Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

fakir

(Encyclopedia)fakir fäkērˈ, fāˈkər [key], [Arab.,=poverty], in Islam, usually an initiate in a Sufi order. The title fakir is borne with the understanding that poverty is the need to be in relation to God. Th...

Mycale

(Encyclopedia)Mycale mĭkˈəlē [key], promontory, W Asia Minor, opposite Samós island. The center of the Ionian League was there, in the temple of Poseidon. In 479 b.c. the Greeks destroyed the Persian fleet at ...

Prester John

(Encyclopedia)Prester John, legendary Christian priest and monarch of a vast, wealthy empire in Asia or in Africa. The legend first appeared in the latter part of the 12th cent. and persisted for several centuries....

Ramla

(Encyclopedia)Ramla or Ramleh both: rämˈlĕ [key] [Arab.,=sand], town (1994 pop. 57,300), central Israel, in a farming area. Ramla may be the biblical Ramathaim-zophim, but more probably it was founded (c.716) by...

Fatimid

(Encyclopedia)Fatimid –ĭmīt [key], dynasty claiming to hold the caliphate on the basis of descent from Fatima, a daughter of Muhammad the Prophet. In doctrine the Fatimids were related to other Shiite sects. Th...

Pelagianism

(Encyclopedia)Pelagianism pəlāˈjənĭzəm [key], Christian heretical sect that rose in the 5th cent. challenging St. Augustine's conceptions of grace and predestination. The doctrine was advanced by the celebrat...

Laodicea

(Encyclopedia)Laodicea lāōdˌĭsēˈə [key], name of several Greek cities of Asia and Asia Minor built by the Seleucids in the 3d cent. b.c. The most important, Laodicea ad Lycum, was N of Colossae near the pres...

Clazomenae

(Encyclopedia)Clazomenae kləzŏmˈĭnē [key], ancient city of W Asia Minor, 20 mi (32 km) W of present-day Izmir, Turkey. It was one of the 12 Ionian cities of Asia Minor. The city was founded on the mainland but...

Seti I

(Encyclopedia)Seti I sēˈtī, sāˈtē [key], d. 1290 b.c., king of ancient Egypt, of the XIX dynasty; son and successor of Ramses I. He succeeded to the throne c.1302 b.c. Invading Palestine and Syria, Seti I red...

Garstang, John

(Encyclopedia)Garstang, John, 1876–1956, English archaeologist. He served as W. M. Flinders Petrie's field assistant in Egypt in 1899 and was professor of archaeology at the Univ. of Liverpool from 1907 to 1941, ...