Civilizations from history you find interesting

[Stoneheart]

The Frisian freedom is very interesting. small rural democracy inn the same time the italians had their city states, same conflicts, but mich different outcome, the frisians went back to tribalism for a century.

 

[Thoth]

Minoans and their weird ass art

Also the fact that nobody seems to know exactly what happened to them.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

Mississippians. I visited Cahokia and it is an incredible site. The main mound there looks like nothing in pictures but in person is utterly huge, towering above the flat land there and giving a nice view of St. Louis, both the beautiful Gateway Arch and the utter decay of urban St. Louis/East St. Louis, where archaeologists know similar cities existed (including a major center after Cahokia declined) yet were bulldozed by the white man after the original inhabitants died of disease and a major drought. All the other mounds in Cahokia plus the palisade (an imposing reconstruction of the actual thing) and "woodhenge" just add to the mystique of the place. Supposedly cities like that (albeit smaller) were common near many major urban areas in the Southeast/Midwest (since Indians were drawn to the same shit as the white man), but since 19th century urban development bulldozed them we don't know shit about them, we can only assume they were big from the number of bodies/artifacts we find and nearby less developed sites.

I also really like a lot of "northern" sort of cultures, for lack of a better word. Basically cultures which evolved in temperate/subarctic forests and worked mainly in wood. Ancient Germanic, Slavic, and Finnish art and architecture is beautiful, especially that somewhat inauthentic style if you search "Slavic pagan art" which looks like it belongs on a folk metal album cover. They possessed an incredible skill at wooden architecture, like Kizhi Island in Karelia or the stave churches in Norway (ironically I have to thank Varg Vikernes for introducing me as a teenager to the stave churches via his famous arson of the Fantoft church). Elsewhere you have the Tuvans and Buryats and Sakha in Siberia, the Ainu in Japan, and various indigenous groups like those in the Pacific Northwest.

That Indian ("First Nations") architecture and art is very well attested and made some very nice wooden halls and other art. Totem poles of course are very interesting as an art form but these Indians applied similar form to their longhouses and the palaces of their nobles and carved and painted nice murals into everything. Makes me wonder if other northern Indians like the Algonquian-speaking peoples had anything that impressive except they died out/were pushed into nothingness before outsiders recorded it (although their relatives the Yurok and Wiyot in California were pretty cool in terms of architecture). Even the simple plank houses of a lot of Indians in the area look pretty cool and I wouldn't mind living in one. And makes me sad that native peoples in similar environments like the Southern Cone and Tasmania were too "primitive" (I don't know a more politically correct term to distinguish between those people and the more complex Indians of the Pacific Northwest) to make interesting art like that or the South Island Maori who seemed to have arrived too recently to really hone their art form in their unique environment (since the Maori were just tropical Polynesians and not the final (well, final before the white man conquered them) development of people who lived for millennia in their environment). Although it may be that the relevant governments aren't promoting their indigenous culture well enough so it ends up hard to find interesting shit about them.

Also Persia. It's unpopular to like them because American propaganda against Iran (on behalf of modern Iran's rivals Saudi Arabia and because modern Iran is ruled by fundie assholes) and because "muh 300 Spartans saved Western civilization!" but they're a pretty badass civilization. They ended Mesopotamian civilization (remember the Book of Daniel in the Bible with the Babylonians and the "writing on the wall?") and usurped its culture (they assumed classic Sumerian and Akkadian rulership titles), and Cyrus the Great became worshipped by Jews as the Messiah. The Achaemenids then rolled over the known world and took much of Central Asia and conquered Egypt and pushed into Greece where overextended they finally were defeated. Even though Alexander destroyed their empire, their influences permeated the Seleucid and later Parthian Empire before finally being restored by the Sassanids. The Sassanids codified Persian culture, including their religion Zoroastrianism, which occurred in both the state-supported monotheistic form and popular varieties akin to traditional Iranian religion, akin to Hinduism in India as well Indo-European religion in general. The fire temples nowadays are impressive architecturally yet must be a pale re-creation of historical temples. Influenced by outsiders, many religions appeared in their empire like Christianity (the Church of the East, in opposition to other Christian churches), Manichaeism (Gnostic shit which fused with Buddhism and Christianity to spread around the world yet wound up forgotten by history), and other Gnostic faiths like Mandaeism.

Even though the Caliphate destroyed the Persians and eclipsed their culture for centuries, destroying Zoroastrianism and indigenous Persian faith except in certain communities and stripping out the soul of traditional Persian culture (ever hear of a "Shiraz" or "Syrah" wine and wonder why its called that--it's named for an old Persian wine which is now extinct thanks to Islam), Persian culture survived, the Shahnameh and its stories of Ancient Persia became popular, and Persian culture spread to most Muslim realms, in art/architecture, language, etc.--the Seljuks and Ottomans were extremely influenced by this, and so were the Mughals and many other Muslim states historically. The Safavids were a premier power of their day, Nader Shah of the Afsharids was the Muslim Napoleon who kicked the shit out of the Ottomans and Mughal India and terrified the Russians, and the Qajars fought the Russians well before their ultimate defeat and effective partition between them and the British (who stole their oil). Reza Shah Pahlavi became shah and attempted to modernize Persia and restore their pride against Westerners yet his son went too far into the arms of the Americans and provoked the Shia clergy who often had held back Persia in decades past.

It's shameful the West supports Saudi Arabia over Iran--both countries as they are now are evil but at least modern Iran has a grand legacy behind them. I've met a few Persians and they love their ancient past and think Zoroastrianism is cool like Westerners often think Norse and Celtic shit is cool. Yoshiki Tanaka, best known for his Legend of Galactic Heroes novels, also wrote Heroic Legend of Arslan which has a huge Perso-Arabic theme (especially the Shahnameh) which they adapted into two anime series over the years, the first which is trippy as fuck and the second which is like the anime version of the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings films with its over-the-top style. The Persian language sounds great too, and I like the Sassanid era scripts like Pahlavi and Avestan they used to write it. Maybe we'd have been better off if the Persians conquered Europe and became the basis of "Western" civilization. Their food is seriously tasty, a perfect mix of Turkish/Mediterranean, Arabic, Egyptian, and (North) Indian dishes. Persaboos need to happen, and Persaboos need to overthrow the Ayatollahs and create Iran as it deserves to be (and promptly destroy the asshole sheikhs and sultans in Arabia).

 

[Syaoran Li]

Classical Greece and Ancient Rome are favorites of mine (and yes, I am including Byzantium in this as well)

Also a huge fan of the Russian Empire, medieval England, Imperial Japan and Sengoku/Edo Period Japan, and Italy in general.

 

[Kaiser Wilhelm's Ghost]

This is a hard one for me. I find classical cultures more interesting than modern, just for the fact there is a lot of undiscovered history there.

Modern Cultures

• British & European Colonial culture
• Medieval Europeans
• The Islamic Golden Age

Ancient Cultures

• Mesopotamia
• Egyptians
• Indus Valley
• Greeks
• Romans
• Japan
• Israel
• Pre-Mayan & Aztec
• Amerindian, especially the Iroquois Federation

 

[L50LasPak]

Slaver societies in general fascinate me because of the fact that slavery is an idea, not a biological fact. Every society that maintained a large population of slaves had numerous psychological and social practices to uphold the institution of slavery. It blows my mind that any society survived with slaves that outnumbered the masters. On top of that, it was usually the norm.

It certainly casts the modern discussion of "oppression" into a different light. These societies were undoubtedly oppressive, but they also excelled at being powerfully coercive. There wasn't just the threat of violence or belittlement present, but also the opportunity to rise above your fellow slaves if you cooperate enough with the masters. And quite a few slaves throughout history lived absolutely luxorious lives by maneuvering thier way to the top and gaining the master's favor.

While modern societies don't have literal slavery anymore, I don't think this psychology has gone away completely. Influential people learn that kind of manipulation because it still works. You can have shittiest boss at the worst job and still your brain gives you that little hit of dopamine when said boss gives you a genuine compliment. Some of this stuff almost borders on mind control, its terrifying.

 

[Underestimated Nutria]

Interesting read! I hardly know anything about Africa in the period preceding prolonged contact with Europeans apart from the one extremely wealthy West-African ruler and the Arab slave trade in Africa. I did read McNeill & McNeills book "The Human Web" which covers European and African interaction and it's extremely interesting to read how guns and horses from Europe drove African chiefdoms to expand in order to get more POWs to sell to the Europeans. Ver archivo adjunto 992971

Two books I've read recently are The Washing of the Spears (Donald Morris) and Frontiers (Noel Mostert). Both really good on South African history. I recommend them highly, both are available at Library Genesis. Incidentally, the second book mentions the common belief (myth?) that Bushmen have "erect" (as in at 90 degrees, not actually engorged) penises at rest ("penis rectus"). This is of course a question requiring resolution, so now I've moved on from South African history to the anatomy of the penis, naturally.

 

[mindlessobserver]

I really have no idea what you mean by this. Sub-Saharan Africa was the center of learning in the world during the medieval period. The university at Timbuktu was the best at the time and the library the biggest since Alexandria. They haven't exactly reverted to that so I'm really not sure what you mean?

Now this is not true at all. Timbuktu was certainly nothing to sneeze at, but to argue it was on par with Baghdad, Cordoba, Paris, or Constantinople during the medieval period is ridiculous. They built up a good body of Islamic scholarship, but most of the stuff in the great library was brought from the other aforementioned centers of learning as trade goods for Salt. The extreme lack of humidity in the city meant that they were preserved better then other places so more survived to the modern era. There was also no real "university" like you had in Paris. The "library" was actually a vast array of books held privately. Much of the scholarship of the modern library involved finding them all in peoples attics and basements.

 

[millais]

Interesting read! I hardly know anything about Africa in the period preceding prolonged contact with Europeans apart from the one extremely wealthy West-African ruler and the Arab slave trade in Africa. I did read McNeill & McNeills book "The Human Web" which covers European and African interaction and it's extremely interesting to read how guns and horses from Europe drove African chiefdoms to expand in order to get more POWs to sell to the Europeans. Ver archivo adjunto 992971

The book is called "African Cities and Towns before the European Conquest". It was written in the 1970s, so for all I know it may have been totally debunked by more recent scholarship.

It's a weird read in that it's structured like a rather detailed academic text, while also trying to cover the entire breadth of pre-colonial African urban development, both in terms of geographical/cultural scope and historical scope. So most of the book was not of much captivating interest to me, since I don't have much extensive prior knowledge of the pre-colonial African "cities". I only have a decent grasp of the Southern African stuff because I like reading about the Boer-Afrikaner history, and the various warlike Bantu tribes of Southern Africa (Zulu, Matabele, Basuto, Swazis, etc) are like their equivalent of the Plains Indians in the American Western mythology.

For the rest of Africa, I really only recognize the names of the cities and towns from the various European colonial campaigns that brought them into the colonial fold.

But very funny, the author had to craftily devise a very specific and oddly worded definition of "urban center" and "city" in order to come up with enough African examples to flesh out the book. With the exception of the proper cities in coastal West Africa, the Sahara, and coastal East Africa, all the other "cities" are basically just overgrown family/clan compounds or military encampments or religious centers. It seems like a real stretch to me to compare them to the Medieval European, Far Eastern, Arab, and South Asian cities that existed at the same time as these "great" African civilizations in the Subsaharan interior.

 

[Stoneheart]

It seems like a real stretch to me to compare them to the Medieval European, Far Eastern, Arab, and South Asian cities that existed at the same time as these "great" African civilizations in the Subsaharan interior.

there are more medieval towns in a 50 mile radius of my location than there ever were in Subsaharan Africa. and im not giving away my location with that, most locations in Europe are like that.
there are also more ancient towns in germany than medieval towns in subsaharan africa.
same goes for prehistoric towns...

 

[Where Do You Find Them?]

but to argue it was on par with Baghdad, Cordoba, Paris, or Constantinople during the medieval period is ridiculous.

In about the 14th-16th century it was ahead of those places. Baghdad had long since declined, it's golden era being closer to the 10th century. Cordoba and Paris were arguably better at the beginning of the 14th century but shortly afterwards the black plague came along. Constantinople was another case of already having declined.

most of the stuff in the great library was brought from the other aforementioned centers of learning as trade goods for Salt.

That's how that works. No culture writes it all themselves. Those other centers of learning got most of their knowledge from somewhere else as well. That's what I mean by the thread of learning winding through history.

Also, maybe I'm misreading this, but it sounds like you're suggesting they'd be trading books in exchange for salt. They would import salt, not export it. Their main export was gold. Their willingness to buy salt at high prices is what convinced traders to go so far out of their way, bringing a few books with them as traders always did, which was a deliberate move on their part.

There was also no real "university" like you had in Paris.

It was 3 buildings rather than one but if you're complaining that they were also mosques I don't know what to tell you. The university in Paris wasn't a secular building either, it was heavily associated with the church. Nothing, especially education, was secular at the time.

The "library" was actually a vast array of books held privately.

That was the norm for the time. It doesn't make a difference, the books were made available to students.

Don't get me wrong Timbuktu wasn't the best and greatest all the way through a millennia long period but at the beginning of the colonial era, which is what we were talking about, they were the best in the world.

With the exception of the proper cities in coastal West Africa, the Sahara, and coastal East Africa, all the other "cities" are basically just overgrown family/clan compounds or military encampments or religious centers.

Those sorts of exceptions were most of the cities in Europe at the time as well. For instance, England had 3 cities with a population greater than 5000 people in the 14th century. For comparison Timbuktu had a population of 100,000 in the 15th century. It wasn't logistically possible to do anything else. If it wasn't a center of trade you couldn't feed a city.

there are more medieval towns in a 50 mile radius of my location than there ever were in Subsaharan Africa. and im not giving away my location with that, most locations in Europe are like that.

99% of those towns weren't towns in medieval times, they were hamlets or villages. They've since grown to be towns unlike the ones in Africa. Don't get me wrong, Europe in the 14th century was, on average, far more developed than Africa, but not to the "more development in a 50 mile radius than all of Africa" levels that's implied here.

 

[L50LasPak]

But very funny, the author had to craftily devise a very specific and oddly worded definition of "urban center" and "city" in order to come up with enough African examples to flesh out the book. With the exception of the proper cities in coastal West Africa, the Sahara, and coastal East Africa, all the other "cities" are basically just overgrown family/clan compounds or military encampments or religious centers. It seems like a real stretch to me to compare them to the Medieval European, Far Eastern, Arab, and South Asian cities that existed at the same time as these "great" African civilizations in the Subsaharan interior.

there are more medieval towns in a 50 mile radius of my location than there ever were in Subsaharan Africa. and im not giving away my location with that, most locations in Europe are like that.
there are also more ancient towns in germany than medieval towns in subsaharan africa.
same goes for prehistoric towns...

The current theory, if I recall correctly, is that African societies learned to deliberately spread out as much as possible due to the threat of Africa's horrifically deadly diseases. Cities historically have always been a magnent for disease, but its worse in Africa because of the native diseases. Generally this explains a lot of the reasons why Africa is such a wreck in the first place. Its where humans evolved, so its the best equipped at killing us.

Incidentally, this is also why the African slave trade was such a big deal. Africans were more resistant to both European and tropical diseases, while the enslaved New World populations were dropping dead from them by the score.

 

[Marissa Moira]

I always enjoyed reading up on the history of the Mongol Empire.

Eh honestly all the first person accounts about the mongols are heavily slanted. Probably the first historical instance of yellow journalism.

 

[Stoneheart]

99% of those towns weren't towns in medieval times, they were hamlets or villages. They've since grown to be towns unlike the ones in Africa. Don't get me wrong, Europe in the 14th century was, on average, far more developed than Africa, but not to the "more development in a 50 mile radius than all of Africa" levels that's implied here.

a hamlet are a couple of houses and a village is a church with a couple more houses around it. im talking about towns with alot of infrastructure, like walls, markets, government buildings.
in the 14s century northern germany and the surroundings were dominated by about 200 towns, alot of them democratic and filthy rich.
Italy wasnt much different, you cant walk for a hour without stumbling onto some old town.

 

[whatever I feel like]

I wouldn't want to live in any of them (Incas okay, I guess?) but pre-contact Indian societies like the Incans, Aztecs, Mayans, Mound Builders, etc. fascinate me. Especially the Mound Builders, perhaps just because we live on what was once their land but only have the briefest records of contact between them and the Spanish- they fascinate me. Granted, as said at the start, I definitely wouldn't have wanted to live in a Mound Builder community, their life sounded like hell, but its interesting. An unhealthy life with only grain for sustenance (and a little hunting/fishing/clamming) and ritualistic human sacrifices. Is it any wonder their society disintegrated with people voluntarily choosing to go off and live in the woods instead? If any of you ever get the chance to go and visit Cahokia, do it, its well worth the trip.

 

[Inflatable Julay]

I'm legit interested in Nazi Germany but good luck finding a book about it that doesn't have a huge ass swastika on the cover that makes you look like an asshole when you read it

 

[mindlessobserver]

In about the 14th-16th century it was ahead of those places. Baghdad had long since declined, it's golden era being closer to the 10th century. Cordoba and Paris were arguably better at the beginning of the 14th century but shortly afterwards the black plague came along. Constantinople was another case of already having declined.

Who taught you that load of nonsense? Timbuktu is notable sure, especially considering where it was but to say that in the 14th and 15th century it was "ahead" of Constantinople, Paris and Cordoba is mental. Yeah they had a lot of Gold but they literally dug it out of the ground. It was hardly a litmus for its actual economic, scholarly and cultural importance. Both of which were limited to contemporary Christian and Islamic writing about some semi mythical town with lots of gold.

That's how that works. No culture writes it all themselves. Those other centers of learning got most of their knowledge from somewhere else as well. That's what I mean by the thread of learning winding through history.

And Timbuktu is notable for producing very little. They were impressive archivists, aided by the aforementioned low humidity that preserved things, but the larger impacts of what little was produced domestically was essentially zero.

Also, maybe I'm misreading this, but it sounds like you're suggesting they'd be trading books in exchange for salt. They would import salt, not export it. Their main export was gold. Their willingness to buy salt at high prices is what convinced traders to go so far out of their way, bringing a few books with them as traders always did, which was a deliberate move on their part.

Salt and Gold were the primary export commodities of the sub saharan towns connected to trade routes to the meditteranean.

It was 3 buildings rather than one but if you're complaining that they were also mosques I don't know what to tell you. The university in Paris wasn't a secular building either, it was heavily associated with the church. Nothing, especially education, was secular at the time.

The University of Paris was concerned with other things besides religious scholarship. The timbuktu mosques were only concerned with religious and philosophical pursuits. Calling them madrassas or seminaries would be more accurate. There was no broad discipline, which is required to be a University.

That was the norm for the time. It doesn't make a difference, the books were made available to students.

Don't get me wrong Timbuktu wasn't the best and greatest all the way through a millennia long period but at the beginning of the colonial era, which is what we were talking about, they were the best in the world.

At the beginning of Colonial Era the most important cities in the world were Venice, Paris, Goa, Istanbul and Nanjing. Timbuktu was a cultural and economic backwater that people occasionally visited for Gold and Salt to take back to more important places. It was very cut off from the outside world by the Sahara desert and much of its modern reputation stems from hyperbolic contemporary accounts by scholars who never actually went there and also though there were dragons west of Iceland.

Those sorts of exceptions were most of the cities in Europe at the time as well. For instance, England had 3 cities with a population greater than 5000 people in the 14th century. For comparison Timbuktu had a population of 100,000 in the 15th century. It wasn't logistically possible to do anything else. If it wasn't a center of trade you couldn't feed a city.

Timbuktus population was not 100,000 in the 15th century. Again hyperbole by people who had never been and were guessing based on the population of other similarily "important" cities they had visited or were more familiar with.It was most likely closer to 10 to 20 thousand with the population increasing and decreasing based on the arrival of trade caravans and nomadic tribesmen.

99% of those towns weren't towns in medieval times, they were hamlets or villages. They've since grown to be towns unlike the ones in Africa. Don't get me wrong, Europe in the 14th century was, on average, far more developed than Africa, but not to the "more development in a 50 mile radius than all of Africa" levels that's implied here.

Europe was not "on average" more developed then Africa unless "on average" means the hawaiian islands are "on average" more developed then the svalbard islands.

 

[Alex Krycek]

I have a really strong fascination with a lot of civilizations but the one that I can easily say is the strongest would be the Manchu and Qing Dynasty. To me they sort of represent Siberians that were hardly cultured becoming among the most cultured people on Earth and through the Banner System still retaining their warrior spirit for centuries. Really is a shame their language is so far in decline and that only 10 Million or so people identify as Manchu, since the culture really is very impressive.

 

[millais]

I have a really strong fascination with a lot of civilizations but the one that I can easily say is the strongest would be the Manchu and Qing Dynasty. To me they sort of represent Siberians that were hardly cultured becoming among the most cultured people on Earth and through the Banner System still retaining their warrior spirit for centuries. Really is a shame their language is so far in decline and that only 10 Million or so people identify as Manchu, since the culture really is very impressive.

I don't know about in the earlier centuries of the dynasty, but by the latter half of the 19th century, the Banner system was not really constituting a real standing army or functional warrior class any more. They just became like a hereditary mid-tier social caste, below the Manchu nobility.

 

[Where Do You Find Them?]

Who taught you that load of nonsense?

Please read some history instead of making things up. I'm not gonna waste my time going through each point and finding sources that refute it. I'll do one that the population was closer to 100,000 than 20,000:

http://africa.ufl.edu/files/Irohin2005.pdf

Here's two more that give the number attending the universities in the city as 25,000. Higher than the amount you've given for the total population.

https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10125/100472/1/Rasmussen_Valancy_r.pdf

https://www.mcser.org/journal/index.php/mjss/article/download/1359/1387