About 5000 years ago, four civilizations emerged on our planet. These are the Indus civilization, the Egyptian civilization, the Sumerian civilization and the Chinese civilization. All other people who then lived on Earth were primitive hunters and gatherers. Against their background, four centers of civilization stood out sharply - the development of agriculture, science, culture, construction.
Historians and ethnographers are still arguing - why did the centers of civilization arise in these regions? What caused such a sharp leap in development and culture? The climate? Geographical location?
The ruins of the city of Mohenjo-Daro are all that remains of the great Indus civilization.
The second civilization to die was Sumer. In a sense, the Sumerians were more fortunate than the carriers of the Indus civilization - their culture has been partially preserved, modern scientists can even read texts in the Sumerian language. Sumer was first conquered and then "dissolved" by the wild tribes of nomadic Semites (Akkadians, Assyrians, etc.), distant relatives of modern Arabs and Jews. The Semitic barbarians adopted a lot from the Sumerians, and to some extent became the heirs of the Sumerian civilization - so that it did not disappear without a trace.
Ancient Sumerians. Do they look like the Egyptians?
The third "victim of history" was the civilization of Egypt. It died out longer than others - its decline lasted almost two thousand years! - and finally disappeared only with the arrival of the Arabs in Egypt in the 7th century AD. Most of the modern inhabitants of Egypt with the ancient Egyptians have no connection at all - they speak a completely different language, they have a completely different religion and culture; a tiny "remnant" of the ancient Egyptian civilization are the Copts - a people making up about 6% of the population of modern Egypt.
Monuments of the Egyptian civilization of the pre-dynastic period.
But what about our modern civilization? Well, the one that is usually called "European"? Oh, difficult. We are, to some extent, the heirs of the ancient Egyptian and Sumerian civilizations, but not directly. The knowledge that has come down to us (for example, we still divide the circle by 360 degrees, like the Sumerians), we inherited from the ancient Greeks and Romans - who, in turn, adopted this knowledge from the ancient Babylonians (descendants of the very Semites, who destroyed Sumer) and representatives of the Egyptian civilization (already dying by that time).
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As you can see, out of the four ancient civilizations, only one has survived to this day - the Chinese. Scientists are still putting forward versions - why did cultural, organized, educated civilizations died out, could not withstand the onslaught of "uncultured savages"?
Someone writes about the lack of "vitality", someone - about being spoiled by a luxurious life, someone - about the fact that a cultured person, with his ideas about decency, honor, kindness and mercy in a direct battle with an uncivilized unscrupulous barbarian always doomed to defeat …
But then the question arises - why did the Chinese civilization successfully repel (or dissolve) all the attacks of the barbarians and survived everyone?
Is it * wall magic *? Emperor Qin Shi Huang, who started its construction.
Yes, China had periods of prosperity and decline, it was even conquered (the same Mongols or Manchus) - but civilization withstood this and survived to this day! Why did it happen? Nobody knows for sure.
What is your opinion on this matter?