Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) lyre, generic term for stringed musical instruments having a sound box from which project curved arms joined by a crossbar. The strings are stretched between the crossbar and the sound box and are plu...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Examples of the development of cuneiform cuneiform kyo͞onēˈĭfôrm [key] [Lat.,=wedge-shaped], system of writing developed before the last centuries of the 4th millennium b.c. in the lower ...

(Encyclopedia) canon, in music, a type of counterpoint employing the strictest form of imitation. All the voices of a canon have the same melody, beginning at different times. Successive entrances may be at the same...

(Encyclopedia) city-state, in ancient Greece, Italy, and Medieval Europe, an independent political unit consisting of a city and surrounding countryside. The first city-states were in Sumer, but they reached their p...

(Encyclopedia) Mesopotamia mĕsˌəpətāˈmēə [key] [Gr.,=between rivers], ancient region of Asia, the territory about the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, included in modern Iraq. The region extends from the Persian...

(Encyclopedia) biblical archaeology, term applied to the archaeology of the biblical lands, especially those of the ancient Middle East. While the thousands of written texts found in the languages of the ancient Mid...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Assyrian Empire (c.650 b.c.) Assyria əsĭrˈēə [key], ancient empire of W Asia. It developed around the city of Ashur, or Assur, on the upper Tigris River and south of the later capital, Ni...

(Encyclopedia) Sumerian and Babylonian art, works of art and architecture created by the Sumerian and Babylonian peoples of ancient Mesopotamia, civilizations which had an artistic tradition of remarkable antiquity,...

(Encyclopedia) Hittite art and architecture, works of art and structures created by the ancient Hittites The principal architectural remnant of the Hittite civilization is at Boğazköy, where temple structures ...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Asia āˈzhə [key], the world's largest continent 17,139,000 sq mi (44,390,000 sq km) and most populous (2015 est. pop. 4,419,898,000), with nearly three fifths of the world's total population...