Definitions by HistoryNerd94
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.
Scribe by HistoryNerd94 December 21, 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.
Hammurabi by HistoryNerd94 December 20, 2010
City-State
A small independent state consisting of an urban center and the surrounding agricultural territory. A characteristic political form in early Mesopotamia, Archaic and Classical Greece, Phoenicia, and early Italy.
The term city-state refers to a self-governing urban center and the agriculture territories it controlled.
City-State by HistoryNerd94 December 18, 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.
Semitic by HistoryNerd94 December 16, 2010
Babylon
The largest and most important city in Mesopotamia. It achieved particular eminence as the capital of the Amorite King Hammurabi in the eighteenth century B.C.E. and the Neo-Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar in the sixth century B.C.E.
The Babylonian Creation Myth climaxes in a cosmic battle between Marduk, the chief god of Babylon, and the Tiamat, a femal figure who personifies the salt sea.
Babylon by HistoryNerd94 December 12, 2010
Megaliths
Structures and complexes of very large stones for ceremonial and religious purposes in Neolithic times.
Megaliths by HistoryNerd94 November 22, 2010
Holocene
Most researchers today, however, believe that climate change drove people to abandon hunting and gathering in favor of pastoralism and agriculture. So great was the global warming that ended the last Ice Age that geologists gave the era since about 9000 B.C.E. a new name: the Holocene.
Holocene by HistoryNerd94 November 15, 2010