin and History of Vanilla but is primarily a commercial sit e. The
most comprehensive site I have seen is in the Spice Pages: Vani lla from
Austria. This is part of of an enormous compilation of informa tion about
spices world-wide and deserves to be explored extensively. This site has
easily accessable information on Vanilla flavours though it lacks the
depth and scope of the previous page. Another worthy site is Vanilla and
its' many sub-pages.

Sweet Potatoes. Oregon State offers a description with links and
bibliography at its site on Sweetpotatoes. Please do not confuse
sweetpotatoes with Yams.

Sapodilla, better known as Chicle [the source of chewing gum] is one of
the lesser cultigens native to Yucatan and vicini ty. An excellent
description with references is at Sapodilla. and at Oregon State
University's section on the Sapodilla t ree.

Others include Jicama, Yucca, Papaya, Avacados, Pineapples, Allspice, the
squash-like Chayota, and hundreds more. They also domesticated a high
quality Cotton and other fibe rs.

B. Before the Olmec By about 2000 BCE agriculture was the main sources of
food in MesoAmer ica from Zacatecas in the northwest southward to Panama.
There were pocket s of farming in favored areas of northern Mexico, the
American southwest , and throughout eastern and southeastern America [US].
The staple produ cts were maize, beans, and squashes. Population levels
increased rapidly i n MesoAmerica and farming communities practicing
swidden [slash and burn ] agriculture dotted the landscape. After 2000 BCE
large villages became formative city-states. These states emerged at the
base of the Gulf of Mexico and in the highlands of Mexico. The advances
toward civilizatio n cannot yet be dated with certainty but ist still
seems that the first civilized peoples of North America were

C. The Olmec. Click "Olmecs" in the Table of Contents to Mexico - except
the Maya for a collection of links about the Olmec. Though the history of
the Olmecs extends well before 500 BCE most of their innovations such as
the MesoAmerican Calendar, Writing, and the peculiar massive sculpture s
of heads come after that date. Their influence extended far into the
highlands, or perhaps the reverse is the case.

D. Highland Mexico I have a good set of links to Mexico - except the Maya.
The Table of Contents will guide you to links to

1. Oaxaca. The links point to Oaxaca in general, to the Mixtec, and to
individual archaeological sites such as Monte Alban and Mitla. As with the
Olmec much of the grandeur of Oaxaca comes after 500 BCE.

2. Central Mexico There are also links to Teotihuacan and to later
cultures such as El Tajin and the Aztecs.

C. The Maya. For a large set of links see The Mayas. This culture is more
appropriate to the-post 500 BCE period though the roots of Maya cultur e
extend deeply into the past.

IV. The Civilizations of South America

A. The Cultigens of South America Recent dates for humans in South America
of 31000 BCE from Monte Verde in Chile and 30000 BCE from Pedra Furada in
Brazil are not yet general ly accepted. The far older dates of 200000 to
300000 years ago from Toca de Esperano in Brazil pre-date the accepted
antiquity of Homo Sapiens and must be considered problematical until
validated, assuming that as a possibility. The dates for domestication of
food crops is unlikely to be much older than 10000 years ago. In addition
to the potato and the swe et potato early Peruvians possessed avocados,
the common bean and lima be an, manioc, peanuts, peppers, turban squash,
and many vegetables unfamilia r to Westerners. They are also known to have
cultivated cotton and bottl e gourds. Peanuts and manioc [cassava] were
from Brazil, avocados from Central America, and beans and peppers [and
probably squash] were from MesoAmerica. Therefore those plants diffused
from their native regions into Peru. Maize [corn] from MesoAmerica was a
later arrival.

1. Potatos are of South American origin. Though popularly known as the
Irish or white potato, the root may have a variety of colors. Evide nce
from Peru indicate the both the potato and the sweet potato are ver y
early. Even woven images of the potato may be found in textiles. Th e two
root crops were in use perhaps as early as 8000 BCE. For an excellent set
of Links and a Bibliography see Potatoes and The White Potato which is the
better of the two sites.

2. Peanuts and Cassava are both of probable Brazilian origin. Oregon State
offers information and bibliographies on a comprehensi ve list of
vegetable foods and spices including Cassava and Cashews. F or a complete
list see Plant Foods: Cereals, Fruits, Grains, Seeds, Vege tables. Then
there is Babaco, a little known fruit from Ecuador.

3. Grains, especially maize [corn], were desired crops because they were
readily preserved. Maize diffused into South America from Meso - America
where [in Peru] a sweeter product was bred - possibly becau se it produced
better beer. Among other grains is quinoa still grown in the Andean
countries. The Introduction to Quinoa is devoted to this most important
pre-Columbian cereal crop after maize.

4. The Lost Crops of the Incas (1989) adds two more grains, 10 roots and
tubers, several legumes and vegetables, a doze n fruits and berries, and
some nuts. The list of plants occupies page s 401-407. See also Purdue's
Crop Index which has hundreds listed, and Andean Grains and Legumes in
particular.

B. Andean Cultures to 500 BCE For generalized web sites on Andean cultures
see Andean Archaeology. [http://www.hist.unt.edu/0andean.htm] - Andean
Archaeology in Genera l. A set of collections of pointers to pre-Hispanic
sites in South Americ a is at South America - Caribbean: Contents.
[http://www.hist.unt.edu/09w-ar2c.htm] - South America - Caribbean.

Agriculture and sedentary living are very early in South America. Slas h
and burn [Swidden] farming, or gardening, may be up to 10,000 years ol d
though such antiquity is not [yet] the concensus. Unlike the Old World
where farming villages evolved into towns or cities around 7000 BCE, the
oldest suggestion of a town in the Andes about 2200 BCE has not ye t been
accepted as a concensus. The site lies near the oldest recognized South
American civilization know by its location in

1. The Huantar de Chavín in the valley of the Santa River, the only
permanent Peruvian river flowing into the Pacific. Although The Chavín is
recognized as the most ancient South American civilization there are far
older habitation sites. See Understanding Chavín and the Origins of Andean
Civilization and Early Monumental Architecture on the Peruvian Coast by
John Q. Jaco bs. At some time after 12-1500 BCE the people living in the
valley of the Santa River began expanding. They possessed a symbology
which included jaguars and large serpents, more appropriate to people fro
m the Amazonian region than from the Pacific slope of the Andes of
northern Peru.

The influence of this culture spread southward to encompass the coast of
Peru and the immediate hinterland. They may have reached into Bolivia and
Chile. Their sphere of influence was already home to unknown peoples who
may themselves have been on the verge of civilized living. Whether Chavín
expansion was peaceful or by conquest cannot now be known. The initial
impression was that of a peaceful expansion, a conclusion similar to the
early view of the Maya. As yet unfound evidence may compel a shift toward
the bloody, warlike attitudes now commonly attributed to the Maya.

I do not know of any peaceful expansions.

2. Related Cultures obviously existed but are hidden by the Chavín
overlay. As archaeology and archaeological synthesis evolve in Sout h
America we will doubtlessly discover multiple centers of incipient
civilization. The predisposition to expect a single beginning to al l
human experience and the effort to place all new finds within such a
context must be abandoned to avoid the kind of nightmarish delay stemming
from the power of those who wanted the Maya to be idyllic.
__________________________________________________________________________




Part VIII: ASIDE - Socio-religious leaders


The period from about 600 BCE to 450 BCE produced an abundance of thinker
s whose influence extend far beyond their own times and places of
activity. I have listed them in alphabetical order. Two are collectives.
The rest are individuals but their followers were critical to the ultimate
success or failure of their ideologies.

A. The Babylonian Captivity of the Jews, 586-36, began during the militar
y expansion of Nebuchadnezzar II into Cannan and Egypt. Judea, which had
been coerced by Egypt to participate in an unsuccessful attempt to sav e
the last remaining Assyrian stronghold at Harran in northeastern Syria ,
was overrun by Babylonian forces. The Temple at Jerusalem was destroye d
and the Ark of the Covenent disappeared.

The Judeans were deported to various parts of the Babylonian Empire - the
number of exiles may have been as high as 450,000. During the prio r
century religious scholars had redacted and "standardized" the sacred
books of Judaism. They took copies of these sacred works with them int o
exile. During the fifty years they remained in Babylon the religious
scholars wrote many commentaries on the sacred works and composed book s
which were later accepted as divinely inspired and added to the sacred
cannon.

Unlike the northern ten tribes of the Kingdom of Israel exiled by the
Assyrians, the Judeans maintained their religion and intensified their
sense of community. The exiles had anticipated their eventual return to
Judea and had made records of property ownership so families could reclaim
their ancestral holdings. When released by the Persian emperor Cyrus, most
of the surviving exiles and a larger number of Judeans born in exile
reocupied Judea.

The Babylonian Captivity was the defining experience of Judaism. There are
few web pages on this experience but I do recommend Paul Halsall's
Internet Jewish History Sourcebook, a section of his Internet History
Sourcebooks Project. For an orthodox view see Judah's Sceptre and Joseph's
Birthright by J. H. Allen. Click on Chapter IX, The Jews Go to Babylon and
Return .

B. Buddha, 566-486 [or 490-410 BCE]. An Introduction to Buddhism by C.
George Boeree is the place to start. Sanderson Beck's Buddha and Buddhism
is another excellent source. The sacred texts of the religion may be found
at the Buddhism site. Another source for sacred texts is Buddhism, an
introduction. Siddartha Gautama, known as the Buddha, was born before 500
BCE in wha t is now Nepal. Consult the Buddha Net for orthodox views. See
especially the article on Internet influence at The Virtual Buddha .
Though Buddhism is called a religion it has no theology, worships no God,
and does not deify the Buddha. It is an ethical system based on the
personal observations of the Buddha with sub-sets representative of the
teachings of his followers. Buddhism is known as a pacifistic religion.

The new religion experienced little success until the reign of Ashoka. See
Ashoka and his Edicts for more information on the events [3rd century
BCE]. The first Emperor of India converted to Buddhism an d made a
national religion. Most Indians retained their Hindu orientatio n and
after Ashoka's death Hinduism recaptured most Indians. Buddhism retained
many followers in India and became the dominant religion of Nepal, Bhutan,
Myanmar [Burma], Laos, Campuchea [Cambodia], Viet Nam, Tibet, Japan, and
[briefly] China. A special article oriented toward Japan called Buddha,
Buddhism, and Japanese cultural dysfunction.

C. Confucius, 551-479, emerged from The Hundred Schools of Thought era.
His teachings had the most enduring effect on later China though its' rise
to importance came long after his death. His body of thought is called the
Confucian School in the West and the School of Literati in China. His
influence is stems from works collectively called The Confucian Classics,
which laid the basis of a perception of an ideal society. Confucius found
his ideal social and political order in the early days of the Zhou. He
tought that each person should act as his station in life dictated. The
ruler should rule and his subjects should behave as such .

He did add an ethical dimension to his system by insisting that the ki ng
must be virtuous. The existing social order was a fact of life which must
be maintained and even honored. The system was held together by a strong
sense of discipline maintained by cultivated or superior men. Confucianism
became an important and even dominant force after refine- ments by his
disciples and the appearance of an Emperor who found the system useful
both as an administrative tool and a means of justifying imperial rule.

Mencius (372-289 B.C.) made major contributions to Confucian thought. He
believed man was essentially good. He also argued that the ruler must
govern with the people's consent. The penalty for unpopular rule was the
loss of the "mandate of heaven." The effect of the thinking of Confucius
and the synthesis of Mencius offered traditional Chinese society a
framework with which to order every aspect of life. Many others
contributed to the corpus of Confucian thought including

Xun Zi (ca. 300-237 BCE) who contradicted Mencius by declaring that men
were selfish and evil and goodness was achieved only through education and
conduct consistent with one's social status. He believed that
authoritarian control, not ethical or moral persuasion, produced the best
government. Xun Zi's views influenced the School of Law called also by the
name Legalism. This view was formulated in the thir d century by Han Fei
Zi and Li Si. The net result was that the selfish nature of men meant the
only way to maintain social order was to inves t all power in the state.

The Legalists argued that the state, its' prosperity, and military pow er
were more important than the welfare of the common people. Legalism proved
attractive as a basis for imperial power. The practical and politically
useful aspects of the Confucianism synthesis wereadopted i n the Han
period (206 B.C.-A.D. 220). The result was a bureaucratic syst em that
survived largely intact into the late nineteenth century.

For web links consult China History To Qing Dynasty A resource page for
the history and archaeology of China to the Qing Dynasty.
[http://www.usc.edu/isd/locations/ssh/eastasian/toqing.htm] China H istory
To Qing Dynasty A resource page for the history and archaeology of China
to the Qing Dynasty. Su Tzu's Chinese Philosophy Page
[http://uweb.superlink.net/~fsu/philo.html] Su Tzu's Chinese Philos ophy
Page Confucius, K'ung-fu-tzu The fundamental virtue of Confucianism.
[http://www.friesian.com/confuci.htm] Confucius, K'ung-fu-tzu. The
fundamental virtue of Confucianism. Confucianism as a Way of Chinese Life
Confucianism: A Philosophy, Not a Religion.
[http://beatl.barnard.columbia.edu/reacting/china/confucianism.html ]
Confucianism as a Way of Chinese Life. Confucianism: A Philosophy, Not a
Religion. Confucianism, an essay with a bibliography.
[http://www.askasia.org/frclasrm/readings/r000004.htm] Confucianism, an
essay with a bibliography. Images of the Temple of Culture with Bryan W.
Van Norden's selected list of Chinese philosophy-related links and a long
Bibliography on Confucius and Confucianism.
[http://www.hamilton.edu/academics/Asian/TempleCulture.html] Images of the
Temple of Culture with Bryan W. Van Norden's selected list o f Chinese
philosophy-related links and a long Bibliography on Confuci us and
Confucianism. Kong Fu Zi - Confucius. An extensive site with a
bibliography of books in print on Confucius and Confucianism and an
assortment of links. [http://www.cifnet.com/~geenius/kongfuzi/] Kong Fu Zi
- Confucius. An extensive site with a bibliography of books in print on
Confuciu s and Confucianism and an assortment of links. There are hundreds
of web sites of this subject If you want more go to the Google search
engine, use the advanced feature, and search the words CONFUCIUS
CONFUCIANISM.

D. Jina is a generic reference to a spiritual leader who has reached a pu
re state and thus become a "god." Jainism is one of the older and least
known of the world's religions. Like Buddhism, Jainism does not accept a
creator, endorses pacificism, and values all life - human, animal, o r
vegetable. See An Outline of Jain History. This is a truly vast site by
Yashwant K. Malaiya. If Jainism interests you explore the hundreds of
links provided.

E. Milesian Philosophers, 625-525 The city of Miletus lay of the coast of
Asia Minor [geographic Anatoli a and political Turkey]. The city-state was
self-governing but was also a part of the Kingdom of Lydia until 546 when
the Persians conquered tha t kingdom. Miletus was the home of a
philosopher named Thales who founde d a school to expound his ideas. Two
his followers were Anaximander and Anaximenes. Collectively these
philosophers formed the Milesian school .

Philosophy differed from other ways of analysis because of a naturalis t
orientation. Conclusions were to be based of accumulated observations, not
inherited precept or reigious dictate. Thales is thought to have been the
first man to predicted an eclipse of the sun, suggesting that he viewed
the sun and moon as natural entities rather than divinities. Even if he
had viewed them as Gods, the regularity of their movements would still
have allowed a careful observer to predict an eclipse.

The remains of the writings of the Milesians are fragmentary. From wha t
does survive and from later references to them it seems likely that a form
of biological evolution was conceived. Actually, one might argue that the
Babylonian Enumma Elish expressed a similar idea if Abzu and Tiamat are
perceived as metaphors for sweet water [Abzu] and brackish water [Tiamat].
The co-mingling of the two generated the Gods .

The difference is that the Babylonians could not separate generation, or
even thought, from religion. Philosophy allowed for the independenc e of
thought.

Philosophers were not separated from religion. Sometimes their thinkin g
led them to accept the possibility, or even the probability, that Abstract
Thought might represent a kind of reality. Mathematicians lik e

Pythagoras, 580-500, noted the mathematical basis of music, imagined a
mystique in numbers, and created secret societies which were difficult to
distinguish from the myriad of religious sects which dotted the spiritual
landscape of the ancient world.

F. Zoroaster, 6th Century BCE, was a spiritual teacher from the borderlan
d of northeastern [modern] Iran. His dates, even his very existence, are
subject to debate. The religion based upon his teachings, Zoroastriani sm,
was dualistic in nature. Two god-like forces faced each other in perpe t-
ual struggle. Ahura-Mazda was entirely Good while his opponent, Ahrima n,
was entirely Evil. Zoroastrians anticipated a final struggle between Good
and Evil. If humans supported Good then Good would win. Oddly,
Zoroastrians did not have a missionary imperitive. The most famous
Zoroastrian spinoff was Mithraism: an essay by David Fingrut, a general
survey of Mithraic religion. Copyright 1993. It flourished i n Roman times
and, characteristicly all male.

Zoroastrianism was the court religion of the Persians though they did
require their subjects to convert. There are few Zoroastrians today. There
are maybe 200,000 in Iran - mostly in the area of Yazd. A larger number
live in Bombay, India, where they are called Parsees [Persians] .

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