July 28, 2007

 Oral history

One of the sources of writing history is to record oral traditions, customs, and cultural practices. The reason is that there are many tribes and communities in the world which have no written record and no historical documents pertaining to their past. To preserve their history, they transmit their knowledge of the past orally from one generation to the other.

Historians, in order to write history, interview them to collect the material based on their memories and then reconstruct their history.

This process has helped bring a number of tribes and small nations on to the world history scene. Oral history is also useful for those events which are not properly recorded by historians, such as the communal riots that took place during the 1947 India and Pakistan partition. Researchers, after talking to the people who witnessed these riots, have filled the gaps in recorded history.

Thus, we find that oral history on the one hand provides new and fresh material to write forgotten histories of the peoples and on the other hand it adds new knowledge to the already existing material.

Written history

Historians in order to write history use two types of written material. These are called original and secondary sources. There are history books which were written by contemporary historians based on their observations and eye-witness accounts. These books are known as original sources. These are in the manuscript form and carefully preserved in libraries or in private collections. Manuscripts which are very valuable have been published after editing them.

The modern historian’s account written based on original sources is known as the secondary material. It is a difficult task for researchers to consult all available sources and, after comparing and analysing them, the historian presents his results with a fresh perspective on matters and events past.

Archaeological evidence

There are two types of archaeological evidence which help historians to write history. One is in which archaeologists discover artefacts of ancient civilisation after excavating a site. With the help of objects such as pottery, tools, jewellery, weapons, toys, carts, etc., historians are able to write the social, cultural, political, and economic history of ancient peoples.

The other type of archaeological evidence is in the shape of monuments such as palaces, forts, temples, mosques, baths, rest houses (caravanserais), etc. These monuments of the past also provide us rich information of the time in which they were built, such as the social life, religious beliefs and cultural practices of the people who inhabited them.

Ancient coins

Before introduction of coins as legal tender and currency there was the barter system in which commodities were exchanged against one another. For example, a shoemaker exchanged his shoe for a piece of cloth or a sack of wheat. The advent of coins ended the barter system and determined prices of the commodities. It made business transactions easy.

The coins were made of gold, silver or copper. We can get a lot of information from ancient coins. Coins help us determine the standard of living of a people. If we find coins of one country in another, we could trace their commercial relations. Ancient coins also contain names of the kings, their era, dates of their making and some royal symbols which provide us social, political and economic information of a certain period. To check, assess, and analyse coins, there is a special, dedicated branch of knowledge, known as numismatic.