HORIZONTAL HISTORY (part 1): The Era of Western Myth (Western Historical and Spiritual Narrative Exposed)

Are there similarities that exist between Religious Beliefs?

         YES! There are similarities in Religious Beliefs.  For example –certain Sufi orders in Islam, Gnostic Christians, Sikhis, Kabala Jews, as well as pre-Theravada Buddhists and pre-Mahayana Buddhists (as well as pre-Buddhism Buddhists) -all have striking similarities.  Though many of these similarities are not present through the Cosmology and “Holy Books” that each of them use to create their own identities, the similarities appear for adherents when seeking “truth” and “knowledge”.  Similarities exist for adherents to seek “truth” through “experience” not through ego, which is what separates us from God (since ego and God cannot exist simultaneously).  Ego is attached to identity and adherents are asked to look beyond ego (and all the things ego is attached with such as emotion).  Adherents of these mystical sects seek “experience” and “truth” and are to stay away from dogma, rites, and rituals.  Adherents are asked to seek wisdom within themselves and their reality rather than in institutions.  Within themselves, adherents will “experience” the oneness that is the infinite reality and the “oneness” that is all things all at once.  Fundamentally, mystical and esoteric knowledge is the similar thread existing inside of religious belief systems.  The mystical and esoteric knowledge is the similarity in religious ideology that runs through world religions.  Without word and communication, different religions express themselves as different symbols in the subconscious mind.

What is the main reason that differences exist in our reality?

       Starting dates, Starting points, and “Starting events” as well as Ending dates, Ending points, and “Ending events” are instrumental to narratives that are constructed and created by different groups for identification purposes.  History is a horizontal line but most people forget that.  For example, World War 1 ended and the events of how World War 1 ended led to World War 2 that led to the Cold War, which led to the “War on Terror”.  However, before World War began, Europe had to expand outwards in order to stop the Islamic expansion going further into Europe.   Nonetheless, many people forget that part of the historical puzzle and break up history and war into its own category.  Categorization enables people to simplify it for themselves and their understanding yet it is very problematic because it makes people misunderstand history.  Categorization enables people to forget how human history has got to this present moment in time.  Categorization enables individuals and groups to forget history even though it is events and actions from the past that presently affects us today and we are all creatures of the past and present simultaneously.
      Another historical example that blurs our understanding of present day reality would be with the French fighting the Algerians during the Algerian push for independence in the 1950's and 1960's in Algeria.  In history books, it is written as “the French” fighting “Algerians” not “Catholics” fighting “Muslims” or “French Catholics” fighting “Muslims Arabs”.  This alters how you look at that particular event in history especially since the way it is reported, written, and recorded impacts how it will be remembered and taught through institutions.  How an event is institutionalized will therefore affect the way it is taught to future generations altering their perception of horizontal reality, distorting the past, and separating the present from the past.  The French only got into Algeria after they had toppled the Ottoman Empire when World War 1 ended.  Moreover, the Ottoman Empire only got into North Africa after they had taken it from the Byzantine Empire.  Therefore, there could be no Algerian war of independence if Arab Muslims had not pushed into North Africa and the Ottoman Empire controlled those lands.
      A third example would be the “War on Terror”.  Instead of reporting that whole Tribes and Kinships are rising up to overthrow their Western appointed and approved puppet rulers in Lebanon, Bahrain, Egypt, etc -presently many reporters and analysts are arguing that Al Qaeda and ISIS are now trying to overthrow legitimate democratic governments.  Again, this effects how you perceive the events occurring presently and will have a deeper role in shaping the next generation and their perspective on the events of history.  The “puppet rulers” that the tribes are rallying up to overthrow presently are handpicked rulers Europeans had chosen when they were leaving the Middle East after World War 2 when the Colonial era was ending.
      As you can see from the three examples I used above, when you look at history horizontally instead of fragmented, you start getting a clearer picture and a better understanding on what is going on in the present.  However, to keep people divided and confused, institutes do not teach history horizontally, they fragment it, simplify it, and then create a narrative that governments and politicians can use and exploit.

Forgotten Horizontal Spiritual Narratives:

(1) A name that God takes is not the real God.  A name that God takes is in the Ego world.  God must be “experienced” not described or depicted.  Ego and God cannot exist simultaneously. Word communicated without sound is “unstruck sound” and that is where one "experiences" God.  For many mystics such as Guru Nanak, Sufis, and the Gnostics, their teacher is “Experience”.  “Experiencing the unstruck sound” was the message of the mystics.  Identity, dogma, rituals, and rites blur "experience" and separate you from the whole and the infinite.

 (2) Kabir’s message, the Gnostic message, and Guru Nanak’s message were all similar in the past.  However, all three mystics are replaced over time by literalists and a literal message.  In fact, before the Christian church appeared, Christ was never taken as literal, he was allegorical.  The Christian church under Constantine altered the archetype and personified the story, building the myth and legend the world is so familiar with today.  Therefore, making it almost impossible to separate fact from fiction, fact from myth, and fact from legend.  Spiritual horizontal history will always become politicized and fragmented for political purposes and political gains.  This is why you must “experience” truth in your everyday reality and not follow religions or religious teachers.

(3) Karma originally was a chain of reactions from a single act performed and acted on.  Over time, it took on a spiritual value that attached to Transmigration and Reincarnation where a single thought or action can carry with you and affect you after death and into the next life.   Karma was then interwoven with “Sin” and morality.  This is very problematic since neither Sin ‘nor Karma exists outside the realm of reactions on the physical reality where our senses reside.  In fact, there is no difference what you do in life, either as a soldier or as a homemaker; when using peace or when resorting to violence.  As long, as you “experience” the infinite and understand the infiniteness of reality that is all that matters.  You act because you choose to act and you act because you must act, for nothing can exist without choosing or acting.  Therefore, it is your role and duty to act based on the situation you find yourself in and the choices you are given and faced.  There is no “sin” attached to action. “Sin” historically becomes implemented with cultural values that were in comparison with other cultures that existed simultaneously (and previously) which competed over adherents and superiority.  The “Do” and “Accept” mentality is how many ancients and mystics lived.  “Experience” = Understanding and Wisdom which = Disconnection and non-Attachment to life, actions, choices, and the roles/positions you play in life.

(4) Primal incest and the Creation story are forever linked.  There is no denying it in our DNA.  The same bloodlines creating siblings and family members throughout history has enabled defective genes to be present in us presently.  Therefore, making us susceptible to disease and heredity illnesses.  One must forget about “Original Sin” through the Creation Story.  The “Original Defect” is more prominent in human kind’s actual history than the “Original Sin”.  Our incestuous breeding habits from the past are still present in us today.  In fact, many Eastern cultures continue same bloodline marriages (as do Royal families and Royal bloodlines).  The West however hides death, old age, and incest in their history, narrative, and culture.  The West instead has surrounded itself with romanticized and mythical cultural and historical narratives.  The modern Western mind rejects Incest yet the East talks about it.  The East adds it into the Cosmology.  Greek, Roman, and Hindu myths even talk about rape, unwanted sex, and the creation of Gods through this method of Incest, Rape, and Pre-marital Sex.  The West sidesteps this subject by latching onto Divine births and Creation stories.

(5) Man is the only creature that can oppose nature’s obsession of procreation.  This is why nature is “feminine form”.  Human values come 2^nd to nature’s demands.  Nature has no moral code.  It accepts what is done to it.  Women receive seed from brother, father, uncle, rapist, and lover.  Women create life once the seed is received.  Bride kidnapping, Incest, and Rape was objected (but permitted) in cultures, religions, and tribes as long as women played their sacred role of procreation.  The only role in society for women was that of creators and why anything done to women in order to procreate was permitted in society.  This is why women were devalued and made into secondary citizens.  This is why women had to be accompanied where they went and were often times sheltered and kept in isolation.  However, Western Feminist’s latch onto this isolation and devaluation of women and create a myth of subjection done solely to prop up Feminist Theory and strengthen another Western narrative, which is fragmented from horizontal historical reality.

(6) Originally, Vedic and Dravidian civilizations existed that had their own refined cultures, developed languages, and polished artwork and myths long before Brahmanism originated.  Brahmanism is the precursor to what we now presently associate with Hinduism.  Vedic and Dravidian influence and culture spread outwards before Brahmanism had started.  Only afterwards, did Brahmanism spread outwards along with Buddhism and Eastern philosophies into the West (and more so the Western subconscious).  Moreover, all of this was before the Persian Empire was even formed.  Vedic and Dravidian influence and culture had traveled as far as North Africa, the Mediterranean, the Arabian Peninsula, and China.  However, this is fragmented and forgotten in our understanding of history presently.

(7) Eastern myths taught that “Thought/Consciousness” creates the World.  Western Myth taught that “Word/Sound” creates the world.  Both however are Vibrations that are working through time, reacting to time, and evolving over time.  Moreover, worship altered from originally being ALL to two beings.  Then from 2 beings to 1 being. Some people worshipped material form, others spiritual life.  However, the separation from ALL to 2 and from 2 to 1, created a disconnect that is still not connected presently.  Christianity and Islam kill for their creation story because they consider it as being absolute and total.  Greeks, Byzantines, Romans, and Persians did not have a complete and absolute truth to their reality.  Greeks, Byzantines, Romans, and Persians had regional and city-state beliefs and gods symbolizing many different things adherents would ask and ask for in their daily lives. Greeks, Byzantines, Romans, and Persians just ruled over others with different beliefs and did not try to convert them to their beliefs or their Gods.

 (8) Secular, National, Christian, and Islamic cultures are the only cultures that could have subdued people, colonized people, and gave people new identities. Eastern ideologies that China and India possessed could not have done it (even the Mongolians relinquished Buddhism and converted to Islam before being able to unify people they control and ruled over).  In fact, the world as we know it presently would have been less connected, less globalized, and less unified had Christianity and Islam not appeared on the world stage when they did in history.  Less “progress” as we know it would have been the theme with more regional traditions still in existence today.  Possibly less or more trade between areas, regions, and people and less knowledge shared between regions, people, and areas.  It is European colonization that actually speeds up trade, knowledge being shared, and people being moved from one area or another.  If Islam, Christianity, Nationalism, and Secularism never appeared who knows how reality and history would be presently or how history would have turned out.  The present could be better or could be worst (and the definition of worst or better depends on the perspective and that perspective depends on the individual).  We will never truly know how history would have shaped out, however one must admit that each ideology that proceeds from the earlier form are all reactions to the one that preceded it.

(9) What has unity and progress given us? Other than comfort and expediency, it has not ended conflict within ourselves and with others. Without “progress” specifically the Industrial Revolution and Technological Revolution there would be no cars, no buildings, no TV, no radio, no railroads, no trains and yet there would be no problem either.  Humans would have survived and could have survived and had survived centuries beforehand before the Industrial and Technological Revolutions.  “Progress” as we know it is cars, buildings and condominiums built, suburbia created, TV and internet being used.  However, “progress” is also time and meaning fragmented.  “Progress” is horizontal history fragmented.  Disease, Natural Disasters, and War was still present then in the ancient past as it is now.  In fact, the universe does not need humans to survive.  Humans need to believe the universe and Earth needs us to live in order to balance itself out.  Humans need to believe the universe and Earth needs us to live in order to find a place and position inside the universe and to give meaning and purpose to our own lives.  Your thoughts, life, and worries are individual and have no effect on the greater universe.  It is in ego and removing yourself from understanding the infinite reality that you seek purpose and meaning in identity.  It is in ego and fragmenting yourself from “experience” and the infinite reality where you start believing in "progress" and seeing others from the past different from people living in the present.

(10) Our historical narrative is simply put a metaphorical book.  Human beings started our narrative in the middle with assertions and our arrival into the story. However, we did not start the book from the beginning.  We picked up the book from the middle and since we did not understand what came before in the story we decided to create up different versions of the beginning of the story in order to make reality make sense to us.  In addition, we created a narrative based on our own assertions that could help us cope with our present reality. By arriving during the middle of the book, we missed what occurred before we started reading the book.  Since we have to leave in such a short time, we will miss what happens afterwards in the book and therefore we will never complete the book ‘nor understand its ending we can only imagine an ending (just as we had imagined the beginning).  We only catch the middle part of the book and because we want to understand the full story and feel complete, we create a creation story and an ending.  That is human horizontal history explained in simplicity.
       Furthermore, human beings tend to wrap themselves around myths of the day.  Presently we wrap ourselves with evolution and the “Myth of one people coming out of Africa” which also runs parallel with the Western narrative and Western myth.  This Western myth and Western narrative is readily used in mainstream society and in mainstream institutions.  In order to prop up our Western narrative and Western myth we imagined that there was an “Original race theory” with three original races being our ancestors.  Those races were the Mongoloid, Negroid, and Caucasoid.  However, that theory was torn asunder when we realized that Caucasoid was a political term in order to hide the actual term of Aryans since it was Aryans that overthrew Dravidians, which would mean there were four races not three (Mongoloid, Negroid, Dravidian, and Aryan) and yet Dravidian was not mentioned in the historical narrative.  In order to save the “original race theory of 3 races” historians, anthropologists, and evolutionists moved from that theory and created the myth that we all come from Africa and then expanded outwards. That all great civilizations were first started in the Middle East and then moved to the West before they went out to Europe.  However, that eliminates the influence India and China had in ancient days and hides the fact that the Chinese and Indians understood food with detail.  Believing the myth that we all came from Africa eliminates the fact that Indians and Chinese had civilization advancements that far surpassed great Western civilizations that proceeded it such as Greece and Rome. Believing the myth that we all came from Africa eliminates the fact that Indians and Chinese had advanced language development and communication skills, that Indians and Chinese understood the body well and regulated it well with Yoga, Martial Arts and Combat Sports.  That the ancient people of Indian and China developed Ayurvedic Technique and Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) which consists of a broad range of medicine practices sharing common concepts which have been developed for more than 2,000 years, including various forms of herbal medicine, acupuncture, massage, exercise, and dietary therapy.  That in fact, it was the Middle Eastern civilizations and Western civilization that was catching up not Eastern civilizations catching up to the West.  It is not until the “Reconquista” that the West takes the lead in civilization advancement and that is mainly because the West finally found a way to subdue the Islamic Empire’s dominance which expanded all across the Earth and blocked trade routes the West needed in order to expand itself outwards. The “Myth of one people coming out of Africa” helps cement the Western narrative that races outside of European influence were uncivilized, uncultured, underdeveloped, lacked communication development, and lacked logic and reasoning skills.  This Western myth and Western narrative is kept in place in order to hide 2 things from horizontal historical reality: (a) It hides the impact of Islamic history on the world as Islam in fact only conquered and maintained its Empire through military advancement without actually adding on it further.  To understand this, look at Africa and Arab controlled areas and ask yourself why did they just stop building? Why did they just stop creating? Why did they suddenly just stagnate? Where did the inventiveness, ingenuity, and creativeness from the past go?  Lands Africans and Arabs ruled over did not develop or advance either.  Cities and industries did not appear, and technology did not advance, in fact, they stagnated.  Moving even further, the people of the “New World” such as the Aztecs and Mayans did not advance language or culture that the ancient Chinese and Indians possessed, they too froze and stagnated.  (b) “Myth of one people coming out of Africa” cements the narrative that the Middle Eastern kingdoms such as Egypt, Persia, and Mesopotamia were lucky to come across Western powers such as Rome and Greece and it is there that civilization started (not before that time). This Judeo-Christian, Secular, and Nationalistic history we know now as Western history is nothing more than a fragmented and distorted view of horizontal history.

(11) Historically, Philosophers, Mystics, and Sages are remembered as much as Kings, Emperors, and Rulers.  We will never truly understand who was really more revered, celebrated, and remembered (in their time and afterwards when they had passed away).  We will never be able to separate the historical individual from the mythological individual that historical narrative has created.  Both groups of people are spoken about presently with high regard by different circles but are either understood properly? Intellectuals rally around Philosophers; Politicians rally around Rulers, and yet Common society misunderstands both.  Common society misunderstands horizontal history and rallies around legends, myths, and created narratives used by Empires, government, politicians, and institutions.

Similar Reformations between Organizations and Individuals that created and romanticized their own historical Narrative and historical Myths -creating what we know today about their Religion and it’s Ideology:

(a) Collective Organizations:
Singh Sabha Movement and the Akal Dal (Sikhism) = Catholic Church (Christianity)

(b)Individual Reformers:
Constantine (Christianity) = Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (Islam)

10 Forgotten Horizontal Historical Narratives:

1.) Ottomans failed to keep up technologically with Europeans.  In fact, in the Ottoman Empire there was no Industrial Revolution, no Renaissance era, no Reformation movement, and no “Age of Reason”.  The Ottoman Empire actually rotted before it fell and only held onto power due to the fact Europeans did not want to control the land mass and populations that the Ottomans possessed.  Europe powers actually helped prop up the Ottoman Empire helping the Ottoman Empire stay alive during the Crimean War.  In the Crimean War itself, the Ottomans were heavily outmatched using medieval weapons to fend themselves against the advancing Russians.  The Ottoman Empire also had no railroads and few telegraph lines.  Poor communication through the Ottoman provinces left for a lot of autonomy in Ottoman provinces. This enabled the Europeans to exploit tribal hostility in the Ottoman Empire.  The British exploited this well in the Arab peninsula and were able to foment the ideas of revolution in the Arab tribes who rose up against the Ottomans by the time World War 1 had erupted (the French used this tactic in North Africa as well).  In addition, before the Ottomans fell, the Ottoman Empire was doing economically terrible and depended on British currency in order to survive against the Russians, Western and Eastern Europeans who were looking for revenge after years of hardships during the expansion of the Islamic Empire into Eastern and Western Europe simultaneously.  All of this is what enabled revolution possible in the Ottoman Empire and allowed the Ottoman Empire to finally fall. 
       The fall of the Ottoman Empire though had huge implications that are playing out presently.  Many of today’s identity crisis in the Middle East and North Africa with Muslims occurred during this era when the Ottoman Empire was about to fall.  Since its inception as a geopolitical power, the Ottoman Empire had expanded all across Europe because of military expansion. However, the Ottomans main revenue was war, military expansion, control of trade routes and control of pilgrimage routes to holy sites such as Jerusalem and Mecca.  Once the Ottoman Empire lost in the “Siege of Vienna” and the “Battle of Lepanto”, against the Europeans, their revenue stream was stopped abruptly and the writing was on the wall for them.   Without expansion, the Ottoman Empire started to become unhinged.  Islam was what joined many different tribes and bloodlines as one identity, under the Islamic Caliphate, fighting for “Jihad” against infidels and non-Muslims.  When the Ottoman Empire fell in World War 1 and the tribes had overrun Ottoman ruled lands, the Europeans handpicked Arab tribal rulers that were loyal to the Europeans and they were bestowed power to rule.  It is at this time that the “House of Saud” in Saudi Arabia, the Hashemite Kingdom in Jordan, etc. take power (which they still hold presently and which is what the present day tribes are rallying up against to try and overthrow).  In Turkey, Ataturk secularized Turkey, creating a Turkish renaissance inside of Turkey saving Turkish culture from Arabization.  (This story repeats itself under the Muslim Mughals and Muslim Arabs who also failed to keep up technologically with the West. It was Colonization and during the Colonial era that modernized Mughal, Ottoman, and Arab controlled lands).  This is what enabled Muslim owned lands to develop and helped Muslims finally get into Western controlled lands through emigration as royal subjects to Western Empires (such as Canada, the United Kingdom, France, etc).  These modernized Muslims who defined themselves as mostly secular and Western were the first wave of Muslims.  Many of these first wave of Muslims were loyal to their colonial master and were looking for jobs and an opportunity to better themselves and the lives of their families.

2.) During the time from World War 1 until Present day history, the British institutionalize Secularism and Liberalism opening a door for the Demonization of Western cultures through references to Western Colonization, the Crusades, Pedophilia in Catholic Churches, and the Atlantic Slave trade.  The world now accepts the Demonization of Western cultures but apologizes and defends the demonization of Arab and Muslim cultures.  However, none of these can be fragmented from its historical horizontal connotations and connections (except Pedophilia in Catholic Churches).  Without Islamic Expansion, Europeans would not have engaged with Muslims in the West and counter reacted by expanding into Muslim owned lands.

3.) Catholics and the Catholic Church throughout history have hated Jews as much as Muslims have.  There are many reasons for this, which I will not get into presently.  However, present day Evangelical Christians love Jews and attach themselves to Judeo-Christian Western narratives. Every other religion (Buddhism, Sikhism, Hinduism, etc.) and every cultural belief system is indifferent about Jews.  Historically, Catholics have preached anti-Semitism against Jews because they have seen Jews as traitors, aides, and abettors during the expansion era of Islam.  This was one of the major reasons why Jews were persecuted in the “Reconquista” as well as in Western Europe throughout history.  It was Secularists, Protestants, Evangelicals, and Zionists who created the state of Israel, Catholics never did.

4.) Western historical myths eliminate Eastern, Asian, and African influences from horizontal history.  Western historical myths eliminate Eastern, Asian, and African narratives and histories.  Western myths and Western narratives “White Wash” everything in the past, centralizing it around Western history, Western myth, and Western narrative.  Western historical myths and Western narratives cocoon itself around the histories of: Catholicism, Protestantism, Secularism, and Nationalism.   However, this also leads to China and Eastern Europe (Byzantine) excluded as well because it has nothing to do with Centralizing and Consolidating Western myths and Western narratives.  In fact, many historians presently believe that in 1434, China helped with the Western renaissance and the ambitious “Age of Discovery”.  During the times of the “Reconquista”, Europeans were given maps and travel routes of the “New World” by Chinese explorers.  In fact, Christopher Columbus and Martin Alonso Pinzon had a map of the Americas before 1492.  Ferdinand Magellan also seen a map of the “unknown world” before he sailed off.  How could it have been an “unknown world” to the Western world (and the Western World did not think existed) when they had encountered Muslims of all races when combating the Mongols, Turks, and Arabs in Europe?  Europeans “discovered” Americas and the “new world” because Western narrative cannot admit that the Western world came 2^nd in anything.  The “Age of Discover” timeline is only correct if Westerners “discovered” the world and acted on it the way they did.  This “Age of Discovery” myth does two things simultaneously.  (a) It erodes the impact Islamic military expansion plays in Western history and (b) It avoids admitting how cocooned in the West was from the rest of the world when combating Islam’s expansion.  These two reasons are further proof that we are presently living in the “Era of Western myth”.”Political Correctness” can only hide the “Era of Western myth” for so long.

5.) Democracy does not last forever because it often leads to abuses and extravagance.  To eliminate the problems that Liberalism and Democracy create, Dictatorship and Tyranny emerge, and Draconian laws are implemented.  This is the only way to cleanse the system time-and-time again and this is why this pattern repeats itself all through history.  An event or a leader appears (or both simultaneously appear) that will help erode Democracy and Liberalism and instead introduce Draconian laws.  There is not much, you can do as an individual, if there is a coup or political/ideological takeover.  You just have to accept it and realize that your version of the past will become forgotten.  Your version of the past will become part of “fringe history” that runs parallel to “current” history and “current” narrative.  You will have to accept that  "current" history and "current" narrative will be based on romanticized legends, half truths, outright myths, and political distortions which will then be taught through institutions for future generations.

6.)  All historical Empires are reduced to nothing when they symbolically break apart and dissolve:
(a) The Roman Empire is present day Italy;
(b) The Roman Catholic Empire is now Vatican City;
(c) The Greek Empire (including the Byzantine Empire) is present day Greece;
(d) The French Empire is now present day France;
(e) The Spanish Empire is present day Spain;
(f) The British Empire is present day United Kingdom (which is still supported by Commonwealth countries);
(g) The Mongol Empire is present day Mongolia;
(h) The Persian Empire is GONE (after defeat at the hands of Muslim Arabs.  Shia Muslims preserved the language and culture in order to differentiate itself from Sunni Muslims);
(i) The Ottoman Empire is present day Turkey;
(j) The Islamic Empire is GONE;
 (k) The American Empire -???

7.)  The Western narrative and Western culture that the masses are familiar with consist of:
(a) Christian/Catholic roots, (b) Jewish roots, (c) Secular roots, and (d) Nationalistic roots.  However, it comes at the expense of a Western narrative and Western culture with: (a) Nordic roots and (b) Gnostic roots.

(8)  “Mountain people” (tribes) are hard to control by any ruler at any historical time (ex: the Taliban in Afghanistan, Jews during Roman times, Nabateans in Petra, Yazidis, etc.)  No ruler wanted to lose a battalion or the lives of soldiers in the mountains.  Rulers and Generals believed in “out of sight, out of mind”. Furthermore, no soldier wanted to risk their life in the mountains or forests.  This is what enabled the “mountain people” to survive and keep alive their mystic beliefs.  (“Forest people” (tribes) were also hard to control for the exact same reason as “mountain people” and this is why many guerrilla insurrections and rebellions that topple rulers and empires come from “mountain people” and “forest people”).

(9) Elam, Sumer, Mesopotamia, Ur, Persia, Syria, and Anatolia all existed as different regional superpowers. Then Persia absorbed all that came before it and that existed beside it until it became the Persian Empire.  In fact, the Romans beat the Greeks who in turn had defeated the Persians.  However, the Persians beat everyone else and incorporated them inside of the Persian Empire.  The Persian Empire defeated everyone that ruled lands before them (and defeated whoever existed simultaneously beside them).  Nonetheless, Persian history and influence is “whitewashed” out of history by the Western myth and Western narrative.  In addition to influence, Aramaic replaced the Cuneiform language until Arabic replaced Aramaic and Persian.  Aramaic was the main language in the Persian, Babylonian, and Assyrian empires and spread as far as Greece and the Indus valley.

(10) For the first civilizations, the coasts were more important than the cities/city states.  Trade routes were more important than city states/cities.  Cities do not take importance until the end (literally in many ways).  The ruler however would rule from the city because it was protected more than coastal areas and trade routes that were always attacked since it was coastal areas and trade routes that propped up whole economies and whole Empires.  Enemies had to first take out the Coasts and the Trade routes before the King conceded his Kingdom.  In fact, there was one of two ways that a Kingdom surrendered to an enemy: (a) by losing in battle on the battlefield OR (b) when the enemy had surrounded his kingdom and the King was captured or killed.