1.
Kerak Castle
–
Kerak Castle is a large Crusader castle located in al-Karak, Jordan. It is one of the largest crusader castles in the Levant, construction of the castle began in the 1140s, under Pagan and Fulk, King of Jerusalem. The Crusaders called it Crac des Moabites or Karak in Moab, Pagan was also Lord of Oultrejordain and Kerak Castle became the centre of his power, replacing the weaker castle of Montreal to the south. Because of its position east of the Dead Sea, Kerak Castle was able to control bedouin herders as well as the routes from Damascus to Egypt. His successors, his nephew Maurice and Philip of Milly, added towers, the most notable Crusader architectural feature surviving is the north wall, into which are built immense arched halls on two levels. These were used for living quarters and stables, but also served as a gallery overlooking the castle approach. In 1176 Raynald of Châtillon gained possession of Kerak Castle after marrying Stephanie of Milly, from Kerak Castle, Raynald harassed the trade camel trains and even attempted an attack on Mecca itself. In 1183 Saladin besieged the castle in response to Raynalds attacks, the siege was eventually relieved by Baldwin IV of Jerusalem. After the Battle of Hattin in 1187, Saladin besieged Kerak Castle again, in 1263, the Mamluk Sultan, Baibars, enlarged and built a tower on the northwest corner. Kerak Castle was besieged again in 1834 by a leader of the peasants revolt in Palestine. In 1840, Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt captured the castle and destroyed much of its fortifications, in 1844, his troops, who did not have control over the surrounding countryside, came under siege. They were eventually starved out and many were killed, during the Ottoman Empire, it played an important role due to its strategic location on the crossroads between the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt and Greater Syria. In 1893, the Ottoman authorities reestablished control over the area by appointing a resident in Kerak Castle with a garrison of 1400. Parts of the castle were reused, some of the destruction that had occurred to the structure was due to locals removing stones containing potassium nitrate, which is used to make gunpowder. Medieval historian Paul Deschamps studied Crusader castles in the 1920s, amongst the important research done by Deschamps, in 1929 he and architect Francois Anus created the first accurate plans of Kerak Castle. On December 18,2016, the castle was the site of a terrorist attack, ten people were killed and 34 were injured, the majority being Jordanian security forces and local civilians. A Canadian tourist was also killed, the castle extends over a southern spur of the plateau. It is an example of Crusader architecture, a mixture of west European, Byzantine
2.
Moab
–
Moab is the historical name for a mountainous tract of land in Jordan. The land lies alongside much of the shore of the Dead Sea. The existence of the Kingdom of Moab is attested to by numerous archaeological findings, most notably the Mesha Stele, according to the Hebrew Bible, Moab was often in conflict with its Israelite neighbours to the west. Moab occupied a plateau about 3,000 feet above the level of the Mediterranean, or 4,300 feet above the Dead Sea, the northern boundary varied, but generally is represented by a line drawn some miles above the northern extremity of the Dead Sea. In Ezekiel 25,9 the boundaries are given as being marked by Beth-jeshimoth, Baal-meon, the principal rivers of Moab mentioned in the Bible are the Arnon, the Dimon or Dibon, and the Nimrim. The limestone hills which form the almost treeless plateau are generally steep, in the spring they are covered with grass and the table-land itself produces grain. In the north are a number of long, deep ravines, the rainfall is fairly plentiful and the climate, despite the hot summer, is cooler than the area west of the Jordan river, snow falling frequently in winter and in spring. The plateau is dotted with hundreds of dolmens, menhirs, and stone circles, the land is now occupied chiefly by Bedouin, though it contains such towns as al-Karak. The country of Moab was the source of natural resources, including limestone, salt. The Moabites occupied a place along the Kings Highway, the ancient trade route connecting Egypt with Mesopotamia, Syria. Like the Edomites and Ammonites, trade along this route gave them considerable revenue, the Moabites likely settled in the Transjordanian highlands. Whether they were among the nations referred to in the Egyptian language as Shutu or Shasu is a matter of debate among scholars. According to the account, Moab and Ammon were born to Lot and Lots elder and younger daughters, respectively, in the aftermath of the destruction of Sodom. The Bible refers to both the Moabites and Ammonites as Lots sons, born of incest with his daughters and these Amorites, described in the Bible as being ruled by King Sihon, confined the Moabites to the country south of the river Arnon, which formed their northern boundary. God renewed his covenant with the Israelites at Moab before the Israelites entered the promised land, Moses died there, prevented by God from entering the promised land. He was buried in a location in Moab and the Israelites spent a period of thirty days there in mourning. According to the Book of Judges, the Israelites did not pass through the land of the Moabites, after the conquest of Canaan the relations of Moab with Israel were of a mixed character, sometimes warlike and sometimes peaceable. With the tribe of Benjamin they had at least one severe struggle, in union with their kindred the Ammonites and the Amalekites
3.
Jordan
–
Jordan, officially The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is an Arab kingdom in Western Asia, on the East Bank of the Jordan River. Jordan is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the east and south, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north, Israel, Palestine and the Dead Sea to the west, Jordan is strategically located at the crossroads of Asia, Africa and Europe. The capital, Amman, is Jordans most populous city as well as the countrys economic, what is now Jordan has been inhabited by humans since the Paleolithic period. Three stable kingdoms emerged there at the end of the Bronze Age, Ammon, Moab, later rulers include the Nabataean Kingdom, the Roman Empire, and the Ottoman Empire. After the Great Arab Revolt against the Ottomans in 1916 during World War I, the Emirate of Transjordan was established in 1921 by the then Emir Abdullah I and became a British protectorate. In 1946, Jordan became an independent state known as The Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan. Jordan captured the West Bank, which it later lost in 1967, during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Jordan is a founding member of the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and is one of two Arab states to have signed a peace treaty with Israel. The country is a monarchy, but the king holds wide executive and legislative powers. Jordan is a relatively-small, semi-arid, almost-landlocked country with a population numbering at 9.5 million, Sunni Islam, practiced by around 92% of the population, is the dominant religion in Jordan. It coexists with an indigenous Christian minority, Jordan is considered to be among the safest of Arab countries in the Middle East, and has avoided long-term terrorism and instability. The kingdom is also a refuge to thousands of Iraqi Christians fleeing the Islamic State, while Jordan continues to accept refugees, the recent large influx from Syria placed substantial strain on national resources and infrastructure. Jordan is classified as a country of high human development with a middle income economy. The Jordanian economy, one of the smallest economies in the region, is attractive to foreign investors based upon a skilled workforce, the country is a major tourist destination, and also attracts medical tourism due to its well developed health sector. Nonetheless, a lack of resources, large flow of refugees. Jordan is named after the Jordan River, where Jesus is said to have been baptized, the origin of the rivers name is debated, but the most common explanation is that it derives from the word yarad, found in Hebrew, Aramaic, and other Semitic languages. Others regard the name as having an Indo-Aryan origin, combining the words yor and don, another theory is that it is from the Arabic root word wrd, as in people coming to a major source of water. The name Jordan appears in an ancient Egyptian papyrus called Papyrus Anastasi I, the lands of modern-day Jordan were historically called Transjordan, meaning beyond the Jordan River. The name was Arabized into Al-Urdunn during the Muslim conquest of the Levant, during crusader rule, it was called Oultrejordain
4.
Karak Governorate
–
Karak is one of the governorates of Jordan, located south-west of Amman, Jordans capital. It borders Madaba and the Capital governorates to the north, Maan Governorate from the east, Tafilah Governorate from the south, the land of Karak Governorate was the home of the Kingdom of Moab, during the first millennium BC. Their capital and stronghold is believed to be near the city of Al Karak, after the coming of the Byzentines, they established a vassal state ruled by the Ghassanids. The city of Mutah was the site of the first clash between the Muslim Arabs and the Byzantine Empire at the Battle of Mutah in 629 AD. With the coming of the crusaders, the Principality of Kerak was established, from the 15th century until 1917, Karak was under Ottoman rule, then the Emirate of Transjordan. After the creation of the administrative system in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Kerak Became a governorate on June 16,1966. The land of Karak Governorate is situated along the eastern coast of the Dead Sea. Wadi Mujib, biblically known as Arnon River, flows through the mountains of Karak Governorate, 4% of the population of Jordan. The male-to-female ratio was 50.6 to 49.4, of the non-Jordanians, the male-to-female ratio was 55.19 to 44.81. The estimated population as of 2010 is about 239,000, Karak Governorate is divided into 10 departments according to article 7 of the 46th Administrative Divisions System of 2000
5.
Metropolitan area
–
As social, economic and political institutions have changed, metropolitan areas have become key economic and political regions. The Greater São Paulo is a term for one of the multiple definitions the large metropolitan area located in the São Paulo state in Brazil. A metropolitan area combines an urban agglomeration with zones not necessarily urban in character and these outlying zones are sometimes known as a commuter belt, and may extend well beyond the urban zone, to other political entities. For example, El Monte, California is considered part of the Los Angeles metro area in the United States, in practice, the parameters of metropolitan areas, in both official and unofficial usage, are not consistent. Population figures given for one area can vary by millions. A polycentric metropolitan area is one not connected by continuous development or conurbation, in defining a metropolitan area, it is sufficient that a city or cities form a nucleus that other areas have a high degree of integration with. The Australian Bureau of Statistics defines statistical divisions as areas under the influence of one or more major towns or a major city. However, this definition has become obsolete with the conurbation of several statistical divisions into a larger metropolitan areas. In Brazil, metropolitan areas are called metropolitan regions, each State defines its own legislation for the creation, definition and organization of a metropolitan region. The creation of a region is not intended for any statistical purpose, although the Brazilian Institute of Geography. Their main purpose is to allow for a management of public policies of common interest to all cities involved. They dont have political, electoral or jurisdictional power whatsoever, so living in a metropolitan region do not elect representatives for them. Statistics Canada defines a metropolitan area as an area consisting of one or more adjacent municipalities situated around a major urban core. To form a CMA, the area must have a population of at least 100,000. To be included in the CMA, adjacent municipalities must have a degree of integration with the core. As of the Canada 2011 Census, there were 33 CMAs in Canada, including six with a population over one million—Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton. In Denmark the only area is Greater Copenhagen, consisting of the Capital Region of Denmark along with the neighboring regions Region Zealand. Greater Copenhagen has an population of 1.25 million people
6.
Greenwich Mean Time
–
Greenwich Mean Time is the mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London. GMT was formerly used as the civil time standard, now superseded in that function by Coordinated Universal Time. Today GMT is considered equivalent to UTC for UK civil purposes and for navigation is considered equivalent to UT1, consequently, the term GMT should not be used for precise purposes. Due to Earths uneven speed in its orbit and its axial tilt, noon GMT is rarely the exact moment the sun crosses the Greenwich meridian. This event may occur up to 16 minutes before or after noon GMT, noon GMT is the annual average moment of this event, which accounts for the word mean in Greenwich Mean Time. Originally, astronomers considered a GMT day to start at noon while for almost everyone else it started at midnight, to avoid confusion, the name Universal Time was introduced to denote GMT as counted from midnight. Astronomers preferred the old convention to simplify their observational data, so each night was logged under a single calendar date. Today Universal Time usually refers to UTC or UT1, in some countries Greenwich Mean Time is the legal time in the winter and the population uses the term. For an explanation of why this is, see GMT in legislation below, synchronisation of the chronometer on GMT did not affect shipboard time, which was still solar time. Most time zones were based upon GMT, as an offset of a number of hours ahead of GMT or behind GMT and it was gradually adopted for other purposes, but a legal case in 1858 held local mean time to be the official time. On 14 May 1880, a signed by Clerk to Justices appeared in The Times, stating that Greenwich time is now kept almost throughout England. For example, our polling booths were opened, say, at 813 and closed at 413 PM. This was changed later in 1880, GMT was adopted on the Isle of Man in 1883, Jersey in 1898 and Guernsey in 1913. Ireland adopted GMT in 1916, supplanting Dublin Mean Time, hourly time signals from Greenwich Observatory were first broadcast on 5 February 1924, rendering the time ball at the observatory redundant in the process. The daily rotation of the Earth is irregular and constantly slows, on 1 January 1972, GMT was superseded as the international civil time standard by Coordinated Universal Time, maintained by an ensemble of atomic clocks around the world. Indeed, even the Greenwich meridian itself is not quite what it used to be—defined by the centre of the instrument at the Observatory at Greenwich. Nevertheless, the line in the old observatorys courtyard today differs no more than a few metres from that line which is now the prime meridian of the world. Historically GMT has been used two different conventions for numbering hours. The long-standing astronomical convention dating from the work of Ptolemy, was to refer to noon as zero hours and this contrasted with the civil convention of referring to midnight as zero hours dating from the Romans
7.
Daylight saving time
–
Daylight saving time is the practice of advancing clocks during summer months by one hour so that evening daylight lasts an hour longer, while sacrificing normal sunrise times. Typically, regions that use Daylight Savings Time adjust clocks forward one hour close to the start of spring, American inventor and politician Benjamin Franklin proposed a form of daylight time in 1784. New Zealander George Hudson proposed the idea of saving in 1895. The German Empire and Austria-Hungary organized the first nationwide implementation, starting on April 30,1916, many countries have used it at various times since then, particularly since the energy crisis of the 1970s. The practice has both advocates and critics, DST clock shifts sometimes complicate timekeeping and can disrupt travel, billing, record keeping, medical devices, heavy equipment, and sleep patterns. Computer software often adjusts clocks automatically, but policy changes by various jurisdictions of DST dates, industrialized societies generally follow a clock-based schedule for daily activities that do not change throughout the course of the year. The time of day that individuals begin and end work or school, North and south of the tropics daylight lasts longer in summer and shorter in winter, with the effect becoming greater as one moves away from the tropics. However, they will have one hour of daylight at the start of each day. Supporters have also argued that DST decreases energy consumption by reducing the need for lighting and heating, DST is also of little use for locations near the equator, because these regions see only a small variation in daylight in the course of the year. After ancient times, equal-length civil hours eventually supplanted unequal, so civil time no longer varies by season, unequal hours are still used in a few traditional settings, such as some monasteries of Mount Athos and all Jewish ceremonies. This 1784 satire proposed taxing window shutters, rationing candles, and waking the public by ringing church bells, despite common misconception, Franklin did not actually propose DST, 18th-century Europe did not even keep precise schedules. However, this changed as rail transport and communication networks came to require a standardization of time unknown in Franklins day. Modern DST was first proposed by the New Zealand entomologist George Hudson, whose shift work job gave him time to collect insects. An avid golfer, he also disliked cutting short his round at dusk and his solution was to advance the clock during the summer months, a proposal he published two years later. The proposal was taken up by the Liberal Member of Parliament Robert Pearce, a select committee was set up to examine the issue, but Pearces bill did not become law, and several other bills failed in the following years. Willett lobbied for the proposal in the UK until his death in 1915, william Sword Frost, mayor of Orillia, Ontario, introduced daylight saving time in the municipality during his tenure from 1911 to 1912. Starting on April 30,1916, the German Empire and its World War I ally Austria-Hungary were the first to use DST as a way to conserve coal during wartime, Britain, most of its allies, and many European neutrals soon followed suit. Russia and a few other countries waited until the year
8.
Arabic
–
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
9.
Syria
–
Syrias capital and largest city is Damascus. Religious groups include Sunnis, Christians, Alawites, Druze, Mandeans, Shiites, Salafis, Sunni Arabs make up the largest religious group in Syria. Its capital Damascus and largest city Aleppo are among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, in the Islamic era, Damascus was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt. The post-independence period was tumultuous, and a number of military coups. In 1958, Syria entered a union with Egypt called the United Arab Republic. Syria was under Emergency Law from 1963 to 2011, effectively suspending most constitutional protections for citizens, Bashar al-Assad has been president since 2000 and was preceded by his father Hafez al-Assad, who was in office from 1970 to 2000. Mainstream modern academic opinion strongly favours the argument that the Greek word is related to the cognate Ἀσσυρία, Assyria, in the past, others believed that it was derived from Siryon, the name that the Sidonians gave to Mount Hermon. However, the discovery of the inscription in 2000 seems to support the theory that the term Syria derives from Assyria. The area designated by the word has changed over time, since approximately 10,000 BC, Syria was one of centers of Neolithic culture where agriculture and cattle breeding appeared for the first time in the world. The following Neolithic period is represented by houses of Mureybet culture. At the time of the pre-pottery Neolithic, people used vessels made of stone, gyps, finds of obsidian tools from Anatolia are evidences of early trade relations. Cities of Hamoukar and Emar played an important role during the late Neolithic, archaeologists have demonstrated that civilization in Syria was one of the most ancient on earth, perhaps preceded by only those of Mesopotamia. The earliest recorded indigenous civilisation in the region was the Kingdom of Ebla near present-day Idlib, gifts from Pharaohs, found during excavations, confirm Eblas contact with Egypt. One of the earliest written texts from Syria is an agreement between Vizier Ibrium of Ebla and an ambiguous kingdom called Abarsal c.2300 BC. The Northwest Semitic language of the Amorites is the earliest attested of the Canaanite languages, Mari reemerged during this period, and saw renewed prosperity until conquered by Hammurabi of Babylon. Ugarit also arose during this time, circa 1800 BC, close to modern Latakia, Ugaritic was a Semitic language loosely related to the Canaanite languages, and developed the Ugaritic alphabet. The Ugarites kingdom survived until its destruction at the hands of the marauding Indo-European Sea Peoples in the 12th century BC, Yamhad was described in the tablets of Mari as the mightiest state in the near east and as having more vassals than Hammurabi of Babylon. Yamhad imposed its authority over Alalakh, Qatna, the Hurrians states, the army of Yamhad campaigned as far away as Dēr on the border of Elam
10.
Amman
–
Amman is the capital and most populous city of Jordan, and the countrys economic, political and cultural centre. Situated in north-central Jordan, Amman is the centre of the Amman Governorate. The city has a population of 4,007,526, today, Amman is considered to be among the most liberal and westernized Arab cities. It is a major tourist destination in the region, particularly among Arab, the earliest evidence of settlement in the area is a Neolithic site known as Ain Ghazal. Its successor was known as Rabbath Ammon, which was the capital of the Ammonites, then as Philadelphia and it was initially built on seven hills but now spans over 19 hills combining 27 districts, which are administered by the Greater Amman Municipality headed by its mayor Aqel Biltaji. Areas of Amman have either gained their names from the hills or valleys they lie on, such as Jabal Lweibdeh, East Amman is predominantly filled with historic sites that frequently host cultural activities, while West Amman is more modern and serves as the economic center of the city. Approximately 2 million visitors arrived in Amman in 2014, which ranked it as the 93rd most visited city in the world, Amman has a relatively fast growing economy, and it is ranked Beta− on the global city index. Moreover, it was named one of the Middle East and North Africas best cities according to economic, labor, environmental, the city is among the most popular locations in the Arab world for multinational corporations to set up their regional offices, alongside Doha and only behind Dubai. It is expected that in the next 10 years these three cities will capture the largest share of multinational corporation activity in the region. Amman derives its name from the 13th century BC when the Ammonites named it Rabbath Ammon, over time, the term Rabbath was no longer used and the city became known as Ammon. The influence of new civilizations that conquered the city changed its name to Amman. In the Hebrew Bible, it is referred to as Rabbat ʿAmmon, however, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, the Macedonian ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom who reigned from 283 to 246 BC, renamed the city to Philadelphia after occupying it. The name was given as an adulation to his own nickname, in the outskirts of Amman, one of the largest known ancient settlements in the Near East was discovered. The site, known as Ain Ghazal which is situated on a valley-side, dates back to 7250 BC and it was a typical average sized aceramic Neolithic village that accommodated around 3,000 inhabitants. Its houses were rectangular mud-bricked buildings that included a main square living room, the site was discovered in 1974 as construction workers were working on a road crossing the area. By 1982 when the excavations started, around 600 meters of road ran through the site, despite the damage brought by urban expansion, the remains of Ain Ghazal provided a wealth of information. These statues are human figures made with white plaster, the figures have painted clothes, hair, and in some cases ornamental tattoos. Thirty-two figures were found in two caches, fifteen of them full figures, fifteen busts, and two fragmentary heads, three of the busts were two-headed, the significance of which is not clear
11.
King's Highway (ancient)
–
The King’s Highway was a trade route of vital importance in the ancient Near East, connecting Africa with Mesopotamia. It ran from Egypt across the Sinai Peninsula to Aqaba, from where it turned northward across Transjordan, leading to Damascus, in modern Jordan, Highway 35 and Highway 15 follow this route, connecting Irbid in the north with Aqaba in the south. The southern part crosses several deep wadis, making it a highly scenic if curvy, the Highway began in Heliopolis, Egypt and from there went eastward to Clysma, through the Mitla Pass and the Egyptian forts of Nekhl and Themed in the Sinai desert to Eilat and Aqaba. From there the Highway turned northward through the Arabah, past Petra and Maan to Udruh, Sela and it passed through Kerak and the land of Moab to Madaba, Rabbah Ammon/Philadelphia, Gerasa, Bosra, Damascus, and Tadmor, ending at Resafa on the upper Euphrates. Numerous ancient states, including Edom, Moab, Ammon, the Nabataeans used this road as a trade route for luxury goods such as frankincense and spices from southern Arabia. It was possibly the cause of their war with Hasmonean Alexander Jannaeus, during the Roman period the road was called Via Regia. Emperor Trajan rebuilt and renamed it Via Traiana Nova, under which name it served as a military, the Highway has also been used as an important pilgrimage route for Christians, as it passed next to Mount Nebo, Moses death and burial site according to the Bible. Another road connected it with Jerusalem via al-Maghtas, the Baptism Site on the Jordan River, Livias, after the Muslim conquests, the road was used it as the main Hajj route from Syria to Mecca, until the Ottoman Turks built the Tariq al-Bint in the 16th century. A difficult time was during the Crusader period, when the road passed through the province of Oultrejordain of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. His deeds would eventually not only to his own death at the hands of Saladin. The Kings Highway or Derech HaMelech is referred to in the Book of Numbers and they had left from Kadesh, and requested right of way across from King Edom but were refused passage. He vowed he would attack if they used the road. They even offered to pay for any water their cattle drank, still King Edom refused them passage and advanced against them with a large and heavily armed force. After making a detour and coming to the Transjordan area between River Arnon and River Jabbok and they directed the same request to Sihon the Amorite King, and for the second time on the same road they were denied passage and King Sihon engaged them in battle at Jahaz. And they won that battle by the edge of the sword, -As a result, they gained control in that land and to the north of it. The tribes of Manasseh, Gad, and Reuben subsequently settled those territories, incense Route Via Maris Way of the Patriarchs
12.
Dead Sea
–
The Dead Sea, is a salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east and Israel and Palestine to the west. Its surface and shores are 430.5 metres below sea level, the Dead Sea is 304 m deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world. With 34. 2% salinity, it is 9.6 times as salty as the ocean and this salinity makes for a harsh environment in which plants and animals cannot flourish, hence its name. The Dead Sea is 50 kilometres long and 15 kilometres wide at its widest point and it lies in the Jordan Rift Valley and its main tributary is the Jordan River. The Dead Sea has attracted visitors from around the Mediterranean basin for thousands of years and it was one of the worlds first health resorts, and it has been the supplier of a wide variety of products, from asphalt for Egyptian mummification to potash for fertilizers. People also use the salt and the minerals from the Dead Sea to create cosmetics, the Dead Sea water has a density of 1.24 kg/litre, which makes swimming similar to floating. The Dead Sea is receding at an alarming rate, multiple canals and pipelines were proposed to reduce its recession, which had begun causing many problems. The Red Sea–Dead Sea Water Conveyance project, carried out by Jordan, will provide water to neighboring countries, the first phase of the project is scheduled to begin in 2018 and be completed in 2021. In Hebrew, the Dead Sea is Yām ha-Melaḥ, meaning sea of salt, the Bible uses this term alongside two others, the Sea of the Arabah, and the Eastern Sea. The designation Dead Sea never appears in the Bible, in prose sometimes the term Yām ha-Māvet is used, due to the scarcity of aquatic life there. In Arabic the Dead Sea is called al-Bahr al-Mayyit, or less commonly baḥrᵘ lūṭᵃ, another historic name in Arabic was the Sea of Zoʼar, after a nearby town in biblical times. The Greeks called it Lake Asphaltites, the Dead Sea is an endorheic lake located in the Jordan Rift Valley, a geographic feature formed by the Dead Sea Transform. This left lateral-moving transform fault lies along the plate boundary between the African Plate and the Arabian Plate. It runs between the East Anatolian Fault zone in Turkey and the end of the Red Sea Rift offshore of the southern tip of Sinai. It is here that the Upper Jordan River/Sea of Galilee/Lower Jordan River water system comes to an end. The Jordan River is the major water source flowing into the Dead Sea, although there are small perennial springs under and around the Dead Sea, forming pools. The Mujib River, biblical Arnon, is one the larger sources of the Dead Sea other than the Jordan. The Wadi Mujib valley,420 m below the sea level in the southern of Jordan valley, is a biosphere reserve, other more substantial sources are Wadi Darajeh /Nahal Dragot, and Nahal Arugot
13.
Ottoman Empire
–
After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans the Ottoman Beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror, at the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries. With Constantinople as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean basin, while the empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline following the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, this view is no longer supported by the majority of academic historians. The empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society, however, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind that of their European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian Empires. While the Empire was able to hold its own during the conflict, it was struggling with internal dissent. Starting before World War I, but growing increasingly common and violent during it, major atrocities were committed by the Ottoman government against the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks. The word Ottoman is an anglicisation of the name of Osman I. Osmans name in turn was the Turkish form of the Arabic name ʿUthmān, in Ottoman Turkish, the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿOsmānīye, or alternatively ʿOsmānlı Devleti. In Modern Turkish, it is known as Osmanlı İmparatorluğu or Osmanlı Devleti, the Turkish word for Ottoman originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century, and subsequently came to be used to refer to the empires military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term Turk was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population, the term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish-speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. In Western Europe, the two names Ottoman Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favored both in formal and informal situations and this dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–23, when the newly established Ankara-based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. Most scholarly historians avoid the terms Turkey, Turks, and Turkish when referring to the Ottomans, as the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as the Anatolian Beyliks. One of these beyliks, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman, osmans early followers consisted both of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended the control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along the Sakarya River and it is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbours, due to the scarcity of the sources which survive from this period. One school of thought which was popular during the twentieth century argued that the Ottomans achieved success by rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam, in the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans. Osmans son, Orhan, captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326 and this conquest meant the loss of Byzantine control over northwestern Anatolia. The important city of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387, the Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe
14.
Iron Age
–
The Iron Age is an archaeological era, referring to a period of time in the prehistory and protohistory of the Old World when the dominant toolmaking material was iron. It is commonly preceded by the Bronze Age in Europe and Asia with exceptions, meteoric iron has been used by humans since at least 3200 BC. Ancient iron production did not become widespread until the ability to smelt ore, remove impurities. The start of the Iron Age proper is considered by many to fall between around 1200 BC and 600 BC, depending on the region, the earliest known iron artifacts are nine small beads dated to 3200 BC, which were found in burials at Gerzeh, Lower Egypt. They have been identified as meteoric iron shaped by careful hammering, meteoric iron, a characteristic iron–nickel alloy, was used by various ancient peoples thousands of years before the Iron Age. Such iron, being in its metallic state, required no smelting of ores. Smelted iron appears sporadically in the record from the middle Bronze Age. While terrestrial iron is abundant, its high melting point of 1,538 °C placed it out of reach of common use until the end of the second millennium BC. Tins low melting point of 231, similarly, recent archaeological remains of iron working in the Ganges Valley in India have been tentatively dated to 1800 BC. By the Middle Bronze Age, increasing numbers of smelted iron objects appeared in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, African sites are turning up dates as early as 1200 BC. Modern archaeological evidence identifies the start of iron production in around 1200 BC. Between 1200 BC and 1000 BC, diffusion in the understanding of iron metallurgy and use of objects was fast. As evidence, many bronze implements were recycled into weapons during this time, more widespread use of iron led to improved steel-making technology at lower cost. Thus, even when tin became available again, iron was cheaper, stronger, and lighter, and forged iron implements superseded cast bronze tools permanently. Increasingly, the Iron Age in Europe is being seen as a part of the Bronze Age collapse in the ancient Near East, in ancient India, ancient Iran, and ancient Greece. In other regions of Europe, the Iron Age began in the 8th century BC in Central Europe, the Near Eastern Iron Age is divided into two subsections, Iron I and Iron II. Iron I illustrates both continuity and discontinuity with the previous Late Bronze Age, during the Iron Age, the best tools and weapons were made from steel, particularly alloys which were produced with a carbon content between approximately 0. 30% and 1. 2% by weight. Steel weapons and tools were nearly the same weight as those of bronze, however, steel was difficult to produce with the methods available, and alloys that were easier to make, such as wrought iron, were more common in lower-priced goods
15.
Bible
–
The Bible is a collection of sacred texts or scriptures that Jews and Christians consider to be a product of divine inspiration and a record of the relationship between God and humans. Many different authors contributed to the Bible, what is regarded as canonical text differs depending on traditions and groups, a number of Bible canons have evolved, with overlapping and diverging contents. The Christian Old Testament overlaps with the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Septuagint, the New Testament is a collection of writings by early Christians, believed to be mostly Jewish disciples of Christ, written in first-century Koine Greek. These early Christian Greek writings consist of narratives, letters, among Christian denominations there is some disagreement about the contents of the canon, primarily the Apocrypha, a list of works that are regarded with varying levels of respect. Attitudes towards the Bible also differ amongst Christian groups and this concept arose during the Protestant Reformation, and many denominations today support the use of the Bible as the only source of Christian teaching. With estimated total sales of over 5 billion copies, the Bible is widely considered to be the book of all time. It has estimated sales of 100 million copies, and has been a major influence on literature and history, especially in the West. The English word Bible is from the Latin biblia, from the word in Medieval Latin and Late Latin. Medieval Latin biblia is short for biblia sacra holy book, while biblia in Greek and it gradually came to be regarded as a feminine singular noun in medieval Latin, and so the word was loaned as a singular into the vernaculars of Western Europe. Latin biblia sacra holy books translates Greek τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια ta biblia ta hagia, the word βιβλίον itself had the literal meaning of paper or scroll and came to be used as the ordinary word for book. It is the diminutive of βύβλος byblos, Egyptian papyrus, possibly so called from the name of the Phoenician sea port Byblos from whence Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece, the Greek ta biblia was an expression Hellenistic Jews used to describe their sacred books. Christian use of the term can be traced to c.223 CE, bruce notes that Chrysostom appears to be the first writer to use the Greek phrase ta biblia to describe both the Old and New Testaments together. The division of the Hebrew Bible into verses is based on the sof passuk cantillation mark used by the 10th-century Masoretes to record the verse divisions used in oral traditions. The oldest extant copy of a complete Bible is an early 4th-century parchment book preserved in the Vatican Library, the oldest copy of the Tanakh in Hebrew and Aramaic dates from the 10th century CE. The oldest copy of a complete Latin Bible is the Codex Amiatinus and he states that it is not a magical book, nor was it literally written by God and passed to mankind. In Christian Bibles, the New Testament Gospels were derived from traditions in the second half of the first century CE. Riches says that, Scholars have attempted to reconstruct something of the history of the oral traditions behind the Gospels, the period of transmission is short, less than 40 years passed between the death of Jesus and the writing of Marks Gospel. This means that there was time for oral traditions to assume fixed form
16.
Books of Kings
–
In the Hebrew Bible, Kings is a single book called the Book of Kings. The fourth book of Neviim, the division of the Tanakh. In the Septuagint, Samuel and Kings was divided into four books and Kings became III, the two Books of Kings presents a history of ancient Israel and Judah from the death of David to the release of Jehoiachin from imprisonment in Babylon, a period of some 400 years. Solomon comes to the throne after Davids death, at the beginning of his reign he assumes Gods promises to David and brings splendour to Israel and peace and prosperity to his people. The centrepiece of Solomons reign is the building of the First Temple, at the end, however, he follows other gods and oppresses Israel. The kings who follow Rehoboam in Jerusalem continue the line of David, in the north, however, dynasties follow each other in rapid succession. At length God brings the Assyrians to destroy the northern kingdom, Yahweh saves Jerusalem and the kingdom from an invasion by Assyria. But Manasseh, the king, reverses the reforms. Manassehs righteous grandson Josiah reinstitutes the reforms of Hezekiah, but it is too late, God, speaking through the prophetess Huldah, affirms that Jerusalem is to be destroyed. God brings the Babylonians against Jerusalem, Yahweh deserts his people, Jerusalem is razed and the Temple destroyed, in the original Hebrew Bible First and Second Kings are a single book, as are First and Second Samuel. When this was translated into Greek in the last few centuries BCE, then, what it is now commonly known as 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel are called by the Vulgate, in imitation of the Septuagint,1 Kings and 2 Kings respectively. What it is now known as 1 Kings and 2 Kings would be 3 Kings and 4 Kings in old Bibles before the year 1516 such as the Vulgate. The division we know today, used by Protestant Bibles and adopted by Catholics, some Bibles still preserve the old denomination, for example, Douay Rheims bible. According to Jewish tradition the author of Kings was Jeremiah, who would have been alive during the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. The Deuteronomic perspective is particularly evident in prayers and speeches spoken by key figures at major transition points, a third source, or set of sources, were cycles of stories about various prophets, plus a few smaller miscellaneous traditions. The conclusion of the book was based on personal knowledge. A few sections were editorial additions not based on sources, judgement is not punishment, but simply the natural consequence of Israels failure to worship Yahweh alone. Another and related theme is that of prophecy, the main point of the prophetic stories is that Gods prophecies are always fulfilled, so that any not yet fulfilled will be so in the future
17.
Book of Amos
–
The Book of Amos is the third of the Twelve Minor Prophets in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and the second in the Greek Septuagint tradition. Amos, a contemporary of Hosea and Isaiah, was active c.750 BC during the reign of Jeroboam II. Amos lived in the kingdom of Judah but preached in the kingdom of Israel. His major themes of justice, Gods omnipotence, and divine judgment became staples of prophecy. Amos prophesied during the reign of Jeroboam II, King of Israel, and of Uzziah of Judah, according to the books superscription he was from Tekoa, a town in Judah south of Jerusalem, but his prophetic mission was in the northern kingdom. He is called a shepherd and a dresser of sycamore trees, scholars have long recognized that Amos utilized an ancient hymn within his prophecy, verses of which are found at 4.13,5. 8–9,8.8,9. 5–6. This hymn is best understood as praising YHWH for His judgment, recent scholarship has shown Amos hymn is an ancient narrative text, has identified a new verse at 7.4, and has compared the hymn to the Genesis Flood account and Job 9, 5–10. The central idea of the book of Amos is that God puts his people on the level as the surrounding nations – God expects the same purity of them all. As it is with all nations that rise up against the kingdom of God, even Israel and Judah will not be exempt from the judgment of God because of their idolatry and unjust ways. The nation that represents YHWH must be pure of anything or anyone that profanes the name of God. Amos is the first prophet to use the term the Day of the Lord and this phrase becomes important within future prophetic and apocalyptic literature. For the people of Israel the day of the LORD is the day when God will fight against his and their enemies, and it will be a day of victory for Israel. However, Amos and other prophets include Israel as an enemy of God, as Israel is guilty of injustice toward the innocent, poor, to Amos the day of the Lord will be a day of doom
18.
Arameans
–
The Arameans, or Aramaeans, were an ancient Northwest Semitic Aramaic-speaking tribal confederacy who emerged from Syria in the Late Bronze Age the region known as Aram from the 11th-8th centuries BC. They established a patchwork of independent Aramaic kingdoms in the Levant, in the New Babylonian, or Chaldean, empire, Chaldeans, Aramaeans, Suteans and indigenous Babylonians became largely indistinguishable. This empire stretched from Cyprus and the East Mediterranean in the west to Persia and Elam in the east, and from Armenia, the Achaemenid Empire greatly spread Imperial Aramaic, north to the Coast of the Black Sea and westward to the Indus Valley. This Akkadian and later Old Persian influenced version of Aramaic later developed into the Syriac dialect of Edessa, one of the annals of Naram-Sin of Akkad mentions that he captured Dubul, the ensí of A-ra-me, in the course of a campaign against Simurrum in the northern mountains. Other early references to a place or people of Aram have appeared at the archives of Mari, urban settlements in The Levant diminished in size, until eventually fully nomadic pastoralist lifestyles came to dominate much of the region. These highly mobile, competitive tribesmen with their sudden raids continually threatened long-distance trade and interfered with the collection of taxes, however, they seem to have been displaced or wholly absorbed by the appearance of a people called the Ahlamu by the 13th century BC, disappearing from history. The presence of the Ahlamû is attested during the Middle Assyrian Empire, Shalmaneser I is recorded as having defeated Shattuara, King of the Mitanni and his Hittite and Ahlamû mercenaries. The Arameans would appear to be one part of the larger generic Ahlamû group rather than synonymous with the Ahlamu, the first certain reference to the Arameans appears in an inscription of Tiglath-Pileser I, which refers to subjugating the Ahlamû-Aramaeans. Shortly after, the Ahlamû rapidly disappear from Assyrian annals, to be replaced by the Aramaeans and this indicates that the Arameans had risen to dominance amongst the nomads, however, it is possible that the two peoples had nothing in common, but operated in the same area. By the late 12th century BC, the Arameans were firmly established in Syria, however, they were conquered by the Middle Assyrian Empire, as had been the Amorites and it is from this point that the region was called Aramea. Further north, the Arameans gained possession of Neo-Hittite Hamath on the Orontes and were soon to become strong enough to dissociate with the Indo-European speaking Neo-Hittite states. North of Samal was the Aramean state of Bit-Gabari, which was sandwiched between the Syro-Hittite states of Carchemish, Gurgum, Khattina, Unqi and the Georgian state of Tabal. At the same time, Arameans moved to the east of the Euphrates, where settled in such numbers that, for a time. Eastern Aramaean tribes spread into Babylonia and an Aramaean usurper was crowned king of Babylon under the name of Adad-apal-iddin, one of their earliest semi-independent kingdoms in southern Mesopotamia was Bît-Bahiâni (Tell Halaf. Assyrian annals from the end of the Middle Assyrian Empire c.1050 BC, the Assyrians would launch repeated raids into Aramea, Babylonia, Ancient Iran, Elam, Asia Minor, and even as far as the Mediterranean, in order to keep its trade routes open. This process was continued by Ashurnasirpal II, and his son Shalmaneser III, in 732 BC Aram-Damascus fell and was conquered by the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III. The Assyrians named their Aramean colonies Eber Nari, whilst still using the term Aramean to describe many of its peoples, the Assyrians conducted forced deportations of hundreds of thousands Arameans into both Assyria and Babylonia. These Arameans were absorbed into the indigenous populations of Assyria and Babylonia, the Neo Assyrian Empire descended into a bitter series of brutal internal civil wars from 626 BC, weakening it greatly
19.
Tiglath-Pileser III
–
Tiglath-Pileser III was a prominent king of Assyria in the eighth century BCE who introduced advanced civil, military, and political systems into the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Tiglath-Pileser III seized the Assyrian throne during a war and killed the royal family. He made sweeping changes to the Assyrian government, considerably improving its efficiency, the Assyrian army, already the greatest fighting force in the world since the time of Ashur-uballit I, now became Assyrias first professional standing army. In the south west, Israel, Judah, Philistia, Samarra, Moab, Edom, in the west, the Greeks of Cyprus and Aram, and the Mediterranean City States of Phoenicia/Caanan were subjugated. To the east he subjugated Persia, Media, Gutium, Mannea, Cissia and Elam, Tiglath-Pileser III discouraged revolts against Assyrian rule with the use of forced deportations of thousands of people all over the empire. He is one of the most successful commanders in world history. Formerly the governor of Kalhu and a general, the usurper Pulu assumed his Assyrian throne-name from two more-legitimate predecessors and he described himself as a son of Adad-nirari III in his inscriptions, but the accuracy of this claim remains uncertain. He seized the throne in the midst of war on 13 Ayaru,745 BCE. A mutilated brick inscription states that he is the son of Adad-nirari, however and this is quite a discrepancy for the King list places Adad-nirari III four monarchs before Tiglath-pilesers reign and depicts Ashur-nirari as both his father and immediate predecessor upon the throne. The list goes on to relate that Shalmaneser III, and Ashur-dan III were brothers, Ashur-nirari is also said to be a son of Adad-nirari, implying brotherhood with Shalmaneser III, and Ashur-dan III. The Assyrian records contain very little information concerning Adad-nirari and nothing about Shalmaneser III or Ashur-dan III, more so it was in Babylon that he was referred to as Pulu and his son as Ululayu. Pulu and both his sons taking up Assyrian names is another suggestion that they were foreigners who had usurped the crown of Assyria at the revolt of Kalhu, Assyrian power in the Near East greatly increased as the result of Tiglath-Pilesers military reforms and of his campaigns of conquest. Upon ascending the throne, he claimed to have annexed Babylonia, from Dur-galzu, the cities bylonia up to the Uqnu river wer, and subsequently placed his eunuch over them as governor. He also defeated the Medes before making war on and conquering the Neo-Hittites and he took Arpad in 740 BCE after three years of siege, annexed it as a province, and subjected Hamath to tribute. Assyrian inscriptions record in 740 BCE, the year of his reign. He also subjugated Damascus, the Arabs under Queen Zabibe, Menahem of Israel and Samals king Azriyau, in 737 and 736 BCE he turned his attention again to Iran, conquering the Medes and Persians and occupying a large part of Iran. According to the inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser many of the inhabitants were enslaved and deported to other parts of the Assyrian empire. At sieges, captives were slaughtered, and their bodies raised on stakes, in October 729 BCE, Tiglath-Pileser assumed total control of Babylon, capturing the Babylonian king Nabu-mukin-zeri and having himself crowned as King Pulu of Babylon
20.
Damascus
–
Damascus is the capital and likely the largest city of Syria, following the decline in population of Aleppo due to the ongoing battle for the city. It is commonly known in Syria as ash-Sham and nicknamed as the City of Jasmine, in addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major cultural and religious centre of the Levant. The city has an population of 1,711,000 as of 2009. Located in south-western Syria, Damascus is the centre of a metropolitan area of 2.6 million people. The Barada River flows through Damascus, first settled in the second millennium BC, it was chosen as the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate from 661 to 750. After the victory of the Abbasid dynasty, the seat of Islamic power was moved to Baghdad, Damascus saw a political decline throughout the Abbasid era, only to regain significant importance in the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods. Today, it is the seat of the government and all of the government ministries. The name of Damascus first appeared in the geographical list of Thutmose III as T-m-ś-q in the 15th century BC, the etymology of the ancient name T-m-ś-q is uncertain, but it is suspected to be pre-Semitic. It is attested as Dimašqa in Akkadian, T-ms-ḳw in Egyptian, Dammaśq in Old Aramaic, the Akkadian spelling is found in the Amarna letters, from the 14th century BC. Later Aramaic spellings of the name include a intrusive resh, perhaps influenced by the root dr. Thus, the English and Latin name of the city is Damascus which was imported from originated from the Qumranic Darmeśeq, and Darmsûq in Syriac, meaning a well-watered land. In Arabic, the city is called Dimašqu š-Šāmi, although this is shortened to either Dimašq or aš-Šām by the citizens of Damascus, of Syria and other Arab neighbours. Aš-Šām is an Arabic term for Levant and for Syria, the latter, the Anti-Lebanon mountains mark the border between Syria and Lebanon. The range has peaks of over 10,000 ft. and blocks precipitation from the Mediterranean sea, however, in ancient times this was mitigated by the Barada River, which originates from mountain streams fed by melting snow. Damascus is surrounded by the Ghouta, irrigated farmland where many vegetables, cereals, maps of Roman Syria indicate that the Barada river emptied into a lake of some size east of Damascus. Today it is called Bahira Atayba, the hesitant lake, because in years of severe drought it does not even exist, the modern city has an area of 105 km2, out of which 77 km2 is urban, while Jabal Qasioun occupies the rest. The old city of Damascus, enclosed by the city walls, to the south-east, north and north-east it is surrounded by suburban areas whose history stretches back to the Middle Ages, Midan in the south-west, Sarouja and Imara in the north and north-west. These neighbourhoods originally arose on roads leading out of the city and these new neighbourhoods were initially settled by Kurdish soldiery and Muslim refugees from the European regions of the Ottoman Empire which had fallen under Christian rule
21.
Aramaic language
–
Aramaic is a language or group of languages belonging to the Semitic subfamily of the Afroasiatic language family. More specifically, it is part of the Northwest Semitic group, the Aramaic alphabet was widely adopted for other languages and is ancestral to the Hebrew, Syriac and Arabic alphabets. During its approximately 3000 years of history, Aramaic has served variously as a language of administration of empires, therefore, there is not one singular, static Aramaic language, each time and place rather has had its own variation. The Aramaic languages are now considered endangered, Aram is used as a proper name of several people in the Torah including descendants of Shem, Nahor, and Jacob. Ancient Aram, bordering northern Israel and now called Syria, is considered the epicenter of Aramaic. The language is often considered to have originated within Assyria. Interestingly, the Christian New Testament, for which the constituent texts are written in Koine Greek. The Hellenized Jewish community of Alexandria instead translated Aramaic to the Syrian tongue, a related language, Mlahsô, has recently become extinct. Mandaeans living in the Khuzestan Province of Iran and scattered throughout Iraq and it is quite distinct from any other Aramaic variety. Central Neo-Aramaic consists of Turoyo and the recently extinct Mlahsô, very little remains of Western Aramaic. All these speakers of Modern Western Aramaic are fluent in Arabic, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic and Samaritan Aramaic are preserved in liturgical and literary usage. Each dialect of Aramaic has its own pronunciation, and it would not be feasible here to go into all these properties. Aramaic has a palette of 25 to 40 distinct phonemes. The open vowel is an open near-front unrounded vowel and it usually has a back counterpart, and a front counterpart. There is much correspondence between these vowels between dialects, there is some evidence that Middle Babylonian dialects did not distinguish between the short a and short e. In West Syriac dialects, and possibly Middle Galilean, the long a became the o sound, the open e and back a are often indicated in writing by the use of the letters א alaph or ה he. The close front vowel is the long i and it has a slightly more open counterpart, the long e, as in the final vowel of café. Both of these have shorter counterparts, which tend to be pronounced more open
22.
Nabataeans
–
100, gave the name of Nabatene to the borderland between Arabia and Syria, from the Euphrates to the Red Sea. They were later converted to Christianity, jane Taylor, a writer, describes them as one of the most gifted peoples of the ancient world. The Nabataeans were one among several nomadic tribes roamed the Arabian Desert, moving with their herds to wherever they could find pasture. These nomads became familiar with their area as seasons passed, although the Nabataeans were initially embedded in Aramaic culture, theories about them having Aramean roots are rejected by modern scholars. Instead, historical, religious and linguistic evidence confirm that they are a northern Arabian tribe, the precise origin of this specific tribe of Arab nomads remains uncertain. One hypothesis locates their original homeland in todays Yemen, in the south-west of the Arabian peninsula, however, their deities, language, another hypothesis argues that they came from the eastern coast of the Peninsula. The Nabataeans might have originated there and migrated west between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE into northwestern Arabia and much of what is now modern-day Jordan. Nabataeans have been associated with other groups of people. Another misconception is their identification with the Nebaioth of the Hebrew Bible, unlike the rest of the Arabian tribes, the Nabataeans later emerged as vital players in the region during their times of prosperity. However, they later faded and were forgotten, the Nabataeans had already some tincture of foreign culture when they first appear in history. They occupied Hauran, and in about 85 BCE their king Aretas III became lord of Damascus, proper names on their inscriptions suggest that they were ethnically Arabs who had come under Aramaic influence. Starcky identifies the Nabatu of southern Arabia as their ancestors, onomastic analysis has suggested that Nabataean culture may have had multiple influences. Their arid country was their best safeguard, for the bottle-shaped cisterns for rain-water which they excavated in the rocky or clay-rich soil were carefully concealed from invaders, the extent of Nabataean trade resulted in cross-cultural influences that reached as far as the Red Sea coast of southern Arabia. The gods worshipped at Petra were notably Dushara and al-‘Uzzá, the Nabataeans used to represent their gods as featureless pillars or blocks. Their most common monuments to the gods, commonly known as god blocks, however, the Nabataeans became so influenced by other cultures such as those of Greece and Rome that their gods eventually became anthropomorphic and were represented with human features. The Nabataean alphabet itself developed out of the Aramaic alphabet. The Aramaic language was affected by the Arabic language, as Arab influence grew in the region over time. From the 4th century, the Arabic influence becomes overwhelming, in a way that it may be said the Nabataean language shifted seamlessly from Aramaic to Arabic, the Arabic alphabet itself developed out of cursive variants of the Nabataean script in the 5th century
23.
Roman Empire
–
Civil wars and executions continued, culminating in the victory of Octavian, Caesars adopted son, over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the annexation of Egypt. Octavians power was then unassailable and in 27 BC the Roman Senate formally granted him overarching power, the imperial period of Rome lasted approximately 1,500 years compared to the 500 years of the Republican era. The first two centuries of the empires existence were a period of unprecedented political stability and prosperity known as the Pax Romana, following Octavians victory, the size of the empire was dramatically increased. After the assassination of Caligula in 41, the senate briefly considered restoring the republic, under Claudius, the empire invaded Britannia, its first major expansion since Augustus. Vespasian emerged triumphant in 69, establishing the Flavian dynasty, before being succeeded by his son Titus and his short reign was followed by the long reign of his brother Domitian, who was eventually assassinated. The senate then appointed the first of the Five Good Emperors, the empire reached its greatest extent under Trajan, the second in this line. A period of increasing trouble and decline began with the reign of Commodus, Commodus assassination in 192 triggered the Year of the Five Emperors, of which Septimius Severus emerged victorious. The assassination of Alexander Severus in 235 led to the Crisis of the Third Century in which 26 men were declared emperor by the Roman Senate over a time span. It was not until the reign of Diocletian that the empire was fully stabilized with the introduction of the Tetrarchy, which saw four emperors rule the empire at once. This arrangement was unsuccessful, leading to a civil war that was finally ended by Constantine I. Constantine subsequently shifted the capital to Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople in his honour and it remained the capital of the east until its demise. Constantine also adopted Christianity which later became the state religion of the empire. However, Augustulus was never recognized by his Eastern colleague, and separate rule in the Western part of the empire ceased to exist upon the death of Julius Nepos. The Eastern Roman Empire endured for another millennium, eventually falling to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the Roman Empire was among the most powerful economic, cultural, political and military forces in the world of its time. It was one of the largest empires in world history, at its height under Trajan, it covered 5 million square kilometres. It held sway over an estimated 70 million people, at that time 21% of the entire population. Throughout the European medieval period, attempts were made to establish successors to the Roman Empire, including the Empire of Romania, a Crusader state. Rome had begun expanding shortly after the founding of the republic in the 6th century BC, then, it was an empire long before it had an emperor
24.
Ghassanids
–
After settling in the Levant, the Ghassanids became a client state to the Eastern Roman Empire and fought alongside the Byzantine Empire against the Persian Sassanids and Arab Lakhmids. The lands of the Ghassanids also acted as a buffer zone protecting lands that had been annexed by the Romans against raids by Bedouin tribes, oral tradition holds that the Ghassanids came from the city of Marib in South Arabia and its surrounding cities and towns, modern day Yemen. Tradition holds that their exodus from the area was due to the destruction of the Marib Dam. The Arabic proverb “They were scattered like the people of Saba” refers to that exodus in history. The date of the migration to the Levant is unclear, and he apparently became Chalcedonian at this time. By the year 510, the Ghassanids were no longer Monophysite and they became the leading tribe among the Arab foederati, such as Banu Amela and Banu Judham. After originally settling in the Levant, the Ghassanids became a client state to the Eastern Roman Empire, the Romans found a powerful ally in the Ghassanids who acted as a buffer zone against the Lakhmids. In addition, as kings of their own people, they were also phylarchs, the capital was at Jabiyah in the Golan Heights. Geographically, it occupied much of the eastern Levant, and its authority extended via tribal alliances with other Azdi tribes all the way to the northern Hijaz as far south as Yathrib, the Ghassanids fought alongside the Byzantine Empire against the Persian Sassanids and Arab Lakhmids. The lands of the Ghassanids also continually acted as a buffer zone, among their Arab allies were the Banu Judham and Banu Amela. The Byzantine Empire was focused more on the East and a war with the Persians was always their main concern. The Ghassanids maintained their rule as the guardian of trade routes, in addition to that, al-Harith ibn Jabalah was given the rule over all the Arab allies of the Byzantine Empire. Al-Harith was a Miaphysite Christian, he helped to revive the Syrian Miaphysite Church, later Byzantine mistrust and persecution of such religious unorthodoxy brought down his successors, al-Mundhir and Numan. After the fall of the first kingdom of Ghassan, King Jabalah ibn-al-Aiham established a Government-in-exile in Byzantium. The Ghassanids remained a Byzantine vassal state until its rulers and the eastern Byzantine Empire were overthrown by the Muslims in the 7th century and it is worth noting that a significant percentage of the Muslim armies in the Battle of Mutah were Christian Arabs. Several of those Christian Arab tribes in todays modern Jordan who sided with the Muslim armies were recognized by exempting them from paying jizya, jizya is a form of tax paid by non-Muslims - Muslims paid another form of tax called Zakah. Later those who remained Christian joined Melkite Syriac communities, the remnants of the Ghassanids were dispersed throughout Asia Minor. There are different opinions why Jabalah and his followers didnt convert to Islam, some opinions go along the general idea that the Ghassanids were not interested yet in giving up their status as the lords and nobility of Syria
25.
Late antiquity
–
Late antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages in mainland Europe, the Mediterranean world, and the Near East. The development of the periodization has generally been accredited to historian Peter Brown, precise boundaries for the period are a continuing matter of debate, but Brown proposes a period between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Generally, it can be thought of as from the end of the Roman Empires Crisis of the Third Century to, in the East, the early Islamic period, following the Muslim conquests in the mid–7th century. In the West the end was earlier, with the start of the Early Medieval period typically placed in the 6th century, beginning with Constantine the Great, Christianity was made legal in the Empire, and a new capital was founded at Constantinople. The resultant cultural fusion of Greco-Roman, Germanic and Christian traditions formed the foundations of the subsequent culture of Europe, the term Spätantike, literally late antiquity, has been used by German-speaking historians since its popularization by Alois Riegl in the early 20th century. Concurrently, some migrating Germanic tribes such as the Ostrogoths and Visigoths saw themselves as perpetuating the Roman tradition, Constantine confirmed the legalization of the religion through the so-called Edict of Milan in 313, jointly issued with his rival in the East, Licinius. Monasticism was not the only new Christian movement to appear in Late Antiquity, notable in this regard is the topic of the Fifty Bibles of Constantine. Within the recently legitimized Christian community of the 4th century, a division could be distinctly seen between the laity and an increasingly celibate male leadership. Celibate and detached, the clergy became an elite equal in prestige to urban notables. The Late Antique period also saw a transformation of the political and social basis of life in. The later Roman Empire was in a sense a network of cities, archaeology now supplements literary sources to document the transformation followed by collapse of cities in the Mediterranean basin. Burials within the urban precincts mark another stage in dissolution of traditional urbanistic discipline, overpowered by the attraction of saintly shrines, in Roman Britain, the typical 4th- and 5th-century layer of black earth within cities seems to be a result of increased gardening in formerly urban spaces. A similar though less marked decline in population occurred later in Constantinople. In Europe there was also a decline in urban populations. As a whole, the period of antiquity was accompanied by an overall population decline in almost all Europe. Long-distance markets disappeared, and there was a reversion to a degree of local production and consumption, rather than webs of commerce. The degree and extent of discontinuity in the cities of the Greek East is a moot subject among historians. In the western Mediterranean, the new cities known to be founded in Europe between the 5th and 8th centuries were the four or five Visigothic victory cities
26.
Byzantine Empire
–
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
27.
Diocese
–
The word diocese is derived from the Greek term διοίκησις meaning administration. When now used in a sense, it refers to a territorial unit of administration. This structure of governance is known as episcopal polity. The word diocesan means relating or pertaining to a diocese and it can also be used as a noun meaning the bishop who has the principal supervision of a diocese. An archdiocese is more significant than a diocese, an archdiocese is presided over by an archbishop whose see may have or have had importance due to size or historical significance. The archbishop may have authority over any other suffragan bishops. In the Latter Day Saint movement, the bishopric is used to describe the bishop himself. Especially in the Middle Ages, some bishops held political as well as religious authority within their dioceses, in the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associated in a larger unit, the diocese. With the adoption of Christianity as the Empires official religion in the 4th century, a formal church hierarchy was set up, parallel to the civil administration, whose areas of responsibility often coincided. With the collapse of the Western Empire in the 5th century, a similar, though less pronounced, development occurred in the East, where the Roman administrative apparatus was largely retained by the Byzantine Empire. In modern times, many dioceses, though later subdivided, have preserved the boundaries of a long-vanished Roman administrative division, modern usage of diocese tends to refer to the sphere of a bishops jurisdiction. As of January 2015, in the Catholic Church there are 2,851 regular dioceses,1 papal see,641 archdioceses and 2,209 dioceses in the world, in the Eastern rites in communion with the Pope, the equivalent unit is called an eparchy. Eastern Orthodoxy calls dioceses metropoleis in the Greek tradition or eparchies in the Slavic tradition, after the Reformation, the Church of England retained the existing diocesan structure which remains throughout the Anglican Communion. The one change is that the areas administered under the Archbishop of Canterbury and Archbishop of York are properly referred to as provinces and this usage is relatively common in the Anglican Communion. Certain Lutheran denominations such as the Church of Sweden do have individual dioceses similar to Roman Catholics and these dioceses and archdioceses are under the government of a bishop. Other Lutheran bodies and synods that have dioceses and bishops include the Church of Denmark, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, the Evangelical Church in Germany, rather, it is divided into a middle judicatory. The Lutheran Church-International, based in Springfield, Illinois, presently uses a traditional diocesan structure and its current president is Archbishop Robert W. Hotes. The Church of God in Christ has dioceses throughout the United States, in the COGIC, each state is divided up into at least three dioceses that are all led by a bishop, but some states as many as seven dioceses
28.
Christianity
–
Christianity is a Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, who serves as the focal point for the religion. It is the worlds largest religion, with over 2.4 billion followers, or 33% of the global population, Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of humanity whose coming as the Messiah was prophesied in the Old Testament. Christian theology is summarized in creeds such as the Apostles Creed and his incarnation, earthly ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection are often referred to as the gospel, meaning good news. The term gospel also refers to accounts of Jesuss life and teaching, four of which—Matthew, Mark, Luke. Christianity is an Abrahamic religion that began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the mid-1st century, following the Age of Discovery, Christianity spread to the Americas, Australasia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the rest of the world through missionary work and colonization. Christianity has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilization, throughout its history, Christianity has weathered schisms and theological disputes that have resulted in many distinct churches and denominations. Worldwide, the three largest branches of Christianity are the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the denominations of Protestantism. There are many important differences of interpretation and opinion of the Bible, concise doctrinal statements or confessions of religious beliefs are known as creeds. They began as baptismal formulae and were expanded during the Christological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries to become statements of faith. Many evangelical Protestants reject creeds as definitive statements of faith, even agreeing with some or all of the substance of the creeds. The Baptists have been non-creedal in that they have not sought to establish binding authoritative confessions of faith on one another. Also rejecting creeds are groups with roots in the Restoration Movement, such as the Christian Church, the Evangelical Christian Church in Canada, the Apostles Creed is the most widely accepted statement of the articles of Christian faith. It is also used by Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists and this particular creed was developed between the 2nd and 9th centuries. Its central doctrines are those of the Trinity and God the Creator, each of the doctrines found in this creed can be traced to statements current in the apostolic period. The creed was used as a summary of Christian doctrine for baptismal candidates in the churches of Rome. Most Christians accept the use of creeds, and subscribe to at least one of the mentioned above. The central tenet of Christianity is the belief in Jesus as the Son of God, Christians believe that Jesus, as the Messiah, was anointed by God as savior of humanity, and hold that Jesus coming was the fulfillment of messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. The Christian concept of the Messiah differs significantly from the contemporary Jewish concept, Jesus, having become fully human, suffered the pains and temptations of a mortal man, but did not sin
29.
Arabs
–
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
30.
Siege of Kerak
–
The Siege of Kerak took place in 1183, with Saladins forces attacking and being repelled from the Crusader stronghold. Kerak was the stronghold of Raynald of Châtillon, Lord of Oultrejordain,124 km south of Amman, the fortress was built in 1142 by Pagan the Butler, Lord of Montreal. While Raynald ruled, several truces existed between the Christian and Muslim states in the Holy Land, none of which he made any qualms about breaking, the last straw came in 1183 when he organized an expedition around the Red Sea. He captured the town of Aqaba, giving him a base of operations against Islams holiest city, Saladin, the leader of the Muslim forces, could not tolerate this and moved against Raynalds stronghold. The Muslims had sought to take Kerak for several years, at one point, nine catapults were bombarding the walls and inhabitants within. Inside the walls, a marriage was taking place. Humphrey IV of Toron, Raynalds stepson and heir, was to take the hand of Isabella of Jerusalem, as the wedding ceremonies continued, Saladin instructed his troops to avoid bombarding the young couples quarters, but pressure on Kerak continued. Messengers managed to escape the town and take word to the King, Baldwin immediately marched with a relief force, accompanied by his regent, Raymond III of Tripoli. Although suffering from leprosy since childhood, Baldwins determination to frustrate Saladins attempt was such that he led personally, the Christian forces arrived while Saladin was still struggling against the heavy fortifications. Knowing he risked being crushed between the army and the walls of Kerak, he lifted the siege. Saladin returned to Kerak again in 1184, with the same result, Kerak remained a Crusader stronghold and a symbol of the Wests grip in the region until falling to Muslim control in 1188. The next time the Crusaders had to contend with a major siege, the motion picture Kingdom of Heaven contains a fictional portrayal of the siege. In the film, knights under the command of Balian engaged the Ayyubids as they approached Kerak, the film also showed the siege not taking place, but King Baldwin IV and Saladin negotiating a settlement. Baldwin then punished Raynald for breaking the truce by attacking a Muslim caravan
31.
Crusader states
–
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
32.
Fulk, King of Jerusalem
–
Fulk, also known as Fulk the Younger, was the Count of Anjou from 1109 to 1129 and the King of Jerusalem from 1131 to his death. During his reign, the Kingdom of Jerusalem reached its largest territorial extent, Fulk was born at Angers, between 1089 and 1092, the son of Count Fulk IV of Anjou and Bertrade de Montfort. In 1092, Bertrade deserted her husband and bigamously married King Philip I of France and he became count of Anjou upon his fathers death in 1109. In the next year, he married Ermengarde of Maine, cementing Angevin control over the County of Maine, Fulk went on crusade in 1119 or 1120, and became attached to the Knights Templar. He returned, late in 1121, after which he began to subsidize the Templars, much later, Henry arranged for his daughter Matilda to marry Fulks son Geoffrey of Anjou, which she did in 1127 or 1128. By 1127 Fulk was preparing to return to Anjou when he received an embassy from King Baldwin II of Jerusalem, Baldwin II had no male heirs but had already designated his daughter Melisende to succeed him. Baldwin II wanted to safeguard his daughters inheritance by marrying her to a powerful lord, Fulk was a wealthy crusader and experienced military commander, and a widower. His experience in the field would prove invaluable in a state always in the grip of war. However, Fulk held out for better terms than mere consort of the Queen, Baldwin II, reflecting on Fulks fortune and military exploits, acquiesced. Fulk abdicated his county seat of Anjou to his son Geoffrey and left for Jerusalem, later Baldwin II bolstered Melisendes position in the kingdom by making her sole guardian of her son by Fulk, Baldwin III, born in 1130. Fulk and Melisende became joint rulers of Jerusalem in 1131 with Baldwin IIs death, from the start Fulk assumed sole control of the government, excluding Melisende altogether. He favored fellow countrymen from Anjou to the native nobility, Melisendes sister Alice of Antioch, exiled from the Principality by Baldwin II, took control of Antioch once more after the death of her father. She allied with Pons of Tripoli and Joscelin II of Edessa to prevent Fulk from marching north in 1132, Fulk and Pons fought a battle before peace was made. In Jerusalem as well, Fulk was resented by the generation of Jerusalem Christians who had grown up there since the First Crusade. These natives focused on Melisendes cousin, the popular Hugh II of Le Puiset, count of Jaffa, Fulk saw Hugh as a rival, and it did not help matters when Hughs own stepson accused him of disloyalty. In 1134, in order to expose Hugh, Fulk accused him of infidelity with Melisende, Hugh secured himself to Jaffa, and allied himself with the Muslims of Ascalon. He was able to defeat the army set against him by Fulk, the Patriarch interceded in the conflict, perhaps at the behest of Melisende. Fulk agreed to peace and Hugh was exiled from the kingdom for three years, a lenient sentence, however, an assassination attempt was made against Hugh
33.
Saladin
–
An-Nasir Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, known as Saladin, was the first sultan of Egypt and Syria and the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. A Sunni Muslim of Kurdish origin, Saladin led the Muslim military campaign against the Crusader states in the Levant, at the height of his power, his sultanate included Egypt, Syria, Upper Mesopotamia, the Hejaz, Yemen and other parts of North Africa. When Saladins uncle Shirkuh died in 1169, al-Adid appointed Saladin vizier, in the following years, he led forays against the Crusaders in Palestine, commissioned the successful conquest of Yemen, and staved off pro-Fatimid rebellions in Upper Egypt. Not long after Nur ad-Dins death in 1174, Saladin launched his conquest of Syria, by mid-1175, Saladin had conquered Hama and Homs, inviting the animosity of his former Zengid lords, who had been the official rulers of Syria. Soon after, he defeated the Zengid army at the Battle of the Horns of Hama and was proclaimed the Sultan of Egypt. Saladin made further conquests in northern Syria and Jazira, escaping two attempts on his life by the Assassins, before returning to Egypt in 1177 to address issues there. By 1182, Saladin completed the conquest of Muslim Syria after capturing Aleppo, although the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem continued to exist until the late 13th century, its defeat at Hattin marked a turning point in its conflict with the Muslim powers of the region. Saladin died in Damascus in 1193, having given away much of his wealth to his subjects. He is buried in an adjacent to the Umayyad Mosque. Saladin has become a prominent figure in Muslim, Arab, Turkish and Kurdish culture, Saladin was born in Tikrit in modern-day Iraq. His personal name was Yusuf, Salah ad-Din is a laqab and his family was of Kurdish ancestry, and had originated from the city of Dvin in medieval Armenia. The Rawadid tribe he hailed from had been assimilated into the Arabic-speaking world by this time. Ayyub provided ferries for the army and gave refuge in Tikrit. According to Baha ad-Din ibn Shaddad, Saladin was born on the night his family left Tikrit. In 1139, Ayyub and his moved to Mosul, where Imad ad-Din Zengi acknowledged his debt. After the death of Zengi in 1146, his son, Nur ad-Din, became the regent of Aleppo, Saladin, who now lived in Damascus, was reported to have a particular fondness for the city, but information on his early childhood is scarce. About education, Saladin wrote children are brought up in the way in which their elders were brought up, several sources claim that during his studies he was more interested in religion than joining the military. Another factor which may have affected his interest in religion was that, during the First Crusade, in addition to Islam, Saladin had a knowledge of the genealogies, biographies, and histories of the Arabs, as well as the bloodlines of Arabian horses
34.
Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo)
–
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
35.
Baibars
–
Baibars or Baybars, of Turkic Kipchak origin — nicknamed Abu al-Futuh and Abu l-Futuhat — was the fourth Sultan of Egypt in the Mamluk Bahri dynasty. He was one of the commanders of the Egyptian forces that inflicted a defeat on the Seventh Crusade of King Louis IX of France. He also led the vanguard of the Egyptian army at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260, the reign of Baibars marked the start of an age of Mamluk dominance in the Eastern Mediterranean and solidified the durability of their military system. As Sultan, Baibars also engaged in a combination of diplomacy and military action and his name was derived from Kipchak Turkic bay + bars. Baibars was born in the Dasht-i Kipchak/Cumania, between the Edil and Yaiyk rivers, to the Cumans-Kipchaks and it was said that he was captured by the Bulgars in the Kipchak steppe/Cumania and sold as a slave, ending up in Syria. Baibars was quickly sold to a Mamluk officer called Aydekin al bondouqdar and sent to Egypt, Baibars was a commander of the Mamluks under the Ayyubids. In around 1250 he defeated the Seventh Crusade of Louis IX of France and they were besieged from all directions by the Egyptian forces and the town population, and suffered heavy losses. Robert of Artois, who took refuge in a house, only five Templar Knights escaped alive. Baibars was still a commander under Sultan Qutuz at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260, after the battle, Sultan Qutuz was assassinated while on a hunting expedition. Baibars succeeded Qutuz as Sultan of Egypt, also, the threat from the Mongols was still serious enough to be considered as a threat to Baibars authority. However, Baibars first chose to deal with Sinjar, and marched on Damascus, at the same time the princes of Hama and Homs proved able to defeat the Mongols in the First Battle of Homs, which lifted the Mongol threat for a while. After suppressing the revolt of Sinjar, Baibars then managed to deal with the Ayyubids, unfortunately, al-Mustansir II was killed by the Mongols during an ill-advised expedition to recapture Baghdad from the Mongols later in the same year. Like his unfortunate predecessor, al-Hakim I also received the oath of alliegance of Baibars. As sultan, Baibars engaged in a struggle against the Crusader kingdoms in Syria. He started with the Principality of Antioch, which had become a state of the Mongols and had participated in attacks against Islamic targets in Damascus. In 1263, Baibars laid siege to Acre, the capital of the remnant of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and he used siege engines to defeat the Crusaders in battles such as the Fall of Arsuf from March 21 to April 30. After breaking into the town he offered free passage to the defending Knights Hospitallers if they surrendered their formidable citadel, the Knights accepted Baibars offer but were enslaved anyway. Baibars razed the castle to the ground and he next attacked Athlith and Haifa, where he captured both towns after destroying the crusaders resistance, and razed the citadels
36.
Cairo
–
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
37.
Physician
–
Both the role of the physician and the meaning of the word itself vary around the world. Degrees and other qualifications vary widely, but there are common elements, such as medical ethics requiring that physicians show consideration, compassion. Around the world the term refers to a specialist in internal medicine or one of its many sub-specialties. This meaning of physician conveys a sense of expertise in treatment by drugs or medications and this term is at least nine hundred years old in English, physicians and surgeons were once members of separate professions, and traditionally were rivals. Henry VIII granted a charter to the London Royal College of Physicians in 1518 and it was not until 1540 that he granted the Company of Barber/Surgeons its separate charter. In the same year, the English monarch established the Regius Professorship of Physic at the University of Cambridge, newer universities would probably describe such an academic as a professor of internal medicine. Hence, in the 16th century, physic meant roughly what internal medicine does now, currently, a specialist physician in the United States may be described as an internist. Another term, hospitalist, was introduced in 1996, to describe US specialists in internal medicine who work largely or exclusively in hospitals, such hospitalists now make up about 19% of all US general internists, who are often called general physicians in Commonwealth countries. In such places, the more general English terms doctor or medical practitioner are prevalent, in Commonwealth countries, specialist pediatricians and geriatricians are also described as specialist physicians who have sub-specialized by age of patient rather than by organ system. Around the world, the term physician and surgeon is used to describe either a general practitioner or any medical practitioner irrespective of specialty. This usage still shows the meaning of physician and preserves the old difference between a physician, as a practitioner of physic, and a surgeon. The term may be used by state medical boards in the United States of America, in modern English, the term physician is used in two main ways, with relatively broad and narrow meanings respectively. This is the result of history and is often confusing and these meanings and variations are explained below. In the United States and Canada, the term physician describes all medical practitioners holding a professional medical degree, the American Medical Association, established in 1847, as well as the American Osteopathic Association, founded in 1897, both currently use the term physician to describe members. However, the American College of Physicians, established in 1915, does not, its title uses physician in its original sense. A physician trained in the United States has either a Doctor of Medicine degree, all boards of certification now require that physicians demonstrate, by examination, continuing mastery of the core knowledge and skills for a chosen specialty. Recertification varies by particular specialty between every seven and every ten years, graduates of osteopathic medical schools in the United States should not be confused with osteopaths, who are trained in the European and Commonwealth nations. Their training is similar to physical therapy and they are not licensed to prescribe medications or perform surgeries, also in the United States, the American Podiatric Medical Association defines podiatrists as physicians and surgeons that fall under the department of surgery in hospitals
38.
Surgeon
–
In medicine, a surgeon is a doctor who performs operations. Surgeons may be physicians, podiatrists, dentists, or veterinarians, the first person to document a surgery was the 6th Century BC Indian physician-surgeon, Sushrutha. He is considered the greatest medieval surgeon to have appeared from the Islamic World and his greatest contribution to medicine is the Kitab al-Tasrif, a thirty-volume encyclopedia of medical practices. He was the first physician to describe an ectopic pregnancy, in Europe, surgery was mostly associated with barber-surgeons who also used their hair-cutting tools to undertake surgical procedures, often at the battlefield and also for their royal paymasters. In 1950, the Royal College of Surgeons of England in London began to offer surgeons a formal status via RCS membership. The distinction of Mr is also used by surgeons in the Republic of Ireland, Australia, Barbados, New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe, in many English-speaking countries the military title of surgeon is applied to any medical practitioner, due to the historical evolution of the term. Some physicians who are general practitioners or specialists in medicine or emergency medicine may perform limited ranges of minor, common. Anesthesia often accompanies surgery, and anesthesiologists and nurse anesthetists may oversee this aspect of surgery, Surgeons assistant, surgical nurses, surgical technologists and operating department practitioners are trained professionals who support surgeons. Sushruta Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi Charles Kelman William Stewart Halsted Alfred Blalock C
Birmingham, Alabama, United States
Kerak travel guide from Wikivoyage