Civilizations
Ten worlds that made ours.
Each civilization built its own gods, laws, cities and technologies. Together they wrote the deep story of humanity.
Ancient Egypt
c. 3100 BCE – 30 BCE
Three thousand years of pharaonic civilization along the Nile.
Read →Roman Empire
27 BCE – 476 CE (West) / 1453 (East)
The Mediterranean-wide state that gave the West its law, roads and Latin heritage.
Read →Persian Empire
550 BCE – 651 CE
The Achaemenid, Parthian and Sasanian Persias were among the ancient world's greatest states.
Read →Mughal Empire
1526 – 1857
The Timurid empire of Babur, Akbar and Aurangzeb that ruled most of India for three centuries.
Read →Maya Civilization
c. 2000 BCE – 1697 CE
Mesoamerica's most literary civilization — writing, mathematics, astronomy and city-states.
Read →Aztec Empire
1428 – 1521
The Triple Alliance that ruled central Mexico from its island capital.
Read →Inca Empire
1438 – 1533
The largest pre-Columbian empire in the Americas, stretching 4,000 km along the Andes.
Read →Indus Valley Civilization
c. 3300 – 1300 BCE
One of the four original cradles of civilization, with planned brick cities and a still-undeciphered script.
Read →Mesopotamia
c. 3500 – 539 BCE
The land between the rivers where writing, cities and law were born.
Read →Ancient Greece
c. 800 BCE – 146 BCE
Inventors of democracy, philosophy, drama and the Olympics.
Read →Byzantine Empire
330 – 1453 CE
The Roman Empire that endured for another millennium in the Greek East.
Read →Ottoman Empire
1299 – 1922
Six centuries of Islamic empire across three continents.
Read →Han Dynasty
206 BCE – 220 CE
China's classical age — Silk Road, Confucian bureaucracy, paper.
Read →Tang Dynasty
618 – 907 CE
Cosmopolitan golden age of medieval China.
Read →Mongol Empire
1206 – 1368
The largest contiguous land empire in history.
Read →Khmer Empire
802 – 1431
Builders of Angkor Wat, medieval Southeast Asia's greatest state.
Read →Gupta Empire
c. 320 – 550 CE
North India's classical golden age of mathematics, science and Sanskrit literature.
Read →Mauryan Empire
322 – 185 BCE
First empire to unify most of the Indian subcontinent.
Read →Carthage
814 – 146 BCE
Phoenician mercantile empire that rivaled Rome.
Read →Phoenicia
c. 1500 – 300 BCE
The Levantine seafarers who spread the alphabet across the Mediterranean.
Read →Minoan Civilization
c. 2700 – 1450 BCE
Bronze Age Crete's palace civilization.
Read →Mycenaean Greece
c. 1600 – 1100 BCE
The heroic Bronze Age world of Homer's Iliad.
Read →Hittite Empire
c. 1650 – 1178 BCE
The Anatolian great power that fought Egypt at Kadesh.
Read →Assyrian Empire
c. 911 – 609 BCE
The Iron Age superpower that pioneered military organization and imperial administration.
Read →Babylonian Empire
c. 1894 – 539 BCE
Hammurabi's law and Nebuchadnezzar's hanging gardens.
Read →Sumer
c. 4500 – 1900 BCE
The world's earliest urban civilization.
Read →Kingdom of Kush
c. 1070 BCE – 350 CE
The Nubian kingdom that ruled Egypt as its 25th Dynasty.
Read →Kingdom of Aksum
c. 100 – 940 CE
Late antique African power on the Red Sea trade route.
Read →Mali Empire
c. 1235 – 1670
West African gold empire made famous by Mansa Musa.
Read →Songhai Empire
c. 1464 – 1591
The last and largest of the medieval West African empires.
Read →Great Zimbabwe
c. 1100 – 1450
Southern Africa's largest medieval stone city.
Read →Viking Age Scandinavia
793 – 1066 CE
Norse raiders, traders and settlers of the North Atlantic.
Read →Celtic Peoples
c. 1200 BCE – 500 CE
Iron Age Europe from the Atlantic to the Balkans.
Read →Holy Roman Empire
800 – 1806
A millennium of Central European imperial politics.
Read →Spanish Empire
1492 – 1898
The first global empire on which 'the sun never set'.
Read →British Empire
c. 1583 – 1997
The largest empire in world history.
Read →Russian Empire
1721 – 1917
The Romanov empire from Peter the Great to Nicholas II.
Read →Empire of Japan
1868 – 1947
Meiji modernization to Pacific War empire.
Read →Ancient Israel and Judah
c. 1200 BCE – 70 CE
The Iron Age kingdoms whose scriptures became the Hebrew Bible.
Read →Olmec Civilization
c. 1500 – 400 BCE
Mesoamerica's 'mother culture'.
Read →