The name ‘Druid’ is derived from ‘oak’. Dru-wid combines the word roots ‘oak’ and ‘knowledge’. It was Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia (XVI 95), who associated the Druids with mistletoe and oak groves: ‘The Druids . . . hold nothing more... Read More
The great religions of the world all began in Asia. Three of them – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – began in the same area of west Asia. Hinduism and Buddhism began in India. People all over the world formed systems of beliefs in powers greater than their own. The earliest religions we... Read More
From 668 to 627 BCE, Assyria, an ancient country on the upper Tigris River in Mesopotamia, was ruled by a king calle Ashurbanipal. It covered roughly the northern part of present-day Iraq. Assyria’s civilization was similar in many ways to that of ancient Babylon, which bordered it to the sout... Read More
The Indus Valley civilization was one of the world’s first great societies. It developed out of farming and herding communities that carried on trade with each other. The civilization began to flourish about 4,500 years ago and was based in the vast river plains of what are now Pakistan and no... Read More
Sargon ofAkkad was a king who founded the first great empire in history. He built his empire in Mesopotamia (now mostly Iraq) in about 2300 bce and gained control over much of southwestern Asia. Sargon was an outstanding military leader and administrator. He was one of the earliest kings to maintain... Read More
History comes from a Greek word meaning ‘what is known by asking’. The job of a historian is to ask questions and make sense of the answers. The Greeks were among the first people to write history based on first-hand reporting of the facts. Herodotus (who died in 425 bce) wrote about the... Read More