“One might ask,” begins Riaz Dean in the introduction to his new book The Stone Tower: Ptolemy, the Silk Road, and a 2,000-year-old Riddle, “how this book is different from the many others about the Silk Road.”
Ancient History
Nearly a decade ago, archaeologists at Wadi al-Jarf on Egypt’s Red Sea Coast found a cache of papyrus fragments dating from the reign of the 4th Dynasty King Khufu (Cheops), he of the Great Pyramid at Giza, dating from 2633-2605 BCE. These fragments appear to be the “oldest written documents” ever found (document meaning material approximating paper as opposed to some other material); more interesting perhaps is that they are from logbooks—tasks, travel, supplies, rations—of an official called Inspector Merer, who ran a work gang who also transported stone blocks destined for the Great Pyramid.
The Mediterranean, the body of water that now divides and buffers Europe from the “over there” of Africa and the Middle East, used (many centuries ago) to unite a region. The “Mare Nostrum” of the Romans was a conduit for internal commercial and cultural communication. And for several centuries prior to becoming a Roman lake, the Mediterranean served to knit together a civilizational way of life, legacies upon which “the West”, broadly-speaking, was based.
One would think that comparing civilizations as far removed in time and space as Ancient Egypt and Ancient China might not reveal much. Yet Professor Tony Barbieri’s Ancient Egypt and Early China: State, Society, and Culture gleans much from a deeply-researched comparison of political structures, diplomatic relations, legal systems, ideas of the afterlife, and other aspects.
Anthony Barbieri-Low starts his book comparing ancient Egypt and early China by saying it was a somewhat off-the-wall thing to do.
You must be logged in to post a comment.