Digital History of the Near East
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Experience our digital history of the Near East and its unique civilizations with WisdomMaps!
The Ancient Near East is not one civilization, but many. There are the lesser known civilizations of Armenia, the Hittites, the Lydians, and Phrygia. There was Phoenicia, a nation of traders that would bring the beginnings of our alphabet to Greece, and Sumer, which gave us writing. Where brutish Assyria gave the Near East a legacy of brutality, Babylonia’s King Hammurabi gave us a comprehensive body of law that anticipated many of the precepts of Western law.
While Hammurabi’s Code funded the beginnings of the Western legal tradition, Islam answered to the call of the Prophet Muhammed, and it grew to become an empire that stretched from Spain to Samarkand. Nowhere is the glory of Islam more evident than in its mosques (though the iconic Hagia Sophia in Istanbul was actually a creation of the Roman emperor Justinian). Islam’s scientific genius enabled great advances in medicine and optics, and its literary and philosophical ethos kept alive the giants of Western philosophy while Europe slumbered through its Dark Ages. This empire of Islam would give rise to the even more ponderous Ottoman Empire that would bring Suleiman the Great to the gates of Vienna, and endure until the end of World War I.
Judea gave us Jerusalem, the locus of each of the region’s main religions of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity (whose adherents once shared the city in relative peace and harmony). As a province of the Roman Empire, Judea became troublesome and it rebelled against Rome, leading to the destruction of Jerusalem’s magnificent Temple; Jesus of Nazareth would prove no less nettlesome to Rome.
That said, here’s our assortment… please enjoy! When you’re done perusing a map, just close it, and you’ll be back here.
Near East: Index | Society | Culture | Economy | Armenia | Akkad |
Assyria: Society • Cities • Class • Culture • Religion • Power • Bureaucracy • Governance • Law • Military • Economy • Agriculture • Industry • Trade | Babylonia: Society • Culture • Architecture • Art • Language • Literature • Music • Science and Technology • Religion • Deities • Funerary Customs • Magic • Magic and the Evil Eye • Myth • Creation Myth • Evil Eye • Personal Religion • Temples • Temple Wealth • Power • Invasion • Code of Hammurabi: Justice • Laws • Commerce • Marriage and Family • Economy • Agriculture • Business Documents • Construction • Finance • Labor • Mining • Trade • Transport | Hittite Empire: Society • Culture • Power | Islam: Culture • Philosophy • Science and Technology • Pre-Islamic Religion • Power: Rise • Governance • Abbasid Caliphate • Decline • Umayyad Caliphate | Judea: Society • Origins • People of Abraham • Women • Sexuality • Marriage • Family • Hellenistic Judea: Culture • Literature • Religion • Judaism: People of the Book • Genesis • Prophets • Jeremiah • Isaiah • Mosaic Code • Jerusalem • Temple of Jerusalem • Texts • Hebrew Bible • Power • Babylonian Captivity • Reform • Economy | Lydia: Culture • Power | Mesopotamia: Society: Adornment • Family • Food • Morals • Women • Culture: Architecture: Temples | Education • Astronomy • Mathematics • Medicine • Economy • Nations | Palestine: Society | Phoenicia: Society • Communities • Culture • Religion • Economy • Industry • Trade | Phrygia: Religion | Scythia | Sumer: Society • Cities: Features • First Cities • Dress • People • Class • Culture: Architecture • Learning • Literature • Science and Technology • Spread • Writing • Legacy • Religion: Beliefs • Deities • Temples • Power • Governance • Economy: Agriculture • Trade • Wealth | Syria