Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

28 results found

Ur

(Encyclopedia)Ur ûr [key], ancient city of Sumer, S Mesopotamia. The city is also known as Ur of the Chaldees. It was an important center of Sumerian culture (see Sumer) and is identified in the Bible as the home ...

Ur-Nammu

(Encyclopedia)Ur-Nammu ŭr-nämˈo͞o [key], fl. 2060 b.c., king of the ancient city of Ur, sometimes called Zur-Nammu or Ur-Engur. He founded a new Sumerian dynasty, the third dynasty of Ur, that lasted a century....

Zia ur-Rahman, Khaleda

(Encyclopedia)Zia ur-Rahman, Khaleda, or Khaleda Zia käˈlĕdä zēˈä o͞or-rämänˈ [key], 1945–, Bangladesh political leader. In 1960 she married Zia ur-Rahman, an army officer who founded the Bangladesh Na...

Woolley, Sir Charles Leonard

(Encyclopedia)Woolley, Sir Charles Leonard, 1880–1960, English archaeologist. His early work included excavations at Carchemish (1912–14) and the Egyptian site of Tell el Amarna (1921–22). He was then chosen ...

Beth-horon

(Encyclopedia)Beth-horon bĕth-hōˈrən [key], in the Bible, name of two neighboring towns on the northerly road from Lod to Jerusalem. They are the modern Beit Ur at Tahta and Beit Ur al Fawga in the West Bank. I...

An Nasiriyah

(Encyclopedia)An Nasiriyah än näsĭrĭˈyä [key], city (1987 pop. 265,937), provincial capital, SE Iraq, on the Euphrates River. It is the center of a date-growing region. Founded in 1870, the city was captured ...

Sin, in ancient Middle Eastern religions

(Encyclopedia)Sin sĭn [key], moon god of Semitic origin, worshiped in ancient Middle Eastern religions. One of the principal deities in the Babylonian and Assyrian pantheons, he was lord of the calendar and of wis...

Eridu

(Encyclopedia)Eridu āˈrĭdo͞o [key], ancient city of Sumer, Mesopotamia, near the Euphrates, S of Ur (in present-day S Iraq). Excavations conducted from 1946 to 1949 revealed that Eridu was the earliest known se...

Deluge

(Encyclopedia)Deluge dĕlˈyo͞oj [key], in the Bible, the overwhelming flood that covered the earth and destroyed every living thing except the family of Noah and the creatures in his ark. Archaeology has yielded ...

Isin

(Encyclopedia)Isin ĭsˈĭn [key], capital of an ancient Semitic kingdom of N Babylonia. The city became important after the third dynasty of Ur fell to the Elamites and the Amorites (c.2025 b.c.). The phase from c...

Browse by Subject