The first alphabet letters: the Canaanite alphabet Early Canaanite alphabet Each of the letters of the early Canaanite alphabet was the first sound of the most ordinary words in their language. The [...]
The constellation Orion What did Mesopotamians invent? From the Stone Age through the Islamic empires, great scientific discoveries have streamed out of West Asia. West Asia is one of the places where farming got started, [...]
This inscription from Kandahar, in Afghanistan, has Greek writing at the top, translated into the Aramaic alphabet at the bottom. The Mauryan Indian king Ashoka put it up about 258 BC. [...]
Cuneiform writing (now in LACMA, Los Angeles) Early Sumerian writing West Asia is probably the first place in the world where people figured out how to write. (Though Egyptian people began writing [...]
Early alphabets and Hebrew Some time possibly around 4000 BC, as West Asian people settled down in towns and villages, each group of people began to develop their own special language. This was partly [...]
Aramaic language: Comparing different ancient alphabets When did Aramaic get going? As people began to settle down in towns in West Asia, about 4000 BC, they began to speak differently from their [...]
Egyptian temple to Hathor at Serabit in the Sinai Early Writing Before about 1800 BC, all people in the world wrote using pictures that each stood for a word or a [...]
Jews and the Levant: Tel Kabri, a Canaanite palace ca. 1600 BC When we first meet them... By the end of the Stone Age, the people who would eventually become known [...]
Dark Age economy: The temple of Goliath's town, Gath - apparently founded by the Philistines, when they fled the economic problems at home and arrived in Israel around 1100 BC [...]
Roman education outside of school: A Roman teacher home-schooling, about 200 AD Poor kids had to work Roman schools were for rich boys; most Roman kids did not go to [...]
