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Civilisations and Empires

Vast cultural and linguistic communities formed on most continents about 3000 years ago. The lasting imprint they left on their territories stimulated the cultural diversity that still defines the contours of the great historical areas of civilisation. It is thus possible to talk about the synthesis and dissemination of Hellenism, the Hellenisation of Greece and the Mediterranean, and the Indianisation of the subcontinent. We can also speak about Sinicity and Sinicisation for China, where rivalry between seven great states generated intense intellectual and artistic development. While these cultural syntheses varied in nature, their internal evolution, contacts and clashes fuelled a major renewal of artistic forms, as manifested in the establishment of canons of human representation and philosophical thought. In the 5th century BCE, the two great imperial structures of the Achaemenid Persian empire and the conquests of Alexander the Great – “world empires” connecting Asia and Europe – appear to have inspired a move towards political unification in these cultural communities. These imperial undertakings coincide chronologically to a remarkable degree. Empires were thus founded in India by Chandragupta Maurya in 321 BCE and by the Arsacid Parthians between the East and Asia around 250 BCE. Rome became master of the Mediterranean at the end of the Punic and Greek wars, while China was unified in 221 BCE by the first emperor Qin Shi Huang. The collapse of these empires then gave rise to new artistic syntheses that the universal religions later drew upon to convey their message.