Ancient World Inheritance (Rev, 1962)

[Music] the when most of us think of the ancient world or its civilization we think of the age-old pyramids of Egypt the tombs of the early Egyptian kings we may also think of such things as the Great Sphinx a portrait carved in stone of the Egyptian king cfre it is one of the largest and finest portraits ever made we may think too of how small the ancient world was compared to our own the Civilized world of the Ancients consisted of a territory less than half the size of the United States perhaps we may think the people of those times didn't know much look at some of the tools they had to work with axe blades like these and hammers like this they weren't much like our big modern machinery today the hammering or forging of metals into any desired shape is done by huge powerful machines which exert tons of pressure but Ancient Man worked entirely by hand to produce copper and bronze objects which are comparable to the finest hand metal work of our time metal especially gold was also used for jewelry it was combined with various stones and brought into bracelets earrings and other decorative items some metals were also used as materials for coins ancient coins were of different shapes and sizes and were used to purchase services or Goods just as coins are used today we also use a great deal of metal in our Modern Machinery such as farm machinery but the steel plows used Now to turn the Earth before we plant our crops had their crude Beginnings in wooden plows invented centuries ago we often forget that from ancient world peoples Romans Greeks Hittites Phoenicians and Hebrews Egyptians Assyrians Babylonians Persians came the beginnings of most of the things we use in present everyday life for example hand looms used by some American Indians today are much the same as those developed by ancient peoples as long as 6,000 years ago some of the linen cloth woven in ancient times had has survived many centuries around their mummies the ancient Egyptians wrapped layers of linen cloth this helped preserve the mummies this piece of ancient cloth is as finely woven as machine-made cloth today just as Ancient Man wo cloth with his hands in early times he fashioned jars and bowls using only his hands some of these examples of early Pottery are more than 5,000 years old and were formed in much the same manner as this clay jar is being formed by a hopy Indian woman this method of pottery making is crude and slow so to improve his Pottery Ancient Man developed the potter's wheel which was widely used in ancient Egypt Greece and other lands of the ancient world modern kills are ovens in which Pottery is baked have changed very little in principle from those used centuries ago another material worked by some ancient peoples was glass the Romans as much as 2,000 years ago developed glass blowing to a high art as we can see in these iridescent fragile vases paper is probably one of the most common things we have inherited from the ancient world we all use paper every day in fact it's hard to imagine how we could get along without it in early times the Egyptians made paper by beating into sheets thin strips of a kind of river weed called Papyrus we use wood to make paper wood like papyrus is a vegetable fiber in large machines the wood is ground and shredded to a pulp which is then bleached and pressed into sheets we haven't added too much to the Egyptians original and basic idea of paper making early peoples wrote and painted on their paper just as we do in this Papyrus painting is pictured the Egyptian belief of what happened to a person when he died here the god Osiris sits in judgment as a soul is weighed against a feather the symbol of Truth other ancient peoples used clay tablets such as this for writing material they wrote all kinds of things on these tablets letters translated this reads to obaya from shamash Gamal told me he will do as you ask if you give the order agricultural records 85 acres are dry 210 Acres lie fellow 320 acres are ripe with grain orders for Provisions three loaves of bread four quarts of Ale three measures of oil some salt these words are an early form of written communication our own alphabet the Roman alphabet had its beginning in ancient times too here we have the first a which was the picture of an ox head and the first B which was the floor plan of a house the a the ox head was called Alf meaning Ox in early Phoenician it developed to this figure and finally to our a the B the floor plan was called bait meaning house it developed to this figure and finally to our be the Learned ancients priests and officials who developed their alphabets often lived in great and grand houses the domestic architecture of the early peoples as reconstructed in this model was comparable to some of the finest buildings of our modern times this estate of a high Egyptian official had a private Chapel where he worshiped bedrooms and reception halls and large bins for the storage of grain all the things he needed for living were contained within the walls of his estate but ancient people sometimes traveled from their homes about 2,000 years ago the Romans developed the art of road building these roads connected some of the important centers of the Roman Empire they were paved with large flat stones and were about as wellb built for their time as our modern highways are today Road building is part of the science of engineering another of our inheritances from the ancient world Another Science we have inherited is astronomy today we use giant telescopes and radio telescopes to further our study of the stars planets and distant galaxies in ancient times astronomers who were usually priests had no telescopes but from their observations of the heavens the astronomers developed our present day calendar discovered the rotation of the earth and mapped the world as they knew it in each of these ancient lands there was government and law laws were first made by the early Kings or Emperors one of the oldest codes of law known to us was carved on a stone shaft these were the laws of a king called hamurabi here at the top of the shaft we see the king receiving the laws from the Sun God his laws insisted on justice for all the people in the Empire now we elect groups of our own citizens who meet discuss problems of our communities and proceed from these discussions to make our laws meetings of citizens such as these are the foundations of our democracy all these things then as well as a host of others were passed down to us by the peoples of the ancient world they contributed to the early beginnings of civilization and so from the small area that we call the ancient world has come much of our cultural and scientific inheritance [Music]