Before early humans settled in the Fertile Crescent they were nomads, traveling the region in search of food. Eventually, humans learned to farm and settled in the Fertile Crescent because the soil was ideal for farming and the rivers provided water for the crops. Eventually, humans became so efficient at farming they had surpluses and were able to live in central cities.
Fertile Crescent: More rollover caption here.
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Language & Culture: Info box caption here.
- Indo-European: Rollover caption
- Caucasian: Rollover caption
- Semite: Rollover Caption
- Hamite: Rollover Caption
Ancient Technology: Info box caption here.
- Neolithic
- Bronze Age
As the cities grew larger, they became city-states. They developed law and religion and had kings who ruled over the city and the surrounding farms. The citizens were able to pursue occupations such as soldiers, craftsmen, priests, and politicians. The cities depended on the farms to supply their food. In return, the soldiers protected the farms from attackers.
Sumer: The Sumerians invented an irrigation system made up of canals to bring water from the rivers to the crops. This system allowed them to farm more food than ever before allowing more people to live in cities. The Sumerians developed the first civilization and would dominate the region for a thousand years.
Indo-European Migrations: (1) The Hittites were an Indo-European culture that migrated into the Middle East around the end of the 3rd century BC. The Hittites would conquer Mesopotamia in 1600 BC and rule for 300 years, absorbing the laws, religion, and culture of the Sumerians from the Babylonians. (2) Iranian Indo-European migrations swept eastward across Eurasia and eventually headed south. This resulted in Iranians settling east of Mesopotamia, and the Aryan splinter group eventually settling in the Indus River Valley. Indo-European cultures used chariots in warfare enabling them to conquer the Caucasian cultures in the region.
Semitic Migrations: Akkadians and Amorites were Semitic (and most likely nomadic) cultures that migrated to Mesopotamia from the Arabian Peninsula. Each challenged Summerian control and ruled as the Akkadian and Babylonian Empires respectively.
Akkadian Empire: Sargon, the Akkadian military leader, conquered Sumer in 2340 BC, eventually conquering all of Mesopotamia and uniting it under one leader. The Akkadians and the Sumerians were forced to merge their cultures; the Sumerians were
forced to adopt the language of the Akkadians and the Akkadians adopted Sumerian cuneiform.
Egypt: Egyptians built a great civilization that would last much longer than Sumerian civilization. Like the Sumerians, they developed systems for writing and irrigation. They also made paper and use stone to build, building great pyramids to house the tombs of dead pharaohs, what Egyptians called their rulers.
Levant Coast: The Levant, or land of the Bible, was populated mainly by Semitic speaking people who shared the Canaanite language and culture. Canaanites were influenced by Mesopotamian culture and believed in many of the same gods. Eblaite was a Canaanite offshoot that provided one of the largest city states. Early examples of writing found in the region include an extensive Eblaite-Sumerian cuneiform dictionary.
City-states located near each other often had similar cultures, languages, and religions. These cities eventually united under one ruler into small local empires. The empires grew larger through warfare and trade. The larger the empires grew the stronger they became as they controlled more land and resources. Assyria was the largest and most technologically advanced empire of this period.
Local Empires: Timeline dates here.
Anatolia: (1) The Lydians would challenge Hittite control of Anatolia. They were closely related to the Greeks and developed an important trading port at Sardis. (2) The Hittites would conquer Mesopotamia bringing an end to the Old Babylonian Empire whose culture and customs it would adopt. The Hittites played a big role in spreading Mesopotamian culture throughout the Mediterranean by trading a lot with other civilizations.
Egypt: As the Egyptian civilization continues to grow, they fight foreign occupation from the north. They are briefly conquered by the Hyksos and the Assyrians, but eventually regain control of their empire. This is also the period when the elaborate pyramids we know today were built in the Valley of the Kings.
Levant Coast: (rollover provides detail map and the
following text)
1006BC: King David moves Israel’s capitol from Hebron to Jerusalem.
926BC: Solomon dies and Jews split into the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel.
721BC: Assyria overruns Israel, disperses the Israelites and takes thousands as slaves. Israel as a nation vanishes.
587BC: Jerusalem rebels against Babylon. The Chaldeans burn the city, and many Jews are exiled to Babylon.
Iranian Migrations: Persis, Media, and Kingdom of Mitanni were local empires that were the result of Iranian migrations in the previous millennia. They would lay the basis of the Persian Achaemenid Empire.
Assyrian Empire: The Assyrian Empire was established by Adad-narari in 1307, but it is not until two powerful Assyrian kings, Tukulti-Ninurta I and Tiglath-Pilser I, unite Assyria that they become a major military power in the Middle East and extended the boundaries of the empire from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea.
Babylonian Empires: Hamurabi, an Amorite, conquered all of Sumer and founded the Babylonian empire in 1763 BC. The Assyrians would conquer the Babylonians thereby ending the Hamurabi era in 1650. Babylonians allied with the Medians to defeat the Assyrians and regained control of Mesopotamia in 600 BC.
Writing Systems: (Info box) Cuneiform and hieroglyphic alphabets were too complex and eventually became extinct. Phonetically based script alphabets were much easier to write and had fewer characters.
Pictograph: (1) Hittite Hieroglyphics: The Hittites used both hieroglyphic and cuneiform writing systems. Scholars found a treaty written in both Egyptian and Hittite hieroglyphics which was very helpful in deciphering the Hittite pictographic script. (2) Egyptian Hieroglyphics: Hieroglyphics literally means "priestly writings". It was used to adorn temples and tombs and told a story with symbols that people could easily recognize.
Cuneiform: (1) Hittite Cuneiform: It was believed that Hittite was a Semitic language. It wasn't till the early 1900s that a Czech linguist, Bedrich Hrozný, deciphered Hittite cuneiform tablets, which linked Hittite to the Indo-European family of languages. The Hittite word 'wa-a-tar' (water) turned out to be the key that allowed Hrozný to establish Hittite as an Indo-European language. (2) Akkadian-Assyrian Cuneiform: The Akkadian and Assyrian empires spread the use of cuneiform throughout the Middle East. Hittite, Mittani, Assyria, Media, Babylon, Elam, and Persis all used cuneiform writing systems based on the Semitic Akkadian, which was derived from ancient Caucasian Sumerian. Cuneiform alphabets could have hundreds of characters and were difficult to write.
Script:
(1) Phoenician: The Phoenician alphabet is a forerunner of the Etruscan,
Latin, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, and Syriac scripts among others, many of which
are still in modern use.
(2) The First Alphabet: The Phoenician alphabetic script of 22 letters
was used at Byblos as early as the 15th century B.C. This method of writing,
later adopted by the Greeks, is the ancestor of the modern Roman alphabet. (labels
for visual: c.1700 BC
Phoenician, c.800 BC Early Greek, c.600 BC Early Roman)
(3) Hieratic: Egyptians used hieratic script for everyday writing
because it was simpler to use than hieroglyphics.
(4) Early Aramaic: Closely related to the Phoenician alphabet, the
Proto-Hebrew or Early Aramaic alphabet was developed sometime during the late
10th or early 9th century BC.
(5) Hebrew & Aramaic: Hebrew was the language of the early Jews, but fell out of use as an everyday spoken language and was replaced by Aramaic in the 7th century BC. Aramaic was the main language of the Persian, Babylonian and Assyrian empires and spread as far as Greece and the Indus valley until the 7th century AD, when it was largely replaced by Arabic. Hebrew was revived as a spoken language in the early 20th century.
As the empires grew larger, they included people from different cultures, with different languages and religions that had to be managed under one central ruler. A strong emperor and army was needed, but a more advanced method of government and trade was also required to rule an entire region of the world.
Achaemenid Persians: The Iranian Achaemenid kingdoms of Anshan and Persis developed in Elam in the wake of Assyrian occupation. Cyrus I, of Persis, would succeed the throne of Anshan, and then take western Elam from the Babylonians. In 550 BC, he would defeat his grandfather and take over all of Media.
Defeat of Lydians: Cyrus defeated the Lydians in 547 BC and executed their leader, King Croesus. Croesus had consolidated the peoples of Anatolia and subdued the Ionian Greeks that settled the western coast. The Ionians resented Persian control and revolted frequently. Despite Ionia's place as a Greek cultural center, mainland Greece did not come to aid the Ionian struggle against Persian occupation.
Annexation of Egypt: In 525 BC, Cambyses II conquers Egypt. The Persians ruled Egypt off and on for 193 years. Egyptians resented the Persians and staged many revolts. In 405 BC, the Persians were expelled and the native Pharaohs ruled for over 60 years until the Persians reestablished control in 340 BC.
Fall of Babylon: Babylon conceded to Cyrus' army in an almost bloodless conquest in 539BC. Two years later, Cyrus allows the Jews exiled from Jerusalem in 587BC to return home.
Greek Campaigns: (1) In 492 BC, Darius I conquered Macedonia and then advanced on Athenian Greece at Marathon in 490. The Greeks greatly upset the Persians reportedly losing only 192 men compared to 6,400 Persian casualties. The Greeks managed to fight off all Persian advances by 479 BC. (2) Greece was made up of strong city states with differing styles of government. Language and culture was the main link in early Greek society. The Persian invasions united the Greek cities briefly as they rallied together to fight of the massive Persian army.
- Darius I conquers Macedonia in 492 BC
- Defeated at Marathon in 490 BC
- Xerses I mounts massive campaign but is defeated at Salamis in 480 BC.
Transportation: Building upon Assyrian roads, Darius I builds the Royal Persian Road from Susa to Sardis. More: (1) Persians complete a Nile-Red Sea canal started by the Egyptian Pharaoh, Necho. It made it easier to sail from Persia to the Mediterranean Sea. (2) Double-humped camels from Bactria made travel across the dessert easier. Camels can take in a lot of water. Their blood cells enable them to carry more water in their veins.