Ancient history is the aggregate of past events WordNet Search - 3.0, "History" from the beginning of recorded human history to the Early Middle Ages or the Postclassical Era. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, with Cuneiform script, the oldest discovered form of coherent writing, from the protoliterate period around the 30th century BC.see Jemdet Nasr period, Kish tablet; see also The Origin and Development of the Cuneiform System of Writing, Samuel Noah Kramer, Thirty Nine Firsts In Recorded History, pp 381-383
The term classical antiquity is often used to refer to history in the Old World from the beginning of recorded Greek history in 776 BC (First Olympiad). This roughly coincides with the traditional date of the founding of Rome in 753 BC, the beginning of the history of ancient Rome, and the beginning of the Archaic period in Ancient Greece. Although the ending date of ancient history is disputed, some Western scholars use the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD,Clare, I. S. (1906). Library of universal history: containing a record of the human race from the earliest historical period to the present time; embracing a general survey of the progress of mankind in national and social life, civil government, religion, literature, science and art. New York: Union Book. Page 1519 (cf., Ancient history, as we have already seen, ended with the fall of the Western Roman Empire; ...)United Center for Research and Training in History. (1973). Bulgarian historical review. Sofia: Pub. House of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences]. Page 43. (cf. ... in the history of Europe, which marks both the end of ancient history and the beginning of the Middle Ages, is the fall of the Western Roman Empire.) the closure of the Platonic Academy in 529 AD, ξ1 the death of the emperor Justinian I,Robinson, C. A. (1951). Ancient history from prehistoric times to the death of Justinian. New York: Macmillan. the coming of IslamBreasted, J. H. (1916). Ancient times, a history of the early world: an introduction to the study of ancient history and the career of early man. Boston: Ginn and Company. or the rise of CharlemagneMyers, P. V. N. (1916). Ancient history. New York etc.: Ginn and company. as the end of ancient and Classical European history.
In India, the period includes the early period of the Middle Kingdoms,Elphinstone, M. (1889). The history of India. London: Murray.Smith, V. A. (1904). The early history of India from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan conquest, including the invasion of Alexander the Great. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Hoernle, A. F. R., & Stark, H. A. (1906). A history of India. Cuttack: Orissa mission Press. and, in China, the time up to the Qin Dynasty is included.Foster, S. (2007). Adventure guide. China. Hunter travel guides. Edison, NJ: Hunter Publishing. Page 6-7 (cf., "Qin is perceived as 'China's first dynasty' and ... writing.)Gernet, J. (1996). A history of Chinese civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
The Roman Empire was one of the ancient world's most literate cultures,Harris, W. V. (1989). Ancient literacy. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. (cf. ... extent of literacy in the Roman Empire has been investigated, previous writers have generally concluded that a high degree of literacy ...) but many works by its most widely read historians are lost. For example, Livy, a Roman historian who lived in the 1st century BC, wrote a history of Rome called Ab Urbe Condita ( From the Founding of the City) in 144 volumes; only 35 volumes still exist, although short summaries of most of the rest do exist. Indeed, only a minority of the work of any major Roman historian has survived.
Historians have two major avenues which they take to better understand the ancient world: archaeology and the study of . are those sources closest to the origin of the information or idea under study. "Library Guides: Primary, secondary and tertiary sources" Primary sources have been distinguished from secondary sources, which often cite, comment on, or build upon primary sources.Oscar Handlin et al., Harvard Guide to American History (1954) 118-246
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Reasons that an area undergoes an archaeological field survey.
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The earliest known systematic historical thought emerged in ancient Greece, beginning with Herodotus of Halicarnassus (484–c. 425 BC). Thucydides largely eliminated divine causality in his account of the war between Athens and Sparta,Cochrane, Charles Norris. Thucydides and the Science of History, Oxford University Press, 1929. p. 179. establishing a rationalistic element which set a precedent for subsequent Western historical writings. He was also the first to distinguish between cause and immediate origins of an event.
The 10th millennium BC is the earliest given date for the invention of agriculture and the beginning of the ancient era. Göbekli Tepe was erected by in the 10th millennium BC (c. 11,500 years ago), before the advent of sedentism. Together with Nevalı Çori, it has revolutionized understanding of the Eurasian Neolithic. In the 7th millennium BC, Jiahu culture began in China. By the 5th millennium BC, the late Neolithic civilizations saw the invention of the wheel and the spread of proto-writing. In the 4th millennium BC, the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture in the Ukraine-Moldova-Romania region develops. By 3400 BC, "proto-literate" cuneiform is spread in the Middle East. The 30th century BC, referred to as the Early Bronze Age II, saw the beginning of the literate period in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. Around the 27th century BC, the Old Kingdom of Egypt and the First Dynasty of Uruk are founded, according to the earliest reliable .
By 1600 BC, Mycenaean Greece developed, the beginning of the Shang Dynasty emerged in China and there was evidence of a fully developed Chinese writing system. Also around 1600 BC, the beginning of Hittite dominance of the Eastern Mediterranean region is seen. The time from the 16th to the 11th centuries BC around the Nile is called the New Kingdom of Egypt. Between 1550 BC and 1292 BC, the Amarna Period developed.
In 1046 BC, the Zhou force, led by King Wu of Zhou, overthrows the last king of the Shang Dynasty. The Zhou Dynasty is established in China shortly thereafter. In 1000 BC, the Mannaeans Kingdom begins in Western Asia. Around the 10th to 7th centuries BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire forms in Mesopotamia. In 800 BC, the rise of Greek city-states begins. In 776 BC, the first recorded Olympic Games are held.
Such a wide sampling of history and territory covers many rather disparate cultures and periods. "Classical antiquity" typically refers to an idealized vision of later people, of what was, in Edgar Allan Poe's words, "the glory that was Greece, the grandeur that was Rome!" In the 18th and 19th centuries AD, reverence for classical antiquity was much greater in Europe and the United States than it is today. Respect for the ancients of Greece and Rome affected politics, philosophy, sculpture, literature, theatre, education, and even architecture and sexuality.
In politics, the presence of a Roman Emperor was felt to be desirable long after the empire fell. This tendency reached its peak when Charlemagne was crowned "Roman Emperor" in the year 800, an act which led to the formation of the Holy Roman Empire. The notion that an emperor is a monarch who outranks a mere king dates from this period. In this political ideal, there would always be a Roman Empire, a state whose jurisdiction extended to the entire civilized world.
Epic poetry in Latin continued to be written and circulated well into the 19th century. John Milton and even Arthur Rimbaud received their first poetic educations in Latin. Genres like epic poetry, pastoral verse, and the endless use of characters and themes from Greek mythology left a deep mark on Western literature.
In architecture, there have been several , (though while apparently more inspired in retrospect by Roman architecture than Greek). Still, one needs only to look at Washington, DC to see a city filled with large marble buildings with façades made out to look like , with columns constructed in the classical orders of architecture.
In philosophy, the efforts of St Thomas Aquinas were derived largely from the thought of Aristotle, despite the intervening change in religion from paganism to Christianity. Greek and Roman authorities such as Hippocrates and Galen formed the foundation of the practice of medicine even longer than Greek thought prevailed in philosophy. In the French theatre, tragedians such as Molière and Racine wrote plays on mythological or classical historical subjects and subjected them to the strict rules of the classical unities derived from Aristotle's Poetics. The desire to dance like a latter-day vision of how the ancient Greeks did it moved Isadora Duncan to create her brand of ballet. The Renaissance was partly caused by the rediscovery of classic antiquity. The Renaissance discovery of Classical Antiquity by Roberto Weiss
The beginning of the post-classical age (known generally as the Middle Ages) is a period in the history of Europe following the fall of the Western Roman Empire spanning roughly five centuries from AD 500 to 1000. Aspects of continuity with the earlier classical period are discussed in greater detail under the heading "Late Antiquity". Late Antiquity is the transitional centuries from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world: generally from the end of the Roman Empire's Crisis of the 3rd century (c. 284) to the Islamic conquests and the re-organization of the Byzantine Empire under Heraclius.
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Indus Valley Civilization- Harappa / Mohenjo-daro | 3000 – 1500 BC | Northwest India, Pakistan, | Potter's wheel, Agriculture, dams, city planning, seal Pictographic | Hinduism |
3000 – 750 BC | Sumer, Babylonia, Assyric Highlands | Dairy farming, textile, metal working, potter's wheel, sexagesimal system Cuneiform | Polytheistic | |
Egyptian | 3000 – 30 BC | North Eastern Africa along River Nile | Egyptian Pyramids, Mummification, Decimal system, Solar calendar Hieroglyphic | Polytheistic |
Nubian | 3000 – 350 BC | North Eastern Africa along River Nile | Mud brick temple, pottery, Nubian pyramids, Solar calendar Hieroglyphic | Polytheistic |
Mayan | 2000 BC – 1200 AD | Mexico, Central America | Agriculture, Architecture, Astronomy, chemistry, cotton, drama, dyeing, mathematics, medicine, physics, poetry, vigesimal system Hieroglyphic | Polytheistic |
Chinese | 1600 BC – 1 AD | China | Silk, Pottery, Chinaware, Metals, Great Wall, Paper Chinese | Polytheistic |
Persian | 730 BC | Greater Persia | Agriculture, architecture, landscaping, postal service Cuneiform, Pahlavi | Zoroastrianism |
Greek | 2700 BC - 1500 BC (Cycladic and Minoan civilization), 1600 BC – 1100 BC (Mycenaean Greece), 800 BC (Ancient Greece) | Greece (Peloponnese, Epirus, Central Greece, Western Greece, Macedon), later Alexandria | Agriculture, winemaking, architecture poetry, drama, philosophy, history, rhetoric, mathematics, political science, astronomy, physics, chemistry, Medicine Greek | Polytheistic |
Roman | 600 BC | Italy | Agriculture, Roman calendar, concrete Latin | Polytheistic |
Aztecs | 1325 AD – 1519 AD | Mexico | Agriculture, smelting, metal working Pictographic | Polytheistic |
Incas | 1300 AD – 1532 AD | Ecuador, Peru, Chile | Textile loom/" itemprop="url" title="Wiki: ">, agriculture, [[Inca architecture – | Polytheistic |
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The Ancient Near East is considered the cradle of civilization. It was the first to practice intensive year-round agriculture; created the first coherent writing system, invented the potter's wheel and then the vehicular- and mill wheel, created the first , and , as well as introducing social stratification, slavery and organized warfare, and it laid the foundation for the fields of astronomy and mathematics.
Babylonia was an Amorite state in lower Mesopotamia (modern southern Iraq), with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged when Hammurabi (fl. c. 1728–1686 BC, according to the short chronology) created an empire out of the territories of the former kingdoms of Sumer and Akkad. The Amorites being a Semitic people, Babylonia adopted the written Semitic Akkadian language for official use; they retained the Sumerian language for religious use, which by that time was no longer a spoken language. The Akkadian and Sumerian cultures played a major role in later Babylonian culture, and the region would remain an important cultural center, even under outside rule. The earliest mention of the city of Babylon can be found in a tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad, dating back to the 23rd century BC.
The Neo-Babylonian Empire, or Chaldea, was Babylonia under the rule of the 11th ("Chaldean") dynasty, from the revolt of Nabopolassar in 626 BC until the invasion of Cyrus the Great in 539 BC. Notably, it included the reign of Nebuchadrezzar II who conquered Judah and Jerusalem.
Akkad was a city and its surrounding region in central Mesopotamia. Akkad also became the capital of the Akkadian Empire.Mish, Frederick C., Editor in Chief. "Akkad." Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary. 9th ed. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster Inc., 1985. ISBN 0-87779-508-8, ISBN 0-87779-509-6 (indexed), and ISBN 0-87779-510-X (deluxe). The city was probably situated on the west bank of the Euphrates, between Sippar and Kish (in present-day Iraq, about southwest of the center of Baghdad). Despite an extensive search, the precise site has never been found. Akkad reached the height of its power between the 24th and 22nd centuries BC, following the conquests of king Sargon of Akkad. Because of the policies of the Akkadian Empire toward linguistic assimilation, Akkad also gave its name to the predominant Semitic dialect: the Akkadian language, reflecting use of akkadû ("in the language of Akkad") in the Old Babylonian period to denote the Semitic version of a Sumerian text.
Assyria was originally (in the Middle Bronze Age) a region on the Upper Tigris river, named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur. Later, as a nation and empire that came to control all of the Fertile Crescent, Egypt and much of Anatolia, the term "Assyria proper" referred to roughly the northern half of Mesopotamia (the southern half being Babylonia), with Nineveh as its capital. The Assyrian kings controlled a large kingdom at three different times in history. These are called the Old (20th to 15th centuries BC), Middle (15th to 10th centuries BC), and Neo-Assyrian (911–612 BC) kingdoms, or periods, of which the last is the most well known and best documented. Assyrians invented excavation to undermine city walls, to knock down gates, as well as the concept of a corps of engineers, who bridged rivers with pontoons or provided soldiers with inflatable skins for swimming.
Mitanni was an Indo-Iranian"Mitanni." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 9 June 2008
The Medes were an ancient Iranian people. They had established their own empire by the 6th century BC, having defeated the Neo-Assyrian Empire with the . The Medes are credited with the foundation of the first Iranian empire, the largest of its day until Cyrus the Great established a unified Iranian empire of the Medes and Persian, often referred to as the Achaemenid Persian Empire, by defeating his grandfather and overlord, Astyages the king of Media.
The Achaemenid Empire was the first of the to rule over significant portions of Greater Persia, and followed the Median Empire as the second great empire of the Persian people. It is noted in western history as the foe of the Greek city states in the Greco-Persian Wars, for freeing the Israelites from their Babylonian captivity, and for instituting Aramaic as the empire's official language. Because of the Empire's vast extent and long endurance, Persian influence upon the language, religion, architecture, philosophy, law and government of nations around the world lasts to this day. At the height of its power, the Achaemenid dynasty encompassed approximately 8.0 million square kilometers, held the greatest percentage of world population to date, and was territorially the largest empire of classical antiquity. Parthia was an Iranian civilization situated in the northeastern part of modern Iran. Their power was based on a combination of the guerrilla warfare of a mounted nomadic tribe, with organizational skills to build and administer a vast empire – even though it never matched in power and extent the Persian empires that preceded and followed it. The Parthian empire was led by the Arsacid dynasty, which reunited and ruled over the plateau, after defeating and disposing the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire, beginning in the late 3rd century BC, and intermittently controlled Mesopotamia between 150 BC and 224 AD. It was the third native dynasty of ancient Iran (after the Median and the Achaemenid dynasties). Parthia had many wars with the Roman Empire.
The Sassanid Empire, lasting the length of the Late Antiquity period, is considered to be one of Iran's most important and influential historical periods. In many ways the Sassanid period witnessed the highest achievement of Persian civilization, and constituted the last great Iranian Empire before the Muslim conquest and adoption of Islam.Hourani, Albert (1991), A History of the Arab Peoples, London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-22664-7. Page 87. Persia influenced Roman civilization considerably during the Sassanids' times,Bury, J. B. (1923), History Of The Later Roman Empire. p. 109. and the Romans reserved for the Sassanid Persians alone the status of equals. Their cultural influence extended far beyond the empire's territorial borders, reaching as far as Western Europe,Will Durant, p. ??. Africa, China and India and played a role in the formation of both European and Asiatic medieval art.
Assyrian inscriptions of Shalmaneser I (c. 1270 BC) first mention Uruartri as one of the states of Nairi – a loose confederation of small kingdoms and tribal states in the Armenian Highland from the 13th to 11th centuries BC. Uruartri itself was in the region around Lake Van. The Nairi states were repeatedly subjected to attacks by the Assyrians, especially under Tukulti-Ninurta I (c. 1240 BC), Tiglath-Pileser I (c. 1100 BC), Ashur-bel-kala (c. 1070 BC), Adad-nirari II (c. 900), Tukulti-Ninurta II (c. 890), and Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BC).
The Kingdom of Armenia was an independent kingdom from 190 BC to 387 АD, and a client state of the Roman and Persian empires until 428. Between 95 BC - 55 BC under the rule of King Tigranes the Great, the kingdom of Armenia became a large and powerful empire stretching from the Caspian to the . During this short time it was considered to be the most powerful state in the Roman East.Time Almanac - Page 724 by Editors of Time MagazineThe New Review - Page 208 edited by Archibald Grove, William Ernest Henley
The first known inscriptions of the Kingdom of Hadhramaut are known from the 8th century BC. It was first referenced by an outside civilization in an Old Sabaic inscription of Karab'il Watar from the early 7th century BC, in which the King of Hadramaut, Yada`'il, is mentioned as being one of his allies.
Dilmun appears first in Sumerian cuneiform clay tablets dated to the end of 4th millennium BC, found in the temple of goddess Inanna, in the city of Uruk. The adjective Dilmun refers to a type of axe and one specific official; in addition, there are lists of rations of wool issued to people connected with Dilmun.Crawford, Harriet E. W. (1998). Dilmun and its Gulf neighbours. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 5. ISBN 0-521-58348-9
The Sabaeans were an ancient people speaking an Old South Arabian language who lived in what is today Yemen, in south west Arabian Peninsula; from 2000 BC to the 8th century BC. Some Sabaeans also lived in D'mt, located in northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, due to their hegemony over the Red Sea.Stuart Munro-Hay, Aksum: An African Civilization of Late Antiquity, 1991. They lasted from the early 2nd millennium to the 1st century BC. In the 1st century BC it was conquered by the , but after the disintegration of the first Himyarite empire of the Kings of Saba' and dhu-Raydan the Middle Sabaean Kingdom reappeared in the early 2nd century. It was finally conquered by the Himyarites in the late 3rd century.
The ancient Kingdom of Awsan with a capital at Hagar Yahirr in the wadi Markha, to the south of the wadi Bayhan, is now marked by a tell or artificial mound, which is locally named Hagar Asfal. Once it was one of the most important small kingdoms of South Arabia. The city seems to have been destroyed in the 7th century BC by the king and mukarrib of Saba Karib'il Watar, according to a Sabaean text that reports the victory in terms that attest to its significance for the Sabaeans.
The Himyar was a state in ancient South Arabia dating from 110 BC. It conquered neighbouring Saba (Sheba) in c. 25 BC, Qataban in c. 200 AD and Hadramaut c. 300 AD. Its political fortunes relative to Saba changed frequently until it finally conquered the Sabaean Kingdom around 280 AD.See, e.g., Bafaqih 1990. It was the dominant state in Arabia until 525 AD. The economy was based on agriculture.
Foreign trade was based on the export of frankincense and myrrh. For many years it was also the major intermediary linking East Africa and the Mediterranean world. This trade largely consisted of exporting ivory from Africa to be sold in the Roman Empire. Ships from Himyar regularly traveled the East African coast, and the state also exerted a considerable amount of political control of the trading cities of East Africa.
The Nabataean origins remain obscure. On the similarity of sounds, Jerome suggested a connection with the tribe Nebaioth mentioned in Genesis, but modern historians are cautious about an early Nabatean history. The Babylonian captivity that began in 586 BC opened a power vacuum in Judah, and as moved into Judaean grazing lands, Nabataean inscriptions began to be left in Edomite territory (earlier than 312 BC, when they were attacked at Petra without success by Antigonus I). The first definite appearance was in 312 BC, when Hieronymus of Cardia, a Seleucid officer, mentioned the Nabateans in a battle report. In 50 BC, the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus cited Hieronymus in his report, and added the following: "Just as the Seleucids had tried to subdue them, so the Romans made several attempts to get their hands on that lucrative trade."
Petra or Sela was the ancient capital of Edom; the Nabataeans must have occupied the old Edomite country, and succeeded to its commerce, after the Edomites took advantage of the Babylonian captivity to press forward into southern Judaea. This migration, the date of which cannot be determined, also made them masters of the shores of the Gulf of Aqaba and the important harbor of Elath. Here, according to Agatharchides, they were for a time very troublesome, as wreckers and pirates, to the reopened commerce between Egypt and the East, until they were chastised by the Ptolemaic rulers of Alexandria.
The Lakhmid Kingdom was founded by the Lakhum tribe that immigrated out of Yemen in the 2nd century and ruled by the Banu Lakhm, hence the name given it. It was formed of a group of who lived in Southern Iraq, and made al-Hirah their capital in (266). The founder of the dynasty was 'Amr and the son Imru' al-Qais converted to Christianity. Gradually the whole city converted to that faith. Imru' al-Qais dreamt of a unified and independent Arab kingdom and, following that dream, he seized many cities in Arabia.
The Ghassanids were a group of South Arabian Christian tribes that emigrated in the early 3rd century from Yemen to the Hauran in southern Syria, Jordan and the Holy Land where they intermarried with Hellenized Roman settlers and Greek-speaking Early Christian communities. The Ghassanid emigration has been passed down in the rich oral tradition of southern Syria. It is said that the Ghassanids came from the city of Ma'rib in Yemen. There was a dam in this city, however one year there was so much rain that the dam was carried away by the ensuing flood. Thus the people there had to leave. The inhabitants emigrated seeking to live in less arid lands and became scattered far and wide. The proverb "They were scattered like the people of Saba" refers to that exodus in history. The emigrants were from the southern Arab tribe of Azd of the Kahlan branch of Qahtani tribes.
Concerning the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah, the Book of Genesis traces the beginning of Israel to three patriarchs of the Jewish people, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the last also known as Israel from which the name of the land was subsequently derived. Jacob, called a "wandering Aramaean" (Deuteronomy 26:5), the grandson of Abraham, had travelled back to Harran, the home of his ancestors, to obtain a wife. Whilst returning from Haran to Canaan, he crossed the Jabbok, a tributary on the Arabian side of the Jordan River (Genesis 32:22-33). After having sent his family and servants away that night, he wrestled with a strange man at a place henceforth called Peniel, who in the morning asked him his name. As a result, he was renamed "Israel", because he had "wrestled with God" and became, in time, the father of twelve sons by Leah and Rachel, (daughters of Laban), and their maidservants Bilhah and Zilpah. The twelve were considered the "Children of Israel". These stories of the origins of the Israelites locate them first on the east bank of the Jordan. The stories of Israel move to the west bank with the story of the sacking of Shechem (Genesis 34:1-33), after which the hill area of Canaan is assumed to have been the historical core of the area of Israel.
A written reference, Herodotus's account (written c. 440 BC) refers to a memory from 800 years earlier, which may be subject to question in the fullness of genetic results. ( History, I:1). This is a legendary introduction to Herodotus' brief retelling of some mythical Hellene-Phoenician interactions. Though few modern archaeologists would confuse this myth with history, a grain of truth may yet lie therein.
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bar:Egypt color:age from: -3000 till: -30 text:[[Ancient Egypt]] bar:Kush color: era from: -3000 till: -1650 text: Kerma from: -1650 till: -1070 text: Ancient Egypt from: -1070 till: -591 text: Napata from: -591 till: 350 text: Meroe bar:Aksumite color:age from: 100 till: 940 text:[[Aksumite Empire]] bar:Carthage color:eon from: -650 till: 146 text:[[Ancient Carthage]]
Ancient Egypt developed over at least three and a half millennia. It began with the incipient unification of Nile Valley polities around 3500 BC and is conventionally thought to have ended in 30 BC when the early Roman Empire conquered and absorbed Ptolemaic Egypt as a province. (Though this last did not represent the first period of foreign domination, the Roman period was to witness a marked, if gradual transformation in the political and religious life of the Nile Valley, effectively marking the termination of independent civilisational development).
The civilization of ancient Egypt was based on a finely balanced control of natural and human resources, characterised primarily by controlled irrigation of the fertile Nile Valley; the mineral exploitation of the valley and surrounding desert regions; the early development of an independent writing system and literature; the organisation of collective projects; trade with surrounding regions in east / central Africa and the eastern Mediterranean; finally, military ventures that exhibited strong characteristics of imperial hegemony and territorial domination of neighbouring cultures at different periods. Motivating and organizing these activities were a socio-political and economic elite that achieved social consensus by means of an elaborate system of religious belief under the figure of a (semi)-divine ruler (usually male) from a succession of ruling dynasties and which related to the larger world by means of polytheistic beliefs.
It is also referred to as Ethiopia in ancient Greek and Roman records. According to Josephus and other classical writers, the Kushite Empire covered all of Africa, and some parts of Asia and Europe at one time or another. The Kushites are also famous for having buried their monarchs along with all their courtiers in mass graves. The Kushites also built burial mounds and pyramids, and shared some of the same gods worshipped in Egypt, especially Amon and Isis.
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bar:Indus.Valley color:era from: -3000 till: -1200 text:[[Indus Valley Civilization]] from: -1200 till: -180 text:[[Iron Age India]] from: -180 till: 1 text:[[Indo-Greeks]] from: 1 till: 1000 text:[[Middle kingdoms of India]]
The earliest evidence of human civilization in South Asia is from the Mehrgarh region (7000 BC to 3200 BC) of Pakistan. Located near the Bolan Pass, to the west of the Indus River valley and between the present-day Pakistani cities of Quetta, Kalat and Sibi, Mehrgarh was discovered in 1974 by an archaeological team directed by French archaeologist Jean-François Jarrige, and was excavated continuously between 1974 and 1986. The earliest settlement at Mehrgarh—in the northeast corner of the site—was a small farming village dated between 7000 BC–5500 BC. Early Mehrgarh residents lived in mud brick houses, stored their grain in granaries, fashioned tools with local copper ore, and lined their large basket containers with bitumen. They cultivated six-row barley, einkorn and emmer wheat, jujubes and dates, and herded sheep, goats and cattle. Residents of the later period (5500 BC to 2600 BC) put much effort into crafts, including flint knapping, tanning, bead production, and metal working. The site was occupied continuously until about 2600 BC.2
In April 2006, it was announced in the scientific journal Nature that the oldest evidence in human history for the drilling of teeth in vivo (i.e. in a living person) was found in Mehrgarh. Mehrgarh is sometimes cited as the earliest known farming settlement in South Asia, based on archaeological excavations from 1974 (Jarrige et al.). The earliest evidence of settlement dates from 7000 BC. It is also cited for the earliest evidence of pottery in South Asia. Archaeologists divide the occupation at the site into several periods. Mehrgarh is now seen as a precursor to the Indus Valley Civilization.
Ancient India is usually taken to refer to the "golden age" of classical Hindu culture, as reflected in Sanskrit literature, beginning around 500 BC with the sixteen monarchies and 'republics' known as the Mahajanapadas, stretched across the Indo-Gangetic plains from modern-day Afghanistan to Bangladesh. The largest of these nations were Magadha, Kosala, Kuru and Gandhara. Notably, the great epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata are rooted in this classical period.
Amongst the sixteen Mahajanapadas, the kingdom of Magadha rose to prominence under a number of dynasties that peaked in power under the reign of Ashoka Maurya, one of India's most legendary and famous emperors. During the reign of Asoka, the four dynasties of Chola, Chera, and Pandya were ruling in the South, while the King Devanampiya Tissa was controlling the Anuradhapura Kingdom (now Sri Lanka). These kingdoms, while not part of Asoka's empire, were in friendly terms with the Maurya Empire. There was a strong alliance existed between Devanampiya Tissa (250–210 BC) and Ashoka of India,Mendis (1999), p. 11 who sent Arahat Mahinda, four monks, and a novice being sent to Sri Lanka.Wijesooriya (2006), p. 34 They encountered Devanampiya Tissa at Mihintale. After this meeting, Devanampiya Tissa embraced Buddhism the order of monks was established in the country.Wijesooriya (2006), p. 38 Devanampiya Tissa, guided by Arahat Mahinda, took steps to firmly establish Buddhism in the country.
The Satavahanas started out as feudatories to the Mauryan Empire, and declared independence soon after the death of Ashoka (232 BC). Other notable ancient dynasties include the Kadambas of Banavasi, western Ganga dynasty, Badami Chalukyas, Western Chalukyas, Hoysalas, Kakatiya dynasty, Pallavas, of Manyaketha and Satavahanas.
The educated speech at that time was Sanskrit, while the dialects of the general population of northern India were referred to as . The South Indian Malabar Coast and the Tamil people of the Sangam age traded with the Graeco-Roman world. They were in contact with the Phoenicians, Romans, Greeks, Arabs, Syrians, , and the Chinese.(Bjorn Landstrom, 1964; Miller, J. Innes. 1969; Thomas Puthiakunnel 1973; & Koder S. 1973; Leslie Brown, 1956
The regions of South Asia, primarily present-day Pakistan and India, were estimated to have had the largest economy of the world between the 1st and 15th centuries AD, controlling between one third and one quarter of the world's wealth up to the time of the Mughals, from whence it rapidly declined during British rule.Angus Maddison (2001). E4 or E5 or P5&sf4=SubVersionCode&ds=maddison; All Subjects; &m=14&dc=27&plang=en The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective, OECD, Paris
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bar:China color:era from: -3000 till: -2000 text:[[Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors]] from: -2000 till: -200 text:[[Ancient China]] from: -200 till: 1000 text:[[Imperial China]]
By the end of the 2nd millennium BC, the Zhou Dynasty (周朝) began to emerge in the Yellow River valley, overrunning the Shang. The Zhou appeared to have begun their rule under a semi-feudal system. The ruler of the Zhou, King Wu, with the assistance of his brother, the Duke of Zhou, as regent managed to defeat the Shang at the Battle of Muye. The king of Zhou at this time invoked the concept of the Mandate of Heaven to legitimize his rule, a concept that would be influential for almost every successive dynasty. The Zhou initially moved their capital west to an area near modern Xi'an, near the Yellow River, but they would preside over a series of expansions into the Yangtze River valley. This would be the first of many population migrations from north to south in Chinese history.
During the Han Dynasty and Wei Dynasty, Chinese travelers to Kyūshū recorded its inhabitants and claimed that they were the descendants of the Grand Count (Tàibó) of the Wu. The inhabitants also show traits of the pre-sinicized Wu people with tattooing, teeth-pulling and baby-carrying. The Book of Wei records the physical descriptions which are similar to ones on Haniwa statues, such men with braided hair, tattooing and women wearing large, single-piece clothing.
The Three Kingdoms (Baekje, Goguryeo, and Silla) conquered other successor states of Gojoseon and came to dominate the peninsula and much of Manchuria. The three kingdoms competed with each other both economically and militarily; Goguryeo and Baekje were the more powerful states for much of the three kingdoms era. At times more powerful than the neighboring Sui Dynasty, Goguryeo was a regional power that defeated massive Chinese invasions multiple times. As one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, Silla gradually extended across Korea and eventually became the first state since Gojoseon to cover most of Korean peninsula in 676. In 698, former Goguryeo general Dae Jo-yeong founded Balhae as the successor to Goguryeo.
Unified Silla itself fell apart in the late 9th century, giving way to the tumultuous Later Three Kingdoms period (892-936), which ended with the establishment of the Goryeo Dynasty. Wang Geon changed the name of dynasty to Goryeo. After the fall of Balhae in 926 to the Khitan, much of its people were absorbed into Goryeo Dynasty.
The Đông Sơn culture was a prehistoric Bronze Age culture that was centered at the Red River Valley of northern Vietnam. Its influence flourished to other parts of Southeast Asia, including the Indo-Malayan Archipelago from about 2000 BC to 200 AD. The theory based on the assumption that bronze casting in eastern Asia originated in northern China; however, this idea has been discredited by archaeological discoveries in north-eastern Thailand in the 1970s. In the words of one scholar, "Bronze casting began in Southeast Asia and was later borrowed by the Chinese, not vice versa as the Chinese scholars have always claimed. Evidence of early kingdoms of Vietnam other than the Đông Sơn culture in Northern Vietnam was found in Cổ Loa, the ancient city situated near present-day Hà Nội.
In 208 BC Xiongnu emperor Modu Chanyu, in his first major military campaign, defeated the formerly superior Donghu, who split into the Xianbei and Wuhuan. The Xianbei fled east all the way to Liaodong. In 49 AD the Xianbei ruler Bianhe attacked the Xiongnu and killed 2000 people after having received generous gifts from Emperor Guangwu of Han. In 54 AD the Xianbei rulers Yuchoupen and Mantu presented themselves to the Han emperor and received the titles of wang and gou. Until 93 AD the Xianbei were quietly protecting the Chinese border from Wuhuan and Xiongnu attacks and received ample rewards. From 93 AD the Xianbei began to occupy the lands of the Xiongnu. 100,000 Xiongnu families changed their name to Xianbei. In 97 AD Feijuxian in Liaodong was attacked by the Xianbei, and the governor Qi Sen was dismissed for inaction. Other Xianbei rulers who were active before the rise of the Xianbei emperor Tanshihuai (141-181) were Yanzhiyang, Lianxu and Cizhiqian. The Xianbei gave rise to different Mongolic branches, for example the Rouran (330-555), Khitan (388-1218) and Shiwei (444-present day). The Khitans developed the Khitan scripts in 920-925 AD. The Rouran king Shelun was the first major leader of the steppes to adopt (in 402 AD) the title of Khagan (可汗) or Qiudoufa Khan (丘豆伐可汗) (which was originally a title used by Xianbei nobles).
The Mongols of Genghis Khan were the Menggu sub-tribe of the Shiwei Xianbei. The first surviving Mongolian text is the Stele of Yisüngge, a report on sports in Mongolian script on stone, that is most often dated at the verge of 1224 and 1225.e.g. Γarudi 2002: 7 Other early sources are written in Mongolian, Phagspa (decrets), Chinese (the Secret history), Arabic (dictionaries) and a few other western scripts.Rybatzki 2003: 58
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In pre-Columbian times, several large, centralized ancient civilizations developed in the Western Hemisphere, The Encyclopedia of world history By Peter N. Stearns, William Leonard Langer. Page 21. "Ancient and Classical Periods; 3500 BCE - 500 BCE." both in Mesoamerica and western South America.
The Zapotec emerged around 1500 years BC. They left behind the great city Monte Alban. Their writing system had been thought to have influenced the Olmecs but, with recent evidence, the Olmec may have been the first civilization in the area to develop a true writing system independently. At the present time, there is some debate as to whether or not Olmec symbols, dated to 650 BC, are actually a form of writing preceding the oldest Zapotec writing dated to about 500 BC. Script Delivery: New World writing takes disputed turn Science News December 7th, 2002; Vol.162 #23 Olmec symbols found in 2002 and 2006 date to 650 BCPohl, Mary; Kevin O. Pope, and Christopher von Nagy (2002). "Olmec Origins of Mesoamerican Writing". Science 298: 1984–1987. . and 900 BC respectively, preceding the oldest Zapotec writing. The earliest Mayan inscriptions found which are identifiably Maya date to the 3rd century BC in San Bartolo, Guatemala. Science (subscription required)
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Classical antiquity by region
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From the descendants of the Villanovan people in Etruria in central Italy, a separate Etruscan culture emerged in the beginning of the 7th century BC, evidenced by around 7,000 inscriptions in an alphabet similar to that of Euboean Greek, in the non-Indo-European Etruscan language. The burial tombs, some of which had been fabulously decorated, promotes the idea of an aristocratic city-state, with centralized power structures maintaining order and constructing public works, such as irrigation networks, roads, and town defenses.
The civilization of the ancient Greeks has been immensely influential on the language, politics, educational systems, philosophy, science, art, and architecture of the modern world, fueling the Renaissance in Europe and again resurgent during various neo-Classical revivals in 18th- and 19th-century Europe and the Americas.
Ancient Greece was the Greek-speaking world in ancient times. It includes not only to the geographical peninsula of modern Greece, but also to areas of culture that were settled in ancient times by Greeks: Cyprus and the Aegean islands, the Aegean coast of Anatolia (then known as Ionia), Sicily and southern Italy (known as Magna Graecia), and the scattered Greek settlements on the coasts of Colchis, Illyria, Thrace, Egypt, Cyrenaica, southern Gaul, east and northeast of the Iberian peninsula, Iberia, Taurica and further to the east in exotic Asian cities such as Taxila, Sagala and Jhelum in modern day Pakistan.
During its twelve-century existence, the Roman civilization shifted from a monarchy to an oligarchic republic to a vast empire. It came to dominate Europe and the entire area surrounding the Mediterranean Sea through conquest and assimilation. However, a number of factors led to the eventual decline of the Roman Empire. The western half of the empire, including Hispania, Gaul, and Italy, eventually broke into independent kingdoms in the 5th century; the Eastern Roman Empire, governed from Constantinople, is referred to as the Byzantine Empire after AD 476, the traditional date for the "fall of Rome" and subsequent onset of the Middle Ages.
Roman civilization is often grouped into "classical antiquity" with ancient Greece, a civilization that inspired much of the culture of ancient Rome. Ancient Rome contributed greatly to the development of law, war, art, literature, architecture, and language in the Western world, and its history continues to have a major influence on the world today. The Roman civilization came to dominate Europe and the Mediterranean region through conquest and assimilation.
Throughout the territory under the control of ancient Rome, residential architecture ranged from very modest houses to country villas. A number of Roman founded cities had structures. Many contained fountains with fresh drinking-water supplied by hundreds of miles of aqueducts, theatres, gymnasium, bath complexes sometime with libraries and shops, marketplaces, and occasionally functional sewers.
Anglo-Saxon is the term usually used to describe the peoples living in the south and east of Great Britain from the early 5th century AD. Benedictine monk Bede identified them as the descendants of three Germanic tribes: the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes, from the Jutland peninsula and Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen, Germany). The Angles may have come from Angeln, and Bede wrote their nation came to Britain, leaving their land empty. They spoke closely related Germanic dialects. The Anglo-Saxons knew themselves as the "Englisc," from which the word "English" derives.
The Celts were a diverse group of tribal societies in Iron Age Europe. Proto-Celtic culture formed in the Early Iron Age in Central Europe (Hallstatt period, named for the site in present-day Austria). By the later Iron Age (La Tène period), Celts had expanded over wide range of lands: as far west as Ireland and the Iberian Peninsula, as far east as Galatia (central Anatolia), and as far north as Scotland. Britannica (Turkey) People and Culture By the early centuries AD, following the expansion of the Roman Empire and the Great Migrations of Germanic peoples, Celtic culture had become restricted to the British Isles (Insular Celtic), with the Continental Celtic languages extinct by the mid-1st millennium AD.
Viking refers to a member of the Norse () peoples, famous as , , merchants, and pirates, who raided and colonized wide areas of Europe beginning in the late 8th.Roesdahl, Else. The Vikings. Penguin, 1998. ISBN 0-14-025282-7 p. 9-22. These Norsemen used their famed to travel. The Viking Age forms a major part of Scandinavian history, with a minor, yet significant part in European history.
The ancient Indian philosophy is a fusion of two ancient traditions: Sramana tradition and Vedic tradition. Indian philosophy begins with the Vedas where questions related to laws of nature, the origin of the universe and the place of man in it are asked. Jainism and Buddhism are continuation of the Sramana school of thought. The Sramanas cultivated a pessimistic world view of the samsara as full of suffering and advocated renunciation and austerities. They laid stress on philosophical concepts like Ahimsa, Karma, Jnana, Samsara and Moksa. While there are ancient relations between the Indian Vedas and the Iranian Avesta, the two main families of the Indo-Iranian philosophical traditions were characterized by fundamental differences in their implications for the human being's position in society and their view on the role of man in the universe.
In the east, three schools of thought were to dominate Chinese thinking until the modern day. These were Taoism, Legalism and Confucianism. The Confucian tradition, which would attain dominance, looked for political morality not to the force of law but to the power and example of tradition. Confucianism would later spread into the Korean peninsula and Goguryeo and toward Japan.
In the west, the Greek philosophical tradition, represented by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, was diffused throughout Europe and the Middle East in the 4th century BC by the conquests of Alexander III of Macedon, more commonly known as Alexander the Great. After the formed, the rise and spread of Christianity through the Roman world marked the end of Hellenistic philosophy and ushered in the beginnings of Medieval philosophy.
The characteristics of Ancient Egyptian technology are indicated by a set of artifacts and customs that lasted for thousands of years. The Egyptians invented and used many basic machines, such as the ramp and the lever, to aid construction processes. The Egyptians also played an important role in developing Mediterranean maritime technology including ships and lighthouses.
The history of science and technology in India dates back to ancient times. The Indus Valley civilization yields evidence of hydrography, metrology and sewage collection and disposal being practiced by its inhabitants. Among the fields of science and technology pursued in India were Ayurveda, metallurgy, astronomy and mathematics. Some ancient inventions include plastic surgery, cataract surgery, Hindu-Arabic numeral system and Wootz steel.
The history of science and technology in China show significant advances in science, technology, mathematics, and astronomy. The first recorded observations of comets and supernovae were made in China. Traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture and herbal medicine were also practiced.
Ancient Greek technology developed at an unprecedented speed during the 5th century BC, continuing up to and including the Roman period, and beyond. Inventions that are credited to the ancient Greeks such as the gear, screw, bronze casting techniques, water clock, water organ, torsion catapult and the use of steam to operate some experimental machines and toys. Many of these inventions occurred late in the Greek period, often inspired by the need to improve weapons and tactics in war. Roman technology is the engineering practice which supported Roman civilization and made the expansion of Roman commerce and Roman military possible over nearly a thousand years. The Roman Empire had the most advanced set of technology of their time, some of which may have been lost during the turbulent eras of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Roman technological feats of many different areas, like civil engineering, construction materials, transport technology, and some inventions such as the mechanical reaper went unmatched until the 19th century.
which likely emerged on the plateau and possibly also in the Arabian peninsula sometime in the early 1st millennium BC spread from there slowly west- and eastward.Andrew Wilson: "Hydraulic Engineering and Water Supply", in: John Peter Oleson: Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World, New York: Oxford University Press, 2008 (editor), ISBN 978-0-19-973485-6, p.291f.
Hannu was an explorer (around 2750 BC) and the first explorer of whom there is any knowledge. He made the first recorded exploring expedition, writing his account of his exploration in stone. Hannu travelled along the Red Sea to Punt, and sailed to what is now part of eastern Ethiopia and Somalia. He returned to Egypt with great treasures, including precious myrrh, metal and wood.
The difference between prehistoric warfare and ancient warfare is less one of technology than of organization. The development of first , and then , allowed warfare to change dramatically. Beginning in Mesopotamia, states produced sufficient agricultural surplus that full-time ruling elites and military commanders could emerge. While the bulk of military forces were still farmers, the society could support having them campaigning rather than working the land for a portion of each year. Thus, organized armies developed for the first time.
These new armies could help states grow in size and became increasingly centralized, and the first empire, that of the Sumerians, formed in Mesopotamia. Early ancient armies continued to primarily use bows and , the same weapons that had been developed in prehistoric times for hunting. Early armies in Egypt and China followed a similar pattern of using massed infantry armed with bows and spears.
Ancient music is music that developed in literate cultures, replacing prehistoric music. Ancient music refers to the various musical systems that were developed across various geographical regions such as Persia, India, China, Greece, Rome, Egypt and Mesopotamia (see music of Mesopotamia, music of ancient Greece, music of ancient Rome, Music of Iran). Ancient music is designated by the characterization of the basic audible tones and scales. It may have been transmitted through oral or written systems. Arts of the ancient world refers to the many types of art that were in the cultures of ancient societies, such as those of ancient China, Egypt, Greece, India, Persia, Mesopotamia and Rome.
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