Historical Terms – II

The Early Civilizations and the World
Mesopotamia: literally “between the rivers”; the civilizations that arose in the alluvial plain of the Tigris-Euphrates river valleys.
Potter’s wheel: a technological advance in pottery making; invented circa 6000 B.C.E.; encouraged faster and higher-quality ceramic pottery products.
Sumerians: people who migrated into Mesopotamia circa 4000 B.C.E.; created the first
civilization within the region; organized area into city-states.
Cuneiform: a form of writing developed by the Sumerians using a wedge-shaped stylus and clay tablets.
City-state: a form of political organization typical of Mesopotamian civilization; consisted of agricultural hinterlands ruled by an urban-based king.
Epic of Gilgamesh: the first literary epic; written down circa 2000 B.C.E.; included story of the Great Flood.
Ziggurats: massive towers usually associated with Mesopotamian temple connections.
Animism: a religious outlook that recognizes gods in many aspects of nature and propitiates
them to help control and explain nature; typical of Mesopotamian religions.
Sargon I of Akkad: ruler of city-state of Akkad; established the first empire in Mesopotamian civilization circa 2400 B.C.E.
Babylonian Empire: unified all of Mesopotamia circa 1800 B.C.E.; collapsed due to foreign invasion circa 1600 B.C.E.
Hammurabi: the most important Babylonian ruler; responsible for codification of the law.
Hittites: Indo-European peoples centered in Anatolia; height of their empire in the 14th century B.C.E.
Pharaoh: the term used to denote the kings of ancient Egypt; the term, “great house” refers to the palace of the pharaohs.
Akhenaton: Egyptian pharaoh of the New Kingdom; attempted to establish monotheistic
religion replacing the traditional Egyptian pantheon of gods.
Pyramids: monumental architecture typical of Old Kingdom Egypt; used as burial sites for pharaohs.
Mummification: act of preserving the bodies of the dead; practiced in Egypt to preserve the body for enjoyment of the afterlife.
Hieroglyphs: form of writing developed in ancient Egypt; more pictorial than Mesopotamian cuneiforrn.
Patriarchate: societies in which women defer to men; societies run by men and based upon the assumption that men naturally directed political, economic, and cultural life.
Axum: a kingdom in the north of modern Ethiopia.
Kush: African state that developed along the upper reaches of the Nile circa 1000 B.C.E.;
conquered Egypt and ruled it for several centuries.
Yahweh, the single god of the Hebrews; constructed a covenant with Jews as his chosen
people.
Monotheism: the exclusive worship of one god; introduced by Jews into Middle Eastern
civilization.
Minoans: a civilization that developed on Crete circa 1600 B.C.E.; capital at the palace complex of Knossos.
Mycenae: the first civilization to emerge on the Greek mainland; destroyed circa 1000 B.C.E.
Phoenicians: seafaring civilization located on the shores of the eastern Mediterranean;
established colonies throughout the Mediterranean.