One Million Things: Ancient History

130 Pages·2011·50.53 MB·English

one million things
A N C I E N T
H I S TO R Y
LONDON, NEW YORK,
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one million things
A N C I E N T
H I S TO R Y
Written by:
Joe Fullman
Consultant:
Dr John Haywood
1 3
The Middle East Europe
6 42
Fertile crescent 8 Neolithic and Bronze
First cities 10 Age Europe 44
Kings and empires 12 Minoans and
Assyria vs. Babylon 14 Mycenaeans 46
Middle Eastern firsts 16 Greek city-states 48
Bible lands 18 The Greek world 50
The Phoenicians 20 Greek innovators 52
Persian Empire 22 Alexander the Great 54
The Spice Route 24 Rise of Rome 56
2
Roman Empire 58
Roman city life 60
Roman army 62
The ancient Celts 64
4
Africa
26
Ancient Egypt 28
Gift of the Nile 30
Gods of Egypt 32
Asia
The afterlife 34 66
Nubia 36 Early Indian civilizations 68
Carthage 38 The Mauryan empire 70
Great Zimbabwe 40 The Gupta empire 72
Early Chinese The Incas 102
civilizations 74 The Inca world 104
The first emperor 76 The Pueblo people 106
The Chinese way 78 Mound builders 108
Ancient Korea 80 Native cultures of
Ancient Japan 82 North America 110
6
Steppe nomads 84
5

The Pacific
112

The Americas
86 Australia 114
The Olmecs 88 The Pacific islands 116
The Maya 90 Easter Island 118
Teotihuacán and New Zealand 120
the Toltecs 92
The Aztecs 94 Timeline 122
The Aztec world 96 Glossary 124
Early South American Index 126
cultures 98 Acknowledgments 128
Moche and Nazca 100
Contents
ISHTAR GATE
This image of a lion once
adorned the Processional Way
in Babylon. Built in 575 BCE, the
road linked the main entrance
of the city, the Ishtar Gate, with
the ziggurat temple of the
chief Babylonian god, Marduk.
6
The Middle East
7
FERTILE CRESCENT
A group of people that farms the land to create surpluses of food, lives
in cities, has a society with a hierarchy, and is ruled by some form of
Ti
government is said to be a “civilization.” Civilizations emerged gradually gris
at different times around the world. The first civilizations developed in
tinh ea Mpliadcdel ec aEllaesdt, Mwehseorpe ofatarmmiian.g first began around 10,000 years ago, Euphrates
Mesopotamia
. HUNTER-GATHERERS
Farming first started as a result of climate change at
the end of the last ice age. Before that, people were
hunter-gatherers, moving from place to place in
search of food. However, the new weather
conditions changed the previous distribution of
plants, which people had been familiar with. It is
believed that people began planting wild seeds and u THE FERTILE CRESCENT
tubers as a way of guaranteeing their food supply. The Fertile Crescent, where the first farmers
appeared around 10,000 years ago, is an area of
land that stretches in an arc through parts of
Bow, arrows, and a modern Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, and Iraq.
gathering bag used There were two main factors that made this
d CULTIVATION by prehistoric stretch of the Middle East ripe for agriculture:
hunter-gatherers
First, it had a climate with warm temperatures
OF PLANTS
and reliable rainfall. Second, it had a wide
Early farming involved the
range of plants and animals that were suitable
simple gathering and planting
for domestication.
of wild seeds. The first crops to
be cultivated on a significant
scale were emmer wheat,
einkorn wheat, barley, lentils,
peas, bitter vetch, chickpeas, and
flax. Together, these are known as
the eight founder crops. Selective
breeding of these plants allowed
early farmers to produce bigger
crops with a greater yield. Some of
this food could be stored for later use.
Selective
breeding has
Modern wheat
created plump
seeds
u DOMESTICATION OF ANIMALS
Wild wheat has
Einkorn Once people discovered that cultivation provided them with a secure
small seeds that
wheat supply of crops, they tried to find equally secure supplies of meat. This led
hold less flour
to the domestication of animals in around 8000 BCE, beginning with sheep
and followed soon after by goats, pigs, and cattle. The “Standard of Ur”
(shown here) dates from 2600–2400 BCE and features images of cattle,
sheep, and goats being prepared for a major feast.
8