Which is world's oldest country? No, it is not India, China, UK, US, the name is....
Oldest countries in the world: You must have heard about the historical fact that the Indus Valley Civilization is one of the oldest civilisations of the world but do you know the countries which are known to be the oldest countries in the world? When we talk of the oldest countries in the world, we are not only talking about the modern nation-states, but the ancient civilizations and cultures that have maintained continuous identity, a governance, or traditions over time. The list of the countries that include the list include Iran and India. Here are the list of countries which are known to be the oldest countries in the world.
1. Iran, 2600 BC (Persia)
The Persian empire, once home to powerful civilizations – Elamites, Kassites, Mannaeans, Gutians – Iran is considered one of the world's first nations. Consisting of Zoroastrianism with rich poetic and philosophical legacy, Persia forms one of the oldest countries in the world.
2. India, 2500 BC
As mentioned in the beginning, the Indus Valley Civilisation is one of the oldest civilisations. The civilisation emerged around 2600-1900 BC whose reins can still be still in Mohenjo-daro and Harappa.
3. China, 1600 BC
Known by the name of People's Republic of China and the Republic of China, the country traces its civilizational roots to the Xia Dynasty around 2070 BCE, evolving through successive dynasties like the Shang and Zhou.
4. Japan (660 BC):
Japan's imperial lineage is traditionally believed to have begun in 660 BC with the ascension of Emperor Jimmu, who is said to be a direct descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu.
5. Algeria (202 BC):
Algeria's roots as a sovereign entity can be traced back to the founding of the Numidia Empire by King Masinissa in 202 BC. However, human habitation in the region dates back much further—ancient rock art and archaeological evidence from Tassili National Park suggest continuous human presence since as early as 7000 BC.
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Scroll.in
a day ago
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A history of cheese: An ingredient that was used in recipes in ‘the oldest cookbook in the world'
Cheese is more than a simple food; it is also a culinary ingredient, and has been so at least since its appearance in 'the oldest cookbook in the world', the Akkadian cuneiform tablet (now at Yale University), whose recipe for stewed kid incorporates cheese as a flavouring. In ancient Greek cuisine, likewise, cheese was used in savoury dishes – as shown by an early Athenian comedy in which a fictional nouvelle cook of about 300 BC announces, with a nod to current culinary gurus, that cheese has become an old-fashioned flavouring: 'These men have wiped out the old hackneyed seasonings from the books, and made the pestle and mortar disappear from our midst; I mean cumin, vinegar, silphium, cheese, coriander, the seasonings that Kronos used.' A little earlier Archestratos, the gastronomic poet of Greek Sicily, while dismissing cheese as an ingredient with delicate fish, recommended it for coarse-fleshed fish: 'When Orion is setting in the sky and the mother of the grape-clusters sheds her ringlets, then take a baked sarg well sprinkled with cheese, good-sized, hot, slashed with sour vinegar because it is naturally coarse. Remember this, and treat everything in the nature of tough fish similarly.' When not bowing to culinary fashion, the Greeks used cheese in sauces for meat ('Hyposphagma for roast meat: the blood to be blended with honey, cheese, salt, cumin, silphium – these heated together') and vegetables; cheese was among the ingredients in thria, the ancient version of the modern dolmades. Classical Rome, too, made good use of cheese in savoury cuisine, as can be seen from the recipe book Apicius. The limited evidence suggests that cheese was even more common in ancient breads, cakes and sweets. It was sometimes added to bread dough before baking; other uses range from cheese-and-sesame sweetmeats deep-fried and rolled in sesame seeds, served at a lavish poetic banquet of around 350 BC, by way of the pancakes known as staititas ('the wet batter is poured on to a frying pan, and honey and sesame and cheese are added') to the very complicated so-called cheesecake, placenta, for which a painstaking recipe is given in the early Roman farming manual by Cato. He calls for sheep's-milk cheese that is fresh and not acid. Cheese found fewer uses in medieval cuisine: this may reflect the growing ambivalence about its dietary qualities. But it does occur in medieval cookery texts. Arab cookbooks sometimes specify Sicilian cheese. They do not say why, but having travelled some distance, slowly, from Sicily, and having been prepared for this journey, it will have been a mature and hard cheese, perhaps a grating cheese. European medieval recipes sometimes call for 'fresh' or 'dry' cheese, for sheep's or goat's-milk cheese, but they do not specify geographical origins. The one exception to this rule is not a cookbook, though it offers a detailed recipe: it is a satirical poem by a Byzantine monk, describing a remarkable mono-kythron, a one-pot dish, served in a refectory, that incorporates two or three kinds of cheese and much else: Then comes in a nice monokythron, slightly blackened on the top, preceded by its aroma. If you like I'll tell you all about this monokythron. Four hearts of cabbage, fat and snowy white; a salted neck of swordfish; a middle cut of carp; about twenty glaukoi [unidentified small fish]; a slice of salt sturgeon; fourteen eggs and some Cretan cheese and four apotyra [possibly anthotyra, little new cheeses; possibly something else] and a bit of Vlach cheese and a pint of olive oil, a handful of pepper, twelve little heads of garlic and fifteen chub mackerels, and a splash of sweet wine over the top, and roll up your sleeves and get to work – just watch the mouthfuls go. How realistic this may be we cannot tell, but it suggests a well-developed trade in cheese in the Byzantine Empire of the twelfth century, with Vlach cheese (produced by trans-humant shepherds in the Balkans) making a creative contrast with Cretan cheese, probably matured and stored in brine like modern Feta; that is just the kind of cheese other sources attribute to medieval Crete. With the coming of the Renaissance, cookbooks and food writing became more detailed and reflective, and specific cheeses are often wanted. We remember Master Chiquart's insistence on 'the very best Craponne cheese, or Brie cheese, or the very best cheese that can be had'. More recent cookbooks run the gamut, from a simple call for cottage cheese or Cheddar to a meticulous insistence, equal to Chiquart's, on obscure and expensive varieties.
The Hindu
a day ago
- The Hindu
The importance of retaining College Road's name
I am glad the story had a happy ending, as far as I and several heritage activists were concerned, though I am sure the actor Jaishankar's family members may have been disappointed that a lane, and not a main road, would be named after him. But to me, College Road was much larger as a name than any individual and had to be retained. And the blunder of doing away with it could not be by a government that professes to love Tamil. College Road does not take its name from Women's Christian College but from the College of Fort St. George, which functioned at what is today the Directorate of Public Instructions premises, between 1812 and 1854. The institution was founded chiefly to teach employees of the East India Company languages of South India – Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam, apart from Persian and Sanskrit. One of its founders was Francis Whyte Ellis (1777-1819) who was a distinguished company servant who served as Collector of Madras. He was also a linguist. Under Ellis and his colleagues, the college blossomed into something more than a mere teaching facility. It served as a centre where scholarly interest in the southern languages revived. Teaching was by native scholars – munshis, pandits, and pulavars. With the Company's resources, the college became a place where manuscripts were collected and more importantly, books were printed. It was from here that the first dictionaries of all four southern languages came out, with the word meanings given in English. Some of the greatest names in Tamil language worked here. What was significant was that long before the modern universities, this was where Tamil and other language scholars worked together, irrespective of their caste and also religion. The institution was known as the Chennai Kalvi Sangam in Tamil and this name finds mention not only in books printed by the college but also in the writings of Dr. Swaminatha Iyer. His guru, Mahavidwan Meenakshisundaram Pillai was closely associated with some of the great names who taught at the college. That was not all. When A.D. Campbell, a friend and fellow champion of the college, wrote a book on Telugu grammar, Ellis was asked to write the preface. It was here that he first penned his thoughts on how the southern languages possibly came from a non-Sanskritic origin. This is now celebrated as the Dravidian Proof. It forms the basis of many things including Tamil being a classical language, and it is often brandished as a weapon against 'Hindi imposition' and as a justification for Dravidian identity. The college may have closed in 1854 but clearly, its legacy lives on. That such an institution, commemorated by way of road name be wiped out by a decision of Corporation councillors was not acceptable. I took the liberty of appealing against it by tagging the Hon'ble CM of Tamil Nadu and the Worshipful Mayor of Chennai in a social media post. I did not expect it to develop into a campaign of sorts by evening. It shows how much the name was etched in public memory. By the next day, there was a clarification – it was College Lane that would be renamed and not the Road. I heaved a sigh of relief. There were some who felt that Jaishankar deserved to be commemorated by the road name. To them I say that the college was a far greater entity that two centuries later still has an impact on our lives.
News18
3 days ago
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Archaeologists Discover Possible ‘Doorway To Afterlife' In Ancient Egyptian Tomb
Last Updated: A team of archaeologists found a large, pink door in Prince Userefre's 4,000-year-old tomb in Cairo, which is believed to symbolically represent a "portal to the afterlife". A team of archaeologists have made a stunning discovery in an over 4,000-year-old Egyptian tomb, which has a large, pink door that is believed to symbolically represent a 'portal to the afterlife". According to LadBible, the tomb belongs to Prince Userefire, the son of King Userkaf, who ruled from 2465 to 2458 BC. The tomb in Cairo included inscriptions like 'hereditary prince", 'judge", and 'governor", as well as 'minister" and 'chanting priest." Ronald Lephoron, the Professor Emeritus of Egyptology at the University of Toronto, said this was the first time the Prince had been brought to the attention of Egyptologists. 'Before this discovery, we didn't even know he existed," he told The New Archaeologist. The team discovered a large door in the catacomb, an underground cemetery consisting of tunnels and chambers. The 15-foot door does not open, but is believed to be a symbolic representation of a 'portal to the afterlife". 'The joint Egyptian mission, led by the Supreme Council of Antiquities and the Zahi Hawass Foundation for Antiquities and Heritage, uncovered the tomb of Prince Userefre, son of King Userkaf, the first king of the Fifth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom, during the mission's work in the Saqqara archaeological site, in addition to numerous important archaeological finds from this era and later periods," said the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. The ministry said it was the first time a false door made of pink granite of this magnitude had been found. 'It measures four and a half meters in height and 1.15 meters in width," it added. Notably, pink granite was rare as it had to be sourced from the Egyptian city of Aswan, which means it was designated for richer people, indicating Prince Userefre's higher status. According to Dr Melanie Pitkin from Cambridge University, the false doors allowed the 'ka' of the deceased people to move between the tomb and the afterlife. Ancient Egyptians believed that everyone had a 'Ka", which was a vital component of their spiritual essence. 'Family members and priests would come to the tomb where the false door was standing and they would recite the name of the deceased and his or her achievements and leave offerings," Dr Pitkin said. 'The ka of the deceased would then magically travel between the burial chamber and the netherworld. It would come and collect the food, drink, and offerings from the tomb to help sustain it in the afterlife." view comments First Published: August 04, 2025, 17:09 IST Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
