Page 326 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

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THE WIDE VIEW (II)

I n the last five chapters the story of the central third of
the Second Millennium b.c. has tended to be lopsided. During

this period the main center of progress, and the best-documented
chains of events, lie in the eastern Mediterranean, in Greece,
Crete, Asia Minor, and in Egypt. And there is a tendency to look
at the world from that center. It is time to redress the balance,
and to re-emphasize that the people living in other parts of the

world during these three hundred fifty years were no less real to
themselves, no less alive and human, than those whose life stories
we have recounted. All parts of the world which are inhabited
now were inhabited then (with the exception—probably—of
New Zealand, Iceland, and some of the Pacific islands). There

were fewer people then than now, much fewer, but every one of
them was an individual, with parents and families, worries and
ambitions and bad habits, and as individuals they are worthy
of respect—and study.

Outside of a very limited area of the world, we know practi­
cally nothing about them. It is unfortunate, and it is a situation
which can and will be remedied. Let me be explicit. The purpose
of this chapter is to summarize what happened in the world in
the three hundred fifty years from 1650 to 1300 b.c. And this

cannot be done. Within the area of the civilizations of the Near
East very much is, as we have seen, known. Because contempo­
rary written records exist. Over most of Europe the general out­
lines of change within this period are known. They are known,

despite the absence of contemporary written records, because
more than a hundred years of intensive archaeological research
have brought them to light. Elsewhere—and elsewhere includes