As individuals interact and lives become interconnected, civilizations grow and cultures advance
Civilizations began by the spark
of the agricultural revolution. Agricultural revolution was the start of the
domestication of plants and animals. These started the first farms. Then they
started creating tools to help them in cutting trees to build more farms and
many more. It was important to human life because it made life easier and it
connected people. People started to settle villages and then those villages
expanded because of the surplus and the many nutrients the village had and then
they turned into staggering cities full of people. These are how the first
civilizations were born. The first were the ancient civilizations in Sumer,
Egypt, China and India. The ancient Sumerians were the very first
civilizations.
Every civilization has 8 common features. The 8 common
features of a civilization are the following:
All the above mentioned features are connected. For example, if someone wants to work in the
government, he or she needs to have specialization in a job which relates to
government matters. Having skills in
government management is not an easy thing.
Only those who come from high social class able to get such skill,
because learning that skill require learning in a top school which is only
available for people coming from the have community. Someone who work in the government will have
authority to make decision for public, such as creating a public work of a
piece of art like a temple to respect their religion beliefs.
The following is the illustration of
how the 8 common features applied in ancient Sumer. In Ancient Sumer organized government was
ruled by a priest and a king. The priest chooses who will be the rightful king
to rule Sumer and to lead the government jointly with the priest. Sumerians had
an established religion. They believed in gods, heaven and the nether world
(under world). The priests said that the gods have chosen a king to rule Sumer.
Writing in Sumer is called Cuneiform. Cuneiform is a type of writing which its
symbols are based on triangle-based shapes. The Sumerians developed a number of
symbols to represent objects or materials. Job specializations in Sumer are,
pottery, weaving, teachers, astronomers, farmers and bankers. Social classes in
ancient Sumer were divided into four. Priests being the highest above all the
classes, the upper class being the 2nd highest, the lower class
being in the middle and the slaves being in the lowest bellow the classes.
Priests holds the highest power because they can order people to do something
to satisfy the gods. People who were in the upper class were the Nobel and the
rich. People in the lower class were farmers, pottery and fisherman. Slaves
were usually war criminals. But they still had some rights to own a land, marry
anyone they want and they could buy their own freedom. Art and architecture
show in ancient Sumer is always about the relationship with the gods. An
artifact looted in Iraq by the US troops few years ago was resemblance of the
face of a Dog Star goddess, Inanna. The public works that they created was a
temple they call the ziggurat. The temple was a house were the gods would visit
periodically. Cities in ancient Sumer were city states. City states were
independent with their own law and government and their own main god. The life chain in Sumer also occurred in
other ancient civilizations, such as China, India and Egypt.
The Ancient artifact of the Dog Star Goddess
Inaana
Inaana
Life in ancient Sumer was different to life today. Long time
ago in Sumer, the father was always in charge of the family. He had the right
to control other family members like his wife or children or could even wish to
sell them at will. If you were a wealthy mom, you would have some freedom. The
mother usually works in the house as a house wive.The father usually manages
the family. He also works in a job. Only wealthy boys can get education in
school. At that time, Ancient Sumer did not have equal rights. They practice
simple cuneiform and simple arithmetic at their school. They still are provided
lunch breaks. They also wear make up by having black eyes and cosmetics.
Sumerians usually have meals whenever they are hungry in order to survive.
Honey is a very important ingredient for it is used to sweeten food and make beer.
Honey is also used in religious ceremonies because they sprinkle the honey on
statues of gods as an offering for the gods. Sumerians usually eat leaven
breads in the morning and they normally eat fish that is mixed with cucumber,
eggs and onions. Sumerian meals were divided to three, breakfast, lunch and
evening meals. Usually Sumerians have entertainment after their meals. They
could hire a singer. A musician or a performer to enjoy their meals. For them
meals are a form of entertainment. In ancient Sumer, people could still buy a
slave. Slaves are usually prisoners of war. In ancient Sumer, they only had one
religion and they believed in many gods in that religion.
A Sumerian male A Sumerian Female
Lesson from early civilizations, life was very different
compare to present time. Because there
was no highly advanced technology, we cannot find pollution. But because of no technology, the poor were always
enslaved by those who hold economic and political power to work for them without
any remuneration at all. This established a discrimination system. The poor and people from tribes, races or
cities who lost the war were always being discriminated and turned to slaves. There was no health problem such as high cholesterol
and blood pressure because people in the early days consume fresh food from
nature. However, the community was very
vulnerable of contaminated disease because awareness of hygiene was very
low. When someone was infected it would
be hard to get cured because people believed on superstitions. In ancient government, governments was ruled
by Kings who hold the power all to himself.
He was appointed by the priest instead by the people. Democracy did not exist at those times, so the
King tend to abuse the power for his own benefits. Nevertheless, this system enabled the government
to make decisions faster.
A king enslaving a peasant in ancient Egypt
Life in modern civilizations were different compared to life in ancient
civilizations. The father is still in charge of the family. But he could not
sell them whatsoever. In modern civilizations, the moms still also have freedom
but now the mom could choose whether she wants to be a housewife or work in a
job in a company like a father. Both boys and girls had equal rights so they
both could go to school. In modern civilizations, we also have subjects like
math, language, etc. in a modern school, we have 2 breaks, snack and lunch
break. We usually eat meals at a specific times in the day. We eat meals in
order to survive not like in early civilizations that meals were used for
entertainment. Both upper class and lower class had the same rights as each
other. There were no discrimination against any class. In meals, we usually
have different tradition in eating our food. Indonesians use a fork and spoon
while Chinese eat using chopsticks. Slavery does not exist anymore because now
people in different classes have equal rights so instead we hire servants which
we pay with descent compensation. In modern civilizations, there is a diversity of other races and people
living in a civilization.
What we know so far about modern civilizations is that life today is better because improvements and achievements in the innovation of science. Science in modern time help us know about how objects were created, the galaxy,
innovation in technology like transportations like cars, planes, etc. and also
we are able to know on how to cure a diseases when someone has one. But, the
innovation of science and technology was misused properly for deadly weapons of
war like the notorious atomic bomb, tanks and other machines of war. Today we have
advanced technology in engineering that we have invented robots for
entertainment, computers for work , games, and transportation to go to places
easier and faster. But then again these types of machines uses energy like the
burning of fossil fuels and coal which causes pollution that could make our
cities dirty and damaging human health. Today we are able to get connected worldwide
and we can talk to people across the country by chatting trough online web in our
PC, tablet and smartphones. But there are predators in the online web which could
send inappropriate stuff to kids using the online web and they could send a
virus or malware to their gadget causing it to be broken. This is called
cybercrime. Today, there are more human rights for people and now there is
democracy so people now vote on who will be their next president and now
there is no more slavery. However there are some complications
in the government when someone begins to do corruption causing the increase of
money in the country. This can cause people to be poor and the poor people will
live in the streets.
Air pollution in modern life, never happened in ancient Civilizations
In conclusion, I think that early and modern civilizations, each of them has
weakness and plus point. Humans had made mistakes in the past and by learning
from those mistakes, they can improve and prevent it from happening in the future.
Humans always find a way to learn from history on how they lived so they can
learn and improve on what their ancestors did. The ancient Sumerians
and other ancient civilizations, not allowed people to elect a leader,
because only the priest has the eligibility. But now because of democracy,
everyone is allowed to vote for their leaders. Ancient civilizations
did slavery and discrimination. Learning these mistakes, human has introduced human rights as the basic foundation for equality. We also inspired by technology
and technics which were created and used by our ancestors. The Ancient Sumerians
created a technic for farming called irrigation, were they make a stream line
drainage which is connected to the river which brings all the water to the farm.
People still use it today, but now improved with hi-tech devices and
computerized tech like sprayers which were also used in gardens. From all of
this, I can conclude that by learning from our ancestor’s past and history,
we may learn the good things they have done, re-apply in our life with various improvement. Further, from the mistake and bad things they have done, we must try preventing it from
happening again.