Prehistory and Protohistory in India and Pakistan c4.s28: Discoveries in Western Asia
Prehistory and Protohistory in India and Pakistan c4.s28
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Discoveries in Western Asia
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Further demonstration of the truth of the Three Age theory was provided by startling discoveries in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Anatolia and Crete. Of course, the earlier work in all these countries, particularly Egypt and Mesopotamia, was far from scientific and nothing less than loot and pillage. Nevertheless, the antiquities, large and small, magnificent sculptures, tools and weapons of copper and bronze and jewellery and the buildings from which they were somehow unearthed, struck the European world with awe. Realization that the East had seen better days than Europe in the past began to dawn upon the scholars and the common man. Its antiquity was proved when CHAMPOLLION and others deciphered the hieroglyphic script of Egypt and RAWLINSON read the cuneiform and Old Persian.
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All this helped in bridging the gulf between the Stone Ages and the historical period.
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Later discoveries in this century are proving the truth of various Biblical accounts²⁵ and even those of the mythical kings and dynasties mentioned in the king-lists of Mesopotamia. Judged by the test of the existence of writing, the history of countries like Iran, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Greece and Crete, is stretched much farther back. What was once believed to be prehistory has now come into the range of history. Thus both in Egypt and Mesopotamia history commences around 3,000 B.C. So will it be in India (or Sind and the Panjab and Saurashtra and Rajasthan) when the Indus script is deciphered. Hence the period prior to 3,000 B.C. and upto about 5,000 B.C. may be called Protohistory. For during this interval of 2,000 years or so (it indeed varies from region to region or country to country) many of the essentials of the historical period were being formulated or taking shape. Towns or villages, agriculture, metallurgy (though often rudimentary), monumental architecture, pottery and other crafts were all there—only the knowledge of writing²⁶ (literacy in the modern sense!) was absent.
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²⁵ ALBRIGHT, Archeology and the Bible.
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²⁶ After the discovery of the oldest town-wall at Jericho in Palestine, Sir MORTIMER WHEELER finds this condition as arbitrary.