Classical antiquity differs from previous and subsequent epochs through common and consistent cultural traditions, the influence of which continues to be influential in many subject areas right up to modern times. It covers the history of ancient Greece, Hellenism and the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire politically unified the Mediterranean from the 1st century AD. Rome's cultural influence was primarily felt in the western part of the empire, while in the east the Greek-Hellenistic tradition (Byzantium) continued alongside oriental traditions until it was pushed back in the course of Islamic expansion (from 632 AD).
In a broader sense, antiquity also includes the history of the ancient Near Eastern civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia (Sumer, Akkad, Babylonia, Assyria), the Iranian region (Elam, Media, Persia) and Asia Minor (Phoenicia, Israel, Aram-Damascus). around the beginning of writing around 3500 BC. BC began. This larger period of about 3500 B.C. BC to the end of antiquity is preferably referred to as antiquity to distinguish it from the narrower concept of antiquity limited to the Greco-Roman world, or it is used in relation to the Middle East until its incorporation into the Macedonian-Greek sphere of influence under Alexander the Great ( around 330 BC) spoken by the Ancient Near East.
Artemisia was a daughter of Lygdamis. Around 480 BC, she ruled Halicarnassus, the modern-day Bodrum, as guardian of her son Pisindelis. She was subject to the suzerainty of the Persian King Xerxes I.
Between the 2nd and 4th centuries AD, the heyday of the so-called Imperial Baths, hand-made bricks were used for most buildings in the Roman Empire (see Sardis).
Large parts of what is now Turkey were already settled in the Paleolithic period, so the Neolithic period began quite early, particularly in the east of what is now Turkey.
Our tours through Anatolia had led us to the so-called Phrygian Valley next to Afyonkarahisar, a term for the group of people settled there from the West.
The quality of execution in the Roman Empire is absolutely comparable to the technology of road construction and in some cases very cleverly combined with road construction is the construction of the water supply systems in the cities of the empire.
In our article about the origin of the Celtic immigrants to Asia Minor, we had already roughly written about the local division of the tribes. Basically, the ethnic group of the Celts who immigrated to Asia Minor is also referred to as Galatians.
The supply of the larger cities of the Roman Empire - Rome already had 800,000 inhabitants in the first century AD - could only be ensured through structural adjustment of the surrounding rural regions, in the course of which rural estates close to the city or on trade routes began to meet the growing demand through market-oriented forms of production.
In ancient times, Potnia Theron - the ruler of the wild, was considered a female deity who, as the mistress of wild animals, was responsible for protecting them.
"The invention of recording systems is a milestone in human history. Any find that can help shed light on these milestones is therefore an important tool in understanding the progress of mankind," says researcher John MacGinnis in Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2014. What is the background of this sentence?
During our travels and visits of ancient cities there was always one name mentioned: Alexander the Great. Everybody learned about Alexander during history lesson at school for being the leader of one of the biggest empires ever.
It was Apollonius who gave the ellipse, the parabola, and the hyperbola the names by which we know them. The hypothesis of eccentric orbits, or equivalently, deferent and epicycles, to explain the apparent motion of the planets and the varying speed of the Moon, are also attributed to him.
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who lived in the 5th century BC (c. 484 BC – c. 425 BC). He was born in Caria, Halicarnassus ( Modern day Bodrum, Muğla, Türkiye). He is regarded as the "Father of History" in Western culture.
Hesiod (Hesíodos) was a Greek oral poet and is often identified as the first economist. His date is uncertain, but leading scholars favour the eighth century BC for when Hesiod lived.
The ancient Greeks generally believed that Homer was an historical individual, but modern scholars are skeptical: no reliable biographical information has been handed down from classical antiquity, and the poems themselves manifestly represent the culmination of many centuries of oral story-telling and a well-developed "formulaic" system of poetic composition.
Strabo was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher. Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus (modern Amasya, Turkey), a city which he said to be situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black sea.
Xenophon's birth date is uncertain, but most scholars agree that he was born around 431 BC near the city of Athens. Xenophon was born into the ranks of the upper classes, thus granting him access to certain privileges of the aristocracy of ancient Attica.
Our investigations on the peninsula of Chalkidiki had inevitably led us to the historical background of the campaigns of Xerxes, who as Achaemenid Great King and Egyptian Pharaoh reigned the vast Persian Empire between 486-465 BC.
The inhabitants of the landscapes north of the Alps were described by ancient Greek philosophers like Herodot, Strabon and many others as Keltoi or Celtae, by the Romans as Galli.
The term "Greek colonization" refers to the founding of Greek planting towns (Apoikia) extending from the mainland and the islands of the Aegean before and during the archaic period of Greek antiquity.
In Perchtoldsdorf, a market town in the district of Mödling in the vicinity of Vienna, we had met by our friend Robert some time ago. Today, one of the numerous wine regions around Vienna, the wine farming already draws conclusions to the mineral origin.