“Humankind” is a custom deck of playing cards inspired by the history of human civilization and its development.

In addition to entertainment, the project also has an educational purpose, providing a conceptual overview of the history of the human species from homo sapiens to the modern human.

The deck is divided to suits based on 4 time periods: Prehistoric era, Ancient era, Renaissance, Modern era.

For each of them there is an appropriate set of traditional court cards depicting recognizable details of the era.

Let’s start with Ace as it is usually the highest card in deck. This card represents one of the most important tools or inventions of an era. For example, in suit of primal era it is hand axe — first human-made tool. Illustration of tool / invention is used as suit symbol.

Next is King card. It contains a human with whom the era is inextricably linked. He is one of the best of his time. So, for the Renaissance it is Leonardo da Vinci.

Queen card is for the milestones of communication capacity of the humanity of an era. For instance, the advent of prinitng in Europe during the Renaissance was a significant step forward in the exchange of information.

Jack card is less valuable than Queen, so it depicts a thing that wouldn’t have been possible without the advances in communication. And that thing is our outstanding achievments as a species, such as construction of the Egyptian pyramids in ancient era.

To make it easier to get detailed information about what is shown on the card, there is a QR code in the top right corner with a link to the relevant paragraph in the Wikipedia article. So you can always quickly refresh your knowledge.

As a bonus, the card back is designed as a timeline with some inventions placed in chronological order.