EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY

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[Illustration: MEXICAN REBUS
The Latin _Pater Noster,_ "Our Father," is written by a flag _(pan)_, a
stone _(te)_, a prickly pear _(noch)_, and another stone _(te)_.]

[Illustration: CHINESE PICTURE WRITING AND LATER CONVENTIONAL CHARACTERS]

WORDS AND SYLLABLES

In the simplest form of sound writing each separate picture or symbol
stands for the sound of an entire word. This method was employed by the
Chinese, who have never given it up. A more developed form of sound
writing occurs when signs are used for the sounds, not of entire words,
but of separate syllables. Since the number of different syllables which
the voice can utter is limited, it now becomes possible to write all the
words of a language with a few hundred signs. The Japanese, who borrowed
some of the Chinese symbols, used them to denote syllables, instead of
entire words. The Babylonians possessed, in their cuneiform [9]
characters, signs for about five hundred syllables. The prehistoric
inhabitants of Crete appear to have been acquainted with a somewhat
similar system. [10]

LETTERS

The final step in the development of writing is taken when the separate
sounds of the voice are analyzed and each is represented by a single sign
or letter. With alphabets of a few score letters every word in a language
may easily be written.

[Illustration: CRETAN WRITING
A large tablet with linear script found in the palace at Gnossus, Crete
There are eight lines of writing, with a total of about twenty words
Notice the upright lines, which appear to mark the termination of each
group of signs.]

EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHICS

The Egyptians early developed such an alphabet. Unfortunately they never
gave up their older methods of writing and learned to rely upon alphabetic
signs alone. Egyptian hieroglyphics [11] are a curious jumble of object-
pictures, symbols of ideas, and signs for entire words, separate
syllables, and letters. The writing is a museum of all the steps in the
development from the picture to the letter.

PHOENICIAN ALPHABET

As early, apparently, as the tenth century B.C. we find the Phoenicians of
western Asia in possession of an alphabet. It consisted of twenty-two
letters, each representing a consonant. The Phoenicians do not seem to
have invented their alphabetic signs. It is generally believed that they
borrowed them from the Egyptians, but recent discoveries in Crete perhaps
point to that island as the source of the Phoenician alphabet.

[Illustration: EGYPTIAN AND BABYLONIAN WRITING
Below the pictured hieroglyphics in the first line is the same text in a
simpler writing known as hieratic. The two systems, however, were not
distinct; they were as identical as our own printed and written
characters. The third line illustrates old Babylonian cuneiform, in which
the characters, like the hieroglyphics, are rude and broken-down pictures
of objects. Derived from them is the later cuneiform shown in lines four
and five.]

DIFFUSION OF THE PHOENICIAN ALPHABET

If they did not originate the alphabet now in use, the Phoenicians did
most to spread a knowledge of it in other lands. They were bold sailors
and traders who bought and sold throughout the Mediterranean. Wherever
they went, they took their alphabet. From the Phoenicians the Greeks
learned their letters. Then the Greeks taught them to the Romans, from
whom other European peoples borrowed them. [12]

[Illustration: THE MOABITE STONE, (Louvre, Paris)
Found in 1868 A.D. at Diban east of the Dead Sea. The monument records the
victory of Mesha king of Moab, over the united armies of Israel and Judah
about 850 B.C. The inscription, consisting of 34 lines is one of the most
ancient examples of Phoenician writing.]

5. PRIMITIVE SCIENCE AND ART

FOUNDATIONS OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

We have already seen that prehistoric men in their struggle for existence
had gathered an extensive fund of information. They could make useful and
artistic implements of stone. They could work many metals into a variety
of tools and weapons. They were practical botanists, able to distinguish
different plants and to cultivate them for food. They were close students
of animal life and expert hunters and fishers. They knew how to produce
fire and preserve it, how to cook, how to fashion pottery and baskets, how
to spin and weave, how to build boats and houses. After writing came into
general use, all this knowledge served as the foundation of science.

COUNTING AND MEASURING

We can still distinguish some of the first steps in scientific knowledge.
Thus, counting began with calculations on one's fingers, a method still
familiar to children. Finger counting explains the origin of the decimal
system. The simplest, and probably the earliest, measures of length are
those based on various parts of the body. Some of our Indian tribes, for
instance, employed the double arm's length, the single arm's length, the
hand width, and the finger width. Old English standards, such as the span,
the ell, and the hand, go back to this very obvious method of measuring on
the body.

CALCULATION OF TIME; THE CALENDAR

It is interesting to trace the beginnings of time reckoning and of that
most important institution, the calendar. Most primitive tribes reckon
time by the lunar month, the interval between two new moons (about twenty-
nine days, twelve hours). Twelve lunar months give us the lunar year of
about three hundred and fifty-four days. In order to adapt such a year to
the different seasons, the practice arose of inserting a thirteenth month
from time to time. Such awkward calendars were used in antiquity by the
Babylonians, Jews, and Greeks; in modern times by the Arabs and Chinese.
The Egyptians were the only people in the Old World to frame a solar year.
From the Egyptians it has come down, through the Romans, to us. [13]

[Illustration: STONEHENGE
On Salisbury Plain in the south of England: appears to date from the close
of the New Stone Age or the beginning of the Bronze Age. The outer circle
measures 300 feet in circumference; the inner circle, 106 feet. The
tallest stones reach 25 feet in height. This monument was probably a tomb,
or group of tombs, of prehistoric chieftains.]

EARLY DRAWING AND PAINTING

The study of prehistoric art takes us back to the early Stone Age. The men
of that age in western Europe lived among animals such as the mammoth,
cave bear, and woolly-haired rhinoceros, which have since disappeared, and
among many others, such as the lion and hippopotamus, which now exist only
in warmer climates. Armed with clubs, flint axes, and horn daggers,
primitive hunters killed these fierce beasts and on fragments of their
bones, or on cavern walls, drew pictures of them. Some of these earliest
works of art are remarkably lifelike.

[Illustration: HEAD OF A GIRL (Musee S. Germain, Paris)
A small head of a young girl carved from mammoth ivory. Found at
Brassempouy, France, in cave deposits belonging to the early Stone Age.
The hair is arranged somewhat after the early Egyptian fashion. Of the
features the mouth alone is wanting.]

[Illustration: PREHISTORIC ART
SKETCH OF MAMMOTH ON A TUSK FOUND IN A CAVE IN FRANCE
CAVE BEAR DRAWN ON A PEBBLE
BISON PAINTED ON THE WALL OF A CAVE
WILD HORSE ON THE WALL OF A CAVE IN SPAIN.

Later he pictured an aurochs--later he pictured a bear--
Pictured the sabre toothed tiger dragging a man to his lair--
Pictured the mountainous mammoth hairy abhorrent alone--
Out of the love that he bore them scribing them clearly on bone--
KIPLING.]

EARLY ARCHITECTURE

A still later period of the Stone Age witnessed the beginnings of
architecture. Men had begun to raise huge dolmens which are found in
various parts of the Old World from England to India. They also erected
enormous stone pillars, known as menhirs. Carved in the semblance of a
human face and figure, the menhir became a statue, perhaps the first ever
made.

As we approach historic times, we note a steady improvement in the various
forms of art. Recent discoveries in Egypt, Greece, Italy, and other lands
indicate that their early inhabitants were able architects, often building
on a colossal scale.

[Illustration: A DOLMEN
Department of Morbihan, Brittany. A dolmen was a single chambered tomb
formed by laying one long stone over several other stones set upright in
the ground. Most if not all dolmens were originally covered with earth.]

[Illustration: CARVED MENHIR
From Saint Sernin in Aveyron, a department of southern France.]

SIGNIFICANCE OF PREHISTORIC ART

Their paintings and sculptures prepared the way for the work of later
artists. Our survey of the origins of art shows us that in this field, as
elsewhere, we must start with the things accomplished by prehistoric men.

6. HISTORIC PEOPLES

RACES OF MAN

At the dawn of history the various regions of the world were already in
the possession of many different peoples. Such physical characteristics as
the shape of the skull, the features, stature, or complexion may serve to
distinguish one people from another. Other grounds for distinction are
found in language, customs beliefs, and general intelligence.

CLASSIFICATION OF RACES

If we take complexion or color as the basis of classification, it is
possible to distinguish a few large racial groups. Each of these groups
occupies, roughly speaking, its separate area of the globe. The most
familiar classification is that which recognizes the Black or Negro race
dwelling in Africa, the Yellow or Mongolian race whose home is in central
and eastern Asia, and the White or Caucasian race of western Asia and
Europe. Sometimes two additional divisions are made by including, as the
Red race, the American Indians, and as the Brown race, the natives of the
Pacific islands.

THE WHITE RACE

These separate racial groups have made very unequal progress in culture.
The peoples belonging to the Black, Red, and Brown races are still either
savages or barbarians, as were the men of prehistoric times. The Chinese
and Japanese are the only representatives of the Yellow race that have
been able to form civilized states. In the present, as in the past, it is
chiefly the members of the White race who are developing civilization and
making history.

INDO-EUROPEANS AND SEMITES

Because of differences in language, scholars have divided the White or
Caucasian race into two main groups, called Indo-Europeans and Semites.
[14] This classification is often helpful, but the student should remember
that Indo-European and Semitic peoples are not always to be sharply
distinguished because they have different types of language. There is no
very clear distinction in physical characteristics between the two groups.
A clear skin, an oval face, wavy or curly hair, and regular features
separate them from both the Negro and the Mongolian.

PRINCIPAL INDO-EUROPEAN PEOPLES

The Indo-Europeans in antiquity included the Hindus of India, the Medes
and Persians dwelling on the plateau of Iran, the Greeks and Italians, and
most of the inhabitants of central and western Europe. All these peoples
spoke related languages which are believed to be offshoots from one common
tongue. Likeness in language does not imply that all Indo-Europeans were
closely related in blood. Men often adopt a foreign tongue and pass it on
to their children.

PRINCIPAL SEMITIC PEOPLES

The various Semitic nations dwelling in western Asia and Arabia were more
closely connected with one another. They spoke much the same type of
language, and in physical traits and habits of life they appear to have
been akin. The Semites in antiquity included the Babylonians and
Assyrians, the Hebrews, Phoenicians, and Arabs.

[Illustration: RACE PORTRAITURE OF THE EGYPTIANS
Paintings on the walls of royal tombs. The Egyptians were painted red, the
Semites yellow, the Negroes black, and the Libyans white, with blue eyes
and fair beards. Each racial type is distinguished by peculiar dress and
characteristic features.]

[Illustration: Map. Distribution of SEMITIC and INDO-EUROPEAN PEOPLES]
PEOPLES OF UNCERTAIN RELATIONSHIP

At the opening of the historic period still other parts of the World were
the homes of various peoples who cannot be classed with certainty as
either Indo-Europeans or Semites. Among these were the Egyptians and some
of the inhabitants of Asia Minor. We must remember that, during the long
prehistoric ages, repeated conquests and migrations mingled the blood of
many different communities. History, in fact, deals with no unmixed
peoples.

STUDIES

1. On an outline map indicate the areas occupied in antiquity by Semites
and Indo-Europeans.

2. Find definitions for the following terms: society, nation, state,
government, institution, culture, and civilization.

3. Explain the abbreviations B.C. and A.D. In what century was the year
1917 B.C.? the year 1917 A.D.?

4. Look up the derivation of the words "paper" and "Bible."

5. Distinguish between the three stages of savagery, barbarism, and
civilization, and give examples of existing peoples in each stage.

6. Can you name any savages still living in the Stone Age?

7. What stone implements have you ever seen? Who made them? Where were
they?

8. Why should the discovery of fire be regarded as of more significance
than the discovery of steam?

9. Why has the invention of the bow-and-arrow been of greater importance
than the invention of gunpowder?

10. How does the presence of few tameable animals in the New World help to
account for its tardier development as compared with the Old World?

11. What examples of pastoral and agricultural life among the North
American Indians are familiar to you?

12. Give examples of peoples widely different in blood who nevertheless
speak the same language.

13. In the classification of mankind, where do the Arabs belong? the
Persians? the Germans? the inhabitants of the United States?

14. Enumerate the most important contributions to civilization made in
prehistoric times.

FOOTNOTES

[1] There are still some savage peoples, for instance, the Australians,
who continue to make stone implements very similar to those of prehistoric
men. Other primitive peoples, such as the natives of the Pacific islands,
passed directly from the use of stone to that of iron, after this part of
the world was opened up to European trade in the nineteenth century.

[2] Iron was unknown to the inhabitants of North America and South America
before the coming of the Europeans. The natives used many stone
implements, besides those of copper and bronze. The Indians got most of
their copper from the mines in the Lake Superior region, whence it was
carried far and wide.

[3] See the illustration, page 45.

[4] See the illustration, page 14.

[5] In the New World, the only important domestic animal was the llama of
the Andes. The natives used it as a beast of burden, ate its flesh, and
clothed themselves with its wool.

[6] The plants domesticated in the New World were not numerous. The most
important were the potato of Peru and Ecuador, Indian corn or maize,
tobacco, the tomato, and manioc. From the roots of the latter, the starch
called tapioca is derived.

[7] See page 2.

[8] See the illustration, page 14.

[9] Latin cuneus, "a wedge".

[10] See page 71.

[11] From the Greek words hieros, "holy," and glyphein, "to carve" The
Egyptians regarded their signs as sacred.

[12] Our word "alphabet" comes from the names of the first two letters of
the Greek alphabet, _alpha_ (a) and _beta_ (b).

[13] See page 186 and note 2.

[14] The Old Testament (_Genesis_, x 21-22) represents Shem (or Sem), son
of Noah, as the ancestor of the Semitic peoples. The title "Indo-
Europeans" tells us that the members of that group now dwell in India and
in Europe. Indo-European peoples are popularly called "Aryans," from a
word in Sanskrit (the old Hindu language) meaning "noble."

CHAPTER II

THE LANDS AND PEOPLES OF THE EAST TO ABOUT 600 B.C. [1]

7. PHYSICAL ASIA

GRAND DIVISIONS OF ASIA

Ancient history begins in the East--in Asia and in that part of Africa
called Egypt, which the peoples of antiquity always regarded as belonging
to Asia. If we look at a physical map of Asia, we see at once that it
consists of two very unequal divisions separated by an almost continuous
mass of mountains and deserts. These two divisions are Farther and Nearer,
or Eastern and Western, Asia.

[Illustration: Map, PHYSICAL MAP OF ASIA.]

FARTHER ASIA

Farther Asia begins at the center of the continent with a series of
elevated table-lands which rise into the lofty plateaus, known as the
"Roof of the World." Here two tremendous mountain chains diverge. The
Altai range runs out to the northeast and reaches the shores of the
Pacific near Bering Strait. The Himalaya range extends southeast to the
Malay peninsula. In the angle formed by their intersection lies the cold
and barren region of East Turkestan and Tibet, the height of which, in
some places, is ten thousand feet above the sea. From these mountains and
plateaus the ground sinks gradually toward the north into the lowlands of
West Turkestan and Siberia, toward the east and south into the plains of
China and India.

CHINA

The fertile territory of central China, watered by the two streams,
Yangtse and Hoangho, was settled at a remote period by barbarous tribes.
The civilization which they slowly developed in antiquity has endured with
little change until the present day. The inhabitants of neighboring
countries, Korea, Japan, and Indo-China, owe much to this civilization. It
has exerted slight influence on the other peoples of Asia because the
Chinese have always occupied a distant corner of the continent, cut off by
deserts and mountains from the lands on the west. As if these barriers
were not enough, they raised the Great Wall to protect their country from
invasion.

[Illustration: THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA
The wall extends for about fifteen hundred miles along the northern
frontier of China. In 1908 AD it was traversed for its entire length by an
American Mr. W. E. Geil. He found many parts of the fortification still in
good repair, though built twenty one centuries ago.]

Behind this mighty rampart the Chinese have lived secluded and aloof from
the progress of our western world. In ancient times China was a land of
mystery.

INDIA

India was better known than China, especially its two great rivers, the
Indus and the Ganges, which flow to the southwest and southeast,
respectively, and make this part of the peninsula one of the most fertile
territories on the globe. Such a land attracted immigrants. The region now
known as the Punjab, where the Indus receives the waters of five great
streams, was settled by light-skinned Indo-Europeans [2] perhaps as early
as 2000 B.C. Then they occupied the valley of the Ganges and so brought
all northern India under their control.

INDIA AND THE WEST

India did not remain entirely isolated from the rest of Asia, The Punjab
was twice conquered by invaders from the West; by the Persians in the
sixth century B.C., [3] and about two hundred years later by the Greeks.
[4] After the end of foreign rule India continued to be of importance
through its commerce, which introduced such luxuries as precious stones,
spices, and ivory among the western peoples.

NEARER ASIA

Nearer, or Western Asia, the smaller of the two grand divisions of the
Asiatic continent, is bounded by the Black and Caspian seas on the north,
by the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and Indian Ocean on the south, eastward by
the Indus River, and westward by the Mediterranean and the Nile. Almost
all the countries within this area played a part in the ancient history of
the Orient.

COUNTRIES OF NEARER ASIA

The lofty plateaus of central Asia decline on the west into the lower but
still elevated region of Iran. The western part of Iran was occupied in
antiquity by the kindred people known as Medes and Persians. Armenia, a
wild and mountainous region, is an extension to the northwest of the
Iranian table-land. Beyond Armenia we cross into the peninsula of Asia
Minor, a natural link between Asia and Europe. Southward from Asia Minor
we pass along the Mediterranean coast through Syria to Arabia. The Arabian
peninsula may be regarded as the link between Asia and Africa.

INFLUENCE OF GEOGRAPHICAL CONDITIONS

These five countries of Nearer Asia were not well fitted to become centers
of early civilization. They possessed no great rivers which help to bring
people together, and no broad, fertile plains which support a large
population. Armenia, Asia Minor, and Syria were broken up into small
districts by chains of mountains. Iran and Arabia were chiefly barren
deserts. But two other divisions of Nearer Asia resembled distant India
and China in the possession of a warm climate, a fruitful soil, and an
extensive river system. These lands were Babylonia and Egypt, the first
homes of civilized man.

8. BABYLONIA AND EGYPT

THE TIGRIS AND THE EUPHRATES

Two famous rivers rise in the remote fastnesses of Armenia--the Tigris and
the Euphrates. As they flow southward, the twin streams approach each
other to form a common valley, and then proceed in parallel channels for
the greater part of their course. In antiquity each river emptied into the
Persian Gulf by a separate mouth. This Tigris-Euphrates valley was called
by the Greeks Mesopotamia, "the land between the rivers."

PRODUCTIONS OF BABYLONIA

Babylonia is a remarkably productive country. The annual inundation of the
rivers has covered its once rocky bottom with deposits of rich silt. Crops
planted in such a soil, under the influence of a blazing sun, ripen with
great rapidity and yield abundant harvests. "Of all the countries that we
know," says an old Greek traveler, "there is no other so fruitful in
grain." [5] Wheat and barley were perhaps first domesticated in this part
of the world. [6] Wheat still grows wild there. Though Babylonia possessed
no forests, it had the date palm, which needed scarcely any cultivation.
If the alluvial soil yielded little stone, clay, on the other hand, was
everywhere. Molded into brick and afterwards dried in the sun, the clay
became _adobe_, the cheapest building material imaginable.

BABYLONIA AN EARLY CENTER OF CIVILIZATION

In Babylonia Nature seems to have done her utmost to make it easy for
People to gain a living. We can understand, therefore, why from
prehistoric times men have been attracted to this region, and why it is
here that we must look for one of the earliest seats of civilization. [7]

LOWER AND UPPER EGYPT

Egypt may be described as the valley of the Nile. Rising in the Nyanza
lakes of central Africa, that mighty stream, before entering Egypt,
receives the waters of the Blue Nile near the modern town of Khartum. From
this point the course of the river is broken by a series of five rocky
rapids, misnamed cataracts, which can be shot by boats. The cataracts
cease near the island of Philae, and Upper Egypt begins. This is a strip
of fertile territory, about five hundred miles in length but averaging
only eight miles in width. Not far from modern Cairo the hills inclosing
the valley fall away, the Nile divides into numerous branches, and Lower
Egypt, or the Delta, begins. The sluggish stream passes through a region
of mingled swamp and plain, and at length by three principal mouths
empties its waters into the Mediterranean.

[Illustration: PHILAE
The island was originally only a heap of granite bowlders. Retaining walls
were built around it, and the space within when filled with rich Nile mud,
became beautiful with groves of palms and mimosas. As the result of the
construction of the Assuan dam, Philae and its exquisite temples are now
submerged during the winter months, when the reservoir is full.]

EGYPT THE GIFT OF THE NILE

Egypt owes her existence to the Nile. All Lower Egypt is a creation of the
river by the gradual accumulation of sediment at its mouths. Upper Egypt
has been dug out of the desert sand and underlying rock by a process of
erosion centuries long. Once the Nile filled all the space between the
hills that line its sides. Now it flows through a thick layer of alluvial
mud deposited by the yearly inundation.

ANNUAL INUNDATION OF THE NILE

The Nile begins to rise in June, when the snow melts on the Abyssinian
mountains. High-water mark, some thirty feet above the ordinary level, is
reached in September. The inhabitants then make haste to cut the confining
dikes and to spread the fertilizing water over their fields. Egypt takes
on the appearance of a turbid lake, dotted here and there with island
villages and crossed in every direction by highways elevated above the
flood. Late in October the river begins to subside and by December has
returned to its normal level. As the water recedes, it deposits that
dressing of fertile vegetable mold which makes the soil of Egypt perhaps
the richest in the world. [8]

EGYPT AN EARLY CENTER OF CIVILIZATION

It was by no accident that Egypt, like Babylonia, became one of the first
homes of civilized men. Here, as there, every condition made it easy for
people to live and thrive. Food was cheap, for it was easily produced. The
peasant needed only to spread his seed broadcast over the muddy fields to
be sure of an abundant return. The warm, dry climate enabled him to get
along with little shelter and clothing. Hence the inhabitants of this
favored region rapidly increased in number and gathered in populous towns
and cities. At a time when most of their neighbors were still in the
darkness of the prehistoric age, the Egyptians had entered the light of
history.