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300 BC| c. 400 BC–AD c. 250 | Central America [everyday life] | The Late Formative (or pre-Classic) period of Mayan culture takes place in Mexico. By 400 BC, large structures have been built at several sites in the tropical lowland jungle. In the highlands, people begin to put up large clay platforms, some the basis for temples and others for elite houses, flanking open plazas. | | c. 300 BC | Central America [everyday life] | There is rapid population growth and the development of a two-tiered settlement hierarchy – large ceremonial centres where the elite live, surrounded by smaller villages, in the Mayan jungle lowlands of Mexico. The site of El Mirador in Guatemala is probably the main lowland centre of the Mayan Late Formative period. | | c. 300 BC | Egypt [maths] | Alexandrian mathematician Euclid sets out the laws of geometry in his Stoicheion/Elements; it remains a standard text for 2,000 years. He also sets out the laws of reflection in Catoptrics. | | c. 300 BC | Greece [philosophy] | Greek philosopher Zeno of Citium, having lived and studied in Athens for about 12 years, opens his Stoic school of philosophy at the Stoa Poikile there, which specializes in paradoxes. Legend tells that Zeno lives to the age of 98. | | c. 300 BC | Egypt, Ptolemaic Kingdom [thought and scholarship] | Egyptian ruler Ptolemy I establishes a museum and library at Alexandria, Egypt. Organized by Demetrius of Phaleron, the library contains hundreds of thousands of vellum and papyrus scrolls, the texts of classical antiquity. Although it is intended to be an international library most scrolls are in Greek. It is destroyed in AD 391. | | c. 300 BC | Egypt, Ptolemaic Kingdom [historical study] | The Egyptian pharaoh Ptolemy I writes a history of the wars of Alexander the Great. Though the work does not survive to modern times, it is used by the later Greek historian Arrian in his account of the period. | | c. 300 BC | Rome [houses] | The Romans invent the hypocaust. Developed from the Spartan heating system, hot air from underground fires is funnelled through pipes in the walls and under floors to heat public baths and most private houses. |
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