HIST 107 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Dharma, Vaishya, Axial Age
Document Summary
New inventions happen, they just don"t get passed on. Starting w/ pictographs: they look like what they"re supposed to be. Then pictographs can become symbols representing sounds, or more abstract idea. Mayans and egyptians follow this same pattern. It"s way easier to use someone else"s writing system and modify it to your language. Pictographs > ideographs (those combinations) > phonetic script. Most of the population is illiterate bc they don"t have time. The writing language was often archaic writing. Writing is used for records, oracles, monuments. Culture: written, transregional, and unitary. (writing allows them to all have similar views. They"re all reading/writing same things, so they have an overarching culture/identity. What common values are taught by these myths. These values legitimize the agrarian pyramids hierarchies. Leaders use religion to legitimize monopolization of violence. As civilization gets bigger, some rules and core ideas are needed. Everyone faces similar problems, and all have different solutions.
