What did the Europeans do for us

Lord_of_Gauda said:

European Union circa 1980s includes Greece. Greece has not been a part of western European culture atleast since the fall of the western Roman Empire, from which time, the social and cultural developments of Greece has been distintly 'eastern/balkan European' and not Western. Greece is as much 'western European' as Iran is arab.

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This is nothing but a deeply red herring. We are discussing here Ancient Greece, not Greece in the period of the Ottoman Empire. Ancient Greece is one of the bases of the western culture, not to say more, and the OP doesn't say "What did the Western-Europeans did for us", but "What Europeans did for us".
Besides, Greece was never Islamised, the Balkans were never Turkisised, so your parallel is not-working; but this is not a conversation for this thread.

Anna James said:

This is nothing but a deeply red herring. We are discussing here Ancient Greece, not Greece in the period of the Ottoman Empire. Ancient Greece is one of the bases of the western culture, not to say more, and the OP doesn't say "What did the Western-Europeans did for us", but "What Europeans did for us".
Besides, Greece was never Islamised, the Balkans were never Turkisised, so your parallel is not-working; but this is not a conversation for this thread.

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Ancient Greece is as much the base of western culture as ancient Indian culture is the base of japanese culture: both former cases contributed fundamental philosophy, writing and mythological systems to the latter cases.
Both are less than embryonic influences on cultures that owe far more to its own development than a prehistoric drop-in-the-bucket influence by comparison.

And IMO, Greece was islamacized and the balkans were turkicized: that is why Greek lands of Anatolia and Ionia are Turkic now and we have Bosnians who are Turkified balkans. But i agree, this is not the scope of this thread.

Lord_of_Gauda said:

Ancient Greece is as much the base of western culture as ancient Indian culture is the base of japanese culture: both former cases contributed fundamental philosophy, writing and mythological systems to the latter cases.
Both are less than embryonic influences on cultures that owe far more to its own development than a prehistoric drop-in-the-bucket influence by comparison.

And IMO, Greece was islamacized and the balkans were turkicized: that is why Greek lands of Anatolia and Ionia are Turkic now and we have Bosnians who are Turkified balkans. But i agree, this is not the scope of this thread.

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1. I cannot compare both cases, I don't know enough about the Indian influence in japan. The Greek culture set the bases for most European sciences, arts, and it the whole way of thinking. But of course there is no point in arguing this with you, I just state my opinion.
2. You are talking about minorities here, and presenting them as a majority - very false. But I'll try to ignore it and not derail the thread only because....

Anna James said:

1. I cannot compare both cases, I don't know enough about the Indian influence in japan.

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It is as topical as the Greek culture is on western Europe.

The Greek culture set the bases for most European sciences, arts, and it the whole way of thinking. But of course there is no point in arguing this with you, I just state my opinion.

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Thats exactly what you are stating: an opinion, for which i see no basis, evidence or any such things.

it is true that classical Greek thought influenced western culture as we see it. But so did classical Roman thought, Egyptian, Germainic, etc. thought. Perhaps the Greek thought did influence western Europe more so than Egyptian or mesopotamian. but ultimately, all these influences are fundamentally so long ago, to such a limited scope and scale, that it, IMO, constitutes less than 1% of the socio-cultural base that is western culture.
the 99% of it owes itself to a combination of evolutionary influences it generated itself and influences from latter cultures than these- such as Indic, Islamic, etc.

To make it simpler, it is true that our parents teach us how to walk first- but that does not make our parents (ones who taught us to walk) a decisive influence on an olympic athlete- the bulk of who's achievements are due to his/her own development, coaching and such.

In this discussion, i see the Greeks, Egyptians,Mesopotamians, etc. as the proverbial parent who taught our (western European) ancestors how to walk. From then on, *WE* learnt how to trot, run, refine our technique, learned from our worldly experiences and ultimately became olympic athletes.

2. You are talking about minorities here, and presenting them as a majority - very false. But I'll try to ignore it and not derail the thread only because....

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False, i am making no such case- you made an absolute statement (that Greek was not islamicized, balkans not turkified) and i corrected you on that- without any mention of scale from my part ( which btw, i agree on the case of Balkans- it was a minority influence but not on the Greeks- which was IMO a majority influence if we are to see the 'Greek heartland' as Greece and western half of Turkey, which is what it was for most of the period of 500s BCE to 1400s CE).

Lord_of_Gauda said:

1. It is as topical as the Greek culture is on western Europe.
Thats exactly what you are stating: an opinion, for which i see no basis, evidence or any such things.
it is true that classical Greek thought influenced western culture as we see it. But so did classical Roman thought, Egyptian, Germainic, etc. thought. Perhaps the Greek thought did influence western Europe more so than Egyptian or mesopotamian. but ultimately, all these influences are fundamentally so long ago, to such a limited scope and scale, that it, IMO, constitutes less than 1% of the socio-cultural base that is western culture.
the 99% of it owes itself to a combination of evolutionary influences it generated itself and influences from latter cultures than these- such as Indic, Islamic, etc.

To make it simpler, it is true that our parents teach us how to walk first- but that does not make our parents (ones who taught us to walk) a decisive influence on an olympic athlete- the bulk of who's achievements are due to his/her own development, coaching and such.

In this discussion, i see the Greeks, Egyptians,Mesopotamians, etc. as the proverbial parent who taught our (western European) ancestors how to walk. From then on, *WE* learnt how to trot, run, refine our technique, learned from our worldly experiences and ultimately became olympic athletes.

2. False, i am making no such case- you made an absolute statement (that Greek was not islamicized, balkans not turkified) and i corrected you on that- without any mention of scale from my part ( which btw, i agree on the case of Balkans- it was a minority influence but not on the Greeks- which was IMO a majority influence if we are to see the 'Greek heartland' as Greece and western half of Turkey, which is what it was for most of the period of 500s BCE to 1400s CE).

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1. It has nothing to do with the OP - the OP is about Europeans, /not strictly Western-Europeans/ Greece is Europe, and Ancient Greece, "proverbial parent" or not, is one of the bases on the European culture, no matter if you acknowledge this or not. Only because the 19 century historians were as besotted with Ancient Greece than the Ancient Greek were with Egypt and went in one extreme is not the reason so we go in the other extreme. I didn't say "the only one base", but I'll not go with the "proverbial parent". This about the walking and the athlete is good though, I have to remember to use it in the Greek related threads.

2. I said this as a reaction on your more than absolute statement I responded to; objectively, not going in extremes, there was a degree on cultural assimilation, and religious conversion, different in different places; but this doesn't justify your estimation in your other post. don't want to go on this here, anyway.

Anna James said:

1. It has nothing to do with the OP - the OP is about Europeans, /not strictly Western-Europeans/ Greece is Europe, and Ancient Greece, "proverbial parent" or not, is one of the bases on the European culture, no matter if you acknowledge this or not.

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Then kindly direct this to the originator of this comment (Greeks and their relation to western Europeans): Guaporense. I was responding to him, which you conviniently cherry-picked to derail something. Again.

Lord_of_Gauda said:

Then kindly direct this to the originator of this comment (Greeks and their relation to western Europeans): Guaporense. I was responding to him, which you conviniently cherry-picked to derail something. Again.

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Excuse me, it's not me who is derailing anything, I just responded to your comment. Btw, the originator of the question wasn't Guaporense, but jehosafats, and I'm officially not speaking with him for the time being, so...
I didn't cherry-picked your post, I didn't respond to the rest of it because I in general agree with it. You probably will not believe that, but I really like you, Gauda.

Lord_of_Gauda said:

Not only did the arab surgeons have far more refined tools than these, so did the Indians and that too, before the Romans (the Sushruta samahita, dated to 800s BCE with oldest extant copy from 300s CE, shows rhinoplasty and cataract surgery from that period- far predating Greek medicine, nevermind Roman).
Furthermore, Ibn Sina's (avicenna in our western tradition) cannon of medicine remains the most complete book on medical literature till Gray's anatomy and its supportive texts from the 19th century.

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Any evidence please?

Indians wrote nothing before 500-400 BC according to archaeology.
ALL scripts used by Indians were developed much later than that 800 BC speculative date.

Definitely ALL Indian texts about medicine came MUCH later than Greek texts. It is also well known that the impure Yavanas taught the Indians a lot and probably influenced Sanskrit drama, astronomy, astrology and medicine.

There is evidence that Asian medicine referred to Greek medicine too many times.

http://www.historum.com/asian-history/24096-greek-influence-india.html

"Yona" is a Pali word used in ancient India to designate Greek speakers. Its equivalent in Sanskrit, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu and Tamil is the word "Yavana". "Yona" and Yavana are both transliterations of the Greek word for "Ionians" (Homer Iāones, older *Iāwones), who were probably the first Greeks to be known in the East. In Telugu another word "Yavanika", means drama stage, an invention brought by Hellenistic people. "Yunani", likewise, means medicine from Greeks.
The Yavanas are mentioned in the Buddhist discourse of the Middle Length Sayings, in which the Buddha mentions to the Brahman Assalayana the existence of the Kamboja and Yavana people who have only two castes, master or slave. The direct identification of the word "Yavana" with the Greeks at such an early time (6th-5th century) can be doubted however.[1]
Direct identification of these words with the Greeks include:
The mention of the "Yona king Antiochus" in the Edicts of Ashoka (280 BCE)
The mention of the "Yona king Antialcidas" in the Heliodorus pillar in Vidisha (110 BCE)
King Menander and his bodyguard of "500 Yonas" in the Milinda Panha.
The description of Greek astrology and Greek terminology in the Yavanajataka ("Sayings of the Yavanas") (150 CE).
The mention of "Alexandria, the city of the Yonas" in the Mahavamsa, Chapter 29 (4th century CE).
Although the association with eastern Greeks seems to have been quite precise and systematic until the beginning of our era (other foreigners had their own descriptor, such as Sakas, Pahlavas, Kambojas etc...), these terms came to designate more generally "Europeans" and later "foreigners" in the following centuries.


Unani-tibb or Unani Medicine also spelled Yunani Medicine (pronounced /juːˈnɑːni/; Yūnānī in Arabic, Hindi-Urdu and Persian) means "Greek Medicine", and is a form of traditional medicine widely practiced in South Asia. It refers to a tradition of Graeco-Arabic medicine,[1][2] which is based on the teachings of Greek physician Hippocrates, and Roman physician Galen, and developed in to an elaborate medical System by Arab and Persian physicians, such as Rhazes, Avicenna (Ibn Sena), Al-Zahrawi, Ibn Nafis.

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unani"] Unani[/ame]

"The evidence that the use of the curtain was a consequence of exchange with Greek theater is that the Sanskrit term for curtain, Yavanika, means "something Greek," though the translation of "something" is debated. The curtain was used as a theatrical device in a fashion very similar to how they were used in Greek mime plays, that is it did not fall from above, but was a construction that could be hoisted from below the stage. The relationship between Sanskrit drama and Greek mime in all likelihood involved a giving and receiving on both sides. There are parallels between the Indian sutradhara and sutradhari and the Greek archimimus and archimima. Evidence for the mutual influence as opposed to a receiving role of Sanskrit theater is that women, who were excluded all other forms of Greek drama but were performing in India well before any interaction with the Greeks, were allowed to perform in Greek mime."
Theatre of ancient Greece Summary | BookRags.com

Anna James said:

1. I cannot compare both cases, I don't know enough about the Indian influence in japan. The Greek culture set the bases for most European sciences, arts, and it the whole way of thinking. But of course there is no point in arguing this with you, I just state my opinion

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Indian influence on Japan? Zero. Japan was part of the Sinitic world system while India formed a world system alone which was first integrated with western eurasian gradually (like the invasion of Alexander and the muslinization of early modern india).

Hellenic influence on Europe? They are one and the same.

I do not need to explain the basic fact that western civilization/european civilization is the civilization that began with the greeks as one can check by reading any history book. The hellenic period was the first period of western civilization. LoG can deny the holocaust all day long but it would not change the basic realities of history.

Guaporense said:

Indian influence on Japan? Zero. Japan was part of the Sinitic world system while India formed a world system alone which was first integrated with western eurasian gradually (like the invasion of Alexander and the muslinization of early modern india).

Hellenic influence on Europe? They are one and the same.

I do not need to explain the basic fact that western civilization/european civilization is the civilization that began with the greeks as one can check by reading any history book. The hellenic period was the first period of western civilization. LoG can deny the holocaust all day long but it would not change the basic realities of history.

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You are incorrect.
India contributed significant amount of philosophy, mythology and sciences to Japan- while Japanese writing system came from China, early Japanese knowledge in mathematics and sciences come from Japanese students in eastern Indian universities in 800-900 CE period.

This is pretty much the same level of influence the Greeks had on western Europe.

The idea that 'western/european civilization began with the Greeks' is nothing more than western chauvinism, which has its roots in racial superiorist thinkings of the 19th century. Unfortunately, 90% of western books on history are written by people who subscribe to this faulty thinking pattern- atleast, as far as the public schooling systems go.

Fact is, western civilization began to differentiate itself from the rest of the world from the reneissance period. Before that, the west was simply indistinguishable from the east : the same motley crew of languages, political systems, social and living standards (with some variances) but there isn't any significant differences in education, lifestyle or worldview to justify that distinction.

The idea that Greek civilization of the Achaemenid period starts the western civilization is a construct of 18th-19th century people with very limited empirical knowledge of history, not an idea that has much merit in serious historical scholarships today.


PS: I notice that yet again, you refuse to defend your 'data'. I guess you subscribe to the idea of 'repeat some nonsense long enough and as long as its jargon-heavy, it will be considered the truth'.

Lord_of_Gauda said:

1. The idea that 'western/european civilization began with the Greeks' is nothing more than western chauvinism, which has its roots in racial superiorist thinkings of the 19th century. Unfortunately, 90% of western books on history are written by people who subscribe to this faulty thinking pattern- atleast, as far as the public schooling systems go.

2. Fact is, western civilization began to differentiate itself from the rest of the world from the reneissance period. Before that, the west was simply indistinguishable from the east : the same motley crew of languages, political systems, social and living standards (with some variances) but there isn't any significant differences in education, lifestyle or worldview to justify that distinction.

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1. This is just another extreme, Gauda. The medieval philosophy is nothing but elaboration of Plato and Aristotle, this cannot be denied; the Christian theology is so stuffed with Greek philosophy,. Western drama and poetry are directly sprung from the Greek one; the art of the Renaissance too; and one can see that just reading sources, not history books from 19 century. The whole scientific vocab of English and French is based on Greek and Latin. This is not straw and imagination.
2. I can agree with this to a point.

Guaporense said:

Indian influence on Japan? Zero. Japan was part of the Sinitic world system

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This was my impression too, but this is not my area or heavy reading. There is significant influence from Indian on China though, no? I mean Hindiuism, Buddhism and Buddhist philosophy, some ilnguistical influences, so something must have passed to Japan through China.

Lord_of_Gauda said:

You are incorrect.
India contributed significant amount of philosophy, mythology and sciences to Japan- while Japanese writing system came from China, early Japanese knowledge in mathematics and sciences come from Japanese students in eastern Indian universities in 800-900 CE period.

This is pretty much the same level of influence the Greeks had on western Europe.

The idea that 'western/european civilization began with the Greeks' is nothing more than western chauvinism, which has its roots in racial superiorist thinkings of the 19th century. Unfortunately, 90% of western books on history are written by people who subscribe to this faulty thinking pattern- atleast, as far as the public schooling systems go.

Fact is, western civilization began to differentiate itself from the rest of the world from the reneissance period. Before that, the west was simply indistinguishable from the east : the same motley crew of languages, political systems, social and living standards (with some variances) but there isn't any significant differences in education, lifestyle or worldview to justify that distinction.

The idea that Greek civilization of the Achaemenid period starts the western civilization is a construct of 18th-19th century people with very limited empirical knowledge of history, not an idea that has much merit in serious historical scholarships today.


PS: I notice that yet again, you refuse to defend your 'data'. I guess you subscribe to the idea of 'repeat some nonsense long enough and as long as its jargon-heavy, it will be considered the truth'.

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Noticed that too. The shipwreck chart is the tell.

Lord_of_Gauda said:

You are incorrect.
India contributed significant amount of philosophy, mythology and sciences to Japan- while Japanese writing system came from China, early Japanese knowledge in mathematics and sciences come from Japanese students in eastern Indian universities in 800-900 CE period.

This is pretty much the same level of influence the Greeks had on western Europe.

The idea that 'western/european civilization began with the Greeks' is nothing more than western chauvinism, which has its roots in racial superiorist thinkings of the 19th century. Unfortunately, 90% of western books on history are written by people who subscribe to this faulty thinking pattern- atleast, as far as the public schooling systems go.

Fact is, western civilization began to differentiate itself from the rest of the world from the reneissance period. Before that, the west was simply indistinguishable from the east : the same motley crew of languages, political systems, social and living standards (with some variances) but there isn't any significant differences in education, lifestyle or worldview to justify that distinction.

The idea that Greek civilization of the Achaemenid period starts the western civilization is a construct of 18th-19th century people with very limited empirical knowledge of history, not an idea that has much merit in serious historical scholarships today.


PS: I notice that yet again, you refuse to defend your 'data'. I guess you subscribe to the idea of 'repeat some nonsense long enough and as long as its jargon-heavy, it will be considered the truth'.

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I guess this exceedingly shallow - and above all incorrect - analysis of western civilization explains why you're an engineer and not a historian Don't get me wrong, though, I respect your Indian nationalist pride, but it definitely gets in the way of better judgement far too often in these types of debates.

abvgd said:

I guess this exceedingly shallow - and above all incorrect - analysis of western civilization explains why you're an engineer and not a historian Don't get me wrong, though, I respect your Indian nationalist pride, but it definitely gets in the way of better judgement far too often in these types of debates.

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There is a small fly in your soup- the fact that I am not an Indian or Indian origin person.

Anna James said:

1. This is just another extreme, Gauda. The medieval philosophy is nothing but elaboration of Plato and Aristotle, this cannot be denied; the Christian theology is so stuffed with Greek philosophy,. Western drama and poetry are directly sprung from the Greek one; the art of the Renaissance too; and one can see that just reading sources, not history books from 19 century. The whole scientific vocab of English and French is based on Greek and Latin. This is not straw and imagination.
2. I can agree with this to a point.

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I disagree that medeival philosophy is an elaboration of Plato and Aristotle. Medeival philosophy mostly dealt with Christian theology- which outside of the Greek influenced Byzantine region(Balkans and Turkey) had little/no Greek input till topical influence much later(from reading a few Greek discourses around fall of Constantinople).
Besides, western philosophy has moved on significantly from Aristotle/Plato: Virtually all enlightenment and post-enlightenment era philosophies are far better thought out, far more developed and far more applicable than Platonics or Aristotleanism.

As for western drama and poetry- they sprung as much from the Greeks as it spawned from the Franks and as much from the Egyptians- ie, Greeks do not stand out, they are one link in the chain- neither the oldest or the most recent.

The art of reneissance is independent of Greco-Roman art, minus a few rare Greco-Roman copies made much later.
Caravaggio, Raphael, Michelangelo- they were developers of the art they created, not borrowing/influenced Greco-Roman art.

The reason scientific and legal jargon is Latin derived is because it was the norm to write in the 'high language' of latin during those times- Newton wrote Principia mathematica in Latin, not English because it was the social norm. That has nothing to do with the Greeks of antiquity.

Anna James said:

This was my impression too, but this is not my area or heavy reading. There is significant influence from Indian on China though, no? I mean Hindiuism, Buddhism and Buddhist philosophy, some ilnguistical influences, so something must have passed to Japan through China.

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There was some influence. However the degree of influence was virtually zero. India and Japan were part of two different world systems and therefore did not share the same macro-cultural environment.

Greece, in the other hand, is the ultimate origin of Europe. The whole idea of "Europe" was developed by the Greeks. Cities such as London, Paris, Munich, Vienna, Cologne, Rome, Athens, etc, were all founded by the Graeco-Romans.

The Hellenic origins of European civilization become obvious to anyone who studies history.

You keep quoting this 'data' and i keep debunking your assessment, without any comment from you:

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Simple: I do not consider your "arguments" worthy of my attention. You are simple a plain anti-western ideologue. You simply cannot understand or refuse to believe that Western Eurasia was more prosperous under the Romans than at the early middle ages, which is actually a sign of lack of any honest argumentation.

your idea that higher shipwrecks between 500 BCE and 500 CE than the preceeding and succeeding centuries directly correlate to higher shipping activity is fallacious.

You have no idea about such factors as unseasonal start/stop of cyclic winds, the prevalence of piracy,naval engagements, the changes in ship-building conditions as well as the balance of trade between land and sea routes to form such an idea.

Your data- massive and continuous drop in shipwrecks in the mediterranean from 1 CE onwards - can easily be construed as the supremacy of Roman navy in the mediterranean leading to standardization of shipping policies, near-total eradication of piracy and escortment of ships.

For example, there are less shipping disasters today (per 1000 ships) than 100 years ago- your fallacious methodology (which would yeild a massive spike of shipwrecks between 1900 and 1943 and much less today) would lead to the similar fallacious conclusion that there is less shipping today than there was 60 years ago.

Yet, we know such 'conclusions' to be markedly off the truth.

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There is no way to explain away a 100 fold decline in the number of shipwrecks by attributing it to decline in the rates of sinking.

In fact, Roman shipwrecks were also much larger than medieval shipwrecks, while medieval ships were usually 20-50 tons, many Roman shipwrecks were in the order of hundreds of tons. Roman ships also had better safety equipment, such as bilge pumps:



Overall if Roman ships were 50% larger and 50% safer than early medieval ships then one would expect a 225 times greater volume of trade in the mediterranean in the 1st century as compared with the 8th century.

You clearly do not understand the size of Greaco-Roman commerce. While in all other pre-modern societies long distance trade was insignificant part of the macro economy, in Classical Greece the port of Attica handled 50-67% of the GDP of region. While in 1800 CE, the port of London, the largest city in the world at the time, handled 800,000 tons of goods, 2,200 years earlier the ports of the cities of the delian league handled 20,000 talents of silver per year in goods, equivalent to over 1 million tons of wheat.

The type of trade performed by long distance merchants in all other periods of history consisted of spices and other types of luxury goods. The Romans traded wheat, marble, wine, etc, in industrial quantities: Roman Egypt had to pay 140,000 tons of wheat per year in taxes to the city of Rome, carried over 2,000 kilometers of sea by merchant ships displacing over 1,500 tons. Roman long distance trade was hugely superior in scale to any other know pre-modern civilization.

Also: Shipwreck data are also strongly correlated with a dozen other types of archaeological datasets.

Guaporense said:

Simple: I do not consider your "arguments" worthy of my attention. You are simple a plain anti-western ideologue. You simply cannot understand or refuse to believe that Western Eurasia was more prosperous under the Romans than at the early middle ages, which is actually a sign of lack of any honest argumentation.

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I never disputed that Roman Citizens lived a richer life than the average westerner in the latter medeival ages or early middle ages. What i do dispute, is some of the most western-centric arguments you've posited - some of which are laughable:

a) 80% of Roman empire residents were 'upper middle class'
b) Shipwreck data being interpreted solely on trade-related basis, without any considerations towards other factors contributing towards shipping data: lack of piracy, technological/guilds-related developments and many more which equally fit the data.

What i do dispute, is your conclusions: Roman Empire citizens were less than 40% of the society, rest of them being landless serfs/slaves. Obviously, if you compare the top 40% of a society with 100% of another, the former category will 'win' in almost every benchmark.
But that doesn't make the comparison valid and borders on academic dishonesty.

A person who manipulates data and leads to blatantly false conclusions, while openly proclaiming the superiority of the classical civilization over others - despite the categoric fact that the most technologically, scientifically and economically advanced archaeology from the 1st millenia BCE and 1st millenia CE is not the classical mediterranean, has no business calling others 'anti-western' or any such epithets.

There is no way to explain away a 100 fold decline in the number of shipwrecks by attributing it to decline in the rates of sinking.

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Ofcourse there is: Lack of wars in the mediterranean and Roman mediterranean hegemony rooting out any and all major piracy bases.

Just like the modern precident : UK naval hegemony over the world has lead to massive decline in piracy related naval losses in the 1800s than in the 1700s, lack of major maritime battles leading to a massive decline in naval losses since 1940s.

In fact, Roman shipwrecks were also much larger than medieval shipwrecks, while medieval ships were usually 20-50 tons, many Roman shipwrecks were in the order of hundreds of tons. Roman ships also had better safety equipment, such as bilge pumps:



Overall if Roman ships were 50% larger and 50% safer than early medieval ships then one would expect a 225 times greater volume of trade in the mediterranean in the 1st century as compared with the 8th century.

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Sorry, your analysis is sadly lacking in this regard. Roman ships may've had a few nifty 'toys' such as bilge pumps, but they were not mono-keel construction like Columbine and post Columbine era ships and as such, were much weaker in design. Roman wood curing processes were also highly rudimentary and crude compared to the age of sail period.
Also the '50% larger ships and 50% safer = 225 grater volume of trade' holds true if and only if there were similar number of trading vessels: which is categorically unproven.

Also: Shipwreck data are also strongly correlated with a dozen other types of archaeological datasets.

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Data-sets that are misinterpreted by you for the most account.

abvgd said:

I guess this exceedingly shallow - and above all incorrect - analysis of western civilization explains why you're an engineer and not a historian Don't get me wrong, though, I respect your Indian nationalist pride, but it definitely gets in the way of better judgement far too often in these types of debates.

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Well, he is actually correct when he claims that Europe began to differentiate itself from the rest of the world during the renaissance. During the high middle ages, from the 11th to the 13th century, Europe was roughly comparable to the rest of the world. After the 14th century Europe started to stand out:



Italy already in the 14th century achieved much higher levels of per capita incomes than those achieved by non-European regions.

While during the Early Modern period European countries clearly standed out if compared with the rest of the world. That's what economic historians call the Great Divergence.

Data for earlier periods is lacking: GDP estimates of the Roman Empire, for instance, are based little data and mostly especulations. While comparative evidence based on housing remains and other data apparently shows that Roman Italy was richer than 15th century Italy, which was richer than any other region in the world at the time!

Some have even compared the standards of housing of Classical Greece with early 19th century England: G Kron, "The Use of Housing Evidence as a Possible Index of Social Equality and Prosperity in Classical Greece and Early Industrial England", he shows that standards of housing in Classical Greece were superior to early 19th century England, when England was the richest country in the world by per capita income.

The standards of Greek and Roman housing were impressive, hugely impressive: While in all other pre-modern civilizations 90% of the population lived in mud-brick huts, in Classical Greece and Roman Italy the population inhabited spacious multi-room houses made of high quality materials.

That doesn't apply to any other civilization in world history: Even Song China, perhaps the most advanced non-European culture in pre-modern history, did not achieve high standards of housing for it's population: "Most people (in Song China), however, probably still lived on in one- and two-room wooden huts.", Morris, Social Development.

Apparently the only pre-modern society where the average person lived above bare subsistence was the classical mediterranean. The Medieval Islamic world was a little better than contemporary Europe, but it was still a far cry from the height of mediterranean prosperity in classical antiquity.