Civilization Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Civilization - Essay Example Industrialization started with the mass production of pottery, textiles and metal tools. Writing emerged as a means of communication invented mainly to deal with urban problems of management and book keeping. On the social front, people were grouped into classes based on control of resources, wealth, political authority, family, or religion. By 3000 B.C.E., the Sumerians in south Babylonia (Southern Mesopotamia) founded the oldest cities of Ur, Nippur, and Uruk; the largest city in the world. Quarrels over water and agricultural land led to increased warfare to create kingdoms ruling several city states. The city of Kish in north Babylonia had the first king in history. In the far east of Babylonia, the Akkadians established the first empire in history in the city of Akkade. Sargon, their first king who was the servant of the king of Kish became the first conqueror of history. His grandson, Naram-Sin developed unheard-of wealth and power that he declared himself god and built temples to himself. In 2125 B.C.E., the Sumerians established the third dynasty empire on the foundation of the Akkadian empire. In 1792 B.C.E. King Hammurabi created a kingdom to embrace most of Mesopotamia. At 1600 B.C.E., the Babylonian kingdom fell apart by invasions from the Hittites, Hurrians, and Kassites. Ingredients of civilization were ... Their language consisted of thousands of characters that represented words and some sounds. In ancient Egypt, the hieroglyphics language was invented to involve hundreds of picture signs, each representing one, two or three sounds to mean a word or category. Text was written horizontally from right to left or left to right, or vertically from top to bottom in both horizontal directions. Another ingredient of culture is social change. In ancient Egypt, black Africans from Nubia and Asians from the east were captured in war and brought back to Egypt as slaves. Sometimes entire people were slaved as the Hebrews according to the Bible. Slaves performed domestic services, labored in fields with the peasants, worked as policemen or soldiers as they also labored to erect the great temples and monuments of Egypt. They could be freed by in most occasions they were not. In Mesopotamia there were two main types of slavery: chattel and debt slavery. Chattel slaves were bought like property and had no legal rights as they were easily recognized by their hair style or tattoo on their arm. They were non-Mesopotamians bought from slave merchants or imprisoned during war. Chattel slaves were mainly used in domestic services rather than fieldwork. Debt slave were more common than chattel slaves. They were declared slaves when members of family were declared as surety of a loan where they have to labor to pay the interest on the loan. They could not be sold and they are redeemed free once the debt is paid off. However slaves had little legal protection and could buy his or her freedom. Hammurabi's Law Code revealed the classes of people of nobles, commoners, and slaves, who were not treated equally. Women in Mesopotamia could

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You could put any topic you think is necessary - Essay Example Capital punishment began as early as in the 14th century B. C. under the Hittite code. They were also in used by Romans in the 5th century B. C., in Athens under the Draconian code in the 7th century B. C. as well as in Babylon in the 18th century B. C. during the reign of King Hammurabi. Criminals were mostly burnt alive, beaten to death, crucified or beheaded. In Britain, the most commonly used methods for execution were hanging, boiling alive or beheading. In the 16th century A. D, more than 70,000 people were executed in the country during the time of Henry VIII. Crimes included theft, getting married to Jews, treason and many other crimes that added up to 222 by the 17th century A. D. In the mid 18th century A. D., the crimes that were punishable by death were reduced to 120 (Banner (2002). Many nations have abolished capital punishment, but some are still practicing it, with China leading the group of 58 countries, having executed 5000 capital offenders in 2008. Iran and Saudi Arabia were also ranked among the countries with the highest executions though they came after China by far at 348 and 102 respectively. In the United States, 37 offenders were executed. Japan, Indonesia, Libya, North Korea and Saudi Arabia are also applying capital punishment (Hands off Cain, 2008). Abolitionists are still campaigning against death penalty. Brown (2010) observes that the bible, which is used in many criminal justice systems for swearing convicts and witnesses has many verses such as â€Å"Genesis 9:5-6, Numbers 35:30, Num. 35:30 and Num. 35:33-34† among others that support death penalty for various crimes including murder, adultery and incest among others. There are offences in these passages that can only be punished through capital punishment. Some countries such as the US use these verses to justify the application of capital punishment. However, there are usually controversies concerning the sixth commandment that cautions against