The Ancient Indus Valley Civilization

The Ancient Indus Valley Civilization When 19th-century explorers and 20th-century archaeologists rediscovered the ancient Indus Valley civilization, the history of the Indian sub-continent had to be rewritten.* Many questions remain unanswered. The Indus Valley civilization is an ancient one, on the same order as Mesopotamia, Egypt, or China. All these areas relied on important rivers: Egypt relying on the annual flooding of the Nile, China on the Yellow River, the ancient Indus Valley civilization (aka Harappan, Indus-Sarasvati, or Sarasvati) on the Sarasvati and Indus rivers, and Mesopotamia outlined by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Like the people of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China, the people of the Indus civilization were culturally rich and share a claim to the earliest writing. However, there is a problem with the Indus Valley that doesnt exist in such pronounced form elsewhere. Evidence is missing elsewhere, through the accidental depredations of time and catastrophes or deliberate suppression by human authorities, but to my knowledge, the Indus Valley is unique among major ancient civilizations in having a major river disappear. In place of the Sarasvati is the much smaller Ghaggar stream that ends in the Thar desert. The great Sarasvati once flowed into the Arabian Sea, until it dried up in about 1900 B.C. when the Yamuna changed course and instead flowed into the Ganges. This may correspond with the late period of the Indus Valley civilizations. Mohenjo-Daro - From Archaeology at About.com The mid-second millennium is when the Aryans (Indo-Iranians) may have invaded and possibly conquered the Harappans, according to a very controversial theory. Before then, the great Bronze Age Indus Valley civilization flourished in an area greater than one million square km. It covered parts of Punjab, Haryana, Sindh, Baluchistan, Gujarat and fringes of Uttar Pradesh. On the basis of artifacts of trade, it appears to have flourished at the same time as the Akkadian civilization in Mesopotamia. Indus Housing If you look at an Harappan housing plan, youll see straight lines (a sign of deliberate planning), orientation to the cardinal points, and a sewer system. It held the first great urban settlements on the Indian subcontinent, most notably at the citadel cities of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa. Indus Economy and Subsistence The people of the Indus Valley farmed, herded, hunted, gathered, and fished. They raised cotton and cattle (and to a lesser extent, water buffalo, sheep, goats, and pigs), barley, wheat, chickpeas, mustard, sesame, and other plants. They had gold, copper, silver, chert, steatite, lapis lazuli, chalcedony, shells, and timber for trading. Writing The Indus Valley civilization was literate we know this from seals inscribed with a script that is now only in the process of being deciphered. [An aside: When it is finally deciphered, it should be a big deal, as was Sir Arthur Evans deciphering of Linear B. Linear A still needs deciphering, like the ancient Indus Valley script.] The first literature of the Indian subcontinent came after the Harappan period and is known as Vedic. It doesnt appear to mention the Harappan civilization. The Indus Valley civilization flourished in the third millennium B.C. and suddenly disappeared, after a millennium, in about 1500 B.C. possibly as a result of tectonic/volcanic activity leading to the formation of a city-swallowing lake. Next: Problems of the Aryan Theory in Explaining Indus Valley History *Possehl says that prior to the archaeological investigations starting in 1924, the earliest reliable date for the history of India was spring of 326 B.C. when Alexander the Great raided the northwestern border. References Imaging River Sarasvati: A Defence of Commonsense, by Irfan Habib. Social Scientist, Vol. 29, No. 1/2 (Jan. - Feb., 2001), pp. 46-74.Indus Civilization, by Gregory L. Possehl. The Oxford Companion to Archaeology. Brian M. Fagan, ed., Oxford University Press 1996.Revolution in the Urban Revolution: The Emergence of Indus Urbanization, by Gregory L. Possehl. Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 19, (1990), pp. 261-282.The Role of India in the Diffusion of Early Cultures, by William Kirk. The Geographical Journal, Vol. 141, No. 1 (Mar., 1975), pp. 19-34.Social Stratification in Ancient India: Some Reflections, by Vivekanand Jha. Social Scientist, Vol. 19, No. 3/4 (Mar. - Apr., 1991), pp. 19-40. A 1998 article, by Padma Manian, on world history textbooks gives an idea of what we may have learned about the Indus Civilization in traditional courses, and debated areas: Harappans and Aryans: Old and New Perspectives of Ancient Indian History, by Padma Manian. The History Teacher, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Nov., 1998), pp. 17-32. Major CitiesAll the textbooks Manian examines mention the cities of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro, their urban features of ordered streets, sewers, citadels, granaries and the bath at Mohenjo-Daro, artifacts, including seals in a yet undeciphered language. Some authors mention the area of civilization was more than a million square kilometers. One author mentions another excavated city, Kalinagan, and most of the books mention the surrounding villages.DatesMost date the Indus Valley civilization from 2500-1500 B.C., although there is an alternative, 3000-2000. The year 1500 is listed as the year of the Aryan (or Indo-Iranian) invasion.Decline of the Indus CivilizationSome attribute the fall of the Indus civilization to the Aryans, destroyers and enslavers of the Indus people. Others say environmental changes caused the fall. Some say both.Identification of the AryansThe books call the Aryans pastoral nomads. Their origins include grasslands of Eastern Europe/Western Asia, the Caspian Sea, Anatolia, and south-central Asia. The books also claim they came with cattle and some say they already had iron weapons, while others say they developed them in India. One claims they crossed the Himalayas in horse-drawn chariots. Victory Over the Indigenous PeopleAll the textbooks assume the Aryans were victorious and regard the Vedas as written by these invaders.CasteThere are various interpretations of the caste system. In one, when the Aryans arrived on the scene there were already 3 castes in India. In another interpretation, the Aryans brought and imposed their own tripartite system. The dark-skinned people are generally considered the conquered people and the lighter skinned ones, the Aryans. Problems With the Aryan Theory in the Typical Presentations ChronologyThe idea that Harappan civilization fell as a result of the arrival of the Aryans. Harappa had lost its urban character by 2000 B.C., 500 years before the Aryan arrival. Traces of Harappa ElsewhereIndicators of refugees, including lustrous Red Ware, until about 1000 B.C. Refugees fled north-eastward; some residents east to the Gulf of Cambay. Lack of Aryan TracesPainted Grey Ware pottery formerly attributed to the Aryans has not been found along their possible courses, but appears to be an outgrowth of earlier Indian styles. LinguisticHistorical linguistic reasoning about the origin of the Aryans is faulty. (This is a complicated topic summarized by Kris Hirst.) Nomad Status QuestionableArchaeologist Colin Renfrew denies that there is any evidence in the Rig Veda that Aryans were invaders or nomads. Sarasvati ChronologySince the Rig Vedas refer to the Sarasvati as a large river, they must have been written before 1900 B.C., so the people mentioned in it must have already be en there.

Definition and Examples of Memory in Classical Rhetoric

Definition and Examples of Memory in Classical Rhetoric Definition In classical rhetoric, memory is the fourth of the traditional five parts or canons of rhetoricthat which considers methods and devices (including figures of speech) to aid and improve an orators ability to remember a speech. Also called  memoria. In ancient Greece, memory was personified as Mnemosyne, the mother of the Muses. Memory was known as mneme in Greek, memoria in Latin. See Examples and Observations below. Also see: Bathtub EffectClassical Rhetoric Dissoi Logoi: Dissoi Logoi on MemoryMnemonicOratory Parable: The Invention of LettersWhat Are the Five Canons of Rhetoric? EtymologyFrom the Latin, mindful   Examples and Observations In general, Roman writers on rhetoric (and, according to them their Hellenistic predecessors) avoided deciding whether memory was a natural ability or a learned skill by dividing it into two kinds. There was what was called the natural memory, which was simply an individuals aptitude for recalling things. This natural memory could be supplemented by the techniques of artificial memory, a set of practices that enabled their user to remember more clearly, more completely, more systematically, or simply more than his natural memory would allow.(William West, Memory in Encyclopedia of Rhetoric, ed. Thomas O. Sloane. Oxford University Press, 2001) The Mnemonic Place SystemIt is not difficult to get hold of the general principles of the mnemonic. The first step was to imprint on the memory a series of loci or places. The commonest, though not the only, type of mnemonic place system used was the architectural type. The clearest description of the place is that given by Quintilian [in Instit utio Oratoria]. In order to form a series of places in memory, he says, a building is to be remembered, as spacious and varied a one as possible . . .. The images by which the speech is to be remembered . . . are then placed in imagination on the places which have been memorized in the building. . . . We have to think of the ancient orator as moving in imagination through his memory building whilst he is making his speech, drawing from the memorized places the images he has placed on them. The method ensures that the points are remembered in the right order.(Frances A. Yates, The Art of Memory. Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966) Oral Memory and the Art of Memory: Orality and LiteracySome distinctions between oral memory and the art of memory (the fourth canon in classical rhetoric) should be articulated in future studies on memory. Whereas oral memory is a conception for cultural oral traditions and, specifically, for oral epic traditions, the art of memory is a reconceived view of memory that was articulated by rhetoricians and was clearly influenced by the increased acceptance and use of literacy in Greek culture. Thus, Frances Yatess seminal work, The Art of Memory, begins with a rhetorical, not a poetic, tradition. The very notion of memory as inner writing shows the early influence of literacy on the rhetorical tradition of memory. . . . The evolving art of memory shows orality and literacy working together.(Joyce Irene Middleton, Oral Memory and the Teaching of Literacy. Rhetorical Memory and Delivery: Classical Concepts for Contemporary Composition and Communication, ed. by John Frederick Reynolds. L awrence Erlbaum, 1993) Memory as a Creative ForceIn rhetoric, memory craft is a stage in composing a work; presupposed is the axiom that recollection is an act of investigation and recreation in the service of conscious artifice. Its practitioners would not have been surprised to learn what was to them already obvious: that recollection is a kind of composition, and by its very nature is selective and formal.(Mary Jean Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture, 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2008) Kairos and MemoryIt seems paradoxical, but kairos and memory were partnered in several ways. First, both require a kind of attunement in that the rhetor who is gathering items for reserve in the memory must be thinking simultaneously about whats available now that might be useful later. Secondly, memory requires an attunement during the moment of speaking or composing, a recognition of the right time for recalling an illustrative example, an argument, and so on. . . . It is also of crucial importance to be aware of what events or knowledge might dominate the memories of a particular audience. . . . All of these aspects of memory , we believe, connect to kairos, the ancient notion of timing and attunement.(Sharon Crowley and Debra Hawhee, Ancient Rhetorics for Modern Students, 3rd ed. Pearson, 2004) The Suppression of Memory in Composition StudiesIt is crucial to an understanding of Western literacy at this millennium to recognize that the disappearance of memory and delivery is not a benign removal; rather, it is part of a larger movement in the United States to pablumize the humanities in general, and to vitiate writing in particular by behaving as if it were a mere skill, craft, or useful tool. . . .Many issues of culture, ideology, society, and the construction of public and private lives reside in the functions of memory and delivery; public and private realms are routinely and tacitly regarded not as construction, but as palpably, obviously separate entities. The elimination of memory and delivery in the majority of student writing textbooks constitutes the removal of student-written language from the larger public arena. The removal reinforces the common, dualistic idea that students live outside ideology if they choose to do so, just as they are outside language if they choose to be.(Kathleen E. Welch, The Suppression of Memory, Delivery, and Ideology. Rhetorical Memory and Delivery: Classical Concepts for Contemporary Composition and Communication, ed. by John Frederick Reynolds. Lawrence Erlbaum, 1993) Pronunciation: MEM-eh-ree