# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
China Timeline - Ancient History Encyclopedia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Villages arise in China around the Yellow river. Terraced farming begins and rice is cultivated.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
See the latest news and architecture related to Ancient Architecture, only on ArchDaily.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Greek architects provided some of the finest and most distinctive buildings in the entire Ancient World and some of their structures, such as temples, theatres, and stadia, would become staple features of towns and cities from antiquity onwards. In addition, the Greek concern with simplicity, proportion, perspective, and harmony in their buildings would go on to greatly influence architects in the Roman world and provide the foundation for the classical architectural orders which would dominate the western world from the Renaissance to the present day.

The Architectural Orders

There are five orders of classical architecture - Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Tuscan, and Composite - all named as such in later Roman times. Greek architects created the first three and hugely influenced the latter two which were composites rather than genuine innovations. An order, properly speaking, is a combination of a certain style of column with or without a base and an entablature (what the column supports: the architrave, frieze, and cornice). The earlier use of wooden pillars eventually evolved into the Doric column in stone. This was a vertical fluted column shaft, thinner at its top, with no base and a simple capital below a square abacus. The entablature frieze carried alternating triglyphs and metopes. The Ionic order, with origins in mid-6th century BCE Asia Minor, added a base and volute, or scroll capital, to a slimmer, straighter column. The Ionic entablature often carries a frieze with richly carved sculpture. The Corinthian column, invented in Athens in the 5th century BCE, is similar to the Ionic but topped by a more decorative capital of stylized acanthus and fern leaves. These orders became the basic grammar of western architecture and it is difficult to walk in any modern city and not see examples of them in one form or another.

Materials

The Greeks certainly had a preference for marble, at least for their public buildings. Initially, though, wood would have been used for not only such basic architectural elements as columns but the entire buildings themselves. Early 8th century BCE temples were so constructed and had thatch roofs. From the late 7th century BCE, temples, in particular, slowly began to be converted into more durable stone edifices; some even had a mix of the two materials. Some scholars have argued that certain decorative features of stone column capitals and elements of the entablature evolved from the skills of the carpenter displayed in more ancient, wooden architectural elements.

The stone of choice was either limestone protected by a layer of marble dust stucco or even better, pure white marble. Also, carved stone was often polished with chamois to provide resistance to water and give a bright finish. The best marble came from Naxos, Paros, and Mt. Pentelicon near Athens.

Temples, Treasuries & Stoas

Architects used sophisticated geometry and optical tricks to present buildings as perfectly straight and harmonious.

The ancient Greeks are rightly famous for their magnificent Doric and Ionic temples, and the example par excellence is undoubtedly the Parthenon of Athens. Built in the mid 5th century BCE in order to house the gigantic statue of Athena and to advertise to the world the glory of Athens, it still stands majestically on the city's acropolis. Other celebrated examples are the massive Temple of Zeus at Olympia (completed c. 460 BCE), the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus (completed c. 430 BCE), which was considered one of the wonders of the ancient world, and the evocative Temple of Poseidon at Sounion (444-440 BCE), perched on the cliffs overlooking the Aegean. The latter is illustrative of the Greek desire that such public buildings should not just fulfil their typical function of housing a statue of a Greek deity, and not only should they be admired from close-up or from the inside, but also that they should be admired from afar. A great deal of effort was made to build temples in prominent positions and, using sophisticated geometry, architects included optical 'tricks' such as thickening the lower parts of columns, thickening corner columns, and having columns ever so slightly lean inwards so that from a distance the building seemed perfectly straight and in harmony. Many of these refinements are invisible to the naked eye, and even today only sophisticated measuring devices can detect the minute differences in angles and dimensions. Such refinements indicate that Greek temples were, therefore, not only functional structures but also that the building itself, as a whole, was symbolic and an important element in the civic landscape.

Greek temples, at least on the mainland, followed a remarkably similar plan and almost all were rectangular and peripteral, that is their exterior sides and façades consisted of rows of columns. Notable exceptions included the magnificently eccentric Erechtheion of Athens with its innovative Caryatid columns and the temples of the Cyclades which, although still Doric, only had columns on the front façade (prostyle), which was often wider than the length of the building. So too, temples from Ionia tended to differ from the norm, usually having a double colonnade (dipteral). However, returning to the standard Greek temple layout, the rectangular peristyle of columns (8 x 17 in the case of the Parthenon, 6 x 13 for the temple of Zeus at Olympia) surrounded an inner chamber or cella with the whole standing on a stepped platform or stylobate and the interior paved with rectangular slabs. The roof was usually raised along a central ridge with a slope of approximately 15 degrees and was constructed from wooden beams and rafters covered in overlapping terracotta or marble tiles. Decorative acroteria (palms or statues) often stood at each point of the pediment. Finally, the doors to temples were made of wood (elm or cypress) and often decorated with bronze medallions and bosses.

Many temples also carried architectural sculpture arranged to tell a narrative. Pediments, friezes, and metopes all carried sculpture, often in the round or in high relief and always richly decorated (with paint and bronze additions), which retold stories from Greek mythology or great episodes in that particular city's history.

Temples also indicate that Greek architects ( architektones) were perfectly aware of the problems of providing stable foundations able to support large buildings. Correct water drainage and the use of continuous bases on foundations above various layers of fill material (conglomerate soft rocks, soil, marble chips, charcoal, and even sheepskins) allowed large Greek buildings to be built in the best positions regardless of terrain and to withstand the rigours of weather and earthquake over centuries. Indeed, absolute stability was essential, as even a slight settling or subsidence in any part of the building would render useless the optical refinements discussed above. It is remarkable that the vast majority of Greek buildings that have collapsed have done so only because of human intervention - removing blocks or metal fixtures for reuse elsewhere - weakening the overall structure. Structures not interfered with, such as the Temple of Hephaistos in the Athens agora, are testimony to the impressive durability of Greek buildings.

Other structures which were constructed near temples were monumental entrance gates (such as the Propylaia of Athens' acropolis) and small buildings to house dedications, often from specific city-states. These very often borrowed architectural elements from the temple such as columned façades and friezes. An excellent example is the Treasury of the Athenians at Delphi (490 BCE).

The stoa was another structure common to many temple complexes from the 7th century BCE onwards. This was a long, narrow row of columns backed by a plain wall and roofed. Often placed at right-angles to create an enclosed open space, stoas were used for all manner of purposes such as meeting places and storage. The agora or market place of many ancient Greek towns would be composed of a large open square surrounded by a stoa. One unusual stoa is that of the Sicilian colony of Selinus. This was constructed between 580 and 570 BCE and was a trapezoid in shape. More interestingly, the nearby shops all present the same façade despite being different types of buildings. This is evidence that there was some sort of centrally controlled planning authority which ensured harmony of architecture in important public places. Certainly, during the 5th century BCE there were professional town planners, the most famous of which was Hippodamos who is often credited with planning the Piraeus and Rhodes. Interestingly, there is very often a correspondence between architectural changes in towns and changes in political regime. One final function of the stoa in Hellenistic times was in the and palaistra complexes, notably at the great sanctuaries of Olympia, Delphi, and Nemea. These stoas were used to create an enclosed space for physical exercise and provide a practice area for such field events as the javelin and discus.

Temples, treasuries, and stoas then, with their various orders and arrangements of columns have provided the most tangible architectural legacy from the Greek world, and it is perhaps ironic that the architecture of Greek religious buildings has been so widely adopted in the modern world for such secular buildings as court houses and government buildings.

Another distinctive Greek contribution to world culture was the amphitheatre. The oldest certain archaeological evidence of theatres dates from the late 6th century BCE but we may assume that Greeks gathered in specified public places much earlier. Indeed, Bronze Age Minoan sites such as Phaistos had large stepped-courts which are thought to have been used for spectacles such as religious processions and bull-leaping sports. Then from the late 6th century BCE we have a rectangular theatre-like structure from Thorikos in Attica which had a temple dedicated to Dionysos at one end. This would suggest it was used during Dionyistic festivals, at which dramas were often presented. However, it was from the 5th century BCE that the Greek amphitheatre took on its recognisable and most influential form. This was an open-air and approximately semi-circular arrangement of rising rows of seats ( theotron) which provided excellent acoustics. The stage or orchestra was also semi-circular and backed by a screen or skene, which would become more and more monumental in the following centuries. Monumental arches often provided the entrances ( paradoi) on either side of the stage.

Examples abound throughout the Greek world and many theatres have survived remarkably well. One of the most celebrated is the theatre of Dionysus Eleutherius on the southern slope of Athens' acropolis where the great plays of Sophocles, Euripedes, Aeschylus, and Aristophanes were first performed. One of the largest is the theatre of Argos which had a capacity for 20,000 spectators, and one of the best preserved is the theatre of Epidaurus which continues every summer to host major dramatic performances. Theatres were used not only for the presentation of plays but also hosted poetry recitals and musical competitions.

Another lasting Greek architectural contribution to world culture was the stadium. Stadiums were named after the distance (600 ancient feet or around 180 metres) of the foot-race they originally hosted - the stade or stadion. Initially constructed near natural embankments, stadia evolved into more sophisticated structures with rows of stone or even marble steps for seating which had divisions for ease of access. Conduits ran around the track to drain off excess rainfall and in Hellenistic times vaulted corridors provided a dramatic entrance for athletes and judges. Famous examples include those at Nemea and Olympia which had seating capacities of 30,000 and 45,000 spectators respectively.

Housing

Considering more modest structures, there were fountain houses (from the 6th century BCE) where people could easily collect water and perhaps, as black-figure pottery scenes suggest, socialise. Regarding private homes, these were usually constructed with mud brick, had packed earth floors, and were built to no particular design. One- or two-storied houses were the norm. Later, from the 5th century BCE, better houses were built in stone, usually with plastered exterior and frescoed interior walls. Also, there was often no particular effort at town planning which usually resulted in a maze of narrow chaotic streets, even in such great cities as Athens. Colonies in Magna Graecia, as we have seen in Selinus, were something of an exception and often had more regular street plans, no doubt a benefit of constructing a town from scratch.

In conclusion then, we may say that ancient Greek architecture has provided not only many of the staple features of modern western architecture, but it has also given the world truly magnificent buildings which have literally stood the test of time and continue to inspire admiration and awe. Many of these buildings - the Parthenon, the Caryatid porch of the Erechtheion, the volute of an Ionic capital to name just three - have become the instantly recognisable and iconic symbols of ancient Greece.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Greek architects provided some of the finest and most distinctive buildings in the entire Ancient World and some of their structures, such as temples, theatres, and stadia, would become staple features of towns and cities from antiquity onwards.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Aztecs followed a strict social hierarchy in which individuals were identified as nobles (pipiltin), commoners (macehualtin), serfs, or slaves. The noble class consisted of government and military leaders, high level priests, and lords (tecuhtli). Priests had their own internal class system and were expected to be celibate and to refrain from alcohol. Failure to do so would result in serious punishment or death. The tecuhtli included landowners, judges, and military commanders. Nobles were entitled to receive tribute from commoners in the form of goods, services, and labor. Noble status was passed on through male and female lineages, and only nobles were permitted to display their wealth by wearing decorated capes and jewelry.

The commoner class consisted of farmers, artisans, merchants, and low-level priests. Artisans and traveling merchants enjoyed the greatest amount of wealth and prestige within this class, and had their own self-governing trade guilds. Commoners generally resided in calpulli (also referred to as calpolli), or neighborhood wards, which were led by a single nobleman and a council of commoner elders.

The Aztecs additionally had landless serfs and slaves. Serfs worked land that was owned by nobles and did not live in the calpulli. Individuals became slaves (tlacotin) as a form of punishment for certain crimes or for failure to pay tribute. Prisoners of war who were not used as human sacrifices became slaves. An individual could voluntarily sell himself or his children into slavery to pay back a debt (the latter required permission of the court). Slaves had the right to marry, to have children, to substitute another individual in their place, and to buy their freedom. Slaveowners were responsible for housing and feeding their slaves, and slaves generally could not be resold. They were usually freed when their owners died, and could also gain their freedom by marrying their owner. Aztecs were not born slaves and could not inherit this status from their parents.

Women had limited leadership roles within the Aztec empire. There is evidence that they had administrative roles in the calpulli and markets, and also worked as midwives and priestesses. However, the top administrative positions were limited to men, and women were not permitted to serve as warriors.

All Aztec children attended school, though their curricula varied by gender and social class. Each calpulli had a school for commoner children known as a telpochcalli. The purpose of the telpochcalli was to train young men to be warriors, and boys generally began their training at the age of 15. Noble children and exceptionally gifted commoner children attended the calmecac schools, where they received training to become priests and government officials. While military training was provided, the calmecac offered more academic opportunities than the telpochcalli. Children typically began attending the calmecac between the ages of 6 and 13. The schools imposed harsh punishments on their students for misbehavior and the calmecac were especially strict because noble children were held to a higher standard than commoner children.
Sources: Aguilar-Moreno (2006), Avalos (1994), Carter (1964), Kellogg (1995), Smith (2003), and Seus (1969). Image Information: Top Image - Aztec Slave market (Sahagún, Historia...de Nueva España). Middle Image - Aztec traveling merchant selling his wares(Sahagún, Historia...de Nueva España). Bottom Image - Aztec students being disciplined by their teachers at school (Codex Mendoza).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Tarlton Law Library: Exhibit - Aztec and Maya Law: Aztec Social Structure

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Aztecs followed a strict social hierarchy in which individuals were identified as nobles (pipiltin), commoners (macehualtin), serfs, or slaves. The noble class consisted of government and military leaders, high level priests, and lords (tecuhtli). Priests had their own internal class system and were expected to be celibate and to refrain from alcohol.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Maya calendar is a system of three interlacing calendars and almanacs which was used by several cultures in Central America, most famously the Maya civilization.

©iStockphoto.com/luisrsphoto

The 2012 Phenomenon

The Mayan calendar rose to fame in 2012, when a "Great Cycle" of its Long Count component came to an end, inspiring some to believe that the world would end at 11:11 UTC on December 21, 2012. The media hype and hysteria that ensued was later termed the 2012 phenomenon.

Of course, the predictions did not come true-just like hundreds of other doomsday prophecies that fizzled out in the past.

Not a Mayan Invention

The Mayan calendar dates back to at least the 5th century BCE and it is still in use in some Mayan communities today. However, even though the Mayans contributed to the further development of the calendar, they did not actually invent it. The same system was used by most cultures in pre-Columbian Central America-including those predating the Maya.

Wheels Working Together

The Mayan Calendar consists of three separate corresponding calendars: the Long Count, the Tzolkin (divine calendar), and the Haab (civil calendar). Each of them is cyclical, meaning that a certain number of days must occur before a new cycle can begin.

The three calendars are used simultaneously. The Tzolkin and the Haab identify the days, but not the years. The Long Count date comes first, then the Tzolkin date, and last the Haab date. A typical Mayan date would read: 13.0.0.0.0 4 Ahau 8 Kumku, where 13.0.0.0.0 is the Long Count date, 4 Ahau is the Tzolkin date, and 8 Kumku is the Haab date.

The Haab

The Haab is a 365-day solar calendar which is divided into 18 months of 20 days each and one month which is only 5 days long ( Uayeb). The calendar has an outer ring of Mayan glyphs (pictures) which represent each of the 19 months. Each day is represented by a number in the month followed by the name of the month. Each glyph represents a personality associated with the month.

The Haab is somewhat inaccurate as it is exactly 365 days long. An actual tropical or solar year, the time it takes Earth to orbit the Sun, takes about 365.24219 days on average. In today's Gregorian calendar, we adjust for this discrepancy by making almost every fourth year a leap year, when an extra day- a leap day-is added on the 29th of February.

The Tzolkin

The Tzolkin, meaning "the distribution of the days," is also called the Divine Calendar and the Sacred Round. It is a 260-day calendar with 20 periods of 13 days, and it is used to determine the time of religious and ceremonial events. The days in each period are numbered from 1 to 13. Each day is also given a name (glyph) from a sequence of 20 day names.

The Long Count

The Long Count is an astronomical calendar which is used to track longer periods of time. The Maya called it the "universal cycle." Each such cycle is calculated to be 2,880,000 days long (about 7885 solar years). The Mayans believed that the universe is destroyed and then recreated at the start of each universal cycle. This belief caused the 2012 phenomenon described above, and it still inspires a myriad of prophecies about the end of the world.

The "creation date" for the current cycle is 4 Ahau, 8 Kumku. According to the most common conversion, this date is equivalent to August 11, 3114 BCE in the Gregorian calendar and September 6, 3114 BCE in the Julian calendar.

How to Set the Date

A date in the Mayan calendar is specified by its position in both the Tzolkin and the Haab calendars. This creates a total of 18,980 unique date combinations, which are used to identify each day within a cycle lasting about 52 years. This period is called the Calendar Round.

In practice, the date combinations are represented by two wheels rotating in different directions. The smallest wheel consists of 260 teeth with each one having the name of the days of the Tzolkin. The larger wheel consists of 365 teeth and has the name of each of the positions of the Haab year. As both wheels rotate, the name of the Tzolkin day corresponds to each Haab position.

The date is further identified by counting the number of days from the "creation date", using the Long Count calendar. A typical Long Count date has the following format: Baktun.Katun.Tun.Uinal.Kin.

The kin, tun, and katun are numbered from 0 to 19; the uinal are numbered from 0 to 17; and the baktun are numbered from 1 to 13. The Long Count has a cycle of 13 baktuns, which will be completed 1.872.000 days (13 baktuns) after 0.0.0.0.0. This period equals 5125.36 years and is referred to as the Great Cycle of the Long Count.

Mayan Culture Today

The Maya still form sizable populations that include regions encompassing present-day Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, and parts of Mexico. They maintain a distinctive set of traditions and beliefs, which was inspired by a combination of pre-Columbian and post-conquest ideas and cultures.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Maya calendar is a system of three interlacing calendars and almanacs which was used by several cultures in Central America, most famously the Maya civilization. The Mayan calendar rose to fame in 2012, when a "Great Cycle" of its Long Count component came to an end, inspiring some to believe that the world would end at 11:11 UTC on December 21, 2012.

# data[].attributes.body
Ghosts in Ancient China

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Ghost stories were the earliest form of literature in ancient China. They were almost certainly part of a very old oral tradition before writing developed during the Shang Dynasty (1600 - 1046 BCE) and they continue to be popular in China today. Ghosts were taken very seriously by the ancient Chinese. In modern-day China, ghosts only have power to harm if one believes in them, but in ancient China, they were a reality whether one believed in them or laughed them off.

When a person died their soul journeyed across a bridge to the afterlife. They were judged as worthy or unworthy on this crossing; if they had lived a good life, they continued on, or if they had done evil, they fell from the bridge into hell. If they reached the other side, they were either reincarnated or went on to live with the gods depending on one's beliefs. Buddhists, for example, believed that people were more often reincarnated while Confucians believed that the ancestors dwelt with the gods and could be prayed to for assistance or protection. The first step in this journey after death was one's burial and funeral service, and if this was not done right, the soul of the deceased would return to earth to haunt the living.

The Importance of Proper Burial

In China, the ground under the earth was considered the property of the gods. Cemeteries were located outside of towns and cities in rural areas and there were earth spirits there known as Tudi Gong as there were anywhere else. One could not just go and dig a grave without first honoring the gods and local spirits and purchasing the land from them.

The relatives of the deceased would choose a spot and then write up a legal contract purchasing that plot from the gods and spirits. This contract cited "the dead person's name, titles, and date of death; the exact dimensions of the plot, the price paid for the land...and signatures of witnesses" (Benn, 271). They placed the document in the grave and then honored it by paying a certain amount of cash. Since physical currency was of no use in the afterlife, people would purchase sheets of paper, cut out a certain amount of "bills" from it, write denominations on them, and burn them at the grave. Once all this was accomplished and signs were received that it was acceptable, the person could be buried.

Since it was hoped the dead person's soul would pass over the bridge to the land of the gods, grave goods were included in the burial, which consisted of favorite objects and food. The dead then had to be mourned for an appropriate amount of time. For parents and grandparents the minimum was three years during which one had to wear special mourning clothing, could not attend parties, listen to or play music, and, in the case of government positions, go to work. Government officials had to resign for three years when a parent or grandparent died, and failure to report a death to the authorities carried a penalty of exile or hard labor. These rules and many others applied to royalty as well as to the peasant class and if any of these steps was not done properly, or was ignored, the soul of the deceased would return to earth.

The Parts of the Soul

There were two parts to the soul: the po and the . The po was the yin aspect of the soul associated with darkness, water, and earth. Scholar Charles Benn writes, "It was the governor of the physical nature of man and gave form to the fetus in the womb. The po was the animal nature of man, instincts and urges that first became apparent after birth when the behavior of an infant was clearly centered on the fulfillment of its self-centered needs" (276-277).

The hun was the yang aspect of the soul associated with light, fire, and the heavens. Benn writes, "It governed the intelligence of man. At birth it was weak, but evolved and strengthened as the child's reason developed, especially after the age of six, when education began. It reached full maturity at the age of twenty, but did not fully perfect itself until the age of fifty" (278). These two parts of the soul worked together to make life possible for a person. The hun (reason) governed the po (instinct) but the hun needed the po in order to survive. After death, these two aspects could return to cause problems for the living if proper burial rites had not been observed or for other reasons such as unfinished business, a vow taken, to right a wrong, or just to visit.

Po & Hun Hauntings

After death, the two aspects of the soul could return to cause problems for the living if proper burial rites had not been observed or for other reasons such as unfinished business, a vow taken, to right a wrong, or just to visit.

Stories of ghosts haunting a house where they once lived, haunting relatives, or appearing to strangers for help are all examples of po hauntings. The yin spirit is still attached to the earth because proper rituals were not observed to release it. One of the best-known stories of this type is about the ghost of a young girl who visits the home of some brothers. The spirit was so irritating they caught it, put it in a bag, and threw it down a well. The next night it came back carrying the bag and haunted them again. They stuffed it back into the bag, tied a rock to it, and threw it in the river. The next night, though, the little girl came back and, this time, the brothers put her into a hollowed-out log, which they capped on each end, and set adrift on the river. The spirit thanked them for a proper burial and never bothered them again.

Hun hauntings were different because the hun was not as attached to the body. Stories about spiritual possession, ghosts appearing as though they were still living, or ghosts taking revenge on the living are examples of hun hauntings. Since the hun was the rational part of a person, their personality, it was also thought to be the part of the person affected by illness in life, and the "astral self" who would appear to others in dreams after death.

Charles Benn gives examples of these kinds of stories citing one where a teacher named Tan fell ill and began to die. In a dream, he saw a figure standing in a robe telling him, "I am returning your soul to you" and throwing orange robes at him. The next morning he recovered from the sickness" (278). The orange robes symbolized the "clothing" of the soul, the unique aspect of it, which was the hun.

In another story, two friends, Gao and Liu, make a pact that whoever died first would return to tell the other what the afterlife is like. Some months after Liu died, Gao heard a knock at his door one night and the voice of his friend requesting he douse his lamps and let him in so they could speak in the dark. As they were talking, Gao was disturbed by the smell of a rotting corpse and found that Liu's hun had possessed the body of a barbarian who had been dead seven days.

Another tale, emphasizing the importance of keeping one's word, tells of Marshal Li who wanted to marry a young girl but was refused by her mother. Li had to have her, though, and he vowed he would never marry if he could not marry her. He proved himself so devoted and persistent that the mother let him marry her daughter, and he swore to be faithful forever. After a few years, the girl died and only one year later Li arranged to marry someone else. Just before his marriage, when he was soaking in his bath, the hun of his first wife appeared reminding him how he had promised that he would never marry anyone else. She sprinkled herbs into his bath and vanished. Li began to feel soft and weak and so bloated he could not move. He died in the bathtub and when he was found his bones and tendons had dissolved (Benn, 280). In addition to the importance of keeping one's word, this tale emphasized how one should always observe a proper period of mourning.

Types of Ghosts

The po and the hun, when they returned to haunt the living, were generally known as guei (also as kuei, kui, or gui). Improper burial was the chief reason for their return but they could also seek revenge or ask for help in righting a wrong they had done or one which they had suffered. In one story, the mother of a man died, and after all the proper rituals were observed at her burial, returned to haunt him. In this case, grave robbers had broken into her tomb and defiled her body and she needed her son to apprehend and punish them. After he did as she asked, she was not seen again.

A particularly dangerous ghost was the shui gui (water ghost) which was the spirit of someone who drowned and whose body was never recovered or honored with a proper burial. The shui guihaunted the waters where they died and lured people in to drown them. After their victim was dead, the shui gui could move on but the victim's spirit took its place and waited for the next person who could be caught off-guard. Talismans and amulets were worn to protect one from a shui gui when going near water or swimming.

The jiangshi was a kind of zombie ghost (the name means "stiff body") who steals the breath from a person. Benn writes how "the Chinese believed that breath, qi, was the vital energy on which life depended" and these spirits sought to steal that away for themselves (265). The jiangshi would continue to pursue a person until their breath was taken, but because this spirit was already in the land of the dead, it could not return to life, and because it continued stealing the breath of life from others, it could not move on. Jiangshi are also known as "hopping ghosts" because their spirit bodies are so stiff they seem to hop instead of walk. They are predatory ghosts who had to be warded off by charms and spells.

Belief in this type of ghost especially, but also others, had a significant impact on Chinese culture as seen in a number of aspects. The false front or "shadow wall" just outside the front doors of Chinese houses originated to fool such ghosts who would be unable to find the actual front door. Ghosts, and especially the jiangshi, were thought to only be able to travel in straight lines, and this is why roads in China are always curvy: so that the ghosts cannot haunt them. Accidents on roads in China are frequently attributed to ghosts. Drivers will claim that a ghost stepped in front of their car, and they swerved to avoid it.

The protector gods known as m enshen were also invoked. The menshen were the gods of peaceful sleep who were often painted on either side of a doorway to guard against evil demons or ghosts. Dogs were a great protection against ghosts of all kinds but especially the jiangshi. Dogs were once killed and buried in front of a house so their spirit could ward off ghosts. Eventually, people began using straw dogs for this, and that evolved into the use of dog statues. Even in modern-day China one will find dog statues outside the front door of a home.

Human beings were not the only creatures who had souls which could return or demand justice from beyond the grave; dogs and cats and other animals could as well. In one famous story, a man named Coffin Head Li was a bully who killed cats and dogs. One day he was approached by two men who identified themselves as ghosts and told him that a case had been made against him in the afterlife by the souls of 460 cats and dogs. Coffin Head Li was found guilty and taken away.

Another type of ghost was the nu gui, the spirit of a woman who was abused in life and, usually, murdered. She haunted the house or place where she was killed seeking justice. The nu gui could act like a succubus and draw the hun aspect from the soul of men, killing them. They would only scare women but always killed men.

There were also the kuei-shen (nature demons) who were spirits of the earth. These were not necessarily the same kind of spirit as the Tudi Gong (earth spirits). Kuei-shen spirits were like the Tudi Gong because they had never been human beings and were immortal but they were not bound to a specific place and they were usually thought to be mischevious or evil. They were not considered as bad as the oni though. The oni were evil spirits who could possess a person, lead a person astray, possess a home, and bring all kinds of troubles to people. Oni may have been human beings once or may be eternal spirits. One example of an oni is the spirit-type known as b This is the spirit of a person who was addicted to gambling in life and dies (or commits suicide) before paying off debts. The person then becomes a ba jiao gui, an extremely ugly spirit, who haunts others.

The most famous type of ghost in China is the hungry ghost. This type emerged sometime after the first century CE when Buddhism came to China and was originally a Buddhist belief in India. Hungry ghosts are the spirits of people who always wanted more than they had, were never grateful for what they were given, and cannot find peace in the afterlife any more than they could when they lived. They are often depicted as people with enormous stomachs but tiny mouths and necks which no amount of food could ever fill. Hungry ghosts can appear as living people to ask for food and, if one does not give them any, they can curse the person and bring disaster on one's home and loved ones. The term "hungry ghosts" always applies to this type of spirit but all ghosts were thought to be hungry in the afterlife and rituals developed to keep them fed and happy.

Views of Ghosts & Practices

The reality of ghosts like these gave rise to practices and rituals to protect people from them. The best defense against such ghosts was to live an exemplary life, and this was why ghost stories were (and are) so often told to children: they express cultural values and encourage people to be kind and courteous to each other. If one did not want to be killed by a nu gui one day, one should not abuse women who would become one, nor should one let one's self be abused. If one went swimming, one should be careful of safety so as not to drown and become a shui gui. Proper respect should be given to one's elders, superiors, and ancestors in life so that they would not feel wronged after death and one should always keep one's word to others. Most importantly, proper burial practices should always be observed, no matter how much cost or trouble they required.

A ritual still observed in China today is Tomb Sweeping Day during the Qingming Festival which usually falls around the 4th of April. Even if one has neglected the graves of one's parents, relatives, or friends all year, one will go tend those graves on Tomb Sweeping Day and pay respects. The Ghost Festival is also still observed. This celebration, also known as The Hungry Ghost Festival, appeases the souls of the dead so they will not bother the living. This takes place during Ghost Month in China on the fifteenth day of the seventh month (in 2016 it will fall on 17 August) when it is thought that the curtain between the land of the dead and the land of the living is drawn aside and the dead can cross back over.

Celebrations and Rituals of Ghost Month

There are a great many rituals and taboos one must keep in mind during Ghost Month and especially during the festival. One should not sit in the front rows at the theater because those are the seats the ghosts want and they will be offended. One should not place one's shoes or sandals facing the bed because ghosts will take that as an invitation to sleep with the person. One should not stay out too late or a ghost may follow one home (this is most often said by parents to their teenage children). No one should go swimming because the shui gui are stronger and more numerous during this time. Any kind of home renovation or construction should be avoided because the noise bothers the ghosts, and this also goes for wearing high-heeled shoes. Women wearing high-heels run the risk of being possessed by an angry spirit. Freshly-washed clothes should not be hung up toward evening because ghosts will try them on, and this brings bad luck to whoever wears them next.

The taboos go on and cover almost any kind of circumstance one could imagine from not urinating outside (because one might be "going on" someone one cannot see) to leaving an umbrella open on one's porch (because a ghost may decide to rest under it and then take up residence). These rituals have a very long history and were observed as much as they could be even during the time when the Communist Party of China banned religion and religious practices c. 1949-1979 CE.

Celebrations of the Ghost Festival include public altars and parades where food is thrown into the air. The ghosts are thought to be hungry and so food is provided for them in homes and also in public places. Altars of fresh fruit and sweet cakes are set up on city streets and town squares. In the past, and still in the present day, incense is burned in front of homes in remembrance of one's ancestors and to give a pleasing scent to the spirits as they walk by.

Many shops in towns, and even cities, close during the festival so that the ghosts will not be disturbed by living shoppers. As the festival ends, people light small lotus lanterns which they place on paper boats and send off on the water of streams, lakes, or rivers. The lanterns let the ghosts know that their time of visiting with the living is over and they have to return to the underworld. The ghosts are thought to be attracted by the lanterns and will follow them back home to the afterlife. When the lantern goes out, it is a sign that the ghost following it has reached the other side and is at peace.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ghost stories were the earliest form of literature in ancient China. They were almost certainly part of a very old oral tradition before writing developed during the Shang Dynasty (1600 - 1046 BCE) and they continue to be popular in China today. Ghosts were taken very seriously by the ancient Chinese.

# data[].attributes.headline
9 things ancient Sumerians did that may change the world. History

# data[].attributes.subject
9 things ancient Sumerians did that may change the world. History

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
1. One of the larger Sumerian cities may have had 80,000 residents.

The origins of Sumerian civilization in Mesopotamia are still debated today, but archaeological evidence indicates that they established roughly a dozen city-states by the fourth millennium B.C. These usually consisted of a walled metropolis dominated by a ziggurat-the tiered, pyramid-like temples associated with the Sumerian religion.

Homes were constructed from bundled marsh reeds or mud bricks, and complex irrigation canals were dug to harness the silt-laden waters of the Tigris and Euphrates for farming. Major Sumerian city-states included Eridu, Ur, Nippur, Lagash, and Kish, but one of the oldest and most sprawling was Uruk, a thriving trading hub that boasted six miles of defensive walls and a population of between 40,000 and 80,000.

At its peak around 2800 B.C., it was most likely the largest city in the world.

2. The list of Sumerian rulers includes one woman.

One of the greatest sources of information on ancient Mesopotamia is the so-called "King List," a clay tablet that documents the names of most of the ancient rulers of Sumer as well as the lengths of their reigns. The list is a strange blend of historical fact and myth-one early king is said to have lived for 43,200 years-but it also includes Sumer's lone female monarch in the form of Kubaba, a "woman tavern-keeper" who supposedly took the throne in the city-state of Kish sometime around 2500 B.C.

Very little is known about Kubaba's reign or how she came to power, but the list credits her with making "firm the foundations of Kish" and forging a dynasty that lasted 100 years.

3. The Sumerian city-states were often at war with one another.

Even though they shared a common language and cultural traditions, the Sumerian city-states engaged in near-constant wars that resulted in several different dynasties and kingships. The first of these conflicts known to history concerns King Eannatum of Lagash, who defeated the rival city-state of Umma in a border dispute sometime around 2450 B.C.

To commemorate his victory, Eannatum constructed the so-called "Stele of the Vultures," a grisly limestone monument that depicts birds feasting on the flesh of his fallen enemies. Under Eannatum, Lagash went on to conquer the whole of Sumer, but it was just one of several city-states that held sway over Mesopotamia during its history.

The infighting led to several military advancements-the Sumerians may have invented the phalanx formation and siege warfare-but it also left them vulnerable to invasions by outside forces. During the latter stages of their history, they were attacked or conquered by the Elamites, Akkadians and Gutians.

4. The Sumerians were famously fond of beer.

Along with inventing writing, the plow, law codes, and literature, the Sumerians are also remembered as some of history's original brewers. Archaeologists have found evidence of Mesopotamian beer-making dating back to the fourth millennium B.C.

The brewing techniques they used are still a mystery, but their preferred ale seems to have been a barley-based concoction so thick that it had to be sipped through a special kind of filtration straw. The Sumerians prized their beer for its nutrient-rich ingredients and hailed it as the key to a "joyful heart and a contented liver."

There was even a Sumerian goddess of brewing called "Ninkasi," who is celebrated in a famous hymn as the "one who waters the malt set on the ground."

5. Cuneiform writing was used for over 3,000 years.

The Sumerian invention of cuneiform-a Latin term literally meaning "wedge-shaped"- dates to sometime around 3400 B.C. In its most sophisticated form, it consisted of several hundred characters that ancient scribes used to write words or syllables on wet clay tablets with a reed stylus. The tablets were then baked or left in the sun to harden.

The Sumerians seem to have first developed cuneiform for the mundane purposes of keeping accounts and records of business transactions, but over time it blossomed into a full-fledged writing system used for everything from poetry and history to law codes and literature. Since the script could be adapted to multiple languages, it was later used over the course of several millennia by more than a dozen different cultures.

In fact, archaeologists have found evidence that Near East astronomical texts were still being written in cuneiform as recently as the first century A.D.

6. The Sumerians were well-traveled trade merchants.

Since their homeland was largely devoid of timber, stone, and minerals, the Sumerians were forced to create one of history's earliest trade networks over both land and sea. Their most important commercial partner may have been the island of Dilmun (present-day Bahrain), which held a monopoly on the copper trade, but their merchants also undertook months-long journeys to Anatolia and Lebanon to gather cedar wood and to Oman and the Indus Valley for gold and gemstones.

The Sumerians were particularly fond of lapis lazuli-a blue-colored precious stone used in art and jewelry-and there is evidence that they may have roamed as far as Afghanistan to obtain it. Historians have also suggested that Sumerian references to two ancient trading lands known as "Magan" and "Meluhha" may refer to Egypt and Ethiopia.

7. The hero of the Epic of Gilgamesh was probably a real Sumerian historical figure.

One of the crowning achievements of Mesopotamian literature is the "Epic of Gilgamesh," a 3,000-line poem that follows the adventures of a Sumerian king as he battles a forest monster and quests after the secret of eternal life. While the poem's hero is a demigod with Hercules-like strength, most scholars believe he is based on an actual king who served as the fifth ruler of the city of Uruk.

The historical Gilgamesh appears on the Sumerian "King List" and is thought to have lived sometime around 2700 B.C. Few contemporary accounts of his reign have survived to today, but archaeologists have found inscriptions that credit him with building Uruk's massive defensive walls and restoring a temple to the goddess Ninhil. This suggests that he may have been a real ruler whose deeds were later repurposed as myth.

8. Sumerian mathematics and measurements are still used today.

The origins of the sixty-second minute and sixty-minute hour can be traced all the way back to ancient Mesopotamia. In the same way that modern mathematics is a decimal system based on the number ten, the Sumerians mainly used a sexigesimal structure that was based around groupings of 60. This easily divisible number system was later adopted by the ancient Babylonians, who used it to make astronomical calculations on the lengths of the months and the year.

Base-60 eventually fell out of use, but its legacy still lives on in the measurements of both the hour and the minute. The division of time into 60 units per hour and 60 seconds per minute can be attributed to this ancient system. Other remnants of the Sumerian sexigesimal system have also survived in the form of spatial measurements, such as the division of a circle into 360 degrees and the use of 12 inches in a foot.

9. Sumerian culture was lost to history until the 19th century.

After Mesopotamia was occupied by the Amorites and Babylonians in the early second millennium B.C., the Sumerians gradually lost their cultural identity and ceased to exist as a political force. All knowledge of their history, language, and technology-even their name-was eventually forgotten. Their secrets remained buried in the deserts of Iraq until the 19th century when French and British archaeologists finally stumbled upon Sumerian artifacts while hunting for evidence of the ancient Assyrians.

Scholars such as Henry Rawlinson, Edward Hincks, Julius Oppert, and Paul Haupt later took the lead in deciphering the Sumerian language and cuneiform, providing historians with their first-ever glimpse of the long-lost history and literature of early Mesopotamia. The decipherment of Sumerian cuneiform opened the door to a wealth of information that had been locked away for millennia.

Since then, archaeologists have recovered numerous pieces of Sumerian art, pottery, and sculpture, as well as an astonishing number of clay tablets, estimated to be around 500,000 in total. However, the vast majority of these clay tablets have yet to be fully translated and studied, holding the potential for even more insights into the Sumerian civilization.

The exploration and ongoing study of Sumerian artifacts and texts continue to shed light on this ancient civilization and its significant contributions to human history.

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
9 Things You May Not Know About the Ancient Sumerians | HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Check out nine fascinating facts about one of the earliest sophisticated civilizations known to history.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sumer Timeline - Ancient History Encyclopedia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Search through the entire ancient history timeline. Specify between which dates you want to search, and what keywords you are looking for.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
From Henry VIII to Winston Churchill, find out about Britain's history with BBC programmes, timelines and games.

# data[].attributes.headline
Woodcutters and Warriors, Farmers and Feather Workers: Aztec Trades and Occupations

# data[].attributes.subject
Woodcutters and Warriors, Farmers and Feather Workers: Aztec Trades and Occupations

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
As with everything else in Aztec society, a person's trade or occupation depended on their status in society. The lower classes did most of the manual labor involved in farming and building, keeping up the roads and streets, growing the cities' food in the terraces and chinampas. The next layer of society provided the artisans: jewelry makers, stone workers, feather workers and potters. Above them were the healers and scribes. Merchants, long distance traders known as the pochteca, were in a class of their own, just under the nobles. Priests and warriors were generally of the noble class, as were officials in the Aztec government. At the top, of course, was the king or emperor.

Farmers and Fur Traders

Many commoners worked in agriculture, either working the chinampas or on the farther-flung fields and terraces used to grow the empire's staple crops. The chinampas were an Aztec method of intensive gardening using raised beds the farmers created in the shallows of Lake Texcoco. Other commoners were hunters or fishermen, most of them living in the countryside but sending their goods to the central market.

Many jobs and specialties were involved in running the Aztec cities: pyramid builders, construction trades, road builders, tanners, dyers, porters, miners and quarrymen. All these trades were needed to keep the cities and empire running smooth. These were honorable occupations, although all required hard work.

Artisans

Many artisans got their start young; their families were metal workers or jewelry makers so that is what the boys and girls learned to do. Other commoner boys and girls were particularly skilled. When this was noticed by their parents, they were sent for special training in that art. Sometimes entire villages focused on a particular art or trade: stone carving or feather working. Many calpulli, clans or guilds of interrelated families, focused on a particular trade or art.

Healers and Scribes

Healers specialized in various aspects of the healing arts. Some collected plants and herbs from out in rural areas. Others sold the herbs in the market and other still compounded the medicines used in Aztec healing. Some specialized in bonesetting, others in the digestive tract. Women and girls were trained as midwives.

Aztec scribes generally worked for the government or the pochteca. They wrote the intricate codices that encapsulated Aztec life. They kept track of the tribute paid to the emperor and of the pochteca's travels and trades.

Priests and Warriors

All Aztec boys received military training. A boy who proved himself fighting might be sent on to the army for special training and from there become a warrior. At the top of the warrior class were those who had captured many enemy warriors for the sacrifices. These became jaguar and eagle warriors and they received land and the rank of noble from the emperor.

Priests also received special training in writing, theology, the calendar and rituals. Since religion ruled every aspect of an Aztec's life, priests were extremely important to the empire. They were trained in astronomy and the cosmos so they could decide the timing of important rituals and the human sacrifices that were central to Aztec life.
This article is part of our larger resource on Aztec civilization. For a comprehensive overview of the Aztec Empire, including its military, religion, and agriculture, click here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Woodcutters and Warriors, Farmers and Feather Workers: Aztec Trades and Occupations - History

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As with everything else in Aztec society, a person's trade or occupation depended on their status in society. The lower classes did most of the manual labor involved in farming and building, keeping up the roads and streets, growing the cities' food in the terraces and chinampas.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This page collects maps of major Chinese dynasties in Chinese history. All these maps can be enlarged. China Highlights' culture tours take travelers to the highlights of China's imperial monuments, helping them dig deep into local history and culture.

China History Map by Dynasty

Related Reading

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This page collects maps of major Chinese dynasties in Chinese history. All these maps can be enlarged. China Highlights' culture tours take travelers to the highlights of China's imperial monuments, helping them dig deep into local history and culture.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Mayan civilization was one of the most famous and mysterious Mesoamerican civilization. The Mayan civilization was known well for the only fully developed written language along with its exquisite architecture, mathematical, artistic and astronomical systems. The ancient Mayan social hierarchy structure may be briefly stated as follows. The top of the ladder was constituted by priests and kings along with royal families who lived in the palaces. Then were the wealthy nobles placed on the second level. Commoners and officers were at the next level in the hierarchy. The bottom of ladder incorporated the servants and workers. In the end were slave who lived a miserable life. The ancient Mayan hierarchy structure is described below in brief with a little description.

Upper Class - The people who were considered superior to other people were categorized in the upper class and it included king, priests and nobles that are described as below:

Kings - The highest power and authority holder in the ancient Mayan social hierarchy structure was the king. These people were considered son of the god and everyone was required to obey the king without any doubt in the mind. The order of the king's was divine order and no one was allowed to deceive that order.

Priests - The next rank in the ladder of ancient Mayan social hierarchy structure is of priests. Religion played a significant and crucial role in the society of Mayans. Majorly all walks of life were regulated by the religion. That is why it was accepted that the priests were considered to be the most important out of all the people. Only they possessed the right to intervene in the decisions of the king.

Nobles - The nobles acquired this position on hereditary basis and assisted the Kings with major decision-making process. The noble class was small in number but very powerful.

Middle Class - The middle class as the name implies lies lower to upper class and is described as below:
Officers and Commoners - This group made the middle class within the ancient Mayan society. This class was made of professionals, officials, bureaucrats, merchants and artisans.

Lower Class - The lowest class of the ancient Mayan social hierarchy structure incorporates workers, slaves and servants. These are described below -

Workers and Servants - This was the lowest category in the ancient Mayan social hierarchy structure since slaves were not even considered a part of the social system. These people worked for the upper class for performing their day-to-day work which was considered unimportant by the society.

Slaves - The people who possessed zero rights, power and authority and were forced to lead a miserable life were slaves. These were bought servants who were treated like animals. They were to work only under the orders of their owners. These poor people were not even allowed to defend themselves in case they got beaten up by their owner.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Ancient Mayan Social Structure Hierarchy | Hierarchy Structure

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Mayan civilization was one of the most famous and mysterious Mesoamerican civilization. The Mayan civilization was known well for the only fully developed written language along with its exquisite architecture, mathematical, artistic and astronomical systems. The ancient Mayan social hierarchy structure may be briefly stated as follows.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
With between 166 and 250 named gods, the Mayans had a complex and changeable pantheon. They had gods to oversee every human action and aspect of life: gods for birth and death, for the ball game and gambling, for travel and traders, for pregnant women and infants, for youth, age, health and suicide, for wild nature and for agriculture, a god of maize and of thunder, creator gods and gods of destruction, death gods and gods of heaven. All of these gods were changeable as well. They could be one sex or both, young and old, good but sometimes evil, depending on the time and circumstance.

Because of the complexity, it is unlikely that modern minds could fully grasp the Mayan religion and pantheon. However, scholars have deciphered enough of the Mayan codices and hieroglyphics to cite the major Mayan gods. These gods are listed below, but the list is not comprehensive by any means.

Itzamna

Itzamna is a creator god, one of the gods involved in creating human beings and father of the Bacabs, who upheld the corners of the world. Itzamna taught humans the crafts of writing and medicine. Itzamna is sometimes identified with the high god Hunab Ku and the sun god Kinich Ahau.

Yum Kaax

A nature god, Yum Kaax is the god of wild plants and animals, the god of the woods. He is the god venerated by hunters and by farmers, who hunt wild animals or carve their fields out of his forest.

Maize God

The Mayans had both a female and a male maize god and both a simple vegetative god and a more powerful, tonsured male maize god. The tonsured maize god personifies maize, cacao beans and jade. He is a patron god of the scribal arts, dancing and feasting. Mayan kings often dressed as the maize god during rituals of his life, death and regeneration.

Hunab Ku

Hunab Ku is a pre-Columbian god whose name translates as the only God or the one God. Scholars are still debating whether Hunab Ku is an indigenous god or a creation of the Spanish. Most think he is indigenous. The Spanish focused on Hunab Ku in persuading the Mayans of the core belief of Christianity.

Kinich Ahau

Kinich Ahau is the sun god of the Mayans, sometimes associated with or an aspect of Itzamna. During the Classic period, Kinich Ahau was used as a royal title, carrying the idea of the divine king. He is also known in the Mayan codices as God G and is shown in many carvings on Mayan pyramids.

Ix Chel

Ix Chel is the goddess of medicine and midwifery, also known as the goddess of making children. She is represented as an aged woman.

Chaac

Chaac is the goggled-eyed rain god, of prime importance to the Mayans. Chaac has a four-fold aspect, with each aspect representing the cardinal directions and colors. Chaac brought clouds, thunder, lightning and most importantly, rain.

Kukulkan

Kukulkan is the feathered serpent god of the Mayans. Kukulkan was worshipped by other Mesoamerican cultures such as the Aztecs, where the god was known as Quetzalcoatl. A Mayan cult grew up around Kukulkan, the priests of which helped peaceful trade and communications among the Mayans. Human sacrifices were offered to Kukulkan.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Mayan Pantheon: Gods and Goddesses - History

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
With between 166 and 250 named gods, the Mayans had a complex and changeable pantheon. They had gods to oversee every human action and aspect of life: gods for birth and death, for the ball game and gambling, for travel and traders, for pregnant women and infants, for youth, age, health and suicide, for wild nature and for agriculture, a god of maize and of thunder, creator gods and gods of destruction, death gods and gods of heaven.

# data[].attributes.headline
An Introduction to Sumerian Art and Culture

# data[].attributes.subject
An Introduction to Sumerian Art and Culture

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
About 4000 BCE, Sumeria sprang up seemingly out of nowhere on part of the land known as the Fertile Crescent in the southern part of Mesopotamia, now called Iraq and Kuwait, countries that have been torn asunder by war in the past decades.

Mesopotamia, as the area was called in ancient times, means "land between the rivers" because it was located between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Mesopotamia was important to historians and archaeologists, and to the development of human civilization, long before it became known as Iraq and America became involved in the Persian Gulf War, for it is recognized as the Cradle of Civilization due to the many "fundamental firsts" of civilized societies that occurred there, inventions with which we still live.

The society of Sumeria was one of the first known advanced civilizations in the world and the first to thrive in southern Mesopotamia, lasting from about 3500 BCE to 2334 BCE when the Sumerians were conquered by the Akkadians from central Mesopotamia.

The Sumerians were inventive and skilled technologically. Sumer had highly advanced and well-developed arts, sciences, government, religion, social structure, infrastructure, and written language. The Sumerians were the first known civilization to use writing to record their thoughts and literature. Some of the other inventions of Sumeria included the wheel, a cornerstone of human civilization; widespread use of technology and infrastructure, including canals and irrigation; agriculture and mills; shipbuilding for travel into the Persian Gulf and the trade of textiles, leather goods, and jewelry for semi-precious stones and other things; astrology and cosmology; religion; ethics and philosophy; library catalogues; law codes; writing and literature; schools; medicine; beer; the measurement of time: 60 minutes in an hour and 60 seconds in a minute; brick technology; and major developments in art, architecture, city planning, and music.

Because the land of the fertile crescent was agriculturally productive, people did not have to devote themselves full-time to farming in order to survive, so they were able to have a variety of different vocations, including among them artists and craftsmen.

Sumeria was by no means ideal, though. It was the first to create a privileged ruling class, and there was great income disparity, greed and ambition, and enslavement. It was a patrilineal society in which women were second-class citizens.

Sumeria was made up of independent city-states, not all of whom got along all the time. These city-states had canals and walled settlements, varying in size, to provide irrigation and defense from their neighbors if necessary. They were governed as theocracies, each with its own priest and king, and patron god or goddess.

The existence of this ancient Sumerian culture was not known until archaeologists started to discover and unearth some of the treasures from this civilization in the 1800s. Many of the discoveries came from the city of Uruk, which is thought to be the first, and largest city. Others came from the Royal Tombs of Ur, one of the other largest and oldest of the cities.

CUNEIFORM WRITING

Sumerians created one of the first written scripts around 3000 BCE, called cuneiform, meaning wedge-shaped, for the wedge-shaped marks made from a single reed pressed into a soft clay tablet. The marks were arranged in wedge shapes numbering from two to up to 10 shapes per cuneiform character. Characters were generally horizontally arranged, although both horizontal and vertical were used. Cuneiform signs, similar to pictographs, most often represented a syllable, but could also represent a word, idea, or number, could be multiple combinations of vowels and consonants and could represent every oral sound made by humans.

Cuneiform script lasted for 2000 years, and across a range of languages in the Ancient Near East, until Phoenician script, from which our current alphabet stems, became dominant in the first millennium BCE The flexibility of cuneiform writing contributed to its longevity and enabled the passing down of recorded stories and techniques from generation to generation.

At first, cuneiform was used just for counting and accounting, motivated by the need for accuracy in long-distance trading between the merchants of Sumer and their agents abroad, as well as within the city-states themselves, but it evolved as grammar was added, to be used for letter writing and storytelling. In fact, one of the world's first great works of literature, an epic poem called "The Epic of Gilgamesh," was written in cuneiform.

Sumerians were polytheistic, meaning they worshipped many gods and goddesses, with the gods being anthropomorphic. Since the Sumerians believed that gods and human beings were co-partners, much of the writing was about the relationship of the rulers and the gods rather than about human accomplishments themselves. Therefore much of the early history of Sumer has been deduced from archaeological and geological record rather than from cuneiform writings themselves.

Sumerian Art and Architecture

Cities dotted the plains of Sumeria, each one dominated by a temple built for one of their human-like gods, on top of what were called ziggurats-large rectangular stepped towers in the centers of the cities that would have taken many years to build-similar to the pyramids of Egypt. However, the ziggurats were built of mud-brick made from the soil of Mesopotamia since stone was not readily available there. This made them much more impermanent and susceptible to the ravages of weather and time than the great Pyramids made of stone. Whereas not much remains of the ziggurats today, the Pyramids are still standing. They also differed greatly in design and purpose, with ziggurats being built to house the gods, and pyramids built as the final resting place for pharaohs. The Ziggurat at Ur is one of the most well-known, being the largest and best-preserved. It has been restored twice, but sustained further damage during the Iraq war.

Although the fertile crescent was hospitable to human habitation, the early humans faced many hardships including extremes in weather, and invasion by enemies and wild animals. Their abundant art depicts their relationship with nature as well as military battles and conquests, along with religious and mythological themes.

The artists and artisans were very skilled. Artifacts show great detail and ornamentation, with fine semi-precious stones imported from other countries, such as lapis lazuli, marble, and diorite, and precious metals such as hammered gold, incorporated into the design. Since stone was rare it was reserved for sculpture. Metals such as gold, silver, copper, and bronze, along with shells and gemstones, were used for the finest sculpture and inlays. Small stones of all kinds, including more precious stones such as lapis lazuli, alabaster, and serpentine, were used for cylinder seals.

Clay was the most abundant material and the clay soil provided the Sumerians with much of the material for their art including their pottery, terra-cotta sculpture, cuneiform tablets, and clay cylinder seals, used to securely mark documents or property. There was very little wood in the region, so they did not use much, and few wooden artifacts have been preserved.

Most of the art made was for religious purposes, with sculpture, pottery, and painting being the primary mediums of expression. Many portrait sculptures were produced during this time, such as the twenty-seven statues of the Sumerian king, Gudea, created during the Neo-Sumerian period after the two-century rule by the Akkadians.

Famous Works

Most of Sumerian art was excavated from graves, since Sumerians often buried their dead with their most coveted objects. There are many famous works from Ur and Uruk, two of the largest cities of Sumeria. Many of these works can be seen on the website Sumerian Shakespeare.

The Great Lyre from the Royal Tombs of Ur is one of the greatest treasures. It is a wooden lyre, invented by the Sumerians around 3200 BCE, with the head of a bull protruding from the front of the sound box, and is an example of the Sumerian's love of music and sculpture. The bull's head is made of gold, silver, lapis lazuli, shell, bitumen, and wood, while the sound box depicts mythological and religious scenes in gold and mosaic inlay. The bull lyre is one of three that was excavated from the royal cemetery of Ur and is about 13 inches high. Each lyre had a different animal head protruding from the front of the sound box to denote its pitch. The use of lapis lazuli and other rare semi-precious stones indicates that this was a luxury item.

The Golden Lyre of Ur, also called Bull's Lyre, is the finest lyre, the whole head made completely of gold. Unfortunately, this lyre was vandalized when the National Museum in Baghdad was looted in April 2003 during the Iraq War. However, the gold head was kept safe in a bank vault and an amazing replica of the lyre has been constructed over a number of years and is now part of a touring orchestra.

The Standard of Ur is one of the most significant works from the Royal Cemetery. It is made of wood inlaid with shell, lapis lazuli, and red limestone, and is approximately 8.5 inches high by 19.5 inches long. This small trapezoidal box has two sides, one panel known as the "war side," the other the "peace side." Each panel is in three registers. The bottom register of the "war side" shows different stages of the same story, showing the progression of a single war chariot defeating its enemy. The "peace side" represents the city in times of peace and prosperity, depicting the bounty of the land and a royal banquet.

What happened to sumeria?

What happened to this great civilization? What caused its demise? There is speculation that a 200-year drought 4,200 years ago may have caused its decline and the loss of the Sumerian language. There are no written accounts that specifically mention this, but according to findings presented at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union several years ago, there is archaeological and geological evidence that point to this, suggesting that human societies may be vulnerable to climate change. There is also an ancient Sumerian poem, Laments for Ur I and II, that tell the story of the destruction of the city, in which a storm is described "that annihilates the land...And lit on either flank of furious winds the searing heat of the desert."

Unfortunately, destruction of these ancient archaeological sites of Mesopotamia has been occurring since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and ancient artifacts consisting of "thousands of cuneiform-inscribed tablets, cylinder seals and stone statues have illegally made their way to the lucrative antiquities markets of London, Geneva, and New York. Irreplaceable artifacts have been purchased for less than $100 on Ebay," wrote Diane Tucker in HuffPost.

It is a sad end to a civilization to which the world owes much. Perhaps we can benefit from the lessons of its mistakes, flaws, and demise, as well as from those of its amazing rise and many accomplishments.

Resources and Further Reading

Andrews, Evan, 9 Things You May Not Know About Ancient Sumerian, history.com, 2015, http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/9-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-ancient-sumerians

History.com staff, Persian Gulf War, history.com, 2009, http://www.history.com/topics/persian-gulf-war

Mark, Joshua, Sumeria, Ancient History Encyclopedia, http://www.ancient.eu/sumer/)

Mesopotamia, The Sumerians, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lESEb2-V1Sg (Video)

Smitha, Frank E., Civilization in Mesopotamia, http://www.fsmitha.com/h1/ch01.htm

Sumerian Shakespeare, http://sumerianshakespeare.com/21101.html

Sumerian Art From the Royal Tombs of Ur, History Wiz, http://www.historywiz.com/exhibits/royaltombsofur.html

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
An Introduction to Sumerian Art and Culture

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
About 4000 BCE, Sumeria sprang up seemingly out of nowhere on part of the land known as the Fertile Crescent in the southern part of Mesopotamia, now called Iraq and Kuwait, countries that have been torn asunder by war in the past decades.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Religious practices in ancient China go back over 7,000 years. Long before the philosophical and spiritual teachings of Confucius and Lao-Tzu developed or before the teachings of the Buddha came to China, the people worshipped personifications of nature and then of concepts like "wealth" or "fortune" which developed into a religion. These beliefs still influence religious practices today. For example, the Tao te Ching of Taoism maintains that there is a universal force known as the Tao which flows through all things and binds all things but makes no mention of specific gods to be worshipped; still, modern Taoists in China (and elsewhere) worship many gods at private altars and in public ceremonies which originated in the country's ancient past.

Scholar Harold M. Tanner writes, "The gods, spirits, and ancestors could affect crops, the weather, childbirth, the king's health, warfare, and so on. It was, therefore, important to sacrifice to them" (43). The gods grew out of people's observance of natural phenomena which either frightened them and caused uncertainty or assured them of a benevolent world, which would protect them and help them succeed. As time passed, these beliefs became standardized and the gods were given names and personalities, and rituals developed to honor the deities. All of these practices were eventually standardized as "religion" in China just as similar beliefs and rituals were everywhere else in the ancient world.

Early Evidence of Religious Practice

In China, religious beliefs are evident in the Yangshao Culture of the Yellow River Valley, which prospered between 5000-3000 BCE. At the Neolithic site of Banpo Village in modern Shaanxi Province (dated to between c. 4500-3750 BCE) 250 tombs were found containing grave goods, which point to a belief in life after death. There is also a ritualistic pattern to how the dead were buried with tombs oriented west to east to symbolize death and rebirth. Grave goods provide evidence of specific people in the village who acted as priests and presided over some kind of divination and religious observance.

The Yangshao Culture was matrilineal, meaning women were dominant, so this religious figure would have been a woman based on the grave goods found. There is no evidence of any high-ranking males in the burials but a significant amount of females. Scholars believe that the early religious practices were also matrilineal and most likely animistic, where people worship personifications of nature, and usually feminine deities were benevolent and male deities malevolent, or at least more to be feared.

These practices continued with the Qijia Culture (c. 2200-1600 BCE) who inhabited the Upper Yellow River Valley but whose culture could have been patriarchal. Examinations of the Bronze Age site of Lajia Village in modern-day Qinghai Province (and elsewhere) have uncovered evidence of religious practices. Lajia Village is often referred to as the "Chinese Pompeii" because it was destroyed by an earthquake which caused a flood and the resulting mudslides buried the village intact. Among the artifacts uncovered was a bowl of noodles which scientists have examined and believe to be the oldest noodles in the world and precursors to China's staple dish "Long-Life Noodles". Even though not all scholars or archaeologists agree on China as the creator of the noodle, the finds at Lajia support the claim of religious practices there as early as c. 2200 BCE. There is evidence that the people worshipped a supreme god who was king of many other lesser deities.

Ghosts & Religion

By the time of the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BCE) these religious beliefs had developed so that now there was a definite "king of the gods" named Shangti and many lesser gods of other names. Shangti presided over all the important matters of state and was a very busy god. He was rarely sacrificed to because people were encouraged not to bother him with their problems. Ancestor worship may have begun at this time but, more likely, started much earlier.

Evidence of a strong belief in ghosts, in the form of amulets and charms, goes back to at least the Shang Dynasty and ghost stories are among the earliest form of Chinese literature. Ghosts (known as guei or kuei) were the spirits of deceased persons who had not been buried correctly with due honors or were still attached to the earth for other reasons. They were called by a number of names but in one form, jiangshi ("stiff body"), they appear as zombies. Ghosts played a very important role in Chinese religion and culture and still do. The ritual still practiced in China today known as Tomb Sweeping Day (usually around 4 April) is observed to honor the dead and make sure they are happy in the afterlife. If they are not, they are thought to return to haunt the living. The Chinese visit the graves of their ancestors on Tomb Sweeping Day during the Festival of Qingming, even if they never do at any other time of the year, to tend the graves and pay their respects.

When someone died naturally or was buried with the proper honors, there was no fear of them returning as a ghost. The Chinese believed that, if the person had lived a good life, they went to live with the gods after death. These spirits of one's ancestors were prayed to so they could approach Shangti with the problems and praise of those on earth. Tanner writes:

Ancestors were represented by a physical symbol such as a spirit tablet engraved or painted with the ancestor's honorific name. Rituals were held to honor these ancestors, and sacrifices of millet ale, cattle, dogs, sheep, and humans were offered. The scale of the sacrifices varied, but at important rituals, hundreds of animals and/or human sacrifices would be slaughtered. Believing that the spirits of the dead continued to exist and to take an interest in the world of the living, the Shang elite buried their dead in elaborate and well-furnished tombs (43).

The spirits of these ancestors could help a person in life by revealing the future to them. Divination became a significant part of Chinese religious beliefs and was performed by people with mystical powers (what one would call a "psychic" in the modern day) one would pay to tell one's future through oracle bones. It is through these oracle bones that writing developed in China. The mystic would write the question on the shoulder bone of an ox or turtle shell and apply heat until it cracked; whichever way the crack went would determine the answer. It was not the mystic or the bone which gave the answer but one's ancestors who the mystic communed with. These ancestors were in touch with eternal spirits, the gods, who controlled and maintained the universe.

The Gods

There were over 200 gods in the Chinese pantheon whose names were recorded during and after the Shang Dynasty. The early gods, before Shangti, were spirits of a place known as Tudi Gong ("Lord of the Place" or "Earth God"). These were earth spirits who inhabited a specific place and only had power in that locale. The Tudi Gong were sometimes thought to be an important member of the community who had died but remained in spirit as a guardian but, more often, they were ancient spirits who inhabited a certain area of land. These spirits were helpful if people acknowledged and honored them, and vengeful if they were ignored or neglected. The Chinese concept of Feng Shui comes from the belief in the Tudi Gong.

These local earth spirits continued to be venerated even after gods developed who were more universal. One of the first deities acknowledged who probably began as a local spirit was the dragon. The dragon is one of the oldest gods of China. Dragon images have been found on the Neolithic pottery at Banpo Village and other sites. The Dragon King known as Yinglong was god of rain, both gentle rain for the crops and terrible storms, also as Lord of the Sea and protector of heroes, kings, and those who fought for right. Dragon statuary and imagery is routinely used in Chinese art and architecture to symbolize protection and success.

There were over 200 gods in the Chinese pantheon whose names were recorded during and after the Shang Dynasty. Above all was Shangti, the god of law, order, justice, and life, known as "The Lord on High".

Some form of Nuwa, goddess of humankind, existed as early as the Shang Dynasty. Nuwa was a goddess part woman and part dragon who molded human beings from the mud of the Yellow River and blew her breath into them to bring them to life. She continued making people and bringing them to life over and over again but grew tired of it finally and invented marriage so people could reproduce without her. She saw that people did not know how to do anything, though, so she asked her friend Fuxi for help.

Fuxi is the god of fire and the teacher of human beings. He brought fire to people and taught them how to control it to cook food, bring light, and keep warm. Fuxi also wove the first fishing nets for the people and taught them how to get food from the sea. Once their basic needs were taken care of, he gave them the gifts of music, writing, and divination. Nuwa and Fuxi were considered the mother and father of human beings and always were called on for protection.

Sun Wukong was the monkey god of mischief who caused so much trouble he was killed by the other gods and sent to the underworld. Once he got there, he erased his name from the book of the king of the underworld and not only came back to life but could never die again. His name did not develop until later but a mischevious monkey god appears on bronze inscriptions from the Shang Dynasty who appears to be this same deity.

Lei Shen was the god of thunder who was very unpleasant and beat on a large drum with a hammer whenever he became irritated. He could not tolerate anyone who wasted food and would hurl thunderbolts at them, killing them instantly. One time, he saw a woman who seemed about to throw out a bowl of rice and killed her with his thunderbolt. The gods determined that he had acted too quickly and so the woman, Dian Mu, was raised from death and became the goddess of lightning. She would flash her light to show Lei Shen where he should throw his thunderbolts so he would not make the same mistake again.

Above these gods and all the others was Shangti, the god of law, order, justice, and life known as "The Lord on High". Shangti decreed how the universe would run and the lives of all the people were under his constant watch. He was especially mindful of those who ruled over others and decided who should rule, how long, and who should succeed them.

Worship & Clergy

Chinese temples and shrines were cared for by priests and monks who were always male. Women were allowed to enter monasteries to devote themselves to the work of the gods but could not hold spiritual authority over men. Different types of religious services were held in temples for different religious beliefs. These services all had in common the sound of music, most often bells. The monastic prayers were said three times a day, at morning, noon, and night, to the sound of a small bell. Incense was burned regularly at services to cleanse the place of evil spirits and negative energies.

An important aspect of Chinese religion, whether Taoism, Confucianism, or Buddhism, was known as "hygiene schools" which instructed people on how to take care of themselves to live longer lives or even achieve immortality. Hygiene schools were part of the temple or monastery. The priests taught people how to eat healthy, exercise (the practice of Tai Chi developed through these schools), and perform rituals honoring the gods so the gods would bless them with a healthy long life.

Further Religious Developments

In the Zhou Dynasty (c. 1046-226 BCE) the concept of the Mandate of Heaven was developed. The Mandate of Heaven was the belief that Shangti ordained a certain emperor or dynasty to rule and allowed them to rule as long as they pleased him. When the rulers were no longer taking care of the people responsibly, they were said to have lost the Mandate of Heaven and were replaced by another. Modern scholars have seen this simply as a justification for changing a regime but the people at the time believed in the concept. The gods were thought to watch over the people and would pay special attention to the emperor. People continued a practice, which began toward the end of the Shang Dynasty, of wearing charms and amulets of their god of choice or their ancestors for protection or in the hope of blessings, and the emperor did this as well. Religious practices changed during the latter part of the Zhou Dynasty owing to its decline and eventual fall but the practice of wearing religious jewelry continued.

The Zhou Dynasty is divided into two periods: Western Zhou (1046-771 BCE) and Eastern Zhou (771-226 BCE). Chinese culture and religious practices flourished during the Western Zhou period but began to break apart during the Eastern Zhou. Religious practices of divination, ancestor worship, and veneration for the gods continued, but during the Spring and Autumn Period (772-476 BCE) philosophical ideas began to challenge the ancient beliefs.

Confucius (c. 551-479 BCE) encouraged ancestor worship as a way of remembering and honoring one's past but emphasized people's individual responsibility in making choices and criticized an over-reliance on supernatural powers. Mencius (c. 372-289 BCE) developed the ideas of Confucius, and his work resulted in a more rational and restrained view of the world. The work of Lao-Tzu (c. 500 BCE) and the development of Taoism might be seen as a reaction to Confucian principles if not for the fact that Taoism developed many centuries before the traditonal date assigned to Lao-Tzu. It is much more probable that Taoism developed from the original nature/folk religion of the people of China than that it was created by a 6th-century BCE philosopher. Therefore, it is more accurate to say that the rationalism of Confucianism probably developed as a reaction to the emotionalism and spiritualism of those earlier beliefs.

Religious beliefs developed further during the next period in China's history, The Warring States Period (476-221 BCE), which was very chaotic. The seven states of China were all independent now that the Zhou had lost the Mandate of Heaven, and each one fought the others for control of the country. Confucianism was the most popular belief during this time, but there was another which was growing stronger. A statesman named Shang Yang (died 338 BCE) from the region of Qin developed a philosophy called Legalism which maintained that people were only motivated by self-interest, were inherently evil, and had to be controlled by law. Shang Yang's philosophy helped the State of Qin overpower the six other states and the Qin Dynasty was founded by the first emperor, Shi Huangti, in 221 BCE.

Religion Banned and Revived

During the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BCE), Shi Huangti banned religion and burned philosophical and religious works. Legalism became the official philosophy of the Qin government and the people were subject to harsh penalties for breaking even minor laws. Shi Huangti outlawed any books which did not deal with his family line, his dynasty, or Legalism, even though he was personally obsessed with immortality and the afterlife, and his private library was full of books on these subjects. Confucian scholars hid books as best as they could and people would worship their gods in secret but were no longer allowed to carry amulets or wear religious charms.

Shi Huangti died in 210 BCE while searching for immortality on a tour through his kingdom. The Qin Dynasty fell soon after, in 206 BCE, and the Han Dynasty took its place. The Han Dynasty (202 BCE-220 CE) at first continued the policy of Legalism but abandoned it under Emperor Wu (141-87 BCE). Confucianism became the state religion and grew more and more popular even though other religions, like Taoism, were also practiced.

During the Han Dynasty, the emperor became distinctly identified as the mediator between the gods and the people. The position of the emperor had been seen as linked to the gods through the Mandate of Heaven from the early Zhou Dynasty but now it was his express responsibility to behave so that heaven would bless the people. Mount Tai became an important sacred site during this time and ancient rituals and festivals were revised. An example of this would be the Festival of the Five Elements which honored earth, fire, metal, water, and wood which was changed to the Festival of Heaven and Earth, honoring the people's relationship with the gods.

An important religious sect which gained popularity during this time was the cult of the Queen Mother of the West, Xi Wang Mu, goddess of immortality. She lived in the mountains of Kunlun, like the other gods, but in a castle of gold, with a moat around it, so sensitive that anything, even a hair, which fell upon it would sink. She walked every day in her Imperial Peach Orchard whose fruit held the divine juices of immortality. Scholar Patricia Buckley Ebrey comments on this cult:

During the Han period, the hope for deathlessness or immortality found expression in the cult of a goddess called the Queen Mother of the West. Her paradise was portrayed as a land of marvels where trees of deathlessness grew and rivers of immortality flowed...People of all social levels expressed their devotion to her, and shrines were erected under government sponsorship throughout the country (71).

The Queen Mother of the West was sometimes represented as an old, unattractive woman with sharp teeth like a tiger's and a hunched back, and at other times as a beautiful woman with long hair. She jealously guarded the secrets of immortality in her garden and struck down people who tried to find their way in. She was kind to her followers, though, and blessed them as long as they pleased her.

The Arrival of Buddhism

In the 1st century CE, Buddhism arrived in China via trade through the Silk Road. According to the legend, the Han emperor Ming (28-75 CE) had a vision of a golden god flying through the air and asked his secretary who that could be. The assistant told him he had heard of a god in India who shone like the sun and flew in the air, and so Ming sent emissaries to bring Buddhist teachings to China. Buddhism quickly combined with the earlier folk religion and incorporated ancestor worship and veneration of Buddha as a god.

Buddhism was welcomed in China and took its place alongside Confucianism, Taoism, and the blended folk religion as a major influence on the spiritual lives of the people. When the Han Dynasty fell, China entered a period known as The Three Kingdoms (220-263 CE) which was similar to the Warring States Period in bloodshed, violence, and disorder. The brutality and uncertainty of the period influenced Buddhism in China which struggled to meet the spiritual needs of the people at the time by developing rituals and practices of transcendence. The Buddhist schools of Ch'an (better known as Zen), Pure Land, and others took on form at this time.

Buddhism introduced a new kind of ghost to China, the e gui("Hungry Ghost"), which became one of the most feared. The modern day Ghost Festival in China (also known as the Hungry Ghost Festival) grew out of this belief. Hungry ghosts were spirits of those who had been murdered, improperly buried, or had sinned and not been forgiven. They could also be people who had never been satisfied with anything in life and were no happier in death. People would leave food out for them during Ghost Month to appease them and went to the graves of their ancestors to sacrifice food so they would not become hungry ghosts.

The major religious influences on Chinese culture were in place by the time of the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) but there were more to come. The second emperor, Taizong (626-649 CE), was a Buddhist who believed in toleration of other faiths and allowed Manichaeism, Christianity, and others to set up communities of faith in China. His successor, Wu Zeitian (690-704 CE), elevated Buddhism and presented herself as a Maitreya (a future Buddha) while her successor, Xuanzong (712-756 CE), rejected Buddhism as divisive and made Taoism the state religion.

Although Xuanzong allowed and encouraged all faiths to practice in the country, by 817 CE Buddhism was condemned as a dividing force which undermined traditional values. Between 842-845 CE Buddhist nuns and priests were persecuted and murdered and temples were closed. Any religion other than Taoism was prohibited, and persecutions affected communities of Jews, Christians, and any other faith. The emperor Xuanzong II (846-859 CE) ended these persecutions and restored religious tolerance. The dynasties which followed the Tang up to the present day all had their own experiences with the development of religion and the benefits and drawbacks which come with it, but the basic form of what they dealt with was in place by the end of the Tang Dynasty.

Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and the early folk religion combined to form the basis of Chinese culture. Other religions have added their own influences but these four belief structures had the most impact on the country and the culture. Religious beliefs have always been very important to the Chinese people even though the People's Republic of China originally outlawed religion when it took power in 1949 CE. The People's Republic saw religion as unnecessary and divisive, and during the Cultural Revolution temples were destroyed, churches burned, or converted to secular uses. In the 1970's CE the People's Republic relaxed its stand on religion and since then has worked to encourage organized religion as "psychologically hygienic" and a stabilizing influence in the lives of its citizens.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Religious practices in ancient China go back over 7,000 years. Long before the philosophical and spiritual teachings of Confucius and Lao-Tzu developed or before the teachings of the Buddha came to China, the people worshipped personifications of nature and then of concepts like "wealth" or "fortune" which developed into a religion.

# data[].attributes.headline
Rare Aztec Map Reveals a Glimpse of Life in 1500s Mexico

# data[].attributes.subject
Rare Aztec Map Reveals a Glimpse of Life in 1500s Mexico

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Early maps of the Americas made by indigenous people are rare-extremely rare. This map, dated 1593, is one of fewer than 100 such documents that have survived the ravages of time. It provides a fascinating glimpse into the early interactions between the indigenous people of Mexico and the recently arrived Spanish.

The map shows the land holdings and geneology of a family in central Mexico. It covers an area that runs from just north of Mexico City to just below Puebla, roughly 100 miles away to the southeast. The family, identified as "de Leon," traced their lineage to the red figure seated in the middle of the image above, who was known as Lord-11 Quetzalecatzin. A century before the map was made, he was the major political leader of the region writes John Hessler, curator of the Jay I. Kislak Collection of the Archaeology of the Early Americas at the Library of Congress in a recent blog post about the map. Many other family members appear on the map too.

The map shows both indigenous and Spanish influences. "On the one hand, the map is a traditional Aztec cartographic history with its composition and design showing Nahuatl hieroglyphics, and typical illustrations," Hessler writes, referring to the indigenous language of the region. The bold colors on the map come from natural dyes, including Maya Blue (made from indigo plant leaves and a type of clay) and carmine (made from a cactus-dwelling insect).

"On the other hand," Hessler continues, "it also shows churches, some Spanish place names, and other images suggesting a community adapting to Spanish rule." The names of several indigenous leaders include the Spanish honorific "don," and the names of some, such as "don Alonso" and "don Matheo," indicate that they'd been baptized with Spanish names.

The map provides a rare opportunity for scholars to study the earliest interactions between these two very different cultures. It was acquired recently by the Library of Congress, and it's now freely available on their website, where you can explore it in detail.

If you're interested in ancient maps, check out our posts on the largest world map created in the 16th century, and about why ancient mapmakers invented things to fill the empty spaces.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Rare Aztec Map Reveals a Glimpse of Life in 1500s Mexico

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Early maps of the Americas made by indigenous people are rare-extremely rare. This map, dated 1593, is one of fewer than 100 such documents that have survived the ravages of time. It provides a fascinating glimpse into the early interactions between the indigenous people of Mexico and the recently arrived Spanish.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Ancient Egyptian History for Kids: Army and Soldiers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kids learn about Ancient Egyptian army and soldiers including their weapons and chariots. The history of this world civilization.

# data[].attributes.headline
10 Ancient Mesopotamian Gods And Goddesses You Should Know About

# data[].attributes.subject
10 Ancient Mesopotamian Gods And Goddesses You Should Know About

# data[].attributes.body
And I should too

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
When it comes to the early historical scope of Mesopotamia, there were no singular factions or political entities that ruled the extensive lands between and around the rivers of Tigris and Euphrates (at least until the brief Akkadian interlude and the later ascension of the Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian Empire). However, the Mesopotamian city-states from after 3rd millennium BC did share their cultural traits and even languages, with the latter example pertaining to how ancient Sumerian heavily influenced Akkadian (of which Babylonian was a variant), the lingua franca of much of the Ancient Near East.

The pantheon of the region was a religious extension of this ancient cultural overlap, and as such many of the Mesopotamian gods were commonly worshiped by Sumerians, Babylonians and even Assyrians alike. But as most of us aficionados would know, the progression of history is not linear, and as such many of the Mesopotamian mythological characters evolved (and devolved) into variant entities (based on the faction's preference - like Sumerian sun god Utu 'morphed' into Akkadian Shamash). Furthermore, some of these Mesopotamian gods were honored more as patron deities of individual cities. Taking these multifarious factors into consideration, let us take a gander at the ten ancient Mesopotamian gods and goddesses you should know about.

1) Tiamat -

Depicted as the primordial goddess of the oceans, Tiamat is possibly one of the earliest known Babylonian entities used for Chaoskampf, a myth that portrays the momentous battle between a hero and a chthonic monster. To that end, the very portrayal of Tiamat as one of the Mesopotamian gods in the ancient motifs takes a paradoxical route, with one 'side' showing how she epitomized the beauty of the feminine, while the other showcasing how she represented the chaotic scope of primordial origins. In essence, the first part of her mythos projects the goddess as the creator, who in sacred bond with freshwater sources (represented by god Apsû), gives birth to the cosmos and its successive generations.

However, the second part of the Chaoskampf makes Tiamat the antagonist, with her taking the form of a giant dragon to wreak havoc on the younger generation of gods (as an act of revenge, instigated by the murder of her husband Apsû). She is also said to have created the first batch of monsters and 'poison-filled' dragons, and ultimately ends up being slain by god Marduk, who in turn then proceeds to construct both heaven and earth from her remnant body.

As for the historical side of affairs, there are theories that suggest that Tiamat as a Mesopotamian goddess was worshiped as a part of the cult of Nammu (a primeval goddess, being the Sumerian equivalent to Tiamat). Interestingly enough, Dr Harriet Crawford has observed how the middle Persian Gulf region exhibits the 'mixture' of waters with the mingling of freshwater from the Arabian aquifers and the saltwater from the seas. Dilmun, the origin place of many Mesopotamian myths, is also thought to have been located in the country of Bahrain (which in Arabic translates to 'two seas').

2) Enlil -

Enlil was considered as one of the Mesopotamian gods in the supreme triad, along with Anu (god of the heavens, also known as An) and Enki (god of wisdom and earth). This brings us to the question - what natural (or supernatural) element did Enlil himself represent? Interestingly enough, this is where the historians and linguists are baffled alike, with the very Sumerian word " líl " meaning 'ghost or even haunted'. To that end, Enlil could be interpreted as 'Lord ghost', but that wouldn't make much sense, especially given the importance of Enlil in Sumerian religion. So as a re-interpretation (with practicality taken into consideration), Enlil may have been portrayed as the 'Lord of Air' or basically a deity representing the sky and atmosphere.

However, in terms of the history of religion, Enlil, the patron deity of the city of Nippur, was much more than a master of a singular elemental force. In fact, in various Mesopotamian inscriptions and tablets, he had been described with different exalted epithets, including the 'King of all lands', the 'Father of black-headed people' (referring to Sumerians) and even the 'Father of Gods'. In that regard, Enlil was often projected as one of the most powerful deities who maintained his rebellious and often whimsically wrathful nature.

Pertaining to the latter quality, it was Enlil who brought upon the great flood upon humanity (according to the Akkadian epic Atra-Hasis, circa 18th century BC), after being perturbed by their higher rate of fertility and the general 'noise' they made (that disturbed his sleep). However, his divine 'colleague' Enki, the god of earth, intervenes and warns a human sage named Atrahasis - who in turn proceeds to build an ark, thus mirroring the later Biblical story of Noah, along with numerous other ancient tales of the flood.

3) Enki (Ea) -

As we fleetingly mentioned before in the earlier entry, Enki (known as Ea in Akkadian and Babylonian mythology), was one of the other important Mesopotamian gods of the supreme triad. Commonly translated as the 'Lord of the Earth', Enki had also been depicted as a deity of creation, crafts, intelligence and even magic. Interestingly enough, many of the initial Sumerian texts also refer to Enki's virile masculinity, sometimes in overtly sexual tones - though the literary scope in itself probably wanted to indicate the 'creative' ability of Enki, as opposed to eroticism. For example, one text refers to how the semen of the god endowed the vitalizing nature of fresh water.

Often considered as the patron deity of the city of Eridu (in southern Mesopotamia), Enki was said to have resided in a unique geographical location known as abzu (Akkadian apsû), attended by his seven mythical sages. In accordance with Mesopotamian cosmic geography, the abzu pertained to the ocean underneath the earth; and for that matter, even Babylon was touted to be built atop an abzu.

In many Sumerian sources, he is also mentioned as being the son of primeval goddess Tiamat (mentioned in the first entry). According to those legends, it was Enki who took the fight to his father Apsû after he learned that Apsû was planning to kill all the younger gods. He was also said to have created the first humans (when depicted as Ea) from clay, in a bid to gather 'free' laborers for the gods.

4) Marduk -

Probably most famous as the patron deity of Babylon itself, Marduk as one of the major Mesopotamian gods formed an important part of the Babylonian pantheon, which in itself suggests a shift in cultural prominence from the ancient Sumerians to the later Babylonians. To that end, Marduk was portrayed as the very King of Gods (or even Storm God), draped in royal robes, whose fields of 'expertise' ranged from justice, healing to agriculture and magic. Historically, the famous ziggurat of Babylon was also dedicated to Marduk, which in itself was probably the (literary) model for the Biblical Tower of Babel.

In terms of mythology, Marduk was the son of Enki (mentioned in the previous entry), and he was responsible for defeating and killing Tiamat, the primeval goddess who took a dragon form to challenge many of the younger gods. Marduk then proceeded on to 'source' the rivers Tigris and Euphrates from the slain goddess' eyes, while her body was carved up to create heaven and earth.

Once again reverting to history, Marduk was by far the most important Babylonian god (among the Mesopotamian gods), with his worship almost bordering on monotheism. And while his origins probably lied in the rustic agricultural god named Asarluhi (who was symbolized by a spade), Marduk, as opposed to many other gods, was said to reign directly from his temple (and stronghold) Esagila in Babylon. This symbolic significance rather fueled the extension of the actual Esagila complex, which was completed in its final form by the famed Nebuchadnezzar II, circa 6th century BC. As a matter of fact, Marduk as a deity was held in such a high regard in the lands of Babylonia that even 'foreign' Persian ( Achaemenid) emperors like Cyrus and Darius projected themselves as the chosen of the god.

5) Ishtar (Inanna) -

A Mesopotamian goddess of contrasting traits, Ishtar (or Inanna in Sumerian) was projected as the female divine entity of beauty, sex, and desire, while at the same time being the symbolic purveyor of war and combat. And is often the case with mythology, her later Babylonian legends diverged from the earlier Sumerian tales, with the (Babylonian) Epic of Gilgamesh representing the goddess as a femme fatale who turns vengeful after being rejected by the hero Gilgamesh.

Suffice it to say, among the Mesopotamian gods and goddesses, as could be comprehended from her representative traits, Ishtar tended to be associated with sexuality, even since the Sumerian times - and such she was the patron goddess of sacred prostitutes. And while her earlier tales present her as being coyly amorous, with uttering like "plough my vulva, man of my heart" (excerpt from a Sumerian poem), the latter Akkadian 'evolution' transforms her into a more assertive personality, with one line from the Epic of Gilgamesh saying - 'let us enjoy your strength, so put your hand and touch our vulva!'.

As for the historical side of affairs, the ancient city of Erbil (also known as Arbela or Urbilum in Sumerian) had always been an integral part of even the Old Assyrian state, circa 2050 BC. Occupying a strategic position at the foothills of Zagros mountains, the city was the center for the worship of the Assyro-Babylonian goddess (in her war-like avatar). To that end, several of the Assyrian kings even prayed in her temple before their military campaigns and actions of wars. And beyond just war ceremonies, the temple was viewed as a fortified sanctuary for Assyrian queens during their pregnancy. And as a demonstration of the Assyrian elites' association to war (as a ritual extension of their power), some of the newborn princes were even breastfed by the priestesses of Ishtar.

6) Sin (Nanna) -

Sin (or Nanna in Sumerian, not to be confused with the Norse deity) was the tutelary god of Ur, one of the major ancient Mesopotamian urban centers that originally occupied a coastal position near the mouth of river Euphrates (in what is now southern Iraq). Associated with the moon, Sin was represented as the bull, with the symbol alluding to the resemblance of the waxing moon to the horns of the animal. Interestingly enough, this mythic connection to the moon also associated Sin to fertility, on account of menstrual cycles corresponding to the timings of the moon's periodic 'shape-shifting'.

However, most importantly, ancient Mesopotamians ascribed an astronomical angle when it came to studying of Sin. In essence, the religious scope of this deity often translated to (unintentional) scientific analysis, with scribes maintaining records on the radiance along with the paths and cycles of the moon within particular time-frames. These records were compiled to keep an eye on future omens that were thought to have the potential to decide the course of important events.

As for the historical significance of Sin, the moon god was clearly one of the major Mesopotamian gods in the early part of the Sumerian period, partly fueled by his genealogical pedigree - which projected him as the first-born of Enlil (summarized in entry 2). He was also portrayed, during various time-periods, as the father of two major divine entities - Utu (the sun god) and Inanna (the goddess of beauty).

7) Shamash (Utu) -

The Akkadian god Shamash was probably directly derived from the Sumerian counterpart Utu, with both entities being projected as the god of the sun and divine justice. However, interestingly enough, while Utu had been depicted as the son of Moon god Sin (summarized in the earlier entry), Shamash, as one of the Mesopotamian gods, was represented as the son of Enlil (summarized in entry 2). In any case, Shamash (or Utu) was one of the most important deities in the ancient Mesopotamian culture, attested by the fact that the entity was mentioned as early as circa 3500 BC (5,500-years ago) in the nascent forms of Sumerian writings.

Now when it comes to historical connection, Shamash is most famously known to feature in the renowned law code of Hammurabi (18th century) BC, with the Babylonians attributing the very provision of land laws to the divine entity. His image did match with such characteristics, with Shamash being portrayed as an old wise man with long beard seating on a royal throne, haloed behind his shoulders by the effulgent rays of the sun - and his role 'modestly' defined as being the governor of the whole universe.

This representation took a more a symbolic route during the later Neo-Assyrian Empire, with the god depicted as just a solar disc with wings. And even more intriguingly, unlike other capricious Mesopotamian gods, Shamash tended to be portrayed as an undoubtedly righteous divine being, which made his role rather ambiguous and yet crucial in the vibrant mythos of the city-states. His immense popularity among the populace is also suggested by three different ancient cult centers in all of Mesopotamia - Larsa and Eridu in (southern) Sumer, along with Sippar in (northern) Akkad.

8) Nisaba -

The Sumerian civilization can be credited with many of humanity's cultural inventions and achievements, including the world's oldest known pieces of literature. To that end, Sumerians even had one of the Mesopotamian gods dedicated to pursuits of writing (much like Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge and scribes in Indian mythology), and she was called Nisaba (or Nissaba).

Probably having her origins from a grain goddess, circa 2700 BC, Nisaba later became the primary deity of the Mesopotamian city of Eresh. She was often portrayed as the primary scribe of the gods and keeper of both divine and mortal accounts. Interestingly enough, with varied myths followed in different city-states of ancient Mesopotamia, in some tales, Nisaba was represented as the daughter of Enlil (the entity mentioned in the second entry). However more famous stories establish Enlil as being the son-in-law of Nisaba.

In any case, beyond confusing genealogy, Nisaba had always been represented as an ally of the powerful (albeit capricious) god Enlil. To that end, one of the oldest known literary works in human history, known as the Kesh Temple Hymn (also called the Liturgy to Nintud), inscribed circa 2600 BC, comprises eight set of songs - all of which are attributed to Nisaba, who goes on to praise Enlil. In essence, the Kesh Temple Hymn was presented as the work of gods, possibly to endow it with an air of legitimacy (and sanctity) during the ancient times. The first paragraph of the ancient literature piece roughly reads like this -

The princely one, the princely one came forth from the house. Enlil, the princely one, came forth from the house. The princely one came forth royally from the house. Enlil lifted his glance over all the lands, and the lands raised themselves to Enlil. The four corners of heaven became green for Enlil like a garden. Kesh was positioned there for him with head uplifted, and as Kesh lifted its head among all the lands, Enlil spoke the praises of Kesh.

9) Ashur -

Ashur (or Assur) pertains to the interesting synthesis of an ancient city and its patron deity, with the latter originating as an East Semitic god mainly worshiped in the northern regions of Mesopotamia, along with the north-eastern regions corresponding more-or-less to the realm of Old Assyria. To that end, there is a theory that the god himself was the deified form of the Old Assyrian capital Assur, an urban center that dates back from 3rd millennium BC.

In essence, Ashur, as one of the Mesopotamian gods, rather signified the clash of cultural overtones between the northern and southern parts of Mesopotamia. For example, by Hammurabi's time, Marduk replaced Enlil as the chief deity of the majority of the southern Mesopotamian lands. Almost as a reactionary process, Ashur took the position of Enlil (and his mythic lineage) in northern Mesopotamia, and this religious shift extended till the period of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. In fact, many of the Assyrian imperial propaganda inscriptions went on to mention how their conquered subjects' gods have abandoned them, overshadowed by the rising power of Ashur.

The geopolitical scenario of the Assyrian Empire rather favored such contrived outlooks, with their eponymous royal capital of Ashur being transformed into a city of lavish palaces, imposing temples and even cultural centers for learning. This emphasis on the intrinsic ties between Assyrian imperialism and the divine entity even led to the adoption of king names that included the word 'Ashur', like Ashurnasirpal, Esarhaddon ( Ashur-aha-iddina), and Ashurbanipal.

10) Ninkasi -

For our last entry, we decided to take a lighter route by summarizing about Ninkasi, the ancient Sumerian tutelary goddess of beer (and alcohol). Symbolizing the role of women in brewing and preparation of beverages in ancient Mesopotamia, this enigma among the Mesopotamian gods (whose actual depictions have not survived the rigors of time) historically also alluded to how beer consumption in itself was an important marker for societal and civilized virtues. To give an example, in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the wild man En-kidu "did not know how to eat bread, / nor had he ever learned to drink beer!", with the latter phrase suggesting how drinking beer was seen as a 'quality' of a civilized person.

And since we are talking about history, like many of the oldest cultural achievements pertaining to humanity, the oldest recipe for brewing beer comes from the land of Mesopotamia. These earliest beers were possibly concocted with the aid of barley that was extracted from bread. To that end, some of the excerpts from a 3900-year-old Sumerian poem honoring Ninkasi ( the Hymn to Ninkasi), translated by Miguel Civil, read like this -

You are the one who soaks the malt in a jar,
The waves rise, the waves fall.
Ninkasi, you are the one who soaks the malt in a jar,
The waves rise, the waves fall.
.
.
.
When you pour out the filtered beer of the collector vat,
It is [like] the onrush of Tigris and Euphrates.
Ninkasi, you are the one who pours out the filtered beer of the collector vat,
It is [like] the onrush of Tigris and Euphrates.

And in case we have not attributed or misattributed any image, artwork or photograph, we apologize in advance. Please let us know via the 'Contact Us' link, provided both above the top bar and at the bottom bar of the page.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
10 Ancient Mesopotamian Gods And Goddesses You Should Know About

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When it comes to the early historical scope of Mesopotamia, there were no singular factions or political entities that ruled the extensive lands between and around the rivers of Tigris and Euphrates (at least until the brief Akkadian interlude and the later ascension of the Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian Empire).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It's very interesting to wonder what life would have been like in a normal Aztec society family. There are many things we do know, although the record is frustratingly sparse. Record keepers were more interested in other aspects of society, and family life was considered the sphere of women.

Still, there are many things we do know. Like other aspects of Aztec culture, life in an Aztec society family was permeated by religious beliefs, right from the start. Each decision was ruled by the laws of religion, and often tied to the sacred days in the Aztec calendar.

The life of a new family began at marriage, typically in the early 20s for a man and mid-teens for the woman. Marriages were arranged by the relatives (though the children may have had input). The parents would have to talk to the religious leaders, and discuss the signs under which both of the children had been born. The wedding day, of course, was chosen for similar religious reasons.

Men and women

All this was full of ceremony and form. In Aztec society family a husband may have had more than one wife - but it would be his primary wife that would go through all the ceremony. The man may have many secondary wives, who would also be officially recognized. The children of the principal wife would be the inheritors - or, in the case of a ruler, only a child from the principal wife would be a successor. Still, the husband was supposed to treat all wives equally in daily life.

As you may imagine, one family could grow very large. As a result, most of the husbands with numerous wives and children were the wealthy ones, with the poor more likely to have one wife.

In one sense, society was dominated by the men. The man was considered the head of the home. However, women had a great deal of power as well. They may have had more power in earlier times, with men taking more power toward the end of the Aztec era.

Women often were able to run business out of their homes, and had a lot of influence in the family and the raising of children. The older widows were much respected, and people listened to their advice.

Adultery was a crime - death was the punishment. Divorce was allowed on certain grounds, presented by the man or woman, property was divided equally and both sides were free.

( more on Aztec crime and punishment here)

Marriage and children

Marriage marked the entrance into Aztec adult and independat society. The family was given a piece of land, and they would have their own home. Depending on their situation, both the man and the woman may be involved in working the land. Of course, while a woman was involved in household tasks, a man would be more likely to become a warrior. Though there were many occupations (farmer, priest, doctor, etc), being an Aztec warrior was particularly glorified.

War was even used as a symbol of childbirth. The baby was a "captive" in the womb, struggling to be victorious. The woman, too, was in a battle. In fact, in many ways a woman who died in childbirth was glorified in the same way as a warrior who died in battle, and honoured for her courage.

A child was welcomed into the world and into the religious system. A hymn for the new child to the goddess of child birth went like this:

Down there, where Ayopechcatl lives, the jewel is born, a child has come into the world.
It is down there, in her own place, that the children are born.
Come, come here, new-born child, come here.
Come, come here, jewel-child, come here.

(from the Codex Florentino)

A soothsayer would be called to study the signs of the child. He would inquire about the exact moment of the child's birth. The birth would be cause for more ritual and great celebration.

From what we know, parents loved their children very much. We know that parents often used flowery pet names for their children (for example, a father speaking to his son - "Nopiltze, nocuzque, noquetzale" - sweet son, my jewel, my precious feather.

Then again, when it came to discipline, parents in an Aztec society family ruled with an iron hand.

More on Aztec children here.

Work and education

Fathers taking their sons to school

I've written a little more about occupations and education here. Education, at least in the early years, was the responsibility of the parents. The father would teach the sons, and the mother the daughters. Work and education then would a big part of the Aztec society family. Work could also break up the family - the father might travel, or in the case of warriors may die on the battlefield.

As I mentioned, discipline was often harsh. Up until the age of 8, the preferred method of discipline was simply verbal. But harsh punishments would be in store for the older child, as he was prepared for the harsher realities of Aztec life.

As children grew older, parents would still be in charge of education, but they would more often send the children to school. There were various branches of education that children would be involved in.

Elderly family members

If a family member escaped death on the battlefield or death from illness and so on... they would be among the ueuetque - the wise elders of society. They would offer advice, either informally or on a council. Of course, they were held in high regard in the family itself. The elderly were important in the Aztec society family, and their health care, aging and death was also a matter of ritual and religion.

Summary - Aztec society family

An Aztec society family was ruled in many ways by religion, tradition, and structure. Life was ruled by fate - from beginning to end your family life, occupation, and success depended on the important dates in your life and the structure of the universe and the nature of the gods. At the same time, life was full of celebration, hard work, joy, sorrow, and love, much as it has been in societies around the world for all of history.

For more on Aztec society family, I recommend Daily Life of the Aztecs by Jacques Soustelle.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It's very interesting to wonder what life would have been like in a normal Aztec society family. There are many things we do know, although the record is frustratingly sparse. Record keepers were more interested in other aspects of society, and family life was considered the sphere of women.

# data[].attributes.body
history

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Maya civilization stretched throughout Central America and reached its peak during the first millennium A.D.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
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…

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Ancient Egyptian art (article) | Khan Academy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
For the purposes of this article, Ancient China's civilization refers to that period of Chinese history which began in the early 2nd millennium BCE, when a literate, city-based culture first emerged, to the end of the Han dynasty, in 220 CE.

By this time all the essential foundations of Chinese civilization had been laid down. As such, Ancient China was one of the most crucial periods and places in world history. Its achievements can still be powerfully felt today, in a modern China and its world-wide influence.

Timeline of Ancient Chinese History

1766 BCE: traditional date for the founding of the first historic dynasty in China, the Shang dynasty

1122 BCE: Western Zhou dynasty founded after the overthrow of the last Shang king

771 BCE: Eastern Zhou dynasty period begins after the sack of the Western Zhou capital; the first phase is traditionally divided into two: the Spring and Autumn (771-481 BCE) and the Warring States (481-221 BCE) periods

551-479 BCE: Confucius, China's preeminent philosopher, lives

221 BCE: The First Emperor, Qin Shih Huang, completes the conquest of all other Chinese states

202 BCE: The Han dynasty founded, after several years of chaos following the fall of the Qin

220 CE: the Fall of the Han dynasty is a convenient marker for the end point of the ancient period of Chinese history.

The Geography of Ancient Chinese Civilization

(For a more detailed description of the geography of China, and how it shaped its civilization, go to the "geography" section in the article The History of China.)

China is a vast country with a huge range of terrains and climates within it: mountains, deserts and coastlands and above all, the great river systems of China, the Yellow River to the north and the Yangtze to the south. All these have helped shape Chinese civilization.

The Yellow River region

The civilization of ancient China first developed in the Yellow River region of northern China, in the 3rd and 2nd millennia BCE. This is a very fertile region; however the land needs irrigation to make the crops grow, and well-built river embankments to prevent catastrophic flooding.

In ancient times, the main crop in northern China was millet, a food still grown in many parts of the world as a major crop.

This region is regarded as the Cradle of China's Civilization. It was here that the earliest Chinese dynasties were based. Throughout the ancient period of China's history it formed the heart of the Chinese world, and it was from here that Chinese civilization spread out across the rest of China.

The Yangtze Valley region

To the south, the great Yangtze valley, with its warm, wet climate, was the first area in the world where rice was grown, sometime before 5000 BCE.

Rice is one of the most nutritious plants in the world. From this region rice cultivation spread far and wide across southern China and into south-east Asia.

For much of ancient times, the Yangtze region remained outside the Chinese culture area. However, from about 700 BCE, the kingdoms and peoples here began to be gradually absorbed into the Chinese world.

The Chinese only expanded into the mountains and coastland of southern China in the later ancient period, after the rest of China had been unified under the rule of emperors. It remained a largely frontier region until later centuries.

The Steppes of Central Asia

To the north and west of the Yellow River region are the wide plains of central Asia. This landscape here is generally unsuitable for farming, and the people have mostly followed a nomadic way of life as herders of cattle, sheep and horses.

Modern scholars believe that various cultural influences travelled along this route in ancient times to help shape China's civilization. For example, skills in working with metals, and in particular, making bronze objects, seem to have come to China from the Middle East across central Asia. Later, the chariot also apparently arrived in China from the same direction.

The peoples of the steppe were tough warriors, and the mobility that their nomadic lifestyle gave them enabled them to raid swiftly into territory populated by more settled farming populations. They were a regular scourge to the Chinese in ancient times, as well as later.

Origins of Ancient China

The Xia Dynasty (2070 BCE - 1600 BCE) is the first dynasty in China to be described in ancient historical chronicles. The Records of the Grand Historian and the Classic of Rites say that Yu the Great, the founder of the Xia dynasty, was the grandson of Zhuanxu, one of the legendary "Five Emperors" who were the first rulers of China.

Yu was successful in stopping devastating floods and increasing the yields from farming (since the floods usually destroyed the crops), and the Xia tribe's influence strengthened. He was made the leader of the surrounding tribes, and soon afterwards was sent with an army to suppress a tribe which was causing trouble on the kingdom's borders. He won a great victory, which further strengthened his power.

Shun, the last of the "Five Emperors", was getting old, and abdicated the throne in favor of Yu, whom he deemed worthy. Yu's succession as the king marked the start of the Xia dynasty. Shortly before his death, instead of passing power to the person deemed most capable to rule (as had been the case in the past), Yu passed power to his son, setting the precedence for dynastic rule.

The archaeological evidence

Prior to the coming of cities and literacy (the hallmarks of Ancient Chinese civilization), major Stone Age farming cultures had been growing up in China since the 7th millennium BCE. One was located in the Yellow River region, the other in the Yangtze region.

The Yellow River region

The Yellow River region was the setting for the emergence of Chinese civilization into the light of history. By c. 4000 BCE, walled and moated towns had appeared. They continued to grow in size.

What looks very much like primitive Chinese characters had also appeared, inscribed on pottery. These characters became more complex as time went by. Other technical advances included the introduction of the potter's wheel (sometime after c. 3500 BCE), and the production of high quality jade ornaments (after c. 2500 BCE). Finds of luxury grave goods and the remains of large and complex buildings show that a wealthy ruling elite stood out from the population at large.
Metallurgy
Metallurgy reached China sometime around 2500 BCE, almost certainly from the Middle East via central Asia. At first this was restricted to copper work, but by c. 1800 BCE, knowledge of bronze casting had entered the Yellow River Valley.

At around the same time there was a dramatic increase in the size and density of some walled settlements in that region. These are the earliest-known cities in East Asia. The region had in fact seen the appearance of a fully urban, literate, Bronze Age civilization, and ancient China finally emerges into the full light of history with the first of its historic dynasties, the Shang.

Historical overview of Ancient China

Most of the history of Chinese civilization, including the ancient period, has traditionally been divided into dynasties - lines of kings or emperors from a single family, following each other on the throne from generation to generation.

During much of the ancient period, what would later be known as "Chinese civilization" was only gradually spreading across the area which today we know as "China". Thus the early dynastic rulers of China are known as kings, rather than emperors. It is only after the time of the First Emperor, who reigned over a united China from 221 BCE, that the imperial period of Chinese history began.

Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China

The early dynasties of ancient China

Archaeologists have uncovered urban sites, bronze implements, and tombs that point to the possible existence of the semi-legendary Xia Dynasty at locations cited in ancient Chinese historical texts. In 1959, a site located in the city of Yanshi was excavated containing large palaces which some archaeologists have identified as the capital of the Xia dynasty. Unlike the oracle bones of the Shang dynasty, there are no written records from the period to help confirm the Xia dynasty's existence.

Oracle Bones Found, Dating from the Shang Dynasty

Through the 1960s and 1970s, archaeologists have continued to uncovered urban sites, bronze implements, and tombs at locations linked to the Xia in ancient Chinese historical texts. At a minimum, the Xia dynasty seems to have marked an evolutionary stage between the late neolithic cultures and the later Chinese urban civilization of the Shang dynasty.

The Shang dynasty period saw further strides in material culture, and some of the finest bronzes in world history were produced by Chinese craftsmen of the period. In due course, the Shang dynasty was succeeded by a new line of kings, of the Zhou dynasty.

A Western Zhou bronze gui vessel. Reproduced under Creative Commons
license 3.0

Under the early Zhou (or "Western Zhou") the cultural and political reach of ancient Chinese civilization expanded enormously. This, however, eventually resulted in fragmentation amongst numerous territorial princes. The authority of the Zhou kings declined, and the princes effectively became independent rulers.

The later Zhou (or " Eastern Zhou") dynasty period was characterized by constant warfare between increasingly large and powerful regional states. It was also a time when important innovations began to emerge, which were to characterize Chinese civilization down to the 20th century. It was at this time that the great philosophies which would shape the Chinese world, including Confucianism, emerged; and it was also the period to which the roots of that distinctly Chinese style of bureaucratic government can be traced.

The imperial dynasties of ancient China

The final phase of ancient China's history was characterized by the rise of strong, centralized states, which unified the Chinese people under a single imperial dynasty.

The Qin dynasty emerged when one of the states into which China was divided conquered all the others and unified China under its rule. Its king took the title Qin Shih Huang, "First Emperor".

The Qin dynasty is famous for imposing a rigid unity on Chinese society, and in building an early version of the Great Wall of China. The Qin regime's very rigidity, however, made it a short-lived dynasty. It was brought down by regional forces which it had failed to tame and by a peasantry which it had ruthlessly exploited.

The Han dynasty

The next of these unifying dynasties, however, would rule China for some 400 years. This was the Han dynasty, arguably the most important of all China's dynasties.

Under the Han emperors the Chinese became so used to being ruled as a single nation that to this day they call themselves the Han people.

It was under the Han that Confucianism triumphed to become the ruling ideology of China. At the same time, an empire-wide bureaucracy, staffed to a large extent by officials recruited and promoted on merit, and imbued with Confucian thought, came to govern China. Even the examination system for recruiting officials, which would come to play such an important role in Chinese life. can trace its roots back to this period.

The end of ancient China

The Han dynasty lasted until 220 CE, when it broke up into several successor states. Thus began a period of weakness for China, when no single dynasty was able to establish its rule over the whole country for several centuries. This opened the way for non-Chinese peoples from surrounding regions to establish their own states within China.

This was a dark period in Chinese history, but by no means as dark as the period which followed the collapse of the western Roman empire in Europe. Society was disrupted, trade declined and many cities shrank, but even in barbarian-occupied areas, administrations staffed by Confucian-educated officials continued to govern. Chinese civilization was preserved intact until, a few centuries later, new dynasties would once again rule the whole of China.

The Civilization of Ancient China

The Confucian bureaucratic state which governed China for more than two thousand years of history first evolved in Ancient China. All of the key governing institutions of imperial China came into being at this time.

The Emperor

China's pre-20th century state was associated above all else with the rule by emperors - monarchs who ruled the whole of China, and often neighboring regions as well. They belonged to different dynasties, lines of rulers who followed each other on the throne from generation to generation.

China's history is traditionally divided into such dynasties, and this was just as true of ancient China as later periods, as we see in the historical summary above.

As we noted, the early rulers, of the Shang and Zhou dynasties, styled themselves "kings". From the late 3rd century BCE, however, the monarchs of the Qin and Han dynasties ruled over a united China, and as a result they styled themselves "emperors". In this they were followed by rulers of China until the end of the last imperial dynasty, in the early 20th century CE.
The Mandate of Heaven
Chinese rulers bore the title "Son of Heaven". They claimed to be Heaven 's representatives on Earth. Emperors were viewed as sacred figures: to disobey them was to disobey Heaven.

The concept of the "Son of Heaven" was closely linked to the idea, very influential in Chinese history, of the " Mandate of Heaven ". By this, a dynasty received divine authority to rule. However, it was believed that if emperors ruled badly or unjustly, their dynasty was liable to lose this mandate. In these circumstances, it was legitimate for rebels attempt to replace the dynasty with a new one, which (by dint of successfully seizing the throne) had shown that it now enjoyed the Heaven's favor.

Emperors were surrounded by courts. These consisted of the royal family and its attendants, as well as ministers and officials responsible for helping the emperor in governing the huge country.

The court was housed in the royal palace, located in the capital. It was the political center of the state, and what went there ultimately affected the entire empire. In particular, the decline of dynasties - the Han dynasty is a very clear example - can often be traced to events at court.

The Civil Service

The ancient period of China's history saw the emergence of one of the most impressive governing institutions in world history, the Chinese civil service. This astonishing organization pre-dated Western civil services by some two thousand years.

The roots of Chinese bureaucracy go back to the later Zhou dynasty, when the territorial princes were centralizing the government of their states. It came to maturity under the Han dynasty. During Han times, the civil service became a huge organization, employing many thousands of officials. It was responsible for keeping law and order, collecting taxes, maintaining irrigation systems and flood defenses, and a host of other tasks to do with keeping China governed effectively.

More remarkably still, the Han dynasty inaugurated a revolutionary new system of recruiting public officials - by examining candidates for public posts. The examination system was established one of the most revered institutions in Chinese history.

Ancient China saw the transformation of armed forces from feudal forces based around aristocratic warriors, in Shang and early Zhou times, to mass armies composed largely of infantry troops, in the late Zhou, Qin and Han periods. These armies were made up of different kinds of recruits: long service, professional soldiers, peasant conscripts, and non-Chinese tribesmen.

(The balance between these different types changed from period to period, as is detailed in the section on defense in The State in Ancient China.)
The Great Wall 0f China
The defenses of China never relied solely on military manpower, however. In the 5th and 4th centuries BCE, the northern and western border states most exposed to raids by steppe nomads had begun to build long walls made of beaten earth to help keep these raids out. After the unification of China under the Qin, the new imperial regime merged these walls into a single system of defense. These walls were he ancestors of the famous Great Wall of China, refurbished into its present form under the Ming dynast y, in the 15th century CE.

Economy and Society in Ancient China

Population

During the ancient period, the Han (as the Chinese would later call themselves) spread, through settlement and the assimilation of indigenous peoples, across northern China and down into the Yangtze region (this process is covered in the article Society in Ancient China). Population censuses began being taken during the Han Empire, which record a population of about 50 or 60 million. This makes it, along with the Roman Empire, the largest state in the Ancient World.

Even by the end of the Han dynasty the heart of Chinese civilization lay in the Yellow River region of northern China. It was here that the two capital cities, first Chang'an, and then Louyang, were located. The Yangtze region, and even more the far south and southwest, remained under-populated frontier regions inhabited largely by non-Chinese peoples.

While the great majority of people remained engaged in agriculture and lived in farming villages, the ancient period saw towns and cities spread across China. Most of these were administrative centers, where provincial officials were based along with their staffs. Many were tiny by modern standards. The Han censuses show only twelve cities of more than 50,000 inhabitants; most of the rest would have been far smaller. Nevertheless, the capital of Han China was always among the largest cities in the world - at times, THE largest. Chang'an, the capital of the early Han emperors, had a quarter of a million inhabitants, and the later Han capital, Louyang, half a million.

Ancient China's economy and society was based on agriculture. The vast majority of Chinese families lived in small farming villages, dotted across intensively cultivated landscapes.

Chinese agriculture possessed, from ancient times, its own characteristics. Almost everywhere, it was dependent on the careful and unremitting management of water: to irrigate the fields of millet in North China, keep back the river floods near the great rivers, and swamp the paddy fields of southern China.

Their social position and economic condition of farmers has been different at different time. In early times, under the Shang and early Zhou, they were serfs, semi-servile bondsmen tied to their particular lords. From middle Zhou times, as the old feudal aristocracy disappeared, more and more of them became free owners of their small farms. Later again, in later Han times, their status declined again.

Whatever the farmers' condition, as the centuries went by Chinese agriculture became more and more productive. New crops and the spread of iron tools and new techniques led to more intensive farming. From later Zhou times, government became active in promoting agriculture, especially by bringing new land under irrigation, These various factors resulted in population growth.

Trade and industry in Imperial China

As agriculture became more productive and population increased, trade and industry also grew. The introduction of coinage in later Zhou times facilitated trade, and technological innovations such as the development of steel-making contributed to industrial expansion.

Another major factor was state intervention. Under the Qin and Han, the standardisation in such things as weights and measures and road building would have had a major impact.
International trade
International trade first gained prominence under the Han dynasty. By gaining control over the eastern steppes of central Asia, the Han enabled the Silk Road, that great trade route across Asia to the Middle East and Europe, to become established. At the same time, the conquest of south China opened up the maritime trade to south east Asia. Although the south remained an underpopulated frontier zone in ancient times, a few important ports were established on the coast. It was in this period that Canton began its long history as a center of international commerce.
Merchants and craftsmen in Chinese society
Craftsmen must have formed a privileged class in early China. Their products, including some of the finest bronzes ever produced, must have been highly valued by the ruling elite in Shang and early Zhou times, and this must have conferred a certain status on their makers.

In middle and later Zhou times, merchants became more influential as a class, and the economic expansion under the Han dynasty especially benefitted the urban classes. Government policies designed to keep merchants in their place could not halt them from growing in numbers and wealth.

The Ruling Classes

The societies of early China, under the Shang and early Zhou dynasties, were dominated by an hereditary feudal aristocracy. Later, however, the position of this group declined, and a new social class emerged, that of the gentry - small landowners who provided rulers with their growing number of officials. By the time of the Qin and Han dynasties, a career in government was effectively open only to members of the gentry class.

By mid-Han times, however, a new super-elite of great landowners was emerging, its members enriched by holding high office. This new class would dominate Chinese society and politics in the centuries that followed.

In pre-modern China, the family was of almost sacred significance, an attitude giving rise to, and reinforced by, the practice of ancestor veneration.

The existence of ancestor veneration is attested in the earliest texts from ancient China, the Shang dynasty oracles, and throughout China's long history the rise and decline of "higher" religions and modes of thought - Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism and so on - never undermined the practice, which might with some justification be thought of as the basic sacred tradition of China.

Women had a subordinate place in the Chinese family from ancient times. Their duty was to obey, first their fathers, then their husbands, and then, after their husbands' deaths, their eldest sons. This should not be exaggerated, however: children of both sexes were taught to obey and respect their parents.

Culture in China

Ancient beliefs and practices

It seems clear that many of traditional Chinese religious and philosophical ideas and practices were already present when written records begin, and probably for long before. Such elements as divination, ancestor veneration, feng-shui, the Dao and the supreme god Di are all evidenced in the Shang oracle bones inscriptions.

Zhou Schools of Thought

It was in mid- and late-Zhou periods, however, that the schools of thought developed which were so profoundly to influence Chinese thinking down to the 20th century. Four of these stand out as by far the most influential.
Confucianism
This taught that people must accept their place in society if society is to be harmonious. However, social relationships should be reciprocal. Thus, while a son should obey his father, the father should act considerately towards the son. ( More on Confucianism)
Daoism
The Daoists believed that a person must live in accordance with the flow of nature; trying to change the way things are is futile.( More on Daoism)
Mohism
The philosopher Mozi (c. 468-382) believed that anything that helped people's welfare and contributed to peace was good; anything that did not was bad. People should practice universal love, and not live selfishly. ( More on Mohism)
Legalism
The legalists said that the most important thing was that the state should be strong. To achieve this, all people should obey the ruler and his officials without question. For his part, the ruler should do whatever it takes to strengthen the state, whether it is immoral or not. ( More on Legalism)

Throughout China's long history these philosophical strands have never been mutually exclusive. Many educated Chinese have been Confucians in public life, Daoists in the privacy of their own homes, and when serving in an official post have happily pursued Legalist policies. The different philosophies have also deeply influenced each other so that, for example, the dominant of the three, Confucianism, has had strong Daoist and Legalist elements within it.

At first, though, these four schools seem to have regarded themselves as exclusive rivals for people's allegiances. The Qin dynasty came to power through the application of Legalist principles, and sought to eliminate all other schools of thought. After that dynasty fell, however, the Han dynasty enshrined Confucianism as the official ideology of the state. As such, it was probably forced to take in ideas from other schools, particularly Legalism and Daoism, in order to remain relevant to the needs of government and officials.

In late Han times and after, Daoism, and even more, Buddhism, came to prominence. Buddhism was the first belief-system from outside China to have a widespread impact on the Chinese people.

Literature

Apart from works on divination and religious rites, literature in Ancient China really got going in mid-Zhou times - the time of Confucius and other philosophers.

A number of works, dating to Zhou and Han times, gained the status of " Classics ", and came to be viewed almost as religious texts. They embodied the foundations of Confucian thought, and would have a profound influence on Chinese civilization.
Works of history
The other major strand of Chinese prose literature was history. The Han historian Sima Qian (c. 145-87 BC) set the standard for historical writing for the next two thousand years. Henceforth, history would be a major feature of Chinese literature.

So far as poetry was concerned, here again the Han period set in place foundations which would be followed and elaborated upon for hundreds of years. Two strands became popular: the first, Shih, consisted of short poems written in a compact, spare style; the second, Fu consisted of longer, more ornate verses. The interaction between these two styles would give a particular character to Chinese verse, reflecting a varying mix of the discipline of Shih with the expressiveness of Fu.

Apart from the beautiful bronzes dating to Shang and early Zhou times, few works of art have come down to us from Ancient China. Nevertheless, wonderful small clay models of houses, horses and people designed to be placed in graves show that Han artists strove for realism as well as lively movement. Also, writings from the Han period mention lively paintings adorning the walls of fine houses.

Further Study

Click here for the start of a sequence of maps showing the history of Ancient China

For a sequence of maps showing ancient China in the broader context of East Asian history: history of East Asia

Themed articles:
The State institutions in Ancient China The Economy of Ancient China Society in Ancient China Thought and Culture in Ancient China
Also, the article on The Origins of Civilization has a small section dealing specifically with China.

The broader regional context is covered in The history of East Asia.

Dynasties in Ancient China:
Shang dynasty China Zhou dynasty China Qin dynasty China Han dynasty China Divided China
The main sources I have used for the history of ancient China are:

Hucker, C.O., China's Imperial Past, Stanford, 1975 - the most informative of the books I have used, and very readable.

Roberts, J.A.G., The Complete History of China, Sutton, 2004 - also a very good introduction, and also highly readable.

Eberhard, W., A History of China, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977 - very useful to be read in conjunction with other general histories, but to be used with caution - it embodies some sociological models which have been ditched in recent years.

An even older book, but enormously informative and insightful, is Fitzgeralds, C.P., China: A Short Cultural History, Barrie & Jenkins, 1953 (despite the title, not that short - 624 pages).

A recent book which has been well received is Keay, J., China, A History, 2010. (I haven't yet read this, but I have read his India, A History, which is good).

Loewe, M., Crisis and Conflict in Han China, Allen & Unwin, 1975, offers a brilliant insight into the workings of Han government.

A lavishly illustrated work on archaeology for the general reader which includes good sections on China, is Renfrew, C. (ed.), Past Worlds: The Times Atlas of Archaeology, Times Books, 1995, p. 92-3, 146-7, 190-5

A work on general archaeology aimed more at students, but eminently readable and with very useful coverage of ancient China and the roots of Chinese civilization, is Scarre, C. (ed.), The Human Past, Thames & Hudson, 2005, p. 234ff., 552ff.

If you want a quick introduction to the archaeology of ancient China, try the small but beautifully illustrated handbook by Debaine-Francfort, C., The Search for Ancient China, Thames & Hudson, 1999.

For an insightful look at government in ancient China, see Finer, S. E., The History of Government, I, Ancient Monarchies and Empires, OUP, 1999, p. 442ff.

The Ancient History Encyclopedia has a very useful series of pages on Ancient China: start at the general Ancient China page and follow the appropriate links.

The British Museum's website Ancient China is a wonderful teaching resource.

Wikipedia's coverage of Ancient China is as usual vast, and is particularly useful if you want to chase down a specific topic (though coverage of some topics can be a bit patchy).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Ancient China: Chinese Civilization And History to 220 CE | TimeMaps

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For the purposes of this article, Ancient China's civilization refers to that period of Chinese history which began in the early 2nd millennium BCE, when a literate, city-based culture first emerged, to the end of the Han dynasty, in 220 CE. By this time all the essential foundations of Chinese civilization had been laid down.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Ancient China covered a vast and ever-changing geopolitical landscape, and the art it produced over three millennia is, unsurprisingly, just as varied. Still, despite continuous indigenous technical developments, changes in materials and tastes, and the influence of foreign ideas, there are certain qualities inherent in Chinese art which make it possible to describe in general terms and recognise no matter where or when it was produced and for what purpose. These essential qualities include a love of nature, a belief in the moral and educative capacity of art, an admiration of simplicity, an appreciation of accomplished brushwork, an interest in viewing the subject from various perspectives, and a loyalty to much-used motifs and designs from lotus leaves to dragons. Chinese art would influence tremendously that of its neighbours in East Asia, and the worldwide appreciation of its accomplishments, especially in ceramics, painting, and jade work continue to this day.

The Purpose of Art

An important difference between China and many other ancient cultures is that a large proportion of Chinese artists were not professionals but gentlemen amateurs (and a few ladies) who were also scholars. Students of Confucius and its sober principles, they were often men of literature who published poetry. Art was, for them and their audience, a means to capture and present the philosophical approach to life which they valued. For this reason, the art they produced is often minimal and without artifice, perhaps sometimes even a little austere to western eyes. Art, throughout most of China's history, was meant to express the artist's good character and not merely be an exposition of his practical artistic skills. Such Confucian principles as propriety or li were looked for by many of those who produced and consumed art.

The real arts of merit in China were calligraphy & painting.

Naturally, there were professional artists too, employed by the Imperial court or wealthy patrons to decorate the walls and interiors of their fine buildings and tombs. Of course, there were, too, thousands of craftsmen working precious materials into objects of art for the few who could afford them, but these were not regarded as artists in the modern sense. The real arts of merit in China were calligraphy and painting. If the art world today is troubled by a certain snobbishness, then the Chinese were perhaps the first to succumb to questions of what is and what is not art.

There grew up in China a connoisseurship of art so that more and more people became collectors of it. Texts were printed to guide people on the history of Chinese art with helpful rankings of the various merits of past artists. In a certain way, art became somewhat standardised with conventions to be adhered to. Artists were expected to study the great masters, copying their works as part of their training. One of the most famous and long-lasting sources of advice on judging art is the six-point list of the 6th century CE art critic and historian Xie He, originally published in his now lost Old Record of the Classifications of Painters. When considering the merits of a painting the viewer should assess the following (with point 1 the most important and essential):

1. Spirit Resonance, which means vitality.

2. Bone Method, which means using the brush.

3. Correspondence to the object, which means depicting the forms.

4. Suitability to type, which has to do with laying on of colour.

5. Division and planning, that is, placing and arranging.

6. Transmission by copying, that is, the copying of models. (Tregear, 94)

These relatively rigid rules of art creation and appreciation were, then, largely due to the belief that art should somehow benefit the viewer. The idea, or better, the acceptance that art could and should express the feelings of the artists themselves would only arrive in more modern times. Still, that is not to say there were not, just as in any art anywhere in the world, eccentrics who ignored the conventions and created works in their own inimitable way. There are cases in China of artists who painted to music not even looking at the picture, one who only painted when drunk and used his cap instead of a brush, those who used their fingers or toes to paint, and even one action artist who splashed ink on the silk spread out on his studio floor and then dragged an assistant over it. Sadly, the results of these innovations have not survived to be enjoyed today in the world's museums of Asiatic art.

Calligraphy

The art of calligraphy - and for the ancient Chinese it certainly was an art - aimed to demonstrate superior control and skill using brush and ink. Calligraphy established itself as one of the major Chinese art forms during the Han dynasty (206 BCE - 220 CE), and for two millennia after, all educated men were expected to be proficient at it. Some women, or at least certain figures at court, did become known as accomplished calligraphers, most notably Lady Wei (272-349 CE), said to have taught the great master Wang Xizhi (303-361 CE).

Far more than mere writing, the art used varying thicknesses of brushstroke, their subtle angles, and their fluid connection to each other - all precisely arranged in imaginary spaces on the page - to create an aesthetically pleasing whole. A connoisseurship quickly developed, and calligraphy became one of the six classic and ancient arts alongside ritual, music, archery, charioteering, and numbers.

The techniques and conventions of writing would influence painting where critics looked for the artist's forceful use of brushstrokes, their spontaneity, and their variation to produce the illusion of depth. Another influence of calligraphy skills on painting was the importance given to composition and the use of blank space. Finally, calligraphy remained so important that it even appeared on paintings to describe and explain what the viewer was seeing, indicate the title (although by no means all paintings were given a title by the original artist) or record the place it was created and the person it was intended for. Eventually, such notes and even poems became an integral part of the overall composition and an inseparable part of the painting itself. There was a fashion, too, for adding more inscriptions by subsequent owners and collectors, even adding extra portions of silk or paper to the original piece to accommodate them. From the 7th century CE owners frequently added their own seal in red ink, for example. Chinese paintings it seems were meant to be perpetually handled and embellished with fine calligraphy.

Painting

Chinese painters painted on various materials in many formats. The most popular formats were on walls (from c. 1100 BCE), coffins and boxes (from c. 800 BCE), screens (from c. 100 CE), silk scrolls which were designed to be looked at in the hand or hung on walls (from c. 100 CE for horizontal and from c. 600 CE for vertical), fixed fans (from c. 1100 CE), book covers (from c. 1100 CE) and folding fans (from c. 1450 CE).

The most popular materials with the earliest artists were wood and bamboo but then the following were adopted: plastered walls (from c. 1200 BCE), silk (from c. 300 BCE), and paper (from c. 100 CE). Canvas would only be used widely from the 8th century CE. Brushes were made from animal hair, cut to a tapering end and tied to a bamboo or wood handle. Significantly, they were precisely the same instruments used by the calligrapher. The inks used were made from rubbing a dried cake of animal or vegetable matter mixed with minerals and glue against a wet stone. Each artist had to laboriously make their own inks as there was no commercial production of them.

The two most popular themes of Chinese painting were portraits & landscapes.

The two most popular themes of Chinese painting were portraits and landscapes. Portraits in Chinese art began in the Warring States Period (5th-3rd century BCE) and were traditionally rendered with great restraint, usually because the subject was a great scholar, monk or court official and so should, by definition, have a good moral character which should be portrayed with respect by the artist. For this reason, faces are often seemingly impassive with only the merest hint of emotion or character subtly expressed. Often the character of the subject is much more clearly expressed in their attitude and relationship to other people in the picture; this is especially true of portraits of emperors and Buddhist figures.

There were, however, instances of more realistic portraits and these can be seen particularly in the wall paintings of tombs. A branch of portraiture was to paint historical figures in certain instructive scenes from their life which showed the benefits of moral behaviour. Naturally, there were also paintings of people which had less lofty aims, and these include the popular scenes of Chinese family life which are usually set in a garden.

Landscape painting had been around as long as artists had, but the genre really took off during the Tang dynasty when artists became much more concerned with humanity's place in nature. Typically, small human figures guide the viewer through a panoramic landscape of mountains and rivers in Tang paintings. It should be no surprise that mountains and water dominated landscape painting as the very word in Chinese for landscape translates literally as "mountain-and-water". Trees and rocks are also featured and the whole scene is usually meant to capture a particular season of the year. Colours were limited in use, either everything in various shades of a single colour (illustrating the roots in calligraphy) or two colours combined, usually blues and greens.

In accordance with the Taoist belief in the benefit of contemplating serene nature, there is rarely anything to disturb the tranquillity of landscape paintings such as farm labourers and no specific location is intended to be depicted. Later periods would, though, see more intimate and abstract scenes of nature concentrating on very specific themes such as bamboo gardens. Detailed paintings of a single animal, flower, or bird were especially popular from the Song dynasty (960-1279 CE) onwards, but these were regarded as artistically inferior to the other categories of Chinese painting.

Still, certain animals became symbolic of certain ideas and appeared in paintings just as they had already in other art forms like bronze work. For example, a pair of mandarin ducks denoted a happy marriage, a deer stood for money, and fish for fertility and abundance. Similarly, plants, flowers, and trees had their own meanings. Bamboo grows straight and true like a good scholar should be, the pine and cypress represent endurance, peaches long life, and each season had its own flower: peony, lotus, chrysanthemum, and prunus.

Depth was achieved in paintings by introducing mist or a lake in the middle ground giving the illusion that the mountains are further behind. Other devices include using paler ink and fainter strokes to paint more distant objects while foreground objects are rendered darker and more detailed. Painting the scene with several different viewpoints and multiple perspectives is another common characteristic of Chinese painting. One of the most famous of all Chinese landscape paintings is the 8th century CE painted silk panorama known as 'The Emperor Ming Huang Travelling in Shu'. It is a sprawling and detailed masterpiece of mountain scenery in the typical Tang style using only blues and greens. The original is lost but a later copy can be seen at the Palace Museum of Taipei.

Large-scale figure sculpture has not survived well but some monumental examples can still be seen such as those cut from the rock face at the Longmen Caves, Fengxian temple near Luoyang. Dating to 675 CE the 17.4 metre high figures represent a Buddhist Heavenly King and demon guardians. Another celebrated example of Chinese sculpture on a life-size scale are the figures of Shi Huangti's " Terracotta Army". Over 7,000 figures of warriors, 600 horses and several chariots were set to guard the tomb of the 3rd-century BCE Qin emperor. Much effort was made to render each figure unique despite them all being made from a limited repertoire of assembled body parts made from moulds. Faces and hair, in particular, were modified to give the illusion of a real army composed of unique individuals.

Regarding smaller-scale works, the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600-1046 BCE) is famous for its cast bronze work. Common shapes of bronze vessels are three-legged cauldrons, sometimes with the legs made into animals, birds, or dragons. They can be circular or square, and many have lids and handles. Sharp relief decoration includes repeating patterns, masks, and scroll motifs. The Shang artists also produced vessels in the form of three-dimensional animals such as rams, elephants, and mythological creatures.

In the Han period, small-scale sculpture took the form of stone or bricks stamped and carved with relief scenes and they are particularly common in tombs. Outstanding examples come from the Wu Liang Shrine at Jiaxiang. Dating to 151 CE or 168 CE, there are some 70 relief slabs which carry scenes of battles and famous historical figures, such as Confucius, all identified by accompanying texts and covering a chronological Chinese history in a pictorial record similar to a history book.

By the Tang dynasty, the wealth of the Buddhist monasteries permitted a great production of religious art.

Also in the Han period, cast bronze sculptures of horses were popular. These are usually depicted in full gallop with only one hoof resting on the base so that they almost appear to be flying. Earthenware figurines of single standing women, men, and servants are common from the Han period. Cast bronze was used to make small figurines and ornate incense burners. These were often inlaid with gold and silver or gilded. One superb piece is a gilded bronze oil-lamp in the form of a kneeling servant girl, which dates to the late 2nd century BCE.

While the tombs of emperors and important people sometimes had large figure statues set outside them most later sculpture was of Buddhist subjects. By the time of the Tang dynasty, the wealth of the Buddhist monasteries permitted a great production of religious art. The most popular subjects, as ever, were the Buddha and bodhisattvas, and they ranged from miniature figurines to life-size statues. Unlike in previous periods, figures became much less static, their suggested flowing movement even drawing criticism from some that serious religious figures, on occasion, now looked more like court dancers.

The Chinese were the masters of pottery and ceramics. They produced everything from heavy and functional storage jars in earthenware to exquisitely decorated bowls in the most delicate of porcelain, from vases to garden stools, teapots to pillows. They produced the first glaze wares, the first green celadons and the first underglaze wares painted with cobalt blue. Early developments in techniques and kilns led to both higher firing temperatures and the first glazed pottery during the Han period. Pottery, especially the vessels painted with a grey slip commonly found in Han tombs, very often imitated the shape and decoration of bronze vessels, and this would be a goal of many potters in later periods. Clay was used to produce small unglazed models of ordinary houses which were set in tombs to accompany the dead and, presumably, symbolically meet their need for a new home. Many such models are complete with adjacent animal pen and figurines of their occupants and animals.

Tang potters reached a level of technical proficiency greater than any of their predecessors. New colour glazes which were developed in the period included blues, greens, yellows, and browns, which were produced from cobalt, iron, and copper. Colours were mixed, too, producing the three-coloured wares the Tang period has become famous for. Rich inlays of gold and silver were also sometimes used to decorate Tang ceramics. In the Yuan (1271-1368 CE) and Ming (1368-1644 CE) periods even more famous ceramics would be produced with their distinctive and much-copied blue on white decoration which itself copied earlier Chinese paintings for design ideas.

Minor Arts

Gold, silver, copper, bronze, ivory, coloured glass, enamel, precious stones, semi-precious hard stones, silk, wood, and amber were all materials transformed into art objects by gifted craftsmen, but perhaps the most quintessential Chinese materials of the minor arts were jade and lacquer. Jade was especially esteemed in China for its rarity, durability, purity, and association with immortality. Using circular cutting drills and iron tools, the hard material was carved into all manner of jewellery items, everyday objects and figurines of animals, people, and mythical creatures, especially dragons. Jade was especially used for ritual objects such as the bi disc and zong ( cong) tubes, both of which were made in large numbers but are of unknown function. One unique but stunning use of jade was the creation of 'suits' to cover the body of the deceased in Han royal tombs. The 'suits' cover the contours of the body and are made from up to two thousand individually carved rectangular pieces of jade stitched together using gold or silver wire.

Lacquer - a liquid of shellac and resin - was used to coat objects of wood and other material since the Neolithic period in China. It was used to colour and beautify screens, furniture, bowls, cups, sculpture, musical instruments, and coffins, where it could be carved, incised, and inlaid to show off scenes from nature, mythology, and literature. The state sponsored and supervised the production of lacquerware, with different schools of lacquer art producing common forms but with recognisably distinct designs. Lacquerware took the form of plates, cups, and jars. Like pottery, they often imitated metal vessels, but they were decorated more elaborately, particularly with scenes of mythical creatures appearing from behind clouds and probably representing the spirit world of the afterlife.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ancient China covered a vast and ever-changing geopolitical landscape, and the art it produced over three millennia is, unsurprisingly, just as varied. Still, despite continuous indigenous technical developments, changes in materials and tastes, and the influence of foreign ideas, there are certain qualities inherent in Chinese art which make it possible to describe in general terms and recognise no matter where or when it was produced and for what purpose.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The study of Aztec gods and Aztec religion has been the subject of a lot of speculation and misinformation. The sacrifices performed by Mexica priests at the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon are legendary. However, there's more to Aztec religion than just blood, though many of their rituals were bloody. Here's a look at some of the major Aztec gods in the pantheon and their significance in Aztec religion.

The pantheon (numerous gods) of the Aztec civilization was enormous, with hundreds of gods and goddesses worshipped. Many of these gods were agricultural, since the culture relied heavily on farming. Elements of nature, heroes, and ancestors were also revered. It was believed that the balance of the natural world and the destiny of humanity depended on these gods, some of which were benevolent, and others of which were insatiable and terrifying.

Perhaps the most influential,

Huitzilopochtli

The Aztec gods didn't all come from the same source. Many different cultures made up the empire, so their gods were frequently adopted and either added to the descriptions of existing gods, or simply put into the pantheon.

Huitzilopochtli, for instance, was a Mexica god (the Mexicas being the people who founded what is commonly called the Aztec empire), while the traditions of existing cultures were adopted into a series of creation myths. The Toltecs were considered the origin of all culture, and the Aztecs adopted a great deal from them.

Major Aztec gods

Ometecuhtli and his female counterpart, Omecihuatl, represented the primordial forces of nature and duality, and were the parents of many of the other major gods. Sometimes they are called husband and wife, but they were really considered two sides of the same dualistic god. They were sometimes shown as a half man, half woman figure. Read more about this god in the Aztec creation story.

One of the most famous Aztec gods,

Quetzalcoatl,
eating a man

Quetzalcoatl was an important deity, since he had been the creator of humans. However, he wasn't the first to create them. The world had been created four times before, and destroyed by infighting each time. Quetzalcoatl retrieved the bones of humans from the underworld and added his blood to bring them to life. This god was represented by a feathered serpent, and can be seen in many different carvings and paintings.

This is only one variation of the creation story. Here's another version of the story of Aztec religion, with a picture of a common image of Quetzalcoatl, on of the more important Aztec gods.

Interestingly, it was believed that Quetzalcoatl introduced cocoa beans to humans.

Huitzilopochtli (Hummingbird of the South/Left) was a warrior sun god, requiring blood sacrifice to help him win the battle against darkness (more about Aztec sun gods here). This was not always in the form of human sacrifice - sometimes ritual blood letting was used. However, sacrificed warriors were thought to rise and fight with Huitzilopochtli, so sacrifices increased in frequency.

Battles were sometimes fought for the sole purpose of capturing more sacrifices. These battles were called flower wars.

Huitzilopochtli was the great god of the Aztecs. His worship fuelled the battles and sacrifices of the people, and his temples were built in the hearts of cities. The Templo Mayor contained his temple, and his image was on Moctezuma's Throne.

Xipe Totec, or the Flayed one, was the god of the seasons, renewal, and growing things. He was also the patron of gold workers. However, his rituals were still quite bloody. He flayed himself to give humanity food, and was shown as wearing a flayed human skin. Sculptures of this god may have been dressed in the skins of sacrificial victims.

His festival was celebrated on the spring equinox, and required the flaying of victims to produce a skin. The priests would wear these skins for twenty days after the sacrifice, and they were thought to have magical and curative properties.

Xipe Totec was one of the Aztec gods of the four directions - he was west.

See a mask representing Xipe Totec.

Tláloc, the god of rain and water, was associated with life giving and sustenance and fertility, as well as springs, mountains and caves. He was often depicted with goggle eyes, fangs, and a curled nose. Child sacrifices were made to him, and children were expected to weep in order to bring rain.

Less gruesome sacrifices occurred as well, with little statues being made from dough and offered to him. These dough children were eaten at banquets.

There was a surprising find related to Tlaloc and child sacrifice at the Cholula Pyramid - read more.

Read more about the sun gods here and also in the creation story. See more Aztec gods with pictures here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The study of Aztec gods and Aztec religion has been the subject of a lot of speculation and misinformation. The sacrifices performed by Mexica priests at the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon are legendary. However, there's more to Aztec religion than just blood, though many of their rituals were bloody.

# data[].attributes.headline
Aztec Empire: Simple Clothing, Elaborate Decorations

# data[].attributes.subject
Aztec Empire: Simple Clothing, Elaborate Decorations

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
All Aztecs dressed rather simply on a daily basis, according to their station in life. Men of both the noble and common class wore a loincloth and a cape called a tilma. Variations in fabric, trim and how the tilma was worn revealed the status of the wearer. Women of all classes wore a blouse and a long skirt with a sash at the waist. Very young children wore nothing until the age of three or four, when boys started wearing the tilma and girls the blouse and skirt. The girls' skirts started out short, but grew to ankle length as a girl grew older.

A major difference between the classes is that the nobles could wear cotton garments and the commoners had to make do with ayate cloth, made from the maguey cactus. Cotton was the finer cloth; in fact, cotton cloth was used as currency. However, the cloth made from the maguey plant was comfortable and sturdy, suitable for people who worked physically as most commoners did.

While sandals were worn by nobles, especially the males, most Aztecs went barefoot. Entering a temple or going before the emperor required all to be barefoot.

All Aztecs of any class loved colorful clothing. With their far-flung trading networks, many plant dyes were available, though only the wealthiest could afford the finest dyes. Blues, yellows, reds adorned the capes, blouses and skirts of the Aztec people.

While simple clothing was the choice for daily living, festival or ceremonial clothing could be elaborate, decorated with fur and feathers and trim of contrasting colors and fabrics. Aztecs decorated themselves with jewelry-nose rings, ear rings and plugs, labrets for the lips and tongue, necklaces, bracelets and rings were made of precious metals or carved from bone, shells, antler or wood. Jewelry was created from precious stones such as jade or topaz as well as the teeth and claws of animals. Aztec artists created feather capes and headdresses, and made a fine art of feather working.

What the different classes wore was a matter of law in the Aztec Empire. Woe betide the commoner who dressed as a noble. Laws defined what garb was reserved to the emperor, such as headdresses of gold and quetzal feathers, or to nobles, such as who could wear leather sandals. These laws were strictly enforced and the penalty was death.

The wealthy merchant class had its own rules and section of the city, but even they could not dress as elaborately as nobles. However, their clothing was far more decorated and colorful than was acceptable for the commoners.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Aztec Empire: Simple Clothing, Elaborate Decorations - History

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
All Aztecs dressed rather simply on a daily basis, according to their station in life. Men of both the noble and common class wore a loincloth and a cape called a tilma. Variations in fabric, trim and how the tilma was worn revealed the status of the wearer.

# data[].attributes.headline
10 Ancient Mesopotamian Gods And Goddesses You Should Know About

# data[].attributes.subject
10 Ancient Mesopotamian Gods And Goddesses You Should Know About

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Sumerian Civilization

Sumer was first settled by humans from 4500 to 4000 B.C., though it is probable that some settlers arrived much earlier.

This early population-known as the Ubaid people-was notable for strides in the development of civilization such as farming and raising cattle, weaving textiles, working with carpentry and pottery and even enjoying beer. Villages and towns were built around Ubaid farming communities.

The people known as Sumerians were in control of the area by 3000 B.C. Their culture was comprised of a group of city-states, including Eridu, Nippur, Lagash, Kish, Ur and the very first true city, Uruk. At its peak around 2800 BC, the city had a population between 40,000 and 80,000 people living between its six miles of defensive walls, making it a contender for the largest city in the world.

Each city-state of Sumer was surrounded by a wall, with villages settled just outside and distinguished by the worship of local deities.

Sumerian Language and Literature

The Sumerian language is the oldest linguistic record. It first appeared in archaeological records around 3100 B.C. and dominated Mesopotamia for the next thousand years. It was mostly replaced by Akkadian around 2000 B.C. but held on as a written language in cuneiform for another 2,000 years.

Cuneiform, which is used in pictographic tablets, appeared as far back as 4000 B.C., but was later adapted into Akkadian, and expanded even further outside of Mesopotamia beginning in 3000 B.C.

Writing remains one of the most important cultural achievements of the Sumerians, allowing for meticulous record keeping from rulers down to farmers and ranchers. The oldest written laws date back to 2400 B.C. in the city of Ebla, where the Code of Er-Nammu was written on tablets.

The Sumerians were considered to have a rich body of literary works, though only fragments of these documents exist.

Sumerian Art and Architecture

Architecture on a grand scale is generally credited to have begun under the Sumerians, with religious structures dating back to 3400 B.C., although it appears that the basics of the structures began in the Ubaid period as far back as 5200 B.C. and were improved upon through the centuries. Homes were made from mud bricks or bundled marsh reeds. The buildings are noted for their arched doorways and flat roofs.

Elaborate construction, such as terra cotta ornamentation with bronze accents, complicated mosaics, imposing brick columns and sophisticated mural paintings all reveal the society's technical sophistication.

Sculpture was used mainly to adorn temples and offer some of the earliest examples of human artists seeking to achieve some form of naturalism in their figures. Facing a scarcity of stone, Sumerians made leaps in metal-casting for their sculpture work, though relief carving in stone was a popular art form.

Under the Akkadian dynasty, sculpture reached new heights, as evidenced by intricate and stylized work in diorite dated to 2100 B.C.

Ziggurats began to appear around 2200 B.C. These impressive pyramid-like, stepped temples, which were either square or rectangular, featured no inner chambers and stood about 170 feet high. Ziggurats often featured sloping sides and terraces with gardens. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon was one of these.

Palaces also reach a new level of grandiosity. In Mari around 1779 B.C., an ambitious 200-room palace was constructed.

Sumerian Science

Sumerians had a system of medicine that was based in magic and herbalism, but they were also familiar with processes of removing chemical parts from natural substances. They are considered to have had an advanced knowledge of anatomy, and surgical instruments have been found in archeological sites.

One of the Sumerians greatest advances was in the area of hydraulic engineering. Early in their history they created a system of ditches to control flooding, and were also the inventors of irrigation, harnessing the power of the Tigris and Euphrates for farming. Canals were consistently maintained from dynasty to dynasty.

Their skill at engineering and architecture both point to the sophistication of their understanding of math. The structure of modern time keeping, with sixty seconds in a minute and sixty minutes in an hour, is attributed to the Sumerians.

Sumerian Culture

Schools were common in Sumerian culture, marking the world's first mass effort to pass along knowledge in order to keep a society running and building on itself.

Sumerians left behind scores of written records, but they are more renowned for their epic poetry, which influenced later works in Greece and Rome and sections of the Bible, most notably the story of the Great Flood, the Garden of Eden, and the Tower of Babel. The Sumerians were musically inclined and a Sumerian hymn, "Hurrian Hymn No. 6," is considered the world's oldest musically notated song.

Gilgamesh

The very first ruling body of Sumer that has historical verification is the First Dynasty of Kish. The earliest ruler mentioned is Etana of Kish, who, in a document from the time, is credited as having "stabilized all the lands." One thousand years later, Etana would be memorialized in a poem that told of his adventures in heaven.

The most famous of the early Sumerian rulers is Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, who took control around 2700 B.C. and is still remembered for his fictional adventures in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the first epic poem in history and inspiration for later Roman and Greek myths and Biblical stories.

A devastating flood in the region was used as a pivotal point in the epic poem and later reused in the Old Testament story of Noah.

Sumerian Power Struggles

Somewhere around 2600 B.C., a power struggle erupted between the leaders of Kish, Erech and Ur, which set off a "musical-chairs" scenario of rulers for the region for the next 400 years.

The first conflict resulted in the kingdom of Awan seizing control and shifting the ruling body outside of Sumer until the kingship was returned to the Kish.

The Kish kept control briefly until the rise of Uruk King Enshakushanna, whose brief dynasty was followed by Adabian conqueror Lugalannemundu, who held power for 90 years and is said to have expanded his kingdom up to the Mediterranean. Lugalannemundu also conquered the Gutian people, who lived in the Eastern Iraqi mountains and who would later come to rule Sumer.

In 2500 B.C. the only woman to rule the Sumerians, Kubaba, took the throne. She is the only female listed on the Sumerian King List, which names all rulers of Sumer and their accomplishments. Kubaba's son, Puzur-Suen, eventually reigned, bringing in the fourth dynasty of Kish, following a brief ascendency of Unzi, the first in the Akshak Dynasty.

This last Kish dynasty ruled for a century before Uruk king Lugal-zage-si ruled for 25 years before Sargon took control in 2234.

Sargon

Sargon was an Akkadian whose past is shrouded in legends that some claim were ignited by Sargon himself. The claim is that he was the secret child of a high priestess who placed him in a basket and cast him off into a river, a story that was later utilized for Moses in the Old Testament.

Sumerian tradition says that Sargon was the son of a gardener who rose to the position of cupbearer for Ur-Zababa, king of Kish, which was not a servant position but a high official.

Ur-Zababa was defeated by the king of Uruk, who was, in turn, overtaken by Sargon. Sargon followed that victory by seizing the cities of Ur, Umma and Lagash, and establishing himself as ruler. His militaristic reign reached to the Persian Gulf.

Sargon built the city of Agade as his base, south of Kish, which became an important center in the ancient world and a prominent port. Agade was also home to Sargon's army, which is considered the first organized standing army in history and the earliest to use chariots in warfare.

Sargon took control of the religious cultures of the Akkadians and the Sumerians, making his daughter Enhedu-anna the head priestess of the moon god cult of Ur. Enheduanna is best remembered for her transcriptions of temple hymns, which she also wrote and preserved in her writings.

Sargon ruled for 50 years, and after his death, his son Rimush faced widespread rebellion and was killed. Rimush's brother Manishtushu met the same fate.

Sargon's grandson, Naram-Sin, took the throne in 2292 B.C. Naram-Sin considered himself divine and was leveled with charges of sacrilege.

The Gutians invaded in 2193 B.C. following the reign of the last Akkadian king, Naram-Sin's son Sharkalisharri. Their era is marked by decentralized chaos and neglect. It was during Gutian reign that the grand city of Agade decayed into wreckage and disappeared from history.

Ur-Nammu

The final gasp of Sumer leadership came in 2100 B.C. when Utuhegal, king of Ur, overthrew the Gutians. Utuhegal's reign was brief, with Ur-Nammu, the former governor of Ur, taking the throne, starting a dynasty that would rule for about a century.

Ur-Nammu was known as a builder. Figurines from the time depict him carrying building materials. During his reign, he started massive projects to build walls around his capital city, to create more irrigation canals, construct new temples and rebuild old ones.

Ur-Nammu also did the considerable work of constructing an organized and complicated legal code that is considered the first in history. Its purpose was to ensure that everyone in the kingdom, no matter what city they lived in, received the same justice and punishments, rather than rely on the whims of individual governors.

Ur-Nammu also created an organized school system for state administrators. Called the Edubba, it kept an archive of clay tablets for learning.

What Happened to Sumer?

In 2004 B.C., the Elamites stormed Ur and took control. At the same time, Amorites had begun overtaking the Sumerian population.

The ruling Elamites were eventually absorbed into Amorite culture, becoming the Babylonians and marking the end of the Sumerians as a distinct body from the rest of Mesopotamia.

Sources

The Sumerians. Samuel Noah Kramer.
Ancient Mesopotamia: Leo Oppenheim.
Sumer: Cities of Eden. Denise Dersin, Charles J. Hagner, Darcie Conner Johnston.

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Sumer was an ancient civilization founded in the Mesopotamia region of the Fertile Crescent situated between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Known for their innovations in language, governance, architecture and more, Sumerians are considered the creators of civilization.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Civilization.ca - Mystery of the Maya - Maya civilization

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Around 300 B.C., the Maya adopted a hierarchical system of government with rule by nobles and kings. This civilization developed into highly structured kingdoms during the Classic period, A.D. 200-900. Their society consisted of many independent states, each with a rural farming community and large urban sites built around ceremonial centres.

# data[].attributes.body
this is cool

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Mesopotamian education was a cornerstone of elite life for all empires that dwelt in the Fertile Crescent. The first schools were started by the Sumerians in southern Mesopotamia. The invention of writing in the mid-4th millennium B.C. made kings and priests realize the need for educating scribes. At first, the writing was simple pictograms, but it gradually developed into cuneiform, wedge-shaped marks inscribed on clay. The wedge shapes were due to the triangle-shaped tip of the stylus, a reed used as a pen. With the invention of writing, the Sumerians began to record everything they saw: business records, inventories, observations of daily life, religious hymns, poems, stories, palace orders and temple records.

Mesopotamian education largely centered around literacy. This could be said for nearly any culture, but it was particularly true for the difficult of the written language. In the 3rd millennium, cuneiform writing became quite complex. It took 12 years to learn the cuneiform marks and the general knowledge of scribes. Temples established schools in which to educate boys as scribes and priests. At first, scribal schools were aligned with the temples, but gradually secular schools took over. Established scribes opened schools and charged costly tuition.

The costly tuition ensured that only boys of wealthy families could afford to acquire any level of Mesopotamian education. The sons of the nobility, government officials, priests and rich merchants went to school from dawn to dusk each day. Due to the difficulty in learning cuneiform script, few Sumerians were literate, although they could probably recognize some common words.

Boys probably started school when they were seven or eight years old. Learning scribal skills was hard work. Girls did not learn to read or write unless they were a king's daughters or were training as priestesses. Teachers, mostly former scribes or priests, were harsh disciplinarians; mistakes were often punished by whipping. Teachers punished students who spoke out of turn, spoke without permission, dressed inappropriately, or got up and left without permission. They expected students to be obedient as well as hard working.

Teachers taught the boys reading, writing, math and history. Depending on their future employment, students not only had to learn literacy and numeracy, but to be familiar with a wide variety of subjects, including geography, zoology, botany, astronomy, engineering, medicine and architecture. While schools were reserved only for the elite and wealthy, students had to work hard to learn the skills of a scribe.

Students learned the complicated cuneiform script by constant practice on their clay tablets. A teacher would write a sentence on the tablet. The student was then to copy the sentence repeatedly until he got it right with no errors. A "big brother" or a teacher's aide helped younger students with their work. Repeated practice, recitation, reading various texts and constant copying gradually taught the students the thousands of groups of cuneiform marks they needed to know. Archeologists found many clay tablets covered with a student's efforts, often corrected by a teacher. Once graduated, a new scribe could become a priest with more training, or he could work as a scribe for the military, palace, temple or an array of businesses.
This article is part of our larger resource on Mesopotamian culture, society, economics, and warfare. Click here for our comprehensive article on ancient Mesopotamia.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Mesopotamian Education and Schools - History

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Mesopotamian education was a cornerstone of elite life for all empires that dwelt in the Fertile Crescent. The first schools were started by the Sumerians in southern Mesopotamia. The invention of writing in the mid-4th millennium B.C. made kings and priests realize the need for educating scribes.

# data[].attributes.body
religion

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Maya religious beliefs are formed on the notion that virtually everything in the world contains k'uh, or sacredness. K'uh and k'uhul, similar terms which are used to explain the spirituality of all inanimate and animate things, describe the most divine life force of existence. Maya belief establishes the creation and sanctity of human beings, the earth, and all things sacred. This divine sanctity can be translated into Maya creation myths as well.

The Maya Creation Myth

Before explaining the Maya creation myths, it is important to understand the difference between the two sources that the Maya creation stories have been found in. These sources include the and the Books of Chilam Balam. The Popol Vuh is associated with the highland Maya of what is today Guatemala. It contains text about human creation, prophecies, and traditional myths and histories. TheBooks of Chilam Balam are normally associated with the lowland Maya of the Yucatán area of Mexico. There are several books of Chilam Balam which are named for the area in which they were written. The most famous and influential books include the books of Chumayel, Tizimin, Mani, Kaua, Ixil, Tusik, and Codex Pérez. The books are written by a Jaguar priest, a literal translation for Chilam Balam. These books date to colonial Spanish times, circa 1500s CE, and there is a clear influence of Spanish colonialism on the creation stories of the Chilam Balam.

For the Maya the creation of the earth is said to have been a deed of Huracán, the wind and sky god. The sky and earth connected, which left no space for any beings or vegetation to grow. In order to make space, a Ceiba tree was planted. The tree grew roots in all the levels of the underworld and its branches grew into the upper world. The tree trunk grew to leave space on earth for animals, plants, and humans. According to Maya belief, animals and plants were extant before humans. The gods were not satisfied with only the animals because they could not speak to honor them. From there, humans were made in order to honor the gods.

The Many Epochs of the Maya

According to Maya texts, thus far, there have been three creations. Two of these creations have ended or, in other words, the creatures have been destroyed. There are many variations of the three creations. Some have been influenced by Christianity, however, the basic events of the creations are detailed in the following explanation from the Popol Vuh of the highland Maya.
Built from Mud
The first creation saw the people who were made of mud. The mud people were not the most productive as many were not able to think in the capacity that modern-day humans do and, according to Maya sacred texts, these men "spoke but had no mind." They could not move because they were made of mud and they also were not technically mortal. The gods were not happy with their first creation, so they destroyed the mud people with water.
Built from Wood
For the second creation, the deities made men from wood and women from reeds. These people could function as humans do, but had no souls and did not honor the gods. They were also immortal. When they died, they only remained dead for three days and would rise from the dead. The destruction of the tree men and reed women was caused by an inundation of boiling hot water. The few who may have survived this apocalypse are thought to have become the monkeys that exist today.
Built from Maize
The third creation saw the birth of modern-day humans. These humans are made of white and yellow maize dough and the blood of the gods. The first humans were four men and four women. These men and women were deemed too wise by the gods. The Maya deities believed these intelligent humans were a threat to their authority and almost destroyed them as well. However, Heart of Heaven (also known as Huracán, but in the creation story he is the Heart of Heaven, Heart of Earth, or Heart of Sky) clouded their minds and eyes so that they would become less wise.

The most important concept to understand about Maya religious belief is that time and the creation of humans are thought to be cyclical.

The different Maya groups believe in a variety of creation myths. The most important concept to understand about Maya religious belief is that time and the creation of humans are thought to be cyclical. This means that some Maya believe that contemporary humans will be destroyed and another creation is imminent. However, this does not necessarily equate to the popularized notions that the Maya believed in an "end of the world" event. Belief in the end of humanity isn't the end of the world, it is the end of an era and, perhaps, the beginning of a new epoch of the gods.

The gods destroyed the different versions of "humans" because they either could not or would not worship their creators. This is a crucial consideration for the gods. They could not afford to have creations which were unworthy and incapable of providing sustenance to the gods.

Major Maya Gods & Goddesses

Typically, Maya gods are fluid and have diverse personalities. This sometimes makes it difficult to distinguish one god from another. However, it may be simpler to keep in mind that although the Maya deities are numerous, the most consequential gods sometimes morph with the less notable gods and share characteristics of both deities. The incorporation of connectivity in Maya culture, not surprisingly, applies to Maya deities as well. Some deities even have conflicting personality traits.

The multiplicity of the deities' personalities are furthered by their appearance. Many gods are an amalgamation of a human and particular animal. They are also associated with different cardinal directions and an individual god's importance can vary depending on historical context. This fluidity is precisely why scholars refer to some Maya deities with the letters of the Latin alphabet.
Itzam Ná & Ix Chebel Yax
Itzam Ná is the god attributed to creation. Not much is known about him and the same can be said of his counterpart, Ix Chebel Yax. Itzam Ná is often depicted as a squinty-eyed, long-nosed old man or sometimes even an iguana. Ix Chebel Yax was the wife of Itzam Ná and is also depicted as an iguana. Both she and Itzam Ná are considered to be high in the hierarchy of gods. The spelling of their names can vary, as can the spellings of many Maya names can.
Huracán
Huracán, another significant Maya god, is often referred to as the Heart of Heaven, Heart of Sky, or Heart of Earth. While there is not much direct evidence about Huracán being the supreme creator god, the Popol Vuh does imply in one of its prayers that Huracán is a "giver of life." The same prayer also refers to Huracán as the Heart of Heaven and Earth, which also suggests his importance as a creator. Due to the fluidity of Maya gods, it's not vital to make an absolutely clear distinction between the creator gods. Having said that, however, Huracán is typically associated with the Quiché Maya of Guatemala. The Quiché believe that Huracán formed the earth and created it for humans. He, too, formed people by making them out of maize dough and is lord of fire, storms, and wind.
K'inich Ajaw
K'inich Ajaw (pronounced Ah-how), sometimes known as God G or Kinich Ahau, is the "Sun-faced Lord." K'inich Ajaw is typically portrayed as rising or being born in the East and aging as the sun sets. This fierce sun deity would then turn into a jaguar and become a war advisor in the underworld. The sun deities are both worshipped and feared because, while they offer the life-giving properties of the sun, they can sometimes provide too much sun and cause a drought.
Hun H'unahpu
The maize god, Hun H'unahpu, is perhaps the most important of the celestial beings as well. Also referred to as God E, Hun H'unahpu is considered to be the creator of modern humans by the lowland Yucatec Maya. This is because his maize and blood are what made humanity possible. He is a symbol of life and fertility and is portrayed as a young, long-haired man.
Chak
Chak, the seeming counterpart of K'inich Ajaw, is the rain god or God B. Chak is both part human and part reptile and he is usually shown with a lightning bolt, a serpent, or an axe. This fearsome god sometimes is shown painted in blue and with snake-like whiskers protruding from his face. The Maya believe that Chak lived in caves where he would make lightning, thunder, and clouds. Chak, too, was both feared and worshipped. He brought the needed rains for the people, but also produced floods, threatening lightning, and behaved much like a wild storm. He also demanded blood sacrifices in payment for the rains that he provided.
K'awil
God K, or K'awil, is the keeper of the scepter. He is predominantly the protector of the royal line and is known for being linked to lightning as well. He is usually pictured with a piercing of a smoking torch or a grisly axe blade. In addition to his frightful piercings, he also has a snake as one foot and an upturned snout for the other. K'awil is credited with discovering cocoa and maize after striking a mountain with one of his lightning bolts.
Kisim
Kisim, or God A, is known as the "flatulent one." Don't let the humorous name fool you, though. This deity is a terrifying god of death and decay. Kisim has been portrayed as a veritable decomposing skeleton or zombie. Sometimes, Kisim was accompanied by an owl. In Maya belief, owls are messengers of the underworld.
Ix Chel
God O, or Ix Chel, is the goddess of rainbows. While rainbows may symbolize goodwill in western culture, Ix Chel should not be confused as a god of goodwill. The Maya actually believe that rainbows are the "flatulence of demons," and bring bad luck and disease. Ix Chel also represents these things because of her association with rainbows. In her typical form, Ix Chel is a fanged, clawed, and dilapidated crone. However, in conjunction with the duplicity of Maya beings, Ix Chel also has a more benevolent form. She occasionally represents fertility and childbirth and, in these contexts, she is pictured as youthful and beautiful.
The Hero Twins
Finally, the legend of the Hero Twins entails the adventures of two brothers, Xbalanque and Hunahpu, through the underworld. The legend, chronicled in the Popol Vuh, begins with the conception of the brother-gods. The Twins' father was the god Hun H'unahpu. Hun H'unahpu and his brother were lured to the underworld to be sacrificed through decapitation. However, because Hun H'unahpu was immortal, his decapitated head survived and turned into a fruit on a tree. Hun H'unahpu's fruit head spit into the hand of the goddess Xquic, who ultimately gave birth to Xbalanque and Hunahpu, the Hero Twins.

The twins faced many challenges, but the most epic story is of their journey through Xibalba (pronounced Shee-bahl-bah), the Maya underworld.

The twins were summoned to the underworld after playing a raucous and loud ballgame above the heads of the lords of Xibalba. The lords challenged the twins many times, but through wit and cunning, the twins were able to best the lords of Xibalba. Xbalanque and Hunahpu grew tired of the endless challenges and devised a way to escape the underworld. They disguised themselves as travelers and entertained the underworld gods with tricks and games. The lords were so impressed with their trick of bringing a person back to life after they were sacrificed that they asked the twins to sacrifice them and bring them back to life. However, instead of bringing the gods back to life, the twins left them dead and made the underworld a place for the wretched. The Hero Twins and the lords of Xibalba now reside in the night sky as stars. Kings were thought to follow the trials of the Hero Twins after their death and make their journey to the heavens or upper world.

There are many more celestial beings, but the aforementioned are those which occur most frequently. They can come in many forms and their multiplicity is a pillar of the connective ideals of Maya religion.

Heaven, Hell, & The Cardinal Directions

Contrary to contemporary western ideas of heaven and hell, the Maya believed in different levels of these realms. There are three main areas to distinguish from one another, however. The Maya understand supernatural levels not as heaven and hell, but as the upper world, middle world, and underworld.

The upper world consists of thirteen levels, the middle world is one level, and the underworld is nine levels. The Ceiba tree is believed to grow through all of the realms, from the highest level of the upper world to the lowest level of the underworld. The Ceiba tree is vital to understanding the importance of the cardinal directions in the Maya world.

Maya deities, in particular, are linked to the cardinal directions. While we are familiar with the four cardinal directions, the Maya understood that there were five elements to the cardinal directions, the four directions and the center. Arguably, the most meaningful cardinal direction to the Maya is the east. The east is where the sun rises and it is associated with birth because of the Maya belief that the sun is born daily from the east.

These principles were also part of Maya daily life. Homes were designed to reflect the cardinal directions and the Ceiba tree. The Maya even built hearths at the center of their homes in order to represent the Ceiba-tree center of the cardinal directions.

Maya Rituals

The Maya participated in various religious rituals. Not all of these were related to human sacrifice, although sacrifice was a common practice in religious ceremonies. Contrary to popular belief, ritual sacrifice was not restricted to the gruesome death of a poor captive. While this did happen in the Maya world on a few occasions, it was a relatively rare occurrence. By far the most common sacrifice ritual was bloodletting.

By far the most common Maya sacrifice ritual was bloodletting.
Bloodletting
Bloodletting is precisely as it sounds, the spilling of blood as a practice of sacrifice. In the case of the Maya, bloodletting was constrained to the royal line. The gods demanded blood because of the initial creation where the gods spilled their blood in order to give life to humanity. Also, but not as often, bloodletting was performed in order to communicate with ancestors.

The practice of bloodletting marked significant dates in the Maya world. Royals participating in the practice would spend, sometimes, days performing purification rituals in order to prepare for bloodletting. Both men and women of royal lineages were expected to perform these rituals. Maya kings and queens would participate in varying forms of bloodletting, even making sacred tools to perform the ritual. Blood was usually taken from different parts of the body with specialized tools designed to produce more blood and perhaps more pain as well. The tools were typically made of stingray spines and adorned with different glyphs to show their religious significance. One frightful instance of sacrifice noted by Rubalcaba described how women, typically royal women, would use a thorned rope to pierce their tongue and draw blood to scatter over Maya icons. Men, on the other hand, would do the same, except on the penis rather than the tongue.

The practice of bloodletting would often serve to commemorate and sanctify important events such as births, ascents to the throne, and anniversaries. On the other hand, human sacrifice was reserved for the greatest Maya events.
Human Sacrifice
While wars were usually fought for reasons other than religion, when wars did occur, religion would become involved. Oftentimes, shamans or priests would help plan war strategies. A war priest was called a nacom. The Maya would often combine aspects of warfare and religion. Typically, this was in the form of taking prisoners for sacrifice.

Sacrifices were important in keeping the gods satisfied and were also vital in ensuring a military victory. When a king or queen would ascend to the throne and a political prisoner had been captured, they would commemorate the life-altering event with a human sacrifice. Typically, these prisoners would be royals or elites of an enemy state. The most high-up royals were saved for the sole purpose of recreating events from the Popol Vuh.

These sacrifices were performed in many ways, but there were three methods that were most common. The first method was through decapitation. The next method was the popularized method of removing the heart from the living person. The final, most popular, method was to throw a living person into a cenote, or natural well, as an offering to the gods.
Other Offerings & Rituals
While the most prevalent ritual associated to the ancient Maya is the practice of sacrifice, they also performed other kinds of rituals. Not all Maya offerings were so bloody and gruesome. While they may not seem quite logical to westerners, the alternative offerings do provide interesting ways to communicate with and satisfy the deities.

One rather startling and overlooked means of communication with the gods involved lowering children into cenotes. Children were placed in the wells in order for them to speak to the god or gods. After a few hours of being in the well, the children would be retrieved so that the message from the deities could be heard. Of course, the Maya also participated in offering to the gods precious items such as jade, gold, masks, shells, carved human bone, and ceremonial or sacred tools.

Marriage was another religious ritual and a cause for celebration. Maya marriages were typically arranged marriages within the same social class. Age at the time of marriage varied, but experts speculate that the marriage age was related to population growth and decline. When the Maya population declined, youths would marry at a younger age. Couples would be matched at a very young age, sometimes even when they were infants.

Marriages were performed by priests at the bridal home. Priests would burn incense to bring a fortuitous marriage and then a feast or other type of celebration would ensue. If the marriage was not deemed successful by either husband or wife, the couple could "divorce." There is no known ritual for divorce, but it is intriguing that divorce was, more or less, an acceptable action.

Dance is another overlooked ritual. Dance rituals were performed to communicate with the gods. The dances would feature lavish costumes which depicted the visages of divinities. Often the Maya would wear or include ornaments such as staffs, spears, rattles, scepters, and even live snakes as dance aids. The Maya believed that by dressing and acting as a god, they would be overtaken by the god's spirit and therefore would be able to communicate with him or her.

The ancient Maya maintained a complex religion. The multifaceted gods and rituals have even persisted in today's Maya culture, however syncretized they have become. Their ideologies of creation, sacrifice, sacredness, and multiplicity are key to understanding the Maya religion.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Maya religious beliefs are formed on the notion that virtually everything in the world contains k'uh, or sacredness. K'uh and k'uhul, similar terms which are used to explain the spirituality of all inanimate and animate things, describe the most divine life force of existence.

# data[].attributes.headline
All about the bad Spanish who wiped out the Aztecs

# data[].attributes.subject
All about the bad Spanish who wiped out the Aztecs

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kids learn about the Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire including Hernan Cortes and Montezuma II.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This story appears in the May 2013 issue ofNational Geographic magazine.

Grand Canal barges have no fancy names, no mermaids planted on the bow, no corny sayings painted on the stern. Instead they have letters and numbers stamped on the side, like the brand on a cow. Such an unsentimental attitude might suggest unimportance, but barges plying the Grand Canal have knit China together for 14 centuries, carrying grain, soldiers, and ideas between the economic heartland in the south and the political capitals in the north.

Outside the northern city of Jining, Zhu Silei-Old Zhu, as everyone calls him-fired up the twin diesels on Lu-Jining-Huo 3307, his shiny new barge. It was 4:30 a.m., and Old Zhu had hoped to get a jump on the other crews, who were still toying with their anchors. But as I gazed at the shore, I noticed that the trees had stopped moving against the graying sky. Looking out the other window, I was surprised to see barges overtaking us. Just then the radio crackled to life.

"Old Zhu, what's up with you?" a barge captain said, laughing. "You missed the channel!"

We had run aground. Old Zhu narrowed his eyes in disgust. He had spent six months on land supervising his barge's construction and now in his haste had underestimated the Grand Canal, with its challenging currents and its channels that silt up. Grudgingly, he picked up the mike and asked for advice.

After hearing that the sandbar was small, he stared intently at the water and decided on quick action. He reversed hard, pushing the throttle to full. The diesels shook the 165-foot barge and its thousand metric tons of coal with a mighty shudder. He spun the wheel, flipped the gear, and gunned the engines again. The waters churned as we surged ahead. With trailing lights off to save power, and the water lit only by the moon, Lu-Jining-Huo 3307 was like a Uboat heading into enemy territory. Our target: Nantong, 430 miles to the south.

On paper the Grand Canal runs 1,100 miles, between Beijing and the southern metropolis of Hangzhou. But for nearly four decades the top half of its course-from Beijing to Jining-has been too dry for shipping. The waterway's main commercial artery now spans the 325 miles from Jining to the Yangtze.

The original canal system, built by Emperor Yang of the Sui dynasty, was seen by Chinese historians as an act of brilliant madness. Ancient China's main rivers ran west to east, and Yang wanted to break this grip of geography. He needed a way to move rice from the fertile region around the Yangtze northwest to feed his court and, crucially, his armies, which were constantly battling nomadic tribes. So the emperor's officials press-ganged an estimated million workers, mostly farmers, into building the first section of the canal. Supervised by thousands of soldiers, the men and women were driven around the clock. Yang "inflicted intolerable sufferings," a ninth-century poet wrote, yet these projects "provided endless benefits to the people." Officially the work was finished in 171 days in the year 605, but in reality it took six years to complete and claimed an untold number of lives-many of them villagers who starved because there weren't enough hands left to harvest the crops.

The canal did more than move grain-as the country's unifying feature, it was a potent political symbol and a strategic target for invaders. In the early 1840s, when the British wanted to put a stranglehold on China during the first Opium War, they occupied Zhenjiang, at the intersection of the canal and the Yangtze, throttling the flow of grain and tax revenues to Beijing. Within weeks China surrendered.

The Grand Canal was also a cultural conduit. Emperors on visits to inspect the canal's locks and levees observed and co-opted local ways. That's said to be how Beijing acquired two trademarks: Peking duck, from Shandong Province, and Peking opera, from Anhui and Hubei. Theater troupes, who relied on the canal to get around, said prayers to its wharves, while poets were moved by its very presence. Writing in the eighth century, Zhang Ji describes a temple on the canal whose "ringing bell reaches my boat at midnight."

Canal people, known as chuanmin, re-create village life on their $100,000 barges. Like farmers at harvest time, the small crews-generally just one family-start at dawn and go till evening, when they tie up their boats next to each other. Old Zhu's wife, Huang Xiling, now posted at the stern, had given birth to the family's two sons on earlier barges. She cooked, cleaned, and made the boat's little cabin a retreat from the water, wind, and sun. "The men say these boats are just a tool for making money, but our lives are spent on them," she said. "You have so many memories."

The couple's older son, Zhu Qiang, had recently taken over their previous barge. Their other son, 19-year-old Zhu Gengpeng, Little Zhu, was working on this new one, being groomed by his dad to be a captain. Little Zhu took me under his wing, translating his father's incomprehensible Shandong accent and making sure I didn't fall over the side. Gracing my quarters with his calligraphy, he wrote the words "Private Berth" above the watertight door. (My berth was a storeroom that had been converted into a guest suite by laying a plank and a quilt across two empty paint drums.)

Little Zhu doesn't look much like a chuanmin. With a rakish mustache, permanent bed head, and a purple, fur-trimmed jacket, he could be a hipster in any provincial Chinese city. He has a middle school education, and when the barge pulled up at a lock, it was Little Zhu who stepped ashore to deal with officialdom. (Although Old Zhu is only 46, he's illiterate.) Off duty, Little Zhu seemed to spend most of his time texting his girlfriend, who worked in a bakery back in Jining. He plans to bring her aboard to live in his room in the bow after they are married.

"It will be hard for her because she isn't a chuanmin," Huang said. "But she's a good girl. She works hard."

Chuanmin rarely indulge themselves. They live by the hard-nosed calculations that determine whether a family gets rich or is ruined. This was driven home to me at the end of our first day. I was chatting with Zheng Chengfang, who came from the same village as Old Zhu. Our boats were tied up together, and I'd hopped over to visit with him. Wasn't it a wonderful sight, I said to Zheng as we surveyed Old Zhu's boat, freshly painted and gleaming in the sunset?

"No, no, no, you don't understand us," he blurted out. "It's not a question of good. We chuanmin need the boats, or we can't survive."

Zheng accompanied me back to our barge for a smoke with Old Zhu, while Huang cooked a simple dinner of salted fish, rice, and stir-fried greens. "If you're going to write about us, you also need to know something else," Zheng said. "We chuanmin are at the receiving end. The coal owners set the price, the moneylenders set the interest, and the government officials set the fees. All we can do is nod and continue working."

This is a common refrain among barge owners: Like peasants working the fields, they have little control over their fate. In the countryside it's the vicissitudes of weather, but chuanmin face whimsical bureaucrats and unpredictable economics. They must make complicated decisions based on everything from the direction of world commodity prices to Chinese banking reforms. Indeed, while Zheng was holding forth, Old Zhu was fixated on the TV news about the Middle East and the price of oil. "What do you think?" he asked me, cutting Zheng off. "Will oil top a hundred dollars a barrel? And what about steel?"

Old Zhu had taken on huge debt. His barge has a capacity of 1,200 metric tons, but the global economic slowdown meant that the coal broker in Jining had only 1,100 tons to offer. And instead of getting 70 yuan ($11) a ton, as Old Zhu had before, he'd now get 45. That meant his gross revenue for this trip would be 49,500 yuan ($7,500). He'd burn about 24,500 yuan's worth of diesel and pay more than 10,000 yuan in canal fees. On top of that there would be fines for everything from discharging wastewater to having the wrong kind of lighting. If he did well, he'd clear 5,000 yuan. But that was before the interest payment on his barge. To finance it, Old Zhu had borrowed 840,000 yuan from loan sharks at 15 percent. For this trip alone the interest would amount to 10,500 yuan. Overall, Lu-Jining-Huo 3307 's maiden voyage would probably lose him about 5,000 yuan.

But Old Zhu was betting that the world recession bottomed out in 2009, when he started building his barge, and that steel prices would climb, making his boat look cheap compared to ones yet to be built. He also believed that coal prices would rebound. "I'll lose money for five years but then be fine," he said, with the conviction of a Wall Street trader with a very long position on the world economy.

Halfway into our two-week journey, we approached Yangzhou, chugging past willows dry-brushed with green and fields smudged with purple, red, and yellow flowers. "With flowers thick as mist, you head down to Yangzhou," Li Po, an eighth-century poet, wrote. For hours I sat with Old Zhu in the pilothouse, watching the bucolic sights give way to new highway bridges being laid atop concrete pylons.

As we cruised around one bend, Old Zhu called me out of my reverie. "That's the old Grand Canal, or what's left of it," he said, pointing to a channel about 15 feet wide curving between a small island and the bank. The Grand Canal once ran in a series of winding curves, and boats had to tack east and west as they headed north and south. When it was widened and straightened, these bends either became side channels or cutoff lakes.

"It was tough, let me tell you," Old Zhu said, his raspy voice animated. "Boats coming in every direction, and you had to pay attention all the time." His is the last generation of chuanmin who knew the old canal, with its whirlpools and eddies that could propel a barge-or ground it on a sandbar. The real miracle of the canal, it seemed to me, wasn't the structure itself but the chuanmin, whose relationship to the waterway transcends all the changes.

That night we docked on the outskirts of Yangzhou, the Shanghai of its day during two golden eras-the Tang dynasty and early Qing dynasty. Today in the booming south, local governments, awash in money, aim to bolster tourism and real estate development by beautifying and cashing in on the canal. But beautification can also destroy: Although Yangzhou has turned its waterfront into a park of manicured lawns and concrete pagodas-pleasant green space in an otherwise crowded city-the makeover required leveling nearly every canal-side building. For centuries the Grand Canal had been the heart of the city; now it's just a backdrop.

Farther south in cities such as Zhenjiang, Wuxi, and Hangzhou, the situation is worse. The canal still runs through Hangzhou's industrial center, but with the exception of the elegantly arched Gongchen Bridge, every structure linked to it-every ancient dock, warehouse, and mooring point-has been razed. "Traditionally we talk about 18 main cities on the Grand Canal, and each had its special flair," Zhou Xinhua, then vice director of a Grand Canal museum in Hangzhou, told me. "But now they're all the same: a thousand people with one face."

In 2005 a small group of prominent citizens called for the historic Grand Canal to be made a UNESCO World Heritage site. "Every generation wants the next generation to understand it, to look at its monuments," Zhu Bingren, a sculptor who cowrote the proposal, told me in an interview. "But if we wipe out the previous generations' work, what will following generations think of us?"

At dawn on day eight we turned east and joined the Yangtze. Now we were dwarfed by towering oceangoing ships, whose wakes swamped our decks. "The Yangtze is like a highway, and we are like a small car, so we have to go carefully and get off as quickly as possible," Old Zhu said. Within three days we had reached our destination: the Nantong Fertilizer Plant. Because of heavy rains, it took four days to unload the barge, the hull rising imperceptibly as the crane clawed out the coal. Old Zhu then hightailed it back along the Yangtze to the canal.

After a night moored in a cove near Yangzhou, everyone was up at dawn to get the barge moving. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Little Zhu untied the thick bow ropes. Old Zhu started an electric winch that pulled up the anchor. Huang cast off from the stern and stood watch. A light current carried us away from the willow-lined shore, pushing the stern out into the canal. Old Zhu walked from the winch to the pilothouse, calmly lighting a cigarette as we glided the wrong way. He pushed the starter, and the twin diesels rumbled to life.

Barely looking back, he reversed the boat into the main channel, an act of bravura that said, This is my canal as much as anyone's. He turned the bow upstream as other barges bore down. Then, after a dramatic pause, Old Zhu pushed the throttle full ahead. The engines surged, the propellers bit, and Lu-Jining-Huo 3307, green and shining in the soft spring light, joined the endless flow of traffic on the Grand Canal.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This story appears in the May 2013 issue ofNational Geographic magazine. Grand Canal barges have no fancy names, no mermaids planted on the bow, no corny sayings painted on the stern. Instead they have letters and numbers stamped on the side, like the brand on a cow.

# data[].attributes.headline
12 Major Aztec Gods And Goddesses You Should Know About

# data[].attributes.subject
12 Major Aztec Gods And Goddesses You Should Know About

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The very term 'Aztec' has a mythological lineage since it is derived from Aztlan (or 'Place of Whiteness' in connotative meaning), the mythical place of origin for the Nahuatl-speaking culture. According to one version of their legacy, it was the Toltec warlords who pursued the Mexica (one of the warlike Mesoamerican people who later formed the Aztec Triple Alliance or Aztec Empire) and forced them to retreat to an island - a precarious endeavor made successful by the guidance of their patron god Huitzilopochtli, the Hummingbird of the South. And it was on this island that they witnessed the prophecy of "an eagle with a snake in its beak, perched on a prickly pear cactus" - which led to the founding of the massive city of Tenochtitlan in circa 1325 AD, by 'refugees'.

As for the historical side of affairs, the various Aztec gods, goddesses, and the related pantheon were adequately similar to previous and contemporary Mesoamerican cultures (including Maya), albeit with a few exceptions that were intrinsically Mexica. Taking such cross-cultural influences into consideration, let us take a gander at 12 major Aztec gods and goddesses you should know about.

1) Ometecuhtli - The Two Lord

Like most mythologies, the Aztec pantheon was also 'topped off' with a primordial god. Known as Ometecuhtli, this primeval divine being of fertility was perceived as a dual entity representing both male and female, and as such the name in Nahuatl pertains to 'Two Lord' or 'Lord of Duality' (also known as Omecihuatl or 'Two Lady'). In essence, Ometecuhtli (or ) espoused the antithetical factors of nature, with the masculine and feminine sides representing the light and dark, chaos and order, and even in some respects good and evil.

In the Aztec creation story, Ometecuhtli was self-birthed, and as such the androgynous being's dual genders acted as husband and wife to give birth to the other four major Aztec gods - Huitzilopochtli , Quetzalcoatl , Tezcatlipoca , and , who in turn represented the four cardinal sides. As for the historical side of affairs, unlike most other Aztec gods and goddesses, Ometecuhtli had no temple erected in his honor. The lack of any formal cult is possibly explained by the Aztec belief system that placed Ometecuhtli in the 13th heaven (symbolically, the highest plane) that made the entity 'disconnected' from the affairs of the 'lower' Aztec gods and mortals.

2) Quetzalcoatl - The Feathered Serpent

Counted among the most important of Aztec gods (and Mesoamerican divine entities), Quetzalcoatl, regarded as the son of the primordial god Ometecuhtli , was venerated as the creator of mankind and earth. Also known as to the Maya and to the Quiché (of Guatemala), etymologically, the very name 'Quetzalcoatl' comes from the combination of the Nahuatl words for the - the emerald plumed bird, and or serpent. As for his aspects, often considered as the Aztec god of wind and rain, Quetzalcoatl also espoused a variety of avenues like science, agriculture, crafts and even merchants.

In one version of the Aztec creation myth, the world was created and destroyed for four times (each age associated with the sun), with some of the tumultuous episodes being borne by the fighting between Quetzalcóatl and his brother Tezcatlipoca . Ultimately during the Fifth Sun, Quetzalcóatl was successfully able to retrieve the human bones from the underworld (guarded by the realm's ruler - Mictlantecuhtli ) that were infused with his own blood and corn to once again 'regenerate' mankind.

In another myth, the god along with his brother , a female serpent-like monster. Consequently, her hair and skin give way to trees and flowers, while her eyes and nose account for the caverns and springs. However, given the violent loss of her physical form, the monster (now embodying the earth) thirsts for blood and hearts - thus alluding to the grisly practice of human sacrifice. As for the historical side of affairs, the Feathered Serpent, in spite of his initial Tezcatlipoca fashions the earth out of ). 'hybrid' characteristics, was usually depicted (post circa 1200 AD) in a human form who usually is adorned in shell jewelry and wears a conical hat (

3) Tezcatlipoca - The Smoking Mirror

The lord of the nocturnal sky and the eternal antithesis of his brother , Quetzalcóatl Tezcatlipoca, among the major Aztec gods and goddesses, is also sometimes credited as being the co-creator of the world. Pertaining to this role, according to one version of the mythical narrative, Tezcatlipoca sacrificed his own limb when he baited it for the female serpent monster . And thus he was given the honorific title of Ipalnemoani - 'he by whom we live'.

The very name Tezcatlipoca translates to 'Smoking Mirror' in Nahuatl, which suggests his connection to the obsidian. The Aztec god was also associated with a range of various concepts, including north, hurricanes, war, rulership, eternal youth, divination, sorcery, and jaguars. Coming to history, the figure of Tezcatlipoca was possibly inspired by earlier Mesoamerican deities, including the Mayan . In any case, he was one of the major Aztec gods in the later pantheon whose temple was situated south of the Great Temple in Tenochtitlan , while his main festival - the Toxcatl ceremony, was celebrated in the month of May.

4) Huitzilopochtli - The Hummingbird of the South

Considered as one of the major Aztec gods, Huitzilopochtli was also the supreme deity of the Mexica people (whose nobles later formed the Aztec Empire). In essence, as opposed to many other Aztec gods and goddesses, Huitzilopochtli was intrinsically a Mexica deity rather uninfluenced by earlier Mesoamerican divine entities. He was considered as the god of the sun and war, attributes which elevated him to the position of the patron deity of Tenochtitlan itself (by early 15th century), thus intrinsically tying up the 'hunger' of gods with the Aztec penchant for ritual war.

Taking cues from the mythical narrative, Aztecs interpreted the 'sibling rivalry' between Huitzilopochtli and his sister Coyolxauhqui as the tussle between the sun and the moon for the control of the sky. This nature of the conflict was also epitomized by Huitzilopochtli association to warfare - and as such, he was accompanied by his entourage of fallen warriors (whose spirits returned to earth as hummingbirds) and women who died during childbirth (which was perceived as an act of bravery). As for the historical side of affairs, Tenochtitlan was the focal point of Huitzilopochtli worship, with the capital city housing the shrine and wooden statue of the Aztec god (atop the Temple Mayor). Incredibly enough, the steps leading to Huitzilopochtli's own temple, on the south side, was painted in gaudy red to signify the essence of blood and war.

5) Xipe Totec - Our Lord the Flayed One

A deity of agricultural renewal, vegetation, seasons, goldsmiths, and liberation, Xipe Totec was counted among one of the major Aztec gods and goddesses. And while his related concepts and powers seem fairly innocuous, the worship (and its mode) of Xipe Totec was anything but. This is somewhat discerned from his ominous name roughly meaning - 'our lord with the flayed skin'. The Nahuatl moniker comes from the mythical narrative where the Aztec god flayed his own skin to feed humanity, thus symbolizing how maize sheds its outer skin cover before germination ('rebirth').

Suffice it to say, with the imagery of flayed skin and also the cult of death (and rebirth) associated with Xipe Totec, the Mexica people tended to venerate this Aztec god with human sacrifices - mostly carried out during the March festival of Tlacaxipehualiztli (meaning 'flaying of men'). One of the popular modes of sacrifice involved the mock gladiatorial combat where the prisoner (chosen on account of his bravery) was tied to a stone and handed a 'fake' macuahuitl with feathers instead of sharp obsidian blades. He had to (hopelessly) fend off an experienced Aztec warrior/s fully armed and armored. After his 'glorious' death, his skin was ritually flayed, painted yellow, and worn by reenactors of Xipe Totec (usually slaves), who were then worshipped and treated as gods by the local people. Annually, a quota of slaves and captured warriors was also selected for sacrifice. And after their hearts were cut out, their skins were worn by Aztec priests for 20 days, often bedecked with bright feathers and gold jewelry. On the completion of the festival period, the priest shed the rotting flayed skins, thus once again symbolizing the rebirth aspect of Xipe Totec.

6) Tláloc - He Who Makes Things Sprout

The supreme deity of rain, Tláloc was considered as an enigmatic entity among the major Aztec gods and goddesses, especially with his early representations (from circa 3rd to 8th century AD) that entailed a masked divine being with large round eyes and extending fangs, possibly inspired by the contemporary Maya god . With his association with rain and consequent fertility, Tláloc was probably worshipped as a beneficent Aztec god. However, like some other entities in the Aztec mythology, he was also depicted with a dual aspect, and this 'dark' side pertained to his ability to bring forth thunder, hail, and storms.

Now judging by the aforementioned timeline, it is safe to assume that Tláloc and his cult was one of the oldest in Mexico, possibly centered around the mysterious origins of the city of Teotihuacan (not to be confused with Tenochtitlan). As for the symbolic side of affairs, given his association to rain and water, Tláloc was often correlated with caves, springs, and mountains, most specifically the sacred mountain in which he was believed to have his abode.

7) Chalchiuhtlicue - She of the Jade Skirt

The Aztec goddess of 'collected' water on earth, thus embodying rivers, lakes, and oceans, Chalchiuhtlicue was considered as the female (protector) deity of navigation, childbirth, and newborn babies. Given her association to water, Chalchiuhtlicue was often related to , one of the major Aztec gods of rain and thunder. Interestingly enough, in that regard, she was often venerated as the wife (or sister) of , while in some cases, she was even worshipped as the feminine form of himself.

In the narrative of the Aztec lore, Chalchiuhtlicue plays a crucial role in the Mexica version of the deluge myth, as she is the one to bring forth the cataclysmic flood and destroy the world of the Fourth Sun (the world of the Fifth Sun is once again populated by humans due to the efforts of Quetzalcoatl - discussed earlier in the article). However, in spite of her seemingly harsh aspect, she does her bit to save the life essence of humans by transforming them into fishes. As for the historical side of affairs, Chalchiuhtlicue was an important Aztec deity in a time period as late as the 16th century. Her festival coincided with the month of February (at the commencement of the rains), usually involving various rituals, like fasting, feasting, bloodletting, and brutal episodes of human sacrifice (that even included women and children).

8) Mixcoatl - The Cloud Serpent

The deity of the hunt, Mixcoatl, among the major Aztec gods, has a pretty complex history in the mythical narrative. This partly has to do with the shared origins of Mixcoatl, who was also known as (roughly translating to 'without deer sandals'), and was venerated in earlier and contemporary Mesoamerican cultures like the Otomi, the Chichimecs, and the Toltecs. Most of these cultures, along with the Aztecs, also tended to associate the lord of the hunt with the Milky Way, the stars, and the heavens.

Interestingly enough, while in the Aztec pantheon, Mixcoatl played a secondary role to Huitzilopochtli , he was sometimes worshipped as the 'red' aspect of Tezcatlipoca ('The Smoking Mirror'), an entity responsible for striking the first fire with flint. In another instance, Mixcoatl is mentioned to be the father to Centzon Huitznahua (400 entities that tried to kill Huitzilopochtli's mother but ended up having their hearts eaten by the god of war) and also Quetzalcoatl . As for his worship, Mixcoatl was venerated during November ( - the 20th Aztec month), with the festival entailing hunters dressed up like the god engaging in hunting, roasting games, and feasting.

9) Coatlicue - The Serpent Skirt

Venerated as the 'mother of gods', Coatlicue among the major Aztec gods and goddesses, was also mythically regarded as the feminine entity that gave birth to the stars, moon, and Huitzilopochtli (the patron god of sun and war). Furthermore, two different Aztec goddesses - "our grandmother", and Cihuacóatl "snake woman" (who was worshipped as the patron goddess of women who died during childbirth) were perceived as the aspects of Coatlicue herself. In essence, all of these narratives place her as the supreme matronly goddess of the Aztec mythology that nourishes with her feminine capacity (as opposed to the abstruse nature of double gender presented by Ometecuhtli , the primordial entity among the Aztec gods).

When it came to her depiction, as the name 'Serpent Skirt' suggests, Coatlicue was represented with her skirt made of writhing, interwoven snakes (possibly alluding to fertility) and drooping breasts (that suggested her pregnant state). On the symbolic level, she was also seen as the embodiment of earth - however, with dual characteristics - that of a loving, nourishing mother and of an insatiable force that required the lifeblood of its hosts.

10) Xochiquetzal - The Precious Feather Flower

Among the major Aztec gods and goddesses, Xochiquetzal (also known as Ichpōchtli - meaning 'maiden') was a feminine deity of beauty, sexual love and power, fertility, and arts and crafts. Interestingly enough, as opposed to other Aztec gods, Xochiquetzal had pretty straightforward depiction in the mythical narrative, as she was often represented as an attractive, youthful woman who was dressed in her exquisite attire bedecked with flowers and followed by a vibrant retinue of birds and butterflies.

Talking of the mythical narrative, according to most versions, Xochiquetzal was originally the wife of rain god but was later abducted and forced to marry Tezcatlipoca , the god of the night. Incredibly enough, it was the latter who elevated her to the position of the goddess of love - thus somewhat mirroring a political rivalry between the major Aztecs deities. In any case, beyond her powers of sexuality, Xochiquetzal was also venerated as the patroness of young mothers, pregnancy, weaving, and embroidery.

11) Mictlantecuhtli - The Lord of the Land of the Dead

Among the major Aztec gods and goddesses, Mictlantecuhtli was the deity of death and the underworld and was usually associated with creatures like owls, spiders, and bats (along with the direction of the south). In the mythical narrative, as we fleetingly mentioned before (in the Quetzalcoatl entry), Mictlantecuhtli played his role in delaying the Feathered Serpent from gathering the bones of humans in his underworld realm Mictlán. And it was only after Quetzalcoatl tricked him that humanity was 'revived' from bones and blood of the gods.

Now as the Aztec god of death, Mictlantecuhtli was perceived as the singular entity that all human souls had to encounter, regardless of their righteousness or immorality. The only souls exempt from the arduous journey into the underworld (located at the deepest level) were the ones who had died a violent death, either from childbirth or from storms and floods. As for his depiction, Mictlantecuhtli was often represented as a skeletal figure with blood spots or an ominous entity wearing a skull mask and necklace of eyeballs.

12) Tonatiuh - The Turquoise Lord

A fierce deity representing the Fifth Sun (the final era in Aztec mythology, i.e., the present age), Tonatiuh, among all the major Aztec gods and goddesses, was probably the one who was most associated with the act of ritual sacrifice. Essentially, in many Postclassic Mesoamerican cultures (circa 10th to early 16th century), including that of the Nahua-speaking Aztecs, the hearts of the sacrificial victims were perceived as the symbolic 'nourishment' for the sun. And Tonatiuh, as the sun, needed such nourishment so that he can defeat darkness on a daily basis to rise effulgently during the morning.

This scope made Tonatiuh one of the Aztec gods of warriors in the Mexica society, as these soldiers were the ones tasked with defeating and rounding up prisoners of war - many of whom were chosen as sacrificial victims for the sun god. Over time Tonatiuh also became associated with the guardian deity who accompanied the spirits of the fallen warriors into the rigorous afterlife. Coming to the historical representation, Tonatiuh was often depicted as a symbolic sun disk (or sometimes a squatting man with an imposing disk on his back), with the motif being carved into the walls of monuments and temples.
And in case we have not attributed or misattributed any image, artwork or photograph, we apologize in advance. Please let us know via the 'Contact Us' link, provided both above the top bar and at the bottom bar of the page.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
12 Major Aztec Gods And Goddesses You Should Know About

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The very term 'Aztec' has a mythological lineage since it is derived from Aztlan (or 'Place of Whiteness' in connotative meaning), the mythical place of origin for the Nahuatl-speaking culture.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Ancient Egyptian History for Kids: Hieroglyphics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kids learn about Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics. Picture writing of this world civilization.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Most of daily life in the Aztec Empire depended on a person's social status, whether they were a member of the nobility or of the commons. That status determined what people ate, what they wore, their style of house and their occupation. The Aztecs were an agriculturally-based society and most spent their days working their fields and gardens or otherwise participating in cultivating food for their great city of Tenochtitlan.

Maize or corn was the dominant staple crop of the Aztecs and other Mesoamerican cultures. Maize could grow nearly everywhere except on mountains. As the dominant staple, corn was eaten every day in different forms. Shelled corn was first soaked in an alkali solution, then ground into meal, a kind of flour. The meal was shaped into a flat bread called a tortilla, then fried on a griddle. Other main crops included a variety of beans and squash, which were eaten daily or often. The combination of corn and beans or a grain and beans makes a perfect protein, capable of sustaining life. The Aztecs combined these main crops with gardens of avocados, chilies, tomatoes, onions, amaranth, cashews, peanuts, sweet potatoes, jimaca and many species of cactus.

Aztec commoners ate a predominantly vegetarian diet, occasionally flavored with meat or fish. The maguey plant provided not only food in the form of sweets, but an alcoholic drink called pulque and fiber for clothing. Chilies added heat and spice to many dishes as well as providing vitamins A and C to the Aztec diet.

While fields of corn, beans and squash around the city provided the staples of the diet, many families also had gardens of vegetables and fruits that produced much of their food. Aztec farmers raised turkeys, dogs and duck for meat and eggs, but they also hunted and fished, which brought deer, iguana, rabbit, fish and shrimp to the table. Insects such as grasshoppers were easily harvested and eaten as well. Algae from the abundant lakes provided a rich source of protein, vitamins and minerals. Chocolate made from cacao beans was Mesoamerica's gift to the world, and was consumed often by Aztec nobles.

Aztec commoners ate two meals a day. They ate the first meal after a few hours of morning work, usually a maize porridge with chilies or honey or perhaps tortillas, beans and sauce. They ate the main meal of the day at the hottest time of the day, in the early afternoon. Tortillas, tamales, beans, a casserole of squash and tomatoes with water or pulque to drink were common fare.

Noble Aztec families could eat more often of a greater variety of foods, especially some form of meat, but their meals would also begin with the basics of tortillas and beans. The religious calendar determined both feasts and fasts. A feast would provide many more foods than normal meals, of course, cooked in special ways, as well as foods not often in the daily diet such as a rich variety of meats. Feasts could be quite elaborate with hundreds of dishes and various alcoholic drinks served.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Aztec Empire: Everyday Foods and Feasts - History

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Most of daily life in the Aztec Empire depended on a person's social status, whether they were a member of the nobility or of the commons. That status determined what people ate, what they wore, their style of house and their occupation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kids learn about the Timeline of Ancient China. Major events that occured over the course of Chinese history including dynasties, inventions, and famous people.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Ancient Chinese writing evolved from the practice of divination during the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BCE). Some theories suggest that images and markings on pottery shards found at Ban Po Village are evidence of an early writing system but this claim has been challenged repeatedly.

Ban Po was occupied c. 4500-3750 BCE and was discovered by workmen digging a foundation for a factory in 1953 CE. Ceramic shards uncovered at the site have been classified into 27 distinct categories of image/sign which suggest to some scholars an early language. The opposing view is that these images are simply marks of ownership, comparable to making an X on a document to sign one's name, and cannot be considered an actual written language. The majority of recent scholarship agrees that writing evolved during the Shang Dynasty and developed from there. Scholar Patricia Buckley Ebrey expresses the consensus on this:

Exactly when writing was first used in China is not known since most writing would have been done on perishable materials like wood, bamboo, or silk. Symbols or emblems inscribed on late neolithic pots may be early forms of Chinese graphs. Early Shang bronzes sometimes have similar symbols cast into them. The earliest evidence of full sentences is found on the oracle bones of the late Shang. From these divinatory inscriptions, there can be no doubt that the Shang used a language directly ancestral to modern Chinese and moreover used a written script that evolved into the standard Chinese logographic writing system still in use today. (26-27)

Once writing was developed by the Chinese it had a significant impact on the culture. Ebrey writes, "In China, as elsewhere, writing once adopted has profound effects on social and cultural processes(26)." The bureaucracy of China came to rely on written records and, culturally, expression of personal thoughts and feelings was made possible through poetry and prose, creating some of the greatest literature in the world.

Oracle Bones

Oracle bones were the shoulder blades of oxen or the plastrons of turtles, scraped and cleaned, which were inscribed with marks for divination. The ancient Chinese were very concerned with knowing the future and would go to diviners for guidance on making decisions. The diviner (someone who today would be called a 'psychic' or a 'medium') would carve the person's question into the bone and then heat it with a hot poker or place it near a fire. When the bone would crack, the lines formed would be interpreted to answer the person's question.

An example of this might be whether the king should go hunting on a certain day. The diviner would carve the name of the king asking the question and the date it was asked. They would then carve the topic of the question (Hunting) and the specific question (Should king ___ go hunting tomorrow). The bone would then be heated, crack, and interpreted. Afterward, the prognostication would be inscribed (Yes, the king should go hunting tomorrow) and, later, the verification that the prediction was correct (King went hunting and was successful). Oracle bones were consulted by everyone in the Shang period from the lowest class to the highest.

Oracle bones continued in use through the Zhou Dynasty (1046-226 BCE) when they were replaced by another form of divination known as the I-Ching (The Book of Changes) which relied on a written text of hexagrams to interpret the meaning of a pattern made by the questioner throwing yarrow sticks onto a table. With both oracle bones and the I-Ching, the spirits of one's ancestors were thought to be influencing the divination and communicating directly with the diviner.

Sign up for our free weekly email newsletter!

Evolution of Script

From these early beginnings, Chinese script evolved. These scripts were:

Jiaguwen - the earliest form of writing on Oracle bones used c. 1600-1000 BCE. This script was pictographic, meaning the inscription represented an object linked to a concept. Example: if one wanted to write "Should the king go hunting tomorrow?" one would carve an image of the king with his bow and sunrise.

Dazhuan - known as Greater Seal script, developed c. 1000-700 BCE. This was also a pictographic script but had many more characters and was more refined. The images were inscribed on bronze and probably wood.

Xiaozhuan, known as Lesser Seal script, developed c. 700 BCE & is still in use today.

Xiaozhuan - known as Lesser Seal script, developed c. 700 BCE and is still in use today. This script was less pictographic and more logographic, meaning the symbols represented concepts themselves, not objects. Example: if one now wanted to write "Should the king go hunting tomorrow?" one would inscribe the image for the king and the sign which represented 'hunting' and 'tomorrow'.

Lishu - known as Clerky Script, was developed c. 500 BCE and used during the Qin Dynasty (221 - 206 BCE) and Han Dynasty (206 BCE - 220 CE) extensively. Lishu grew out of the need for complete documentation of government affairs and, as the name indicates, was used by clerks in their work in governmental bureaucracy. Sentences were written on bamboo scrolls tied together with string. When one reads about emperor Shi Huangti (259-210 BCE) of the Qin Dynasty burning books, these are the kinds of books he destroyed. Paper was not invented until the Han Dynasty in 105 CE.

In addition to these scripts there also developed the cursive scripts used in poetry and calligraphy. These are: Kaishu (Standard Script) Xingshu (Running Script), and Caoshu (Grass Script). Caoshu developed during the Qin Dynasty while Kaishu and Xing during the Han period.

Legacy

As one can see, Chinese writing developed from pictures of objects which represented concepts to signs representing the concepts themselves. This development changed Chinese society and culture dramatically and also affected the way it would develop in the future. Ebrey explains:

It is essentially accidental that the Shang developed a logographic script rather than a phonetic script like most of those that became dominant elsewhere in Eurasia. This accident, however, had momentous consequences for the way Chinese civilization developed. It shaped the nature of the elite: the difficulty of mastering this script made those expert in it an elite possessed of rare but essential skills. (28)

On the positive side, this meant that as Chinese writing became more and more a part of Chinese trade, the culture spread to neighboring regions. As Ebrey notes:

Because the Chinese logographic script did not change to reflect differences in pronunciation, the literate elite easily identified with others whose writings they could read, including predecessors who lived many centuries earlier and contemporaries whose spoken languages they could not comprehend. Just as crucially, this script also affected the processes of cultural expansion and assimilation. People on the fringes of Chinese culture who learned to read Chinese for pragmatic reasons of advancing or defending their interests were more effectively drawn into Chinese culture than they would have been if China had had a phonetic script. Reading and writing for them could not be easily detached from the body of Chinese texts imbued with Chinese values, making it difficult for them to use their literacy to articulate the vision of a local population defined in opposition to China. (28)

The logographic script made a much more dramatic impression on readers than a phonetic script because people were not just reading words on a page but absorbing concepts directly as they read. On the negative side, the creation of a literate elite meant class divisions where those who could read and write were considered more valuable members of society than those who could not. This class distinction characterized Chinese society and history up until 1949 CE when Mao Tse Tung established the People's Republic of China largely in an effort to remedy social inequality.

Chinese script was adopted by Japan, Korea, Vietnam, became the basis for Khitan Script (Mongolia), Jurchen Script (of the Manchus), and the Yi Script of the indigenous people of Yunnan Province which differs from traditional Chinese script. It further influenced other nations of the region as seen in the Tangut Script of Tibet. Script enabled the Chinese, and then those of other nations, not only to communicate and keep records but also to create some of the most memorable works in world literature.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ancient Chinese writing evolved from the practice of divination during the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BCE). Some theories suggest that images and markings on pottery shards found at Ban Po Village are evidence of an early writing system but this claim has been challenged repeatedly. Ban Po was occupied c.

# data[].attributes.body
about gods.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The pantheon of Maya gods and goddesses is an array of anthropomorphic, personified deities who were often associated with animistic spiritual forces. As a group, the loosely allied city-states known as Maya polities shared all of the gods, but certain deities were identified with specific Maya centers or the dynastic families of the rulers of those cities.

Key Takeaways: Maya Gods and Goddesses

Gods were powerful, but not universally admired. Many Maya myths, including those portrayed in the 16th-century sacred book called the Popol Vuh, showed how they could be ruthless and cruel, and tricked, injured, or even killed by clever humans or demigods like the Hero Twins.

According to colonial records, there was a hierarchy of the gods, with Itzamna at the top. Many of the gods have multiple names and a variety of aspects, which makes it difficult to pin down exactly how many gods the Maya had: At least 200 or so are likely. Among the most important are Itzamna the Creator, the rain god Chac, the goddess of fertility, Ix Chel, and the gods of death, Ah Puch and Akan.

Itzamna is also known as Ah Dzib ("scribe") or idzat ("learned person") and to Mayanists scholars, God D. He is the old, wizened creator god, and perhaps the major god of both the Classic and Post-Classic periods. Closely identified with creation and sustenance, Itzamna is also associated with writing, divination, wisdom, and esoteric knowledge. Colonial period records say he was the supreme ruler of the Maya gods.

Often illustrated with a snaggle-tooth or chapfallen mouth to indicate his age, Itzamna can appear in many different guises: as a priest, or as earth-caiman (a type of crocodile), and sometimes as a personified tree or a bird deity. In the Maya book known as the Madrid Codex, Itzamna wears a tall cylindrical headdress and an ornamented back cape.

Ah Puch is the Maya god of the dead, most often associated with death, corporal decomposition, and the welfare of the newly dead. His epithets in the Quechua language include Cimi ("Death") and Cizin ("The Flatulent One"). Known to Maya scholars as "God A," Ah Puch is an old god, appearing in Late Classic period Maya steles, as well as the Madrid and Borgia codexes and Late Post-classic ceramic vessels.

In both versions, Ah Puch is the epitome of decay, appearing in a skeletal form and frequently in execution scenes. Representations of Ah Puch often include large black spots on his body, probably representations of putrefaction, and a large, grossly bloated belly, a belly sometimes replaced with rotting matter or spilling blood. Classic period images sometimes include a hairlike ruff ("death ruff") with globular elements extending outward, which have been identified as bells, rattles, or extruded eyeballs. He often has a human bone in his hair. His images are often comical, with specific references to his anus and flatulence.

Huracan, also spelled Hurakan, is known as U K'ux Kaj ("Heart of the Sky") in the Popol Vuh; K'awiil in the classic period; the "god with the ornamented nose" and God K to scholars. He is the one-legged creator god and idol and the Maya lightning god. Illustrations of Huracan show him with a long, serpentine nose with belly scutes-horny plates like those seen on a turtle shell extending out from his abdomen-and a single, often burning serpent-like leg and foot. Sometimes he carries an ax, a burning torch, or a cigar, and he often has a circular mirror embedded in his forehead.

In the Popol Vuh, Huracan is described as three gods, beings who together initiated the moment of creation:

Ka Kulaha Huracan, translated as "Leg Lightning," "Thunderbolt Lightning," or "Lightning Bolt"

Ch'ipi Ka Kulaha, as "Dwarf Lightning," "New Born Lightning" or "Brilliant Flash"

Raxa Ka Kulaha, "Green Lightning," "Raw Lightning," or "Sudden Thunderbolt"

Huracan is considered the god of fertile maize, but he is also associated with lightning and rain. Some Maya kings, such as Waxaklahun-Ubah-K'awil at Tikal, took his name and dressed as K'awiil to express his own power.

The bat-god Camazotz, or Zotz, is featured in a story in the Popol Vuh, in which the Hero Twins Xbalanque and Hunahpu find themselves trapped in a cave full of bats, great beasts with "snouts like blades that they used as murderous weapons." The twins crawled inside their blowguns to sleep, so they would be protected, but when Hunahpu put his head out of the end of his blowgun to see if the long night is over, Camazotz swooped down and decapitated him.

The story of the Hero Twins trapped in a bat cave doesn't appear anywhere else, not in the Maya codexes or illustrated on vases or stelae. But bats are sometimes labeled Ka'kh' Uti' sutz' ("fire is the bat's speech"), and they do appear in Maya iconography in four roles: an emblem for some group; a messenger and paired with a bird; a fertility or pollination symbol, paired with a hummingbird; and as a "wahy being," a bestial form of a personified disease.

Zipacna (or Sipac) is a celestial crocodile warrior, considered a counterpart of the pan-Mesoamerican god Cipactli, the earth-monster, who had to be killed to create the earth. Known mainly from the 16th-century highland account of the Popol Vuh, Zipacna also appears in oral traditions of rural towns in highland Maya regions.

According to the Popol Vuh, Zipacna was the maker of mountains, who spent his days looking for crabs and fishes to eat, and his nights lifting up the mountains. One day he dragged an enormous pole to help out 400 boys who were building a new house. The boys conspired to kill him, but Zipacna saved himself. Thinking they'd killed him, the 400 boys got drunk, and Zipacna came out of his hiding places and pulled the house down on top of them, killing them all.

In revenge for the death of 400 boys, the Hero Twins decided to kill Zipacna, by toppling a mountain onto his chest and turning him into stone.

Chac (alternately spelled 'Chaac, Chahk, or Chaak), one of the oldest known gods in the Maya pantheon, can be traced in the Maya region back to the preclassic period. Some scholars consider Chac the Maya version of the Aztec Quetzalcoatl.

Chac is the Maya god of rain and lightning, and he goes by a number of names including Chac Xib Chac, Yaxha Chac, and, to scholars, God B. This god is illustrated with a long, pendulous and curling nose, and often holds axes or serpents in his fists, both of which are widespread symbols of lightning bolts. Chac is closely identified with war and human sacrifice.

God L: Moan Chan, the Merchant God

Moan Chan is the aged merchant called Moan Chan or "Misty Sky" and God L, who is most often illustrated with a walking stick and a merchant's bundle. On one vase God L is portrayed with a broad-brimmed hat trimmed with feathers, and a raptor sits on the crown. His cloak is commonly a black-and-white design of stepped chevrons and rectangles or one made from a jaguar pelt.

Misty Sky is most often illustrated as an ancient man, stooped with age, with a prominent, beaked nose and a sunken, toothless mouth. Occasionally pictured smoking a cigar, God L is also associated with tobacco, jaguars, and caves.

Ix Chel, or Goddess I, is a frequently clawed goddess who wears a serpent as a headdress. Ix Chel is sometimes illustrated as a young woman and sometimes as an old one. Sometimes she is portrayed as a man, and at other times she has both male and female characteristics. Some scholars argue that Ix Chel is the same deity as Chac Chel; the two are simply different aspects of the same goddess.

There is even some evidence that Ix Chel is not this goddess's name, but whatever her name was, Goddess I is the goddess of the moon, childbirth, fertility, pregnancy, and weaving, and she is often illustrated wearing a lunar crescent, a rabbit and a beak-like nose. According to colonial records, there were Maya shrines dedicated to her on Cozumel island.

Other Maya Deities

There are many other gods and goddesses in the Maya pantheon, avatars of others or versions of Pan-Mesoamerican deities, those who appear in some or all of the other Mesoamerican religions, such as Aztec, Toltec, Olmec, and Zapotec. Here are a few of the most prevalent deities not mentioned above.

Bicephalic Monster: A two-headed monster also known as the Celestial Monster or Cosmic Monster, with a front head with deer ears and capped with a Venus emblem, a skeletal, upsidedown rear head, and the body of a crocodile.

Diving God: A youthful figure that appears to be diving headfirst from the sky, often referred to as a bee god, although most scholars believe he represents the Maya Maize God or God E.

Ek Chuah (God M): The Maya form of the long-nosed merchant god of Aztecs, Yacatecuhtli, a black deity with a pendulous lower lip and a long Pinocchio-like nose; a later version of God L Moan Chan.

Fat God: A huge potbellied figure or simply a massive head, commonly illustrated in the Late Classic period as a bloated corpse with heavy swollen eyelids, refers to sidz, signifying gluttony or excessive desire.

God C: The personification of sacredness.

God E: The Maya god of Maize.

God H: A youthful male deity, perhaps a wind god.

God CH: Xbalanque, one of the Hero Twins.

Hun-Hunahpu: Father of the Hero Twins.

Jaguar Gods: Several deities associated with jaguars and the sun, sometimes illustrated as a person wearing the cloak of a jaguar; includes Jaguar God of the Underworld, associated with Tikal; Jaguar Baby; Water Lily Jaguar; Jaguar Paddler.

Jester God: A shark god, with a head ornament that resembles that used on a medieval European court jester.

Long-nosed and long-lipped deities: Numerous gods have been called long nosed or long lipped; those with upward-turning snouts are associated with serpents, those with downward curving snouts are birds.

Manikin Scepter: God K or GII of the Palenque Triad, a version of Kawil and Tohil, but a small representation that is held in the hand of a ruler.

Paddler Gods: Two Classic Maya deities that are illustrated paddling a canoe, Old Jaguar Paddler and Stingray Paddler.

Palenque Triad Gods: GI, GII, GIII, special patron gods of Palenque, who appear as single gods in other Maya city-states.

Pauahtun: The Skybearer god, who corresponds to the four directions and appears in both single and quadripartite form (God N), and sometimes wears a turtle carapace.

Quetzalcoatl: A central figure in all Mesoamerican religions, a miraculous synthesis of serpent and bird, Gukumatz or Q'uq'umatz in the Popol Vuh; Kukulkan as the Feathered Serpent at Chichen Itza.

Scribal gods: Numerous avatars of gods are illustrated sitting cross-legged and writing: Itzamna appears as a scribe or a teacher of scribes, Chac is illustrated writing or painting or spewing out numbers strips of paper; and in the Popol Vuh are illustrated the monkey scribes and artists, Hun Batz and Hun Chuen.

Sky Bearers: Pan-Mesoamerican gods who had the task of sustaining the sky, four deities known as bacabs, related to Pauahtun.

Tohil: Patron god of the Quiche at the time of the Spanish conquest, and the principal god named in the Popol Vuh, who demands blood sacrifice and might be another name for God K.

Vision Serpent: A rearing serpent with a single head and prominent snake markings whose mouth belches out gods, ancestors, and other nobles.

Vucub Caquix / Principal Bird Deity: A great monster bird, associated with the king vulture, and identified as Vucub Caquix in the Popol Vuh, in which he sets himself up as the false sun before the dawn of time, and the Hero Twins shoot him down with blowguns.

Water Lily Serpent: An undulating serpent with a head with a downward curving beak of a bird wearing a waterlily pad and flower as a hat; associated with the surface of still water.

Sources and Further Reading

Ardren, Traci. "Mending the Past: Ix Chel and the Invention of a Modern Pop Goddess." Antiquity 80.307 (2015): 25-37. Print.

Estrada-Belli, Francisco. "Lightning Sky, Rain, and the Maize God: The Ideology of Preclassic Maya Rulers at Cival, Peten, Guatemala." Ancient Mesoamerica 17 (2006): 57-78. Print.

Houston, Stephen, and David Stuart. "Of Gods, Glyphs ." Antiquity 70.268 (1996): 289-312. Print.and Kings: Divinity and Rulership among the Classic Maya

Kerr, Barbara, and Justin Kerr. "The "Way" of God L: The Princeton Vase Revisited." Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 64 (2005): 71-79. Print.

Miller, Mary E., and Karl Taube. An Illustrated Dictionary of the Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya. London: Thames and Hudson, 1997. Print.

Schellhas, Paul. "Representation of Deities of the Maya Manuscripts." Trans. Wesselhoeft, Selma and A.M. Parker. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, 1910. Print.

Taube, Karl Andreas. "The Major Gods of Ancient Yucatan." Studies in Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology.32 (1992): i-160. Print.

Wild, Paul S. "William S. Burroughs and the Maya Gods of Death: The Uses of Archaeology." College Literature 35.1 (2008): 38-57. Print.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What Kinds of Gods and Goddesses Did the Maya Worship?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Maya gods were intimately connected with the people, the personifications of natural forces in the world who influenced people's lives.

# data[].attributes.headline
The 10 Most Important Aztec Gods and Goddesses

# data[].attributes.subject
The 10 Most Important Aztec Gods and Goddesses

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Aztecs, the Late Postclassic civilization that the Spanish conquistadors met in Mexico in the 16h century, believed in a complex and diversified pantheon of gods and goddesses. Scholars studying the Aztec (or Mexica) religion have identified no fewer than 200 gods and goddesses, divided into three groups. Each group supervises one aspect of the universe: the heaven or the sky; the rain, fertility and agriculture; and, finally, war and sacrifice.

Often, the origins of the Aztec gods can be traced back to those from earlier Mesoamerican religions or shared by other societies of the day. Such deities are known as pan-Mesoamerican gods and goddesses. The following are the most important of the 200 deities of the Aztec religion.

Tonatiuh (pronounced Toh-nah-tee-uh) was the Aztec sun god. He was a nourishing god who provided warmth and fertility to the people. In order to do so, he needed sacrificial blood. Tonatiuh was also the patron of warriors. In Aztec mythology, Tonatiuh governed the era under which the Aztec believed to live, the era of the Fifth Sun; and it is Tonatiuh's face in the center of the Aztec sun stone.

Centeotl (pronounced Cen-teh-otl) was the god of maize, and as such he was based on a pan-Mesoamerican god shared by Olmec and Maya religions. His name means "Maize cob Lord". He was closely related to Tlaloc and is usually represented as a young man with a maize cob sprouting from his headdress.

Quetzalcoatl (pronounced Keh-tzal-coh-atl), "the Feathered Serpent", is probably the most famous Aztec deity and is known in many other Mesoamerican cultures such as Teotihuacan and the Maya. He represented the positive counterpart of Tezcatlipoca. He was the patron of knowledge and learning and also a creative god.

Quetzalcoatl is also linked to the idea that the last Aztec emperor, Moctezuma, believed that the arrival of the Spanish conquistador Cortes was the fulfilling of a prophecy about the return of the god. However, many scholars now consider this myth as a creation of the Franciscan friars during the post-Conquest period.

Xipe Totec (pronounced Shee-peh Toh-tek) is "Our Lord with the flayed skin." Xipe Totec was the god of agricultural fertility, the east and the goldsmiths. He is usually portrayed wearing a flayed human skin representing the death of the old and the growth of the new vegetation.

Mayahuel (pronounced My-ya-whale) is the Aztec goddess of the maguey plant, the sweet sap of which (aguamiel) was considered her blood. Mayahuel is also known as "the woman of the 400 breasts" to feed her children, the Centzon Totochtin or "400 rabbits".

Tlaltechutli (Tlal-teh-koo-tlee) is the monstrous earth goddess. Her name means "The one who give and devours life" and she required many human sacrifices to sustain her. Tlaltechutli represents the surface of the earth, who angrily devours the sun every evening to give it back the next day.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The 10 Most Important Aztec Gods and Goddesses

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Aztecs, the Late Postclassic civilization that the Spanish conquistadors met in Mexico in the 16h century, believed in a complex and diversified pantheon of gods and goddesses. Scholars studying the Aztec (or Mexica) religion have identified no fewer than 200 gods and goddesses, divided into three groups.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Farming was at the centre of ancient Maya life. But these people are also remembered for other amazing creations, like their spectacular buildings and beautiful objects made from jade, a rare and valuable material.

The ancient Mayas also invented groundbreaking ideas which have helped shape the way we live our lives today.

For example, it's thought that they invented the concept of 'zero'. This meant that they were able to do complex calculations, which allowed them to create very detailed and accurate calendars. They used these calendars for farming - perhaps that's why they were so good at it!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Farming was at the centre of ancient Maya life. But these people are also remembered for other amazing creations, like their spectacular buildings and beautiful objects made from jade, a rare and valuable material. The ancient Mayas also invented groundbreaking ideas which have helped shape the way we live our lives today.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The first emperors of China

During the Stone Age, people in China lived in small villages and had big men in charge, and then chieftains. But by the time of the Shang Dynasty, about 1800 BC, China was united into an empire.

Chinese government was led by an emperor or empress who ruled over many smaller kings. Under these kings were a bunch of less powerful lords, and these lords ruled individual farmers. The lords collected taxes from the farmers.

The lords passed some taxes along to the kings, who passed some along to the emperor.

Examinations to pick good judges

Under the Qin dynasty, about 200 BC, the emperors managed to get a lot more power and control of the government. Instead of letting local kings run local government, Qin sent out governors and judges that he had chosen himself. These governors were loyal to China and not to the local king.

During the Han Dynasty, the emperors started to use examinations to choose the smartest men to be their governors and judges (they lost out on a lot of good governors by refusing to pick smart women though). A lot of boys started to go to school, so they could do well on the examinations and get into political power.

Religious persecution

By the time of the Sui Dynasty, about 600 AD, the emperors ordered systematic census-keeping - written records - so that they would know how much taxes everybody should pay, and it would be more fair. They used those taxes to pay soldiers to fight wars, and to dig big canals for transportation and irrigation.

The T'ang Dynasty emperors kept on doing the examinations and the census, but they also worked to promote trade as the Silk Road of Central Asia became more important.

These Chinese emperors fought more wars, and made China much bigger than before. Near the end of the T'ang Dynasty, the emperor Wuzong persecuted Buddhists and Manichaeans for their religion - but really because all the new conquered people made the old Chinese people nervous.

Mongols bring new ideas

Under the Song Dynasty the government examinations became more and more important. But with the collapse of the Song Dynasty the Mongols invaded China from the north and Kublai Khan set up his own government. He put his own people - Arabs and Mongols and Jews and Christians - into power as governors and judges instead of Chinese people. They were loyal to him. Kublai Khan brought a lot of new ideas to China. For example, he used tax policy and laws to encourage Chinese farmers to grow cotton for clothing instead of hemp.

When the Mongol Empire collapsed in the 1300s because of the plague, the Ming Dynasty brought back the old Chinese government examinations. But many Muslims continued to work in the Ming government too.

BONUS ANCIENT CHINA FACTS:

Did you know?

Did you find out what you wanted to know about ancient Chinese government? Let us know in the comments!

Bibliography and further reading about ancient Chinese government:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Chinese government had an emperor or empress at the top, and beneath them, governors and judges who were chosen using very difficult examinations, to pick the smartest people. Over time, some rulers used the government for religious persecutions and to fight wars.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Aztec gods - The role of Religion
Aztec gods and goddesses are numerous. There was a god for almost every purpose and aspect of life in the Aztec culture. Religion was a very important part of the civilization and it was woven into their daily practices, beliefs, ceremonies, and dress. Many sources list more than a hundred different gods or goddesses, while others list dozens more.

Aztec gods - The role of gods
Aztec rulers were considered to be the embodiment of their gods and were thought to know the disposition and will of the Aztec gods. Among the many, their three main gods were Huitzilopochtli, Tlaloc, and Tezcatlipoca. Huitzilopochtli, as with others, could only be appeased by the blood of human sacrifice. His great temple was on atop the pyramid in Tenochtitlan.

Victims (many captured in battle) were beheaded and the heads were displayed as trophies on what is called a great rack or wall. Others sacrificed thought it a great honor and volunteered. It is thought that more than 20,000 were ritualistically killed in a 4 day celebration of the temple's completion.

Other gods and goddesses include:

Atlacoya -- goddess of drought

Chiconahui - a domestic fertility goddess

Citlalicue - a creator of the stars

Cipactonal - god of astrology, sorcery (witchcraft)

Oxomoco - goddess of astrology

Xochiquezal - goddess of female sexuality, prostitutes, pleasure

Patecatl - god of healing and creator of peyote (a hallucinogenic)

Tezcatlipoca was the god of darkness, deceit, and sorcery. Much of the Aztec beliefs and religion were centered on the dark side. Their pagan practices led them into what are actually satanic rituals and customs.
Aztec gods - The comparison
Unlike the God of Judaism and Christianity, who is a God of love, grace and redemption, many Aztec gods were about brutal violence and war. Also in contrast to Aztec gods, the Christian God created all things and saw the need for a one-time only sacrifice.

Because all have sinned (through original sin in the Garden of Eden), God came to earth in the human form of His Son, Jesus Christ. He was the sacrificial Lamb, atoning for the sins of the whole human race. Through His sacrifice, we all are offered this free gift if we turn away from our dark pagan ways; we can reap the promise of spending eternity with the sole deity who created and controls all that the Aztecs thought their gods did. Below, view a few of the biblical verses that address some of the Aztec beliefs and the Christian counterpoints.

Genesis 1 (creation of all things, stars, water, wind, etc.)

Jeremiah 17:8 (drought)

Isaiah 47:8-15, Galatians 5:19-21 (sorcery and astrology)

Proverbs 6:25-26, 1 Corinthians 6:9, 18 (sexual pleasure, prostitutes)

Matthew 4:23 and Luke 9:11 (healing)

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

- We have all sinned and deserve God's judgment. God, the Father, sent His only Son to satisfy that judgment for those who believe in Him. Jesus, the creator and eternal Son of God, who lived a sinless life, loves us so much that He died for our sins, taking the punishment that we deserve, was buried, and rose from the dead according to the Bible. If you truly believe and trust this in your heart, receiving Jesus alone as your Savior, declaring, " Jesus is Lord," you will be saved from judgment and spend eternity with God in heaven.

What is your response?

Yes, today I am deciding to follow Jesus

Yes, I am already a follower of Jesus

I still have questions

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Aztec gods - The role of Religion Aztec gods and goddesses are numerous. There was a god for almost every purpose and aspect of life in the Aztec culture. Religion was a very important part of the civilization and it was woven into their daily practices, beliefs, ceremonies, and dress.

# data[].attributes.body
Food That the Aztecs ate

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Aztec food was a rich combination of many foods that we take for granted today. Not only is much of this rich diet still common in Mexico today, it's spread around the world. Here's a look at some of what the ancient Mexica peoples ate:

Maize

Maize (also called corn or mealies) was the staple grain of the Aztec empire. Maize has been domesticated for thousands of years, and it likely first came into common use in Mexico, spreading to the rest of the world from there. Mexico is still one of the world's top maize growing countries. Corn could be ground into flour and used to make tortillas (a sort of flat bread, sometimes used to wrap a filling to make tacos), tamales and even drinks. Corn has transformed the world perhaps more than any other food. Today it's used not only in food, including candy and of course feeding the cattle that is eaten, it's even used in things like sticky tape and making boxes.

How did all this food grow? Find out about Aztec farming here.

Variety

Aztec food also included beans and squash. Of course, maize and beans are still a cornerstone of the Mexican diet, a healthy combination especially if you're not eating a lot of meat.

To add to these three, the Mexicas (people of the Aztec Empire) ate chillies, tomatoes, limes, cashews, potatoes, sweet potatoes, peanuts, and of course chocolate. The Mexicas domesticated bees for honey, and turkeys for meat and eggs, also dogs and duck. They hunted and fished as well, and used animals such as deer, rabbits, iguana, fish and shrimp for food. Even insects, such as grasshoppers and worms were harvested. These various types of meat made up only a very minor part of the Aztec food that was eaten.

Large amounts of algae were collected from the surface of the Texcoco Lake water. High in protein, this algae (known as tecuitlatl) was used to make bread and cheese type foods. This algae is still used in Mexico as a fertilizer.

The Aztecs often cooked food bundled in the Maguey plant leaves. This dish is called Mixiotes, and it's still eaten in Mexico today. Different leaves are used because the Maguey population was suffering.

Chocolate

One of the greatest gifts to the world from Mexico is chocolate. The cocoa bean was highly treasured in the Aztec Empire. In fact, the bean was used as a currency, as well as Aztec food. Or, in this case, drink.

The cocoa beans were used to make a thick chocolate drink, but far different than the hot chocolate we know today. Since they didn't use sugar, the Mexicas added peppers, corn meal and spices. A similar hot drink is still found in Mexico today with corn, known as atole.

Though Columbus brought cocoa to Europe in the early 1500s, it was mostly ignored. Hernan Cortes was more interested, and substituted sugar and vanilla for the spices. It became a commercial success.

The word chocolate even comes from an Aztec/Mayan word chocolatl.

Chocolate actually may have played a part in the fall of the Aztec empire. The Aztecs believed that the god Quetzalcoatl brought the cocoa beans from the tree of life to give to man. Later, the god was banished. It seems that at first the Mexicas believed that Hernan Cortes, the Spanish conquerer, was their returning god.

Aztec food recipes

There are some excellent recipes available online. Find a low carb Mixiotes recipe here. There's also a recipe for atole. cdkitchen.com has a unique hot chocolate recipe, a combination of Aztec and Spanish traditions.

For more Aztec recipes, try a search at cooks.com. Of course, not all of these are real authentic Aztec food, but after reading this article you should have an idea what common elements are in Aztec cooking. For more on traditional Mexican food and what came from the Aztecs, check here. By the way, we know the Aztecs didn't eat chicken, but just for fun here's an Aztec chicken recipe...

Above: A Mixiotes dish I ate at Teotihuacan, Mexico. The meat is rabbit, and it's in a red sauce with cactus. Delicious!

A great cookbook for all kinds of authentic Mexican food, in English, is Recipes from an Aztec Garden by Kent Swanson and Veronica Iglesias de Swanson

Living in Mexico, I'm able to enjoy all kinds of great Mexican food. This cookbook (actually, an ebook you can download right away) will bring Mexican food to your own table, whether you live in Mexico or not.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Aztec food was a rich combination of many foods that we take for granted today. Not only is much of this rich diet still common in Mexico today, it's spread around the world. Here's a look at some of what the ancient Mexica peoples ate: Maize (also called corn or mealies) was the staple grain of the Aztec empire.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Aztec History

Dig into the mysteries of Aztec history right here! What was ancient Aztec art and culture like? What about the Aztec religion? And the legendary Aztec sacrifices?

The Aztec Empire was peopled by a group that was once nomadic, the Mexicas. Their chroniclers told them that after their long journey from Aztlán, they found themselves to be outcasts, until they found the sign sent to them by their god Huitzilopochtli, and began to build their city. And so the Mexica peoples continued, and the Aztec Empire began.

The city of Tenochitlan was soon to become one of the largest cities in the world. The power of the Mexica peoples became more consolidated, and they began to form alliances. Their military power grew as well, and they began to conquer peoples in the surrounding areas.

At the height of its power, the Aztec Empire was organized and strong, but ruled with fear. In 1519, a clash of cultures was to take place, unlike anything before it. Although there was much tragedy in both the Spanish and Aztec empires before this, the meeting of the two civilizations was disastrous. In a few short years, the culture and structure of one of histories greatest empires would have virtually vanished.

Did you know...

It was against the law to be drunk in public in the Aztec empire, unless you were over 70 years old!

Each Aztec home had a steam bath!

It is said that the major Aztec weapon could chop off the head of a horse with one blow!

Read on for much more ancient Aztec history!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Dig into the mysteries of Aztec history right here! What was ancient Aztec art and culture like? What about the Aztec religion? And the legendary Aztec sacrifices? The Aztec Empire was peopled by a group that was once nomadic, the Mexicas.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Where Did the Maya Live?

The Maya civilization was one of the most dominant Indigenous societies of Mesoamerica (a term used to describe Mexico and Central America before the 16th century Spanish conquest).

Unlike other scattered Indigenous populations of Mesoamerica, the Maya were centered in one geographical block covering all of the Yucatan Peninsula and modern-day Guatemala; Belize and parts of the Mexican states of Tabasco and Chiapas; and the western part of Honduras and El Salvador. This concentration showed that the Maya remained relatively secure from invasion by other Mesoamerican peoples.

Did you know? Among the earliest Maya a single language existed, but by the Preclassic Period a great linguistic diversity developed among the various Maya peoples. In modern-day Mexico and Central America, around 5 million people speak some 70 Maya languages; most of them are bilingual in Spanish.

Within that expanse, the Maya lived in three separate sub-areas with distinct environmental and cultural differences: the northern Maya lowlands on the Yucatan Peninsula; the southern lowlands in the Peten district of northern Guatemala and adjacent portions of Mexico, Belize and western Honduras; and the southern Maya highlands, in the mountainous region of southern Guatemala.

Most famously, the Maya of the southern lowland region reached their peak during the Classic Period of Maya civilization (A.D. 250 to 900), and built the great stone cities and monuments that have fascinated explorers and scholars of the region to this day.

Early Maya, 1800 B.C. to A.D. 250

The earliest Maya settlements date to around 1800 B.C., or the beginning of what is called the Preclassic or Formative Period. The earliest Maya were agricultural, growing crops such as corn (maize), beans, squash and cassava (manioc). During the Middle Preclassic Period, which lasted until about 300 B.C., Maya farmers began to expand their presence both in the highland and lowland regions.

The Middle Preclassic Period also saw the rise of the first major Mesoamerican civilization, the Olmecs. Like other Mesamerican peoples, such as the Zapotec, Totonac, Teotihuacán and Aztec, the Maya derived a number of religious and cultural traits-as well as their number system and their famous calendar-from the Olmec.

In addition to agriculture, the Preclassic Maya also displayed more advanced cultural traits like pyramid-building, city construction and the inscribing of stone monuments.

The Late Preclassic city of Mirador, in the northern Peten, was one of the greatest cities ever built in the pre-Columbian Americas. Its size dwarfed the Classic Maya capital of Tikal, and its existence proves that the Maya flourished centuries before the Classic Period.

Mayan Pyramids of the Classic Maya, A.D. 250-900

The Classic Period, which began around A.D. 250, was the golden age of the Maya Empire. Classic Maya civilization grew to some 40 cities, including Tikal, Uaxactún, Copán, Bonampak, Dos Pilas, Calakmul, Palenque and Río Bec; each city held a population of between 5,000 and 50,000 people. At its peak, the Maya population may have reached 2,000,000 or as many as 10,000,000.

Excavations of Maya sites have unearthed plazas, palaces, temples and pyramids, as well as courts for playing the famous Maya ball game ulama, all ritually and politically significant to Maya culture. Maya cities were surrounded and supported by a large population of farmers. Though the Maya practiced a primitive type of "slash-and-burn" agriculture, they also displayed evidence of more advanced farming methods, such as irrigation and terracing.

The Maya were deeply religious, and worshiped various gods related to nature, including the gods of the sun, the moon, rain and corn. At the top of Maya society were the kings, or "kuhul ajaw" (holy lords), who claimed to be related to gods and followed a hereditary succession. They were thought to serve as mediators between the gods and people on earth, and performed the elaborate religious ceremonies and rituals so important to the Maya culture.

The Mayan Calendar and Culture

The Classic Maya built many of their temples and palaces in a stepped pyramid shape, decorating them with elaborate reliefs and inscriptions. These structures have earned the Maya their reputation as the great artists of Mesoamerica.

Guided by their religious ritual, the Maya also made significant advances in mathematics and astronomy, including the use of the zero and the development of complex calendar systems like the Calendar Round, based on 365 days, and later, the Long Count Calendar, designed to last over 5,000 years.

Serious exploration of Classic Maya sites began in the 1830s. By the early to mid-20th century, a small portion of their system of hieroglyph writing had been deciphered, and more about their history and culture became known. Most of what historians know about the Maya comes from what remains of their architecture and art, including stone carvings and inscriptions on their buildings and monuments.

The Maya also made paper from tree bark and wrote in books made from this paper, known as codices; four of these codices are known to have survived. They are also credited with some of the earliest uses of chocolate and of rubber.

Maya Life in the Rainforest

One of the many intriguing things about the Maya was their ability to build a great civilization in a tropical rainforest climate. Traditionally, ancient peoples had flourished in drier climates, where the centralized management of water resources (through irrigation and other techniques) formed the basis of society. (This was the case for the Teotihuacan of highland Mexico, contemporaries of the Classic Maya.) In the southern Maya lowlands, however, there were few navigable rivers for trade and transport, as well as no obvious need for an irrigation system.

By the late 20th century, researchers had concluded that the climate of the lowlands was in fact quite environmentally diverse. Though foreign invaders were disappointed by the region's relative lack of silver and gold, the Maya took advantage of the area's many natural resources, including limestone (for construction), the volcanic rock obsidian (for tools and weapons) and salt.

The environment also held other treasures for the Maya, including jade, quetzal feathers (used to decorate the elaborate costumes of Maya nobility) and marine shells, which were used as trumpets in ceremonies and warfare.

What Happened to the Maya?

From the late eighth through the end of the ninth century, something unknown happened to shake the Maya civilization to its foundations. One by one, the Classic cities in the southern lowlands were abandoned, and by A.D. 900, Mayan civilization in that region had collapsed. The reason for this mysterious decline is unknown, though scholars have developed several competing theories.

Some believe that by the ninth century the Maya had exhausted the environment around them to the point that it could no longer sustain a very large population. Other Maya scholars argue that constant warfare among competing city-states led the complicated military, family (by marriage) and trade alliances between them to break down, along with the traditional system of dynastic power.

As the stature of the holy lords diminished, their complex traditions of rituals and ceremonies dissolved into chaos. Finally, some catastrophic environmental change - like an extremely long, intense period of drought - may have wiped out the Classic Maya civilization. Drought would have hit cities like Tikal especially hard, because rainwater there was necessary for drinking as well as for crop irrigation.

All three of these factors - overpopulation and overuse of the land, endemic warfare and drought - may have played a part in the downfall of the Maya in the southern lowlands. In the highlands of the Yucatan, a few Maya cities, such as Chichen Itza, Uxmal and Mayapán, continued to flourish in the Post-Classic Period (A.D. 900-1500). By the time the Spanish invaders arrived, however, most Maya were living in agricultural villages, their great cities hidden under a layer of verdant rainforest.

Do the Maya Still Exist?

Descendants of the Maya still live in Central America in modern-day Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and parts of Mexico.

The majority of modern-day Maya live in Guatemala, which is home to Tikal National Park, the site of the ruins of the ancient city of Tikal. Roughly 40 percent of Guatemalans are of Mayan descent.

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Mayan Civilization: Calendar, Pyramids & Ruins| HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Maya, a civilization of Indigenous people in Central America, created a complex Mayan calendar and massive pyramids before their empire collapsed into ruins.

# data[].attributes.headline
Most Popular Gods & Goddesses of Ancient China

# data[].attributes.subject
Most Popular Gods & Goddesses of Ancient China

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
There were over 200 gods and goddesses worshipped throughout ancient China, but if one were to count every deity or spirit, the number would be over 1,000. Each town, village, city, field, farm, and sometimes even separate plot in a graveyard, had its own Tudi Gong, an elemental earth spirit, who was recognized and honored. There were also spirits known as Kuei-Shen, nature spirits, who might inhabit a tree or live by a stream or preside over a garden.

These were eternal spirits who had never been mortal but others, known as guei (or kuei, gui, kui), had once been human beings who had died and passed on to the afterlife. The guei could return to haunt the living for various reasons, and rituals, spells, and religious practices developed to appease them. There were also deities who had once been mortal and now lived with the gods, such as the Baxian ( Pa Hsien), the Eight Immortals of holy Taoists who were rewarded by the goddess Queen Mother of the West with immortality. The Baxian were prayed to like any of the other gods, as were one's ancestors who had passed over the bridge between the land of the living and the realm of the dead to live among the gods and watch over the living.

The gods were believed to have created the world and human beings, and they kept the world and surrounding universe functioning. Each deity had his or her own special area of power and influence, and the most important were given their own shrines and temples, although shrines were also erected to local spirits and to noble men and women who became deified after death.

The gods were believed to have created the world and human beings, and they kept the world and surrounding universe functioning.

These deities lived in palaces and castles high above human beings in places like the Kunlun Mountains, Mount Tai, the Jade Mountain, and Mount Penglai which was the mystical island of the afterlife somewhere far out at sea. Even though they were far away, they were still connected to human life on a daily basis, watching over and keeping account of the good and bad deeds people did. Each of the deities had their own part to play in the lives of people and the operation of the world from the most intimate moments to events of national importance such as a dynasty's collapse.

All of the gods, goddesses, and spirits were important to the people of ancient China, and remain so today, and selecting a certain small group leaves out many, many others who remain just as significant. However, one can single out those deities who had national prominence, are among the oldest, or are without question the most popular as shown through ancient writings and evidence from archaeological excavations. The gods and goddesses listed below are given in the order they appear in Chinese writings. Most likely, deities like Nuwa, Fuxi, and P'an Ku were recognized much earlier than written records indicate, and the same is probably true of most of the gods and goddesses on the list. These deities are selected because they were all very important to the people of ancient China even though some were more prominent at certain times in history than at others.

Dragon

The dragon is the oldest symbol of a deity found in China. The dragon symbol appears on pottery found at the Neolithic site of Banpo Village dating from between c. 4500-3750 BCE. Dragon was considered a composite of yin and yang energies and was originally seen as a balancing force who was wise and just. The dragon Yinglong was known as The Dragon King and god of rain and waters. As god of the sea, he was known as Hong Shen and was prayed to regularly by sailors and fishermen, but farmers who needed rain for their crops worshipped Dragon as well. He is also shown in human form as a wise man with the full sun behind his head watching over a boat full of people.

Shangti

Shangti was the supreme god of law, order, justice, and creation. He is also known as Jade Emperor, Yellow Emperor, or Yu Huang Shang-Ti, although there are sometimes important distinctions made between these names and Jade Emperor can mean another deity. Shangti was considered the great ancestor of all Chinese, who gave the people culture, architecture, skill in battle, agriculture, controlled the weather, regulated the seasons, and was king over the other gods, human beings, and nature. He was worshipped primarily during the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BCE) when he was considered a deified king who ruled c. 2697-2597 BCE and was included in the mythical or semi-mythical grouping of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, demi-gods who ruled China between c. 2852-2070 BCE. During the Zhou Dynasty (c. 1046-226 BCE) Shangti was replaced by the concept of Tian (Heaven) but re-emerged as Shangti during the Warring States Period (476-221 BCE). The Zhou developed the concept of the Mandate of Heaven which legitimized the rule of a certain dynasty. Tian judged who was worthy to rule and for how long, and when a dynasty was no longer fit, it fell and another took its place.

Queen Mother of the West

She was the queen of the immortal gods and spirits, especially female spirits who lived in the mystical land of Xihua ("West Flower"), and goddess of immortality. She is also known as Xiwangmu or Xi-Wang-Mu and lived in a castle of gold in the Kunlun Mountains, surrounded by a moat which was so sensitive that even a hair dropped on the waters would sink. This moat served as protection for her Imperial Peach Orchard where the juices of the fruit of the trees gave immortality. Xiwangmu is shown as a beautiful woman with sharp teeth and a leopard's tail, or as an old, unattractive woman with a hunched back, tiger's teeth and a leopard's tale, depending on her mood. She rewarded her followers with eternal life but punished those who angered her. During the Han Dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE) her cult was very popular and shrines were built for her by the government. She is the wife of Mugong, Lord of the Spirits, who watches over male spirits in the land of Donghua ("East Flower") but is sometimes seen as the wife of Shangti.

Guanyin

Guanyin was the goddess of mercy and compassion who became the patron of sailors and fishermen. She was originally a deity in India known as Avalokitesvara whose name means "One Who Gazes Down Upon the World and Hears the Cries of the People". She came to China from India through trade via the Silk Road during the Han Dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE). She was so compassionate that she incarnated as the maiden Miaoshan in order to experience life as a human being and offer service to others. Miaoshan's father wanted her to marry a wealthy priest. Miaoshan refused to marry unless the marriage could end the sufferings caused by illness, aging, and death. When her father told her no marriage could end such things, she replied that a doctor could, but her father did not want her marrying someone of such a lowly occupation. She was allowed to enter a temple instead of marrying, but her father made sure that she was given all of the worst work, which she accomplished with the help of the nearby animals who responded to her goodness. Her father then tried to burn the temple down but Miaoshan put the fire out with her bare hands. He then had her executed, but when she went to hell, she released all of the goodness she held inside and turned it into paradise. The king of the dead, Lord Yama, sent her back to earth before she ruined his realm, and she lived afterwards on Fragrant Mountain where she watched over human beings. From her mountain home, she would often notice people in trouble on their boats at sea and rescued them, which is how she became patron goddess of sailors and fishermen. She was one of the most popular deities in all of China, and both men and women adored her.

Yan Wang

Yan Wang is the god of death and king in the afterlife. He is the greatest of all the Lords of Death who rule the regions of the underworld. He is also known as Yang-Wang-Yeh, Lord Yama, and Lord Yama King. Yan Wang presides over the judgment of souls and decides whether they will be punished for their crimes in life, go on to live with the gods, or be reincarnated. In one famous story, a soldier named Commandant Yang, who had caused a great deal of suffering and misery in his life, died and appeared in the court of Yan Wang. Yan Wang asked him how he had managed to build up so many sins on his soul in the short time he was on earth. Yang claimed he was innocent and had done nothing wrong. Yan Wang commanded the scrolls of Yang's life to be brought in where the date and time of his sins were read along with who was affected and how many had died because of Yang's selfishness. Yang was condemned by the Lord of Death, and a great hand appeared which snatched him up and crushed him. It was said that one could escape punishment for one's sins on earth but no one could escape justice in the court of Yan Wang.

Nuwa & Fuxi

Nuwa and Fuxi were the mother and father deities of human beings. Nuwa was born at the beginning of creation and fixed the mistakes made at first so that everything was perfect. She built a palace for herself, which became the model for Chinese architecture, and lived there with her friend and brother Fuxi, both depicted as human-dragons with human heads and dragon bodies or human bodies to the waist and dragon legs and tails. Nuwa became lonely and created human beings for company from the mud of the Yellow River. She breathed life into them and they moved and lived. She continued to make more and more human beings but it was tiring work and so she created marriage so that they could reproduce themselves. The humans were alive but had no knowledge of anything and so Fuxi gave them the gifts of fire, writing, how to get food from the sea, and all the other skills they would need to live. He also gave them the gifts of music, culture, and divination so they could make good decisions by knowing what the future held.

Caishen

Caishen, the god of wealth, was one of the most popular gods of ancient China and still is today. Statues of Caishen (also known as Ts'ai Shen) can be seen in businesses run by Chinese merchants all around the world and in Chinese homes. His statue shows a wealthy man seated in a silk robe holding riches in both hands. He is sometimes accompanied by two attendants carrying bowls of gold. He was not just the god of material wealth but of a rich life which meant a happy family and a secure, prosperous, and respectable job. Caishen was very generous to his followers but was not foolish and did not give out his wealth to just anyone. People had to prove themselves worthy of his generosity by working hard, praying to him regularly, and thanking him for his gifts. Temples and shrines to Caishen were probably the most numerous in ancient China.

Chang'e

Chang'e, the goddess of the moon, was another of the most popular deities in ancient China and is the most often mentioned deity in Chinese poetry and literature. She was the consort of the archer god Hou Yi who saved her during a lunar eclipse and brought her back safely. Chang'e betrayed him by stealing from him the elixir of immortality, which the gods had given him, and ran across the night sky with it, pursued by Hou Yi. She reached the moon where she transformed herself into a toad to hide from him until his rage passed. Hou Yi had been stopped in his pursuit by a hare who would not let him pass until he calmed down and promised he would not harm her. When Hou Yi reached the moon, Chang'e had remained in her toad form too long to change back and so, when one looks at the moon, one sees the outline of a toad on its surface. The story of Chang'e and Hou Yi was celebrated at the Mid-Autumn Festival in ancient China which is known today as the Moon Festival when people go outside at night to appreciate the moon, eat moon cakes, and give gifts to friends and family.

Zao-Shen

Zao-Shen (or Tsao Shen and Tsao Wang), also known as The Kitchen God, lived in the kitchen above the stove of every home. He was represented by a paper image made by the most prestigious woman of the household and was kept in the same place throughout the year. Zao-Shen was responsible for the happiness of the home and the prosperity of the family, but this depended on their behavior and values. Every month Zao-Shen left the home to report to the local gods and spirits on the family's conduct. If they had behaved well, he was instructed to increase their riches and happiness; if they had behaved badly, he was told to withdraw riches and happiness. "Riches" meant not only material wealth but comfort and well-being, which was further assured by his warding off evil spirits. When he left the home to make his report, families were especially anxious because they had no household protector. At the end of the lunar year, on New Year's Eve, Zao-Shen had to leave to report to Shangti himself and the universal gods on how the family had behaved throughout the year. At this time, more incense was burned than usual in front of the paper statue and its mouth was smeared with honey so that only sweet words about the family would be reported to the gods. Offerings of fine foods and good wine were placed before him to thank him for his protection. The paper figure was then burned and firecrackers set off to speed him on his way. The next morning, the first day of the New Year, a new paper statue was made and placed above the stove.

Niu Lang & Zhi Nu

The god and goddess of love. Zhi Nu was the goddess of weaving for the gods and daughter of Shangti. Every day she wove the beautiful robes the gods wore and looked down on earth from her place among the stars and wished she could visit. She was finally granted permission by her father and went to earth where she left her clothes by the banks of a stream and went swimming. A cowherd named Niu Lang saw her and fell in love with her so he stole her clothes so she could not run away from him. When Zhi Nu came out of the water she was outraged that her clothes were gone but when Niu Lang explained himself she fell in love with him. She forgot all about her home in the heavens and her duties as divine weaver and stayed on earth with Niu Lang. They were very happy together, every day they were more in love, and they had many children. Shangti was not pleased, though, and neither were the other gods and so soldiers were sent to bring Zhi Nu back home. Niu Lang tried to follow but Shangti threw a wall of stars across his path and stopped him; these stars are known on earth as the Milky Way. Once a year, magpies fly from earth to the Milky Way and form a bridge the two can cross to be with each other on the evening known as the Seventh Night of the Seventh Moon. This became a very popular story referenced by writers and poets in many different eras of China's history. The Lady in the famous poem, Song of Everlasting Sorrow, references this story toward the end when she is on the island in the afterlife. The myth was the basis for the Festival of the Seventh Night of the Seventh Moon which officially was dedicated to women's art in sewing and weaving but unofficially was a night for romance. Zhi Nu is the star Vega in the constellation of Lyra, and Niu Lang is the star Altair in the constellation of Aquila, separated by the Milky Way except for once a year.

Menshen

Menshen, the guardians of the door, known as "Gods of Peaceful Sleep" who protect a room, house, or building from evil spirits and ghosts, originated in the early Tang Dynasty (618-901 CE). The emperor Taizong (626-649 CE) was having a hard time sleeping because of nightmares. He consulted a doctor who blamed the bad dreams on evil spirits. Taizong's nightmares were so real he thought people were actually in the room trying to kill him, and so two of his most trusted guards were posted outside the door of his room, one standing on each side. Taizong began to sleep better with the guards outside and so ordered that their images be painted on the doorway. News of Taizong's painted soldiers spread and soon more and more people were painting guardians on their doors and rooms. These images can be seen on many buildings and homes in China and elsewhere. Part of the Chinese New Year celebration is cleaning and re-painting the Menshen on doorways.

P'an Ku

The god of creation, P'an Ku (also known as Pan Gu and Pangu) is pictured as a hairy dwarf with horns. Once there was only darkness everywhere in the universe and in this grew a cosmic egg which was kept warm for thousands of years until it broke open and P'an Ku appeared. He cut through the darkness and separated the yin from the yang principles; then he made the yin into earth and the yang into sky and pushed them apart from each other. Every day he stood on the earth and pushed the sky a little higher, and each day he grew taller and taller until he was a giant. P'an Ku then began to add pretty details to his creation like mountains and valleys, which he made according to the principles of yin and yang so that everything would be balanced. He worked on his creation for thousands of years until it was perfect, and then he died. His breath became air and his blood the rivers and streams. The fleas from his body ran off and became animals while his body hair became forests of trees and bushes. His left eye became the sun and his right eye the moon. Many centuries after his death, Nuwa appeared and created human beings and Fuxi taught them how to survive in the world P'an Ku had created. In another version of the myth, human beings are the fleas which run from P'an Ku's body after he dies.

Other gods & goddesses

These gods and goddesses and many others were worshipped by the Chinese people for centuries. Some developed later than others but all were important to the people. There were many other notable gods who deserve mention: Guan Gong (also known as Guandi), the god of war, who was a great warrior and hero deified after his death; Sun Wukong, the god of mischief, who ate the peaches of immortality and tricked the gods into giving him eternal life; Fu-Shen, the god of happiness; Hou-Ji, god of Millet and grains; Kailushen, "Spirit Who Clears Roads", a protector against ghosts and evil spirits; Sheji, god of soil and grain, a harvest fertility god; Wen Chang (also known as Wendi), god of literature who was the patron of scholars and writers and kept accounts of how well writers used their talents in life; and Cheng Huang, "God of Wall and Moat" who protected the walls and gates of the cities. Although worship of these gods was outlawed as "superstition" when the communist party took control of the Chinese government in 1949 CE, they continued to be worshipped privately by the people and are still honored in many homes all over the world today.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Most Popular Gods & Goddesses of Ancient China

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
There were over 200 gods and goddesses worshipped throughout ancient China, but if one were to count every deity or spirit, the number would be over 1,000. Each town, village, city, field, farm, and sometimes even separate plot in a graveyard, had its own Tudi Gong, an elemental earth spirit, who was recognized and honored.

# data[].attributes.body
Its about gods

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The ancient Maya had a complex pantheon of deities whom they worshipped and offered human sacrifices. Rulers were believed to be descendants of the gods and their blood was the ideal sacrifice, either through personal bloodletting or the sacrifice of captives of royal blood.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
By Stuart Thornton

Friday, January 21, 2011

Located in Belize's lowlands are 23 freshwater pools that look like jewels embedded in the region's lush jungle.

When Dr. Lisa J. Lucero was shown the pools in 1997, her mind swirled with questions. Maybe the most perplexing: Why haven't any major Maya settlements been found here in Cara Blanca, which appears to be ideal for human habitation?

"Here is Cara Blanca, which has decent soils nearby and year-round water, yet not a lot of settlement," says Lucero, an associate professor of anthropology at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

In April and May 2010, Lucero and a team of divers led by Dr. Patricia Beddows of Northwestern University started an expedition to determine why Cara Blanca was not settled by the Maya.

Places of Pilgrimage

Maya civilization was based in southern Mexico and northern Central America from 600 BCE to 900 CE. Lucero is an expert in Maya civilization and has written books on Maya history and use of water resources.

Lucero has a theory on why the jungle at Cara Blanca is not littered with Maya ruins. While there are no major settlements in the region, Cara Blanca is notable for pockets of cenotes, which are large sinkholes filled with groundwater.

"We think it may be not only a sacred place but a place for pilgrimage," she says.

Lucero thinks the presence of a few Maya ceremonial structures near the pools might mean the area was of particular importance to the ancient civilization. In Maya society, water bodies and caves are considered portals to Xibalba , the underworld.

Next to a cenote that Lucero calls Pool 1 is a ceremonial structure that she thinks may have been either a platform for offerings or a structure that held ritual paraphernalia. Equidistant between Pool 1 and Pool 2 is a sweat bath. Sweat baths were used for ritual purification and birthing within Maya culture.

Beddows and the other divers donned scuba gear to explore Pool 1, Pool 2, and Pool 16, a smaller body of water that was chosen for its uniquely blue water.

Pool 16 "was very interesting to Dr. Patricia Beddows, because of this color," Lucero says. "She's been freshwater diving all over, and she's never seen this color blue. She says that it might be due to chemical makeup or where the water is coming from. It might also relate to various explanations for why people did not live there."

Though Lucero is not a diver, she agrees that the water in Pool 16 is striking. "It's like a dark teal," she says. "It's exquisite."

Diving Deep

Far below the water's surface, Beddows discovered what may be the source of the pool's unique color. A freshwater spring bubbles up from the bottom of the pool. The water from the spring, Beddows says, "is actually distinct from the water in the pool."

Cara Blanca's cenotes, divers discovered, are larger than they appear. In fact, they form the largest underwater cave system in Belize. Besides underwater springs, divers discovered vegetation and huge walls of crystal lining the walls of the cenotes.

They also discovered a fossil bed, 30 feet below the surface of the water. Divers found bones and tusks from huge animals. Scientists will now work to uncover the age of these fossils. Lucero says dating the remains will help determine whether the animals coexisted with humans. People lived in the area 30,000 years ago. These animals, which may be mammoths or saber-tooth cats, could have been hunted by early humans. The Cara Blanca fossils could be even older than that-they could be dinosaurs from millions of years ago.

Future Expeditions

On future expeditions, Lucero thinks divers might find May offerings at the bottoms of Pool 1 and Pool 2. The submerged objects could include animal remains, food, or flowers. The dive team could even discover ceramic vessels, she says.

Vessels or ceramic sherds could further bolster Lucero's claim that Cara Blanca was a sacred place to the Maya people. The discovery would mean the Maya were probably collecting water from the pools to use in ceremonies. If ceramics are found from different regions, that could show Cara Blanca was a pilgrimage site to which Maya people from hundreds of miles away traveled.

When asked what would have to be found to prove that Cara Blanca was a sacred place for the Maya, Lucero is quick with a response.

"Any artifacts that are in the pool," she says.

"We just don't know," she says. "This is what pure exploration is all about."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By Stuart Thornton Friday, January 21, 2011 Located in Belize's lowlands are 23 freshwater pools that look like jewels embedded in the region's lush jungle. When Dr. Lisa J. Lucero was shown the pools in 1997, her mind swirled with questions.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
What is happening in China in 200BCE

The past 300 years have been tumultuous ones for China. Indeed, this period of ancient Chinese history is traditionally known as the age of the "Warring States". The competition between the states increased, and armies grew much larger, with professional generals, often of humble origin, commanding massed ranks of infantry and cavalry. The smaller states were swallowed up in the larger, until only six powerful kingdoms were left.

Despite this constant warfare, Chinese civilization has continued to advance. Trade and industry have expanded, towns and cities have grown, education has spread and technological innovation has continued: for example, the Chinese have developed steel by this date, centuries before other parts of the world.

Starting in the 250s BCE, one of these states, Qin, conquered all the others, one by one. The rulers of the Qin dynasty were thus the first in China's history to rule a unified Chinese empire.

The Qin imposed a rigid centralization upon the vast country. Their empire lasted barely a generation, however, before it dissolved into anarchy. Out of this chaos a leader eventually emerges who founds the long-lasting Han dynasty.

This ruler, who takes the reign-name Gaozu, has adopted much the same centralized system of government as the Qin, but in a milder form. Taxes and labour services are less onerous than under his predecessors, and the laws less severe. He has thus successfully established his rule over the entire country, and the Han dynasty he founds will rule ancient China for 400 years.
Next map, China in 30 BCE
What is happening in China in 2500BCE

In the Yellow River region of China, farming, based on millet cultivation, is the backbone of the economy, and small towns and villages dot the landscape. The larger settlements are surrounded by thick beaten-earth walls, an indicator of endemic warfare. Elaborate burials for the elite suggest that the region is home to competing chiefdoms, ruled by warlike aristocracies. Even at this ancient period of China's history, pottery shards carry inscriptions which include composite ideographs, conveying simple meanings. These show that the Chinese system of writing is gradually developing. The long history of China's civilization is dawning.

In the Yangtze region, wet-rice cultivation predominates. As in the north, farming villages have become established here, often on lake sides where paddy fields can most easily be laid out.

In the hills and forests to the south of the Yangtze region, tribal peoples such as the Tai live lives largely based on hunting, gathering and fishing. Wet-rice cultivation is gradually penetrating this region as well, and farming settlements have reached the south China coast.
Next map, China in 1500 BCE
What is happening in China in 1500BCE

The Yellow river region of China is now ruled by the Shang dynasty (1766-1122 BCE). Under the Shang, Chinese Bronze Age civilization fully emerges into the light of history. The first real cities of ancient East Asia, with tens of thousands of inhabitants, have appeared here.

Although the kings of the Shang dynasty probably exercise real authority over only a part of the region, their authority is acknowledged over a much wider area of northern and central China, through subordinate lords and tribal chiefs. These rule virtually their own territories virtually independently, but acknowledge the overlordship of the Shang king.

A system of writing, which in all essentials is the modern Chinese script, is already in use at this ancient period. Bronze technology is well developed. Indeed, the Chinese are already making some of the finest bronzes ever produced in world history.

Cultural influences eminating from the Yellow river region are bringing a more advanced material culture to the Yangtze region, and this is leading to population expansion. A distinctive, non-literate but materially advanced culture is developing here.
Next map, China in 1000 BCE
What is happening in China in 1000BCE

The Shang dynasty has been replaced by the Zhou dynasty as rulers of ancient China (1122 BCE). The Zhou will be the longest-enduring dynasty in China's history. Their ancestors had previously ruled a border territory regarded as semi-barbarian by the Shang court. The change of dynasty, however, has seen no sharp decline in the material level of Chinese culture.

The Zhou dynasty kings have distributed territory to a large number of princes of the Zhou clan and other loyal followers, and royal power has thus become divided amongst more than a hundred subordinate fiefs. At the same time, the Zhou state has expanded, both outwards into surrounding lands and also internally as Zhou lords annex "barbarian" territory still remaining within the borders. As a result, this is a crucial period for the expansion of ancient Chinese civilization.

In the Yangtze Valley, a mixed culture is growing up, in which Zhou and native features mingle. Further south, tribal peoples are coming under increasing pressure from the more settled peoples of the north, and some tribes begin migrating south and west, into South East Asia; there they will become the ancestors of the Mon and Khmer peoples. The history of South East Asia will be repeatedly affected by developments in southern China.
Next map, China in 500 BCE
What is happening in China in 500BCE

This is a crucial period for Chinese civilization - a time of great upheaval, but also of great creativity, in Ancient China's history.

The many fiefs into which earlier Zhou dynasty kings had divided their realm have, through a process of warfare and annexation, been absorbed into a few larger political units. These can now fairly be called states in their own right, only loosely acknowledging the authority of the Zhou kings.

These states have developed well-organized armies, and sophisticated tax systems to pay for them, staffed by officials appointed for their ability and loyalty rather than their noble birth. Technological and economic advances have led to the expansion of commerce, the growth of towns, a flourishing merchant class, the introduction of metal coinage and, centuries before the west, the invention of cast iron. Into this fluctuating environment comes one of the most influential philosophers in world history, Confucius (551-479 BCE). In this time of change he calls people back to their ancient duties of honour and obedience.

The organized state pattern of the Yellow River region has penetrated the Yangtze Valley. Peoples formally regarded as "barbarian" by the Zhou are being absorbed into Chinese civilization. Throughout much of southern China, however, native peoples cling to their former way of life. A major people in southern China at this ancient period are the Thais.
Next map, China in 200 BCE
What is happening in China in 30BCE

The past two centuries have been a tranquil period in Ancient China's history. The Han dynasty emperors have expanded their empire's borders on all fronts. Under the emperor Wudi (141-86 BCE), in particular, the Xiongu were subdued, and north-west China garrisoned and colonized; northern Korea was conquered and the annexation of south China completed. Internally, however, China has seen nearly two centuries of peace and stability.

The vast country has increasingly come under the control of the elaborate and well-run Han bureaucracy. Officials are normally recruited from the wealthy landowning class. They are highly educated: under the Han, Confucianism has been installed as the official ideology of the ruling class, and their education is based on a rigorous study of the Confucian classics. Officials are promoted on recommendation, which brings many very able men to high office. These are developments which will influence Chinese history for more than 2000 years.

The Han dynasty marks the high point of Ancient China. The peace of the Han era has encouraged commerce and industry to flourish, and agriculture has also expanded. Much new land has been brought under cultivation, especially in border regions; and continued technological advance has seen the introduction of, amongst other innovations, the seed drill and the wheelbarrow.
Next map, China in 200 CE
What is happening in China in 200CE

A great chapter in the history of ancient China is coming to an end, with the Han dynasty now in its death throes.

About 200 years after the founding of the Han dynasty (202 BCE), a succession of weak emperors led to the usurpation by the chief minister Wang Mang (reigned 9 - 27 CE). He attempted some radical reforms, which caused first confusion, then a destructive civil war, and finally the restoration of the Han dynasty. This was followed by years of reconstruction, renewed economic expansion and restored imperial power. It was during this period that paper was invented, to meet the needs of the civil servants.

Latterly, however, the foundations of the later Han empire have been undermined by a succession of child-emperors. This has resulted in unchecked factionalism at the Han court, and in the provinces, an increasingly corrupt bureaucracy. As a direct result, widespread peasant revolts have broken out, causing immense destruction.

At the same time, a renewed barbarian threat has emerged with the reunification of the Xiongnu nomads.

The Han dynasty is now in terminal decline, and has only twenty years to go before it succumbs to these many dangers. Chinese history is entering a troubled period.
Next map, China in 500 CE
What is happening in China in 500CE

The Han dynasty, whose empire marked the high point of ancient Chinese history, fell in 220 CE. It was followed by almost three centuries of division, invasion and, in the north, barbarian rule. Unlike with the western Roman empire, however, the fall of the Han empire did not lead a steep decline in material civilization.

The Northern Wei, who are of Mongolian origin and who have ruled northern China since their conquest in 425-435 CE, have ended the worst of the divisions and have brought more than half a century of peace and stability to the region. Of all the barbarian dynasties, they have pursued a policy of Sinicisation most purposefully, giving their state a much greater degree of strength and durability than its rivals and predecessors.

Southern China has been unified under one government since the fall of the Han. Despite the succession of weak, faction-ridden dynasties, this region, spared the upheavals to the north, has seen considerable economic expansion and population growth.
Next map, China in 750 CE
What is happening in China in 750CE

After centuries of division, China was reunified by the Sui dynasty in 589. This dynasty did not last long, but in their brief time in power they constructed the Grand Canal, which would unify China's economy; and they restored the examination system for recruiting government officials. This had been first instituted under the Han, but then abandoned.

After a brief civil war the Tang dynasty came to power in 618. This was able to build on the foundations laid by the Sui to become one of the most brilliant dynasty's in China's long history.

The Tang emperors brought stability and good government to China, as well as pushing out the frontiers of the Chinese empire further than ever before. The great Taizong (624-49), who set the dynasty on strong foundations, was succeeded by less capable emperors, but this allowed one of the most remarkable personalities in all Chinese history to exercise power, the empress Wu (649-705, first as concubine of the emperor, then as wife, and finally, after 690, in her own right). She expanded the examination system so that more non-aristocratic officials came to hold the most senior positions in government.

Under her son, the emperor Xuanzong (712-56), the Tang empire has reached a peak of power. Culturally, Xuanzong's reign is later seen as a golden age, particularly in the field of poetry. However, there are causes for concern. Over-powerful generals now control the frontiers, and the elderly emperor is increasingly withdrawing from affairs of state, under the spell of a beautiful concubine. This situation will very soon lead to one of the most terrible rebellions in China's history, bringing disaster for the Tang dynasty and for the whole of China.

What is happening in China in 979CE

In 755, one of the most disastrous events in China's history occurred when a powerful frontier army commander, An Lushan, revolted and seized the capital, Loyang. His rebellion was not crushed until 763, after causing great destruction and loss of life throughout China. The later Tang emperors were unable to assert the same degree of control over their empire as their predecessors had done, and the centralized rule of the early Tang was never fully restored.

One of the feature of the late Tang period was that the regime turned against the Buddhist establishment. It confiscated its vast wealth and ordered thousands of monks back to secular life. Buddhism would remain a popular religion in China right up to the present day, but mostly without official patronage.

Eventually, the familiar tale of child-emperors, factionalism at court and widespread peasant revolt led to the fall of the Tang dynasty in 907, and China again fragmented into several states.

This period of division did not last nearly as long as the earlier one in China's history, following the fall of the Han dynasty. By 969 China was largely reunified under the Song dynasty.

In northern China, however, two barbarian dynasties reign, the Liao and the Western Xia (the latter founded as a recognized dynasty in 1038, but existing as a state from the mid-10 th century). In the Liao, a small ruling nomad group governs the state along Chinese lines, and under them Chinese gentry families participate fully in the Chinese culture of the period. The Western Xia is a more purely nomadic tribal confederation.

What is happening in China in 1215CE

The centuries of Song dynasty rule have seen unprecedented economic growth and population expansion for China. A revolution in farming, based largely on wet-rice cultivation, has greatly increased crop yields, and has been accompanied by dramatic commercial and industrial expansion, both within China itself and throughout South East Asia. This has been the great age of Chinese technological innovation, with printing, gunpowder, shipbuilding techniques, the compass, paper money and porcelain all either appearing for the first time or seeing great advances.

In their internal policies, the Song emperors have expanded the examination system as a means of recruiting officials, and China is now administered largely by a class of professional scholar-officials. This class now professes a reformed Confucianism which modern scholars label "Neo-Confucianism". This has borrowed elements from Buddhism and Taoism to provide a more emotionally satisfying form of the ancient ideology. It will be the dominant belief-system of China's ruling class up to the 20th century.

The Song dynasty now only rules the south of the country, however. In 1135 a major invasion by the Jurchen, a people from central Asia, conquered the entire north of China from the Song and formed the Jin empire. Though ruled by a small minority of nomadic descent, this functions as a Chinese state.

The Song dynasty of this period is therefore give the label "Southern Song". It has been left with by far the richest and most populous part of China, and under them the advances which began under the early Song have continued.

What is happening in China in 1453CE

The past few centuries have been ones of great upheaval in Chinese history. The Mongols from central Asia conquered northern China in the 1230s, annexing it to their empire which stretched as far west as the Middle East and (within a few years) Russia. Southern China fell to them in the 1270s. The Mongol emperor, Kublai Khan (reigned 1260-94), presented himself as a legitimate Chinese ruler, of the Yuan dynasty, and maintained the traditional Chinese bureaucracy, though with Mongols in the topmost positions.

After Kublai Khan, the Mongols weakened and their vast empire fragmented into separate states. Yuan dynasty China was one of these. From the 1330s, an increasing number of rebellions culminated in the expulsion of the Mongols from China. Native Chinese rulers of the Ming dynasty were installed on the throne.

The Ming emperors have restored the Confucian bureaucracy, along with the examination system, to its predominant position in the state. In the early 15 th century they briefly sent out a number of major naval expeditions to South East Asia and beyond, reaching as far as Africa. In Inner Asia, however, the Mongols remain a dangerous threat to China, and the Ming have completely rebuilt the Great Wall - one of the greatest feats of engineering in world history.

Internally, the country is largely tranquil, and the economy and population is expanding strongly.
Next map, China in 1648
What is happening in China in 1648CE

The Ming dynasty presided over a reasonably tranquil period in Chinese history. However, the Ming emperors, for the most part nonentities, fell increasingly under the control of eunuch factions at court. These factions were frequently in bitter conflict with the scholar-officials of the imperial bureaucracy. The turbulence of life at the centre meant that some deep-seated problems in the administration of the Ming empire were not addressed properly.

In the 16 th century the Ming dynasty showed the classic symptoms of dynastic decline, repeated at regular intervals throughout China's history: corrupt and ineffective administration in the provinces, famine and floods inadequately dealt with, peasant revolt and invasion from across the frontiers.

One group of invaders are a people from the northern steppes who, having developed a Chinese-style state in Manchuria (hence the name by which they are known to history, the Manchus), have taken advantage of rising chaos in China to march on the capital and seize the throne (1644). They have thus established a new dynasty, the Qing ("brilliant"), and, under their regent, Dorgon, are now in the process of pacifying the entire country. After initial struggles a final, glorious phase in China's imperial history will begin.
Next map, China in 1789
What is happening in China in 1789CE

The Qing (Manchu) dynasty has ruled China for the past 150 years, though it was not until 1680 that the country was fully in their hands. Although of foreign origin, the Qing have established an orthodox Confucian state, complete with bureaucracy, examination system, and law code. However, Manchu officials serve alongside Chinese in all the topmost posts, and the Chinese male population are required to wear their hair in a queue as a sign of their subjection.

In one of the most remarkable succession of rulers in all world history, China has been governed for more than a century by just three very able rulers, the Kangxi emperor (1667-1722), the Yongzheng emperor (1722-35) and the Qianlong emperor (1736-95). These emperors have pushed out the frontiers of the Qing empire to include vast areas of central Asia, never previously under Chinese rule. They have centralized power, ensured high standards of administration, and presided over a prolonged period of peace. Due largely to this peace, but also to new crops introduced from America (maize, sweet potatoes, peanuts), migration to hitherto under-developed areas and the bringing of much new land into cultivation, and productivity gains in Chinese farming methods, the 18 th century has seen a doubling of the population. From 150 millions in the late 17 th century it has grown to 300 millions. Commerce has expanded considerably, especially long-distance trade within the empire, and industries such as porcelain, steel and textiles have flourished.
Next map, China in 1837
What is happening in China in 1837CE

China in the period of the later Qing dynasty was by now showing signs of strain. Despite the expansion of food production in China, by the end of the 18 th century there were clear indications that it was not able to keep pace with the continuing rise in population. Each acre was having to feed more people, and standards of living - especially amongst already-poor peasants - were slipping. These adverse trends manifested themselves in a fashion repeated throughout the history of China: rural disorder and banditry leading to full-scale peasant uprisings. Such uprisings began to break out in the late 18 th and early 19 th centuries. The White Lotus rebellion took the Qing government several years to bring under control (1796-1804). However, at this date these episodes were comparatively local affairs.

At the same time, the Qing government was getting increasingly concerned with the rise in opium smuggling into the country, and the spreading addiction to the drug at all levels of society. Opium was being brought to China by British merchants in ever-larger quantities, both because the Chinese government placed severe restrictions of legitimate trade and because China's economy was so self-sufficient that it had little need for the kind of goods British merchants had to offer. Such was the scale of the problem that by 1837 the senior Qing dynasty ministers were concluding that the Opium trade had to be stamped out once and for all.
Next map, China in 1871
What is happening in China in 1871CE

The history of imperial China has now entered its final phase. Tensions over trade between China and Britain, particularly over the role of British merchants in bringing illegal opium into the country, led to the outbreak of the first Opium War (1839-42). In this, the superiority of Western forces over Chinese told, and the treaty which ended it was the first of several "unequal treaties" China would be forced to sign, favorable to foreign interests. The most enduring result of this one was the establishment of Hong Kong as an outpost of the British empire.

Continuing population growth and spreading poverty within the Chinese empire led to the outbreak of the most destructive uprising in China's history (and in world history as well). This was the Taiping rebellion, which began in 1850, and was aimed at driving the Qing dynasty from China. Within a couple of years, the Qing government had lost control over a large part of southern and central China. Then, with the rebels undefeated and another major revolt breaking out further north, China found herself at war with Britain (and now France) again (1858-60). This led to the emperor's Summer Palace in Beijing being burnt down - and of course, to another "unequal treaty". More rebellions broke out in various provinces of the empire, and rebel forces roamed, apparently at will, through the length and breadth of China. The Qing dynasty found itself facing challenges on all sides, not least because the Chinese people were increasingly thinking of the Qing, who had originally come from outside China, as part of the problem.

By the time the Taiping rebellion had been crushed (1864), 20-30 million lives had been lost. There followed a period of rebuilding, which was remarkably successful given the circumstances, and included the resettlement of large areas of depopulated lands. Some attempts at modernizing China's armed forces were also made.
Next map, China in 1914
What is happening in China in 1914CE

The long imperial era of China's history has ended and the last of its dynasties has left the stage.

In 1894-5, a war with Japan ended in humiliating defeat for the China. Japan gained Taiwan and other territories, and other foreign powers joined in a free-for-all at China's expense: they demanded (and got) more ports along the coast of China and claimed wide "spheres of influence" around them. The complete dismemberment of the Chinese empire was only averted by rivarlies between the great powers of the day.

These developments undermined support for the Qing dynasty, now widely seen as puppets of the foreign powers, and they deepened the already bitter hatred of foreigners within China. The last years of the 19 th century saw the rise of a particularly violent anti-foreign movement known as the Boxers, and many Western missionaries were killed. The Qing court seemed to endorse the movement, and the foreign community in Beijing came under threat from Boxer groups. The Western powers sent an international force to protect their compatriots, which sacked Beijing (1901). The foreign governments then demanded a huge indemnity from China.

At this point the Qing court enacted a wide range of modernizing measures, but these were too little, too late to save the last of China's imperial dynasties. In 1911 some Qing policies aimed at bolstering their rule sparked opposition throughout the country, and local garrisons and provincial assemblies one by one seceded from the empire. The commander of the army in Beijing declared a Republic on January 1st, 1912.

Despite the best efforts of such figures as the widely-respected Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the Chinese republic almost immediately starts collapsing into civil war.
Next map, China in 1960
What is happening in China in 1960CE

The years after the fall of the Qing dynasty and the founding of the Chinese republic were some of the most turbulent in China's history.

Within a few years of its proclamation in 1912, the government of the republic had lost control of the country, and China fell into chaos. Some measure of order was restored by the Nationalist Party (the Guomindang) in 1926, but then a bitter struggle broke out between it and the rising Communist Party (many Chinese students and workers had become attracted to Communism as a way of dealing with the many problems faced by China in the early 20th century).

The Nationalists gained the upper hand, and, hard pressed by Goumindang forces, the Communists carried out a gruelling treck - the "Long March" - from their bases in southern China, to link up with more of their forces to the north (1934-6). This event consolidated Mao Zedong's leadership of the Party.

For the next ten years, until the end of World War 2, all Chinese forces were committed to fighting the Japanese. Immediately this fighting was concluded, however, the struggle between the Communists and the Goumindang resumed. By 1949 the Communists had control of all China except for Taiwan, to which the Goumindang had fled. The Communists proclaimed the formation of the People's Republic of China.

Under Communism, China has been transformed. The gentry class, throughout China's history the mainstay of imperial China, has been eliminated, farmland had been collectivized, women have been given equal rights with men, and under Mao's "Great Leap Forward", China is straining to create an industrial socialist utopia.

What is happening in China in 2005CE

The history of Communist China since 1960 has been in two distinct phases, the first one of upheaval, the second one of great economic expansion.

The "Great Leap Forward" (1956-60) ended in the deadliest famine of the 20 th century. Some years of economic recovery followed before China suffered a second great upheaval, the Cultural Revolution (1966-76). "Red Guards" - school and university students - roamed the country meeting out violence and extreme humiliation to anyone they deemed too conservative. Half a million lives were lost, and millions of other lives were greatly disrupted.

Mao Zedong died in 1976. Immediately the pent-up disgust with the radicals saw the rise of Deng Xiaoping, who dominated Chinese politics until his death in 1997. He opened up China's economy to the outside world, and since then China has seen the most dramatic economic expansion in world history. It has not been accompanied by political liberalization, as was shown most famously in 1989, when student demonstrations in favour of democracy in Beijing's Tiananmen Square ended in a violent clamp-down. Nevertheless, countless millions of people have been lifted out of poverty and gained a measure of prosperity, which their parents and grandparents could never have dreamt of.

The return of Hong Kong from Britain (1997) and Macao from Portugal (1999) to China finally ended European rule on Chinese soil.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
History map of Ancient China of the Qin and Han dynasties

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The past 300 years have been tumultuous ones for China. Indeed, this period of ancient Chinese history is traditionally known as the age of the "Warring States". The competition between the states increased, and armies grew much larger, with professional generals, often of humble origin, commanding massed ranks of infantry and cavalry.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Meet five supernatural beings from Ancient Egypt!

Here's an Ancient Egyptian fact for you gang - the Ancient Egyptians believed in more than 2,000 deities!

They had gods for everything, from dangers to chores, and each had different responsibilities and needed to be worshipped so that life could be kept in balance. You can see pictures of the Egyptian gods in hieroglyphics the Ancient Egyptians left behind. Check out our fave Egyptian gods, below...

Hawk-headed sun god Ra was one of the most important gods of all. He was gobbled up every night by the sky goddess Nut, then reborn every morning at sunrise. Later in Egyptian history, Ra was merged with the god of wind, Amun, making him the most powerful of all the Egyptian gods. Amun-Ra was so mighty that even the Boy King, Tutankhamun, was named after him - translated his name means "Living image of Amun".

Controlling the rain and water, lion-headed Tefnut was the goddess of moisture. She was spat into existence by her dad, Ra, the sun god.

A dwarf with lion features, little Bes's job was to look after babies and mums. He also protected against scorpion bites. And nightmares. What a guy!

This dog-faced deity was the god of embalming and the dead. Wild dogs, or jackals, were often seen hanging around in cemeteries, so it was thought they watched over people in the afterlife.

The god of the waterways, Sobek was a fierce protector of Egyptian people. He also liked to eat flesh. Live crocodiles were kept in pools at temples to honour him.

This blue pot-bellied fellow was the god of the Nile, responsible for the annual flooding of the great river. Want to find out more about the Ancient Egyptians and the gods they worshipped? Then check out this cool clip!

Be sure to read our fab features about Ancient Egypt, too!

Illustrations of Egyptian gods: Marek Jagucki

Likes

More Like Egypt

Type whatever you want to search

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt! | National Geographic Kids

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Meet five supernatural beings from Ancient Egypt! They had gods for everything, from dangers to chores, and each had different responsibilities and needed to be worshipped so that life could be kept in balance. You can see pictures of the Egyptian gods in hieroglyphics the Ancient Egyptians left behind.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Read and learn for free about the following article: Sumerian art, an introduction

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Aztec culture was a rich combination of the cultures of the peoples that made up the Aztec empire, including the Mexicas. Hundreds, even thousands of years of tradition influenced the way people lived in the society. Let's take a look at the different social classes and how they lived...

Social classes in Aztec culture

There were two main social classes in Aztec culture. First the nobility or pilli, then the common people or macehualli. Each of these was further broken up into groups of people that had quite different lives.

There were also slaves, which were generally well-treated. Slavery was not hereditary - the children of a slave were free. There were ways for a slave to gain freedom, such as purchasing it.

Read more about Aztec social classes.

Growing up Aztec

The Mexica people of the Aztec empire had compulsory education for everyone, regardless of gender or class. In the end, people in the Aztec society were generally well educated, though boys received a wider education than girls.

Girls were taught how to run a home, cook, and care for a family, but they were also taught things like crafts and ways to economically run the home. In this way women had a lot of power in society, though it was behind the scenes.

Note: Mandatory education was historically rare in the rest of the world. Learn more about this and other "Aztec Inventions" here.

Boys learned other trades, and were also taught fighting skills and leadership skills.

Though children started off with similar education, it was eventually split into two main branches. First the calmecac, which was mainly for children of nobles. These children would be educated as priests, teachers, doctors, and leaders of society. Next came the telpochcalli, where children were taught more about Aztec culture and religion, the trades, and skills particular to gender. It seems that there was some freedom to choose a type of education, and perhaps some children were promoted who showed promise in a specific field. It may also be that vocation was chosen based on the religious "sign" children were born under. Just who could go where is a matter of some debate today.

In their mid-teens, adult life would begin. Girls would marry, or stay in the temple and work. Boys might join the military or begin their trade. Marriages were arranged and again strongly tied to religious belief. Some polygamy was practised, though there was still a "primary" wife.

Adult Aztec culture

The noble class had a variety of vocations open to them. They would have positions of leadership and influence, as mentioned above. They would also have some wealth, and unlike the common people they were allowed to enjoy works of art.

The higher level of nobility, usually hereditary to some extent, were the pilli (singular pipiltin). They would hold high positions in government or in the military.

There were also various classes of common people. There were farmers, who were very efficient. There were merchants, who would travel and trade. These people had a fair amount of freedom to be independent and wear stylish clothes. There were artisans of various kinds. Every type of job needed to run a society that you can imagine.

Another occupation of status was to be an athlete. Aztec culture had its own version of Ulama, a game played in Mesoamerica. The game was very popular and the players were celebrities.

Aztec life was permeated by religion. The cycles of the calendar and rituals associated with it to keep nature in balance and appease the gods were a big part of Aztec culture. For more, see Aztec religion.

Everyday life

Except for the nobility, the people were quite poor, even though great wealth was available in general. The people lived in adobe homes, made of mud bricks. One building was for sleeping and cooking and eating and worship. Another building contained a steam bath. It was believed that the bath was important for good health (a bath is never a bad idea!). Houses of the noble class were bigger, and, as mentioned, were more lavishly decorated. Read more about Aztec homes...

Life was much as it is most places in the world today - relationships, shopping, music, meals, entertainment was all there. There was poetry, dramatic presentations, art and athletics.

A big part of entertainment for the Aztecs was the Aztec ball game. Special occasions drew the spectators, and the players were celebrities.

But in Aztec culture the warrior was glorified for religious reasons. Taking prisoners and sacrificing them to the gods was an increasingly important ritual. Though life was very structured, it seemed close to chaos as the people tried to avoid natural and imagined disaster.

Age and death

As people got older, and more disease arrived, the the religious healer would be called for. Medical science and religious ritual went side by side. When death came, people would be cremated or buried, depending on how they died and the family's choice.

See more Aztec homes from Yautepec here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Aztec culture was a rich combination of the cultures of the peoples that made up the Aztec empire, including the Mexicas. Hundreds, even thousands of years of tradition influenced the way people lived in the society. Let's take a look at the different social classes and how they lived...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Aztec Civilization - The Aztecs and Their Region
Most believe the Aztec civilization originated in the area of present day Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado. Historic accounts commonly begin in the late 12th century as they migrated to what is now central Mexico. Modern day Mexicans are of mixed Spanish and indigenous ancestry, descendants of the Mexicas (Aztecs) or of other indigenous peoples of the Aztec Empire and Mesoamerica. Mexico City now stands on the site of the Aztec's most elaborate and capitol city.

The Aztecs were an advanced and prosperous civilization who built beautiful and sophisticated cities. At their peak, the Aztec civilization had about 15 million people who lived in nearly 500 communities. The Aztecs were culturally developed in music, arts, crafts, and the sciences. Music played an important role in Aztec religious rituals for worshiping their many gods. About 300,000 people lived in Tenochtitlan, their capitol. In this famous city, the government controlled and was responsible for punishment, agriculture, and all aspects of the civilization's economy.

Aztec Civilization - The Aztec Economy
The early Aztec economy consisted of a type of barter system as this was a pre-capitalist society. Minor purchases were made with cacao beans imported from lowlands. In the marketplaces, a small rabbit might have been worth 30 beans, an egg cost 3 beans while larger purchases of cloth could range from 65 to 300 cacao beans.

The highly developed empire had an elaborate leadership and society that consisted of four classes.

Nobles (highest in power)

Commoners (the majority of population, were mostly farmers)

Serfs (worked land for the nobles)

Slaves (consisted of those captured and indebted who couldn't pay)

Governmental office positions were usually inherited, but one could be awarded an office through exemplary service to the emperor. Slavery was quite common.
Aztec communities were heavily dependent upon agriculture with corn being the central crop; though they also relied somewhat on hunting and gathering. Crop surpluses were stored and used during hard times. The Aztec also had sophisticated irrigation systems, allowing them to farm otherwise dry lands. They farmed shallow lakes by scooping up mud and forming islands called chinampas. These islands provided very fertile land that was profitable for growing crops.

Aztec Civilization - The Aztec Life and Religion
The Aztec religion included human sacrifices in rich ceremonies to the gods. Dress was also important in all parts of Aztec life. The Aztecs worshiped hundreds of gods and goddesses; each represented a different aspect of life. Designing clothes, mainly in the upper class, was one form of art in the Aztec culture. Women usually made the clothing, and they richly decorated them with beads, flowers, and precious metals. Gold was often used and was abundant in the Aztec empire. In fact, the pursuit of gold was the main reason Cortez traveled to Mexico in 1519 (eventually leading to the Aztec demise).

Ceremonies were very important during the agricultural seasons to ensure good crops as well as for Coronations. During these ceremonies human sacrifices were given to the gods. Many of the sacrifices were war prisoners or children. They felt that human hearts and blood gave the gods strength and appeased them when they were angry. Large temples were built to celebrate the offering of sacrifices. The famous Sunstone Calendar, which was twelve feet in diameter, represented the Aztec universe. It is thought that the hearts of human sacrifices were placed on this stone and presented to the gods. The Aztecs believed in many gods, to whom they paid tribute daily. It is estimated that over a quarter of a million people were sacrificed each year by the Aztecs.

Learn More About the Aztec Gods!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Aztec Civilization - Learn about the culture, religious rituals, economy, class structure, and importance of ceremonies in this ancient civilization.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Sumerian Civilization

Sumer was first settled by humans from 4500 to 4000 B.C., though it is probable that some settlers arrived much earlier.

This early population-known as the Ubaid people-was notable for strides in the development of civilization such as farming and raising cattle, weaving textiles, working with carpentry and pottery and even enjoying beer. Villages and towns were built around Ubaid farming communities.

The people known as Sumerians were in control of the area by 3000 B.C. Their culture was comprised of a group of city-states, including Eridu, Nippur, Lagash, Kish, Ur and the very first true city, Uruk. At its peak around 2800 BC, the city had a population between 40,000 and 80,000 people living between its six miles of defensive walls, making it a contender for the largest city in the world.

Each city-state of Sumer was surrounded by a wall, with villages settled just outside and distinguished by the worship of local deities.

Sumerian Language and Literature

The Sumerian language is the oldest linguistic record. It first appeared in archaeological records around 3100 B.C. and dominated Mesopotamia for the next thousand years. It was mostly replaced by Akkadian around 2000 B.C. but held on as a written language in cuneiform for another 2,000 years.

Cuneiform, which is used in pictographic tablets, appeared as far back as 4000 B.C., but was later adapted into Akkadian, and expanded even further outside of Mesopotamia beginning in 3000 B.C.

Writing remains one of the most important cultural achievements of the Sumerians, allowing for meticulous record keeping from rulers down to farmers and ranchers. The oldest written laws date back to 2400 B.C. in the city of Ebla, where the Code of Er-Nammu was written on tablets.

The Sumerians were considered to have a rich body of literary works, though only fragments of these documents exist.

Sumerian Art and Architecture

Architecture on a grand scale is generally credited to have begun under the Sumerians, with religious structures dating back to 3400 B.C., although it appears that the basics of the structures began in the Ubaid period as far back as 5200 B.C. and were improved upon through the centuries. Homes were made from mud bricks or bundled marsh reeds. The buildings are noted for their arched doorways and flat roofs.

Elaborate construction, such as terra cotta ornamentation with bronze accents, complicated mosaics, imposing brick columns and sophisticated mural paintings all reveal the society's technical sophistication.

Sculpture was used mainly to adorn temples and offer some of the earliest examples of human artists seeking to achieve some form of naturalism in their figures. Facing a scarcity of stone, Sumerians made leaps in metal-casting for their sculpture work, though relief carving in stone was a popular art form.

Under the Akkadian dynasty, sculpture reached new heights, as evidenced by intricate and stylized work in diorite dated to 2100 B.C.

Ziggurats began to appear around 2200 B.C. These impressive pyramid-like, stepped temples, which were either square or rectangular, featured no inner chambers and stood about 170 feet high. Ziggurats often featured sloping sides and terraces with gardens. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon was one of these.

Palaces also reach a new level of grandiosity. In Mari around 1779 B.C., an ambitious 200-room palace was constructed.

Sumerian Science

Sumerians had a system of medicine that was based in magic and herbalism, but they were also familiar with processes of removing chemical parts from natural substances. They are considered to have had an advanced knowledge of anatomy, and surgical instruments have been found in archeological sites.

One of the Sumerians greatest advances was in the area of hydraulic engineering. Early in their history they created a system of ditches to control flooding, and were also the inventors of irrigation, harnessing the power of the Tigris and Euphrates for farming. Canals were consistently maintained from dynasty to dynasty.

Their skill at engineering and architecture both point to the sophistication of their understanding of math. The structure of modern time keeping, with sixty seconds in a minute and sixty minutes in an hour, is attributed to the Sumerians.

Sumerian Culture

Schools were common in Sumerian culture, marking the world's first mass effort to pass along knowledge in order to keep a society running and building on itself.

Sumerians left behind scores of written records, but they are more renowned for their epic poetry, which influenced later works in Greece and Rome and sections of the Bible, most notably the story of the Great Flood, the Garden of Eden, and the Tower of Babel. The Sumerians were musically inclined and a Sumerian hymn, "Hurrian Hymn No. 6," is considered the world's oldest musically notated song.

Gilgamesh

The very first ruling body of Sumer that has historical verification is the First Dynasty of Kish. The earliest ruler mentioned is Etana of Kish, who, in a document from the time, is credited as having "stabilized all the lands." One thousand years later, Etana would be memorialized in a poem that told of his adventures in heaven.

The most famous of the early Sumerian rulers is Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, who took control around 2700 B.C. and is still remembered for his fictional adventures in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the first epic poem in history and inspiration for later Roman and Greek myths and Biblical stories.

A devastating flood in the region was used as a pivotal point in the epic poem and later reused in the Old Testament story of Noah.

Sumerian Power Struggles

Somewhere around 2600 B.C., a power struggle erupted between the leaders of Kish, Erech and Ur, which set off a "musical-chairs" scenario of rulers for the region for the next 400 years.

The first conflict resulted in the kingdom of Awan seizing control and shifting the ruling body outside of Sumer until the kingship was returned to the Kish.

The Kish kept control briefly until the rise of Uruk King Enshakushanna, whose brief dynasty was followed by Adabian conqueror Lugalannemundu, who held power for 90 years and is said to have expanded his kingdom up to the Mediterranean. Lugalannemundu also conquered the Gutian people, who lived in the Eastern Iraqi mountains and who would later come to rule Sumer.

In 2500 B.C. the only woman to rule the Sumerians, Kubaba, took the throne. She is the only female listed on the Sumerian King List, which names all rulers of Sumer and their accomplishments. Kubaba's son, Puzur-Suen, eventually reigned, bringing in the fourth dynasty of Kish, following a brief ascendency of Unzi, the first in the Akshak Dynasty.

This last Kish dynasty ruled for a century before Uruk king Lugal-zage-si ruled for 25 years before Sargon took control in 2234.

Sargon

Sargon was an Akkadian whose past is shrouded in legends that some claim were ignited by Sargon himself. The claim is that he was the secret child of a high priestess who placed him in a basket and cast him off into a river, a story that was later utilized for Moses in the Old Testament.

Sumerian tradition says that Sargon was the son of a gardener who rose to the position of cupbearer for Ur-Zababa, king of Kish, which was not a servant position but a high official.

Ur-Zababa was defeated by the king of Uruk, who was, in turn, overtaken by Sargon. Sargon followed that victory by seizing the cities of Ur, Umma and Lagash, and establishing himself as ruler. His militaristic reign reached to the Persian Gulf.

Sargon built the city of Agade as his base, south of Kish, which became an important center in the ancient world and a prominent port. Agade was also home to Sargon's army, which is considered the first organized standing army in history and the earliest to use chariots in warfare.

Sargon took control of the religious cultures of the Akkadians and the Sumerians, making his daughter Enhedu-anna the head priestess of the moon god cult of Ur. Enheduanna is best remembered for her transcriptions of temple hymns, which she also wrote and preserved in her writings.

Sargon ruled for 50 years, and after his death, his son Rimush faced widespread rebellion and was killed. Rimush's brother Manishtushu met the same fate.

Sargon's grandson, Naram-Sin, took the throne in 2292 B.C. Naram-Sin considered himself divine and was leveled with charges of sacrilege.

The Gutians invaded in 2193 B.C. following the reign of the last Akkadian king, Naram-Sin's son Sharkalisharri. Their era is marked by decentralized chaos and neglect. It was during Gutian reign that the grand city of Agade decayed into wreckage and disappeared from history.

Ur-Nammu

The final gasp of Sumer leadership came in 2100 B.C. when Utuhegal, king of Ur, overthrew the Gutians. Utuhegal's reign was brief, with Ur-Nammu, the former governor of Ur, taking the throne, starting a dynasty that would rule for about a century.

Ur-Nammu was known as a builder. Figurines from the time depict him carrying building materials. During his reign, he started massive projects to build walls around his capital city, to create more irrigation canals, construct new temples and rebuild old ones.

Ur-Nammu also did the considerable work of constructing an organized and complicated legal code that is considered the first in history. Its purpose was to ensure that everyone in the kingdom, no matter what city they lived in, received the same justice and punishments, rather than rely on the whims of individual governors.

Ur-Nammu also created an organized school system for state administrators. Called the Edubba, it kept an archive of clay tablets for learning.

What Happened to Sumer?

In 2004 B.C., the Elamites stormed Ur and took control. At the same time, Amorites had begun overtaking the Sumerian population.

The ruling Elamites were eventually absorbed into Amorite culture, becoming the Babylonians and marking the end of the Sumerians as a distinct body from the rest of Mesopotamia.

Sources

The Sumerians. Samuel Noah Kramer.
Ancient Mesopotamia: Leo Oppenheim.
Sumer: Cities of Eden. Denise Dersin, Charles J. Hagner, Darcie Conner Johnston.

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Sumer was an ancient civilization founded in the Mesopotamia region of the Fertile Crescent situated between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Known for their innovations in language, governance, architecture and more, Sumerians are considered the creators of civilization.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn about the Maya civilisation with Jade Skirt. Also take a tour of 'Yax Mutal', the city now known as Tikal in this year 5/6 BBC Bitesize primary history guide.

# data[].attributes.headline
A Maya Kingdom Falls . . . and Another Rises

# data[].attributes.subject
A Maya Kingdom Falls . . . and Another Rises

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. If you have questions about licensing content on this page, please contact natgeocreative@natgeo.com for more information and to obtain a license. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please visit our FAQ page.

Media

Some media assets (videos, photos, audio recordings and PDFs) can be downloaded and used outside the National Geographic website according to the Terms of Service. If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the lower right hand corner ( ) of the media viewer. If no button appears, you cannot download or save the media.

Text

Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service.

Interactives

Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. You cannot download interactives.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A Maya Kingdom Falls . . . and Another Rises

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. If you have questions about licensing content on this page, please contact natgeocreative@natgeo.com for more information and to obtain a license. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please visit our FAQ page.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Where Did the Maya Live?

The Maya civilization was one of the most dominant Indigenous societies of Mesoamerica (a term used to describe Mexico and Central America before the 16th century Spanish conquest).

Unlike other scattered Indigenous populations of Mesoamerica, the Maya were centered in one geographical block covering all of the Yucatan Peninsula and modern-day Guatemala; Belize and parts of the Mexican states of Tabasco and Chiapas; and the western part of Honduras and El Salvador. This concentration showed that the Maya remained relatively secure from invasion by other Mesoamerican peoples.

Did you know? Among the earliest Maya a single language existed, but by the Preclassic Period a great linguistic diversity developed among the various Maya peoples. In modern-day Mexico and Central America, around 5 million people speak some 70 Maya languages; most of them are bilingual in Spanish.

Within that expanse, the Maya lived in three separate sub-areas with distinct environmental and cultural differences: the northern Maya lowlands on the Yucatan Peninsula; the southern lowlands in the Peten district of northern Guatemala and adjacent portions of Mexico, Belize and western Honduras; and the southern Maya highlands, in the mountainous region of southern Guatemala.

Most famously, the Maya of the southern lowland region reached their peak during the Classic Period of Maya civilization (A.D. 250 to 900), and built the great stone cities and monuments that have fascinated explorers and scholars of the region to this day.

Early Maya, 1800 B.C. to A.D. 250

The earliest Maya settlements date to around 1800 B.C., or the beginning of what is called the Preclassic or Formative Period. The earliest Maya were agricultural, growing crops such as corn (maize), beans, squash and cassava (manioc). During the Middle Preclassic Period, which lasted until about 300 B.C., Maya farmers began to expand their presence both in the highland and lowland regions.

The Middle Preclassic Period also saw the rise of the first major Mesoamerican civilization, the Olmecs. Like other Mesamerican peoples, such as the Zapotec, Totonac, Teotihuacán and Aztec, the Maya derived a number of religious and cultural traits-as well as their number system and their famous calendar-from the Olmec.

In addition to agriculture, the Preclassic Maya also displayed more advanced cultural traits like pyramid-building, city construction and the inscribing of stone monuments.

The Late Preclassic city of Mirador, in the northern Peten, was one of the greatest cities ever built in the pre-Columbian Americas. Its size dwarfed the Classic Maya capital of Tikal, and its existence proves that the Maya flourished centuries before the Classic Period.

Mayan Pyramids of the Classic Maya, A.D. 250-900

The Classic Period, which began around A.D. 250, was the golden age of the Maya Empire. Classic Maya civilization grew to some 40 cities, including Tikal, Uaxactún, Copán, Bonampak, Dos Pilas, Calakmul, Palenque and Río Bec; each city held a population of between 5,000 and 50,000 people. At its peak, the Maya population may have reached 2,000,000 or as many as 10,000,000.

Excavations of Maya sites have unearthed plazas, palaces, temples and pyramids, as well as courts for playing the famous Maya ball game ulama, all ritually and politically significant to Maya culture. Maya cities were surrounded and supported by a large population of farmers. Though the Maya practiced a primitive type of "slash-and-burn" agriculture, they also displayed evidence of more advanced farming methods, such as irrigation and terracing.

The Maya were deeply religious, and worshiped various gods related to nature, including the gods of the sun, the moon, rain and corn. At the top of Maya society were the kings, or "kuhul ajaw" (holy lords), who claimed to be related to gods and followed a hereditary succession. They were thought to serve as mediators between the gods and people on earth, and performed the elaborate religious ceremonies and rituals so important to the Maya culture.

The Mayan Calendar and Culture

The Classic Maya built many of their temples and palaces in a stepped pyramid shape, decorating them with elaborate reliefs and inscriptions. These structures have earned the Maya their reputation as the great artists of Mesoamerica.

Guided by their religious ritual, the Maya also made significant advances in mathematics and astronomy, including the use of the zero and the development of complex calendar systems like the Calendar Round, based on 365 days, and later, the Long Count Calendar, designed to last over 5,000 years.

Serious exploration of Classic Maya sites began in the 1830s. By the early to mid-20th century, a small portion of their system of hieroglyph writing had been deciphered, and more about their history and culture became known. Most of what historians know about the Maya comes from what remains of their architecture and art, including stone carvings and inscriptions on their buildings and monuments.

The Maya also made paper from tree bark and wrote in books made from this paper, known as codices; four of these codices are known to have survived. They are also credited with some of the earliest uses of chocolate and of rubber.

Maya Life in the Rainforest

One of the many intriguing things about the Maya was their ability to build a great civilization in a tropical rainforest climate. Traditionally, ancient peoples had flourished in drier climates, where the centralized management of water resources (through irrigation and other techniques) formed the basis of society. (This was the case for the Teotihuacan of highland Mexico, contemporaries of the Classic Maya.) In the southern Maya lowlands, however, there were few navigable rivers for trade and transport, as well as no obvious need for an irrigation system.

By the late 20th century, researchers had concluded that the climate of the lowlands was in fact quite environmentally diverse. Though foreign invaders were disappointed by the region's relative lack of silver and gold, the Maya took advantage of the area's many natural resources, including limestone (for construction), the volcanic rock obsidian (for tools and weapons) and salt.

The environment also held other treasures for the Maya, including jade, quetzal feathers (used to decorate the elaborate costumes of Maya nobility) and marine shells, which were used as trumpets in ceremonies and warfare.

What Happened to the Maya?

From the late eighth through the end of the ninth century, something unknown happened to shake the Maya civilization to its foundations. One by one, the Classic cities in the southern lowlands were abandoned, and by A.D. 900, Mayan civilization in that region had collapsed. The reason for this mysterious decline is unknown, though scholars have developed several competing theories.

Some believe that by the ninth century the Maya had exhausted the environment around them to the point that it could no longer sustain a very large population. Other Maya scholars argue that constant warfare among competing city-states led the complicated military, family (by marriage) and trade alliances between them to break down, along with the traditional system of dynastic power.

As the stature of the holy lords diminished, their complex traditions of rituals and ceremonies dissolved into chaos. Finally, some catastrophic environmental change - like an extremely long, intense period of drought - may have wiped out the Classic Maya civilization. Drought would have hit cities like Tikal especially hard, because rainwater there was necessary for drinking as well as for crop irrigation.

All three of these factors - overpopulation and overuse of the land, endemic warfare and drought - may have played a part in the downfall of the Maya in the southern lowlands. In the highlands of the Yucatan, a few Maya cities, such as Chichen Itza, Uxmal and Mayapán, continued to flourish in the Post-Classic Period (A.D. 900-1500). By the time the Spanish invaders arrived, however, most Maya were living in agricultural villages, their great cities hidden under a layer of verdant rainforest.

Do the Maya Still Exist?

Descendants of the Maya still live in Central America in modern-day Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and parts of Mexico.

The majority of modern-day Maya live in Guatemala, which is home to Tikal National Park, the site of the ruins of the ancient city of Tikal. Roughly 40 percent of Guatemalans are of Mayan descent.

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Mayan Civilization: Calendar, Pyramids & Ruins| HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Maya, a civilization of Indigenous people in Central America, created a complex Mayan calendar and massive pyramids before their empire collapsed into ruins.

# data[].attributes.headline
What Did Houses For Ordinary People In Sumer Look Like?

# data[].attributes.subject
What Did Houses For Ordinary People In Sumer Look Like?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
AncientPages.com - When the Sumerian civilization began to flourish, also daily life in Mesopotamia began to change.

New cities and large towns created new possibilities for people who lived in small villages and were only occupied with haunting and farming.

People in Sumer were divided into three social classes. The upper class included the richest and most influential people such as kings, priests and government officials. The middle class of the Sumerian society included artisans (skilled workers making metal products, weapons, pottery or cloth), farmers, fishermen, merchants and traders, who traveled much to other neighboring towns to trade wheat, tools and barley for copper.

The lower class included enslaved people who were captured, then sold and bought among the upper class; they worked in temples and on farms.

Sumerians built their houses by themselves

The average house was a small one-story structure made of mud-brick. It contained several rooms grouped around a courtyard. People with more resources probably lived in two-story houses, which were plastered and whitewashed and had about ten or even twelve rooms, equipped with wooden doors, although wood was not common in some cities of Sumer.

The ground floor in two-story houses, usually consisted of reception room, kitchen, and toilet and servant's quarters.

Most houses (approximately 90 square meters) had a square center room with other rooms built around an area that provided access to the light and ventilated the interior. Light in the home was provided by small lamps fueled by sesame seed oil.

A hearth, placed in the courtyard or in a separate room, was an important part of the house. The windows (often in more expensive houses) were very small and placed at high altitude. They efficiently isolated the interior of the house from the outdoor heat.

Among basic furniture in the Sumerian house, there were low tables, beds with wooden frames and high-backed chairs and kitchens with household vessels; there were also baskets and chests made of reed. Walls and floors were often covered with reed mats and skim rugs.

Those who could not afford to buy comfortable, luxurious beds and chairs enjoyed sleeping on mats of woven straw or reeds, which covered the floor of the house.

Under the floor of the house, there was sometimes a family mausoleum where the dead family members were buried. However, there also seem to have been special cemeteries for the dead located outside the cities.

Reed houses were also built

While wealthy people built their houses of sun-dried bricks, other people had only means for constructions reeds.

Sumer had no trees for timber but it had the huge reeds in the marshes, and this raw material was widely used in building of reed houses.

People tied reed bundles or plaited them into mats and set vertically in the ground, like columns, in two parallel rows, and then their peaks were tied.
See also: Ancient Egyptian Cosmetics - Why Was It So Important To Both Men And Women? King Ur-Nammu - King Of Ur, King Of Sumer And Akkad - The One Who Built The Temple Of God Enlil More Ancient History Facts
Stephen Bertman, writes in "Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia":

"Digging a series of holes in the ground, the builders would insert a tall bundle of reeds in each hole. A circle of holes would be used to make a circular house; two parallel rows to make a rectangular one. Once the bundles were all firmly inserted, the ones opposite each other would be bent over and tied at the top to form a roof. For a front or back door, a reed mat would be draped over an opening (either at the ends of a rectangular house, or on the side of a circular one).

Such primitive homes are still made and used by the marsh-dwellers of southern Iraq. In a hot climate like Iraq's, a well-designed house must protect its dwellers from the sun's searing heat. The reed houses accomplished this purpose by providing shade. In addition, the thick bundles of reeds provided some insulation. If the house was rectangular and there was an opening at either end, its owners may have enjoyed cross-ventilation as well..."

All humans, no matter their wealth or rank have preserved a very beautiful tradition: gathering at the table for the evening meal. This tradition still continues.

Copyright © AncientPages.com All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or part without the express written permission of AncientPages.com

Expand for references

References:

Hunter N. Daily Life in Ancient Sumer

Bertman S. Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What Did Houses For Ordinary People In Sumer Look Like? | Ancient Pages

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Share this:AncientPages.com - When the Sumerian civilization began to flourish, also daily life in Mesopotamia began to change. New cities and large towns created new possibilities for people who lived in small villages and were only occupied with haunting and farming. People in Sumer were divided into three social classes.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
Aztecs: Empire, Culture & Facts | HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Aztecs: Empire, Culture & Facts | HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Aztecs ruled much of Mexico from the 13th century until their conquest by Hernán Cortés in 1521.

# data[].attributes.headline
Mesopotamian Warfare: The Sumerians, Akkadians and Babylonians

# data[].attributes.subject
Mesopotamian Warfare: The Sumerians, Akkadians and Babylonians

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Each of these three great civilizations, all related to each other, brought in new weapons and tactics to warfare. All warred among themselves and with others. Mesopotamian cities usually went to war for water and land rights. As cultures based on agriculture, land and sufficient water supply were vital to the well-being of their cities. They fought for that which was vital to them, as well as for less crucial motives such as preeminence.

Sumerians

In Sumer, there was no standing army, although there may have been some professional soldiers. When the king, high priest and council of elders decided the need for war, they called all free male citizens to arms. Each citizen had to bring his own weapons. Common weapons included bows, spears, slingshots, battle axes, maces and knives. Protective armor was rare, although many carried shields. Professional soldiers wore helmets of copper.

When cities went to war, as did Umma and Lagash around 2525 B.C., the citizen armies came out from their cities and met on open land. At 300 feet distance, each army's archers would shoot. The resulting barrage of arrows no doubt killed many, whose bodies were then trodden under foot when the armies charged each other with spears. Spears and rocks thrown by slingshots filled the air and many more died. Apparently, the army with the most men still standing won the day. This was the typical battle order of the times.

A stele raised by the king of Lagash commemorates the victory of that city over its neighbor and enemy city, Umma. The Stele of Vultures shows ranks of soldiers in a phalanx formation, armed with spears and wearing copper helmets and short, armored cloaks for protection. The king of Lagash rode to the battle in the chariot of the times-a clumsy, heavy cart pulled by four onagers, or semi-wild asses. Sumerian military innovation includes the chariot, helmet, armored cloaks, bronze axes and the phalanx formation in battle.

Akkadians

Sargon of Akkad created the first empire through conquest. Sargon's conquest began with Sumer and stretched from the Persian Gulf to Syria and the Taurus Mountains in southern Anatolia or Turkey.

During Sargon's 50-year reign, he fought in 34 wars, using a core military of 5,400 men, the first true standing army. Once a city-state was conquered, it was required to provide a contingent of military men for Sargon's main army. This became a standard element for empires from then on, the use of conquered forces in the victor's army. As armies grew larger, the need for competent administration and logistics grew in importance. Sargon's talents included administration and delegation: he gave this work to trusted men in both civilian and military matters.

The invention of composite bow gave Sargon's army a great advantage. Made of wood, horn and animal sinew laminated together, the composite bow had two to three times the power of a simple wooden bow. It could shoot twice the distance, and arrows shot from it could easily penetrate leather armor.

Babylonians

Hammurabi (1792 to 1750 B.C.), who created the first Babylonian empire, used all of Sargon's weapons and tactics. He was known to create alliances, then later end them, conquering his former allies. Hammurabi's reputation included damming up and diverting a city-state's water sources. A clever emperor, his empire lasted only during his lifetime. The Later Neo-Babylonian Empire (626 to 539 B.C.) repeated his successes.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Mesopotamian Warfare: The Sumerians, Akkadians and Babylonians - History

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Each of these three great civilizations, all related to each other, brought in new weapons and tactics to warfare. All warred among themselves and with others. Mesopotamian cities usually went to war for water and land rights. As cultures based on agriculture, land and sufficient water supply were vital to the well-being of their cities.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Featured

Created in China, the printing press revolutionized society there before being further developed in Europe in the 15th Century by Johannes Gutenberg and his invention of the Gutenberg press.
Read more Read more about Printing Press

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Featured Created in China, the printing press revolutionized society there before being further developed in Europe in the 15th Century by Johannes Gutenberg and his invention of the Gutenberg press. Read more Read more about Printing Press

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The methods of embalming, or treating the dead body, that the ancient Egyptians used is called mummification. Using special processes, the Egyptians removed all moisture from the body, leaving only a dried form that would not easily decay. It was important in their religion to preserve the dead body in as life-like a manner as possible. So successful were they that today we can view the mummified body of an Egyptian and have a good idea of what he or she looked like in life, 3,000 years ago.

Mummification was practiced throughout most of early Egyptian history. The earliest mummies from prehistoric times probably were accidental. By chance, dry sand and air (since Egypt has almost no measurable rainfall) preserved some bodies buried in shallow pits dug into the sand. About 2600 BCE, during the Fourth and Fifth Dynasties, Egyptians probably began to mummify the dead intentionally. The practice continued and developed for well over 2,000 years, into the Roman Period (ca. 30 BCE-CE 364). Within any one period the quality of the mummification varied, depending on the price paid for it. The best prepared and preserved mummies are from the Eighteenth through the Twentieth Dynasties of the New Kingdom (ca. 1570-1075 BCE) and include those of Tutankhamen and other well-known pharaohs. It is the general process of this period that shall be described here.

Mummification Process

The mummification process took seventy days. Special priests worked as embalmers, treating and wrapping the body. Beyond knowing the correct rituals and prayers to be performed at various stages, the priests also needed a detailed knowledge of human anatomy. The first step in the process was the removal of all internal parts that might decay rapidly. The brain was removed by carefully inserting special hooked instruments up through the nostrils in order to pull out bits of brain tissue. It was a delicate operation, one which could easily disfigure the face. The embalmers then removed the organs of the abdomen and chest through a cut usually made on the left side of the abdomen. They left only the heart in place, believing it to be the center of a person's being and intelligence. The other organs were preserved separately, with the stomach, liver, lungs, and intestines placed in special boxes or jars today called canopic jars. These were buried with the mummy. In later mummies, the organs were treated, wrapped, and replaced within the body. Even so, unused canopic jars continued to be part of the burial ritual.

The embalmers next removed all moisture from the body. This they did by covering the body with natron, a type of salt which has great drying properties, and by placing additional natron packets inside the body. When the body had dried out completely, embalmers removed the internal packets and lightly washed the natron off the body. The result was a very dried-out but recognizable human form. To make the mummy seem even more life-like, sunken areas of the body were filled out with linen and other materials and false eyes were added.

Next the wrapping began. Each mummy needed hundreds of yards of linen. The priests carefully wound the long strips of linen around the body, sometimes even wrapping each finger and toe separately before wrapping the entire hand or foot. In order to protect the dead from mishap, amulets were placed among the wrappings and prayers and magical words written on some of the linen strips. Often the priests placed a mask of the person's face between the layers of head bandages. At several stages the form was coated with warm resin and the wrapping resumed once again. At last, the priests wrapped the final cloth or shroud in place and secured it with linen strips. The mummy was complete. The priests preparing the mummy were not the only ones busy during this time. Although the tomb preparation usually had begun long before the person's actual death, now there was a deadline, and craftsmen, workers, and artists worked quickly. There was much to be placed in the tomb that a person would need in the Afterlife. Furniture and statuettes were readied; wall paintings of religious or daily scenes were prepared; and lists of food or prayers finished. Through a magical process, these models, pictures, and lists would become the real thing when needed in the Afterlife. Everything was now ready for the funeral.

As part of the funeral, priests performed special religious rites at the tomb's entrance. The most important part of the ceremony was called the "Opening of the Mouth." A priest touched various parts of the mummy with a special instrument to "open" those parts of the body to the senses enjoyed in life and needed in the Afterlife. By touching the instrument to the mouth, the dead person could now speak and eat. He was now ready for his journey to the Afterlife. The mummy was placed in his coffin, or coffins, in the burial chamber and the entrance sealed up.

Such elaborate burial practices might suggest that the Egyptians were preoccupied with thoughts of death. On the contrary, they began early to make plans for their death because of their great love of life. They could think of no life better than the present, and they wanted to be sure it would continue after death.

But why preserve the body? The Egyptians believed that the mummified body was the home for this soul or spirit. If the body was destroyed, the spirit might be lost. The idea of "spirit" was complex involving really three spirits: the ka, ba, and akh. The ka, a "double" of the person, would remain in the tomb and needed the offerings and objects there. The ba, or "soul", was free to fly out of the tomb and return to it. And it was the akh, perhaps translated as "spirit", which had to travel through the Underworld to the Final Judgment and entrance to the Afterlife. To the Egyptian, all three were essential.

Who Was Mummified

After death, the pharaohs of Egypt usually were mummified and buried in elaborate tombs. Members of the nobility and officials also often received the same treatment, and occasionally, common people. However, the process was an expensive one, beyond the means of many.

For religious reasons, some animals were also mummified. The sacred bulls from the early dynasties had their own cemetery at Sakkara. Baboons, cats, birds, and crocodiles, which also had great religious significance, were sometimes mummified, especially in the later dynasties.

The Study of Mummies Today

Ancient writers, modern scientists, and the mummies themselves all help us better understand the Egyptian mummification process and the culture in which it existed. Much of what we know about the actual process is based on the writings of early historians such as Herodotus who carefully recorded the process during his travels to Egypt around 450 BCE. Present-day archaeologists and other specialists are adding to this knowledge. The development of x-rays now makes it possible to x-ray mummies without destroying the elaborate outer wrappings. By studying the x-rays or performing autopsies on unwrapped bodies, experts are learning more about diseases suffered by the Egyptians and their medical treatment. A better idea of average height and life span comes from studying the bones. By learning their age at death, the order and dates of the Egyptian kings becomes a little clearer. Even ties of kinship in the royal line can be suggested by the striking similarities or dissimilarities in the skulls of pharaohs that followed one another. Dead now for thousands of years, the mummy continues to speak to us.
Websites and Books on Ancient Egypt, 2012 (PDF)
Anthropology Outreach Office, Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Egyptian Mummies | Smithsonian Institution

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The methods of embalming, or treating the dead body, that the ancient Egyptians used is called mummification.... Learn more

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kids learn about the history of Ancient China. Educational articles for teachers, students, and schools including the culture, art, religions, clothing, geography, empire, government, daily life, people, and dynasties of Ancient China.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Predynastic Period (c. 5000-3100 B.C.)

Few written records or artifacts have been found from the Predynastic Period, which encompassed at least 2,000 years of gradual development of the Egyptian civilization.

Did you know? During the rule of Akhenaton, his wife Nefertiti played an important political and religious role in the monotheistic cult of the sun god Aton. Images and sculptures of Nefertiti depict her famous beauty and role as a living goddess of fertility.

Neolithic (late Stone Age) communities in northeastern Africa exchanged hunting for agriculture and made early advances that paved the way for the later development of Egyptian arts and crafts, technology, politics and religion (including a great reverence for the dead and possibly a belief in life after death).

Around 3400 B.C., two separate kingdoms were established near the Fertile Crescent, an area home to some of the world's oldest civilizations: the Red Land to the north, based in the Nile River Delta and extending along the Nile perhaps to Atfih; and the White Land in the south, stretching from Atfih to Gebel es-Silsila. A southern king, Scorpion, made the first attempts to conquer the northern kingdom around 3200 B.C. A century later, King Menes would subdue the north and unify the country, becoming the first king of the first dynasty.

Archaic (Early Dynastic) Period (c. 3100-2686 B.C.)

King Menes founded the capital of ancient Egypt at White Walls (later known as Memphis), in the north, near the apex of the Nile River delta. The capital would grow into a great metropolis that dominated Egyptian society during the Old Kingdom period. The Archaic Period saw the development of the foundations of Egyptian society, including the all-important ideology of kingship. To the ancient Egyptians, the king was a godlike being, closely identified with the all-powerful god Horus. The earliest known hieroglyphic writing also dates to this period.

In the Archaic Period, as in all other periods, most ancient Egyptians were farmers living in small villages, and agriculture (largely wheat and barley) formed the economic base of the Egyptian state. The annual flooding of the great Nile River provided the necessary irrigation and fertilization each year; farmers sowed the wheat after the flooding receded and harvested it before the season of high temperatures and drought returned.

Old Kingdom: Age of the Pyramid Builders (c. 2686-2181 B.C.)

The Old Kingdom began with the third dynasty of pharaohs. Around 2630 B.C., the third dynasty's King Djoser asked Imhotep, an architect, priest and healer, to design a funerary monument for him; the result was the world's first major stone building, the Step-Pyramid at Saqqara, near Memphis. Egyptian pyramid-building reached its zenith with the construction of the Great Pyramid at Giza, on the outskirts of Cairo. Built for Khufu (or Cheops, in Greek), who ruled from 2589 to 2566 B.C., the pyramid was later named by classical historians as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus estimated that it took 100,000 men 20 years to build it. Two other pyramids were built at Giza for Khufu's successors Khafra (2558-2532 B.C) and Menkaura (2532-2503 B.C.).

During the third and fourth dynasties, Egypt enjoyed a golden age of peace and prosperity. The pharaohs held absolute power and provided a stable central government; the kingdom faced no serious threats from abroad; and successful military campaigns in foreign countries like Nubia and Libya added to its considerable economic prosperity. Over the course of the fifth and sixth dynasties, the king's wealth was steadily depleted, partially due to the huge expense of pyramid-building, and his absolute power faltered in the face of the growing influence of the nobility and the priesthood that grew up around the sun god Ra (Re). After the death of the sixth dynasty's King Pepy II, who ruled for some 94 years, the Old Kingdom period ended in chaos.

On the heels of the Old Kingdom's collapse, the seventh and eighth dynasties consisted of a rapid succession of Memphis-based rulers until about 2160 B.C., when the central authority completely dissolved, leading to civil war between provincial governors. This chaotic situation was intensified by Bedouin invasions and accompanied by famine and disease.

From this era of conflict emerged two different kingdoms: A line of 17 rulers (dynasties nine and 10) based in Heracleopolis ruled Middle Egypt between Memphis and Thebes, while another family of rulers arose in Thebes to challenge Heracleopolitan power. Around 2055 B.C., the Theban prince Mentuhotep managed to topple Heracleopolis and reunited Egypt, beginning the 11th dynasty and ending the First Intermediate Period.

Middle Kingdom: 12th Dynasty (c. 2055-1786 B.C.)

After the last ruler of the 11th dynasty, Mentuhotep IV, was assassinated, the throne passed to his vizier, or chief minister, who became King Amenemhet I, founder of dynasty 12. A new capital was established at It-towy, south of Memphis, while Thebes remained a great religious center. During the Middle Kingdom, Egypt once again flourished, as it had during the Old Kingdom. The 12th dynasty kings ensured the smooth succession of their line by making each successor co-regent, a custom that began with Amenemhet I.

Middle-Kingdom Egypt pursued an aggressive foreign policy, colonizing Nubia (with its rich supply of gold, ebony, ivory and other resources) and repelling the Bedouins who had infiltrated Egypt during the First Intermediate Period. The kingdom also built diplomatic and trade relations with Syria, Palestine and other countries; undertook building projects including military fortresses and mining quarries; and returned to pyramid-building in the tradition of the Old Kingdom. The Middle Kingdom reached its peak under Amenemhet III (1842-1797 B.C.); its decline began under Amenenhet IV (1798-1790 B.C.) and continued under his sister and regent, Queen Sobekneferu (1789-1786 B.C.), who was the first confirmed female ruler of Egypt and the last ruler of the 12th dynasty.

The 13th dynasty marked the beginning of another unsettled period in Egyptian history, during which a rapid succession of kings failed to consolidate power. As a consequence, during the Second Intermediate Period Egypt was divided into several spheres of influence. The official royal court and seat of government was relocated to Thebes, while a rival dynasty (the 14th), centered on the city of Xois in the Nile delta, seems to have existed at the same time as the 13th.

Around 1650 B.C., a line of foreign rulers known as the Hyksos took advantage of Egypt's instability to take control. The Hyksos rulers of the 15th dynasty adopted and continued many of the existing Egyptian traditions in government as well as culture. They ruled concurrently with the line of native Theban rulers of the 17th dynasty, who retained control over most of southern Egypt despite having to pay taxes to the Hyksos. (The 16th dynasty is variously believed to be Theban or Hyksos rulers.) Conflict eventually flared between the two groups, and the Thebans launched a war against the Hyksos around 1570 B.C., driving them out of Egypt.

New Kingdom (c. 1567-1085 B.C.)

Under Ahmose I, the first king of the 18th dynasty, Egypt was once again reunited. During the 18th dynasty, Egypt restored its control over Nubia and began military campaigns in Palestine, clashing with other powers in the area such as the Mitannians and the Hittites. The country went on to establish the world's first great empire, stretching from Nubia to the Euphrates River in Asia. In addition to powerful kings such as Amenhotep I (1546-1526 B.C.), Thutmose I (1525-1512 B.C.) and Amenhotep III (1417-1379 B.C.), the New Kingdom was notable for the role of royal women such as Queen Hatshepsut (1503-1482 B.C.), who began ruling as a regent for her young stepson (he later became Thutmose III, Egypt's greatest military hero), but rose to wield all the powers of a pharaoh.

The controversial Amenhotep IV (c. 1379-1362), of the late 18th dynasty, undertook a religious revolution, disbanding the priesthoods dedicated to Amon-Re (a combination of the local Theban god Amon and the sun god Re) and forcing the exclusive worship of another sun-god, Aton. Renaming himself Akhenaton ("servant of the Aton"), he built a new capital in Middle Egypt called Akhetaton, known later as Amarna. Upon Akhenaton's death, the capital returned to Thebes and Egyptians returned to worshiping a multitude of gods. The 19th and 20th dynasties, known as the Ramesside period (for the line of kings named Ramses) saw the restoration of the weakened Egyptian empire and an impressive amount of building, including great temples and cities. According to biblical chronology, the exodus of Moses and the Israelites from Egypt possibly occurred during the reign of Ramses II (1304-1237 B.C.).

All of the New Kingdom rulers (with the exception of Akhenaton) were laid to rest in deep, rock-cut tombs (not pyramids) in the Valley of the Kings, a burial site on the west bank of the Nile opposite Thebes. Most of them were raided and destroyed, with the exception of the tomb and treasure of Tutankhamen (c.1361-1352 B.C.), discovered largely intact in A.D. 1922. The splendid mortuary temple of the last great king of the 20th dynasty, Ramses III (c. 1187-1156 B.C.), was also relatively well preserved, and indicated the prosperity Egypt still enjoyed during his reign. The kings who followed Ramses III were less successful: Egypt lost its provinces in Palestine and Syria for good and suffered from foreign invasions (notably by the Libyans), while its wealth was being steadily but inevitably depleted.

The next 400 years-known as the Third Intermediate Period-saw important changes in Egyptian politics, society and culture. Centralized government under the 21st dynasty pharaohs gave way to the resurgence of local officials, while foreigners from Libya and Nubia grabbed power for themselves and left a lasting imprint on Egypt's population. The 22nd dynasty began around 945 B.C. with King Sheshonq, a descendant of Libyans who had invaded Egypt during the late 20th dynasty and settled there. Many local rulers were virtually autonomous during this period and dynasties 23-24 are poorly documented.

In the eighth century B.C., Nubian pharaohs beginning with Shabako, ruler of the Nubian kingdom of Kush, established their own dynasty-the 25th-at Thebes. Under Kushite rule, Egypt clashed with the growing Assyrian empire. In 671 B.C., the Assyrian ruler Esarhaddon drove the Kushite king Taharka out of Memphis and destroyed the city; he then appointed his own rulers out of local governors and officials loyal to the Assyrians. One of them, Necho of Sais, ruled briefly as the first king of the 26th dynasty before being killed by the Kushite leader Tanuatamun, in a final, unsuccessful grab for power.

From the Late Period to Alexander's Conquest (c.664-332 B.C.)

Beginning with Necho's son, Psammetichus, the Saite dynasty ruled a reunified Egypt for less than two centuries. In 525 B.C., Cambyses, king of Persia, defeated Psammetichus III, the last Saite king, at the Battle of Pelusium, and Egypt became part of the Persian Empire. Persian rulers such as Darius (522-485 B.C.) ruled the country largely under the same terms as native Egyptian kings: Darius supported Egypt's religious cults and undertook the building and restoration of its temples. The tyrannical rule of Xerxes (486-465 B.C.) sparked increased uprisings under him and his successors. One of these rebellions triumphed in 404 B.C., beginning one last period of Egyptian independence under native rulers (dynasties 28-30).

In the mid-fourth century B.C., the Persians again attacked Egypt, reviving their empire under Ataxerxes III in 343 B.C. Barely a decade later, in 332 B.C., Alexander the Great of Macedonia defeated the armies of the Persian Empire and conquered Egypt. After Alexander's death, Egypt was ruled by a line of Macedonian kings, beginning with Alexander's general Ptolemy and continuing with his descendants. The last ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt-the legendary Cleopatra VII-surrendered Egypt to the armies of Octavian (later Augustus) in 31 B.C. Six centuries of Roman rule followed, during which Christianity became the official religion of Rome and the Roman Empire's provinces (including Egypt). The conquest of Egypt by the Arabs in the seventh century A.D. and the introduction of Islam would do away with the last outward aspects of ancient Egyptian culture and propel the country towards its modern incarnation.

Photo Galleries

HISTORY Vault: Ancient History

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Ancient Egypt: Civilization, Empire & Culture | HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ancient Egypt was the preeminent civilization in the Mediterranean world from around 3100 B.C. to its conquest in 332 B.C.