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Summary chapter 1 heavens obscured (vragen en woorden)
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- Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB)
chapter 1 heavens obscured (vragen en woorden)
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Chapter 1: heavens obscuredQuestions
The Kaurava and Pandava: Dhritarashtra (king of Kaurava) had been warned for this carnage against
the Pandava. The gods had counselled him to negotiate a truce and share his territory with his rivals.
But the monarch underestimated the threat of war, the resentment between the Kauravas and the
enemy Pandava tribe, and the boundless ambitions of his own son. Thus concludes the
Mahabharata: the power brokers have overruled the voices of peace and evil has prevailed over
good.
The Mahabharata is one of the oldest known works of literature to address the struggle between
the ideal of peace and the reality of war (North India in around 1000 bce). Although the actual
conflicts from that era were fought between tiny kingdoms, and with relatively rudimentary
weapons, it is no surprise that war in the Mahabharata appears as a form of universal deluge, as
mass destruction. Even spears and arrows, clubs and axes, can wipe out entire communities, raze
farms and settlements. The Mahabharata is not unique.
Mental map: the world can be divided into two main geopolitical complexes: the Eastern
Hemisphere, comprising Africa, Asia, and Europe; and the Western Hemisphere, consisting of the
Americas. These two hemispheres can be regarded as discrete entities until the establishment of
permanent long- distance maritime trade routes between them at the beginning of the sixteenth
century ce.
The ‘fertile crescent’ of Mesopotamia: the North China Plain and the Indo-Gangetic Plain -> fertile
grounds and breeding ground of power
To coalesce: Family clans were the main social unit. Sometimes they coalesced into tribes – in
defence of land and other natural resources for instance – but even the very largest cities had fewer
than 100,000 inhabitants.
Natural barriers: such as mountains, and natural junctures, such as plains and valleys.
1. What was the most common outlook of the world around 1000 BCE? What is the natural state
of relations among small political units? Compare the arguments
Peace: Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau says that primitive people had to work
together to have a great possible benefit. Rousseau's theory has been confirmed by modern
anthropologists, who argue that indigenous peoples are generally less likely to fight than those from
more developed societies precisely because the strength of the whole group together is required to
survive in the natural environment. Human life is also more precious. The loss of an able-bodied man
means there are fewer hands to help hunt, work the land. The more tribes are separated from each
other, the less contact there is and therefore less chance of conflict. This is certainly the case in
environments where there is no real scarcity, but where it simply takes a long time to forage and track
game, and where it is difficult to pot up food. We know that traditional societies have a clear
understanding of boundaries and use rituals and gifts to prevent conflict and strengthen good
relationships. Friendship between tribes is developed through marriage.
War: Even the most remote tribes live in bloody conflict today. Archaeological evidence for pre-Iron Age
tribal diplomacy is scant. We know from excavations that goods were exchanged; and markings indicate
an attempt to demarcate territory. But the fact that the pre-Iron Age archaeological layers are littered
with flints, axes, daggers, and shattered skulls, suggests that these peoples did not escape the fear of
war. For example, the carvings of Tanumshede in Sweden depict a man peacefully working his land. But
beside him, men swing spears, crush heads, and attack ships with battering rams; nearby, a woman
mourns a corpse or in 2006 archaeologists discovered an even older mass grave near Frankfurt. It
contained the remains of at least twenty-six people, victims of torture. Archaeologists and historians
generally believe wars were caused by things like theft of livestock or crops, competition for water and
other natural resources, rivalries for leadership and status.
, 2. What was the importance of fertile plains for political organization?
By the beginning of the first millennium bce, they had known well over a thousand years of
uninterrupted development in agriculture, of high population density, complex social and administrative
structures, and political unity of some sort. Numerous smaller kingdoms existed in the North China and
Indo- Gangetic Plains. Fertile plains is also one element of the holy trinity of natural resources. The
world’s political map was fundamentally determined by how generously geography had distributed a
holy trinity of natural resources: water, fertile soil, and a temperate climate. In places where all three
were bountiful, ploughs, shovels, and bare hands slowly pushed the frontier of civilization forward:
villages evolved into cities, cities into kingdoms, and kingdoms into empires. The earliest imperial powers
were the civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia.
Lapis lazuli: A city near by the Amu Darya (Oxus River) was part of a trade network that reached as
far as the Persian Gulf and brought great wealth to the city by exporting lapis lazuli from its only
known source in the ancient world. But despite these trading ties, their city was well fortified.
When archaeologists excavated, they found a vast rectangular clay wall, within which broad
concentric rings of buildings surrounded the circular citadel where the inhabitants placed their gods
and hoarded their grain. Similar walled trading cities is for example Mycenae, the citadel that looms
over a wide valley in the Greek Peloponnese. It was almost entirely built from colossal stones, and
visitors entered it via the famous Lion Gate. Mycenae was part of the world described by the great
poet Homer and characterized by anarchy.
The Trojan War: In Homers (we don’t know of he did exist) his Iliad (Homers book), an epic that
takes place against the backdrop of the Trojan War, he presents numerous kingdoms, all ruled from
walled cities, and in almost perpetual competition for wealth, power, and honour. Their kings were
called wanakes, which it is thought originally meant ‘bringers of spoils’. The story of Helen, the most
beautiful woman in Greece, introduces an important element in early interstate relations; the use of
marriages to establish and strengthen diplomatic partnerships. The Iliad gives a glimpse of the role
of messengers, who race back and forth between cities, and of treaties and alliances based on oaths.
3. What does Ugarit teach us about the state of international relations? What does ‘balancing’
mean?
The archives of the small but wealthy kingdom of Ugarit. From the ruins of this walled city, located in
present- day Syria, archaeologists have recovered hundreds of clay tablets. These record not only how
its inhabitants made their fortunes from agriculture, crafts, and trade, but also how its rulers conducted
diplomatic relations. Squeezed between the powerful states of Egypt and Mesopotamia, Ugarit tried to
gain influence by controlling trade in the Levant: a first wave of merchants would be followed by soldiers
and conquest. Ugarit also formed alliances with similar neighbouring states, in order to counter balance
the great powers: solemn oaths were sworn, sumptuous gifts exchanged, and envoys called akero
(angels). One tablet from around 1200 describes how Ugarit worked with its allies to strangle the
economy of Assyria, the leading power in Mesopotamia at that time. This was economic warfare avant la
lettre. But even shrewd diplomacy could not save Ugarit from disaster in the end. During the early years
of the twelfth century mysterious invaders – referred to by later historians as ‘the Sea Peoples’ –
wrought havoc across the Eastern Mediterranean. When they reached the Levant, they sacked one city
after another. The ruined city was left forsaken by its inhabitants; the kingdom of Ugarit was never
revived. These were the Dark Ages of the Eastern Mediterranean, the beginning of the Bronze Age
Collapse.
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