dates
Mesopotamians invent writing & build first cities
4,000-3,000 BC
hieroglyphics
the ancient Egyptian pictographic script for writing official texts
pyramid
massive tombs demonstrated the wealth & piety of ruler; prepared him to spend the afterlife in style
city-state
an urban center exercising political and economic control over the surrounding countryside
Hammurabi
a king of Babylon in the eight century BC, famous for his law code
Unification of Egypt
3050 BC
Homer
Greece's first and most famous author, who composed the Iliad and Odyssey
mummification
the preservation of bodies through drying (both natural & artificial); practiced as an elaborate religious ritual in ancient Egypt
polis
a Greek city-state, an independent community of citizens
Solon
Athenian political reformer whose changes promoted early democracy
Period of Calamities
1,200-1,000 BC
Cuneiform
the earliest form of writing, invented in Mesopotamia and done with wedge shaped characters
ziggurat
hoplite
heavily armed Greek infantrymen; they constituted the main strike force of a city-state's militia
Sea Peoples
the diverse groups of raiders who devastated the eastern Mediterranean region in the period of calamities
Greek Dark Ages
1,000-750 BC
Linear B
the Mycenean's pictographic script for writing Greek
cult
in ancient Greece, a set of official, publicly funded religious activities for a deity overseen by priests and priestesses
helot
a slave owned by the Spartan city-state; such slaves came from parts of Greece conquered by the Spartans.
Cyrus
founder of the Persian Empire
First Olympic games in Athens
776 BC
Sappho
the most famous woman lyric poet of ancient Greece, a native of of the island of Lesbos
moral dualism
the belief that the world is the arena for an ongoing battle for control between divine forces of good and evil
arete
the Greek value of competitive individual excellence
Mediterranean Polyculture
the cultivation of olives, grapes, and grains in a single, interrelated agricultural system