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The Ancient World Part VIII:
India, East Asia, Oceania and America, to 500 CE
Time Line of Art History: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
In his famous book, "Organism," Abraham Maslow originated the idea of self-actualization within a hierarchial structure of physilogical and psychological needs. Within this structure are what Maslow calls "esteem needs." From the very beginning of time historians have made manifest evidence of man's expression of "esteem needs." Over 30,000 years ago in Chauvet France the discovery of dynamic, vibrant paintings of animals drawn on limestone cave walls stand as a testament to man's need to express his world through art.
Beauty is truth, truth beauty,
That is all ye know on earth and
All ye need to know.
-------- John Keats (1819) "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
Take the time to see the truth, to see the beauty that man has
created across time and space. "Click away!"
South and Southeast Asia, 1000 B.C.–1 C.E.
South
and Southeast Asia 1-500 C.E.
Mesoamerica and Central America, 1–500 C.E.
Readings: Washington State University-World Cultures to 1500
India:
In 331 BC, Alexander the Great of Macedon began one of the greatest conquests
in human history. After conquering Egypt and defeating the Persian Empire
Alexander had pushed his army to the very limits of the world as the Greeks
knew it. But he wanted more; he saw that the world extended further. By conquering
the ancient lands of the Mesopotamians, he came into contact with cultures
to the east, such as Pakistan and India. After almost a millenium and a half,
from the period of Harappa (2500-1750 BC), to the end of the Brahmanic period,
the peoples of India entered into no commerce or trade with the Mesopotamians.
He was an adventurer rather than a king. Like Alexander, he began with almost no army whatsoever; with this army he seized the region of Magadha just south of the lower Ganges and then steadily conquered the whole of the Ganges basin. Chandragupta Maurya had started his empire. When Alexander the Great departed from Gandhara, a power vacuum was left in western India which Maurya took advantage of. Marching westward, he quickly conquered the whole of the Indus Valley, and eventually gained Gandhara and Arachosia (the mountainous region west of the Indus) after defeating the Greek rulers of Persia and Bactria, the Seleucids.
The Age of the Guptas and After
When the last of the Mauryan kings was assassinated
in 184 BC, India once again became a collection of unfederated kingdoms. During
this period, the most powerful kingdoms were not in the north, but in the
Deccan to the south, particularly in the west. The
north, however, remained culturally the most active, where Buddhism was
spreading and where Hinduism was being gradually remade by the Upanishadic
movements, which are discussed in more detail in the section on religious
history. The dream, however, of a universal empire had not disappeared. It
would be realized by a northern
kingdom and would usher in one of the most creative periods in Indian history.
Video Presentations and Links
India:
For over two millennia, India has been at the centre of world history. But how did India come to be? What is India? These are the big questions behind this intrepid journey around the contemporary subcontinent. In this landmark series, historian and acclaimed writer Michael Wood embarks on a dazzling and exciting expedition through today's India, looking to the present for clues to her past, and to the past for clues to her future. The journey takes the viewer through majestic landscapes and reveals some of the greatest monuments and artistic treasures on Earth. From Buddhism to Bollywood, from mathematics to outsourcing, Michael Wood discovers India's impact on history - and on us.
Origins of civilization-INDIA-The Empire of Spirit Part 3
India, the origin of civilization and empire of spirit & religion. it also describes the affect of western and arabic invaders and conquerer.
The Gupta Dynasty
Readings: Washington State University-World Cultures to 1500
Japan:
The Yamato peninsula, on the southwesternmost portion of the island of Honshu,
has historically been the region through which cultural influence from the
mainland has passed into Japan. Beginning in 300 A.D., a new culture distinguished
itself from Yayoi culture in the area around Nara and Osaka in the south of
Honshu. This culture built giant tomb mounds, called kofun , many of which
still exist; these tomb mounds were patterned after a similar practice in
Korea. It is from these tomb mounds that these people derive their name: the
Kofun. For two hundred years, these tombs were filled with objects that normally
filled Yayoi tombs, such as mirrors and jewels. But beginning in 500 A.D.,
these tombs were filled with armor and weapons. So we know that around this
time, a new wave of cultural influence had passed over from Korea into Japan.
Readings: Washington State University-World Cultures to 1500
China:
The Great Unification: The Ch'in (256-206 BCE)
Ancient China had always been a collection of more or less independent states in the north of China. The Shang and the Chou dominated the political landscape as the most powerful of those states, but they did not exercise uniform rule over neighboring regions. When the Chou began to weaken around 500 BC, these independent states began to war among themselves over territory and influence. So chaotic was this period that the Chinese refer to it as The Warring States period, and it did not end until the whole of north China was unified under a single empire, the Ch'in dyansty.
Although the Ch'in pretty much invented Chinese
government, or at least the form that all subsequent dynasties would follow,
in addition to standardizing Chinese culture in very vital ways (standards,
weights, measures, and most importantly, writing) in Chinese history it is
the Han, the longest dynasty in Chinese history, that defines Chinese culture.
The Chinese themselves frequently refer to themselves as the "people
of the Han."
When Wang Mang tried to create a new dynasty, the Hsin ("New") dynasty, from within the Han dynasty, his central concern was addressing the severe inequities in wealth and property that had grown up between the classes in China. He would have succeeded had not his military been weak and had not nature, and the Hsiung Nu, conspired to create widespread starvation and dissatisfaction. When Wang Mang was executed in 23 AD by the peasant group, the Red Eyebrows, there were no strong candidates to assume the awful burden of taking over the massive Chinese imperial government. For two years, from 23 to 25 AD, various factions fought among themselves until, in 25 AD, a wealthy landowner led a rebel army and seized the government. Since he was related to the Han imperial house, he declared the Han dynasty restored.
After the disastrous period of totalitarian government during the Ch'in dynasty (221-207 B. C.), the early Han dynasty (207 B.C.-9 A.D.) returned to older forms of imperial government. However, they adopted from the Ch'in the idea of an absolutely central government and spent most of their period in power trying to regain the same level of centrality that the Ch'in and the Legalists had so ruthlessly accomplished. This ideology of central government, along with the Legalists' attempts to standardize Chinese culture and Chinese philosophy, led thinkers of the Han to attempt to unify all the rival schools of Chinese thought and philosophy that had developed over the previous three hundred years.
Video Presentations and Links
China:
Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism in China
An intimate look at the origins and practice of China's three traditional schools of thought. Together these three teachings comprise the roots of Chinese civilization and culture.
Engineering an Empire Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5
Discovery Channel: Lost Treasure of the Ancient World
Readings: Washington State University-World Cultures to 1500
The Iron Age South of the Sahara
African south of the Sahara lived largely in nomadic, hunter-gatherer groups up until 200 BC. As a result, African populations were very sparse. There are several speculations as to why sub-Saharan Africans remained in hunting-gathering groups, but they are all guess-work. Perhaps the most reasonable explanations involve the abundance of resources and the protection that their isolation gave them from invasion and migration pressures.
The single most important development in the history of northwestern Africa was the use of the camel as a transport vehicle. In ancient times, the Egyptians and Carthaginians engaged in just a trickle of commercial trade with west Africa, even though west Africa was rich in gold, precious metals, ivory, and other resources. The reason for this was the imposing barrier of the Sahara, which in Arabic simply means "The Desert." Around 750 AD, under the influence of Islamic peoples, northern and western Africans began to use the camel to transport goods across this forbidding terrain.
Islam entered Africa shortly after its inception in the seventh century AD. After the death of Muhammad, the rasul, or "messenger," and prophet of Islam, in 632, the first caliph ("deputy of the prophet") of Islam, Abu Bakr, ambitiously undertook a series of military conquests to spread the new faith across the world. Although he died two years later, his nephew, Umar, continued the ambitious program. In 636, the Muslims occupied Jerusalem, Damascus, and Antioch; in 651, they had conquered all of Persia.
Ghana was the most powerful empire in Western Africa, but it was not an Islamic kingdom. By the 900's, Muslims controlled most of the desert oases along the commercial routes; because of this economic power, they were able to force the king of Ghana to divide his capital city into two distinct districts, one for Muslims and one for non-Muslims.
The second great Sahelian kingdom was that of Mali. The Sahel is the savannah region south of the Sahara which, after 750 AD, became the center of culturally and politically dynamic cities and kingdoms because of the strategic importance of the Sahel for trade across north Africa.
After the decline of Mali, the kingdom of Gao reasserted itelf as the major kingdom in the Sahel. A Songhay kingdom in the region of Gao had existed since the eleventh century AD, but it had come under the control of Mali in 1325. In the late fourteenth century, Gao reasserted itself with the Sunni dynasty. Songhay would not fully eclipse Mali until the reign of the Sunni king, Sonni Ali, who reigned from 1464-1492.
Hausaland is in the center of northwestern Africa immediately south of the Sahara desert. Until the 1100's, Hausaland was made up of a number of decentralized agricultural and pastoral villages. However, beginning in the late twelfth century, these villages combined into several kingdoms ruled by partly divine kings. The first of these centralized kingdoms was Daura.
The Sahel region of the Sudan, that is the region immediately south of the Sahara desert in central and western Africa, saw four of the greatest African empires. The largest and longest lasting was Ghana, followed by Mali and its successor, Songhay. Near central Africa, however, arose another great empire called Kanem around 1200. Kanem was originally a confederation of black tribes, but by 1100, a group of tribes called the Kanuri settle in Kanem and in the thirteenth century the Kanuri began to conquer the surrounding areas.
In the forestlands of western Africa south of the Sahelian states (the Sahel is the area immediately south of the Sahara), Africans lived in small villages that were tribal and ruled over by chiefs. Sometime between 1000 and 1500 AD, many of these villages began to consolidate into larger units and eventually formed powerful and centralized states; the largest and longest lasting of these centralized states was Benin.
The eastern coast of Africa changed profoundly around the close of the first millenium AD. First, Bantu-speaking from the interior migrated and settled along the coast from Kenya to South Africa. Second, merchants and traders from the Muslim world and India realized the strategic importance of the east coast of Africa for commercial trafiic and began to settle there. From 900 AD onwards, the east coast of Africa saw an influx of Shirazi Arabs from the Persian Gulf and even small settlements of Indians. The Arabs called this region al-Zanj, "The Blacks," and the coastal areas slowly came under the control of Muslim merchants from Arabia and Persia. By the 1300's, the major east African ports from Mombaza in the north to Sofala in the south had become thoroughly Islamic cities and cultural centers.
Great Zimbabwe / The Mwenemutapa Empire
The Mwenemutapa or Zimbabweans
were a Bantu-speaking people in south-eastern Africa. As with all the
Bantu who migrated from central Africa to the south and to the east, the ancestors
of the Mwenemutapa brought iron-smelting and agriculture with them to the
region south of the Zambezi River. The region was dominated by the Swahili
city-state of Sofala; Zimbabwe, however, was rich in gold. Because of the
wealth of Zimbabwe and the importance of Sofala as a trading city, the Zimbabweans
from 1000 AD onwards were exposed to Chinese, Persian, and Indian crafts and
culture. The growing trade encouraged the Zimbabweans to centralize their
government. Originally ruled by ruler-priests, the Mwenemutapa developed a
military and economic kingship of astonishing power and efficiency.
Readings:
Washington State University-World Cultures to 1500
The culture of the Native Americans was complex, rich, and diverse, displaying unique and profound patterns of thought and life. Urbanization, however, came rather late in the Americas and, like so much else of Native American culture, took on forms never seen elsewhere. Many of the aspects of urban culture were established in the Americas: living in cities, the use of writing, complex social structures, and so on. But there are also some intriguingly unique aspects: several American civilizations did not develop writing systems; all urban American cultures, while adopting an abstract class system, never abandoned kinship as the primary way of organizing society; the growth of urban centers never shifted the economy away from agriculture. In the bustling city of Tenochtitlan, the largest and most complex city of the Native Americans, the bulk of the population left the city in the morning to go farm and returned at night.
Shortly after the Olmec civilization vanished, a new civilization arose in the second century BC in the valley of Mexico. This grand civilization would dominate the culture of the valley of Mexico for almost a millenium and stands as the most significant cultural influence throughout the history of Central American civilizations. This civilization was centered around the city of Teotihuacán. At its peak, Teotihuacán was a city of over one hundred thousand people—not only was it the largest city in America, it was one of the largest cities in the ancient world, period.
Unlike the cultures of the Valley of Mexico, the only period in which the urban centers were important to the Mayas was during the Classic period from 300 to 900 AD. The culture of the Mayas, however, has little changed from the classic period to the modern period, for Maya culture was largely tribal and rural all throughout the Classic period. What distinguishes Classic from post-Classic Maya culture was the importance of urban centers and their structures in the religious life of the Mayas and the extent of literate culture.
Explore the MesoAmerican World
Video Presentations and Links: The Americas
Lost Treasures Of The Ancient World - Empires In The Americas
Engineering an Empire - The Maya: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5
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