How to Make Your Own Map & Timeline of Ancient World Civilizations
If you have an interest in ancient history or are taking a history class, creating a map and a timeline are two fun and simple activities that you can do in your own home for schoolwork, extra credit or personal enjoyment.
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Things You'll Need
- Multiple pieces of paper, poster board or anything that you can write on
- Markers, pens or some other writing and drawing utensil
- Historical reference material
- Computer with mapmaking software (optional)
Instructions
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Decide on what you want to focus your map and timeline. Ancient history stretches across more than 3,000 years of record-keeping, and hundreds of unique and different civilizations exist from which to choose. Pick a specific starting and stopping point for your timeline and create your map around that.
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Decide what kind of timeline to create. Specifically, determine if you want your timeline to be a general list of events that happened chronologically or a comparison between civilizations, showcasing events that occurred in different civilizations along parallel lines.
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Write out your timeline, paying special attention to events that you can plot on your map such as important battles or expansions of your chosen civilizations. Make sure you follow the correct sequence of events by referring to your history textbook, an encyclopedia or online resource. Consider color-coding your civilizations with different colored pens or markers and then use those colors to draw your maps.
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Draw your map using references from other maps of the world. If your map is based on ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean such as Greece, Rome, and Egypt you can use an existing map of the Mediterranean Sea and the surrounding land masses as a guide, or you draw your map free hand. Use different colored pens or markers to draw the borders of your chosen civilizations and to mark the key cities, fortresses or locations of ancient battles.
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Use mapmaking software if you would rather not draw your map by hand. Software can be downloaded to create a map on your computer.
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Tips & Warnings
If you want to impress with your map and timeline, consider purchasing large poster boards for your project rather than regular-sized paper.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit ancient map image by Allyson Ricketts from Fotolia.com
