Studying Ancient History - Учебное пособие

Studying Ancient History (Учебное пособие для студентов, обучающихся по специальности «История», «Музеология») КАЗАНСКИЙ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ им. В. И. Ульянова-Ленина ИНСТИТУТ ЯЗЫКА КАФЕДРА АНГЛИЙСКОГО ЯЗЫКА Studying Ancient History (Учебное пособие для студентов, обучающихся по специальности «История» - 020700, «Музеология» - 021000) Казань 2009 Печатается по решению редакционно-издательского совета ГОУ ВПО «Казанский Государственный Университет им. В. И. Ульянова - Ленина» Рецензенты: кандидат пед. наук, доцент Юхименко А. Н. (Казанский Государственный Университет) кандидат филол. наук, доцент Ахметзянов И. Г. (Российский Исламский Институт) Научный редактор: Директор Института Языка КГУ, доктор филол. наук, проф. Багаутдинова Г. А. Утверждено на заседании кафедры от 27 мая 2009 года, протокол № 9; и на заседании учебно-методической комиссии (Ученого совета Института Языка КГУ) от 27 мая 2009 года, протокол № 9. Тексты учебного пособия представлены в хронологическом порядке и охватывают период, начинающийся с древнейших цивилизаций и заканчивающийся падением Римской империи. When we think of the ancient world, we may perhaps think of the Hebrews, Greeks and Romans. The Hebrews gave us faith and morality; Greece gave us reason, philosophy and science; and Rome gave us law and government. This is, of course, a crude oversimplification, and the reason is obvious. Western civilization developed before Greece or Rome. For instance, 3000 years before the greatest era of Greek history, civilizations flourished in Mesopotamia and in Egypt. These civilizations were urban, productive, religious and law abiding and in all meanings of the word, civilized. A solid working definition of civilization is difficult and depends upon your own judgment. Here are a few textbook definitions: 1. Civilization is a form of human culture in which many people live in urban centers, have mastered the art of smelting metals, and have developed a method of writing. 2. The first civilizations began in cities, which were larger, more populated, and more complex in their political, economic and social structure than Neolithic villages. 3. One definition of civilization requires that a civilized people have a sense of history -- meaning that the past counts in the present. The Oxford English Dictionary defines civilization as the action or process of civilizing or of being civilized; a developed or advanced state of human society. Such a definition is fraught with difficulties. For instance, how might we correctly identify a developed or advanced state of human society? Developed or advanced compared to what? The OED defines the verb to civilize in the following way: to make civil; to bring out of a state of barbarism; to instruct in the arts of life; to enlighten; to refine and polish. Are we any closer to a working definition? In 1936, the archeologist V. Gordon Childe published his book Man Makes Himself. Childe identified several elements which he believed were essential for a civilization to exist. He included: the plow, wheeled cart and draft animals, sailing ships, the smelting of copper and bronze, a solar calendar, writing, standards of measurement, irrigation ditches, specialized craftsmen, urban centers and a surplus of food necessary to support non-agricultural workers who lived within the walls of the city. Childes list concerns human achievements and pays less attention to human organization. Another historian agreed with Childe but added that a true definition of civilization should also include money collected through taxes, a privileged ruling class, a centralized government and a national religious or priestly class. Such a list, unlike Childes, highlights human organization. In 1955, Clyde Kluckhohn argued that there were three essential criteria for civilization: towns containing more than 5000 people, writing, and monumental ceremonial centers. Finally, the archeologist and anthropologist Robert M. Adams argued for a definition of civilization as a society with functionally interrelated sets of social institutions: class stratification based on the ownership and control of production, political and religious hierarchies complementing each other in the central administration of territorially organized states and lastly, a complex division of labor, with skilled workers, soldiers and officials existing alongside the great mass of peasant producers. As historians have often remarked, civilization is a word easier to describe than it is to define. As implied by the above discussion, the word itself comes from the Latin adjective civilis, a reference to a citizen. Citizens willingly bring themselves together in political, social, economic, and religious organizations -- they merge together, that is, in the interests of the larger community. Over time, the word civilization has come to imply something beyond organization -- it refers to a particular shared way of thinking about the world as well as a reflection on t