Uncover deep mysteries about the ancient civilizations of the Near East-and their indelible impact on the history of the world-with Origins of Great Ancient Civilizations. This course is your introduction to the fascinating civilizations that often receive only a few lines of cursory discussion in the average textbook on Western civilization, including: the Hitties, the Assyrians, and the Sumerians. Along the way, award-winning Professor Kenneth W. Harl examines the evolution of writing, the development of vast empires, and the growth of trade. Filled with insights into ancient history, this course will give you a new appreciation of our own roots, and a rock-solid foundation for deeper exploration.
Origins of Great Ancient Civilizations
Decipher the secrets of lost and mysterious civilizations such as the Minoans, the Carthaginians, and many others in this course on the first empires in Western history.
Overview
About
Dr. Kenneth W. Harl is Professor of Classical and Byzantine History at Tulane University in New Orleans, where he teaches courses in Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Crusader history. He earned his B.A. from Trinity College and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University. Recognized as an outstanding lecturer, Professor Harl has received numerous teaching awards at Tulane, including the coveted Sheldon H. Hackney Award. He has earned Tulane's annual Student Body Award for Excellence in Teaching nine times and is the recipient of Baylor University's nationwide Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teachers. In 2007, he was the Lewis P. Jones Visiting Professor in History at Wofford College. An expert on classical Anatolia, he has taken students with him into the field on excursions and to assist in excavations of Hellenistic and Roman sites in Turkey. Professor Harl has also published a wide variety of articles and books, including his current work on coins unearthed in an excavation of Gordion, Turkey, and a new book on Rome and her Iranian foes. A fellow and trustee of the American Numismatic Society, Professor Harl is well known for his studies of ancient coinage. He is the author of Civic Coins and Civic Politics in the Roman East, A.D. 180-275 and Coinage in the Roman Economy, 300 B.C. to A.D. 700.
01: Cradles of Civilization
The opening lecture introduces the earliest civilizations of the Tigris-Euphrates, Nile, and Indus River valleys, which emerge c. 3500-3000 B.C. from Neolithic villages.
33 min
02: First Cities of Sumer
We explore the economic, social, and religious life of the Sumerians, whose mastery of writing and long-distance trade make them the progenitors of the urban civilization of the ancient Near East.
31 min
03: Mesopotamian Kings and Scribes
A look at three classes of people-kings, scribes, and soldiers-illuminates the creation of wider political institutions in ancient Mesopotamia, from the regional kingdoms to the territorial empires of the early and middle Bronze Age.
30 min
04: Hammurabi’s Babylon
We end our survey of Mesopotamian civilization in the Bronze Age with an examination of the career and kingdom of Hammurabi, King of Babylon, who establishes the cultural underpinnings of Mesopotamian civilization thereafter.
31 min
05: Egypt in the Pyramid Age
We begin three lectures on Egypt with a focus on the so-called early dynastic period and the Old Kingdom, beginning with a look at some of the basic features of early Egyptian civilization and the unique characteristics of the Nile.
31 min
06: The Middle Kingdom
This lecture examines a key period of Egyptian history, which is roughly contemporaneous with the Babylon of Hammurabi, during which Egypt for the first time expands its horizons beyond its own frontiers.
31 min
07: Imperial Egypt
Egypt's monarchy comes to play the dominant role in the Near East until the empire comes to an end with attacks associated with the so-called "Sea Peoples"-invaders coming out of both Libya and the Aegean world.
30 min
08: New Peoples of the Bronze Age
We complete our discussion of the Bronze Age with a look at three areas influenced by the early river valley civilizations: the region known as the Levant, the area that is today Asiatic Turkey, and the world of the Aegean.
31 min
09: The Collapse of the Bronze Age
The great empires of the late Bronze Age fall in the wake of migrations and barbarian invasions usually associated with the advent of iron technology. Though this has been explained as the result of natural disasters, the imperial order did not collapse so much as fragment.
30 min
10: From Hebrews to Jews
This lecture deals with the evolution of a group of Canaanite speakers to a people with a monotheistic faith attached not to a particular place, but to one's perceptions, ethical beliefs, and worship of a transcendent God.
30 min
11: Imperial Assyria
Despite their remarkable reputation for ferocity, the Assyrians do more than forge the first imperial order since the late Bronze Age; they set down many of the foundations upon which the Persians will build their far more successful and larger empire.
31 min
12: The Persian Empire
We conclude the course with a look at an empire that may have had, at its peak, as many as 40 million subjects, and which, in its imperial organization, is perhaps the best-ordered until the age of Rome.
31 min
