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Pronouncing pictures! - History of Writing Systems #4 (Rebus writing)
Watch ancient Sumerians figure out how to use pictures to write sounds for the first time in history. See why the Egyptians disagree with their approach. Meaning writing (logographs) let early writers get civilized and document their thoughts...
Video
Scribes in Mesopotamia
Professor of Hittite and Anatolian Languages Theo van den Hout tells us about who scribes in Mesopotamia and Anatolia were. This video was made for the Oriental Institute Museum special exhibit "Visible Language: Inventions of Writing...
Video
Cuneiform Hand-Me-Downs - how Sumerian outlived its speakers
My favorite example of how odd Cuneiform became as it was passed from civilization to civilization. Thanks, rampant Sumerianization! Cuneiform languages took Sumerian very seriously, even after it was long dead. That’s how Akkadian and...
Video
Health Care and Epidemics in Antiquity: The Example of Ancient Mesopotamia
June 26, 2006 Walter Farber, Professor of Assyriology, University of Chicago From the "Epidemics Then & Now: Infectious Diseases Around the World," the 2006 University of Chicago Summer Institute for Educators. Co-sponsored by the Center...
Definition
Cuneiform
Cuneiform is a system of writing first developed by the ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia c. 3500 BCE. It is considered the most significant among the many cultural contributions of the Sumerians and the greatest among those of the Sumerian...
Definition
Bantu Migration
The Bantu migration from their origins in southern West Africa saw a gradual population movement sweep through the central, eastern, and southern parts of the continent starting in the mid-2nd millennium BCE and finally ending before 1500...
Definition
Canaan
Canaan was the name of a large and prosperous ancient country (at times independent, at others a tributary to Egypt) located in the Levant region of present-day Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Israel. It was also known as Phoenicia. The origin...
Definition
The Hittites
The Hittites occupied the ancient region of Anatolia (also known as Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey) prior to 1700 BCE, developed a culture apparently from the indigenous Hatti (and possibly the Hurrian) people, and expanded their territories...
Definition
Medieval Literature
Medieval literature is defined broadly as any work written in Latin or the vernacular between c. 476-1500, including philosophy, religious treatises, legal texts, as well as works of the imagination. More narrowly, however, the term applies...
Definition
Aryan
Aryan is a designation originally meaning “civilized”, “noble”, or “free” without reference to any ethnicity. It was first applied as a self-identifying term by a migratory group of people from Central Asia later known as Indo-Iranians (who...