Stone Axe to Tank UB

Oetzi

Chalcolithic (lived between 3400 and 3100BC) man discovered, mostly still frozen, in the mountains between Austria and Italy in 1991.

Egyptians

the first settlers of the Nile Valley, originally in two regions, Upper and Lower Egypt.

King Min/Menes

Consolidator of Upper and Lower Egypt c.3000BC (possibly mythical).

Rameses II

Egyptian pharaoh and general at the battle of Kadesh (1274BC).

Jean-Francois Champollion

French decipherer of hieroglyphics

Hittites

Indo-European-speaking kingdom c.1600-1200BC,originally in northern Asia Minor; clashed with New Kingdom Egypt in 1274BC.

Sumerians

first settlers of Mesopotamia; possibly came about 7000BC from the Zagros Mountains to the east; inventors of the wheel, the plow, and a writing system (cuneiform); first civilization in the lower valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers.

Sargon I of Akkad

founder of greater Akkadian kingdom after the conquest of Sumer.

Assyrians

Semitic-speaking founders of an empire centered originally upon the northern Tigris river—survivedd in various forms from 2500BC to c.600BC—noted for their professional army and its siege techniques, as well as their use of terror to intimidate their enemies.

Medes

one of two Indo-European-speaking cousin peoples (along with the Persians) who invaded the Iranian plateau about 1000BC.

Persians

one of two Indo-European-speaking cousin peoples (along with the Medes) who invaded the Iranian plateau about 1000BC; later, the name for the combined Mede/Persian group collectively—see "Cyrus the Great".

Cyrus the Great

Persian nobleman, founder of the Persian empire which combined the two cousin peoples, Medes and Persians.

Darius I

Persian king, sent the first punitive expedition against Eretria and Athens in 490BC.

Xerxes I

son of Darius I, led the second expedition against Greece in 480BC.

Minoans

non-Indo-European-speakers, first civilization in Greece, c.2000-1500BC; the first Greeks built upon their framework, including certain structures and their writing system (Linear A); their current name was given to them by their first archaeologist, Sir Arthur Evans

Mycenaeans

the first Greeks in Greece; Indo-European-speakers who invaded, took over, and expanded Minoan civilization c.1600-1100BC; adapted Linear A to write their language (Linear B); given their current name by Sir Arthur Evans.

Sir Arthur Evans

first archaeologist of Minoans and Mycenaeans on Crete; establisher of first method of dating early Greek civilizations.

Michael Ventris

leader in research which proved that Linear B was actually a form of very early Greek.

Philip II of Macedon

king of a united Macedon, defeated a combined Theban/Athenian army at Chaeronea in 338BC.

Alexander the Great

on of Philip II, eventual conqueror of the Persian empire after only three battles: Granicus (334BC), Issos (333BC), and Gaugamela (331BC); supposedly left his empire to "the strongest".

Darius III

last king of Persian empire; opponent of Alexander the Great; murdered by his own officers.

Ptolemy I

one of Alexander the Great's generals; seized Egypt after Alexander's death; founded a dynasty which lasted till 30BC, with the suicide of his last descendant, Cleopatra VII.

Romulus and Remus

mythical twins, children of Mars and the priestess Rhea Silvia, cared for as babies by a she-wolf; after killing Remus, Romulus was said to have been the founder of Rome.

Anonymous She-Wolf

the lupine foster-mother of Romulus and Remus in Roman mythology

Etruscans

a non-Indo-European-speaking people who had settled in Italy on the west coast; Rome's "big brother", from whom Rome borrowed certain elements of its culture.

Celts

an Indo-European-speaking people who colonized, among other places, the valley of the Po River.

Samnites

an Indo-European-speaking people who inhabited the region south of the Romans, eventually conquered and assimilated.

Carthaginians

inhabitants of the Phoenician colony of Qart-hadasht, "New City" (founded between 814-811BC); rivals of the Romans for control of the western Mediterranean; fought and lost three wars with Rome, 264-241, 218-202, 149-146.

Pyrrhus of Epirus

king of Epirus in western Greece; waged an ultimately unsuccessful war against Rome, 280-275; introduced the Romans to elephants.

Hannibal Barca

brilliant Carthaginian general who destroyed Roman armies at Trebbia (218BC), Lake Trasimene (217BC), and Cannae (216BC); eventually defeated at Zama (202BC).

Scipio Africanus

Roman general; defeated Hannibal at the battle of Zama (202BC).

Marius

Roman politician and general; reformer of the early Roman army

Sulla

Roman nobleman and general; used his army to force the government to make him dictator (82-79BC)

Julius Caesar

Roman general, member of the 1st Triumvirate, eventual victor in a civil war after which he had himself appointed "dictator for life"; assassinated by his own lieutenants.

Octavian/Augustus

Roman politician, heir of his great-uncle, Julius Caesar, member of the 2nd Triumvirate; eventually victor in a final civil war, leaving him in control of the entire Mediterranean basin; although never called "emperor", was the first Roman emperor.

ALSO

gains complete control of Mediterranean (30bc) after the defeat at Actium in 31BC of his only surviving rival, Julius Caesar's lieutenant, Marcus Antonius.

Diocletian

Roman officer and emperor (284-305AD); reorganizer of the empire into East and West halves, each ruled by an Augustus, assisted by a Caesar.

Constantine I

son of the western Augustus, Constantius, made Augustus by his troops; eventual victor in a long civil war, when he became sole emperor (324AD); founded new capital, Constantinople, on the site of an ancient Greek town, Byzantium; the eastern half of his empire became separated from the western to become the Byzantine Empire.

Franks

a group of Germanic peoples who eventually come to control northern France in the 5th century AD

Merovech

said by the Franks to be the founder of their kingdom, possibly mythical; from his name came the name for the first Frankish kingdom, the Merovingian dynasty.

Clovis

historical founder of the Frankish kingdom.

Theodoric

king of the Ostrogoths and ruler of the Ostrogothic kingdom of northern Italy

Charles Martel

Mayor of the Palace of the Merovingian kingdom; victor over a Moorish invasion force at the battle of Tours (732AD)

Moors

North African Muslims who settled in Spain after the invasion of 711AD

Charlemagne

building upon the old Merovingian Frankish kingdom, founder of the Carolingian empire; crowned "Emperor of the Romans" on Christmas Day, 800AD by Pope Leo III

Vikings

Germanic peoples of Scandinavia; spread across western and eastern Europe to trade, raid, and colonize from the 8th to the 11th centuries

Normans

a blend of local French people and Viking raiders/invaders on the western coast of France in the 10th century AD.

Harold Godwinson

briefly Anglo-Saxon king of England before being killed at the battle of Hastings, 14 October, 1066.

William the Conqueror

Duke of Normandy and, after Hastings, King of England.

Paleolithic Era

(2.5 million years BC to 10,000BC) first period of human development; humans as foragers; inventors of stone tools.

Neolithic Era

(10,000 to 2000BC, depending upon the area) the era in human history in which we see the beginnings of the domestication of plants and animals, widely-developed trade, villages.

Hunter-Gatherer/Forager

older and newer terms for Paleolithic peoples and their levels of technological and social development.

Domestication

the taming of animals for human use; the conversion of plants from wild to human use.

Chalcolithic Era

(5500-3000BC) period in which people began to make tools and weapons from copper.

Bronze Age

(3500-1000BC) the period in which people created an alloy of copper and tin to make a new metal for tools and weapons [NOTE: the dates for things like the Bronze Age and the Iron Age are only rough approximations and may differ in different regions of the earth].

Iron Age

(1000BC to the present) the period in which people began to employ iron along with bronze for tools and weapons—in a sense, we're still in that period, as steel is common and is derived from iron.

Nome

Egyptian "county"—there were 40 in all, 20 in each of Upper and Lower Egypt, each overseen by a nomarch (these are based upon later Greek terms now commonly used and which replace the original Egyptian "sepat" and "heri tep a'a").

Cataract

one of the sets of rocky rapids which end the Nile river's easy navigation.

Dynasty

a ruling family (ancient Egypt's history could be divided up into its dynasties, as well as into Old/Middle/New Kingdom eras).

Intermediate Period

one of the eras when the ancient Egyptian government lost control—in the First and Second periods it was loss of control of the Nile delta.

Hyksos

invaders from the north who controlled the Egyptian delta during the Second Intermediate Period (called in Egyptian "heka haswut"—"princes of foreign lands").

Mummy

in Egypt, a body which has underground a long process of preservation after death.

Pyramid

a large stone structure with its four sides tapering to a point; a tomb for a few early pharaohs.

Old/Middle/New Kingdom

the major divisions of ancient Egyptian history.

Hieroglyphics

the formal writing system of ancient Egypt.

Rosetta Stone

stone with a Ptolemaic inscription from 196BC written in hieroglyphics, demotic (a scribal writing system), and Greek which enabled scholars in the early 19th century to be able to decipher hieroglyphics for the first time.

Khopesh

an Egyptian bronze sickle sword.

Chariot

commonly a two-wheeled vehicle with a team of from two to four horses, plus a team of two to four riders, used in early warfare.

Dibble stick

an early agricultural tool—simply a pointed stick used to poke holes in the ground in order to plant seeds.

Mudbrick

a building material commonly made of mud mixed with straw or horsehair or anything else to increase tensile strength.

Ziggurat

a step temple, used in Mesopotamia from the Sumerians on.

Cuneiform

wedge-shaped writing, first invented by the Sumerians.

Linear B

a writing system, developed from Minoan Linear A, and used by the Mycenaean Greeks.

Hoplite

a Greek heavily-armored warrior.

Phalanx

a shield-wall; a formation used by hoplites in which soldiers are densely packed and which uses the pressure of that packing behind its wall of spears and shields to push against and, hopefully, through an enemy line.

Psiloi

Greek skirmishers, made up usually of slingers, archers, and peltasts (javelin men, named after their lunate shield, called a pelta in Greek)

Oligarchy

rule by the few—usually a few families or individuals.

Democracy

rule by the demos, that is, by the people (although "people" is often restricted to property-owning white males).

Delian League

a group of Greek city-states who banded together after the Persian defeat at Plataea to carry the war to the islands and to Asia Minor.

Long Walls of Athens

the long stretches of stone walls which connected inland Athens to its three ports.

Successor/Hellenistic Kingdoms

states set up by Alexander's generals after his death. (The generals are sometimes called the "successors").

Sarissa

the Macedonian pike, reportedly can be over 20 feet long (and made up of at least two pieces which could be joined by a bronze collar before battle).

Consul

one of two yearly-elected officers who headed the Roman state during the Republic.

Senate

the consultative body of the Roman government, based upon the previous Etruscan kings' council of elders.

Gladius

the Roman short sword, with which its infantry was armed.

Pilum

the standard Roman military javelin.

Scutum

the Roman soldier's large, rectangular shield.

Legion

the big basic unit of Roman infantry.

Triplex acies

the basic Roman battle formation (the Latin means "three-fold battle line").

Velites

Roman skirmishers—lightly-armed infantry who fought individually in front of the triplex acies.

Hastati

the front line of the triplex acies.

Principes

the middle line of the triplex acies.

Triarii

the rear line of the triplex acies (and also part of a Roman proverbial expression that something was "down to the triarii", meaning "it was time for desperate measures").

"Marius' mules"

a Roman soldier's slang term for the loaded-down look of the infantrymen after the general Marius' reform of the baggage system

Triumvirate

rule by three men—there were two of these in the last century BC, each of which preceded a period of civil war.

Good emperor

an emperor who puts the state before himself and his family.

Bad emperor

an emperor who puts himself and his family before the state.

Assimilation

literally, "becoming like/similar to"—what happened to various peoples the Romans added to their empire: in time, they lost their foreignness and became increasingly Roman.

Merovingian dynasty

the first Frankish ruling family (mid-5th century to 751AD).

Carolingian dynasty

the succeeding Frankish ruling family (751-814AD).

Emperor of the Romans

title given to Charlemagne by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day, 800AD.