Description
Project A
Territorial States and Microsocieties
Your text describes the major river civilizations in the ancient world, where the first territorial states and early empires emerged. In addition, there were micro societies in the Aegean region and in the South Pacific.
For this assignment, you will be working in collaborative groups, randomly assigned. You'll be using Google docs to exchange ideas and research results, and to create a written response to the prompt based upon your ideas and research. This will not be a lengthy document, so please don't panic. After assignments are submitted, you'll be engaging in a peer review.
The Assignment
There are five areas to be compared in this assignment. Your group will decide how to distribute the work - you can assign each person a civilization, or have subgroups, or have everyone cover all regions (and then hash out the position in an essay). You should probably select a group leader, someone you are comfortable taking the lead in keeping people on track & schedule and overseeing the writing of the response to the prompt.
The civilizations to be considered include the following, with a website useful for basic information about that civilization:
- Ancient Egypt: British Museum: Ancient Egypt
- Mesopotamia: British Museum: Mesopotamia
- Shang Dynasty, China: British Museum: Ancient China
- Indus Valley Civilization: British Museum: Indus Valley
- Knossos-Minoan Civilization: Nat'l Geographic: Minoans
Here is the topic to be addressed in essay form:
Part 1:
Chapters 2 and 3 focus on the development of first states, urban development, and the development of territorial states. In your text, the authors state:
Simply making a city was therefore not enough: urban design reflected the city's role as a wondrous place to pay homage to the gods and their human intermediary, the king. (Text, p. 52)
Although this statement refers to the growing settlements in Mesopotamia, the same can be applied to most emerging civilizations. In this assignment, we'll focus on the transition from early urban societies established along river basins to territorial states:
Using the text and the websites for the assigned civilizations, draft a collaborative essay of at least 500 words comparing how cities used writing and religion to maintain social hierarchies and to consolidate the ruler's power over larger areas and populations.
Use specific examples in the essay to make your point(s). Be sure to draw on the expansion of the civilization, not just its origins.
Part 2:
Once the essays have been submitted, your group will peer review another group's essay - I'll let you know which group you are to review. This is NOT about critiquing their essay, but creating a dialogue. Imagine you were having a compare/contrast meeting and the subject was ancient civilizations. Not likely, I know, but you get the idea!
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Thank You.
Explanation & Answer
Hello, I hope this answer meets your standards, please feel free to contact me for any clarifications.
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Running Head: TERRITORIAL STATES AND MICRO SOCIETIES
The Territorial States and Micro-societies
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TERRITORIAL STATES AND MICRO SOCIETIES
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Introduction
During early civilizations, cities played a central role as people were migrating from
regions within the surroundings into cities with the aim of working, trading and living there.
With the diverse backgrounds in which people were coming from, they had to find a common
way of interacting in order to coexist, this factor led to the sharing of institutions both leadership
and religious including language to foster unity. The political, religious and social institutions
that had been previously scattered were consolidated within cities, these aspects helped in the
creation and reinforcement of social hierarchies. While empires conquered and expanded their
territories, there were challenges in incorporating these people both socially, culturally and
religiously. In an attempt to secure political legitimacy, cities under their rulers used different
methods in order to legitimize and consolidate their powers, religion and writing played a major
role among the aspects.
Impact of Writing on Social Hierarchies and Consolidating Power
Writing formed an important part in controlling micro-societies and the territorial states,
among the Egyptians, the writing was done using a system known as hieroglyphics, and the
written contents were preserved on clay or stone while some on papyrus. Through writing, rulers
were able to communicate to their subjects when passing a message, the aspect of writing was an
important tool that transcendent boundaries. Hieroglyphics used images as a means of expression
of sounds and meanings when mobilizing resources and also helped in record keeping (Hope,
2010).
In Mesopotamia, Cuneiform, one of the oldest form of writing was used for record
keeping for economic exchanges and in the management of complex institutions. Through
writing, the ruling class was able to maintain law and order. The Shang Dynasty in Ancient
TERRITORIAL STATES AND MICRO SOCIETIES
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China used a completely different form of writing, their form of wording, also known as
logograms entails the use of symbols to represent words or a meaning. These inscriptions were
put on bones or animal shells known as oracle bones. They were used mostly by the Chinese
kings while ...
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