HistoryNerd94's definitions

Treaty of Tordesillas

Treaty negotiated by the pope in 1494 to resolve the territorial claims of Spain and Portugal.

The Portuguese colonized Brazil under the terms of the Treaty of Tordesillas, a 1494 agreement dividing the Americas between Spain and Portugal.

by HistoryNerd94 January 6, 2012

Cuneiform

A system of writing in which wedge-shape symbols represented words or syllables. It originated in Mesopotamia and was used initially 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.

Because the reed made wedge-shaped impressions, the early pictures, which were more or less realistic, evolved into stylized combinations of strokes and wedges, a system known as cuneiform writing.

by HistoryNerd94 December 25, 2010

Semitic

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

As early as 2900 B.C.E., personal names recorded in inscriptions from the northerly cities reveal a non-Sumerian Semitic language.

by HistoryNerd94 December 16, 2010

Neolithic

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

The Neolithic (New Stone Age), which is associated with the origins of agriculture, followed the Paleolithic.

by HistoryNerd94 November 7, 2010

Scribe

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

Male domination of the position of scribe—an administration or scholar charged by the temple or palace with reading and writing tasks—further complicates efforts to reconstruct the lives of women.

by HistoryNerd94 December 21, 2010

Agricultural Revolutions

(Ancient) The change from food gathering to food production that occured between ca. 8000 and 2000 B.C.E. Also known as the Neolithic Revolution.

The term Agricultural Revolutions is more precise because it emphasizes the central role of food production and signals that the changeover occured several times.

by HistoryNerd94 November 12, 2010

Hammurabi

Amorite ruler of Babylon (r. 1792–1750 B.C.E.). 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.

Toward the end of a long reign, Hammurabi initiated a series of aggressive military campaigns, and Babylon became the capital of what historians have named the "Old Babylonian" state, which eventually stretched beyond Sumer and Akkad into the north and northwest, from 1900 to 1600 B.C.E.

by HistoryNerd94 December 20, 2010