posted                      

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Originally posted by Calabooz':
^I want to know why you have been unable to sustain any of your claims herein.

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Posts: 676 | From: the Alpha and the Omega | Registered: Nov 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

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Europe has its own bone too. And it's at least 10,000 years older than your bone.

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Unlike your bone which is questionable.

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Posts: 1502 | From: Dies Irae | Registered: Oct 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

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An early evidence of a "mathematical system" was found on a bone discovered in the Czech Republic. It dates from about 30,000 B.C.E. The bone contains fifty-five individual tally marks, divided into eleven groups of five marks each, just as tally marks might be grouped today. There is a dividing line, separating the first twenty-five marks from the remaining twenty, that makes totaling the tally marks even easier.

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Posts: 676 | From: the Alpha and the Omega | Registered: Nov 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

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This is evidence of a real tallying system and not just may have been. This is much older than your wishbone. Your wishbone is not the oldest known object to contain logical carvings if that is even what they really are in the first place.

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Posts: 1502 | From: Dies Irae | Registered: Oct 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by adrianne:
simple girl
you have to explain why the first egyptians looked like the guys below

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Posts: 42918 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by alTakruri:
Not only do they show up with their ridiculous claims
they dominate the board and dictate its direction and
some of you engage the worst of them as if they were
friends.

But what do we find on the white boards? Control. Strict
control. You don't stand a chance on any of their boards
because they will not tolerate you. They will ban you
and in most cases will delete, edit, or misrepresent
whatever you post there. They will not allow themselves
to stagnate and repeat the same counter material year
in and year out. No, they will expand and build on all
their foregoings coming up with something new.

Blacks will never learn there is a clash of races
and whites are intent on winning and judging by
how whites here whose agenda is obviously racist
are tolerated and reached out to here, they will
win even on the black's "home" turf. Why we even
have blacks spreading info on Euro culture here
after the enemy whites introduce it. Ever see
that happen on a white board? Ever see them
advance anything positive about African civ
after a black introduces it on their boards?

And our friendly whites, what do they do? Are they
vociferous in countering their fellow whites of bad
intentions? Why aren't they the leading vanguard
against the racist whites who post here?

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Posts: 4021 | From: Bay Area, CA | Registered: Mar 2007  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

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Originally posted by Calabooz':

quote:

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This is evidence of a real tallying system and not just may have been. This is much older than your wishbone. Your wishbone is not the oldest known object to contain logical carvings if that is even what they really are in the first place.

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According to my citation- yes it is. On the other hand I never claimed it was the oldest mathematical artifact. That would be the Lebombo bone of Swaziland ALSO IN AFRICA that dates to 35,000b.c 5,000 years older than your European bone LMAO!

I again must reiterate that your citation is completely irrelevant to the fact that IN AFRICA Barbed bone points exist as an AFRICAN TRADITION that continues from south Africa, West Africa, Central Africa, the Sahel and the Nile Valley. And that even the Ishango bone is apart of this African tradition which may signify the spread of the counting system to Egypt thereby being the basis of Egyptian mathematics.

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LMAO The Simpleton's dumbass is debunked yet again!

quote:

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Originally posted by Calabooz':

More on pottery:


The Wavy Line and the Dotted Wavy Line Pottery
in the Prehistory of the Central Nile
and the Sahara-Sahel Belt

Abbas S. Mohammed-Ali1, and Abdel-Rahim M. Khabir

African Archaeological Review, Vol. 20, No. 1, March 2003

From the chronological standpoint, it seems that the overall radiometric dates of the early ceramics from the Central Nile Valley are generally in accordance with their counterpart in the Sahara-Sahel Belt, dated to the tenth–eighth millennium bp. (eighth–sixth millenium BC). These dates may suggest that pottery developed locally from early prototypes as early as 10,000 bp. The origin(s) of the wavy line and dotted wavy line ceramics is much more complex than was once thought. The reason(s) behind the invention of pottery lies mainly in the need for containers that permit wider uses of food techniques than is otherwise possible, as well as other different sets of advantages for the general mode of living (Arnold, 1985, pp. 127–166). The invention of pottery and harpoons are critical events in the process that led to the expansion of aquatic resource exploitation, as is manifested in the Nile Valley (see supra; Haaland, 1995; Sutton, 1974, pp. 529–531). Also, the Sahara-Sahel Belt might have only opened up for the kind of resource exploitation that necessitates the invention of ceramics by the early Holocene (see Clark, 1980; Hassan, 1986).

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Where is the European pottery that antedates this, Simpleton? LOL

Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged | 

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quote:

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Originally posted by Djehuti:
^ Ah STFU you white b|tch in black-face!

I disagree with Takruri. This was never a 'black' forum to begin with and there are those of us who are non-black such as Brandon and myself who accept the FACTUAL REALITY of Egypt's black African identity. I DO agree though that the main problem with this forum is loss of control to the idiotic trolls whereas their own Euronut dominions have totalitarian reign and allow no dissident speech that undermines them!

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Posts: 42918 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

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Originally posted by the lioness:

quote:

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Originally posted by Djehuti:
^ Ah STFU you white b|tch in black-face!

I disagree with Takruri. This was never a 'black' forum to begin with and there are those of us who are non-black such as Brandon and myself who accept the FACTUAL REALITY of Egypt's black African identity. I DO agree though that the main problem with this forum is loss of control to the idiotic trolls whereas their own Euronut dominions have totalitarian reign and allow no dissident speech that undermines them!

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You are wrong. This was once a black site and then it got diluted by foreigners.

The exact same thing caused the downfall of ancient Egypt.

Even though you and Brandon have your mind right I just don't think that we can afford to have non-blacks on the ESR.

We need one site that's pure and it already exists. It just needs tweaking and re-energizing. We will just have to sacrifice the sympathizers, sorry.
What I recommend for the ESR is that each member would have to prove they are black by submitting photos and verifiable identification in order to be allowed to post. This would be checked out and the information kept private with an administrator. We need at least one ancient Egypt site to be black owned and people of African descent only.
If white people can do this and take over then we should be able to do it.

The second thing I recommend is a policy to discourage brain drain from the ESR. This means members must pledge no posting on Egyptsearch or other non-black Egyptian history or anthropology sites. That may seem strict but this is why ESR is
not more dynamic. The finest minds like to come here and fool around with the white people more than post on the ESR.


lioness productions
blacks only from now on

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Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

quote:

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Originally posted by Djehuti:

More on pottery:


The Wavy Line and the Dotted Wavy Line Pottery
in the Prehistory of the Central Nile
and the Sahara-Sahel Belt

Abbas S. Mohammed-Ali1, and Abdel-Rahim M. Khabir

African Archaeological Review, Vol. 20, No. 1, March 2003

From the chronological standpoint, it seems that the overall radiometric dates of the early ceramics from the Central Nile Valley are generally in accordance with their counterpart in the Sahara-Sahel Belt, dated to the tenth–eighth millennium bp. (eighth–sixth millenium BC). These dates may suggest that pottery developed locally from early prototypes as early as 10,000 bp. The origin(s) of the wavy line and dotted wavy line ceramics is much more complex than was once thought. The reason(s) behind the invention of pottery lies mainly in the need for containers that permit wider uses of food techniques than is otherwise possible, as well as other different sets of advantages for the general mode of living (Arnold, 1985, pp. 127–166). The invention of pottery and harpoons are critical events in the process that led to the expansion of aquatic resource exploitation, as is manifested in the Nile Valley (see supra; Haaland, 1995; Sutton, 1974, pp. 529–531). Also, the Sahara-Sahel Belt might have only opened up for the kind of resource exploitation that necessitates the invention of ceramics by the early Holocene (see Clark, 1980; Hassan, 1986).

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Where is the European pottery that antedates this, Simpleton? LOL [/QB][/QUOTE]


What are you trying to say thimble head? That pottery was invented in Egypt and diffused north to Europe? Or that ceramics was invented in Egypt and moved north to Europe? Your source isn't clear on what it is referring to and when.

quote:

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These dates may suggest that pottery developed locally from early prototypes as early as 10,000 bp.

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Posts: 676 | From: the Alpha and the Omega | Registered: Nov 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                         

quote:

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During the early Holocene humid optimum, the southern Sahara and the
Nile valley apparently were too moist and hazardous for appreciable human
occupation. (C) After 7000 B.C.E., human settlement became well established
all over the Eastern Sahara, fostering the development of cattle pastoralism.
(D) Retreating monsoonal rains caused the onset of desiccation of
the Egyptian Sahara at 5300 B.C.E. Prehistoric populations were forced to
the Nile valley or ecological refuges and forced to exodus into the Sudanese
Sahara where rainfall and surface water were still sufficient. The return of full
desert conditions all over Egypt at about 3500 B.C.E. **coincided with the
initial stages of pharaonic civilization in the Nile valley**.

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quote:

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The utilization of local raw materials for ceramics (matrix and temper) and
lithic tools strengthens the possibility of cultural heterogeneity of the Mesolithic
and Neolithic components along the Nile Valley and the Sahara-Sahel Belt during
the early Holocene. The apparent similarities between the wavy line and the dotted
wavy line components of the Central Nile Valley and the Sahara-Sahel Belt, coupled
with the disparate nature of their lithic tool types and technologies, have been
considered a sign of **diffusion of ideas to autonomous groups of people** (Hays,
1974; Renfrew, 1969). Despite the **broadly similar way of life and the general resemblance in subsistence
economy shared by the wavy line and dotted wavy line pottery makers**
and/or owners, these decorations are not always coincident in either space or time,
whether in the Central Nile Valley or the Sahara-Sahel Belt.

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quote:

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What are the prototypes referred to? Is it ceramics or actual pottery? Just because pottery may have been in use, doesn't mean it would exclude a possibility of outside influence.

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Posts: 1502 | From: Dies Irae | Registered: Oct 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by A Simple Girl:
A bull-horned goddess from the Cucuteni culture Ukraine:

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^Possibly a connection with Hathor the horned Egyptian goddess.

Posts: 676 | From: the Alpha and the Omega | Registered: Nov 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by Calabooz':
So? Do you realize how many cultures evolve similar objects independently of each other? Unless you have actual evidence supporting your claims then you're just making stuff up. Just name one scholar who is enforcing the claims you're making. Of course there are none because there is no evidence!

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Posts: 42918 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

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On the other hand the Gebel el-Arak knife from Egypt shows the God El in Mesopotamian clothing. There is also the Narmer palette and Uruk cylinder seal which have serpopards in the same configuration, necks entwined with each other heads facing each other. Which came first, who influenced who, and the relevance of these things is uncertain. But there is some connection there apart from other cases where two cultures develop similar motifs independently. It doesn't apply in these two cases. Clearly in these cases the objects come out of a knowledge of the other culture.

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It is often assumed that Egyptian writing was invented under a stimulus of the Mesopotamian writing system, developed in the late fourth millennium BC, that might have come at the time of the short-lived Uruk Culture expansion into Syria. A variety of artistic and architectural evidence for contact between Mesopotamia and late Predynastic Egypt has been found, but none of it can be dated precisely in relation to Tomb U-j. Moreover, the Egyptian writing system is different from the Mesopotamian and must
have been developed independently. The possibility of “stimulus diffusion” from
Mesopotamia remains, but ***the influence cannot have gone beyond the transmission of an idea.*** A second point of contrast with Mesopotamia is in uses of writing. The earliest Egyptian writing consists of inscribed tags, ink notations on pottery, again principally from the royal cemetery at Abydos, and hieroglyphs incorporated into artistic compositions, of which the chief clear examples are such pieces as the Narmer Palette, which is probably more than a century later than Tomb U-j. Thus, while administrative
uses of writing appear to have come at the beginning—examples from the Abydos tombs include such notations as “produce of Lower Egypt”—the system was integrated fully into pictorial representation. An intermediate, emblematic mode of representation in which symbols, including hieroglyphs, were shown in action also evolved before the 1st Dynasty. These three modes together formed a powerful artistic complex that endured as

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quote:

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who influenced who

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Posts: 1502 | From: Dies Irae | Registered: Oct 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

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The real contributions that gave rise to Egypt were Saharan's and Sudanese:

"The communities using the cemeteries described above were almost the last dwellers of the dying savanna, which is today’s desert. The worsening drought soon forced them to migrate toward the Nile Valley, where they undoubtedly brought their culture, organizational system and beliefs contributing to the birth of ancient Egyptian civilization.

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Posts: 676 | From: the Alpha and the Omega | Registered: Nov 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

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That doesn't necessarily have to be true. Just because people may have occupied areas around the Nile, it doesn't mean they contributed greatly to the rise of Egypt. Look at the North American Indians. Did they contribute greatly to the rise of civilization in present day North America?

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Posts: 1502 | From: Dies Irae | Registered: Oct 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

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What the heck are you talking about? It's not simply because they live near Egypt, it's because we have tons of archaeological evidence to support it. I don't give a damn about your opinion. What I posted is from a recent article wherein the authors base their statements on recent findings from Egypt and Sudan.

http://www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/Kobusiewicz.pdf

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quote:

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From a physical
anthropological viewpoint, the population sample exhibits evidence of North African and
sub-Saharan admixture.

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Posts: 676 | From: the Alpha and the Omega | Registered: Nov 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

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Originally posted by A Simpleton:

No where does your source give any indication at all that these people could have contributed anything greatly to the rise of Egyptian civilization.

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You obviously didn't read the whole paper, because it explained how this culture was among the earliest evidences of systemic organization and leadership, possibly kingship which directed the building of Nabta megaliths and tombs!

You say these people right there in the Nile Valley could not have contributed to Egypt but Ukrainians did?!! LMAO

Also an interesting piece from your source states that:

quote:

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From a physical
anthropological viewpoint, the population sample exhibits evidence of North African and
sub-Saharan admixture.

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Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by the lioness:
...
___________________________________________

If people in the South were the ancestors of the Egyptians why did they war with them and why did not say, apart from the vague Prophesy of Nefertiti, emphatically and repeatedly that these were their ancestors? Why did they depict them differently and label them "foreigners" ?
Why did the pyramids of Meroe came after the Egyptians stopped building pyramids?

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Posts: 22234 | From: האם אינכם כילדי הכרית אלי בני ישראל | Registered: Nov 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

posted                      

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Originally posted by the lioness:


___________________________________________

If people in the South were the ancestors of the Egyptians why did they war with them and why did not say, apart from the vague Prophesy of Nefertiti, emphatically and repeatedly that these were their ancestors? Why did they depict them differently and label them "foreigners" ?
Why did the pyramids of Meroe came after the Egyptians stopped building pyramids?

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Why .....why?


Wars were very common in ancient Greece. The Greeks lived in little city-states, each one like a small town in the United States today, with no more than about 100,000 people in each city-state. These city-states - Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes - were always fighting each other over their borders. Often they would get together in leagues, a lot of city-states together, to fight as allies.

Sometimes other people invaded Greece, and then there would be wars to defend the city-states from the invaders. Sometimes the city-states fought together, and sometimes they didn't. Then again, sometimes the Greeks fought in other countries. They invaded other countries and took them over, or they raided other cities and took their stuff. And they often fought for pay, as mercenaries, when one foreign country fought another.

Although there were many wars in ancient Greece, most of them we don't know very much about. There are four main wars that we do know about, thanks to the writing of Homer and Herodotus and Thucydides and Arrian. These are the Trojan War (about 1250 BC, which could be a legend), the Persian Wars (490-480 BC) and the Peloponnesian War (441-404 BC) and the campaigns of Alexander the Great (331-323 BC). Then a little later, Greece was taken over by the Romans (146 BC), which we know about thanks to Polybius.

About 650 BC, Greek generals in various different city-states came up with a new way of fighting battles that gave Greek soldiers of the Archaic period a big advantage over the soldiers of other countries like Egypt or the Lydians. Instead of fighting all in a big crowd, running forward and just trying to get at the enemy any which way, Greek generals trained their soldiers to fight in lines, shoulder to shoulder. In this way each man (women were not allowed to be soldiers) was protected by the shield of the man standing next to him. When they all marched forward together, no enemy spears or arrows could get through their wall of shields.

A soldier who fought this way was called a hoplite (HOP-light), and a group of soldiers who fought this way were called a hoplite phalanx (FAY-lanks). A hoplite phalanx was a very strong military formation - but it only worked if all the soldiers were well trained, and if they were all brave enough to hold the line. If anyone started to run away, the whole line would fall apart, and it wouldn't work. Or, if some men went slower than others, or got out of step, it wouldn't work. So hoplites needed to spend a lot of time training, the way people today train to be in a marching band, for instance.





The Peloponnesian War began in 431 BC between the Athenian Empire (or The Delian League) and the Peloponnesian League which included Sparta and Corinth. The war was documented by Thucydides, an Athenian general and historian, in his work History of the Peloponnesian War. Most of the extant comedies of Aristophanes were written during this war, and poke fun at the generals and events. The war lasted 27 years, with a 6-year truce in the middle, and ended with Athens' surrender in 404 BC.

Causes of the war

According to Thucydides, the cause of the war was the "fear of the growth of the power of Athens" throughout the middle of the 5th century BC. After a coalition of Greek states thwarted an attempted invasion of the Greek mainland by the Persian empire, several of those states formed the Delian league in 478 BC in order to create and fund a standing navy which could be used against the Persians in areas under their control. Athens, the largest member of the league and the major Greek naval power, took the leadership of the league and appointed financial officers to oversee its treasury, which was located on the island of Delos, the League headquarters.

Over the following decades Athens, through its great influence in the League, was able to convert it into an Athenian empire. Though some members of the League embraced Athenian conversion, just as many were bitterly opposed to the governments imposed upon them. Gradually League funds went more directly into Athenian projects, rather than into defending the Aegean and Greece from Persia. Pericles had the League treasury relocated from its home on Delos to Athens, from whence most of the funds were used in vast building projects such as the Parthenon. As the member states of the League gradually lost their independence, it transformed into the Athenian Empire, whose growth Sparta watched with concern.

The League, based around the Ionian and Aegean Sea, was by its very nature reliant on ships for trade and to fend off pirates and Persian fleets. As the League developed into the Athenian Empire, member states gradually lost control of their own ships, which they gave to Athens annually as tribute. Consequently, Athens began to accumulate a huge navy. This increase in Athenian military power allowed it to challenge the Lacedaemonians (commonly known as the Spartans), who, as leaders of the Peloponnesian League, had long been the sole major military power in Greece.

The immediate cause of the war comprised several specific Athenian actions that affected Sparta's allies, notably Corinth. The Athenian navy intervened in a dispute between Corinth and Corcyra, preventing Corinth from invading Corcyra at the Battle of Sybota, and placed Potidaea, a Corinthian colony, under siege. The Athenian Empire also levied economic sanctions against Megara, an ally of Sparta. These sanctions, known as the Megarian decree, were largely ignored by Thucydides, but modern economic historians have noted that forbidding Megara to trade with the prosperous Athenian empire would have been disastrous for the Megarans. The decree was likely a greater catalyst for the war than Thucydides and other ancient authors admitted, more so than simple fear of Athenian power.

The "Archidamian War"Sparta and its allies, with the exception of Corinth, were almost exclusively land based powers, able to summon large land armies which were very nearly unbeatable (thanks to the legendary Spartan forces). The Athenian Empire, although based in the peninsula of Attica, spread out across the islands of the Aegean Sea; Athens drew its immense wealth from tribute paid from these islands. Thus, the two powers were relatively unable to fight decisive battles.

The Spartan strategy during the first war, known as the Archidamian War after its king Archidamus II, who invaded Attica, the land surrounding Athens. While this invasion deprived Athens of the productive land around their city, Athens itself was able to maintain access to the sea, and did not suffer much. Many of the citizens of Attica abandoned their farms and moved inside the Long Walls, which connected Athens to its port of Piraeus. The Spartans also occupied Attica for only a few weeks at a time; in the tradition of earlier hoplite warfare the soldiers expected to go home to participate in the harvest. Moreover, Spartan slaves, known as helots, needed to be kept under control, and could not be left unsupervised for long periods of time. The longest Spartan invasion, in 430 BC, lasted just forty days.

The Athenian strategy was initially guided by the strategos, or general, Pericles, who advised the Athenians to avoid open battle with the far more numerous and better trained Spartan hoplites, relying instead on the fleet. The Athenian fleet, which heavily outnumbered the Spartan, went on the offensive, winning victories off Naupactus (now known as "Návpaktos"). In 430, however, an outbreak of a plague (thought by some to be anthrax tramped up from the soil by the thousands of refugees from Attica hiding out in Athens during a siege by the invading Peloponnesians, although no authoritative consensus exists among modern medical authorities as to the correct diagnosis).

The plague ravaged the densely packed city, and in the long run, was a significant cause in the final defeat of Athens. The plague wiped out over 30,000 citizens, sailors and soldiers and even Pericles and his sons, roughly one quarter of the Athenian population. The plague was a disaster which they could never hope to recover from, as Athenian manpower was drastically reduced and even foreign mercenaries refused to hire themselves out to a city riddled with plague. The fear of plague was so widespread that the Spartan invasion of Attica was abandoned, as their troops were unwilling to be near the diseased enemy.

After the death of Pericles, the Athenians turned somewhat against Pericles's conservative, defensive strategy and to a more aggressive strategy of bringing the war to Sparta and its allies. Rising to particular importance in Athenian democracy at this time was Cleon, a leader of the hawkish elements of the Athenian democracy. Led militarily by a clever new general Demosthenes (not to be confused with the later Athenian orator Demosthenes), the Athenians managed some successes as they continued their naval raids on the Peloponnese, stretched their military activities into Boeotia and Aetolia, and began fortifying posts around the Peloponnese.

One of these posts was near Pylos on a tiny island called Sphacteria, where the course of the first war turned in Athens's favor. The post off Pylos struck Sparta where it was weakest: its dependence on the helots. Sparta was dependent on a class of slaves, known as helots, to tend the fields while its citizens trained to become such fine soldiers.

The helots made the Spartan system possible, but now the post off Pylos began attracting helot runaways. To lose these slaves was bad enough, but the fear of a general revolt of helots emboldened by the nearby Athenian presence drove the Spartans to action. Demosthenes, however, outmaneuvered the Spartans and trapped a group of Spartan soldiers on Sphacteria as he waited for them to surrender.

Weeks later, though, Demosthenes proved unable to finish off these irrepressible Spartans. After boasting that he could put an end to the affair in the Assembly, to most Athenians' surprise (and perhaps to his as well), the inexperienced Cleon won a great victory at the Battle of Pylos and the related Battle of Sphacteria in 425 BC. The Athenians captured between 300 and 400 Spartan hoplites. The hostages gave the Athenians a valuable bargaining chip.

The Battle of Sphacteria was more a humiliating surrender than a devastating one, however.After the battle, Brasidas, a Spartan general, raised an army of allies and helots and went for one of the sources of Athenian power, capturing the Athenian colony of Amphipolis, which happened to control several nearby silver mines which the Athenians were using to finance the war. In subsequent battles, both Brasidas and Cleon were killed (see Battle of Amphipolis). The Spartans and Athenians agreed to exchange the hostages for the towns captured by Brasidas, and signed a truce.

The Peace of Nicias

The Peace of Nicias lasted for some six years, but was a time of constant skirmishing in and around the Peloponnese. While the Spartans refrained from action themselves, some of their allies began to talk of revolt. They were supported in this by Argos, a powerful state within the Peloponnese that had remained independent of Lacedaemon. The Argives, allies of the Athenians, succeeded in forming a grand alliance against Sparta.

The Battle of Mantinea was the largest land battle fought within Greece during the Peloponnesian War. The Lacedaemonians, with their neighbors the Tegeans, faced the combined armies of Argos, Athens, Mantinea, and Arcadia. The Spartans, "utterly worsted with respect to skill but superior in point of courage", routed the alliance against them. While the battle was indecisive with respect to the Athenian-Peloponnesian conflict, Sparta succeeded in defeating Argos, thus ensuring their supremacy over the people of Peloponnese.

The Sicilian Expedition

In the 17th year of the war, word came to Athens that one of their distant allies in Sicily was under attack from Syracuse. The people of Syracuse were ethnically Dorian, while the Athenians, and their ally in Sicily, were Ionian. The Athenians felt obliged to assist their ally.

The Athenians people did not act solely from altruism: they held visions of conquering all of Sicily. Syracuse, the principal city of Sicily, was not much smaller than Athens, and conquering all of Sicily would have brought Athens an immense amount of resources. In the final stages of the preparations for departure the hermai (religious statues) were mutilated by unknown persons, and Alcibiades, the Athenian general in charge of the expedition, was charged with religious crimes. Fearing that he would be unjustly condemned, Alcibiades defected to Sparta and Nicias was placed in charge of the mission. After his defection, Alcibiades informed the Spartans that the Athenian planned to use Sicily as a springboard for the conquest of all of Italy, and to use the resources and soldiers from these new conquests to conquer all of the Peloponnese.

The Athenian force consisted of over 100 ships and some 5000 infantry. Upon landing in Sicily, several cities immediately joined the Athenian cause. Instead of attacking at once, Nicias procrastinated and the campaigning season of 415 BC ended with Syracuse scarcely damaged. With winter approaching, the Athenians were then forced to withdraw into their quarters, and they spent the winter gathering allies and preparing to destroy Syracuse. The delay allowed the Syracusans to send for help from Sparta, who sent their general Gylippus to Sicily with reinforcements. Upon arriving, he raised up a force from several Sicilian cities, and went to the relief of Syracuse. He took command of the Syracusan troops, and in a series of battles defeated the Athenian forces, and prevented them from investing the city.

The Second War

The Lacedaemonians were not content with simply sending aid to Sicily; they also resolved to take the war to the Athenians. On the advice of Alcibiades, they fortified Decelea, near Athens, and prevented the Athenians from making use of their land year round. The fortification of Decelea also prevented the shipment of supplies overland to Athens, and forced all supplies to be brought in by sea at increased expense.

The Corinthians, the Spartans, and others in the Peloponnesian League sent more reinforcements to Syracuse, in the hopes of driving off the Athenians; but instead of withdrawing, the Athenians sent another hundred ships and another 5000 troops to Sicily. Under Gylippus, the Syracusans and their allies were able to decisively beat the Athenians on land; and Gylippus encouraged the Syracusans to build a navy, which was able to defeat the Athenian fleet when they attempted to withdraw. The Athenian army, attempting to withdraw overland to other, more friendly Sicilian cities, was divided and defeated; the entire Athenian fleet was destroyed, and virtually the entire Athenian army was sold off into slavery.

Following the defeat of the Athenians in Sicily, it was widely believed that the end of the Athenian Empire was at hand. Her treasury was nearly empty, her docks were depleted, and the flower of her youth was dead or imprisoned in a foreign land. They underestimated the strength of the Athenian Empire, but the beginning of the end was indeed at hand.

Athens Recovers

Following the destruction of the Sicilian Expedition, Lacedaemon encouraged the revolt of Athens's tributary allies, and indeed, much of Ionia rose in revolt against Athens. The Syracusans sent their fleet to the Peloponnesians, and the Persians decided to support the Spartans with money and ships. Revolt and faction threatened in Athens itself.

The Athenians managed to survive for several reasons. First, their foes were severely lacking in vigor. Corinth and Syracuse were slow to bring their fleets into the Aegean, and Sparta's other allies were also slow to furnish troops or ships. The Ionian states that rebelled expected protection, and frequently rejoined the Athenian side. The Persians were slow to furnish promised funds and ships, frustrating battle plans. Perhaps most importantly, Spartan officers were not trained to be diplomats, and were somewhat politically insensitive.

At the start of the war, the Athenians had prudently put aside some money and 100 ships that were to be used only as a last resort.

These ships were now released, and served as the core of the Athenians' fleet throughout the rest of the war. An oligarchical revolution occurred in Athens, in which a group of 400 seized power. A peace with Sparta might have been possible, but the Athenian fleet, now based on the island of Samos, refused to accept the change. In 411 BC this fleet engaged the Spartans at the Battle of Syme. The fleet appointed Alcibiades their leader, and continued the war in Athens's name. Their opposition led to the reinstitution of a democratic government in Athens within two years.

Alcibiades, while condemned as a traitor, was a very strong personality. He prevented the Athenian fleet from attacking Athens; instead, he helped restore democracy by more subtle pressure. He also persuaded the Athenian fleet to attack the Spartans at the battle of Cyzicus in 410. In the battle, the Athenians obliterated the Spartan fleet, and succeeded in reestablishing the financial basis of the Athenian empire.

Between 410 and 406, Athens won victory after victory, and had recovered large portions of its empire. All of this was due, in no small part, to Alcibiades.

Lysander triumphs

Faction triumphed in Athens: following a minor Spartan victory by Lysander at the naval battle of Notium, Alcibiades was not reelected general. He retired, leaving Athens to the mercy of a new and cunning opponent. Lysander was a rare Spartan, comfortable at controlling ships, trustworthy abroad, and with good personal relationships with the Persians.


Opportunity cooperated with him. After a naval battle at Arginusae, in which the Athenians lost 12 ships, the Athenians were unable to rescue the crews due to bad weather. Blaming instead the generals, the Athenians executed all of their top naval commanders, and destroyed the morale of their navy.Lysander, seizing the opportunity, sailed at once to the Hellespont, the source of Athens's grain. Threatened with starvation, the Athenian fleet had no choice but to follow. By means of a ruse, Lysander tricked the Athenians into a total defeat at the battle of Aegospotami, destroying 168 ships; only 12 Athenian ships escaped, and several of these sailed to Cyprus, including the strategos Conon, who was not anxious to face the judgment of the Assembly.

Facing starvation and disease from the prolonged siege, Athens surrendered in 404 BC, and her allies soon surrendered as well. The democrats at Samos, loyal to the bitter last, held on slightly longer, and were allowed to flee with their lives. The surrender stripped Athens of her walls, her fleet, and all of her overseas possessions.

Effects

For a short period of time, Athens was ruled by the 'thirty oligarchs'. According to a foonote in The Trial and Death of Socrates translated by GMA Grube pg 35, the thirty oligarchs was "the harsh oligarchy that was set up after the final defeat of Athens by Sparta in the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC, and that ruled Athens for some nine months in 404-403 before the democracy was restored."

Although the power of Athens was broken, she made something of a recovery as a result of the Corinthian War and continued to play an active role in Greek politics. Sparta was in turn humbled by Thebes at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC, but it was all brought to an end a few years later by Philip II of Macedon.

The Corinthian War was an ancient conflict fought between 395 BC and 387 BC. In the course of it a number of Greek city states challenged the hegemony that Sparta had established following its victory in the Peloponnesian War.This war saw Sparta, already at war with Persia, facing an alliance between its traditional enemies Athens and Argos, and its former allies Thebes and Corinth. The war was largely a stalemate, focusing on the Spartan king Agesilaus's siege of Corinth, which lasted until 390 BC, when the city was relieved by the Athenian general Iphicrates. This victory gave the Persians, who had been bankrolling the allies, pause, leading to the Peace of Antalcidas of 387 BC, in which the Greek states recognized Persian hegemony over Greece, which in effect played out as Spartan domination.


The war continues to fascinate later generations, both because of the way it engulfed the Greek world, and because the insight Thucydides provides into the motivations of its participants is deeper than what is known about any other war in ancient times.


Reference: G.L. Cawkwell, Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War (1997 London)

Posts: 22234 | From: האם אינכם כילדי הכרית אלי בני ישראל | Registered: Nov 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by Brada-Anansi:

Williams show Ta-Seti kings engaged in military campaigns in Upper Egypt and Libya. Williams states the following in regards to this:


At an A-Group storage cache at Siali, which lies north of Qutsul, is more proof of royalty. On a portion of a seal from this find is a man saluting a bow and a palace façade with the Horus-falcon. Williams states, “the obvious interpretation is that the man is saluting the name for Nubia - Ta-Seti, or 'Land of the Bow.'” This indicates that Ta-Seti was indeed an established kingship and state.

Other evidence pointed out by Williams show Ta-Seti kings engaged in military campaigns in Upper Egypt and Libya. Williams states the following in regards to this:

“the fallen enemy is labeled Ta-Shemau or Upper Egypt. Although the second group remaining on this bowl is fainter than the first, it can be seen that 'the enemy' has fallen on his back rather than forward. The long flat sign (land) extends from the enemy's knee and the unimpeded vertical identifying sign appears to make a kind of question above - this, in all probability, is the label Ta-Tjemeh or Libya”.
http://www.playahata.com/pages/bhfigures/bhfigures24.html

Ta-Seti was a pre-unified pre Kemetian state able to take action in Upper Kemet and Libya and had direct trade with the Levant no amount of hand wringing is gonna chance that only further archeological discovery might.

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Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged | 

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Maybe I'll start a new thread on African archaeology because this journal has great info and I doubt anybody really checks in on this thread anymore esp. since it's Simple Girls


Cultural Origins of the Egyptian Neolithic and Predynastic: An Evaluation of the Evidence
from the Dakhleh Oasis (South Central Egypt)
--Ashten R. Warfe

The African Archaeological Review, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Dec., 2003), pp. 175-202

quote:

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It is here that wheat, barley, goats, cat
tle, and pigs were domesticated in some cases several thousands of years before these same species appeared in Lower Egypt (Mellaart, 1975, pp. 48-51). In more recent years, research in the Egyptian Western Desert indicates some of these
species were domesticated here too, probably over a thousand years before they first appear in Lower Egypt (Gautier, 1987, p. 177; Stemler and Falk, 1980, p. 393; Wendorf and Schild, 1984, pp. 426-428). In addition, it was found that the desert groups possessed a greater number of material traits that compare with the assemblages of Lower Egypt than the Levant and Greater Mesopotamia. As such, the balance of scholarly opinion tends to favor the Western Desert as contributing the most toward the Neolithization of Egypt, at least in terms of cultural influence, whereas southwest Asia is seen more as the source for domesticates (Barich, 1993, p. 182; Canev?, 1992, p. 221; Hassan, 1986, pp. 70-71; Holmes, 1992, pp. 301 315; McDonald, 1991; Wendorf and Schild, 1984, pp. 426-428; Wenke, 1999, pp. 18-19; Wetterstrom, 1993).

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Posts: 1502 | From: Dies Irae | Registered: Oct 2010  |  IP: Logged |