Midterm Flashcards
(115 cards)
civilization
Ways of life especially connected with life in urban societies.
hierarchy
The system of ranking people in society according to their status and authority.
hunter-gatherers
Human beings who roam to hunt and gather food in the wild and do not live in permanent, settled communities.
city-state.
An urban center exercising political and economic control over the surrounding countryside.
Patriarchy
Dominance by men in society and politics.
redistributive economy.
A system in which state officials control the production and distribution of goods.
polytheism,
The belief in and worship of multiple gods.
cuneiform
The earliest form of writing, invented in Mesopotamia and done with wedge-shaped characters.
Empire
A political state in which one or more formerly independent territories or peoples are ruled by a single sovereign power.
Hammurabi
King of Babylonia in the eighteenth century b.c.e., famous for his law code.
hieroglyphic
The ancient Egyptian pictographic writing system for official texts.
Maat
The Egyptian goddess embodying truth, justice, and cosmic order. (The word maat means “what is right.”)
wisdom literature
Texts giving instructions for appropriate behavior.
palace society
Minoan and Mycenaean social and political organization centered on multichambered buildings housing the rulers and the administration of the state.
Mediterranean polyculture
The cultivation of olives, grapes, and grains in a single, interrelated agricultural system.
Linear B
The Mycenaeans’ pictographic script for writing Greek.
Sea Peoples
The diverse groups of raiders who devastated the eastern Mediterranean region in the period of violence 1200–1000 b.c.e.
Cyrus
Founder of the Persian Empire in 557 b.c.e.
moral dualism
The belief that the world is the arena for an ongoing battle for control between the divine forces of good and evil.
Torah
The first five books of the Hebrew Bible, also referred to as the Pentateuch. It contains early Jewish law.
Diaspora
The dispersal of the Jewish population from their homeland.
Spangler
Wrote about the world in 1911, establishing the Faustian cycle and the decline of the west.
Herodotus
The “Father of History” that wrote down and documented events, and gave credit to opposing factions.
Thucydides
Continued the works of Herodotus, and wrote extensively about the Peloponnesian War. Used systematic observation for history much like Hippocrates