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Wikipedia: Ancient history

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The times before writing belong either to protohistory or to prehistory.

Ancient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of human history until the Early Middle Ages^[1]. The goal of the modern day critical ancient historian is objectivity. The term classical antiquity is often used to refer to ancient history since the beginning of recorded Greek history in about 776 BC. This coincides roughly with the traditional date of the founding of Rome in 753 BC, the beginning of the history of ancient Rome.

Although the ending date of ancient history is disputed, currently most Western scholars use the fall of the Western Roman Empire in AD 476 as the end of ancient European history. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 – 5,500 years, with Sumerian cuneiform being the oldest form of writing discovered so far. Thus, this is the beginning of history by the definition used by all historians.

The study of ancient history

The fundamental difficulty of studying ancient history is the fact that only a fraction of it has been documented and only a fraction of those recorded histories have survived into the present day. It is also imperative to consider the reliability of the information obtained from these records. Literacy was not widespread in almost any culture until long after the end of ancient history, so there were few people capable of writing histories. Even those written histories which were produced were not widely distributed; the ancients, not having the luxury of a printing press had to make copies of books by hand.
The Roman Empire was one of the ancient world most literate cultures, but many works by its most widely read historians are lost. For example, Livy, a Roman historian who lived in the 1st century BC, wrote a history of Rome called Ab Urbe Condite ("From the Founding of the City") in 142 volumes while historians have accounted for only 35 volumes. As for records during the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire many were altered or falsified to serve certain political interest.^[2]
Historians have two major avenues which they take to better understand the ancient world: archaeology and the study of primary sources.

Archaeology

Main article: Archaeology

Archaeology is the excavation and study of artifacts in an effort to interpret and reconstruct past human behavior. In the study of ancient history, archaeologists excavate the ruins of ancient cities looking for clues as to how the people of the time period lived. Some important discoveries by archaeologists studying ancient history include:

The Egyptian pyramids - giant tombs built by the ancient Egyptians beginning around 2600 BC as the final resting places of their royalty.
The study of the ancient cities of Harappa, Mohenjo-daro and Lothal in South Asia.
The city of Pompeii - an ancient Roman city preserved by the eruption of a volcano in AD 79. Its state of preservation is so great that it is a valuable window into Roman culture and provided insight into the cultures of the Etruscans and the Saminites.^[3]
The Terracotta Army - the mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor in ancient China.

Primary sources

Perhaps most of what is known of the ancient world comes from the accounts of antiquity's own historians. Although it is important to take into account the bias of each ancient author, their firsthand (or primary) accounts, are the basis for our understanding of the ancient past. Some of the more notable ancient writers include: Valmiki, Vatsyayana, Vyasa, Kalidasa, Chanakya, Sun Tzu, Herodotus, Josephus, Livy, Polybius, Suetonius, Tacitus, Thucydides, Sima Qian and Moses.

Chronology

Prehistory

early human migrations
- Lower Paleolithic—Homo erectus spreads across Eurasia. Controlled use of fire from ca. 800 kya.
- c. 100 kya—Homo sapiens evolves in Africa
- c. 70-60 kya—Modern humans migrate out of Africa along a coastal route to South and Southeast Asia and reach Australia
- c. 50 kya—Modern humans spread from Asia to the Near East
- c. 40 kya—Europe first reached by modern humans
- c. 15 kya—Americas first reached by humans
10th millennium BC—Invention of agriculture is the earliest given date for the beginning of the ancient era
7th millennium BC—Jiahu culture began in China
5th millennium BC—late Neolithic civilizations, invention of the wheel and spread of proto-writing.
4th millennium BC—Cucuteni-Trypillian culture in the Ukraine
4th millennium BC—Sumerian cuneiform, history's oldest writing system.^[4]

History

Some important events:

Bronze Age and Early Iron Age

Bronze Age through to the Early Iron Age

3300 BC—Bronze Age begins in the Caucasus^[5]
3200 BC—Cycladic Civilization Greece
3200 BC—Rise of Proto-Elamite Civilization
3100 BC—Skara Brae Scotland
3100 BC—First dynasty of Egypt
3000 BC—Jiroft civilization Begins
3000 BC—Rise of the Nile Valley civilization
3000 BC—First known use of papyrus by Egyptians
2800 BC—Kot Diji phase of the Indus Valley Civilization begins
2800 BC—Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors period in China
2700 BC—Minoan Civilization ancient palace city Knossos reach 80.000 inhabitants
2700 BC—Rise of Elam in Iran
2600 BC—Mature Harappan phase of the Indus Valley civilization (in present-day Pakistan and India) begins
26th century BC—Completion of the Great Pyramid of Giza
2070 BC—Yu the Great established the Xia Dynasty in China
2000 BC—Domestication of the horse
1700 BC—Indus Valley Civilization comes to an end but is continued by the Cemetery H culture; The beginning of Poverty Point Civilization in North America
1600 BC— Mycenaean Greece
1600 BC—The beginning of Shang Dynasty in China, evidence of a fully developed Chinese writing system
1600 BC—Beginning of Hittite dominance of the Eastern Mediterranean region
1500 BC—Composition of the Rigveda is completed
1200 BC—The Hallstatt culture
c. 1200 BC—Theorized time of the Trojan War^{[citation needed]}
c. 1180 BC—Disintegration of Hittite Empire
1046 BC—The Zhou force (led by King Wu of Zhou) overthrow the last king of Shang Dynasty; Zhou Dynasty established in China
1000 BC—Mannaeans Kingdom Begins
800 BC—Rise of Greek city-states
776 BC—First recorded Olympic Games. The history of the Games is believed to reach as far back as the 13th century BC but no older written record survives.^{[citation needed]}

Classical Antiquity

Main article: Classical antiquity

753 BC—Founding of Rome (traditional date)
745 BC—Tiglath-Pileser III becomes the new king of Assyria. With time he conquers neighboring countries and turns Assyria into an empire
728 BC—Rise of the Iranian Median Empire
722 BC—Spring and Autumn Period begins in China; Zhou Dynasty's power is diminishing; the era of the Hundred Schools of Thought
700 BC the construction of Marib Dam in Arabia Felix
653 BC—Rise of first Persian state of Iran
612 BC—Attributed date of the destruction of Nineveh and subsequent fall of Assyria.
600 BC—Sixteen Maha Janapadas ("Great Realms" or "Great Kingdoms") emerge. A number of these Maha Janapadas are semi-democratic republics.
c 600 BC—Pandyan kingdom in South India
563 BC—Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha), founder of Buddhism is born as a prince of the Shakya tribe, which ruled parts of Magadha, one of the Maha Janapadas
551 BC—Confucius, founder of Confucianism, is born
549 BC—Mahavira, founder of Jainism is born
546 BC—Foundation of the Persian Empire and unification of Iran by Cyrus the Great
546 BC—Cyrus the Great overthrows the Lydian kingdom
544 BC—Rise of Magadha as the dominant power under Bimbisara.
539 BC—The Fall of the Babylonian Empire and liberation of the Jews by Cyrus the Great
525 BC—Cambyses II of Persia conquers Egypt
c. 512 BC—Darius I (Darius the Great) of Persia, subjugates eastern Thrace, Macedonia submits voluntarily, and annexes Libya, Persian Empire at largest extent
509 BC—Expulsion of the last King of Rome, founding of Roman Republic (traditional date)
500 BC—Panini standardizes the grammar and morphology of Sanskrit in the text Ashtadhyayi. Panini's standardized Sanskrit is known as Classical Sanskrit
500 BC—Pingala uses zero and binary numeral system
490 BC—Greek city-states defeat Persian invasion at Battle of Marathon
475 BC—Warring States Period begins in China as the Zhou king became a mere figurehead; China is annexed by regional warlords
424 BC—Nanda dynasty comes to power.
404 BC—End of Peloponnesian War between the Greek city-states
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 overthrows the Nanda Dynasty of Magadha
323 BC—Death of Alexander the Great
305 BC—Chandragupta Maurya seizes the satrapies of Paropanisadai (Kabul), Aria (Herat), Arachosia (Qanadahar) and Gedrosia (Baluchistan)from Seleucus I Nicator, the Macedonian satrap of Babylonia, in return for 500 elephants.
273 BC—Ashoka the Great becomes the emperor of the Mauryan Empire
257 BC—Thục Dynasty takes over Việt Nam (then Kingdom of Âu Lạc)
250 BC—Rise of Parthia (Ashkâniân), the second native dynasty of ancient Iran
232 BC—Death of Emperor Ashoka the Great; Decline of the Mauryan Empire
230 BC—Emergence of Satavahanas in South India
221 BC—Qin Shi Huang unifies China, end of Warring States Period; marking the beginning of Imperial rule in China which lasts until 1912. Construction of the Great Wall by the Qin Dynasty begins.
207 BC—Kingdom of Nan Yueh extends from North Việt Nam to Canton
202 BC—Han Dynasty established in China, after the death of Qin Shi Huang; China in this period officially becomes a Confucian state and opens trading connections with the West, i.e. the Silk Road
202 BC—Scipio Africanus defeats Hannibal at Battle of Zama
c 200 BC—Chera dynasty in South India
185 BC—Sunga Empire founded.
149 BC-146—Third and final Punic War; destruction of Carthage by Rome
146 BC—Roman conquest of Greece, see Roman Greece
111 BC— First Chinese domination of Việt Nam in the form of the Nanyue Kingdom.
c 100 BC—Chola dynasty rises in prominence.
49 BC—Roman Civil War between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great
44 BC—Julius Caesar murdered by Marcus Brutus and others; End of Roman Republic; beginning of Roman Empire
6 BC—Earliest theorized date for birth of Jesus of Nazareth
4 BC—Widely accepted date (Ussher) for birth of Jesus Christ
9—Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, the Imperial Roman Army's bloodiest defeat
14—Death of Emperor Augustus (Octavian), ascension of his adopted son Tiberius to the throne
29—Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
68—Year of the four emperors in Rome
70—Destruction of Jerusalem by the armies of Titus.
117—Roman Empire at largest extent under Emperor Trajan
192—Kingdom of Champa in Central Việt Nam
200s—The Buddhist Srivijaya Empire established in the Malay Archipelago.
220—Three Kingdoms period begins in China after the fall of Han Dynasty.
226—Fall of the Parthian Empire and Rise of the Sassanian Empire
238—Defeat of Gordian III (238–244), Philip the Arab (244–249), and Valerian (253–260), by Shapur I of Persia, (Valerian was captured by the Persians).
280—Emperor Wu established Jin Dynasty providing a temporary unity of China after the devastating Three Kingdoms period.
285—Emperor Diocletian splits the Roman Empire into Eastern and Western Empires
313—Edict of Milan declared that the Roman Empire would be neutral toward religious worship
335—Samudragupta becomes the emperor of the Gupta empire
378—Battle of Adrianople, Roman army is defeated by the Germanic tribes
395—Roman Emperor Theodosius I outlaws all pagan religions in favour of Christianity
410—Alaric I sacks Rome for the first time since 390 BC
c. 455—Skandagupta repels an Indo-Hephthalite attack on India.
476—Romulus Augustus, last Western Roman Emperor is forced to abdicate by Odoacer, a half Hunnish and half Scirian chieftain of the Germanic Heruli; Odoacer returns the imperial regalia to Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno in Constantinople in return for the title of dux of Italy; most frequently cited date for the end of ancient history

End of ancient history in Europe

The date used as the end of the ancient era is entirely arbitrary. The transition period from Classical Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages is known as Late Antiquity. Some key dates marking that transition are:

293—reforms of Roman Emperor Diocletian
395—the division of Roman Empire into the Western Roman Empire and Eastern Roman Empire
476—the fall of Western Roman Empire
529—closure of Platon Academy in Athens by Byzantine Emperor Justinian I

Some prominent civilizations of ancient history

Southwest Asia

Main article: Ancient Near East

Ancient Mesopotamia

Main articles: Mesopotamia and History of Iraq

Ancient Persia

Main articles: Persian Empire and History of Iran

Ancient Phoenicia

Main article: Phoenicia

Ancient Armenia

Main article: History of Armenia

Some scholars believe, for example, that the earliest mention of the Armenians is in the Akkadian inscriptions dating to the 28th-27th centuries BC, in which the Armenians are referred to as the sons of Haya, after the regional god of the Armenian Highlands. ^[6]

Ancient Arabia

See also: Arab and Arabian Peninsula

Ancient Israel/Palestine

Main articles: History of Palestine and History of the State of Israel

Africa

Khafre's Pyramid (4th dynasty) and Great Sphinx of Giza (c.2500 BC or perhaps earlier)

Ancient Egypt

Main article: Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was a long-lived ancient civilization geographically located in north-eastern Africa. It was concentrated along the middle to lower reaches of the Nile River reaching its greatest extension during the second millennium BC, which is referred to as the New Kingdom period. It reached broadly from the Nile Delta in the north, as far south as Jebel Barkal at the Fourth Cataract of the Nile. Extensions to the geographical range of ancient Egyptian civilisation included, at different times, areas of the southern Levant, the Eastern Desert and the Red Sea coastline, the Sinai Peninsula and the Western Desert (focused on the several oases).

Ancient Egypt developed over at least three and a half millennia. It began with the incipient unification of Nile Valley polities around 3500 BC and is conventionally thought to have ended in 30 BC when the early Roman Empire conquered and absorbed Ptolemaic Egypt as a province. (Though this last did not represent the first period of foreign domination, the Roman period was to witness a marked, if gradual transformation in the political and religious life of the Nile Valley, effectively marking the termination of independent civilisational development).

The civilization of ancient Egypt was based on a finely balanced control of natural and human resources, characterised primarily by controlled irrigation of the fertile Nile Valley; the mineral exploitation of the valley and surrounding desert regions; the early development of an independent writing system and literature; the organisation of collective projects; trade with surrounding regions in east / central Africa and the eastern Mediterranean; finally, military ventures that exhibited strong characteristics of imperial hegemony and territorial domination of neighbouring cultures at different periods. Motivating and organising these activities were a socio-political and economic elite that achieved social consensus by means of an elaborate system of religious belief under the figure of a (semi)-divine ruler (usually male) from a succession of ruling dynasties and which related to the larger world by means of polytheistic beliefs.

See also: Egyptians

South Asia

A poltical map of the Mauryan Empire, including notable cities, such as the capital Pataliputra, and site of the Buddha's enlightenment.

The Indus Valley Civilization (c. 3300–1700 BC, flourished 2600–1900 BCE), abbreviated IVC, was an ancient civilization that flourished in the Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra river valleys primarily in what is now Pakistan and western India, parts of Afghanistan and Turkmenistan. Another name for this civilization is the Harappan Civilization, after the first of its cities to be excavated, Harappa. Although the IVC might have been known to the Sumerians as Meluhha, the modern world discovered it only in the 1920s as a result of archaeological excavations.

The Rigveda, in Sanskrit, goes back to about 1500 BC. The Indian literary tradition has an oral history reaching down into the Vedic period of the later 2nd millennium BC. Ancient India is usually taken to refer to the "golden age" of classical Hindu culture, as reflected in Sanskrit literature, beginning around 500 BC with the sixteen monarchies and 'republics' known as the Mahajanapadas, stretched across the Indo-Gangetic plains from modern-day Afghanistan to Bangladesh. The largest of these nations were Magadha, Kosala, Kuru and Gandhara. Notably, the great epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata are rooted in this classical period.

Standing Buddha, Gandhara, 1st century CE.

The births of Mahavira and Buddha in the 6th century BC mark the beginning of well-recorded Indian history. Around the 5th century BC, the northern Indian subcontinent was invaded by the Achaemenid Empire and the Greeks of Alexander's army. Amongst the sixteen Mahajanapadas, the kingdom of Magadha rose to prominence under a number of dynasties that peaked in power under the reign of Ashoka Maurya, one of India's most legendary and famous emperors. During the reign of Asoka, the three Tamil dynasties of Chola, Chera and Pandya were ruling in the south. These kingdoms, while not part of Asoka's empire, were in friendly terms with the Maurya Empire. The Satavahanas started out as feudatories to the Mauryan Empire, and declared independence soon after the death of Ashoka (232 BC). Other notable ancient South Indian dynasties include the Kadambas of Banavasi, western Ganga dynasty, Chalukyas of Badami, Chalukyas, Hoysalas, Kakatiya dynasty, Pallavas, Rashtrakutas of Manyaketha and Satavahanas.

The period between 320CE–550 is known as the Classical Age, when most of North India was reunited under the Gupta Empire (ca. 320CE–550). This was a period of relative peace, law and order, and extensive achievements in religion, education, mathematics, arts, Sanskrit literature and drama. Grammar, composition, logic, metaphysics, mathematics, medicine, and astronomy became increasingly specialized and reached an advanced level. The Gupta Empire was weakened and ultimately ruined by the raids of Hunas (a branch of the White Huns emanating from Central Asia). Under Harsha (r. 606–47), North India was reunited briefly.

The educated speech at that time was Sanskrit, while the dialects of the general population of northern India were referred to as Prakrits. The South Indian coast of Malabar and the Tamil people of the Sangam age traded with the Graeco-Roman world. They were in contact with the Phoenicians, Romans, Greeks, Arabs, Syrians, Jews, and the Chinese. ^[7]

India is estimated to have had the largest economy of the world between the 1st and 15th centuries CE, controlling between one third and one quarter of the world's wealth up to the time of the Mughals, from whence it rapidly declined during British rule.^{[citation needed]}

East Asia

Ancient China

Main article: History of China#Ancient era

Replica of an Oracle Bone

Territories occupied by different dynasties and modern political states throughout the history of China.

New findings unveiled that the earliest Chinese writing system was developed at around 6000 BCE.^[8] Written records of China's past dates from the Shang Dynasty (商朝) in perhaps the 13th century BC, and takes the form of inscriptions of divination records on the bones or shells of animals—the so-called oracle bones (甲骨文). Archaeological findings providing evidence for the existence of the Shang Dynasty, c. 1600–1046 BC is divided into two sets. The first, from the earlier Shang period (c. 1600–1300) comes from sources at Erligang (二里崗), Zhengzhou (鄭州) and Shangcheng. The second set, from the later Shang or Yin (殷) period, consists of a large body of oracle bone writings. Anyang (安陽) in modern day Henan has been confirmed as the last of the nine capitals of the Shang (c. 1300–1046 BC).

By the end of the 2nd millennium BC, the Zhou Dynasty (周朝) began to emerge in the Yellow River valley, overrunning the Shang. The Zhou appeared to have begun their rule under a semi-feudal system. The ruler of the Zhou, King Wu, with the assistance of his uncle, the Duke of Zhou, as regent managed to defeat the Shang at the Battle of Muye. The king of Zhou at this time invoked the concept of the Mandate of Heaven to legitimize his rule, a concept that would be influential for almost every successive dynasty. The Zhou initially moved their capital west to an area near modern Xi'an, near the Yellow River, but they would preside over a series of expansions into the Yangtze River valley. This would be the first of many population migrations from north to south in Chinese history.

Main article: Spring and Autumn Period

In the 8th century BC, power became decentralized during the Spring and Autumn Period (春秋時代), named after the influential Spring and Autumn Annals. In this period, local military leaders used by the Zhou began to assert their power and vie for hegemony. The situation was aggravated by the invasion of other peoples from the northwest, such as the Qin, forcing the Zhou to move their capital east to Luoyang. This marks the second large phase of the Zhou dynasty: the Eastern Zhou. In each of the hundreds of states that eventually arose, local strongmen held most of the political power and continued their subservience to the Zhou kings in name only. Local leaders for instance started using royal titles for themselves. The Hundred Schools of Thought (諸子百家) of Chinese philosophy blossomed during this period, and such influential intellectual movements as Confucianism (儒家), Taoism (道家), Legalism (法家) and Mohism (墨家) were founded, partly in response to the changing political world. The Spring and Autumn Period is marked by a falling apart of the central Zhou power. China now consists of hundreds of states, some only as large as a village with a fort.

Main article: Warring States Period

After further political consolidation, seven prominent states remained by the end of 5th century BC, and the years in which these few states battled each other is known as the Warring States Period (戰國時代). Though there remained a nominal Zhou king until 256 BC, he was largely a figurehead and held little power. As neighboring territories of these warring states, including areas of modern Sichuan (四川) and Liaoning (遼寧), were annexed, they were governed under the new local administrative system of commandery and prefecture (郡縣). This system had been in use since the Spring and Autumn Period and parts can still be seen in the modern system of Sheng & Xian (province and county, 省縣). The final expansion in this period began during the reign of Ying Zheng (嬴政), the king of Qin. His unification of the other six powers, and further annexations in the modern regions of Zhejiang (浙江), Fujian (福建), Guangdong (廣東) and Guangxi (廣西) in 214 BC enabled him to proclaim himself the First Emperor (Qin Shi Huangdi, 始皇帝).

ancient history