Videos

This series, "A Futuristic Look at Ancient Lenses: A Symposium on Ancient Egypt" focuses on topics and discussions from Ancient Egypt, and involved scholars from across the Eastern Illinois University Campus. In this video, Dr. Kip McGilliard...

This series, "A Futuristic Look at Ancient Lenses: A Symposium on Ancient Egypt" focuses on topics and discussions from Ancient Egypt, and involved scholars from across the Eastern Illinois University Campus. In this video, Dr. Thomas Hawkins...

In this video, Dr. Maria Vlachaki presents a lecture on the history of medicine in ancient Greece and Rome

Writing... awesome technology or unnatural intrusion? Why did humans start writing? What would our world be like without writing? Here begins the tale of Thoth and Thamus, two legendary Egyptians arguing over the value of writing. Will...

Writing started out as pictures? Yep! Journey to a cave full of pictographs in ancient France and see how it all began. You just took Thoth's Pill. Now watch as early cave paintings turn into pictographs and ideographs. Where will history...

Watch prehistoric pictures turn into written words as ancient civilizations around the world learn to write for the very first time! You took Thoth's Pill. Now your journey continues. Leave the cave days behind and take a leap into history...

Watch ancient Sumerians figure out how to use pictures to write sounds for the first time in history. See why the Egyptians disagree with their approach. Meaning writing (logographs) let early writers get civilized and document their thoughts...

Watch this ancient Chinese scribe figure out how to use a fixed set of characters to write limitless words in his language. How? By combining meaning writing (logographs) and sound writing (rebus)! The result is a set of helpful hints...

Maya glyphs aren't just Mesoamerican eye candy. They're a working writing system! Unlike the thousands of logograms encountered in your journey so far, the Maya syllabary lets you combine a very limited number of syllables into a block...

From Egyptian hieroglyphs to your alphabet, watch these miners turn fancy symbols into simple scratches that were all about the sounds. First marvel at hieroglyphic inscriptions in the shadow of the great pyramids. Once you grasp how those...