Grade 11 Unit 3 Part ONE - 2

UNIT THREE
THE ANCIENT WORLD
Introduction
● The earliest state of the world emerged some 6000 years ago.
● There is a little evidence for state formation before the invention of writing.
● The origin of civilization is closely linked with the beginning of cultivation of crops and
domestication of animals which led to Permanent settlement.
● Permanent settlement then in turn led to the emergence of urban centers and the beginning of the
writing system. This sort of civilization had emerged in Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia,
India, China, Greece and Rome.
● Material remains of the ancient civilization had disappeared. With the appearance of the writing
system from 3000 B.C onward it was possible to study the written records. However, many of
these written records have also disappeared and some of them are difficult to interpret. Thus, one
has to be careful in making statements about ancient civilization.
● The religion of Christianity emerged in the first AD in Palestine.
Emergencies of state
Theories of emergencies of state
● States as they emerged were characterized by a relatively large number of people living in a
definite territorial area under a government with coercive (Forcible) powers that is the ability
to use force and punishment to make people obey.
● Organized societies in their rudimentary form had a long period of existence in human history.
Such rudimentary societies include the family, the clan, tribe etc.
State
● Definition- refers to a territorial entity that is politically organized and has a government and a
people.
The highest and most powerful political organization of the society.
● It possesses monopoly power to use resources. It is subjected to no power other than itself. This
implies that the state is Sovereign.
● The agency that acts on the behalf of the state is called the Government.
Theories for emergency of Ancient state
The emergence of state may have been resulted due to the following
❖ Religion
❖ Control of trade routes
❖ War leadership
❖ Irrigation-Oriental despotism Example ( Ancient Egypt(Nile) and Mesopotamia(Tigris and
Euphrates)
Prepared By Bisrat Alemu(MBA) email [email protected]

The nature of early states
● Ancient states had people with specialized skills (Craftsmen’s, Soldiers, officials etc.)
● The surplus of food from development of agriculture was necessary to support other classes and
the state machinery i.e. officials and soldiers.
● The process of division labor leads to specialization which again leads to creation of code of
conduct. Code of conduct helps to know which actions are right and which are wrong. Some of
the codes of conduct are Punctuality, Proper utilization of instruments of labor and working in
cooperation with colleagues.
● Divine right theory- according to this theory empire states are seen as institutions created by
God, the emperors are regarded as God's own representative or agent on earth. The king used to
consider the people as subjects not as citizens.
● Democracy- is a system of government established
by the people in which supreme power vested in the
people and exercised by them or elected agents.
● People were not given equal protection before the
law in the ancient states. However in modern
democracy, in principle citizens are protected and
respected through constitution and government.
● Ancient Greek city- had exercised democracy for
the first time. But it was not open to all members of
the city state.
● Rome-citizenship was limited to a small and
privileged group of Romans only.
o Man owned property women were not
considered citizens.
o In ancient states the rights of citizens were not fully respected.
Ancient World civilizationAfrica
1. Ancient Egypt
⮚ Egypt was one of the ancient civilizations of the
world.
⮚ Greek historian Herodotus said that Egypt was the
gift of the Nile. This means that Egypt could not
have existed without the Nile.
⮚ Egypt became a single united kingdom very early.
⮚ It is the oldest state in the world which has kept its
name, identity and territorial area through time.
⮚ Egypt was unified when a king named Menes
(C.3200 B.C.) united Upper Egypt and Lower
Egypt under his rule.
o Upper Egypt – was what modern Cairo is.

o Lower Egypt- was north of
modern Cairo including the
Nile delta. In all of the 3
kingdoms there were 31
dynasties of indigenous (native)
rulers in Egypt.
⮚ Indigenous rule ended when the final

Persian conquest in 343 B.C alexander the great conquered Egypt from the Persians in 332 B.C
⮚ Macedonia Greek rule continued until Egypt became part of the Roman Empire in 30 B.C.
⮚ After the Pharaohs Egypt did not have any indigenous Egyptian ruler until the 20th century.
⮚ King- in Egypt the king was all powerful.
o He was regarded as an incarnate god and after his death on earth; he would be god
watching over the welfare of Egypt and its people.
o Since the period of the new kingdom the king of Egypt was called Pharaoh. The word
Pharaoh is Hebrew for the ancient Egyptian word meaning Great House.
⮚ Capital City- the capital city of the old kingdom was Memphis located near the site of the
present Cairo.
o During the middle and new kingdom the capital city was moved to Thebes, much
further to the south.
⮚ Viziers- helped the king govern ancient Egypt. They acted as mayors, collected taxes and judges.
⮚ Ancient Egypt was divided into 42 provinces called “nomes”.
⮚ Nomarch- are officials appointed by the king to govern each province.
⮚ People- Most of the ordinary people in ancient Egypt were engaged in agriculture. Farmers grew
crops most of the year by irrigating their land.
o Egyptian peasants had to hand over much of what they produced as taxation to the state
or as payment to the landlords. They had to perform compulsory public labor services or
corvee and some peasants were conscripted into the pharaoh’s armies.
⮚ Religion- Ancient Egyptians worshiped many deities (gods and goddesses) because they believed
that the various deities influence every aspect of nature and every human activity.
o The ancient Egyptians also believed in life after death. This belief in an "afterlife"
sometimes led to expensive preparations for death and burial. It resulted, for example, in
the construction of the pyramids and
other great tombs for kings and queens.
Other ordinary Egyptians had smaller
tombs.
⮚ Pyramids- Ancient Egypt's pyramids are the
oldest and largest stone structures in the world.
The ruins of 35 major pyramids still stand along
the Nile. Three huge pyramids at Giza rank as
one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
The largest one, the Great Pyramid at Giza,
stands about 140 meters high. It must be
remembered that the great stone pyramids were
only constructed in one brief period of the Old
Kingdom.
⮚ New Kingdom- the New Kingdom was a 500-years period in which ancient Egypt became the
world's strongest power. Egypt built a great empire and reached the height of its power during the

1400's BC, under King Thutmose IlI. He led a military campaign into Asia almost yearly for 20
years and brought Palestine and Syria into the Egyptian empire.
o Thutmose also established Egyptian control over Kush and the surrounding Nubia, which
were valuable sources of slaves, copper, gold, ivory and ebony. As a result of these
victories, Egypt became the strongest and wealthiest nation in the Middle East. Rameses
II (r. 1290 1224 BC) was one of the known pharaohs of the time. The well-known voyage
to Punt sent by Queen Hatshepsut had also taken place in the New Kingdom period.
⮚ Ancient Egyptians developed a civilized way of life. They made remarkable progress in government,
religion, engineering and architecture, writing and since including mathematics. Many of these ideas were
taken by the people which they conquered. Egyptian ideas and customs were also spread by means of the
trade which merchants from foreign lands carried on with Egypt.
Kush Meroe
● Kush was a kingdom along the Nile River in

what is now northeastern Sudan. It's founding
date is not known, but it existed as early as 2000
BC and lasted until about AD 350. Kush was a
trading center and it exported slaves, cattle, gold
and ivory.
● Egypt conquered Kush in 1500 BC, and the Kushities
adopted Elements of Egyptian art, language and
religion.
● Kushites conquered Egypt about 750 BC, when its
power declined. Five Kushite rulers successively
ruled Egypt as pharaohs of the Twenty Fifth Dynasty.
During this time, Napata was the capital of the
combined territory of Egypt and Kush.
● The Kushites ruled Egypt until about 670 BC, when Assyrians from Asia attacked Egypt and sacked
Thebes, the former Egyptian capital. An Assyrian army then destroyed Napata, the capital of Kush. The
rulers of Kush fled southwards to central Kush which survived the attack.
● City- Around the sixth century BC, the kingdom of Kush began to expand its territory in the southern
direction. The southern limit of the kingdom was somewhere in the present city of Khartoum. The capital
of the kingdom also shifted to Meroe which was located somewhere in the north of Khartoum.
● The Period during which Meroe served as capital marked the glorious period in the civilization of Kush.
Because of this, the Kushite civilization of this period is often referred to as Merotic civilization.
● The Kushites found iron ore and hardwood. They had a well-developed iron industry and made iron tools
and weapons. The use of iron weapons made the kingdom very powerful militarily. It conquered a large
territory and monopolized the trade of the horn of Africa. The prosperity of Meroe largely depended on this
trade. The main export items included ivory, slaves, rare skins, ostrich feathers, ebony and gold. Meroe
reached the height of its power from the middle of the third century BC to the first century AD. During this
period the people of Meroe developed new styles in art and architecture, used their own language,
invented a system of writing and worshiped their own gods.
● The decline of Meroc began in the middle of the first century AD. This was because of the rise of
the rival empire of Aksum. In the middle of the fourth century AD, the Askumite king Ezana
invaded Meroe. Ezana's army sacked and burned Meroe and thereby brought the ancient
kingdom of Kush to an end.

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UNIT THREE

THE ANCIENT WORLD

Theories of emergencies of state

Theories for emergency of Ancient state

Prepared By Bisrat Alemu(MBA) email [email protected]

Ancient World civilizationAfrica

Prepared By Bisrat Alemu(MBA) email [email protected]

⮚ Indigenous rule ended when the final

Prepared By Bisrat Alemu(MBA) email [email protected]

● Kush was a kingdom along the Nile River in

Prepared By Bisrat Alemu(MBA) email [email protected]

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