Written sources on the history of the ancient world. Sources on the history of ancient Greece. The meaning of historical legends
ANCIENT WORLD HISTORY
1. Sources on the history of the Ancient World.
2. Geographical conditions and population of the Ancient East.
3. The most ancient society of Jericho.
4. Early Dynastic period in Mesopotamia. Sumerian society.
5. Early despotism in Mesopotamia.
6. Babylon in the era of the Old Babylonian Kingdom and during the Kassite dynasty.
7. Assyrian power in the II-I millennium BC.
8. Persian Achaemenid power.
9. Religion and culture of Ancient Mesopotamia.
10. The ancient history of the Holy Land in III - mid. II millennium BC
11. History of the Jewish people in the middle. II-I millennium BC.
12. Ancient Syria and Phenicia in the III-I millennium BC.
13. The main stages of the history of the Hittite state.
14. Egypt during the Early, Ancient and Middle Kingdoms.
15. Egypt during the New and Late Kingdoms.
16. Religion and culture of Ancient Egypt.
17. Religions of East and Southeast Asia: Zoroastrianism, Buddhism and Confucianism.
18. Geographical conditions and population of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome.
19. Greece in the Cretan-Mycenaean era. "Dark Ages".
20. Greek religion.
21. Greece in the archaic period: colonization, tyranny and the first legislation.
22. Culture of Greece in the archaic and classical periods.
23. Greco-Persian wars: causes, course, results.
24. Athenian democracy in the 5th century. BC
25. State and social structure of Sparta.
26. Peloponnesian War: causes, course, results.
27. The formation of the policy system and the reasons for its crisis. The relationship between the Greek city-states and Philip of Macedon.
28. The campaigns of Alexander the Great and the creation of a great power.
29. Religion and culture of the Hellenistic period.
30. Hellenistic states of the Ptolemies and Seleucids. Greece in the Hellenistic period.
31. Etruscans. History of Rome during the royal period.
32. Religion of Ancient Rome in the Royal and Republican periods.
33. The government structure of Rome during the era of the Early Republic. The struggle between patricians and plebeians.
34. The aggressive policy of Ancient Rome. Creation of provinces.
35. The Punic Wars of Rome: causes, course, results.
36. The culture of Rome during the period of the Republic and the Early Empire.
37. Rome in the era of the Late Republic: the dictatorship of Sulla, the 1st triumvirate, the reign of Julius Caesar.
38. Second triumvirate. Creation of the Roman Empire. The reign of Octavian Augustus.
39. Early Roman Empire in the 1st-2nd centuries. n. e. The reign of the emperors Nero, Trajan, Septimius Severus.
40. Religious syncretism and the culture of the imperial era.
41. Crisis of the Roman Empire in the 3rd century. Establishment of dominance. The reign of Emperor Diocletian.
42. Late Imperial Rome: the reign of Constantine the Great, Julian the Apostate and Theodosius the Great.
43. Relations between the Roman state and the early Christian Church.
44. Causes of the crisis of the Roman Empire at the end. IV-V centuries The invasion of barbarian tribes and the fall of Rome.
Some answers do not fully reflect the program requirements. Therefore, it is necessary to use additional literature when studying this wonderful subject.
1. Sources on the history of the Ancient World.
Written and archaeological sources.
Archaeological: Rome (Pompeii), Parthenon (Athens), Egypt (pyramids).
Written: historical (annals - a type of chronicle characterized by a more condensed form of presentation of events), religious, legal (laws), scientific (texts of ancient medicine, geography), artistic, economic texts. Epigraphy (inscriptions on solid materials).
Egypt.
Greece. Physical monuments: remains of buildings, tools, weapons, household items, coins and other items. Research by scientists was carried out in all regions of Greece and on the Greek islands. In Athens and other Greek cities famous in ancient times; in Delphi and Olympia - important religious centers; on the island of Delos and Rhodes; on the site of large centers of Asia Minor - Miletus, Pergamon and other cities that were important in the classical era or the Hellenistic era; in the Black Sea regions, on the site of Greek colonies; in Egypt, Syria and other areas influenced by Hellenism. Many monuments have been discovered that introduce us to Greek life; Of particular importance are the monuments of Greek art that have survived, mainly not in the originals, but in later copies.
Studying images and inscriptions on coins, areas of distribution of certain coins, methods of their minting - is important for the history of the Greek economy, and first of all, monetary circulation.
Data from the Greek language, in which remains of various dialects have been preserved. The study of Greek dialects allows us to solve issues related to the settlement of Greek tribes. Historical analysis of the origin of certain Greek words, which are scientific terms in our time, provides material for the history of Greek culture.
c) Oral traditions. The distant past of the Greek people is reflected in various legends and tales, myths, as they are commonly called, transmitted to us by various Greek writers. Mythology plays an exceptional role in the study of Greek culture, in particular in the history of religion.
d) Written documents: laws, treaties, honorary decrees, etc., preserved either in the form of inscriptions or in the transmission of certain Greek authors.
e) Literary works, of which the works of Greek historians are of particular importance for the study of Greek history. Some of them are contemporary with the events described.
Rome.
3. The most ancient society of Jericho.
At the end IX thousand the first city appears in the Eastern Mediterranean Jericho, i.e. a cluster of people isolated from the rural population, engaged in both agriculture and specialized activities, possessing a higher culture and level of education, practicing more complex types of relationships than others. There was nothing like it anywhere in the world at that time. The idea of a city is not necessarily related to the level of technological development: Jericho was a city in VIII thousand and in VII.
Why do we consider it a city? The first and most significant is a crowded crowd of people, naturally limited by a wall, who are unable to live without a special social organization that would allow them to exist together. At that time, war became quite regular. Population 2-3 thousand people, per capita free space 14 sq.m. (not living space, but in general).
City layout. Jericho did not have a regular layout, but it had streets and complex architecture: the city's tower was not a pile of stones, but a complex structure with an internal staircase, a large stone cistern coated with clay for storing grain and water. There were appropriate authorities who could force the construction of a tower higher than 8 m (the preserved height), donate grain to the general fund, organize the accumulation of water, etc. Certain knowledge was also required, without which the wall would not stand; a ditch was dug in front of the wall, and there was water in the ditch.
Population of Jericho. Ancestor cult. Residents worshiped the gods, engaged in agriculture, crafts, trade, and rested. Farmers apparently also settled here. Their spiritual life was very unusual for us. It was in Jericho that the custom of not parting with the dead after death arose, which existed for thousands of years and influenced many neighboring peoples - the deceased (his skeleton or individual parts of the body) remained inside the house. Excavations revealed entire series of skulls of the dead who were buried inside the houses. Such a peculiar, infrequently encountered custom has spread quite widely around under the undeniable influence of this city and its religious traditions. A unique ritual created a special art: highly qualified sculptors appeared in Jericho, who, using a skull, used plaster to recreate a person’s face, and all the casts are not alike and fully correspond to our ideas of what a person should look like: this is a very delicate individual work.
Temples. There were temples in the city that were not associated with the family’s ancestors, and more than one. These are temples for a group of families, but the gods in them most likely were the same. In early and most later harmonic societies, unlike early technogenic ones, the temple never became the center of settlements: there were quite a lot of sanctuaries. In technogenic societies, the temple quickly assumed economic, administrative and sometimes military functions - it turned into a kind of microstate built on the basis of temple organizations.
Objects of Worship: In some sanctuaries, images of three deities were discovered - a man, a woman and a child. They have no later analogues, but they clearly influenced the northern peoples of the Fertile Arc. Temples continued to be built, and later deities appeared, in particular the female goddess of fertility. This is not a technogenic feature, since such deities were known among the peoples of the Fertile Arc a thousand years earlier than the first technogenic societies.
Pottery craft. Jericho is characterized by another feature: with a high density of buildings, residents solved the health problem in the southern densely populated city associated with holding sewerage, in the simplest way in the form of underground channels. The city did not know pottery– the author’s highly artistic work in clay and plaster was there, but there was no clay pot yet. Pottery has not been known for several thousand years, and they made it from stone. From the beginning of the 6th millennium, ceramics appeared. Man invented brick and masonry. It's funny - the brick was invented, but it took 700 years to learn how to lay it so that the seam between two bricks was the third one from the top. The first bricks resembled a loaf: the idea of a rectangle had not yet appeared.
Warfare. The society of Jericho knew defensive structures, but were not familiar with special weapons for killing a person. When man finally invented a specialized weapon for his neighbor, its first modification was quite peaceful - rather, a weapon of admonition and a sign of power, rather than murder - a stone mace, i.e., a club.
Modern cities of Jericho. Jericho is not the only city in the full sense of the word: even in the pre-ceramic period, small specialized towns existed nearby. For example, a small town Beida not far from Jericho, also in the Holy Land, crowded with traders and artisans, from which trading premises and workshops have been preserved. That is, in this region, urban life existed, in principle, not only in Jericho, but also in small towns nearby. There were no such things in other places. Both main types of cities coexist here, but the second one took shape a little later, although within the same period. However, from the second half VII thousand in the fertile and humid southeastern part of Asia Minor near the Holy Land competing societies emerge. They have quite complex technologies, architecture, temples associated with other beliefs, but no fortifications, urban structure, complex industries - these are just rich villages.
By language, the population of the Eastern Mediterranean,- largely Semitic, having adopted the language from the descendants of Shem, and perhaps these descendants themselves. The Semites of the Holy Land most likely adopted the language from outside, since descendants of Shem most likely lived in the upper reaches of the Euphrates and in Northern Syria. And in the valleys of Mesopotamia and the Nile, almost no one still lives, although settlements are already appearing along the edges, which are at a very low level of development.
REDD
"Ancient sources on the history of Eastern Europe"
“Rossica” from foreign sources began to attract the attention of domestic historians back in the 17th–18th centuries. By the middle of the 17th century, dozens of foreign works were in their field of vision, which in various forms contained information about the peoples of Eastern Europe, the Slavs, and Rus'. Innocent Gisel in his Synopsis and Andrei Lyzlov in his Scythian History made extensive use of the evidence of ancient authors about the Scythians, whom they identified with the Slavs. They also drew attention to some evidence from Byzantine writers. In 1715, in the work of A.I. Mankiev specifically noted the importance of attracting foreign sources. In 1726, the Academy of Sciences invited the German philologist and historian G.Z. Bayer with the special purpose of collecting and researching ancient and medieval sources on Russian history. Although his studies resulted in the publication of only a number of articles, they, firstly, significantly expanded the range of sources involved.
Interest in foreign “Rossica” increased sharply in the middle - second half of the 19th century, when the first scientific collections of regional groups of sources appeared: ancient (K. Gana, V.V. Latysheva), Arabic (A.Ya. Garkavi, B.A. . Dorn), Scandinavian (Danish antiquarian K. Ravn, who worked on behalf of the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences). Although in the overwhelming majority of these codes there were no comments, nevertheless, the critical publication of texts with translations into Russian (or, as in the edition of K. Ravn, into Latin) was of great importance.
By the beginning of the 20th century. Russian historians received at their disposal an extensive body of information about the ancient history of the country based on Byzantine, Arabic, German, and Scandinavian sources. This made it possible to begin a comprehensive study of the historical information contained in them, compare it with data from Russian sources, and begin to reconstruct the most ancient period of Russian history on the basis of a comprehensive source base. Works of V.V. Latyshev and M.I. Rostovtsev in the field of ancient history, V.G. Vasilievsky – Byzantine studies, F.A. Brown - Scandinavians, A.A. Kunika, V.R. Rosena, V.G. Tiesenhausen - oriental studies were devoted to a comprehensive analysis of foreign news about Eastern Europe and Ancient Rus'. At the same time, the characteristic features of each of the regional traditions about Eastern Europe were identified, the ways of penetration of information into a particular region of the ancient and medieval world were established, the features and degree of reliability of the historical information contained in them were determined.
Intensive development of information from foreign sources, as well as the rapid development of domestic source studies in the first decades of the 20th century. revealed the insufficiency of existing publications from foreign sources. Published according to various principles, with multilingual translations and often without commentary, publications of the 19th century. could no longer satisfy the increased demands of both source studies and history. Moreover, new sources were also identified.
Therefore, in the 1910s, the Academy of Sciences began to develop a project for preparing a comprehensive set of foreign sources on Russian history. It was to include multilingual sources from all major regions of Europe and the Near East. A.A. took part in the discussion of the project. Shakhmatov, F.A. Brown, W.V. Latyshev and others. However, the outbreak of the First World War and the subsequent revolution made its implementation impossible.
The decline of classical education in the USSR jeopardized the very idea of creating a set of foreign sources on the history of Eastern Europe: after all, such a multi-volume publication requires a large team of highly professional specialists in the field of philology, archeography, source studies, and history itself. Nevertheless, the need for such a code became more and more acute, and in 1929 the Historical and Archaeographic Commission of the USSR Academy of Sciences came up with a new initiative. But this endeavor, which led to the publication of a number of sources and studies, turned out to be unfulfilled due to the outbreak of World War II and the subsequent struggle against cosmopolitanism, in which the study of foreign sources was tacitly recognized not only as unproductive, but also harmful. And although in the 1930s - 1950s their publication and research did not stop completely, the scale of work with them was significantly reduced.
The change in the internal political situation made it possible in the 1960s to return to the problem of foreign sources in the history of Ancient Rus'. Academicians L.V. Cherepnin and B.A. Rybakov actively supported the initiative of the then young, forty-year-old Doctor of Historical Sciences V.T. Pashuto, who has just published a monograph on the foreign policy of Ancient Rus', the creation at the Institute of USSR History of the USSR Academy of Sciences of a special sector for the study of pre-Mongol Rus' and other peoples and states of Eastern Europe, research and introduction into scientific circulation of information contained in foreign-language written sources about ancient states Northern Black Sea region (this aspect has traditionally been developed by antique archaeologists), about the Eastern Slavs, about Ancient Rus' and other peoples and states of Eastern Europe.
The value of this proposal V.T. Pashuto was also appreciated by B.A. Rybakov, at that time academician-secretary of the Department of Historical Sciences, who was able to give the initiative organizational forms: in 1970, within the framework of the Institute of History of the USSR, the sector “The Ancient States on the Territory of the USSR” was created, headed by V. T. Pashuto and whose main task was to collect, study and publish foreign sources on the history of the peoples of Eastern Europe. During the first half of the 1970s, the structure and composition of the planned Code was developed, which received the name “The Ancient Sources on the History of the Peoples of the USSR” (since 1993 it has been published under the name “The Ancient Sources on the History of Eastern Europe”). At the same time, lists of sources to be published in the Code were compiled and updated.
The principles for publishing the Code were one of the main subjects of discussion. The experience of both classical corpora of sources (such as Monumenta Germaniae historica, etc.) and the latest critical publications of individual monuments or their groups in our country and abroad was taken into account.
The publication of a source or group of sources had to be preceded by research work: a full-scale source study of the monument, its historical and cultural context, the features of the embodiment of historical information in general and information about Eastern Europe in particular was envisaged. The publication of the original text was supposed to be carried out according to its best modern edition, if possible, to publish or compare the text from manuscripts. Translation into Russian, which is also an interpretation of the text, assumed accuracy and adequacy, the most accurate reflection of the features of terminology and onomastics, preservation (if possible, of the stylistic features of the work. It was decided to preface the text with a research introductory article, primarily of a source study nature, and accompany it with an extensive commentary The chronology of published monuments was defined within the framework from the moment when Eastern Europe appears on the pages of written texts, i.e. from ancient times, until the end of the 13th century.
Discussions about the structure and composition of the Code were still ongoing when work began on its first volumes, and in 1977 the idea of the Code began to come to life: the first volume was published (Melnikova E.A. 1977) under the general editorship of V.T. Pashuto and Y.N. Shchapov (since 1985, the collection has been published under the general editorship of V.L. Yanin, deputy executive editor - E.A. Melnikova).
The 26 volumes published to date eloquently testify to the fruitfulness of V.T.’s undertaking. Pashuto. Each volume brings new information or critically reconsiders, clarifies and complements data from already known sources originating from all regions of Europe and the Middle East.
The relationship between the ancient colonies in the Black Sea region and the “barbarian” peoples is covered in six issues of the Code, which included sources of different types, nature and time of origin. The first detailed review of the Eastern European peoples, based on eyewitness accounts, “Scythian Logos” and other fragments of Herodotus’s “History”, was one of the first volumes of the Code (Dovatur A.I. et al. 1982). The Roman’s impressions of the “northern barbarians,” reflected in the poetic works of Ovid, exiled by Emperor Augustus to the Black Sea region of Tomy, were included in the next volume of the Code (Podosinov A.V. 1985). Military treatises by the Roman statesman, historian and geographer Flavius Arrian were published, describing the tactics of war with the Alans and other Caucasian peoples - these tactics were tested by Arrian, the ruler of Cappadocia, from his own experience (Perevalov S.M. 2010). A specific group of sources consists of epigraphic monuments that are important for studying the history of the ancient cities of the Black Sea region, including Latin-language texts from Tauric Chersonese (Solomonik E.I. 1983).
Monuments reflecting the geographical views of late Roman times and describing the Northern Black Sea region, published in two volumes, including texts dating back to the Roman cartographic tradition (Podosinov A.V. 2002), and fragments of the works of Pliny the Elder and Pomponius Mela (Podosinov A.V., Skrzhinskaya M.V. 2011). These two volumes, complementary to each other, make it possible to reliably recreate knowledge about the Northern Black Sea region in the Roman Empire in the 1st century. AD (texts based on the so-called “Map of Agrippa”) and their reception in Western Europe until the 12th–13th centuries, when the Peutinger Table was created. A significant part of the texts, such as “Cosmography” by Pseudo-Ethics, “Cosmography” by anonymous Ravensky, etc., were published for the first time with a translation into Russian and an extensive commentary.
Starting from the 5th–6th centuries. The Byzantines found themselves face to face with the Slavic tribes moving to the Balkan Peninsula. Constantine's treatise “On the Administration of the Empire,” containing a detailed description of the voyages of the Russians to Byzantium and their “harsh way of life,” constituted one of the three “Byzantine” editions of the Code (Konstantin 1989, 1991). This was the first commented edition in Russian of the most important source for the early history of Rus', covering the social structure and political organization of society, the system of government, tax collection, etc.
The second “Byzantine” issue of the Code was devoted to reports about the peoples of the south of Eastern Europe in the “Chronography” of Theophanes and the “Breviary” of Nikephoros - the only Byzantine sources of the 8th - early 9th centuries, covering the ethnopolitical situation in the Northern and Eastern Black Sea region (Chichurov I.S. 1980 ). The third issue includes fragments of the “History” of the Byzantine historian of the 12th century. John Kinnam, who reflected Russian-Byzantine relations of that time, when Rus' had already emerged as a state entity and became one of the leading powers of the medieval world (Bibikov M.V. 1997). An important feature of this edition was that the text of this work was published for the first time based on the oldest Greek copy of the monument.
In the 9th century. Arabic historical and geographical literature, as well as Latin-language monuments from the East Frankish Kingdom (later Germany), join ancient and Byzantine sources.
Numerous works of a historical and geographical nature (descriptions of the Earth, notes from travelers, etc.) highlight the socio-political structure, life, and culture of the peoples of Eastern Europe, primarily the Rus and Slavs. Three volumes of the Code present excerpts from the geographical works of Arab writers of the X (XIV centuries. (Kalinina T.M. 1988, Konovalova I.G.,). Along with the accumulation of new information, Arab geographical literature reveals a deep traditionality: writers of the XII-XIV centuries . not only rely on the works of their predecessors, but also directly reproduce (with minimal changes) stable descriptions dating back to the unsurvived works of the 9th century: these are the stories about the island of the Rus, about the three types of Rus, etc. In combination with data from ancient Russian and other foreign sources, they provide the basis for the reconstruction of East Slavic society on the eve of the formation of the Old Russian state and in the earliest period of its existence.
Western and Central European sources are published in four editions of the collection. Texts of English origin, starting with the story of the Norwegian Otar about his voyages to Bjarmia and up to geographical descriptions of Eastern Europe and the Baltic states of the 13th century, made up one of the volumes (Matuzova V.I. 1979). A significant part of the sources was introduced for the first time into the context of the history of Rus' and testified to the acquaintance and contacts with distant England.
The volume of the Code, covering German Latin-language sources from the 9th to the 13th centuries, contains valuable information about the connections of Rus' with Western Europe and the political history of the ancient Russian principalities (Nazarenko A.V. 1993). A significant number of German sources were translated into Russian for the first time and introduced into the context of ancient Russian history. Along with detailing the well-known connections of Rus' with Poland and Germany, the sources published in this volume made it possible to identify new stable areas of contacts, to discover systematicity and consistency in the foreign policy of the Old Russian state already in the 10th century, including with Germany. The formation of the “Western” trade route, the development of Russian-German trade, political unions and alliances secured in marriages between Russian princely families and German rulers, an appeal to the German (Roman) church - these are the main manifestations of these connections.
Finally, another volume publishes medieval (until the end of the 13th century) maps on which Eastern Europe is represented - this type of source has been studied in the Eastern European context for the first time (Chekin L.S. 1999). The publication of maps in this volume of the Code was based on a new principle for the entire international tradition of publishing maps: legends on maps were included in a separate text (with translation into Russian), which made it possible to thoroughly examine the information contained, trace its accumulation and identify sources of new information about Rus' to Western Europe. The “monastery” maps of the 13th century are of particular value. – Ebstorf and Hereford, which reflected extensive current information gleaned during the Mongol invasion of Western Europe and from reports of travelers and traders who visited Ancient Rus' after it.
The study of Western Slavic sources culminated in the publication of a complete corpus of Polish Latin-language monuments (Schaveleva N.I. 1990) and fragments of “History” by Jan Dlugosz concerning the early history of Rus' (Schaveleva N.I. 2004).
From the turn of the X–XI centuries. Scandinavian sources acquire particular value for illuminating the socio-political history of Ancient Rus'. From the very beginning of the spread of writing in Scandinavia, from the 11th century, Eastern European plots and themes saturate the monuments of Old Scandinavian literature.
Eight volumes of the Code are devoted to sources originating from the Nordic countries. The most ancient and especially valuable for their simultaneity with events, Scandinavian (mostly Swedish) runic inscriptions made up the first volume of the Code (Melnikova E.A. 1977). He not only introduced into science a significant body of information about Russian-Scandinavian connections of the 11th century, but also attracted the attention of archaeologists to inscriptions made in runic writing on objects found on the territory of Ancient Rus'. A significant number of new finds (amulets, graffiti on Arab coins, etc.) required a new edition, in which runic inscriptions from Eastern Europe occupied the main place (Melnikova E.A. 2001).
As in the publication of sources from other regions, special attention was paid to the study of the place of Ancient Rus' and the peoples of Eastern Europe in the “Viking ecumene”, which was reflected, along with the sagas, in specialized geographical treatises (Melnikova E.A. 1986). General descriptions of the land, as well as various notes of geographical content, were first isolated from the collections and published as independent works, and also studied in their entirety.
The publication of messages from the Icelandic sagas required the development of special methods due to the specific nature of this type of text. This made it possible to compare message options, establish the degree of their reliability or unreliability, and establish sources of information (T.N. Jackson, ,). The “Viking sagas” have a different genre character, going back to the oral tradition about the deeds of the Scandinavians of the Viking Age, including in Eastern Europe. Therefore, sagas of this type are published in the Code in their entirety, and not in fragments, especially since they have never been translated into Russian before (Glazyrina G.V.,). However, despite the low reliability of specific messages, these sagas are an extremely valuable source - they embody stable ideas about Eastern Europe that developed in Scandinavian society during the Viking Age - in the form of specific plots - and existed in the 13th-14th centuries. – in the interpretation of these stories.
Over the years of its existence, the Code has created a solid and extensive source base that significantly complements and expands the data of Russian sources. Investigated in their entirety and in comparison with reports from domestic foreign sources, they illuminate cardinal issues of the early history of Rus' and help to recreate a more or less consistent picture of the origin, formation and development of the Old Russian state. A wide chronological range made it possible to trace ethnocultural and socio-political processes in their continuous unity and sequence.
Historical sources - the entire complex of documents and objects of material culture that directly reflected historical process and capturing individual facts and accomplished events, on the basis of which the idea of a particular historical era is recreated, hypotheses are put forward about the causes or consequences that entailed certain historical events
Written sources . TO written sources include: documents, annals, historical research, memoirs, and other literary works. Material forwritten sources Anything that can be written on is used: paper, leather (parchment), papyrus, wood and tree bark, bone, clay, stone, metal.
Physical (archaeological) sources - sources based on the sciences of archaeology. Ancient settlements, settlements, burial structures. Based on these finds, basic information about living peoples and tribes is formulated.
Features of the socio-economic development of the peoples of the Ancient East. The essence of the concept of “civilization”. Signs of civilization. "Primary" and "secondary" civilizations. Nome states. The relationship between state and community power; three ways of development of ancient society. The concept of eastern despotism.
Signs of civilization: the emergence of cities, stratification in society, the development of trade, writing, the beginnings of art and science, the tax system.
Primary civilizations arose on the site of the ancient ones, these include: Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Indus. Secondary civilizations arose after the primary ones, these include: Hittites, Persians, Greeks, etc.
Nome(new state) - a small city with centers of secular and spiritual power, around which they practiced agriculture.
The first states and civilizations appeared in the valleys of great rivers; Tigris and Euphrates; Indus and Ganges; Yellow River and Yangtze.
Eastern despotism - This is a special type of statehood characteristic of the states of the Ancient East; its important feature is the unlimited power of the monarch (king). Which concentrated legislative, judicial, and executive powers in its hands. A striking feature of Eastern despotism was the deification of the despot ruler.
Three ways of development of ancient society: 1) Egyptian - power has completely subjugated society, there is no private property 2) Mesopotamia - power and society are in balance, communities can have autonomy 3) Greece and Rome (the community suppresses the state - “Democracy”.
Features of the spiritual life of man in the Ancient East. Hypotheses about the emergence of ancient Eastern religions. General features of ancient Eastern religions
Common features of the religions of the Ancient East: 1) All religions of the Ancient East are Anthropocentric 2) Belief in the afterlife 3) There is no single cult and priesthood 4) There are no religious wars 5) The absence of absolute deities. Man felt powerless before the forces of nature. He needed to explain natural phenomena. The gods gave man what he asked for, and the payment was prayer or sacrifice.
Early history of Mesopotamia. Territory of Mesopotamia. Sources on the history of Mesopotamia. Sumerians and Akkadians. Nome states: features of economy and management (en, ensi, lugal), social groups. The struggle for hegemony. Gilgamesh and Lugalzagesi.
Mesopotamia - interfluve, a fertile valley between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Mesopotamia is divided into 2 regions: lower and upper (Assyrian state).
Sources on Mesopotamian history: legal acts, codes of laws, diplomatic correspondence, history. Chronicles, literary "Epic of Gilgamesh". Material sources: ancient cities, tools, etc.
Sumerians - population of southern Mesopotamia, the emergence of civilizations in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates (4 thousand BC) is associated with them. Uruk, Ur, Lagash, Eredu - the first cities of the ancient Sumerians. Akkadians- the population of Mesopotamia was native to the Sumerians, who subsequently assimilated with them. North - Akkad; South - Sumerians.
Nom(s) - city of the state on the territory of ancient Mesopotamia. These were independent city-states that had complex relationships with each other. The economic structure was determined, first of all, by the organization of the local irrigation system as the basis for profitable farming. The creation and maintenance of an irrigation system was especially important.
En - city ruler (high priest), Ensi - priest builder ruler of the city - managed military and economic affairs. Lugal - military leader of the Sumerians, close to the concept of “king”. Social groups: 1) Ruler (ensi and his family) 2) Priesthood 3) Common subjects (not slaves) 4) Slaves.
Sumerian nomes often fought with each other in an attempt to elevate their city (nome). Gilgamesh -(27th century BC) ruler of Uruk who conquered many cities of other Mesopotamian chiefs. Under him, Uruk became a leader among other Sumerian cities. He was proclaimed the “hegemonic lugal.” The literary source “The Poem of Gilgamesh” was left about his reign.
Lugalzagesi(14th century BC) - ensi of Umma, defeated the army of Lagash. He killed the king of Lagash, Uruinimgina. For a short time, the city of Umma became the leader of Sumer. But soon he too was defeated by Akkad.
Mesopotamia in the XXIII-XII centuries. BC. Sargon and his power: features of the first centralized despotism. Mesopotamia during the III dynasty of Ur: economy, society, ideology. Amorite Invasion. Old and Middle Babylonian period: Mesopotamia during the reign of the Hammurabi dynasty (XVIII-XVI centuries) and the Kassites.
As a result of the struggle between the Sumerian and Akkadian principalities, the Akkadian kingdom was able to rise from them under the control of Sargon (2316-2261). Sargon's state is built on the regime of his personal power. Creates a huge army consisting of archers. Lugalzagesi was defeated. Sargon managed to defeat the resistance of the Sumerian cities and establish their dominance. In order to preserve and strengthen your power Sargon carries out reforms: introduces a unified system of weights and measures, repairs old roads and builds new ones, abolishes the independence of cities and the council of elders, creates a new aristocracy and despotically subjugates all spheres of state life. In 2175, under attack Kutiev and the internal turmoil of the Akkadian-Sumerian kingdom collapses (the last king Naram - Suen).
After the collapse of Sargon's power, the Sumerians were able to overthrow the nominal dominance of the Gutians. Among all the Sumerian cities rises the city Ur, where the king comes to power Ur-Nammu and founds IIIdynasty of Ur (2106-2003). Sumerian Ur became the political center, not Semitic Akkad. The Sumerian-Akkadian kingdom achieved particular prosperity under the king Shulgi, who paid attention to establishing the economy and public order. Reforms in the economy under III Dynasty of Ur: a state land fund is created, society has a pronounced slave-owning character, a police regime is established. A clearly defined centralized distribution economy was created, which suggested government intervention. The private sector was relegated to the background. Ultimately, this led to the organization of a despotic system of government. The ideology became the deification of the king as a god ( King Shulgi).
At the end of the 21st century B.C. Tribes invade Mesopotamia from the vast expanses Amorite. They took advantage of the nomadic invasion Elamites and delivered a powerful blow to the southeastern regions of Sumer. The Ur dynasty began to disintegrate and in its place independent states arose with centers in the cities of Isin, Ashur, Larsa, Mari, Eshnunna and a small principality in the city of Bab (Babylon). Invasion Amorite brought a large group of West Semitic tribes to Mesopotamia.
At 19-18 the rise of the city began Ashur (Shamshi-Adad). Afterwards the city began to rise Babylon, the greatest successes in the unification of Mesopotamia are associated with the activities of the 6th king of Babylon - Hammurabi (1792-1750). He begins the systematic capture and unification of all of Mesopotamia. Ultimately creating a powerful Babylonian power. During the conquest, Hammurabi chose a cunning strategy of alliances with some states against others. He conquered the kingdoms: Mari, Eshnunna, Ashur. By the end of its reign, Babylon under Hammurabi had become a great power. Hammurabi writes his famous laws and declares trade to be a state matter + society is divided into 3 categories (layers): 1. Avilums 2. Mushkenums 3. Vardums (slaves).
In the 17th century, the Babylonian state collapsed, the nomes separated. And from behind the mountains come a tribal union Kassites. They begin to attack the Babylonian Church, which was eventually attacked in 1595 BC. The Hittite king attacks and plunders Babylon. They take advantage of this cassites and founded their (Kasit) dynasty and a new stage began in the history of Babylon - Middle Babylonian period (16th-12th centuries). The reign of the Kassite conquerors continues until the early 12th century. During the reign of the Kassites, the laws of Hammurabi continued to apply, but there were also some reforms: state. The state land fund is being reduced, and cities are gaining some autonomy. 14th-15th centuries heyday of the Kassite kingdom. Treaty with Egypt. IN 12th century Elamites defeated the Kassite army, occupied all of Babylonia, overthrowing the Kassite king from the throne.
Economic development of Mesopotamia according to the laws of Hammurabi. General characteristics of the source. Agriculture and forms of land use (community, royal, temple land). Craft and trade
Social relations in Mesopotamia according to the laws of Hammurabi. General characteristics of the source. Categories of the population, features of the position of community members and royal employees (warriors, priests). Slavery. Family relationships. Court and punishment system.
Egypt from ancient times to the end of the Old Kingdom. The nature of Egypt, historical areas and their specialization. Sources on the history of Egypt. Manetho. Population of the country. Predynastic period and "zero dynasty". Menes and his successors. Egypt during the III-IV dynasties (Djoser, Sneferu and his successors). Features of royal power in Egypt.
The emergence of civilization in Egypt dates back to the middle of 4 thousand BC. Ancient Egypt is located in a river valley Nile. The narrow valley is called - Upper Egypt, and the Delta region is Lower Egypt. Egypt is located in the northeastern corner of the African continent. By Nilu Egyptians established connections with the rich trading cities of the Eastern Mediterranean.
Sources on the history of Ancient Egypt : written - religious texts, history. and thin literature, folklore;Monuments of material culture: remains of cities, fortresses, temples, tombs, dwellings, ceramics, statues, various religious objects, etc..
From many ethnic groups, over the course of 5-4 thousand, a single ancient Egyptian nation and a single language began to form. The first inhabitants of the Nile Valley at the end of the 5th century settled in small clan groups. First predynastic period. Amrat culture (38-36 centuries), the number of copper products increases and the funeral rite becomes more complicated. People live in a communal tribal system. Second Predynastic Dynasty. Traditional tribal relations were preserved. Agriculture replaced hunting. The range of trade relations is expanding. The wealth created was no longer divided, but concentrated in the hands of the ruling elite. Happening property differentiation. The emergence of original hieroglyphic writing.
Formation of small states(mid 4 thousand BC). 34-33 centuries formation of two large states - Upper Egyptian kingdom (capital Nekhen) + Lower Egyptian kingdom (capital Buto). The process of uniting the two kingdoms into one turned out to be long and complex. In this struggle, the advantage of the South (Upper Egyptian Kingdom) became apparent. Narmer- the king who defeated the North (lower kingdom). Tsar Menes(32-31 centuries) - founder of the pan-Egyptian 1st dynasty. New capital city Memphis. Reforms: expansion of the irrigation system, successful foreign policy against the Libyans.
Lower Egypt (north) tries to fight the south, ends unsuccessfully, and under the king of the 2nd dynasty, Egypt finally turned into a single state. Old Kingdom period (28-23 centuries)- reign from 3rd to 6th dynasty. Major reforms: the irrigation and watering system was under the close control of the state, the creation of the great pyramids began, the creation of the potter's wheel. The state apparatus consisted of 3 units: central, new, local. The most important feature was the concept of the absolute power of the king and its ideological justification - the king was a god-man, the embodiment of God in human form. During the 3rd-4th dynasties, the cult of the king reached its apogee. The state was governed through a complex bureaucratic apparatus; Chati - senior official. A feature of the state system. The management was dualism. Particular attention was paid to the military department; the army was recruited from free Egyptians according to the royal recruitment. Egypt conducted successful military operations in 3 directions: Libyan nomads, Nubia, Palestine, Phenicia. Djoser - king of the 3rd dynasty, began the construction of the pyramids. Sneferu - founder of the 4th dynasty, annexed the entire Sinai Peninsula (28th century). Userkaf - founder of the 5th dynasty (26-25th centuries) - the rulers of this and the 6th dynasty (25-23rd centuries) began to pursue a different policy: they abandoned the construction of the great pyramids, strengthened the position of the noma and other nobility, and approved the cult of God Ra.
The country has experienced material resources in favor of the local elite. Egypt of the Old Kingdom broke up into many principalities. The period of fragmentation of Egypt began which lasted (23-21 centuries).
Egypt of the Middle Kingdom. 1st transition period and changes in the structure of power, ideology, religion. The unification of the country under the rule of the XII (Theban) dynasty, the activities of Amenemhet (I, III) Senusret (I, III). Society and culture of Egypt during the Middle Kingdom; "royal people" Decentralization of the country under the last pharaohs.
Was the bureaucratic apparatus that functioned during the Old Kingdom was restored. An attempt was made to reduce the independence of the ruling elite. The kings of the new dynasties (11-12) moved their capital to the city of It-tawi (Fayyum region). The development of Fayoum continued; as a result, an extensive network of canals was created in the Fayum depression, which was connected to the Nile. Pharaoh 11th Dynasty Mentuhotep erected a luxurious structure near the city of Thebes. In the Faiyum area, a palace was built among the swamp, known to the Greeks as Labyrinth. The pharaohs of the 11th-12th dynasties managed to overcome the collapse and centralize the government of the country, suppressing separatism. In economic terms, many reforms were also made during this period: bronze and glassmaking were mastered; the city became the center of trade Bible Construction ceased and the importance of the huge structures that dominated the period of the Old Kingdom fell.
Senusret 3 (19th century - 12th dynasty) - conquered and annexed Egypt Nubia. Senusret built a pyramid at Dahshur. It was the largest pyramid of the 12th Dynasty. Amenemhet 1 (20th century) - founder of the 12th dynasty. Amenemhet I moved the capital from Thebes to a newly founded city, south of the old capital, Memphis, somewhere near the Faiyum oasis. The pharaoh chose a place where he could easily control both Upper and Lower Egypt. Amenemhet 3 (19th century) - son of Senusret 3. The reign of Amenemhat III was accompanied by intensive construction. activities.Built a huge temple" Labyrinth " .
"Royal People" - the bulk of the Egyptian population. Upon reaching a certain age (coming of age), all youth were taken to a parade before the officials of the pharaoh. He selected the strongest for the ruler’s army, while the rest received certain professions and subsequently could not change them, i.e. a person received a narrowly focused qualification for life. In addition, after “getting a profession”, young people were separated from their families and without fail went to other nomes in Egypt.
The overall result of the policies of the pharaohs of the 11th and 12th dynasties was the restoration of previous borders, but also the expansion of the territory of Egypt and its transformation into a major power. The Egyptians began to see themselves as God's chosen people looking down on their neighbors.
Numerous written sources contain a wealth of information about the history and culture of Ancient Egypt. Since the outstanding French Egyptologist J. F. Champollion deciphered the secrets of hieroglyphic writing, scientists have found, translated and commented on a huge number of different written monuments.
For a historian, the historical writings of the ancient Egyptians and their understanding of their own history are of primary interest. The remains of the oldest chronicle have been preserved on a large slab, now kept in Palermo (Sicily) and called the Palermo Stone. The chronicle gives a brief listing of the reigning pharaohs, from the predynastic period to the V dynasty, mentions the largest campaigns, and the catastrophic floods of the Nile.
A historical monument is the “Annals of Thutmose III” (XVIII Dynasty), recorded on the walls of the temple of Amon-Ra in Karnak (Thebes). The court scribe listed the most important events of the reign and military campaigns of Thutmose III. “Annals of Thutmose III” is written in a good literary style, equipped with vivid comparisons, and has a thoughtful composition.
One of the best examples of the historical thought of the ancient Egyptians is the work of the priest Manetho (Mer-ne-Thuti), written in the 4th-3rd centuries. BC e. Manetho was familiar with the principles of Greek historiography and wrote his work in Greek, but he used local archives and outlined the history of Ancient Egypt from ancient times. Manetho's "History" has been preserved in small fragments, but even these testify to its great merits. Manetho's work does not contain a dry list of events; it provides a coherent presentation of the domestic and foreign policies of individual pharaohs and their dynasties. As a priest, Manetho considers the will of the gods to be the determining beginning of all historical events, but quite rarely refers to their intervention. Manetho's merit was the unification, based on kinship or peculiarities of internal politics, of several hundred pharaohs into 30 dynasties, which he in turn were divided into three decades of 10 dynasties. This classification served as the basis for the modern periodization of the history of Ancient Egypt and the identification of its most important Periods, in particular the periods of the Ancient, Middle, New and Late Kingdoms.
The most valuable sources are documentary materials and legal texts, which have come down both in the form of individual documents and as a whole collection of them in some archive. We can name several of the largest archives that have survived to this day. The most ancient is the archive found in the temple of King Neferirkare (V dynasty, XXV-XXIV centuries BC). It contained inventories of property, staffing of temple personnel, issuance of food and things from warehouses, etc. The data from this archive well complements the decrees of the pharaohs of the Old Kingdom found in Koptos on granting privileges to temples, in particular on the release of temple personnel from additional work in favor of the king .
One of the richest archives was found during excavations of the city of Akhetaten (modern El-Amarna) - the capital of the reformer pharaoh Akhenaten. It contains over 350 documents written in cuneiform in Akkadian, the international diplomatic language of the mid-2nd millennium BC. e. Among them are the correspondence of the pharaohs Amenhotep III and Akhenaten, members of the royal family with the rulers of the states of Syria, Phenicia, Palestine, Asia Minor, Babylonia, which characterize the complex international situation in the Middle East in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. e., diplomatic relations, negotiation techniques, the formation and disintegration of associations of various states.
Complementing the diplomatic materials of the El Amarna archive are the surviving texts of a treaty (1280 BC) between Egypt and another great power of Western Asia at the beginning of the 13th century. BC e.- Hittite kingdom. The texts of this agreement have been preserved in several copies. Egyptian text is carved on the walls of the temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak and on the walls of the mortuary temple of Pharaoh Ramesses II (in the Ramesseum).
In the tomb of Rekhmir, one of the viziers of Pharaoh Thutmose III, a detailed instruction on the official duties of the supreme adviser was found and the most valuable data on the central state apparatus of the 18th dynasty was found.
The conquest of Egypt by the Kushite king Pianhi is narrated in detail on the stele of Pianhi, erected in the city of Napata (between the fourth and fifth cataracts of the Nile). The text is composed in the spirit of the victorious Egyptian inscriptions, written in good literary language, imbued with a certain author's concept, and has a thoughtful composition.
Many other documentary materials have also been preserved: brief inscriptions on the royal seals of the Old Kingdom era, census data and land surveys of Egypt (XII Dynasty), a list of prisoners in the Theban prison, documents documenting the purchase and sale of property, land, slaves, interrogation reports and materials investigations into conspiracies in the palace, building inscriptions and many others. Numerous documentary data are a reliable basis for the restoration of Egyptian history.
Teachings and prophecies are also a common type of Egyptian literature. As a rule, they are written by specific authors whose names have survived to this day. “Teachings” can be divided into two categories: “teachings” of the pharaohs, written on their behalf (for example, King Akhtoy or the founding pharaoh of the XII dynasty Amenemhat I, containing advice on governing the country and being political writings with a lot of information about the internal and external situation of the Egyptian state ) and “teachings” of private individuals (“Teaching of Akhtoy” about the advantages of the scribe profession over others), “Teaching of Amenemope”, in which a father gives instructions to his son). Prophecies became a special type of literature, the most famous of which are “The Speech of Ipuser” and “The Speech of Neferti.” “Sayings” are a description of future misfortunes in the event of the destruction of the usual order and the accepted way of life.
Works of fiction, for example, “The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant”, “Ras Sinukheta”, fairy tales “About Two Brothers”, “About Truth and Falsehood”, tales of Pharaoh Khufu, despite the presence of fiction and fairy-tale motifs, describe quite realistically the life, occupations of the Egyptians, their professions, the arbitrariness of the royal administration and contain interesting data from the life of Egyptian society. Among fairy tales, tales about distant sea voyages were quite popular. A prime example is The Tale of the Castaway. It describes a distant sea expedition, during which a storm destroyed the ship, and the hero himself was thrown onto an unknown island filled with all kinds of fruits and riches; A huge and kind snake reigned on the island. Descriptions of overseas adventures supplement our information about the external relations of Egypt, which especially intensified during the era of the New Kingdom. Apparently, such legends were created on the basis of the stories of travelers whom the government sent to distant countries with official missions. Reports of real expeditions have been preserved (“The Journey of Unu-Amon to Byblos,” 11th century BC).
Many works of a religious nature have also come down to us. The most ancient information about Egyptian religion contains the so-called “Pyramid Texts,” i.e., inscriptions of a theological nature written on the walls of the interior of the pyramids of the pharaohs of the V-VIII dynasties (XXIV-XXII centuries BC .). During the Middle Kingdom, texts of similar content appeared on the walls of wooden sarcophagi that belonged to nobles. The “Pyramid Texts” and “Sarcophagus Texts”, along with other religious texts, served as the basis for the compilation of one of the main works of the ancient Egyptian religion - the “Book of the Dead”, which contains a description of numerous rituals, spells and prayers that allow the deceased to safely undergo severe trials in the afterlife, so that achieve eternal bliss on the “fields of Ialu” (akin to the Elysian Fields in Greek mythology).
In general, numerous written sources make it possible to recreate the history, life and culture of Ancient Egypt with sufficient completeness. However, at the same time, history cannot be studied without archaeological materials, monuments of material culture, which are extremely diverse and, thanks to modern research methods, provide rich information about its history and culture. A huge number of individual categories of things (ceramics, dishes, household and religious objects, tools, statues, reliefs, frescoes, etc.) are stored in many museums around the world. Of particular value are large archaeological complexes: pyramids, cities, temples, fortresses, seaports, necropolises. Also of great value are the burials of the mummies of the pharaohs of the New Kingdom, which were removed from their original burials and secretly reburied in the rocks of Deir el-Bahri (west of Thebes) during the XXI dynasty in order to protect the mummies of the pharaohs from the desecration of robbers. The mummies of the pharaohs discovered in the cache make it possible, using modern research methods, to establish the physical type, diseases, age of the Egyptian rulers and other data important for clarifying the chronology of reign.
Excavations of ancient Egyptian cities provide significant information. The most ancient archaeologically studied city is the city of Enhab - the supposed capital of the Upper Egyptian kingdom (late IV - early III millennium BC). From the time of the Middle Kingdom, the remains of the city of Illahuna (or Ka-huna) at the entrance to the Fayum oasis have been preserved, built according to a plan divided into residential areas with similar dwellings for the middle strata and mansions for the nobility. One of the best monuments of Egyptian urban planning is the capital of Pharaoh Akhenaten - the city of Akhetaten in the middle part of Upper Egypt (modern El-Amarna), represented by an extensive royal palace complex, temples of Aten, mansions of the nobility, administrative buildings, residential areas, marinas and a necropolis. The city of Akhetaten, built in a short time according to a specially developed plan, was abandoned shortly after the death of Akhenaten and abandoned, which determined its good archaeological preservation.
Majestic monuments of monumental construction are numerous temples discovered in huge numbers in different places. Of these, we can name the mortuary temple at the pyramid of Djoser (III dynasty), the temples of the god Ra, erected in Abusir and Bubastis (V dynasty), the temple-funeral complex of Mentuhotep I (XI dynasty) in Deir el-Bahri and the grandiose temple of Amun-Ra in Thebes (Luxor and Karnak).
Modern scientists have at their disposal a huge amount of material from various categories of sources, which allows them to study and reconstruct many aspects of Egyptian civilization.
2. Geographical conditions and population of the Ancient East.
3. The most ancient society of Jericho.
4. Early Dynastic period in Mesopotamia. Sumerian society.
5. Early despotism in Mesopotamia.
6. Babylon in the era of the Old Babylonian Kingdom and during the Kassite dynasty.
7. Assyrian power in the II-I millennium BC.
8. Persian Achaemenid power.
9. Religion and culture of Ancient Mesopotamia.
10. The ancient history of the Holy Land in III - mid. II millennium BC
11. History of the Jewish people in the middle. II-I millennium BC.
12. Ancient Syria and Phenicia in the III-I millennium BC.
13. The main stages of the history of the Hittite state.
14. Egypt during the Early, Ancient and Middle Kingdoms.
15. Egypt during the New and Late Kingdoms.
16. Religion and culture of Ancient Egypt.
17. Religions of East and Southeast Asia: Zoroastrianism, Buddhism and Confucianism.
18. Geographical conditions and population of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome.
19. Greece in the Cretan-Mycenaean era. "Dark Ages".
20. Greek religion.
21. Greece in the archaic period: colonization, tyranny and the first legislation.
22. Culture of Greece in the archaic and classical periods.
23. Greco-Persian wars: causes, course, results.
24. Athenian democracy in the 5th century. BC
25. State and social structure of Sparta.
26. Peloponnesian War: causes, course, results.
27. The formation of the policy system and the reasons for its crisis. The relationship between the Greek city-states and Philip of Macedon.
28. The campaigns of Alexander the Great and the creation of a great power.
29. Religion and culture of the Hellenistic period.
30. Hellenistic states of the Ptolemies and Seleucids. Greece in the Hellenistic period.
31. Etruscans. History of Rome during the royal period.
32. Religion of Ancient Rome in the Royal and Republican periods.
33. The government structure of Rome during the era of the Early Republic. The struggle between patricians and plebeians.
34. The aggressive policy of Ancient Rome. Creation of provinces.
35. The Punic Wars of Rome: causes, course, results.
36. The culture of Rome during the period of the Republic and the Early Empire.
37. Rome in the era of the Late Republic: the dictatorship of Sulla, the 1st triumvirate, the reign of Julius Caesar.
38. Second triumvirate. Creation of the Roman Empire. The reign of Octavian Augustus.
39. Early Roman Empire in the 1st-2nd centuries. n. e. The reign of the emperors Nero, Trajan, Septimius Severus.
40. Religious syncretism and the culture of the imperial era.
41. Crisis of the Roman Empire in the 3rd century. Establishment of dominance. The reign of Emperor Diocletian.
42. Late Imperial Rome: the reign of Constantine the Great, Julian the Apostate and Theodosius the Great.
43. Relations between the Roman state and the early Christian Church.
44. Causes of the crisis of the Roman Empire at the end. IV-V centuries The invasion of barbarian tribes and the fall of Rome.
Some answers do not fully reflect the program requirements. Therefore, it is necessary to use additional literature when studying this wonderful subject.
1. Sources on the history of the Ancient World.
Written and archaeological sources.
Archaeological: Rome (Pompeii), Parthenon (Athens), Egypt (pyramids).
Written: historical (annals - a type of chronicle characterized by a more condensed form of presentation of events), religious, legal (laws), scientific (texts of ancient medicine, geography), artistic, economic texts. Epigraphy (inscriptions on solid materials).
Egypt.
Greece. Physical monuments: remains of buildings, tools, weapons, household items, coins and other items. Research by scientists was carried out in all regions of Greece and on the Greek islands. In Athens and other Greek cities famous in ancient times; in Delphi and Olympia - important religious centers; on the island of Delos and Rhodes; on the site of large centers of Asia Minor - Miletus, Pergamon and other cities that were important in the classical era or the Hellenistic era; in the Black Sea regions, on the site of Greek colonies; in Egypt, Syria and other areas influenced by Hellenism. Many monuments have been discovered that introduce us to Greek life; Of particular importance are the monuments of Greek art that have survived, mainly not in the originals, but in later copies.
Studying images and inscriptions on coins, areas of distribution of certain coins, methods of their minting - is important for the history of the Greek economy, and first of all, monetary circulation.
Data from the Greek language, in which remains of various dialects have been preserved. The study of Greek dialects allows us to solve issues related to the settlement of Greek tribes. Historical analysis of the origin of certain Greek words, which are scientific terms in our time, provides material for the history of Greek culture.
c) Oral traditions. The distant past of the Greek people is reflected in various legends and tales, myths, as they are commonly called, transmitted to us by various Greek writers. Mythology plays an exceptional role in the study of Greek culture, in particular in the history of religion.
d) Written documents: laws, treaties, honorary decrees, etc., preserved either in the form of inscriptions or in the transmission of certain Greek authors.
e) Literary works, of which the works of Greek historians are of particular importance for the study of Greek history. Some of them are contemporary with the events described.
Rome.
3. The most ancient society of Jericho.
At the end IX thousand the first city appears in the Eastern Mediterranean Jericho, i.e. a cluster of people isolated from the rural population, engaged in both agriculture and specialized activities, possessing a higher culture and level of education, practicing more complex types of relationships than others. There was nothing like it anywhere in the world at that time. The idea of a city is not necessarily related to the level of technological development: Jericho was a city in VIII thousand and in VII.
Why do we consider it a city? The first and most significant is a crowded crowd of people, naturally limited by a wall, who are unable to live without a special social organization that would allow them to exist together. At that time, war became quite regular. Population 2-3 thousand people, per capita free space 14 sq.m. (not living space, but in general).
City layout. Jericho did not have a regular layout, but it had streets and complex architecture: the city's tower was not a pile of stones, but a complex structure with an internal staircase, a large stone cistern coated with clay for storing grain and water. There were appropriate authorities who could force the construction of a tower higher than 8 m (the preserved height), donate grain to the general fund, organize the accumulation of water, etc. Certain knowledge was also required, without which the wall would not stand; a ditch was dug in front of the wall, and there was water in the ditch.
Population of Jericho. Ancestor cult. Residents worshiped the gods, engaged in agriculture, crafts, trade, and rested. Farmers apparently also settled here. Their spiritual life was very unusual for us. It was in Jericho that the custom of not parting with the dead after death arose, which existed for thousands of years and influenced many neighboring peoples - the deceased (his skeleton or individual parts of the body) remained inside the house. Excavations revealed entire series of skulls of the dead who were buried inside the houses. Such a peculiar, infrequently encountered custom has spread quite widely around under the undeniable influence of this city and its religious traditions. A unique ritual created a special art: highly qualified sculptors appeared in Jericho, who, using a skull, used plaster to recreate a person’s face, and all the casts are not alike and fully correspond to our ideas of what a person should look like: this is a very delicate individual work.
Temples. There were temples in the city that were not associated with the family’s ancestors, and more than one. These are temples for a group of families, but the gods in them most likely were the same. In early and most later harmonic societies, unlike early technogenic ones, the temple never became the center of settlements: there were quite a lot of sanctuaries. In technogenic societies, the temple quickly assumed economic, administrative and sometimes military functions - it turned into a kind of microstate built on the basis of temple organizations.
Objects of Worship: In some sanctuaries, images of three deities were discovered - a man, a woman and a child. They have no later analogues, but they clearly influenced the northern peoples of the Fertile Arc. Temples continued to be built, and later deities appeared, in particular the female goddess of fertility. This is not a technogenic feature, since such deities were known among the peoples of the Fertile Arc a thousand years earlier than the first technogenic societies.
Pottery craft. Jericho is characterized by another feature: with a high density of buildings, residents solved the health problem in the southern densely populated city associated with holding sewerage, in the simplest way in the form of underground channels. The city did not know pottery– the author’s highly artistic work in clay and plaster was there, but there was no clay pot yet. Pottery has not been known for several thousand years, and they made it from stone. From the beginning of the 6th millennium, ceramics appeared. Man invented brick and masonry. It's funny - the brick was invented, but it took 700 years to learn how to lay it so that the seam between two bricks was the third one from the top. The first bricks resembled a loaf: the idea of a rectangle had not yet appeared.
Warfare. The society of Jericho knew defensive structures, but were not familiar with special weapons for killing a person. When man finally invented a specialized weapon for his neighbor, its first modification was quite peaceful - rather, a weapon of admonition and a sign of power, rather than murder - a stone mace, i.e., a club.
Modern cities of Jericho. Jericho is not the only city in the full sense of the word: even in the pre-ceramic period, small specialized towns existed nearby. For example, a small town Beida not far from Jericho, also in the Holy Land, crowded with traders and artisans, from which trading premises and workshops have been preserved. That is, in this region, urban life existed, in principle, not only in Jericho, but also in small towns nearby. There were no such things in other places. Both main types of cities coexist here, but the second one took shape a little later, although within the same period. However, from the second half VII thousand in the fertile and humid southeastern part of Asia Minor near the Holy Land competing societies emerge. They have quite complex technologies, architecture, temples associated with other beliefs, but no fortifications, urban structure, complex industries - these are just rich villages.
By language, the population of the Eastern Mediterranean,- largely Semitic, having adopted the language from the descendants of Shem, and perhaps these descendants themselves. The Semites of the Holy Land most likely adopted the language from outside, since descendants of Shem most likely lived in the upper reaches of the Euphrates and in Northern Syria. And in the valleys of Mesopotamia and the Nile, almost no one still lives, although settlements are already appearing along the edges, which are at a very low level of development.
4. Early Dynastic period in Mesopotamia. Sumerian society.
The Rennedynastic period is an era of fierce struggle between neighboring city-states (a city with a small adjacent territory, and each city was independent, had its own rulers, gods, etc.) for political hegemony, and their rulers for strengthening and consolidating their power , expansion and distribution at the expense of neighbors.
Early Dynastic Period I (RD I, 2750-2600). At this time, success was on the side of the city Kisha (middle Mesopotamia), whose rulers were the first to accept the title of lugal (king), thereby seeking to emphasize their primacy among the rest. The first monarch of the first dynasty of the city-state of Kish - En Menbaragesi(XXVIII century BC). He fought with the state of Elam (northeast of Mesopotamia) . He had a son named Yeah, which was broken by the famous Gilgamesh, ruled Uruk. As a result, he roseUruk. Gilgamesh was part of the first dynasty of Uruk.
Early Dynastic Period II (RD II, 2600-2500). The beginning of RD II is associated with the activity Gilgamesh. He defeated Kish and built a city wall for his native Uruk (the wall stood in Jericho six thousand years before). Gilgamesh seems to have paved the way up the Euphrates and came out to the Iranian plateau, but maybe closer - to Ebla. The name of Gilgamesh entered into legend (the epic of Gilgamesh: about the world, about the meaning of life, the search for true faith. The story of the flood repeats the story of the Old Testament - that is, reality).
Small states united into a union and represented not a unitary state or despotism, but federation led byUruk . Shuruppak, for example, was led not by a local figure, but by a member of the Uruk dynasty. The ruler of Shuruppak is an insignificant figure: he has little power, little land. He was limited by both the government of Uruk and his own council. The basis of the socio-economic structure of all of Sumer were, firstly, farmers' economy, united in rural communities, Secondly, temple-state economy, where the main population was concentrated. Farm of free peasants– private. Supreme power always originates from members of one's own surname.
Temple farming served by temple farmers, artisans and shepherds, with whom payments were made in two ways: by issuing rations or by providing an allotment. Ration binds stronger to power, but requires large expenses for the maintenance of custodians and distributors. Allotment eliminates additional costs, but gives small administrators excessive independence and the desire to become hereditary private owners.
Early Dynastic Period III (RD III, 2500-2310). All 200 years of III RD the Lugali have been fighting among themselves, trying to unite lower Mesopotamia. The main innovation of the last period is the emergence of a trend towards the creation of a larger state. The concept arises "hegemon" based on military force. Sumerian military leaders (lugali ) They did not yet rely on a professional army, but on a squad they paid for and on clients, that is, on people who were personally, socially and economically dependent on them.
The main opponent of the strengthening state power- a council of elders who have been accustomed over centuries to resolve all issues. The elders gave up power rather slowly, but they did not have an army. Only the Lugal had an army. Together with the sovereign and his paid squad appears layer of officials.
In the 25th century the rulers achieved the supremacy and title of lugal Hooray . At the turn of the XXV-XXIV centuries. the city came to the forefront of Sumerian history Lagash .
First him ruler Eanatum annexed a number of neighboring centers - Kish, Uruk, Larsu, etc., which led to the strengthening of its military and political power. At Lugalande the policy of further centralization of power and related abuses caused sharp discontent among the population. As a result of the uprising - perhaps the first recorded in history - Lugalanda was deposed and came to power Uruinimgina, carried out a number of reforms. He returned independence to the churches, thereby undermining the budget. He limited the power of secular officials, thereby undermining the state. He reduced taxes and then abolished them. Apparently, these forced reforms contributed to the weakening of the centralized administration of Lagash, which soon led to its conquest by the successful ruler Ummah Lugalzagesi, who created a united Sumerian state, although it did not last long.
A real state will be created here at the turn of the 24th-23rd centuries. BC Eastern Semites under dynasty Sargonids.
Sumerian society. Although only 200 years had passed since the Second RD, society “below” remained the same; “at the top,” important changes have taken place. The bulk still consists of free community members- more than two thirds of the population. They are formalized as a social group - members of agricultural communities that have their own rights, social institutions and governing bodies on the village scale. In second place - population of state-temple lands, that is, belonging to the temple, but closely associated with the state, and then - large landowners (city rulers, large priests, etc.), not bound by special obligations to anyone other than the king. On the lands assigned to them for the duration of their service, they received legal immunity- the right not to pay taxes, but to take them for yourself. This conditional land tenure was necessary for the recipient to faithfully serve the king. And finally city residents, both connected to the earth and not connected.
Temple Grounds consisted of three main blocks. The first is your own fields, where they worked dependent population(impoverished local residents, partially deprived of their rights). Second - plots for the middle layer, associated with the temple, this includes managers, priests, artisans (who were, therefore, farmers). And the third - leased lands apparently, to the community members.
5. Early despotism in Mesopotamia.
Mid-3rd millennium BC was marked by the vigorous settlement of Mesopotamia by cattle-breeding Semitic tribes, who had previously penetrated into Sumer in considerable numbers. Their settlements in the north began to actively borrow the achievements of the Sumerian civilization, approaching it in terms of development. The representative and spokesman for the active offensive policy of the Semitic tribes was end of the 24th century Sargon the Ancient. Entering the service of the ruler Kisha, Sargon quickly advanced, and after the death of Kish, he carved out his own state and began to successfully fight with his neighbors. Then Sargon declared himself lugalem the new city he built in the north of Sumer Akkad .
Having entered into a long war with Lugalzagesi (the ruler from Umma who created the united Sumerian state), Sargon successfully brought it to an end and united it under his rule Sumer and Akkad and became the ruler of a large state, consisting of many dozens of regional divisions, former city-states. The army he created played a big role in Sargon’s successes: almost for the first time in history, a large fighting force of professional warriors (5,400 people) ended up in the hands of this particular conqueror, each of whom received an allotment for his service and lived off the income from it. It is not surprising that after the creation of a unified state, Sargon managed to subjugate neighboring Elam and made a number of successful campaigns to the north and northwest.
But his main efforts were aimed at establishing despotism. Despotism- a social system where the power of the monarch is not limited by anything, including by neighbors. Despotism is built on fear, on the army, on the impossibility of direct influence on power for all social strata and state institutions, especially for local self-government, which is what Sargon did.
With him already known ensi become ordinary officials – a layer of bureaucracy is formed, A temple farms, as with Enentarzi, merge with the state ones. So that there is no special excitement, characteristic of a fairly large and well-armed mass of the population, Sargon's professional army redeployed to one center - to the suburbs of Akkad(previously - by city). The beloved Sumerian system of warriors with state plots located here and there is disappearing. There are either professionals concentrated in one place, or militias collected from different places.
Were uniform measures of area and weight were introduced. There is a temporary decrease in the number of plots and an increase in the number of rations. If a person does not have any savings or reserves, then the ration strongly ties him to power - the allotment creates a tendency for it to go to him.
The king, unlike his predecessors, did not consult with anyone unless he himself wanted to. All town meetings and meetings of elders disappeared. The royal entourage consisted of serving secular leadership, largely military.
This is how a large, complex, disciplined and well-organized technogenic society of a despotic type took shape, called kingdom of Sumer and Akkad.
After the death of Sargon, the state did not last long. Already under his sons and grandson Naramsine (Naram-Suen), who successfully continued his policies (he formalized despotism in its purest form), signs of decline became noticeable: regional separatism and discontent of the conquered made themselves felt, and uprisings had to be suppressed more and more often. Naramsin (Naram-Suen) took a number of measures that strengthened the administration of the center; he even ordered to officially call himself the god of Akkad, and the former replaced hereditary ensi with appointed officials. But already under his son, the Akkadian state, which had fallen into decline, fell under the onslaught of those who appeared from the territory of Iran Kutian tribes(Guteans), who began to rule the Mesopotamia they conquered with the help of those appointed by them from among the former regional rulers-ensi governors. Some of them had considerable power in their hands. So, he stood out noticeably among others Ensi Gudea V Lagash , who bought off the Gutians with tribute and concentrated in his own hands power over almost all of Southern Mesopotamia. Gudea's reign was distinguished, in particular, by the scale of irrigation and temple construction and the significant development of trade relations with various regions of the Middle East, even to India.
At the turn of the XXII-XXI centuries. BC. the power of the Gutians fell, and representatives of the next, third, Ur dynasty.
A distinctive feature of the Sumerian-Akkadian society of the end of the 3rd millennium BC. there was a predominance of the state economy (this included temple lands - they merged with the state ones). For the period of three generations, for 100 years, it was possible to fulfill the “bureaucrat’s dream” - to regulate and standardize everything. The society was dominated by a single unified state economy, combining agriculture, crafts, fishing, distribution, storage, etc. Private trade and craft, shackled by a host of restrictions, were in decline. As a result of the influx of prisoners and the ruin of the community, a category arose “peasants on salary” - “well done” (gurushi), who could serve in the army, sue other free people, own private slaves, and so on. But... they worked as part of teams, for rations, under the strict supervision of team leaders. Warriors, officials, specialists, and skilled workers were in a similar position, but they had more rations. They didn’t like to give allotments. The officials were divorced, apparently and invisibly. Everything was taken into account, recorded, distributed! Trade was in decline, markets were in decline. Even cattle breeding was regulated; everyone handed over part of their livestock to the centers, each district in turn.
It was from this environment that Abram, who was a city resident, left.
Rulers of the Third Dynasty of Ur, beginning with the son of the founder of the dynasty Ur-Nammu, Shulgi, officially called themselves gods, Moreover, their real status was indeed close to that of a deified monarch.
The administration was uniformly organized into districts, headed by an official appointed from the center with a bunch of assistants. One, for example, monitored the plowing along the field, the other - across it, etc., etc. Almost the entire middle layer became officials for rations, especially in the central part of the state. This was partly covered by the intensification of labor and the reduction of “losses,” but this could not be the case for long. As a result, the middle layer of landowners was exhausted, the basis of any agrarian state, combat effectiveness fell, social apathy grew.
The ideal of a technogenic society, where everything is focused on the most efficient production (we must remember that production is part of the economy) and a social structure oriented towards achieving this goal, did not live long. In the economy, yields began to fall (by half, and then even more strongly), and in society there was growing indifference. Neither the community members, pushed into the background, nor the bureaucrats, who are uncertain about the future, nor the delayed “well done” (especially private slaves) wanted to die for such a society.
The absolute dominance of such a structure, however, ended there. State economic crisis(communist barracks) caused a gradual weakening of centralized power, which was aggravated by the invasion of warlike Amorite shepherds
(they went everywhere from the steppe regions closer to the rivers at the end of the 3rd millennium BC), and then also Elamites.
They calmly occupied this majestic state. The Third Dynasty of Ur ceased to exist. Quite quickly the state begins to recover, but without bureaucratic excesses, on a semi-federal basis.
6. Babylon in the era of the Old Babylonian Kingdom and during the Kassite dynasty.
In Dverechi, the power of the III dynasty of Ur (the most prominent kings Ur-Nammu (2111-2094) and Shulgi (2093-2046)) existed, like the Akkadian one, for over a century. At the very beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. e. it collapsed under the onslaught of enemies who invaded almost simultaneously from the west (Semitic tribes of the Amorites) and east (Elamites).
The struggle of the cities of Mesopotamia and the rise of Babylon. After the fall of the III dynasty of Ur in Mesopotamia, for more than two centuries, there has been an increase in centrifugal forces, political fragmentation and internecine wars.
The Amorite conquerors founded several states, of which two Isin and Larsa turned out to be stronger, and their rulers called themselves kings of Sumer and Akkad, that is, they claimed power over the entire country. However, weakening each other, they were unable to realize their claims. An independent role was played by the Amorite kingdoms outside Mesopotamia proper (Mari on the middle Euphrates and Eshnunna east of the Tigris). In addition, he is trying to interfere in the affairs of Mesopotamia. Semitic city-state of Ashur(on the middle Tigris, the core of the future Assyrian power).
Finally, the city of Babylon rises. Until the 19th century BC e. this city, located on the left bank of the Euphrates (south of modern Baghdad), did not play an independent political role and was not large in size. Subsequently, Babylon strengthened economically and politically, taking advantage of the decline and ruin of its closest neighbors - Kish and Akkad.
Advantageous location at the intersection of river and caravan routes contributed to its transformation into a large trading center. The population was increasing due to the influx of Amorite settlers moving from the Syrian steppe.
Formation of the Old Babylonian Kingdom. From 1894 to 1595 BC. e. an independent dynasty already rules here, which pursues an active foreign policy and strives to unite the entire Tigris and Euphrates basin under its rule.
Babylon reaches its greatest power under the king Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC), who proved himself to be an experienced and skillful diplomat, taking advantage of the feuds and clashes of neighbors. He enters into a close alliance with the rich state of Mari, which controls the trade route leading to the Mediterranean coast.
Having thus secured his northern border, Hammurabi concentrated his main attack against Larsa, associated with Elam.
Having defeated this most dangerous rival, Hammurabi decisively breaks off friendly relations with Mari, captures this city and destroys his palace (one of the best architectural structures of that time). Ashur also falls under his authority, and thus a vast Old Babylonian kingdom is created, covering most of Mesopotamia.
Code of laws of King Hammurabi. We learn about Hammurabi's internal politics from his correspondence with nobles and officials, and especially from the code of laws he published. These laws are inscribed on a basalt pillar decorated with relief figures.
What is the meaning of Hammurabi's laws in general form? The fact is that, on the one hand, there is normative law, which the state recommends and does not impose, and on the other hand, there is customary law, how people of a given area, a given ethnic minority are accustomed to judge. And so Babylonian law was tolerant of common law. Muslims have Sharia (how to act according to the laws of religion) and have adat (how to act in life), which can be completely different among different Muslim nations. Tolerance of customary law(completely uncharacteristic of, say, Roman law), the lack of desire to replace everything and normalize everything, all this made this system sustainable. The law was largely casual (from the wordcase– case). But I must say that the law of Hammurabi was largely systematized, casual law highly reworked.
The laws of Hammurabi cover a variety of spheres of life and activity of the population. Particular attention is paid to agriculture. The terms of renting a field and garden are regulated in the most detailed manner. Along with the remaining elements of a natural economy (sometimes goods are paid for in grain and compensation for losses is made in kind), monetary relations are increasingly strengthened, and the measure of value is silver in bullion.
According to their legal status, the entire population of the country is divided into free people, who are protected by laws, and slaves, who are at the complete disposal of the master.
The laws of Hammurabi are similar to V.Z. laws: for the murder of another slave, it is necessary to give him to the master of another slave (or reimburse his cost). For an injury inflicted on another's slave (a broken eye, a broken bone), half the value of the slave is reimbursed. If a slave hits a free man, his ear will be cut off for this. However, unlike the times of the Third Dynasty of Ur, measures are taken to ensure that a free Babylonian does not fall into slavery (only serious crimes entail imprisonment).
The main way to turn the mass of fellow citizens into slaves was debt bondage, and it was The laws of Hammurabi seek to limit debt bondage. Standing guard over private property, the law allowed the collection of debt and interest, but introduced this collection within certain limits, curbing the excessive appetites of predatory lenders. The debt was not worked off by the debtor himself, but by his wife or children, and only for three years, and unlike slaves, these enslaved people were protected by law and the moneylender was responsible with the life of his son for the violent death of the debtor’s son, who was working off his father’s debt.
Free people, according to the laws of Hammurabi, regardless of their economic status, are divided into two groups that differ in their rights. On the one hand, full-fledged “sons of the husband” (maravelim) are mentioned, and on the other hand, “subordinates” (mushkenu). The latter were owners and partly even slave owners, but nevertheless were limited in their rights. For injuring a musken, the culprit paid a fine, while for self-mutilation inflicted on the “husband’s son,” the offender was punished according to the principle of talion (“an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”).
The royal power under Hammurabi was still despotic in nature, and the king could interfere in all relationships between his subjects, even in their personal lives. Thus, the husband had the right to kill his adulterous wife and her seducer at the scene of the crime. But if the husband forgave his criminal wife, then the king also had the right to pardon her lover. The law ensured the complete subordination of children to their father. A son who hit his father was punished by cutting off his hand.
The laws of Hammurabi do not imply any restrictions on the king in his actions. The foundations of despotism have been fully preserved. True, the Babylonian kings, unlike the kings of the Third Dynasty of Ur, did not make any claims to the deification of their personalities, but they proclaimed themselves proteges of the gods who had given them the throne.
In addition to laws, Hammurabi turned to the ordering of beliefs. Aba was among the Akkadians and Enlil among the Sumerians. It was Hammurabi who helped bring to the fore a new god - the curator of the state. God, in whose person the technogens deified the state and who was responsible only for it. This Marduk, the first pagan god in the history of mankind, whose main specialty is maintaining order in the state and giving sanction to the activities of the monarch. The Egyptians didn’t think of this; the Canaanites didn’t need it at all. Marduk- This is the god of social relations, the god of social institutions, and most importantly, the patron of the king. Marduk is not responsible for any rain or thunderstorm, not even fertility concerns him. But power, as an independent sphere of human life, receives its own god, and this god becomes the main one. Other gods have not disappeared, but they also have a connotation of dominance, a connotation of power. But the main thing is that he is the master, that is, he leads primarily. The most important thing for him is power. He is not the creator of the world, but the king of the gods, he is the king in heaven. The dominance of one deity over others is formalized in the concept of royal power, and this is a complete revolution in ideas about society.
Kassite invasion. Under Hammurabi's successors, central power in Babylonia weakens again. The southern regions are falling away, and the Hittites and Kassites invade Asia Minor from the northwest(the question of the original homeland of the Kassites is controversial. It is usually localized to the east of Mesopotamia (in the Zagros Mountains). However, there is evidence that they came from Asia Minor).
If invasion plundered the Hittites around 1595 BC e. Babylon was only a crushing raid, then The Kassites were introduced gradually and firmly. After the Hittites, led by Mursili I, invaded Mesopotamia and deposed the last king of the Babylonian dynasty, Samsuditan, The Kassites seized royal power in Babylonia. Their reign lasted more than 400 years.
The conquerors formed the dominant layer of military nobility, pushing the native warriors into the background.
The dominance of the warlike highlanders, who captured the country with a high agricultural culture, was associated with a certain regression. Thus, rural communities are being revived to a certain extent. But at the same time, previously little-known horses and mules (in military affairs and transport as draft animals) began to be widely used. Agricultural technology is being improved (a plow-seeder appears). Regular contacts with Egypt are established (now certainly direct and immediate).
Thus, after a short temporary hitch, the forward movement resumes with renewed vigor.
The further fate of Babylonia is already closely connected with the history of Assyria and will be considered in connection with it.
7. Assyrian power in the II-I millennium BC.
At the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. one of the largest powers of Middle Eastern antiquity was formed - Assyria. Important trade routes have long passed here, and transit trade contributed to the development of the city Ashura, the future capital of the Assyrian state. Intensified in the 16th century BC. the ruler of this city annexed a number of neighboring territories and gradually subordinated the bodies of community-city self-government, which previously had quite a lot of rights (in particular, the right to annually elect a new ruler). Is it true, soonAshur came under powerBabylonia, but with its weakening it regained independence. Wars withMitanni in the 16th century BC. again led to the defeat of the emerging state centered inAshur , so just from the 14th century BC. Assyria, having subjugated Mitanni, became a powerful state.
With the fall of the Hittite kingdom, the Assyrian ruler Tiglath-pileser I(1115-1077 BC) during successful campaigns he expanded the borders of his power from Babylon to Egypt. However invasion of the Arameans from Arabia at the beginning of the 11th century. BC. led Assyria after Tiglath-pileser I into a state of decline lasted about a century and a half. And only on turn of the X-IX centuries. BC. this state has again entered a period of stabilization and growth of its power - the so-calledNeo-Assyrian period his stories.
The first rulers of this period and especially Shalmaneser III(858-824 BC) strengthened the eastern borders of the country, ousting Babylon, achieved a number of successes in the north in the wars with Urartu, but basic the blow was directed to the west, towards the rich and prosperous areas of the eastern Mediterranean coast. These wars were successful; one after another, the conquered states recognized their dependence on Assyria and became its vassals and tributaries. After Shalmaneser III, Assyria again entered a period of stagnation, caused by a fierce internal struggle, and only with the accession Tiglath-pileser III(745-727 BC) the situation began to change dramatically.
Tiglath-pileser III spent a number of important reforms, which contributed to the strengthening of the state. Residents of the subject outskirts moved in droves to lands devastated by the conquest. This had, on the one hand, important economic significance, because development of devastated and new territories allowed to develop and conduct extensive economic activities, on the other side - political, military and religious(mixing of peoples, their oblivion of old traditions, separation from their native land, relatives, and former cults).
To collect taxes, ensure the fulfillment of duties by the population of the region, supply and command military personnel, administrative reform was carried out. The viceroyalities were disaggregated, their rulers, who became known as regional governors, were subordinated to the control of the central government and their functions were limited.
The army was also reorganized. Now it consisted not of military colonists who received plots for their service, but of militia, and from a permanent professional, well-trained and equipped army, completed based on recruitment, and was (due to previously looted loot) fully supported by the king. It was she who ensured victory for Tiglath-pileser III: Babylon was defeated in the east(in 729 BC, the Assyrian king was crowned king of Babylon), in the north it is displaced by Urartu, in the west by Media. The borders of the empire reached the Mediterranean coast.
At SargoneII The Assyrians inflicted a crushing defeat Urartu. Destroyed in 722Kingdom of Israel by forcibly relocating its inhabitants, and then subjugated the southern kingdom of Judah. The Assyrians again pushed back Media and reached Egypt. Under the grandson of Sargon Esarhaddon was conqueredEgypt, but not for long.
In the middle VII century BC. under Ashurbanipal, Assyria reached the zenith of its power. Its borders extended from Egypt to Media and from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. Richly rebuilt new capital Nineveh
amazed with its splendor: its library alone contained over 20 thousand tablets with texts. Palaces and temples were built and restored throughout the country. But with the death of Ashurbanipal, a period of unrest and decline began, which ended at the end of the 7th century. BC. the death of the empire (612), which fell under the blows of the united forces of Media and the rebel Babylon.
8. Persian Achaemenid power.
Situated in the south of the Iranian plateau, next to ancient Elam, the Persians existed for many decades almost independently of the ethnically close Medes. The consolidation of the Persians into a state occurred slowly and was slightly delayed compared to the Medes. However, this autonomy contributed to the political independence of the emerging state. The ruler of the Persians, Cyrus I, in the second half of the 7th century. BC. recognized the authority of Assyria, with which the Medes waged a fierce struggle.
Cyrus II the Great(558-530), becoming king of the Persians, conquers almost all of Asia Minor, and then a significant part of Central Asia. Then in 539 Cyrus captured Babylon after which all the countries to the west of it, including the Eastern Mediterranean, and to the borders of Egypt voluntarily submitted to the Persians. Cyrus encouraged his subjects to preserve their religion and culture;in 538 Jews were allowed to return to Judea from Babylon to restore Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple. Most of the people who were taken into the Babylonian authorities did not go to Palestine. They went to the Phoenician coast with capital acquired during their time in captivity and organized the first diaspora. The priests and Levites returned, remaining faithful to God. The Babylonian captivity was the lot of only a few (10% were expelled from Palestine, 90% remained in their homeland), and after its end the healthiest part of Jewish society reunited with the main population of the Holy Land.
Created by Cyrus Achaemenid Empire(Persian kings traced their ancestry to Achaemen, who lived in the 8th-7th centuries BC) in a short time became the largest in the world; its borders extended from the Mediterranean coast to the Central Asian oases. Egypt remained unconquered, so it is not surprising that the son of Cyrus moved his forces against it. Cambyses II, whose army, in addition to the Persians, included warriors from almost all the countries and peoples conquered by his great father, not to mention the Phoenician fleet. Egyptian troops were unable to withstand the onslaught of this army: in 525 Egypt was conquered, and Cambyses was proclaimed its pharaoh (27th dynasty). After the death of Cambyses there was an acute political struggle in the ruling circles, after which representative of the younger branch of the Achaemenids Darius was proclaimed the new king of the Persians.
Coming to power Darius faced a difficult situation. Revolts broke out in all parts of the empire; One after another, the countries recently annexed to Persia tried to achieve independence. Relying on the army, the young king suppressed the uprisings with a strong hand and restored the effective power of the center.
Having created a huge empire, the small ethnic group of Persians had to develop an optimal formula for managing a diverse conglomerate of highly developed and primitive peoples, different in their destinies and level of development of countries, united from now on under the authority of a single administration. It is worth noting that the Persian rulers did not have a developed religious system at their disposal, which could serve as the basis for the formation of strong power. This kind of system in the form of Iranian Zoroastrianism was still in its infancy and therefore could not be used to the extent necessary for the needs of the empire. Therefore, the center of gravity was forced to shift to creation of an optimal administrative structure, like the one whose foundations were laid by the Assyrians. This is the structure that he developed during hisreforms Darius I.
The essence of Darius's reforms was primarily to ensure the dominance of the Persians within the framework of the world power they created. Following the method already tested by the Assyrians, Darius divided the country into provinces -satrapies , headed by they were put in charge of the center satrap rulers. But unlike the Assyrians, Darius went further: to strengthen the power of the center and limit the omnipotence of the satraps he introduced the separation of military and civilian power in the localities. The functions of the satraps included the implementation of civil administration, ensuring the regular receipt of taxes and the fulfillment of duties. However, the satraps had no military power. As for military administration, then the entire empire was divided into five large districts led by military leaders, independent of the satraps and not subordinate to them, but subordinated directly to the king. This distinction between civil and military administration, under the mutual control of responsible heads of various departments, played an important role in consolidating the omnipotence of the center.
Concerning administration within satrapies, especially such large and developed ones as Egypt or Babylon, then they were divided into areas, for the management of which they usually officials and scribes from among local residents were involved. At the same time, the center sent its military detachments to almost all the outskirts of the state, building fortresses and outposts there.
Already under Cyrus II, state chancelleries in the western part of the Achaemenid state enjoyed Aramaic language, and later, when Darius carried out his administrative reforms, this language became official in the eastern satrapies and was used for communication between state offices throughout the empire.
A series of military-political and socio-economic reforms of Darius, which led to the strengthening of the internal administrative structure and strengthening the power of the ruler, relatively little affected the usual social and economic relations that existed in the Middle East since ancient times: the effective administration of the center relied on power-property, producers paid rent-tax to the treasury, and private farming has always been under the strict control of officials.
As you know, the military successes of Darius I stopped precisely when he collided with the freedom-loving Greeks. Greco-Persian Wars continued for many decades under Darius’ successors. Despite some successes of Xerxes in land battles, the Persians invariably suffered defeats at sea. The political fragmentation of the Greek world and acute internal divisions, even rivalries, especially between Athens and Sparta, seemed to play into the hands of the Persians. But the great empire was never able to take advantage of its advantages and was ultimately forced to abandon plans to enslave Hellas.
The successes of the Greeks led to the fact that in the middle of the 5th century. BC. the Persians were forced to retreat and clear not only Greece itself, but also Greek Asia Minor. The consequence of this failure for the great empire was a series of anti-Persian uprisings V large satrapies - in Egypt, Syria, Lydia. And although the uprisings were suppressed, they marked a gradual weakening of the power of the Persians. Turn of the V-IV centuries. BC. passed under the sign of strong civil strife between contenders for the Persian throne. And while the Persians struggled to maintain balance within the empire, in distant northern Greek Macedonia the position of a new formidable rival of the Persians was strengthening.
In 334, Alexander the Great marched against the Persians. Having won the first battles in Asia Minor, Alexander then subjugated the cities of Phenicia and in 332 captured Egypt. Then, returning to Syria, he moved to the banks of the Tigris and in the decisive battle at Gaugamela in 331. inflicted a crushing defeat on the Persians. Fled to Bactria Darius III was killed there by the local satrap, and the Persian Achaemenid Empire ceased to exist.
9. Religion and culture of Ancient Mesopotamia.
In Mesopotamia, with its many successive state formations (Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, Babylonia), there was no strong, stable state power. The relatively low degree of centralization of political power and, accordingly, the deification of the ruler contributed to the fact that in Mesopotamia The main ones were considered (the supreme triad of gods) the god of the skyAn and goddess of the earthEnki , god of airspaceEnlil . At the turn of the IV-III millennium BC. Egypt And the deification of the ruler reached unprecedented proportions here.
Majority Sumerian-Akkado-Babylonian gods hadanthropomorphic appearance , And only a few, like Ea or Nergal, carriedzoomorphic features, a kind of memory of totemistic ideas of the distant past. The sacred animals of the Mesopotamians included the bull and the snake. Egyptian gods had many zoomorphic features and signs and the Egyptians considered many animals sacred.
Temples were built not for all gods, but only for the most important ones, mainly for the god or goddess - the patrons of a given community. On north and south of Mesopotamia a certain type of religious structure is formed, where they are fixed and become traditional for almost all later Mesopotamian architecture some construction principles. The main ones are: 1) building a sanctuary in one place(all later reconstructions include the previous ones, and the building is thus never moved). 2) high artificial platform, on which the central temple stands and to which stairs lead on both sides (subsequently, perhaps precisely as a result of the custom of building a temple in one place instead of one platform, we already encounter three, five and, finally, seven platforms, one above the other, with a temple at the very top - the so-called ziggurat ). 3) the temple consisted of three parts: a central one in the form of a long courtyard, in the depths of which there was an image of a deity, and symmetrical side chapels on both sides of the courtyard. At one end of the courtyard there was an altar, at the other end there was a table for sacrifices. 4) division of the outer walls of the temple, and platforms (or platforms) with alternating projections and niches.
Mythology of Mesopotamia rich and very diverse. In it you can find cosmogonic subjects, stories about the creation of the earth and its inhabitants, including people sculpted from clay, and legends about the exploits of great heroes, first of all Gilgamesh (search for immortality), and finally story about the great flood. Importance was attached to the afterlife. The afterlife seemed very gloomy. The reality of the existence of farmers, with their cult of fertility and the regular change of seasons, could not but lead to the idea of a close and interdependent connection between life and death, dying and resurrection. That's why one of the central places in Mesopotamian mythology took up the story of death and resurrection Dumuzi (Tammuza). The process of seeking truth is a characteristic feature of Mesopotamian religion.
Just like in Mesopotamia, among the Egyptians Various myths have developed about the creation of the world, the creation of people from clay by the gods. symbolizing the idea of fertility, the spring revival of nature. In later myths, Osiris also acquired the functions of the ruler of the underworld of the dead, who determined the sins and merits of the dead.
In the 2nd millennium BC. in Mesopotamia with the rise of the city's patron god Babylon – Marduk was tied up and sacralization of the ruler, whose status acquired even greater holiness over time. Marduk is the god who gives sanction to firm monarchical power. Marduk claimed the place of God, in which all the gods are combined and contained (but this is not yet monotheism).
And in Egypt and Mesopotamia, Polytheism reigned. But exactly in Egypt the idea of monotheism arose earliest. The first who tried to implement it was Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, who lived in the 14th century. BC
Culture. INIthousand in general, Babylonian society remained extremely secular, therefore, the main processes in it took place in the appropriate form, which, for example, was expressed in the cult of technical knowledge. There were a large number of specialists in various scientific fields. Schooling originated as secular, but is now becoming more and more secular. The idea of self-sufficient knowledge flourishes and becomes widespread as historical events unfold against the backdrop of new technological advances, economic recovery, etc.
Was two types of scribes: Sumerian(high-level specialists who are required to know, in addition to literacy, mathematics, music, necessarily two languages, literature, and most importantly, be able to use countless dictionaries and reference books) and Hurrian(Hurrians are something simple, fallen from the mountains and not very educated; a Hurrian scribe is an offensive nickname for a person who knows only 200-400 characters, mostly syllabic, that is, written down by ear).
In Mesopotamia, the Pythagorean theorem was discovered long before the birth of the philosopher himself, they knew the number “pi”, although they had it equal to 3, they were able to calculate not only the area, but also the volume (all approximately).
Was extremely developed astronomy, but in a cool mixture with astrology. It was the Sumerians, and after them the Babylonians, who figured out counting 12 lunar months and much more according to the duodecimal system.
In the 1st millennium Babylonian literature had a set of ideas about a positive ideal, about faith in ultimate justice and - not necessarily here on earth. Such an idea was completely alien not only to the Sumerian, but also to the Semitic culture of Mesopotamia in the 2nd millennium. Society was permeated by faith in the possibility of the final victory of justice and an understanding of the general movement of the world towards something positive. In general, the cultural processes that developed in Babylonian society during the 1st millennium BC. gradually lose their intensity.
IN architecture In the 1st millennium, nothing original appeared - the idea of a wide and straight street prevails. The rectangular grid of large streets became the basis for city planning. Ziggurats (stepped towers) are becoming larger and larger, reaching 90 m in height. Perhaps this is exactly the shape of the legendary Babylonian tower. All buildings reached incredible sizes - huge arches, walls, palaces, but Mesopotamian society was no longer capable of putting forward new ideas.
10. The ancient history of the Holy Land in III - mid. II millennium BC
The Holy Land is located in the Eastern Mediterranean and consists of areas: First – Palestine (west of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, excluding the sea coast). Second– to the east of the named area, with a maximum length of up to 200 km, going further north to the Euphrates ( modern western Jordan and part of Syria ). Third, a very important part - Kelesyria - mountain valleys north of Palestine, where the Orontes River flows. And it’s a completely different matter - fourth part, sea coast, which is a completely different world with a special population living according to its own laws ( coast of the Holy Land ).
INIIIthousand In the Holy Land, mostly farmers lived in cities. There were more cities in the Holy Land, fewer in Jordan: the descendants of Shem already lived here and there, although the exact places of their settlement and the number of descendants is impossible to determine. The coast of the Holy Land was empty. Trade routes bypassed this area. Sometimes individual cities of the Holy Land fell under the rule of the Egyptian pharaohs. But in the 3rd millennium, none of the rulers of the Nile Valley thought of long-term control over these lands.
IN endIIIthousand- we see one of cycles of mass population movements. The last centuries of this millennium are occupied by continuous, sometimes dramatic, population migrations throughout Western Asia and in the Nile Valley.
Somewhere at the end III– beginning II thousand actions and The events of Biblical history begin to unfold on the territory of the Holy Land. Canaan ». In the first half of the 2nd millennium BC Abraham, close toHebron. It is important for us that Abraham found not only unworthy people, but also worthy ones - he encountered a righteous man Melchizedek, the then king of the state that existed since III millennium, although the meeting could have occurred at the beginning II. Moreover, the similarity of the name of his kingdom (Salim) with the city of Jerusalem is questioned by most researchers.
In 2300-2000 took place in the Holy Land Amorite invasion from the interior of the Arc, from modern Jordan . The Amorites occupied free territory almost everywhere except the coast - at the same time, they did not significantly influence city life, but had a noticeable impact on the spiritual sphere. If initially collective burials were organized in the Holy Land, then with the Amorites comes the idea of a person standing alone before higher powers after death, and therefore a single burial, which type began to spread everywhere. Another one feature associated with the arrival of the Amorites to the Holy Land, – massive proliferation of military weapons; short swords became the property of almost every adult man.
What happened to the Amorites next? Like many peoples who came from the steppes to areas with higher population densities, The Amorites, after several centuries, were assimilated almost completely by the Canaanite population. What the ancient Jews were protected from happened to the Amorites.
Egypt (2000-1775 BC) spent In the 15th century BC their federation led by the city Kadesh Thutmose III(1504-1450 BC), and However, when Akhenaten(1372-1354 BC) and his successors, Egypt lost control of Syria and Palestine.
Canaanite society in the 16th-13th centuries. BC was very rich, “inclined neither to unite nor to deify himself.” The Canaanites did not build huge temples. First of all, they erected walls, towers, and strengthened gates, which allowed them to live independently of each other. The rulers of the cities constantly quarreled and fought with each other. The internecine hostility of the Canaanites made it much easier for the Israelites to conquer the country. In the middle of the 2nd millennium"before the arrival of Joshua in Canaan begins strong influence from Cyprus, Crete, Aegean, from where a special worldview migrates here.”
(under the reign Ramesses II(1301-1235 BC)) the people of Israel and reached the Promised Land. But the Israelites did not settle there because they disobeyed God and returned to wander in the desert as punishment.
11. History of the Jewish people in the middle. II-I millennium BC.
In ancient times, a significant part of the territory of the Eastern Mediterranean, which also included the Holy Land, “was called Canaan ». In the first half of the 2nd millennium BC Abraham,"whom God called to be the founder of the chosen people," came to Canaan and settled close toHebron.
Canaanite society in the 16th-13th centuries. BC was very rich, “inclined neither to unite nor to deify himself.” The Canaanites did not build huge temples. First of all, they erected walls, towers, and strengthened gates, which allowed them to live independently of each other. The rulers of the cities constantly quarreled and fought with each other. The internecine hostility of the Canaanites made it much easier for the Israelites to conquer the country. In the middle of the 2nd millennium“before the arrival of Joshua in Canaan, a strong influence begins from Cyprus, Crete, and the Aegean, from where a special worldview migrates here.”
Egypt during the reign of the 12th dynasty (2000-1775 BC) spent aggressive policy in the Eastern Mediterranean. In this region, “the power of the pharaohs extended not only to the Sinai Peninsula, which became an Egyptian province, but also to the southern part of Palestine.” Then Egypt became part of the vast Hyksos state (c. 1710 - c. 1580 BC),“uniting, in addition to Egypt itself, the Sinai Peninsula, Palestine and the Syrian steppe.” After the Hyksos were expelled from Egypt (c. 1580 BC) they retreated to Palestine and Syria and held out there for a century. In the 15th century BC their federation led by the city Kadesh was completely defeated Thutmose III (1504-1450 BC), And Egyptian rule was established throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. However, when Akhenaten (1372-1354 BC) and its successors, Egypt lost control of Syria and Palestine.
In the first half of the 13th century. BC Moses led out of Egypt(during the reign of Ramesses II (1301-1235 BC)) the people of Israel reached the Promised Land. But the Israelites did not settle there because they disobeyed God and returned to wander in the desert as punishment.
Around 1230 BC. Joshua, who headed the tribal union of ancient Hebrew tribes (tribes) invaded the territory of Palestine and subjugated a number of local Canaanite city-states. In the XII-XI centuries. BC The Israelite tribes were ruled by judges, there were 15 of them in total.
At the end of the XIII - beginning of the XII century. BC Palestine was invaded by the Sea Peoples. who came from the coasts and islands of the Mediterranean. Further, “two branches of the “Sea Peoples” - the Philistines and the Chakara - settled on the sea coast and partially mixed with the local population. So the state of the Philistines arises on the southern coast of the Holy Land. Widespread colonization of the Mediterranean Sea by the Phoenicians begins. The name of the Philistines is preserved in the modern name of Palestine.
The ancient Hebrew tribes fought long wars with the Philistines. During these wars Saul was chosen king whose power was recognized by all tribes (XI century BC). The second king was David, reigned from 1004 to 965 BC. He quickly gathered the territories of various tribes under his wing and made a unique campaign, subjugating Transjordan, part of the Phoenician coast, some lands along the Euphrates, and half of Syria.” A previously non-existent state of large size arose.
Solomon comes to power in 965 and rules, most likely, not 40, but 37 years (before 928 g). He had to fight very far away, since David conquered close neighbors. The king went to the Red Sea, built a harbor there, hired Phoenicians, who, using ships, began to conduct large-scale foreign trade.
The alliance with the Phoenician Tire allowed Solomon not only to strengthen his position, but also to build a grandiose Jerusalem Temple. Solomon launched large-scale construction, which in ancient times was one of the forms of consolidating power: it was necessary to show that Solomon was the king here. Never before or after Solomon had such massive and high-quality construction been carried out on the territory of the Holy Land.
Solomon expanded mercenary army and overlaid taxes all tribes, except Judah, who paid them in kind, in the form of food; introduced labor duties not only for Jews, but also for the rest of the population within the state and on the periphery.
After Solomon under his son Rehoboam (c. 928) the kingdom split into two - Kingdom of Judah centered in Jerusalem (southern part of the Holy Land) and Kingdom of Israel (northern part of the Holy Land). The Kingdom of Judah retained ethnic and religious purity to a much greater extent than the Kingdom of Israel, which may be why it lasted much longer. However, its proximity to Mesopotamia played a role in the rapid conquest of Israel. IN 722 BC, during the reign of the king Sargon II, Assyria captured capital of Israel -Samaria, and the kingdom of Judah of the descendants of David continued to exist with its spiritual center in the form of the Jerusalem Temple.
In the 7th century BC Judea was conquered by Egypt and at the beginning VI century Judea was conquered by the Neo-Babylonian kingdom. The Babylonian captivity took place after the campaigns of the Neo-Babylonian king in Palestine Nebuchadnezzar II and his twice capture of Jerusalem in 597 And 587 BC Some of the Jews fled to Egypt, others, along with the priests of the temple, were in 586 taken captive to Babylonia, where they stayed for about half a century, until Persian king Cyrus the Great, captured Babylon in 539 did not allow them to return to Jerusalem, allowing them to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple.
The Second Temple period was a time of further religious and political consolidation of the Jews and the strengthening of Judaism as a monotheistic religion. Attempts by strengthened Jews to strengthen their positions led at the turn of our era to the Roman-Jewish wars, which ended, as is known, with the death of Judea, the destruction of the temple and the dispersion of Jews throughout the world.
12. Ancient Syria and Phenicia in the III-I millennium BC.
13. The main stages of the history of the Hittite state.
The Hittite state, like the Mitannian one, arose at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. in Asia Minor during the infiltration of Indo-Europeans into the settlement zone of the tribes living there. The predecessors of the Hittites were the Hattis. The Asia Minor trading colonies of Assyrian-Amorite merchants had a significant influence on the formation of Hittite statehood. In the 18th century The first attempts are being made to unite the eastern part of the Asia Minor Peninsula. The first Hittite king was Anitta, its capital was the city of Nesa. The Hittite state finally emerged under King Tabarn (Labarna), reigned around 1680-1650. BC e.
The capital since the 17th century. BC e. became Hattusa.
Labarna united under his rule almost the entire eastern half of Asia Minor and came close to the coast of the Black Sea in the north and the Mediterranean Sea in the south. However, he did not capture a single harbor and did not create a fleet. Until the very end of its existence, the Hittite kingdom remained a continental power.
Ancient kingdom. The time of Anitta and his successors (XVIII-XVI centuries BC) is called the Old Kingdom.
The most prominent representative of the Labarna dynasty was conqueror king Mursili. Mursili captured Halpa (modern Aleppo), a key strategic and economic center in northern Syria, and then he destroyed and plundered Babylon (1595). However, these successes were fragile. The Hittite kingdom experienced repeated unrest, and the kings were not able to establish centralized administration. Even They did not immediately manage to establish a system of succession to the throne through the male line. The ancient matrilineal system was preserved for a long time. The throne was controlled by the king's elder sister, who sought to nominate her son as heir. The kings did not want to favor their nephews over their sons, and this led to violent clashes.
We must also take into account that the Hittite kings were not as powerful as the Egyptian pharaohs. On the most important issues they had to consult with thulia (council of elders) and sometimes even contact pankus (meeting of warriors).
And the Hittite nobility (mainly numerous royal relatives and in-laws) did not particularly take into account the central government.
After lengthy civil strife and frequent palace coups by the end of the 16th century. BC e. some reforms have been carried out indicating the achievement of a certain compromise in ruling circles.
Tsar Telepin (XVI- XVcenturies) approved by decree a strict system of succession to the throne. He granted preferential rights to the king's own sons. Only in the event of their absence or premature death did the throne pass to the “sons of the second rank” (i.e., adopted nephews along the female line) and, in the most extreme case, to the king’s sons-in-law. Simultaneously the king took upon himself the obligation do not execute anyone and do not confiscate the property of those executed without the knowledge of Tulia and Pancus. From this we see that the Hittite monarchy was not a despotism and the Hittite kings never had such unlimited power as the Egyptian pharaohs or the rulers of Sumer, Akkad and Babylon.
Middle and New Kingdom. After a short transition period Middle Kingdom (XV century BC), characterized by significant decentralization of the state and reduction of territory as a result of unsuccessful wars, begins period of the New Kingdom (XIV–XIII centuries BC). Central power is significantly strengthened. The royal domains, scattered in different parts of the country, are increasing. They are managed by special offices (“stone houses”) and absorb a number of rural communities. Ordinary community members lose the right to dispose of their plots and cannot even leave them as an inheritance to their sons.
Significant territories of communal lands also passed into the hands of private owners (distinguished warriors or priests), who freely put their plots into circulation. Ordinary community members are going bankrupt, losing their former rights and, in part, even falling into debt slavery.
Thus, the process of property differentiation in Hittite society went quite far. Hittite laws dating back to the New Kingdom formalized social inequality legally.
Bourgeois historians very often glorify the exceptional humanity characteristic of the supposedly Hittite legislators. They point out that for almost any crime, the perpetrators are punished with a fine or monetary fine.
A murderer in the Hittite kingdom could get away with burying the murdered man at his own expense and giving him to the relatives of four people (slaves or members of his family). A thief, an arsonist, a brawler who mutilated someone in a fight could also pay off.
The rise and fall of the Hittite Empire. The Hittite power was internally fragile. It did not have a single economic base, and to maintain its temporary power, more and more new campaigns were required.
Under King Suppilulium, a contemporary of the reformer pharaoh Akhenaten, it reached its greatest flowering. Taking advantage weakening of the Egyptian kingdom, Kassite Babylon, the state of Mitanni, Suppiluliuma increases the military power of the Hittite kingdom and penetrates the Mediterranean coast up to the mouth of the Jordan. Under the second successor of Suppiluliuma - the king Mursili II (c. 1340 - 1305 BC) Most of Asia Minor came under the control of the Hittites.
Egypt, having strengthened its military-political power under Ramesses II (the exodus of the Jews from Egypt), began a series of wars to recapture areas of the Eastern Mediterranean, but in 1296 BC. at Kadesh The Egyptian army was defeated by the Hittites. Soon in the Hittite kingdom the political situation has become more complicated, besides Assyria began to strengthen on the southeastern borders. This served rapprochement between the Hittite kingdom and Egypt, as a result of which Hattusili III had to quickly conclude a peace treaty in 1280 BC. with the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II ( Palestine, most of the Phoenician coast and Southern Syria remained with Egypt, and Northern Syria went to the Hittites) because he feared that the Assyrian troops would strike him in the rear. At the same time, he tried to restore Babylonia, with which an alliance treaty was concluded, against Assyria. But it did not help.
The Assyrian troops dealt severe blows to the Hittites. Most of the possessions in the east were lost. But the successors of Hattusili III rewarded themselves in the west, where they reached the Aegean Sea several times and even subjugated Troy, glorified in Homer’s poems. However, these recent gains were fragile. They were approaching the Hittite kingdom from the west "peoples of the sea" among which were Greek tribes (Achaeans) and Etruscans (Tursha). Near 1190 BC e. they defeated the Hittite Empire, and it ceased to exist forever.
Hittite culture.
The Hittites played a significant role in transmitting eastern stories to the Greeks. The Hittite sphinxes, which (unlike the Egyptian ones) had female faces, influenced the image of the Greek sphinx (half-woman, half-lion). Thus, the Hittites, even leaving the historical arena, managed to prove themselves as intermediaries between the Eastern and Greek worlds.
14. Egypt during the Early, Ancient and Middle Kingdoms.
The Egyptian version of the formation of the state and society was noticeably different from the Mesopotamian one. Egypt, as you know, is the gift of the Nile. And this attachment to the Nile Valley with its strictly regular regime could not but affect the fate of the country and the people, especially in connection with the isolation of Egypt, so different in this regard from Mesopotamia, which was open to contacts, influences and invasions.
As in Sumer, the first proto-states in Egypt arose in the form of associations around temples. These communities later came to be called by the Greek term "nom". Geographically, the ancient Egyptian nome stretched along the coast for many tens of kilometers, and several dozen settlements gravitated towards each nome temple, the deity of which acted as a “connecting unity”. In the heads of the nome communities were the high priests-priests, over time, more and more clearly acquired functions of political administrators, rulers of the nome. Unlike Mesopotamia, the priest-rulers of the nomes, as their power strengthened, entered into fierce competition with each other, which resulted in a gradual concentration of power in the hands of the most successful of them.
Creation of a single state. A stronger unification of the country, according to tradition, was carried out by King of Upper Egypt Menes (Mina), subdued Lower Egypt around 3000 BC e. and founded the First Dynasty of the united country. The capital was Abydos. The period of the reign of the first two dynasties is called Early Kingdom (c. 3000-2800 BC). Before us is the early technogenic society, which is characterized by the following three features: the spiritual leadership of society, political and economic power are concentrated in the same human hands. The Egyptians began where the Sumerians had been going for about 600 years. Wherein the bearer of secular power was considered more important than representatives of spiritual power. The king was more important than any priest for the reason that from the very beginning he was identified in one form or another with one of the gods, although he declared himself a god much later.
At the center of Egyptian life are the temples where the cult of ancestors took place, the pyramids and the mortuary temples located next to them.
Such an early unification of the entire country under the leadership of a single king, the pharaoh, whose equal in terms of power humanity had not yet known at that time, played a role in accelerating the process of institutionalization of power, the formation of an effective centralized administration, based on a powerful and ramified hierarchical-bureaucratic apparatus . Almost half a millennium before Sargon of Akkad, the pharaohs of the 1st and 2nd dynasties, starting with the legendary unifier Mina (Menes), were the all-powerful and deified rulers of a huge, although politically not yet very stable state - a state that was early in type and unique in the nature of its connections in German
Ancient Kingdom (2800-2250 BC). The first long period of stable and effective central government in Egypt occurred in the years reigns of 3-6 dynasties, This is the period of the so-called Old Kingdom. It was at this time that the ancient Egyptian state finally took shape and strengthened as a single and extremely rigid economic organism, within which the horticultural and cattle-breeding north was successfully combined with the agricultural south, and the water regime set by the regular floods of the Nile with annual generous fertilization of the soil with silt was universally maintained. The capital of the country was founded at the junction Upper and Lower Egypt Memphis.
Pharaohs, starting with the rulers of the 3rd dynasty, were no longer just deified kings - they were considered equal to gods. There was a strict ritual of worshiping them, and the practice of their burials was developed. Being the “son of the Sun,” the son of Ra, the pharaoh could not pass away unnoticed. His departure must have been a great event for people and gods. It was these considerations that formed the basis construction of giant pyramids: pyramids of the pharaohs of the 3rd and 4th dynasties Djoser (Dzheser), Snefru (Sneferu), Cheops (Khufu) - 4th dynasty, Khafre (Khafre). Construction of an afterlife shelter for oneself - a pyramid, later a rock burial, etc. - was considered almost as the main matter by almost every pharaoh who ascended the throne.
The pharaohs pursued a fairly active foreign policy, from time to time making campaigns to the northeast (to Sinai), to the west (to Libya) and to the south (to Nubia). Military production and trade expeditions provided Egypt with a considerable influx of gold, silver, fragrant resins, ivory, semi-precious stones, timber, etc.
Already at the beginning of the Old Kingdom period in Egypt a developed and comprehensive administration system has emerged, which in fact has taken over all areas of life. Although she did not yet know the strict division of functions, Its three levels are clearly distinguished: central, regional and local. Locally Representatives of the authorities were scribes, managers and authorized representatives of royal-temple or noble-dignitary households, as well as, possibly, heads of settlements who were responsible for paying rent and tax. At the regional level The functions of power were performed by temple priests, rulers of nomes (nomarchs), high-ranking nobles and middle-ranking officials. They collected rent-tax, were responsible for the normal functioning of temple farms, including granaries, warehouses of finished products and equipment, workshops, archives, etc. Their functions included the organization of local public works, especially in the field of water management and construction. Finally, highest level of government - central– was an extensive and specialized control system. In Its head was the minister of chati (jati). Chati held in his hands all the levers of the administration and personally headed the judicial department, the protocol department (archives, documentation, etc.), the state treasury, was responsible for the activities of centralized storage facilities and workshops, for the organization of large construction projects, including the construction of pyramids, and finally, for activities of regional and local administration.
The specificity of the ancient Egyptian structure boiled down to the total absorption of the population by the state, whose redistribution functions therefore turned out to be unusually capacious: almost everything produced by society was distributed centrally, according to strict norms and clear principles. Such complete, obvious and almost absolute domination of the state and its crowning divine ruler, the pharaoh, was unprecedented even in the East. Its symbol - clearly not accidental - was the giant pyramids, emphasizing both the greatness of the connecting unity and the insignificance of the simple worker, absorbed almost completely by power, deprived of even the communal forms of existence familiar to all other non-European structures, which guaranteed some of his rights.
Middle Kingdom (XXI-XVIII centuries BC). Between the Ancient and Middle Kingdoms lay a period of political fragmentation (sometimes called I Transitional period), which took about two centuries, during the reign of 7-10 dynasties, about which almost nothing is known. This was a period of autocratic rule of the nomarchs, the flourishing of local temples and the almost complete decline of the power of the center. Only by the 21st century. BC. have emerged again two centers attraction respectively for the nomes of Upper and Lower Egypt - Thebes And Heracleopolis. A series of military clashes take place between the kings of two rival dynasties (10th and 11th), which culminate in the victory of Thebes, which becomes the capital of Egypt. From now on it begins Middle Kingdom period (around 2050-1750 BC - time of 11-13 dynasties).
The internal policy of the pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom was initially carried out under the sign of a fierce struggle between the power of the center and separatist tendencies on the ground. The struggle was long. Over the two centuries of the First Transitional Period, regional rulers-nomarchs strengthened themselves in their nomes and felt like complete masters there. They had their own officials and warriors, often kept their own calendar and successfully carried out hereditary transfer of power - in a number of cases, the marriage of the heirs of different nomarchs led to the merger of two nomes, i.e. to strengthen the power of the ruling house. As evidenced by the magnificent and rich tombs of the nomarchs, this the regional nobility flourished until the reign of Senusret III (12th Dynasty), who is considered the pharaoh who achieved the highest degree of centralization, comparable to that possessed by the rulers of the Ancient Kingdom. Only Senusret III and his successors They again began to practice the appointment of rotating dignitaries of the center as rulers of the nomes, and it was now that they stopped building the rich tombs of the nomarchs.
In the years reign of the 12th Dynasty and especially Senwosret III The service bureaucracy noticeably came to the fore, replacing the hereditary noble nobility and even somewhat pushing aside the influential priesthood. The army also began to play a greater role at court. Soldiers and their superiors received official allotments and generous rewards for their service. All this contributed to the strengthening of the power of the center, the creation of an effective administration, which was most clearly demonstrated by the construction of a giant reservoir in the Fayum region. Under the same pharaoh, a victorious campaign was made in Palestine and Egyptian influence in this country increased.
According to Reder D.G., Cherkasova E.A. Only towards the end of the 12th dynasty, when Amenemhete III(second half of the 19th century BC), centralization increased and the privileges of the nomarchs were greatly curtailed. It was under him that the most widespread irrigation construction in the Fayum oasis(large artificial reservoir), where it was built huge temple, intended for the cult of the entire pantheon of gods. The Greeks called this temple the Labyrinth. These grandiose projects were subsequently considered by the Greeks as masterpieces of Egyptian construction art.
After Amenemhat III, the power of the pharaohs first began to decline. Soon the country split into two parts, ruled by the rulers of the 13th and 14th dynasties, and then the Second Transition Period began.
II Transition period lasted about two centuries, during which brief and insignificant 13th and 14th dynasties were at the turn of the XVIII-XVII centuries. BC. replaced by the Asian Hyksos tribes that invaded Egypt, who introduced the Egyptians (as the Kassites did in Babylonia) to war chariots drawn by horses that were previously completely unknown in Egypt. The Hyksos, who settled in the Delta region, ruled for about a century and a half. But the period of their reign was not marked by either political or economic success. Rather, on the contrary, the era of the 15th and 16th Hyksos dynasties was a time of decline and degradation: many temples were destroyed, old noble families were ruined, and upstart barbarians gained the upper hand. In a word, the invasion of the Hyksos in the ancient Egyptian tradition was considered to be a great misfortune, a terrible pogrom, and complete decline.
The rule of the Hyksos was fragile. In Thebes, almost parallel to the Hyksos, there existed the Egyptian 17th dynasty, which controlled almost all of Upper Egypt and waged successful wars with the Hyksos. These wars continued for a number of decades until Ahmose I drove the invaders out of the country and became the founder of a new, 18th dynasty, when Egypt entered the period of its greatest power, essentially becoming the first great empire in history, the borders of which now extended far beyond limits of the Nile Valley.
15. Egypt during the New and Late Kingdoms.
In the second half of the 2nd millennium BC. in Egypt, after the expulsion of the Hyksos and the restoration of Egyptian statehood ( AhmoseI, founder of the 18th dynasty), the most brilliant period of ancient Egyptian history began - New Kingdom period (1580 - ca. 1085 BC). The Egyptians pursued an active policy of conquest and were especially impressive conquests on the coast of the Eastern Mediterranean. Conquests increased dramatically under the pharaoh Thutmose III (1504-1450 BC). He made victorious campaigns 15 times, gradually expanding the borders of Egyptian possessions to the upper reaches of the Euphrates. On South Thutmose III conquered local tribes up to the 4th cataract of the Nile.
Amenhotep IV (1372-1354 BC) made an attempt to carry out religious and political reform, the goals of which were, on the one hand, changes in Egyptian religion, on the other hand, the destruction of the political influence of the high priesthood.
The conflict began when the political claims of the priests of the temple of Amun-Ra were not only rejected by the new pharaoh Amenhotep IV, but also served as a pretext for decisive persecution. The pharaoh demonstratively supported, as a counterweight to the temple of Amon-Ra, a new cult of the previously little-known god of the solar disk Aten, convenient for him because there were no influential forces behind him. Declaring yourself high priest of Aten, Amenhotep changed his name to Akhenaten(“pleasing to Aten”) and, leaving Thebes, 300 km north of them founded a new capital, Akhetaten, which was quickly built for him. From a religious point of view this is was perhaps the first attempt in history to replace all gods with one, to create a cult of a single, universally binding, officially recognized and exalted god of a large country. But the monotheistic tendency of the reform was by no means the main one; its main goal was to strengthen the centralized administration by eliminating the separatist tendencies of the influential temple nobility.
The internal and external situation of Egypt under the last pharaohs of the 18th dynasty deteriorated noticeably. The great power created by the first pharaohs of the 18th dynasty collapsed.
Restoration of the Egyptian Empire and the establishment of its enormous role in the destinies of the Middle East in the 13th century. BC happened on the board Ramesses II (1301-1235 BC). By this time, a strong Hittite state had formed in Asia Minor. A long military confrontation between the two great powers of the Middle East ( the first battle took place at Kadesh in 1296. BC), ended with the conclusion peace treaty between Ramesses II and the Hittite king Hattusili III in 1280 BC. ( Palestine, most of the Phoenician coast and Southern Syria remained with Egypt, and Northern Syria went to the Hittites).
The New Kingdom period in Egypt is a period when the chosen people lived in Egypt for some time. Joseph ended up in Egypt around this time (Hyksos time).
During the reign of Ramesses II in the first half of the 13th century. BC Moses led his people out of Egypt.
At the end of the XIII - beginning of the XII century. BC a significant part of Egypt's possessions in Syria and Palestine was lost,"peoples of the sea" The eastern borders were devastated, the western part of the Delta was subjected to constant raids by Libyan tribes. Founder of the new 20th dynasty Setnakht(c. 1200 BC) stabilized the situation. His son Ramesses III (1198-1166 BC) continued his victorious policy and successfully fought in Palestine and Syria. But already after the death of Ramesses III the influence and authority of the reigning pharaohs fell lower and lower. Egypt loses Asian possessions in Syria and Palestine, and at the beginning of the 11th century. BC after the death of Ramesses XI (c. 1085 BC) 20th dynasty ended. Power in the south in Thebes passed into the hands of the high priest of the god Amon Herihora, and on north, in Tanis, - in your hands Smendesa, who founded 21 dynasties that ruled only in Lower Egypt. These events The most brilliant era of Egyptian history ended - the era of the New Kingdom.
Late Kingdom: Egypt under foreign rulers. The accumulation of Libyans in the north of the country and the use of many of them as mercenary soldiers led at the turn of the 2nd-1st millennia BC. to the promotion of ambitious Libyan military leaders to the forefront of the political life of the country, who actively intervened in the internal struggle of the pharaohs with the strengthened local nobility. This intervention ended with one of the military leaders, Shoshenq, in the middle of the 10th century BC. seized power and started The 22nd Libyan dynasty was the first of a series of foreign dynasties that ruled Egypt.
Successive Libyan dynasties (23rd, 24th) effectively controlled only the Delta region, in the eastern part of which was their capital Bubast. As for Nile Valley, the local nobility played a big role there. True, in middle of the 8th century BC. strengthened and absorbed a lot from Egyptian culture (in particular, the cult of Amon) rulers of Ethiopia (Nubia) launched a successful campaign to capture Upper Egypt, which led to the emergence of the 25th Nubian Dynasty, ruled the Nile Valley region until thein 671 BC. victoriousAssyrian king Esarhaddon didn't conquer Egypt putting the last of the Ethiopian rulers to flight. Assyria, however, did not consolidate its victory due to internal strife, And in 664 the Libyan Psammetichus founded the 26th dynasty, almost united Egypt under the rule for a century and a half Sais pharaohs (Sais in the Delta was their capital).
From about this time The Greeks began to play a huge role in the history of Egypt and in its relations with the outside world- traders and colonists. Together with the Phoenicians, they began to actively settle on the Mediterranean coast of the country, and soon Greek quarters appeared in Memphis. Sais pharaohs, at first, focusing on the weakening Assyria and trying to oppose an alliance with it to the strengthening Neo-Babylonian kingdom, then set a course for rapprochement with the Greeks. The Greeks felt more and more at ease in the north of Egypt, where they founded the colony of Naucratis. In 525 BC. victorious troopsPersian king Cambyses
ended the independence of Egypt, turning it - until 404 BC. – to the satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire(this time is considered to be the period of the 27th Persian dynasty). Liberation from Persian rule led to the emergence of the short-lived 28-30th Egyptian dynasties, until the conquest of Alexander the Great in 332 BC. again did not lead to the fall of independent Egypt. After the death of Alexander, Egypt, as is known, became possession one of the Greek Diadochi Companions Alexandra, Ptolemy.
The period of the reign of Ptolemy and his successors, including the famous Cleopatra, was marked by energeticHellenization
countries, the capital of which was the majestic Alexandria,
the recognized center of the Hellenistic world and the entire world culture of that era. But it was already not so much an Egyptian as a Greek, Hellenistic center. Ptolemaic Egypt fell into decline at the turn of the new era, after which the country for many centuries became a province of Rome, and then (from the 4th century AD) of Byzantium.
16. Religion and culture of Ancient Egypt.
In Mesopotamia, with its many successive state formations (Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, Babylonia), there was a relatively low degree of centralization of political power and, accordingly, the deification of the ruler. This contributed to the fact that Mesopotamia relatively easily, without fierce rivalry (which took place in Egypt), many gods got along with each other with the temples dedicated to them and the priests who served them. On the edgeIV- IIIthousand BCEgypt was a single early state led by with a universal deified ruler - the pharaoh. Pharaoh was deified was considered the son of the sun god and was revered as a symbol of the well-being and prosperity of the country, the bearer of the highest divine power.
Higher degree of centralization of the ancient Egyptian state contributed to the strengthening of the power of the priests, performing the functions of officials of the center, but usually serving one of the powerful local gods. Abundant sacrifices were made to these gods. In their honor, magnificent temples were built, and the most famous of them, as sun god Ra (Amon-Ra), were proclaimed by the fathers of the ruler. Combining the functions of administrators and temple servants,ancient egyptian priests concentrated in their hands almost all the leadership of the countryboth in the field of economics and politics, and in the field of spiritual culture, be it literacy, knowledge, education or other branches of cultural tradition. Monarch usually claims spiritual leadership and power over the priests. This is the most striking feature of Egyptian society. In Egypt of the Early Kingdom, if the living king was not yet completely a god, then his late father certainly was.
Huge amounts of money were spent on the needs of cult and ritual, an example of which is the construction of colossal pyramids for the burial of deified rulers. Pyramids - a symbol of ancient Egypt, a symbol of the degree of deification of its pharaohs, a symbol of the enormous power of the central administration, a symbol of faith.
The main temple is the temple of the pharaoh and his pyramids. Then there are mortuary temples at the pyramids, and the temples of the gods are small, beyond comparison with the pyramids, and smaller than mortuary temples. Pyramids are the main temples of the state; the main communication with the gods takes place only here.
According to the beliefs of the ancient Egyptians, after the death of a person, his souls (there were several of them) behaved differently: “ba” ascended to the sky, to the sun (this was primarily related to the pharaoh), and “ka” remained with the body, depending on the degree of its preservation and The body depended on both the well-being of the deceased in the afterlife and the potential possibility of reincarnation, that is, rebirth in one form or another. That is why the body of the pharaoh was so carefully embalmed, preparing a mummy from it, and truly royal conditions were created for his soul “ka” in the tomb - a sufficient idea of them is given by the excavations of the tomb of Tutankhamun.
Majority Sumerian-Akkado-Babylonian had gods anthropomorphic appearance, And only a few, like Ea or Nergal, bore zoomorphic features. The sacred animals of the Mesopotamians included the bull and the snake. Egyptian gods had There are many zoomorphic features and characteristics: the god Horus was depicted with the head of a falcon, Sobek with the head of a crocodile, and the goddess Bastet with a cat's head. The Egyptians considered many animals sacred- bull, crocodile, cat...
Just like in Mesopotamia, the Egyptians had various myths about the creation of the world, the creation of people from clay by the gods. The main myth was about the dying and resurrecting god Osiris and his wife goddess Isis, symbolizing the idea of fertility, the spring revival of nature. In later myths, Osiris also acquired the functions of the ruler of the underworld of the dead, who determined the sins and merits of the dead.
And in Egypt and Mesopotamia, just like in other ancient societies Polytheism (many gods) dominated Moreover, the main one, Amon-Ra, who came to first place in the era of the New Kingdom, did not at all supplant the others. But exactly in Egypt with its greatest centralization of political power the idea of monotheism arose first of all. The first person to try to implement it was PharaohAmenhotep IV, lived in the 14th century. BC Having ascended the throne at a time of acute political crisis, he tried to rely on the priests of other temples in the fight against the Theban priests of Amon. Having failed to achieve success, Amenhotep decided on a dramatic coup: he abolished the cults of Amun, Ptah and other influential Egyptian gods and established a new universal and obligatory cult of the one god Aten- god of the sun, solar disk. Pharaoh changed his name to Akhenaten(pleasing to Aten) and built a new capital - Akhetaten, so that even in the names the name of the new god is present. However, the reform had no consequences: soon after the death of Akhenaten, the old gods and cults were restored, and then the name of the heretic pharaoh was cursed.
Religious systems of the most ancient centers of civilization– Mesopotamia and Egypt, having developed over thousands of years, generally reached a very high level and played an important role in the formation of later religions throughout the Middle East region.
Culture. Sculpture in Egypt appeared in connection with religious requirements and developed depending on them. The basic rules for sculpture finally took shape during the Early Kingdom: symmetry and frontality in the construction of figures, clarity and calmness of poses best corresponded to the cult purpose of the statues. The predominant postures - sitting with your hands on your knees and standing with your left leg extended forward - develop very early. Family groups also appear early. A number of rules were mandatory for all sculpture: straight positioning of the head, some attributes of power or profession, a certain coloring (men's bodies were brick-colored, women's bodies were yellow, hair was black). The eyes were often inlaid with bronze and stones.
Reliefs of royal and city temples in addition to ensuring posthumous well-being, they also had the task of glorifying the pharaoh, perpetuating his deeds and, in connection with this, displaying specific events of a given kingdom. The ancient Egyptians knew two types of relief: convex and incised, recessed inside the contour. All figures and background were usually painted, so that the walls turned into carpets of colored images. All depicted people and objects were thought to be living and required bodily completeness.
Literature. Does not contain major written works. There are small writings: fairy tales, myths, mythical cycles (the myth about the dying and resurrecting god Osiris and his wife goddess Isis - contains some knowledge about the resurrection). Religious texts ( book of the dead): the fate of the soul after death. Arrived in a large number of copies. There is almost no information about hell. They were sure that only joy and fun awaited them.
The science. They created scientific treatises (they made a significant contribution to astronomy by creating a solar calendar, so perfect that we still use it with some modifications).
Already in the Old Kingdom (not without connection with the practice of mummification), a lot of knowledge in the field of anatomy and medicine had accumulated. Later, practical manuals for doctors were documented, in which, however, science was often intertwined with magic.
17. Religions of East and Southeast Asia: Zoroastrianism, Buddhism and Confucianism.
Zoroastrianism - the religion of the ancient Iranians - developed away from the main centers of Middle Eastern civilization and was noticeably different in character from the religious systems of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Genetically, Zoroastrianism goes back to the ancient beliefs of the Indo-European peoples - the very ones whose resettlement from their hypothetical ancestral home (the Black Sea and Caspian regions) to the west, south and east at the turn of the 3rd-2nd and the first half of the 2nd millennium BC. e. gave impetus to the emergence of a number of ancient civilizations (ancient Greek, Iranian, Indian) and had a significant impact on the development of other centers of world culture, including China.
For many centuries after settlement in each of the new regions mastered by the Indo-Europeans, the development of religions proceeded, albeit on the basis of common ancient ideas, but in its own way. One of the variants of this development (relatively late and therefore already quite developed) was Zoroastrianism, the foundations of which are fixed in the oldest holy book of the ZoroastriansAvesta.
Zoroastrianism of the Avesta- This is the teaching of the prophet Zarathushtra (Zoroaster). Zoroaster lived and preached relatively late, in the 7th-6th centuries BC., that is, he was practically a contemporary of Lao Tzu, Buddha and Confucius. There is no doubt that Zoroastrianism belongs to the already fairly developed religious systems. Ethics occupies a central place in the system, and the principles based on it are the main criteria.
The essence of the teaching comes down to the fact that everything that exists is divided into two polar opposite camps - the world of good and the world of evil, the forces of light and the kingdom of darkness (originally exist). There is a continuous struggle between the light and dark principles. At the end of life the struggle will end. The earth will burn in fire.
Dualistic idea about the irreconcilability and constant struggle of light and darkness, good and evil, which is in the spotlight in Zoroastrianism, had a huge social and ethical orientation. Zoroaster, as it were, addressed a person with a call to become better, purer, to devote all his efforts and thoughts to the fight against the forces of darkness and evil. People were called upon to be benevolent, moderate in thoughts and passions, ready to live in peace and friendship with everyone, and to help their neighbors. Honesty and loyalty were praised, theft, slander, and crimes were condemned. Wherein perhaps the main idea of the ethical doctrine of Zoroastrianism there was a thesis that evil and suffering depend on people themselves, who can and should be active creators of their own happiness. And to fight evil, a person must first of all cleanse himself, and not so much even in spirit and thoughts, but in body.
Zoroastrianism attached ritual significance to physical purity. It was necessary to beware of all uncleanness, especially corpses. Sick women, women who had just given birth, and women during certain periods of their life cycle were also considered unclean. Everyone, they had to undergo a special purification ceremony.
Fire played an important role in the purification process, to which Zoroastrianism attached paramount importance, distinguishing it from the rest of the elements. Rituals in honor of Agura Mazda were performed not in temples, but in open places, with singing, wine and always fire (fire worshipers). Not only fire and other elements were revered, but also some animals - bull, horse, dog.
Ritualism resembles the Pharisaic desire to do everything according to the letter of the law. All representatives of the Persian Empire were Zoroastrians.
Buddhism originated in VIV. BC in North India. Its founder was Siddhartha Gautama (approximately 583-483 BC), the son of the ruler of the Shakya clan from Kapilavasta (region of Southern Nepal). Leaving home, he begins a strict ascetic life and finally reaches awakening (bodhi), i.e. comprehends the correct path of life, which rejects extremes. According to tradition, he was subsequently named Buddha (literally: the Awakened One), (in other sources he is called the Enlightened One).
The teaching is centered on four truths. According to them, human existence is inextricably linked with suffering. Birth, illness, death, meeting the unpleasant and parting with the pleasant, the inability to achieve what you want - it all leads to suffering (1 true). The cause of suffering is thirst (desire for existence), leading through joys and passions to rebirth, rebirth (2 true). Eliminating the causes of suffering is in eliminating this thirst (3 true). The path leading to the elimination of suffering and the achievement of nirvana - eightfold path – is as follows: righteous faith, righteous decision, righteous word, righteous deed, righteous life, righteous aspiration, righteous remembrance, righteous self-deepening (4 true).
The goal of Buddhism is Nirvana, which means “fading” in translation, i.e. cessation of being, but suicide is strictly prohibited. It is almost impossible to define this concept for the simple reason that the Buddha himself did not formulate it clearly and, in all likelihood, did not himself know the definition of this state. The Greatest Good is getting rid of karma and reincarnations. This includes the destruction of individuality. Nirvana seems to imply the destruction of the soul. Particular emphasis was placed on practical meditation, so the Buddha did not have a prayer, but only intensive training of his neuropsychic, physiological ecstasy.
Buddha never says anything about God. His teaching is atheistic in nature.
Confucianism - this is a Chinese belief (cannot be called a religion, since there is nothing from God in it) named after its founder, Confucius (VI- Vcenturies BC.). Confucius was born and lived in an era of great social and political upheaval, when China was in a state of internal crisis. Having criticized his own century and highly valued the past centuries, Confucius, on the basis of this opposition, created his own the ideal of a perfect person, Junzi.
Confucius set out to study all the religious holy books that were in China at that time. Based on this, he developed his teaching. He did not write, but transmitted his teachings orally. Two areas are important in his teaching.
1. There are two principles in the world - heaven and earth. Heaven is the highest principle, earth is the lowest. The combination of these two principles resulted in everything that we see, including man. But not a word is said about God, and in general he has no teaching about God. To the question of what will happen after death: Confucius answered that he does not know what life is, then how can he know what will happen after death.
2. The veneration of ancestors and the souls of the departed is of great religious importance in Confucianism. But nothing is said about the soul, about its state after death. This means that nothing was said about this in the ancient Chinese books that were known in China at that time. The cult of veneration had a more socio-political meaning than a religious one. Confucius saw that thanks to this it was possible to preserve the unity of the nation and preserve the strength of the state.
The very essence of Confucianism, the very core, is the preservation of customs. This is the main tenet of Confucianism. This dogma is expressed in three principles:
ZHEN – humanity, humanity those. the principle of relationships between people. And briefly he puts it this way: “Do not do to others what you do not wish for yourself.” On the contrary, do only pleasant things. However, for a truly perfect person (Junzi), humanity alone was not enough. He must have another important quality - sense of duty(AND). The sense of duty is determined, as a rule, by knowledge and higher principles, but not by calculation.
LI – etiquette. It's a whole ceremony. This is the most precious thing of Confucianism. Confucius was confident that thanks to this principle it was possible to cultivate respect for each other and eradicate anger. But despite this, he directly teaches about mortal (blood) revenge.
SNF – it is a sacred veneration of the old and ancestors(dead and alive). Without this, there can be no family unity, national unity, there can be no transmission of traditions, etc.
Following all these principles was the duty of the noble Junzi, which in collection of sayings of ConfuciusLun Yu is defined as a person who is honest and sincere, straightforward and fearless, all-seeing and understanding, attentive in speech, careful in deeds. In doubt he must cope, in anger he must consider his actions, in a profitable enterprise he must take care of honesty; in youth he must avoid lust, in maturity - quarrels, in old age - miserliness. The true Junzi is indifferent to food, wealth, life's comforts and material gain. He devotes himself entirely to serving high ideals, serving people and the search for truth.
In moral terms, there was not a word about love for enemies. Confucianism is the mean in everything, no extremes in anything, the golden mean in everything.
Confucianism cannot be called a religion. His goal is purely materialistic. It knows nothing but earthly things and does not want to know.
18. Geographical conditions and population of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome.
Geographical conditions of Balkan Greece and Crete. Mainland Greece consists of three major regions: North, Middle And South, which were divided into smaller parts.
In Northern Greece There are two rather harsh climate regions: Epirus(northwest) and Thessaly(northeast). IN Epirus There were thunderstorms, heavy rains and even snow storms. Here was the famous religious center of Greece, the city of Dodon with the temple of Zeus, where priests gave predictions by the rustle of leaves of the sacred oak. And in Thessaly, According to legend, there was a mythical city Hellas. Thessaly was distinguished by fertile soils, so since ancient times it was considered the breadbasket of Greece.
From Northern Greece to Central Greece through the mountains there was only one narrow passage called Thermopylae. It went down in history thanks to the Spartan warriors who, during the Greco-Persian Wars, blocked the Persian army’s path to Athens for several days.
IN Central Greece most significant Attica And Boeotia. Center Attica were Athens. There was a city in the same area Eleusis, where many pilgrims flocked to participate in the mysteries dedicated to the goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone. Attica was not distinguished by its fertile soil, but there were large deposits of minerals: silver, marble, copper, tin and ocher, which led to the development of crafts. Boeotia with its capital in Thebes became famous in the late classical era as the birthplace of the Boeotian League, which defeated the invincible Sparta.
Southern part of Greece – Peloponnesian Peninsula. The peninsula is connected to Attica by a narrow Isthmian, or Corinthian, isthmus, of strategic importance. It separated the Aegean and Ionian seas and at its narrowest part had a width of about six kilometers, where a portage paved with stones was built for ships. Through Corinth, the first city of the Peloponnese, closest to Attica, all roads to Southern Greece passed through, and also began sea routes to the west and east: towards Italy and Asia Minor, which contributed to its rapid prosperity. Corinth also acquired special significance as a center where the Greeks gathered to solve common problems.
From the regions of the Peloponnese historically most notable Argolis, Messinia And Lakonica. IN Argolis were located Mycenae- one of the main cities of Balkan Greece of the 2nd millennium. Lakonica became famous as the territory of settlement of the warlike Spartans, who for a long time were not surpassed by any of the Greeks in the field of military art. IN Messinia, located to the west of Laconia, lived the Messenians who were conquered by the Spartans and often fought with them. Here, in the 2nd millennium BC, the city of Pylos was founded, where a large archive of economic documents on clay tablets has been preserved.
In Greece, unlike the eastern states , no large rivers, therefore, the creation of Greek city policies was not associated with their unification around waterways. Most of the rivers were mountainous and not suitable for navigation; they flowed in gorges or narrow valleys, and some dried up in the summer.
Sailing developed on the heavily indented eastern coast, where there were bays of natural origin - Greece naturally seemed to face the East. The western coast, rocky and inaccessible, was little suitable for navigating ships.
Agriculture in Greece you can practice only on two large plains: in Boeotia and Thessaly, as well as in certain areas of Laconia and Messenia. According to the testimony of ancient writers, the Thessaly Valley was once the bottom of a huge lake, the water from which disappeared after an earthquake, leaving behind fertile soils. In the remaining territories, unsuitable for agriculture, cattle were raised, apiaries were established in the mountains, where honey was obtained, and purple-bearing shells were collected on the coast of Laconia.
Crete occupies a special place in the history of Greece, since it was here that traces of the habitation of people who participated in the formation of Greek civilization were discovered - large economic complexes, called palaces by researchers. Crete was located at the intersection of trade routes and was equidistant from Africa, Asia and Greece, which determined its development as a major center of transit trade.
Geographical conditions of Italy. Italy occupies the Apennine Peninsula, similar in shape to a boot. Three islands adjoin its western coast: Sicily, Sardinia And Corsica. The eastern coast is unsuitable for navigation ( Adriatic Sea), and navigation did not develop here. For these purposes, the rugged western coast with many small bays was more convenient.
Since Italy is surrounded by water on three sides, it was formed as semi-marine and semi-continental power, maintaining relations with the mainland and with countries beyond the nearby seas.
On the Apennine Peninsula, according to geographical and historical-ethnic characteristics, three regions are distinguished: Northern, Middle And South. Northern Italy is bounded by two mountain ranges: in the west Alps, separating it from Europe, and in the east - Apennines that run along the central part of the peninsula, mainly the river valley By(modern Pad River) with various tributaries.
IN Northern Italy three areas: Liguria, Tsizalpinskaya(literally: this side of the Alps) Gaul And Venice. In Liguria the most important city was Genoa, actively developed as a trading center in the Middle Ages - Genoese merchants were considered experienced sailors and traders. Cities stand out in Cisalpine Gaul Ravenna, which in the late imperial era would become the residence of emperors, and the homeland St. Ambrose of Milan – Mediolan(modern Milan).
IN Central Italy areas were located Etruria(modern Tuscany), Umbria, Picenum, Latium where Rome was located Samnium and Campania with famous cities Kumas, Naples And Pompeii. Regions were named after the tribes that inhabited them. One of the rivers that separated Northern Italy from Central Italy was the river Rubicon.
Italy is larger in area than Balkan Greece, and there are more areas suitable for agriculture. The areas of the western coast of Etruria, Campania, and Latium were very fertile and therefore early developed by people. Many rivers flowed here along which trade took place.
The climate is generally cool and humid in the northern regions and warmer in the southern regions, where there are many coniferous trees, forests and groves, and a rich fauna. The word itself Italy(“land of calves or wine”) was applied only to the southern part of the Apennine Peninsula and only later was transferred to the entire peninsula.
Contacts between the Greek and Italian populations in the 13th–9th centuries. BC Rome emerged much later than the Eastern and Greek societies and in this sense differed from them, being the successor of someone else's cultural heritage.
The emergence of many ancient settlements was determined by contacts with the Greek population. They took place at the end of the 2nd millennium BC on the island of Sicily. The peak of trade relations between Sicily and Crete-Mycenaean Greece occurred in XIII–XII centuries BC, since Southern Italy and Sicily were an intermediate point of trade developing towards the Atlantic coast, in particular Eastern Spain.
Phoenician and Greek colonization in Italy and Sicily in the 9th–6th centuries. BC The next stage in the development of relations with the Eastern Mediterranean regions is associated with the Phoenician colonization, which began in IX V. BC The Phoenician colonies were not recorded in Italy proper, since sailors settled western and northeastern Sicily, founding cities Panorm And Lilybay who played an important role in the Punic Wars. Sicily continued to be a transit point in the Phoenician trade in amber, ivory and purple.
IN VIII–VI centuries BC began Greek colonization. The Greeks conquered southern Italy and Eastern Sicily, founding large cities. The cities had the same economic basis - transit trade and agriculture. They were independent policies with their own administrative apparatus, independent of the local population. The cities were quite large because they themselves established colonies: for example, Cumae founded on the coast of the Apennine Peninsula Naples And Puteoli. The era of colonization is associated with the first powerful cultural influence of Greece on the local Italian population.
19. Greece in the Cretan-Mycenaean era. "Dark Ages".
Chronology of the Cretan-Mycenaean period. The history of the Cretan and Mycenaean civilizations is difficult to combine into one whole. Mainland Greece in the 2nd millennium BC was strongly influenced by the more spiritually and intellectually developed Cretan civilization, after whose death it adopted much of its heritage.
The history of Crete is divided into the Minoan periods after the name of the legendary king Minos, who ruled on this island, and the history of Mycenaean society is transformed into Helladic after the name of the mythical ancestor of the Greeks Ellina.
1) Early Minoan(XXX–XXIII centuries BC) = Early Helladic (XXX–XXI).
2) Middle Minoan (XXII–XVIII) = Middle Helladic (XX–XVII).
3) Late Minoan (XVII–XII) = Late Helladic (XVI–XII).
1) Early Minoan period (XXX–XXIII). The original population of Crete is usually called the Minoans, who created a very developed archaeological Minoan culture. At the beginning of the 3rd millennium, in Crete, as in many parts of the globe, the production of copper, and later bronze, was developed. From the second half of the 3rd millennium, cities appeared on Crete, as well as private property. The first kings begin to rule on Crete ( basilei), who lived in cities Knossos, Mallia and Phaistos.
Early Helladic period (XXX–XXI). On the territory of mainland Greece lived a population called Pelasgians. Most likely, in terms of ethnic composition it was not Indo-European, but pre-Greek.
At the end of this period, fortified settlements appeared in some coastal areas.
At the turn of the 3rd–2nd millennia, aliens settled in Greece (from about XXI–XX centuries BC). From the north, from the Danube lowlands or from Thessaly, come tribes later called Achaean . The tribes that came, partly destroying the Pelasgians, and partly assimilating them, were definitely Greeks and the immediate predecessors of the Greek ethnos of the 1st millennium. It is possible that assimilation proceeded gradually, without a sharp expansion, when the Achaeans gradually penetrated into Greece.
2) Middle Minoan period (XXII–XVIII). Wheat is already being sown in Crete. Horticulture and viticulture are developing; They raise small livestock, mainly sheep and goats.
The potter's wheel is widely used in the craft, bronze casting is developing, and jewelry production is reaching a high level. The construction industry is being improved: large structures are being built in Knossos, Mallia and Phaistos, according to which the Middle Minoan period is designated as "the period of old palaces" . “Palaces” were centers around which, like around temples in the East, the economic life of the island’s population was concentrated. The peculiarity of Crete at this time is the complete no traces of combat. The settlements, despite their massiveness, were not specially fortified.
External relations Crete mainly carried out with Asia Minor and Egypt. In Asia Minor, the Cretans traded with the population of the famous Troy and the Hittites, and in the Eastern Mediterranean - with Cyprus and the Syrian kingdoms. Trade relations with Egypt were very developed: timber, painted dishes and other things were imported from Crete to Egypt, where the 12th dynasty ruled (XIX–XVIII centuries BC). The pharaohs sent ambassadors to Crete and had their permanent representation on the island.
Middle Helladic period (XX–XVII). IN XVII–XVI centuries BC, a special alloy of silver and gold was discovered, called electrom. Things were discovered made using a lathe, which, however, was not discovered by archaeologists.
The largest agricultural settlements are Mycenae And Tiryns, located on the Peloponnesian Peninsula in Argolis. Geographical conditions - division into small valleys - contributed to the long-term preservation of the independence of various regions where separate clans existed, which, unlike Crete, were not united into a single state.
3) Late Minoan period (XVII–XII). Near 1700 The fire and destruction of the large above-mentioned palaces in Knossos, Phaistos and Mallia are archaeologically recorded. The fire was associated with an earthquake or internal strife, which could coincide. In their previous form, “palaces” cease to exist. They are rebuilt, so the beginning of the Late Minoan time ( XVII–XV centuries BC) also called period"new palaces" , when the Cretan states experienced maximum prosperity.
Actively developing shipbuilding– the period of Crete’s dominion at sea begins, thalassocracy. Cargo and warships are being built (the military had rams installed on their bows). Greek legislators of subsequent times referred to Minos as the creator of the most ancient laws of Greece. The king combined the functions of a priest and a secular ruler, so Cretan society can be calledtheocratic . All representatives of the royal dynasty bore the name of Minos.
A network of roads is being built in Crete - one of the first indicators of production growth. The development of ties with Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean continues: in Ugarite(Syria) there was a whole settlement of Cretan traders.
Creto-Mycenaean writing. Already in the 3rd millennium BC, picture writing was recorded on Crete - pictography, – later evolved into ideographic. WITH XVIII V. BC, on the basis of this tradition, real Cretan writing appears, called Linear A. It represented syllabic writing, in which the sign meant a syllable. Letter A has not yet been deciphered. WITH XV century, another type of writing appears - Linear B. Letter B is proto-Greek, although it contains a certain number of pre-Indo-European words. One sign, as in letter A (the connection with which is obvious), meant a syllable; at the end of each line there could be ideograms- schematic drawings that explained what was written.
The Cretan-Mycenaean script is called linear because it consisted of lines written on clay tablets.
The death of the Cretan civilization. In the middle XV V. A catastrophe occurs in Crete. It is explained by an earthquake caused by a powerful volcanic eruption Santorini, located 110 kilometers north of Knossos, on the island Fera. It is possible, although doubtful, that this caused the earthquake in Crete. On the other hand, the eruption could create a large wave - a tsunami that washed away the palaces. And after the disaster, the Achaeans could come to Crete to plunder. There is a mystery going back to this incident. Atlantis.
After the disaster, Crete never recovered. Unlike the previous cataclysm, when the palaces were rebuilt, Crete ceases to exist as an independent large state: its era is ending. After the destruction of the palaces, the northeastern part of Crete is populated by the Achaean population, who moved from mainland Greece - the Cretan civilization, although it continues to exist until XII century, however, is no longer independent.
Late Helladic period (XVI–XII). The events of the famous Trojan War formally belong to this period ( 1240–1230 ) and the adventures of the cunning king of Ithaca Odysseus, described in the poems “Iliad” and “Odyssey” by the blind Greek poet Homer. However, in general, Homer's epic reflects the later era of the "Dark Ages".
In Balkan Greece, a number of independent and hostile states towards each other are finally taking shape. Tiryns, Mycenae, Argos, unlike the Cretan palaces, were heavily fortified to withstand a long military siege, since they constantly fought internecine wars.
During this period, the active territorial expansion of the Achaeans unfolded, which preceded the future great colonization. The proximity to the sea ensured active external connections: the settlement of deserted Crete and a number of the Cyclades islands was underway.
The death of the Mycenaean civilization. At the end XII–XI centuries Greece may be undergoing a military invasion from the north (from Southern Illyria) Dorian tribes Their arrival was associated with the fall of the Achaean kingdoms and the destruction of new palaces.
On the other hand, the cause of the death of Mycenaean society could be civil wars between citadel cities and their spiritual exhaustion, because Achaean Greece had exhausted its internal potential. Greece plunged into the era of the “Dark Ages”.
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