AP World History Flashcards

283939833	Stone Age	time when people produced tools from stone and metal	0
283939834	Paleolithic	period of the Stone Age associated with evolution of humans. predates neolithic period	1
283939835	Agricultural Revolutions	change from food gathering to food production that occurred between 8000 and 2000 BCE. aka Neolithic Revolution	2
283939836	Holocene	geological era since the end of the Great Ice Age about 11,000 years ago	3
283939837	megaliths	structures and complexes of very large stones constructed for ceremonial religious purpose in Neolithic times	4
283939838	Babylon	largest and most important city in Mesopotamia. It achieved particular eminence as the capital of the Amorite king Hammurabi in the 18th century BCE and Neo-Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar in the 6th century BCE	5
283939839	Sumerian	people who dominated southern Mesopotamia through the end of the third millennium bce. they were responsible for the creation of many fundamental elements of Mesopotamian culture- such as irrigation technology, cuneiform, and religious conceptions-taken over by their semitic successors	6
283939840	semitic	family of related languages long spoken across parts of western Asia and northern Africa. In antiquity these languages included Hebrew, Aramaic, and Phoenician. The most widespread modern member of the Semitic family is Arabic.	7
283939841	Hammurabi	Amorite ruler of Babylon. 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	8
283939842	city-states	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.	9
283939843	ziggurat	a massive pyramidal stepped tower made of mud bricks. it is associated with religious complexes in ancient Mesopotamian cities, but is function is unknown	10
283939844	cuneiform	a system of writing in which wedge-shaped 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	11
283939845	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.	12
283939846	ma'at	Egyptian term for the concept of divinely created and maintained order in the universe. Reflecting the ancient Egyptians' belief in an essentially beneficent world, the divine ruler was the earthly guarantor of this order	13
283939847	pyramid	a large, triangular stone monument, used in Egypt and Nubia as a burial place for the king. the largest pyramids, erected during the old kingdom near memphis with stone tools and compulsory labor, reflected the Egyptian belief that the proper and spectacular burial of the divine ruler would guarantee the continued prosperity of the land.	14
283939848	Memphis	the capital of the Old kingdom, near the head of the Nile Delta. Early rulers were interred int he nearby pyramids.	15
283939849	Thebes	capital city of Egypt and home of the ruling dynasties during the Middle and New Kingdoms. Amon, patron deity of Thebes, became one of the chief gods of Egypt. Monarchs were buried across the river in the Valley of the Kings.	16
283939850	hieroglyphics	a system of writing in which pictorial symbols represented sounds, syllables, or concepts. It was used for official and monumental inscriptions in ancient Egypt. Because of the long period of study required to master this system, literacy in heiroglyphics was confined to a relatively small group of scribes and adminstrators. Cursive symbol-forms were developed for rapid composition on other media, such as papyrus.	17
283939851	papyrus	a reed that grows along the banks of the Nile River in Egypt. From it was produced a coarse, paperlike writing medium used by the Egyptians and many other peoples in the ancient Mediterranena and MIddle East.	18
283939852	mummy	a body preserved by chemical processes or special natural circumstances, often in the belief that the deceased will need it again in the afterlife. In ancient Egypt the bodies of people who could afford mummification underwent a complex process of removing organs, filling body cavities, dehydrating the corpse with natron, and then wrapping the body with linen bandages and enclosing it in a wooden sarcophagus.	19
283939853	Harappa	Site of one of the great cities in the Indus Valley civilization of the third millenium bc. it was located on the northwestern frontier of the zone of cultivation (in modern Pakistan), and may have ben a center for the acqusition of raw materials, such as metals and precious stones, from Afghanistan and Iran	20
283939854	Mohenjo-Daro	largest of the cities of the Indus Valley civilization. IT was centrally located in the extensive floodplain of the indus river in contemporary pakistan. little is known about the political institutions of indus valley communities, but the large scale of construction at mohenjo-daro, the orderly grid of streets, and the standardization of building materials are evidence of central planning	21