Anthony's Blog One Western Civilization

- Upper Egypt was a five hundred mile long strip of fertile land along the Nile; Lower Egypt was the wide land of the Nile delta, emptying into the Mediterranean Sea. - The Nile was the major provider of life for the Egyptians and was much revered in lore and writing. - Around 3100 B.C. the two lands were united under a single king or "pharaoh" (Narmer). - Pharaoh was all powerful, worshipped as a god, and intimately connected to the other major Egyptian gods and goddesses. - Egyptians relied on a harmony and balance of the universe, which they called "meat" (personified by the goddess Maat; ideological opposites of goddess Isfet). - Pharaohs had multiple wives, all routes to financial and social success were through the palace. - Women could inherit money and land and divorce their husbands, though only a tiny few ever wielded real political power. - Gods were often portrayed with animal heads or bodies. - Egyptians believed in an afterlife (Ka) and they mu...

Today I was not in class because I went home not feeling well.

1) - The Nile delta  region is to the north of Egypt near the sea and begins about one hundred miles before the Nile enters the Mediterranean. - King Narmer  was the ruler who united Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt. -  Pharaohs  were Egyptian god-kings, because they were thought to be almost as splendid and powerful as all the gods in heaven. - Egypt ran on a   theocracy  government so that the rule was based on religious authority. - The resting places of kings from the Old Kingdom was in a triangular structure called a  pyramid . - -- Royal Egyptians, as well as elite Egyptians, were preserved by mummification in which they are dried to prevent decay and wrapped up. - Egyptians established a flexible writing style that included pictographs called hieroglyphics . - The Egyptians also invented a better writing surface, papyrus . 3) Egypt benefitted from being surrounded by deserts because when the Nile's water spilled over the banks caused floodin...

ANCIENT EGYPT - The Nile River flows northward across Africa for over 4,100 miles - The Nile River is the longest river in the world - Brings water to Egypt from distant mountains, plateaus, and lakes in present day Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, and Ethiopia. - Egypt's settlements arose along the Nile on a narrow strip of land made fertile by the river. - Change from fertile soil to desert (the Black land to the Red land) was so abrupt, that you could put one foot in each. - Yearly flooding brought the water and rich soil that allowed settlements to grow. - Every year in July, rains and melting snow from the mountains of East Africa, caused the Nile River to rise and spill over banks. - When the river receded in October, it left behind a rich deposit of fertile black mud called silt. - The abundance brought by the Nile River was so great, that the Egyptians worshipped it as a god who gave life and seldom turned against them. - Egypt was called the "gift of the Nile....

Today we had a shortened class since we were delayed because of the snow. So today, since we didn't have school yesterday, we had to do a paper that the other classes did on Tuesday since we didn't have class that day. What we had to do on the paper was fill out what we would do as judge to decide the punishment of the people in each scenario that committed a crime. The first one was a pretty average crime nowadays, the second one was not even a crime, the third one I imagine happened all the time back in Hammurabi's time, the fourth's crime was mainly the lie, the fifth was a pretty big one on the paper, and the sixth was serious for the trickery or the purposefulness. And then we had to write what Hammurabi's Code stated that the punishment was, but I didn't finish doing that in class so I had to finish that part of the assignment for homework.

Civilization in Mesopotamia: - Wandering nomads drove herds of domesticated animals I. many areas, especially to the south of Sumer in Arabia. - Sumer was conquered by the Akkadians circa 2350 B.C. - their gods took the place of previous gods and all were forced to worship them. - King Hammurabi of Babylon created a series of laws known as "Hammurabi's Code" - laws that included "an eye for an eye" and regulations of marriage, divorce, and punishments for all sorts of crimes. The Expansion of Mesopotamian Civilization: - Indo-Europeans were people from the grasslands of the Russian steppe who introduced the horse to the Near East. - The warlike Indo-European tribe known as the Hittites settled in Asia Minor. - The Hittites had a lucrative trade in metals and conquered nearly all of their neighbors, even threatening Egypt. << >> This is the end of the notes. So, Mr. Schick also got a new laser pointer thing for the projector today, and we ...

The Earliest Cities: Mesopotamia - the district known as Sumer occupied the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers. - population increased dramatically due to new irrigation systems. - cities and towns were founded, some with as many as forty-thousand inhabitants. - better food storage allowed for diversity in professions; priests, tradesmen, artisans, politicians, and farmers. - kings emerged, as did family dynasties and the concept of the "city-state." - Sumerians invented the earliest form of writing, known as "cuneiform." - a pantheon of Sumerian gods and goddesses emerged with many of the deities representing the natural elements of the world. - the world's first (surviving) epic was the Sumerian "Epic of Gilgamesh," which told of a great flood. - Sumerians first divided the hour into sixty minutes and the minute into sixty seconds; they also organized a calendar based on the moon's cycles. - the Ziggurat was a Sumerian tem...

Before Civilizations: The Prehistoric Era The Origins and "Ages" of Human Beings: - 200,000 years ago a human species emerged in southwestern Africa. - 14,000 years ago, a worldwide human race existed. - Earliest prehistoric age is the Paleolithic Age (Old Stone Age). - Neolithic Age (New Stone Age) was marked by advanced tool making and beginnings of agriculture. - Initially, humans were parts of migratory groups which hunted, fished, and gathered plants for food. The Agricultural Revelation: - Also known as the Neolithic Revolution, this was a shift from itinerant hunting/gathering to more permanent settlements centered on agriculture (beginning in South Asia). - Populations rose due to increased ability to produce a surplus of food; thus feeding and caring for young children. - Hierarchies appeared in village life; the status of women was lowered as women were confined more to domestic duties. - Invention of the wheel and plow made it possible to produce enough ...

Today we started our new unit on Early Civilizations by rivers. We learned that this is how irrigation started. Mesopotamia is region enclosed by the Tigris River and the Euphrates River. Once a year these rivers would flood the region. We also learned about Hamurabi's Code in which you were punished "reasonably for the time period" for your crimes. In a scenario that we read from the textbook it talked about how our "cousin"planned to steal a pig. We tried to persuade him not to steal it, but instead he did it anyways. So, when he stole the pig, he was caught and taken to Hamurabi. He was told he had to pay for the pig thirty times the normal amount it would have cost him. Since he does not enough money to pay it back, he was sentenced to death. In my opinion, this consequence seems like it's little extreme for stealing pig when in modern days, you'd probably get a few months. Well I know from experience that stealing isn't that big of a deal becaus...

I think that was one of the easiest tests I've ever taken in Mr. Schick's class. Watch I say this now and then I'll probably end up failing. I feel as if the hardest part for me was doing the essay just because I had to think of how to write it and make sense of it so I wasn't just writing a lot of confusing things down. I actually managed to get all fourteen animals down, but I'm not sure that the spelling was correct. I know I definitely spelt the extra credit ones correctly so I am hopefully getting those two extra credit points. I think the one question that I didn't know was the one about sago and that was it. I didn't know another one but I used process of elimination on it so that made it pretty easy. But other than that I think I actually got a good grade on this one (*cough cough* that's what I thought last time *cough cough* failed that one).

- No domesticated animals of the fourteen were native to New Guinea, Australia, Sub-Saharan Africa, or all of North America. - The other 13 came from Europe, Asia, and Northern Africa. - The Big Four of the fourteen; cows, pigs, goats, and sheep, were all native to the Middle East. - The Middle East is also referred to as "The Fertile Crescent". - Hear, which is a nine thousand year old archaeological site in which it could house hundreds of people, they had built row homes, first type of Air Conditioning system to be created, homes had thatch roofs, the walls and floors of the homes were covered in plaster by the people, people began decorating the inside of the homes, and the people learned how to create fire and use it to create steel. - New Guinean life was viable though it wasn't like the "Fertile Crescent". - The "Fertile Crescent" is not the powerhouse of the world. - The villages were abandoned due to the climate because people exp...