How to read the atlas
Civiliverse draws the history of technology as a three-dimensional star atlas. It takes its cue from the technology tree in Sid Meier’s Civilization, but every star here is a real historical entry and every line stands for a documented relationship.
Time runs from left to right. The millions of years of deep prehistory are compressed at the far left on a logarithmic scale; from the Neolithic onwards the axis is linear. Towards the present the clusters spread wider, so the atlas opens like a funnel, with dashed rings marking the boundaries between eras.
A node’s position across the funnel comes from its relationships. Connected entries pull towards each other and entries from the same civilisation tend to share a direction; no geometric template is imposed.
Drag to rotate; scroll or pinch to zoom. The ruler on the right jumps between five levels (Panorama, Constellations, Skeleton, Star field and Planet), and the timeline at the bottom can be dragged. Click any node and the atlas turns it towards you, opens its entry and keeps its direct connections lit. The Journeys menu takes you stop by stop along a historical thread.
Five kinds of node
- TechnologyTools, crafts, machines and engineering.
- IdeaMostly scientific theories, plus the political, economic and theological ideas that shaped technology.
- PersonScientists and inventors, and the rulers and patrons who changed the course of technology.
- WonderBuildings and engineering works that gathered up the technology of their age.
- DisasterCatastrophes and atrocities in which technology played a part, and what they taught.
Four kinds of relation
- PrerequisiteOne thing made the other possible: enabling, deriving and applying.
- ContributionA person’s direct contribution to a technology or idea, or their patronage.
- InfluenceLooser kinds of influence: inspiring, informing, causing and regulating.
- EchoSimilar inventions and ideas in different times or civilisations.
Entries and evidence
Each entry has a one-line summary, an opening quotation, a historical account and a short essay on why the invention or idea matters, at about the length of the Civilopedia in the Civilization games.
Main sources are listed at the end of each entry. Where dates, attributions or quotations are disputed, the “Open questions” section says so; relationships marked “disputed” are ones whose existence or direction scholars still argue about.
Opening quotations come from primary sources or standard translations wherever possible; quotations rendered through an intermediate translation name the translation used.
Images and 3D models
Historical images come from Wikimedia Commons and other open sources; the author and licence are given in each caption.
Images labelled “AI reconstruction” were generated by an AI model to suggest a scene or an atmosphere. Their details are not historical evidence.
The steam engine, mechanical clock, printing press, Turing machine and epicycle models are interactive 3D reconstructions based on written sources and surviving artefacts. They are simplified for clarity, and each model notes its simplifications.
Preview edition
This preview holds 115 entries and 196 relationships, from stone tools and fire to information theory and the electronic computer. Later editions will add entries and bring in more of the world’s technical traditions.
Credits and licences
Node icons are from game-icons.net by Lorc, Delapouite and other contributors, used under CC BY 3.0, recoloured and combined.
3D rendering uses three.js (MIT licence).
Typefaces are Noto Serif SC and EB Garamond, both under the SIL Open Font License 1.1, served as subsets.
Credits and licences for historical images are given with each entry.
© 2026 科技史宇宙 Civiliverse