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Brief definitions of names, concepts, and places. Open a record to read its context, sources, and related materials.
563 definitions
Modern diagram of textual layers, not a Zoroaster portrait or Avesta manuscript. No single composition year for each layer; surviving-copy age is not an idea’s age
Ancient text
Avestan-language religious corpus with layers and oral transmission, not a book composed in one year.
صيغ للاسم: Avesta، Avestan corpus
Context والمصادر →
Modern diagram of ontological dependence, not a temporal sequence or portrait. The argument does not make all Islamic schools agree
Person
Philosopher in the Arabic Islamic tradition, distinguishing possible from necessary existence in itself.
صيغ للاسم: Avicenna، Ibn Sina، Ibn Sīnā
Context والمصادر →
Modern Aşıklı guide: 2021 counts, some close relatives and selective burial. Proposed roof hatches are architectural inferences, not evidence of a heaven or underworld doctrine
Site
A Neolithic Cappadocian settlement with successive buildings and selected subfloor burials.
صيغ للاسم: Aşıklı Höyük، Asikli Hoyuk، Aşıklı
Context والمصادر →
Baal with Thunderbolt stela from Ugarit, limestone, Louvre AO 15775 / RS 4.427. The museum assigns a broad date of 2000–1150 BCE. This depicts Baal, not El, and does not prove that Baal overthrew him
Entity
Storm god and protagonist of Ugarit’s Baal Cycle; exercises active kingship while El retains importance and authorizes the palace.
صيغ للاسم: Baal، Baal Haddu
Context والمصادر →
Baal Cycle tablet AO 16640 / RS 3.367 from Ugarit, about 1400–1200 BCE, associated with KTU 1.2; Louvre. Not the palace-authorization tablet KTU 1.4. A photograph of actual textual evidence, not imagined gods
Entity
A group of Late Bronze Age Ugaritic religious texts recounting Baal’s conflicts, relationships with the gods and the building of his palace.
صيغ للاسم: Baal Cycle
Context والمصادر →
The site of Babylon in Iraq, in a photograph dated 2009 on its source page. It includes buildings reconstructed in modern times over the archaeological site, alongside the surrounding land
Site
Babylon is an ancient city in central present-day Iraq, south of Baghdad
صيغ للاسم: Babylon
Context والمصادر →
A page from Daniel Bomberg's Babylonian Talmud, printed in Venice between 1525 and 1539, photographed by Warburg. This page is from Sukkah, not Gittin 68, and the edition postdates the Talmud's composition. Public domain
Ancient text
A large rabbinic compilation in Hebrew and Aramaic, formed in Mesopotamia through stages; its final redaction remains debated.
صيغ للاسم: Babylonian Talmud، Bavli
Context والمصادر →
Modern diagram of political reference points. It does not date monotheism’s birth or imply everyone’s simultaneous deportation/return
Entity
Judean deportations to Babylonia and the kingdom’s collapse in the early sixth century BCE; several phases, not everyone removed or returned at once.
صيغ للاسم: Babylonian exile، Judean exile، Babylonian captivity
Context والمصادر →
Modern Balıklı guide: changing counts in the 2024 and 2025 reports, with floor and wall burials. An entrance in one better-preserved building prevents universal claims of roof access
Site
A central Anatolian Neolithic site with floor and wall burials and special skull treatment.
صيغ للاسم: Balıklı، Balikli
Context والمصادر →
Modern comparison of Enoch 8/10, Jubilees 10 and 1QM 13. Not one figure’s transformation. Jubilees 10:11 uses Satan in Mastema’s context; local overlap is not denied
Entity
Figure associated with darkness and wickedness in some Qumran texts; not a fixed alias for every heavenly adversary.
صيغ للاسم: Belial، Beliar
Context والمصادر →Person
A court figure in Kings under David and Solomon, reused in the Talmudic tale as the man who brings Ashmedai.
صيغ للاسم: Benaiah son of Jehoiada، Benayahu
Context والمصادر →
Vestibule dome in the University of Vienna’s main building, photographed in 2016. Institutional context associated with the scholar, rather than a portrait
Person
Scholar of early Greek poetry and its comparison with Mesopotamian and Near Eastern literature.
صيغ للاسم: Bernardo Ballesteros، Bernardo Ballesteros Petrella
Context والمصادر →
Different interpretive patterns, not a fixed one-method-per-school table
Entity
Affirming attribute language without specifying modality or creaturely likeness.
صيغ للاسم: Bi-lā kayf، bila kayf، without modality
Context والمصادر →
Contemporary conceptual illustration: family fields and an untied cord evoke land return and release in ancient law. Not an identified archaeological site or a documented historical scene; IL Archive, CC0
Entity
The release and return to ancestral holding in Leviticus 25 after seven cycles of seven years.
صيغ للاسم: Jubilee، jubilee year
Context والمصادر →
The public Library of Birmingham, England, on 6 September 2025. A contemporary city view; the Qur’anic leaves are held by the university’s Cadbury Research Library, a different institution
Site
Birmingham is a city in England whose university preserves early Qur’anic parchment leaves
صيغ للاسم: Birmingham
Context والمصادر →
Boncuklu today: replica houses, visitor-centre interior, interpretative garden and pond, Figure 6 of the 2026 study. Modern facilities, not an excavation photograph or burial-ritual reconstruction
Site
A Konya Plain Neolithic settlement with oval houses and burials associated with continued building use.
صيغ للاسم: Boncuklu Höyük، Boncuklu Hoyuk، Boncuklu
Context والمصادر →
Modern diagram of Jubilees10: permission for one tenth, confinement of nine tenths, and Noah’s remedies; narrative proportions, not a historical census
Entity
Jewish retelling of Genesis and Exodus framed as angelic teaching to Moses, adding chronology, narratives and interpretation.
صيغ للاسم: Book of Jubilees، Jubilees
Context والمصادر →
Modern method: six tests of proposed transmission; a book date does not date every chapter, and a copy does not date a story’s invention
Ancient text
Christian work within Mary’s Dormition traditions.
صيغ للاسم: Book of Mary’s Repose، Book of Mary's Repose
Context والمصادر →
1 Enoch 6–16: modern diagram distinguishing Watchers, their offspring’s bodies and offspring spirits; not an ancient image or portrait
Entity
Opening section of1 Enoch, 1–36; includes the Watchers’ descent and transgression and Enoch’s journey.
صيغ للاسم: Book of the Watchers
Context والمصادر →Person
Scholar of medieval literature and Christian apocrypha.
صيغ للاسم: Brandon W. Hawk
Context والمصادر →Person
Scholar of the history of religion and early Islamic exegesis.
صيغ للاسم: Brannon M. Wheeler
Context والمصادر →
The Main Building Tower at the University of Texas at Austin at dusk, dated 29 September 2013 in the capture metadata. The photograph provides context for the university where Bruce Wells works on Middle Eastern studies and ancient law
Person
Hebrew Bible and ancient Near Eastern law scholar at the University of Texas at Austin, studying legal texts and litigation.
صيغ للاسم: Bruce Wells
Context والمصادر →
A bull head from Çatalhöyük displayed in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara, photographed on 22 May 2006. The museum display is not its original position within a house; the bull’s presence does not establish a divine identity
Entity
Bull heads or skulls with horns displayed or incorporated in architecture. At Çatalhöyük they occur among the installations of some houses; they do not by themselves establish a ritual’s meaning or a bull god.
صيغ للاسم: bucrania، bucranium
Context والمصادر →
Modern building-biography guide: construction, occupation, transformation and closure. Some sequences preserve rebuilding in place; memory is an interpretation to test, not a belief recovered from a plan
Entity
Reading a building through construction, use, transformation and closure, rather than as a fixed plan.
صيغ للاسم: building biography، building life history
Context والمصادر →
Modern guide: BP is anchored to 1950; cal BP is calibrated calendar age. BCE examples are rounded. Uncalibrated radiocarbon ages require calibration, not simple subtraction
Entity
A calendar dating convention anchored to 1950, distinct from an uncalibrated radiocarbon age.
صيغ للاسم: cal BP، calibrated BP
Context والمصادر →Person
Third-century-BCE Greek poet whose Hymn to Delos evokes Apollo's birth.
صيغ للاسم: Callimachus of Cyrene
Context والمصادر →
Harvard Yard in winter, 7 January 2010. Calvert Watkins worked at Harvard until his retirement in 2003; the photograph shows the campus after that date
Person
Scholar of Indo-European languages and ancient poetry (1933–2013), who worked at Harvard and then UCLA.
صيغ للاسم: Calvert Watkins، Calvert Ward Watkins
Context والمصادر →
Mercury ordering Calypso to release Odysseus, painted by Gerard de Lairesse about 1680; Rijksmuseum SK-A-212. A later European representation of the story, rather than an ancient Greek artifact
Entity
Divine figure in the Odyssey who keeps Odysseus on her island while he longs to return home.
صيغ للاسم: Calypso
Context والمصادر →
Swift Hall at the University of Chicago, photographed in 2023. University context associated with López-Ruiz’s work; not a portrait or a photograph of her office
Person
Scholar of ancient Mediterranean religions, mythologies and exchange between Greek and Semitic traditions.
صيغ للاسم: Carolina López-Ruiz
Context والمصادر →Person
Scholar of ancient Israel, Judah and the Near East who proposed reading Ezekiel's Gog in relation to Babylonian Marduk traditions.
صيغ للاسم: Casey A. Strine
Context والمصادر →
Mesha Stele, basalt from Dhiban, ninth century BCE, Louvre AO 5066. The displayed monument is reassembled with restored missing areas
Entity
Prominent Moabite deity whose anger and favor explain defeat and recovery in Mesha’s royal inscription.
صيغ للاسم: Chemosh
Context والمصادر →
Modern paraphrase of Genesis 3/32, Exodus 25 and Isaiah 6. Not a historical depiction of the beings or a fixed taxonomy for all Judaism
Entity
Beings or figures with guarding and sacred functions in Hebrew texts, at the tree-of-life access and on the ark; not equivalent to every heavenly messenger.
صيغ للاسم: cherubim، cherub
Context والمصادر →
Modern conceptual comparison, not inevitable stages or a bridge map. Separates soul judgment, resurrection and cosmic renewal. Neither universal resurrection in Daniel nor identical detail across Iranian layers is assumed
Entity
Avestan image of moral destiny after death, with passage elaborated in later traditions.
صيغ للاسم: Chinvat Bridge، Činwad Puhl، Cinvat
Context والمصادر →
The Aula at Göttingen University, 3 April 2016. Institutional context for Christian Zgoll, not a portrait or identification of his office
Person
Scholar at Göttingen working on ancient languages and comparative mythology, including Greek poetry and Hittite texts.
صيغ للاسم: Christian Zgoll
Context والمصادر →
Positions in specific texts, not a consensus of early or later Christianity; no portraits depicted
Entity
The Word becoming flesh; distinct from every divine body or sensible manifestation.
صيغ للاسم: Christian incarnation
Context والمصادر →Person
Author of the 2012 German WiBiLex entry on Gog and Magog, surveying explanations of the names and their evidence.
صيغ للاسم: Christoph Rösel
Context والمصادر →
The gateway known as Cleopatra’s Gate in Tarsus, a city of historical Cilicia in modern Türkiye, 3 October 2005. A view of a place in the region; the popular name does not date the visible building
Site
Historical region on Anatolia’s southern coast in modern Türkiye, with plains and uplands connected to the Levant and Anatolian interior.
صيغ للاسم: Cilicia
Context والمصادر →
Modern guide to vault growth, morphology and diagnostic limits. It gives no procedure for head shaping, represents no archaeological skull and reconstructs no site-specific equipment
Entity
A pattern of early-growth head shaping associated with circumferential constraint and an elevated or extended vault.
صيغ للاسم: circumferential head shaping، circumferential modification
Context والمصادر →
Sealed clay envelope and tokens in a museum display, Susa; Louvre SB 1932, ca. 3500–2900 BCE according to the museum record. A recording device, not a written linguistic sentence
Entity
Hollow clay envelopes, sometimes enclosing tokens and bearing seals or numerical impressions; fourth-millennium administrative recording devices.
صيغ للاسم: clay envelopes، clay envelope، bullae
Context والمصادر →
Clay tokens from Susa, Uruk period, Louvre; group includes SB 4966, SB 4977 and others. Fourth-millennium examples, not the earliest Neolithic tokens
Entity
Small clay objects of varied shapes; some supported counting, but Neolithic examples do not establish one accounting system or function for all.
صيغ للاسم: clay tokens، clay token
Context والمصادر →