Landmarks in Humanities Chapter 1

Paleolithic Culture

The first known upright standing humans: homo-sapiens. Hunter-gatherers; tool and weapon makers; first artists.

megaliths

Structures and complexes of very large stones constructed for ceremonial and religious purposes in Neolithic times.

Pictographs

picture symbols

The Bronze Age

The time where people began using bronze rather than copper and stone, to fashion tools and weapons. It started in Sumer around 3000 B.C.

Polytheism

Belief in many gods

The Epic of Gilgamesh

Epic poetry from Mesopotamia and is among the earliest known works of literature (that tries to come to terms with death or nonbeing. / An Epic poem about a traveler and his quest for immortality. /

Enkidu

Companion and friend of Gilgamesh. Hairy-bodied and brawny, he was raised by animals. Even after he joins the civilized world, he retains many of his undomesticated characteristics. He looks much like Gilgamesh and is almost his physical equal. He aspires to be Gilgamesh's rival but instead becomes his soul mate.

Hammurabi's Law Code

Babylonian -18th century BC -first known widespread complete and complex set of rules and penalties -mostly laws and etiquette for business -issued under the authority of the Sun God Shamash

Book of the Dead

Collection of religious spells which were thought to be helpful to the deceased in the afterlife.

The Cult of the Dead

The kings were prepared for their "caskets" and burial into the pyramids. They were believed to join the sun god, so they had to be prepared for the journey.

Hatsheput

The most notable of all female pharaohs, governed Egypt for twenty-two years. Often pictured in male attire, wearing the royal wig and false beard, and carrying the crook and the flail - traditional symbols rulership.

Monotheistic

Belief in one god

Pantheism

The belief that divinity inheres in all things, is basic to the Hindu view that the universe itself is sacred.

Neolithic Culture

New Stone Age:12,000-6,000 B.C.; tools polished; domestication of animals and growing crops; big game animals become extinct;

Dolmen

A stone tomb formed by two posts capped by a lintel; , a prehistoric megalith "great stone" typically having two upright stones and a capstone

Cuneiform

A system of writing in which wedge-shaped symbols represented words or syllables. It originated in Mesopotamia and was used initially for Sumerian and Akkadian but later was adapted to represent other languages of western Asia. Because so many symbols had to be learned, literacy was confined to a relatively small group of administrators and scribes.

Mesopotamia

first civilization located between the Tigris & Eurphrates Rivers in present day Iraq; term means "land between the rivers;" Sumerian culture; /// A region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that developed the first urban societies. In the Bronze Age this area included Sumer and the Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian empires, In the Iron Age, it was ruled by the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian empires.

The Babylonian Creation

Celebrates the birth of the gods and the order of creation. It describes a universe that originated by means of spontaneous generation: At a moment when there was neither heaven not earth, the sweet and bitter waters "mingled" to produce the first family of gods

Gilgamesh

A legendary Sumerian king who was the hero of an epic collection of mythic stories

Utnapishtim

Gilgamesh searched for him so that he can learn how to live forever

Iron Technology

The period of history, succeeding the Bronze Age, when people first learned to extract iron from ore and use it to forge tools, weapons and other objects. The first organized production of objects developed in southwestern Asia shortly after 2000 B.C.

Theocracy

Rule by god or god's representative

Nefertiti

Akhenaten's chief wife. Often pictured as Isis, the goddess from whom all Egyptian queens were said to have descended. Beauty.

Indus Valley Civilization

Bronze Age civilization- 2500bce- had a complex gov., religion, construction, language, and even underground plumbing

Mother Earth

Role as a child bearer. Assures the continuity of humankind. Perceived as life-giver, and identified with mysterious powers of procreation, she was exalted as Mother Earth.

Stele

A carved stone slab used to mark graves or to commemorate historical events. Celestial observatory.

Metallurgy

the science or art of metals. It includes the study of their properties and structure, the separation and refining of metals from their ores, the production of alloys, and the shaping and treatment of metals by heat and rolling.

Sumer

A group of ancient city-states in southern Mesopotamia; the earliest civilization in Mesopotamia. City-states. disunited.

Animism

Belief that objects, such as plants and stones, or natural events, like thunderstorms and earthquakes, have a discrete spirit and conscious life.

Ziggurat

A rectangular tiered temple or terraced mound erected by the ancient Assyrians and Babylonians

Babylon

An ancient city in Mesopotamia, the capital of Babylonia in the 2nd millennium bc. The city was on the banks of the Euphrates River and was noted for its luxury, its fortifications, and, particularly, for the Hanging Gardens of Babylon

Howard Carter

Archaeologist that discovered King Tut's tomb in November of 1922; we read a story in class about the curse that some people believe this man suffered from entering Tut's tomb

Akhenaten

Pharoah of Egypt who rejected the old gods and replaced them with sun worship (died in 1358 BC); monotheism

Birth of Civilization

Transiton of hunting and gathering to agriculture in early Mespotamia. The wheel, the plow, the solar calendar, bronze casting enhanced economic efficiency.

Code of Hammurabi

"an eye for an eye" if you stole something of value then you had to give that person 10x more then however much you stole

Iron age

Historians' term for the period during which iron was the primary metal for tools and weapons. The advent of iron technology began at different times in different parts of the world.

Ancient Egypt

Built levees, dikes, irrigation systems, underground reservoirs, and were able to develop cities along the Nile River. It was divided into 3 time periods: Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, and New Kingdom.