BY ARIEF ISKANDAR BIN ZULKAPLI & MUHAMMAD AMIR HAMZAH BIN MOHD NOH The World's 7 Wonders Ancient Civilizations Edition
Civilizations A civilization is a complex human society, usually made up of different cities, with certain characteristics of cultural and technological development. In many parts of the world, early civilizations formed when people began coming together in urban settlements. However, defining what civilization is, and what societies fall under that designation, is a hotly contested argument, even among today’s anthropologists. 1
Mesopotamia 4000-3500 B.C. Meaning “between two rivers”in Greek, Mesopotamia (located in modern-day Iraq, Kuwait and Syria) is considered the birthplace of civilization. The culture that grew up between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is noted for important advancements in literacy, astronomy, agriculture, law, astronomy, mathematics, architecture and more, despite near-constant warfare. Mesopotamia was also home to the world’s first urban cities, including Babylon, Ashur and Akkad. “Mesopotamia is the earliest urban literate civilization on the globe—and the Sumerians, who established the civilization, established the ground rules,” says Kenneth Harl, author, consultant and professor emeritus of history at Tulane University. “Those who know how to research and write run the civilization and everyone else does the grunt work.” 2
The cuneiform writing system, used to establish the Code of Hammurabi, is among the most famous Mesopotamian advancements. They also created the base 60 numeric system, which led to the 60-second minute, 60-minute hour and 360-degree circle. And it was Babylonian astronomy that first divided the year into 12 periods named after constellations—what the Greeks would later evolve into the zodiac. “Within the three millennia in which ancient Mesopotamia flourished, innumerable individual kingdoms came and went, and a few empires rose and fell for various reasons,” says Podany, author of the forthcoming book Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East. “But at its core, the civilization was recognizably the same from around 3500 BCE to as late as 323 BCE—and, many would argue, beyond that. The region was rarely unified, but the civilization was very stable. 3
INDUS VALLEY 3300–1300 B.C. The Indus Valley Civilization is one of the oldest civilizations in human history. It arose on the Indian subcontinent nearly 5,000 years ago — roughly the same time as the emergence of ancient Egypt and nearly 1,000 years after the earliest Sumerian cities of Mesopotamia. The Indus Valley Civilization, in its mature phase, thrived for about 700 years(opens in new tab), from around 2600 B.C. to 1900 B.C. The term Harappan is sometimes applied to the Indus civilisation after its type site Harappa, the first to be excavated early in the 20th century in what was then the Punjab province of British India and is now Punjab, Pakistan. The discovery of Harappa and soon afterwards Mohenjo-daro was the culmination of work that had begun after the founding of the Archaeological Survey of India in the British Raj in 1861. There were earlier and later cultures called Early Harappan and Late Harappan in the same area. 4
The Indus Valley Civilization derives its name from the Indus River, one of the longest rivers in Asia. Many of the Indus Valley Civilization's large, well-planned cities, such as Mohenjo-Daro, Kot Diji and Chanhu-Daro, were situated along the course of the Indus River, which flows from the mountains of western Tibet, through the disputed region of Kashmir and southwestward before emptying into the Arabian Sea near the modern city of Karachi, Pakistan. Other Indus Valley Civilization cities were located next to different major rivers, such as the Ghaggar-Hakra, Sutlej, Jhelum, Chenab and the Ravi rivers, or on the alluvial floodplains between rivers. Today, much of this area is part of the Punjab region, which is translated as the "land of the five rivers" in what is now Pakistan. 5
EGYPT 3100 B.C. Perhaps the most romanticized of past civilizations, ancient Egypt stood as one of history’s most powerful empires for more than 3,000 years. Set along the fertile Nile River and at one time extending from today’s Syria to Sudan, the civilization is most known for its pyramids, tombs and mausoleums and the practice of mummification to prepare corpses for the afterlife. Egypt reached the pinnacle of its power in the New Kingdom, ruling much of Nubia and a sizable portion of the Levant, after which it entered a period of slow decline. During the course of its history, Egypt was invaded or conquered by a number of foreign powers, including the Hyksos, the Libyans, the Nubians, the Assyrians, the Achaemenid Persians, and the Macedonians under Alexander the Great. The Greek Ptolemaic Kingdom, formed in the aftermath of Alexander's death, ruled Egypt until 30 BC, when, under Cleopatra, it fell to the Roman Empire and became a Roman province. 6
The success of ancient Egyptian civilization came partly from its ability to adapt to the conditions of the Nile River valley for agriculture. The predictable flooding and controlled irrigation of the fertile valley produced surplus crops, which supported a more dense population, and social development and culture. With resources to spare, the administration sponsored mineral exploitation of the valley and surrounding desert regions, the early development of an independent writing system, the organization of collective construction and agricultural projects, trade with surrounding regions, and a military intended to assert Egyptian dominance. Motivating and organizing these activities was a bureaucracy of elite scribes, religious leaders, and administrators under the control of a pharaoh, who ensured the cooperation and unity of the Egyptian people in the context of an elaborate system of religious beliefs. 7
ROME 753 B.C. Ancient Rome is a modern historiography of Roman civilisation from the 8th century BC to the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC), Roman Republic (509–27 BC) and Roman Empire (27 BC–476 AD). The Roman state evolved from an elective monarchy to a democratic classical republic and then to an increasingly autocratic semi-elective military dictatorship. It controlled the North African coast, Egypt, Southern Europe, most of Western Europe, the Balkans, Crimea and much of the Middle East. It has contributed to modern language, religion, society, technology, law, politics, government, warfare, art, literature, architecture, and engineering. 8
Ancient Rome was a city of monumental structures, theatres, gymnasiums, marketplaces, sewers, bath complexes, and fountains. Residential architecture ranged from modest houses to country villas, with imperial residences on the Palatine Hill. Low plebeian and middle equestrian classes lived in apartments or insulae, with free grain and gladiatorial games. The native language of the Romans was Latin, which had a system of affixes attached to word stems and an Etruscan alphabet. Vulgar Latin, which differed from Classical Latin in grammar and vocabulary, was the spoken language until the 7th century. Greek was spoken by the elite, and Latin was never able to replace it. Vulgar Latin evolved into dialects in different locations, eventually shifting into many distinct Romance languages. 9
GREEK 1100 BC-AD 140 Ancient Greece was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity (c. 600 AD), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically related city-states and other territories. Most of these regions were officially unified only once, for 13 years, under Alexander the Great's empire from 336 to 323 BC (though this excludes a number of Greek city-states free from Alexander's jurisdiction in the western Mediterranean, around the Black Sea, Cyprus, and Cyrenaica). In Western history, the era of classical antiquity was immediately followed by the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine period. 10
Roughly three centuries after the Late Bronze Age collapse of Mycenaean Greece, Greek urban poleis began to form in the 8th century BC, ushering in the Archaic period and the colonization of the Mediterranean Basin. This was followed by the age of Classical Greece, from the Greco-Persian Wars to the 5th to 4th centuries BC, and which included the Golden Age of Athens. The conquests of Alexander the Great of Macedon spread Hellenistic civilization from the western Mediterranean to Central Asia. The Hellenistic period ended with the conquest of the eastern Mediterranean world by the Roman Republic, and the annexation of the Roman province of Macedonia in Roman Greece, and later the province of Achaea during the Roman Empire. Classical Greek culture, especially philosophy, had a powerful influence on ancient Rome, which carried a version of it throughout the Mediterranean and much of Europe. For this reason, Classical Greece is generally considered the cradle of Western civilization, the seminal culture from which the modern West derives many of its founding archetypes and ideas in politics, philosophy, science, and art. 11
MAYA 1000 BC-AD 1520 The Maya civilization of the Mesoamerican people is known by its ancient temples and glyphs. Its Maya script is the most sophisticated and highly developed writing system in the pre-Columbian Americas. It is also noted for its art, architecture, mathematics, calendar, and astronomical system. Today, their descendants, known collectively as the Maya, number well over 6 million individuals, speak more than twenty-eight surviving Mayan languages, and reside in nearly the same area as their ancestors. The Maya civilization developed in the Maya Region, an area that today comprises southeastern Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize, and the western portions of Honduras and El Salvador. It includes the northern lowlands of the Yucatán Peninsula and the highlands of the Sierra Madre, the Mexican state of Chiapas, southern Guatemala, El Salvador, and the southern lowlands of the Pacific littoral plain. 12
Archaic Roman religion was based on complex interrelations between gods and humans, with the gods being vaguely defined sacred spirits called numina. During the Roman Republic, priestly offices were held by men of senatorial rank, and the College of Pontifices was the head of the state religion. Under the Empire, deceased emperors were deified and the imperial cult became increasingly prominent. Under Emperor Diocletian, the persecution of Christians reached its peak, but Christianity became an officially supported religion in the Roman state under Constantine I. All religions except Christianity were prohibited in 391 AD. Archaic Roman religion was based on complex interrelations between gods and humans, with the gods being vaguely defined sacred spirits called numina. During the Roman Republic, priestly offices were held by men of senatorial rank, and the College of Pontifices was the head of the state religion. Under the Empire, deceased emperors were deified and the imperial cult became increasingly prominent. 13
CHINA Generally divided into four dynasties—Xia, Shang, Zhou and Qin—ancient China was ruled by a succession of emperors. The civilization is credited with developing the decimal system, abacus and sundial, as well as the printing press, which allowed for the publication and distribution of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, still relevant more than 2,500 years later. Like the Egyptians, the ancient Chinese were able to mobilize populations to build massive infrastructure projects. Protected by the Himalayan Mountains, Pacific Ocean and Gobi Desert, and situated between the Yellow and Yangtze rivers, the earliest Chinese civilizations flourished in isolation from invaders and other foreigners for centuries. To stop Mongols from the north, they built barriers seen by some as early precursors to the Great Wall of China, built later in 220 B.C. 2070 BC-AD 220 14
In 221 BC, Qin Shi Huang conquered the various warring states and created for himself the title of Huangdi or 'emperor' of the Qin, marking the beginning of imperial China. However, the oppressive government fell soon after his death, and was supplanted by the longer-lived Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD). During the Three Kingdoms, the Jin and the Southern and Northern Dynasties,China was in a split state. During the Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties, the economy flourished, science and technology developed, and cultural influence was extensive. During the Zhou Dynasty, the international status reached its peak. During the Liao, Song, Western Xia, Jin and Yuan Dynasty, multicultural integration, economic and technological development reached a new height. In the end of Ming Dynasty,The sprout of capitalism was born in the south of the Yangtze River in China. China's last dynasty was the Qing (1636–1912), which was replaced by the Republic of China in 1912, and then in the mainland by the People's Republic of China in 1949. 15