Everyday Life in Ancient Times

The word civilization is related to the Latin word, civitas ”city”. The term is used in several ways, generally denoting complex human cultural development. Some scholars restrict the use of the term to urbanized societies, in other words, cultures that have achieved a development that has allowed them to create large and permanent settlements... [continue reading]

Mesopotamia (from the Greek, meaning 'between two rivers’) was an ancient region in the eastern Mediterranean bounded in the northeast by the Zagros Mountains and in the southeast by the Arabian Plateau, corresponding to today’s Iraq, mostly, but also parts of modern-day Iran, Syria and Turkey. The 'two rivers' of the name referred... [continue reading]

Greece is a country in southeastern Europe known, in Greek, as Hellas and consisting of a mainland and an archipelago of islands. Greece is the birthplace of Western Philosophy (Plato) Literature (Homer) Mathematics (Pythagoras) History (Herodotus) Drama (Sophocles and Aristophanes) the Olympic Games and Democracy and Science (these last two most notably... [continue reading]

Egypt is a country in North Africa, on the Mediterranean Sea, and is among the oldest civilizations on earth. The name 'Egypt' comes from the Greek Aegyptos which was the Greek pronunciation of the Egyptian name 'Hwt-Ka-Ptah' (which means House of the Spirit of Ptah, who was a very early God of the Ancient Egyptians). In the early Old Kingdom... [continue reading]

According to legend, Ancient Rome was founded by the two brothers, and demi-gods, Romulus and Remus, on 21 April 753. The legend claims that, in an argument over who would rule the city (or, in another version, where the city would be located) Romulus killed Remus and named the city after himself. This story of the founding of Rome is the best known but it... [continue reading]