The Time Line
Prologue: The two men paused in front of the doorway that bore the seals of the long-dead pharaoh. They waited six long years, from 1917 to 1922, for this moment. Silently Howard Carter pried a hole through the ancient plaster. Hot air rushed out of the small cavity and massaged his face. Carter shone a flashlight through the hole and peered into the tomb. Gold objects swarm in front of his eyes, and he was struck dumb with amazement.
Lord Carnavon moved impatiently behind him as Carter remained silent.
"What do you see?" he asked, hoarse with excitement.
"Wonderful things," whispered Carter as he stepped back from the doorway.
They soon broke down the door. In a daze of wonderment, Carter and Lord Carnarvon wandered through the antechamber of Tutankhamun's tomb. They fingered golden funerary beds, admired beautifully inlaid chests, and examined the pharaoh's chariots stacked against the wall. Gold was everywhere--on wooden statues, inlaid on thrones and boxes, in jewelry, even on children's stools. Soon Tutanhamun was known as the golden pharaoh, and archaeology as the domain of buried treasure and rival sepulchers. Tutankhamun's magnificent tomb is a symbol of the excitement and romance of archeology.
Since time immemorial, humans have been intensely curious about their origins, about the mysterious and sometimes threatening world in which they exist. They know that earlier generations lived before them, that their children, grandchildren and their progeny in turn will, in due course, dwell on earth, However, how did the world come about? Who created the familiar landscape of rivers, fields, mountains plants, and animals? Who fashioned the oceans and seacoasts, deep lakes, and fast-flowing streams? Above all, how did the first men and women settle the land. Who created them, how did they come into being? Every society has creation stories to account for human origins. A example comes from the Aztec legend of Creation
When yet all was in darkness no sun had shone and no dawn had broken---it is said---the gods gathered themselves together and took counsel among themselves in Teotihuacan. They spoke, they said, among themselves"Come hither, oh gods! Who will carry the burden? Who will take it upon himself to be the sun, to bring the dawn?"
However, archeology and biological anthropology have replaced legend with an intricate account of human evolution and cultural development that extends back more than 2.5 million years. However, the evolution of the universe dates back some 14 billion years. Before we began with the development of human origins , let us begin with the evolution of the world around us--the universe itself!
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