Early River Valley Civilizations: 3500 B.C. – 450 B.C.

Early civilizations began near rivers, where there was a source of water for agriculture, a source of fish, and the possibility of barges for transportation. Dynasties — royal families — ruled ‘city-states’ which were cities functioning as countries. Priests often had political influence. City-states often included a few small villages and the farmland surrounding them. The ‘Fertile Crescent’ is Mesopotamia plus the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea. In Mesopotamia, city-states like Babylon, Akkad, Ur, Nineveh, Ebla, and Haran dealt with unpredictable rains and floods by digging irrigation ditches, dealt with their landscape’s lack of natural defenses by building walls around their cities, and dealt with a the region’s shortage of natural resources by trading with distant peoples. As goods were imported and exported, people learned about other types of music, food, and art — cultural diffusion. Around 2350 B.C., a ruler in Akkad named Sargon united the city and region of Akkad with the region of Sumer. Sumer’s area included several city-states in the southern end of Mesopotamia; Akkad was northwest from Sumer. Sargon created an ‘empire’ — a collection of kingdoms. This empire became known as the Babylonian Empire, with its capital city in Babylon. In 1792 B.C., Hammurabi became king of Babylon, and issued one of the earliest known law codes. A written law code is important because the crimes and their punishments are clearly defined so that everyone knows them. The details of Hammurabi’s code give us insights into Babylon’s culture.

In developmental stages of these early civilizations, there is evidence of a difference between a pre-religious stage and a religious stage. The core of the pre-religious stage consists of two desires: the desire to manipulate nature and the desire to explain the phenomenal world. The attempt to manipulate the world is magic: the attempt to produce better weather, good crops, and the fertility of the soil, the livestock, and the humans. This magic also extended to attempting to secure military victories. Sacrifices of various kinds were thought to persuade the deities, or to appease them, and secure from them the desired benefits. The greater the need — e.g., in cases of famine — the more urgent the need to bribe the gods, and this resulted in human sacrifice, which is evident in the earliest phases of nearly every civilization.

In this pre-religious phase, the desire to understand the world led to myths and mythology. For these purposes, a ‘myth’ will be defined as a narrative composed to serve as an explanation. It is clear that some myths are true and some myths are false; this is in opposition to the modern slang usage of ‘myth’ which is understood to mean a falsehood. Myths were generated to answer questions.

The pre-religious phase, then, can be summed up as myth and magic.

The religious phase discards magic’s attempt to manipulate the natural world and instead fosters a sense of acceptance; attempts, such as human sacrifice, to influence a deity are abandoned.

Recognizing that human reason has limits, the religious phase acknowledges that humans might not be able to find answers to some questions, and produces fewer myths.

The centerpiece of the religious phase is a relationship with the deity, instead of attempts to explain or persuade the deity.

In Egypt, the Nile river flooded predictably. Famine was rare and the food supply was steady and plentiful. Deserts served as a natural protection from military attack. At the northern end of the Nile, where it empties into the Mediterranean Sea, it forms a large delta; the city of Memphis is located there. South of Egypt, the Nile flows through an area which has been called Nubia, Ethiopia, or Cush. Originally two kingdoms — Northern Egypt and Southern Egypt — the Egyptian Empire arose around 3000 B.C. when a king named Narmer united the two. The kings of Egypt were called ‘pharaohs’ and Egyptian culture believed them to be gods. They organized the building of the famous massive pyramids. Egyptians mummified their dead. Their system of writing — ‘hieroglyphics’ — was recorded both with inscriptions on stone and on papyrus. Egyptians were good at mathematics and astronomy, and these helped them predict the Nile’s floods.

It is not certain whether individual Egyptians internalized and embraced the cultural belief that the pharaohs were gods. The Egyptians acted as if the pharaohs were gods, and treated the pharaohs that way. But it is possible that many Egyptians saw this as a ceremonial and political duty, and did not have the corresponding quasi-religious belief.

India’s two main rivers are the Ganges and the Indus. In addition to unpredictable flooding, India’s weather is governed by monsoons — winds which bring hot dry weather for half a year, and then rainy weather for half a year. The earliest culture in India is the Harappan culture. Not much remains of it, because around 1750 B.C, a Sanskrit culture — called the ‘Aryans’ — invaded India; this later culture would almost completely replace the Harappan civilization.

China’s geography is defined by two large parallel rivers, both flowing eastward to the sea. In the north is the ‘Huang He,’ also called the ‘Yellow River.’ In the south is the ‘Yangtze,’ also called the Chang Jiang. The first Chinese dynasty was the Xia, led by a ruler named Yu; he designed irrigation projects to prevent the dangerous flood of the Yellow River. This made for a steady food supply. The next dynasty was the Shang dynasty, from around 1700 B.C. to 1027 B.C., also in the north. From 1027 B.C. to 256 B.C., the Zhou dynasty ruled. The Zhou organized a type of feudal system, in which the king lent land to nobles, who farmed it; in return, they owed the king part of the crops, and owed him military assistance in times of war. The Chinese developed coins to improve business, and developed techniques to make iron, which is stronger than bronze. They used the phrase ‘Mandate of Heaven’ to describe a good king’s right to rule; an unfair king would lose the mandate. As different dynasties came and went, a pattern developed: new dynasties brought prosperity and justice and became strong, but eventually became corrupt and were overthrown, making room for another new dynasty. In the last years of the Zhou dynasty, the emperor had little control, and China became a collection of independent kingdoms competing with each other. This is called the era of the ‘Warring States.’

In the cycle of the rise and fall of successive dynasties, one aspect of the phase of the fall was increasing taxation, which led to decreased popularity and eventually to disfavor among the majority of the subjects, leaving the monarch susceptible to a rebellion.

In their early stages, all these river valley civilizations conducted human sacrifice, hoping to appease their idols, to bring good weather, to avoid famine and starvation, and to gain military victories.

The move from hieroglyphs and pictograms to alphabetic writing was an advancement. The advantage of alphabetic writing is that it can be learned quicker, and the acts of reading and writing can be performed quicker.

Other achievements of early civilizations included the moves from polytheism to monotheism, from polygamy to monogamy, and the move away from human sacrifice.