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 19, 2010
Get the Hammurabi mug.

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 10, 2010
Get the Agricultural Revolutions mug.

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 14, 2010
Get the Semitic mug.

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
Get the Cuneiform mug.

Culture

Socially transmitted patterns of action and expression. Material culture refers to physical objects, such as dwellings, clothing, tools, and crafts. Culture also includes arts, beliefs, knowledge, and technology.
Learned patterns of action and expression constitute culture.
by HistoryNerd94 September 27, 2010
Get the Culture mug.

Pharaoh

The central figure in the ancient Egyptian state. Believed to be an earthly manifestation of the gods, he used his absolute power to maintain the safety and prosperity of Egypt.
The Egyptian state centered on the king, often known by the New Kingdom term pharaoh, from an Egyptian phrase meaning "palace."
by HistoryNerd94 December 26, 2010
Get the Pharaoh mug.

Renaissance

The intellectual and artistic flowering in Europe during the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries sparked by a revival of interest in classical antiquity.
The Renaissance celebrated human possibility.
by HistoryNerd94 December 28, 2011
Get the Renaissance mug.