Ben Long

Analysis of China, Nubia, and Olmecs (2200-250 BCE)

This analysis will be comparing the similarities and differences of three different ancient cultures. The cultures are China, Nubia, and Olmec. These three cultures share many similarities although not influenced by each other because each is on different parts of the world. Each culture will be compared in the areas of government, religion, trade, family & gender, technology, and communication. Each of the cultures had stable governments. Also, each of the governments were complex. These stable governments led to a successful civilization and no dramatic fall of government. But these governments were based on very different systems. China was on a monarchy government. Nubia was on a Kandake government while the Olmecs had a state government. When it comes to religion, all three cultures have one major thing in common: Polytheism. All cultures at one point worshiped many gods. This is no surprise due to the fact that polytheism was a very common idea of religion in ancient civilizations. In China, during the Shang Dynasty, polytheism was the idea of religion in the culture. But in the Zhou dynasty, Taoism came along with different beliefs such as there was only one god who created the universe. After Taoism, Confucianism became very popular, although disagreed with Taoism. In Nubia, polytheism existed. Also, the polytheistic beliefs were heavily influences by Ancient Egypt. The Olmecs practiced Shamanism, centered around Shaman. Polytheism exists in this religion because ten gods have been identified in this religion. All three cultures had different items to trade. China traded salt, iron, fish, cattle, and silk. Nubia traded gold, ivory, ebony, ostrich feathers, and animals such as giraffes. The Olmec traded greenstone and marine shell. All three cultures did trade high value items although no items each culture traded are the same.

Chinas main export was silk and also had a well known trade route called The Silk Road. Family & Gender ideas were similar across all three cultures. One example is the gender roles. In China, women were inferior to men and men were expected to lead families. In Nubia, women did the daily needs for their families and men taught boys trading and society skills. In the Olmec culture, it was a male centered society and it was the womans duty to take care of children and work in agriculture. In a conclusion, men were leaders and women were workers in these cultures. All three cultures were intelligent and created advanced technology. China created iron tools, woodblock printing, and the farm plow. Nubia created a system of mathematics, an accurate bow and arrow, and invented poisonous arrows. The Olmecs created a writing system, a number system, and a calendar. There are not many similarities in the technology in each culture, though each invention or idea was advanced for its time. This contributed to the success of each culture. Each cultured had different systems of communication. China spoke Old Chinese, also nose as Arabic Chinese. China also used woodblock printing to print text which could have been a form of communication. Nubians spoke Egytian. Olmecs spoke a Mixe-Zoquean language. Each culture had many similarities in differences in the areas of government, religion, trade, family & gender, technology, and communication. Each culture also had unique features that made it stand out from the other two. The similarities in these cultures can be surprising because each culture is on different parts of the globe.