The Binding Power Of Stone Monuments And The Power of Walls

THE BINDING POWER OF STONE MONUMENTS

There is something that I have never seen written in history that should be explained. It applies from ancient times until now, and concerns stone monuments and their enduring power to bind nations together.

To begin with, what makes Egypt different from the rest of north Africa? The simple answer is that Egypt has been a nation since ancient times while Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and, Chad are relatively recent arrangements as nations.

My hypothesis is that it is the pyramids, and other monuments such as the Sphinx and Abu Simbel, that literally held Egypt together. If not for these massive monuments, Egypt would be just another name from ancient history and not the nation that it is today.

One thing that is different in history about Egypt is that those who managed to conquer it did not erase it's identity, but rather adapted it themselves. The Hyksos were a Semitic people who conquered Egypt in ancient times. But they, in many ways, became Egyptians rather than the other way around.

Likewise, the Seventh Century Arab conquest of Egypt converted it to Islam but in no way diminished it's national identity. Assyria and then Babylon both matched Egypt in power, but neither has existed in two-and-a-half millenniums while Egypt still stands. I see this as all due to the influence of the pyramids.

The other modern nations of north Africa have ancient ruins, Carthage in Tunisia began as a Phoenician colony and was later the great rival of Rome. But there is nothing like the pyramids of Egypt anywhere else in the region.

Ethiopia, once known as Cush or Kush, is another ancient nation that has endured to the present day. It lies to the south of Egypt, in east Africa. Just like Egypt, Ethiopia has pyramids from ancient times that has held it together as a nation. Ethiopia has about twice the number of pyramids that Egypt has, although they are smaller in scale.

Greece, across the Mediterranean from Egypt, is another modern nation that has been around since ancient times. Just as Egypt has staying power as a nation that nearby kingdoms in north Africa did not, the same can be said of Greece with regard to the rest of the Balkans. The difference being that Greece had stone monuments remaining from it's early days, such as the Acropolis, which held it together as a nation. Alexander's empire did not hold together after his death, but the home country did in the same way as Egypt.

What about the modern nation of Iran? It also goes back to ancient times, and is traditionally known as Persia. The name was changed to Iran, meaning "The Land of the Aryans", in 1935. Persia did not have pyramids like Egypt, but did have abundant ruins from it's glory days.

The ruling shah that was overthrown in 1979 had celebrated the 2500th anniversary of the Peacock Throne in 1971. Possibly the grandest party ever given in human history was held in the ruins of Persepolis in the autumn of 1971. There is an article on www.wikipedia.org about it titled "2,500 Year Celebration Of The Persian Empire". Only a king that doesn't need approval from congresses and parliaments to spend money could put on a party like this.

Further east, we find a great modern nation in China that has been around for about as long as Egypt. China is a vast country that would seem likely to fragment into smaller states. The Chinese language is written in one way but spoken in several ways besides the standard Mandarin, such as Cantonese and Fujianese.

But, once again, we find the binding power of stone monuments at work. The legendary "Great Wall of China" was a network of walls that were built to keep out barbarians from the north. My theory is that it accomplished something that was much more important, it was what bound this diverse country together into one so that it has lasted from ancient times until now.

To the south, the Khmer people of what is now called Cambodia have been there as a nation for a very long time. There was once a great Khmer Empire. As we might expect, we find an ancient stone monument from the early days of the Khmer Empire in the Temple of Angkor Wat.

It seems to me that without the binding power of such stone monuments, nations simply do not last for thousands of years. Neither language nor religion can hold a nation together over the long span of history like a massive stone monument. The working together to build the monument would likely be a powerful force in the binding of the nation to begin with.

This concept is similar to "The Mecca Hypothesis", on the world and economics blog, where we saw how the pilgrimage to Mecca had the effect of maintaining the Arabic language as one while the early European languages on the other side of the Mediterranean fragmented into the languages that we see today. "The Center Of The World" explains my view of the effect that the monuments of ancient Egypt have had across the world.

THE POWER OF WALLS

In "The Binding Power Of Stone Monuments", we saw how the stone monuments that a nation produces can be the determining factor in whether a nation lasts for a historically brief time, or for thousands of years.

Today, I would like to discuss a related concept, how the development of nations is affected by walls. Examples of how physical walls, constructed along borders, affect developments far into the future are much more rare than examples of how nations are bound, over the long term, by stone monuments that they have constructed. But there are three examples, that I can see, where physical walls have had a great long-term effect. A wall along a border can have a powerful effect on future developments long after it ceases to be an actual political or military barrier.

Let's start with Scotland. Scotland was a separate nation from England until 1707, and has always had it's own identity even though it speaks English and both nations landed on the same side of the Protestant Reformation. Scotland is more Celtic in nature than England, but it seems to me that there had to be more to the separate sense of identity then this.

But what about Hadrian's Wall? it was built by the Roman emperor of that name to keep out the tribes to the north. This means that the wall has been there for two thousand years, making it one of the oldest structures in Britain. The wall is not exactly on the boundary between England and Scotland any more, but what kind of psychological effect must it have had through all of that time?

The question is now why Scotland has a separate identity, but how it could not have a separate identity? If you take people that are exactly the same, and have a wall across their territory for two thousand years even if that wall is not an actual impermeable barrier, and you can be sure that there will be some kind of separate identity on opposite sides of the wall.

About six hundred years after the construction of Hadrian's Wall, but before England was a united country, there was a kingdom known as Mercia in the region that is now known as the Midlands, as well as areas to the south and west. I am actually a Mercian because this includes the area where I was born. The Midlands is still occasionally referred to as Mercia.

There was a great Mercian king, known as Offa. Mercia was a very powerful state at the time of Offa's reign and this period, when Mercia was the dominant state of those that now make up England, is known as the Mercian Supremacy. Offa is recorded as having begun construction of a military barrier against the Kingdom of Powys, the area that is now known as Wales, to the west. This barrier, known as Offa's Dyke, was a simple ditch and berm of earth along the border, designed to give a military advantage to the Mercian side. I had been to castles in the area, such as Chepstow and Goodrich, but cannot remember ever seeing Offa's Dyke and never considering it as really any more than a name on a map.

But now I realize how important Offa's Dyke has been, not for England but for Wales. It has formed essentially the boundary between England and Wales ever since and, more importantly, has been a basis for a separate sense of Welsh identity in the same way as Hadrian's Wall for Scotland.

Wales and Scotland are Celtic domains that have always had some sense of a separate identity from England. But my conclusion is that these two walls, Hadrian's Wall and Offa's Dyke, have been essential to that separate identity. There are two other such Celtic domains in the area, other than Ireland, which do not have as strong of a separate identity. These are Cornwall, the southwestern county of England, and Brittany in France.

Brittany occupies the long peninsula off western France, giving it a sound geographic definition. Cornwall is on a parallel peninsula and once had it's own language. But neither has the separate sense of identity of Wales or Scotland. This can be explained by the fact that neither is defined by a wall, like Hadrian's Wall or Offa's Dyke.

Now, let's apply this concept of the power of walls to the other side of the world. The most significant wall in the world is by far the Great Wall of China. Wikipedia describes it as having been begun by the first Chinese emperor. The Great Wall is actually a complex structure of many different walls that were built over centuries. Construction of these walls certainly helped to bind China as a nation, as described in "The Binding Power Of Stone Monuments".

I read an article that one thing about the world that seems incongruous is that Siberia should really belong to China, rather than Russia. There are quite a few articles online about this issue. Siberia seems psychologically very distant from Moscow, and it has vast stores of resources that China's voracious economy needs. The native people of Siberia look much more Oriental then European.

Historically China has traded abroad along the fabled "Silk Road", which included both land and sea trading routes, and has sent ventures like the fleet of Admiral Zheng He abroad. To the west, China incorporated the vast central Asian territory of Xinjiang. But China has never had the same kind of economic interactions with lands to the north, what is now known as Siberia.

My conclusion is that the reason for this is that the Great Wall acted as a psychological barrier over the centuries, and prevented incorporation of Siberia into China.

This does not mean that China would necessarily be better off today with Siberia. For one thing, it was the shared construction of the Great Wall that helped to bind it as a nation as described in "The Binding Power Of Stone Monuments". For another, there is the phenomenon known as the "resource curse" or the "paradox of plenty", where the people of a nation that is rich in natural resources end up being worse off as a result.