Deck 2: E: First Civilizations Cities, States, and Unequal Societies 3500 B.C.E-500 B.C.E

Question 1

Comparative Analysis: Compare and contrast the life of a woman in Egypt to that of a woman living in Mesopotamia.

Answer 1

•The legal status of women
•Evidence of affection between the sexes
A really good essay will go beyond these points to a consideration of why women in Egypt enjoyed a much more equal position to men,possibly bringing in issues such as:
•Urban (Mesopotamia)versus village (Egypt)life
•Relative prosperity of the two lands
•Belief in powerful goddesses (Egypt)versus increasingly weak goddesses (Mesopotamia)

Question 2

Comparative Analysis: Compare and contrast life in a Neolithic village to life in a city in one of the First Civilizations.

Answer 2

•Size of population
•occupation of inhabitants
•Issues of social status
•Government and ceremony
•Defense
•Issues of gender equality or inequality

Question 3

Comparative Analysis: Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the early writing systems depicted in Snapshot, “Writing in Ancient Civilizations,” in the main text.

Answer 3

•Consideration of all writing systems included in the Snapshot,not just one or two•What the writing system could do-could it express all human thought?
•How difficult it would be to read and write using each system,and the length of time needed to learn each one
•How long it would take to write a message using each system
•The expense of writing materials (especially considering the cheapness of Mesopotamian clay compared to Egyptian papyrus)
•The relative advantages of pictographs compared to symbols representing sounds,syllables,or consonants
A really good response will make a meaningful comparison to our modern alphabet.

Question 4

Personal Reflection: Do you think that,on the whole,the emergence of the First Civilizations was a positive or negative development for humankind?