| A | B |
|---|
| artisan | a person skilled at making things by hand |
| city-state | a self-governing unit made up of a city and its surrounding lands and settlements: a city that controls the surrounding villages and towns |
| cuneiform | the earliest form of writing, invented by the Sumerians |
| empire | a group of different lands and people governed by one ruler |
| famine | an extreme lack of crops or food causing widespread hunger |
| irrigation | the supply of water to fields using human-made systems |
| polytheism | a belief in many gods |
| ritual | a formal series of acts always performed in the same way; a religious ceremony |
| silt | an especially fine and fertile soil |
| social class | a category of people based on wealth or status in a society |
| tribute | a tax paid or goods and services rendered in return for protection |
| ziggurat | a pyramid-shaped temple in Sumerian city-states |
| alliance | a partnership |
| colony | a group of people that settles in a new land but keeps ties to its native country |
| cultural heritage | the legacy of a group's or society's attributes passed down from generation to generation |
| human record | the story of human life on Earth over the centuries |
| legacy | the things, both cultural and technological, left to us from past cultures |
| province | an administrative district of a larger empire or country |
| raw material | a substance from which other things are made |
| relief | a technique in which figures are raised slightly above a flat base |
| satrap | a governor of a province in the Persian Empire |
| tolerance | the sympathy for the beliefs and practices of others |
