1.
Al-Hasakah Governorate
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Al-Hasakah Governorate is a governorate in the far north-east corner of Syria. It is distinguished by its fertile lands, plentiful water, picturesque nature and it was formerly known as Al-Jazira province. Prior to the Syrian Civil War nearly half of Syrias oil was extracted from the region, three soldiers were killed by armed militants in Al-Hasakah in an ambush during the Syrian Civil War on 24 March 2012. About a year later, Kurdish forces launched the 2013 Al-Hasakah offensive, after the battle of al-Hasakah in August 2016 between Kurds and the Bashar al-Assad regime, the area was mostly in Kurdish control. The population of the governorate, according to the official census, was 1,275,118, and was estimated to be 1,377,000 in 2007. Among the Sunni Muslims, mostly Kurds and Arabs, there were about 1,500 Circassians in 1938, in 1949, there were officially 155,643 inhabitants. The French geographers Fevret and Gibert estimated that there were about 50,000 Arabs,60,000 Kurds, a few thousands Jews and Yezidis and this list includes all cities, towns and villages with more than 5,000 inhabitants. The population figures are according to the 2004 official census. Tell Brak, Situated halfway between al-Hasakah city and the town of Qamishli. Excavations in the tell have revealed the Uyun Temple and King Naram-Sins palace-stronghold, Tell el Fakhariya Tell Hittin,15 layers of occupation have been identified
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Taurus Mountains
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The Taurus Mountains are a mountain complex in southern Turkey, dividing the Mediterranean coastal region of southern Turkey from the central Anatolian Plateau. The system extends along a curve from Lake Eğirdir in the west to the reaches of the Euphrates. It is a part of the Alpide belt in Eurasia, the mountains are a place of many ancient storm-god temples. The Hurrians, probably originators of the various storm-gods of the ancient Near East, were a people whom modern scholars place in the Taurus Mountains at their probable earliest origins, a Bronze Age archaeological site, where early evidence of tin mining was found, is at Kestel. The pass known in antiquity as the Cilician Gates crosses the north of Tarsus. The Amanus range in southern Turkey is where the Taurus Mountains are pushed up as three tectonic plates come together, the Amanus is a natural frontier, west is Cilicia, east is Syria. There are several passes, like the Amanian Gate, which are of great strategical importance, in 333 BCE at the Battle of Issus, Alexander the Great defeated Darius III Codomannus on the foothills along the coast between these two passes. During World War I, the German and Turkish railway system through the Taurus Mountains proved to be a strategic objective of the Allies. This region was mentioned as a strategically controlled objective slated for surrender to the Allies in the Armistice. In the Aladaglar and Bolkar mountains, limestone has eroded to form karstic landscapes of waterfalls, underground rivers, the Manavgat River originates on the southern slopes of the Beydaglari range. The Varda Viaduct, situated on the railway lines Konya-Adana at Hacıkırı village in Adana Province, is a 98 m high railway bridge constructed in the 1910s by Germans, west Taurus and Taurus Mountains form an arc around the Gulf of Antalya. The East Taşeli Plateau and Goksu River divide it from the Central Taurus Mountains and it has many peaks rising above 3, 000–3,700 m. They are also the source of the Euphrates River and Tigris River, map of Eurasia showing Taurus Mountain ranges
3.
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
4.
Arabic
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Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested
5.
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
6.
Syria
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Syrias capital and largest city is Damascus. Religious groups include Sunnis, Christians, Alawites, Druze, Mandeans, Shiites, Salafis, Sunni Arabs make up the largest religious group in Syria. Its capital Damascus and largest city Aleppo are among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, in the Islamic era, Damascus was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt. The post-independence period was tumultuous, and a number of military coups. In 1958, Syria entered a union with Egypt called the United Arab Republic. Syria was under Emergency Law from 1963 to 2011, effectively suspending most constitutional protections for citizens, Bashar al-Assad has been president since 2000 and was preceded by his father Hafez al-Assad, who was in office from 1970 to 2000. Mainstream modern academic opinion strongly favours the argument that the Greek word is related to the cognate Ἀσσυρία, Assyria, in the past, others believed that it was derived from Siryon, the name that the Sidonians gave to Mount Hermon. However, the discovery of the inscription in 2000 seems to support the theory that the term Syria derives from Assyria. The area designated by the word has changed over time, since approximately 10,000 BC, Syria was one of centers of Neolithic culture where agriculture and cattle breeding appeared for the first time in the world. The following Neolithic period is represented by houses of Mureybet culture. At the time of the pre-pottery Neolithic, people used vessels made of stone, gyps, finds of obsidian tools from Anatolia are evidences of early trade relations. Cities of Hamoukar and Emar played an important role during the late Neolithic, archaeologists have demonstrated that civilization in Syria was one of the most ancient on earth, perhaps preceded by only those of Mesopotamia. The earliest recorded indigenous civilisation in the region was the Kingdom of Ebla near present-day Idlib, gifts from Pharaohs, found during excavations, confirm Eblas contact with Egypt. One of the earliest written texts from Syria is an agreement between Vizier Ibrium of Ebla and an ambiguous kingdom called Abarsal c.2300 BC. The Northwest Semitic language of the Amorites is the earliest attested of the Canaanite languages, Mari reemerged during this period, and saw renewed prosperity until conquered by Hammurabi of Babylon. Ugarit also arose during this time, circa 1800 BC, close to modern Latakia, Ugaritic was a Semitic language loosely related to the Canaanite languages, and developed the Ugaritic alphabet. The Ugarites kingdom survived until its destruction at the hands of the marauding Indo-European Sea Peoples in the 12th century BC, Yamhad was described in the tablets of Mari as the mightiest state in the near east and as having more vassals than Hammurabi of Babylon. Yamhad imposed its authority over Alalakh, Qatna, the Hurrians states, the army of Yamhad campaigned as far away as Dēr on the border of Elam
7.
4th millennium BC
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The 4th millennium BC spans the years 4000 through 3000 BC. Some of the changes in human culture during this time included the beginning of the Bronze Age and the invention of writing. The city states of Sumer and the kingdom of Egypt were established, world population in the course of the millennium doubled, approximately from 7 to 14 million people. C.4000 BC—First neolithic settlers in the island of Thera, Greece, C.4000 BC—Beaker from Susa is made. It is now at Musée du Louvre, Paris, 4000–2000 BC—People and animals, a detail of rock-shelter painting in Cogul, Lleida, Spain, are painted. It is now at Museo Arqueológico, Barcelona, C.3900 BC—5.9 kiloyear event, one of the most intense aridification events during the Holocene. It ended the Neolithic Subpluvial and likely initiated the most recent desiccation of the Sahara desert, triggering migration to river valleys, babylonian influence predominant in Mediterranean regions of Asia. In Colombia, circa 3600 BC, first rupestrian art Chiribiquete,3600 BC—Construction of the Ġgantija megalithic temple complex on the Island of Gozo, Malta, the worlds oldest extant unburied free-standing structures, and the worlds oldest religious structures. 3600–3000 BC—Construction of the Ta Ħaġrat and Kordin III temples on Malta,3500 Metalcasting began in the Mohenjodaro area. C.3500 BC—Figures of a man and a woman, from Cernavodă and they are now at National Historical Museum, Bucharest. 3500–3400 BC—Jar with boat designs, from Hierakonpolis is created, 3500–2340 BC—First cities developed in Southern Mesopotamia. The cuneiform script proper emerges from pictographic proto-writing in the later 4th millennium, mesopotamias proto-literate period spans the 35th to 32nd centuries. The first documents written in the Sumerian language date to the 31st century. 3300–2900 BC—Construction of the Newgrange solar observatory/passage tomb in Ireland, 3300—Bronze Age starts in Indus Valley. C.3300 BC—Ötzi the Iceman dies near the border between Austria and Italy, only to be discovered in 1991 buried in a glacier of the Ötztal Alps. His cause of death is believed to be homicide, 3250–3000 BC—Construction of three megalithic temples at Tarxien, Malta. 3200–2500 BC—Construction of the Ħaġar Qim megalithic temple complex on Malta, C.3150 BC—Predynastic period ended in Ancient Egypt. The period includes 1st and 2nd Dynasties, C.3150 BC a lesser Tollmanns hypothetical bolide event may have occurred
8.
Hurrians
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The Hurrians, also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri or Hurriter, were a people of the Bronze Age Near East. They spoke a Hurro-Urartian language called Hurrian, and lived in Anatolia, the largest and most influential Hurrian nation was the multi-ethnic kingdom of Mitanni, the Mitanni perhaps being Indo-European speakers who formed a ruling class over the Hurrians. The population of the Indo-European-speaking Hittite Empire in Anatolia included a population of Hurrians. By the Early Iron Age, the Hurrians had been assimilated with other peoples and their remnants were subdued by a related people that formed the state of Urartu. According to a hypothesis by I. M. Diakonoff and S. Starostin, the present-day Armenians are an amalgam of the Indo-European groups with the Hurrians and Urartians. The Hurrians spoke an ergative-agglutinative language conventionally called Hurrian, which is unrelated to neighbouring Semitic or Indo-European languages, the Iron Age Urartian language is closely related to or a direct descendant of Hurrian. Several notable Russian linguists, such as S. A. Starostin and V. V. Ivanov, have claimed that Hurrian and Hattic were related to the Northeast Caucasian languages. Texts in the Hurrian language in cuneiform have been found at Hattusa, Ugarit, as well as in one of the longest of the Amarna letters, written by King Tushratta of Mitanni to Pharaoh Amenhotep III. It was the only long Hurrian text known until a collection of literature in Hurrian with a Hittite translation was discovered at Hattusa in 1983. Hurrian names occur sporadically in northwestern Mesopotamia and the area of Kirkuk in modern Iraq by the Middle Bronze Age and their presence was attested at Nuzi, Urkesh and other sites. They eventually infiltrated and occupied a broad arc of fertile farmland stretching from the Khabur River valley in the west to the foothills of the Zagros Mountains in the east, the Khabur River valley became the heart of the Hurrian lands for a millennium. The first known Hurrian kingdom emerged around the city of Urkesh during the third millennium BCE, there is evidence that they were initially allied with the east Semitic Akkadian Empire of Mesopotamia, indicating they had a firm hold on the area by the reign of Naram-Sin of Akkad. This region hosted other rich cultures, the city-state of Urkesh had some powerful neighbors. At some point in the second millennium BCE, the Northwest Semitic speaking Amorite kingdom of Mari to the south subdued Urkesh. The Assyrians then made themselves masters over Mari and much of north east Amurru in the late 19th, shubat-Enlil, was made the capital of this Old Assyrian empire by Shamshi Adad I at the expense of the earlier capital of Assur. The Hurrians also migrated further west in this period, by 1725 BCE they are found also in parts of northern Syria, such as Alalakh. The mixed Amorite–Hurrian kingdom of Yamhad is recorded as struggling for this area with the early Hittite king Hattusilis I around 1600 BCE, Hurrians also settled in the coastal region of Adaniya in the country of Kizzuwatna, southern Anatolia. Yamhad eventually weakened vis-a-vis the powerful Hittites, but this also opened Anatolia for Hurrian cultural influences, the Hittites were influenced by both the Hurrian and Hattian cultures over the course of several centuries
9.
Khabur (Euphrates)
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Ultraman is a Japanese tokusatsu television series that first aired in 1966. Ultraman is a follow-up to the television series Ultra Q, though not technically a sequel or spin-off, the show was produced by Tsuburaya Productions, and was broadcast on Tokyo Broadcasting System from July 17,1966 to April 9,1967, with a total of 39 episodes. Although Ultraman is the first series to feature an Ultra-Crusader, it is actually the second show in the Ultra Series, in fact, Ultraman opens with the Ultra Q logo exploding into the Ultraman logo. Ultraman, and its hero, became a major pop culture phenomenon in Japan, spawning dozens of sequels, spin-offs, imitators. Ultramans central characters were created by Eiji Tsuburaya from Tsuburaya Productions, the shows predecessor was a series called Ultra Q, a black-and-white 28-episode series very much like the original Outer Limits. The name Woo ended up being used for an unrelated, yeti-like monster. Later, Tsuburaya Productions would ultimately produce a series dubbed Bio Planet WoO, in January 2006, Bemlar, then retitled Scientific Special Search Party, Bemlar, The main characters are a defense force, with the same Japanese name as the Science Special Search Party. One of the members, unknown to anyone, gained the ability to transform into a giant birdlike humanoid monster called Bemlar, who defends Earth from monsters, aliens and other threats. Unlike Woo, Bemlar was a tough and righteous fighter, and he looked similar in design to the title monster of the 1967 kaiju film Gappa. The plot was scrapped when it was worried viewers might have trouble telling the monsters apart, redman, The title hero of this project slightly resembled Ultraman as he came to be known, but he looked more demonic and had horns. He came to Earth after his planet was destroyed by aliens from Planet X, the characteristic Color Timer, more familiar to American audiences as the warning light on Ultramans chest, was added at the eleventh hour. The first series begins when Science Special Search Party member Shin Hayata is flying his plane, the sphere turns out to be the transport for a giant red-and-silver being who calls himself Ultraman. Feeling remorse for having killed the human, he merges his essence with Hayata to save him, the Ultraman series used various monster costumes, known as kaiju in Japan, prior to other series such as Kamen Rider and Super Sentai. The principals were played by famous monster suit actor Haruo Nakajima, another Toho actor, Satoshi Bin Furuya, was sought out for the role of Ultraman, because of his tall stature and perfect proportions. Nakajima had an outdoor-sports and martial-arts background, and they decided that Ultraman would not seem alien if he was using earth-bound martial arts techniques. So Ultramans fighting style was a mixture of grappling, Greco-Roman wrestling, and some Japanese martial arts, often costumes of famous monsters like Godzilla and Baragon would be recycled and altered, sometimes with nothing more than spray paint and often while the actor was still inside. Nakajima quipped once that the gait of some of the monsters he portrayed was due less to his acting than to the fumes he had to endure. Also, the expense of repairing the scale cities and landscapes used for battle scenes required economy of movement, not all monsters resembled Godzilla or a dinosaur
