| A | B |
|---|
| dynasty | A line of rulers who belong to the same family. Control is passed from one generation to the next. |
| empire | A group of lands and peoples ruled by one government |
| hieroglyphics | The writing system of ancient Egypt |
| polytheism | The belief of the ancient Egyptians and Sumerians in many gods and goddesses |
| reincarnation | The Hindus call this the cycle of life, death and rebirth |
| Sanskrit | The ancient Indian language |
| summary | A brief statement of the main ideas in a piece of writing or group of ideas |
| Torah | The first five books of the Hebrew Bible |
| Vedas | The books that contain the ancient Aryan sacred songs |
| ziggurat | a large religious building with a temple on its peak that stood at the center of most ancient Sumerian cities |
| silt | A mixture of tiny bits of soil and rock. Helps make the soil very fertile. |
| delta | A very fertile, flat land made of silt left behind as a river drains into a larger body of water. |
| Lower Egypt | The Nile Delta region in northern Egypt. It is downstream of the Nile. |
| Upper Egypt | Is to the south. The Nile cuts through stone cliffs and desert sands in this area. It is very unlike the fertile Lower Egypt. |
| Nile River | The world's longest river. It flows over 4,000 mile north from the mountains of East Africa, through present day Uganda, Ethiopia, sudan and Egypt. It empties into the Mediterranean Sea |
| irrigation | The watering of land by means of canals or pipes. |
| unification | The joining of separate parts into one |
| Menes | About 3100 B.C. the king of Upper Egypt. He swept into the Nile Delta. His army overthrew the king of Lower Egypt. He wore a double crown. The combined red and white symbolized the unification of Egypt |
| pharaoh | ruler of Egypt |
| Memphis | Egypt's capital city. Located between Upper and Lower Egypt. Its where the pharaoh decided how Egypt's affairs should be run. |
| economy | The way a country's people manage money and resources for the production of good and services. |
| scribes | Writers who traveled throughout Egypt to keep records of details. |
| papyrus | A reed plant that grows along the Nile. Used to make a kind of paper. |
| Khufu | A Pharaoh who ordered construction of the Great Pyramid. The largest of all the pyramids.Kush |
| Kush | An ancient and wealthy kingdom which was ganined when the pharaoh's armies conquered Nubia. It controlled the rich trade routes to other African kingdoms. |
| Hatshepsut | One of Egypt's few female pharaohs. She expanded Egyptian trade beyond the boundaries of the Egyptian empire. |
| Fertile Crescent | A vast region to the northeast of Egypt. Today it covers the present-day countries of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Israel. |
| Mesopotamia | The land between the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers. Present-day Iraq. |
| plateau | An area of elevated flatland. |
| Sumer | About a dozen small cities in southern Mesopotamia. |
| cuneiform | A system of writing invented in Sumer |
| city-state | A self-governing city that also governs surrounding villages. ie: Ur, Uruk and Eridu |
| Sargon | King of the city-state Kish. Rose to power about 2300 B.C.. Expanded his empire to the northern end of the the Fertile Crescent, in what is today Syria. |
| Hammurabi | About 1800 B.C. king of Babylon. Gained contol of the old city-states of Sumer. Controlled key parts of the Euphrates. Cut off the flow of water or could cause floods downstream. His armies attacked the weakened Sumerians. Gained control of the city-states around Babylon. Huge empire created. |
| Babylon | Under Hammurabi it was rich and powerful. Center of power under Hammurabi. Dictionaries were created here so the Babylonians could adopt Sumerian culture and language. |
| Code of Hammurabi | A code of law. It's a written set of laws that apply to everyone under a government. |
| Judaism | The record of the Jewish people's history and religion. |
| Abraham | The founder of Judaism-God spoke to him. |
| Moses | Leader and teacher of the enslaved Israelites. |
| monotheism | A belief system in one god. |
| Diaspora | The scattering of the Jews to all parts of the world. |
| Indus River | Begins in mountains of South Asia. Flows through what are today China, India nad Pakistan. In India and Pakistan other rivers join the Indus at it flows south. The color is of cocoa. during spring floods this silt is spread throughout the Indus Valley. |
| Himalayas | The world's tallest mountains. |
| subcontinent | A large landmass that is geographically separated from the rest of a continent. |
| Indus Plain | A desert-like area where the rivers join the Indus river in the northern part of the Indian Subcontinent |
| Mohenjo-Daro | The Mound of the Dead. an ancient city found in 1922. |
| Harappa | The people who lived in the ancient city found in 1921 by archaeologist in the southern plains of the Indus Valley. |
| citadel | a massive fort |
| Hinduism | A belief which includes a link between a powerful, invisible force and everything in the world. One of the worlds oldest religions. It grew out of Aryan beliefs. |
| caste system | A way of organizing people into different levels. In the Hindu system a person's place in society is determined by the rank of the family she or his is born into. |
| dharma | The laws and duties of a caste spelled out in the Vedas. It includes the rules people live by. |
| Siddhartha Gautama | The rich prince who would become a monk. The answers he sought and found would become the basis of Buddhism. |
| karma | Found in both Hindu and Buddhism, its a force caused by a person's good and bad acts. |
| Four Noble Truths | What Buddha concluded ruled life. |
| Eightfold Path | A set of instructions on the proper way to live. By following as Buddha taught it would end suffering in peoples lives. |
| Middle Way | The way of life represented in the Eightfold Path, not supposed to be too strict nor too easy. |
| Huang River | Begins in the Himalayas and goes north about 3,000 through northern China. A major force in China's history, grows and picks up silt. During summer it floods enough silt on the Northa china Plain to create one of the world's largest deltas. |
| loess | A dusty, yellow soil that is deposited around the edge of the giant curve of the Huang in the Ordos Desert. |
| levee | A wall that keeps a river within its banks. Made of earth. |
| steppes | A dry, treeless plain. |
| Anyang | The capital at the end of the Shang dynasty. |
| nobles | relatives of a ruler. |
| Fu Hao | A king's wife. She herself is remembered by the findings of archeologists. |
| oracle bones | Writing discovered on bones. These bones were heated until they cracked. The patten of the cracks was used to tell the future. |
| Qin | A region that built up its strength. Led by a general who would declare himself emperor. |
| Emperor | Supreme Ruler |
| Shihuangdi | The Qin Gerneral who would become emperor. would build a clay army. Farmers were the backbone of his empire, they would build the walls and the highways. |
| Qinling Mountains | One of the protections of the Qin empire. |
| Xianyang | Capital city under Shihuangdi |
| Great Wall of China | Grew to 1500 miles in length. Thought to be part of the wall system built under Shiguangdi's leadership. Farmers were called upon to strengthen and connect walls along the empire's northern border. These were to keep out the people from the northern steppes. |
| Han Gaozu | Led the overthrow of Shihuangdi's Qin dynasty in 206 B.C. Beginning of the Han dynasty. |
| Han Dynasty | Followed the Qin Dynasty. Their rulers developed a different thinking, based on the teachings of Confucius. |
| Confucius | Lived between 551-479 B.C. Suggested a more peaceful way of living. Wanted people to become good again, like in anient times. The way was through education. Good people would make a good civilization. Included respect within the family. The rulers were like the head of the family. |
| Mandate of Heaven | Each emperor received a right to rule from the gods. |
| Wudi | The first strong ruler of the Han Dynasty. 140-87 B.C. Schools set up in each province, best students would attend the Grand School. |
| Grand School | Best school set up under Wudi. The best would become China's government workers or teachers. |
