I. The development of the study of ancient Egyptian civilization in the first half of the 20th century
Ancient Egyptian civilization is an indispensable part of the world's civilization, which has been involved in some of the early works of general history of the world, but at that time, it was not a strictly specialized study. in the first half of the 20th century, the study of ancient Egyptian civilization not only began to be carried out as a specialized field, but also included in the "Near East" ancient civilization. In the first half of the 20th century, the study of ancient Egyptian civilization began not only as a specialized field, but was also included in the scope of ancient civilizations of the "Near East". The study of the "Near East" as a whole revealed Egypt's place in the history of the "Near East".
1. Specialized works on ancient Egyptian civilization
There were two important works on ancient Egyptian civilization in the first half of the 20th century. The first was G. E. Smith's The Origins of Ancient Egyptians and Civilization, first published in 1911. Originally an anatomist and anthropologist, Smith combined anthropology with the study of ancient Egyptian civilization and published several works on mummies and the history of Egyptian civilization, the most important of which was The Origins of Ancient Egyptians and Civilization. Its main thesis is twofold: the origin of civilization in Egypt; and the outward spread of Egyptian civilization. In that book, the author stresses that "there is no longer any doubt that the essential elements of civilization did originate in Egypt." "In fact, Egypt is the creator of civilization." "On the basis of her actual contribution to world civilization, Egypt deserves a particularly distinguished place in the pantheon of anthropology."
Smith, in addition to fully acknowledging the origins of civilization in Egypt and the importance of Egyptian civilization, proposed a theory or hypothesis of the spread of Egyptian civilization. The theory of spread or diffusion was quite popular among some European anthropologists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They believed that cultures all over the world spread outward from a center or centers, but completely ignored other factors of cultural diffusion. Smith, as a representative of diffusionism, repeatedly emphasized that Egypt was the oldest civilization and that all other civilizations in the world were the result of Egyptian diffusion or diffusion, or at least were directly or indirectly influenced by Egyptian civilization. As an anthropologist, Smith emphasized that "the diffusion of races originated in East Africa". Whether it be the Arabs, the South Persians, or any other people, their physical characteristics are very similar to those of the primitive Egyptians. [1] Smith repeatedly emphasizes that Western Europe's "Neolithic culture ...... originated directly or indirectly in Egypt, and that the stone artifacts of this period were modeled on Egyptian monuments prior to the 6th Dynasty." [2] When it comes to irrigated agriculture in Mesopotamia, he argues that the Sumerians learned it from Egypt. [3] When it comes to human customs and arts, the author states, "Egypt, as the inventor of civilization, has dominated in the formation of beliefs, customs, and funerary arts." [4]
On the causes of the spread of Egyptian civilization and how it spread, Smith argues that "the search for minerals such as copper turned out to be one of the main causes of the spread of civilization." "The recognition of the economic value of copper drove the Egyptians abroad in search of the precious mineral, which in turn turned into a process of exploitation of mineral deposits, and so Egyptian civilization was spread throughout the world." [5] In addition, he talks about the role of seafarers and migratory activities in the spread.
According to Smith's theory of diffusion, we can draw a roadmap of the spread of early Egyptian culture, which includes twelve routes: with Egypt as the point of departure, it went directly to Crete, Syria, South Arabia, Sumeria, India, and so on; and the spreading routes with Elam and Turkey as the point of departure even reached as far as China. [6]
As one of the main representatives of Pan-Egyptianism in the school of communication in the early 20th century, Smith contributed to the study of civilizational diffusion and influence among civilizations of the "Near East" and between the "Near East" and European civilizations. After the 1930s, the influence of this school gradually declined. The reason for this was the radical and arbitrary pan-Egyptianism of the school of transmission, which had little market among professional historians and Egyptologists, and was severely criticized by them for its overly strong teleological overtones. Some scholars have even advocated the need to "abandon the concept of center and periphery" and replace it with "the polycentric growth of human civilization". [7]
The second major work on ancient Egyptian civilization in the first half of the 20th century was A. Molay's The Nile and the Civilization of Egypt. The original French edition of the book was published in 1926, followed by English and Chinese translations, and became a major work in the History of Civilization series edited by Ogden. The book deals with ancient Egyptian civilization from the point of view of folklore, so that the author, in his discussion of Egyptian social life and political system, "all take religion as the pivot." [8] With regard to Egyptian kingship, Morai emphasizes its sacredness. He devotes considerable space to Egyptian royal titles, the king's enthronement ceremony, and the festival of Said. However, his use of some terms from the history of political development, especially the "modernization" of certain terminology, needs to be treated with caution. For example, he argues that by the end of the 6th Dynasty, absolutism had evolved into a European feudal system;[9] the 12th Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom to the 20th Dynasty of the New Kingdom became "National Socialism";[10] and at the time of the Reforms of Ehnatun, the pharaohs wanted to introduce "imperialism"[11] and so on. imperialism", and so on. [11] Nevertheless, the book "Nile and Egyptian civilization" to religion and folklore as the outline of the link between politics, art, literature, a profound description of the evolution of ancient Egyptian civilization, to provide us with the general history of the book is rare, rich and interesting content.
2. Study of Ancient Egyptian Civilization in the Ancient "Near Eastern" Civilization
In addition to the special study of Ancient Egyptian civilization itself, the study of Ancient Egyptian civilization as a part of the "Near Eastern" civilization has also been carried out. At least three important works on ancient Egyptian civilization can be cited as involving the study of the "Near East" civilization. The first is From Clan to Empire: Social Organization in the Ancient East during the Archaic Period, co-authored by French scholars A. Morais and G. David. It was published in 1923, translated into English in 1926, and into Chinese in 1936 as A History of the Ancient Near East.
From Clans to Empires is another masterpiece in the History of Civilization series edited by Ogden, whose main contents and ideas can be summarized as follows: First, the author points out that the birthplace of civilization is in the southeastern Mediterranean region, i.e., from the Nile to Mesopotamia. No human footprints existed in Syria or Mesopotamia in 4000 B.C. or earlier, when the history of the Egyptians had already begun. [12] Here, the author emphasizes the precocity of Egyptian civilization. Secondly, when it comes to the formation of Egyptian civilization, the author argues that the emergence of Bronze Age industry is one sign of civilization formation, while the emergence of writing, which combines phonetic and ideographic symbols, is another sign of civilization formation. [13] Thirdly, concerning the formation of the state, the author talks about the unification of the Egyptian divine dynasties, the followers of Horus and Menes. The author provides a model for the unification of the Egyptian state: Nome - two kingdoms - unified kingdom. [14] Fourth, on the origin of the Egyptian nation, the author refutes the invasion of Asian peoples in the pre-dynastic era and argues that the Egyptians would have belonged to the Mediterranean race. [15] Fifth, the author argues that Ehnatun's promotion of monotheism in religious policy was imperialism. [16] Although some of the references in this work are not perfect and precise, it is still an important work for the study of the ancient history of the "Near East".
There are also two important works by Child. Child was a famous British archaeologist and Marxist. He tried to create a ****similar conception of the historical development of mankind and to explain the process of historical development in materialistic terms. His representative works on the ancient history of the "Near East" are A New Approach to the Ancient East and Man Created Himself.
New Explorations of the Ancient Orient was first published in 1934, and has since been reprinted several times, with French and Russian translations. This work centers on the early civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia, and deals with the origins of Indian and European civilizations in connection with them. As far as the early Egyptian civilization is concerned, this is one of the works that systematically deals with the history of prehistoric Egypt up to the period of the formation of civilization on the basis of archaeology. One of the contributions worth emphasizing is the author's division of Egyptian prehistory into three stages of development: the Badari culture - the Amra culture - the Gersei culture. The author not only made a detailed archaeological discussion, but also revealed the problems of the enrichment and impoverishment of the society, the formation of private ownership and slavery on the basis of archaeological data. [17] On the question of whether there was a break in culture between Amra and Gerse, which has always been much debated, the author argues that "there was no significant break." [18]
This work also deals with certain theoretical issues of history. While some scholars often speak of the spread of the culture of the conqueror to the conquered as a "migration of peoples," Child rejects this theory of migration and maintains the basic theory of the independent development of national cultures. [Although Child made a significant contribution to the study of the origins of early Egyptian civilization, some of his arguments are still unacceptable. For example, it is claimed that "the Mesopotamian form of kingship and the burial rites of kings adopted the monarchy of the Egyptian pharaohs." [20] He even suggests that papyrus was "borrowed" by the Egyptians from the Sumerians. He also emphasized that wheeled carts and potter's wheels were brought from Sumer to India, and from India to the Orontes region of Western Asia. [21] All these points show his idea of "diffusionism". As a matter of fact, interactions and influences between civilizations are inevitable, and there is no need to establish that civilizations spread and diffused outward from a certain center or centers. In New Explorations in the Ancient Orient, Child discusses for the first time the two major human revolutions, the Neolithic and Urban Revolutions, in which prehistoric mankind moved from a food-gathering economy to a food-producing economy, and urban civilization emerged as a result of handicrafts and trade.
Another important work by Child is Man Created Himself, first published in 1936 and later revised and reprinted several times, with a Chinese translation titled The History of Ancient Cultures. The focus of this work is on the three major revolutions from prehistory to civilization in the "Near East": the Neolithic Revolution, the Urban Revolution, and the Revolution in Human Knowledge. Child devotes considerable space to the productive activities of "food gatherers" and to the concept of a "food-producing economy". The shift from the former to the latter is the evolution of mankind from gathering and hunting to farming and herding. He called this "change in the human economy", in which humans took control of their own food supply, the First Revolution. [There is some truth in this view. Second, on the subject of the urban revolution, Child states, "The second revolution transformed many small, self-sufficient rural villages into populous cities; such cities, fostered by higher levels of industry and foreign trade, and formalized into states." [23] Finally, Child suggests a revolution in human knowledge, arguing that "the origin of writing and mathematics with the standardization of weights and measures coincided in time with the revolution." [24] Here, Child also specifically mentions the opposition between mental and physical labor. [25]
Cheadle's doctrine of three revolutions in the transition from prehistory to civilization is of great scientific value. However, in the last half century, academics have raised doubts about his theory of Neolithic revolutions. American scholar Braywood even proposed the concept of "agricultural revolution" instead of "Neolithic revolution".
Second, the second half of the 20th century, the expansion of the study of ancient Egyptian civilization
With the progress of archaeology, history, the study of Egyptian civilization in the second half of the 20th century, further attention, a large number of works. Nearly half a century since the Egyptian civilization research achievements and characteristics of the main two: the first is the ancient Egyptian civilization into a wider field of research, re-examine the status of Egyptian civilization. The so-called "wider field" means that, on the basis of the study of civilization in the "Near East", it has been expanded into the new field of the study of Mediterranean civilization, linking Egypt with Greek and Roman civilization, and evaluating ancient Egyptian civilization in the context of globalization. Secondly, while continuing to expand the new fields of the study of Egyptian civilization, the special study of ancient Egyptian civilization has become more in-depth, and a number of special works on the study of ancient Egyptian civilization have appeared with distinctive features.
1. The Study of Ancient Egyptian Civilization in the New Field of Mediterranean Civilization
In the second half of the 20th century, Ancient Egyptian civilization, as an important link in the world's civilization, has been fully affirmed. In addition, the "Mediterranean Regional Civilization" received attention as a new field of study.
"Mediterranean regional civilization" or "Mediterranean world history" includes some civilizations along the Mediterranean coast and islands, such as Egypt, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, Crete, Greece, and Rome. In this new field of study, not only the individual study of Egypt, Greece, Rome and other countries and regions, but also more importantly, the study of civilizational interactions between countries in the Mediterranean region as a whole by connecting the Eastern and Western countries around the Mediterranean Sea is a new topic in the study of civilization in the last half century. Two works are particularly noteworthy in this regard.
The first is C. Freeman's Egypt, Greece, and Rome: the Civilizations of the Ancient Mediterranean, published in 1996. Freeman emphasizes the link between the 3 civilizations by placing Egypt, Greece, and Rome together, which is an issue that modern scholars have explored and studied in depth, opening up a new field of research. [26]The main features and arguments of this work are as follows:
First, by linking Egypt with Greco-Roman, every effort is made to provide a commentary on the main events of each period, while emphasizing the development of cultural and social history and showing the basis of the author's judgment. [27]
Secondly, the content is comprehensive, not only fully dealing with the history of the three major civilizations, with some chapters on the "Near East," Idalaria, Crete, and Persia, but also covering the economic, cultural, religious, and historical background of each civilizational region.
Thirdly, the emphasis is on "Orientalization" and its significance. If "Hellenization" is a traditional conception, the term "Orientalization" has been widely echoed since it was introduced by O. Murray in 1980. According to Freeman, the so-called "Orientalization" is the result of centuries of interaction between the Greeks and the peoples of the East. These civilizations of the ancient "Near East" were neither isolated from each other, nor from the outside world.[28] The author's view is that "Orientalization" was the result of centuries of interaction between the Greeks and the Eastern peoples. [According to the author, the integration of Egypt into the Mediterranean world had a positive impact on Greece, for which Egypt was a source of wisdom and which some believed to be the birthplace of their own civilization. [However, while emphasizing "orientalization", the author does not ignore the indigenous nature of Greek culture and the interaction of civilizations, and suggests that even the mighty Rome was subjected to an "oriental shock". Rome not only brought back a great deal of booty from the Eastern wars, but also brought back a rich Eastern culture. [30]
Fourth, the history of ancient Egyptian civilization made a systematic and brief account. Of the 30 chapters in the book, Ancient Egypt occupies only 3 chapters. The author correctly affirms that the Egyptians created a civilization before the creation of the unified state in 3100 BC. [He speaks highly of the Hyksos period as "a period of enrichment of Egyptian culture". [Summarizing Egypt's achievements, the author states that despite its relative independence, it will inevitably have some influence on the outside world. [33] It should be said that the author's account of the history of Egypt is too brief to add anything new, but there is value in treating Egypt as a part of Mediterranean civilization as a whole.
Fifthly, the author limits the ancient Mediterranean civilization to 600 A.D. The last two chapters of the book are titled "The Making of a New Europe, 395-600" and "The Evolution of the Byzantine Empire." Freeman points out that the traditional history of the Roman Empire ended in the time of Diocletian, while this work extends Roman history beyond Diocletian. The author adopts the doctrine of the "postclassical era" and chooses the year 600 A.D. as the date of the end of the ancient world. This was also done in order to show the impact of centuries of Roman rule on the Western world.[34] However, this was not the case with the book. [34] Unfortunately, however, the author's lower limit for the history of Ancient Egypt basically maintains the traditional approach, i.e., Alexander's conquest of Egypt in 332 B.C.E., and considers the subsequent history of Egypt as part of Greek and Roman history. This suggests that the author still does not treat ancient Egyptian civilization as a separate and complete system, and thus does not align ancient Egyptian history with the new end of the Roman Empire.
Another important work dealing with the civilization of the Mediterranean region is Bernal's Black Athena, a ****3-volume work, extensive, esoteric, and difficult to read, which was published in England in 1987. From the title of this work we can see the Egyptian-Greek connection. The publication of this work had a particular academic and social context. If in the first half of the 20th century Smith's Egyptian "diffusionism" became popular with the expansion of British imperialism, the second half of the 20th century saw the emergence of Afrocentrism. This doctrine was originally developed by African Americans and African intellectuals. To the Afrocentrists, ancient Egypt was the civilization of Black Africa, and Egypt was considered the source of much of the classical world's cultural heritage. The publication of Black Athena generated immediate interest as well as heated debate.
At the beginning of the book, the author confronts the ancient and Aryan models of the study of Greek history, and then he proposes a "revised model". Black Athena focuses on the borrowing of Greek culture from ancient Egypt and the Levant between 2100 and 1100 BC. On the question of the influence of the "Near East" on Aegean culture or of Egypt on Greece at different times, Bernal divides the three periods into three, each of which is dealt with in detail:
The first culmination can be traced back to the 21st century BC, when Egypt during the Middle Kingdom made extensive contacts with the outside world, including Crete and possibly the European continent. continent. The image of the bull on Cretan frescoes and the legend of the bull in Greek mythology are both associated with the Egyptian bull god Mentu. [35] The ruins of the Greek city of Thebes are said to be pointed pyramids. The legend of the Sphinx in Thebes is also a well-known example of Egyptian influence. The ram-headed god believed in the Aegean region was the Egyptian god Amun, as the sheep was an image of the god Amun in Egyptian religion. [36] The legendary founder of Athens, Caecrops, was Egyptian. [37]All of this would account for the Egyptian influence on Greek civilization. [38]
The 2nd climax of Ancient Egypt's influence on Greece was during the Hyksos period, a period in which the religious influence on Greece centered on the worship of gods such as Poseidon, the god of the sea in Greek mythology. The author argues that the Hyksos worshipped the Egyptian god Set. In Egyptian mythology, Set's office was equivalent to that of the Greek god Poseidon, and Athena was the Egyptian god Net. [39] It is generally accepted that Greek was formed in the 17th-16th centuries BC, and that its Indo-European structure and basic vocabulary are linked to non-Indo-European languages. The authors believe that most of this vocabulary is derived from Egyptian and West Semitic languages, which coincides with the conquests of the Egyptian and West Semitic languages, which ruled in Greece for a long period of time. [40]
The 3rd high point of Egyptian influence on Greece occurred during the 18th Dynasty of Egypt in the mid-15th century BC. During this period, Egypt established a powerful empire in the "Near East" and received tribute from the Aegean region. In the 12th century BC, the Dorians invaded, and their successors, the Greeks of the Classical Greek era, are thought to have descended from the Egyptians and Phoenicians. [41]
In addition, the author mentions the establishment of Egyptian temples and sanctuaries in Athens, Corinth, and Thebes. The religion of Egypt influenced Rome more than Greece. In Rome, Emperor Hadrian was especially a believer in Egyptian gods, and he even tried to make his favorite god Antinous an Egyptian god. [42]
Bernard searched a great deal of information to prove that Greek and Roman civilization originated in Africa, especially in Egypt, or at least to show that Greco-Roman civilization developed under Egyptian influence. The information he searched and the related arguments have their certain credibility, but some of them are far-fetched. Therefore, this work has also been criticized. In any case, this work has an important value: it provides another critical work against Eurocentrism, and it opens people's eyes to the historical significance of Eastern civilizations, especially African civilizations.
2. Study of Ancient Egyptian Civilization in the Historical Perspective of "Globalization"
American scholar L.S. Stavrianos pointed out that after 1945, the world has entered a new stage of global integration. The need for a historiography that reflects this new situation has also become more and more urgent. [43] In his book Major Trends in Contemporary Historiography, Jeffrey Ballew, a leading contemporary British historian, emphasized that "the recognition of the need for a global view of history (i.e., one that transcends the boundaries of nations and regions and understands the world as a whole) is one of the main features of the present". [44] The "global view of history" proposed by Balleklaff is to look at world history from a global perspective, [45] not as a "patchwork of national histories", and not centered on Western history, but rather as a "study of the relationship between nations, regions, and civilizations", [46] and as a "study of the relationship between nations, regions, and civilizations". countries, regions, and civilizations, and the interactions and influences between them." [46] The most representative of the writings of the globalized view of history, and the only one held in high esteem by Balleluff, is that of Stavrianos.
Stavrianos is a leading contemporary American historian who has written several books on global history, notably The General History of the Globe. Stavrianos indicates at the beginning of the introduction that the main feature of this world history is: "the study of the history of the globe rather than of a particular country or region", and the reason why the globalization perspective is necessary, and the important value of it lies in the fact that: "to identify the history of the West and the history of the non-West ...... it is only by applying a global perspective that one can understand the extent to which peoples have interacted with each other through the ages, and the significant role that this interaction has played in determining the course of human history." [47] Balleklaff gives a high rating to the General Global History, considering the work to be comparable to "Toynbee's Studies in History."
The General History of the Globe is divided into two volumes, and this article provides a brief review of the section on ancient civilizations in The World Before 1500:
First, the earliest civilization was in Sumer, not in the Nile. Sumer had completed its transition to civilization by about 3500 B.C., while Egyptian civilization originated in about 3000 B.C.. [48]
Secondly, the hallmarks of civilization formation are urban centers, the political power of the state, tribute or taxation, writing, the division of society into classes or hierarchies, huge buildings, a variety of specialized arts and sciences, and so on. However, the author stresses that not all civilizations have all these characteristics. "The Egyptian and Mayan civilizations did not have what are commonly called cities." [49]
Third, there were several types of ancient civilizations, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Crete, India and China. [50]But the author's failure to include the classical civilization of Greco-Roman in the types of ancient civilizations is puzzling.
Fourth, the emergence of Egyptian civilization owes much to Mesopotamian civilization. However, the author emphasizes that "the civilization created by the Egyptians was in no way a copy of the Sumerian civilization, but had its own characteristics. [51]
Fifth, Egyptian civilization was stable and conservative, but never static. [52]
Sixthly, the Hellenistic era saw the "merging of Eastern and Western civilizations into one", which "broke with the historically developed model of separate East and West", and for the first time it was thought that "the whole civilized world was treated as one unit". as one unit".
Stavrianos's "globalization" view of history breaks with the traditional Western Eurocentrism and gives people a new vision. In the globalization perspective, the author puts forward some important arguments on the study of ancient Egyptian civilization. However, the author is not an Egyptologist after all, and his views on Egyptian civilization later than Sumerian civilization, formed in 3000 BC, and the absence of cities in Egypt need to be further discussed.
Before and after the publication of Stavrianos's General History of the Globe, there were several other similar histories of world civilizations worth presenting. The first, widely popular in the United States, was The History of World Civilization by Ralph, Burns, and others, first published in 1955, revised successively, and published in its 8th edition in 1991. The key value of the History of World Civilization lies in the theory of the "world as a whole". The author argues that in the process leading to civilization, all peoples have benefited from each other; that they have become increasingly dependent on each other politically, economically, and culturally; and that, in addition, they have a ****ual responsibility to ensure the existence of human beings and all other living beings. [Although the author stresses that the original roots of "civilization" are in South-West Asia and North Africa, and refers to the influence of India and China, it is certainly not reasonable to describe the invasion of China by the imperialist powers as a "quest for commercial intercourse" [54]. Moreover, to refer to both ****productivism and fascism as "totalitarianism"[55] is clearly to confuse ideologies of a different nature. What place, then, does ancient Egyptian civilization occupy in the History of World Civilizations? The author refers to both Egyptian and Sumerian civilizations as the oldest, but the reversal of the Egyptian and Sumerian chapters in the 5th and 8th editions reveals the author's later preference for Mesopotamia as the "first chapter of history."[56] It is worth noting that the author's book is a very good example of how the civilizations of Egypt and Sumeria are presented in the History of World Civilizations. [56] To be sure, the author gives high marks to Egyptian culture. Speaking of the Reformation at Echinatun, he is very careful to state that it was "a monotheistic religion with reservations". [57]
Another important work in the context of globalization is A. Toynbee's Man and Mother Earth: A Narrative World History, first published in 1976. This work provides a "panoramic view" of the history of world civilization from a global perspective, describing the regional types of human civilization, their origins, development and evolution, and interactions among civilizations. It can be said that this work is the crystallization of the "theory of civilization" put forward in Toynbee's book "The Study of History". In this work, Toynbee divided the whole world history into Sumerian civilization, Egyptian civilization, Olmec civilization, Syrian civilization, Greek civilization, Indian civilization, Chinese civilization, Mesoamerican civilization and Andean civilization, Byzantine civilization, Western civilization, etc. *** 82 chapters. Toynbee's thesis of the "center of civilization" and its transfer is of great value. He points out that in the 15th century A.D., Western Europeans began to play a dominant role in the center of civilization. In the 20th century, the dominant role shifted to the United States, but in the next chapter on the history of civilization centers, the dominant player may have shifted from the Americas to East Asia. [58] Regarding the historical position of Egyptian civilization, the author considers it as "the second oldest regional civilization". The author argues that the Sumerian civilization influenced the Pharaonic civilization, but points to the individuality of Egyptian civilization itself. He says that "hieroglyphics were simply the Egyptians' own invention. The magnificent, massive stone architecture was also a native Egyptian invention. The Egyptian pyramids are unrivaled in perfection of design and precision of construction. [59] Toynbee discusses the relationship between Sumer, Syria, and Palestine under the title "Interrelationships between Regional Civilizations". Here he speaks of the invasion of the barbarians (Hyksos), which "bred a warlike xenophobia in the traditional inwardness," and as a result, the Egyptians expelled the outsiders and fought back into Palestine and Syria.[60] The so-called Egyptian civilization of Sumer, Syria, and Palestine, which was the first of its kind in the Middle Ages, was a major factor in the development of the Egyptian civilization of Sumer. [60] It is not accurate to say that Egyptian "xenophobia" led to the war against West Asia, and the economic, political, and historical social contexts should be explored.
Third, the second half of the twentieth century, the new achievements of ancient Egyptian civilization thematic research
In the second half of the twentieth century, the field of ancient Egyptian civilization research is not only expanding, but also more subtle, more in-depth exploration of multiple perspectives, the emergence of a number of Egyptian civilization of the early civilization of a number of monographs and systematic and comprehensive monographs on the history of Egyptian civilization.
1. distinctive multi-perspective study of early Egyptian civilization monograph
With the progress of archaeology, in recent years, the achievements of early Egyptian civilization, more and more people's attention. Monographs on early Egyptian civilization, can cite two representative works. The first is B. J. Triggle's Early Civilization: Ancient Egypt in the Link. This work is based on four lectures on "Ancient Egypt as an Early Civilization" given by the author during April 1992 at the American University in Cairo. The purpose is to encourage Egyptologists to engage in comparative studies of Egypt with other early civilizations, and at the same time to restore the study of ancient Egypt to the level of comparative anthropology. The author had made a comparative study of six early civilizations, starting from the idea of taking into account both the similar aspects of ancient Egypt and other early civilizations, as well as its unique aspects. [61]
When speaking of several theories and doctrines in the study of ancient Egyptian civilization, the author first of all relates to anthropology, which, according to him, has largely accepted cultural relativism, but has long adhered to Historical Particularism. At the beginning of the 20th century, F. Boas stated that "every culture is a distinctive product of its largely contingent historical development."[62] In the 20th century, F. Boas stated that "every culture is a distinctive product of its mostly contingent historical development." [62] In the 1960s, anthropologists, inspired by cultural ecology in social anthropology and the trend toward neo-centennialism, abandoned traditional historical uniformitarianism and began to pay more attention to multicultural patterns in human behavior. Notable in this regard is the cultural ecologist J. Steward. His ecological theory emphasizes the study of ****ness in multiculturalism, but neglects the importance of identity. [In addition, the author discusses the theories of "process archaeology" and "post-process archaeology". These ideas have gained great influence among social anthropologists, but many archaeologists believe that process archaeologists' distinctions between science and history, evolution and history, and social sciences and humanities are unproductive and misleading, and should be abandoned. What we should follow is the view of an earlier generation of scholars, such as Child, Frankfurter, and Weitev, interested in both the differences and the similarities of earlier civilizations. [64] The authors further point out that a comparative study of the characteristics of early civilizations helps us to better understand ancient Egypt, while at the same time the uniqueness of ancient Egypt is equally important for understanding all other early civilizations. [65]
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