ACT I. PREHISTORY – From stones to symbols

2.5 million years ago, homo abilis learned that using chipped stone is good for cutting and hunting. Just over 1 million years ago, with a 50% larger head, Homo erectus controlled fire and left Africa to find the world. Modern Homo sapiens appeared 200,000 years ago and has evolved rapidly. 40 thousand years ago he already communicated like us; 35,000 years ago, he created sculptures and painted female goddesses; 8,000 years ago it dominated the smelting of the strongest and most resistant metals and soon after, 4,000 years ago, permanently fixed itself to the land. He stopped living in small hunter-gatherer groups to raise animals, grow plants and .... to write! This is the beginning of our history.

Scene description:
Dário enters with a clay board containing notes and meets with Ciro who is carrying a basket of feed to give to the piglets.

DARIO
Hey Ciro, you owe me a pig!

CIRO
Mas, Dario, eu já lhe dei dois leitões, como combinamos.

DARIO
The deal is that half of the brown sow´s litter would be mine.

CIRO
Yes, it was the deal.

DARIO
Come see, it's noted here on the clay board (showing the board).

CIRO
Let me see (watching carefully).

DARIO
We made four marks for Aurelio's sow and we made six other marks for our sow.

CIRO
Yes I recall.

DARIO
Our sow had six piglets! See (passing the finger markings): one, two, three, four, five, six marks!

CIRO
I think I got confused counting the fingers⁷, and marked the wrong pig.

DARIO
It's all right. We did well to mark the amount of piglets of each animal.

CIRO
Yes, the marks on the clay were an excellent idea.

DARIO
I thought of a way to control the litter and calculate the amount of feed every 4 danna⁸ (8 hours).

CIRO
Come with me Dario, let's talk to Aurelio and get your piglet!

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7- The Sumerians invented a combination of two manual counting systems, counting the right hand phalanges on the base 12 (3, 6, 9, 12) and “keeping” the results on the fingers of the left hand, base 5 ( 12, 24, 36, 48 and 60). This is one of many hypotheses about the origin of the sexagesimal system.

8- Each danna corresponds to two hours. The Sumerians divided the day into twelve danna, 12 double hours (or 24 hours).

Western Civilization For Children

New release of BKCC Books:

WESTERN CIVILIZATION For Children

To help our children appreciate Western civilization and its heritage

"The characters dramatize important historical events such as the invention of the alphabet, the first laws, the concept of ethics and morals, right and wrong, democracy, the rise of kings, commerce and how its surplus generated wealth, incited revolutions and shaped our world. The proposal is to stimulate the students' imagination through the staging of some of the most important human events. Everything that was once the present and in whose present time it is rooted. The dialogues are divided into thirteen acts, portraying a specific time and region. The acts are organized in a sequence of detailed plays that dramatize the origin of our customs or events that led us to important historical processes and their consequences."

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