Today’s class was supposed to be all about the Indian civilisations. Sir started the class with a question which was simple and had many answers but answering it was a bit difficult.
What is India?
At first everyone was quiet, thinking what the correct answer is, but sir said that there is no correct answer everyone started saying what they were thinking about.
India is a peninsula, it is a country of diversity, kingdoms, different cultures, languages etc. It is a sub-continent and the land of river Indus.
India is my country and all Indians are my Brothers and Sisters.
I love my country and I am proud of its rich and varied heritage. 😂
Also, ancient India used to be bigger than it is today.
Our discussion about India led us to the river Indus and that led us to Indus Valley. First settlement of Indus valley civilisation was between 10000- 7500 BC. The two main civilisation here were Harrapa and Mohenjodaro. The earliest example of Harrapan city is Mehrgarh. It is also the first Indian settlement with houses. City planning, pictorial script, seals made out of copper and terracotta, an established barter system, multiple purpose objects, toys, jewellery that they used to worship nature ( Mother Goddess ). It was way ahead of its time. Here evidences of surgically taking out teeth were also found.
After Indian history, the focus shifted to the Greeks, Romans and the Peloponnesian war. We started talking about the first ever historians: Xenophon, Thucydides, Herodotus.
Xenophon fought the Battle of Kunaksha, where the king died and the rest of the greeks were left stranded in Persia. Xenophon became their saviour and guided everyone back home. After returning from Persia he wrote a book called ‘Anabasis‘. Anabasis describes the Persian landscapes in a very detailed way, it describes the way Xenophon took to lead the troops back home safely. This book, Anabasis acted as a map for Alexander the Great and it helped him enter Persia safely and invade it.
We had a brief chat about what The Missing Link in history is. It is called Sahelanthropos.
Sir then started talking about Alkibiades. He was an Athenian statesman and general. He started was against Sicily. After that his psychotic behaviour started to surface when he started changing sides and started turning against his own country and joining forces with the rivals. He betrayed Athens and went to Sparta and after a while abandoned them and Joined forces with Persia. It is said that he was one of the main reasons the Peloponnesian War took place.
With time, all three realised that the main problem was Alkibiades only, so to end the war they joined forces and killed him.
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