Ancient Near East

Overview map of the ancient Near East

The Ancient Near East refers to early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq and Syria), Persia (modern Iran), Anatolia (modern Turkey), the Levant (modern Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan), and Ancient Egypt, from the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BCE until the region's conquest by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BCE, or covering both the Bronze Age and the Iron Age in the region. As such, it is a term widely employed in the fields of Near Eastern archaeology, ancient history and Egyptology. Some would exclude Egypt from the ancient Near East as a geographically and culturally distinct area. However, because of Egypt's intimate involvement with the region, especially from the 2nd millennium BCE, this exclusion is rare.

The Ancient Near East is considered the cradle of civilization. It was the first to practice intensive year-round agriculture; it gave us the first writing system, invented the potter's wheel and then the vehicular- and mill wheel, 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 astronomy and mathematics.

Periodization

Stone age (2,000,000 BP - 3300 BCE)	Paleolithic (2,000,000 BP - 8300 BCE)	Lower Paleolithic	2,000,000 BP - 300,000 BP
		Middle Paleolithic	300,000 BP - 30,000 BP
		Upper Paleolithic	30,000 BP - 12,000 BP
		Epipaleolithic	12,000 BP - 8300 BCE
	Neolithic (8300 BCE - 4500 BCE)	Pre-pottery Neolithic	8300 BCE - 5500 BCE
		Pottery Neolithic	5500 BCE - 4500 BCE
	Chalcolithic (4500 BCE - 3300 BCE)	Early Chalcolithic	4500 BCE - 4000 BCE
		Late Chalcolithic (Ghassulian)	4000 BCE - 3300 BCE
Bronze Age (3300 BCE - 1200 BCE)	Early Bronze Age (3300 BCE - 2000 BCE)	Early Bronze Age I	3300 BCE - 3000 BCE
		Early Bronze Age II	3000 BCE - 2700 BCE
		Early Bronze Age III	2700 BCE - 2200 BCE
		Early Bronze Age IV	2200 BCE - 2000 BCE
	Middle Bronze Age (2000 BCE - 1550 BCE)	Middle Bronze Age I	2000 BCE - 1750 BCE
		Middle Bronze Age II	1750 BCE - 1650 BCE
		Middle Bronze Age III	1650 BCE - 1550 BCE
	Late Bronze Age (1550 BCE - 1200 BCE)	Late Bronze Age I	1550 BCE - 1400 BCE
		Late Bronze Age II A	1400 BCE - 1300 BCE
		Late Bronze Age II B	1300 BCE - 1200 BCE
Iron Age (1200 BCE - 586 BCE)	Iron Age I (1200 BCE - 1000 BCE)	Iron Age I A	1200 BCE - 1150 BCE
		Iron Age I B	1150 BCE - 1000 BCE
	Iron Age II (1000 BCE - 586 BCE)	Iron Age II A	1000 BCE - 900 BCE
		Iron Age II B	900 BCE - 700 BCE
		Iron Age II C	700 BCE - 586 BCE

History

Further information: Timeline of Middle Eastern History

Chalcolithic

The Predynastic Period of Egypt (prior to 3100 BCE) is traditionally the period between the Early Neolithic and the beginning of the Pharaonic monarchy beginning with King Narmer. However, the dates of the predynastic period were first defined before widespread archaeological excavation of Egypt had taken place, and recent finds which show the course of predynastic development to have been very gradual have caused scholars to argue about when exactly the predynastic period ended. Thus, the term "protodynastic period," sometimes called "Dynasty 0," has been used by scholars to name the part of the period which might be characterized as predynastic by some and dynastic by others.

The Gerzean culture is a material culture identified by archaeologists. The Gerzean is the second of three phases of the Naqada Culture, and so is called Naqada II. It is preceded by the Amratian (Naqada I) and followed by the Protodynastic or Semainian (Naqada III).

The Uruk period (ca. 4000 to 3100 BCE) existed from the protohistoric Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age period in the history of Mesopotamia, following the Ubaid period. Named after the Sumerian city of Uruk, this period saw the emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia. It was followed by the Sumerian civilization. The late Uruk period (34th to 32nd centuries) saw the gradual emergence of the cuneiform script and corresponds to the Early Bronze Age.

The Zayandeh River Civilization is a hypothetical pre-historic culture that is supposed to have flourished around the Zayandeh River in Iran in the 5th millennium BCE. Sialk is a large ancient archeological site near Kashan, Iran, tucked away in the suburbs of the city of Kashan, in central Iran, close to Fin Garden. The culture that inhabited this area has been linked to the Zayandeh Rud Civilization. The Sialk ziggurat has 3 platforms, and was built ca. 2900 BCE. However, the earliest archeological remains of the north mound date back to the middle of the 6th millennium BCE, i.e. about 7500 years ago.

Bronze Age

Early Bronze Age

The Early trans-Caucasian culture was a civilization that existed from 3400 BCE until about 2000 BCE The earliest evidence for this culture is found on the Ararat plain; thence it spread to Georgia by 3000 BCE, and during the next millennium it proceeded westward to the Erzurum plain, southwest to Cilicia, and to the southeast into an area below the Urmia basin and Lake Van, down to the borders of present day Syria. Altogether, the early Trans-Caucasian culture, at its greatest spread, enveloped a vast area approximately 1000 km by 500 km.

The Proto-Elamite civilization existed during the time of ca. 3200 BCE to 2700 BCE 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, Sumerian civilization, the oldest in the world, which began around 5200 BCE. The Proto-Elamite script is an Early Bronze Age writing system briefly in use for the ancient Elamite language before the introduction of Elamite Cuneiform.

Sumer, located in southern Mesopotamia, is the earliest known civilization in the world. It lasted from the first settlement of Eridu in the Ubaid period (late 6th millennium BCE) through the Uruk period (4th millennium BCE) and the Dynastic periods (3rd millennium BCE) until the rise of Babylon in the early 2nd millennium BCE. The term "Sumerian" applies to all speakers of the Sumerian language. Ur was an ancient city in southern Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq), located near the mouth (at the time) of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers on the Persian Gulf and close to Eridu. It is considered to be one of the earliest known civilizations in world history. Because of marine regression, the remains are now well inland in present-day Iraq, south of the Euphrates on its right bank, and named Tell el-Mukayyar , near the city of Nasiriyah south of Baghdad. Urukwas an ancient city of Sumer and later Babylonia, situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates and west of the Tigris river, on the line of the ancient Nil canal, in a region of marshes, some 30 km east of As-Samawah, Al-Muthannā, Iraq. The modern name Iraq is thought to be derived from the name Uruk. At its height, Uruk probably had 50,000–80,000 residents living in 6 square kilometres of walled area, the largest city in the world at its time. Kish was an ancient city of Sumer, situated some 12 km east of Babylon, now ca. 80 km south of Baghdad, in the Babil Governorate, Iraq. The Sumerian king list states it was the first city to have kings after a flood mentioned in the king list. The city's patron deity was Zababa in Akkadian times.

The old Kingdom of Egypt was a period in the 3rd millennium BCE when Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilization in complexity and achievement – this was the first of three so-called "Kingdom" periods, which mark the high points of civilization in the lower Nile Valley (the others being Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom). The Old Kingdom is most commonly regarded as spanning the period of time when Egypt was ruled by the Third Dynasty through to the Sixth Dynasty (2686 – 2134 BCE). Many Egyptologists also include the Memphite Seventh and Eighth Dynasties in the Old Kingdom as a continuation of the administration centralized at Memphis. The Old Kingdom was followed by a period of disunity and relative cultural decline referred to by Egyptologists as the First Intermediate Period. The royal capital of Egypt during the Old Kingdom was located at Memphis, where Djoser established his court. The Old Kingdom is perhaps best known, however, for the large number of pyramids, which were constructed at this time as pharaonic burial places. For this reason, the Old Kingdom is frequently referred to as "the Age of the Pyramids."

Elam is the name of an ancient civilization located in what is now southwest Iran. Archaeological evidence associated with Elam has been dated to before 5000. According to available written records, it is known to have existed beginning from around 3200 BCE — making it among the world's oldest historical civilizations — and to have endured up until 539 BCE. Elam was centered in the far west and southwest of modern-day Iran, stretching from the lowlands of Khuzestan and Ilam Province (which takes its name from Elam), as far as Jiroft in Kerman province and Burned City in Zabol, as well as a small part of southern Iraq.

Ancient Elam lay to the east of Sumer and Akkad (modern-day Iraq). In the Old Elamite period, it consisted of kingdoms on the Iranian plateau, centered in Anshan, and from the mid-2nd millennium BCE, it was centered in Susa in the Khuzestan lowlands. Its culture played a crucial role in the Persian Empire, especially during the Achaemenid dynasty that succeeded it, when the Elamite language remained among those in official use. Susa was an ancient city of the Elamite, Persian and Parthian empires of Iran, located about 150 miles east of the Tigris River. Susa is one of the oldest-known settlements of the region and indeed the world, possibly founded about 4200 BCE (See List of oldest continuously inhabited cities); although the first traces of an inhabited village have been dated to ca. 7000 BCE. Evidence of a painted-pottery civilization has been dated to ca. 5000 BCE.

Lagash was one of the oldest cities of Sumer and later Babylonia. Nearby Ngirsu (modern Telloh) was the religious center of the Lagash state. Lagash's temple was E-Ninnu, dedicated to the god Ningirsu or Ninib. Akkad was a city and its surrounding region in central Mesopotamia. Akkad also became the capital of the Akkadian Empire. The city was probably situated on the west bank of the Euphrates, between Sippar and Kish (in present-day Iraq, about Template:Km to mi southwest of the center of Baghdad). Despite an extensive search, the precise site has never been found. Akkad reached the height of its power between the 24th and 22nd centuries BCE, following the conquests of king Sargon of Akkad.

Isin was a city of lower Mesopotamia, which flourished during the 20th century BCE. No kings of Isin are known from the Sumerian period, and the "Dynasty of Isin" refers to Amorite states in lower Mesopotamia that attained independence with the decline of the Third dynasty of Ur. The dynasty of Isin ends at ca. 1730 BCE short chronology. Babylon is a city of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which can be found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers (55 mi) south of Baghdad. All that remains today of the ancient famed city of Babylon is a mound, or tell, of broken mud-brick buildings and debris in the fertile Mesopotamian plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in Iraq. Historical resources inform us that Babylon was in the beginning a small town that had sprung up by the beginning of the third millennium BCE (the dawn of the dynasties). The town flourished and attained prominence and political repute with the rise of the first Babylonian dynasty. It was the "holy city" of Babylonia by approximately 2300 BCE, and the seat of the Neo-Babylonian Empire from 612 BCE. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Larsa was an important city of ancient Sumer. It lies some 25 km southeast of the ruin mounds of Uruk (biblical Erech), near the east bank of the Shatt-en-Nil canal (modern day southern Iraq). Larsa is mentioned in Sumerian inscriptions as early as the time of Ur-Gur, 2700 or 2800 BCE, who built or restored the ziggurat of E-babbara, the temple of Utu, the sun god.

Mari was an ancient Sumerian and Amorite city, located 11 kilometers 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 BCE, although it flourished from 2900 BCE until 1759 BCE, when it was sacked by Hammurabi.

Amorite refers to a Semitic people who occupied the country west of the Euphrates from the second half of the third millennium BCE. The term Amurru refers to them, as well as to their principal deity. In the earliest Sumerian sources, beginning about 2400 BCE, the land of the Amorites ("the Mar.tu land") is associated with the West, including Syria and Canaan, although their ultimate origin may have been Arabia. They appear as nomadic people in the Mesopotamian sources, and they are especially connected with the mountainous region of Jebel Bishri in Syria called as the "mountain of the Amorites". The ethnic terms Amurru and Amar were used for them in Assyria and Egypt respectively. Amorites seem to have worshipped the moon-god Sin, and Amurru.

Troy was the center of the Trojan War, as described in the Epic Cycle, and especially in the Iliad, one of the two epic poems attributed to Homer. Trojan refers to the inhabitants and culture of Troy.

Middle Bronze Age

Map of the ancient Near East during the Amarna period, showing the great powers of the period: Egypt (green), Hatti (yellow), the Kassite kingdom of Babylon (purple), Assyria (grey), and Mittani (red). Lighter areas show direct control, darker areas represent spheres of influence. The extent of the Achaean/Mycenaean civilization is shown in orange.

• Hayasa-Azzi
• Arzawa, Lukka Troy VI–VII
• Assyria
• Babylonia
• Canaan: Ugarit, Kadesh, Megiddo, Kingdom of Israel
• Ancient Egypt: Middle Kingdom, New Kingdom
• Hittites

Late Bronze Age

The Hurrians lived in northern Mesopotamia and areas to the immediate east and west, beginning approximately 2500 BCE. They probably originated in the Caucasus and entered from the north, but this is not certain. Their known homeland was centred in Subartu, the Khabur River valley, and later they established themselves as rulers of small kingdoms throughout northern Mesopotamia and Syria. The largest and most influential Hurrian nation was the kingdom of Mitanni. The Hurrians played a substantial part in the History of the Hittites.

Ishuwawas an ancient kingdom in Anatolia, Turkey. The name is first attested in the second millennium BCE, and is also spelled Išuwa. In the classical period the land was a part of Armenia. Ishuwa was one of the places were agriculture developed very early in the Neolithic. Urban centres emerged in the upper Euphrates river valley around 3000 BCE. The first states may have followed in the third millennium BCE. The name Ishuwa is not known until the literate period of the second millennium BCE. Few literate sources from within Ishuwa have been discovered and the primary source material comes from Hittite texts. To the west of Ishuwa laid the kingdom of the Hittites and this nation was un untrustworthy neighbour. The Hittite king Hattusili I (c.1600 BCE) is reported to have marched his army across the Euphrates river and destroyed the cities there. This corresponds well with burnt destruction layers discovered by archaeologists at town sites in Ishuwa of roughly the same date. After the end of the Hittite empire in the early twelfth century BCE a new state emerged in Ishuwa. The city of Malatya became the center of one of the so called Neo-Hittite kingdom. The movement of nomadic people may have weakened the kingdom of Malatya before the final Assyrian invasion. The decline of the settlements and culture in Ishuwa from the seventh century BCE until the Roman period was probably caused by this movement of people. The Armenians later settled in the area since they were natives of the Armenian Plateau and related to the earlier inhabitants of Ishuwa.

Kizzuwatna is the name of an ancient kingdom of the second millennium BCE. It was situated in the highlands of southeastern Anatolia, near the Gulf of İskenderun in modern-day Turkey. It encircled the Taurus Mountains and the Ceyhan river. The center of the kingdom was the city of Kummanni, situated in the highlands. In a later era, the same region was known as Cilicia.

Luwian is an extinct language of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. Luwian speakers gradually spread through Anatolia and became a contributing factor to the downfall, after circa 1180 BCE, of the Hittite Empire, where it was already widely spoken. Luwian was also the language spoken in the Neo-Hittite states of Syria, such as Milid and Carchemish, as well as in the central Anatolian kingdom of Tabal that flourished around 900 BCE. Luwian has been preserved in two forms, named after the writing systems used to represent them: Cuneiform Luwian, and Hieroglyphic Luwian.

Mari was an ancient Sumerian and Amorite city, located 11 kilometers 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 BCE, although it flourished from 2900 BCE until 1759 BCE, when it was sacked by Hammurabi.

Mitanni was a Hurrian kingdom in northern Mesopotamia from ca. 1500 BCE, at the height of its power, during the 14th century BCE, encompassing what is today southeastern Turkey, northern Syria and northern Iraq (roughly corresponding to Kurdistan), centered around the capital Washukanni whose precise location has not yet been determined by archaeologists. The Mitanni kingdom is thought to have been a feudal state led by a warrior nobility of Indo-Aryan descent, who invaded the Levant region at some point during the 17th century BCE, their influence apparent in a linguistic superstrate in Mitanni records. The spread to Syria of a distinct pottery type associated with the Kura-Araxes culture has been connected with this movement, although its date is somewhat too early. 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 BCE. Its biggest rival was Qatna further south. Yamhad was finally destroyed by the Hittites in the sixteenth century BCE.

The Aramaeans were a Semitic (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.

The Sea peoples is the term used for a confederacy of seafaring raiders of the second millennium BCE who sailed into the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, caused political unrest, and attempted to enter or control Egyptian territory during the late 19th dynasty, and especially during Year 8 of Ramesses III of the 20th Dynasty. The Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah explicitly refers to them by the term "the foreign-countries (or 'peoples') of the sea" ) in his Great Karnak Inscription. Although some scholars believe that they "invaded" Cyprus, Hatti and the Levant, this hypothesis is disputed.

Bronze Age collapse

The Bronze Age collapse is the name given by those historians who see the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age, as violent, sudden and culturally disruptive, expressed by the collapse of palace economies of the Aegean and Anatolia, which were replaced after a hiatus by the isolated village cultures of the Dark Age period of history of the Ancient Middle East. The Bronze Age collapse may be seen in the context of a technological history that saw the slow, comparatively continuous spread of iron-working technology in the region, beginning with precocious iron-working in what is now Romania in the 13th and 12th centuries. The cultural collapse of the Mycenaean kingdoms, the Hittite Empire in Anatolia and Syria, and the Egyptian Empire in Syria and Palestine, bringing the scission of long-distance trade contacts and sudden eclipse of literacy, occurred between 1206 and 1150 BCE. In the first phase of this period, almost every city between Troy and Gaza was violently destroyed, and often left unoccupied thereafter (for example, Hattusas, Mycenae, Ugarit). The gradual end of the Dark Age that ensued saw the rise of settled Neo-Hittite Aramaean kingdoms of the mid-10th century BCE, and the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

Iron Age

During the Early Iron Age, Assyria assumed a position as a great regional power, vying with Babylonia and other lesser powers for dominance of the region, though not until the reforms of Tiglath-Pileser III in the 8th century BCE, did it become a powerful and vast empire. In the Middle Assyrian period of the Late Bronze Age, Assyria had been a minor kingdom of northern Mesopotamia (modern-day northern Iraq), competing for dominance with its southern Mesopotamian rival Babylonia. Beginning with the campaign of Adad-nirari II, it became a great regional power, growing to be a serious threat to 25th dynasty Egypt. The Neo-Assyrian Empire succeeded the Middle Assyrian period (14th to 10th century BCE). Some scholars, such as Richard Nelson Frye, regard the Neo-Assyrian Empire to be the first real empire in human history. During this period, Aramaic was also made an official language of the empire, alongside the Akkadian language.

The states of the Neo-Hittite kingdoms were Luwian, Aramaic and Phoenician-speaking political entities of Iron Age northern Syria and southern Anatolia that arose following the collapse of the Hittite Empire around 1180 BCE and lasted until roughly 700 BCE. The term "Neo-Hittite" is sometimes reserved specifically for the Luwian-speaking principalities like Melid (Malatya) and Karkamish (Carchemish), although in a wider sense the broader cultural term "Syro-Hittite" is now applied to all the entities that arose in south-central Anatolia following the Hittite collapse — such as Tabal and Quwê — as well as those of northern and coastal Syria .

Urartu was an ancient kingdom of Armenia and North Mesopotamia which existed from ca. 860 BCE, emerging from the Late Bronze Age until 585 BCE. The Kingdom of Urartu was located in the mountainous plateau between Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, and Caucasus mountains, later known as the Armenian Highland, and it centered around Lake Van (present-day eastern Turkey). The name corresponds to the Biblical Ararat.

The term Neo-Babylonian Empire refers to Babylonia under the rule of the 11th ("Chaldean") dynasty, from the revolt of Nabopolassar in 626 BCE until the invasion of Cyrus the Great in 539 BCE, 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 granting of increased privileges, or militarily. That finally changed in 627 BCE with the death of the last strong Assyrian ruler, Ashurbanipal, and Babylonia rebelled under Nabopolassar the Chaldean the following year. With help from the Medes, Nineveh was sacked in 612, and the seat of empire was again transferred to Babylonia.

The Achaemenid Empire was the first of the Persian Empires to rule over significant portions of Greater Iran, and the second great Iranian empire (after the Medean Empire). At the height of its power, encompassing approximately 7.5 million square kilometers, the Achaemenid Empire was territorially the largest empire of classical antiquity. It spanned three continents, including territories of modern Afghanistan, parts of Pakistan, Central Asia, Asia Minor, Thrace, many of the Black Sea coastal regions, Iraq, northern Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and all significant population centers of ancient Egypt as far west as Libya. It is noted in western history as the foe of 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.

Religions

Main article: Religions of the Ancient Near East

Ancient civilizations in the Near East were deeply influenced by their spiritual beliefs, which generally did not distinguish between heaven and Earth. They believed that divine action influenced all mundane matters, and also believed in divination (ability to predict the future). Omens were often inscribed in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, as were records of major events.

See also

• History of pottery in the Southern Levant

Further reading

• William W. Hallo & William Kelly Simpson, The Ancient Near East: A History, Holt Rinehart and Winston Publishers, 1997
• Jack Sasson, The Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, New York, 1995
• Marc Van de Mieroop, History of the Ancient Near East: Ca. 3000-323 B.C., Blackwell Publishers, 2003

External links

• Ancient Near East.net — an information and content portal for the archaeology, ancient history, and culture of the ancient Near East and Egypt
• Ancient Near East.org — A database of the prehistoric Near East as well as its ancient history up to approximately the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans ...
• 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
• Resources on Biblical Archaeology
• 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

---