Steel history: a Safavid steel helmet (Iran, 1500s AD) Medieval steel from India and Iran The wars after the collapse of the Mongol Empire in the 1300s stopped steel production in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. [...]
Opium poppy flower Opium comes from a kind of poppy flower. It evolved around 100 million years ago in West Asia and Central Asia. People probably realized as soon as they got to West Asia, about 60,000 [...]
Early Roman pottery: Campanian pottery from southern Italy Roman pottery used molds Roman pottery began with Etruscan-style pottery, but soon developed a tradition of its own. What was Etruscan pottery like? More Ancient Rome [...]
Medieval Islamic people: A plate from the Fatimid period (1000s AD), Egypt Children in the medieval Islamic world Children in the Islamic Empire generally did what their parents did (as many [...]
Arabic language: Sabataean writing Where did Arabic come from? Arabic is in the Semitic language group. Semitic languages seem to have gotten started before the beginning of writing. That would be before [...]
Dancing woman from Mohenjo Daro, in what is now Pakistan Slavery in ancient India There were probably always slaves in India, but until about 1000 AD there were only a few people who were enslaved, [...]
A bunch of bananas: History of bananas Where do bananas come from? Wild ancestors of banana trees grew in southeast Asia. Like chickens, bananas were first domesticated in southeast Asia. [...]
Hung-Wu Emperor (National Palace Museum, Taipei) When did the Ming Dynasty get started? After the Hungwu Emperor threw the Mongols out in 1368 AD, he established the Ming Dynasty. But [...]
Children being vaccinated A vaccination is a way to keep animals (both people and other kinds of animals) from getting sick when viruses get inside their bodies. The earliest kind [...]
Kilwa By 1500 AD, people in Tanzania were doing pretty well. They did a lot of trading with India and the Arabian Peninsula from their biggest port at Kilwa, and [...]
