World Civilization I Part 3 Iron Age Civilizations

World Civilization I Part 3: Iron Age Civilizations 4. 4: The Axial Age

• Hebrew Monotheism • The Axial Age: a liminal period • Historical Overview • China and Confucius Patriarchal (1800 -1300) • Confucius 551 -479, Analects Classical (1300 -586) • Ethics and politics Exilic/Post Exilic (586 - ) • Important concepts: ren, li, xiao, qi • Ethical Monotheism • Daoism/Taoism, Master Lao • Threats to existence • India and Buddhism • The prophets’ response • Siddhartha Gautama (563 -483), the Buddha • Cf Jainism, Vardhamana Mahavira (~540 -468) • Greece and Democracy • Archaic Period (IX-VI) • metempsychosis, karma, asceticism • Political development • Nirvana through realization of dharma aristocracy • Monasticism (sangha) tyranny • Mahayana Buddhism, bodhisattvas democracy • The glory of Athens • Money • From barter to coinage • From coinage to Bitcoin

Confucius, Buddha, Socrates Xianyang Afro-Eurasia, 1200 BCE .

The World in the Axial Age

ren: benevolence li: proper ritual xiao: filial piety qi: spiritual fluid Laozi and Daoism/Taoism dao: best path The Eight Trigrams of the I Ching, showing the Yin-Yang symbol, used for divination Portrait of Confucius by Wu Daozi, 685 -758

Prince Siddharta Gautama shaves the hair off his head as he declines his status as ksatriya (warrior caste) and becomes an ascetic; relief from Borobudur, Indonesia Vardhamana Mahavira (~540468) and Jainism karma Nirvana dharma

Buddha and His Followers Begging; XVIII Burmese watercolor; Oxford, Bodleian Library sangha: monastic community

Mahayana Buddhism: twenty-five Bodhisattvas descending from heaven on a pair of Japanese hanging scrolls, gold and mineral pigments on silk, 1 m high, ~ 1300; Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum The Great Stupa at Sanchi, III BCE; photograph by Udit Sharma

Patriarchal (1800 -1300) Classical (1300 -586) Exilic/Post Exilic (586 - )

Ethical monotheism: Yahweh is aniconic, transcendent, tutelary The tabernacle with altar inside courtyard. The ark of the covenant.

Threats (Philistines, Canaanites): apostacy, social tension, outright destruction Aerial view of the Temple Mount from the south. Holyland Model of Jerusalem in the late Second Temple period from the east.

Assyrians, 722 Babylonians, 586

Confucius, Buddha, Socrates Xianyang Afro-Eurasia, 1200 BCE .

Cleobis and Biton, ~590, 2. 16 m high; Delphi, Archaeologic al Museum Kritios Boy. Marble, ~ 480, 1. 17 m high; Athens, Acropolis Museum, .

9 Archons Areopagus/boule Ekklesia Cylon (late VII) Draco (late VII) Solon (594/3) Peisistratus (540 -527) Cleisthenes (511)

The Acropolis from the Agora

Santa Cruz feather money, Solomon Islands; photo postcard by J W Beattie, ~ 1914 -15 Copper ingots from Crete and Mycenae, Athens, Numismatic Museum Papua New Guinea shell money, photograph by Rob Maccoll

Lydian stater (4. 71 gm electrum), early VI. Denarius (3. 24 gm silver) of Flavia Domitilla, daughter of Vespasian, 82 -85 CE Ibn Battutah’s dinars (XIV) Early paper money, China, Song Dynasty (X-XIII)