For many centuries it was accepted that civilization began with the Greeks and Romans. During the last two hundred years, however, archaeological discoveries in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Crete, Syria, Anatolia, Iran, and the Indus Valley have revealed that rich cultures existed in these regions some two thousand years before the Greco-Roman era. In this fascinating work, H.W.F Saggs presents a wide-ranging survey of the more notable achievements of these societies, showing how much the ancient peoples of the Near and Middle East have influenced the patterns of our daily lives. Saggs discussesthe the invention of writing, tracing it from the earliest pictograms (designed for account-keeping) to the Phoenician alphabet, the source of the Greek and all European alphabets. He investigates teh curricula, teaching methods, and values of the schools from which scribes graduated. Analyzing the provisions of some of the law codes, he illustrates the operation of international law and the international trade that it made possible. Saggs highlights the creative ways that these ancient peoples used their natural resources, describing the vast works in stone created by the Egyptians, the development of technology in bronze and iron, and the introduction of useful plants into regions outside their natural habitat. In chapters on mathematics, astronomy, and medicine, he offers interesting explanations about how modern calculations of time derive from the ancient world, how the Egyptians practiced scientific surgery, and how the Babylonians used algebra. The book concludes with a discussion of ancient religion, showing its evolution from the most primitive forms toward monotheism.

Publisher description

The extraordinary story of the intermingled civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome, spanning more than six millennia from the late Bronze Age to the seventh century The magnificent civilization created by the ancient Greeks and Romans is the greatest legacy of the classical world. However, narratives about the "civilized" Greek and Roman empires resisting the barbarians at the gate are far from accurate. Tony Spawforth, an esteemed scholar, author, and media contributor, follows the thread of civilization through more than six millennia of history. His story reveals that Greek and Roman civilization, to varying degrees, was supremely and surprisingly receptive to external influences, particularly from the East. From the rise of the Mycenaean world of the sixteenth century B.C., Spawforth traces a path through the ancient Aegean to the zenith of the Hellenic state and the rise of the Roman empire, the coming of Christianity and the consequences of the first caliphate. Deeply informed, provocative, and entirely fresh, this is the first and only accessible work that tells the extraordinary story of the classical world in its entirety.

The purpose of this book is to resurrect the truth regarding the original black founders and developers of Greek and Roman Civilizations from being buries by whitewashing which falsely accredited Indo-Europeans. The book, in doing so, examines the extent of the Global African Civilization which was plagiarized by Aryan Greeks and Romans. It dispels the myth that these foundations of Western Civilization were homogenous and white. They were multiracial and multicultural societies until their identities were transformed by the hordes of white barbarians who became a majority in Rome and Athens by the 4th century of the Christian Era (CE) or After the Death of Christ (AD). Black migrants from Africa brought Kemetian civilization from the Nile Valley out of Kush and Nubia (Modern day Sudan, Ethiopia, Somali, and Egypt) to establish Athens, other Greek city-states, and Rome on the Italian peninsula. The focal point of the growth of civilization in the Mediterrean region that would reach all continents was trade, commerce, and ensuing acquisition of wealth accrued by African maritime empires and that of Kemet (Early Egypt), both of which grew from colonies established by Kush. The latter empire mined gold used to finance ship building, exploration, building cities, employing mercenaries, and promoting reading and writing to cultivate invention, as well as record and codify business transactions and laws. The pattern for growth and spread of civilization began with trade between trading posts and empires with the latter their becoming colonies. These colonies would become independent city-states and grow into empires themselves by establishing markets for trade and turning them into colonies. The cyclical pattern of development was ruled by Black Africans and their direct descendants for more than 3,000 years before the onset of the Aryan-dominated Christian Era. The focus of this book is antiquity prior to the Aryan invasion of civilization which initiated the Middle Ages or Dark Ages and setbacks in the West that lasted a millennium until the Renaissance was built on rediscovery of the African Mystery System.The research unveiled demonstrates that Greece and Rome were multiracial societies. Their identity was stolen by Eurasian barbarians who flooded the empire during the era when Serapis was transformed from Horus to Jesus Christ and Christianity became the state religion of the Roman empire. This transformation at the end of this book began with the Council of Nicaea. This book focuses on antiquity beginning about 3,000 B.C., when Ancient African Empires ruled civilization on all continents building markets, trading goods, accruing wealth, spreading literacy, and building pyramids.

Ancient Perspectives encompasses a vast arc of space and time—Western Asia to North Africa and Europe from the third millennium BCE to the fifth century CE—to explore mapmaking and worldviews in the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. In each society, maps served as critical economic, political, and personal tools, but there was little consistency in how and why they were made. Much like today, maps in antiquity meant very different things to different people. Ancient Perspectives presents an ambitious, fresh overview of cartography and its uses. The seven chapters range from broad-based analyses of mapping in Mesopotamia and Egypt to a close focus on Ptolemy’s ideas for drawing a world map based on the theories of his Greek predecessors at Alexandria. The remarkable accuracy of Mesopotamian city-plans is revealed, as is the creation of maps by Romans to support the proud claim that their emperor’s rule was global in its reach. By probing the instruments and techniques of both Greek and Roman surveyors, one chapter seeks to uncover how their extraordinary planning of roads, aqueducts, and tunnels was achieved. Even though none of these civilizations devised the means to measure time or distance with precision, they still conceptualized their surroundings, natural and man-made, near and far, and felt the urge to record them by inventive means that this absorbing volume reinterprets and compares.

This Oxford Companion to the ancient classical world is aimed at the general reader interested in learning more about the very bedrock of Western culture, covering such topics as history, morals, mythology, medicine and social life.

This highly acclaimed collection provides a unique look into the public and private lives and legal status of Greek and Roman women of all social classes-from wet nurses, prostitutes, and gladiatrixes to poets, musicians, intellectuals, priestesses, and housewives. The third edition adds new texts to sections throughout the book, vividly describing women's sentiments and circumstances through readings on love, bereavement, and friendship, as well as property rights, breast cancer, female circumcision, and women's roles in ancient religions, including Christianity and pagan cults.