As each civilization has passed, its contributions have continued to impact future generations. Two main civilizations are often said to have contributed the most to modern society: the Classical civilization and the Medieval civilization.
Some say that Classical civilization contributed more to society, an argument which has some merit, although not all of those contributions are relevant in modern society. Inventions such as forging the sword along with the military tactics involving it, architecture such as the arch and the column, have since proved obsolete in modern society. They have been superceded with inventions such as the gun and skyscrapers. Other inventions from the Classical civilization have proved quite influential in shaping modern society. The English language, for example, is derived over sixty percent from Latin words and Latin is still used to classify animals and for medical terminology. Another classical era contribution has proved rather important; the classical age was a time of mathematical and astronomical achievements including origination of Roman numerals, the development of the +, -, *, and /, which are still used as the standardized system of mathematical function, and many other precepts of geometry and algebra. In astronomy, the classical civilization first deduced that the Earth, moon, and the Sun were all spherical, that the moon shined by reflected sunlight from the Sun, that the Earth and the moon revolved around the Sun, the concept latitude and longitude, and the calculations of the circumference of the Earth.
Medieval civilization, however, has also made important contributions to the modern society.
The biggest contribution of the medieval civilization was the concept freedom. Some might argue that serf and peasants had no freedom. This is true, but it is also true that they were regarded as unique creations of God, which ultimately led to further concepts such as individual rights. Throughout the medieval...