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:
Posted by Brada-Anansi (Member # 16371) on :
Samuel Morton:
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.
Posted by TheAmericanPatriot (Member # 15824) on :
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.
Posted by ausar (Member # 1797) on :
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
Posted by TheAmericanPatriot (Member # 15824) on :
I suppose we could go back and look at some of the wild views about science people had 300 years ago.
Posted by Brada-Anansi (Member # 16371) on :
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
Posted by TheAmericanPatriot (Member # 15824) on :
No, It does not go on today except on radical sites like Egyptsearch and Stormfront.
Posted by markellion (Member # 14131) on :
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
Posted by TheAmericanPatriot (Member # 15824) on :
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.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
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.
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.
Posted by Brada-Anansi (Member # 16371) on :
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.
Posted by TheAmericanPatriot (Member # 15824) on :
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.
Posted by Brada-Anansi (Member # 16371) on :
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]
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
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.
Posted by TheAmericanPatriot (Member # 15824) on :
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.
Posted by lamin (Member # 5777) on :
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.
Posted by lamin (Member # 5777) on :
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.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
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.
Posted by TheAmericanPatriot (Member # 15824) on :
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.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
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.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
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.
Posted by TheAmericanPatriot (Member # 15824) on :
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.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
Mr Patriot you are dumb.
There was no Rome in 500 BC.
The Roman city established by the Romans near modern London was burned to the ground by Queen Boudica.
The Romans and the people of Northern and Western Europe were ENEMIES retard. They were NOT completely ROMANIZED.
Stop lying to yourself.
Posted by TheAmericanPatriot (Member # 15824) on :
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.
Posted by markellion (Member # 14131) on :
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.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
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 by markellion (Member # 14131) on :
This is from Wikipedia but it has sources at the bottom
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.
Posted by markellion (Member # 14131) on :
I think AmericanPatriot is just saying Europe was influenced by Greece and Rome. I think the concept has to be defined first
quote:Originally posted by TheAmericanPatriot: After the fall of Rome the roman church spread a latin culture all over Europe..
Posted by markellion (Member # 14131) on :
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 by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
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.
Roman London was tiny. Rome proper had upwards of 1 million according to some estimates.
Posted by markellion (Member # 14131) on :
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
Posted by markellion (Member # 14131) on :
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 by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
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!
Posted by markellion (Member # 14131) on :
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
Posted by TheAmericanPatriot (Member # 15824) on :
Doug, How many do you want?
Roman Britain: A New History by Guy de la Bedoyere (Hardcover - April 24, 2006) Buy new: $39.95 $30.3649 Used & new from $14.69 Get it by Monday, Aug 3 if you order in the next 23 hours and choose one-day shipping. Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping. (4)
2. Roman Britain and Early England: 55 B.C.-A.D. 871 (Norton Library History of England) by Peter Blair (Paperback - Oct 17, 1966) Buy new: $15.95 $10.8554 Used & new from $2.49 Get it by Monday, Aug 3 if you order in the next 22 hours and choose one-day shipping. Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping. (4) Other Editions: Hardcover, Paperback Excerpt - page 2: "... ROMAN BRITAIN AND EARLY ENGLAND shores of East Anglia a Danish army ..." Surprise me! See a random page in this book.
3. A History of Roman Britain by Peter Salway (Paperback - May 31, 2001) Buy new: $18.1219 Used & new from $12.98 Usually ships in 1 to 4 weeks Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping. (3) Other Editions: Kindle Edition, Paperback
4. An Imperial Possession: Britain in the Roman Empire, 54 BC - AD 409 (Penguin History of Britain) by David Mattingly (Paperback - May 27, 2008) Buy new: $20.00 $13.6050 Used & new from $6.40 Get it by Friday, Jul 31 if you order in the next 31 minutes and choose one-day shipping. Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping. Other Editions: Hardcover Excerpt - page 3: "... Empire This book tells the story of the occupation of Britain by the Romans. It is not the same sort of history that characterizes ..." Surprise me! See a random page in this book . 5. Roman Britain: Outpost of the Empire by H. H. Scullard (Paperback - May 1986) 32 Used & new from $0.01 (2) Other Editions: Hardcover 6. Roman Britain: A Very Short Introduction by Peter Salway (Paperback - Jul 11, 2002) Buy new: $11.95 $10.1656 Used & new from $2.47 Get it by Friday, Jul 31 if you order in the next 1 minute and choose one-day shipping. Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping. (4)
7. Roman Britain (Historical Map) by Ordnance Survey (Map - Mar 8, 2001) - Folded Map 21 Used & new from $4.10 Other Editions: Map
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9. Farewell Britannia: A Family Saga of Roman Britain by Simon Young (Paperback - April 16, 2008) Buy new: $21.95 $17.1218 Used & new from $8.35 Get it by Friday, Jul 31 if you order in the next 1 minute and choose one-day shipping. Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping. Other Editions: Hardcover
10. Life in Roman Britain by Joan Alcock (Paperback - April 1, 2006) Buy new: $37.5013 Used & new from $29.03 Get it by Monday, Aug 3 if you order in the next 22 hours and choose one-day shipping. Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping.
11. Roman Britain: A Sourcebook by S. Ireland (Hardcover - Mar 6, 1996) Buy new: $42.9539 Used & new from $14.00 Get it by Monday, Aug 3 if you order in the next 21 hours and choose one-day shipping. Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping. (1) Other Editions: Kindle Edition Excerpt - page 19: "... II The Roman Period In addition to the political and military implications of Caesar's two expeditions, Roman penetration of Britain in the middle of the first century ..." Surprise me! See a random page in this book.
12. Roman Britain (The Oxford History of England, 1a) by Peter Salway (Hardcover - Sep 17, 1981) Buy new: $158.5035 Used & new from $2.50 Get it by Friday, Jul 31 if you order in the next 1 minute and choose one-day shipping. Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping. (2) Other Editions: Paperback
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Posted by TheAmericanPatriot (Member # 15824) on :
Here you go Doug. You need to read every damn one of these before you have the nerve to argue with me.
The End of Roman Britain by Michael E. Jones (Paperback - April 2, 1998) 22 Used & new from $9.53 (1) Other Editions: Hardcover Excerpt - page 4: "... ro The End of Roman Britain stantial assimilation and the continuity of much of the Roman ..." Surprise me! See a random page in this book.
14. Roman Britain (History of Britain) by Ruth Brocklehurst, Jane Chisholm, and G. Gaudenzi (Paperback - Jan 2006) Buy new: $8.9921 Used & new from $4.97 In Stock Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping. Other Editions: Hardcover
15. The Anglo-Saxons (Penguin History) by James Campbell, Eric John, and Patrick Wormald (Paperback - Aug 6, 1991) Buy new: $28.00 $18.4869 Used & new from $6.83 Get it by Friday, Jul 31 if you order in the next 6 minutes and choose one-day shipping. Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping. (7) Other Editions: Hardcover, Library Binding Excerpt - page 8: "... CHAPTER ONE The End of Roman Britain Roman rule in Britain began in AD 43 and ended ..." Surprise me! See a random page in this book.
16. An Atlas of Roman Britain by Barri Jones and David Mattingly (Hardcover - Jun 14, 2007) Buy new: $90.00 $65.708 Used & new from $49.95 Get it by Monday, Aug 3 if you order in the next 23 hours and choose one-day shipping. Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping. Other Editions: Hardcover, Paperback
17. Anglo-Saxon England: Reissue with a new cover (Oxford history of England) by Sir Frank M. Stenton (Paperback - Sep 20, 2001) Buy new: $35.00 $31.5039 Used & new from $15.33 Get it by Monday, Aug 3 if you order in the next 23 hours and choose one-day shipping. Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping. (3) Other Editions: Hardcover, Paperback, Unknown Binding Excerpt - page 2: "... be regarded either as an epilogue to the history of Roman Britain or as a prologue to the history of Saxon England. ..." Surprise me! See a random page in this book.
18. Celtic Religion in Roman Britain by Graham Webster (Hardcover - Mar 1987) 13 Used & new from $11.99 (1) 19. Roman Roads in Britain (Shire Archaeology) by Hugh Davies (Paperback - Feb 17, 2009) Buy new: $13.95 $11.8637 Used & new from $6.43 Get it by Monday, Aug 3 if you order in the next 23 hours and choose one-day shipping. Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping.
20. Medieval Schools: Roman Britain to Renaissance England by Mr. Nicholas Orme (Hardcover - Aug 24, 2006) Buy new: $50.00 $33.7545 Used & new from $11.50 Get it by Monday, Aug 3 if you order in the next 23 hours and choose one-day shipping. Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping. (1)
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24. A History of Religion in Britain: Practice and Belief from Pre-Roman Times to the Present by Sheridan Gilley and W. J. Sheils (Paperback - Sep 27, 1994) Buy new: $39.9531 Used & new from $29.49 In Stock Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping. Other Editions: Hardcover
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Posted by Bogle (Member # 16736) on :
^ lol mr. cut and paste. you never even read one of those books.
Posted by TheAmericanPatriot (Member # 15824) on :
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.
Posted by Brada-Anansi (Member # 16371) on :
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.
More of Patriot's "education" at work.......
Posted by TheAmericanPatriot (Member # 15824) on :
Look up the dates Dul Rabb. We are talking AD, poor doug is back at the founding a thousand years earlier.
Posted by markellion (Member # 14131) on :
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 by TheAmericanPatriot (Member # 15824) on :
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.
Posted by markellion (Member # 14131) on :
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 by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
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.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
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.
Posted by TheAmericanPatriot (Member # 15824) on :
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.
Posted by markellion (Member # 14131) on :
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.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by TheAmericanPatriot: 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.
So it is European history/civilization and it starts in the East (and South) like I said. "Western" has nothing to do with it. And no all scholars do not have the same view of what Western civilization means either. Point blank any term "civilization" refers to a group of people sharing common traits, culture, customs and political organization. EUROPE did not have a common culture, identity, traits and custom until maybe 500 years ago, long after Greece and Rome. Therefore, they cannot be considered all Greek or Roman since 700 BC. Greek and Roman culture is not COMMON to all of Europe it is FOREIGN to most of Europe. Ancient Germans were not like the Greeks and Romans. Ancient Britons were not like the Greeks and Romans. Ancient Scandinavians were not like the Greeks and Romans. Even today Greek culture and cities are UNLIKE most in Europe, because Greece has ALWAYS been oriented to the EAST than the West. The point being that the term WESTERN has no value in describing the development, origin or history of European civilizations and cultures. Focusing on Greece and Rome is simply an attempt by NON Greeks and NON Romans to pretend that their cultures and societies were ALWAYS civilized WHEN THEY WERE NOT.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by markellion: 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.
Actually the "Dark Ages" only applies to WESTERN EUROPE, because this area DID NOT have any civilization of its own to begin with. Therefore, outside of Roman influence THEY WERE NOT CIVILIZED. The arrogance of Europeans tries to portray ALL THE WORLD as being in a "Dark Age" because WESTERN Europe hadn't become civilized yet. That is STUPID. In fact, the Eastern Roman Empire and Greece never had a Dark Age. Persia and Asia weren't in a Dark Age, Africa wasn't in a dark Age and the Americas were not in a Dark Age either. In fact, the later parts of the Byzantine Empire came to be dominated by Greeks and called the Macedonian Byzantine Empire and the official language was Greek. They even had a mini renaissance of Greek culture in the 10th century, called the Macedonian Renaissance. And it was during this time that the major SPLIT occurred between the Eastern and Western Catholic Church. Showing clearly that East and West were not a common unified entity in Europe by any stretch of the imagination. That is the point of why these terms and their usage must be put in proper context, as Europeans sometimes like to put their history at the center of the world with WESTERN Europeans being the most important, when they weren't until 500 years ago. Prior to that all the major action of civilization was to the East and South and generally OUTSIDE of Europe. And Greece has NEVER really been associated with "The West" as in Western Europe, until "Western" academics tried to "claim" Greece in order to down play their "barbarian" Western European roots.
Doug, Western refers to Europe, as opposed to Asia (eastern). Are you trying to say that eastern Europe was not involved in the Dark Ages? Pray tell, how did life in Poland or Hungary differ from France or germany during this period??? Major action of civilization" ??? Exactly what does that mean? Civilizations are specific, they are not an action. You can define a civilization within a specific set of characteristics.
Greek and Roman culture does not have to apply to all of europe from the very beginning. Greek and Roman culture SPREAD throughout Europe in a process that began around 500 BC. You seem to want to make an issue out of the fact that Europe did not have a common culture from day one. Nobody argues with that. Obviously they did not have a common culture in 10,000 BC.
The point is, and they basic texts lay this out for you, is that what we know as western civilization started in Greece and Rome and spread thoughout Europe. It did so starting around 500 BC on a continous basis and was completed in most of Europe by 500 AD. The last componet of culture added was the religious conversion that was completed in the early middle ages.
Posted by markellion (Member # 14131) on :
But your very definition of Western Civilization is that it consisted of Greece and Rome, so it is Greco-Roman Civilization right? And then later it was Christindam, as Lamin pointed out. So instead of saying Western Civlization you should say 1. Greco-Roman and then later 2. Christindam. and then finally 3 Western Civliization in modern times
I am going from your definition American Patriot
Posted by markellion (Member # 14131) on :
Going from his own definition there is no great European western Civilization legacy. If he is trying to claim such a legacy, a close look at his own definition debunks it
Posted by TheAmericanPatriot (Member # 15824) on :
what you have Markellion is a continous evolution with Greece and rome as the foundation. No society becomes frozen in time.
Posted by unfinished thought. (Member # 16076) on :
"And Greece has NEVER really been associated with "The West" as in Western Europe, until "Western" academics tried to "claim" Greece in order to down play their "barbarian" Western European roots."
Marseille, the oldest city of France, was founded in 600 BC by Greeks from Phocaea (as mentioned by Thucydides Bk1,13) as a trading port under the name Μασσαλία (Massalia; see also List of traditional Greek place names).
Massalia was one of the first Greek ports in Western Europe, growing to a population of over 1000. It was the first settlement given city status in France. Facing an opposing alliance of the Etruscans, Carthage and the Celts, the Greek colony allied itself with the expanding Roman Republic for protection.
There were a number of Greek colonies and settlements in Spain, France, Monaco and Portugal. The Greeks did not dominate these regions as they did in Magna Gracia or in the Cyrenaica in Libya for example, they did however have a lasting influence.
One of the first Greeks to make it to the edge of the Mediterranean was a powerful and heroic man, the great Hercules who built the Pillars of Hercules on either side of the Gibraltar straits to signify the supposed geographical limit of the known world.
Herodotus tells us that another Greek, Captain Kolaios of Samos and his crew mistakenly sailed past the Pillars of Hercules and landed in the region of Tartessos in southern Spain (near Portugal) in the 7th century BC. The Greeks exchanged goods and whilst working on their tans made a strong friendship with the king. Kolaios and his crew returned to Samos with Iberian (Spanish) silver and minerals and stories of potential new trading lands.
Within decades the Greeks had established a strong trading presence in Iberia and supplemented these activities by establishing settlements. Some scholars debate the size and the existence of a number of the settlements. It is certain that a town existed in the region approaching modern Gibraltar and within the boundaries of Tartessos. The town was called Mainake however not much is known about its history. Another town located in southern Iberia but facing the east was Hemerskopeion. These places ensured that Greek merchants could facilitate their trade with Iberians and had a base that was not controlled by their great rivals the Phoenicians. Many archeological sites in southern Spain have unearthed Greek pottery from the 700’s BC onwards.
Phocaea – a name I can’t pronounce and is a place I have never been to. This was a great city on the coast of Asia Minor towards the Hellespont. It was captured by the Persians in 545BC, however its maritime activities in the 200 years prior to this date led to the establishment of some of the greatest cities in the world.
During the great Greek colonial epoch of antiquity the Phocaeans established the colonies of Emporion and Rhode in northern Spain (above Barcelona). The latter colony was established before the ancient Olympic Games and the former was to become an important centre of commerce. The presence of Greeks in the southern regions of Spain and Portugal was to last until the seventh century AD when Byzantine control was overthrown.
The Phocaeans established the colony of Massalia about 600BC. A local story tells us that Protis from Phocaea was invited to a “coming out” event by a local king for his daughter. Protis was your typical Adonis (or perhaps a Hercules) looking Greek so the girl fell in love with Protis and they were given as dowry the land in what would become Massalia.
Massalia which today is known as Marseille (France) was to develop as a leading city in the Mediterranean and was the first Greek colony in the west to reach a population of over 1000. It was a city that remained independent until 49 BC when it was captured by Julius Caesar after a 6 month siege. The locals resisted as best as they could using all their Herculean reserves in the process. The City was one of the last of the Greek colonies in the far west to retain its Greek character and language, holding on at least until the arrival of the Visigoths in fifth century AD and into the next.
Massalia founded a number of other colonies in the region including Agathe, Olbia, Antipolis and Nicaea. Nicaea was founded by the Massalians in 350BC after a victory over a neighbouring kingdom. The City was named after the Greek Goddess of Victory, Nike and is not to be confused with any sponsorship deals involving Tiger Woods. I have been to both Nice and Marseilles and it is amazing that from such humble, Greek origins they are today large and vibrant French cities.
Another great City that owes its development to the Greeks is that of Monaco. Founded as Monoikos by the Massalians in the sixth century BC it is also known as the Port of Hercules after he stopped off here during his travels. And like Hercules I too stopped here many years ago for a quick drink.
There are other areas of France where the Greeks had small trading settlements or like Alalia in Corsica had established a significant town. Speaking of Corsica, its time to point out that the Byzantine Empire – the medieval Greek empire, held the island of Corsica and all of the Mediterranean islands for a significant period during the sixth and seventh centuries AD (not BC). The Byzantine rule during this epoch also extended to southern Spain and northern Africa. This ensured that towns that were formerly Greek colonies and many of the people living in those locations continued to speak Greek or identify with that culture. However, unlike Byzantine control of Magna Gracia or the Cyrenaica in Libya it would be difficult to say that the Greek speakers were overwhelming dominant in those areas.
The Greeks were responsible not only for establishing so many prominent colonies and trade but for introducing olive and wine to France. It was the Greeks who introduced these products to France and ensured that wine was made in that region for years to come. Think about it, what would the world be like if French wine was not produced the way we know it?
So the moral of my story is, next time you think you have come across an ancient Greek theatre, please make sure it is. Otherwise you might just find a series of Greek colonies and some anecdotes about Hercules.
Posted by TheAmericanPatriot (Member # 15824) on :
unfinished, most of these guys have no clue. Many want to make remarks but simply will not read.
Posted by unfinished thought. (Member # 16076) on :
The Catholic Church kept Greco-Roman culture alive in the books.
quote:Originally posted by unfinished thought.: "And Greece has NEVER really been associated with "The West" as in Western Europe, until "Western" academics tried to "claim" Greece in order to down play their "barbarian" Western European roots."
Marseille, the oldest city of France, was founded in 600 BC by Greeks from Phocaea (as mentioned by Thucydides Bk1,13) as a trading port under the name Μασσαλία (Massalia; see also List of traditional Greek place names).
Massalia was one of the first Greek ports in Western Europe, growing to a population of over 1000. It was the first settlement given city status in France. Facing an opposing alliance of the Etruscans, Carthage and the Celts, the Greek colony allied itself with the expanding Roman Republic for protection.
There were a number of Greek colonies and settlements in Spain, France, Monaco and Portugal. The Greeks did not dominate these regions as they did in Magna Gracia or in the Cyrenaica in Libya for example, they did however have a lasting influence.
One of the first Greeks to make it to the edge of the Mediterranean was a powerful and heroic man, the great Hercules who built the Pillars of Hercules on either side of the Gibraltar straits to signify the supposed geographical limit of the known world.
Herodotus tells us that another Greek, Captain Kolaios of Samos and his crew mistakenly sailed past the Pillars of Hercules and landed in the region of Tartessos in southern Spain (near Portugal) in the 7th century BC. The Greeks exchanged goods and whilst working on their tans made a strong friendship with the king. Kolaios and his crew returned to Samos with Iberian (Spanish) silver and minerals and stories of potential new trading lands.
Within decades the Greeks had established a strong trading presence in Iberia and supplemented these activities by establishing settlements. Some scholars debate the size and the existence of a number of the settlements. It is certain that a town existed in the region approaching modern Gibraltar and within the boundaries of Tartessos. The town was called Mainake however not much is known about its history. Another town located in southern Iberia but facing the east was Hemerskopeion. These places ensured that Greek merchants could facilitate their trade with Iberians and had a base that was not controlled by their great rivals the Phoenicians. Many archeological sites in southern Spain have unearthed Greek pottery from the 700’s BC onwards.
Phocaea – a name I can’t pronounce and is a place I have never been to. This was a great city on the coast of Asia Minor towards the Hellespont. It was captured by the Persians in 545BC, however its maritime activities in the 200 years prior to this date led to the establishment of some of the greatest cities in the world.
During the great Greek colonial epoch of antiquity the Phocaeans established the colonies of Emporion and Rhode in northern Spain (above Barcelona). The latter colony was established before the ancient Olympic Games and the former was to become an important centre of commerce. The presence of Greeks in the southern regions of Spain and Portugal was to last until the seventh century AD when Byzantine control was overthrown.
The Phocaeans established the colony of Massalia about 600BC. A local story tells us that Protis from Phocaea was invited to a “coming out” event by a local king for his daughter. Protis was your typical Adonis (or perhaps a Hercules) looking Greek so the girl fell in love with Protis and they were given as dowry the land in what would become Massalia.
Massalia which today is known as Marseille (France) was to develop as a leading city in the Mediterranean and was the first Greek colony in the west to reach a population of over 1000. It was a city that remained independent until 49 BC when it was captured by Julius Caesar after a 6 month siege. The locals resisted as best as they could using all their Herculean reserves in the process. The City was one of the last of the Greek colonies in the far west to retain its Greek character and language, holding on at least until the arrival of the Visigoths in fifth century AD and into the next.
Massalia founded a number of other colonies in the region including Agathe, Olbia, Antipolis and Nicaea. Nicaea was founded by the Massalians in 350BC after a victory over a neighbouring kingdom. The City was named after the Greek Goddess of Victory, Nike and is not to be confused with any sponsorship deals involving Tiger Woods. I have been to both Nice and Marseilles and it is amazing that from such humble, Greek origins they are today large and vibrant French cities.
Another great City that owes its development to the Greeks is that of Monaco. Founded as Monoikos by the Massalians in the sixth century BC it is also known as the Port of Hercules after he stopped off here during his travels. And like Hercules I too stopped here many years ago for a quick drink.
There are other areas of France where the Greeks had small trading settlements or like Alalia in Corsica had established a significant town. Speaking of Corsica, its time to point out that the Byzantine Empire – the medieval Greek empire, held the island of Corsica and all of the Mediterranean islands for a significant period during the sixth and seventh centuries AD (not BC). The Byzantine rule during this epoch also extended to southern Spain and northern Africa. This ensured that towns that were formerly Greek colonies and many of the people living in those locations continued to speak Greek or identify with that culture. However, unlike Byzantine control of Magna Gracia or the Cyrenaica in Libya it would be difficult to say that the Greek speakers were overwhelming dominant in those areas.
The Greeks were responsible not only for establishing so many prominent colonies and trade but for introducing olive and wine to France. It was the Greeks who introduced these products to France and ensured that wine was made in that region for years to come. Think about it, what would the world be like if French wine was not produced the way we know it?
So the moral of my story is, next time you think you have come across an ancient Greek theatre, please make sure it is. Otherwise you might just find a series of Greek colonies and some anecdotes about Hercules.
And you are making my point more clear. Greek culture and civilization was Greek culture and civilization. It was European, but it was NOT the culture of all of Europe. Of course Greek thought influenced Roman thought and both influenced the later development of the rest of Europe. The point is that ALL OF EUROPE was not like Greece and Rome in 500 B.C. And Europe WAS NOT unified under a COMMON CULTURE AND IDENTITY as "WESTERN" for any time prior to 500 years ago. It is a word that only came about in RECENT times to describe the cultures and activities of WESTERN Europeans who were INSPIRED by Greece and Rome but were considered as BARBARIANS and ENEMIES of the actual Greeks and Romans. Britons were not practicing "Western" thought during the Middle Ages. ALL of this goes back to the Renaissance when Europe finally began to practice a culture based upon ancient Greek and Roman works.
Put it this way, if I started the history of Africa with ancient Egypt, NOBODY would agree. Why? Because Africa is a large continent and all people of Africa were not ancient Egyptians.
Similarly, yes Greece and Rome were EUROPEAN civilizations, but all of Europe is not Greece and Rome.
People need to understand that when Europeans claim something called "western" they are only focusing EXCLUSIVELY on Greece and Rome and not focusing on the fact that MOST of Europe was NOT like those two civilizations for the period between 100 BC and 1200AD. Actually the BIGGEST force for change in Europe during that time period was the migration of Germanic tribes carrying traces of Eastern steppe culture and traditions which laid the foundation for the Fall of Rome to begin with. THESE PEOPLE WERE NOT like the Romans. From these Germanic tribes come the Saxons who founded Britain based on knowledge and administrative practices gained from the MUSLIMS in Sicily. Christianity was NOT COMMON in Europe for this time. People DID NOT identify with Greece or Rome in Britain, Germany, Scandinavia and so forth.
This is the basis of MOST European culture and identity during the time between 200AD and 1200AD. They did not glorify Greece and Rome. Rome was their ENEMY.
So now the former BARBARIANS and ENEMIES of Rome want to claim that Rome is their heritage. That is hilarious.
That is why "Western" civilization has no real meaning at all. European civilization is a much better term because it does not try and isolate focus on Greece and Rome while ignoring the peoples and cultures identified as barbarians and the enemies of Rome, who were the common people of MOST of Europe.
In fact the Middle Ages are also called the dark ages PRECISELY because of the wars between the Germanic tribes, where the Germanic tribes were NOT known for being civilized and were NOT "Western" and thus civilized. In fact the Church only gained a strong toehold among the rulers of Europe due to the Moors, where Christianity financed and backed various rulers (Charlemagne) in their wars and claim to the throne. This was followed by the Crusades, which further helped the Church gain more rulers and armies into the fold. Without the MUSLIMS in Europe and the East the Church would have had a hard time developing as it did. And the Church was nowhere near being the basis of education in Europe. That is something that they also learned from the Muslims, as Islam was the leading institution of Learning in the Mediterranean at that time.
Posted by unfinished thought. (Member # 16076) on :
"Therefore, outside of Roman influence THEY WERE NOT CIVILIZED."
Some European tribes arrived in Europe much later, so it is logical they were less civilized. The Greeks and the Romans had already established themselves in Europe.
Also you have to take into account other factors such as climate and geography. The Greek lived in a Mediterrain climate. Winters were mild and wet, and they were able to grow grapes and olives. Summers were warm and dry. Grapes and olives were one of the few plants that could survive draoughts. Northern European cultures were required to overcome harsh climate. Much of northern Europe was an ice sheet and the rest of Europe extremely cold.
Posted by TheAmericanPatriot (Member # 15824) on :
Doug, give it up. It became the culture of all Europe. That is the point we have been trying to drill into your thick head. Greece and Rome, two European cultural systems spread their culture to other Europeans. It could have happened anywhere in Europe but it happened in Greece and rome. Glencoe Doug....read.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by unfinished thought.: "Therefore, outside of Roman influence THEY WERE NOT CIVILIZED."
Some European tribes arrived in Europe much later, so it is logical they were less civilized. The Greeks and the Romans had already established themselves in Europe.
Also you have to take into account other factors such as climate and geography. The Greek lived in a Mediterrain climate. Winters were mild and wet, and they were able to grow grapes and olives. Summers were warm and dry. Grapes and olives were one of the few plants that could survive draoughts. Northern European cultures were required to overcome harsh climate. Much of northern Europe was an ice sheet and the rest of Europe extremely cold.
But you aren't making a point. Rome COLONIZED Europe and when Rome fell MOST of Europe reverted to their pre roman ways. Being colonized by Rome does not make them the SAME as the Romans or sharing Romes ancient heritage. After the Romans left many were HAPPY to see them go. Rome was an EMPIRE it was not a place were Gemanics and barbaric people were considered human. The Gauls were perennial ENEMIES of Rome going back to 100BC. They were not "Western" as "Western" has no meaning here. They did not share a common worldview culture or identity. They did not glorify Greece and Rome.
After the Germanic invasions many of the ruling families that arose were of GERMANIC stock across Europe, including Britain.
quote: The House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was formerly the Royal House of several European monarchies, and branches currently reign in Belgium through the descendants of Leopold I, and in the United Kingdom through the descendants of Prince Albert. Due to anti-German sentiment in the United Kingdom during World War I, George V changed the name from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor in 1917. The House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha is a line of the Saxon House of Wettin.
This Germanic heritage is as important as any in the definition of modern Europe but Germanic history is NOT ROMAN and GREEK history.
The TRUE history of Great Britain
quote: The Saxons (Latin: Saxones) were a confederation of Old Germanic tribes. Their modern-day descendants in Lower Saxony and Westphalia and other German states are considered ethnic Germans (the State of Sachsen is not inhabited by ethnic Saxons; the state of Sachsen-Anhalt only in its northwestern parts); those in the eastern Netherlands are considered to be ethnic Dutch; those in north eastern Belgium are considered to be ethnic Flemish; those in northern France are considered to be ethnic French; and those in Southern England ethnic English (see Anglo-Saxons). Their earliest known area of settlement is Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein.
Saxons participated in the Germanic settlement of Britain during and after the 5th century. It is unknown how many migrated from the continent to Britain though estimates for the total number of Germanic settlers vary between 10,000 and 200,000.[1] Since the 18th century, many continental Saxons have settled other parts of the world, especially in North America, Australia, South Africa, and in areas of the former Soviet Union, where some communities still maintain parts of their cultural and linguistic heritage, often under the umbrella categories "German", "Flemish", and "Dutch".
Because of international Hanseatic trading routes and contingent migration during the Middle Ages, Saxons mixed with and had strong influences upon the languages and cultures of the Scandinavian and Baltic peoples, and also upon the Polabian Slavs and Pomeranian West Slavic peoples.
First mentioned by the Ancient Greek geographer Ptolemy, the pre-Christian settlement of the Saxon people originally covered an area a little more to the northwest, with parts of the southern Jutland Peninsula, Old Saxony and small sections of the eastern Low Countries (Belgium and the Netherlands). During the 5th century AD, the Saxons were part of the people invading the Romano-British province of Britannia. One of the other tribes was the Germanic Angles, whose name, taken together with that of the Saxons led to the formation of the modern term, Anglo-Saxons.
And these Germanic tribes came from THE EAST, so what does "Western" have to do with it.
And any idiot who doesn't see the importance of the Germanic people to modern Western European history needs to have their head examined.
Charlemagne was a Germanic king. Most of Western Europe is about the spread of Germanic peoples and cultures over the last 1500 years, not the spread of "Western" thought.
Posted by markellion (Member # 14131) on :
never mind
Posted by TheAmericanPatriot (Member # 15824) on :
Doug, I gave you 40 books to read on Roman Britain. If you bothered to read those books you would see that when Rome fell the various segments of the empire did not revert to pre empire conditions.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by TheAmericanPatriot: Doug, I gave you 40 books to read on Roman Britain. If you bothered to read those books you would see that when Rome fell the various segments of the empire did not revert to pre empire conditions.
So? What does that have to do with the fact that Britain came to be dominated by Germanic peoples not ROMANS?
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by TheAmericanPatriot: Doug, I gave you 40 books to read on Roman Britain. If you bothered to read those books you would see that when Rome fell the various segments of the empire did not revert to pre empire conditions.
Western Europe fell and reverted in many cases, especially due to the influx of Germanic tribes and the wars between various factions.
That is why there is a thing called the Dark Ages Mr. Patriot. And this was specifically in the Western Part of Europe where people REVERTED or did not maintain the Roman lifestyle.
So why don't you READ those books?
And it was during this time that Britain came to be dominated by Germanic peoples.
Care to show how any of these books contradict this?
Posted by TheAmericanPatriot (Member # 15824) on :
Again you fail to understand the process because you refuse to read. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes were not pre Roman barbarians. They also were drawn into the emerging post Roman European culture. You might be aware that very soon after arriving in Britain they became Roman Catholics. That process is detailed very well in 'The Barbarian Conversion.' The Celtic Irish converted even sooner. Earlier I pointed out that the Roman church stepped in and filled in the void left by the fall of the Empire. keep in mind also the Greeks were Indo Europeans and came out of the same groups who populated all of Europe.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by TheAmericanPatriot: Again you fail to understand the process because you refuse to read. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes were not pre Roman barbarians. They also were drawn into the emerging post Roman European culture. You might be aware that very soon after arriving in Britain they became Roman Catholics. That process is detailed very well in 'The Barbarian Conversion.' The Celtic Irish converted even sooner. Earlier I pointed out that the Roman church stepped in and filled in the void left by the fall of the Empire. keep in mind also the Greeks were Indo Europeans and came out of the same groups who populated all of Europe.
That is what I just said. It was called the Dark Ages Mr Patriot.
You keep trying to sweep this under the rug because you want to pretend that somehow Western Europe was always as civilized as Greece and Rome, when they were not. After Rome left Western Europe, much of the Western part of Europe fell into the Dark Ages and it is precisely during this time that the Christian Church made inroads. And at this time the Christian Church was not giving out education to the masses. They were in the process of using their wealth and power to back various kings and chiefs in the wars of the time in order to gain supporters as "knights" of the Holy Roman Empire. The only culture that was giving out education to the masses at this time was Islam.
On the other hand in Eastern Europe there was no "Dark Ages", because Greece and Rome never "lost" their history or culture. The reason for the Dark Ages in the West is because what civilization they had WAS NOT INDIGENOUS to Western Europe. And during this time most of Western Europe was NOT Christian. It was due to forced conversions that people became Christian and this is another reason why this period is called the Dark Ages.
You are simply rewording all of the above in order to support a nonsesnse view of "Western" being something significant in terms of civilization. When it wasn't. "Western" did not take on any significance until 300 years ago as Britain and other European nations became world powers. Prior to that Europe was nothing but a blip on the stage of world civilization.
Also, the "Christian" Anglo Saxons who dominated Europe and gave them their "civilization" were heavily influenced by Muslim Sicily. Yes they were knights of the Christian church, but much of what they introduced into Britain was from a background of interaction with the Muslims in Sicily. It is from this and the fact that under the Normans Muslims were sought out in Sicily and Islam was allowed to continue its presence. from there they introduced Arabic (indian) Numerals, the common law system based on Islamic Jurisprudence and fiscal organization to Britain as well as architectural influences, such as stone castles and keeps.
Like I said, the Islamic threat to Europe is what helped galvanize the Christians into a force in Western Europe. Without the Muslims, not only may there not have been a Renaissance, but there may not have been a "high middle ages" or a Crusades. Which means Christianity would not be where it is today.
Yes the Normans were Germanic people who migrated from the North like the Franks, Gauls and Visigoths and NONE of them introduced civilization to Europe, they only adopted and integrated the remnants of the civilizations they found. The main claim to fame for these Germanic people was their skill at war which is legendary in Europe.
Like you yourself said, the Greeks were heavily influenced by populations from the EAST, which means that "Western" has no meaning in terms of Greek civilization.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
And to reinforce the fact that Medieval culture was not based on Roman OR Greek culture, note that the earliest examples of the lion in European heraldry came from the MUSLIMS and was adopted into European custom.
Note the lion motif which is very similar to that of King Roger and distinctively like the Lions of Sumer, Babylon and Persia before it. Note also the Moorish arch within which he stands, with colorful painting which was common in Moorish North Africa, Spain and elsewhere.
But even beyond the Persian influence, soldiers have been attiring themselves with colorful patterns for war since time immemorial. Images from Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Asia and elsewhere attest to this.
Not to mention that the idea of knights also traces back to Persia as well, along with castles, fortresses and other styes of military/ceremonial structures.
The Sassanian Dynasty lasted until the 7th century AD, when it was defeated by the armies of Islam. Many elements of Persian culture became part of the Islamic tradition as well as the traditions of Dynasties in Syria, especially the Umayyads.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
Note the similarity to the Persian reliefs, especially God bestowing kingship.
quote: Henry the Lion (German: Heinrich der Löwe; 1129 – 6 August 1195) was a member of the Guelph dynasty and Duke of Saxony, as Henry III, from 1142, and Duke of Bavaria, as Henry XII, from 1156, which duchies he held until 1180.
He was one of the most powerful German princes of his time, until the rival Hohenstaufen dynasty succeeded in isolating him and eventually deprived him of his duchies of Bavaria and Saxony during the reign of his cousin Frederick I and of Frederick's son and successor Henry VI.
Note that the family of William the Conqueror was strongly tied to the throne at <b>NORMAN</b>dy in France as well as the Normans in Sicily.
quote: The first reference to Norman heraldry was in 1128, when Henry I of England knighted his son-in-law Geoffrey and granted him a badge of gold lions (or leopards) on a blue background. (A gold lion may already have been Henry's own badge.) Henry II used two gold lions and two lions on a red background are still part of the arms of Normandy. Henry's son, Richard I, added a third lion to distinguish the arms of England.
And to reinforce the point, the Coronation mantle with lion motifs has been used to Coronate Kings of the Holy Roman Empire since the 13th century:
quote: Palermo
Royal workshop, 1133/34
Figured silk (kermes-dyed), gold and silk embroidery, pearls, gold with cloisonn� enamel, precious stones
H 146 cm, W 345 cm
The precious mantle embroidered with gold, pearls and cloisonn�-enameled plaques was part of the coronation set of robes used at the coronations of the kings and emperors of the Holy Roman Empire.
These precious robes were made by Arab artisans for the Norman kings on Sicily in the 12th and 13th centuries and passed to the German house of Hohenstaufen. This unique coronation mantle of heavy red silk is richly embroidered with gold stitching and tens of thousands of pearls. It is semicircular and was locked with a clasp decorated with precious stones and enamel. The Arabic inscription on the lower hem of the mantle tells us the date of the production at the royal workshop in Palermo in 528 (according to Islamic chronology) corresponding to the Christian year 1133/34. Thus this robe was made for Roger II of Sicily (1095-1154). The oriental motifs are borrowed from Arabic art: two symmetrically addorsed (back-to-back) lions triumph over a camel; between them like a stylized palm tree is the tree of life. The lions symbolize the ruler who defeats his foes.
Because of the preciousness of the mantle, the kings and emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, ignoring the "foreign� motifs, had used it as a coronation mantle since the 13th century. In the 14th century it was believed that the mantle had belonged to Charlemagne, the canonized emperor and renewer of the Roman Empire, who had supposedly won it from the Moors.
Charlemagne was the penultimate symbol of the unification of Western Europe under Germanic Knights of the Holy Roman Empire:
quote: Charlemagne Latin: Carolus Magnus or Karolus Magnus, meaning Charles the Great) (2 April 742 – 28 January 814) was King of the Franks from 768 to his death. He expanded the Frankish kingdoms into a Frankish Empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800 as a rival of the Byzantine Emperor in Constantinople. His rule is also associated with the Carolingian Renaissance, a revival of art, religion, and culture through the medium of the Catholic Church. Through his foreign conquests and internal reforms, Charlemagne helped define both Western Europe and the Middle Ages. He is numbered as Charles I in the regnal lists of France, Germany, and the Holy Roman Empire.
The son of King Pippin the Short and Bertrada of Laon, he succeeded his father and co-ruled with his brother Carloman I. The latter got on badly with Charlemagne, but war was prevented by the sudden death of Carloman in 771. Charlemagne continued the policy of his father towards the papacy and became its protector, removing the Lombards from power in Italy, and waging war on the Saracens, who menaced his realm from Spain. It was during one of these campaigns that Charlemagne experienced the worst defeat of his life, at the Battle of Roncesvalles (778) memorialised in the Song of Roland. He also campaigned against the peoples to his east, especially the Saxons, and after a protracted war subjected them to his rule. By forcibly converting them to Christianity, he integrated them into his realm and thus paved the way for the later Ottonian dynasty.
Today he is regarded not only as the founding father of both French and German monarchies, but also as the father of Europe: his empire united most of Western Europe for the first time since the Romans, and the Carolingian renaissance encouraged the formation of a common European identity.[1]
A lot of Charlemagne's glory came as a results of the actions of Charles Martel, who defeated the Moors. And with that came the rise of the Orders of Germanic Knights of the Holy (WESTERN) Roman Empire. Keep in mind that this was a politico-religious alliance to create a Christian power in Western Europe as a force AGAINST the Byzantine Christian ROMAN Empire of the EAST in Constantinople.
quote: At the beginning of Charles Martel's career, he had many internal opponents and felt the need to appoint his own kingly claimant, Clotaire IV. By his end, however, the dynamics of rulership in Francia had changed, no hallowed Meroving was needed, neither for defence nor legitimacy: Charles divided his realm between his sons without opposition (though he ignored his young son Bernard). In between, he strengthened the Frankish state by consistently defeating, through superior generalship, the host of hostile foreign nations which beset it on all sides, including the heathen Saxons, which his grandson Charlemagne would fully subdue, and Moors, which he halted on a path of continental domination.
Though he never cared about titles, his son Pippin did, and finally asked the Pope "who should be King, he who has the title, or he who has the power?" The Pope, highly dependent on Frankish armies for his independence from Lombard and Byzantine power (the Byzantine Emperor still considered himself to be the only legitimate "Roman Emperor", and thus, ruler of all of the provinces of the ancient empire, whether recognised or not), declared for "he who had the power" and immediately crowned Pippin.
Decades later, in 800, Pippin's son Charlemagne was crowned emperor by the Pope, further extending the principle by delegitimising the nominal authority of the Byzantine Emperor in the Italian peninsula (which had, by then, shrunk to encompass little more than Apulia and Calabria at best) and ancient Roman Gaul, including the Iberian outposts Charlemagne had established in the Marca Hispanica across the Pyrenees, what today forms Catalonia. In short, though the Byzantine Emperor claimed authority over all the old Roman Empire, as the legitimate "Roman" Emperor, it was simply not reality. The bulk of the Western Roman Empire had come under Carolingian rule, the Byzantine Emperor having had almost no authority in the West since the sixth century, though Charlemagne, a consummate politician, preferred to avoid an open breach with Constantinople. An institution unique in history was being born: the Holy Roman Empire. Though the sardonic Voltaire ridiculed its nomenclature, saying that the Holy Roman Empire was "neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire," it constituted an enormous political power for a time, especially under the Saxon and Salian dynasties and, to a lesser, extent, the Hohenstaufen. It lasted until 1806, by then it was a nonentity. Though his grandson became its first emperor, the "empire" such as it was, was largely born during the reign of Charles Martel.
Romantic 19th century image of the Moors outside Paris at the battle of Tours: Posted by SirInfamous (Member # 16497) on :
quote: 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. [/QB]
There is no such thing as a "Mediterraneanist". There is only Nordicism and Afrocentrism.
Mediterranean people seek only their own history, not others.
You will find NO pseudo historical movements talking about Mediterranean vikings or mongols like you see Northern Europeans often doing with the ancient Greeks or mongols and others. The same thing goes for pseudo scholarship from American Afrocentrics.
Posted by SirInfamous (Member # 16497) on :
quote:So it is European history/civilization and it starts in the East (and South) like I said. "Western" has nothing to do with it. And no all scholars do not have the same view of what Western civilization means either. Point blank any term "civilization" refers to a group of people sharing common traits, culture, customs and political organization. EUROPE did not have a common culture, identity, traits and custom until maybe 500 years ago, long after Greece and Rome. Therefore, they cannot be considered all Greek or Roman since 700 BC. Greek and Roman culture is not COMMON to all of Europe it is FOREIGN to most of Europe. Ancient Germans were not like the Greeks and Romans. Ancient Britons were not like the Greeks and Romans. Ancient Scandinavians were not like the Greeks and Romans. Even today Greek culture and cities are UNLIKE most in Europe, because Greece has ALWAYS been oriented to the EAST than the West. The point being that the term WESTERN has no value in describing the development, origin or history of European civilizations and cultures. Focusing on Greece and Rome is simply an attempt by NON Greeks and NON Romans to pretend that their cultures and societies were ALWAYS civilized WHEN THEY WERE NOT. [/QB]
This is an interesting topic and I'll give you my 2 cents as a Greek American.
It is true, the Greeks have always had a connection with the Orient. Although the ancient Greeks rejected the Orient as well, but they certainly had more in common with a people say for instance the Phoenicians whom they learned from...than they did with any people in Northern/Western Europe at the time.
Greek folk music is much different than that of other Europeans (minus Southern Italians and Balkan people)...for instance the lovely music of the Celts (which I certainly enjoy) is completely different. Greek folk music has influences from the orient. It sounds different of course and original, but it still has influences. It is simply Greek, that is all I can say.
Even our religion is different. Although the Orthodox church is still Christian..and therefore "Western". Our hymns and so forth are very different than the Protestant types. I see our closest cousins being Southern/Central Italians, as we have much in common with them Culturally and with the Catholic church.
I think Western Europeans have created an imaginary ancient Greece in their minds. For instance Jakob Fallmerayer when coming into contact with the Greeks of the 19th century...considered those Greeks to be different than the ancient Greeks. He claimed that modern Greeks were "orientalized", and considered them...as well as Slavs and Albanians of the Balkans to be part of "The East". And that's why he claimed that Modern Greeks were so much different than the Ancient Greeks who were the optimome (at-least in his mind) of "the West". And modern Greeks were not "pure".
Anyways I don't want to take away anything from the Ancient Greeks themselves. Indeed, "Western Civilization" does start in Greece. It is the birthplace of Democracy, "Western" philosophy, the Olympic Games, Western literature and historiography, political science, major scientific and mathematical principles, and Western drama, including both tragedy and comedy There is a first for everything and that's where they originated from. But with that being said, we should not look past the influences and commonaities Greeks had/have with the Orient..particularly the Levant and Persia.
There is no one big homogeneous Western Culture. The Greek/Italian lifestyle and culture for instance, is very different from Germans or Scandinavians. Even the French are significantly different in culture than the Germanic peoples.
The Slavs as well, from Eastern Europe have a very different culture than other Europeans. Throughout most of history Slavs have never even been considered part of "The West".
Posted by SirInfamous (Member # 16497) on :
quote:Originally posted by Brada-Anansi: [QB] 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]
LOL talk about Insanity, I suppose the creator created an original 3 races, The White Nordic type, Black "true negro" type..and the East Asian Mongol type. And everything else is just a mix LOL.
Posted by SirInfamous (Member # 16497) on :
quote:AND when these countries did start their expansion GREECE was part of the MUSLIM EAST.
Greece may have been part of the "Muslim EAst" but only because the Byzantine Greeks were finally conquered by the Ottoman Empire. The Greeks themselves were always Christians and practiced Christianity. And the Greeks were the first to liberate themselves from the Ottoman empire.
Greeks dislike Muslims I assure you.
Posted by Brada-Anansi (Member # 16371) on :
Sir Infamous wrote:There is no such thing as a "Mediterraneanist". There is only Nordicism and Afrocentrism.
Mediterranean people seek only their own history, not others.
What then do you called the Hamatic theory devoloped by Sergi. who swarmed his so-called black whites all over Africa untill one could find notthing but Hamities simi-Hamities-Hamitized Negroes... and all this was decades before anything close to what is called Afrocentrism came into being.
Sir Infamous wrote;LOL talk about Insanity, I suppose the creator created an original 3 races, The White Nordic type, Black "true negro" type..and the East Asian Mongol type. And everything else is just a mix LOL
Yes that was the talking point going back not only to the original Eurocentrics,but to people who postulated the curse of Noach...early on 19th cent.Eurocentric Scientics not entirely devorced from the Bibical myth.would then used a kind of modified version redressed as science and from there it evolved and morphed into many forms. But my whole point of this thread was to go back to the beginning to take a look at the people who first started this and why...and it had to do with justification for European expansionism...Because it seems we humans need to morally justify our actions always.If you can take someones land and labour and you don't want to feel guilty you make something up...make them less than human-sub human if you will. It was no supprise then the Euro-nations who were the last to get in on the action of colonization were the last to add to those theories.Because they themselves were look upon as female races..and countries like Greece although providing inspirations through their historical accomplishments...were non the less looked up on at the time as degenerate and soild with non European or non Aryan blood. It was in this environment that the Italians sought to restore their manhood by invading Libya and Ethiopia...after that devastating defeat at the battle Adowa they all most sank to the level of non whites by almost every north European country and America. This by the way was almost mirrored the defeat of the Zarist Russian navy at the battle of Tsushima by the Japanese...who then sought to join the European colonist club but was soundly rejected for racial reasons and thus setting the stage for ww2.
Posted by markellion (Member # 14131) on :
I was going to mention this but I forgot, the idea of tribalism seems to be more of late 19th and 20th century invention. This is from Hegel and from what he describes it would seem the problem is more extreme nationalism rather than tribalism. Or something else altogether... One thing I found very interesting was the term Fanaticism. This was done to justify the slave trade because he is ignoring that these problems might be connected to contact with Europeans
quote:Turning our attention in the next place to the category of political constitution, we shall see that the entire nature of this race is such as to preclude the existence of any such arrangement. The standpoint of humanity at this grade is mere sensuous volition with energy of will; since universal spiritual laws (for example, that of the morality of the Family) cannot be recognized here. Universality exists only as arbitrary subjective choice. The political bond can therefore not possess such a character as that free laws should unite the community. There is absolutely no bond, no restraint upon that arbitrary volition. Nothing but external force can hold the State together for a moment. A ruler stands at the head, for sensuous barbarism can only be restrained by despotic power. But since the subjects are of equally violent temper with their master, they keep him on the other hand within limits. Under the chief there are many other chiefs with whom the former, whom we will call the King, takes counsel, and whose consent he must seek to gain, if he wishes to undertake a war or impose a tax. In this relation he can exercise more or less authority, and by fraud or force can on occasion put this or that chieftain out of the way. Besides this the Kings have other specified prerogatives. Among the Ashantees the King inherits all the property left by his subjects at their death. In other places all unmarried women belong to the King, and whoever wishes a wife, must buy her from him......
Fanaticism, which, notwithstanding the yielding disposition of the Negro in other respects, can be excited, surpasses, when roused, all belief. An English traveller states that when a war is determined on in Ashantee, solemn ceremonies precede it: among other things the bones of the King’s mother are laved with human blood. As a prelude to the war, the King ordains an onslaught upon his own metropolis, as if to excite the due degree of frenzy. The King sent word to the English Hutchinson: ‘Christian, take care, and watch well over your family. The messenger of death has drawn his sword and will strike the neck of many Ashantees; when the drum sounds it is the death signal for multitudes. Come to the King, if you can, and fear nothing for yourself.” The drum beat, and a terrible carnage was begun; all who came in the way of the frenzied Negroes in the streets were stabbed. On such occasions the King has all whom he suspects killed, and the deed then assumes the character of a sacred act. Every idea thrown into the mind of the Negro is caught up and realized with the whole energy of his will; but this realization involves a wholesale destruction. These people continue long at rest, but suddenly their passions ferment, and then they are quite beside themselves. The destruction which is the consequence of their excitement, is caused by the fact that it is no positive idea, no thought which produces these commotions; — a physical rather than a spiritual enthusiasm. In Dahomey, when the King dies, the bonds of society are loosed; in his palace begins indiscriminate havoc and disorganization. All the wives of the King (in Dahomey their number is exactly 3,333) are massacred, and through the whole town plunder and carnage run riot. The wives of the King regard this their death as a necessity; they go richly attired to meet it. The authorities have to hasten to proclaim the new governor, simply to put a stop to massacre
Posted by zarahan (Member # 15718) on :
^^ The peoples of Europe have been pretty "tribal" in their histories.
Posted by zarahan (Member # 15718) on :
quote:Originally posted by Brada-Anansi: Sir Infamous wrote:There is no such thing as a "Mediterraneanist". There is only Nordicism and Afrocentrism.
Mediterranean people seek only their own history, not others.
This claim is bogus.
There would be no historical movements talking about 'Mediterranean Vikings" or "Mongols" because the Vikings are a northern European people, and the Mongols an Asiatic ones. The question is Mediterranist racial theories.
Contrary to his inaccurate statement, there is such a thing as "Mediterranist thinking" not only from G. Sergi but from several others as well. His notion that "here is no such thing as a "Mediterraneanist" and that "Mediterranean people seek only their own history, not others" is undermined and contradicted by volumes of writings by those asserting exactly the opposite.
The book below shows that his claim is inaccurate.
Racial theories in fascist Italy By Aaron Gillette
See pages 182, 24, 26 and 193 for example.
Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
Hmmm, where does Sergi ever write such a thing. I own Mediterranean Race and have read it cover to cover a few times over the last 25 years and have never seen all this stuff so many claim to be in it.
What Sergi did was tear a new hole into the Aryan model of N. Med history decades before Bernal was so much as a proposition from his father to his mother.
quote:Originally posted by Brada-Anansi: ...the Hamatic theory devoloped by Sergi. who swarmed his so-called black whites all over Africa untill one could find notthing but Hamities simi-Hamities-Hamitized Negroes...
There is an even better relief showing 6-8 knights from Parthian/Sassanian Persia in a battle joust with full armor and horse barding from 300 AD where Ardavan V and Ardashir I were engaged in a climactic duel.
No doubt this is an ancient craft tradition in the region. Boats in this area are probably like the ones used in the Islamic invasions of Europe... and from which Europeans derived their own boat making traditions. http://www.flickr.com/photos/82774793@N00/2267681116
Well an apology to the Sergi is due as I do not own his books.. I first came across his name in one of Diop's books as the father or one of the fathers Hamaticism.
If the Following is not in his book then I am in error.
Sergi Later scholars expanded on these ideas, the most influential was the Italian race theorist Giuseppe Sergi. In his book The Mediterranean Race (1901) Sergi argued that there was a distinct Hamitic racial group which could be divided into two sub-groups: The northern Hamites, which comprised Berbers, Toubou, Fulani and the Guanches; the Eastern branch, which comprised Egyptians, Nubians, Ethiopians, Oromo, Somali, and Tutsis.[7] Some of these groups had "lost their language" and so had to be identified by physical characteristics. In Sergi's theory, the Mediterraneans were the "greatest race in the world", and had expanded north and south from the Horn of Africa, creating superior civilizations. Sergi described the original European peoples as "Eurafricans". The ancient Greeks and Italians were born from "Afro-Mediterraneans" who migrated from western Asia and had originally spoken a Hamitic language before the advent of Indo-European languages.from Wiki.
Thanks Zarahan, very informative link...the funny thing about Mussolini is he himself did not believed in any pure race theory as the link pointed out and race was a feeling not a fact as he stated also, very different from his buddy Adolph.But if he knew that race and race theory was a con why then did he play into it. Intresting also that turn of the cent 1900~1915 Italian thinking on the matter of race was no different than Roman times...that environment determined racial attitude.
Posted by The Explorer (Member # 14778) on :
quote:...the funny thing about Mussolini is he himself did not believed in any pure race theory as the link pointed out and race was a feeling not a fact as he stated also, very different from his buddy Adolph.But if he knew that race and race theory was a con why then did he play into it.
Could it be that he was mindful of the "divide and conquer" strategy? More often than not, its strategists ("dupers") are readily aware of the bogus nature of the specific 'divide and conquer' tools at hand than the "dupee" or recipients of that strategy.
Posted by Brada-Anansi (Member # 16371) on :
Nice pics Doug,would like to see the rest of the video.Btw is this the same Zar that Ausar spoke about some time ago...and not for notthing but Qeshem sounds alot like kushem or Kush...Am I on the right tract any of you linguist out there or just making thing up?
As featured on the video:
During a special ceremony called Zar (which means possession), different afflictions of the women can be treated. When there is no camera around, their only possible cry of distress is often death.
Posted by Brada-Anansi (Member # 16371) on :
Well Said Exploror,well said.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by Brada-Anansi: Nice pics Doug,would like to see the rest of the video.Btw is this the same Zar that Ausar spoke about some time ago...and not for notthing but Qeshem sounds alot like kushem or Kush...Am I on the right tract any of you linguist out there or just making thing up?
There is an island nearby called Kish. However, I am not into linguistics so I cannot comment.
But given the location of these places right across the narrowest part of the Persian Gulf, it only makes sense that people have been migrating along this route for a long time..... And yes, the dark skinned people there are considered aboriginal, at least by some accounts.
Thanks Doug,Btw I visited Baharain and other Persian Gulf Countries back in my sailor days and I would often see dark-skinned people like the ones above.I would often wonder about their origins...I finaly work up the courage to ask one of them a perfume trader about his origins and all he could tell me was he and his family was always there always trading in gold and spices.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
Of course. The only people brain washed about their history are Africans in America and many of those in Africa. Everyone else knows the truth, INCLUDING Europeans........
Which is the point of scientific racism and the watering down of African studies and that is to keep them brainwashed.
Posted by Brada-Anansi (Member # 16371) on :
Yeah Bro Altakruri;I definatly missread Sergi,as he stated what he considered Hamities migrated from... not to > The African Horn;
the Mediterraneans were the "greatest race in the world", and had expanded north and south from the Horn of Africa, creating superior civilizations. Sergi described the original European peoples as "Eurafricans". The ancient Greeks and Italians were born from "Afro-Mediterraneans" who migrated from western Asia and had originally spoken a Hamitic language before the advent of Indo-European languages.from Wiki.
Thanks for the alternate view...E/S is back. Posted by SirInfamous (Member # 16497) on :
quote:
What then do you called the Hamatic theory devoloped by Sergi. who swarmed his so-called black whites all over Africa untill one could find notthing but Hamities simi-Hamities-Hamitized Negroes... and all this was decades before anything close to what is called Afrocentrism came into being.
Sergi thought "Hamitic Mediterraneans" invaded Southern Europe from North African and the Near East during the neolithic. And actually modern Genetics is showing his theories to be somewhat correct.
"About 8,000 years ago a more advanced people, the Neolithic, migrated to Europe from the Middle East, bringing with them a new Y chromosome pattern and a new way of life - agriculture. About 20 percent of Europeans now have the Y chromosome pattern from this migration."
Geneticist, Peter Underhill:
Sergi never claimed history for so called "Mediterraneans" outside of civilization around the Mediterranean. His book was to soley counter "Aryan" hogwash theories. Back then you see, Aryan was used as virtually a synonym for Nordic and it was thought the "Proto Indo-Euoropean" homeland was in Scandinavia or Northern Germany. And then somehow these languages were spread by "Nordic Aryan" conquerors. lol. It would be like me saying because proto-Afro Asiatic probably started in Ethiopia the Afro-Asiatic languages was spread by Ethiopian conquerors lol. And btw the proto-Indo-European language more than likely started in the North Pontic Steppes in the Southern Ukraine.
Nordicist say the ancient Greeks and Romans were Nordic, and even claim Egyptians, Babylonians, Persians etc. Similarly Afrocentrics do the same thing with civilization around the Mediterranean .
Mediterraneanism doesn't exist because ancient Mediterranean civilizations were actually created by ancient Mediterranean people. So there is no need for a pseudo historical movement lol. And you wont see Mediterraneans claiming Vikings or Mongols or Arabs or something way outside the mediterranean Kernal like Nordicists and afrocentrics do.
Of course I don't believe in a homogeneous "mediterranean race" and I realize their is a difference between people occupying the Northern and Southern coasts of the Mediterranean.
Posted by Brada-Anansi (Member # 16371) on :
Sir Infamous...I already revisied my opinion on Sergi see the above post but dont tell me that Medicentrism don't exist...because that was the basic mis-use of the term Hamitic by others and Mussilini's blantant use of the con of race that he himself didn't really believed in. and if you really think about it real Afro-centered people are mainly concerned with developements in Africa weather North,South,East or West Africa....That people North of the Med carrying African DNA...Don't really really matter much to true Afro-centered people...We claim Africa from the Delta to the Cape. from the edge of the sea that wash the shores of Senegal to the splashing of the waves on some sand dunes in Somalia.
Posted by zarahan (Member # 15718) on :
Claiming Mediterraneanism doesn't exist is bogus because people who identify themselves as Mediterraneanist not only exist but have written numerous books explaining and defending their theories. Denying this does not change the reality. And if Sergi's writings advancing Mediterranean supremacy were to counter Aryan propaganda, doesn't that in itself show that Mediterraneanist theory existed, over and above the other documentary evidence? The book below uses the term Mediterraneanist quite frequently as it presents the writings of various advocates.
Racial theories in fascist Italy By Aaron Gillette Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
Scientific Racism is simply the Europeans way of trying to flip history on its head and put themselves in a position of supremacy they historically never had.
This is why they downplay the fact that most of Medieval culture in Europe is in fact Persian and Asian culture and African.
Jeez Doug!!Persia enthusiast should flock to see this devastating info...untill now I took for granted all the the above as belonging to European styles and fashion.But I guess they will come back with Persians are Aryans and so are we thingy.
Posted by markellion (Member # 14131) on :
One of the earliest Europeans to see Lalibela was the Portuguese priest Francisco Álvares (1465 - 1540), who accompanied the Portuguese Ambassador on his visit to Lebna Dengel in the 1520s. His description of these structures concludes:
I weary of writing more about these buildings, because it seems to me that I shall not be believed if I write more ... I swear by God, in Whose power I am, that all I have written is the truth
Posted by zarahan (Member # 15718) on :
quote:Originally posted by Brada-Anansi: Jeez Doug!!Persia enthusiast should flock to see this devastating info...untill now I took for granted all the the above as belonging to European styles and fashion.But I guess they will come back with Persians are Aryans and so are we thingy.
Interestingly enough, some ancient peoples of the Persian area (Iran) looked like Africans according to scientific data. Hanihara 1996 studied Bronze Age types and found they cluster more closely with Africans than with other groups. Indeed his study directly contradicts claims by Carleton Coons, Howells and early C.L. Brace.
Posted by Brada-Anansi (Member # 16371) on :
@ Zarahan..scroll up to the brother in with shades and the folks in colorfull garb squating around having a conversation plus this http://www.linktv.org/programs/other all these folks are native to the area.
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
quote:Originally posted by Brada-Anansi: Jeez Doug!!Persia enthusiast should flock to see this devastating info...untill now I took for granted all the the above as belonging to European styles and fashion.But I guess they will come back with Persians are Aryans and so are we thingy.
It isn't really devastating to those who know history. Of course Aryans come from Persia and points north and East, but they are not part of the modern "West" so they get looked down upon.
Image of a castle siege 2000 years prior to medieval Europe:
Posted by Doug M (Member # 7650) on :
The point of what I was saying is that the flow of history from east to west is often distorted by the concept of "The West" which doesn't match up with reality. From the Germanic migrations from the East and the influences of the East on the West for the last 4000 years, it makes no sense to separate "The West" from everything else. All of this because of some racist attempts to cloud the actual history of Europe.
The Period from 700 to 1100 was very important in the influence of eastern and Southern cultures on Western Europe. Yet because of various twists of fate, the actual record of these people and their culture is lost, hidden or downplayed, while Europe's culture began to rise and produce significant artifacts which we can see and examine. Yet, that is not the whole picture. So some of what we see in Western Art from 700AD-1500AD reflects this influence. But unless you do some hard research to find details about the dress, trade and culture of other cultures from the time period, you won't see it. As a perfect example even though Moorish Europe was known as the center of the silk, textile and iron working trade in the 10th century, how much of it has survived? Yet almost all writers speak of the fabulous works that flowed out of Moorish workshops of the time. Not to mention how many books, textiles, furniture, artwork, arms or armor from this time have survived? And the same goes for the cultures of the Levant, Carthage, Egypt, Persia and Babylon. So the picture is unbalanced with the predominant artifacts being European while non European artifacts are limited.
11th century Islamic damask showing persian motifs:
Floral brocade pattern from Great Mosque at Cordoba 10th century:
These show Byzantine and Persian (and far eastern) influence and was probably used in textile designs as well. From these motifs developed the elaborate stucco carvings that covered the Alhambra and from that comes many of the patterns seen in wallpaper and furniture today.
quote: Damasks were one of the five basic weaving techniques of the Byzantine and Islamic weaving centres of the early Middle Ages,[3] and derive their name from their supposed origin in the city of Damascus, Syria.[4] Damasks were scarce after the ninth century outside of Islamic Spain, but were revived in some places in the thirteenth century
Unfortunately outside of the more durable patterns seen in surviving monuments from Islamic Spain, there aren't many surviving pieces of such designs in an Islamic or Levantine context. Most examples of such designs come from a European context due to the works of European art. However, it is in South Asia and the Far East that much more evidence of elaborate textile patterns survives and it is the Far east that more elaborate examples survive and it is from there that you can see that the Far East and South Asia were important centers of textile traditions in ancient times.
Anténor Firmin and Haiti’s contribution to anthropology
Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, Anténor Firmin and Haiti’s contribution to anthropology (1850-1911) — Anténor Firmin was an anthropologist who pioneered a critical study of race and physical anthropology and developed in his major work, De L’égalité des races humaines..., a vision of anthropology as an integrated study of humanity. The publication date of 1885 of De L’égalité des races humaines marks it as a pioneering text in anthropology and it is perhaps the first major work of anthropology written by a person of African descent. Although Firmin’s tome was lost to Francophone anthropology, it was recognized not only in Haiti but also among Pan-Africanist scholars as an early work of négritude. Anténor Firmin also had a seminal impact on Jean Price-Mars, the 20th century founder of Haitian ethnology, and these ties extend further to the American founder of African and Afro-American anthropology, Melville Herskovits.
Gobineau Joseph Arthur comte de (Ville d'Avray 1816 - Turin 1882) Écrivain et diplomate français. Chef du cabinet du ministère des Affaires étrangères, Gobineau est nommé en 1851 sécrétaire d'ambassade à Berne. Ambassadeur à Téhéran en 1861, il est nommé successivement à Athènes en 1864, Rio de Janeiro en 1869, Stockolm en 1872 puis admis à la retraite en 1877. Romancier (Les Pléiades 1874), nouvelliste (Nouvelles asisatiques 1876), il se fait connaître par des travaux d'histoire, de philosophie et d'épigraphie sur les pays dans lesquels il a séjourné. Gobineau est aussi un des théoriciens du racisme (Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines 1853-1855).
Posted by Egmond Codfried (Member # 15683) on :
quote:Originally posted by Brada-Anansi: ...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[...] And did their works influenced the works of their decendants in the field today? [...] 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,
Scientific Racism started earlier, in the eighteenth century. Appiah (1975?) states that only from 1770 nations were divided on the base of skin colour. Ethnicity and phenotype then came to define nations. Before 1770, a person belonged to the ‘German Race’ because he spoke German and originated from German lands. Only afterwards his colour came into question.
The trade in Africans by Europeans started in 1441, and had little to do with race, but with the availability for sustained trade. Scientific racism was later on imposed on slavery and used as a means of justification. When it was accepted as a fact that whites were superior, only writers who expanded on that concept would be accepted as good scientists.
This brings to mind a writer who I mentioned before who studied fake, whitened images of figures from the Italian Renaissance to proof that they were actual aryan Germans. He even strains himself to find German roots in their Italian names. But the base of his research is their supposed blond hair and huge blue eyes.
Interesting to hear about Gobineaus Haitian black roots. Reminds me of Alexandre Dumas, also aristocratic, but looking more African. During this era, a black man as Dumas was a great writer, and the wealthy publisher of his own newspaper.
I have often wondered why black and coloured European scientist would launch in the most racist ideologies. Perhaps they were forced to, as a way of showing loyalty to the New Regime as opposed to the Ancien Regime. On the other hand, although many were African and coloured in looks, they might have considered themselves politically and culturally very different from Africans and Asians, and look down upon them. The fact that many slave masters were black and even descended from slaves did not lead them to free their slaves.
My approach is a rejection of Eurocentric science which is not science but politics. When they said, there were no blacks in Europe; they are making a political statement. But this all became an article of faith long before present scientist were born, so they are not aware of the grounds and reasons which let to this notion. In my efforts to discuss these matters with educated whites I came to understand that they cannot be brought to change their mind or give Black History an honest review. They are convinced that whites are superior. It would be like trying to convince a Muslim that Jesus is the son of god or a Christian that Jesus is a mere prophet and not a god. You just can’t; even the whole idea of someone bringing this up shows him to be a liar and an enemy, they are taught.
So if they ask you to proof a historic person to be black, they are really sending you on a fool’s errand. For a black researcher to make sense of racism he should look for a different approach. Like asking why there ever was a need for scientific racism? What did blacks do to whites to provoke such hatred? When was there a confrontation between black and whites which merits such a destructive and overwrought ‘science.’
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