Portal:Ancient Near East

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The Ancient Near East Portal

The ancient Near East refers to early civilizations in a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq and Syria), Persia (modern Iran), Armenia, Anatolia (modern Turkey), the Levant (modern Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan), and Ancient Egypt, from the beginnings of Sumer in the 6th millennium BC until the region's conquest by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC. The ancient Near East is considered the Cradle of Civilization. It was the first to practice intensive year-round agriculture; it produced the first writing system, invented the potter's wheel and then the vehicular- and mill wheels, created the first centralized governments, law codes and empires, as well as introducing social stratification, slavery and organized warfare, and it laid the foundation for the fields of mathematics, medicine and astronomy. Show new selections...   Selected article Babylonia was an Amorite state in lower Mesopotamia, with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged when Hammurabi (fl. c. 1728 – 1686 BC (short chronology)) created an empire out of the territories of the former kingdoms of Sumer and Akkad. The Amorites being a Semitic people, Babylonia adopted the written Semitic Akkadian language for official use, and retained the Sumerian language for religious use, which by that time was no longer a spoken language. The Akkadian and Sumerian cultures played a major role in Babylonian culture, and Babylon itself became the major cultural center in the ancient Near East and remained so for more than a millenium, even under foreign rule.   Selected biography Shamshi-Adad I (reigned c. 1745 ñ 1717 BC (short chronology)) rose to prominence when he carved out a large empire in northern Mesopotamia, founding the Old Assyrian Empire, although the Assyria was soon defeated by Hammurabi of Babylon and remained in the shadow of the Babylonian Empire throughout the "old Assyrian" period. Shamshi-Adad was a great organizer, keeping firm control on all matters of state, from high policy down to appointing officials and dispatching provisions. His campaigns were meticulously planned, and his army knew all the classic methods of siegecraft, such as encircling ramparts and battering rams. Spies and propaganda were often used to win over rival cities. However, his empire lacked cohesion and when news of his death spread, old rivals set out at once to topple his sons from the throne.   Selected picture [[Image:|center|300x300px|Horned Figure]] Credit: Sumerophile Horned Figure Proto-Elamite, early 3rd millennium BC, (Brooklyn Museum)   Did you know... ...that the Hurrian language and the Urartian language are proposed to be distantly related to the modern Armenian language? ...that the Aramaic language, the lingua franca of the ancient Near East in Biblical times is still spoken as a first language today? ...that the syllabic cuneiform script was adapted to create a phonetic alphabet twice, for the Ugaritic language and for the Old Persian language? Quality content Featured article: Sargon of Akkad Good articles: Akkadian Empire • Hammurabi • Artaxerxes III Ochus • Zoroastrianism Things you can do Add an {{ANE portal}} template to all articles that fall within the scope of this portal. Add a {{WP ANE}} WikiProject banner to their talk pages. Edit articles, create new articles, and expand stub articles: Clean up articles needing attention Improve articles to good article status. Maintain quality by monitoring recent changes. Make sure all pages have the templates in #1 above, for their recent changes to appear. Upload images to Wikicommons See also resources for editors. Categories ▼ Ancient Near East ► Maps of the ancient Near East ► Akkadian Empire ► Ancient Anatolia ► Archaeology of the Near East ► Ancient Near East art and architecture ► Assyria ► Assyriology ► Babylonia ► Books about the ancient Near East ► Ancient Near and Middle East clay objects ► Elam ► Habiru ► Ancient Israel and Judah ► Ancient Near East journals ► Ancient Near East law ► Ancient Levant ► Ancient Near East literature ► Mesopotamia ► Military history of the ancient Near East ► Ancient Near East mythology ► Ancient Near East organizations ► Phoenicia ► Ancient Near East in popular culture ► Sea Peoples ► Southern Levant ► Sumer ► Ancient Near East stubs ► WikiProject Ancient Near East Related WikiProjects Ancient Near East • Archaeology • Languages • History • Military history • Mythology • Ancient Egypt Assyria • Jewish history • Bible • Zoroastrianism