Term Paper on "Did Ancient Civilizations States Experience More Frequency and Severity of Warfare Than Did Non-State Societies"

Term Paper 7 pages (2459 words) Sources: 1+

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Warfare in Ancient Civilizations

Warfare in ancient times is understood by records of civilizations, which often exaggerate their wins and accomplishments for purposes of bolstering an ancient civilization's perception of their king or leader. Historians and scholars often turn to ancient civilizations like the Egyptians or the Romans, where there is a wealth of writing and antiquity to be analyzed from which to gain insight and understanding into the daily lives of the ancient civilizations. As time passes, and more information is studied and compared against the still emerging body of archeological data, it is possible to better understand the state of warfare in ancient civilizations. For instance, much of the hieroglyphic writings of ancient Egypt concerns crops, religion, and daily life in ancient Egypt. There are indications from these early sources that trade was extremely important to the ancient Egyptians, and that religion was so important to the ancient Egyptians, and, indeed, the ancient world that even after the Romans had conquered Egypt, Egyptian religion even permeated Roman philosophy such that temples to the Egyptian Goddess Isis are found as far west as London (Freeman, Charles, 1999, p. 14). The Goddess Isis could not have reached the London, however, were it not for the Roman warfare that first conquered the ancient Egyptian civilization. The extent to which warfare was waged in ancient times continues to be debated, but the historical and archeological evidence has begun to reveal that when war did occur, it was on a scale that often times completely altered or transformed the civilization in which it occurred.

Ancient Egypt

The Romans were not the first warring nation to conquer ancient Egypt. By the time the Romans arrived in Egypt, there is evidence to show that the Assyrians, Persians, and Greeks had been there and conquered before them (Freeman, p. 14). The Egyptians had for centuries retained a status of power because of the trade that they represented t the rest of the world, but that changed as other nation states became focused on acquiring wealth, the natural resources that ancient Egypt possessed, over its trade significance (Freeman, p. 14). For more than twenty centuries of its history, ancient Egypt was able to ward off being conquered by other nation states, but in its latter history succumbed to the strength of foreign invasion bent on acquiring its wealth (Freeman, p. 14). There is evidence to suggest that Egypt had an influence on the societies that would eventually conquer it, and even in Roman society there is archeological evidence to suggest that it was trade with Egypt that allowed the Romans to become firmly entrenched in their own power base because they were able to feed their citizens on Egyptian grain (Freeman, p. 14). For Egypt, the Egyptians status as a trading partner changed in the second millennium with invading nation state's focus on wealth, and expansionism (Freeman, p. 16).

The earliest signs of warfare in Egypt are seen in the artwork of the Hunter's and Battlefield palettes (Freeman, p. 18). These palettes show that there was warfare in Egypt between its own people, who were scattered throughout the country, and who were not organized in a way that was conducive of supporting a nation state (Freeman, pp. 16-18).

The story of Horus and Seth seems to represent an actual struggle between Hieraconpolis, a cult centre for Horus, and Naqada, whose cult god was Seth. It was from this disorder about 3100 that a king named Narmer finally achieved unification. On the so-called Narmer palette the king is apparently shown as a southerner conquering the north, the Delta, though his enemies may well have included neighbouring peoples such as the Libyans. At some point, perhaps soon after unification, Narmer's successors established their capital at Memphis, strategically placed at the junction between the Delta and the valley (Freeman, p. 18)."

By the Fifth Dynasty, the Egyptian civilization was giving way to the forces of dissention and invasion (Freeman, p. 25). It was no longer unified, and there were independent areas of leadership and control that served as cracks in the foundation of the ancient civilization (Freeman, p. 25). The Sixth Dynasty, 2180 BC, represents a spiraling downfall of the Egyptian dynasty, but it was as much as the forces of nature that brought it down as the forces of war (Freeman, p. 26). It was, in fact, the forces of nature - lack of rainfall, poor crop production, and the crumbling of the empire under a single ruler as it devolved into regions of power and rulers contributed to the demise of the Egyptian prosperity and unification, making it susceptible to the invading forces that would follow the breakdown and loss of central authority (Freeman, p. 26).

There seems to have been a major power struggle between rulers at Heracleopolis in Middle Egypt, who claimed to be the heirs of the Memphite kings, and the rulers in the provincial capital of Thebes in Upper Egypt who managed to extend their rule as far as Nubia in the south. Some texts record a major breakdown of the social order. One document talks of a world turned upside-down, with a resulting famine, and rich and poor in upheaval. 'Gold and lapis lazuli, silver and turquoise, carnelian and bronze are hung about the necks of slave girls while noble ladies walk in despair through the land... Little children say [to their fathers] he should never have caused me to live.' (Translation: Rosalie David.) However, nothing in the archaeological record suggests social or political upheaval on this scale. The Egyptians always had a tendency to exaggerate disorder and this may have been the case here (Freeman, p. 26)."

As the Middle Kingdom rose to once again unite Egypt, the nation experienced, once again, a stable period of some 200 years before it, again, succumbed to chaos and a breakdown in internal leadership (Freeman, p. 27). However, in the Second Intermediate Period, the nation experienced invasion by Palestinian Hysos, whom the Egyptian hieroglyphics translate using the word "barbarians," to describe the invading barbarians, and refer to them as ruthless, and unrelenting in their destruction (Freeman, p. 31).

What we see, even before the ancient civilizations of Persia, Greece, and Rome invaded Egypt, is that it was a land that suffered numerous periods of internal warfare and conflict before it was finally conquered for the first time an invading state. It was the periods of decentralized control that seem to have caused Egypt to become vulnerable to invading forces.

The Mesoamerica Ancient Civilizations

Much of contemporary society's understanding of past history has just come about in the past fifty years (Lamberg-Karlovsky, CC and Sabloff, Jeremy, 1979, p.2). It is by joining the historical documents, having taken centuries to translate, and the archeological finds that bring together a more concise picture of ancient civilizations (Lamberg-Karlovsky, p. 2). Even with this information, there remain volumes of unanswered questions, the answers to which can only be speculated about at this time. While the written and archeological data of some civilizations, such as the Egyptians, have left us with a wealth of information, it still must be translated and taken into consideration as to the goals the ancients themselves had in the writings. As has been previously noted here, the ancient Egyptians had a tendency to exaggerate war wins for the benefit of the powerful.

An examination of an ancient civilizations where the writings and archeological data are not as voluminous as ancient Egypt or Rome, means that much of what is concluded form the artifacts is based on historians' and archeologists' experiences with other ancient civilizations, like Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Such is the case of Mesoamerican civilizations, which comprised specific groups of indigenous ancient American civilizations: Olmec, Classic Maya, Toltec, and Aztec peoples (Lamberg-Karlovsky and Sabloff, p. 214).

Mesoamerica, or Middle America, is a term used by archaeologists to designate a geographic area within whose borders a distinct cultural system flourished in Precolumbian times. Such well-known cultures as the Olmec, Classic Maya, Toltec, and Aztec rose, prospered, and collapsed in this archaeologically famous area (Lamberg-Karlovsky and Sabloff, p. 214)."

These ancient cultures were spread across the areas of the Sierra Madre Oriental, Sierra Madre Occidental in Mexico (Lamberg-Karlovsky and Sabloff, p. 215). Their regions were separated by large dissecting rivers connecting to either the Pacific or the Atlantic (Lamberg-Karlovsky and Sabloff, p. 215). While less is known about the Mesoamerican ancient civilizations, they have nonetheless been well investigated and explored by archeologists and historians (Lamberg-Karlovsky and Sabloff, p. 215).

Like the Egyptians, the Mesoamerican societies show affluent trade in grain and agricultural crops. It was, however, the Mayans, historians and archeologists agree, that left the most useful body of information about their culture because of their extensive artwork that has survived the centuries (Spinden, Herbert J., 1968, p. 73). The artwork is very telling of Mayan culture and society.

Archeological remains tell a history of a Mayan civilization that revolved around the stars, the seasons, and pagan… READ MORE

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