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General Instructions

1. Answer all the questions. Some questions have choice. Marks are indicated against each question.

2. Answer to questions no. 1 to 3 carrying 2 marks, should not exceed 30 words each

3. Answer to questions no. 4 to 9 carrying 4 marks should not exceed 100 words. Students should attempt only five questions in this section

4. Question 10 ( for 4 marks) is a value based question and compulsory question

5. Answer to questions 11 to 13 carrying 8 marks should not exceed 350 words.

6. Questions 14-16 are source based questions and have no internal choice

7. Question 17 is a Map question. Attach the map with the answer sheet.

Part A

Q1. Which was the first known language of Mesopotamia?

Ans The first known language of the land was Sumerian.                           (2)

Q2. Name two countries where the earliest evidence of making and using stone-

-tools have been found.

The earliest evidence for the making and use of stone tools comes from sites in Ethiopia and Kenya. The earliest toolmakers were probably the Australopithecus.   (2)

Draw a chart showing social hierarchies of Roman society     (2)

Part B (Section-1)

1. Describe the types of sources to understand roman history.

Roman historians have a rich collection of sources to study which we can broadly divide into three groups:

1. Textual sources include histories of the period (Annals), letters, speeches, sermons, laws, etc. for example st. Augustine’s descriptions and Tacitus, Pliny, and Strabo’s Accounts.

2. Documentary sources include mainly inscriptions and papyri. The ‘papyrus’ was a reed-like plant that grew along the banks of the Nile in Egypt and was processed to produce a writing material that was very widely used in everyday life. Thousands of contracts, accounts, letters and official documents survive ‘on papyrus’. E.g. Graffiti on Pompeii,

3. Inscriptions were usually cut on stone, so a large number survive, in both Greek and Latin.

4. Material remains include a very wide assortment of items that mainly archaeologists discover through excavation and field survey. They are buildings, monuments and other kinds of structures, pottery, coins, mosaics, even entire landscapes. (4)

1. What do you understand by the term “Fossil”? Name any 4 sites from where-

-the early human fossils have been found.

Fossils are the remains or impressions of a very old plant, animal or human which have turned into stone. These are often embedded in rock, and are thus preserved for millions of years.

1. Olduvai Gorge : An archaeological site which is associated with the most continuous record on human evolution and tool making industry. Mary and Louise leaky found the earliest man here.

2. Kilombe and Olorgesailie (Kenya): It is a site which is known for stone tools Industry. It is dated back around 700000 to 500000 years ago and excavated by Mary and Louis Leakey.

3. Cro-Magnon : Near Les Eyzeis in France. It is the site from where the first fossils of the Modern man wer         e found.  

4. Heidelberg: Heidelberg is a city in south Germany. The Homo heidelbergensis specie of Humans is named after this place as the remains of the species were first found here.     (4)

5. Explain how the ability to walk upright proved beneficial to the early human

Bipedalism enabled hands to be freed for carrying infants or objects. In turn, as hands were used more and more, upright walking gradually became more efficient. Apart from the advantage of freeing hands for various uses, far less energy is consumed while walking as compared to the movement of a quadruped. The saved energy used by brain to solve tool making and hunting problems, which in turn, increased  the brain capacity.                                    (4)

1. Write a short note on early caliphate revenue system and taxes.

By the time Muhammad died in 632 AD in Medina, The size of “Umma” was already big enough. To finance the growing needs of a state and its stakeholders, the Umma had to create regular source of income. Moreover, the need for a separate department was there to handle the continuous inflow of large amount of money from the expeditions. Muhammad and his immediate successor Abu Bakr kept themselves busy in continuous wars and the chief source of income was bounty. During Umar and Uthman, economic reforms shaped the revenue system of caliphate and new taxes, treasury, revenue and finance officials, monetary system gradually developed.

Bait-ul-maal The central treasury or Bait-ul-maal had four major source of income namely

1. Jazia– Tax on non – Muslim subjects in exchange they can practice their rituals and they were called “dhimmi”

2. Zakat– Alms giving. 2.5% of accumulated wealth of a person should go to religious works. State collected the tax to fund public welfare works.

3. Khums– Bounty during wars (Ghanima)

4. Kharaj– Irrigation or land tax. ½ to 1/5 of the total production. 1/10 on State supported land .

5. Usra– Agriculture or land tax on Muslims.                                 (4)

6. Write an essay on “the status of women” in Roman Society
   

7. Property rights of women: By the 1st century BCE, the wife did not transfer to her husband’s authority but retained full rights in the property of her natal family.

8. The Succession of property: A woman’s dowry went to the husband for the duration of the marriage; the woman remained a primary heir of her father and became an independent property owner on her father’s death.

9. Divorce: Divorce was relatively easy.

10. Age of Marriage: Males married in their late twenties or early thirties, women were married off in the late teens.  

11. Types of Marriages: Marriages were, generally arranged and there is no doubt that women were often subject to domination by their husbands. Augustine the great Bishop, tells us that his mother was regularly beaten by his father.                                                                                 (4)

12. What are the basic teachings of Islam?

13. Shahadah : Ya ilaha illallah muhamad – ur- rasul allah. “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His Prophet.”

14. Allah –ho –Akbar: Allah is the supreme

15. Salat : Prayers

16. Sawm : Month long fast

17. Hajj : Religious journey to Mecca.

18. Zakat : Alms giving.

19. Umma : Followers (Musalman: Musalsal (Strong) Imaan ( faith (4)

Part B (Section – 2)

Value Based Question

1. Reflect upon The story of King Enmerker of Uruk and the King of Aratta and answer the following questions. Write a detailed note on “The Three Orders” of the Europea
   

2. What this story tells us about the Mesopotamian Civilisation?      (2)

3. What Urban Value this story portrays? Do you think it still is true for modern urban mindset?                (2)

Part C

1. Write a detailed account of slavery in Ancient Rome with examples. 

2. Slavery was an institution deeply rooted in the ancient world especially in Roman society. They belonged to the lowest strata of the roman society called “Humiliores”

3. Opposite to the general thinking, slaves do not perform the bulk of the labour in the Roman economy. That may have been true of large parts of Italy in the Republican period (under Augustus there were still 3 million slaves in a total Italian population of 7.5 million) but it was no longer true of the empire as a whole.

4. Slaves were an investment and were not used in Harvest. It was based on hard economic calculations. During the long peace period, supply of slaves reduced and paid labour were easily available and they were more productive in comparison to the slaves. Owners of slaves were responsible for their health, food and other social needs.

5. Nobility was rather cruel towards the slaves but common people were rather more tolerant.   (8)

6. Write a note on “Tools Making” by the early humans. Discuss the process, techniques and significance in detail.

7. Tool making: Although birds and chimpanzees make tools but human tool making is different from these animals. Humans have distinct anatomical and neural advantages. Upright walking, right angled thumb position, 3D vision and larger Brain size were distinct anatomical features

8. Types of early tools: Most common were chopper, which is a large stone, from which flakes have been removed to produce a working edge. Another one is a hand axe, used to cut branches.

9. Tool Maker: we do not know whether men, women, or both did tool making. It is possible that stone toolmakers were both women and men.

10. Change in tools making: About 35,000 years ago, improvements in the techniques for killing animals are evident from the appearance of new kinds of tools such as spear throwers and the bow and arrow. The meat thus obtained was probably processed by removing the bones, followed by drying, smoking and storage. Thus, food could be stored for later consumption.

11. Types of new tools: Various other techniques used to capture as the trapping of fur-bearing animals (to use the fur for clothing) and the invention of sewing needles. The earliest evidence of sewn clothing comes from about 21,000 years ago. Besides, with the introduction of the punch blade technique to make small chisel-like tools, it was now possible to make engravings on bone, antler, ivory or wood.

12. Significance: Tool making was a specialized skill, which helped early humans in survival and adaptation. Tool making was probably the foremost factor resulting in increased size of brain.

(8)

1. Describe political situation after the death of Muhammad

After being selected caliph, Abu Bakr chose Medina as his capital. He had the support of the people of Mecca and Medina, as well as some of the area tribes. Still other tribes, however, had broken away from Islam upon the death of Muhammad.

Abu Bakr moved swiftly to conquer these defecting tribes and bring them back into the fold of Islam. He placed Khalid ibn al-Walid (d. 642), known as the Sword of Islam, in charge of the fighting. Khalid turned tribal people into a formidable fighting machine. The general excelled in the surprise attack.

The recapturing battles are known as the Ridda (defection from religion) wars. As the tribes were subdued, they once again gave their loyalty to Islam and the new caliph. As a result, the number of troops fighting for Islam swelled. This marked the beginning of the first standing Islamic army.

By the time he died in 634, Abu Bakr had united the entire Arabian Peninsula under the banner of Islam.  Before his death, Abu Bakr picked Umar ibn al-Khattab (c. 581–644) as his successor, the second “rightly guided” caliph. Umar was the first caliph to use the title Commander of the Faithful. All future caliphs would also claim this title. Umar chose a simple. He ruled for 10 years.

Umar quickly picked up where his predecessor had left off. He was responsible for introducing Islamic law and administrative functions to the conquered territories. Under Umar’s command, Islamic troops continued their attacks on Byzantine and Sassanid Empires. Before long, the Byzantine regions of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt were all in Muslim hands. The Muslims had a huge advantage: knowledge of the desert. Khalid himself was a master of desert warfare.

In early 635, Omar ordered his greatest general to make a 200-mile march across the desert to attack Damascus, the capital of Syria and a stronghold of the Byzantine Empire. After a six-month siege, Khalid and his men eventually took control of Damascus. At the same time they also attacked Sassanid Empire. Umar chose Saad ibn Abi Waqqas (d. 674) to lead the jihad against Sassanid. In 637, Saad and his troops conquered Ctesiphon the old capital of Sassanid Empire in a fierce battle on the banks of Euphrates. By the mid 650s, the Muslims had conquered a vast area that included the whole Arabian Peninsula, parts of North Africa, chunks of the Byzantine Empire, and most of the Sassanid Empire. One conquest that was especially important to the Muslims was the capture of Jerusalem in 637. All three of the great monotheistic religions thought of Jerusalem as a holy city. The Muslims controlled Jerusalem for most of the next 1,300 years.

Umar was killed in 644 by a Persian Christian slave. Uthman ibn Affan (c. 574–656), a member of Mecca’s important Quraysh family and Muhammad’s son-in-law, was chosen as the third rightly guided caliph. During his 12 years as caliph, Uthman continued the conquests that the two caliphs before him had begun. The Islamic Empire extended north as far as the Caucasus Mountains in southeastern Europe. He pushed further into North Africa and finished off the Sassanid Empire to the east.

Uthman, was unpopular because of corruption. He was the first caliph who did not have widespread support of the Muslim community. Armed revolts soon sprang up against him. In 656, Uthman was murdered by a group of Muslim soldiers. This was the first time a caliph had been killed by other Muslims, and it set a bloody and dangerous precedent.

The murder of Uthman sparked the First Civil War, which lasted from 656 to 661. During the war, known in Arabic as fitna, which means “time of trial”, most important Muslim families struggled for control of the growing empire. One of those groups supported Ali, Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, however, many people—especially the Umayyad family, Uthman’s relatives—held Ali responsible for the third caliph’s murder and did not think him worthy of being the caliph. The leader of the Umayyad opposition was Muawiya (602–680), governor of Damascus.  In the battle of camel in Basra, opponents of Ali were defeated.

After his victory, Ali moved the capital of the empire from Medina to Kufa. Later Ali and Muawiya decided the conflict should be resolved through arbitration. Some of Ali’s Shiite supporters did not agree. They argued that right or wrong must be decided on the battlefield. They became known as the Kharijites. This group opposed many other caliphs.

Ali ruled for five stormy, war-torn years. Throughout his reign, problems within the Muslim community grew and deepened. In 661, Ali was murdered in the Kufa when a Kharijite assassin stabbed him with a poisoned dagger. His death marked a split among Muslims (Shiites and Sunni).                                (8)

Part D

1. Read the following text and give answers to the questions asked.

On the Treatment of Slaves

‘Soon afterwards the City Prefect, Lucius Pedanius Secundus, was murdered by one of his slaves. After the murder, ancient custom required that every slave residing under the same roof must be executed, but a crowd gathered, eager to save so many innocent lives; and rioting began. The senate-house was besieged. Inside, there was feeling against excessive severity, but the majority opposed any change (….) [The senators] favoring execution prevailed. However, great crowds ready with stones and torches prevented the order from being carried out. Nero rebuked the population by edict, and lined with troops the whole route along which those condemned were taken for execution.’

– Tacitus (55-117), historian of the early empire

1. Based on the above description, what conclusions you can derive about the treatment slaves used to received in Roman Society?                                                                        (3)

2. Name the Writer of the above section.                              (2)

3. Who was the emperor when the above incident happened (2)

1. Read the following text and give answers to the questions asked.

‘The Hadza are a small group of hunters and gatherers, living in the vicinity of Lake Eyasi, a salt, rift-valley lake…The country of the eastern Hadza, dry, rocky savanna, dominated by thorn scrub and acacia trees…is rich in wild foods. Animals are exceptionally numerous and were certainly commoner at the beginning of the century. Elephant, rhinoceros, buffalo, giraffe, zebra, waterbuck, gazelle, warthog, baboon, lion, leopard, and hyena are all common, as are smaller animals such as porcupine, hare, jackal, tortoise and many others. All of these animals, apart from the elephant, are hunted and eaten by the Hadza. The amount of meat that could be regularly eaten without endangering the future of the game is probably greater than anywhere else in the world where hunters and gatherers live or have lived in the recent past. Vegetable food – roots, berries, the fruit of the baobab tree, etc. – though not often obvious to the casual observer, is always abundant even at the height of the dry season in a year of drought. The type of vegetable food available is different in the six-month wet season from the dry season but there is no period of shortage. The honey and grubs of seven species of wild bee are eaten; supplies of these vary from season to season and from year to year. Sources of water are widely distributed over the country in the wet season but are very few in the dry season. The Hadza consider that about 5-6 kilometres is the maximum distance over which water can reasonably be carried and camps are normally sited within a kilometre of a water course. Part of the country consists of open grass plains but the Hadza never build camps there. Camps are invariably sited among trees or rocks and, by preference, among both. The eastern Hadza assert no rights over land and its resources. Any individual may live wherever he likes and may hunt animals, collect roots, berries, and honey and draw water anywhere in Hadza country without any sort of restriction… In spite of the exceptional numbers of game animals in their area, the Hadza rely mainly on wild vegetable matter for their food. Probably as much as 80 per cent of their food by weight is vegetable, while meat and honey together account for the remaining 20 per cent. Camps are commonly small and widely dispersed in the wet season, large and concentrated near the few available sources of water in the dry season. There is never any shortage of food even in the time of drought.’

– Written in 1960 by James Woodburn, an anthropologist.

1. Describe the living area of the Hadza community ?     (2)

2. Give information about the Food habits of Hadza People.     (2)

3. Why do the size and location of camps keep changing from season to season?              (3)

1. Read the following text and give answers to the questions asked

The Quran is a book in Arabic divided into 114 chapters (suras) and arranged in descending order of length, the shortest being the last.The only exception to this is the first sura which is a short prayer (al-fatiha or opening). According to Muslim tradition, the Quran is a collection of messages (revelations) which God sent to the Prophet Muhammad between 610 and 632, first in Mecca and then in Medina. The task of compiling these revelations was completed some time in 650. The oldest complete Quran we have today dates from the ninth century. There are many fragments which are older, the earliest being the verses engraved on the Dome of the Rock and on coins in the seventh century. The use of the Quran as a source material for the history of early Islam has posed some problems. The first is that it is a scripture, a text vested with religious authority. Theologians generally believed that as the speech of God (kalam allah), it has to be understood literally, but rationalists among them gave wider interpretations to the Quran. In 833, the Abbasid caliph al-Mamun imposed the view (in a trial of faith or mihna) that the Quran is God’s creation rather than His speech. The second problem is that the Quran very often speaks in metaphors and, unlike the Old Testament (Tawrit), it does not narrate events but only refers to them. Medieval Islamic scholars thus had to make sense of many verses with the help of hadith. Many hadith were written to help the reading of the Quran.

1. What are the problems Historians face in using Quran as a source of history?          (3)

2. What are Hadith?          (2)

3. When Quran descended upon Muhammed?          (2)

Part E MAP

1. Answer all

                                                                                                                        (5)

Mention the places listed in the Box, on the Map.1.      Mecca

2.      Constantinople

3.      Red Sea

4.      Alexandria

5.      Spain