Early Civilizations Table
Place | Key Geographical Features | Religious Beliefs | Political Structures | Social and Cultural Characteristics |
| Mesopotamia | River Tigris and Euphrates where most of Mesopotamia’s cities were developed Hills and plains Described Northern Mesopotamia while the southern Mesopotamia was made up of Marshy areas and Plains which are Wide, flat and barren | They had a polytheistic and henotheistic kind of religion Each City had its God whom they named a Patron god/goddess Dominion and power came from god Priests acted as the arbitrator between each god and man Priests were also the envoy of god Cosmology stated that They belief the earth was flat with a space around it | They never had a central government instead each region had its own administration which was kings. | People were categorized into High which consisted of kings, priests, landlord and rich business men. Middle class which had people in the production industry like farmers, fishermen, artists etc. The last category is low social class which consisted of slaves and poor people. |
| Egypt | River Nile which flow through Egypt. A desert, Fertile Nile valley A delta(a land which is formed at a mouth of a river as it empties to body of water) Kemet (The black land) which was referred to the productive land on the shores of the Nile Deshret (Red Land) which was referred to the desert. | Was a polytheistic. This god included, god of the sun, war and dead The Worship to this god were done in temples and were ran by priests. The Images of this gods were concealed from the public unless on special circumstances however, the Egyptians were given allowed to make small statues to represent their gods Egyptians wore amulets and charms to earn protection against evils They believed in life after death. | Egypt was characterized by theocratic monarchy The ultimate ruler was the king who received his orders from the gods | Ancient Egyptians had a social structure which was sorted into a pyramid. The top being the king and the lowest being the slaves. |
| India | Brahmaputra River. Ganges River which flow on the northern India. A triangular shaped plateau located in the southern India named the Deccan Plateau. Hindu Kush Mountain which acted as a blockade between Afghanistan and Indus river valley. Indus river which was sourced from Himalayas Mountain melted snow. | Hinduism was the religion of ancient Indians in the 250 BCE It had a sacred text named Bhagavad Gita They did their worship to many gods who are part of one supreme god Indians believed in Reincarnation | There Were no democratic leaders at moment instead there were leaders who headed the tribes and were named the Raja or the King. | The society is categorized into four groups namely Brahmins, sudras, vaisyas and kshatriyas |
| China | The Yellow river which was named “ the Cradle of Chinese civilization” since it pioneered the formation of Chinese civilization. It flowed on the northern part of china The Yangtze River which flowed on the southern part of china. Most farmers lived and grown rice here. It was also called the China Sorrow Himalayas Mountain which acted as a sacred place of worship. Gobi desert and Taklamakan desert which acted as barrier against invasion. | The major religion in the 250 BCE was Taoism Was pioneered by Zhou. It had a believe system that disliked laws and administration. They believed that humans ought to be one thing with nature and other creations. Everything in the natural had forces that gave them balance. This forces were the Yin and Yang | The Ancient Chinese were ruled by dynasties which at 250 BCE was Qin Dynasty. This dynasty was formed by emperor Qin Shi Huang. | They society was also organized into three categories; high class which consisted of emperors, middle class which had the biggest number of the population and finally the low class which consisted of slaves. |
Table 1 : Early civilization table
Comparison of Ancient civilization of Mesopotamia and Egypt
Early Civilization
The ancient civilization between Egypt and Mesopotamia grew simultaneously based on the mighty rivers that provided plenty of resources. The river-valley, as well as geography significantly determined the outcomes in the two regions in terms of agriculture, religious formations as well as government structures (Hillel, 1992). The civilizations of the two regions was based built on their major rivers, that is, Tigris and Euphrates for Mesopotamia and Nile River for Egypt. The rivers were essential for irrigations as they provided adequate water for irrigations and fertile soils (silt) for crop cultivation.
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Mesopotamia and Egypt share a lot of characteristics in common, but the most outstanding is their development as river valley civilization. Civilization is defined as an organized culture encompassing many communities often on the scale of a nation or a people; a stage or a system of social, political, or technical development (Friedman, 1994). Civilized societies have a prearranged power over natural elements. Mesopotamia was situated in the midst of two rivers Tigris and Euphrates and on the other hand, was Egypt which developed across the Nile River. These natural phenomena gave room for both civilizations to flourish. (Friedman, 1994).
The two civilizations were advantaged similarly because of the productive land present along with their significant rivers. They learned sophisticate ways of utilizing the streams productively and how to limit their damages. Irrigation helped them enormously. The two countries came up with irrigation techniques and schemes which later led to the people erecting building creating a city and following cities. These cities included the Ur and the Eriku in Mesopotamia and Thebes in ancient Egypt. This irrigation also served to improve agriculture which was the economic activity in the two regions hence making farmer grow better economically.
However, the two regions had differences which came out from their belief systems and social structures. The significant difference between the two is the system of administration and governance. In Egypt, their leadership was centralized. They had kings whom they later named them the Pharaoh while the Mesopotamian kind of leadership was based on cities popularly named political units. Each political group had its leader. (Finer, et. al. 1997).
Religious Beliefs
The two regions deferred when it came to faith and beliefs. They both worshipped and offered sacrifices to multiple gods and goddesses in temples and carried amulets for protection against evil and also believed in magic. Their religions were structured by the state. Additionally, leaders from these two religions were related to the gods they worshipped and the people believed that these leaders had great powers that even controlled wealth. The primary difference is that the Egyptians believed in an afterlife which was never employed in the Mesopotamian belief system. The Egyptians believed that the human soul could not survive the afterlife without a body forcing the priest to perform a process called mummification to keep the dead bodies safe. These bodies are believed to be used by the owners in the afterlife.
Geographical Features
The rivers, that is, Nile river in Egypt flooded regularly and had receding patterns and the Egyptians would predict easily the seasons to farm and harvest. The Egyptians would also predict easily then the flood lines would occur since most of their houses were built next to the rivers. On the other hand, the people of Mesopotamia were not lucky since the Tigris and the Euphrates could not be predicted and this led to poor farming which caused food shortages. Also, navigating the two rivers was not easy and this significantly contributed to political divide in Mesopotamia.
Social/Cultural Characteristics
There was a similarity between the social and cultural characteristics between Egyptians and the Mesopotamians in their writing systems known as the Cuneiform and which later evolved to and resembled the actual objects. Also, there was a similarity between the Egyptian Culture and the Mesopotamian culture in the way they domesticated their crops, animals, their ways of trade and writings. On the other hand, there were several differences in their which were wide because of their geographical locations. The people of Mesopotamia had no access to stones imported by the Egyptians for their monuments while the Egyptians had an easy access to these resources from river Nile.
References
Edwards-Jones, G., Davies, B., & Hussain, S. S. (2009). Ecological economics: an introduction . John Wiley & Sons.
Finer, S. E., & Finer, S. E. (1997). The History of Government from the Earliest Times: Ancient monarchies and empires (Vol. 1). Oxford University Press, USA.
Friedman, J. (1994). Cultural identity and global process (Vol. 31). Sage.
Hillel, D. (1992). Out of the Earth: Civilization and the Life of the Soil . Univ of California Press.
Jaspers, K. (2014). The Origin and Goal of History (Routledge Revivals) . Routledge.
