Gilgamesh Chapter Summaries
Chapter Summaries
Chapter 1
Introduction: About five thousand years ago, the people of Sumer cherished the story of Gilgamesh who is the superhero king of Uruk. When Gilgamesh learns of Enkido from a hunter, he sends a temple prostitute to tame him whose words and actions signal the principal traits of civilized life in Sumer. The Sumerians, like many others, equated civilization with their own lifestyles. Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Indus Valley civilizations all developed along river floodplains. Periodic flooding fertilized the land with silt and provided water for agriculture but also threatened lives and property.
Before Civilization: Hunting and food-gathering people, knows as foragers, obtained the bulk of their nourishment from wild vegetables but later discovered that cooking their food in wildfire tasted better. Around 10,000 years ago, some human groups began to meet their food needs by raising domesticated plants and animals, however, the climate and weather conditions often greatly affected the way the crops grew. Eventually, farmers became much more standard compared to foragers whose food supply became …show more content…
The egyptian state centered on the king, also known as the pharaoh, who was considered a god on earth, and later on, demanded the construction of stepped pyramids. In the early second millennium b.c.e., Egyptian forces invaded Nubia and extended the Egyptian border as far as the Third Cataract of the Nile, taking possession of the gold fields. Peasants established the majority of Egypt’s population and lived in rural villages where they devoted themselves to the seasonally changing tasks of agriculture. Much of the country’s wealth was used to win the gods’ favor, maintain the continuity of divine kingship, and ensure the renewal of life-giving
Chapter 1
Introduction: About five thousand years ago, the people of Sumer cherished the story of Gilgamesh who is the superhero king of Uruk. When Gilgamesh learns of Enkido from a hunter, he sends a temple prostitute to tame him whose words and actions signal the principal traits of civilized life in Sumer. The Sumerians, like many others, equated civilization with their own lifestyles. Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Indus Valley civilizations all developed along river floodplains. Periodic flooding fertilized the land with silt and provided water for agriculture but also threatened lives and property.
Before Civilization: Hunting and food-gathering people, knows as foragers, obtained the bulk of their nourishment from wild vegetables but later discovered that cooking their food in wildfire tasted better. Around 10,000 years ago, some human groups began to meet their food needs by raising domesticated plants and animals, however, the climate and weather conditions often greatly affected the way the crops grew. Eventually, farmers became much more standard compared to foragers whose food supply became …show more content…
The egyptian state centered on the king, also known as the pharaoh, who was considered a god on earth, and later on, demanded the construction of stepped pyramids. In the early second millennium b.c.e., Egyptian forces invaded Nubia and extended the Egyptian border as far as the Third Cataract of the Nile, taking possession of the gold fields. Peasants established the majority of Egypt’s population and lived in rural villages where they devoted themselves to the seasonally changing tasks of agriculture. Much of the country’s wealth was used to win the gods’ favor, maintain the continuity of divine kingship, and ensure the renewal of life-giving