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I.
Hittites
A. Wanting control of trade routes along Euphrates, Mursilis I, a Hittite
king, conquered part of Syria and sacked Babylon in 1595 BC, ending the Amorite
dynasty, which had been established by Hammurabi two centuries earlier--BUT then
withdrew. Mursilis then is assassinated by members of his own family on
his returning home.
After some confusion the Hittites finally produced a capable line of
kings. "In the 1300's, the Hittite empire reached its peak and
included much of Asia Minor and northern Syria. The Hittites' success arose form their well-trained army.
Mass attacks by light, horse-drawn chariots demolished enemy lines, while
foot soldiers made effective use of the battle axe and a short curved
sword" (Perry-ibid). Their successes include the loss of Syria by Akhenaton and
the ambush and defeat of Ramses II in 1269 at the battle of Kadesh in Syria
which resulted in a dynastic marriage with Ramses' daughter.
B. One of their enduring impacts on history is their influence on the
Greeks of Ionia through Phrygians and Lydians [ex. Hittite goddess Kubaba became
great Phrygian goddess Cybele ("Great Mother") the worship of whom
spread to Rome]. "The Hittites borrowed several features of Mesopotamian
civilization, including cuneiform, legal principles, and literary and art forms
(Perry 5th, 23). They would form
a cultural bridge between Mesopotamia and the Greeks:
"They also played an important role in transmitting the ancient
cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt to the Greeks, who lived on their
frontiers" (Kagan, 22). "Although
the Hittite empire did not survive the transition from the Bronze to the Iron
Age, it served as a vital cultural transmitter to the west.
The Hittites passed on compelling legends and seem to have had a marked
impact on both Greek myth and Roman views of the universe.
Whether through encounters in western Anatolia or indirectly via the
Phoenicians, the Greeks acquired key elements of their mythology from Hittite
sources. The Kumarbi epic--adopted
by the Hittites from the Hurrians--shows striking similarities to the Greek
account of the origin of the gods as set down in poetry by Hesiod around 700 BC.
The three generations of the Greek gods--Ouranos, Kronos, and
Zeus--correspond perfectly to the three generations of deities in the Hittite
cycle--Anu (heaven), Kumarbi (father of the gods), and Teshub (the weather god),
Kronos' mutilation of this father Ouranos similarly parallels the emasculation
of Anu by his son Kumarbi, and in both cases other deities sprang from this act
of treacherous sexual violence" (Greaves 40). II.
Phoenicians.
A. After 1200 BC (fall of
Hittites & decline of Egypt) there was a lull in empire building so that the
Semitic peoples of Syria and Palestine were able to play significant roles in
history (until Assyrians conquered them). The Phoenicians, descendants of the
Canaanites, a Semitic people who had settled Palestine about 3000 BC, were one
of these peoples. Residing along the Mediterranean coast on a narrow band of
land 120 miles long, their major cities (in modern Lebanon) included Tyre,
Byblos (the a chief distribution center for Egyptian papyrus outside Egypt; from
which the Greek word for book,
biblos, is derived), Berytus
(Beirut), Sidon.
By the 11th c. they were the greatest traders, shipbuilders, navigators
and colonizers before the Greeks. The
had trading posts along the coast of North Africa (Carthage!), on the islands of
the western Mediterranean and in Spain (Gades=Cadiz).
Their most famous export was woolen cloth dyed with purple dye obtained
from shellfish (murex, a mollusk) found along their coast), but also lumber from
the famous cedars of Lebanon, glass, wine, copper, bronze utensils.
B. Although they left no
literature and little art, they invented the first phonetic alphabet, one
of the greatest contributions to human progress (22 consonant symbols to which
the Greeks added vowel signs). As
the greatest sea traders of the ancient world, they carried the alphabet and the
Babylonian sexagesimal system of notation westward.
They would be conquered by the Assyrians, except Tyre which fell to
Chaldeans in 571 BC. III.
Aramans.
Another influential people in the ancient Near East were the Arameans,
great caravan traders who carried cultural patterns (incl. Phoenician alphabet)
as well as goods throughout the Near East.
Aramaic would become the international language of the Near East; it even
displaced Hebrew in Judea so that JC spoke it! Language of Persian empire! IV.
Assyria.
The Assyrians, "from early times were part of the culture of
Mesopotamia. Akkadians, Sumerians,
Amorites, and Mitaneans had dominated Assyria in turn" (Kagan 23).
"The Assyrians, a Semitic people of the Upper Tigris, were related
to the Amorites and the Babylonians. Perhaps
because their land lay on the important trade routes between Babylonia and
Armenia, they had been warlike from the beginning of their history, and they
became a powerful force in western Asia in the thirteenth century B.C.
The decline of the Egyptian and Hittite empires and of the Kassite
dynasty at Babylon enabled them to expand significantly" (Greaves 40).
"...Tiglath-pileser I (c.1115-1077 B.C.)...was a brutal conqueror
whose policy of deliberate terror set a pattern for later Assyrian rulers"
(Spiel. 48); Ashurnasirpal II (884-859); Shalmaneser III [859 BC "Shalmaneser
unleashed the first of a long series of attack on the peoples of Syria and
Palestine" (McKay 47);"...the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III (r.745-727)
ushered in the most glorious period in Assyria's history" (Greaves 40);
Sargon II (r.721-705); Sennacherib (705-681); Esarhaddon (681-669); Ashurbanipal
(669-630). They had wanted an
empire for 200 years and by 671 they had annexed Egypt and were masters of the
Fertile Crescent [Arabia, Babylonia, Syria (732), Palestine (722), Egypt]. See
map 2.2, Spiel. 49.
A.
Reasons for their success:
1. a matchless army
with chariots, cavalry, armor and iron swords, and siege engines (like battering
rams and siege towers). They were fierce, well-disciplined and cruel.
They had an efficient intelligence network that used spies to gain inside
information about places they planned to attack (Spiel.3rd Ed. 49).
"The army also included specialized units, such as a pioneer corps
that made smooth tracks for the wagons and chariots and constructed pontoon
bridges over rivers for the movement of troops. Other specialized military personnel included language
interpreters, intelligence officers, and scribes who kept a record of the booty.
Moreover, the Assyrians had the advantage of having the first large
armies equipped with iron weapons" (Spiel.4th
Ed. 43-44). 2. policy of
terrorization (mutilated and deported captives) "The Assyrian annals
inscribed on the walls of Ashurnasirpal's palace report the dismemberment,
boiling, impaling, and flaying of their enemies while still alive" (Greaves
41; v. Spiel.52). Would scatter
populations from their homelands, e.g. Israel.
"As a matter of regular policy, the Assyrians laid waste the land in
which they were fighting, smashing dams, looting and destroying towns, setting
crops on fire, and cutting down trees, particularly fruit trees" (Spiel. 4th
Ed. 44). Many
peoples were sent to work as skilled labor in cities, to farm in rural areas,
and to repopulate sections that had been decimated by warfare.
"It has been estimated that over a period of three centuries between
four and five million people were deported to Assyria, resulting in a population
that was very racially and linguistically mixed.
In fact, in some major Assyrian cities, ethnic Assyrians were a minority,
overwhelmed by Aramaeans...Egyptians, Hebrews, Phoenicians, Medes, and
others" (Spiel. 4th Ed. 45)].
B. Culture. "Historians have often compared Assyria to Rome.
Like the Romans, the Assyrians of early times developed the military
skills necessary to hold their own against the incursion of hill tribes and
eventually used those abilities to forge an irresistible military machine.
The Assyrian absorption and preservation of Babylonian culture in many
ways foreshadowed the Roman assimilation of Greece, whose culture the Romans
were largely responsible for transmitting to future civilizations" (Greaves
43). "The Assyrians
assimilated much of Mesopotamian civilization and saw themselves as guardians of
Sumerian and Babylonian culture" (Spiel.f 4th Ed. 45). 1.
They were not creative (e.g. Assyrian architecture and sculpture mainly
glorify the king with much relief sculpture showing the king as warrior and
hunter; they were, though,
especially good at portraying the ferocity of charging and dying animals) but
did build magnificent palaces which contained thousands of documents, many of
them dealing with history and administration.
Copies of older Babylonian records account for a good number of tablets
as well.
2.
Ashurbanipal (r.669-630).was "a learned man who had studied
mathematics and astronomy and boasted of his ability to write ancient
Sumerian" (Greaves 41). "Ashurbanipal's
scribes at Ninevah copied the religious and literary texts of Sumer and Babylon,
compiled dictionaries, and made translations into Assyrian. The preservation of numerous Akkadian and Sumerian texts is
due to Ashurbanipal's reverence for literary tradition" (Greaves 42).
He "left a record of his great efforts in collecting the literary
heritage of Sumer and Babylon, and the 22,000 clay tablets found in the ruins of
his palace at Ninevah provided modern scholars with their first direct knowledge
of this literature (Wallbank, 29). Examples
include the Epic of Gilgamesh (tablet 11=deluge) and the
Enuma Elish (on 7 tablets: #6=
creation of mankind from the blood of a mythical deity named Kingu) (Harrison
INTO. to OT, 102-3).
V. Lydians.
The Lydians followed the Phrygians [whose last king Midas died c.680] in
establishing a kingdom in W. Asia Minor. They
expanded eastward until stopped by the
Medes at the Halys River. Lydia
profited from being on a commercial land route between Mesopotamia and the
Aegean and from possessing gold-bearing streams.
Their primary importance in history is the invention of coinage c. 675 BC
which replaced the silver bars used up to this time. [Croesus would be defeated
by the Persians in 547 BC.] NOTE
2:
By the 7th BC the Medes had a strong kingdom (Ecbatana as their capital)
with Persians (their kin) as vassals, but in 550 BC they were overcome by the
Persians! VI.
Chaldeans: Neo-Babylonian Empire of
Nebuchadnezzar (6th c.).
Nabopolassar was the first king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire (captured
Ninevah in 612), but his son Nebuchadnezzar (r.605-562) became king of the
Chaldeans and restored greatness of Babylonia after 1,000 year slump.
This was made possible by the destruction of the Assyrian empire when
Ninevah fell in 612 to a coalition of Medes and Chaldeans.
He defeated the Egyptians in Syria (the end of their hopes of power);
destroyed Jerusalem in 586 BC (Babylonian Captivity); and reconstructed Babylon
to make it the largest and most impressive city of the time. The walls were so thick there were rows of houses on either
side; in the center of the city was Procession Street which passed through the
famous Ishtar Gate (the best remaining example of Babylonian architecture).
Nebuchadnezzar is probably most famous, though, for the Hanging Gardens
of Babylon, terraces of Neb.'s palace (created for his Median wife) which
consisted of roof gardens with ferns, flowers, trees.
He also rebuilt the ziggurat (great temple tower) that Herodotus would
describe a century later (Herodotus, 1.181).
Upon his death in 562 Chaldean power quickly crumbled: the Chaldean priests (astrologers) undermined the monarchy and
in 539 opened the gates of Babylon to Cyrus the Persian: "King Nabonidus had alarmed the priesthood of Marduk.
Disturbed in particular by the impressive temple that Nabonidus decided
to build at Harran to his cherished moon god, the priests betrayed the city to
Cyrus" (Greaves 44). VII.
Persians. (Indo-Europeans who entered Iran c. 1000 BC; empire = 559-330)
A. Cyrus the Great (559-530) ("Unifier of the Near East") is
considered "the greatest conqueror in the history of the ancient Near
East." "The Persian
Empire had been created in a single generation by Cyrus the Great" (Kagan,
63). In 550 BC he captured Ecbatana
and ended Median dynasty; in 547 he conquered Croesus; by 540 Ionia and India
and 539 Babylon. In short,
"The era of powerful semitic monarchies was over.
The Persian empire under the Achaemenids would extend at one time from
northern Greece to Afghanistan and from the Caucasus to the Sudan; it endured
until its conquest by Alexander the Great more than 200 years later"
(Greaves 44). Cyrus was killed in a
battle against the Massagetae in 530. Then
his son Cambyses conquered Egypt so that between the two of them they had
conquered all lands from Nile to Indus 550-525.
Cambyses commits suicide 522 BC., and after a year of internal civil war,
Darius I (521-486), a young member of a collateral branch of the
Achaemenid ruling family, emerged as the Great King and then added Punjab
(India) and Thrace, and began the conflict with the Greeks , which would last
150 years until Persia is conquered by Alexander the Great.
The Persian government was an absolute monarchy justified by religion
(Persian king ruled with divine approval) and was built on the Assyrian model
(but more efficient and humane). There
were 20 satrapies with a satrap (governor) (+ secretary & military official
representing the "King of Kings").
Satraps "collected tributes, were responsible for justice and
security, raised military levies, and normally commanded the military forces
within their satrapies. In terms of
real power, the satraps were miniature kings who established courts imitative of
the Great King's" (Spiel. 57). Traveling
inspectors went down imperial post roads, ex. Royal road bet. Sardis & Suza=
1600 mi. with posts every 14 mil. with fresh horses that could be covered in a
week! (Herodotus 8.88 on postmen:
"...snow, rain, heat, or darkness of night").
"Moreover, trunk roads off the royal Road linked important cities
like Memphis to the capital at Susa" (Spiel.58).
It was the First empire to govern many racial groups on the principle of
equal responsibilities and rights; i.e., allowed large measure of self-rule
(respected local traditions & religions).
Empire bound together by: uniform language (Aramaic); empire-wide coinage
based on Lydian invention; common system of weights and measures.
"Over a period of time, the Great Kings in their greed came to hoard
immense quantities of gold and silver in the various treasuries located in the
capital cities. Both their hoarding
of wealth and their later overtaxation of their subjects are seen as crucial
factors in the ultimate weakening of the Persian Empire" (Spiel. 58).
Art was borrowed from Assyrians with palace architecture being the most
important, for example reliefs
in the palace at Persepolis constructed by Darius and Xerxes. Rather than
warfare and violence, these reliefs show 100's of soldiers, courtiers, and
representatives of 23 nations bringing gifts to king for festival of new year.
B. Zoroastrianism. "Of
all the Persians' cultural contributions, the most original was their
religion" (Spiel.59). Zoroaster (b.ca.660 B.C. acc. to Persian tradition)
attempted to replace ritualistic, idol-worshipping religion with its Magi
priests by the worship of Ahura-Mazda ("wise lord").
God of justice, wisdom, goodness, immortality v. the worship of the
powers of nature (such as the sun, moon, fire, and winds) characterized by
magic, polytheism, sacrifices, temples. "Mithra
was an especially popular god of light and war who came to be viewed as a sun
god. The people worshiped and
sacrificed to these powers of nature with the aid of priests known as Magi"
(Spiel.59-60).
"It is difficult to know what Zoroaster's original teachings were
since the sacred book of Zoroastrianism, the
Zend Avesta, was not written down
until the third century A.D. Scholars
believe, however, that the earlier section of the
Zend Avesta, known as the Yasna,
consisting of seventeen hymns or gathas, contains the actual writings of
Zoroaster" (Spiel.60).
"According to Zoroaster, Ahuramazda also possessed abstract
qualities or states that all humans should aspire to, such as Good thought,
right, and Piety. Although
Ahuramazda was supreme, he was not unopposed.
Right is opposed by the Lie, Truth by Falsehood, Life by Death.
At the beginning of the world, the good spirit of Ahuramazda was opposed
by the evil spirit (in later Zoroastrianism, the evil spirit is identified with
Ahriman). although it appears that
Zoroaster saw it as simply natural that where there is good, there will be evil,
later followers had a tendency to make these abstractions concrete and
overemphasize the reality of an evil spirit.
Humans also played a role in this cosmic struggle between good and evil.
Ahuramazda, the creator, gave all humans free will and the power to
choose between right and wrong....Ahuramazda would eventually triumph, and at
the last judgment at the end of the world, the final separation of good and evil
would occur. Zoroaster also
provided for individual judgment as well. Each
soul faced a final evaluation of its actions.
If a person had performed good deeds, he or she would achieve paradise,
the "House of Song" or the "Kingdom of Good Thought"; if
evil deeds, then the soul would be thrown into an abyss, the "House of
Worst Thought," where it would experience future ages of darkness, torment,
and misery" (Spiel. 61).
Slow to grow until Darius adopted it.
Later the Magi corrupted monotheism by adding: old gods as lesser deities, ritual, paradise and hell (though
unlike Christianity, hell is not eternal, and all will eventually end in
paradise). Zoroastriansm died out
in Persia but still exists among Parsees in India. |
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