Nubian archers in the Middle Kingdom (from the Nubian museum in Aswan, Egypt). About 2000 BC. What is a mercenary soldier? Mercenaries (MURR-sinn-air-eez) are paid volunteer soldiers: they are soldiers [...]
Obsidian tools West Asia is located in the middle of the very wide land mass we call Europe and Asia and Africa, and so it has always played an important part [...]
Earliest known spoked wheels, from a grave in western Siberia When about 2000 BC the Central Asians invented better wheels with spokes, so you could fight from your chariot, a new [...]
Ostrich eggshell from Diepkloof Rock Shelter, South Africa (60,000 BC) When did people start dyeing eggs? Easter eggs go back long before Easter, and even long before the beginning of farming. As [...]
Where does basalt come from? Basalt is a fine-grained, hard rock that forms when bits of lava shoot out of volcanoes, so it's one kind of igneous rock. Igneous rocks Volcanoes All [...]
Climate change: Hunters, bison and aurochs Cave painting from Lascaux, ca. 15,000 BC Climate change and human evolution Climate change encouraged the evolution of the first humans, who probably evolved [...]
Victims of civil war in ancient Egypt. They're bound with ropes and have their heads cut off and placed between their legs. (from the Narmer palette, about 3000 BC) Civil [...]
The Egyptian god Bes An African god Beginning about 2500 BC, near the end of the Old Kingdom period in Egypt, people started worshipping a new god, Bes. Nobody knows [...]
The Egyptian god Amun is the blue figure in the center.(From the tomb of Rameses VI at Luxor) Why does Amun have blue skin? Amun (or Amon), in Egyptian religion, [...]
Cambyses II capturing the Egyptian pharaoh Psamtik, from a seal (500s BC) The Persian king Cambyses II conquered Egypt in 525 BC. Libyans attacked from the east, but the Persians fought them off. [...]
