HIST 130 Mid-Term

What is cuneiform?

• What was:
  - a system of writing that used combinations of wedge shapes?

• - developed during the third millennium BCE after the Uruk system was found too complicated and difficult to use, being used into the first millennium although it was losing popularity?

• - important because it was more practical and represented individual sounds rather than objects,

• - used in treaties, prayers, and epic poems, the beginning of use for writing other than for economics

• - used by scribes in Uruk and Sumer with central roles in the government; used and evolved by Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians

What is Gilgamesh/Epic of Gilgamesh?

Who was a king with almost divine powers who travels the universe, on a voyage for immortality after his companion dies?

What was compiled in the eighteenth-century BCE from earlier Sumerian stories and translated into Akkadian; the oldest epic historians know of

What was important because it showed that central elements of Western history originated in the Ancient near East; Babylon where arts and poetry flourished and this epic was composed

What was compiled during King Hammurabi’s reign, author unknown?

What was discovered in 19th and 20th centuries?

What is Cyrus the Great?

Who is a leader of Persia (represented as Babylonian king) who helped them to dominate more of the world than any power before it, from the Nile to the Indus, 559 to 530 BCE?

Who allowed conquered peoples such as Lydians and Neo-Babylonians to keep their customs and worship their own gods rather than forcing assimilation?

Who defeated Croesus, King of Lydia, and whose son, Cambyses II, conquered Egypt?

Who unified Persia and Media (550) and freed captive Jews from Babylon when he conquered it in 539 BCE?

What is Zoroastrianism?

What was a new religion in Achaemenid Persia (late 7th century) with a powerful vision of the universe, identifying the god Ahura Mazda who ruled the universe?

What was one of the first monotheistic religions, which later became dualistic, with Angra Mainyu being the god of evil, and Ahura the god of good?

What provided the political and moral framework for the Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sasanian Empires?

What was founded by Zoroaster, a Persian prophet, and invoked by Cyrus the Great (Persia); declined in 7th century?

What are Israelites?

What are Mycenaeans?

What is Homer?

What is the Bronze Age Crisis?

What is polis?

What are hoplites?

What is Sparta?