The History of the Ancient World: Практическое пособие по английскому языку. Часть 1. Гончарова Л.Ю. - 16 стр.

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       The Assyrian kind of this time, Ashurbanipul, was a cultured man and
reputedly had a library – probably mostly looted from the Sumerians and
Babylonians – of some 22,000 clay tablets at their capital city of Khorsabad.
       The Assyrian empire was the first to build a system of national roads and also
the first to develop a postal system. The Assyrians also without doubt had the first
coherent administrative system and served as a role model for many later
civilizations.
       By the middle of the 7th century BC the Assyrian empire was on the decline,
weakened by a steady dissolution of their original racial homogeneity through
increasing mixing with the ever growing numbers of Semites in the region.
       Eventually a combination of neighbouring Indo-European tribes (Persians,
Medeans and Scythians) overthrew by then the mostly mixed race Assyrians and in
612 BC their capital, Nineveh, was destroyed.


                                  Vocabulary work

      Read and memorize the following words and expressions, suggest their
Russian equivalents:

LIST OF PROPER NAMES

Sumer
Ziggurat, n (= a step pyramid)
The Tigris
The Euphrates
The Nile
Noah
The Biblical flood
Babylon
The Law Code of Hammurabi
The Assyrian Empire
The Indo-Aryans
The Semites
The Persians
The Scythians
Nineveh

                                 VOCABULARY

water supply                               multiply, v
misnomer, n                                multiplication, n
arid desert                                divide, v
contrary to …                              division, n
(e.g. contrary to popular myth)            square root