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The Maya hieroglyphic writing system was a sophisticated combination of pictographs directly representing objects and ideograms (glyphs) expressing more abstract concepts such as actions, ideas and syllabic sounds. Maya writing has...

In any society, members of the community recognize they are required to restrain certain impulses in order to participate in the community. Every civilization has had some form of law which makes clear that the benefits...

The books of the New Testament were written in the 1st century CE. As Christianity spread in the 2nd century CE, many copies were made, some by non-professionals. Early manuscripts are considered to be closer to the original...

The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha are the non-canonical writings of Judaism and Christianity, ranging from the 5th century BCE to the 9th century CE. Pseudepigrapha comes from a Greek noun denoting writings with a false...

The Egyptian hieroglyphic script was one of the writing systems used by ancient Egyptians to represent their language. Because of their pictorial elegance, Herodotus and other important Greeks believed that Egyptian hieroglyphs...

The Sumerian King List (abbreviated as SKL and also known as Chronicle of the One Monarchy) is an ancient Sumerian document whose earliest version is dated to Mesopotamia's Ur III period (circa...

The quaestor ("the one who asks questions") was the oldest and lowest office on the cursus honorum, or "path of honor" in ancient Rome. Considered a stepping stone to higher office in the Roman government, the duties of the quaestor...

The Enuma Elish (also known as The Seven Tablets of Creation) is the Babylonian creation myth whose title is derived from the opening lines of the piece, "When on High". The myth tells the story...

Daily life in ancient Mesopotamia cannot be described in the same way one would describe life in ancient Rome or Greece. Mesopotamia was never a single, unified civilization, not even under...

Women in ancient Egypt were regarded as the equals of men in every aspect save that of occupation. The man was the head of the household and nation, but women ran the home and contributed to the stability of that nation as...