Terms : Hide Images
| 8509252326 | Mesopotamia | Greek for "between the rivers" : the region between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in today's Iraq and eastern Syria. | 0 | |
| 8509266599 | Gilgamesh | Name of a historic king of Uruk (modern-day Warka, Iraq) who ruled between 2700 and 2500 B.C.E. Also the name of an epic about him. | 1 | |
| 8509287937 | Complex Society | Society characterized by a large urban center with specialized labor and social stratification, as well as the belief that rulers and deities were entitled to surpluses the society produced. | 2 | |
| 8509302209 | City-state | A city whose ruler governs both the city center and the surrounding countryside. | 3 | |
| 8509303964 | Bronze | An alloy of copper and tin used to make the earliest of metal tools. | 4 | |
| 8509309619 | Wheel | An important innovation in transport dating to 3500 B.C.E. | 5 | |
| 8509431575 | Sumer | A geographical term from Akkadian meaning the ancient region of southern Mesopotamia. | 6 | |
| 8509438674 | Cuneiform | The term meaning "wedged shape," for the writing system of Sumer in its late stages, when the script became completely phonetic. | 7 | |
| 8509445369 | Sargon of Akkad | (r. 2334-2279 B.C.E.) The first ruler to unify Mesopotamia. Changed the language of administration to Akkadian. | 8 | |
| 8509452280 | Empire | A large territory in which one people rule over other subject peoples with different languages and different religious traditions. | 9 | |
| 8509460154 | Pharaoh | The god-king who ruled the unified kingdom Egypt from at least 3100 B.C.E. | 10 | |
| 8509512161 | Nubia | Region south of the First Cataract on the Nile, in the modern-day Egypt and Sudan; was an important trading partner of Egypt. | 11 | |
| 8509516830 | Hieroglyphs | The writing system of ancient Egypt, which consisted of different symbols, some pictorial, and some phonetic, used on official inscriptions. | 12 | |
| 8509519345 | Papyrus | A convenient but perishable writing material made from a reed that grew naturally along the Nile. | 13 | |
| 8509581364 | Hittites | A people based in Anatolia, Turkey, and Syria who spoke the Indo-European language of Hittite and learned to work iron around 2000 B.C.E. The Hittite empire reached its greatest extent between 1322 and 1220 B.C.E. and ended around 1200 B.C.E. | 14 | |
| 8509589061 | Iron | A metal used to make farm tools and weapons; iron smelting was an important technology because iron implements were much more durable than those made of bronze. | 15 | |
| 8509593107 | Monotheism | Belief in only one god. | 16 | |
| 8509594055 | Jew | A term (derived from Hebrew) that originally meant a member of the nation of Judah and later came to refer to all Hebrews. | 17 |
