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The index of the atlas
Every empire, person, event and culture in Borders of Time — by kind, by age, by region or by theme.
By kind
4 kindsBy age
6 ages- I · before 3000 BCEPrehistoricThe long age before writing, when humans spread across the globe, took up farming, and raised the first villages and monuments. It is known only through archaeology — tools, bones, and art rather than names and dates.
- II · 3000 BCE – 500 BCEAncientThe age of the first cities, writing, and states — from Mesopotamia and Egypt to the Indus Valley and early China. Empires, law codes, and long-distance trade appeared as people began to record their world.
- III · 500 BCE – 500 CEClassicalAn era of large empires and enduring ideas across Eurasia — Greece and Rome, Persia, Maurya and Han China — linked by routes like the Silk Road. Much of the world's lasting philosophy, religion, and science took shape here.
- IV · 500 CE – 1400 CEMedievalAfter Rome's western collapse, power fragmented and reformed: the Byzantine and Islamic worlds flourished, dynasties rose in China and India, and trading states like Mali grew rich. Faith and commerce tied distant regions together.
- V · 1400 CE – 1800 CEEarly ModernOceans became highways. Europeans reached the Americas, gunpowder empires spanned Asia, and goods, people, and diseases crossed continents for the first time — reshaping the world, often through conquest and slavery.
- VI · 1800 CE – todayModernIndustry, nations, and rapid change. Steam, electricity, and later digital technology transformed daily life; empires expanded and then dissolved; and world wars, decolonization, and globalization drew nearly every society into one connected world.