Page 88 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol I - Abraham to Coal

tfw-28 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

This drawing shows four progressively more
intricate European bronze implements:
(1) a hand axe with wooden handle;
(2) decorated hair pin; (3) razor knife
blade; and (4) curved knife blade.

in transportation and communications, such as the
appearance of wheeled vehicles in Afro-Eurasia during the
second millennium BCE, extended the reach of states, their
officials, and their armies.
However, their influence reached much further than
their power, as traders bridged the gaps between states,
creating large networks of commercial and cultural
exchange. Indeed, some experts have claimed that as
early as 2000 BCE exchanges along the Silk Roads con-
necting China and the Mediterranean had already created
a single, Eurasiawide system of exchanges.
As impressive as these large and powerful communities
were, we should remember the limits of their power and
territory) required the creation of armies. In Sumer and influence. Few agrarian states took much interest in the
elsewhere invading armies possibly established the first lives of their citizens as long as they paid taxes. Maintain-
states, and certainly all early states engaged enthusiasti- ing law and order outside of the major cities was usually
cally in warfare. The rulers of the earliest states also left to local power brokers of various kinds. Huge regions
engaged in symbolic activities that were equally vital to also lay beyond the direct control of imperial rulers.The
the maintenance of their power.They organized extrava- scholar Rein Taagepera has estimated that early during
gant displays of wealth, often involving human sacrifices, the first millennium BCE states still controlled no more
and built palaces, temples, and monuments to the dead, than about 2 percent of the area controlled by states
often in the form of pyramids or ziggurats (temple tow- today. Beyond this tiny area, which probably included
ers consisting of a lofty pyramidal structure built in suc- most of the world’s population, smaller communities of
cessive stages with outside staircases and a shrine at the foragers, independent farmers, and pastoralists existed.
top).These elaborate structures were designed to raise the Although agrarian civilizations usually regarded these
prestige of local rulers and of the cities they ruled and the outside communities as barbarians, they could play a cru-
gods they worshiped. cial role in providing sources of innovation and in link-
ing agrarian civilizations. For example, steppe pastoralists
Imperial States in Eurasia transported religious ideas, metallurgical tra-
Through time the scale of state systems expanded as city- ditions, and even goods between China, India, and the
states traded with and sometimes absorbed other city- Mediterranean world, and they may also have pioneered
states. Eventually imperial systems emerged in which a some of the military and transportation technologies of
single ruler controlled a large region of many cities and agrarian civilizations, such as the wheeled chariot. The
towns. Sargon of Akkad (reigned c. 2334–2279 BCE)may most innovative naval technologies of this period were
have established the first imperial state, in Mesopotamia, found in the western Pacific, where peoples of the Lapita
north of Sumer. By the middle of the second millennium culture, using huge double-hulled canoes, settled a vast
BCE the Shang dynasty (approximately 1766–1045 BCE) area from New Guinea to Fiji and Tonga between 3000
had created an imperial state in northern China.Through and 1000 BCE.
time such states became more common. As states ex- Long-term growth in the number, size, and power of
panded, they taxed and administered larger areas, either cities and states reflected not only innovations in state-
directly or indirectly through local rulers. Improvements craft and warfare, but also the sustained demographic