Record · Classical world · Oceania
'Small scattered fragments do not a dwarf make': Palau, 2008
PLOS ONE published a dwarfism claim from two Palau caves in March 2008, then a rebuttal from three universities five and a half months later.
· 1000 BCClassical world (800 BC – AD 500)
Greece, Rome, Persia, the Qin and Han, the Maya: the age of the great classical states and the written histories that describe them. These articles cover their rise, their wars and the everyday lives their ruins preserve.
Record · Classical world · West Asia
A cylinder from Babylon, 1879: a building text called a rights charter
Hormuzd Rassam dug the Cyrus Cylinder out of Babylon in 1879. The British Museum reads it as a building text; in 1971 it became a human rights symbol.
· 539 BC
Record · Classical world · Oceania
1,800 years in Tonga and Samoa: the long pause before East Polynesia
Lapita settlers landed at Nukuleka, Tonga, about 2,800 years ago. Descendants stayed in Tonga and Samoa until about AD 1025, then settled East Polynesia.
· 500 BC
Record · Classical world · West Asia
How did Persia run the largest empire the world had seen?
Darius I cut the Achaemenid empire into tax districts, linked them with a road of 111 stations and relay couriers, and paid in gold darics.
· 500 BC
Record · Classical world · Europe
The plebeians' walkout to the Sacred Mount and the first tribunes
In 494 BC Rome's plebeian soldiers left the city for the Sacred Mount. Livy says they came back after winning officials of their own, the tribunes.
· 494 BC
Record · Classical world · Europe
Why Did Athens Choose Its Leaders by Lottery, Not Election?
Athens filled most offices, from the Council of 500 to its juries, by lottery with a stone machine, the kleroterion, to keep the rich from taking power.
· 487 BC
Record · Classical world · Europe
Why Did Athens Vote to Exile Its Most Powerful Men — on Broken Pottery?
Athens could vote once a year to exile one man for ten years, his name scratched on a pottery shard (ostracon), as a check on power, not a punishment.
· 487 BC
Record · Classical world · Europe
Cincinnatus, dictator for sixteen days and then back to his farm
In 458 BC Rome made Cincinnatus dictator for six months to save a blockaded army. He resigned on the sixteenth day and, Dionysius says, refused the spoils.
· 458 BC
Record · Classical world · Central Asia
What did the frozen tombs of the Altai preserve for 2,400 years?
Permafrost under the Pazyryk mounds in the Altai kept felt, wood, horses, tattooed skin, a wagon and a knotted carpet from the 5th to 4th century BC.
· 400 BC
Record · Classical world · Europe
Alexander's ten years from Macedon to the Punjab
Alexander succeeded Philip II in 336 BC, crossed to Asia in 334, beat Darius III at Issus and Gaugamela and reached the Punjab before his army turned back.
· 336 BC
Record · Classical world · Europe
Gaugamela, 331 BC, in Arrian's account and a Babylonian diary
Arrian gives Alexander 47,000 men against a Persian army 'said to contain' a million, and has Darius flee first; a Babylonian diary says he was deserted.
· 331 BC
Record · Classical world · Europe
Alexander's empire split, and Greek stayed in the towns of the east
Alexander died at Babylon on June 11, 323 BC; by 280 BC his generals ruled three kingdoms, yet Greek stayed the language of eastern towns and of Bactria.
· 323 BC
Record · Classical world · Africa
Meroë's royal pyramids and the gold Ferlini took in 1834
A Berlin museum record says Giuseppe Ferlini opened a Meroë pyramid in 1834 and took gold jewelry, once thought forged, made for Queen Amanishakheto.
· 300 BC
Record · Classical world · Africa
The Pharos of Alexandria, a marble tower with a fire for ships
Ptolemy I commissioned the Pharos in 299 BC and it was finished in 279. Strabo and Pliny describe its white marble, its architect Sostratus and its fires.
· 280 BC
Record · Classical world · South Asia
Why did an emperor carve his regret for a war into rock across India?
After the Kalinga war of about 261 BC, Ashoka had edicts cut on rocks and pillars from Kandahar to Karnataka. No one could read them again until 1837.
· 260 BC
Record · Classical world · Central Asia
A Corinthian capital on the Oxus: the Greek city of Ai Khanoum
Found on a royal hunt in 1961 and dug by a French mission until 1978, Ai Khanoum in north Afghanistan held a Greek theater, gymnasium and Delphic maxims.
· 250 BC
Record · Classical world · Africa
Hannibal's oath at the altar, as he told it to a king
Polybius says Hannibal told King Antiochus how, at nine, his father had him swear at an altar never to be a friend of the Romans. Livy calls it a story.
· 237 BC
Record · Classical world · East Asia
Jing Ke's dagger in the map, and how the king of Qin survived
In 227 BC Jing Ke unrolled a map of Dukang before the king of Qin and seized the poisoned dagger inside. A doctor's medicine bag bought the king time.
· 227 BC
Record · Classical world · East Asia
Some 38,000 slips from a well in Liye: Qin rule in Qianling county
In 2002 a well at Liye, Hunan, gave up the Qin archive of Qianling county, 222 BC to 208 or 210 BC, naming a commandery missing from the Shiji.
· 222 BC
Record · Classical world · East Asia
Qin Shi Huang, from a hostage's son to the First Emperor
Born in Handan to a Qin hostage prince and king at thirteen, Zheng of Qin took six kingdoms by 221 BC and named himself huangdi, the First Emperor.
· 221 BC
Record · Classical world · Africa
Hannibal over the Alps, 218 BC, with thirty-seven elephants
Hannibal left Spain in 218 BC with 37 elephants; Polybius gives a five-month march and 15 days in the Alps. His numbers and his pass are still argued.
· 218 BC
Record · Classical world · Africa
Cannae, 216 BC, the day a Roman army was surrounded
On August 2, 216 BC, Hannibal's 50,000 let their center bend back and closed around a Roman army of 80,000. Polybius puts the Roman dead at 70,000.
· 216 BC
Record · Classical world · Central Asia
Mithradatkert: the Parthian fortress at Old Nisa and its ivory rhyta
Ostraca beside Old Nisa's Square House named a Parthian fortress Mithradatkert, where about fifty ivory rhyta and a disputed Round Hall survive.
· 200 BC
Record · Classical world · East Asia
The siege of Baideng and the price of peace with the Xiongnu
Trapped for seven days at Baideng, Emperor Gaozu of Han escaped through the chanyu's consort; Han then sent a princess and yearly silk, wine and food.
· 200 BC