Ap World History

Front 1

Civilization

Back 1

an ambiguous term often used to denote more complex societies but sometimes used by anthropologists to describe any group of people sharing a set of cultural traits.

Front 2

Culture

Back 2

socially transmitted patterns of action and expression. Material culture refers to physical objects, such as dwellings, clothing, tools, and crafts. Culture also includes arts, beliefs, knowledge, and technology.

Front 3

History

Back 3

The development, transmission, and transformation of cultural practices and events.

Front 4

Stone Age

Back 4

The historical period characterized by the production of tools from stone and other nonmetallic substances. It was followed in some places by the Bronze Age and more generally by the Iron Age.

Front 5

Paleolithic

Back 5

The period of the Stone Age, associated with the evolution of humans. It predates the Neolithic period.

Front 6

Neolithic

Back 6

The period of the Stone Age associated with the ancient Agricultural Revolution(s). It follows the Paleolithic period.

Front 7

Foragers

Back 7

People who support themselves by hunting wild animals and gathering wild edible plants and insects.

Front 8

Agricultural Revolutions

Back 8

The change from food gathering to food production that occurred between ca. 8000 and 2000 BCE. Also known as the Neolithic Revolution.

Front 9

Holocene

Back 9

The geological era since the end of the Great Ice Age about 11,000 years ago.

Front 10

Megaliths

Back 10

Structures and complexes of very large stones constructed for ceremonial and religious purposes in Neolithic times.

Front 11

Babylon

Back 11

The largest and most important city in Mesopotamia. It achieved particular eminence as the capital of the Amorite King Hammurubi in the eighteenth century BCE and the Neo-Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar in the sixth century BCE.

Front 12

Sumerians

Back 12

The people who dominated southern Meopotamia through the end of the third millennium BCE. They were responsible for the creation of many fundamental elements of Mesopotamian culture - such as irrigation technology, cuneiform, and religious conceptions - taken over by their Semitic successors.

Front 13

Semitic

Back 13

Family of related languages long spoken across parts of western Asia and northern Africa. In antiquity these languages included Hebrew, Aramaic, and Phoenician. The most widespread modern member of the Semitic family is Arabic.

Front 14

City-State

Back 14

A small, self-governing, independent state consisting of an urban center and the surrounding agricultural territory. A characteristic political form in early Mesopotamia, Archaic, and classical Greece, Phoenicia, and early Italy.

Front 15

Hammurabi

Back 15

Amorite ruler of Babylon (r. 1792-1750BCE). He conquered many city-states in southern and northern Mesopotamia and is best known for a code of laws, inscribed on a black stone pillar, illustrating the principles to be used in legal cases.

Front 16

Scribe

Back 16

In the governments of many ancient socities, a professional position reserved for men who had undergone the lengthy training required to be able to read and write using cuneiforms, hieroglyphics, or other early, cumbersome writing systems.

Front 17

Ziggurat

Back 17

A massive pyramidal stepped tower made of mudbricks. It is associated with religious complexes in ancient Mesopotamian cities, but its function is unknown.

Front 18

Amulets

Back 18

Small charm ment to protect the bearer from evil. Found frequently in archaeological excavations in Mesopotamia and Egypt, amulets reflect the religious practices of the common people.

Front 19

Cuneiform

Back 19

A system of writing in which wedge-shaped symbols represented words or syllables. It originated in Mesopotamia and was used intially for Sumerian and Akkadian but later was adapted to represent other languages of western Asia. Because so many symbols had to be learned, literacy was confined to a relatively small group of administrators and scribes.

Front 20

Pharaoh

Back 20

The central figure in the ancient Egyptian state. Believed to be an earthly manifestation of the gods, he used his absolute power to maintain the safety and prosperity of Egypt.

Front 21

Ma'at

Back 21

Egyptian term for the concept of divinely created and maintained order in the universe. Reflecting the ancient Egyptians belief in an essentially beneficent world, the divine ruler was the earthly guarantor of this order.

Front 22

Pyramid

Back 22

A large, triangular stone monument, used in Egypt and Nubia as a burial place for the kind. The largest pyramids, erected during the Old Kingdom near Memphis with stone tools and compulsory labor, reflect the Egyptian belief that the proper and spectacular burial of the divine ruler would guarantee the continued prosperity of the land.

Front 23

Memphis

Back 23

The capital of Old Kingdom Egypt, near the head of the Nile Delta. early rulers were interred in the nearby pyramids.

Front 24

Thebes

Back 24

Capital city of Egypt and home of the ruling dynasties during the Middle and New Kingdoms. Amon, patron deity of Thebes, became one of the chief gods of Egypt. Monarchs were buried across the river in the Valley of the Kings.

Front 25

Hieroglyphics

Back 25

A system of writing in which pictorial symbols represented sounds, syllables, or concepts. It was used for official and monumental inscriptions in ancient Egypt. Beucase of the long period of study required to mast this system, literacy in hieroglyphics was confined to a relatively small group of scribes and administrators. Cursive symbol-forms were developed for rapid composition on other meida, such as papyrus.

Front 26

Papyrus

Back 26

A reed that grows along the banks of the Nile River in Egypt. From it was produced a course, paperlike writing medium used by the Egyptians and many other peoples in the ancient Mediterranean and Middle East.

Front 27

Mummy

Back 27

A body preserved by chemical processes or special natural circumstances, often in the belief that the deceased will need it again in the afterlife. In ancient Egypt the bodies of people who could afford mummification underwent a complex process of removing organs, filling body cavities, dehydrating the corpse with natron, and then wrapping the body with linen bandages and enclosing it in a wooden sarcophagus.

Front 28

Harappa

Back 28

Site of one of the great cities of the Indus Valley civilization of the 3000BCE. It was located on the Northwestern frontier of the zone of cultivation (in Pakistan), and may have been a center for the acquistion of raw materials, such as metals and precious stones, from Afghanistan and Iran.

Front 29

Mohenjo-Daro

Back 29

Largest of the cities of the Indus Valley civilization. It was centrually located in the extensive floodplain of the Indus River in comtempoary Pakistan. Little is known about the political institutions of Indus Valley communities, but the large-scale of construction at Mohenjo-Daro, the orderly grid of streets, and the standardization of building materials are evidence of central planning.