HISTORY OF CREATION STORIES

In the beginning

All human societies, including our own, tell stories of how the world began. Such stories are almost infinitely varied in detail, but they tend to include some basic themes.

Many accounts begin with earth, or with earth retrieved from water. In some of them gods and people and animals emerge from the earth (just as plants…

HISTORY OF COUNTING SYSTEMS AND NUMERALS

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…

HISTORY OF CLEOPATRA

The Ptolemaic inheritance: 51 BC

The king of Egypt, Ptolemy XII, dies in 51 BC. He leaves the kingdom to his young son, Ptolemy XIII. But he decrees that the boy shall rule jointly with his older sister, Cleopatra. He must also marry her, in the tradition of royal incest which has become a feature of the Ptolemaic dynasty.

The eighteen-year-old…

Cleopatra Biography (30 – 69)

(born 70/69 —died August of 30 , Alexandria) Egyptian queen, famous in history and drama as the lover of Julius Caesar and later the wife of Mark Antony. She became queen on the death of her father, Ptolemy XII, in 51 and ruled successively with her two brothers Ptolemy XIII (51–47) and Ptolemy XIV (47–44) and her son Ptolemy…

HISTORY OF ALEXANDRIA

Alexander and Ptolemy: 332-285 BC

Alexander the Great decides that the small Egyptian port of Rhacotis is a natural base for future operations in the eastern Mediterranean. It is close to the delta of the mighty Nile, but far enough removed to avoid silting up; it has a protective island, Pharos, a little way offshore; and it is well placed…