"...foreigners, English, Flemish, German, French, Iberian, Italian, Turkish, Arabic, Russian, Mongol, half the world poured through New Rome." (p. 26)
How often have we read that about busy ports in Poul Anderson's works?
Constantinople is "New Rome." Rome was New Troy. There is a Nova Roma on Aeneas in the Technic History.
Civilization has lasted for just a few millennia and (hopefully) will endure for many more.
10 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Off the top of my mind I would guess agriculture and the first beginnings of true cities began around 4000 BC. Not very long, I agree, compared to how OLD the Earth is.
And we should already have had cities and towns on the Moon and Mars by now!!!
Ad astra!
Paul and Sean:
Jericho dates from at least 8000 BCE. Çatalhöyük is almost as old.
David,
That old? Are you sure?
Paul.
A settlement rather than a city?
Kaor, DAVID and Paul!
David: Thanks! I should have remembered how OLD Jericho was. I had a somewhat vague feeling that TOWNS, if not true cities, were older than 4000 BC.
Paul: But Jericho could have been at least a town of, say, a thousand or so persons more than six thousand years ago. If there were towns in 8000 BC, that implies agriculture had been invented by then.
Ad astra! Sean
Paul:
I suppose it depends on definitions of what size makes up a "city," as well as how much credence you give the information sources. I based my initial post on Isaac Asimov's Chronology of the World, published in 1991, so that's by-now-dated information (and never the most in-depth; it was an overview, after all). But all the sources I recall seeing — agriculture and the cities of that region were never my tightest focus — indicated that Jericho counted as a city seven millennia or more ago.
Another science-popularization, Larry Gonick's Cartoon History of the Universe (Volumes 1-7 compiled in 1990), stated that in Jericho, "8,000 years ago, travelers and their goods were protected by a high city wall and housed in what looks like the world's first hotel." Gonick cites as his reference The First Cities by Dora Jane Hamblin, published in 1973 as Book 7 of the Time Life series The Emergence of Man.
Wikipedia, for whatever it's worth, pushes the start of agriculture — planting and cultivating, not just harvesting — back to about 11,500 years ago.
Wikipedia again:
"The site [of Jericho] is a 40,000 square metres (430,000 sq ft) settlement surrounded by a massive stone wall over 3.6 metres (12 ft) high and 1.8 metres (5 ft 11 in) wide at the base, inside of which stood a stone tower, over 8.5 metres (28 ft) high.... [C]arbon dates published in 1981 and 1983 indicate that [the tower] was built around 8300 BCE and stayed in use until c. 7800 BCE. The wall and tower would have taken a hundred men more than a hundred days to construct, thus suggesting some kind of social organization.... The identity and number of the inhabitants of Jericho during [this] period is still under debate, with estimates going as high as 2,000–3,000, and as low as 200–300."
Wikipedia also suggests the wall may have been meant as a defense against floodwaters, and the tower served a ceremonial purpose. No reference there to the "hotel" Gonick and presumably Hamblin mentioned.
I doubt it was "ceremonial". If someone builds a tower and a wall, it's against human enemies. Some archaeologists systematically underestimate conflict for ideological reasons.
Then something like the Tollense battlefield comes up -- proving that there was a battle as big as Hastings with participants from all over central Europe -- in 1250 BCE in northeastern Germany, and they're left with egg on their face.
The same thing happened with Otzi the Iceman; he was supposed to have lost his way, until detailed examination showed he'd been shot in the back with an arrow.
Kaor to All!
And I agree with Mr. Stirling! I don't think anyone would build a massive city wall and tower of the kind Jericho had before 8000 BC for merely "ceremonial" purposes. No, the people of Jericho had enemies and built that wall and tower as defenses against those enemies.
I have heard of Otzi the Ice Man as well. And of how he had been killed. Most likely by either bandits or personal enemies who hunted him down to be killed.
Ad astra! Sean
Pre-State societies usually have very high levels of personal violence: no big wars (not enough organization) but continual lower-level stuff, so that the typical way for an adult male to die is at the hands of other human beings. A lot of forensic archaeology, if given statistical analysis, supports this.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Human beings what they are, I am not in the least surprised! And high crime/high violence cities like Chicago and Baltimore in the US reminds me of the phenomenon you described.
Ad astra! Sean
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