1.
Madrid
Madrid is the capital city of the Kingdom of Spain and the largest municipality in both the Community of Madrid and Spain as a whole. The city has a population of almost 3.2 million with an area population of approximately 6.5 million. It is the third-largest city in the European Union after London and Berlin, the municipality itself covers an area of 604.3 km2. Madrid lies on the River Manzanares in the centre of both the country and the Community of Madrid, this community is bordered by the communities of Castile and León. As the capital city of Spain, seat of government, and residence of the Spanish monarch, Madrid is the political, the current mayor is Manuela Carmena from Ahora Madrid. Madrid is home to two football clubs, Real Madrid and Atlético de Madrid. Madrid is the 17th most liveable city in the according to Monocle magazine. Madrid organises fairs such as FITUR, ARCO, SIMO TCI, while Madrid possesses modern infrastructure, it has preserved the look and feel of many of its historic neighbourhoods and streets.
Cibeles Palace and Fountain have become one of the monument symbols of the city, the first documented reference of the city originates in Andalusan times as the Arabic مجريط Majrīṭ, which was retained in Medieval Spanish as Magerit. A wider number of theories have been formulated on possible earlier origins, according to legend, Madrid was founded by Ocno Bianor and was named Metragirta or Mantua Carpetana. The most ancient recorded name of the city Magerit comes from the name of a built on the Manzanares River in the 9th century AD. Nevertheless, it is speculated that the origin of the current name of the city comes from the 2nd century BC. The Roman Empire established a settlement on the banks of the Manzanares river, the name of this first village was Matrice. In the 8th century, the Islamic conquest of the Iberian Peninsula saw the changed to Mayrit, from the Arabic term ميرا Mayra. The modern Madrid evolved from the Mozarabic Matrit, which is still in the Madrilenian gentilic, after the disintegration of the Caliphate of Córdoba, Madrid was integrated in the Taifa of Toledo.
With the surrender of Toledo to Alfonso VI of León and Castile, the city was conquered by Christians in 1085, Christians replaced Muslims in the occupation of the centre of the city, while Muslims and Jews settled in the suburbs. The city was thriving and was given the title of Villa, since 1188, Madrid won the right to be a city with representation in the courts of Castile. In 1202, King Alfonso VIII of Castile gave Madrid its first charter to regulate the municipal council, which was expanded in 1222 by Ferdinand III of Castile
2.
Mediterranean Sea
The sea is sometimes considered a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it is usually identified as a separate body of water. The name Mediterranean is derived from the Latin mediterraneus, meaning inland or in the middle of land and it covers an approximate area of 2.5 million km2, but its connection to the Atlantic is only 14 km wide. The Strait of Gibraltar is a strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Gibraltar. In oceanography, it is called the Eurafrican Mediterranean Sea or the European Mediterranean Sea to distinguish it from mediterranean seas elsewhere. The Mediterranean Sea has a depth of 1,500 m. The sea is bordered on the north by Europe, the east by Asia and it is located between latitudes 30° and 46° N and longitudes 6° W and 36° E. Its west-east length, from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Gulf of Iskenderun, the seas average north-south length, from Croatia’s southern shore to Libya, is approximately 800 km. The Mediterranean Sea, including the Sea of Marmara, has an area of approximately 2,510,000 square km.
The sea was an important route for merchants and travelers of ancient times that allowed for trade, the history of the Mediterranean region is crucial to understanding the origins and development of many modern societies. In addition, the Gaza Strip and the British Overseas Territories of Gibraltar and Akrotiri, the term Mediterranean derives from the Latin word mediterraneus, meaning amid the earth or between land, as it is between the continents of Africa and Europe. The Ancient Greek name Mesogeios, is similarly from μέσο, between + γη, earth) and it can be compared with the Ancient Greek name Mesopotamia, meaning between rivers. The Mediterranean Sea has historically had several names, for example, the Carthaginians called it the Syrian Sea and latter Romans commonly called it Mare Nostrum, and occasionally Mare Internum. Another name was the Sea of the Philistines, from the people inhabiting a large portion of its shores near the Israelites, the sea is called the Great Sea in the General Prologue by Geoffrey Chaucer.
In Ottoman Turkish, it has been called Bahr-i Sefid, in Modern Hebrew, it has been called HaYam HaTikhon, the Middle Sea, reflecting the Seas name in ancient Greek and modern languages in both Europe and the Middle East. Similarly, in Modern Arabic, it is known as al-Baḥr al-Mutawassiṭ, in Turkish, it is known as Akdeniz, the White Sea since among Turks the white colour represents the west. Several ancient civilisations were located around the Mediterranean shores, and were influenced by their proximity to the sea. It provided routes for trade and war, as well as food for numerous communities throughout the ages, due to the shared climate and access to the sea, cultures centered on the Mediterranean tended to have some extent of intertwined culture and history. Two of the most notable Mediterranean civilisations in classical antiquity were the Greek city states, when Augustus founded the Roman Empire, the Romans referred to the Mediterranean as Mare Nostrum
3.
History of the Mediterranean region
The Mediterranean Sea was the central superhighway of transport and cultural exchange between diverse peoples encompassing three continents, Western Asia, North Africa, and Southern Europe. There is evidence of tools on Crete,130,000 years BCE. The cultural stage of civilization first arises in Southwest Asia, as an extension of the Neolithic trend, from as early as the 8th millennium BCE, urban civilizations proper begin to emerge in the Chalcolithic, in 5th to 4th millennium Egypt and in Mesopotamia. The Bronze Age arises in this region during the centuries of the 4th millennium. The urban civilizations of the Fertile Crescent now have writing systems and develop bureaucracy, in the 2nd millennium, the eastern coastlines of the Mediterranean are dominated by the Hittite and Egyptian empires, competing for control over the city states in the Levant. Some have gone so far as to call the catalyst that ended the Bronze Age a catastrophe, in the first phase of this period, almost every city between Troy and Gaza was violently destroyed, and often left unoccupied thereafter.
The gradual end of the Dark Age that ensued saw the rise of settled Neo-Hittite Aramaean kingdoms of the mid-10th century BCE, fernand Braudel remarked in The Perspective of the World that Phoenicia was an early example of a world-economy surrounded by empires. The high point of Phoenician culture and sea power is usually placed ca, many of the most important Phoenician settlements had been established long before this, Tyre, Simyra and Berytus, all appear in the Amarna tablets. Two of the most notable Mediterranean civilizations in antiquity were the Greek city states. The Greeks expanded throughout the Black Sea and south through the Red Sea, the Phoenicians spread through the western Mediterranean reaching North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula. From the 6th century BCE up to including the 5th century BCE, many of the significant Mediterranean peoples were under Persian rule, both the Phoenicians and some of the Greek city states in Asia Minor provided the naval forces of the Achaemenid Persian Empire.
Persian dominance ended after the Greco-Persian War in the 5th century BCE, Darius the Great is to be credited as the first Achaemenid king to invest in a Persian fleet. Even by no true imperial navy had existed either in Greece or Egypt, Persia would become the first empire, under Darius, to inaugurate and deploy the first regular imperial navy. Both the Phoenicians and the Greeks provided the bulk of the forces of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, alongside the Cypriots. In the northernmost part of ancient Greece, in the ancient kingdom of Macedonia, the hetairoi was considered the strongest of their time. Under Alexander the Great, this force turned east, and in a series of battles, it routed the Persian forces. Their Macedonia empire included present-day Greece, Egypt, the Phoenician lands and many other regions of the Mediterranean. The major centres of the Mediterranean at the time part of Alexanders empire as a result
4.
Byblos
Byblos, in Arabic Jubayl, is a Mediterranean city in the Mount Lebanon Governorate, Lebanon. It is one of the cities suggested as the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world and it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Gubal was a Canaanite city during the Bronze Age, at time it appears as Gubla in the Amarna letters. During the Iron Age the city is called Gebal in Phoenician and it was much referred to as Gibelet, during the Crusades. The citys Canaanite/Phoenician name can be derived from gb, meaning well or origin, and El, the present-day city is known by the Arabic name Jubayl or Jbeil, a direct descendant of the Canaanite name. However, the Arabic name is most likely derived from the Phoenician word GBL meaning boundary, district or mountain peak, in the Ugaritic GBL can mean mountain, the Greek Βύβλος, whence we get our Byblos, was the interpretation of Phoenician
5.
Phoenicia
The enterprising, sea-based Phoenician civilization spread across the Mediterranean between 1500 BC and 300 BC. Their civilization was organized in city-states, similar to those of Ancient Greece, perhaps the most notable of which were Tyre, Arvad and Carthage. Each city-state was an independent unit, and it is uncertain to what extent the Phoenicians viewed themselves as a single nationality. In terms of archaeology, language and religion there was little to set the Phoenicians apart as markedly different from other Semitic Canaanites. The Phoenicians were the first state-level society to make use of alphabets. By their maritime trade, the Phoenicians spread the use of the alphabet to Anatolia, North Africa, and Europe, where it was adopted by the Greeks, the name Phoenicians, like Latin Poenī, comes from Greek Φοίνικες. The word φοῖνιξ phoînix meant variably Phoenician person, Tyrian purple, the word may be derived from φοινός phoinós blood red, itself possibly related to φόνος phónos murder.
Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin of the ethnonym, the oldest attested form of the word in Greek may be the Mycenaean po-ni-ki-jo, po-ni-ki, possibly borrowed from Ancient Egyptian fnḫw Asiatics, although this derivation is disputed. The folk-etymological association of Φοινίκη with φοῖνιξ mirrors that in Akkadian which tied kinaḫni, the land was natively known as knʿn and its people as the knʿny. In the Amarna tablets of the 14th century BC, people from the region called themselves Kenaani or Kinaani, the ethnonym survived in North Africa until the 4th century AD. Herodotus account refers to the myths of Io and Europa, according to the Persians best informed in history, the Phoenicians began the quarrel. The Greek historian Strabo believed that the Phoenicians originated from Bahrain, Herodotus believed that the homeland of the Phoenicians was Bahrain. The people of Tyre in South Lebanon in particular have long maintained Persian Gulf origins, there is little evidence of occupation at all in Bahrain during the time when such migration had supposedly taken place.
Canaanite culture apparently developed in situ from the earlier Ghassulian chalcolithic culture, Byblos is attested as an archaeological site from the Early Bronze Age. The Late Bronze Age state of Ugarit is considered quintessentially Canaanite archaeologically, fernand Braudel remarked in The Perspective of the World that Phoenicia was an early example of a world-economy surrounded by empires. The high point of Phoenician culture and sea power is usually placed c, archaeological evidence consistent with this understanding has been difficult to identify. A unique concentration in Phoenicia of silver hoards dated between 1200 and 800 BC, contains hacksilver with lead isotope ratios matching ores in Sardinia and Spain. This metallic evidence agrees with the memory of a western Mediterranean Tarshish that supplied Solomon with silver via Phoenicia
6.
Carthage
Carthage was the Phoenician city-state of Carthage and during the 7th to 3rd centuries BC, included its sphere of influence, the Carthaginian Empire. The empire extended over much of the coast of North Africa as well as encompassing substantial parts of coastal Iberia, Carthage was founded in 814 BC. At the height of the prominence it served as a major hub of trade. The city had to deal with potentially hostile Berbers, the inhabitants of the area where Carthage was built. In 146 BC, after the third and final Punic War, Roman forces destroyed, nearly all of the other Phoenician city-states and former Carthaginian dependencies subsequently fell into Roman hands. According to Roman sources, Phoenician colonists from modern-day Lebanon, led by Dido, Queen Elissa was an exiled princess of the ancient Phoenician city of Tyre. At its peak, the metropolis she founded, came to be called the city, ruling 300 other cities around the western Mediterranean Sea. Elissas brother, Pygmalion of Tyre, had murdered Elissas husband, Elissa escaped the tyranny of her own country, founding the new city of Carthage and subsequently its dominions.
Details of her life are sketchy and confusing, but the following can be deduced from various sources, according to Justin, Princess Elissa was the daughter of King Belus II of Tyre. When he died, the throne was jointly bequeathed to her brother and she married her uncle Acerbas, known as Sychaeus, the High Priest of Melqart, a man with both authority and wealth comparable to the king. This led to increased rivalry between the elite and the monarchy. Pygmalion was a tyrant, lover of both gold and intrigue, who desired the authority and fortune enjoyed by Acerbas, Pygmalion assassinated Acerbas in the temple and kept the misdeed concealed from his sister for a long time, deceiving her with lies about her husbands death. At the same time, the people of Tyre called for a single sovereign, in the Roman epic of Virgil, the Aeneid, Queen Dido, the Greek name for Elissa, is first introduced as a highly esteemed character. In just seven years, since their exodus from Tyre, the Carthaginians have rebuilt a successful kingdom under her rule and her subjects adore her and present her with a festival of praise.
Her character is perceived by Virgil as even more noble when she offers asylum to Aeneas and his men, who have recently escaped from Troy. A spirit in the form of the god, sent by Jupiter, reminds Aeneas that his mission is not to stay in Carthage with his new-found love, Dido. Virgil ends his legend of Dido with the story that, when Aeneas tells Dido, her heart broken, as she lay dying, she predicted eternal strife between Aeneas people and her own, rise up from my bones, avenging spirit she says, an invocation of Hannibal. The settlements at Crete and Sicily were in conflict with the Greeks
7.
Sidon
Sidon or Saïda is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate of Lebanon, on the Mediterranean coast, about 40 kilometres north of Tyre and 40 km south of the capital, in Genesis, Sidon is a son of Canaan, a grandson of Noah. Its name coincides with the modern Arabic word for fishery, two castles there were cleaned and restored by the French in the early 20th century. Sidon has been inhabited very early in prehistory. It was one of the most important Phoenician cities, and it may have been the oldest, from there and other ports a great Mediterranean commercial empire was founded. Homer praised the skill of its craftsmen in producing glass, purple dyes and it was from here that a colonizing party went to found the city of Tyre. Tyre grew into a city, and in subsequent years there was competition between the two, each claiming to be the metropolis of Phoenicia. Glass manufacturing, Sidons most important enterprise in the Phoenician era, was conducted on a vast scale, the small shell of the Murex trunculus was broken in order to extract the pigment that was so rare it became the mark of royalty.
In AD1855, the sarcophagus of King Eshmun’azar II was discovered, in this inscription the gods Eshmun and Ba‘al Sidon Lord of Sidon are mentioned as chief gods of the Sidonians. ‘Ashtart is entitled ‘Ashtart-Shem-Ba‘al ‘Ashtart the name of the Lord, a title found in an Ugaritic text. In the years before Christianity, Sidon had many conquerors, Babylonians, Persians, both Jesus and Saint Paul are said to have visited it, too. The city was conquered by the Arabs and by the Ottoman Turks. Like other Phoenician city-states, Sidon suffered from a succession of conquerors, at the end of the Persian era in 351 BC, it was invaded by the emperor Artaxerxes III and by Alexander the Great in 333 BC, when the Hellenistic era of Sidon began. Under the successors of Alexander, it enjoyed autonomy and organized games. When Sidon fell under Roman domination, it continued to mint its own silver coins, the Romans built a theater and other major monuments in the city. In the reign of Elagabalus a Roman colony was established there, during the Byzantine period, when the great earthquake of AD551 destroyed most of the cities of Phoenice, Beiruts School of Law took refuge in Sidon.
The town continued quietly for the century, until it was conquered by the Arabs in AD636. On 4 December 1110 Sidon was captured, a decade after the First Crusade, by King Baldwin I of Jerusalem and it became the centre of the Lordship of Sidon, an important lordship in the Kingdom of Jerusalem
8.
Lucentum
Lucentum is the name of the Roman predecessor of the city of Alicante, Spain. Particularly, it refers to the site in which the remains of this ancient settlement lie, at a place known as El Tossal de Manises. The settlement in the area of Alicante was called Akra Leuka by the Greeks, as a Mediterranean and Iberian commercial center, it had trading contacts with Greece, the southern Iberian city of Tartessos, absorbing some of their influences. This unique mixture gave rise to a culture called Contestani by Pliny the Elder, especially with the ascendance of Carthage, it imported a number of Carthaginian architectural features, traces of which are still present in the ruins. However, the majority of the citys remains bear a Roman stamp, the city enjoyed its peak between the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD, entering into a decline at the end of this period and was effectively abandoned during the 2nd and 3rd centuries. The chief cause of decline was competition from the neighboring city of Ilici.
Eventually, the settlement was depopulated, the site used only for a Muslim cemetery during the 10th and 11th centuries. This contradicted the common wisdom at the time, which held that the Roman city was well outside the town of Alicante, the ruins were excavated by Lafuente and Figueras, who found the more ancient Carthaginian city. In the 1930s they were excavated by a Professor Belda. The site contains evidence of both the Iberian and the Roman epochs, although in terms of material recovered and ruins remaining the Roman influences predominate, the Roman city was constructed over the Iberian one, of which practically nothing remains except for the walls. The lower level is contemporary with a necropolis excavated in the 1930s to make way for a road, and whose materials are now housed in the Archaeological Museum of Alicante. Of the jewelry recovered, a type of pendant, possibly for use, is quite notable as it suggests that there was a local workshop whose production made its way into other local burial sites.
Finally, the Kore de Alicante, currently housed in the Archaeological Museum of Catalonia could have come from this site, in the post-war period, the site was in danger of disappearing, a victim of real estate speculation. However, efforts by those in favor of its preservation, most notably the Swedish archaeologist Solveig Nordström and this effort culminated in the 1961 designation as an Artistic and Historic Monument, which afforded some legal protection. Unfortunately, the movement could not stop much development around the site. Despite the legal protections which had won for the ruins, they suffered from neglect and exposure for a number of years. Such a recuperation represents a milestone for Alicante. Presently, one can visit the site, which covers an area of some 30,000 m2
9.
Numidians
The Numidians were the Berber population of Numidia and in a smaller part of Tunisia. The Numidians were one of the earliest Berber tribes to trade with the settlers of Carthage, as Carthage grew, the relationship with the Numidians blossomed. Carthages military used the Numidian cavalry as mercenaries, during the Punic Wars, Syphax was the king of the largest Numidian kingdom, the Masaesyli. In 213 BC, Syphax ended his alliance with Carthage, in 208 BC, he rejoined after marrying Sophonisba, daughter of Hasdrubal Gisco. Syphax tried to get Hannon Barca and Publius Cornelius Scipio to bring peace between the two nations after the Romans had landed in Africa, with the help of Masinissa, Publius Scipios troops set fire to Syphaxs camp. The king Masinissa added Syphaxs former territory to his eastern kingdom Massylii as a reward gained through victory against Carthage. After the Second Punic War, Masinissa started combining Numidians, massinissa wanted to combine the Amazigh people into a united nation with an agricultural industry.
The peace treaty between Carthage and Rome prevented Carthage from entering any wars without Romes permission, Masinissa exploited the treaty by taking Carthaginian land. He used various tricks to get land including stating that Carthage was rebuilding their Navy despite the treaty which prohibited a Navy, when Carthage asked for an appeal Cato the Elder was sent with a commission to mediate a settlement. The commission insisted that both agree to their final decision. Masinissa agreed but because of how unfavorable previous Roman decisions had been Carthage refused, Cato had served in the Roman Legion during the Second Punic War. Carthages refusal to accept the commission convinced him that the Third Punic War was needed, Cato made a series of speeches to the senate all of which ended with Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam. A group of Carthaginian senators supported a peace treaty with the Numidians and this group was in the minority, in part because the populace of Carthage did not want to submit to a people they had traditionally dominated.
Upon exile they went to Masinissa for help, Masinissa sent two sons to ask for the pro-Numidians to be let back in. Carthalo, who led a group who were against the Numidian encroachment. Hamilcar, another leader of the group, sent a party to attack Masinissas sons. Masinissa sent a force to siege the Carthaginian city of Oroscopa, among the captured were two of Masinissas sons. This became the excuse for Rome to attack Carthage
10.
Scipio Africanus
His main achievements were during the Second Punic War where he is best known for defeating Hannibal at the final battle at Zama, one of the feats that earned him the agnomen Africanus. Although considered a hero by the general Roman populace, primarily for his contributions in the struggle against the Carthaginians, in his years, he was tried for bribery and treason, unfounded charges that were only meant to discredit him before the public. Disillusioned by the ingratitude of his peers, Scipio left Rome, Publius Cornelius Scipio was born by Caesarian section into the Scipio branch of the Cornelia gens. His birth year is calculated from statements made by ancient historians of how old he was when certain events in his life occurred, Scipios great-grandfather, Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, and grandfather Lucius Cornelius Scipio, had both been consuls and censors. He was the eldest son of the consul Publius Cornelius Scipio by his wife Pomponi, Scipio joined the Roman struggle against Carthage in the first year of Second Punic War when his father was consul.
During the skirmish at Ticinus, he saved his fathers life by charging the encircling force alone with reckless daring and he survived the disaster at Cannae, where his would-be father-in-law, the consul Lucius Aemilius Paullus, was killed. After the battle, with the other consul surviving elsewhere and Appius Claudius Pulcher, as military tribunes, Scipio offered himself as a candidate for curule aedile in 213 BC, alongside his cousin Marcus Cornelius Cethegus. The Tribunes of the Plebs objected to his candidacy, saying that he could not be allowed to stand because he had not yet reached the legal age, already known for his bravery and patriotism, was elected unanimously and the Tribunes abandoned their opposition. His cousin won the election, in 211 BC, both Scipios father, Publius Scipio, and uncle, Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus, were killed in battle against Hannibals brother, Hasdrubal Barca. In spite of his youth, his demeanour and enthusiastic language had made so great an impression that he was unanimously elected.
In the year of Scipios arrival, all of Hispania south of the Ebro river was under Carthaginian control. Hannibals brothers Hasdrubal and Mago, and Hasdrubal Gisco were the generals of the Carthaginian forces in Hispania, the Carthaginians were preoccupied with revolts in Africa. Scipio landed at the mouth of the Ebro and was able to surprise and capture Carthago Nova and he obtained a rich cache of war stores and supplies, and an excellent harbour and base of operations. Scipios humanitarian conduct toward prisoners and hostages in Hispania helped in portraying the Romans as liberators as opposed to conquerors, Livy tells the story of his troops capturing a beautiful woman, whom they offered to Scipio as a prize of war. Scipio was astonished by her beauty, but discovered that the woman was betrothed to a Celtiberian chieftain named Allucius and he returned the woman to her fiancé, along with the money that had been offered by her parents to ransom her. This humanitarian act encouraged local chieftains to both supply and reinforce Scipios small army, the womans fiance, who soon married her, responded by bringing over his tribe to support the Roman armies.
In 209 BC, Scipio fought his first set piece battle, Scipio feared that the armies of Mago and Gisco would enter the field and surround his small army. Scipios objective was, therefore, to eliminate one of the armies to give him the luxury of dealing with the other two piecemeal
11.
Alicante
It is a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city of Alicante proper was 328,648, estimated as of 2015, including nearby municipalities, the Alicante conurbation had 452,462 residents. The population of the area was 757,085 as of 2014 estimates. The name of the city echoes the Arabic name Laqant or Al-Laqant, the area around Alicante has been inhabited for over 7000 years. The first tribes of hunter-gatherers moved down gradually from Central Europe between 5000 and 3000 BC, some of the earliest settlements were made on the slopes of Mount Benacantil. The town of Leuce Akra was founded by Greek settlers from Marseille around 325/324 b. C, by the 3rd century BC, the rival armies of Carthage and Rome began to invade and fight for control of the Iberian Peninsula. The Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca established the settlement of Akra Leuka. Although the Carthaginians conquered much of the land around Alicante, the Romans would eventually rule Hispania Tarraconensis for over 700 years.
By the 5th century AD, Rome was in decline and the Roman predecessor town of Alicante, however neither the Romans nor the Goths put up much resistance to the Arab conquest of Medina Laqant in the 8th century. The Moors ruled southern and eastern Spain until the 13th century Reconquista, Alicante was finally taken in 1246 by the Castilian king Alfonso X, but it passed soon and definitively to the Kingdom of Valencia in 1298 with King James II of Aragon. It gained the status of Royal Village with representation in the medieval Valencian Parliament and this act cost the region dearly, with so many skilled artisans and agricultural labourers gone, the feudal nobility found itself sliding into bankruptcy. The end of the 19th century witnessed a sharp recovery of the economy with increasing international trade. During the early 20th century, Alicante was a capital that enjoyed the benefit of Spains neutrality during World War I. The Rif War in the 1920s saw numerous alicantinos drafted to fight in the long, the political unrest of the late 1920s led to the victory of Republican candidates in local council elections throughout the country, and the abdication of King Alfonso XIII.
The proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic was much celebrated in the city on 14 April 1931, the Spanish Civil War broke out on 17 July 1936. The late 1950s and early 1960s saw the onset of a transformation of the city by the tourist industry. New construction benefited the economy, as the development of the tourism sector spawned new businesses such as restaurants, bars. When Franco died in 1975, his successor Juan Carlos I played his part as the symbol of the transition of Spain to a democratic constitutional monarchy
12.
Babylonia
Babylonia was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in central-southern Mesopotamia. A small Amorite-ruled state emerged in 1894 BC, which contained at this time the city of Babylon. Babylon greatly expanded during the reign of Hammurabi in the first half of the 18th century BC, during the reign of Hammurabi and afterwards, Babylonia was called Māt Akkadī the country of Akkad in the Akkadian language. It was often involved in rivalry with its older fellow Akkadian-speaking state of Assyria in northern Mesopotamia and it retained the Sumerian language for religious use, but by the time Babylon was founded, this was no longer a spoken language, having been wholly subsumed by Akkadian. The earliest mention of the city of Babylon can be found in a tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad. During the 3rd millennium BC, a cultural symbiosis occurred between Sumerian and Akkadian-speakers, which included widespread bilingualism. The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian and vice versa is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a scale, to syntactic, morphological.
This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the millennium as a sprachbund. Traditionally, the religious center of all Mesopotamia was the city of Nippur. The empire eventually disintegrated due to decline, climate change and civil war. Sumer rose up again with the Third Dynasty of Ur in the late 22nd century BC and they seem to have gained ascendancy over most of the territory of the Akkadian kings of Assyria in northern Mesopotamia for a time. The states of the south were unable to stem the Amorite advance, King Ilu-shuma of the Old Assyrian Empire in a known inscription describes his exploits to the south as follows, The freedom of the Akkadians and their children I established. I established their freedom from the border of the marshes and Ur and Nippur, past scholars originally extrapolated from this text that it means he defeated the invading Amorites to the south, but there is no explicit record of that. More recently, the text has been taken to mean that Asshur supplied the south with copper from Anatolia and these policies were continued by his successors Erishum I and Ikunum.
During the first centuries of what is called the Amorite period and his reign was concerned with establishing statehood amongst a sea of other minor city states and kingdoms in the region. However Sumuabum appears never to have bothered to give himself the title of King of Babylon, suggesting that Babylon itself was only a minor town or city. He was followed by Sumu-la-El, Apil-Sin, each of whom ruled in the same manner as Sumuabum. Sin-Muballit was the first of these Amorite rulers to be regarded officially as a king of Babylon, the Elamites occupied huge swathes of southern Mesopotamia, and the early Amorite rulers were largely held in vassalage to Elam
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