Ancient seals containing signs and sometimes script recognized as Harappan have been found in more than a dozen places. But because there is no bilingual key, it is difficult for scholars to translate any of the ancient seals that have been found in various parts of the Indus Valley. The substrate language is unknown, as is the language family it belongs to. The seals contain very few signs each and there has yet to be found a "Rosetta Stone" giving scholars a parallel writing with more than one language, so that the "code" can be broken and the ancient scripts can be translated.
Describe the geographic extent of the Roman Empire when it was at its height.
The Western Roman Empire reached its apogee in 476 when Emperor Romulus Augustus was deposed by Odoacer (the first Barbarian King), the Roman legions were withdrawn from Germanic lands in order to defend Italy from Alaric I, and Justinian I tried to regain the west without success.
The sixteen provinces of Rome, established from AD 46 through 227, were Sardinia and Corsica, Hispania Citerior Hispania Ulterior Illyricum, Macedonia, Africa, Asia, Achaia, Gallia Citerior, Gallia Narbonensis, Cilicia, Syria, Bithynia and Pontus, Cyprus, Cyrenaica and Crete, Numidia and Mauritania. Added to those, under the emperors, were Rhaetia, Noricum, Pannonia, Moesia, Dacia, Britannia, Aegyptus, Cappadocia, Galatia, Rhodus, Lycia, Judaea, Arabia, Mesopotamia, Armenia and Assyria (Gill 1).
In its farthest reach, the Roman Empires of East and West went as far...
With the invasions of the Goths, the Persians and the subsequent withdrawal of troops from occupied areas to fight them, hitherto occupied lands were left without Roman authority and to their own machinations. The resulting lack of taxes for income led to financial paucity and ruin for the great Roman Empire. In 1453 the Ottoman Turks took Byzantium (Constantinople or Istanbul) and that was the end of the Eastern Roman Empire. The Roman Empire was the largest unified (under one head) nation ever seen in world history, geographically.
Works Cited
Encyclopedia Britannica. "Culture Areas in North America." 2008. Found online at http://student.britannica.com/comptons/article-202463/American-Indians-or-Native-Americans.
Gill, N.S., "Provinces of the Roman Empire." About.com: Ancient/Classical History. 2008. http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/romemaps/f/RomanProvinces.htm.
Subramanian, T.S. "Discovery of a century in Tamil Nadu" the Hindu, India's National Newspaper) 1 May 2006. Page 1. http://www.hindu.com/2006/05/01/stories/2006050112670100.htm.
