It's time to become the master of all Europe! Create your tactics and capture the lands, building a powerful country in the strategy - Age of Civilizations: Europe. Before you is a game that will open your potential conqueror and tactics. Choose one of the European countries and start conquering neighboring lands by sending a small number of your soldiers to them. If there are more of your soldiers, then the new territory is yours. There will not always be a victory, there will be defeats, and in order to replenish the supply of their soldiers, they can be drafted into the army.

By capturing territories, you increase the population of your country and, accordingly, more money will flow into the treasury. Use the money from the treasury to develop the army, recruit new soldiers into the army in those territories where, in your opinion, they can attack you or you don’t have enough to attack. Fortify the occupied lands with buildings in the form of towers and fortifications so that the enemies do not easily get your land.
Before starting the game, you will have the opportunity not only to choose a country, but also to choose the time of development of your company. So you can choose a modern civilization, or go to the era of the First or Second World Wars, where there will already be empires.

Required Android version: 2.3 or later

"Civilization is the softening of morals,courtesy courtesy and knowledge,
distributed in order toto keep the rules of decency,
and that these rulesplayed the role of the laws of the hostel "

Marquis de V.R. Mirabeau (1757)

In the VIII-VI millennium BC. tribes that had already mastered agriculture and cattle breeding began to populate the valleys of the Nile and Euphrates. Small settlements were built there, in the center of which was a temple, and also small, unpretentious systems of reservoirs and canals. This, at first glance, an insignificant event had far-reaching consequences for all mankind. The beginning of another great "revolution" was laid - the transition from primitive to civilization, from simple society- to the complex, from "prehistory" - to history.

In the IV millennium BC. the first city-states appeared on the site of settlements. It is difficult to say where this happened earlier - in Mesopotamia or in Egypt, the opinions of scientists on this matter differ. But one thing is undeniable: it was there that the oldest centers of civilization in the world arose. Somewhat later, approximately in the 3rd-2nd millennium BC, approximately the same processes took place in the Indus Valley and the Yellow River basin, and in the 1st millennium BC. - in America, where Mexico and Peru are now.

Independent birth - spontaneous generation of civilization took place only in a few places on the globe. Other peoples approached the line separating primitiveness from civilization, but did not step over it, but “stuck” at this turning point or turned back. Most - entered civilization under the influence of their neighbors - voluntarily or by force.

The transition to civilization had, so to speak, a point character, the number of "pioneers" has sharply decreased compared to the era " agricultural revolution". Agriculture, too, was mastered by far from all the tribes at once, but nevertheless, in each region where it originated, the number of the first participants in this revolution was quite large and it is quite difficult to determine it exactly. Another thing is the ancient civilizations: they can literally be counted on the fingers. The area covered by them was tiny. Unlike late primitive tribes and tribal associations (unions, confederations), which included tens and even hundreds of thousands of people and which occupied vast areas, early states were originally small. And only with the passage of time did the phase of their territorial expansion begin.

Already at this stage, several interesting patterns appear. First, in the era of civilization, the variability of the historical process has increased tremendously. Therefore, the word "civilization" is used not only in the singular, but also in the plural. Over time, more and more diverse civilizations arose, each of which had its own "individuality", created its own unique, original culture and developed its own special way development. Second, the time between "great revolutions" is shrinking. Mankind has traveled a path of almost 2.5 million years before it managed to overcome the first "big" transition - to a productive economy. The second transition - to civilization - occurred only after 4-5 millennia, it took incomparably less time to prepare. Looking ahead, let's say that in the future "revolutions" will follow one after another, and closer to our time the bill will go not for thousands, but for hundreds of years. What is the cause of such time compression? And why, with each new transition, there were fewer and fewer "revolutionaries" - peoples ready for change? The last great transformations took place only in the West, and the upcoming transition may no longer be carried out by certain countries or regions, but by individuals or groups of people living in different countries. It is also noteworthy that sooner or later, voluntarily or under pressure from outside, innovations nevertheless spread throughout the globe, acquiring a global, worldwide character.

For the time being, we will leave these questions open for the reader to try to solve for themselves, and as the chronicle of world history unfolds, the answer will obviously appear by itself.

C8 bug fixed
new scenarios: Judgment Day 1945
new: within
new: sandbox mode
new: Color of Civilization
new: army instead of economy representation
cold war full bug fixes
new scenarios: there are 56 civilizations in the modern world
new Language: Russian
new language: preparation for school
In the achievement scale
new language: dutch
new language: العربية
new: Settings->font size
new language: Italiano
new: random game -> civilization
new languages: french
to improve AI: diplomacy
new language: 한국어
new:Settings->Landscape

details

Age of Civilizations Europe is a turn-based strategy game where you have to take over the world.

Cards:
- Europe |
- Europe |

Orders are executed before the start of each round. The number of orders you can issue is limited by Movement Points.
When all orders are given, civilizations proceed to perform actions in random order during the round.

Map
- The capital is one of the most important areas of civilization. If the enemy captures the capital for three turns, your civilization will cease to exist. If you capture an enemy's capital, you also get all areas belonging to that capital. The capital has an advantage in defense + 15% and attack + 15% All buildings in the capital have already been erected.
- Transparent areas are neutral. The belonging of the region is determined by the color of the civilization.
- The map can be scaled. To return to standard zoom, double-click on the screen. If the scale is different from the usual, you will see a sign! in the upper right corner.
- Use the Economy and Population buttons to view these values. Use the Diplomacy button to view the civilization's owner and complete diplomatic action(see Orders - View Diplomacy)

Coffers
- Money goes to the treasury through taxes, which are calculated based on the population of a civilization and its economy.
- Money is withdrawn from the treasury for the maintenance of the army, based on the number of military units of your army (marine troops consume more funds than land)

Orders-Normal View
- Movement: move an army from one area to another. You can move between controlled areas or attack the areas of other civilizations.
- Recruitment: Recruit units from the selected area. Recruitment for the service requires money and is limited to the population of the area. Recruitment for the service limits the population of the area.
- Build: Build a building in the selected area (see Building Types) Building costs money.
- Disband: disband the units in the selected area. Reduces military spending.
- Dependent state: create a dependent state with a different civilization.
- Attachment: Attach a state to your civilization under your control.

Orders-View Diplomacy
- War: declare war on civilization.
- Peace: make an offer of peace to another civilization, if it is accepted, the state of war will be removed.
- Pact: offer a pact to another civ, if accepted it won't attack for 5 rounds. The treaty cannot be canceled even if war is declared.
- Alliance: offer an alliance to another civilization, if accepted, the civilization will provide you with military assistance. Use the Declare War order to let your allies know who to fight.
- Exit: Complete an alliance with another civilization.
- Support: provide financial assistance to another civilization.

Types of Buildings
- Fort: Gives the area a defensive advantage.
- Watchtower: allows you to see the number of troops in neighboring areas.
- Port: allows you to move by sea. Troops sent from a port can land in any area, even those without a port.

193 Civilization
Vassals
Offline and Online Achievements
Offline and Online Hall of Fame
Google Play Game Services Top Players List and Achievements!
random location
random filling
Random game

Scenarios:
- Modern world
- Modern World Complete
- World War I
- World War I Complete
- The Second World War
- World War II Complete
- Custom game scenarios!

Three different types of fog of war:
- Disabled
- Standard
- Full

Education

Selecting the language of the game or Available languages games
- Russian
- Čestina
-English
- Espanol
- Deutsch
- Francais
- Italiano
- 日本語
- Nederlands
- Poland
- Portugues
- 한국어
- Turkish
- 简体中文
- 繁體中文
- العربية

During the IV millennium BC. e. in the life of some peoples of the Earth there have been profound changes that have determined further history humanity. After long centuries the most advanced tribes of Eurasia, Africa and America have finally crossed the line separating barbarism from civilization.

What is civilization

A bird with the head of a lioness. Marie. III millennium BC. e.

The word "civilization" comes from the Latin adjective civilis - "civil, state". Approximately it can be translated as "fencing", "elevation to the level of a citizen". The term also means “ascent to urban culture”, because civilis is associated with the word civitas - “city”, “city-state”. It was in this sense that the word "civilization" was understood in the 16th-18th centuries. Then Western thinkers designated them the level of culture corresponding to the European urban education. Civilization was opposed to ignorance, savagery. Until now, this meaning of the word is preserved in everyday life. "Civilization, civilization" is understood as a synonym for "culture". When they say "civilized person", they often mean "cultured", "educated".

In the eighteenth century a new, scientific meaning of the term "civilization" begins to take shape. The "civilized" man of the urban culture of Europe or even Asia is opposed to the primitive "savages". AT XIX century American historian Lewis Henry Morgan (1818 - 1881) included the concept of "civilization" in his own scheme of human history.

Morgan was a supporter of the theory of universal progress, according to which all peoples go through the same stages in their development. At the same time, some peoples can lag behind, while others can pull ahead. Exploring life American Indians and the archaeological material already known in his time, Morgan singled out three stages in the history of the world. He put archaeological signs as the basis of periodization, as the most material and obvious. The first stage, savagery, begins with the history of man and ends with the advent of pottery. The latter, according to Morgan (and this was confirmed by later studies), correlates with the transition of people from hunting and gathering to agriculture and cattle breeding.

Ancient Civilizations of the Old World

Duck hunting. Fragment of painting from the tomb of the 18th dynasty.

The second stage - barbarism covers the period from the appearance of pottery to the emergence of writing. Morgan himself studied barbarism on the example of the Indians of the USA and Canada, primarily the Iroquois tribal association.

Finally, barbarism is being replaced by civilization, the defining feature of which Morgan considered the presence of writing. At the same time, he also recognized the character of civilization as an "urban" level of culture - this was indicated by the very use of this word. In Morgan's time, there was no substantial reason to doubt that writing arose with or after cities.

Morgan's scheme, with all its conventionality, has gained many supporters. In modern Western science, it remains one of the fundamental ones. True, the followers of Morgan significantly complicated his historical scale. The era of civilization itself is now divided into several stages. More "backward" and more "advanced" civilizations emerge. Early civilization is agrarian, that is, it is predominantly agricultural in nature. With the increase in the activity of urban life, the development of handicrafts, civilization becomes handicraft-agrarian. Gradually it is replaced by industrial civilization, or industrial. And finally, modern civilization, where ordinary industry gives way to the so-called high technologies based on mental labor, is defined as post-industrial.

Field work. Fragment of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. 1064 - 945 lo n. e.

Morgan's scheme, along with other Western thinkers, was borrowed by one of the founders of Marxism, Friedrich Engels (1820-1895). For Engels and other Marxists, the transition from barbarism to civilization coincides with the birth of class society. Class society in Marxism is a society divided into classes with divergent and often clashing interests. So,

the ancient slave-owning society was divided into classes of slave-owners, slaves, free peasants, etc. Marxist science (including in the Soviet Union) paid the main attention to the class struggle. Then the terms inherited from Morgan almost ceased to be used in it as obsolete.

Hieroglyphic inscriptions from the Temple of Horus and Hathor. Egypt. 250 - 180 AD BC e.

In Morgan's time, the presence of writing might have been considered sufficient evidence of the rise of civilization. However, the further development of historical science showed that the appearance of writing is far from always associated with profound cultural and social changes. Moreover, writing does not necessarily arise within the framework of urban culture.

The city can be considered generally accepted definition, only such a settlement where the inhabitants are mainly engaged in labor outside agriculture. So, over the past century and a half, scientists have become aware of a number of written cultures without the slightest sign of urban life. For example, the natives from Easter Island in Oceania had a written language, but they did not have even the semblance of urban settlements. It is hardly possible in the full sense of the word to consider even the largest and fortified settlements of the ancient Germans of the 1st - 5th centuries as cities. And they also had the letter.

So, it became clear that one sign is not enough to distinguish a civilization. Strictly speaking, Morgan did not see civilization outside of urban culture. So the existence of cities, along with writing, is now the second generally recognized evidence of the existence of civilization among the people.

However, neither cities, nor even writing, are irrefutable evidence. Writing has gone through many stages in its development, and its most primitive forms are sometimes difficult to distinguish from fine art. Disputes about whether to consider this or that settlement a city often boil in science for decades. As a third, completely material and indisputable, sign of the existence of civilization, modern archaeologists have proposed monumental art.

Detail of a pictogram from the so-called "Cave of Hands". Argentina. VIII millennium BC. e.

Indeed, the appearance of monumental architecture and sculpture is a visible sign of changes in society and culture. Structures like Egyptian pyramids, ancient Chinese palaces, ancient temples were built with the application of mental and physical forces unthinkable in a primitive society. They did not have a purely applied purpose. For centuries, primitive dugouts and huts were enough for people to live. A residential palace is much more than what a person really needs. Giant statues of gods and heroes immortalized them for millennia. It should be noted that in one form or another, monumentality is characteristic of any civilization up to the present day. True, today it is often caused by inevitability - for example, the accumulation of the population in major cities forces to build apartment buildings - "towers".

Thus, modern science distinguishes three main signs of civilization: writing, cities, monumental art. Scholars approach these features with varying degrees of rigor. Many believe that a combination of at least two of these features is sufficient to recognize civilization. So, the aborigines from Easter Island mentioned above, the Rapanui, have writing and monumental sculptures of revered ancestors - but no cities. The ancient Incas from Peru, who subjugated almost the entire west of South America, had urban settlements, developed monumental construction - but there was no writing. And yet they often talk about the "Inca civilization", about the "civilization of Easter Island." Other scientists take a more rigorous approach to the problem. In their opinion, the level of civilization is achieved only when all three signs are combined.

The term "civilization" denotes not only a certain stage in the development of mankind and culture, but also individual cultures that have reached this stage. A local civilization is a civilization of some region, people, country, completely independent, self-sufficient. Historians introduce various divisions of local civilizations: according to the level of development (agrarian, industrial, etc.), according to the characteristic features of the economy (for example, trade), according to geographical location (river, sea, etc.).

The concept of local civilization plays important role in the so-called civilizational approach to world history. According to this approach, there is no world-historical progress.

Pyramid of Pharaoh Djoser. Saqqara. Egypt. 28th century BC e.

Individual cultures or civilizations go through different stages in their development independently of each other, according to their own laws. At the same time, both the flourishing and the decline of cultures are natural. The main core of the vast majority of local civilizations, their "supervalue", are religious systems. So, the supervalue of Russian civilization is Orthodoxy. The civilizational approach in our time is quite popular and competes on an equal footing with the world-historical one. Its founders were the Russian philosopher Nikolai Yakovlevich Danilevsky (1822 - 1885) and the German historian and philosopher Oswald Spengler (1880 - 1936). The latter, by the way, defined civilization in its own way. For Spengler, civilization is a culture in decline, when its main forces are concentrated in cities and it begins to decay. But such a definition of civilization did not take root in science, even among Spengler's supporters.

The early agricultural societies formed the initial layer on the basis of which, in a certain situation, the formation of civilization took place. Population growth and creation effective ways obtaining food were the most important starting points for further progress. New look life, based in the field of material culture on a certain life support system, an expanding and more complex range of personal and social needs stimulated the development of specialized industries. In parallel and interrelatedly, there were changes in social structure, formed and developed previously unknown social institutions. As a result of the ongoing changes, the early agricultural era is replaced by a qualitatively new period. Archaeological discoveries and successes in deciphering ancient writing systems vividly characterize as a special, epoch-making phenomenon the type of the first civilizations, put forward by historical progress to the forefront of history both in the Old and in the New World at the end of the primitive era.

There are reasons to believe that in historical sequence different types of civilizations, the first civilizations represent an epoch-specific and, in a certain sense, stadial phenomenon. The sources of information, which are mainly (and exclusively for the formative period of civilization) archaeological data, make it possible, first of all, to characterize the material culture of the first civilizations. Already in this sphere, one can observe phenomena that have a specific qualitative character, reflecting temporal features. As GN Volkov rightly notes, the progress of the objective world as an objectified power of knowledge reflects the general progress of society (Volkov, 1976, p. 15).

The socio-economic essence of the processes of formation of ancient civilizations is the formation of a class society and the formation of a state. Signs of civilizations, known to a large extent from the objective world of culture studied by archaeology, are usually combined into a triad - cities, monumental architecture and writing (Daniel, 1968, p. 25; Redman, 1978, p. 216 - 218). Perhaps the first of the signs, namely cities, can be replaced by a highly developed handicraft, separated from agriculture, which, by the way, was one of the essential aspects of the very process of city formation and the subsequent functioning of urban structures. Centers that performed urban functions (from the leadership of a rural district to ideological leadership), in the conditions of different settlement systems and specific cultural traditions, could have a different morphological appearance. In Western Asia, Hindustan and ancient China, these were cities with crowded buildings and high-rise architecture, in Crete-Mycenaean Greece - palace and household complexes, in the New World a dispersed type of building prevailed. The regional and central functions of these structures, present in all ancient civilizations, are similar in content to the functions of cities, and only morphological features lead to certain reservations in the use of the term “city” (Lenzman, 1963, p. 130; Gulyaev, 1979).

The available data make it possible to characterize some of the essential features of the economic basis of the first civilizations, to characterize the mode of production inherent in them. As is known, the mode of production is a fundamental concept of historical materialism and is regarded as a historically defined way of obtaining material goods that people need for production and personal consumption, as a dialectical unity of productive forces and production relations (Essays on historical materialism, 1981, pp. 82 - 86; Kulikov, 1980, pp. 17-18). At the same time, Soviet researchers point to various aspects of this fundamental concept. So, if we have in mind the material and material image of production, then it appears as a technological mode of production (Kulikov, 1980, p. 17), taking into account the terminology used by K. Marx (Marx, Engels, vol. 49, p. 89 - 90 ). G. N. Volkov characterizes the technological method of production as a historically defined method of connection various elements productive forces, primarily man and technology (Volkov, 1976, p. 42). Very important is the detailed characterization of the productive forces given by this researcher, who notes that gradually broader areas of human life were drawn into productive activity. This refers to the growth of the population with a corresponding increase in the number of able-bodied, and the division of labor, and its cooperation, and the improvement of the means of communication, and the education received by the working people (Volkov, 1976, p. 42). Soviet historians also note that K. Marx in his works used the term "mode of production" in different volumes - as a general category and as a specific concept, referring to the mode of production of various real societies ("national mode of production") (Pavlovskaya, 1965, 93; Kachanovsky, 1971, p. 32). After these general remarks and considerations, let us turn to specific materials. As has been repeatedly noted by researchers, among the centers of the most ancient civilizations that arise independently and independently, as evidenced by their cultural specificity, including writing systems, include Sumer (Fig. 10), Egypt, Harappa, Yin China, Crete-Mycenaean Greece, a group of Mesoamerican civilizations and ancient civilizations of Peru. In the latter case, however, hieroglyphic writing was replaced by more primitive ways of storing and transmitting information - the system of beans with signs printed on them in the Mochika culture (Berezkin, 1983a, pp. 47-98), and later the well-known Inca nodular "letter" - kipu. But in other forms, the process of the formation of an ancient civilization in the South American center is presented quite clearly. The level of diverse industries in all these primary centers was very high, although in many cases it was based on the technical achievements of the Neolithic era. With a simplified understanding of the productive forces as a kind of fetish, the notion of the cardinal, qualitative significance of the introduction of copper products into production and their replacement of stone tools is widespread. This, in particular, is connected with the desire in general works to explain the successes of the first civilizations by the transition from the Neolithic to the Eneolithic. With this approach, the whole complex of the early civilizations of Mesoamerica, where metal products were not known at all, turns out to be overboard. The formative period of the ancient Peruvian civilization up to the Mochica complexes was also provided to a large extent by non-metallic tools. As the study of the effectiveness of ancient tools has shown, tools of the Neolithic type are often almost as productive as copper products. For example, the productivity of a sickle with a flint inlaid blade turned out to be practically equal to the productivity of a sickle made of copper (Korobkova, 1978; 1981a, pp. 68 - 73). It is not without reason that inlay flint sickles were widespread in Egypt in the era of the first dynasties, as the finds from the tomb at Saqqara show. It should not be about greater efficiency copper tools in comparison with stone ones, and, first of all, about the efficiency of the very process of their production, especially with the introduction of casting, which allows mass reproduction of objects (Archeologiya SSSR, 1982, p. 6).

Consideration of the productive forces in a broad aspect, without one-sided reduction to the materials used in the manufacture of tools, shows the essential leap that characterizes the technological mode of production of the first civilizations. Such, first of all, is the sharp increase in the working population, the most important component of the productive forces, which was one of the essential consequences of the Neolithic revolution. It is no coincidence that the centers of the first civilizations are characterized by a high concentration of the population. So, in Crete, according to tentative estimates, the number of inhabitants in 4000 BC. e. is defined as 12,000 people, for 3,000 at 65,000, and for the year 2000 at 200,000 (Renfrew, 1970, pp. 383-400). In Sumer, in the region of Uruk, for the middle of the 4th millennium BC. e. established the existence of 17 small settlements and three major centers("towns"). By the end of this millennium, by the time the pictographic tablets of the temple economy appeared, their number increased to 112 and 10, respectively, not counting the growth of Uruk itself, turning into a kind of supercenter (Adams, Nissen, 1972, p. 18). The total Maya population in the lowlands is estimated at 1 million (Willey, 1980, pp. 513-563; Weaver, 1981, p. 271). These significant masses of the settled population ensured a sharp increase in the volume of production products, primarily in the field of agriculture, which was becoming highly specialized. As a rule, cooperative labor is used on a large scale at this time. In fact, the growth of agricultural surplus and the growth of population are two interrelated phenomena.

well known high efficiency irrigated agriculture of ancient Mesopotamia, where the use of artificial irrigation made it possible to harvest two crops a year. Even the mass of grains of cereal plants in the irrigation zones of the Southern Mesopotamia was twice as large as the mass of grains of similar varieties in more northern regions. At the same time, work on the creation of a system of canals and its maintenance, on land reclamation measures in the conditions of the swampy lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates required the organized and purposeful activity of significant teams. This was a decisive factor in progress while maintaining archaic tools in agriculture. As you know, to study ancient history great importance has the work of K. Marx "Forms preceding capitalist production." Based on relatively late manifestations of Asian antiquity, K. Marx gave in it theoretical analysis genetically very early structures. He specifically emphasized that “the conditions common to all for real appropriation through labor, irrigation canals”, in ancient times, were presented as “the work of a higher single principle - a despotic government hovering over small communities” (Marx, Engels, vol. 46, part I , p. 464). The highly productive agricultural systems of the first civilizations, with all the natural local differences, as a rule, required a common labor. At the same time, in Mesopotamia and Peru, it was aimed at irrigation and the creation of a canal system, in Egypt for reclamation work, in China for hydraulic engineering measures to combat floods that threatened crops in fertile areas in the immediate vicinity of the Yellow River. As new studies have shown, in the zone of Mesoamerican civilizations, slash-and-burn agriculture, for all its effectiveness in this ecological situation, was not the only type of land use. In the areas formerly occupied by local civilizations, the presence of terraced agriculture on the slopes, and the use of areas flooded during floods, and the existence of branched systems of meliorative canals have been established. There are also systems of drainage canals and water reservoirs in Mesoamerica, the forerunners of modern reservoirs (Gulyaev, 1982, pp. 88-97). Such integrated agriculture could also function only under conditions of organized general labor. The iconography and mythology of all the main centers of the first civilizations reflected the fundamental importance of organized labor in agriculture, which, as a rule, was symbolically headed at the first stages by a representative supreme power, often armed with tools that were more ceremonial than working in nature.

The second most important part technological method The production of the first civilizations were specialized crafts. Along with technical progress, here, as in agriculture, there is the preservation of an archaic set of tools, the effectiveness of which increased only under the conditions of division of labor, specialization and the growth of professionalism. In the Middle East, advances in the field of heat engineering are especially noticeable, whether it is the creation of specialized two-tier furnaces for firing ceramics or the manufacture of alloys of various metals and products from them. The complication of handicraft activity, firmly separated from agricultural labor, required not only increasing specialization, but also, as the other side of this process of technological and organizational cooperation, the emergence of associations of artisans, ancient masters, well known from excavations both in the Old and New Worlds (Masson , 1976b, pp. 67-69; Gulyaev, 1979, pp. 63-68). The effectiveness of such production associations was very significant, as evidenced by their products, which include, in particular, hundreds and thousands of highly artistic samples. It is enough to point out the achievements of jewelers ancient east, on the artistic bronze of Yin China and on Mochika ceramics made in molds, which are often first-class realistic sculptures. That is why there is a tendency to localize these highly efficient productions in large royal or temple households with strict control by the administration. Already in the first documents of Uruk, we see a “big (chief) blacksmith”, who apparently headed the corresponding production (Tyumenev, 1956, pp. 44, 55, 56, 60). In Yin China, there were artisans of the ruler - wang (wangun) and temple artisans (History of the Ancient World, 1982, p. 153). According to some researchers, the labor of slaves was used in the central workshops of ancient China (Serkina, 1982, pp. 114-116). The activities of artisans in the royal households of Pylos and Knossos were carefully controlled, where some of the artisans directly belonged to the number of “people of the court” (History of the Ancient World, 1982, pp. 291, 292). In Mochik Peru, during the excavations of the large center of the settlement of Pampa Grande, specialized workshops were opened - copper casting, weaving, and lime production. Their location in the same block as the cult center and the absence of residential buildings nearby lead researchers to the conclusion that these were temple or state workshops serviced by visiting workers (Berezkin, 1983a, p. 125).

In the era of the first civilizations, there is also a radical improvement in the means of communication, which, of course, also had a positive impact on technological progress. In the Old World, wheeled carriages are widely used in all the main centers of ancient civilizations. Shipbuilding is also developing everywhere, acquiring in some cases, as it apparently took place in the Aegean world, a specialized character. But of particular importance was the use of writing systems for the storage and transmission of information necessary for the normal functioning of social organisms. The volume of such information in the first civilizations increased enormously and actually put the traditional forms of information transmission - oral and artistic - in front of a critical situation. The need for a clear fixation of the agronomic calendar, economic accounting, to which the creators of the Sumerian civilization gave themselves up with enthusiasm, the tendency to create a single canonical system religious beliefs urgently required fixation and secure fastening. Moreover, in order to master complex systems ancient writing needed long time. All this necessitated special training. certain categories persons involved in the production process in one form or another. According to Hittite laws, the cost of training an apprentice as a weaver, potter, tanner, or fuller was the cost of one cow or six sheep (Masson, 1976b, p. 66). Special "schools" of scribes or priests, known from the materials of Mesopotamia (Dyakonov, 1982, p. 61 ff.) and the city-states of Mesoamerica (Knorozov, 1955, p. 49), with varying degrees The cult coloring of educational systems pursued, among other tasks, the goal of transferring positive knowledge in the field of astronomy, mathematics, and keeping records.

Intensive large-scale agriculture and specialized crafts formed the basis of the technological mode of production of the first civilizations. Their functioning, as well as the existence of persons directly engaged in productive labor, is already noted within the framework of the initial molecule of society - the community. This was accurately noted by K. Marx, who wrote that under the conditions of Eastern despotism there is communal property, “generated for the most part by the combination of industry and agriculture within the framework of a small community, thanks to which such a community becomes fully capable of existing independently and contains in itself everything conditions of reproduction and expanded reproduction” (Marx, Engels, vol. 46, part I, p. 464). However, the implementation of these prerequisites within the framework of one single community was limited by its production potential, which hindered the deepening of specialization and the division of labor in the field of handicraft activities. On the contrary, in large centers that turned into urban and became a symbol of technological and cultural progress, expanded reproduction could and did be realized on a significant scale, in particular through cooperation within the framework of craft workshops, which had immeasurably great opportunities compared to lone craftsmen who served their community or village. In large centers, the rudiments of positive knowledge were also concentrated, writing was widely used, something like schools functioned. vocational training. It is in large economic systems led by a single organizational start, which in a number of places were temple centers, the most significant surplus product was obtained. In these farms and workshops, the exploitation of people of different economic and legal status, forced laborers began. Slave labor was also partly used, but it should be borne in mind that the position of slaves was an ideal model of exploitation, not always consistent with the needs of production efficiency, which gave rise to a number of intermediate states or social strata (Masson, 1979a, pp. 7 - 10).

In the historical aspect, the coexistence and, to a certain extent, the interaction of the two sectors, small-communal and large-scale, had a noticeable impact on overall progress. In the face of cataclysms and disintegration, which were not uncommon in the history of the first civilizations, it was small communities that had a special resilience and ability to regenerate. During periods of decline of large centers, accompanied by cultural regression up to the disappearance of writing systems, as was the case in Harappan India and Crete-Mycenaean Greece, it was the communities that made up nutrient medium for cultural and within the framework of the mode of socio-economic continuity they represent.

An impressive feature of the culture of the first civilizations, including the stage of their formation, is the creation and increase in the volume of monumental buildings, for the most part former cult complexes. These monuments are not only very spectacular in appearance, but also indicative of the production potential of the societies that created them. They seem to realize the surplus product obtained in this economic system, reflect the organizational level of society, skillfully using the methods of cooperation. In the already mentioned study of K. Marx, this feature of the type of ancient societies he studied was specially emphasized. He noted that cities can arise, in particular, in those places “where the head of state and his satraps, exchanging their income (surplus product) for labor, spend this income as a working fund” (Marx, Engels, vol. 46, part 1, p. 464). The protagonist in such a case could be the leadership of the union of communities, which did not develop into a despotic monarchy, and the theocratic leadership of the temple organism, but the political essence of the phenomenon remains unchanged. Such a concentration of forces and means was inaccessible to a closed, autarkic community. It is the amount of labor invested that distinguishes the first temples from ordinary communal sanctuaries, for the construction of which the efforts of several, or even one small family, were enough.

In the Sumerian Eredu, it is clearly seen how a small communal sanctuary is gradually replaced by more and more majestic structures raised on platforms. So, the oldest sanctuary of the Eredu layer XVIII, most likely dating back to the beginning of the 5th millennium BC. e., is essentially a small one-room house with an area of ​​​​about 9 m2 with a square hearth altar in the center. Gradually, the planning of such sanctuaries becomes more complicated, their outer walls are decorated with buttresses, they turn into specialized architectural structures. Temple of layer VI, dating back to the beginning of the 4th millennium BC. e., has dimensions of 23.5X12.5 m and is located on a platform rising 15 m above the surrounding plain (Lloyd, Safar, 1948). Attempts have been made to somehow characterize the labor costs for the construction of these majestic structures. So, for example, the labor expended on the construction of the White Temple in Sumerian Uruk was calculated (Fig. 11). The Olmec temple center at La Venta, i.e., the construction of the period of the formation of the foundations of the Mesoamerican civilization, required significant collective efforts for its construction (see p. 00). The gigantic labor costs for the construction of the Egyptian pyramids were repeatedly estimated, which, in connection with this, one English mathematician from the standpoint of a rationalized worldview modern era called it "monumental absurdity". The chavinoid cult complexes of Peru during the formative stage of civilization well illustrate this early appearance of monumental architecture. The Paco-pampa cult complex belonging to the Chavinian pore, located in the mountainous zone, has a platform base size of 200x400 m with a maximum height of 35 m (Berezkin, 1982). The settlement, considered the center of the Moche civilization, had two large pyramids - Huaca del Sol with base dimensions of 159X342 m and a height of 40 m and Huaca dela Luna with a base of 80X95 m and a height of 20 m. bricks. Even more impressive is the cult complex of the recently explored northern, and apparently later, capital of Mochica, the ancient settlement of Pampa Grande (Fig. 12). The Huaca Fortales pyramid located here has a base of 200X300 m and a height of 55 m (Berezkin, 1983a, pp. 42, 43, 124, 125). Estimated labor costs for the construction of fortifications at the early Yin site of Zhengzhou also indicate a huge concentration of human resources, implying a relatively unoccupied labor force and a large-scale organization of cooperative labor (see p. 219).

The evolution of religious architecture, established in a number of early civilizations, most likely also reflects the stages of development of the temple organism headed by the priestly caste, which carried out economic and organizational, and to some extent, apparently, political functions.

Similar ancient temple organizations in Sumer have been convincingly analyzed by I. M. Dyakonov (History of the Ancient World, 1982, p. 35; History of the Ancient East, 1983, p. 140). The Sumerian temples had their own agricultural, pastoral and handicraft economy, to which were added voluntary-compulsory gifts, which were a veiled form of the emerging tax. At the same time, members of the higher temple administration received special allotments, and therefore the stocks concentrated at the temples constituted the reserve and exchange fund of the community or group of communities and were used for sacrifices and for the maintenance of ordinary service personnel and persons employed in the economic sectors. As a form of economic and political organization of society, temple associations in a number of cases preceded the establishment of royal power. At the formative stage of a number of civilizations, it was in the monumental cult complexes that the surplus product spent on labor was embodied, and not without reason the early city or proto-city centers are called “temple towns” (“temple-town”) (Redman, 1978, p. 202; Masson , 1981a, pp. 107 - 108).

With all the expressiveness of the material culture of the first civilizations, one should not forget that the driving forces behind the formation of a class society and civilization were primarily socio-economic phenomena - the presence of a regularly received surplus product, which was provided by the method of economic activity, and the possibility of its redistribution, which was provided developing social system. Of course, this general proposition should not be understood in a straightforward and mechanical way. Other factors that Western researchers love to describe, from population density to the development of trade and exchange, had an impact on the formation of the first civilizations (Lamberg-Karlovsky, Sabloff, 1979, p. 114, 115, 330, 331; Masson, 1982e, p. 166-169). But these were secondary factors that could help accelerate or slow down the corresponding processes of social development, giving them more or less clear and expressive forms. The most favorable interaction of the main driving forces and secondary factors, respectively, gave the maximum effect.

In the course of the transformation of primitive relations, the alienation of the surplus product for a long time retained the external forms traditional for communal-tribal orders (Averkieva, 1974, p. 335). Gradually, qualitative changes took place under their cover, in particular, the direct seizure of large tracts of communal lands. A similar usurpation of communal lands by a detached elite was noted among the mountain peoples of India and in a number of other societies that were going through the stage of disintegration of primitive communal relations (Maretina, 1980, p. 217). It is not surprising that at the dawn of the history of writing in Sumer, we find huge allotments for their time that belonged to the ruling elite of society. According to five documents from Jemdet-Nasr, which give the size of the fields, two-thirds of the listed areas of 9000 hectares belong to the chief priest-ruler. The land allotment of the ruler of the Pylos kingdom was also notable for its significant size (Waiman, 1966). The clan of the leader, or royal family”, formed the top of the social hierarchical pyramid, but next to it there was a number of “noble families” with their rights and obligations, with their own status. The regulation of these rights and obligations takes place in the usual forms of primitive legal orders. But in terms of content, this phenomenon, when large groups of individuals differ in place in the system of social production and in the methods of obtaining and the size of the share of social wealth received, is clearly connected with the processes of class formation. The distribution of the product depending on the place of a group of persons on the hierarchical ladder reflected only the external socio-political situation. This ultimately concealed the position of such a group in the system of social production. It was a prototype of a class structure, new in content, but still traditional in form. Yu. V. Bromley rightly believes that for such a formative stage one can speak of a kind of “preclasses” (Bromley, 1981, p. 160).

Gradually, the adaptation of traditional customs to the new situation of class society developed into direct exploitation. Among initial forms exploitation, in addition to intra-communal methods, slavery and tributary services are ubiquitous (Pershits, 1979, pp. 59-65). The beginning of domestic slavery proper was the adaptation of prisoners of war as junior household members, who performed mainly hard and unpleasant work. The capture of prisoners of war is widely documented both in iconography and written texts the first civilizations. Warriors and prisoners of war are represented on the stelae of the Peruvian cult complex Cerro-Sechin, which, despite all the disagreements in dating, clearly refers to the Domochik time (Berezkin, 1982, pp. 50, 51). In proto-Sumerian writing, a slave was designated as "a person (alien) mountain country". Total in ancient documents Sumer, subjected to the study, 30 slaves and 27 female slaves were counted (Wyman, 1974a). Then their number increases several times. The variety of ancient Chinese terminology associated by researchers with the designation of forced laborers (Serkina, 1982) may reflect the real diversity of the ways in which these categories were formed and how they are used in production and everyday life. Gradually, as the socio-economic and production infrastructures become more complex, debt slavery also develops, various categories of people in a slave state form a whole class. Tributary, considered as a manifestation of a form of dependence on one ethnic group from the other, as well as slave prisoners of war, was closely associated with an increase in intercommunal clashes and confrontation. Gradually, the archaic legal norms in which the primary exploitation took place are replaced by new orders, and the slave becomes the optimal object of exploitation, whose actual disenfranchised position is supplemented by an appropriate legal status.

Thus, the paradox of historical progress consisted in the fact that the formation of civilization was closely connected not only with the specialization of activity, but also with the development of class antagonism, with a sharp concentration of social wealth in the hands of separate strata or even individuals, with the spread of lawlessness and oppression.

Along with the process of class formation, there was a process of institutionalization and increasing separation of power. Already on final stages In the primitive system, the aristocracy, which had more or less fixed social and property privileges, managed common affairs and controlled the distribution of products. Often, external wars or the process of developing new lands stimulated the authoritarian tendencies of the supreme leader-ruler (Maretina, 1980, p. 217). We also note that with the monopolization of the right of redistribution, the power of the leader-leader also acquired economic functions. As a result of these processes, the leader-leader gradually subjugates the apparatus of communal self-government and, with its help, leads the social organization of the labor process. Now the members of this apparatus, by virtue of their position, participate in one way or another in the appropriation of a significant amount of the social product. Not without reason, in the already mentioned ancient documents of Sumer, 6000 hectares are considered as the allotment of the ruler, and 3000 hectares are divided between five officials, including the priest-soothsayer, the chief judge, the senior priestess, the foreman of the trading agents-tamkars. They disposed of special land plots, naturally inferior in size to the allotment of the Vanak ruler, and the highest officials Pylos “kingdom” (History of the Ancient World, 1982, p. 293). In Yin China, members of the administrative apparatus, apparently, did not have allotments, but were provided with in-kind payments (History of the Ancient World, 1982, p. 158).

In various modifications, the point of view is widespread that ancient states formed primarily as a management apparatus with increasingly complex social production and that they are by no means connected with the social and property stratification that accompanies the process of class formation (Vasiliev, 1980, pp. 172 - 196). From our point of view, with such an approach, two sides of the same process are completely in vain opposed. Of course, such a function of the state as the organization public works in the conditions of large-scale agricultural systems, was very important for society as a whole. But the state apparatus, which at first was a transformed communal municipality, did not consist of disinterested idealists. From the very beginning, this body was practically in the hands of the wealthy elite, and participation in its activities, especially in fairly high positions, contributed to joining the ranks of the social and property elite and gaining a foothold in it. Naturally, the organs thus equipped state apparatus aimed at serving the interests of this elite. Among the driving forces of the formation of the state, class contradictions arising in society and the improvement of the organizational and administrative system formed an interdependent unity. The community administration was a collection of authoritative leaders, the state administration was both a power of coercion and a power of authority. Then the very fact of the possibility of coercion gave rise to forcibly affirmed authority.

The military situation aggravated in the era of the formation of the first states created additional incentives for the rise of the leader-leader above the others. public structures. The content of this factor was diverse. As K. Marx noted, war “is one of the most primitive species the labor of each of ... naturally formed communities, both for the retention of property and for the acquisition of it ”(Marx, Engels, vol. 46, part I, p. 480). Thus, armed violence performed certain economic functions and itself became a direct economic factor (Zlobin, 1980, p. 147). Armed expeditions led not only to the forced redistribution of the surplus product. Under the guise of armed detachments, access was made to valuable sources of raw materials - deposits of metals, building timber, ornamental and precious stones. Particular importance was attached to the capture of prisoners of war, which is directly narrated both by pictorial scenes (Fig. 13) and written documents. Prisoners of war with their hands tied behind their backs, pictures of triumph on the battlefield, scenes of bloody sacrifices are the favorite subjects of reliefs and paintings in all the first civilizations. In the campaigns of the Yin warriors, more than one and a half thousand prisoners were captured at a time (History of the Ancient World, 1982, p. 157). Wars, thus, have become a regular trade. The squad devoted to the leader contributed to his rise and, at the same time, was potentially one of the components of the emerging state apparatus of suppression. The notion of the theocratic nature of power that existed in many early civilizations. This issue in Soviet literature is well considered by V. I. Gulyaev, who convincingly showed that in the societies of Mesoamerica royal power acquired a dominant position in the first centuries of our era, i.e., in essence, with the completion of the formative period of civilization. In Mesoamerican materials, the attributes of power of secular rulers, and images of the king on the battlefield, and architectural complexes that can be considered as royal residences are widely represented (Gulyaev, 1972, pp. 206-217; 1976, pp. 191-248). The Yin wang had broad military powers, and, apparently, he performed the functions of a military leader, high priest, and organizer of production (History of the Ancient World, 1982, p. 151). A sociological analysis of the plots of Mochik painting shows that the supreme ruler was to a large extent a military leader: he invariably appears in scenes of armed clashes, triumphs and human sacrifices. The violent killing of people in "royal" tombs, represented in most of the first civilizations, demonstrates the ruthless forms of ideological consolidation of the authority of a military and political leader. Streams of blood stained thorny path leading to the heights of civilization.

Undoubtedly, the military functions to a large extent contributed to the victory of secular power over the theocratic encroachments of the priesthood in cases where such a confrontation existed. Sumerian materials are very important for considering the origins of this phenomenon. I. M. Dyakonov emphasizes the complex internal connection various aspects activities of a social leader. Since the organization of irrigation work was the responsibility of the priest-ruler, the priestly functions of the leader turned out to be all the more important (History of the Ancient East, 1983, p. 140). The figure of the leader-priest (en), who received the maximum land allotment, apparently precedes the assertion of the primacy of secular power. Soon" big people"- military leaders with the title" lugal "become higher than the high priests (Dyakonov, 1959, p. 121 - 126, 163; History of the Ancient World, 1982, p. 32 - 56). Such, apparently, is the tendency to establish political forms that inherit the “temple towns” that grow out of primitive communal structures. In the first civilizations, with all local, completely natural features there is an assertion of the power of the ruler, relying on military strength and usurping priestly functions over time, if he did not initially possess them as a priest-ruler. The new leader also begins to lay claim to divine origin and seeks to lay hands on real material goods - temple farms - where they were developed.

Ideological factors also played a huge role in these socio-political processes (Masson, 1980, pp. 3-6). Along with the assertion of the role of the leader-leader in society, there is a sacralization of his position and functions. The personality of a leader of a high rank is declared sacred, he wears special clothes, specific attributes of his power appear, and a cult is formed during his lifetime and for the dead. Fine Arts artistic means reinforce this trend. With the use of mythological thinking traditional for communities, ideological justification begins class division society and the power of the leader-king. Accordingly, changes are made to the mythological scheme of the world structure, where the cult of the supreme deity comes first. Sumerian city-states and Egyptian nomes in internecine struggle seek to consolidate military and political successes by asserting precisely their local patron gods in this dominant function. There is a certain transformation of popular agrarian cults and the ceremonies associated with them - the earthly ruler now enters into a sacred marriage with the goddess of fertility. The cult of rulers, genetically connected with the ancient and traditional cult of ancestors, is receiving special development. These cults ideologically reinforced the social inequality that was taking hold in society, and the gigantic burial structures became a kind of monumental propaganda.

The socio-economic, political and ideological processes that took place in society were, on the whole, dynamic system direct and feedback links that affect the entire cultural and social complex of civilization. In list driving factors an important place was occupied by the growing needs of society and individuals. At the same time, in addition to economic needs generated by the need for tangible material goods, all big role play spiritual, as well as socio-political needs arising from the needs of the functioning of the superstructure. All this taken together led to a qualitatively new state of society, defined as civilization.

Thus, one can speak of a whole epoch, or stage, of the first civilizations as elementary school class formation. As we know, the definition of the essence and the very name of the earliest formation caused a significant debate, known as the discussion about the Asian mode of production. A more cautious term received citizenship rights - early class societies, defined as societies in transition, according to the most informative review of this issue proposed by L. V. Danilova (Marxist-Leninist theory ..., 1983, pp. 348-362). It seems to us, at least from the point of view of cultural genesis, that the formation of such a socio-cultural community as civilization means a transition to a qualitatively new stage of historical development, leading, despite the preservation of many archaic and remnant phenomena, to the final feature of the primitive era. Perhaps the first civilizations should be considered as proto-slave-owning societies of early antiquity, bearing in mind the main trend of their development.

This was milestone world history, in which the repetition of a number of phenomena in various ethno-cultural environments clearly stands out. Typologically, in addition to the countries of the Ancient East, the societies of Mesoamerica and Peru should certainly be included among the first civilizations, where the formative stage of civilization is attested by at least from I millennium BC e. Judging by the new discoveries in Peru, the origins of civilization can go deep into the 2nd millennium BC. e. At the same time, as Soviet researchers have repeatedly emphasized, the concepts of “socio-historical formation” and “mode of production” are general historical and typological concepts, a scientific abstraction to the maximum pure form. In historical reality, the formation exists in individual societies as their inner essence, their objective basis (Semenov, 1978, pp. 61-62; 1982, pp. 66-96). From these positions, the first civilizations themselves can be considered as specific socio-cultural communities, typologically the same, but differing in a number of respects in the ways of production (Sumerian, Egyptian, Mycenaean, etc.). These differences cover a variety of aspects: from the forms of highly productive agriculture practiced in a particular society and the nature of common labor in this area of ​​economic activity to the significance and fate of the temple sector in the economic basis, not to mention superstructural phenomena in which epochal features are inextricably intertwined with ethno-cultural specifics. The type of the first civilizations as a synchrostadial phenomenon reflects the unity of the world-historical process and the general trend of the progressive movement of society.

With the emergence of the first civilizations, the unevenness of historical development intensified, but these civilizations themselves were often only unstable formations in the boundless sea of ​​primitive tribes, as V. N. Nikiforov correctly noted (1975, p. 247). This is especially true of the stage of their formation, when there are only individual stadial components of the cultural complex, but not the entire set of features. In some cases, the concentration of power and, accordingly, the surplus product made it possible already at the pre-state level to create significant cultural values, especially impressive in the form of monumental architecture, whether it be a burial mound or a temple complex. Then there could come a regression and a kind of break in gradualness, throwing society back to its original boundaries. These phenomena, known even in the period of established civilizations, are perhaps even more numerous for the time of their formation. This is where the complex, contradictory nature of the concrete historical process is manifested (Masson, 1983a, pp. 7-14), that dialectical unity of the general and the special, which has been actively studied by Soviet historical science for the past two decades. Archaeological materials from various regions make it possible to consider precisely specific character different paths of development from early agricultural societies to the first civilizations.