《地中海古文明》PPT课件.ppt

Ancient Egyptian Civilization,Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization located in Northeastern Africa. It was concentrated along the Nile River in what are now the modern countries of Egypt and Sudan.,Pre-dynastic Egypt began to take shape as early as 4000 BC. Southern states, such as Abydos, Naqada, and Hierakonpolis, began to spread their culture to the North and dominate the Northern kings. Abydos emerged as the power center around 3200 BC, launched trade with the Levant, and set the stage for dynastic Egypt.The Ancient Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh, Menes/Narmer. The history of ancient Egypt occurred in a series of stable Kingdoms, separated by periods of relative instability known as Intermediate Periods.,The Old Kingdom, of the Early Bronze Age, the Middle Kingdom, of the Middle Bronze Age, the New Kingdom, of the Late Bronze Age, and the Napatan/Ethiopian/Kushite/Nubian Kingdom, of the 7th century BC. Egypt reached the pinnacle of its power during the New Kingdom, in the Ramesside period, after which it entered a period of slow decline. Egypt was conquered by a succession of foreign powers in this late period. In the aftermath of Alexander the Greats death, one of his generals, Ptolemy Soter, established himself as the new ruler of Egypt. This Ptolemaic Dynasty ruled Egypt until 30 BC, when it fell to the Roman Empire and became a Roman province.,The success of ancient Egyptian civilization came partly from its ability to adapt to the conditions of the Nile River Valley. The predictable flooding and controlled irrigation of the fertile valley produced surplus crops, which fueled 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 defeat foreign enemies and 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.,The many achievements of the ancient Egyptians include the quarrying, surveying and construction techniques that facilitated the building of monumental pyramids, temples, and obelisks; a system of mathematics, a practical and effective system of medicine, irrigation systems and agricultural production techniques, the first known ships,Egyptian faience and glass technology, new forms of literature, and the earliest known peace treat.Egypt left a lasting legacy. Its art and architecture were widely copied, and its antiquities carried off to far corners of the world. Its monumental ruins have inspired the imaginations of travellers and writers for centuries. A new-found respect for antiquities and excavations in the early modern period led to the scientific investigation of Egyptian civilization and a greater appreciation of its cultural legacy.,Hellenic Civilization,Hellenistic civilization (Greek civilization beyond classical Greeks) represents the zenith of Greek influence in the ancient world from 323 BC to about 146 BC (or arguably as late as 30 BC). Hellenistic civilization was preceded by the Classical Hellenic period, and followed by Roman rule over the areas Greece had earlier dominated even though much of Greek culture, religion, art and literature still permeated Romes rule, whose elite spoke and read Greek as well as Latin.,The spread of Hellenistic culture was sparked by the conquests of Alexander the Great. After his ventures of the Persian Empire, Hellenistic kingdoms were established throughout south-west Asia (the Near and Middle East) and north-east Africa (ancient Egypt and Cyrene in ancient Libya). This resulted in the export of Greek culture and language to these new realms, and moreover Greek colonists themselves. Equally, however, these new kingdoms were influenced by the indigenous cultures, adopting local practices where beneficial, necessary or convenient.,Hellenistic civilization thus represents a fusion of the Ancient Greek world with that of the Near East, Middle East and Southwest Asia, and a departure from earlier Greek attitudes towards “barbarian“ cultures. The extent to which genuinely hybrid Greco-Asian cultures emerged is contentious; consensus tends to point towards pragmatic cultural adaptation by the elites of society, but for much of the populations, life would probably have continued much as it had before.,The Hellenistic period was characterized by a new wave of Greek colonization(as distinguished from that occurring in the 8th-6th centuries BC) which established Greek cities and kingdoms in Asia and Africa.Those new cities were composed of Greek colonists who came from different parts of the Greek world, and not, as before, from a specific “mother city“.The main cultural centers expanded from mainland Greece to Pergamon, Rhodes, and new Greek colonies such as Seleucia, Antioch and Alexandria. This mixture of Greek-speakers gave birth to a common Attic-based dialect, known as Hellenistic Greek, which became the lingua franca through the Hellenistic world.,The term “Hellenistic“ itself is derived from (Hlln), the Greeks traditional name for themselves. It was coined by the historian Johann Gustav Droysen to refer to the spreading of Greek culture and colonization over the non-Greek lands that were conquered by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC, compared to “Hellenic“ which describes Greek culture in its native form. There has been much debate about the validity of Droysens ideas, leading many to reject the label Hellenistic (at least in the specific meaning of Droysen).However, the term Hellenistic can still be usefully applied to this period in history, and, moreover, no better general term does so.,Ancient Roman Civilization,Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world. In its centuries of existence, Roman civilization shifted from a monarchy to an oligarchic republic to an increasingly autocratic empire. It came to dominate South-Western Europe, South-Eastern Europe and the Balkans, and the Mediterranean region through conquest and assimilation.,Plagued by internal instability and attacked by various migrating peoples, the western part of the empire, including Italy, Hispania, Gaul, Britannia and Africa broke up into independent kingdoms in the 5th century AD. This splintering is the landmark historians use to divide the ancient period from the medieval era and the “Dark Ages“.,The Eastern Roman Empire survived this crisis and was governed from Constantinople after Diocletian divided the Empire in 286 AD. It comprised Greece, the Balkans, Asia Minor, Syria