Dates: 3100 B.C. to 30 B.C. Writing: Hieroglyphics, a writing system that uses pictures; hieratic, a quicker type of "cursive"; and demotic, a written short-form script Ancient Egypt's gods ...

An extensive Jewish quarter from the ancient Greek city of Phanagoria has been found near one of the world’s most ancient synagogues in Russia’s Taman Peninsula, north of the Black Sea.