My name is Daniel. I was an English teacher in Seoul, South Korea, and am now a writer who has

published three books including South Korea: Our Story by Daniel Nardini.

                       The first Ancient Civilizations Forum was held in Athens, Greece, this week. 

Representatives from ten countries were invited. These countries included Bolivia, China, Egypt, India,

Iran, Iraq, Italy, Mexico, Peru, and of course Greece which hosted the event. The two things these ten

countries have in common is that they represent 40 percent of the entire world's population and that they

have a history of 4,000 years or more. Neither North nor South Korea were invited because, truth be told, 

they do not have a recorded history of 5,000 years. Despite what is claimed by a number of Korean

scholars, Korea's recorded history, or even the archaeological record, do not go back 5,000 years. 

Korean civilization, according to Chinese records and the archaeological record, starts about 3,000

years ago. By contrast, the countries I have mentioned above have an actual recorded history of 4,000

years or more. China and India have a recorded history of 4,000 to 5,000 years; Peru, Mexico and 

Bolivia have a recorded history of 4,000 to 5,000 years; Italy has a recorded history of 4,000 to 5,000

years; Greece has a recorded history of 5,000 to 6,000 years; and both Egypt and Iraq have a recorded

history of 8,000 to 10,000 years. These countries definitely held the earliest civilizations known to

humanity, and so they can justifiably be part of this ancient civilizations forum. There is no question

that Korea IS an ancient nation, and has a very long and proud history, but it was not one of the

cradles of civilizations of humanity. We first have mention of anything of the ancestors of what would

become the Korean people from Chinese records 3,000 years ago, and the first Korean written records

(using Chinese writing) come to us about 2,500 years ago. As hard as many Korean may not like this, this

is not the whole story.