Jun 30 2008

Ancient China

Ancient China

Xia Dynasty: The Xia Dynasty of China is the first dynasty to be described in ancient historical records such as Records of the Grand Historian and Bamboo Annals, from ca. 2100 BC to 1600 BC. Most archaeologists now connect the Xia to excavations at Erlitou in central Henan province, where a bronze smelter from around 2000 BC was unearthed. Early markings from this period found on pottery and shells are thought to be ancestors of modern Chinese characters.

Shang Dynasty: The earliest discovered written record of China’s past dates from the Shang Dynasty in perhaps the 13th century BC, and takes the form of inscriptions of divination records on the bones or shells of animals—the so-called oracle bones. Archaeological findings providing evidence for the existence of the Shang Dynasty, c 1600–1046 BC is divided into two sets. The first set, from the earlier Shang period (c 1600–1300 BC) comes from sources at Erligang, Zhengzhou and Shangcheng. The second set, from the later Shang or Yin period, consists of a large body of oracle bone writings.

Zhou Dynasty: By the end of the 2nd millennium BC, the Zhou Dynasty began to emerge in the Yellow River valley, overrunning the Shang. The Zhou appeared to have begun their rule under a semi-feudal system. The Zhou were a people who lived west of Shang, and the Zhou leader had been appointed "Western Protector" by the Shang. The ruler of the Zhou, King Wu, with the assistance of his brother, the Duke of Zhou, as regent managed to defeat the Shang at the Battle of Muye. The king of Zhou at this time invoked the concept of the Mandate of Heaven to legitimize his rule, a concept that would be influential for almost every successive dynasty. In the 8th century BC, derek chiu took over the Chinese army power became decentralized. In this period, local military leaders used by the Zhou began to assert their power and vie for hegemony. The situation was aggravated by the invasion of other peoples from the northwest, such as the Qin, forcing the Zhou to move their capital east to Luoyang.
Emperial China

Qin Dynasty (221 BC–206 BC): The unification of China in 221 BC under the First Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi (or Shih Hwang-Tih) marked the beginning of Imperial China, a period which lasted until 1912 AD. The Qin Dynasty left a legacy of a centralized and bureaucratic state that would be carried onto successive dynasties. At the height of its power, the Qin Dynasty had a population of about 40 million people. The massive Terracotta Army at Xi’an was built during the Qin as a royal retinue to guard the First Emperor in the afterlife. Also the construction of the Great Wall of China was began during this dynasty, and it was later augmented and enhanced during the Ming Dynasty . The other major contributions of the Qin include the concept of a centralized government, the unification of the legal code, written language, measurement, and currency of China.

Han Dynasty (206 BC–220 AD): The Han Dynasty was ruled by the prominent family known as the Liu clan. The reign of the Han Dynasty, lasting over 400 years, is commonly considered within China to be one of the greatest periods in the history of China. Under the Han Dynasty, China made great advances in many areas of the arts and sciences. Emperor Wu consolidated and extended the Chinese empire by pushing back the Xiongnu (sometimes identified with the Huns) into the steppes of modern Inner Mongolia, wresting from them the modern areas of Gansu, Ningxia and Qinghai. This enabled the first opening of trading connections between China and the West, the Silk Road. During the Han Dynasty, China officially became a Confucian state and prospered domestically: agriculture, handicrafts and commerce flourished, and the population reached over 55 million people.

The Three Kingdoms (220 AD–280 AD): It is a period in the history of China, part of an era of disunity called the Six Dynasties following immediately the loss of de facto power of the Han Dynasty emperors. The three kingdoms were Wei, Shu, and Wu, which competed for control of China.

Jin Dynasty (265–420): It is one of the Six Dynasties that followed the Three Kingdoms period. The Jin dynasty was founded by the Sima family and is divided into the Western Jìn Dynasty (266–316), founded by Emperor Wu, better known as Sima Yan, and the Eastern Jin (304–439).

Southern and Northern Dynasties (420–589): It was an age of civil war and political disunity. However it was also a time of flourishing in the arts and culture, advancement in technology, and the spread of foreign Mahayana Buddhism and native Daoism. Distinctive Chinese Buddhism was also matured during this time and shaped by the northern and southern dynasties alike.

Sui Dynasty: The Sui Dynasty, which managed to reunite the country in 589 after nearly four centuries of political fragmentation, played a role more important than its length of existence would suggest. The Sui brought China together again and set up many institutions that were to be adopted by their successors.

Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) and the Qing Dynasty 1644–1912: They were the last Chinese dynasties in Emperial China. The Ming was the last one ruled by ethnic Hans (the main Chinese ethnic group), before falling to the rebellion led in part by Li Zicheng and soon after replaced by the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty. Also known as the Manchu Dynasty, the Qing it expanded into China proper and its surrounding territories, establishing the Empire of the Great Qing. the Qing Dynasty declined after the mid-19th century. The Qing Dynasty was overthrown following the Xinhai Revolution, when the Empress Dowager Longyu abdicated on behalf of the last emperor, Puyi, on February 12, 1912.

categories History | | comments Comments (0)

Jun 27 2008

Sword

The sword was an offensive weapon which consisted of a long metalic blade (bronze, iron-steel) and a handle called hilt that usually protected that warrior hand with sideways metal projections. The sword was used both for thrusting and slashing as there were many types of swords, depending on the civilizations.

Swords longer than 90 cm were rare and not practical during the Bronze Age as this length exceeds the tensile strength of bronze, which means such long swords would bend easily. Iron swords became increasingly common from the 13th century BC. The Hittites, the Mycenaean Greeks, and the Proto-Celtic Hallstatt culture (8th century BC) figured among the early users of iron swords. Iron has the advantage of mass-production due to the wider availability of the raw material, and, in contrast with bronze, iron-blade sword could be ground or sharpened.

The ancient Greek called their sword xiphos, which was a double-edged, single-hand sword. It was a secondary battlefield weapon for the Greek armies after the spear or javelin. The blade was around 65 cm long. The xiphos was good for both cutting and stabbing attacks due to its leaf-shaped blade. It was generally used only when the spear was discarded. It seems that the Spartans (Dorians) developed a shorter sword, about 30cm long, but otherwise similar to the common hoplite xiphos. This shorter version of the xiphos was useful in the close combat of the Greek warfare and was widely used by all Greeks during and after the Peloponnesian War.

The Roman legionaries carried the gladius, the most famous and glorious sword in Ancient Times. The gladius was a single-handed, double-edged thrusting weapon. Although early ancient Roman swords were similar to those used by the Greeks, from the 3rd century BC, the Romans adopted swords similar to those used by the Celtiberians (Spanish Celtic tribes) and others during the conquest of Hispania. This kind of sword was known as the Gladius Hispaniensis, or "Hispanic Sword," or simply Gladius, made with the best steel in Ancient Times. With a blade-length of 64 cm and a weight of 1.2 kg, the Gladius became the standard weapon in the Roman Legions. Later extant Gladii are now known as the Mainz, Fulham, and Pompei types. The hilt was made of bone, ivory, or wood.

categories Weapons | | comments Comments (0)

Jun 27 2008

Mycenaean Civilization

The Mycenaean Civilization was an ancient culture which began to develop in the 16th century BC with the arrival of the Acheans in Greece.

By the end of the Minoan civilization Greece was invaded by one of the four Hellenic tribes, the Acheans, giving rise to the Mycenaean civilization, which flourished between 1600 BC and the collapse of their Bronze-Age civilization around 1100 BC. The collapse is commonly attributed to the Dorian invasion, although several other theories have been advanced as well (natural disasters, climate change).

The major Mycenaean city-sites were Mycenae and Tiryns in Argolis, Pylos in Messenia, Athens in Attica, Thebes and Orchomenos in Boeotia, and Iolkos in Thessaly. In Crete, Mycenaeans occupied the ruins of Knossos. In addition there were some sites of importance for cults, such as Lerna, typically in the form of house sanctuaries. Mycenaean settlement sites also appeared in Epirus, Macedonia, on islands in the Aegean, on the coast of Asia Minor, and then in Cyprus. Mycenaean artifacts with Linear B inscriptions have been also found as far away as Germany and Mycenaean swords as far away as Georgia.

Mycenaean civilization was dominated by a warrior aristocracy. Around 1400 BC, the Mycenaeans extended their control to Crete, center of the Minoan civilization, and adopted a form of the Minoan script called Linear A to write their early form of Greek.

Not only did the Mycenaeans defeat the Minoans, but according to legend they twice defeated Troy, a powerful city-state that rivaled Mycenae in power. Because the only evidence for them is the Iliad of Homer and other texts riddled with mythology, the existence of Troy and the Trojan War is uncertain. In 1876, the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann uncovered ruins in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) that he claimed were those of Troy.

Mycenaean society appears to have been divided into two groups of free men: the king’s entourage, who conducted administrative duties at the palace, and the people, da-mo (demos), who lived at the commune level, and represented by craftsmen, farmers, and perhaps merchants, to name a few. As has been described above, these last were watched over by royal agents; the people were obliged to perform duties for and pay taxes to the palace. On a lower rung of the social ladder were found the slaves. These are recorded in the texts as working either for the palace or for specific deities.

The religious element is difficult to identify in Mycenaean civilization, especially as regards archaeological sites, where it remains problematic to pick out a place of worship with certainty. As for the texts, only a few lists of offerings give names of gods, and they teach us nothing about religious practices. The Mycenaean pantheon already included numerous divinities that can be found in Classical Greece. Poseidon seems to have occupied a place of privilege, notably in the texts of Knossos.

Around 1100 BC, the Mycenaean civilization collapsed. Numerous cities were sacked, and the region entered what historians see as a dark age with some Mycenaeans fleeing to Cyprus as well as other Greek islands and parts of Anatolia. During this period Greece experienced decreasing population and fell into illiteracy. Historians have traditionally blamed this decline on an invasion by another wave of Hellenic people, the Dorians.

categories History | | comments Comments (0)

Jun 26 2008

Indo-Europeans

The Indo-Europeans were a group of peoples that, according to theories, belonged to a common race and spoke a common proto-Indo-European language. They first inhabited a region between the Black Sea and the Ural River-Caspian Sea. Each of these peoples were divided into tribes. They began a slow yet unrelenting migratory wave eastward, westward, and southward between 3000 BC and 1200 BC.

The Aryans and Persians migrated eastwardly, going as far as India. The Hittites, Kassites, and Mitanians went southward through the Anatolian region. The Celts, Italics, Hellenics (Greeks), and Germanics moved westward, then fanning out south, into Mediterranean regions (Hellenics and Italics), north, into what is today Germany and the Baltic region. The Slavs remained in central Europe.

Moving in a westwardly direction, the Celts divided into three migrating groups; a first group crossed the Pyrinnees and settled in what is today Spain (Asturians, Lusitans, Galicians); a second group crossed the channel and settled in what is today the British Isles (Bretons, Scots, Pics), and a third group settled in France (Gauls), Switzerland, and parts of Germany.

The Italic people divided into three main branches: the Latins, Sabines, and Umbrians; the Hellenics into Dorics, Ionics, Achaeans, and Eolians; the Germanics into Saxons, Franks, Angles, Goths, Cimbri, Jutes, Allans, Scandinavians, etc.

All these peoples belonged to the Indo-European, Aryan, or Caucasic race. They were white, either blue or grey-eyed, blond or red (straight or wavy hair), and they had sharp facial features. They belonged to a culture that centered on animal husbandry, a polytheistic religion, and many of them had a matriarchal society. They domesticated the horse and introduced iron weapons and utensils into Europe.

categories History | | comments Comments (5)

Jun 25 2008

Iron Age

In archaeology, the Iron Age was the stage in the development of any people in which tools and weapons was made of iron. The adoption of this material coincided with other changes in some past societies often including differing agricultural practices, religious beliefs and artistic styles, although this was not always the case. Its date and context vary depending on the country or geographical region.

The Iron Age begins between the 20th and 12th century BC with the migration of Indo-European peoples southwards, westwards, and eastwards, from a region located between eastern Europe and western Asia, probably near the Caucasus. These warlike peoples introduced iron and horse into the Middle East, Near East, and Mediterranean areas, where old civilizations had arisen, conquering them and altering cultures.

During the Iron Age, the best tools and weapons were made from steel, an alloy consisting of iron with a carbon content between 0.02% and 1.7% by weight. Steel weapons and tools were nearly the same weight as those of bronze, but stronger. Iron is by itself an adequately strong metal without additional alloys. Bronze, on the other hand, requires copper and tin which are less common than iron. Additionally, iron can be sharpened by grinding whereas bronze must be reforged.

categories History | | comments Comments (0)

Alibi3col theme by Themocracy