The Greatest River Valley Civilization?

Hist 120 (Introduction to World Civilizations) Brief Essay Number 1

What makes a civilization great? Sure, if we ask a number of people this question, they will have varying answers. Whenever they hear the word “civilization,” it is not a surprise that the Greeks and Romans are the first ones that comes to mind. But let’s talk about those who existed earlier than the Classical Antiquity, the ones who were known for their rivers.

Plenty of small settlements and tribes existed around 5000 to 3000 years ago, but the most dominating ones were found in the regions of Middle East (Sumer), North Africa (Egypt), Indian Subcontinent (Indus), and East Asia (Shang). They have features like some form of government, social stratification, writing system, urbanization, farming, architecture, arts and sciences, and many more. They all have unique qualities that would make them great on their own. But among those four, I would say that the one which stands out is undoubtedly the ancient Egypt. Let me tell you why.

My determiner of a civilization’s greatness is not about how populated they were, nor how vast their empire was, nor how long they existed in history. I am all about the legacy that they left, the impact that they caused in world history as a whole. Indus civilizations are crucial in the development of Indian history, but not enough to be called the most impactful. China has the longest continuous history that is divided through dynasties, but if we are just talking about the Shang Dynasty alone, I doubt that it would qualify as the most influential. Sumer, on the other hand, comes close, but I would argue that Egypt is far greater.

One. Not to sound Eurocentric, but out of four, ancient Egypt was the one that made the most influence in Greek and Roman civilizations, both which are the foundations of the dominating Western culture. Sure, they were Hellenized and Romanized during the Late Period, like how the words “obelisk” and “pyramid”, which were Egyptian structures, are Greek in origin (ὀβελίσκος and πυραμίς respectively); and how the name Egypt itself came from Latin AEGYPTVS which also came from Greek Αἴγυπτος. But Egypt contributed to them something in return.

The connection between Greek and Egyptian mythology can be seen how the Greek creation story is similar to the Egyptian myth about the Ma’at goddess, which both describe the conflict between order and chaos. In addition, Egypt was also the go-to place of Greek thinkers to study, like how Thales studied Egyptian triangles to understand angles. On the other hand, while they were under Roman control, the Romans had a culture where they adopt some of the deities of the land that they conquer, such as how the Cult of Isis (Egyptian goddess of fertility) was popularized. Egypt was also Rome’s main granary. They supplied grains, as well as glass and papyrus across the empire. Lastly, Egyptian mummification was also adopted by the Romans for 200 years around 1st century CE.

Two. Another testament of Egyptian influence extends around the world is their writing system: Hieroglyphs. Sumerian Cuneiform may have been the one who came first, but it was the Egyptian writing system that is the ancestor of most scripts that we use today (Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Cyrillic, etc.), most importantly, the Latin alphabet. Hieroglyphs was a logographic script, which means that there are symbols for each word and morpheme, and because they have thousands of characters, Canaanites from Sinai Peninsula adopted just some of the characters that represents their sound, then years later, their abjads were passed onto seafaring Phoenicians, then passed their abjads into their Greek customers and added vowels on them. Greek alphabets were born, and the version from the island of Euboea was the one that was adopted by the Etruscans from Italian Peninsula. Etruscan alphabet then was passed to Romans and became the Latin alphabet that we use today. (If you are curious, you can read more to my blogsite The Zoomer Historian article named ABCD: A Brief History of the Alphabet)

Three. My other criterion is how a certain civilization is the most familiar with the common people today, i.e., how famous they are in pop culture. Tell me, can somebody enumerate to me the deities of Indus and Shang? We are more familiar with names like Ra, Horus, and Osiris then Marduk, Ishtar, and Enki. Aside from the Greek, Norse, and Roman ones, the public also has an obsession with Egyptian mythology (which intensified after the hype with Marvel’s Moon Knight). Not only that--The Mummy, The Ten Commandments, the Pyramids of Giza, the Sphinx, King Tut, Cleopatra--I can name more. History is not the only thing that ancient Egypt has shaped, also our entertainment and tourism industry.

With all of these in mind, I can say that I rest my case.

Sources

• Koy, Michael. 2021. Egyptian Influence on Ancient Greece. November 17. Accessed May 11, 2022. https://medium.com/the-history-inquiry/egyptian-influence-on-ancient-greece-289bf985d3c.

• Prince, Meg. 2015. Egyptian Influence on Rome. November 24. Accessed May 11, 2022. https://prezi.com/fo0-nd6109yt/egyptian-influence-on-rome/.

• Sampson, Geoffrey. 1985. Writing Systems: A Linguistic Introduction. California: Stanford University Press.

Passed on May 12, 2022