Contributions to Civilization

In my Western Civilization class were currently discussing/ debating which civilization of the following has contributed the most to society/ the human race:

>Persians
>Sumerians
>Hittites
>Chaldeans
>Phoenicians
>Assyrians
>Babylonians
>Hebrews

What do you guys think? Which of those civilizations has been the most important in shaping our world today? Bonus points if you provide reasoning.

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Sinaitic_script
reference.com/history/contributions-rome-8a014cd037de8f3c
asbmb.org/asbmbtoday/asbmbtoday_article.aspx?id=32437
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_contributions_to_Medieval_Europe
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

Greeks and Romans. Atleast in my country.

>Phoenicians
0
>Sumerians
1
>Hittities
0
Chaldeans
0
>Assyrians
6
>Babylonians
7
>Hebrews
7
>Persians
6

The Ottoman empire :^)

Give the Phoenicians some credit for inventing the alphabet.

Assyrians contributed dank maymays.

Europe: Sumer, Greece, Rome, Britain
East Asia: China
South Asia: Mauryans, Guptas, Meluha (Indus Valley Civ)
West Asia: Sumer, Egypt, Babylon, Arabia, Israel
Africa: Arabs

The alphabet was invented by Sinaitic people so no.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Sinaitic_script

The alphabet was invented at least twice,by the Ugarits in the bronze age and again by the Egyptians in the iron age. The Egyptian one is the one the Phonecians picked up and popularised, they didn't invent it tho.

Mfw Babylonians/ Hebrews are the two civilizations my group is researching :^)

>and again by Egyptians in the iron age


Hum no, that was in the bronze age too

>Arabia
You mean Mesopotamia, since any Arab worth a shit is from the region of the Levante or Egypt during the Golden age.

The only tribes that stayed back in the desert where the shit ones or the religious clerics that were in charge of keeping Medina in check and oversee the haji.

No I mean the Arabs under Mohammed and his successors. Like them or loathe them, they've had a massive impact on the civilisation of the middle east.

Always me, to be fair I'd give Phoenicians 4 for helping to urbanize Europe and North Africa and increasing trade in the Western and Eastern Med

Not really, Carthage itself was razed to the ground and it's colonies in Spain existed alongside native urbanised peoples, suhc as the Tartessians and the people of Saguntum.

Carthage wasn't the only city in north Africa and "Tartessians" were hardly urbanized

The handful of cities they built in North Africa notwithstanding, Spain was already urbanizing before the Carthageans started colonising it. And if the Carthageans weren't there,Tunisia would just have been settled by the Greeks instead. It's not like they were the only city-builders around.

>Spain was already urbanized

No, it wasn't, the few native settlements in the "Tartessian" zone were glorified villages built around 7-6th BC, so after the Phoenicians came, and it was Phoenician traders who gave the alphabet to the Iron age Greeks

>glorified villages

You keep implying this but the settlements the Carthageans built in Spain were not any more "city like" than native sites such as saguntum.

Saguntum was built in the 5th century BC

And the Carthageans barely had any presence in Iberia before the 3rd, so what? Carthage is a meme civilisation, it's a great "could have been" but it's ultimate influence is marginal.

Love the discussion but if I could get some responses to the original question that'd be great

A ranking:

>1. Sumerians: Literally the first civilization. Most ideas in abrahamic religions stem from their mythology, also proto-Sumerians (if you will) domesticated a shit ton of species .

>2. Babylonians: Time is in intervals of 60 because of them, Also a shit ton of Astronomy, mathematics, etc..

>3. Phoenicians: Their alpphabet is a pretty big deal.

>4. Hittites:Their chariots were pretty sick, but not much else in terms of long-term contribution

>5. Hebrews: pretty shit overall but i guess their one-god meme ended up being pretty big.

7. Assyrians: Overrated , mostly did nothing but burn down shit and genocides. I guess they had a nice library but other than that fucking shit.

America.
Reason: #1.
Bitches.

theres no wrong answer u sperg just pick the one you like the most for reasons
pick 3 reasons
conclusion
intro
boom ur done

Hebrew and Sumerians

ROME

reference.com/history/contributions-rome-8a014cd037de8f3c

AFRICA

asbmb.org/asbmbtoday/asbmbtoday_article.aspx?id=32437

ARABS

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_contributions_to_Medieval_Europe

And the Brits

British empire is the best and biggest Empire

1. Sumerians
2. Babylonians
3. Hebrews
4. Persians
5. Phoenicians (their ranking is highly dependent on the alphabet)

POWER GAP

6. Hittites
7. Chaldeans

POWER GAP

9001. Assyrians

strongly depends on who you ask,
Jews will tell you Hebrews contributed most
In Iran they will tell you about Persian glory.
Germans will claim to have invented the wheel.
Only exception is Americans. They will make no bullshit claim about ancient glory.

>No Egypt
Tell me, whose idea was it for a 365 day calendar?

And for the masons out there, you should well know how much of your concepts of statecraft really comes from Egypt.

>Western Civilization

>Persians
>Sumerians
>Hittites
>Chaldeans
>Phoenicians
>Assyrians
>Babylonians
>Hebrews

AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
....

AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA

Go with the Minoans, or Mycenaeans on, tell the voice in your head quack quack.

>Only exception is Americans. They will make no bullshit claim about ancient glory.

Probably because they haven't existed long enough in comparable context that they could brag about X contribution so many thousands or hundreds of years ago. If they could they would.

It's not as though Americans don't try and bullshit about their lineage and contributions though

>Muh ROME inheritors
>Muh American exceptionalism
>Muh PAX AMERICANA

Americans are just as vile in making claims as any other.

easily persians though as they are the closest thing to having anything to do with the power formation of
>West
>Ern
>Civilisation

They're just the closest time wise, but conceptually, the Egyptians hold the most influence.

>Hittites:Their chariots were pretty sick, but not much else in terms of long-term contribution
They were one of the first to use iron

>summer break is barely over
>children are already asking Veeky Forums to do their homework for them

>In my Western Civilization class were currently discussing/ debating which civilization of the following has contributed the most to society/ the human race:
>contributed the most to society/ the human race:
Either you're trolling or your "Western Civilization" class is pathetically childish.

Phoenicians did though since the 8th century bc

no uni class will debate such thing because cultures are not superior or inferior to others

especially not discussing eastern ones in a class which you made up

polshitter

Not really, iron was discovered first in a Assyrian colony in Anatolia predating the Hittities, who just copied it from those guys

>because cultures are not superior or inferior to others

>t downsyndrome

>Arabs
Islamic contributions to Europe were mainly by non-Arabs though.

>British empire is the best
Debatable, severely so.
>biggest empire
Maybe, again depends on defintion of "biggest". Total area? Population? Growth/output? Lot of factors there.

>Islamic contributions to Europe were mainly by non-Arabs though.
You mean Arab contributions to Europe were mainly by non-Muslims

Not really, no, not what I meant at all.

Most of the contributions in mathematics and sciences were by Persians/Iranians, Indians, Berbers that came back around to Europe.

Sumeria pioneered civilization.

The Achaemenids defeated competing warlords and emerged as a vast empire presiding over the early classical period.

Phoenicians pioneered Mediterranean trade.

The Assyrians and Babylonians straddled the bronze age collapse and dominated Mesopotamia before the Persian empire.

Hittites were influential in Anatolia.

Chaldeans were influential in Mesopotamia though not as successful.

Hebrews were mainly a cultural/religious influence, though the effects of this would only occur centuries later.

You forgot about Zoroastrianism for the Persians

>
Phoenicians pioneered Mediterranean trade.

Not really, those would be Myceneans and Cypriots

>Phoenicians pioneered Mediterranean trade.

Not really, those would be Myceneans and Cypriots

Minoans*

Minoans never ventured to the Western Mediterranean as far as we know.

yes they did

No, they didn't, there's no trace of Minoan pottery or materials in the Western Med, Cretans ventured the Western Med only in the Mycenean period.

they were middle men merchants, and there is

>And there is

What's this supposed to mean?

>They were middle men merchants

What does it mean?

...

Can't see anything, and most of these maps posted here.

Give me evidence of Minoan ceramics and objects found in the Western Med before the Myceneans took over the island.

ur autistic why would minoan ship its pottery to spain what a fucking autistic retard fuck off pleb

Because that would be evidence of Minoans in the western Med, you havent given me ONE piece of evidence of Minoans traveling West of Greece, let alone Spain.

Who contributed the most is a bit of an ambiguous statement so I based my list on the biggest changes. Zoroastrianism wasn't as pivotal as its Abrahamic successors and the main effects would come centuries later, a lot was added that can't easily be attributed to Zoroastrianism. Don't want to dismiss religion as a spook and ignore its impact entirely, the evidence is just not strong enough.
You're right, maybe I should have said pioneered the restoration and expansion of trade after the bronze age collapse.

YOU FORGOT THE GREEKS AND ROMANS. FAGGOT.

Brits, French, Romans, Greeks, Germans and Spaniards are undoubtedly #1

but who is #1 in that list

yeah, that map, now go disprove it

thats some spooky shit right there

I'm guessing you mean apart from Greeks, whose picture you have used in your OP.

Zoroastrianism was pivotal for its influence on the Abrahamic faiths.

No, you are the one who has to support your outlandish claims, posting a map with no source isn't a proof of anything, give me one single Academic article which states the existence of Minoan ceramics, objects/weapons west of Greece which testifiy the presence of Pre-Mycenean Cretans (Minoans) West of Greece, as far as I know there are no archaeological proof of Cretans sailing west of Greece.

You are ignorant and arrogant, your only arguments consist on using buzzwords without providing one single proof of what you so vehemently claim, this is getting tedious, dealing with someone who doesn't want to discover the truth but just keeps making the same unsupported claims is a waste of time.

What I know, by having actually read articles and a few books about the subject is that Myceneans (yes, among them Cretans under Mycenean influence too) and Cypriots sailed west to South Italy and the furthest we know they went is Sardinia, it's doubtful that they reached Iberia, because the few Mycenean materials there were found in later contexts, when Myceneans had already collapsed, and thus probably were mediated by Sardinians.

And yet you insist on claiming that Minoans reached not only Italy, but Spain too.

That said, I am open to change my ideas if you bring any proof, an unsourced map from a random site is not a proof, you're only coming off as an arrogant idiot.

>Child in a college course

Also, this is really good discussion, nothing people are responding with I am using, I was just curious as to what you guys thought. Here's your (You) though

Rome and Athens I'd say. Just look at the civil calendar, it directly derives from the Julian calendar.

If Britain is relevant to Europe then France deserves a mention. You should also add that western civilisation has been a huge influence on all other extant civilisations.

>Africa: Arabs
Relevant to North Africa and the Sahel but not really anywhere else. Africa isn't a single sphere and should be divided into subregions like Asia.

>North Africa
Egypt, Phoenicia, Rome, Caliphates, westerners

>West Africa
Ife, Ghana, Muslims, Westerners

>Central/Southern Africa
Bantus, Westerners

>East Africa
Egypt, Ethiopia, Arabs, Persians, westerners

>If Britain is relevant to Europe then France deserves a mention
Roman was the only relevence until Varus went and fucked pan-roman up for everyone at teutoberg. dude litearlly fucked history.

I forgot the Iranians had heavily colonized the shit out of East Africa.

Pax Romana continued for nearly 2 centuries after Varus. The only thing the debacle proved was the general extent of Roman expansion into Northern European was checked.

What the fuck kind of class teaches you about LE CONTRIBUTION TO HUMANITY shit? Ranking civilizations is for autists and normies with no knowledge of history.

Sumerians obviously.
If you have to choose only one of those.