History: Unit 2
Terms
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- Nile
- A river beginning in the heart of Africa and coursing northward for thousands of miles. It is the longest river in the world.
- "Gift of the Nile"
- The gift of the Nile was it's annual flooding. It rose in the summer from rains in Central Africa and left a deposit of silt that enriched the soil.
- Black Land
- Fertile land that was dark in color from the silt and crows that grew on it so densely.
- Red Land
- Deserts that lay beyond the narrow strips of fertile land.
- Delta
- Triangular shaped territory that splits the river into two major branches.
- Old Kingdom
- The Old Kingdom encompassed the third through sixth dynasties of Egyptian kinds that united Upper and Lower Egypt into a single kingdom.
- Middle Kingdom
- Period of stability lasting from around 2055 to 1650 BC
- New Kingdom
- Period where Egypt created an empire and became the most powerful state in the Middle East
- Menes
- King who was in power when Upper and Lower Egypt was united into a single kingdom
- Pharaoh
- Divine intsruments who maintained order and were themselves subject to it.
- Ma'at
- A spiritual precept that conveyed the ideas of truth and justice and especially right order and harmony.
- Bureaucracy
- Goverment that consisted of offices usually based on social hierarchy.
- Vizier
- "steward of the whole land" The vizier was in charge of the bureaucracy.
- Nomes
- Divisions of Egypt for administrative purposes
- Nomarch
- Governor who was head of each nome and responsible to the king and vizier.
- Middle class
- Consisted of merchants and artisans
- Lower class
- Consisted of serfs, or commong people, who cultivated the estates.
- Re
- Sun god with a human body and the head of a falcon.
- Atum
- Sun god worshipped in human form.
- "Son of Re"
- Pharaoh had this title because he was regarded as the earthly form of Re.
- Osiris
- Symbol of ressurection or rebirth
- Isis
- Symbolized the flood of the Nile and the new life it brought to Egypt
- Mummification
- A process of slowly drying a dead body to prevent it from decomposing.
- Pyramid
- Built as part of a larger complex of buildings dedicated to the dead. "A city of the dead"
- Mastabas
- Rectangular structures with flat roofs, as tombs for the pharaoh's nolbe officials.
- Ka
- The spiritual body of a human
- Khufu
- King who built largest and most magnificent of all the pyramids
- Giza
- City where the Great Pyramid was built
- Formulaic
- Type of art where artists were expected to observe a strict canon of proportions that determined both form and presentation.
- Hieroglyphics
- Sacred characters used as picture signs that depicted objects and had a sacred value at the same time.
- Hyksos
- Rulers of Egypt for almost a hundred years.
- Hatshepsut
- Queen who was one of the first women to become and pharoah in her own right.
- Amenhotep IV
- Introduced the worship of Aten, god of the sun disk, as the chief god and pursued his worship with great enthusiasm.
- Tutankhamun
- King who returned the government to Thebes and restored the old gods.
- Monogamy
- Marriage in which an individual has only one spouse.
- megalith
- large structure made from stone. Greek for "large stone"
- Stonehenge
- Famous megalith structure in England that consists of a series of concentric righs of standing stones
- Semitic
- a group of languages
- Indo-Europeans
- Refers to a people who used a language derived from a single parent tongue
- Indo-European languages
- Includes Greek, Latin, Persian, Sanskrit, and the Germanic and Slavic languages
- Hittite Kingdom
- Powerful empire created in western Asia that threatened the power of the Egyptians
- alphabet
- simplified form of writing that uses sounds instead of pictures
- Hebrews
- Semitic speaking people that eventually became the Jews
- Monotheism
- belief in one god
- Judaism
- Religion of the Hebrew people that later influenced both Christianity and Islam
- Abraham
- Migrated from Ur to Palestine and created covenant with God
- Moses
- Helped Hebrew people flee from Egypt and renew their covenant with GOd
- Israelites
- An indigenous people who established a united kingdom known as Israel
- Saul
- First king of the Israelites
- David
- Centralized Israel's organization and accelerated the integration of the Israelites into a settled community based on farming and urban life
- Solomon
- Son of David who expanded the political and military establishments and was especially active in extendingthe trading activites of the Israelites
- Jerusalem
- Capital city of Israel
- Temple
- symbolic center of the religion and the kingdom of Israel itself
- Ark of Covenant
- Holy chest containing the sacred relics of the Hebrew religion and the throne of the invisible God of Israel
- Kingdom of Israel
- Composed of the ten northern tribes, with its capital at Samaria
- Kingdom of Judah
- Composed of two tribes, with its capital at Jerusalem
- Yahweh
- Jewish God
- Universalism
- Doctrine that all people with be saved and go to heaven at some point after they are dead
- Covenant
- contract between God and Abraham
- Jewish Bible
- Includes histories, the laws of the two Jewish kingdoms and various other writings
- Polytheism
- Belief in many gods
- Assyria
- First new empire located on the upper Tigris River, an area that brought it into both cultural and political contact with southern Mesopotamia.
- polyglot society
- Society that uses many languages
- Babylonia
- The leading state in Western Asia with the reputation as one of the great cities of the ancient world, eventually made into a Persian province
- Persians
- Indo-European speaking people who were nomadic in southwestern Iran
- Achaemenid Dynasty
- Dynasty that managed to unify the Persians
- Cyrus
- Extended Persia control over the Medes, making Media the first Persian province
- Satrapy
- Province of Persia
- Darius
- Added a new Persian provice in western India that extended to the Indus River and moved into Europe proper
- Satrap
- "protector of the kingdom" who collected tributes, were responsible for justice and security, raised military levies for the royal army, and normally commaded the militar forces within their satrapies
- Susa
- chief capital of the Persian empire
- Zoroastrianism
- monotheistic religion of the Persians