Gary Lawson, age 13, of Watertown, N.Y., for his question:
WHAT IS A HISTORIC AGE?
Periods of history that have special characteristics are called historic ages.
An age is often named for some ruler or statesman during whose reign or term of office great things were done.
The earliest period to be designated with this term was the Stone Age. It vas that period in all human cultures when men used stone, rather than metal, tools. The Stone Age started more than 2.5 million years ago when human beings first began to make crude chopping tools from pebbles. It first ended in Mesopotamia and Egypt about 3000 B.C. when people began to use bronze, and the Bronze Age dawned.
The most important artistic period of ancient times was the Age of Pericles, named in honor of the great Athenian statesman of the 4009 B.C. It was noted for progress made in the arts by such dramatics as Sophocles and such sculptors as Phidias.
The Alexandrian Age is remembered as the period during which the Egyptian city of Alexandria was the center of Greek learning. This period is also know as the Hellenistic Age because of the influence of the Greeks, who called themselves Hellenes.
The Emperor Augustus gave his name to what is considered the most brilliant period of Roman literature, the Augustan Age.
The Dark Ages owe their name to the widely held belief that European civilization made almost no advancement between A.D. 4009 and the 11000.
The Feudal Age is named for the land grant system, with its various classes of lord, vassal and serf and the 14009 to 18009 are known as the Age of Exploration because of the voyages of Columbus, Cook and other great navigators.
The name Elizabethan Age has been given to the great period of literary achievement in England during the latge 15009, when Elizabeth I vas queen.
William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson wrote during the Elizabethan Age.
The 1709, a time of vigorous intellectual activity, are sometimes called the Age of Reason while Queen Victoria's reign a bit later is known as the Victorian Age. It was marked by the scientific and literary achievements of Darwin, Browning, Dickens and others.
The term Golden Age is frequently used to mean the period in which some form of the arts reached its highest development. Thus, the Golden Age of Opera refers to the late 1809 and early 1909 when Caruso, Patti and other great opera stars appeared.
This term came down from the ancient Greek poet Hesiod. Using the myths as a base, he divided human history into five periods. The first was the Golden Age of Saturn, during which mankind lived in state of olmplicity and happiness. The first period was followed by the Silver Age of Jupiter, the ronze Age of Neptune and the Heroic Age during which the heroes and half gods fought at Troy, as told in Homers Iliad.
Last of all came the poet's own period, the Iron Age. Its commonplace name showed how he felt man had fallen from the Golden Age.