Gastvortrag "Common Elements of an Axial Age? Comparative Perspectives on Ancient China and Ancient Egypt" (06.07.2016)

Mi, 06 Jul 2016, 16:15 h
Kulturwissenschaftliches Zentrum,
KWZ 0.608
Heinrich-Dueker-Weg 14

Vortrag
Mu-Chou Poo (Department of History, The Chinese University of Hong
Kong):
"Common Elements of an Axial Age? Comparative Perspectives on Ancient
China and Ancient Egypt"

In this lecture Prof. Poo re-examines the theory of the Axial Age by
first investigating the case of China, situating the findings in the
context of the on-going scholarly discussions on the idea of the Axial
Age as proposed by Jaspers and expounded by subsequent generations of
scholars. A comparison with the case of ancient Egypt will then follow,
examining burial custom of ancient Egypt and the associated funerary
texts. This lecture essentially holds that the concept of the Axial Age,
a philosophical interpretation of certain historical phenomena found in
a number of early civilizations, should not be seen as a "historical
rule" or "evolutionary rule" in the development of the history of
mankind. The concept might be a useful starting point to engage in the
comparative study of civilizations, but it also has the problem of
favoring certain cultural traits in selected civilizations, and ignoring
some other parts and aspects of human history if we wish to see humanity
as really a united one.