Deck 2: Agrarian-Urban Centers of the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean, 11,500-600 B.C.E

Question 1

Among the earliest recorded writings on religious themes is:

A) the Aeneid
B) the Epic of Gilgamesh
C) the Iliad
D) the Odyssey

Answer 1

B

Question 2

The following was not a major Phoenician city-state:

A) Byblos
B) Sidon
C) Amarna
D) Tyre

Answer 2

C

Question 3

The earliest Mesopotamian city-state was:

A) Ur
B) Uruk
C) Lagash
D) Nippur

Answer 3

B

Question 4

The transition from foraging to farming was completed during the:

A) Paleolithic Age.
B) Mesolithic Age.
C) Neolithic Age.
D) Chalcolithic Age.

Question 5

Around 4300 BCE, some mountain people in the Mesopotamian region had mastered the crafts of mining and smelting ____________, launching what scholars call the "Chalcolithic" Age.

A) Theocracy
B) Republic
C) Democracy
D) Oligarchy

Question 6

During the middle of the second millennium BCE, the ______ culture arose in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean.

A) Peleset
B) Archaic
C) Israelite
D) Mycenaean

Question 7

The first unified territorial state or kingdom in Mesopotamia was:

A) Akkadia
B) Babylonia
C) Elam
D) Persia

Question 8

Which of the following does not describe hieroglyphic writing?

A) It was developed around 3500-3200 BCE.
B) It was used exclusively for bureaucratic documents.
C) It was limited to use in royal inscriptions.
D) It used pictures to symbolize objects and syllables.

Question 9

The final wave of Israelite deportations under the Neo-Babylonians was known as the _______, or "gola".

A) Babylonian Chronicles
B) Babylonian Captivity
C) Babylonian Talmud
D) The Great Jewish Revolt

Question 10

The Bronze Age collapse was probably triggered by:

A) the collapse of Egypt's Old Kingdom.
B) the rise of the Hittite empire.
C) the unsustainability of chariot warfare.
D) the invasions by Sea People.

Question 11

The Iron Age started around:

A) 1500-1200 BCE.
B) 4000-2000 BCE.
C) 700-500 BCE.
D) 6000-4000 BCE.

Question 12

Which of the following is not a characteristic of an empire?

A) Large in size
B) Multiethnic
C) Monoglot
D) Multireligious

Question 13

Horses were first domesticated in:

A) Egypt.
B) the Atlas Mountains of North Africa.
C) the Ural Mountains of Central Asia.
D) Mesopotamia.

Question 14

Hammurabi was best known for:

A) composing the Dead Sea Scrolls
B) his codification of Babylonian law
C) his tolerant nature
D) designing the Ark of the Covenant

Question 15

"Proto-Indo-Europeans":

A) migrated from Central Asia to the Middle East and Europe.
B) were terrified by the horses that had been domesticated by Mesopotamians.
C) were primarily foragers.
D) migrated to Indonesia and the remainder of Southeast Asia.

Question 16

Cuneiform writing was developed around:

A) 1200 BCE.
B) 5000 BCE.
C) 2000 BCE.
D) 3450 BCE.

Question 17

Nomads were known for their:

A) sedentary nature.
B) cultivation of crops.
C) herding of domesticated animals.
D) wealthy lifestyle.

Question 18

Mesopotamian "assemblies" were:

A) gatherings of male adults
B) gatherings of influential elders
C) gatherings of nomads
D) gatherings of deities

Question 19

The first farmers from the Fertile Crescent settled in Mesopotamia, establishing the _________ culture of villages (6000-4000 BCE).

A) Phoenician
B) Assyrian
C) Philistine
D) Ubaid

Question 20

The Natufians:

A) Were semi-sedentary foragers.
B) Abandoned the bodies of their dead to wild animals.
C) Flourished during the Neolithic Age.
D) Were renowned for their pottery.

Question 21

Among the best-known ancient texts on the applied science of medicine is:

A) the Kouros
B) the Göbekli Tepe
C) the Enuma Elish
D) the Kahun

Question 22

Recent historical climate research has established that between the end of the Ice Age (around 11,500 BCE) and 4000 BCE, _____________ extended farther west than they do today.

A) Desert-like conditions
B) Plunging winter temperatures
C) Monsoon rain patterns
D) Mistral wind patterns

Question 23

The discovery of skulls from the Natufian culture in the Jordan and upper Euphrates valleys suggests the existence of:

A) Cannibalism
B) Cremation burial practices
C) A new glacial age beginning in 9500 BCE
D) Ancestor worship

Question 24

Around 6500 BCE, farmers in the Fertile Crescent domesticated all of the following animals except:

A) Donkeys
B) Camels
C) Cattle
D) Pigs

Question 25

The first agricultural settlements appeared in ____________, a swampy depression off the Nile southwest of modern Cairo, around 5200 BCE.

A) Giza
B) Memphis
C) Eridu
D) The Fayyum

Question 26

Around 4300 BCE, some mountain people in the Mesopotamian region had mastered the crafts of mining and smelting ____________, launching what scholars call the "Chalcolithic" Age.

A) Copper
B) Iron
C) Golden
D) Bronze

Question 27

Mesopotamian scribes wrote in ____________ (from the Latin, meaning "wedge-shaped") script on clay tablets using signs denoting objects and sounds from the spoken language.

A) Hieroglyphics
B) Hieratic
C) Alphabets
D) Cuneiform

Question 28

Depending on the circumstances, the Mesopotamian city assemblies sometimes chose their leaders from self-made figures called a "great man" or __________.

A) En
B) Pharaoh
C) Lugal
D) Puhrum

Question 29

Sargon's grandson Naram-Sin added the Zagros Mountains and Syria to the ____________ kingdom and claimed to be the "king of the four (world) shores," considering his state an open-ended kingdom stretching in all four directions.

A) Akkadian
B) Egyptian
C) Babylonian
D) Hittite

Question 30

While earlier codifications of Sumerian precepts list around 40 laws, those of Hammurabi number __________.

A) 12
B) 282
C) 840
D) 480

Question 31

The use of hieroglyphic writing, developed in Egypt around 3500-3200 BCE, was limited to ____________.

A) Bureaucratic documents
B) Peace treaties with powers like the Hittites
C) Royal inscriptions
D) Incantations in honor of Horus

Question 32

The narrator in the Babylonian Poem of the Righteous Sufferer has been compared to ________.

A) Job
B) Marduk
C) Abraham
D) Akhenaten

Question 33

Hittite kings ruled in their capital Hatusa with a panku, or a(n):

A) Iron fist, literally
B) Majority vote of the citizens, taken for every major decision
C) Assembly of their principal administrators, recruited from the aristocracy
D) Edict from the chief priests representing the Hittites' ancestors

Question 34

The final wave of Israelite deportations, under the Neo-Babylonians in __________, became the infamous "Babylonian Captivity" mourned by prophets in the Hebrew Bible.

A) 1297-1282 BCE
B) 120,000
C) 297-282 BCE
D) 897-882 BCE

Question 35

In Athens, the poorest class still possessed the right to participate in the _______:

A) Citizen assembly
B) Free theatrical performances
C) Annual festival in honor of Athena
D) Official naval training program

Question 36

Communal rooms and wall paintings of animals at Çatal Hüyük document:

A) The meeting space of the Hittite council
B) The frequency of communal meals composed solely of bull meat
C) The abandonment of sites once the Assyrians invaded
D) That animistic religious belief was still in force, even if no longer in a cave

Question 37

Urban dwellers took the decisive steps of transition from animism to polytheism in the period 3500-2500 BCE when what factors came to the fore?

A) Disease suddenly made Mesopotamian cattle extinct, and bull gods disappeared
B) Forces of nature began to lose influence and to spark fear in daily life
C) The Bronze Age collapse called the existence of animal gods into doubt
D) The Israelites' Ten Commandments were widely publicized in the Levant

Question 38

The central character in the Epic of Gilgamesh is:

A) A pharaoh who escapes death by becoming the living embodiment of Horus
B) A high priestess who wonders why the goddess of love has abandoned her
C) A hero who introduces fire to humans and is punished by the gods for doing so
D) A king in early Sumer who carries out heroic deeds but fails to escape death

Question 39

In the Enuma Elish, __________ slaughters his mother Tiamat and splits her body into two halves, which become the heaven and the earth.

A) Atum
B) Zeus
C) Ahriman
D) Marduk

Question 40

_________ scribes laid the foundations for geometry and astronomy by devising the system of 60 degrees for arcs, angles, and time-all still in use today.

A) Babylonian
B) Hittite
C) Israelite
D) Egyptian

Question 41

Scholars speculate that Akhenaten's religious revolution may have been designed to achieve all of the following goals except:

A) Undermining the political power of the priests of Amun-Re
B) Easing the transition of power to his wife Nefertiti and son Tutenkhamen
C) Opening up Egyptian religion to participation by non-royal people
D) Solidifying his own power by replacing polytheism

Question 42

The "Levant" encompasses the modern countries of:

A) Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia
B) Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia
C) Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Palestine
D) Turkey, Georgia, and Ukraine

Question 43

Mesopotamia is "the land between the rivers" __________.

A) Nile and Tigris
B) Euphrates and Tigris
C) Jordan and Euphrates
D) Oxus and Jaxartes

Question 44

In a(n) ___________, people, at a minimum, are engaged in farming cereal grains on rain-fed or irrigated fields and breeding sheep and cattle.

A) Polis, or city-state, society
B) Capitalist society
C) Industrial society
D) Agrarian society

Question 45

The period from ca. 9600 to 4500 BCE when stone tools were adapted to the requirements of agriculture, through the making of sickles and spades, was the _________.

A) Neolithic
B) Paleolithic
C) Mesolithic
D) Utilitarian

Question 46

It took until about ___________ in the Middle East before farmers had bred the large-grained wheat and barley of today.

A) 12,000 BCE
B) 7000 BCE
C) 1500 BCE
D) 4300 BCE

Question 47

The Nile usually begins to swell in _________ and recedes during ____________.

A) February and March
B) December and March
C) May and November
D) July and October

Question 48

Mesopotamian towns administered themselves through local _________.

A) Collectivized farms
B) Aristocratic councils
C) Assemblies
D) Oracular priestesses

Question 49

__________ received seed, animals, and tools from landowners in exchange for up to

A) Nomads
B) Lugals
C) Pharaohs
D) Sharecroppers

Question 50

The first place in Mesopotamia to fit the definition of a city was ____________, founded around 4300 BCE.

A) Uruk
B) Qadesh
C) Memphis
D) Susa

Question 51

Hatshepsut was a strong-willed woman who became "king" (the title of "queen" did not exist) over __________ in ca. 1479 BCE.

A) Babylon
B) Phoenicia
C) Crete
D) Egypt

Question 52

The Code of Hammurabi calls for extreme punishments according to the principle of _________ ("an eye for an eye").

A) Lex dura
B) Lex talionis
C) Lex agraria
D) Lex Julia

Question 53

As a god on earth, the Egyptian king upheld the divine order of justice and peace for all, a principle called ___________.

A) Xi'an
B) Sargon
C) En
D) Ma'at

Question 54

The dominant palace-state in Minoan Crete was a polity with as many as ___________ inhabitants in the sprawling palace and a few villages outside.

A) 12,000
B) 120,000
C) 1,000,000
D) 1,500

Question 55

Around 1200 BCE, the so-called ____________ led to the decline and dissolution of the Near Eastern empires.

A) Iron Age Collapse
B) Battle of Qadesh
C) Bronze Age Collapse
D) Trojan War

Question 56

In addition to founding numerous ports and outposts around the Mediterranean, the Phoenicians acquired world-historical importance through their introduction of the ____________.

A) Hybridization of barley seeds
B) Letter alphabet
C) Technology of smelting bronze
D) Religious concept of monotheism

Question 57

In post-Dark Age Greece, a city with surrounding villages formed a city-state, or _____________.

A) Thalassocracy
B) Palace-system
C) Ziggurat
D) Polis

Question 58

The art of Greek _________ is mostly known to us from small sculptures, masks, drinking vessels, and jewelry found in the tombs of royal warriors.

A) Mycenae
B) Knossos
C) Çatal Hüyük
D) Gaza

Question 59

Neanderthals died out because

A) Mesopotamia
B) Peleset
C) Minoan Crete
D) Egypt

Question 60

Provincial governors appointed by the Persian king were called

A) Khufu
B) Amenhotep IV
C) Narmer
D) Tutenkhamen

Question 61

All of the following were factors in the Neolithic revolution in the Fertile Crescent except:

A) The long east-west climatic zones of Eurasia.
B) Animals like sheep, goats, and cattle were found over wide areas and easy to trade.
C) Wide expanses of swampy areas facilitated rice production.
D) Experimentation with local grains and leaf plants helped humans develop more reliable and better-yielding crops.