1.
Amazons
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In Greek mythology, the Amazons were a tribe of women warriors. The Scythian women may have inspired the myth, apollonius Rhodius, at Argonautica, mention that Amazons were the daughters of Ares and Harmonia. They were brutal and aggressive, and their concern in life was war. Later, he says, they established Mitylene a little way beyond the Caïcus, Aeschylus, at Prometheus Bound, places the original home of the Amazons in the country about Lake Maeotis and they later moved to Themiscyra on the Thermodon. Homer tells that the Amazons were sought and found somewhere near Lycia, Diodorus mention that the Amazons traveled from the Libya under Queen Myrina. Amazon warriors were often depicted in battle with Greek warriors in amazonomachies in classical art, the Amazons have become associated with many historical people throughout the Roman Empire period and Late Antiquity. In Roman historiography, there are accounts of Amazon raids in Anatolia. From the early period, their name has become a term for female warriors in general. Greeks also used epithets for them. Herodotus used the Androktones and Androleteirai, in Iliad they also called Antianeirai and Aeschylus in his work, Prometheus Bound, the origin of the word is uncertain. Πέρσαι», where it appears together with the Indo-Iranian root *kar- make, alternatively, a Greek derivation from *ṇ-mṇ-gw-jon-es manless, without husbands has been proposed, an explanation deemed unlikely by Hjalmar Frisk. 19th century scholarship also connected the term to the ethnonym Amazigh, a further explanation proposes Iranian *ama-janah virility-killing as source. The Hittite researcher Friedrich Cornelius assumes that there had been the land Azzi with the capital Chajasa in the area of the Thermodon-Iris Delta on the coast of the Black Sea and he brings its residents in direct relation to the Amazons, namely based on its name and its customs. The location of land as well as his conclusions are controversial. There is no indication of such a practice in ancient works of art, adrienne Mayor suggests the origin of this myth was due to the words etymology. Herodotus and Strabo placed them on the banks of the Thermodon, later, he says, they established Mitylene a little way beyond the Caïcus. Aeschylus, at Prometheus Bound, places the home of the Amazons in the country about Lake Maeotis. According to Pseudo-Plutarch, the Amazons lived in and about the Tanais river, formerly called the Amazonian or Amazon river, the Amazons later moved to Themiscyra on the River Thermodon
2.
Akkadian
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Akkadian is an extinct East Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the writing system, which was originally used to write the unrelated Ancient Sumerian. The language was named after the city of Akkad, a centre of Mesopotamian civilization during the Akkadian Empire. The mutual influence between Sumerian and Akkadian had led scholars to describe the languages as a sprachbund, Akkadian proper names were first attested in Sumerian texts from around the mid 3rd-millennium BC. From the second half of the third millennium BC, texts written in Akkadian begin to appear. By the second millennium BC, two variant forms of the language were in use in Assyria and Babylonia, known as Assyrian and Babylonian respectively, for centuries, Akkadian was the native language in Mesopotamian nations such as Assyria and Babylonia. However, it began to decline during the Neo-Assyrian Empire around the 8th century BC, by the Hellenistic period, the language was largely confined to scholars and priests working in temples in Assyria and Babylonia. The last known Akkadian cuneiform document dates from the 1st century AD, Akkadian belongs with the other Semitic languages in the Near Eastern branch of the Afroasiatic languages, a family native to East Africa, which then spread to West, Northwest and Northeast Africa. Within the Near Eastern Semitic languages, Akkadian forms an East Semitic subgroup and this novel word order is due to the influence of the Sumerian substratum, which has an SOV order. Additionally Akkadian is the only Semitic language to use the prepositions ina and ana, other Semitic languages like Arabic and Aramaic have the prepositions bi/bə and li/lə. The origin of the Akkadian spatial prepositions is unknown, in contrast to most other Semitic languages, Akkadian has only one non-sibilant fricative, ḫ. Akkadian lost both the glottal and pharyngeal fricatives, which are characteristic of the other Semitic languages, until the Old Babylonian period, the Akkadian sibilants were exclusively affricated. Old Akkadian is preserved on clay tablets dating back to c.2500 BC and it was written using cuneiform, a script adopted from the Sumerians using wedge-shaped symbols pressed in wet clay. As employed by Akkadian scribes, the cuneiform script could represent either Sumerian logograms, Sumerian syllables, Akkadian syllables. For this reason, the sign AN can on the one hand be a logogram for the word ilum, additionally, this sign was used as a determinative for divine names. Another peculiarity of Akkadian cuneiform is that many signs do not have a phonetic value. Certain signs, such as AḪ, do not distinguish between the different vowel qualities, nor is there any coordination in the other direction, the syllable -ša-, for example, is rendered by the sign ŠA, but also by the sign NĪĜ. Both of these are used for the same syllable in the same text
3.
Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
4.
Armenian language
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The Armenian language is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenians. Like Hellenic Greek, it has its own branch in the language tree. It is the language of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. It has historically been spoken throughout the Armenian Highlands and today is spoken in the Armenian diaspora. Armenian has its own script, the Armenian alphabet, introduced in 405 AD by Mesrop Mashtots. Armenian is an independent branch of the Indo-European languages and it is of interest to linguists for its distinctive phonological developments within that family. Armenian exhibits more satemization than centumization, although it is not classified as belonging to either of these subgroups, Armenia was a monolingual country by the 2nd century BC at the latest. Its language has a literary history, with a 5th-century Bible translation as its oldest surviving text. Its vocabulary has been influenced by Western Middle Iranian languages, particularly Parthian, and to an extent by Greek, Persian. There are two standardized modern literary forms, Eastern Armenian and Western Armenian, with which most contemporary dialects are mutually intelligible and he is also credited by some with the creation of the Caucasian Albanian alphabet. In The Anabasis, Xenophon describes many aspects of Armenian village life and he relates that the Armenian people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like the language of the Persians. W. M. However, unlike shared innovations, the retention of archaisms is not considered conclusive evidence of a period of common isolated development. Some of the terms he gives admittedly have an Akkadian or Sumerian provenance, loan words from Iranian languages, along with the other ancient accounts such as that of Xenophon above, initially led linguists to erroneously classify Armenian as an Iranian language. Scholars such as Paul de Lagarde and F. Müller believed that the similarities between the two meant that Iranian and Armenian were the same language. The distinctness of Armenian was recognized when philologist Heinrich Hübschmann used the method to distinguish two layers of Iranian loans from the older Armenian vocabulary. Meillets hypothesis became popular in the wake of his Esquisse, eric P. Hamp supports the Graeco-Armenian thesis, anticipating even a time when we should speak of Helleno-Armenian. Nevertheless, as Fortson comments, by the time we reach our earliest Armenian records in the 5th century AD, graeco--Aryan is a hypothetical clade within the Indo-European family, ancestral to the Greek language, the Armenian language, and the Indo-Iranian languages. Graeco-Aryan unity would have divided into Proto-Greek and Proto-Indo-Iranian by the mid-third millennium BC
5.
Lydians
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The Lydians were an Anatolian people living in Lydia, a region in western Anatolia, who spoke the distinctive Lydian language, an Indo-European language of the Anatolian group. Questions raised regarding their origins, as defined by the language and reaching well into the 2nd millennium BC, continue to be debated by language historians, the Lydian capital was at Sfard or Sardis. Lydian power came to an end with the fall of their capital in events subsequent to the Battle of Halys in 585 BC. Material in the way of historical accounts of themselves found to date is scarce, herodotus states that the Lydians were the first men whom we know who coined and used gold and silver currency. While this specifically refers to coinage in electrum, some think that coinage per se arose in Lydia. This was the practice for girls not born into nobility. Nevertheless, a breakthrough for the understanding of the Lydian language has not occurred yet. Presently available texts begin around the century and extend until the 2nd century BC, which leads one scholar to conclude, Lydians wrote early. Several expressions on Lydians were in use in ancient Greek and in Latin languages. There are also works of visual arts depicting Lydians and/or using as theme subject matters of Lydian history. Lydia Lydia Lydian Treasure Luvian language
6.
Neo-Babylonian Empire
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The Neo-Babylonian Empire, also known as the Chaldean Empire, was a period of Mesopotamian history which began in 626 BC and ended in 539 BC. During the preceding three centuries, Babylonia had been ruled by their fellow Akkadian speakers and northern neighbours, Assyria, a year after the death of the last strong Assyrian ruler, Assurbanipal, in 627 BC, the Assyrian empire spiralled into a series of brutal civil wars. Babylonia rebelled under Nabopolassar, a member of the Chaldean tribe which had migrated from the Levant to south eastern Babylonia in the early 9th century BC. This period witnessed an improvement in economic life and agricultural production, and a great flourishing of architectural projects. The Neo-Babylonian period ended with the reign of Nabonidus in 539 BC, to the east, the Persians had been growing in strength, and eventually Cyrus the Great conquered the empire. Babylonia was subject to and dominated by Assyria during the Neo-Assyrian period, the Assyrians of Upper Mesopotamia had usually been able to pacify their southern relations through military might, installing puppet kings, or granting increased privileges. Even though Aramaic had become the everyday tongue, Akkadian was retained as the language of administration, archaic expressions from 1500 years earlier were reintroduced in Akkadian inscriptions, along with words in the long-unspoken Sumerian language. Neo-Babylonian cuneiform script was modified to make it look like the old 3rd-millennium BC script of Akkad. Ancient artworks from the heyday of Babylonias imperial glory were treated with reverence and were painstakingly preserved. For example, when a statue of Sargon the Great was found during work, a temple was built for it. The story is told of how Nebuchadnezzar, in his efforts to restore the Temple at Sippar, had to make repeated excavations until he found the foundation deposit of Naram-Sin of Akkad, the discovery then allowed him to rebuild the temple properly. Neo-Babylonians also revived the ancient Sargonid practice of appointing a royal daughter to serve as priestess of the moon-god Sin, much more is known about Mesopotamian culture and economic life under the Neo-Babylonians than about the structure and mechanics of imperial administration. It is clear that for southern Mesopotamia, the Neo-Babylonian period was a renaissance, large tracts of land were opened to cultivation. Peace and imperial power made available to expand the irrigation systems. The Babylonian countryside was dominated by large estates, which were given to government officials as a form of pay, the estates were usually managed by local entrepreneurs, who took a cut of the profits. Rural folk were bound to these estates, providing both labour and rents to their landowners, urban life flourished under the Neo-Babylonians. Cities had local autonomy and received privileges from the kings. Centered on their temples, the cities had their own law courts, free laborers like craftsmen enjoyed high status and a sort of guild system came into existence, which gave them collective bargaining power
7.
Ninus
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Ninus, according to Greek historians writing in the Hellenistic period and later, was accepted as the eponymous founder of Nineveh, ancient capital of Assyria. Many early accomplishments are attributed to him, such as training the first hunting dogs, for this accomplishment, he is sometimes represented in Greek mythology as a centaur. Ctesias account was later expanded on by Diodorus Siculus and he was said to have been the son of Belus or Bel, a name that may represent a Semitic title such as Baal, lord. According to Castor of Rhodes, his reign lasted 52 years, during the siege of Bactra, he met Semiramis, the wife of one of his officers, Onnes, whom he took from her husband and married. The fruit of the marriage was Ninyas, said to have succeeded Ninus and she was further said to have made war on the last remaining independent monarch in Asia, king Stabrobates of India, but was defeated and wounded, abdicating in favour of her son Ninyas. A number of historians, beginning with the Roman Cephalion asserted that Ninus opponent, Ninus was first identified in the Recognitions with the biblical Nimrod, who, the author says, taught the Persians to worship fire. More recently, the identification in Recognitions of Nimrod with Ninus formed a part of Alexander Hislops thesis in the 19th century tract The Two Babylons. The decipherment of a vast quantity of Cuneiform texts has allowed modern Assyriologists to piece together an accurate history of Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, Babylonia. An Assyrian queen Shammuramat is known to be historical, and for five years from 811 BC ruled the Neo-Assyrian Empire as regent for her son Adad-nirari III, and had been the wife of Shamshi-Adad V. The later Hellenic myths surrounding Semiramis are considered by some to be inspired by the novelty of a woman ruling such an empire, another opinion holds that Shamurammat could have been a namesake of an earlier Semiramis, and not necessarily the inspiration for her. Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights Dream has the story of Pyramus and Thisbe as a play-within-a-play, the actors constantly mispronounce the location Ninus Tomb as Ninnys Tomb, though they are corrected initially, and in vain, by director Peter Quince. The story of Ninus and Semiramis is taken up in a different form in a 1st-century AD Hellenistic romance called the Ninus Romance and this claim was highly influential throughout the medieval period into the Early Modern. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh
8.
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
9.
Diodorus Siculus
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Diodorus Siculus or Diodorus of Sicily was a Greek historian. He is known for writing the monumental universal history Bibliotheca historica, much of which survives and it is arranged in three parts. The first covers mythic history up to the destruction of Troy, arranged geographically, describing regions around the world from Egypt, India and Arabia to Greece, the second covers the Trojan War to the death of Alexander the Great. The third covers the period to about 60 BC, Bibliotheca, meaning library, acknowledges that he was drawing on the work of many other authors. According to his own work, he was born at Agyrium in Sicily, with one exception, antiquity affords no further information about his life and doings beyond in his work. Only Jerome, in his Chronicon under the year of Abraham 1968, writes, Diodorus of Sicily and it was divided into three sections. In the next section, he recounts the history of the world from the Trojan War down to the death of Alexander the Great, the last section concerns the historical events from the successors of Alexander down to either 60 BC or the beginning of Julius Caesars Gallic Wars. He selected the name Bibliotheca in acknowledgment that he was assembling a composite work from many sources. His account of gold mining in Nubia in eastern Egypt is one of the earliest extant texts on the topic, pappus of Alexandria wrote a Commentary on Diodoruss Analemma. The now lost Analemma applied geometrical constructions in a plane to solve some astronomy related problems of spherical geometry and it contained, for example, a discussion of sundial theory. They are also boasters and threateners and are fond of pompous language, pliny the Elder Strabo Acadine Ambaglio, Dino, Franca Landucci Gattinoni and Luigi Bravi. Diodoro Siculo, Biblioteca storica, commento storico, introduzione generale, aspects of Greek History 750-323 BC, A Source-based Approach. Library of History, Loeb Classical Library, Siculus, Diodorus, G. Booth, H. Valesius, I. The Historical Library of Diodorus the Sicilian in Fifteen Books to which are added the Fragments of Diodorus, siculi, Diodori, Peter Wesseling, L. Rhodoman, G. Heyn, N. Eyring. Bibliothecae Historicae Libri Qui Supersunt, Nova Editio, Diodorus Siculus, the manuscripts of the Bibliotheca Historica
10.
Assyrian King List
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The list of Assyrian kings is compiled from the Assyrian King List, which begins approximately 2500 BC and continues to the 8th century BC. It begins listing Kings of the Sumero-Akkadian city-state of Assur, Assyria is an ancient civilization in northern Mesopotamia. The Assyrian King List includes regnal lengths that appear to have based on now lost limmu lists. These regnal lengths mostly accord well with Hittite, Babylonian and ancient Egyptian king lists and with the archaeological record and it is somewhat fictional however, as some known kings are not found on the list and other listed kings are not independently verified. An incomplete list of 16 Assyrian kings was also preserved in the literature of Sextus Julius Africanus, other very fragmentary Assyrian king lists have come down to us written by the Greeks and Romans such as Ctesias of Cnidus and the Roman authors Castor of Rhodes and Cephalion. Unlike the cuneiform tablets, the Greek-language list is considered to contain minor historical truths. Some scholars argue further that they are either entire fabrications or fiction, there are three extant cuneiform tablet versions of the Assyrian King List, and two fragments. Scribes then copied the List and added to it over time, before Erishum I the list gives no regnal lengths are given for kings. The following kings are listed from the list of cuneiform tablets, damage to the tablets in all three extant King Lists before Enlil-nasir II prevents the calculation of approximate regnal dates from Erishum I to this point. Additionally, three kings attested elsewhere from this period are not included in the standard King List, the remainder of the King List then has an unbroken chain of regnal lengths from Enlil-nasir II on. Disparities between the different versions of the King List for the reigns of Ashur-nadin-apli and Ninurta-apal-Ekur contribute to the debate over the chronology of the ancient Near East. The dates up to Ninurta-apal-Ekur are subject to debate, as some of the regnal lengths vary over the different versions of the King List. The dates given below are based on Assyrian King Lists B and C and this timeframe is also subject to the overall debate about the chronology of the ancient Near East, the short chronology is used here. Dates from 1179 to 912 BC, although less secure than dates from 911 BC onwards, are not subject to the chronology debate, synchronisms between the limmu lists and absolute dates known from Babylonian chronology provide good absolute dates for the years between 911 BC and 649 BC. The dates for the end of the Assyrian period are uncertain due to the lack of limmu lists after 649 BC. Ctesias, as physician to Artaxerxes II, claimed to have access to the royal historical records. Ctesias list of Assyrian kings was included in his Persica, a work covering the history of Persia, how much of Ctesias king list is factual history is still debated. While most scholars agree large parts are fiction, it is agreed that there is historical truth based on the probability his list was rooted in transmitted oral tradition
11.
Aramaic
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Aramaic is a language or group of languages belonging to the Semitic subfamily of the Afroasiatic language family. More specifically, it is part of the Northwest Semitic group, the Aramaic alphabet was widely adopted for other languages and is ancestral to the Hebrew, Syriac and Arabic alphabets. During its approximately 3000 years of history, Aramaic has served variously as a language of administration of empires, therefore, there is not one singular, static Aramaic language, each time and place rather has had its own variation. The Aramaic languages are now considered endangered, Aram is used as a proper name of several people in the Torah including descendants of Shem, Nahor, and Jacob. Ancient Aram, bordering northern Israel and now called Syria, is considered the epicenter of Aramaic. The language is often considered to have originated within Assyria. Interestingly, the Christian New Testament, for which the constituent texts are written in Koine Greek. The Hellenized Jewish community of Alexandria instead translated Aramaic to the Syrian tongue, a related language, Mlahsô, has recently become extinct. Mandaeans living in the Khuzestan Province of Iran and scattered throughout Iraq and it is quite distinct from any other Aramaic variety. Central Neo-Aramaic consists of Turoyo and the recently extinct Mlahsô, very little remains of Western Aramaic. All these speakers of Modern Western Aramaic are fluent in Arabic, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic and Samaritan Aramaic are preserved in liturgical and literary usage. Each dialect of Aramaic has its own pronunciation, and it would not be feasible here to go into all these properties. Aramaic has a palette of 25 to 40 distinct phonemes. The open vowel is an open near-front unrounded vowel and it usually has a back counterpart, and a front counterpart. There is much correspondence between these vowels between dialects, there is some evidence that Middle Babylonian dialects did not distinguish between the short a and short e. In West Syriac dialects, and possibly Middle Galilean, the long a became the o sound, the open e and back a are often indicated in writing by the use of the letters א alaph or ה he. The close front vowel is the long i and it has a slightly more open counterpart, the long e, as in the final vowel of café. Both of these have shorter counterparts, which tend to be pronounced more open
12.
Assyrian people
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Assyrian people, or Syriacs, are an ethnic group indigenous to the Middle East. Some of them self-identify as Chaldeans, or as Arameans and they speak modern Aramaic, whose subdivisions include Northeastern, Central, and Western Neo-Aramaic, as well as another language, dependent on the country of residence. The Assyrians are typically Syriac-speaking Christians who claim descent from Assyria, one of the oldest civilizations in the world, the areas that form the Assyrian homeland are parts of present-day northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran and northeastern Syria. The majority have migrated to regions of the world, including North America, the Levant, Australia, Europe, Russia. Assyrians are predominantly Christian, mostly adhering to the East and West Syrian liturgical rites of Christianity, whereas the churches of the West Syrian rite, the Syriac Orthodox Church and Syriac Catholic Church, mostly speak the Central and Western branches. According to a 2013 report by a Chaldean Syriac Assyrian Popular Council official, in prehistoric times, the region that was to become known as Assyria was home to Neanderthals such as the remains of those which have been found at the Shanidar Cave. The earliest Neolithic sites in Assyria belonged to the Jarmo culture c.7100 BC and Tell Hassuna, the history of Assyria begins with the formation of the city of Assur perhaps as early as the 25th century BC. The Assyrian king list records kings dating from the 25th century BC onwards, the earliest being Tudiya, who was a contemporary of Ibrium of Ebla. However, many of early kings would have been local rulers. In the traditions of the Assyrian Church of the East, they are descended from Abrahams grandson, however, there is no historical basis for the biblical assertion whatsoever, there is no mention in Assyrian records. The Assyrian people, after the fall of their empire, fell under foreign domination ever since, the Persian Empire was founded, which consumed the entire Neo-Babylonian or Chaldean Empire in 539 BC. Assyrians became front line soldiers for the Persian Empire under Xerxes I, the Assyrian army accounted for three legions of the Roman army, defending the Parthian border. In the 1st century, it was the Assyrian army that enabled Vespasians coup, from the later 2nd century, the Roman Senate included several notable Assyrians, including Tiberius Claudius Pompeianus and Avidius Cassius. From the 1st century BC, Assyria was the theatre of the protracted Roman–Persian Wars and it would become a Roman province from 116 to 363 AD. Despite the influx of foreign elements, the presence of Assyrians is confirmed by the worship of the god Ashur, the Greeks, Parthians, and Romans had a rather low-level of integration with the local population in Mesopotamia, which allowed their cultures to survive. The Assyrians were Christianized in the first to third centuries in Roman Syria, the population of the Sasanian province of Asōristān was a mixed one, composed of Assyrians, Arameans in the far south and the western deserts, and Persians. The Greek element in the cities, still strong during the Parthian Empire, the majority of the population were Eastern Aramaic speakers. Along with the Arameans, Armenians, Greeks, and Nabataeans, the Council of Seleucia of ca.325 dealt with jurisdictional conflicts among the leading bishops
13.
Shamshi-Adad V
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Shamshi-Adad V was the King of Assyria from 824 to 811 BC. He was named after the god Adad, who is known as Hadad. Shamshi-Adad was a son and successor of King Shalmaneser III, the husband of Queen Shammuramat, and the father of Adad-nirari III and he was also a grandfather of Shalmaneser IV. The first years of Shamshi-Adads reign saw a struggle for the succession of the aged Shalmaneser. The revolt was led by Shamshi-Adads brother Assur-danin-pal, and had broken out already by 826 BC, the rebellious brother, according to Shamshi-Adads own inscriptions, succeeded in bringing to his side 27 important cities, including Nineveh. The rebellion lasted until 820 BC, weakening the Assyrian empire and its ruler, later in his reign, Shamshi-Adad campaigned against Southern Mesopotamia, and stipulated a treaty with the Babylonian king Marduk-zakir-shumi I. In 814 BCE, he won the Battle of Dur-Papsukkal against the Babylonian king Marduk-balassu-iqbi, and a few Aramean tribes settled in Babylonia
14.
Neo-Assyrian Empire
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The Neo-Assyrian Empire was an Iron Age Mesopotamian empire, in existence between 911 and 612 BC. The Assyrians perfected early techniques of imperial rule, many of which became standard in later empires, the Neo-Assyrian Empire succeeded the Old Assyrian Empire, and the Middle Assyrian Empire of the Late Bronze Age. During this period, Aramaic was also made a language of the empire. Upon the death of Ashurbanipal in 627 BC, the empire began to due to a brutal. In 616 BC, Cyaxares king of the Medes and Persians made alliances with Nabopolassar ruler of the Babylonians and Chaldeans, Assyria was originally an Akkadian kingdom which evolved in the 25th to 24th centuries BC. The urbanised Akkadian speaking nation of Assyria emerged in the mid 21st century BC, during the 20th century BC, it established colonies in Asia Minor, and under the 20th century BC King Ilushuma, Assyria conducted many successful raids against the states of the south. Ashur-uballit extended Assyrian control over the farming lands of Nineveh. Tiglath-Pileser controlled the caravan routes that crossed the fertile crescent from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. Much campaigning by Tiglath-Pileser and succeeding kings was directed against Aramaean pastoralist groups in Syria, by the end of the 2nd millennium BC, the Aramaean expansion had resulted in the loss of much Assyrian territory in Upper Mesopotamia. After the death of Tiglath-Pileser I in 1076 BC, Assyria was in decline for the next 150 years. The period from 1200 BC to 900 BC was an age for the entire Near East, North Africa, Caucasus, Mediterranean and Balkan regions, with great upheavals. Adad-nirari II and his successors campaigned on a basis for part of every year with an exceptionally well-organized army. He subjugated the areas previously under only nominal Assyrian vassalage, conquering and deporting Aramean and Hurrian populations in the north to far-off places. Adadinirari II then twice attacked and defeated Shamash-mudammiq of Babylonia, annexing an area of land north of the Diyala river. He made further gains over Babylonia under Nabu-shuma-ukin I later in his reign and he was succeeded by Tukulti-Ninurta II in 891 BC, who further consolidated Assyrias position and expanded northwards into Asia Minor and the Zagros Mountains during his short reign. The next king, Ashurnasirpal II, embarked on a vast program of expansion, during his rule, Assyria recovered much of the territory that it had lost around 1100 BC at the end of the Middle Assyrian period. Ashurnasirpal II also campaigned in the Zagros Mountains in modern Iran, repressing a revolt against Assyrian rule by the Lullubi, the Assyrians began boasting in their ruthlessness around this time. Ashurnasirpal II also moved his capital to the city of Kalhu, the palaces, temples and other buildings raised by him bear witness to a considerable development of wealth and art
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Adad-nirari III
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Adad-nirari III was a King of Assyria from 811 to 783 BC. It is widely rejected that his mother acted as regent, and he was the father of kings Ashur-nirari V, Shalmaneser IV, and Ashur-dan III. Tiglath-Pileser III described himself as a son of Adad-nirari in his inscriptions, according to Adad-niraris inscriptions, he led several military campaigns with the purpose of regaining the strength Assyria enjoyed in the times of his grandfather Shalmaneser III. According to the canon, he campaigned in all directions until the last of his 18 years of reign. Despite Adad-niraris vigor, Assyria entered a several decades long period of following his death
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Iraq
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The capital, and largest city, is Baghdad. The main ethnic groups are Arabs and Kurds, others include Assyrians, Turkmen, Shabakis, Yazidis, Armenians, Mandeans, Circassians, around 95% of the countrys 36 million citizens are Muslims, with Christianity, Yarsan, Yezidism, and Mandeanism also present. The official languages of Iraq are Arabic and Kurdish, two major rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, run south through Iraq and into the Shatt al-Arab near the Persian Gulf. These rivers provide Iraq with significant amounts of fertile land, the region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, historically known as Mesopotamia, is often referred to as the cradle of civilisation. It was here that mankind first began to read, write, create laws, the area has been home to successive civilisations since the 6th millennium BC. Iraq was the centre of the Akkadian, Sumerian, Assyrian and it was also part of the Median, Achaemenid, Hellenistic, Parthian, Sassanid, Roman, Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, Ayyubid, Mongol, Safavid, Afsharid, and Ottoman empires. Iraqs modern borders were mostly demarcated in 1920 by the League of Nations when the Ottoman Empire was divided by the Treaty of Sèvres, Iraq was placed under the authority of the United Kingdom as the British Mandate of Mesopotamia. A monarchy was established in 1921 and the Kingdom of Iraq gained independence from Britain in 1932, in 1958, the monarchy was overthrown and the Iraqi Republic created. Iraq was controlled by the Arab Socialist Baath Party from 1968 until 2003, after an invasion by the United States and its allies in 2003, Saddam Husseins Baath Party was removed from power and multi-party parliamentary elections were held in 2005. The American presence in Iraq ended in 2011, but the Iraqi insurgency continued and intensified as fighters from the Syrian Civil War spilled into the country, the Arabic name العراق al-ʿIrāq has been in use since before the 6th century. There are several suggested origins for the name, one dates to the Sumerian city of Uruk and is thus ultimately of Sumerian origin, as Uruk was the Akkadian name for the Sumerian city of Urug, containing the Sumerian word for city, UR. An Arabic folk etymology for the name is rooted, well-watered. During the medieval period, there was a region called ʿIrāq ʿArabī for Lower Mesopotamia and ʿIrāq ʿajamī, for the region now situated in Central and Western Iran. The term historically included the south of the Hamrin Mountains. The term Sawad was also used in early Islamic times for the region of the plain of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. In English, it is either /ɪˈrɑːk/ or /ɪˈræk/, the American Heritage Dictionary, the pronunciation /aɪˈræk/ is frequently heard in U. S. media. Since approximately 10,000 BC, Iraq was one of centres of a Caucasoid Neolithic culture where agriculture, the following Neolithic period is represented by rectangular houses. At the time of the pre-pottery Neolithic, people used vessels made of stone, gypsum, finds of obsidian tools from Anatolia are evidences of early trade relations
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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
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Turkey
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Turkey, officially the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country in Eurasia, mainly in Anatolia in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary, parliamentary republic with a cultural heritage. The country is encircled by seas on three sides, the Aegean Sea is to the west, the Black Sea to the north, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. The Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles, Ankara is the capital while Istanbul is the countrys largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Approximately 70-80% of the countrys citizens identify themselves as ethnic Turks, other ethnic groups include legally recognised and unrecognised minorities. Kurds are the largest ethnic minority group, making up approximately 20% of the population, the area of Turkey has been inhabited since the Paleolithic by various ancient Anatolian civilisations, as well as Assyrians, Greeks, Thracians, Phrygians, Urartians and Armenians. After Alexander the Greats conquest, the area was Hellenized, a process continued under the Roman Empire. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, the empire reached the peak of its power in the 16th century, especially during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. During the war, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian, Assyrian, following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states. Turkey is a member of the UN, an early member of NATO. Turkeys growing economy and diplomatic initiatives have led to its recognition as a regional power while her location has given it geopolitical, the name of Turkey is based on the ethnonym Türk. The first recorded use of the term Türk or Türük as an autonym is contained in the Old Turkic inscriptions of the Göktürks of Central Asia, the English name Turkey first appeared in the late 14th century and is derived from Medieval Latin Turchia. Similarly, the medieval Khazar Empire, a Turkic state on the shores of the Black. The medieval Arabs referred to the Mamluk Sultanate as al-Dawla al-Turkiyya, the Ottoman Empire was sometimes referred to as Turkey or the Turkish Empire among its European contemporaries. The Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world, various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period. Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family, in fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated. The European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has also been inhabited since at least forty years ago. It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date, the settlement of Troy started in the Neolithic Age and continued into the Iron Age
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Iran
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Iran, also known as Persia, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, is a sovereign state in Western Asia. Comprising a land area of 1,648,195 km2, it is the second-largest country in the Middle East, with 82.8 million inhabitants, Iran is the worlds 17th-most-populous country. It is the country with both a Caspian Sea and an Indian Ocean coastline. The countrys central location in Eurasia and Western Asia, and its proximity to the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran is the countrys capital and largest city, as well as its leading economic and cultural center. Iran is the site of to one of the worlds oldest civilizations, the area was first unified by the Iranian Medes in 625 BC, who became the dominant cultural and political power in the region. The empire collapsed in 330 BC following the conquests of Alexander the Great, under the Sassanid Dynasty, Iran again became one of the leading powers in the world for the next four centuries. Beginning in 633 AD, Arabs conquered Iran and largely displaced the indigenous faiths of Manichaeism and Zoroastrianism by Islam, Iran became a major contributor to the Islamic Golden Age that followed, producing many influential scientists, scholars, artists, and thinkers. During the 18th century, Iran reached its greatest territorial extent since the Sassanid Empire, through the late 18th and 19th centuries, a series of conflicts with Russia led to significant territorial losses and the erosion of sovereignty. Popular unrest culminated in the Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1906, which established a monarchy and the countrys first legislative body. Following a coup instigated by the U. K. Growing dissent against foreign influence and political repression led to the 1979 Revolution, Irans rich cultural legacy is reflected in part by its 21 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the third-largest number in Asia and 11th-largest in the world. Iran is a member of the UN, ECO, NAM, OIC. Its political system is based on the 1979 Constitution which combines elements of a democracy with a theocracy governed by Islamic jurists under the concept of a Supreme Leadership. A multicultural country comprising numerous ethnic and linguistic groups, most inhabitants are Shia Muslims, the largest ethnic groups in Iran are the Persians, Azeris, Kurds and Lurs. Historically, Iran has been referred to as Persia by the West, due mainly to the writings of Greek historians who called Iran Persis, meaning land of the Persians. As the most extensive interactions the Ancient Greeks had with any outsider was with the Persians, however, Persis was originally referred to a region settled by Persians in the west shore of Lake Urmia, in the 9th century BC. The settlement was then shifted to the end of the Zagros Mountains. In 1935, Reza Shah requested the international community to refer to the country by its native name, opposition to the name change led to the reversal of the decision, and Professor Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, propagated a move to use Persia and Iran interchangeably
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Monument
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The term monument is often applied to buildings or structures that are considered examples of important architectural and/or cultural heritage. Monuments have been created for thousands of years, and they are often the most durable, in more recent times, monumental structures such as the Statue of Liberty and Eiffel Tower have become iconic emblems of modern nation-states. The term monumentality relates to the status and physical presence of a monument. Monuments are frequently used to improve the appearance of a city or location, planned cities such as Washington D. C. New Delhi and Brasília are often built around monuments, for example, the Washington Monuments location was conceived by LEnfant to help organize public space in the city, before it was designed or constructed. Older cities have monuments placed at locations that are important or are sometimes redesigned to focus on one. As Shelley suggested in his famous poem Ozymandias, the purpose of monuments is often to impress or awe. Structures created for purposes that have been made notable by their age. This can happen because of age and size, as in the case of the Great Wall of China. Monuments are also designed to convey historical or political information. They can be used to reinforce the primacy of political power. The social meanings of monuments are rarely fixed and certain and are contested by different social groups. This contention of meaning is a theme of modern post processual archaeological discourse. Until recently, it was customary for archaeologists to study large monuments, New ideas about what constitutes the archaeological record have revealed that certain legislative and theoretical approaches to the subject are too focused on earlier definitions of monuments. An example has been the United Kingdoms Scheduled Ancient Monument laws, recently, more and more monuments are being preserved digitally through organisations as CyArk. Cenotaphs and other memorials to commemorate the dead, usually war casualties, e. g. India Gate and Vimy Ridge Memorial, or disaster casualties, such as the Titanic Memorial, Belfast. Church monuments to commemorate the dead, located above or near their grave, often featuring an effigy, columns, often topped with a statue, e. g. Berlin Victory Column, Nelsons Column in London, and Trajans Column in Rome. Gravestones, small monuments to the deceased, placed at their gravesites, e. g. the tombs and vaults of veterans in Les Invalides, mausoleums and tombs to honor the dead, e. g. the Great Pyramid of Giza and Taj Mahal
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Western Asia
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Western Asia, West Asia, Southwestern Asia or Southwest Asia is the westernmost subregion of Asia. The concept is in limited use, as it overlaps with the Middle East. The term is used for the purposes of grouping countries in statistics. The total population of Western Asia is an estimated 300 million as of 2015, in an unrelated context, the term is also used in ancient history and archaeology to divide the Fertile Crescent into the Asiatic or Western Asian cultures as opposed to ancient Egypt. As a geographic concept, Western Asia almost always includes the Levant, Mesopotamia, the term is used pragmatically and has no correct or generally agreed-upon definition. In contrast to this definition, the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation in its 2015 yearbook also includes Armenia and Azerbaijan, unlike the UNIDO, the United Nations Statistics Division excludes Iran from Western Asia and include Turkey, Georgia, and Cyprus in the region. These four countries are listed in the European category of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, the Olympic Council of Asias multi-sport event West Asian Games are contested by athletes representing these thirteen countries. Among the regions sports organisations are the West Asia Basketball Association, West Asian Billiards and Snooker Federation, West Asian Football Federation, Western Asia was in use as a geographical term in the early 19th century, even before Near East became current as a geopolitical concept. Use of the term in the context of contemporary geopolitics or world economy appears to date from the 1960s, Western Asia is located directly south of Eastern Europe. The region is surrounded by seven major seas, the Aegean Sea, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea. The Dasht-e Kavir and Dasht-e Lut deserts in eastern Iran naturally delimit the region somewhat from Asia itself, three major tectonic plates converge on Western Asia, including the African, Eurasian, and Arabian plates. The boundaries between the plates make up the Azores-Gibraltar Ridge, extending across North Africa, the Red Sea. The Arabian Plate is moving northward into the Anatolian plate at the East Anatolian Fault, several major aquifers provide water to large portions of Western Asia. In Saudi Arabia, two large aquifers of Palaeozoic and Triassic origins are located beneath the Jabal Tuwayq mountains and areas west to the Red Sea. Cretaceous and Eocene-origin aquifers are located beneath large portions of central and eastern Saudi Arabia, including Wasia, flood or furrow irrigation, as well as sprinkler methods, are extensively used for irrigation, covering nearly 90,000 km² across Western Asia for agriculture. Western Asia is primarily arid and semi-arid, and can be subject to drought, the region consists of grasslands, rangelands, deserts, and mountains. Water shortages are a problem in parts of West Asia, with rapidly growing populations increasing demands for water. Major rivers, including the Tigris and Euphrates, provide sources for water to support agriculture
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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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Euphrates
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The Euphrates is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia, originating in eastern Turkey, the Euphrates flows through Syria and Iraq to join the Tigris in the Shatt al-Arab, which empties into the Persian Gulf. The Ancient Greek form Euphrátēs was borrowed from Old Persian Ufrātu, the Elamite name is ultimately derived from the Sumerian Buranuna, possibly through the Akkadian name. In Akkadian the river was similarly called Purattu, which has been perpetuated in Semitic languages, the Elamite, Akkadian, and possibly Sumerian forms are suggested to be from an unrecorded substrate language. The earliest references to the Euphrates come from texts found in Shuruppak and pre-Sargonic Nippur in southern Iraq. In these texts, written in Sumerian, the Euphrates is called Buranuna, the name could also be written KIB. NUN. or dKIB. NUN, with the prefix d indicating that the river was a divinity. In Sumerian, the name of the city of Sippar in modern-day Iraq was also a written UD. KIB. NUN, the Euphrates is the longest river of Western Asia. It emerges from the confluence of the Kara Su or Western Euphrates, the same figures are given by Isaev and Mikhailova. The length of the Shatt al-Arab, which connects the Euphrates, both the Kara Su and the Murat Su rise northwest from Lake Van at elevations of 3,290 metres and 3,520 metres amsl, respectively. At the location of the Keban Dam, the two rivers, now combined into the Euphrates, have dropped to an elevation of 693 metres amsl, from Keban to the Syrian–Turkish border, the river drops another 368 metres over a distance of less than 600 kilometres. The Euphrates receives most of its water in the form of rainfall and melting snow, discharge in these two months accounts for 36 percent of the total annual discharge of the Euphrates, or even 60–70 percent according to one source, while low runoff occurs in summer and autumn. The discharge regime of the Euphrates has changed dramatically since the construction of the first dams in the 1970s, data on Euphrates discharge collected after 1990 show the impact of the construction of the numerous dams in the Euphrates and of the increased withdrawal of water for irrigation. Average discharge at Hīt after 1990 has dropped to 356 cubic metres per second, the seasonal variability has equally changed. The pre-1990 peak volume recorded at Hīt was 7,510 cubic metres per second, the minimum volume at Hīt remained relatively unchanged, rising from 55 cubic metres per second before 1990 to 58 cubic metres per second afterward. In Syria, three rivers add their water to the Euphrates, the Sajur, the Balikh and the Khabur and these rivers rise in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains along the Syro–Turkish border and add comparatively little water to the Euphrates. The Sajur is the smallest of these tributaries, emerging from two streams near Gaziantep and draining the plain around Manbij before emptying into the reservoir of the Tishrin Dam. The Balikh receives most of its water from a spring near Ayn al-Arus. In terms of length, drainage basin and discharge, the Khabur is the largest of these three and its main karstic springs are located around Ras al-Ayn, from where the Khabur flows southeast past Al-Hasakah, where the river turns south and drains into the Euphrates near Busayrah
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Behistun Inscription
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The Behistun Inscription is a multilingual inscription and large rock relief on a cliff at Mount Behistun in the Kermanshah Province of Iran, near the city of Kermanshah in western Iran. It was crucial to the decipherment of cuneiform script, Darius the Great proclaimed himself victorious in all battles during the period of upheaval, attributing his success to the grace of Ahura Mazda. The inscription includes three versions of the text, written in three different cuneiform script languages, Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian. The inscription is to cuneiform what the Rosetta Stone is to Egyptian hieroglyphs, the inscription is approximately 15 metres high by 25 metres wide and 100 metres up a limestone cliff from an ancient road connecting the capitals of Babylonia and Media. The Old Persian text contains 414 lines in five columns, the Elamite text includes 593 lines in eight columns, and the Babylonian text is in 112 lines. The inscription was illustrated by a life-sized bas-relief of Darius I, the supine figure is reputed to be the pretender Gaumata. Darius is attended to the left by two servants, and nine one-meter figures stand to the right, with hands tied and rope around their necks, faravahar floats above, giving his blessing to the king. One figure appears to have been added after the others were completed, as was Dariuss beard, the inscription is mentioned by Ctesias of Cnidus, who noted its existence some time around 400 BC and mentioned a well and a garden beneath the inscription. He incorrectly concluded that the inscription had been dedicated by Queen Semiramis of Babylon to Zeus, tacitus also mentions it and includes a description of some of the long-lost ancillary monuments at the base of the cliff, including an altar to Herakles. What has been recovered of them, including a dedicated in 148 BC, is consistent with Tacituss description. Diodorus also writes of Bagistanon and claims it was inscribed by Semiramis. A legend began around Mount Behistun, as written about by the Persian poet and writer Ferdowsi in his Shahnameh c. 1000, about a man named Farhad, who was a lover of King Khosrows wife, Shirin. The legend states that, exiled for his transgression, Farhad was given the task of cutting away the mountain to find water, if he succeeded, he would be given permission to marry Shirin. After many years and the removal of half the mountain, he did find water and he went mad, threw his axe down the hill, kissed the ground and died. It is told in the book of Khosrow and Shirin that his axe was made out of a tree, and, where he threw the axe. Shirin was not dead, according to the story, and mourned upon hearing the news, in 1598, the Englishman Robert Sherley saw the inscription during a diplomatic mission to Persia on behalf of Austria, and brought it to the attention of Western European scholars. His party incorrectly came to the conclusion that it was Christian in origin, french General Gardanne thought it showed Christ and his twelve apostles, and Sir Robert Ker Porter thought it represented the Lost Tribes of Israel and Shalmaneser of Assyria. Italian explorer Pietro della Valle visited the inscription in the course of a pilgrimage in around 1621, German surveyor Carsten Niebuhr visited in around 1764 for Frederick V of Denmark, publishing a copy of the inscription in the account of his journeys in 1778
25.
Darius I
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Darius I was the third king of the Persian Achaemenid Empire. Darius ascended the throne by overthrowing Gaumata, the alleged magus usurper of Bardiya with the assistance of six other Persian noble families, the new king met with rebellions throughout his kingdom and quelled them each time. A major event in Dariuss life was his expedition to punish Athens and Eretria for their aid in the Ionian Revolt, Darius organized the empire by dividing it into provinces and placing satraps to govern it. He organized a new monetary system, along with making Aramaic the official language of the empire. He also put the empire in better standing by building roads and introducing standard weights, through these changes the empire was centralized and unified. Darius also worked on projects throughout the empire, focusing on Susa, Pasargadae, Persepolis, Babylon. He had the cliff-face Behistun Inscription carved to record his conquests, Darius is mentioned in the Biblical books of Haggai, Zechariah, and Ezra–Nehemiah. The Achaemenid Empire during Darius reign controlled the largest fraction of the population of any empire in history. Based on historical estimates, Darius I ruled over approximately 50 million people. Dārīus and Dārēus are the Latin forms of the Greek Dareîos, itself from Old Persian Dārayavauš, the longer form is also seen to have been reflected in the Elamite Da-ri-a-ma-u-iš, Babylonian Da-ri-ia-muš, Aramaic drywhwš, and possibly the longer Greek form Dareiaîos. The name is a nominative form meaning he who holds firm the good, which can be seen by the first part dāraya, meaning holder, and the adverb vau, meaning goodness. At some time between his coronation and his death, Darius left a tri-lingual monumental relief on Mount Behistun, the inscription begins with a brief autobiography including his ancestry and lineage. To aid the presentation of his ancestry, Darius wrote down the sequence of events occurred after the death of Cyrus the Great. Darius mentions several times that he is the king by the grace of Ahura Mazda. Herodotus, a Greek historian and author of The Histories, provided an account of many Persian kings and he wrote extensively on Darius, spanning half of Book 3 along with Books 4,5 and 6. It begins with the removal of the alleged usurper Gaumata and continues to the end of Dariuss reign, in the book of Daniel the kings name changes from king of the Chaldeans = Babylonians to king of the Persians which also occurred between the kingships of Darius I and Xerxes. Additionally the 120 satraps mentioned in Daniel 6,1 can be translated as 20 tribute owing satraps, the Book of Ezra describes the decree to continue reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, specifying financial support and supplies for the temple services. This decree is dated approximately 519 BCE, between Cyrus and Darius, an exchange of letters with King Ahasuerus and Artaxerxes is described, the grandson of Darius I, during whose reign Ezra and Nehemiah came to Jerusalem
26.
Herodotus
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Herodotus was a Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus in the Persian Empire and lived in the fifth century BC, a contemporary of Socrates. The Histories is the work which he is known to have produced. Despite Herodotus historical significance, little is known of his personal life and his place in history and his significance may be understood according to the traditions within which he worked. His work is the earliest Greek prose to have survived intact, of these only fragments of Hecataeuss work survive yet they allow us glimpses into the kind of tradition within which Herodotus wrote his own Histories. In his introduction to Hecataeus’s work, Genealogies, This points forward to the ‘folksy’ yet ‘international’ outlook typical of Herodotus. Yet, one scholar has described the work of Hecataeus as “a curious false start to history” since despite his critical spirit. It is possible that Herodotus borrowed much material from Hecataeus, as stated by Porphyry in a recorded by Eusebius. But Hecataeus did not record events that had occurred in living memory, unlike Herodotus, Herodotus claims to be better informed than his predecessors by relying on empirical observation to correct their excessive schematism. For example, He argues for continental asymmetry as opposed to the theory of a perfectly circular earth with Europe. Yet, he retains idealizing tendencies, as in his notions of the Danube. His debt to previous authors of prose ‘histories’ might be questionable, however, this point is one of the most contentious issues in modern scholarship. It is on account of the strange stories and the folk-tales he reported that his critics in early modern times branded him “The Father of Lies”. Even his own contemporaries found reason to scoff at his achievement, similarly, the Athenian historian Thucydides dismissed Herodotus as a “logos-writer”. Moreover, Thucydides developed a historical topic more in keeping with the Greek world-view, the interplay of civilizations was more relevant to Greeks living in Anatolia, such as Herodotus himself, for whom life within a foreign civilization was a recent memory. Modern scholars generally turn to Herodotus’s own writing for reliable information about his life, supplemented with ancient yet much later sources, modern accounts of his life typically go something like this, Herodotus was born at Halicarnassus around 484 BC. His name is not mentioned later in the tribute list of the Athenian Delian League, the epic poet Panyassis – a relative of Herodotus – is reported to have taken part in a failed uprising. Herodotus expresses affection for the island of Samos, and this is an indication that he might have lived there in his youth. So it is possible that his family was involved in an uprising against Lygdamis, leading to a period of exile on Samos, Herodotus wrote his Histories in the Ionian dialect, yet he was born in Halicarnassus, which was a Dorian settlement
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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
28.
Medes
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The Medes were an ancient Iranian people who lived in an area known as Media and who spoke the Median language. This allowed new peoples to pass through and settle, in addition Elam, the dominant power in Iran, was suffering a period of severe weakness, as was Babylonia to the west. During the reign of Sinsharishkun the Assyrian empire, which had been in a state of constant civil war since 626 BC, subject peoples, such as the Medes, Babylonians, Chaldeans, Egyptians, Scythians, Cimmerians, Lydians and Arameans quietly ceased to pay tribute to Assyria. The Median kingdom was conquered in 550 BC by Cyrus the Great. However, nowadays there is doubt whether a united Median empire ever existed. There is no evidence and the story of Herodotus is not supported by sources from the Neo-Assyrian Empire nor the Neo-Babylonian Empire. A few archaeological sites and textual sources provide a documentation of the history. Apart from a few names, the language of the Medes is unknown. The Medes had an Ancient Iranian Religion with a priesthood named as Magi, later during the reigns of the last Median kings, the reforms of Zoroaster spread into western Iran. Besides Ecbatana, the other existing in Media were Laodicea. The fourth city of Media was Apamea, near Ecbatana, whose location is now unknown. According to the Histories of Herodotus, there were six Median tribes, Thus Deioces collected the Medes into a nation, now these are the tribes of which they consist, the Busae, the Paretaceni, the Struchates, the Arizanti, the Budii, and the Magi. The six Median tribes resided in Media proper, the triangular shaped area between Ecbatana, Rhagae and Aspadana, in modern Iran, that is the area between Tehran, Isfahan and Hamadan. Of the Median tribes, the Magi resided in Rhaga, modern Tehran and it was a type of sacred caste, which ministered to the spiritual needs of the Medes. The Paretaceni tribe resided in and around Aspadana, modern Isfahan, the Arizanti lived in and around Kashan, the Struchates and the Budii lived in villages in the Median triangle. The original source for different words used to call the Median people, their language, the meaning of this word is not precisely established. The Median people are mentioned by name in many ancient texts. According to the Histories of Herodotus, The Medes were called anciently by all people Aryans, but when Medea, such is the account which they themselves give
29.
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
30.
Arabian Peninsula
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The Arabian Peninsula, simplified Arabia is a peninsula of Western Asia situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian plate. From a geological perspective, it is considered a subcontinent of Asia and it is the largest peninsula in the world, at 3,237,500 km2. The Arabian Peninsula consists of the countries Yemen, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the Arabian Peninsula plays a critical geopolitical role in the Middle East and the Arab world due to its vast reserves of oil and natural gas. Before the modern era, it was divided into four regions, Hejaz, Najd, Southern Arabia. Hejaz and Najd make up most of Saudi Arabia, Southern Arabia consists of Yemen and some parts of Saudi Arabia and Oman. Eastern Arabia consists of the coastal strip of the Persian Gulf. The most prominent feature of the peninsula is desert, but in the southwest there are mountain ranges, harrat ash Shaam is a large volcanic field that extends from the northwestern Arabian Peninsula into Jordan and southern Syria. The peninsulas constituent countries are Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the island nation of Bahrain lies off the east coast of the peninsula. Six countries form the Gulf Cooperation Council, however, this is a disputed term. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia covers the part of the peninsula. The majority of the population of the live in Saudi Arabia. The peninsula contains the worlds largest reserves of oil, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are economically the wealthiest in the region. Qatar, a peninsula in the Persian Gulf on the larger peninsula, is home of the Arabic-language television station Al Jazeera. Kuwait, on the border with Iraq, is an important country strategically, though historically lightly populated, political Arabia is noted for a high population growth rate - as the result of both very strong inflows of migrant labor as well as sustained high birth rates. The population tends to be young and heavily skewed gender ratio dominated by males. In many states, the number of South Asians exceeds that of the local citizenry, the four smallest states, which have their entire coastlines on the Persian Gulf, exhibit the worlds most extreme population growth, roughly tripling every 20 years. In 2014, the population of the Arabian Peninsula was 77,983,936. Listed here are the human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups in Arabia Haplogroup J is the most abundant component in the Arabian peninsula and its two main subclades, show opposite latitudinal gradients in the Middle East
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Caucasus
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The Caucasus /ˈkɔːkəsəs/ or Caucasia /kɔːˈkeɪʒə/ is a region at the border of Europe and Asia, situated between the Black and the Caspian seas. It is home to the Caucasus Mountains, which contain Europes highest mountain, politically, the Caucasus region is separated between northern and southern parts. The southern parts consist of independent sovereign states, and the parts are under the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation. The region is known for its diversity, aside from Indo-European and Turkic languages, the Kartvelian, Northwest Caucasian. Pliny the Elders Natural History derives the name of the Caucasus from Scythian kroy-khasis, German linguist Paul Kretschmer notes that the Latvian word Kruvesis also means ice. According to German philologists Otto Schrader and Alfons A. Nehring, the South Caucasus region and southern Dagestan were the furthest points of Persian expansions, with areas to the north of Caucasus Mountains practically impregnable. The mythological mountain of Qaf, the worlds highest mountain that ancient lore shrouded in mystery, was said to be situated in this region, therefore, the Caucasus might be associated with the legendary mountain. The Ciscaucasus contains the majority of the Greater Caucasus Mountain range. It includes Southwestern Russia and northern parts of Georgia and Azerbaijan, the Transcaucasus is bordered on the north by Russia, on the west by the Black Sea and Turkey, on the east by the Caspian Sea, and on the south by Iran. It includes the Caucasus Mountains and surrounding lowlands, all of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are in South Caucasus. The main Greater Caucasus range is generally perceived to be the line between Asia and Europe. The highest peak in the Caucasus is Mount Elbrus in the western Ciscaucasus in Russia, the Caucasus is one of the most linguistically and culturally diverse regions on Earth. The nation states that comprise the Caucasus today are the post-Soviet states Georgia, Armenia, three territories in the region claim independence but are recognized as such by only a handful or by no independent states, Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Abkhazia and South Ossetia are recognised by the majority of independent states as part of Georgia, the Russian divisions include Krasnodar Krai, Stavropol Krai, and the autonomous republics of Adygea, Karachay–Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia, Ingushetia, Chechnya, and Dagestan. The region has many different languages and language families, there are more than 50 ethnic groups living in the region. Russian is used as a common language, today the peoples of the Northern and Southern Caucasus tend to be either Eastern Orthodox Christians, Oriental Orthodox Christians, or Sunni Muslims. Shia Islam has had many adherents historically in Azerbaijan, located in the part of the region. Located on the peripheries of Turkey, Iran, and Russia, the region has been an arena for political, military, religious, throughout its history, the Caucasus was usually incorporated into the Iranian world
32.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
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Van, Turkey
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Van is a city in eastern Turkeys Van Province, located on the eastern shore of Lake Van. The city has a history as a major urban area. It has been a city since the first millennium BC, initially as the capital of Urartu in the 9th century BC. It remained an important center of Armenian culture until the Armenian Genocide of 1915, today, Van has a Kurdish majority and a sizeable Turkish minority. The Van Central district stretches over 2,289 square kilometres, archaeological excavations and surveys carried out in Van province indicate that the history of human settlement in this region goes back at least as far as 5000 BC. The Tilkitepe Mound, which is on the shores of Lake Van, under the ancient name of Tushpa, Van was the capital of the Urartian kingdom in the 9th century BC. The early settlement was centered on the bluff now known as Van Castle, close to the edge of Lake Van. Here have been found Urartian cuneiform inscriptions dating to the 8th and 7th centuries BC, in the trilingual Behistun inscription, carved in the order of Darius the Great of Persia, the country referred to as Urartu in Babylonian is called Armenia in Old Persian. The name Van comes from the Urartian Biaina, the region came under the control of the Orontids in the 7th century BC and quickly later the Persians in the mid 6th century BC. The inscription survives in perfect condition and is divided into three columns of 27 lines written in Old Persian, Babylonian, and Elamite. In 331 BC, Van was conquered by Alexander the Great, by the early 2nd century BC it was part of the Kingdom of Armenia. It became an important center during the reign of the Armenian king, Tigranes II, in the early centuries BC, it fell to the emerging Arsacid dynasty of Parthia until the 3rd century AD. However, it fell once to the Arsacid Dynasty of Armenia in this timespan. In the History of Armenia attributed to Movses Khorenatsi, the city is called Tosp, following the fall of the Parthians and the emergence of the Neo-Persian Empire, better known as the Sassanian Empire, the town naturally fell into the possession of the latter. During the over 700 years lasting Roman-Persian Wars, some of the wars razed at or around the location of modern-day Van, decline in Arab power eventually allowed local Armenian rulers to re-emerge, with the Artsruni dynasty soon becoming the most powerful. Initially dependent on the rulers of the Kingdom of Ani, they declared their independence in 908, the kingdom had no specific capital, the court would move as the king transferred his residence from place to place, such as Van city, Vostan, Aghtamar, etc. In 1021 the last king of Vaspurakan, John-Senekerim Artsruni, ceded his kingdom to the Byzantine empire. Incursions by the Seljuk Turks into Vaspurakan started in the 1050s, after their victory in 1071 at the battle of Manzikert the entire region fell under their control
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Neo Assyrian Empire
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The Neo-Assyrian Empire was an Iron Age Mesopotamian empire, in existence between 911 and 612 BC. The Assyrians perfected early techniques of imperial rule, many of which became standard in later empires, the Neo-Assyrian Empire succeeded the Old Assyrian Empire, and the Middle Assyrian Empire of the Late Bronze Age. During this period, Aramaic was also made a language of the empire. Upon the death of Ashurbanipal in 627 BC, the empire began to due to a brutal. In 616 BC, Cyaxares king of the Medes and Persians made alliances with Nabopolassar ruler of the Babylonians and Chaldeans, Assyria was originally an Akkadian kingdom which evolved in the 25th to 24th centuries BC. The urbanised Akkadian speaking nation of Assyria emerged in the mid 21st century BC, during the 20th century BC, it established colonies in Asia Minor, and under the 20th century BC King Ilushuma, Assyria conducted many successful raids against the states of the south. Ashur-uballit extended Assyrian control over the farming lands of Nineveh. Tiglath-Pileser controlled the caravan routes that crossed the fertile crescent from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. Much campaigning by Tiglath-Pileser and succeeding kings was directed against Aramaean pastoralist groups in Syria, by the end of the 2nd millennium BC, the Aramaean expansion had resulted in the loss of much Assyrian territory in Upper Mesopotamia. After the death of Tiglath-Pileser I in 1076 BC, Assyria was in decline for the next 150 years. The period from 1200 BC to 900 BC was an age for the entire Near East, North Africa, Caucasus, Mediterranean and Balkan regions, with great upheavals. Adad-nirari II and his successors campaigned on a basis for part of every year with an exceptionally well-organized army. He subjugated the areas previously under only nominal Assyrian vassalage, conquering and deporting Aramean and Hurrian populations in the north to far-off places. Adadinirari II then twice attacked and defeated Shamash-mudammiq of Babylonia, annexing an area of land north of the Diyala river. He made further gains over Babylonia under Nabu-shuma-ukin I later in his reign and he was succeeded by Tukulti-Ninurta II in 891 BC, who further consolidated Assyrias position and expanded northwards into Asia Minor and the Zagros Mountains during his short reign. The next king, Ashurnasirpal II, embarked on a vast program of expansion, during his rule, Assyria recovered much of the territory that it had lost around 1100 BC at the end of the Middle Assyrian period. Ashurnasirpal II also campaigned in the Zagros Mountains in modern Iran, repressing a revolt against Assyrian rule by the Lullubi, the Assyrians began boasting in their ruthlessness around this time. Ashurnasirpal II also moved his capital to the city of Kalhu, the palaces, temples and other buildings raised by him bear witness to a considerable development of wealth and art
35.
Caucasus Mountains
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The Caucasus Mountains are a mountain system in Eurasia between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea in the Caucasus region. The Caucasus Mountains include the Greater Caucasus in the north and Lesser Caucasus in the south, the Greater Caucasus runs west-northwest to east-southeast, from the Caucasian Natural Reserve in the vicinity of Sochi on the northeastern shore of the Black Sea nearly to Baku on the Caspian Sea. The Lesser Caucasus runs parallel to the Greater about 100 km south, the Greater and Lesser Caucasus ranges are connected by the Likhi Range, and to the west and east of the Likhi Range lie the Colchis Plain and the Kur-Araz Lowland. The Meskheti Range is a part of the Lesser Caucasus system, in the southeast the Aras River separates the Lesser Caucasus from the Talysh Mountains which straddle the border of southeastern Azerbaijan and Iran. The highest peak in the Caucasus range is Mount Elbrus in the Greater Caucasus, Mountains near Sochi hosted part of the 2014 Winter Olympics. Geologically, the Caucasus Mountains belong to a system that extends from southeastern Europe into Asia, the Greater Caucasus Mountains are mainly composed of Cretaceous and Jurassic rocks with the Paleozoic and Precambrian rocks in the higher regions. Some volcanic formations are found throughout the range, on the other hand, the Lesser Caucasus Mountains are formed predominantly of the Paleogene rocks with a much smaller portion of the Jurassic and Cretaceous rocks. The Caucasus Mountains formed largely as the result of a plate collision between the Arabian plate moving northwards with respect to the Eurasian plate. As this happened, the rocks that had been deposited in this basin from the Jurassic to the Miocene were folded to form the Greater Caucasus Mountains. This collision also caused the uplift and the Cenozoic volcanic activity in the Lesser Caucasus Mountains, the entire region is regularly subjected to strong earthquakes from this activity. While the Greater Caucasus Mountains have a mainly folded sedimentary structure, the Javakheti Volcanic Plateau in Georgia and the surrounding volcanic ranges which extend well into central Armenia are some of the youngest features of the region. The Kazbek is no active, but the Elbrus erupted in postglacial times. Contemporary seismic activity is a prominent feature of the region, reflecting active faulting, clusters of seismicity occur in Dagestan and in northern Armenia. Many devastating earthquakes have been documented in historical times, including the Spitak earthquake in December 1988 which destroyed the Gyumri-Vanadzor region of Armenia, europes highest mountain is Mount Elbrus 5,642 m in the Caucasus Mountains. Elbrus is 832 m higher than Mont Blanc, the highest peak in the Alps at 4,810 m, the Caucasus Mountains are defined as the continental divide between Asia and Europe for the region between the Black and Caspian Seas. The table below lists some of the highest peaks of the Caucasus, with the exception of Shkhara, the heights are taken from Soviet 1,50,000 mapping. There are higher and more prominent, but nameless, peaks than some of the peaks included below, the climate of the Caucasus varies both vertically and horizontally. Temperature generally decreases as elevation rises, average annual temperature in Sukhumi, Abkhazia at sea level is 15 °C while on the slopes of Mt. Kazbek at an elevation of 3,700 metres, average annual temperature falls to−6.1 °C
36.
Cyprus
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Cyprus, officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the Eastern Mediterranean and the third largest and third most populous island in the Mediterranean. It is located south of Turkey, west of Syria and Lebanon, northwest of Israel and Palestine, north of Egypt, the earliest known human activity on the island dates to around the 10th millennium BC. Archaeological remains from this include the well-preserved Neolithic village of Khirokitia. Cyprus was settled by Mycenaean Greeks in two waves in the 2nd millennium BC, Cyprus was placed under British administration based on Cyprus Convention in 1878 and formally annexed by Britain in 1914. While Turkish Cypriots made up 18% of the population, the partition of Cyprus and creation of a Turkish state in the north became a policy of Turkish Cypriot leaders, following nationalist violence in the 1950s, Cyprus was granted independence in 1960. On 15 July 1974, a coup détat was staged by Greek Cypriot nationalists and elements of the Greek military junta in an attempt at enosis and these events and the resulting political situation are matters of a continuing dispute. The Cyprus Republic has de jure sovereignty over the island of Cyprus, as well as its territorial sea and exclusive economic area, another nearly 4% of the islands area is covered by the UN buffer zone. The international community considers the part of the island as territory of the Republic of Cyprus occupied by Turkish forces. The occupation is viewed as illegal under law, amounting to illegal occupation of EU territory since Cyprus became a member of the European Union. Cyprus is a major tourist destination in the Mediterranean, on 1 January 2008, the Republic of Cyprus joined the eurozone. The earliest attested reference to Cyprus is the 15th century BC Mycenaean Greek
37.
Greeks
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The Greeks or Hellenes are an ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Albania, Turkey, Sicily, Egypt and, to a lesser extent, other countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world, many of these regions coincided to a large extent with the borders of the Byzantine Empire of the late 11th century and the Eastern Mediterranean areas of ancient Greek colonization. The cultural centers of the Greeks have included Athens, Thessalonica, Alexandria, Smyrna, most ethnic Greeks live nowadays within the borders of the modern Greek state and Cyprus. The Greek genocide and population exchange between Greece and Turkey nearly ended the three millennia-old Greek presence in Asia Minor, other longstanding Greek populations can be found from southern Italy to the Caucasus and southern Russia and Ukraine and in the Greek diaspora communities in a number of other countries. Today, most Greeks are officially registered as members of the Greek Orthodox Church, the Greeks speak the Greek language, which forms its own unique branch within the Indo-European family of languages, the Hellenic. They are part of a group of ethnicities, described by Anthony D. Smith as an archetypal diaspora people. Both migrations occur at incisive periods, the Mycenaean at the transition to the Late Bronze Age, the Mycenaeans quickly penetrated the Aegean Sea and, by the 15th century BC, had reached Rhodes, Crete, Cyprus and the shores of Asia Minor. Around 1200 BC, the Dorians, another Greek-speaking people, followed from Epirus, the Dorian invasion was followed by a poorly attested period of migrations, appropriately called the Greek Dark Ages, but by 800 BC the landscape of Archaic and Classical Greece was discernible. The Greeks of classical antiquity idealized their Mycenaean ancestors and the Mycenaean period as an era of heroes, closeness of the gods. The Homeric Epics were especially and generally accepted as part of the Greek past, as part of the Mycenaean heritage that survived, the names of the gods and goddesses of Mycenaean Greece became major figures of the Olympian Pantheon of later antiquity. The ethnogenesis of the Greek nation is linked to the development of Pan-Hellenism in the 8th century BC, the works of Homer and Hesiod were written in the 8th century BC, becoming the basis of the national religion, ethos, history and mythology. The Oracle of Apollo at Delphi was established in this period, the classical period of Greek civilization covers a time spanning from the early 5th century BC to the death of Alexander the Great, in 323 BC. It is so named because it set the standards by which Greek civilization would be judged in later eras, the Peloponnesian War, the large scale civil war between the two most powerful Greek city-states Athens and Sparta and their allies, left both greatly weakened. Many Greeks settled in Hellenistic cities like Alexandria, Antioch and Seleucia, two thousand years later, there are still communities in Pakistan and Afghanistan, like the Kalash, who claim to be descended from Greek settlers. The Hellenistic civilization was the period of Greek civilization, the beginnings of which are usually placed at Alexanders death. This Hellenistic age, so called because it saw the partial Hellenization of many non-Greek cultures and this age saw the Greeks move towards larger cities and a reduction in the importance of the city-state. These larger cities were parts of the still larger Kingdoms of the Diadochi, Greeks, however, remained aware of their past, chiefly through the study of the works of Homer and the classical authors. An important factor in maintaining Greek identity was contact with barbarian peoples and this led to a strong desire among Greeks to organize the transmission of the Hellenic paideia to the next generation
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Indo-Iranians
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Some scholars now use the term Indo-Iranian to refer to this group, while the term Aryan is used to mean Indo-Iranian by other scholars such as Josef Wiesehofer and Jaakko Häkkinen. Population geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, in his 1994 book The History and Geography of Human Genes, historical linguists broadly estimate that a continuum of Indo-Iranian languages probably began to diverge by 2000 BC, if not earlier, preceding both the Vedic and Iranian cultures. The earliest recorded forms of languages, Vedic Sanskrit and Gathic Avestan, are remarkably similar. The origin and earliest relationship between the Nuristani languages and that of the Iranian and Indo-Aryan groups is complex, two-wave models of Indo-Iranian expansion have been proposed by and Parpola. The Indo-Iranians and their expansion are strongly associated with the Proto-Indo-European invention of the chariot and it is assumed that this expansion spread from the Proto-Indo-European homeland north of the Caspian sea south to the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Iranian plateau, and Northern India. They also expanded into Mesopotamia and Syria and introduced the horse, sumerian texts from EDIIIb Girsu already mention the chariot and Ur III texts mention the horse. Linguistic remains can be found in a Hittite horse-training manual written by one Kikkuli the Mitannian, other evidence is found in references to the names of Mitanni rulers and the gods they swore by in treaties, these remains are found in the archives of the Mitannis neighbors. The time period for this is about 1500 BC, in a treaty between the Hittites and the Mitanni, the deities Mitra, Varuna, Indra, and Nasatya are invoked. Kikkulis horse training text includes technical terms such as aika, tera, panza, satta, the numeral aika one is of particular importance because it places the superstrate in the vicinity of Indo-Aryan proper as opposed to Indo-Iranian or early Iranian in general. The standard model for the entry of the Indo-European languages into South Asia is that this first wave went over the Hindu Kush, either into the headwaters of the Indus, the earliest stratum of Vedic Sanskrit, preserved only in the Rigveda, is assigned to roughly 1500 BC. From the Indus, the Indo-Aryan languages spread from c.1500 BC to c.500 BC, over the northern and central parts of the subcontinent, sparing the extreme south. The Indo-Aryans in these areas established several kingdoms and principalities in the region. The latter lasted until the 4th century BC, when it was conquered by Chandragupta Maurya, in eastern Afghanistan and southwestern Pakistan, whatever Indo-Aryan languages were spoken there were eventually pushed out by the Iranian languages. Most Indo-Aryan languages, however, were and still are prominent in the rest of the Indian subcontinent, today, Indo-Aryan languages are spoken in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Fiji and the Maldives. The second wave is interpreted as the Iranian wave, the first Iranians to reach the Black Sea may have been the Cimmerians in the 8th century BC, although their linguistic affiliation is uncertain. They were followed by the Scythians, who are considered a branch of the Central Asian Sakas. The populous Sarmatian tribe of the Massagetae, dwelling near the Caspian Sea, were known to the rulers of Persia in the Achaemenid Period. In the east, the Saka occupied several areas in Xinjiang, the Medes, Parthians and Persians begin to appear on the Iranian plateau from c.800 BC, and the Achaemenids replaced Elamite rule from 559 BC
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Persian people
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The Persians are an Iranian ethnic group that make up over half the population of Iran. They share a cultural system and are native speakers of the Persian language. The ancient Persians were originally a branch of the ancient Iranian population who entered modern-day Iran by the early 10th century BC. The English term Persian derives from Latin Persia, itself deriving from Greek Persís, in the Bible, it is referred to as Parás —sometimes Paras uMadai —within the books of Esther, Daniel, Ezra and Nehemya. Although Persis was originally one of the provinces of ancient Iran, varieties of this term were adopted through Greek sources, thus, in the Western world, the term Persian came to refer to all inhabitants of the country. 10th-century Iraqi historian Al-Masudi refers to Pahlavi, Dari and Azari as dialects of the Persian language, in 1333, medieval Moroccan traveler and scholar Ibn Battuta, referred to the people of Kabul as a specific sub-tribe of Persians. Lady Mary Sheil, in her observation of Iran during the Qajar era, describes Persians, Kurds and Leks to identify themselves as descendants of the ancient Persians. On March 21,1935, the king of Iran, Reza Shah Pahlavi, issued a decree asking the international community to use the term Iran. However, the term Persian is still used to designate the predominant population of the Iranian peoples living in the Iranian cultural continent. The earliest known written record attributed to the Persians is from the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, the inscription mentions Parsua as a tribal chiefdom in modern-day western Iran. The ancient Persians were originally a branch of the Iranian population that, in the early 10th century BC. They were initially dominated by the Assyrians for much of the first three centuries after arriving in the region, however, they played a role in the downfall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The Medes, another branch of population, founded the unified empire of Media as the regions dominant cultural and political power in c.625 BC. Meanwhile, the Persian dynasty of the Achaemenids formed a state to the central Median power. In c.552 BC, the Achaemenids began a revolution which led to the conquest of the empire by Cyrus II in c.550 BC. They spread their influence to the rest of what is called the Iranian Plateau, at its greatest extent, the Achaemenid Empire stretched from parts of Eastern Europe in the west, to the Indus Valley in the east, making it the largest empire the world had yet seen. The Achaemenids developed the infrastructure to support their growing influence, including the creation of Pasargadae and its legacy and impact on the kingdom of Macedon was also notably huge, even for centuries after the withdrawal of the Persians from Europe following the Greco-Persian Wars. The empire collapsed in 330 BC following the conquests of Alexander the Great, until the Parthian era, the Iranian identity had an ethnic, linguistic, and religious value, however, it did not yet have a political import
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Median
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The median is the value separating the higher half of a data sample, a population, or a probability distribution, from the lower half. In simple terms, it may be thought of as the value of a data set. For example, in the set, the median is 6. The median is a commonly used measure of the properties of a set in statistics. The basic advantage of the median in describing data compared to the mean is that it is not skewed so much by extremely large or small values, and so it may give a better idea of a typical value. For example, in understanding statistics like household income or assets which vary greatly, Median income, for example, may be a better way to suggest what a typical income is. The median of a finite list of numbers can be found by arranging all the numbers from smallest to greatest, if there is an odd number of numbers, the middle one is picked. For example, consider the set of numbers,1,3,3,6,7,8,9 This set contains seven numbers, the median is the fourth of them, which is 6. If there are a number of observations, then there is no single middle value. For example, in the set,1,2,3,4,5,6,8,9 The median is the mean of the middle two numbers, this is ÷2, which is 4.5. The formula used to find the number of a data set of n numbers is ÷2. This either gives the number or the halfway point between the two middle values. For example, with 14 values, the formula will give 7.5, and you will also be able to find the median using the Stem-and-Leaf Plot. There is no accepted standard notation for the median. In any of these cases, the use of these or other symbols for the needs to be explicitly defined when they are introduced. The median is used primarily for skewed distributions, which it summarizes differently from the arithmetic mean, the median is 2 in this case, and it might be seen as a better indication of central tendency than the arithmetic mean of 4. The widely cited empirical relationship between the locations of the mean and the median for skewed distributions is, however. There are, however, various relationships for the difference between them, see below
41.
Atargatis
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Atargatis /əˈtɑːrɡətᵻs/ or Ataratheh was the chief goddess of northern Syria in Classical Antiquity. Ctesias also used the name Derceto for her, and the Romans called her Dea Syriae, primarily she was a goddess of fertility, but, as the baalat of her city and people, she was also responsible for their protection and well-being. Her chief sanctuary was at Hierapolis, modern Manbij, northeast of Aleppo and she is sometimes described as a mermaid-goddess, due to identification of her with a fish-bodied goddess at Ascalon. However, there is no evidence that Atargatis was worshipped at Ascalon, michael Rostovtzeff called her the great mistress of the North Syrian lands. As Ataratheh, doves and fish were considered sacred to her, doves as an emblem of the Love-Goddess, according to a third-century Syriac source, In Syria and in Urhâi the men used to castrate themselves in honor of Taratha. But when King Abgar became a believer, he commanded that anyone who emasculated himself should have a cut off. And from that day to the present no one in Urhâi emasculates himself anymore, the name Atargatis derives from the Aramaic form ‘Atar‘atheh, which comes in several variants. ‘Atar‘atheh is seen as a continuation of Bronze Age goddesses, the name ‘Atar‘atheh is widely held to derive from a compound of the Aramaic form ‘Attar, which is a cognate of ‘Ațtart minus its feminine suffix -t, and ‘Attah or ‘Atā, a cognate of Anat. Alternatively, the second half may be a Palmyrene divine name ‘Athe and it has also been proposed that the element -gatis may relate to the Greek gados fish. So Atar-Gatis may simply mean the fish-goddess Atar, as a consequence of the first half of the name, Atargatis has frequently, though wrongly, been identified as ‘Ashtart. The two deities were probably of common origin and have features in common, but their cults are historically distinct. There is reference in 2 Maccabees 12, at Palmyra she appears on the coinage with a lion, or her presence is signalled with a lion and the crescent moon, an inscription mentions her. Two well preserved temples in Niha, Lebanon are dedicated to her and her wavy hair, suggesting water to Glueck, was parted in the middle. At Petra the goddess from the north was syncretised with a North Arabian goddess from the south al-Uzzah, at Dura-Europus among the attributes of Atargatis are the spindle and the sceptre or fish-spear. At her temples at Ascalon, Hierapolis Bambyce, and Edessa, Glueck noted in 1936 that to this day there is a sacred fish-pond swarming with untouchable fish at Qubbet el-Baeddwī, a dervish monastery three kilometres east of Tripolis, Lebanon. From Syria her worship extended to Greece and to the furthest West, Lucian and Apuleius give descriptions of the beggar-priests who went round the great cities with an image of the goddess on an ass and collected money. Again we find the cult in Sicily, introduced, no doubt, by slaves and mercenary troops, the leader of the rebel slaves in the First Servile War, a Syrian named Eunus, claimed to receive visions of Atargatis, whom he identified with the Demeter of Enna. In many cases Atargatis, ‘Ashtart, and other goddesses who once had independent cults and this fusion is exemplified by the Carnion temple, which is probably identical with the famous temple of ‘Ashtart at Ashtaroth-Karnaim
42.
Ashkelon
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Ashkelon is a coastal city in the Southern District of Israel on the Mediterranean coast,50 kilometres south of Tel Aviv, and 13 kilometres north of the border with the Gaza Strip. The ancient seaport of Ashkelon dates back to the Neolithic Age, the Arab village of al-Majdal or al-Majdal Asqalan, was established a few kilometres inland from the ancient site by the late 15th century, under Ottoman rule. In 1918, it part of the British Occupied Enemy Territory Administration. Al-Majdal on the eve of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War had 10,000 Arab inhabitants and in October 1948, al-Majdal was the forward position of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force based in Gaza. The town was initially named Migdal Gaza, Migdal Gad and Migdal Ashkelon by the new Jewish inhabitants, most of the remaining Arabs were evicted by 1950. In 1953, the neighborhood of Afridar was incorporated and the name Ashkelon was readopted to the town. By 1961, Ashkelon was ranked 18th among Israeli urban centers with a population of 24,000, in 2015 the population of Ashkelon was 130,660. The name Ashkelon is probably western Semitic, and might be connected to the root š-q-l perhaps attesting to its importance as a center for mercantile activities, scallion and shallot are derived from Ascalonia, the Latin name for Ashkelon. Ashkelon was the oldest and largest seaport in Canaan, one of the five cities of the Philistines, north of Gaza, the Neolithic site of Ashkelon is located on the Mediterranean coast,1.5 km north of Tel Ashkelon. It is dated by Radiocarbon dating to ca.7900 bp and it was discovered and excavated in 1954 by French archaeologist Jean Perrot. In 1997–1998, a large scale salvage project was conducted at the site by Yosef Garfinkel on behalf of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a final excavation report was published in 2008. In the site over a hundred fireplaces and hearths were found and numerous pits, various phases of occupation were found, one atop the other, with sterile layers of sea sand between them. This indicates that the site was occupied on a seasonal basis, the main finds were enormous quantities of animal bones and 20,000 flint artifacts. Usually at Neolithic sites flints far outnumber animal bones, the bones belong to domesticated and non-domesticated animals. When all aspects of this site are taken into account, it appears to have used by pastoral nomads for meat processing. The nearby sea could supply necessary for the conservation of meat. The city was built on a sandstone outcropping and has a good underground water supply. It was relatively large as an ancient city with as many as 15,000 people living inside the walls, Ashkelon was a thriving Middle Bronze Age city of more than 150 acres
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Columbidae
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Pigeons and doves constitute the bird family Columbidae, which includes about 310 species. Pigeons and doves are stout-bodied birds with short necks, and short slender bills and they primarily feed on seeds, fruits, and plants. This family occurs worldwide, but the greatest variety is in the Indomalaya, in general, the terms dove and pigeon are used somewhat interchangeably. Pigeon is a French word that derives from the Latin pipio, for a peeping chick, the species most commonly referred to as pigeon is the rock dove, one subspecies of which, the domestic pigeon, is common in many cities as the feral pigeon. Pigeons and doves are likely the most common birds in the world, doves and pigeons build relatively flimsy nests – often using sticks and other debris – which may be placed in trees, on ledges, or on the ground, depending on species. They lay one or two eggs at a time, and both parents care for the young, which leave the nest after seven to 28 days. Unlike most birds, both sexes of doves and pigeons produce crop milk to feed to their young, secreted by a sloughing of fluid-filled cells from the lining of the crop, young doves and pigeons are called squabs. The adjective columbine refers to pigeons and doves, recent phylogenomic studies support the grouping of these pigeons and sandgrouse together, along with mesites, forming the sister taxon to Mirandornithes. The Columbidae are usually divided into five subfamilies, probably inaccurately, for example, the American ground and quail doves, which are usually placed in the Columbinae, seem to be two distinct subfamilies. The order presented here follows Baptista et al. with some updates, osteology and DNA sequence analyses indicate the dodo and Rodrigues solitaire are better considered as a subfamily Raphinae in the Columbidae pending availability of further information. The dodo and Rodrigues solitaire are in all part of the Indo-Australian radiation that produced the three small subfamilies mentioned above, with the fruit-doves and pigeons. Therefore, they are included as a subfamily Raphinae, pending better material evidence of their exact relationships. Exacerbating these issues, columbids are not well represented in the fossil record, no truly primitive forms have been found to date. The genus Gerandia has been described from Early Miocene deposits of France, apart from that, all other fossils belong to extant genera. For these, and for the number of more recently extinct prehistoric species. Phylogeny based on the work by John H. Boyd III, Pigeons and doves exhibit considerable variations in size. Overall, the Columbidae tend to have short bills and legs, the wings are large and have low wing loadings, pigeons have strong wing muscles and are among the strongest fliers of all birds. They are also highly manoeuvrable in flight, the plumage of the family is variable
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Balkh
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Balkh was an ancient city and centre of Buddhism, Islam, and Zoroastrianism in what is now northern Afghanistan. Today it is a town in the province of Balkh, about 20 kilometers northwest of the provincial capital, Mazar-e Sharif. It was one of the cities of Khorasan, since the latters earliest history. Marco Polo described Balkh as a noble and great city, the ancient city of Balkh was known to the Ancient Greeks as Bactra, giving its name to Bactria. It was mostly known as the centre and capital of Bactria or Tokharistan, Balkh is now for the most part a mass of ruins, situated some 12 km from the right bank of the seasonally flowing Balkh River, at an elevation of about 365 m. Outside the town was a large Buddhist monastery later known as Naubahar, french Buddhist Alexandra David-Néel associated Shambhala with Balkh, also offering the Persian Sham-i-Bala, elevated candle as an etymology of its name. In a similar vein, the Gurdjieffian J. G. Bennett published speculation that Shambalha was Shams-i-Balkh, the name of the province or country appears in Old Persian inscriptions as Bāxtri, i. e. Bakhtri. It is written in the Avesta as Bāxδi, from this came the intermediate form Bāxli, Sanskrit Bahlīka for Bactrian, and by transposition the modern Persian Balx, i. e. Balkh, and Armenian Bahl. Balkh is considered to be the first city to which the Indo-Iranian tribes moved from the North of Amu Darya, the Arabs called it Umm Al-Belaad or Mother of Cities due to its antiquity. The city was traditionally a center of Zoroastrianism, the name Zariaspa, which is either an alternate name for Balkh or a term for part of the city, may derive from the important Zoroastrian fire temple Azar-i-Asp. Balkh was regarded as the place where Zoroaster first preached his religion, the changing climate has led to desertification since antiquity, when the region was very fertile. For a long time the city and country was the seat of the dualistic Zoroastrian religion. Armenian sources state that the Arsacid Dynasty of the Parthian Empire established its capital in Balkh, there is a long-standing tradition that an ancient shrine of Anahita was to be found here, a temple so rich it invited plunder. Alexander the Great married Roxana of Bactria after killing the king of Balkh, the city was the capital of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom and was besieged for three years by the Seleucid Empire. Balkh town is well-known to Buddhist countries because of two great Buddhist monks of Afghanistan – Trapusa and Bahalika, there are two stupas over their relics. According to a legend, Buddhism was introduced in Balkh by Bhallika, disciple of Buddha. He was a merchant of the region and had come from Bodhgaya, in literature, Balkh has been described as Balhika, Valhika or Bahlika. First Vihara at Balkh was built for Bhallika when he returned home after becoming a Buddhist monk, Xuanzang visited Balkh in 630 when it was a flourishing centre of Hinayana Buddhism
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Semīramis". Encyclopædia Britannica. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 617.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the 