ACHIEVEMENTS AND CONTRIBUTIONS OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF

GREECE, ROME, JAPAN, EARLY AFRICA AND EARLY AMERICAS

WRITING / LANGUAGE

WRITING / LANGUAGE

GREECE

Linear B Script

Greek Alphabet

The first "true alphabet" was the Greek alphabet,

which was developed on the basis of the earlier Phoenician alphabet.

WRITING / LANGUAGE

ROME

The classical Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is a writing system that evolved from the Greek alphabet.

WRITING / LANGUAGE

JAPAN

Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with Japanese

syllabaries hiragana and katakana.

WRITING / LANGUAGE

AFRICA

Arabic is spoken in a wide arc stretching across Western Asia, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa.

WRITING / LANGUAGE

MAYA

The Mayan script, also known as Mayan glyphs or Mayan hieroglyphs, is the writing

system of the Maya civilization of Mesoamerica, currently the only

Mesoamerican writing system that has been substantially deciphered.

The earliest inscriptions found, which are identifiably Maya, date to the 3rd century

BCE in San Bartolo, Guatemala. Maya writing was in continuous use throughout Mesoamerica until the Spanish conquest

of the Maya in the 16th and 17th centuries.

WRITING / LANGUAGE

INCA

Quipus, sometimes known as khipus or

talking knots, usually consisted of colored,

spun, and plied thread or strings

made from cotton or camelid fiber.

For the Inca, the system aided in collecting data and keeping records, ranging from monitoring tax obligations, properly collecting census records, calendrical information, and military organization. The cords contained numeric and other

values encoded by knots in a base ten positional system. A quipu could have only a few or up to 2,000 cords.

WRITING / LANGUAGE

AZTECS

Aztec or Nahuatl writing is a pictographic and ideographic pre-

Columbian writing system with significant number of logograms and

syllabic signs.

Remaining Aztec codices

such as Codex Mendoza,

Codex Borbonicus, and

Codex Osuna were written on deer hide and

plant fiber.

TECHNOLOGY & ARTS

TECHNOLOGY & ARTS

Greece The first alarm clock was conceptualized in ancient Greece. It was thought up by Ctesibus, a Hellenistic engineer and inventor. During those days, time was usually indicated using a water clock.

Ctesibus then used an elaborate system comprised of dropping pebbles on to a gong to make a sound. This sound was set to happen at specific time intervals, giving rise to a rather crude yet effective version of the modern alarm clock.  

Plato himself is also credited with creating a version of an alarm clock that combined water filling up a vessel and making pebbles drop to make a sound. 

The thermometer is constantly being used for a wide array of needs these days, from health care to chemistry.

The original technology behind it is quite old, dating back almost 2,000 years ago. It was the Greeks of Alexandria that first figured out how air expands when exposed to high temperatures.

It was Philo of Byzantium who first applied this technique to determine the temperature and the concept was later on improved by Galileo. It was Galileo who introduced the concept of a “scale” to quantify the process but his work was based on the original invention of the ancient Greeks.

Odometers are measuring tools that help quantify distance. They were originally used to figure out how much distance has already been travelled by a vehicle.

There’s no doubt that the invention of the odometer has helped the ancient Greek civilization. It helped the Greeks to create roads and bridges for travelling, set milestones at specific distances, and helped develop their empire, boosting their economic standing.

TECHNOLOGY & ARTS Rome

Acta Diurna (latin: Daily Acts sometimes translated as Daily Public Records) were daily Roman official notices, a sort of daily gazette. They were carved on stone or metal and presented in message boards in public places like the Forum of Rome. They were also called simply Acta or Diurna or sometimes Acta Popidi or Acta Publica. The first form of Acta appeared around 131 BCE during the Roman Republic. Their original content included results of legal proceedings and outcomes of trials. Later the content was expanded to public notices and announcements and other noteworthy information such as prominent births, marriages and deaths. After a couple of days the notices were taken down and archived (though no intact copy has survived to the present day).

TECHNOLOGY & ARTS Japan

Jomon Potteries

ARTS Japan

Hokusai is best known as author of the woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji) which includes the internationally recognized print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, created during the 1820s.

ARTS Japan

Origami is the art of paper folding, which is often associated with Japanese culture.

ARTS Japan

Japanese calligraphy is a form of calligraphy, or artistic writing, of the Japanese language..

ARTS Japan

The purposes of bonsai are primarily contemplation (for the viewer) and the pleasant exercise of effort and ingenuity (for the grower).

Bonsai is a Japanese art form using miniature trees grown in containers.

ARTS Japan

The Japanese zen garden, creates a miniature stylized landscape through carefully composed arrangements of rocks, water features, moss, pruned trees and bushes, and uses gravel or sand that is raked to represent ripples in water.

They were intended to imitate the intimate essence of nature, not its actual appearance, and to serve as an aid to meditation about the true meaning of life.

ARTS Africa

A griot is a West African historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet and/or musician.

ARTS Africa

Kente cloth is a type of silk and cotton fabric made of interwoven cloth strips.

Kente is native to the Akan ethnic group of South Ghana.

ARTS Maya

Ancient Mayan Maya Jade Pre Columbian Necklace

ARTS MayaMaya stelae (singular stela) are monuments that were fashioned by the Maya civilization of ancient Mesoamerica.

They consist of tall sculpted stone shafts.

ARTS Maya

Stucco

It is used as decorative coating for walls and ceilings and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture.

ARTS Maya

Maya, AD 600–900. Red and brown-black-on-cream ceramics

Maya ceramics are ceramics produced in the Pre-Columbian Maya culture of Mesoamerica.

Fenton Vase.

ARTS Maya

Bonampak is an ancient Maya archaeological site in the Mexican state of Chiapas.

Mural (Mayan Royalty) in Bonampak

ARTS Inca

For the Incas finely worked and highly decorative textiles came to symbolize both wealth and status.

ARTS Inca

Peru is deemed the origin of this gorgeous instrument, and modern Andean panpipes, which may be called Siku, Antara or Zampoña, are very popular today across the continents and around the globe.

ARTS Inca

ARTS Aztecs

VINTAGE MAYAN AZTEC WARRIOR CEREMONIAL COSTUME

ARTS Aztecs

ARTS Aztecs

MATH/SCIENCE/OTHERS

MATH /SCIENCE/OTHERS (GREEKS)

The theorem is named after the ancient Greek mathematician Pythagoras (c. 570 – c. 495 BC) as it is he who, by tradition, is credited with its first recorded proof.

MATH /SCIENCE/OTHERS (GREEKS)

Any object, wholly or partially immersed in a fluid, is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the object.  

Archimedes of Syracuse

MATH /SCIENCE/OTHERS (GREEKS)

The Hippocratic Oath is an oath historically taken by physicians. It is one of the most widely known of Greek medical texts.

In its original form, it requires a new physician to swear, by a number of healing gods, to uphold specific ethical standards.

MATH /SCIENCE/OTHERS (JAPAN)

The soroban is an abacus developed in Japan.

It is derived from the Chinese suanpan, imported to Japan in the 14th century.

MATH /SCIENCE (AFRICA)

The Lebombo Bone is an ancient mathematical artifact. It was used as a Tally stick.

It is a Baboon fibula that has tally marks on it. It is 35,000 years old. It is conjectured to have been used for tracking menstrual cycles, because it has 29 marks on it.

MATH SCIENCE Maya

The Maya numeral system is a base-twenty positionalnumeral system used by the Pre-Columbian Maya civilization.

MATH SCIENCE Aztec Aztec Calendar.

The Aztec calendar was an adaptation of the Mayan calendar.

It consisted of a 365-day agricultural calendar.

MATH SCIENCE Inca

It is an abacus used to perform arithmetic operations dating back to the time of the Incas.

yupana

ARCHITECTURE

ARCHITECTUREGreece

The Parthenon is a former temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, dedicated to the goddess Athena, whom the people of Athens considered their patron.

ARCHITECTUREJapan

Main hall / Golden Hall/Kondo is a building within a Japanese Buddhist temple compound (garan).

ARCHITECTUREJapan

Tōdai-ji is a Buddhist temple complex, that was once one of the powerful Seven Great Temples, located in the city of Nara, Japan.

ARCHITECTUREJapan

Five Storied Pagoda was reconstructed in 1973 after the pagoda built in 1648 by Tokugawa Iemitsu was destroyed in firebombing of March 1945. The 1648 Five Storied Pagoda had been declared a National Treasure in 1911.

Pagodas were built with the purpose of serving a religious function and were often constructed within a temple complex.

ARCHITECTUREAFrica

The Great Mosque of Djenné

ARCHITECTUREAFrica

Agadezz grand Mosque

ARCHITECTUREAFrica

LarabangaMosque

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ja-%E8%91%9B%E9%A3%BE_%E5%8C%97%E6%96%8E.ogg

ARCHITECTUREMaya

Observatories

The Maya were keen astronomers and had mapped out the phases of celestial objects, especially the Moon and Venus.

See also textbook, page 472

Mayans built observatories or buildings from which people could study the sky, so their priests could watch the stars and plan the best time for religious festivals.

ARCHITECTUREMaya

Palenque temples and plaza

Palenque also anciently known as Lakamha (literally: "Big Water"), was a Maya city state in southern Mexico that flourished in the 7th century.

See also textbook, page 471

ARCHITECTURE Inca

Tucked away in the rocky countryside northwest of Cuzco, Peru, Machu Picchu is believed to have been a royal estate or sacred religious site for Inca leaders, whose civilization was virtually wiped out by Spanish invaders in the 16th century

ARCHITECTURE Inca

The Inca road system was the most extensive and advanced transportation system in pre-Columbian South America. It was about 39,900 kilometres (24,800 mi) long.

Please also see Textbook, pages 484-485.

ARCHITECTURE Inca

ARCHITECTURE Aztec

Aztec temples were often part of a step-pyramid, and they often faced west. A flight of steps led up to the sanctuary and there was a sacrificial altar at the top of the steps.

They used this sacrificial altar for ritual sacrifices, including human sacrifice, in honor of the numerous gods that the Aztecs worshipped.

While the Aztecs dedicated most of their temples to a single deity, they dedicated some temples to two separate gods. Some of the Aztec's primary worship centers are at Teotihuacán, Cholula and Tenochtitlán.

Teotihuacán was a metropolis that might have had a population of 125,000 people. One of its main roads is called the "Avenue of the Dead". Many of the city's temples are on this road.

The three largest temples are :

Pyramid of the Moon

Pyramid of the Sun Temple of Quetzalcoatl

The Great Pyramid at Cholula

The Great Pyramid of

Cholula

This pyramid is one of the largest ever

built on earth.

Their main place of worship was the "Templo Mayor" in the center of the city.

Tenochtitlán, now Mexico City, was the Aztec's capital city.

Please see Textbook page 476.

videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67-bgSFJiKc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdHHus8IgYA

Conclusion

In conclusion, over time these advancements brought people into a

more efficient living environment, allowing for higher population and spread of cultural, political, economic, and social

ideals over large geographical areas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ja-%E8%91%9B%E9%A3%BE_%E5%8C%97%E6%96%8E.ogg