The Influence of Ancient Civilizations on Modern Society

Afaq Mujeeb
3 min readJun 28, 2024

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It is challenging to overstate just how relevant cultural studies are today because many ideas were introduced to the world by ancient civilizations and have been integrated into the subconscious of the younger generation. It socializes the societies that have ever been in existence beginning from the Greeks and the Romans, the ancient Egyptians way to the ancient Mesopotamians, and so on.

For instance, all things that can be attributed to the beginning of Western civilization like philosophy math plus sciences can be traceable to the Greeks. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were able to raise issues about the purpose of life, the questions of good and evil, and the question of knowledge, and thus they started what people can now refer to as modern philosophy. The concept of an efficient system of governance known as democracy that was found in Greece, especially in Athens, is still in practice in modern world politics. Particular items such as the Parthenon and classic sculptures that have been claimed to be made by Greeks impact modern arts, theaters, and architecture.

Sociology and culture, which stem from Rome and are associated with law and government, currently have strong ground in legal systems. Justice, ownership, contracts, etc. families of trademark principles of Roman law have been adopted in many modern legal systems of the present day world. They also perfected civil works such as the building of aqueducts, roads, and great arches like the pillar at the Colosseum, which are however used today in designing most modern structures and even city master plans.

Egypt is one of the most ancient civilizations that can be traced in the spheres of writing, medicine, and construction or architecture, for instance. According to historical findings, the Egyptians are among the earliest people to pioneer the earliest forms of literature, or literature in its broadest sense of recording and communicating that of the hieroglyphics in Early Egypt. It is important to note that the Ancient Egyptians also did possess some level of medical knowledge that enabled them to successfully form a medical papyrus known as Ebert and was the creation of modern medicine. Structures developed a long time ago such as pyramids and the Sphinx are still relevant up to this present age, and today they are used in engineering and construction projects.

The early civilization that is said to have originated in Mesopotamia is said to have been characterized by the use of such things as the wheel, the system of writing in cuneiform among others things, and the establishment of one of the earliest known formal systems of law famously known as the code of Hammurabi. These contribute to putting in place advanced transport, communication, and legal frameworks.

As is seen, it can be concluded that ancient civilizations are relevant nowadays and their influence on the contemporary world is vast and rather different. The learning, construction, and engineering successes they have had laid the foundation for the civilization and the culture of today, which itself constitutes a lofty legacy and history.

Thanks for reading my words.

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