Download PART 1 - dare to reason.

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DARE TO REASON
October 2011
It's time to bring ourselves up to date about recorded history.
Modern times have seen enlightened education, ease of travel, and better access to libraries. The truth
seeking good people of the modern advanced sciences of geology, archaeology, palaeontology, anthropology,
microbiology, genetics, satellite and under ocean imagery, glaciation and climate science are revealing many
previously hidden gems of knowledge from our past. Some old legends have been disproved, others supported
and improved upon. Recent new discoveries have presented us with knowledge of how to make logical
assumptions about the lost past. Today, we know more about the facts of the very dim ancient past, than did
later ancient scribes of the Mesopotamians, Greeks, Hebrews and Romans, who mainly carried forward myth
and legend.
My 9 page Overview and 40 page Timeline use general knowledge, available to all of us, from simple sources
like Wikipedia, to highlight perhaps how we have become today's thinking humans. The knowledge has
evolved from all these sciences gradually melding, to uncover our planet's past billions of years. My simple
overview has been written to encourage more of us to Dare to Reason*, to re-examine the basis of our own
opinions and to become more confident in joining in discussions about our human past. In our short modern
times of daring to rewrite history, science and religion, many of us have become less dogmatic and more
comfortable and forgiving of our ancestors' closed minds. We have all shared the same brain box from
cavemen to Einstein. However, we have gradually evolved our learning environments to reward those given
the opportunity and encouragement to reason and learn. Today's challenges are about questioning our self
appointed and arrogant role as sole rulers of the planet. All life evolved here and will end here in its own time.
All life is interwoven and inseparable, held together by unseen strands of physics - not prehistoric human
centred gods. We are still the cavemen who became thinking Greeks and Romans. We are the remnants of the
crumpled Roman Empire's religions, and have now dared to reveal the Universe; to become the only creatures
able to call it wonderful, majestic and logical, just short of many who wish it to be called perfect. Alas!
On page 10, the overview becomes a timeline of general human history. It also explores our very ancient habit
of collecting and changing religions and gods of warrior kings. My version does not say much about great wars,
lists of kings, great explorations, nor modern politics. I will be very satisfied if it should be useful for prompting
small group discussion among the enquiring young. This booklet will help overcome some of the startling
misconceptions about our past held by many of our presumptuous, persuasive elders in education and politics.
Please download free Word/PDF copies from www.daretoreason.info. If your screen size permits, open it
alongside www.wikipedia.org for quick reference. If you keep the whole document to this 48 page A4 size it
will become a convenient stapled brochure, in the hands of your local printer. Just email the download to him
as an attachment. 10 to 20 copies cost about $6 each. I welcome any feedback or offers of translation.
*
Horace 65-8 BC, as Sapere Aude
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PART 1
OVERVIEW: (HOW DO WE TICK?)
1.What influences Intelligence?
Genes and environment:
Genes are universally the same in humans, but there are minor mutations among us. We are all born with a
few odd ones that cause no harm, and disappear in our descendants. We are only aware of the repetitive bad
mutations causing hereditary disease, but not aware of any superior mutations because they have been too
subtle to be widely observed. That is natural selection or evolution on its invisible slowly grinding course.
Genetic terms are used broadly. We have roughly sixty trillion cells of several hundred different types in our
bodies. In each cell are 32,000 human genes, carried on 23 pairs of chromosomes in long strands of the double
helix DNA1. Humans make new unique DNA from a 0.12mm diameter egg, fertilised by one male sperm cell,
100,000 times smaller.
Environment begins with our birth. Human babies are born particularly undeveloped. Their small soft head
needs to fit through their mother's cervix before their brain and skull can expand after birth, slowly absorbing
all the world's wonders. No-one knows how or when, but our brains gradually became able to expand, larger
than needed for our body size, enabling us to reason and store more memories of our environment. Other
mammals have babies that more quickly gain control of their movements, but perhaps those brains have very
little else to learn apart from refining their instincts to their particular environment.
Somehow our genes carry instincts. Some, like lust in men, and other mature animals, only emerge with
hormonal changes at puberty. Similarly, females become able to accept male advances at puberty. Once, we
were the naked ape people, living in fear of predators and scavenging for food as omnivores. With bodies
covered in tiny hairs and sweat glands, we keep ourselves warmer or cooler. Evolution gave us exclusive
changes to our larynx, enabling superior communication to emerge. Our crowning achievement was the
mastery of fire. We became the superior pack hunting animals, able to digest fruit, starch and meat.
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wikipedia: Genes; Chromosomes.
2. How does our brain reason and learn new things?
Our brain can be encouraged to learn more than our bodies need for survival. We can and do learn more than
our ancestors, some of whom were mental giants, without benefit of today's freely available, open minded
stimulus, but so sadly neglected by most of us. Billions of neurons constantly connecting and re-connecting in
our brain sort and sift everything that we fear, hear, see, feel, smell, and dream. Our brain probably then
continuously compares today's immediate experience with information it has previously stored away. It either
ponders that comparison or, in moments of danger, pulls the instinct switch and Hopes that the moment
results in safety, satisfaction or relief. Perhaps it is an advanced subconscious Hope that is the life force in
humans - a subconscious belief in finding a way to get a positive outcome. Oh, sweet mystery of Life.
3. What can we learn from records of past events that have shaped our behaviour as humans?
History gives us certainty and comfort in the knowledge of how we have arrived at this point on the shoulders
of our ancestors. Our past is not pretty, but to be here is to know that many others have survived this life on
Planet Earth, and passed on some of the evidence to us, as we hope to do for those that follow us. In doing so,
we have been able to understand many aspects of our environment, more quickly than our ancestors could
understand theirs. We have moved on from gods who threw thunderbolts, to a full understanding of our
electric universe. Nevertheless, our ancient subconscious gullibility for the supernatural persists in many.
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4. What is fair to assume from opinions of archaeology and science?
Tested science, peer reviewed, tells us many things that most of us cannot uncover for ourselves. Our
ancestors were not as fortunate as us, and feared greatly for their survival. Their most likely largest threat was
from other humans in their close proximity. They were probably more fatalistic about disease, in that it was
common to all, whereas with luck, threats from other humans might be managed. They sought mysterious
cures for their mysterious ailments and fears. They used their imaginations to evolve supernatural answers.
Our ancestors were greatly divided classes of people, somewhere between slaves and rulers. If slaves could
not speak the captors' language, they suffered worse treatment, and had no understood commercial value.
They were just another tool to go with a stone digging tool, or a part of the rope that pulled the stone. They
could be obtained easily from nearby, from primitive groups more primitive than their captors, from similar
groups of another clan and god, from prisoners of war and from debtors. Capture also included whole families
being resettled in new arable lands. The ruling warrior kings were their gods' representatives, using that power
to punish and maintain loyalty of priests, priestesses, soothsayers, skilled government officials, army leaders
and soldiers. Like many today, you toed the party line for a secure job, thousands of years ago. All religions
supported slavery, or turned a blind eye, right up to modern times.
In about 50 BC, Diodorus, a Greek historian, said he visited the Egyptian gold mines, under the rule of the
Greek Ptolemies. He described appalling conditions that one could only suspect were exaggerated, in that the
tiny tunnels would have been inaccessible, due to the bodies of the broken and dying slaves. Slaves with skills
were given better work. People who spoke the ruling language could expect to gravitate toward freedom if
they made themselves useful or indispensible. It has been a long struggle for apathetic humanity to become
more egalitarian due to education and new enlightened science. During modern times we have also seen
appalling regressions of humanity to racial and religious genocide. How many peasants were “born to rule” ?
5. What is fair to assume from handed down oral records of religion, myth and legend?
Most humans could be dominated by a few, using a combination of threat, force and implied superior
knowledge. Although we do not like to admit it, the majority of humanity has either always had, or has
adopted, a herd mentality. It has been called peer pressure and keeping up with the Joneses. We are especially
persuaded by anyone who seems accepted by others around us. If we look at our animal kin with alpha males
or matriarchs, we should not be surprised by these comments. Our subconscious has a selfish urge to be at
peace in an environment that supports individual self preservation.
All myths and religions are faith based. So is other information of which you have no previous experience, so it
can be argued that if you believe in evil spirits and bogeymen that frighten you, then you should also believe in
other good spirits who want only to protect and guide you. That proposition seems plausible, until you are also
told that a protector lays down conditions for giving his protection. You must have faith in the belief that the
ancient protector knows what is best for you and that if you do not accept his protection, you will somehow be
horribly eternally punished - after you have been brought back from being dead. The good folk who follow a
good spirit have no credible proof whatsoever of it having ever guarded and protected anyone. Faith in a great
protector can, at most, absolve your instinctive guilty subconscious for having broken a golden rule, so that
you can get on with your present life. However, your body and loved ones will receive no physical protection
from war, plague, hereditary disease, virus, insane brainwashed bomber, or act of god, all of which, believers
claim, are caused by human failures and therefore not part of the protector's responsibility and control.
To many of us, that is ridiculous, but by repetitive suggestion, children especially can become imprinted of the
need to believe on faith. Children respond to the comfort of belonging to a well protected group of apparently
privileged family and friends. Oral suggestion can begin before a child is literate, by the telling of apparent true
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stories, prayers and songs mixed with fairy tales. It is the most common way of humans perpetuating their
religions. Prime examples today are Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Somewhere in all of us, whether or not we
have been persuaded to believe something on faith, is a conscience which measures our own level of right and
wrong, partly learned from our environment, and partly instinctive. It is difficult for a lay person to expand
upon, but it is part of keeping us on the paths of the Golden Rule. Over thousands of years, we have
established community secular behaviour patterns to assist us all in maintaining the rules for a harmonious
existence. Again, look at the group behaviour of our kin, the other birds and animals. Ancient Hebrews were
not superior to the non-Hebrews, who were often more advanced in writing, community and military might.
So, we can come to a point, with an open mind, to look again at religious history, myth and legend to confirm
whether they are the only truths of history, or just ancient snippets of unproven events, unlike those diligently
discovered by science. I find that even an untrained logical read of our past clears the cobwebs of our thinking
about our individual places in this hectic, modern, complicated world, in which we all still hunt and gather...
I'll start with these last points first, because they have contributed largely to the shaping of human events for
longer than we have found written records. Written includes cave markings, wood, bone, ivory and stone
chiselling, pressing a triangular stylus into soft clay tablets, Roman wood tablets, a lead stylus onto erasable
beeswax tablets as used by the Romans, pottery decoration, hollow reed pens on papyrus scrolls, and goose
quill pens on parchment scrolls. Today's religions are centred upon events one to three thousand years ago.
Some people of that earlier era had only just discovered writing. Markings made five thousand years before
them were generally unknown or indecipherable. During our history, languages have come and gone. Best
known examples are the languages and writings of mighty Egypt, where they were only interpreted in AD1822,
after being lost for over two thousand years. There were many others, including the Minoans (their real name
is unknown). The Mayan empire’s records were destroyed by Spanish priests forcing Christianity on the Indian
peoples of New World South America, whose shared ancestors came from the Old World 17,000 years ago.
With the evolution to communal living came a need for communal rule and rulers. Eventually the cream
surfaced, and some forcefully seized the opportunity to lead. They became the shepherds over the sheep - the
ancient warrior kings of small city states. And so it continued - humans being led by a host of different colours
of shamans and rulers, most of whom inspired loyalty from other strong men who were willing to supervise
the lower classes. The rulers could also influence the recording of their own time as a king or significant
person. Others are long since forgotten, but perhaps more memorable, if only someone had written about
them. Progress to our modern state has been extraordinarily slow, probably due to both religious and
government rule wishing to preserve its comfortable positions over the masses. Undeniably, the rulers of all
men have been driven by the accumulation of gold and the creature comforts that gold bought. Tributes and
taxes to the conquerors were measured in tons, not ounces. Even the Hebrews' god demanded that the pillars
of his future temple must be sheathed in pure gold.
I don't think there were specific ancient instructions ever written about kindness, tenderness, and cooperation. If so, it began at mother's breast, our first source of comfort and environmental learning. Nor am I
sure now what those instructions could be. Every group understood the "do unto others" instinct. Was it ever
something that needed to be taught? No god or human taught the other animals how to behave towards one
another in their groups. At an individual level, instinctive things are genetic. Newborn human babies' only
instincts are to cry and suck, without being taught. Converting their cries into intelligent speech must be
taught from their environment, primarily a mother. Chicks' squawking, to developing communicating bird song
and behaviour, must be learned from their environment - not ours.
In a group, a well developed environment will likely produce more environmentally intelligent offspring. A
deprived environment will produce a lesser intelligence. Extreme examples are known of babies deprived of
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ever hearing speech, never being able, after a young age, to ever speak. They could well have been genetically
perfect. Those born genetically deaf will be also mute. On a less dramatic front, we know that children can
speak other languages more easily than when they become adults. Part of this is due to the brain, and infant
palate, adapting to particular peculiarities of pronunciations of certain sounds in dissimilar languages. We are
not born with a language embedded in us. Nor do we get a religion. Our environment gives us both of those.
In the small group environment, The Golden Rule is a two-way law that needs the or else tacked on to
guarantee the instinctive need for peace. This has occupied humans ever since mythical Adam talked to a
serpent. How to control and punish? Not how to reward good instinct. Other animals do not have the
intelligence to debate it. They simply react instinctively to the immediate demands of their environment,
which may also include a sense of play or punishment, peculiar to their species.
As groups become larger, the Golden Rule starts to blur. Individuals do not find it as easy to evaluate the
combined feelings or focus around them. Individuals become more and more detached, and open to
persuasion by those who might assume leadership.
The general claims of myths and religions are that they stem from supernatural beings that performed past
miracles, and will perform them again to benefit or punish their followers - in some cases, as a particular god's
wrath, love or mischief. The human need to know, "where did we come from?" is answered always in silly
mystical terms, often involving supernatural beings, amazingly like ourselves. Religions rarely answer, "I don't
know". Admittedly, as Stephen Hawking says, we know more about the origins of the basic elements and
physics of the Universe than we do about the origins of life. Science has shown us that we do not live on a
dead rock coated with life over which we have sole dominion. Our planet makes the oxygen that we breathe
and it makes the fresh water that we drink. The sun makes the food for everything that lives. Those systems
worked on this planet before we evolved and will continue whether humans are here or not.
Stories of miracles abound, including a huge one about the god of the ancient Hebrews creating the whole
universe in six days. He had chosen the Hebrews to be his only favoured people on the flat earth, over which
they roamed and fought. He never explained his science, but had a fascination for sacrifices, and parts of boys'
and men's bodies, (circumcision), and what they must not eat. Women were made subservient to men.
(However, female oppression has been part of most cultures, and unfortunately, could even be instinctive.)
In earlier recorded times and places, other genetically same humans had evolved different gods, distinct from
the Hebrews' Yahweh and his band of good and bad angels, but with similar goals. From time to time, as we
well know, battles were fought between different groups of people. It seemed a good plan to give extra
courage to the troops with a rousing speech. Better still to go forward with a good sign from a soothsayer, or
the revelation of a leader's dream, or an omen in nature, hopefully an eclipse. A special sacrifice was probably
essential. Winners claimed their gods had done the trick. Losers said their god had punished them for
whatever reason the soothsayers could dream up. Perhaps cynicism had not yet evolved. Miracles were the
essential requirement of a strong god. The Hebrews said that their god put one over on the Egyptian gods.
Moses threw down his walking stick and his god turned it into a serpent. The Hebrews said that the Pharaoh’s
priests then demonstrated the power of their god, Osiris, to perform miracles, by doing the same trick.
However, Moses then got his serpent to swallow the Egyptian ones. Back then, nothing seemed impossible.
Miracles and gods were available to anybody with walking sticks, regardless of whom you worshipped. Gods
could stop the sun, part the seas, hurl fire and brimstone, commit genocide and raise the dead.
One can only wonder why none gave up on their gods who could never alleviate human suffering from plagues
and disease, end slaughter by war, or those other pursuits that seemed to punish the innocent. To deny the
gods was courting the wrath of the ruling class. Winning wars seemed to be the gods' priority. Today, in a
more scientific world, religion leans more to saying, "Look folks, there's not really anything our god can do for
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you here on earth, but he can offer you a real good deal after you are dead". Child-like, humans follow their
peers among family and friends, to support religions that change face and standards over the generations.
Ancient gods had neither microscopes nor telescopes, otherwise they would not have told such whoppers!
How did bright ideas get carried out by so many illiterate, ignorant humans? Well, partly, the rulers got the
gods to approve the ancient practice of slavery. It didn't happen overnight, but world-wide, the ruling class
came to see that leadership based on religion could excuse all sorts of behaviour. Religious slavery has to be
the best idea that humanity has ever come up with. I think it began when the hunter gatherers stopped
wandering. Once started, it caught on fast. The concept could also fill the ranks of armies, not as slaves, but as
conscripts. The difference being that a conscript sometimes regained his freedom if he survived the war.
Hinduism refined slavery into a caste system of Brahmins at the top and dirty job guys at the bottom. My
opinion is that slavery nearly ended in the 20th century. My good friend, Charley, points out that humanity has
not yet escaped the self imposed enslavement of each individual mind. We have not yet, all Dared to Reason.
In different countries slaves changed into serfs, peasants, and other terms that said men were not slaves
owned by others, but just controlled by them. It included being sent off to fight for your duke, prince, or
lackey of the king to which you happened to be bound. Modern times see more choice in who controls us.
Is this the crux of human intelligence? The motivation to survive at our self imposed level, or as has been said,
"To rise to the level of our own incompetence"? That seems to be something I see and accept. However there
is another thread in humanity that knows individuals can do better or get more benefits from their fellow men.
Here, I think environment plays a part in the individual effort to benefit - from anything by any means. Some
think harder, work harder, cheat, commit crimes, or beg. I'm describing attitudes again that come from group
living. Australian aborigines had an instinctive expectation for sharing, either by instinctive generosity or by
responding favourably to others' expectations. More developed societies have not had that tradition in the last
few thousand years, despite share and share alike often being espoused.
Are we much different from the other animals? We speak of herd mentality. Do we deny that it is also
instinctive in humans? How far does that mentality go? Sadly, we've seen in modern times that humans will
respond to so-called leadership, or obey someone who appears to be in command, resulting in disaster for
large groups. I'm not suggesting that there were alternatives available to the human herd on the day. Their day
to Dare to Reason had passed. At a more subtle level, we much prefer the individuals in the human herd to
conform to acceptable behaviour. We experience anxiety when faced with non-conformity. Individual
intelligence may respond to these situations differently from another human's. Some display different
responses which can agitate the herd, even to the extent of disastrous panic.
None of us are identical, but our instincts favour caution when dealing with strangers, and new situations.
Many confuse natural caution with racism. That suggests we have some expertise in genetics. We don't. But
we naturally store observations of different appearance or behaviour as a more likely threat than a benefit.
Perhaps most of us have a herd mentality tempered with a curiosity about our immediate environment. We
respond to that environmental situation differently. If it's queuing for a number 39 bus, we're pretty similar. If
it's responding to the pretty girl in the open top sports car offering a free ride, men each respond in a variety
of unexpected ways.
Dreams played a big part in the mystery of ancient life. It's understandable. Interpret the king's dream as an
each way bet, and one could become famous. In 311AD the Roman Co-emperor, Constantine, is said to have
seen a type of cross in a dream, won his civil war battle at Milvian Bridge at Rome, and changed the world
forever, by later declaring freedom of worship, for Christians in the Roman Empire.
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Up to that time, the mighty Roman Republic and Empire and all its peoples had no belief in there only being
one god, and that his laws should be the only ones obeyed. In the 1st century BC, two notable dynamic
Republican dictators, Sulla and Julius Caesar, had been self-confessed atheists, but that did not stop them
accepting state positions of religious leadership (Pontifex Maximus). They took certain comfort in caring for
and maintaining the ancient Greek gods and ceremonies. This included a worldwide priesthood for individual
gods, and construction of new temples for them. Their gods had always existed and been given great respect.
Religion was not preached, nor had any emphasis on missionary zeal. Romans were pragmatists - proud of
their strong loving bonds within family and friends, and equally proud of their stern loyalty to their Empire, but
not always tolerant of any leaders’ gross behaviour. The law decreed one wife, and legal wills provided for
children. The nobility were well educated and enjoyed the poetry of the day. After AD397, that old loose world
system was decreed Pagan. Christianity had officially begun as new sole religion of the Roman Empire.
What is almost unbelievable is the apparent ease of the transition from Paganism to Christianity in the Roman
government. History tells us that the Empire continued in its old brutal way, with an economy based on
slavery. However, by 400AD, its leaders now had a uniting flag to wave before its conquered peoples. The flag
said that it was no longer the Roman might that held power over the people, but it was their mutual respect
for one another, regardless of position, under the flag of one uniting god. That god preached, Render unto
Caesar... and turn the other cheek... Another win for the ruling class! They were all equal in the eyes of that
god, but not necessarily under Roman law. Readers should be reminded that it is only in modern times,
possibly two hundred years ago, that we started to see separation of church and state in government within
Christian countries. Earlier, by 100BC, the former Roman Republic had become corrupt and central, until Julius
Caesar righted it to his one man dictatorial rule, with world-wide magistrates of strictly limited power running
the Republic. Some of his following emperors began to accept public belief in their divinities, which concept
had not previously been a Roman belief. Roman government could always be rightfully delayed, as leaders
contemplated the heavens for a divine omen. Jupiter sat above the Roman senate. Gods in Heavens and Hades
were not new, nor Gods in human appearance, belief in miracles, and people ascending up to heaven. Perhaps
the only simple difference was in replacing many gods with only one mysterious one. The mixed masses found
the one god story easier, especially with the fearful and imminent second coming and awful end of the world.
Constantine I had approved the Christian religion as one acceptable in the Empire, but not exclusively.
Nevertheless, any disputes about it needed to be settled efficiently, so as not to cause public trouble. In the
second and third centuries A.D., the largest Christian communities, apparently hidden within the empire, were
at Alexandria (Egypt), Antioch (Syria) and Ephesus (Turkey). Somehow within about twelve years, the
Christians emerged from the Roman persecutions with three hundred and eighteen bishops! The Empire's
ruling and religious class, being what they were, had to dissect the old Hebrew religion, approve the Old and
New Testaments, and argue interminably, until Constantine called a known-world meeting of the three
hundred and eighteen bishops to decide on Jesus' divinity. In AD325, they met at the royal palace of Nicaea
(Iznic, Turkey) where they debated the main argument put forward by the bishop of Alexandria, Arius, who
taught that because Jesus had been non-existent before being created by God, he was not equally divine. It is
said that Constantine diplomatically suggested that one word in the draft Nicene Creed be changed to mean
"same essence" instead of "similar essence". The amendment was agreed by three hundred and sixteen of the
bishops. Arius and another were excommunicated, but his argument of Arianism festered on for several
centuries. Interestingly, Constantine's huge arch, near the Colosseum, has no Christian markings. He was
baptised on his deathbed.
All the rest of the paraphernalia was in place for hitherto secret gatherings of Christians to take up their newfound power among the ancient stones of Paganism. Already, heretics were being identified by the Christians
and being judged by Roman courts. The first may have been in AD385 when Priscillian with six friends were
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executed by government officials, under the Edict of Thessalonica of AD380, an official merging of law about
religion and state. It seems Priscillian and his followers were too Christian and ahead of their time. He
preached celibacy for everyone. Other Christians had complained. By AD397 Christianity became the official
religion of the Roman Empire. The obvious missing service in all of antiquity and the empires was a civilian
police service, as distinct from the army. Gangland type citizen arrests and complaints to an official were used.
Islamists say Jesus was only a prophet, like Muhammad. Islamists are also divided about Islam. Religions all
claim to have given us a course of contemplation that will help us accept our fate under the control of a ruling
class. Accept the strict confusing rules of religious behaviour here on planet Earth, die, remain dead in wait for
a supernatural being to finally judge us by our behaviour whilst alive, then accept the judgement handed
down. Judgement seems to be a blunt "Yes" - your remains, or maybe just your nonexistent soul, go to a place
called Heaven, or "No" - you go to a place of great punishment called Hell. For Eternity! Millions if not billions
of people believe and believed this is our reason for being. The message of this lesson for life was not visibly
written by any supernatural being. Our ancient rulers said that special persons were singled out by the
supernatural and instructed verbally. They in turn did not seem to write anything, but handed the story and
instruction down orally, till finally, up to sixty and more years, after the supernatural event, (more for the Old
Testament and Buddhism), the words were recalled and written. They were written, only to be then argued
about in their day, and ever since. The original writings are lost like most of the copies of the copies. Many
religions or philosophies had argued about the immortality of the soul, including the Greek greats, Socrates,
Plato and Aristotle, who influenced world thinking for 2,500 years. Today huge organised religions have
claimed ownership of everything good in humans, to assert their power to dictate against modern science.
Following on from very ancient religions, in Christian and Islamic religions, and depending on how a person
spoke against the gods, our rulers, both political and religious, could declare that a heresy had been
committed, and then kill the offender - often disgusting and terrible to those that heard of the events.
Illiterate, ignorant masses of people found that life could only exist within the rules laid down. Bow down to
God, and accept his representatives on Earth placing their feet on your head. For the term of your natural life!
You weren't too sure whether you could escape at death, because in some religions, you could roam around in
an intermediate world called Purgatory. The masses were afraid, gullible, and believed. They told their children
to believe - or else. Always or else... The rulers saw that it was good and were well pleased. Some even
suggested that anyone who had died before hearing of their god will be brought back to life to have another
crack at it. Will that include Neanderthals? History and archaeology say that by 600BC most religious beliefs
were in vogue. Some lasted longer than others: Zoroastrianism (to become the religion of Persia from 500BC
to AD600 with similarities to later Christianity and Islam); Hinduism; Judaism, the religion of the Hebrews (and
basis of Christians and Muslims); perhaps a bit later came Confucianism and Taoism in China.
As a British descendant, I know that Britain's peoples spoke several different languages over the millennia.
Important ones were Gaelic and Celtic as ancient tongues, and Roman as written and spoken Latin. The Roman
legions left in AD400, after maybe four hundred years of occupation. Later the German Anglo Saxons, Norse
Vikings and French Normans were occupiers through to Medieval times, when middle English started to evolve
into modern English. If we go back a few hundred years to writings in Elizabethan times, most of us would have
trouble with the English terminology, especially William Shakespeare's.
Over these English times, forms of Christianity dominated people's lives. Their Old and New Testaments had
been written and transcribed in Ancient Hebrew, Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, and other early tongues, then
about five hundred years ago in many national languages. Islam developed from the translated Aramaic and
Christian writings, and its followers wrote their Koran in Arabic in about AD633. The teachings of the Buddha
were written in Hindu around 100BC, four hundred years after the Buddha. The much older empires had their
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own religions, many with overlapping stories. Their religions were based on having more powerful gods, idols,
or soothsayers than an enemy's. The Egyptians had a religion and powerful priesthood, which has been well
preserved in their art and hieroglyphs. Their gods, Osiris and Horus, survived for nearly three thousand years.
The ability to speak is suggested as finally coming from an evolved voice box in our lowered larynx, maybe a
few hundred thousand years ago, and perhaps, today, closer related to a dog's than any other creature.
Language continuously evolved from unknown ancient times and is still evolving today. It has made translation
of ancient words and meanings problematic, so that in many cases we have accepted consensus. This leads us
into the question of consensus by whom?
We know that it's a general rule that history was written by the victors. It makes sense, because the losers in
ancient times were probably in no position to write their version. Nor would the losing survivors necessarily
have had an educated knowledge of the language that recorded the particular event. Politics would have been
little different from today. Your leaders would have put plenty of spin on anything that grew their right to
power. In an ignorant world, I see it as quite likely that blowing one's bags - over exaggerating one's
achievements - might also influence one's position in an after-life. However, within the distorted ancient
history there also lie minor details that probably tell us more about believable everyday things that reveal our
human roots. Be thankful for museums and independent scholars.
Reading and writing in our past was reserved for the ruling class, who in many cases employed scribes, a
specialist class of hereditary literates, or a priesthood of specialists. In religious matters of interpretation,
consensus could be wrongly influenced by the ruling class or the religious hierarchy to prop up their positions
of power. The masses of humanity were kept illiterate. In fairness to our ancestors, let's agree that the means
of mass reading and writing were not easily available nor invented. Did the gods not think it had ever been a
good idea? The illiterate were fearful of anything unknown, fearful of the ruling class, fearful of mysticism, and
reliant on their betters for a secure existence. The masses have rarely contributed to our knowledge of our
past, nor would we expect that, but we should learn from their silence that there will always remain a ruling
class, even in modern democracies. Perhaps today's ruling class is invisible or different to our old world view of
ruling class examples, but undoubtedly the masses of us take comfort in having someone else make our
communal decisions for us, and to be responsible for keeping our community safe. Things don't change.
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PART 2
TIMELINE: (WHO OR WHAT HAS BEEN MAKING US TICK?)
(Apology: I have presumed to highlight some words which may lead to full explanations in Wikipedia or your
favourite encyclopaedia. A map of the Roman Empire AD117 is on the rear cover. From Atlas of World History
2005, I thank John Haywood and Barnes and Noble.)
I'm writing about the following matters so that I can more easily understand professionally written documents
that use timelines to describe events, often with the wrong assumption that lesser educated people will
immediately understand the terminology, or link to another subject timeline.
I can't enter data into a timeline without being curious about our history of dating events or communicating
about events that happened in a certain number of days, weeks, months, years in the past. When did
numeracy emerge? I'd expect to find numeracy in the Egyptian and Greek histories and culture. None of their
pottery apparently deserved a date. Numeracy would need to be associated with counting coins? The Greeks
(Croesus) introduced coins in about 500BC. - Possibly the Chinese as well. The Hebrew Bible has a past word of
God handed down by him to Moses, now written as Exodus, so one could assume that if one could date
Moses, then we would at least know that he had a grasp of numbers up to ten and could calculate men's ages
up to nearly one thousand. But when were the numbers of Moses understood and written? Greek & Hebrew
alphabets had letters incorporating numbers (Greek Ionic numeral system and the Gematria Jewish
numerology). Fingers and thumbs were a convenient number of ten. Was that the first basis of counting, or
was it six and sixty? Pythagoras knew about geometry in about 500BC. By then early types of abacus were in
use around Asia. The Romans had their ancient numeric system, later including abaci which must have served
the Roman Christian era for perhaps a thousand years, into the Dark Ages, when the Arab Muslims were
centuries ahead in mathematics and astronomy. Abaci could multiply. Roman numerals could not. The Hindu
zero was the mathematical giant leap for mankind. Today's numbers 0-9 emerged in India in about AD700.
Arabs introduced them to Europe in the 12th century AD.
Apparently there were ancient calendars in use, based on solar seasons, moon months, and days, with
approved extra months or days from time to time. Sun dials and water clocks were ancient, but inaccurate
mechanisms that only started to appear in Baghdad in the 9th century AD, with pendulum type clocks in
Europe in the 17th century AD. Only then did clocks begin to count seconds, enabling fresh science.
Julius Caesar introduced the Julian calendar, which served until AD1582, when the Gregorian calendar, which
we use today, took over. Then everything was back dated. The Julian was out by ten days by then, after sixteen
hundred years, because leap years had been miscounted. It seems that the preserved ancient writings were
dedicated to the ruling class, who were properly named as the owners of a particular time. It would be written
as "in the days of Fred or during the rule of King Bob" etc. The Julian calendar's first year was back-dated from
their theoretical founding of Rome - 753BC, except there was no concept of "BC or AD" back then! Confused?
Archaeologists and historians do the best they can. They have various dating means at their disposal, including
the relating of artefacts to a similar known period, also, radioactive carbon14 dating, using short term or long
term variations, of minute organic residues surrounding the particular discovery. Science is continually
improving this Nobel Prize winning technology.
Ancient Egyptians (the Rhind Papyrus), Sumerians and Babylonians all left papyrus and clay tablets
demonstrating a high level of Geometry and Mathematical theory from around 2,000BC. The Greeks learned
from those cultures with Thales (600BC) , Pythagoras (500BC), Euclid (Elements, 500BC), Archimedes (250BC),
and often their followers, being the well known contributors. Wikipedia - History of Mathematics.
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CAVEMEN of the Stone Age lived in a period that we call the Palaeolithic, leaving clues of intelligent primate
activities going back two million years, including recent human times of one hundred thousand years ago
during this last Ice Age. Then, as we have learned how to differentiate human progress within the Palaeolithic,
we called the next period the Mesolithic from 20,000BC to 10,000BC. We call the last period of the Stone Age
the Neolithic from 10,000BC to about 5,000BC. Then metal came into use in the Copper, Bronze and Iron Ages.
Inconveniently for us, humans progressed through these last few stages in many locations with differences of
thousands of years in their progress, so the ages are very general terms only. Prehistoric archaeological
features of the Stone age periods were sharp flints, stone hand axes and choppers, hard obsidian in some
fortunate locations, wooden clubs and spears, animal skins and bones, sinew, leather and grass strings, bone
awls and needles, bone fish hooks, nets, clay body paints, and cave painting. They travelled light. They could
make fire from friction boring of wood on wood to cause an ember to form, or strike a spark from striking a
flint with a stone.
Hunter gatherers evolved in warm Africa, and then spread to many cold parts of the world. During the last long
Ice Age which started to warm up about 17,000 years ago, humans and animals lived on, and crossed, huge
coastal plains, especially of SE Asia, and the long since re-submerged dry Bering Sea beds from Siberia to the
Americas. These plains were old ocean floors that became vegetated and a source of foods during thousands
of years exposure. The water that once had covered them became locked up in huge 2 mile thick glaciers
across Canada and Europe. The remaining oceans were about 140 meters lower than today. About 10% of the
world’s water was locked up in the glaciers. Clues to human existence on those ancient newly submerged
plains are very few, but signs have been found. Those humans and animals who found their way to Alaska
were eventually cut off by the newly risen oceans. They progressed to 1500AD in the vastly different Americas
environment to Europe and Asia. Notably they evolved without cereal grasses and suitable animals to
domesticate. Their story is another path, not told here. However they shared the changing climate with us.
Notably, the glaciers melted in a catastrophic fashion over thousands of years, giving rise to flood legends in
most ancient societies all over the world. Geologists can easily identify those earth wrenching events.
Humans made many fires, where they left many clues about their living habits. They left no writings about
their existence, so we rely on the archaeological proofs. A carved lion figurine has been dated to 30,000BC
along with nets, bows and arrows and spear throwers. Caves like Lascaux in France have preserved fascinating
art. Many small female carvings have been found suggesting that female fertility, a concept of an Earth
mother, was a common thought among primitive people. Female gods seem to have pre-dated male gods.
Was it a hope that women would continue to produce children for the benefit of maintaining or increasing the
size of the group? DNA testing now reveals the geographic past of ancient humans and their widely blended
blood lines. Many modern groups have been under misapprehensions about their ancestry.
Some travelling groups would have advanced more quickly than others, possibly in a leapfrog progress as
humans copied and learnt from enemies and friends. Whether friends were thicker than foes is unknown, but
the record seems to show that body ornaments and bone carvings were an occurrence. Did individuals do that
in complete isolation or did they do it to impress others? Groups would have been dominated by alpha males.
It is my own belief that domination would have been achieved by a combination of fear and force by one
individual or perhaps two or three. I don't believe they were particularly well organised, by our terms. It seems
likely that groups would claim a particular territory. It fits our makeup. Animals do it. Claiming ownership of a
territory gives the occupiers a sense of purpose, and confidence in knowing they may have held that territory
against invaders in the past. Hunter gatherers remembered the good seasonal hunting grounds and returned
to them. They would have needed to orally indoctrinate children into the group's knowledge base, including
group behaviour, pecking orders, the seasons, finding and catching shellfish, fishing, fire making, building
shelters, working furs and hides, movement of animals, edible vegetation, handicrafts, spear making, stone
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shaping, tracking, hiding, ambushing, finding water, knowledge of herbs, managing childbirth, sickness and
death, death rituals, building teamwork. Perhaps some devised a form of chanting the lessons or stories,
leading to beating time or singing. A type of flute was found in North Africa dated back to 45,000BC.
Neanderthals, named for their remains found near Neanderthal in Germany, left us skeletons and artefacts.
Some suggest they may have co-existed with our forerunners, Cro-Magnons and Homo Sapiens (us). The
Neanderthals seem to have left their signs about eighty thousand years ago, but disappeared about thirty
thousand years ago, before this present warm Holocene, so signs of present humans seem to have emerged
during the Neanderthals' period about fifty thousand years ago. In modern times, hunter gatherers have been
discovered who still lived in various stages of advancement depending on particular isolations. In 2010, an
Amazon jungle group was sighted, thankfully, still undisturbed.
In Australia, the indigenous aborigines are examples of humans evolving in isolation for thousands of years,
and within their spread, various skill levels have evolved to suit particular environments. Contact with other
South Asian and New Guinea peoples caused advancements in Northern coastal aborigines advantageously
over isolated central desert dwellers. Notable exceptions from all aboriginal culture are sophisticated pottery,
copper, bronze, iron, cloth, alcohol, bows and arrows, cereals, domesticated animals and written languages.
Desert dwellers, up to the 1960s, in particular seemed to remain in small family groups, living in the harshest
of conditions, but sharing traditional taboos with their neighbours, possibly to keep a truce over hunting
territory, but to also control access to women. I can't imagine another group of humans who have remained so
isolated from human advancement, yet managed to survive, until exposed to the immediate catastrophic
results of foreign diseases. These nomads carried no possessions apart from digging sticks and water scoops or
fire bowls. Without clothing, they could navigate the low brushy deserts and signal other clans or groups by
burning a few acres. In modern times they were seen to have a diet of desert lizards and vegetation. Freezing
desert nights were managed with individual scooped out sleeping places with a number of shared fires
between. Burns were noted as a common injury. Rock art was common throughout most of aboriginal living
areas, sometimes confirming a taboo or a relationship with geographic features and fauna. They too had a
need to express a connection with the unknown. They handed down many creation stories about geography,
flora and fauna. They aligned themselves with their world’s geography. This suggests a seeking of oneness with
their environment. The Lizard Eaters - Douglas Lockwood.
Fear of death would have become more than simply the instinct for self preservation, common to all
creatures. Language would have allowed humans to discuss the deaths all around them – about their prey,
their kin, and their enemies. Nights would have caused a belief in apparitions, perhaps created by witchdoctor
types, who could convince groups of their power to cause or prevent death. This theme has too many obvious
trails to pursue, but the important one is that of an after-life, a heaven, happy hunting ground, underworld,
reincarnation, hell, Hades, good and evil, spirits, angels, ghosts, demons, gods and devils. Sacrifice became a
part of human behaviour, especially in the Americas. Deep seated fear and ignorance took over for most of
man's existence but gradually diminished from the AD1600s. We had at last started to reason.
10,000BC NEOLITHIC AGE, the NEW STONE AGE emerged about 10,000BC with humans beginning to settle in
one place. Humans carved intricate stones in circles at Gobekli Tepe in Turkey, without metal tools. Nor did
they seem to have knowledge of clay pottery. Did they choose to partly settle, but remain hunter gatherers?
What were the steps out of primitive lifestyles? Humans evolved under their own steam, so to speak. Long
forgotten individuals grasped opportunities and became curious about new discoveries. Some discovered that
grass and other seeds could be saved and planted to grow later. My imagination tells me that this was more
likely to occur in a good hunting location, where people did not need to travel as much. Somewhere that
people had more time on their hands to observe and trial new thoughts. In one good location, perhaps hunting
groups could feed other members of the group for longer periods, enabling the opportunity to notice slow
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processes like growing plants. It's most likely that those people had great tracking skills, which when combined
with the habits of their grazing prey, provided the eventual insight into growing plants for food, especially
seeds that could be stored for long periods. The beginnings of agriculture meant that humans both needed to,
and wished to, stay in one place longer. Benefits from this become obvious, like building more substantial
shelters and defences, accepting communal rules for living, controlling water, weaving baskets, making clay
pots, mud bricks, penning in domestic animals and importantly - settling disputes with neighbouring groups.
Why did some groups progress to city-states and others remain as small family clans, perhaps tribal groups?
Cruel as it was, trading women as chattels was the order of the day, resulting in our mixed gene pool, newly
discovered today. Is it possible that we have an instinct to avoid in-breeding? There is certainly enough
evidence of taboos to avoid in-breeding, but they could also be compared to needs to create bonds by
marriage between differing tribes. They obviously knew nothing of genes, but may have noticed birth defects
and hints of what might have caused them. There are similar puzzles in animals, including matriarchal
dominance and aggressive lone males attacking male offspring of another father. It is a curiosity that suggests
some males or females have a stronger instinct for partner selection protocols. Female spiders eat their mates.
What kept them otherwise safe? I suggest - nothing much! A reliance on a medicine man, soothsayer or
witchdoctor, was not likely to keep you safe from a gang of bullies. Unless, of course you acknowledged that
the bullies' witchdoctor was superior to your own. In which case, you might continue to survive in a
subservient position, paying tribute by any means that kept a sort of peace. Variations on this would include
you outwitting the bullies or switching your allegiance to some other group, because they were bigger bullies
or had a benefit to offer. I think this was a change in humanity's lifestyle that gradually transferred the source
of danger from those of non-human natural ones, to fear of other humans. Might would have ruled clans and
tribes for thousands of years, until some sort of equilibrium settled them into more ordered city states under
inherited lines of rulers. Fear reduced and benefits increased if you were on the winning team.
In different parts of the world, with thousands of year’s difference, we saw hunter gatherers harvest wild
cereals, and then cultivate them, weave straw and grasses, and make pottery, herd sheep, goats and pigs.
They still made the worshipful Earth Mother figurines. They would have valued the gold and free copper found
in very small pieces for their ornamental value. Note, free copper was only found in small pieces. Both gold
and copper could be beaten into shape, but copper cracked if one tried to beat several bits into a larger size.
Ores of both melt at the same temperature of 1,000 degrees C. Those temperatures only later became
possible from burning good quality charcoal with forced air, providing extra oxygen, unknowingly, of course.
Scientifically, the world was ignorant, but humans had adapted to all kinds of environmental opportunities.
Some had made advances in clay ceramics as far back as 30,000BC, but may have died out along with their
knowledge. They had to keep moving. Small figurines have been found. Woven baskets were handy items.
However, if you plastered them internally with clay, they could also hold water for a while.
Pottery and fired ceramics appeared and disappeared all over the planet. Raw clay pots may have had a
temporary use for storing some things, before the pot crumbled, but to make it waterproof required heat and
firing. I can imagine primitive people with children moulding clay as a plaything around a fire. Food scraps and
bones were thrown in the fire. Bones make good charcoal. Perhaps not all people had domesticated dogs that
scattered the bones. Partially burnt wood can become partially burnt embers that, when re-burnt, burn much
hotter like poor charcoal. Similarly, it may have been found that, after a forest fire, some of the baked remains
burnt hotter than other wood. A strong draft of air forces more oxygen through the coals of fires made from
charcoal made from bones and wood residue. With nothing much else to do of a long night, and over
thousands of years, I can see that ceramics could evolve into both the refining of the clay, and the
understanding of the fire temperatures for various ceramic results. Domestic dogs had evolved from wolves.
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8,000BC to 1,000BC, the Sahara across North Africa became moist enough to inhabit again.
8000BC First foundations were laid as a stone wall around what became Jericho, in the fertile crescent of
lands of the Levant and Mesopotamia, for perhaps a population of 1500 semi hunter-gatherer/farmers.
7000BC saw domestication of pigs, flax for linen cloth, and bread from types of wheat, and clay pottery.
6,500BC saw Western Asia (Turkey and Mesopotamia) making fired ceramics of figurines and pottery. Firings
improved, with experience of charcoal burning, and forced draft clay chimneys. Sometimes the system was
below ground level, sometimes it had stone surrounds, but at some point, it would have been noticed that
very hot firing affected some of the stone. Recommend website: www.ceramicstudies.me.uk
6000BC Potatoes were domesticated in Peru in South America. The Spanish took them to Europe in the 16th
century AD. Cooked starch like potatoes and root vegetables with high calories are well digested by humans.
6000BC Salt was being harvested world-wide. It was probably the only food flavour enhancer for many people.
Humans and animals seem to have a need for the flavour. Does it go back to our oceanic evolution? It is an
essential food, but is generally found in minute quantities in most natural foods. Over the millennia it became
a part of a large trade, resulting in salt mining by the Celts in southern Europe by about 800 BC. It had become
essential for drying and preserving fish and meat and preserving hides. Words like salary and salad stem from
paying Roman soldiers in coinage to purchase their salt, and their practice of heavily salting green vegetables.
Salt became taxable in some societies, notably in India by the British, when Mahatma Gandhi led a revolt of
one hundred thousand people to the ocean, to harvest their own salt in defiance of the tax. It led to his
struggle for independence becoming national, and eventually successful. Salt is used with religious significance
in many present and past religions.
6000BC first settlement was made on Crete. These people could have come from the mists of time as
Archaeans, maybe from the Ionian Islands off the Dalmatian coast. They had to get there by sea and land
bridges, which points to Crete's evolution as an eventual Minoan sea power. The Archaeans may have also
settled SW Greece, the Peloponnese, before the Mycenaeans. Archaeologists are puzzled by the outside
influence in some of their pottery art.
This Cretan beginning lasted for 4,500 years, with Crete evolving into the first city state and a modern Minoan
civilization that ruled the known world's seas ( Mediterranean, Aegean, Black), principally by trade, by 2000BC.
Those in the ruling class became conveniently entrapped in their own propaganda about the seat of their
power - their close connection and knowledge of their particular religion, taboo or unearthly belief. The same
group of ruling class, including the learned scribes, priests and soothsayers, also had the only exposure to new
ideas. They would cut off any new idea that threatened their power base. For example, much later, in about
1350BC, there was a new Pharaoh in Egypt, Akhenaton, father of Tutankhamen, who decided to give up on all
the old Egyptian gods, and declared that Egypt would then worship only one Sun God, the Aten. (If I had to
worship something, I can't think of a more deserving object). On his death, after twenty years, everything that
he had created was destroyed, along with all reference to him, while the priesthood reinstated the old gods.
Did his one god rub off onto the later story of Moses and the Hebrews?
6000BC People in Eastern Europe, the Shulavari in Georgia, were making wine in ceramic jars. It is well proved
that the European grapevines, Vitis Vinifera, were the parents of most varieties that followed. (Much later, the
Romans cultivated new vineyards where ever they conquered, including Bordeaux, Trier and Colchester. The
Roman Catholic Church further encouraged plantings world wide.)
5000BC Weaving of flax was known in Egypt. Flax was the favoured cloth in the Nile valley, even after wool
was used. It made Linen.
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COPPER AGE. about 5000BC. Chalcolithic Age, Eneolithic Age, Egyptian Pre-dynastic period.
Copper showed up in the Fertile Crescent of then Mesopotamia, and also with the Incas in South America, and
Mesoamericans in west Mexico. Copper also has been found in other geographies from Europe to South Asia,
perhaps as early as 7000BC. The recently found Otzi the Iceman, in Italy, had a copper axe from 4000 BC.
Chalcite is a type of common rock containing copper. In a very hot improved charcoal fire, the copper would
have melted out of the chalcite. Experimental fumbling would have brought the find to a most valuable
commodity. The copper metal could be poured, perhaps using a ceramic ladle, into a sand or clay mould to
form any desired shape. Commonly it became an axe that could be re-sharpened.
Copper was refined by breaking rocks that contained small amounts 0.5% to 5% of copper from veins of
greenish ore, dug from the earth, at first probably with sticks and hard stones… Unimaginable! But if you are
at the end of thousands of years of the Stone Age, not so unusual. A known method of mining in rock was to
light fires under rock, then when hot, throw cold water on the rock, causing it to fracture into manageable
sizes. It is likely that they came to understand the use of charcoal from this work. Perhaps the mining
technique had been used for precious ornamental metal like gold, although most gold was found on the
ground surface and in streams as alluvial gold. Then the broken copper ore was melted in wood (and charcoal)
fires. Fanning and leather bellows forced extra air (oxygen) to create extreme heat (1100 degrees C). Molten
copper could be separately poured off into rough moulds, generally to make copper axes, and tools. Possibly,
ceramic clay ladles played a role in the handling. The finer details of primitive metallurgy are not obvious in
history, but certainly marked a huge turning point; not least for the environment. Its trees were the source of
wood and charcoal fires until the advent of coal in England in the AD1700s. Our ancestors destroyed a lot of
forests. (Early furnaces were known as bloomeries, eventually being replaced by early blast furnaces to make
steel after 400BC. They were all fed on trees for charcoal for over two thousand years.)
4500BC Cotton useage was well developed in the Indus valley - East Pakistan, Northwest India and South Asia.
(Four millennia before Alexander's Greek Empire of 323BC first saw or heard of cotton.)
4300BC was the start of the first small Sumerian villages in Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilisation at the
mouth of the Tigris and Euphrates (Iraq). Uruk, or Erech, was its capital, hence the Uruk period. It has given us
the best information about 3rd millennia Mesopotamia, when its towns developed as Kish, Nippur, Ur, Umma,
Lagash, Mari, Ebla, Aleppo, Byblos, Akkad, with neighbours Elam, Syria, Assyria, Anatolia with many kings and
gods over thousands of years, with centuries of missing pieces, but nevertheless amazingly informative.
EARLY BRONZE AGE was about 4000BC-2000BC. We don't know who mined tin which was about 30 times
more scarce than copper, but someone, perhaps an early alchemist, found that a small amount of tin (maybe
10%) smelted with copper would produce much harder, longer lasting Bronze. Tin melted at 230 degrees C.
4000BC Copper and bronze tools including adzes and saws were in use. They made the future of boat building
possible.
4000BC Horses began to be domesticated, becoming widespread by 3000BC and available for pulling carts,
chariots, and riding as cavalry mounts, although stirrups would not be invented till thousands of years later.
4000BC Cattle, pigs, sheep and goats were domesticated in separate world localities and humans were
consuming their milk as well as eating the meat and using the hides. These larger animals supplemented the
fish, birds and small animals of the hunters.
4000BC Harps were in use in Egypt; Sumerian discovery dates to 3500BC in Ur; in Persia around 3000BC.
Translation of cuneiform from Ur shows precise knowledge of harmony and tuning.
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3600BC. Lost wax process for casting copper and bronze was developed, but not in immediate use, as stone
tools were still widely used.
3500BC The Sumerian towns grew in Southern Mesopotamia, in the eastern inland part of the Fertile Crescent
in todays, Iran, Iraq, including the ancient city Ur, a city of Hebrew legend about Abraham. The rivers Tigris and
Euphrates were to be ruled by many. The Syrian Desert was the crescent's centre, with the Levant and
Mediterranean as the western side of the crescent, pointing down to Egypt's Nile delta.
3500BC Wheels were in use on primitive carts in a few countries from unrelated development. They were
pulled by humans, cattle, horses and donkeys. Spoke wheeled carts and chariots emerged by 2000BC.
3500BC Silk was in use by Chinese royalty.
3400BC Priests emerged as the rulers of the new Mesopotamian cities. Was this the first sign of organised
religion? New gods would be re-named and re-invented for five thousand years in Mesopotamian religions.
3400BC writing was in use in Sumeria on clay tablets in Sumerian pictographic style till 2900BC (500yrs).
3400BC Sumerian female slaves worked as weavers of wool by washing, drying, beating, carding, grading,
bleaching and spinning. Spinners then hand twisted the fibres into a thread to put onto a spindle on a type of
clay whorl - a flywheel device. The twisted thread could then be used in teams of three to weave cloth on a
loom.( Mass production in 3400BC? )
3400BC Beer had probably been in production for thousands of years since the domestication of barley, but
archaeologists discovered The Hymn of Ninkasi, a prayer to remember the recipe for making the local
Sumerian beer. Another discovery was made in 1974 of the Ebla Tablets from 2500 BC telling of the city's
range of beers under the brand of that city's name, Ebla.
3300BC Hieroglyphs were in use in Egypt. A complicated beautiful form of writing and recording evolved. We
learned how to read it in AD1822.
3000BC. Egyptian early pre-dynastic period. Upper and lower Egypt were united at Memphis, the capital.
3000BC Minoans were sea trading in the coastal Levant of Mesopotamia (now Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan)
2900BC Bronze weapons were in wider use in Mesopotamia and were used in the start of the Sumerian Early
Dynastic Periods of warrior kings and their gods, which lasted till 2334BC (600yrs).
2900BC was a nominal dating for the mysterious standing stone circles like Stonehenge and Avebury. They left
minimal clues as to the times they were made or why. Circles of small stones are commonly found in many
parts of the ancient world, even in Australia. However the larger stone circles, standing stone groups, solitary
menhir megaliths were built mainly in Britain and coastal western Europe in an unknown period, but before
the later standing stones found in inland Europe. Most have been found to be too imprecisely built to have
had any astronomical significance, but some coincide with seasons and movements of the solstices. Some
people conjecture about the receding of the ice age, and we are all puzzled about the lifting of the stones into
place. Digging holes and using earth ramps are likely, but the wonder is in the dragging of huge multi-ton
stones over long distances. Celts, later called Gauls, have been credited with the culture.
2900BC Cuneiform script on clay tablets was in use in Sumeria. More than 20,000 inscribed with the ProtoElamite script have been recovered. Other civilisations were still writing in Sumerian pictographs, Egyptian
hieroglyphs, Minoan hieroglyphs and Minoan writing Linear A - (both still not deciphered.)
2900BC Slavery began in Sumerian cities. Uruk was then the world's largest city state of fifty thousand.
2700BC Secular non-priest rulers emerged in Sumerian towns. Did they sack their priests from government?
The establishments could build; make roads, bridges, boats and chariots. Their main means of travel was upon
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the Tigris and Euphrates. They had an understanding of star movements as they saw them moving
mysteriously around the Earth. Knowledge of those movements gave added power to the ruling class.
Astrology emerged, perhaps as the first science. Numeracy and geometry were most likely a result of the
study of the stars.
2600BC Egyptians exploited Sinai's minerals in Canaan and the Levant, probably tin and copper, perhaps gold.
2575BC-2130BC Egyptian Old Period. Writing on Papyrus began. It was the start of the 31 Dynasties that ruled
for about twenty five centuries. The first Egyptian pyramids were built, the Step and Great Pyramids of Khufu
at Giza.
2334BC Sargon The Great, the first hero to have a romantic basket in the bulrushes story, conquered Sumeria
from within. He expanded the Akkadian empire north to Anatolia (Turkey), and south, to the island of Bahrain
in the Persian Gulf. His capital of Akkad (Agade) has not been discovered. It might be under Bagdad. The
religious centre of Sumeria was the temple of the god Enlil at Nippur, near old Babylon. Possessors had the
right to rule Sumer and Akkad. Historians count the great empires from Sargon’s Akkadian. Sumerian Law
codes were shown to be lenient, with minimal use of a death penalty, except for any religious infringement.
Wider education became available. He established a standing army with permanent fortresses. After 150 years
the empire collapsed, but it had set the pattern for all future empires. About 100 years later another smaller
empire (Ur III) emerged in southern Sumer till around 2000BC, when desert warriors, the Elamites, NE of
Mesopotamia, sacked Ur and the Sumerian Empire collapsed. Then began three hundred years of skirmishes
for supremacy, when the western desert Amorites dominated as separate warrior king states.
2100BC the first Sumerian Ziggurats were built at Ur, Eridu, Uruk, and Nippur. (Stepped solid mud brick
pyramidal temple towers).
MIDDLE BRONZE AGE: in the Middle East 2000BC to 1600BC.
2000BC Minoan civilisation on Crete and Santorini in the Aegean, traded with Egypt and other developed citystate clans on the Mediterranean, including Mycenae in Greece. Particularly, the Minoans may have
dominated the trade in copper and tin to make bronze, so became large sea traders.
2000BC it was still a Chinese Neolithic period. The Minoans on Crete were already at their height. Indus valley
used its first writing. Central Asia had long since domesticated horses.
2000BC Early Greeks (Achaeans) settled the Peloponnese corner of Greece to become the Mycenaeans (now
south west mainland Greece). Mycenaeans wrote in Linear B, which has since been deciphered.
2000BC Egyptian Middle Kingdom re-united at Thebes under the 11th dynasty. Literature, Bronze, and
Chariots emerged
2000BC Sumer's semi-fertile plains of Mesopotamia were the goals of many warrior king invaders, eventually
leading to the Babylonian and Assyrian Empires.
1900BC under warrior kings, Amorites began to settle in the first Babylon, long since vanished, in central
Sumer. Perhaps 200 miles further north, other Amorites settled near Assyria, in a kingdom of Upper
Mesopotamia.
1757BC An Amorite dynamo, Hammurabi united Mesopotamia into one great Babylonian Empire, controlling
all of Mesopotamia and its neighbours. The lands became known as Babylonia. Without Hammurabi's intense
one man control, his empire collapsed by 1600BC, when it was plundered by the Hittites.
1700BC Horse-drawn chariots were in wider use.
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1640BC The Hyksos ruled Egypt for about 100 years. They introduced the composite bow, re-curve bow and
horse drawn chariot. Not much history has survived due to the Egyptians later erasing their record of
existence. It's likely that they emerged from a mixed bag of pirate people plundering down the Mediterranean
Levant coast, getting more organised as they found the Nile delta, where they mainly settled and ruled.
1600BC The Canaanites or Phoenicians in the Levant evolved the first alphabetic script, but the Greeks later
gave it the vowels. Sadly, no writing of ancient Phoenicia, or its child, Carthage of North Africa, has survived.
1600BC Babylon was sacked by the Hittites of the kingdom of Hatti in central Anatolia (Turkey). They did not
hold it. Following that chaos, two empires emerged, the Mitanni and the Kassites. The Kassites became one of
the Club of the Great Powers along with New Kingdom of Egypt, Hatti, and later Assyria.
LATE BRONZE AGE: EARLY IRON AGE: 1600BC - 1200BC.
1500BC a huge volcanic explosion of the Island of Santorini (Thira, Thera) destroyed that Minoan port and also
the coast of Minoan Crete one hundred miles away. The Theran explosion and resulting tsunami, the largest in
the last ten thousand years, deposited ash and pumice over Egypt and Canaan. Some link the event to biblical
Exodus and Atlantis stories. The ruins of the palace at Knossos are in good condition and have revealed most
of what we know about the Minoans. Modern cruise ships now anchor in the huge caldera that was once part
of Santorini. The Minoans never recovered and gave up their power to the Mycenaeans from mainland Greece
in the late Bronze Age - see 1400BC.
1500BC Hittites came from Hatti (Turkey) and roamed around Southern Mesopotamia, with others possibly
settling in Canaan and earning mentions in the Old Testament. They seemed to have disappeared as a power
by about 1100 BC, perhaps due to the emerging power of the Phoenicians. Hittites were probably the first to
master iron forging. Their cuneiform writing has been recovered and deciphered in the 19th century.
1500BC In India, Aryan-Dravidism appeared from about 1500BC for about one thousand years featuring the
hymns of the Vedas, and became the forerunner of Hinduism. Whether a particular race of people was
involved is hotly debated.
1500BC began the Egyptian New Kingdom around 1500BC and reached maximum expansion. Queen
Hatshepsut was a notable pharaoh in 1470BC. It was an era of temples and buildings cut into cliff faces, burials
in the Valley of the Kings and control over Canaan to Qadesh.
1500BC Emergence of the Phoenicians' identity, who had commonality with Canaanites both under Egypt and
later as colonisers, till their vanquishment by the Persians in 539BC. Sidon, Tyre, Canaan/Levant, and Carthage
near today's Tunis in Nth Africa (814BC) were their cities and states of note. In 500BC they emerged again from
their base in Carthage, where they eventually became a power in the western Mediterranean, ending in being
conquered by the Romans in 146BC. Carthage was, by then, the greatest sea power ever known.
1400BC-1200BC Mycenaean Greece dominated in the Aegean for about 200 years, including the Trojan war
period towards the end of its life around 1200BC. Its cities have been a great source for early archaeologists.
1330BC Tutankhamen briefly reigned. He was a forgotten Pharaoh, due to all records of his father, the Sun
God worshipper, having been obliterated. His tomb was found intact and greatly informative in AD1922.
1274BC Religious tradition fits the Moses stories into this period. One is similar to Sargon's 1000 years earlier.
In the Late Egyptian Period Rameses II fought the Hittites under Muwatalli II, at Kadesh (Qadesh) in Syria, The
battle was said to have involved about five thousand chariots. It was recorded on the walls of Abu Simbel. The
Egyptians claimed superiority over the Hittites by using their two man chariots against the more cumbersome
three man vehicles of the enemy. The long running disputes were settled fifteen years later by truce, with the
records of the event now displayed in the U.N as the first international agreement. Neither side benefitted.
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1220BC-920BC Hebrews battled near Canaan, later as Israel and Judah with, Kings Saul, David, Solomon, only
known from Biblical records. No archaeological proof has ever been found despite the most intensive work.
Philistines had also settled the southern coast of Canaan, and according to the Bible they were Israel's worst
enemy. They remained for several centuries and seemed to have been absorbed into the surrounding
communities. Archaeologists proved their original source was Troy. Canaan and the Levant had always been
the victims between Mesopotamian and Egyptian armies, but by 1100BC, Egypt and the Hittites had collapsed.
1200BC sudden end of the Mycenaean civilisation of Greece after infighting and invasion by the Sea Peoples.
Athens remained independent, while other Greek warriors joined the pirates attacking the three big empires.
IRON AGE: 1200BC to present, or as historians have cut it off much earlier over differing societies. It saw
gradual change to full use of iron by 900BC, also developments in glazed pottery, glass, baked clay bricks for
the first time. The iron age required a professionalism to develop in the baking of charcoal, which when made
properly could generate intense heat which could be regulated by the flow of air to the charcoal fire. The skill
did develop those specialist charcoal burners, who maintained their skills through many centuries of cutting
down forests. Charcoal has many benefits in blacksmithing, but now it's use is being severely restricted in
developing countries, where we now use coke, a derivative of coal, as the next best source of heat to charcoal.
1200BC Collapses began in Greece, Mesopotamia and Egypt from invasions by the Sea Peoples (unidentified by
archaeology), Philistines (a Trojan puzzle), Nubians (highly developed Africans) and Aramaeans the Iranian
nomads with home bases, who left their Aramaic language as the dominant one in the Middle East.
1100BC-776BC Greek 300 year dark ages of squabbling states period.
1070BC Silk in minor use in the Egyptian 21st dynasty as found in later mummies.
1000BC new writing emerged as Brahmin, Chinese Logographic, Aramaic, Nabatean (became Kufic Arabic over
next 2-3,000 years), Sabean, Phoenician, Greek (became Cyrillic over next 2,000 years), Etruscan, Latin.
1000BC Tea drinking in China. By 200BC the drink spread to Korea and Japan. (In 1500’s, Portuguese cultivated
it on the Azores islands and it found its way to England in about AD1660. It became widely consumed by
AD1800.)
965BC King Hiram of Tyre (Phoenician) helped build Solomon's Jerusalem temple, the first one. The only
history of the construction of the temple and great King Solomon and King Hiram's involvement is from the
Hebrew Bible. Archaeology about the era suggests a small city-state existed, but scholars disagree. Islam has
slightly different versions of Solomon's era, but he is well documented in their religion. Islamists are the main
obstacle to further excavations of the now Islamic Temple Mount, thought to be the site of both Jerusalem
Temples.
900BC-600BC: Greece was not a united country, but existed as individual squabbling states. Somehow, these
states expanded trade and technology all round the Mediterranean. They set up independent states rather
than an empire. They learnt from Egyptian art, culture and architecture. They improved upon it.
900BC At about this time, the Achaemenes were a legendry power in today's Iran, leading to to the later
Assyrian and Persian Empires (east of Macedon), after 600BC under Cyrus the Great. Their contemporaries
may have been the Medes.
850BC Estimated era of Homer who wrote his Greek poetic stories about the Trojan Wars (in Turkey) - the Iliad
about the wrath of Achilles, and the Odyssey about Odysseus travelling home from the war. The poetic themes
affected Greek and Roman humanistic thought for a thousand years till the spread of Christianity. The writings
are still studied today. Troy may have been sacked three times, long before Homer's time.
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841BC Israel paid tribute to Assyria, risen as the Neo-Assyrian Empire, till 612BC when the Medes and
Babylonians took it back as the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Assyria's ruthlessness rose and fell over a millennium.
776BC First Greek Olympiad became repeated every four years. Other similar religious events filled in the
other in-between years. Pythian games at Delphi for Apollo, and Isthmian games in honour of Poseidon were
important. At times of internal wars, it seems that a peace was declared. Possibly other states who honoured
the Greek gods also took part every four years. The Greek delegates took great pride in bringing their best art,
sculpture and treasures to present to the gods within their Games treasuries or temples. The games were
closed to women except for one high priestess. Rewards were only the laurel wreath. Contestants were highly
trained, purified, young naked males. Games continued till the official Christian era AD394, when they were
declared pagan by Emperor Theodosius 1. His grandson had all the games temples burnt. The Games had
survived for 1200 years. Later, the Olympic site was devastated by earthquakes and buried by flood. Today, we
again light the Olympic flame at that archaeologically recovered wonder.
750BC Egypt, Assyria, Babylonians, Chaldeans, Persians were at various wars over four hundred years, until
Alexander's conquests in 334BC led to world conquest by the Macedonian Greeks.
750BC The Greekish and Sicilian forefathers of the city of Rome are thought to have grouped on the Tiber and
the Seven Hills of Rome. Their tribes and clans would go through the throes of Tarquinian kings to a Republic in
500BC, with an emphasis on order and control. They chose gods similar to the Greeks', but names were
changed. Zeus became Roman Jupiter. Two annually appointed consuls were elected to rule and arbitrate the
new Republic's senate decisions. For two thousand two hundred years these people and those who followed in
their path influenced our modern western thinking. For the slightly Roman last five hundred years, we have
still remained under their spell. We have overlaid our freeways over their road system, and destroyed their
monumental aqueducts, defensive walls and public buildings to build lesser quality structures that have not
done justice to lost Roman engineering skills.
685BC Ashurbanipal late King of the Neo-Assyrian Empire received a broad scribal education, according to
texts of the time. By 626BC, the Assyrians had fallen to the Neo Babylonian Empire.
600BC There were four main empires in the known world, The Lydian, the Median, the Chaldean and the
Egyptian. There were also smaller kingdoms and city states. The four were around the eastern Mediterranean,
with the Lydian covering Turkey, the Chaldean covering southern Mesopotamia and Median covering from
Iran and northern Mesopotamia to southern Asia. Petra, Jordan is an ancient Nabataean Sinai site of this era.
600BC Coinage was adopted on the Greek mainland. All ancient coins are the archaeologists’ important
friends.
600BC-500BC Hinduism evolved Karma and rebirth.
586BC Solomon's temple was destroyed in Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon, during his campaign
against the Assyrians. It is also known as the First Temple, built on the Temple Mount or Mount Zion. No
archaeology has been possible on its site. Nebuchadnezzar II is credited with being a conqueror of Egyptians,
rebuilding Babylon on a grand scale and having had input to the creation of the fabled fabulous hanging
gardens. Most of the Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem were taken into captivity and re-settlement in Babylon
for about fifty years. Their numbers are uncertain. Others had earlier fled to Egypt at the start of the troubles.
560BC-480BC The Persian Empire, under Cyrus the Great, (ruled 560BC-530BC), came about from conquering
the three large empires of the Median (546BC), Croesus's Lydian (Ionia, Sardis, 546BC), and Chaldean (539BC).
Cyrus was revered by the Jews, and in Iran where he was buried. His proclamation as the new king of Babylon
was inscribed on the Cyrus cylinder, which now resides in the British museum. His rule saw the formation of
his ten thousand Immortals fighting troops, taxation of conquered provinces, an imperial post service over
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improved roads, cuneiform writing on clay tablets, which soon changed to writing on parchment (animal skin)
in the Aramaic language and alphabet. His was a lenient rule with a lasting legacy, with freedom of worship,
within a Zoroastrian religion based empire. He was succeeded by his son Cambyses who added Egypt and
Nubia to the Persian collection. Then came Darius the Great who added to Cyrus's capital cities of Persepolis,
Susa, and Pasargadae. The empire, from Egypt, the Mediterranean to India, was the greatest yet until the
Romans surpassed it 500 years later. Perhaps they modelled themselves on Cyrus' legacy.
538BC Cyrus allowed the Jews to return from Babylon after fifty years of resettlement. Many remained in
Babylon and Egypt or dispersed to other locations. It is very doubtful whether many original adults, now very
old, or dead, could have returned. It was the beginning of Jewish change in written language, emphasis on the
Torah, reorganisation from tribes into clans, and consolidation of the old tribe of Levi as scribes and priests. It
was the first permanent scattering of Jewish people, but not unusual for all peoples of those times. Religion
has over emphasised the Jewish perspective. They had always chosen and accepted isolation in enclaves.
540BC-510BC Pythagoras the philosopher and mathematician apparently started a religious and scientific
following that lasted for centuries in the Greek Aegean isles.
516BC The second temple was built on the holy site in Jerusalem by King Zerubbabel and the High Priest
Joshua. Jerusalem had a long history of ownership by many conquerors. Cyrus the Great assisted his former
captives in its recovery. It was part of the biblical Promised Land taken from the Canaanites. (In 20BC, this
second temple would be improved by Herod the Great and last till its destruction by the Romans in AD70.)
510BC Athens discussed democracy after expelling their last king Hippias, who fled to Sardis, in Macedon,
telling the invading Persians of his desire to help them capture Athens and Greece in return for his return to
power. There was a struggle for political power in Athens between factions of Sparta and Athens, when
Cleisthenes, one of the claimants, proposed a democracy. Squabbles continued, with the Athenian men
accepting the idea in 507BC. It was an inspiring moment for the Athenians and they accepted the new
philosophy wholeheartedly. The new leaders were pressed by their neighbours, the Spartans, to return to the
old rule. This caused Athens to ask the great Darius I of Persia to intercede in negotiations. Persia told them to
become subservient to them, which Athens refused to do, becoming their frequent enemy over 150 years.
500BC Carthage, on Northern Africa emerged again as a western Mediterranean trader and the greatest sea
power. Cemeteries suggest sacrifice of infants. They started many of today's cities in Africa and Spain.
500BC Rome, in its infancy formed its Republic with two annually elected Consuls. Its future was to change
and experiment with government, while building its defences and security. Its early armies fought in a style
similar to the Greek phalanx formation, with heavily armoured wealthiest citizens fighting in the front rank and
four other diminishing lesser classes making up the solid weight of numbers packed in behind. Their opponents
had similar ideas, and victory fell to the brave and lucky. Early wars were fought over neighbours' territory and
security. Sometimes former allies opposed each other.
490BC Battle of Marathon. The ten thousand armoured Athenian Greeks under Miltiades, defeated the greatly
superior Persian army with cavalry and archers, under Artaphemes, Darius's general, in Greece. The Greeks
had trained in fighting in their new formation of the phalanx for close-in fighting. The battle was in revenge for
the Athenians having supported a neighbour at Sardis in Macedonia during the Ionian revolt against the
Persians. The huge Persian army came by sea in this their first invasion attempt on Greece. They already
controlled Macedon. The Spartans, the expected Athenian allies in this battle, travelled 220 kilometres in three
days but were too late to join in. One suspects they would have been too exhausted, anyway. Historians rank
Marathon as a turning point in human history. Persia returned again ten years later, under Xerxes.
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485BC Xerxes of Persia, son of Darius, defeated rebellious states including Egypt and Babylon where he
melted down their revered golden statue of Bel. So the Babylonians continued to rebel, but without much
success. He wished to be called King of Persia and Media, and Great King of Nations - which he was. However,
he hadn't forgotten his father's new enemy, the Greek Athenians... He used Carthaginian ships.
480BC The vengeful Persians began their second invasion of Greece. With the valiant sacrifice of the small
army of Leonidas, including his three hundred Spartans, at the battle of Thermopylae, the Greeks delayed
Xerxes and allowed the Athenian Greeks to vacate Athens to fight another day. Xerxes destroyed Athens, but
the Greeks then defeated Xerxes' Persians in that famous sea battle at Salamis, and again on land at Plataea.
479BC Death of Confucius - Chinese philosopher.
474BC The bronze Charioteer statue was erected at Delphi to celebrate a Sicilian team winning the chariot
race at the Pythian games. Perhaps, eventually there were 100 Hippodromes and Circuses scattered all over
the Empires. The Greeks could race up to ten chariots in their wide Hippodromes.
462BC Rise of Pericles as leader in Athens and Greece. Pericles had just laid down the basis of his Democracy
in Athens, leading to this thirty year period being named the Age of Pericles. He was wealthy and his
democracy was not perfect. Rome's republic would also need to negotiate and favour its wealthy citizens.
460BC Greeks built the temple of Zeus at Olympia. The giant ivory and gold statue of Zeus was one of the
seven wonders of the ancient world. Famous sculptor Pheidias was thought to have had a studio there.
450BC Greek allies, with their Delian League in control of the Aegean, agreed to a nervous truce with Persia.
438BC Greek Parthenon was completed under Pericles as leader. The Parthenon is one of the world's most
loved ruins. Athens was in its Golden Age, but about to go to another internally destructive war with Sparta.
431BC-404BC Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta (South West Greeks). Pericles died from plague
in 429BC after two years into the war. Greece tore itself apart, relying on political interference from Persia.
420BC Herodotos (Herodotus) wrote his History of the Persian Wars. A Greek historian, he travelled widely
into Italy and Asia Minor, whilst writing the earlier first Greek and general history period of 550BC-479BC. He
wrote of casks made from palm-wood for transporting wine or ale.
400BC Celts (Gauls) crossed the Alps and defeated the North Italian Etruscans and settled the fertile Po valley,
an area later to be favoured by Julius Caesar.
400BC Steel appeared in different parts of the world, probably from the small amount of carbon needed
coming from the charcoal of the fire mixing with the molten iron. The addition of 2% of carbon makes steel.
Steel is formed at about 1,800 degrees C. Some think that bronze or tin was becoming scarce, or that the
bloomeries that were the precursors of blast furnaces had shown that they could also melt iron. Charcoal was
still the fuel. By now, the Romans were trading with China, the two principal sources of advancement in steel
making.
399BC Death of Socrates, Greek philosopher teacher of Plato and Xenophon. He was against the new
democratic movement and was sentenced to be poisoned, apparently painlessly!
366BC The Romans had evolved the Circus Maximus over centuries, starting with wooden barriers and
partitions in the ancient days of the Tarquinian kings. In 366BC it was the site of the first Roman Games, in
honour of Jupiter. (Games became more frequent over the decades, until in 50 BC, Julius Caesar recognised
the mobs' appetite for mass entertainment, and fanaticism for horse racing. He pacified them by expanding
the Circus to 621M x 150M. It held 270,000 spectators. More could watch from the surrounding hills.)
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359BC-336BC began the reign of Philip of Macedon and his League of Corinth. He united the poleis, Greek city
states, into a united force ready to engage the now familiar Persia, which also relied on its Greek mercenaries.
347BC Death of Plato, the great Greek philosopher 428-347, a student of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle.
340BC The Romans were still engaging with their near Italian neighbours, but had changed their fighting
methods. Ruled by two annually elected consuls, they had formed their first legions, under each of the two
consuls. A legion had three divisions or lines, each having ten to fifteen companies or maniples of sixty men,
legionaries, plus two centurions and a standard bearer. The first division of spearmen, hastati, consisted of the
younger men as light skirmishers. The second division of mature men, fully armed and equipped, were the
principes. However the third division, triarii, could vary in numbers of companies, but not more than the front
two lines. This third division was broken into three sections of specialist fighters, as the most experienced
veterans, triarii, the missile throwers, rorarii, and lesser skilled backup men, accensi. With the extras, a legion
varied between a total of three and five thousand men and youths. The legion fought with the young as the
fist attackers, who could fall back behind and join the mature men in their advance. In the meantime the triarii
skilled veterans remained in a crouched wall of shields and spears, so if the first two divisions needed to, they
retreated behind the vets, so the whole body of the legion could advance together in a solid formidable mass.
Cavalry, Equites, were three hundred wealthy noblemen in units, turmae, of ten. A fighting legion could be
about five thousand five hundred men. Centurions reported to legates and tribuni, who generally were, or had
connections to, the senate. It was a new flexible and light way of fighting which would give them Empire, and
set the format for armies for centuries to come. The legions would continue to improve and change
terminology, but this was the early formation. In the 1st century AD, Augustus pruned the number of legions,
but increased the number of auxiliary troops to equal the fighting men. Generally the empire settled at about
thirty legions, some of combined size of up to fifteen thousand, depending on the state of war or peace. Their
equipment became sophisticated for maintaining long sieges and hurling missiles. The 4th century AD saw the
legions break up into many more, but smaller, swifter, well equipped sizes, with ballistae and onagers
mounted on wagons. Fighting was close range with pila (spear), gladius (sword), and scutum or parma (shield
with a prominent central boss). Archers and Slingers were regularly employed.
336BC-323BC Alexander the Great was the most brilliant conquering Macedonian Greek general over an
undefeated ten years.
336BC was about the time of the greatest Greek sculptors. Alexander would have no-one but Lysippos sculpt
for him. Lysippos is thought to have created and cast the now famous and much travelled bronze life sized four
horses - The Quadriga - now housed in St. Marks in Venice. Nero took them from Greece to adorn his new villa
in Rome in about AD64; then Constantine took them to Constantinople in AD330; then they sailed to Venice in
the ship of the Venetian crusaders who robbed their Christian contemporaries in Constantinople in AD1204,
only to be rounded up by Napoleon and taken to Paris in AD1797. They trotted back to Venice in AD1815,
where they remain today - a wonder to behold. They are now 2300 years old and retired.
334BC Alexander conquered the mighty Persian Empire. During one campaign his troops were accused by
Zoroastrians of burning the library at Persepolis, but only legends remain.
327BC Alexander conquered North West India. Cotton was now available to the Greek Empire. Leather, linen,
woollen, and silk materials became widely available. Cultures flowed between east and west.
323BC Alexander died aged 32. He left no heir to his fabulous empire, so it became loosely divided among his
generals. The world scene was: West Mediterranean dominated by Carthage, and neighbouring onto the
Greek city-states. Central and Western Europe was dominated by Celts (Gauls in France and Germany as
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Franks and Germanics). The Roman Republic was very small, but consolidating itself in Italy, defeating
neighbouring Etruscans and Latins.
Alexander had put the Greek Ptolemies on the throne of Egypt (to end with Cleopatra). His generals and
followers began to carve up the outskirts of the Greek empire during their internal wars of the Diadochi.
General Seleucos created the Seleucid kingdom in Anatolia (Turkey), in Mesopotamia (near Iran), and pushed
into Asia. General Antipater refounded the Macedonian Empire. They all advanced Greek culture to the world,
starting the Hellenistic period. Philosophic thought, after Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, was now argued
between Zeno's new school of Stoics; Skeptics of the old school; and Epicurus' new school of Atomism (ancient
Particle Physics) leading to the much persecuted Epicureans, who were decimated by Christianity by AD600,
not re-emerging till the Renaissance. Epicurus did not deny the existence of Gods, but denied the right of
humans to claim association with them, or that they reward or punish humans. Pleasure shared with friends in
a randomly moving universe, is an all too short description of his philosophy. (I was not; I was; I am not; I do
not care.) Thomas Jefferson was an Epicurean. Also see www.epicurus.net.
322BC Death of Aristotle, philosopher (teacher of Alexander), 384-322BC. He was a student of Plato and left a
legacy of philosophical thought that influenced Arabic and Christian medieval thinking until the Renaissance.
300BC Euclid wrote his Elements on Geometry and Mathematics, at one time, the most widely read work.
275BC The Pharos lighthouse at Alexandria was erected by the Ptolemy's - to become one of the seven
wonders of the ancient world. It gradually fell into ruin by the 14th century AD.
272BC Rome completed its conquest of the Italian peninsular. It defeated the Greek cities on the southern
Italian Coast.
270BC Aristarchos proposed a sun centered universe.
264BC Rome fought Carthage in the First Punic war. They reached a truce. (Punic - as in Phoenician.) Shipping
was well advanced to move armies, and propelled by rowers and wind, later progressing to five banks of oars.
260BC Buddhism spread more rapidly.
250BC Greek language had followed on from Alexander's legacy of conquests and had come to dominate all of
the Mediterranean.
247BC-224AD The Parthian Empire, Arsacid Empire, began in Iran's N.E. Mithridates greatly expanded the
empire by conquering the Seleucids in Mesopotamia, isolating them in Syria. At it's peak it covered the ancient
Near East from the Euphrates in Kurdistan to eastern Iran. It sat on the Silk Road route between the Romans in
the Mediterranean and the Han Dynasty in China. It competed with later Rome for political supremacy.
220BC Romans joined in the Greek's Olympic Games. Eighty years later, they eventually took over troubled
Greece but tended to adopt Greek culture and religion rather than continually bully it. The Roman way!
218BC-201BC. Hannibal of Carthage launched the Second Punic War against Rome and General Scipio.
Hannibal crossed the Alps and fought the Romans in Italy as a cunning general, nearly capturing Rome. After
fighting all over the Mediterranean, Hannibal, Carthage and the Phoenicians were no more. Rome began to
control the Mediterranean.
200BC saw Rome extending its authority over Macedon which had taken over the Greek states. From time to
time, Rome, like Persia before it, was requested by the Greek states, to help settle their squabbles. Greek
influence began to appear in Roman art.
196BC The first triumphal arches were built in Rome.
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180BC Eratosthenes accurately calculated the circumference of the Earth, by measuring shadows of tall
structures at large distances apart.
166BC-160BC The Jewish Maccabean revolt gave independence to Judea from the Greek style Seleucid
Empire, in Syria. Antiochus Epiphanes had looted the temple contents and generally banned Hebrew worship,
perhaps with some compliance from the locals, who liked the idea of becoming Greek. The Maccabees fought
an unusual guerrilla war over five years to regain control of Jerusalem and their religion. The festival of
Hanukkah celebrates that victory. Sadducees and Pharisees had split. Judea's autonomy was always fragile
with the more powerful Seleucids able to dictate terms at will over the next thirty years until 129BC. (see
below)
146BC The Romans annexed Macedonia, which controlled still fragmented Greece.
146BC Rome took over Greece and all its city-states. It ended the squabbles with a firm hand, but with respect
for Greece's former greatness, art, culture, religion and traditions, which in any case it had been adopting for
decades.
146BC Rome took old Carthage's territory adjoining Egypt, proclaiming it the province of Africa (Libya, Tunisia).
140BC The Venus de Milo statue was completed by Alexandros of Antioch. Aphrodite to the Greeks, it is now in
the Louvre Museum. It was found on the island of Milos by a local peasant in AD1820.
133BC Rome expanded into the Middle East. Pergamon, in now present-day Turkey, became the province of
Asia. Southern Europe became Gallia (of the Gauls). Rome advanced itself by rewarding conquered foes with
the chance of becoming a Citizen of Rome for jobs well done, like protecting the borders of the Empire from
invaders. Owners of slaves could grant them freedom to be Roman citizens, a much valued prize.
129BC Judea became finally independent of the Seleucid rule of former Greeks, leading to the following
Judean history that affects our modern impressions. The Maccabees of 160's BC above, had also become
known as the Hasmonaeans, leading to a nephew later becoming High Priest in the 120s BC. Then came
Aristobulus as first king of that name. The biblical connected 1 Maccabees is also described by commentators
as political propaganda on their behalf. From 103BC to 76BC, the most aggressive of the Hasmonaean rulers
was King Alexander Jannaeus. His state language was Hebrew and he lived in lavish palaces, dominating
previously Greek style cities and states around him. He was also a Sadducee and High Priest of the Temple. His
heirs were, Aristobulus II and Hyrcanus, who fought over the kingdom. It was not an opportune time, for, in
63BC the area attracted the attention of the Roman general Pompey, who was based in the newly Roman
controlled Syria, north of Judea. He marched on Jerusalem. Game over - resulted in massacres and more slaves
for Rome. The Aramaic Arab Nabataeans were mixed up in this history of Judea, but survived. Hyrcanus was
appointed Roman puppet to raise the usual taxes. Somehow, his brother, Aristobulus II, escaped from Rome
and returned to cause great trouble in association with his son, Alexander. Again the Romans sorted them all
out, resulting in the appointment in 40BC of a former henchman of Hyrcanus, Herod the Great, from Idumaea,
South of Jerusalem. The appointment was not settled until 37BC, during which time, Herod ingratiated himself
in Rome with Marc Antony and Octavian, who were co-consuls and friends at the time. (See 37BC below).
105BC A Greek college of technology was founded at Alexandria in Egypt by the Ptolemies, not yet Roman.
100BC Birth of Julius Caesar. His life up to middle age was one of patrician nobility and law. His family could be
traced back almost to the legendry gods. His name was that of his father, Gaius Julius Caesar, a governor of
Asia, who died when his son was only sixteen. Caesar matured through the troubled times of the decaying
republic and learned to avoid the purges being carried out by the appointed dictator, Sulla. He married
another patrician, Cornelia, as this was a requirement to be eligible for any high office. He became the new
high priest of Jupiter. Eventually he fell victim to Sulla's purge, losing his wealth and priesthood. He left Rome
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and joined the army, spending a few years in Turkey. Sulla died in 78 BC, so Caesar returned to Rome, aged
twenty two, after a brief captivity by pirates. Ransom was paid and he certainly did not forget them... He was
elected as military tribune, his first political step, and then quaestor for 69 BC, when Cornelia died. The
position of quaestor was one of high public service in finance, with entry to becoming a senator. In the senate
he became a skilful orator and defender of anyone needing his services. In 63 BC, aged thirty seven, he
became Pontifex Maximus, chief high priest of the Roman state religion. He was still not wealthy and
befriended Crassus who financed his debts in return for possible future favours. As the important magistrate,
praetor, of Spain, Caesar could avoid his debts, so he remained there, building good relationships with his
troops, until he felt safe enough from his creditors to stand for election as consul, the shared highest office. He
won the consulship in 59 BC, aged forty one. (The other was Marcus Bibulus, who was caused to spend his
consulship in his home to avoid Caesar's cronies.) Caesar married for the third time to Calpurnia, daughter of
another powerful senator. He united General Pompey with his friend Crassus, which group formed an
unofficial triumvirate. Caesar brought about some good changes about land distribution to the poor, but also
bent the law to his own ends, preserving special privileges in territories to be governed by him on completion
of this one term consulship. Northern Italy, southern France and south eastern Europe were to be his next five
year domain with four legions, eventually leading to total conquest of Gaul. Caesar’s Julio-Claudian dynasty
would end with Nero.
71BC Death of Spartacus in the Third Servile War, a major slave uprising. In 73BC he escaped with about
seventy others from a gladiatorial school near Rome. The legions were absent at the time and the escapees
easily overcame the troops sent to attack them. Because of their success the peasants joined them, swelling
their ranks to perhaps seventy thousand. Battles raged over the next two years with the slaves eventually
being decimated by the unscrupulous Crassus with eight fresh legions. About six thousand captives were
crucified along the Appian Way from Rome to Capua. Spartacus probably died in the last battle. Spartacus has
become a hero figure to many individuals and cults.
63BC (Romans intervened in Judaea, under Pompey, as described above about events leading on from 129 BC
above. The second temple remained intact.)
55BC Julius Caesar raided Britain, but not to conquer. His masterful soldiering had not made him rich enough
to achieve his higher goals, so he had earlier aligned in a triumvirate with General Pompey and a "Mafia" type,
Crassus, in order to share their combined wealth and political influence. Rome had lagged behind the old
kingdoms in the accumulation of gold, but it soon caught on to the idea of gold coinage in about 400BC. From
then on it became insatiable, with the citizens being widely separated by the obscene wealth displayed from
the top down. Wealthy Crassus formed his own army of forty thousand to fight and rob the Parthians in old
Persia. He lost all but ten thousand men, plus his own life, by the Parthians pouring molten gold down his
throat, according to Britannica. Them were the days!
55BC The winning Parthians showed Crassus and the Romans their skill and tactics in their use of their
composite bows and back-up support of bulk arrows.
51BC Julius Caesar completed his long conquest of troublesome Gaul. He took one hundred thousand Gauls for
slaves to work in Spanish and Italian gold mines.
48BC The all conquering Julius Caesar became under threat from the Roman senate whilst in Northern Italy.
Without warning, he crossed the Rubicon, and headed south to Rome which fell at his feet without a fight.
However the events had caused Pompey to change sides and civil war broke out again. Caesar defeated
former ally, Pompey, in a Roman civil war in Spain, and defeated Pharsalus in another in Greece. This left him
as the Republic's dictator. He was 52. Pompey had fled with some troops to non-Roman Alexandria, but on
landing on a beach, had the misfortune to run into Cleopatra's army which happened to be on the march in
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dispute with her brother. She murdered Pompey and sent his head as a welcome gift to Julius Caesar, as he
landed in pursuit. From that delightful encounter blossomed the romance between them, resulting in
Cleopatra later giving birth to Caesar's son. After a year's dalliance in Egypt, due in no little part to being under
siege by the Alexandrian mob, until rescued by his fleet, he returned to Rome. During the siege he had lived in
Cleopatra's palace, but fearing the Alexandrian ships moored just outside, he gave orders to burn them. The
resulting blaze became out of control and also burnt part of the famous Library of Alexandria. On his way
home he needed to settle fresh disputes in Syria and Judaea, arising during his absence. His last battle was
against Pharnaces, a usurper, in Pontus, Turkey, where the famous utterance of Veni Vidi Vici was first heard.
44BC Julius Caesar was again proclaimed dictator, but this time for life. One month later he was murdered. He
had written the histories of the Gallic and civil wars. He was recognised as the greatest Latin speaking orator.
He had enlarged and secured the republic's borders and enabled millions to live under Pax Romanus. He had
saved the heritage of the now foundering Republic by establishing dictatorial rule, which had set the future
empire on a path of even higher greatness. He used methods of conquest and politics that were unsurprising
for their times. The Roman sword was the weapon of order and control. Bribery, corruption, poison and
daggers were established tools of politics. Nothing much changed under future emperors, or Christianity's
banner for over a thousand more years. Likewise, non-Christian countries made little change. This does not
enlighten us much about we masses, not blessed at birth with a silver spoon nor an excess of good luck, but it
does give us a glimpse of our past need for a highly developed sense of self preservation.
43BC Cicero the Roman orator and humanist was murdered, aged 63, by political opponents. He wrote and
spoke of the disgrace that the practice of crucifixion brought on Rome. He was well educated and cultured in
the Roman sense that he spoke both Latin and Greek. Born in 106BC he served Rome as quaestor, and later
consul in 63BC. He was caught up in the throes of the declining Republic, which he wished to preserve. His life
has inspired much later political thinkers like those of the Renaissance, the French revolutionaries and the US
Founding Fathers. see History of the Constitution of the Roman Republic.
43BC Marc Antony was Caesar's loyal younger friend. He, with Caesar's grand nephew Octavian, and Lepidus
formed a political affiliation to rule the Republic, now known as the Second Triumvirate. They pursued and
defeated Caesar's murderers, Brutus and Cassius, in bloody civil war battles at Philippi in distant Macedon.
Over 16 years the arrangement broke down in deceptions, and Antony "going native" with Cleopatra of Egypt.
37BC Romans appointed Herod as king of Judaea. History called him Herod the Great. He had friends in the
new Triumvirate. Roman legions cleared his path to his seat of authority in Jerusalem where Herod, with
difficulty, had persuaded the legions not to plunder. Over the next twenty years, Herod made Jerusalem a city
of splendid new architecture with massive new walls and towers. For himself he had already built his
mausoleum at Herodium, a few miles away. The city's spring had long since proved inadequate and aqueducts
serviced the city. His own palace was colossal, with accommodation for one hundred guests among water
gardens and bronze statuary. About 20 BC, Herod began to enlarge and improve the Temple. He hoped to at
least match its size with the legends of Solomon's, the first temple, which had been destroyed centuries before
(586BC). He succeeded, in the balmy era of Roman protection and freedom from wars. His kin and Roman
procurators followed as rulers. The temple attracted visitors from the known world, both gentile and Jew. It
had a priesthood of over one thousand and additionally needed lay witnesses to the slaughter of almost nonstop sacrifices. The city was very large, perhaps up to one million locals and temple visitors, but its commerce
was that of pilgrimage, and like Mecca in later times, was the local business peoples' source of wealth.
33BC Civil war erupted between brothers-in-law Octavian and Marc Antony, resulting in the breakup of the
Triumvirate. Antony had married Octavia, but dallied with Cleopatra in Egypt. Lepidus had been banished
already for sneaky tricks.
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31BC The republic's leadership was in disarray, until Octavian defeated Antony and Cleopatra in a sea battle at
Actium, Greece, resulting in their deaths in Alexandria. Egypt became Roman. In 27BC Octavian became a sole
consul, a lifetime censor, a lifetime tribune, during which time he called himself Augustus, gaining total
support of the legions, until the Senate confirmed his appointment to the similar position that Julius Caesar
had held. He declined the title of Dictator. He wished to be First Citizen, Imperator. Later he became
historically known as Augustus. He married the famous matriarch, Livia. He set high moral standards. His
successors would call themselves Emperor or Augustus, and some wives became Augusta. At the end of
Augustus' forty year rule, in AD14, he had advised that the Empire had grown to its limits.
30BC c Virgil wrote the Aenid, about Dido, Aeneas and Pygmalion of Carthage. Livy began his History of Rome.
24BC-20BC. Augustus started grain handouts to the city's two hundred thousand poor. Poverty was becoming
a problem as peasant farming was being swallowed up by large landholders, who had been rewarded with
land for conquests in foreign lands. Rome annually imported four hundred thousand tons of wheat from Egypt,
Africa and Sicily. The army required another one hundred thousand tons. Ships could carry up to three
hundred and fifty tons of cargo. River travel and transport was the preferred method on the sea, and rivers
Rhine and Danube. Rome's rulers always feared any shortage of food could cause an uprising, so they always
had a policy of grain and bread hand-outs. It is thought that the Romans had mastered water power for
grinding wheat. For example, eventually in Constantinople there were one hundred public bakeries to provide
two pounds of bread to eighty thousand citizens, daily! Authorities also controlled the price of pork, beef and
wine.
8BC Horace died aged 56. From a wealthy ex-slave family, he was very well educated, but picked the wrong
side in the war between Marc Antony and Octavian (Augustus). He lost all, but his brilliance saw him back in
favour through his job in the public service and his literary friends, Virgil, Rufus and Maecenas, who set him up
with an estate near Rome, still viewed by his modern admirers. His poetry influenced poetry and writing up till
modern times. He also gave us carpe diem, "seize the day", and sapere aude "dare to reason (or know)".
7BC is a date that has become a starting point of the arguments about Jesus' birth date, and Herod's death. In
the case of Herod's death, his two heirs seemed to have been tagged with 4BC as the beginning of their
chaotic Roman reign. The biblical connection concerns stories of Herod's attempt to murder Jesus as a baby,
the Massacre of the Innocents, during the Judean uprisings, and the non historical Roman census. None of the
biblical matters are historically recorded, but the events supposedly involving Herod the Great would put
Jesus' birth date as earlier than 4BC, but other arguments about his age and when he was crucified add to the
uncertainty. One son, Herod Antipas, became tetrarch of Galilee, tetrarch meaning a quarter of Herod's estate,
which he ruled for the Romans. The biblical Salome danced for him causing the beheading of John. A bit later,
Antipas may have colluded with Pontius Pilate, as the two senior legal men involved in the judgement of Jesus.
The Herodians would be continued by Agrippa I and his children Agrippa II and Berenice.
AD1-100 Mithraism spread in the Roman Empire, especially its army. It seemed to have been centred in Rome,
with many records of its icons and sites. Mithraism had a connection to Zoroastrianism, founded before 600
BC in Persia (Iran). Their one universal god was Ahura Mazda who was the creator of existence, good, truth
and order. Eventually he would overcome chaos, when the universe will end, at which non-time, a saviour
figure will bring about a final reversal, bringing the dead back to life. That sounds familiar! Mithraism was
more iconic and deviated from the ancient teachings. It did not survive, due to it being seen as a competitor of
Christianity in the fourth and fifth centuries AD. Sites of the meeting places were dotted all over the western
empire, but little is known of their mysteries. One can imagine a mixing of the two similar religions in simple
Roman societies where the armies travelled.
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AD1-100 Parchment and Vellum, made from young animal skins, were used as a writing material, along with
papyrus. It is difficult for us now to imagine a world without paper and books. We tend to assume that such
well known things as the Holy Scriptures, The Bible and The New Testament, poems and stories, were laying
around in every 3rd century AD home and hovel. That wrong assumption goes hand in hand with the one that
assumes most people could read and write. All over the world today, you can still visit old churches painted
and decorated with religious stories and icons, for the benefit of the old illiterate populaces, perhaps up to the
19th century AD. St. George and his dragon are still featured on church walls today. Myths and legends still!
AD1-50 Romans began non-stop trading voyages from Egypt to India. Indians were also a clearing house for
Chinese silk and other goods. Trade for luxuries needed gold.
AD14-37 Tiberius became the second emperor for 23 years and died aged 78. He was an experienced
administrator and tribune under Augustus, but had not wanted the top job. He exiled Rome's Jews, as Claudius
would also do, well before the destruction of far away Jerusalem in AD70. Christianity had not yet emerged.
AD18 Ovid died. He was a contemporary of Horace and Virgil, the three great Augustan poets. His poems were
of a fanciful personal nature that gave us great insight into the Roman way of life, perhaps from the patrician's
point of view. Ovid wrote his Metamorphoses, a large volume of his history of mythology including the
deification of Julius Caesar.
AD27 Columella wrote 12 volumes of books bringing Romans up to date with horticulture. He was not the first.
The empire had a huge industry in the wine trade. Julius Caesar found, during his conquest of Gaul, that
Roman wine merchants had already established themselves in northern Frankish coastal towns.( Later 5th
century edicts restricting the export wine trade outside the empire may have contributed to the invasions that
the empire suffered - from hung over Huns, perhaps.)
AD27 Architect or army engineer, Vitruvius wrote de Architectura. We know they understood the use of
pulleys to lift and pull, cranks and shafts to mechanise water powered saws, but that still needs a leap of
imagination to understand the lifting of very heavy cut stones for general building and walling. The soldiers
were the workers in all army fortifications, walls, roads and bridges. Julius Caesar quickly built a bridge across
the Danube, simply to show the less skilled Germanic tribes that he could come after them anywhere! Then he
pulled it all down as he left after his demonstration. By then the Roman key stone let them build arches at will.
The arch supported all their structures, aqueducts, and arenas. We have no concept of the work that the
soldiers performed all over the empire. Walls of amazing length were intended to keep idle soldiers busy, as
much as they were for defence. Roman citizens had access to and used as much water as do modern people
today. Romans loved water. Their highly developed heated public baths were empire-wide. They understood
concrete, which later peoples forgot till modern times. The concrete roof of Rome's Pantheon stands today.
They worked lead for water pipes, perhaps to the detriment of their health. They also could hollow out cut
stone and form joints to make water mains. They baked hard clay bricks, much superior to mud bricks. Roman
bricks survive today in many town streets. Iron was turned into all sorts of building hardware by blacksmithing
in fires of charcoal, forced with bellows.
AD30c Jesus of Nazareth was crucified in Jerusalem between two thieves. Everything we know about him only
comes from the New Testament, in which Julian dates, available to the authors, seem unimportant. He
behaved as a normal child, until giving up “childish things” coming to manhood. He left no writings, although,
as a young Jew in the Jerusalem Temple, he read the Hebrew Scriptures, now forming all or part of today's Old
Testament. He upheld the correctness of those ancient scriptures. They may not necessarily have been today's
or Islam's version of the Old Testament. He also taught in or at synagogues. His oral teachings in Aramaic, were
handed down to his Jewish followers to repeat, until in about AD90, or later, they were finally written down in
roughly their present form as parts of the then Greek language New Testament. It is unlikely that all the
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disciples were literate or personally wrote their version of events. (If they did write anything, it is no longer
extant). The basis of the teachings was to believe on faith alone. No proof of a god's existence or Heaven or
Hell is or was required. Miracles were said to have been performed by both Jesus and his Jewish disciples. Noone outside of the four gospel writers seems to have recorded the news of miraculous healings. Jerusalem was
full of educated locals and visitors. Perhaps the really big miracles had already been done by others in the past.
Three disciples said they saw Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah, who had been sent with a message from god.
Limited immediate histories of the later tasks of some of the disciples were written, despite their fame. Jews
had placed less significance on an afterlife than later Christians. Jewish thoughts were occupied in following
the laws handed down to Moses, under the ongoing interpretations of their Rabbis. Jewish priests were
offended at Jesus' challenging teachings and talked the Romans into killing him on grounds of sedition against
Roman law. Billions of words have been written and spoken, in attempting to explain and justify these
humanly declared inspired words of their god, on behalf of the three main modern religions, Judaism,
Christianity and Islam. They have affected the lives of billions of the masses for over fifteen hundred years,
whether they have ever heard of the teachings or not. The non-historical records of Jesus, explain that details
were, and are, seen as less important than his teachings. The lack of detail during a time of educated scribes
and Roman officials in a huge city is surprisingly un-human, especially the calamitous claim of the sun blacking
out for three hours, at the time of the crucifixion, being unknown to the meticulous historians, Seneca and
Pliny the Elder, who recorded all such events of the period. An ascension in a cloud warranted little description
or excitement from eleven witnesses. Jesus Chronology and Historical views.
AD31-36c Paul (Saul of Tarsus, in Turkey) AD5c-AD67c, was a Jew, but born a Roman citizen, who became the
voice of the new Christianity, beginning somewhere between AD31 and AD36, settling disputes as to who,
other than circumcised Jews, could qualify to become a brother believer, later termed Christian. He travelled
widely and left various letters (there are no extant originals). He negotiated with Jew and gentile groups over
the laws of Christianity. By New Testament stories, Christians were sometimes in trouble with Roman law.
Perhaps it was their refusal to acknowledge the ancient Greek and Roman gods, or more likely, their criticism
of those who did worship those gods. The Gospels had taught to "render unto Caesar...". Tradition and legend
says that the disciple Peter was to found a church, movement, brotherhood - whatever within the Roman
Empire (the known world). He was possibly in contact with others of Jesus' Jewish disciples and the
newcomers like Paul. Paul's death is not recorded. He did not write of Nero's persecutions, but as a Roman
citizen, he had been imprisoned several times. He mentions Agrippa II and Berenice being present in the
Roman magistrate's court. Biblical stories say Stephen was stoned to death by Jews in Jerusalem. Paul
confesses to having persecuted Christians in his past, with maybe a hand in Stephen's death (AD34 is a
conflicting date that must be incorrect?). Did he kill them? James son of Zebedee, an apostle, was another,
said to have been killed on orders of King Agrippa I, AD37-44. Legend has all the disciples having been
martyred, except one, who survived boiling.
Perhaps it is of these times that later scribes and historians write of special Christian kindness, with them
emphasising personal kindness and helping others. Certainly these early Christians lived in harsh times, where
they refused to worship Roman and Greek gods, and were different from the Jews. They didn't fit in. They
needed other Christians to protect them and show kindness. To suggest that Christians were the inventors or
discoverers of kindness is stretching the point. The Old Testament of the Jews taught kindness. The worst
persons are still capable of kindness and I can't visualise a group in any era that had any purpose without
including kindness. What was nurture without kindness? Did soldiers defend to the death without a sense of
protecting others? Why did parents shield their children from harm? Women, more so than men, are
particularly kind. Was the argument for Christian kindness aimed more at men? Were there no other religions
or cults that practised kindness? Were there no Greek or Roman laws that protected the oppressed, sick and
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disabled? Were Roman bread handouts not touched with some altruism? Did a beggar not ever get a few
pennies or alms? Finally, three centuries later, did it suit the empire to approve of and adopt a religion that
supported slavery and advocated rendering unto Caesar, the meek shall inherit the earth, and to turn the other
cheek?
AD37. Josephus, an interesting character, was born, later to become a Jewish historian of great events, under
the protection of four or five Roman emperors. He wrote of things that were already recorded by others, but
was an eye witness prisoner to the destruction of Jerusalem, recalled in his first Jewish Wars. However, he
made some outlandish claims and omissions about his own role in history, sometimes contradicting himself,
primarily his early teenage years and training, his travelling to Rome to plead to Nero in AD63, on behalf of
some Jewish priests, at age of 25; his appointment as a Jewish general at the age of 28 in AD66; his double
crossing his fellow soldiers in their suicide pact age 30; his lost years in a Roman prison camp during the Jewish
War from AD67 to AD69, when he could only perhaps hear gossip from Jewish deserters and prisoners. He has
been quoted by Christians as an authority on Jesus, because of a comment written in AD93 in Jewish
Antiquities in collaboration with Agrippa II. He seems short or silent on big historical events surrounding
people well known to him: Persecutions, Paul in court with Agrippa II, Nero as adoptee of Claudius, Nero as
emperor, Vespasian, Titus and the old Herodian family of Jewish Agrippa II, as related in the bible.
AD37-41 Caligula (Gaius Caesar) became emperor and was probably insane. He was assassinated. During his
reign, Jews were killed and persecuted in Alexandria, perhaps by mob rule. Christianity had not emerged.
AD41-54. Claudius began the Roman conquest of Britain. Troops in Britain would be in for four centuries of
troublesome rule using about fifty thousand men as legionaries and auxiliaries to keep control of the obstinate
British and Caledonian tribes. During his reign he ordered Rome’s Jews "not to hold meetings". Acts 18:2
supports his expulsion of Jews from Rome. He adopted a relative, Nero, as his son and heir.
AD54-68 Nero became emperor (re-named by Claudius as Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus). In
AD64, Rome burned during his reign, after which he built an opulent lavish palace, Domus Aurea. He removed
the famous ancient four horse quadriga bronzes from Athens for his statuary collection. Portrayed by
historians as a mad murderer, because of his political intrigues, he also has been accused of horrifically
persecuting Christians. (Tacitus, the main historian, was born in AD56) It is difficult to understand how
ignorant mobs could distinguish between Mithraism, Christianity and Judaism. Nero was familiar with
Claudius' expulsion of Jews. Condemned by the senate, Nero chose a messy suicide.
AD64 If Christians were persecuted within Rome, they may have confusedly included Jewish converts to
Christianity and orthodox Jews. There were far more permitted Jews living and worshipping at synagogues in
Rome than Christians. Jews had come as merchants and as slaves. They had synagogues in Rome - "call them
colleges", said Julius Caesar. At times of conflict over behaviour in Rome they would be temporarily expelled.
They were seen as an antiquated race by Julius Caesar who never-the-less, tolerated and mixed with them as
he did with other races and philosophies. The scene would be that the Christian movement had grown over
the previous thirty years in fairly orderly Roman cities, like Alexandria, Antioch, Ephesus, perhaps Jerusalem,
(which was now in AD64 still a minor Jewish trouble spot for the local Roman rulers). All Christian
indoctrination into the new religion would have been oral. There is no record of types of writings other than
letters like Paul's, which may have been circulated by secretly rewriting them, but how accurately?
The details of the persecutions are very vague, and probably were exaggerated and sensationalised in much
later gossip. They were certainly widely believed propaganda in later centuries. Most Christians were Jews,
Roman citizens or slaves. Please also understand that Romans were not people who were born or lived in
Rome. The Empire's Citizens of Rome came from every race and state. Citizen of Rome was the most desirable
status to achieve. The name Roman stuck to the Republic of Rome, Roman Empire, Roman Empires in the East
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and West, the Holy Roman Empire and the Roman Catholic Church, long after the decline of Rome, the city in
Italy. Citizenship was promised as the most desirable reward for a duty well performed. Further, as serving
army members, foreign soldiers and officers were entitled to become Citizens on fulfilment of service. Even
foreigners would become emperor. Diocletian, Constantine and Justinian were among the most famous.
However, it follows that most citizens had not been brought up to worship Greek or Roman gods, so singling
out Christians for persecution has a dubious ring to it. How were they identified? What distinguished a Jew
from a Christian who worshipped the same god? How many citizens in a Christian or Muslim society can pick a
Sunni from a Shia, or a Seventh Day Adventist from a Jehovah's Witness? Perhaps Jews were a separate
nation, and Jesus' followers a rabble?
Another curiosity is the list of Popes in modern terminology. They were Bishops originally. Eventually, because
tradition had it that both Peter and Paul may have been martyred in Rome, then the primal bishop, later pope,
should be in Rome city, following on from Peter. How did a line of bishops and popes come into being during
three centuries of persecution by the Romans? Refusing to respect the emperor's Roman divinity, if he chose
to proclaim it, was tantamount to treason. Martyrdom then, with the second coming imminent, was seen as
worthy of a Christian, just as it is today for a Muslim. At some later point, it became acceptable for followers to
deny their religion, perform a penance, and then rejoin the congregation. History and religion have handed
down conflicting stories of these times. In fairness, let's understand the vastness of the Empire. Like Jews, if
Christians weren't bothering anyone in Alexandria in Africa, or Ephesus in Turkey, then they were possibly on
the way to peaceful co-existence with the army and other citizens. We don't expect that Christians had
become militant yet, as they would in the next centuries. The army may have had a conflict in some parts,
because they were beginning to adopt Mithraism. The Roman followers of Mithraism used purpose made
meeting places in Rome, where those remains and others in parts of the old empire can be seen today. The
religion, if that's what it was, was for men only, including army men. In modern times we have accepted the
stories of persecution by the Romans as empire wide fact. Gladiators and lions in movies and novels exploded
in the twentieth century. There was an endless source of prisoners, captives and criminals, but why kill them
when there was an endless demand for slaves? Part of a soldier's bonus was drawn from his share of the
proceeds from sale of prisoners. The Colosseum was not completed until AD80. There is little evidence that it
was ever used for any purposes, so graphically depicted. If there was a location, it may have been the Circus
Flaminius, built in 221BC and abandoned in about AD100. The rumours of mass Christian martyrs in the
Colosseum were started in mediaeval times by Pope Pius V in the mid 1500s. In later times, basilicas (Roman
civil buildings) may have been adapted for churches. The use of the word church in early Christian periods was
probably to describe gatherings and formal groups of people over a three hundred year period, although
history of persecutions often includes ransacking or destruction of church buildings. An early bishop could
certainly grow wealthy.
AD66 Jews in Judea revolted against the Romans. This would not have added to the popularity of Christians.
They were more than likely lumped in with the Jews as public nuisances. There was no mercy for anyone who
challenged the rule of Rome. Roman Citizens could expect a trial first. The Emperor was absolute. His
magistrates could order the army to act swiftly and harshly at whim. Slavery was the backbone of Roman
commerce and government. The Roman army was the best armed and managed force in the known world at
that time. Punishments were expulsion with a fine, death or slavery. They didn't need to waste money on
prisons. The cause of the unrest in Jerusalem is not clear. It sounds like a general thumbing of the nose by loud
mouth mobs, in a subject society with delusions of grandeur. Their demand was to prevent non-Jews from
using the Temple, which was an insult to Rome about the traditions that had existed up to then, especially in
the matters of Jews offering sacrifices on behalf of Rome. Their King Agrippa II, great grandson of Herod, had
pleaded with the mob to cease their activities, because there was absolutely no way to avoid punishment by
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Rome. The king and his family sided with the Romans and fought with them, supplying two thousand archers
and cavalry during the war period. The mob had earlier surrounded the local Roman peace keeping troop
numbering about six hundred and who were in quarters in old Herod's palace. The troops offered to surrender
their arms to the mob in order not to escalate the situation and to take their departure. The mob agreed, but
as soon as the Romans disarmed in the open, the mob massacred them. Now, in the huge empire, this sort of
upset was fairly common place to the emperor - if he ever heard of it. The action was noted to be investigated
in due course. Cestius Gallus arrived with his troops to investigate, but he was ambushed on the way with
severe losses. He was in no mood to parley with the moderates in Jerusalem. After spilling the blood of anyone
in his path he stood before the gate of the Temple, when inexplicably, with an easy victory at hand, he turned
back. Not content with the Roman show of power, the mob pursued the Romans and inflicted very heavy
losses on over five thousand men and most of the siege equipment. By now they realised there was no turning
back from their defiance and prepared Jerusalem for defence. The Romans took their time about their orderly
preparations of putting such a large city under siege. First, under General Vespasian, they conquered all of
Judaea from Galilee down past Jerusalem to Idumaea. That took two years. The Jews were left to squabble
among themselves, dividing into two violent factions. Vespasian halted his leadership to return to Rome and
claim the now vacant throne after Nero. Emperor Vespasian's son Titus led a huge army of sixty thousand to
siege Jerusalem without mercy. He built his own separate stone wall outside of Jerusalem's wall to ensure
nothing went in or out. Over the next three months total destruction, pillaging, massacre, including crucifixions
was complete. (Crucifixion was carried out by the Roman army on non-citizens, also probably on disgraced
former citizens. They did not invent the cruel disgusting terrifying practice. It had been a practice of Carthage
and other civilisations. It kept the slaves and subjugated people in fear of breaking Roman rules. Constantine
abolished it in 313AD. In AD70, the Temple and massive city walls were erased so as to not reveal that a wall
had ever existed for the view of future visitors. A large wall and tower were left standing as a souvenir for the
Romans to brag about. The Western Stone in the Western Wall weighs 517 tonnes. Rebel Jews were enslaved,
slaughtered in local arenas, perhaps leading to future confusion with Christians, amazingly leaving
descendants to rise up again in AD132...
AD68-69 Year of the four emperors saw Civil war. Galba Emperor for 7 months another madman, was
executed by his guards. Otho committed suicide. Vitellius was murdered by Vespasian's troops. Vespasian won
the royal job.
AD69-79 Emperor Vespasian had been in the invasion of Britain in AD43 under Emperor Claudius. He built the
Colosseum in Rome, completed in AD80. It seated fifty thousand. He had started the invasion of Judea on
Nero's orders in 66AD.
AD75 Josephus, a former Jewish soldier,(mentioned at AD37) captured by the Romans, started to write
histories about the early first century AD, under the protection of Vespasian and his son Titus. His writings,
which included the earlier times of the New Testament era and Jesus of Nazareth, have undergone intensive
scrutiny and criticism up to the present. Broadly, the era is accurately recorded, with embellishments about
Josephus's own position in events understood. Those writings did lead a modern archaeologist from Hebrew
University, Ehud Netzer, to find the location of Herod's Tomb. However Josephus did associate with Herod's
great grandson, Agrippa II. Josephus mentioned "miracles", without any amazing details of a three hour sun
calamity that one would expect from such an historian, who described other lesser events in such great detail.
He wrote of the mixed non-Jewish marriages of Herod's descendants in detail.
AD79-81 Emperor Titus had an earlier controversial dalliance with a Jewish Queen Berenice, sister of Herod
Agrippa II. So there were ongoing Jewish social connections. His Arch of Titus, commemorating and detailing
his conquest of Judaea can still be seen in Rome. He presided over relief for victims of Vesuvius and a large fire
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in Rome in AD80. He was recorded as having been a good emperor. He died after two years and was
succeeded by his brother Domitian.
AD79 Pompeii and Herculaneum were destroyed in SW Italy near Naples, by the Mt. Vesuvius eruption,
Archaeologists have uncovered most enlightening domestic and city life, completely buried for 1800 years.
AD79 Pliny the Elder died in the Vesuvius eruption. He was aged 56. He wrote an encyclopaedic work,
Naturalis Historia, a model for future writers. It did not mention a solar event, c AD30. His career had covered
lawyer, natural philosopher, military commander and provincial governor. He was uncle to Pliny the Younger,
another famous author born in AD61.
AD81-96 Emperor Domitian paid his soldiers about $2,500 per year in today's money, but also fed, clothed and
housed them in eight man leather tents. Tents were also made of circilium an ancient cloth made from
purpose grown goat hair. It made rough coarse cloth, the origin of the "hair shirt". He built a new palace on
the Palantine Hill, connected to Circus Maximus, so he could view the races more easily. He was no saint, and
was assassinated by his Praetorian guard; made up from born Romans, it was subject to corruption, but
survived till 360AD.
AD93 Agrippa II, ex king, and last of the line of Herod the Great, died in Rome. He had limited powers under
the Romans as a praetor, seeming to have served mainly within Rome. He was an associate of Josephus,
contributing to the Antiquities of the Jews, written in AD93. Did he pass on old family rumours to Josephus
about his great grandpa and great uncle?
AD96-98 Emperor Nerva had been an able administrator under previous emperors. He was the first elected
emperor, due to the murder of his predecessor. However, he could not withstand the conspiracies of the army
and was forced to appoint an adopted heir, Trajan, a young and popular general, who succeeded him on his
natural death at age 67. He was one of the five good emperors. He modified Vespasian's world-wide Fiscus
Judaicus law clarifying that Jews would pay their special tax of two drachmas per head, and Christians would
not. The tax may have continued till 4th century AD. (A similar tax arose again in mediaeval times, the
Opferpfennig.)
AD98-117 Emperor Trajan, the first one born outside Italy, pushed the Roman empire to the Danube in Dacia
(near Romania), then on to Armenia (bordering Turkey on the North) and Mesopotamia - in an attempt to
control the eastern borders against the Parthian empire. He carried out good reforms and died in Selinus
whilst returning to Rome. He had added another 5,000 seats to Circus Maximus. Edward Gibbon, great 18th
century historian, proclaimed Trajan as second of the five good emperors. Trajan's column is the centre piece
of the old Roman forum. It depicts the capture of Dacia.
AD100 Rome, the city was at its peak of culture, art and architecture. Visitors marvelled at the water supply,
the baths, the enormous sewers and the high-rise apartments. Yes, Rome already had its real estate problems.
The empire's towns and cities were of high standards for their day. Most famous common structures were
Hippodromes or circuses, mainly for very frequent horse racing. The main event was four-horse Quadriga
chariot racing. Hippodromes and circuses were elongated oval shaped circuits, with tiered seating for
thousands. Huge crowds would attend and eventually split into groups of supporters for different chariot
teams, predominantly the Blues and Greens. At times these groups became politically active in putting forward
members’ names at senate elections or other posts. Colosseums were more circular and higher for gladiatorial
contests, mock battles, animal baiting and cultural displays. Theatres were of a semi-circle shape with clever
acoustics, and often built in terrain that could be assisted with prevailing breezes or ocean breezes. Most of
these activities were copied from ancient Greek lifestyles, and the manner of stone construction was similar.
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Until about AD400, Romans continued the main ancient Greek games, held in honour of the gods. After that
time, the new Christian emperors declared anything Pagan as unlawful.
AD100 Food production was :
Mainly cereals including wheat and barley, but excluding corn or maize, (despite corn confusing historians on
occasions);
Meat, poultry and fish, but excluding turkey;
Vegetable and salad including peas, beans, lentils, chick peas, bitter vetch legume, mushrooms, cabbage,
turnips, celery, mustards, radishes, onions, garlic, chives, leeks, olives, but excluding carrot, potato, tomato,
spinach, cauliflower, beetroot, cocoa ( no chocolate) sugar, pepper, squash, sunflower, strawberry;
Fruits were eaten as figs, dates, grapes, pomegranate, apples, apricots, almonds, walnuts, blackberries,
raspberries, cherries, peaches, pears, melons, lemons, but excluding oranges, bananas, cashews, peanuts,
limes, loquats, mangos, pineapples.
Beer and wine were widely available, with milk and honey less so. Tea and coffee were not, nor was tobacco
for an after-dinner cigar.
AD113 Trajan's column was erected in Rome. The twenty piece, carved column is over thirty four meters high
and the top capital stone weighs fifty three tonnes, lifted there by Roman cranes. It has an internal stair well.
Christians later saw fit to mount a bronze of St. Peter on top in AD1587. Today it dominates the forum area.
The ancient world had a long history of transporting incredibly huge stones of up to one thousand tonnes.
Egyptians used ships and barges, or carted overland. Other nations could perform similar incredible tasks. The
Romans took shortcuts and simply stole ancient huge monuments from all over the empire.
AD116 Tacitus wrote his Histories and the Annals. He was a contemporary of the Pliny family. Annals includes
events of Jesus' and later Nero's times, 52 years earlier, especially about persecutions. Pliny the Younger wrote
a letter in about AD112, about his part in persecuting Christians. He also says that if they were Roman citizens
they were sent to Rome, not physically abused nor executed by him. Pliny was carrying out his inquisition as a
governor of Pontus on Turkey's Black Sea coast. Who were the Christian non-citizens that came to such notice?
AD117-138. Emperor Hadrian pulled back some of the Mesopotamian borders to Syria. Hadrian built himself a
villa at Tivoli, 18 miles from Rome housing his entourage. It became his and following emperors' seats of
government. It covered 18 square kilometres of every imaginable building and garden. Buildings alone covered
250 acres and were connected by underground tunnels to hide servants and underlings from view. The ruins
are world heritage listed, but contents now reside in many world museums. Some are at Villa d'Este nearby,
and now also a tourist attraction for its amazing Roman water features. Gibbon ranked him third of the good
five. He began a tradition of bearded emperors. He mitigated, but did not abolish slavery, perhaps only rules
for better treatment. He had the legal code humanised and forbade torture! His great love was the boy
Antinous, apparently not an unusual choice for an emperor. The boy accidentally drowned in 130AD and
Hadrian founded a Greek city, Antonopoulos in his memory, but perhaps also to bring the Greek speaking east
closer to Latin speaking Rome.
AD118-128 Hadrian completed the Pantheon in Rome, in honour of all the gods. It is circular in shape of 143
feet diameter, it was made of concrete (made by long forgotten means), and it had a 27 feet diameter hole
(oculus) in its roof to let in light. Any rain fell away on the sloping dished floor. As the sun moved with the day
and seasons, light fell on the different gods placed around the internal circumference. Still a most visited
wonder today; it is now a Christian church.
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AD120 Plutarch died aged 74. He was a prolific historian writing with an emphasis on the personalities of great
people, each in a comparison with another similar person. Extant writings include Lives, perhaps his best
known work. He was widely read in his own time and ours. He was also a minor Greek official, living near
Delphi and serving as a priest of the Delphic temple. He assisted with the Oracle's auguries, so even this
learned man apparently believed in omens.
AD125-148 Claudius Ptolemy astronomer, mathematician, and geographer was a learned Greco-Roman who
lived in Egypt. He wrote the Handy Tables, later used by early astronomers, to position the planets. He wrote
and drew the known world maps of the day in the Geographia which were the basis of later map-making after
the 1500s. He wrote Harmonics on music theory and mathematics of music. He disagreed with earlier work by
Pythagoras.
AD129-200 Galen, Greek philosopher, writer and physician, Father of anatomy research, from his surgery
experience in administering to gladiators and even emperors. His writings and drawings were used worldwide
for centuries till the 16th century, when Renaissance science improved his teachings.
AD132 The Second Jewish Revolt began under Simon bar Kokhba. It only seems a short fifty odd years since
the destruction of Jerusalem, but Simon, claiming to be a Messiah, tied up a huge Roman army of at least six
legions. The result was, under Emperor Hadrian, Jews including Christian Jews were banned from old
Jerusalem for many centuries. One day per year was peculiarly exempted - Tisha B'Av. Judaea was renamed
Syria Palaestina. Hence "Palestine". He re-named Jerusalem, Aelia Capitolina, a self promoting name for
Hadrian's lineage, in an attempt to de-Judaise all the old Jewish and Judean lands. Jerusalem had never been a
commercially important city, so its passing was only of great significance to the Jews. Hadrian built a Roman
garrison on the site and gradually built other civic buildings and a temple to Venus, which later formed part of
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. He built a Temple of Jupiter on the old site of the Jerusalem temple. It is
most likely that Christian Romans caused the city's name to be restored after Rome tolerated the religion after
313AD. It had always had many names in many languages. Parts of the Roman structures can be seen today.
AD133 Hadrian completed Hadrian's Wall 120km across Britain. Non fighting soldiers did the work under a
high standard of Roman engineering. The wall may have been overkill, but for six years it stopped legionaries
from becoming idle.
AD138-161 Emperor Antoninus Pius was a most able administrator who added another period of twenty two
years of peace in the steps of Hadrian. He added to Hadrian's softening of the laws and demonstrated
protection to Christians. The fourth good emperor.
AD161-180 Emperor Marcus Aurelius started his rule as co-emperor with Lucius Verus, on Marcus's deference
to the favouritism displayed towards Lucius by Hadrian. The arrangement lasted until the latter's death in
AD169, after eight years. Marcus was more militarily active than his predecessor, but between actions from
AD170 to 180, he wrote Meditations in Greek, an example of how he approached the Platonic ideal of a
philosopher-king, and how he symbolised some of the best of Roman civilisation. The last manuscript copy is in
the Vatican library. He was seen as a great emperor, among the good five who ruled over a period of eighty
four years. Marcus added to previous work in manumission of slavery. He accepted free speech - for those
times. He became involved with the guardianship of orphans and minors.
AD165 Justin the Martyr, aged about 62, was executed, presumably by complaint of another philosopher,
after living and writing prolifically in (lenient) Rome for 4 years. Mentioned by Tatian (AD120-180), Justin was
an early Christian debater.
AD165-167 Plague swept through the empire claiming five million, including co-emperor Lucius Verus.
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AD177-192 Emperor Commodus, son of Marcus Aurelius, had shared the rule with his father for three years,
but was only aged 19 when sole emperor. He was remembered as a patient of Galen in his youth. Apart from
that he can best be described as insane, but he stayed in power through incredible behaviour until murdered
by his servants after twelve years. He does not seem to have persecuted any particular group, but would
murder wounded or handicapped humans and animals in the arena in public view.
AD193-211 started with five consecutive emperors in that year with the fifth, Septimus Severus lasting 18
years. After at least one hundred years, persecution or oppression of Christians and Jews spread over the
empire again, under the condition that it needed an accuser to instigate the threats of persecution against
non-repentant religious law breakers. No doubt, numbers of people of these faiths had swelled enormously
over this relatively peaceful century.
AD212-286 saw many short lived emperors, too numerous to list, including Valerian and Philip the Arab, both
to be ignominiously defeated by the Sassanians around 250AD.
AD200 saw completion of the Roman road system throughout the empire. The Roman civil service and army
seemed to roll on relentlessly, despite the short comings of emperors and hierarchy. Unfortunately, I have
over emphasised the ruling classes in recording the history of humanity. Never the less, their exploits still
fascinate us, because they have the trivialities of their era attached to them.
AD226 Fall of the Parthian Empire in Mesopotamia after five hundred and seventy years of interspersed
warring with Rome's legions. They did not leave their history, but Romans and Greeks wrote of them. The new
rulers were the Sassanians in Mesopotamia and beyond, holding the territory until Muslim domination in
AD651, after four hundred and thirty years of Zoroastrianism.
AD226 was the beginning of a new Persian Empire in Western Asia, called the Sassanid Empire. It covered
today's Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, SW central Asia, part of inland Turkey,
coastal parts of the Arabian Peninsula, parts of SW Pakistan and parts of India. It frequently clashed with the
Roman Empire, indeed capturing two Roman Emperors, Valerian and Philip the Arab. King Shapur offered
refuge to Roman Christian emigrants around AD260. By AD380, this tolerance was severely reversed, partly in
defiance of Rome's official acceptance of Christianity and also the resurfacing of official Zoroastrianism in the
new Persian Empire. However tolerance was still shown to Jews.
AD284 Diocletian became a great emperor till he abdicated in AD305 after twenty one years. In AD286
Diocletian divided the Empire into Eastern and Western. Rule was now by two co- emperors for twenty years,
who had two sub-junior Caesars under them, The Tetrarchy. Co-emperor Diocletian, in Nicomedia (Izmit,
Turkey) appointed Maximian (in Milan, Italy) as his co-emperor, and each, eventually in 293, had one junior
Caesar. One was Constantius, the father of the future Constantine the Great, in Trier Germany. The other
Junior Caesar was Galerius in Belgrade, Serbia.
AD303 Resurgence of Christian persecution by Diocletian, with his destruction of the new church buildings and
confiscation of their treasures in Nicomedia, Turkey, on advice of the Oracle at Delphi! Persecutions continued
by Galerius till AD311. Details are vague. Eusebius wrote of those matters, but as a supporter of Arianism, his
works have not survived. Constantine was a witness to this period. Persecution was not always as we imagine.
Sometimes it was the confiscation of property and loss of employment, or downgrading of office. (Like the
later persecution of Jews by Christians). Roman citizens had certain rights against personal attack.
AD305 Diocletian became sick and retired after his twenty year term. He promoted Constantius and Galerius
as new Co-Emperors. Constantius took his son Constantine under his protective wing and away from the
threat of Galerius.
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AD306-337 Young Constantine1st (The Great) began his quest. In AD272 he was illegitimately born to Helena,
later to become so famous. Born in the ancient, well fought over Balkans, like Diocletian and later Justinian,
Constantine avoided visiting Rome or Italy. He travelled with his father in the Roman army to Britain, fighting
wars in a Roman era of changes of co-emperors and junior Caesars. He asserted his rights to his father's
former title of a Caesar. His father died in 306 BC. Finally, Constantine's own troops supported his claim to
the title of Co-Emperor over his former status as a Caesar, so he ruled in the west, while Galerius continued in
the east. However, Maxentius, (son of the former first Co-Emperor Maximian) appointed himself as a third CoEmperor in dissent of Constantine. By AD310, the chaos at the top was becoming too disruptive. Even old
Maximian tried to usurp Constantine in battle, but ended up hanging himself at Constantine's suggestion in
AD310. By AD312, after many skirmishes in a civil war, Constantine defeated Maxentius, the self proclaimed
third Co-Emperor, at Rome's Milvian Bridge. Tradition has it that Constantine had a vision of a type of cross in
the sky on the night before the battle, causing his victory and path to become Co-Emperor of the empire with
Licinius in AD312.
AD313 Co-Emperors Constantine and Licinius declared freedom to teach Christianity and other religions in the
empire, with the Edict of Milan in 313. (Perhaps the former persecutor, Galerius had a hand in this, with his
Edict of Toleration in April AD311, as an end to the persecutions in Nicomedia and resumption of former
religious toleration!). Galerius died in AD311. However, Aelia Capitolina (old Jerusalem) was still out of bounds
for Jews, who were still taxed.
AD314 Licinius reneged on the religious freedom agreement, which led to more disputes and civil war, until
Constantine emerged victorious in AD325 as sole Emperor of the empire. Constantine banned Gladiatorial
contests.
AD325 Now as sole Emperor, and Pontifex Maximus, he began to build Constantinople over the next six years
at the mouth of the Bosphorus, the narrow channel that includes the Dardanelles, guarding entry to and from
the Black Sea. It became the new capital of the Roman Empire for another one thousand years, replacing
Rome, until defeated by the Turkish Ottoman Empire in AD1453. His mother, Helena, travelled to Palestine in
c327AD, aged 80, identifying holy places and finding the True Cross and nails, which were importantly placed
in Constantine's new church. Constantine and his Mum could rightfully claim to have founded the first free,
organised, iconic, Christian religion! There are a lot of gaps in this story of the open road to Christianity. Save
to say, they were both made saints. Perhaps then we got the Popes.
AD337. Constantine the Great died, aged 65. He was succeeded by his three sons, grandsons and their cousin,
who fought for supremacy for over twenty seven years. His arch stands in Rome near the Colosseum. It has no
signs of Christianity. It has been strongly rumoured that Constantine ordered the execution of his wife,
Empress Fausta and his son, Crispus son of a previous wife Minervina, in AD326. He died following a deathbed
baptism, interrupting plans to lead a first military crusade to Persia.
AD361-363 Emperor Julian attempted to revive the old Roman Paganism without much success. He died
fighting the Persians in their territory.
AD364-379 The Valetinian dynasty, principally, Valens ruled from AD364-378.
AD379-395 Emperor Theodosius I , his son and grandson banished all forms of Paganism. Art and statues were
defaced. Greek games and Pagan temples were destroyed. Have you ever wondered who defaced all the
beautiful Greek sculptures ? Perhaps no one persecuted pagans, for there don't seem to be many records,
until we hear of heresy.
AD400 Languages in the Western Empire were gradually changing to Latin, with local dialects in Italy, Iberia,
Dacia and Gaul. They developed into the Romance languages of Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian and
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French. However, in the Eastern Empire, Greek had overtaken the local languages, but Demotic (late ancient
Egyptian) and Aramaic were also spoken. The empire plodded along without using the labour saving
innovations commonly at its disposal. It was complacent in its use of cheap labour and slaves. Why change? It
is also likely that opposing religions confused the rulers.
AD405 St Jerome completed the Vulgate Latin translation of the old Hebrew Torah/Pentateuch. The oral
stories of the Torah/Old Testament were first written in Ancient Hebrew, Old Koine Greek with later parts in
Aramaic as the Septuagint. It became the source of Old Latin, Coptic, Ethiopic, Armenian, Georgian, Slavonic,
and some Arabic translations of the Bible. During 6th to 10th centuries old Aramaic Jewish Targums (of cAD70)
were re-translated into the authoritative Masoretic text, the two Talmud periods. The first English Bible
version was by John Wycliffe in AD1382, and later an official King James version in AD1611. Martin Luther
translated into German in AD1522-1534. Ancient Jewish sources were and still are widely debated.
AD410 Rome city was sacked by Alaric the Visigoth. Rome needed to withdraw its far flung armies, including
all legions in Britain. Rome had become a lesser city than Constantinople, the new capital, in the land later to
be called Byzantium.
AD452 Attila the Hun raided Italy, resulting in refugees founding Venice. The Venetians prospered in many
enterprises.
AD453 Attila the Hun, the most able and fearsome warrior king of the Huns pillaged Rome's allies at will.
Constantinople paid him 2,300 pounds of gold per year to limit his onslaughts. He died of nose bleed. His
armies broke up into factions which still pillaged Rome's territories. Originally from central Asia, they settled
and became absorbed in today's Hungary.
AD476 Decline of the Western Roman Empire, became worse when Romulus was deposed by German
Odocer, who returned all the imperial regalia to Eastern Roman Emperor, Zeno, in return for becoming Dux of
Italy. The Roman Emperors, based only in Constantinople well before Rome's demise, became the Popes'
secular allies until they fell out in the 8th century. Pope Stephen II was forced to appeal to the Franks for help,
beginning the close association of the West in Vatican affairs. Popes were in and out of control of affairs of the
state, until gradually they had to withdraw to only religious matters.
AD450c Records of Roman Byzantine music writing and names of composers have been recovered from this
period.
AD500- to unknown. Procopius was the important historian of the Byzantium (Roman) accomplishments of
Emperor Justinian's empire, and the successful wars led by the great General Belasarius to re-instate the
Empire. Justinian's prime minister was John the Cappodocian, a most talented man of law and important in
history.
AD527-565 The rule of Emperor Justinian 1 (AD483-565 lived 82 years). This was a most important period for
its contribution to development of Europe, art, culture, codifying laws with the basis of today's law making
(Codex), architecture (Hagia Sophia church in Constantinople is still one of the largest churches in the world, but
predates them all by about 1000 years. Justinian built it in six years. Florence's Duomo took over 130 years) The empire
was still brutal in putting down insurrections. In Justinian's early reign in Constantinople, 1,000 of Justinian's soldiers
slaughtered 30,000 citizens in hours, during riots in AD532 over politics. It was the Christian era. Justinian married a
notorious courtesan, who became his loyal and devoted partner in advancing the Roman Empire back to its former glory,
if only for a brief time.
AD541-574 Bubonic plague, the Plague of Justinian, killed millions in 3 waves travelling across the known world,
principally Roman. It returned repeatedly till about AD700, having killed about 100 million over 150 years. It returned
again in the 14th century to kill 25 million in Europe alone. Mutated bacteria in fleas, riding on rats, were the cause.
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AD549. The last chariot race in Circus Maximus, then no longer part of the empire. It had remained in vogue, as it was
seen as less sinful than other ancient banned mass activities. Rome had another three circuses in the city - believe it or
not!
AD550 Eastern Romans stole silkworm eggs from China. Work was confined to the Emperor's palace at a very high profit
rate. Eventually silk manufacture spread to every European country, with the Venetians who were the dominant cloth
merchants, paying Italian growers to buy land to produce silk.
AD613 Muhammad started to preach publicly in Arabia. Arabs were well exposed to Judean and Christian religions and
any other Pagan religion over the millennia. They had no organised religion to give up - so to speak. Islam took this into
account when demanding that the non-religious immediately accept Islam. Respect was shown to Jews and Christians.
The scribes of Islam used the Arabic language of the ancient Bedouin nomads.
AD614 Persia's King Khosrau II captured Jerusalem with other territories from the Romans. Hadrian had changed its name
to Aelia Capitolina in AD135, after he banned Jews from ever returning to the city. Constantine maintained that banning
of Jews also. Hadrian had attempted to de-Judaize the troublesome country. The banning possibly included any Jewish
Christians, but later historians claimed that between the Persians and the returning Jews of Palestine that they brought
with them, they slaughtered thousands of Christians in the city and surrounds. They could have well been non-Jewish
Christians. Later the Persians captured Alexandria in AD619, and the rest of Egypt by AD621. They were not yet Muslim.
They were Zoroastrians.
AD622 The Eastern Roman Empire was under severe attack on several fronts by King Khosrau II of Persia and could have
easily collapsed, but Persia was out of gold, and Emperor Heraclius had just sufficient resources left to mount counter
attacks. Over the next seven years he recaptured Jerusalem in AD629, and the other lost cities, devastated the Persian
Empire, including their Zoroastrian temple at Ganzak, while his legions raged along the Tigris as far as NW Iran. It was the
beginning of the end of the great Persian Empire, which could not hold back the invading, newly Muslim, Arab invaders
from AD632 to AD651.
AD632 Life of Muhammad (570-632) ended after 62 years. Muslim tradition says that Muhammad visited heaven from
the site of Jerusalem's Temple Mount, one night with Gabriel, having flown from Mecca, on a winged horse to speak to
old prophets and Jesus. At the time the city had again been under Persian control, before 629AD. The reality of the event,
Isra and Mi'raj, are debated. Temple Mount, site of the former Jewish Temple, has therefore become sacred to Muslims.
AD633 The revelations of Muhammad, as dictated to him by the angel Gabriel of Old Testament stories, and who had also
appeared to Mary, began to be finally written down. Muhammad left 6 children, including Fatimah, a daughter. He was
buried in Medina. He had fought several battles to overcome his opponents and control all of Arabia by AD630.
AD638 Jerusalem was captured from the Romans by the Muslim Caliphate rulers. They permitted Jews to again enter the
city, but whether Jews had remained an issue with the Romans during their nine years, is not known. Obviously, at the
time of Heraclius' recapture of Jerusalem from the Persians in 629AD, the city would have had many Jewish emigrants
from the fifteen years of Persian leniency. Stories seem to conflict.
AD691 Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem was the first major Muslim architectural work, on the site of Solomon's temple.
AD701-800 was a century of wars, mainly the consolidation of the Muslim Empire with its Golden Age lasting till AD1258,
when its capital Baghdad, built in the 8th century, was destroyed by the Mongols.
AD793 Viking attacks on Britain began, using the famous long boats.
AD800 was the birth of the Holy Roman Empire with the coronation of Charlemagne by Pope Leo III, who declared that
no man could be crowned emperor without anointment by a pope. Core countries were Germany, Austria, Bohemia
(Hungary ), Moravia, Switzerland and Netherlands. After AD1562, during the reigns of the Hapsburgs, emperors were no
longer crowned by the pope (after 762 years). In AD 800, the Roman Empire in the East was still ruled from
Constantinople. Modern historians call it the Byzantine Empire, but the people certainly called themselves Romans. It
included parts of Southern Italy, Anatolia (Turkey) and the Balkans (SE Europe and Greece). Other territories had been
lost to the Muslims.
AD800 Papyrus, parchment and vellum were being replaced by paper.
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AD859 Muslims established the world's first university in Fez, Morocco. They had been translating Greek and Roman
writings for over one hundred years and pursued science and mathematics to a high degree, superior to Christianity's.
AD865. The Danes invaded Britain, and the Vikings invaded Ireland and Scotland. They settled Dublin in AD841.
AD868 First known printed book was made in China using woodblock printing.
AD900c Reference was made to a bowed Byzantine Lyre, i.e. a three stringed lyre designed to be played with a horse
hair bow. Ancient strings were made of gut. Often, types of later strings were not described, but perhaps copper, iron or
steel wire had become possible. The lyre had a hollow wooden body and a finger board. Many were also played with a
plectrum. Lyres were part of the ancient world in many cultures. Perhaps harps and lyres followed on from hunters'
bows, which may have been plucked by the hunters for amusement. They date back to 4000BC.
AD1099 First Crusade regained Jerusalem from the Muslims, after four hundred and sixty years, on a request of Pope
Urban II. It was lost again after 88 years to Saladin. Seven crusades later brought no success - only murder and massacre.
AD1117 Oxford University was founded.
AD1139 Clerical marriages were declared invalid by the Second Lateran Council. Celibacy was demanded for priests and
nuns.
AD1171 English King Henry II landed in Ireland and claimed it - for 750 years.
AD 1185 Windmills become an alternative for water mills for grinding cereals like wheat. The resulting flour would be
classed as course ground, simply due to the rough nature of the huge stone grinding wheels. We argue today whether the
finely ground flour from modern smooth steel grinding is more, or less, beneficial than the coarser flour.
AD1187 Saladin recaptured Jerusalem and the True Cross souvenir, taken once before by Persian King Khosrau II in
AD614, and recaptured soon after by Emperor Heraclius in AD628. What a fantastic set of myths surrounded it. Icon of
icons then lost forever! Saladin was a mighty warrior and ruler of the Ayyubid Dynasty which survived him by 57 years.
AD1200 Paper making by water power began in Europe. China made paper around AD1 - give or take two centuries. For
many uses, paper could replace silk, enabling huge quantities of silk to be exported via India and beyond. Paper was made
by crushing old rag and plant pulp in water, then forming the sheet over a wire mesh draining screen.
AD1203 Christian Constantinople was captured by the Fourth Crusade Christians, mainly adventurers from Venice, who
plundered it (including my four horses), so it fell under western Latin Christian rule for sixty years, until handed back to
Roman Byzantine rule again till its defeat by the Turkish Ottomans in AD1453. Renamed Istanbul in AD1930 by Ataturk.
AD1206 Genghis Khan established the Mongol Empire. His army specialised in mounted archers, who could inflict great
damage on traditional armies. By AD1215 his army of one hundred and thirty thousand horsemen, each with two spare
horses, captured more territory in twenty years than the Romans did in centuries. They were brutal in conquering, but
protective in governing, although not such good governors as the Romans. For several centuries, they ruled from the east
coast of China to the Danube, and southern Russia. They put the Silk Road under one command for the first time. It was
guaranteed as safe passage for all. They brought the great Muslim empire to its knees until the Ottoman Empire rose
from the ashes in AD1300 till AD1923. In India, as the Mogul rulers, they built magnificent structures like the Taj Mahal.
AD1215 English King John signed the first version of the Magna Carta, limiting his power over the nobles and their people.
It became the foundation of English law, even influencing the Constitution of the USA. In the late 18th century, this
English type of government held England together in the face of the French revolution, where the French kings had
continued to rule unopposed over their nobles and peasantry. The revolution swept the reins of power away from
Europe's kings and gave power to the people - so to speak. The people may not have been ready for the cost of that
power. England withstood any pressure for a revolution in AD1800.
AD1215 Fourth Lateran Council of the Catholic Church declared that Jews and Muslims should wear identification marks
to distinguish them from Christians.
AD1299. The Muslim Empire had fragmented and Osman I began his Ottoman empire with mixed success. The final result
was in the success of 21 year old Mehmet the Conqueror taking Constantinople in 1453.
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AD1347-1351. Plague returned as the Black Death in a short furious burst. It spread over the known world from China to
Africa and Europe. Those countries suffered an estimated 100 million deaths in that short term. It had enormous
consequences for the way the world ran from then on, principally due to the chaos from loss of man power.
AD1400 Gunpowder; Black powder was in use in most countries, having originated from the Mongols and perhaps
Chinese medicines.
AD1436 saw the completion of the Duomo in Florence, Italy, after 130 years. Brunelleschi engineered the great dome.
About this time, the Renaissance had begun, bringing changes in the arts by many like Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci
and Raphael. Renaissance gives a name to the rebirth of the classical world of the Greeks and the opening of closed
minds after centuries of the European dark ages. The dam walls of ignorance slowly cracked and the trickle of
enlightenment from the East became an unstoppable flood. Florence is generally accepted as the centre of the new
philosophies, new art, music, science and architecture.
AD1450c Music Notation, the way we write music, began its modern format in France, marked by the five line staff.
Surprisingly, written music notation had taken many forms in different periods and in different cultures going back to the
ancients. The Hebrew bible, 1 Samuel 10, refers to large choirs and orchestras. David played a harp as a minstrel for King
Saul.
AD1453 Constantinople fell to the cannons of Sultan Mehmet and the Islamic Ottoman Empire. Warfare and fortresses
changed forever. The lights may have gone out on the Roman Empire, but we still live under its laws and engineers today.
AD1455 Gutenberg printed the first book using moveable type - The "Forty-Two-Line" bible in Latin. This single invention,
based on Alchemy as metallurgy, revolutionised human ability to read and write books. It was one of the most important
events in human history.
AD1492. Columbus' first voyage to the Americas. The Aztecs were building Machu Pichu; the Mayans inhabited Mexico.
Their ancient ancestors had crossed the Bering land bridge from Asia about 17,000 years earlier.
AD1492 Columbus dallied on the Canary Islands on his way. The royal lady gave him sugar cane cuttings, which were to
be the first in the Americas. Sugar cane was an ancient sweet being chewed in its native land of India. Around AD500,
Indians learned how to turn the juice into crystals, so it became easy to transport and trade with China, when its use
spread through Asia to the Middle East. In the 12th century, Crusaders brought sugar home from the crusades. The ever
enterprising Venetians set up plantations in Tyre in Palestine and its use began to spread in Europe. Eventually India fell
under British control, along with their industries like sugar production. Sugar, as sucrose largely replaced honey as a
sweetener. Fermenting sugars in the mouth are almost the only destroyers of tooth enamel. Infected teeth and gums
were a common cause of death. (What a way to go.)
AD1500 Coffee became a brewed beverage in the Middle East.
AD1524 Martin Luther used the printing presses in Wittenberg to churn out pamphlets and copies of his sermons in
defiance of the Roman Catholic Church. By 1534 he had translated and printed the Bible into German. The period became
the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Luther exploded the Roman Catholic Church’s selling of indulgences for
guaranteed entry into Heaven.
AD1534. The Church of England separated from the Roman Catholic Church at the instigation of King Henry VIII, during
his need for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine. She was the aunt of Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor who
pressured the Pope to deny the wish. Henry made himself Supreme Head of the Church of England and set the stage for
the church to trend away from the old Catholicism over many bloody years.
AD1575c Potatoes and Tomatoes were introduced into Europe from the Americas. Bananas from SE Asia, India , Africa
and the Middle East, began to appear in Europe.
AD1590 Sir Walter Raleigh was instrumental in introducing tobacco into England from the Americas.
AD1590 Early microscopes were invented in the Netherlands (Holland). Their spectacle makers were experts in the field
of lens grinding. Galileo would improve upon them a few years later.
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AD1600 Pope Clement VIII declared coffee a Christian beverage. With origins in Ethiopia, it spread through the Middle
East as a protected crop from about AD1500. Cultivation began in the Caribbean and Americas in AD1750.
AD1600 Music entered a new secular period, but religious music was still being composed. Europe had a wealthy Roman
Catholic controlled social life, in that it could afford to patronise the world of art and music. The harpsichord arrived,
along with J.S.Bach, Handel and Vivaldi.
AD1609 Galileo improved and developed the Dutch lenses and telescope. He began to search the solar system, being the
first to see sun spots, and moons of Jupiter and recorded their movements in great detail.
AD1642 Galileo Galilei died aged 77. He ended his life under house arrest as being "vehemently suspect of heresy", after
publishing his Dialogue concerning two chief world systems in 1632. However his work was published in countries outside
the sphere of the Roman Catholic Inquisition. Those countries came to spread the news of the Earth not being the centre
of the universe. The full work was banned by the church for 200 years. Recently, a Pope issued an apology. Galileo was a
great teacher of mathematics and physics. He lacked a clock to count seconds, so helped invent the pendulum clock.
AD1660 Laudanum, an opium and alcohol brew began to give the sick relief from coughing, diarrhoea and pain. Its use
was expanded into many areas of unknown disease, for centuries, and is still available today.
AD1698 Steam powered pumps were in use in a Cornish mine. They were fuelled with coal.
AD1725 Death of Peter the Great of Russia aged 43. He took Russia from a backward country, often attacked by Sweden,
to a great power in Europe. He copied the art, architecture and life styles of the French kings. He learned how to build a
navy and a port at St. Petersburg from the British. St. Petersburg has survived wars and revolution to amaze visitors when
they visit the Russian palaces built by Peter for his friends and family. Russian people today seem quite proud of them.
AD1727 Sir Isaac Newton died aged 84. One of the most influential minds in science. He might also have been a
questioning theologian. In 1687 he published his Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. He ties with Einstein as
the Greatest Physicist Ever.
AD1750c Germany introduced formal teacher training.
AD1750c European peasant life had not improved much over the last few thousand years. Most of the world was
permanently short of cereals and fuel. The world's forests had been decimated anywhere near human habitation, ever
since we had formed settlements. Already coal and coke were being consumed for domestic and early industrial uses.
Forests would continue to decline in rural and wild areas. Coal would increase in consumption along with the clearing of
more land to grow food. Today, we have no concept of how vast the consumption was for scarce cereals and wood
energy, nor the almost primitive means of collection. A few lucky countries could cut and carry almost inexhaustible
supplies of peat, but smoke had now become a new unrecognised health hazard. Soon the Industrial age would provide
gradually changing benefits, but within a coal and oil burning society that did not understand the possible major hazard of
living in a world of ever decreasing natural plant life.
AD1756 England and its American colonies began to smuggle opium from Bengal into China to balance their terms of
trade. The Opium wars erupted with China, which China lost, beginning their "100 years of humiliation".
AD1756 Mozart born and lived for thirty five short years, in the beginning of the Classical period with Haydn, Beethoven,
Schubert, transitioning to the Romantic. Then followed Bellini, Berlioz, Johann Strauss and later his family, Mendelssohn,
Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Verdi, and Wagner. Mid 1800s saw the Strauss family, Brahms, Bizet and Tchaikovsky and many
others contributing to that 19th century Romantic period.
AD1785 Modern studies and writings on Geology from William Smith, James Hutton, Sir Charles Lyell (1830), began to
question the age of the Earth. Lyell influenced the science of Charles Darwin.
AD1792-1846 Semaphore signalling posts using flags were used widely by the French and copied by Europe and USA.
Posts were about 30KM apart, generally on a local Telegraph Hill . The last system closed in Sweden in 1880. They were
useful to governments at two words per minute
AD1794 Nitrous oxide - laughing gas - was discovered by (Sir) Humphry Davy and produced by Joseph Priestley. Several
notable people including James Watt and Thomas Beddoes all wrote of its potential as a pain killer/anaesthetic. It took
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fifty years before anyone in medicine would use it. A dentist performed an extraction with great success in 1844, but it
was not as beneficial as hoped for, in major surgery.
AD1800c was the beginning of the Industrial Revolution using steam powered machinery, beginning in England. It started
with the mechanisation of the textile industry, the development of iron making improvements and the increased use of
refined coal. Infrastructure required canals, improved roads and railways. It revolutionised human activities both for
better and worse, as it spread through Europe and the Americas.
AD1800c Electricity became seriously studied leading to Tesla, Edison, Swan, Westinghouse, von Siemens, Bell, Faraday,
Maxwell, Lord Kelvin, and others bringing in the Second Industrial Revolution by the end of the 1800's.
AD1801 Sugar beet was in first production in Prussia (East Germany). Today it accounts for 30% of the world's sugar as
sucrose, competing with cane sugar.
AD1805 Admiral Lord Nelson led the British Navy to a great victory over the French and Spanish fleets during the
Napoleonic Wars at Cape Trafalgar, Spain. This action resulted in Britain becoming the dominant sea power in the world.
It gave them command of all sea routes and the ability to increase their colonies. They greatly profited from this one
battle, but lost their hero, Nelson. He is remembered by Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, London.
AD1806 The last Holy Roman Emperor abdicated and dissolved the Holy Empire during the Napoleonic wars. It had
fragmented and changed face over the centuries, never losing the power of its individual local kings, princes, counts,
dukes, abbots and opulence, as testified by the world’s modern tourists. The emperor was a figurehead name only. This
may be seen as the last flicker of the candle, lit in Rome two and a half thousand years earlier.
AD1810 Frenchman Nicolas Appert invented the food canning process of sealing processed foods in airtight containers.
He had responded to a public challenge by Napoleon for a prize of 12,000 francs for the first cheap and effective means of
preserving large quantities of food. Appert, a confectioner and brewer, had noticed that food, cooked inside jars, did not
deteriorate, unless the seal was broken. The world had no knowledge of bacteria at that time. Nor would it for another
fifty years, till Pasteur showed the way. Today, shelf lives range from one to five years, but a freeze-dried product can last
up to 30 years.
AD1810 Napoleon standardised metric weights and measures throughout his conquered Europe by making physical
examples available in every main community.
AD1815 Napoleon lost his last battle at Waterloo in Belgium. He was defeated by the Duke of Wellington.
AD1822 The Rosetta stone was finally deciphered by Champollion. Three ancient languages, all expressing Ptolemy V's
196BC decree about his donation to the temple priests. It was written in Ancient Greek (the Ptolemies), Egypt's Ancient
hieroglyphs, and the ruling Demotic script of the day's business writing. This was a major breakthrough in understanding
the lost history of the Egyptians, because it made all ancient Egyptian inscriptions understandable.
AD1825 The Oil industry began in Russia, dirty and polluting. The first oil tanker was in use in 1880 on the Caspian sea.
Uses were for kerosene lamps, artificial asphalt, machine oil and lubricants. Kerosene relaced whale oil and candles for
household lighting and heating. The next large producer became the USA until the Middle East production took over after
WW II.
AD1838 Samuel Morse sent Morse code over three kilometres of wire. By 1861 telegraph wires connected USA from east
to west. Attempts were made from 1857 to connect Europe and USA, but that was not successful until 1865. Britain
connected India in 1870, then Australia in 1872. The telegraph circled the world by crossing under the Pacific in 1902.
AD1846 Ether, chloroform and nitrous oxide were used in combination for anaesthesia through a breather device, in
some places, still up to the 1930s.
AD1851 Commercial refrigeration was used to make ice in Geelong, Australia, by James Harrison. His systems were used
in breweries and meat works by 1861. By 1870, Australia, Argentine and USA were experimenting with refrigerated
shipping, but first success came to New Zealand in the good ship Dunedin in 1882. Thus began the meat and dairy boom.
Prior to this time, the ancient cultures had a history of harvesting ice and snow to store in caves and dug-outs lined with
straw for insulation. Not much changed over the centuries and ice houses were common into the 20th century. The
domestic ice box using block ice delivered by an ice-man was a forerunner of the size and shape of the early 20th century
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domestic refrigerators. Mid 1800s saw ice harvesting become big business with better insulation. Experiments in
refrigeration began from 1756, including Benjamin Franklin who quipped that he could see the possibility of freezing a
man to death on a warm summer's day. Commercial refrigerant gases were not considered safe for domestic use, until in
1920, CFC type gases were found to be reliable. They stayed in use until 1970s when they were considered to be
contributing to damage of the earth's protective ozone layer. CFCs were banned world-wide in 1987, having been
replaced by safer gas. Refrigeration meant that food could be stored for longer times and began to do away with the need
of daily market shopping in small quantities. Bulk food could be kept in huge cold stores.
AD1862 Bryant and Mays began to manufacture matches, after many others had led the way since the 16th century.
AD1870 Electric lighting was starting to replace gas street lights. Electric generators were driven by early steam engines.
AD1876 First telephone patent granted to Alexander Graham Bell. "Mr Watson, come here, I want to see you."
AD1882 Charles Darwin died aged 73. He published On the Origin of Species in 1859, which changed science forever. His
theory of Natural Selection became the foundation of modern Evolution.
AD1883 Carl Marx died aged 64. A graduate of the universities of Bonn and Berlin, his work and writings about socialism
were The Communist Manifesto and Capital, written with Friedrich Engels. He died relatively unknown, but his writings
soon began to influence world thinkers, especially about the conditions of the working classes in the new industrial
revolution. Communism emerged, leading to violent revolution in Russia (1917), and China (1940-1949). Perhaps Marx
has been judged unfairly or brought undone by another ruling class that he did not envisage.
AD1883 Krakatoa, a volcanic island near Java and Sumatra, exploded and was heard as far away as Perth in SW Australia,
and other places within four thousand eight hundred kilometres. It is said to be the loudest explosion ever heard in
modern history. Over forty thousand died. Materials erupted were estimated at twenty one cubic kilometres of rock, ash
and pumice. The world's weather was immediately affected, dropping an average 1.2 degrees C. Weather patterns were
disrupted for five years. The cooling seems to contradict today's expectations of warming. The last eruption was in
November 2010, with land still rising in the vicinity by about five meters per year!
AD1884 Gregor Mendel was a diligent Catholic monk, who became the father of modern genetics. He died aged 61 in
obscurity. Darwin did not know of Mendel's work, which was not recognised for many years until the early 1900s
AD1895 Louis Pasteur died aged 73. He discovered that germs were a cause of disease. He invented vaccination,
pasteurisation, and became one of the three fathers of microbiology. Earlier discoverers had been by van Leeuwenhoek
in his work with his microscope and Robert Koch, a contemporary of Pasteur. Koch's work on bacteria in pure culture led
to him finding the cause of tuberculosis.
AD1896. The first small public movie theatre was in a music hall in New York. Its beginnings were as a result of Edison's
Vita scope Projector. Soon dedicated buildings were showing the incredible novelty of scratchy travel scenes. An early
movie was The Great Train Robbery in 1903. It ran for 12 minutes. 1920s saw sound track attached to film to produce
Talkies.
AD1897 Marconi sent and received a wireless radio signal over six kilometres. In 1902 he radioed messages by Morse
code across the Atlantic. Radiotelegraphy became essential in shipping communications.
AD1895 Wilhelm Rontgen, a photographer, began to study X-rays. He made an image of his wife's hand. Development of
the safe use was not established until the 1930s. Rontgen was the first in a long list of Nobel Prize winners since its
inception in 1901. It is a must read introduction to the progress of our best human minds in modern times.
AD1903 Wright Brothers built and flew the first heavier-than-air machine.
AD1908 Henry Ford, an experienced automotive engineer, made affordable Model T Ford cars. By 1913, he and his staff
had invented moving assembly lines and Mass Production. A new industrial era had begun.
AD1918 Spanish Flu, the influenza pandemic killed an estimated fifty million persons, as an aftermath to WW I.
AD1920 Radio broadcasting began in USA, Argentina and the Netherlands. BBC in UK started in 1922.
AD1921 Albert Einstein won the Nobel Prize for Physics. His genius opened up old theories to completion; Newtonian
mechanics; Physics; Photo electric effect; electro magnetism; gravitational fields; relativity; quantum theory; particle
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theory; motion of molecules; a model for the Universe. From 1933, he lived in USA, where he lectured at Princeton
University, till he died in 1955. Time named him as Person of the Century. He advised President Roosevelt of his belief that
Germany was trying to develop an atomic bomb, which started the US on that same path.
AD1928 Alexander Fleming named as discoverer of Penicillin. Perhaps the mouldy bread wound healing treatment had
been known in European Middle Ages. AD1945 Fleming, Florey and Chaim shared the Nobel Prize for their perfection of
Penicillin, which later saved many lives in WWII.
AD1932. The cause of scurvy finally became proven, after centuries of trial and error. The fact was that only humans and
a handful of other animals could not make their own Vitamin C. They must eat it and its best source was citrus fruits and
green vegetable leaves.
AD1934 Madame Marie Curie died aged 66. She was the only woman to win two Nobel prizes for Physics (1903) and
Chemistry (1911). Her legacy today is the understanding of X-rays, radioactive treatment of cancers, and indirectly she
may have contributed to nuclear weapons and nuclear energy through her contributions to nuclear science.
AD1945 Two atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end WW II. They were the first and last bombs
used as actual weapons. Several others have been exploded in controlled tests. Those cities are now superb modern
metropolises.
AD1950 Plate Tectonics became a new theory, following on from Continental Drift theory. There are seven major plates
with smaller ones that make up the Earth's surface, including the oceans. Their slow, almost imperceptible, movements of
0-100mm annually, account for the earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, mountain building and ocean trench formation near
the plate boundaries. The theory developed after modern exploration of the sea floors revealed the volcanic activity in
the deep ocean trenches. (My trivia says that at a non-stop top speed, a fast plate could slide one hundred kilometres in a
million years, or four times round the planet in one billion years).
AD1953 Watson, Crick, Franklin, Gosling and Wilkins all contributed to the discovery of the DNA double helix, with
Watson and Crick receiving the Nobel Prize in 1962. In 2012, Canada will approve the first gene therapy drug, Prochymal.
AD1957 Space Race began between USSR and USA. Russia launched the satellite, Sputnik I, and later Yuri Gagarin flew
into close orbit in 1961. The first Russian rocket, Soviet R-7 Semyorka, is still the rocket of choice in servicing the
International Space Station in 2011.
AD1967 saw the Arab- Israeli six day war break out, finally resulting in the stalemate that we see today, causing high
tension in the Middle East and the world. Religious citizens keep their silence, whilst their leaders posture and bluster.
AD1978 China announced its one-child policy. Estimates are that the policy has reduced potential new births by 400
million during the last thirty years, in the most highly populated country. The policy applies to about 36% of the people. It
is thought to be supported by 76% of the population. In other parts of the world, especially in Roman Catholic areas, birth
control is forbidden by the church, but generally left to individual decisions. Vasectomies are also denied to men in
religious societies. Pope Innocent VIII, in the Witch Bull of AD1484, found it necessary to attack witches who were
involved in abortion and birth control at a time when Europe needed to repopulate after the plague. Birth control was an
ancient practice, using a variety of herbs in several cultures. Queen Anne's lace is still used in India. Other religious groups
forbid abortion, sometimes violently, even in extreme cases of rape and incest. The same groups oppose medical
research into the use of embryonic stem cells derived from surplus frozen fertile eggs, surplus to needs from in-vitro
fertilisation clinics for childless couples. Genetic diseases can only be defeated by gene therapy. Similarly, groups oppose
euthanasia in the terminally ill, under the banner of Right to Life. Meanwhile, the rest of the world does nothing as
progressive as China, and complains of increasing degradation of the planet, and overcrowding of our urban living spaces.
Our ruling classes and religions, which China generally lacks, seem to need ever expanding growth to cause more
development to maintain their capitalist credit based systems of wealth generation.
AD1986 Chernobyl's number 4 nuclear power plant in Ukraine, under control of USSR, would not close down properly
after a power surge. Explosions caused a fire and radioactive smoke fallout over Belarus. Thirty one workers were killed
and there were other confirmed deaths of sixty four from radiation by 2008, twenty two years later. Greenpeace predicts
two hundred thousand have or will get poisoned. Many groups argue over the potential casualty numbers. By 2013,
combined world contributors will erect the world's largest moveable structure, the New Safe Confinement, over the
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disaster area. The last estimate of its cost in 2006 was $1.2 billion. In 2000 the last reactor number 3 was officially turned
off, fourteen years later. In 2011 tourists will be given access to the previously sealed access zone. Natural fauna and
flora have long since returned to the zone.
AD1990 NASA launched the Hubble Space Telescope, which has taught humanity, once and for all, that planet Earth is not
the centre of the Universe, the size of which is beyond our comprehension, and consists of the same matter as us and our
planet. Generally, the physics that we have learned on Earth still applies in the Universe.
AD1990 some scientists became concerned that humans may be causing the planet to warm, causing climate change.
They caused a new era of scientific thinking with computerised climate modelling and deeper thinking of the many cycles
of chemistry and physics with which the planet is constantly adjusting, almost as if it has a live multi scaled skin working
to keep it in balance. It is to the new sciences of these, little understood, but wondrous rhythms that our children should
be introduced - whether earth's perceived warming is harmful or not. We are all remiss in remaining ignorant of our
planet's re-cycling, especially in such a computerised age.
Our planet is inextricably linked to all the fluctuations of elliptical orbits of all components in our Solar System. Earth
varies its orbit diameter round the Sun every 100,000 years by about 18 million miles. That affects our gravity. Earth
changes its tilt on its own axis by about 3 degrees every 41,000 years. That changes Earth’s face to the Sun. It varies its
axial precession – its wobble as it spins – over 22,000 years. Some events get close to aligning. The sun is revealing a
pattern for its solar storms. Warming and cooling slowly happen without us.
AD2011. Our children's step to Dare to Reason is my great hope. Their elders' role is to create a new
environment of educational encouragement, without some of the religious trappings of the past. I hope that
the simple pointers on these pages will help some find new thoughts for discussion, or at least find them
refreshing and reassuring.
Humans have always performed kind and good deeds without them ever being sourced from those
supernaturals. Some may have called upon the supernatural before performing the deed, but all have been
performed out of natural instinctive goodness. The same argument applies in reverse, of course, for acts of
evil. Do the insane really expect community acceptance for their insane acts, on their assertion that, "God
told me to do it!"
Religious leaders have acquired too much political power, by being the shepherds over the quiet sheep.
They are entrenched in their own propaganda peer groups, using their gods only as sheriff badges to control
and herd the flocks away from those who might free their minds and feet. Too strong? Well, I guess it
depends where you live on the planet. Most of the world's people are impatient for Peace. It will only come
through reason being the only basis for rational human behaviour. How do we target the world's mothers to
teach, and expose their babies and children to fun, science and modern community attitudes, instead of an
emphasis on nonsense, stemming from overbearing, self-righteous old men with their incomprehensible
holy books?
That is the crux!
Today, we see more and more charitable work from non-religious volunteers and organisations. Let us
support them, but not at the cost of encouraging another ruling sub-class. Support charities that educate,
not indoctrinate. Support foreign aid that teaches birth control and basic health matters, not simply feelgood cash hand-outs from a faceless bureaucracy. Support the small self-help groups in matters of
contagious and genetic disease research, especially where such diseases have little present value for large
pharmaceutical companies. Vote only for men and women of Reason.
Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Slaves, I hope I have shared my interest in our human past - enough to
encourage you to dare to reason deeper, into the wonderful modern information, now so easily available.
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