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  • Akhbār az-zamān (work by al-Masʿūdī)
    ...of more than 20 books attributed to him are known, including several about Islāmic beliefs and sects and even one about poisons, but most of his writings have been lost. His major work was Akhbār az-zamān (“The History of Time”) in 30 volumes. This seems to have been an encyclopaedic world history, taking in not only political history but also many face...
  • Akhbāriyyah (Islamic sect)
    ...had expanded and matured, precipitating doctrinal disputes that often became vitriolic between factions within the Ithnā ʿAsharī religious community. One faction, known as the Akhbāriyyah, felt that the only sound source of legal interpretation was the direct teachings of the 12 infallible imams, in the form of their written and oral testaments (......
  • Akhḍar, al-Jabal al- (mountain, Oman)
    ...(The Stone) range includes the Ruʾūs al-Jibāl overlooking the Strait of Hormuz, the al-Gharbī al-Ḥajar (Western Hajar), the vast massif of al-Jabal Al-Akhḍar (Green Mountain), the Jabal Nakhl, the ash-Sharqī al-Ḥajar (Eastern Hajar), and the Jabal Banī Jābir. This range, with its steeper slopes to seaward, reaches......
  • Akhḍar, al-Jabal al- (mountains, Libya)
    mountain range of northeastern Libya that extends along the Mediterranean coast for about 100 miles (160 km) in an east-northeasterly direction between the towns of al-Marj and Darnah. Rising sharply in two steps, the first reaching 985 feet (300 m) and the second about 1,800 feet (550 m), the limestone range (about 20 miles [32 km] wide) then blends into a plateau crowned by hills attaining eleva...
  • Akhḍar Mountains (mountains, Libya)
    mountain range of northeastern Libya that extends along the Mediterranean coast for about 100 miles (160 km) in an east-northeasterly direction between the towns of al-Marj and Darnah. Rising sharply in two steps, the first reaching 985 feet (300 m) and the second about 1,800 feet (550 m), the limestone range (about 20 miles [32 km] wide) then blends into a plateau crowned by hills attaining eleva...
  • Akhelóös Potamós (river, Greece)
    one of the longest rivers in Greece, rising in the Pindus Mountains of central Epirus (Ípiros) and dividing Aetolia from Acarnania. It debouches into the Ionian Sea after a course of 140 mi (220 km), mostly through gorges. Well above Agrínion two hydroelectric dams were built to harness the waters of the river and its tributaries. One is at Kastraki; the other, at Kremasta, is the hi...
  • Akhenaton (king of Egypt)
    king of Egypt (1353–36 bc) of the 18th dynasty, who established a new monotheistic cult of Aton (hence his assumed name, Akhenaton, meaning “One Useful to Aton”)....
  • akhet (ancient Egyptian season)
    ...the Nile rested the prosperity, the very continuity, of the land. The three seasons of the Egyptian year were even named after the land conditions produced by the river: akhet, the “inundation”; peret, the season when the land emerged from the flood; and shomu, t...
  • Akhetaton (ancient site, Egypt)
    site of the ruins and tombs of the city of Akhetaton (“Horizon of Aton”) in Upper Egypt, 44 miles (71 km) north of modern Asyūt. On a virgin site on the east bank of the Nile River, Akhenaton (Amenhotep IV) built the city about 1348 bce as the new capital of his kingdom when he abandoned ...
  • akhi (Islamic organization)
    In Islamic civilization, the futuwwāt (“spiritual chivalry”) were military and economic orders similar to the knightly fraternities and guilds of medieval Europe. Combining craftwork or service in the military or government with spiritual discipline, these orders have played a major role in Islamic history by drawing their members more......
  • Akhisar (Turkey)
    town, western Turkey, in a fertile plain on the Great Zab River (the ancient Lycus). The ancient town, originally called Pelopia, was probably founded by the Lydians. It was made a Macedonian colony about 290 bc and renamed Thyatira. It became part of the kingdom of Pergamum in 190 bc and was an important station on the ancient Roman road from Pergamu...
  • Akhlame (people)
    ancient Semitic nomads of northern Syria and Mesopotamia and traditional enemies of the Assyrians. They are first mentioned about 1375 bc in an Egyptian source (one of the Tell el-Amarna letters), in which they are said to have advanced as far as the Euphrates River; about the same time there was also evidence of them in Assyria, at Nippur, and around the Persian Gulf. During the nex...
  • Akhlamû (people)
    ancient Semitic nomads of northern Syria and Mesopotamia and traditional enemies of the Assyrians. They are first mentioned about 1375 bc in an Egyptian source (one of the Tell el-Amarna letters), in which they are said to have advanced as far as the Euphrates River; about the same time there was also evidence of them in Assyria, at Nippur, and around the Persian Gulf. During the nex...
  • Akhlāq-i Naṣīrī (work by Țūsī)
    ...al-Raḥīm offered al-Ṭūsī sanctuary in his mountain fortresses in Khorāsān. Al-Ṭūsī in turn dedicated his most famous work, Akhlāq-i nāṣirī (1232; Nasirean Ethics), to the governor before being invited to stay in the capital at Alamūt, where he espoused the......
  • Akhmadulina, Bella (Russian poet)
    Russian-language poet of Tatar and Italian descent, a distinctive voice in post-Stalinist Soviet literature....
  • Akhmadulina, Izabella Akhatovna (Russian poet)
    Russian-language poet of Tatar and Italian descent, a distinctive voice in post-Stalinist Soviet literature....
  • Akhmatova, Anna (Russian poet)
    Russian poet recognized at her death as the greatest woman poet in Russian literature....
  • Akhmatova, Anna Andreevna (Russian poet)
    Russian poet recognized at her death as the greatest woman poet in Russian literature....
  • Akhmet (Mongol khan)
    The third major element of Ivan’s foreign policy comprised his relations with the various Tatar confederations. In the 1470s the Crimean khan Mengli Giray came into increasing conflict with Khan Ahmed of the Golden Horde and became interested in an alliance with Moscow against Ahmed and Lithuania. Ivan, eager to dissolve the connection between Lithuania and the Crimea but not wanting to......
  • Akhmīm (Egypt)
    town, Sawhāj muḥāfaẓah (governorate), Upper Egypt, on the east bank of the Nile, above Sawhāj on the west bank. Extensive necropolises dating from the 6th dynasty (c. 2345–c. 2181 bc) until the late Coptic period reveal the site’s antiquity. In 1981 remains of a temple (Roman period) with Ramessi...
  • Akhmīmic (dialect)
    ...around Asyūṭ, flourished in the 4th century. In it are preserved a text of the Gospel According to John and of the Acts of the Apostles, as well as a number of Gnostic documents. Akhmīmic was spoken in and around the Upper Egyptian city of Akhmīm. Sahidic (from Arabic, aṣ-Ṣaʿīd [Upper Egypt]) was originally the dialect spoken around......
  • Akhnaton (king of Egypt)
    king of Egypt (1353–36 bc) of the 18th dynasty, who established a new monotheistic cult of Aton (hence his assumed name, Akhenaton, meaning “One Useful to Aton”)....
  • Akhsěnāyā (Syrian bishop)
    Syrian bishop, theologian, and classical author. He was a leader of the Jacobite Monophysite church, a heterodox group that taught the existence of a single subject in Christ, the Logos, and followed the theology of Cyril of Alexandria (c. 375–444). He also contributed significantly to the Syriac literary heritage, particularly with the Philoxenian...
  • Akhṭal, al- (Umayyad poet)
    poet of the Umayyad period (661–750), esteemed for his perfection of Arabic poetic form in the old Bedouin tradition....
  • Akhtiarska Bay (bay, Ukraine)
    city and seaport, Crimea, southern Ukraine, in the southwestern Crimean Peninsula on the southern shore of the long, narrow Akhtiarska Bay, which forms a magnificent natural harbour. West of the modern town stood the ancient Greek colony of Chersonesus, founded in 421 bc. Originally a republic, Chersonesus (Heracleotic Chersonese) became, in turn, part of the Kingdom of Pontus, of th...
  • Akhtuba River (river, Russia)
    ...(Between the Samara Bend and Volgograd it receives only the relatively small left-bank tributaries of the Samara, Bolshoy Irgiz, and Yeruslan.) Above Volgograd the Volga’s main distributary, the Akhtuba, branches southeastward to the Caspian Sea, running parallel to the main course of the river, which also turns southeast. A floodplain, characterized by numerous interconnecting channels ...
  • Akhtyrka (city, Ukraine)
    city, northeastern Ukraine, on the Vorskla River. It was founded in 1641 as a fortress protecting the southern frontiers of Muscovy from raids of the Crimean Tatars. It was rebuilt in a different place in 1654 and incorporated in 1703. It has a notable cathedral (1758) designed by the imperial architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli, technical colleges, and a music school. Economic facto...
  • Akhund, Dadullah (Afghan guerrilla commander)
    Afghan guerrilla commander who was a notoriously ruthless senior leader of the Taliban insurgency. Dadullah, an ethnic Pashtun, fought against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. He rose to prominence in the 1990s with the Taliban army that conquered most of the country and remained active even after his leg was severed by a land mine in 1995. Dadullah was believed to have escaped t...
  • Akhundof (Azerbaijani playwright)
    ...the study of the Azerbaijani language were ʿAbbās Qolī Āghā Bāqıkhānlı (Bakikhanov), who wrote poetry as well as histories of the region, and Mīrzā Fatḥ ʿAlī Ākhūndzādeh (Akhundov), author of the first Azerbaijani plays. Though eventually these figures would be incorporated int...
  • Akhundov (Azerbaijani playwright)
    ...the study of the Azerbaijani language were ʿAbbās Qolī Āghā Bāqıkhānlı (Bakikhanov), who wrote poetry as well as histories of the region, and Mīrzā Fatḥ ʿAlī Ākhūndzādeh (Akhundov), author of the first Azerbaijani plays. Though eventually these figures would be incorporated int...
  • Ākhūndzādeh, Mīrzā Fatḥ ʿAlī (Azerbaijani playwright)
    ...the study of the Azerbaijani language were ʿAbbās Qolī Āghā Bāqıkhānlı (Bakikhanov), who wrote poetry as well as histories of the region, and Mīrzā Fatḥ ʿAlī Ākhūndzādeh (Akhundov), author of the first Azerbaijani plays. Though eventually these figures would be incorporated int...
  • Akhuryan (river, Armenia)
    The swift-flowing, unnavigable Aras provides most of the sediment forming the Kura-Aras delta. Principal tributaries of the Aras are the Arpa Çayı (Akhuryan), which receives the waters of the Kars River and Lake Çıldır in Turkey, the Hrazdan, draining Lake Sevan in Armenia, and the Qareh Sū, flowing off the Sabalān Mountains in northeastern Iranian....
  • Akhvlediani, Giorgi (Georgian writer)
    ...brtsqinvale (“George the Brilliant”), a historical novel preaching national pride, appeared in 2005—a new generation of prose writers appeared, notably the prolific Aka Morchiladze (pseudonym of Giorgi Akhvlediani). His best work includes Mogzauroba Karabaghshi (1992; “Journey to Karabakh”) and a series of semi-fantastic novels about ...
  • Akhyāliyyah, Laylā al- (Arab poet)
    ...or elegy, and it is in this role that the voice of the female poet is prominently heard, as, for example, in the verses of the 7th-century poets al-Khansāʾ and Laylā al-Akhyāliyyah. Many of the earliest male poets became renowned as warriors and lovers, and around their careers (or, perhaps, their “personae”; the historical......
  • Aki Keiiti (Japanese seismologist)
    Japanese seismologist (b. March 30, 1930, Yokohama, Japan—d. May 17, 2005, Réunion), developed the concept of the “seismic moment”—a quantitative means of measuring the amount of energy released by an earthquake. The seismic moment, first introduced by Aki in 1966, takes into consideration such factors as the length and depth of the rupture along the fault where ...
  • Aki Matsuri (religious festival)
    Each Shintō shrine has several major festivals each year, including the Spring Festival (Haru Matsuri, or Toshigoi-no-Matsuri; Prayer for Good Harvest Festival), Autumn Festival (Aki Matsuri, or Niiname-sai; Harvest Festival), an Annual Festival (Rei-sai), and the Divine Procession (Shinkō-sai). The Divine Procession usually takes place on the day of the Annual Festival, and......
  • Akiba ben Joseph (Jewish sage and rabbinic founder)
    Jewish sage, a principal founder of rabbinic Judaism. He introduced a new method of interpreting Jewish oral law (Halakha), thereby laying the foundation of what was to become the Mishna, the first postbiblical written code of Jewish law....
  • Akidjan, Andrew (Syrian bishop)
    ...at unification with Rome were made, without success, in 1237 and 1247. With the establishment of the Capuchins and Jesuits in Aleppo in 1626, however, conversions to Catholicism followed; and Andrew Akhidjan, a Syrian Catholic priest, was elected bishop of Aleppo (1656) and then patriarch of all Syrians (1662). Following his death and for about a century thereafter, the Catholics were severely....
  • Akif, Mehmed (Turkish poet)
    ...ballast of Arabo-Persian prosody and instead turning to the language of the people, unadulterated by any foreign vocabulary. The stirrings of social criticism could be discerned after 1907. Mehmed Akif (died 1936), in his masterly narrative poems, gave a vivid critical picture of conditions in Turkey before World War I. His powerful and dramatic style, though still expressed in......
  • Akihito (emperor of Japan)
    75th emperor of Japan; his attempt to usurp his brother’s throne resulted in the bloody Hōgen War, which allowed the powerful warrior Taira clan to gain control of the government....
  • Akihito (emperor of Japan [born 1933])
    emperor of Japan from 1989. As scion of the oldest imperial family in the world, he was, according to tradition, the 125th direct descendant of Jimmu, Japan’s legendary first emperor....
  • Akii-Bua, John (Ugandan athlete)
    Ugandan athlete who in 1972 became the first, and thus far the only, Ugandan to win an Olympic gold medal when he triumphed in the 400-m hurdles in 47.82 seconds, a world record (b. Dec. 3, 1949--d. June 20, 1997)....
  • Akikaze no uta (poem by Tōson)
    ...poetry, too, the first products of Western influence were comically inept experiments with rhyme and with such unpromising subjects as the principles of sociology. Tōson’s Akikaze no uta (1896; “Song of the Autumn Wind”), however, is not merely a skillful echo of Percy Bysshe Shelley but a true picture of a Japanese landscape; the irregular l...
  • Akilas (ancient biblical scholar)
    scholar who in about ad 140 completed a literal translation into Greek of the Old Testament; it replaced the Septuagint among Jews and was used by the Church Fathers Origen in the 3rd century and St. Jerome in the 4th and 5th centuries. St. Epiphanius (c. 315—403) preserved in his writings the popular Christian tradition that Aquila was a relative of ...
  • Akimel O’odham (people)
    North American Indians who traditionally lived along the Gila and Salt rivers in Arizona, U.S., in what was the core area of the prehistoric Hohokam culture. The Pima, who speak a Uto-Aztecan language and call themselves the “River People,” are usually considered to be the descendants of the Hohokam. Like their presumed ancestors, the Pima were t...
  • Akimetes, Saint Alexander (Byzantine monk)
    ...Byzantine monasteries who were noted for their choral recitation of the divine office in constant and never interrupted relays. Their first monastery, at Constantinople, was founded in about 400 by St. Alexander Akimetes, who, after long study of the Bible, put into practice his conviction that God should be perpetually praised; he arranged for relays of monks to relieve one another without......
  • Akimiski (island, Northwest Territories, Canada)
    ...Generally less than 200 feet (60 m) deep, the bay is 275 miles (443 km) long and 135 miles (217 km) wide and contains numerous islands, all of which are administered by the Northwest Territories. Akimiski, the largest island, has an area of 1,159 square miles (3,002 square km). The many rivers that flow into James Bay, including La Grande, Eastmain, Rupert, Broadback, Nottaway, Harricana,......
  • Akimov, Nikolay Pavlovich (Russian stage designer)
    scenic designer and producer, known for the diversity of his bold experiments in stage design and dramatic interpretation—most especially for his cynical reinterpretation of Hamlet (1932), in which the king’s ghost was represented as a fiction cunningly devised by Hamlet, Ophelia was portrayed as intoxicated rather than mad, and her drowning was depicted as ...
  • akınci (Ottoman army)
    ...these forces became mainly Christian, and, as they came to dominate the Ottoman army, the older Turkmen cavalry forces were maintained along the frontiers as irregular shock troops, called akıncis, who were compensated only by booty. As the yayas and müsellems expanded in numbers, their salaries became too burdensome for the Ottoman treasury, so in most......
  • Akindynos, Gregorios (Byzantine monk)
    Byzantine monk and theologian who was the principal opponent of Hesychasm, a Greek monastic movement of contemplative prayer. He was eventually condemned for heresy....
  • akinete (biology)
    ...a gelatinous mass. Ranging from microscopic to walnut-sized, masses of Nostoc may be found on soil and floating in quiet water. Reproduction is by fragmentation. A special thick-walled cell (akinete) has the ability to withstand desiccation for long periods of time. After 70 years of dry storage, the akinete of one species germinates into a filament when moistened. Like most blue-green.....
  • Akinola, Peter (Nigerian archbishop)
    In 2007 Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria stirred up controversy when he created an American diocese to welcome discontented Episcopal parishes to a more conservative branch of the Anglican church. As primate of the Church of Nigeria, Akinola led the nearly 20 million members in the world’s fastest-growing Anglican province, second in membership only to the 26-million-member Chur...
  • Akinola, Peter Jasper (Nigerian archbishop)
    In 2007 Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria stirred up controversy when he created an American diocese to welcome discontented Episcopal parishes to a more conservative branch of the Anglican church. As primate of the Church of Nigeria, Akinola led the nearly 20 million members in the world’s fastest-growing Anglican province, second in membership only to the 26-million-member Chur...
  • Akinsowon, Christiana Abiodun (Nigerian religious leader)
    The Cherubim and Seraphim society is a distinct section of the Aladura founded by Moses Orimolade Tunolase, a Yoruba prophet, and Christiana Abiodun Akinsowon, an Anglican who had experienced visions and trances. In 1925–26 they formed the society, with doctrines of revelation and divine healing replacing traditional charms and medicine. They separated from the Anglican and other churches.....
  • Akintola, Samuel Ladoke (Nigerian politician)
    administrator and politician, premier of the Western Region of Nigeria and an early victim of the January 1966 military coup....
  • Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka (Nigerian author)
    Nigerian playwright and political activist who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986. He sometimes wrote of modern West Africa in a satirical style, but his serious intent and his belief in the evils inherent in the exercise of power usually was evident in his work as well....
  • Akinyele, Sir Isaac B. (Nigerian religious leader)
    ...to doctrines of divine healing—their exclusion of polygamists, and their assertion of full control over the movement. In 1938–41 the ablest leaders, including Babalola and Isaac B. Akinyele (later Sir), formed their own Christ Apostolic Church, which by the 1960s had 100,000 members and its own schools and had spread to Ghana. The Apostolic Church continued its connection with......
  • Akinyi, Grace Emily (Kenyan author)
    Kenyan author of widely anthologized short stories and novels....
  • akiriyāvāda (Buddhist philosophy)
    set of beliefs held by heretic teachers in India who were contemporaries of the Buddha. The doctrine was a kind of antinomianism that, by denying the orthodox karmic theory of the efficacy of former deeds on a person’s present and future condition, also denied the possibility of a person’s influencing his own destiny through preferring righteous to bad conduct. The doctrine’s ...
  • Akita (breed of dog)
    breed of working dog that originated in the mountains of northern Japan. In 1931 the Japanese government designated the breed as a national treasure. It was employed as a hunting and fighting dog and is now trained for police and guard work. The Akita is a powerful, muscular dog with a broad head, erect, pointed ears (small in relation to head size), and a large curved tail carr...
  • Akita (prefecture, Japan)
    ken (prefecture), northwestern Honshu, Japan, on the Sea of Japan coast. Its area of 4,483 square miles (11,612 square km) is divided between lowlands (west) and a plateau region (east). The Hachiman Plateau is dotted with volcanoes such as Mount Komaga (5,371 feet [1,637 m]), near the eastern border with Iwate prefecture. The plateau is covered with white fir trees and alpine plants that ...
  • Akitu (Mesopotamian festival)
    ...to the fount of natural and historical existence, and participate in the renewal of the world order. In the ancient Near East, such celebrations were of fundamental significance for the society. The Akitu festival of the Babylonians occurred in the spring, marking the rebirth of nature, the reestablishment of the kingship by divine authority, and the securing of the life and destiny of the......
  • Akitu House (temple, Babylon, Mesopotamia)
    ...the river. From Esagila northward passed the paved Processional Way, its walls decorated with enameled lions. Passing through the Ishtar Gate, adorned with enameled bulls and dragons, it led to the Akitu House, a small temple outside the city that was said to be visited by Marduk at the New Year festival. West of the Ishtar Gate, one of eight fortified gates, were two palace complexes that......
  • Akjoujt (Mauritania)
    The copper deposits of Akjoujt are extensive, with a copper content of more than 2 percent. Exploitation was begun in 1969 by Somima (Société Minière de Mauritanie), of which 54 percent of the shares were held by British and U.S. interests, 25 percent by the Mauritanian government, and the remainder by French interests. Somima was nationalized in 1975, but operations were......
  • ʿAkkā (Israel)
    city, northwest Israel. It lies along the Mediterranean Sea, at the north end of the Bay of Haifa (formerly Bay of Acre). Its natural harbour was a frequent target for Palestine’s many invaders over the centuries. The earliest mention of ʿAkko is in an Egyptian text dating from the 19th century bc. The Bible (Judges 1) states that the city did not fall to the Jews under...
  • Akka (African people)
    The Bambuti is a collective name for four populations of Ituri Pygmies—the Sua, Aka, Efe, and Mbuti—each of which has formed a loose economic and cultural interdependency with an agriculturalist group. They are nomadic hunters and gatherers living in small bands that vary in composition and size throughout the year but are generally formed into patrilineal groups of from 10 to 100......
  • Akkad (historical region, Mesopotamia)
    ancient region in what is now central Iraq. Akkad was the northern (or northwestern) division of ancient Babylonian civilization. The region was located roughly in the area where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are closest to each other, and its northern limit extended beyond the line of the modern cities of al-Fallūjah and Baghdad. The early inhabitants of this region were predominantly S...
  • Akkadian language (ancient language)
    extinct Semitic language of the Northern Peripheral group, spoken in Mesopotamia from the 3rd to the 1st millennium bc....
  • Akkadian literature (ancient literature)
    Another Babylonian epic, composed around 2000 bc, is called in Akkadian Enuma elish, after its opening words, meaning “When on high.” Its subject is not heroic but mythological. It recounts events from the beginning of the world to the establishment of the power of Marduk, the great god of Babylon. The outline of a Babylonian poem narrating the adventure of a her...
  • Akkadian writing (linguistics)
    Before these developments had been completed, the Sumerian writing system was adopted by the Akkadians, Semitic invaders who established themselves in Mesopotamia about the middle of the 3rd millennium. In adapting the script to their wholly different language, the Akkadians retained the Sumerian logograms and combinations of logograms for more complex notions but pronounced them as the......
  • ʿAkkār, Plain of (region, Middle East)
    ...the narrow coastal strip is interrupted by spurs of the northwestern Al-Anṣariyyah Mountains immediately to the east. It then widens into the ʿAkkār Plain, which continues south across the Lebanon border....
  • Akkaron (ancient city, Israel)
    ancient Canaanite and Philistine city, one of the five cities of the Philistine pentapolis, and currently identified with Tel Miqne (Arabic: Khirbat al-Muqannaʿ), south of the settlement of Mazkeret Batya, central Israel. Although it was allocated to Judah after the Israelite conquest (Joshua 15:11), Ekron was a Philistine stronghold in David’s time (1 Samuel 17:52); during the time...
  • Akkerman (Ukraine)
    city, southernmost Ukraine. It lies on the southwestern shore of the broad, shallow Dniester River estuary. In the 6th century bc, Greeks from Miletus established the colony of Tyras on the site. It later came under the Scythians, and it was settled by Slavs in early Kievan times (9th century). After the fall of Kiev to the Tatars, Bilhorod became a republican city...
  • Akkerman, Convention of (Turkey [1826])
    ...and opened the Straits of the Dardanelles and Bosporus to Russian shipping. Furthermore, in the Balkans, the Ottomans acknowledged Greece as an autonomous but tributary state, reaffirmed the Convention of Akkerman (1826), granting autonomy to Serbia, and recognized the autonomy of the Danubian principalities of Moldavia and Walachia under Russian tutelage....
  • ʿAkko (Israel)
    city, northwest Israel. It lies along the Mediterranean Sea, at the north end of the Bay of Haifa (formerly Bay of Acre). Its natural harbour was a frequent target for Palestine’s many invaders over the centuries. The earliest mention of ʿAkko is in an Egyptian text dating from the 19th century bc. The Bible (Judges 1) states that the city did not fall to the Jews under...
  • ʿAkko, Plain of (plain, Palestine)
    Coastal lowlands of varying widths front the Mediterranean. The most northerly is the Plain of ʿAkko (Acre), which extends with a breadth of 5 to 9 miles (8 to 14 km) for about 20 miles (32 km) from the Lebanon border in the north to the Carmel promontory, in Israel, in the south, where it narrows to a mere 600 feet (180 metres). Farther southward the lowland opens out rapidly into the......
  • Akkordeon (musical instrument)
    free-reed portable musical instrument, consisting of a treble casing with external piano-style keys or buttons and a bass casing (usually with buttons) attached to opposite sides of a hand-operated bellows....
  • Akkordzither (musical instrument)
    stringed instrument of the zither family popular for accompaniment in folk music and country and western music. A musician may position the instrument on a table, on the lap while seated, or resting against the left shoulder. An autoharp player strums the strings with a stiff felt or plastic pick held in the right hand or less commonly with ...
  • “Akkumulation des Kapitals, Die” (work by Luxemburg)
    Released from her Warsaw prison, she taught at the Social Democratic Party school in Berlin (1907–14), where she wrote Die Akkumulation des Kapitals (1913; The Accumulation of Capital). In this analysis, she described imperialism as the result of a dynamic capitalism’s expansion into underdeveloped areas of the world. It was during this time also that she began to agita...
  • Aklya Kona (Inca religion)
    in Inca religion, women who lived in temple convents under a vow of chastity. Their duties included the preparation of ritual food, the maintenance of a sacred fire, and the weaving of garments for the emperor and for ritual use. They were under the supervision of matrons called Mama Cuna. At the time of the Spanish conquest in the early 16th century, the Virgins numbered several thousand and were...
  • AKM rifle (weapon)
    ...rate of 600 rounds per minute. It is manufactured in several countries in two basic designs. One has a wooden stock, the other a folding metal stock. In the 1980s the AK-47 was replaced by the AKM, a modernized version with better sights but the same basic operation. The AK-47 and its AKM version, however, remained the basic shoulder weapons for virtually all communist armies, as well as......
  • Akmeist (Russian poets)
    member of a small group of early-20th-century Russian poets reacting against the vagueness and affectations of Symbolism. It was formed by the poets Sergey Gorodetsky and Nikolay S. Gumilyov. They reasserted the poet as craftsman and used language freshly and with intensity. Centred in St. Petersburg, the Acmeists were associated with the review Apollon (1909–17). ...
  • Akmeisty (Russian poets)
    member of a small group of early-20th-century Russian poets reacting against the vagueness and affectations of Symbolism. It was formed by the poets Sergey Gorodetsky and Nikolay S. Gumilyov. They reasserted the poet as craftsman and used language freshly and with intensity. Centred in St. Petersburg, the Acmeists were associated with the review Apollon (1909–17). ...
  • Akmola (Kazakhstan)
    city, capital of Kazakhstan. Astana (meaning “Capital” in Kazak) lies in north-central Kazakhstan along the Ishim River at the junction of the Trans-Kazakhstan and South Siberian railways....
  • Akmolinsk (Kazakhstan)
    city, capital of Kazakhstan. Astana (meaning “Capital” in Kazak) lies in north-central Kazakhstan along the Ishim River at the junction of the Trans-Kazakhstan and South Siberian railways....
  • Akō (Japan)
    city, Hyōgo ken (prefecture), western Honshu, Japan. During the Heian period (794–1185), it was a seaside resort for courtesans from Kyōto. It became a castle town in the 17th century, when the powerful Ikeda clan took up residence. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the establishment of chemical factories and steel mills has transformed Ak...
  • “Ako chutí moc” (work by Mňačko)
    ...Mňačko, Alfonz Bednár, and Dominik Tatarka. Mňačko was among the first eastern European writers to criticize Stalinism, in his popular novel The Taste of Power (1967), while Tatarka attacked the Gustav Husák regime’s process of “normalization” in Czechoslovakia after 1969 in Sám proti noci...
  • Akoimetoi (Byzantine monks)
    monks at a series of 5th- to 6th-century Byzantine monasteries who were noted for their choral recitation of the divine office in constant and never interrupted relays. Their first monastery, at Constantinople, was founded in about 400 by St. Alexander Akimetes, who, after long study of the Bible, put into practice his conviction that God should be perpetually praised; he arranged for relays of mo...
  • Akokoid languages
    The Defoid languages comprise two groups: the Akokoid cluster of four languages and the very much larger Yoruboid cluster whose principal members are Yoruba (20,000,000 speakers), Igala (1,000,000), and Itsekiri (Itsεkiri; 600,000). Yoruba is the Niger-Congo language with the largest number of mother-tongue speakers. Though Swahili has a greater total number of speakers—some......
  • Akola (India)
    city, north-central Mahārāshtra state, western India, on the Mūrna River. An important road and rail junction in the Tāpti River valley, it is a commercial centre trading chiefly in cotton. There are also textile and vegetable-oil industries. In the past it was incorporated in turn into several local Muslim kingdoms. Akola is an important educational centre with severa...
  • “Akolouthiai” (liturgical book)
    ...each day of the church year); and the psaltikon and asmatikon (solo and choral parts, respectively, for kontakion and some other solo choral chants). In the Akolouthiai, or Anthologion, were ordinary chants for Vespers, Matins, funerals, and the three liturgies (of St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil, and the Preconsecrated Offerings), as well as optional chants, some of....
  • Akombo (African religion)
    Some Tiv have converted to Christianity, and a lesser number have adopted Islam; but their traditional religion, based on the manipulation of forces (akombo) entrusted to humans by a creator god, remains strong. The akombo are manifested in certain symbols or emblems and in diseases that they create. An organization of elders who have the ability to manipulate these forces meets......
  • Akosombo Dam (dam, Ghana)
    rock-fill dam on the Volta River, near Akosombo, Ghana, completed in 1965 as part of the Volta River Project. Its construction was jointly financed by the government of Ghana, the World Bank, the United States, and the United Kingdom. The dam rises 440 feet (134 m) above ground level and has a crest 2,201 feet (671 m) wide and a volume of 10,451,000 cubic yards (7,991,000 cubic...
  • akousmatikoi (Pythagorean sect)
    ...“something heard,” viz., the esoteric teachings) and mathēmatikoi (Greek: mathēmatikos, “scientific”), may have occurred at that time. The acousmatics devoted themselves to the observance of rituals and rules and to the interpretation of the sayings of the master; the “mathematics” were concerned with the scientific aspects.....
  • Akow (Taiwan)
    shih (municipality) and seat of P’ing-tung hsien (county), southwestern Taiwan. It is located 13 miles (21 km) northeast of Kao-hsiung city, in the southern part of the western plain. Founded in the early 18th century, the city is situated west of the Kao-p’ing River. It is in an agricultural region that produces sugarcane, rice, bananas, tobacco, and fruits. P’i...
  • AKP (political party, Turkey)
    In 2002 the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi; AKP), a party with Islamist roots, swept the parliamentary elections. It came to power under the ostensible leadership of Abdullah Gül, since party leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was ineligible to serve in parliament or as prime minister because of a 1998 conviction; a constitutional amendment in late 2002......
  • Akra (fortress, Jerusalem)
    ...taxes from the cities of Judaea. Antiochus’s official attacked the city of Jerusalem by guile and largely destroyed it. He then built a fortified position on the citadel, called by the Greeks the Akra. This became the symbol of Judah’s enslavement, though in itself the presence of a royal garrison in a Hellenistic city was by no means unusual. Its imposition was followed by an ope...
  • Akra Leuke (Spain)
    port city, capital of Alicante provincia (province), in the comunidad autónoma (autonomous community) of Valencia, southeastern Spain. It is located on Alicante Bay of the Mediterranean Sea. Founded as Akra Leuke (“White Summit”) by Phocaean ...
  • Akritas, Digenis (Byzantine epic hero)
    Byzantine epic hero celebrated in folk ballads (Akritic ballads) and in an epic relating his parentage, boyhood adventures, manhood, and death. Based on historical events, the epic, a blend of Greek, Byzantine, and Asian motifs, originated in the 10th century and was further developed in the 12th century. It was recorded in several versions from the 12th to the 17th century, the oldest being a lin...
  • akriyāvāda (Buddhist philosophy)
    set of beliefs held by heretic teachers in India who were contemporaries of the Buddha. The doctrine was a kind of antinomianism that, by denying the orthodox karmic theory of the efficacy of former deeds on a person’s present and future condition, also denied the possibility of a person’s influencing his own destiny through preferring righteous to bad conduct. The doctrine’s ...
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