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Culture of Ancient civilizations (their general characteristics). The culture of ancient civilizations - the discipline of cultural studies

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If we look at the map of the world and mentally put on it the states that existed in ancient times, then before our eyes there will be a gigantic belt of great cultures stretching from North Africa, through the Middle East and India to the severe waves of the Pacific Ocean.

There are different hypotheses about the causes of their occurrence and long-term development. The theory of Lev Ivanovich Mechnikov expressed by him in his work “Civilizations and Great Historical Rivers” seems to us to be the most substantiated.

He believes that the main reason for the birth of these civilizations were rivers. First of all, the river is a synthetic expression of all the natural conditions of a particular area. And secondly, and most importantly, these civilizations arose in the course of very powerful rivers, whether it be the Nile, the Tigris and the Euphrates or the Huanghe, which have one interesting feature that explains their great historical mission. This feature lies in the fact that such a river can create all the conditions for growing absolutely amazing crops, and can overnight destroy not only crops, but also thousands of people living along its channel. Therefore, in order to maximize the benefits from the use of river wealth and minimize the damage brought by the river, collective, hard work of many generations is necessary. Under fear of death, the river forced the peoples who ate near it to unite their efforts and forget their grievances. Each performed its clearly defined role, sometimes not even fully aware of the overall scope and direction of the work. Perhaps it is from here that the fearful worship and enduring respect that was felt towards the rivers comes. In ancient Egypt, the Nile was deified under the name of Hapi, and the sources of the great river were considered the gates to the other world.

When studying a particular culture, it is very important to imagine the picture of the world that existed in the minds of a person of a given era. The picture of the world consists of two main coordinates: time and space, in each case specifically refracted in the cultural consciousness of a particular ethnic group. Myths are a fairly complete reflection of the picture of the world, and this is true both for antiquity and for our days.

In ancient Egypt (the self-name of the country is Ta Kemet, which means “Black Earth”), there was a very branched and rich mythological system. Many primitive beliefs are visible in it - and not without reason, because the beginning of the formation of the ancient Egyptian civilization is attributed to the middle of the 5th - 4th millennium BC. Somewhere at the turn of the 4th - 3rd millennium, after the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, an integral state was formed, headed by Pharaoh Narmer, and the famous countdown of dynasties began. The symbol of the reunification of the lands was the crown of the pharaohs, on which were together a lotus and papyrus - respectively, the signs of the upper and lower parts of the country.

The history of Ancient Egypt is divided into six central stages, although there are intermediate positions:

Pre-dynastic period (XXXV - XXX centuries BC)

Early Dynastic (Early Kingdom, XXX - XXVII centuries BC)

Old Kingdom (XXVII - XXI centuries BC)

Middle Kingdom (XXI - XVI centuries BC)

New Kingdom (XVI - XI centuries BC)

Late Kingdom (8th - 4th centuries BC)

All Egypt was divided into nomes (regions), each nome had its own, local gods. The gods of the nome where the capital was located at the moment were proclaimed the central gods of the whole country. capital ancient kingdom was Memphis, which means the supreme god - Ptah. When the capital was moved south, to Thebes, Amon-Ra became the main god. For many centuries, ancient Egyptian history the following were considered the fundamental deities: the sun god Amon-Ra, the goddess Maat, who was in charge of laws and the world order, the god Shu (wind), the goddess Tefnut (moisture), the goddess Nut (sky) and her husband Geb (earth), the god Thoth (wisdom and cunning ), the ruler of the afterlife kingdom Osiris, his wife Isis and their son Horus, the patron of the earthly world.

Ancient Egyptian myths not only tell about the creation of the world (the so-called cosmogonic myths), the origin of gods and people (theogonic and anthropogonic myths, respectively), but are also full of deep philosophical sense. In this regard, the Memphis cosmogonic system seems to be very interesting. As we have already said, in its center is the god Ptah, who was originally the earth. By an effort of will, he created his flesh and became a god. Deciding that it was necessary to arrange a certain world around him, Ptah gave birth to gods-helpers in such a difficult task. The earth was the material. The very process of the creation of the gods is interesting. The thought of Atum (the first generation of Ptah) arose in the heart of Ptah, and the name “Atum” appeared on the tongue. As soon as he uttered this word, in an instant, Atum was born from Primordial Chaos. And here the first lines of the Gospel of John are immediately recalled: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1-1). As we can see, the Bible has powerful cultural roots in the Bible. Indeed, there is a hypothesis that Moses was an Egyptian, and, having led the people of Israel to the promised land, he preserved many of the customs and beliefs that existed in ancient Egypt.

We meet an interesting version of the origin of people in the Heliopolitan cosmogony. God Atum accidentally lost his children in the primordial darkness, and when he found them, he wept with happiness, tears fell to the ground - and people came from them. But despite such a reverent history, life ordinary person was completely subject to the gods and pharaohs, revered as gods. A certain social niche was clearly assigned to a person, it was difficult to go beyond it. Therefore, as the dynasties of pharaohs existed above, so below - centuries-old dynasties, for example, artisans.

The most important in the mythological system of Ancient Egypt was the myth of Osiris, which embodied the idea of an eternally dying and eternally resurrecting nature.

A vivid symbol of absolute obedience to the gods and their deputies, the pharaohs, can serve as a court scene in the afterlife kingdom of Osiris. Those who came to the posthumous court in the halls of Osiris had to utter the “Confession of Denial” and renounce 42 mortal sins, among which we see both mortal sins recognized as such by the Christian tradition, and very specific ones, associated, for example, with the sphere of trade. But the most remarkable thing was the moment that to prove one's sinlessness it was enough to utter a renunciation of sins with an accuracy of a comma. At the same time, the scales (the heart of the deceased was placed on one bowl, and the feather of the goddess Maat on the other) would not move. The feather of the goddess Maat in this case personifies the world order, the steady adherence to the laws established by the gods. When the scales began to move, the balance was disturbed, non-existence awaited a person instead of continuing life in the afterlife, which was the most terrible punishment for the Egyptians, who had been preparing for the afterlife all their lives. By the way, it is for this reason that Egyptian culture did not know heroes, in the sense that we find among the ancient Greeks. The gods have created a wise order that must be obeyed. Any changes are only for the worse, so the hero is dangerous.

The ideas of the ancient Egyptians about the structure of the human soul, which has five components, are interesting. The main ones are Ka (the astral counterpart of man) and Ba (life force); then come Ren (name), Shuit (shadow) and Ah (shine). Although, of course, Egypt did not yet know the depth of spiritual self-reflection that we see in the culture of the Western European Middle Ages.

So, the time and space of ancient Egyptian culture turned out to be clearly divided into two parts - “here”, that is, in the present, and “there”, that is, in the other world, the afterlife. “Here” is the flow of time and the finiteness of space, “there” is eternity and infinity. The Nile served as the road to the afterlife of Osiris, and the “Book of the Dead” was the guide, excerpts from which can be found on any sarcophagus.

All this served the cult of the dead, which steadily occupied a leading position in ancient Egyptian culture. An important component of the cult was the funeral process itself, and, of course, the rite of mummification, which was supposed to save the body for the subsequent afterlife.

The relative immobility of cultural consciousness served as one of the important reasons for the strange immutability of ancient Egyptian culture for about 3 millennia. And the conservation of customs, beliefs, norms of art, etc. intensified with the course of history, despite serious external influences. For example, the main features of ancient Egyptian art, both in the Ancient and in the New Kingdom, remained canonicity, monumentality, hieraticity (sacred abstraction of images), and decorativeness. For the Egyptians, art played an important role precisely from the point of view of the afterlife cult. Through art, a person, his image, life and deeds were perpetuated. Art was the "road" to eternity.

And probably the only person, who seriously shook not only the foundations of the state system, but also cultural stereotypes, was the pharaoh of the XVIII dynasty named Akhenaten, who lived in the XIV century BC in the era of the New Kingdom. He abandoned polytheism, ordered to worship one god, Aten, the god of the solar disk; closed many temples, instead of which he built others dedicated to the newly proclaimed deity; being under the name of Amenhotep IV, he took the name Akhenaten, which in translation means “Pleasant to Aton”; built a new capital Akhetaten (History of the Aton), built according to completely different criteria than before. Inspired by his ideas, artists, architects, sculptors began to create a new art: open, bright, stretching towards the sun, full of life, light and solar heat. Akhenaten's wife was the beautiful Nefertiti.

But this “blasphemy” did not last long. The priests were sullenly silent, the people grumbled. And the gods were probably angry - military luck turned away from Egypt, its territory was greatly reduced. After the death of Akhenaten, and he reigned for about 17 years, everything returned to normal. And Tutankhaton, who ascended the throne, became Tutankhamun. And the new capital was buried in the sands.

Of course, the reasons for such a sad ending are deeper than the simple revenge of the gods. Abolishing all the gods, Akhenaten still retained the title of god, thus monotheism was not absolute. Secondly, it is impossible to convert people to a new faith in one day. Thirdly, the planting of a new deity took place by violent methods, which is completely unacceptable when it comes to the deepest layers of the human soul.

Ancient Egypt experienced several foreign conquests in its long life, but always kept its culture intact, however, under the blows of the armies of Alexander the Great, it completed its centuries-old history, leaving us pyramids, papyri and many legends as a legacy. Nevertheless, we can call the culture of Ancient Egypt one of the cradles of Western European civilization, whose echoes are found in antiquity and are noticeable even during the Christian Middle Ages.

For modern culture Egypt became more open after the work of Jean-Francois Champollion, who in the 19th century solved the mystery of ancient Egyptian writing, thanks to which we were able to read many ancient texts, and above all, the so-called “Pyramid Texts”.

Ancient India.

A characteristic feature of ancient Indian society is its division into four varnas (from the Sanskrit “color”, “cover”, “sheath”) - Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras. Each varna was a closed group of people occupying a certain place in society. Belonging to the varna was determined by birth and was inherited after death. Marriages were concluded only within a single varna.

Brahmins (“pious”) were engaged in mental work and were priests. Only they could perform rites and interpret holy books. Kshatriyas (from the verb “kshi” - to own, rule, and also to destroy, kill) were warriors. Vaishyas (“devotion”, “dependence”) made up the bulk of the population and were engaged in agriculture, crafts, and trade. As for the Shudras (the origin of the word is unknown), they were at the lowest social level, their lot was hard physical labor. One of the laws of Ancient India says: a sudra is “a servant of another, he can be arbitrarily expelled, arbitrarily killed.” In its bulk, the Shudra varna was formed from local aborigines enslaved by the Aryans. The men of the first three varnas were introduced to knowledge and therefore, after initiation, they were called “twice-born”. Shudras and women of all varnas were forbidden to do this, because, according to the laws, they were no different from animals.

Despite the extreme stagnation of the ancient Indian society, in its depths there was a constant struggle between the Varnas. Of course, this struggle also captured the cultural and religious sphere. Over the centuries, one can trace the clashes, on the one hand, of Brahminism - the official cultural and religious doctrine of the Brahmins - with the movements of Bhagavatism, Jainism and Buddhism, behind which stood the kshatriyas.

A distinctive feature of the ancient Indian culture is that it does not know the names (or they are unreliable), therefore, the individual creative principle has been erased in it. Hence the extreme chronological uncertainty of its monuments, sometimes dated in the range of a whole millennium. The reasoning of the sages is concentrated on moral and ethical problems, which, as you know, are the least amenable to rational research. This determined the religious and mythological nature of the development of ancient Indian culture as a whole and its very conditional connection with scientific thought proper.

An important component of ancient Indian culture was the Vedas - collections of sacred songs and sacrificial formulas, solemn hymns and magic spells during sacrifices - "Rigveda", "Samaveda", "Yajurveda" and "Atharvaveda".

According to the Vedic religion, the leading gods were considered: the sky god Dyaus, the god of heat and light, rain and storm, the lord of the universe Indra, the fire god Agni, the god of the divine intoxicating drink Soma, the sun god Surya, the god of light and day Mitra and the god of night, the guardian of eternal order Varuna. The priests who performed all the rituals and prescriptions of the Vedic gods were called brahmins. However, the concept of "brahman" in the context of ancient Indian culture was broad. Brahmins were also called texts with ritual, mythological explanations and comments on the Vedas; Brahman was also called the abstract absolute, the highest spiritual unity, which the ancient Indian culture gradually came to understand.

In the struggle for hegemony, the Brahmins tried to interpret the Vedas in their own way. They complicated the rites and the order of sacrifices and proclaimed a new god - Brahman, as the creator god, ruling the world together with Vishnu (later "Krishna"), the guardian god and Shiva, the destroyer god. Already in Brahmanism, a characteristic approach to the problem of man and his place in the world around him crystallizes. Man is a part of wildlife, which, according to the Vedas, is completely spiritualized. There is no difference between man, animal and plant in the sense that they all have a body and a soul. The body is mortal. The soul is immortal. With the death of the body, the soul moves to another body of a person, animal or plant.

But Brahmanism was the official form of the Vedic religion, while there were others. In the forests lived and taught ascetic hermits who created forest books - Aranyakas. It was from this channel that the famous Upanishads were born - texts that brought to us the interpretation of the Vedas by ascetic hermits. Translated from Sanskrit, the Upanishads mean “to sit near”, i.e. at the teacher's feet. The most authoritative Upanishads number about ten.

The Upanishads tend towards monotheism. Thousands of gods are first reduced to 33, and then to a single god Brahman-Atman-Purusha. Brahman, according to the Upanishads, is the manifestation of the cosmic soul, the absolute, cosmic mind. Atman is the individual subjective soul. Thus, the proclaimed identity “Brahman is Atman” means the immanent (internal) participation of man in the cosmos, the original relationship of all living things, affirms the divine basis of everything that exists. Such a concept would later be called “pantheism” (“everything is God” or “God is everywhere”). The doctrine of the identity of the objective and the subjective, the bodily and the spiritual, Brahman and Atman, the world and the soul is the main position of the Upanishads. The sage teaches: “That is the Atman. You are one with him. You are that."

It was the Vedic religion that created and substantiated the main categories of religious and mythological consciousness that have passed through history. cultural development India. In particular, the idea was born from the Vedas that there is an eternal cycle of souls in the world, their resettlement, “samsara” (from the Sanskrit “rebirth”, “passing through something”). At first, samsara was perceived as a disorderly and uncontrollable process. Later, samsara was made dependent on human behavior. The concept of the law of retribution or “karma” (from the Sanskrit “deed”, “action”) appeared, meaning the sum of deeds committed by a living being, which determines the present and future existence of a person. If during one life the transition from one varna to another was impossible, then after death a person could count on a change in his social status. As for the highest varna - the brahmins, it is even possible for them to be released from samsara by achieving the state of "moksha" (from the Sanskrit "liberation"). It is written in the Upanishads: “As rivers flow and disappear into the sea, losing name and form, so the knower, freed from name and form, ascends to the divine Purusha.” According to the law of samsara, people can be reborn into a variety of beings, both higher and lower, depending on karma. For example, yoga classes contribute to the improvement of karma, i.e. practical exercises aimed at suppressing and controlling everyday consciousness, feelings, sensations.

Such ideas gave rise to a specific attitude towards nature. Even in modern India, there are sects of Digambaras and Shvetambaras, who have a special, reverent attitude towards nature. The first, when they walk, sweep the ground in front of them, and the second carry a piece of cloth near their mouth so that, God forbid, some midge does not fly in there, because it could once be a person.

By the middle of the first millennium BC in public life India is undergoing big changes. By this time, there are already a dozen and a half large states, among which stands Magatha. Later, the Maurya dynasty unifies all of India. Against this background, the struggle of the Kshatriyas, supported by the Vaishyas, against the Brahmins intensifies. The first form of this struggle is connected with bhagavatism. The Bhagavad Gita is part of the ancient Indian epic tale Mahabharata. The main idea of this book is to reveal the relationship between the worldly duties of a person and his thoughts about the salvation of the soul. The fact is that the question of the morality of social duty was far from idle for the Kshatriyas: on the one hand, their military duty to the country obliged them to commit violence and kill; on the other hand, the death and suffering that they brought to people called into question the very possibility of liberation from samsara. God Krishna dispels the doubts of the kshatriyas, offering a kind of compromise: each kshatriya must fulfill his duty (dharma), fight, but this must be done with detachment, without pride and fanaticism. Thus, the Bhagavad-gita creates a whole doctrine of detached action, which formed the basis of the concept of bhagavatism.

The second form of struggle against Brahmanism was the Jain movement. Like Brahminism, Jainism does not deny samsara, karma and moksha, but believes that merging with the absolute cannot be achieved only by prayers and sacrifices. Jainism denies the sanctity of the Vedas, condemns blood sacrifices, and ridicules Brahminical ritual rites. In addition, representatives of this doctrine deny the Vedic gods, replacing them with supernatural beings - genies. Later, Jainism broke up into two sects - moderate (“clothed in white”) and extreme (“clothed in space”). They are characterized by an ascetic way of life, outside the family, at temples, avoiding worldly life, contempt for their own physicality.

The third form of the anti-Brahmin movement was Buddhism. The first Buddha (translated from Sanskrit - enlightened), Gautama Shakyamuni, from the family of princes Shakya, was born, according to legend, in the VI BC from the side of his mother, who once dreamed that a white elephant entered her side. The childhood of the prince's son was cloudless, and moreover, they hid from him in every possible way that there were any suffering in the world. Only when he was 17 years old did he learn that there are sick, weak and impoverished people, and miserable old age and death become the finale of human existence. Gautama recovered in search of truth and spent seven years wandering. Once, having decided to rest, he lay down under the Bodhi tree - the Tree of Knowledge. And four truths appeared to Gautama in a dream. Knowing them and becoming enlightened, Gautama became a Buddha. Here they are:

The presence of suffering that rules the world. Everything that is generated by attachment to the earthly is suffering.

The cause of suffering is life with its passions and desires, because everything depends on something.

Escape from suffering to nirvana is possible. Nirvana - the fading of passions and suffering, the breaking of ties with the world. But nirvana is not the cessation of life and not the renunciation of activity, but only the cessation of misfortunes and the elimination of the causes of a new birth.

There is a way to reach nirvana. 8 steps lead to it: 1) righteous faith; 2) true determination; 3) righteous speech; 4) righteous deeds; 5) a righteous life; 6) righteous thoughts; 7) righteous thoughts; 8) true contemplation.

The central idea of Buddhism is that a person is able to break the chain of rebirth, break out of the world cycle, and stop his suffering. Buddhism introduces the concept of nirvana (in translation - “cooling, extinction”). Unlike the Brahmanic moksha, nirvana knows no social boundaries and varnas, moreover, nirvana is experienced by a person already on earth, and not in the other world. Nirvana is a state of perfect equanimity, indifference and self-control, without suffering and without liberation; a state of perfect wisdom and perfect righteousness, for perfect knowledge is impossible without high morality. Everyone can reach nirvana and become a Buddha. Those who have reached nirvana do not die, but become arhats (saints). A Buddha can also become a bodhisattva, a holy ascetic who helps people.

God in Buddhism is immanent to man, immanent to the world, and therefore Buddhism does not need a god-creator, god-savior, god-governor. At an early stage of its development, Buddhism was reduced primarily to the identification of certain rules of conduct and moral and ethical problems. Subsequently, Buddhism tries to cover the entire universe with its teachings. In particular, he puts forward the idea of a constant modification of everything that exists, but takes this idea to the extreme, believing that this change is so rapid that one cannot even speak of being as such, but one can only speak of eternal becoming.

In the III century BC. Buddhism is accepted by India as the official religious and philosophical system, and then, having broken up into two major areas - Hinayana (“small vehicle”, or “narrow path”) and Mahayana (“big vehicle”, or “broad path”) - spreads far outside India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Kampuchea, Laos, Thailand, China, Japan, Nepal, Korea, Mongolia, Java and Sumatra. However, it must be added that further development Indian culture and religion took the path of transformation and departure from “pure” Buddhism. The result of the development of the Vedic religion, Brahmanism and the assimilation of beliefs that existed among the people, was Hinduism, which undoubtedly borrowed a lot from previous cultural and religious traditions.

Ancient China.

The beginning of the formation of ancient Chinese culture dates back to the second millennium BC. At this time, many independent monarchy states of an extremely despotic type were formed in the country. The main occupation of the population is irrigation agriculture. The main source of existence is the land, and the legal owner of the land is the state represented by the hereditary ruler - the wana. In China there was no priesthood as a special social institution, hereditary monarch and sole landowner, was at the same time the high priest.

Unlike India, where cultural traditions formed under the influence of the highly developed mythology and religion of the Aryans, Chinese society developed on its own basis. Mythological views weighed less on the Chinese, but nevertheless, in a number of provisions, Chinese mythology almost literally coincides with Indian and with the mythology of other ancient peoples.

In general, unlike the ancient Indian culture, which was subject to the colossal influence of mythology, which struggled for centuries to reunite spirit with matter, atman with brahman, ancient Chinese culture is much more “mundane”, practical, coming from worldly common sense. It is less concerned with general problems than with problems of social, interpersonal relationships. Lush religious rituals are replaced here by a carefully developed ritual of social and age purpose.

The ancient Chinese called their country the Celestial Empire (Tian-xia), and themselves the Sons of Heaven (Tian-tzu), which is directly related to the cult of Heaven that existed in China, which no longer carried an anthropomorphic beginning, but was a symbol of a higher order. However, only one person, the emperor, could send this cult, so another cult, the Earth, developed in the lower strata of ancient Chinese society. According to this hierarchy, the Chinese believed that a person has two souls: material (po) and spiritual (hun). The first after death goes to the earth, and the second goes to heaven.

As mentioned above, an important element of ancient Chinese culture was the understanding of the dual structure of the world, based on the relationship between Yin and Yang. The symbol of Yin is the moon, this is the beginning of the feminine, weak, gloomy, dark. Yang is the sun, the beginning is masculine, strong, bright, bright. In the ritual of divination on a mutton shoulder or tortoise shell, common in China, Yang was indicated by a solid line, and Yin by a broken one. According to their ratio, the result of fortune-telling was determined.

In the VI-V century BC. Chinese culture gave humanity a wonderful teaching - Confucianism - which had a huge impact on all spiritual development China and many other countries. Ancient Confucianism is represented by many names. The main ones are Kung Fu Tzu (in Russian transcription - “Confucius”, 551-479 BC), Men Tzu and Xun Tzu. Master Kun came from an impoverished aristocratic family in the kingdom of Lu. Passed hectic life: was a shepherd, taught morality, language, politics and literature, at the end of his life he reached a high position in the state field. After himself, he left the famous book “Lun-yu” (translated as “conversations and hearings”).

Confucius cares little about the problems of the other world. “Not yet knowing what life is, how can one know what death is?” he liked to say. In the center of his attention is a person in his earthly existence, his relationship with society, his place in the social order. Country for Confucius - big family, where everyone must remain in their place, bear their responsibility, choosing the “right path” (“Tao”). Confucius attaches special importance to filial devotion, reverence for elders. This respect for elders is reinforced by appropriate etiquette in everyday behavior - Li (literally "ceremonial"), reflected in the book of ceremonies - Li-jing.

In order to improve order in the Middle Kingdom, Confucius puts forward a number of conditions. Firstly, it is necessary to honor the old traditions, because without love and respect for one's past, the country has no future. It is necessary to recall the ancient times, when the ruler was wise and smart, the officials were disinterested and devoted, and the people prospered. Secondly, there is a need to “correct names”, i.e. the placement of all people in their places in a strictly hierarchical order, which was expressed in the formula of Confucius: "Let the father be the father, the son - the son, the official - the official, and the sovereign - the sovereign." Everyone should know their place and their responsibilities. This position of Confucius played a huge role in the fate of Chinese society, creating a cult of professionalism and skill. And, finally, people must acquire knowledge in order, first of all, to understand themselves. It is possible to ask from a person only when his actions are conscious, but there is no demand from a “dark” person.

Confucius understood in a way social order. The supreme goal of the aspirations of the ruling class, he determined the interests of the people, in the service of which are the sovereign and officials. The people are even higher than the deities, and only in third place in this “hierarchy” is the emperor. However, since the people are uneducated and do not know their true needs, they must be controlled.

Based on his ideas, Confucius defined the ideal of a person, which he called Jun Tzu, in other words, it was an image “ cultured person in ancient Chinese society. This ideal, according to Confucius, consisted of the following dominants: humanity (jen), a sense of duty (yi), fidelity and sincerity (zhen), decency and observance of ceremonies (li). The first two positions were decisive. Humanity was understood as modesty, justice, restraint, dignity, disinterestedness, love for people. Duty Confucius called the moral obligation that a humane person, by virtue of his virtues, imposes on himself. Thus, the ideal of Jun Tzu is an honest, sincere, straightforward, fearless, all-seeing, understanding, attentive in speech, careful in deeds, a person who serves high ideals and goals, constantly seeking the truth. Confucius said: "Knowing the truth in the morning, you can die in peace in the evening." It was the ideal of Jun Tzu that Confucius laid at the basis of the division of social strata: what closer man to the ideal, the higher he should stand on the social ladder.

After the death of Confucius, his teachings fell into 8 schools, two of which - the Mencius school and the Xunzi school - are the most significant. Mencius proceeded from the natural kindness of a person, believing that all manifestations of his aggressiveness and cruelty are determined only by social circumstances. The purpose of teaching and knowledge is “the search for the lost nature of man”. The state structure should be carried out on the basis of mutual love and respect - "Van must love the people as his children, the people must love the van as his father." Political power, accordingly, should have as its goal the development of the natural nature of man, providing it with maximum freedom for self-expression. In this sense, Mencius acts as the first theoretician of democracy.

His contemporary Xun Tzu, on the contrary, believed that a person is naturally evil. “The desire for profit and greed,” he said, “are the innate qualities of a person.” Only society can correct human vices through appropriate education, the state and the law. In fact, the goal of state power is to remake, re-educate a person, to prevent his natural vicious nature from developing. This requires a wide range of means of coercion - the only question is how to skillfully use them. As can be seen, Syun-ztsy actually substantiated the inevitability of a despotic, totalitarian form of social arrangement.

It must be said that the ideas of Xun Tzu were supported not only theoretically. They formed the basis of a powerful socio-political movement during the reign of the Qin Dynasty (3rd century BC), which was called the lawyers or “legists”. One of the main theorists of this movement, Han Fei-tzu, argued that the vicious nature of a person cannot be changed at all, but can be limited and suppressed through punishments and laws. The Legist program was almost completely implemented: a single legislation for all of China was introduced, a single monetary unit, a single script, a single military bureaucracy, and the construction of the Great Wall of China was completed. In a word, the state was unified, and the Great Chinese Empire was formed in place of the warring kingdoms. Having set the task of unifying Chinese culture, the legalists burned most of the books, and the works of philosophers were drowned in the latrines. For the concealment of books, they were subjected to immediate castration and sent to the construction of the Great Wall of China. For denunciations they were encouraged, for non-information they were executed. And although the Qin dynasty lasted only 15 years, the bloody revelry of the first "cultural revolution" in China brought many victims.

Along with Confucianism, Taoism has become one of the main directions of the Chinese cultural and religious worldview. After the penetration of Buddhism into China, he entered the official religious triad of China. The need for a new teaching was due to the philosophical limitations of Confucianism, which, being a socio-ethical concept, left questions of a global outlook unanswered. These questions were answered by Lao Tzu, the founder of the Taoist school, who wrote the famous treatise “Tao-te-ching” (“The Book of Tao and De”).

The central concept of Taoism is Tao (“the right way”) - the fundamental principle and the universal law of the universe. The main features of the Tao, as Yang Hing Shun defines them in the book “The Ancient Chinese Philosophy of Lao Tzu and His Teachings”:

This is the natural way of things themselves. There is no deity or "heavenly" will.

It exists forever as the world. Infinite in time and space.

It is the essence of all things, which manifests itself through its attributes (de). Tao does not exist without things.

As an essence, Tao is the unity of the material basis of the world (qi) and its natural way changes.

This is the inexorable necessity of the material world, and everything is subject to its laws. It sweeps away everything that hinders it.

The basic law of Tao: all things and phenomena are in constant motion and change, and in the process of change they all turn into their opposite.

All things and phenomena are interconnected, which is carried out through a single Tao.

Tao is invisible and intangible. It is inaccessible by feeling and is known in logical thinking.

Cognition of Tao is available only to those who are able to see behind the struggle of things - harmony, behind the movement - peace, behind being - non-existence. To do this, you need to free yourself from passions. “He who knows does not speak. The one who speaks does not know.” From this the Taoists derive the principle of non-action, i.e. a ban on actions that are contrary to the natural course of the Tao. “He who knows how to walk leaves no traces. He who knows how to speak does not make mistakes.”

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Subject: CULTURE OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS

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CULTURE OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS

Let's go directly to the history of foreign culture. And let's start our story from the times that are usually called historical, since these eras brought to us written monuments that make it possible to restore, with varying degrees of certainty, the images of culture of various periods of human history. So, a few words about the culture of ancient civilizations.

The political economy theory in relation to ancient cultures distinguishes between the two modes of production that existed at that time - ancient Asian and ancient, and, accordingly, two systems of slavery - patriarchal (aimed at the production of direct means of subsistence) and higher (“civilized”), aimed at the production of surplus value. From the point of view of the development of productive forces, these two slave-owning modes of production correspond to the Bronze Age and the Iron Age.

The societies of the Bronze Age arose in the third millennium BC and created three centers of ancient civilization: eastern (Ancient China), middle (Ancient India) and western (Sumero-Akkadian kingdom, Ancient Egypt, then - Babylonia, Crete-Mycenaean state). The ancient method of production (from the beginning of the Iron Age) in its classical form developed in the Eastern Mediterranean, in Ancient Greece and in Ancient Rome. In the presence of many specific features in each region, these centers of civilizations had a number of common features.

Bronze Age

Age of Iron

subsistence economy associated with product exchange;

lack of private ownership of land;

community resilience;

the economic dominance of the countryside over the city;

the patriarchal nature of slavery;

caste (almost complete mutual impermeability of social strata);

“oriental despotism” (the position of a person in society is determined by his belonging to the state power);

the existence of a state religion and the class of priests - the ideologists of this society.

the beginning of commodity-money relations; separation of handicrafts from agricultural activities;

the emergence of commercial capital;

the decay of the community;

the establishment of the economic dominance of the city over the countryside;

the abolition of debt slavery;

the penetration of slave labor into the sphere of production;

the formation of a slave-owning democracy in a number of states;

the absence of an organized class of priests as a special division of state power.

The history of Ancient Egypt is divided into six central stages, although there are intermediate positions:

Pre-dynastic period (XXXV - XXX centuries BC)

Early Dynastic (Early Kingdom, XXX - XXVII centuries BC)

Old Kingdom (XXVII - XXI centuries BC)

Middle Kingdom (XXI - XVI centuries BC)

New Kingdom (XVI - XI centuries BC)

Late Kingdom (8th - 4th centuries BC)

All Egypt was divided into nomes (regions), each nome had its own, local gods. The gods of the nome where the capital was located at the moment were proclaimed the central gods of the whole country. The capital of the Old Kingdom was Memphis, which means that the supreme god was Ptah. When the capital was moved south, to Thebes, Amon-Ra became the main god. For many centuries of ancient Egyptian history, the following were considered the fundamental deities: the sun god Amon-Ra, the goddess Maat, who was in charge of laws and the world order, the god Shu (wind), the goddess Tefnut (moisture), the goddess Nut (sky) and her husband Geb (earth), the god Thoth (wisdom and cunning), the ruler of the underworld kingdom Osiris, his wife Isis and their son Horus, the patron of the earthly world.

Ancient Egyptian myths not only tell about the creation of the world (the so-called cosmogonic myths), about the origin of gods and people (theogonic and anthropogonic myths, respectively), but are also full of deep philosophical meaning. In this regard, the Memphis cosmogonic system seems to be very interesting. As we have already said, in its center is the god Ptah, who was originally the earth. By an effort of will, he created his flesh and became a god. Deciding that it was necessary to arrange a certain world around him, Ptah gave birth to gods-helpers in such a difficult task. The earth was the material. The very process of the creation of the gods is interesting. The thought of Atum (the first generation of Ptah) arose in the heart of Ptah, and the name “Atum” appeared on the tongue. As soon as he uttered this word, in an instant, Atum was born from Primordial Chaos. And here the first lines of the Gospel of John are immediately recalled: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1-1). It turns out what powerful cultural roots the Bible has. Indeed, there is a hypothesis that Moses was an Egyptian, and, having led the people of Israel to the promised land, he preserved many of the customs and beliefs that existed in ancient Egypt.

We meet an interesting version of the origin of people in the Heliopolitan cosmogony. God Atum accidentally lost his children in the primordial darkness, and when he found them, he wept with happiness, tears fell to the ground - and people came from them. But despite such a reverent history, the life of an ordinary person was completely subject to the gods and pharaohs, who were revered as gods. A certain social niche was clearly assigned to a person, it was difficult to go beyond it. Therefore, as the dynasties of pharaohs existed above, so below - centuries-old dynasties, for example, artisans.

The most important in the mythological system of Ancient Egypt was the myth of Osiris, which embodied the idea of an eternally dying and eternally resurrecting nature.

The ideas of the ancient Egyptians about the structure of the human soul are interesting: it has five components. The main ones are Ka (the astral counterpart of man) and Ba (life force); then come Ren (name), Shuit (shadow) and Ah (shine). Although, of course, Egypt did not yet know the depth of spiritual self-reflection that we see, let's say, in the culture of the Western European Middle Ages.

The relative immobility of cultural consciousness served as one of the important reasons for the strange immutability of ancient Egyptian culture for about 3 millennia. And the conservation of customs, beliefs, norms of art, etc. intensified with the course of history, despite serious external influences. For example, the main features of ancient Egyptian art, both in the Ancient and in the New Kingdom, remained canonicity, monumentality, hieraticity (the sacred abstraction of images), and decorativeness. For the Egyptians, art played an important role precisely from the point of view of the afterlife cult. Through art, a person, his image, life and deeds were perpetuated. Art was the "road" to eternity.

And, probably, the only person who seriously shook not only the foundations of the state system, but also cultural stereotypes was the pharaoh of the XVIII dynasty named Akhenaten, who lived in the XIV century BC in the era of the New Kingdom. He abandoned polytheism, ordered to worship one god Aton, the god of the solar disk; closed many temples, instead of which he built others dedicated to the newly proclaimed deity; being under the name of Amenhotep IV, he took the name Akhenaten, which in translation means “Pleasant to Aton”; built a new capital Akhetaten (History of the Aton), built according to completely different criteria than before. Inspired by his ideas, artists, architects, sculptors began to create a new art: open, bright, stretching towards the sun, full of life, light and solar heat. Akhenaten's wife was the beautiful Nefertiti.

Of course, the reasons for such a sad ending are deeper than the simple revenge of the gods. Abolishing all the gods, Akhenaten still retained the title of god, thus, monotheism was not absolute. Secondly, it is impossible to convert people to a new faith in one day. Thirdly, the planting of a new deity took place by violent methods, which is completely unacceptable when it comes to the deepest layers of the human soul.

For modern culture, Egypt became more open after the work of Jean-Francois Champollion, who in the 19th century solved the riddle of ancient Egyptian writing, thanks to which we were able to read many ancient texts, and above all, the so-called “Pyramid Texts”.

Ancient India. The formation of ancient Indian culture is associated with the arrival of Aryan tribes (“Aryans” or “Aryans”) in the Indus and Ganges valleys in the second half of the second millennium BC. According to scientists, the Aryan tribes are formed already in the middle of the third millennium BC. north of the Black and Caspian Seas, in the interfluve of the Dnieper, Don and Volga. Undoubtedly, their proximity to the Proto-Slavic and Proto-Scythian tribes, as many say common features these cultures, including linguistic affinity. In the middle of the III millennium BC. The Aryans, for a hitherto unknown reason, moved to the territory of present-day Iran, Central Asia and Hindustan. The migration appears to have occurred in waves and took at least 500 years to complete.

Brahmins (“pious”) were engaged in mental work and were priests. Only they could perform rituals and interpret sacred books. Kshatriyas (from the verb “kshi” - to own, rule, and also to destroy, kill) were warriors. Vaishyas (“devotion”, “dependence”) made up the bulk of the population and were engaged in agriculture, crafts, and trade. As for the Shudras (the origin of the word is unknown), they were at the lowest social level, their lot was hard physical labor. One of the laws of Ancient India says: a sudra is “a servant of another, he can be arbitrarily expelled, arbitrarily killed.” In its bulk, the Shudra varna was formed from local aborigines enslaved by the Aryans. The men of the first three varnas were introduced to knowledge and therefore, after initiation, they were called “twice-born”. Shudras and women of all varnas were forbidden to do this, because, according to the laws, they were no different from animals.

An important component of the ancient Indian culture was the Vedas - collections of sacred songs and sacrificial formulas, solemn hymns and magic spells during sacrifices - "Rigveda", "Samaveda", "Yajurveda" and "Atharvaveda".

It was the Vedic religion that created and substantiated the main categories of religious and mythological consciousness, which have passed through the entire history of the cultural development of India. In particular, the idea was born from the Vedas that there is an eternal cycle of souls in the world, their resettlement, “samsara” (from the Sanskrit “rebirth”, “passing through something”). At first, samsara was perceived as a disorderly and uncontrollable process. Later, samsara was made dependent on human behavior. The concept of the law of retribution or “karma” (from the Sanskrit “deed”, “action”) appeared, meaning the sum of deeds committed by a living being, which determines the present and future existence of a person. If during one life the transition from one varna to another was impossible, then after death a person could count on a change in his social status. As for the highest varna - the brahmins, it is even possible for them to be released from samsara by achieving the state of "moksha" (from the Sanskrit "liberation"). It is written in the Upanishads: “As rivers flow and disappear into the sea, losing name and form, so the knower, freed from name and form, ascends to the divine Purusha.” According to the law of samsara, people can be reborn into a variety of beings, both higher and lower, depending on karma. For example, yoga classes contribute to the improvement of karma, i.e. practical exercises aimed at suppressing and controlling everyday consciousness, feelings, sensations.

By the middle of the first millennium BC, great changes were taking place in the social life of India. By this time, there are already a dozen and a half large states, among which stands Magatha. Later, the Maurya dynasty unifies all of India. Against this background, the struggle of the Kshatriyas, supported by the Vaishyas, against the Brahmins intensifies. The first form of this struggle is connected with bhagavatism. The Bhagavad Gita is part of the ancient Indian epic tale Mahabharata. The main idea of this book is to reveal the relationship between the worldly duties of a person and his thoughts about the salvation of the soul. The fact is that the question of the morality of social duty was far from idle for the Kshatriyas: on the one hand, their military duty to the country obliged them to commit violence and kill; on the other hand, the death and suffering that they brought to people called into question the very possibility of liberation from samsara. God Krishna dispels the doubts of the kshatriyas, offering a kind of compromise: each kshatriya must fulfill his duty (dharma), fight, but this must be done with detachment, without pride and fanaticism. Thus, the Bhagavad-gita creates a whole doctrine of detached action, which formed the basis of the concept of bhagavatism.

The second form of struggle against Brahmanism was the Jain movement. Like Brahminism, Jainism does not deny samsara, karma and moksha, but believes that merging with the absolute cannot be achieved only by prayers and sacrifices. Jainism denies the sanctity of the Vedas, condemns blood sacrifices, and ridicules Brahminical ritual rites. Later, Jainism broke up into two sects - moderate (“clothed in white”) and extreme (“clothed in space”). They are characterized by an ascetic way of life, outside the family, at temples, avoiding worldly life, contempt for their own physicality.

The presence of suffering that rules the world. Everything that is generated by attachment to the earthly is suffering.

The cause of suffering is life with its passions and desires, because everything depends on something.

There is a way to reach nirvana. 8 steps lead to it:

1) righteous faith;

2) true determination;

3) righteous speech;

4) righteous deeds;

5) a righteous life;

6) righteous thoughts;

7) righteous thoughts;

8) true contemplation.

In the III century BC. Buddhism is accepted by India as the official religious and philosophical system, and then, having broken up into two major areas - Hinayana (“small vehicle”, or “narrow path”) and Mahayana (“big vehicle”, or “broad path”) - spreads far outside India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Kampuchea, Laos, Thailand, China, Japan, Nepal, Korea, Mongolia, Java and Sumatra. However, it must be added that the further development of Indian culture and religion followed the path of transformation and departure from "pure" Buddhism. The result of the development of the Vedic religion, Brahmanism and the assimilation of beliefs that existed among the people, was Hinduism, which undoubtedly borrowed a lot from previous cultural and religious traditions.

Ancient China. The beginning of the formation of ancient Chinese culture dates back to the second millennium BC. At this time, many independent monarchy states of an extremely despotic type were formed in the country. The main occupation of the population is irrigation agriculture. The main source of existence is the land, and the legal owner of the land is the state represented by the hereditary ruler - the wana. In China there was no priesthood as a special social institution, the hereditary monarch and the only landowner was at the same time the high priest.

Unlike India, where cultural traditions were shaped by the highly developed mythology and religion of the Aryans, Chinese society developed on its own basis. Mythological views weighed less on the Chinese, but nevertheless, in a number of provisions, Chinese mythology almost literally coincides with Indian and with the mythology of other ancient peoples.

In general, unlike the ancient Indian culture, which was subject to the colossal influence of mythology, which struggled for centuries to reunite spirit with matter, atman with brahman, ancient Chinese culture is much more “mundane”, practical, coming from worldly common sense. She is less concerned with general problems than with problems of social, interpersonal relations. Lush religious rituals are replaced here by a carefully developed ritual of social and age purpose.

The ancient Chinese called their country the Celestial Empire (Tian-xia), and themselves the Sons of Heaven (Tian-tzu), which is directly related to the cult of Heaven that existed in China, which no longer carried an anthropomorphic beginning, but was a symbol of a higher order. However, this cult could be sent only by one person - the emperor, therefore, in the lower layers of ancient Chinese society, another cult developed - the Earth. According to this hierarchy, the Chinese believed that a person has two souls: material (po) and spiritual (hun). The first after death goes to the earth, and the second goes to heaven.

In the VI-V century BC. Chinese culture gave humanity a wonderful teaching - Confucianism - which had a huge impact on the entire spiritual development of China and many other countries. Ancient Confucianism is represented by many names. The main ones are Kung Fu Tzu (in Russian transcription - “Confucius”, 551-479 BC), Men Tzu and Xun Tzu. Master Kun came from an impoverished aristocratic family in the kingdom of Lu. He passed a turbulent life: he was a shepherd, taught morality, language, politics and literature, at the end of his life he reached a high position in the state field. After himself, he left the famous book “Lun-yu” (translated as “conversations and hearings”).

Confucius cares little about the problems of the other world. “Not yet knowing what life is, how can one know what death is?” he liked to say. In the center of his attention is a person in his earthly existence, his relationship with society, his place in the social order. The country for Confucius is a big family, where everyone must remain in their place, bear their responsibility, choosing the “right path” (“Tao”). Confucius attaches special importance to filial devotion, reverence for elders. This respect for elders is reinforced by appropriate etiquette in everyday behavior - Li (literally "ceremonial"), reflected in the book of ceremonies - Li-jing.

Confucius understood the social order in a peculiar way. The supreme goal of the aspirations of the ruling class, he determined the interests of the people, in the service of which are the sovereign and officials. The people are even higher than the deities, and only in third place in this “hierarchy” is the emperor. However, since the people are uneducated and do not know their true needs, they must be controlled.

Based on his ideas, Confucius defined the ideal of a person, which he called Jun-tzu, in other words, it was the image of a “cultured person” in ancient Chinese society. This ideal, according to Confucius, consisted of the following dominants: humanity (jen), a sense of duty (yi), fidelity and sincerity (zhen), decency and observance of ceremonies (li). The first two positions were decisive. Humanity was understood as modesty, justice, restraint, dignity, disinterestedness, love for people. Duty Confucius called the moral obligation that a humane person, by virtue of his virtues, imposes on himself. Thus, the ideal of Jun Tzu is an honest, sincere, straightforward, fearless, all-seeing, understanding, attentive in speech, careful in deeds, a person who serves high ideals and goals, constantly seeking the truth. Confucius said: "Knowing the truth in the morning, you can die in peace in the evening." It was Jun Tzu's ideal that Confucius laid at the basis of the division of social strata: the closer a person is to the ideal, the higher he should be on the social ladder.

This is the natural way of things themselves. There is no deity or "heavenly" will.

It exists forever as the world. Infinite in time and space.

It is the essence of all things, which manifests itself through its attributes (de). Tao does not exist without things.

As an essence, Tao is the unity of the material basis of the world (qi) and its natural path of change.

This is the inexorable necessity of the material world, and everything is subject to its laws. It sweeps away everything that hinders it.

The basic law of Tao: all things and phenomena are in constant motion and change, and in the process of change they all turn into their opposite.

All things and phenomena are interconnected, which is carried out through a single Tao.

Tao is invisible and intangible. It is inaccessible by feeling and is known in logical thinking.

Bibliography:

1. Dmitrieva N.A., Vinogradova N.A. Art of the Ancient World. - M., 2005

2. Erasov B.S. Culture, religion and civilization in the East. - M., 2003

3. Keram K. Gods. Tombs. Scientists. - St. Petersburg, 1999

4. Lazarev M. Egypt and Rus': solar communication. // Science and religion, 2000

5. Lipinskaya Ya., Marcinyak M. Mythology of Ancient Egypt. - M., 2002

6. Mathieu M.E. Ancient Egyptian myths. - M.-L., 1999

7. Mechnikov L. Civilization and great historical rivers. - M., 2003

8. Rak I.V. Myths of Ancient Egypt. - St. Petersburg, 2001

9. Jung K.-G. On the psychology of Eastern religions and philosophies. - M., 2003

10. Jaspers K. The meaning and purpose of history. - M., 2002

Read more about this in the books of Anastasia Novykh

(click on the quote to download the entire book for free):

“If the rulers can destroy, but cannot create, then what is their merit? If they cannot raise the dead, then how can they condemn the living to death? Any person can cut a branch from a tree, but only a Master can attach it to a tree. And the ruler is just a man. And he is also afraid of death, like any of you, and therefore hides behind the lives of his warriors, issuing decrees. But you carry out his orders. The ruler is one, but you are many. He deceives you, saying that he is strong, for his strength is you, doing his will against your own. If people lay down their arms, there will be no one to fight. The strength of the mountain is not in the stone lying on top, but in its solidity. And the people were imbued with that wisdom and passed it on to the neighboring people with whom they waged war. The truth has been heard. And the people laid down their weapons. So, in that place, thanks to a simple young man who conveyed to people the true word of the Sage, the war stopped, and peace came. And many lives were saved by the Truth, and many found the Way to it.

- Anastasia NOVICH - AllatRa

An increasing number of people are realizing that familiarization with the historical past is not only acquaintance with the masterpieces of world civilization, unique monuments ancient art and literature, not only a school of moral and artistic education, but also an integral part modern life, to a certain extent, an assessment of the present and even the “discovery” of the future through the prism of historical experience.

New research has largely changed previous ideas about the early stages of human history and culture. Archaeological and linguistic research, modern methods of scientific research have significantly pushed back into the depths of millennia the time of the transition to agriculture and metal processing, the emergence of writing, the formation of urban civilizations. But here's the paradox: time distances increase, chronological framework noticeably move apart, and the ancient civilizations themselves are getting closer to us. Closer because you need it.

Without the achievements of ancient civilizations, our world is not conceivable in any of its links. This both connects us with ancient civilizations with a strong thread of continuity, and separates us from antiquity, because it did not have much of what it obtained for its descendants, only preparing further progress. It is precisely because of their fruitfulness that ancient civilizations seem to us, although natural, but a unique, inimitable stage in world-historical development.

Many exceptionally important discoveries in material and spiritual culture date back to ancient civilizations. Even today humanity draws with gratitude from this richest source. Creating something new, it involuntarily and necessarily turns to the legacy of previous civilizations. And this appeal is the search for essential knowledge and experience, the desire to understand the wisdom of our distant ancestors, the reasons for their successes and insights, mistakes and delusions, the motives for noble and immoral deeds.

With all the dissimilarities and contrasts, ancient civilizations are united by a set of the most important features that give them fundamental differences both from primitive cultures and from civilizations that have come to replace them.

Firstly, ancient civilizations are civilizations, a kind of unity that opposes what is not yet a civilization - pre-class and pre-state, pre-urban and pre-civil, and finally, which is very important, the pre-literate state of society and culture. Until relatively recently, primitive society was called prehistoric. Now, when science has achieved important results in the study of the period of development that preceded civilization, this definition had to be abandoned. And this is fair. However, there were reasons for such an approach, especially if we understand history in the original, Herodotus sense of the word: as an interrogation of oral tradition.

We admire the wonders of pre-literate culture - from cave and rock carvings to megaliths (in the UK), study them, comprehending the secrets hidden in them, and at the same time we realize that the people who created these masterpieces will never “talk” to us and will not tell what words they called the events that marked the time of their lives, what they bequeathed to contemporaries and future generations.

Meanwhile, the coming to power is already known to us from written documents as a drama with a plot, with “intrigue”, we have an idea of \u200b\u200bpersonality and, we understand the true motives of declarations, we hear living voices, not to mention the heroes and events of the history of Greco-Roman world, about ancient characters, whose intonations are guessed almost unmistakably. And it's not just that historical knowledge about societies that have left a written tradition is becoming more complete. It is important that it acquires a fundamentally different meaning. The object of knowledge itself is incomparably richer. Compared with primitive times, the transition to civil society marked a qualitatively new stage in the development of culture and other aspects of human activity. The world of classes and class struggle, cities and urban civilizations, the world of written traditions creates such a meaningful content of the very process of historical time, which was not there before.

And on this basis, the most archaic civilization is closer to Athens and Rome than to, it would seem, "yesterday's" and so not far primitiveness. This is the lower limit of unity. But at the same time, we must not forget: the upper limit is determined by the fact that ancient civilizations are ancient not so much in terms of time, but in their very essence. They inherited from primitive cultures the mythological patterns of thought, speech and action characteristic of the latter much more directly than later civilizations.

No less impressive are the geographical boundaries - the "open spaces" of ancient civilizations. These are not only classical civilizations and, but also cultures, civilizations. They are strikingly dissimilar to each other and at the same time surprisingly organically soldered. The more familiar stereotypes of ancient societies, the well-known events of their political history, the myths and traditions familiar almost from childhood, as it were, overshadowed other civilizations that have not yet been studied in such detail, but the solution of the secrets of which will certainly bring science its surprises. These surprises will not be inferior in significance and sensationalism to the discovery of Troy or Pompeii.

Let us turn, for example, to the early cultures of Africa - North and Tropical. Their appearance is unusually different, not only the time is varied, but also the pace of formation and development of civilizations here - along with Meroe, Aksum and Ife, there is a brilliant Swahili civilization. Every year, the African origins in are more and more clearly highlighted. Similarities between the Paleolithic and Mesolithic cultures of Egypt and the Arabian Desert, the cultures of Upper Egypt and Northern Nubia from the era, the most ancient (Karruba, Bu-Alem, Jebel-Seba, Zenaga, Tassili, etc.) and the Arabian Desert () with images of sacred animals, cult boats and hunting scenes, reminiscent of the paintings of pre-dynastic Egyptian ceramics - all this makes ancient Egyptian culture related to the North African world. With him, Egypt was connected with especially close ties, and he had a great influence on him at the time of his heyday. On the other hand, the ease and depth of perception of the elements of Egyptian civilization by neighboring African peoples is a clear evidence of the initial inclusion of Egypt in the single world of the most ancient cultures of Africa.

Completely different events took place in the New World. When the legions subjugated the power of the recalcitrant Romans, and from the endless Asian steppes moved west to the Danube, hordes of nomads, the first appeared on the other half of the globe. They were born independently, on local soil, without experiencing significant influences from the ancient peoples of the Old World, and even before the arrival of European conquerors in the 16th century. managed to go through a long and difficult path of evolution.

The "meeting" of two worlds and two cultures, so dissimilar to each other, can certainly be classified as amazing historical paradoxes: if the most developed civilizations of the American aborigines corresponded in their general level to the most archaic forms of statehood of the ancient East, then Europe has already passed and stood on the threshold of anti-feudal revolutions.

Of course, it is far from easy to reveal the essence of differences, the main causes, points of similarity, convergence of ancient civilizations - scientists from various humanitarian and even natural disciplines are working on solving this problem. Any attempt to ignore the patterns of human development, the general and the particular in historical process discovers its inadequacy. The path traversed by ancient civilizations, united by ties of continuity and cultural exchange, is unusually long and varied.

This is the way from ancient forms verbal and artistic creativity, still inextricably linked with common ritual, to developed poetry, rhetoric, refined art, suggesting both individual authorship and exactingness of a connoisseur, to the theory of poetics, to the psychology of fine art.

This is the path from doubts about the truth of traditional ideas to the search for independent concepts of the universe and the "structure" of the Universe, to philosophical teachings and , and

In order to fully appreciate the grandiose scale and unique specifics of the contribution of ancient civilizations to the cultural treasury of mankind, it is important to more clearly distinguish the rationalism that was born then, on the one hand, from pre-scientific knowledge, and on the other hand, from the new European rationalism, already on new foundations that arose in the era and.

The era of antiquity is associated not only with the birth of such world religions as, but also the emergence of Platonic-Aristotelian metaphysics, to the level of which European philosophy did not reach until, and the Confucian code of conduct that dominated China until the recent past. A world emerging from the bosom of ancient civilizations, where people are divided not so much by ethnic, geographical and cultural as by confessional features - into Orthodox and Catholics, into Shiites and Sunnis, etc.; where the new category of confessional affiliation itself makes sense; where Platonic models of thought are widely included through the scholasticism and mysticism of Christianity and Islam into the life of the masses who have not read Plato and have not even heard of him, and the Confucian tradition freezes in Sung neo-Confucianism; where the spirit of metaphysical constructions can be materialized in the most specific professional practice of fine arts, for example, in the Byzantine-Russian icon or Chinese landscape painting of the Song era (960-1279), standing under the sign of Chan Buddhism - this is already a different world , the world of the Middle Ages.

These are just some of the most general contours problems, plots, phenomena considered on the site. One can hardly doubt the constant growth of interest in this topic - fascinating, necessary, grateful. Each epoch perceived ancient cultures in its own way; the generations coming to replace us will obviously approach their assessment in a different way, but the wealth of material and spiritual culture inherited from ancient civilizations will forever be imprinted in the memory of peoples.

- 110.50 Kb

Federal Agency for Education

Kirov branch

State educational institution

higher professional education

St. Petersburg State University of Service and Economics

Essay on cultural studies on the topic:

"Features of the culture of ancient civilizations"

Completed by a student

1 course correspondence department

080507 "Management"

Krinitsyna A.A.

Checked:

Kirov

2011

Introduction

1. Features of the Aztec culture

1.1 History of the Aztecs

1.2 Aztec writing

1.3 Aztec kingdom

1.4 Aztec calendar

2. Features of the culture of ancient China

3. Features of the culture of Egypt

3.1 Old kingdom

3.2 Middle Kingdom

3.3 New kingdom

3.4 Religion and art of ancient Egypt

4. Features of the culture of the Incas

4.1 Origin of civilization

4.2 Laws

4.3 Inca roads

4.4 Inca art and science

Conclusion

Literature

Introduction

Civilization - historiosophical meaning - the unity of the historical process and the totality of the material, technical and spiritual achievements of mankind in the course of this process (human civilization in the history of the Earth). Local civilizations are integral systems, which are a complex of economic, political, social and spiritual subsystems and develop according to the laws of vital cycles.

One of the first to introduce the concept of "civilization" into scientific circulation was the philosopher Adam Ferguson, who meant by the term a stage in the development of human society, characterized by the existence of social classes, as well as cities, writing and other similar phenomena. The staged periodization of world history proposed by the Scottish scientist (savagery - barbarism - civilization) enjoyed support in scientific circles in the late 18th - early 19th centuries, but with the growing popularity in the late 19th - early 20th centuries of the plural-cyclical approach to history, under the general concept of "civilization ” began to mean “local civilizations” as well.

Each culture carries a huge cultural layer studied and still being studied, expressed in the creations of architecture, evidence of writing, in the remains of handicraft art, as well as in the language that has come down to us. Faced every time ancient culture Latin America and not infrequently with the modern one, we find a lot of interesting things in it and even more unsolved and surrounded by a halo of mysticism. What is one myth about fairyland El dorado. Many fragments of the distant era of the existence of the civilizations of the Incas, Aztecs and Maya, unfortunately, have been lost forever, but there remains much that we are in direct contact with, but it also gives us ways to unravel a lot, sometimes inexplicable, to us, modern people, regarding art in general those distant worlds.

Features of the Aztec culture

1.1 History of the Aztecs

The history of the Aztecs begins with the departure in the second half of the 12th century from the mythical ancestral home - the island of Astlan ("place of herons" - hence the name of the tribe; the second name of the Aztecs is tenochki). After long wanderings, the Aztecs settled on Lake Texcoco, switched to agriculture and founded the city of Tenochtitlan (modern Mexico City) around 1325, which became the center of the state. The name Aztec came to be applied to all bearers of the Aztec culture.
As a result of numerous conquests of the rulers of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec culture spread far beyond the Mexico Valley. The Aztecs of Tenochtitlan, until the Spanish conquest, retained the old tribal traditions, including the division into 4 phratries and 20 clans with elected officials. Members of the same family were elected to the highest positions, slavery existed, tribute was levied from subject cities. On the lakes, the Aztecs developed original farming techniques - the construction of artificial islands ("floating gardens" - chinampa). The swamps were drained through a network of canals.
The Aztecs grew several varieties of corn and beans, zucchini, pumpkin, tomatoes, green and red peppers, oilseeds, and cotton. The intoxicating drink pulque was made from agave juice. Crafts (working stone and wood, pottery, weaving) separated from agriculture and reached a high level of development. The tools were made of stone, mainly obsidian. Metal (copper, gold) was used to make jewelry. Cities had a regular layout, partly associated with the division of land between clans into rectangular plots. The central square served as a place of public meetings. In Tenochtitlan, instead of streets, there were canals with footpaths on the sides - the city was built on an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco and connected to the shore by numerous dams and bridges.
Drinking water was supplied by aqueducts. Most of all, the deities of wind, rain and crops associated with agriculture, as well as the god of war, were revered. The ritual of human sacrifices to the god Huitzilopochtli was widespread among the Aztecs. The Aztec culture absorbed the rich traditions of the peoples who lived in Central Mexico, mainly the Toltecs, Mixtecs and others. The Aztecs developed medicine and astronomy, and had the beginnings of writing.
Their art flourished in the 14th and early 16th centuries. The main monumental structures were tetrahedral stone pyramids with a temple or palace on a truncated top (the pyramid in Tenayuca to the North of Mexico City). The houses of the nobility were built of adobe and faced with stone or plastered; The rooms were located around the courtyard. The walls of religious buildings were decorated with reliefs, paintings, patterned masonry. The monumental cult sculpture - statues of deities, ornamented altars - amazes with grandiosity, heaviness (a statue of the goddess Coatlicue 2.5 m high).
The so-called "Stone of the Sun" is famous. Realistic stone sculptural images of heads are world famous: "Warrior-Eagle", "Head of the Dead", "Sad Indian". Particularly expressive are small stone or ceramic figurines of slaves, children, animals or insects. On a number of architectural monuments, the remains of wall paintings with images of deities or marching warriors have been preserved. The Aztecs skillfully made feather decorations, polychrome ceramics, stone and shell mosaics, obsidian vases, and the finest jewelry.
The rich and original culture of the Aztecs was destroyed as a result of the Spanish conquest of 1519-21.

1.2 Aztec writing.

Pictographic writing with elements of hieroglyphics used by the Aztecs has been known since the 14th century. The material for writing was leather or paper strips, folded in the form of a screen.
There was no definite system for the arrangement of pictograms: they could follow both horizontally and vertically, and using the boustrophedon method (opposite direction of adjacent “lines2”, i.e. series of pictograms) . The main systems of Aztec writing: signs to convey the phonetic appearance of the word, for which the so-called rebus method was used (for example, to write the name Itzcoatl, an itz-tli arrow was depicted above the coatl snake); hieroglyphic signs that convey certain concepts; proper phonetic signs, especially to convey the sound of affixes. By the time of the Spanish conquest, which interrupted the development of Aztec writing, all these systems existed in parallel, their use was not streamlined.

1.3 Kingdom of the Aztecs.

The state formation of the Aztecs in Mexico in the 14th - early 16th centuries with the center in the city of Tenochtitlan (modern Mexico City) until 1348 depended on the rulers of the city of Culuacán in 1348-1427.
In the late 20s of the 15th century, the Aztec ruler Itzcoatl led the “union of three cities” of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, Tlacopan (Takuba) and defeated the rulers of Azcopotsalco. As a result of the wars of conquest waged by Itzcoatl and his successors (Moctezuma I the Wrathful, ruled in Ahuizotl 1440-1469; Ashayacatl 1469-1486; Ahuitzotl 1486-1503), into the Aztec kingdom included not only the valley of the Mexico City River, but the whole of Central Mexico.
The Aztec kingdom reached its peak under Moctezuma II (1503-1519). At 15-beginning. 16th centuries slavery was greatly developed. The main ruler of the Aztec kingdom (tlacatecuhtli) was formally an elected leader, but in fact his power was hereditary. The formation of the main classes of society was not completed (the position of a member of society was determined by his belonging not only to a class, but also to a caste, of which there were more than 10 in the Aztec kingdom). By 1521, the Aztec kingdom was conquered by the Spaniards.

Aztec calendar or "Stone of the Sun".
The Aztec Calendar, a monument of Aztec sculpture from the 15th century, is a basalt disk (diameter 3.66 m, weight 24 tons) with carvings representing years and days. In the central part of the disc is depicted the face of the sun god Tonatiu. In the Stone of the Sun, they found a symbolic sculptural embodiment of the Aztec idea of time. The Sun Stone was found in 1790 in Mexico City, and is now kept in the Museum of Anthropology.
The Aztec calendar - the Aztec calendar system, had features similar to the Mayan calendar. The basis of the Aztec calendar was a 52-year cycle - a combination of a 260-day ritual sequence (the so-called sacred period or tonalpoualli), consisting of a combination of weekly (13 days) and monthly (20 days, indicated by hieroglyphs and numbers) cycles, with solar or 365- daily year (18-20-day months and 5 so-called unlucky days). The Aztec calendar was closely associated with a religious cult. Each week, the days of the month, the hours of the day and night were dedicated to different deities. Of great ritual significance was the rite of the "new fire", performed after 52-year cycles.

1.5 Aztec language.

The Nahuatl language has been spoken in Mexico (presumably since the 6th century), the number of speakers is about 1.3 million in 1977.
Since the 14th century, writing has been known, since the 16th century - based on Latin graphics. In the grammatical structure of the Aztec language, features of agglutination and moderate polysynthesis are noted. Forms of inflection and word formation are formed: by attaching affixes, mainly suffixes, to an invariable root, for example: icxatl - “sheep”, icxacame - “sheep”; reduplication (doubling) of the initial syllable of the root: teotl - "god", teteotl - "gods"; positionally: tepostli - "iron", mecatl - "chain", teposmecatl - "iron chain"; by combining whole words in a single word complex: totolin - "chicken", tell "stone", axcalli- "bread", totoltetl- "egg", totoltetlaxcalli - "scrambled eggs" (literally chicken-stone-bread).

Features of the culture of ancient China

One of the oldest civilizations in the world is the Chinese. In the time interval, it can be determined end III – beginning of the 2nd millennium BC - 220 AD e.(the time of the collapse of the Han Empire).

Ancient Chinese civilization has a number of specific features reflected in the development of its culture:

- firstly, these are quite difficult natural conditions that influenced the relatively later (if we mean Sumer, Akkad, Egypt, as well as the time of the appearance of the first agricultural communities in the Yellow River valley, approximately 5 thousand years BC) the emergence here civilization.

- Ancient China developed in isolation from other civilizations almost until the 2nd century BC. n. e., having no direct contact with the countries of the Western world.

- the ancient Chinese civilization had a non-irrigation type, in contrast to the ancient Egyptian, ancient Indian and Mesopotamian civilizations. Irrigated agriculture begins to develop in this region only from the middle of the 1st millennium BC. e.

- the culture of ancient China belongs to the traditional types of cultures. The ancient Chinese state is a typical oriental despotism. Head of state since the 5th century BC e. was a hereditary monarch, he also performed the duties of the first priest and sole landowner. In China, there was no priesthood as a separate social institution; religious activities were carried out by heads of families, officials, kings-vans. All land was royal property. In addition, everything was subject to a strict social hierarchy, outside of which there were slaves.

Chinese traditionalism took the form of ritualism in China. All relations between the Chinese have long been subordinated to a complex ritual of ideological significance. And, as noted in the book “Zuo Zhuan”, “ the ritual is based on the constant movement of heaven, the order of phenomena on earth, and the behavior of the people”, “ritual is the foundations in the relationship of the top and bottom, the foundation and ducks of heaven and earth. He gives life to the people”.

The secular ritual - the relationship between higher and lower on the social ladder was closely connected with the religious ritual of the relationship of the living to the dead, to the spirits of ancestors, natural phenomena, earth, sky. In China, as nowhere else, the cult of ancestors is developing. The whole life of the living was, as it were, a report to the spirits of their ancestors (sacrifices were made to them, initially even human).

- the idea of autochthonous Chinese civilization, implying the creation of this civilization exclusively by the Chinese people. Although this idea has some conventionality. Thus, the sculptural images of animals made in bronze repeat the features that can be traced in the Altaic-Scythian culture. The same applies to horse-drawn chariots, borrowed, as it is believed, from the Indo-Europeans.

- the idea of Sinocentrism.

In the 5th millennium BC In the Yellow River basin, the Neolithic culture of Yangshao painted pottery developed. Traditionally, Yangshao was considered the oldest of the cultures that preceded Chinese civilization. At the same time, in the northeast of China, in Liaoning, in the recent past, according to archaeologists, an even more ancient culture was discovered - Hongshan .

The following periods are distinguished in the history of China:

1) shang yin , the creators of the culture of bronze - XVIII-XII centuries. BC e.

2) Zhou - XII-V centuries. BC e.

3) Zhou-Zhanguo , “the era of the warring kingdoms”, 7 largest states - V-III centuries. BC e. The second and third periods can also be considered as one Zhou period, which received this name on behalf of the conquering people (XII-III centuries BC)

4) Qin Empire – 221–206 BC e.

5) Han Empire - the end of the III century. BC e. - II century. n. e.

Features of the culture of ancient Egypt

The history and culture of Ancient Egypt were largely predetermined by its geographical location. Real world The Egyptians were limited by the narrow valley of the great river Nile, surrounded on the west and east by desert sands. It was the nature of the country and its only huge river, on the spills of which the life and well-being of the people depended, that were the most important factor that determined the attitudes and worldviews of the Egyptians, their attitude to life and death, their religious views.

The name Egypt was given to the state by the Greeks who came to Egypt to get acquainted with its cultural achievements. The name of the country Aygyuptos can be found in the writings of the Greek historian Herodotus. The Egyptians themselves called their country Ta-Kemet (Black Earth) by the color of its fertile soil, as opposed to the red desert land or Ta-Mera (Land of Floods).

Ancient Egypt existed for three thousand years. There were no sharp historical breaks here, changes occurred gradually, without violating established traditions. For such a long time, a culture of worldwide significance has been created. The origins of Egyptian culture are lost in ancient times. Being African in origin, Egyptian culture did not immediately find its face. Its formation began with the transition to irrigation agriculture and cattle breeding, thanks to which permanent settlements appeared and the ethnic composition stabilized. The development of ancient Egyptian culture was due mainly to favorable living conditions in the valleys of large rivers, on fertile lands. The destruction of tribal isolation led to qualitative shifts in the development of labor tools. The expansion and development of agriculture took place both through the introduction of more advanced irrigation systems and the development of floodplain lands, and through conquest. At the same time, the number of plants used in the economy and domesticated livestock also increased.

Economic and ethnic stability, in turn, ensured the formation of sustainable cultural traditions, which gave rise to an unexpected cultural explosion that ensured the flourishing of the ancient Egyptian civilization. Only the transition to the manufacture of copper tools, the improvement of the irrigation farming system, the development of cattle breeding, the emergence of property differentiation and social hierarchy, the formation of funeral ideas and the cult of the deified ruler, the emergence of hieroglyphic writing allowed Egyptian culture to become precisely Egyptian, and not remain African.

Periodization of ancient Egyptian culture: Early Kingdom, Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, New Kingdom and Late Kingdom, of which the eras of the Ancient, Middle and New Kingdoms became the most fruitful for it.

ancient kingdom

In ancient times, Egypt occupied virtually the same Old Kingdom territory as it does today. In the pre-dynastic period, there were separate regions on this territory - nomes, which later united into kingdoms: Upper Egypt in the south in the Nile Valley and Lower Egypt in the north in the Nile Delta.

Around 3100 B.C. The pharaoh of Upper Egypt, Nermer, or Less, conquered Lower Egypt and united both kingdoms under the rule of the first dynasty, and also founded a new capital on the border of the two kingdoms, called Memphis. This capital gave its name to the whole country, since the Greek word Aygyuptos is a distorted poetic designation of the ancient capital of Memphis - Hetka-Pta.

The era of the Old Kingdom was perceived by the Egyptians themselves as the time of the reign of powerful and wise kings. The centralization of power in ancient Egypt gave rise to a specific form of social consciousness - the cult of the pharaoh. This cult was based on the idea of the pharaoh as the ancestor of all Egyptians. In turn, the pharaoh was seen as the heir to God, the creator and ruler of the world. Therefore, he had power over the entire cosmos. The well-being of the country was due to the presence of the pharaoh. Thanks to him, regularity and order prevailed everywhere. Pharaoh, in his own person, kept the balance of the world, which was constantly threatened by chaos.

Unlike other peoples who inhabited the Middle East in antiquity, all Egyptians were equal before God. Neither the aristocracy nor other intermediate instances stood between the state and the individual. The position of a person in society was determined by the name of his parents and the title that corresponded to his place in the administrative system. A man and a woman were equal before the law, although a woman usually entered her husband's house and became the mistress of the house there. The Egyptians, apparently, especially valued family relationships, this is reflected in numerous drawings and inscriptions on the walls of tombs and in literary monuments.

The decisive role in the formation of the Egyptian culture of this stage was played by the religious and mythological ideas of the ancient Egyptians: the funeral cult and the deification of the power of the pharaoh. Artistic culture was an integral part of cults and rituals, it was closely connected with religion, which idolized the forces of nature and earthly power. Therefore, religion and mythology are the key to understanding the entire artistic culture of Ancient Egypt.

The most important feature of the attitude of the Egyptians was the rejection of death, which they considered unnatural both for man and for all nature. This attitude was based on the belief in the regular renewal of nature and life. After all, nature is renewed annually, and the Nile, overflowing, enriches the surrounding lands with its silt, giving birth to life and prosperity on them. But when it goes back to its banks, a drought sets in, which is not death, since the next year the Nile will flood again. It was from these beliefs that the creed was born, according to which death did not mean the end of a person’s existence, resurrection awaits him. For this, the immortal soul of the deceased needs to reconnect with his body. Therefore, the living must take care that the body of the deceased is preserved, and embalming is the means of preserving the body. Thus, concern for the preservation of the body of the deceased led to the emergence of the art of making mummies.

Believing that death is not the cessation of human existence, but only its transition to another world, where its earthly existence continues in a peculiar way, the Egyptians sought to provide this existence with all the necessary items. First of all, it was necessary to take care of the construction of a tomb for the body, in which the life force - ka - would return to the eternal body of the deceased.

Ka was man's counterpart, his guardian angel. After the death of a person, his existence depended on the safety of his body. But the mummy, although more durable than the body, was also perishable. To provide an eternal receptacle for the ka, accurate portrait statues were created from hard stone.

The dwelling of the deceased person was supposed to be a tomb, where he lived near his body - a mummy and a portrait statue. Since the afterlife was conceived as a direct continuation of the earthly one, after the death of the dead it was necessary to provide everything that they possessed during life. The reliefs carved on the walls of the burial chambers reproduced the scenes of the daily life of the deceased, replacing for him what surrounded a person in everyday life on earth. These images were perceived not as a wonderful life, but as a continuation of real earthly life. Equipped with explanatory inscriptions and texts along with household items, they were supposed to enable the deceased to continue to lead his usual way of life and use his property in the afterlife.

The Egyptians considered the eyes a mirror of the soul, so they fixed their attention on them by strongly tinting with a paste, to which crushed malachite was added. The eyes of the statues were made from different materials: pieces of alabaster imitating squirrels were inserted into a bronze shell corresponding to the shape of the eye, and rock crystal for the pupil. A small piece of polished wood was placed under the crystal, thanks to which that brilliant point was obtained, which gave liveliness to the pupil and the whole eye.

middle kingdom

The era of the Middle Kingdom is often called classical; it became a new period of flourishing of Egyptian culture. Around 2050 B.C. pharaoh Mentuhetep I was able to unite Egypt and restore a unified power under the auspices of Thebes. The era of the Middle Kingdom began, continuing the trends in the development of the culture of the Old Kingdom.

The Middle Kingdom is rightfully considered the classical period of Egyptian culture. At this time, the Middle Egyptian language finally took shape, which, as the dominant language, existed until the end of Egyptian history, retaining a predominantly religious and cult purpose. The prosperity of the state in the era of the Middle Kingdom contributed to the intensive temple construction, during which the architectural style of the Old Kingdom was not only revived, but also rethought, based on new political, religious and artistic needs. Simultaneously with the development of architecture, there was a development of concrete scientific knowledge. From this era, the first mathematical and medical texts, the oldest records of the measurement of the country, lists of constellations on sarcophagi, the world's first dictionary have come down to us.

The individualism of the Egyptians manifested itself primarily in the fact that each cared about his own immortality. To ensure eternal life, one stele was enough - a stone slab on which magical texts were written that guaranteed the deceased both the afterlife and material support.

But the pharaohs continued to build tombs in the form of pyramids, wanting to imitate the mighty lords of the Old Kingdom. Of course, these were no longer the same pyramids that had once been built: their dimensions had significantly decreased, the material for construction was not monolithic two-ton blocks, but raw brick, and the method of laying had also changed. From above, the pyramids were lined with limestone slabs. These pyramids were a stone frame filled with stone chips, bricks and even sand. Probably, the rulers of the Middle Kingdom believed that the stone pyramids did not sufficiently ensure the safety of the mummy. Therefore, the burial chamber began to be hidden in the protective system of underground corridors, which turned into a real labyrinth. Such a transition from stone pyramids to brick pyramids was associated with the struggle against robbers and did not require huge material costs for their construction.

Particularly famous among the architectural buildings of this stage of Egyptian culture was the mortuary temple at the pyramid of Pharaoh Amenemhat III. This temple entered the history of artistic culture under the name Labyrinth. The origin of the name is associated with the throne name of Amenemhat, in Greek transcription read as Labir. The temple, according to the Greek historian Herodotus, overshadowed even the pyramids of the Old Kingdom with its fame.

The Middle Kingdom, compared with other eras of Egyptian history, took a relatively short period. Therefore, cultural monuments were created much less. Internal social crisis and invasion of the country in 1720 BC nomadic Asian tribes of the Hyksos put an end to the Middle Kingdom.

new kingdom

Egypt reached its highest rise during the New Kingdom, which began after the exile in 1580 BC. Hyksos from Egypt.

The expansion of the geographical horizon, interaction with the cultures of other peoples, the influx of huge wealth into Egypt stimulated an unprecedented flourishing of Egyptian culture. The era of the New Kingdom is characterized by the construction of temples, the further improvement of the art of relief, painting, plastic arts, and jewelry. The grandiose construction of the pharaohs is still aimed at affirming the divine character royal power. But instead of the pyramids, the crown of this construction is the temple.

The conquest of new lands by the Egyptians in the era of the New Kingdom, the trading settlements of immigrants from other countries, the penetration of foreigners into the state apparatus and the Egyptian army, increasing interlingual communication - all this contributed to the process of interaction and assimilation of cultures. On this wave of increasing international contacts, a new trend in Egyptian culture is emerging - deliberate archaization.

Cultural monuments of this era amaze with a mixture of styles, external stylization, special elegance and perfection of execution. At the same time, the sense of connection with the past intensified, which manifested itself, in particular, in the awakening of interest in the genealogy of people and gods, in veneration in one temple along with the main deity of other gods of the pantheon. The rulers of the New Kingdom especially revered the sun god Amun. The grandiose construction that began in this era is associated with the name of this god. In a short time, magnificent palaces and houses, magnificent temples changed the face of Thebes, turning them into the richest and most majestic of the Egyptian cities. The pharaohs of this dynasty remained faithful to the old Theban tradition, according to which the dead kings were buried in underground rock tombs. Therefore, the main attention was paid to the construction of mortuary temples, and in addition to them, temples dedicated to the sun god Ra were built.

Among the mortuary temples, a special place was occupied by the temple of Queen Hatshepsut in the Valley of the Kings in Deir al-Bahri. This gigantic temple consisted of three terraces towering over each other. The temple blended beautifully with the terrain, sparkling with white columns against the brown background of huge rocks. In addition to the external grandiose appearance, this temple became famous for its luxurious interior decoration. The reliefs of the composition of the temple told about the birth of Hatshepsut from the marriage of her mother with the god Amun, from which it followed that the queen was of divine origin. In addition, it was believed that she was patronized by the sky goddess Hathor, whose images were placed everywhere. The interior decoration of the temple was unusually rich: gold and silver floor slabs, doors inlaid with bronze, figurines made of semiprecious stones. The statues that stood in the chapel of the temple and had a cult character were essentially portraits of the queen.

No less famous building of that time was the mortuary complex of Pharaoh Ramses II, which consisted of a palace and a temple in Thebes, as well as the rock temple of Ramses II in Abu Simbel. The latter consisted of two structures: the Great Temple, dedicated to the pharaoh and the three gods - Amon, Ra and Ptah, and the Small Temple, erected in honor of the goddess Hathor, in the image of which the wife of Ramses, Nefertari, is represented. In front of the temple were twenty-meter colossi of the pharaoh, carved right into the rock. Contrary to tradition, the temple was located on the western bank of the Nile and oriented to the east. Therefore, with the first rays of the sun, the giant sculptures suddenly turned dark red and seemed to protrude from the rock.\

Along with pyramids, mortuary temples and mastabas, sanctuaries not connected with the afterlife cult were built in the New Kingdom. These are temples dedicated to various gods, and above all to the sun god Ra. This type of temples includes two famous temples of the god Amun in Thebes - Karnak and Luxor.

Religion and Art of Ancient Egypt

The history of the culture of Ancient Egypt shows that this civilization was not always monolithic and powerful, it experienced periods of prosperity and decline. Various kinds of contradictions, generated by the luxury of the ruling elite and the poverty of the people, clashes between the power of the pharaoh and the power of the priests, sometimes shook and weakened the Egyptian state. And wars with neighbors, the rivalry of other powerful empires sometimes threatened the integrity of the empire of the pharaohs. But, despite all these circumstances, the internal forces turned out to be quite large, since this empire for almost thirty centuries, each time recovering from another blow, continued to embody the highest stage of human civilization of its time. The main reason for the high vitality of the Egyptian state, as the researchers believed, was the religious beliefs of the ancient Egyptians.

Initially, the pantheon of the Egyptian gods was characterized by chaos, inconsistency and inconsistency. There were many gods in Ancient Egypt, there were several of them in each city. The main was the sun god Ra, the king and father of the gods. One of the most important was Osiris - the god of death, personifying the dying and resurrecting nature. The Egyptians believed that after death and his resurrection, Osiris became the king of the underworld. No less important was the goddess Isis - the patroness of fertility and motherhood. Maat was considered the goddess of truth and order.

The ancient Egyptians recognized all the gods revered by local traditions. Each of them had its own name, its own history, basic attributes and symbols that made them one of a kind. The inhabitants of each city deeply revered their patron deity, on which their well-being depended. Over time, during the period of the creation of a single state, a certain divine hierarchy was formed and the cults of numerous gods and the religious and mythological ideas associated with them were streamlined. The idea of autocracy led to the rise of the cults of the gods of the largest religious and political centers. Now the main deity of any province (noma) was considered the incarnation of the sun, which was reflected in their names: Amon-Ra, Mantu-Pa, Sebek-Ra.

Drawings and paintings on the walls of tombs, temples and palaces, household items, in which the artist strictly adhered to certain rules, have survived to this day. All the drawings of the Egyptian masters were linear and flat, they did not have volume, perspective or chiaroscuro. Linear drawings were painted with color without the introduction of additional tones and colored shadows. The figures were outlined with a sharp outline: male - in black, female - in red.

Particular attention was paid to the depiction of the human figure.

Perhaps the most famous sculpture in Egypt is the Great Sphinx at Giza, guarding the pyramids. This sphinx is the largest and oldest statue in the world. The stone lion with the face of Pharaoh Khafre is carved from a natural rock and has huge dimensions: its height is 20 meters and its length is 57 meters. On his head is a royal striped scarf (klaft), and on his forehead is a symbol of royal power, the uraeus (sacred snake).

In the sculptural images of a person, a strictly defined canon was already developed in the Old Kingdom. The standing statue was performed with the left leg extended forward and the arms lowered, pressed to the body. The seated statue was a figure with arms symmetrically placed on the knees or an arm bent at the elbow. Both types of statues were always proportional, symmetrical, frontal and static. Their torsos are tensely straightened, their straight head is raised high, and their calmly impartial gaze is directed into the distance. Often the statues were painted: the body of the male figures - red-brown, female - yellow, hair - black, and clothing - white.

Small stone figurines were also created in round sculpture. To make it easier for an Egyptian to live in the afterlife, he needed servants and slaves. Their role was played by small stone, wooden and faience figurines of servants, plowmen, porters, laundresses. In character, these figurines are sharply opposed to the statues of pharaohs and nobles, and their images did not always fit into the canon.

After the conquest of Egypt by the Persians, its culture was adopted by a number of peoples with whom in the past there were mostly indirect contacts. Now Egypt was inhabited by an even greater number of immigrants from Asia: Jews, Arameans, Phoenicians, Babylonians, Persians, Medes, who brought with them their customs and beliefs. The Egyptians, more and more leaving their homeland for one reason or another, joined the culture of those countries where they settled, changed names, but retained their ethnic self-name.

Features of the culture of the Inca Empire

In the XII century, a people appeared on the shores of Lake Titicaca, led by the Inca, the supreme ruler. He moved to the new capital - Cusco and spread his influence over a vast territory, covering by the XV - XVI centuries. most of modern Ecuador, Peru, a significant part of Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, as well as a small area of Colombia.

Country name in Quechua, can be translated as four unified provinces. This name is due to the fact that the country was divided into four provinces: Kuntinsuyu, Kolyasuyu, Antisuyu and Chinchasuyu. In addition, four roads left Cuzco in four directions, and each of them was named after the part of the empire to which it led.

The creation of the state is attributed to the legendary Inca Manco Capac, he also founded the capital - the city of Cusco, at an altitude of 3416 meters above sea level, in a deep valley between two mountain ranges.

After the creation of the country's territory has been constantly expanding. Especially after the Inca Yahuar Huakak created a regular army in the empire. Great conquests were made by Inca Pachacuti. He created a real empire, because before that the Incas were just one of the many Indian tribes, and Cusco was an ordinary town. When conquering neighboring tribes, the Incas, on the one hand, used their strong and numerous army, and on the other hand, they attracted the elite of the conquered regions. Before undertaking military action, the Incas three times invited the rulers of the conquered region to voluntarily join the empire. They forced the conquered tribes to learn the Quechua language, imposed their customs and introduced their own laws. The local nobility and the priesthood of the conquered peoples retained their position, and the practice of local religions was not forbidden, subject to the obligatory worship of the all-imperial sun god Inti. The Incas paid great attention to the preservation of local folk crafts and costume, so that by the dress of any inhabitant of Tahuantinsuyu it was easy to determine his origin and social status.

The Incas were characterized by the division of power and society into: warriors and non-warriors. The main commanders and commanders were either the rulers of the Empire, or people appointed by them from the ruling ethnic group - the Incas. At the same time, it seems that there was still some kind of dual power - a full-fledged duumvirate: when the ruler (governor) of the city of Cusco was engaged in the economic activities of the Empire, supplying and providing troops, which is repeatedly mentioned by the historian Juan de Betanzos.

At the peak of its existence, the Inca Empire was one of the largest states on Earth. The number of subjects of the empire reached, according to different sources, from 5-6 to 12 million people.

Laws

The laws of the Incas have survived only in fragments, but their content is known from numerous Spanish colonial sources compiled according to oral tradition. Laws were registered and "recorded" by individual officials in a pile, and other officials - heralds - were proclaimed in one of the squares of the capital of the Cusco Empire - Rimac. Indian law is characterized by a high degree of strictness in the application of punishment - in most cases the death penalty, resulting in the almost complete absence of certain types of crimes among the Indians (petty theft, corruption, murder), which Spanish officials, missionaries and soldiers admired. True, this can indirectly speak of the totalitarian and command-administrative nature of the government of the Inca state.

The superiority of Inca laws over Spanish ones was already noticed by the first chroniclers:

In truth, few peoples in the world, in my opinion, have had a better government than the Incas. (Cieza de Leon, Pedro).

Inca roads

The Incas laid communication routes, including through mountain paths, along which the imperial army could move freely. The total length of roads is about 25 thousand km. When moving along the roads, a llama was used as a beast of burden, since horses in South America did not have. On the roads, the transmission of information encoded in a special way (kipu) by messengers was also established.

Mail

Taking into account the length of roads in Tawantinsuyu, which was at least 10-15 thousand kilometers, the number of people involved in 5-7 thousand post stations. On the speed of delivery of messages of exceptional importance, the Spanish lawyer Juan Polo de Ondegardo, who described the rites of the Indians in Peru in 1559 in his treatise “ Delusions and superstitious rites of the Indians”, Mixing the predictions of Indian sorcerers and the real situation, he noticed that:

These (sorcerers) serve for divination, and for telling what happens in very distant places before it comes or can come in the form of news, because even after the arrival of the Spaniards, it happened that at a distance of more than two hundred or three hundred leagues knew of riots, great battles, and rebellions, and deaths, both among the Tyrants and those who were on the side of the King, and about individuals, on the same day and hour when such deeds were committed, or the next day, which naturally was impossible to learn about them so quickly.

Revista historica; Organo del Instituto Histórico del Perú, Volume 1. Lima, 1906, p. 220

Inca irrigation

Active construction of military, administrative and religious buildings was carried out. In Cuzco and many other cities, a sub-pipe was built, which was not inferior in skill to the Roman one, but, unlike the latter, was made without the use of unhealthy lead.

Metallurgy

Tahuantinsuyu is the only civilization in pre-Columbian America where bronze and copper were known. In addition to copper and bronze, the Incas smelted a large amount of silver and gold and their alloys, among which the most famous is tumbaga (a low-melting alloy of 1 part of gold with about 2 parts of copper, having high mechanical and aesthetic qualities). The Incas also knew platinum.

Culture and science

The Incas worshiped the Sun (Inti) as the main deity. The ruler of the Incas was considered the incarnation of the sun god on earth, so everything he touched was burned. In connection with the solar cult, various gold items were very common.

According to the Report to the King of Spain, compiled by Governor Francisco de Borja on April 8, 1615, the Indians of Peru had 10422 idols, of which 1365 were mummies, and some were the founders of their clans, tribes and villages.

All chroniclers who reported on Andean beliefs also speak of minor gods: firstly, they are regional or tribal, secondly, regional or clan, and finally, family. The first historian Cristobal de Albornoz calls pakariski. pakariski could be mythical ancestors and progenitors of large ethnic groups, acting in various guises. Among them, we can mention such gods as: Pariakaka, Karua, Vanka, Aisavilka, Chinchakocha or Yanaraman. The Augustinian monks mention regional idols and vacas in Guamachuco.

Measuring quantities of the Incas

It is rather difficult to determine the main measuring quantities used by the Incas in everyday life, economy, and administration. Nevertheless, there are a number of authentically known ones, such as the universal " a means of measuring anything»:

Tupu is a measure of length and area.

The Yupana was the universal counting device of the Incas.

Writing

A system was developed for transmitting, processing and summarizing statistical data in the form of the so-called kipu knot letter, which helped manage the huge empire in real time. Quipu themselves were used by Indian officials even 50 years after the conquest, but already from 1583, after the Third Lima Cathedral, they began to be completely destroyed. For a long time it was believed that the Incas did not have a complete written language. This point of view was beneficial to the Spanish colonialists, since it gave them the moral right to impose their culture and their ideas of spirituality on the peoples of the Andes. However, in 1923, the historian Locke was able to prove that the nodular plexus of the Incas (quipu) is indeed writing.

Tokapu

There is evidence that the patterns on the fabrics of the Incas and on their ceramics could be a kind of ideographic writing, as well as indications of chroniclers about the Incas keeping annals on gold tablets. There is no doubt that in Quechua of the pre-Hispanic period there was a root “kelka” with the meaning “writing, writing”.

Architecture

The architecture of the Incas is known from descriptions and numerous remains of buildings. Cyclopean structures made of colossal stones (Saksayuman fortress) were replaced by buildings made of carefully hewn blocks of granite (Pisak fortress). The peculiarities of the architecture of the Incas is an unusually thorough and dense (so that it is impossible to put a knife blade between the blocks) fitting stone blocks (often of irregular shape and very different sizes) to each other without the use of mortars,

inward-sloping walls with rounded corners and light thatched roofs. Thanks to these features, the Inca buildings had a phenomenal earthquake resistance.

Music

Tahuantinsuyu had a rich musical culture. The peoples of the empire used numerous wind and percussion instruments: longitudinal and transverse flutes(kena, tarka, pinkulu, etc.).

Pansiku flutes were composed of two parts - “ira” and “arch”, in each of which the pipes were tuned with an interval of a third so that when moving, the melodies were taken alternately on one or the other part. When performed, one musician (or one group of musicians) plays the "ira" and the other plays the "arka", which gives the music its characteristic stereophonic sound.

The music of the Incas had many genres, most of which were tied to the spiritual practices and rituals that accompanied the agricultural cycle. Some instruments sounded only once a year on a particular holiday.

The musical culture of Tahuantinsuyu has retained its most important features to this day in the traditional music of the Andean peoples. Although some of its genres have experienced Spanish influence to one degree or another, many of them have remained virtually untouched and still sound the same today as they did centuries ago.

Conclusion

Each culture carries a huge cultural layer studied and still being studied, expressed in the creations of architecture, evidence of writing, in the remains of handicraft art, as well as in the language that has come down to us. Faced every time with the ancient culture of Latin America and Central Africa, we find a lot of interesting things in it and even more unsolved and surrounded by a halo of mysticism. What is one myth about the fabulous country "El dorado". Many fragments of the distant era of the existence of the civilizations of the Incas, Aztecs and Maya, unfortunately, have been lost forever, but there remains much that we are in direct contact with, but it also gives us ways to unravel a lot, sometimes inexplicable, to us, modern people, regarding art in general those distant worlds. The problem of studying these ancient cultures, until recently, was "closed to the eyes and minds of scientists around the world." With great obstacles and intervals in the breaks, excavations and searches for architectural treasures have been and are being carried out. Only recently, with the exception of literary information, has access been expanded to territories and places associated with the habitation of ancient tribes and peoples on them. People who have been there and talk about what they saw seem overwhelmed with the most unusual impressions from what they experienced and saw. They enthusiastically talk about the places where, allegedly, religious rites were once performed, about ancient Indian temples, about many things that we could not clearly imagine without seeing in reality.

Literature:

1. Brodsky B. Life for centuries. Entertaining art criticism, M., 1990.

2. Vasilevskaya L. Yu., Zaretskaya D. M., Smirnova V. V. World artistic culture. M., 1997.

3. Dmitrieva NA, Vinogradova NA. Art of the Ancient World. M., 1989. Ancient civilizations / Under the general editorship of G.M. Bongard-Levin. M., 1989.

4. Egypt: the land of the pharaohs. M., 1997. Keram K. Gods, tombs, scientists. M., 1994.

5. Culture of Ancient Egypt / Edited by I.S. Katsnelson. M., 1976.

6. Lyubimov L. Art of the Ancient World. M., 1996.

Description of work

Each culture carries a huge cultural layer studied and still being studied, expressed in the creations of architecture, evidence of writing, in the remains of handicraft art, as well as in the language that has come down to us. Faced every time with the ancient culture of Latin America and not infrequently with the modern one, we find a lot of interesting things in it and even more unsolved and surrounded by a halo of mysticism. What is one myth about the fabulous country "El dorado". Many fragments of the distant era of the existence of the civilizations of the Incas, Aztecs and Maya, unfortunately, have been lost forever, but there remains much that we are in direct contact with, but it also gives us ways to unravel a lot, sometimes inexplicable, to us, modern people, regarding art in general those distant worlds.

1. Features of the Aztec culture

1.1 History of the Aztecs

1.2 Aztec writing

1.3 Aztec kingdom

1.4 Aztec calendar

2. Features of the culture of ancient China

3. Features of the culture of Egypt

3.1 Old kingdom

3.2 Middle Kingdom

3.3 New kingdom

3.4 Religion and art of ancient Egypt

4. Features of the culture of the Incas