1.
Saudi Arabia
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Saudi Arabia is bordered by Jordan and Iraq to the north, Kuwait to the northeast, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates to the east, Oman to the southeast and Yemen to the south. It is separated from Israel and Egypt by the Gulf of Aqaba and it is the only nation with both a Red Sea coast and a Persian Gulf coast and most of its terrain consists of arid desert and mountains. The area of modern-day Saudi Arabia formerly consisted of four regions, Hejaz, Najd and parts of Eastern Arabia. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932 by Ibn Saud and he united the four regions into a single state through a series of conquests beginning in 1902 with the capture of Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud. Saudi Arabia has since been a monarchy, effectively a hereditary dictatorship governed along Islamic lines. The ultraconservative Wahhabi religious movement within Sunni Islam has been called the predominant feature of Saudi culture, with its global spread largely financed by the oil and gas trade. Saudi Arabia is sometimes called the Land of the Two Holy Mosques in reference to Al-Masjid al-Haram and Al-Masjid an-Nabawi, the state has a total population of 28.7 million, of which 20 million are Saudi nationals and 8 million are foreigners. The states official language is Arabic, petroleum was discovered on 3 March 1938 and followed up by several other finds in the Eastern Province. Saudi Arabia has since become the worlds largest oil producer and exporter, controlling the second largest oil reserves. The kingdom is categorized as a World Bank high-income economy with a high Human Development Index and is the only Arab country to be part of the G-20 major economies. However, the economy of Saudi Arabia is the least diversified in the Gulf Cooperation Council, the state has attracted criticism for its treatment of women and use of capital punishment. Saudi Arabia is an autocracy, has the fourth highest military expenditure in the world. Saudi Arabia is considered a regional and middle power, in addition to the GCC, it is an active member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and OPEC. Following the unification of the Hejaz and Nejd kingdoms, the new state was named al-Mamlakah al-ʻArabīyah as-Suʻūdīyah by royal decree on 23 September 1932 by its founder, Abdulaziz Al Saud. Although this is translated as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in English it literally means the Saudi Arab kingdom. Its inclusion expresses the view that the country is the possession of the royal family. Al Saud is an Arabic name formed by adding the word Al, meaning family of or House of, in the case of the Al Saud, this is the father of the dynastys 18th century founder, Muhammad bin Saud. There is evidence that human habitation in the Arabian Peninsula dates back to about 125,000 years ago
2.
Provinces of Saudi Arabia
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Saudi Arabia is divided into 13 regions. Each region is divided into governorates and the capital, which has the status of municipality headed by mayors. The governorates are subdivided into subgovernorates. Around 1980, the Northern Province was created from the Western and Central
3.
Tabuk Region
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Tabuk Region, also spelled Tabouk, is a region of Saudi Arabia, located along the north-west coast of the country, facing Egypt across the Red Sea. It has an area of 146,072 km² and a population of 791,595, the governor is Fahd bin Sultan since 1987. The history of the Tabuk region dates back to 3,500 years ago, the region is identified with the land of Maydan. The region is traversed by the Hejaz Railway, which was a focus for attacks during the Arab Revolt of 1916/18, tayma Duba Al Wajh Haql Umm Lajj Al Badaa The Tabuk region exports flowers to Europe. net on Tabouk Saudi Arabian Information Resource on Tabouk, with pictures
4.
Arabia Standard Time
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UTC+03,00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +03. In areas using this time offset, the time is three hours later than the Coordinated Universal Time, following the ISO8601 standard, a time with this offset would be written as, for example, 2017-04-05T17,46, 23+03,00. Some areas in the world use UTC+03,00 all year, most of European Russia, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rostov on Don, Novaya Zemlya, Franz Josef Land. From October 26,2014 Moscow and most other parts of European Russia started using UTC+3 again, also on September 7,2016, Turkey and Northern Cyprus started using UTC+3 all year round. Besides the names mentioned above, the name Eastern Europe Forward Time is sometimes used, belarus Russia - Moscow Time all railroad time in Russia, including railroad in Kaliningrad Oblast. As this time zone is predominantly in the region, there is no significant change in day length throughout the year. Between 1982 and 2007, Iraq observed Arabia Daylight Time but the government abolished DST on March 2008. The easternmost point at which UTC+03 with no DST is applied is the easternmost point of Saudi Arabia, in the Eastern Province, at the border with Oman and this is the largest discrepancy overall for UTC+03 even if UTC+03 with no DST is included. The easternmost point at which UTC+03 with DST is applied is Cape Zhelaniya, Severny Island, Novaya Zemlya, on February 8,2011, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev issued a decree cancelling DST in Russia. After strong criticism from the media, on 18 October 2011 the Ukrainian parliament cancelled its previous decision
5.
Arabic
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Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested
6.
Oasis
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In geography, an oasis is an isolated area of vegetation in a desert, typically surrounding a spring or similar water source, such as a pond or small lake. Oases also provide habitat for animals and even if the area is big enough. The location of oases has been of importance for trade and transportation routes in desert areas, caravans must travel via oases so that supplies of water. Thus, political or military control of an oasis has in many cases meant control of trade on a particular route. For example, the oases of Awjila, Ghadames, and Kufra, oases are formed from underground rivers or aquifers such as an artesian aquifer, where water can reach the surface naturally by pressure or by man-made wells. Occasional brief thunderstorms provide subterranean water to sustain natural oases, such as the Tuat, substrata of impermeable rock and stone can trap water and retain it in pockets, or on long faulting subsurface ridges or volcanic dikes water can collect and percolate to the surface. Any incidence of water is used by migrating birds, which also pass seeds with their droppings which will grow at the waters edge forming an oasis. It can also be used to plant crops, the word oasis came into English via Latin, oasis from Ancient Greek, ὄασις óasis, which in turn is a direct borrowing from Demotic Egyptian. The word for oasis in the later attested Coptic language is wahe or ouahe which means a dwelling place, people who live in an oasis must manage land and water use carefully, fields must be irrigated to grow plants like apricots, dates, figs, and olives. The most important plant in an oasis is the date palm and these palm trees provide shade for smaller trees like peach trees, which form the middle layer. By growing plants in different layers, the farmers make best use of the soil, many vegetables are also grown and some cereals, such as barley, millet, and wheat, are grown where there is more moisture. Great Man-Made River – the worlds largest irrigation project, developed in Libya to connect cities with fossil water. Guelta Mirage Oasification Qanat Wadi Water supply référence, Jardins au désert |Battesti, Jardins au désert, Evolution des pratiques et savoirs oasiens, Jérid tunisien, Paris, Éditions IRD, coll. À travers champs,2005,440 p. ISBN 2-7099-1564-2 Open Archives, book in free access / in French The dictionary definition of oasis at Wiktionary
7.
Medina
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Medina, also transliterated as Madīnah, is a city in the Hejaz region of Saudi Arabia that is also the capital of the Al Madinah Region. The city contains al-Masjid an-Nabawi, which is the place of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It served as the base of Islam in its first century where the early Muslim community developed. Medina is home to the three oldest mosques, namely the Quba Mosque, al-Masjid an-Nabawi, and Masjid al-Qiblatayn, Muslims believe that the chronologically final surahs of the Quran were revealed to Muhammad in Medina, and are called Medinan surahs in contrast to the earlier Meccan surahs. Similar to Mecca, non-Muslims are forbidden from entering the core of Medina or the city centre by the national government. The Arabic word al-Madīnah simply means the city, before the advent of Islam, the city was known as Yathrib. The word Yathrib has been recorded in Surat al-Ahzab of the Quran, an alternative name is al-Madīnah an-Nabawīyah or al-Madīna-tu an-Nabī. As of 2010, the city of Medina has a population of 1,183,205, in addition to its Arab inhabitants, during the pre-Islamic era Yathrib was inhabited by Jewish tribes. Later the citys name was changed to al-Madīna-tu n-Nabī or al-Madīnatu l-Munawwarah, Medina is celebrated for containing al-Masjid an-Nabawi and also as the city which gave refuge to him and his followers, and so ranks as the second holiest city of Islam, after Mecca. Muhammad was buried in Medina, under the Green Dome, as were the first two Rashidun caliphs, Abu Bakr and Umar, who were buried next to him in what used to be Muhammads house. Medina is 210 miles north of Mecca and about 120 miles from the Red Sea coast and it is situated in the most fertile part of all the Hejaz territory, the streams of the vicinity tending to converge in this locality. An immense plain extends to the south, in every direction the view is bounded by hills and mountains. The historic city formed an oval, surrounded by a wall,30 to 40 feet high, dating from the 12th century CE. Of its four gates, the Bab-al-Salam, or Egyptian gate, was remarkable for its beauty, beyond the walls of the city, west and south were suburbs consisting of low houses, yards, gardens and plantations. These suburbs also had walls and gates, almost all of the historic city has been demolished in the Saudi era. The rebuilt city is centred on the vastly expanded al-Masjid an-Nabawi, the graves of Fatimah and Hasan, across from the mosque at Jannat al-Baqi, and Abu Bakr, and of Umar, the second caliph, are also here. The mosque dates back to the time of Muhammad, but has been twice reconstructed, because of the Saudi governments religious policy and concern that historic sites could become the focus for idolatry, much of Medinas Islamic physical heritage has been altered. Medinas importance as a religious site derives from the presence of al-Masjid an-Nabawi, the mosque was expanded by the Umayyad Caliph Al-Walid I
8.
Dumat al-Jandal
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Dumat al-Jundal is an ancient city of ruins located in North Western Saudi Arabia in the Al Jawf Province, it is located 37 km away from Sakakah. The name Dumat al-Jandal means literally Dumah of the Stone, since this was the territory of Dumah, the citys ancient Akkadian name was Adummatu. The names of five powerful Arab queens that ruled this city are known, among them Zabibe, Samsi, Tabua, the latter is also given the title of high priestess of Atarsamain, a deity of fertility, love and war associated with Ishtar. Dumat al-Jundal was the site of an important temple dedicated to Ishtar, in 106 AD, Dumatha was incorporated into the Roman Empire when the Emperor Trajan defeated the Nabataeans. Dumatha remained integral to the Limes Arabicus for over four centuries, in 269 CE, the place was mentioned by Zenobia, the Queen of Palmyra, as city with an immune fortress. After her forces had captured the city, the fortress of Marid withstood the attack in her revolt against the Romans, later in the 5th century CE, the city became the capital of the kingdom of Kindah. In 633 CE, Khalid ibn al-Walid captured Dumat Al-Jandal and it became a part of the newly formed Islamic empire, Muhammad ordered the Invasion of Dumatul Jandal took in July 626. The purpose was to Invade Duma, because Muhammad received intelligence that some tribes there were involved in highway robbery and preparing to attack Medina itself. No casualties were reported as, Ghatafan tribe flees He also ordered the Expedition of Khalid ibn al-Walid which took place in October 630 to attack the Christian prince of Duma, the mosque itself was built in 634-644. However, the building appears to have been built in a much later period. Some scholars attribute it to the Umayyad Caliph Omar bin Abul Aziz, and some believe that the mosque was named after BaniAmr, the north wall of the mosque faces the al-Marid castle across a street. On its other three sides, it is surrounded by dense urban fabric, like the other old buildings in the town, the mosque is built in stone. It is composed of a preceding the main prayer hall to the south and another space, also used for prayer. The minaret is at the corner of the prayer hall bridging over a street. The mosque is entered through a door situated in the qibla wall, the prayer hall is formed by three rows of stone pillars, running parallel to the qibla wall. The pillars are all by wooden lintels, which in turn support layers of stone that are roofed by mud-plastered acacia and palm trunks. The mihrab is a narrow, highly pointed niche in the center of the qibla wall, the mihrab, the minbar, and the lower part of the qibla wall are lastered white. Viewed from the exterior, one sees that the mihrab and minbar protrude slightly out of the qibla wall, also visible is an exposed stone staircase constructed along the qibla wall from the street side that reaches the mud roof
9.
Sakakah
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Sakakah is a city in northwestern Saudi Arabia and is the capital of Al Jawf Province. It is located just to the north of the An Nafud desert, sakakah had a population of 242,813 at the 2010 Census. Sakakah is a town on an ancient caravan route across the Arabian peninsula. Many areas of Saudi Arabia are struggling to develop and modernize in a span of time. In recent years, the Saudi government has been pouring money into the Al-Jawf region, for this reason, the city is full of new government buildings, schools & hospitals and are built adjacent to crumbling ruins of older buildings that are in dire need of repair. One major feature of the city is the rapidly expanding Al Jouf University, Sakaka is a small but expanding city with lots of construction in progress. A big ongoing project is the 1, 000-bed Prince Muhammed Bin Abdulaziz Medical City which is under construction, in 2014 there were reports of mistreatment of foreign workers in Sakaka. These including bodily assaults, overwork and denial food to the foreigners from their former employers, the King hopes that Al Jouf University will become a pillar of social, cultural, and intellectual advancement in Saudi Arabia. There are several schools and some private schools. The city is served by Al-Jawf Airport which has domestic flights and flights to some of the cities in the Middle East. Al-Jawf is notable for its abundant agricultural water, making possible the cultivation of dates and olives, Farms number around 16,000, and agricultural projects around 1,500. It is the home of some agribusiness farms such as Watania Farms, the fertile agricultural land of Al-Jawf is due largely to underground water, which drew delegates of King Abdul Aziz. They were sent to the town of Sakaka and Dumat Al-Jandal and Qurayat, Sakaka is home to many Saudi families that can proudly trace their lineage to a few large, old tribes that have dominated the area since time immemorial. The history of Al-Jawf dates back more than four thousand years and it is the home of many historic & prehistoric archaeological sites such Zabal Castle & Well, the Omar ibn Al-Khattab Mosque, located in Dowmat Al-Jandal and Mard Castle. There are also the ancient Rajajil standing stones in Sakaka, dating back nearly 6,000 years, köppen-Geiger climate classification system classifies its climate as hot desert. Sirhan Valley A travel through the province of Al Jouf, Splendid Arabia, A travel site with photos and routes
10.
Tabuk, Saudi Arabia
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Tabuk, also spelled Tabouk, is the capital city of the Tabuk Region in northwestern Saudi Arabia. It has a population of 534,893 and it is close to the Jordan–Saudi Arabia border, and houses the largest air force base in Saudi Arabia. Ptolemy mentioned a place by the name Tabawa, at the corner of Arabia. This name may be a reference to Tabuka or Tabuk, if this is true, the town may be as old as Ptolemys time. Pre-Islamic Arab poets, such as Antra and Nabiqa, mentioned its mountain Hasmi in their poems, Tabouk became famous for its association with the battle fought in 8 AH, during the period of Muhammad. Since then, it remained a gateway of North Arabia and it was visited by a number of western travelers such as Doughty in 1294 AH and Huber in 1303 AH. Tabuk became a centre of activity during the Gulf War as the city faced threats from Iraqi scuds. As a result, the Pakistani Army deployed its 153 SP Air Defence Regiment for the protection of vital Saudi military assets in the city as well as to keep the Iraqi air force in check. Study of the art revealed rich stylistic variability and both human and animal figures were represented in it, tens of sites in the area with Thamudic, Greek and Nabataean inscriptions have been found. It is also known as the castle of As-hab al-Aykah, who are mentioned in the Qur’an, the castle dates back to about 3500 BCE, and has been restored many times, the last was in 1062 AH. It was one of the forts and stations built all along the Syrian pilgrimage route welcome the pilgrims. Several forts and stations were all along the road from Jordan border to Al-Medinah to welcome the pilgrims. The fort consists of two floors, the first floor contains an open courtyard and a number of rooms, a mosque, a well and the stairway for leading to the watch towers used by the guards. The fort is considered as a landmark of the region and is open for the visitors. This is an ancient ‘ayn dating to the Era of Jahiliyyah and it is said that during the invasion of Tabuk, Muhammad camped more than ten days near the spring and drank from its water. It is also known as the Repentance Mosque and it was originally built with mud and roofed with palm trunk trees. It was restored in 1062 AH, eventually, its complete renewal was ordered by the late King Faisal ibn ‘Abdul-Aziz, along the pattern of the Prophets Mosque in Al-Medinah. Temperatures in the summer are between 26 and 46 °C, while in winter they are between −4 and 18°C, with widespread frosts, snowing is common, with temperatures reaching low −6 °C in some winters
11.
Aramaic language
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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.
Bronze Age
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The Bronze Age is a historical period characterized by the use of bronze, proto-writing, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the principal period of the three-age Stone-Bronze-Iron system, as proposed in modern times by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen. An ancient civilization is defined to be in the Bronze Age either by smelting its own copper and alloying with tin, arsenic, or other metals, or by trading for bronze from production areas elsewhere. Copper-tin ores are rare, as reflected in the fact there were no tin bronzes in Western Asia before trading in bronze began in the third millennium BC. Worldwide, the Bronze Age generally followed the Neolithic period, with the Chalcolithic serving as a transition, although the Iron Age generally followed the Bronze Age, in some areas, the Iron Age intruded directly on the Neolithic. Bronze Age cultures differed in their development of the first writing, according to archaeological evidence, cultures in Mesopotamia and Egypt developed the earliest viable writing systems. The overall period is characterized by use of bronze, though the place and time of the introduction. Human-made tin bronze technology requires set production techniques, tin must be mined and smelted separately, then added to molten copper to make bronze alloy. The Bronze Age was a time of use of metals. The dating of the foil has been disputed, the Bronze Age in the ancient Near East began with the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BC. Societies in the region laid the foundations for astronomy and mathematics, the usual tripartite division into an Early, Middle and Late Bronze Age is not used. Instead, a division based on art-historical and historical characteristics is more common. The cities of the Ancient Near East housed several tens of thousands of people, ur in the Middle Bronze Age and Babylon in the Late Bronze Age similarly had large populations. The earliest mention of Babylonia appears on a tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 23rd century BC, the Amorite dynasty established the city-state of Babylon in the 19th century BC. Over 100 years later, it took over the other city-states. Babylonia adopted the written Semitic Akkadian language for official use, by that time, the Sumerian language was no longer spoken, but was still in religious use. Elam was an ancient civilization located to the east of Mesopotamia, in the Old Elamite period, Elam consisted of kingdoms on the Iranian plateau, centered in Anshan, and from the mid-2nd millennium BC, it was centered in Susa in the Khuzestan lowlands. Its culture played a role in the Gutian Empire and especially during the Achaemenid dynasty that succeeded it
13.
Saudi Commission for Tourism & Antiquities
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Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage is a governmental body concerned with tourism and national heritage of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It is focused on encouraging and supporting domestic tourism through sponsoring and conducting tourism events across the country and these stages are as follows, On 12/01/1421 AH, Saudi Council of Ministers issued Resolution No. Given the importance of Antiquities and Museums, a Royal decree No, the Council of Ministers on 16/03/1429 AH issued a fresh Resolution No. *The unique geographical location of the Kingdom, its expanse and diverse terrains with a variety of climate, *Long seacoasts along the shores of Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. *Unique customs and traditions of the Saudi society and the generosity and hospitality of the Saudi citizens. *Modern infrastructure with advanced services and governments strong tendency towards development of tourism sector, *Confirmed security and political stability in the kingdom, a robust economy and progressive society. On Monday, 12/9/1436 AH, the Cabinet decided to change the name of “Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities” to “Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage”. SCTH is also assigned to work for strengthening of the role of tourism and overcoming barriers impeding its growth and its efforts include preservation, development and maintenance of antiquities and activation of tourism’s contribution to cultural and economic development. The project includes overall strategy for the development of tourism as well as, operational plan, planned and implemented integrated program for tourism development, which so far has included more than 125 projects and programs. This program is consistent with the development plans, ambitions and directions of the State’s administrative. Since March 2001, SCTH, simultaneously with its process, has planned for integrated national economic project. This comes in the light of its vision on the importance of planning for goals and raise economic efficiency. Accordingly, in 2002 the Centre was established, Tourism in Saudi Arabia Ancient Towns in Saudi Arabia
14.
Ramesses III
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Usimare Ramesses III was the second Pharaoh of the Twentieth Dynasty and is considered to be the last New Kingdom king to wield any substantial authority over Egypt. His long reign saw the decline of Egyptian political and economic power, linked to a series of invasions, Ramesses III was the son of Setnakhte and Queen Tiy-Merenese. He was probably murdered by an assassin in a conspiracy led by one of his wives, Tiye. Ramesses two main names transliterate as wsr-mꜢʿt-rʿ–mry-ỉmn rʿ-ms-s–ḥḳꜢ-ỉwnw and they are normally realised as Usermaatre-Meryamun Rameses-Heqaiunu, meaning The Maat of Ra is strong, Beloved of Amun, Born of Ra, Ruler of Heliopolis. Ramesses III is believed to have reigned from March 1186 to April 1155 BC and this is based on his known accession date of I Shemu day 26 and his death on Year 32 III Shemu day 15, for a reign of 31 years,1 month and 19 days. Alternate dates for his reign are 1187 to 1156 BC, in Year 8 of his reign, the Sea Peoples, including Peleset, Denyen, Shardana, Meshwesh of the sea, and Tjekker, invaded Egypt by land and sea. Ramesses III defeated them in two great land and sea battles, although the Egyptians had a reputation as poor seamen, they fought tenaciously. Rameses lined the shores with ranks of archers who kept up a continuous volley of arrows into the ships when they attempted to land on the banks of the Nile. Then, the Egyptian navy attacked using grappling hooks to haul in the enemy ships, in the brutal hand-to-hand fighting which ensued, the Sea People were utterly defeated. The Harris Papyrus states, As for those who reached my frontier, their seed is not, their heart and their presence in Canaan may have contributed to the formation of new states in this region such as Philistia after the collapse of the Egyptian Empire in Asia. Ramesses III was also compelled to fight invading Libyan tribesmen in two campaigns in Egypts Western Delta in his Year 5 and Year 11 respectively. The heavy cost of these battles slowly exhausted Egypts treasury and contributed to the decline of the Egyptian Empire in Asia. Something in the air prevented much sunlight from reaching the ground, the result in Egypt was a substantial increase in grain prices under the later reigns of Ramesses VI–VII, whereas the prices for fowl and slaves remained constant. Thus the cooldown affected Ramesses IIIs final years and impaired his ability to provide a constant supply of rations to the workmen of the Deir el-Medina community. No temple in the heart of Egypt prior to Ramesses reign had ever needed to be protected in such a manner. Thanks to the discovery of papyrus trial transcripts, it is now known there was a plot against his life as a result of a royal harem conspiracy during a celebration at Medinet Habu. The conspiracy was instigated by Tiye, one of his three wives, over whose son would inherit the throne. Tytis son, Ramesses Amonhirkhopshef, was the eldest and the chosen by Ramesses III in preference to Tiyes son Pentaweret
15.
Egyptian hieroglyphs
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Egyptian hieroglyphs were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt. It combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with a total of some 1,000 distinct characters, cursive hieroglyphs were used for religious literature on papyrus and wood. The later hieratic and demotic Egyptian scripts are derived from hieroglyphic writing, the writing system continued to be used throughout the Late Period, as well as the Persian and Ptolemaic periods. Late survivals of hieroglyphic use are found well into the Roman period, with the closing of pagan temples in the 5th century, knowledge of hieroglyphic writing was lost, and the script remained undeciphered throughout the medieval and early modern period. The decipherment of hieroglyphs would only be solved in the 1820s by Jean-François Champollion, the word hieroglyph comes from the Greek adjective ἱερογλυφικός, a compound of ἱερός and γλύφω, supposedly a calque of an Egyptian phrase mdw·w-nṯr gods words. The glyphs themselves were called τὰ ἱερογλυφικὰ γράμματα the sacred engraved letters, the word hieroglyph has become a noun in English, standing for an individual hieroglyphic character. As used in the sentence, the word hieroglyphic is an adjective. Hieroglyphs emerged from the artistic traditions of Egypt. For example, symbols on Gerzean pottery from c.4000 BC have been argued to resemble hieroglyphic writing, proto-hieroglyphic symbol systems develop in the second half of the 4th millennium BC, such as the clay labels of a Predynastic ruler called Scorpion I recovered at Abydos in 1998. The first full sentence written in hieroglyphs so far discovered was found on a seal found in the tomb of Seth-Peribsen at Umm el-Qaab. There are around 800 hieroglyphs dating back to the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, by the Greco-Roman period, there are more than 5,000. However, given the lack of evidence, no definitive determination has been made as to the origin of hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt. Since the 1990s, and discoveries such as the Abydos glyphs, as writing developed and became more widespread among the Egyptian people, simplified glyph forms developed, resulting in the hieratic and demotic scripts. These variants were more suited than hieroglyphs for use on papyrus. Hieroglyphic writing was not, however, eclipsed, but existed alongside the other forms, especially in monumental, the Rosetta Stone contains three parallel scripts – hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek. Hieroglyphs continued to be used under Persian rule, and after Alexander the Greats conquest of Egypt, during the ensuing Ptolemaic and Roman periods. It appears that the quality of comments from Greek and Roman writers about hieroglyphs came about, at least in part. Some believed that hieroglyphs may have functioned as a way to distinguish true Egyptians from some of the foreign conquerors, another reason may be the refusal to tackle a foreign culture on its own terms, which characterized Greco-Roman approaches to Egyptian culture generally
16.
Red Sea
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The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait, to the north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez. The Red Sea is a Global 200 ecoregion, the sea is underlain by the Red Sea Rift which is part of the Great Rift Valley. The Red Sea has an area of roughly 438,000 km2, is about 2250 km long and. It has a depth of 2211 m in the central median trench. However, there are also extensive shallow shelves, noted for their marine life, the sea is the habitat of over 1,000 invertebrate species, and 200 soft and hard corals. It is the worlds northernmost tropical sea, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Red Sea as follows, On the North. The Southern limits of the Gulfs of Suez and Aqaba, a line joining Husn Murad and Ras Siyyan. Red Sea is a translation of the Greek Erythra Thalassa, Latin Mare Rubrum, Arabic, البحر الأحمر. Al-Baḥr Al-Aḥmar, Somali Badda Cas and Tigrinya Qeyyiḥ bāḥrī, the name of the sea may signify the seasonal blooms of the red-coloured Trichodesmium erythraeum near the waters surface. A theory favored by modern scholars is that the name red is referring to the direction south. The basis of this theory is that some Asiatic languages used color words to refer to the cardinal directions, herodotus on one occasion uses Red Sea and Southern Sea interchangeably. Historically, it was known to western geographers as Mare Mecca. Some ancient geographers called the Red Sea the Arabian Gulf or Gulf of Arabia. C, in that version, the Yam Suph is translated as Erythra Thalassa. The Red Sea is one of four seas named in English after common color terms — the others being the Black Sea, the White Sea and the Yellow Sea. The direct rendition of the Greek Erythra thalassa in Latin as Mare Erythraeum refers to the part of the Indian Ocean. The earliest known exploration of the Red Sea was conducted by ancient Egyptians, one such expedition took place around 2500 BC, and another around 1500 BC. Both involved long voyages down the Red Sea, historically, scholars argued whether these trips were possible
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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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Nile
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The Nile is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It is generally regarded as the longest river in the world, in particular, the Nile is the primary water source of Egypt and Sudan. The Nile has two tributaries, the White Nile and Blue Nile. The White Nile is considered to be the headwaters and primary stream of the Nile itself, the Blue Nile, however, is the source of most of the water and silt. The White Nile is longer and rises in the Great Lakes region of central Africa and it flows north through Tanzania, Lake Victoria, Uganda and South Sudan. The Blue Nile begins at Lake Tana in Ethiopia and flows into Sudan from the southeast, the two rivers meet just north of the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. The northern section of the river flows north almost entirely through the Sudanese desert to Egypt, then ends in a large delta, Egyptian civilization and Sudanese kingdoms have depended on the river since ancient times. Most of the population and cities of Egypt lie along those parts of the Nile valley north of Aswan, in the ancient Egyptian language, the Nile is called Ḥpī or Iteru, meaning river. In Coptic, the words piaro or phiaro meaning the river come from the ancient name. The English name Nile and the Arabic names en-Nîl and an-Nîl both derive from the Latin Nilus and the Ancient Greek Νεῖλος, beyond that, however, the etymology is disputed. One possible etymology derives it from a Semitic Nahal, meaning river, the standard English names White Nile and Blue Nile, to refer to the rivers source, derive from Arabic names formerly applied only to the Sudanese stretches which meet at Khartoum. Above Khartoum, the Nile is also known as the White Nile, at Khartoum the river is joined by the Blue Nile. The White Nile starts in equatorial East Africa, and the Blue Nile begins in Ethiopia, both branches are on the western flanks of the East African Rift. The drainage basin of the Nile covers 3,254,555 square kilometers, the source of the Nile is sometimes considered to be Lake Victoria, but the lake has feeder rivers of considerable size. It is either the Ruvyironza, which emerges in Bururi Province, Burundi, or the Nyabarongo, the two feeder rivers meet near Rusumo Falls on the Rwanda-Tanzania border. Gish Abay is reportedly the place where the water of the first drops of the Blue Nile develop. The Nile leaves Lake Nyanza at Ripon Falls near Jinja, Uganda and it flows north for some 130 kilometers, to Lake Kyoga. For the remaining part it flows westerly through the Murchison Falls until it reaches the very northern shores of Lake Albert where it forms a significant river delta
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Tiglath-Pileser III
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Tiglath-Pileser III was a prominent king of Assyria in the eighth century BCE who introduced advanced civil, military, and political systems into the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Tiglath-Pileser III seized the Assyrian throne during a war and killed the royal family. He made sweeping changes to the Assyrian government, considerably improving its efficiency, the Assyrian army, already the greatest fighting force in the world since the time of Ashur-uballit I, now became Assyrias first professional standing army. In the south west, Israel, Judah, Philistia, Samarra, Moab, Edom, in the west, the Greeks of Cyprus and Aram, and the Mediterranean City States of Phoenicia/Caanan were subjugated. To the east he subjugated Persia, Media, Gutium, Mannea, Cissia and Elam, Tiglath-Pileser III discouraged revolts against Assyrian rule with the use of forced deportations of thousands of people all over the empire. He is one of the most successful commanders in world history. Formerly the governor of Kalhu and a general, the usurper Pulu assumed his Assyrian throne-name from two more-legitimate predecessors and he described himself as a son of Adad-nirari III in his inscriptions, but the accuracy of this claim remains uncertain. He seized the throne in the midst of war on 13 Ayaru,745 BCE. A mutilated brick inscription states that he is the son of Adad-nirari, however and this is quite a discrepancy for the King list places Adad-nirari III four monarchs before Tiglath-pilesers reign and depicts Ashur-nirari as both his father and immediate predecessor upon the throne. The list goes on to relate that Shalmaneser III, and Ashur-dan III were brothers, Ashur-nirari is also said to be a son of Adad-nirari, implying brotherhood with Shalmaneser III, and Ashur-dan III. The Assyrian records contain very little information concerning Adad-nirari and nothing about Shalmaneser III or Ashur-dan III, more so it was in Babylon that he was referred to as Pulu and his son as Ululayu. Pulu and both his sons taking up Assyrian names is another suggestion that they were foreigners who had usurped the crown of Assyria at the revolt of Kalhu, Assyrian power in the Near East greatly increased as the result of Tiglath-Pilesers military reforms and of his campaigns of conquest. Upon ascending the throne, he claimed to have annexed Babylonia, from Dur-galzu, the cities bylonia up to the Uqnu river wer, and subsequently placed his eunuch over them as governor. He also defeated the Medes before making war on and conquering the Neo-Hittites and he took Arpad in 740 BCE after three years of siege, annexed it as a province, and subjected Hamath to tribute. Assyrian inscriptions record in 740 BCE, the year of his reign. He also subjugated Damascus, the Arabs under Queen Zabibe, Menahem of Israel and Samals king Azriyau, in 737 and 736 BCE he turned his attention again to Iran, conquering the Medes and Persians and occupying a large part of Iran. According to the inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser many of the inhabitants were enslaved and deported to other parts of the Assyrian empire. At sieges, captives were slaughtered, and their bodies raised on stakes, in October 729 BCE, Tiglath-Pileser assumed total control of Babylon, capturing the Babylonian king Nabu-mukin-zeri and having himself crowned as King Pulu of Babylon
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Nineveh
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Nineveh was an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, located on the outskirts of Mosul in modern-day northern Iraq. It is on the bank of the Tigris River, and was the capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. It is also a name for the half of Mosul which lies on the eastern bank of the Tigris in the modern day. Its ruins are across the river from the major city of Mosul. The two main tells, or mound-ruins, within the walls are Kouyunjik, the Northern Palace, large amounts of Assyrian sculpture and other artifacts have been excavated and are now located in museums around the world. Site remains suffered in the 2010s from the occupation of the area by ISIS, Iraqi forces recaptured the area in January 2017. The English placename Nineveh comes from Latin Ninive and Septuagint Greek Nineuḗ under influence of the Biblical Hebrew Nīnewēh, the original meaning of the name is unclear but may have referred to a patron goddess. The cuneiform for Ninâ is a fish within a house and this may have simply intended Place of Fish or may have indicated a goddess associated with fish or the Tigris, possibly originally of Hurrian origin. The city was said to be devoted to the Ishtar of Nineveh. The city was known as Ninii or Ni in Ancient Egyptian, Ninuwa in Mari, Ninawa in Aramaic, ܢܸܢܘܵܐ in Syriac. Nabī Yūnus is the Arabic for Prophet Jonah, Kouyunjik was, according to Layard, a Turkish name, and it was known as Armousheeah by the Arabs, and is thought to have some connection with the Kara Koyunlu dynasty. This whole extensive space is now one immense area of ruins overlaid in parts by new suburbs of the city of Mosul, Nineveh was one of the oldest and greatest cities in antiquity. The area was settled as early as 6000 BC and, by 3000 BC, had become an important religious center for the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar, the early city was constructed on a fault line and, consequently, suffered damage from a number of earthquakes. One such event destroyed the first temple of Ishtar, which was rebuilt in 2260 BC by the Akkadian king Manishtushu. Texts from the Hellenistic period later offered an eponymous Ninus as the founder of Nineveh, the regional influence of Nineveh became particularly pronounced during the archaeological period known as Ninevite 5, or Ninevite V. This period is defined primarily by the pottery that is found widely throughout northern Mesopotamia. Also, for the northern Mesopotamian region, the Early Jezirah chronology has been developed by archaeologists, according to this regional chronology, Ninevite 5 is equivalent to the Early Jezirah I–II period. Ninevite 5 was preceded by the Late Uruk period, Ninevite 5 pottery is roughly contemporary to the Early Transcaucasian culture ware, and the Jemdet Nasr ware
Saudi Arabia
