Posted by The three-day “Dialogue of Civilizations” conference in Guatemala is bringing together archaeologists studying five ancient cultures to discuss their similarities and differences and what they can tell us about human society as a whole. You can be a part of the conversation as well, tweeting your questions using #5Civilizations.
China, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Maya–these are ancient civilizations people tend to know something about.
Harappa, on the other hand, is maybe less well known.
That is because almost nothing of it had remained visible or been discovered or recognized until the 1920s. Since then it has been heralded as one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of the 20th century. Identifying the remains of the Harappan culture, the first great civilization in the Indus Valley of India and Pakistan, pushed back the dates of the dawn of cities and writing in South Asia by 2000 years, and has shattered old notions of what was done first where and by whom.
This is how National Geographic explorer Vasant Shinde of Deccan College opened his talk at the Dialogue of Civilizations in Guatemala on Monday.
The most iconic images from Harappan civilization are the animals, people, and still undeciphered script found on small flat stones used to stamp clay seals. (Image courtesy Vasant Shinde)
Harappa Unveiled
Shinde then gave a basic time line for the rise and fall of Harappan civilization:
7000-5000 BC, people have begun food production, instead of just food gathering.
5000-2600 BC, you start to see regional similarities in artifacts.
2600-1900 BC is the mature period of Harappan civilization. Distant cities are integrated into one civilization and there appears to be an empire that arose through peaceful means.
1900-1300 BC, whatever held the culture together has declined and the area breaks into many more localized styles.
Discoveries at sites like Bhirrana and Girawad in India showed such early farming communities that it forced scholars to rethink how farming in the Indus Valley began. “The old model of people moving in from the west, bringing agriculture and technology has been discarded,” Shinde said.
After the rise of agriculture, the development of cities gradually developed in the core of the region and then spread out. Major features of sites from this time match closely, but in the details there was much regional variety.
Shinde then made a point that has a lot of resonance for city planners today. Harappan cities “don’t have large monumental buildings [like those in Mesopotamia or Egypt],” he said, “but that doesn’t mean they were not prosperous…[these were] very clean and well planned, hygienic cities.”
Remarkably, cities represent only 5 out of some 2,000 Harappan sites that have been identified. The biggest and most spoken about in Shinde’s presentation were Harappa itself and Mohenjo Daro (a name I have loved since hearing it in my first Archaeology class).
An artist’s reconstruction shows the gates and houses of ancient Harappa. (Illustration from National Geographic)
Harappan Contributions
Because Harappan sites date back so far, many of their distinct features are the oldest known examples of whatever they are. While it’s difficult to say for certain whether these ideas began in India and spread, began elsewhere and spread to India, or began elsewhere independently, the Harappan discoveries show that south Asia was a far more innovative and advanced center of civilization than people knew before just a few decades ago. In the spirit of the Dialogue of Civilizations conference then, Shinde connected the past and the present by showing just how many “modern conveniences” the Harappans brought to the world:
Grid-planned cities and towns, with a wide main street and smaller side streets all oriented to the cardinal directions.
Latrines in each house with a water pot for washing. Private wells in houses, public wells for visitors and traders.
No evidence of slavery, but indications of cooperative corporate rule.
Developments in rainwater collection, wells, and drain maintenance.
Long-distance trade and contact as far as Mesopotamia, while importing regional raw materials and exporting finished goods.
Use of crop rotation and pioneering techniques in metallurgy and ceramics.
Art that may show the earliest practice of yoga, or belief in “power through meditation.”
There are many theories and aspects to the eventual decline of Harappan civilization, said Shinde, but he added that the “tradition and legacy continue till today.”
Most excitingly, there’s all that writing still to be deciphered.
Origins and Legacy of Indus Valley Art
Next up, with more than 40 years of archaeological experience in India and Pakistan was Mark Kenoyer of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In search not only of ancient objects, but of how they were made and used, Kenoyer has engaged in countless projects in experimental archaeology, making jewelry, decorating pottery, and more. His work has been supported by National Geographic grants, and reported in the pages of the magazine.
Kenoyer sparked interest early on, presenting seals like those seen above, with their undeciphered script, and following them with two examples of similar seals found with Akkadian script from Mesopotamia–symbols that are now well understood.
The first is in the British Museum, and is an “Akkadian seal with an Indus animal.” The letters seem to read “Ka lu Sig,” which Kenoyer said can be interpreted as “May the affair be favorable” or maybe that someone by the name of “Kaku” “is favorable.”
A drawing of the Indus-style seal with Akkadian writing reading “The devotee of Nin-Ildum, Son of Dog.” (Image courtesy Mark Kenoyer)
The second example was from a private collection, and he gave credit to fellow Harappan scholar Massimo Vidale for its presentation and translation: “The devotee of Nin-Ildum, Son of Dog.” Now “son of a dog” isn’t exactly a term of endearment around the world today, he said, so perhaps it had a meaning more like “son of a servant.” While that specific part of the translation is pretty theoretical, it’s the general format that is most important.
Text on any other Mesopotamian seals from the period follows a completely different formula, so these unusual inscriptions may very well represent translations of whatever is on the Harappan seals, a first clue at decoding this ancient script.
Kenoyer then brought the seals into the context of the city of Harappa as a whole. “Writing and seal making appear to be highly controlled,” he said, given the fact that workshops were restricted by huge walls. They are now even beginning to recognize the work of specific seal makers on artifacts found throughout the city. He now has a grad student using a scanning electron microscope to examine the seals in excruciating detail, identifying “distinct crafting techniques and different tool types.”
They are even able now to identify the handwriting style of different scribes on different tablets.
Where Are the Temples?
One of the biggest mysteries for many people concerning Harappan civilization of the Indus Valley is the lack of monumental temples, as are seen in Mesopotamia and Egypt. The solution may be in the smallest of artifacts. Several seals and tablets show images of a person in a tree, being brought offerings.
This matches well with later documented beliefs that the most sacred places were natural, such as an esteemed pipal tree. Buddha himself famously sat under the bodhi tree in his quest for enlightenment, and that tree is held sacred to this day. So perhaps these cities had just as much ceremony and religion as any other, they were simply practiced in the open air, without need of massive architecture.
Harappan traders with their weights and balances. (Illustration courtesy National Geographic)
The People
Finally, Kenoyer helped reveal who the people of this civilization were, and how they lived.
Analysis of a cemetery in Harappa showed that the bodies seemed to all be from more well-to-do people. The vast majority of Harappans were not buried there at all. Analysis of chemical signatures in teeth and bones showed “strong genetic relationship” of the people found there, but that not all of them were originally from Harappa. Kenoyer thinks this may be evidence of local people who were married away to people in other cities who then later returned to Harappa.
This fits in well with the idea that the cemetery is for higher levels of society. “Farmers marry people from within 30km,” he said. “Traders marry people from other cities. Rulers marry other rulers.”
Lest you think rulers means kings, Kenoyer had one more revelation about life in this civilization. “Monarchy and republican rule leave different imprints on a city,” he said. “Dholavira looks like a monarchy. The rest of the cities of Harappa are republican.”
Many people still look at the development of the ancient world as a violent and formulaic process, where tribal chiefs become powerful despots who use religion to force people into doing their will and building their self-indulgent monuments. Looking deeper into the actual evidence, we see how inaccurate such a vision is. The presentations on the Harappan civilization of the Indus Valley give at least one very clear illustration of a very different path, and one that may provide lots of inspiration and meaningful comparison with modern civilizations around the world.
http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/04/17/revealing-indias-ancient-art-and-inventions/
At least five distinct times in world history, human beings created a unique writing system that allowed them to organize their thoughts and record and transmit information like never before: the Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Chinese, People of the Indus Valley, and the Maya. They each spread to inspire more written systems (for example the Latin alphabet we use comes from Phonecian, which stems ultimately from Egyptian).
All were separated by vast distances in space and time, but now all are being brought together.
This April at the Dialogue of Civilizations in Guatemala City, Guatemala, experts in each of these five ancient cultures will come together to discuss their similarities and differences and what they can tell us about human society as a whole. NG Explorer Fred Hiebert, Nat Geo News Watch blogger Fabio Amador, and NG Grants Officer archaeologist Christopher Thornton will be on board to moderate discussions among experts from the U.S., U.K., Egypt, India, China, Taiwan, and Guatemala.
The conference will also draw particular attention to the archaeology of Guatemala, and highlight the culture and history of the modern Maya who live there to this day.
Luis Fernando Andrade greets his guests at the Guatemalan Embassy and announces the upcoming Dialogue of Civilizations. (Photo by Fabio Amador)
The conference was officially announced on March 15 at the Guatemalan Embassy in Washington, D.C., just a few minutes walk from National Geographic’s headquarters. Ambassador Luis Fernando Andrade Falla, National Geographic’s Executive Vice President of Mission Programs Terry Garcia, Andrew Morrison head of indigenous affairs at the Inter-American Development Bank, and Deputy Director of the Guatemalan Tourism Board Maru Acevedo were all in attendance, excited to kick off the project, voicing the hope that this will be the beginning of an ongoing dialogue.
The goal of the event is “to create a forum to discuss the origins, dynamics and contributions of these civilizations to society and culture, exploring how the past can serve as a guide to contemporary societies fostering a global forum for permanent historical discussion.” In other words, it’s almost like setting up a time-traveling UN: get representatives from different cultures to discuss their cultures and how their individual lessons can be applied to help our world today.
So what do you think? Is the modern world too different to learn anything from the ancients? Or can the past really be a window to the future? Post your comments below and on Twitter at#5Civilizations!
http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/03/18/lessons-for-today-from-5-ancient-civilizations/
The three-day “Dialogue of Civilizations” conference in Guatemala is bringing together archaeologists studying five ancient cultures to discuss their similarities and differences and what they can tell us about human society as a whole. You can be a part of the conversation as well, tweeting your questions using #5Civilizations.
On the first day of the conference, after the initial presentations on the rise of ancient Chinese civilization, National Geographic Explorer Fred Hiebert, took the stage to introduce experts in ancient Mesopotamia, the “Land Between the Rivers,” in modern day Iraq, Syria, southeast Turkey, and northwestern Iran.
Giorgio Buccellati from the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA won the crowd over by showing a map of the area with the conference’s host country of Guatemala added for scale. He was the second presenter however. First up was Dr. Augusta McMahon, Professor of Ancient History of the Near East, University of Cambridge.
A map of the region of ancient Mesopotamia, with local modern states (and conference host country Guatemala) shown for scale. (Map Courtesy Giorgio Buccellati)
Focusing on the conference’s theme of investigating how ancient civilizations can help inspire solutions for modern problems, McMahon discussed how Mesopotamians dealt with problems of water, sanitation, and employment in dense and rapidly growing cities.
Water
Beginning around 6000 BC, she said, people of the region began digging simple small-scale canals for irrigating small plots of land. By 3000 BC, canals had become enormous in scale, transforming the landscape and even being used for transportation between cities. Saddled with the huge responsibility of their upkeep, neighboring kings would even work together to maintain this central infrastructure.
There was a downside however to the prosperity water management brought. Booming populations outstripped the fertility of the land, stagnant water bred disease, and variability in the landscape, weather, and use led to conflict over access and rights. Today, we see the same issues affecting people globally. The World Health Organization estimates more than 3.4 million people die from water-related disease every year, experts wonder how can we feed 7 billion living humans, and conflict over water rights continues among individual farmers and entire nations.
Enki, the god of drinkable water, seen in an ancient Sumerian relief. (Photo from Wikimedia Commons)
While the people of Mesopotamia may not have solved these issues, McMahon pointed out that in some ways at least they may have been a step ahead of many of us. From symbolically decorated vases to the nature of some of their gods, these people recognized at a practical and even spiritual level how fundamentally important reliable access to clean water is.
Enki, god of drinkable water, with streams and fish pouring forth from his shoulders, was seen as one of humanity’s greatest friends.
Waste
The growth in population and city size created another problem: garbage and its accumulation. We know from modern examples, McMahon said, that in smaller villages people will simply carry sharp, large, dangerous, or smelly waste to the edge of town and dump it there. But what happens when the edge of town gets further away?
Listening from the audience, and knowing how big of a problem sanitation and human waste are even today, I was strangely dismayed by what she said next.
Around 3500 BC, big cities were on the rise in Mesopotamia. By 290o BC, people were already building individual deep pit toilets, and by 2500 BC at the site of Tello, there’s evidence of a well designed bathroom. So the question is how can we take 5000-year-old urban technology and get it to rural areas still in need of it today?
Work
Finally, in a prosperous city, with the efficiencies of mass production of goods, you end up with a lot of people needing food and needing work. The people of Mesopotamia recognized this and had an interesting way of dealing with it. They cooked up projects for women and children.
Around 5000 BC, McMahon said, most pottery was made individually, with lots of care and fine detail. By 3500 BC, it’s mass produced, not very well decorated, and relatively roughly made. There are also indications that thread-making and weaving became standardized.
With this standardization, women in cities were no longer at home weaving as part of many daily chores. Written records from 2040 BC, shows that in some cities, women were employed with children in industrial-scale weaving factories. In exchange for labor, they received food and clothing. Still, much like many women around the world today, they faced exploitation, were paid less than men, and even dealt with sweatshop-like conditions of hard rationing.
McMahon’s other illustration was really fascinating. In Uruk around 3200 BC, a large religious complex would take 100 years to be built, then flattened and rebuilt. For no apparent functional reason. It seems to be a deliberate attempt by the government to keep the city at full employment by keeping construction continuous.
In summary, McMahon said the key to Mesopotamian success was using a mixed bag of solutions for these three major challenges. For all its pros and cons, it worked for thousands of years, and that says something for us today.
Cities, Writing, and a New Human Mindset
When Giorgio Buccellati took the stage next, he didn’t just please the crowd with his “Guate-potamia” map above. He challenged everyone to think outside of our expectations and assumptions about the ancient world.
For one thing, we kind of have the name wrong. “Mesopotamia,” meaning “The Land Between the Rivers” is a word and concept that comes from the Greeks. Akkadian king Naram-Sin around 2250 BC had his own concept of the defining character of the area, calling himself “King of the Four River Banks.”
Instead of one land between two rivers, the ancient Akkadian king Naram-Sin conceived of the area as consisting of four river banks. (Map courtesy Giorgio Buccellati)
Buccellati’s real eye-opener though regarded the whole nature of what it means to be part of a civilization. It’s certainly not about cars or electricity, since we have ancient cities that clearly had neither. “All cities, for all their differences,” he said, “are closer to ancient cities than ancient cities were to villages.”
In the transition from smaller villages, cities develop monumental architecture, luxury items, and perhaps most importantly, writing. Using these tools, settlements “expand exponentially and create a wholly new built environment.”
Why Has This Changed Human Life?
The answer comes down to our relationships with each other. “The real difference,” according to Buccellati, “is that we can relate to each other without knowing each other, because we have a common purpose that transcends.”
Long before cities, he said, “personal interaction” was the only way people could feel bonded to each other. As detailed language developed, people could learn about things they never saw themselves. Writing then multiplied this effect. “People could relate via symbols that have an existence of their own beyond the moment of audio contact.” Once you can read a language, you no longer need another person to be present to get information from them. The symbols alone are all you need.
Buccellati’s conception of the development of how civilization changes people’s relationships and concepts of each other and the things we make and use. (Image courtesy Giorgio Buccellati)
As shown in the image from Buccellati’s presentation above, the same happens with tools. Originally a tool maker was a person you knew personally. Then they were someone you may never meet, but you still identified as the maker of the thing you acquired. Eventually, manufacturing can become separated by task, and you no longer even know how many people were involved in the creation of an object.
While some view this as alienating, Buccellati sees it as the key to extended solidarity. We no longer know these people individually, but we are still connected to them, and we know this, and conceive of them as part of our group. Relating to the functions that people serve instead of to people you meet in person “provides efficiency that revolutionizes the idea of solidarity.”
Solidarity Today
Buccellati then traced the development of Mesopotamian civilization through to Hammurabi and his famous code that gave people across vast areas a standard way to relate to each other, wherever they went.
“After that,” he said, “the whole civilized world began to interact using international protocols…[and] now the individual could relate to the whole known world.”
To close, Buccellati made the connection that we must continue to develop these positive and reinforcing relationships, also develop solidarity with the the people of the past, expressed through conservation of the record of their lives and ideas. Working for much of his life in and around Syria, he feels these points especially strongly now, during the extensive conflict there today.
Giorgio Buccellati sees one of modern Syria’s posters promoting conservation of cultural heritage as “a dauntiing image of an ancient Syrian looking in disbelief at what is happening in his country today.” (Photo Courtesy Giorgio Buccellati)
He closed by showing this poster, one in a series posted throughout Syria, aiming to get locals to protect their local heritage. This particular one he sees as “a daunting image of an ancient Syrian looking in disbelief at what is happening in his country today.” He then translated some of the text: “Syria our country, let us be proud.”