The deciphering of ancient scripts changed forever the way Europeans were able to imagine the story of humanity, destroying centuries of received authority about the past with repercussions as important for our understanding of time and history as the geological studies of the same period.
Interpretation
The study of ancient scripts reshaped European perceptions of human history.
Neil Macgregor emphasizes the profound impact that deciphering ancient scripts has on the European understanding of human history. This process not only challenged long-held beliefs and established authorities regarding the past but also had significant implications for how people perceive time and historical narratives, paralleling the transformative effects seen in geological studies of the same era.
In practice
In a history class discussing the impact of archaeology on our understanding of human civilization.
Google the name Prometheus, and see how often it has been given to innovations in many different fields, notably science, medicine and space exploration. The fire he stole can be seen, too, as the spark generating all artistic creativity.
In the world of the Middle East at the moment, the debates are shrill. But ... the wisest voice of all of them may well be the voice of this mute thing, the Cyrus cylinder.
There's the constant concern with what happens to you when you die. Every society thinks about that and makes things to deal with that.
The distinction between a gallery and a museum is enormous. The gallery is about looking at a thing of beauty; the purpose of the activity is an aesthetic response. The museum is actually about the object that lets you get into somebody else's life.
Women enjoyed rights in Egypt they would not again enjoy for more than 2,000 years. They owned ships, ran vineyards, filed lawsuits, practiced medicine. Their husbands supported them after divorce. Their power was unprecedented.
By 1892, enlightenment had progressed to the point where the Salem trials were simply an embarrassing blot on the history of New England. They were a part of the past that was best forgotten: a reminder of how far the human race had come in two centuries.
The war for our Union, with all the constitutional issues which it settled, and all the military lessons which it gathered in, has throughout its dilatory length but one meaning in the eyes of history. It freed the country from the social plague which until then had made political development impossible in the United States. More and more, as the years pass, does the meaning stand forth as the sole meaning.
After Nixon resigned in 1974, he engaged in a very aggressive war with history, attempting to wipe out the Watergate stain and memory. Happily, history won, largely because of Nixon's tapes.
The story of the African-American people is the story of the settlement and growth of America itself, a universal tale that all people should experience.
Benaras is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together!
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.