Ancient history facts for kids

Standing Buddha, Gandhara, 1st century AD.

The bronze statue of the Roman god Apollo in the temple dedicated to him in Pompeii

The Great Pyramid of Giza

Ancient history is all the events we know about between the invention of writing and the start of the Middle Ages. Writing is one of the greatest inventions of the human species. It was invented after the Neolithic revolution in which people settled in small towns and started agriculture. Writing dates from about 3,300 BC, which is over 5000 years ago, in the Middle East. The first people to use writing were the Sumerians and the Ancient Egyptians.

Before writing, the only things we have are the tools and monuments made by earlier people. This is studied by archaeology rather than history. The period of ancient history ends with the early Middle Ages.

During the time period of ancient history (starting roughly from 3000 BC), the world population was already increasing due to the Neolithic Revolution, which was in full progress. According to estimates the world population increased rapidly in this period.

In 10,000 BC in Prehistory, the world population had stood at 2 million, rising to 45 million by 3,000 BC. By the rise of the Iron Age in 1,000 BC, the population had risen to 72 million. By the end of the period in 500 AD, the world population is thought to have stood at 209 million. In 3,500 years, the world population increased by 100 times.

Study of ancient history
Archaeology
Primary sources
Chronology
Some groups of people in ancient history
End of the period
Images for kids
See also

Study of ancient history

Finding facts about ancient history is difficult because people wrote less in those times and much of what they did write has been lost. There were very few copies made because there was no printing. What people wrote they wrote by hand.

More people could read and write in Ancient Rome than in other places but much of what they wrote is now lost. Historians also look at things that were made and used in ancient history to learn more about it.

Archaeology

Terracotta Army - Xi'an, China

Archaeology is looking at things that were made or used in the past to learn about that time. Things like clay pots, solid tools, and metal weapons can stay the same during a long time. Things like paper, wood, and cloth can be easily broken, burnt or damaged.

Some ancient things found using archaeology are:

The Egyptian pyramids - Big tombs made by the Ancient Egyptians for their king and queens.
The city of Pompeii - A city from Ancient Rome. When a volcano (a mountain that makes fire and hot rocks) killed the people living there, the city was buried and the things inside it were covered with rock and ash. This meant that they did not change for a long time.
The Terracotta Army - the tomb of the First Qin Emperor in Ancient China.

Primary sources

Primary sources are written by people who lived in ancient times. They tell us most of what we know about ancient history. But people in ancient history may have believed different things from each other. They may also be wrong.

Some famous people who wrote in ancient history are: Herodotus, Josephus, Livy, Polybius, Suetonius, Tacitus, Thucydides and Sima Qian.

Chronology

Prehistory

Herodotus

The human race evolved in Africa. Our species, Homo sapiens evolved about 200 to 250,000 years ago
~90,000 years ago – people go to the Middle East
~60,000 years ago – people from Africa go to Asia
~40,000 years ago – people go to Australia
~40,000 years ago – people go to Europe
~14th to 10th millennium BC – people go to America
~10th millennium BC – people start farming
4th millennium BC – cuneiform writing in the cities of Uruk and Susa; and hieroglyphs (picture writing) in Egypt
1000 years BC – earliest writing about history
450 BC - Herodotus writes what is considered to be the first true 'Book' based on Non-Fictional Events. It is still available today

Older Ancient history

Papyrus - a New Testament manuscript of the Gospel of Matthew, most likely originated in Egypt

Scene from the Trojan war

c. 3300 BC – Bronze Age start in the Near East and South Asia Bronze Age goes to the rest of Europe and The Middle East
c. 3000 BC – Egyptians make papyrus (paper made of Reeds)
c. 2800 BC – Kot Diji time of the Indus Valley Civilization starts
c. 2700 BC – Elam grows.
2580 BC – Egyptians make the Great Pyramid of Giza
2000 BC – People use horses
1700 BC – Indus Valley Civilization ends but the Cemetery H culture keeps going; The start of Poverty Point Civilization in North America
1600 BC – The start of Shang Dynasty in China, Chinese make writing.
1600 BC – Hittite people start ruling The Middle East.
1500 BC – People make the Rigveda.
1200 BC – The Hebrews come to Israel and start living there.
c. 1200 BC – The Trojan War
c. 1100 BC – King Saul makes the 12 tribes of Israel into Israel
c. 1180 BC – End of the Hittite Empire
1122 BC – The Zhou people stop the last king of Shang Dynasty from being king; Zhou Dynasty starts in China
1004 BC – King David captures Jebus. He calls it Jerusalem and makes it the capital of Israel.

1000BC to 100BC

Cyrus the Great

Darius the Great

Battle of Marathon - display of an ancient Athenian warrior in armor

Alexander the Great 3rd century BC statue

928 BC - Israel breaks and becomes The Kingdom of Judah and the Kingdom of Israel
800 BC - City states in Ancient Greece
776 BC - People write about the Olympic Games. They were started before this time but people did not write about them.
c. 753 BC - Rome starts
751 BC - LeChe grows
745 BC - Tiglath-Pileser III becomes the new king of Assyria. He will become powerful and make Assyria into an empire
728 BC - the Median Empire grows
722 BC - Zhou Dynasty's becomes weaker; the time of the Hundred Schools of Thought begins.
653 BC - The first Persian state grows.
600 BC - Sixteen Maha Janapadas ("Great Realms" or "Great Kingdoms") start.
c. 600 BC - Pandyan kingdom in South India
c. 563 BC - Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha), is born as a prince of the Shakya tribe. The Shakya tribe ruled parts of Magadha.
549 BC - Mahavira is born
546 BC - Cyrus the Great makes The Persian Empire.
546 BC - Cyrus the Great defeats the Lydian kingdom
544 BC - Bimbisara makes Magadha powerful.
539 BC - the Babylonian Empire ends and Cyrus the Great frees the Jews.
525 BC - Cambyses II of Persia takes Egypt
c. 512 BC - Darius I (Darius the Great) of Persia takes Easter Thrace, Macedonia, and Libya. The Persian Empire is the most powerful.
509 BC - The last King of Rome stops being king, The Roman Republic starts.
500 BC - Pingala uses zero and binary numbers.
490 BC - Greek city-states defeat the Persian attack at Battle of Marathon
424 BC - Nanda dynasty becomes powerful.
404 BC - End of Peloponnesian War.
403 BC - Warring States Period starts in China.
331 BC - Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of Gaugamela
326 BC - Alexander the Great defeats Indian king Porus (Purushottama) in the Battle of the Hydaspes River.
321 BC - Chandragupta Maurya defeats the Nanda Dynasty of Magadha
323 BC - Alexander the Great dies.
273 BC - Ashoka the Great becomes the emperor of the Mauryan Empire
250 BC - Parthia (Ashkâniân) becomes powerful.
232 BC - Emperor Ashoka the Great dies; the Mauryan Empire becomes weak.
230 BC - Satavahanas are in South India
221 BC - Qin Shi Huang is in China, end of Warring States Period; start of Emperors in China (this will end in 1912 AD)
202 BC - Han Dynasty starts in China,Qin Shi Huang dies; the Silk Road is made
202 BC - Scipio Africanus defeats Hannibal at Battle of Zama
c. 200 BC - Chera dynasty in South India
185 BC - Sunga Empire starts
149 BC-146 BC - Third and last Punic War; Rome defeats Cathage.
146 BC - Rome takes Greece.
110 BC - First time the Chinese rule Vietnam: the Nanyue Kingdom.
c 100 BC - Chola Dynasty grows.

100 BC to end of Roman Empire, 476 AD

Bust of Julius Caesar

Bust of Marcus Brutus

Bust of Diocletian

49 BC - Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great make the Roman Civil War
44 BC - Marcus Brutus and others kill Julius Ceaser; The Roman Republic ends; The Roman Empire starts.
6 BC - Jesus of Nazareth is born
9 - Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.
14 - Emperor Augustus (Octavian) dies, Tiberius becomes emperor.
117 - Trajan is The emperor of Rome. The Roman Empire is the most powerful.
200s - The Hindu Srivijaya Empire starts in the Malay Archipelago.
220 - The Han Dynasty ends in China.
226 - the Parthian Empire ends and the Sassanian Empire becomes powerful
238 - Shapur I of Persia defeats of Gordian III (238–244), Philip the Arab (244–249), and Valerian (253–260).
285 - Emperor Diocletian breaks the Roman Empire into Eastern and Western Empires
313 - Edict of Milan says that the Roman Empire would not make people worship a god.
335 - Samudragupta becomes the emperor of the Gupta empire
378 - Battle of Adrianople, the Germanic tribes defeat Roman army.
395 - Roman Emperor Theodosius I makes people be Christian
410 - Alaric defeats Rome. No one has deafeated Rome after 390 BC
c. 455 - Skandagupta stops Indo-Hephthalite people attacking India.
476 - Romulus Augustus deposed as emperor of Rome,

Some groups of people in ancient history

Europe and the Mediterranean

Scythian statue

Mesopotamia

Hittite Tarhunda on chariot

Central and Southwest Asia

Saharan and Sub-Saharan Africa

East Asia

A statue from Ancient India

Ancient Turks
Huns

America

End of the period

The term Late Antiquity is the transitional centuries from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world: generally from the end of the Roman Empire's Crisis of the 3rd century (c. 284) to the Islamic conquests and the re-organization of the Byzantine Empire under Heraclius that occurred in the seventh century.

Painting of Murong Xianbei archer, in Late Antiquity, nomads across Eurasia, began to use the stirrup

The beginning of the post-classical age (known as the Middle Ages for Europe) following the fall of the Western Roman Empire spanning roughly from A.D 500 to 1500.

The Western Roman Empire in Europe and the Gupta Empire in India, and the Jin in North China were overwhelmed by tribal invasions. Nomadic invasions along with worldwide natural climate change, the Plague of Justinian and the rise of religions changed the face of the Old World.

By 500 the world era of Post-classical history had begun.

Despite being placed in different eras of history in an academic view of world history, Ancient and Post Classical eras are linked with each other in the case of the Old World. Land and coastal trade routes, often went on similar or the same directions, and many of the inventions and religions which started prior to 500 A.D such as Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism grew to be even more important for societies and individuals.

Images for kids

The core territory of 15th century BCE Assyria, with its two major cities Assur and Nineveh, was upstream of Babylonia and downstream of the states of Mitanni and Hatti.
The Persian Achaemenid Empire at its greatest extent, c. 500 BC
Extent of Iranian influence circa 170 BCE, with the Parthian Empire (mostly speaking Western Iranian languages) in red and other areas dominated by Scythia (mostly Eastern Iranian) in orange.
Largest expansion of Kingdom of Armenia under Tigranes the Great
Khafre's Pyramid (4th dynasty) and Great Sphinx of Giza (c. 2500 BC or perhaps earlier)
Pharaohs of Nubia
The Ezana Stone records negus Ezana's conversion to Christianity and conquests of his neighbors.
Nok sculpture of a seated person
A political map of the Mauryan Empire, including notable cities, such as the capital Pataliputra, and site of the Buddha's enlightenment.
Oracle bone script from the Shang dynasty
Terracotta Warriors from the time of Qin Shi Huang
The Chinese Han dynasty dominated the East Asia region at the beginning of the first millennium AD
Gold stag with eagle's head, and ten more heads in the antlers. Inspired by Siberian Altai mountain art, possibly Pazyryk, unearthed at Nalinggaotu, Shenmu County, near Xi'an, China. Possibly from Huns of the Northern Chinese prairie. 4th to 3rd centuries BC, or Han Dynasty period. Shaanxi History Museum.
The ruins of Mesoamerican city Teotihuacan
The Parthenon, a temple dedicated to Athena, located on the Acropolis in Athens
The Age of Migrations in Europe was deeply detrimental to the late Roman Empire.
Roman cast terracotta of ram-horned Jupiter Ammon, a form of Zeus, 1st century AD. Gods were sometimes borrowed between civilisations and adapted to local conditions.