Study Abroad
Jordan
In the 3rd Millennium BCE, a city flourished at the site of Khirbet Iskander, situated on the famous caravan route, the King's Highway, east of the Dead Sea in the plains of Moab. Excavations since 1981 have revealed the only known city in the Early Bronze IV Period, a so-called nomadic interlude. Further expeditions in 2004 excavated earlier settlements from the first urban period in the land, in EB II-III (the time of the Pyramids.) You can read more about Jordan and Khirbet Iskander throughout the rest of this site.
Mexico
The Maya are probably the best-known of the classical civilizations of Mesoamerica. Originating in the Yucatan around 2600 B.C., they rose to prominence around A.D. 250 in present-day southern Mexico, Guatemala, western Honduras, El Salvador, and northern Belize. Building on the inherited inventions and ideas of earlier civilizations such as the Olmec, the Mayans developed astronomy, calendrical systems and hieroglyphic writing. The Mayans were noted as well for elaborate and highly decorated ceremonial architecture, including temple-pyramids, palaces and observatories, all built without metal tools. They were also skilled farmers, clearing large sections of tropical rain forest and, where groundwater was scarce, building sizeable underground reservoirs for the storage of rainwater. The Mayans were equally skilled as weavers and potters, and cleared routes through jungles and swamps to foster extensive trade networks with distant peoples.
Many people believe that the ancestors of the Mayans crossed the Bering Strait at least 20,000 years ago. They were nomadic hunter-gatherers. Evidence of settled habitation in Mexico is found in the Archaic period 5000-1500 BC - corn cultivation, basic pottery and stone tools.
Greece
The most ancient primitive Greeks somewhere between 10000 and 3000 BC were known as the Pelasgians. They inhabited areas of Thrace, Argos, Crete, and Halkidiki and are known to us through the writings of Homer, Herodotus, and Thucydides. The remnants of their civilization are found mostly in the form of scattered stones which were used as tools and the foundations of dwellings which just look like a bunch of rocks to anyone but those with a trained eye. In Crete people from Anatolia came to the island sometime around 6500 BC and settled in the area around Knossos. These people were mostly farmers and lived in small communities. This changed in about 2400 to 1500 BC when the Minoan civilization, named for the legendary King Minos with its center in Crete flourished.
The Mycenaean civilization came to an end sometime around 1200 BC and was followed by the invasion of the Dorians, who though warlike, brought with them a new culture and what came to be known as The Iron Age. While the Dorians were invading, the Pelasgians were leaving for the islands and the coast of Asia Minor where they created new cities like Smyrna, Halicarnassus, Samos, Ephesus and Miletus. These city-states brought to mankind science and philosophy as for the first time people had time to reflect on the nature of themselves and their place in the world.
The Classical period or Golden age of Greece, from around 500 to 300 BC, has given us the great monuments, art, philosophy, architecture and literature which are the building blocks of our own civilization. The two most well known city-states during this period were the rivals: Athens and Sparta.
