Ancient history timeline: Building at Gobekli Tepe in what is now Turkey (ca. 9000 BC) Beginning of farming Around 10,000 BC, with the end of the last major Ice Age, people all [...]
The Aztec god of seeds, Xipe Totec (ca 1500 AD) Who were the Aztec gods? Aztec people were polytheistic - they had many gods. That's the same as like the people of China, India, or Africa at [...]
A Zapotec head The Zapotec civilization, like the Maya, grew up in the region that had been ruled by the Olmec, after the collapse of Olmec power about 500 BC. The main city [...]
Maya royal palace at Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico (600s-700s AD) When did they get started? When the Olmec rulers began to lose control of their country about 600 BC, new leaders came forward and [...]
History of iron: a Greek black-figure vase showing a blacksmith at work (Athens, about 550 BC) Why do people use iron? The history of iron doesn't start until much later [...]
A Mississippian warrior Why were the Mississippians powerful? About 800 AD, the old Hopewell people seem to have developed what we call the Mississippian culture. People living near the Mississippi river got new kinds [...]
Osian Sun temple, 700s AD Two styles of temples: north and south By the 700s AD, after the collapse of the Guptan Empire, there were two different styles of temple-building in India, [...]
Sanchi stupa, 250 BC - Mauryan architecture New Buddhist buildings When people in India began to follow the Buddhist religion, they needed new kinds of buildings that reflected Buddhist ideas. The [...]
Early Indian architecture: Rock-cut temples at Ajanta, India The Stone Age and the Bronze Age The earliest buildings anyone knows of from India are from Mehrgahr, from about 7000 BC. But the [...]
The pediment is the triangular place under the roof of a Greek temple. Each temple has two pediments, one on the front and one on the back. They're always isosceles triangles. At [...]
