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Part 2 of The Eight Characteristics of Civilization essay

        The start of the Neolithic revolution leads to many things. One of them was the development of civilizations. An advanced civilization has eight primary characteristics. A city or city-state, an organized government, a complex religion, social classes, job specialization, public works and technologies, art, and writing. The first civilizations grasped these characteristics pretty quickly from what we can see of history.

A city is a large town or place characterized by a specific attribute, such as a building, accent, or the place's land formation. Before the common era, most places like that were called city-states. City-states That means a city and its surrounding area. Cities in ancient times would be made up of small buildings close together usually inside of a wall. Cities are the centers of civilizations. They were located in the best places for farming, which means that city-states were most like to be formed near rivers or large bodies of water. Some cultures did not have cities though. Nomads and pastoral nomads had functioning cultures without a solid homestead. Two of the more commonly known ancient city-states were Babylon of Mesopotamia and Memphis, Egypt. Babylon was located in the Fertile Crescent. This lets the Babylonians have a great chance of being able to have a large surplus of food. Babylon was a walled city with sun-dried bricks and there were tall towers. Babylon was built near the Euphrates river. The Euphrates would flood frequently which let the land be quite rich and fertile. Unfortunately, they never knew quite when the river would flood though so that led to the people thinking that their many gods could be angry at them. Memphis was also close to a river. They were right next to the Nile. Egypt is famously sandy and right by the river is still where most of the cities are. The Nile would also flood, but it flooded on a regular basis so the people who lived closest to it could prepare for the outcome. Most cities started off with farming as their primary source of income, but as their stores grew they went through an agricultural revolution that let some citizen become artisans and merchants. That revolution led to another called the Neolithic revolution which is ultimately why the cities were able to stay where they were. Though when large groups of people come together somebody needs to be in charge or else chaos will ensue. If cities hadn't developed functioning governments who knows what might have happened to them?

The definition of government is the governing body of a nation, state, or community. Organized governments are the backbones of society. A backbone is what keeps a person from falling over and symbolically that is what governments are. There were three main types of government used by ancient leaders. Theocracies, which were ruled by god-kings and their descendants. Monarchies were led by kings. And Oligarchies were ruled by rich and powerful land-owning men. Theocracies were the most commonly formed back then so that the king or god-king would have optimal power over the all the classes. In theocracies, the king's power comes from the gods. This gave the kings an immense amount of power because the peoples of the religion would both love and fear their gods. The Egyptians were ruled over for years by theocracies. The pharaohs were considered to be powerful gods or the direct descendants of them. Another example of a government is the Minoan monarchy. This civilization was formed on the island of Crete in the Mediterranean Sea. The palace was in Knossos. Their civilization was named after King Minos, who was a mythical king. Another fact about theocracies is that they connect their governments and their religions.

Another characteristic of a civilization is a religion. Religions were formed so that people could make sense of natural disasters and essentially have someone to blame if something went wrong. Most civilizations were polytheistic. They believed in gods that would take care of their people if they were happy and cruelly punish them if they were even the slightest bit upset. Another part of religions is believing in some sort of afterlife. Judaism which sprang from the Israelites is still around. The Israelites believed in one God who created and watches over everything. They even made up a set of guidelines for their people. The Israelites went through many years of trouble. But they got through it and became a religion which let them be in a covenant with God no matter where they were. In the Egyptian city-states, a totally different thing was going on. Egyptians were polytheistic and the government of Egypt was theocratic. Their gods had human qualities. They could die and be born and were connected to natural phenomenon. In both religious groups, temples would be built to pray in. Priests of priestesses would be hired and assigned to help with the upkeep of the temple and help the worshipers please the god(s). Being a priest or priestess would keep you in one of the upper social classes.