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| 81204670 | Loess | A fine, light silt deposiited by wind and water. It constitues the fertile soil of the Yellow River Valley in northern China. Because loess soil is not compacted, it can be worked with with a simple digging stick, but it leaves the region vulnerable to devastating earthquakes. | 0 | |
| 81204671 | Shang | The dominant people in the earliest Chinese dynasty for which we have written records. Ancestor worship, divination by means of oracle bones, and the use of bronze vessels for ritual purposes were major elements of Shang culture. | 1 | |
| 81204672 | Divination | Techniques for ascertaining the future or the will of the gods by interpreting natural phenomena such as, in early China, the cracks on oracle bones, or in ancient Greece, the flight of birds through sectors of the sky. | 2 | |
| 81204673 | Zhou | The people and dynasty that took over the dominant position in north China from the Shang and created the concept of the Mandate of Heaven to justify their rule. The Zhou era, particularly the vigorous early period, was remembered in Chinese tradition as a time of prosperity and benevolent rule. In the later Zhou period, centralized control broke down, and warfare among many small states became frequent. | 3 | |
| 81204674 | Mandate of Heaven | Chinese religious and political ideology developed by the Zhou, according to which it was prerogative of Heaven, the chief deity, to grant power to the ruler of China and to take away that power if the ruler failed to conduct himself justly and in the best interests of his subjects. | 4 | |
| 81204675 | Legalism | In China, a political philosophy that emphasized the unruliness of human nature and justified state of coercion and control. The Qin ruling class invoked it to validate the authoritarian nature of their regime and its profligate expenditure of subjects' lives and labor. It was superseded in the Han era by a more benevolent Confucian doctrine of governmental moderation. | 5 | |
| 81204676 | Confucius | Western name for the Chinese philosopher Kongzi. his doctrine and public service had a great influence on subsequent Chinese thought and served as a code of conduct for government officials. It was supported by the aristocrats more than the peasants. It was based on a social and family hierarchy that was very patriarchal. | 6 | |
| 81204677 | Daoism | Chinese school of thought, originating in the Warring States Period with Laozi. Daoism offered an alternative to the Confucian emphasis on hierarchy and duty. Daoists believe that the world is always changing and is devoid of absolute morality or meaning. They accept the world as they find it, avoid futile struggles, and deviate as little as possible from the Dao, or "path" of nature. | 7 | |
| 81204678 | Yin/Yang | In Chinese belief, complementary forces that help to maintain the equilibrium of the world. Yin is associated with masculine, light, and active qualities; yang with feminine, dark, and passive qualities. | 8 | |
| 81204679 | Oracle Bones | Cattle bones or tortoise shells on which Chinese priests would write questions and then interpret answers from the cracks that formed when the bones were heated to tell the future. | 9 | |
| 81204680 | Kush | An Egyptian name for Nubia, the region alongside the Nile River south of Egypt, where an indigenous kingdom with its own distinctive institutions and cultural traditions arose beginning in the early second millenium B.C.E.. It was deeply influenced by Egyptian culture and at times under control of Egypt, which covered its rich deposits of god and luxury products from Sub-Saharan Africa carried up the Nile corridor. | 10 | |
| 81204681 | Meroe | Capital of a flourishing kingdom in southern Nubia from the fourth century B.C.E. to the fourth century C.E.. In this period Nubian culture shows more independence from Egypt and the influence of Sub-Saharan Africa. | 11 | |
| 81204682 | Feng Shui | Rules in Chinese philosophy that govern spatial arrangement and orientation in relation to patterns of yin and yang and the flow of energy (qi). | 12 |
