Complex government spurred growth of ancient nations

Red tape, bureaucracy, and the nanny state have all been blamed for stifling progress and holding us back, yet it turns out a bureaucratic administration is just the thing if a nation is looking to expand.

The heart of a modern bureaucracy - inside, it's piled high with red tape. Image: Jedyooo/Wikimedia

The research, carried out by an American researcher, compared the archaeological remains in the Oaxaca Valley of Mesoamerica with the remains of five other ancient nations in Peru, Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and China.

These are known as primary states – ones that formed without encountering other nations – and they are ideal places to study the original creation of nation states without worrying about outside influences.

The six primary states all show a distinctive pattern of growth, where expansion of each nation’s territory happened at the same time as the development of the bureaucratic government offices required to govern the growing nation. The researcher thinks this is no coincidence: only a bureaucratic administration and could support expansion, and only expansion could provide the resources needed for a fledgling state to support a bureaucracy.

Taking this one step further, the research suggests that even modern bureaucratic governments may be based on this need to expand, and we need to watch international politics very carefully if we are too keep this ‘predatory’ urge in check.

Bureaucracy is rarely seen as a good thing, adding layers of complexity and time to even the simplest of tasks, yet it seems to be an essential part of the growth of any nation. Academics have always recognised the necessity of bureaucracy in forming nations, but previous work suggested the bureaucratic processes were created before nations expanded. The new study seems to contradict that idea.

Of course, this raises a question for this blogger of whether the creation and growth of bureaucratic government can go too far, and what happens when it does? Answers to be submitted in triplicate on form XS42b by the third Tuesday of next month!

Paper Reference: Spencer, C (2010). Inaugural Article: Territorial expansion and primary state formation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 107(16), pages 7119-7126. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1002470107

Ancient greek worshippers looked to the sun

The classical Greek gods were many and varied, with each representing some aspect of nature or of the human psyche, but it seems they all shared one common feature: from wise Athena to morbid Hades, they all preferred their Earthly temples to face the rising sun.

Look to the east - Greek temple ruins on Sicily. Image: Flickr/Chiara Marra

A British researcher has used simple statistics to show that a significant number of temples built on the island of Sicily by Greek colonists, and many of those found on mainland Greece, face east. The results are the first time anyone has shown Greek temples tend to look towards the sunrise.

Understanding an ancient religion can tell us much about the society that followed it. But how can we learn about a religion when it hasn’t been practised for hundreds, or even thousands, of years?

All we have are the artefacts that survive the ravages of time, the most conspicuous of which are often mighty stone temples. For a long time, academics have debated whether Greek temples had any common alignment, and in particular whether they were aligned with astronomic events like sunrise on certain holy days.

This latest study measured the alignment of 41 Sicilian Greek temples, and showed 40 of them face the eastern half of the sky. Even when ‘east’ was defined as just the strip of horizon where the sun rises at some time during the year (between 59^o and 119^o in Sicily, apparently), 38 temples still faced east – this is incredibly unlikely to be due to chance alone.

Temples on mainland Greece fare slightly less well, although the results are still significant, with 38 of 42 facing the eastern half of the sky, and 26 of those facing more directly east. The researcher believes mainland Greek temples might have been built over older religious sites, which could affect the alignment chosen by their builders. Sicilian Greeks, who were recent migrants, probably felt no such connection to their adopted home and sited their temples in the direction they preferred – eastward-facing. The Sicilian Greeks may also have been trying to be as ‘Greek’ as possible, to reinforce connections to their homeland.

Precisely why Greeks temples align with the rising sun is still a mystery – the ancient stones can only tell us so much.

The research results are interesting, and they also show how a simple statistical test can aid archaeological and historical studies – disciplines which do not always rely on mathematical techniques for answers. The research demonstrates how the combination of the two disciplines can introduce powerful new techniques to answer previously tricky questions and, in this case, settle old arguments.

Paper Reference: Salt, A. M., (2009) The Astronomical Orientation of Ancient Greek Temples. PLoS ONE 4(11), e7903. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0007903

Geology aids quest for ancient Egyptian tombs

Lara Croft should take a geologist along with her next time she goes in search of lost Egyptian tombs, according to research findings presented to a meeting of the Geological Society of America this week.

A water-damaged ceiling means this tomb's occupant is not going to be happy! Image: Katarin Parizek, Penn State

Understanding the geology of the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Egypt, led to the discovery of a new tomb and is helping archaeologists protect known and unknown tomb sites from potentially-devastating water damage.

The researchers found that 30 of the 63 known tombs in the Valley of the Kings were built below ‘fracture traces’. Fracture traces are found above areas of broken, fractured rock, which is much easier to excavate than solid rock. As a result, ancient tomb-builders in the Valley of the Kings tended to favour these areas as tomb sites.

By searching specifically around known fracture traces, a new tomb was uncovered by archaeologists in February 2006 lying next to a fracture trace that had earlier been mapped. Egyptian archaeologists are now using geological data, combined with traditional archaeological clues, to hunt for even more undiscovered tombs and their archaeological treasure.

Fracture traces may be helping to find new tombs, but they could also be putting many tombs at risk of water damage. It may be easier to dig through, but when it rains water can seep through the broken rock and into the tombs, destroying priceless painted walls and ceilings.

Archaeologists can try to redirect flood water away from vulnerable tombs, and understanding the geology of the Valley will allow them to avoid inadvertently redirecting water into any as-yet-undiscovered tombs beneath other fracture traces. The researchers who reported the findings are working to map and photograph the tombs in the Valley of the Kings in an attempt to preserve a record of this famous historical site.

Deciphering messages from the past

It is said that most of the people who have ever lived are now dead. Sadly, these uncounted masses have taken many of their secrets with them, including the keys to unlocking their ancient languages. Although we can now understand many ancient writings (such as Egyptian hieroglyphs) there are others that still elude us. One of these lost languages is the Indus Valley Script.

Despite many attempts, we are yet to crack this four thousand year-old code. Recently scientists have used modern computers and statistical techniques to establish that the symbols are indeed a language and that they are written in carefully constructed patterns, although we still don’t know what specific patterns actually mean.

The statistics have shown that the sequences of symbols are more than just random drawings. Instead, they seem to possess an underlying logic. Certain sequences appear more regularly than others, and some don’t appear at all, suggesting there are hidden rules governing where symbols can appear. As well as confirming that the Indus valley script is a genuine language, the new findings could help archaeologists and linguists fill in the gaps in any broken or obscured fragments of text.

Understanding the underlying rules for the language will help when it comes to deciphering what has been written. Let’s just hope the people of the Indus valley 4000 years ago had something interesting to say!

Any ideas? Answers on a postcard...

All images credit: J. M. Kenoyer / Harappa.com