The Decline and Fall of Civilisations

by Kerry Bolton

  The decay of the Indus Valley civilization cannot be ascribed to the influence of a “Negroid” element. Negroids had been a component of the Indus Valley race in its primordial beginnings. Despite the rise and fall of the Indus Valley civilisation the biological race from prehistory to the present day has remained stable. In general the Indus race was “tall, long-headed and broad-nosed”.138 “The population of the Indus Valley appears to have remained more or less stable from the Harrapa times to the present day”.139 Physical anthropologist and archaeologist Kenneth R. Kennedy, who examined the skeletons from Harrapa city, states that he “recognizes a biological continuum of many of their morphometric variables in the modern populations of Punjab and Sindh”.140

  Vahia and Nadav of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, suggest a pattern for the life-cycle of civilisations when seeking an explanation for the decline of Indus. They state that when a civilisation reaches a certain phase of development it must expand, whether territorially and/or technology or contract and collapse.141 History testifies through time and place, from Rome and Central and South America to Tonga, recent Japan, Britain, and the current de facto world empire of the USA, empire-building is the usual end-product of a civilisation or state that has reached a critical mass in balance between resources and population. “[A]t the peak of the exploitation of its current capabilities, a society is essentially in a self-contradictory course. It not only enjoys highest level of prosperity, but also must quickly come up with the next level of rise to avoid a collapse in near future”.142

  As Spengler pointed out, empire is the last stage of civilisation. However, there is a self-destruct mechanism within the imperial cycle that ends with the over-extension of borders and conversely the importation of alien subjects, and with them alien ideas, that more often lead to decay rather than to invigoration.

  While the common explanation for the decline and depopulation of the Indus cities is that of environmental changes due to changes in monsoon patterns, Vahia and Yadav do not concur:

  “However, the changes seem to be small and cannot fully account for the fall of the civilisation. It seems that the fall of the civilisation seems to have been triggered by internal reasons rather than external factors.143

  “As the society becomes ever richer, it finds it increasingly difficult to meet the increasing expectations of its population and heads to chaos. If the technological breakthrough does not come at its scheduled time, the chaos ensuing from the inability to meet the increasing demands and expectations may actually result in a fall in the standard of living…”144

  By 1300 B.C. Harrapa was overcrowded, and the hitherto orderly streets were being encroached on by houses and workshops.

  “The fact that this was a decay rather than destruction is highlighted by Kenoyer145 (2008). Discussing the environmental evidence, he concluded that there was no substantial evidence of change in weather pattern. He also shows that the decay was gradual, at least in Harappa where signs of overcrowding, decay beginning with loss of the elite along with the disappearance of signs of complex mercantile activities such as weights and seals”.146

  The decline in the quality of brick manufacturing, a key feature of the Indus civilisation, at Harrapa during the “Late Phase”, is an important indication of cultural decay. “[T]he decline in baked brick manufacturing is not merely a loss of one specific technology, but also represents a considerable loss of symbolism”. The quality of brick manufacturing indicated a central authority ensuring that there was standardisation of brick dimensions, which had a precise ration of 4:2:1, with standardised moulds in use from 4000 to 3600 B.C. During the “Late Phase” there was a deviation from the so-called “Indus proportion”. The change in style and quality of brick manufacture is a significant indicator of transformation in Indus or at least Harrapan society:

  “Beyond the molds, the standards are also preserved in the craftsmen’s tradition and in social norms. The deviation from the standard in the Harappan Late phase could therefore point to a changed social norm, or to the lack of craftsmen to keep up the traditional brick manufacture”.147

  During the “Late phase”, there was not only a decline in trade but a change in religion. The change in the belief system is indicated by a change in burial methods, which also implies a change in the ruling elite.148 Khan and Lemmen also do not agree that environmental changes were sufficient to cause the collapse of the civilisation.149 Environmental changes could have exacerbated the culture-crisis with an inability of the new social structure to maintain flood protection.150

  They ask, “what do bricks tell us about these social changes?” Up to five changes in brick proportion suggest shifts in architectural preference and lack of control by those responsible for urban planning. The urban centres seem also to have been experiencing a reversal in population, including the loss of craftsmen, with the disintegration of cities into villages.151

  This suggests what was being played out was the process of decline that Spengler stated leads to a people becoming Fellaheen, unless being pushed into new historical directions, as indeed occurred with the rise of the brahmanic-Hindu Civilisation after the Indus.

  Maurya

  The Mauryan Empire united much of India, and under Asoka a practical unifying ethos of Dhamma was formulated by combining elements of Buddhism and Hinduism that was “pragmatic and intensely ethical”. A moral discipline was imposed by Asoka’s Dhammic edicts, prohibiting excessive feasting and drinking, animal fights and sacrifices.152 Family was the social foundation.153 Theft was rare, laws were straightforward, resources and food were abundant, metallurgy, manufacturing textiles, and carpentry, including boat-building, were widespread and impressive, according to Greek observers.154 Typical of the High Culture cycle, economic activity was organised through guilds. Merchants were forbidden excessive profits and subjected to laws protecting the public from poor quality goods.155 Mauryan India was noted for the excellence of its stone monuments and buildings, initiated by Asoka. In particular the Mauryan stone columns, crowned with colossal animal sculptures, were considered without equal in the world.156

  In contrast to Asoka, his fourth successor, Salisuka, was noted for his cruelty and injustice.157 Like Sargon’s Mesopotamia, Darius’ Persia, Alexander’s Greece, and others, subsequent generations of the ruling class did not have the stamina of their forebears. Stagnation followed a succession of rulers circa 150 B.C. Professor Sen comments: “The successors of Asoka proved unequal to the task of maintaining intact the mighty fabric of the emporia or to arrest the forces of decay”. There followed a “woeful tale” of “divided loyalty and the dismemberment of the provinces from central moorings”. The dismembering of the empire was encouraged by the political alliances of the Greek invaders in 206 B.C. “A succession of feeble rulers” after Asoka could not maintain the unity of the state. There was a quick succession of kings, and with each there were changes in the state bureaucracy. Despite the social ethos of Asoka’s Dhamma, an Indian national consciousness was lacking, and in the absence of a strong king such as Asoka, provincialism dismembered the empire.158

  The Mauryan ruler Vasumitra succumbed to hedonism, and “afforded a welcome opportunity to the forces of disintegration to set in”. While watching a theatrical performance he was murdered by Kosala, whose rule provided an opportunity for the unitary Mauryan state to succumb to the separatism of local princes. Mauryan India lingered until circa 185 B.C., when the last Maurya, Brihadratha, a weak ruler unable to resist Greek invaders, was assassinated, and the Sunga dynasty emerged.159 Devabhuti, assuming the Sunga rulership in 82 B.C., “was a dissolute king”, overthrown after a ten year reign, and a new dynasty was formed, the Kanvayana.160

  Extent of the Mauryan Empire in 265 B.C.

  Gupta India

  Centuries of foreign invasions, dynastic ebbs and flows, and provincial rivalries, acceded to the rise of another great empire in 320 A.D., the Gupta, “the last great empire builders”161 of India. Samudragupta is reme
mbered as the “Indian Napoleon” for his establishment of a unitary state covering much of India.162Under the Guptas India experienced two hundred years of “unexampled moral and material progress, under a resurgent Brahminism and decline in Buddhism.163 Like the Mauryans, Gupta subjects were honest, and the priests and warriors lived simply. The guilds, self-governing, were again the basis of the social economy. Relations between workers and employers were subjected to state arbitration. Metallurgy, manufacturing and the sciences, especially chemistry, advanced.164

  Dissension both among the provinces and within the dynasty, and the brief rise of Yashodharman, chief of Mandasor, who had defeated the Hunas (Huns), caused the collapse of the Gupta, and independent kingdoms were established. The Gupta dynasty was eclipsed by 550 A.D. Professor Sen165 notes again that it was internal decay that was the foundation of the collapse of the Gupta Empire:

  “The Guptas in the last days of their sovereignty experienced a veritable decay when dissensions in the imperial family itself sapped the vitality of the empire. … The influence of religion cannot altogether be ignored in discussing causes of the decline of the Gupta empires that had been the case of the Maurya Empire when the people lost the virility due to the teaching on non-violence, an essential ingredient of Buddhism. While the earlier Guptas were staunch followers of Brahminism, the later Gupta rulers… had Buddhist leanings”.166

  Goyal states that the unity of the Gupta Empire, relying on the assertiveness of the emperor, with inspiration from the energy of the Vaishnava doctrine “gradually ebbed down due to the influence of the life-negating and world-renouncing esoteric doctrine of the later Buddhism. It eventually sucked the Gupta emperors dry of their martial fervour and capacity for administering subordinates with strength and determination”.167 The Gupta era is considered the “golden age of Indian history”.168 “The post-Gupta period is noted for the state of confusion and confrontation in the history of northern India”.169

  The Gupta Empire - 320-550 A.D.

  Egypt

  Like India, Egypt is most often cited as an example of a civilisation that was destroyed primarily by miscegenation. However, despite the myriad of invasions and population shifts, today’s Egyptians are still more closely related genetically to Eurasia than Africa. Migrations between Egypt, Nubia and Sudan have not been extensive enough to “homogenise the mtDNA gene pools of the Nile River Valley populations”, although Egyptians and Nubians are more closely related than Egyptians and southern Sudanese. However, significant differences remain.170 Even now, today’s Egyptians have primary genetic affinities with Asia, North and Northeast Africa. The least affinity is to the populations of Sub-Sahara.171 The Haplotype M1, with a high frequency among Egyptians, hitherto thought to be of Sub-Saharan origin, is of Eurasian origin.172 Miscegenation with Nubian “slaves” and mercenaries seems unlikely to have caused Egypt’s decay. While a Nubian or “black” pharaoh is alluded to by racial-materialists as a sign of Egyptian decay, the Nubian civilisation had an intimate connection with the Egyptian and was itself impressive and of early origin.

  Nubian civilisation with palaces, temples and pyramids, flourished as far back as 7000 B.C. Two hundred an twenty-three pyramids, twice the number of Egypt, have been found along the Nile of the Nubian culture-region. The Nubian civilisation was of notably long duration surviving until the Muslim conquest of 1500 A.D. The Egyptians have viewed the Nubians either as a “conquered race or a superior enemy”. Hence, Egyptian depictions of shackled black slaves give an inaccurate impression.173

  Nubians became the pharaohs of Egypt’s 25th dynasty, providing stability where previously there had been ruin caused by civil wars between warlords, circa 700 B.C. The Nubians were the custodians of Egyptian faith and culture at a time when Egypt was decaying. They regarded the restoration of the faith of Amun as their duty. It was the Nubian dynasties (760-656 B.C.), especially the rulership of Taharqa, which revived and purified Egyptian culture and religion. It was under the white rule of the Libyan pharaohs of the 21st dynasty (1069-1043 B.C.) that Egypt began a sharp decline. Ptolemaic (Greek) rule (332-30 B.C.) under Ptolemy IV (222 to 205 B.C.) brought to the rich and sumptuous pharaohs’ court “lax morals and vicious lifestyle” ending in “decadence and anarchy”.174 Byzantine rule (395 to 640 A.D.) wrought destruction on the Egyptian heritage, which was succeeded by Islam.

  Egyptian Pharaoh Taharqa, of the 25th Dynasty.

  Of the long vicissitudes of Egypt’s rise and fall, it was the Nubian dynasty that had restored Egyptian cultural integrity. References to Nubians on the throne of the pharaohs tell no more of the causes of Egypt’s decay than if historians several millennia hence sought to ascribe the causes of the USA’s culture retardation to Obama’s presidency as a “black”.

  We see in Egypt as in Rome, the Moorish civilisation, India and others, the causes of culture decay and fall as being something more than miscegenation. The contemporary Western should look for answers beyond this if only because he can see for himself that the West’s decay has no relationship to miscegenation. The number of Americans describing themselves as “mixed race” was just under 9 million in 2010. The USA did not become the global centre of culture-pestilence because of its mixed race population. What is more significant than the percentages of miscegenation, are the percentages of population decline caused by such factors as abortion. Twenty-one percent of all pregnancies in the USA are aborted.175 These are the factors that indicate the pathogenic state of a civilisation.

  Of Egypt’s chaos contemporary sages observed the disintegration of authority, traditional religion, and the founding ethos. Egypt was often subjected to invasions and to natural disasters. These served as catalysts for cultural degeneration. The papyrus called The Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage, credited to Ipuwer, states that after invasions and class war, Egypt fell apart, there was family strife, the noble families were dispossessed by the lowest castes, authority was disrespected and overthrown, lawlessness and plunder were the norm, and the nobility was attacked: “A man looks upon his son as an enemy. A man smites his brother (the son of his mother)”. Craftsmanship has become degraded: “No craftsmen work, the enemies of the land have spoilt its crafts”. There is rebellion against the Uraeus or Re. “A few lawless men have ventured to despoil the land of the kingship”. It appears that the foundations of traditional society, god, monarch, family and land, have been caste asunder. “Asiatics” have seized the land from the ancestral occupiers, and have so insinuated themselves into the Egyptian culture that one can no longer tell who is Egyptian and who is alien: “There are no Egyptians anywhere”.176 “Women are lacking and no children are conceived”.177 The political and administrative structure has collapsed, with “no officers in their place”. The laws are trampled on and cast aside. “Serfs become lords of serfs”. The writings of the scribes are destroyed.

  What is being described is not a sudden upheaval, although the allusion to natural disasters and Asiatic invasion would imply this. The breakdown of regal authority, civil authority, depopulation, laws, family bonds, religious faith, agriculture and the social structure, imply an epoch of decline into chaos. The social structure has been reversed, as though a communistic revolution had occurred. “He who possessed no property is now a man of wealth. The prince praises him. The poor of the land have become rich, and the possessor of the land has become one who has nothing. Female slaves speak as they like to their mistresses. Orders become irksome. Those who could not build a boat now possesses ships. “The possessors of robes are now in rags”. “The children of princes are cast out in the street”.178

  With this inversion of hierarchy has come irreligion and the degradation of religion. The ignorant now perform their own rites to the gods. Wrong offerings are made to the gods.179 “Right is cast aside. Wrong is inside the council-chamber. The plans of the gods are violated, their ordinances are neglected… Reverence, an end put to it”. 180

  Ipuwer’s admonition was not only to rid Egypt of its enemies but
to return to the traditional ethos. This meant the reinstitution of proper religious rites, and the purification of the temples. “A fighter will come forth,” Ipuwer prophesises, to “destroy the wrongs”. “Is he sleeping? Behold, his might is not seen”.181 The Egyptians await an avatar, the personification of the Sun God Ra (which tradition states was the first of the Pharaohs). Ipuwer avers to Egypt having previously gone through such epochs, alluding to his saying nothing other than what others have said before his time.182

  The Pharaoh is castigated for allowing Egypt to fall into chaos, with his authority being undermined, and without taking corrective actions.183 The Pharaoh as God-king had not maintained his authority as the nexus between the earthly kingdom and the divine. The Pharaoh had caused “confusion throughout the land”. Certainty of the social hierarchy, crowned by the God-king, is the basis of traditional societies. It seems that Egypt had entered into an epoch of what a Westerner could today identify as scepticism and secularism.

  Nefer-rohu warned Pharaoh of similar chaos. Likewise there would be “Asiatic” invasions, natural disasters, Ra withdrawing his light, and again the inversion of hierarchy:

  “The weak of arm is now the possessor of an arm. Men salute respectfully him whom formerly saluted. I show thee the undermost on top, turned about in proportion to the turning about of my belly. The top man will make wealth. It is the paupers who eat the offering bread, while the servants jubilate. The Heliopolitan Nome, the birthplace of every god, will no longer be on earth”. 184

  It is notable, again, that Nefer-rohu identifies the chaos with the breaking of the nexus with the divine and the inversion of hierarchy. Also of interest is that Nefer-rohu refers to a redeemer, who has a Nubian mother, uniting Egypt and driving out the Asiatics and the Libyans (the whitest of races of the region) and defeating the rebellious. Chaos resulted not from race-factors but from a falling away of the regal and religious authority. The race-factor was that of the Nubians being the custodians of culture during periods of Egyptian decay.