_The Earth And Its Peoples_ Terms: Chapter 4, New Civilizations In The Americas And Western Eurasia, 1200-250 Bce

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Ashur

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Chief deity of the Assyrians, he stood behind the king and brought victory in war. Also the name of an important Assyrian religious and political center.

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Carthage

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City located in present-day Tunisia, founded by Phoenicians ca. 800 CE. It became a major commercial center and naval power in the western Mediterranean until defeated by Rome in the third century BCE.

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Celts

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Peoples sharing a common language and culture that originated in Central Europe in the first half of the first millennium BCE. After 500 BCE, they spread as far as Anatolia in the east, Spain and the British Isles in the west, and later were overtaken by Roman conquest and Germanic invasions. Their descendants survive on the western fringe of Europe (Brittany, Wales, Scotland, Ireland).

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Chavin

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The first major urban civilization in South America (900-250 BCE). Its capital, Chavin de Huantar, was located high in the Andes Mountains of Peru. Chavin became politically and economically dominant in a densely populated region that included two distinct ecological zones, the Peruvian coastal plain and the Andean foothills.

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Diaspora

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A Greek word meaning "dispersal," used to describe the communities of a given ethnic group living outside their homeland. Jews, for example, spread from Israel to western Asia and Mediterranean lands in antiquity and today can be found throughout the world.

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Druids

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The class of religious experts who conducted rituals and preserved sacred lore among some ancient Celtic peoples. They provided education, mediated disputes between kinship groups, and were suppressed by the Romans as a potential focus of opposition to Roman rule.

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First Temple

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A monumental sanctuary built in Jerusalem by King Solomon in the tenth century BCE to be the religious center for the Israelite god Yahweh. The Temple priesthood conducted sacrifices, received a tithe or percentage of agricultural revenues, and became economically and politically powerful. The First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BCE, rebuilt on a modest scale in the late sixth century BCE, and replaced by King Herod's Second Temple in the late first century BCE (destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE).

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Hebrew Bible

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A collection of sacred books contained diverse materials concerning the origins, experiences, beliefs, and practices of the Israelites. Most of the extant text was compiled by members of the priestly class in the fifth century BCE and reflects the concerns and views of this group.

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Iron Age

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Historians' term for the period during which iron was the primary metal for tools and weapons. The advent of iron technology began at different times in different parts of the world.

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Israel

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In antiquity, the land between the eastern shore of the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, occupied by the Israelites from the early second millennium BCE. The modern state of Israel was founded in 1948.

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Library of Ashurbanipal

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A large collection of writings drawn from the ancient literary, religious, and scientific traditions of Mesopotamia. It was assembled by the sixth century BCE, Assyrian ruler Ashurbanipal. The many tablets unearthed by archaeologists constitute one of the most important sources of present-day knowledge of the long literary tradition of Mesopotamia.

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Llama

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A hoofed animal indigenous to the Andes Mountains in South America. It was the only domesticated beast of burden in the Americas before the arrival of Europeans. It provided meat and wool. The use of llamas to transport goods made possible specialized production and trade among people living in different ecological zones and fostered the integration of these zones by Chavin and later Andean states.

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Mass deportation

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The forcible removal and relocation of large numbers of people or entire populations. The mass deportations practiced by the Assyrian and Persian Empires were meant as a terrifying warning of the consequences of rebellion. They also brought skilled and unskilled labor to the imperial center.

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Monotheism

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Belief in the existence of a single divine entity. Some scholars cite the devotion of the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten to the Aten (sun-disk) and his suppression of traditional goals as the earliest instance. The Israelite worship of Yahweh developed into an exclusive belief in one god, and this concept passed into Christianity and Islam.

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Neo-Assyrian Empire

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An empire extending from western Iran to Syria-Palestine, conquered by the Assyrians of northern Mesopotamia between the tenth and seventh centuries BCE. They used force and terror and exploited the wealth and labor of their subjects. They also preserved and continued the cultural and scientific developments of Mesopotamian civilization.

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Neo-Babylonian kingdom

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Under the Chaldaeans (nomadic kinship groups that settled in southern Mesopotamia in the early first millennium BCE), Babylon again became a major political and cultural center in the seventh and sixth centuries BCE. After participating in the destruction of Assyrian power, the monarchs Nabopolassar and Nebuchednazzar took over the southern portion of the Assyrian domains. By destroying the First Temple in Jerusalem and deporting part of the population, they initiated the diaspora of the Jews.

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Olmec

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The first Mesoamerican civilization. Between ca. 1200 and 400 BCE, the Olmec people of central Mexico created a vibrant civilization that included intensive agriculture., wide-ranging trade, ceremonial centers, and monumental construction. The Olmec had great cultural influence on later Mesoamerican societies, passing on artistic styles, religious imagery, sophisticated astronomical observation for the construction of calendars, and a ritual ball game.

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Phoenicians

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Semitic-speaking Canaanites living on the coast of modern Lebanon and Syria in the first millennium BCE. From major cities such as Tyre and Sidon, Phoenician merchants and sailors explored the Mediterranean, engaged in widespread commerce, and founded Carthage and other colonies in the western Mediterranean.

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Tophet

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A cemetery containing burials of young children, possibly sacrificed to the gods in times of crisis, found at Carthage and other Phoenician settlements in the western Mediterranean.