A Brief Historical past of the World, by H. G. Wells, is a part of the HackerNoon Books Sequence. You’ll be able to bounce to any chapter on this e book right here. EGYPT, BABYLON AND ASSYRIA
EGYPT, BABYLON AND ASSYRIA
The Egyptians had by no means submitted very willingly to the rule of their Semitic shepherd kings and about 1600 A.D. a vigorous patriotic motion expelled these foreigners. Adopted a brand new part or revival for Egypt, a interval recognized to Egyptologists because the New Empire. Egypt, which had not been intently consolidated earlier than the Hyksos invasion, was now a united nation; and the part of subjugation and rebel left her filled with army spirit. The Pharaohs turned aggressive conquerors. That they had now acquired the battle horse and the battle chariot, which the Hyksos had dropped at them. Beneath Thothmes III and Amenophis III Egypt had prolonged her rule into Asia so far as the Euphrates.
We’re getting into now upon a thousand years of warfare between the as soon as fairly separated civilizations of Mesopotamia and the Nile. At first Egypt was ascendant. The good dynasties, the Seventeenth Dynasty, which included Thothmes III and Amenophis III and IV and an ideal queen Hatasu, and the Nineteenth, when Rameses II, supposed by some to have been the Pharaoh of Moses, reigned for sixty-seven years, raised Egypt to excessive ranges of prosperity. In between there have been phases of despair for Egypt, conquest by the Syrians and later conquest by the Ethiopians from the South. In Mesopotamia Babylon dominated, then the Hittites and the Syrians of Damascus rose to a transitory predominance; at one time the Syrians conquered Egypt; the fortunes of the Assyrians of Nineveh ebbed and flowed; generally town was a conquered metropolis; generally the Assyrians dominated in Babylon and assailed Egypt. Our area is just too restricted right here to inform of the comings and goings of the armies of the Egyptians and of the assorted Semitic powers of Asia Minor, Syria and Mesopotamia. They have been armies now supplied with huge droves of battle chariots, for the horse—nonetheless used just for battle and glory—had unfold by this time into the previous civilizations from Central Asia.
TEMPLE AT ABU SIMBEL
Displaying the statues of Rameses II at entrance
Nice conquerors seem within the dim mild of that distant time and go, Tushratta, King of Mitanni, who captured Nineveh, Tiglath Pileser I of Assyria who conquered Babylon. Ultimately the Assyrians turned the best army energy of the time. Tiglath Pileser III conquered Babylon in 745 B.C. and based what historians name the New Assyrian Empire. Iron had additionally come now into civilization out of the north; the Hittites, the precursors of the Armenians, had it first and communicated its use to the Assyrians, and an Assyrian usurper, Sargon II, armed his troops with it. Assyria turned the primary energy to expound the doctrine of blood and iron. Sargon’s son Sennacherib led a military to the borders of Egypt, and was defeated not by army energy however by the plague. Sennacherib’s grandson Assurbanipal (who can also be recognized in historical past by his Greek title of Sardanapalus) did truly conquer Egypt in 670 B.C. However Egypt was already a conquered nation then underneath an Ethiopian dynasty. Sardanapalus merely changed one conqueror by one other.
AVENUE OF SPHINXES
Main from the Nile to the nice Temple of Karnak
Picture: D. McLeish
If one had a collection of political maps of this lengthy interval of historical past, this interval of ten centuries, we must always have Egypt increasing and contracting like an amœba underneath a microscope, and we must always see these varied Semitic states of the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Hittites and the Syrians coming and going, consuming one another up and disgorging one another once more. To the west of Asia Minor there can be little Ægean states like Lydia, whose capital was Sardis, and Caria. However after about 1200 B.C. and maybe earlier, a brand new set of names would come into the map of the traditional world from the north-east and from the north- west. These can be the names of sure barbaric tribes, armed with iron weapons and utilizing horse-chariots, who have been turning into an ideal affliction to the Ægean and Semitic civilizations on the northern borders. All of them spoke variants of what as soon as should have been the identical language, Aryan.
THE GREAT HYPOSTYLE HALL AT KARNAK
Picture: D. McLeish
Around the north-east of the Black and Caspian Seas have been coming the Medes and Persians. Confused with these within the information of the time have been Scythians and Samatians. From north-east or north-west got here the Armenians, from the north- west of the sea-barrier by means of the Balkan peninsula got here Cimmerians, Phrygians and the Hellenic tribes whom now we name the Greeks. They have been raiders and robbers and plunderers of cities, these Ayrans, east and west alike. They have been all kindred and comparable peoples, hardy herdsmen who had taken to plunder. Within the east they have been nonetheless solely borderers and raiders, however within the west they have been taking cities and driving out the civilized Ægean populations. The Ægean peoples have been so pressed that they have been searching for new properties in lands past the Aryan vary. Some have been searching for a settlement within the delta of the Nile and being repulsed by the Egyptians; some, the Etruscans, appear to have sailed from Asia Minor to discovered a state within the forest wildernesses of center Italy; some constructed themselves cities upon the south- east coasts of the Mediterranean and have become later that individuals recognized in historical past because the Philistines.
Of those Aryans who got here thus rudely upon the scene of the traditional civilizations we are going to inform extra absolutely in a later part. Right here we observe merely all this stir and emigration amidst the world of the traditional civilizations, that was arrange by the swirl of the gradual and steady advance of those Aryan barbarians out of the northern forests and wildernesses between 1600 and 600 B.C.
And in a piece to observe we should inform additionally of just a little Semitic folks, the Hebrews, within the hills behind the Phœnician and Philistine coasts, who started to be of significance on this planet in the direction of the tip of this era. They produced a literature of very nice significance in subsequent historical past, a set of books, histories, poems, books of knowledge and prophetic works, the Hebrew Bible.
In Mesopotamia and Egypt the approaching of the Aryans didn’t trigger elementary modifications till after 600 B.C. The flight of the Ægeans earlier than the Greeks and even the destruction of Cnossos should have appeared a really distant disturbance to each the residents of Egypt and of Babylon. Dynasties got here and went in these cradle states of civilization, however the principle tenor of human life went on, with a sluggish enhance in refinement and complexity age by age. In Egypt the collected monuments of extra historic instances—the pyramids have been already of their third thousand of years and a present for guests simply as they’re to- day—have been supplemented by recent and splendid buildings, extra significantly within the time of the seventeenth and nineteenth dynasties. The good temples at Karnak and Luxor date from this time. All of the chief monuments of Nineveh, the nice temples, the winged bulls with human heads, the reliefs of kings and chariots and lion hunts, have been achieved in these centuries between 1600 and 600 B.C., and this era additionally covers many of the splendours of Babylon.
FRIEZE SHOWING EGYPTIAN FEMALE SLAVES CARRYING LUXURIOUS FOODS
Picture: Jacques Boyer
Each from Mesopotamia and Egypt we now have considerable public information, enterprise accounts, tales, poetry and personal correspondence. We all know that life, for affluent and influential folks in such cities as Babylon and the Egyptian Thebes, was already nearly as refined and as luxurious as that of snug and affluent folks to-day. Such folks lived an orderly and ceremonious life in stunning and fantastically furnished and embellished homes, wore richly embellished clothes and wonderful jewels; that they had feasts and festivals, entertained each other with music and dancing, have been waited upon by extremely educated servants, have been cared for by medical doctors and dentists. They didn’t journey very a lot or very far, however boating excursions have been a typical summer time pleasure each on the Nile and on the Euphrates. The beast of burthen was the ass; the horse was nonetheless used solely in chariots for battle and upon events of state. The mule was nonetheless novel and the camel, although it was recognized in Mesopotamia, had not been introduced into Egypt. And there have been few utensils of iron; copper and bronze remained the prevailing metals. Fantastic linen and cotton materials have been recognized in addition to wool. However there was no silk but. Glass was recognized and fantastically colored, however glass issues have been often small. There was no clear glass and no optical use of glass. Folks had gold stoppings of their enamel however no spectacles on their noses.
One odd distinction between the lifetime of previous Thebes or Babylon and fashionable life was the absence of coined cash. Most commerce was nonetheless achieved by barter. Babylon was financially far forward of Egypt. Gold and silver have been used for change and saved in ingots; and there have been bankers, earlier than coinage, who stamped their names and the load on these lumps of treasured metallic. A service provider or traveller would carry treasured stones to promote to pay for his requirements. Most servants and employees have been slaves who have been paid not cash however in type. As cash got here in slavery declined.
A contemporary customer to those crowning cities of the traditional world would have missed two essential articles of food regimen; there have been no hens and no eggs. A French prepare dinner would have discovered small pleasure in Babylon. These items got here from the East someplace concerning the time of the final Assyrian empire.
Faith like all the pieces else had undergone nice refinement. Human sacrifice as an example had lengthy since disappeared; animals or bread dummies had been substituted for the sufferer. (However the Phœnicians and particularly the residents of Carthage, their biggest settlement in Africa, have been accused, later of immolating human beings.) When an ideal chief had died within the historic days it had been customary to sacrifice his wives and slaves and break spear and bow at his tomb in order that he shouldn’t go unattended and unarmed within the spirit world. In Egypt there survived of this darkish custom the nice customized of burying small fashions of home and store and servants and cattle with the lifeless, fashions that give us to-day the liveliest realization of the secure and cultivated life of those historic folks, three thousand years and extra in the past.
THE TEMPLE OF HORUS AT EDFU
Such was the traditional world earlier than the approaching of the Aryans out of the northern forests and plains. In India and China there have been parallel developments. Within the nice valleys of each these areas agricultural metropolis states of brownish peoples have been rising up, however in India they don’t appear to have superior or coalesced so quickly as town states of Mesopotamia or Egypt. They have been nearer the extent of the traditional Sumerians or of the Maya civilization of America. Chinese language historical past has nonetheless to be modernized by Chinese language students and cleared of a lot legendary matter. In all probability China right now was upfront of India. Up to date with the seventeenth dynasty in Egypt, there was a dynasty of emperors in China, the Shang dynasty, priest emperors over a loose-knit empire of subordinate kings. The chief obligation of those early emperors was to carry out the seasonal sacrifices. Lovely bronze vessels from the time of the Shang dynasty nonetheless exist, and their magnificence and workmanship compel us to acknowledge that many centuries of civilization should have preceded their manufacture.
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This e book is a part of the general public area. H. G. Wells (2011). A Brief Historical past of the World. Urbana, Illinois: Challenge Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022, from https://www.gutenberg.org/information/11870/11870-h/11870-h.htm
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