History 134 Midterm Definitions

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A. Afarensis

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Lived in South and East Africa 4.3-2.3 million years ago. Earliest of discovered ancestors, Lucy is an example.

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African Eve Thesis

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All human beings can trace their ancestry to one woman in Africa 150,000 years ago.

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Age Grades

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Gropus of young men approximately the same age who are initiated into groups for solidarity and mobilization of labor forces.

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Animism

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the doctrine that all natural objects and the universe itself have souls

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Askia Muhummad Toure

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a Soninke king of the Songhai Empire in the late 15th century. Askia Muhammad strengthened his country and made it the largest country in West Africa's history.

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Axum

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3rd+4th century CE. Earliest Christian kingdom in the world. Declined with the spread of Islam. (In modern day Ethiopia?)

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Bantu

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Expansion of Niger-Congo-speaking populations from West Africa across Central and Southeastern Africa over several thousand years. Means "the people" in its language.

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Bridewealth

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Bride price also known as bride wealth is an amount of money or property or wealth paid by the groom or his family to the parents of a woman upon the marriage of their daughter to the groom.

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Carthage

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In present day Tunisia, founded by Phonicians. Flourished 500-200 BC, destroyed during 3rd punic war in 146 BC.

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Cleopatra VII

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January 69 BC – August 12, 30 BC. was the last effective pharaoh of Egypt's Ptolemaic dynasty. She originally shared power but eventually gained sole rule. As pharaoh, she consummated a liaison with Gaius Julius Caesar that solidified her grip on the throne.

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Council of Nicea

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a council of Christian bishops convened in Nicaea in Bithynia (present-day İznik in Turkey) by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in 325 CE. The Council was historically significant as the first effort to attain consensus in the church through an assembly representing all of Christendom

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Craniometrics

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the technique of measuring the bones of the skull to predict traits or intelligence.

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Curse of Ham

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the curse that Ham's father Noah placed upon Ham's son Canaan, after Ham "saw his father's nakedness" because of drunkenness in Noah's tent. used to justify racism and enslavement of black peoples.

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Dar al Islam

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a traditional Arab sailing vessel with one or more lateen sails.

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Didascalia

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a treatise which presents itself as being written by the Apostles at the time of the Council of Jerusalem

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Haaj

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the fifth pillar of Islam is a pilgrimage to Mecca during the month of Dhu al-Hijja; at least once in a lifetime a Muslim is expected to make a visit.

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Ge'ez

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an ancient South Semitic language that developed in the current region of Eritrea and northern Ethiopia in the Horn of Africa.

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Ghana

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750-1076. Modern Senegal and S. Mauritania. 200,000 army, 40,000 archers. Acknowledged Islam's usefulness, disintegrated into smaller states.

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Great Zimbabwe

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Construction starting in the 11th century and continuing for over 300 years[2], the ruins at Great Zimbabwe are some of the oldest and largest structures located in Southern Africa. At its peak, estimates are that the ruins of Great Zimbabwe had as many as 25,000 inhabitants. The ruins that survive are built entirely of stone. The ruins span 1,800 acres (7 km²) and cover a radius of 100 to 200 miles (160 to 320 km).

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Hatshepsut

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the fifth pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty of Ancient Egypt. She is generally regarded by Egyptologists as one of the most successful pharaohs, reigning longer than any other woman of an indigenous Egyptian dynasty.

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Hijra

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The Hijra (هِجْرَة) is the migration of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his followers to the city of Medina in 622 (Common Era)

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Ibn Battutta

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(February 25, 1304 – 1368 or 1369)[1] was a Moroccan berber scholar and traveller who is known for the account of his travels and excursions called the Rihla (Voyage).

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Kush

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an ancient African state centered on the confluences of the Blue Nile, White Nile and River Atbara in what is now the Republic of Sudan. 1070-350.

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Lower Egypt

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the northern-most section of Egypt. It refers to the fertile Nile Delta region

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Maafa

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Maafa (also known as the African Holocaust or Holocaust of Enslavement) is a word derived from the Swahili term for disaster, terrible occurrence or great tragedy.[1][2] The term refers to the 500 years of suffering of Africans and the African diaspora, through slavery, imperialism, colonialism, invasion, oppression, dehumanization and exploitation

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Maghreb

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a region in North Africa. The term is generally applied to all of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, but in older Arabic usage pertained only to the area of the three countries between the high ranges of the Atlas Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea.

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Mali

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1230-1468, built upon the ruins of ghana. Sundiata was the first king, leaders were Muslim.

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Mansa Musa

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1312-1337. King of Mali. Made a pilgrimage to Mecca 1324.

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Mauritius

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an island nation off the coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about 900 kilometres (560 mi) east of Madagascar.

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Meroe

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an ancient city on the east bank of the Nile about 6 km north-east of the Kabushiya station near Shendi, Sudan, approximately 200 km north-east of Khartoum. Near the site are a group of villages called Bagrawiyah. This city was the capital of the Kingdom of Kush for several centuries.

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Naquada

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Naqada is a town on the west bank of the Nile in the Egyptian governorate of Qena. It was known in Ancient Egypt as Nubt and in classical antiquity as Ombos. Its name derives from ancient Egyptian nub, meaning gold, on account of the proximity of gold mines in the Eastern Desert.

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Narmer Palette

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dating from about the 31st century BC, containing some of the earliest hieroglyphic inscriptions ever found. It is thought by some to depict the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the king Narmer. On one side the king is depicted with the White crown of Upper (southern) Egypt and the other side depicts the king wearing the Red Crown of Lower (northern) Egypt.

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Kilwa

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1200-1500. Friday Mosque, Islam arrived in 8th C. Portuguese attack in 1490.

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Dar-al-Islam

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the abode of peace, the part of the world where Islam guides peoples' lives.

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Ibn Yasin

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A Muslim Scholar

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Nubia

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4th Century, flourished for over 700 years. Picked up Christianity, defeated Muslim armies at Dongola. Converted to Islam in 1300's

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Pagan

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Local religions practiced before the introduction of Christianity; A class of religions often associated with nature rituals

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Periplus of the Erythrean Sea

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a Greek periplus, describing navigation and trading opportunities from Roman Egyptian ports like Berenice along the coast of the Red Sea, and others along Northeast Africa and India. The text has been ascribed to different dates between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD, but a mid-1st century date is now the most commonly accepted. Although the author is unknown, it is clearly a firsthand description by someone familiar with the area and is nearly unique in providing accurate insights into what the ancient world knew about the lands around the Indian Ocean.

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Ptolemies

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royal family which ruled the Ptolemaic Empire in Egypt during the Hellenistic period. Their rule lasted for nearly 300 years, from 305 BC to 30 BC

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Rabat

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Fortified towns prevented Islamic culture from assimilation in the Maghreb.

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Ramadan

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It is the Islamic month of fasting, in which participating Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, smoking, and indulging in anything that is in excess or ill-natured; from dawn until sunset

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Rameses

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the third Egyptian pharaoh of the Nineteenth dynasty. He is often regarded as Egypt's greatest, most celebrated, and most powerful pharaoh.[6] His successors and later Egyptians called him the "Great Ancestor."

He was born around 1303 BC[citation needed] and at age fourteen, Ramesses was appointed Prince Regent by his father Seti

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Rosetta Stone

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The stone is a Ptolemaic era stele with carved text made up of three translations of a single passage: two in Egyptian language scripts (hieroglyphic and Demotic) and one in classical Greek.

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Sankore University

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one of three ancient centers of learning located in Timbuktu, Mali, West Africa. The three mosques of Sankoré, Djinguereber Mosque and Sidi Yahya compose the famous University of Timbuktu.

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Shifting production

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n agricultural system in which plots of land are cultivated temporarily, then abandoned. This system often involves clearing of a piece of land followed by several years of wood harvesting or farming, until the soil loses fertility. Once the land becomes inadequate for crop production, it is left to be reclaimed by natural vegetation, or sometimes converted to a different long-term cyclical farming practice.

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Songhai

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From the early 15th to the late 16th century, Songhai was one of the largest African empires in history. This empire bore the same name as its leading ethnic group, the Songhai.

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Swahili

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Swahili is also a lingua franca of much of East Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a national or official language of four nations,

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Timbuktu

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It was made prosperous by Mansa Musa, tenth mansa (emperor) of the Mali Empire.[2][3] It is home to the prestigious Sankore University and other madrasas, and was an intellectual and spiritual capital and centre for the propagation of Islam throughout Africa in the 15th and 16th centuries.

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Trypanosomiasis

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Sleeping sickness, passed by

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Upper Egypt

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the strip of land, on both sides of the Nile valley, that extends from the cataract boundaries of modern-day Aswan north to the area between El-Ayait and Zawyet Dahshur (which is south of modern-day Cairo).

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Valley of the Kings

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a valley in Egypt where, for a period of nearly 500 years from the 16th to 11th century BC, tombs were constructed for the kings and powerful nobles of the New Kingdom (the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Dynasties of Ancient Egypt).

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Zimbabwe

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Zimbabwe began as a part of the British crown colony of Rhodesia.