Which ancient civilizations are you most interested in?

ohwilleke said:

The Bell Beaker people of more or less Western Europe (with intrusions into Northern and Central Europe and North Africa) ca. 3100 BCE to ca. 1200 BCE (Eneolithic and Bronze Age). The genetic makeup of Western and Northern Europe is more or less in a modern state at the end of cultures related to the Bell Beaker people and is distinctly Sardinian-ish before they appear, but their origins, the nature of their culture, and its linguistic character are all very much open issues.

Their earliest origins archaeologically are in SW Iberia, but ancient DNA shows Iberian Beaker people to be quite different from other Beaker people genetically. Anthropological opinion has vacillated over time about the extent to which they are a folk migration v. a cultural movement diffused via traders and priests and increasingly it looks like the answer to that question varied regionally. There are legitimate arguments that they could be linguistically Vasconic or linguistically Indo-European (perhaps a pre-proto-Celtic, although not strictly speaking proto-Celtic). They are also contemporaneous with the very rapid appearance of adult milk drinking genes in Europeans. Non-Iberian Bell Beaker people have Y-DNA and autosomal DNA that is distinctively Southern Pontic-Caspian steppe-like, although this is less true of autosomal DNA in Iberian Beaker people which shows more continuity with the early farmers of the region. But, the mtDNA of the Bell Beaker people (passed from mother to children) is arguably indigenously Iberian in origin. In some places, like the British Isles, Bell Beaker people almost completely replaced pre-existing populations.

Their culture spanned an area half a continent in expanse many centuries before the Roman Empire and kept the contemporaneous Corded Ware culture of Eastern and Central Europe at bay in a standoff that lasted a millennium.

fresh_42 said:

I have been very interested in the Sumerians as a kid and dreamt of becoming an archaeologist for a while. I'm not sure to which extend this is true, as the Indians already had discovered basic math, but to me the Sumerians were the first major society which practiced division of labour, settled in cities and used math. They also provide a good amount of mysticism as they lived in an area where several other cultures evolved ever since, so it's not easy to find clear evidence about especially them.

Davephaelon said:

For me it would be the Roman Empire, due to their extraordinary achievements in construction and engineering. Notable are the use of concrete that cured underwater, as in the harbor at Caesarea, and the ingeniously designed concrete dome of the Pantheon that has survived 2000 years.

fresh_42 said:

I have been very interested in the Sumerians as a kid and dreamt of becoming an archaeologist for a while.

I'm not sure to which extend this is true, as the Indians already had discovered basic math, but to me the Sumerians were the first major society which practiced division of labour, settled in cities and used math. They also provide a good amount of mysticism as they lived in an area where several other cultures evolved ever since, so it's not easy to find clear evidence about especially them.

DS2C said:

So true. Also building a bridge across the Rhine in a matter of days- something we couldn't even do today.

Greg Bernhardt said:

To me the Egyptians were the perfect mix of sophistication and mystery.

Greg Bernhardt said:

To me the Egyptians were the perfect mix of sophistication and mystery. However, that is an easy pick. I would also add in the Mongols for their music and Ancient Japan for their Samurai. Which are your favorites?

Hornbein said:

Did you know that the famous three pyramids are arranged precisely as are the stars in Orion's belt? A fairly recent discovery.

pbuk said:

Oh yes, apparently we have also recently discovered that they were built by aliens.

PF is not the place for pseudoscience, including pseudoarchaeology.

pbuk said:

Oh yes, apparently we have also recently discovered that they were built by aliens.

PF is not the place for pseudoscience, including pseudoarchaeology.

Hornbein said:

I heard that from a professor of astronomy who works in Singapore.

Hornbein said:

The original JP Morgan was also an Assyria man.

Frabjous said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_correlation_theory

Hornbein said:

Robert Bauval who came up with hypothesis is definitely a pseudoarcheologist. Nevertheless the Orion's Belt hypothesis is largely a scientific hypothesis. It makes a very specific prediction which can be falsified. So let's look at that.

First I note that Wikipedia contains an error. "They estimate 47–50 degrees per the planetarium measurements, compared to the 38-degree angle formed by the pyramids." It's not degrees, perhaps it's minutes or maybe seconds, those smaller divisions of degrees. I don't know which so for the sake of argument let's correct this to minutes. So the error is of ten minutes.

The Egyptian religion revolved around Orion and the star Sirius, which appears to have been considered the abode of the gods or something like that. A strong analogy between the pyramids and the very prominent stars of Orion's belt is more than plausible.

There are two objections. The first is that the photo of the pyramids they used is upside down. By this they mean that the top of the photo corresponds to the south instead of the north. But "north" = "up" is a modern convention to which the ancient Egyptians would not have been exposed. Indeed from the latitude of Memphis the Orion constellation appears to the south. It seems rather more natural in this case to use the "south" = "up" convention.

The second objection is the ten minutes of arc of error. However no one disputes that the spacing of the pyramids very closely matches the spacing of the stars, and that the size of the pyramids corresponds to the magnitudes. I say that the preponderance of evidence is on the side of the theory.

Hornbein said:

I heard that from a professor of astronomy who works in Singapore.

Frabjous said:

I am impressed on how quickly you became an expert.

ohwilleke said:

Their culture spanned an area half a continent in expanse many centuries before the Roman Empire and kept the contemporaneous Corded Ware culture of Eastern and Central Europe at bay in a standoff that lasted a millennium.

Hornbein said:

While this may all be true I venture to protest that "standoff" implies a conflict that didn't necessarily exist. It is a pet peeve of mine that today's people tend to see the ancient world as one of warfare.

ohwilleke said:

It was popular in anthropology from about the 1960s to the 1980s to assume that earlier peoples were more peaceful. This view hasn't held up to the evidence. Basically, the past was a lot more violent and warlike than the present, and it has gradually gotten more peaceful and less warlike.

As recently as the European middle ages, 30% of male aristocrats who reached adulthood died in warfare.

There are multiple examples archaeologically where steppe people encountered sedentary farmers and left behind massacres of whole villages or scores of people (the farmers dying in droves) in mass graves.

The replacement of the vast majority of first farmer Y-DNA with steppe Y-DNA in a very short period of time around the early Bronze Age plus or minus, didn't happen because steppe men had a better sense of humor or were better at ballroom dancing.

It turns out that the percentage of deaths in hunter-gatherer societies from fellow men is astoundingly high.

The ancient world was absolutely one of constant, brutal warfare.

Hornbein said:

My view is that the ancient world was very diverse, more so than today, and you really can't make blanket generalizations. Societies in challenging environments like the Eskimos were peaceful, presumably because they already had their hands full with survival. More welcoming environments tended to fill up and lead to tribal conflicts. Europe was settled relatively late so wasn't all that densely populated in ancient times. So I wouldn't assume that the Bell Beaker people and Corded Ware people of 3000 to 1000 BCE were at loggerheads without additional evidence.

Krunchyman said:

The Phoenicians.

Astronuc said:

3 hours and 38 minutes

Hornbein said:

Care to provide an executive summary to entice me into investing four hours? (That's why I prefer books. Skimmable.)

Their major cities were Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, and Arwad. All were fiercely independent, rival cities and, unlike the neighboring inland states, the Phoenicians represented a confederation of maritime traders rather than a defined country. What the Phoenicians actually called themselves is unknown, though it may have been the ancient term Canaanite. The name Phoenician, used to describe these people in the first millennium B.C., is a Greek invention, from the word phoinix, possibly signifying the color purple-red and perhaps an allusion to their production of a highly prized purple dye.

The First Punic War (264–241 BC) was the first of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the early 3rd century BC. For 23 years, in the longest continuous conflict and greatest naval war of antiquity, the two powers struggled for supremacy. The war was fought primarily on the Mediterranean island of Sicily and its surrounding waters, and also in North Africa. After immense losses on both sides, the Carthaginians were defeated.

The Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC) was the second of three wars fought between Carthage and Rome, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC. For 17 years the two states struggled for supremacy, primarily in Italy and Iberia, but also on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia and, towards the end of the war, in North Africa. After immense materiel and human losses on both sides the Carthaginians were defeated. Macedonia, Syracuse and several Numidian kingdoms were drawn into the fighting, and Iberian and Gallic forces fought on both sides. There were three main military theatres during the war: Italy, where Hannibal defeated the Roman legions repeatedly, with occasional subsidiary campaigns in Sicily, Sardinia and Greece; Iberia, where Hasdrubal, a younger brother of Hannibal, defended the Carthaginian colonial cities with mixed success before moving into Italy; and Africa, where Rome finally won the war.

The Third Punic War (149–146 BC) was the third and last of the Punic Wars fought between Carthage and Rome. The war was fought entirely within Carthaginian territory, in what is now northern Tunisia. When the Second Punic War ended in 201 BC one of the terms of the peace treaty prohibited Carthage from waging war without Rome's permission. Rome's ally, King Masinissa of Numidia, exploited this to repeatedly raid and seize Carthaginian territory with impunity. In 149 BC Carthage sent an army, under Hasdrubal, against Masinissa, the treaty notwithstanding. The campaign ended in disaster as the Battle of Oroscopa ended with a Carthaginian defeat and the surrender of the Carthaginian army. Anti-Carthaginian factions in Rome used the illicit military action as a pretext to prepare a punitive expedition.

The main source for most aspects of the Punic Wars is the historian Polybius (c. 200 – c. 118 BC), a Greek sent to Rome in 167 BC as a hostage.