6000 Years of Murder – Part Two: Sun Kings Last A Long Time

Tim: The Wicked + The Divine #36 finally gave us a definitive list of every damn Recurrence that has occurred since Ananke first started exploding heads, so we thought we’d take a walk through the annals of history and provide some context for what was happening at the time. Welcome to 6,000 Years of Murder.

In our second octet of Recurrences, the Bronze Age starts to get some traction, Egypt and Northern China dominate our Early Civilisation Showcase, and it’s still Big Boi Season when it comes to proboscideans. Spoilers (for real-world history, mostly) after the cut.

3128BC – Egypt
Gillen notes in the letters page for this issue that he could easily have spent many, many pages of this section purely in Egypt. And while that’s clearly not what ended up happening, this little chunk of eight panels spends almost half its time there – and for good reason. In 3128BC, we’re just over 20 years into the reign of Menes aka Narmer, the first pharaoh to unify Upper and Lower Egypt (aka the upper Nile River and the Nile Delta respectively) and the founder of the First Dynasty.

It’s during this period, which lasts until around 2686BC, that the capital will move from Thinis to Memphis, and many of the hallmarks of what we think of as Ancient Egypt will emerge, from hieroglyphics to architecture to religion. This period is also when the idea of the pharaohs as god-kings, acting as intermediaries between the divine and the people of Egypt, emerged.

3036BC – Crete
Egypt isn’t the only place where interesting stuff is happening, however. In nearby Crete, the Minoan civilisation is beginning to get into the swing of things. While the Bronze Age proper won’t truly arrive for a couple of hundred years, Crete during this period holds the “promise of greatness”, according to Kinder & Hilgemann in the Anchor Atlas of World History.

As time goes on, the early Minoan cities will become centres of commerce and craftsmanship, enabling the development of an upper class that will expand their influence and eventually become nobility and monarchy. The Minoan culture will go on to form the template for the Mycenaean Greeks, basically the beta test for what we think of as Ancient Greece. Which I guess makes this Recurrence the buggy pre-alpha for Socrates et al, and may explain why this is one of the few glimpses we get of a young Ananke/Minerva/whatever you want to call her.

2942BC – Japan
We cross over into the 30th century and Ananke’s latest trip takes her further East than she’s ever been before, to Japan during the Early Jōmon period. As a relatively isolated island nation with little in the way of domesticated animals, Japanese culture at this point is comparable to pre-Columbian North America, i.e. hunting and gathering with a sprinkling of agriculture. The name Jōmon comes from distinctive pottery produced during this period, generally accepted to be among some of the oldest in the world.

To get more specific, as the Jōmon period stretches on for a long damn time, the culture at this point was relatively sedentary, with pit-houses and large pottery vessels not suited to frequent travelling. Japan was undergoing a population explosion at the time, and sustained itself with small-scale agriculture including soybeans, gourd and even peaches. (Mmm, peaches.) Fish was also a big deal, both along the coast and in deep-water lakes. The Jōmon period will remain relatively stable until around 300BC, when the Iron Age hits Japan and rice farming takes off in a big way.

2849BC – Northern China
Between this Recurrence and the next one in Northern China, there seems to be some kind of competition going on for coolest names. Based on the mountains in the background of this panel, I suspect we’re dealing with the Majiayao culture of the upper Yellow River region, which also coincided with the supposed period of the Three August Ones and Five Emperors.

Let’s start with the Majiayao. Known for distinctive pottery which featured black pigments in sweeping parallel lines and dots, this early civilisation is also responsible for the oldest known bronze object in China, a knife found in Dongxiang dated to between 2900BC and 2740BC. As for the Three August Ones and Five Emperors, these are mythological culture heroes along the lines of Prometheus or Māui, credited with bringing the use of fire, houses, farming and silk weaving to people, as well as imparting morality and wisdom. Sounds suspiciously like a successful Pantheon to me…

2757BC – Egypt
We head back to Egypt just in time for the end of the Early Dynastic Period and the start of the Old Kingdom aka THE AGE OF THE PYRAMIDS. I’m not kidding – that’s what it’s called in serious historical circles. The Old Kingdom won’t officially kick off until around 2686BC, and in fact the tail end of the Second Dynasty is a relatively obscure period for ancient Egypt, but it’s around now that the capital officially moves to Memphis, close to Giza where the Great Pyramids will be built.

Speaking of pyramids, it’s also during this time that wealthy Egyptians start demanding fancier funeral practices, and the construction of mastabas (imagine the bottom quarter of a pyramid) becomes commonplace. These will later become Step Pyramids, and finally the grand pointy constructions we all know and love. Language and agricultural practices are also developing at speed, and Egypt is quickly becoming the dominant cultural and economic power in the region.

2666BC – Northern China
If our first trip to Northern China involved the Majiayao, I’m fairly sure our second features us paying a visit to the Longshan culture, named after the modern town of Longshan, or “Dragon Mountain”. This late Neolithic civilisation, centred on the middle and lower Yellow River valley areas, is also called the Black Pottery Culture. See what I meant about cool names? Like the Jōmon and the Majiayao, the Longshan culture was known for its distinctive pottery, and represented a period of intensified agriculture of millet, rice and wheat, and increased domestication of pigs, dogs, sheep and cattle.

Those Three August Ones and Five Emperors are still kicking around too, with the Huangdi or the Yellow Emperor supposedly reigning during this time. Regarded as the creator of the calendar, the initiator of Chinese civilisation and the ancestor of all Chinese people, he was until relatively recently thought to be a historical person rather than a mythical figure, and is still a powerful nationalist symbol in modern China.

2574BC – Egypt
We’re basically ping-ponging between Egypt and Northern China at this point, and it’s easy to see why. Check out those PYRAMIDS IN THE BACKGROUND YO. While we were off visiting China, the Old Kingdom period began, marking one of the high points of civilisation in the lower Nile Valley. We are most likely here during the reign of Khufu, known to the Greeks as Cheops, who commissioned the Great Pyramid of Giza and who, according to Herodotus was a heretic and a cruel tyrant. But what does the Father of History know, right?

As you might imagine from a culture capable of producing monuments that are still around today, Old Kingdom Egypt had gotten pretty advanced. The rulers of the formerly independent states became governors subject to the Pharaoh, funneling taxes towards him. Architects, masons, artists and sculptors all mastered new techniques as Egyptian art flourished. As in Uruk last time, it seems like this leap forward in progress might have helped Ananke’s quarry escape her.

2483BC – Wrangel Island
Then again, maybe not. Wrangel Island, positioned in the Bering Strait between Russia and Alaska, wasn’t exactly winning awards as a beacon of civilisation back in the 25th Century BC. What it did boast was the last surviving population of woolly mammoths, which would still be hunted by pre-Inuit cultures until around 2000 BC, when they finally went extinct. Feel free to blame that on Ananke if you like.

What was life like for these tribes, living in one of the most inhospitable places on Earth? Well, they were working with stone and ivory tools and probably hunting reindeer, which migrated annually across the ice. Linguist Michael E. Krauss argues that Wrangel Island may have served as a way station for cultures following the reindeer, and there may even have been trade routes between what is now the north Siberian coast and Alaska. Within 500 years, the cultures in this area would switch their focus to fishing and hunting sea mammals, an innovation that would shape Arctic culture right up to the modern day.

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