Chapter 1: The Ancient Near East: The First Civilizations  

Pre-reading

A. Skim and scan the following passage and answer the following questions.

1. What are the characteristics of civilization ?

2. What are some explanations for why early civilizations emerged?

3. How did geography contribute to the civilizations that arose in Mesopotamia and Egypt ?

4. What role did religion play in the civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt ?

5. What were the chief legacies of Mesopotamia and Egypt to later civilizations?

6. In what way were the civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt alike, and different?

Reading

The rise of civilizations—the large and complex types of societies in which most people still live today—developed along with surplus food production. People of high status eventually used food surpluses as a way to pay for labor and to create alliances among groups, often against other groups. In this way, large villages could grow into city-states (urban centers that governed themselves) and eventually empires covering vast territories. With surplus food production, many people could work exclusively in political, religious, or military positions; or in artistic and various skilled vocations. Command of food surpluses also enabled rulers to control laborers, such as in slavery. All civilizations developed based on such hierarchical ( 等级的 ) divisions of status and vocation.

The earliest civilization arose over 7,000 years ago in Sumer in what is now Iraq . Sumer grew powerful and prosperous by 5000 years ago, when it centered on the city-state of Ur . The region containing Sumer , also Mesopotamia , was the same area in which people had first domesticated animals and plants. Other centers of early civilizations include the Nile Valley of Northeast Africa ( Egypt ), the Indus Valley of South Asia ( India ), the Yellow River Valley of East Asia ( China ), the Oaxaca and Mexico valleys (Aztec) and the Yucatán region of Central America (Maya), and the Andean region of South America (Inca Empire).

All early civilizations had some common features. Some of these included a bureaucratic ( 行政 ) political body, a military, a body of religious leadership, large urban centers, monumental ( 象纪念碑一样雄伟的 ) buildings and other works of architecture, networks of trade, and food surpluses created through extensive systems of farming. Many early civilizations also had systems of writing, numbers and mathematics, and astronomy ( 天文学 ); road systems; a formalized ( 定形的 ) body of law; and facilities for education and the punishment of crimes.

With the rise of civilizations, human evolution entered a phase vastly different from all that came before. Prior to this time, humans had lived in small, family-centered groups essentially exposed to and controlled by forces of nature. Several thousand years after the rise of the first civilizations, most people now live in societies of millions of unrelated people, all separated from the natural environment by houses, buildings, automobiles, and numerous other inventions and technologies. Culture will continue to evolve quickly and in unforeseen directions, and these changes will, in turn, influence the physical evolution of Homo sapiens and any other human species to come.

Mesopotamia (Greek, “between the rivers”) was one of the earliest centers of urban civilization, in the area of modern Iraq and eastern Syria between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

As the Tigris and Euphrates flow south out of Turkey, they are 400 km apart; the Euphrates runs south and east for 1,300 km and the Tigris flows south for 885 km before they join, reaching the Persian Gulf as the Shatt al Arab. The river valleys and plains of Me- sopotamia are open to attack from the rivers, the northern and eastern hills, and the Arabian Desert and Syrian steppe to the west. Mesopotamia 's richness always attracted its poorer neighbors, and its history is a pattern of infiltration and invasion. Rainfall is sparse in most of the region, but when irrigated by canals the fertile soil yields heavy crops. In the south, date palms grow, supplying rich food, useful fiber, wood, and fodder. Both rivers have fish, and the southern marshes contain wildfowl.

The need for self-defense and irrigation led the Sumerians to create Mesopotamian civilization by organizing and building canals and walled settlements spreading north up the Euphrates, which grew into cities by the 4th millennium bc , such as Eridu , Adab , Isin , Kish , Larsa , Nippur , Ur , and the most significant Uruk in the south, where mud-brick temples were decorated with fine metalwork and stonework, and growing administrative needs stimulated the invention of a form of writing, cuneiform ( 楔形文字 ).

About 2330  bc  the region was conquered by the Akkadians , a Semitic people from central Mesopotamia . Their king Sargon I, called the Great (reigned about 2335-2279 bc ), founded the dynasty of Akkad , and at this time the Akkadian language began to replace Sumerian. The Gutians , tribespeople from the eastern hills, ended Akkadian rule about 2218 bc , and, after an interval, the 3rd Dynasty of Ur arose to rule much of Mesopotamia . In Ur , Sumerian traditions had their final flower. Influxes of Elamites from the east eventually destroyed the city of Ur about 2000 bc . These tribes took over the ancient cities and mixed with the local people, and no city gained overall control until Hammurabi of Babylon (reigned about 1792-1750 bc ) united the country for a few years at the end of his reign. At the same time, an Amorite family took power in Ashur to the north; both cities, however, fell soon after to newcomers. A raid launched in around 1595 bc by the Hittites from Turkey brought Babylon down, and for four centuries it was controlled by non-Semitic Kassites . Ashur fell to the Mitanni state, set up by Hurrians from the Caucasus , who were presumably relatives of the Armenians . The Hurrians had been in Mesopotamia for centuries, but after 1700 bc they spread in large numbers across the whole of the north and into Anatolia .

Kassite Babylonia flourished based on a few cities and many small villages in a tribal pattern. Its kings wrote as equals to the pharaohs of Egypt and traded widely.

The Babylonian king Hammurabi creates a law code, inscribed on a tablet, to be followed by judges in a formal judicial system. His code includes laws relating to medical practice like detailed fee regulation and harsh penalties for malpractice. The Code of Hammurabi contains no laws having to do with religion. The basis of criminal law is that of equal retaliation, comparable to the Semitic law of “an eye for an eye.” The law offers protection to all classes of Babylonian society; it seeks to protect the weak and the poor, including women, children, and slaves, against injustice at the hands of the rich and powerful.

The code is particularly humane for the time in which it was promulgated; it gives proof of the law and justice of Hammurabi's rule. It ends with an epilogue glorifying the mighty works of peace executed by Hammurabi and explicitly states that he had been called by the gods “to cause justice to prevail in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil.” He describes the laws in his compilation as enabling “the land to enjoy stable government and good rule,” and he states that he had inscribed his words on a pillar in order “that the strong may not oppress the weak, that justice may be dealt the orphan and the widow.” Hammurabi counsels the downtrodden in these ringing words: “Let any oppressed man who has a cause come into the presence of my statue as king of justice, and have the inscription on my stele read out, and hear my precious words, that my stele may make the case clear to him; may he understand his cause, and may his heart be set at ease!” The following examples illustrate these concerns.

25. If fire break out in a house, and some one who comes to put it out cast his eye upon the property of the owner of the house, and take the property of the master of the house, he shall be thrown into that self-same fire.

129. If a man's wife be caught while lying with another man, both shall be tied and thrown into the water, but if the husband wishes to pardon his wife, the king may spare his slaves.

131. If a man bring a charge against one's wife, but she is not caught while lying with another man, she must take an oath and then may return to her house.

196. If a man has destroyed the eye of another man, his eye shall be destroyed. [An eye for an eye]

198. If he has destroyed the eye of a freed man, or broken the bone of a freed man, he shall pay one mina of silver.

199. If he has destroyed the eye of a man's slave, or broken the bone of a man's slave, he shall pay one-half of its value.

209. If a man struck a free-born woman so that she lost her unborn child, he shall pay ten shekels of silver for her loss.

210. If that woman has died, his daughter shall be put to death.

211. If a woman of the free class has lost her child by a blow, he shall pay five shekels of silver.

212. If this woman has died, he shall pay half a mina of silver.

213. If he strike the maid-servant of a man, and she lose her child, he shall pay two shekels of silver.

214. If this maid-servant has died, he shall pay one-third mina of silver.

A spiritual worldview was of fundamental importance to Mesopotamian culture. The Sumerians believed that the universe was ruled by a pantheon ( 万神殿 ) comprising a group of living beings, human in form, but immortal and possessing superhuman powers. These beings, they believed, were invisible to mortal eyes and guided and controlled the cosmos in accordance with well-laid plans and duly prescribed laws.

The Sumerians had four leading deities, known as creating gods . These gods were An, the god of heaven; Ki, the goddess of earth; Enlil, the god of air; and Enki, the god of water. Heaven, earth, air, and water were regarded as the four major components of the universe . The act of creation, it was held, was accomplished through utterance of the divine word; the creating deity had merely to make plans and pronounce the name of the thing to be created. To keep the cosmos in continuous and harmonious operation and to avoid confusion and conflict, the gods devised the me, a set of universal and unchangeable rules and laws that all beings were obliged to obey.

Next in importance to the creating deities were the three sky deities , Nanna, the god of the moon; Utu, the sun god; and Inanna, the queen of heaven. Inanna was also the goddess of love, procreation, and war. Nanna was the father of Utu and Inanna. Sumerian poets composed numerous myths about the exploits of Inanna. Another god of great importance was Ninurta, the deity in charge of the violent and destructive south wind. One of the most beloved deities was the shepherd god Dumuzi, the biblical Tammuz. Dumuzi was originally a mortal ruler whose marriage to Inanna ensured the fertility of the land and the fecundity of the womb. This marriage, however, according to a myth whose denouement has only recently come to light, ended in stark tragedy when the goddess, offended by her husband's unfeeling behavior toward her, decreed that he be carried off to the netherworld for six months of each year—hence the barren, sterile months of the hot summer. At the autumnal equinox, which marked the beginning of the Sumerian new year, Dumuzi returned to the earth. His reunion with his wife caused all animal and plant life to be revitalized and made fertile once again. Each new year the Sumerians celebrated the marriage between Dumuzi and Inanna. The high point of the celebration was a ritual wherein the king impersonated Dumuzi; Inanna was impersonated by one of her leading priestesses.

Other Sumerian gods included those in charge of rivers, mountains, and plains; of the cities, fields, and farms; and of tools such as pickaxes, brick molds, and plows.

Each of the important deities was the patron of one or more Sumerian cities. Large temples were erected in the name of the deity, who was worshiped as the divine ruler and protector of the city. Temple rites were conducted by many priests, priestesses, singers, musicians, sacred prostitutes, and eunuchs. Sacrifices were offered daily.

The Sumerians believed that human beings were fashioned of clay and were created for the purpose of supplying the gods with food, drink, and shelter, so that the gods might have full leisure for their divine activities. Life was considered humanity's most precious possession, even though it is beset with uncertainty and haunted by insecurity; for when human beings die, it was believed, their spirits descend to the netherworld, where life is more wretched than on earth.

Ancient Egypt , which thrived along the Nile River in northeastern Africa for more than 3,000 years, from about 3300 bc to 30 bc , was the longest-lived civilization of the ancient world. Geographically, the term ancient Egypt indicates the territory where the ancient Egyptians lived in the valley and delta of the Nile . Culturally, it refers to the ways ancient Egyptians spoke, worshiped, understood the nature of the physical world, organized their government, made their livings, entertained themselves, and related to others who were not Egyptian. Egypt , like Mesopotamia, was a river valley civilization.

The Nile River, which formed the focus of ancient Egyptian civilization, originates in the highlands of East Africa and flows northward throughout the length of what are now Sudan and Egypt. Northwest of modern-day Cairo, it branches out to form a broad delta, through which for thousands of miles before it empties into the Mediterranean Sea . Because of seasonal rains farther south in Africa, the Nile overflowed its banks in Egypt every year. When the floodwaters receded, a rich black soil covered the floodplain. This natural phenomenon and its effects on the environment enabled the ancient Egyptians to develop a successful economy based on agriculture. Other natural factors combined to give rise to a great civilization in the Nile region. In Egypt 's relatively cloudless sky the Sun almost always shone, consistently providing heat and light. The Nile served as a water highway for the people, a constant source of life-giving water, and the sustainer of all plants and animals. In addition, natural barriers provided good protection from other peoples. The desert to the west, the seas to the north and east, and the Nile's rapids ( 急流 ), to the south prevented frequent hostile attacks.

In this setting a sophisticated and creative society came into being. That society was the only one in the area to endure for thousands of years. Each of its rivals rose to power but ultimately faded from importance. It was in this land that two of the Seven Wonders of the World were found: the pyramids at Giza and the lighthouse at Alexandria . The ancient Egyptians produced a vast body of written records, including ethical and moralistic treatises, instructional texts, religious and magical scrolls, evocative love poetry, epic stories, and vulgar tales. They possessed a sophisticated understanding of mathematics and the principles of architecture, enabling them to introduce to the world large stone buildings before 2500 bc . Their enduring images—sculpted, painted, and drawn—captivate viewers even today.

The ancient Egyptians processed thin flat sheets from the papyrus, a plant that grew along the Nile , and on these paperlike sheets they wrote their texts. Their earliest script, now known as hieroglyphs, began as a type of picture writing in which the symbols took the form of recognizable images. They originated many basic concepts in arithmetic and geometry, as well as the study of medicine and dentistry. They devised a calendar on the basis of their observations of the Sun and the stars.

Although the ancient Egyptians worshiped many gods, Egypt is also often recognized as the origin of the first recorded monotheist (worshiper of one god), the king who called himself Akhenaton. Egypt also developed one of the first religions to have a concept of the afterlife . No culture before or since paid as much attention to preparations for what was to come after death. Both royalty and private individuals built, decorated, and furnished tombs, which the ancient Egyptians understood to represent their eternal existence.

Politically,  Egypt  was a major power in the ancient world. Its kings governed the land through an elaborate bureaucratic administration. At certain periods, ancient Egypt 's influence extended even farther south and west in Africa as well as east into Asia .

Great pyramids, hieroglyphs ( 象形文字 ), elaborately decorated underground burial chambers, sprawling temple complexes ( 综合建筑 ), and statues combining human and animal forms are only a few of the many remnants that survive from ancient Egypt. These relics of an extinct world raised numerous questions during the centuries after the civilization died out and still fascinate people today. Many questions were answered in the early 19th century, when a young French scholar, Jean Fran?ois Champollion, deciphered the hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Stone and reconstructed the ancient Egyptian language. While more questions have been answered since that time, much remains to be investigated; scholars still debate whether writing first emerged in ancient Egypt or Mesopotamia . And while written documents give proof of at least 3,000 years of ancient Egyptian civilization, archaeological evidence suggests a much longer span.

According to inscriptions and documents found by archaeologists, the Egyptians called their country Kemet, meaning “the Black Land,” a reference to the dark, fertile soil that remained after the Nile floodwaters had receded. They also used another term, Deshret, or “the Red Land,” a designation for the desert sands that burned under the blazing Sun. In addition, they used the term Lower Egypt to refer to the northern delta area and the term Upper Egypt to refer to the communities along the river all the way south to Aswān.

Modern historians have divided Egyptian history into three major periods known as the Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom, and the New Kingdom . These were periods of long-term stability characterized by strong monarchical authority, competent bureaucracy, freedom from invasions, the construction of temples and pyramids, and considerable intellectual and cultural activity. But between the periods of stability were times of political chaos known as the Intermediate Periods, which were characterized by weak political structures and rivalry for leadership, invasions, a decline in building activity, and a restructuring of society.

According to the Egyptians' own tradition, their land consisted initially of numerous populated areas ruled by tribal chieftains. Around 3100 B.C., the first Egyptian royal dynasty, under a king called Menes, united both Upper and Lower Egypt into a single kingdom. Henceforth the king would be called “king of Upper and Lower Egypt,” and the royal crown would be a double diadem, signifying the unification of all Egypt . Just as the Nile served to unite Upper and Lower Egypt physically, kingship served to unite the two areas politically.

The Old Kingdom , including the third through sixth dynasties of Egyptian kings, lasting from around 2686 to 2125 B.C., was an age of prosperity and splendor, made visible in the construction of the greatest and largest pyramids in Egyptian history. The capital of the Old Kingdom was located at Memphis , south of the delta.

Kingship was a divine institution in ancient Egypt and formed part of a universal cosmic scheme: “What is the king of Upper and Lower Egypt ? He is a god by whose dealings one lives, the father and mother of all men, alone by himself, without an equal.” In obeying their king, subjects helped maintain the cosmic order. A breakdown in royal power could only mean that citizens were offending divinity and weakening the universal structure. Among the various titles of Egyptian kings, pharaoh (originally meaning “great house” or “palace”) eventually came to the most common.

Although they possessed absolute power, Egyptian kings were supposed to rule not arbitrarily but according to set principles. The chief principle was called Ma'at , a spiritual precept that conveyed the idea of truth and justice, especially right order and harmony. To ancient Egyptians, this fundamental order and harmony had existed throughout the universe since the beginning of time. Pharaohs were the divine instruments who maintained it and were themselves subject to it.

Although theoretically absolute in their power, in practice Egyptian kings did not rule alone. Initially, members of the king's family performed administrative tasks, but by the fourth dynasty, a bureaucracy with regular procedures had developed. Especially important was the office of vizier, “steward of the whole land.” Directly responsible to the king, the vizier was in charge of the bureaucracy, with its numerous departments, including police, justice, river transport, and public works. Agriculture and the treasury were the two most important departments. Agriculture was, of course, the backbone of Egyptian prosperity, and the treasury collected taxes, which were paid in kind. A careful assessment of land and tenants was undertaken to provide the tax base. For administrative purposes, Egypt was divided into provinces or nomes ( 省 ), as they were later called by the Greeks—twenty-two in Upper and twenty in Lower Egypt. A governor, called by Greeks a nomarch, was head of each nome and was responsible to the king and vizier. Nomarchs, however, tended to build up large holdings of land and power within their nomes, creating a potential rivalry with the pharaohs.

Despite the theory of divine order, the Old Kingdom eventually collapsed, ushering in a period of chaos. Finally a new royal dynasty managed to pacify all Egypt and inaugurated the Middle Kingdom, with Thebes as the capital , a new period of stability lasting from around 2055 to 1650 B.C. Several factors contributed to its vitality. The nome structure was reorganized. The boundaries of each nome were now settled precisely, and the obligations of the nomes to the state were clearly delineated. Nomarchs were confirmed as hereditary officeholders but with the understanding that the collection of taxes for the state and the recruitment of labor forces for royal projects, such as stone quarrying.

The Middle Kingdom was characterized by a new concern on the part of the pharaohs for the people. In the Old Kingdom , the pharaoh had been viewed as an inaccessible god-king. Now he was portrayed as the shepherd of his people with the responsibility to build public works and provide for the public welfare, as one pharaoh expressed it: “He [a particular god] created me as one who should do what he had done, and carry out what he commanded should be done. He appointed me herdsman of this land, for he knew who would keep it in order for him.”

The Middle Kingdom came to an end in the midst of another period of instability. An incursion into the delta region by a people known as the Hyksos initiated this second age of chaos. The Hyksos, a Semitic-speaking people, infiltrated Egypt in the seventeenth century B.C. and came to dominate much of Egypt . However, the presence of the Hyksos was not entirely negative for Egypt . They introduced Egypt to Bronze Age technology by teaching the Egyptians how to make bronze for use in new agricultural tools and weapons. The Hyksos also brought new aspects of warfare to Egypt , including the horse-drawn war chariot, a heavier sword, and the compound bow. Eventually, a new line of pharaohs—the eighteenth dynasty—made use of the new weapons to throw off Hyksos domination, reunite Egypt , establish the New Kingdom (c. 1550—1085 B.C.), and launch the Egyptians along a new militaristic and imperialistic path. During the period of the New Kingdom, Egypt became the most powerful state in the Middle East . The Egyptians occupied Palestine and Syria but permitted the local princes to rule under Egyptian control. Egyptian armies also moved westward into Libya .

The eighteenth dynasty was not without its own troubles, however. Amenhotep IV (c. 1364—1347 B.C.) introduced the worship of Aten, god of the sun disk, as the chief god and purseued his worship with great enthusiasm. Changing his own name to Akhenaten (“It is well with Aten”), the pharaoh closed the temples of other gods and especially endeavored to lessen the power of Amon-Re and his priesthood at Thebes . Akhenaten strove to reduce the priests' influence by replacing Thebes as the capital of Egypt with Akhetaten (“dedicated to Aten”), a new city located near modern Tel el Amarna, 200 miles north of Thebes .

Akhenaten's attempt at religious change proved to be a failure. It was too much to ask Egyptians to ignore their traditional ways and beliefs, especially since they saw the destruction of the old gods as subversive of the very cosmic order on which Egypt 's survival and continuing prosperity depended. Moreover, the priests at Thebes were unalterably opposed to the changes, which diminished their influence and power. At the same time, Akhenaten's preoccupation with religion caused him to ignore foreign affairs and led to the loss of both Syria and Palestine . Akhenaten's changes were soon undone after his death by those who influenced his successor, the boy-pharaoh Tutankhamen (1347-1338 B.C.). Tutankhamen returned the government to Thebes and restored the old gods. The Aten experiment had failed to take hold, and the eighteenth dynasty itself came to an end in 1333 B.C.

The nineteenth dynasty managed to restore Egyptian power one more time. Under Rameses II (c. 1279—1213 B.C.), the Egyptians regained control of Palestine but were unable to reestablish the borders of their earlier empire. New invasions in the thirteenth century by the “Sea Peoples,” as the Egyptians called them, destroyed Egyptian power in Palestine and drove the Egyptians back within their old frontiers. The days of Egyptian empire were ended, and the New Kingdom itself expired with the end of the twentieth dynasty in 1085 B.C. For the next thousand years, despite periodical revivals of strength, Egypt was dominated by Libyans, Nubians, Persians, and finally Macedonians after the conquest Alexander the Great. In the first century B.C., Egypt became a province in Rome 's mighty empire.

Egyptian society was confined almost exclusively to the Nile Valley and Delta. Most settlements were located on or close to the banks of the Nile . Since ancient Egypt was an agricultural society, its densest population was on the floodplains. Only a small fraction of the population lived in cities and towns. Major cities contained most of the urban population, and the ranks of major cities changed over time. Centers such as Memphis , Thebes , and certain provincial capitals, however, maintained their importance for extremely long periods of time. A major city generally had a densely populated center, and the density of population decreased as distance from the center increased.

Urban archaeology establishes the existence of at least three social levels in ancient Egyptian society. The king was surrounded by an upper class of nobles and priests, below which were merchants and artisans, and the largest number of people were serfs or common people who were bound to the land, cultivated the estates, paid taxes in the form of crops to the king, nobles, and priests, and provided military service and forced labor for building projects.

In ancient  Egypt  the family was important. Its importance is demonstrated in part through the many references to the family in a variety of texts and documents, numerous depictions of it in statues and paintings, and the large number of familial relationships among the gods and goddesses. A representation of an elite family, with a father, a mother, and children, usually portrays the father as the largest figure, and therefore the most important. The mother, who is generally smaller, stands or sits beside him, and the two often embrace or hold hands. Children, if at all present, are much smaller and off to the side. Representations of royalty are more formal, depicting the pharaoh and his wife or, rarely, the pharaoh and his son. During the reign of Akhenaton, however, the pharaoh and his wife appear with their daughters.

As the head of the household, the father worked outside the home. His wife ran the domestic operations. In wealthy families, the wife's authority extended over a staff of servants, while in poorer ones, she participated directly in chores such as preparing food and making clothes. In the lowest classes women sometimes worked outside the home, but depictions limit such work mainly to farm labor in the fields. The role of women as mothers was essential. Although unequal to men in other areas, in the eyes of the law, women were treated the same and could, for example, own property, conduct business, and file lawsuits.

Children were expected to care properly for and support their parents during old age. They were also responsible for giving their parents a proper burial and for maintaining a mortuary cult, both of which were considered necessary for ensuring the afterlife of their parents. Contact between the living and the dead took place through ancestor cults within the home and through visits to a funerary chapel. Apparently, it was believed that those in one domain could provide benefit or cause harm for those in the other, as illustrated in the “Letters to the Dead.” In such correspondence the living sought assistance from departed relatives for various problems and situations.

Pharaohs sometimes had more than one wife, a practice that was adopted apparently to guarantee an heir. However, one spouse was the general rule in ancient Egypt , at least in the earlier periods. Straying from a marriage was not condoned. By the time of the Old Kingdom , adultery was considered an impure act, and it became one of the few acceptable reasons for divorce. Couples who established households together generally remained together, and sometimes they had written contracts specifying particular financial arrangements. These contracts were similar in many ways to today's prenuptial agreements.

The Egyptians used several scripts to record their language. Around 3300 to 3200 bc , a formal script known as hieroglyphs ( 象形文字 ) came into being. The word hieroglyphs comes from the Greek term hieroglyphikos, meaning “sacred carving.” In this script, symbols called glyphs were used originally to denote objects and concepts. Eventually the symbols came to represent primarily sounds. Hieroglyphs took the form of recognizable images drawn from the Egyptian environment. Generally, in the time of the pharaohs, the Egyptians used hieroglyphs to carve or paint monumental and religious texts on the walls of tombs, palaces, and temples, as well as on the surfaces of statues and carved stone slabs ( 厚片 ), sometimes painted wooden slabs). Hieroglyphs were the longest-lived system of writing, being used until the end of the 4th century ad .

By the time  Egypt  was unified, the early religious practices had developed into a formal religion involving the worship of many gods and goddesses. The environment played a significant role in shaping the nature of the deities the Egyptians worshiped. Their gods and goddesses took the form of humans, animals, or combinations of humans and animals. These forms represented the forces of nature and the elements of the Egyptians' physical world. By picturing the natural powers as recognizable entities and creating mythological stories about them, the Egyptians tried to reach an understanding of the complicated interactions within their universe.

The deities of ancient Egypt can be organized into several groups, but two groups, sun gods and land gods, came to have special prominence. As the sun was the source of life and hence worthy of worship, a sun cult developed, and the sun god took on different forms and names: Atum in human form, and Re, who had a human body but the head of a falcon ( 猎鹰 ). Osiris and Isis were the rulers of the underworld.

Statues and other images of the deities represented the abstract powers of the gods in concrete form. The ancient Egyptians believed that their gods occasionally resided in the statues. They maintained that the essence of a god could inhabit a statue and then a ritual could complete the process of animating the image. Such a ritual would include recitation of sacred text and all sorts of attention paid to the statue, such as cleansing, dressing, feeding, and anointing ( 涂油 ).

In the temple the king was in theory the high priest. In practice, his participation in temple rituals occurred primarily on specific festivals, while the priests performed the daily obligations at other times. Ordinary people had immediate access to their personal gods, but they could not enter the temple at will. However, many Egyptians served as lay priests in the temple when they were not working in the fields. During their service as lay priests, they could enter certain areas of the temple. On some holidays, such as the Feast of the Valley, a portable shrine housing the image of a deity was paraded around outside the confines of the temple at Thebes . The people could then express their piety.

Religion permeated life in ancient Egypt , many of the daily activities of the people related in some way to their beliefs. The afterlife and preparations for it are a good example. To achieve eternal life after death, an individual had to do many things while he or she existed in this world. One of the most important was to live a just and moral life. In addition, some practical preparations were necessary, including making and furnishing a tomb, providing appropriate tomb decorations and texts, and establishing a mortuary cult to guarantee perpetual care and offerings. After death, the individual had to be carefully preserved as a mummy. Mummification was a process performed by an embalmer, who would carefully remove the internal organs, subject the body to different ointments and resins, dry it out with salts, and then wrap it with linen. Amulets, or charms, were often interspersed among the layers of linen, and other amulets might be placed in the coffin along with the mummy. Magical texts were sometimes written on the wrappings themselves, and they could also be written on papyri or inscribed on the walls of the coffin or of the tomb. These texts served as protection and as a guide for the deceased on the way to and in the afterlife.

The ancient Egyptians produced a large body of creative works in areas such as music, literature, painting, sculpture, drama, and architecture. Often the purpose of their artistic output was not recreation or cultural enrichment, but the communication of some sort of message or theme. Religion, which was extremely important in Egyptian thought, society, and life, had a great influence on the arts. For example, biographical texts that appear on the walls of funerary chapels make up an interesting body of literature. Their main purpose was to reaffirm the accomplishments and moral character of the deceased, so that he or she would pass successfully to the afterlife. On another level, these texts indirectly provide information about the activities of the pharaoh, since they often refer to the deceased's role in relation to the ruler.

By convention, the artists portrayed the most characteristic features of the individual in one harmonious image. The resulting representations could then function on many levels simultaneously. For example, the typical depiction of a tomb owner was meant to portray that individual outside the limits of both time and space—an image for eternity. This representation might also relate to the hieroglyphs ( 象形文字 ) that accompany it, and it may even be an integral part of the text.

Sculptures served a variety of purposes. Carved statues of deities were worshiped in temples. The actual worship took place after appropriate rituals were completed. The rituals were believed to animate the image and insure that the deity had taken up residence in the statue. Statues of royal persons and ordinary people were also produced. The ancient Egyptians believed that these statues, too, could serve occasionally as residences for the personality of the individual after death. Sometimes, such a figure represented the final hieroglyph ( 象形文字 ) of the individual's name, which would be carved on the side or base of the statue. The ancient Egyptians also placed statues of themselves in temples as a demonstration of their piety. They also put figurines ( 小雕像 ) in human form, called shabtis, in tombs to be substitutes for the tomb owner when he or she was called to perform labor in the afterlife. Other statues placed in tombs were meant to be residences for an aspect of the deceased's personality in case of damage to the mummy.

The foundations of Western civilization were laid by the Mesopotamians and Egyptians. They developed cities and struggled with the problems of organized states. They developed writing to keep records and created literature. They constructed monumental architecture to please their gods, symbolize their power, and preserve their culture for all time. They developed new political, military, social, and religious structures to deal with the basic problems of human existence and organization. These first literate civilizations left detailed records that allow us to view how they grappled with three of the fundamental problems that humans have pondered: the nature of human relationships, the nature of the universe, and the role of divine forces in the cosmos. Although later peoples in Western civilization would provide different answers from those of the Mesopotamians and Egyptians, it was they who first posed the questions, gave answers, and wrote them down. Human memory begins with these two civilizations.

By the middle of the second millennium B.C., the creative impulse of the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations was beginning to wane. The invasion of the Sea People around 1200 B.C. created a whole new pattern of petty states and new kingdoms that would lead to the largest empires the ancient Near East had seen.

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