The Rise of Civilizations Concerning Vedic Knowledge

By HENRY ROMANO

Between 3300 and 2900 BC, archaeologists believe that civilization (the rise of Sumeria, the Indus Valley Civilization, and Egypt) marked the beginning of complex cities. The Neolithic Revolution, when agriculture, animal domestication, pottery, and the plow came together, seems not to hold together, as we explored in the final chapter of descending Treta Yuga. There had already been millennia of critical discoveries and developments.

Why then the abrupt shift to city living, stratified societies, and overproduction of food and other goods for trade or export? Archaeologists believe that man could finally do these things — that he was using recent inventions to an additional advantage. Our study of the yugas tells us that man suddenly wanted to do these things that he was using innovations known for millennia in new ways to suit his new motivation.

Several large cities existed before descending Dwapara Yuga, but a new breed of city sprang up with Dwapara Yuga. These were larger and more complex and built around commerce. Many had shared granaries, artisans' districts, and marketplaces and were typically made on trade routes along rivers and coasts.

We also see these cities' first significant division of labor and societal stratification. Artisans, scribes, and traders all became increasingly common occupations. Furthermore, there was, of course, the tax collector. As a result, governments began levying taxes on commerce, as they had already levied tariffs on agriculture.

Sumeria and the city of Eridu are credited with being the first of the trend. Urdu is believed to have risen along the banks of the Euphrates River around 3300 BC. The famous city of Ur and dozens of others sprang up in the Tigris and Euphrates Valleys over the next 300–400 years, and Babylon was not far behind.

• Language: English
• Publisher: DTTV PUBLICATIONS
• Release date: Aug 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201405991

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HENRY ROMANO

Cities and commerce : the rise of cities

Between 3300 and 2900 BC, archaeologists believe that civilization (the rise of Sumeria, the Indus Valley Civilization, and Egypt) marked the beginning of complex cities. The Neolithic Revolution, when agriculture, animal domestication, pottery, and the plow came together, seems not to hold together, as we explored in the final chapter of descending Treta Yuga. There had already been millennia of critical discoveries and developments.

Why then the abrupt shift to city living, stratified societies, and overproduction of food and other goods for trade or export? Archaeologists believe that man could finally do these things — that he was using recent inventions to an additional advantage. Our study of the yugas tells us that man suddenly wanted to do these things that he was using innovations known for millennia in new ways to suit his new motivation.

Several large cities existed before descending Dwapara Yuga, but a new breed of city sprang up with Dwapara Yuga. These were larger and more complex and built around commerce. Many had shared granaries, artisans' districts, and marketplaces and were typically made on trade routes along rivers and coasts.

We also see these cities' first significant division of labor and societal stratification. Artisans, scribes, and traders all became increasingly common occupations. Furthermore, there was, of course, the tax collector. As a result, governments began levying taxes on commerce, as they had already levied tariffs on agriculture.

Sumeria and the city of Eridu are credited with being the first of the trend. Urdu is believed to have risen along the banks of the Euphrates River around 3300 BC. The famous city of Ur and dozens of others sprang up in the Tigris and Euphrates Valleys over the next 300–400 years, and Babylon was not far behind.

The rise of the Indus Valley Civilization, whose principal cities include Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, also began about 3300 BC; as in Sumeria, dozens of more cities soon sprang up along the Indus River, a trading region of over 100,000 square miles.

After Menes, the first ruler of Egypt's First Dynasty, united Upper and Lower Egypt in 3100 BC, cities such as Memphis and Abydos quickly grew along the Nile. Next, the first cities of the Minoan civilization of Crete began sometime around 3200 BC. Finally, the ancient city of Troy on the coast of the Anatolian Peninsula began in approximately 3000 BC.Nor was the sudden growth of cities confined to the Near East and Indus Valley. Some of the first recognized cities of China, such as Ningbo and Chang'an, came into prominence from 3000 to 2000 BC. We even find the trend across the ocean in South America. On the Pacific coast of what is now Peru, the city of Caral began about 3000 BC. Caral was the principal among many other trading cities of the Norte Chico civilization.

Commerce shaped the societal development and structure of these ancient cities. Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro, and other Indus Valley Civilization cities had a typical building style. Hundreds of buildings, especially those nearest the city centers, built living quarters over shops along the principal streets. The personal seal is one of the most distinctive artifacts in the Indus Valley Civilization. Tens of thousands of cylindrical seals have been found in Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro alone. The seals were rolled over clay or wax to distinguish marking and sealing the goods. Judging by the sheer quantity of seals found in Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, trade was not limited to a few merchants or rulers. Many seals suggest that the average citizen could, and did, engage in business. At its peak, roughly 2600 BC, the Indus Valley Civilization had spread to Northern India, Afghanistan, and Iran and covered over a million square miles.

Commerce also drove the early development of writing. The Sumerian writing system, known as cuneiform and believed to be the first form of writing, developed from clay tokens initially used to represent trade goods. Cuneiform's first uses were largely accounting and record keeping. Later, it developed into a general-purpose writing system called the Indus script or Harappan script. Is it a collection of the symbols taken from the thousands of commercial seals already mentioned? Many of the earliest examples of documents, clay tablets from Sumeria and hieroglyphs from Egypt, are commercial records — warehouse lists and transactions. The earliest scribes, whose specialized occupation was writing, were occupied almost exclusively with recording taxes, maintaining inventory lists, and accounting for commercial transactions.

By the middle of descending Dwapara Yuga, around 2000 BC, trade was commonplace from the Far East to the Near East. Evidence shows that many goods were traded freely across millions of square miles, encompassing thousands of cities from China to Egypt. Cities rose to power and prominence on their commercial success. By 1700 BC, Babylon was the world's largest city and, eclipsing the once-wealthy Ur, dominated trade in the Euphrates River valley.

Trade and wealth accumulation continued to dominate activity throughout descending Dwapara Yuga, but trade diminished due to war in the waning centuries. In descending Kali Yuga, the Greeks and Romans traded only with Egypt, Persia, and the Roman Empire. By the Dark Ages, approximately 500 AD to 1000 AD, civilization was at its lowest ebb, and traffic along traditional trade routes had trickled to a halt. The Silk Road to China was rarely traveled. Spices were virtually unknown in Europe. Awareness of other cultures became dim, spawning fanciful tales of giants and monsters living in other parts of the world. It was not until the fourteenth century AD and the era of Marco Polo that such trade routes as the fabled Silk Road reopened by then. The Age of the Explorers started in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; knowledge of the wider world returned. By then, the brisk trade of three thousand years had long been forgotten.

We can easily see why archaeologists and historians consider the birth of civilization in the early centuries of Dwapara Yuga. That is when people started behaving as we do now! — keeping written records, having specialized occupations, working hard to get ahead, and seeking material wealth. Sound familiar?Our age is accustomed to the steadily improving quality of life of the last several centuries. Most people assume that the farther back in time one goes, the more squalid and primitive the average person's life would have been. Such an assumption is accurate as far back as the Dark Ages. Life expectancy was noticeably short in the Dark Ages, living conditions were deplorable, and human rights were non-existent.

If we go back to descending Dwapara Yuga, living conditions are good. Ancient Egypt had courts of law, individual land ownership, legal contracts, medical treatises and physicians, cosmetics, and board games. There is little evidence of the modern conveniences we consider indispensable to a comfortable life. Still, the average descending Dwapara Yuga man appears to have enjoyed plenty to eat, good health, physical safety, personal possessions, the opportunity for wealth, and the enjoyment of personal freedom.

The Minoan culture began in approximately 3000 BC and was centered on Crete but spread to nearby islands, such as Santorini.

The women and scenes depicted in their frescos express beauty, ease, refinement, and contentment not qualities most people associate with life in the ancient past. Akrotiri, a Minoan site on the ill-fated island of Santorini, had water closets (a type of indoor toilet) and hot and cold running water the hot water provided by a nearby geothermal source. We can appreciate from the frescoes that the Minoans had a well-developed sense of beauty, could produce sophisticated clothing and jewelry, were no strangers to makeup, and that the profession of the hairdresser is very ancient.

Although the hieroglyphic style renders the human form stiffly, Queen Nefertari's (thirteenth century BC) scene playing the board game Senet suggests she did not live as stiffly as she was painted. Museums contain many other board games from Mesopotamia; chess is believed to have originated in India during descending Dwapara Yuga.

It is popularly assumed that the average person in descending Dwapara Yuga was subject to a lord or ruler as he was in the feudal system of medieval Europe. However, records of life in Egypt show that this may not have been the case. Legal documents show a system of individual ownership of the fields along the Nile. Then as today, taxes were levied on farmers and merchants. Individuals had redress in a court system based its decisions on precedents and existing laws.

Indentured servitude existed in Egypt but was voluntary. Indentured servants could own property and enter contracts independently. Many enormously influential people were indentured servants.

Hollywood not scholarship handles popular images of rulers wielding whips to drive hapless thousands of people to build the Great Pyramid. The fragments of documents, the artwork, and artifacts we have from descending Dwapara Yuga paint a unique picture. Society was ordered and civil. Individuals had rights that were respected and defended. Commerce and pursuit of wealth were the primary drivers of behavior. Health, well-being, and pleasure were quite attainable.

Recent scholarship has traced the first instance