Ancient History Discussion Thread

[kerbiloid]

It was called Dark Age (twice, Greek and European) due to practical absence of documented history, which was reconstructed later, since the antiquarian epoch and later.

(Actually, it's better described in the Russian wiki

https://ru-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Антикварианизм?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=ru&_x_tr_pto=wapp)

[magnemoe]

On 4/27/2023 at 8:13 PM, adsii1970 said:

Indus Valley/Egypt(Nile Valley Civilization)/China/Mesopotamia are lumped in as around the same time for multiple reasons. Archaeological evidence shows that they all appear within a minuscule time of human history of one another (anything within 750 year period is too close to say “aha! This group is the first!” 
 

What makes us know for certain they are first is writing. No other civilizations have any form of writing as early as these do. Even if we cannot read Linear A or the pre-Heiroglyphics of Egypt or the pre-Sanskrit written languages, they exist. 
 

The FASTEST civilization to develop from prehistoric to classical era? The Japanese. They do it in a little over 300 years what took most others 800 to 1,200 years to do. 

OK so Japan fast paced multiple times. Second time was 1850-1940,  Your main benefit is that you don't have to do the primary discoveries you just has learn how to use them.
And have the will, Japan beat Russia  in an battleship  battle 50 years after they was forced to open up. 
Another example, writing is something most see the value of once they grasp the concept, then usually copying the one having it other times just the idea  

Question was iron production discovered more than one time?  Not improvements, the idea of making stuff out of iron and not meteoric iron. 
Tutankhamen had an iron dagger, in the bronze age.  It was meteoric iron and no it was not an super weapon like an 17th century sword would be against bronze weapons. 
It would been an very expensive item however. 

[steve9728]

As a remnant of ancient history in modern times, it is still quite fun. To be honest, I've actually walked this parade route last year - from Westminster Abbey to Buckingham Palace. What an idiot

Edited May 6, 2023 by steve9728

[Llamageddon]

On the surface, this could appear to be slightly off-topic, but so many little details, particularly of the traditions in the order of ceremony, can be traced back by centuries, and often have not deviated from the canon established at that time. Whilst, in this case, to my knowledge, none of it dates back as far as to fall into the context of 'ancient' history, doubtless many ancient civilizations and ceremonies were also influenced by relatively coincidental or even accidental traditions established centuries before. I bet there are some particularly bizarre/irrational examples. Though, not entirely unreasonably, I imagine a lot of people consider the ones being enacted today in the UK today are equally bizarre. Come to think of it, I'm probably one of them.

Actually, upon further reflection, I recently heard of one interesting superstition that has become a rule. Supposedly any male ruler who has used the Kohinoor in their regalia, has met an untimely death or suffered some other misfortune, so now only women will be presented with it. AFAIK, this does not necessarily limit it to only being used by a ruling queen, though the ins and outs of why, or when, certain regalia is given to a member of the royal family is unknown to me.

Also, on a site note, I find it quite amusing that both people wearing the ceremonial crowns, daren't even move their heads more than a fraction of an inch, and certainly won't look down, for fear of the crown slipping off their heads. I wonder if this has been a common problem for ruler's throughout history, who were expected to wear outlandishly elaborate crowns. I also wonder how much of a faux-pas/ill omen this might be considered to be.

Unlike today, there were periods of history where it was essential that a king be crowned as soon as absolutely possible to establish their claim, rather than waiting for months or more to have a coronation ceremony. I'm pretty sure that in relatively recent history, the UK has had at least one ruling monarch that was never officially crowned.

Do any historians here know when crowns became synonymous with the ruler of a kingdom or empire? Can it be dated back to ancient history?

[SunlitZelkova]

How long does it take for a population to gain immunity to a disease?

I was originally thinking to have my alternate history where Zheng He goes east and winds up in America in 1407 lead to the Native Americans getting immunized by way of the Chinese being more cleanly than Europeans (I'd assume) and getting just enough exposure to become immune with triggering an epidemic. But I watched some videos the other day proposing it might take centuries or more for that to happen, so I thought I'd ask here. This kind of fits in the Questions thread in the S&S section too.

Or is that even possible? Just off the top of my head, it doesn't seem like it would be possible for a population to become immune to a disease without major losses unless they lived alongside that disease from its inception.

[magnemoe]

10 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

How long does it take for a population to gain immunity to a disease?

I was originally thinking to have my alternate history where Zheng He goes east and winds up in America in 1407 lead to the Native Americans getting immunized by way of the Chinese being more cleanly than Europeans (I'd assume) and getting just enough exposure to become immune with triggering an epidemic. But I watched some videos the other day proposing it might take centuries or more for that to happen, so I thought I'd ask here. This kind of fits in the Questions thread in the S&S section too.

Or is that even possible? Just off the top of my head, it doesn't seem like it would be possible for a population to become immune to a disease without major losses unless they lived alongside that disease from its inception.

Responding here instead of in the copied tread. Problem became much worse in that all the diseases hit pretty munch at once, you survived one of them but got killed by another.  
Having some trickle of trade back in Roman time, say Cartago had some trade and it stopped then it fell could solve much of this but it might been to early. China in 500-700 AD might work better.  
 

[kerbiloid]

On 4/28/2023 at 5:04 PM, adsii1970 said:

as in why that around 3200 BCE does every single civilization cluster (Mesopotamia, Crete, Egypt, China, Indus River Valley, and South America) does written language, even if we still cannot translate it today suddenly appear out of nowhere without any trace of a written proto-language?

Maybe try to derive the Ancient Egyptian from Coptic, while Akkadian from Hebrew and Arabic, semi-lol? Did anyone even try this?

What if the Ancient Egypt is a Coptic joke?

(Starting with Khufu, Snefru, and others, they got tired, and continued naming the Ramesseses (plural), Thutmoses, Ptolemies, and Cleopatres just with autoincrement version numbers.
Also, the <Random word>hotep name generator was out of new names.)

I mean, the archaic languages usually gutturally wheeze and choke (kH, hH, Hh, Kw, K', ...), while the kinda-Ancient Egyptian sounds sooo nice and clean for the European ear...
Just like the Coptic does. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coptic_language#Phonology

Why not try to reverse the evolution.

Edited May 20, 2023 by kerbiloid

[adsii1970]

Sorry folks, I have been away from this thread because I had term papers and final exams to grade... So, once I get my brain working again, I'll be back!

[magnemoe]

On 4/28/2023 at 4:04 PM, adsii1970 said:

Yeah, I just hope I haven't killed the thread.   I am interested in the philosophical discussion - as in why that around 3200 BCE does every single civilization cluster (Mesopotamia, Crete, Egypt, China, Indus River Valley, and South America) does written language, even if we still cannot translate it today suddenly appear out of nowhere without any trace of a written proto-language?

For the Middle East you had the bronze age collapse. Bronze required tin who was hard to get in the Middle east, England was one source but it was very far away 3000 years ago, others was worse it was the first rare mineral. 
It required strong states to get this or pay for it, then you took an beating like bad harvests who gave famines follow by pandemics and riots and the states could not run the global supply system anymore and then did not have the edge who also was their mandate from heaven.

But I did not know it was global, yes China and India might be an pandemic as the trigger but South America, how reliable is the dates, or it was an climate event like an major volcano? 
 

[adsii1970]

32 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Bronze required tin who was hard to get in the Middle east, England was one source but it was very far away

Asia Minor was part of a trade network that Mesopotamia/the Middle East from the time of Middle Egypt. It had vast resources of tin, copper, and iron ore. Not to mention that, but the Minoans and the later Mycenaeans who superseded them were expert seamen. We know both Egypt, Babylon, and Hittite civilizations were getting their tin from Asia Minor because of mineralogy studies and archaeology. In fact, it was one of the reasons the Romans wanted to control Asia Minor so bad - the mineral/metal wealth of Asia Minor. 

There's a common myth that trade was limited in the Ancient Era - and that is just that - a myth.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

On 5/15/2023 at 9:26 PM, SunlitZelkova said:

Or is that even possible? Just off the top of my head, it doesn't seem like it would be possible for a population to become immune to a disease without major losses unless they lived alongside that disease from its inception.

I know I answered elsewhere - but remember that Asia, Europe, Africa and everything else connected is part of a super continent.  You could walk / wade across rivers from the Horn of Africa to China and back to Portugal.  We've evidence of sailing going back 4,000 years BCE.  So people on the supercontinent were relatively in contact with each other for the entire history of humanity.  Many of the earliest plagues / pandemics that make it into the histories seem to have moved from East to West, meaning that your Alt explorers going East across the Pacific would have had plenty of pathogens that the NA/SA populations did not have experience with.  No reason to assume that the disease process would have been different in either scenario.

The one thing I wanted to add, however, is that it might have taken longer depending on where your Alt Chinese land.  Western NA was always less populated than the East and Midwest.  Part of the rapid pathogen spread from the European incursions was due to fairly high population density in MesoAmerica and the East Coast, coupled with the local river trade/contacts along the NA interior.  So if the Alt history has people meeting the NA locals in 1400  in the far West - the crash could have been just getting started on the East Coast by the time the Europeans land later in the century, and they'd bring in new stuff.  (Meaning it could have been worse).

The really sad thing is that sometimes survivors who seem asymptomatic can actually be carriers - and so, your inclination seems correct.  Absent modern medicine, the only way to gain immunity is to survive (which some did) and then have your remaining folks undisturbed long enough to regrow your population.

[kerbiloid]

18 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Bronze required tin

Not necessary. Other colored metals, including the arsenic, are good enough.

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

The historical "bronze" is not the modern construction bronze, which is harder than steel.

They are just copper, polluted by random impurities. And as the sulfuric ores are always a mixture of major copper or lead with several minor metals, actually they never had either clean copper, or good bronze, but a bad quality "bronze", which was just harder than pure copper, but nothing more.

The tin was required for better bronze, but not for any one. A trash bronze was anyway better than a sharpened stone. All you really need is the copper ore.

Edited May 24, 2023 by kerbiloid

[steve9728]

On 5/24/2023 at 10:44 PM, kerbiloid said:

Not necessary. Other colored metals, including the arsenic, are good enough.

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

The historical "bronze" is not the modern construction bronze, which is harder than steel.

They are just copper, polluted by random impurities. And as the sulfuric ores are always a mixture of major copper or lead with several minor metals, actually they never had either clean copper, or good bronze, but a bad quality "bronze", which was just harder than pure copper, but nothing more.

The tin was required for better bronze, but not for any one. A trash bronze was anyway better than a sharpened stone. All you really need is the copper ore.

"The alloy composition of the early Shang dynasty bronzes was determined to contain between 67.01 and 91.99% copper, 3.48 to 13.64% tin, and 0.1 to 24.76% lead, which is not very stable. However, the high lead content allows the copper solution to maintain good fluidity."

Late Shang Dynasty: Madam, we just made something big, hope you like it.