Terms for Historians
The study of how everything around us came to be
What is history?
A wanderer. People lived as this during prehistoric times because they were always looking for animals to hunt or grass to feed their flocks.
What is a nomad?
A huge body of land, far bigger than an island. Planet earth has seven of these.
Bonus: For double points, name all seven.
What is a continent?
Bonus: North America, South America, Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia, Antarctica
Huge towers with stepped sides. They get smaller as they go up. Long ramps wind around their outsides, leading up to temples at the top. There was a giant one in Ur.
What are ziggurats?
God created this on the 6th day
What is mankind?
The title of the King of Egypt
What is the pharaoh?
There was no paper or ink, so ancient writers used a reed as a stylus (writing tool) to write this wedge shaped script into clay bricks or tablets. The brick was then fired to make it hard.
(double points)
What is cuneiform?
This is one of the oldest civilizations. It sprang up around the Nile River.
What is the Egyptian civilization?
Manmade objects left over from the distant past
What are artifacts?
A group of civilized people who share the same homeland, the same stories, the same laws, and the same way of life.
What is a civilization?
A huge body of water, far bigger than a sea. Earth has five of these.
BONUS: For double points, name all five.
What is an ocean?
BONUS: Arctice Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, and the Southern Ocean
Means "land between the rivers". It was the ancient land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
What is Mesopotamia?
Adam and Eve ate the fruit of this forbidden tree
What is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?
In ancient Egypt, a dead body that was carefully preserved.
What is a mummy?
The oldest known poem
What is the Epic of Gilgamesh?
Western river of ancient Mesopotamia. It is the longer of the two.
What is the Euphrates River?
The study of ancient history
What is archaeology?
Ancient farmers used this simple machine to fill ditches with water for their crops.
What is a shadoof?
In ancient times, it was land that formed a crescent (curved) shape and had soil that was good for farming. The lands surrounding it were deserts and mountains, which were not good for farming.
What is the Fertile Crescent?
An Akkadian ruler who was the first to rule a kingdom big enough to be called an empire
Who is Sargon?
The consequence for man attempting to build the Tower of Babel.
God confused their languages so that they could no longer understand each other. As a result they scattered all over the whole Earth.
A sealed case where the Egyptians placed a mummy
What is a sarcophagus?
A set of characters used for writing
(double points)
What is a script?
The Harappan civilization was a civilization almost as old as Egypt and Mesopotamia. It existed along this river that flows through India and Pakistan.
What is the Indus River?
The most commonly found type of artifact
What is pottery?
A little kingdom like a country that grew up around a city.
What is a city-state?
Ancient city-state in Mesopotamia located on the Euphrates River. It was the homeplace of Abraham.
What is Ur?
The oldest civilization in Mesopotamia.
What is the Sumerian civilization?
A formal promise that God will give Abram many descendants, and that He will give those descendants the Promised Land.
What is the Abrahamic Covenant? (or God's covenant with Abraham)
This is the biggest pyramid of all. It is 450 feet tall, and it still stands.
What is the Pyramid of Khufu, aka the Great Pyramid of Giza?
A short, hard rod with a unique design carved into it. It was rolled across wet clay to leave a perfect copy of the design. These were used like signatures. A king might use his to sign new laws. He might carry it in his pocket or wear it as jewelry.
(double points)
What is a cylinder seal?
Eastern river of ancient Mesopotamia. It is the shorter of the two.
What is the Tigris River?
The time period between the creation of the world up until the time of Jesus / the Fall of Rome (AD 476). It is before the Middle Ages.
What is the ancient era?
A big kingdom or group of kingdoms that are all ruled by one monarch called an emperor. Sargon was the first to establish one.
What is an empire?
Triangle of rich land that forms near the mouth of the Nile River.
What is the Nile Delta?
The most complete set of ancient laws. Copies of it were placed all around the empire, including one on a monument. The strict laws were written by a king during the First Babylonian Dynasty.
(double points)
What is the Code of Hammurabi?
God made this agreement or promise which reads, "Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth." The sign of it is a rainbow.
What is the Noahic Covenant? (or God's covenant with Noah)
The first type of Egyptian pyramids. They were flat-topped.
(double points)
What are mastabas?
An old story that tries to explain how things came to be the way they are
(double points)
What is a myth?
Fine soil that is carried along with running water. It covered the Nile Valley every year as a result of the yearly floods. It gave the Nile Valley the best farmland in the world.
(double points)
What is silt?