Ancient History Discussion Thread

[steve9728]

Put some funny thing: If you know a little about ancient Chinese history then you will no doubt know that Xi'an, Luoyang, Kaifeng, Hangzhou, Anyang, Zhengzhou, Datong, Chengdu, Nanjing and Beijing were the capitals of many of China's ancient regimes. Then the effects of dynastic changes, natural and man-made disasters, wars and famines can lead to a city that now has a different dynasty still pressed underneath it. In Kaifeng, for example, six cities have now been found 'stacked' underneath. And then it's common for historical figures to be unintentionally unearthed from time to time during construction, such as the tomb of Zhang Tang (张汤), the one of famous jurist from the Western Han Dynasty, was found at the Northwest University of Political Science and Law. Yet this is not the most outrageous of all. As the development of these cities progressed, the urban areas of the cities gradually extended to the places where the dead were once to be buried locally, while at the same time the traffic problems needed to be solved. And so the metro was needed. Good news is the artefacts is basically be buried in the soil no more than 10m deep: if the tunnelling shield is below this depth which around 15 to 20m, it would be able to bypass all soil layers here there have any artefacts. Bad news is you need to dig and build the stations. So, in historic cities like Xi'an, we don't know whether the metro construction department is busier, or the archaeological teams of the culture bureau is busier when they dig the metro: Line 8 found 1,356 ancient tombs and four ancient kilns. Line 5 found the capital city of Zhang Han, King of Yong. Line 2 found 13 ancient city sites, 38 ancient tombs and six discoveries of important cultural relics, with a history spanning nearly two thousand years.

add: when you switch to different the metro line in Xi'an, you can see ancient wells from the Yuan and Qing dynasties. Yes, the originals. I visited this city when I was a kid, around 2006 if I remember correctly. I do think it's time to visit Xi'an again.

Edited April 30, 2023 by steve9728

[Kerbalsaurus]

5 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

Was Rome's problem with incessant rebellions due to a repressive military, or just endemic to empires of the time? The Persian empire had no end of trouble with them. 

I mean, if you have an empire that big, there's bound to be rebellions. But the fact that there were other empires they suppressed at the time couldn't have helped.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

6 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

Was Rome's problem with incessant rebellions due to a repressive military, or just endemic to empires of the time? The Persian empire had no end of trouble with them. 

I think it's endemic to empire, period.  People are difficult.  Resources are rarely equitably distributed - and even when they are, we are wired to want more. 

You look at the 200 years of Pax Romana and see it is defined as "relative peace and prosperity" - so the 'relative to what?' question forms the background baseline of what is normal for humans. 

Analogously, Pax Americana hasn't been conflict free in the slightest... But relative to the baseline? It's been pretty damn good for most people. 

[Ryaja]

The time when I didn't want to get back in bed while I was still in bed...

[Llamageddon]

Well, I was searching the forums to see if there were any user defined languages for notepad++ and KSP, and it led me here... oh boy. I'll have to try and resist posting a wall of text; so just to steer the conversation back towards a personal bias of mine that was touched upon once or twice earlier; has anyone else been doing any reading up on the various ancient Andean and Mesoamerican civilizations? I'll give, what I think, are some particularly notable (and probably somewhat exaggerated/oversimplified by me) examples of why this specific socio-historical region fascinates me, particularly in the Andean region. Before I touch on language, I'll just season with a few oddities, which are probably closely related to this being the region with the most "pristine" civilizations known to historian so far (i.e. springing up, metaphorically, out of nowhere. In this context, having no obvious reliable or extensive influence from outside cultural influences before suddenly blossoming). I assume partly because of this, pretty much all these civs developed in ways that are notably 'off kilter' compared to, previously, more conventionally studied ancient civs in the Old World: often centred around Asia/Eurasia and the 'Near East'.

Amongst other things, pretty much all these civilizations expanded their influence North/South rather than East/West, which although somewhat understandable due to geography, still appears to run contrary to expected natural evolution/entropy in this context. In a similar vein, by many standards of western civilizations, they appear to be woefully backwards technologically, especially in regard to infrastructure, materials science, and logistics. However, upon closer inspection they were often just as accomplished in less conventional advancements. In this case, often, either in socio-economic terms, such as methods of taxation and record keeping, or in "alternative" materials science and solutions to logistical problems.

For instance, most people are probably familiar with the Aztecs' somewhat legendary reputation for working with gold and silver, and the equally notable lack of evidence that their smelting techniques, that were in many ways far in advance of anything comparable in the west, ever advanced to reliable or wide-scale smelting of either iron or various alloys that were seemingly just within conceptual and practical technological reach. This is just one example of how (partly in my personal opinion) technology and society can evolve in a supposedly unconventional way, but is demonstrably, just an alternative example of advancements following a mix of the path of least resistance as time marches on, and historical coincidence leading entire nation-states down otherwise unforeseen paths of enlightenment and prosperity. Without going into too much detail, and specifically focussing on the Aztecs, there are many primary conquistador sources reporting that the Aztec macuahuitl, which were ostensibly a primitive club/sword hybrid made of stone and wood, could be just as effective as a fully armoured Spanish soldier as a steel weapon. Of course, upon closer inspection, this isn't that surprising when it turns out these were the cutting edge (pun sort of intended) of advancing this technology using both some of the densest wood that has been discovered to date, and the 'stone' being obsidian: a volcanic glass is both higher than steel on the Mohs scale of hardness, and can hold one of the sharpest edges of anything that isn't made in a laboratory or manufactory.

Finally, to get to the reason I started writing all this in the first place, and taking things in a completely different direction—yet still backing up what I have posited above about natural evolution and technological progress in any given civilization—it is the Incas and the preceding Andean civilizations, that really blow my mind as not only ancient, but particularly, as 'pristine' civs go. I will skip straight over how they managed to have both one of the widest ranging empires of the time, along with a similarly advanced system of censorship and taxation, yet appear to have had little use for any regulated, or even discernable currency, road networks or advanced agriculture; but on top of all that, are practically the only century spanning empire, that has given the status of 'cradle of civilization' to a region independent of any notably large swathes of arable land, and pretty much uniquely, independent of any major river networks, let alone the extensive, fertile, river deltas that pretty much every other civilization known to historians and anthropologists has ascended the annals of history alongside.

I still haven't quite got to my point for writing all this, so-

TLDR: One of the many notable things Andean civilizations, and particularly the Incas are known for, is that they developed a continent spanning empire without having ever developed the written word. Or at least until literally a couple of years ago, this was the accepted wisdom of the majority of academia...

Have you ever heard of quipu? They are a historically unique and quite brilliantly creative means of recording and conveying relatively vast and complex amounts of numerical information, using, of all things, braided and knotted fibre cords. In a (rather hyperbolic, admittedly) sense, they were an ancient combination of a calculator and tapestry. Of course, this is not the same as a book, let alone the written word or practical language; or at least that is what "they" thought until very recently!

I remember researching this years ago, and the more I learned, the more I was astounded how the vast majority of historians and anthropologists, seemed to dismiss out of hand, that this could be used for little more than recording a village's tithes or population numbers. Over the last few years, it seems there has been a slow but steady re-evaluation of evidence and centuries old assumptions that they were little more than floppy abacuses. It turns out that the incas are quite possible the only civilization we know of, to have invented 'writing' without ever putting pen to paper, so to speak (or in this case, quite literally).

If you are interested in linguistics and/or the evolution of language and writing, I highly recommend some further reading on the subject, I doubt you will be disappointed, if you are really interested in the subject, there are an increasing number of, in the context of linguistics and similar fields, cutting edge academic papers being written on the subject. Not surprisingly, if it does turn out that this is the anthropological breakthrough I really hope it is, it is probably the most exciting thing to happen to this branch of academia since the discovery of the Rosetta Stone.

Anyway, whoops... I probably should have gone to sleep instead of writing this, and I could go on, but I'm a bit scared I already might break the internet when I submit this monstrosity. With that sentiment, and as this seems like the most appropriate place I could find to post this sort of stuff on a whim, I'll leave with you a couple of wiki links, relating to the topic of this thread, that I still go to when I am twiddling my thumbs and idly musing about this sort of esoterica. I've read up on the basics of most of this multiple times by now, but these are some of my favourite wikipedia pages to head to when feeling otherwise idle, due to the high chance of finding myself going down the rabbit hole to something seemingly completely unrelated but, at least to me, fascinating and novel to be learning about, whether is at least regionally related the above, such as the Mayan vigesimal numeral system, that Vicuñas have some of the finest wool fibres in the animal kingdom, or something far, far, more esoteric and entirely off-topic.

If you are still reading, how and why? But also, well done, as I don't know how or why I am still typing. I literally registered on the forums an hour or so ago, and certainly wasn't expecting to be delving into this topic at any point, so thanks for humouring me, and to the forum in general for providing an unexpectedly interesting topic for discussion; not to mention letting me spontaneously vent some of my enthusiasm for one of many niche topics, even if I am far from an expert on the subject, and quite possibly require some fact checking. I'm going to scroll back through this thread now and give it a thorough perusal, but first, for those with any stamina left of reading, here is my personal, and on-topic, holy grail of wiki pages to lead you to unexpected trivia at the drop of a hat:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cradle_of_civilization

 

Just and edit to add:

Admittedly, that was a long post that didn't actually mention a specific "ancient" civilization by name, though as an excuse for this I will point out, that just like many civilizations, and particularly in the case of the Incas, they were built on the foundation of a multitude of civilizations that rose, fell or morphed one to the next over millennia; almost continously or at least arguably, with relatively unabridged successions, depending on your definition of "civilization". Partly for this reason, the various Andean civilizations, "proto"-civilizations, kingdoms and "cultures" are, in my opinion, well worth taking note of in the context of "ancient civilizations". Things like the first ritual burials in prehistoric egypt, or some of the earliest pottery in japan appear to have been a cornerstone of what eventually became something that would eventually inspire other cultures for centuries after their rise and (pretty much inevitable) fall.

In the context of the Andes, whilst not the very oldest in the world, there is evidence of some of these key developments tracing back to (possibly) as far back as 10000 years ago, which is pretty mind boggling in the context of the Central and South America, as over that time span you are getting close to overlapping with the tail end of the theorised prehistoric mass migrations (relatively speaking) of humans from Asia to South America. In this case there is compelling evidence for the domestication of squash as an agricultural crop, along with ritualised burial, both of which seem to be a common theme for the "seeds" of what would later become widely referenced as a "cradle of civilization" regardless of whether on not that term is considered academically rigorous or not.

Edited May 2, 2023 by Llamageddon
Addendum

[adsii1970]

2 hours ago, Llamageddon said:

has anyone else been doing any reading up on the various ancient Andean and Mesoamerican civilizations? I

Um, you missed a post... And yes. It's part of my job. And it is why I listed it among the other civilization clusters as posted.

 

 

[adsii1970]

On 4/30/2023 at 2:46 AM, Vanamonde said:

Was Rome's problem with incessant rebellions due to a repressive military, or just endemic to empires of the time? The Persian empire had no end of trouble with them. 

I owed you an answer, @Vanamonde , and am sorry about the delay. And to be honest, not only did the Romans, the Persians, and the Mongolians, and... So, in a short answer, yes, it is endemic to empires of the time. Large, land-based empires, even today, require technology, an investment in wealth, communication, and good logistics. Sure, it is easy to claim land as yours. But you have to be able to defend your claim, supply your troops, equip your troops with superior weapons, and have extremely quick communications to assess the ever-changing situation on the ground. Occupation  of hostile lands require it. This simply isn't possible in the ancient, classical, or post-classical eras. It's barely possible now and look at all the problems that still exist today...

Every civilization that tried to hold a large span empire have troubles with uprisings. Logistics and communication within such a large geographical area were the two biggest problems. Alexander the Great had the least amount of problems, but even he had problems with uprisings. His solution was the same as every other; crush uprisings with extreme brutality and leave only a handful of survivors to spread word. The Romans excelled at this. But the problem is the Roman Empire covered a lot more territory than any other empire did before it - and it did this with extremely brutality. If you do not have the loyalty of the citizenry on your side, history shows that an occupying force is always doomed to fail. Alexander the Great (also known as Alexander the Greek) would always place Greek officials loyal to him as government officials in conquered and occupied lands. And of course, those officials would bring their families and servants - all Greek - with them. While he did encourage intermarriage with the locals, he didn't realize this large infusing of Greek with local peoples would actually aid his empire. Unfortunately, this one aspect would be something Rome and Romans would not do. Although they would adopt this occupation strategy, they would remain separate  - purely Roman - and not integrate into local populations. Nor would they bring in Roman servants, but use locals as slave servants - another rub against the people in the lands where Romans were occupying.

To touch on something you said, Rome was known for its intense brutality for not only warfare against its enemies, but against any of its territories where a rebellion took place. Remember, Rome, at its height, had the best trained and equipped army the world had ever seen. The only army that came close to the discipline, training, and equipment would have been Zhou China. Had these two empires ever decided to clash, it would have been epic.

Rome was not just content to raze a city. No, they would carry off entire populations into slavery (55,000 Carthaginians can vouch for this fact), they would salt fields (places in Tunisia still cannot grow anything thanks to this Roman practice). The Roman Empire always had multiple problems when it came to foreign relations - it never met an outside entity it could not distrust. If the Romans knew the Inca existed, they would have sent a flotilla over the Atlantic to fight them. There is anecdotal evidence that Rome was nearly ready to press even further to the east and northward before various factions within its own Senate and army began the power struggle that put it and Caesar on a collision course that would alter history.

If a rebellion took place within one of its conquered territories, Roman authority could become really got bad, Romans would just crucify people, often seen as the most barbaric practice available - about four meters apart, on a single pole, and along both sides of the road for all going along the road to the razed city as a "friendly reminder" never to rebel against the authority of Rome. Over time, this makes anyone who has been repressed and occupied by Rome an ally against Rome. Rome knew this,

[steve9728]

#EverydayLearnSomethingNew

[kerbiloid]

Late Bronze Age collapse

Quote

The Late Bronze Age collapse was a time of widespread societal collapse during the 12th century BC, between c. 1200 and 1150.
The collapse affected a large area <...>. It was sudden, violent, and culturally disruptive for many Bronze Age civilizations, and it brought a sharp economic decline to regional powers<...>.

<...>.

Competing theories of the cause of the Late Bronze Age collapse have been proposed since the 19th century, with most involving the violent destruction of cities and towns. These include volcanic eruptions, droughts, disease, earthquakes, invasions by the Sea Peoples or migrations of the Dorians, economic disruptions due to increased ironworking, and changes in military technology and methods that brought the decline of chariot warfare. However, recent research suggests that earthquakes were not as impactful as previously believed.^[2] Following the collapse, gradual changes in metallurgic technology led to the subsequent Iron Age across Eurasia and Africa during the 1st millennium BC.

Bronze was replaced with iron.

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Chariot warfare was declined.

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Pottery and furniture got primitive.

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Art of calligraphy got declined. Writing got simplified.

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Arts got degraded.

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Fashion, too.

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The diner food as well.

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Where serious people were doing serious deeds, just who knows what got happening.

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That's how the developed ancient civilisation was destroyed by the barbarians, and Dark Ages began, when the iron replaced the bronze.

Edited May 2, 2023 by kerbiloid

[Llamageddon]

26 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

Um, you ignored a post... And yes. It's part of my job. And it is why I listed it among the other civilization clusters as posted.

Dyslexia attack; I kept reading Mesopotamia as Mesoamerica, so when I did actually see a South American culture mentioned, my brain auto-filtered it out. I've also often wondered about "we found a mud bowl, this is officially a 5000 year old civilization!" tendency. Makes sense when you mention it in the context of prestige/bragging rights though, we're only human after all. Along with the surprising list of things that seem to be (or not be) cultural constants, I've often wondered about huge cultural advances that seem to have happened spontaneously between cultures that couldn't plausibly have had tangible contacts between each other. Pyramids are another example you touched upon, although at least a bit more plausible, at least as an almost guaranteed early architectural advance towards '*insert civilization here*'s first mega-construction'.

On a slightly less serious note, I've often wondered just what it is about dragons that make them a near universal element of folklore in some form or other between so many major cultures around the world, and seemingly independently of each other. I suppose that supposition might partly answer why this is surprisingly common with other folklore examples as well; we have quite fanciful, but still, broadly, somewhat predictable imaginations and shared fears. It probably goes some way towards even explaining the writing phenomenon, though hardly serves to make it less of an apparently bewildering coincidence.

As you also mentioned the subject of writing in that post, what do you think about quipu (or is it quipus?) as a possible candidate for an alternate evolution of what, in most other cultures, became the written word? I realise my enthusiasm for the idea does possibly run a bit ahead of clear consensus, even now, but I certainly think, at the very least, it was never very convincing to dismiss the idea out of hand. Especially considering (as you also mentioned), how brutally and effectively, most cultural expressions and norms were expunged or suppressed throughout that region for an extended period of time. Not to imply that similar episodes are, by any measure, an unpredicable historical occurrence. I'm sure for that reason in general, there are a lot of astounding historical facts, that we don't even know we don't know...

6 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Where serious people were doing serious deeds, just who knows what got happening.

  Reveal hidden contents

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

That's how the developed ancient civilisation was destroyed by the barbarians, and Dark Ages began, when the iron replaced the bronze.

This reminds of a game that came out recently, set thousands of years in the future, where you might find a set of keys or something, and an expert on the history of "the ancients" will authoritatively explain, entirely plausibly, what they were used for, with the only problem being that you know perfectly that, that whatever mundane item is being talked about, it most certainly is not used in that way at all. Made me chuckle every time.

[adsii1970]

Just now, kerbiloid said:

That's how the developed ancient civilisation was destroyed by the barbarians, and Dark Ages began, when the iron replaced the bronze.

Disagree totally. The transition from ancient to classical was not a sharp break but a gradual transition. China transitioned long before the Mesopotamian/Egyptian/Mediterranean region.  And the "iron age" happened at different times and cannot be used as a defining moment of the dark ages since there are many dark ages all through history - nearly every civilization cluster group has them. Iron also appears in use at different times and at different regions of the world, depending on technological development. 

For example, the North American Indians were still not quite an iron age society when the first early modern Europeans (Vikings) landed in northern Canada and Maine in 1000 CE. By the time of Jamestown, some 600 years later, the Europeans had progressed to gunpowder while the American Indian was still barely in the iron age. Also, Alexander the Great's empire and military was already using iron and some early forms of a near-steel iron by the time of his death. His father, Phillip of Macedon, his entire army were using iron swords which is why his army was able to unite Greece. Clearly not the "Middle Ages/Dark Ages" you are referring to, so yeah.

And the term, "Dark Ages" as defining the death of the western half of the Roman Empire is a misnomer as well. Academically, it can be called the Post-Classical period or the Medieval Period. But it wasn't dark. Scholasticism was on the rise - both through the newly founded Roman Catholic Church and through the various non-affiliated monastic learning centers where a great emphasis was placed on literacy and preserving science and knowledge of the past. It's where the modern concept of education and science originated was this era. Unfortunately, subsequent popes and other Roman Catholic leaders would force scholasticism to offer two separate schools... and then we really get fun stuff happening.

[kerbiloid]

2 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

And the term, "Dark Ages" as defining the death of the western half of the Roman Empire is a misnomer as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Dark_Ages are dark, too.

[adsii1970]

2 minutes ago, Llamageddon said:

I've often wondered about huge cultural advances that seem to have happened spontaneously between cultures that couldn't plausibly have had tangible contacts between each other. Pyramids are another example you touched upon, although at least a bit more plausible, at least as an almost guaranteed early architectural advance towards '*insert civilization here*'s first mega-construction'.

This is why serious historians and archeologists will always point to a proto-civilization. Nothing comes from nothing. Something always develops out of something. Even if it is a simpler form of something.

4 minutes ago, Llamageddon said:

I've often wondered about huge cultural advances that seem to have happened spontaneously between cultures that couldn't plausibly have had tangible contacts between each other.

I do believe we have to consider parallel development when we get into the ancient era. The development of the bow and arrow, battle axe, and other weapons of war bear witness to this. Also, agricultural tools, too. Common tools all designed for the same purpose, regardless of the civilization that designs them will have a similar look and design (rule of functionality). For fun, we can apply it to space exploration. If we do find life on another world, and since they will have some sort of agriculture, a plow will look like a plow we have here - and depending on their level of development, it may resemble one of the ones we have in our past or in current use - or may be something futuristic. But its basic design - we will recognize it as a plow.

But even parallel development can only go so far. At some point, at their earliest point, all civilizations, like their languages, come from a common ancestor.

9 minutes ago, Llamageddon said:

I've often wondered just what it is about dragons that make them a near universal element of folklore in some form or other between so many major cultures around the world, and seemingly independently of each other.

Oral history passed down from one generation to the next. Who knows, at some point in time, there may have been various species of dinosaurs or other large reptile species alive in pre-civilization cultures where stories have been passed down over time. Oral histories are passed down and each generation will add stuff to it over time to highlight different aspects to the story they deem important or to make it more relevant to the generation hearing it. Soon, *poof* it wasn't thousands of years ago, it was grandpa who fought the fire breathing dragon... I have more theories on the dragon myths of the Europe/China/India/Japan, but yeah. I'll just leave it at that.

15 minutes ago, Llamageddon said:

As you also mentioned the subject of writing in that post, what do you think about quipu (or is it quipus?) as a possible candidate for an alternate evolution of what, in most other cultures, became the written word?

Yes, the Zulu also have a form of this and was discovered by accident in the 1960s or 1970s, if I recall correctly. The problem is if we cannot translate it we have no idea what it means. I am not saying it to be mean, but we don't. Same thing with the Zulu mats and blankets. All we know is the colors have meaning. The style of knots and weaves have meaning. But other than that? Nothing. It's the same with the Inca and Mayan figure carvings, Linear A, and about a dozen other ancient writing samples out there. When a civilization collapses, no one tells us how to decipher their writing. And we lose so much information on who they were, what they believed, and what made them who they were. And sadly, with everything going digital today, if something wiped out the Internet, how much of human civilization would be gone forever today? Future generations would not know much about us.

Writing is, by far, the most effective form of tangible communication because it requires less space to maintain. Sure, books and scrolls take up space. But look how things have evolved. This forum is a testimony of how far written communication has gone in 6,000 years of written and recorded human history.

15 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Dark_Ages are dark, too.

Thank you for making my point, @kerbiloid.

But the reason it is different than the "Dark Ages" you were referring to is there is literally NO WRITTEN OR RECORDED history except for what we know from Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and a few other remaining Greek literature samples and some other artworks about this era. That's it. NADA for all but the last 300-year period of that part of Greek history.  The European history you are referring to has a lot of written documentation about it - so, it's not so dark.

[Llamageddon]

37 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Dark_Ages are dark, too.

Also discounting, that at least in my opinion, the Byzantine Empire was a pretty clear and unbroken continuation of the Roman Empire, that had, arguably, already moved its centre of power out of Rome to Constantinople, survived in pretty convincing shape as a credible regional power, at least until the mid 1300s, and even if taking into account the fall of Rome against its track record, really did pretty exceptionally well in comparison to the vast majority of powerful states that have survived for anything even close to 1000 years. I am obviously grossly oversimplifying, but I still think the core concept is a perfectly plausible interpretation in general.

I've even heard quite a few historians posit that, one of the reasons the "Dark" ages are both a misleading name, and not nearly as dark, as we were until recently led to believe, is because the Roman Empire, did at least continue in some form as a powerful centre of learning, technology and stability in the general region for so long. Though, of course, over such a long period of time, it did morph into something, that was culturally, nearly unrecognizable in comparison to its roots, starting with the fall of Rome.

Edited May 2, 2023 by Llamageddon
typo

[kerbiloid]

Actually I meant that a simplification is not an evidence of degradation.

Usually it just means a progress from handcrafted masterpieces to mass production.

Edited May 2, 2023 by kerbiloid

[steve9728]

I don't have a good understanding of the historical perspective of Western civilisation, and frankly, I've always wondered why our Western friends would call a period of their history the "dark age". 

2 hours ago, adsii1970 said:

Zhou China

A little correction: it was the Han Dynasty. Fortunately, both sides of the two empires have a good impression of each other. Although neither is accurate.

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Your Majesty, here's the world map!

[adsii1970]

2 hours ago, steve9728 said:

A little correction: it was the Han Dynasty.

Quite right; and I did know that. Problem is I am responding to these between grading exams, handling administrative duties (ugh, I am in my last 16 days of being a division bean bag ), a migraine, and trying to dodge phone calls from book representatives, students wanting to ask questions about the fall semester classes I am teaching (both undergraduate and graduate classes) and preparing a new undergraduate course for the spring semester over Chinese history and this past month, I have been working on gathering resources on -- you guessed it, a seminar class on the Zhou Dynasty. So, I kinda have Zhou on the brain this week.

3 hours ago, Llamageddon said:

Also discounting, that at least in my opinion, the Byzantine Empire was a pretty clear and unbroken continuation of the Roman Empire

But with more Orientalism has always been the traditional view. There were some really nifty things going on in the eastern part of the empire before Constantine undid Diocletian's division that simply did not exist in the west. However, Constantine was far more eastern oriented than he was Western Roman Empire oriented, as is obvious by his moving the capital of the empire further to the east to - Constantinople. But later, when the empire later split again along the old east/west line, the west was already in free-fall shortly after. Part of the decline was in the way Diocletian did his original split...

3 hours ago, Llamageddon said:

I've even heard quite a few historians posit that, one of the reasons the "Dark" ages are both a misleading name, and not nearly as dark, as we were until recently led to believe,

2 hours ago, steve9728 said:

I don't have a good understanding of the historical perspective of Western civilisation, and frankly, I've always wondered why our Western friends would call a period of their history the "dark age".

Um, I am a professional historian. It's what I do. And I also say that what Europe experienced when the western Roman Empire collapsed (Rome was sacked) was NOT anywhere near what should be considered as a "Dark Age." There are plenty of written records, artwork, religious writings, and so forth that gives us a very accurate account of what happened from the fall of Rome to the beginning of the Italian Renaissance. The misnomer comes from the European Enlightenment Era writers who considered it as the "Dark Ages" because of the stranglehold the Roman Catholic Church/Holy See had over philosophy, education, and science - anything not of the divine and sacred is satanic at worst, apostate at best. The term, "heretic" was used to silence all critique of the Church and its teachings for over a thousand years, hence the term "Dark Ages."

And that's where it comes from - so, by the strictest academic sense, it is not an accurate nor academic description of the period of time between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Italian Renaissance. Call it the Medieval Era, the Post-Classical Period, or even the "Middle Ages." But the "Dark Ages" it simply isn't.

3 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Actually I meant that a simplification is not an evidence of degradation.

It is a gross simplification at best. And a highly inaccurate one at that.

3 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Usually it just means a progress from handcrafted masterpieces to mass production.

Um, no. I've been studying history a while. And this is not correct. Mass production didn't begin to happen until the late Eighteenth Century, C.E. and the arrival of the machine age and the arrival of the powered machine. We do see "mechanical production" - a different concept, as early as the early Seventeenth Century C.E. and while it was in development a bit earlier, the beginnings of a new resistance, the trade guild to counter mechanical production, with the belief that machine production could never replace the quality of the craftsman.  But remember, we are not talking about industry using the same terms between those two centuries - one still relied on animal or human powered machines, the other has graduated to water powered and steam driven machines.

Using the incorrect definition of "Dark Ages" is dangerous, even in this application. One could say that the American Amish are causing the U.S. to be in the "Dark Ages" since they still use Eighteenth Century technology in agriculture, woodworking and carpentry, and even construction. Or one could say that since there are still nomadic peoples living in Siberia, that Russia is still a hunter-gatherer society, which either classification would be a false dichotomy. This is why using the correct terminology to describe eras and the use of correct terms is so important in any academic field of study. Oh, and by the way, handcrafted goods are still available worldwide today from all over the world. And there is not one civilization in a "Dark Age." But I do believe a Dark Age is coming because of our over-reliance on technology.

[steve9728]

16 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

And that's where it comes from - so, by the strictest academic sense, it is not an accurate nor academic description of the period of time between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Italian Renaissance. Call it the Medieval Era, the Post-Classical Period, or even the "Middle Ages." But the "Dark Ages" it simply isn't.

As someone can play piano and viola (what a typical asian kid), that's what I always think!

[kerbiloid]

I would also mention the Neolithic Revolution, when the people's skeletons show that the average height decreased, average health weakened, illnesses became more frequent, bones were deformed by hard peasant work, compared to the blessed paleolithic times.

They did. Because in paleolithic times weak persons were dying as children and had no chance to leave an adult skeleton.

I believe, something similar was happening to the technologies. When you have to make a hundred of pots, you have no time to beautify them.

***

 Something similar with the iron vs bronze.

Iron refinery is very primitive, its sources are everywhere in bogs, and it's not harder to refine it than copper.

So, I believe that the "Bronze Age" was a local phenomenon in the copper-rich areas, rather than the "Iron Age" was very short.

Just instead of green stones (malachite) you burn orange mud (bog ore).

Spoiler

 

VS

 

 

 

Edited May 2, 2023 by kerbiloid

[steve9728]

Books Lazy is the ladder of human progress (nope

[kerbiloid]

(multipost)

Edited May 2, 2023 by kerbiloid

[steve9728]

Speaking of Han, put some funny thing again: rare history photo: Han Empire soldiers found His Majesty's golden cookies

Edited May 2, 2023 by steve9728

[SunlitZelkova]

What was Ming China's perception of the seas to the east, that is, what did they think was there?

I'm creating a world where Zheng He sails east instead of west, "discovers" the Americas. What I want to know is- does any realistic rational exist for him to journey east instead of west?

Right now I am assuming that the Ming were aware a place called Europe existed to the west and thus would have tried to sail east to find it.

[steve9728]

3 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

What was Ming China's perception of the seas to the east, that is, what did they think was there?

I'm creating a world where Zheng He sails east instead of west, "discovers" the Americas. What I want to know is- does any realistic rational exist for him to journey east instead of west?

Right now I am assuming that the Ming were aware a place called Europe existed to the west and thus would have tried to sail east to find it.

Thanks to Western missionaries, the existence of North and South America and even Antarctica was known in Ming China. But bad news is the emperor of this period was Wanli (万历): although he won three major battles in his youth, in the latter part of his reign he "went on strike" for almost 30 years. I don't think he would have thought that the Americas would have any wealth, given the somewhat "traditional view" that the kings and emperors of feudal China at the time generally had of their own country: my Kingdom has everything. This notion persisted until the Qing Dynasty. Brits: knock knock*

Fun fact is, Queen Elizabeth I wrote a personal letter to Wanli  in 1596, expressing her desire for trade and other areas of exchange between Britain and China. Unfortunately, however, the messenger was killed on the way and the letter reach China in 1984 when Queen Elizabeth II visit China. That's even some kind of historical joke hahaha

Zheng He's fleet was quite large. Unlike the route westwards along Southeast and South Asia all the way to Africa it is much more difficult to obtain adequate supplies between the islands on the eastward route than on the westward route. Meanwhile, Zheng He's last journey was in 1430, and Matteo Ricci, the Italian missionary who mapped the globe, arrived in China in 1581.

Too late buddy!

Edited May 3, 2023 by steve9728

[Kerbalsaurus]

17 hours ago, steve9728 said:

I don't have a good understanding of the historical perspective of Western civilisation, and frankly, I've always wondered why our Western friends would call a period of their history the "dark age". 

The reason us westerners call it “the dark ages” is because of the technological backtracking of civilization. Just warning you, this is very much in a nutshell. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, much of Europe lost many of knowledges that the Romans had. Many people were now moving about the European countryside, with nowhere to go. People from manors offered them safety, as long the people worked for them. Soon, nations were formed throughout Europe. Several of them.
 

But the dark ages is called that because, as aforementioned, many knowledges were lost from the Roman Empire. Many people were also forced into Feudalism, and the world wouldn’t advance much at all. Anybody who tries to make a breakthrough in science is killed because of the superstitions of the church. The only thing that ends it are the crusades, which people find new opportunities from, and leave their manors. Maybe Adsii can explain much more in depth.