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While modern civilizations extend to every continent except Antarctica, most scholars place the earliest cradles of civilizations-in other words, where civilizations first emerged-in modern-day Iraq, Egypt, India, China, Peru and Mexico, beginning between approximately 4000 and 3000 B.C.

These ancient complex societies, starting with Mesopotamia, formed cultural and technological advances, several of which are still present today. "A great many of the details of modern life, not just in the Middle East and the West, but across the world, have origins that go back for thousands of years to the ancient cultures in their respective regions," says Amanda Podany, author and professor emeritus of history at California State Polytechnic University.

Here's a look at six of the earliest civilizations-and the legacies they left to the world.

1. Mesopotamia, 4000-3500 B.C.

Meaning "between two rivers" in Greek, Mesopotamia (located in modern-day Iraq, Kuwait and Syria) is considered the birthplace of civilization. The culture that grew up between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is noted for important advancements in literacy, astronomy, agriculture, law, astronomy, mathematics, architecture and more, despite near-constant warfare. Mesopotamia was also home to the world's first urban cities, including Babylon, Ashur and Akkad.

"Mesopotamia is the earliest urban literate civilization on the globe-and the Sumerians, who established the civilization, established the ground rules," says Kenneth Harl, author, consultant and professor emeritus of history at Tulane University. "Those who know how to research and write run the civilization and everyone [else] does the grunt work."

The cuneiform writing system, used to establish the Code of Hammurabi, is among the most famous Mesopotamian advancements. They also created the base 60 numeric system, which led to the 60-second minute, 60-minute hour and 360-degree circle. And it was Babylonian astronomy that first divided the year into 12 periods named after constellations-what the Greeks would later evolve into the zodiac.

Persia eventually conquered Mesopotamia in 539 B.C. Centuries of upheaval followed.

"Within the three millennia in which ancient Mesopotamia flourished, innumerable individual kingdoms came and went, and a few empires rose and fell for various reasons," says Podany, author of the forthcoming book Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East. "But at its core, the civilization was recognizably the same from around 3500 BCE to as late as 323 BCE-and, many would argue, beyond that. The region was rarely unified, but the civilization was very stable."

2. Ancient Egypt, 3100 B.C.

Perhaps the most romanticized of past civilizations, ancient Egypt stood as one of history's most powerful empires for more than 3,000 years. Set along the fertile Nile River and at one time extending from today's Syria to Sudan, the civilization is most known for its pyramids, tombs and mausoleums and the practice of mummification to prepare corpses for the afterlife.

Harl, author of the forthcoming book, Empires of the Steppes: How the Steppe Nomads Forged the Modern World, says Egypt's use of labor to undertake architectural projects-such as the pyramids-was unrivaled. "The ability to amass 100,000 men to assemble the great pyramid in 2600 B.C. is just not matched anywhere," he says.

The Egyptians also proved extremely skilled at agriculture and medicine, he adds. And they developed exquisite sculpture and painting traditions, as well.

The ancient Egyptians also left a legacy of monumental writing and mathematics systems. The cubit, a measure of length roughly the span of a forearm, was key to designing the pyramids and other structures. They developed the 24-hour day and 365-day calendar during this time. And they established the hieroglyphic pictorial writing system, followed by the hieroglyphic system that used ink on papyrus paper. The civilization came to an end in 332 B.C. when it was conquered by Alexander the Great.

3. Ancient India, 3300 B.C.

In ancient India, where Hinduism was founded, religion held great importance, Harl says, along with great literary traditions and incredible architecture. The Upanishads, or sacred Hindu texts, include the ideas of reincarnation and the caste system based on birthright, both of which have endured into modern times.

Unlike other ancient civilizations, the Indus River Valley Civilization, built in the Indus River Valley (modern-day India, Afghanistan and Pakistan) does not appear to have been war-torn. Historians and archaeologists instead point to sophisticated, organized city planning, complete with uniform baked-brick homes, a grid structure and drainage, sewage and water supply systems.

The collapse of the Indus Valley, around 1700 B.C., is often credited to migration prompted by climate change or possible tectonic movement that caused the Saraswati River to dry out. Others cite a great flood.

4. Ancient China, 2000 B.C.

Protected by the Himalayan Mountains, Pacific Ocean and Gobi Desert, and situated between the Yellow and Yangtze rivers, the earliest Chinese civilizations flourished in isolation from invaders and other foreigners for centuries. To stop Mongols from the north, they built barriers seen by some as early precursors to the Great Wall of China, built later in 220 B.C.

Generally divided into four dynasties-Xia, Shang, Zhou and Qin-ancient China was ruled by a succession of emperors. The civilization is credited with developing the decimal system, abacus and sundial, as well as the printing press, which allowed for the publication and distribution of Sun Tzu's The Art of War, still relevant more than 2,500 years later.

Like the Egyptians, the ancient Chinese were able to mobilize populations to build massive infrastructure projects. The construction of the 5th century-era Grand Canal, which links the Yellow and Yangtze rivers, for example, allowed vast numbers of military forces and goods to move across the country.

"China is perhaps the most successful centralized state in human history," Harl says. "And at several points in human history is without a doubt the greatest civilization that stayed on the globe."

5. Ancient Peru, 1200 B.C.

Peru served as the cradle of civilization to a number of cultures, including the Chavín, Paracas, Nazca, Huari, Moche and Inca. Archaeologists have unearthed evidence of metallurgy, ceramics and advanced medical and agricultural practices from within these groups.

The civilization culminated with the great Inca Empire, which stretched from today's Colombia to Chile and is noted for the Andean city of Machu Picchu, with its elaborate urban grid.

The Incas did not develop a writing system; instead they used pictures and symbols. But they did use a knot-based accounting system, built paved roads on rugged terrain connecting towns and settlements and created sophisticated agricultural and architectural innovations.

Smallpox and other diseases, introduced to South America by the Spaniards, ravaged the Inca populations, Harl says, causing an internal weakening that helped the Francisco Pizarro-led conquest of 1532. "So many people were being carried off by disease-they had no immunity," he says. "So rather than the state itself weakening in any significant way, it was disease introduced by the outside that helped prepare for the Inca toppling of civilization in Peru."

6. Ancient Mesoamerica, 1200 B.C.

Parts of today's Mexico and Central America were once home to a number of Indigenous cultures, beginning with the Olmec around 1200 B.C., followed by the Zapotec, Maya, Toltec and, ultimately, the Aztecs.

Fertile farmland led to agricultural advances, with corn, beans, vanilla, avocado, peppers, squashes and cotton becoming important crops. Pyramid-style temples, intricate pottery, stone monuments, turquoise jewelry and other fine arts have been uncovered. Scholars believe the Zapotec developed Mesoamerica's first written calendar and writing system, while the Mayans are noted for their advancements in mathematics, hieroglyphics, architecture and astronomy.

The nomadic Aztecs founded Tenochtitlan (today's Mexico City) in 1325 on small islands in Lake Texcoco, and the city became a booming market for trade. The Aztecs used a 365-solar calendar along with a 260-day ritual calendar, practiced human sacrifice and bloodletting, used a form of picture writing and created works of art with terracotta, feathers, mosaics and stone.

The Hernán Cortéz-led 1519 Spanish invasion, aided by Mesoamerican foes of the Aztecs, brought the Aztec civilization to an end by 1521. "When Cortez showed up, the Aztecs were having great difficulty maintaining control over their subject tribes," Harl says. "They were greatly hated, and Cortez gave enough advantage to all those disadvantaged subjects to topple the Aztec Empire."

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Architecture, agriculture, art and more first blossomed in these cultures.

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Use this site to link to information about many different ancient civilizations.

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To borrow from Dr. Seuss's book title, "Oh the Places You'll Go!

Here's a coming attraction of the people, places, ideas, and things coming at you: Your 3.2 million-year-old human ancestor Lucy, mummies, pyramids, Cleopatra, "an eye for an eye", the birth of major religions Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, the birth of democracy, the first Olympics, Julius Caesar, gladiators, the invention of writing, paper, and the wheel, kingdoms built of stone in Africa, the Great Wall of China, the introduction of such concepts as zero, time, and monotheism (the belief in one god), Samurai, martial arts, palaces of gold, and even the Sphinx. Whew!

The study of ancient civilizations and people raises some profound questions. Who are humans? Where did we come from? Where are we going?

As you explore these civilizations, see if you can make sense of this Sphinxlike statement from author William Faulkner: "The past is never dead. It's not even past." It may help you see where you are going.

Knowledge of history is empowering. An event is but the furthest ripple of an ever-expanding wave that may have started eddying outward hundreds of years ago. One who "sees" history is able to harness the power of that wave's entire journey.

The United States and our world today represents the latest chapter in the book that is history. This course presents many of the chapters that led up to our chapter. Here is much of the back-story that helps us all understand our historic inheritance and the choices we may make.

As Seuss promises later in that same book, "Will you succeed? Yes, you will indeed. (98¾% guaranteed.)"

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To borrow from Dr. Seuss's book title, "Oh the Places You'll Go!

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Use this site to click on articles about different ancient civilizations

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Ancient Civilizations - Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, India for 5th and 6th grade Kids and Teachers

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Life in ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt can be thought of as an oasis in the desert of northeastern Africa, dependent on the annual inundation of the Nile River to support its agricultural population. The country's chief wealth came from the fertile floodplain of the Nile valley, where the river flows between bands of limestone hills, and the Nile delta, in which it fans into several branches north of present-day Cairo. Between the floodplain and the hills is a variable band of low desert that supported a certain amount of game. The Nile was Egypt's sole transportation artery.

The First Cataract at Aswān, where the riverbed is turned into rapids by a belt of granite, was the country's only well-defined boundary within a populated area. To the south lay the far less hospitable area of Nubia, in which the river flowed through low sandstone hills that in most regions left only a very narrow strip of cultivable land. Nubia was significant for Egypt's periodic southward expansion and for access to products from farther south. West of the Nile was the arid Sahara, broken by a chain of oases some 125 to 185 miles (200 to 300 km) from the river and lacking in all other resources except for a few minerals. The eastern desert, between the Nile and the Red Sea, was more important, for it supported a small nomadic population and desert game, contained numerous mineral deposits, including gold, and was the route to the Red Sea.

To the northeast was the Isthmus of Suez. It offered the principal route for contact with Sinai, from which came turquoise and possibly copper, and with southwestern Asia, Egypt's most important area of cultural interaction, from which were received stimuli for technical development and cultivars for crops. Immigrants and ultimately invaders crossed the isthmus into Egypt, attracted by the country's stability and prosperity. From the late 2nd millennium bce onward, numerous attacks were made by land and sea along the eastern Mediterranean coast.

At first, relatively little cultural contact came by way of the Mediterranean Sea, but from an early date Egypt maintained trading relations with the Lebanese port of Byblos (present-day Jbail). Egypt needed few imports to maintain basic standards of living, but good timber was essential and not available within the country, so it usually was obtained from Lebanon. Minerals such as obsidian and lapis lazuli were imported from as far afield as Anatolia and Afghanistan.

Agriculture centred on the cultivation of cereal crops, chiefly emmer wheat ( Triticum dicoccum) and barley ( Hordeum vulgare). The fertility of the land and general predictability of the inundation ensured very high productivity from a single annual crop. This productivity made it possible to store large surpluses against crop failures and also formed the chief basis of Egyptian wealth, which was, until the creation of the large empires of the 1st millennium bce, the greatest of any state in the ancient Middle East.

Basin irrigation was achieved by simple means, and multiple cropping was not feasible until much later times, except perhaps in the lakeside area of Al-Fayyūm. As the river deposited alluvial silt, raising the level of the floodplain, and land was reclaimed from marsh, the area available for cultivation in the Nile valley and delta increased, while pastoralism declined slowly. In addition to grain crops, fruit and vegetables were important, the latter being irrigated year-round in small plots. Fish was also vital to the diet. Papyrus, which grew abundantly in marshes, was gathered wild and in later times was cultivated. It may have been used as a food crop, and it certainly was used to make rope, matting, and sandals. Above all, it provided the characteristic Egyptian writing material, which, with cereals, was the country's chief export in Late period Egyptian and then Greco-Roman times.

Cattle may have been domesticated in northeastern Africa. The Egyptians kept many as draft animals and for their various products, showing some of the interest in breeds and individuals that is found to this day in the Sudan and eastern Africa. The donkey, which was the principal transport animal (the camel did not become common until Roman times), was probably domesticated in the region. The native Egyptian breed of sheep became extinct in the 2nd millennium bce and was replaced by an Asiatic breed. Sheep were primarily a source of meat; their wool was rarely used. Goats were more numerous than sheep. Pigs were also raised and eaten. Ducks and geese were kept for food, and many of the vast numbers of wild and migratory birds found in Egypt were hunted and trapped. Desert game, principally various species of antelope and ibex, were hunted by the elite; it was a royal privilege to hunt lions and wild cattle. Pets included dogs, which were also used for hunting, cats, and monkeys. In addition, the Egyptians had a great interest in, and knowledge of, most species of mammals, birds, reptiles, and fish in their environment.

Most Egyptians were probably descended from settlers who moved to the Nile valley in prehistoric times, with population increase coming through natural fertility. In various periods there were immigrants from Nubia, Libya, and especially the Middle East. They were historically significant and also may have contributed to population growth, but their numbers are unknown. Most people lived in villages and towns in the Nile valley and delta. Dwellings were normally built of mud brick and have long since disappeared beneath the rising water table or beneath modern town sites, thereby obliterating evidence for settlement patterns. In antiquity, as now, the most favoured location of settlements was on slightly raised ground near the riverbank, where transport and water were easily available and flooding was unlikely. Until the 1st millennium bce, Egypt was not urbanized to the same extent as Mesopotamia. Instead, a few centres, notably Memphis and Thebes, attracted population and particularly the elite, while the rest of the people were relatively evenly spread over the land. The size of the population has been estimated as having risen from 1 to 1.5 million in the 3rd millennium bce to perhaps twice that number in the late 2nd millennium and 1st millennium bce. (Much higher levels of population were reached in Greco-Roman times.)

Nearly all of the people were engaged in agriculture and were probably tied to the land. In theory all the land belonged to the king, although in practice those living on it could not easily be removed and some categories of land could be bought and sold. Land was assigned to high officials to provide them with an income, and most tracts required payment of substantial dues to the state, which had a strong interest in keeping the land in agricultural use. Abandoned land was taken back into state ownership and reassigned for cultivation. The people who lived on and worked the land were not free to leave and were obliged to work it, but they were not slaves; most paid a proportion of their produce to major officials. Free citizens who worked the land on their own behalf did emerge; terms applied to them tended originally to refer to poor people, but these agriculturalists were probably not poor. Slavery was never common, being restricted to captives and foreigners or to people who were forced by poverty or debt to sell themselves into service. Slaves sometimes even married members of their owners' families, so that in the long term those belonging to households tended to be assimilated into free society. In the New Kingdom (from about 1539 to 1075 bce), large numbers of captive slaves were acquired by major state institutions or incorporated into the army. Punitive treatment of foreign slaves or of native fugitives from their obligations included forced labour, exile (in, for example, the oases of the western desert), or compulsory enlistment in dangerous mining expeditions. Even nonpunitive employment such as quarrying in the desert was hazardous. The official record of one expedition shows a mortality rate of more than 10 percent.

Just as the Egyptians optimized agricultural production with simple means, their crafts and techniques, many of which originally came from Asia, were raised to extraordinary levels of perfection. The Egyptians' most striking technical achievement, massive stone building, also exploited the potential of a centralized state to mobilize a huge labour force, which was made available by efficient agricultural practices. Some of the technical and organizational skills involved were remarkable. The construction of the great pyramids of the 4th dynasty ( c. 2575- c. 2465 bce) has yet to be fully explained and would be a major challenge to this day. This expenditure of skill contrasts with sparse evidence of an essentially neolithic way of living for the rural population of the time, while the use of flint tools persisted even in urban environments at least until the late 2nd millennium bce. Metal was correspondingly scarce, much of it being used for prestige rather than everyday purposes.

In urban and elite contexts, the Egyptian ideal was the nuclear family, but, on the land and even within the central ruling group, there is evidence for extended families. Egyptians were monogamous, and the choice of partners in marriage, for which no formal ceremony or legal sanction is known, did not follow a set pattern. Consanguineous marriage was not practiced during the Dynastic period, except for the occasional marriage of a brother and sister within the royal family, and that practice may have been open only to kings or heirs to the throne. Divorce was in theory easy, but it was costly. Women had a legal status only marginally inferior to that of men. They could own and dispose of property in their own right, and they could initiate divorce and other legal proceedings. They hardly ever held administrative office but increasingly were involved in religious cults as priestesses or "chantresses." Married women held the title "mistress of the house," the precise significance of which is unknown. Lower down the social scale, they probably worked on the land as well as in the house.

The uneven distribution of wealth, labour, and technology was related to the only partly urban character of society, especially in the 3rd millennium bce. The country's resources were not fed into numerous provincial towns but instead were concentrated to great effect around the capital-itself a dispersed string of settlements rather than a city-and focused on the central figure in society, the king. In the 3rd and early 2nd millennia, the elite ideal, expressed in the decoration of private tombs, was manorial and rural. Not until much later did Egyptians develop a more pronouncedly urban character.

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Ancient Egypt | History, Government, Culture, Map, & Facts

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Ancient Egypt, civilization in northeastern Africa that dates from the 4th millennium BCE. Its many achievements, preserved in its art and monuments, hold a fascination that continues to grow as archaeological finds expose its secrets. Learn more about ancient Egypt in this article.

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The area that is now Greece was home to the first civilizations in Europe. Ancient Greece had powerful cities, great thinkers called philosophers, and fine art. The idea of...

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Simon Hornblower Professor of Classics and Ancient History, University of Oxford.

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Ancient Greek civilization | History, Map, Culture, Politics, Religion, Achievements, & Facts

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Ancient Greek civilization, the period following Mycenaean civilization, which ended about 1200 BCE, to the death of Alexander the Great, in 323 BCE. It was a period of political, philosophical, artistic, and scientific achievements that formed a legacy with unparalleled influence on Western civiliz…

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Welcome to the BC Digital Classroom remote access page, enter the (case sensitive) username and password provided by your teacher, librarian or BC Digital Classroom contact person.

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Tens of thousands of Romans take their seats in an enormous stadium made of stone and concrete. It's the year 80, and these people are entering the newly built Colosseum for the first time. Men wearing togas and women in long dresses called stolas will spend the next hundred days watching gladiator games and wild animal fights to celebrate the opening of this amphitheater.

These ancient people were living in the center of a vast empire that spanned across Europe, northern Africa, and parts of the Middle East. Lasting over a thousand years, the ancient Roman civilization contributed to modern languages, government, architecture, and more.

History of ancient Rome

Around the ninth or tenth century B.C., Rome was just a small town on the Tiber River in what's now central Italy. (One myth says that the town was founded by two brothers-Romulus and Remus-who were raised by a wolf.) For about 500 years, the area was ruled by a series of kings as it grew in strength and power.

But around the year 509 B.C., the last king was overthrown, and Rome became a republic. That meant that some citizens could vote for their leaders and other important matters. Only male Roman citizens could cast votes; women and enslaved people-often brought back as prisoners from military battles-could not.

Elected officials included two consuls who acted sort of like today's U.S. presidents and kept each other from taking too much power. Both consuls worked with senators, who advised the consuls and helped create laws. Senators were appointed by other officials and could hold their positions for life.

The Roman army fought many wars during this period, first conquering all of what's now Italy. In 146 B.C., they destroyed the city of Carthage (in modern-day Tunisia, in northern Africa), which was Rome's greatest rival for trade in the western Mediterranean Sea. Next they conquered Greece.

For 500 years, the republic system mostly worked. But then a series of civil wars divided the people. In 59 B.C., Gaius Julius Caesar, a politician and military general, used the chaos to take power. Serving as consul, Caesar made new laws that benefitted his troops and other regular citizens. Then he conquered what's now France and invaded Britain.

Even though his troops and many Roman citizens supported him, the Senate worried he was too powerful and wanted him gone. Knowing this, Caesar marched his loyal army into Rome. It was an illegal act that started a civil war, which Caesar would eventually win.

At first, he was named dictator for 10 years. (Before that, a dictator served during times of emergencies for only six months.) He canceled people's debts and granted Roman citizenship to people outside of Italy so they could vote. Caesar also traveled to Egypt, making an alliance with the pharaoh Cleopatra.

In 44 B.C., Caesar named himself dictator for life. Fearing he was becoming a king, a group of senators killed him on the floor of the Senate. Caesar was gone, but his supporters chased down the assassins. His heir and nephew, Octavian, and general Mark Anthony battled for power.

Octavian eventually won and renamed himself Augustus Caesar. (The family name, Caesar, would become a title that future emperors would use to connect themselves back to Gaius Julius Caesar.) He convinced the Senate to give him absolute power and served successfully for 45 years. After his death, he was declared a god.

For the rest of its existence, Rome was ruled by emperors who were not elected-they reigned for life. The Senate was still part of the government, but it had very little power. Some emperors, like Claudius, were good at their jobs; others, like Nero and Caligula, were so cruel that even their guards turned against them.

By A.D. 117, the Roman Empire included what's now France, Spain, Greece, Egypt, Turkey, parts of northern Africa, England, Romania, and more. At one point, one out of every four people in the world lived under Rome's control.

But emperors and the Senate found this vast empire difficult to rule from the city of Rome. In the year 285, it was split into a Western Roman Empire and an Eastern Roman Empire. Known as the Byzantine Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire was ruled from the city of Constantinople, now the modern-day city of Istanbul in Turkey.

The Byzantine Empire would last for almost another thousand years, but the Western Empire-Rome-began to fall apart. Civil wars, plagues, money troubles, and invasions from other groups made the empire unstable. In the year 476, a Germanic king overthrew Romulus Augustus, the last Roman emperor.

Life in ancient Rome

Most people in the city of Rome lived in crowded apartment buildings called insulae that were five to seven stories high. Wealthier Romans lived in houses called domus that had a dining room and an atrium-an open-air courtyard that often had a pool at the center. Some Romans even had vacation homes in Pompeii and Herculaneum, two Roman cities that were destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79.

Rich or poor, Romans gathered to relax, socialize, and clean themselves at Roman baths. Like modern spas, these structures had exercise rooms, swimming pools, saunas, hot and cold plunge pools, and massage spaces. The people also gathered to watch plays, chariot races, and gladiator battles.

Roman citizens enjoyed relaxing, but enslaved people in ancient Rome had a much more difficult life. Many worked in fields, mines, and on ships. Others, like educated Greeks who tutored wealthy children, were forced to work in rich people's homes. However, some enslaved people were able to buy or earn their freedom and eventually become Roman citizens.

Roman women sometimes worked as midwives-helping to deliver babies-or became priestesses. But in Roman society, women's main role was to look after the home and family. Although Romans could easily get divorced, children legally belonged to the father (or a male relative if he was no longer living).

Romans believed in many gods, including the sky god Jupiter; Mars, a god who protected Romans in war; and Vesta, the goddess of the home. People would worship these gods and goddesses both at public temples and in their homes.

Why ancient Rome still matters

Today, the city of Rome is the capital of Italy, with around three million people. Visitors can still see many ancient Roman ruins, from the Colosseum to the Roman Forum, where much of ancient Roman politics took place.

But beyond the crumbling buildings, Rome's impact is seen all over the world today, from huge sports stadiums inspired by the Colosseum to the way that we vote for politicians. The republic's system of checks and balances on power even inspired the founders of the United States government.

If you drive in Europe or the Middle East today, you might be on a route created by the ancient Romans. Those engineers built a system of 50,000 miles of roads that connected the empire, allowing troops to easily conquer new land and traders to travel and bring back wealth. (It's where we get the saying, "All roads lead to Rome.")

You can also thank Roman engineers for perfecting a system for getting running water. They built aqueducts, which were long channels that delivered fresh water from up to 57 miles away for people's baths, fountains, and even toilets. (Some ancient aqueducts still provide water to modern-day Rome!)

Julius Caesar even gave the world its 365-day calendar with an extra day every fourth year, or leap year. The month of July is named after him, and August is named after his successor, Augustus.

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Find out why this ancient civilization is still important more than 2,000 years after its fall.

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Origins of Rome

As legend has it, Rome was founded in 753 B.C. by Romulus and Remus, twin sons of Mars, the god of war. Left to drown in a basket on the Tiber by a king of nearby Alba Longa and rescued by a she-wolf, the twins lived to defeat that king and found their own city on the river's banks in 753 B.C. After killing his brother, Romulus became the first king of Rome, which is named for him.

A line of Sabine, Latin and Etruscan (earlier Italian civilizations) kings followed in a non-hereditary succession. There are seven legendary kings of Rome: Romulus, Numa Pompilius, Tullus Hostilius, Ancus Martius, Lucius Tarquinius Priscus (Tarquin the Elder), Servius Tullius and Tarquinius Superbus, or Tarquin the Proud (534-510 B.C.). While they were referred to as "Rex," or "King" in Latin, all the kings after Romulus were elected by the senate.

Did you know? Four decades after Constantine made Christianity Rome's official religion, Emperor Julian-known as the Apostate-tried to revive the pagan cults and temples of the past, but the process was reversed after his death, and Julian was the last pagan emperor of Rome.

Rome's era as a monarchy ended in 509 B.C. with the overthrow of its seventh king, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, whom ancient historians portrayed as cruel and tyrannical, compared to his benevolent predecessors. A popular uprising was said to have arisen over the rape of a virtuous noblewoman, Lucretia, by the king's son. Whatever the cause, Rome turned from a monarchy into a republic, a world derived from res publica, or "property of the people."

Rome was built on seven hills, known as "the seven hills of Rome"-Esquiline Hill, Palatine Hill, Aventine Hill, Capitoline Hill, Quirinal Hill, Viminal Hill and Caelian Hill.

The Early Republic

The power of the monarch passed to two annually elected magistrates called consuls. They also served as commanders in chief of the army. The magistrates, though elected by the people, were drawn largely from the Senate, which was dominated by the patricians, or the descendants of the original senators from the time of Romulus. Politics in the early republic was marked by the long struggle between patricians and plebeians (the common people), who eventually attained some political power through years of concessions from patricians, including their own political bodies, the tribunes, which could initiate or veto legislation.

In 450 B.C., the first Roman law code was inscribed on 12 bronze tablets-known as the Twelve Tables-and publicly displayed in the Roman Forum. These laws included issues of legal procedure, civil rights and property rights and provided the basis for all future Roman civil law. By around 300 B.C., real political power in Rome was centered in the Senate, which at the time included only members of patrician and wealthy plebeian families.

Military Expansion

During the early republic, the Roman state grew exponentially in both size and power. Though the Gauls sacked and burned Rome in 390 B.C., the Romans rebounded under the leadership of the military hero Camillus, eventually gaining control of the entire Italian peninsula by 264 B.C. Rome then fought a series of wars known as the Punic Wars with Carthage, a powerful city-state in northern Africa.

The first two Punic Wars ended with Rome in full control of Sicily, the western Mediterranean and much of Spain. In the Third Punic War (149-146 B.C.), the Romans captured and destroyed the city of Carthage and sold its surviving inhabitants into slavery, making a section of northern Africa a Roman province. At the same time, Rome also spread its influence east, defeating King Philip V of Macedonia in the Macedonian Wars and turning his kingdom into another Roman province.

Rome's military conquests led directly to its cultural growth as a society, as the Romans benefited greatly from contact with such advanced cultures as the Greeks. The first Roman literature appeared around 240 B.C., with translations of Greek classics into Latin; Romans would eventually adopt much of Greek art, philosophy and religion.

Internal Struggles in the Late Republic

Rome's complex political institutions began to crumble under the weight of the growing empire, ushering in an era of internal turmoil and violence. The gap between rich and poor widened as wealthy landowners drove small farmers from public land, while access to government was increasingly limited to the more privileged classes. Attempts to address these social problems, such as the reform movements of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus (in 133 B.C. and 123-22 B.C., respectively) ended in the reformers' deaths at the hands of their opponents.

Gaius Marius, a commoner whose military prowess elevated him to the position of consul (for the first of six terms) in 107 B.C., was the first of a series of warlords who would dominate Rome during the late republic. By 91 B.C., Marius was struggling against attacks by his opponents, including his fellow general Sulla, who emerged as military dictator around 82 B.C. After Sulla retired, one of his former supporters, Pompey, briefly served as consul before waging successful military campaigns against pirates in the Mediterranean and the forces of Mithridates in Asia. During this same period, Marcus Tullius Cicero, elected consul in 63 B.C., famously defeated the conspiracy of the patrician Cataline and won a reputation as one of Rome's greatest orators.

Julius Caesar's Rise

When the victorious Pompey returned to Rome, he formed an uneasy alliance known as the First Triumvirate with the wealthy Marcus Licinius Crassus (who suppressed a slave rebellion led by Spartacus in 71 B.C.) and another rising star in Roman politics: Gaius Julius Caesar. After earning military glory in Spain, Caesar returned to Rome to vie for the consulship in 59 B.C. From his alliance with Pompey and Crassus, Caesar received the governorship of three wealthy provinces in Gaul beginning in 58 B.C.; he then set about conquering the rest of the region for Rome.

After Pompey's wife Julia (Caesar's daughter) died in 54 B.C. and Crassus was killed in battle against Parthia (present-day Iran) the following year, the triumvirate was broken. With old-style Roman politics in disorder, Pompey stepped in as sole consul in 53 B.C. Caesar's military glory in Gaul and his increasing wealth had eclipsed Pompey's, and the latter teamed with his Senate allies to steadily undermine Caesar. In 49 B.C., Caesar and one of his legions crossed the Rubicon, a river on the border between Italy from Cisalpine Gaul. Caesar's invasion of Italy ignited a civil war from which he emerged as dictator of Rome for life in 45 B.C.

From Caesar to Augustus

Less than a year later, Julius Caesar was murdered on the ides of March (March 15, 44 B.C.) by a group of his enemies (led by the republican nobles Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius). Consul Mark Antony and Caesar's great-nephew and adopted heir, Octavian, joined forces to crush Brutus and Cassius and divided power in Rome with ex-consul Lepidus in what was known as the Second Triumvirate. With Octavian leading the western provinces, Antony the east, and Lepidus Africa, tensions developed by 36 B.C. and the triumvirate soon dissolved. In 31 B.C., Octavian triumped over the forces of Antony and Queen Cleopatra of Egypt (also rumored to be the onetime lover of Julius Caesar) in the Battle of Actium. In the wake of this devastating defeat, Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide.

By 29 B.C., Octavian was the sole leader of Rome and all its provinces. To avoid meeting Caesar's fate, he made sure to make his position as absolute ruler acceptable to the public by apparently restoring the political institutions of the Roman republic while in reality retaining all real power for himself. In 27 B.C., Octavian assumed the title of Augustus, becoming the first emperor of Rome.

Age of the Roman Emperors

Augustus' rule restored morale in Rome after a century of discord and corruption and ushered in the famous pax Romana -two full centuries of peace and prosperity. He instituted various social reforms, won numerous military victories and allowed Roman literature, art, architecture and religion to flourish. Augustus ruled for 56 years, supported by his great army and by a growing cult of devotion to the emperor. When he died, the Senate elevated Augustus to the status of a god, beginning a long-running tradition of deification for popular emperors.

Augustus' dynasty included the unpopular Tiberius (A.D. 14-37), the bloodthirsty and unstable Caligula (37-41) and Claudius (41-54), who was best remembered for his army's conquest of Britain. The line ended with Nero (54-68), whose excesses drained the Roman treasury and led to his downfall and eventual suicide.

Four emperors took the throne in the tumultuous year after Nero's death; the fourth, Vespasian (69-79), and his successors, Titus and Domitian, were known as the Flavians; they attempted to temper the excesses of the Roman court, restore Senate authority and promote public welfare. Titus (79-81) earned his people's devotion with his handling of recovery efforts after the infamous eruption of Vesuvius, which destroyed the towns of Herculaneum and Pompeii.

The reign of Nerva (96-98), who was selected by the Senate to succeed Domitian, began another golden age in Roman history, during which four emperors-Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius-took the throne peacefully, succeeding one another by adoption, as opposed to hereditary succession. Trajan (98-117) expanded Rome's borders to the greatest extent in history with victories over the kingdoms of Dacia (now northwestern Romania) and Parthia. His successor Hadrian (117-138) solidified the empire's frontiers (famously building Hadrian's Wall in present-day England) and continued his predecessor's work of establishing internal stability and instituting administrative reforms.

Under Antoninus Pius (138-161), Rome continued in peace and prosperity, but the reign of Marcus Aurelius (161-180) was dominated by conflict, including war against Parthia and Armenia and the invasion of Germanic tribes from the north. When Marcus fell ill and died near the battlefield at Vindobona (Vienna), he broke with the tradition of non-hereditary succession and named his 19-year-old son Commodus as his successor.

Decline and Disintegration

The decadence and incompetence of Commodus (180-192) brought the golden age of the Roman emperors to a disappointing end. His death at the hands of his own ministers sparked another period of civil war, from which Lucius Septimius Severus (193-211) emerged victorious. During the third century Rome suffered from a cycle of near-constant conflict. A total of 22 emperors took the throne, many of them meeting violent ends at the hands of the same soldiers who had propelled them to power. Meanwhile, threats from outside plagued the empire and depleted its riches, including continuing aggression from Germans and Parthians and raids by the Goths over the Aegean Sea.

The reign of Diocletian (284-305) temporarily restored peace and prosperity in Rome, but at a high cost to the unity of the empire. Diocletian divided power into the so-called tetrarchy (rule of four), sharing his title of Augustus (emperor) with Maximian. A pair of generals, Galerius and Constantius, were appointed as the assistants and chosen successors of Diocletian and Maximian; Diocletian and Galerius ruled the eastern Roman Empire, while Maximian and Constantius took power in the west.

The stability of this system suffered greatly after Diocletian and Maximian retired from office. Constantine (the son of Constantius) emerged from the ensuing power struggles as sole emperor of a reunified Rome in 324. He moved the Roman capital to the Greek city of Byzantium, which he renamed Constantinople. At the Council of Nicaea in 325, Constantine made Christianity (once an obscure Jewish sect) Rome's official religion.

Roman unity under Constantine proved illusory, and 30 years after his death the eastern and western empires were again divided. Despite its continuing battle against Persian forces, the eastern Roman Empire-later known as the Byzantine Empire-would remain largely intact for centuries to come. An entirely different story played out in the west, where the empire was wracked by internal conflict as well as threats from abroad-particularly from the Germanic tribes now established within the empire's frontiers like the Vandals (their sack of Rome originated the phrase "vandalism")-and was steadily losing money due to constant warfare.

Rome eventually collapsed under the weight of its own bloated empire, losing its provinces one by one: Britain around 410; Spain and northern Africa by 430. Attila and his brutal Huns invaded Gaul and Italy around 450, further shaking the foundations of the empire. In September 476, a Germanic prince named Odovacar won control of the Roman army in Italy. After deposing the last western emperor, Romulus Augustus, Odovacar's troops proclaimed him king of Italy, bringing an ignoble end to the long, tumultuous history of ancient Rome. The fall of the Roman Empire was complete.

Roman Architecture

Roman architecture and engineering innovations have had a lasting impact on the modern world. Roman aqueducts, first developed in 312 B.C., enabled the rise of cities by transporting water to urban areas, improving public health and sanitation. Some Roman aqueducts transported water up to 60 miles from its source and the Fountain of Trevi in Rome still relies on an updated version of an original Roman aqueduct.

Roman cement and concrete are part of the reason ancient buildings like the Colosseum and Roman Forum are still standing strong today. Roman arches, or segmented arches, improved upon earlier arches to build strong bridges and buildings, evenly distributing weight throughout the structure.

Roman roads, the most advanced roads in the ancient world, enabled the Roman Empire-which was over 1.7 million square miles at the pinnacle of its power-to stay connected. They included such modern-seeming innovations as mile markers and drainage. Over 50,000 miles of road were built by 200 B.C. and several are still in use today.

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Ancient Rome - Facts, Location, & Timeline | HISTORY

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Origins of Rome

As legend has it, Rome was founded in 753 B.C. by Romulus and Remus, twin sons of Mars, the god of war. Left to drown in a basket on the Tiber by a king of nearby Alba Longa and rescued by a she-wolf, the twins lived to defeat that king and found their own city on the river's banks in 753 B.C. After killing his brother, Romulus became the first king of Rome, which is named for him.

A line of Sabine, Latin and Etruscan (earlier Italian civilizations) kings followed in a non-hereditary succession. There are seven legendary kings of Rome: Romulus, Numa Pompilius, Tullus Hostilius, Ancus Martius, Lucius Tarquinius Priscus (Tarquin the Elder), Servius Tullius and Tarquinius Superbus, or Tarquin the Proud (534-510 B.C.). While they were referred to as "Rex," or "King" in Latin, all the kings after Romulus were elected by the senate.

Did you know? Four decades after Constantine made Christianity Rome's official religion, Emperor Julian-known as the Apostate-tried to revive the pagan cults and temples of the past, but the process was reversed after his death, and Julian was the last pagan emperor of Rome.

Rome's era as a monarchy ended in 509 B.C. with the overthrow of its seventh king, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, whom ancient historians portrayed as cruel and tyrannical, compared to his benevolent predecessors. A popular uprising was said to have arisen over the rape of a virtuous noblewoman, Lucretia, by the king's son. Whatever the cause, Rome turned from a monarchy into a republic, a world derived from res publica, or "property of the people."

Rome was built on seven hills, known as "the seven hills of Rome"-Esquiline Hill, Palatine Hill, Aventine Hill, Capitoline Hill, Quirinal Hill, Viminal Hill and Caelian Hill.

The Early Republic

The power of the monarch passed to two annually elected magistrates called consuls. They also served as commanders in chief of the army. The magistrates, though elected by the people, were drawn largely from the Senate, which was dominated by the patricians, or the descendants of the original senators from the time of Romulus. Politics in the early republic was marked by the long struggle between patricians and plebeians (the common people), who eventually attained some political power through years of concessions from patricians, including their own political bodies, the tribunes, which could initiate or veto legislation.

In 450 B.C., the first Roman law code was inscribed on 12 bronze tablets-known as the Twelve Tables-and publicly displayed in the Roman Forum. These laws included issues of legal procedure, civil rights and property rights and provided the basis for all future Roman civil law. By around 300 B.C., real political power in Rome was centered in the Senate, which at the time included only members of patrician and wealthy plebeian families.

Military Expansion

During the early republic, the Roman state grew exponentially in both size and power. Though the Gauls sacked and burned Rome in 390 B.C., the Romans rebounded under the leadership of the military hero Camillus, eventually gaining control of the entire Italian peninsula by 264 B.C. Rome then fought a series of wars known as the Punic Wars with Carthage, a powerful city-state in northern Africa.

The first two Punic Wars ended with Rome in full control of Sicily, the western Mediterranean and much of Spain. In the Third Punic War (149-146 B.C.), the Romans captured and destroyed the city of Carthage and sold its surviving inhabitants into slavery, making a section of northern Africa a Roman province. At the same time, Rome also spread its influence east, defeating King Philip V of Macedonia in the Macedonian Wars and turning his kingdom into another Roman province.

Rome's military conquests led directly to its cultural growth as a society, as the Romans benefited greatly from contact with such advanced cultures as the Greeks. The first Roman literature appeared around 240 B.C., with translations of Greek classics into Latin; Romans would eventually adopt much of Greek art, philosophy and religion.

Internal Struggles in the Late Republic

Rome's complex political institutions began to crumble under the weight of the growing empire, ushering in an era of internal turmoil and violence. The gap between rich and poor widened as wealthy landowners drove small farmers from public land, while access to government was increasingly limited to the more privileged classes. Attempts to address these social problems, such as the reform movements of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus (in 133 B.C. and 123-22 B.C., respectively) ended in the reformers' deaths at the hands of their opponents.

Gaius Marius, a commoner whose military prowess elevated him to the position of consul (for the first of six terms) in 107 B.C., was the first of a series of warlords who would dominate Rome during the late republic. By 91 B.C., Marius was struggling against attacks by his opponents, including his fellow general Sulla, who emerged as military dictator around 82 B.C. After Sulla retired, one of his former supporters, Pompey, briefly served as consul before waging successful military campaigns against pirates in the Mediterranean and the forces of Mithridates in Asia. During this same period, Marcus Tullius Cicero, elected consul in 63 B.C., famously defeated the conspiracy of the patrician Cataline and won a reputation as one of Rome's greatest orators.

Julius Caesar's Rise

When the victorious Pompey returned to Rome, he formed an uneasy alliance known as the First Triumvirate with the wealthy Marcus Licinius Crassus (who suppressed a slave rebellion led by Spartacus in 71 B.C.) and another rising star in Roman politics: Gaius Julius Caesar. After earning military glory in Spain, Caesar returned to Rome to vie for the consulship in 59 B.C. From his alliance with Pompey and Crassus, Caesar received the governorship of three wealthy provinces in Gaul beginning in 58 B.C.; he then set about conquering the rest of the region for Rome.

After Pompey's wife Julia (Caesar's daughter) died in 54 B.C. and Crassus was killed in battle against Parthia (present-day Iran) the following year, the triumvirate was broken. With old-style Roman politics in disorder, Pompey stepped in as sole consul in 53 B.C. Caesar's military glory in Gaul and his increasing wealth had eclipsed Pompey's, and the latter teamed with his Senate allies to steadily undermine Caesar. In 49 B.C., Caesar and one of his legions crossed the Rubicon, a river on the border between Italy from Cisalpine Gaul. Caesar's invasion of Italy ignited a civil war from which he emerged as dictator of Rome for life in 45 B.C.

From Caesar to Augustus

Less than a year later, Julius Caesar was murdered on the ides of March (March 15, 44 B.C.) by a group of his enemies (led by the republican nobles Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius). Consul Mark Antony and Caesar's great-nephew and adopted heir, Octavian, joined forces to crush Brutus and Cassius and divided power in Rome with ex-consul Lepidus in what was known as the Second Triumvirate. With Octavian leading the western provinces, Antony the east, and Lepidus Africa, tensions developed by 36 B.C. and the triumvirate soon dissolved. In 31 B.C., Octavian triumped over the forces of Antony and Queen Cleopatra of Egypt (also rumored to be the onetime lover of Julius Caesar) in the Battle of Actium. In the wake of this devastating defeat, Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide.

By 29 B.C., Octavian was the sole leader of Rome and all its provinces. To avoid meeting Caesar's fate, he made sure to make his position as absolute ruler acceptable to the public by apparently restoring the political institutions of the Roman republic while in reality retaining all real power for himself. In 27 B.C., Octavian assumed the title of Augustus, becoming the first emperor of Rome.

Age of the Roman Emperors

Augustus' rule restored morale in Rome after a century of discord and corruption and ushered in the famous pax Romana -two full centuries of peace and prosperity. He instituted various social reforms, won numerous military victories and allowed Roman literature, art, architecture and religion to flourish. Augustus ruled for 56 years, supported by his great army and by a growing cult of devotion to the emperor. When he died, the Senate elevated Augustus to the status of a god, beginning a long-running tradition of deification for popular emperors.

Augustus' dynasty included the unpopular Tiberius (A.D. 14-37), the bloodthirsty and unstable Caligula (37-41) and Claudius (41-54), who was best remembered for his army's conquest of Britain. The line ended with Nero (54-68), whose excesses drained the Roman treasury and led to his downfall and eventual suicide.

Four emperors took the throne in the tumultuous year after Nero's death; the fourth, Vespasian (69-79), and his successors, Titus and Domitian, were known as the Flavians; they attempted to temper the excesses of the Roman court, restore Senate authority and promote public welfare. Titus (79-81) earned his people's devotion with his handling of recovery efforts after the infamous eruption of Vesuvius, which destroyed the towns of Herculaneum and Pompeii.

The reign of Nerva (96-98), who was selected by the Senate to succeed Domitian, began another golden age in Roman history, during which four emperors-Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius-took the throne peacefully, succeeding one another by adoption, as opposed to hereditary succession. Trajan (98-117) expanded Rome's borders to the greatest extent in history with victories over the kingdoms of Dacia (now northwestern Romania) and Parthia. His successor Hadrian (117-138) solidified the empire's frontiers (famously building Hadrian's Wall in present-day England) and continued his predecessor's work of establishing internal stability and instituting administrative reforms.

Under Antoninus Pius (138-161), Rome continued in peace and prosperity, but the reign of Marcus Aurelius (161-180) was dominated by conflict, including war against Parthia and Armenia and the invasion of Germanic tribes from the north. When Marcus fell ill and died near the battlefield at Vindobona (Vienna), he broke with the tradition of non-hereditary succession and named his 19-year-old son Commodus as his successor.

Decline and Disintegration

The decadence and incompetence of Commodus (180-192) brought the golden age of the Roman emperors to a disappointing end. His death at the hands of his own ministers sparked another period of civil war, from which Lucius Septimius Severus (193-211) emerged victorious. During the third century Rome suffered from a cycle of near-constant conflict. A total of 22 emperors took the throne, many of them meeting violent ends at the hands of the same soldiers who had propelled them to power. Meanwhile, threats from outside plagued the empire and depleted its riches, including continuing aggression from Germans and Parthians and raids by the Goths over the Aegean Sea.

The reign of Diocletian (284-305) temporarily restored peace and prosperity in Rome, but at a high cost to the unity of the empire. Diocletian divided power into the so-called tetrarchy (rule of four), sharing his title of Augustus (emperor) with Maximian. A pair of generals, Galerius and Constantius, were appointed as the assistants and chosen successors of Diocletian and Maximian; Diocletian and Galerius ruled the eastern Roman Empire, while Maximian and Constantius took power in the west.

The stability of this system suffered greatly after Diocletian and Maximian retired from office. Constantine (the son of Constantius) emerged from the ensuing power struggles as sole emperor of a reunified Rome in 324. He moved the Roman capital to the Greek city of Byzantium, which he renamed Constantinople. At the Council of Nicaea in 325, Constantine made Christianity (once an obscure Jewish sect) Rome's official religion.

Roman unity under Constantine proved illusory, and 30 years after his death the eastern and western empires were again divided. Despite its continuing battle against Persian forces, the eastern Roman Empire-later known as the Byzantine Empire-would remain largely intact for centuries to come. An entirely different story played out in the west, where the empire was wracked by internal conflict as well as threats from abroad-particularly from the Germanic tribes now established within the empire's frontiers like the Vandals (their sack of Rome originated the phrase "vandalism")-and was steadily losing money due to constant warfare.

Rome eventually collapsed under the weight of its own bloated empire, losing its provinces one by one: Britain around 410; Spain and northern Africa by 430. Attila and his brutal Huns invaded Gaul and Italy around 450, further shaking the foundations of the empire. In September 476, a Germanic prince named Odovacar won control of the Roman army in Italy. After deposing the last western emperor, Romulus Augustus, Odovacar's troops proclaimed him king of Italy, bringing an ignoble end to the long, tumultuous history of ancient Rome. The fall of the Roman Empire was complete.

Roman Architecture

Roman architecture and engineering innovations have had a lasting impact on the modern world. Roman aqueducts, first developed in 312 B.C., enabled the rise of cities by transporting water to urban areas, improving public health and sanitation. Some Roman aqueducts transported water up to 60 miles from its source and the Fountain of Trevi in Rome still relies on an updated version of an original Roman aqueduct.

Roman cement and concrete are part of the reason ancient buildings like the Colosseum and Roman Forum are still standing strong today. Roman arches, or segmented arches, improved upon earlier arches to build strong bridges and buildings, evenly distributing weight throughout the structure.

Roman roads, the most advanced roads in the ancient world, enabled the Roman Empire-which was over 1.7 million square miles at the pinnacle of its power-to stay connected. They included such modern-seeming innovations as mile markers and drainage. Over 50,000 miles of road were built by 200 B.C. and several are still in use today.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Ancient Rome - Facts, Location, & Timeline | HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Roman Empire, founded in 27 B.C., was a vast and powerful domain that gave rise to the culture, laws, technologies and institutions that continue to define Western civilization.

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The Maya civilization stretched throughout Central America and reached its peak during the first millennium A.D.

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Daily life in ancient China changed through the centuries but reflected the values of the presence of gods and one's ancestors in almost every time period. Villages like Banpo show evidence of a matriarchal society, where there was a priestly class dominated by women who governed and were the religious authorities.

Chinese culture is one of the oldest in the world today. Over 6,000 years ago this culture began to develop in the Yellow River Valley and many of those ancient practices are still observed in the present. The Chinese developed a society based on respect for the spirits of the earth, one's ancestors, the gods, and other people. It was believed that the world was governed by spirits and deities and so people should behave as though they were in the presence of these spirits at all times.

In the prehistoric age (c. 5000 BCE) people lived in small villages in the Yellow River Valley in small, round homes built into the ground, wore the skins of animals, and practiced an animistic form of religion. Small villages like Banpo grew into larger communities and then into cities. The Xia Dynasty (2070-1600 BCE) is the first form of government in China which established large cities. It was thought to be mostly mythological until archaeological evidence was discovered which, according to some scholars, proves its existence (although this continues to be debated). After the Xia came the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BCE), when writing was developed and the first written evidence appears of what life was like for people in ancient China.

Social Class, Clothing & Adornments

Silk is thought to have been invented c. 2696 BCE, when the goddess Leizu, wife of the supreme god Shangti, was having tea and a cocoon fell into her cup. As the cocoon unraveled, she saw it was all one thread and so planted mulberry trees for silkworms to spin their webs in to make silk. The nobles and royalty were the only people who could wear silk. Those who processed the silk into clothing, and even the merchants who sold it, were not allowed to wear it. Most of the population of China wore clothing made of hemp.

Women wore long tunics which went to their ankles with a tie around their waists; men's tunics were shorter, only to their knees, and sometimes they wore pants with cloth boots or sandals. In the colder seasons, they would wear a thick jacket made of hemp, which was padded for additional warmth. Chinese women would sew an image of a tiger onto the clothing of their children as a sign of protection. The tiger was thought to be the king of the beasts and its image would ward off evil. Sometimes mothers sewed images of toads or snakes onto clothing along with the tiger to add more protection against danger.

This practice spread to the upper classes where dragons and tigers were embroidered on silk gowns for the same purpose. In the Sui Dynasty (589-618 CE), the emperor decreed that there was too much similarity between what the peasants and the upper classes wore (even though the wealthy nobles were still the only ones who could wear silk) and passed a law that all peasants had to wear either blue or black clothing; only the wealthy were allowed to wear colors.

One's social class was determined by birth. If one's father was a peasant, one would also be a peasant. The social division between a ruling class, nobles, merchants (business owners), and the working class peasants deepened further with the invention of writing; people became divided between an upper class who could read and an illiterate peasant population. The Han Dynasty (202 BCE-220 CE) encouraged education of males as part of Confucian ideals and initiated the Civil Service Exam which allowed upward mobility for the lower classes. A literate peasant could now work his way up to the level of a bureaucrat if he passed the exam.

From the Han Dynasty on, a person could improve their station in life by passing these Imperial Examinations and working for the government. These exams were very hard to pass. Not only did one need to be literate but one had to almost memorize nine books (known as The Five Classics and The Four Books) to be able to answer questions concerning them.

The wealthy and middle class were either nobility, merchants, politicians, or civil servants while the poor were the peasant farmers and laborers. Taverns and pubs were popular gathering places for men of all classes, but they each had their own type of tavern, the upper classes would not go to lower class pubs, and the lower class was not allowed into the higher class ones. Scholar Charles Benn writes:

In Changan westerners operated taverns favored by poets, in the wards along the southeast wall of the city. They employed white-skinned, green-eyed, blond women from Central Asia to sing and dance so that patrons would spend more money on ale. Aside from the taverns inside Changan's walls, there were pubs where villagers living along some nineteen miles of the eastern road outside the city sold ale to travelers. (57)

The urban taverns catered to the middle class and the rural to the lower. In the city of Changan during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) there was an area in the district of North Hamlet known as The Gay Quarters, which catered to the wealthy. The word 'gay' should be understood as "light of heart", and the quarters were staffed by high-class and very expensive courtesans. Benn writes, "Prized more, or at least as much as, for their talents as entertainers at feasts than for their sexual services, they resembled Japanese geishas" (64).

None of the lower class could enter The Gay Quarters, and if they did, they would not have been able to afford to visit any of the houses since entrance was costly. Taverns were often operated by women but The Gay Quarters were run by men accountable to the mayor of the city. This was the standard arrangement throughout China where courtesans were strictly under the control of the government.

Distinctions between the classes in ancient times were also seen in hairstyles and other personal choices. Men and women of all classes wore their hair long because it was thought that one's hair came from one's ancestors and it was disrespectful to cut it. In daily life, one would put one's hair up in a bun, but it was never supposed to be cut. Wealthy women wore their hair up with elaborate pins made of ivory, gold, or silver while poorer women kept theirs up by knotting it or binding the bun with a piece of twine.

Just like the hair, the body was thought to be a gift from one's ancestors and should not be abused. One's body was not one's own to do with as one liked; it had to be treated with respect. For this reason, most people looked down on those with tattoos and also because marking the body with ink was associated with barbarian customs. Tattoos were used as a brand for criminals, though, and those branded had to carry the mark with them for the rest of their lives. Even if they had the actual brand burned off, the scar would remain.

There are records, though, of quite a few who chose to tattoo themselves as an artistic expression. Charles Benn writes:

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[One man] spent 5,000 cash to have an artist prick his chest and stomach so that he could sport a landscape replete with gazebos nestled in the mountains, pavillions soaring over rivers, trees, birds, and animals" [and another] "had a snake tattooed all over his body in his youth. The image of the serpent began in his right hand, where the jaws of the beast drawn on his thumb and index finger gaped. The body of the snake wound around his wrist, arm, and neck. Then it slithered down his chest, stomach, thigh, and shin, where it terminated with a tail. (112-113)

For the most part, though, tattoos were only worn by convicts or gang members. Benn cites an example of a street gang, who had shaved heads and tattoos, who would beat and rob people in the marketplace of Changan. After they were arrested, the mayor had them publicly beaten to death in the town square, and afterwards, many people in the city with tattoos had them burned off so as not to be associated with the gang.

Along with tattoos, body odor was also associated with barbarians and criminals, and the Chinese were very meticulous about perfuming themselves thoroughly. Benn writes:

Women and men perfumed themselves. Palace ladies applied scents so lavishly that when they went out on an excursion, the redolence of their cortege permeated the air for miles. (113)

They also wore deodorant made of lime, frankincense, cloves, sweet gum, and birthwort. Benn writes, "The compound was packed into small bags that were slung under the armpits. The authorities also recommended washing the armpits with urine on New Year's Day" (114). Bathing every day was thought to invite sickness, and the custom was to bathe only once every five days. For bad breath, the Chinese sucked on cloves, and it was mandated that anyone appearing in the emperor's presence had to do so before speaking to him. Foot odor was another concern, which was controlled through perfumes or camphor.

The shoes of the wealthy were soft and made of silk, with upturned toes, while those of the peasant class were coarse boots or sandals made of straw, hemp, or wood. Inside the home, everyone wore slippers made either of straw, hemp thread, or silk. Both men and women of the upper classes grew their fingernails long to show that they did not have to work. They had servants do everything for them, even feed them, so they would not damage their nails. Rich women wore jewelry like earrings, bracelets, necklaces, amulets, and rings. Some women pinned the wings of a green beetle to their clothes to make them more attractive to men.

During the period known as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (907-960 CE) the practice of foot binding began. It probably started earlier but became a custom after the reign of the emperor Li Yu (937-978 CE) who had his consort Yia Niang bind her feet to resemble a crescent moon and perform a special dance for guests at one of his parties. Li Yu had erected a large golden statue of a lotus flower in his garden, and Yia Niang's dance was to honor its unveiling. Her dance was so beautiful it made the other women there want feet as tiny and graceful as Yia Niang's were, and soon the idea developed that a beautiful woman should have tiny feet.

Girls as young as toddlers would have their feet wrapped in bandages so tightly it broke their toes and curled them under the foot. Girls had to walk around stepping on their own toes and were in constant pain for years until they grew used to it. Although this practice started among the upper classes, it soon became common for all women in China. This made working in the rice fields or doing any kind of manual labor, very difficult. Women are shown in ancient paintings crawling in the rice paddies because they could not walk. Footbinding continued for centuries until it was outlawed in 1911 CE. Many women were interviewed in the late 19th early 20th centuries CE on footbinding and talked about crying from the pain for years and how it never made them feel any more beautiful.

Farming, Food & Drink

The principal crop of China was rice. Rice grew best in the southern part of China in flooded fields, and so canals were dug to flood more fields throughout the country. Rice was so important that it was used to pay one's tax. Rice was eaten at every meal in some form and was even brewed to make wine. Wheat and other grains were also grown but were never as important as rice.

The Chinese diet was (and still is) mostly vegetarian. The Chinese temples and monasteries taught people that a healthy diet led to a long life and emphasized vegetarianism as a humane and healthy way of eating. The Chinese did eat meat but it was rare, and one would never kill a chicken which was still laying eggs. Fish was the most popular dish served with rice and vegetables.

Food was cooked over a low fire in the home in a three-legged pot called a ding. The ding could be placed directly over the fire and ingredients added to slow cook all day so the family would have their dinner ready when they came in from the fields. The wealthy people had servants cook for them who also used the ding but might also use pans and cook with ovens. The most important drink was tea which was first brewed c. 100 BCE from powdered leaves. Different leaves were blended for different tastes or to produce different effects. Tea was considered a powerful medicine but was also just a popular drink people enjoyed and relaxed with. The popularity of tea gave rise to the Tea Culture in China which is best known through the Tea Ceremony.

A legend claims that an ancient ruler named Yan Di would go out searching for medicinal herbs to help his people. One day he tasted an herb which poisoned him but, as he was dying, water from a tea tree dripped onto his tongue and cured him. He began planting tea trees after that and gave tea to his people. People would eat tea leaves with their meals as a vegetable, and tea was considered an acceptable religious offering at temples. Tea gardens became popular among the wealthy, and the Tea Ceremony developed, which is an elaborate ritual of respect in which people take tea together. The person who prepares the tea honors her guests through her preparations and presentation, and the guests pay her respect by participating properly.

Home Life, Games & Sports

The Tea Ceremony was performed in one's home or garden where one would welcome guests. The home, just like today, was the center of the family's life. Women took care of the home while men worked outside of the house. Women, men, and children of the peasant classes all worked in the fields. Chinese homes differed, like anything else, depending on one's social class and how much money one had. Peasants lived in huts while merchants and other middle-class people lived in houses made of wood, which were built around a rectangular courtyard where a garden would be planted. The garden was usually a border around a patio which had trees and bushes in it.

There were sleeping quarters inside the home, a kitchen, and a hall (sometimes very large) which was a dining room and entertainment area. Families would eat in the hall and talk and listen to music or read in the company of their pet cat. Cats were the most popular pet in ancient China, and almost every home had one. There is no Year of the Cat in the Chinese Zodiac, however, and legend claims that this is because, when all the animals were participating in the great race to see who would be chosen for the zodiac, the rat startled the cat who fell into a river and was washed away; this is why cats have ever after hated rats. Dogs were kept more for security and as a source of food, although there is some evidence that the ancient Chinese played with their dogs as pets.

Story-telling was a popular pastime and Chinese literature abounds with folktales and ghost stories which almost always have a moral. Animals are frequently featured in these tales and probably the most prominent is the pig. Pigs in ancient China were highly prized and owning even one was considered a sign of success; the more pigs one had, the greater one's wealth. Pigs were so important that the pictograph for the Chinese word for "home" is a roof with a pig beneath it (Benn, 71).

People would also play games like mahjongg, go (a kind of Chinese Chess) or checkers. The Chinese also enjoyed playing kickball, football (as defined everywhere in the world except America), wrestling, and archery. Swimming was not a popular sport in China because of the belief in the type of ghost known as the Shui Gui, the spirit of a person who had drowned who waited in the water to drown someone else in order to be set free. The Chinese did practice swimming but it was not a popular pastime.

In every home, there was a shrine to the ancestors of the family, the local Tudi Gong, and the gods the family followed. In the kitchen, there was always the paper image of the kitchen god known as Zao Shen. Zao Shen was probably the most important god of the home because his job was to keep watch over the family, keep them safe, but also report on their daily conduct to the other gods. He was like a little spy for the gods in the home, who also protected those he spied on.

Once a month, Zao Shen would leave the house to report to the local gods on how the people were doing, and during this time the family was very careful not to do anything to invite evil spirits into the house because they had no protection. Once a year, on New Year's Eve, Zao Shen left to make his full report to Shangti and the other gods in heaven. His image would be offered food and drink, and then his mouth would be smeared with honey so only a good report would come out when he reached the heavens.

The paper image would then be burned to send him on his way, and firecrackers would be lit to make him go faster and give only the best report of how the family was conducting themselves. The next morning, on New Year's Day, the eldest and most honored woman of the house would make a new image of Zao Shen to place over the stove and keep watch over the family for the next year.

Religion

Chinese religion began in the prehistoric age when people practiced a form of animism. This practice evolved into ancestor worship and the development of gods and goddesses who personified natural forces. The Tudi Gong were earth spirits one needed to respect and honor at all times. They were the spirits of a certain place, sometimes the spirit of a great person who had once lived there, who blessed those who honored them and cursed those who did not. Veneration of the earth spirits was probably the oldest form of religion but ancestor worship began shortly after or maybe even before it.

People who died were thought to live with the gods and had powerful influence in the world of the living. The practice of divination became popular during the Shang Dynasty when people would go to mystics who could tell the future through oracle bones. The belief that those who died lived on also gave rise to a belief in ghosts.

Ghosts were (and still are) a very important concept in Chinese culture. The Ghost Festival is still observed each year in China during which people prepare special meals for the departed, burn incense to please the ghosts or drive away evil spirits, and even close their shops so that the ghosts can browse in peace without being disturbed by the living. Tomb Sweeping Day is observed during the Festival of Qingming, (held 4 or 5 April), and is a very old practice. During Qingming, one visits the graves of one's relatives and shows them proper respect by caring for the grave and leaving gifts including food. If one neglects the graves of one's ancestors, one risks being haunted by them.

The land of the afterlife which souls went to (or, as ghosts, were prevented from reaching) and the heavens and the earth were presided over by gods and goddesses the people worshipped. A very popular goddess was Xi Wang Mu, The Queen Mother of the West, goddess of immortality who lived in a great golden palace in the Kunlun Mountains and had a peach orchard of immortality she walked in. People would wear amulets and build shrines to the Queen Mother to be considered worthy of her protection and the long life she rewarded followers with.

Shangti was the supreme god of creation, law, and justice. He was also known as the Yellow Emperor and was thought to have given the people culture and language. Cai Shen was the god of wealth who rewarded those who behaved with a happy life and the Menshen were gods of peaceful sleep who watched over people and warded off evil spirits and bad dreams.

Some of these gods and goddesses were worshipped in shrines and temples and others were acknowledged only through charms and bracelets or statues and wall paintings. The Menshen, for example, are still painted on either side of doorways to protect against ghosts and evil spirits. Lei Shen, god of thunder, and Dian Mu, goddess of lightning, were feared while Zhong Kui, the god of healing, was regularly prayed to and worshipped probably as much as Cai Shen.

Among the most popular deities were Guanyin, goddess of mercy and compassion who helped everyone and became the patron goddess of sailors, and Niu Lang and Zhi Nu, god and goddess of love who inspired one of the most popular festivals in China, The Seventh Night of the Seventh Moon (also, the Double Seventh Festival), where women would pray for skill in weaving and sewing officially but unofficially was a romantic night for lovers. People would gaze at the stars and tell the story of Niu Lang (the star Altair) and Zhi Nu (the star Vega) who were separated by the Milky Way all year long except on that one night. Astronomers and astrologers both regarded the stars as expressions of embodiments of deities. Astronomers were always male while astrologers could be male or female.

Education & HealthCare

Only males received an education in ancient China; which is why astronomers, who were highly educated, were always men. Girls were expected to stay home and learn how to be housewives and mothers. In the early days, young boys stayed home as well and helped with outdoor work, and only young men in their teens attended school and only those of the upper classes.

Confucius began teaching young men the principles of how to be the best person they could be, and this set the standard for the basics of Chinese education. Everyone was expected to know the Five Virtues of Confucius by heart. These were Li (manners) considered the most important; Ren (kindness); Xin (loyalty); Yi (honesty) and Zhi (knowing the difference between right and wrong, moral knowledge).

In the early days of schools, the students would write on wooden sticks and then on wood scrolls bound together. In 105 BCE paper was invented and, during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE), the process of woodblock printing made it possible to mass-produce books of paper, which were then used in schools. The books which were required reading were the texts known as The Five Classics and The Four Books: The I-Ching, The Classics of Poetry, The Classics of Rites, The Classics of History, The Spring and Autumn Annals, The Analects of Confucius, The Works of Mencius, The Doctrine of the Mean, and The Great Book of Learning, most of which were based on the writings of Confucius.

Everyone was expected to know the Five Virtues of Confucius by heart. These were Li (manners); Ren (kindness); Xin (loyalty); Yi (honesty) and Zhi (knowing the difference between right and wrong, moral knowledge).

Since only men were taught to read and write, and one needed to be literate to read medical texts, doctors were also all males by the time of the Tang Dynasty. Herbalists in rural areas could be women but the medical profession was dominated by men. Most doctors were priests or had a background in religious practices.

Prior to the Tang Dynasty, doctors were essentially shamans who cured the sick through herbal remedies and exorcisms. They believed illness was caused by evil spirits or ghosts. After Buddhism arrived in China, Buddhist priests presided over establishments known as Fields of Compassion which were hospitals, clinics, orphanages, retirement homes, and counseling centers all at the same time. These were usually operated out of or adjoining a monastery.

The second emperor of the Tang Dynasty, Taizong (r. 626-649 CE) established medical schools and added the medical profession to the list of occupations one needed to pass the Imperial Examinations for. These doctors were more secular than the earlier shamans and were held to a high standard of conduct.

A long and healthy life was greatly valued by the Chinese. Priests, monks, shamans, and secular doctors all emphasized diet as the most important factor in a person's health. A vegetarian diet was considered the most healthy and also the most humane in that one was not killing animals to sustain one's self. People did eat meat and often sacrificed animals (especially pigs) to the gods and spirits, but doctors, especially secular physicians, discouraged this.

The prevailing belief in the Tang Dynasty was that a long and harmonious life of balance could only be achieved by refraining from meat dishes and living off the gifts of agriculture which the gods had given to people. In gratitude for these gifts and all the others the Chinese honored their gods, and to celebrate life they held a number of festivals throughout the year.

Festivals

There were national festivals, which everyone observed, regional festivals, and local festivals. A local festival might be a celebration of the birthday of some famous citizen who had done good works for the town or a poet or artist. Regional and local festivals could also be held to honor the Tudi Gong. Taoist festivals were observed to cleanse a village, town, or city of evil spirits, to appease the restless dead, or honor the ancestors and invite their blessings.

The most important national festival was New Year's Day, which was observed between the 1st and the 15th days of the first lunar month. Firecrackers and fireworks were set off to welcome the new year and to speed Zao Shen on his journey to the heavens. These fireworks also served to drive away evil spirits. The firecrackers were dried bamboo, which were thrown into fires early in the morning and popped loudly when they burned. Every home would set off firecrackers and, if they could afford them, fireworks but each municipality had some kind of public fireworks display.

New Year's Day allowed for people to slaughter pigs, chickens, and sheep on a large scale to ensure fertility of the land for the coming year. The ritual involving the Shen Dzu ("Holy Pig") was observed at New Year's in which pigs who had been fattened as much as possible were entered into a contest for the greatest weight; the winner was sacrificed to the local deity and the others followed suit afterwards.

Government officials were given a seven-day vacation, and shops closed or operated on limited hours. The focus of the festival was to give thanks for the past year and make provision for the new one. This provision emphasized protection against evil spirits and ghosts. Slaughtered chicken and sheepskins were hung up outside of homes as offerings, incense was burned, and a special ale was brewed called Killing Ghosts and Reviving Souls. Drinking this ale in large amounts was thought to protect one from illness caused by evil spirits or restless ghosts.

The Lantern Festival was held on the 15th day of the first lunar month to conclude the New Year's celebration. This was a festival of light honoring the full moon when people would float lighted lanterns on ponds, lakes, or streams, watch the full moon, play games, dance, and hold feasts. According to their status and wealth, some people would erect huge displays for the celebration. Charles Benn writes:

Patricians sought to outdo each other in providing the grandest lamps. An aristocratic lady of the mid-eighth century had a lamp tree with several hundred branches that was eighty feet tall. When she lit it on Lantern Festival, its light was visible for miles. It could not compare, however, with that of Emperor Ruizong. He had a lantern wheel 200 feet tall erected outside a gate of Changan in 713 CE. The apparatus was clothed in brocades and silk gauze, and adorned with gold and jade. When he had its 50,000 oil cups lit, the radiance burst forth like the blooms on a flowering tree. (151)

If one could afford it, no expense was spared in celebrating the Lantern Festival. A good festival would mean prosperity for the coming year.

There was also the Lustration Festival which took place on the third day of the third moon when the people drove away evil spirits by drinking enormous quantities of ale. The entire day was devoted to feasting and drinking to excess. The Qingming Festival was observed in April honoring the ancestors, and the Fifth Day of the Fifth Moon Festival (Dragon Boat Festival) was held in July to honor a respectable statesman who chose a dignified death over a life of dishonor. The Hungry Ghosts Festival, in August, recognizes the spiritual dimension of life and honors those who have passed on.

The Seventh Night of the Seventh Moon Festival honored the god and goddess of love, and the Mid-Autumn Festival paid tribute to the moon. The Last Day of the Twelfth Moon Festival was the ritual of sending Zao Shen on his way to the gods on New Year's Eve and corresponds to many New Year's Eve parties in the present day. People began drinking the Killing Ghosts and Reviving Souls Ale, had feasts, and lit off fireworks. Festivals kept the people in touch with their past, grounded them in their cultural values, and were a very important aspect of the lives of those in ancient China. In the present day, many of these same celebrations are observed every year. The rituals involved go back hundreds or even thousands of years and continue to be performed in very similar, or exactly the same, ways.

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Daily life in ancient China changed through the centuries but reflected the values of the presence of gods and one's ancestors in almost every time period. Villages like Banpo show evidence of a matriarchal...

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Find out how oracle bones could foretell the future! Meet Confucius, the great teacher. Read ancient stories like Nian the Monster, Wang the Peddler, and Loawnu the Wise. Discover how paper was invented. Learn about Taoism and the Ugly Duckling. Walk the Great Wall of China. Travel and trade along the dangerous Silk Road! Meet magical creatures. Guess the meaning of two ancient Chinese fables. Discover guardian dragons. Explore daily life in the Xia, Shang, Chou, Qin, Han, Tang, Song and Ming Dynasties. Welcome to Ancient China!

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Find out how oracle bones could foretell the future! Meet Confucius, the great teacher. Read ancient stories like Nian the Monster, Wang the Peddler, and Loawnu the Wise. Discover how paper was invented. Learn about Taoism and the Ugly Duckling. Walk the Great Wall of China. Travel and trade along the dangerous Silk Road!

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The Indian subcontinent, the great landmass of South Asia, is the home of one of the world's oldest and most influential civilizations. In this article, the subcontinent, which for historical purposes is usually called simply "India," is understood to comprise the areas of not only the present-day Republic of India (free from British rule since August 15, 1947, celebrated as the country's Independence Day) but also the republics of Pakistan (partitioned from India in 1947) and Bangladesh (which formed the eastern part of Pakistan until its independence in 1971). For the histories of these latter two countries since their creation, see Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Since early times the Indian subcontinent appears to have provided an attractive habitat for human occupation. Toward the south it is effectively sheltered by wide expanses of ocean, which tended to isolate it culturally in ancient times, while to the north it is protected by the massive ranges of the Himalayas, which also sheltered it from the Arctic winds and the air currents of Central Asia. Only in the northwest and northeast is there easier access by land, and it was through those two sectors that most of the early contacts with the outside world took place.

Within the framework of hills and mountains represented by the Indo-Iranian borderlands on the west, the Indo-Myanmar borderlands in the east, and the Himalayas to the north, the subcontinent may in broadest terms be divided into two major divisions: in the north, the basins of the Indus and Ganges (Ganga) rivers (the Indo-Gangetic Plain) and, to the south, the block of Archean rocks that forms the Deccan plateau region. The expansive alluvial plain of the river basins provided the environment and focus for the rise of two great phases of city life: the civilization of the Indus valley, known as the Indus civilization, during the 3rd millennium bce; and, during the 1st millennium bce, that of the Ganges. To the south of this zone, and separating it from the peninsula proper, is a belt of hills and forests, running generally from west to east and to this day largely inhabited by tribal people. This belt has played mainly a negative role throughout Indian history in that it remained relatively thinly populated and did not form the focal point of any of the principal regional cultural developments of South Asia. However, it is traversed by various routes linking the more-attractive areas north and south of it. The Narmada (Narbada) River flows through this belt toward the west, mostly along the Vindhya Range, which has long been regarded as the symbolic boundary between northern and southern India.

The northern parts of India represent a series of contrasting regions, each with its own distinctive cultural history and its own distinctive population. In the northwest the valleys of the Baluchistan uplands (now largely in Balochistan, Pakistan) are a low-rainfall area, producing mainly wheat and barley and having a low density of population. Its residents, mainly tribal people, are in many respects closely akin to their Iranian neighbours. The adjacent Indus plains are also an area of extremely low rainfall, but the annual flooding of the river in ancient times and the exploitation of its waters by canal irrigation in the modern period have enhanced agricultural productivity, and the population is correspondingly denser than that of Baluchistan. The Indus valley may be divided into three parts: in the north are the plains of the five tributary rivers of the Punjab (Persian: Panjāb, "Five Waters"); in the centre the consolidated waters of the Indus and its tributaries flow through the alluvial plains of Sind; and in the south the waters pass naturally into the Indus delta. East of the latter is the Great Indian, or Thar, Desert, which is in turn bounded on the east by a hill system known as the Aravali Range, the northernmost extent of the Deccan plateau region. Beyond them is the hilly region of Rajasthan and the Malwa Plateau. To the south is the Kathiawar Peninsula, forming both geographically and culturally an extension of Rajasthan. All of these regions have a relatively denser population than the preceding group, but for topographical reasons they have tended to be somewhat isolated, at least during historical times.

East of the Punjab and Rajasthan, northern India develops into a series of belts running broadly west to east and following the line of the foothills of the Himalayan ranges in the north. The southern belt consists of a hilly, forested area broken by the numerous escarpments in close association with the Vindhya Range, including the Bhander, Rewa, and Kaimur plateaus. Between the hills of central India and the Himalayas lies the Ganges River valley proper, constituting an area of high-density population, moderate rainfall, and high agricultural productivity. Archaeology suggests that, from the beginning of the 1st millennium bce, rice cultivation has played a large part in supporting this population. The Ganges valley divides into three major parts: to the west is the Ganges-Yamuna Doab (the land area that is formed by the confluence of the two rivers); east of the confluence lies the middle Ganges valley, in which population tends to increase and cultivation of rice predominates; and to the southeast lies the extensive delta of the combined Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers. The Brahmaputra flows from the northeast, rising from the Tibetan Himalayas and emerging from the mountains into the Assam valley, being bounded on the east by the Patkai Bum Range and the Naga Hills and on the south by the Mikir, Khasi, Jaintia, and Garo hills. There is plenty of evidence that influences reached India from the northeast in ancient times, even if they are less prominent than those that arrived from the northwest.

Along the Deccan plateau there is a gradual eastward declivity, which dispenses its major river systems-the Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna, and Kaveri (Cauvery)-into the Bay of Bengal. Rising some 3,000 feet (1,000 metres) or more along the western edge of the Deccan, the escarpment known as the Western Ghats traps the moisture of winds from the Arabian Sea, most notably during the southwest monsoon, creating a tropical monsoon climate along the narrow western littoral and depriving the Deccan of significant precipitation. The absence of snowpack in the south Indian uplands makes the region dependent entirely on rainfall for its streamflow. The arrival of the southwest monsoon in June is thus a pivotal annual event in peninsular culture.

India from the Paleolithic Period to the decline of the Indus civilization

The earliest periods of Indian history are known only through reconstructions from archaeological evidence. Since the late 20th century, much new data has emerged, allowing a far fuller reconstruction than was formerly possible. This section will discuss five major periods: (1) the early prehistoric period (before the 8th millennium bce), (2) the period of the prehistoric agriculturalists and pastoralists (approximately the 8th to the mid-4th millennium bce), (3) the Early Indus, or Early Harappan, Period (so named for the excavated city of Harappa in eastern Pakistan), witnessing the emergence of the first cities in the Indus River system (c. 3500-2600 bce), (4) the Indus, or Harappan, civilization (c. 2600-2000 bce, or perhaps ending as late as 1750 bce), and (5) the Post-Urban Period, which follows the Indus civilization and precedes the rise of cities in northern India during the second quarter of the 1st millennium bce (c. 1750-750 bce).

The materials available for a reconstruction of the history of India prior to the 3rd century bce are almost entirely the products of archaeological research. Traditional and textual sources, transmitted orally for many centuries, are available from the closing centuries of the 2nd millennium bce, but their use depends largely on the extent to which any passage can be dated or associated with archaeological evidence. For the rise of civilization in the Indus valley and for contemporary events in other parts of the subcontinent, the evidence of archaeology is still the principal source of information. Even when it becomes possible to read the short inscriptions of the Harappan seals, it is unlikely that they will provide much information to supplement other sources. In those circumstances it is necessary to approach the early history of India largely through the eyes of the archaeologists, and it will be wise to retain a balance between an objective assessment of archaeological data and its synthetic interpretation.

The early prehistoric period

In the mid-19th century, archaeologists in southern India identified hand axes comparable to those of Stone Age Europe. For nearly a century thereafter, evaluation of a burgeoning body of evidence consisted in the attempt to correlate Indian chronologies with the well-documented European and Mediterranean chronologies. As the vast majority of early finds were from surface sites, they long remained without precise dates or cultural contexts. More recently, however, the excavation of numerous cave and dune sites has yielded artifacts in association with organic material that can be dated using the carbon-14 method, and the techniques of thermoluminescent and paleomagnetic analysis now permit dating of pottery fragments and other inorganic materials. Research beginning in the late 20th century has focused on the unique environment of the subcontinent as the context for a cultural evolution analogous to, but not uniform with, that of other regions. Increasing understanding of plate tectonics, to cite one development, has greatly advanced this endeavour.

Most outlines of Indian prehistory have employed nomenclature once thought to reflect a worldwide sequence of human cultural evolution. The European concept of the Old Stone Age, or Paleolithic Period (comprising Lower, Middle, and Upper stages), remains useful with regard to South Asia in identifying levels of technology, apart from any universal time line. Similarly, what has been called the Indian Mesolithic Period (Middle Stone Age) corresponds in general typological terms to that of Europe. For the subsequent periods, the designations Neolithic Period (New Stone Age) and Chalcolithic Age (Copper-Stone Age) also are applied, but increasingly, as archaeology has yielded more-detailed cultural profiles for those periods, scholars have come to emphasize the subsistence bases of early societies-e.g., hunting and gathering, pastoralism, and agriculture. The terms Early Harappan and Harappan (from the site where remains of a major city of the Indus civilization were discovered in 1921) are used primarily in a chronological way but also loosely in a cultural sense, relating respectively to periods or cultures that preceded the appearance of city life in the Indus valley and to the Indus civilization itself.

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India - Ancient, Mughal, British: The Indian subcontinent, the great landmass of South Asia, is the home of one of the world's oldest and most influential civilizations.

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Welcome to the BC Digital Classroom remote access page, enter the (case sensitive) username and password provided by your teacher, librarian or BC Digital Classroom contact person.

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Indus Valley Civilization Facts - History of Ancient India | Educational Videos by Mocomi

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Aztec, Nahuatl-speaking people who in the 15th and early 16th centuries ruled a large empire in what is now central and southern Mexico. The name Aztec is derived from Aztlán (variously translated as "White Land," "Land of White Herons," or "Place of Herons"), an allusion to their origins, probably in northwestern Mexico. They were also called the Tenochca, from an eponymous ancestor, Tenoch, and the Mexica, probably from Metzliapán ("Moon Lake"), the mystical name for Lake Texcoco. From Tenochca was derived the name of their great city, Tenochtitlán, founded on an island in Lake Texcoco, in the Valley of Mexico. From Mexica came the name for the city that superseded the Aztec capital and for the surrounding valley, which was applied later to the whole Mexican nation. The Aztecs referred to themselves as Culhua-Mexica, to link themselves with Colhuacán, the centre of the most-civilized people of the Valley of Mexico. See also pre-Columbian civilizations: Aztec culture to the time of the Spanish conquest.

Origins of the Aztec people

The origin of the Aztec people is uncertain, but elements of their own tradition suggest that they were a tribe of hunters and gatherers on the northern Mexican plateau before their appearance in Mesoamerica in perhaps the 12th century ce; Aztlán, however, may be legendary. It is possible that their migration southward was part of a general movement of peoples that followed, or perhaps helped trigger, the collapse of the highly developed Toltec civilization of central Mexico and its capital, Tula, a spectacular urban centre that featured pyramids, temples, public buildings, and statuary.

At the beginning of the 12th century, catastrophe befell Toltec civilization when Tula was attacked and destroyed, as were other important Toltec centres. Tribes of hunters and gatherers, including a group of Chichimec under the leadership of Xólotl, took advantage of the situation and traveled from the arid plateau of northern Mexico toward the fertile, heavily settled central zone. Xólotl's Chichimec joined forces with the remaining Toltecs, resulting in a period of relative peace and cultural progress in the Valley of Mexico. During this time the Aztecs, who, according to legend, had been wandering in search of a new place to settle, established a precarious home near the ruins of Tula. There they improved their approach to agriculture and acquired other technological knowledge.

However, their stay was temporary. Aztec tradition holds that the god Huitzilopochtli instructed them to depart again in search of a permanent home, the location of which would be revealed by the appearance of an eagle perched on a nopal cactus with a serpent in its beak (an image that is memorialized on Mexico's national flag). A long pilgrimage ensued that ended in 1325 on a small island in Lake Texcoco, where, it is said, elder members of the people spotted the eagle, the cactus, and the serpent. There they built a temple and, around it, on islands in Lake Texcoco, the first dwellings of what was to become the powerful city of Tenochtitlán.

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Aztec | History, Empire, Facts, Location, & Culture

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Aztec, Nahuatl-speaking people who in the 15th and early 16th centuries ruled a large empire in what is now central and southern Mexico. The ninth emperor, Montezuma II, was taken prisoner by Hernan Cortes and died in custody. His successors were unable to stave off Cortes, and the empire came to an end in 1521.

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Welcome to the BC Digital Classroom remote access page, enter the (case sensitive) username and password provided by your teacher, librarian or BC Digital Classroom contact person.

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See how this powerful group ruled central Mexico 500 years ago.

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The year is 1475. It's wintertime, and the Inca (EENG-kah) royal family is vacationing in Machu Picchu, a small city that serves as their royal retreat in what's now Peru. The Inca capital city, Cusco, is now too cold, so the royals have traveled about 50 miles down the Andes mountains.

Wearing golden jewelry and colorful ponchos made of alpaca wool, the royals, priests, and other high-ranking officials feast, hunt, worship their gods, and entertain guests. Meanwhile, the other 750 residents work to maintain the city, serving the royals and growing food like potatoes, corn, and beans on the hillside.

At their most powerful, the Inca had the largest empire in the world at the time-today, it's still the largest empire to ever exist in the Americas. Stretching from modern-day southern Colombia to southern Chile, they ruled over western South America from the Andes to the Pacific Ocean. Although Spain conquered the Inca Empire in 1533, many Inca people retreated into the mountains, where their culture, language, and practices remain today.

History of the Inca civilization

Historians think that Inca people arrived in the valley where they would later build their capital city, Cusco, around 1100. It was a difficult place to live: Rain didn't fall often, so crops were tough to grow. That meant that groups often fought for the best land near rivers. Over time, the Inca conquered nearby people, gaining more power and eventually taking control of the Cusco Valley around 1300.

In 1438, Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui (pah-chah-KOO-tee EENG-kah YOO-pahn-wee) became the ninth Inca emperor. With his sons as military captains, the emperor began a massive expansion of the Inca territory beyond the Cusco area. He gave government jobs to people who spoke Quechua, the Inca language. This king also ordered construction of Machu Picchu around the year 1450.

Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui gave power to his son Topa Inca Yupanqui in 1471. He expanded the empire more than any other Inca leader and eventually controlled most of western South America. At this time, the Inca ruled over 12 million people who spoke about 30 different languages.

The Inca demanded that conquered people who didn't speak Quechua, like the Chanka who spoke Aymara and the Chimú who spoke Mochica, had to serve in the army and build military outposts, temples, and roads. Those roads were impressive. Troops and Inca officials moved throughout the empire on a system that included two main highways, one along the coast and another along the Andes. Many smaller roads connected the two. The road system also included tunnels, bridges, and storehouses to provide travelers with supplies and rest stops.

Throughout the empire's history, small groups of conquered people often rebelled against the Inca, and rebellions were happening in the 1500s, too. Then around 1526, two sons of an Inca king fought over who should rule next, and a civil war began. At the same time, diseases like smallpox brought by European explorers killed around 65 percent of the population. This is when the Spanish encountered the Inca.

The search for gold was one of the main reasons that the Spanish wanted to explore and conquer the Americas. (That's because when Christopher Columbus returned to Spain from his first voyage in the Americas, he told stories of people adorned with gold.) Led by Francisco Pizarro, a group of 180 Spanish went searching for a large city with temples covered in gold-it was Cusco. For years the Inca had mined gold and silver from the Andes mountains to create beautiful pieces of jewelry and art.

In 1533, Pizarro teamed up with enemies of Inca emperor Atahualpa to capture him. To save his own life, Atahualpa offered Pizarro enough gold and silver to fill the room that he was being kept in.

But the bargain didn't save him-or the empire. After the treasures were gathered, Pizarro melted down all the gold and silver pots, jewelry, figurines, and other items, then split the treasure among the Spanish invaders. (Historians estimate that it was worth about $387 million in today's money.) Then Pizarro executed Atahualpa, ending the Inca Empire.

Life in the Inca civilization

Most Inca people were farmers or herders, looking after alpacas and llamas. Extended families lived together on the same land, making their own clothing and blankets from alpaca and llama wool. Their homes were made of stone or adobe mud and topped with a roof of dried grass. All members of the family were expected to help, including children.

Because the Inca lived in the mountains, they often had to build terraces, or flat areas cut into the hillside, to plant their crops in. They also had to dig canals so they could direct mountain streams and rain to crops like quinoa, corn, avocados, and potatoes.

The harsh climate meant that food was sometimes scarce, so the Inca figured out how to preserve some crops to make them last a long time. For example, they would slowly squeeze the moisture out of potatoes over several days. The dried-out potato could last up to 10 years.

The Inca believed that their rulers were sons of the sun god Inti (in-TEE) and mummified them after death by removing their organs, preserving the body with alcohol, and freezing their remains in the cold, dry mountain air. Like ancient Egyptian pharaohs, these royals were buried with their treasures. Average people also sometimes mummified their dead by simply placing them in cold, dry caves. They would sometimes bring out the mummified ancestors during ceremonies like weddings or harvest festivals, or to important community meetings.

Historians have found evidence that some of these mummified people were sacrificed to the Inca gods. However, the Inca did not perform human sacrifice nearly as often as the Aztec people did.

The Inca didn't have a written language. Instead, they used knotted cords called quipu (KEE-poo) to keep records. Experts think that things like the style of the knot and the color of the string all contained information. Researchers are using computers to try to untangle these long-lost codes.

Why the Inca civilization still matters

The Spanish never found Machu Picchu, so it wasn't known to the outside world until 1911, when Peruvian guide Melchor Arteaga led explorer Hiram Bingham to the site. Experts were amazed to see ruins of Machu Picchu's buildings still standing despite being on a mountain that experiences earthquakes. Today, people from all over the world travel to visit Machu Picchu, hiking along the Inca trail that was used 500 years ago.

Some Peruvian people still use Inca weaving techniques to make clothes today, and over eight million people still speak Quechua, the language of the Inca. You probably use a few Quechan words, too, like condor, jerky, llama, poncho, puma, and quinoa.

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See how this powerful culture ruled from the Andes mountains of Peru 500 years ago.

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People and society

Inca society was highly stratified. The emperor ruled with the aid of an aristocratic bureaucracy, exercising authority with harsh and often repressive controls. Inca technology and architecture were highly developed, although not strikingly original. Their irrigation systems, palaces, temples, and fortifications can still be seen throughout the Andes. The economy was based on agriculture, its staples being corn (maize), white and sweet potatoes, squash, tomatoes, peanuts (groundnuts), chili peppers, coca, cassava, and cotton. They raised guinea pigs, ducks, llamas, alpacas, and dogs. Clothing was made of llama wool and cotton. Houses were of stone or adobe mud. Practically every man was a farmer, producing his own food and clothing.

The Inca built a vast network of roads throughout this empire. It comprised two north-south roads, one running along the coast for about 2,250 miles (3,600 km), the other inland along the Andes for a comparable distance, with many interconnecting links. Many short rock tunnels and vine-supported suspension bridges were constructed. Use of the system was strictly limited to government and military business; a well-organized relay service carried messages in the form of knotted cords called quipu (Quechua khipu) at a rate of 150 miles (240 km) a day. The network greatly facilitated the Spanish conquest of the Inca empire.

The Inca religion combined features of animism, fetishism, and the worship of nature gods. The pantheon was headed by Inti, the sun god, and included also Viracocha, a creator god and culture hero, and Apu Illapu, the rain god. Under the empire the Inca religion was a highly organized state religion, but, while worship of the sun god and the rendering of service were required of subject peoples, their native religions were tolerated. Inca rituals included elaborate forms of divination and the sacrifice of humans and animals. These religious institutions were destroyed by the Spanish conquerors' campaign against idolatry.

The descendants of the Inca are the present-day Quechua-speaking peasants of the Andes, who constitute perhaps 45 percent of the population of Peru. They combine farming and herding with simple traditional technology. Rural settlements are of three kinds: families living in the midst of their fields, true village communities with fields outside of the inhabited centres, and a combination of these two patterns. Towns are centres of mestizo (mixed-blood) population. Communities are close-knit, with families usually intermarrying. Much of the agricultural work is done cooperatively. Religion is a kind of Roman Catholicism infused with the pagan hierarchy of spirits and deities.

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Inca | History, Achievements, Culture, & Geography

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Inca, South American Indians who ruled an empire that extended along the Pacific coast and Andean highlands from the northern border of modern Ecuador to the Maule River in central Chile. Their descendants today remain in and around the Andes and make up the largest ethnic group in Peru.

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Look at the history section

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Look at the history