1. Canaan |ˈkānən|

the biblical name for the area of ancient Palestine west of the Jordan River, the Promised Land of the Israelites, who conquered and occupied it during the latter part of the 2nd millennium bc.

ORIGIN

early 17th century: via ecclesiastical Latin from ecclesiastical Greek Khanaan, from Hebrew kĕna`an .

Canaan (/ˈkeɪnən/; Northwest Semitic: knaʿn; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍; Biblical Hebrew/ Masoretic: כְּנָעַן [Kənā‘an; Ḵənā‘an]) was a Semitic-speaking region in the Ancient Near East during the late 2nd millennium BC. In the Bible it corresponds to the Levant, in particular to the areas of the Southern Levant that provide the main setting of the narrative of the Hebrew Bible, i.e., the area of Israel, Philistia, Phoenicia, and other nations.

The name Canaan occurs commonly in the Hebrew Bible, with particular definition in references Genesis 10 and Numbers 34, where the "Land of Canaan" extends from Lebanon southward to the "Brook of Egypt" and eastward to the Jordan River Valley. References to Canaan in the Bible are usually backward-looking, referring to a region that had become something else (i.e., the Land of Israel).

2. Palestine |ˈpaləˌstīn|

a territory in the Middle East on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea.

In biblical times Palestine comprised the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The land was controlled at various times by the Egyptian, Assyrian, Persian, and Roman empires before being conquered by the Arabs in ad 634. It was part of the Ottoman Empire from 1516 to 1918. The name Palestine was used as the official political title for the land west of the Jordan mandated to Britain in 1920; in 1948, the state of Israel was established in what was traditionally Palestine, but the name continued to be used in the context of the struggle for territory and political rights of displaced Palestinian Arabs. In 1993, an agreement was signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization giving some autonomy to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and setting up the Palestine National Authority and a police force, but this proved unsuccessful in bringing the conflict to a resolution.

ORIGIN

from Greek Palaistinē (used in early Christian writing), from Latin (Syria) Palaestina (the name of a Roman province), from Philistia ‘land of the Philistines.’

3. Attica |ˈadəkə|

1 a triangular promontory in eastern Greece. With the islands in the Saronic Gulf, it forms a department of Greece, of which Athens is the capital.

2 a town in western New York, the scene of a bloody 1971 prison uprising; population 7,533 (est. 2008).

Attica (Greek: Αττική, Ancient Greek Attikḗ or Attikī́; Ancient Greek: [atːikɛ̌ː] or Modern: [atiˈci]) is a historical region that encompasses the city of Athens, the capital of Greece. The historical region is centered on the Attic peninsula, which projects into the Aegean Sea. The modern administrative region of Attica is more extensive than the historical region and includes the Saronic Islands, Cythera, and the municipality of Troizinia on the Peloponnesian mainland. The history of Attica is tightly linked with that of Athens, which, from the classical period, was one of the most important cities in the ancient world.

4. Babylonia |ˌbabəˈlōnēə|

an ancient region of Mesopotamia, formed when the kingdoms of Akkad in the north and Sumer in the south combined in the first half of the 2nd millennium bc.

Babylonia was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq). A small Amorite-ruled state emerged in 1894 BC, which contained at this time the minor city of Babylon.[1] Babylon greatly expanded during the reign of Hammurabi in the first half of the 18th century BC, becoming a major capital city. During the reign of Hammurabi and afterwards, Babylonia was called Māt Akkadī "the country of Akkad" in the Akkadian language.[2][3] It was often involved in rivalry with its older fellow Akkadian-speaking state of Assyria in northern Mesopotamia. Babylonia briefly became the major power in the region after Hammurabi (fl. c. 1792 – 1752 BC middle chronology, or c. 1696 – 1654 BC, short chronology) created a short-lived empire, succeeding the earlier Akkadian Empire, Third Dynasty of Ur, and Old Assyrian Empire; however, the Babylonian empire rapidly fell apart after the death of Hammurabi.

The Babylonian state, like Assyria to the north, retained the written Akkadian language for official use (the language of its native populace), despite its Northwest Semitic-speaking Amorite founders and Kassite successors, who spoke a language isolate. It retained the Sumerian language for religious use (as did Assyria), but by the time Babylon was founded, this was no longer a spoken language, having been wholly subsumed by Akkadian. The earlier Akkadian and Sumerian traditions played a major role in Babylonian and Assyrian culture, and the region would remain an important cultural center, even under protracted periods of outside rule.

The earliest mention of the city of Babylon can be found in a clay tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad (2334–2279 BC), dating back to the 23rd century BC. Babylon was merely a religious and cultural centre at this point and neither an independent state nor a large city; like the rest of Mesopotamia, it was subject to the Akkadian Empire which united all the Akkadian and Sumerian speakers under one rule. After the collapse of the Akkadian empire, the south Mesopotamian region was dominated by the Gutian people for a few decades before the rise of the Third Dynasty of Ur, which, apart from northern Assyria, encompassed the whole of Mesopotamia, including the city of Babylon.

5. Assyria |əˈsirēə|

an ancient country in what is now northern Iraq. From the early part of the 2nd millennium bc, Assyria was the center of a succession of empires.

Assyria was a major Mesopotamian East Semitic-speaking kingdom and empire of the ancient Near East. It existed as a state from perhaps as early as the 25th century BC in the form of the Assur city-state,[1] until its lapse between 612 BC and 599 BC, spanning the Early to Middle Bronze Age through to the late Iron Age.[2][3]

From the end of the seventh century BC to the mid-seventh century AD, it survived as a geopolitical entity, for the most part ruled by foreign powers, although a number of Neo-Assyrian states arose at different times during the Parthian and early Sasanian Empires between the mid-second century BC and late third century AD, a period which also saw Assyria become a major centre of Syriac Christianity and the birthplace of the Church of the East.[4]

Centered on the Tigris in Upper Mesopotamia (modern northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and the northwestern fringes of Iran), the Assyrians came to rule powerful empires at several times. Making up a substantial part of the greater Mesopotamian "cradle of civilization", which included Sumer, the Akkadian Empire, and Babylonia, Assyria was at the height of technological, scientific and cultural achievements for its time. At its peak, the Assyrian empire stretched from Cyprus and the East Mediterranean to Iran, and from what is now Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Caucasus, to the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt and eastern Libya.[5]

Assyria is named after its original capital, the ancient city of Aššur, which dates to c. 2600 BC, originally one of a number of Akkadian city states in Mesopotamia. In the 25th and 24th centuries BC, Assyrian kings were pastoral leaders. From the late 24th century BC, the Assyrians became subject to Sargon of Akkad, who united all the Akkadian- and Sumerian-speaking peoples of Mesopotamia under the Akkadian Empire, which lasted from c. 2334 BC to 2154 BC.[6]

After its fall from power, the greater remaining part of Assyria was a geopolitical region and province of other empires, although between the mid-2nd century BC and late 3rd century AD a patchwork of small independent Assyrian kingdoms arose in the form of Ashur, Adiabene, Osroene, Beth Nuhadra, Beth Garmai and Hatra. The region of Assyria fell under the successive control of the Median Empire, the Achaemenid Empire, the Macedonian Empire, the Seleucid Empire, the Parthian Empire, the Roman Empire, and the Sasanian Empire. The Arab Islamic Conquest in the mid-seventh century finally dissolved Assyria (Assuristan) as a single entity, after which the remnants of the Assyrian people (by now Christians) gradually became an ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious minority in the Assyrian homeland, surviving there to this day as an indigenous people of the region.

6. Mesopotamia |ˌmesəpəˈtāmēə|

an ancient region of southwestern Asia in present-day Iraq, lying between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Its alluvial plains were the site of the civilizations of Akkad, Sumer, Babylonia, and Assyria.

ORIGIN

from Greek mesos ‘middle’ + potamos ‘river.’

Mesopotamia (/ˌmɛsəpəˈteɪmiə/, Ancient Greek: Μεσοποταμία "[land] between rivers"; from Ancient Armenian Միջագետք (Mijagetq); Arabic: بلاد الرافدين‎‎ bilād ar-rāfidayn; Kurdish: میزۆپۆتامیا‎; Persian: میان‌رودان‎‎ miyān rodān; Syriac: ܒܝܬ ܢܗܪܝܢ‎ Beth Nahrain "land of rivers") was a historical region situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in modern days roughly corresponding to most of Iraq plus Kuwait, the eastern parts of Syria, Southeastern Turkey, and regions along the Turkish-Syrian and Iran–Iraq borders.

Widely considered to be one of the cradles of civilization by the Western world, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the Akkadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian empires, all native to the territory of modern-day Iraq. In the Iron Age, it was controlled by the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires.

The Sumerians and Akkadians (including Assyrians and Babylonians) dominated Mesopotamia from the beginning of written history (c. 3100 BC) to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC, when it was conquered by the Achaemenid Empire. It fell to Alexander the Great in 332 BC, and after his death, it became part of the Greek Seleucid Empire.

Around 150 BC, Mesopotamia was under the control of the Parthian Empire. Mesopotamia became a battleground between the Romans and Parthians, with western parts of Mesopotamia coming under ephemeral Roman control. In AD 226, eastern part of it fell to the Sassanid Persians. Division of Mesopotamia between Roman (Byzantine from AD 395) and Sassanid Empires lasted until the 7th century Muslim conquest of Persia of the Sasanian Empire and Muslim conquest of the Levant from Byzantines. A number of primarily neo-Assyrian and Christian native Mesopotamian states existed between the 1st century BC and 3rd century AD, including Adiabene, Osroene, and Hatra.

Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC.[citation needed] It has been identified as having "inspired some of the most important developments in human history including the invention of the wheel, the planting of the first cereal crops and the development of cursive script, mathematics, astronomy and agriculture."[1]

7. Hittite |ˈhitīt|

noun

1 a member of an ancient people who established an empire in Asia Minor and Syria that flourished from c.1700 to c.1200 bc.

• a subject of the Hittite empire or one of their descendants, including the members of a Canaanite or Syrian people mentioned in the Bible (11th to 8th century bc).

2 the Anatolian language of the Hittites, the earliest attested Indo-European language. Written in both hieroglyphic and cuneiform scripts, it was deciphered in the early 20th century.

adjective

relating to the Hittites, their empire, or their language.

ORIGIN

from Hebrew Ḥittīm, ultimately from Hittite Ḫatti .

The Hittites (/ˈhɪtaɪts/) were an Ancient Anatolian people who established an empire centered on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia around 1600 BC. This empire reached its height during the mid-14th century BC under Suppiluliuma I, when it encompassed an area that included most of Anatolia as well as parts of the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia. Between the 15th and 13th centuries BC the Hittite Empire came into conflict with the Egyptian Empire, Middle Assyrian Empire and the empire of the Mitanni for control of the Near East. The Assyrians eventually emerged as the dominant power and annexed much of the Hittite empire, while the remainder was sacked by Phrygian newcomers to the region. After c. 1180 BC, during the Bronze Age collapse, the Hittites splintered into several independent "Neo-Hittite" city-states, some of which survived until the 8th century BC before succumbing to the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

The Hittite language was a distinct member of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family, and along with the related Luwian language, is the oldest historically attested Indo-European language.[2] They referred to their native land as Hatti. The conventional name "Hittites" is due to their initial identification with the Biblical Hittites in 19th century archaeology. Despite their use of the name Hatti for their core territory, the Hittites should be distinguished from the Hattians, an earlier people who inhabited the same region (until the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC) and spoke an unrelated language known as Hattic which was probably a language isolate but may have been a Northwest Caucasian language.[3]

During the 1920s, interest in the Hittites increased with the founding of the modern Republic of Turkey and attracted the attention of archaeologists such as Halet Çambel and Tahsin Özgüç, leading to the decipherment of Hittite hieroglyphs. During this period, the new field of Hittitology also influenced the naming of institutions, such as the state-owned Etibank ("Hittite bank"),[4] and the foundation of the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara, located 200 kilometers west of the Hittite capital and housing the most comprehensive exhibition of Hittite artifacts in the world.

The history of the Hittite civilization is known mostly from cuneiform texts found in the area of their kingdom, and from diplomatic and commercial correspondence found in various archives in Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt and the Middle East, the decipherment of which was also a key event in the history of Indo-European linguistics. The Hittite military made successful use of chariots,[5] and although belonging to the Bronze Age, the Hittites were the forerunners of the Iron Age, developing the manufacture of iron artifacts from as early as the 18th century BC; at this time, gifts from the "man of Burushanda" of an iron throne and an iron sceptre to the Kaneshite king Anitta were recorded in the Anitta text inscription.

8. yoke 1 |yōk|

noun

1 a wooden crosspiece that is fastened over the necks of two animals and attached to the plow or cart that they are to pull.yoke 1

yoke 1

• (plural same or yokes) a pair of animals coupled together with a yoke: a yoke of oxen.

• archaic the amount of land that one pair of oxen could plow in a day.

• a frame fitting over the neck and shoulders of a person, used for carrying pails or baskets.

• used of something that is regarded as oppressive or burdensome: the yoke of imperialism.

• used of something that represents a bond between two parties: the yoke of marriage.

2 something resembling or likened to a yoke, in particular:

• a part of a garment that fits over the shoulders and to which the main part of the garment is attached, typically in gathers or pleats.

• the crossbar at the head of a rudder, to whose ends ropes are fastened.

• a bar of soft iron between the poles of an electromagnet.

• (in ancient Rome) an arch of three spears under which a defeated army was made to march.

• chiefly North American a control lever in an aircraft.

verb [with object]

1 put a yoke on (a pair of animals); couple or attach with or to a yoke: a plow drawn by a camel and donkey yoked together.

• cause (two people or things) to be joined in a close relationship: Hong Kong's dollar has been yoked to America's.

2 informal rob; mug: two crackheads yoked this girl.

ORIGIN

Old English geoc (noun), geocian (verb), of Germanic origin; related to Dutch juk,German Joch, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin jugum and Greek zugon, also by Latin jungere ‘to join.’

yoke 2 |jəʊk|

nounIrish informal

a thing whose name one cannot recall, does not know, or does not wish to specify: how much did that yoke set you back?

ORIGIN

early 20th century: of unknown origin.

9. Jerusalem |jəˈro͞os(ə)ləmjəˈro͞oz(ə)ləm|

the holy city of the Jews, sacred also to Christians and Muslims, lying in the Judaean hills about 20 miles (32 km) from the River Jordan; population 763,600 (est. 2008).

The city was captured from the Canaanites by King David of the Israelites (c.1000 bc), who made it his capital. As the site of the Temple, built by Solomon (957 bc), it became the center of the Jewish religion. Since then it has shared the troubled history of the area—destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 bc and by the Romans in ad 70, and fought over by Saracens and Crusaders in the Middle Ages. Between the 16th century and the First World War Jerusalem was part of the Ottoman Empire. From 1947 the city was divided between the states of Israel and Jordan until the Israelis occupied the whole city in June 1967 and proclaimed it the capital of Israel, although it is not recognized as such by the United Nations. Jerusalem is revered by Christians as the place of Christ's death and resurrection, and by Muslims as the site of the Dome of the Rock.

Jerusalem (/dʒəˈruːsələm/; Hebrew: יְרוּשָׁלַיִם‎ About this sound Yerushalayim [jeruʃaˈlajim]; Arabic: القُدس‎‎ About this sound al-Quds [alˈqʊds]),[i] is a city located on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. One of the oldest cities in the world, Jerusalem was named as "Urusalima" on ancient Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets, probably meaning "City of Shalem" after a Canaanite deity, during the early Canaanite period (approximately 2400 BCE). During the Israelite period, significant construction activity in Jerusalem began in the 9th century BCE (Iron Age II), and in the 8th century the city developed into the religious and administrative center of the Kingdom of Judah.[5] It is considered a holy city in the three major Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Israelis and Palestinians both claim Jerusalem as their capital, as the State of Israel maintains its primary governmental institutions there while the State of Palestine ultimately foresees the city as its seat of power; however, neither claim is widely recognized internationally.

During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times.[6] The part of Jerusalem called the City of David was settled in the 4th millennium BCE.[7] In 1538, walls were built around Jerusalem under Suleiman the Magnificent. Today those walls define the Old City, which has been traditionally divided into four quarters—known since the early 19th century as the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Quarters.[8] The Old City became a World Heritage Site in 1981, and is on the List of World Heritage in Danger.[9] Modern Jerusalem has grown far beyond the Old City's boundaries.

According to the Biblical tradition, King David conquered the city from the Jebusites and established it as the capital of the United Kingdom of Israel, and his son, King Solomon, commissioned the building of the First Temple. These foundational events, straddling the dawn of the 1st millennium BCE, assumed central symbolic importance for the Jewish people.[10] The sobriquet of holy city (עיר הקודש, transliterated ‘ir haqodesh) was probably attached to Jerusalem in post-exilic times.[11][12][13] The holiness of Jerusalem in Christianity, conserved in the Septuagint[14] which Christians adopted as their own authority,[15] was reinforced by the New Testament account of Jesus's crucifixion there. In Sunni Islam, Jerusalem is the third-holiest city, after Mecca and Medina.[16][17] In Islamic tradition in 610 CE it became the first qibla, the focal point for Muslim prayer (salat),[18] and Muhammad made his Night Journey there ten years later, ascending to heaven where he speaks to God, according to the Quran.[19][20] As a result, despite having an area of only 0.9 square kilometres (0.35 sq mi),[21] the Old City is home to many sites of seminal religious importance, among them the Temple Mount with its Western Wall, Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Outside the Old City stands the Garden Tomb.

Today, the status of Jerusalem remains one of the core issues in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, West Jerusalem was among the areas captured and later annexed by Israel while East Jerusalem, including the Old City, was captured and later annexed by Jordan. Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War and subsequently annexed it into Jerusalem, together with additional surrounding territory.[viii] One of Israel's Basic Laws, the 1980 Jerusalem Law, refers to Jerusalem as the country's undivided capital. All branches of the Israeli government are located in Jerusalem, including the Knesset (Israel's parliament), the residences of the Prime Minister and President, and the Supreme Court. Whilst the international community rejected the annexation as illegal and treats East Jerusalem as Palestinian territory occupied by Israel,[22][23][24][25] Israel has a stronger claim to sovereignty over West Jerusalem.[26][27] The international community does not recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and the city hosts no foreign embassies. Jerusalem is also home to some non-governmental Israeli institutions of national importance, such as the Hebrew University and the Israel Museum with its Shrine of the Book.

In 2011, Jerusalem had a population of 801,000, of which Jews comprised 497,000 (62%), Muslims 281,000 (35%), Christians 14,000 (around 2%) and 9,000 (1%) were not classified by religion.

10. Battle of Megiddo (15th century BC)

The Battle of Megiddo (15th century BC) was fought between Egyptian forces under the command of Pharaoh Thutmose III and a large rebellious coalition of Canaanite vassal states led by the king of Kadesh.[2] It is the first battle to have been recorded in what is accepted as relatively reliable detail. Megiddo is also the first recorded use of the composite bow and the first body count.[3] All details of the battle come from Egyptian sources—primarily the hieroglyphic writings on the Hall of Annals in the Temple of Amun-Re at Karnak, Thebes (now Luxor), by the military scribe Tjaneni.

The ancient Egyptian account gives the date of the battle as the 21st day of the first month of the third season, of Year 23 of the reign of Thutmose III. It has been claimed that this was April 16, 1457 BC according to the Middle Chronology, although other publications place the battle in 1482 BC or 1479 BC. The Battle of Megiddo was an Egyptian victory and resulted in a rout of the Canaanite forces, which fled to safety in the city of Megiddo. Their action resulted in the subsequent lengthy Siege of Megiddo.

By reestablishing Egyptian dominance in the Levant, Thutmose III began a reign in which the Egyptian Empire reached its greatest expanse.

11. Euphrates |yo͞oˈfrādēz|

a river of southwestern Asia that rises in the mountains of eastern Turkey and flows for 1,700 miles (2,736 km) through Syria and Iraq to join the Tigris River to form the Shatt al-Arab waterway.

The Euphrates (Listeni/juːˈfreɪtiːz/; Sumerian: 𒌓𒄒𒉣: Buranuna, Akkadian: 𒌓𒄒𒉣: Purattu, Arabic: الفرات‎‎: al-Furāt, Syriac: ̇ܦܪܬ‎: Pǝrāt, Armenian: Եփրատ: Yeprat, Hebrew: פרת‎‎: Perat, Turkish: Fırat, Kurdish: Firat‎) is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia. Originating in eastern Turkey, the Euphrates flows through Syria and Iraq to join the Tigris in the Shatt al-Arab, which empties into the Persian Gulf.

12. pharaoh |ˈferō|

noun

a ruler in ancient Egypt.

DERIVATIVES

pharaonic |ˌferāˈänik| adjective

ORIGIN

Middle English: via ecclesiastical Latin from Greek Pharaō, from Hebrew par῾ōh, from Egyptian pr-῾o ‘great house.’

The most powerful person in ancient Egypt was the pharaoh. The pharaoh was the political and religious leader of the Egyptian people, holding the titles: 'Lord of the Two Lands' and 'High Priest of Every Temple'.

As 'Lord of the Two Lands' the pharaoh was the ruler of Upper and Lower Egypt. He owned all of the land, made laws, collected taxes, and defended Egypt against foreigners.

As 'High Priest of Every Temple', the pharaoh represented the gods on Earth. He performed rituals and built temples to honour the gods.

Many pharaohs went to war when their land was threatened or when they wanted to control foreign lands. If the pharaoh won the battle, the conquered people had to recognise the Egyptian pharaoh as their ruler and offer him the finest and most valuable goods from their land.

13. Semite |ˈsemīt|

noun

a member of any of the peoples who speak or spoke a Semitic language, including in particular the Jews and Arabs.

ORIGIN

from modern Latin Semita, via late Latin from Greek Sēm ‘Shem,’ son of Noah in the Bible, from whom these people were traditionally supposed to be descended.

14. Amorite |ˈaməˌrīt|

noun

a member of seminomadic people living in Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Syria in the 3rd millennium bc, founders of Mari on the Euphrates and the first dynasty of Babylon.

adjective

relating to the Amorites.

ORIGIN

from Hebrew 'ĕmōrī, from Akkadian 'amurrū + -ite1.

The Amorites (/ˈæməˌraɪts/; Sumerian 𒈥𒌅 MAR.TU; Akkadian Tidnum or Amurrūm; Egyptian Amar; Hebrew אמורי ʼĔmōrī; Ancient Greek: Ἀμορραῖοι) were an ancient Semitic-speaking people[1] from Syria who also occupied large parts of southern Mesopotamia from the 21st century BC to the end of the 17th century BC, where they established several prominent city states in existing locations, notably Babylon which was raised from a small administrative town to an independent state and major city. The term Amurru in Akkadian and Sumerian texts refers to them, as well as to their principal deity.

15. Berber |ˈbərbər|

noun

1 a member of an indigenous people of North Africa. The majority of Berbers are settled farmers or (now) migrant workers.

2 the Afro-Asiatic language of the Berbers. There are several different dialects; some of them, e.g., Tamashek, are regarded by some scholars as separate languages.

adjective

relating to the Berbers or their language.

ORIGIN

from Arabic barbar, from Greek barbarus ‘foreigner’ (see barbarian) .

Mazices or Berbers (Berber: ⵉⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵏ Imaziɣen, singular: ⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖ Amaziɣ / Amazigh) are an ethnic group indigenous to North Africa. They are distributed in an area stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Siwa Oasis in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean Sea to the Niger River. Historically, they spoke Berber languages, which together form the Berber branch of the Afro-Asiatic family. Since the Muslim conquest of North Africa in the seventh century, a large number of Berbers inhabiting the Maghreb have acquired different degrees of knowledge of varieties of the languages of North Africa. After the colonization of North Africa by France, "the French government succeeded in integrating the French language in Algeria by making French the official national language and requiring all education to take place in French."[25] Foreign languages, mainly French and to some degree Spanish, inherited from former European colonial powers, are used by most educated Berbers in Algeria and Morocco in some formal contexts, such as higher education or business.

Today, most Berber people live in North Africa, mainly in Libya, Algeria, and Morocco;[1] Small Berber populations are also found in Niger, Mali, Mauritania, Tunisia, Burkina Faso and Egypt, as well as large immigrant communities living in France, Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and other countries of Europe.[26][27]

The majority of Berbers are predominantly Sunni Muslim.[28] The Berber identity is usually wider than language and ethnicity, and encompasses the entire history and geography of North Africa. Berbers are not an entirely homogeneous ethnicity and they encompass a range of phenotypes, societies and ancestries. The unifying forces for the Berber people may be their shared language, or a collective identification with Berber heritage and history.

There are some twenty-five to thirty million Berber speakers in North Africa.[1] The number of ethnic Berbers (including non-Berber speakers) is far greater, as a large part of the Berbers have acquired other languages over the course of many decades or centuries, and no longer speak Berber today. The majority of North Africa's population is believed to be Berber in origin, although due to Arabization most ethnic Berbers identify as Arabized Berbers.[29][30]

Berbers call themselves some variant of the word i-Mazigh-en (singular: a-Mazigh), possibly meaning "free people" or "noble men".[26] The name likely had its ancient parallel in the Roman and Greek names for Berbers, Mazices.[31] Some of the best known of the ancient Berbers are the Numidian king Masinissa, king Jugurtha, the Berber-Roman author Apuleius, Saint Augustine of Hippo, and the Berber-Roman general Lusius Quietus, who was instrumental in defeating the major wave of Jewish revolts of 115–117. Dihya or Kahina was a religious and military leader who led a fierce Berber resistance against the Arab-Muslim expansion in Northwest Africa. Kusaila was a seventh-century leader of the Awraba tribe of the Berber people and King of the Sanhadja confederation. Yusuf ibn Tashfin was king of the Berber Almoravid empire; Tariq ibn Ziyad the general who conquered Hispania; Abbas Ibn Firnas, a prolific inventor and early pioneer in aviation; Ibn Battuta, a medieval explorer who traveled the longest known distances of his time.

16. Kelts or Celts

The Celts were a large group of Caucasian tribes in Europe. They first appeared in the early Iron Age, around 1200 B.C. in Austria. It's an interesting fact that the name 'Celt' comes from the Romans, and in fact, the Celts would never have used that word themselves.They came from the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures. Their culture and genes spread through much of Europe, and by the time the Greeks and later the Romans started emerging, the British Isles and parts of western, southern and eastern Europe were Celtic - the most prominent Celtic tribes were in Gaul. The Celts spoke Celtic languages. Today, the Celtic languages that remain are the Breton, Cornish, Welsh and Gaelic languages.

Celtic society and technology, although not as advanced as the Romans, was far from being primitive for its time. The Celts lived a way of life based on ethical codes and honor codes and had developed a culture of their own, full of unique drawings, sculptures, jewellery, folklore, and building designs and techniques. They were also skilled in blacksmithing, farming and diplomacy.

Celtic warriors would wear war paint and try to scare their enemies by shouting war cries. Tribes had different dress standards for battle; some warriors wore chainmail and/or leather armor, some wore only clothes and some were known to fight fully naked. They also had their own type of sword that was very strong and a shield that was very protective.

When the Roman Republic started expanding, the Gauls and the Romans became very hostile towards each other and clashed on many occasions; however, the Romans were eventually able to defeat them and ended up conquering most of the Celtic tribes in Europe and ruled them until the fall of the Roman Empire. Celtic tribes also fought amongst each other. After winning a battle, the Celts would cut off the heads of their enemies and take them home.[1]

During the fall of the Roman Empire most of the old Celtic land ended up being ruled by migrating Germanic tribes and they merged with Romano-Celtic stock (people with both Roman and Celtic ancestry) to eventually form several European nations of today e.g. France. Territories that are still considered Celtic are Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Isle of Man, Cornwall and Brittany.

17. Judah |ˈjo͞odə|

1 (in the Bible) a Hebrew patriarch, the fourth son of Jacob and Leah.

• the tribe of Israel traditionally descended from him, the most powerful of the twelve tribes of Israel.

2 the southern part of ancient Palestine, occupied by the tribe of Judah. After the reign of Solomon (c.930 bc) it formed a separate kingdom from Israel. Later known as Judaea.

The Kingdom of Judah (Hebrew: מַמְלֶכֶת יְהוּדָה‎‎, Mamlekhet Yehudāh) was an Iron Age kingdom of the Southern Levant. The Hebrew Bible depicts it as the successor to a United Monarchy, but historians are divided about the veracity of this account. In the 10th and early 9th centuries BCE the territory of Judah appears to have been sparsely populated, limited to small rural settlements, most of them unfortified.[9] Jerusalem, the kingdom's capital, likely did not emerge as a significant administrative centre until the end of the 8th century; prior to this archaeological evidence suggests its population was too small to sustain a viable kingdom.[10] In the 7th century its population increased greatly, prospering under Assyrian vassalage (despite Hezekiah's revolt against the Assyrian king Sennacherib[11]), but in 605 the Assyrian Empire was defeated, and the ensuing competition between the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt and the Neo-Babylonian Empire for control of the Eastern Mediterranean led to the destruction of the kingdom in a series of campaigns between 597 and 582, the deportation of the elite of the community, and the incorporation of Judah into a province of the Neo-Babylonian Empire.

18. Jewish history

Jewish history (or the history of the Jewish people) is the history of the Jews, and their religion and culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions and cultures. Although Judaism as a religion first appears in Greek records during the Hellenistic period (323 BCE - 31 BCE) and the earliest mention of Israel is inscribed on the Merneptah Stele dated 1213–1203 BCE, religious literature tells the story of Israelites going back at least as far as c. 1500 BCE. The Jewish diaspora began with the Assyrian conquest and continued on a much larger scale with the Babylonian conquest. Jews were also widespread throughout the Roman Empire, and this carried on to a lesser extent in the period of Byzantine rule in the central and eastern Mediterranean. In 638 CE the Byzantine Empire lost control of the Levant. The Arab Islamic Empire under Caliph Omar conquered Jerusalem and the lands of Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine and Egypt. The Golden Age of Jewish culture in Spain coincided with the Middle Ages in Europe, a period of Muslim rule throughout much of the Iberian Peninsula. During that time, Jews were generally accepted in society and Jewish religious, cultural, and economic life blossomed.

During the Classical Ottoman period (1300–1600), the Jews, together with most other communities of the empire, enjoyed a certain level of prosperity. In the 17th century, there were many significant Jewish populations in Western Europe. During the period of the European Renaissance and Enlightenment, significant changes occurred within the Jewish community. Jews began in the 18th century to campaign for emancipation from restrictive laws and integration into the wider European society. During the 1870s and 1880s the Jewish population in Europe began to more actively discuss immigration back to Israel and the re-establishment of the Jewish Nation in its national homeland. The Zionist movement was founded officially in 1884. Meanwhile, the Jews of Europe and the United States gained success in the fields of science, culture and the economy. Among those generally considered the most famous were scientist Albert Einstein and philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. A large number of Nobel Prize winners at this time were Jewish, as is still the case.[1]

In 1933, with the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party in Germany, the Jewish situation became more severe. Economic crises, racial anti-Semitic laws, and a fear of an upcoming war led many Jews to flee from Europe to Palestine, to the United States and to the Soviet Union. In 1939 World War II began and until 1941 Hitler occupied almost all of Europe, including Poland—where millions of Jews were living at that time—and France. In 1941, following the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Final Solution began, an extensive organized operation on an unprecedented scale, aimed at the annihilation of the Jewish people, and resulting in the persecution and murder of Jews in political Europe, inclusive of European North Africa (pro-Nazi Vichy-North Africa and Italian Libya). This genocide, in which approximately six million Jews were methodically exterminated, is known as The Holocaust or Shoah (Hebrew term). In Poland, three million Jews were killed in gas chambers in all concentration camps combined, with one million at the Auschwitz concentration camp alone.

In 1945 the Jewish resistance organizations in Palestine unified and established the Jewish Resistance Movement. The movement began attacking the British authority. David Ben-Gurion proclaimed on May 14, 1948, the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel to be known as the State of Israel. Immediately afterwards all neighbouring Arab states attacked, yet the newly formed IDF resisted. In 1949 the war ended and the state of Israel started building the state and absorbing massive waves of hundreds of thousands of Jews from all over the world. Today (2016), Israel is a parliamentary democracy with a population of over 8 million people, of whom about 6 million are Jewish. The largest Jewish communities are in Israel and the United States, with major communities in France, Argentina, Russia, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and Germany. For statistics related to modern Jewish demographics see Jewish population.

19. Hebrew |ˈhēbro͞o|

noun

1 a member of an ancient people living in what is now Israel and Palestine and, according to biblical tradition, descended from the patriarch Jacob, grandson of Abraham. After the Exodus (c.1300 bc) they established the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and their scriptures and traditions form the basis of the Jewish religion.

• old-fashioned and sometimes offensive term for Jew.

2 the Semitic language of the Hebrews, in its ancient or modern form.

adjective

1 of the Hebrews or the Jews.

2 of or in Hebrew.

Hebrew is written from right to left in a characteristic alphabet of twenty-two consonants, the vowels sometimes being marked by additional signs. From about ad 500 it was almost entirely restricted to Jewish religious use, but it was revived as a spoken language in the 19th century and, with a vocabulary extended by borrowing from contemporary languages, is now the official language of the state of Israel.

ORIGIN

from Old French Ebreu, via Latin from late Greek Hebraios, from Aramaic ῾iḇray, based on Hebrew ῾iḇrî understood to mean ‘one from the other side (of the river).’

20. Solomon |ˈsäləmən|

son of David; king of Israel c.970–c.930 bc. In the Bible he is traditionally associated with the Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs, while his wisdom is illustrated by the Judgment of Solomon.

• (as noun, usually a Solomon) a very wise person.

Solomon (/ˈsɒləmən/; Hebrew: שְׁלֹמֹה, Modern Shlomo, Tiberian Šəlōmō ISO 259-3 Šlomo; Syriac: ܫܠܝܡܘܢ‎ Shlemun; Arabic: سُليمان‎‎ Sulaymān, also colloquially: Silimān or Slemān; Greek: Σολομών Solomōn; Latin: Salomon), also called Jedidiah (Hebrew יְדִידְיָהּ‎), was, according to the Bible (Book of Kings: 1 Kings 1–11; Book of Chronicles: 1 Chronicles 28–29, 2 Chronicles 1–9), Quran, hadith and Hidden Words[3] a fabulously wealthy and wise king of Israel and a son of David, the previous king of Israel.[4] The conventional dates of Solomon's reign are circa 970 to 931 BC, normally given in alignment with the dates of David's reign. He is described as the third king of the United Monarchy, which would break apart into the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judah shortly after his death. Following the split, his patrilineal descendants ruled over Judah alone.

According to the Talmud, Solomon is one of the 48 prophets.[5] In the Quran, he is considered a major prophet, and Muslims generally refer to him by the Arabic variant Sulayman, son of David. Solomon (Arabic سليمان Sulaymān) was, according to the Qur'an, a king of ancient Israel as well as the son of David.

The Hebrew Bible credits him as the builder of the First Temple in Jerusalem.[4] It portrays him as great in wisdom, wealth, and power beyond any of the previous kings of the country, but ultimately as a human king who sinned. His sins included idolatry, marrying foreign women, and ultimately turning away from Yahweh, and led to the kingdom's being torn in two during the reign of his son Rehoboam.[6] Solomon is the subject of many other later references and legends, most notably in the 1st-century apocryphal work known as the Testament of Solomon. In later years, in mostly non-biblical circles, Solomon also came to be known as a magician and an exorcist, with numerous amulets and medallion seals dating from the Hellenistic period invoking his name.