Romanocentrists, Egyptocentrists and others....

[Peregrin Toker]

Aren't you slightly annoyed by people who believe that all human civilization owes it existence to ONE particular ancient civilization??

For example, I've encountered a guy who claimed that all of Europe would be drowning in barbarism if it wasn't for the Roman Empire (obviously, he didn't know anything about the numerous sophisticated pre-Greco-Roman civilizations that had flourished in Europe)...

I've also heard of a growing number of people who claim that all of western civilization can be traced back to Ancient Egypt - they aren't totally wrong, but they are oversimplifying way too much - the old Egyptians were indeed one of most advanced peoples of their era, but European civilization owes more to the Neolithic civilizations of Central/Eastern Europe (and the Indo-European nomads who later immigrated to Europe in "immigration waves" - the first was around 3500 BC) than to the Ancient Egyptians, who, however, were quite influental.

Your opinions??

[Stormbringer]

To credit any single civilization with getting us where we are today is foolish. However some civilizations have contributed more than others. Rome, Acient Greece, China, the Muslim Empires of the 1200-1400s, and modern western civilization have all had a huge impact on the course of human history.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Aren't you slightly annoyed by people who believe that all human civilization owes it existence to ONE particular ancient civilization??

For example, I've encountered a guy who claimed that all of Europe would be drowning in barbarism if it wasn't for the Roman Empire (obviously, he didn't know anything about the numerous sophisticated pre-Greco-Roman civilizations that had flourished in Europe)...

I've also heard of a growing number of people who claim that all of western civilization can be traced back to Ancient Egypt - they aren't totally wrong, but they are oversimplifying way too much - the old Egyptians were indeed one of most advanced peoples of their era, but European civilization owes more to the Neolithic civilizations of Central/Eastern Europe (and the Indo-European nomads who later immigrated to Europe in "immigration waves" - the first was around 3500 BC) than to the Ancient Egyptians, who, however, were quite influental.

Your opinions??

The foundation of many of the concepts vital to western civilization occured in classical Greece. So I would consider Greek civilization critical to our modern western ideal of democratic and capitalist civilization with free exchange of scientific information and ideas.

But there's a lot of pieces from other places, and without them what we have would look rather different, and could indeed be quite incomplete to say the least.

[BlkbrryTheGreat]

The answer depends on what you mean by civilization. If you mean farming with the occasional trading city located here and there then you're right. However, if you mean "Western" civilization, with all the things that came with it such ideas as science, logic, equality before the law, codified law, freedom of religion, freedom, among other things, then Ancient Greece and Rome are definatly the places to look. If anything Egypt is definatly given too much credit.

The Egyptians were the slaves of the Pharohs for thousands of years and the only "remarkable" thing to come out of the period of technological and intellectual stagnation were the Pyramids, which if you want to honest about, are nothing more then useless piles of rocks.

Contrast this with Ancient Greece which, to put it mildely, possesed an active intellectual community and Rome which built many USEFUL buildings across its Empire and had no state religion (not at its height anyway) to which people had to bow their knees too. If Greece and Rome never developed and spread their ideas it is very likely that mankind would still be in the same level of intellectual and technical stagnation which prevaled in the world for thousands of years.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The answer depends on what you mean by civilization. If you mean farming with the occasional trading city located here and there then you're right. However, if you mean "Western" civilization, with all the things that came with it such ideas as science, logic, equality before the law, codified law, freedom of religion, freedom, among other things, then Ancient Greece and Rome are definatly the places to look. If anything Egypt is definatly given too much credit.

The Egyptians were the slaves of the Pharohs for thousands of years and the only "remarkable" thing to come out of the period of technological and intellectual stagnation were the Pyramids, which if you want to honest about, are nothing more then useless piles of rocks.

Contrast this with Ancient Greece which, to put it mildely, possesed an active intellectual community and Rome which built many USEFUL buildings across its Empire and had no state religion (not at its height anyway) to which people had to bow their knees too. If Greece and Rome never developed and spread their ideas it is very likely that mankind would still be in the same level of intellectual and technical stagnation which prevaled in the world for thousands of years.

Well, actually, Ming Dynasty China reached a level of economic and technological development which was very impressive, with a rate of innovation which was quite surprising for an autocratic power with a centralized bureaucracy. They also had the first colonial-style Empire in the world; not proper colonies as we think of the African colonies or the Thirteen Colonies, but definitely an economic exploitation-based empire which spanned throughout the far east, southeast asia, and throughout the Indian Ocean, albeit briefly.

The Ming had a chance, I think, to create something unique, and rival the explosion of western civilization and culture. Unfortunately, Confucian bureaucrats at court killed the massive expeditions - and with them, the wealth that they brought in, and the infusion of ideas and cultural concepts from other regions, that could fuel innovation in thought and technology - and other internal innovations and pushed the society back towards its agrarian innovations, thus ruining the one chance I think western civilization had for a long-term competitor.

[Nick]

Contrast this with Ancient Greece which. . .

Well, actually, Ming Dynasty China. . .

I think this discussion is just proving SHJ's original point. . .

Humanity's current global civilisation is a melting pot of different ideas, taken from all sorts of cultures.

For instance, most people use 'Hindu-Arabic' numerals (i.e. 0, 1, 2, 3 etc) to represent values. The convenience and expressiveness of this form has resulted in it displacing most other methods of writing numbers.

Many other ideas have been independently discovered by different groups, but credit is given to a particular group.

Like someone said - many influences, but some more influential than others. If certain key influences hand't existed, then certainly, the world of today would look rather different, but whether it would be better or worse (if either) is anybody's guess.

[Peregrin Toker]

Well, actually, Ming Dynasty China reached a level of economic and technological development which was very impressive, with a rate of innovation which was quite surprising for an autocratic power with a centralized bureaucracy. They also had the first colonial-style Empire in the world; not proper colonies as we think of the African colonies or the Thirteen Colonies, but definitely an economic exploitation-based empire which spanned throughout the far east, southeast asia, and throughout the Indian Ocean, albeit briefly.

BTW, didn't the Ancient Chinese invent gunpowder, the crossbow and many othe things?? (although it was the Arabs who constructed the first cannons)

BTW#2, the ancient greek culture is basically an "extension" of the Minoan civilization on Crete, which in turn stood on the shoulders of those European civilizations which came before it.... (and that way, you can go on)

[Tosho]

Luckily I've never met anyone who thought that human civilazation was based on one culture. unfortunatly though I have met people who have fallen for what I call "historical lies" the most obvious one is that the Confederacy made the world's first Iron-clad ship.

[Coyote]

I don't think that the Egyptians were so totally useless. Thier architecture and stone work served people in the region for centuries, and when the Europeans saw the impregnable Egyptian stone castles, crennelation, towers and all, they started copying that in their homelends. European castles until then had mostly been wood stockades, oddly like the Western cavalry forts we saw in US history.

Egypt also made papyrus widespread, and influenced the Greeks and Romans to a degree. In fact, there is a good possibility that the Etruscans, Rome's northern neighbors in the early years of their foundation, were migrants from Egypt (similar art styles and a language radically out of synch with other Indo-European tongues at the time). The Etruscans had a huge impact on Rome's development and learning, and their last kings from the time of monarchy, Tarquin the Proud, was probably an Etruscan...

And whether you like the Bible or not, the expulsion of the Hebrews from Egypt set in motion a chain of events that we still feel to this day.

But compared to later Roman and Greek development, the Egyptians had little direct influence, possibly even the Tokugawa Shogunate had more immediate effects...

[The Dark]

IMHO, the most important ancient civilizations to modern "Western" civilization are as follows (although I may forget one or two):

Babylonian (appear to have been earliest farmers)

Persian (first true large-scale empire that I'm aware of)

Chinese (large number of inventions, though stagnation screwed them over)

Greco-Roman (Greek philosophy and the attempts to prove philosophical theories led in some ways to Western science).

Arab (for developing the ideas of the Greeks from conquered libraries during the Dark Ages, though they too stagnated and fell by the wayside).

[The Dark]

Luckily I've never met anyone who thought that human civilazation was based on one culture. unfortunatly though I have met people who have fallen for what I call "historical lies" the most obvious one is that the Confederacy made the world's first Iron-clad ship.

Wasn't it a Japanese ship built back around the 1400s or something like that (the ironclad, I mean)? I know the Gloire (partial ironclad) existed before the Virgina/Merrimack, and I think there was a British partial ironclad also, though I don't recall its name.

[weemadando]

All human civilization CAN be traced back to a single point...

The first hominid to pick up a rock/branch and brain another one for his woman/food.

[Stormbringer]

Luckily I've never met anyone who thought that human civilazation was based on one culture. unfortunatly though I have met people who have fallen for what I call "historical lies" the most obvious one is that the Confederacy made the world's first Iron-clad ship.

Wasn't it a Japanese ship built back around the 1400s or something like that (the ironclad, I mean)? I know the Gloire (partial ironclad) existed before the Virgina/Merrimack, and I think there was a British partial ironclad also, though I don't recall its name.

I believe there were. But like a lot of oriental inventions they didn't do too much with it. Monitor and Merrimack were the trend setters if not the orginals.

[Coyote]

Monitor and Merrimack were the trend setters if not the orginals.

Most interesting new dynamic added during the US Civil War, I think, was the CSS Hunley, first combat-operational submarine that saw action... Gatling guns were available but not used much, although steam powered trains and ships also added a new dimension...

[The Dark]

Most interesting new dynamic added during the US Civil War, I think, was the CSS Hunley, first combat-operational submarine that saw action... Gatling guns were available but not used much, although steam powered trains and ships also added a new dimension...

Either that or aerial reconaissance. The Union Balloon Corps was used in only a few battles, but it proved that aerial recon could be useful, which was what led to the US Army's purchase of a Wright Flyer roughly 45 years later. And that, of course, was the birth of the USAF.