When did ancient times become non-ancient times?

davejacobs

About the same time "the old days" began. But according to Wiki, ancient history ended about 500 AD http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_history Although the ending date of ancient history is disputed, Western scholars use the fall of the Western Roman Empire in AD 476 May 27 10, 12:18 PM

author

It's not entirely arbitrary that Medieval/Renaissance History at About.com begins and Ancient/Classical History ends in A.D. 476. Edward Gibbon's 476 date for the Fall of Rome is conventionally acceptable because that's when the Germanic Odoacer deposed the last Roman emperor to rule the western part of the Roman Empire. However, the people who lived through the takeover would probably be surprised by the importance we place on this event. And there are other, reasonably momentous dates for the Fall of the Roman Empire. http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/romefallarticles/a/fallofrome.htm May 27 10, 5:39 PM

Arpeggionist

In Israel, "modern" is everything after around 1450 CE, when the Ottoman Turks established their empire. "Ancient" is everything before the earliest writings in Hebrew (that is, before c. 980 BCE). Everything else is somewhere in between. In between come several periods of archeological study: The Judean kingdom (up to 580 BCE), the return from the Babylonian exile (580 BCE - c. 100 BCE), pre-Mishnaic and Mishnaic times (100 BCE - c. 300 CE), Roman rule, Byzantine period, the Crusades, the Mamaluks, and finally the Ottomans. Modern Israeli history also considers as later periods the British mandate (1918-1948) and the modern state of Israel (1948-present). But really every culture has different definitions. I'm sure one would be hard-pressed to find people making the same distinctions as I did outside Israel... May 27 10, 5:50 PM