Introduction
Oriental Antiquity is a concept used to identify the civilizations that developed during the Ancient Ages in the East, especially in North Africa and the Middle East, such as the Egyptians and Mesopotamians. This denomination is given in opposition to the concept of Classical Antiquity – or Western – which is mainly dedicated to the study of Greece It is Pomegranate.
The civilizations of Eastern Antiquity, despite having several peculiarities among themselves, have some common characteristics. These societies were characterized by the formation of the first centralized states, with theocratic governments based on polytheistic beliefs, that is, they believed in more than one deity.
In the case of Mesopotamia and Egypt, they were economies based on the production of agricultural surpluses, which depended heavily on available water resources: the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, for the Mesopotamians, and the Nile River, for the Egyptians.
Because of this, the region where these civilizations flourished became known as the “ fertile crescent ”. In this sense, the States that were established in this region had ownership of cultivable land, and production took place through collective servitude regimes.
The dispute over dominance over that territory made the fertile crescent region the target of intense conflicts and came under the control of different peoples during Antiquity.
Egypt
The Egyptian civilization was built in North Africa from different groups, called nome, which settled on the banks of the Nile River.
With the growth of these settlements and the need for labor to expand cultivable areas, the Nomes were organized into two kingdoms, Upper and Lower Egypt.
This is the first phase in the history of Egypt, called “ pre-dynastic ”. Around 3100 BC, Menes, king of Lower Egypt, leads the conquest of Upper Egypt and unifies the two regions, giving rise to the second phase of Egypt’s history, the “ dynastic ” period.
The phase between the unification of Egypt and the creation of the Empire was known as the Archaic Period (3100-2700 BC). It was followed by the Old (2700-2200 BC), Middle (2050-1750 BC), and New Kingdom (1550-1070 BC), when Egypt entered its phase of decadence and suffered strong internal turmoil, once again leading to the division into two kingdoms. around 1100 BC, and subsequently to foreign invasions.
During the Empire’s peak period, society was dominated by the Pharaoh, Egypt’s greatest authority and considered a divine figure. Below Pharaoh were the nobles and priests. These were responsible for religious matters.
One rung down in the hierarchy were the bureaucrats and scribes, Pharaoh’s employees responsible for the administration of the Empire. And, in the lower stratum, there were peasants, servants, and slaves, responsible for production and the great works of the Empire, such as the Pyramids and water works.
During almost the entire Egyptian Empire, religion was polytheistic, with anthropoid zoomorphic characteristics (that is, the gods had human and animal forms), but with a brief monotheistic period, under the command of Pharaoh Akhenaten.
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a region located in the Middle East, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and its name means “between rivers”. Like what had happened in Egypt, the Mesopotamia region had extensive fertile areas, which favored human occupation.
The different peoples who populated the region organized themselves into city-states, that is, independent cities that had their own autonomous government.
Among the peoples who succeeded each other in Mesopotamia since around 4000 BC, there are Sumerians, Akkadians, Amorites, Assyrians, and Chaldeans. The organization of these people, in general, was based on a centralized State, with polytheistic beliefs, the existence of a stratum of priests, and the regime of collective servitude for the production and construction of works.
We can highlight, among the specificities of each of these peoples, the creation of cuneiform writing by the Sumerians; and the elaboration of the “ Code of Hammurabi ” by the Amorites (or Babylonians). The Code of Hammurabi is the oldest known code of laws, based on the “ law of Talion ”, whose best-known principle was that of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”.
The last of these people to dominate the Mesopotamian region before Hellenistic domination (330 BC) were the Chaldeans, also called Neo-Babylonians, whose most important king was Nebuchadnezzar, responsible for the construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the slavery of the Hebrew people in the so-called “Babylonian captivity”.
Other peoples and civilizations
Phoenicians
People who lived on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, in Asia, were organized into city-states. They exerted great influence in the region through maritime trade and were the creators of the first alphabet.
Persians
They were located, at first, to the north of the Persian Gulf, but the Persian Empire was responsible for one of the greatest territorial expansions of Antiquity, occupying Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, also reaching North Africa and the banks of the Danube River, in Europe.
Because of this, the empire was divided into “ satrapies ”, types of provinces that had relative autonomy. The Persians are also responsible for the spread of dualism (the belief in the existence of two forces, one representing good and the other evil).
Hebrews
They were a monotheistic people, that is, they believed in a single god. During Antiquity, they lived in the Palestine region, but were also enslaved by the Egyptians and, later, by the Neo-Babylonians.