CYRUS CYLINDER
Pre-AP World History Project
Quarter 1 Segment (Gender)
Background: The Cyrus Cylinder, a proclamation by the Persian king Cyrus the Great, gives rare historical insight into ancient Persian culture. Cyrus’s own words have been preserved in Babylonian cuneiform script in a clay proclamation called the Cyrus Cylinder, discovered in Babylon in 1879. The barrel-shaped cylinder records Cyrus’s conquest of the city in 539 B.C. Following local custom, Cyrus buried the document under the city walls during reconstruction and rebuilding activities. The text would also have been circulated at the time so that his goals and version of the conquest could become known. In returning exiles to their homes and allowing people to worship their own gods, Cyrus showed himself to be a suitable local king and a restorer of order and tradition. More unusual is his reputation recounted by other sources, including Persia’s enemies. Long before the discovery of the cylinder in 1879, Cyrus was renowned in both Greek and biblical texts as an enlightened ruler, an effective and humane king who successfully maintained order among the many different populations he conquered. The cylinder thus provides support—in Cyrus’s own words—for a legacy and reputation that has lasted millennia.
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Segment 1: Gender
For this portion of the project students will examine gender roles throughout our 1st quarter units. We are asking you to do two things:
First, look at (1)the roles that men and women played in society, (2) the rights that each were afforded, and (3) the treatment that each received in that society.
Second, compare those societies. Students must be able to delineate between the rights given to men and women in the various civilizations that we study. For example, did women hold higher status in one society over another (here you will need to know which societies overlap with one another), were they afforded more rights in one over another, etc. Further, do you see a trend over time? Again, you need to know timelines in order to answer these questions, so put the civilizations in order.
You should address the roles that men and women played with all the following groups of people that we encountered in the first quarter:
-Hominids from Prehistory
-Neolithic Times
-Early River Valley Civilizations (Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Indus and Ancient China)
-Indo-Europeans
-Phoenicians
-Hittites
-Assyrians
-Kush Empire
-Qin Dynasty
-Egypt – Middle Kingdom
-Egypt—New Kingdom
-Mauryan Empire
-Gupta Empire
Your final product should be in an essay format. It should be 12-Font, double spaced and in Times New Roman. Please cite all sources using MLA format. You can go to owl.english.purdue.edu to guidance on how to use this citation format.
You and your team must make your best efforts to research and gather information on these groups. Utilize the library and their online resources. Searches in Googlescholar may provide additional information. Do not use Wikipedia! However, Wikipedia is a good starting point in the sense that they provide citations for their information. You can search those cites for information.
DUE DATE: ______