1.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
2.
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
3.
Tell (archaeology)
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In archaeology, a tell or tel is an artificial mound formed from the accumulated remains of people living on the same site for hundreds or thousands of years. A classic tell looks like a low, truncated cone with a top and sloping sides. Tells are most commonly associated with the archaeology of the ancient Near East, within the Near East, they are concentrated in less arid regions, including Upper Mesopotamia, the Southern Levant, Anatolia and Iran. A tell is a hill created by many generations of people living and rebuilding on the same spot. Over time, the level rises, forming a mound, the single biggest contributor to the mass of a tell are mud bricks, which disintegrate rapidly. Excavating a tell can reveal buried structures such as government or military buildings, religious shrines and homes and they often overlap horizontally, vertically, or both. Archaeologists excavate tell sites to interpret architecture, purpose, and date of occupation, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press – via Internet Archive
4.
Beit Netofa Valley
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The Beit Netofa Valley is a valley in the Lower Galilee region of Israel, midway between Tiberias and Haifa. Covering 46 km2, it is the largest valley in the part of the Galilee. The valleys Arabic name is Sahl ˀal-Baṭūf and as such appears as Vallée Battof in crusader documents, the valley is 16 km long and on average 3 km wide, a graben formed by two parallel east-west trending faults running to its north and south. It lies between two forming the Yodfat range to the north and the Turan range to the south. Limestone hills to the east indicate the valley was shaped by karstic processes. On February 7,1950, a station in the valley recorded the lowest temperature ever recorded in Israel. These are, from west to east, Kibbutz Hanaton, Kafr Manda, Rumana, Uzeir, Bueine Nujeidat, the Jewish religious communal settlement of Mitzpe Netofa is overlooking the valley from Mount Turan, which separates the Beit Netofa and Turan valleys. The fertile valley land is used for agriculture and is owned and cultivated by the inhabitants of settlements either from the valley itself. The latter category includes inhabitants of the Arab settlements of Sakhnin, Arraba and Biina, the Beit Netofa Canal, a part of Israels National Water Carrier, runs through the valley. The 17-kilometer-long open canal was built with a base due to the clay soil. The width of the canal is 19.4 meters, the bottom is 12 meters wide, at the southwestern edge of the Beit Netofa Valley it reaches the two Eshkol reservoirs, where the water is cleaned and tested before flowing south towards the Negev. Several archaeological sites litter the valley, the earliest, Netofa I and II, date from the Chalcolithic period and are found on its hilly western flank near Kafr Manda. The assemblages found at the sites are rich in flint artifacts and tools and include bifacial tools, scrapers, sickle blades, finds also include an arrow head and pottery. The sites are farming villages of a size and richness previously unknown in the Chalcolithic Galilee, two tells stand on the valley floor. The first is Tel Hanaton, which occupies roughly 5 hectares and dominates the end of the valley. Hanaton has been identified as the Hinnatuni of the Amarna letters, and according to the Bible, it, the second tell, Tell el-Wayiwat, is 0.4 hectares in size and rises 3.5 meters above the valley floor at its eastern edge. These have revealed five major strata, dating from the Middle Bronze Age through to the 11th century BCE, at the valleys northeastern edge stands the site of ancient Beth Netofa, its name preserved in the Arab place name, Khirbet Natif. It shows signs of habitation from the Iron Age through the Persian and Roman periods, nearby, next to Highway 65 that runs along the eastern edge of the valley, lies Hurvat Amudim, another Roman-era Jewish settlement
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Lower Galilee
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The Lower Galilee, is a region within the Northern District of Israel. The Lower Galilee is the part of the Galilee. Its called Lower since it is less mountainous than the Upper Galilee, the peaks of the Lower Galilee rise to 500 meters above sea level. The tallest peaks are Mount Kamon at the part of the Lower Galilee. Although the landscape of the Lower Galilee is less dramatic than that of the Upper Galilee, it is greener, more peaceful, the Lower Galilee is more accessible to the majority of Israelis. Much of the farms of Israel originates in the Lower Galilee, especially in the Jezreel Valley. Brown Terra Rossa - the Lower Galilee region also have areas which consists of this type of soil which has high amounts of minerals. The Terra Rossa is the basis for the development of forests in the Galilee because it has an amount of mineral needed for the trees to grow. The basalt areas also comprise very fertile soil, in 1932 the first Well drilling was done in the Yavneel Valley which supplied irrigation water to Yavneel. After several local Well drilling attempts made during those years failed water pipelines were laid from the Sea of Galilee to all villages in the Lower Galilee, Galilee Northern District Lower Galilee Regional Council Upper Galilee
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Israel
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Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in the Middle East, on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Red Sea. The country contains geographically diverse features within its small area. Israels economy and technology center is Tel Aviv, while its seat of government and proclaimed capital is Jerusalem, in 1947, the United Nations adopted a Partition Plan for Mandatory Palestine recommending the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states and an internationalized Jerusalem. The plan was accepted by the Jewish Agency for Palestine, next year, the Jewish Agency declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel. Israel has since fought several wars with neighboring Arab states, in the course of which it has occupied territories including the West Bank, Golan Heights and it extended its laws to the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, but not the West Bank. Israels occupation of the Palestinian territories is the worlds longest military occupation in modern times, efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have not resulted in peace. However, peace treaties between Israel and both Egypt and Jordan have successfully been signed, the population of Israel, as defined by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, was estimated in 2017 to be 8,671,100 people. It is the worlds only Jewish-majority state, with 74. 8% being designated as Jewish, the countrys second largest group of citizens are Arabs, at 20. 8%. The great majority of Israeli Arabs are Sunni Muslims, including significant numbers of semi-settled Negev Bedouins, other minorities include Arameans, Armenians, Assyrians, Black Hebrew Israelites, Circassians, Maronites and Samaritans. Israel also hosts a significant population of foreign workers and asylum seekers from Africa and Asia, including illegal migrants from Sudan, Eritrea. In its Basic Laws, Israel defines itself as a Jewish, Israel is a representative democracy with a parliamentary system, proportional representation and universal suffrage. The prime minister is head of government and the Knesset is the legislature, Israel is a developed country and an OECD member, with the 35th-largest economy in the world by nominal gross domestic product as of 2016. The country benefits from a skilled workforce and is among the most educated countries in the world with one of the highest percentage of its citizens holding a tertiary education degree. The country has the highest standard of living in the Middle East and the third highest in Asia, in the early weeks of independence, the government chose the term Israeli to denote a citizen of Israel, with the formal announcement made by Minister of Foreign Affairs Moshe Sharett. The names Land of Israel and Children of Israel have historically used to refer to the biblical Kingdom of Israel. The name Israel in these phrases refers to the patriarch Jacob who, jacobs twelve sons became the ancestors of the Israelites, also known as the Twelve Tribes of Israel or Children of Israel. The earliest known artifact to mention the word Israel as a collective is the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt. The area is known as the Holy Land, being holy for all Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity, Islam
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Kafr Manda
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Kafr Manda or Kfar Menda is an Arab town in the Lower Galilee on the slopes of Mount Atzmon in Israels Northern District. Kafr Manda is 16 kilometres northwest of the city of Nazareth, in 2015 its population was 18,509. The inhabitants are predominantly Arab Muslims, the village is located on an ancient site on a low hill. Ancient relics have been found, including architectural fragments, two columns and capitals. Some remains from the Roman and Byzantine era have been found, according to the 13th century Muslim scholar Yaqut al-Hamawi, Kafr Manda lies between Acre and Tiberias and also goes by the name Midian. The tomb of the wife of Moses is seen here, also, the pit covered by the rock which Moses raised up in order give himself and his wife water to drink. At Kafr Mandah may also be seen the tombs of two of Jacobs sons Asher and Naphthali as is reported, in 1962, “hundreds of clay jars, some of which were intact” dating to the 14th–15th centuries were found. Other remains from the Mamluk era have also been excavated, incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517 with all of Palestine, Kafr Manda appeared in the 1596 tax registers as being in the nahiya of Tabariyya under the Liwa of Safad. It had an entirely Muslim population consisting of 93 households and 11 bachelors, taxes were paid on wheat, barley, olive trees, cotton, soghum, goats and/or beehives, and a press for olives or grapes, a total of 13,028 akçe. In the early 18th century the village was walled, and defended by small forts. A map from Napoleons invasion of 1799 by Pierre Jacotin showed the place, edward Robinson noted the village on his travels in the region in 1838, while Victor Guérin in 1875 found the village to have about 400 inhabitants, all Muslim. In 1881, the Palestine Exploration Funds Survey of Western Palestine described Kefr Menda as a village at the foot of Jebel ed Deibebeh. The population is given as 200 souls, and the tillage is twenty feddans, in the 1922 census of Palestine, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Kufr Manda had a total population of 428, all Muslim. In the 1931 census the population of Kafr Manda, together with Arab el Hujeirat, was a total of 975, all Muslim, in 187 inhabited houses. In 1945 the population of Kafr Manda was 1,260 Muslims,795 dunams were plantations and irrigable land,7,960 for cereals, while 47 dunams were built-up land. On the crossroads between Acre and Nazareth, Kafr Manda surrendered to the advancing Israeli army during Operation Hiram, many of the villagers fled north but some stayed and were not expelled by the Israeli soldiers. The town remained under Martial Law until 1966 and it achieved local council status in 1973. Since then, roads have been paved, schools have been built and infrastructures such as sewage, electricity and irrigation systems have been introduced
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Hanaton
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Hanaton is a kibbutz in northern Israel. Located twelve kilometers north of Nazareth near the Arab town of Shefaram, in 2015 it had a population of 794. The biblical name Hanaton appears in the Book of Joshua, where it is listed as in the area of the tribe of Zevulun, tel Hanaton, an archaeological site associated with the biblical location lies to the east of the kibbutz. The tel is in the end of the Beit Netofa Valley. It was occupied from the Bronze Age through the Ottoman Empire, Kibbutz Hanaton overlooks Lake Eshkol, an important component of the National Water Carrier. To the north of the kibbutz is the Arab village of Kafr Manda, southwest of the kibbutz, across highway 79, lies Alon HaGalil. Garin Nitzan recruited members from across the United States and joined forces with the Israeli branch, in Israel, they hired rabbi Ehud Bandel to organize high school seniors interested in joining a Nahal garin. On 1 September 1983, Garin Noam moved to Kfar HaHoresh for training and they were joined by Garin Nitzan. In September 1984, the moved into the new kibbutz. The founders were joined by immigrants from South Africa, South America, the Netherlands. In 1997 the United Kibbutz Movement began to send HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed groups to the kibbutz, in 2006, in the wake of financial difficulties, attorney Sagi Mirom was appointed as a dissolution trustee. Under his stewardship the annual deficit of 80,000 NIS was reversed, in 2008, it was decided to recharter Hanaton as a renewed kibbutz. Since March 2011, the kibbutz has been accepting new members, in its early years, the kibbutz engaged in agriculture. A small crafts business, Hadran, manufactures rug kits, the kibbutz operates a dairy in partnership with Kibbutz Gat and a state-of-the-art chicken coop where chicken and turkey hatchlings are raised in a controlled, computerized environment. It grows greenhouse tomatoes, table grapes and grapefruits, a primary source of income is the Education & Lodging Center that provides lodging and workshops for Conservative Jewish youth groups from North America
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History of ancient Israel and Judah
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Israel and Judah were related Iron Age kingdoms of the ancient Levant. The Kingdom of Israel emerged as an important local power by the 10th century BCE before falling to the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 722 BCE and this, the last nominally independent Judean kingdom, came to an end in 63 BCE with its conquest by Pompey of Rome. East of the plain and the Shephelah is a ridge, the hill country of Judah in the south, the hill country of Ephraim north of that, then Galilee. To the east again lie the valley occupied by the Jordan River, the Dead Sea, and the wadi of the Arabah. Beyond the plateau is the Syrian desert, separating the Levant from Mesopotamia, to the southwest is Egypt, to the northeast Mesopotamia. The location and geographical characteristics of the narrow Levant made the area a battleground among the entities that surrounded it. Politically and culturally it was dominated by Egypt, each city under its own ruler, constantly at odds with its neighbours, and appealing to the Egyptians to adjudicate their differences. The Canaanite city-state system broke down at the end of the Late Bronze period, the name Israel first appears in the stele of the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah c.1209 BCE, Israel is laid waste and his seed is no more. In the Late Bronze Age there were no more than about 25 villages in the highlands, the villages were more numerous and larger in the north, and probably shared the highlands with pastoral nomads, who left no remains. Other Aramaean sites also demonstrate a contemporary absence of pig remains at that time, unlike earlier Canaanite, in The Bible Unearthed, Finkelstein and Silberman summarised recent studies. They described how, up until 1967, the Israelite heartland in the highlands of western Palestine was virtually an archaeological terra incognita, since then, intensive surveys have examined the traditional territories of the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, and Manasseh. These surveys have revealed the emergence of a new culture contrasting with the Philistine. This new culture is characterised by a lack of remains, by an abandonment of the Philistine/Canaanite custom of having highly decorated pottery. The Israelite ethnic identity had originated, not from the Exodus and a subsequent conquest and these surveys revolutionized the study of early Israel. There was no sign of violent invasion or even the infiltration of a clearly defined ethnic group, instead, it seemed to be a revolution in lifestyle. From then on, over a period of hundreds of years until after the return of the exiles from Babylon, after the period of Ezra there is no more biblical record of them. The Hebrew language, a dialect of Canaanite, became the language of the hill country, modern scholars therefore see Israel arising peacefully and internally from existing people in the highlands of Canaan. Unusually favourable climatic conditions in the first two centuries of Iron Age II brought about an expansion of population, settlements and trade throughout the region
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Vassal
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A vassal or feudatory is a person regarded as having a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch, in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. The obligations often included military support and mutual protection, in exchange for certain privileges, the term is applied to similar arrangements in other feudal societies. It is like a land lord some one who own and lets you live on it, in contrast, a fidelity, or fidelitas, was a sworn, unconditional loyalty to a monarch. Such refinements were not included from the outset when it was time of crisis, war, hunger, under feudalism, those who were weakest needed the protection of the knights who owned the weapons and knew how to fight. Feudal society was based on the concept of lordship, which was one of the distinguishing features of the Early Middle Ages and had evolved from times of Late Antiquity. In the time of Charlemagne, the connection slowly developed between vassalage and the grant of land, the form of wealth at that time. Contemporaneous social developments included agricultural manorialism and the social and legal structures labelled — and these developments proceeded at different rates in various regions. In Merovingian times, monarchs would reward only the greatest and most trusted vassals with lands, even at the most extreme devolution of any remnants of central power, in 10th-century France, the majority of vassals still had no fixed estates. The stratification of a band of vassals into distinct groups might roughly correlate with the new term fief that had started to supersede benefice in the 9th century. An upper group comprised great territorial magnates, who were strong enough to ensure the inheritance of their benefice to the heirs of their family, a lower group consisted of landless knights attached to a count or duke. This social settling process also received impetus in fundamental changes in the conduct of warfare, as co-ordinated cavalry superseded disorganized infantry, armies became more expensive to maintain. A vassal needed economic resources to equip the cavalry he was bound to contribute to his lord to fight his frequent wars. Such resources, in the absence of an economy, came only from land and its associated assets. Many empires have set up states, based on tribes, kingdoms, or city-states. In these cases a state has retained internal autonomy, but has lost independence in foreign policy, while and, in many instances. In this framework, a colony or junior ally might also be regarded as a vassal state in terms of international relations. The concept of a state uses the concept of personal vassalry to theorize formally hegemonic relationships between states – even those using non-personal forms of rule. Imperial states to which this terminology has been applied include, for instance, Ancient Rome, the Mongol Empire, and the British Empire
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Canaan
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Canaan was a Semitic-speaking region in the Ancient Near East during the late 2nd millennium BC. The name Canaan occurs commonly in the Hebrew Bible, in particular, the references in Genesis 10 and Numbers 34 define the Land of Canaan as extending from Lebanon southward to the Brook of Egypt and eastward to the Jordan River Valley. References to Canaan in the Bible are usually backward-looking, referring to a region that had something else. The term Canaanites serves as an ethnic catch-all term covering various indigenous populations—both settled, the Amarna Letters and other cuneiform documents use Kinaḫḫu, while other sources of the Egyptian New Kingdom mention numerous military campaigns conducted in Ka-na-na. Canaan had significant geopolitical importance in the Late Bronze Age Amarna period as the area where the spheres of interest of the Egyptian, Hittite, Mitanni and Assyrian Empires converged. Much of the knowledge about Canaan stems from archaeological excavation in this area at sites such as Tel Hazor, Tel Megiddo. The English term Canaan comes from the Hebrew כנען, via Greek Χαναάν Khanaan and it appears as KUR ki-na-ah-na in the Amarna letters, and knʿn is found on coins from Phoenicia in the last half of the 1st millennium. It first occurs in Greek in the writings of Hecataeus as Khna, scholars connect the name Canaan with knʿn, Kanaan, the general Northwest Semitic name for this region. An early explanation derives the term from the Semitic root knʿ to be low, humble, purple cloth became a renowned Canaanite export commodity which is mentioned in Exodus. The dyes may have named after their place of origin. The purple cloth of Tyre in Phoenicia was well known far, however, according to Robert Drews, Speisers proposal has generally been abandoned. The Late Bronze Age state of Ugarit is considered quintessentially Canaanite archaeologically, Jonathan Tubb states that the term ga-na-na may provide a third millennium reference to Canaanite while at the same time stating that the first certain reference is in the 18th century BC. See Ebla-Biblical controversy for further details, Mari letters A letter from Mutu-bisir to Shamshi-Adad I of the Old Assyrian Empire has been translated, It is in Rahisum that the brigands and the Canaanites are situated. It was found in 1973 in the ruins of Mari, an Assyrian outpost at that time in Syria, additional unpublished references to Kinahnum in the Mari letters refer to the same episode. Alalakh texts A reference to Ammiya being in the land of Canaan is found on the Statue of Idrimi from Alalakh in modern Syria. After a popular uprising against his rule, Idrimi was forced into exile with his mothers relatives to seek refuge in the land of Canaan, the other references in the Alalakh texts are, AT154 AT181, A list of Apiru people with their origins. All are towns, except for Canaan AT188, A list of Muskenu people with their origins, the letters are written in the official and diplomatic East Semitic Akkadian language of Assyria and Babylonia, though Canaanitish words and idioms are also in evidence. May the king ask Yanhamu about these matters, may the king ask his commissioner, who is familiar with Canaan EA151, Letter from Abimilku to the Pharaoh, The king, my lord wrote to me, write to me what you have heard from Canaan
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Akhenaten
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Akhenaten known before the fifth year of his reign as Amenhotep IV, was an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty who ruled for 17 years and died perhaps in 1336 BC or 1334 BC. An early inscription likens the Aten to the sun as compared to stars, Akhenaten tried to bring about a departure from traditional religion, yet in the end it would not be accepted. After his death, his monuments were dismantled and hidden, his statues were terminated and he was all but lost from history until the discovery during the 19th century of the site of Akhetaten, the city he built and designed for the worship of Aten, at Amarna. DNA analysis has determined that the man buried in KV55 is the father of King Tutankhamun, the future Akhenaten was a younger son of Amenhotep III and Chief Queen Tiye. The eldest son Crown Prince Thutmose was recognized as the heir of Amenhotep III but he died relatively young, there is much controversy around whether Amenhotep IV succeeded to the throne on the death of his father Amenhotep III or whether there was a coregency. Other literature by Donald Redford, William Murnane, Alan Gardiner, in February 2014, the Egyptian Ministry for Antiquities announced what it called conclusive evidence that Akhenaten shared power with his father for at least 8 years. The evidence came from the found in the Luxor tomb of Vizier Amenhotep-Huy. A team of Spanish archeologists have been working at this tomb, Amenhotep IV was crowned in Thebes and there he started a building program. He decorated the entrance to the precincts of the temple of Amun-Re with scenes of his worshiping Re-Harakhti. He soon decreed the construction of a dedicated to the Aten in Eastern Karnak. This Temple of Amenhotep IV was called the Gempaaten, the Gempaaten consisted of a series of buildings, including a palace and a structure called the Hwt Benben which was dedicated to Queen Nefertiti. Other Aten temples constructed at Karnak during this time include the Rud-menu, during this time he did not repress the worship of Amun, and the High Priest of Amun was still active in the fourth year of his reign. The king appears as Amenhotep IV in the tombs of some of the nobles in Thebes, Kheruef, Ramose, in the tomb of Ramose, Amenhotep IV appears on the west wall in the traditional style, seated on a throne with Ramose appearing before the king. On the other side of the doorway, Amenhotep IV and Nefertiti are shown in the window of appearance with the Aten depicted as the sun disc. In the Theban tomb of Parennefer, Amenhotep IV and Nefertiti are seated on a throne with the sun disk depicted over the king, among the latter-known documents referring to Amenhotep IV are two copies of a letter from the Steward Of Memphis Apy to the pharaoh. The documents were found in Gurob and are dated to regnal year 5, third month of the Growing Season, on day 13, Month 8, in the fifth year of his reign, the king arrived at the site of the new city Akhetaten. A month before that Amenhotep IV had officially changed his name to Akhenaten, Amenhotep IV changed most of his 5 fold titulary in year 5 of his reign. The only name he kept was his prenomen or throne name of Neferkheperure, some recent debate has focused on the extent to which Akhenaten forced his religious reforms on his people
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Semitic languages
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The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family originating in the Middle East. The terminology was first used in the 1780s by members of the Göttingen School of History, the most widely spoken Semitic languages today are Arabic, Amharic, Tigrinya, Hebrew, Aramaic and Maltese. Among them are the Ugaritic, Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Maltese is the only Semitic language written in the Latin script and the only Semitic language to be an official language of the European Union. The Semitic languages are notable for their nonconcatenative morphology and that is, word roots are not themselves syllables or words, but instead are isolated sets of consonants. Words are composed out of not so much by adding prefixes or suffixes. For example, in Arabic, the root meaning write has the form k-t-b, the similarity of the Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic languages was accepted by Jewish and Islamic scholars since medieval times. Almost two centuries later, Hiob Ludolf described the similarities between these three languages and the Ethiopian Semitic languages, however, neither scholar named this grouping as Semitic. Viewed from this too, with respect to the alphabet used. Previously these languages had been known as the Oriental languages in European literature. In the 19th century, Semitic became the name, however. There are several locations proposed as sites for prehistoric origins of Semitic-speaking peoples, Mesopotamia, The Levant, Mediterranean, the Arabian Peninsula. Both the Near East and North Africa saw an influx of Muslim Arabs from the Arabian Peninsula, followed later by non-Semitic Muslim Iranian and Turkic peoples. The Arabs spread their Central Semitic language to North Africa where it gradually replaced Coptic and many Berber languages, with the patronage of the caliphs and the prestige of its liturgical status, Arabic rapidly became one of the worlds main literary languages. Its spread among the masses took much longer, however, as many of the populations outside the Arabian Peninsula only gradually abandoned their languages in favour of Arabic. As Bedouin tribes settled in conquered areas, it became the language of not only central Arabia, but also Yemen, the Fertile Crescent. Most of the Maghreb followed, particularly in the wake of the Banu Hilals incursion in the 11th century, and Arabic became the native language of many inhabitants of al-Andalus. After the collapse of the Nubian kingdom of Dongola in the 14th century, Arabic began to spread south of Egypt into modern Sudan, soon after, the Beni Ḥassān brought Arabization to Mauritania. Meanwhile, Semitic languages were diversifying in Ethiopia and Eritrea, where, under heavy Cushitic influence, they split into a number of languages, including Amharic, Arabic languages and dialects are currently the native languages of majorities from Mauritania to Oman, and from Iraq to the Sudan
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Book of Joshua
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The Book of Joshua is the sixth book in the Hebrew Bible and the first book of the Deuteronomistic history, the story of Israel from the conquest of Canaan to the Babylonian exile. Almost all scholars agree that the book of Joshua holds little value for early Israel. Although Rabbinic tradition holds that the book was written by Joshua, transfer of leadership to Joshua A. Joshuas instructions to the people II, entrance into and conquest of Canaan A. Entry into Canaan 1. Reconnaissance of Jericho 2, establishing a foothold at Gilgal 4. Failure and success at Ai 3, renewal of the covenant at Mount Ebal 4. Other campaigns in central Canaan 5, summary list of defeated kings III. Division of the land among the tribes A, cities of refuge and levitical cities D. Summary of conquest E. De-commissioning of the eastern tribes IV, conclusion A. Joshuas farewell address B. Methodist writer Joseph Benson suggests that Gods revelation to Joshua comes either immediately after, God commissions Joshua to take possession of the land and warns him to keep faith with the Covenant. The Israelites cross the Jordan River through the intervention of God. The conquest begins in Canaan with Jericho, followed by Ai, after which Joshua builds an altar to Yahweh at Mount Ebal, the covenant ceremony has elements of a divine land-grant ceremony, similar to ceremonies known from Mesopotamia. The narrative then switches to the south, the Gibeonites trick the Israelites into entering into an alliance with them by saying they are not Canaanites, this prevents the Israelites from exterminating them, but they are enslaved instead. An alliance of Amorite kingdoms headed by the Canaanite king of Jerusalem is defeated with Yahwehs miraculous help of stopping the sun and the moon, the enemy kings were eventually hanged on trees. With the south conquered the narrative moves to the northern campaign, a powerful multi-national coalition headed by the king of Hazor, the most important northern city, is defeated with Yahwehs help and Hazor captured and destroyed. Chapter 11, 16–23 summarises the extent of the conquest, Joshua has taken the land, almost entirely through military victories. Joshua 11,18 asserts that the conquest took a long time - the Amplified Bible, anglican churchman Charles Ellicott thinks the war seems to have lasted seven years. The land then had rest from war, the list of the 31 kings is quasi-tabular, the king of Jerusalem, one, the king of Hebron, one, the king of Jarmuth, one, the king of Lachish, one
15.
Tribe of Zebulun
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According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Zebulun was one of the twelve tribes of Israel. Following the completion of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelite tribes in the Book of Joshua, Joshua allocated the land among the twelve tribes. According to the Torah, the tribe consisted of descendants of Zebulun, some Biblical scholars, however, view this as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation. With Leah as a matriarch, Biblical scholars believe the tribe to have been regarded by the authors as a part of the original Israelite confederation. In the ancient Song of Deborah, Zebulun are described as sending to the battle those that handle the sopher shebet, the Tribe of Zebulun plays an important part in the early history of Israel. At the census of the tribes in the Desert of Sinai during the year of the Exodus. This army, under the command of Eliab the son of Helon, encamped with Judah and Issachar east of the Tabernacle, among the spies sent by Moses to view the land of Canaan, Gaddiel the son of Sodi represented Zebulun. At Shittim, in the land of Moab, after 24,000 men were slain for their crime, elizaphan the son of Parnach was chosen to represent Zebulun at the division of the Promised Land. During the rule of Joshua it received no special mention. e, such as recruiting and inspecting officers. The reference is to Baraks campaign against Sisera, the commander of the forces of Jabin and they answered the call of Gideon and joined in battle against Madian, and gave to Israel Elon, who judged it ten years. When Hezekiah made reparation for the abominations of his father Ahaz, at the division of the land of Israel among the seven tribes not yet provided for, the lot of Zebulun was third. The tribes territory started with Sarid, which is supposed to have been Tel Shadud, zebuluns boundaries have not been made out. The historian Josephus assigns to Zebulun the land near to Carmel, to its northwest lay Asher, to the southeast Issachar. It included a part of the Jezreel Valley, and the highway from the sea to the lake. Within the territory of Zebulun, Jesus was raised, and did and said much that is narrated in the Gospels, especially in the Synoptics, about his Galilean ministry. As part of the Kingdom of Israel, the territory of Zebulun was conquered by the Assyrians, and the tribe exiled, israeli Knesset member Ayoob Kara speculated that the Druze are descended from one of the Lost Tribes of Israel, probably Zevulun. Kara stated that the Druze share many of the same beliefs as Jews, Zebulun Tribe of Issachar This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Easton, Matthew George. Media related to Tribe of Zebulun at Wikimedia Commons
16.
Stratigraphy (archaeology)
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Stratigraphy is a key concept to modern archaeological theory and practice. Modern excavation techniques are based on stratigraphic principles, the concept derives from the geological use of the idea that sedimentation takes place according to uniform principles. It is the role to attempt to discover what contexts exist. Archaeological stratification or sequence is the superimposition of single units of stratigraphy. Contexts are single events or actions that leave discrete, detectable traces in the sequence or stratigraphy. They can be deposits, structures, or zero thickness surfaciques, cuts represent actions that remove other solid contexts such as fills, deposits, and walls. An example would be a cut through earlier deposits. Stratigraphic relationships are the relationships created between contexts in time, representing the order they were created. One example would be a ditch and the back-fill of said ditch, the temporal relationship of the fill context to the ditch cut context is such that the fill occurred later in the sequence, you have to dig a ditch before you can back-fill it. It is more useful to think of higher as it relates to the position in a Harris matrix. The principle of original horizontality states that any archaeological layer deposited in a form will tend towards a horizontal deposition. Strata which are found with tilted surfaces were so originally deposited, the principle of lateral continuity states that any archaeological deposit, as originally laid down, will be bounded by the edge of the basin of deposition, or will thin down to a feather edge. Understanding a site in modern archaeology is a process of grouping single contexts together in larger groups by virtue of their relationships. The terminology of these larger clusters varies depending on the practitioner, but the interface, sub-group. An example of a sub-group could be the three contexts that make up a burial, the cut, the body, and the back-filled earth on top of the body. Sub-groups can then be clustered together with other sub-groups by virtue of their relationship to form groups. A sub-group burial could cluster with other sub-group burials to form a cemetery, archaeologists investigating a site may wish to date the activity rather than artifacts on site by dating the individual contexts which represents events. For example, the date of formation of a context which is sealed between two datable layers will fall between the dates of the two layers sealing it
17.
Via Maris
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In Latin, Via Maris means way of the sea. It is a road that runs along the Israeli Mediterranean coast. It was the most important route from Egypt to Syria which followed the coastal plain before crossing over into the plain of Jezreel and its earlier name was Way of the Philistines, a reference to a passageway through the Philistine Plain. The name Via Maris is not ancient and academic researchers prefer other names, together with the Kings Highway, the Via Maris was one of the major trade routes connecting Egypt and the Levant with Anatolia and Mesopotamia. The Via Maris was crossed by other trading routes, so one could travel from Africa to Europe or from Asia to Africa. It began in al-Qantara and went east to Pelusium, following the northern coast of Sinai through el-Arish, again turning northward along the shore, the Via Maris passed through Migdal, Capernaum, and Hazor. From Hazor it crossed the northern River Jordan at Jacobs Daughters Bridge then climbed sharply over the Golan Heights, here travellers could continue on the Kings Highway as far as the Euphrates River or proceed northward into Anatolia. According to Anson Rainey, Via Maris is not the name of any road. The phrase rather originates as the Latin translation of Isaiah 9,1 – by the way of the sea. The prophet was probably referring to the road from Dan to the sea at Tyre, passing through Abel-beth-maachah, the road mentioned in the traditional description is better listed as the Great Trunk Road. Carl G. Rasmussen in the Zondervan Atlas of the Bible, p.32, also notes the traditional misnomer, Rasmussen, basically in agreement with Langfur and Rainey, suggests that the Via Maris was the road that connected Tyre with Damascus. Beitzel, in contrast, denotes the Via Maris as a road from Ptolemais to Kedesh in the Galilee - also leading west to east, but slightly further south and not reaching so far inland
18.
Amarna letters
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The letters were found in Upper Egypt at Amarna, the modern name for the ancient Egyptian capital of Akhetaten, founded by pharaoh Akhenaten during the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt. The Amarna letters are unusual in Egyptological research, because they are written in Akkadian cuneiform. The written correspondence spans a period of at most thirty years, the Amarna letters are of great significance for biblical studies as well as Semitic linguistics, since they shed light on the culture and language of the Canaanite peoples in pre-biblical times. These Canaanisms provide valuable insights into the proto-stage of those languages several centuries prior to their first actual manifestation and they had originally been stored in an ancient building that archaeologists have since called the Bureau of Correspondence of Pharaoh. Once the location where they were found was determined, the ruins were explored for more, the first archaeologist who successfully recovered more tablets was Flinders Petrie, who in 1891 and 1892 uncovered 21 fragments. Émile Chassinat, then director of the French Institute for Oriental Archaeology in Cairo, since Knudtzons edition, some 24 more tablets, or fragments, have been found, either in Egypt, or identified in the collections of various museums. The initial group of letters recovered by local Egyptians have been scattered among museums in Germany, England, Egypt, France, Russia, the archive contains a wealth of information about cultures, kingdoms, events and individuals in a period from which few written sources survive. It includes correspondence from Akhenatens reign, as well as his predecessor Amenhotep IIIs reign, the tablets consist of over 300 diplomatic letters, the remainder comprise miscellaneous literary and educational materials. These tablets shed light on Egyptian relations with Babylonia, Assyria, Syria, Canaan, and Alashiya as well as relations with the Mitanni. The letters have been important in establishing both the history and the chronology of the period, letters from the Babylonian king, Kadashman-Enlil I, anchor the timeframe of Akhenatens reign to the mid-14th century BC. Specifically, the letters include requests for help in the north against Hittite invaders. Note, Many assignments are tentative, spellings vary widely, william L. The Amarna archive, it is now generally agreed, spans at most about thirty years, perhaps only fifteen or so. Moran notes that scholars believe one tablet, EA16. However, this speculation appears improbable because the Amarna archives were closed by Year 2 of Tutankhamun, a small number of the Amarna letters are in the class of poetry. EA153, entitled, Ships on hold, from Abimilku of Tyre is a short, lines 6-8, and 9-11 are parallel phrases, each ending with. before the troops of the king, my lord. -. Both sentences are identical, and repetitive, with only the subject statement changing, the entire corpus of Amarna letters has many standard phrases. It also has some phrases, and quotations used only once, some are parables, A bird in a cage —Rib-Hadda subcorpus of letters. A brick may move from under its partner, still I will not move from under the feet of the king, my lord. —Used in letters EA266,292, EA292 by Adda-danu of Gazru
19.
Ancient Egypt
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Ancient Egypt was a civilization of ancient Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. It is one of six civilizations to arise independently, Egyptian civilization followed prehistoric Egypt and coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh Narmer. In the aftermath of Alexander the Greats death, one of his generals, Ptolemy Soter and this Greek Ptolemaic Kingdom ruled Egypt until 30 BC, when, under Cleopatra, it fell to the Roman Empire and became a Roman province. The success of ancient Egyptian civilization came partly from its ability to adapt to the conditions of the Nile River valley for agriculture, the predictable flooding and controlled irrigation of the fertile valley produced surplus crops, which supported a more dense population, and social development and culture. Its art and architecture were widely copied, and its antiquities carried off to far corners of the world and its monumental ruins have inspired the imaginations of travelers and writers for centuries. The Nile has been the lifeline of its region for much of human history, nomadic modern human hunter-gatherers began living in the Nile valley through the end of the Middle Pleistocene some 120,000 years ago. By the late Paleolithic period, the climate of Northern Africa became increasingly hot and dry. In Predynastic and Early Dynastic times, the Egyptian climate was less arid than it is today. Large regions of Egypt were covered in treed savanna and traversed by herds of grazing ungulates, foliage and fauna were far more prolific in all environs and the Nile region supported large populations of waterfowl. Hunting would have been common for Egyptians, and this is also the period when many animals were first domesticated. The largest of these cultures in upper Egypt was the Badari, which probably originated in the Western Desert, it was known for its high quality ceramics, stone tools. The Badari was followed by the Amratian and Gerzeh cultures, which brought a number of technological improvements, as early as the Naqada I Period, predynastic Egyptians imported obsidian from Ethiopia, used to shape blades and other objects from flakes. In Naqada II times, early evidence exists of contact with the Near East, particularly Canaan, establishing a power center at Hierakonpolis, and later at Abydos, Naqada III leaders expanded their control of Egypt northwards along the Nile. They also traded with Nubia to the south, the oases of the desert to the west. Royal Nubian burials at Qustul produced artifacts bearing the oldest-known examples of Egyptian dynastic symbols, such as the crown of Egypt. They also developed a ceramic glaze known as faience, which was used well into the Roman Period to decorate cups, amulets, and figurines. During the last predynastic phase, the Naqada culture began using written symbols that eventually were developed into a system of hieroglyphs for writing the ancient Egyptian language. The Early Dynastic Period was approximately contemporary to the early Sumerian-Akkadian civilisation of Mesopotamia, the third-century BC Egyptian priest Manetho grouped the long line of pharaohs from Menes to his own time into 30 dynasties, a system still used today
20.
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
21.
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
22.
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
23.
King of Assyria
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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
24.
Kingdom of Israel (Samaria)
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According to the Hebrew Bible, the Kingdom of Israel was one of two successor states to the former United Kingdom of Israel and Judah. Historians often refer to the Kingdom of Israel as the Northern Kingdom or as the Kingdom of Samaria to differentiate it from the Southern Kingdom of Judah, the Kingdom of Israel existed roughly from 930 BCE until 720 BCE, when it was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The major cities of the kingdom were Shechem, Tirzah, in the Hebrew Bible, the Kingdom of Israel has been referred to as the House of Joseph. It is also referenced as Ephraim, the tribe whose territory housed the capital cities. It has also referred to as Israel in Samaria. According to the Hebrew Bible, the territory of the Kingdom of Israel comprised the territories of the tribes of Zebulun, Issachar, Asher, Naphtali, Dan, Manasseh, Ephraim, Reuben and its capital was Samaria according to the Book of Isaiah. The United Kingdom of Israel and Judah is said to have existed from about 1030 to about 930 BCE and it was a union of all the twelve Israelite tribes living in the area that presently approximates modern Israel and the Palestinian territories. After the death of Solomon in about 931 BCE, all the Israelite tribes except for Judah and Benjamin refused to accept Rehoboam, the rebellion against Rehoboam arose after he refused to lighten the burden of taxation and services that his father had imposed on his subjects. Jeroboam, who was not of the Davidic line, was sent for from Egypt by the malcontents, the Tribe of Ephraim and all Israel raised the old cry, Every man to his tents, O Israel. Rehoboam fled to Jerusalem, and in 930 BCE, Jeroboam was proclaimed king over all Israel at Shechem, after the revolt at Shechem at first only the tribe of Judah remained loyal to the house of David. But very soon after the tribe of Benjamin joined Judah, the northern kingdom continued to be called the Kingdom of Israel or Israel, while the southern kingdom was called the kingdom of Judah. 2 Chronicles 15,9 also says that members of the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, both Eusebius and Josephus place the division in 997 BCE – lunar dates of Venus can be mistaken as 64 years later. Shechem was the first capital of the Kingdom of Israel, King Omri built his capital in Samaria, which continued as such until the destruction of the Kingdom by the Assyrians. Thus, around 720 BCE, after two centuries, the kingdom of the ten tribes came to an end, for the first sixty years, the kings of Judah tried to re-establish their authority over the northern kingdom, and there was perpetual war between them. For the following eighty years, there was no war between them, and, for the most part, they were in friendly alliance, co-operating against their common enemies. The conflict between Israel and Judah was resolved when Jehoshaphat, King of Judah, allied himself with the house of Ahab through marriage, later, Jehosophats son and successor, Jehoram of Judah, married Ahabs daughter Athaliah, cementing the alliance. However, the sons of Ahab were slaughtered by Jehu following his coup détat around 840 BCE, in c.732 BCE, Pekah of Israel, while allied with Rezin, king of Aram, threatened Jerusalem. Ahaz, king of Judah, appealed to Tiglath-Pileser III, the king of Assyria, people from these tribes including the Reubenite leader, were taken captive and resettled in the region of the Khabur River system
25.
Arable land
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Arable land is, according to one definition, land capable of being ploughed and used to grow crops. In Britain, it was contrasted with pasturable lands such as heaths which could be used for sheep-rearing. A quite different kind of definition is used by various agencies concerned with agriculture, the abandoned land resulting from shifting cultivation is not included in this category. Data for ‘Arable land’ are not meant to indicate the amount of land that is potentially cultivable, a briefer definition appearing in the Eurostat glossary similarly refers to actual, rather than potential use, land worked regularly, generally under a system of crop rotation. According to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations the worlds Arable land amounted to 1,407 M ha, out of a total 4,924 M ha land used for agriculture, as for year 2013. Agricultural land that is not arable according to the FAO definition above includes, Permanent crop - land that produces crops from woody vegetation, other non-arable land includes land unsuitable for any agricultural use. Although such limitations may preclude cultivation, and some will in some cases preclude any agricultural use, for example, US NRCS statistics indicate that about 59 percent of US non-federal pasture and unforested rangeland is unsuitable for cultivation, yet such land has value for grazing of livestock. Similar examples can be found in many rangeland areas elsewhere, land incapable of being cultivated for production of crops can sometimes be converted to arable land. New arable land makes more food, and can reduce starvation and this outcome also makes a country more self-sufficient and politically independent, because food importation is reduced. This process is extremely expensive. An alternative is the Seawater Greenhouse which desalinates water through evaporation and condensation using solar energy as the energy input. This technology is optimized to grow crops on land close to the sea. The people covered the islands with a layer of seaweed. Israel, The construction of desalination plants along Israels coast allowed agriculture in areas that were formerly desert. The desalination plants, which remove the salt from water, have created a new source of water for farming, drinking. Slash and burn agriculture uses nutrients in wood ash, but these expire within a few years, terra preta, fertile tropical soils created by adding charcoal. Some examples of fertile land being turned into infertile land are. Rainforest deforestation, The fertile tropical forests are converted into infertile desert land, for example, Madagascars central highland plateau has become virtually totally barren, as a result of slash-and-burn deforestation, an element of shifting cultivation practiced by many natives
26.
Ancient Rome
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In its many centuries of existence, the Roman state evolved from a monarchy to a classical republic and then to an increasingly autocratic empire. Through conquest and assimilation, it came to dominate the Mediterranean region and then Western Europe, Asia Minor, North Africa and it is often grouped into classical antiquity together with ancient Greece, and their similar cultures and societies are known as the Greco-Roman world. Ancient Roman civilisation has contributed to modern government, law, politics, engineering, art, literature, architecture, technology, warfare, religion, language and society. Rome professionalised and expanded its military and created a system of government called res publica, the inspiration for modern republics such as the United States and France. By the end of the Republic, Rome had conquered the lands around the Mediterranean and beyond, its domain extended from the Atlantic to Arabia, the Roman Empire emerged with the end of the Republic and the dictatorship of Augustus Caesar. 721 years of Roman-Persian Wars started in 92 BC with their first war against Parthia and it would become the longest conflict in human history, and have major lasting effects and consequences for both empires. Under Trajan, the Empire reached its territorial peak, Republican mores and traditions started to decline during the imperial period, with civil wars becoming a prelude common to the rise of a new emperor. Splinter states, such as the Palmyrene Empire, would divide the Empire during the crisis of the 3rd century. Plagued by internal instability and attacked by various migrating peoples, the part of the empire broke up into independent kingdoms in the 5th century. This splintering is a landmark historians use to divide the ancient period of history from the pre-medieval Dark Ages of Europe. King Numitor was deposed from his throne by his brother, Amulius, while Numitors daughter, Rhea Silvia, because Rhea Silvia was raped and impregnated by Mars, the Roman god of war, the twins were considered half-divine. The new king, Amulius, feared Romulus and Remus would take back the throne, a she-wolf saved and raised them, and when they were old enough, they returned the throne of Alba Longa to Numitor. Romulus became the source of the citys name, in order to attract people to the city, Rome became a sanctuary for the indigent, exiled, and unwanted. This caused a problem for Rome, which had a large workforce but was bereft of women, Romulus traveled to the neighboring towns and tribes and attempted to secure marriage rights, but as Rome was so full of undesirables they all refused. Legend says that the Latins invited the Sabines to a festival and stole their unmarried maidens, leading to the integration of the Latins, after a long time in rough seas, they landed at the banks of the Tiber River. Not long after they landed, the men wanted to take to the sea again, one woman, named Roma, suggested that the women burn the ships out at sea to prevent them from leaving. At first, the men were angry with Roma, but they realized that they were in the ideal place to settle. They named the settlement after the woman who torched their ships, the Roman poet Virgil recounted this legend in his classical epic poem the Aeneid
27.
Hellenistic period
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It is often considered a period of transition, sometimes even of decadence or degeneration, compared to the enlightenment of the Greek Classical era. The Hellenistic period saw the rise of New Comedy, Alexandrian poetry, the Septuagint, Greek science was advanced by the works of the mathematician Euclid and the polymath Archimedes. The religious sphere expanded to include new gods such as the Greco-Egyptian Serapis, eastern deities such as Attis and Cybele, the Hellenistic period was characterized by a new wave of Greek colonization which established Greek cities and kingdoms in Asia and Africa. This resulted in the export of Greek culture and language to new realms. Equally, however, these new kingdoms were influenced by the cultures, adopting local practices where beneficial, necessary. Hellenistic culture thus represents a fusion of the Ancient Greek world with that of the Near East, Middle East and this mixture gave rise to a common Attic-based Greek dialect, known as Koine Greek, which became the lingua franca through the Hellenistic world. Scholars and historians are divided as to what event signals the end of the Hellenistic era, Hellenistic is distinguished from Hellenic in that the first encompasses the entire sphere of direct ancient Greek influence, while the latter refers to Greece itself. The word originated from the German term hellenistisch, from Ancient Greek Ἑλληνιστής, from Ἑλλάς, Hellenistic is a modern word and a 19th-century concept, the idea of a Hellenistic period did not exist in Ancient Greece. Although words related in form or meaning, e. g, the major issue with the term Hellenistic lies in its convenience, as the spread of Greek culture was not the generalized phenomenon that the term implies. Some areas of the world were more affected by Greek influences than others. The Greek population and the population did not always mix, the Greeks moved and brought their own culture. While a few fragments exist, there is no surviving historical work which dates to the hundred years following Alexanders death. The works of the major Hellenistic historians Hieronymus of Cardia, Duris of Samos, the earliest and most credible surviving source for the Hellenistic period is Polybius of Megalopolis, a statesman of the Achaean League until 168 BC when he was forced to go to Rome as a hostage. His Histories eventually grew to a length of forty books, covering the years 220 to 167 BC, another important source, Plutarchs Parallel Lives though more preoccupied with issues of personal character and morality, outlines the history of important Hellenistic figures. Appian of Alexandria wrote a history of the Roman empire that includes information of some Hellenistic kingdoms, other sources include Justins epitome of Pompeius Trogus Historiae Philipicae and a summary of Arrians Events after Alexander, by Photios I of Constantinople. Lesser supplementary sources include Curtius Rufus, Pausanias, Pliny, in the field of philosophy, Diogenes Laertius Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is the main source. Ancient Greece had traditionally been a collection of fiercely independent city-states. After the Peloponnesian War, Greece had fallen under a Spartan hegemony, in which Sparta was pre-eminent but not all-powerful
28.
Sepphoris
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It lies 286 m above sea level and overlooks the Beit Netofa Valley. The site holds a rich and diverse historical and architectural legacy that includes Hellenistic, Jewish, Roman, Byzantine, Islamic, Crusader, Arabic, following the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–135, Sepphoris was one of the centers in Galilee where rabbinical families from Judea relocated. Remains of a synagogue dated to the first half of the century were discovered on the northern side of town. In the 7th century, the town was conquered by the Arab caliphates like much of the rest of Palestine, successive Arab and Islamic imperial authorities ruled the area until the end of the first World War I, with a brief interruption during the Crusades. Until its depopulation during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Saffuriya was an Arab village, moshav Tzippori was established adjacent to the site in 1949. It falls under the jurisdiction of Jezreel Valley Regional Council, the area occupied by the former Arab village was designated a national park in 1992 Archaeological remains from the Middle Paleolithic and the Yarmukian culture have been found. Remains have also found from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B and the Middle Chalcolithic era. Evidence from ceramic remains indicates the site of Sepphoris was inhabited during the Iron Age,1, actual occupation and building work can be verified from the 4th century, with the Hellenistic period. The Bible makes no mention of the city, the Roman client king, Herod the Great recaptured the city in 37 BCE after it had been garrisoned by the Parthian proxy, the Hasmonean Antigonus II Mattathias. After Herods son, Herod Antipas was made tetrarch, or governor, he proclaimed the new name to be Autocratoris. An ancient route linking Sepphoris to Legio, and further south to Samaria-Sebastia, is believed to have been paved by the Romans around this time, the new population was loyal to Rome. At the time of Jesus, Sepphoris was a large, Roman-influenced city and it has been suggested that Jesus, while living in Nazareth, may have worked as a craftsman at Sepphoris, where, during his youth the largest restoration project of his time took place. The inhabitants of Sepphoris did not join the Great Jewish Revolt against Roman rule of 66 CE, the Roman legate in Syria, Cestius Gallus, killed some 2,000 brigands and rebels in the area, and sold its inhabitants into slavery. The Jerusalemite Josephus, a son of Jerusalems priestly elite had been sent north to recruit the Galilee into the rebellions fold, but was only partially successful. He made two attempts to capture Sepphoris, but failed to conquer it, the first time because of fierce resistance, around the time of the rebellion Sepphoris had a Roman theater - in later periods, bath-houses and mosaic floors depicting human figures. Rejected by Sepphoris and forced to camp outside the city Josephus went on to Jotapata, towns and villages that did not rebel were spared and in Galilee they were the majority. Coins minted in the city at the time of the Great Revolt carried the inscription Neronias and Eirenopolis, after the revolt, coins bore depictions of laurel wreaths, palm trees, caduceuses and ears of barley, which appear on Jewish coinage albeit not exclusively. Just prior to the Bar Kokhba revolt, the name was changed to Diocaesarea in Hadrians time, in honor of Zeus
29.
Crusades
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The First Crusade arose after a call to arms in a 1095 sermon by Pope Urban II. Urban urged military support for the Byzantine Empire and its Emperor, Alexios I, the response to Urbans preaching by people of many different classes across Western Europe established the precedent for later Crusades. Volunteers became Crusaders by taking a vow and receiving plenary indulgences from the church. Some were hoping for apotheosis at Jerusalem, or forgiveness from God for all their sins, others participated to satisfy feudal obligations, gain glory and honour, or find opportunities for economic and political gain. Many modern Historians have polarised opinions of the Crusaders behaviour under Papal sanction, to some it was incongruous with the stated aims and implied moral authority of the papacy and the Crusades, to the extent that on occasions that the Pope excommunicated Crusaders. Crusaders often pillaged as they travelled, while their leaders retained control of captured territory rather than returning it to the Byzantines. During the Peoples Crusade thousands of Jews were murdered in what is now called the Rhineland massacres, Constantinople was sacked during the Fourth Crusade rendering the reunification of Christendom impossible. These tales consequently galvanised medieval romance, philosophy and literature, but the Crusades also reinforced the connection between Western Christendom, feudalism, and militarism. Crusade is not a term, instead the terms iter for journey or peregrinatio for pilgrimage were used. Not until the word crucesignatus for one who was signed with the cross was adopted at the close of the century was specific terminology developed. The Middle English equivalents were derived from old French, croiserie in the 13th–15th centuries, croisade appeared in English c1575, and continued to be the leading form till c1760. By convention historians adopt the term for the Christian holy wars from 1095, the Crusades in the Holy Land are traditionally counted as nine distinct campaigns, numbered from the First Crusade of 1095–99 to the Ninth Crusade of 1271/2. Usage of the term Crusade may differ depending on the author, pluralists use the term Crusade of any campaign explicitly sanctioned by the reigning Pope. This reflects the view of the Roman Catholic Church that every military campaign given Papal sanction is equally valid as a Crusade, regardless of its cause, justification, generalists see Crusades as any and all holy wars connected with the Latin Church and fought in defence of their faith. Popularists limit the Crusades to only those that were characterised by popular groundswells of religious fervour – that is, only the First Crusade, Medieval Muslim historiographers such as Ali ibn al-Athir refer to the Crusades as the Frankish Wars. The term used in modern Arabic, ḥamalāt ṣalībiyya حملات صليبية, campaigns of the cross, is a loan translation of the term Crusade as used in Western historiography. The Islamic prophet Muhammad founded Islam in the Arabian Peninsula, the resulting unified polity in the seventh and eighth centuries led to a rapid expansion of Arab power. This influence stretched from the northwest Indian subcontinent, across Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, southern Italy, tolerance, trade, and political relationships between the Arabs and the Christian states of Europe waxed and waned
30.
Franks
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Some Franks raided Roman territory, while other Frankish tribes joined the Roman troops of Gaul. In later times, Franks became the rulers of the northern part of Roman Gaul. The Salian Franks lived on Roman-held soil between the Rhine, Scheldt, Meuse, and Somme rivers in what is now Northern France, Belgium, the kingdom was acknowledged by the Romans after 357 CE. Following the collapse of Rome in the West, the Frankish tribes were united under the Merovingians, who succeeded in conquering most of Gaul in the 6th century, which greatly increased their power. The Merovingian dynasty, descendants of the Salians, founded one of the Germanic monarchies that would absorb large parts of the Western Roman Empire, the Frankish state consolidated its hold over the majority of western Europe by the end of the 8th century, developing into the Carolingian Empire. This empire would gradually evolve into the state of France and the Holy Roman Empire, in the Middle Ages, the term Frank was used in the east as a synonym for western European, as the Franks were then rulers of most of Western Europe. The Franks in the east kept their Germanic language and became part of the Germans, Dutch, Flemings, the Franconian languages, which are called Frankisch in Dutch or Fränkisch in German, originated at least partly in the Old Frankish language of the Franks. Nowadays, the German and Dutch names for France are Frankreich and Frankrijk, respectively, the name Franci was originally socio-political. To the Romans, Celts, and Suebi, the Franks must have seemed alike, they looked the same and spoke the same language, so that Franci became the name by which the people were known. Within a few centuries it had eclipsed the names of the tribes, though the older names have survived in some place-names, such as Hesse. Following the precedents of Edward Gibbon and Jacob Grimm, the name of the Franks has been linked with the word frank in English and it has been suggested that the meaning of free was adopted because, after the conquest of Gaul, only Franks were free of taxation. It is traditionally assumed that Frank comes from the Germanic word for javelin, there is also another theory that suggests that Frank comes from the Latin word francisca meaning. Words in other Germanic languages meaning fierce, bold or insolent, eumenius addressed the Franks in the matter of the execution of Frankish prisoners in the circus at Trier by Constantine I in 306 and certain other measures, Ubi nunc est illa ferocia. Feroces was used often to describe the Franks, contemporary definitions of Frankish ethnicity vary both by period and point of view. According to their law and their custom, writing in 2009, Professor Christopher Wickham pointed out that the word Frankish quickly ceased to have an exclusive ethnic connotation. North of the River Loire everyone seems to have considered a Frank by the mid-7th century at the latest. Two early sources describe the origin of the Franks are a 7th-century work known as the Chronicle of Fredegar. Neither of these works are accepted by historians as trustworthy, compared with Gregory of Tourss Historia Francorum, the chronicle describes Priam as a Frankish king whose people migrated to Macedonia after the fall of Troy
31.
Ayyubid dynasty
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The Ayyubid dynasty was a Muslim dynasty of Kurdish origin, founded by Saladin and centered in Egypt. The dynasty ruled much of the Middle East during the 12th and 13th centuries, Saladin had been the vizier of Fatimid Egypt before toppling the Fatimids in 1171. Three years later, he proclaimed himself sultan following the death of his former master, most of the Kingdom of Jerusalem fell to Saladin after his victory at the Battle of Hattin in 1187. However, the Crusaders regained control of Palestines coastline in the 1190s, by then, local Muslim dynasties had driven out the Ayyubids from Yemen, the Hejaz, and parts of Mesopotamia. After his death in 1249, as-Salih Ayyub was succeeded in Egypt by al-Muazzam Turanshah, however, the latter was soon overthrown by the Mamluk generals who had repelled a Crusader invasion of the Nile Delta. This effectively ended Ayyubid power in Egypt, attempts by the emirs of Syria, led by an-Nasir Yusuf of Aleppo, in 1260, the Mongols sacked Aleppo and conquered the Ayyubids remaining territories soon after. The Mamluks, who expelled the Mongols, maintained the Ayyubid principality of Hama until deposing its last ruler in 1341 and this period was also marked by an Ayyubid process of vigorously strengthening Sunni Muslim dominance in the region by constructing numerous madrasas in their major cities. The progenitor of the Ayyubid dynasty, Najm ad-Din Ayyub ibn Shadhi, belonged to the Kurdish Rawadiya tribe, Ayyubs ancestors settled in the town of Dvin, in northern Armenia. The Rawadiya were the dominant Kurdish group in the Dvin district, circumstances became unfavorable in Dvin when Turkish generals seized the town from its Kurdish prince. Shadhi left with his two sons Ayyub and Asad ad-Din Shirkuh and his friend Mujahid ad-Din Bihruz—the military governor of northern Mesopotamia under the Seljuks—welcomed him and appointed him governor of Tikrit. After Shadhis death, Ayyub succeeded him in governance of the city with the assistance of his brother Shirkuh, together they managed the affairs of the city well, gaining them popularity from the local inhabitants. In the meantime, Imad ad-Din Zangi, the ruler of Mosul, was defeated by the Abbasids under Caliph al-Mustarshid, in his bid to escape the battlefield to Mosul via Tikrit, Zangi took shelter with Ayyub and sought his assistance in this task. Ayyub complied and provided Zangi and his companions boats to cross the Tigris River, as a consequence for assisting Zangi, the Abbasid authorities sought punitive measures against Ayyub. Simultaneously, in an incident, Shirkuh killed a close confidant of Bihruz on charges that he had sexually assaulted a woman in Tikrit. The Abbasid court issued arrest warrants for both Ayyub and Shirkuh, but before the brothers could be arrested, they departed Tikrit for Mosul in 1138. When they arrived in Mosul, Zangi provided them all the facilities they needed. Ayyub was made commander of Baalbek and Shirkuh entered the service of Zangis son, according to historian Abdul Ali, it was under the care and patronage of Zangi that the Ayyubid family rose to prominence. In 1164, Nur al-Din dispatched Shirkuh to lead a force to prevent the Crusaders from establishing a strong presence in an increasingly anarchic Egypt
32.
Mamluk
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Mamluk is an Arabic designation for slaves. The term is most commonly used to refer to Muslim slave soldiers and these were mostly enslaved Turkic peoples, Egyptian Copts, Circassians, Abkhazians, and Georgians. Many Mamluks were also of Balkan origin, over time, the mamluks became a powerful military knightly caste in various societies that were controlled by Muslim rulers. Particularly in Egypt, but also in the Levant, Mesopotamia, in some cases, they attained the rank of sultan, while in others they held regional power as emirs or beys. Most notably, mamluk factions seized the sultanate centered on Egypt and Syria, the Mamluk Sultanate famously defeated the Ilkhanate at the Battle of Ain Jalut. They had earlier fought the western European Christian Crusaders in 1154-1169 and 1213-1221, effectively driving them out of Egypt, in 1302 the mamluks formally expelled the last Crusaders from the Levant, ending the era of the Crusades. While mamluks were purchased as property, their status was above ordinary slaves, in a sense they were like enslaved mercenaries. In the Middle Ages, the Mamlukes took up the practice of furusiyya chivalry although Mamluk knights were slaves until their service ended, the Arabic term for a knight was fāris, The faris and the notion of furusiyya originated in pre-Muslim Persian brotherhoods. Within the Muslim world, the fursān became prized as ideal warriors and they were also trained in wrestling, and their martial skills were honed first on foot as piéton and then perfected when as mounted warriors. They were popularly used as heavy knightly cavalry by a number of different Islamic kingdoms and empires, including the Ayyubid dynasty, the origins of the mamluk system are disputed. Historians agree that a military caste such as the mamluks appeared to develop in Islamic societies beginning with the ninth-century Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad. When in the century has not been determined. Up until the 1990s, it was believed that the earliest mamluks were known as ghilman and were bought by the Abbasid caliphs. By the end of the 9th century, such warrior slaves had become the dominant element in the military, conflict between these ghilman and the population of Baghdad prompted the caliph al-Mutasim to move his capital to the city of Samarra, but this did not succeed in calming tensions. The caliph al-Mutawakkil was assassinated by some of these slave-soldiers in 861, adult slaves and freemen both served as warriros. The mamluk system developed later, after the return of the caliphate to Baghdad in the 870s and it included the systematic training of young slaves in military and martial skills. The Mamluk system is considered to have been an experiment of al-Muwaffaq. This recent interpretation seems to have been accepted, after the fragmentation of the Abbasid Empire, military slaves, known as either mamluks or ghilman, were used throughout the Islamic world as the basis of military power
33.
Garrison
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Garrison is the collective term for a body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it, but now often simply using it as a home base. The garrison is usually in a city, town, fort, castle, garrison town is a common expression for any town that has a military base nearby. Garrison towns were used during the Arab Islamic conquests of Middle Eastern lands by Arab-Muslim armies to increase their dominance over indigenous populations. In Ireland, Association football has historically been termed the game or the garrison sport for its connections with British military serving in Irish cities. In Israel, a unit is a regular unit defending a specified Israeli zone in need of protection from attack from combatants. Israeli garrison units placed in the territories of West Bank are recognized under UN Resolution 242 as occupied pending peaceful recognition by all regional combatants. It was an old custom in ancient Italy to send out colonies for the purpose of securing new conquests, the Romans, having no standing army, used to plant bodies of their own citizens in conquered towns as a kind of garrison
34.
Ottoman Empire
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After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans the Ottoman Beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror, at the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries. With Constantinople as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean basin, while the empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline following the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, this view is no longer supported by the majority of academic historians. The empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society, however, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind that of their European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian Empires. While the Empire was able to hold its own during the conflict, it was struggling with internal dissent. Starting before World War I, but growing increasingly common and violent during it, major atrocities were committed by the Ottoman government against the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks. The word Ottoman is an anglicisation of the name of Osman I. Osmans name in turn was the Turkish form of the Arabic name ʿUthmān, in Ottoman Turkish, the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿOsmānīye, or alternatively ʿOsmānlı Devleti. In Modern Turkish, it is known as Osmanlı İmparatorluğu or Osmanlı Devleti, the Turkish word for Ottoman originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century, and subsequently came to be used to refer to the empires military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term Turk was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population, the term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish-speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. In Western Europe, the two names Ottoman Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favored both in formal and informal situations and this dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–23, when the newly established Ankara-based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. Most scholarly historians avoid the terms Turkey, Turks, and Turkish when referring to the Ottomans, as the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as the Anatolian Beyliks. One of these beyliks, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman, osmans early followers consisted both of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended the control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along the Sakarya River and it is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbours, due to the scarcity of the sources which survive from this period. One school of thought which was popular during the twentieth century argued that the Ottomans achieved success by rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam, in the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans. Osmans son, Orhan, captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326 and this conquest meant the loss of Byzantine control over northwestern Anatolia. The important city of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387, the Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe
35.
Caravanserai
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A caravanserai (/kærəˈvænsəri/, was a roadside inn where travelers could rest and recover from the days journey. Caravanserais supported the flow of commerce, information, and people across the network of routes covering Asia, North Africa. Major urban caravanserais were built along the Grand Trunk Road in the Indian subcontinent. The word is rendered as caravansary, caravansaray, caravanseray. The Persian word کاروانسرای kārvānsarāy is a word combining kārvān caravan with sarāy palace, building with enclosed courts. Here caravan means a group of traders, pilgrims, or other travelers, the word serai is sometimes used with the implication of caravanserai. The Persian caravanserai was built as a road station, outside of towns. An inn built inside a town would be smaller and was known in Persian as a khan, in the Middle-East the term khan covers both meanings, of roadside inn as well as of inner-town inn. In Turkish the word is rendered as han, the same word was used in Bosnian, having arrived through Ottoman conquest. Welcoming all, thus meaning inn, led to funduq in Arabic, pundak in Hebrew, fundaco in Venice, fondaco in Genoa and alhóndiga in Spanish. Guards were stationed at every gate to ensure that taxes for these goods be paid in full, most typically a caravanserai was a building with a square or rectangular walled exterior, with a single portal wide enough to permit large or heavily laden beasts such as camels to enter. Caravanserais provided water for human and animal consumption, washing, and ritual purification such as wudu and they also kept fodder for animals and had shops for travelers where they could acquire new supplies. In addition, some shops bought goods from the traveling merchants, turkishhan. org, The Seljuk Han in Anatolia. Encyclopædia Iranica, p. 798-802 Erdmann, Kurt, Erdmann, berlin, Mann,1976, ISBN 3-7861-2241-5 Hillenbrand, Robert. Islamic Architecture, Form, function and meaning, reprinted from, Traditions Architecturales en Iran, Tehran, No.2 &3,1976. Caravanserai, Traces, Places, Dialogue in the Middle East, milan,5 Continents Editions, ISBN 978-88-7439-604-7 Yavuz, Aysil Tükel. The Concepts that Shape Anatolian Seljuq Caravansara, muqarnas XIV, An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islamic World. Shah Abbasi Caravanserai, Tishineh Caravansara Pictures Consideratcaravanserai. net, Texts and photos on research on caravanserais and travel journeys in Middle East, caravanserais in Turkey The Seljuk Han in Anatolia
36.
Archaeology of Israel
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The archaeology of Israel is the study of the archaeology of the present-day Israel, stretching from prehistory through three millennia of documented history. The ancient Land of Israel was a bridge between the political and cultural centers of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Despite the importance of the country to three major religions, serious archaeological research began in the 15th century. The first major work on the antiquities of Israel was Adrian Relands Palestina ex monumentis veteribus, edward Robinson, an American theologian who visited the country in 1838, published the first topographical studies. A Frenchman, Louis Felicien de Saucy, embarked on the first modern excavations in 1850, the Neolithic period appears to have begun when the peoples of the Natufian culture, which spread across present-day Syria, Israel and Lebanon, began to practice agriculture. This Neolithic Revolution has been linked to the period known as the Younger Dryas. This agriculture in the Levant is the earliest known to have been practiced, the Neolithic period in this region is dated 8500–4300 BCE and the Chalcolithic 4300–3300 BCE. Natufian sites in Israel include Ain Mallaha, el-Wad, Ein Gev, Hayonim cave, Nahal Oren, the Bronze Age is the period 3300–1200 BCE when objects made of bronze were in use. Many writers have linked the history of the Levant from the Bronze Age onwards to events described in the Bible, the Bronze Age and Iron Age together are sometimes called the Biblical period. The Amarna Letters are an example of a period during the Late Bronze Age when the vassal kings of the Levant corresponded with their overlords in Egypt. The Iron Age in the Levant begins in about 1200 BCE when iron tools came into use and it is also known as the Israelite period. The Israelite period is characterized by numbers of urban dwellings. The rich and diverse archaeological findings attest to strong international links, the abundance of writings found indicate a broad distribution of knowledge among common people of ancient Israel and not just scribes, a unique phenomenon in the ancient world. In this period both the evidence and the narrative evidence from the Bible become richer and much writing has attempted to make links between them. Israel Finkelstein suggests that the empire of David and Solomon never existed, finklestein accepts the existence of King David and Solomon but doubts their chronology, significance and influence as described in the Bible. Without claiming that everything in the Bible is historically accurate, some story elements appear to correspond with physical artifacts. Inscriptions such as the Tel Dan Stele and the Mesha Stele can be traced to a cultural origin. The Roman period covers the dates 63 BCE to 330 CE, therefore, the late Roman period is also called the Yavne Period
37.
Benedictine monastery in Abu Ghosh
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The Benedictine monastery in Abu Ghosh, named St Mary of the Resurrection Abbey, is a monastery run by the Olivetan Benedictine order. The Crusaders assumed for a while that the village, which they called Fontenoid, the late Romanesque/early Gothic-style church was built by the Hospitallers in 1140. It was acquired by the French government in 1899 and placed under guardianship of the French Benedictine Fathers. Edward Robinson described it as “obviously from the time of the crusades, the church is built over an ancient spring. From 1956, the monastery was run by the Lazarist Fathers, today a double monastery of nuns and priests worship in the church and offer hospitality, commemorating the Old Testament story of the couple on the Jerusalem–Emmaus road. Official website Video of the History and presentation of the community in Abu Gosh
38.
Az-Zeeb
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For the Israeli national park see Achziv. For the self-proclaimed micronation see Akhzivland, Az-Zeeb, was a Palestinian Arab village located 13.5 kilometers north of Acre on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Mentioned in the Bible by its ancient name Achzib, evidence of settlement at the site dates back to the 18th century BCE. By the 10th century BCE, it was a prosperous and fortified Phoenician town, conquered by the Assyrian empire in the 8th century BCE, it was subsequently ruled by the Persians. During the rule of the Roman Empire, it was known as Ecdippa, Arab geographers were referring to it as az-Zeeb by the early Middle Ages. In 1146 the Crusaders established there a settlement protected by a castle and named Casale Huberti or Casal Humberti, there are descriptions of the castle and village by Arab chroniclers in the 12th and 13th centuries, just prior to and during the rule of the Mamluks in the region. The Arab name of the village was az-Zeeb, incorporated into the Ottoman empire in the early 16th century, by its end it formed part of the subdistrict of Akka. Its inhabitants cultivated various crops and raised livestock on which they paid taxes to the Ottoman authorities, at the time of the British Mandate in Palestine, most of the families in az-Zeeb made their living from fishing and agriculture, particularly fruit cultivation. Just before the end to Mandate rule on May 14,1948. The town was depopulated and razed to the ground, the Israeli localities of Saar and Gesher HaZiv were established on the village lands in 1948 and 1949. A domed mosque from the village has since restored and serves as a tourist site. The Arabic name of the village, az-Zeeb is a form of the sites original ancient Canaanite/Phoenician name. Human settlement at the dates to as early as the 18th century BCE. A tell in az-Zeeb excavated between 1941–44 and 1959-1964 found evidence of settlement from the Middle Bronze Age II, through the Roman period, positioned on a passage between the plain of Acre and the city of Tyre, Achzib was an important road station. Between the 10th and 6th centuries BCE, it was a town, with public buildings and tombs with Phoenician inscriptions. Also mentioned in the writings of Pseudo-Scylax, the site likely regained some importance in Hellenistic times, during the Roman period, the imperial authorities called it Ecdippa. At the end of the Roman era, a workshop was located here. By the Early Middle Ages, Arab geographers were referring to the area as az-Zeeb, with the arrival of the Crusaders and after the fall of Acre in 1104, Casal Imbertia or Lambertie was established there
39.
Kingdom of Jerusalem
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The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was a crusader state established in the Southern Levant by Godfrey of Bouillon in 1099 after the First Crusade. The kingdom lasted nearly two hundred years, from 1099 until 1291 when the last remaining possession, Acre, was destroyed by the Mamluks, the sometimes so-called First Kingdom of Jerusalem lasted from 1099 to 1187, when it was almost entirely overrun by Saladin. This second kingdom is called the Second Kingdom of Jerusalem or the Kingdom of Acre. Three other crusader states founded during and after the First Crusade were located north, the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch. While all three were independent, they were tied to Jerusalem. Beyond these to the north and west lay the states of Armenian Cilicia, further east, various Muslim emirates were located which were ultimately allied with the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad. Jerusalem itself fell to Saladin in 1187, and in the 13th century the kingdom was reduced to a few cities along the Mediterranean coast. In this period, the kingdom was ruled by the Lusignan dynasty of the Kingdom of Cyprus, dynastic ties also strengthened with Tripoli, Antioch, and Armenia. The kingdom was soon dominated by the Italian city-states of Venice and Genoa. Emperor Frederick II claimed the kingdom by marriage, but his presence sparked a war among the kingdoms nobility. The kingdom became more than a pawn in the politics and warfare of the Ayyubid and Mamluk dynasties in Egypt, as well as the Khwarezmian. The Mamluk sultans Baibars and al-Ashraf Khalil eventually reconquered all the remaining crusader strongholds, the kingdom was ethnically, religiously, and linguistically diverse, although the crusaders themselves and their descendants were an elite Catholic minority. They imported many customs and institutions from their homelands in Western Europe, the kingdom also inherited oriental qualities, influenced by the pre-existing customs and populations. The majority of the inhabitants were native Christians, especially Greek and Syrian Orthodox, as well as Sunni. The native Christians and Muslims, who were a lower class, tended to speak Greek and Arabic, while the crusaders spoke French. There were also a number of Jews and Samaritans. According to the Jewish writer Benjamin of Tudela, who travelled through the kingdom around 1170, since sets a lower bound for the Samaritan population at 1,500, since the contemporary Tolidah, a Samaritan chronicle, also mentions communities in Gaza and Acre. The First Crusade was preached at the Council of Clermont in 1095 by Pope Urban II, however, the main objective quickly became the control of the Holy Land
40.
Acre, Israel
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Acre is a city in the northern coastal plain region of the Northern District, Israel at the northern extremity of Haifa Bay. The city occupies an important location, as it sits on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, traditionally linking the waterways and this location helped it become one of the oldest cities in the world, continuously inhabited since the Middle Bronze Age some 4000 years ago. Acre is the holiest city of the Baháí Faith, and as such receives many Bahai pilgrims, in 2015 the population was 47,675. Acre is a city, that includes Jews, Muslims, Christians. The mayor is Shimon Lankri, who was reelected in 2011, Acres etymology is a matter of controversy, though most likely deriving from the early Canaanite language. According to Biblical tradition, the name is derived from Canaanite Adco, meaning a border, the city was known as Ptolemais during the Hellenistic and Roman-Byzantine periods. During the Crusades it was known as St. John dAcre after the Knights Hospitaller, Acre is therefore counted among the oldest continuously inhabited sites in the region. Egyptian sources seem to be mentioning Acre, starting possibly with execration texts from ca.1800 BCE, the name Aak, which appears on the tribute lists of Thutmose III, may be a reference to Acre. The Amarna letters also mention a place named Akka, as well as the Execration texts, First settlement at the site of Ancient Acre appears to have been in the Early Bronze Age, or about 3000 BC. In the Hebrew Bible, Akko is one of the places from which the Israelites did not drive out the Canaanites and it is later described in the territory of the tribe of Asher and according to Josephus, was ruled by one of Solomons provincial governors. Throughout Israelite rule, it was politically and culturally affiliated with Phoenicia, around 725 BC, Akko joined Sidon and Tyre in a revolt against Shalmaneser V. Greek historians refer to the city as Ake, meaning cure, according to the Greek myth, Heracles found curative herbs here to heal his wounds. Strabo refers to the city as once a rendezvous for the Persians in their expeditions against Egypt, about 165 BC Judas Maccabeus defeated the Seleucids in several battles in Galilee, and drove them into Ptolemais. About 153 BC Alexander Balas, son of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, contesting the Seleucid crown with Demetrius, seized the city, which opened its gates to him. Demetrius offered many bribes to the Maccabees to obtain Jewish support against his rival, including the revenues of Ptolemais for the benefit of the Temple in Jerusalem, Jonathan Apphus threw in his lot with Alexander and in 150 BC he was received by him with great honour in Ptolemais. Some years later, however, Tryphon, an officer of the Seleucid Empire, the city was captured by Alexander Jannaeus, Cleopatra and Tigranes the Great. Here Herod the Great built a gymnasium, the Christian Acts of the Apostles reports that Luke the Evangelist, Paul the Apostle and their companions spent a day in Ptolemais with the Christian brethren there. A Roman colonia was established at the city, Colonia Claudii Cæsaris, the Romans enlarged the port and the city, that flourished for six centuries even as a Christian center
41.
Apollonia-Arsuf
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For the modern community, see Arsuf, Hof HaSharon. Apollonia was an ancient city in Hellenistic and Roman Judea, in the late Roman era renamed to Sozusa and it was situated on a cliff above the Mediterranean Sea, about 34 kilometres south of Caesarea. It fell to the Muslim conquest in 640 and was fortified against Byzantine attacks and it was re-conquered by the kingdom of Jerusalem in 1101, and was a strategically important fortress in the Third Crusade, during which the Battle of Arsuf was fought nearby. The fortress fell to the Mamluks in 1265 and was destroyed, the site of Arsuf is now in Herzliya municipality, Israel. The site was excavated from 1994. In 2002, the site was named Apollonia National Park, the city is first recorded under its Greek name Apollonia in the final decades of the Persian period. The Semitic name ršp would then have been restored in the medieval Arabic toponym of Arsūf, the Saramitan chronicle of Abu l-Fath record a toponym rʿšfyn. Izre’el considers the possibility of identifying this toponym with the Arabic Arsūf, a tradition connecting the name with the biblical Resheph, a grandson of Ephraim, is spurious. The name of the nearby Israeli settlement of Rishpon was given in 1936, the renaming is paralleled in at least three other cities called Apollonia, Sozusa in Cyrenaica, Sozopolis in Pisidia and Sozopolis in Thrace. The identification of ancient Apollonia with Byzantine-era Sozusa is due to Stark, the site is variously referred to as Appolonia, Arsin, Arsuf, Arsuph, Arsur, Arsuth, Assur, Orsuf and Sozusa in Crusader-era documents. Although some Chalcolithic and Iron Age remains were uncovered at the site and it is mentioned in the Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax. During the Hellenistic period it was a town, ruled by Seleucids. Under Roman rule, the town prospered and grew into the commercial and industrial centre of the region between the Poleg and Yarkon rivers. In AD113, Apollonia was destroyed partially by an earthquake, Apollonia is mentioned by Pliny, Hist. nat. V,14, and Ptolemy, V, xv,2, XIII, xv,4, Appianus, Hist. rom. The Roman proconsul, Gabinius, found it ruined in 57 BC, Apollonia is depicted in the Tabula Peutingeriana, on the coastal highway between Joppa and Caesarea, at the distance of 22 miles from Caesarea, confirming the identification of Arsuf with Apollonia. There was no coin minting in Apollonia, confirming that the town did not have the role of a Roman provincial center but was considered a medium-sized coastal town like Jamnia. Sozusa in Palaestina was the name of the city in the late Roman province of Palaestina Prima, and its see was a suffragan of Caesarea
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
43.
Battle of Jacob's Ford
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The Battle of Jacobs Ford was a victory of the Muslim sultan Saladin over the Christian King of Jerusalem, Baldwin IV. Jacobs Ford is also known by the Latin name of Vadum Iacob, many scholars believe that Saladins reconquest of the Holy Land and Jerusalem in 1187 was heralded by this earlier victory. Saladin, one of the most famous Islamic rulers, was Sultan of Egypt and, by 1174, after seizing power in Syria, Saladin vowed to forge an Islamic empire around Jerusalem. Naturally, the end goal was to recapture the Holy City from the Crusaders, however, such a plan would take the Holy Land without major military conflict. Baldwin IV took control over the Kingdom of Jerusalem at the age of thirteen after the death of his father Amalric I in 1174, Baldwin was a staunch believer in Christianity and, as a result, Saladin’s biggest problem to overcome. Although Baldwin was a rich and powerful leader, he was stricken with leprosy at a young age. After approximately three years on the throne at Jerusalem, Baldwin was faced with his very first military challenge, Saladin invaded the Christian kingdom in approximately 1177 to rout the Crusaders. Although Saladin was almost twenty years older and more experienced than Baldwin, Baldwin and his Crusaders outwitted the Muslims at Mont Gisard on 25 November 1177. By the end of the battle, Saladin was forced to back to Egypt after narrowly escaping death. Although the victory resulted in losses for Baldwin’s armies, his image throughout the kingdom gained in strength. In fact, some Christians in the Near East had even come to believe that miracle of his victory appear as a sign of divine mandate. Jacob’s Ford is approximately one hundred miles north of Jerusalem at the Jordan River and was a key river crossing on one of the roads between Acre and Damascus. In the twelfth century, Baldwin and Saladin continually contested over the area on which Jacobs Ford was situated. As a bold move and as a result of his military victory at Mont Gisard, Baldwin decided to march to Jacob’s Ford. The king and his Crusaders theorized that such a fortification could protect Jerusalem from a northern invasion, between October 1178 and April 1179, Baldwin began the first stages of constructing his new line of defense, a fortification called Chastellet at Jacob’s Ford. While construction was in progress, Saladin became fully aware of the task he would have to overcome at Jacob’s Ford if he were to protect Syria and conquer Jerusalem. At the time, he was unable to stop the erection of Chastellet by military force because a portion of his troops were stationed in northern Syria. Consequently, the sultan turned to bribery and offered Baldwin 60,000 dinars to halt construction, Baldwin declined, but Saladin made a counter-offer of 100,000 dinars
44.
Yazur
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Yazur was a Palestinian Arab town located 6 kilometers east of Jaffa. Mentioned in 7th century BCE Assyrian texts, the village was a site of contestation between Muslims and Crusaders in the 12th-13th centuries, during the Fatimid period in Palestine, a number of important people were born in Yazur. In modern times the town was the birthplace of Ahmed Jibril, the Israeli town of Azor now stands on the former town lands of Yazur, which was depopulated and mostly destroyed during the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine. The village is mentioned in the annals of the Assyrian ruler Sennacherib as Azuro, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries CE, Muslim and Crusader forces fought for control of the village and it changed hands several times, before finally falling under the control of the Mamluks. In 1586, the Maqam Imam ´Ali in Yazur was seen by Zuallart, across the road there is a well or cistern. In 1596, Yazur was a village in the nahiya of Ramla, villagers paid taxes to the authorities for the crops that they cultivated, which included wheat, barley, fruit, and sesame as well as on other types of property, such as goats and beehives. In 1602, Seusenius described the Maqam Imam ´Ali as a mosque with nine cupolas the one in the middle being the highest, while still under the rule of the Ottoman Empire in 1870, Charles Netter from Alliance Israélite Universelle founded the Mikveh Israel southeast of Jaffa. Through a firman of the sultan, he received land for the school which then had been worked by the fellahin of the village of Yazur. The peasants therefore became bitter enemies of the school farm, in the late summer of 1870, the governor of Damascus visited Jaffa. The Pasha, riding on the side, asked Ernst for his riding crop. The Wali accepted a petition handed him by a shaykh, incidentally, modern Yazur was divided into four quarters, one for each of four clans that lived there. The houses were made of stone or adobe brick and straw and were built in groups called ahwash, each house in such a group opened onto a common courtyard that had a single entrance, often an arched gate. The village had two schools, one for boys and another for girls. The boys´school occupied 27 dunums and had its own artesian well, in 1947,430 boys and 160 girls were registered in these schools. The remains of an old Crusader church built by Richard the Lionheart in 1191, called Castel des Plaines, were visible on a hill inside the village. The Crusader church had been rebuilt to serve as Yazurs mosque. According to a census conducted in 1931 by the British Mandate authorities, Yazur had a population of 2,337 inhabitants in,419 houses. According to a 1945 census conducted by the Mandatory authorities in Palestine, Yazur had a population of 4,030, agriculture constituted the backbone of the economy, in 1944, citrus was planted on 6,272 dunums and 1,441 dunums were allocated to cereals. Agriculture was both rainfed and irrigated,1,689 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards, during World War II, the villagers also started raising Holstein cows, and by 1947 numerous artesian wells were being used for irrigation
45.
Bayt 'Itab
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Bayt ʿIṭāb was a Palestinian Arab village located in the Jerusalem Subdistrict. The village is believed to have inhabited since biblical times. An ancient tunnel which led to the spring is associated with story of Samson. Prior to, during, and after its incorporation into Crusader fiefdoms in the 12th century, sheikhs from the Lahham family clan, who were associated with the Qays tribo-political faction, ruled the village during Ottoman era. In the 19th century, this clan controlled 24 villages in the vicinity, the homes were built of stone. The local farmers cultivated cereals, fruit trees and olive groves, after a military assault on Bayt ʿIṭāb by Israeli forces in October 1948, the village was depopulated and demolished. Many of the villagers had fled to camps in the West Bank less than 20 kilometres from the village. In 1950, an Israeli moshav, Nes Harim, was established north of the built up portion of Bayt Itab, Bayt ʿIṭāb is identified with Enadab, a name that appears in a list of Palestinian towns compiled by Eusebius in the fourth century CE. The building had two stories, both vaulted, the floor entrance was protected by a slit-machicolation and had stairs leading to the basement. Nonetheless, his wife was forced to sell his landholdings after he was prisoner by Islamic forces in 1161. It was then acquired by and made a fief of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Arabic name of the village appears in Latin transliteration as Bethaatap in a list recording the sale of the land holdings belonging to Gothman in 1161. Edward Robinson visited the village in 1838, and described its stone houses, in the center of the village were the ruins of a castle or tower. Robinson estimates, the population was six to seven hundred people. He notes that Beit Atab, as he transcribes it, was the town of the Arkub district. Robinson recounts that he was a man from the Lahaam clan. Rising to greet them, he invited them to stay for the night, but as they were in a hurry to see more of the country before the setting of the sun, in the mid-19th century, the sheikh of Bayt Itab was named Utham al-Lahham. He had been exiled in 1846, but had managed to escape, a supporter of the Qays faction, Lahham was in conflict with the Yamani faction leaders, especially the sheikh of Abu Ghosh. In the 1850s the conflict between two families over the control of the district of Bani Hasan dominated the area
46.
Bayt Jibrin
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The village had a total land area of 56,185 dunams or 56.1 km2, of which 0.28 km2 were built-up while the rest remained farmland. During the 8th century BCE, the village was part of the Kingdom of Judah, during the days of Jewish king Herod the town was the administrative center for the district of Idumea. After the turmoil of the First Jewish-Roman War and the Bar Kokhba revolt the town became a thriving Roman colony, in the early 7th century CE, Bayt Jibrin was conquered by Muslim forces led by Amr ibn al-As. Under the Crusaders in the 12th century, it was known as Beth Gibelin and it fell to the Mamluks and then the Ottoman Turks. In the 19th century, the family took control of Bayt Jibrin and unsuccessfully attempted to rebel against the Ottomans, ending in the exile. Under the British Mandate of Palestine, Bayt Jibrin again served as a center for surrounding villages. It was captured by Israeli forces during the 1948 War, causing its inhabitants to flee eastward, today, many of the refugees of Bayt Jibrin and their descendants live in the Bayt Jibrin and Fawwar camps in the southern West Bank. The kibbutz of Beit Guvrin was established on Bayt Jibrins lands in 1949, the underground caves of Bayt Jibrin have been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The town was renamed over the centuries and its Aramaic name Beth Gabra, preserved by the geographer Ptolemy in the Greek variation of Βαιτογάβρα, translates as the house of the man or house of the mighty one. The antecedent might be seen in the name of an Edomite king, Ḳaus-gabri or Kauš-Gabr, the Romans gave it a Greek name, Eleutheropolis, meaning City of the Free. In the Peutinger Tables in 393 CE, Bayt Jibrin was called Beitogabri, in the Talmud, compiled between the 3rd and 4th centuries, it was known as Beit Gubrin. To the Crusaders, it was known as Bethgibelin or Gibelin, another name in medieval times may have been Beit Jibril, meaning house of Gabriel. In Arabic, Bayt Jibrin or Jubrin means house of the powerful, and the town was probably called Bayt Jibrin or Beit Jibril throughout its rule by various Muslim dynasties. The excavations have revealed no remains older than the Iron Age and this corresponds to several Hebrew Bible mentions of Maresha. However, local folklore tells that the former Arab village of Bayt Jibrin was first inhabited by Canaanites, after the destruction of the Kingdom of Judah in 586 BCE, the city of Maresha became part of the Edomite kingdom. In the late Persian period a Sidonian community settled in Maresha, during the Maccabean Revolt, Maresha was a base for attacks against Judea and suffered retaliation from the Maccabees. In 40 BCE, the Parthians devastated completely the strong city, after this date, nearby Beit Guvrin succeeded Maresha as the chief center of the area. In the Jewish War, Vespasian slaughtered or enslaved the inhabitants of Betaris, however, it continued to be a Jewish-inhabited city until the Bar Kokhba revolt
47.
Beit She'an
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It has also played an important role in modern times, acting as the regional center of the villages in the Beit Shean Valley. The ancient city ruins are now protected within a national park, a large cemetery on the northern Mound was in use from the Bronze Age to Byzantine times. Canaanite graves dating from 2000 to 1600 BCE were discovered there in 1926, after the Egyptian conquest of Beit Shean by pharaoh Thutmose III in the 15th century BCE, the small town on the summit of the Mound became the center of the Egyptian administration of the region. The Egyptian newcomers changed the organization of the town and left a great deal of material culture behind, artifacts of potential cultic significance were found around the temple. Based on a found in the temple, inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphs. University Museums most important finds near the temple is the Lion and Dog stela, the Hebrew University excavations determined that this temple was built on the site of an earlier one. During the three hundred years of Egyptian rule, the population of Beit She’an appears to have been primarily Egyptian administrative officials, the town was completely rebuilt, following a new layout, during the 19th dynasty. The University Museum excavations uncovered two important stelae from the period of Seti I and a monument of Rameses II, Pottery was produced locally, but some was made to mimic Egyptian forms. Other Canaanite goods existed alongside Egyptian imports, or locally made Egyptian-style objects, the 20th dynasty saw the construction of large administrative buildings in Beit Shean, including Building 1500, a small palace for the Egyptian governor. During the 20th dynasty, invasions of the Sea Peoples upset Egypts control over the Eastern Mediterranean, though the exact circumstances are unclear, the entire site of Beit Shean was destroyed by fire around 1150 BCE. The Egyptians did not attempt to rebuild their administrative center and finally lost control of the region, an Iron Age I Canaanite city was constructed on the site of the Egyptian center shortly after its destruction. Around 1100 BC, Canaanite Beit Shean was conquered by the Philistines, during a subsequent battle against the Jewish King Saul at nearby Mount Gilboa in 1004 BC, the Philistines prevailed. 1 Samuel 31,10 states that the victorious Philistines hung the body of King Saul on the walls of Beit Shean, portions of these walls were excavated on the Mound recently. The Assyrian conquest of northern Israel under Tiglath-Pileser III brought about the destruction of Beit Shean by fire, minimal reoccupation occurred until the Hellenistic period. The Hellenistic period saw the reoccupation of the site of Beit Shean under the new name Scythopolis, little is known about the Hellenistic city, but during the 3rd century BCE a large temple was constructed on the Tell. It is unknown which deity was worshipped there, but the continued to be used during Roman times. Graves dating from the Hellenistic period are simple, singular rock-cut tombs, in 198 BCE the Seleucids finally conquered the region. The town played a role after the Hasmonean-Maccabeean Revolt, Josephus records that the Jewish High Priest Jonathan was killed there by Demetrius II Nicator, the city was destroyed by fire at the end of the 2nd century BCE
