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| A Neolithic site located in North-Western Jordan, on the outskirts of Amman. It dates as far back as 7250 BC, and was inhabited until 5000 BC. At 15 hectares (37 acres), Ain Ghazal ranks as one of the largest known prehistoric settlements in the Near East. |
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| A king of Macedon or Macedonia, a state in the north eastern region of Greece, and the creator of one of the most successful commanders of all time. |
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| The people from the city founded by Sargon I in northern Babylonia. |
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| A member of one of the principal tribes, or nations, of Canaan before its conquest by the Israelites. |
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| King of Assyria (883-859 BC) who consolidated the conquests of his father, Tukulti-Ninurta II, leading to the establishment of the New Assyrian Empire; he is best known for his brutal frankness in dealing with his captives, the details of which can be found from his own inscriptions and the splendid reliefs in the ruins of his palace at Calah (Iraq). |
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| Those belonging to an Northern Mesopotamian ancient empire that stretched from Egypt to the Persian Gulf, reaching its greatest extent between 721 and 633 BC. |
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| An ancient city of Southwestern Asia, on the Euphrates River, famed for its magnificence and culture: capital of Babylonia and later of the Chaldean empire. |
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| A 32-acre Neolithic site in south-central turkey, dated 6500-5500 BCE, one of the first true cities, characterized by a fully developed agriculture and extensive trading, particularly in obsidian, and having frescoed temples, mud-brick fortifications and houses, and mother-goddess figures. |
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| A fortress in a commanding position in or near a city. |
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| A sovereign state consisting of an independent city and its surrounding territory. |
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| A Babylonian legal code of the 18th century BCE or earlier, instituted by Hammurabi and dealing with criminal and civil matters. |
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| Any of the open spaces between the merlons of a battlement. |
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| A rampart built around the top of a castle with regular gaps for firing arrows or guns. |
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| Composed of slim triangular or wedge-shaped elements, as the characters used in writing by the ancient Akkadians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and others. |
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| A small carved cylinder used especially by the ancient Mesopotamians to impress a design in wet clay. |
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| A gold coin and monetary unit of ancient Persia. |
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| King of Persia (521-486 BCE) who extended the Persian empire and crushed the revolt of the Ionian city states (500 BCE); he led two expeditions against Greece but was defeated at Marathon (490 BCE). |
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| A granular igneous rock consisting essentially of plagioclase feldspar and hornblende. |
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| An epic poem from Mesopotamia that is among the earliest known works of literature; it is believed that the epic originated as a series of Sumerian legends and poems about the protagonist of the story, Gilgamesh king of Uruk and his close male companion, Enkidu.. |
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| A river in Southwestern Asia flowing from Eastern Turkey though Syria and Iraq, joining the Tigris to form the Shatt-al-Arab near the Persian Gulf. |
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| An area of fertile land in the Middle East, extending around the Rivers Tigris and Euphrates in a semicircle from Israel to the Persian Gulf, where the Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Phoenician, and Hebrew civilizations flourished. |
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| A legendary Sumerian king, the hero of Sumerian and Babylonian epics. |
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| Having a surface covered with a glaze or having been fitted or set with glass. |
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| Gold in the form of very thin foil, as for gilding. |
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| A basic system of references lines for a region, consisting of straight lines intersecting at right angles. |
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| The ruler of the state of Lagash in Southern Mesopotamia who ruled circa 2144-2124 BCE; he is recognizable today because he had numerous statues or idols, depicting him with unprecedented, lifelike realism, placed in temples throughout Sumer. |
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| 18th century BCE king of Babylonia; Promulgator of one of the earliest known codes of law. |
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| The manipulation of size and space in a picture to emphasize importance of a specific object. |
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| A protective deity, often depicted with a bull or lion's body, eagle's wings, and a human's head. |
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| The symbols used in a work of art or art movement, as well as the conventional significance attached to such symbols. |
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| The Sumerian goddess of sexual love, fertility, and warfare. Her Akkadian counterpart is Ishtar. |
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| Decorated or made with a design set into the surface. |
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| The eighth gate to the inner city of Babylon that was constructed in about 575 BCE by the order of King Nebuchadnezzar II on the north side of the city and was dedicated to the Babylonian goddess Ishtar; the gate was made using lapis lazuli with alternating rows of bas-relief dragons and aurochs. |
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| An ancient city of Palestine north of the Dead Sea and formerly in Western Jordan; the first fortified and most important city in the Jordan Valley. |
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| An ancient Assyrian city located south of Nineveh on the river Tigris in modern Ninawa Governorate Iraq. |
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| A musical instrument of Ancient Greece consisting of a soundbox made typically from a turtle shell, with two curved arms connected by a yoke from which strings are stretched to the body, used especially to accompany singing and recitation. |
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| A region of Southwestern Asia between the lower and middle reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers; site of several ancient civilizations. |
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| A creature depicted on the reconstructed Ishtar Gate of the city of Babylon, originally dating to the 6th century BCE; it is a mythological hybrid, a scaly dragon with hind legs like an eagle's talons and feline forelegs with a long neck and tail, a horned head, a snake-like tongue, and a crest. |
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| Akkadian king (2254-2218 BCE) who was the third successor and grandson of King Sargon of Akkad and who allowed the Akkadian Empire to reach its zenith; he was the first Mesopotamian king known to have claimed divinity for himself. |
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| King of Babylon (605-562 BCE) who conquered and destroyed Jerusalem and exiled the Jews to Babylon. |
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| An ancient city in Assyria that was founded in about 1250 BCE and destroyed by the Medes in 612 BC. |
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| A volcanic glass similar in composition to granite, usually dark but transparent in thin pieces, and having a good conchoidal fracture. |
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| An ancient empire located in Western and Southwestern Asia; at its height, it extended from Egypt and the Aegean to India. |
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| A unit symbol of a phonetic writing system, standing for a speech sound, syllable, or other sequence of speech sounds without reference to meaning. |
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| A book in which records of acts, events, names, etc., are kept. |
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| An ancient Egyptian percussion instrument consisting of a looped metal frame set in a handle and fitted with loose crossbars that rattle when shaken. |
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| An upright stone slab or pillar bearing an inscription or design and serving as a monument, marker, or the like. |
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| An instrument of metal, bone, or the like, used by the ancients for writing on waxed tablets, having one end pointed for incising the letters and the other end blunt for rubbing out writing and smoothing the tablet. |
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| An ancient Sumerian city in Southern Iraq, near the Euphrates, important before 2000 BCE; this archaeological site has produced a ziggurat and a tablet with very early Sumerian script. |
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| One or more objects deposited, without the intention of recovery or use, in a sacred place for broadly religious purposes; they were generally made in order to gain favor with religious purposes. |
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| A group of ceramic types classified according to paste and texture, surface modification, as burnish or glaze, and decorative motifs rather than shape and color. |
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| A temple of Sumerian origin in the form of a pyramidal tower, consisting of a number of stories and having about the outside a broad ascent winding round the structure, presenting the appearance of a series of terraces. |
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