Ancient history

Ancient history is all the events we know about between the invention of writing and the start of the Middle Ages.

Writing is one of the greatest inventions of the human species. It was invented after the Neolithic revolution in which people settled in small towns and started agriculture. Writing dates from about 3,300 BC, which is over 5000 years ago, in the Middle East. The first people to use writing were the Sumerians and the Ancient Egyptians.^[1]

Before writing, the only things we have are the tools and monuments made by earlier people. This is studied by archaeology rather than history. The period of ancient history ends with the early Middle Ages.

Study of ancient history

Finding facts about ancient history is difficult because people wrote less in those times: only scribes could write. Most of what they did write has been lost. There were very few copies made because there was no printing. What people wrote they wrote by hand. More people could read and write in Ancient Rome than in other places but much of what they wrote is now lost.

Archaeology

Archaeology is looking at things that were made or used in the past to learn about that time. Things like clay pots, solid tools, and metal weapons often exist at the same time. Things like paper, wood, and cloth can be easily broken, burnt or damaged.

Some ancient things found using archaeology are:

The Egyptian pyramids - Big tombs made by the Ancient Egyptians for their king and queens.
The city of Pompeii - A city from Ancient Rome. When a volcano (a mountain that makes fire and hot rocks) killed the people living there, the city was buried and the things inside it were covered with rock and ash. This meant that they did not change for a long time.
The Terracotta Army - the tomb of the First Qin Emperor in Ancient China.

Primary sources

Primary sources are written by people who lived in ancient times. They tell us most of what we know about ancient history. But people in ancient history may have believed different things from each other. They may also be wrong.

Some famous people who wrote ancient history are: Herodotus, Josephus, Livy, Polybius, Suetonius, Tacitus, Thucydides and Sima Qian.

Chronology

Prehistory

The human race evolved in Africa. Our species, Homo sapiens evolved about 200 to 250,000 years ago.
~90,000 years ago – people go to the Middle East.
~60,000 years ago – people from Africa go to Asia.
~40,000 years ago – people go to Australia.
~40,000 years ago – people go to Europe.
~14th to 10th millennium BC – people go to America.
~10th millennium BC – people start farming.
4th millennium BC – cuneiform writing in the cities of Uruk and Susa; and hieroglyphs (picture writing) in Egypt.
1000 years BC – earliest writing about history.
450 BC - Herodotus writes what may be the first book based on non-fictional events. It is still available today.

Older Ancient history

c. 3300 BC – Bronze Age start in the Near East and South Asia Bronze Age goes to the rest of Europe and The Middle East
c. 3100 BC – Sagol Kangjei, the proto-polo was invented in Ancient Manipur (Antique Kangleipak).
c. 3000 BC – Egyptians make papyrus (paper made of Reeds)
c. 2800 BC – Kot Diji time of the Indus Valley Civilization starts
c. 2700 BC – Elam grows.
2580 BC – Egyptians make the Great Pyramid of Giza
2000 BC – People use horses
1700 BC – Indus Valley Civilization ends but the Cemetery H culture keeps going; The start of Poverty Point Civilization in North America
1600 BC – The start of Shang Dynasty in China, Chinese make writing.
1600 BC – Hittite people start ruling The Middle East.
1500 BC – People make the Rigveda.
1445 BC – Monarchy started in Ancient Manipur (Antique Kangleipak).
1398 BC – The Wakoklon was written down.
1200 BC - The Bronze Age collapse.
1200 BC – The Hebrews come to Israel and start living there.
c. 1200 BC – The Trojan War
c. 1100 BC – King Saul makes the 12 tribes of Israel into Israel
c. 1180 BC – End of the Hittite Empire
1122 BC – The Zhou people stop the last king of Shang Dynasty from being king; Zhou Dynasty starts in China
1004 BC – King David captures Jebus. He calls it Jerusalem and makes it the capital of Israel.

1000 BC to 100 BC

928 BC - Israel breaks and becomes The Kingdom of Judah and the Kingdom of Israel
800 BC - City states in Ancient Greece
776 BC - People write about the Olympic Games. They were started before this time but people did not write about them.
c. 753 BC - Rome starts
751 BC - LeChe grows
745 BC - Tiglath-Pileser III becomes the new king of Assyria. He will become powerful and make Assyria into an empire
728 BC - the Median Empire grows
722 BC - Zhou Dynasty becomes weaker; the time of the Hundred Schools of Thought begins.
653 BC - The first Persian state grows.
600 BC - Sixteen Maha Janapadas ("Great Realms" or "Great Kingdoms") start.
c. 600 BC - Pandyan kingdom in South India
c. 563 BC - Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha), is born as a prince of the Shakya tribe. The Shakya tribe ruled parts of Magadha.
549 BC - Mahavira is born
546 BC - Cyrus the Great makes The Persian Empire.
546 BC - Cyrus the Great defeats the Lydian kingdom
544 BC - Bimbisara makes Magadha powerful.
539 BC - the Babylonian Empire ends and Cyrus the Great frees the Jews.
525 BC - Cambyses II of Persia takes Egypt
c. 512 BC - Darius I (Darius the Great) of Persia takes Easter Thrace, Macedonia, and Libya. The Persian Empire is the most powerful.
509 BC - The last King of Rome stops being king, The Roman Republic starts.
500 BC - Pingala uses zero and binary numbers.
490 BC - Greek city-states defeat the Persian attack at Battle of Marathon
424 BC - Nanda dynasty becomes powerful.
404 BC - End of Peloponnesian War.
403 BC - Warring States Period starts in China.
331 BC - Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of Gaugamela
326 BC - Alexander the Great defeats Indian king Porus (Purushottama) in the Battle of the Hydaspes River.
321 BC - Chandragupta Maurya defeats the Nanda Dynasty of Magadha
323 BC - Alexander the Great dies.
273 BC - Ashoka the Great becomes the emperor of the Mauryan Empire
250 BC - Parthia (Ashkâniân) becomes powerful.
232 BC - Emperor Ashoka the Great dies; the Mauryan Empire becomes weak.
230 BC - Satavahanas are in South India
221 BC - Qin Shi Huang is in China, end of Warring States Period; start of Emperors in China (this will end in 1912 AD)
202 BC - Han Dynasty starts in China,Qin Shi Huang dies; the Silk Road is made
202 BC - Scipio Africanus defeats Hannibal at Battle of Zama
c. 200 BC - Chera dynasty in South India
185 BC - Sunga Empire starts
149 BC-146 BC - Third and last Punic War; Rome defeats Cathage.
146 BC - Rome takes Greece.
110 BC - First time the Chinese rule Vietnam: the Nanyue Kingdom.
c 100 BC - Chola Dynasty grows.

100 BC to end of Roman Empire, 476 AD

49 BC - Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great make the Roman Civil War
44 BC - Marcus Brutus and others kill Julius Ceaser; The Roman Republic ends; The Roman Empire starts.
6 BC - Jesus of Nazareth is born
c. 1 BC - The Numit Kappa was written down.
9 - Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.
14 - Emperor Augustus (Octavian) dies, Tiberius becomes emperor.
33 - Emperor Nongda Lairen Pakhangba of Ningthouja dynasty ascended the throne of the Kangla.
117 - Trajan is The emperor of Rome. The Roman Empire is the most powerful.
200s - The Hindu Srivijaya Empire starts in the Malay Archipelago.
220 - The Han Dynasty ends in China.
226 - the Parthian Empire ends and the Sassanian Empire becomes powerful
238 - Shapur I of Persia defeats of Gordian III (238–244), Philip the Arab (244–249), and Valerian (253–260).
285 - Emperor Diocletian breaks the Roman Empire into Eastern and Western Empires
313 - Edict of Milan says that the Roman Empire would not make people worship a god.
335 - Samudragupta becomes the emperor of the Gupta empire
378 - Battle of Adrianople, the Germanic tribes defeat Roman army.
395 - Roman Emperor Theodosius I makes people be Christian
410 - Alaric defeats Rome. No one has deafeated Rome after 390 BC
c. 455 - Skandagupta stops Indo-Hephthalite people attacking India.
476 - Romulus Augustus deposed as emperor of Rome,

Some groups of people in ancient history

Europe

Middle East

Saharan and Sub-Saharan Africa

South and East Asia

America

References

↑ Robinson. Andrew 1995. The story of writing. Thames & Hudson, London.

[1] Robinson. Andrew 1995. The story of writing. Thames & Hudson, London.

[1]