Final exam IDs

Question 1

Uruk

Answer 1

ID: Hierarchy of villages surrounding Uruk, ‘the first city’
The reasons for the retraction of their power is mysterious

Date: 4000-3000 BC
4th millennium BC

Significance: Spread of writing and documentation in cuneiform
Massive architecture (such as the ziggurat) which would have taken much mobilization and organization to build
Religion as an organizing force
Important material culture (beginning of labour specialization instead of subsistence farming)
Ceramics (some with religious iconography such as that depicting offerings to Inanna, some for everyday use)

Question 2

Ur

Answer 2

ID: Wealthy Sumerian city

Date: 3rd millenium BC

Significance: Sumerian Kings List includes several rulers of Ur
Sumerians taken over by the Akkadians

Question 3

Early dynastic Mesopotamia

Answer 3

ID: Sumer: lower Tigris and Euphrates
Sumerian language
Urbanization (cities dependant on agriculture - irrigation)
Date: 3000-2300
Significance: cultural connections
Polytheism and religious architecture (ziggurat)
King as regent for god

Question 4

The Lagash/Umma border conflict

Answer 4

ID: Conflict over borders of fields and the placements of canals
Documented in Lagash inscriptions which claim that Umma has stolen fields and displaced canals
Imposes a massive loan on Umma, but Umma stops paying the loan
After a fight a generation later, Lagash wins

Date: 2500-2350 BC
Mid-3nd millennium - late-3rd millennium

Significance: True intersection of religion and politics
Lagash builds temples on the edge of the field to deter Umma from advancing
Legitimization through inscriptions
Moralizing langage, creation of a rhetoric of which people are right and honourable and which are not

Question 5

The Akkadian empire

Answer 5

ID:Akkads were a semitic-speaking people who settled in northern Mesopotamia
Founded by Sargon
Centralized power at Akkad, but conquered much of the Mesopotamian river valley

Date: Late-3rd millennium BC

Significance: The first unification of the Mesopotamian under Sargon’s rule
Lots of religious legitimizing for power across Sargonic kings

Question 6

Sargon

Answer 6

ID: First king to unify Mesopotamia
Came to power in Akkad
Beginning of the Akkadian Empire

Date: 2288-2150 BC
Late-3rd millennium BC

Significance: Continuing religious legitimization
Ishtar as dynastic goddess
Mythical origin story in questionable ‘autobiography’ from 1000 years later
Sends his daughter Enheduanna to be a priestess to Nanna at Ur
Gives money to temples

Question 7

Code of Hammurabi

Answer 7

ID: Hammurabi’s law code
282 laws
On a stela depicting Hammurabi and Shamash

Date: Early-2nd millennium BC

Significance: Shows what people were concerned with (marriage, property, etc.)
Very retributive punishments laid out (an eye for an eye)
Not sure what it was intended for
Was it to be strictly followed?
Was it purely symbolic?
Was it legitimizing in that he was carrying out Shamash’s mandate of justice?

Question 8

Old Babylonian Period

Answer 8

ID: Amorites near the lower Tigris, Babylon rises in importance

Date: early-mid 2nd century BC

Significance: Polytheistic syncretism
Hammurabi unites Mesopotamia
standardized laws
Rebellion and fracturing

Question 9

Ea-Nasir

Answer 9

ID: Merchant in Ur
Well-off (owned a large home and an orchard)
Archive of letters between him and a client, Nanni, were found in his house
Nanni buys fine quality copper ingots
Ea-Nasir presents the messenger with lesser quality ingots

Date: Early-2nd millennium BC

Significance: Significant that he kept and we have these archives
He received multiple customer complaints and kept them all
Proof of the metal trade from southern Mesopotamia and taxes from the palace on metal

Question 10

Epic of gilgamesh

Answer 10

ID: Mesopotamian epic poem (earliest known epic)
Protagonist: Gilgamesh, king of Uruk
Combination of Sumerian folk tales
The original context is difficult to know
2 surviving versions
Old Babylonian version (early 1000s)
Standard version (700s)

Date: Earliest record: late-3rd millennium BC during the reign of Shulgi

Significance: From a Mesopotamian perspective, Gilgamesh was a real person
Included in Kings lists
Shows how people thought of the gods in everyday life as being anthropomorphic and how they thought of their interactions with the gods

Question 11

Enheduanna

Answer 11

ID: Daughter of Sargon
High priestess / wife of Nanna (moon god in Ur)

Date: Late-3rd millennium BC

Significance: Interacts with multiple gods, is invested in having multiple gods on her side
‘Author’ of the adoration of Inanna
Asking her to rectify the situation of her exile
Is she the first author?
Demonstrates that she prays to multiple gods, even though she is the high priestess of Nanna

Question 12

Kassite Babylonia

Answer 12

ID: Western Indo-Europeans capture and settle Mesopotamia

Date: mid-late 2nd millenium BC

Significance: Minority population
Adopt Babylonian culture (assimilation) but keep their Indo-European names
They adopt Mesopotamian forms of kingship

Question 13

Hittites

Answer 13

ID: Indo-European peoples who settle in central Anatolia
Hatti = pre-Hittite inhabitants

Date: mid-late 2nd millenium BC

Significance: Write with Cuneiform in both Hittite and Akkadian
Religious syncretism
Conflicts with Egypt in the New Kingdom (Rameses)

Question 14

Ugarit

Answer 14

ID: Syrian city states
Was its own dynasty, but then ruled by Mittani, then Egypt, then a Hatti vassal king (expected tribute, enacted their laws)

Date: Across lots of the Bronze Age

Significance: City centre supported by wider agricultural areas
Contacts with Cyprus, population from all over
Trade, manufacturing
Good location for trade

Question 15

Cuneiform

Answer 15

ID: Script used to write down various languages, including Akkadian, Sumerian, Hittite, etc.
Developed from pictograms and tally-marks
Is narrowed down to 600 syllables
Wedge-shaped stylus is developed to give cuneiform inscriptions their trademark triangular shape

Date: Developed in the late-4th millennium

Significance: Incredibly important in historiography because it gives us written documentation, correspondence, religious inscriptions, etc.
The common medium of clay inscriptions is important because once fired it can withstand time and could have been ‘accidentally’ fired when buildings burned down
Allowed for written communication between different rulers and cities in the Near East

Question 16

Narmer Palette

Answer 16

I: Ceremonial mixing palette deposited in a temple at Nekhen
Depicts the first pharaoh Menes (also called Narmer) and his unification of Upper and Lower Egypt

Date: 3100 BC

Significance: Depicts the beginning of dynastic Egypt as being marked by the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, a feat which thousands of years worth of pharaohs would refer to for legitimacy, even being represented in pharaonic cartouches
Includes Uruk and Mesopotamian iconography, demonstrating contacts between predynastic Egypt and Near East civilizations
Intended audience?
Reinforces the idea of divine kingship

Question 17

Giza Pyramids

Answer 17

ID: Three pyramids at Giza
Khufu, Khafra, and Menkaure
Surrounding tombs for other members of the royal family

Date: mid -3rd millennium BC

Significance: Demonstrates dynastic lineage, importance of family
Mobilization of labour, transport of materials, meaning capabilities
Very successful ruler cults

Question 18

Hieroglyphics

Answer 18

ID: Ideograms, phonetic signs (esp. To spell out foreign names)
“Gods word”
Date
Significance

Question 19

First Intermediate Period

Answer 19

ID: Little centralized royal building
Growing power of local officials
Two centers of power, Herecleopolis and Thebes (in Upper Egypt)
Ended by Menuhotep II, unifier of the two lands

Date: Late-3rd millennium BC

Significance: Renews narrative of uniter of two lands as a legitimizing basis for kingship (from Menes)
Menuhotep as the second founder

Question 20

Tale of the Eloquent Peasant

Answer 20

ID: Egyptian work of literature

Date: Middle kingdom (early -mid 2nd millenium BC)

Significance: Highlights the importance of the legal system for the protection of the weak and vulnerable
Lack of social mobility
Both a celebration of speech and rhetoric and also a look at the lower classes of society (what is it like for people who are not this eloquent)

Question 21

Pyramid Texts

Answer 21

ID: Funerary rituals and spells inscribed on tomb walls and sarcophagi
Only for Royal family
~ 1000 spells
Permanent recitation around the dead person

Date: First used in late 5th dynasty (Old Kingdom - 2300s BC)
Composed mid 5th dynasty

Significance: Still very exclusive, only for royals, unlike book of the dead later
Shows that afterlife and closeness with gods was reserved for royals and the pharaoh who was an intermediary between people and gods
Good evidence for the different Egyptian conceptions of the souls

Question 22

Coffin Texts

Answer 22

ID: Pyramid texts inscribed in burials of non-royals
Expanding of pyramid texts, encompases more people
Wider access, but more difficult to get to the afterlife (lots of specifications, trials and tribulations to go through)

Date: Beginning in 1st intermediate period

Significance: From the perspective of the dead person
How to get into the afterlife!
An important step in the democritization of funerary rites and access to the afterlife
From only royals to other people - a big step

Question 23

Book of the Dead

Answer 23

ID: The culmination of the pyramid texts and the coffin texts - you can now buy a guidebook to the afterlife!
Flexible corpus (additions and revisions)
Strong visual component, images

Date: New Kingdom (mid-2nd millennium BC)

Significance: Purchasable by anyone!
Priests could include their own additions, and sell them for more money
Democratization of the book of the dead - access to the afterlife for anyone willing to buy the book
Very lucrative, dubious intentions of some priests

Question 24

Hyksos

Answer 24

ID: Controlled the Delta during the second intermediate period (early-mid 2nd millennium BC)
First foreign control of the nile valley
15th dynasty (second intermediate period)
“Rulers of foreign lands”
Adopted Egyptian titles and imagery, religious syncretism
Semitic names, but Egyptian titles
Preservation of Egyptian culture

Date: Mid 2nd millennium BC

Significance: Non egyptians ruling egypt, but preservation of egyptian culture

Question 25

Temple of Amun at Karnak

Answer 25

ID: Temple of 18th dynasty with theban background
Court in thebes, but worship of the dynastic cult at Karnak (centre of the priesthood)
Worship centered at Karnak
Massive temple built to Amun
Contributed to by Hatshepsut

Date: 18th dynasty

Significance: The processional way of the god - architecture meant to enhance this
Architectural references to Ma’at (rising and setting of the sun aligned with pylons)

Question 26

Hatshepsut

Answer 26

ID: Daughter of Thutmose I
Regent of thutmose III, then declared female king of Egypt
Thutmose III still listed on documents and year names
Expeditions to Punt, construction, activity in Nubia
Represented androgynously

Date: 1400s BCE

18th dynasty
Significance: Blurs the lines between pharaonic legitimacy from gods and legitimacy from lineage
Daughter of Amun, so claims a lot of legitimacy from that
Self-proclaimed divine lineage
Erasure by thutmose III - but why?

Question 27

Akhenaten

Answer 27

ID: Son of Amenhotep III
Changes name in 5th year of reign
Props up the Aten, MONOTHEISM!!!
New statuary

Date: Late 2nd-millenium BC

Significance: Removes other gods from iconography
King and royals are the only ones who can understand the Aten
Successor Tutenkhamun (born Tutenkhaten) would revert to the original cults

Question 28

The Aten

Answer 28

ID: Solar disk, radiating light
Continuation of sun worship, but more exclusive under akhenaten

Date: Worhipped ultimately in the reign of Akhenaten (late 2nd millennium BC)

Significance: Not anthropomorphic, just a disk - easy to point at (the sun)
Appealing to people because the sun is so important (Ma’at) and responsible for their lives and food etc.

Question 29

The Amarna letters

Answer 29

ID: Letters between Egyptian pharaohs and other kings and rulers
Use of Akkadian to communicate
Use of brother
Royal marriages and gifts
Lots of complaining and asking for stuff - clear hierarchy of who was richer and poorer

Date: From the reign of Amenhotep III to the reign of Tutenkhamun

Significance: Depicts the relationship of client kings
Importance of marriages
Importance of certain cities like Byblos for trade purposes
Conflicts of interest all over the place (allies fighting etc.)

Question 30

Byblos

Answer 30

ID: Eastern Mediterranean trading post

Date: commercial relationship with Egypt in mid 3rd millenium BC

Significance: Presence of Egyptian goods and statues
Local elites plea with Egyptians to care about them and to help them “this is your land rhetoric”, sends a witness
Shows a sort of Egyptian hegemony of the area

Question 31

The Cyclades in the Early Bronze Age

Answer 31

ID: Cycladic islands with a very strategic location (between Mainland Greece and Crete and Anatolia) with nomadic peoples

Date: Permanent occupation around 4000 BC

Significance: Important mineral wealth
The fundamental logic of trade (we cannot produce everything we need and neither can you)
Presence of prestige burial goods - indicates some wealth and class stratification

Question 32

Knossos

Answer 32

ID: Neopalatial structure on Crete
A “Thalassocrasy”??

Date: 1700-1450 BC

Significance: Peak of Cretan civilization (fancy elite houses)
Growth of Minoan bureaucracy, economy
Immense artistic output (wall art
Large influence with the Cycladic islands and Mainland Greece
Contact with Egypt and the Near East

Question 33

Peak sanctuaries

Answer 33

ID: One at Mt. Iukstas on Crete

Date: Middle Minoan period (2000-1600 BC)

Significance: Ideological centre with high visibility
Offerings, alters, sacrificial hearths
Minoan innovation

Question 34

Akrotiri

Answer 34

ID: Wealthy connected town (pre-erruption), erruption buries settlements

Date: Eruption of volcano in the late 17th century BC

Significance: Earlier urbanization
Import and imitation of Cretan pottery (decline but persistent local pottery)
Elaborate Minoan style structures (lustral basins)
Mass production and standardization of pottery

Question 35

Mycenae

Answer 35

ID: Fortified palace site of the Mycenaean state

Date: Peak during Mid-Early 2nd millenium BC

Significance: Grave circles, Palace complexes with storage, cultural and religious functions
Expansion of fortificaitons
Palace on a mountain plateau so that they can see the surrounding area

Question 36

Grave circles A and B

Answer 36

ID: Shaft graves showing unparalleled consumption (lots of luxury items found with bodies)

Date: Mid 2nd millenium BC

Significance: Multiple burials with intergenerational connections, but mostly men, evidence of death in battle (signs of injury)
Diplomatic alliances and signs of wealth and power
Luxury personal items (jewelry, swords), funerary mask, and luxury imports from the near east (demonstrates contact and trade)

Question 37

Tholos tomb

Answer 37

ID: Monumental Mycenaean tombs designed for communal burial

Date: late 2nd millenium BC

Significance: Designed to be reopened
Monumental architecture
No direct evidence of burials though
Were there large numbers of bodies that had to be buried?
Was this a way to continue dynastic power (was there a familial emphasis)
Was this to demarcate the elite from the non-elite?

Question 38

Linear B

Answer 38

ID: Very early Mycanean Greek

Date: Late 2nd-millenium BC, had been used in Knossos in LH III

Significance: Lots of administrative uses (grain rations, land tenures, clearly the palace wanted to keep track of things
We get names of deities
Military expeditions (evidence of pre-emptive defense)

Question 39

Pylos

Answer 39

ID: Palace which controlled two provinces and had typical Mycenaean features

Date: built 1400, destroyed in late 2nd millenium BC

Significance: Social function (megaron for offerings with throne)
Citadel walls (in case of a seige?)
Simmilarities with Cretan palaces too (lots of storage)

Question 40

Uluburun shipwreck

Answer 40

ID: Shipwreck off the coast of Uluburun carrying a huge amount of goods from the eastern mediterranean
Contained: Raw materials (copper, tin, glass), manufactured goods (pottery, copper vessels)
Premium exotic goods (oils, perfumes, gold vessels, ivory
Ship equipment + personal goods

Date: Excavation in the 1980s and 90s; late 14th century BC sinking

Significance: Passengers had weights and scales (merchants?)
Aegean goods (wealthy merchants, travelers, state envoys?)
Was this a shipment from a Levantine polity to a Mycenaean wanax?

Question 41

Stirrup jar

Answer 41

ID: Mycenaean jars with a handle and a pouring spout (reduced wasteful pouring of expensive liquids)

Date: late Bronze Age (highest amount of trade)

Significance: used in the export of oils and perfumed oils (luxury goods)
Found in Egypt (demonstrates trade, especially of luxury goods)

Question 42

Wilusa

Answer 42

ID: The archaeological site of Troy

Date: appeared on historical record mid 2nd millenium BC

Significance: In a one-way relationship with the Hatti (if the Hatti go to war then they have to as well)
Protecting one another’s succession
A tense, one-way relationship

Question 43

Alashiya

Answer 43

ID: Cyprus

Date: Potentially responsible for the disintegration of the Hittite state in the late 2nd millenium BC

Significance: Some Amarna letters from a king in Alashiya
Conflicts with the hittites
Letter from king of Cyprus: I have seen the boats, where are your ships (the sea peoples??)
Lots of copper production on Cyprus (important for the Bronze Age)

Question 44

Linear A

Answer 44

ID: Writing system primarily used by Minoans

Date: protopalatial to neopalatial periods (MM IB-LM IB)

Significance: Closely connected to heiroglyphics
More like cuneiform than an alphabet
Spread to cycladic islands, mainland Greece, Anatolia
Often used in record keeping (for administrative purposes - signs for numbers and fractions)

Question 45

Rhyton

Answer 45

ID: Minoan ceremonial object which poured liquid

Date:

Significance: When found elsewhere, indicates trade or contact with the Aegean (found in Egypt and the Near East)
A luxury good, for ceremonial purposes (indicates an elite class)
Also indicates some sort of religion