PBS Source for Egypt: Egypt’s Golden Empire

The PBS series Egypt’s Golden Empire seems to be a very legitimate source for anyone trying to learn more about Egypt during the New Kingdom period.  The noted archaeologist and Egyptologist  Dr. Joyce Tyldesley wrote a book to accompany the television series.  She has also written books to accompany several other television series, including Private Lives of the Pharoahs and Egypt. Dr. Zahi Hawass, a noted Egyptologist and archaeologist, also spoke in the television series, along with several other archaeologists and historians.  PBS also has pretty good reputation for putting out accurate information.

This series was created to be viewed by a general audience.  You can tell this because, 1. it was created by PBS (PUBLIC Broadcast Service), and 2. the language is not very difficult to understand, nor is the general knowledge being presented difficult to understand and absorb.  PBS says in its mission statement that they wish to ‘serve the American public with programming and services of the highest quality, using media to educate, inspire, entertain, and express the diversity of perspectives. PBS empowers individuals to achieve their potential and strengthens the social, democratic, and cultural health of the U.S.’ (http://www.pbs.org/aboutpbs/aboutpbs_corp.html).  So, PBS always has their audience (the general public) in mind when they create a program.

There will always be biases in any programs, books, etc. created by anyone (even if it’s just picking what material makes it into the book or program).  The way PBS creates their programs minimizes that bias by trying to present as many different viewpoints on the subject being presented as possible.  While this practice can never remove all bias, it certainly does minimize the amount of bias in the program.

The PBS program Egypt’s Golden Empire seems to be a very legitimate source for anyone trying to learn more about the New Kingdom period in Egypt.  It was produced by a very reliable station (PBS) and was written by a noted Egyptologist, Dr. Joyce Tyldesley, who has written several other programs.  The program has commentary from more than a few noted Egyptologists, archaeologists, and historians, including Dr. Zahi Hawass.  It was created with a general audience in mind, and has much less bias than most sources one finds nowadays.

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Chapter 4 Outline, pg. 94-107

I. The Case of the Hittite Kingdom

A. Climate and environment

1. Kingdom center was the Anatolian plateau.

2. Climate was becoming steadily warmer and drier.

a. Most of the plateau suffered alternating seasonal extremes.

i.  Crops were scorched or frozen, depending on the season.

b. Rainfall in the area was less than 20 in. a year.

3. Set up crops in small patches of alluvium (like the alluvial plains).

B.  The Importance of Trade

1. Became a regional power because of trade.

a.  Received increased trade because of changes in the courses of

the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

b.  Wars, destruction, and new markets in the north gave the Hittites

a lot of trade as well.

2. Archives of Ebla, showing it’s power and importance as a trade hub.

3. Trade generated a lot of wealth for everyone involved.

4. Trade brought a lot of new ideas to the Hittite kingdom.

a. Iron smelting, for one thing.

C. Hittite Society and Politics

1. Single state and economic system, main strength of the Hittite empire.

a.  Many positive consequences

i.  More opportunity for economic specialization

ii. Urbanization

iii. Quicker mobilization of manpower for war.

2. Political system promoted stability.

a.  King was the sun god’s earthly deputy, called ‘My sun’ by subjects.

i.  His responsibilities included war, justice, and relations with the gods.

b. Bureaucratic court.

3. Somewhat arbitrary laws concerning sexual taboos.

a.  Some cases of bestiality punishable by death, others were not.

b.  This could be understood better if we knew more about their religious beliefs.

4. Women had some power in the society.

a.  Mainly as diviners and curers.

D. Fragility and Fall: The End of Hatti

1. Fragile domestic economy.

2. Poor resources in its home territory.

3. Conquest was, in extreme cases, the only way to guarantee the availability of key resources.

a.  Mainly food for the population and tin to make weapons.

b. This need for conquest also led to the downfall of the civilization.

i.  The Hittites’ resources were spread to thin, couldn’t hold the empire together.

4.  Very vulnerable to famine and disease.

a. Several records detail the lack of food and the outbreaks of plagues.

II. Instability and Collapse in the Aegean

A. Cretan Civilization

1. Big enough to be self-sustaining, but very mountainous.

a. Somewhat harsh climate and environment.

2. The Cretan civilization depended on organized agriculture and state-regulated trade

to survive.

a.  The function of the palace as the storehouse was a vital part of this.

i. Functioned as immense storage areas for food and drink.

3. Lots of trade, brought luxury and exotic items to Crete.

4. Average people lived near the margin of malnutrition.

a.  Cretans had a very inefficient system for food distribution.

5. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and war all led to the decline of Cretan civilization.

B. Mycenean Civilization

1. Palace-storehouses similar to those of the Cretans housed kings’ courts.

a. Heavily and cleverly fortified against aggressors.

2. Lots of trade,  all across northern Europe up to Scandinavia.

3. Lots of wars as well.

4.  Abandoned by 1100 B.C.E.

III. A General Crisis in the Eastern Mediterranean World?

A. The Egyptian Experience

1. Egypt invaded by the Sea Peoples

a.  Ramses III manages to defeat them around 1190 B.C.E.

B. The Roots of Instability

1. Sea Peoples overwhelmed city of Ugarit in Syria sometime in the early 12th century.

2. This idea of a crisis from a barbarian invasion had great romantic appeal for Western historians.

a.  Stems from the fall of the Roman Empire.

3.  Invasion caused by the instability of populations driven by starvation and shortages of land.

IV. The Extinction of Harappan Civilization

A. The Evidence of the Rig Veda

1. Evidence for the theory that invaders destroyed the Harappan civilization.

2. Speaks of a people who wanted riches and a life of luxury.

a.  Had great strength in chariots and horses.

3. Favorite god was Indra, the ‘breaker of cities’

4. More likely event is a gradual decline – a climacteric.

TK

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Conrad-Demarest/Jared Diamond Comparison

“Compare the argument and methodological approach of the Conrad-Demarest model with that of Jared Diamond’s TED Talk.”

The Conrad-Demarest model of the rise and fall of empires is based on six preconditions and a militaristic ideology in the state trying to create and expand an empire.  These conditions are 1. state-level governments, 2. high agricultural potential of the environment, 3. an environmental mosaic (states with different environments), 4. several small states with no clearly dominant state, 5. mutual antagonism between those states, and 6. adequate military resources.  The conditions for the rise and fall are exactly the same.  However, the conditions are beneficial when an empire is on the rise, and then lead to problems later on, which lead to an empire’s fall.  The faith of the people needed to sustain a  militaristic ideology starts to erode as the empire grows larger because of the fact that the benefits of increasing an empire’s holdings start becoming harmful after the empire has reached a size where transportation of goods to and from the heart of the empire become difficult.  Extremely large empires had great difficulty transporting food and supplies to the fringes of their empire so that conquest could continue.  Conrad and Demarest claim that, for an empire to last, there must be an ideological shift away from the militaristic ideas that started the empire towards a more peaceful and less conquest oriented ideology.  Otherwise, people start to lose faith when they stop seeing benefits from the conquests, and then they revolt, and then the empire collapses.

Jared Diamond’s model for the fall of empires has five parts: 1. human impact on the environment, 2. climate change, 3. relationships with neighboring friendly societies that may bolster the society, 4. relations with hostile societies, 5. political, economic, social, and cultural factors.  Diamond claims that all of these factors working in concert lead to the collapse of a society.  He also notices several common threads between the falls of most societies.  Most societies collapsed quite rapidly right after reaching their peak, normally because of either a mismatch between available resources and the rate at which those resources are consumed or a mismatch between economic outlay and economic potential.  The second common thread is that many subtle environmental problems led to the collapse of most societies.  The final common thread is the inability of a society to perceive the damage they are causing to their environment.  This often occurs because of a conflict of interest between short-term interests for the elites in a society and the long-term interests of the society as a whole.

Both models have environmental problems as a cause of the collapse of societies.  The Diamond model focuses mainly on these environmental issues and the ideology of the society as a whole, with some consideration for outside hostile influences.  The Conrad-Demarest focuses less on the environmental impact and more on the problems that militaristic ideologies present once military conquest is no longer viable.  They talk about how it is very difficult for a society that has had a primarily militaristic ideology to change to some other ideology quickly enough to preserve their empire.  Diamond doesn’t have a model for the rise of societies at all, while the Conrad-Demarest model explains both the rise of a society and its eventual fall.

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Ch. 2 Critical Questions 1-4

1. How did the development of “civilization” change humankind’s perception of its relationship with the environment?

a.  How did humans view their relationship with the environment before the development of ‘civilization?’

b.  How did humans view their relationship with the environment after the development of civilization?

c.  Compare these two different views.

d.  Conclusion

2. Why does Fernández-Armesto suggest that societies that practice agriculture are the most unstable? What connection might exist between the development of agriculture and the instability of a society?

a.  State Armesto’s reasons that justify his claim that agricultural societies are the most unstable.

b.  State reasons that could justify why agricultural societies were so unstable (competition for land, etc.).

c.  Synthesize response around these points.

3. Why did James Cook (and more generally those who look at and interpret societies very different from their own) view the society on Possession Island to be so perplexing? How does one’s own experience shape the perception one has of others?

a.  State Cook’s reasons for looking at the society of Possession Island as a backwards one.

b.  State how one’s experiences can change the way one views others (using personal examples, things one has heard of, etc.).

c.  Synthesize response around these points.

4. How did the transition to settled agriculture often produce negative effects and new challenges in contrast to the life of foragers?

a.  State the advantages and disadvantages of the foraging lifestyle.

b.  State the advantages and disadvantages of the agricultural lifestyle.

c.  Compare and contrast each lifestyle.

d.  Synthesize response around these points of comparison.

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Critical Response Question

5. How does Fernández-Armesto’s description of humans throughout the chapter (e.g on p. 9 “In this environment…”particular kind of habitat”; p. 14 “Creatures like us…”) reflect a different treatment and tone toward humans than the one typically found in history texts (and popular culture)?

His descriptions of humans are rather disparaging compared to how most people now a days describe our race.  On pg. 9 of the textbook, Mr. Armesto talks about how poorly equipped humans really are, at least physically.  He talks about how we have “inferior senses of sight, smell, and hearing, slow movements, unthreatening teeth and nails, poor digestions, and weak bodies that confine us to the ground” (Armesto 9).  He goes on to talk about the advantages we have: our ability to “sweat profusely over our hairless skins to keep cool during long chases, and we can ward off rival predators with our relatively accurate throwing-arms and well-coordinated eye-arm movements” (9).  This is a far from glorious description of humans, and is entirely the opposite of the way most people view humankind: as the ‘greatest’ species on the planet.  We subjugate nature in many ways, which gives us the idea that humans are the ‘greatest’ species on our wonderful planet (zoos, cutting down trees or through mountains to create cities and roads, etc.).  We make movies about the subjugation of nature (King Kong, while fictional, is a great example of this).  Our culture is so wrapped in the idea of the greatness of the human race that we cannot see that, in all reality, we’re no more special than any other species on the planet. It is for this reason that Mr. Armesto writes about humans in the way he does, to remind us that humans aren’t anymore or less special than any other species on Earth.  If we didn’t have such highly developed brains (the only reason that we were able to survive at all), we would have been saber tooth chow many thousands of years ago.

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Ch. 1 ID Terms: 7-9

7.  War- natural human tendency or cultural invention?

Armesto provides both sides viewpoints (natural tendency and cultural invention) on war in the textbook.  Armesto seems to support the idea of war as a cultural invention.  He seems to put it down as a result of ‘male dominance’ in ape societies, and relating this to humans (since our societies are related in this way).  Armesto argues that this male dominance occurred because of the way the hunters (the males) would distribute meat they had taken in the hunts.  This can be considered as a cultural development.

8. Venus of Willendorf and Venus of Laussel

The Venus of Willendorf is a carving of a plump female created 30,000 years ago, named for the place in Germany where it was found.  The Venus of Laussel is very similar.  It too depicts a plump female, and was created more than 20,000 years ago.  It was found in France.  Both of these carvings show that Ice Age peoples held body fat in high esteem.  It shows that they enjoyed revelry and that women had an involvement in ‘sacred activity.’  They also show that there were accomplished artists during this time period.

9. Ice Age affluence

This is a term Armesto uses to describe the abundance of game and other food, and the long hours of leisure time that people in the Ice Age enjoyed.  These things allowed them to really observe and think about nature.  This allowed their art and culture to flourish.

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