People in the distant past had no knowledge of our modern way of life. There were no TVs, no cars, no CD players, department stores or telecommunications. But they had to survive, with only what they could find around them. Amazingly, they didn't just survive, they thrived. They discovered their own technologies, they made their own dwellings and created their own style in a terrifying, brutal and primeval world. This is the world of ancient civilizations.
Ancient Egypt
The history of Ancient Egypt spans an awe inspiring three thousand years. Records begin around 3150 BC, when the first known pharaoh Menes united the country. The civilisation clung to the river Nile, where a thin strip of land became habitable due to the ever present water flow. The ancients called this land the black land, and the desolute sandy dessert where life was near impossible they called the red land. By a gift of nature, a gentle breeze travels upstream along the Nile. This meant that Nile inhabitants could build boats, called falukas, which travelled downstream with the current, or by putting up the sails, they travelled upstream. Even the hieroglyphs for North and South are Falukas with either the sails up or down according to the direction. They built huge pyramids which even today cause much speculation about their purpose and who built them. it is now thought that they were built by respected artisans, during the non-farming season, and not by an army of mistreated slaves. Either way, by the time of Tutankhamun, the pyramids were already a thousand years old, and already considered ancient monuments.
Click on the pyramid to read more about Ancient Egypt
Click on King Tut's image to read about Egypt's most famous character
Vikings
In the year 793 AD, on the quiet island of Lindisfarne off the east coast of England, there was a peaceful monastry. But on the morning of January 6th, boats of a type not seen before were seen sailing out of the ocean. The monks had no idea what was about to become of them, and only wondered at their foreign visitors, on ships with square sails and bearing dragon heads. Once they landed, when great tall men, bearing axes and shields came forth, the monks were the first people to be struck by the fear of the Vikings, and the Viking age was born. Wave after wave of attacks came from the Vikings, not just in England but across Europe, changing the political landscape for good. Vikings were skilled seaman, ferocious fighters and also tradesman and explorers, reaching as far east as the Black Sea, and west, past Iceland and Greenland, settling for a time in North America.
Click on the Viking ship to read more about the Vikings
Ancient Persia
Click on the statue to read more about Ancient Persia
Mayan Deep In The Jungle
The Maya inhabited the jungle area of central America. They had lived there for many centuries, even millennium, until around 250 AD when they developed a truly urban lifestyle, whilst Britain was still under Roman rule. Like the Ancient Egyptians, they build great pyramids out of stone, albeit of a different style. Like the Romans they built whole cities out of stone, and had cities that became densely populated. They developed highly sophisticated mathematical systems and the science of astronomy to levels that almost rival today's modern knowledge, an incredible achievement. Eventually, the whole civilization mysteriously declined quite rapidly, even before the arrival of the Spanish, possibly due to overcrowding, or other environmental circumstances. The Maya still live on today, but gone are the heavy days of a great civilization in the first millennium AD.
Click on the temple to read more about the exotic Maya
Celts Across Europe
The Celts dominated Northern Europe during the iron age, a war like, red headed, tribal people that often troubled the Romans. Without a written language of their own, we rely on archeology and historical records from other contemporary civilisations such as the Romans and Greeks to teach us about them. They came to Britain some time between 2000 to 1200 BC, speaking a language called Goidelic. This gave rise to three languages spoken in Ireland, Isle of Man and Scotland. A second wave of Celtic immigration into Britain spoke Brythonic, which gave rise to Welsh and Cornish, (and Breton spoken in Brittany, France) all still spoken today. The Celts were known as Gauls by the Romans, and also simply as Barbarians.
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Old Testament In The Levant
The Levant is the land of the rising sun, at least from the perspective of those that first used the term. It is the area east of the Mediterranean, centered around today's countries of Egypt, Jordan and Syria. It is the land of the old testament, steeped in history from when early civilisations started to develop the use of writing some six thousand years ago. Surrounded by other great civilisations, Ancient Egypt to the South West, Rome and Greece to the West, Babylonians and Assyrians to the East, and Anatolia to the North, the Levant was often a troubled area, but also a melting pot for different cultures and central to some of todays religions.
Click on the jug to read more about the History of the Old Testament
Rob Ashdown / civilizations@product-info.co.uk / Revised August 2008
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Click on King Tut's image to read about Egypt's most famous character
