Unit 1 Vocabulary
Terms
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- Monotheism
- belief of one god
- Neolithic
- latest part of the Stone Age beginning about 10,000 BC in the middle east (but later elsewhere)
- Diffusion
- the spread of social institutions (and myths and skills) from one society to another
- Pharaoh
- the title of the ancient Egyptian kings
- Pictogram
- A picture representing a word or idea
- Shang
- The dominant people in the earliest Chinese dynasty for which we have written records (ca. 1750-1027 B.C.E.). Ancestor worship, divination by means of oracle bones, and the use of bronze vessels for ritual purposes were major elements of Shang culture.
- Harappa
- Site of one of the great cities of the Indus Valley civilization of the third millennium B.C.E. It was located on the northwest frontier of the zone of cultivation , and may have been a center for the acquisition of raw materials.
- Alexander the Great
- Greek military leader whos armies conquerd vast amounts of land, ruler of 1st great European Empire of the ancient world
- Vedas
- early Indian sacred "knowledge" long preserved and communicated orally by Brahmin priests and eventually written down. These religious texts, including the thousand poetic hymns to various deities contained in the Rig Veda, are our main source of information about the Vedic period (ca. 1500-500 B.C.E.).
- Roman Republic
- the ancient Roman state from 509 BC until Augustus assumed power in 27 BC
- Sumerians
- People who dominated Southern Mesopotamia through the end of the 3rd Millennium BCE. Responsible for the creation of irrigation technology, cunieform, and religious conceptions.
- Dao
- the proper way Chinese kings were expected to rule under the Mandate of Heaven
- Carthage
- City located in present-day Tunisia, founded by Phoenicians ca. 800 B.C.E. It became a major commercial center and naval power in the western Mediterranean until defeated by Rome in the third century B.C.E. (p. 107)
- Ideographic
- In this stage pictures were converted into ideograms, pictures that suggest names of objects and events that became symbols
- Aryan
- war-like people; among many groups of INdo-European people who migrated across Europe and Asia
- Confucius
- chinese philosphere and teacher; his belifs,known as confusoinism greatly influenced chinese life
- Bas Relief
- a sculptural relief in which forms extend only slightly from the background
- Untouchables
- the classless group hold the most inferior and defiling occupations
- Shi Huangdi
- (c. 259-210 b.c) emperor of the Qin Dynasty (c. 221-210 b.c.) was the first to unify the first chinese empire
- Julius Caesar
- (100-44 BC) Roman commander in north Italy and southern Gaul. Conquered all of Gaul
- Hieroglyphs
- "Sacred Carvings"; Greek name for Egyptian writing
- Babylonians
- semetic group called amorights who developed Babylon Kingdom, conquered Sumer and Akkad, expanded to control water, Hammurabi greatest king
- Mesopotamia
- first civilization located between the Tigris & Eurphrates Rivers in present day Iraq; term means "land between the rivers;" Sumerian culture
- Cuneiform
- an ancient wedge-shaped script used in Mesopotamia and Persia
- Qin
- dynasty that came to power in China in 221 B.C. under which the first true empire of China was created
- Han
- imperial dynasty that ruled China (most of the time) from 206 BC to 221 and expanded its boundaries and developed its bureaucracy
- Zhou
- the imperial dynasty of China from 1122 to 221 BC
- Pyramids
- Large Egyptian tombs.
- Civilization
- a society in an advanced state of social development (e.g., with complex legal and political and religious organizations)
- City-States
- a city with political and economic control over the surrounding countryside
- Alexandria
- a city in Egypt that had public meeting places such as theaters, libraries, and gymnasiums where men excercised and discussed important topics. Also the library had thousands of documents and was an available resource for many. To add to this there was also an education center and a trade center.
- Great Wall
- a fortification 1,500 miles long built across northern China in the 3rd century BC
- Hannibal
- a great Carthaginian general during the second Punic War; successfully invaded italy, but failed to conquer Rome and finally defeated at the battle of zama
- Innovation
- the act of starting something for the first time
- Gilgamesh
- a legendary Sumerian king who was the hero of an epic collection of mythic stories
- Code of Hammurabi
- the first written code, developed in Babylonia about 2000 BC.
- Phoenicians
- another important trading people who lived on the coast of the eastern Mediterranean, started the greek alphabet
- Ziggurat
- a rectangular tiered temple or terraced mound erected by the ancient Assyrians and Babylonians
- Kush
- an ancient Nubian kingdom whose rulers controlled Egypt between 2000 and 1000 B.C.
- Philip II of Macedon
- king of ancient Macedonia and father of Alexander the Great (382-336 BC)
- Punic Wars
- a series of three wars between Rome and Carthage, resulted in the destruction of Carthage and Rome's dominance in the western Mediterranean (264-146 BC)
- Dharma
- in Hinduism, the duties and obligations of each caste
- Ideogram
- picture that symbolizes an idea or action
- Mahenjo Daro
- One of the largest Indus Valley civilizations with accomidations for about 40,000 people; also had a suburb
- Peloponnesian War
- a war in which Athens and its allies were defeated by the league centered on Sparta
- Indus River
- The earliest Indian civilization, dating back to 2500bc, began in the valley of this river in the northwestern part of the subcontinent of south Asia
- Cyrus the Great
- king of Persia and founder of the Persian empire (600-529 BC)