Introducing
Your new presentation assistant.
Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.
Trending searches
Three Main Civilizations
The City-States of Sumer
Invented the wheel and axle...
The Babylonians
Studied astronomy and mathematics...
The Assyrians
They created the first library...
They invented the battering ram...
This one written language could represent several spoken languages and was useful to traders.
The cuneiform script was very complicated and took a great deal of time and effort to learn.
Not everyone had the time or the opportunity to learn it.
People would hire scribes to read or write for them.
They did not have paper (it hadn't been invented yet). They wrote on clay tablets.
They carved the wet clay with a sharpened reed called a stylus.
The size and shape of the tablet depended on the purpose of the writing on the tablet.
The clay came from the bottom of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
195. If a son strike his father, his hands shall be hewn off.
196. If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out. [ An eye for an eye ]
197. If he break another man's bone, his bone shall be broken.
198. If he put out the eye of a freed man, or break the bone of a freed man, he shall pay one gold mina.
199. If he put out the eye of a man's slave, or break the bone of a man's slave, he shall pay one-half of its value.
200. If a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out. [ A tooth for a tooth ]
201. If he knock out the teeth of a freed man, he shall pay one-third of a gold mina.
202. If any one strike the body of a man higher in rank than he, he shall receive sixty blows with an ox-whip in public.
203. If a free-born man strike the body of another free-born man or equal rank, he shall pay one gold mina.
204. If a freed man strike the body of another freed man, he shall pay ten shekels in money.
205. If the slave of a freed man strike the body of a freed man, his ear shall be cut off.
The First Alphabet
It became the basis of many modern alphabets, including English.
It was easier to learn than cuneiform because cuneiform used hundreds of symbols representing objects.
This meant that more people could learn how to read and write (not just scribes).
It simplified trade among people who spoke different languages.
Purple Dye
The Phoenicians discovered how to make a beautiful purple dye using snails that lived in the Mediterranean Sea.
It took 10,000 snails to dye one garment. As a result, it was very expensive. Only very wealthy people could afford it.
Purple became the color of royalty.
Sea Trade
The Phoenicians built ships that could travel all around the Mediterranean Sea.
They traveled to places all over Europe and traded with them.
They traded their purple dye and cedar wood from the forests of Phoenicia.
Their widespread trade also caused their alphabet to spread throughout Europe and be adopted by other civilizations, especially the Greeks.
http://allmesopotamia.wordpress.com/tag/library-of-ashurbanipal/
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/da/Battering_ram.jpg/220px-Battering_ram.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fc/Marsh_Arabs_in_a_mashoof.jpg/300px-Marsh_Arabs_in_a_mashoof.jpg
http://ancienttechnology.net/wp-content/uploads/writing_hebrew_phoenician_greek_latin.jpg
http://www.richeast.org/htwm/cune/cune.html
http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_image.aspx?image=ps236507.jpg&retpage=18706
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=cuneiform+tablet&view=detail&id=C6320BDC2C86E6C997C56EC07FAF28F67519D28C&first=309
http://archaeology.csumb.edu/Courses/AncientCivilizations/Syllabus/Cuneiform_Slideshow/CuneiformStylusUsage.jpg
http://0.tqn.com/d/ancienthistory/1/G/y/k/2/cuneiform.jpg
http://www.crystalinks.com/CuneiformFloodTablet.jpg
http://www.legalnurse.com/vickiesblog/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/9-9-09-hammurabi.jpg
http://www.cyberwitchcraft.com/image-files/shamash.jpg
http://faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/gaddis/HST210/Sept12/Phoenician%20Alphabet%20Chart.gif
http://ptl2010.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/murex-snail.jpg
http://ferrebeekeeper.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/tyrian-purple/
http://riversfromeden.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/democracy-and-maritime-power-in-the-near-east-part-2/
http://www.mediastorehouse.com/r1/phoenician_ship_in_the_mediterranean/print/5886635.html
http://civilizations-nippurean.blogspot.com/2010/09/mediterranean-bginnings.html