history Flashcards
prehistory
Term used to describe the time period when early human societies did not leave written records; before script.
Mesopotamia
- “Land between the rivers” due to its position surrounding the Tigris and Euphrates River in present-day Iraq.
- It started to abandon nomadic lifestyle and form permanent settlements. Changes were revolutionary: codified laws, concept of kingship, built places to worship Gods, writing, invention of the wheel.
- polytheistic (belief in many Gods) religion comprising some 3600 various Gods and demigods.
- Natural leeves: embankments produced by build-up of sediment over 1000 years of flooding, Create a high and safe flood plain, Provides protect, Surrounding swamps were full of fish and water animals, Reeds provided food for sheep/goats and used as building resources, Desert and swamps however made it difficult for city-states in Mesopotamia to be/remain unified
Paleolithic
Greek paleo means “old” = 50,000-10,000 years ago
Neolithic
Greek neo means “new” = Neolithic revolution occurred between 9000-4000 BCE. Possible causes for the neolithic revolution: Accidental by-product of social gatherings: wild plants consumed, seeds drop, grow and create cycle of unintended cultivation. Climate change/stress. Intellectual advances in humans causing them to want to settle down. Population pressure. Shifted to farming to allow elders and children to be involved in food production process
Cuneiform
Initially used as a way of tracking trade across far distances. It spread across the region and was used for approx. 3,000 years. It doesn’t use letters but rather characters to represent syllables. Other signs stood for whole words (ie. bread, water, day, hand, head).
The Fertile Crescent
The fertile crescent: referred to as “the cradle of civilization” is the crescent-shaped region in Western Asia and North Africa that spans the modern-day countries of Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and , for some scholars, Egypt
Ziggurat
Large temples dedicated to the Gods of the city. They also serves as a place to store grain and to escape to when there was flooding. It’s made of layer upon layer of mud bricks in the shape of a pyramid in many tiers.
Ushabti/Shabti
small carved funeral figures were placed in the tomb as deputies, so that they could carry out all the deceased’s agricultural duties in the afterlife.
ka
The ka remained in the heart
until death, when spirit and
body separated.
ba
Entered the body at birth and left it at death. It was like the personality or character of the individual.
Ma’at
personified the foundations of Egyptian law—truthfulness, righteousness and justice. According to Ma’at, the goal was for people to find and maintain balance and order within the universe.
She was the goddess of order, truth and justice—qualities the Egyptians believed were put in the world at the time of creation.
Hieroglyphs
Originally a collection of picture signs
Possibly borrowed from the Mesopotamians
Each pictogram was designed to represent an entire word or idea
More than 600-700 signs in use during the new Kingdom
The vast majority represent sounds more than objects
Difficult to translate because there were no vowels, punctuation, spaces, or artistic arrangements
Demotic: simpler version of the language. It was easier and faster to write, used for recordkeeping
Mastaba
Oblong tombs
Step Pyramid
Mastabas stacked on top of each other
Built for King Djoser
The burial chamber of the king remained underground
Largest stone structure in the world
Canopic jars
The jars were named after the four sons of Horus. Into them were placed the lungs, the stomach, the liver and the intestines.
Triremes
- were fast, maneuverable Greek warships that were powered by three banks of oars and armed with a bronze ram
- Ancient Greek warship, named for their three tiers of oars; the fastest and deadliest ships in the ancient world
The Parthenon
The purpose of the Parthenon is to built a building that will show humans and Gods side by side, which has never been done before. It’s a shrine to Athena and a testemant to the Athenians. It’s also to showcase the power of the city.
The building has a drawing of humans and God being side by side, which has never been done before. The building also has unique domes. The building was also on a slight curve, and the way the building to made is to make it look like it’s straight from far away. The parthenon is still very stable.
Hoplite
carried large round shields, spears and swords, and were organized in a phalanx formation
Sparta, on the other hand, had a formidable land army of disciplined professional soldiers (hoplites)
the citizen-soldiers of Ancient Greek city-states armed with spears and shields; they used the phalanx formation
Phalanx
formation whereby each man’s shield protected both himself and his neighbour in a wall of bronze
a tactical military formation that consisted of a block of heavily armed soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder in files several ranks deep with their spears or pikes pointed out
The Trojan Horse
hen, the ingenious and resourceful general, Odysseus, offered a solution—the Trojan Horse! The Greeks constructed a huge wooden horse as an offering to the city of Troy. They removed their boats from the shore to make it appear as though they had left the area, and left this massive horse for the Trojans, who were happy and relieved that the Greeks had departed…or so they thought…
The Trojans brought the horse into the city and began celebrating their perceived victory. During the night however, when everyone was drunk and tired, the Greeks emerged from the horse, slaughtered the Trojans, desecrated temples, and stole gold and gifts from the wealthy city. Now these acts were enough to earn the wrath of the gods, so few Greeks managed to return to Greece without any problems of their own.
The Delian League
a confederacy of Greek city-states led by Athens
ts purpose was to continue fighting the Persian Empire after the Greek victory in the Battle of Plataea at the end of the Second Persian invasion of Greece
The Peloponnesian League
an alliance of ancient Greek city-states, dominated by Sparta and centered on the Peloponnese, which lasted from c.550 to 366 BC. It was one of the two rivals in the Peloponnesian War, against the Delian League, which was dominated by Athens. The modern name of the Peloponnesian League is inaccurate because there were members outside the Peloponnese, and it was not really a league
The Sacred Band of Thebes
“Thebes, stood up to the military might of Sparta…They created an elite corps of three hundred soldiers, known as the Sacred Band of Thebes, comprising of 150 pairs of male lovers who fought side-by-side in the name of freedom.” (Flynn)
The Sacred Band of Thebes “was the first professional standing army funded by the state in Greek history” and was “founded on the principle that men so intimately devoted to one another would fight as a cohesive unit.” (Flynn)
“The Thebans considered the emotional bond between the men to be ‘sacred’, in reference to the sacred vows that male Theban lovers would make to each other at the shrine of Iolaus, the mythological lover of the hero Hercules.” (Flynn)
“An elite corps of male lovers was unique to Greek history, but homosexual relationships were commonplace.” (Flynn)
Formed in 379 BCE, the Sacred Band of Thebes was founded to protect a federation of cities led by Thebes.
They played a pivotal role in defeating the Spartans at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BCE and helped to usher in a decade of Theban supremacy.
This devastating defeat marked the first time in three centuries that a Spartan army had been defeated and it helped change the geopolitical landscape forever—the Spartans were not indestructible and could be beaten
This Theban victory emboldened neighbour states to break away from the Peloponnesian League; Sparta never rose again to its former heights.
Ostracism
ridding Athens of any citizen who might be getting too powerful and potentially become another tyrant. That person would be exiled, along with their family for 10 years.
The Assembly
Meetings were held 40 times a year on a hillside auditorium called the Pnyx
Any member of the voting public- the demos- was welcome to attend the meetings; however usually only about 5,000 members attended each session as the others were serving in the army or navy or working
The Colosseum
The Colosseum was the second and largest permanent amphitheatre built within the city of Rome.
The Colosseum was used for various blood sports, including animal hunts, prisoner executions, and gladiatorial combat.
SPQR
The senate and people of rome (SPQR)
Suppose to represent harmony of the senate and the people
Emblematic abbreviated phrase referring to the government of the Roman republic
Appears on document. Monuments and even some Roman currency