ONE MILLION B.C.,
People were sparsely covering the earth, moving in tribes and
gathering where important resources were found, Weapons were
important, hard flint was found while digging caves in feldspar and
clay, people gathered in these areas, England, France, Egypt and
Central Africa. Over a hundred thousand people were walking around
at any one time. Salt was found and traded. Egypt was settled from
the top with the Nubian's coming over the mountains from Central
Africa and the salt traders moving up to lush cool land on the upper
Nile.
100,000 B.C., Rivers were
important too, people found the Niger River with it's perfect
weather. Have you ever heard of Timbuktu? There it is in the middle
of Africa. The Congo River was settled, and Lake Victoria must have
been "The Garden of Eden", it connected to the Upper Nile.
The Tigris and Euphrates
River Valley drew a crowd, as well as India's Indus and Ganges
Rivers. The Mekong and the Thailand region got it's share too, but
inland China got more, with the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers.
30,000 B.C., A lot of
people came and went by now, over thirty six billion people so far,
all the good places were occupied by somebody.
10,000 B.C., Man had
settled down to farming, raising animals, and having pets and kids.
8000 B.C., Egypt and China
were working metal, China had pottery happening also, both places
are into mining, for tools, weapons and pigments. When the fighting
is done artists are revered, important people like to have nice
things and their willing to pay for them.
6000 B.C., Eskimos
Northwest of the Hudson Bay had copper fish hooks ground from native
glacial copper.
There's enough people in
each area now to develop cultures, we'll start with Egypt, the
Mediterranean, and include the Tigris-Euphrates Valley, since they
had the highest developed cultures at the time.
8000 B.C., EGYPT The Nile
flooded annually and left behind fertile farm land for crops, water
wheels moved water around since there was no rain. Early surveying
established boundaries, since the Nile left no landmarks. On the
Lower Nile where there were no trees, reeds made forms, to be filled
with clay as building columns. Above the 6th cataract, boats
traveled up and down, to Lake Albert and into Lake Victoria. The
cataracts separated groups of people and Egypt had full control of
the Nile below the 1st cataract.
5000 B.C., An estimated
500,000 people were alive in Egypt, by now they were casting copper
and mining these minerals; gold, silver, agate, carnelian,
chrysoprase, jasper, rock crystal, turquoise, olivine, chrysocolla,
green feldspar, jade, green fluorite, malachite, azurite, galena,
tin, copper, garnet, cuprite, hematite and lapis lazuli. This list
grows in later periods of Egyptian history. They were the world's
greatest miners, when they found a vein they followed it to the end.
There is no tin to be found in Egypt today.
4000 B.C., Egypt, Iran and
Iraq are casting gold, silver and bronze. Egypt heated gypsum to
make quick-lime plaster of Paris, for walls and murals. An
iron-nickel knife was found in a pyramid, possibly made from a
meteorite.
3500 B.C., Upper and Lower
Egypt are joined together, they were painting with water based
mediums of gum, casein and lime. Alum was used in dying cotton and
hardening lime cement.
3000 B.C., An
Egyptian priest named Manetho, listed the rulers of Egypt. Big
government must have started around 5000 B.C. in Thebes. The III
Dynasty's capitol was in Memphis, and by than a thousand years of
mastabas's had been built, preceding the pyramids built in 3000
B.C.. The Great Pyramids and Sphinx at Giza are a short distance
away. The Sphinx was a portrait of Pharaoh Khafra of the IV Dynasty,
the entrance passage pointed to Polaris, it was 479' high, covered
with smooth polished marble, which the Roman's later took for their
own buildings, An underground passage way connected the Sphinx to
the Pyramid. No human structures are older then the mastaba tombs of
the Old Kingdom of Egypt.
2500 B.C., Egypt's Old
Kingdom had frescoes of miners, smelters, farmers and their crops,
musicians, portraits, the "good life". Men were painted
red-brown and the woman were all fair skinned, both had black or
blond hair. Frescoes were painted on flat walls or on bas-relief,
the support was quick lime plaster. Their fresco pigments were
calcined tin, which fired from white to yellow, orange, red and
magenta. They also had madder root and karmes to deepen the tin's
magenta. Another yellow was realgar, a native crystal compound of
arsenic di-sulfite, and native orpimant arsenic for the orange and
red transparent colors, Yellow to brown, and yellow to red were the
earth ochers. Light green was crushed amazonite, dark green was
crushed malachite. Other crushed ores, were the
ultramarine-cyan-side azurite, and the ancient true blue,
ultramarine. Sculpture's were done on limestone, marble, granite,
basalt, quartz and diorite. All done in the perfect, lifelike,
"high art" technique. Most of them were painted, like
everything else in Egypt.
The Egyptians were big time
shipbuilders in the Old Kingdom which ended with Pepy II of the VI
Dynasty, 2350 B.C. Art starts going downhill as disruptive changes
start taking place.
2000 B.C. EGYPT, MIDDLE
KINGDOM, Nubia produced one thousand tons of gold for Egypt.
2160-1785 B.C., The Middle
Kingdom of the XI-XII Dynasties were a feudal system set up by the
kings of Thebes. Art declined into chaos. The tombs were moved up
river to the cliffs of Beni Hasan.
1580 B.C., EGYPT, The
Empire or New Kingdom, waged war and conquered from Nubia to
Mesopotamia. The XVIII Dynasty with Ikhnaton would change from
polytheism to monotheism, with Ammon as their chief god. The XX
Dynasty was losing power and the Assyrian Kings captured the land.
Zinc is smelted from lead.
1300 B.C., EGYPT, included
Lake Moeris at the outside, twenty five miles from Memphis.
Alexandria was just east of the last tributary of the Nile.
King Tutankhamen of the
XVIII Dynasty had smelted iron tools. "High art" was back
for a short time, they produced a lifelike 240 pound gold casting of
him for his inner coffin. During this period the Egyptians were
friendly toward the Greeks and influenced their architecture.
663-525 B.C., The Saite
period was named for the new capitol in Sais, in the Nile delta, the
XXVI Dynasty drove out the Semitic invaders, only to fall later to
the Ptolemies, and than Rome.
500 B.C., Egypt has
expanded to include a new shrine to the god Ammon, in the city of
Ammonium, 200 miles east of Lake Moeris, in the middle of the
Qattara Depression, 436' below sea level. Here is mined the ammonia
gum and salt to supply the ancient world with a new medium, water
based wax paint later called 'cera colla'. Egypt has now expanded
300 miles east of Memphis. It is now 20% bigger then China in this
age of Confucius. Byzantium was half the size of the peninsula of
Italy and one quarter the size of Egypt.
