Ancient Near East

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The ancient Near East
Regions and states
Fertile Crescent

Mesopotamia

Egypt

Iran

Anatolia

The Levant

Arabia

Archaeological periods
Languages
Literature
Mythology
Other topics

The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, southeast Turkey, southwest Iran, and northeastern Syria),[1] ancient Egypt, ancient Persia (Elam, Media, Parthia, and Persis), Anatolia and the Armenian highlands (Turkey's Eastern Anatolia Region, Armenia, northwestern Iran, southern Georgia, and western Azerbaijan),[2] the Levant (modern Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan and Cyprus) and the Arabian Peninsula. The ancient Near East is studied in the fields of ancient Near East studies, Near Eastern archaeology, and ancient history.

The history of the ancient Near East begins with the rise of

Macedonian Empire in the 4th century BC, or the Early Muslim conquests
in the 7th century AD.

The ancient Near East is considered a

law codes, early advances that laid the foundations of astronomy and mathematics, and the invention of the wheel
.

During the period, states became increasingly large, until the region became controlled by militaristic empires that had conquered a number of different cultures.

The concept of the Near East

Main article: Near East
Overview map of the ancient Near East

The phrase "ancient Near East" denotes the 19th-century distinction between the Near and

Hamidian Massacres of the Armenians and Assyrians by the Ottoman Empire in 1894–1896 and the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895. The two theatres were described by the statesmen and advisors of the British Empire as "the Near East" and "the Far East". Shortly after, they were to share the stage with ''Middle East
'', which came to prevail in the 20th century and continues in modern times.

As Near East had meant the lands of the Ottoman Empire at roughly its maximum extent, on the fall of that empire, the use of Near East in diplomacy was reduced significantly in favor of the Middle East. Meanwhile, the ancient Near East had become distinct. The Ottoman rule over the Near East ranged from Vienna (to the north) to the tip of the Arabian Peninsula (to the south), from Egypt (in the west) to the borders of Iraq (in the east). The 19th-century archaeologists added Iran to their definition, which was never under the Ottomans, but they excluded all of Europe and, generally, Egypt, which had parts in the empire.

Periodization

Ancient Near East periodization is the attempt to categorize or divide time into discrete named blocks, or eras, of the Near East. The result is a descriptive abstraction that provides a useful handle on Near East periods of time with relatively stable characteristics.

Copper Age Chalcolithic
(4500–3300 BC)
Early Chalcolithic
 4500–4000 BC Ubaid period in Mesopotamia
Late Chalcolithic
 4000–3300 BC
Proto-Elamite
Bronze Age
Early Bronze Age

(3300–2100 BC)
Early Bronze Age I
 3300–3000 BC
Early Dynastic Period of Egypt, settlement of Phoenicians
Early Bronze Age II
 3000–2700 BC
Early Dynastic Period of Sumer
Early Bronze Age III 2700–2200 BC
Sumero-Akkadian states, Marhasi Jiroft
Early Bronze Age IV
 2200–2100 BC Second half of the Sixth Dynasty of Egypt, First Intermediate Period of Egypt
Middle Bronze Age

(2100–1550 BC)
Middle Bronze Age I
 2100–2000 BC Third Dynasty of Ur
Middle Bronze Age II A 2000–1750 BC
Egyptian Middle Kingdom
Middle Bronze Age II B 1750–1650 BC Second Intermediate Period of Egypt
Middle Bronze Age II C 1650–1550 BC
Hittite Old Kingdom, Minoan eruption
Late Bronze Age

(1550–1200 BC) 		Late Bronze Age I 1550–1400 BC
Hittite Middle Kingdom, Hayasa-Azzi, Middle Elamite period, New Kingdom of Egypt
Late Bronze Age II A
 1400–1300 BC
Hittite New Kingdom, Mitanni, Hayasa-Azzi, Ugarit, Mycenaean Greece
Late Bronze Age II B
 1300–1200 BC Middle Assyrian Empire, beginning of the high point of Phoenicians
Iron Age
Iron Age I

(1200–1000 BC)
Iron Age I A
 1200–1150 BC
Bronze Age collapse, Sea Peoples
Iron Age I B 1150–1000 BC
Aramean
states
Iron Age II

(1000–539 BC)
Iron Age II A
 1000–900 BC Greek Dark Ages, traditional date of the United Monarchy of Israel
Iron Age II B 900–700 BC Kingdom of Israel, Urartu, Phrygia, Neo-Assyrian Empire, Kingdom of Judah, first settlement of Carthage
Iron Age II C 700–539 BC Neo-Babylonian Empire, Median Empire, fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Phoenicia, Archaic Greece, rise of Achaemenid Persia
Classical antiquity
Achaemenid 539–330 BC Persian Achaemenid Empire, Classical Greece
Hellenistic & Parthian 330–31 BC
Macedonian Empire, Seleucid Empire, Kingdom of Pergamon, Ptolemaic Kingdom, Parthian Empire
Roman & Persian 31 BC – 634 AD
Sassanid Empire, Byzantine Empire, Muslim conquests

Prehistory

For a chronological guide, see Chronology of the ancient Near East.
Further information: History of the Middle East and Timeline of Middle Eastern history
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Human history
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Chalcolithic

Early Mesopotamia

The

southern Mesopotamia.[4] The late Uruk period (3400 to 3200 BC) saw the gradual emergence of cuneiform script and corresponds to the early Bronze Age.[5][additional citation(s) needed
]

History

Bronze Age

Further information:
Short chronology timeline
Bronze Age
↑ Chalcolithic
Africa, Near East (c. 3300–1200 BC)
Mesopotamia, Sistan, Canaan
Late Bronze Age collapse
Indian subcontinent c. 3300–1200 BC
Indus Valley Civilisation, Bronze Age India, Ochre Coloured Pottery, Cemetery H
Caucasus, Catacomb culture, Srubnaya culture, Bell Beaker culture, Apennine culture, Terramare culture, Únětice culture, Tumulus culture, Urnfield culture, Proto-Villanovan culture, Hallstatt culture, Canegrate culture, Golasecca culture, Argaric culture, Atlantic Bronze Age, Bronze Age Britain, Nordic Bronze Age
Eurasia and Siberia (c. 2700–700 BC)
Poltavka culture, Abashevo culture, Sintashta culture, Andronovo culture, Mezhovskaya culture, Cherkaskul culture
East Asia (c. 3100–300 BC)
Erlitou, Erligang, Gojoseon, Jomon, Majiayao, Mumun, Qijia, Siwa, Wucheng, Xindian, Yueshi, Xia dynasty, Shang dynasty, Sanxingdui, Zhou dynasty
Topics
literature, Sword, Chariot
↓ Iron Age

Early Bronze Age

Sumer and Akkad

Sumer hosted many early advances in

Sargon the Great
, lasted from the 24th to the 21st century BC, and was regarded by many as the world's first empire. The Akkadians eventually fragmented into Assyria and Babylonia.

Elam

Ancient

2700 BC, when Susa, the later capital of the Elamites, began to receive influence from the cultures of the Iranian plateau. In archaeological terms, this corresponds to the late Banesh period. This civilization is recognized as the oldest in Iran and was largely contemporary with its neighbour, Sumer. The Proto-Elamite script is an early Bronze Age writing system briefly in use for the ancient Elamite language (which was a language isolate) before the introduction of Elamite cuneiform
.

The Amorites

The

Arabia.[9] They ultimately settled in Mesopotamia, ruling Isin, Larsa
, and later Babylon.

Middle Bronze Age

Late Bronze Age

The

history of the Hittites
.

Armenian Plateau
and related to the earlier inhabitants of Ishuwa.

Gulf of İskenderun in modern-day Turkey, encircling the Taurus Mountains and the Ceyhan river. The centre of the kingdom was the city of Kummanni, situated in the highlands. In a later era, the same region was known as Cilicia
.

Cuneiform Luwian and Hieroglyphic Luwian
.

Mari was an ancient Sumerian and Amorite city, located 11 kilometres north-west of the modern town of Abu Kamal on the western bank of Euphrates river, some 120 km southeast of Deir ez-Zor, Syria. It is thought to have been inhabited since the 5th millennium BC, although it flourished from 2900 BC until 1759 BC, when it was sacked by Hammurabi.

Kura-Araxes culture has been connected with this movement, although its date is somewhat too early.[11]
Yamhad was an ancient Amorite kingdom. A substantial Hurrian population also settled in the kingdom, and the Hurrian culture influenced the area. The kingdom was powerful during the Middle Bronze Age, c. 1800–1600 BC. Its biggest rival was Qatna further south. Yamhad was finally destroyed by the Hittites in the 16th century BC.

The

West Semitic language group), semi-nomadic and pastoralist people who had lived in upper Mesopotamia and Syria. Aramaeans have never had a unified empire; they were divided into independent kingdoms all across the Near East. Yet to these Aramaeans befell the privilege of imposing their language and culture upon the entire Near East and beyond, fostered in part by the mass relocations enacted by successive empires, including the Assyrians and Babylonians. Scholars even have used the term 'Aramaization' for the Assyro-Babylonian peoples' languages and cultures, that have become Aramaic-speaking.[12]

The

Hatti and the Levant, this hypothesis is disputed.[18]

Bronze Age collapse

The

Aramaean kingdoms of the mid-10th century BC, and the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire
.

Iron Age

Part of a series on the
Iron Age
↑ Bronze Age
By region
Related topics
↓ Ancient history

During the Early Iron Age, from 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire arose, vying with Babylonia and other lesser powers for dominance of the region, though not until the reforms of

Aramaic was also made an official language of the empire, alongside the Akkadian language.[23]

The states of the

Quwê – as well as those of northern and coastal Syria.[24][25]

Armenian Highland, and it centered on Lake Van (present-day eastern Turkey). The name corresponds to the Biblical
Ararat.

Two related

a series of Babylonian invasions, and in 587-586 BC, Jerusalem was besieged and destroyed by the second Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar II, who subsequently exiled the Judeans to Babylon
.

The term Neo-Babylonian Empire refers to Babylonia under the rule of the 11th ("Chaldean") dynasty, from the revolt of Nabopolassar in 623 BC until the invasion of Cyrus the Great in 539 BC (Although the last ruler of Babylonia (Nabonidus) was in fact from the Assyrian city of Harran and not Chaldean), notably including the reign of Nebuchadrezzar II. Through the centuries of Assyrian domination, Babylonia enjoyed a prominent status, and revolted at the slightest indication that it did not. However, the Assyrians always managed to restore Babylonian loyalty, whether through the granting of increased privileges, or militarily. That finally changed in 627 BC with the death of the last strong Assyrian ruler, Ashurbanipal, and Babylonia rebelled under Nabopolassar the Chaldean a few years later. In alliance with the Medes and Scythians, Nineveh was sacked in 612 and Harran in 608 BC, and the seat of empire was again transferred to Babylonia. Subsequently, the Medes controlled much of the ancient Near East from their base in Ecbatana (modern-day Hamadan, Iran), most notably most of what is now Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and the South Caucasus.

Following the fall of the Medes, the

Greek city states in the Greco-Persian Wars, for freeing the Israelites from their Babylonian captivity
, and for instituting Aramaic as the empire's official language.

In 116-117 AD, most of the Ancient Near East (excepting several more marginal regions) was briefly re-united under the rule of the Roman Empire under Trajan.

See also

References

  1. ISBN 9780313294976
    . Retrieved 28 February 2015.
  2. ^ "Armenian Highland". Encyclopædia Britannica. August 28, 2017.
  3. ^ Crawford 2004, pp. 18, 40.
  4. ^ Crawford 2004, p. 18.
  5. ^ Crawford 2004, pp. 194–197.
  6. ISBN 978-0-385-09405-4
    .
  7. doi:10.3406/paleo.1990.4527
    .
  8. S2CID 200071451
    .
  9. ^ "Amorite (people)". Encyclopædia Britannica. April 17, 2014.
  10. ^ von Dassow, Eva, (2014). "Levantine Polities under Mittanian Hegemony". In: Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum, Nicole Brisch and Jesper Eidem (eds.). Constituent, Confederate, and Conquered Space: The Emergence of the Mittani State. pp. 11-32.
  11. Fitzroy Dearborn
    , 1997.
  12. ^ Professor Simo Parpola, (University of Helsinki) (2004). "National and Ethnic Identity in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Assyrian Identity in Post-Empire Times" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 18 (2): 9. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 17, 2011.
  13. ^ A convenient table of sea peoples in hieroglyphics, transliteration and English is given in the dissertation of Woodhuizen, 2006, who developed it from works of Kitchen cited there.
  14. ^ As noted by Gardiner V.1 p.196, other texts have
    N25
    X1     		Z4
    ḫȝty.w "foreign-peoples"; both terms can refer to the concept of "foreigners" as well. Zangger in the external link below expresses a commonly held view that "sea peoples" does not translate this and other expressions but is an academic innovation. The Woudhuizen dissertation and the Morris paper identify Gaston Maspero as the first to use the term "peuples de la mer" in 1881.
  15. ^ Gardiner, Alan H. (1947). Ancient Egyptian Onomastica. Vol. 1. London: Oxford University Press. p. 196.
  16. ISBN 978-0-9740025-0-7
    .
  17. ^ Line 52. The inscription is shown in Manassa p.55 plate 12.
  18. ^ Several articles in Oren.
  19. ISBN 978-0-691-02591-9
    .
  20. M.L. Stig Sørensen and R. Thomas, eds., The Bronze Age—Iron Age Transition in Europe (Oxford) 1989, and T.A. Wertime
    and J.D. Muhly, The Coming of the Age of Iron (New Haven) 1980.
  21. ^ "Assyrian Eponym List". Archived from the original on 2016-11-14. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  22. ^ Tadmor, H. (1994). The Inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser III, King of Assyria.pp.29
  23. ^
    Frye, Richard N. (1992). "Assyria and Syria: Synonyms". PhD., Harvard University. Journal of Near Eastern Studies. And the ancient Assyrian empire, was the first real, empire in history. What do I mean, it had many different peoples included in the empire, all speaking Aramaic, and becoming what may be called, "Assyrian citizens." That was the first time in history, that we have this. For example, Elamite musicians, were brought to Nineveh, and they were 'made Assyrians' which means, that Assyria, was more than a small country, it was the empire, the whole Fertile Crescent.[dead YouTube link
    ]
  24. ^ Hawkins, John David; 1982a. "Neo-Hittite States in Syria and Anatolia" in Cambridge Ancient History (2nd ed.) 3.1: 372–441.
  25. Università di Roma "La Sapienza"
    , Dipartimento di Scienze storiche, archeologiche e anthropologiche dell'Antichità, Quaderni di Geografia Storica 5: Roma: Sargon srl, 87–101.
  26. ^ Urartu article, Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 2007

Sources

Further reading

External links

  • The History of the Ancient Near East – A database of the prehistoric Near East as well as its ancient history up to approximately the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans ...
  • Vicino Oriente – Vicino Oriente is the journal of the Section Near East of the Department of Historical, Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences of Antiquity of Rome 'La Sapienza' University. The Journal, which is published yearly, deals with Near Eastern History, Archaeology, Epigraphy, extending its view also on the whole Mediterranean with the study of Phoenician and Punic documents. It is accompanied by 'Quaderni di Vicino Oriente', a monograph series.
  • Ancient Near East.net – an information and content portal for the archaeology, ancient history, and culture of the ancient Near East and Egypt
  • Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution The Freer Gallery houses a famous collection of ancient Near Eastern artefacts and records, notebooks and photographs of excavations in Samarra (Iraq), Persepolis and Pasargadae (Iran)
  • The Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives – The archives for The Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery houses the papers of
    excavations
    , along with records of other archeological excavations in the ancient Near East.
  • Archaeowiki.org—a wiki for the research and documentation of the ancient Near East and Egypt
  • ETANA – website hosted by a consortium of universities in the interests of providing digitized resources and relevant web links
  • Ancient Near East Photographs – this collection, created by Professor Scott Noegel, documents artifacts and archaeological sites of the ancient Near East; from the University of Washington Libraries Digital Image Collection
  • Near East Images A directory of archaeological images of the ancient Near East
  • Bioarchaeology of the Near East – an Open Access journal
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