HISTORICAL CYCLES 



By O. G. S. Cbawford 



[With 2 plates] 



History has been studied and histories written for more than two 

 millennia. From time to time attempts have been made to discern 

 some pattern or design running through it. But they have usually 

 failed because the data have been inadequate. You can not see the 

 pattern of a carpet when only a minute portion is uncovered, and 

 you can not discern the pattern of history until large portions of it 

 are available for examination. It was not until the nineteenth 

 century that really long vistas were opened up by archeological 

 exploration in the east. Here, in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Crete, 

 there were found the remains of forgotten civilizations; and Sir 

 Flinders Petrie, one of the pioneers in that work of epoch making in 

 the literal sense, has himself sketched an outline of the pattern he 

 believes he can see emerging. The present essay is an attempt to 

 interpret and explain that pattern. 



Only from an altitude of 5 feet or so can the pattern of a carpet 

 be seen ; it looks quite different when you are lying on the floor. In 

 just the same way crop markings on an ancient site can only be seen 

 properly from above. To see the sweep of history rather than its 

 details you must stand back and view it from a height of detachment. 



History is the time aspect of human affairs — the fourth dimension 

 in which we can not travel. The difficulty may be appreciated by a 

 comparison with geography and the space aspect. Geography is 

 concerned with the surface of the earth, and is therefore essentially a 

 study in three dimensions. Its primary objective is to construct a 

 map of the whole world, and this task, now nearly complete, is per- 

 formed by millions of measurements of lengths and angles. From 

 this world map gradually emerge certain generalizations, whose very 

 existence may never have been suspected, even by the map makers 

 themselves. The geographer, geologist, and economist generalize 

 upon the basis provided by the survej^or. The geologist can reduce 

 to order the apparently chaotic mountain ranges which cross the 



1 Reprinted, with the omission of one plate, by permission from Antiquity, vol. 5, No. 17, 

 March, 1931. 



445 



