Mediterranean Civilizations

• Mediterranean Sea: the sea that is surrounded by Europe to the north, Africa to the south, Asia to the east, Straits of Gibraltar to west (opening to the Atlantic)

Phoenician Sea Power

• Phoenicia: Mediterranean sea-faring civilization

• Created an empire throughout Mediterranean

• Tyre was their major city

Phoenician Sea Power

• Made profit from trading sea snails that made purple/blue dye

• Thrived from about 1100 – 800 BCE

• Kept other people from sailing Mediterranean by telling tales of sea monsters

Phoenician Sea Power

• Brought items from throughout the Mediterranean to their cities.

• Exotic items sold in bazaars

• Alphabet: set of symbols meant to represent sounds

• Phoenicians used alphabet of 22 letters to conduct trade; earliest alphabet

Rise of the Israelites

• Polytheism: Belief in many gods

• Monotheism: Belief in one god

• Israelites were monotheistic

• Early Israelites were shepherds & merchants

Rise of the Israelites

• South of Phoenicia a group called the Hebrews settled in the Jordan Valley

• Later called Israelites• Israelites=Jews=Hebrews

• Much of their history is told through the Hebrew Bible, the Torah

Rise of the Israelites• Abraham was an early

leader

• Abraham took Israelites from Mesopotamia to the land of Canaan

• He convinced them to believe in ONE god.

• Famine: a time where there is not enough to eat, and people starve

• Famine forced Israelites to leave Canaan and move to Egypt

Rise of the Israelites

• Israelites stayed in Egypt for a few hundred years

• Pharaoh: “King” of Egypt

• Pharaoh forced them into slave labor

• Prophet: a religious leader or teacher

Rise of the Israelites• Israelite leader/prophet,

Moses led them out of Egypt in the EXODUS (Israelite “retreat” from Egypt)

• They wandered the Sinai Peninsula for 40 years

• Torah says that God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, a set of laws

Egypt

Sinai

Peninsula

Canaan

Rise of the Israelites

• After Exodus, they returned to Canaan

• Began farming and built cities

• King David established capital in Jerusalem

• Jerusalem will become a holy city for Jews (Israelites), Christians, and Muslims

Rise of the Israelites• The Israelites’ faith

becomes known as Judaism (Jewish faith)

• They believed in one true god who was present everywhere, knew everything, and had complete power

• Believed that all people (even kings) were equal in before God

Rise of the Israelites

• Kingdom later split into two parts

• Northern area was called Israel

• Southern was called Judah

• Assyrians invaded and took over Judah

Rise of the Israelites

• Exile: to force people to live in another place or country

• Israelites resisted Assyrian control; thousands were exiled to other places in empire

• 612 BCE, Chaldean Babylonians conquered Assyria and Judah

Rise of the Israelites• 587 BCE, king of Judah

rebelled against the Chaldeans

• Chaldean king, Nebuchadnezzar responded by destroying Jerusalem and exile Judeans to Babylonia

• In 587 BCE the Romans took over their homeland; they drove Israelites out between 100 – 300 AD

Rise of the Israelites• The Roman exile forced

the Jews to resettle throughout the world

• In the 1940s AD modern Israelites came back to the Eastern Mediterranean and created the modern country of Israel

• Judaism had a strong influence on two modern monotheistic religions: Christianity and Islam