I know that this isn't quite complete; I've left out several of the definitions. That's because I've only started this today, and it's quite a daunting project. I'll certainly update this as I continue scouring my notes, however, if you have anything you would like to add, please email me at luxrayvillage@gmail.com. Help would be very much appreciated!
Vocab Review
South Asia
subcontinent: a large, distinguishable part of a continent
Khyber Pass: a pass through the mountains at the top of India which allowed for the passage of people and ideas, particularly the Aryans or Dravidians
Indo-Gangetic Plain: a huge fertile plain in the northern part of india
monsoon: a seasonal wind of the Indian Ocean and southern Asia, blowing from the southwest in the summer and from the northeast in winter
Harappan Civilization: early Indian civilization centered around the Indus River valley
Harappa:
Mohenjo-Daro:
decipher: to decode
Dravidians: also the Aryans, this name being derived from the language they spoke; they migrated into India bringing a portion of the Hindu religion with them, including the idea of castes
Indo-European: Europe, Southwest, and South Asia
Hittites:
Aryans: same as Dravidians
steppe: like a prairie, a large area of flat grassland (not a forest)
migrations: the movements of persons from one location to another
dasas: one who has surrendered to a god; can refer to a follower of a particular deity
Sanskrit: the language spoke by ancient Indians
raja/maharaja: the ruler of a particular group of land; a raja reported a maharaja, similar to English Duke and Marquis
varna: skin color or caste
jati: a sub-caste
caste system: a system of dividing the brahmins, kshatriyas, vaisyas, sudras, and untouchables which defined what each could do and what interactions each could have
Purusha: the person who in Vedic legend was sacrificed, his head becoming the brahmins, his hands the kshatriyas, his legs the vaisyas, and his feet the sudras
Brahmins: the highest caste, consisting of priests
Kshatriyas: the second-highest caste, consisting of warrior-kings
Vaisyas: the third-highest caste, consisting of merchants and artisans
Sudras: the lowest caste, consisting of farmers
Untouchables: the group below even the lowest caste, consisting of extremely impoverished people
Vedas: four books the Aryans brought with them, containing prayers, magical spells, and ritual instructions
Rigveda: the most important of the Vedas
Upanishads: Hindu religious texts where Hindu teachers attempted to interpret and explain the Vedic hymns, written as student/teacher dialogues and proclaiming the oneness of the individual and the universe, centering on the doctrine of Brahma, and introducing the idea of reincarnation allowing you to move up or down the caste system
Ramayana: an epic poem telling how Rama, Vishnu’s reincarnation, and his devotee Hanuman (a monkey god) recover Rama’s wife Sita from the demon king Ravana
Mahabharata: the Great Poem of the Bharatas, includes the Bhagavad-Gita and consists of 18 books and 90,000 stanzas
Bhagavad-Gita: the Song of God, part of the Mahabhrata, attempting to spread the basic messages of moksha, karma, samsara, hope for lower castes, dharma, etcetera: it summarizes these and in it Lord Krishna promises to help people who fulfill their dharma, and points the way towards moksha
brahman: the universal force that permeates everything
atman: an individual soul, a piece of the brahman
Hinduism: a polytheistic religion, believing in the caste system as well as reincarnation, with the object being moksha, or release from reincarnation
Brahma: the creator god
Vishnu: the protector god
Shiva (Siva): the destructive god
sects: a group of people with a particular religion faith (like a denomination)
reincarnation: the idea that when you die, your soul is reborn somewhere else
samsara: the cycle of rebirth
karma: everything you did (decides if you are reincarnated up or down in society)
dharma: your duty, the things you should do
moksha: release from the cycle of rebirth
guru: a spiritual teacher
Buddhism: a religion and way of life
Siddhartha Gautama: the founder of buddhism, the buddha himself
Four Noble Truths: life is suffering, the cause of suffering is desire, you can stop desire, you can stop desire through the Eightfold Path
nirvana: enlightenment, release from the cycle of rebirth
Eightfold Path: the path to nirvana: seeking right understanding, right motives, right speech, right action, right way to make money, right effort, right intellectual activity, and right contemplation
Three Baskets of Wisdom: a series of scriptures; what the Buddha said
Tripitaka:
Theraveda: type of Buddhism - sort of the original Buddhism
Mahayana: type of Buddhism - adding bodhisattvas, transfer of religious merit, nirvana as a series of heavens, the idea of the Maitreya Buddha who will return to save humanity, worship of Buddha as a god
Mahavira: founder of Jainism
Jainism: religion completely against hurting anything, to the point that they wear masks over their mouths to keep from breathing anything in and sweep the path in front of them to clear it of life: extreme nonviolence
Mauryan Empire (Dynasty): Chandragupta, Bindusara, Asoka, from Afghanistan to the Deccan plateau
Chandragupta Maurya: founder of the Mauryan empire
Pataliputra:
Asoka (Ashoka): Mauryan ruler who conquered a lot, saw a bloody battle’s aftermath, converted to Buddhism and worked to spread it
Kalinga: the battle that caused Asoka’s conversion
stupa:
Tamil:
Gupta Empire: empire begun through a lucky marriage; it's two hundred years of existence are India’s Golden Age
Chandra Gupta I (Chandragupta I): founder of the Gupta empire, originally a nobody who married into a famous family and changed his name to gain legitimacy, his son was one of India's greatest military conquerors
Kalidasa: a poet who wrote the epic poems Meghaduta and
pastoral: farming
Magadha:
political fragmentation: being made up of multiple small divisions or fragments instead of having one ruler to unify all of them
rock and pillar edicts:
Puranas: stories of legend and myth
Artha-sastra: manual of statecraft written by Kautilya
Kautilya: wrote the Artha-sastra
the Deccan plateau:
guilds:
Gandharan Art: a combination of artistic styles from Greece, Persia, and India - Buddha in a toga
Shakas: a group of people pushed to invade India by the Hunas (branch of the Xiongnu)
Kushanas (Kushans): see above
Gujarat: a modern Indian state taking its and from the Gujaras who came to India with the Hunas and settled there permanently
"golden age": the height of cultural richness
Hunas: a branch of the Hunas who invaded India and brought about the fall of the Gupta empire
Harsha-vardhana (Harsha): a Gupta guy who made the last attempt to re-unify the Gupta empire
East Asia:
arable:
Ring of Fire: a ring of volcanoes
archipelago:
Middle Kingdom: the Xiang dynasty’s name for themselves
Wade-Giles: old system of romanizing Chinese characters
pinyin: new system of romanization
postal system:
Chinese heartland: the north china plain
Manchuria:
Mongolia:
Xinjiang: Turkestan
Xizang:
loess: nutrient-rich soil blown in from deserts in the west and north
"River of Sorrow": also the yellow river and Huang He, so called because of its unpredictable and deadly floods
Three Gorges Dam:
Ban Po: site of early chinese river valley civilization
Xia Dynasty: a legendary dynasty, supposedly the first to combine cows and plows, write, fertilize the land, and such, though there is no archaeological evidence for their existence
Shang Dynasty: another dynasty that was legendary, however we found oracle bones to prove their existence
Son of Heaven:
feudalism: pledging loyalty to a lord and landlord
oracle bones: bones covered in pictographic writing used to communicate with the ancestors, who then talked to the gods. It went from god to ancestor to oracle to bone
Anyang: capital of the Shang dynasty
Zhou dynasty: introduction of the dynastic cycle, building of roads and canals, coin money, ended in warring states (war between feudal lords or warlords)
Mandate of Heaven: the idea that a ruler has the right to rule because the ancestors have given him the mandate of heaven
dynastic cycle: get mandate of heaven, rule for a long time, natural disaster happens or people riot, another person claims that they now have the mandate of heaven, rinse and repeat
Confucianism: belief in family descendants and filial piety
Confucius (Kongfuzi): founder of confucianism, tried to spread ideology while alive but failed, became popular after his death
five relationships: ruler and subject, father and son, husband and wife, older brother and younger brother, friend and friend
Analects:
Mencius:
filial piety:
Laodzi: founder of Daoism
Daoism (Taoism): belief in harmony with nature
Daodejing (Tao Te Ching):
I Ching:
yin and yang: symbols of overall harmony
wuwei: actionless activity - "It does nothing, for the sake of doing it, and so there is nothing which it does not do."
Legalism: belief in harmony of a well-regulated state
Han Feizi:
Warring States Period: after the collapse of the western zhou, much politicking, invention of the cavalry, iron weapons, and the crossbow
warlords: feudal lords who warred
Luoyang: new location of Han capital after the move from Chang’an
gentry: nobles
veneration of ancestors: worshipping your ancestors, such as your father, grandfather, and so on and so forth
Qin Dynasty: extremely short dynasty with the crazy Legalist guy Shi Huangdi
(Qin) Shi Huangdi: leader of the Qin dynasty, made the terra cotta soldiers, high taxes, standardization of writing system, elaborate tomb with flowing mercury and such, division into districts and prefectures, obsessed with the number six, the color black, and water, built packed-earth great wall, forced labor system, facilitation of trade, development of money, wagon axles, and roads
Xianyang:
Han Dynasty: centralized government, commanderies, lower taxes, softer punishments, combination of legalism and confucianism, expansion through conquest and encouraged intermarriage, stratified, civil service and Confucian academy, paper, collar harness, two-bladed plow, monopolies, rise of farmers, writing down of history, lessons and admonitions for women, both Former Han and Later Han
Chang'an: original capital
civil service: required service used to make roads and such
Silk Road: a series of trade routes linking China to western asia
Xiongnu: also the Mongols, a group of Mongolians who constantly caused problems for the early Chinese
(Han) wudi: Liu Bang’a great grandson, most prolific ruler
Sima Qian: the Grand Historian
public works: projects where people were forced to work on walls and canals, mostly for the military
Liu Bang: founder of the han dynasty
Bactria: Somewhere in the middle east, supplied China with horses which were in great demand
Parthians: Iranians
Sinicization: much like assimilation, the process of absorbing other cultures into one large culture, but only applying to China
Wang Mang: guy who overthrew the han in the space between Former and Later han
Three Kingdoms and Six Dynasties Period: time after the Han dynasty
Admonitions for Women and Biographies of Heroic Women: urged women to be self-sacrificing, serving others, humble, obedient, and industrious
Europe:
Minoans:
Arthur Evans:
Knossos:
fresco: a form of art where pictures are painted on wet plaster; once the plaster dries, the fresco will last a long time
Myceneans:
Mycenae, Tiryns, Pylos:
Troy:
Heinrich Schliemann:
Dorians: early Greeks
Homer: wandering bard who wrote the Illiad and the Odyssey
Illiad:
Odyssey: follows the journey of Odysseus, mostly as he returns from the Trojan war
epic:
myths:
polis: a city-state
acropolis:
agora: a vase
tyrant/tyranny: someone who takes power by force
Athens: a Greek city-state
Draco:
Cleisthenes:
Council of 500:
Sparta: a Greek city-state
Council of Elders: a council consisting of old people who were part of the Spartan bureaucracy (since Sparta was highly militaristic, old people weren't common)
Messenia:
helots: Spartan slaves
Olympics:
hoplites: greek warriors
phalanx: a military formation that is roughly shaped like a triangle, with people along the outside of the triangle bearing shields to protect their neighbor and spears to attack their enemy, and people on the inside pushing against those on the outside to force their way into enemy lines
trireme:
Persian Wars: (Greece won)
Marathon:
Thermopylae:
Salamis:
Delian League: a league formed by Athens after the Persian wars, supposedly for protection; they were originally led by a group but Athens began to take over, not permitting anyone to leave, which started the Peloponnesian wars
Pericles:
direct democracy: where the people have a direct say regarding the government (not like ours, where we elect a representative, that is a representative democracy)
Parthenon: giant temple built in Athens
classical art:
tragedy:
Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides: three playwrights who pioneered tragedy and comedy
comedy:
Aristophanes:
Herodotus:
Thucydides:
Peloponnesian League: a league formed by Sparta to counter Athens' Delian League
Peloponnesian War: a war between Athens + the Delian League and Sparta + the Peloponnesian League (Sparta won)
philosophy/philosophers:
Socrates: taught people to question themselves, developed Socratic Method of learning through questioning, was killed
Plato:wrote the Republic, about the perfect society led by a philosopher-king, with stupid people kicked out
Aristotle: philosopher who taught Alexander the Great, focused on logic
Phillip II:
Macedonia:
Thebes:
Chaeronea:
Alexander the Great:
Hellespont:
Granicus, Issus, Gaugamela:
Antigonus:
Seleucus:
Ptolemy:
Hellenistic:
Alexandria:
Euclid:
Archimedes:
Stoicism:
Epicureanism: the idea of having pleasure in your life (rich food, fine wines, beautiful/handsome people), but in moderation
Latins:
Etruscans/Etruria:
republic:
patricians:
plebians:
Twelve Tables: the first publicly visible laws for Rome
tribunes:
consuls:
senate:
dictator: a person with absolute power
gravitas: the Roman ideal
Cincinnatus:
legion:
Carthage:
Punic Wars: a series of three wars between Rome and Carthage (Rome won)
Hannibal: a Carthaginian general who really hated Rome, with such conviction that he led an army (including war elephants) through the Alps to attack Rome. He was going to beat them (he had several important victories, particularly at the battle of Cannae), but had to give it up and return home to defend Carthage against a Roman counterattack
Numidia:
Dalmatia:
Scipio:
Zama:
Tiberius and Gaius Graccus: two brothers who tried to bring about a change in the social gap between plebians and patricians
Julius Caesar:
triumvirate:
"bread and circuses": a government policy of distracting the public from the problems within
Celts:people who lived in Gaul and the area of Germany
Gaul: the region of France
Pompey:
Mark Antony:
Octavian/Augustus:
Cleopatra:
Actium:
Pax Romana: the peace of Rome
the "good" emperors:
Trajan:
Hadrian:
Marcus Aurelius:
Christianity:
judea:
Messiah:
Jesus:
New Testament:
Gospels:
apostles:
Paul (of Tarsus):
martyrs: people who have died for their religion
Constantine:
Edict of Milan:
Theodosius:
bishop:
Peter:
pope:
Nicene Creed/Council of Nicaea: refinement of Christian beliefs
sacraments:
St. Augustine:
Inflation: the rise of prices and the lowering of monetary value (examples: gas used to be 75¢, now it's $3.89; one dollar used to get you dinner, now it gets you a bag of chips)
mercenaries: warriors for hire
Diocletian:
Byzantium/Constantinople:
Germanic peoples:
Huns:
Attila:
Greco-Roman culture:
mosaics: art consisting of small pieces of glass arranged to form patterns or pictures
Pompeii: Roman city preserved when Mt. Vesuvius erupted and covered it in volcanic ash, the source of much of our knowledge of Roman daily life
Virgil: a Roman poet
Aeneid:
Western Civilization:
Livy:
Tacitus:
Romance languages: languages which developed from Latin, consisting of Spanish, French, Portugese, Romanian, and Italian
aqueducts: a system of transporting water
Colosseum: in general, an arena built to house gladiatorial games; specifically a colosseum built in Rome that still stands today
Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa:
Nubia:
Kush:
Meroe:
tsetse fly: a fly carrying a deadly disease
savanna:
animism: worship of spirits
griots: similar to historians, people who passed down oral history
Nok:
Djenne-Djeno:
Bantu:
Bantu migrations:
Axum (Aksum):
Ezana:
camel: a pack animal
saddle: something people use to sit on animals
stirrup: part of a saddle where you place your feet
lateen sail: a special triangular sail that makes a ship more maneuverable and is itself easier to change
Indian Ocean Maritime System: the system of aquatic trade routes leading from the Red Sea to India and then to Southeast Asia
Parthians:
Silk Road: a series of trade routes, mostly over land, that link China to Western Asia and beyond
Latin America
pampas:
tropical wet:
tropical wet and dry:
semiarid:
steppe:
savanna:
rain shadow: the side of a mountain that does not get rain because the mountain blocks the rain clouds
tierra caliente:
tierra templada:
tierra fria:
Mesoamerica: Central or Middle America, from Mexico to Panama
maize: a crop very similar to corn
shaman:
chinampas: a technological development used to grow crops; a large mound of plants with irrigation and lined with stones that could be removed to allow drainage
Olmec(s):
La Venta:
obsidian: a volcanic rock used as a weapon instead of metal; very high trade value
Zapotec:
Monte Alban:
Teotihuacan:
Quetzalcoatl:
Pyramid of the Sun:
Avenue of the Dead:
Tikal:
Copan:
Palenque:
Maya(n):
stelae (stele):
Popul Vuh: a more recent book that gives a lot of insight into Mayan culture
Xibalba:
Long Count: the long calendar used by the Mayans that gives an account based on rulers
Uxmal:
Chichen Itza:
glyphs:
vertical trade: a type of trade where different regions of a mountain can produce different goods, and trade goes up and down the mountain
Chavin:
Chavin de Huantar:
Nazca:
Moche (Mochica):
Sipan:
khipu (quipu):
mit'a (mita):
ayllu:
llama: a pack animal that can carry thirty pounds more than a human; one person can control thirty of them
manioc:
quinoa: a protein-rich crop
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