New World Encyclopedia integrates facts with values.
Written by online collaboration with certified experts.
Did you know?
Malawi is known as the "Warm Heart of Africa." (read more)
Featured Article: Chickee
A Seminole camp with a sleep chickee, cooking chickee, and eating chickee. Photo by Alexander Linn.
Chikee or Chickee ("house" in the Creek and Mikasuki languages spoken by the Seminoles and Miccosukees) is a shelter supported by posts, with a raised floor, a thatched roof and open sides. The chickee was adopted by Seminoles as an easily erected, disposable shelter that allowed them to move camp frequently and easily when pursued by U.S. troops. Each chickee had its own purpose—cooking, sleeping, and eating—and together they were organized within a camp-type community.
Today, the unique structure of the chickee has become popular for tourists. The building of chickees has become a way to retain Florida's heritage and preserve the past while at the same time providing a profitable business for Seminole tribal members.
Stele of Narâm-Sîn, king of Akkad, celebrating his victory against the Lullubi from Zagros.
The Akkadian Empire usually refers to the Semitic speaking state that grew up around the city of Akkad north of Sumer, and reached its greatest extent under Sargon of Akkad (2296-2240 B.C.E.). It has been described as the first true empire in world history. It was a flourishing civilization in one of the most fertile areas of the globe, the alluvian plain of Southern Mesopotamia that fed into the later Babylonian Civilization. Women appear to have been respected and to have played a significant role in the religious cultus. King Sargon was the first ruler to unite the peoples of Southern Mesopotamia into a single political unit. He established a strong, centralized state. Cities, though, used to independence competed for preeminence, which appears to have eventually brought about the Empire's decline. It was followed by the Babylonian Civilization. This is roughly in the region of modern Iraq.
Comparatively little of what constitutes modern civilization may have been derived from the Akkadians but the Empire was an important bridge in the development of the culture, social organization and commercial practices of the region.
