4 ms·

> were thought to have been introduced to India in the 1500's through Portuguese contact Funny how everything was introduced by us white european folk to the r

by Swizec 6y ago

> were thought to have been introduced to India in the 1500's through Portuguese contact Funny how everything was introduced by us white european folk to the rest of the world. I wonder who wrote that version of history. How much stuff do you think happened before we got there to see it happening and write about it for our branch of global science? We know for example that China had massive 14 mast ships and global-ish trade back when Europe was barely doing 3 masts as state of the art. And we know that Ancient Egypt traded as far as India

KhoomeiK 6y ago
Haha yeah, totally. Modern Western culture as we know it is only about 500 years old, though it arguably takes influences from the Greeks and Romans back another 2500 years. Even 500 BC though isn't that old in the grand scale of things. It's interesting how we refer to everything before ~500 AD as "ancient" when civilization really began around 3000 BC—that is to say, the "ancient" period is more than double the length of the post-ancient. It's mindblowing to think what could've happened in those entire centuries during which we just don't have records of certain areas. Partly the reason why I'm super interested in archaeogenetics, revealing the tremendous amount of history locked away in our very own DNA.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  > Modern Western culture as we know it is only about 500 years old, though it arguably takes influences from the Greeks and Romans back another 2500 years. That would be a difficult argument to make; classical Greece only goes back to about the eighth century BC. Mycenaean Greece goes much further back, but we can't observe most of the cultural continuity (though obviously there was a decent amount of it), because between Mycenaean Greece and classical Greece there was the Greek Dark Age of about 400 years when they forgot how to read and write. A cultural legacy of 2500 years total is a much fairer estimate than one of 3000 years. As you note, though, the legacy of the classical world was itself interrupted and then purposefully reimported into Renaissance Europe. This is rather different from how, in the 4th century AD, there were still priests of the old religion in Babylon, reading tablets written thousands of years before them thanks to a historical tradition that had, at that point, never been interrupted. Something I found charming from the wikipedia article on Sargon the Great is that the Babylonian king Nabonidus (6th century BC, "ancient" by any modern standard) sponsored archaeological research into his life. And well he might, since Sargon preceded Nabonidus by about 1800 years. But you just don't think about one ancient king supporting archaeology concerning another ancient king. Ancient is ancient, right?
  - KhoomeiK 6y ago
    Yup, you're totally right, I misspoke—I meant to say that the furthest you can trace back Western history is 2500 years [total] back to the Greek "golden age" ~500BC. > Something I found charming from the wikipedia article on Sargon the Great is that the Babylonian king Nabonidus (6th century BC, "ancient" by any modern standard) sponsored archaeological research into his life. Wow, never knew about this. I really want a term to come into the vernacular to describe history before ~800BC, because things really were completely different across Eurasia. In the Mediterranean and Middle East it was the revival of civilization after the Bronze Age collapse, in India it was the beginning of the Upanishadic era, and in China it was the beginning of the Spring and Autumn period. This [1] is sort of relevant. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_Age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_Age
    - thaumasiotes 6y ago
      One of the things I find really interesting about Chinese history is that Sima Qian, writing in the second and early first century BC, recorded a number of Shang kings reigning almost a thousand years before his time. For quite a while they were considered legendary, lacking any other corroborating sources -- but the Shang oracle bones eventually confirmed that kings matching the names Sima Qian gave reigned in the order in which he listed them. (The Shang kings' names are actually ordinal markers -- something like Shang Fifth, Shang Second, etc -- but they did not reign in the order suggested by their names.) Sima Qian, like Herodotus, receives a lot of credit for establishing history as a thing people kept track of. But he must have been working from some now-totally-lost fairly faithful sources. And speaking of the coincidence between the recovery from the Bronze Age collapse and the Spring and Autumn period, I'm intrigued by the rough coincidence between the beginning of the Bronze Age collapse and the fall of the Shang dynasty. In that case, the coincidence is much rougher, though -- the Shang dynasty appears to fall about 100 years after the collapse.
  - Tainnor 6y ago
    Hm, I think we have to be a bit careful about the legacy of the classical world being "interrupted". This may be true in part (wasn't it that central heating was lost to Britain even though it had been known in Roman times?), but contrary to popular belief, the middle ages were in many respects also a continuation of the classical world. For one thing, the Eastern Roman empire continued to exist until the 15th century and it is there that e.g. the Justinian code of law was devised, which, as far as I know, is still the basis of many modern legal systems, while itself being built upon ancient Roman law. But even in Western Europe, Christianity can be seen as a continuation of the Roman Empire: It's not as if the religion hadn't been substantially changed and "romanised" after Constantine made it state religion. Also, in terms of scholarship, many key classical philosophers / scientists were never forgotten; Aristotle in particular remained a key influence. And, contrary to popular belief, middle ages scholars knew perfectly well that the earth was round, as had been shown by Ptolemy and others before him (they thought it was at the center of the universe, but as far as I know, nobody had successfully proven otherwise in antiquity either).
- toohotatopic 6y ago
  >ancient," from Vulgar Latin *anteanus, literally "from before," [1] I guess ancient is used to mean before 500BC because it has always meant that. It's a Roman word used by them to reference the time before them. As long as we use that word we already accept their point of view. [1] https://www.etymonline.com/word/ancient https://www.etymonline.com/word/ancient
  - KhoomeiK 6y ago
    Ancient usually refers to the period before 500 AD (not BC) as indicated in my original comment. 500 AD is roughly the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, but definitely not the marker for before the Romans. It'd be nice if that explained it though.
andrepd 6y ago
Well we also state that the indigenous populations introduced, say, potatoes to Europe. No need to push an innocuous observation onto a racial framework.
ericd 6y ago
14 masts? That seems... excessive. Most I can find a reference of is 4, the "Treasure Ships".
- avhon1 6y ago
  "the treasure fleet consisted of several distinct classes of ships: - "Treasure ships" (宝船, Bǎo Chuán) nine-masted, 44.4 by 18 zhang, about 127 metres (417 feet) long and 52 metres (171 feet) wide [...]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_treasure_ship#Sanbao_Taijian_Xia_Xiyang_Ji_Tongsu_Yanyi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_treasure_ship#Sanbao_T...
  - ericd 6y ago
    Oh wow, one on that list has 9 masts! That’s incredible.
QuesnayJr 6y ago
It's demonstrably true that there was a significant period of introduction of new foodstuffs from the Americas into Eurasia in the wake of Columbus, in a phenomenon known as the Columbian Exchange: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_exchange https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_exchange. Since custard apples are native to Central America, it's the natural hypothesis.
LudwigNagasena 6y ago
We also know that China considered itself "All under Heaven" and that in Ancient Egypt Pharaohs were thought to maintain the cosmic order. I understand that hating themselves is a favorite pastime of upper-middle class white Americans, but there is no reason to denigrate all white people for what was a very common attitude among all cultures.
- Swizec 6y ago
  Oh I know everyone does it. I’m just pointing out the silliness of being surprised when it turns out history didn’t start with us. No denigration intended

by Swizec 6y ago

KhoomeiK 6y ago

Haha yeah, totally. Modern Western culture as we know it is only about 500 years old, though it arguably takes influences from the Greeks and Romans back another 2500 years. Even 500 BC though isn't that old in the grand scale of things. It's interesting how we refer to everything before ~500 AD as "ancient" when civilization really began around 3000 BC—that is to say, the "ancient" period is more than double the length of the post-ancient. It's mindblowing to think what could've happened in those entire centuries during which we just don't have records of certain areas. Partly the reason why I'm super interested in archaeogenetics, revealing the tremendous amount of history locked away in our very own DNA.

thaumasiotes 6y ago
> Modern Western culture as we know it is only about 500 years old, though it arguably takes influences from the Greeks and Romans back another 2500 years. That would be a difficult argument to make; classical Greece only goes back to about the eighth century BC. Mycenaean Greece goes much further back, but we can't observe most of the cultural continuity (though obviously there was a decent amount of it), because between Mycenaean Greece and classical Greece there was the Greek Dark Age of about 400 years when they forgot how to read and write. A cultural legacy of 2500 years total is a much fairer estimate than one of 3000 years. As you note, though, the legacy of the classical world was itself interrupted and then purposefully reimported into Renaissance Europe. This is rather different from how, in the 4th century AD, there were still priests of the old religion in Babylon, reading tablets written thousands of years before them thanks to a historical tradition that had, at that point, never been interrupted. Something I found charming from the wikipedia article on Sargon the Great is that the Babylonian king Nabonidus (6th century BC, "ancient" by any modern standard) sponsored archaeological research into his life. And well he might, since Sargon preceded Nabonidus by about 1800 years. But you just don't think about one ancient king supporting archaeology concerning another ancient king. Ancient is ancient, right?
- KhoomeiK 6y ago
  Yup, you're totally right, I misspoke—I meant to say that the furthest you can trace back Western history is 2500 years [total] back to the Greek "golden age" ~500BC. > Something I found charming from the wikipedia article on Sargon the Great is that the Babylonian king Nabonidus (6th century BC, "ancient" by any modern standard) sponsored archaeological research into his life. Wow, never knew about this. I really want a term to come into the vernacular to describe history before ~800BC, because things really were completely different across Eurasia. In the Mediterranean and Middle East it was the revival of civilization after the Bronze Age collapse, in India it was the beginning of the Upanishadic era, and in China it was the beginning of the Spring and Autumn period. This [1] is sort of relevant. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_Age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_Age
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    One of the things I find really interesting about Chinese history is that Sima Qian, writing in the second and early first century BC, recorded a number of Shang kings reigning almost a thousand years before his time. For quite a while they were considered legendary, lacking any other corroborating sources -- but the Shang oracle bones eventually confirmed that kings matching the names Sima Qian gave reigned in the order in which he listed them. (The Shang kings' names are actually ordinal markers -- something like Shang Fifth, Shang Second, etc -- but they did not reign in the order suggested by their names.) Sima Qian, like Herodotus, receives a lot of credit for establishing history as a thing people kept track of. But he must have been working from some now-totally-lost fairly faithful sources. And speaking of the coincidence between the recovery from the Bronze Age collapse and the Spring and Autumn period, I'm intrigued by the rough coincidence between the beginning of the Bronze Age collapse and the fall of the Shang dynasty. In that case, the coincidence is much rougher, though -- the Shang dynasty appears to fall about 100 years after the collapse.
- Tainnor 6y ago
  Hm, I think we have to be a bit careful about the legacy of the classical world being "interrupted". This may be true in part (wasn't it that central heating was lost to Britain even though it had been known in Roman times?), but contrary to popular belief, the middle ages were in many respects also a continuation of the classical world. For one thing, the Eastern Roman empire continued to exist until the 15th century and it is there that e.g. the Justinian code of law was devised, which, as far as I know, is still the basis of many modern legal systems, while itself being built upon ancient Roman law. But even in Western Europe, Christianity can be seen as a continuation of the Roman Empire: It's not as if the religion hadn't been substantially changed and "romanised" after Constantine made it state religion. Also, in terms of scholarship, many key classical philosophers / scientists were never forgotten; Aristotle in particular remained a key influence. And, contrary to popular belief, middle ages scholars knew perfectly well that the earth was round, as had been shown by Ptolemy and others before him (they thought it was at the center of the universe, but as far as I know, nobody had successfully proven otherwise in antiquity either).
toohotatopic 6y ago
>ancient," from Vulgar Latin *anteanus, literally "from before," [1] I guess ancient is used to mean before 500BC because it has always meant that. It's a Roman word used by them to reference the time before them. As long as we use that word we already accept their point of view. [1] https://www.etymonline.com/word/ancient https://www.etymonline.com/word/ancient
- KhoomeiK 6y ago
  Ancient usually refers to the period before 500 AD (not BC) as indicated in my original comment. 500 AD is roughly the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, but definitely not the marker for before the Romans. It'd be nice if that explained it though.

andrepd 6y ago

Well we also state that the indigenous populations introduced, say, potatoes to Europe. No need to push an innocuous observation onto a racial framework.

ericd 6y ago

14 masts? That seems... excessive. Most I can find a reference of is 4, the "Treasure Ships".

avhon1 6y ago
"the treasure fleet consisted of several distinct classes of ships: - "Treasure ships" (宝船, Bǎo Chuán) nine-masted, 44.4 by 18 zhang, about 127 metres (417 feet) long and 52 metres (171 feet) wide [...]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_treasure_ship#Sanbao_Taijian_Xia_Xiyang_Ji_Tongsu_Yanyi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_treasure_ship#Sanbao_T...
- ericd 6y ago
  Oh wow, one on that list has 9 masts! That’s incredible.

QuesnayJr 6y ago

It's demonstrably true that there was a significant period of introduction of new foodstuffs from the Americas into Eurasia in the wake of Columbus, in a phenomenon known as the Columbian Exchange: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_exchange https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_exchange. Since custard apples are native to Central America, it's the natural hypothesis.

LudwigNagasena 6y ago

We also know that China considered itself "All under Heaven" and that in Ancient Egypt Pharaohs were thought to maintain the cosmic order. I understand that hating themselves is a favorite pastime of upper-middle class white Americans, but there is no reason to denigrate all white people for what was a very common attitude among all cultures.

Swizec 6y ago
Oh I know everyone does it. I’m just pointing out the silliness of being surprised when it turns out history didn’t start with us. No denigration intended