Deciphering the Indus Valley
Around 2500 BCE, the first cities appeared on the banks of the Nile in Egypt, at the delta of the Tigris and Euphrates in ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), and in the valley of the Indus River in what is now Pakistan and northwest India India.
Thanks to the Old Testament, traveling museum exhibitions, and popular media, most of us know a little about the civilizations of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. We have clear images in our heads of mummies, the pyramids, the Sphinx, King Tut and Nefertiti. Assyria, Nebuchadnezzar, and the hanging gardens of Babylon are familiar names.
But how much do you know about the Indus Valley civilization? My guess is, not much. No one does.
Unlike Egypt and Mesopotamia, the ruins of the Indus Valley civilization are not glamorous. There are no palaces, no temples, no public monuments. (There was, however, piped water. Given a choice, would you rather have pyramids or plumbing? Me, too.) Centered on two main cities, Harappa and Mohenjo-Dara, the remains of the culture are scattered over an area of 1.2 square kilometers. The cities are laid out in a grid design that feels familiar to anyone who knows the American Midwest. The buildings are made of uniform brick and are relatively unadorned. (Sounds like Chicago, doesn’t it?)
Also unlike ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, scholars have not deciphered the Indus Valley script. With no public monuments and no preserved documents, most of our examples of the script are limited to very short samples contained on the small engraved seals that are the most typical artifact of the Indus Valley civilization.* Not a great sample for a project that depends on the numbers. ** As Rajesh Rao makes clear in this TED talk, it’s the kind of challenge a computer programmer can’t resist:
* These seals range in size from three-quarters of an inch to an inch and a half square, and are engraved with lively and often beautiful images of animals (real and imaginary), heroes and gods.
** In fact, some scholars have huffed and puffed and claimed that it isn’t a script at all.
The Other First Thanksgiving
Unless you live in the American Southwest, the grade school version of American history* typically leaps from Columbus and 1492 straight to 1620, when the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts. There is a vague awareness that the Spanish and the French were “out there” doing something, but the story focuses on the development of the thirteen British colonies.
In Fact, El Paso, Texas, makes a good claim to being the site of the first American thanksgiving feasr. **
In March, 1598, an expedition under the leadership of Juan de Oñate set out from Santa Barbara in the modern Mexican state of Chihuahua toward the northern Rio Grande Valley, where Oñate had been granted land by the viceroy of New Spain. Instead of taking the normal route along first the Rio Conchos and then the Rio Grande, the group of 500 people and 7000 head of livestock set out across the Chihuahua desert.
The trip took fifty days. For the first seven days, the expedition traveled through heavy rain. For the rest of the trip, they suffered from heat and dryness. Five days before they reached what is now El Paso, they ran out of both food and water. They scavenged what they could in the desert, but it was the Rio Grande that saved them. After resting for ten days on the banks of the river, Oñate declared a day of thanksgiving, including a feast of game and fish. One member of the expedition described the event in his diary:
We built a great bonfire and roasted the meat and fish, and then all sat down to a repast the like of which we had never enjoyed before. . .We were happy that our trials were over; as happy as were the passengers in the Ark when they saw the dove returning with the olive branch in his beak, bringing tidings that the deluge had subsided.
In fact, the feast wasn’t the main event of the day. Festivities also included claiming the land of the Rio Grande Valley in the name of Philip II of Spain***–an event known as La Toma, literally The Taking. Many historians consider this event the beginning of Spanish colonization of the American Southwest. (Oñate’s party continued up the Rio Grande and settled in what is now Santa Fe.)
Since 1989, the El Paso Mission Trail Association has celebrated a day of thanksgiving on April 30 in commemoration of Oñate’s feast. I don’t know about you, but that’s a holiday I could buy into. Thanksgiving tamales, anyone?
* Which tends to be the default version in our heads.
**Or more accurately, the first European-American Thanksgiving.
*** Just to help you connect the dots: Philip II was married to Queen Mary of England, the older sister of Queen Elizabeth. In 1588, he ordered the ill-fated attempt on England known as the Spanish Armada.
The Beauty and the Sorrow
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Over the course of the year, I read a lot of history. Some books I mine for facts. Some grab me with the story. And now and then a work of history simply blows me away. The Beauty and the Sorrow: An Intimate History of the First World War by Swedish historian and war correspondent Peter Englund is a blow-me-away book.
Englund writes his narrative in the present tense, giving it an unusual immediacy, and relies heavily on the letters and journals of his characters. (They are all remarkably articulate and thoughtful, even the twelve-year-old.) Much of what he presents lies outside the scope of other works on the war. Even familiar facts are presented with new twists.
Halfway between memoir and history, The Beauty and the Sorrow is both fast-paced and thought-provoking. It deserves a place beside such classics as Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August, Paul Fussell’s The Great War and Modern Memory, and Robert Grave’s Good-bye to All That.
Give The Beauty and the Sorrow a try, and let me know what you think.
A version of this review was previously published in Shelf Awareness for Readers.