Terms and Concepts
1) Ziggurats – Mesopotamian temples
2) Cuneiform – Written language of the Sumerians, probably the first written script in the world
3) Epic of Gilgamesh – The world’s oldest complete epic literary masterpiece
4) Lex talionis – “Law of retaliation,” laws in which offenders suffered punishments similar to their crimes; the most famous examples is Hammurabi’s Laws
5) Yahweh – God of monotheistic religion of Judaism that influenced later Christianity and Islam
6) Sumerians – Earliest Mesopotamian society
7) Babylonians – Natives or inhabitants of ancient Babylonia or Babylon
8) Assyrians – Southwest Asian people who built an empire that reached its height during the eighth and seventh centuries B.C.E.; it was known for a powerful army and a well-structured state
9) Phoenicians – Members of a Semitic people who inhabited ancient Phoenicia and its colonies. The Phoenicians prospered from trade and manufacturing until the capital, Tyre, was sacked by Alexander the Great in 332 BC
10) Torah – (in Judaism) The law of God as revealed to Moses and recorded in the first five books of the Hebrew scriptures (the Pentateuch)
11) Hittites – Members of an ancient people who established in Asia Minor and Syria that flourished from circa 1700 to circa 1200 BC
12) Hebrews – Semitic-speaking nomadic tribe influential for monotheistic belief in Yahweh
13) Israelites – Members of the ancient Hebrew nation, especially in the period from the Exodus to the Babylonian Captivity (circa 12th to 6th centuries BC)
14) Jews – Members of the people and cultural community whose traditional religion is Judaism and who trace their origins through the ancient Hebrew people of Israel to Abraham
15) Monotheism – Belief in only one god, a rare concept in the ancient world
16) Polytheism – The belief in or worship of more than one god
People
17) Sargon of Akkad – A Semitic Akkadian emperor famous for his conquest of the Sumerian city-states in the 23rd and 22nd centuries BC
18) Hammurabi – A ancient Mesopotamia, known for
