Culture System See Cultivation System
Cumae \'kyu-me\ Ancient city west of Naples, Italy. Probably the old¬ est Greek mainland colony in the West, it was home to the Cumaean Sibyl, whose cavern still exists. Founded c. 750 bc by Greeks from Chalcis, it came to control much of the Campanian plain. Taken by the Samnites in the 5th century bc, it was subjugated by Rome in 338 bc. Under the empire it became a quiet country town. It was destroyed in ad 1205. Remains of fortifications and graves from all these periods have been found through¬ out the area.
Cumberland Gap National Historical Park National historical park, Tennessee, U.S. Created in 1940 to preserve the Cumberland Gap, a natural pass at 1,640 ft (500 m) through the Cumberland Plateau, it includes the Wilderness Road, blazed by Daniel Boone, which became the main artery that opened the Northwest Territory. The park covers 32 sq mi (83 sq km).
Cumberland Plateau Tableland in the U.S. that forms the western section of the Appalachian Mountains and a part of the Allegheny Plateau. It extends southwest for 450 mi (725 km) from southern West Virginia to northeastern Alabama, averages 50 mi (80 km) in width, and is 2,000- 4,145 ft (600-1,263 m) high. The roughest and highest portion is a nar¬ row ridge about 140 mi (225 km) long that forms its eastern margin in eastern Kentucky and northeastern Tennessee; the name Cumberland Mountains is generally applied to this area, which includes the Cumber¬ land Gap National Historical Park. The plateau has large deposits of coal, limestone, and sandstone.
Cumberland River River, Kentucky and Tennessee, U.S. It rises in southeastern Kentucky and flows west, looping through northern Tennes¬ see before returning north to join the Ohio River after a course of 687 mi (1,106 km). It drops 92 ft (28 m) at Cumberland (or Great) Falls, the site of a state park. A series of lakes on the Cumberland were developed as part of the Tennessee Valley Authority system. Wolf Creek Dam (1952) cre¬ ated Lake Cumberland, which extends to the base of Cumberland Falls.
Cumberland Sound Inlet of Davis Strait, Nunavut, Canada. Indent¬ ing the southeastern coast of Baffin Island, it is 170 mi (270 km) long and 100 mi (160 km) wide. John Davis, an English navigator, sailed into the sound in 1585 in search of the Northwest Passage. By the late 19th cen¬ tury the area was noted for whaling. The Anglican church established missions early in the 20th century at settlements along its shores.
Cumbria Administrative county (pop., 2001: 487,607), northwestern England. Extending along the Irish Sea coast from Morecambe Bay to Solway Firth, it includes the famous Lake District. It was established in 1974, with its seat at Carlisle. Human occupation dates from the Neolithic Period. The Romans constructed several roads, a series of forts, and the great complex of Hadrian's Wall. After the mid-10th century, northern
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494 I cumin ► cupellafion
Cumbria alternated between Scottish and English rule until it was taken by the English in 1157. Lead, silver, and iron ore have been mined in the district since the 12th century.
cumin Vko-mon, 'kyii-monV Small, slender annual herb ( Cuminum cym- inum ) of the carrot family (Apiaceae). It is cultivated in the Mediterra¬ nean region, India, China, and Mexico. Its seeds, which are actually dried fruits, are used in many spice mixtures such as chili and curry powders. Cumin is especially popular in Asian, North African, and Latin American cuisines. Its oil is used in perfumes, for flavouring liquors, and for medici¬ nal purposes.
Cummings, E(dward) E(stlin) (b. Oct. 14, 1894, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.—d. Sept. 3, 1962, North Conway, N.H.) U.S. poet and painter. Cum¬ mings attended Harvard University. His experience in World War I of being held in a detention camp because of a censor’s error gave rise to his first prose book, The Enormous Room (1922). His first book of poems. Tulips and Chimneys (1923), was followed by 11 more. Cummings’s poetry, rooted in New England traditions of dissent and self-reliance, attracted attention for its lack of capitalization, eccentric punctuation and phrasing, and often childlike playfulness, which won it a wide readership. His Norton lectures at Harvard were published as i: six nonlectures (1953).
Cuna Vkii-noN Chibchan-speaking Indian people who once occupied the central region of what is now Panama and the neighbouring San Bias Islands and who still survive in marginal areas. In the 16th century they lived in federated villages under chiefs who wielded considerable power. They had a hierarchical society and enslaved prisoners of war. Today they live in small villages and depend on agriculture, which is supplemented by hunting and fishing, for subsistence.
Cunard \kyu-'nard\, Sir Samuel, 1st Baronet (b. Nov. 21, 1787, Halifax, Nova Scotia—d. April 28, 1865, Kensington, London, Eng.) Canadian-British merchant and shipowner. He became prosperous in com¬ merce and began laying plans in 1830 to establish mail service between England and North America. He went to England in 1838 and in 1839 cofounded the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Co., known as the Cunard Line. In 1840, four Cunard liners began the first regular service across the Atlantic Ocean.
cuneiform law \ l kyu-'ne-3- 1 f6rm\ Body of laws revealed by docu¬ ments written in cuneiform script (see cuneiform writing). It includes the laws of the Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Elamites, Hurrians, Kas- sites, and Hittites. Unlike modern legal codes, these ancient codes do not systematically treat all the rules applicable to a given area of law; rather, they treat a variety of matters but often ignore many highly important rules simply because such rules were so grounded in custom that they went unquestioned. The most important of the ancient codes is the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi.
cuneiform \kyu- , ne-9- l form\ writing System of writing employed in ancient times to write a number of languages of the Middle East. The original and primary writing material for cuneiform texts was a damp clay tablet, into which the scribe would press a wedge-shaped stroke with a
original
pictograph
pictograph position in later cuneiform
early
Babylonian
Assyrian
original or derived meaning
P
V
4
bird
$
!<
fish
O
❖
sun,
day
wy
f!
•T?
to plow, to till
Examples illustrating the evolution of cuneiform writing.
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reed stylus. A configuration of such impressions constituted a character, or sign. Proto-cuneiform signs dating from c. 3200-3000 bc were drawn rather than impressed and were largely pictographic (see pictography), though these features were lost as the script evolved. A single cuneiform sign could be a logogram (an arbitrary representation of a word) or a syl- labogram (a representation of the sound of a syllable). The first language to be written in cuneiform was Sumerian (see Sumer). Akkadian began to be written in cuneiform c. 2350 bc. Later the script was adapted to other South Asian languages. Cuneiform was slowly displaced in the first mil¬ lennium bc by the rise of Aramaic, written in an alphabet script of Phoe¬ nician origin. Knowledge of the value of cuneiform signs was lost until the mid-19th century, when European scholars deciphered the script.
Cunene \ku-'na-n3\ River or Kunene River River, southwestern Angola. It flows south to enter the northern Kalahari Desert. Forming part of the boundary between Angola and Namibia, it passes through the Namib Desert before emptying into the Atlantic Ocean after a total course of 700 mi (1,125 km).