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The Iberian Conquest of the Americas
European explorers began to probe the Western Hemisphere in the early 1500s, and they found to their utter amazement not only a huge landmass but also a world filled with several diverse and populous indigenous cultures. Among their most...
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Fertile Crescent - Cradle of Civilization
The Fertile Crescent is a region stretching from northern Egypt across to the Persian Gulf and was the home to the oldest civilizations in history such as the Sumerians, earning it the common name of the 'Cradle of Civilization'. First populated...
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The Debate Between Sheep and Grain
The Debate Between Sheep and Grain (c. 2000 BCE) is one of the best-known Sumerian literary debates in a genre that was popular entertainment by the late 3rd millennium BCE. In this piece, personifications of grain and sheep argue which is...
Article
The Mayan Pantheon: The Many Gods of the Maya
The pantheon of the Maya is a vast collection of deities worshipped throughout the regions of Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Campeche, Tabasco, and Chiapas in Mexico and southward through Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras. These gods informed...
Definition
British Industrial Revolution
The British Industrial Revolution (1760-1840) brought innovative mechanisation and deep social change. The process saw the invention of steam-powered machines, which were used in factories in ever-growing urban centres. Agriculture remained...
Definition
Fertile Crescent
The Fertile Crescent, often called the "Cradle of Civilization", is the region in the Middle East which curves, like a quarter-moon shape, from the Persian Gulf, through modern-day southern Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and northern...
Definition
Demeter
Demeter was one of the oldest gods in the ancient Greek pantheon. Demeter was a goddess of agriculture and guaranteed the fertility of the earth. She protected both farming and vegetation. The close connection with the earth was inherited...
Definition
Ninurta
Ninurta (identified with Ningirsu, Pabilsag, and the biblical Nimrod) is the Sumerian and Akkadian hero-god of war, hunting, and the south wind. He first appears in texts in the early 3rd millennium BCE as an agricultural god and local deity...
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Sioux Story of The Gift of Corn
Corn (maize) was central to the lives of Native Americans across North, Central, and South America. Maize was introduced to North America from Mesoamerica c. 700/900 CE and transformed the lives of the indigenous peoples. Every tribal nation...
Article
The Song of the Hoe
The Song of the Hoe is a Sumerian praise poem celebrating the hoe for its many uses and linking it to the creation of the world by the great god Enlil. As the economy of Mesopotamia was almost entirely based on agriculture, it is not surprising...