History Unit 1

Aryan

They conquered most of India around 1500 BC

Who conquered most of India around 1500 BC?

Aryan

What did the Aryan use as money?

Cattle

What is the Gupta Dynasty?

golden age of prosperity

What is the golden age of prosperity?

Gupta Dynasty

What is the written language that the Aryan’s used?

Sanskrit

What is Sanskrit?

The written language that the Aryans used

When did the Indus Valley civilization begin?

around 2500 BC

What is the worlds oldest major religion?

Hinduism

When did Hinduism develop?

During the time of the Argan rule

What is Buddhism?

A religion that teaches about suffering and how to overcome it

What is a religion that teaches about suffering and how to overcome it?

Buddhism

What skills have allowed civilizations to become more advanced and developed?

farming, building cities, writing, metallury, training animals, pottery

Roughly 7,000 years ago, what did people do to start civilizations?

Began to settle down and build cities

What is Cuneiform?

early writing that Sumerians wrote that told stories

What type of writing did Sumerians write?

Cuneiform

What did cuneiforms do?

Told stories

What things did the Sumerians invent?

Cuneiform, lunar calendar

What is a ziggurat?

Teered tower that was dedicated to the gods

What is a teered tower dedicated to the gods?

Ziggurat

What is monarchy?

Ruled by a king or a queen

What is it called when something is ruled by a king or a queen?

Monarchy

Who is Lao Tzu?

Chinese philosopher

What did Lao Tzo represent?

A dynasty

How did people of the Nomadic lifestyle get food?

They collected fruits, nuts & hunted

What did you do when food ran out with the Nomatic lifestyle?

Moved

What do some historians believe the Tower of Babel is?

The ziggurat of Marduk at Babylon

How tall does the Tower of Babel stand?

300 feet high

What is prehistory?

Period of time before people began to write history down

How did people learn about the people and places of prehistory?

The work of archaeologists

What are archaeologists?

People who study the people of the past

What does BC stand for?

Before Christ

What did the chinese territory include?

Himalayas, Mt. Everest, Gobi and Taklimakan deserts and a long ocean coastline

Was the chinese territory big?

YES!

What is the Epic of Guldemesh

Story about a guy who had the plant of eternal life & if you ate it, you could live forever. He did not know if it was safe or not

What is the oldest surviving civilization?

Chinese

When did the chinese culture begin?

7000 BC

What are the different Chinese dynasties?

Xia, Shang, Zhou

When was the Akkad Empire under reign?

2334 BC to 2279 BC

Who was the king of the Akkad Empire?

Sargon

What is the Enuma Elish?

Stories of the Sumerian gods

What is the Enuma Elish similar to?

The bible, but with MANY imperfect gods

In Mesopotamian culture, how was each city rules?

By a king (MONARCHY)

What was an earthly representation of the gods?

Mesopotamian culture

Who commanded the army?

Mesopotamian culture

What did Sargon, the king of Akkad do?

united, transformed and expanded Mesopotamian civilization

What does AD stand for?

Anno Domini

Why does AD/BC skip zero?

Because in AD 525, zero wasnt know then

Who created the AD/B calendar?

Dionysius Exiguus

In AD 525, Dinoysius Exiguus devised what?

The dating system

Who created the dating system?

Dionysius Exiguus

Why is the “after death” the incorrect abbreviation?

That would mean that the 33 years linked with the life of Jesus would be involved in NONE of the BC or AD timelines

What does mesopotamia literally mean?

Land between the rivers

Where is mesopotamia?

Western Asia

Where did mesopotamia have consistent water from?

The two rivers

When did the Warring states period happen?

475-221 BC

What happened during the Warring States Period?

China split into many states (kingdoms ruled by warlords/kings)

What did the kings do during the Warring states period?

Invaded other states

What Law started during the Warring states period?

Laws of legalism

What is a civilization?

Urban settlement with a high development of agriculture (farming and animals)

Where were the first great civilizations?

In the Fertile Crescent (between the Tigris and Euphrates river)

At the end of the Stone age, where did tribes settle?

Mesopotamia

The nomadic tribes that settles in Mesopotamia became the worlds first what?

Farmers

What is the worlds first “advanced civilization”, and why is it called that?

Sumer - because it has urban settlements, agriculture & a written language

Sumerians were great at what?

Trading

What helped the Sumerians develop a great trading business?

The developments of writing, laws & measurements

Cuneiform was made up of how many symbols?

More than 700

What were the symbols of cuneiform called?

pictographs

What did Sumerians write cuneiform on?

With reed writing instruments on wet clay tablets that they then baked so it could be kept

In most ancient mesopotamian civilizations, people were what?

Polytheists

What is a polytheist?

Believed in many gods

Sumer was organized into city-states, what are those?

Independent cities with surrounding farms and villages

What did Sumerians believe each city-state was?

Property of a god and the people of the city states prayed to their own gods & other gods

There was a political leader of each Sumer city state - what were they thought to be?

a god - if you were a leader, or related to the leader, you had more rights than others

What is possibly the oldest written story?

The Epic of Gilgamesh

What did the Epic of Gilgamesh show?

How Sumerians viewed their city-state leaders as imperfect gods who interacted with humans

How did Sumerians make contributions to civilization?

created irrigation systems (brought river water to fields), first people to use wheeled vehicles, developed the arch and the dome (let them build bigger buildings)

What is astronomy?

The study of celestial objects including stars and planets

Who created the 12 month lunar calendar?

Sumerian astronomers

Why is it called a “lunar calendar”?

Lunar means it is based on the moon

How did the lunar calendar help the Sumerians?

Helped them plan the planting and harvesting of their crops because it told them when the seasons would change

What eventually ended the Sumerian civilization?

Salt

How did salt end the Sumerian civilization?

Rising water brought salt to the surface of the land, and the salt in the soil prevented them from growing food which caused them to have starvation and disease.

Who conquered the Sumerian people?

The Semitic people

Why was it challenging to unite the whole country of china?

Because it was so large

According to Chinese legend, what because China’s first dynasty?

the Xia dynasty

What is a dynasty?

A succession (continuation) of rulers from the same family

What did the Shang dynasty of China create?

bronze tools and weapons

What did the Shang dynasty use for fighting?

chariots

Where did the Shang dynasty worship their ancestors?

In large palaces and shrines

Who developed the first Chinese writings?

The Shang dynasty

How many characters are part of the first Chinese writing?

More than 50,000 Chinese characters, but only necessary to know about 3,000

What are Oracle Bones?

Ancient artifacts that archaeologists discovered - they are pieces of shell of bone (ox or turtle) which were used to foretell or answer questions about the future

When were oracle bones discovered?

The early 1900’s

How did the Shang dynasty use oracle bones?

Questions were carved into them, and then the oracle was heated until it cracked. Once the bones were cracked , the cracks in the bone were studied to predict a godlike answer to the question

Who is the person that reads the cracks in the oracle bone?

The same person that wrote the answer on the bone

How were questions written on oracle bones in the Zhou Dynasty?

Most were written in ink, but overtime the ink would wear off, so there would mostly be blank oracle bones

Who conquered the Shang dynasty?

The Zhou dynasty

The use of what was introduced during the Zhou dynasty?

Iron, trade expanded, and coins were used in trade

What was used for trade during the Zhou dynasty?

Coins