River Valley Civilization DBQ

Record Keeping, this is the third characteristic of early civilization. Complex life required records for things such as taxes and laws which needed to be written down, this is called codified. Scribes are professional record keepers and historians. Cuneiform is the Samaritan form of writing. This was the earliest form of writing ever discovered. Also used was a stylus, this is a sharpened reed or strong stick, wedge shaped point used by scribes to write on clay tablets. There are four steps to the process of writing, those would be: Pictogram, ideogram, phonogram, and the

The earliest forms of civilizations were said to be located on the three river valleys of the Tigris-Euphrates River in ancient Mesopotamia, the Nile River in ancient Egypt and the Huang He and Indus River in ancient India and China. These three river valley civilizations had many differences yet still lived common life styles. Although the civilizations are located on different continents, they share similar social, political, and economic beliefs from their intellectual developments to types of government to religious beliefs and trading systems.

All the civilizations lived among rivers. The ancient Egyptians lived among the Nile River. The ancient Egyptians highly regarded the Nile as incredibly important and life giving. The Nile was important because it watered all of the land and in return deposited silt that was used to grow crops to feed all the animals and people.

The code of Hammurabi is the most remarkable and complete code of ancient law that we have. The code can be found on a stele, a stone slab usually to commemorate military victories in the ancient world. His code, a collection of 282 laws and standards, stipulated rules for commercial interactions and set fines and punishments to meet the requirements of justice. Most punishments resulting of death or loss of limb if a law was broken. The edicts ranged from family law to professional contracts and administrative law, often outlining different standards of justice for the three classes of Babylonian society. The Hammurabi Code was issued on the three classes of Babylonian Society, property owners, freemen and slaves. It was important as it organized the most civilized empire at that times , and Hammurabi made many copies of it and distributed them in the most important cities of the empire , so it represented a great progress to the human

I chose the Mesopotamia and the Nile River Valley. These two civilizations are two of the most favorable ancient civilizations. Although these civilizations are similar in many ways, the small, but impacting differences it what makes these two civilizations stand out the most. The Nile River Valley was located in northern Africa in a country called Egypt. Mesopotamia was located in modern day Iraq, Iran, Syria, Kuwait, and parts of Turkey. The origin of Mesopotamia comes from the meaning “between two rivers.” The land is between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Defining moments for human civilization began within these two.

    The river valley civilizations developed writing systems. Each writing system was unique, but they also had similarities between them. The people from Mesopotamia had a writing system called “cuneiform.” The Egyptians had a writing system called “hieroglyphics.” Cuneiform was a writing system based on pictures (3.) Just like cuneiform, hieroglyphics was also based on pictures (11.) Both writing systems presented objects or ideas. Also, they were both carved into stone.

Mesopotamia and Egypt developed advanced systems of writing, starting with simple pictographs and move to advanced letters. Mesopotamian writing began as a wedge-shaped characters, a system that is called cuneiform. Egypt originally used hieroglyphics.

Sumerians were the first to invent a writing system called cuneiform. Cuneiform helped keep track of business, trade, records, and they wrote down new ideas. Mesopotamia, also made its own law system, Code of Hammurabi. The Code of Hammurabi explained that your action would result in an equal punishment. For example, it states that “If a builder builds a house for someone, and does not construct

The code of Hammurabi allowed us to see how the Babylonian society functioned, what laws these people followed, and to what extent they were enforced. These laws created a society that was thought to be fair and equal with punishment as small as a fine, to more extreme punishments like death. However, it established a basis for laws today and what the correct punishments for certain crimes should be. Most of these laws were meant for free commoners who made up most of the population

(www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/hammurabi) Although the code very savage punishments, it was the beginning to the "you're guilty until proven otherwise." He started the "laws" itself and created how we are today. Life changed once the code was created, there was certain way to live life and what you had to abide by.

The early agricultural societies emerged after 8000 BCE and the river valley civilizations, also known as agricultural civilizations, emerged after 3500 BCE. The differences show themselves within the political and economic features. In political terms, early agricultural societies were informal and had a kinship rule. There were also no known monument buildings. In agricultural civilizations, they had formal government and permanent record keeping.

As earlier stated, cuneiform was the first thing invented during this time. It was the first written language, created by the Sumerians, and it has helped with everyone’s life since then. The Sumerians used it to keep records, help with trade, and pass down new ideas that they had. Cuneiform later led to the use of hieroglyphics. They were a system of writing that was created by the Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt. Hieroglyphics were different from cuneiform in the way that they were pictures that represented objects and ideas but could also stand for sounds. The Egyptians also created papyrus, or the first form of paper, to write the hieroglyphics on.

Today, writing materials are easy to come by and something humans tend to take for granted. There was, however, a time that paper did not exist. According to the book Scribes, Script and Books written by Leila Avrin:

Many civilizations arose near rivers before the common era. Two civilizations that were started near Rivers were Egypt and Sumer. Sumer was colonized near the Tigris and Euphrates, and Egypt was settled near the Nile River. It was even stated in Ellis Esler’s textbook “World History” , “The world’s first civilizations arose independently in a number of river valleys. These River Valley Civilizations include Sumer, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the Middle East; Egypt, along the Nile river.” Sumer is located in Mesopotamia, which is located in between the Tigris and Euphrates. The Greeks called this location “between two rivers.” This location was wonderful for farming

This new written langue used wedges and dash marks that were pressed into clay tablets with a stylus. This first style of writing was pictographic in nature, sharing very similarities to the early hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt. Over a few centuries this style of writing evolved to phonograms, or symbols relating to spoken words, and became what is known today as Cuneiform. “We should think in terms of writing as a gradual process, accomplished over a wide area rather than the result of a single Sumerian genius.” Sumerians used cuneiform to keep track of crops, livestock, trade, and even to write literature. The Sumerian Kings List, a large stone tablet that was written in Cuneiform documents