Matthew Zang
Ancient History
We've all heard someone in our lives say, "Forget about it! It's ancient history!". But what really is ancient history? According to that person in your life, it's the thing that your Uncle Larry did two days ago, however, to historians, it's something completely different.
Ancient History is not the oldest period classified by historians. That honor is bestowed upon the era of Prehistory. What most people think of as Ancient History is actually the period denoted as Classical Antiquity, which began with the earliest known documents of Greek history in 776 BC. The ending of this period is not strictly defined by historians and while some will use the Fall of Rome in 476 AD, others will use the death of Emperor Justinian I in 565 AD. This was a period of rapid growth and relative stability for many around the world and because of this, many records of daily life were created and many survived to the present day.
One of the reasons why historians find it so hard to classify the end of this period is because of how large in scope it is. If you take the Colonial Era for example, you can say that it started in the 1400's and ceded to Imperialism in the late 1800's. This is possible because the peoples doing the colonizing were generally from one area, Europe in particular. This is not the case with Ancient History because it involves major powers that did not interact often in areas such as the Mediterranean, India, China, and the Middle East. Marking one event from one of these areas to signify the end in all of them because a horribly touchy subject with historians.
So in conclusion, Ancient History has a very vague beginning and end but the contents of those years are rich with stories and legends that have survived the test of time!
Works Cited:
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/era.cfm?eraid=2
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/
United Center for Research and Training in History. (1973). Bulgarian Historical Review. Sofia: Pub. House of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
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| Photo Courtesy of arts.auckland.ac.nz |
Ancient History is not the oldest period classified by historians. That honor is bestowed upon the era of Prehistory. What most people think of as Ancient History is actually the period denoted as Classical Antiquity, which began with the earliest known documents of Greek history in 776 BC. The ending of this period is not strictly defined by historians and while some will use the Fall of Rome in 476 AD, others will use the death of Emperor Justinian I in 565 AD. This was a period of rapid growth and relative stability for many around the world and because of this, many records of daily life were created and many survived to the present day.
 |
| Photo Courtesy of www.ncl.ac.uk |
One of the reasons why historians find it so hard to classify the end of this period is because of how large in scope it is. If you take the Colonial Era for example, you can say that it started in the 1400's and ceded to Imperialism in the late 1800's. This is possible because the peoples doing the colonizing were generally from one area, Europe in particular. This is not the case with Ancient History because it involves major powers that did not interact often in areas such as the Mediterranean, India, China, and the Middle East. Marking one event from one of these areas to signify the end in all of them because a horribly touchy subject with historians.
So in conclusion, Ancient History has a very vague beginning and end but the contents of those years are rich with stories and legends that have survived the test of time!
Works Cited:
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/era.cfm?eraid=2
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/
United Center for Research and Training in History. (1973). Bulgarian Historical Review. Sofia: Pub. House of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
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