The Maya are perhaps one of the world’s most successful and brilliant civilizations. Thanks to the hard work of dedicated researchers and archaeologists, many secrets of this once-powerful civilization are now starting to unravel.

10 Recipe For Maya Blue

The Maya considered a certain shade of blue to be a highly significant color. Known as Maya Blue, this color was used to cover pots, palace walls, and codices. In addition, it was also used to cover the bodies of human sacrifices. Though scientists knew the two main ingredients of Maya Blue were indigo and palygorskite, they were at loss as to what the mysterious third ingredient was.

In 2008, US researchers published a study claiming that copal resin was the third secret ingredient of Maya Blue. However, a 2013 study refuted this claim. According to the researchers, their analyses revealed that the third secret ingredient is dehydroindigo and not copal resin. In addition, they suggested that the Maya knew “how to obtain the desired hue by varying the preparation temperature.”

9 Mayan Life Force Ceremony

One of the central beliefs of the Maya was that each person possessed a life force. Most importantly, they believed that this life force was a source of nourishment for the gods. Just recently, a team of researchers discovered that the Maya conducted a ceremony associated with this life force.

The ceremony was quite gruesome. Using arrowheads made from a type of volcanic glass called obsidian, the Maya would cut a person’s genitals, tongue, or earlobes and then let the blood spill out. They believed that by performing this ritual, they were “feeding the gods with the human essential life force.” Though this ceremony was brutal, the participants were likely volunteers, and they probably survived the painful ordeal.

8 Sustainable Technology

The ancient Mayan city of Tikal was located in a region where for four months every year, the skies would dry up and no rain would fall. Despite this, Tikal flourished for hundreds of years. In fact, in AD 700, this ancient Mayan city was home to approximately 80,000 people. So how did this metropolis survive the regular droughts?

Archaeologists have just recently discovered that the residents of Tikal used “a surprisingly sustainable system of water delivery.” In order to store rainwater from the eight-month wet season, the Maya constructed “a series of paved reservoirs.” The majority of these reservoirs could hold thousands of gallons of rainwater. In fact, the largest reservoir could store as much as 74 million liters (20 million gallons). The technology might have been simple, but it was sustainable, and it provided the Maya with a steady water supply during the yearly four-month droughts.

7 Ancient Royal Struggle

In 2013, a team of archaeologists unearthed a 1,500-year-old stone monument beneath a Mayan temple in Guatemala. This monument, which dated back to AD 564, detailed an ancient royal struggle between two Maya dynasties that lasted for seven years.

After deciphering the inscriptions, the researchers discovered that the monument was created in honor of a certain Maya king named Chak Took Ich’aak or “Red Spark Claw.” His death caused the political turmoil narrated in the stone monument. Ultimately, the struggle ended, and Chak Took Ich’aak’s son, King Wa’oom Uch’ab Tzi’kin (“He Who Stands Up the Offering of the Eagle”), took over the throne.

Experts considered this finding monumental since it provided the names of the Maya rulers during the sixth century. Before the discovery of the stone monument, no one knew their names.

6 Daily Lives Of The Maya Commoners

Also known as the “New World Pompeii,” the village of Ceren in El Salvador is considered to be “the best preserved ancient Maya village in all of Latin America.” This archaeological site was discovered by Professor Payson Sheets in 1978.

Aside from being the best preserved Mayan village in all of Latin America, Ceren also gave archaeologists a glimpse into the daily lives of the Maya commoners. Archaeological evidence discovered at the site showed that the residents of Ceren were not influenced or controlled by the ruling Maya elite. They were autonomous; they “had free reign regarding their architecture, crop selections, religious activities, and economics.” Significant decisions involving the community were made by the residents themselves.

This discovery is in stark contrast with some Mayan archaeological records, which state that the elites made the economic and political decisions for a particular region.

5 Primary Cause Of The Mayan Apocalypse

One of the most enduring mysteries involving the Mayan civilization is the cause of their demise. The Maya were a technologically advanced people. They had an excellent understanding of astronomy and mathematics, they built impressive cities, and “they used the only known written script in Mesoamerica.” But this advanced civilization mysteriously collapsed. Many theories have been proposed, such as invasion or civil war, but perhaps the most plausible was severe climate change.

Evidence points out that the Mayan civilization was hit by two severe droughts that lasted for decades. The first happened in the ninth century, and the second occurred in the 11th century. Archaeologists suggests that the ninth-century drought caused the collapse of Mayan cities located in the southern portion of the empire, while the 11th-century drought precipitated the demise of the northern cities.

4 Mayan Hieroglyphs

For years, researchers assumed that Mayan hieroglyphs were derived from the writing system of the Zapotecs, a pre-Columbian civilization that inhabited the Oaxaca valley south of Central Mexico. However, a set of newly discovered hieroglyphs suggested that the “Maya were writing at a complex level 150 years earlier than previously thought.”

Though the Mayans didn’t invent writing in the New World, the newly discovered writing system is a completely developed script, implying that the “Maya style [of writing] was not influenced by the Zapotecs.”

The hieroglyphs were found inside Las Pinturas, a pyramidal building located in San Bartolo, Guatemala. Unfortunately, researchers have not yet deciphered the newly found hieroglyphs despite the fact that it’s a “clearly developed written text.”

3 Toilets And Fountains

In 2009, a team of archaeologists released a study detailing how the Maya built fountains and toilets by controlling water pressure. This discovery refuted the widely held belief that the ability to generate water pressure in the New World only started after the arrival of Spanish colonizers.

The researchers arrived at this conclusion after investigating the unique and intricate system of water management located in the Mayan center of Palenque in Chiapas, Mexico. During its heyday, Palenque was inhabited by 6,000 people and was home to approximately 1,500 structures. It was called Lakamha or “Big Water” by the ancient Mayans due to the nine waterways, 56 springs, and hundreds of meters of cascades located in its vicinity.

After studying the city’s water management system, the researchers concluded that the Maya of Palenque “had water pressure technology by 750 AD at the very latest and most likely much earlier.”

2 The Mayan Sweat House

Even before the ancient Romans had their elaborate baths, the Maya had their humble sweat houses. In the early 2000s, a team of archaeologists led by Dr. Norman Hammond of Boston University discovered a mysterious structure at Cuello, northern Belize. For quite some time, the nature of the mysterious structure eluded them.

It was only by some sort of accident that they discovered that the building was a sweat house. After conducting further analysis, they found that the ancient Maya started using sweat houses as early as 900 BC or even much earlier.

So why did the Maya, who lived in a tropical environment, go to sweat houses regularly? According to the researchers, there were three possible reasons: First, the Maya used the sweat houses to cleanse their bodies. Second, they used them to get rid of certain illnesses. Third, the sweat houses were a way for them to communicate with the supernatural.

1 Monkey-Shaped Skull

The Maya played a fun but somewhat deadly sport that involved two opposing teams passing a ball using only their knees, hips, and elbows. What made this sport deadly was that the losing team could be sacrificed at the end of the game.

To protect themselves from injury and to make certain maneuvers easier, the players wore different types of clothing, including a hand guard worn around the wrists. Now, archaeologists have discovered a monkey-shaped skull, which they concluded was a representation of this particular hand guard.

The Maya believed that they would still play their ball game even after they died. To prepare them for this afterlife sport, they created stone versions of the different types of clothing that they wore during the real-life games. These stone versions, like the monkey-shaped skull, were commonly found inside tombs.

Sumeria was one of the earliest civilizations on Earth. More than 7,000 years ago, they built the roads and walls of their first city. For possibly the first time in human history, families left their farms and their tribal homes and moved into urban life.

This was also the first time that anyone in Mesopotamia had lived in a tight-knit, walled town. They were making their lives as administrators and scholars instead of growing food for themselves. Life here was something completely new—not just for the people who lived there but for all of humanity.

Little of life in 5000 BC remains today. All we have to work from is a few old tablets and the ruins of ancient towns. But it’s enough for a small glimpse into life in history’s first civilization.

10 Women Had Their Own Language

Men and women in Sumeria were not equal. When morning broke and a man climbed out of bed, he expected his wife to have breakfast ready for him. When they had children, they sent the boys to school and kept the girls at home. The life of a man and a woman was a very different experience, so much so that women developed their own language.

The main Sumerian language was called Emegir, and it wasn’t exclusive to men. Both genders used it, and it was the main language of society. Women, though, had their own separate dialect called Emesal (“women’s tongue”)—and we can’t find any record of any man ever speaking it.^[1]

The female language was really a different dialect. They pronounced a few sounds differently, used a few different words, and actually had a few vowels that the men didn’t use. Men probably understood it, but it was likely seen as effeminate to use it.

It was a language used in poetry and song, often with a mother cooing her child or a maiden fawning over a lover. Perhaps, in Sumeria, a girl who wanted to sound sweet didn’t just choose her words carefully—she spoke a whole other language.

9 They Paid Taxes Before They Invented Money

Taxes have been around for longer than there’s been money to pay them. Even before the first coins and silver shekels came to Mesopotamia, the people had to give the king his share.

Often, Sumerian taxes weren’t too different from ours.^[2] Instead of cash, the king would just take a percentage of what you produced. Farmers would send over crops or livestock, while tradesmen might send up leather or wood. Like our modern governments, the wealthy were taxed harder, in some cases having to give the king half of what they grew.

That wasn’t the only way you paid taxes, though. Sumerians would be called to work on public projects, too. For months of a year, a man would have to leave his home to work on the government farm, dig out a public irrigation project, or go off to fight a war. Unless you were wealthy, anyway. The rich could always pay someone else to do it for them.

Mandatory labor was just how early societies functioned. At its peak, there were 11,000 administrators and managers in Sumeria, and they had to be fed. They definitely didn’t go hungry, though. According to the records they left behind, government taxes collected more than a million tons of barley each year.

8 Life Revolved Around Beer

There’s a theory that civilization started because of beer. Men first started farming, the theory goes, so that they could get drunk. They were also lured into the city under the promise of more beer.

Whether that’s true or not, beer was definitely a major part of life in Sumeria. It was served at every meal, from breakfast to dinner, and it wasn’t treated like a drink you had on the side. It was the main course.

Sumerian beer was different from ours, of course. It was as thick as porridge—with a muddy sediment at the bottom, a layer of foam on the top, and little pieces of bread left over from fermentation floating at the top. It could only be consumed with a straw.

But it was worth it. Sumerian beer had enough grains to be considered a nutritious part of a balanced breakfast. Plus, it got you drunk.

When laborers were called in to work on public projects, it was common practice to pay them with beer. That was how the king would lure farmers to work on his building projects: He had better beer.^[3]

7 They Got High On Opium

Beer wasn’t the only drug available in Sumeria. They had opium—and they definitely used it to get high.

The Sumerians were growing opium poppies by at least 3000 BC. We don’t have a lot of information on what they did with it, but the name they gave it kind of spells it out. In Sumeria, poppies were called the “joy plant.”^[4]

There are theories that the Sumerians used these plants for medicine. But there’s nothing to really back that up. We know that people eventually used opium as a painkiller, and charitably, we like to think the Sumerians might have done that, too.

But there’s no proof. The only things we know for sure are that the Sumerians cultivated opium, that they smoked it, and that they thought it was a hell of a good time.

6 The King Married A New Priestess Each Year

Each year, the king would marry a new woman. He had to marry one of the priestesses—a group of virginal women chosen for being “perfect in body”—and make love to her. Otherwise, the gods would turn the soil and the women of Sumeria barren.

The king and his chosen bride would have to reenact the lovemaking of the gods. On her wedding day, the bride would be bathed, perfumed, and dressed in the most beautiful gowns they had, while the king and his entourage made their way to her temple. There, a crowd of priests and priestesses would be filling the hall with songs of love.

When the king arrived, he would give his new bride gifts. Then they would go off together into a room filled with scented spices and make love on a ceremonial bed that was custom-made just for the occasion.

When it was over, the king and his bride would sit together on the throne. His beautiful new bride would gush about him to his people, reciting his poetry about his manliness and telling the crowd that he’d brought them prosperity.^[5]

This, the king explained to his people, was his sacred duty. He had no choice but to sleep with beautiful women. The gods demanded it.

5 Priestesses Were Doctors And Dentists

The priestesses weren’t just the king’s harem—they were some of the most useful people in Sumerian society. They were poets, scribes, and some of history’s first doctors.

Sumerian cities were built around a temple complex. A great ziggurat would sit in the center, surrounded by buildings where priests and priestesses lived and craftsmen worked on public projects.

This was a massive space that took up a third of the city, and it did more than just hold ceremonies. There were orphanages, astronomers, and major business operations.^[6] An administrator there was in charge of government business, and he used his temple as a hub to run trade networks with other cities.

It was on the outside of the complex, though, where the most historically important work was done. There, the sick would come and ask for a priestess to look them over. These women would come out and check the patients’ health. They would diagnose the sick, usually treating illnesses as curses and hexes, and would prepare early medicine to nurse them back to health.

4 Literacy Meant Wealth

Reading and writing were fairly new concepts in ancient Sumeria, but they were already incredibly important. People there didn’t get rich by working with their hands. Tradesmen and farmers were usually in the lower class. If you wanted to get rich, you became an administrator or a priest. And if you wanted your kids to get rich, you made sure they were literate.

Sumerian boys could start school as soon as they were seven years old, but it was expensive. Only the wealthiest people in the city could afford to go. At school, they were taught math, history, and literacy, usually copying what a teacher had written until they could imitate it perfectly.^[7]

Discipline was strict. A student who misbehaved or spoke out of turn would get whipped in front of the class. The biggest incentive to succeed, though, was wealth. A particularly talented student could go on to be a scribe or a priest—and that meant being in the top echelon of Sumerian society.

3 The Poor Lived Outside The City

Not every Sumerian was part of that upper echelon. Most were in the lower class, living on farms outside the city walls or scraping by with low-paying craftsman jobs in the city.

While the rich lived in mud-brick houses filled with furniture, windows, and lamps, the poor had to settle for reed tents.^[8] They slept on straw mats on the ground, and their properties were often shared with their whole extended family.

Outside the city walls, life was hard. But people could move up. A hardworking family could trade in some of their crops to buy more land, or they could rent out their land at a profit. It may even have been possible—although definitely rare—to make enough to hire a tutor and move your child to a better life inside the city walls.

2 The Army Raided Mountain People For Slaves

The lives of Sumeria’s poor were still far better than the lives of slaves. The Sumerian kings kept a steady supply of enslaved workers in their city by running raids on the people who lived in the hill country. The raiders would drag these people off and steal their possessions. The Sumerian kings believed that if the gods gave them victory, it was their divine will to make slaves of the hill people.^[9]

Slaves were usually managed by women, who would put them to work on domestic chores and manual labor. A rare few were given more distinguished jobs, sometimes working as accountants or even tutoring the children.

Female slaves often became concubines. They would live their lives as the sexual tools of the men who owned them, with strict laws keeping them from forgetting their place. If a concubine slave started talking about herself as the wife’s equal, by law, she was to have her mouth scoured with a quart of salt.

It was possible to get out. A female slave could marry a free man, although she would have to give her firstborn child to her master as payment. A male slave could make enough to buy his freedom and even get his own land.

But that mobility went both ways. No one was safe from a life of servitude. If a free man got himself in enough debt or was caught committing a crime, he could be forced to sell himself into slavery.

1 Servants Were Buried With Their Kings

In Sumeria, death was a mystery. The dead would be ferried to what they called the “land of no return,” but little was known about what lay on the other side.

The one thing Sumerians believed for sure was that they would need their Earthly possessions in the afterlife. They were terrified of the possibility of spending eternity alone and starving, so the dead were buried with jewelry, gold, food, and even their pet dogs.

Kings and queens wouldn’t stop at possessions. They would take their attendants with them. The king’s favorite servants would be rewarded for their hard work by being ritually killed at his funeral.^[10] They would be lined up in their finest clothes—and then they’d have their heads bashed in.

One queen was buried with her musicians. They were poisoned and thrown into her tomb so that she wouldn’t have to spend eternity without song. A king was buried with 73 servants, their bodies positioned to be eternally kneeling before his remains.

Some kings may even have been buried with their living families. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the king is buried with his beloved son and his favorite wife. No one was safe. When the king died, death could come for anyone he held dear.

When people list great civilizations of the past, they’ll often list the Roman Empire, Ancient Egypt, the Maya, the Incas, the Vikings, Mongols, and so on. Rarely do you hear much about the Indus-Valley civilization, also known as the Harappan civilization.

From around 3300 BC to 1300 BC, the Harappan people were some of the most advanced people in the world. In fact, many of their innovations were not rediscovered again for many generations. They were an amazing people who did some remarkable things.

10. They Mastered Flush Toilets

Toilets have a long and awful history. Their use and innovations have had many ups and downs. What you can be assured of is that the toilet was 100% not invented by a man named Thomas Crapper, Europeans did spend a long time using chamber pots, and the Indus-Valley civilization, thousands of years ago, had toilets that could flush and some fairly advanced plumbing and sanitation that would not be seen again anywhere in the world for many years. 

The level of sophistication that they employed was not seen again for over two thousand years when the Romans developed their own plumbing. Cities like Mohenjo-daro drew water from upwards of 700 wells. This provided homes with running water and even bathhouses throughout the town. All houses in the capital of Harappa had toilets connected to a public sewer system.

9. They Had Rudimentary Air Conditioning

Sanitation was far from the only advanced comfort of the Indus people. They had also developed an early and rudimentary form of air conditioning to keep themselves cool on those balmy days. Many homes had what were known as wind catchers installed. 

Still used in Iran today, wind catchers are essentially large stone chimneys. These pillars would rise above homes and redirect any breezes down through stone chambers into the homes below. Research has shown that a wind catcher can reduce the temperature in a home by as much as 10 degrees Celsius. On a hot day, that could mean going from 104 degrees Fahrenheit, all the way down to 86 degrees. Still a warm day, but not nearly as stifling.

8. The Indus Script Remains Undeciphered

Although the Indus people are long gone, we still do have a few relics of their civilization. From unearthed remains of great cities, we have also discovered the Indus script. Like other ancient languages, this one seems to be made up of symbols that represent thoughts or ideas, but there is no consensus on how simple or complex they may be. Does the script represent a proper language? Or are the symbols just showing general ideas? No one can say for sure.

Thousands of inscriptions have been unearthed, and they are all typically very short. Most are four or five symbols long. Not a single one has ever been translated. No one can even agree if it evolved into another modern language, either. Those who claim to have descended from the Indus Valley people can and sometimes do violently oppose any research that suggests their language did not evolve from this undeciphered one. There have been threats made against researchers in the past. 

Many scholars have tried to decipher the language over the years, but none of their attempts have been able to account for a full and reasonable translation. Some have been led to propose that the script is not a language at all. They believe the symbols are emblems and have general meanings, but not anything as precise and specific as a codified language.

7. They Really Liked Unicorns

Certain civilizations seemed to have been linked to certain mythological beasts in history; the kinds of creatures that we associated with the mythology of the people or the time. The minotaur is linked to Ancient Greece, and Chinese culture is replete with dragons. When you think of Ireland, you probably imagine leprechauns and fairies. For the Indus people, it was unicorns.

In many of the seals and symbols that have been uncovered in the area, unicorns are a common motif. They are the most common, in fact. 

It has been speculated that the creature depicted in the Indus images is a nilgai. That’s a kind of Asian antelope that is also known as a blue cow. But in real life, those animals have two horns. So the ones depicted by the Indus people, with their single horn, are very possibly a mythological version of the same creature and therefore in the same boat as a unicorn. 

The significance of the unicorn is not fully known. This is a result of the language issue. What any of the seals or inscriptions depicting unicorns say is still undecipherable, but since many of them also depict trees and plants, it may have something to do with harvests, farming, fertility, or associated themes. Until the script is deciphered, we’ll never know for sure.

6. They Invented Buttons

The button is one of the most ubiquitous and underappreciated things in the world. Everyone has buttons on coats and pants and sweaters, but rarely do we consider their origins. Like all things in the world, however, the button did have a beginning. That beginning was in the Indus Valley. 

If you head back to around 2000 BC, the first buttons ever discovered were in the Indus Valley. Archaeologists discovered ones made from curved shells. They were used as ornaments on the clothing of people who were either wealthy or of an important social status. Essentially, it was a very old-school way to flex your social position and wealth.

Buttons were drilled, because they did have primitive drills at the time, and attached to clothing with thread. They were also applied in geometric patterns, so something more like rhinestones or sequins in terms of their function. As a fastener for clothes, it was not used for some years.

5. They May Have Invented Dice Games

Any fan of tabletop gaming likely has a collection of dice that they use and are oddly proud of. Fans of craps or Yahtzee probably have a few extra dice around the house as well. The Indus Valley may have been where all of that started.

Excavations of the city of Harappa turned up a six-sided cubical die. It had dots on every side from one to six and looked for all the world like any die you would find in a modern board game. The only difference is how the dots are laid out. On a modern die, opposite sides always add up to 7. So the 6 dots are opposite the 1, the 5 is opposite 2, and the 4 is opposite 3. On the Indus die, 1 is opposite 2, 3 is opposite 4, and so on. Many additional dice were found in the city of Mohenjo-daro. 

The dice seemed to have been used in pairs, and examples found together were precisely the same size. That means they were clearly designed with some skill and effort. 

4. They Had the World’s Oldest Public Pool

There are over 300,000 public pools in the US alone. People just really dig swimming and they’ll take it any way they can get it. This is definitely not unique to modern times. The Indus Valley city of Mohenjo-daro was home to the world’s oldest public pool.

Known as the Great Bath, the pool dates back around 5,000 years. It wouldn’t be all that impressive by modern standards, the pool only measured about 39 feet by 23 feet. It was also under eight feet deep. The fact they could have constructed a waterproof tank to hold it was impressive on its own, but so is the fact it’s been extremely well preserved after all this time. 

Today the pool is a World Heritage Site, but it’s still not fully known what the purpose of the pool may have been. Of course, it could have just been for leisure time swimming, but it’s part of a larger citadel. The pool may have had a purpose in religious ceremonies of some kind. It’s possible the building was even a home for priests who used the bath. 

3. They Had Advanced Dentistry

Few people are more hated in the modern world than the dentist. We all need to go to a dentist at one time or another, we all understand the importance, and they never seem to be all that cruel or malicious. Nonetheless, people hate them. The dentist is an objectionable experience that makes you feel awkward and judged and often results in mild discomfort at best and pain at worst. Now try to imagine the very first dentists in the Indus Valley civilization and how well-regarded they must have been.

The dental drill, the most feared of all dental tools, was an innovation of the Indus Valley. They could drill holes in beads and buttons, and this technology was carried over to the science of dentistry. The drill itself would have been a primitive bow drill and the dentist was likely a bead craftsman. 

Eleven teeth belonging to nine individuals dating back somewhere between 7,500 and 9,000 years show evidence of drilling. Because of the wear on the teeth and the drill holes archaeologists were able to determine that the teeth were not drilled after death, this was a procedure done to a living patient who continued to use their teeth afterward.

Whether the procedure helped fix any cavities or whether they had any kind of effective anesthetic is not known. 

2. Their Disappearance is a Mystery

One of the most incredible things about the Indus Valley Civilization is the fact that it ended and no one knows why. Most great civilizations leave behind a good deal of historical evidence and records of their rise and fall. This didn’t happen for the Indus people. 

It wasn’t until 1920 that the city of Harappa was first uncovered and we began to learn about the civilization and its incredible advancements. And while we know how long they lasted in the world from about 3300 BC to 1300 BC, what caused the end of such a remarkable civilization is obscured.

There are plenty of guesses as to what happened, of course. There is evidence that space was becoming an increasing concern. Homes were built on top of homes. Trade routes to Mesopotamia were likely suffering as well, thanks to upheaval in that part of the world. 

Other possibilities include war or natural disaster. One of the most widely accepted beliefs is that a changing world is what brought an end to the civilization. Climate and geography both changed over the years. The Indus River may have changed course and led to extensive flooding. Since the river was life not just in terms of providing water but also trade, it would have been devastating.

Other rivers may have dried up at the same time and that cou;d have led to widespread disease and famine. The people of the Indus Valley would have had to migrate elsewhere or die. 

1. They Had No Weapons or Army

One of the theories about how the Indus Valley Civilization disappeared is that they were invaded by a foreign army. This idea is generally not accepted, and the archaeological evidence found so far does back this up. As near as we can figure, the Indus people did not have an army.

There seems to be no evidence of a standing army in the entire civilization. No weapons were left behind, no armor, and no real signs of major conflict at all. The only depiction of battle that has been found in imagery shows a mythological scene with a goat-horned person with a tiger’s body.

While there did seem to be levels of wealth or notoriety in the Indus society, there was no King or royalty above the other people. There were no palaces, nor were there images of kings or emperors that we know of.

The society seems to have been one of widespread equality. There were no poor slums and opulent homes, all living places looked nearly identical. All citizens seemed to have the same opportunities and the same levels of comfort. It’s no wonder many modern thinkers have likened it to a Utopia.

Let’s face it: 2020 has been fairly miserable thus far. The only thing that seems to knock a lethal pandemic from world headlines are riots and looting amid protests against police brutality.

We need some positivity right now – a reminder of Western Civilization’s myriad accomplishments to counteract our current rough patch.

Top 10 Reasons We Should Revive the Dark Ages

Engineering, science, literature, commerce. We’ve done some amazing things, my friends. Hold your heads up high and enjoy the following historical highlight reel. Here’s to the brilliant men and women of history who crafted the greatest civilization the earth has ever known.

10 Plumbing

… is a weird way to start this list. Weird, but incredibly important. You can’t build cities without a water supply, and you can’t build livable cities without a supply of clean water and the ability to wash away human waste.

The first intricate system of underground pipes was developed around the 18th Century B.C. by the Minoan civilization in modern-day Crete. Their capital city, Knossos, had a two-way plumbing system that supplied water and provided sanitation, and also incorporated storm sewage canals to prevent flooding (and disgusting backups) during heavy rains.

Remarkably considering its early date, the Minoans also had the first known flush toilets^[1] – ground-floor latrines with overhead water containers. Some palaces even had rudimentary inverted siphon systems^[2] complete with glass-covered clay pipes, that were found in working condition some 3,000 years later. How’s that for craftsmanship?

Other Western cultures were plumbing pioneers as well. Ancient Greeks in Athens employed an indoor pipe system that, among other perks, permitted pressurized showers. Later, in the First Century A.D., the Greek inventor Heron used pressurized piping for firefighting purposes in the city of Alexandria.

9 Coins as Common Currency

A significant stride in the history of world commerce came when it was no longer necessary to barter or haggle over unofficial units of currencies that only a segment of the populace recognized as legitimate.

Though a uniform currency is so clearly advantageous a concept that numerous civilizations undoubtedly pined for its inception, incorporating an acceptable monetary unit is easier said than done. For starters, it takes stability: for currency to be universally considered such, it must be issued by a recognized governing authority, to distinguish it from the various tokens, barter chips or other casual currencies exchanged nearly since the dawn of mankind.

The vehicle is just as important and, here, metal coins meet a number of prerequisites. Besides being difficult to counterfeit, metal coins can confer value both representatively (i.e. value backed by a governing body) and physically (i.e. by being composed of some percentage of precious metal, such as gold or silver). Coins also are both portable and non-perishable.

While the promise of coins as official currency was likely apparent for millennia, the first one to check all these boxes was the Lydian Stater.^[3] Introduced sometime in the late 7th Century B.C., they were made from an impressively consistent mix of 55% gold, 45% silver, and a small amount of copper for durability’s sake.

It was, in part, invention by necessity: Ancient Lydia was a mercantile center of trade occupying modern-day western Turkey, including the incredibly well-preserved port city of Ephesus.^[4] Conquered by Alexander the Great, it was absorbed into the Seleucid Empire in the 4th Century B.C., its contributions to human history well intact despite the military defeat. In 133 BC it was incorporated into the Roman Empire.

8 Proliferation of Democracy

The practice of citizens taking a widespread role in determining their own governance has roots in ancient Greece. In fact, the word “democracy” derives from the Greek words for people (demos) and rule (kratos).

While prior civilizations likely provided citizens at least some say in who wielded authority over them, a formal, more mature form of self-government developed in Greece sometime around the late 6th or early 5th Century B.C.^[5] Ancient Greek democracy comprised the Ekklesia, who wrote laws and dictated foreign policy; the Boule, representatives from the ten Athenian tribes; and the Dikasteria, public courts where citizens debated before a group of lottery-selected jurors.

The Boule in particularly was refreshingly random: Each year, 500 names were chosen from the entirety of Athens’ citizenry to serve for one year, during which time they proposed new laws and oversaw various aspects of the political process. Unlike modern representative democracies, laws in ancient Greece were voted on by citizens themselves, known as “direct democracy.” When a new law was proposed, all citizens had the opportunity to vote on it by attending an assembly, using shards of pottery called ostraka as ballots.^[6]

Though Ancient Greek democracy bore little logistical resemblance to today’s representative governments, the goals were similar: allowing people a voice in the laws by which they must abide was a stabilizing force that gave society a citizenry-backed legitimacy. Regular elections gave satisfaction to those who voted for items that were adopted, and hope for those who felt differently. The process also limited any one person’s power and encouraged the peaceful transfer of governing authority.

7 Ancient Classical Literature

Fully explaining the contributions of ancient classical literature would take 250 lists rather than 250 words, so let’s just touch upon what it means to us, right now, in the 21st Century.

Besides contributing mightily to various contemporary literary and cinematic motifs – dramas, hero journeys, comedies – ancient Greek and Roman literature showcases that the vast majority of today’s issues were prominent in life well over two millennia ago. If you’re ever feeling tragically unique, try picking up a Greek tragedy.

Take Medea, for instance (not the Tyler Perry one,^[7] the ancient Greek one^[8]). Readers are left to interpret whether the title character was a ruthless murderer who poisoned a king and slaughtered her own children in cold blood… or a scorned fiancé who took the only viable option she saw available to her. At its heart, it’s a tale of female powerlessness with deadly consequences.

Taking umbrage with the government? So did Sophocles’ Antigone, who buried her brother, Polynices, against the wishes of a king who deemed him a traitor. When caught, Antigone claims the superiority of divine right over human law. Her reward is a sentence to be buried alive.

No justice, no resting in peace – for anyone. The king changes his mind too late, as Antigone hangs herself before the sentence can be carried out. The king’s son, who’d fallen in love with her, also commits suicide – as does his mother, when she learns of her son’s fate. Antigone brings the house down with herself, an example of courage and admirable civil disobedience.

The list goes on. Thumbing through the classics is a reassuring, humbling reminder that today’s struggles were also yesteryear’s. Oppression, love, betrayal, misogyny… all right there for the reading.

6 Scholasticism & Scientific Method

No one, of course, can claim to have invented reasoning. But what Western Civilization spearheaded was its formality – ground rules for scientific progress to dispel deeply established yet unproven ideas, and to stand on the shoulders of previous breakthroughs.

Scholasticism^[9] essentially added structure to brainstorming, emphasizing the use of reason in exploring questions of both philosophy and theology. In the 13th Century a student of this practice, Saint Albertus Magnus (Saint Albert the Great), called for distinguishing revealed truth (revelation of something unknown through a divine power) from experimental science. Though scholasticism itself was inextricably tied to Church doctrine, this helped provide a modicum of healthy distance between reason and religion, and was an essential component of the transition into to the Renaissance.

Along with student St Thomas Aquinas, Magnus made many scientific observations in astronomy, chemistry, geography and physiology. Another 13th Century peer, Roger Bacon, called for an end to blanket acceptance of preconceived notions, even widely held convictions passed down from such influential ancient minds as Aristotle.

Three centuries later, in 1621, a distant relative of Bacon’s, Francis Bacon, published Novum Organum. The text advocated inductive reasoning as a necessary foundation for scientific thinking. Bacon’s approach consisted of three primary steps,^[10] starting with a plain description of the facts under examination. Those facts are then classified into three categories – instances of its presence (or correctness), instances of its absence (or incorrectness), and instances of its presence in varying degrees (or circumstantial correctness).

From there, an educated conclusion can be drawn about, for example, cause and effect. Bacon’s guidelines set the stage for the modern scientific method,^[11] used to construct and test hypothesis to determine their validity.

Top 10 Myths About The Middle Ages

5 The Printing Press and Mass Literacy

For expansion of human knowledge, the year 1440 may be the most significant demarcation line in the history of mankind. That was the year that Germany native Johannes Gutenberg invented a printing press capable of mass-producing books. (While other presses existed as early as the 3rd Century A.D., Gutenberg’s was the first dedicated to books specifically.)

Before the Gutenberg Press, manufacturing copies of books was an arduous, painstaking by-hand process. Books were therefore both limited and expensive and, because of that, only 30% of Europe’s adults could read by the mid-15th Century. Some places were even worse off: barely 10% of Italians could read Dante’s Divine Comedy upon its publication in 1321. What good are the classics if only one in 10 people can enjoy them?

The Gutenberg Press changed both the economics and availability of books, flooding the market. Literacy rates rose significantly, and the European Renaissance that had begun about a century earlier kicked into overdrive.

“What had been a project to educate only the few wealthiest elite in this society could now become a project to put a library in every medium-sized town,” explains historian Ada Palmer.^[12]

Just as importantly, the press accelerated the pace of advanced education,^[13] allowing knowledge to be shared on a far broader scale than individual teachers could accomplish. It also changed the instruction process itself – especially with technical subjects. Suddenly, complex engineering diagrams, mathematical charts and architectural works could be replicated with vastly increased accuracy and efficiency.

4 Circumnavigation

Naval exploration dates back tens of thousands of years. Many archaeologists consider the first broad-scale seafarers to be the original inhabitants of Australia, some 60,000 years ago.^[14] Polynesians settling Pacific Islands, far-flung Roman Empire water routes and, of course, the oceanic discovery of the New World – first by Nordic explorers and eventually by Columbus – followed.

But no one in recorded history had done something vital to understanding world geography: sailed around the whole of planet Earth.

That began to change exactly 501 years ago, when Ferdinand Magellan^[15] set sail from Spain with five ships, with the goal of finding a faster commerce route to the East Indies.

He didn’t find it. What he did discover, eventually, was a narrow waterway at the southern tip of South America that connected two oceans. Emerging from what is now known as the Strait of Magellan, the explorer marveled at the ocean’s comparable calmness, giving the Pacific – or “peaceful” – Ocean its name.

Magellan never made it all the way back to Spain; in April of 1521 he was killed in a fight with natives in the Philippines. In fact, only one of the original five vessels – the Victoria^[16] – made it back to Spain the following year.

Though they hadn’t found a viable trade route, Magellan’s team had answered an age-old cartographer’s conundrum: how big, exactly, was the world? Magellan’s journey is another demarcation line of human knowledge, allowing for all transportation decisions made thereafter to be holistically informed ones.

3 Aeronautics: To the Moon and Beyond

In 1784, a fascinated Benjamin Franklin and a stereotypically skeptical John Adams were on hand in Paris (they were there to sign the treaty that ended the American Revolution) to witness two Frenchmen make history: Marquis d’Arlandes and Pilatre de Rozier became the first to slip the surly bonds of Earth, courtesy of a hot-air balloon.^[17]

The delicate 70-foot-tall contraption, precariously comprised of linen and varnished paper with hot air provided by burning straw (fire hazard much?), soared as high as 3,000 feet before touching down five miles away. “Aeronauts,”‘ as they were called, became instant heroes, with balloon motifs adorning everything fashions to furniture: inflated dresses,^[18] balloon fans, powder boxes, chandeliers, needlepoint chairs.

Though it took more than a century, Western civilization also made the next giant leap into the skies, when Wilbur and Orville Wright constructed the first successful airplane in 1903.^[19] Though initially rudimentary, Western engineering advanced aeronautics exceptionally fast – quick enough for both sides to strafe and bomb each other in the Great War little more than a decade later.

And then, 50 years later, the unthinkable: a man on the moon. All cynicism aside, take a moment and let it sink in that just 66 years after the first airplane flight, Western civilization flew people to the moon, allowed them to get out and bounce around, and brought them back alive. The achievement was so historic that “Men Walk on Moon”^[20] became the largest font size (96 pt.) ever to grace the front page of the conventionally low-key New York Times. The font has been used just three times since, with:

NIXON RESIGNS
U.S. ATTACKED, and
OBAMA^[21]

2 The Factory Production Line

In December 1913, Henry Ford introduced the first moving assembly line in history. The exercise in streamlining centered around the idea that a worker can accomplish the same action repeatedly far more expediently than a variety of disparate actions in succession.

The change resulted in one of the greatest exponential labor efficiency improvements ever: the time it took to build one of Ford’s signature Model T automobiles was reduced from over 12 hours to two hours and 30 minutes, a nearly five-fold decrease.^[22]

Crucially, Ford’s production line greatly expanded middle-class access to cars, which were quickly morphing from wealthy status symbol to must-have mode of transportation. By reducing the time, capital investment and manpower needed to build the Model T, Ford could drop its price from $850 to under $300. In this fashion, mass production led to mass consumption – turning millions into drivers and Ford into a billionaire.

A decade later, the production line led to another innovation: the five-day, 40-hour workweek. The efficiency created by assembly belts and personnel customization made manufacturing so fast and easy that longer hours and six-day workweeks were no longer necessary to meet demand and turn handsome profits; this held true even though Ford had more than doubled salaries in 1914 to a then-impressive $5 per day.^[23] The production line, then, ushered in a new era of work-life balance still a hallmark of healthy middle class lifestyles.

1 Christianity

Christendom: it’s an old term that covers much of the western world (and some parts beyond). It is on this list at position one for a very good reason: despite the fact that there have been some dark times that Christianity may have contributed to, on the whole, the western world as we know it exists today thank to the efforts of medieval monks and scholars, and Christian people of good will.^[24] The so-called dark ages were a time in which monks were secreted away in cold frowsty monasteries working tirelessly to maintain all of the wisdom of the ancient world in the form of illuminated manuscripts.

Additionally, thanks to convents and the sisters within, the female voice was saved for posterity. In the 16th century the only defender of women seemed to be the popes who refused to allow King Henry to simply cast off any wife he wanted. And without the astonishingly important contributions of the likes of the the humble St Claire of Assisi, Polymath Saint Hildegard von Bingen, and doctor of the Church Saint Teresa of Ávila the world would be a different place today. Saint Hildegard’s impact on European society in her time was immense; she should be a household name. Some of her music is in the video clip above.

Art, music, literature, social justice, manners and so many other parts of our society exist in the form we know them today thanks to the impact of Christianity on the governments of western society. The world is in upheaval right now, so it seems fitting to end this list with a quote from the Bible that, above all else, is important for us to remember today: “All things therefore whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you also to them.” (St Matthew 7:12)^[25]

Top 10 Misconceptions About The Catholic Church

About The Author: Christopher Dale (@ChrisDaleWriter) writes on politics, society and sobriety issues. His work has appeared in Daily Beast, NY Daily News, NY Post and Parents.com, among other outlets.