641 replies to this topic

[Mondas]

you would also need specialist workers to make the tools needed for agriculture.

[Ironhand]

Here's an interesting bit of Howardian theory of cultural regression. The Vinca culture crashed. But it's copper smelters were more advanced than copper forges built a few thousand years later.

[Mondas]

Pyramid construction in ancient Egypt was like that also. The older the pyramid, the more sophisticated the technology seemed to be used is it's design.

[Pictish Scout]

"Pyramid construction in ancient Egypt was like that also. The older the pyramid, the more sophisticated the technology seemed to be used is it's design."

This is not always the case as the first pyramids were very poor technicaly ( one or two crumbled during or some time after the construction). But it is as all things, once you get to the zenith things start to fall.

A Code of Laws are indication of civilization? ancient Egypt is no doubt a civilization but no code of laws are known or were ever mentioned by ancient egyptian sources, contrary to the babylonians, greeks, romans...

Labor Specialization was very common in the majority of Neolithic cultures, but is this civilization? So what is civilization and what is NOT civilization? I think it is very hard to define.

Vinca culture is a civilization, ok. But what about the Zulu, Gauls, Germanic Tribes, Huns, Mongols: Iron, Labor Specialization, Military Organization, Nobility, Kingship, Social Classes.
If more sophisticated and technological advenced cultures than the Vinca are "Barbarians"... I don't get it lol. Maybe there "Barbarian Civilizations"...actually there are!

But again...what is civilization?

Code of Laws? - Egyptian didn't have them

Writing? - Inca didn't have it

Labor Specialization? - Neolythic cultures (pre-civilized) already had them

Cities? - Its hard to define a "City". In Egypt "cities" was much different from the Greek "Polis" or the Roman "Urbs" or the "Cities" in Gaul. It seems a very relative word. Is a huge village a City?

Sedentarism? - it isn't Civilization per se, you can be sedentary in Amazonia or the jungles of Congo.

No Existence of Tribes? - In Arab civilization, even today, the tribe still has power, Rome had tribes and clans, ancient kingdom of Israel had tribes, etc.

Decandence? - lol no man needs to be civilized to be decadent. I think that in the Hyborian Age, there is so much decadence in civilization because they are Decadent Civilizations, they are Falling ( not militarly, it seems).

I'm starting to think that there is no much point trying to separate civilization from barbarism as "barbarian" is a relative word. Persians were as much civilized (if not more..whatever it means) as the Greeks, but they were called barbarians

So Gauls had their civilization, Picts had theirs, Megalithic Cultures in the stone age were also civilizations, as were the Aztecs, Mongols, Zulu... unless there is a solid defenition of Civilization.

[Mondas]

I think you are right on the subject. As for the term "Barbarian" I think that in modern term it can be used to describe behavior that current society would find abhorrant.

[Mark_Hall]

Hmm, I thought I was the only one who still used the archaic way of spelling "archaeology."

Ain't nothing archaic about it--most British universities have departments of archaeology, and most American anthropology departments
offer courses in archaeology. A few offer courses in archeology too. And the federal government's job listings go under both.

best, MEH

[Mark_Hall]

IMHO, part of the evidence for civilization is the presence of specialists who didn't grow or hunt their own food, but worked full-time, building and working in copper smelters full-time. The copper smelters directly require organization, and imply organized agriculture to support the specialist workers.

Well, the venerable V. Gordon Childe saw copper and iron smelting and workign as a specialist activity and it pretty much plays out
that way in the Near East. Problem is, as Michael Rowlands in a WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY article demonstrated, copper and bronze and iron
production doesn't require full-time specialists in a lot of societies. It can be a seasonal activity done when fields are fallow or when crops are growing
just before harvest.

In the case of the Vinca, from what I remember from my coursework with Tringham years ago, there isn't a massive amount of
metalwork being produced and most of the forms are very simple--nothing as elaborate as what one sees in the archaeological
record from say the Late Bronze Age. Also, there aren't a lot of maetal artifacts and most of them go towards prestige good items or
ritual items. Their mining shafts from what Jovanovic has found are shallow--nothing as complex as what occurs in the Alps in the Middle
Bronze Age. Or for that matter, nothing as deep or complex as what is found at Timna in Israel or the Wadi-Fennan in Jordan--which are just as
early and were in use for a much longer period.

Best, MEH

[Nick Morbius]

http://news.national...e-palatine.html


i saw this during my web surfing and thought it might interest a few of you on here

[timeless]

Wow, that is interesting!

[Pictish Scout]

How can someone prove that the cave is the one from the legend?

[Mikey_C]

How can someone prove that the cave is the one from the legend?

I guess its just where the Romans thought the legend took place. It's great that discoveries like this are still being made. The beeb has some pictures taken inside:

[nomadic]

How can someone prove that the cave is the one from the legend?

According to the article it was always said to be there. Because other homes and palaces were built on the site historians assumed it was just a story. Simply put, no one bothered to look and it was only found now by accident. That is, unfortunately, the way some of our best discoveries are found.

Rick

[timeless]

Imagine the history associated with that place...

[deuce]

BTW, in REH's Genseric's Fifth-Born Son fragment, Howard says (through James Allison) that Romulus and Remus' mother wasn't a priestess, but a prostitute.

[Dragon Girl]

Settled communities with nice pots, pretty jewelry, miniskirts and copper implements don't constitute "civilization." (Okay, the miniskirts are a strong argument for.) It may constitute a local culture, but you might as well say the Cimmerians were civilized. I'd have to see evidence for a great deal more organization, more settlements with a shared culture and traditions, laws, and, yeah, the ability to wage war on an organized rather than a heroic basis.

If they were making pottery, metal implements, jewelry, and clothing, that indicates that they had to be settled into communities at least semi-permanently, and that made them far more civilized than those people that were still nomadic. Civilization isn't an either-or condition; there are degrees of civilization throughout the human race, past and present. And things like laws, codes, and traditions don't have to be written in order to be effective. For the majority of human history, people had to memorize everything--laws, myths, campfire stories, songs, etc.--since they had no method for storing information.

[Kortoso]

My understanding was that civilization started with organized agriculture, and systems developed to protect the surplus. This was I thought something that came up in the Neolithic, before metal was commonly used.

[deuce]

This link/article brings to mind, for me, REH's Stygia, the mysterious "Surama" from HPL's The Last Test and, of course, Raiders of the Lost Ark.

http://www.independe...ewsitemid=62457

[Scott Oden]

I'd be very interested in hearing what it is the inscription says, and especially precisely where it was found. Were I a betting man, I'd wager that it's not Pharaonic at all, but Persian or Ptolemaic (the article lists the find as being "hieroglyphic writing, Pharaonic cartouche, an image of the king and other Pharaonic iconography", all of which were still in use at the tail end of the Late Period, when Egypt ceased to be ruled by Egyptians at all). There's also some evidence in Herodotus of a desert route from Cyrene to the Libyan oasis of Augila and thence across the Sahara to Egyptian Thebes, and that the Greco-Egyptian-influenced Garamantes navigated the desert often, even as far as the Niger valley. Whose to say they didn't have some literate scribe in their midst during one of those treks?

It always amuses me when scholars declare unequivocally that something didn't happen, such as ". . . the Egyptians did not penetrate this desert any further than . . . about 80 kilometres south west of the Dakhla Oasis." I don't recall who said it, but I've always been partial to the phrase absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

Good article, Deuce!

Best,

Scott

[deuce]

Hey Scott! Well, IF it's genuine, the kicker is the "Yam" mention. THAT would place it earlier, UNLESS "Yam=Garamantia". I wouldn't rule that out by a long shot, though it would stretch Garamantian history back a ways. Always been a fan of/fascinated by the Garamantians (and the Berbers in general).

[Pictish Scout]

Interesting but one must be very careful with this articles about archaeologic "relics". If it is true maybe it dates from the Lybian dinasty that ruled late Egypt.

It reminds of an article I read about a roman Villa in northern Spain, from the III or IV century. In this Villa archaeologist found the oldest representation of the Passion of the Christ ( I actualy seen the photos) and the "Holy Father" writen in Hieroglyphs. This could prove two things

1- The Cross representation was used at least from the III century ( one of the most hardest time to be a christian because of the roman persecutions)

2- Hieroglyphs were used at least untill III century.

One interpretation of the discovery is that a slave from Egypt was teaching those romans about christ and ancient egyptian writing.

The first thing archaeologist did when they found it was calling the press and the bishop (that blessed the pottery in which were engraved the hyeroglyphs and the cross)
Maybe they were too quick to judge or was the press ( wanting to sell news), but we are still waiting for more results on the investigation...