Middle East - Anthony Ham [17]
* * *
The Great Pyramid of Khufu (built in 2570 BC) remained the tallest artificial structure in the world until the building of the Eiffel Tower in 1889.
* * *
The first signs of agriculture, arguably the first major signpost along the march of human history, grew from the soils surrounding Jericho in what is now the West Bank, around 8500 BC. Forced by a drying climate and the need to cluster around known water sources, these early Middle Easterners added wild cereals to their diet and learned to farm them. In the centuries that followed, these and other farming communities spread east into Mesopotamia (a name later given by the Greeks, meaning ‘Between Two Rivers’), where the fertile soils of the Tigris and Euphrates floodplains were ideally suited to the new endeavour. For some historians, this was a homecoming of sorts for humankind: these two rivers are among the four that, according to the Bible, flowed into the Garden of Eden. At around the same time, the enduring shift from nomadism to more sedentary, organised societies was gathering pace in the Nile River valley of ancient Egypt.
* * *
THE MIDDLE EAST’S INDIGENOUS EMPIRES AT A GLANCE
Few regions can match the Middle East for its wealth of ancient civilisations, all of which have left their mark upon history.
Sumerians (4000–2350 BC) Mesopotamia’s first great civilisation developed advanced irrigation systems, produced surplus food and invented the earliest form of writing.
Egyptians (3100–400 BC) This most enduring of ancient empires was a world of Pharaonic dynasties, exquisite art forms, the Pyramids and royal tombs. The monumental architecture of the empire reached new heights of aesthetic beauty.
Babylonians (1750–1180 BC) This empire further developed the cuneiform script and was one of the first civilisations to codify laws to govern the Tigris-Euphrates region from the capital at Babylon, one of the great centres of the ancient world.
Assyrians (1600–609 BC) Conquerors of territories far and wide and shrewd administrators of their domains from their exquisite capital at Nineveh, the Assyrians also developed the forerunners of modern banking and accounting systems. Their heyday was the 9th century BC.
Persians (6th–4th centuries BC) The relatively short-lived dynasties begun by Cyrus the Great ruled from India to the Aegean Sea and produced the stunning ancient city of Persepolis.
Ottomans (1300s–1918) The last of the great indigenous empires to encompass most of the Middle East. From the opulent capital in Constantinople, they governed from Iraq to North Africa before the decadence of Ottoman rule (and the ungovernable size of their realm) got the better of them.
* * *
In the 6th century BC, a culture known as Al-Ubaid first appeared in Mesopotamia. We know little about it, largely because it was soon supplanted by the Sumerians who were the first to build cities and to support them with year-round agriculture and river-borne trade. In the blink of a historical eye, although almost 2000 years later in reality, the Sumerians invented the first known form of writing: cuneiform, which consisted primarily of pictographs and would later evolve into alphabets on which modern writing is based. With agriculture and writing mastered, the world’s first civilisation had been born.
* * *
The Penguin Guide to Ancient Egypt, by William J Murnane, is one of the best overall books on the lifestyle and monuments of the Pharaonic period,