Compare And Contrast River Valley Civilization

River valley civilizations were common as complex societies began to emerge. The ways of life in the Nile and Tigris-Euphrates civilizations parallel each other, yet still have their differences. The beginnings of advanced societies in the Nile river valley were numerous small kingdoms that governed themselves. When an official named Menes rose to power, he unified Egypt and created a central government controlled by a pharaoh. The pharaoh was said to be a god in human form. Offspring of the pharaoh inherited their divine kingship. In Mesopotamia, city-states ruled by kings emerged on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. During the Babylonian empire, King Hammurabi created an extensive list of rules to govern his empire. Unlike Egypt, women sometimes

There were four main ancient River Valley civilizations: the Fertile Crescent of Mesopotamia, the Nile River of Egypt, the Indus River of India, and the Yellow River of China. These civilizations showed specific similarities and contrasting differences. Many of these differences and similarities showed up in the three categories of the technological advances, the types of government, and the geography of the civilization. Two civilizations that are very interesting to delve deeper into and study the contrasting societies are China and Egypt. Since China and Egypt were both isolated from the outside, they developed with a strong focus on technology and learning with strong governments to hold the nations together.

The earliest forms of civilizations were said to be located on the three river valleys of the Tigris-Euphrates River in ancient Mesopotamia, the Nile River in ancient Egypt and the Huang He and Indus River in ancient India and China. These three river valley civilizations had many differences yet still lived common life styles. Although the civilizations are located on different continents, they share similar social, political, and economic beliefs from their intellectual developments to types of government to religious beliefs and trading systems.

Although early river valley civilizations developed in four separate places, they seem to have more similarities than differences. This essay will compare and contrast the ancient Egyptian, Harappan, Chinese, and Sumerian civilizations.

The river valley civilizations of Sumer, Egypt, India, and China were historical pillars of innovation. Not only were they each responsible for having forged new technological innovations, but they each created their own system of writing as well. Each of them meets the requirements of being labeled as a “civilization” because each had a form of social organization, trade and economic activity, government, division of labor, and some form of record keeping. What sets them apart from one another are the specifics within the similarities they shared. These similarities and differences within their technological innovations and writing are numerous.

I chose the Mesopotamia and the Nile River Valley. These two civilizations are two of the most favorable ancient civilizations. Although these civilizations are similar in many ways, the small, but impacting differences it what makes these two civilizations stand out the most. The Nile River Valley was located in northern Africa in a country called Egypt. Mesopotamia was located in modern day Iraq, Iran, Syria, Kuwait, and parts of Turkey. The origin of Mesopotamia comes from the meaning “between two rivers.” The land is between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Defining moments for human civilization began within these two.

The first topic of comparison is the prospect of culture and environment in each society. Due to cultural diffusion amongst the civilizations, except geographically isolated China, among other factors, it can be deduced that the civilizations had many similar practices. However, each society boasted distinctive qualities. Early Mesopotamia, known by the moniker of “the land between the rivers,” was a fertile plain settled near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers located in the Fertile Crescent. All of the river valley civilizations settled near a river. Egypt settled near the Nile; the Indus Valley

Another important factor is the rivers allowed civilizations to have more trade routes, and get to places inland faster, as well as the sea. The societies could trade their resources for ones they didn’t have, which allowed their technology to grow and their populations to expand. Trade “brought in new goods and immigrants” which allowed for an increase of resources and technology. Many of the River Valley Civilizations traded with each other sharing their technology.

The civilizations of the Nile River valley, the Mesopotamia valley, and Indus Valley marked human progress toward fixed settlements and the development of a rich culture. These civilizations shared many characteristics that contributed to their success. What made these civilizations unique were the contributions that each one gave to the world. They contributed their own ideas and accomplishments in the areas of religion, science, and mathematics. These contributions defined each civilization and how they would be remembered, as well as, their importance to the world.

River Valley Civilizations Essay River valley civilizations each had their own ways of responding to challenges similar and differently. Egyptians and Sumerians both has their own views on how they should keep record and be economically, politically, socially and religiously stable. Both Egyptians and Sumerians believed in a polytheistic religion. Which is where there are many gods that appoint the ruler over them.

In roughly around 3000 B.C, Egypt, China, Indus, and Mesopotamia began to grow and develop leaving their mark on today's society. These four civilizations all surfaced around the same time next to large, freshwater rivers. This allowed them to be able to have water to grow crops, trade, and sustain a large population. They were all also located along the same longitude with gave them a similar geographic region. Their geographic luck allowed them to have more time to be able to advance their society. As time went on, these civilizations were able to expand and prosper and spread their modernised cultures with other groups of people, which ultimately lead to cultural diffusion The way these river valley civilizations improved their technology,

In the region of South Asia, Indus Valley civilization is acknowledged as the oldest civilization which is situated in the region of India's western drift and Indus River (Hirst, 2017). This civilization performed central government and delivered well developed cities and towns along with compositions and controlled food productions. This civilization is different from those of Mesopotamia and Egypt, and hence was not overwhelmed by intense figures of religion (Green, 2016). No sanctuaries were manufactured and no pictures of state divine beings or lords have been found. Deforestation, environmental change and a progression of intrusions all added to the decline of the Indus civilization. The Indus Valley Civilization is also acknowledged as Indus civilization which was situated in a zone of somewhere in the range of 1.6 million square kilometers in what is today eastern Pakistan and northeastern India between around 2500-1900 BC (Hirst, 2017).

The geographical layout of the three river civilizations provides a variety of different similarities. In the geographical layout, rivers played an important part in the way of life for early river civilizations. The Sumerian civilization was built around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the Harappan Civilization was built around

In the region of South Asia, Indus Valley civilization is acknowledged as the oldest civilization which is situated in the region of India's western drift and Indus River (Hirst, 2017). This civilization performed central government and delivered well developed cities and towns along with compositions and controlled food productions. This civilization is different from those of Mesopotamia and Egypt, and hence was not overwhelmed by intense figures of religion (Green, 2016). No sanctuaries were manufactured and no pictures of state divine beings or lords have been found. Deforestation, environmental change and a progression of intrusions all added to the decline of the Indus civilization. The Indus Valley Civilization is also acknowledged as Indus civilization which was situated in a zone of somewhere in the range of 1.6 million square kilometers in what is today eastern Pakistan and northeastern India between around 2500-1900 BC (Hirst, 2017).

One of the primary Mesopotamian inventions was in form of writing; this was called "Cuneiform." The Mesopotamian word “Cuneiform” translates to wedge shaped. The Sumerian writing system used several thousand characters and some for sounds (Kagan 8). Using writing initially for recording the dealing of items, writing was beneficial to the development of a system that portrayed a good understanding of fair transactions. Cuneiform was written