Indus Mesopotamia Egypt

Political Structure ● Before Harappa’s fall, ● The Sumerians had ● Egypt was a unified
the government would city-states that were empire. The king, or
store grain during each ruled by kings and pharaoh, had lots of
times of shortage or had defined borders. power. They were
during festivals. The government treated like gods and
● After the Aryans took regulated religion and had huge tombs, the
over the area, village enforced justice. Kings pyramids, built for
chiefs organized were the military themselves to pass into
defenses and enforced leaders. the afterlife.
property rights and ● The Babylonian King ● The government
familial relations. Hammurabi developed controlled much of the
a code of law that economy. This helped
established rules for coordinate irrigation
courts, regulated and led to the pharaoh
property rights and having immense
rules of familial power.
responsibility, and set
punishments for
various crimes.
Social Standards ● In Harappa, there ● Kings, the noble ● Women were treated
were many community class, and priests all very well in Egypt
buildings, including owned land and had compared to
public baths. People slaves. This social Mesopotamia. Since
also celebrated standard continued for women were integral
together during a long time in the area to the continuation of
festivals. and demonstrates the the monarchy, they
● The Aryans had inequality found in were given more
patriarchal controls most civilizations. respect in the upper-
with specific ● The Sumerian society class. The Egyptians
relationships to each was very patriarchal. believed goddesses
member of the family. Only men were shown were the sources of
● The Aryans wielding plows in their creativity. Unlike many
developed a very art, and women had to other societies at the
distinct form of remain faithful and time, the Egyptians
inequality, the caste lacked legal protection. didn’t kill baby girls to
system. Many women covered control the population.
their faces with a veil ● Like in most other
to shield them from societies, the Egyptians
the eyes of men. had a very powerful
noble class, including
 the pharaoh, priests,
and other elite land-
owners. At the bottom
of the society, there
were peasants and
slaves.
Technology ● Harappa had ● The Sumerians had ● The Egyptians built
humanities first sewer tablets and wedge- pyramids to bury their
system. Houses I the shaped styluses that kings in. Workers rolled
city had toilets scribes used to write in five-ton stones over
connected to a cuneiform. logs and onto barges.
citywide drainage ● The Sumerians This feat of engineering
system. developed math and shows that Egypt had
● The city also had science. They had a enough of a surplus to
granaries used to store counting system that have over 100,000
grain during shortages used units of 10, 60, specialized laborers.
and festivals. and 360, and used ● Since the Nile was
astronomy to make a very unpredictable
calendar that (some years it flooded,
forecasted politics and some years it didn’t),
religion. the Egyptians had to
develop a complex
system of irrigation to
make sure they would
always have a good
harvest.
Intellectual Ideals / ● Even though they ● The Sumerians ● Though their writing
Writing interacted much with developed cuneiform, a system was less
Mesopotamia, the written language that developed than
original civilization of at first used pictures to cuneiform, the
the Indus valley had a represent objects and Egyptians
unique writing system evolved to using independently
that we still haven’t geometric shapes to developed a symbol-
deciphered. represent sounds. based writing system
● The Aryans had many ● Each city-state had a called hieroglyphics.
literary epics. The patron god that had ● The Egyptians had
Vedas were their shrines all over the city. very lively art. Colorful
sacred books, the They built massive pictures decorated
Mahabharata and the towers called ziggurats tombs and palaces.
Ramayana were epics in which priests
involving real and conducted rituals.
mystical battles, and
the Upanishads were
more mystical epics.