Download CHAPTER 1: “BREAKTHROUGH AT SUMER,” (pp

CHAPTER 1: “BREAKTHROUGH AT SUMER,”
(pp. 9-53)
AGE OF GOD-KINGS: TIMEFRAME 3000-1500 B.C.
1. The literal translation of Mesopotamia. _______________________________
2-3.
The two rivers that framed the valley that became home to both Sumerian and
Mesopotamian civilization. ___________________, ______________________.
4. This Biblical city, famous for its walls, had become a center for the salt trade by the
seventh millennium B.C. _________________
5. The Sumerians were the first to invent this, allowing them much more easily to pass
knowledge from one generation to the next. __________________
6-7.
The Sumerians not only used irrigation, but also invented this important tool, thus
revolutionizing agriculture. ___________ The first crude models of sticks or
animal bones had been replaced first by copper, and then by this metal by 3000
B.C. _______
8-9.
The Sumerian gods of heaven and the air, respectively, the latter ultimately
replaced
the
former
as
the
most
powerful
god.
___________,
________________.
10.
The stepped Sumerian temples that towered above the Mesopotamian plain.
________________
11.
Latin for “wedge-shaped,” it is the name given to Sumerian written script.
________________
12.
The 3,500-line poem that represents the crowning achievement of Sumerian
literature, it tells the story of a king who seeks the meanings of life and death.
_______________________
13.
Established for the purpose of training scribes and open only to males from wealthy
families, these Sumerian schools were the world’s first centers of formal education.
________________
14-16. The Sumerian system of calculation was based on this number. __________
Name at least two units of measurement based on the Sumerian system that
remain in use today. ___________________, ___________________.
17. The first city-state in the ancient world, by 2700 B.C. it included a central city of
some 50,000 people and a collection of 76 surrounding villages. _______________
18-19. The goddess Ninkasi was associated with this, the favorite beverage of the
Sumerians. _______________ The percentage of Sumerian grain devoted to its
production. _____________
20. As leader of the Akkadians, this Semite warrior-king was the first to unite all of
Mesopotamia under one ruler. _________________
21-22. This previously unimportant northern town became the capital of the Amorites as
they began to gain control of Mesopotamia in the decades after 2000 B.C.
___________________ The best-known of the Amorite leaders, he designed a
harsh law code that remains associate to this day with the phrase “an eye for an
eye.” _______________________
23. The spells and prayers of this religious work were often placed alongside Egyptian
bodies in the belief these would help move the deceased towards a happy afterlife.
_____________________
TRUE OR FALSE
24. The Sumerians were the first to think of adapting the potter’s wheel to the purposes
of locomotion.
_____
25. The Sumerians were the world’s first great monotheistic civilization. _____
26. The Sumerian religion was an optimistic creed designed to reassure people when
they were feeling down.
_____
27. Sumerian society was divided into just two classes: the very wealthy and slaves. ___
CHAPTER 2: “THE WAY OF THE PHARAOHS”
(pp. 55-95),
AGE OF GOD-KINGS: TIMEFRAME 3000-1500 B.C.
1. The arc of arable land that reaches from Mesopotamia to Palestine, it was one source
of the introduction into the Nile Valley of settlers familiar with agriculture.
__________________________
2. What is the length of the Nile River? ________________
3-4.
The
two
main
tributaries
of
the
Nile.
_______________,
____________________.
5-7.
What were the two main regions of ancient Egypt? ___________________,
____________________.
What geographic feature served as the boundary
between the two regions? ________________________
8. According to Egyptian tradition, the god-king Menes built this capital on land
reclaimed from the Nile to commemorate his political and military consolidation of
Egypt. ____________________
9-10. Literally “great house,” this was the title given to the dynastic rulers of ancient
Egypt.
_________________
The number of dynasties during the millennia
between 3000 B.C. and the conquest of Egypt by the Greeks under Alexander the
Great. _______
11-12. Lord of the underworld in Egyptian mythology, according to legend he had once
ruled Egypt before being murdered and dismembered by his brother Seth, who
spread his body parts across the land. ______________ The wife and sister of
Osiris, she collected up the pieces and patched him back together.
_______________
14.
Defeating his uncle Seth in battle, according to legend he became the new King of
Egypt. ___________
15.
A dead pharaoh’s internal organs were removed through an incision in the abdomen
and placed in this vessel. __________________
16.
The Step Pyramid, designed by Imhotep as the tomb of King Djoser and located
here, was the world’s first great stone structure. _________________
17.
A shift to smooth-sided pyramids occurred with the emergence of this sun god as
Egypt’s most important deity. __________
18.
The reeds from this aquatic plant were pounded together to produce parchment.
___________________
19-21. What were the three seasons of the Egyptian year? ______________________,
__________________________, _________________________.
22. This more condensed and cursive style of writing eventually took precedence for
everyday notations over the more elegant and pictographic formal hieroglyphics that
continued to be used for monument inscriptions. ___________________
23. Egypt’s priest astronomers noted that the appearance of this star each year signalled
the coming of the Nile’s flood waters – as a result that day, July 19, became the first
day of the Egyptian year. _________________
24-28. Match the Egyptian god to the animal he or she was associated with.
Horus _____
Khnum _____
Thoth _____
Hathor _____
Sobek _____
a. ibis
b. crocodile
c. falcon
d. cow
e. ram
29. According to Egyptian mythology, the sun god Re traveled across the sky and
through the afterworld each 24-hour cycle on this. ______________
30. The Egyptians thought that this “transfigured spirit” left the individual human body
after death to revolve in the heavens as a star. __________
31-32. What is the location of the Great Pyramid? ____________ What Fourth Dynasty
pharaoh was it built for? __________________
33-34. This 240-foot-long stone sculpture of a mythical creature worshipped as the
guardian of sacred places is on the same plateau as the Great Pyramid.
_______________ Whose face is on this statue? _________________
35. The death of the increasingly decrepit pharaoh Pepy II after a reign of some 90 years
brought this long Egyptian epoch to a close. ________________
36. Egyptians from this upriver location were able to defeat the nomarchs of Herakleopis
around 2065 B.C. and thus put to an end 100 years of turmoil. ______________
37. Egypt’s immediate neighbors to the South. ________________
TRUE OR FALSE
38. From the very beginning, the wetlands of the Nile Delta was the most productive and
politically centralized region of ancient Egypt.
_____
39. Egypt’s geography was such that it faced a near-continuous series of invasions
during ancient times.
_____
40. The Nile was much more erratic and less dependable than the Euphrates.
_____
41. Most Egyptians believed the pharaoh was the human form of the god Horus. _____
42.
Egyptians believed that fulfillment in the afterlife depended in part on the
preservation of the body.
_____
43. Rivalry between Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt was a recurring theme in the history
of ancient Egypt.
_____
CHAPTER 3, “THE EMPIRE ON THE AEGEAN”
AGE OF GOD-KINGS: TIMEFRAME 3000-1500 B.C.
1. A 152-mile-long island located at the southern entrance to the Aegean Sea, it became
home to Europe’s first civilization. ___________________
2-3.
The maritime prosperity of Crete was based on the export of these two items.
__________, _________________.
4. The collective name for the islands north of Crete. ___________________
5-6.
This British archaeologist uncovered the forgotten civilization of Crete in 1900.
_______________________ The highlight of his discoveries was a buried palace
at this site. _________________
7. The script used by ancient Cretans, it still has not been deciphered. ______________
8-10. The legendary king after whom ancient Cretan civilization is named.
____________________
The father and mother of this legendary king.
________, _____________________
11-15. According to mythology, Athenians were sent every year as tribute to Crete and
fed to this monster.
__________________
The home of the monster.
_______________ The designer of this maze. ___________________ The
slayer of the monster.
_____________________
The king’s daughter, she
provided the slayer of the monster with both a magic sword and thread to mark
the way out of the maze. __________
16. This animal rested at the heart of the religious and political life of Crete. ______
17. The most sacred of Minoan symbols, it was used in religious ceremonies by priests to
sacrifice bulls. ________________
18. The most important deity of Minoan civilization. ______________________
19. The most popular Minoan athletic event. _______________________
20. This force of nature struck Minoan civilization regularly, with a major episode
coming perhaps twice a century. ____________________
21. These
war-like
people
from
mainland
Greece
invaded
Crete.
_____________________
22. A giant volcanic explosion on this Aegean island in 1450 B.C. not only sent a 200foot-high tidal wave hurtling towards Crete but may also have given birth to the
legend of Atlantis. ________________
23. Nearly 50,000 of these structures, literally “great stories” in Greek, were constructed
by the Stone Age villagers of Europe. ________________
24. On England’s Salisbury Plain, this monument took 1,500 years to build, and allowed
observers to determine the longest day of the year by noting when the sun rose over
the tip of a certain outlying stone. ____________________
TRUE AND FALSE
25.
One of the downfalls of the Minoans was that, even though they were on a
Mediterranean island, they never learned how to sail.
_____
25. That the women of Crete wore tight-fitting jackets that left their breasts bare has
been taken by historians as another indication that Minoan women lacked almost any
power in comparison to their counterparts in other civilizations of the ancient world.
_____
CHAPTER 4: “STIRRINGS IN ASIA” (pp. 129-165)
AGE OF GOD-KINGS: TIMEFRAME 3000-1500 B.C.
1. The first great civilization of the subcontinent emerged around 2500 B.C. in the
floodplain of this river, in present-day Pakistan. _______________
2. The first great Chinese civilization developed along this river. _________________
3. This village gave the first great Indian civilization its name. __________________
4. Centuries past its hey-day this great Indian city was given its name, literally “Hill of
the Dead” in Sindhi. _______________________
5. What was the most important agricultural breakthrough of the Indus people?
_________________________________________________________________
6. The large plateau of central India. ________________________
7-9.
The first great Chinese civilization emerged along the banks of this, its mightiest
river.
________________
___________
The compact dust that gave the river its name.
The desert from which this dust originally had come.
_______________
10. The nickname the Chinese give to this river. _______________________
11-12. Chinese legend gives credit for the taming of the unpredictable Yellow River to
this early emperor, who was said to have lived in the twenty-third century B.C.
_____________________ He is also given credit for founding this, the first
historically- recorded Chinese dynasty. _______________
13. This indigenous Chinese people rose to prominence in the middle of the eighteenth
century B.C. _______________
14. This blue mineral often shot through with specks of yellow pyrite was regarded as
one of the most valuable in the ancient world. ____________________
TRUE OR FALSE
15. Civilization developed in southern China much sooner than in the north.
16.
_____
The civilization that developed along the Yellow River centered around the
production of rice.
_____