Glimpses of the History of Design from the 3rd Millennium BCE to the 3rd Millennium CE

History wasn’t just a series of wars you know.

A few years ago I put together a cross-cultural ‘History of Design’ timeline covering art and architecture from prehistoric times to the beginning of the twenty-first century. The above table from this History of Design shows where the first of six cross-cultural ‘time capsules’ I have illustrated fits into the big picture.

(Actually the paintings are more likely to show what the sites high-lighted in the table look like now.)

Americas & Pacific

The pre-Incan Temple of the Crossed Hands, in Kotosh, Peru, is the oldest archaeological structure in the Andes. Stone constructions suggest that complicated building work began here in the third Millennium BCE centuries before anywhere else in the Americas.

Europe

Construction of Mnajdra, part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Megalithic Temples of Malta, began in the fourth Millennium BCE, and this part on a hilltop overlooking the sea and the islet of Fifla, was built in the third Millenium BCE. The temples of Malta are among the oldest religious structures on Earth.

Near East & Africa

Asia

Mohenjo-daro, one of the largest settlements in the ancient Indus River civilization, was built in about the middle of the third Millenium BCE. It is located in the province of Sindh, Pakistan.

The city was abandoned soon after the beginning of the second Millenium (19th century) BCE, and the site was not re-discovered until the early 20th century CE.

See what I mean — have you ever seen or heard of so much history without a single war even being mentioned?

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