1.
Romania
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Romania is a sovereign state located in Southeastern Europe. It borders the Black Sea, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia and it has an area of 238,391 square kilometres and a temperate-continental climate. With over 19 million inhabitants, the country is the member state of the European Union. Its capital and largest city, Bucharest, is the sixth-largest city in the EU, the River Danube, Europes second-longest river, rises in Germany and flows in a general southeast direction for 2,857 km, coursing through ten countries before emptying into Romanias Danube Delta. The Carpathian Mountains, which cross Romania from the north to the southwest are marked by one of their tallest peaks, Moldoveanu, modern Romania was formed in 1859 through a personal union of the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. The new state, officially named Romania since 1866, gained independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1877, at the end of World War I, Transylvania, Bukovina and Bessarabia united with the sovereign Kingdom of Romania. Romania lost several territories, of which Northern Transylvania was regained after the war, following the war, Romania became a socialist republic and member of the Warsaw Pact. After the 1989 Revolution, Romania began a transition back towards democracy and it has been a member of NATO since 2004, and part of the European Union since 2007. A strong majority of the population identify themselves as Eastern Orthodox Christians and are speakers of Romanian. The cultural history of Romania is often referred to when dealing with artists, musicians, inventors. For similar reasons, Romania has been the subject of notable tourist attractions, Romania derives from the Latin romanus, meaning citizen of Rome. The first known use of the appellation was attested in the 16th century by Italian humanists travelling in Transylvania, Moldavia, after the abolition of serfdom in 1746, the word rumân gradually fell out of use and the spelling stabilised to the form român. Tudor Vladimirescu, a leader of the early 19th century. The use of the name Romania to refer to the homeland of all Romanians—its modern-day meaning—was first documented in the early 19th century. The name has been officially in use since 11 December 1861, in English, the name of the country was formerly spelt Rumania or Roumania. Romania became the predominant spelling around 1975, Romania is also the official English-language spelling used by the Romanian government. The Neolithic-Age Cucuteni area in northeastern Romania was the region of the earliest European civilization. Evidence from this and other sites indicates that the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture extracted salt from salt-laden spring water through the process of briquetage
2.
Ghindari
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Ghindari is a commune in Mureș County, Romania. It lies in the Székely Land, a region in eastern Transylvania. The commune is composed of five villages, Trei Sate village, until 1918, the villages belonged to the Maros-Torda County of the Kingdom of Hungary. After the Treaty of Trianon of 1920, the became part of Romania. In 2004, Chibed broke away to form an independent commune, the commune has an absolute Székely Hungarian majority. According to the 2002 census, it has a population of 3250, of which 91. 9% are Hungarian,7. 4% Roma and 0. 7% Romanian
3.
State of Palestine
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The State of Palestine claims the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as the designated capital. Most of the areas claimed by the State of Palestine have been occupied by Israel since 1967 in the aftermath of the Six-Day War and its independence was declared on 15 November 1988 by the Palestine Liberation Organization in Algiers as a government-in-exile. Since the British Mandate, the term Palestine has been associated with the area that currently covers the State of Israel, the West Bank. In 1947, the UN adopted a plan for a two-state solution in the remaining territory of the mandate. The plan was accepted by the Jewish leadership but rejected by the Arab leaders, on the eve of final British withdrawal, the Jewish Agency for Israel declared the establishment of the State of Israel according to the proposed UN plan. During the war, Israel gained additional territories that were designated to be part of the Arab state under the UN plan, Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip and Transjordan occupied the West Bank. Egypt initially supported the creation of an All-Palestine Government, but disbanded it in 1959, Transjordan never recognized it and instead decided to incorporate the West Bank with its own territory to form Jordan. The annexation was ratified in 1950 but was rejected by the international community, the Six-Day War in 1967, when Egypt, Jordan, and Syria fought against Israel, ended with Israel being in occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, besides other territories. In 1964, when the West Bank was controlled by Jordan, the Palestinian National Charter of the PLO defines the boundaries of Palestine as the whole remaining territory of the mandate, including Israel. Following the Six-Day War, the PLO moved to Jordan, the October 1974 Arab League summit designated the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and reaffirmed their right to establish an independent state of urgency. In November 1974, the PLO was recognized as competent on all matters concerning the question of Palestine by the UN General Assembly granting them observer status as an entity at the UN. In spite of this decision, the PLO did not participate at the UN in its capacity of the State of Palestines government, in 1979, through the Camp David Accords, Egypt signaled an end to any claim of its own over the Gaza Strip. In July 1988, Jordan ceded its claims to the West Bank—with the exception of guardianship over Haram al-Sharif—to the PLO, in November 1988, the PLO legislature, while in exile, declared the establishment of the State of Palestine. In the month following, it was recognised by many states, including Egypt. In the Palestinian Declaration of Independence, the State of Palestine is described as being established on the Palestinian territory, the UN membership application submitted by the State of Palestine also specified that it is based on the 1967 borders. During the negotiations of the Oslo Accords, the PLO recognised Israels right to exist, after Israel took control of the West Bank from Jordan and Gaza Strip from Egypt, it began to establish Israeli settlements there. These were organised into Judea and Samaria district and Hof Aza Regional Council in the Southern District, in 1980, Israel decided to freeze elections for these councils and to establish instead Village Leagues, whose officials were under Israeli influence. Later this model became ineffective for both Israel and the Palestinians, and the Village Leagues began to break up, with the last being the Hebron League, dissolved in February 1988
4.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
5.
Palestine grid
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The Palestine grid was the geographic coordinate system used in Mandatory Palestine. The system was chosen by the Survey Department of the Government of Palestine in 1922, the projection used was the Cassini-Soldner projection. The central meridian was chosen as that passing through a marker on the hill of Mar Elias Monastery south of Jerusalem, the false origin of the grid was placed 100 km to the south and west of the Ali el-Muntar hill that overlooks Gaza city. The unit length for the grid was the kilometre, the British units were not even considered, at the time the grid was established, there was no intention of mapping the lower reaches of the Negev Desert, but this did not remain true. The fact that those regions would have negative north-south coordinate then became a source of confusion. For some military purposes,1000 was added to the coordinates of all locations. During World War II, a Military Palestine Grid was used that was similar to the Palestine Grid, the difference between the two projections was only a few meters. It was replaced by the Israeli Transverse Mercator grid in 1994, the Palestine grid is still commonly used to specify locations in the historical and archaeological literature. The basic way of specifying a location on the Palestine grid is to write the east-west coordinate followed by the north-south coordinate using 3 digits each, for example, the Dome of the Rock is at 172132. This specifies the location within one kilometer, if more precision is required, extra digits can be added to each coordinate, for example,17241317 gives the Dome of the Rock to within 100 meters. Many authors separate the two coordinates with punctuation for readability purposes, for example 172-132 or 172/132
6.
Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate
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The Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate is one of 16 governorates of Palestine. It covers a part of the central West Bank, on the northern border of the Jerusalem Governorate. Its district capital or muhfaza is the city of al-Bireh, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the district had a population of 279,730 in 2007. Its governor is Dr. Laila Ghannam, the first Female Governor, according to PCBS, the governorate has 78 localities, including refugee camps. 13 localities retain the status of a municipality, al-Bireh,38,202 Ramallah,27,460 Beitunia,19,761 Rawabi, under construction The following localities in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate have populations over 5,000. Amari Qalandia Jalazone Governorates of Palestine
7.
Arabic
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Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested
8.
Palestinian territories
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Palestinian territories and occupied Palestinian territories are descriptions often used to describe the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which are occupied or otherwise under the control of Israel. Israeli governments have maintained that the area involved is within territorial dispute, the extent of the territories, while subject to future negotiations, have frequently been defined by the Green Line. In December 2012, UN Secretariat communications replaced this by the term State of Palestine, the ISO adopted the name change in 2013. But, as of August 2015, the UN Security Council continues to treat Palestine as a non-sovereign entity, Israel occupied the territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the Six-Day War of 1967 and has since maintained control. Previously, these territories had been occupied by Jordan and Egypt, respectively, in 1980, Israel officially absorbed East Jerusalem and has proclaimed the whole of Jerusalem to be its capital. The inclusion, though never formally amounting to legal annexation, was condemned internationally and declared null, the Palestinian National Authority never exercised sovereignty over the area, although it housed its offices in Orient House and several other buildings as an assertion of its sovereign interests. Israel shut them down in response to the Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing, Israeli sovereignty, however, has not been recognized by any country, since the unilateral annexation of territory occupied during war contravenes the Fourth Geneva Convention. The cost of the occupation for Israel over four decades is estimated to amount to $50 billion, the World Bank estimates the annual cost in 2013 to the Palestinian economy of Israeli occupation at $3.4 billion. In 1988, with the Palestine Liberation Organization intention to declare a Palestinian State, Jordan renounced all claims to the West Bank. Since the Palestinian Declaration of Independence in 1988,135 UN Member Nations have recognized the State of Palestine and it has not been recognized by Israel and some Western nations, including the United States. In 1993, following the Oslo Accords, parts of the territories politically came under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian National Authority, Israel still exercises full military control and, civil control over 61% of the West Bank. The Oslo Accords established access to the sea for Gaza within 20 nautical miles from the shore, the Berlin Commitment of 2002 reduced this to 12 miles. In October 2006 Israel imposed a 6-mile limit, and at the conclusion of the Gaza War restricted access to a 3-nautical-mile limit, as a result, more than 3,000 Palestinian fishermen are denied access to 85% of the maritime areas agreed to in 1995. The majority of the Dead Sea area is off-limits to Palestinian use, Israel disengaged from the Gaza Strip in 2005, however the international community considers the West Bank and the Gaza Strip still to be occupied by Israel. The Hamas takeover of Gaza in 2007 divided the Palestinian territories politically, abbass Fatah largely ruled the West Bank and was recognized internationally as the official Palestinian Authority. In 2014, the two groups agreed to hold elections and form a compromise unity government. The 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict intervened, however, the unity government survived, there are disagreements over what the Palestinian territories should be called. Other terms used to describe these areas include the disputed territories
9.
West Bank
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The West Bank shares boundaries to the west, north, and south with Israel, and to the east, across the Jordan River, with Jordan. The West Bank also contains a significant section of the western Dead Sea shore, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has a land area of 5,640 km2 plus a water area of 220 km2, consisting of the northwest quarter of the Dead Sea. As of July 2015 it has an population of 2,785,366 Palestinians, and approximately 371,000 Israeli settlers. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, illegal under international law and this annexation was recognized only by Britain, Iraq and Pakistan. The term was chosen to differentiate the west bank of the River Jordan from the east bank of this river, the neo-Latin name Cisjordan or Cis-Jordan is the usual name for the territory in the Romance languages and Hungarian. The name West Bank, however, has become the standard usage for this entity in English. The analogous Transjordan has historically used to designate the region now roughly comprising the state of Jordan. From 1517 through 1917, the now known as the West Bank was under Ottoman rule as part of the provinces of Syria. At the 1920 San Remo conference, the victorious Allied powers allocated the area to the British Mandate of Palestine, the San Remo Resolution adopted on 25 April 1920 incorporated the Balfour Declaration of 1917. It and Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations were the basic documents upon which the British Mandate for Palestine was constructed. Faced with the determination of Emir Abdullah to unify Arab lands under the Hashemite banner, the West Bank area, was conquered by Jordan during the 1948 war with the new state of Israel. In 1947, it was designated as part of a proposed Arab state by the United Nations partition plan for Palestine. 1949 Armistice Agreements defined the boundary between Israel and Jordan. In 1950, Transjordan annexed the area west of the Jordan River, naming it West Bank or Cisjordan, Jordan ruled over the West Bank from 1948 until 1967. Jordans annexation was never recognized by the international community, with the exception of the United Kingdom. King Abdullah of Jordan had been crowned King of Jerusalem by the Coptic Bishop on 15 November 1948. and granted Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank, in June 1967, the West Bank and East Jerusalem were captured by Israel as a result of the Six-Day War. With the exception of East Jerusalem and the former Israeli-Jordanian no mans land, the Israeli settlements were, on the other hand, administered subsequently as Judea and Samaria Area directly by Israel. Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority officially controls a geographically non-contiguous territory comprising approx, 11% of the West Bank which remains subject to Israeli incursions
10.
Ramallah
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Ramallah is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank located 10 km north of Jerusalem at an average elevation of 880 meters above sea level, adjacent to al-Bireh. It currently serves as the de facto capital of the Palestinian National Authority. Ramallah was historically an Arab Christian town, today Muslims form the majority of the population of nearly 27,092 in 2007, with Christians making up a significant minority. Ramallah is composed of Ram, meaning height and Allah, the Arabic word for God, ancient rock-cut tombs have been found near Ramallah. Potsherds from the Crusader/Ayyubid and early Ottoman period have also found there. Ramallah has been identified with the Crusader place called Ramalie, remains of a building with an arched doorway from the Crusader era, called al-Burj, have been identified, but the original use of the building is undetermined. Ramallah was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517 with all of Palestine, in 1596 it was listed in the tax registers as being in the nahiya of Quds of the Liwa of Quds. It had a population of 71 Christian households and 9 Muslim households and it paid taxes on wheat, barley, olives, vines or fruit trees, and goats or beehives. Modern Ramallah was founded in the mid-1500s by the Haddadins, a clan of brothers descended from Ghassanid Christians, the Haddadins, and their leader Rashid El-Haddadin, arrived from east of the Jordan River from the areas of Karak and Shoubak. The Haddadin migration is attributed to fighting and unrest among clans in that area, Rashid and his brothers were blacksmiths. The Haddadin name comes from the old word Haddad, which translates to blacksmith, Haddadin was attracted to the mountainous site of Ramallah because it was similar to the other mountainous areas he came from. In addition, the forested area could supply him with plenty of fuel for his forges. In 1838 American biblical scholar Edward Robinson visited the area, noting that the inhabitants were Christian of the Greek rite, there were 200 taxable men, which gives an estimated total population of 800–900 people. The village belonged to the Haram al-Sharif, Jerusalem, to which it paid a tax of 350 Mids of grain. It stands amongst gardens and olive-yards, and has three springs to the south and one on the west, on the north there are three more, within a mile from the village, on the east there is a well. There are rock-cut tombs to the north-east with well-cut entrances, in the village is a Greek church, and on the east a Latin convent and a Protestant schoolhouse, all modern buildings. The village lands are Wakuf, or ecclesiastical property, belonging to the Haram of Jerusalem, about a quarter of the inhabitants are Roman Catholics, the rest Orthodox Greeks. In the 21st century, a community of people with direct descent from the Haddadins who founded Ramallah live in the United States
11.
Jerusalem
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Jerusalem is a city located on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is considered a city in the three major Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, the part of Jerusalem called the City of David was settled in the 4th millennium BCE. In 1538, walls were built around Jerusalem under Suleiman the Magnificent, today those walls define the Old City, which has been traditionally divided into four quarters—known since the early 19th century as the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Quarters. The Old City became a World Heritage Site in 1981, and is on the List of World Heritage in Danger, Modern Jerusalem has grown far beyond the Old Citys boundaries. These foundational events, straddling the dawn of the 1st millennium BCE, the sobriquet of holy city was probably attached to Jerusalem in post-exilic times. The holiness of Jerusalem in Christianity, conserved in the Septuagint which Christians adopted as their own authority, was reinforced by the New Testament account of Jesuss crucifixion there, in Sunni Islam, Jerusalem is the third-holiest city, after Mecca and Medina. As a result, despite having an area of only 0, outside the Old City stands the Garden Tomb. Today, the status of Jerusalem remains one of the issues in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, West Jerusalem was among the captured and later annexed by Israel while East Jerusalem, including the Old City, was captured. Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War and subsequently annexed it into Jerusalem, one of Israels Basic Laws, the 1980 Jerusalem Law, refers to Jerusalem as the countrys undivided capital. All branches of the Israeli government are located in Jerusalem, including the Knesset, the residences of the Prime Minister and President, the international community does not recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital, and the city hosts no foreign embassies. Jerusalem is also home to some non-governmental Israeli institutions of importance, such as the Hebrew University. In 2011, Jerusalem had a population of 801,000, of which Jews comprised 497,000, Muslims 281,000, a city called Rušalim in the Execration texts of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt is widely, but not universally, identified as Jerusalem. Jerusalem is called Urušalim in the Amarna letters of Abdi-Heba, the name Jerusalem is variously etymologized to mean foundation of the god Shalem, the god Shalem was thus the original tutelary deity of the Bronze Age city. The form Yerushalem or Yerushalayim first appears in the Bible, in the Book of Joshua, according to a Midrash, the name is a combination of Yhwh Yireh and the town Shalem. The earliest extra-biblical Hebrew writing of the word Jerusalem is dated to the sixth or seventh century BCE and was discovered in Khirbet Beit Lei near Beit Guvrin in 1961. The inscription states, I am Yahweh thy God, I will accept the cities of Judah and I will redeem Jerusalem, or as other scholars suggest, the mountains of Judah belong to him, to the God of Jerusalem
12.
Al-Lubban al-Gharbi
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Al-Lubban al-Gharbi is a Palestinian village in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate, located 21 kilometers northwest of Ramallah in the northern West Bank. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the village had a population of 1,476 inhabitants in 2007, Al-Lubban al-Gharbi has a total land area of 9,694 dunams, of which 335 are built-up area. Most of the land is either grown with olive and almond orchards or open for continued expansion of the village. However, the Israeli West Bank barrier will separate 59% of Lubban al-Gharbis land from the urban area. The villages infrastructure facilities include an elementary school a kindergarten, the village is located at an ancient site on the slopes of a hill. Potsherds from the IA I-II, have found, and from the IA II, Persian, Roman, Byzantine/Umayyad, Crusader/Ayyubid, Mamluk. There are remains of ancient buildings, the stones of which have been reused in some the villages inhabited houses, in the courtyard of the village mosque are the bases of five columns that may have formed part of a chapel. Also in the village are cisterns carved into the rock, and on the slopes of a hill to the southwest, there are tombs. The village has been identified with Beit Laban in the Talmud, Al-Lubban al-Gharbi has also been identified with the Crusader Luban, or Oliban, mentioned in connection with nearby Casale St. Maria. The village was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517 with all of Palestine and it was located in the Nahiya of Jabal Qubal of the Liwa of Nablus, with a population of 29 Muslim households. Taxes were paid on wheat, barley, summercrops, olives, a quantity of ancient materials may be observed in the walls. In 1882 Palestine Exploration Funds Survey of Western Palestine, the village, was described a being small, in 1945 the population of El Lubban was 340, all Muslims, who owned 9,854 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey. 1,411 dunams were plantations and irrigable land,1,118 used for cereals, in the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Al-Lubban al-Gharbi came under Jordanian occupation, before Jordan annexed the West Bank in 1950. After the Six-Day War in 1967, Al-Lubban al-Gharbi has been under Israeli occupation
13.
Bani Zeid
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A town of over 5,500 inhabitants, Bani Zeid was founded when the villages of Deir Ghassaneh and Beit Rima merged to form a municipality in 1966 during Jordanian rule. The town owes its name to the Arab tribe that was granted the area as a fief by the Ayyubid sultan Saladin in the 12th century for having served in the Muslim army during the first Crusades. It was settled by members of the tribe alongside the native fellahin during the reign of Mamluk sultan Baibars in the mid-13th century, during Ottoman rule, the area of Bani Zeid served as a sheikdom with some administrative capacity. It consisted of villages with Deir Ghassaneh as its center. During that time, the Barghouti family dominated the sheikdom, during the 1936–39 Arab revolt against British Mandate rule, Deir Ghassaneh was the scene of rebel gatherings and British military raids. In 1967, Bani Zeid was occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War, the next year it became the first Palestinian-controlled town to be the site of major operation by Israeli forces during the Second Intifada. When Fathiya Barghouti Rheime was elected mayor in 2005, Bani Zeid became the first Palestinian locality with a woman as head of the municipality, the current mayor is Abdel Karim Abu Aql, elected in 2012. Historically, Bani Zeids economy was dependent on the olive crop, until the present day, olive trees cover most of the towns cultivable land. However, the residents of Bani Zeid today largely derive their income from employment in the civil service, there are a number of archaeological sites in Bani Zeid, including the old town of Deir Ghassaneh, the manor of Sheikh Salih al-Barghouti and the maqam of Sheikh al-Khawwas. Deir Ghassaneh has been identified as the ancient Saredah, hometown of Jeroboam, according to some sources, it was settled by the Ghassanids, an Arab Christian tribal confederation, after it was abandoned by the Israelites. English orientalist Edward Henry Palmer thought the name meant The monastery of the Ghassaneh, Sharon suggests that the name of the village is related to the Arabic word ghassaneh which means very handsome or suggests youth and beauty. Byzantine ceramics have been found in Deir Ghassaneh, and on the side of Beit Rima. In addition, small fragments of a column were found in Deir Ghassaneh. In Beit Rima, sherds from the Iron Age I and IA II, Persian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Crusader/Ayyubid, Mamluk, in Deir Ghassaneh, sherds from all of the same periods, except Persian, have also been found. Specific examples include the use of the technique of alternating stones of different colors, particularly red and white. The modern town of Bani Zeid receives its name from the Arab tribe of Bani Zeid and they formed part of the Bedouin units of Saladins army that hailed from the Hejaz. After the Siege of Jerusalem in 1187, Saladins forces captured the city, the Bani Zeid temporarily resided in Jerusalem and a street, located near the present-day al-Saidia Street, was named after them, but has since been renamed. The Bani Zeid were granted the villages of Deir Ghassaneh and Beit Rima, as well as the towns of Kafr Ein
14.
Muslim
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A Muslim is someone who follows or practices Islam, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion. Muslims consider the Quran, their book, to be the verbatim word of God as revealed to the Islamic prophet. They also follow the teachings and practices of Muhammad as recorded in traditional accounts, Muslim is an Arabic word meaning one who submits. Most Muslims will accept anyone who has publicly pronounced Shahadah as a Muslim, the shahadah states, There is no god but the God and Muhammad is the last messenger of the God. The testimony authorized by God in the Quran that can found in Surah 3,18 states, There is no god except God, which in Arabic, is the exact testimony which God Himself utters, as well as the angels and those who possess knowledge utter. The word muslim is the active participle of the verb of which islām is a verbal noun, based on the triliteral S-L-M to be whole. A female adherent is a muslima, the plural form in Arabic is muslimūn or muslimīn, and its feminine equivalent is muslimāt. The Arabic form muslimun is the stem IV participle of the triliteral S-L-M, the ordinary word in English is Muslim. It is sometimes transliterated as Moslem, which is an older spelling, the word Mosalman is a common equivalent for Muslim used in Central Asia. Until at least the mid-1960s, many English-language writers used the term Mohammedans or Mahometans, although such terms were not necessarily intended to be pejorative, Muslims argue that the terms are offensive because they allegedly imply that Muslims worship Muhammad rather than God. Other obsolete terms include Muslimite and Muslimist, musulmán/Mosalmán is a synonym for Muslim and is modified from Arabic. In English it was sometimes spelled Mussulman and has become archaic in usage, the Muslim philosopher Ibn Arabi said, A Muslim is a person who has dedicated his worship exclusively to God. Islam means making ones religion and faith Gods alone. The Quran states that men were Muslims because they submitted to God, preached His message and upheld His values. Thus, in Surah 3,52 of the Quran, Jesus disciples tell him, We believe in God, and you be our witness that we are Muslims. In Muslim belief, before the Quran, God had given the Tawrat to Moses, the Zabur to David and the Injil to Jesus, who are all considered important Muslim prophets. The most populous Muslim-majority country is Indonesia, home to 12. 7% of the worlds Muslims, followed by Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Egypt. About 20% of the worlds Muslims lives in the Middle East and North Africa, Sizable minorities are found in India, China, Russia, Ethiopia. The country with the highest proportion of self-described Muslims as a proportion of its population is Morocco
15.
Palestinian Christians
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Palestinian Christians are Christian citizens of the State of Palestine and number some 38,000. They number 6–7% of the 12 million Palestinians, 70% live outside Palestine and Israel. In both the local dialect of Palestinian Arabic and in Classical Arabic or Modern Standard Arabic, Christians are called Nasrani or Masihi, hebrew-speakers call them Notzri, which means Nazarene. As of 2015, Palestinian Christians comprise approximately 1–2. 5% of the population of the West Bank, according to official British Mandatory estimates, Palestines Christian population in 1922 constituted 9. 5% of the total Mandatory Palestine population, and 7. 9% in 1946. From 1967, during the Israeli military rule, the Palestinian Christian population had increased in excess of the continued emigration, worldwide, there are nearly one million Palestinian Christians in these territories as well as in the Palestinian diaspora, comprising over 10% of the worlds total Palestinian population. Palestinian Christians live primarily in Arab states surrounding historic Palestine and in the diaspora, particularly in Latin America, Europe, in the 1922 census of Palestine there were approximately 73,000 Christian Palestinians, 46% Orthodox, 20% Roman Catholic, and 20% Eastern Catholic. The census recorded over 200 localities with a Christian population, in 2009, there were an estimated 50,000 Christians in the Palestinian territories, mostly in the West Bank, with about 3,000 in the Gaza Strip. Of the total Christian population of 154,000 in Israel, about 80% are designated as Arabs, the majority of Palestinian Christians live in the Palestinian diaspora. Around 50% of Palestinian Christians belong to the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem and this community has also been known as the Arab Orthodox Christians. The Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem, is the leader of the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, Archbishop Theodosios of Sebastia is the highest ranking Palestinian clergyman in the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Fouad Twal, is the leader of the Roman Catholics in Jerusalem, Palestine, Jordan, Israel, the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem is Suheil Dawani, who replaced Bishop Riah Abou Al Assal. Elias Chacour, a Palestinian refugee, of the Melkite Eastern Catholic Church, is Archbishop of Haifa, Acre, Bishop Dr. Munib Younan is the president of the Lutheran World Federation and the Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land. The Melkites were heavily Hellenised in the centuries, abandoning their distinct Western Aramaic languages in favour of Greek. By the 7th century, Jerusalem and Byzantine Palestine became the epicentre of Greek culture in the Orient, soon after the Muslim conquests, the Melkites began abandoning Greek for Arabic, a process which made them the most Arabicised Christians in the Levant. Most Palestinian Christians nowadays see themselves as culturally and linguistically Arab Christians with ancestors dating back to the first followers of Christ and they claim descent from Romans, Ghassanid Arabs, Byzantines, and Crusaders. The region consisting mainly of modern Israel and the fledgling State of Palestine is considered to be the Holy Land by Christians, major Christian holy cities such as Bethlehem, Nazareth and Jerusalem are located in Israel and the State of Palestine. In some respects, this was a consequence of Christians adopting what were essentially Islamic practices, many of which were derived of sharîah. This was especially evident in the fact that Palestines Muslims and Christians shared many of the same feast days, in honor of the same saints, even if they referred to them by different names
16.
River source
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The source or headwaters of a river or stream is the furthest place in that river or stream from its estuary or confluence with another river, as measured along the course of the river. As an example of the definition above, the USGS at times considers the Missouri River as a tributary of the Mississippi River. But it also follows the first definition above in using the combined Missouri - lower Mississippi length figure in lists of lengths of rivers around the world. This definition, from geographer Andrew Johnston of the Smithsonian Institution, is used by the National Geographic Society when pinpointing the source of rivers such as the Amazon or Nile. A definition given by the state of Montana agrees, stating that a source is never a confluence but is in a location that is the farthest, along water miles. Under this definition neither a lake nor a confluence of tributaries can be a river source. Likewise, the source of the Amazon River has been determined this way, when not listing river lengths, however, alternative definitions may be used. In the case of the Missouri River, Lewis and Clark would have had to travel to the east. to reach the source. Sometimes the source of the most remote tributary may be in an area that is more marsh-like, for example, the source of the River Tees is marshland. The furthest stream is often called the headstream. Headwaters are often small streams with cool waters because of shade and they may also be glacial headwaters, waters formed by the melting of glacial ice. Headwater areas are the areas of a watershed, as opposed to the outflow or discharge of a watershed. The river source is often but not always on or quite near the edge of the watershed, for example, the source of the Colorado River is at the Continental Divide separating the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean watersheds of North America. A river is considered a geographic feature, with only one mouth. For an example, note how the Mississippi River and Missouri River sources are officially defined, U. S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System, Mississippi River, Length,2,340 miles, Source, 47°14′22″N 95°12′29″W U. S. For example, The River Thames rises in Gloucestershire, the White Nile rises in the Great Lakes region of central Africa. The word source, when applied to lakes rather than rivers or streams, refers to the lakes inflow
17.
Yarkon River
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The Yarkon River, also Yarqon River, is a river in central Israel. The source of the Yarkon is at Tel Afek, north of Petah Tikva and it flows west through Gush Dan and Tel Avivs Yarkon Park into the Mediterranean Sea. Its Arabic name, al-Auja, means the meandering, the Yarkon is the largest coastal river in Israel, at 27.5 km in length. The Yarkon formed the border of the vilayet of Beirut during the late Ottoman period. The Arabic name of the river, al-Auja, is shared with another stream that flows into the Jordan Valley north of Jericho. In the Mandatory period, the British government granted to Pinhas Rutenbergs Jaffa Electric Company exclusive rights to generate, distribute and these rights were delivered through the “Auja Concession”, which was formally signed on September 12,1921. The district comprised Jaffa, the oldest and at the time still most important town in the area, the fast growing town of Tel Aviv north of it, and other smaller locations. Yet the plan to generate electricity by hydroelectric means never materialized, the river became increasingly polluted after the 1950s, many blaming this on the construction of the Reading Power Station which is situated near its mouth. When the rivers headwaters were diverted to the Negev via the National Water Carrier for irrigation purposes, as sewage replaced the flow of fresh water, habitats were destroyed and flora and fauna disappeared. This was exacerbated by continuous discharges of industrial effluents and municipal sewage into the rivers, on July 14,1997, the infamous Maccabiah bridge collapse led to the death of four athletes, three of which died due to infections caused by exposure to the polluted river water. In 1988, the Yarkon River Authority was established to revitalize the river and make sections of it suitable for sailing, fishing, swimming, Water quality improved after the construction of modern sewage treatment plants in Hod Hasharon and Ramat Hasharon. The river was dredged to restore its depth and natural flow. On July 14,1997, four members of the Australian delegation to the Maccabiah Games were killed and 60 injured as a result of the collapse of a pedestrian bridge over the Yarkon. The deaths were traced to a fungal infection caused by aspiration of the heavily polluted water. Ayalon River, turned artificially into a tributary of the Yarkon Yarkon River Authority Yarkon River Authority
18.
Deir Nidham
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Deir Nidham is a Palestinian village in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate in the central West Bank. It is located approximately 23 kilometers northwest of the city of Ramallah, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics 2007 census, the town had a population of 879. Sherds have been here from the Byzantine, Crusader/Ayyubid and Mamluk eras. In 1517, the village was included in the Ottoman empire with the rest of Palestine, in the 1596 tax-records it appeared as Dayr an-Nidam, located in the Nahiya of Jabal Quds of the Liwa of Al-Quds. The population was 4 households, all Muslim, in 1863 Victor Guérin visited and described it as being half ruined and inhabited only by a hundred fellahins. Several cisterns, partially filled, and a number of antique stones, an Ottoman village list from about 1870 found that the village had a population of 59, in a total of 17 houses, though the population count included men, only. In 1882, the Palestine Exploration Funds Survey of Western Palestine described it, A small hamlet on a high point and it is just above the ruins of Tibneh, and water is obtained from the Ain Tibneh. In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, increasing in the 1931 census when Deir Nizam had 166 Muslims in 34 houses. In 1945 the population was 190, all Muslims, while the land area was 1,938 dunams, according to an official land. Of this,514 were plantations and irrigable land,483 for cereals, in the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Deir Nidham came under Jordanian rule. After the Six-Day War in 1967, Deir Nidham has been under Israeli occupation, a secondary school exists in Deir Nidham and high school students are educated at a nearby village. Most university students attend Birzeit University or the al-Quds Open University, the electricity network in the village is affiliated with that of Jerusalem, while its water network is managed by the Palestinian National Authority. A village council of seven members was established in 2005 to govern the village
19.
Rantis
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Rantis is a Palestinian town in the West Bank, located in the northwestern Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate,33 kilometers northwest of Ramallah. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, it had a population of 2,900 in mid-year 2006 and its population consists primarily of six clans, Danoun, Wahdan, Khallaf, Ballot, Dar Abo Salim, al-Ryahee and Hawashe. Rantis has a land area 11,046 dunams of which 589 dunams are built-up area, the towns main economic sector is agriculture and 20% of its land area is planted with crops. There are two schools and two kindergartens. Other facilities include three clinics, a bus station, a club and two mosques, each of the Gospels mention this town as Arimathea once, and always in association with Joseph of Arimathea — who placed Christs body in his own tomb. Both Eusebius and Jerome identify Arimathea with the birthplace of Samuel, in the 4th century, Jerome reported that the Holy Paula visited this location. Strong traditions from the Middle Ages buttress this claim, celebrating this town as the original home. A monastery of Joseph of Arimathea was erected there, conflicting traditions urge Arimatheas location at modern Rantis,15 miles east of Jaffa. Other suggestions for Arimathea include ar-Ram and al-Bireh-Ramallah,5 and 8 miles north of Jerusalem, the SWP assumed the village was ancient, as rock-cut tombs were found south-west of the village. During the Crusader era, it was known as Arimathia, Arimatie, Abarimatie, by 1150, the Premonstratensians were represented in Rentis with a house. In 1159-60 a church in the village was mentioned in Crusader sources, in 1187 Rantis was conquered by Saladin, and the Crusaders were never able to return. Rantis was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517 with all of Palestine and it had a population of 20 households and 2 batchelors, all Muslim. The villagers paid taxes on wheat, barley, summer crops, olive trees, goats and/or beehives, the French explorer Victor Guérin visited the village in 1870, and found that it had 400 inhabitants, and that it was surrounded by olives and tobacco-plantations. In 1882 the Palestine Exploration Funds Survey of Western Palestine described as a village, principally made of adobe, on a slope, surrounded by open ground, the SWP assumed the village was ancient, as rock-cut tombs were found there. In 1945, the population was 1,280, all Muslims, while the land area was 30,933 dunams, according to an official land. Of this,1,299 were allocated for plantations and irrigable land,7,341 for cereals, in the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Rantis came under Jordanian rule. On 28–29 January 1953 The Israeli military, estimated at 120 to 150 men, using 2-inch mortars, 3-inch mortars, weapons, bangalore torpedoes, machine-guns, grenades and small arms, crossed the demarcation line and attacked the Jordanian villages of Falameh and Rantis. At Falameh the mukhtar was killed, seven villagers were wounded
20.
Sherd
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Occasionally, a piece of broken pottery may be referred to as a shard. While the spelling shard is generally reserved for referring to fragments of glass vessels, the etymology is connected with the idea of breakage, from Old English sceard, related to Old Norse skarth, notch, and Middle High German scharte, notch. A sherd or potsherd that has been used by having writing painted or inscribed on it can be more referred to as an ostracon. The analysis of sherds is widely used by archaeologists to date sites and develop chronologies, due to their characteristics and high resistance to natural. Some characteristics of sherds useful to archaeologists include temper, form and these characteristics can be used to determine the kinds of resources and technologies used at the site. Archaeologists often classify sherds by the part of the vessel from which the sherd came. For example, sherds may be categorized as rim sherds, body sherds, rim sherds are fragments of a vessels rim, while base sherds are fragments of the vessels base. Body sherds are fragments of ceramic that are not identified as rim sherds or base sherds, other categories might include fragments of handles or lids. While all types of sherds carry valuable information, rim sherds, shepard, Anna O. Ceramics for the Archaeologist
21.
Ancient Near East
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The ancient Near East is studied in the fields of Near Eastern archaeology and ancient history. The ancient Near East is considered one of the cradles of civilization and it also saw the creation of the first writing system and law codes, early advances that laid the foundations of astronomy and mathematics, and the invention of the wheel. During the period, states became increasingly large, until by the end the region was controlled by military empires who had conquered a number of different cultures. The phrase ancient Near East utilizes the 19th-century distinction between Near East and Far East as global regions of interest to the British Empire, the distinction began during the Crimean War. The two theatres were described by the statesmen and advisors of the British Empire as the Near East, shortly, they were to share the stage with Middle East, which came to prevail in the 20th century and continues in modern times. Meanwhile, ancient Near East had become distinct, the Near East ruled by the Ottoman Empire ranged from Vienna to the north to the tip of the Arabian Peninsula to the south, from Egypt in the west to the borders of Iraq in the east. The 19th-century archaeologists added Iran to their definition, which was never under the Ottomans, but they excluded all of Europe and, generally, Egypt, which had parts in the empire. Ancient Near East periodization is the attempt to categorize or divide time into discrete named blocks, or eras, the result is a descriptive abstraction that provides a useful handle on Near East periods of time with relatively stable characteristics. Named after the Sumerian city of Uruk, this saw the emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia. It was followed by the Sumerian civilization, the late Uruk period saw the gradual emergence of the cuneiform script and corresponds to the Early Bronze Age. Sumer, located in southern Mesopotamia, is the earliest known civilization in the world, the Akkadian Empire, founded by Sargon the Great, lasted from the 24th to the 21st century BC, and was regarded by many as the worlds first Empire. The Akkadians eventually fragmented into Assyria and Babylonia, Ancient Elam lay to the east of Sumer and Akkad, in the far west and southwest of modern-day Iran, stretching from the lowlands of Khuzestan and Ilam Province. In the Old Elamite period, c.3200 BC, it consisted of kingdoms on the Iranian plateau, centered on Anshan, and from the mid-2nd millennium BC, it was centered on Susa in the Khuzestan lowlands. Elam was absorbed into the Assyrian Empire in the 9th to 7th centuries BC, however, the Proto-Elamite civilization existed from c.3200 BC to 2700 BC, when Susa, the later capital of the Elamites, began to receive influence from the cultures of the Iranian plateau. In archaeological terms, this corresponds to the late Banesh period and this civilization is recognized as the oldest in Iran and was largely contemporary with its neighbour, the Sumerian civilization. The Proto-Elamite script is an Early Bronze Age writing system briefly in use for the ancient Elamite language before the introduction of Elamite Cuneiform, the Amorites were a nomadic Semitic people who occupied the country west of the Euphrates from the second half of the 3rd millennium BC. In the earliest Sumerian sources, beginning about 2400 BC, the land of the Amorites is associated with the West, including Syria and Canaan and they ultimately settled in Mesopotamia, ruling Isin, Larsa, and later Babylon. Assyria, after enduring a period of Mitanni domination, emerged as a great power from the accession of Ashur-uballit I in 1365 BC to the death of Tiglath-Pileser I in 1076 BC
22.
Byzantine Empire
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It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, several signal events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the period of transition during which the Roman Empires Greek East and Latin West divided. Constantine I reorganised the empire, made Constantinople the new capital, under Theodosius I, Christianity became the Empires official state religion and other religious practices were proscribed. Finally, under the reign of Heraclius, the Empires military, the borders of the Empire evolved significantly over its existence, as it went through several cycles of decline and recovery. During the reign of Maurice, the Empires eastern frontier was expanded, in a matter of years the Empire lost its richest provinces, Egypt and Syria, to the Arabs. This battle opened the way for the Turks to settle in Anatolia, the Empire recovered again during the Komnenian restoration, such that by the 12th century Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest European city. Despite the eventual recovery of Constantinople in 1261, the Byzantine Empire remained only one of several small states in the area for the final two centuries of its existence. Its remaining territories were annexed by the Ottomans over the 15th century. The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 finally ended the Byzantine Empire, the term comes from Byzantium, the name of the city of Constantinople before it became Constantines capital. This older name of the city would rarely be used from this point onward except in historical or poetic contexts. The publication in 1648 of the Byzantine du Louvre, and in 1680 of Du Canges Historia Byzantina further popularised the use of Byzantine among French authors, however, it was not until the mid-19th century that the term came into general use in the Western world. The Byzantine Empire was known to its inhabitants as the Roman Empire, the Empire of the Romans, Romania, the Roman Republic, Graikia, and also as Rhōmais. The inhabitants called themselves Romaioi and Graikoi, and even as late as the 19th century Greeks typically referred to modern Greek as Romaika and Graikika. The authority of the Byzantine emperor as the legitimate Roman emperor was challenged by the coronation of Charlemagne as Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III in the year 800. No such distinction existed in the Islamic and Slavic worlds, where the Empire was more seen as the continuation of the Roman Empire. In the Islamic world, the Roman Empire was known primarily as Rûm, the Roman army succeeded in conquering many territories covering the entire Mediterranean region and coastal regions in southwestern Europe and north Africa. These territories were home to different cultural groups, both urban populations and rural populations. The West also suffered heavily from the instability of the 3rd century AD
23.
Crusader states
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The name also refers to other territorial gains made by medieval Christendom against Muslim and pagan adversaries. The Crusader States in the Levant were the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Principality of Antioch, the County of Tripoli, the Eastern Romans, or Byzantines, partially recovered lost territory on numerous occasions but over time gradually lost all but Anatolia and parts of Thrace and the Balkans. In the West, the Roman Catholic kingdoms of northern Iberia launched a series of known as the Reconquista to reconquer the peninsula from the Arabized Berbers known as Moors. The conquered Iberian principalities are not customarily called Crusader states, except for the Kingdom of Valencia, professor Barber indicates that, in the Crusader State of the Kingdom of Jerusalem the Holy Sepulchre was added to in the 7th century and rebuilt in 1022, after a previous collapse. The situation represented an existential threat for the Eastern Orthodox Byzantine Empire. The Emperor sent a plea to the Pope in Rome to send military aid with the goal of restoring the formerly Christian territories to Christian rule, the result was a series of western European military campaigns into the eastern Mediterranean, known as the Crusades. The first four Crusader states were created in the Levant immediately after the First Crusade, The first Crusader state, the Principality of Antioch, founded in 1098, lasted until 1268. The Kingdom of Jerusalem, founded in 1099, lasted until 1291, the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia had its origins before the Crusades, but was granted the status of a kingdom by Pope Innocent III, and later became fully westernized by the Lusignan dynasty. During the Third Crusade, the Crusaders founded the Kingdom of Cyprus, Richard I of England conquered Cyprus on his way to Holy Land. The Templars promptly returned the island to Richard who resold it to the displaced King of Jerusalem Guy of Lusignan in 1192. For much of its history under the Lusignan Kings, Cyprus was a prosperous Medieval Kingdom, the Kingdoms decline began when it became embroiled in the dispute between the Italian Merchant Republics of Genoa and Venice. Indeed, the Kingdoms decline can be traced to a war with Genoa in 1373–74 which ended with the Genoese occupying the principal port City of Famagusta. Eventually with the help of Venice, the Kingdom recovered Famagusta but by then it was too late and in any event, venetian rule over Cyprus lasted for just over 80 years until 1571, when the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Selim II Sarkhosh invaded and captured the entire island. These states faced the attacks of the Byzantine Greek successor states of Nicaea and Epirus, thessalonica and the Latin Empire were reconquered by the Byzantine Greeks by 1261. Descendants of the Crusaders continued to rule in Athens and the Peloponnesus until the 15th century when the area was conquered by the Ottoman Empire. The military order of the Knights Hospitaller of Saint John established itself on Rhodes in 1310, with influx of new blood. The island of Kastellorizo was taken by the Knights of St, other neighbouring territories temporarily under the order were, the cities of Smyrna, Attaleia, the city of Salona and the islands of Ikaria and Kos, all now in Greece. The coins minted in Jerusalem during the 12th century show patriarchal crosses with various modifications, coins minted under Henry I show a cross with four dots in the four quarters, but the Jerusalem cross proper appears only on a coin minted under John II
24.
Ayyubid dynasty
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The Ayyubid dynasty was a Muslim dynasty of Kurdish origin, founded by Saladin and centered in Egypt. The dynasty ruled much of the Middle East during the 12th and 13th centuries, Saladin had been the vizier of Fatimid Egypt before toppling the Fatimids in 1171. Three years later, he proclaimed himself sultan following the death of his former master, most of the Kingdom of Jerusalem fell to Saladin after his victory at the Battle of Hattin in 1187. However, the Crusaders regained control of Palestines coastline in the 1190s, by then, local Muslim dynasties had driven out the Ayyubids from Yemen, the Hejaz, and parts of Mesopotamia. After his death in 1249, as-Salih Ayyub was succeeded in Egypt by al-Muazzam Turanshah, however, the latter was soon overthrown by the Mamluk generals who had repelled a Crusader invasion of the Nile Delta. This effectively ended Ayyubid power in Egypt, attempts by the emirs of Syria, led by an-Nasir Yusuf of Aleppo, in 1260, the Mongols sacked Aleppo and conquered the Ayyubids remaining territories soon after. The Mamluks, who expelled the Mongols, maintained the Ayyubid principality of Hama until deposing its last ruler in 1341 and this period was also marked by an Ayyubid process of vigorously strengthening Sunni Muslim dominance in the region by constructing numerous madrasas in their major cities. The progenitor of the Ayyubid dynasty, Najm ad-Din Ayyub ibn Shadhi, belonged to the Kurdish Rawadiya tribe, Ayyubs ancestors settled in the town of Dvin, in northern Armenia. The Rawadiya were the dominant Kurdish group in the Dvin district, circumstances became unfavorable in Dvin when Turkish generals seized the town from its Kurdish prince. Shadhi left with his two sons Ayyub and Asad ad-Din Shirkuh and his friend Mujahid ad-Din Bihruz—the military governor of northern Mesopotamia under the Seljuks—welcomed him and appointed him governor of Tikrit. After Shadhis death, Ayyub succeeded him in governance of the city with the assistance of his brother Shirkuh, together they managed the affairs of the city well, gaining them popularity from the local inhabitants. In the meantime, Imad ad-Din Zangi, the ruler of Mosul, was defeated by the Abbasids under Caliph al-Mustarshid, in his bid to escape the battlefield to Mosul via Tikrit, Zangi took shelter with Ayyub and sought his assistance in this task. Ayyub complied and provided Zangi and his companions boats to cross the Tigris River, as a consequence for assisting Zangi, the Abbasid authorities sought punitive measures against Ayyub. Simultaneously, in an incident, Shirkuh killed a close confidant of Bihruz on charges that he had sexually assaulted a woman in Tikrit. The Abbasid court issued arrest warrants for both Ayyub and Shirkuh, but before the brothers could be arrested, they departed Tikrit for Mosul in 1138. When they arrived in Mosul, Zangi provided them all the facilities they needed. Ayyub was made commander of Baalbek and Shirkuh entered the service of Zangis son, according to historian Abdul Ali, it was under the care and patronage of Zangi that the Ayyubid family rose to prominence. In 1164, Nur al-Din dispatched Shirkuh to lead a force to prevent the Crusaders from establishing a strong presence in an increasingly anarchic Egypt
25.
Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo)
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The Mamluk Sultanate was a medieval realm spanning Egypt, the Levant, and Hejaz. It lasted from the overthrow of the Ayyubid Dynasty until the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517, historians have traditionally broken the era of Mamlūk rule into two periods—one covering 1250–1382, the other, 1382–1517. Western historians call the former the Baḥrī period and the latter the Burjī due to the dominance of the regimes known by these names during the respective eras. Contemporary Muslim historians refer to the divisions as the Turkish. The Mamlūk state reached its height under Turkic rule with Arabic culture, the sultanates ruling caste was composed of Mamluks, soldiers of predominantly Cuman-Kipchaks, Circassian, Abkhazian, Oghuz Turks and Georgian slave origin. While Mamluks were purchased, their status was above ordinary slaves, Mamluks were considered to be true lords, with social status above citizens of Egypt. Though it declined towards the end of its existence, at its height the sultanate represented the zenith of medieval Egyptian and Levantine political, economic, the term Mamluk Sultanate is a modern historiographical term. The Arabic sources for the period of the Bahri Mamluks refer to the dynasty as the State/Realm of the Turks, other official names used were State of the Circassians. A variant thereof emphasized the fact that the Circassians were Turkish-speaking, the term Mongol State was used during Sultan al-Adil Kitbughas rule, who was of Mongol extraction. Dawlatāl Qalāwūn or Dawlat Banī Qalāwūn which means Qalāwūnī State/Dynasty which have ruled for hundred years between 1279 and 1382, al-dawla al-Ẓāhiriyya which meant Ẓāhirī state/dynasty which is the dynasty of Baibars and his two sons al-Said Barakah and Solamish. This dynasty have ruled consecutively for 19 years, Mamluk was a term defined as owned slave, distinguishing the mamluk from the garya and ghulam, which referred to household slaves. After thorough training in fields such as martial arts, court etiquette and Islamic sciences. However, they were expected to remain loyal to their master. Mamluks had formed a part of the state or military apparatus in Syria and Egypt since at least the 9th century, each Ayyubid sultan and high-ranking emir had a private mamluk corps. Most of the mamluks in the Ayyubids service were ethnic Kipchak Turks from Central Asia and they were highly committed to their masters, who they often referred to as father, and were in turn treated more as kinsmen than as slaves by their masters. These mamluks became known as the Salihiyyah, to provision his mamluks, as-Salih forcibly seized the iqtaʿat of his predecessors emirs. Despite his close relationship with his mamluks, tensions existed between as-Salih and the Salihiyyah, and a number of Salihi mamluks were imprisoned or exiled throughout as-Salihs reign. Tensions between as-Salih and his mamluks came to a later in 1249 when Louis IX of Frances forces captured Damietta in their bid to conquer Egypt during the Seventh Crusade
26.
Fatimid Caliphate
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The Fatimid Caliphate was an Ismaili Shia Islamic caliphate that spanned a large area of North Africa, from the Red Sea in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in the west. The dynasty ruled across the Mediterranean coast of Africa and ultimately made Egypt the centre of the caliphate, at its height the caliphate included in addition to Egypt varying areas of the Maghreb, Sudan, Sicily, the Levant, and Hijaz. The Fatimids claimed descent from Fatima bint Muhammad, the daughter of Islamic prophet Muhammad, in 921 the Fatimids established the Tunisian city of Mahdia as their new capital. In 948 they shifted their capital to Al-Mansuriya, near Kairouan in Tunisia, in 969 they conquered Egypt and established Cairo as the capital of their caliphate, Egypt became the political, cultural, and religious centre of their empire. The ruling class belonged to the Ismaili branch of Shiism, as did the leaders of the dynasty, the existence of the caliphate marked the only time the descendants of Ali through Fatimah were united to any degree and the name Fatimid refers to Fatimah. The different term Fatimite is sometimes used to refer to the caliphates subjects, after the initial conquests, the caliphate often allowed a degree of religious tolerance towards non-Ismaili sects of Islam, as well as to Jews, Maltese Christians, and Egyptian Coptic Christians. The Fatimid caliphate was also distinguished by the role of Berbers in its initial establishment and in helping its development, especially on the military. During the late eleventh and twelfth centuries the Fatimid caliphate declined rapidly and he founded the Ayyubid dynasty and incorporated the Fatimid state into the Abbasid Caliphate. The Fatimid regime lasted until the twelfth century, though its leaders made little headway in persuading the Egyptian population. The Fatimid Caliphates religious ideology originated in an Ismaili Shia movement launched in the 9th century in Salamiyah, Syria by their eighth Imam and he claimed descent through Ismail, the seventh Ismaili Imam, from Fatimah and her husband ʻAlī ibn-Abī-Tālib, the first Shīʻa Imām. Thus his name was al-Fātimiyyūn Fatimid, the eighth to tenth Imams, remained hidden and worked for the movement against the periods times rulers. According to legend, Abdullah and his son were fulfilling a prophecy that the mahdi would come from Mesopotamia to Sijilmasa. They hid among the population of Sijilmasa, then an independent emirate, for four years under the countenance of the Midrar rulers, al-Mahdi was supported by dedicated Shiite Abu Abdullah al-Shii, and al-Shii started his preaching after he encountered a group of Muslim North African during his hajj. These men bragged about the country of the Kutama in western Ifriqiya, and the hostility of the Kutama towards, and their independence from. This triggered al-Shii to travel to the region, where he started to preach the Ismaili doctrine, the Berber peasants, who had been oppressed for decades by the corrupt Aghlabid rule, would prove themselves to be a perfect basis for sedition. Instantly, al-Shii began conquering cities in the region, first Mila, then Sétif, Kairouan, and eventually Raqqada, in 909 Al-Shii sent a large expedition force to rescue the Mahdi, conquering the Khariji state of Tahert on its way there. After gaining his freedom, Abdullah al-Mahdi Billah became the leader of the state and assumed the position of imam. The Fatimids existed during the Islamic Golden Age, the dynasty was founded in 909 by the eleventh Imam ʻAbdullāh al-Mahdī Billah
27.
Antioch
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Antioch on the Orontes was an ancient Greco-Roman city on the eastern side of the Orontes River. Its ruins lie near the city of Antakya, Turkey. Antioch was founded near the end of the 4th century BC by Seleucus I Nicator, the citys geographical, military, and economic location benefited its occupants, particularly such features as the spice trade, the Silk Road, and the Persian Royal Road. It eventually rivaled Alexandria as the city of the Near East. It was also the center of Hellenistic Judaism at the end of the Second Temple period. Most of the development of Antioch was done during the Roman Empire. Antioch was called the cradle of Christianity as a result of its longevity, the Christian New Testament asserts that the name Christian first emerged in Antioch. It was one of the four cities of the Syrian tetrapolis, a single route proceeds south in the Orontes valley. The settlement of Meroe pre-dated Antioch, a shrine of the Semitic goddess Anat, called by Herodotus the Persian Artemis, was located here. This site was included in the suburbs of Antioch. There was a village on the spur of Mount Silpius named Io and this name was always adduced as evidence by Antiochenes anxious to affiliate themselves to the Attic Ionians—an eagerness which is illustrated by the Athenian types used on the citys coins. Io may have been an early colony of trading Greeks. John Malalas also mentions a village, Bottia, in the plain by the river. Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great is said to have camped on the site of Antioch and this account is found only in the writings of Libanius, a 4th-century orator from Antioch, and may be legend intended to enhance Antiochs status. But the story is not unlikely in itself, after Alexanders death in 323 BC, his generals divided up the territory he had conquered. Seleucus I Nicator won the territory of Syria, and he proceeded to found four sister cities in northwestern Syria, one of which was Antioch and he is reputed to have built sixteen Antiochs. Seleucus founded Antioch on a site chosen through ritual means, an eagle, the bird of Zeus, had been given a piece of sacrificial meat and the city was founded on the site to which the eagle carried the offering. Seleucus did this on the 22nd day of the month of Artemisios in the year of his reign
28.
Syriac language
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Syriac /ˈsɪri. æk/, also known as Syriac Aramaic, is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent and Eastern Arabia. Indeed, Syriac literature comprises roughly 90% of the extant Aramaic literature, Old Aramaic was adopted by the Neo-Assyrian Empire when they conquered the various Aramean city-kingdoms to its west. The Achaemenid Empire, which rose after the fall of the Assyrian Empire, also adopted Old Aramaic as its official language, during the course of the third and fourth centuries AD, the inhabitants of the region began to embrace Christianity. Along with Latin and Greek, Syriac became one of the three most important Christian languages in the centuries of the Christian Era. Primarily a Christian medium of expression, Syriac had a cultural and literary influence on the development of Arabic. Syriac remains the language of Syriac Christianity to this day. Syriac is a Middle Aramaic language and, as such, a language of the Northwestern branch of the Semitic family and it is written in the Syriac alphabet, a derivation of the Aramaic alphabet. Syriac was the local accent of Aramaic in Edessa, that evolved under the influence of Church of the East and it has been found as far afield as Hadrians Wall in Ancient Britain, with inscriptions written by Assyrian and Aramean soldiers of the Roman Empire. Modern Syriac/Modern Syriac Aramaic is an occasionally used to refer to the modern Eastern Aramaic languages. In this terminology, Modern Syriac is divided into, Modern Western Syriac Aramaic, note however that these are sometimes excluded from the category of Modern Syriac. The modern varieties are, therefore, not discussed in this article, in 132 BC, the kingdom of Osroene was founded in Edessa and Proto-Syriac evolved in that kingdom. Many Syriac-speakers still look to Edessa as the cradle of their language, there are about eighty extant early Syriac inscriptions, dated to the first three centuries AD. All of these examples of the language are non-Christian. As an official language, Syriac was given a relatively coherent form, style, in the 3rd century, churches in Edessa began to use Syriac as the language of worship. There is evidence that the adoption of Syriac, the language of the Assyrian people, was to effect mission, much literary effort was put into the production of an authoritative translation of the Bible into Syriac, the Peshitta. At the same time, Ephrem the Syrian was producing the most treasured collection of poetry, in 489, many Syriac-speaking Christians living in the eastern reaches of the Roman Empire fled to the Sassanid Empire to escape persecution and growing animosity with Greek-speaking Christians. The Christological differences with the Church of the East led to the bitter Nestorian schism in the Syriac-speaking world, as a result, Syriac developed distinctive western and eastern varieties. Syriac literature is by far the most prodigious of the various Aramaic languages and its corpus covers poetry, prose, theology, liturgy, hymnody, history, philosophy, science, medicine and natural history
29.
Syria (region)
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The historic region of Syria is an area located east of the Mediterranean sea. The oldest attestation of the name Syria is from the 8th century BC in an inscription in Hieroglyphic Luwian and Phoenician. In this inscription the Luwian word Sura/i was translated to Phoenician ʔšr Assyria, for Herodotus in the 5th century BC, Syria extended as far north as the Halys river and as far south as Arabia and Egypt. For Pliny the Elder and Pomponius Mela, Syria covered the entire Fertile Crescent and this late definition is equivalent to the region known in Classical Arabic by the name ash-Shām الشام /ʔaʃ-ʃaːm/, which means the north. After World War I, the name Syria was applied to the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon, the area was passed to French and British Mandates following World War I and divided into Greater Lebanon, various Syrian-mandate states, Mandatory Palestine and Transjordan. The Syrian-mandate states were unified as the State of Syria. Throughout this period, pan-Syrian nationalists advocated for the creation of a Greater Syria, the name Syria derives from the ancient Greek name for Syrians, Σύριοι Syrioi, which the Greeks applied without distinction to various Near Eastern peoples living under the rule of Assyria. Modern scholarship confirms the Greek word traces back to the cognate Ἀσσυρία, Assyria, the classical Arabic pronunciation of Syria is Sūriyya. This name was not widely used among Muslims before about 1870, according to the Syrian Orthodox Church, Syrian used to mean Christian in early Christianity. In English, Syrian historically meant a Syrian Christian, following the declaration of Syria in 1936, the term Syrian became to designate citizens of that state regardless of ethnicity. The adjective Syriac has come into use since as a demonym to avoid the ambiguity of Syrian. To some opinions, the origin of the Hellenistic term Syria is bound in the etymology of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Syria in this wider sense could correspond to Greater Assyria and include all of the Levant and Mesopotamia. Currently, the Arabic term Suriyya refers to the state of Syria. The term etymologically means land of the hand, referring to the fact that for someone in the Hejaz facing east. Sham comes from the Arabic consonantal root shin-hamza-mim ش ء م, as seen in alternative Arabic spellings such as شأم, there is no connection with the name of Shem son of Noah, as is sometimes assumed. Herodotus uses Συρία to refer to the stretch of land from the Halys river, including Cappadocia in todays Turkey to the Mount Casius, which Herodotus says is located just south of Lake Serbonis. According to Herodotus various remarks in different locations, he describes Syria to include the stretch of Phoenician coastal line as well as cities such Cadytis. In Greek usage, Syria and Assyria were used almost interchangeably, various writers used the term to describe the entire Levant region during this period, the New Testament used the name in this sense on numerous occasions
30.
Crusades
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The First Crusade arose after a call to arms in a 1095 sermon by Pope Urban II. Urban urged military support for the Byzantine Empire and its Emperor, Alexios I, the response to Urbans preaching by people of many different classes across Western Europe established the precedent for later Crusades. Volunteers became Crusaders by taking a vow and receiving plenary indulgences from the church. Some were hoping for apotheosis at Jerusalem, or forgiveness from God for all their sins, others participated to satisfy feudal obligations, gain glory and honour, or find opportunities for economic and political gain. Many modern Historians have polarised opinions of the Crusaders behaviour under Papal sanction, to some it was incongruous with the stated aims and implied moral authority of the papacy and the Crusades, to the extent that on occasions that the Pope excommunicated Crusaders. Crusaders often pillaged as they travelled, while their leaders retained control of captured territory rather than returning it to the Byzantines. During the Peoples Crusade thousands of Jews were murdered in what is now called the Rhineland massacres, Constantinople was sacked during the Fourth Crusade rendering the reunification of Christendom impossible. These tales consequently galvanised medieval romance, philosophy and literature, but the Crusades also reinforced the connection between Western Christendom, feudalism, and militarism. Crusade is not a term, instead the terms iter for journey or peregrinatio for pilgrimage were used. Not until the word crucesignatus for one who was signed with the cross was adopted at the close of the century was specific terminology developed. The Middle English equivalents were derived from old French, croiserie in the 13th–15th centuries, croisade appeared in English c1575, and continued to be the leading form till c1760. By convention historians adopt the term for the Christian holy wars from 1095, the Crusades in the Holy Land are traditionally counted as nine distinct campaigns, numbered from the First Crusade of 1095–99 to the Ninth Crusade of 1271/2. Usage of the term Crusade may differ depending on the author, pluralists use the term Crusade of any campaign explicitly sanctioned by the reigning Pope. This reflects the view of the Roman Catholic Church that every military campaign given Papal sanction is equally valid as a Crusade, regardless of its cause, justification, generalists see Crusades as any and all holy wars connected with the Latin Church and fought in defence of their faith. Popularists limit the Crusades to only those that were characterised by popular groundswells of religious fervour – that is, only the First Crusade, Medieval Muslim historiographers such as Ali ibn al-Athir refer to the Crusades as the Frankish Wars. The term used in modern Arabic, ḥamalāt ṣalībiyya حملات صليبية, campaigns of the cross, is a loan translation of the term Crusade as used in Western historiography. The Islamic prophet Muhammad founded Islam in the Arabian Peninsula, the resulting unified polity in the seventh and eighth centuries led to a rapid expansion of Arab power. This influence stretched from the northwest Indian subcontinent, across Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, southern Italy, tolerance, trade, and political relationships between the Arabs and the Christian states of Europe waxed and waned
31.
Kingdom of Jerusalem
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The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was a crusader state established in the Southern Levant by Godfrey of Bouillon in 1099 after the First Crusade. The kingdom lasted nearly two hundred years, from 1099 until 1291 when the last remaining possession, Acre, was destroyed by the Mamluks, the sometimes so-called First Kingdom of Jerusalem lasted from 1099 to 1187, when it was almost entirely overrun by Saladin. This second kingdom is called the Second Kingdom of Jerusalem or the Kingdom of Acre. Three other crusader states founded during and after the First Crusade were located north, the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch. While all three were independent, they were tied to Jerusalem. Beyond these to the north and west lay the states of Armenian Cilicia, further east, various Muslim emirates were located which were ultimately allied with the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad. Jerusalem itself fell to Saladin in 1187, and in the 13th century the kingdom was reduced to a few cities along the Mediterranean coast. In this period, the kingdom was ruled by the Lusignan dynasty of the Kingdom of Cyprus, dynastic ties also strengthened with Tripoli, Antioch, and Armenia. The kingdom was soon dominated by the Italian city-states of Venice and Genoa. Emperor Frederick II claimed the kingdom by marriage, but his presence sparked a war among the kingdoms nobility. The kingdom became more than a pawn in the politics and warfare of the Ayyubid and Mamluk dynasties in Egypt, as well as the Khwarezmian. The Mamluk sultans Baibars and al-Ashraf Khalil eventually reconquered all the remaining crusader strongholds, the kingdom was ethnically, religiously, and linguistically diverse, although the crusaders themselves and their descendants were an elite Catholic minority. They imported many customs and institutions from their homelands in Western Europe, the kingdom also inherited oriental qualities, influenced by the pre-existing customs and populations. The majority of the inhabitants were native Christians, especially Greek and Syrian Orthodox, as well as Sunni. The native Christians and Muslims, who were a lower class, tended to speak Greek and Arabic, while the crusaders spoke French. There were also a number of Jews and Samaritans. According to the Jewish writer Benjamin of Tudela, who travelled through the kingdom around 1170, since sets a lower bound for the Samaritan population at 1,500, since the contemporary Tolidah, a Samaritan chronicle, also mentions communities in Gaza and Acre. The First Crusade was preached at the Council of Clermont in 1095 by Pope Urban II, however, the main objective quickly became the control of the Holy Land
32.
Nave
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The nave /ˈneɪv/ is the central aisle of a basilica church, or the main body of a church between its western wall and its chancel. It is the zone of a church accessible by the laity, the nave extends from the entry — which may have a separate vestibule — to the chancel and may be flanked by lower side-aisles separated from the nave by an arcade. If the aisles are high and of a width comparable to the central nave and it provides the central approach to the high altar. The term nave is from medieval Latin navis, a ship was an early Christian symbol. The term may also have suggested by the keel shape of the vaulting of a church. The earliest churches were built when builders were familiar with the form of the Roman basilica and it had a wide central area, with aisles separated by columns, and with windows near the ceiling. Old St. Peters Basilica in Rome is a church which had this form. It was built in the 4th century on the orders of Roman emperor Constantine I, the nave, the main body of the building, is the section set apart for the laity, while the chancel is reserved for the clergy. In medieval churches the nave was separated from the chancel by the rood screen, medieval naves were divided into bays, the repetition of form giving an effect of great length, and the vertical element of the nave was emphasized. During the Renaissance, in place of dramatic effects there were more balanced proportions, longest nave in Denmark, Aarhus Cathedral,93 metres. Longest nave in England, St Albans Cathedral, St Albans,84 metres, longest nave in Ireland, St Patricks Cathedral, Dublin,91 metres. Longest nave in France, Bourges Cathedral,91 metres, including choir where a crossing would be if there were transepts, longest nave in Germany, Cologne cathedral,58 metres, including two bays between the towers. Longest nave in Italy, St Peters Basilica in Rome,91 metres, longest nave in Spain, Seville,60 metres, in five bays. Longest nave in the United States, Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York City, highest vaulted nave, Beauvais Cathedral, France,48 metres high but only one bay of the nave was actually built but choir and transepts were completed to the same height. Highest completed nave, Rome, St. Peters, Italy,46 metres high, abbey, with architectural discussion and groundplans Cathedral architecture Cathedral diagram List of highest church naves
33.
Saint Catherine's Monastery
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The monastery is controlled by the autocephalous Church of Sinai, part of the wider Eastern Orthodox Church, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Built between 548 and 565, the monastery is one of the oldest working Christian monasteries in the world, the site contains the worlds oldest continually operating library, possessing many unique books including the Syriac Sinaiticus and, until 1859, the Codex Sinaiticus. A small town with hotels and swimming pools, called Saint Katherine City, has grown around the monastery, according to tradition, Catherine of Alexandria was a Christian martyr sentenced to death on the wheel. When this failed to kill her, she was beheaded, according to tradition, angels took her remains to Mount Sinai. Around the year 800, monks from the Sinai Monastery found her remains, although it is commonly known as Saint Catherines, the monasterys full official name is the Sacred Monastery of the God-Trodden Mount Sinai. The patronal feast of the monastery is the Transfiguration, the monastery has become a favorite site of pilgrimage. The oldest record of life at Sinai comes from the travel journal written in Latin by a woman named Egeria about 381-384. She visited many places around the Holy Land and Mount Sinai, the living bush on the grounds is purportedly the one seen by Moses. Structurally the monasterys king post truss is the oldest known surviving roof truss in the world, the site is sacred to Christianity, Islam and Judaism. During the Ottoman Empire, the mosque was in desolate condition, during the seventh century, the isolated Christian anchorites of the Sinai were eliminated, only the fortified monastery remained. The monastery is surrounded by the massive fortifications that have preserved it. Until the twentieth century, access was through a high in the outer walls. The monastery was supported by its dependencies in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Crete, Cyprus, the monastery, along with several dependencies in the area, constitute the entire Church of Sinai, which is headed by an archbishop, who is also the abbot of the monastery. The archbishop is traditionally consecrated by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, the monastery library preserves the second largest collection of early codices and manuscripts in the world, outnumbered only by the Vatican Library. It contains Greek, Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Hebrew, Georgian, the finding from 1859 left the monastery in the 19th century for Russia, in circumstances that had been long disputed. But in 2003 Russian scholars discovered the donation act for the manuscript signed by the Council of Cairo Metochion, the monastery received 9000 rubles as a gift from Tsar Alexander II of Russia. The Codex was sold by Stalin in 1933 to the British Museum and is now in the British Library, London, prior to September 1,2009, a previously unseen fragment of Codex Sinaiticus was discovered in the monasterys library. In February 1892, Agnes Smith Lewis identified a palimpsest in St Catherines library that became known as the Syriac Sinaiticus and is still in the Monasterys possession
34.
Sinai Peninsula
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The Sinai Peninsula or simply Sinai is a peninsula in Egypt, situated between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, serving as a land bridge between Asia and Africa. It is the part of Egyptian territory located in Asia. Sinai has an area of about 60,000 km2. The bulk of the peninsula is divided administratively into two of Egypts 27 governorates, the Sinai Peninsula has been a part of Egypt from the First Dynasty of ancient Egypt. In periods of occupation, the Sinai was, like the rest of Egypt, also occupied and controlled by foreign empires, in more recent history the Ottoman Empire. Israel invaded and occupied Sinai during the Suez Crisis of 1956, on 6 October 1973, Egypt launched the Yom Kippur War to retake the peninsula, which was the site of fierce fighting between Egyptian and Israeli forces. Today, Sinai has become a tourist destination due to its setting, rich coral reefs. Mount Sinai is one of the most religiously significant places in Abrahamic faiths, in addition to its formal name, Egyptians also refer to it as Arḍ ul-Fairūz. The ancient Egyptians called it Ta Mefkat, or land of turquoise, Sinai is triangular in shape, with northern shore lying on the southern Mediterranean Sea, and southwest and southeast shores on Gulf of Suez and Gulf of Aqaba of the Red Sea. It is linked to the African continent by the Isthmus of Suez,125 kilometres wide strip of land, the eastern isthmus, linking it to the Asian mainland, is around 200 kilometres wide. The peninsulas eastern shore separates the Arabian plate from the African plate, the southernmost tip is the Ras Muhammad National Park. Most of the Sinai Peninsula is divided among the two governorates of Egypt, South Sinai and North Sinai, together, they comprise around 60,000 square kilometres and have a population of 597,000. Three more governates span the Suez Canal, crossing into African Egypt, Suez is on the end of the Suez Canal, Ismailia in the centre. The largest city of Sinai is Arish, capital of the North Sinai, other larger settlements include Sharm el-Sheikh and El-Tor, on the southern coast. Inland Sinai is arid, mountainous and sparsely populated, the largest settlements being Saint Catherine, Sinai is one of the coldest provinces in Egypt because of its high altitudes and mountainous topographies. Winter temperatures in some of Sinais cities and towns reach −16 °C, the mines were worked intermittently and on a seasonal basis for thousands of years. Modern attempts to exploit the deposits have been unprofitable and these may be the first historically attested mines. According to the Hebrew Bible, the peninsula was crossed by the Israelites during the Exodus from Egypt and this included numerous halts over a 40-year period of travel sometime towards the end of the Bronze Age
35.
Baldwin IV of Jerusalem
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Baldwin IV, called the Leper, reigned as King of Jerusalem from 1174 until his death. He was the son of Amalric I of Jerusalem and his first wife, Baldwins father died in 1174 and the boy was crowned at the age of 13, on 15 July that year. In his minority the kingdom was ruled by two regents, first Miles of Plancy, though unofficially, and then Raymond III of Tripoli. In 1175, Raymond III, the king of Jerusalem. Sibylla was being raised by her great-aunt Ioveta in the convent of Bethany, while Isabella was at the court of her mother, Raymonds regency ended on the second anniversary of Baldwins coronation, the young king was now of age. He did not ratify Raymonds treaty with Saladin, but instead went raiding towards Damascus and he appointed his maternal uncle, Joscelin III, the titular count of Edessa, seneschal after he was ransomed. Joscelin was his closest male relative who did not have a claim to the throne, so he was judged a reliable supporter, indeed, William arrived in early October and became Count of Jaffa and Ascalon upon his marriage. In 1174, at the age of 13, Baldwin successfully attacked Damascus in order to draw the Muslim Sultan Saladin away from Aleppo. In 1176 he was leading men in the front in similar attacks at Damascus, Baldwin also planned an attack on Saladins power-base in Egypt. He sent Raynald of Châtillon to Constantinople as envoy to Manuel I Comnenus, Raynald had recently been released from captivity in Aleppo, Manuel paid his ransom, since he was the stepfather of the Empress Maria of Antioch. Manuel sought the restoration of the Orthodox patriarchate in the kingdom, Reynald returned early in 1177, and was rewarded with marriage to Stephanie of Milly, a widowed heiress. This made him lord of Kerak and Oultrejourdain, Baldwin tried to ensure that Reynald and William of Montferrat co-operated on the defence of the South. However, in June, William died at Ascalon after several weeks illness, in August the kings first cousin, Philip of Flanders, came to Jerusalem on crusade. Philip demanded to wed Baldwins sisters to his vassals, Philip, as Baldwins closest male kin on his paternal side, claimed authority superseding Raymonds regency. The Haute Cour refused to agree to this, with Baldwin of Ibelin publicly insulting Philip, offended, Philip left the kingdom, campaigning instead for the Principality of Antioch. The Ibelin family were patrons of the dowager queen Maria, in November, Baldwin and Raynald of Châtillon defeated Saladin with the help of the Knights Templar at the celebrated Battle of Montgisard. That same year, Baldwin allowed his stepmother the dowager-queen to marry Balian of Ibelin, with Marias patronage, the Ibelins tried to have the princesses Sibylla and Isabella married into their family as well. In 1179, the met with some military setbacks in the north
36.
Knights Hospitaller
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It was headquartered variously in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Rhodes and Malta, until it became known by its current name. Some scholars, however, consider that the Amalfitan order and hospital were different from Gerard Thoms order and it regained strength during the early 19th century as it redirected itself toward religious and humanitarian causes. In 1834, the order, by this time known as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, acquired new headquarters in Rome, in 800, Emperor Charlemagne enlarged Probus hospital and added a library to it. About 200 years later, in 1005, Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah destroyed the hospital, in 1023, merchants from Amalfi and Salerno in Italy were given permission by the Caliph Ali az-Zahir of Egypt to rebuild the hospital in Jerusalem. The hospital, which was built on the site of the monastery of Saint John the Baptist and it was served by the Order of Saint Benedict. Gerard acquired territory and revenues for his order throughout the Kingdom of Jerusalem, under his successor, Raymond du Puy de Provence, the original hospice was expanded to an infirmary near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Initially the group cared for pilgrims in Jerusalem, but the order extended to providing pilgrims with an armed escort. Thus the Order of St. John imperceptibly became military without losing its charitable character. Raymond du Puy, who succeeded Gerard as Master of the Hospital in 1118, organised a militia from the orders members, in 1130, Pope Innocent II gave the order its coat of arms, a silver cross in a field of red. The Hospitallers and the Knights Templar became the most formidable military orders in the Holy Land, frederick Barbarossa, the Holy Roman Emperor, pledged his protection to the Knights of St. John in a charter of privileges granted in 1185. The statutes of Roger de Moulins deal only with the service of the sick, the order numbered three distinct classes of membership, the military brothers, the brothers infirmarians, and the brothers chaplains, to whom was entrusted the divine service. In 1248 Pope Innocent IV approved a military dress for the Hospitallers to be worn during battle. Instead of a closed cape over their armour, they wore a red surcoat with a cross emblazoned on it. Many of the more substantial Christian fortifications in the Holy Land were built by the Templars, at the height of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Hospitallers held seven great forts and 140 other estates in the area. The two largest of these, their bases of power in the Kingdom and in the Principality of Antioch, were the Krak des Chevaliers, the property of the Order was divided into priories, subdivided into bailiwicks, which in turn were divided into commanderies. As early as the late 12th century the order had begun to achieve recognition in the Kingdom of England, as a result, buildings such as St Johns Jerusalem and the Knights Gate, Quenington in England were built on land donated to the order by local nobility. An Irish house was established at Kilmainham, near Dublin, after the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1291, the Knights were confined to the County of Tripoli and, when Acre was captured in 1291, the order sought refuge in the Kingdom of Cyprus. His successor, Foulques de Villaret, executed the plan, and on 15 August 1310, after four years of campaigning
37.
Jund Filastin
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Jund Filastin was one of the military districts of the Ummayad and Abbasid Caliphate province of Bilad al-Sham, organized soon after the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 630s. According to al-Biladhuri, the towns of the district, following its conquest by the Rashidun Caliphate, were Gaza, Sebastia, Nablus, Caesarea, Ludd, Yibna, Imwas, Jaffa, Rafah. At first, under the early Umayyad caliphs, Ludd served as the district capital, after the caliph Suleiman ibn Abd al-Malik founded the nearby city of Ramla, he designated it the capital, and most of Ludds inhabitants were forced to settle there. In the 9th century, during Abbasid rule, Jund Filastin was the most fertile of Syrias districts, the population of the region did not become predominantly Muslim and Arab in identity until several centuries after the conquest. At its greatest extent, Jund Filastin extended from Rafah in the south to Lajjun in the north, the mountains of Edom, and the town of Zoar at the southeastern end of the Dead Sea were included in the district. However, the Galilee was excluded, being part of Jund al-Urdunn in the north, the district persisted in some form until the Seljuk invasions and the Crusades of the late 11th century. Palaestina Prima Syria Palaestina Le Strange, Guy, Palestine Under the Moslems, A Description of Syria and the Holy Land from A. D.650 to 1500. London, Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund, mideastweb Map of Palestine Under the Caliphs, showing Jund boundaries
38.
Hebrew language
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Hebrew is a language native to Israel, spoken by over 9 million people worldwide, of whom over 5 million are in Israel. Historically, it is regarded as the language of the Israelites and their ancestors, the earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date from the 10th century BCE. Hebrew belongs to the West Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family, Hebrew is the only living Canaanite language left, and the only truly successful example of a revived dead language. Hebrew had ceased to be a spoken language somewhere between 200 and 400 CE, declining since the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt. Aramaic and to a lesser extent Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among elites and it survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy, rabbinic literature, intra-Jewish commerce, and poetry. Then, in the 19th century, it was revived as a spoken and literary language, and, according to Ethnologue, had become, as of 1998, the language of 5 million people worldwide. After Israel, the United States has the second largest Hebrew-speaking population, with 220,000 fluent speakers, Modern Hebrew is one of the two official languages of the State of Israel, while premodern Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world today. Ancient Hebrew is also the tongue of the Samaritans, while modern Hebrew or Arabic is their vernacular. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Leshon Hakodesh, the modern word Hebrew is derived from the word Ivri, one of several names for the Israelite people. It is traditionally understood to be a based on the name of Abrahams ancestor, Eber. This name is based upon the root ʕ-b-r meaning to cross over. Interpretations of the term ʕibrim link it to this verb, cross over, in the Bible, the Hebrew language is called Yәhudit because Judah was the surviving kingdom at the time of the quotation. In Isaiah 19,18 it is called the Language of Canaan, Hebrew belongs to the Canaanite group of languages. In turn, the Canaanite languages are a branch of the Northwest Semitic family of languages, according to Avraham ben-Yosef, Hebrew flourished as a spoken language in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah during about 1200 to 586 BCE. Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew was a vernacular in ancient times following the Babylonian exile. In July 2008 Israeli archaeologist Yossi Garfinkel discovered a ceramic shard at Khirbet Qeiyafa which he claimed may be the earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, dating around 3000 years ago. The Gezer calendar also dates back to the 10th century BCE at the beginning of the Monarchic Period, classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew, the calendar presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that through the Greeks, the Gezer calendar is written without any vowels, and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places where later Hebrew spelling requires it
39.
Cairo
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Cairo is the capital and largest city of Egypt. Cairo has long been a center of the political and cultural life. Cairo has the oldest and largest film and music industries in the Arab world, as well as the worlds second-oldest institution of higher learning, Al-Azhar University. Many international media, businesses, and organizations have regional headquarters in the city, with a population of 6.76 million spread over 453 square kilometers, Cairo is by far the largest city in Egypt. An additional 9.5 million inhabitants live in proximity to the city. Cairo, like many other mega-cities, suffers from high levels of pollution, Cairos metro, one of only two in Africa, ranks among the fifteen busiest in the world, with over 1 billion annual passenger rides. The economy of Cairo was ranked first in the Middle East in 2005, Egyptians often refer to Cairo as Maṣr, the Egyptian Arabic name for Egypt itself, emphasizing the citys importance for the country. In Coptic the city is known as Kahire, meaning Place of the Sun, possibly referring to the ancient city of Heliopolis, the location of the ancient city is the suburb of Ain Shams. The ancient Egyptian name for the area is thought to be Khere-Ohe, The Place of Combat, sometimes the city is informally referred to as Kayro. The area around present-day Cairo, especially Memphis, had long been a point of Ancient Egypt due to its strategic location just upstream from the Nile Delta. However, the origins of the city are generally traced back to a series of settlements in the first millennium. Around the turn of the 4th century, as Memphis was continuing to decline in importance and this fortress, known as Babylon, remained the nucleus of the Roman, and, later, the Byzantine, city and is the oldest structure in the city today. It is also situated at the nucleus of the Coptic Orthodox community, many of Cairos oldest Coptic churches, including the Hanging Church, are located along the fortress walls in a section of the city known as Coptic Cairo. Following the Muslim conquest in 640 AD the conqueror Amr ibn As settled to the north of the Babylon in an area became known as al-Fustat. Originally a tented camp Fustat became a permanent settlement and the first capital of Islamic Egypt, in 750, following the overthrow of the Ummayad caliphate by the Abbasids, the new rulers created their own settlement to the northeast of Fustat which became their capital. This was known as al-Askar as it was laid out like a military camp, a rebellion in 869 by Ahmad ibn Tulun led to the abandonment of Al Askar and the building of another settlement, which became the seat of government. This was al-Qattai, to the north of Fustat and closer to the river, Al Qattai was centred around a palace and ceremonial mosque, now known as the Mosque of ibn Tulun. In 905 the Abbasids re-asserted control of the country and their returned to Fustat
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Arabs
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Arabs are an ethnic group inhabiting the Arab world. They primarily live in the Arab states in Western Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Arabs are first mentioned in the mid-ninth century BCE as a tribal people dwelling in the central Arabian Peninsula. The Arabs appear to have been under the vassalage of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, tradition holds that Arabs descend from Ishmael, the son of Abraham. The Arabian Desert is the birthplace of Arab, there are other Arab groups as well that spread in the land and existed for millennia. Before the expansion of the Caliphate, Arab referred to any of the largely nomadic Semitic people from the northern to the central Arabian Peninsula and Syrian Desert. Presently, Arab refers to a number of people whose native regions form the Arab world due to spread of Arabs throughout the region during the early Arab conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries. The Arabs forged the Rashidun, Umayyad and the Abbasid caliphates, whose borders reached southern France in the west, China in the east, Anatolia in the north, and this was one of the largest land empires in history. The Great Arab Revolt has had as big an impact on the modern Middle East as the World War I, the war signaled the end of the Ottoman Empire. They are modern states and became significant as distinct political entities after the fall and defeat, following adoption of the Alexandria Protocol in 1944, the Arab League was founded on 22 March 1945. The Charter of the Arab League endorsed the principle of an Arab homeland whilst respecting the sovereignty of its member states. Beyond the boundaries of the League of Arab States, Arabs can also be found in the global diaspora, the ties that bind Arabs are ethnic, linguistic, cultural, historical, identical, nationalist, geographical and political. The Arabs have their own customs, language, architecture, art, literature, music, dance, media, cuisine, dress, society, sports, the total number of Arabs are an estimated 450 million. This makes them the second largest ethnic group after the Han Chinese. Arabs are a group in terms of religious affiliations and practices. In the pre-Islamic era, most Arabs followed polytheistic religions, some tribes had adopted Christianity or Judaism, and a few individuals, the hanifs, apparently observed monotheism. Today, Arabs are mainly adherents of Islam, with sizable Christian minorities, Arab Muslims primarily belong to the Sunni, Shiite, Ibadi, Alawite, Druze and Ismaili denominations. Arab Christians generally follow one of the Eastern Christian Churches, such as the Maronite, Coptic Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, or Chaldean churches. Listed among the booty captured by the army of king Shalmaneser III of Assyria in the Battle of Qarqar are 1000 camels of Gi-in-di-buu the ar-ba-a-a or Gindibu belonging to the Arab
