Plato's philosophy, expressed in 36 Socratic dialogues totaling over a million words, focused on universal truths and ethics, has parallels in other traditions we have discussed including the Brahman of the Upanishads and Confucian ren. A central element is Plato's theory of Forms, elaborated in the "Allegory of the Cave" in the Republic.
It is cool to learn about how people used to think back then.
I'll take these ideas chronologically. The oldest is the Persian religion, Zoroastrianism.
I never knew that Zoroastrianism was the first religion and that it was that old.
The idea is that there was a "moment" in history that lasted several hundred years, when a lot of the philosophies and religions we think are important were developed, sometimes more or less simultaneously.
It is interesting how these religions developed around the same time.
This was a network of paved highways reaching from Persepolis and Ecbatana (Cyrus' new capital) to Susa (near Mesopotamia), Babylon, and Sardis (western Anatolia). Travel along this road was so fast and dependable that the ancient Greek historian Herodotus said, "Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." Yes, Herodotus invented the motto of the USPS, talking about the Persian road!
He seems like a great ruler and created great roads.
The Phonecian population rebounded to a quarter million and trade with Egypt (cedar for gold) resumed.
The Phoenicians were able to rebound and recover from the Bronze Age collapse
This means that provided you had a good source of copper and tin, it was easy to produce them in large quantities.
This makes it interesting as to why societies abandoned bronze for iron.
Also beginning about 4,600 years ago, Sumerian scribes began recording what may have been long-standing stories of a semi-historical king of Uruk named Gilgamesh.
It is interesting learning about ancient epics, especially considering that many of them were lost to time.
Some of the earliest surviving texts address how people should behave in these new societies, either in the form of law codes or of "wisdom literature".
I think that it is cool that the earliest texts were for law or wisdom.
a lesser-known system developed at the same time is called hieratics (Greek for "priestly writing"). This is a much more streamlined, cursive script used for writing on papyrus using ink.
I never knew that there was a handwritten version of hieroglyphics.
This supports the belief that written records were developed to facilitate the work of the temples that collected, stored, and dispersed the community's agricultural production.
It's cool that they used writing for this purpose this long ago.
The earliest known use of silk is dated to about 5,600 years ago in the Yangtze River Valley. Silk, the thread spun from the cocoons of the Bombyx mori silkworm, became a hallmark of Chinese culture.
I did not expect silk to be around for this long, I thought it was a bit more modern.
By 4,600 years ago, Caral had up to 20,000 residents who lived on beans, squash, avocados, sweet potatoes, and small fish such as sardines and anchovies.
I never knew that that many people lived in a city around this timeframe.
Each of these inventions appeared at about the same time, 9,000 years ago, in the Near East, China, and India.
I think I find it pretty crazy how they all popped up at the same time.
By about 7,000 years ago, agricultural villages began cooperating to build levees and irrigation canals, to regularize the river's unpredictable seasonal floods and expand farmlands.
I did not know that people were already this advanced all the way back then.