Achaeans

Les Achéens étaient une population grecque qui vivait dans le Péloponnèse à l'âge du bronze. Ils sont connus pour leur rôle dans la guerre de Troie, décrite par Homère dans l'Iliade et l'Odyssée. Les Achéens étaient...

Habiru

Adı yabancılar anlamına gelen, büyük ölçüde Sami kökenli bir göçebe halk. Bu isim, göçebe kaçaklar, haydutlar ve aşağı statüdeki işçiler için kullanılmıştır. Kelime etimolojik olarak İbranice  Habiru'yu da içeren Hyksos halkıyla ile ilişkilidir.

Saxon

Romalılar gittikten sonra MS 5. yüzyılda güney ve doğu İngiltere'de yer alan, topluca Anglo-Saksonlar olarak bilinen Germen halklarından biri.

Aryan

MÖ 2. binyılda kuzeybatıdan gelerek İran ve Hindistan'ı işgal eden ve sonraki yüzyıllarda doğuya ve güneye yayılan Rigveda halkı. Dilleri, bir Hint-Avrupa dili olan Sanskritçe'nin erken bir biçimidir. MÖ 500'lere gelindiğinde, Aryan dili muhtemelen Hint-Aryan dillerinin şu anda konuşulduğu bölgen...

Urartu

A kingdom that flourished in the early 1st millennium bc in the region of Armenia (i.e. eastern Turkey and adjacent areas of Iran and the USSR). Its centre was in the Lake Van region. The name Urartu first appears in documentary sources in the 13th century bc and the kingdom was in existence by c...

Sumer

The earliest civilization in the world, which arose in southern Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium bc. The name is taken from inscriptions, where it appears in the title "King of Sumer and Agade’; it was applied first to the language found on the earliest clay tablets and later to the whole civili...

Sea Peoples

See Peoples of the Sea.

Sabaean

One of the most important kingdoms of southern Arabia in the 1st millennium BC, contemporary with the Minaeans, Qatabaneans and Hadramis. The Sabaean capital was at Marib.

Luwians

[Luvians]. An Indo-Europeanspeaking group in Anatolia, known mainly from references in Hittite records, from the Hittite Old Kingdom onwards. They appearto have migrated into Anatolia, perhaps from the Pontic steppes in southern Russia, in the 3rd millennium bc and spread through western Anatolia...

Hurri

People known from documentary references and some archaeological sites, who originated in the area of Armenia (southeast Turkey, northwest Iran). They are documented from mid-3rd-millennium bc times, but are better known in the 2nd millennium when they settled in northern Mesopotamia and Syria in...

Huns

Of the many ‘barbarian’ tribes who threatened the Roman empire during the 4th and 5th centuries, the Huns are almost the most obscure in archaeological terms, but are remembered in all the literature as being the most fearsome and bloodthirsty. Their origins were not Germanic but Asiatic, their l...

Hittites

A people who established a kingdom in central Turkey in the 2nd millennium BC and later extended it into northern Syria. Their first capital was at Kushara, not yet identified, but it was soon moved to Hattusas, modem Boghazkôy. The Hittites did not originate in Anatolia and are thought to have i...

Hittites

Frisians

A loose-knit collection of tribes who inhabited the North Sea littoral between the Rhine and the Elbe from later Roman times. These communities traditionally lived in nucleated villages constructed on mounds (terps), safe from sudden inundations by the sea. The Frisians stubbornly resisted the an...

Frere

(1740-1807). English antiquary famous for his precocious recognition of the antiquity of man. In 1797 he wrote to the Society of Antiquaries reporting on the discovery of flint implements found in association with bones of extinct animals in a brickearth pit at Hoxne, Suffolk. Frere recognized th...

Frere

Etruscan

An important culture, dominant in west central Italy (approximately the area of present-day Tuscany) from about the 8th to 5th centuries bc, with decisive influence upon its direct successor, Rome. Literary sources give a picture of a loosely structured but powerful confederacy of city-states (su...

Cimmerians

A nomadic people of the south Russian steppes, known to us through the writings of Herodotus and the Assyrian records. In the 8th century bc, under pressure from the Scythians, they moved into Anatolia, while a related group called Thracians moved north-west into Europe. They may have played a pa...

Aymara

The Aymara language, still spoken and once widespread in southern Peru and the Bolivian Highlands, is one of the defining characteristics of numerous polities in and around the Lake Titicaca basin in the Late Intermediate Period. These ‘Aymara Kingdoms’ (the largest being Colla and Lupaqa) were f...

Assur

(1) The old capital of Assyria lies naturally protected on a rock promontory on the bank of the River Tigris in northern Mesopotamia. The earliest levels excavated belong to the first half of the 3rd millennium bc. The remains of a pre-Sargonid temple dedicated to the goddess Ishtar were excavate...

Aryans

A people who called themselves Arya and spoke an Indo-European language, Sanskrit, known from the Rigveda and other early Indian sources. They are thought to have invaded India from the northwest during the 2nd millennium bc and to have spread east and south in the succeeding centuries. By c500 b...

Aryans

Akkadian

(1) Name derived from the city of Akkad, applied to the northern part of Sumer and to the dynasty that was established by Sargon in the mid-3rd millennium bc. Under Sargon and his grandson Naram-Sin this dynasty established an empire that included northern as well as southern Mesopotamia and neig...

Scythians

Scythians (скити, скіфи; skyty, skify). A group of Indo-European tribes that controlled the steppe of Southern Ukraine in the 7th to 3rd centuries BC. According to the most predominant theories, they first appeared there in the late 8th century BC after having been forced out of Central Asia. The...

Scythians

Yaklaşık olarak MÖ 8. yüzyılda tarih sahnesine çıkan ve bu tarihten MS 2. yüzyıla kadar hâkimiyetlerini devam ettiren İskitler, doğuda Çin Seddi'nden batıda Tuna nehrine kadar uzanan geniş bir sahada varlıklarını, biraz önce verilen rakamlardan da anlaşılacağı üzere, yaklaşık olarak 1000 yıl gibi...

Scythians

The Scythians (pronounced ‘SIH-thee-uns’) were a group of ancient tribes of nomadic warriors who originally lived in what is now southern Siberia. Their culture flourished from around 900 BC to around 200 BC, by which time they had extended their influence all over Central Asia – from China to th...

Scythians

Sabaean

One of four major peoples / kingdoms of southern Arabia in the 1st millennium BC, contemporary with the Minaeans, Qatabanians, and Hadramites. The Sabaean capital was at Marib (Ma'rib). The people who called themselves Saba' (biblical Sheba) are both the earliest and the most abundantly attested ...

Sabaean

Aymara

A large South American tribal group occupying the Titicaca plateau (central Andes) in the Late Intermediate Period - and the language spoken by them. The Aymara language is still spoken some parts of Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina. The Aymara kingdoms - Canchi Colla Lupaca Collagua Ubina Pacasa Car...

Aymara

Sea Peoples

A collective term for various peoples who were on the move in the Aegean, Anatolia, and Levant in the 13th and 12th centuries BC. They were responsible for widespread destruction of settlements in these areas, particularly Ugarit and Alalakh and, more remotely, with the fall of Mycenaean Greece a...

Sea Peoples

Hurri

A people who appeared in northern Mesopotamia and Syria at the end of the 3rd millennium BC and by c 1600 BC had established a number of kingdoms in the area. They may have come from the Caucasus or Armenia and some evidence suggests a connection with the Kura-Araxes culture. They had a pantheon,...

Hurri

Nahua

The tribal population of Central Mexico, originating from the north. The last and best-known were the Aztecs. The language of the Aztecs, Nahua, is spoken by all the Nahua peoples in a variety of dialects.

Nahua

Sarmatian

A people originally of Iranian stock who migrated from Central Asia to the Ural Mountains between the 6th-4th century BC and eventually settled in most of southern European Russia and the eastern Balkans. These nomadic tribes were related to Scythians and became a political and cultural force who...

Sarmatian

Akkadian

A Semitic-speaking dynasty founded by Sargon the Great (Sharrukin, 2334-2279 BC) c. 2370 BC with Akkad (or Agade), an unidentified site, as his capital. Under Sargon and his grandson, Naram-Sin, the dynasty established an empire that included much of Mesopotamia and neighboring Elam to the east. ...

Akkadian

Mycenaeans

Inhabitants of Mycenae, the civilization of late Bronze Age Greece, set in the Argolid. Their name for themselves was Achaeans, and their achievements were remembered in the legends of the classical Greeks. Their forebears probably arrived in Greece around 2000 BC, bringing Minyan ware and an Ind...

Mycenaeans

Urartu

A kingdom of the 1st millennium BC in the mountains north of Assyria (northwest Iran, northeast Anatolia, Armenia, in the mountainous region southeast of the Black Sea and southwest of the Caspian Sea) which was the last important Hurrian-speaking state. Its people, relatives of the Hurri, establ...

Urartu

Khoisan

Collective term for the Khoikhoin and San peoples of southern Africa and their languages. The Khoisan languages are click languages spoken in southern Africa. The term Khoisan was created to refer to the related peoples known as Bushmen and Hottentots (i.e., the Khoisanid peoples) under a common ...

Khoisan

Sumer

The earliest documented inhabitants of southern Mesopotamia (southern Iraq), c 3500 BC, considered the world's first civilization. Located between Babylon and the head of the Persian Gulf, these people spoke a language unrelated to any other known language. Formed originally by the need for irrig...

Sumer

Achaeans

An ancient Greek people, described in Homer, who lived on the mainland and western isles of Greece, Crete, Rhodes, and other isles except the Cyclades. This coincides precisely with the Mycenaeans of the 14th-13th centuries BC. They have also been identified both with the Ahhiyawa, mentioned by t...