Hi folks! The goal this week is to get us started on the responses and into the rhythm of interacting with each other here as well as in class.

If you want some guidance on what I’m looking for in the post, basically I’m looking for your take on what we’re going to be studying. Things like: What are you curious about when it comes to the ancient world? Is there anything about studying ancient cultures that makes you wary or concerned? How might Umberto Eco’s quote and what we’re talking about in class relate to how we see the cultures and peoples of the past?

Most important: What do you most want to explore, and why? Give it a ponder! I’m looking forward to hearing your answers. Read through each other’s responses, and respond to ideas that strike you as interesting or as prompting questions of your own.

History is interesting because it's not just about what happened, but about figuring out why people told stories the way they did. The hard part about understanding ancient times is that we're missing a lot of information, and we often judge old cultures by today's standards instead of trying to understand how they actually thought. Ancient people came up with basic ideas about right and wrong, how to run things, and how people should live together that we still use without thinking about it. What would be cool to know more about is how normal people lived back then not just the famous ones because that might show us beliefs we got from the past that we never really questioned but that still shape how we see the world.

When I think about approach history, I see it as asking questions rather than just accepting facts. The quote in the prompt makes sense to me because books are not meant to be believed blindly, but examined for meaning. If we just accept history without asking question, we might miss out a learn from it.

What interest me most about history is the way it connects the past to our present. Ancient cultures especially interest me because so much of what we do today comes from them, like writing, government, and even architecture. learning about these things helps me understand the world better.

One challenge in studying history is that sources can be biased or incomplete. Writers in the past often left out voices of ordinary people, so we only see part of the picture.That makes it important to what we read and compare different sources.

What strikes me most about ancient cultures is how advance they were, even with limited technology. At the same time, they faced many of the same problems we deal with today, like leadership struggles or inequality. That makes history less distant.

Something I'd like to know more about is the daily life of regular people in ancient times. We always hear about kings and wars, but I want to know about families ate, how they worked, and what they believed, learning that would make history feel more alive and relatable.

Overall, I think understanding history means being curious, asking questions, and looking for connections to our own lives.

In my opinion, history is important when it comes to great storytelling in fiction. Storytelling requires a certain understanding of the human experience and psyche. I believe that in order for a story to be great there has to be a certain reliance on real world experiences. This is when I think history comes in. In order to connect readers to a theme or lesson, writers tend to relate it back to something they can understand, and depending on that theme, historical influence can help solidify a story's base. So many stories I love take influence from real historical events, people or places and they almost always beautifully enhance the characters and story. In order to understand history we require remnants of the past. However, this has proven to be difficult because time tends to erode anything that manages to survive from ancient civilizations. It makes it difficult to decipher things when we don't have all the pieces to the puzzle. In addition to not being able to have the entire story, there's also such a huge gap between time periods that our modern way of thinking may negatively impact the way we perceive ancient civilizations. Things we may considered to be "correct" or even the way we do certain tasks may skew the way we interpret the things we do save from ancient civilizations. I think the way that the people behaved and how they went about there day to day in most important. The way the people acted when compared to their time period and the fall of it is important for us to understand so we can see what went wrong for those people and why. We need to know how their lives were impacted and the things that possibly could've changed there outcome so we can learn and grow from them. I want to learn as much of there day to day as we can. I think its interesting to see how they differ form in simple tasks.

1. The reason why I enjoy learning about history is because I like to see how people lived on a daily basis without any modern technology to help them.
2. The reason why understanding ancient history is because there’s limited records or writings from people who lived during that time period. We mostly have to rely on historians and museums to get accurate information.
3. The most important thing about ancient history is how its influences are still around today in terms of religion, traditions, trading with foreigners, and entertainment.
4. I would really like to see how people would trade with each other and what the process was behind the currency they used.

1. When it comes to history, I find it interesting how many small or huge events can be happening at the same time but in different places. It shocks me every time when I hear two or more events which I thought were decades or centuries apart were actually happening around the same time.
2. I think it may be harder to understand history when it has been either lost or destroyed due to time or people. I also find it to be through the perspective of the person telling the story because we can't ever get the full picture that way.
3. I find the customs and language of ancient cultures to be striking as I like to compare ancient cultural aspects to the way humans behave now. I also really like to hear their reasons for doing so. A lot of the things done in the past can be used to influence us to do better.
4. I would like to find out more about the interactions between different ancient civilizations as well as what they saw as important to their society. I also like knowing about their beauty standards compared to ours today because their definition of beauty is way different than ours.

The quote above seems to me to say that books aren't there to be taken as merely taken for face value but a lesson to be considered and evaluated. This goes to interest me the most in history, the results of actions which influence the future. As you can see the consequence of the interpretation of these lessons through story not only in the outcome from those who take the advice but from those who don't. I feel that one of the things which most get in the way of understanding both these lessons and history is our belief of being more modern or educated means that we know better than those who come before and can somehow foresee or change the result due to hubris. I feel that ancient cultures and how they influence us is most defined by those mistakes in the stories and history preserved as time progresses and that sometimes even in small ways bits and pieces of this failures and overcoming them leads us to the societies we live in today. What most interest me is the habits which were unusual to even those societies, as what happened to the societies which may have not been pagan or those who were warmongering rather than having large agricultural roots or other lack of concepts such as those who had no currency or hierarchy.

I’ve never been that into politics or wars, but I’ve always been interested in how people lived, what they did for fun, how they acted, and what they believed. I really like the mysterious parts of history too, like lost knowledge or things we never wrote down that could’ve changed how we live today. A lot of what we know is based on small pieces that survived, and even those can be exaggerated or biased. Since we don’t have full stories, it’s hard to know what really happened. I think the technology and knowledge they developed still impact us today. I’m especially intrigued by how much they knew about the human body, like how Egyptians could preserve it so well just by observation. I’d love to learn more about how people came up with the idea of gods and made it such a big part of their lives, especially when it came to preparing for the afterlife.

1) The thing that interests me about history the most would be the progression taken to achieve where we are now. Then how the smallest things or slight changes could of altered that route.

2) Regarding ancient history, the thing that gets in the way the most would have to be reading old texts from that era. It's hard to interpret the exact meaning when it gets lost in translation, or trying to decipher the meaning behind numerous ancient things without context.

3) What strikes me the most important about the past would have to be communication. For example, how we're people of the past able to configure and create words and develop new meanings for these words, and these meanings / words still being used to this day.

4) I would like to find out more about the development of science and tech during that era.

What interests me about history is the surreality of learning about all of the crazy and monumental events that happened in the past that still affects us in modern day. It’s like reading the greatest story, except the concept of suspension of disbelief is thrown out the window as all the events actually happened and left an impact. Missing records and biased sources can get in the way of understanding history, as much evidence of key events can prevent coming up with a full picture. What strikes me as most important about ancient cultures is their laws and moral systems. Although our understanding of law and morality has changed as humans and cultures advanced, some of the most basic ideals, such as an eye for an eye, are still lived by many people today. I would like to learn more about the art and entertainment of the ancient world.

Starting off, my main interests about history is just learning what happened before my life began. Things such as Ancient Greece, Egypt, as well as Medieval eras were times that I’ll never be able to experience unfortunately, and their history just seemed to interesting to me. I first began loving history when I began a video game franchise called “Assassin’s Creed”, which mainly took place in these historical times. These times included Renaissance Italy, the Caribbean Era with Pirates all around, as well as Medieval times. It peaked my interest in the subject, and over time I began to research into history on my own, and that’s when I knew that I really loved history. Some things that tend to get in the way or obscure history is the way people used to speak back then. Modern English is vastly different to what was said thousands and thousands of years ago. Even a couple hundred centuries ago, English was very different compared to what it has become now. This can make texts difficult to comprehend without a second person to give their thoughts, or you’d have to take a deeper look into the reading.

One thing that strikes me as the most important thing about ancient cultures is their inventions. Many things we use or used before came from these ancient times, and have continued to live on for thousands of generations. For example, a cup or a table was invented possibly millions of years ago, and it’s still something we use today. Or those influences of these ancient inventions helped humanity create better inventions of what was created long ago. I just think that’s fascinating, and I’d also like to know if there are any inventions that did not live to see it put onto transcripts, papers or notes that people could see these illustrations and recreate them today. One thing I’d like to know about is obscure things that may not be known today. For example, you can’t find something obscure unless you do some very deep digging to find out what it is. There’s probably millions of things I’d like to know, but I can’t say them off the top of my head.

1)One of my main interests in history is how it always tends to repeat itself as every time we advance an era, we see the same pattern

2) The things that kind of get in the way of understanding history are the things that promote ignorance and bias as in history there is always a new side to look over as well as a new voice that needed to be heard but dint because of ignorance.

3) What strikes me most important about ancient civilization is their culture and what they had developed as language system as seeing how a civilization communicates with one another shows how advance they already were, and they influence us by having learn from their mistakes as we see something that was done form the past.

4)I would like to find out how ancient civilizations viewed religion as religion has lasted a big factor to my life and I want to know if it played a big factor in the people of the ancient times.

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I find history to be fascinating, especially how everything continues to repeat itself. For example, trends from the 1970's becoming popular again, or even countries creating wars so dictators or leaders can have more power. Ancient History is very interesting because there are things that remain a mystery due to some civilizations only having an oral system/ oral history. Also, It is difficult to know everything about ancient civilizations because artifacts can be easily damaged, making it harder to understand what messages were inscribed. Books/diary's can be translated incorrectly or the messages within the book are biased to the authors beliefs.

What strikes me to be the most important thing about Ancient cultures and how they influence us today, is that they used the earth's resources and their broken language and were able create contraptions/ systems that humans now use in the modern world. For example irrigation systems, clay formed from water and dirt to build homes, and using plants as medication. We now have new and improved forms, like new farming tools and techniques, cement, and different medications. I would like to know more about how Ancient civilizations used the earths resources to their advantage. I don't have survival instincts and I find it cool that they were able to build a whole empire or civilization from nothing.

• History is most interesting to me when I can see and understand the way humans have lived and the way it keeps changing through different time periods.
• Lack of knowledge and evidence is the largest obstacle in understanding history, especially ancient history because modern day historians have to try and explain something without the whole context. (Stonehenge, Easter Island, Pyramids, etc.)
• The important part about ancient culture and their influence on us is the systems they had set up are something we still utilize today. They are the foundations of modern civilization through our use of politics, math, science, language, and writing. All of these things have been constantly evolving.
• I want to find out what the everyday people were up to back in those days and what important figures were around bringing change to society.

1. What interests me about history is how different ancient cultures coexisted with each other. I often look at what was the relationship between these cultures as allies or enemies.
2. The main thing that gets in the way of understanding history is how accurate the evidence is. Some pieces of history are lost forever and the only credible sources are stories that different cultures document. These stories could be true, myths or greatly exaggerated which could affect how reliable they are.
3. The most important thing about ancient cultures and how they influence us is how each era sets up the world we live in now. When scientists find ancient relics for museums they are reminders of how early civilizations used to live and how technology evolved overtime.
4. I would like to learn more about the links between different cultures and how they depended on each other for food, resources, rivalries and trade.

• What always interested me about history is the clear progression of man with technology and innovation. The drastic change to how weapons were once made of stone to now being nuclear. 
• One of the things that gets in the way of understanding ancient history is that we are unfamiliar with the norms that they had in the sense that our societal norms are completely different. It’s often hard to imagine how an earlier civilization may have functioned and why they did certain things the way they did.
• One of the most important things about ancient cultures is that it has shaped the world to where we are in this time. Traces of ancient cultures are seen today such as different religions and or worship to different deities such as Baal, diverse practices of pottery and clay work. 
• I would like to find out more about the interactions between the different civilizations in history such as alliances, enemy civilizations and the reason behind their conflicts. 

• What interests me about history is how everything in the past was something incredible and I have never seen anything like it. 
• The kinds of things in the way of understanding history, particularly ancient history, is how people live and what their culture is like because today, we don't live the way they do.
• What strikes me as the most important about ancient cultures and how they influence us is how farmers grow their own food like the people in ancient times. 
• I would like to know about how things changed over the years and when things start to changed.  

• What interests me about history is the little things that have changed and/or stayed consistent throughout the periods of time that have deep, layered meanings. 
• Things that get in the way of understanding ancient history are misunderstandings or damages of the subjects. Things from back then weren't able to be conserved as well and as much as they are able to now. Some things were just simply left behind and/or unseen.
• I feel like the beliefs are most important about ancient cultures as they set the foundation. The world's beliefs have now been surrounded by money and power rather than the more important qualities of life.
• I would just like to find out more about the civilizations/ cultures that may be overlooked and that I personally may have overlooked.

1> My curiosity for history stems from wanting to understand how they socialize, their political system and how it differs from today's world

2> One factor could be the accuracy of the information provided and the evidence to support the material

3> I think its important to know how ancient cultures geopolitical systems, allowing us to know what works and do not work.

4>  To get a better understanding of the technology at the time, its impacted the ancient civilization and what we can learn to help us in todays world

1; What i like about history is how there is always something new to learn depending the angle you go about it, it makes it feel always new.

2; One of the things that get in the way is not being open minded to different possibilities when it comes to explaining certain theories about history.

3; I find it important to find out a solid explanation about how these ancient civilizations were able to build such monuments with limited technology.

4; I will like to find out more about how ancient civilizations were able to grow as a community with little leadership when it started.