Four Great Ancient Civilizations
The Four Great Ancient Civilizations (simplified Chinese: 四大文明古国; traditional Chinese: 四大文明古國; pinyin: Sì Dà Wénmíng Gǔ Guó) is a concept frequently used in the study of history in China, referring to the civilizations of ancient China, Babylon, India, and Egypt, seen as the cradle of civilization in the history of humankind.[1] This concept is not universally used and has came under some criticism from Chinese historians in that it does not include some other major ancient civilizations such as Sumer, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, the Olmec, the Maya civilization, the Chavín culture, etc, etc.[2]
In 1900, Liang Qichao argued that there were four great ancient civilizations in his poem, The Pacific Ocean in the 20th Century (二十世纪太平洋歌). The four civilizations are China, India, Egypt, and Asia Minor. It is an early version of the Four Great Ancient Civilizations. In this essay, Liang Qichao divided the history of the world into three ages: river age, sea age, and ocean age. The four great civilizations were in the river age and all of them developed along rivers.
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was a long-standing civilization in northeastern Africa. It was concentrated along the middle to lower reaches of the Nile River, reaching its greatest extent in the second millennium BC, during the New Kingdom. It reached from the Nile Delta in the north, as far south as Jebel Barkal at the Fourth Cataract of the Nile. Extensions to the geographic range of ancient Egyptian civilization included, at different times, areas of the southern Levant, the Eastern Desert and the Red Sea coastline, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Western body (focused on the several oases).
Babylon
Babylon (in Arabic: بابل; in Syriac: ܒܒܙܠ in Hebrew:בבל) was an ancient city in Mesopotamia (modern Al Hillah, Iraq), the ruins of which can be found in present-day Babil Province, about 80km south of Baghdad. The form Babylon is the Greek variant of Akkadian Babilu (bāb-ilû, meaning "Gateway of the god(s)", translating Sumerian KA.DINGIR.RA). It was the "holy city" of Babylonia from around 2300 BC, and the seat of the Neo-Babylonian Empire from 612 BC. In the Bible, the name appears as בבל (Bavel), interpreted by Genesis 11:9 to mean "confusion", from the verb balal, "to confuse". Babylon was an important city, both politically and aesthetically. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Ancient India
The history of India begins with the Indus Valley Civilization, which flourished in the north-western part of the Indian subcontinent from 3300 to 1700 BC. This Bronze Age civilization was followed by the Iron Age Vedic period, which witnessed the rise of major kingdoms known as the Mahajanapadas. In two of these, in the 6th century BC, Mahavira and Gautama Buddha were born.
China
The history of China is told in traditional historical records that refer as far back as the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors about 5,000 years ago, supplemented by archaeological records dating to the 16th century BC. China is one of the world's oldest continuous civilizations. Turtle shells with markings reminiscent of ancient Chinese writing from the Shang Dynasty have been carbon dated to around 1500 BC. Chinese civilization originated with city-states in the Yellow River valley. 221 BC is the commonly accepted year when China became unified under a large kingdom or empire. Successive dynasties in Chinese history developed bureaucratic systems that enabled the Emperor of China to control the large territory.
Notes
- ^ This term can be found in Chinese textbooks of middle and high schools. See, e.g., The History of the World, Hight School Textbook, Vol. 1.
- ^ See, e.g., Is China Really One of the So-called Four Great Ancient Civilizations? Sohu.com, January 5, 2006.