1
Story
The Indus Valley
Begin with planned cities, trade networks and one of history's great undeciphered scripts.
History Explorer
Free45 min5 steps
Ancient Worlds That Still Shape Us
Start with the first cities, writing systems, states and ideas that still shape how societies work.
Guided Route
Start here
New to the topic? Start with the essentials. Already know the broad story? Follow the route for the turning points, context and consequences that make each step matter.
45 min
2
Story
Ancient Mesopotamia
Move to the land between the rivers, where cities, writing, law and kingship changed human life.
3
Story
Ancient Egypt
Follow a civilisation shaped by the Nile, divine kingship, monuments and extraordinary continuity.
4
Story
Early China
See how river societies, bronze power and dynastic legitimacy created foundations for Chinese history.
5
Story
Ancient Greece
End with city-states, democracy, philosophy and war: an inheritance later worlds kept returning to.
Featured figures
Start with these figure pages to follow the people, rulers and decision-makers behind the route.
FigureLegendary king of Uruk
Gilgamesh
He was the legendary king of Uruk whose search for fame, friendship, grief, and immortality became one of humanity's oldest surviving stories.
FigureFounder of the Akkadian Empire
Sargon of Akkad
He rose from obscurity — possibly a gardener's son — to build the first true empire in recorded history, and the stories told about him echo through legends for millennia.
FigureBabylonian king
Hammurabi
He turned Babylon from a rising city-state into the strongest power in Mesopotamia, then carved royal justice into stone so his authority looked orderly, divine, and knowable.
FigurePharaoh credited with unifying Upper and Lower Egypt
Narmer
He stands at the threshold of Egyptian history, the king most closely linked with unifying Upper and Lower Egypt, yet known through symbols, tombs and the Narmer Palette rather than a biography in the modern sense.
All figures in this path
A compact index for the wider cast connected to these stories.
17 figures
Gilgamesh
Legendary king of Uruk
2800 BC–2500 BC
Sargon of Akkad
Founder of the Akkadian Empire
2334 BC–2279 BC
Hammurabi
Babylonian king
1810 BC–1750 BC
Narmer
Pharaoh credited with unifying Upper and Lower Egypt
3150 BC–3100 BC
Khufu
Ancient Egyptian pharaoh
2600 BC–2566 BC
Tutankhamun
Ancient Egyptian pharaoh
1341 BC–1323 BC
Akhenaten
Pharaoh of Egypt
1370 BC–1336 BC
Cleopatra VII
Last active pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt
69 BC–30 BC
