Beyond Greece and Rome: Uncovering a Global Ancient History
We are moving past the narrow focus on classical Greece and Rome to reveal a truly global antiquity. New evidence of trans-Saharan trade, Indian Ocean networks, and connections stretching from Scandinavia to China shows a complex web of exchange across Afro-Eurasia. This shift expands our understanding of the ancient world far beyond the Mediterranean basin.
Cleopatra is one of the most iconic figures from antiquity, yet she is nearer in time to the present than she was to those first pyramids – by a half-millennium, no less.
- danans
Relatedly, here's a very recent video explaining a Buddha statue that was found in a temple of the Egyptian goddess Isis, installed by the local Buddhist and Hindu communities, carved by a Roman artisan, and dedicated in a message in both Greek and Sanskrit.
- bashmelek
To be honest, though many historians today might disagree, I still think there is something we can call “Western Civilization,” even if it is a vague family of things that cannot be strictly defined. I know they are trying to correct for certain harmful attitudes out there, but articles like these feel to me to put the social message above all.
It is especially when a certain perceived problematic attitude is the focus, without much actual teaching the wider history, that leaves me feeling disappointed. I think teaching the complete history is a far better antidote than emphasizing a bad trend. Like I’ve read many articles accusing the brothers Grimm of being masculinist, but rarely will those same articles attempt to educate the reader of the Baroness D’Aulnoy, who coined the very term fairy tale!
The ancient world was indeed complicated and interconnected, rich in so many cultures and peoples and stories. We should talk more about these other civilizations! The Phoenicians, the Celts, the Chaldeans, Akkadians, Seleucids, Numidians—-those are just a few from “the
West”, around the world offers an even broader view. There is so much more to wonder at, it is a shame that the discourse has the toxic backdrop it does.
- throwawayffffas
The main reason for our "Western" societies to focus to a greater degree specifically in these two civilizations is collective rule.
These two civilizations produced democracy and republic, the foundations of our current political system, additionally more than half of Europes legal systems are founded on roman law. Their histories are very relevant to our modern experience.
We should of course study other civilizations, but the truth of the matter is if you look into Chinese history you will find 3 millennia of imperial rule and absolute, divine mandate monarchy, fascinating but less relevant for citizens living in modern republics than say the 50 or so years before Romes transformation into a monarchy.
Greece and Rome give us facsimiles of our current political systems, there are things to be learned from studying them.
PS: Even Imperial Rome is very relevant, because as I said, it has to a great degree shaped our current rights and legal environment and as monarchies go it is unique in that the only legitimacy or any ruler was the peoples approval of their rule. i.e. it was the most democratic of the monarchies in history.
- zkmon
Our perception about the ancient times, is moulded by sayings that have other goals other than recording of facts and events. Those "swords-and-sandals" movies focus on sensationalism, gory, shock that will sell. Even the historians of ancient times have goals of pleasing the rulers or maintaining the social layers and secrecy. Ancient times were far more slower and peaceful than present times. The stories pick only those spicy parts and fast forward everything else.
The only fact-recording machine is the structures built by people, fossils, geological features etc. All written stuff is decorated and colored.
- wannabe44
> The de facto equation of ‘ancient history’ with ancient Mediterranean history, at least in most of the Anglosphere, has endured for many generations. But we are on the cusp of a dramatic shift in perspective that is producing a much bigger, broader and more exciting view of ‘the ancient world’.
Archeology is more difficult than reading. The civilizations which left a literary corpus (oral or written) will have more to speak about than those who didn't.
Archeology also tells us only of what metals people used, what animals they had and what they ate. Whereas literature speaks much more - of the values of those people, which makes it a more attractive target to study.
Finally, even from an archaeological perspective, trade is less interesting than war. So warlike civilizations generate more interest than trade-dominated ones.
Of course this is excluding the fact that christianity made greco-roman culture relatable to most of the west.