Latians

Amorites

A branch of the Semites who were nomads in the Syrian desert and who overthrew the Sumerian civilization of Ur c 2000 BC and dominated Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine till c 1600 BC. In the oldest cuneiform sources (c 2400-2000 BC), the Amorites were equated with the West, though their true pla...

archaeologsEnglishNations, Cultures

Amorites

Aryan

A people of the Rigveda who invaded Iran and India from the northwest in the 2nd millennium BC and who then spread east and south over the succeeding centuries. Their language was an early form of Sanskrit, an Indo-European tongue. By c 500 BC, Aryan speech was probably established over much of t...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Aryan

Cimmerians

An ancient nomadic people of the Russian steppes, north of the Caucasus and Sea of Azov, driven out by the Scythians into Anatolia toward the end of the 8th century BC. As they retreated, they destroyed Phrygia, Lydia, and the Greek cities on the coast and then caused havoc in Anatolia. Their dec...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Cimmerians

Assur

A solar deity which was the chief god of the city of Assur and the kingdom of Assyria. With the latter's conquests, Assur assumed leadership of the Assyrian pantheon and supremacy over the other gods of Mesopotamia. The deity was conceived in anthropomorphic terms. The image of the deity was fed ...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Assur

Phoenician

A Semitic people who lived in the coastal area of Lebanon and Syria from about 1000 BC, the cultural heirs of the Canaanites. They flourished as traders from their ports of Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos. They are crediting with founding Carthage and inventing the alphabet; the Greek, Roman, Arabic and ...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Phoenician

Phrygian

A people who moved from Thrace into central Anatolia (Turkey) after the collapse of the Hittite empire by the mid-12th century BC. They founded a kingdom, under Midas, that covered most of Anatolia and lasted c 750-680 BC, with his capital at Gordium (Gordion). After they were destroyed by the Ci...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Phrygian

Anglo-Saxons

The name of the combined cultures, the Angles and the Saxons, who left their North Sea coastal homelands in the 5th century AD and moved to eastern England after the breakdown of Roman Rule. The name derives from two specific groups --- the Angles of Jutland and the Saxons from northern Germany. ...

archaeologsEnglishNations, Ancient Languages, Cultures

Anglo-Saxons

Parthian

A steppe people from east of the Caspian Sea who entered northeastern Iran and set up a kingdom at the expense of the Seleucid empire and Bactria. The Parthian empire existed from 247 BC-224 AD. The earliest Parthian capital was probably at Dara; two of the later capitals were Nisa and Hecatompyl...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Parthian

Toltec

Important Mesoamerican people of composite origin - a mixture of Chichimec tribes and more advanced groups from Puebla and the Gulf Coast - which controlled central Mexico from 900-1100 AD. After absorbing civilized peoples in the Valley of Mexico, the Toltecs produced a warrior-dominated society...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Toltec

Iberians

A prehistoric people of southern and eastern Spanish coastal regions of the 1st millennium BC who later gave their name to the whole peninsula. In the 8th-6th centuries BC, waves of Celtic peoples migrated to the region. By the time of the Greek historian Herodotus (mid-5th century BC), 'Iberian'...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Iberians

Aramaean

A branch of the confederacy of Semite tribes who moved out of the Syrian desert and who conquered the Canaanites and established themselves in their own series city-states in c 16-12 BC. The foremost of these states was Aram of Damascus, a large region of northern Syria, which was occupied betwee...

archaeologsEnglishAncient Languages, Nations

Aramaean

Saxon

One of the Germanic peoples known collectively as Anglo-Saxons who took part in the settlement of southern and eastern England in the 5th century AD after the Romans left. Their original home was on the North Sea coast north of the Elbe.

archaeologsEnglishNations

Saxon

Frisians

A Germanic people inhabiting the North Sea coastal plain and islands between the Rhineland and the Elbe (Frisia) in the early centuries BC and AD. Their coastal settlements were on artificial mounds known as terpen. The Frisians were involved in the invasion of England by the Anglo-Saxons in the ...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Frisians

Ottonian

The successors to Carolingians, the empire of Otto emperors, 936-1024 AD. As inheritors of the Carolingian tradition of the Holy Roman Empire, the German emperors also assumed the Carolingian artistic heritage, the conscientious revival of late antique and Early Christian art forms. Ottonian art ...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Ottonian

Slav

Term used for the ethnic groups speaking related languages in eastern Europe during the second half of the 1st millennium AD. They inhabited an area concentrated in modern Poland, and by the early Middle Ages they were considered a distinct cultural group. The origins of the Slavs are obscure, th...

archaeologsEnglishNations, Ancient Languages

Slav

Lombards

A tribe of Germanic descent who conquered northern Italy in the late 6th and early 7th centuries. The region was weak from the gothic wars and vulnerable by the death of the Emperor Justinian (565). Having swept through Venice, Milan, Tuscany, and Benevento, King Alboin established Pavia, on the ...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Lombards

Dorians

Geleneksel olarak Peloponnesos'un fatihi sayılan eski Yunan halkı. Dil bakımından öteki halklardan belirgin biçimde ayrılan Dorların, Orta Yunanistan'da küçük bir bölge olan Doris'ten geldiği sanılır. Yunan lehçelerinin tarihteki coğrafi dağılımından anlaşıldığına göre, Hylleis, Pamphyloi ve Dyma...

archaeologsTurkishNations

Dorians

Peoples who invaded southern Greece from the north around the end of the 2nd millennium Be (1100) after the decline of the Mycenaeans. Some speculate that the Dorians were responsible for the Mycenaeans' overthrow. It has proved difficult to recognize their products in the archaeological record a...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Dorians

Luwians

Hint-Avrupa dili konuşan bir toplum, İ.Ö. 3000 yıllarında Bronz Çağında, yoğunlukla Güneybatı Anadolu kesminde yerleşim kurmuş ve kültürlerini geliştirmişlerdir. Alaca Höyük ve Hisarlık gibi yerleşim yerlerinde şiddetli yıkımlara sebep olmuş olabilirler. Bu işgalcilerin aslında Hititlerin en eski...

archaeologsTurkishNations

Luwians

The Luwian culture thrived in Bronze Age western Asia Minor. It has thus far been explored mainly by linguists, who learned about Luwian people through numerous documents from Hattuša, the capital of the Hittite civilization in central Asia Minor. Only a few excavations have thus far been conduct...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Luwians

Indo-European-speaking people who appear to have established themselves in southwestern Anatolia by the late 3rd millennium BC; they were perhaps responsible for violent destruction levels in settlements such as Alaça Hüyük and Hisarlik. It has been suggested that these invaders in fact constitut...

archaeologsEnglishNations

Luwians