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Sanskrit
Sanskrit is regarded as the ancient language in Hinduism, where it was used as a means of communication and dialogue by the Hindu Celestial Gods, and then by the Indo-Aryans. Sanskrit is also widely used in Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism...
Article
Letters & Post in the Ancient World
Letters and their delivery via a state communication system was a feature of many ancient cultures. The writing medium may have differed but the Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Incas all had the means to send messengers and...
Definition
Philology
Philology is derived from the Greek terms φίλος (love) and λόγος (word, reason) and literally means a love of words. It is the study of language in literary sources and is a combination...
Article
Sumerian Civilization: Inventing the Future
Imagine something that has never been thought of before. If one holds a book in one's hands, one can imagine an e-book, a large-print book, a picture book, all kinds of books. But how does one imagine a book in a world where even the concept...
Article
Libraries in the Ancient World
Libraries were a feature of larger cities across the ancient world with famous examples being those at Alexandria, Athens, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Nineveh. Rarely ever lending libraries, they were typically designed for visiting scholars...
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Daily Life in Ancient China
Daily life in ancient China changed through the centuries but reflected the values of the presence of gods and one's ancestors in almost every time period. Villages like Banpo show evidence of a matriarchal society, where there was a priestly...
Article
How to Read a Maya Glyph
For over three centuries, the ancient Maya flourished in Mesoamerica. They built giant stone pyramids surrounded by dense jungle, used a calendrical system that made many believe that 2012 would be the end of the world, and created a writing...
Article
The Phoenician Alphabet & Language
Phoenician is a Canaanite language closely related to Hebrew. Very little is known about the Canaanite language, except what can be gathered from the El-Amarna letters written by Canaanite kings to Pharaohs Amenhopis III (1402 - 1364 BCE...
Article
Ancient Egyptian Science & Technology
The great temples and monuments of ancient Egypt continue to fascinate and amaze people in the modern day. The sheer size and scope of structures like the Great Pyramid at Giza or the Temple of Amun at Karnak or the Colossi of Memnon are...
Video
Pronouncing pictures! - History of Writing Systems #4 (Rebus writing)
Watch ancient Sumerians figure out how to use pictures to write sounds for the first time in history. See why the Egyptians disagree with their approach. Meaning writing (logographs) let early writers get civilized and document their thoughts...