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The Ancient World
Cunieform writing, accounting, and bookkeeping, the plow, the sail, and wheeled carts (proto-chariots) were some of the important contributions of the Sumerians to Mesopotamian civilization.
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The Ancient World
According to Polybius in his work Histories, the Roman Constitution has three powers; the Consuls, the Senate and the People. Each reserves powers unto themselves separate from the other creating...
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The Ancient World
The basic similarity between these two comes in the fact that they are both democracies. In both cases, the people are given the ultimate authority in the political system. Beyond that, however,...
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The Ancient World
In thinking about the impact of geography on Greek life, we must think about three aspects of that geography. The three most important aspects of Greek geography were the mountains that split...
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The Ancient World
These two civilizations, despite their differences, did indeed share many similarities. First of all, they both depended on their respective rivers to maintain many of their functions. Mesopotamia...
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The Ancient World
Both Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations emerged around major river systems. These civilizaitons began in these areas because the flooding of the rivers created fertile soil and allowed people...
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The Ancient World
The Neolithic Revolution was the time in history when people first started to practice agriculture. At this point, they started to domesticate plants and animals. This changed the world forever...
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The Ancient World
The Second Punic War was a huge test for Rome because the Republic could have been obliterated if things had gone slightly differently. Hannibal's invasion devastated Italy and threw Rome into a...
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The Ancient World
Mesopotamia, whose civilization developed around 4,000-3500 BCE, was located between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, a fertile area (called the Fertile Crescent) that allowed for irrigation and...
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The Ancient World
There are a number of similarities between the ancient river civilizations of Mesopotamia and Harappa. Both civilizations relied on a fertile river valley to support agriculture. The importance...
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The Ancient World
The development of farming was one of the most important developments in human history. Farming changed the world, allowing civilization to arise. Before farming, all humans were hunter-gatherers....
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The Ancient World
Gaius Julius Caesar (July 13, 100 BC–March 15, 44 BC) was called a tyrant by those who opposed him and wanted to destroy him. The nobility, including a number of Roman Senators who conspired to...
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The Ancient World
Justinian's Code, or the Corpus Juris Civilis, is part of the foundation of modern Western jurisprudence. It serves as the foundation for both the Napoleonic Code and the Germanistic code. These...
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The Ancient World
The historical significance of the latifundia is that their creation helped lead to social unrest in the later part of the Roman Republic. The latifundia were large estates owned by riche...
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The Ancient World
The terra cotta army consists of thousands of life-sized clay soldiers whose existence was discovered by Chinese archeologists in 1974. The soldiers had lain hidden from view since the third...
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The Ancient World
The Rosetta Stone is a piece of black basalt found in Egypt with an identical message carved in three different languages. It was approximately two-and-a-half feet wide and four feet long. Carved...
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The Ancient World
There are differences between the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. During the days of the Roman Republic, the people elected their leaders. The main leaders of the executive branch were the...
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The Ancient World
There are more similarities than differences between the two cities. However, I list two differences between Harappa and Mohenjodaro below: 1) Geographic Location. The ancient city of Mohenjodaro...
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The Ancient World
When agricultural practices become efficient enough so that food production increases, a given culture will begin to flourish. This applies not only to Mesopotamia, but to any culture. If there's...
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The Ancient World
The Harappan Civilization sites are located along the Indus River in contemporary Pakistan and India. Within the larger Indus Valley Civilizations that developed from about 3300 to 1300 BCE, the...
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The Ancient World
There were many important similarities between these civilizations. Perhaps the most important is that all of them were river valley, or aquatic, civilizations. This means that they depended upon...
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The Ancient World
The idea most commonly cited is that the mountainous nature of Greece led to the creation of the poleis. Because Greece is so fragmented by mountains and valleys, it was very difficult for one...
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The Ancient World
Several different ancient cultural traditions reinforced gender inequality. First, religion and religious ritual had distinct gender differentiation, with many activities being either all male or...
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The Ancient World
One problem with this is that we really do not know what life was like outside of Mohenjo-Daro so we don't know what in the city was better than it was outside the city. So we will simply have to...
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The Ancient World
The Sumerian civilization, one of the earliest recorded, began with the early agricultural revolution when humankind learned to produce a surplus of crops and animals. This not only led to the...
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The Ancient World
This is a great question. First, Greece was mountainous. Mountains cover about 75% of Greece. These mountains are not particularly high but they did a good job of separating the Greeks from each...
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The Ancient World
A bad peace is even worse than war.-Tacitus The Pax Sinica was a period of Chinese history between 221 B.C. and 200 A.D. with relative peace and economic prosperity. The period saw five different...
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The Ancient World
As with a lot of things in history (especially ancient history like that) it is not entirely clear why the Harappan civilization disappeared. The most common explanation is that the civilization...
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The Ancient World
There was a diverse religious culture that existed in the Arabian peninsula during the period before Muhammad’s revelation. The most common practice was Arab polytheism. The pantheon of gods in...
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The Ancient World
This is a great question. I think we can make a few very important points. First, I would say that through archaeology we are able to see that much of life is the same. This is a remarkable point...
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The Ancient World
Since the world's earliest civilizations developed in the Fertile Crescent, it is not hard to imagine that there are many geographical advantages. The presence of two rivers and the sediment they...
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The Ancient World
The influence of Mesopotamia on Hebrew Culture is striking; Egyptian influence is less clear. Hebrew culture recounts the story of a flood in which Noah was the survivor. This story bears striking...
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The Ancient World
There are several reasons why the Byzantine Empire survived for nearly 1000 years despite outside threats. First, the Byzantine emperors were very strong and had absolute power. The support of the...
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The Ancient World
The Greek historian Herodotus called Egypt the “gift of the Nile.” This references the importance of the Nile River for farming, transportation, and trade. The Nile River was the home of two...
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The Ancient World
Because the Dravidian (or Harappan) language has not yet been deciphered; there is no way to determine their political structure, although the presence of two large cities with roads built on a...
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The Ancient World
Not much changed with Christianity with the advent of the Roman Empire at first. They had the same practices, similar beliefs, and a consistent way of life. To be sure, at times it was difficult...
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The Ancient World
The Ancient Mesopotamians were the first to write down their cooking recipes! I have a few for you. The first two are courtesy of the Oriental Institute Museum in Chicago. This one is colorful,...
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The Ancient World
The Neolithic Revolution, or Agricultural Revolution, was the human shift from hunting and gathering to planting and domestication of animals. It was made possible by the warming climate that...
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The Ancient World
The Achaemenid Empire (558–330 BC) of Persia, popularly referred to as the Persian empire, was a monarchy. It was ruled by a single hereditary leader, who considered himself divinely authorized...
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The Ancient World
It is probably best not to talk about Mohenjo-Daro specifically, but the larger Indus Valley civilization of which it was an example. Archaeological finds at Mohenjo-Daro indicate that it had a...
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The Ancient World
The Persian Empire was separated from Greece by the Aegan Sea which proved to be among the most significant geographical challenges during the Greco-Persian Wars. The Persians lost a significant...
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The Ancient World
Among the factors which distinguish the two and mark the progression of early man from hunter-gatherer societies to settled societies: (1) the ability to produce a surplus of food and (2)...
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The Ancient World
Assyria was located on the upper Tigris River and its empire reached its height about 681 B.C. The Assyrian Empire was very powerful and was strong for several reasons. First was the way the...
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The Ancient World
This is a good question. First, Rome was on a policy of expansion. They expanded to such a degree that there were many borders to defend. As early as the reign of Diocletian, it became apparent...
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The Ancient World
The basic reason for this is that there were no longer enough Roman citizens who wanted to and were fit to be good soldiers. The foreign mercenaries were plentiful and were highly motivated by the...
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The Ancient World
Julius Caesar was killed by the senate of Rome. Caesar had recently killed Pompey, who had been part of the Triumvirate and a prior hero of Rome. Pompey had decided that he deserved to rule Rome,...
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The Ancient World
Augustus Caesar is often considered to be the greatest of the Roman emperors because he improved the circumstances of the empire to such a great degree. When Augustus took power, the Roman...
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The Ancient World
Many important principles of American government can be traced as far back as 2500 years ago, originating in the civilizations of the ancient Mediterranean civilizations of Greece and Rome. To...
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The Ancient World
The Athenians were residents of the ancient city-state of Greece, Athens, in around the 5th century BC. In contrast. the Spartans of Sparta were a war-like peopls, the Athenians were dedicated to...
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The Ancient World
The culture of ancient Rome can be described as covering a 1,000 year period, and developed from a small agricultural community defined by narrow ethnicity to a multilingual and multicultural...