Class 2/27

Today we worked on a paper in class about Ancient Egypt. We discussed the answers and had a pretty easy class. I really needed a relaxing mod and it was pretty good. I chilled on the floor and listened to music. We have a test coming up on what we've been taking notes on and I remember a lot of it from last year so I think I'll do pretty well.

After Test Textbook Questions

1.

• Lower Egypt includes the Nile delta region. The delta begins about 100 miles before the Nile river enters the Meditteranean Sea.
• Narmer was a king of Egypt around 3000 B.C. who united Upper and Lower Egypt.
• Egyptian god-kings were called pharaohs, and they were thought to be almost as splendid and powerful as the gods of the heavens.
• Theocracy is the type of government in which rule is based on religious authority.
• The kings of the Old Kingdom were laid to rest after death in great structures called pyramids.
• Mummification is a preservation process used for preserving Royal and Egyptian elites that involves embalming and drying the body to keep it from decaying. 
• Hieroglyphics were an ancient Egyptian writing system in which pictures were used to represent ideas, words, and sounds.
• Papyrus is a tall reed that grows in the Nile delta, used by the ancient Egyptians to make a paper-like material to write on. 

3. Being surrounded by deserts provided a sort of security for Egypt and made it difficult for conquered by any other empires.

4. The Egyptians treated their pharaoh with the same respect and adoration that they would have treated any of their other gods.

5. Mummification was performed to keep the body of an important official from decaying. The Egyptians also believed that if they mummified people, those people would be immortal in the afterlife.  

Class on 2/22/19

I came into class towards the very end of the mod today because I was getting my braces off, but I started taking some notes from the text on Egypt.

Notes

-The Nile River flows north across Africa

-over 4,1000 miles

-the longest river in the world

-an abrupt change in soil

-the river rose and spilled over the banks which left fertile black mud called silt

-Egypt was more fortunate than Mesopotamia with agriculture 

The Delta begins 100 miles before the river and enters the Mediterranean 

- the delta is a broad marshy triangular formed by deposits of silt of the mouth of a river

-The Nile was a reliable system of transportation from upper Egypt and lower Egypt

-Narmer was an Egyptian king who created a crown that symbolized the united kingdoms

-the kings established the first Egyptian dynasty 

-the Pharaohs ruled as gods in a theocratic government

-a pyramid was the main resting place after death

-the Old Kingdom was the main pyramid-building phase

-Some main gods were Re (sun), Osiris (death), and Isis (loving mother) but there were 2,000 more

-Mesopotamians had a bleak view on the afterlife but Egyptians believed in life after death and being judged for your deeds in life

- Mummification preserved bodies in the pyramids

-A pyramid may have contained

                  - kings chamber

                   -airshaft

                   - grand gallery

                  -queens chamber

                  -ascending chamber

                  -escape passage

                 -unfinished chamber

Egyptians wrote in hieroglyphics on papyrus

Invaders started to control Egypt

2180 marked the end of the Old Kingdom

strong pharaohs still controlled in the middle kingdom and then again in the New Kingdom

Hammurabi's Code

Today in class we got to be judges, which was really fun for me because I'm pretty much an expert at judging people. We got a worksheet with some scenarios that would have happened in the times of Hammurabi. I understand where the concept of Hammurabi's Law comes from, but sometimes I think his laws are too focused on discouraging the bad instead of promoting the good. It's very hard to differentiate the two because they are so close, but when all of the consequences are becoming a slave or death you can start to realize people are not learning from their actions. I do agree with the concept of an eye for an eye most of the time. I think it helps people learn from their mistakes and makes people realize how their actions affect others. If you know that what you do to someone is going to be down to you, would you still do it? Overall, I think it would make people be better civilians.

Class 2/15/19

Today we had Western Civ last mod. We took some more notes from the classic PowerPoint. Mr. Schick got a laser pointer! He was really loving it. He was flipping all over the PowerPoint like a crazy person. I have had a long day but today's class made me happy, even though we did not get to go over the laws of Hammurabi's Code like I wanted to. Apparently, we will be going over all of those SUPER FUN laws on Tuesday when we get back to school. Our class was crazy today and we used a good chunk of the second half of the class to just go crazy and talk because it was Friday afternoon. I had a mostly good day and a good Western Civ class that was a very successful way to end my week.

Starting Hammurabi's Code

Today when we came into the class we prayed the Our Father in Spanish because I guess some of us were feeling like we needed some extra prayers. It is Valentine's day and Mr.Schick was going to tell us something about St. Valentine but we were all talking so now we'll never know what he was going to say. I don't like when that happens but I'm not too upset. My only valentines this year are my friends but I like it that way. Anyway, on to Hammurabi's Code. We started to read all of the laws that are still legible in Hammurabi's Code today and honestly, I think that it is a very just set of laws. There doesn't seem to be anything that caused me to be too outraged. I just think that some of the punishments should probably be a little bit different for some of the laws. In one of the laws, it says that if a wife cheats on her husband her and the man she cheated with will be killed, but also in another law it says that if a father rapes his daughter he is not killed, but just exiled. I feel like those punishments should be opposite of each other, but that's really the only real thing I would change about Hammurabi's code.

A New PowerPoint

Today in class we got our last tests back and started a new notes PowerPoint. I was in a really good mood when I came into class but then Patrick was rude so that made me mad. But anyway, we started a new power point and it mostly just went over some of the stuff we had taken notes on from the textbook. We got our tests back and I got 100% and I am very proud of myself. I now have a 99% in this class so that makes me happy. Some things on the PowerPoint didn't exactly line up with what was in the textbook about women and what rights they had but I'm not that worried about it.

More Textbook Notes

today's notes:

• earliest government was formed by temple priests
• priests acted as "go-betweens" with the gods
• priests managed the irrigation systems and demanded a portion of the farmer's crops as a tax
• military leaders that became rulers passed their reign through their sons, and so forth, which is called a dynasty
• cultural diffusion
• polytheism
• built ziggurats for sacrifices of animals, wine, and food
• women could work as priests, farmers. merchants, and artisans
• upper class women could read and write
• women could purchase property in their name
• arithmetic and geometry: created a number system, 60 second= 1 minute, and 360 degrees in a circle
• architectural innovations: ramps, columns, arches, and pyramid shapes
• cuneiform: writing system
• argon of Akkad defeated the city-states, his conquest helped spread the culture passed the Tigris and Euphrates (2350 BC)
• in 2000 BC, Amorites invaded Mesopotamia and it became the Babylonian empire, the most notable leader being Hammurabi from 1792 BC- 1750 BC
• Hammurabi created a uniform code of laws and had it engraved in stone and placed all over the empire
• laws sought to protect women and children
• set different punishments depending on gender and social class

Taking Notes from Our Textbook

Today in class we took notes out of the textbook for chapter 2, Early River Valleys. The four of them are Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, and Indus Valley. Mesopotamia is located along the Fertile Crescent and bordered by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The rivers flooded at least once a year and left silt on the land. The silt was really good for farming. Hammurabi's code was a code of punishment for crimes. The example used in the book was that if someone were to steal a pig they would have the option of either paying back the amount of a few pigs or getting a death penalty. This code is what led us to our current legal system. We also talked a little bit about current laws and what we thought about them and how fair we thought they were. We tried to come up with some fair law systems but it didn't work very well because we didn't get any further than Belle wanting to kill everyone.

Yay For Test Day!!

Today in class, on February 5, we took a test on the video called Guns, Germs, and Steel that we have been watching for the previous 5 days in class. I prepared for the test by looking at my blogs and reading my notes. I took time to study the different animals that were domesticated and the change in hunting and gathering along with all the other notes. I thought the test was not too difficult but not easy either and I had forgotten two out of the 14 animals but the last two were just extra credit. I remembered the pig, cow, sheep, goat, donkey, horse, yak, mithon, llama, Bactrian camel, Arabian camel, and the water buffalo. The two I did not remember were the reindeer and the Bali cattle. Overall I think I will get a good grade on this test, which I am happy about and hope it will bring up my grade a little bit to a higher A

Finally Done with Guns, Germs, and Steel

Today we finally finished watching Guns, Germs, and Steel. We went over some of the notes we already had and took new notes on the end of the video. We are having a test tomorrow on the video and we are going to have to write a short essay about whether or not we agree with Jared Diamond's theory about geographic luck and the advancement of certain populations and civilizations of people. I think that geographic luck is a big part of why some civilizations have advanced and some have stayed in the past butI'm sure if that is the only factor.