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More often than not one will hear seemingly innocent questions such as what does it matters if the ancient Egyptians were black or white,in my own as one E/S poster puts it post racial bent or idology it wouldn't...but that's not the world view many shares with me unfortunately. But how come it matters so much to so many?...what are the stakes? well for that we need to look back at those who it first mattered to 18th and 19th century Egyptologist and Ethnologist. 18th and 19th century was the height of slavery and colonial expansion by Europeans...a people then deeply ingrained with the idea of their own racial superiority often scholors followed litterally behind their own conquring armies to study and write about the history and ethnology of the people just defeated moments before remember that's how Egyptology got started. How then can one coming from such an environment and with such a world view take an holistic and honest approach to peoples who's culture and physical apperance markdly differs from your own. And did their works influenced the works of their decendants in the field today? Lets take a look at some of these men some who are considered giants and their names almost holy.
This may be a surprise to some but the one of the father of scientific racism was a man of mixed parentage himself count Arthur de Gobineau.
Life and racialist theories
Arthur de Gobineau.Gobineau had a strained family life. His father was a government official and staunch royalist. His mother, Anne-Louise Magdeleine de Gercy, was the daughter of a royal tax official and a mixed race Creole woman from Santo Domingo (Haiti)[1], and a lady-in-waiting to Pauline Bonaparte, who subsequently published both a sentimental novel, Marguerite d'Alby (1821), and her own memoirs, Une Vie de Femme, Liée aux Événements de l'Époque (A Woman's Life, Tied to the Events of the Time, 1835). When he was fourteen his mother eloped with another man and brought Josef with her to Switzerland for a few years. It was in Switzerland that he began his interest in Orientalism.
When Gobineau returned to France in the later years of the July monarchy, he made his living writing serialized fiction (romans-feuilletons) and contributing to reactionary periodicals. He struck up a friendship, and had voluminous correspondence with, Alexis de Tocqueville, who brought him into the foreign ministry while he was foreign minister during the Second Republic.[2] Gobineau was a successful diplomat for the French Second Empire. Initially he was posted to Persia, before working in Brazil and other countries.
He came to believe that race created culture, arguing that distinctions between the three "black", "white", and "yellow" races were natural barriers, and that "race-mixing" breaks those barriers and leads to chaos. He classified the Middle East, Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, North Africa and southern France as racially mixed.
Gobineau believed the white race was superior to the others. He thought it corresponded to the ancient Indo-European culture, also known as "Aryan" (Indo-Iranian race). Gobineau originally wrote that white race miscegenation was inevitable. He attributed much of the economic turmoils in France to pollution of races. Later on in his life, he altered his opinion to believe that the white race could be saved.
To Gobineau, the development of empires was ultimately destructive to the "superior races" that created them, since they led to the mixing of distinct races. This he saw as a degenerative process. According to his definitions, the people of Spain, most of France, most of Germany, southern and western Iran as well as Switzerland, Austria, northern Italy and a large part of Britain, consisted of a degenerative race arising from miscegenation. from wiki:
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Craniometry and physical anthropology Further information: Craniometry and physical anthropology Dutch scholar Pieter Camper (1722–89) was one of the first theorists of craniometry, the measure of skulls, which he used to justify racial differences. In 1770, he invented in one of his numerous memoirs the concept of the "facial angle", a measure meant to determine intelligence among various species. According to this technique, a "facial angle" was formed by drawing two lines: one horizontally from the nostril to the ear; and the other perpendicularly from the advancing part of the upper jawbone to the most prominent part of the forehead. Camper claimed that antique statues presented an angle of 90°, Europeans of 80°, Black people of 70° and the orangutan of 58°, thus displaying a hierarchic and racist view of mankind, based on a decadent conception of history. These scientific racist researches were continued by Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772–1844) and Paul Broca (1824–80).
Samuel George Morton (1799–1851), one of the inspirators of physical anthropology, collected hundreds of human skulls from all over the world and started trying to find a way to classify them according to some logical criteria. Influenced by the common racist theories of his time, he claimed that he could judge the intellectual capacity of a race by the cranial capacity (the measure of the volume of the interior of the skull). A large skull meant a large brain and high intellectual capacity, and a small skull indicated a small brain and decreased intellectual capacity. By studying these skulls he decided at what point Caucasians stopped being Caucasians, and at what point Negroes began. Morton had many skulls from ancient Egypt, and concluded that the ancient Egyptians were not African, but were white. His two major monographs were the Crania Americana (1839), An Inquiry into the Distinctive Characteristics of the Aboriginal Race of America and Crania Aegyptiaca (1844). In Crania Americana, he claimed that the mean cranial capacity of the skulls of whites was 87 in³ (1,425 cm³), while that of blacks was 78 in³ (1,278 cm³). Based on the measurement of 144 skulls of Native Americans, he reported a figure of 82 in³ (1,344 cm³) [sic].
William Z. Ripley's map of the "cephalic index" in Europe, from The Races of Europe (1899).Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002), an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist and historian of science, studied from a historical perspective these craniometric works in The Mismeasure of Man (1981). He alleged that Samuel Morton had fudged data and "overpacked" the skulls with filler in order to justify his racist opinions.
So this ass had to lie about his research in order to make a case.
Sergi Giuseppe the father of Medicentrics:
smarting under the weight of Aryanism but still profoundly racist this what Giuseppe had to say
Racial theories Sergi's initial contribution was to oppose the use of the cephalic index to model population ancestry, arguing that over all cranial morphology was more useful. [3] However, Sergi's major theoretical achievement was his model of human ancestry, fully articulated in his books Human Variation (Varietà umane. Principio e metodo di classificazione) and The Mediterranean Race (1901), in which he argued that the earliest European peoples arose from original populations in the Horn of Africa, and were related to Hamitic peoples. This primal "Eurafrican race" split into three main groups, the black African peoples, the Mediterranean race and the north European Nordic race. Semitic people were closely related to Mediterraneans but constituted a distinct "Afroasian" group. [3]
According to Sergi the Mediterranean race, the "greatest race in the world", was responsible for the great civilisations of ancient times, including those of Egypt, Carthage, Greece and Rome. These Mediterranean peoples were quite distinct from the peoples of northern Europe. [3]
Sergi argued that the Mediterraneans were more creative and imaginative than other peoples, which explained their ancient cultural and intellectual achievements, but that they were by nature volatile and unstable. In his book The Decline of the Latin Nations he argued that Northern Europeans had developed stoicism, tenacity and self-discipline due to the cold climate, and so were better adapted to succeed in modern civic cultures and economies.[3]
[edit] Anti-Nordicism These theories were developed in opposition to Nordicism, the claim that the Nordic race was of pure Aryan stock and naturally superior to other Europeans.
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
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Brada, I s this thread the evolution of racial theories? Obvioulsy our ideas about the world and our place in it has changed over the years. A better subject to look at may be the evolution of western civilization since many of our posters here have huge holes in their education in that area. Rather than being race based it may be more important to look at cultures and technology to expalin why particular groups of people were able to dominate others.
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The racialist theories does not stop at ancient Egypt. Read many of the 19th century accounts they tried to attribute every Western African achievements to outsiders. One specific case was the Benin bronzes. A foreign origin was acribed for the Fulani,Zulu,Yoruba,Assante and other advanced western African groups.
I am suprised very little people know of this book but it deals with the racism that was in early Egyptology circles:
Egypt Land: Race and Nineteenth-Century American Egyptomania (New Americanists) (Paperback) by Scott Trafton
See also Egypt in Africa edited by David O'Connor
Posts: 8675 | From: Tukuler al~Takruri as Ardo since OCT2014 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I suppose we could go back and look at some of the wild views about science people had 300 years ago.
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But don't you see AP it may have well started 300yrs ago but the effects are still with us to this day.look on the many post and thread that deals with that exact same thinking where do you think Matilda and Stormfront get their insparations...and The unwillingness of some to look at African civilizations in it's own right...They provide the perfect cover for movie makers and writers of fiction to falsfy and depict African acheivement as anything other than African...they can and do as non scholors and not actually lie but quote such and such Egyptologist or Ethnologist, with a strieght face and a clean concience further perputrate the same fraudlent nonsense over and over again to the mass of people who just accept them as facts not to be challanged,How many defferent versions of the Hamatic theory one finds on this very board or Medicentric arguement that came streight from Sergi Giuesspi's books,and Carlton s coon as was and still held in high regard by many died in 1981. hardly 300 yrs ago. a bit of Coon's work for those unfamiliar:
Racial theories Coon concluded that sometimes different racial types annihilated other types while in other cases warfare and/or settlement led to the partial displacement of racial types. He asserted that Europe was the refined product of a long history of racial progression. He stated that historically "different strains in one population have showed differential survival values and often one has reemerged at the expense of others (in Europeans)", in The Races of Europe, The White Race and the New World (1939).[4] He stated the "maximum survival" of the European racial type was increased by the replacement of the indigenous peoples of the New World.[4] He stated the history of the White race to have involved "racial survivals" of White subraces.wiki
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No, It does not go on today except on radical sites like Egyptsearch and Stormfront.
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I believe that it is a delusion, a figment of the imagination to speak of 18th-19th century racial theories as being more backward compared to today's beliefs. Academic racism is at its height 20th/21st centuries
18th/19th centuries is just when it started
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almost all academicans seek the truth markekkion. In fact it would be very difficult today to do otherwise. There are no scholars out there seeking to distort anything.
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Actually anthropology as we know it today is primarily created as a way for Europeans to "scientifically" prove the existence of "race" and the idea that whites were inherently superior to all other types of humans. Proving that Ancient Egypt was white is one of the reasons that Samuel Morton went through the effort of collecting skulls from Egypt and elsewhere as one of the first examples of craniometry. Which was really partly a macabre examination of the skulls of the foes they vanquished/sacrificed not much different than ancient shamanistic and ceremonial practices of ancient "pagans" all over the world. Craniometry and the attempt to define races based on cranial dimensions and all the labels used to describe race all came from European whites. This is not ancient history it is only a few hundred years ago.
The point here is that 500 years ago Western Europeans did not know much about the world around them, and did not know much about the people in it. Yet 500 years later they seek to pretend to have always have been preeminent historians and ethnologists of the world since time immemorial. They were not. They were not even major players in the world 800 years ago. Most of the growth of Western European understanding of the world has taken place in the last 500 years. Everything they talk about is as if it is something "new" that they have "discovered", all the time trying to impress everyone, except those who know better. Things that everyone else knew about and people almost everyone else knew about were just "discovered" by western Europeans "500" years ago. And this "discovery" was only due to the expansion of the London Company and the Barristers of the Maritime trading and Banking empire of the British crown and Knights of the Holy Roman Empire, which is the basis of the law and financial empire of the Western colonies. It is also the blueprint of the in-corporations of the major trading centers and towns of these colonies with their banks and industries as branches of the British and European banking empire. These western Europeans were some of the LAST people to find out about anything, which includes Egypt, which wasn't "lost" to anyone but them.
Hence, they had to create a national mythology in order to reinforce their position in the world and history and anthropology were primarily agencies of propaganda and still are.
quote: Penn first advertised the layout of his town in Thomas Holme's Portraiture of the City of Philadelphia, published in 1683. As one can see, Penn designed the city as a rectangular gridiron. Broad and High streets cross each other at 'centre square' and divide the city into four quadrants. These 100 foot wide avenues were at broader than the other street, and broader than any street in London. Penn may have been influenced by Richard Newcourts plans for rebuilding burnt out parts of London, or perhaps by new garrison towns like Londonberry Ireland. In any case, his wide, open, rectilinear design was somewhat revolutionary, though today seems 'normal' for most American cities.
Penn's layout of Philadelphia following the ancient pattern of central towns from many other cultures, even though he is often called "evolutionary".
quote: MEXICO CITY.- Sun Pyramid was the axis mundi for Teotihuacan culture, a space from which celestial and underworld levels were accessed symbolically. The four directions of the universe parted from here as well, and this scheme was adopted later by Tolteca and Mexica societies when drafting their ceremonial centers.
...
“We think the Sun Pyramid was the first center of Teotihuacan city. Towards 250 AD, it would be moved to the south, at La Ciudadela and the Feathered Serpent Temple, where the axis mundi patron repeated” declared the Colegio Nacional Member.
Teotihuacan was the largest and populated city in America during Prehispanic age, extending for 23 square kilometers and lodging 250,000 persons. This city had a great development from 200 BC to 650 AD.
And just to put the age and "rise" of European civilization in context, the first secular building to surpass the Great Pyramid of Egypt, was Philadelphia city hall, which was built in the center of the city only 130 years ago.
quote: The building was designed by Scottish architect John McArthur, Jr., in the Second Empire style, and was constructed from 1871 until 1901 at a cost of $24 million. Originally designed to be the world's tallest building, by the time it was completed it had already been surpassed by the Washington Monument and the Eiffel Tower, though it was indeed the world's tallest habitable building at the time of opening. It also was the first modern building (excluding the Eiffel Tower, see above) to hold the record for world's tallest and also was the first secular building to hold this honor: all previous holders of the position of world's tallest were religious structures, whether European cathedrals or, for the previous 3,800 years, the Great Pyramid of Giza.
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Doug, when someone says that western civ is only 200 years old nothing else they say has any credibility. We have 10th graders who are smarter than that.
Posts: 2069 | From: Texas | Registered: Sep 2008
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And doug,they would then turn around aryanized and mystify some of these people,so the truth about them is even harder to come by...Aryanism ultimetly leads to Altantism to some distant race of founding supermen.Pat is particially right in that the field is changinig but he and many others have not gotten or refuse to accept whats change.
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
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we accept change Branda but we wnat to see solid scholarship and I NEVER see it here. We have people on this board who do not even have the BASICS down. When I come here I see crazy ideas I never see anywhere else.
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No you don't AP...do you not accept,a concept called North African Caucasian? I know you do you said often enough....Well here is where you ultimately got the concept from.
Following this linguistic argument, in the 1850s Arthur de Gobineau supposed that "Aryan" corresponded to the suggested prehistoric Indo-European culture (1853-1855, Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races). Further, de Gobineau believed that there were three basic races – white, yellow and black – and that everything else was caused by race miscegenation, which de Gobineau argued was the cause of chaos. The "master race", according to de Gobineau, were the Northern European "Aryans", who had remained "racially pure". Southern Europeans (to include Spaniards and Southern Frenchmen), Eastern Europeans, North Africans, Middle Easterners, Iranians, Central Asians, Indians, he all considered racially mixed, degenerated through the miscegenation, and thus less than ideal. The earliest epigraphically-attested reference to the word arya occurs in the 6th century BCE Behistun inscription, which describes itself to have been composed "in arya [language or script]" (¶ 70). As is also the case for all other Old Iranian language usage, the arya of the inscription does not signify anything but "Iranian".[8]
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quote:Originally posted by TheAmericanPatriot: Doug, when someone says that western civ is only 200 years old nothing else they say has any credibility. We have 10th graders who are smarter than that.
The use of the term "western civilization" to refer to the nations in Europe and their colonies overseas IS only 200 years old. Lumping different nations with different histories under one banner of "western civilization" is NON SENSE.
Ancient Greece is not Britain, Germany, America, France, Australia and New Zealand.
"Western Civilization" is a MODERN concept based on the MODERN expansion of WESTERN European nations in the last 500 years.
These people had NOTHING to do with ancient Greece and the expansion of these people around the world WAS NOT led by Greece.
AND when these countries did start their expansion GREECE was part of the MUSLIM EAST.
Like I said, save your historical nonsense for 10th graders who don't know any better. But the glory of all things Greek did not really take off until AFTER the overthrow of the Ottomans IN GREECE under 200 years ago. Therefore, for the last 2000 years Greece has been part of the EASTERN world and has NEVER EVER been considered part of WESTERN Europe, culturally, physically or politically. Greece NEVER took part in any COLONIAL conquests. Greece was NOT a colonial empire. The history of Greece is NOT part of the history of WESTERN Europe because GREECE is not WESTERN.
The ONLY people so worried about the term "Western Civilization" is WESTERN Europeans who had NOTHING to do with the ancient civilizations of Greece and therefore try to LUMP their history with Greece as if it is the same, but it is NOT. Greece's history has been ORIENTED TO THE EAST since the rise of Alexander and his expansion into Persia, Egypt and India. After that they were conquered by Rome and became part of the EASTERN Roman Empire and then the Byzantine Empire. After that they became part of the OTTOMAN Empire. This IS NOT the same history as Western Europe AT ALL. There is no continuity between Ancient Greece and Western Europe. THAT is NON SENSE. There isn't even any continuity between Ancient Greece and MODERN Greece because of the fact that the Ottoman period has had the BIGGEST impact on Greece culturally and socially. The Greek Catholic Church is part of the EASTERN Orthodox Byzantine tradition that races itself back to ISTANBUL TURKEY, the seat of the BYZANTINE or EASTERN ROMAN Empire and then the OTTOMAN Empire. Therefore, trying to lump NON GREEKS into Greek history and culture as a continuation of ancient Greece is simply NON SENSE. Likewise, Rome is also not WESTERN Europe as Rome and Western Europe were totally UNLIKE each other for most of their history except up until the 11th and 12th century and then the renaissance. Ancient Rome was civilized and the rest of Europe, especially Western Europe WAS NOT. Western Europe ONLY became civilized outside of Rome, Greece and parts of Southern Spain and France in the last 1000 years. There was nothing in Britain, Germany, France, Spain and Northern Europe to speak of up to that time.
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Doug, your high school teacher needs to be dismissed for teaching you nothing. Buy the Glecoe World history text and learn the basics before you come on here and make a complete fool out of yourself with these moronic statements.
This is what happens when people fail to learn the basics in school.
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quote:To Gobineau, the development of empires was ultimately destructive to the "superior races" that created them, since they led to the mixing of distinct races. This he saw as a degenerative process. According to his definitions, the people of Spain, most of France, most of Germany, southern and western Iran as well as Switzerland, Austria, northern Italy and a large part of Britain, consisted of a degenerative race arising from miscegenation. from wiki.
Brada,
I dusted off my copy of Gobineau's text and I don't see where in his text that he claimed that many peoples of Europe are the degenerate result of Ayran-nonAyran miscegenation.
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But the Greeks had colonies in North Africa as in the case of Egypt, and under Alexander they sent armies as far east as Northern India.
Most extensive cultures derive from what anthropologists call "cultural diffusion" and in the case of Europe it was the Romans who derived much of their culture from the Greeks. The Romans through their conquests brought new ideas to the barbarian heartland of Europe.
Writing, reading, bathing, eating with cutlery, monogamy, etc. were all introduced to Europe through cultural diffusions from the Greeks and Romans.
The idea of the West developed only in recent times--perhaps replacing the older concept of Christendom.
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quote:Originally posted by TheAmericanPatriot: Doug, your high school teacher needs to be dismissed for teaching you nothing. Buy the Glecoe World history text and learn the basics before you come on here and make a complete fool out of yourself with these moronic statements.
This is what happens when people fail to learn the basics in school.
So Mr Professor, would you care to address specifics?
The point is YOU YOURSELF cannot address THAT which you claim to know.
It isn't about me buying a text book it is about YOU providing the evidence of WHAT I said is incorrect.
Why not provide ONE reference of the term "Western civilization" used by ANYONE prior to the 18th century?
And on top of that provide ONE reference to the ancient Greeks using that term to refer to that civilization.
And lastly provide ONE reference to the Roman usage of such a term as well.
The point is you CANT because no such people spoke in such terms at that time.
So point blank the fixation on the term "Western civilizatin" is simply Western European attempts to associate and attach themselves to something THEY HAD NOTHING to do with.
The ACTUAL cultures of Western Europe that you SHOULD be referring to are the Vikings, The Germanic Tribes, the Celts and other such people who ACTUALLY existed during the time of Greece and Rome. Are THEY part of "Western" civilization?
You are no historian and your understanding of ANYTHING is strictly limited to the understanding of a 2 year old.
quote: Message boards Post comment Western Civilization The term Western world can have multiple meanings depending on its context. Originally defined as Europe, most modern uses of the term refer to the societies of Europe and their genealogical, colonial, and philosophical descendants, typically also including those countries whose ethnic identity and their dominant culture derive from European culture.
Western countries To explain what is typical of Western society and Western culture, we must first define what constitutes the West (also called the Occident). Which countries belong, and which don't? Historically, the definitions have varied.
Historical The Hellenic division between Greeks and "barbarians" (a Greek word), predates the division between East and West. The contrast was between Greek-speaking culture of mainland Greece, the Aegean, the Ionian coast and Magna Graecia in southern Italy, and the surrounding non-Greek cultures of Thrace and Anatolia, the Persian empire, Phoenicians and Egypt. This contrast can be traced in the war of Troy, ca 1200 BCE if it had a historical basis, between Achaeans and the non-Greek Trojans in western Anatolia.
When the Roman Emperor Diocletian divided the Roman Empire into two regions, each administered by a Caesar (Tetrarchy), in 292 A.D., the eastern part evolved into Byzantine empire, a Christian theocracy where the emperor was head of the spiritual life as well ("caesaropapism"). At the same time, Roman polity in the western part crumbled under pressures from outside the empire and was slowly rebuilt as a culture divided between two sources of power, the pope and the Emperor.
The Eastern part of the Mediterranean world, though Christian, was contrasted with the West all through the Middle Ages. "Latins" and "Franks" sacked Constantinople in 1204 as ruthlessly as any alien culture. Only with the rise of the Ottoman Turks as a non-Christian contrast did the Byzantine "East" become to some extent (largely in retrospect and largely by non-historians), part of the "West." Compare the concept of "Christendom".) As a result of its Byzantine heritage, Orthodox Europe, including Russia, may or may not be considered part of the West.
Expanded During the early 16th century, explorers and conquerors like Christopher Columbus, Hernán Cortés and several other conquered new continents on behalf of the Western nations. Up until the 19th century, Europeans settled new lands and thus the term "Western" came to encompass nations and former colonies such as the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc. populated mostly by European-descended Caucasians.
Japan in 1955, (immediately after its occupation by the US) would be considered by most to be part of the West - while Japan in 1750 would not. Similarly, North America in 1850 would be considered part of the West while it would not be in 1450, or 1500, even - before substantial colonization had occurred.
300 years ago, most of North America was still WILDERNESS. There were no BIG cities. Manhattan was still a forest. Almost EVERYTHING that America is known for these days is less than 200 years old.
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Idiot....modern american culture is an extention of European culture. One historian refered to American culture as "a British culture with a layer of frontier experience."
Western civ starts with Greco-Roman civilization which spread through Europe both through the Empire and the Roman Catholic Church. The point is though Doug you are con tinue to make terrible mistakes UNTIL you get a grounding in World History. The Glencoe bok is big but it will give you the fundamentals.
Posts: 2069 | From: Texas | Registered: Sep 2008
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NO the point is you keep glossing over the fact that British History and culture is not synonymous with Greek history and culture. Greek history and culture belongs to the Greeks. British history and culture is not the same, neither is German, nor Spanish or French. Each of the different ethnic groups in Europe have their own distinct histories and it WAS NOT until fairly recently that they began to practice a "common" culture.
That is historical NON SENSE.
The average European in Europe was AT WAR with Greece and Rome in the years leading up to 500 AD.
They were NOT the same and DID NOT share any cultural traits or history.
All of this came MUCH LATER after Western Europe became civilized and began to learn about these ancient cultures after 1200 AD due to the translations of Spanish Muslim texts.
Europe as a WHOLE did not become civilized until about 1000 years ago. Just because Greece had Civilization 2500 years ago does not mean that ALL of Europe did as well. The history of Europe is not limited to Greece and does not start in Greece. There were people living all over Europe before, during and after Greece.
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I am still waiting for you to provide the following:
quote: The point is YOU YOURSELF cannot address THAT which you claim to know.
It isn't about me buying a text book it is about YOU providing the evidence of WHAT I said is incorrect.
Why not provide ONE reference of the term "Western civilization" used by ANYONE prior to the 18th century?
And on top of that provide ONE reference to the ancient Greeks using that term to refer to that civilization.
And lastly provide ONE reference to the Roman usage of such a term as well.
The point is you CANT because no such people spoke in such terms at that time.
I understand full well that Greece inspired Rome, the question is when did the term "Western Civilization" come into existence.
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Yes they are Doug. This is what I mean about basics. You lack the basic background to understand what you are reading. The British were part of the Roman empire for nearly 500 years. They were completely Romanized by 500 BC. An individual living in London lived in the same society as a person living in Rome. Western political institutions were developed by the Greeks and Roman. Northern European military institutions and technology were decidedly Greco-Roman. Even development of ships used by later Europeans to subdue the world was a combination of Med and Viking marine systems. After the fall of Rome the roman church spread a latin culture all over Europe.. This is just the tip Doug. You need to read up on the basics and get a solid grounding.
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Rome fell in the 5th century Doug. Rome was burned but Roman civilization FLOURISHED all through the last four centuries of the empire. What does it take to get you to read???? You are making a fool out of yourself again. There are many outstanding books on 'ROMAN BRITAIN' Try reading one for a change.
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What is the fundamental disagreement here? Define Western Civilization. Could we say it was something that evolved from Latin and Roman Catholic Church
The concept is recent but it has a long evolution going back to classical Greece. I'm basically agreeing with lamin except I see it as evolving from instead of replacing
quote:Originally posted by lamin:
The idea of the West developed only in recent times--perhaps replacing the older concept of Christendom.
quote:Originally posted by TheAmericanPatriot: Rome fell in the 5th century Doug. Rome was burned but Roman civilization FLOURISHED all through the last four centuries of the empire. What does it take to get you to read???? You are making a fool out of yourself again. There are many outstanding books on 'ROMAN BRITAIN' Try reading one for a change.
Mr Patriot the Roman Republic was not even founded until 510 BC. They did not invade Britain and establish the city near London until 43 AD. Get your facts straight.
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quote:Originally posted by markellion: What is the fundamental disagreement here? Define Western Civilization. Could we say it was something that evolved from Latin and Roman Catholic Church
The concept is recent but it has a long evolution going back to classical Greece. I'm basically agreeing with lamin except I see it as evolving from instead of replacing
quote:Originally posted by lamin:
The idea of the West developed only in recent times--perhaps replacing the older concept of Christendom.
The concept is all we are talking about. There was no unified geopolitical or cultural context under which ALL of Europe could be considered "Western" in ancient times. Greece was Greece, Rome was Rome, the Celts were the Celts, The Vikings the Vikings, The Gauls the Gauls and so on. All different cultures with different histories not unified into any sort of common cultural context.
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What would be a better way to describe the phenomenon Lamin described
quote:Originally posted by lamin: Most extensive cultures derive from what anthropologists call "cultural diffusion" and in the case of Europe it was the Romans who derived much of their culture from the Greeks. The Romans through their conquests brought new ideas to the barbarian heartland of Europe.
Writing, reading, bathing, eating with cutlery, monogamy, etc. were all introduced to Europe through cultural diffusions from the Greeks and Romans.
The idea of the West developed only in recent times--perhaps replacing the older concept of Christendom.
posted
No American Patriot is trying to pretend that ALL of Europe was civilized and like Greece and Rome from 500 BC to 1000 AD when it wasnt. Most of Europe was not civilized during the time of Greece and Rome. The concept of Western Civilization did not apply. Western civilization is a concept that only came about after the emergence of Western Europe as a social, political and military power after the Middle Ages. It did not exist before then. Yes there was Rome and the Roman Empire, but that was something FORCED on the rest of Europe and it fell apart after the Romans left.
History of London:
quote: The beginnings of London can be dated with some exactitude to the invasion of the Romans in 43AD. Prior to the Roman invasion there was no permanent settlement of significance on the site of London. Instead, the Thames River flowed through marshy ground sprinkled with small islands of gravel and sand. There were probably more mosquitoes than people inhabiting the area.
The commander of the Roman troops was one Aulus Plautius. He pushed his men up from their landing place in Kent towards Colchester, then the most important town in Britain. The Roman advance was halted by the Thames, and Plautius was forced to build a bridge to get his men across.
This first "London Bridge" has been excavated recently, and found to be only yards from the modern London Bridge!
The Roman bridge proved a convenient central point for the new network of roads which soon spread out like a fan from the crossing place and allowed the speedy movement of troops. The Roman settlement on the north side of the bridge, called Londinium, quickly became important as a trading centre for goods brought up the Thames River by boat and unloaded at wooden docks by the bridge.
Just 18 years after the arrival of the Romans, Boudicca, queen of the Iceni tribe of present-day East Anglia, launched her rebellion against the new rulers of Britain. The new trading centre of London was one of her primary targets, and her warriors leveled the burgeoning city to the ground and killed thousands of the traders who had begun to settle there.
The city was quickly rebuilt, with a cluster of timber-framed wooden buildings surrounding the imposing Roman civic buildings. The city continued to grow in size and splendor over the next century, reflecting the increasing importance of trade in Britain.
By the middle of the second century AD, Londinium possessed the largest basilica (town hall) west of the Alps, a governor's palace, a temple, bathhouses, and a large fort for the city garrison. Gracechurch Street, in the City, runs through the middle of the old Roman basilica and forum (market place).
One of the best Roman remains in London is the 2nd century Temple of Mithras (mithraism was a form of religion popular among Roman soldiers). It was found near Walbrook during construction work in this century, and moved to Temple Court, Queen Victoria Street. Artefacts recovered from the excavation of the temple are now in the Museum of London.
About the year 200 AD a defensive wall was built around the city. For well over a millennium the shape and size of London was defined by this Roman wall. The area within the wall is now "the City", London's famous financial district. Traces of the wall can still be seen in a few places in London.
London continued its growth under the late Roman Empire, and at its peak the population probably numbered about 45,000. But, as the Roman Empire creaked its way to a tottering old age, the troops defending London's trade routes were recalled across the Channel, and the city went into a decline which lasted several centuries.
posted
True but AmericanPatriot keeps pointing out Roman influence. *If he is claiming Greece and Rome as "Western Civilization"* you can turn that around and say "Western Civilization" is nothing more than picking up the pieces long after Rome and Greece fell.
Christendom being a primitive form perhaps
Posts: 2642 | Registered: Sep 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Doug M: Yes there was Rome and the Roman Empire, but that was something FORCED on the rest of Europe and it fell apart after the Romans left.
See his definition of Western Civ is just worded differently from how you described the Roman empire. Spread=forced. And then the Western Civ takes the form of Roman Catholic Church.
quote:Originally posted by TheAmericanPatriot: Western civ starts with Greco-Roman civilization which spread through Europe both through the Empire and the Roman Catholic Church.
posted
LOL @ the "professor" squirm by witnessing his own Eurocentric doctrines under attack via the tool he begs and complains for-- historiography!
quote:Originally posted by ausar: The racialist theories does not stop at ancient Egypt. Read many of the 19th century accounts they tried to attribute every Western African achievements to outsiders. One specific case was the Benin bronzes. A foreign origin was acribed for the Fulani,Zulu,Yoruba,Assante and other advanced western African groups.
I am suprised very little people know of this book but it deals with the racism that was in early Egyptology circles:
Egypt Land: Race and Nineteenth-Century American Egyptomania (New Americanists) (Paperback) by Scott Trafton
See also Egypt in Africa edited by David O'Connor
Don't be surprised Ausar! You know one of the reasons why Eurocentrics get away with their nonsense in white-washing Egypt and denying it of its African identity is hiding the very history of thier biases in shame! I am very well of the books you pointed out as well as others. You see, academic institutions and publication companies today no longer publish those old books but even keep them out of sight because of the embarassing racism they espouse, ironically it is such works that are key in exposing the racism lying in academia today!
Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
Also if anyone claims that "Western Civ" goes back to ancient Egypt then we are forced to conclude "Western Civ" is an African phenomenon
Basically labels like this are meaningless because people can define it in different ways including labeling something "African". When discussing things like this there has to be an explanation of what one means when they use the word
Posts: 2642 | Registered: Sep 2007
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posted
Here you go Doug. You need to read every damn one of these before you have the nerve to argue with me.
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Posts: 2069 | From: Texas | Registered: Sep 2008
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posted
I've studied that stuff for years Bogle. The problem is silly Doug did not even understand the subject existed.
I can understand someone not knowing something but just plain old laziness is another matter.
Posts: 2069 | From: Texas | Registered: Sep 2008
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posted
Sorry Lamin I tried to get some info,from Jestor but I need an account..but according to these guys It is in the book the Inquality of Races. here is another source:
Gobineau's Theory
Gobineau's most important work, Essay on the Inequality of Human Races (1853-1855), partly translated into English in 1856, was an expression of his basic understanding of the meaning of his own life and of the events of his times. He was a royalist who despised democracy. He believed he was a descendant of a noble race of men, and he saw the French Revolution as a direct result of the bastardization of the race to which he belonged.
Gobineau sought to create a science of history by explaining the rise and fall of civilizations in terms of race. There were three races - the blacks, who were stupid and frivolous, but in whom the senses were well developed; the yellows, who craved mediocrity; and the whites, who were strong, intelligent, and handsome. Of the whites, the Aryans were superior, with the Germans being the purest of the Aryans. "German" did not refer to the entire German nation, die Deutschen, but rather to a tribe of Aryans, die Germanen, or Teutons, who had invaded Europe and set themselves up as an aristocracy to rule over the indigenous Celts and Slavs, who were inferior.
Gobineau did not believe that there are any modern pure races, nor was he set against all race mixing. He believed that civilization arose as the result of conquest by a superior race, virtually always Aryan, over inferior races. While Aryans were brave, strong, and intelligent, nevertheless they were a bit unimaginative and weak in sense perception. A small amount of infusion of black blood would heighten the senses and improve the imagination. Such an infusion, by way of Semites, explains the flowering of art and philosophy in ancient Greece.
quote:Originally posted by TheAmericanPatriot: Rome fell in the 5th century Doug. Rome was burned but Roman civilization FLOURISHED all through the last four centuries of the empire. What does it take to get you to read???? You are making a fool out of yourself again. There are many outstanding books on 'ROMAN BRITAIN' Try reading one for a change.
Mr Patriot the Roman Republic was not even founded until 510 BC. They did not invade Britain and establish the city near London until 43 AD. Get your facts straight.
posted
Look up the dates Dul Rabb. We are talking AD, poor doug is back at the founding a thousand years earlier.
Posts: 2069 | From: Texas | Registered: Sep 2008
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posted
These two quotes say the same thing. If we say Western Civilization=Roman Catholic Church lol.
Accepting TheAmericanPatriot's definition of Western Civilization all credit goes to Greeks and Romans alone until the Civilization collapsed and then it passed on to the Roman Catholic Church
quote:Originally posted by Doug M: Yes there was Rome and the Roman Empire, but that was something FORCED on the rest of Europe and it fell apart after the Romans left.
quote:Originally posted by TheAmericanPatriot:
Western civ starts with Greco-Roman civilization which spread through Europe both through the Empire and the Roman Catholic Church.
posted
markellion, I have given you the name of the basic text book that will help you understand these concepts. You have a clear choice to make. You can educate yourself or go through life with your head in a gas cloud, It is that simple.
Posts: 2069 | From: Texas | Registered: Sep 2008
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posted
I don't see how the bellow contradicts in anyway the definition you gave
Ancient Era 1. Western Civilization is in the hands of Greeks and Romans alone. It was forced on other Europeans so the Civilization cannot be credited to them
Medieval Era/Dark Ages 2. After the collapse of Greco-Roman Civilization Western Civilization is in the hands of the Church
Modern Era 3. The concept of Western Civilization as we understand it develops
quote:Originally posted by TheAmericanPatriot:
Western civ starts with Greco-Roman civilization which spread through Europe both through the Empire and the Roman Catholic Church.
posted
European civilization is a better name for all the various cultures and civilizations that have emerged in Europe.
All scholars do not agree on what "Western civilization" even refers to.
But the reason it is not accurate is because it mainly describes the rise of ancient Greece and the later spread of Greek influenced civilization across the continent. However, it does not cover ALL the civilizations of Europe and therefore overemphasizes Greece as opposed to the "less advanced" cultures elsewhere in Europe. It also does not talk about the many "more advanced" cultures that rose in the East and were influential in the history of Europe. The Scythians, Hurrians and other cultures of Eastern Europe were very important in this respect, but get downplayed, because technically they are "Eastern European Steppe" civilizations. But the fact is that ALL European culture and civilization ultimately spreads from the East to begin with. It is from these Eastern Steppe cultures influenced by Central Asia, Persia and Babylon that much of the Norse like elements of European culture derive.
Posts: 8889 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
all scholars AGREE on what western civilization refers to Doug. You are the one that is ducking and dodging because you lack the basic history education to form a coherent position.
That said, lets deal with what your points. Other cultures in Europe ARE dealt with. There are extensive histories avilable on all of them. The reason the Greco-Roman area is looked at more is because it is the one that provided the foundation for the development of all of Europe. The role of the Roman Catholic church in the middle ages is key.
Posts: 2069 | From: Texas | Registered: Sep 2008
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posted
These are the only conclusions that can be made from your definition American Patriot. By your definition of Western Civilization you gave us it consisted entirely of Greece and Rome. Accepting your very description we might as will call it Greco-Roman Civilization. Other Europeans had no part in it they were forced. Then after Greco-Roman Civilization it became the dark ages. Roman Catholic church=Dark Ages.
Some glorious legacy
quote:Originally posted by TheAmericanPatriot: The reason the Greco-Roman area is looked at more is because it is the one that provided the foundation for the development of all of Europe. The role of the Roman Catholic church in the middle ages is key.
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