# "Western civilization" and the East - Part 1: Egypt **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 18, 2006, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-civilization-and-the-east-part-1-egypt/384606 "2006-12-18T08:48:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![gitfiddle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/898d66/32.png) [@gitfiddle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gitfiddle)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2006, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-civilization-and-the-east-part-1-egypt/384606/1 "2006-12-18T08:48:52Z")
I don’t know about y’all, but I had to take at least three Western Civilization courses in high school and college. Generally, the course started in Egypt, went to Greece, Rome, the Dark Ages (usually, explaining that there really was no such thing), religious schisms, wars, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, Age of Exploration, and, voila, the Industrial Revolution. What I want to know, is what happens if you take that same root and follow it East. What if you follow the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans to the East, I want to know how they effected that “other” part of the world. I know this is a huge question, so I’ve decided to break it up into parts. For the first part, I want to know exactly what became of the Egyptians. What did their language become, how did it influence the cultures around them. It’s not possible that it disapeared (though, it is possible that there is a break in the information that we have). As this is an ambiguous question, I’m just looking for any interesting information, links, books…anything… ---
**Author:** ![FRDE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e68b1a/32.png) [@FRDE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FRDE)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2006, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-civilization-and-the-east-part-1-egypt/384606/2 "2006-12-18T13:47:48Z")
Well you get Constantinople - that made Europe look like savages until about 1400. (The Romans sort of split, and those in Italy became a joke) My take is that the Renaissance was a result of the nTh Crusade when Venice rebuilt itself with Byzantine trophies. As a crude guess I would say that the savages adopted technology. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2006, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-civilization-and-the-east-part-1-egypt/384606/3 "2006-12-18T16:48:02Z")
Ancient Egypt didn’t exist in a cultural vacuum. It was contemporaneous with [Mesopotamian](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesopotamia) cultures such as [Babylon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon) and (everybody’s favorite) [Assyria](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Assyrian_kingdom). Far away, but still within range of influence, was China and even the [Indus Valley](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_valley_civilization). Jared Diamond’s popular book _[Guns, Germs, and Steel](http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393061310/sr=8-2/qid=1166460163/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/102-5260455-1196922?ie=UTF8&s=books)_ discusses how seemingly remote cultures were able to transfer basic technology such as livestock and crops over large distances. Closer to Egypt, but later in history, [Phoenician traders](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenicia) and Greeks mixed it up with Egypt. It is this influence on the Greeks that causes most Western Civ classes to start with Egypt, but Greece had more than Egypt as a guide, such as their own ideas and Alexander’s trysts into Asia. The byproduct of Greek, and later Roman, conquests of a weakened Egypt was a cultural dilution, with rulers like the [Ptolomys](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemaic_dynasty) having more connection with Greece than with the ancient Pharaohs. ---
**Author:** ![carterba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/85e7bf/32.png) [@carterba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carterba)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2006, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-civilization-and-the-east-part-1-egypt/384606/4 "2006-12-18T16:57:08Z")
[QUOTE=gitfiddle] What did their language become, how did it influence the cultures around them. [/QUOTE] You may be interested in a book called _Empires of the Word_ by Nicholas Ostler. IIRC, the Egyptian language lasted a long time in Egypt (first attested around 3200 BC, eventually evolving into Demotic, then Coptic, which became a primarily liturgical language before dying out in the 1800s), but never really had any influence outside of Egypt. In that respect it is quite different from languages like Greek and Roman (and English) that had a great deal of influence outside their native speaking region. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2006, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-civilization-and-the-east-part-1-egypt/384606/5 "2006-12-18T17:49:24Z")
The most obvious ommission from western-centric histories is the Muslim world ([Ottoman](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire) , [Persian](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Empire), and [Muhgal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mughal_Empire) empires). These empires were a long way ahead of the Christian world technologically for a long time. ---
**Author:** ![gitfiddle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/898d66/32.png) [@gitfiddle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gitfiddle)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2006, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-civilization-and-the-east-part-1-egypt/384606/6 "2006-12-19T02:12:06Z")
> [@](#): > > You may be interested in a book called Empires of the Word by Nicholas Ostler. Carterba, I’ve been wanting to read that book for a long time.