290 replies to this topic

[the L]

cormac mac airt, on 18 February 2013 - 03:39 PM, said:

Apparently the bold portion above is something Harsh86_Patel doesn't understand, or chooses to ignore. While Mehrgarh was a city it did not meet the criteria for being a civilization. As has been pointed out many times, there are certain criteria that must be met in order to qualify as a civilization, to whit:




http://worldhistoryc.../6.3/brown.html

A city does not automatically qualify as a civilization, no matter how many times it's repeated.

cormac

If one of trait is not fullfilled from list you quoted do we still talk about civilization or culture?

[cormac mac airt]

the L, on 19 February 2013 - 08:55 PM, said:

If one of trait is not fullfilled from list you quoted do we still talk about civilization or culture?

If one or more traits were not fulfilled a person could still be talking about a culture or settlement. But they're definitely NOT talking about a civilization.

cormac

[the L]

cormac mac airt, on 19 February 2013 - 10:14 PM, said:

If one or more traits were not fulfilled a person could still be talking about a culture or settlement. But they're definitely NOT talking about a civilization.

cormac

What Indus valley civilization or Harappans developed as exact practical science?


Aztecs didnt have writting system, so were they settlement or civilization?

Edited by the L, 19 February 2013 - 10:24 PM.

[cormac mac airt]

the L, on 19 February 2013 - 10:24 PM, said:

What Indus valley civilization or Harappans developed as exact practical science?


Aztecs didnt have writting system, so were they settlement or civilization?

Astronomy is a science and would have been necessary to determine the correct time of year for many things, to include agriculture. They also had math and metallurgy.

Says who? They had a pictographic/ideographic writing system. And for cultures who didn't have an official writing system, like those of South America, they used quipu's which were another means of recording information.

cormac

[the L]

cormac mac airt, on 19 February 2013 - 10:45 PM, said:

Astronomy is a science and would have been necessary to determine the correct time of year for many things, to include agriculture. They also had math and metallurgy.

Says who? They had a pictographic/ideographic writing system. And for cultures who didn't have an official writing system, like those of South America, they used quipu's which were another means of recording information.

cormac

Illyrians then fullfill all traits from list you quoted yet we called them tribes.

Quipu were not letters,words....rather numbers.(?)

Edited by the L, 19 February 2013 - 11:09 PM.

[cormac mac airt]

the L, on 19 February 2013 - 11:06 PM, said:

Illyrians then fullfill all traits from list you quoted yet we called them tribes.

Quipu were not letters,words....rather numbers.(?)

The Ilyrians were not a well defined group of peoples, but rather a conglomeration of related peoples with no real central point of government. That's not the same thing as being a civilization.

* System for recording information

cormac

[the L]

cormac mac airt, on 19 February 2013 - 11:14 PM, said:

The Ilyrians were not a well defined group of peoples, but rather a conglomeration of related peoples with no real central point of government. That's not the same thing as being a civilization.

* System for recording information

cormac

They used Greek alphabet. We just dont have nothing preserved from them. But we know they used it. (coins)

Wrong. They so called tribes were divided  but some of them were highly organized with central point.
They even have had colonies.

Also, at one point in time they have had empire.(twice)

[the L]

[the L]

http://www.unexplain...howtopic=235405

[cormac mac airt]

the L, on 19 February 2013 - 11:21 PM, said:

They used Greek alphabet. We just dont have nothing preserved from them. But we know they used it. (coins)

Wrong. They so called tribes were divided but some of them were highly organized with central point.
They even have had colonies.

Also, at one point in time they have had empire.(twice)

So right off the bat they've taken themselves off the list, since the Greek alphabet didn't belong to them to begin with.

This also works against them as they were not one, singular group of peoples under a central point of government during their existance, nor did they exist collectively as a peoples known as "Illyrian".  And while the Illyrians had a few kingdoms they never had an actual "empire", which is a much greater level of control than the Illyrians would ever achieve. And yes I realize you wish to see them as separate from and more important than they actually were in an historical context, but they weren't. They never reached the point of qualifying as either a civilization nor an empire.

cormac

[jaylemurph]

I think you can split the difference here to arrive at something closer to the truth. I suspect as L points out at one time there was more documentary evidence to show the Illyrians had more of a unique culture, as he point out, reflected in their own independent political state for a time, but centuries of Roman rule effaced both the culture itself and documentation for it. But in the end, whatever culture they had would not have been a civilization on par with the Greek or Roman inheritance, certainly.

(I mean, the Roman used and adapted Greek letters themselves, eventually forming their own alphabet, but you wouldn't say they didn't have their own culture. And yes, I know you wouldn't actually say that.)

--Jaylemurph

[cormac mac airt]

jaylemurph, on 20 February 2013 - 04:39 AM, said:

I think you can split the difference here to arrive at something closer to the truth. I suspect as L points out at one time there was more documentary evidence to show the Illyrians had more of a unique culture, as he point out, reflected in their own independent political state for a time, but centuries of Roman rule effaced both the culture itself and documentation for it. But in the end, whatever culture they had would not have been a civilization on par with the Greek or Roman inheritance, certainly.

(I mean, the Roman used and adapted Greek letters themselves, eventually forming their own alphabet, but you wouldn't say they didn't have their own culture. And yes, I know you wouldn't actually say that.)

--Jaylemurph

That's the whole problem IMO. People like 'the L' and Harsh86_Patel, to name a few, want to apply the word "civilization" to pretty much anything and everything. It already has a definition and usage which shouldn't be misapplied to a group of indistinct tribes (Illyrians) or one city in the Indus Valley (Mehrgarh), as such an application is wrong. Sure the Illyrians had their own culture, that's obvious, but it's not on par with the level necessary with a civilization and that's what is not being understood.

cormac

[the L]

cormac I dont want to apply word civilization to anything just dont understand criteria.
Then Hittites,Akkadians and Mittani and others were not civilization.(cuneiform)

Edited by the L, 20 February 2013 - 06:18 AM.

[TheSearcher]

the L, on 20 February 2013 - 06:18 AM, said:

cormac I dont want to apply word civilization to anything just dont understand criteria.
Then Hittites,Akkadians and Mittani and others were not civilization.(cuneiform)

No they were not. I think they can be classified as separate cultures, but they are not civilizations in their own right. I tend to agree with Cormac on this.

[the L]

TheSearcher, on 20 February 2013 - 09:22 AM, said:

No they were not. I think they can be classified as separate cultures, but they are not civilizations in their own right. I tend to agree with Cormac on this.

1st empire in world wasnt been civilization?
People who introduce to us iron age were...what are Hittites then?