HISTORY OF WRITING MATERIALS

Inscribed in clay: from 3100 BC

In the river plains of Mesopotamia, where writing first develops, clay is an easily available commodity. It becomes the writing material of the temple scribes. Their implement is a piece of reed cut to form a rectangular end. These two ingredients define the first script. Characters are formed from the wedge-shaped marks which…

HISTORY OF WRITING

The first writing

Writing has its origins in the strip of fertile land stretching from the Nile up into the area often referred to as the Fertile Crescent. This name was given, in the early 20th century, to the inverted U-shape of territory that stretches up the east Mediterranean coast and then curves east through northern Syria and down the…

HISTORY OF THE SUDAN

Nubia: from 3000 BC

The region known in modern times as the Sudan (short for the Arabic bilad as-sudan, ‘land of the blacks’) has for much of its history been linked with or influenced by Egypt, its immediate neighbour to the north. But it also has a strong identity as the eastern end of the great trade route stretching along…

HISTORY OF SPORTS AND GAMES

Senet in Egypt: 3000 BC

Games with pebbles, in spaces roughly drawn out on the ground, are a pleasant way of passing spare time – of which hunters and gatherers have more than one might imagine. In a settled community a flat and permanent surface is a clear improvement on the rough ground; and pleasantly carved pieces are…

HISTORY OF SCULPTURE

The art of our species

If Neanderthal man created any form of art, no traces of it have yet been found. But with the arrival of modern man, or Homo sapiens sapiens, the human genius for image-making becomes abundantly clear.

In the recesses of caves, people begin to decorate the rock face with an important theme in their daily lives, the…

HISTORY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

The empire: 27 BC – AD 14

By a coincidence of history the Roman empire, at its start, has recently achieved a new geographical completeness. The campaigns of Pompey have led to the annexation of Syria in 64 BC and the capture of Jerusalem in 63. With Octavian’s defeat of Cleopatra at Actium in 31 BC, Egypt too becomes…

HISTORY OF NORTH AFRICA

A damp Sahara: 8000 – 3000 BC

The Sahara at this time supports not only elephant, giraffe and rhinoceros but hippopotamus and even fishes. It is a friendly landscape in which neolithic communities progress from hunting and gathering into a partly settled way of life, with the herding of cattle. Their paintings show that dogs have been domesticated and…

HISTORY OF MESOPOTAMIA

Between the rivers: 4500-3100 BC

From about 4500 BC there are settlements on the edges of the marshes where the Tigris and the Euphrates reach the Persian Gulf. Mesopotamia, the region between these two rivers, will be the area of the world’s first civilization – established a little earlier than 3100 BC.

Unlike the other early river civilization of this region,…

HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS

Nature’s abacus

Soon after language develops, it is safe to assume that humans begin counting – and that fingers and thumbs provide nature’s abacus. The decimal system is no accident. Ten has been the basis of most counting systems in history.

When any sort of record is needed, notches in a stick or a stone are the natural solution. In the…

HISTORY OF EGYPTIAN RELIGION

Egyptian gods and priests: from 3000 BC

In prehistory each community of people in the Nile valley has developed its own god or gods, many of them connected with animals. As Egypt becomes unified, under pharaohs who are themselves seen as divine, the entire pantheon settles down into a relatively easy working relationship.

The pharaoh is the chief priest…

HISTORY OF EGYPT

The Nile as lifeline: from 6000 BC

From about 6000 BC various communities of hunter-gatherers make the Nile the centre of their territory, around which they roam. But the drying of the Sahara increasingly confines them to the river area. The unusual habit of this great river – flooding every year and depositing a layer of rich moist soil on…