Midterm Exam HIST 117

What are the criteria for "civilization"?

cities, control of a geographic area as a means of power, status distinctions, and record keeping

One of the most important breakthroughs which ushered in agriculture in Mesopotamia was

construction of canals to bring water to distant fields.

In Greek, Mesopotamia means \______.

"land between the rivers"

Mesopotamia lies mostly within what modern state?

Iraq

Under the Law Code, what was the punishment for a free person breaking the bone of another free person's slave?

payment of half the slave's value

One of the difficulties historians have for understanding the role of women in Mesopotamian society is

the only existing records were written by elite male scribes.

A professional position reserved for men who had undergone the lengthy training required to be able to read and write using cuneiform, hieroglyphics, or other early, cumbersome writing systems was that of the

scribe

Mesopotamian gods were anthropomorphic; that is, they

were imagined to be humanlike in form and conduct.

A massive pyramidal stepped tower made of mud bricks and associated with religious complexes in ancient Mesopotamian cities is known as a

ziggurat

The Mesopotamian writing system is called

cuneiform

The culture that developed in Egypt was unique largely because of

Egypt's natural isolation and essential self-sufficiency

Crucial to Egypt's agriculture was

a. proximity to the Nile River.

The central figure in the ancient Egyptian state and believed to be an earthly manifestation of the gods was the

pharaoh

Historians organize Egyptian history using the system of \_____ dynasties

thirty

A system of writing in which pictorial symbols represented sounds, syllables, or concepts, and was used for official and monumental inscriptions in ancient Egypt, is called

hieroglyphics

Women in Egypt seemed to have

rights of divorce, rights to property, more status than in Mesopotamia, subordinate status to men

Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Indus Valley civilizations were all

based on fertile floodplains and river valleys

Large public buildings in the Indus Valley were typically made of what?

mud bricks

In order to discover more specific information about the social structure of Indus Valley civilizations, what needs to be done?

the writing of the civilization must be deciphered

What was the likely population of Harappa?

35,000

The language of diplomacy and government correspondence in the Mesopotamian regions was

Akkadian

The era of the New Kingdom in Egypt is characterized by restoration of Egyptian rule and

expansion north into Syria and south into Nubia

Which woman held the throne of the New Kingdom of Egypt?

Nefertiti

The pharaoh Akhenaten is credited by some scholars with

the invention of monotheism

Ramesses II fought the Hittites to a draw at the battle of

Kadesh

Transportation in western Asia was revolutionized in the Later Bronze Age by the introduction of

horses

The prosperous civilization on the Aegean island of Crete in the second millennium BCE was

Minoan

The epic poem of Homer, The Iliad, related the story of a war between the Greeks and the Hittites, based on the ten- year siege and eventual destruction of the city of

Troy

The book that Christians call the Old Testament was written in what language?

Hebrew

Israel is important partly because

it is a crossroads to the Near East, Egypt, and Arabia

Which of the following poses a problem for interpreting the history of the early Israelites from the Bible?

They were pastoralists who did not write down their history for nearly 1,000 years.

The Bible was written for religious, not historical, purposes. The Hebrew Bible was written in several phases by different people. Hebrewcivilization was interrupted by conquest several times

The basic Israelite political structure before King Saul was

rule by chieftains of the tribes supposedly descended from Joseph and Jacob

What was the Ark of the Covenant?

a sacred box containing the tablets of law given to Moses

Diaspora means refers to the Jews being taken from their homeland to \__________

Babylon

Which of the following rituals did not aid the Jews in maintaining a strong cultural identity after the loss of their state?

the requirement that men grow beards

The Phoenicians developed a system of writing based on

consonants

Carthage was founded by peoples migrating from

Phoenicia

The foreign policy of the Carthaginian state

reflected an interest in protecting its sea trade

The Chinese acquired silk by

raising silkworms and pioneering silk cloth production

What does the practice of feng shui accomplish?

a. it orients buildings in harmony with the terrain and the forces of nature

The dominant people in the earliest Chinese dynasty for which we have written records (ca. 1766-1045 BCE) were the

Shang

The people and dynasty that created the concept of the Mandate of Heaven to justify their rule were the

Zhou

The Mandate of Heaven meant that the ruler retained the right to rule as long as

he remained a wise and principled guardian of his people

Who wrote the Art of War?

Sunzi

Confucius' writings were handed down orally for several generations before being compiled in written form as

Analects

To Confucius, the fundamental element of society was the

family

The greatest rival of Confucianism was

Maoism

Which of the following is not one of the ways that Confucian philosophy attempts to create societal harmony?

By emphasizing individual freedoms

Han Fei's writings best express what faith or philosophy?

legalism

The fundamental idea of Daoism can be summarized as

accepting the world as you find it, avoiding useless struggles, and adhering to the "path" of nature

The concept of yin and yang represented the complementary nature of

a. male and female roles in the natural order

Travel along the Nile River between Egypt and Nubia was interrupted by a series of

cataracts

By 300 BCE, Celtic people were found in what regions?

Hungary and Turkey, Italy and Greece, Britain and France, Spain and Ireland

Which of the following did the Celts lack?

a writing system

What is a distinctive feature of Celtic military activity?

a. Warriors fought naked and took the heads of enemies

Druids were

Celtic priests in Gaul and Britain

One of the best text sources we have about the Celts was written by

Julius Caesar

Celtic women

a. could inherit their husbands' estates

People without permanent, fixed places of residence, whose way of life and means of subsistence require them to periodically migrate, often with their herds of domesticated animals, to a familiar series of temporary seasonal encampments are called

nomads

Iran means

"land of the Aryans"

Irrigation in Iran was different than other areas because of the large desert plain. How did they compensate for this?

Vertical shafts provided access to underground irrigation

The Persian king and his court moved

with the seasons

Which of the following most directly contributed to the interconnectedness of the Persian Empire under Darius?

well -maintained and patrolled roads

Which of the following is not a tenet of Zoroastrianism?

belief in reincarnation of the dead

Although Greece is described as "resource poor" in the chapter, it economically prospered

through access to foreign resources, markets, and ideas

The name for the independent political entity common in ancient Greece was called

polis

The most auspicious gift of the Phoenicians was

a writing system

Which of the following is true of the Greek city-states?

Some were oligarchic and some were democratic. They featured an acropolis and an agora.They had fortified walls. Many people living inside the fortified walls worked on nearby farms outside the walls.

The soldiers who fought in close-formed ranks and were called up in times of war were called

hoplites

The term the Greeks used to describe someone who seized and held power in violation of political norms of the community was \_____

tyrant

The Greek gods and goddesses were seen as

uperhuman and immortal, but otherwise anthropomorphic

The Greeks believed that their gods gave advice through

oracles

Early Greek philosophers were principally concerned with all of the following EXCEPT

disproving divinity

An example of the sophistication of the Greek thinkers was the development of the theory that the world is composed of

atoms

The father of history in the Western tradition is

Herodotus

One of the primary internal rivals to Athenian power was

Sparta

Darius' forces were defeated by the Greeks at

Marathon

The transition to a literary, rather than orally based, culture is notable in the works of

Plato

How does the Peloponnesian War reveal an inherent flaw in Greek society?

The independent polis fostered rivalry and mistrust among neighbors

Which of the following is **not** among the policies used by Alexander the Great to control his vast empire?

He promoted mass deportations.

Which of the following were not "cosmopolitan" features of Hellenistic societies? a. libraries and universities

homogeneous societies

The essential economic activity of the early Roman state was based on

agriculture

Which body, though technically only an advisory council, was the real center of power in the Roman Republic

The Senate

Which of the following best describes the Roman "Republic"?

Rome was largely governed by the aristocratic senate. Rome was not a democracy in the modern sense. Sovereign resided in an assembly of male citizens. Two consuls presided over the Senate and commanded the military.

Which statement is true about Roman women?

They were viewed as a child in the eyes of the law

Which of the following was the most common cause of Roman expansion?

the desire to acquire buffer zones protecting them from attack by enemies

A significant difference in Roman expansion versus Greek was that Romans

extended citizenship in degrees to most conquered populations

Between 264 and 202 BCE, Rome fought two bloody wars against

Carthage

The conquest of the Celtic peoples of Gaul was accomplished by which famous Roman general?

Gaius Julius Caesar

What was the Roman word for "broad estates," or ranches?

latifundia

The main reason for the decline of the Roman Republic was

military leaders with armies loyal to them rather than to the state

Which factor most contributed to the development of "pax romana"?

the growth of commerce

The process by which the Latin language and Roman culture became dominant in the western provinces is called

Romanization

How is the career of Paul an example of the "cosmopolitan" nature of the Roman Empire?

He was able to use the benefits of Roman citizenship, roads, and cities to spread Christianity.

The engineering expertise of the Romans is seen in all of these EXCEPT

gothic cathedrals

What was the most visible symptom of Rome's "third-century crisis"?

The frequent change of rulers

What was one of the most important reasons for the economic decline in the third century CE?

Reversion to a barter economy

Who reformed Rome in the third century CE and saved it from collapse?

Diocletian

What decree officially ended the persecution Christianity and guaranteed freedom of worship?

the Edict of Milan

What city became the new imperial capital of the Roman Empire in 324 CE? a. Damascus

Constantinople