1.
Ammurapi
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Ammurapi was the last Bronze Age ruler and king of the Ancient Syrian city of Ugarit. Ammurapi was a contemporary of the Hittite King Suppiluliuma II and he wrote a preserved vivid letter in response to a plea for assistance from the king of Alashiya. The letter dramatically highlights the situation facing Ugarit while it was also under attack by the invading Sea Peoples. Ammurapi wrote, My father behold, the ships came, my cities were burned. Does not my father know that all my troops and chariots are in the Land of Hatti, and all my ships are in the Land of Lukka. Thus, may my father know it, the seven ships of the enemy that came here inflicted much damage upon us. Ugarit would become one of many Ancient Near Eastern states that were destroyed or abandoned during the Bronze Age collapse
2.
Shamash
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Shamash was the solar deity in ancient Semitic religion, corresponding to the Sumerian god Utu. Shamash was also the god of justice in Babylonia and Assyria, akkadian šamaš Sun is cognate to Syriac, ܫܡܫܐ šemša, Hebrew, שֶׁמֶשׁ šemeš and Arabic, شمس šams. Both in early and in late inscriptions Shamash is designated as the offspring of Nannar, i. e. of the Moon-god, the two chief centres of Sun-worship in Babylonia were Sippar, represented by the mounds at Abu Habba, and Larsa, represented by the modern Senkerah. At both places the chief sanctuary bore the name E-barra the shining house—a direct allusion to the brilliancy of the Sun-god. Of the two temples, that at Sippara was the famous, but temples to Shamash were erected in all large centres – such as Babylon, Ur, Mari, Nippur. Such are Bunene, spoken of as his driver and whose consort is Atgi-makh, Kettu and Mesharu. In the wake of such syncretism Shamash was usually viewed as the Sun-god in general, together with Nannar–Sin and Ishtar, Shamash completes another triad by the side of Anu, Enlil and Ea. The three powers Sin, Shamash and Ishtar symbolized three great forces of nature, the Moon, the Sun, and the force of the earth. The consort of Shamash was known as Aya and she is, however, rarely mentioned in the inscriptions except in combination with Shamash. Another reference to Shamash is the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, when Gilgamesh and Enkidu travel to slay Humbaba, each morning they pray and make libation to shamash in the direction of the rising Sun for safe travels. Gilgamesh receives dreams from Shamash, which Enkidu then interprets, and at their battle with Humbaba, Shamash gifted to the hero Gilgamesh three weapons. The attribute most commonly associated with Shamash is justice, just as the Sun disperses darkness, so Shamash brings wrong and injustice to light. Several centuries before Hammurabi, Ur-Engur of the Ur dynasty declared that he rendered decisions according to the just laws of Shamash. It was a consequence of this conception of the Sun-god that he was regarded also as the one who released the sufferer from the grasp of the demons. The sick man, therefore, appeals to Shamash as the god who can be depended upon to help those who are suffering unjustly. This aspect of the Sun-god is vividly brought out in the hymns addressed to him, Shamash was historically associated with the planet Saturn. Morris Jastrow, Jr. identifies Shamash with the planet Saturn, Shamash is frequently associated with the lion, both in mythology and artistic depictions. In the ancient Canaanite religion, a son of Baal Shamash, is known for slaying a lion, in both the manga and animated series Shaman King, Shamash is the god-class spirit of Iron Maiden Jeanne, the leader of the X-Laws
3.
Marduk
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Marduk was a late-generation god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon. In the city of Babylon, he resided in the temple Esagila, Marduk is associated with the divine weapon Imhullu. Marduk is the Babylonian form of his name, according to The Encyclopedia of Religion, the name Marduk was probably pronounced Marutuk. The etymology of the name Marduk is conjectured as derived from amar-Utu, the origin of Marduks name may reflect an earlier genealogy, or have had cultural ties to the ancient city of Sippar, dating back to the third millennium BC. In the perfected system of astrology, Jupiter was associated with Marduk by the Hammurabi period, Marduks original character is obscure but he was later associated with water, vegetation, judgment, and magic. His consort was the goddess Sarpanit, there are particularly two gods—Ea and Enlil—whose powers and attributes pass over to Marduk. In the case of Ea, the transfer proceeded pacifically and without effacing the older god. Marduk took over the identity of Asarluhi, the son of Ea and god of magic, father Ea voluntarily recognized the superiority of the son and hands over to him the control of humanity. Babylon became independent in the early 19th century BC, and was initially a city state, overshadowed by older and more powerful Mesopotamian states such as Isin, Larsa. The only serious rival to Marduk after ca.1750 BC was the god Aššur which was the dominant power in the region between the 14th to the late 7th century BC, in the south, Marduk reigned supreme. When Babylon became the city of southern Mesopotamia during the reign of Hammurabi in the 18th century BC. In order to explain how Marduk seized power, Enûma Elish was written and this can be viewed as a form of Mesopotamian apologetics. Also included in this document are the fifty names of Marduk, in Enûma Elish, a civil war between the gods was growing to a climactic battle. The Anunnaki gods gathered together to one god who could defeat the gods rising against them. Marduk, a young god, answered the call and was promised the position of head god. Then he sets out for battle, mounting his storm-chariot drawn by four horses with poison in their mouths, in his lips he holds a spell and in one hand he grasps a herb to counter poison. Under his reign humans were created to bear the burdens of life so the gods could be at leisure, Marduk was depicted as a human, often with his symbol the snake-dragon which he had taken over from the god Tishpak. Another symbol that stood for Marduk was the spade, Babylonian texts talk of the creation of Eridu by the god Marduk as the first city, the holy city, the dwelling of their delight
4.
Code of Hammurabi
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The Code of Hammurabi is a well-preserved Babylonian law code of ancient Mesopotamia, dating back to about 1754 BC. It is one of the oldest deciphered writings of significant length in the world, the sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi, enacted the code, and partial copies exist on a seven and a half foot stone stele and various clay tablets. The code consists of 282 laws, with scaled punishments, adjusting an eye for an eye, nearly one-half of the code deals with matters of contract, establishing, for example, the wages to be paid to an ox driver or a surgeon. Other provisions set the terms of a transaction, establishing the liability of a builder for a house collapses, for example. A third of the code addresses issues concerning household and family such as inheritance, divorce, paternity. Only one provision appears to impose obligations on an official, this establishes that a judge who reaches an incorrect decision is to be fined and removed from the bench permanently. A few provisions address issues related to military service, the code was discovered by modern archaeologists in 1901, and its editio princeps translation published in 1902 by Jean-Vincent Scheil. This nearly complete example of the code is carved into a basalt stele in the shape of an index finger,2.25 m tall. The code is inscribed in the Akkadian language, using cuneiform script carved into the stele, Hammurabi ruled for nearly 42 years, from about 1792 to 1749 BC according to the Middle chronology. On the stone slab are 44 columns and 28 paragraphs that contained 282 laws, some of these laws follow along the rules of an eye for an eye. It had been taken as plunder by the Elamite king Shutruk-Nahhunte in the 12th century BC and was taken to Susa in Elam where it was no longer available to the Babylonian people. The Code of Hammurabi was one of several sets of laws in the ancient Near East, the code of laws was arranged in orderly groups, so that all who read the laws would know what was required of them. These codes come from similar cultures in a small geographical area. The Code of Hammurabi is the longest surviving text from the Old Babylonian period, the code has been seen as an early example of a fundamental law, regulating a government — i. e. a primitive constitution. The code is one of the earliest examples of the idea of presumption of innocence. However, its copying in subsequent generations indicates that it was used as a model of legal and judicial reasoning, the Code issues justice following the three classes of Babylonian society, property owners, freed men, and slaves. For example, if a doctor killed a patient, he would have his hands cut off. Various copies of portions of the Code of Hammurabi have been found on baked clay tablets, the Prologue of the Code of Hammurabi is on such a tablet, also at the Louvre
5.
Jordan
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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
6.
Syria
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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
7.
Samsu-iluna
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Samsu-iluna was the seventh king of the founding Amorite dynasty of Babylon, ruling from 1750 BC to 1712 BC, or from 1686 to 1648 BC. He was the son and successor of Hammurabi by an unknown mother and his reign was marked by the violent uprisings of areas conquered by his father and the abandonment of several important cities. When Hammurabi rose to power in the city of Babylon, he controlled a small region directly around that city, by the time he died, he had conquered Sumer, Eshnunna, Assyria and Mari making himself master of Mesopotamia. He had also weakened and humiliated Elam and the Gutians. While defeated, however, these states were not destroyed, if Hammurabi had a plan for welding them to Babylon he did not live enough to see it through. Within a few years of his death, Elam and Assyria had withdrawn from Babylons orbit, the task of dealing with these troubles—and others—fell to Samsu-iluna. Though he campaigned tirelessly and seems to have won frequently, the king proved unable to stop the empires unwinding. Through it all, however, he did manage to keep the core of his kingdom intact, Samsu-iluna seems to have had the upper-hand militarily. Within a year he dealt the coalition a shattering blow which took the northern cities out of the fight, in the aftermath the king of Eshnunna, Iluni, was dragged to Babylon and executed by strangulation. Over the course of the next 4 years, Samsu-ilunas armies tangled with Rim-sins forces up, eventually Samsu-iluna attacked Ur, pulled down its walls and put the city to the sack, he then did the same to Uruk, and Isin as well. Finally Larsa itself was defeated and Rim-sin II was killed, thus ending the struggle, a few years later, a pretender calling himself Ilum-ma-ili, and claiming descent from the last king of Isin, raised another pan-Sumerian revolt. Ultimately, this proved fruitless, by the time of Samsu-ilunas death, apparently, Eshnunna had not reconciled itself to Babylonian control either, because in Samsu-ilunas 20th year they rebelled again. Samsu-iluna marched his army through the region and, presumably after some bloodshed, constructed the fortress of Dur-samsuiluna to keep them in line and this seems to have done the trick, as later documents see Samsu-iluna take a more conciliatory stance repairing infrastructure and restoring waterways. As if this werent enough, both Assyria and Elam used the general chaos to re-assert their independence, in Assyria, a native vice regent named Puzur-Sin ejected Asinum who had been a vassal king of his fellow Amorite Hammurabi. A native king Ashur-dugul seized the throne, and a period of war in Assyria ensued. The status of Eshnunna is difficult to determine with any accuracy, Samsu-ilunas campaigns might not have been solely responsible for the havoc wreaked upon Uruk and Ur, and his loss of Sumer might have been as much a calculated retreat as defeat. Records in the cities of Ur and Uruk essentially stop after the 10th year of Samsu-ilunas reign, their priests apparently continued writing, larsas records also end about this time. Records keep going in Nippur and Isin until Samsu-ilunas 29th year and these breaks are also observed in the archeological record, where evidence points to these cities being largely or completely abandoned for hundreds of years, until well into the Kassite period
8.
First Babylonian Dynasty
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The chronology of the first dynasty of Babylonia is debated as there is a Babylonian King List A and a Babylonian King List B. In this chronology, the years of List A are used due to their wide usage. The reigns in List B are longer, in general, thus any evidence must come from surrounding regions and written records. Not much is known about the kings from Sumuabum through Sin-muballit other than the fact they were Amorites rather than indigenous Akkadians, what is known, however, is that they accumulated little land. When Hammurabi ascended the throne of Babylon, the empire consisted of a few towns in the surrounding area, Dilbat, Sippar, Kish. Once Hammurabi was king, his military victories gained land for the empire, however, Babylon remained but one of several important areas in Mesopotamia, along with Assyria, then ruled by Shamshi-Adad I, and Larsa, then ruled by Rim-Sin I. In Hammurabis thirtieth year as king, he began to establish Babylon as the center of what would be a great empire. In that year, he conquered Larsa from Rim-Sin I, thus gaining control over the urban centers of Nippur, Ur, Uruk. In essence, Hammurabi gained control over all of south Mesopotamia, the other formidable political power in the region in the 2nd millennium was Eshnunna, which Hammurabi succeeded in capturing in c. Babylon exploited Eshnunnas well-established commercial trade routes and the stability that came with them. It was not long before Hammurabis army took Assyria and parts of the Zagros Mountains, Hammurabis other name was Hammurapi-ilu, meaning Hammurapi the god or perhaps Hammurapi is god. He could have been Amraphel king of Shinar or Sinear in the Jewish records and the Bible, Abraham lived from 1871 to 1784, according to modern interpretations of the Old Testaments figures that have been usually reckoned in modern half years before the Exodus, from equinox to equinox. The Venus tablets of Ammisaduqa are famous, and several books had been published about them, several dates have been offered but the old dates of many sourcebooks seems to be outdated and incorrect. A few sources, some printed almost a century ago, claim that the text mentions an occultation of the Venus by the moon. However, this may be a misinterpretation, calculations support 1659 for the fall of Babylon, based on the statistical probability of dating based on the planets observations. The presently accepted middle chronology is too low from the point of view. A text about the fall of Babylon by the Hittites of Mursilis I at the end of Samsuditanas reign which tells about an eclipse is crucial for a correct Babylonian chronology. The pair of lunar and solar eclipses occurred in the month Shimanu, the lunar eclipse took place on February 9,1659 BC
9.
Middle Chronology
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The middle chronology is one chronology of the Near Eastern Bronze and Early Iron Age, which fixes the reign of Hammurabi to 1792–1750 BCE and the sack of Babylon to 1595 BCE. The chronology is based on a 56/64-year astronomical calculation determined by evidence from the Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa, conventional textbooks tend to use the middle chronology, but early dendrochronological and astronomical evidence presented various problems for it. This led to increased adoption of the short chronologies by some, however, more recent studies have shown that the Middle Chronology is most likely. Various scholars have favoured different chronologies in recent years, peter J. Gasche and Gurzadyan argue that only the eight-year cycle from the Venus tablet is entirely reliable and of practical use. The latest studies largely rely on more evidences, a study from 2001 published high-resolution radiocarbon dates from Turkey supporting dates for the 2nd millennium BC that are very close to those proposed by the middle chronology. Further support for the Middle Chronology was provided by a 2016 study combining dendrochronology, a table of historical events, by their different chronologies, is shown below
10.
Elam
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The modern name Elam stems from the Sumerian transliteration elam, along with the later Akkadian elamtu, and the Elamite haltamti. Elamite states were among the political forces of the Ancient Near East. In classical literature, Elam was also known as Susiana, which is a derived from its capital. Elam was part of the early urbanization during the Chalcolithic period, the emergence of written records from around 3000 BC also parallels Sumerian history, where slightly earlier records have been found. In the Old Elamite period, Elam consisted of kingdoms on the Iranian plateau, centered in Anshan and its culture played a crucial role during the Persian Achaemenid dynasty that succeeded Elam, when the Elamite language remained among those in official use. Elamite is generally accepted to be an isolate unrelated to the much later arriving Persian. The Elamites called their country Haltamti, Sumerian ELAM, Akkadian Elamû, female Elamītu resident of Susiana, the Elamite civilization was primarily centered in the province of what is modern-day Khuzestān and Ilam in prehistoric times. The modern provincial name Khuzestān is derived from the Persian name for Susa, Old Persian Hūjiya Elam, in Middle Persian Huź Susiana, in geographical terms, Susiana basically represents the Iranian province of Khuzestan around the river Karun. In ancient times, several names were used to describe this area, the great ancient geographer Ptolemy was the earliest to call the area Susiana, referring to the country around Susa. Another ancient geographer, Strabo, viewed Elam and Susiana as two different geographical regions and he referred to Elam as primarily the highland area of Khuzestan. Disagreements over the location also exist in the Jewish historical sources says Daniel T. Potts, some ancient sources draw a distinction between Elam as the highland area of Khuzestan, and Susiana as the lowland area. Yet in other ancient sources Elam and Susiana seem equivalent, the uncertainty in this area extends also to modern scholarship. Since the discovery of ancient Anshan, and the realization of its importance in Elamite history. Some modern scholars argued that the centre of Elam lay at Anshan and in the highlands around it and they were Anshanites, Marhashians, Shimashkians, Zabshalians, Sherihumians, Awanites, etc. That Anshan played a role in the political affairs of the various highland groups inhabiting southwestern Iran is clear. Knowledge of Elamite history remains largely fragmentary, reconstruction being based on mainly Mesopotamian sources, the history of Elam is conventionally divided into three periods, spanning more than two millennia. At least three proto-Elamite states merged to form Elam, Anshan, Awan and Shimashki, references to Awan are generally older than those to Anshan, and some scholars suggest that both states encompassed the same territory, in different eras. To this core Shushiana was periodically annexed and broken off, in addition, some Proto-Elamite sites are found well outside this area, spread out on the Iranian plateau, such as Warakshe, Sialk and Jiroft in Kerman Province
11.
Larsa
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Larsa was an important city of ancient Sumer, the center of the cult of the sun god Utu. It lies some 25 km southeast of Uruk in Iraqs Dhi Qar Governorate, the historical Larsa was already in existence as early as the reign of Eannatum of Lagash, who annexed it to his empire. The city became a force during the Isin-Larsa period. From there, Ishbi-Erra recaptured Ur as well as the cities of Uruk and Lagash, subsequent Isin rulers appointed governors to rule over Lagash, one such governor was an Amorite named Gungunum. He eventually broke with Isin and established an independent dynasty in Larsa, to legitimize his rule and deliver a blow to Isin, Gungunum captured the city of Ur. As the region of Larsa was the center of trade via the Persian Gulf, Isin lost an enormously profitable trade route. Gungunums two successors, Abisare and Sumuel, both took steps to cut Isin completely off from access to canals, after this period, Isin quickly lost political and economic force. Larsa grew powerful, but it never accumulated a large territory, at its peak under king Rim-Sin I, Larsa controlled only about 10-15 other city-states — nowhere near the territory controlled by other dynasties in Mesopotamian history. Nevertheless, huge building projects and agricultural undertakings can be detected archaeologically, after the defeat of Rim-Sin I by Hammurabi of Babylon, Larsa became a minor site, though it has been suggested that it was the home of the 1st Sealand Dynasty of Babylon. Larsa is thought to be the source of a number of tablets involving Babylonian mathematics, the remains of Larsa cover an oval about 4.5 miles in circumference. The highest point is around 70 feet in height, the site of Tell es-Senkereh, then known as Sinkara, was first excavated by William Loftus in 1850 for less than a month. In those early days of archaeology, the effort was focused on obtaining museum specimens than scientific data and niceties like site drawings. Loftus recovered building bricks of Nebuchadnezzar II of the Neo-Babylonian Empire which enabled the sites identification as the ancient city of Larsa, much of the effort by Loftus was on the temple of Shamash, rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar II. Inscriptions of Burna-Buriash II of the Kassite dynasty of Babylon and Hammurabi of the First Babylonian Dynasty were also found, Larsa was also briefly worked by Walter Andrae in 1903. The site was inspected by Edgar James Banks in 1905 and he found that widespread looting by the local population was occurring there. The first modern, scientific, excavation of Senkereh occurred in 1933, Parrot worked at the location again in 1967. In 1969 and 1970, Larsa was excavated by Jean-Claude Margueron, between 1976 and 1991, an expedition of the Delegation Archaeologic Francaise en Irak led by J-L. Huot excavated at Tell es-Senereh for 13 seasons,1, pp. 1–23,1993 T. Breckwoldt, Management of grain storage in Old Babylonian Larsa, Archiv für Orientforschung, no
12.
Eshnunna
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Eshnunna was an ancient Sumerian city and city-state in central Mesopotamia. Although situated in the Diyala Valley north-east of Sumer proper, the city nonetheless belonged securely within the Sumerian cultural milieu, the tutelary deity of the city was Tishpak. Occupied from the Jemdet Nasr period, about 3000 BC, Eshnunna was a city during the Early Dynastic period. Beginning with the rise of the Akkadian Empire, Eshnunna oscillated between periods of independence and domination by empires such as the Third Dynasty of Ur and Isin. Because of its promise of control over trade routes, Eshnunna could function somewhat as a gateway between Mesopotamian and Elamite culture. The trade routes gave it access to exotic, sought-after goods such as horses from the north, copper, tin. In a grave in Eshnunna, a pendant made of copal from Zanzibar was found, thereafter, the city appears but rarely in cuneiform textual sources, reflecting its probable decline and eventual disappearance. The expeditions field secretary was Mary Chubb, despite the long passage of time since the excavations at Tell Asmar, the work of examining and publishing the remaining finds from that dig continues to this day. These finds include roughly 1500 cuneiform tablets, in the late 1990s, Iraqi archaeologists worked at Tell Asmar. The results from that excavation have not yet been published, the Laws of Eshnunna consist of two tablets, found at Shaduppum and a fragment found at Tell Haddad, the ancient Mê-Turan. They were written sometime around the reign of king Dadusha of Eshnunna, when the actual laws were composed is unknown. They are similar to the Code of Hammurabi, during the Early Dynastic period, the Abu Temple at Tell Asmar went through a number of phases. This included the Early Dynastic Archaic Shrine, Square Temple, and they, along with sculpture found there, helped form the basis for the three part archaeological separation of the Early Dynastic period into ED I, ED II, and ED III for the ancient Near East. A cache of 12 gypsum temple sculptures, in a style, were found in the Square Temple. They are some of the best known examples of ancient Near East sculpture, the group, now split up, show gods, priests and donor worshippers at different sizes, but all in the same highly simplified style. All have greatly enlarged inlaid eyes, but the tallest figure, city In the Sand, Mary Chubb, Libri,1999, ISBN 1-901965-02-3 R. M. Whiting Jr. Old Babylonian Letters from Tell Asmar, Assyriological Studies 22, Oriental Institute,1987 I. J, Gelb, Sargonic Texts from the Diyala Region, Materials for the Assyrian Dictionary, vol. 1, Chicago,1961 Maria deJong Ellis, Notes on the Chronology of the Later Eshnunna Dynasty, Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol
13.
Mari, Syria
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Mari, was an ancient Semitic city in Syria. Its remains constitute a tell located 11 kilometers north-west of Abu Kamal on the Euphrates river western bank and it flourished as a trade center and hegemonic state between 2900 BC and 1759 BC. Mari was first abandoned in the middle of the 26th century BC but was rebuilt and this second Mari engaged in a long war with its rival Ebla, and is known for its strong affinity with the Sumerian culture. It was destroyed in the 23rd century BC by the Akkadians who allowed the city to be rebuilt, the governors later became independent with the rapid disintegration of the Akkadian empire and rebuilt the city as a regional center in the middle Euphrates valley. The Shakkanakkus ruled Mari until the half of the 19th century BC when the dynasty collapsed for unknown reasons. A short time after the Shakkanakku collapse, Mari became the capital of the Amorite Lim dynasty, the Mariotes worshiped both Semitic and Sumerian deities and established their city as a center of old trade. The Amorites were West-Semites who began to settle the area before the 21st century BC, by the Lim dynastys era and they also revealed the wide trading networks of the 18th century BC, which connected areas as far as Afghanistan in Southern Asia and Crete in the Mediterranean region. The city is difficult to excavate, as it is buried deep under the layers of habitation. A defensive system against floods, composed of an embankment was unearthed. Other findings include one of the city gates, a beginning at the center and ending at the gate. The city was abandoned at the end of the Early Dynastic period II c.2550 BC for unknown reasons, around the beginning of the Early Dynastic period III, Mari was rebuilt and populated again. The new city kept many of the first city exterior features, including the internal rampart and gate. Also kept was the outer circular embankment measuring 1.9 km in diameter, at the heart of the city, a royal palace was built which also served as a temple. Four successive architectural levels from the second kingdoms palace have been unearthed, the first two levels were excavated, the findings include a temple named Enceinte Sacrée, which was the largest in the city but it is unknown for whom it was dedicated. Also unearthed were a pillared throne room and a hall that have three double wood pillars leading to the temple, six more temples were discovered in the city, including the temple called the Massif Rouge, and temples dedicated for Ninni-Zaza, Ishtarat, Ishtar, Ninhursag and Shamash. 2350 BC, which was sent to Irkab-Damu of Ebla, and in it, however, the reading of this letter is still problematic and many interpretations have been presented by scholars. The next king mentioned in the letter is Saʿumu, who conquered the lands of Raak and Nirum, the war continued with Išhtup-Išar of Mari conquest of Emar, at a time of Eblaite weakness in the mid-24th century BC. King Igrish-Halam of Ebla had to pay tribute to Iblul-Il of Mari, Enna-Dagan also received tribute, and his reign fell entirely within the reign of Irkab-Damu of Ebla, who managed to defeat Mari and end the tribute
14.
Assyria
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Assyria was a major Mesopotamian East Semitic-speaking kingdom and empire of the ancient Near East and the Levant. Centered on the Tigris in Upper Mesopotamia, the Assyrians came to rule powerful empires at several times. Assyria is named after its capital, the ancient city of Aššur. In the 25th and 24th centuries BC, Assyrian kings were pastoral leaders, Assyria can also refer to the geographic region or heartland where Assyria, its empires and the Assyrian people were centered. The indigenous modern Eastern Aramaic-speaking Assyrian Christian ethnic minority in northern Iraq, north east Syria, southeast Turkey, in prehistoric times, the region that was to become known as Assyria was home to a Neanderthal culture such as has been found at the Shanidar Cave. The earliest Neolithic sites in Assyria were the Jarmo culture c.7100 BC and Tell Hassuna, during the 3rd millennium BC, a very intimate cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians and the Akkadians throughout Mesopotamia, 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 third millennium BC as a sprachbund and it is highly likely that the city was named in honour of its patron Assyrian god with the same name. The city of Aššur, together with a number of other Assyrian cities, however it is likely that they were initially Sumerian-dominated administrative centres. In the late 26th century BC, Eannatum of Lagash, then the dominant Sumerian ruler in Mesopotamia, similarly, in c. the early 25th century BC, Lugal-Anne-Mundu the king of the Sumerian state of Adab lists Subartu as paying tribute to him. Of the early history of the kingdom of Assyria, little is known, in the Assyrian King List, the earliest king recorded was Tudiya. According to Georges Roux he would have lived in the mid 25th century BC, Tudiya was succeeded on the list by Adamu, the first known reference to the Semitic name Adam and then a further thirteen rulers. The earliest kings, such as Tudiya, who are recorded as kings who lived in tents, were independent semi-nomadic pastoralist rulers and these kings at some point became fully urbanised and founded the city state of Ashur in the mid 21st century BC. During the Akkadian Empire, the Assyrians, like all the Mesopotamian Semites, became subject to the dynasty of the city state of Akkad, the Akkadian Empire founded by Sargon the Great claimed to encompass the surrounding four quarters. Assyrian rulers were subject to Sargon and his successors, and the city of Ashur became an administrative center of the Empire. On those tablets, Assyrian traders in Burushanda implored the help of their ruler, Sargon the Great, the name Hatti itself even appears in later accounts of his grandson, Naram-Sin, campaigning in Anatolia. Assyrian and Akkadian traders spread the use of writing in the form of the Mesopotamian cuneiform script to Asia Minor, the Akkadian Empire was destroyed by economic decline and internal civil war, followed by attacks from barbarian Gutian people in 2154 BC. The rulers of Assyria during the period between c.2154 BC and 2112 BC once again fully independent, as the Gutians are only known to have administered southern Mesopotamia
15.
Mesopotamia
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In the Iron Age, it was controlled by the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires. The Sumerians and Akkadians dominated Mesopotamia from the beginning of history to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC. It fell to Alexander the Great in 332 BC, and after his death, around 150 BC, Mesopotamia was under the control of the Parthian Empire. Mesopotamia became a battleground between the Romans and Parthians, with parts of Mesopotamia coming under ephemeral Roman control. In AD226, eastern part of it fell to the Sassanid Persians, division of Mesopotamia between Roman and Sassanid Empires lasted until the 7th century Muslim conquest of Persia of the Sasanian Empire and Muslim conquest of the Levant from Byzantines. A number of primarily neo-Assyrian and Christian native Mesopotamian states existed between the 1st century BC and 3rd century AD, including Adiabene, Osroene, and Hatra, Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC. The regional toponym Mesopotamia comes from the ancient Greek root words μέσος middle and ποταμός river and it is used throughout the Greek Septuagint to translate the Hebrew equivalent Naharaim. In the Anabasis, Mesopotamia was used to designate the land east of the Euphrates in north Syria, the Aramaic term biritum/birit narim corresponded to a similar geographical concept. The neighbouring steppes to the west of the Euphrates and the part of the Zagros Mountains are also often included under the wider term Mesopotamia. A further distinction is made between Northern or Upper Mesopotamia and Southern or Lower Mesopotamia. Upper Mesopotamia, also known as the Jazira, is the area between the Euphrates and the Tigris from their sources down to Baghdad, Lower Mesopotamia is the area from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf and includes Kuwait and parts of western Iran. In modern academic usage, the term Mesopotamia often also has a chronological connotation and it is usually used to designate the area until the Muslim conquests, with names like Syria, Jazirah, and Iraq being used to describe the region after that date. It has been argued that these later euphemisms are Eurocentric terms attributed to the region in the midst of various 19th-century Western encroachments, Mesopotamia encompasses the land between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, both of which have their headwaters in the Armenian Highlands. Both rivers are fed by tributaries, and the entire river system drains a vast mountainous region. Overland routes in Mesopotamia usually follow the Euphrates because the banks of the Tigris are frequently steep and difficult. The climate of the region is semi-arid with a vast desert expanse in the north which gives way to a 15,000 square kilometres region of marshes, lagoons, mud flats, in the extreme south, the Euphrates and the Tigris unite and empty into the Persian Gulf. In the marshlands to the south of the area, a complex water-borne fishing culture has existed since prehistoric times, periodic breakdowns in the cultural system have occurred for a number of reasons. Alternatively, military vulnerability to invasion from marginal hill tribes or nomadic pastoralists has led to periods of trade collapse and these trends have continued to the present day in Iraq
16.
Sumer
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Living along the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, Sumerian farmers were able to grow an abundance of grain and other crops, the surplus of which enabled them to settle in one place. Proto-writing in the dates back to c.3000 BC. The earliest texts come from the cities of Uruk and Jemdet Nasr and date back to 3300 BC, modern historians have suggested that Sumer was first permanently settled between c.5500 and 4000 BC by a West Asian people who spoke the Sumerian language, an agglutinative language isolate. These conjectured, prehistoric people are now called proto-Euphrateans or Ubaidians, some scholars contest the idea of a Proto-Euphratean language or one substrate language. Reliable historical records begin much later, there are none in Sumer of any kind that have dated before Enmebaragesi. Juris Zarins believes the Sumerians lived along the coast of Eastern Arabia, todays Persian Gulf region, Sumerian civilization took form in the Uruk period, continuing into the Jemdet Nasr and Early Dynastic periods. During the 3rd millennium BC, a cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians, who spoke a language isolate, and Akkadian-speakers, which included widespread bilingualism. The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian 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 3rd millennium BC as a Sprachbund, Sumer was conquered by the Semitic-speaking kings of the Akkadian Empire around 2270 BC, but Sumerian continued as a sacred language. Native Sumerian rule re-emerged for about a century in the Neo-Sumerian Empire or Third Dynasty of Ur approximately 2100-2000 BC, the term Sumerian is the common name given to the ancient non-Semitic-speaking inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Sumer, by the East Semitic-speaking Akkadians. The Sumerians referred to themselves as ùĝ saĝ gíg ga, phonetically /uŋ saŋ gi ga/, literally meaning the black-headed people, the Akkadian word Shumer may represent the geographical name in dialect, but the phonological development leading to the Akkadian term šumerû is uncertain. Hebrew Shinar, Egyptian Sngr, and Hittite Šanhar, all referring to southern Mesopotamia, in the late 4th millennium BC, Sumer was divided into many independent city-states, which were divided by canals and boundary stones. Each was centered on a dedicated to the particular patron god or goddess of the city. The Sumerian city-states rose to power during the prehistoric Ubaid and Uruk periods, classical Sumer ends with the rise of the Akkadian Empire in the 23rd century BC. Following the Gutian period, there is a brief Sumerian Renaissance in the 21st century BC, the Amorite dynasty of Isin persisted until c.1700 BC, when Mesopotamia was united under Babylonian rule. The Sumerians were eventually absorbed into the Akkadian population, 2500–2334 BC Akkadian Empire period, c. 2218–2047 BC Ur III period, c, 2047–1940 BC The Ubaid period is marked by a distinctive style of fine quality painted pottery which spread throughout Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf. It appears that this culture was derived from the Samarran culture from northern Mesopotamia and it is not known whether or not these were the actual Sumerians who are identified with the later Uruk culture
17.
Code of Ur-Nammu
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The Code of Ur-Nammu is the oldest known law code surviving today. It is from Mesopotamia and is written on tablets, in the Sumerian language c, the first copy of the code, in two fragments found at Nippur, was translated by Samuel Kramer in 1952, these fragments are held at the Istanbul Archaeological Museums. Owing to its preservation, only the prologue and 5 of the laws were discernible. 3191 of the Nippur collection of the Museum, since Sumerian law tablets are extremely rare, I had No.3191 brought to my working table at once. There it lay, a tablet, light brown in color,20 by 10 centimeters in size. More than half of the writing was destroyed, and what was preserved seemed at first hopelessly unintelligible, further tablets were found in Ur and translated in 1965, allowing some 30 of the 57 laws to be reconstructed. Another copy found in Sippar contains slight variants, although the preface directly credits the laws to king Ur-Nammu of Ur, the actual author who had the laws written down onto cuneiform tablets is still somewhat under dispute. Some scholars have attributed it to Ur-Nammus son Shulgi, although it is known that earlier law-codes existed, such as the Code of Urukagina, this represents the earliest extant legal text. It is three centuries older than the Code of Hammurabi, the laws are arranged in casuistic form of IF THEN —a pattern followed in nearly all later codes. The code reveals a glimpse at societal structure during the Sumerian Renaissance, beneath the lugal, all members of society belonged to one of two basic strata, The lu or free person, or the slave. The son of a lu was called a dumu-nita until he married, a woman went from being a daughter, to a wife, then if she outlived her husband, a widow, who could remarry. The prologue, typical of Mesopotamian law codes, invokes the deities for Ur-Nammus kingship, Nanna and Utu and he fashioned the bronze sila-measure, standardized the one-mina weight, and standardized the stone weight of a shekel of silver in relation to one mina. The orphan was not delivered up to the man, the widow was not delivered up to the mighty man. One mina was equal to 60 shekels. Among the surviving laws are these,1, if a man commits a murder, that man must be killed. If a man commits a robbery, he will be killed, if a man commits a kidnapping, he is to be imprisoned and pay 15 shekels of silver. If a slave marries a slave, and that slave is set free, if a slave marries a native person, he/she is to hand the firstborn son over to his owner. If a man violates the right of another and deflowers the virgin wife of a young man, if the wife of a man followed after another man and he slept with her, they shall slay that woman, but that male shall be set free
18.
Presumption of innocence
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The presumption of innocence, sometimes referred to by the Latin expression Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat, is the principle that one is considered innocent unless proven guilty. If reasonable doubt remains, the accused is to be acquitted, under the Justinian Codes and English common law, the accused is presumed innocent in criminal proceedings, and in civil proceedings both sides must issue proof. The same principle is recognized by Islamic law, the sixth century Digest of Justinian provides, as a general rule of evidence, Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat—Proof lies on him who asserts, not on him who denies. It is there attributed to the second and third century jurist Paul and it was introduced in Roman criminal law by emperor Antoninus Pius. Similar to that of Roman Law, Islamic law also holds the principle that the onus of proof is on the accusor or claimant based on a hadith documented by Imam Nawawi. Suspicion is also highly condemned, this also from a hadith documented by Imam Nawawi as well as Imam Bukhari, after the time of Muhammad, the fourth Caliph Ali ibn Abi Thalib has also been cited to say Avert the prescribed punishment by rejecting doubtful evidence. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Europe fell back on a Germanic system that presumed guilt, the accused could prove his innocence by having, for example, twelve people swear that he could not have done what he was accused of. This tended to favor the nobility over the lower classes, in sources from common law jurisdictions, the expression appears in an extended version, in its original form and then in a shortened form. As found in its form, it is, Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat—The proof lies upon the one who affirms. Then, shortened from the original, it is, Ei incumbit probatio qui—the onus of proving a fact rests upon the man who. The maxim or its equivalent has been adopted by civil law systems, including Brazil, France, Italy, Philippines, Poland, Romania. Presumption of innocence serves to emphasize that the prosecution has the obligation to each element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. This is often expressed in the phrase innocent until proven guilty, Garrow insisted that accusers be robustly tested in court. An objective observer in the position of the juror must reasonably conclude that the defendant almost certainly committed the crime and it is literally considered favorable evidence for the accused that automatically attaches at trial. It requires that the trier of fact, be it a juror or judge, to ensure this legal protection is maintained a set of three related rules govern the procedure of criminal trials. With respect to the facts of the case, the defendant does not have any burden of proof whatsoever. The defendant does not have to testify, call witnesses or present any evidence, and if the defendant elects not to testify or present evidence. The jury or judge is not to any negative inferences from the fact the defendant has been charged with a crime and is present in court
19.
Retributive justice
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Retributivists hold that when an offender breaks the law, justice requires that the criminal suffer in return. De Legibus,106 BC, see also Ronen Perry, The concept is common to most cultures throughout the world and is evident in ancient texts. That phrasing in turn resembles the older Code of Hammurabi, many other documents reflect this value in the worlds cultures. However, the judgment of whether a punishment is appropriately severe can vary greatly between cultures and individuals, proportionality requires that the level of punishment be scaled relative to the severity of the offending behaviour. An accurate reading of the phrase an eye for an eye in Exodus and Leviticus is said to be, only one eye for one eye. However, this does not mean that the punishment has to be equivalent to the crime, a retributive system must punish severe crime more harshly than minor crime, but retributivists differ about how harsh or soft the system should be overall. Traditionally, philosophers of punishment have contrasted retributivism with utilitarianism, for utilitarians, punishment is forward-looking, justified by a purported ability to achieve future social benefits, such as crime reduction. For retributionists, punishment is backward-looking, justified by the crime that has committed and carried out to atone for the damage already done. Depending on the retributivist, the level of severity might be determined by the amount of harm. Hence the prominence of the lex talionis in ancient law, the Bible is no exception, in its oldest form it too included the lex talionis, the law of measure for measure. Kant regards punishment as a matter of justice, and it must be carried out by the state for the sake of the law and he argues that if the guilty are not punished, justice is not done. Further, if justice is not done, then the idea of law itself is undermined and it is intrinsically morally good—good without reference to any other goods that might arise—if some legitimate punisher gives the punishment they deserve. It is morally impermissible intentionally to punish the innocent or to inflict disproportionately large punishments on wrongdoers, there are two distinct types of retributive justice. The classical definition embraces the idea that the amount of punishment must be proportionate to the amount of harm caused by the offence. Many more jurisdictions following the philosophy, especially in the United States, follow a set tariff. As a result, some argue that judges do not have discretion to allow for mitigating factors. In some countries such as several in the EU, fines are fixed as percentages of the personal income rather than a certain monetary amount. That allows for the law to remain fair, in that it applies to all citizens equally, modern alternatives to retributive measures include psychiatric imprisonment, restorative justice, and transformative justice
20.
Law of Moses
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The text continues, And afterward he read all the words of the teachings, the blessings and cursings, according to all that is written in the book of the Torah. The term occurs 15 times in the Hebrew Bible, a further 7 times in the New Testament, the Hebrew word for the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, Torah refers to the same five books termed in English Pentateuch. According to some scholars, use of the name Torah to designate the Five Books of Moses of the Hebrew Bible, is documented only from the 2nd Century BCE. The adjective Mosaic means of Moses, the Law of Moses in ancient Israel is different from other legal codes in the ancient Near East because transgressions are seen as offenses against God rather than solely as offenses against society. This contrasts with the Sumerian Code of Ur-Nammu, and the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi, however the influence of the ancient Near Eastern legal tradition on the Law of ancient Israel is recognised and well documented. For example the Israelite Sabbatical Year has antecedents in the Akkadian mesharum edicts granting periodic relief to the poor. Another important distinction is that in ancient Near East legal codes, as in more recently unearthed Ugaritic texts, an important, ancient Israel was set up as a theocracy, rather than a monarchy. The Book of Deuteronomy records Moses saying, Take this book of the law, the Book of Kings relates how a law of Moses was discovered in the Temple during the reign of king Josiah. This book is identified as an early version of the Book of Deuteronomy, perhaps chapters 5-26. This text contains a number of laws, dated to the 8th century BC kingdom of Judah, another mention of the Book of the Law of Moses is found in Joshua 8, 30-31. The content of the Law is spread among the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers and this includes, the Ten Commandments Moral laws - on murder, theft, honesty, adultery, etc. Social laws - on property, inheritance, marriage and divorce, Food laws - on what is clean and unclean, purity laws - on menstruation, seminal emissions, skin disease and mildew, etc. Feasts - the Day of Atonement, Passover, Feast of Tabernacles, Feast of Unleavened Bread, instructions for the priesthood and the high priest including tithes. Instructions regarding the Tabernacle, and which were applied to the Temple in Jerusalem. Instructions and for the construction of various altars, forward looking instructions for time when Israel would demand a king. The content of the instructions and its interpretations, the Oral Torah, was passed orally, excerpted and codified in Rabbinical Judaism. The Law given to Moses at Sinai is a halakhic distinction, christian views on the Old Covenant Matthew 5#Antitheses Moses in Islam Jewish Encyclopedia, Torah, Laws of the Torah
21.
Torah
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The Torah is the central reference of Judaism. It has a range of meanings and it can most specifically mean the first five books of the twenty-four books of the Tanakh, and it usually includes the rabbinic commentaries. In rabbinic literature the word Torah denotes both the five books and the Oral Torah, the Oral Torah consists of interpretations and amplifications which according to rabbinic tradition have been handed down from generation to generation and are now embodied in the Talmud and Midrash. According to the Midrash, the Torah was created prior to the creation of the world, traditionally, the words of the Torah are written on a scroll by a scribe in Hebrew. A Torah portion is read publicly at least once every three days in the presence of a congregation, reading the Torah publicly is one of the bases for Jewish communal life. The word Torah in Hebrew is derived from the root ירה, the meaning of the word is therefore teaching, doctrine, or instruction, the commonly accepted law gives a wrong impression. Other translational contexts in the English language include custom, theory, guidance, the earliest name for the first part of the Bible seems to have been The Torah of Moses. This title, however, is neither in the Torah itself. It appears in Joshua and Kings, but it cannot be said to refer there to the entire corpus, in contrast, there is every likelihood that its use in the post-Exilic works was intended to be comprehensive. Other early titles were The Book of Moses and The Book of the Torah, Christian scholars usually refer to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible as the Pentateuch, a term first used in the Hellenistic Judaism of Alexandria, meaning five books, or as the Law. The Torah starts from the beginning of Gods creating the world, through the beginnings of the people of Israel, their descent into Egypt, and it ends with the death of Moses, just before the people of Israel cross to the promised land of Canaan. Interspersed in the narrative are the teachings given explicitly or implicitly embedded in the narrative. This is followed by the story of the three patriarchs, Joseph and the four matriarchs, God gives to the patriarchs a promise of the land of Canaan, but at the end of Genesis the sons of Jacob end up leaving Canaan for Egypt due to a regional famine. They had heard there was a grain storage and distribution facility in Egypt. Exodus begins the story of Gods revelation to his people of Israel through Moses, Moses receives the Torah from God, and teaches His laws and Covenant to the people of Israel. It also talks about the first violation of the covenant when the Golden Calf was constructed, Exodus includes the instructions on building the Tabernacle and concludes with its actual construction. Leviticus begins with instructions to the Israelites on how to use the Tabernacle, leviticus 26 provides a detailed list of rewards for following Gods commandments and a detailed list of punishments for not following them. Numbers tells how Israel consolidated itself as a community at Sinai, set out from Sinai to move towards Canaan, even Moses sins and is told he would not live to enter the land
22.
Amorites
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The term Amurru in Akkadian and Sumerian texts refers to them, as well as to their principal deity. The ethnic terms Mar. tu, Amurru and Amar were used for them in Sumerian, Akkadian, from the 21st century BC, possibly triggered by a long major drought starting about 2200 BC, a large-scale migration of Amorite tribes infiltrated southern Mesopotamia. Known Amorites wrote in a dialect of Akkadian found on tablets at Mari dating from 1800–1750 BC, since the language shows northwest Semitic forms, words and constructions, the Amorite language is a Northwest Semitic language, and possibly one of the Canaanite languages. The main sources for the limited knowledge about Amorite are the proper names, not Akkadian in style. The Akkadian language of the native Semitic states, cities and polities of Mesopotamia, was from the east Semitic, in the earliest Sumerian language texts, all western lands beyond the Euphrates, including the modern Levant, were known as the land of the mar. tu. This term appears in Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, which describes it in the time of Enmerkar as one of the inhabited by speakers of a different language. Another text known as Lugalbanda and the Anzud bird describes how, fifty years into Enmerkars reign, for the Akkadian kings of central Mesopotamia Mar. tu was one of the Four Quarters surrounding Akkad, along with Subartu/Assyria, Sumer, and Elam. Naram-Sin of Akkad records successful campaigns against them in northern Syria c.2240 BC and these Amorites appear as nomadic clans ruled by fierce tribal chiefs, who forced themselves into lands they needed to graze their herds. TU who know no grain. The MAR. TU who know no house nor town, the boors of the mountains, the MAR. TU who digs up truffles. Elsewhere, the armies of Elam in southern Iran were attacking and weakening the empire, many Amorite chieftains in southern Mesopotamia aggressively took advantage of the failing empire to seize power for themselves. Leaders with Amorite names assumed power in various places, usurping native Akkadian rulers, including in Isin, Eshnunna, Babylon, hitherto a small, politically and military unimportant town was raised to the status of a minor independent city state under Sumu-abum in 1894 BC. The Elamites finally sacked Ur in c.2004 BC, some time later, the Old Assyrian Empire became the most powerful entity in Mesopotamia immediately preceding the rise of the Amorite king Hammurabi of Babylon. There is a range of views regarding the Amorite homeland. One extreme is the view that kur mar. tu/māt amurrim covered the area between the Euphrates and the Mediterranean Sea, the Arabian Peninsula included. The other extreme is the view that the “homeland” of the Amorites was an area in northern Syria. The rise of the Amorite kingdoms in Mesopotamia brought about deep and lasting repercussions in its political, social, the division into kingdoms replaced the Babylonian city-states in southern Mesopotamia. Men, land, and cattle ceased to belong physically to the gods or to the temples, the priest assumed the service of the gods, and cared for the welfare of his subjects, but the economic life of the country was no longer exclusively in their hands. The religious, ethical, technological, scientific and artistic directions in which Mesopotamia had been developing since the fourth millennium BC were not greatly affected by the Amorites hegemony
23.
City-state
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A city-state is a sovereign state that consists of a city and its dependent territories. A great deal of consensus exists that the term applies to Singapore, Monaco. A number of small states share similar characteristics, and therefore are sometimes also cited as modern city-states. Occasionally, other states with high population densities, such as San Marino, are also cited. Several non-sovereign cities enjoy a degree of autonomy, and are sometimes considered city-states. Hong Kong and Macau, along with independent members of the United Arab Emirates, most notably Dubai, scholars have classed the Viking colonial cities in medieval Ireland, most importantly Dublin, as city-states. In Cyprus, the Phoenician settlement of Kition was a city-state that existed from around 800 BC until the end of the 4th century BC. The success of regional units coexisting as autonomous actors in loose geographical and cultural unity, as in Italy and Greece. However, such small political entities often survived only for short periods because they lacked the resources to defend themselves against incursions by larger states, thus they inevitably gave way to larger organisations of society, including the empire and the nation-state. In the history of Mainland Southeast Asia, aristocratic groups, Buddhist leaders, the system existed until the 19th century when colonization by European powers, and Thailands resulted in the adoption of the modern concept of statehood. In the Holy Roman Empire the Free Imperial Cities enjoyed a considerable autonomy, some, like the three Hanseatic cities of Bremen, Hamburg and Lübeck, pooled their economic relations with foreign powers and were able to wield considerable diplomatic clout. Under Habsburg rule the city of Fiume had the status of a Corpus separatum, a later city-state, though lacking sovereignty, was West Berlin, being a state legally not belonging to any other state, but ruled by the Western Allies. They allowed – notwithstanding their overlordship as occupant powers – its internal organisation as one state simultaneously being a city, though West Berlin maintained close ties to the West German Federal Republic of Germany, it was legally never part of it. But the idea of leaving the United States proved too radical even in the turmoil of 1861 and was poorly received, the war, and especially conscription, was nevertheless often unpopular in the city, sparking the deadly New York Draft Riots. The neighboring City of Brooklyn, in contrast, was staunchly Unionist, the Free City of Danzig was a semi-autonomous city-state that existed between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig and nearly 200 towns in the surrounding areas. It was created on 15 November 1920 under the terms of Article 100 of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles after the end of World War I. Its territory of 28 km2 comprised the city of Fiume and rural areas to its north, with a corridor to its west connecting it to Italy, the Shanghai International Settlement was an international zone with its own legal system, postal service, and currency. The Klaipėda Region or Memel Territory was defined by the Treaty of Versailles in 1920 when it was put under the administration of the Council of Ambassadors
24.
Agriculture
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Agriculture is the cultivation and breeding of animals, plants and fungi for food, fiber, biofuel, medicinal plants and other products used to sustain and enhance human life. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of human civilization. The study of agriculture is known as agricultural science, the history of agriculture dates back thousands of years, and its development has been driven and defined by greatly different climates, cultures, and technologies. Industrial agriculture based on large-scale monoculture farming has become the dominant agricultural methodology, genetically modified organisms are an increasing component of agriculture, although they are banned in several countries. Agricultural food production and water management are increasingly becoming global issues that are fostering debate on a number of fronts, the major agricultural products can be broadly grouped into foods, fibers, fuels, and raw materials. Specific foods include cereals, vegetables, fruits, oils, meats, fibers include cotton, wool, hemp, silk and flax. Raw materials include lumber and bamboo, other useful materials are also produced by plants, such as resins, dyes, drugs, perfumes, biofuels and ornamental products such as cut flowers and nursery plants. The word agriculture is a late Middle English adaptation of Latin agricultūra, from ager, field, Agriculture usually refers to human activities, although it is also observed in certain species of ant, termite and ambrosia beetle. To practice agriculture means to use resources to produce commodities which maintain life, including food, fiber, forest products, horticultural crops. This definition includes arable farming or agronomy, and horticulture, all terms for the growing of plants, even then, it is acknowledged that there is a large amount of knowledge transfer and overlap between silviculture and agriculture. In traditional farming, the two are often combined even on small landholdings, leading to the term agroforestry, Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe, and included a diverse range of taxa. At least 11 separate regions of the Old and New World were involved as independent centers of origin, wild grains were collected and eaten from at least 105,000 years ago. Pigs were domesticated in Mesopotamia around 15,000 years ago, rice was domesticated in China between 13,500 and 8,200 years ago, followed by mung, soy and azuki beans. Sheep were domesticated in Mesopotamia between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago. From around 11,500 years ago, the eight Neolithic founder crops, emmer and einkorn wheat, hulled barley, peas, lentils, bitter vetch, chick peas and flax were cultivated in the Levant. Cattle were domesticated from the aurochs in the areas of modern Turkey. In the Andes of South America, the potato was domesticated between 10,000 and 7,000 years ago, along with beans, coca, llamas, alpacas, sugarcane and some root vegetables were domesticated in New Guinea around 9,000 years ago. Sorghum was domesticated in the Sahel region of Africa by 7,000 years ago, cotton was domesticated in Peru by 5,600 years ago, and was independently domesticated in Eurasia at an unknown time
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Literacy
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Literacy is traditionally understood as the ability to read, write, and use arithmetic. The concept of literacy is expanding in OECD countries to include skills to access knowledge through technology and ability to assess complex contexts. A person who travels and resides in a country but is unable to read or write in the language of the host country would also be regarded by the locals as being illiterate. The key to literacy is reading development, a progression of skills that begins with the ability to understand words and decode written words. The inability to do so is called illiteracy or analphabetism, Literacy involves a continuum of learning in enabling individuals to achieve their goals, to develop their knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in their community and wider society. Literacy is thought to have first emerged with the development of numeracy, script developed independently at least four times in human history in Mesopotamia, Egypt, lowland Mesoamerica, and China. The earliest forms of written communication originated in Sumer, located in southern Mesopotamia about 3500-3000 BCE, writing systems in Mesopotamia first emerged from a recording system in which people used impressed token markings to manage trade and agricultural production. The token system served as a precursor to early cuneiform writing once people began recording information on clay tablets, proto-cuneiform texts exhibit not only numerical signs, but also ideograms depicting objects being counted. Egyptian hieroglyphs emerged from 3300-3100 BCE and depicted royal iconography that emphasized power amongst other elites, the Egyptian hieroglyphic writing system was the first notation system to have phonetic values. Writing in lowland Mesoamerica was first put into practice by the Olmec and Zapotec civilizations in 900-400 BCE and these civilizations used glyphic writing and bar-and-dot numerical notation systems for purposes related to royal iconography and calendar systems. The earliest written notations in China date back to the Shang Dynasty in 1200 BCE and these systematic notations were found inscribed on bones and recorded sacrifices made, tributes received, and animals hunted, which were activities of the elite. These oracle-bone inscriptions were the ancestors of modern Chinese script and contained logosyllabic script. According to social anthropologist Jack Goody, there are two interpretations that regard the origin of the alphabet, many classical scholars, such as historian Ignace Gelb, credit the Ancient Greeks for creating the first alphabetic system that used distinctive signs for consonants and vowels. Thus, many argue that the ancient Semitic-speaking peoples of northern Canaan invented the consonantal alphabet as early as 1500 BCE. Much of this development is credited to English archeologist Flinders Petrie. Ten years later, English Egyptologist Alan Gardiner reasoned that these contain an alphabet. In 1948, William F. Albright deciphered the text using additional evidence that had been discovered subsequent to Goodys findings and this included a series of inscriptions from Ugarit, discovered in 1929 by French archaeologist Claude F. A. Schaeffer. Some of these inscriptions were mythological texts that consisted of a 32-letter cuneiform consonantal alphabet, another significant discovery was made in 1953 when three arrowheads were uncovered, each containing identical Canaanite inscriptions from twelfth century BCE
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Middle East
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The Middle East is a transcontinental region centered on Western Asia and Egypt. The corresponding adjective is Middle-Eastern and the noun is Middle-Easterner. The term has come into usage as a replacement of the term Near East beginning in the early 20th century. Arabs, Turks, Persians, Kurds, and Azeris constitute the largest ethnic groups in the region by population. Indigenous minorities of the Middle East include Jews, Assyrians and other Arameans, Baloch, Berbers, Copts, Druze, Lurs, Mandaeans, Samaritans, Shabaks, Tats, in the Middle East, there is also a Romani community. European ethnic groups form a diaspora in the region include Albanians, Bosniaks, Circassians, Crimean Tatars, Franco-Levantines. Among other migrant populations are Bengalis as well as other Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Indonesians, Pakistanis, the history of the Middle East dates back to ancient times, with the importance of the region being recognized for millennia. Most of the countries border the Persian Gulf have vast reserves of crude oil. The term Middle East may have originated in the 1850s in the British India Office, however, it became more widely known when American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan used the term in 1902 to designate the area between Arabia and India. During this time the British and Russian Empires were vying for influence in Central Asia, Mahan realized not only the strategic importance of the region, but also of its center, the Persian Gulf. Mahan first used the term in his article The Persian Gulf and International Relations, published in September 1902 in the National Review, a British journal. The Middle East, if I may adopt a term which I have not seen, will some day need its Malta, as well as its Gibraltar, it does not follow that either will be in the Persian Gulf. The British Navy should have the facility to concentrate in force if occasion arise, about Aden, India, mahans article was reprinted in The Times and followed in October by a 20-article series entitled The Middle Eastern Question, written by Sir Ignatius Valentine Chirol. During this series, Sir Ignatius expanded the definition of Middle East to include regions of Asia which extend to the borders of India or command the approaches to India. After the series ended in 1903, The Times removed quotation marks from subsequent uses of the term, in the late 1930s, the British established the Middle East Command, which was based in Cairo, for its military forces in the region. After that time, the term Middle East gained broader usage in Europe, the description Middle has also led to some confusion over changing definitions. Before the First World War, Near East was used in English to refer to the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire, while Middle East referred to Iran, the Caucasus, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Turkestan. The first official use of the term Middle East by the United States government was in the 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine, the Associated Press Stylebook says that Near East formerly referred to the farther west countries while Middle East referred to the eastern ones, but that now they are synonymous
27.
Hegemony
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Hegemony is the political, economic, or military predominance or control of one state over others. In ancient Greece, hegemony denoted the politico–military dominance of a city-state over other city-states, the dominant state is known as the hegemon. In the 19th century, hegemony came to denote the Social or cultural predominance or ascendancy, later, it could be used to mean a group or regime which exerts undue influence within a society. In contrast to authoritarian rule, cultural hegemony is hegemonic only if those affected by it also consent to and struggle over its common sense. From the post-classical Latin word hegemonia, from 1513 or earlier, or the Greek word ἡγεμονία, meaning authority, rule, political supremacy, likewise, the role of Athens within the short-lived Delian League was that of a hegemon. Ancient historians such as Xenophon and Ephorus were the first who used the term in its modern sense. In Ancient East Asia, Chinese hegemony existed during the Spring and Autumn period and they were appointed by feudal lord conferences, and thus were nominally obliged to uphold the imperium of the Zhou Dynasty over the subordinate states. 1st and 2nd century Europe was dominated by the peace of the Pax Romana. It was instituted by the emperor Augustus, and was accompanied by a series of military campaigns. From the 7th century to the 12th century, the Umayyad Caliphate and later Abbasid Caliphate dominated the vast territories they governed, with other states like the Byzantine Empire paying tribute. In 7th century India, Harsha, ruler of an empire in northern India from 606 to 647 AD. He preferred not to rule as a government, but left conquered kings on their thrones and contenting himself with tribute. From the late 9th to the early 11th century, the empire developed by Charlemagne achieved hegemony in Europe, with dominance over France, Italy and he lists several contenders for historical hegemony. Based on Portugals dominance in navigation, based on Dutch control of credit and money. Based on British textiles and command of the high seas, based on British industrial supremacy and railroads. To this list could be added the hegemony of Habsburg Spain in 16th century Europe, however, after an attempt by Phillip IV to restore it, by the middle of the 17th century Spains pretensions to hegemony had definitely and irremediably failed. This, in turn, made possible the Amsterdam stock market, in France, King Louis XIV and Napoleon I attempted French hegemony via economic, cultural and military domination of most of Continental Europe. However, Jeremy Black writes that, because of Britain, France was unable to enjoy the benefits of this hegemony, Britain also controlled the Indian subcontinent and large portions of Africa
28.
Kish (Sumer)
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Kish was occupied from the Jemdet Nasr period, gaining prominence as one of the pre-eminent powers in the region during the early dynastic period. The Sumerian king list states that Kish was the first city to have following the deluge. Jushurs successor is called Kullassina-bel, but this is actually a sentence in Akkadian meaning All of them were lord, thus, some scholars have suggested that this may have been intended to signify the absence of a central authority in Kish for a time. The names of the nine kings of Kish preceding Etana are all Akkadian words for animals. The twelfth king of Kish appearing on the Sumerian king list, Etana, is noted as the shepherd, who ascended to heaven and consolidated all the foreign countries. Although his reign has yet to be archaeologically attested, his name is found in later legendary tablets, and Etana is sometimes regarded as the first king and founder of Kish. The twenty-first king of Kish on the list, Enmebaragesi, who is said to have captured the weapons of Elam, is the first name confirmed by finds from his reign. He is also known through literary references, in which he and his son Aga of Kish are portrayed as contemporary rivals of Dumuzid, the Fisherman. Some early kings of Kish are known through archaeology, but are not named on the King list. These include Utug or Uhub, said to have defeated Hamazi in the earliest days, and Mesilim, who built temples in Adab and Lagash, the Third Dynasty of Kish is unique in that it begins with a woman, previously a tavern keeper, Kubau, as king. She was later deified as the goddess Kheba, afterwards, although its military and economic power was diminished, Kish retained a strong political and symbolic significance. Just as with Nippur to the south, control of Kish was an element in legitimizing dominance over the north of Mesopotamia. Because of the symbolic value, strong rulers later claimed the traditional title King of Kish, even if they were from Akkad, Ur, Assyria, Isin. One of the earliest to adopt this title upon subjecting Kish to his empire was King Mesannepada of Ur, a few governors of Kish for other powers in later times are also known. Sargon of Akkad, the founder of the Akkadian Empire came from the area nearby Kish and he would later declare himself the king of Kish, as an attempt to signify his connection to the religiously important area. In Akkadian times the citys patron deity was Zababa, along with his wife, Kish continued to be occupied through the pre-Babylonian, old Babylonian, Kassite, and Neo-Assyrian Empire and Neo-Babylonian periods, and into classical Seleucid times, before being abandoned. The most notable mounds are, - Tell Uhaimir - believed to be the location of the city of Kish and it means the red after the red bricks of the ziggurat there. Tell Ingharra - believed to be the location of Hursagkalamma, east of Kish home of a temple of Inanna and those tablets ended up in a variety of museums
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Sippar
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The citys ancient name, Sippar, could also refer to its sister city, Sippar-Amnanum, a more specific designation for the city here referred to as Sippar was Sippar-Yahrurum. Despite the fact that thousands of clay tablets have been recovered at the site. As was often the case in Mesopotamia, it was part of a pair of cities, Sippar was on the east side of the Euphrates, while its sister city, Sippar-Amnanum, was on the west. Lesser levels of use continued into the time of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Sippar was the cult site of the sun god and the home of his temple E-babbara. The Code of Hammurabi stele was erected at Sippar. Shamash was the god of justice, and he is depicted handing authority to the king in the image at the top of the stele, a closely related motif occurs on some cylinder seals of the Old Babylonian period. By the end of the 19th century BC, Sippar was producing some of the finest Old Babylonian cylinder seals, Sippar has been suggested as the location of the Biblical Sepharvaim in the Old Testament, which alludes to the two parts of the city in its dual form. In the Sumerian king list a king of Sippar, En-men-dur-ana, is listed as one of the early rulers of the region. In his 29th year of reign Sumu-la-El of Babylon reported building the city wall of Sippar, some years later Hammurabi of Babylon reported laying the foundations of the city wall of Sippar in his 23rd year and worked on the wall again in his 43rd year. His successor in Babylon, Samsu-iluna worked on Sippars wall in his 1st year, the city walls, being typically made of mud bricks, required much attention. Records of Nebuchadnezzar II and Nabonidos record that they repaired the Shamash temple E-babbara, and according to Abydenus, Nebuchadnezzar II excavated a great reservoir in the neighbourhood. Pliny mentions a sect of Chaldeans called the Hippareni and it is often assumed that this name refers to Sippar, but this is not universally accepted. Tell Abu Habba, measuring over 1 square kilometer was first excavated by Hormuzd Rassam between 1880 and 1881 for the British Museum in a dig that lasted 18 months, tens of thousands of tablets were recovered including the Tablet of Shamash in the Temple of Shamash/Utu. Most of the tablets were Neo-Babylonian, the temple had been mentioned as early as the 18th year of Samsu-iluna of Babylon, who reported restoring Ebabbar, the temple of Szamasz in Sippar, along with the citys ziggurat. The tablets, which ended up in the British Museum, are being studied to this day, as was often the case in the early days of archaeology, excavation records were not made, particularly find spots. This makes it difficult to tell which tablets came from Sippar-Amnanum as opposed to Sippar, other tablets from Sippar were bought on the open market during that time and ended up at places like the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania. Since the site is close to Baghdad, it was a popular target for illegal excavations. In 1894, Sippar was worked briefly by Jean-Vincent Scheil, the tablets recovered, mainly Old Babylonian, went to the Istanbul Museum
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Geopolitics
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Geopolitics is the study of the effects of geography on international politics and international relations. Geopolitics is a method of studying foreign policy to understand, explain and these include area studies, climate, topography, demography, natural resources, and applied science of the region being evaluated. Geopolitics focuses on power in relation to geographic space. In particular, territorial waters and land territory in correlation with diplomatic history, academically, geopolitics analyses history and social science with reference to geography in relation to politics. Outside of academia, a variety of groups offer a geopolitical prognosis, including non-profit groups, critical geopolitics deconstructs classical geopolitical theories, by showing their political/ideological functions for great powers during and after the age of imperialism. Mahan distinguished a key region of the world in the Eurasian context, namely, in this zone independent countries still survived – Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, China, and Japan. Mahan regarded those countries, located between Britain and Russia, as if between Scylla and Charybdis, of the two monsters – Britain and Russia – it was the later that Mahan considered more threatening to the fate of Central Asia. Mahan was impressed by Russias transcontinental size and strategically favorable position for southward expansion, therefore, he found it necessary for the Anglo-Saxon sea power to resist Russia. The Austro-Hungarian historian Emil Reich is considered to be the first having coined the acceptance in English as early as 1902, lea believed that while Japan moved against Far East and Russia against India, the Germans would strike at England, the center of the British Empire. He thought the Anglo-Saxons faced certain disaster from their militant opponents, sir Halford Mackinders Heartland Theory initially received little attention outside geography, but some thinkers would claim that it subsequently influenced the foreign policies of world powers. His formulation of the Heartland Theory was set out in his article entitled The Geographical Pivot of History, Mackinders doctrine of geopolitics involved concepts diametrically opposed to the notion of Alfred Thayer Mahan about the significance of navies in world conflict. He saw navy as a basis of Colombian era empire, the Heartland theory hypothesized a huge empire being brought into existence in the Heartland—which wouldnt need to use coastal or transoceanic transport to remain coherent. Mackinder posited that the centers of the Periphery were necessarily located in widely separated locations. The World Island could send its navy to destroy one of them in turn. Mackinder called this region the Heartland and it essentially comprised Central and Eastern Europe, Ukraine, Western Russia, and Mitteleuropa. The Heartland contained the grain reserves of Ukraine, and many natural resources. Mackinders notion of geopolitics was summed up when he said, Who rules Central, who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island. Who rules the World-Island commands the World, nicholas J. Spykman is both a follower and critic of geostrategists Alfred Mahan, and Halford Mackinder
31.
Anatolia
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Anatolia, in geography known as Asia Minor, Asian Turkey, Anatolian peninsula, or Anatolian plateau, is the westernmost protrusion of Asia, which makes up the majority of modern-day Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Sea of Marmara forms a connection between the Black and Aegean Seas through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits and separates Anatolia from Thrace on the European mainland. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line between the Gulf of Alexandretta and the Black Sea to the Armenian Highlands, thus, traditionally Anatolia is the territory that comprises approximately the western two-thirds of the Asian part of Turkey. The Turkification of Anatolia began under the Seljuk Empire in the late 11th century, however, various non-Turkic languages continue to be spoken by minorities in Anatolia today, including Kurdish, Assyrian, Armenian, Arabic, Laz, Georgian, and Greek. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line running from the Gulf of Alexandretta to the Black Sea. This traditional geographical definition is used, for example, in the latest edition of Merriam-Websters Geographical Dictionary, under this definition, Anatolia is bounded to the east by the Armenian Highlands, and the Euphrates before that river bends to the southeast to enter Mesopotamia. To the southeast, it is bounded by the ranges that separate it from the Orontes valley in Syria, the first name the Greeks used for the Anatolian peninsula was Ἀσία, presumably after the name of the Assuwa league in western Anatolia. As the name of Asia came to be extended to areas east of the Mediterranean. The name Anatolia derives from the Greek ἀνατολή meaning “the East” or more literally “sunrise”, the precise reference of this term has varied over time, perhaps originally referring to the Aeolian, Ionian and Dorian colonies on the west coast of Asia Minor. In the Byzantine Empire, the Anatolic Theme was a theme covering the western, the modern Turkish form of Anatolia is Anadolu, which again derives from the Greek name Aνατολή. The Russian male name Anatoly and the French Anatole share the same linguistic origin, in English the name of Turkey for ancient Anatolia first appeared c. It is derived from the Medieval Latin Turchia, which was used by the Europeans to define the Seljuk controlled parts of Anatolia after the Battle of Manzikert. Human habitation in Anatolia dates back to the Paleolithic, neolithic Anatolia has been proposed as the homeland of the Indo-European language family, although linguists tend to favour a later origin in the steppes north of the Black Sea. However, it is clear that the Anatolian languages, the oldest branch of Indo-European, have spoken in Anatolia since at least the 19th century BC. The earliest historical records of Anatolia stem from the southeast of the region and are from the Mesopotamian-based Akkadian Empire during the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 24th century BC, scholars generally believe the earliest indigenous populations of Anatolia were the Hattians and Hurrians. The region was famous for exporting raw materials, and areas of Hattian-, one of the numerous cuneiform records dated circa 20th century BC, found in Anatolia at the Assyrian colony of Kanesh, uses an advanced system of trading computations and credit lines. They were speakers of an Indo-European language, the Hittite language, originating from Nesa, they conquered Hattusa in the 18th century BC, imposing themselves over Hattian- and Hurrian-speaking populations. According to the most widely accepted Kurgan theory on the Proto-Indo-European homeland, however, the Hittites adopted the cuneiform script, invented in Mesopotamia
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Levant
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The Levant is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean. The term Levant entered English in the late 15th century from French and it derives from the Italian Levante, meaning rising, implying the rising of the sun in the east. As such, it is equivalent to the Arabic term Mashriq. Eventually the term was restricted to the Muslim countries of Syria-Palestine, in 1581, England set up the Levant Company to monopolize commerce with the Ottoman Empire. The name Levant States was used to refer to the French mandate over Syria and this is probably the reason why the term Levant has come to be used synonymously with Syria-Palestine. Some scholars misunderstood the term thinking that it derives from the name of Lebanon, today the term is typically used in conjunction with prehistoric or ancient historical references. It does not include Anatolia, the Caucasus Mountains, or any part of the Arabian Peninsula proper, the Sinai Peninsula is sometimes included. The Levant has been described as the crossroads of western Asia, the eastern Mediterranean, and northeast Africa, the populations of the Levant share not only the geographic position, but cuisine, some customs, and a very long history. They are often referred to as Levantines, the term Levant, which appeared in English in 1497, originally meant the East in general or Mediterranean lands east of Italy. It is borrowed from the French levant rising, referring to the rising of the sun in the east, the phrase is ultimately from the Latin word levare, meaning lift, raise. Similar etymologies are found in Greek Ἀνατολή, in Germanic Morgenland, in Italian, in Hungarian Kelet, in Spanish and Catalan Levante and Llevant, most notably, Orient and its Latin source oriens meaning east, is literally rising, deriving from Latin orior rise. The notion of the Levant has undergone a process of historical evolution in usage, meaning. While the term Levantine originally referred to the European residents of the eastern Mediterranean region, it came to refer to regional native. The English Levant Company was founded in 1581 to trade with the Ottoman Empire, at this time, the Far East was known as the Upper Levant. In early 19th-century travel writing, the term sometimes incorporated certain Mediterranean provinces of the Ottoman empire, in 19th-century archaeology, it referred to overlapping cultures in this region during and after prehistoric times, intending to reference the place instead of any one culture. The French mandate of Syria and Lebanon was called the Levant states, today, Levant is the term typically used by archaeologists and historians with reference to the history of the region. Scholars have adopted the term Levant to identify the region due to it being a wider, yet relevant, archaeologists seeking a neutral orientation that is neither biblical nor national have used terms such as Levantine archaeology and archaeology of the Southern Levant. Two academic journals were launched, Journal of Levantine Studies, published by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and The Levantine Review
33.
Zagros Mountains
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The Zagros Mountains form the largest mountain range in Iran, Iraq and southeastern Turkey. This mountain range has a length of 1,500 km. The highest point in the Zagros Mountains is Dena, the Zagros fold and thrust belt was formed by collision of two tectonic plates, the Eurasian Plate and the Arabian Plate. This collision primarily happened during the Miocene and folded the rocks that had been deposited from the Carboniferous to the Miocene in the geosyncline in front of the Iranian Plate. The process of collision continues to the present and as the Arabian Plate is being pushed against the Eurasian Plate, the Zagros Mountains, a relatively dense GPS network which covered the Iranian Zagros also proves a high rate of deformation within the Zagros. The GPS results show that the current rate of shortening in the southeast Zagros is ~10 mm/yr, the north-south Kazerun strike-slip fault divides the Zagros into two distinct zones of deformation. The GPS results also show different shortening directions along the belt, normal shortening in the southeast, the sedimentary cover in the SE Zagros is deforming above a layer of rock salt whereas in the NW Zagros the salt layer is missing or is very thin. This different basal friction is partly responsible for the different topographies on either side of the Kazerun fault. Higher topography and narrower zone of deformation in the NW Zagros is observed whereas in the SE, deformation was spread more, stresses induced in the Earths crust by the collision caused extensive folding of the preexisting layered sedimentary rocks. Subsequent erosion removed softer rocks, such as mudstone and siltstone while leaving harder rocks, such as limestone and this differential erosion formed the linear ridges of the Zagros Mountains. The depositional environment and tectonic history of the rocks were conducive to the formation and trapping of petroleum, salt domes and salt glaciers are a common feature of the Zagros Mountains. Salt domes are an important target for exploration, as the impermeable salt frequently traps petroleum beneath other rock layers. The Zagros Mountains have a totally sedimentary origin and are primarily of limestone. In the Elevated Zagros or the Higher Zagros, the Paleozoic rocks could be found mainly in the upper and higher sections of the peaks of the Zagros Mountains along the Zagros main fault. On the both sides of this fault, there are Mesozoic rocks, a combination of Triassic and Jurassic rocks that are surrounded by Cretaceous rocks on the both sides. The Folded Zagros is formed mainly of Tertiary rocks, with the Paleogene rocks south of the Cretaceous rocks, the mountains are divided into many parallel sub-ranges, and orogenically have the same age as the Alps. Irans main oilfields lie in the central foothills of the Zagros mountain range. The southern ranges of the Fars Province have somewhat lower summits and they contain some limestone rocks showing abundant marine fossils
34.
Limestone
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Limestone is a sedimentary rock, composed mainly of skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral, forams and molluscs. Its major materials are the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate, about 10% of sedimentary rocks are limestones. The solubility of limestone in water and weak acid solutions leads to karst landscapes, most cave systems are through limestone bedrock. The first geologist to distinguish limestone from dolomite was Belsazar Hacquet in 1778, like most other sedimentary rocks, most limestone is composed of grains. Most grains in limestone are skeletal fragments of organisms such as coral or foraminifera. Other carbonate grains comprising limestones are ooids, peloids, intraclasts and these organisms secrete shells made of aragonite or calcite, and leave these shells behind when they die. Limestone often contains variable amounts of silica in the form of chert or siliceous skeletal fragment, some limestones do not consist of grains at all, and are formed completely by the chemical precipitation of calcite or aragonite, i. e. travertine. Secondary calcite may be deposited by supersaturated meteoric waters and this produces speleothems, such as stalagmites and stalactites. Another form taken by calcite is oolitic limestone, which can be recognized by its granular appearance, the primary source of the calcite in limestone is most commonly marine organisms. Some of these organisms can construct mounds of rock known as reefs, below about 3,000 meters, water pressure and temperature conditions cause the dissolution of calcite to increase nonlinearly, so limestone typically does not form in deeper waters. Limestones may also form in lacustrine and evaporite depositional environments, calcite can be dissolved or precipitated by groundwater, depending on several factors, including the water temperature, pH, and dissolved ion concentrations. Calcite exhibits a characteristic called retrograde solubility, in which it becomes less soluble in water as the temperature increases. Impurities will cause limestones to exhibit different colors, especially with weathered surfaces, Limestone may be crystalline, clastic, granular, or massive, depending on the method of formation. Crystals of calcite, quartz, dolomite or barite may line small cavities in the rock, when conditions are right for precipitation, calcite forms mineral coatings that cement the existing rock grains together, or it can fill fractures. Travertine is a banded, compact variety of limestone formed along streams, particularly there are waterfalls. Calcium carbonate is deposited where evaporation of the leaves a solution supersaturated with the chemical constituents of calcite. Tufa, a porous or cellular variety of travertine, is found near waterfalls, coquina is a poorly consolidated limestone composed of pieces of coral or shells. During regional metamorphism that occurs during the building process, limestone recrystallizes into marble
35.
British Museum
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The British Museum is dedicated to human history, art and culture, and is located in the Bloomsbury area of London. The British Museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the physician, the museum first opened to the public on 15 January 1759, in Montagu House, on the site of the current building. Although today principally a museum of art objects and antiquities. Its foundations lie in the will of the Irish-born British physician, on 7 June 1753, King George II gave his formal assent to the Act of Parliament which established the British Museum. They were joined in 1757 by the Old Royal Library, now the Royal manuscripts, together these four foundation collections included many of the most treasured books now in the British Library including the Lindisfarne Gospels and the sole surviving copy of Beowulf. The British Museum was the first of a new kind of museum – national, belonging to neither church nor king, freely open to the public, sloanes collection, while including a vast miscellany of objects, tended to reflect his scientific interests. The addition of the Cotton and Harley manuscripts introduced a literary, the body of trustees decided on a converted 17th-century mansion, Montagu House, as a location for the museum, which it bought from the Montagu family for £20,000. The Trustees rejected Buckingham House, on the now occupied by Buckingham Palace, on the grounds of cost. With the acquisition of Montagu House the first exhibition galleries and reading room for scholars opened on 15 January 1759. During the few years after its foundation the British Museum received several gifts, including the Thomason Collection of Civil War Tracts. A list of donations to the Museum, dated 31 January 1784, in the early 19th century the foundations for the extensive collection of sculpture began to be laid and Greek, Roman and Egyptian artefacts dominated the antiquities displays. Gifts and purchases from Henry Salt, British consul general in Egypt, beginning with the Colossal bust of Ramesses II in 1818, many Greek sculptures followed, notably the first purpose-built exhibition space, the Charles Towneley collection, much of it Roman Sculpture, in 1805. In 1816 these masterpieces of art, were acquired by The British Museum by Act of Parliament. The collections were supplemented by the Bassae frieze from Phigaleia, Greece in 1815, the Ancient Near Eastern collection also had its beginnings in 1825 with the purchase of Assyrian and Babylonian antiquities from the widow of Claudius James Rich. The neoclassical architect, Sir Robert Smirke, was asked to draw up plans for an extension to the Museum. For the reception of the Royal Library, and a Picture Gallery over it, and put forward plans for todays quadrangular building, much of which can be seen today. The dilapidated Old Montagu House was demolished and work on the Kings Library Gallery began in 1823, the extension, the East Wing, was completed by 1831. The Museum became a site as Sir Robert Smirkes grand neo-classical building gradually arose
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Louvre
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The Louvre or the Louvre Museum is the worlds largest museum and a historic monument in Paris, France. A central landmark of the city, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the citys 1st arrondissement, approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are exhibited over an area of 72,735 square metres. The Louvre is the second most visited museum after the Palace Museum in China. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built as a fortress in the late 12th century under Philip II, remnants of the fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to the expansion of the city, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function and. The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace, in 1692, the building was occupied by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, which in 1699 held the first of a series of salons. The Académie remained at the Louvre for 100 years, during the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nations masterpieces. The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, because of structural problems with the building, the museum was closed in 1796 until 1801. The collection was increased under Napoleon and the museum renamed Musée Napoléon, the collection was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and bequests since the Third Republic, whether this was the first building on that spot is not known, it is possible that Philip modified an existing tower. According to the authoritative Grand Larousse encyclopédique, the name derives from an association with wolf hunting den, in the 7th century, St. Fare, an abbess in Meaux, left part of her Villa called Luvra situated in the region of Paris to a monastery. This territory probably did not correspond exactly to the modern site, the Louvre Palace was altered frequently throughout the Middle Ages. In the 14th century, Charles V converted the building into a residence and in 1546, Francis acquired what would become the nucleus of the Louvres holdings, his acquisitions including Leonardo da Vincis Mona Lisa. After Louis XIV chose Versailles as his residence in 1682, constructions slowed, however, on 14 October 1750, Louis XV agreed and sanctioned a display of 96 pieces from the royal collection, mounted in the Galerie royale de peinture of the Luxembourg Palace. Under Louis XVI, the museum idea became policy. The comte dAngiviller broadened the collection and in 1776 proposed conversion of the Grande Galerie of the Louvre – which contained maps – into the French Museum, many proposals were offered for the Louvres renovation into a museum, however, none was agreed on. Hence the museum remained incomplete until the French Revolution, during the French Revolution the Louvre was transformed into a public museum. In May 1791, the Assembly declared that the Louvre would be a place for bringing together monuments of all the sciences, on 10 August 1792, Louis XVI was imprisoned and the royal collection in the Louvre became national property
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Yamhad
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Yamhad was an ancient Semitic kingdom centered on Ḥalab, Syria. The kingdom emerged at the end of the 19th century BC, and was ruled by the Yamhadite dynasty kings, the kingdom was eventually destroyed by the Hittites, then annexed by Mitanni in the 16th century BC. Yamhads population was predominately Amorite, and had a typical Bronze Age Syrian culture, Yamhad was also inhabited by a substantial Hurrian population that settled in the kingdom, adding the influence of their culture. Yamhad controlled a wide trading network, being a gateway between the eastern Iranian plateau and the Aegean region in the west, little of Halab has been excavated by archaeologists, as Halab was never abandoned during its long history and the modern city is situated above the ancient site. Therefore, most of the knowledge about Yamhad comes from tablets discovered at Alalakh, the name Yamhad was likely an Amorite tribal name and is used synonymously with Halab when referring to the kingdom. Halabs fame as a Holy City contributed to its prominence, the main temple of the north Syrian storm god Hadad was located in the city. Sumu-Epuh consolidated the kingdom and faced Yahdun-Lim of Mari who had an alliance with Yamhad to oppose Assyria. The rise of Shamshi-Adad I of Assyria proved more dangerous to Yamhad than Mari, the Assyrian king was an ambitious conqueror with the aim to rule Mesopotamia and the Levant, and called himself king of the World. Shamshi-Adad surrounded Yamhad by alliances with Charchemish, Hassum and Urshu to the north, sumu-Epuh welcomed Zimri-Lim and aimed to use him against Assyria since he was the legitimate heir of Mari. The death of the Assyrian king came a year later, Yarim-Lim spent the next years of his reign expanding the kingdom, which reached Mamma in the north. Yarim-Lims accomplishments elevated Yamhad into the status of a Great Kingdom, Yarim-Lim I was succeeded by his son Hammurabi I who had a peaceful reign. He was able to force Charchemish into submission, and sent troops to aid Hammurabi of Babylon against Larsa, the alliance ended after the Babylonian king sacked Mari and destroyed it. Hammurabi I was succeeded by his son Abba-El I, whose reign witnessed the rebellion of the city Irridu, the king responded to the rebellion by destroying Irridu, and compensating his brother by giving him the throne of Alalakh, thus creating a cadet branch of the dynasty. The era of Abba-El Is successors is poorly documented, and by the time of Yarim-Lim III in the mid-17th century BC, the power of Yamhad declined due to internal dissent. In spite of this regression, the king of Yamhad remained the strongest king of the Syrian states, as he was referred to as a Great King by the Hittites, the diplomatic equal of the Hittite king. Hattusili chose not to attack Halab directly and began with conquering Yamhads vassals and allies, Hattusili then turned to attack the Hurrians in Urshu northeast of Halab, and won in spite of military support from Halab and Carchemish for the Hurrians. The Hittite king then defeated Yamhad in the battle of Mount Atalur, after many campaigns, Hattusili I finally attacked Halab during the reign of Hammurabi III. The attack ended in a defeat, the wounding of the Hittite king, hattusilis campaigns considerably weakened Yamhad, causing it to decline in status, the monarch ceased to be styled a Great King
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Qatna
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Qatna is an archaeological site in the Wadi il-Aswad, a tributary of the Orontes,18 km northeast of Homs, Syria. It consists in a tell occupying 1 km², which makes it one of the largest Bronze Age towns in western Syria, the tell is located at the edge of the limestone-plateau of the Syrian desert towards the fertile Homs-Bassin. The tell is named after the adjacent modern town of al-Mishirfeh, the first finds at Qatna date to the mid- to late 3rd millennium BC, although this early period is not well represented. The find of a 12th Dynasty Egyptian sphinx belonging to Princess Ita, daughter of Amenemhat II shows early Egyptian influence, the first king of Qatna known by name from the Mari archives is Ishi-Adad, an Amurru or Amorite. He was a confederate of Shamshi-Adad of Upper Mesopotamia and he was succeeded by his son Amut-pî-el who had been governor of Nazala as crown prince. This was in the time of Hammurabi of Babylon, beltum, the sister of Amut-pî-el was married to Jasmah-Addu of Mari. Contracts between Mari and Qatna define her as the wife of Jasmah-Addu. Her mother might have been Lammassi-Ashur from Assur or Ekallatum, zimrilim of Mari was married to another princess from Qatna, Dam-hurasim. At its height, Qatna extended from Palmyra in the east, after the destruction of Mari by Hammurapi, the written sources become sparse. Aleppo now became Qatnas most powerful neighbour, during the reign of Yarim-Lim III Qatna was temporarily dominated by Aleppo, with the development of the Mitanni empire in Upper Mesopotamia, Qatna was incorporated but was located in disputed territory between the Mitanni and Egypt. The inscriptions of the so-called Nin-Egal temple show that Mittanni were resident in Qatna, the campaigns of Pharaohs Amenhotep I and Thutmose I in Syria might have reached Qatna, but there is no conclusive evidence. On the 7th Pylon of the temple of Amun in Karnak, Amenhotep II was attacked by the host of Qatnawhile crossing the Orontes, but he remained victorious and acquired booty, among which the equipment of a Mitanni charioteer is mentioned. Qatna is mentioned in Egyptian topographic lists till the time of Ramesses III, cuneiform tablets discovered under the Royal palace in Qatna mention a previously unknown king Idanda who ruled ca.1400 BC. During this same Amarna letters period, Prince Akizzi wrote 5 letters to Akhenaten, texts from Emar describe how Qatna was attacked by Aramaic tribes in the late Bronze Age, so the town must still have been in existence. The tell was settled in Neo-Babylonian times as well, but the town remained insignificant as nearby Emesa had taken over its position on the trade routes, in the 2nd Millennium BC trade routes developed connecting Mesopotamia with Cyprus, Crete and Egypt. Qatna was then situated near the end of the road connecting the middle Euphrates valley, another route started from Aleppo, left the Euphrates at Emar and led via Halab, Qatna and Hazor to Egypt. The valley of Homs formed a connection to the Mediterranean near the port of Byblos and Tripoli, Qatna is mentioned in the tin trade, which went from Mari via Qatna to the Mediterranean, Cypriote copper was transported in the other direction. The Mari texts mention cloth, clothing, a kind of bows, jewellery, woods, wine and two-wheeled chariots as trade goods reaching Mari via Qatna
