Asian Review of World Histories 3:1 (January 2015), 11-35 © 2015 The Asian Association of World Historians doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.12773/arwh.2015.3.1.011 Writing World History: Which World? Jean-François SALLES University Lumière Lyon 2 Lyon, France
[email protected] Abstract Far from being a recent world, the concept of “a [one] world” did slowly emerged in a post-prehistoric Antiquity. The actual knowledge of the world increased through millennia leaving aside large continents (Americas, part of Africa, Australia, etc.—most areas without written history), and writing history in Antiquity cannot be a synchronal presentation of the most ancient times of these areas. Through a few case studies dealing with texts, ar- chaeology and history itself mostly in BCE times, the paper will try to perceive the slow building-up of a physical awareness and ‘mor- al’ consciousness of the known world by people of the Middle East (e.g. the Bible, Gilgamesh) and the Mediterranean (mainly Greeks). Key words the Earth, the origins of the world, drawing the world, interna- tional exchanges, Phoenicia and the Persian Gulf, Greek histori- ans, Greek geographers Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 06:34:40PM via free access 12 | ASIAN REVIEW OF WORLD HISTORIES 3:1 (JANUARY 2015) I. INTRODUCTION Investigating how to write a “World History” in its most ancient periods—leaving aside Prehistory to the benefit of times when written sources are available—would require to coalesce togeth- er several disciplines, geography and historiography indeed but also linguistics—there is real problem of vocabulary— philosophy, theology, etc.