Ancient civilizations would largely be a mystery without historical documents. These historical documents are important tools that can provide evidence regarding ancient civilizations and help us to understand values, ideas, and culture. I will review three focus documents the graffiti in Pompeii, Thucydides and his method of historical inquiry, and early Christian life. Each of the focus documents we reviewed this semester contained elements of ancient civilizations and our interpretation of the document furthered our knowledge and understanding of the civilizations. It is also important to observe historical documents as components to understanding contemporary life and how they can help you understand your own personal experiences and future …show more content…
The documents about early Christian life depicted how important religion was to society and how polarizing it was. Religion has been at the core of societies throughout history and through our country is “secular” many values and core principles are deeply rooted in our Christian heritage. This has polarized our country and created a government founded on religious biases. In our contemporary world, the battle between religion hasn’t stopped and tension between differing religions is extremely high. For almost a century, the Syrian conflict between Jews, Muslims, and Palestinians has grown and a religious war has broken out causing immense violence and death. The way in which Jews were looked down upon makes me think of the way in which society stereotypes and discrimination against Islam. Our society has deemed Islam as a violent religion that only seeks to kill infidels. Observing Thucydides method of historical inquiry made me think of the bias in media and how it can be difficult to get the full truth because each media outlet contains bias. News today seeks to inform and educate the public, but especially now, it can be hard to decipher fact from someone’s interpretation of the event. The strengths of his method are they way in which he collects information to report on historical events. Gathering information from multiple sources to sphere out bias is key. Our society has adopted “fake news” and “alternative facts” making it important to have a diverse understanding of news to get a neutral report. The graffiti on the walls of Pompeii is just like social media today. The graffiti is similar to the way people use Twitter and Facebook. These social media outlets are there for people to