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18962 results in Cambridge Histories

Page 891 of 949

  • 20c - Linguistic Problems of the Balkan Area in Late Prehistoric and Early Classical Periods

  • from PART III - THE BALKANS AND THE AEGEAN
  • Edited by John Boardman, I. E. S. Edwards, N. G. L. Hammond, E. Sollberger
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    05 August 1982, pp 834-849

  • Summary

    This chapter correlates the information which the sources provide with the broad pattern of the results obtained from the limited material in the local ancient languages. The Balkan region in the period seems at first sight to be of bewildering linguistic and ethnic complexity. The principal idioms of the region appear in fact to have been three: Illyrian; Thracian, in a broad sense, or ' Thraco-Dacian'; and Macedonian. The evidence for the use within the Balkan region of idioms which did not belong to one of the three languages or groups just mentioned is exiguous and hard to assess. Phrygian is considered in view of the Greek tradition that Phrygians migrated from the southern Balkans to Anatolia in legendary or early historical times. It is clear that Greeks of the mainland and the Aegean region were in contact with two important groups of tribes each of which they regarded as a single ethnos, the Illyrii and the Thraces.

  • 17 - The Peloponnese

  • from PART III - THE BALKANS AND THE AEGEAN
  • Edited by John Boardman, I. E. S. Edwards, N. G. L. Hammond, E. Sollberger
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    05 August 1982, pp 696-744

  • Summary

    Since stock-raising was particularly important in the Dark Age of the Peloponnese, it is desirable to consider its methods. In interpreting the archaeological evidence some knowledge of geographical and ecological conditions in the Peloponnese and more primitive Balkan areas forms a useful guide. West of Argolis, the elevated canton of Arcadia is entered from Argos. Laconia, like Argolis, is rich in highland pasture, grows timber on the central (Mani) peninsula and fine olives, figs, and Mediterranean pine in the south-eastern district. In Corinthia and the Isthmus, except for a Protogeometric grave at Velio, the earliest Iron Age remains are of the Geometric period. When we review the archaeological evidence for Corinthia and the Isthmus in the Early Iron Age, we can see that the terrace area received new settlers in the Submycenaean period and became the centre of Corinthia, analogous to Argos in the Argolid. Most of the literary tradition about Messenia differs from that of Argos.

  • 12 - Cyprus

  • from PART II - THE MIDDLE EAST
  • Edited by John Boardman, I. E. S. Edwards, N. G. L. Hammond, E. Sollberger
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    05 August 1982, pp 511-533

  • Summary

    The history of Cyprus after about 1050 BC is clouded by what is usually called the 'Dark Age' in Greece. Sacred architecture of the Cypro-Geometric period is known also from Ayia Irini, where a rustic temenos was uncovered, an irregular oval in shape, with an altar and a table of offerings for libations. Citium is referred to as Khardihadast (' the New City') in Phoenician inscriptions engraved on bronze bowls and found near Amathus on the south coast of Cyprus, west of Citium. The end of the Cypro-Geometric period, which may be placed about 750 BC finds Cyprus at the beginning of an era of prosperity which was to culminate during the subsequent period. The Mycenaean Greeks had established their political and cultural supremacy in the various kingdoms of the island which were formed after the final stages of Achaean settlement. Only Citium remained outside their rule, with a Phoenician king appointed directly from Tyre.

  • 9 - The Neo-Hittite states in Syria and Anatolia

  • from PART II - THE MIDDLE EAST
  • Edited by John Boardman, I. E. S. Edwards, N. G. L. Hammond, E. Sollberger
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    05 August 1982, pp 372-441

  • Summary

    After c. 700, occasional references are found in classical authors to notable events in Anatolia and Syria. Since the chronological framework of the history of the Syro-Hittite states is dependent on that of the Assyrian kings and the Neo-Babylonian dynasty, the periods into which it conveniently divides are dictated by the reigns and activities of those monarchs. This is considered in the following phases: the early period, which includes the fall of the Hittite Empire-accession of Ashurnasirpal II; Reigns of Ashurnasirpal II and Shalmaneser III; Successors of Shalmaneser III; Reigns of Tiglath-pileser III, Shalmaneser V and Sargon II; Reigns of Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Ashurbanipal; and the Neo-Babylonian Empire, which is the fall of Assyria to Cyrus' conquest of Lydia. The necessity of dovetailing the native and external sources renders it expedient to consider first the outline history and chronology within each chronological division, and then to attempt to synchronize the indigenous evidence with it.

  • 20d - The Greek Language and the Historical Dialects

  • from PART III - THE BALKANS AND THE AEGEAN
  • Edited by John Boardman, I. E. S. Edwards, N. G. L. Hammond, E. Sollberger
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    05 August 1982, pp 850-865

  • Summary

    For the period from the beginning of the twelfth century (when the Mycenaean texts fail) to the end of the eighth century BC or later, statements about the Greek language are inferential. On the minimum assumptions the phonemic inventory of a Greek dialect c. 100 BC would have contained sixteen consonantal phonemes and ten pure vowels. Once the changes that distinguished Greek as a whole from other Indo-European languages had been completed there was little change in noun declension that was not the direct result of the phonological developments. Literature, in verse from the time of the Homeric epic and in prose (Ionic) during the fifth century, sheds a limited light on dialect history. The Greeks themselves were apt to describe dialect in two ways, by individual city or by ethnos. One aspect of Greek linguistic history is progressive fragmentation into dialects spoken in ever smaller areas.

  • VI - Population

  • from PART II - c. 1500–1750
  • Edited by Tapan Raychaudhuri, Irfan Habib
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of India
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    01 April 1982, pp 161-171

  • Summary

    The size of the population of Mughal India can be estimated only on the basis of the richest repository of which is the A'īn-i Akbarī, the unique work compiled by Akbar's minister, Abū'l Fazl, in 1595-6. The distribution of the population into rural and urban sectors is as difficult to estimate as determining the total size of population. There are, however, possibly two ways of working out the ratio of the urban population to the total. One way would be by tracing the distribution of the agricultural surplus, on the assumption that the peasants' own consumption did not necessitate any significant productive activity in the towns. The second way of estimating the relative size of Indian urban population in the seventeenth century is by working from what it was at the beginning of the nineteenth century, before the economic impact of the Industrial Revolution in England was extensively felt in India.

  • 3 - The South

  • from VII - State and the Economy
  • Edited by Tapan Raychaudhuri, Irfan Habib
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of India
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    01 April 1982, pp 203-213

  • Summary

    Three centuries separate the high point of Vijayanagara authority and the establishment of undisputed British rule in south India. There were also interior towns which came to thrive as the political centres of 'nāyka kingdoms'. The encouragement of foreign trade by the pre-Talikota Vijayanagara rulers was seen to be vital for the access which such trade gave these rulers to horses, firearms, and foreign soldiers. The rise of new centres of power in the macro-region under nāykas and their subordinates, pālaiyakkaras in Tamil, pālegādus in Telugu, and pālegdras in Kannada, 'poligars' to the British - while weakening the Vijayanagara state, did stimulate economic activity and development. Throughout the turbulent period from 1550 to about 1700, there are repeated references to the plunder of accumulated treasure. The traders and some Brahmans emerged as the most active of the great merchants trading with and under the European companies on the Coromandel Coast in the seventeenth century.

  • II - South India: Some General Considerations of the Region and its Early History

  • from INTRODUCTION
  • Edited by Tapan Raychaudhuri, Irfan Habib
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of India
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    01 April 1982, pp 14-42

  • Summary

    The term 'south India' denotes that portion of peninsular India beneath the Krishna River and the watershed of its major tributary, the Tungabhadra. The major early source of civilizational elements within the macroregion defined was the Tamil plain. The northernmost of the Tamil plain was Tondaimandalam, south of this was the territory called 'Naduvil-nadu', and, below this, in the Kaveri basin, Cholamandalam. The southern portion of the peninsula shares with the northern, Deccan, portion a peninsular configuration which emphasizes the sea and contact beyond the sub-continent by means of it. From an early time until perhaps the fourteenth century, the sea offered the south Indians opportunities for both trade and piracy. The Coromandel plain was the major core region of south India, extending from the tip of the peninsula to the northern edge of the broad delta of the Godavari and Krishna rivers. Irrigated rice culture permitted a high degree of routinization of cultivation p.

  • 1 - Economic Conditions before 1200

  • from III - Northern India under the Sultanate
  • Edited by Tapan Raychaudhuri, Irfan Habib
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of India
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    01 April 1982, pp 43-47

  • Summary

    This chapter discusses the medieval Indian economic history before the Ghorian conquests of the late twelfth century. Global historical factors which appear to have contributed to the decline in prosperity of both areas include invasion by fresh waves of barbarian central Asian tribes; the closure of the silk-route through the Tarim basin and north-west India to the Arabian Sea, and the rise of Islam. The coastal areas of Gujarat and Coromandel remained within the network of maritime trade, and the conditions which obtained there differed from the increasing isolation and impoverishment of northern India. During this period, landholding became the chief basis of social and political status. There was an increasing fragmentation and hereditarization of local power under what has variously been termed 'the Samanta system' or 'Indian feudalism'. In urban life the fissiparous direction of Indian society was reflected in the proliferation jati (caste) groups and the increasing rigidity of the hold of brahmanical Hinduism and the varndsramadharm.

  • 1 - North India

  • from IX - Agrarian Relations and Land Revenue
  • Edited by Tapan Raychaudhuri, Irfan Habib
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of India
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    01 April 1982, pp 235-249

  • Summary

    This chapter surveys agrarian relations in Mughal India, with an examination of the nature and magnitude of 'land revenue' (māl, kharāj), since it accounted for the larger part of the agricultural surplus of the country. Under Akbar, the ɀabt system, which simplified the process of assessment very greatly, though much depended on the accuracy with which the standard cash rates were fixed for each locality, practically covered the entire region from the Indus to the Ghaghra. With the land revenue accounting for the bulk of the surplus agricultural produce, the assignment of the larger portion of the empire in jāgīrdārs meant placing in the hands of a numerically very small class control over much of the GNP of the country. The role assigned to the zamīndārs in the Mughal revenue system tended to blur the barriers. The zamīndārs often claimed to derive their right from settling a villag.

  • 1 - Mughal India

  • from XIV - Towns and Cities
  • Edited by Tapan Raychaudhuri, Irfan Habib
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of India
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    01 April 1982, pp 434-451

  • Summary

    The cities and towns of the Indian sub-continent served as the repositories of higher culture and learning, both as reservoirs in which were preserved the Sanskritic and Indo-Islamic 'Great Traditions' and as conduits through which those traditions could be transmitted to society as a whole. Considering the enormous diversity of urban economies and urban cultures spanning the sub-continent, it would be impossible to speak of a typical Indian city of the Mughal period. The relations between the urban population and the Mughal state were determined in large measure by the fact that the traditional Indo-Muslim city, like the traditional Islamic city in north Africa and the Middle East, lacked any kind of corporate or municipal institutions. The kōtwāl's authority was so extensive and touched so many aspects of urban life, the towns and cities of Mughal India must have been very strictly controlled on behalf of the central government.

  • XII - The Monetary System and Prices

  • from PART II - c. 1500–1750
  • Edited by Tapan Raychaudhuri, Irfan Habib
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of India
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    01 April 1982, pp 360-381

  • Summary

    Until the reign of Sher Shah, the principal coin in circulation in northern India was the billon sikandari, a copper coin with a small silver alloy, which had developed out of the progressive debasement of the silver tanka of the Delhi sultans. While the rupee became the principal coin for commercial transactions and tax payments, the Mughals issued a gold coin, muhr of 169 grains troy. The prices of foodgrains may theoretically be the best index of the movement of the general price-level, because of the fact that in a mainly agrarian economy, these determine to a large extent the costs and prices of all commodities. In the experience of modern capitalist economies, the doubling of prices during the first sixty years of the seventeenth century and again the first fifty years of the eighteenth century, would hardly merit the designation of inflation. The income of the ruling class came from collection of taxes, mainly the land revenue.

Page 891 of 949