Social and Class Relations (Prehistoric Era to 600 CE)

Pharaoh

It served as the link between the world of the gods and that of humans, making him the apex of Egyptian society.

Hatshepsut

She who presided as monarch for more than 20 years until the previous pharaoh's son could take over.

Nile

The ruling dynasty lost legitimacy when the ____ failed, upsetting Egyptian life, and local officials, members of the priestly class, or outsiders intervened, leading to the establishment of a new dynasty.

Hyksos

Around 1600 BCE, the Semitic people known as the ____ were one outsider group that took control.

Indus River civilization

The ____ left behind numerous artifacts and architectural remnants, but the writing has not yet been deciphered.

1500 BCE

Around ____, the Indo-Europeans arrived in northern India and brought with them social and class changes.

Indo-Europeans

Around 1500 BCE, the _____ arrived in northern India and brought with them social and class changes.

Vedas

The Sanskrit scripture where the Indo-European hierarchic and warlike society was narrated.

Aryan religion

Around 500 BCE, _____ was modified, and introduced by the Upanishads. Buddhism and Jainism was also introduced.

Gupta dynasty

Buddhism largely vanished from Indian society after reaching its peak of influence during the ______ (c. 350 CE) and Emperor Ashoka's reign (c. 280 BCE), but it did spread to China and Southeast Asia.

Zhou dynasty

The ______, which succeeded the Shang dynasty, also established itself as the sole bridge between the material world and the spiritual realm.

mandate of heaven

The Zhou emperors built up the Chinese empire by relying on a system of feudal ties and claiming the "______" as their justification for ruling.

Qin dynasty

The ______ unified China following the decline of Zhou power and centuries of civil wars.

Legalism

The imposition of absolute government power.

Confucianism

Legalism turned Han Dynasty into ______.

scholar-officials, farmers, artisans, and merchants

The four nonheritable social classes in Confucian society were the __________.

family

Confucians taught that the ____ was the foundation of society.

Xiongnu

The most formidable from the late Zhou to the post Han era.

Senators

Group of men who transferred the city-state into Republic and they belonged to a patrician aristocratic class.

Plebeians

They were legal citizens of the early republic, owned small plots of land, and had little influence over politics other than the ability to veto plebiscites and choose their own spokespeople.

Spartacus

In 73 BCE, he led a multitude of enraged slaves, and it took eight legions to put an end to the uprising.

Julius Caesar

On the Ides of March in 44 BCE, old-guard Republicans assassinated _____, the protagonist of the new imperial era, in the Senate.

Cuneiform

became the default script for laws and literature in the Near East after Ugarit reduced its symbols to just 30.

Phoenicians

The alphabet's perfected letter-sound correspondence made the ____ significant.

Vowels

____ were soon added by the Greeks, and the alphabet as we know it was created.

Israel

____ granted the prophet a position of institutional authority as a critic of the ruling king and priest, and the prophet's critique—once it was recorded—became a potent warning to succeeding generations about the limits of power.

Greece

______’s flourishing in the arts and sciences during the fifth century BCE was due to its encouragement of literacy among its populace.

Monastic societies

________ were often regarded as distinct from secular societies in ancient civilizations.

Benedict (c. 500 CE)

The father of the monastic movement in the West.

Vivarium

Benedict's library at _____ was the only Western library of the sixth century CE to remain operational following the fall of Rome.