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 WARFARE – LAND

Preliminary skirmishes

Fighting between primitive tribes consists either of raids on rival settlements (where surprise is important, and disorder inevitable) or of structured and even ritualistic clashes. In either case the struggle is made up of a large number of one-to-one encounters.

This does not fit the pattern or what is normally called a battle. The story of warfare…

HISTORY OF PALESTINE AND PHOENICIA

A natural market place

Imagine a merchant in the days when goods are carried on pack animals, or in wooden boats of a size to hug the shore. Show this hypothetical trader a map of the world. Ask him where, given the choice, he would ideally like to set up shop. If he is a wise man, with…

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 IRAN (PERSIA)

The Medes and the Persians: from the 9th century BC

Of the two main Indo-European tribes moving south into Iran, it is at first the Medes who play the dominant role. With a capital at Ecbatana (modern Hamadan), they establish themselves as powerful neighbours of Assyria. In 612 they combine with Babylon to sack the Assyrian capital at Nineveh. Their…

HISTORY OF INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES

The dawn of discovery

A long slow sequence of invention and discovery has made possible the familiar details of our everyday lives. Mankind’s programme of improvements has been erratic and unpredictable. But good ideas are rarely forgotten. They are borrowed and copied and spread more widely, in an accelerating process which makes the luxuries of one age the…

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 CIVILIZATION

The ingredients of civilization

Many different elements must come together before a human community develops to the level of sophistication commonly referred to as civilization. The first is the existence of settlements classifiable as towns or cities. This requires food production to be efficient enough for a large minority of the community to be engaged in more specialized activities -…

HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY

Astral themes

The sky is the most mysterious part of our everyday experience. Familiarity may make the amazing events going on at ground level seem almost ordinary. Plants and animals grow and die, rain falls, rivers flow. We feel we understand that.

But the sky is beyond comprehension. Two great objects travel through it, one hot and constant, the other cold…

HISTORY OF ASTROLOGY

Astral themes

The sky is the most mysterious part of our everyday experience. Familiarity may make the amazing events going on at ground level seem almost ordinary. Plants and animals grow and die, rain falls, rivers flow. We feel we understand that.

But the sky is beyond comprehension. Two great objects travel through it, one hot and constant, the other cold…