The prophet who received the revelation of the qur’an was __________.

courtesy Muslim Students Association, University of Southern California

A man meditating alone in a cave near Mecca received a religious vision. This vision laid the foundations for a new religion. The year was 610 and the man's name was Muhammad.

And the belief system that arose from Muhammad's ideas became the basis of one of the world's most widely practiced religions: Islam.

Muhammad was born around 570 in the city of Mecca, located on the Arabian Peninsula. Both of his parents died before Muhammad was six and he was raised by his grandfather and uncle. His family belonged to a poor clan that was active in Mecca politics.

Following the traditions of wealthy families, he spent part of his childhood living with a Bedouin family. Bedouins led fairly isolated lives as nomadic herders in the harsh Arabian desert. Muhammad's experiences among these people most likely had a strong influence on the development of Islam.

In his twenties, Muhammad began working as a merchant and soon married his employer, a rich woman named Khadijah. Over the next 20 years he became a wealthy and respected trader, traveling throughout the Middle East. He and his wife had six children — two boys (who did not live into adulthood) and four girls. By the time he was 40, he began having religious visions that would change his life.

A Revelation of Faith

While meditating in a cave on Mount Hira, Muhammad had a revelation. He came to believe that he was called on by God to be a prophet and teacher of a new faith, Islam, which means literally "submission."

This new faith incorporated aspects of Judaism and Christianity. It respected the holy books of these religions and its great leaders and prophets — Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and others. Muhammad called Abraham "Khalil" ("God's friend") and identified him as Islam's ancient patriarch. Islam traces its heritage through Abraham's son Ishmael.

Muhammad believed that he himself was God's final prophet.

Central to Islamic beliefs are the Five Pillars of Faith, which all followers of Islam — called Muslims — must follow::

• There is only one universal God: Allah.
• Followers of Islam (Muslims) are expected to pray five times each day while facing Mecca.
• All Muslims are expected to pay a yearly tax that is mostly intended to help the poor and needy.
• For the entire month of Ramadan, Muslims must not eat, smoke, drink, or have sexual relations from sunrise to sunset.
• All able Muslims must make a pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca at least once in their lifetimes.

Mecca houses Islam's holiest site, the Kaaba, which was believed to have been built for Yahweh by Abraham and his son Ishmael.

Muhammad's message was especially well received by the poor and slaves. But many people were opposed to his message. This opposition only seemed to make him more determined. After years of publicly promoting his ideas, he became so disliked that some began plotting his murder.

From Mecca to Medina and Back

In 622, fearing for his life, Muhammad fled to the town of Medina. This flight from Mecca to Medina became known as the Hegira, Arabic for "flight." The Muslim calendar begins on this year.

In Medina, the local people welcomed Muhammad and his followers. There, Muhammad built the first mosque, or Islamic temple, and began to work to separate Islam from Judaism and Christianity, which had originally influenced him.

Whereas his followers had originally prayed while facing toward Jerusalem, he now had them face toward Mecca. Muhammad continued to have revelations from Allah. The ideas from these revelations formed the basis of a poetic text called the Koran, which contains the fundamental ideas of Islam.

Muhammad fought a number of battles against the people of Mecca. In 629, Muhammad returned to Mecca with an army of 1500 converts to Islam and entered the city unopposed and without bloodshed. Before his death two years later, he forcefully converted most of the Arabian Peninsula to his new faith and built a small empire.

Belief in jihad is a common thread to many Islamic sects. Although the exact meaning of the Arabic is difficult to express in English, jihad is most accurately translated as "struggle."

For most Muslims, jihad is a personal struggle against evil. The holy battles of this spiritual struggle are fought inside Muslims' minds and souls.

Sometimes, the struggle can take the form of a physical war against non-believers. Although this kind of jihad is referred to in English as a "holy war," most Muslims believe there is nothing holy about war and that wars should only be fought against oppressors and aggressors.

A minority of Muslims, however, places great importance on holy war jihads. This minority feels that Muslims must wage war against all nonbelievers. It is this conception of jihad that inspires Islamic extremist terrorism. Unfortunately, due to media coverage, this is the interpretation of jihad that most Westerners are familiar with.

Unfortunately, Muhammad had not designated a successor. The struggle over leadership that followed his death has divided Muslims to this day, creating a division in Islam between the Sunnis and Shiites.

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Crucifixions were common in the Roman Empire. They were so common that the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth was noticed only by a small group of dedicated followers.

To understand the life and death of Jesus and the birth of Christianity, one must understand the context of the Roman Empire. Jesus was a Jew, as were almost all of his early followers. By 30 C.E., Rome's empire had expanded to cover virtually all of the lands adjacent to the Mediterranean Sea, including the land occupied by the Hebrews.

The Romans had no tolerance for sedition or rebellion against their government. But the Jews had a religious reason for resisting Roman control. The Romans expected the Jews to worship the emperor as a god. But the Jews' religion commanded them to worship only one god: Yahweh. Their refusal to worship any of the Roman emperors, infuriated those rulers. The emperors were used to getting their way, and they did not take the Jewish resistance lightly.

In 26 B.C.E., the Romans established direct rule over the Jews. They appointed Pontius Pilate as governor of the territory in that year. Pontius Pilate had little tolerance for Jewish traditions. More than once, he pushed the Jews to the brink of revolt by violating their religious beliefs in their holy city of Jerusalem. He even took money from their holy temple's treasury to build an aqueduct. This action led to a suppressed rebellion that resulted in many Jewish deaths.

According to Hebrew texts, it was believed that humans' time on earth was temporary. It was to be replaced by God's triumph over all human sins and the establishment of God's everlasting kingdom. They believed that this apocalypse, or end to the earthly world, would be brought about by a messiah. Many Jews were awaiting this messiah to deliver them from Roman rule and their earthly burdens. For some, this messiah was Jesus of Nazareth.

Jesus of Nazareth

Jesus began to teach in the Jewish tradition. He preached love and tolerance, and he was also believed to have performed miracles of healing the sick, walking on water, and even raising the dead.

Jesus claimed that the kingdom of Yahweh would never be realized on earth, but in a life after death. Jesus taught to love even enemies, because in light of the coming kingdom of God, there was no reason for hatred. A small group of disciples believed he was the promised messiah who would bring an end to Roman rule.

Jesus' ideas were rejected by most of the Jews in Galilee, an area in northern Israel, where he first preached his ideas. Many Jews believed that Jesus was a troublemaker who was violating Yahweh's sacredness. He chose to go to Jerusalem to spread his word some time between 30 and 33 C.E.

Gaining followers in Jerusalem was not easy for Jesus. Not all Jews saw their religion or their relationship with the Romans in the same way. In fact, some of the high priests of the Jewish Temple supported the Romans. The high priest was appointed by Pontius Pilate to control Jewish affairs and to keep the Jewish population in line. It is argued by some historians that the priests received wealth and power for their cooperation with the Romans.

Jesus decided to target these priests and their control of the Temple of Yahweh. It is believed that he saw them obstructing the conversion of the Jewish populace to his ideas. He coordinated an attack on the trading activities of the Temple, which were a great source of wealth to the priests.

At the very least, this gave the Roman authorities the excuse they needed to arrest Jesus for sedition. On the night of the Passover Seder, known to Christians as the Last Supper, Jesus was arrested. Jesus had been hiding, and Judas of Iscariot, one of his disciples, told Roman authorities where he would be.

Crucifixion and the Growth of Christianity

Jesus was brought before Pontius Pilate, who was uncertain how to proceed. Jesus' disciples were only a small minority, and the crowds demanded crucifixion. Pilate condemned Jesus to death. He was beaten and crucified.

Three days after his death, Jesus' tomb was found empty. For the next 40 days, his disciples claim that they saw visions of Jesus having risen from the dead in the tradition of Moses and other great Jewish prophets. The resurrection story is central to the Christian beliefs of the divinity of Jesus and life after death.

Most Jews rejected the notion of Jesus as their messiah. In the years that followed Jesus' death, the Romans treated the early Christians as a small, Jewish sect. This all changed with Paul of Tarsus.

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Empires rose and empires fell. The Babylonians, the Assyrians, and the Persians accumulated immense wealth and power that allowed them to build capital cities of striking beauty.

But their cities and palaces eventually fell into decay and were covered by thousands of years of sand and dust.

One of their relatively powerless contemporary groups outlived those great empires. These people were the Hebrews, known also as Israelites or, later, Jews.

Their early contribution to humankind was not wealthy empires or groundbreaking technology. Rather, it was the revolutionary idea that there was only one god, a belief known as monotheism. This one Hebrew god was called Yahweh. To the Hebrews, Yahweh was all powerful and all knowing, yet beyond human understanding. The religion based around this god influenced the founding of Christianity and Islam.

Abraham and the Torah

The history of the early Hebrews is known primarily from one of their sacred texts, the Torah, which comprises the first five books of the Old Testament of the Bible. According to the Torah, Abraham is the ancestral patriarch of the Hebrew people.

Abraham was born in the Sumerian city of Ur. After Abraham's father died, Yahweh visited Abraham and instructed him to smash the idols of his father's gods, to worship the one and only true god, Yahweh, and to move his family to Canaan. Yahweh promised Abraham that if he followed these laws, he would found a great nation that would live in a land flowing with milk and honey.

This land, known as Canaan in ancient times, is roughly located in the same place as modern-day Israel.

Abraham's migration took place some time between 2000 B.C.E. and 1700 B.C.E. It occurred at a time when the Canaanites lived in relatively small, independently governed, walled cities. They were accustomed to outsiders coming into their territory. The Hebrews, who were nomadic herders, were tolerated by the Canaanites.

The land that Abraham and his followers found did not flow so easily with milk and honey. The dry climate and rough environment required considerable effort to survive. Drought forced Abraham and his family to move to Egypt.

The Twelve Tribes

The Torah tells how Abraham had two sons: Isaac by his wife Sarah, and Ishmael by his concubine Hagar. The Hebrews trace their heritage through Isaac. Isaac had a son Jacob, who in turn had 12 sons. These sons became the leaders of the 12 tribes of Israel. Jacob's most beloved son, Joseph, was sold into slavery by his jealous brothers. While in captivity, Joseph rose to be the Egyptian pharaoh's chief minister of the land.

When a severe drought plagued Canaan, his same brothers came to Egypt, begging for grain. Ignoring their past mistreatment of him, Joseph gave them grain and convinced them to stay in Egypt.

There, the Hebrews prospered and became a great nation. They became so numerous, that a pharaoh "who did not know Joseph" enslaved the Hebrews. This pharaoh is believed to be Ramses II (1290-1224 B.C.E.)

The Exodus to Canaan

The Torah then recounts the story of Moses, who led the Hebrews out of Egypt and slavery. This event, known as the Exodus, most likely occurred during the reign of the pharaoh Merneptah, between 1224 and 1211 B.C.E. Archaeologists have found an Egyptian document written on papyrus from this time period that describes Jews being forced to leave, further authenticating this story. After what the Hebrews believed were a series of acts by Yahweh on their behalf, including various plagues on the Egyptians and their crops and livestock, Moses led his people out of Egypt. The Egyptian Exodus lasted approximately from 1600 to 1200 B.C.E.

According to the Old Testament, the Hebrews wandered in the desert of the Sinai Peninsula (which is between Egypt and Canaan) for 40 years. Moses received the Ten Commandments during this time, which outlined some basic laws governing behavior. He also struggled to keep his people from worshiping gods other than Yahweh. Moses died before he could enter Canaan.

Joshua led the Hebrews back into Canaan, where they settled among the Canaanites and the Philistines. The Old Testament tells of Joshua's victorious battles against these people. Archaeologists have found that a number of towns were destroyed around this time. But, they do not agree as to whether such destruction was the work of the Hebrews or others. Over time, the Hebrews began to learn the ways of the Canaanites and settled down to a life of farming and herding.

In 722 B.C.E., the northern half of Hebrew lands known as Israel was invaded and mostly destroyed by the Assyrians. The southern half, known as Judea, survived until around 597 B.C.E., when the Babylonians defeated the Judeans and carried most of them back as captives to Babylon.

During their captivity in Babylon, Hebrew scribes recorded the history of their people and their relationship with their god Yahweh. After 539 B.C.E., the Persians under Cyrus II conquered Babylon. He allowed the Hebrews to return to their holy city of Jerusalem. But, the Hebrews continued to fall under the domination of other empires. In 70 C.E., the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and sent most of the Jews into an exile that lasted until the 20th century.

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A-B-C-D-E-F-G ...

This famous sequence of letters known to much of the world dates back to the 16th century B.C.E.

A fairly small group of traders and merchants known as the Phoenicians created the foundation for the modern English alphabet and other alphabets. They organized a system of 22 consonants into what became the alphabet used not only by English speakers, but by speakers of many of the world's languages.

The Phoenicians lived along the Mediterranean coast in what is now Lebanon. They inhabited a number of different city-states, the most famous of which were Tyre, Byblos, and Sidon. These Phoenician places were often in conflict with each other for domination of the region. Because of this lack of cooperation, the Phoenicians were conquered and forced to pay tribute to the virtually every empire in the region, including the Egyptians, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and Greeks.

Alphabet Soup

When the Phoenicians created their new alphabet, they worked from symbols that were already in use among the Semitic-speaking peoples of Canaan and Mesopotamia. As early as 3000 B.C.E., the Sumerians and the Egyptians had already invented writing systems based on symbols. These early scripts were primarily used by merchants and traders to record contracts, receipts, and lists of goods.

The merchants and traders of Phoenicia wanted something that would not be too difficult to learn and would be quick and easy to use. Unfortunately, both the Egyptian and Sumerian writing systems did not meet these criteria very well. They used hundreds of different complex symbols to represent ideas (ideograms) and syllabic sounds (phonograms).

The Phoenicians realized that most words were made up of only a small number of simple sounds. They found that these sounds could be represented in only 22 symbols and their various combinations. In their newly created alphabet, the Phoenicians used symbols or letters only for consonants, although their spoken language did contain vowel sounds. The modern Hebrew and Arabic alphabets, which were directly influenced by the Phoenician one, still do not contain symbols for vowels.

The Phoenicians spread their alphabet through their vast trading network that stretched throughout the entire Mediterranean region. The Greeks adopted it and by the 8th century B.C.E. had added vowels. Later, the Romans also used a version of this same alphabet that is virtually identical to the one used today in the English-speaking world.

Trading on the High Seas

The Phoenicians were the greatest traders in the ancient world for the period between 1000 B.C.E. and 600 B.C.E. These were highly skilled shipbuilders and sailors built strong and fast sailing vessels to carry their goods. They learned how to navigate and how to use the North Star to sail at night. It is possible that they even sailed as far as Britain and around the southern tip of Africa.

To fight off pirates who often harassed trading ships, the Phoenicians designed special warships to accompany their trading fleets. Oarsmen would propel a sharp ramming device at the front of the boat into an enemy's vessel, putting a hole into it that would cause it to sink.

To expand in trading, the Phoenicians also built outposts that later became great cities in their own right. The most famous of these outposts was Carthage (located in modern-day Tunisia). Carthage eventually became wealthy and powerful enough to challenge the Roman Republic.

Phoenician merchants acted as middlemen for their neighbors. They transported linen and papyrus from Egypt, copper from Cyprus, embroidered cloth from Mesopotamia, spices from Arabia, and ivory, gold, and slaves from Africa to destinations throughout the Mediterranean.

The Phoenicians also had valuable resources and highly skilled artisans. From a small shellfish called the murex they produced a brilliant purple dye. This dye was applied to woolen garments, which were highly prized not only for their beauty, but also for their high cost. It took 60,000 murex to produce one pound of dye. The dye became known as royal purple and was worn by Roman emperors.

Skilled artists also produced beautiful glass, pottery, textiles, woodwork, and metalwork, that were desired by people all over the ancient world. King Solomon of Israel even used Phoenician artisans and resources to build the great Hebrew Temple to Yahweh.

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The Persian Empire spanned from Egypt in the west to Turkey in the north, and through Mesopotamia to the Indus River in the east.

More Information ...

By the 5th century B.C.E., it was the largest empire the world had ever seen, surpassing the size of their Assyrian predecessors.

Cyrus Is Desirous

For example, he allowed the Hebrews, who had been captives in Babylon for over fifty years to return to the holy city of Jerusalem, instead of turning them into slaves. He returned sacred items that were stolen from them and allowed the rebuilding of their capital and the temple.

Cyrus also allowed the Hebrews to continue living and worshiping as they chose. The Jewish prophet, Isaiah, called Cyrus "God's shepherd," and said that "God would go before him and level the mountains."

Cyrus's generosity toward the Jews was not an isolated event. He and his successors employed a policy of adaptation and reconciliation toward all of their new subjects. They cooperated with local rulers and interfered as little as possible in matters that did not directly relate to their rule. They respected local traditions and even adopted some of their subjects' religious practices for themselves.

A Kinder, Gentler Kingdom

Rather than destroy local economies for their own selfish gain, the Persians worked to increase trade throughout their kingdom. They standardized weights, developed official coinage, and implemented universal laws.

The Persian leaders required cooperation and imposed a 20 percent tax on all agriculture and manufacturing. They also taxed religious institutions, which despite their wealth had previously not been taxed.

The Persians themselves paid no taxes.

The Persian kings — especially Cyrus and, later, Darius I (522-486 B.C.E.) — developed a model for the administration of a large empire that was copied by others in the future. Laws were carried out fairly and evenly among all of the various subject peoples.

The Persians divided their empire into 20 provinces that were managed by governors. In addition, they provided land to feudal lords in exchange for loyalty and guarantees of soldiers for the Persian army. Most of the people in the empire, including average Persians, simply remained struggling farmers or craftspeople.

Cyrus built the foundations of a courier, or mail, system. Darius I built a communication network that connected most of the empire. A 1,600-mile-long royal road was built from Sardis to Susa, one of the administrative capitals. Along this road, were numerous places for lodging, where royal couriers could obtain fresh horses and supplies.

Thus Spake Zarathustra

The Persians also developed a religion based on monotheism, the belief in one god. It was founded by the prophet Zoroaster, called Zarathustra in old Iranian. Many of his ideas were collected in a series of poems called the Gathas, which became part of the religion's most sacred book, the Avesta.

Zoroaster believed that people were training for a future life. He taught that the earthly world was torn by a constant struggle between good and evil. Humans would have to choose between the two in preparation for a final judgment when good would triumph over evil. When this happened, all earthly existence would disappear. The Zoroastrian god, Ahura Mazda, embodied goodness and wisdom. Some religious scholars believe that Zoroaster's ideas strongly influenced on the development of the Hebrew and Christian religions.

Despite the Persians' effective and conciliatory leadership, their empire did not last. Under King Xerxes in 480 B.C.E., the Persians made an attempt to expand their empire into Greece. The Greek city-states cooperated and held off the Persian threat and even succeeded in almost obliterating the Persian navy.

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Much of Assyria's history is closely tied to its southern neighbor, Babylonia. The two Mesopotamian empires spoke similar languages and worshipped most of the same gods. They were often rivals on the battlefield for influence in the ancient Middle East.

The history of Assyria spans mainly from about 2000 B.C.E , when the cities of Nineveh and Calah were founded, to the destruction of Nineveh in 606 B.C.E.

Whereas Babylonia is best remembered for its contributions in literature, architecture, and the law, Assyria is chiefly remembered for its military prowess, advances in weaponry, and meticulously recorded conquests.

Geographically, Assyria occupied the middle and northern part of Mesopotamia. It was situated between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, and its major cities were Calah, Zab, Ashur, and the capital, Nineveh.

The Power and the Gory

"I am powerful, I am all-powerful .... I am without equal among all kings."

This was the boast of King Esarhaddon (680-669 B.C.E.), who expanded the Assyrian empire to its greatest extent. At the height of his great power, in 671 B.C.E., he conquered Egypt in less than a month.

The Egyptian kingdom was considered one of the most impenetrable in the Middle East. The Egyptians had ruled over their own land virtually undisturbed for 2,500 years.

Once Egypt was captured, Esarhaddon and his successor, Assurbanipal (680-626 B.C.E.), ruled an empire that stretched over 1,000 miles from the Nile River to the Caucasus Mountains. In its time, the Assyrian Empire was the greatest the world had ever seen. The center of the empire was located in what is now northern Iraq, and its capital was called Nineveh.

Tiglath-pileser I was an early Assyrian king who began his reign in about 1100 B.C.E. He mounted several successful military campaigns against the Babylonians, Syrians, and many others.

He claims to have conquered 42 kings and peoples and wrote, "I carried away their possessions, burned their cities with fire, demanded from their hostages tribute and contributions, and laid on them the heavy yoke of my rule."

The Assyrian ruler also claimed great expertise as a hunter who on one expedition killed over 900 lions and captured several elephants alive.

How did the Assyrians establish such a large empire over such formidable foes? Their armies were highly trained and professional. And their troops had a great deal of experience in battle. They were well organized into various units of charioteers, cavalry, bowmen, and lancers.

Assyrian armies also had a corps of engineers who employed movable towers and iron-headed battering rams for sieges on walled towns.

Soldiers used iron weapons, which were much stronger than the bronze weapons of some of their foes. The Assyrians also built roads for the quick and easy movement of troops, so that conquered rebelling kingdoms could easily be brought back under control.

	I built a pillar over against his gate, and I flayed all the chief men ... and I covered the pillar with their skins ... some I impaled upon the pillar on stakes. Many captives ... I burned with fire ... From some I cut off their hands and their fingers, and from others I cut off their noses, their ears ... of many I put out the eyes.Assurnarsipal (c.875 B.C.E.) This ugal (head-dress) once worn by an Assyrian queen was recovered from the tomb of Nimrud.

The Spoils of Victory

In ancient times, kings usually led their troops into battle and were highly skilled soldiers themselves. It was the custom of Assyrian kings to record their victories on the walls of their immense and extravagant palaces. The relief sculptures on the walls of King Assurbanipal's palace in Nineveh are some of the most elaborate. These sculptures, along with an important collection of cuneiform clay tablets — 25,000 of them — were discovered by Austen Henry Layard and his colleagues in the 1840s.

Empires meant power. This power led to extravagant wealth for the victors, who forced the conquered peoples into paying them tribute or taxes. The Assyrian kings had no end of such wealth.

Paying Tribute

The Assyrian king Sennacherib (704-681 B.C.E.) describes the tribute he exacted from the Hebrew king Hezekiah. Hezekiah withstood the Assyrians' siege in the capital city of Jerusalem in an event that is also recounted in the Bible. But the Hebrews still had to give enormous tribute and presents to the Assyrians.

Sennacherib explains in his own words on a tablet that was discovered by archaeologists: "He sent [a convoy] after me to Nineveh, my royal city with 30 talents of gold, 800 talents of silver, jewels, antimony ... couches of ivory, easy chairs inlaid with ivory, elephants' hides, elephants' tusks ... all kinds of valuable treasures, and his daughters, his harem, and male and female singers."

More than Warriors

With the wealth they obtained from war and tribute, the Assyrian kings built the well-fortified and beautiful cities of Nineveh, Calah, (present-day Nimrud).

The first glassmaking, the invention of backgammon, the ancestor of the lock and key, even therapeutic massage, are thought by many scholars to be Assyrian inventions.

But the Assyrian Empire's grandeur did not last. Just as it reached its peak, it began to crumble. Fighting between King Assurbanipal and his brother weakened the empire and opening it up to foreign invaders. The Assyrian Empire was eventually destroyed in 612 B.C.E. by the Medes from the Iranian Plateau and the Chaldeans of Babylonia.

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"An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth."

This phrase, along with the idea of written laws, goes back to ancient Mesopotamian culture that prospered long before the Bible was written or the civilizations of the Greeks or Romans flowered.

"An eye for an eye ..." is a paraphrase of Hammurabi's Code, a collection of 282 laws inscribed on an upright stone pillar. The code was found by French archaeologists in 1901 while excavating the ancient city of Susa, which is in modern-day Iran.

Hammurabi is the best known and most celebrated of all Mesopotamian kings. He ruled the Babylonian Empire from 1792-50 B.C.E. Although he was concerned with keeping order in his kingdom, this was not his only reason for compiling the list of laws. When he began ruling the city-state of Babylon, he had control of no more than 50 square miles of territory. As he conquered other city-states and his empire grew, he saw the need to unify the various groups he controlled.

A Need for Justice

Hammurabi keenly understood that, to achieve this goal, he needed one universal set of laws for all of the diverse peoples he conquered. Therefore, he sent legal experts throughout his kingdom to gather existing laws. These laws were reviewed and some were changed or eliminated before compiling his final list of 282 laws. Despite what many people believe, this code of laws was not the first.

The oldest known evidence of a law code are tablets from the ancient city Ebla (Tell Mardikh in modern-day Syria). They date to about 2400 B.C.E. — approximately 600 years before Hammurabi put together his famous code.

The prologue or introduction to the list of laws is very enlightening. Here, Hammurabi states that he wants "to make justice visible in the land, to destroy the wicked person and the evil-doer, that the strong might not injure the weak." The laws themselves support this compassionate claim, and protect widows, orphans and others from being harmed or exploited.

The phrase "an eye for an eye" represents what many people view as a harsh sense of justice based on revenge. But, the entire code is much more complex than that one phrase. The code distinguishes among punishments for wealthy or noble persons, lower-class persons or commoners, and slaves.

"Anu and Bel called by name me, Hammurabi, the exalted prince, who feared God, to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil-doers; so that the strong should not harm the weak; so that I should rule over the black-headed people like Shamash, and enlighten the land, to further the well-being of mankind ..."

Most of the nearly 300 laws written on the pillar pertain to property rights of landowners, slavemasters, merchants, and builders.

Here are some of the more unusual laws that seem very foreign to a modern society:

If any one finds runaway male or female slaves in the open country and bring them to their masters, the master of the slaves shall pay him two shekels of silver.

If any one is committing a robbery and is caught, then he shall be put to death.

If a tavern-keeper (feminine) does not accept corn according to gross weight in payment of a drink, but takes money, and the price of the drink is less than that of the corn, she shall be convicted and thrown into the water.

If a son of a paramour or a prostitute say to his adoptive father or mother: "You are not my father, or my mother," his tongue shall be cut off.

If a son strike his father, his hands shall be hewn off.

If a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out.

If a man strike a free-born woman so that she lose her unborn child, he shall pay ten shekels for her loss.

If a barber, without the knowledge of his master, cut the sign of a slave on a slave not to be sold, the hands of this barber shall be cut off.

If a slave says to his master: "You are not my master," if they convict him his master shall cut off his ear.

Hammurabi's own words illustrate this point: "If a man has destroyed the eye of a man of the gentleman class, they shall destroy his eye .... If he has destroyed the eye of a commoner ... he shall pay one mina of silver. If he has destroyed the eye of a gentleman's slave ... he shall pay half the slave's price." The Babylonians clearly did not live under a social system that treated all people equally.

The code deals with many topics of concern other than assault. It outlines rules for witnesses and those making accusations of crimes. For example, "If any one bring an accusation of any crime before the elders, and does not prove what he has charged, he shall, if it be a capital offense charged, be put to death." It details how theft or destruction of property should be handled and gives guidelines for dealing with trade and business problems.

In some cases, these rules are quite reasonable and fair: "If any one owe a debt for a loan, and a storm prostrates (kills) the grain, or the harvest fail, or the grain does not grow for lack of water, in that year he need not give his creditor any grain; he washes his debt-tablet in water and pays no rent for this year."

The code also gives rules for family matters, such as marriage, divorce, incest, and adoption. Payment amounts for the work of doctors and other professionals are outlined. Although the pay for doctors was good, they suffered severe punishments for fatal errors. The code states that "if a physician make a large incision with the operating knife, and kill him, ... his hands shall be cut off." (Talk about a need for malpractice insurance!)

The Code covers all types of issues related to farming and herding animals, and it also lays out rules on the ownership and sale of slaves.

Go Jump in a River!

Hammurabi's Code may not seem very different from more recent laws and precedents that guide the processes of a trial. But, there are a few major differences between ancient Babylonians and today's laws. Hammurabi's Code required accusers to bring the accused into court by themselves.

A number of the laws refer to jumping in the Euphrates River as a method of demonstrating one's guilt or innocence. If the accused returned to shore safely, they were deemed innocent; if they drowned, they were guilty. This practice follows the Babylonians's belief that their fates were controlled by their gods.

From the code, it is evident that the Babylonians did not believe all people were equal. The code treated slaves, commoners, and nobles differently. Women had a number of rights, including the ability to buy and sell property and to obtain a divorce. The Babylonians understood the need for honesty by all parties in a trial and for court officers to be free of corruption so that the justice system could function effectively.

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The Babylonians used the innovations of the Sumerians, added to them, and built an empire that gave the world, among other things, codified laws, a tower that soared above the earth, and one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

Geographically, the empire of Babylonia occupied the middle and southern part of Mesopotamia. Situated between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, it stretched from the present-day city of Baghdad south to the Persian Gulf.

The first written mention of Babylonia's famous capital city, Babylon, dates to about 3800 B.C.E. During that time, most of Mesopotamia was made up of Sumerian city-states. The king of Babylonia Sargon I, however, was of Semitic background. During his reign, Semitic literature, art, and architecture flourished. He ruled from Susa and conquered lands as far away as Syria.

The First Empire

Over the next 1,500 years, the Mesopotamia city-states vied with each other for power and influence. It was not until Hammurabi (ruled 1792-1750 B.C.E.) united most of this area after a triumphant military campaign that the city of Babylon reached its first great glory. In the years during and following Hammurabi's reign (known as the First Empire), Babylonian rulers constructed temples, roads, and an extensive canal system. They also codified laws.

The rule of the Babylonian kings contrasts favorably with the rule of the Assyrian kings who destroyed the first Babylonian Empire and left a legacy of war and destruction. After Assyrian dominance in Mesopotamia, which lasted from approximately 1400-600 B.C.E., the Babylonians established a second great Empire.

King Nabopolassar, a Chaldean, (Chaldea was a region of southern Mesopotamia), helped to conquer the Assyrian capital of Nineveh in 606 B.C.E. and used the opportunity to establish his own kingdom in Babylon.

Nabopolassar's son, Nebuchadnezzar, succeeded his father in 604 B.C.E. During Nebuchadnezzar's reign, the Tower of Babel reached its apex, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were constructed, Babylonians destroyed the Great Temple in Jerusalem and 7,000 Jews were brought back to Babylonia in captivity.

The Tower of Babel

The Tower of Babel was a ziggurat, a pyramid-shaped temple built to a local god. The most important god of Babylon was Marduk, who outshone all other gods in the Babylonian pantheon.

Construction on the Tower of Babel had begun about 1100 B.C.E., and when Nebuchadnezzar finished it, the tower reached a height of 91 meters (295 feet). According to a tablet left by the king, the tower was made of "baked brick enameled in brilliant blue."

The Hanging Gardens

Nebuchadnezzar built the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, for his wife who missed her lush homeland.

The gardens did not "hang" literally — that is, its plants or trees didn't dangle from ropes. "Hanging" refers to the garden's terraces which overhung one another.

But what makes a terraced garden special enough to be one of the Seven Wonders of the World?

Babylon received little rain, and stone slabs needed to hold terraces in place were almost nonexistent in the region. Ingenious engineers devised a chain pump that brought water from the nearby Euphrates River to irrigate the gardens. Specially designed bricks kept the flora in place.

The result was a green oasis that today's scholars believe rose between 80 and 300 feet into the air. The gardens were a lush mountain of foliage in the middle of a flat, dry desert.

Ultimately, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon disappeared, and the Tower of Babel and the Babylonian Empire were destroyed by the Persians around the year 478 B.C.E.

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Courtesy University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

The first writing system. The plow. The sailboat. The first lunar calendar.

These accomplishments and more were the products of the city-states of Sumer, which arose on the flood plains of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in what is now modern-day Iraq. The Sumerians began to build their walled cities and make significant advances beginning around 3500 B.C.E.

Their domination of this region lasted until around 2000 B.C.E, when the Babylonians took control. Sumerian culture and technology did not disappear but were adopted by its conquerors.

Located in what the ancient Greeks called Mesopotamia, which literally means "the land between the rivers," Sumer was a collection of city-states that occupied the southernmost portion of Mesopotamia. Most were situated along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, lying just north of the Persian Gulf.

The physical environment there has remained relatively the same since about 8000 B.C.E. The landscape is flat and marshy. The ground is primarily made up of sand and silt, with no rock. The climate is very dry, with only about 16.9 centimeters of rain falling per year. Natural vegetation is sparse, and no trees other than palm trees grow there. The rivers overflow their banks in the spring, sometimes violently and destructively. During this process, they deposit a rich layer of silt on the surrounding floodplain.

The Cradle of Civilization

Considering the harsh and forbidding natural environment, how did the first civilization arise in Sumer? Surprisingly, the environment was part of what made civilization possible.

The silt carried by the rivers down from the northern mountains provided rich fertilizer for growing crops when the rivers overflowed. The constant sunshine was also good for crops. But without water, they would have easily dried up and died. Through the leadership of priest-kings, Sumerians organized farmers in each city-state to build extensive irrigation systems of canals and dams. Before long, the desert was blooming with a surplus of barley, dates, and other crops.

This surplus allowed many people to pursue occupations other than farming, while still being able to meet their basic needs. These people became artisans, merchants, and craftspeople. They helped build the cities and increase the wealth of the city-states through trade with neighboring societies.

Sumerians also developed high-quality crafts, evidence of which was found in the royal tombs of Ur, excavated by Sir Leonard Woolley in the 1920s. Trade also helped the Sumerians to secure vital items such as timber from Lebanon and luxury goods such as the semiprecious stone lapis lazuli from the Indus River Valley.

Gettin' Ziggy with It

Because of the surplus grain, the government could grow in size to support numerous officials and priests. It could also pay thousands of workers with barley while they were building canals, city walls, and ziggurats or while they were fighting to defend their city-state or extend its influence over the region. The barley was collected as a tax from the farmers. Farmers were also required to give some time to the government to work on projects. Slaves and hired workers also contributed.

As the government and economy grew in size and complexity, officials and merchants required a sophisticated writing system to record transactions. First came number markings and simple pictograms, the writing system began to incorporate pictures representing a physical object or idea (such as a picture of the sun to represent the sun).

As trade and government activity increased, the writing system began to incorporate more abstract pictograms and phonograms, or symbols representing sounds. These new forms provided greater flexibility and speed in writing. They were adopted by other cultures (such as the Assyrians) who did not even speak Sumerian.

Sumerian Wisdom

The Sumerians wrote on clay tablets, using a reed pen called a stylus. Once dried, these tablets became hard and, fortunately for today's researchers, endured for millennia in the hot, dry climate.

Thousands of these tablets have been unearthed. Some libraries have even been discovered with over 10,000 of these clay tablets. And although the vast majority of these tablets contain records of goods collected and distributed by the governments and trade transactions, some contain myths, stories, and letters. These documents have provided much information about the culture and history of the Sumerian people.

With their ingenuity, the Sumerian people developed complex irrigation system and a written language. They were the first people to use the plow to lift the silt-laden soil of their crop fields and they invented the sailboat. They were the first people to design a calendar based on the phase of the moon and they developed a numerical system, based on the number 60, that is still used to measure seconds and minutes.

Gilgamesh was likely an actual king of Uruk in Babylonia who lived about 2700 B.C.E.

Sumerians recorded stories and myths about Gilgamesh, which were written on clay tablets. The stories were combined into an epic tale. Versions of this tale were translated into other langauages including Akkadian, which was spoken by the Babylonians.

The fullest surviving version is derived from twelve stone tablets, in the Akkadian language, which were found stored in the famous library at Nineveh of Assyrian King Assurbanipal.

The epic relates the heroic deeds of Gilgamesh, who is the king of Uruk. His father is mortal and his mother is a goddess. Since Gilgamesh is part mortal, he knows he must die one day. However, he longs for immortality, whether through doing great deeds or discovering the secret of eternal life. He roams the earth on this quest and meets Utnapishtim, the only human granted eternal life by the gods. He tells Gilgamesh many stories, including one of a great flood that covered the Earth.

What happens to Gilgamest? Read the tale and find out. The following is an excerpt from Gilgamesh.

From Tablet XI — translation by Maureen Gallery Kovacs, 1998

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"The cradle of civilization."

Throughout the centuries, historians have used these powerful words to describe the Middle East.

In the ancient Middle East, many great civilizations rose and fell. The religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam each trace their origins back to this part of the world.

All of these civilizations arose in the area known as the Fertile Crescent. The Fertile Crescent stretches from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Zagros Mountains in the east. It is bordered in the north by the Taurus Mountains and in the south by the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Desert. Its shape resembles a crescent moon.

One area within the Fertile Crescent gave rise to the region's most powerful empires and grandest cities. This area was Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.

From Farming to Empires

The Fertile Crescent is the region in which humans first began farming and herding around 8,000 B.C.E. This dramatic change from nomadic hunting and gathering allowed early humans to settle into permanent villages and to begin accumulating a surplus of food.

With such a surplus, early villagers could begin to focus on developing the skills associated with civilization. Some of them became priests, scribes, merchants, artists, teachers, and government officials. They began to build cities, and before long, they were establishing empires. The Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, and Phoenicians all built great empires, each of which rose to glory in the Middle East.

Abstracted from Akkadian Language by John Heise.

Because they were constantly interacting through war and trade, the societies in the Middle East borrowed from each other. They modified newly acquired ideas and technologies to suit their own needs. Often, these changes were improvements. Over time, many aspects of various societies throughout the ancient Middle East began to resemble each other.

The Middle East is also the crossroads of the ancient world. It is located at the merging point of three continents: Europe, Africa, and Asia. Many travelers who journeyed from one continent to the next passed through the Middle East, absorbing its culture and introducing new ideas to the region. Throughout the centuries, its prized location became the source of conflict. Its goods became the source of envy.

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Women in ancient Egypt were ahead of their time. They could not only rule the country, but also had many of the same basic human rights as men.

One of the first women to hold the rank of pharaoh was Hatshepsut, who began her rule in about 1,500 B.C.E. Hatshepsut took care of her people and built temples to the gods as well as other public buildings. Egyptian custom dictated that a pharaoh, who was considered a god, could not marry a mortal. As a result, pharaohs chose spouses from within the royal family. Her husband, Thutmose, was her half brother.

Nefertiti was another Egyptian ruler. She married Amenhotep IV, who preached and supported monotheism, or the belief in only one god.

	Found in the chapel of Merya at Armana, this drawing depicts Queen Nefertiti accompanying her husband, the pharaoh Akhenaton, from the royal palace to the temple. Because of exceptionally high status, Nefertiti rode in her own chariot. The Hereditary Princess, Great of Favor, Mistress of happiness, The bust of Nefertiti, the Queen of Egypt, is legendary for its beautiful and mysterious depiction of the queen during the Amarna period. This portrait was sculpted in the workshop of Thutmose in Akhet-Aton. Gay with the two feathers, At hearing whose voice one rejoices, Soothing the heart of the King at home, The Egyptian goddess Isis was one of the most important deities of the ancient world. Originally the goddess of motherhood and fertility, Isis became the mother of all gods and was worshipped throughout Egypt until the 6th century C.E. Pleased at all that is said, The great and beloved wife of the King, Lady of the two lands, Neferfefruaten Nefertiti, Living forever. Amenhotep IV, poem about his wife, Queen Nefertiti

Cleopatra became the most famous of Egypt's female leaders. She was extremely intelligent, and ambitious and spoke several languages — she even studied astronomy. At 18, she became queen of Egypt.

Romance and Tragedy in Cleopatra's Court

Cleopatra constantly battled jealous, ambitious people who wanted to kill her and occupy her throne. For a time, she was removed from power and banished. She sought help from Julius Caesar, the leader of the powerful Roman Republic.

When Caesar visited Alexandria, a large Egyptian city, Cleopatra saw her chance. She could not even enter the city to see Caesar because her jealous brother hired spies to kill her on sight. Craftily, she sneaked into the city rolled in a carpet. She was brought to Caesar, and the two developed a relationship. The couple had a son named Caesarion, and Caesar helped her recapture the throne. The relationship ended abruptly when rival Roman rulers murdered Caesar in the Roman Senate.

I'm Dying to See You

When Marc Antony became leader of Rome, he too, fell in love with Cleopatra. The two had children and together ruled the most powerful empires of the Mediterranean. Eventually, a rival defeated Antony's armies, and Antony drew a sword on himself in despair. As he was dying, he wanted to see Cleopatra one last time. He died in her arms. Later, Cleopatra killed herself by placing a poisonous snake on her chest. The greatest political soap opera of the age was now over.

The Rights Stuff

These were examples of elite Egyptian women. But what about the common folk? A woman's role as mother and wife still came first in Egyptian society. Some professions in which women worked included weaving, perfume making, and entertainment.

Egyptian women could have their own businesses, own and sell property, and serve as witnesses in court cases. Unlike most women in the Middle East, they were even permitted to be in the company of men. They could escape bad marriages by divorcing and remarrying. And women were entitled to one third of the property their husbands owned. The political and economic rights Egyptian women enjoyed made them the most liberated females of their time.

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For centuries, they were the tallest structures on the planet. The Pyramids of Giza, built over 4,000 years ago, still stand atop an otherwise flat, sandy landscape.

One of the Seven Wonders of the World, the pyramids defy 21st-century humans to explain their greatest secrets. How could a civilization that lacked bulldozers, forklifts, and trucks build such massive structures? Why would anyone have spent the time and energy to attempt such a task? What treasures were placed inside these monuments?

Only a powerful pharaoh could marshal the necessary human resources to build giant pyramids. During the flood seasons, farmers became builders. Huge stone blocks averaging over two tons in weight were mined in quarries and transported to the pyramid site.

Egyptologists theorize that the workers used either rollers or slippery clay to drag the blocks from the quarries to their eventual placement on the pyramid. Construction of the larger pyramids took decades.

Why Pyramids?

Pyramids were built for religious purposes. The Egyptians were one of the first civilizations to believe in an afterlife. They believed that a second self called the ka lived within every human being. When the physical body expired, the ka enjoyed eternal life. Those fortunate enough to pass the test of Osiris wanted to be comfortable in their lives beyond earth. The Great Pyramids were simply grand tombs of powerful pharaohs.

Three pyramids were built at Giza, and many smaller pyramids were constructed around the Nile Valley. The tallest of the Great Pyramids reaches nearly 500 feet into the sky and spans an area greater than 13 acres. The Great Sphinx was sculpted nearby to stand watch over the pyramids. It stands 65 feet tall and consists of a human head atop the body of a lion.

Many believe that the Sphinx was a portrait of King Chefren (Khafret), who was placed in the middle Pyramid. The lion symbolized immortality.

Egyptians who ranked high in status often wanted to take their most prized possessions with them in death, so the ka could enjoy them in its next life. Gold, silver, and bronze artifacts were loaded into the interiors of the great tombs. Fine linens and artwork adorned the secret chambers.

In the early days, dead nobles were often interned with their living slaves and animals. Because this practice eventually proved too costly, artists instead depicted scenes of human activity on the inside walls. Some pyramids were even equipped with a rest room for the pharaoh.

Great precautions were taken to protect the tombs from looters. Egyptians believed that a defiler of a pharaoh's resting place would be cursed for eternity. The entrance to the inner chambers was carefully hidden. The pharaoh's mummy was placed in a huge coffin called a sarcophagus, which was made of the hardest known stone blocks. But despite such warnings and precautions, tombs were raided over the years by grave robbers.

The pyramids, however, have stood the test of time. Although their outer limestone layers have long since been stripped or passed into dust, the pyramids still stand. About 80 dot the horizons of modern Egypt. They remain as time capsules cast forward by a once-great civilization.

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© 1996 Deurer — used with permission.

A dead noble stands trembling in the Hall of Truth. Behind the noble, Horus, the half-falcon, half-man ruler of Earth, unleashes a piercing stare at the quivering man. Thoth, the sharp-beaked, ibis-headed deity of scribes, sharpens his quill — poised to record a verdict of divine judgment.

Seated before the noble on a golden throne is Osiris, the king of the dead. Upon his head rests a glittering crown with a gorgeous white feather plume on either side. Behind Osiris stands Isis, the revered goddess of nature, who is responsible for bringing the dead earth back to life each year. She holds an ankh, a cross with a loop above the bar. An ankh guarantees that a dead person will live forever.

The noble wonders if he will live forever. Or will he be fed to the hideous crocodilelike god called the Eater of the Dead and forever cease to exist. (How can the noble wonder about all this if he's already dead? The noble is actually in limbo, a place where the souls of dead people go while being judged.)

Osiris begins the process of judging the noble's life. On one side of a scale, Osiris places the heart of the noble, which bares the secrets of the soul. Had the soul lied, cheated, or lived an evil life? The soul defends itself before a variety of interrogating gods.

The noble thinks about his second self, called the ka. The ka lives within every human being. When the physical body expires, the ka goes on to enjoy eternal life, where it can hunt, fish, live with its family, be entertained, and eat favorite foods.

Now Osiris holds up the sacred feather, the emblem of truth, and places it on the other side of the scale. If the scales balance, eternal life awaits. If not, the Eater of the Dead has his favorite food for lunch: noble.

	My heart, my mother! My heart whereby I came into being! May nought stand up to oppose me at [my] judgment, may there be no opposition to me in the presence of the Chiefs; may there be no parting of thee from me in the presence of him that keepeth the Balance! Thou art my ka, which dwelleth in my body; the god Khnemu who knitteth together and strengtheneth my limbs. Mayest thou come forth into the place of happiness whither we go. May the Sheniu officials, who make the conditions of the lives of men, not cause my name to stink, and may no lies be spoken against me in the presence of the God. -"Prayer of Ani," from the Book of the Dead (c. 1,700 B.C.E.)

Alternate names are in (parentheses). Some of the duties and animals of the Egyptian gods overlapped. The gods listed below were most popular during the Age of the Pyramids.

Mummification

Before being judged by Osiris, the noble's soul had undertaken a journey that lasted over two months. When the noble died he was brought to the Beautiful House, where an embalmer (often a priest with knowledge of rituals, wrapping, and anatomy) prepared the body to cross to the afterlife.

Egyptians believed that the afterlife would be much like life on Earth and that the soul would want use of its body in eternity. That's why Egyptians made an art out of mummification, or the preservation of the dead.

The process of embalming took great skill and required many steps. What follows is a crash course on Egyptian embalming technique.

1. Removal of the Brain
   With long hooks, the brain is extracted through the nasal passage. The Egyptians didn't think that the brain had any special use.
2. Organ Removal (Evisceration)
   A cut is made on the left side of the body, and the liver, lungs, and other organs are removed, dried out, and stored in sacred vessels called canopic jars. The heart is left in the body, because it will be needed to be weighed in judgment by Osiris.
3. Dehydration with Natron Crystals
   Now the body must be dehydrated (have the liquids removed) to stop decay. A type of salt called natron is used. Natron crystals are packed around the body. The crystals absorb body fat and fluids and keep the body from decaying. After being treated for about 40 days, the corpse is washed and dried.
4. Stuffing
   Because the body has lost much of its mass, resin-stained clothes or bits of sawdust are used to pack the corpse, which by now has also lost its eyeballs. Pieces of cloth are stuffed in the eye sockets and painted black. At this point, the corpse's lips and cheeks are painted.
5. Oiling the Body
   This elaborate process includes, massaging, perfuming, and anointing (blessing with oil) the corpse.
6. Coloring
   After the nose and mouth are filled with cloth scraps to restore the shape of the face, the body is colored. Men are colored red; women are colored yellow. After the coloring, resin is poured into body cavities.
7. Arrangement of the Body
   Depending on which period of Egyptian history the deceased lived in, the arms are either placed to the side of the corpse, folded on its chest, or placed with hands on shoulders.
8. Wrapping
   The body is wrapped in several layers of fine linen; and various body parts receive particular attention. This process takes two weeks, after which a resin is added to the bandages.
9. Funerary Mask
   A mask, sometimes made entirely of gold, is fitted to the mummy's body. Symbols of gods often adorned masks.
10. Burial of Waste
    All materials used to prepare the corpse (such as natron and bloody linen) are placed in a jar and buried away from the mummy's tomb.

© 1996 Deurer — used with permission.

Finally, the time has come to entomb the mummy. Jewelry, games, furniture, food, clothing, and cosmetics might be entombed with the corpse. These things would be used in the afterlife. The Book of the Dead, a collection of hymns and prayers, might also be included in the tomb to protect the body on its journey to the realm of the dead.

So how did the noble fare before the great Osiris? Ask his mummy.

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What's a dynasty?

It's a powerful group or family that maintains its position for a number of years. The New York Yankees baseball team of the 1920s is considered a dynasty because they went to the World Series almost every year and had great leaders, such as Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

Ancient Egypt, also had dynasties. They were families who often ruled for a considerable number of years and did impressive things — such as building pyramids — during their rule.

The history of ancient Egypt is divided into three main periods: the Old Kingdom (about 2,700-2,200 B.C.E.), the Middle Kingdom (2,050-1,800 B.C.E.), and the New Kingdom (about 1,550-1,100 B.C.E.). The New Kingdom was followed by a period called the Late New Kingdom, which lasted to about 343 B.C.E. (Intermediate kingdoms — those without strong ruling families — filled the gaps of time in between the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms.)

During these periods, power passed from one dynasty to another. A dynasty ruled until it was overthrown or there were no heirs left to rule. Each kingdom ended in turmoil either after a period of infighting or after being invaded.

There were more than 30 dynasties in Egyptian history. Dynasties helped keep Egypt united, which was no easy task. Leaders faced periods of chaos, ambitious rivals, and also foreigners who wanted to conquer the region.

The Earliest Dynasties

Beginning in about 4,000 B.C.E., all of Egyptian society existed in two kingdoms, Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. Around 3,100 B.C.E., Menes, the king of Upper Egypt, started the long string of dynasties by conquering Lower Egypt. He unified the regions and built his capital city at Memphis, near the border of these two kingdoms. Because Memphis was located on an island in the Nile, it was easy to defend.

So began the first dynasty, an age appropriately called the Early Dynastic Period. Little is known of the pharaohs (rulers) of the early dynasties. The Egyptian word "pharaoh" literally means "great house."

Pharaohs were more than just rulers. They were considered gods and were believed to possess the secrets of heaven and earth. Pharaohs led the government and the army and wielded unlimited power.

Photo courtesy of State Hermitage Museum

The end of the Old Kingdom was marked by civil wars between pharaohs and nobles.

The Middle Kingdom

Montuhotep II (2,007-1,956 B.C.E.), an Eleventh dynasty pharaoh, was the last ruler of the Old Kingdom and the first ruler of the Middle Kingdom. He and his successors restored political order.

The Middle Kingdom is remembered as a time of flourishing arts, particularly in jewelry making. Egypt became a great trading power during this period and continued massive construction projects. Eventually, the long reign of prosperity gave way to old problems: crop failures, economic woes, dynastic power struggles, and foreign invaders.

Amenemhet III (1817-1772 B.C.E.), of the Twelfth Dynasty, was responsible for the construction of two great projects. He completed the building of the giant waterwheels of the Faiyum region that diverted the floodwaters of the Nile. Amenemhet also constructed the Pyramid of Hawara, which became known as the Labyrinth. It contained about 3,000 rooms.

Trouble struck when a group of foreigners, the Hyksos, a Semitic-Asiatic group, invaded the Nile Delta region. These advanced warriors used new tools for war: bronze weapons and horse-drawn chariots. They defeated the Egyptians, who fought on foot with copper-and-stone weapons.

The New Kingdom

Early pharaohs of the New Kingdom evicted the Hyksos. The New Kingdom is remembered as a time of renaissance in artistic creation, but also as the end of dynastic rule. This period was also marred by corrupt priests and tomb-robbing by government officials.

A famed pharaoh of the new period was Amenhotep IV, who triggered a religious revolution. Before Amenhotep's rule, Egypt was a polytheistic society that believed in many gods, the most important named Amon. But, Amenhotep believed only in Aton, the sun god. Belief in only one god (monotheism) was a radical notion. To show his devotion to Aton, the pharaoh changed his name to Akenhaton ("he who is loyal to Aton"). Akenhaton moved his capital from Thebes, where Amon was worshipped, to Tell el Amarna.

Naturally, the priests who represented the other gods did not like this change one bit. Many Egyptians also did not like the pharaoh discrediting their gods. After the death of Akenhaton, the powerful priests forced the new capital to be moved back to Thebes .

Tut-Tut

The pharaoh who moved the capital back to Thebes was a boy-king. He ruled for nine years, attempted to pacify the priests, and was responsible for some modest building projects. He began his reign at the age of 10 but died of a head injury at 19.

But, his name is famous: Tutankhamun, or more familiarly, King Tut. Tut is mostly remembered because of his beautiful tomb — one of the very few that was not pillaged by grave robbers.

Ramses II, or Ramses the Great, was another important ruler during this period. He reigned for 67 years and died in about 1,213 B.C.E. at age 96. His nearly 200 wives and concubines bore 96 sons and 60 daughters. Not only did Ramesses build a great family, he also built two temples at Abu Simbel, a covered hall of giant pillars at Karnak, additions at the Luxor Temple, and the Ramesseum, a compound consisting of two temples and a palace.

After Ramses' rule, Egypt fell into steady decline. Today, his 3,000-year-old mummy lies in a display case on the second floor of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Egypt's capital.

Over the course of the next nine centuries, the Nubians, the Assyrians, and the Persians bounded into Egypt and ravaged the area. When Pharaoh Nectanebo II retreated to Memphis to avoid death at the hands of oncoming Persian invaders in 343 B.C.E., he became the last Egyptian-born pharaoh, ending over 2,500 years of Egyptian self-rule.

Page 15

Egyptian society was structured like a pyramid. At the top were the gods, such as Ra, Osiris, and Isis. Egyptians believed that the gods controlled the universe. Therefore, it was important to keep them happy. They could make the Nile overflow, cause famine, or even bring death.

The Egyptians also elevated some human beings to gods. Their leaders, called pharaohs, were believed to be gods in human form. They had absolute power over their subjects. After pharaohs died, huge stone pyramids were built as their tombs. Pharaohs were buried in chambers within the pyramids.

Because the people of Egypt believed that their pharaohs were gods, they entrusted their rulers with many responsibilities. Protection was at the top of the list. The pharaoh directed the army in case of a foreign threat or an internal conflict. All laws were enacted at the discretion of the pharaoh. Each farmer paid taxes in the form of grain, which were stored in the pharaoh's warehouses. This grain was used to feed the people in the event of a famine.

The Chain of Command

No single person could manage all these duties without assistance. The pharaoh appointed a chief minister called a vizier as a supervisor. The vizier ensured that taxes were collected.

Working with the vizier were scribes who kept government records. These high-level employees had mastered a rare skill in ancient Egypt — they could read and write.

Right below the pharaoh in status were powerful nobles and priests. Only nobles could hold government posts; in these positions they profited from tributes paid to the pharaoh. Priests were responsible for pleasing the gods.

Nobles enjoyed great status and also grew wealthy from donations to the gods. All Egyptians — from pharaohs to farmers — gave gifts to the gods.

Soldier On

Soldiers fought in wars or quelled domestic uprisings. During long periods of peace, soldiers also supervised the peasants, farmers, and slaves who were involved in building such structures as pyramids and palaces.

Skilled workers such as physicians and craftspersons made up the middle class. Craftspersons made and sold jewelry, pottery, papyrus products, tools, and other useful things.

Naturally, there were people needed to buy goods from artisans and traders. These were the merchants and storekeepers who sold these goods to the public.

The Bottom of the Heap

At the bottom of the social structure were slaves and farmers. Slavery became the fate of those captured as prisoners of war. In addition to being forced to work on building projects, slaves toiled at the discretion of the pharaoh or nobles.

Farmers tended the fields, raised animals, kept canals and reservoirs in good order, worked in the stone quarries, and built the royal monuments. Farmers paid taxes that could be as much as 60 percent of their yearly harvest — that's a lot of hay!

Social mobility was not impossible. A small number of peasants and farmers moved up the economic ladder. Families saved money to send their sons to village schools to learn trades. These schools were run by priests or by artisans. Boys who learned to read and write could become scribes, then go on to gain employment in the government. It was possible for a boy born on a farm to work his way up into the higher ranks of the government. Bureaucracy proved lucrative.

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None of the achievements of the remarkable ancient Egyptian civilization would have been possible without the Nile River. There is always a connection between landscape and how a people develop. It does not take the wisdom of a sphinx to understand why.

Archaeologists and historians don't know exactly how Egyptian civilization evolved. It is believed that humans started living along the Nile's banks starting in about 6,000 B.C.E. For the earliest inhabitants of the Nile Valley food was not easy to find. There were no McTut's selling burgers, and, though there were a lot of crocodiles, those critters were pretty hard to catch.

Food for Thought

Over time, however, despite being in the midst of desert surroundings, people discovered that the Nile River provided many sources of food. Along the river were fruit trees, and fish swam in the Nile in great numbers.

Perhaps most importantly, they discovered that, at the same time each year, the Nile flooded for about six months. As the river receded, it deposited a rich, brown layer of silt that was suitable for growing wheat, beans, barley, or even cotton. Farmers learned to dig short canals leading to fields near the Nile, thus providing fresh water for year-round irrigation. Planting immediately after a flood yielded harvests before the next year's flood.

Prime Time

In order to know when to plant, the Egyptians needed to track days. They developed a calendar based on the flooding of the Nile that proved remarkably accurate. It contained a year of 365 days divided into 12 months of 30 days each. The five extra days fell at the end of the year.

Large reeds called papyrus grew wild along the Nile. The Egyptians developed a process that turned these reeds into flattened material that could be written on (also called papyrus). In fact, the English word "paper" has its root in the ancient Greek word "papyrus." Among the first things written on papyrus were calendars that tracked time.

Papyrus had many other uses. Boats were constructed by binding the reeds together in bundles. Baskets, mats, rope, and sandals were also fashioned from this multipurpose material.

Sand, Land, and Civilization

Even today, the world around the Nile is quite barren. Outside of the narrow swath of greenery next to the river, there is sand as far as the eye can see. To the Nile's west exists the giant Sahara Desert, the largest desert in the world.

From north to south, the Sahara is between 800 and 1,200 miles wide; it stretches over 3,000 miles from east to west. The total area of the Sahara is more than 3,500,000 square miles. It's the world's biggest sandbox.

And, as if there weren't enough sand in the Sahara, east of the Nile are other deserts.

Although sand had limited uses, these deserts presented one tremendous strategic advantage: few invaders could ever cross the sands to attack Egypt — the deserts proved too great a natural barrier.

After learning to take advantage of the Nile's floods — and not having to fear foreign attacks — the Egyptians concentrated on improving farming techniques. As the years passed, Egyptians discovered that wheat could be baked into bread, that barley could be turned into soup (or even beer), and that cotton could be spun into clothing.

With many of life's necessities provided, the Egyptians started thinking about other things, such as art, government, religion, and philosophy — some of the basics needed to create a civilization. Eventually, pyramids, mummies, Cleopatra, and the Sphinx of Giza became touchstones of this flourishing culture.

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Hieroglyphics, pyramids, mummies, the Sphinx of Giza, King Tut, and Cleopatra.

The sands of the Nile River Valley hold many clues about one of the most mysterious, progressive, and artistic ancient civilizations. A great deal of evidence survives about how the ancient Egyptians lived, but questions remain. Even the wise sphinx would have trouble answering some of them. How were the pyramids built? Who came up with the idea for mummies and why? What was a typical day like for a pharaoh?

In De-Nile

In 3,000 B.C.E., Egypt looked similar geographically to the way it looks today. The country was mostly covered by desert. But along the Nile River was a fertile swath that proved — and still proves — a life source for many Egyptians.

The Nile is the longest river in the world; it flows northward for nearly 4,200 miles. In ancient times, crops could be grown only along a narrow, 12-mile stretch of land that borders the river. Early Egyptians grew crops such as beans, wheat, and cotton. Despite the lack of many natural resources, such as forests or an abundance of land for farming, a great society emerged.

Earlier in history, Neolithic (late Stone Age) people thrived in the Nile Valley. The remains that have been uncovered date back to about 6,000 B.C.E. But it wasn't until 3,800 B.C.E. that the valley's inhabitants began to form a cohesive civilization.

The road to civilization required more organization and increased efficiency. Farmers began producing surplus crops that allowed others not only to concentrate on farming but also to pursue other trades, such as mercantilism or skilled craftwork.

Egyptian artisans created copper tools such as chisels and needles — all new inventions — which allowed them to fabricate ornamental jewelry. Artisans also discovered how to make bronze by mixing copper and tin, which marked the beginning of the Bronze Age.

Evidence suggests that ancient Egyptians invented the potter's wheel. This tool made it easier to create pots and jars for storage, cooking, religious needs, and decoration.

The pharaohs who ruled Egypt for about 3,000 years were by and large capable administrators, strong military leaders, sophisticated traders, and overseers of great building projects.

Foundation to Demise

Ancient Egypt's great civilization spanned thousands of years, from c. 3000 B.C. until the annexation by Rome in 30 B.C.E.

Writing also set the Egyptians apart from some of their neighbors. Egyptians used hieroglyphics or pictures to represent words or sounds. This early form of writing was discovered by the Western world after Napoleon's army invaded Egypt in 1798. The Rosetta Stone, a black tablet containing inscriptions, was deciphered and became crucial in unlocking the mystery of hieroglyphics and understanding Egyptian history.

Ancient Egyptian civilization lasted for several thousand years. Many of its discoveries and practices have survived an even greater test of time.

In fact, one of the ancient Egyptians' inventions, the calendar, has helped define time itself.

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People of the Stone Age did not have the luxury of turning on the TV and watching Tim "Rock" Taylor host "Tool Time" or Bob Vilastone giving home-building tips in "This Old Cave." Nor could they dial 911 when a fire threatened them. Rather, they had to invent tools and harness the power of fire. But it was their experiments in tool-making that ultimately led to TV, cell phones, and computers.

Living in the computer-driven Information Age, we don't necessarily think of fire or tools as technologies. But by definition technology refers to the "practical application of knowledge in a certain area." Learning how to tame and use fire proved an invaluable technological advance in human development.

Learning how to sharpen a flint, attach a flint to a piece of wood to create a spear, then understanding how to use flint on other pieces of wood to create digging tools were all technological leaps.

Playing With Fire

Uncontrolled fire terrified our ancestors and still has the power to terrify today. Forest fires, or houses being burnt to the ground are still vexing problems. However, take time to think of all of the practical uses of fire or its subsequent substitutes. Where would we be today without it? What was its importance to early people?

There is heavy debate as to exactly when humans first controlled the use of fire. If early humans controlled it, how did they start a fire? We do not have firm answers, but they may have used pieces of flint stones banged together to created sparks. They may have rubbed two sticks together generating enough heat to start a blaze. Conditions of these sticks had to be ideal for a fire.

The earliest humans were terrified of fire just as animals were. Yet, they had the intelligence to recognize that they could use fire for a variety of purposes. Fire provided warmth and light and kept wild animals away at night. Fire was useful in hunting. Hunters with torches could drive a herd of animals over the edge of a cliff.

People also learned that they could cook food with fire and preserve meat with smoke. Cooking made food taste better and easier to swallow. This was important for those without teeth!

The early humans of 2 million years ago did not have fire-making skills, so they waited until they found something burning from a natural cause to get fire. A nightly campfire became a routine. What was once comfort and safety, was now also a social occasion. People would collect around the fire each night to share stories of the day's hunt and activities, to laugh and to relax.

The earliest evidence found in Swartkrans, South Africa and at Chesowanja, Kenya Terra and Amata, France suggests that fire was first used in stone hearths about 1.5 million years ago.

Tooling Around

Archaeologists have found Stone Age tools 25,000-50,000 year-old all over the world. The most common are daggers and spear points for hunting, hand axes and choppers for cutting up meat and scrapers for cleaning animal hides. Other tools were used to dig roots, peel bark and remove the skins of animals. Later, splinters of bones were used as needles and fishhooks. A very important tool for early man was flakes struck from flint. They could cut deeply into big game for butchering.

Cro-Magnons, who lived approximately 25,000 years ago, introduced tools such as the bow and arrow, fishhooks, fish spears and harpoons that were constructed from bones and antlers of animals. Logs were hollowed out to create canoes. Crossing rivers and deep-water fishing became possible.

Farm System

Advances in tool-making technology led to advances in agriculture. And farming revolutionized the world and set prehistoric humans on a course toward modernity. Inventions such as the plow helped in the planting of seeds. No longer did humans have to depend on the luck of the hunt. Their food supply became much more certain. Permanent settlements were soon to follow. Animals were raised for food as well as to do work. Goats, for instance, were sources of milk and meat. Dogs were used to aid in hunting wild animals.

Modern, civilized societies began to emerge around the globe. Human life as we know it started to flourish.

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Flintstones, Meet the FlintstonesThey're a modern stone age familyFrom the town of BedrockThey're a page right out of history

-"The Flintstones" theme song

Because there was no written language 50,000 years ago, we do not have much information on how a "modern stone age family" lived, what they ate, where they lived, what they wore, or even what they looked like. Like Fred Flintstone, did they have leopardskin suits, go barefoot, and use a boulder for a bowling ball?

Archaeologists and anthropologist who study this time period do have artifacts upon which they can begin to draw some conclusions. Techniques like carbon dating can help scientists determine the age of objects and bones. Large human skulls, body bones, animal skeletons, cave paintings, and scientific ideas on ancient climate patterns allow scientists to draw a picture of what life may have been like for primitive people.

Homo habilis

Let's start our evolutionary journey with homo habilis, the nearly two million year old discovery of the Leakey family. Digging in Africa's Olduvai Gorge the Leakeys found Nutcracker Man, who shared many traits with humans of today. Nutcracker had a giant skull dominated by a wide face, big cheekbones, and bulging facial muscles. The skull also had enormous teeth — its molars are four times the size those of present humans.

What about brains? Paleoanthropologists have determined that the cranial capacity of the Nutcracker was nearly 50% larger than Lucy's. Nutcracker also had hands that began to look like ours.

How was Nutcracker different from us? Nutcracker was a hairy fellow and walked hunched over. Nutcracker wasn't all that smart either — our brains have far higher capacity. But because Nutcracker's teeth, hands, and brain power, he was proclaimed a new species Homo Habilis and in 1970 was accepted by scientists as an early member of the human family.

Neanderthals

Neanderthals mark the transition to early modern man. Homo sapiens neanderthalensis had a brain larger than many human brains today. While his brain was large, his intelligence was limited.

The Neanderthals, who lived from 30,000-100,000 years ago, did things that we think only modern humans do. For instance, they cared for their sick. One skeleton is that of a man who was 40 years old. His bones showed that he suffered from severe arthritis and had lost most of his teeth. It would have been almost impossible for him to survive unless someone had cared for him. And even a Neanderthal needed caring. Neanderthals often lived in freezing temperatures amidst hostile animals and endured many severe physical ailments.

They are the first group we know who buried their dead. The dead were buried with tools, weapons, and food. We assume they expected these items to be useful in the afterlife. It is possible these were the first to believe in a god or gods.

Neanderthals seem somewhat familiar to us, because they did things we can understand. They lived in caves, wore clothing made of animal skins, and used fire. They also may have been the first people to cook their food in order to thaw it in their frigid environment. They may have even played music. An 80,000 year-old bone was found to produce musical tones of the diatonic scale ("do, re, mi, fa").

What did Neanderthals look like? They had a very strong build, powerful jaws, sharply receding chins, low foreheads, and heavy eyebrow ridges. Chances are you would not want to date one.

According to Dr. Tim White, an anthropologist at the University of California, Neanderthals and those who lived before them practiced cannibalism, or eating fellow humans. Some Neanderthal skulls show cuts consistent with cannibalism. Human bones from 800,000 years ago that were found in Atapuerca, Spain, had cut marks that were stripped of their flesh.

Neanderthal disappeared without a trace at about the time of the appearance of the Cro-Magnon people — around 30,000 to 35,000 years ago.

Cro-Magnons are homo sapiens (man with wisdom) just as we are. They lived mostly in southern France and Northern Spain. They have stirred our imagination in part because of their elaborate cave paintings in places such as Lascaux and Vallon-Pont-d'Arc in France. Paintings of bulls tossing their heads, wounded bison charging a hunter, herds of reindeer escaping and schools of swimming trout and salmon were just some of the pictures that we can still see today.

From these paintings, we know that hunting was important. One group of people, the Magdalenians, left ample evidence about their hunting practices. They lived in France and Western Europe some 15,000 years ago. To get close to the herds of animals, they dressed in animal skins and antlers. Groups of hunters worked together in a variety of ways to get their meat, killing not just one animal at a time, but often a whole herd. They would surround their quarry in the open, stampede them over cliffs, or even herd them into natural corrals. There the hunters easily killed the animals by stabbing them with lances or piercing them with spears, which they had carefully carved with harpoon-like tips. The biggest animals were sometimes driven into pits, falling upon a trap of sharpened stakes.

With high, arched foreheads, well-defined chins, and small brow ridges, Cro-Magnon people looked somewhat like you and me. They lived on earth for thousands of years. For some unknown reasons — scarcity of food, perhaps — they were gone by the end of the Paleolithic period.

Long and Evolved Story

People living in Africa and advances in agriculture sparked the beginning of the Mesolithic Age or Middle Stone Age. This period lasted from 12,000 till about 10,000 years ago in Africa and Asia, although this date varies according to region. Raising crops for food signifies the beginning of a new way of life for people.

The Neolithic Age or New Stone Age was revolutionary. About 10,000 years ago people learned to make better tools and weapons, establish permanent villages and domesticate animals for food and work. They were beginning to live like "modern" people.

This "Neolithic or Agricultural Revolution," did not happen overnight. It took several millennia after the first discovery of agriculture for people to form settled societies.

Jarmo in present day Iraq was one of the oldest. At 8750 years old this little town was home to 200 inhabitants. Catal Huyuk in present day Turkey was an even larger society with almost 3000 residents 8000 years ago.

Slowly but surely modern human beings had evolved.

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Could you survive in the wild? TV shows like "Gilligan's Island" and "Survivor" and books and movies like "Lord of the Flies" ask this question. Small groups of people are set down on a deserted island and left to fend for themselves. They have none of the things we take for granted, such as easy access to food, shelter, clothing, or video games. There are no cities, no roads, no tools, no doctors, no computers — and no malls.

In part, these shows are so compelling because it is interesting to ponder how each one of us would do in such a setting. Could you create tools, make rules, gather food, or work with wood? Could you weave clothes, protect your toes, fight off a beast, or know which direction is east?

Now take yourself back 20,000 years. For Neanderthal Man, each and every day was a challenge. What was life like for Neanderthals? How did early humans find food, make clothing, and seek shelter?

The first fossil of this type was found in 1856 near Germany's Neander Thal. At that time, "thal" was the word for "valley" in German. The find became known as Neanderthal Man — named after the place where it was found.

In the early part of the 1900s, Germans began regularizing the spelling of many words. They changed the spelling of words to reflect their pronunciation. "Thal" is pronounced "täl" in German, so the "h" was dropped in the spelling of the word. Today, most scientists continue to use the "Neanderthal" spelling, while others have adapted to "Neandertal." In either case, the word is pronounced: "nee-an-der-täl."

Hominids, History, and Prehistory

Before answering these questions, it will be useful to understand how we know what we know about early hominids. Hominids are from the family homidiane, and refer to primate mammals who could stand on two legs. We are hominids as were our ancestors, including Java Man, Neanderthal Man, Beijing Man, and Lucy.

When studying humans, historians strongly rely on written records to gather information about the past. History, as it pertains to mankind, is said to begin with the invention of writing, about 5,000 years ago.

But humans lived long before the invention of writing. Prehistory refers to this long time period before writing was invented. How do we know what life was like if there were no written records of prehistory? Anthropologists and archaeologists work together with other scientists in answering this question. They use artifacts and fossils — clues from ancient times. After testing and analyzing them, educated conclusions are made about life in prehistoric times. Some of the conclusions are wrong, some are somewhat correct, and others may be entirely correct. Some theories will change as the next generations of scientists and historians glean more information.

Imagine yourself digging through a stranger's trash. You can draw some conclusions about his or her life based on what you find. While archaeologists don't exactly dig through trash, they do sift through fossil remains and artifacts and try to explain things.

Prehistory is divided into different time periods. The use of stone tools by early people led historians to apply the name Stone Age to the period before writing became established.

The Paleolithic, or Old Stone Age, began about 4.5 million years ago and lasted until about 8000 B.C.E. Many anthropologists believe that creatures vaguely resembling Homo sapiens (that's us today) may have lived at the onset of the Stone Age.

The Neolithic, or New Stone Age, lasted from 8000 B.C.E. until approximately 3000 B.C.E. By the end of this era, villages and farms had come into existence.

Scientists believe that the earliest hominids may have used caves as shelters. They probably ate vegetables and gathered seeds, fruits, nuts and other edible plants. Later, scientists speculate, meat was added to the diet as small animals were hunted. Eventually, humans hunted large animals.

In order to hunt successfully, early men had to work together. As humans became successful hunters, they migrated over great distances in search of food. For nearly a million years, however, periods of extremely cold weather during the Ice Age limited the areas to which early people could migrate. Prehistoric people learned how to use fire and make warm clothing in response to this cold climate.

Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons

In 1856, human remains were found in the Neander Valley of Germany. This is where the Neanderthal people lived some 60,000 years ago. They had stocky builds, heavy jaws, thick eyebrow ridges, and large noses. Unlike hominids who came before them, they made efficient tools and wore heavy clothing made of animal skins.

Most Neanderthals lived in groups of 50 people. Some may have dwelled in open-air camps along the shores of lakes and rivers. They cared for their sick and aged and may have been the first to practice a primitive form of medicine.

The Cro-Magnons were one of the earliest Homo sapiens. They lived in Europe and lived after the Neanderthals. They lived inside cave entrances while others built huts in forested areas. Long houses made of stone blocks were also used for communities of 30-100 people. Hunting weapons which allowed for a safe distance, such as the spear and bow, were used to hunt the woolly mammoth and bison.

How did early Homo Sapiens such as Cro-Magnons compare with humans of today? In essence, we are brainier and they were brawnier. But the similarities, despite the passage of thousands of years, are striking.

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Singer Elton John is connected to our original, ancient ancestors. In 1974, his cover of the Beatles hit "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," echoed throughout the night in the barren landscape of Hadar, Ethiopia.

Paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson and his team were blasting this song on their cassette player inside their work tent. (A paleoanthropologist studies fossil hominids.) They were celebrating the discovery of the oldest known hominid ancestor. Inspired by the song, the team named the partial skeleton, "Lucy."

Lucy was a newly discovered species named Australopithecus afarensis and lived 3.5 million years ago. Many scientists came to regard her as the mother of humankind. Who was Lucy? What was life like for her?

A more pressing question: What was Lucy? She had both ape and human characteristics. Which was she? She is actually related to both humans and apes.

Based on the partial skeleton that he assembled, Johanson concluded that Lucy had a receding forehead and prominent face, much like an ape. Her softball-sized brain was a little larger than a chimpanzee's, yet much smaller than a modern human's. Her dark skin and patchy hair protected her from the sun of tropical Africa. The lush, green environment near the Awash River seemed to be her home and this region was one of the few areas in which apes could live.

Yet Lucy's knee joint looked vaguely human. This joint was capable of locking straight up. Unlike the quadrupedal ape (which walked on all fours), Lucy seemed to be a bipedal (able to walk on two legs) with the capability of walking erect over long distances. She was thus able to travel in search of food.

Over thousands of years, Lucy and her ancestors physically adapted to their changing natural environment. Open grasslands replaced the shrinking dense forests of the Great Rift Valley. Since Lucy walked upright, she could stroll across the grasslands from forest to forest and use her free hands to gather food. This was a major development. Lucy's diet consisted of fruit, small animals (such as field mice), bird eggs, and even insects. Archaeologists believe Lucy was able to extract termites from their mounds using a blade of grass. This is an important capability because it demonstrates that Lucy, and others like her, were developing a more advanced use of their hands. And that ability brings Lucy a step closer to us — humans.

Lucy belonged to genus Australopithecus and the species afarensis, but she also belonged to the the hominid family (hominidae) to which humans belong. Although humans are of the family hominidae, we are not of Lucy's genus or species. We are Homo sapiens. How then, can Lucy be our ancient ancestor if we belong to a different genus and species? It's because humans and Lucy share a taxonomy up to the point of genus and species; there are many shared characteristics, but there are differences and these differences place humans in our own genus and species.

A taxonomy or classification is an arrangement of plants and animals into hierarchical categories. Using a taxonomy, scientists are able to classify living beings according to characteristcs they share in common. This is the human taxonomy:

Humans and apes are both in the Hominid family. As hominids, we share many physical similarities in bones, back teeth and shoulder muscles. Neither the apes nor the humans have tails and we all walk on two feet .

Now take Lucy. She is a hominid because she was bipedal, but she was of the genus species Australopithecus afarensis. Australopithecus represents her genus name (which is always capitalized), and afarensis, is the species name (which is always in lower case). So, while Lucy and modern humans share some traits like the ability to walk upright, there are too many structural differences to classify us in the same genus.

The species is generally the smallest working unit in the classification of plants and animals. Lucy differed from the humans in both genus and species. We modern humans share some closer relatives that share our genus, Homo, but not our species, sapiens.

The Homo habilis lived about two million years ago. Like modern humans, they belong to the genus Homo which derives from the Latin word for "man." But they are of the species habilis, not sapiens. Homo habilis translates as handy man. Homo sapiens translates as "wise man." While the two species share many traits in common including similarities in skull and jaw shapes and the ability to make tools, there are also things that are different both physically and genetically. We've grown a lot along the way.

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Humans are curious creatures. We want to know where we came from, in part, as a way of figuring out where we are going in the future.

Our need to know is sometimes overwhelming. Archaeologists and anthropologists dig through dirt, study DNA samples, examine artifacts, and try to construct a picture of the earliest human ancestors.

Artifacts, by the way, are not facts about art. Rather, artifacts are things created by humans (tools, vases, clothing) for practical purposes.

Can You Dig It?

Digging into our ancestors' past is hard work. Records of human life were not kept millions of years ago. What was life like for cavepeople in the Stone Age? Did Fred Flintstone actually wear leopard skin suits and eat brontosaurus burgers?

Evidence of life from about 30,000 years ago has been found in cave paintings, in burial chambers, and in the form of crude tools. But what about time dating earlier than that? This "Prehistoric" period — before writing and civilizations — is called the Stone Age and is extremely valuable to our understanding of our earliest hominid ancestors. Hominids comprise humans today, extinct ancestors, and apes that share similarities with humans.

The earliest and longest period of the Stone Age is called the Paleolithic Age. This comes from the Greek word Palaios, meaning "long ago" or "old," and lithos, meaning "stone" — put together, Paleolithic Age means Old Stone Age.

The Old Stone Age began approximately 4.5 million years ago. It lasted until about 25 thousand years ago — relatively recently in terms of the overall age of the earth. It was at the beginning of the Old Stone Age, approximately 4.4 million years ago, that the first human ancestors made their appearance on earth.

Approximately 3.5 million years ago, hominids began walking upright. What did they eat? Where did they live? The archaeological evidence is not clear. Those who study the earliest hominids do know, however, that these human ancestors physically changed in response to their environment.

Dramatic changes in world climate started taking place about 1.5 million years ago. Most of the world became cold — really cold. This plunge in temperature began one of four distinct periods of frigid temperatures known as an Ice Age. Each of these frigid periods lasted from 10,000 to 50,000 years. The most recent chilled the Earth just over 10,000 years ago.

Photo Courtesy of Jeff Gunderson, Minnesota Sea Grant

During this most recent Ice Age, the northern polar icecap moved so far south that massive sheets of ice were created over much of the northern hemisphere. In some areas the ice was several miles thick. About 1/3 of the earth's surface was encased in an icy layer — that's four times the amount of ice normally found on earth today. Naturally, hunting and gathering abilities were interfered with during the Ice Ages.

Once these frigid years were over, a revolution took place — humans started planting crops. This new way of life, which began about 10,000 years ago, led to permanent settlements and the world's first communities. Farming and the domestication of animals mark the beginning of the Neolithic Age, also called the New Stone Age.

So what then did Fred Flintstone wear and eat? What follows is a look at some of our earliest known human ancestors — how they lived, how they changed, and how they interacted with their environment.

Archeologists and anthropologists "meet the Flintstones" every time they unearth the remains of prehistoric people. Their work helps to answer profound questions:

• Who are humans?
• Where did we come from?
• Where are we going?

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They set out on April 7, 1805, from Fort Mandan, North Dakota, near present-day Bismarck. Two young army captains, 28 year-old Merriweather Lewis and his partner William Clark, rounded up their party and headed west. With them they took a map showing just three points — the Mississippi as far as Mandan, the position of St. Louis and the location of the mouth of the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest. It was Lewis and Clark's task to fill in the rest.

"Your observations are to be taken with great pains and accuracy," President Thomas Jefferson instructed. "In all your intercourse with the natives, treat them in the most friendly and conciliatory manner." To this end, the expedition's supplies included 4,600 sewing needles, 144 small scissors, 8 brass kettles, 33 pounds of colored beads, and a quantity of vermilion face paint.

Traveling with Lewis and Clark were 32 men and a young Indian woman named Sacagawea. When the expedition limped into St. Louis on September 23, 1806, it had covered 8,000 miles, bringing back priceless information about the rivers and mountains of the region, the plants and animals and people.

Humans are curious creatures, always wondering what lies beyond the horizon. Lewis and Clark did not describe themselves as geographers, but they might well have. Geography is the study of the surface of the earth. It is about people and places. It is about the physical character of a country, its climates and landscapes, and its biological environment.

Eratosthenes was the first to use the word "Geographica" as the title of his book in the 3rd century B.C.E. Eratosthenes figured out the size of the earth. His method was rather simple. He knew that on the summer solstice in Aswan, the sun shines directly overhead at noon. In Alexandria, 500 miles to the north, he found it cast a shadow, giving an angle of about 7.2 degrees. Assuming the sun is sufficiently distant that its rays are parallel, he calculated the earth's circumference by the ratios: 7.2/360 = 500/x. His figure of 25,000 miles was very close to reality.

Mapping the World

The geographer's most important tool is the map. Mapmaking went through a revolution in 15th and 16th centuries when a marvelous age of exploration dawned. Bartolomeu Dias, who discovered the Cape of Good Hope in 1487, was followed by Vasco da Gama, who pioneered the route to India. In 1492, Columbus crossed the Atlantic. And in 1519, Magellan set out on his ambitious voyage to circumnavigate the planet.

Magellan's venture was not a happy one. Approaching the tip of South America his crew mutinied, terrified by ferocious weather. Magellan executed some, imprisoned others, and marooned the ringleader on a remote shore of South America. Rounding Tierra del Fuego — the southern tip of South America — Magellan headed into the Pacific. He trusted his maps and thought it would take only a few days to cross. But his trip took four months. Drinking water became putrid and turned yellow. The crew almost starved. They were reduced to eating sawdust, leather strips, and rats.

As sailors returned and more information came in, more of the earth needed to be mapped. Cartographers — or mapmakers — faced a fascinating problem. How could the three-dimensional surface of the earth be represented on a two-dimensional page? They learned it could not be done without sacrificing shape, direction, or size.

Mercator Plots the Course

In 1569, Gerardus Mercator, a Flemish mapmaker, devised a brilliant solution and produced the earth's most famous map. On a globe, lines of longitude meet at the poles. Mercator opened them up to make them parallel, intersecting at right angles with lines of latitude. In another adjustment, he placed latitude lines farther part as they approached north and south.

The map had certain drawbacks. Regions near the poles suffered gross distortions. Greenland, for example, appeared several times the size of South America. Sailors, for whom the map was prepared, did not much care. What mattered was that the map offered a simple way to plot a course.

In 1585, Mercator began to publish his maps in book form. Engraved on the title page appeared the Greek god, Atlas, carrying the earth upon his back. Ever since, a book of maps has been known as an atlas.

The science of mapmaking has continued. Cartographers followed in Mercator's footsteps, continually trying to represent the earth on paper. Although few have had the adventurous spirit of Magellan or Lewis and Clark, The work of cartographers has led to improved communications and a broader understanding of the earth's physical features.

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"On the 24th of August ... between 2 and 3 in the afternoon my mother drew his attention to a cloud of unusual size and appearance...I can best describe its shape by likening it to a pine tree. It rose into the sky on a very long "trunk" from which spread some "branches"...The sight of it made the scientist in my uncle determined to see it from closer at hand." –Pliny the Younger describing his uncle's death in the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, 79 C.E.

There wasn't any history before 3000 B.C.E.

In a literal sense that is true. Historians mostly rely on written documents to reconstruct the past. Before 3000 B.C.E. writing did not exist, as far as we know. Accordingly, events earlier than this time are referred to as "pre-history," before written history!

You may be used to seeing dates with B.C. or A.D. (for example, 2750 B.C. or A.D. 476). So why don't you see those abbreviations here?

The abbreviation B.C. stands for "Before Christ," and A.D. stands for the Latin phrase Anno Domini, which means, "the Year of Our Lord." Because history belongs to everyone, and because not everyone is a Christian, many historians have been using the new terms, B.C.E. and C.E

The abbreviation C.E. stands for the "Common Era" and is used in place of A.D. For example, 1492 C.E. is the same as A.D. 1492 (which is sometimes incorrectly written as 1492 A.D.). The abbreviation B.C.E. stands for "Before the Common Era," and is used in place of B.C. The year 1625 B.C.E is the same as 1625 B.C.

Clay and the Sumerians

The Sumerians invented the first writing system. At first they used pictographs to represent words — little pictures drawn on wet clay. A picture of a bird represents mushen, "bird;" a fish, the word ha, "fish." Sumerian scribes quickly discovered how to write new words by joining pictures together: the signs for "woman" and "mountain" produced geme, "slave-girl" — the Sumerians took their slaves from the mountain tribes to the east. Eventually the pictures evolved into abstract patterns made by a wedge-shaped stylus. This is called cuneiform writing, from the Latin word cuneus = "wedge."

What did the Sumerians write? Mostly lists. Inventories of people and possessions, of goods to trade, of food rations for slaves. There are legal documents: marriage records, wills, contracts, deeds of sale — and tax returns by the score (one Sumerian proverb reads "You can have a lord, You can have a king, But the man to fear is the tax collector"). Of the 1500,000 clay tablets recovered so far, 75 percent deal with such matters.

Scattered amongst them, though, are poems and epics — the world's first literature. There is a farmer's almanac, even recipes. This one comes from Akkad around 1700 B.C.E. It is for "Tuhu Beets" — beets boiled in beer (don't knock it until you've tried it), and begins: Tuhu shirum saqum izzaz me tukan lipia tanadi tusammat tabaum... Roughly, you boil beets with onions in beer, add herbs, mush everything into a porridge, then sprinkle with raw shuhutinnu . What's shuhutinnu? — "an unidentified member of the onion family."

The Sumerians never wrote history in the sense of trying to explain how the past happened, by the deed of men and women, economic factors, natural disasters or pestilence. They believed their society had been there since the universe began, planned and decreed by the gods. It never occurred to them that their land had once been scattered villages occupying desolate marshland, its greatness coming from human toil, invention, vision and determination.

Credit as the First Historian goes to Herodotus, born c. 484 C.E., who lived in Athens while the Parthenon was being built. He seems to have been a trader, a compulsive story-teller, who traveled widely throughout the Greek empire. He must have made an enchanting companion, engaging in conversation everyone he met. "My business is to record what people say," he explains, "but I am no means bound to believe it." Officially he wrote an account of the war between the Persians and Greeks. Along the way he found time to be fascinated by ancient Egyptian religion, the flooding of the Nile — and gnats, on which he offers sound advice:

Everyone provides himself with a net, which during the day he uses for fishing, and at night fixes up around his bed, and creeps in under it before he goes to sleep. For anyone to sleep wrapped in a cloak or linen would be useless, for the gnats would bite through them; but they do no even attempt to get through the net.

"What made him the first serious historian," says classical scholar and poet Peter Levi, "is his combination of great scope and precise focus, his imaginative power as a story-teller and his rationalism, his concern with truth."

Vesuvius: A Case Study in History

In Roman times, Pliny-the-Younger proved a worthy successor with his brilliant description of the eruption of Vesuvius quoted above. He was just 17 years-old when the volcano exploded, destroying the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum. His account has helped modern volcanologists reconstruct the event. It lasted about 18 hours, Pliny tells them. There was a cloud shaped like "a pine tree" — a dense column of hot gas, rock and ash, tossed 20 miles up into the sky. After about 12 hours, the force of the blast slackened. The column collapsed hurtling a gigantic surge cloud of hot ash down Vesuvius' western slope at 100 mph. Within 4 minutes it reached Herculaneum, blasting buildings, burning or suffocating the people. A second surge devastated Pompeii.

During the 1981 eruption of Mt. St. Helens scientists were amazed at the speed and power of these so-called "pyroclastic flows." They overturned forests and engulfed a car speeding away at 80 mph. Pliny reports one of these surges and was fortunate not have perished in it: "I look back: a dense cloud looms behind us, following us like a flood poured across the land... The fire itself actually stopped some distance away, but darkness and ashes came again, a great weight of them..." His uncle was not so lucky and died across the Gulf of Naples at Stabiae.

Vesuvius will erupt again. The only question is when. Millions of people now living in the shadow of the volcano will be at risk.

The philospher George Santayana remarked: "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it." Henry Ford dismissed history as "bunk." Edward Waldo Emerson maintained "There is no history; only biography." Percy Bysshe Shelley put it poetically: "History is a cyclic poem written by Time upon the memories of man." Shakespeare is briefest: "The past is prologue." The future begins here.

Herodotus, the first historian, claimed modest goals for his work: "that the doings of men may not be forgotten." On the title page he wrote Historia, Greek for "inquiries" or "researches." Inquiring into the past has been called history ever since.

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Finding them didn't come as much of a surprise. Not to David Roberts, anyway. Winding its way across a 117,000-year-old former sand dune was a trail of footprints made by human feet. They are the oldest human footprints ever found.

Roberts is a South African geologist. Previously, he had come across fossilized carnivore tracks in the rock fringing Langebaan Lagoon 60 miles north of Cape Town. And he had noticed rock fragments which showed signs of human use. So: "On a hunch, I began searching for hominid footprints — and found them!"

"Hundreds of people had walked over that area and not noticed the prints," adds Roberts's colleague, Lee Berger. "Whoever left these footprints has the potential of being the ancestor of all modern humans."

The prints measure eight and a half inches in length. This early person would have taken size 4 shoes.

The Beginning of Time?

When did it all begin? If you had asked Dr. John Lightfoot in 1644, he would have given you a most precise answer. The world was created on October 23, 4004 B.C.E., promptly "at nine o'clock in the morning." Lightfoot, a Hebrew scholar, arrived at the date through exhaustive study of Scripture.

Today we know this underestimates our planet's true age a million-fold. The earth formed 4.6 billion years ago — an almost unimaginably long time. But what of our human past? How far back does it stretch? There are several answers — a series of "firsts":

• 2 million+ years: First Hominids
• 100,000+ years: First Humans
• 9,000 years: First Settlements
• 6,000 years: First Civilizations

All this and more is the province of anthropology. The word means literally "the study of man." We are a complicated species, and anthropologists poke into every aspect of our human nature.

The Caretakers of Culture

Some anthropologists live for years at a time with aboriginal peoples, recording how they organize their lives with the overlay of civilization absent. Margaret Mead, the most celebrated anthropologist of her generation, pioneered this approach in the 1920s when she lived among the Samoan Islanders of the South Pacific. She returned to tell a scandalized world that they practiced free love. Later experts have suggested her adolescent informants fooled the rather ernest young Mead. They were just leading her on.

Other researchers look to our nearest surviving relatives, the great apes, and seek clues to human behavior there. For 40 years Jane Goodall has lived alongside the chimpanzees of Gombe National park in Tanzania. Chimps may look cuddly and cute but they are not above thievery, infanticide, and murder.

Who owns the past? It may sound an odd question, but it is one anthropologists, especially in North America, are having to face. American museums are filled with the skeletons of Native Americans exhumed — looted, if you like — without the permission of their living descendants. In 1990, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) ordered that this material returned to the tribes.

Kennewick Man is at the center of the bitterest dispute. A near-complete human skeleton, it was found along the banks of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington, in July 1996. James C. Chatters, the forensic anthropologist who first examined it observed that is characteristics reflected European — not Native American — ancestry.

To Chatters' astonishment when the skeleton was dated, it turned out to be over 9,000 years old. The story made headlines around the world — and a coalition of Indian tribes immediately sued for possession. Ever since the case has been mired in court.

Kennewick Man may reveal fundamentally new facts about the earliest inhabitants of the Americas. If the tribal leaders have their way, he will be reburied at a secret site and his story lost to us all forever. What's the solution? To begin, more trusting relationships between researchers and the people they study must be forged.

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"Archaeology is the science of rubbish." -archaeologist Stuart Piggot

The Forma Urbis Romae may just be the world's biggest jigsaw-puzzle. Carved across marble slabs 45 feet high and 60 feet long, it is a map ancient Rome showing every street, building, room, and staircase. Eighteen-hundred years ago it hung in the Roman census bureau, the most detailed map of the city ever produced.

At least, it used to be. Today it languishes in the basement of a museum, smashed. Now a team of American researchers have devised a novel way of pasting it together again — by scanning it into a computer.

For hundreds of years after the fall of Rome, hunks of marble were hacked off the map for building material. Then the building housing the map collapsed. In 1562, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese made a valiant attempt to collect the surviving sections. Since then every attempt to piece together the 1,163 fragments has failed. It is one of classical archaeology's great unsolved problems.

The first task of the American researchers was simple: 3-D scan each individual block into their computer. Now it gets harder. The computer must find a way to fit them together. So far the data base contains "8 billion polygons and 6 thousand color images, occupying 40 gigabytes." Solving the puzzle, says the team, "will take months, possibly years."

This approach is light-years away from the traditional methods of archaeologists who spend their time carefully sifting through the dirt. But today a battery of new tools is helping to bring the past back to life.

Archaeology, notes one of its practitioners, "has a long disreputable line of descent; its ancestors were, quite literally, grave robbers and adventurers." Foremost amongst them ranks the Italian Giovanni Belzoni. In the early 1800s he looted hundreds of ancient Egyptian tombs, candidly admitting: "The purpose of my researches was to rob the Egyptians of their papyri." Papyri were the ancient papers of the Egyptians. They were made from a plant that grew along the Nile valley.

Modern archaeologists proceed with more caution. Still, few can claim the delicacy of Sir Leonard Woolley, who in the 1920s excavated the great Sumerian city of Ur. While digging in the royal cemetery he noticed a small hole just below where a small gold cap and some gold nails had been found. Woolley filled the hole with liquid plaster. When the soil was cleared away, the shaft of a lyre — preserved as a plaster cast — emerged. Woolley was able to reconstruct the entire instrument, even though its original wood had long since vanished.

You Want a Date?

Before starting a dig the first step is to map a site, dividing it into small squares. Careful notes are kept of changes in sediment, and of each object (however fragmentary) found within each square. The idea is to create a 3-D picture of the area — a picture through time. Younger remains usually lie closer to the surface, older ones beneath. Fortunately, archaeologists no longer have to rely on position alone for judging an object's age.

In the late 1940s, the physicist Willard Libby invented C-14 (radiocarbon) dating. It transformed the study of the past. For the first time organic material — charcoal, wood, shell and bone, even clothing — from 500 to 50,000 years old could be reliably dated. Through radiocarbon dating, archaeologists built a world-wide chronology of human activity.

Carbon exists in the atmosphere in two forms — ordinary carbon, C-12; and carbon-14. This is radioactive and decays with a half-life of 5730 years (it takes 5730 years for half of the C-14 in a sample to become C-12). Plants and animals contain carbon in the same mixture as the atmosphere. When they die, C-14 continues to decay. By measuring how much — or, rather, how little — C-14 remains, researchers can calculate how much time has elapsed since death occurred.

There are traps, of course. An object may be contaminated by carbon from another source. Or, it may not "belong" at the level where the carbon-containing material was found. Perhaps it was carried there by erosion, or dislodged by a careless archaeologist. It happens. All this allows archaeologists to go on arguing about ages, for ages.

How do archaeologists know where to dig? Often they don't. They know where not to dig — where nothing interesting exists. But how do you tell one from the other? Excavation is expensive, and there is nothing an archaeologist likes less than staring at an empty hole. The ideal solution is to look underground before you start. Astonishingly, techniques are coming along to do just that.

Most archaeologists rely on buried buildings, bodies, ancient hearths, or iron tools, having different physical "signatures" from the surrounding soil. Ground penetrating radar, for example, pumps radio waves into the earth then measures the patterns reflected back. For example, by coupling his scanner to a special computer program anthropology professor Lawrence B. Conyers has produced striking images of otherwise invisible structures. One day, he promises, he will generate moving 3-D pictures and take us on underground video "tours" of archaeological sites.

The great English archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler used to remind his students, "The archeologist is not digging up things, he is digging up people." Regardless of the changes in methods, archaeological aims remain the same: to illuminate the past and bring back to life the experiences and cultures of people long gone.