Heard a song once, adapted from the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes by an American band called The Byrds. 'And there's a time for every purpose under heaven,' it went.
Set me thinking. Ever since life breathed for the first time on an otherwise dead planet, there has been a constant surge of people over people, one culture struggling for dominance over another. Some managing to survive over time; others dying out, quietly, to be quickly forgotten. Places, cultures and societies have all had their share of history before the inevitable fading into oblivion.
How these ancient ancestors of ours lived, what they looked like, how they went about from day to day and, most importantly, why their individual cultures died out: these are other questions that come to mind. Was it, as in the case of the Incas, the defeat of an oral culture by a 'superior' one that had recourse to the written word? Was it, as with the ancient Mongolians, the defeat of a powerful king that led to the splitting up of a kingdom? Or was it, like ancient India, simply the rise and fall of different rulers that set the face of what grew into our 'today.'
When one sits back to think about it -- a rare occurrence, I'm sure - it's the irony of the situation that appeals. How civilisation (read, our own) uses its particular technology to yield glimpses of what, in effect, were cultures and people that vanished in order to make way for this one.
So, let's say, you wake up one morning with this indescribable urge to find out more about humanity's past. You could start with, maybe, some basic facts about Ancient World Cultures, or get an overview of 3000 years of people and events throughout world history.
That done, you could go way back in time to see how hunter gatherers of the Stone Age lived, what rituals were practiced by the Neanderthals, or where the ancient Vikings went on their expeditions.
Forgotten marvels and the Seven Wonders of the ancient world can also be traced, along with information on, maybe, the ancient alphabetic script called Runes, used by the peoples of Northern Europe from the first century until well in to the Middle Ages.
From then on, it's purely where your interests or fancy take you. Sites that let you explore the intricacies -- like dietary habits, holidays, architectural rules, laws, politics, tools, art, rituals, sports, philosophy, languages or religions - abound, whether it's the ancient Greeks, Indians, Assyrians, Aztecs, Celts, Egyptians, Maoris , Persians, Mapuche or Romans you're looking for.
Maybe you'd like to know more about the collapse of Mayan civilisation or the famed Ice Mummies of the Inca. You could also discover what a mummified person might look like through computer graphics, or take a virtual tour of the Ancient Olympics. Want to know more about mechanical engineering, architecture or civil engineering in ancient India? Or explore artefacts of the lost Arabian city of Ubar? Why not try and get a clear picture of the Roman political system?
A good place to tie up all loose ends is the Crystalinks site to Ancient and Lost Civilisations. Yes, all it has are links. But hey, where else can you find so much of what is lost? From ancient China and India, to Japan, Rome, Nubia and Greece, other links covering topics like Confucianism, mythology, Goddesses and Gods, Taoism, the Rosetta Stone, Tutankhamen's tomb, the Valley of the Kings, Mithraism, the lost city of Atlantis, ancient writings and theories, petroglyphs and artefacts, pyramids in Australia, cannibalism, barbarians and the Byzantine empire. And that's merely scratching the surface of what's available.
So maybe there is a time for every purpose under heaven. People come and go, and still the earth moves incessantly. I like sitting back, every once in a while on a busy weekday afternoon, and spending time with the Celts. Beats playing Solitaire on your PC.
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