Ancient Civilizations: Ancient Egypt And Southwest Asia

John Price

Dennis Geffert

History 1010

February 7th, 2018

The Old World

There are many Civilizations in today’s world which are in almost every part of the world. But the first civilizations to have made a last longing impact on today’s world, are the Ancient Egyptians from Egypt, and the Sumerians from Mesopotamia. Now for both of these Civilizations, each contributed to the development of Africa and also Southwest Asia in their own ways, but in a sad case, only able to do so much because of what natural resources that that the land around them provided and how the climate affected those natural resources. Furthermore, just by looking on where there civilizations on a map (by using topography) were located, it has provided the information

Usually Historians and archaeologist divided up ancient Egypt up into three periods. Now Ancient Egypts first monumental period, was known as “The Old Kingdom”, which started around 2686 BC and lasted around 2134 BC. It was during this revolutionary period that the one of the Great Pyramids were built by King Cheops(Khufu), and is also the last of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Unfortunately, the age of the Old Kingdom collapsed, around 2181 BC to 2050 BC due to the unstable government, and the rapid series of bad harvest due to severe dry spell that hit their crops. Now Traveling further down the line of Ancient Egypt, comes the second period, which was named,

Just like there neighbors in Egypt, the Sumerians (Mesopotamia people) also depended on water, which came from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Now like every civilization that was built in the arid desert and was dependent on rivers, came with setbacks such as, the Epic of Gilgamesh (which was deforestation), flooding, and unfornatly the geographical location of Mesopotamia. Now during the period of Mesopotamia which started around 3500 BC to 2000 BC, the Sumerians began to settle in a land called “The Fertile Crescent” which meant that the soil was uniquely fertile and that it was located between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Additionally, Jessica Elam Miller, from study.com, who has a Master of Arts of History, went in depth of their location, “This region is situated between two major rivers: the Tigris and the Euphrates. Mesopotamia literally means 'land between rivers' in ancient Greek. Its Northern area consisted of plains, where residents could grow wheat and raise cattle. Its Southern areas had jungles, marine life and rich soil good for farming. For other resources, like timber, hard stones and metals, imports from the East and the North had to be made.” Now since the region of Mesopotamia was mostly flat and lacking tress and mountains, came with the violent nature of constant invasions and conquest from foreign invaders, which