Humans, Nature, and Birds
Timeline Linking the Study of Birds, Technology, and Art
 

 

The first sample covers 28,000 years, from the oldest bird cave wall art through the year 50:

 
Date
 Events & Individuals Influencing the Production of Bird Art

Paleolithic Age
c.30,000 bce Owl in Chauvet Cave, France (Plate 2).
c.30,000–17,000 bce Owl in Les Trois Frères Cave, France (Plate 24).
c.17,000–16,000 bce Auk in Cosquer Cave, France (Plate 17).
c.15,000–10,000 bce The Shaft in Lascaux Cave (detail), France (Plate 31).

Neolithic Age
c.8000? bce Netted Ostriches on a Libyan Outcrop, Libya (Plate 10).

Ancient Civilizations
c.3500 bce Pictographic writing appears in Sumeria. Phoenicians discover glass while cooking on sand.
c.3000 bce Hieroglyphic writing appears in Egypt.
c.2500 bce Statue of King Chefren, Egypt (Plates 4 and 5).
   
© 2008 Darryl Wheye and Donald Kennedy
c.2000 bce Papyrus “books” appear in Egypt (e.g., Book of the Dead).
c. 1500–1100 bce Chinese images include stylized decorative birds, among them, bronze vessels in the shape of owls
early 1400s bce Pelicans from a Wall Painting in the Tomb of Horemheb, Egypt (Plate 12).
1100–250 bce Chinese images include Mandarin Ducks on bronze and pottery vessels.
c. 700–650 bce The use of coins is adopted in Lydia and spreads to Greece.
500 bce Herodotus, a Greek historian, includes natural history in his writings (see Plate 33).
c. 412–411 bce Ten Drachma Silver Coin, Sicily (Plate 25).
c. 400 bce What Westerners come to call arabic numerals appear in India, although the date is uncertain, (they are later conveyed to Europe by Arab scholars), with the zero appearing around the ninth century.
360–343 bce The God Horus Protecting King Nectanebo II, Egypt (Plate 6).


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