The History Of Ancient Civilization

History of Ancient Civilization is a book by Charles Seignobos. It covers a widespread of civilizations, from pre-historic times all the way up to the birth of Christianity.

From the intriguing world of pharaohs in Ancient Egypt, to the arts of Greece and Rome, to the amazing culture of the Mayans, Eyewitness: Ancient Civilizations looks at the world's most intriguing societies and the legacies they left behind. The most trusted nonfiction series on the market, Eyewitness Books provide an in-depth, comprehensive look at their subjects with a unique integration of words and pictures.

Civilizations takes the reader forward from the earliest days of human settlement to the civilizations of the New World overthrown by the Spanish Conquistadors.

About 5,000 years ago the first urban societies developed laying the foundations for the first civilizations. Nearly all civilizations share the same few features- they have abundant food surpluses, contained cities, political bureaucracies, armies, defined religious and social hierarchies and long distance trading. Ancient Egyptian culture flourished between c. 5500 BCE with the rise of technology (as evidenced in the glass-work of faience) and 30 BCE with the death of Cleopatra VII, the last Ptolemaic ruler of Egypt. It is famous today for the great monuments which celebrated the triumphs of the rulers and honored the gods of the land. The culture is often misunderstood as having been obsessed with death but, had this been so, it is unlikely it would have made the significant impression it did on other ancient cultures such as Greece and Rome. Neolithic means "e;new stone"e;, even though agriculture was the crowning achievement of the period. Civilizations started out small. Agriculture at first tended to tie only small groups together. These groups also all settled along rivers, important as a reliable and predictable source of water. As time passed, families usually worked the same plot of land over successive generations, leading to the concept of ownership. Ancient mortars and grinding tools unearthed in a large mound in the Zagros Mountains of Iran reveal that people were grinding wheat and barley about 11,000 years ago. Grass pea, wild wheat, wild barley, and lentils were found throughout the site, including some of the earliest known samples. This was much further east than most sites known for early agriculture. This book furnishes with utmost facility to all classes of readers, the needed information on ancient civilization. The unusual variety of the subject makes this a work of endless fascination.

Why do we have to step back and learn about ancient civilizations? Because these are periods that have shaped modern belief systems and cities. Everything starts from something, and the ancient civilizations are the beginnings of societies. Read about the past to understand the present and predict the future. Get a copy of this book today.

Drawing on many avenues of inquiry: archaeological excavations, surveys, laboratory work, highly specialized scientific investigations, and on both historical and ethnohistorical records; Ancient Civilizations, 3/e provides a comprehensive and straightforward account of the world’s first civilizations and a brief summary of the way in which they were discovered.