Shifting Sands E-Book

Gordon Kerr

• Herausgeber: Pocket Essentials
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 297

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Situated at the crossroads of three continents, the Middle East has confounded the ambition of conquerors and peacemakers alike. Christianity, Judaism and Islam all had their genesis in the region but with them came not just civilization and religion, but also some of the great struggles of history. Shifting Sands: A Pocket Essential History of the Middle East makes sense of the shifting sands of Middle Eastern History, beginning with the early cultures of the area and moving on to the Roman and Persian Empires; the growth of Christianity; the rise of Islam; the invasions from the east; Genghis Khan's Mongol hordes; the Ottoman Turks and the rise of radicalism in the modern world symbolized by the Islamic State. This updated and expanded new edition describes the turmoil of recent years including the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas and the bloody and brutal Gaza War that followed. ]]>

Leseprobe

Praise for Gordon Kerr

‘Superb book, well written and although as title suggests it is a short history, it still packs in a great deal of Information. Ideal for anyone wanting a strong overview of timelines, events and the people involved’ – 5-Star Reader Review

‘An excellent brief account and an ideal primer for the topic’ – 5-Star Reader Review

‘A brilliant read from a very good author’ – 5-Star Reader Review

‘Informative, fascinating and extremely well-researched... Gordon Kerr’s book is a mini masterpiece’ – ABC Brisbane

‘Thoroughly rewarding’ – Travelmag

‘Factual and even-handed, Kerr presents a fair-minded introduction’ – Booklist

‘Borders are the scars of history’

Robert Schuman, French statesman

Introduction

The Middle East describes a huge arc that encompasses Turkey, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian Territories, the Arabian Peninsula and Egypt. In fact, as a descriptive for this most ancient of regions the term ‘Middle East’ is of fairly recent coinage. Before the First World War, people were more likely to use the words ‘the Near East’ to describe the area that comprises Turkey, the Balkans, and the Levant (roughly the eastern Mediterranean – Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and the Hatay Province of Turkey). When the term ‘Middle East’ was used at that time, it referred to Arabia, the Gulf, Persia, Mesopotamia and Afghanistan. This usage changed, however, with the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War which gave the Allies control of the empire’s former Arab conquests. The term ‘Middle East’ gradually began to encompass both regions. The Second World War increased this usage, particularly as the entire region was treated as one strategic theatre of war by the Allies.

It is a term that is entirely Eurocentric, of course, and to people of the Indian sub-continent, for example, the region is really the Middle West. But, the West is now dominant in world affairs and is able, therefore, to look upon the world as if it were its own. It was not always thus, however. Only in the last five centuries have the nations of Europe and the West ruled the roost. For the four and a half millennia prior to that – the period of recorded human history – it was not the West, but the Middle East that took centre stage and played a leading role in the advancement of humankind.

So much of human history was created in the region now known as the Middle East, developments that have led to our own modern civilisation. One of the earliest surviving codes of law was compiled by the king of Babylon, Hammurabi (r. c. 1792-50). Akhenaten, a pharaoh of ancient Egypt’s Eighteenth Dynasty abandoned polytheism for the monotheistic worship of Aten, thereby inventing the notion of the single, all-powerful deity. The oldest inhabited towns on earth, ancient settlements such as Jericho and Byblos, can be found there and the great religions of Islam, Judaism and Christianity have their roots there.

The Middle East has played a huge part in history and still does to this day. Its empires occasionally stretched into Europe. For instance, the Moors of the Umayyad Caliphate captured almost all of the Iberian Peninsula in the eighth century and Muslims controlled that part of the world until the thirteenth. The Ottoman Empire between the fourteenth and the seventeenth centuries extended its territory not only in the Middle East but also almost as far as Vienna. And, of course, there was European involvement in the Middle East before those times, with Byzantine and Roman possessions and cultural influence in the region.

After relative calm and stability under the Ottomans for a number of centuries, the twentieth century brought turmoil to the Middle East with interference from France and Great Britain who had their own imperialist agendas and with age-old religious and ethnic rivalries rising to the surface. We are still experiencing the fall-out from these and it appears that the situation is unlikely to change in the near future.

It is almost impossible to write a short history of this complex region with its web of rivalries and suspicions, but hopefully Shifting Sands: A Pocket Essential History of the Middle East will go some way towards unravelling these complexities and explaining how we arrived at the fragile situation of today.

Ancient Civilisations

The Middle East occupies a unique position in the history of humankind. It was probably in that area that, around 8,000 years ago, we first began to cultivate food crops and domesticate certain animals after perhaps a million years of subsisting on wild vegetables and hunting. It was this development, the result of a great deal of trial and error, that led to the advancement of human civilisation. Soon, great civilisations were appearing that would wax and wane throughout history up to the present day. They overlapped and interacted, often going to war with one another, their peoples merging and interbreeding through the centuries.

The first evidence of people becoming sedentary and beginning to establish urban centres has been found in the Mesopotamian Basin. This area, the name of which means ‘land between rivers’ (the Tigris and Euphrates), is home to many of the world’s oldest major societies and is often described as the ‘cradle of civilisation’. The first cities in history developed here during the Chalcolithic period of the Bronze Age from round about 5300 BC.

The Sumer and the Akkadian Empire (c. 5300-1700 BC)

First signs of the Sumerian civilisation, one of earth’s oldest, can be dated back to roughly 5000 BC. The Sumerians are believed to have migrated to Mesopotamia from the areas of modern-day Turkey and Iran although there is no real certainty about this. One and a half thousand years later they had built cities in the Fertile Crescent, the area between the Tigris and Euphrates that provided the means to live in what was essentially a desert. Sumer became divided into a dozen or so independent city states each of which surrounded a temple dedicated to a god or goddess. The earliest city in Mesopotamia and, therefore, the oldest city in the world, is said to be Eridu in southern Mesopotamia. Four other cities were built before, it is suggested, being wiped out by a great flood which may be no more than myth.

These first cities came under the control of the Akkadian Empire between the twenty-fourth and twenty-second centuries BC. This empire was founded by Sargon the Great (r. c. 2334-2279 BC) who led his forces in the conquest of the Sumerian city-states. Sargon’s empire grew to incorporate not just large parts of Mesopotamia, but also parts of present-day Iran, Asia Minor and Syria. It was amongst the first multi-ethnic, centrally ruled empires in history.

The Akkadian language became the lingua franca of the Middle East, used in government and administration while the Sumerian language remained in everyday use and in literature. Even when Sumer was no longer a great power, its language continued to be used in schools in the later civilisations of Babylonia and Assyria, in the same way Latin would later be used in mediaeval Europe. As well as being the inventors of bureaucracy, the Sumerians were amongst the first people to use the wheel. There is evidence that wheeled vehicles were being used from the second half of the fourth millennium BC in Mesopotamia.

Following a period of decline between around 2193 and 2154, the empire collapsed after an invasion by a nomadic people from the Zagros Mountains known as the Gutians. The Sumerian king, Ur-Nammu (r. 2112-2095 BC), finally drove out the Gutians and restored his own people’s rule. This ‘Sumerian Renaissance’ was the last great period of Sumerian power. By this time, however, Akkadian-speaking Semites were beginning to increase their presence and power in the region. Competing local powers such as Isin, Larsa and Babylon started to dominate the southern part of Mesopotamia and Babylon would become increasingly powerful.

At this time there was also a shift in population to the north. In the south, agriculture was in decline due to poor soil resulting from the silting of the Mesopotamian Delta. This led to an almost 60 per cent population decline between 2100 and 1700 BC. Sumer eventually fell under the control of the Amorites, a Semitic-speaking people from ancient Syria. This ‘Dynasty of Isin’, as it is known in the list of Sumerian kings, ended with the rise to power of Babylonia around 1700 BC with the notable Hammurabi as its ruler.

The Babylonian Empire (1894-333 BC)

Babylon was a small and unimportant city when the Amorites came to power around 1894 BC but during the reign of the great king Hammurabi (r. c. 1792-1750 BC) it rose to prominence. It had been a minor city-state, dwarfed by other, older states but Hammurabi’s father Sin-Muballit (r. c. 1812-1793 BC) began the expansion of Babylonian power with the conquest of Borsippa, Kish and Sippar.

When Hammurabi took the throne, the region was controlled by a number of local powers. Eshnunna ruled the upper Tigris River; Larsa controlled the river delta; and Elam, in the east, regularly raided and took tribute from the weaker states in the southern part of Mesopotamia. In the north was the formidable Assyrian Empire with its colonies in Asia Minor. It had expanded into central Mesopotamia and the Levant.

Hammurabi reunited Mesopotamia, but his most important legacy was the code of laws known as the Code of Hammurabi. One of the first written sets of laws in history, it was carved upon a stele that was located in a public place in Babylon where everyone could see it. Later, it was discovered in 1901 in Iran and taken to the Louvre in Paris where it can now be viewed. The code consisted of 282 laws, inscribed in the Akkadian language on 12 tablets. Dealing with such things as theft, dishonest dealings, violence to others, financial transactions and relations between various social classes, it was invariably harsh in its punishments:

‘8 – If any one steal cattle or sheep, or an ass, or a pig or a goat, if it belong to a god or to the court, the thief shall pay thirtyfold therefor; if they belonged to a freed man of the king he shall pay tenfold; if the thief has nothing with which to pay he shall be put to death.’

The Code of Hammurabi, King of Babylon (1904), translated by Robert Francis Harper

Soon after the death of this great king his empire began to disintegrate. Nomadic people began to arrive – the Central Asian Hittites and Mitannians; the Elamites who settled in Chaldea to the east of the Mesopotamian Basin; the Aramaeans from the Syrian Desert and the Assyrians from northern Mesopotamia. The Amorites continued to rule a much-reduced Babylon for several hundred years more and a number of Neo-Babylonian empires and kingdoms emerged. The last Amorite ruler was overthrown by the Hittites following the ‘sack of Babylon’ in 1595 BC, although the Hittites soon moved on, leaving the Kassites to take control. The Kassites – Babylon’s longest-lived dynasty – ruled until 1157 BC when Elam conquered it and then a few years later it was retaken by the native Akkadian-Babylonian, King Nebuchadnezzar I (r. c. 1125-1104 BC). Eventually, in 627 BC, after a period of chaos and three centuries of Assyrian rule, the Chaldeans seized the throne, ruling until 539 BC and conquering Assyria in the north of the region and Syria as far as the city of Tyre.

In 539, Babylon was conquered by Cyrus the Great (r. 559-530 BC), ruler of the Achaemenid Empire (also known as the First Persian Empire). Cyrus claimed to be the legitimate successor to the ancient Babylonian kings and he was ruler of almost the entire civilised world at that time. In 333 BC, the Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great (r. 336-323 BC) captured Babylon and, ten years later, died there. It was then absorbed, along with Assyria, into the Seleucid Empire. At this time, a new capital, Seleucia, was constructed and Babylon became neglected. The Mesopotamian Basin was ruled by the Persians – under the Parthians and then the Sassanids – before the Arabs arrived in 640 AD. Once again, Mesopotamia became a centre of power.

Ancient Egypt (3100-30 BC)

The River Nile has been the lifeblood of Egypt for millennia, providing a fertile floodplain that allowed humans to develop a sophisticated centralised society. Around 120,000 years ago, it was the abode of nomadic hunter-gatherers but, as North Africa became increasingly arid, populations gravitated towards the Nile where they began to develop an agricultural economy. Chiefdoms emerged and bureaucracy was necessary to settle such matters as disputes over farmland. Soon, around 1.8 million people were living and working on the long strip of arable land alongside the river. At around the same time as the Sumerian-Akkadian civilisation was emerging in Mesopotamia, Egypt was entering the Early Dynastic Period that followed the unification of Lower and Upper Egypt around 3100 BC. A capital was established at Memphis from which the first pharaohs controlled the labour force and farming in the Nile Delta. They also brought in revenue from the lucrative trade routes to the Levant that passed through Egypt. The pharaohs amassed great wealth which can be seen in the elaborate tombs that housed their bodies after death. This period established the institutions and system of centralised control that would help to create and maintain one of the greatest and longest-lasting civilisations the world has seen.

From 2686 until 2181 BC, the period known as the Old Kingdom, there were great advances in technology, as well as in art and architecture. Some of the enduring achievements of Ancient Egypt were created, such as the pyramids at Giza and the Great Sphinx. Agricultural yields were increased with coordinated irrigation networks. Both the construction of irrigation systems and the building of the pyramids were the work of vast numbers of peasants, conscripted into these ambitious communal projects. Meanwhile, a justice system maintained law and order. After around five centuries, the Old Kingdom collapsed under economic pressures leading to a period of turmoil during which the pharaohs’ power greatly diminished and was challenged by regional governors. The First Intermediate Period – 2181 to 1991 BC – brought famine and civil war. Control of parts of Egypt was seized by local rulers and the country was split in two, rulers in what became Herakleopolis controlling Lower Egypt, and Upper Egypt being ruled by the Intef family in Thebes. Eventually, the Theban rulers came out on top and Egypt was once again unified.

The success of the Intef rulers and the beginning of the Twelfth Dynasty signalled an economic and cultural renaissance with land reclamation and irrigation projects being undertaken. Valuable territory in Nubia was recaptured and in the Eastern Delta, the Walls of the Ruler fortification was constructed by Amenemhat I (r. 1991-1962 BC) to protect Egypt’s eastern approaches. Literature flourished and portrait sculpture soared to new levels of sophistication and detail.

The Second Intermediate Period, from 1674 to 1549 BC, brought a gradual decline in Egyptian fortunes and a Semitic Canaanite people, the Hyksos, seized power, forcing the government to flee to Thebes. The pharaoh was obliged to pay tribute to the Hyksos but Ahmose I (r. c. 1539-1514 BC) finally drove them from the country. The pharaohs of the New Kingdom (1549-1069 BC) fostered a period of prosperity and security and the empire grew to its greatest extent, stretching from Niya in the northwest of Syria to the fourth waterfall of the Nile in Nubia. Great construction projects included the temple at Karnak, the largest of all Egyptian temples. There were great pharaohs too – Hatshepsut (r. 1473-58 BC), one of the few women pharaohs, Akhenaten (r. 1353-36 BC) and Ramesses II ‘the Great’ (r. 1279-13 BC). Ramesses is recorded as having signed the first known peace treaty, with the Hittites after the indecisive Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BC. Following this battle, reluctant to engage with the powerful Middle Assyrian Empire, Egypt withdrew from Western Asia. Southern Canaan was lost to the Assyrians and corruption and civil unrest became rife.

The start of Egypt’s Third Intermediate Period was dominated by the High Priests of Amun at Thebes who had little respect for the pharaoh. At the same time, Berber tribes from the area of modern Libya settled in the western Nile delta and began to carve out autonomy for themselves. The Libyan Berber or Bubastite dynasty ruled for two centuries. In 727 BC, King Piye (r. 752-21 BC) of Kush – in what is now the Republic of Sudan – conquered Egypt, establishing the twenty-fifth dynasty. The country was reunited and restored to its former glory with a resurgence of the arts and architecture. In 671 BC, however, the Assyrian king Esarhaddon (r. 681-69 BC) invaded and brought the Kushite Empire to an end. Egypt was free of Assyrian vassalage by 653 BC but, in 525 BC, it was conquered by Persian king Cambyses II (r. 530-522 BC). In 332 BC, the Persians ceded Egypt to Alexander the Great and after Alexander’s death, one of his generals, Ptolemy I (r. 323-283 BC), was appointed satrap of Egypt. He proclaimed himself king in 305 BC, viewed by Egyptians as the successor to the pharaohs. His family would rule until 30 BC. Alexandria became the capital and, with the famous Library of Alexandria at the centre, became a hub of learning and culture.

Egypt was of great importance to Rome which relied on its grain but as family feuds, rebellion and civil unrest destabilised the country, the Romans invaded to safeguard their grain imports. After Octavian – later Emperor Augustus – defeated Mark Antony (83-30 BC) and the Ptolemaic Queen Cleopatra VII Philopator (r. 51-30 BC) at the Battle of Actium, Rome made Egypt a colony, ruling through a prefect.

The Hittites (1650-1200 BC)

From around 1650 to 1200 BC, the Hittites dominated much of Anatolia (roughly modern Turkey) and the neighbouring regions. Their language was of the Indo-European family and they called their land Hatti. It is assumed that the Hittites arrived in Anatolia before 2000 BC, possibly from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe around the Sea of Azov in modern-day Ukraine. They either conquered or were assimilated into the native people who were already established there. They took time to integrate, initially living separately in various cities but before long strong leaders began to unite the various groupings of Hittite people, to conquer central Anatolia and establish the Hittite kingdom.

King Hattusili (r. c. 1586-1556 BC) is usually credited with founding the Hittite Kingdom, conquering territory to the north and the south of Hattusa – near modern Bogazkale in Turkey – which he made the capital of his kingdom. From this defensive stronghold he led his armies into the plains of Syria, campaigning in the Amorite Kingdom of Yamkhad. His son, Mursili I (r. 1556-26 BC) captured its capital, Khalpe (modern-day Aleppo) in 1595 BC. That same year, Mursili captured Mari (modern-day Tell Hariri in Syria) and Babylon. The strain placed on Hatti’s finances caused by his campaigns brought strife at home, however, and on his return he was assassinated, his foreign conquests lost as Hatti dissolved into chaos. A period of weak rulers and inactivity ensued until, between 1400 and 1200 BC, centralised power and authority were re-established. Meanwhile, in the early fourteenth century BC, Hatti came under attack by the people known as the Gashga from the Pontic Alps to the north of the Hittites’ territory. King Tudhaliya II (r. 1380-1360 BC) and his son King Suppiluliuma I (r. c. 1344-1322 BC) consolidated Hittite territory to the north and Hattusa was recaptured and fortified. Advances were made into Syria and there is evidence that the Egyptians began to accept the Hittites as their equals. Suppiluliuma’s son Mursili II (r. 1321-1295 BC) expanded the empire.

In the thirteenth century BC, Muwatalli II (r. 1295-1282 BC) made Tarhuntasha his capital, moving the centre of power away from the threat of the Gashga. Control of western Anatolia was maintained and, in the Levant, a Hittite victory over an Egyptian army, led by Ramesses II, expanded the empire as far to the south as Damascus. During the reign of Tudhaliya IV (r. 1237-09 BC), however, the Assyrians began to raid the empire’s eastern borders and captured territory from them in Syria. Finally, around 1200 BC, the empire began to disintegrate. The Hittite homelands became vulnerable to attack from every direction and in 1180 BC Hattusa was destroyed by a coalition of peoples – Kaskas, Phrygians and Bryges. The Hittite kingdom that had achieved so much was no more.

The Phoenicians (1550-300 BC)

The trading culture of the enterprising ancient Semitic seafaring nation of Phoenicia spread across the Mediterranean between 1550 and 300 BC. It was situated on the western shoreline of the Fertile Crescent along the coast of modern Lebanon, some of its cities reaching as far as the western Mediterranean. The Phoenicians’ origins are unclear. The Greek historian Herodotus (c. 484-c. 425 BC) claimed that they originally lived on the shores of the Erythraean Sea – the ancient name for the northwest Indian Ocean. They migrated, he claimed, to the Mediterranean and started to embark on long voyages, bringing back goods from Egypt and Assyria. Whatever their origins, the high point of their culture and power was between approximately 1200 and 800 BC although many of their important settlements were already established by that time. This coalition of independent city-state ports was also linked to other ports on the Mediterranean islands and on other coastlines, making it ideally suited for trade between the Levant and the rest of the world. The most important of the trading posts the Phoenicians established on the Mediterranean coast was Carthage in modern Tunisia, established around 814 BC during the reign of Pygmalion of Tyre (r. 831-785 BC).

In 539, Phoenicia was captured, like most of the rest of the civilised world, by Cyrus the Great and was divided into four vassal kingdoms – Tyre, Sidon, Byblos and Arwad. Most Phoenicians relocated to the city of Carthage. In 332 BC, following the Siege of Tyre, Alexander the Great captured the city, executing more than two thousand inhabitants. Macedonian dominance meant the end of the Phoenicians’ control of Eastern Mediterranean trade routes and, although Carthage continued to prosper, Phoenician culture vanished in its homeland. Carthage was eventually destroyed by Rome in 146 BC at the conclusion of the Third Punic War. The Phoenicians were no more, but their legacy was the network of trading links that facilitated the transition from the prehistoric to the historic age.

Assyria (1250-612 BC)

In the second millennium BC, the city of Ashur, on the west bank of the Tigris River in northern Mesopotamia, was the hub of an extensive and highly lucrative trading network. It lay at the centre of the empire ruled by Shamsi-Adad I (r. 1813-1781 BC) that encompassed most of Mesopotamia, Syria and Asia Minor, an area sometimes known as the Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia. Eventually, the empire began to fall apart and became vulnerable to attacks by the neighbouring powers of Yamkhad and Eshnunna. It went into decline during the next few centuries.

During the reign of Ashur-uballit I (r. 1365-1330 BC), Assyria’s fortunes revived. He captured the rich farming lands of Nineveh and Arbela, north of Ashur and his conquests were consolidated by the rulers who followed him. Assyrian territory stretched from the Euphrates to the borders of the Hittite Empire. Under the warrior King Tukulti-ninurta I (r. 1243-1207 BC) it reached its greatest extent, his armies having defeated Babylonia to the south. He also founded a vast new royal complex across the Tigris from Ashur and named it Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta. Eventually, however, he was assassinated and his reign was followed by a succession of monarchs who ruled only briefly. The empire survived these setbacks and only Babylonia was lost but, by the end of the second millennium BC, the expansion of Aramaean pastoralist groups had resulted in the loss of a great deal of Assyrian territory.

It was not entirely the end of the Assyrians as a power in the region and, during the period known as Neo-Assyrian, from the ninth to the seventh centuries, they regained some of their former power under a series of exceptional leaders. They controlled all the major trade routes and were the most dominant state in the region, unequalled by any other in Anatolia, Western Iran, Babylonia or the Levant. Indeed, during the reign of Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883-59 BC), Assyria regained most of the territory it had lost several hundred years earlier.

Sennacherib (r. 704-681 BC) chose Nineveh as his capital and built what was known as the ‘Palace without Rival’ complete with a vast library. He captured Babylon and Lachish in Judah but was assassinated by two of his sons. Another of his sons, Esarhaddon (r. 680-69 BC) invaded Egypt, capturing Memphis in 671 BC, but died soon after.

For three centuries, Assyria battled to build and maintain its empire. At last, drained of wealth and manpower, lost in keeping the Medes, Scythians, Persians, Urartians and Cimmerians subjugated, the Assyrian Empire began to fall apart in the late seventh century BC. There were civil wars and rebellions and a force in which the Medes were predominant defeated them at Carchemish in 605 BC. This defeat marked the end of northern Mesopotamia as a political force.

Ancient Israel and Judah (Ninth Century-586 BC)

The first appearance of the name ‘Israel’ was on the stele of the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah (r. 1213-1203 BC) – ‘Israel is laid waste and his seed is no more’. It is likely that this Israel was a people living in the central highlands of Canaan and from the inscription it seems that it was a rival to Egypt’s domination of the region. At this time, therefore, Israel contained a distinct ethnic grouping although archaeologists have struggled to discover really distinctive features that identify these people as distinctly Israelite. Surveys have revealed, however, the sudden emergence of a new culture during Iron Age I (1200-1000 BC) that is characterised by an absence of pork remains in contrast to other sites. Pork, for instance, formed 20 per cent of the diet of the Philistines. Pottery, too, was different, less decorated, and circumcision was practised. With no evidence of invasion or infiltration by a clearly defined ethnic group, it is surmised that the emergence of this new culture was an evolution from the existing culture. Around 250 hilltop settlements populated by the earliest Israelites suddenly appeared in the formerly sparsely populated region from the Judean hills in the south to the hills of Samaria to the north. Hebrew, until then merely a dialect of the Canaanite language, became the language of the area and later spread from the hill country to the valleys and the plains.

The Kingdom of Israel was characterised by its devotion to the god Yahweh, considered by the Israelites to be the only true god. It was a belief that rulers such as David (r. 1010-970 BC) and Solomon (r. 970-931 BC) used to unify the country. The Jews were different to the peoples who invaded and settled in Palestine and Syria in that they did not intermarry with other peoples or make efforts to become assimilated into the other peoples of the region. They devised one of the world’s three great monotheistic religions, the Ten Commandments and the legal system derived from them, undoubtedly the most sophisticated moral system created until that time. They did not proselytise with their religion and it would not, therefore, generate the huge numbers of followers that the other monotheistic religions – Christianity and Islam – later enjoyed.

The kingdom split into two small Jewish states around 930 BC with the Kingdom of Israel occupying the northern part and the Kingdom of Judah the southern. Between 1000 BC and 550 BC, Israel flourished, its population expanded and trade prospered. By the second half of the tenth century BC, a state was consolidated with its capital at Samaria. In the eighth century, Israel was at war with the Neo-Assyrian Empire which, in 722 BC, destroyed Samaria. The Assyrians established control of the entire kingdom of Israel, deporting the inhabitants of Samaria to Assyria. Israel would not regain its status as an independent political entity until 1948.

The Jews enjoyed some autonomy during the Maccabean kingdom (166-63 BC) and under its successor, the House of Herod. A rebellion by the Jews against the Roman Empire in 70 AD led to the destruction of Jerusalem and in 135 AD their final revolt was quashed by the Roman Emperor Hadrian (r. 117-138 AD). After that, only a few thousand Jews were left in Galilee.

Meanwhile, the Kingdom of Judah, with its capital at Jerusalem, prospered during the reigns of rulers such as Omri (r. c. 876-869 or 884-872 BC), Ahab (r. c.871-852 BC) and the later dynasty of Jehu (842-746 BC), before becoming an Assyrian vassal state in the seventh century BC with control of the lucrative olive industry. When the Assyrian Empire disintegrated in the second half of the seventh century, however, Judah suffered at the hands of Egypt and the Neo-Babylonian Empires and was destroyed between 597 and 582 BC. This was followed, during the Babylonian period, by a decline in both economy and population as well as the loss of great swathes of territory to encroachments by neighbouring peoples. Jerusalem was greatly diminished from its former glory and the town of Mizpah in Benjamin became capital of a new Babylonian province that was named Yehud Medinata. In 539 BC, Babylon was conquered by Cyrus the Great’s Persian army and Judah became part of the Persian Empire.

Achaemenid Empire (550-330 BC)

Also known as the First Persian Empire, the Achaemenid Empire was founded by Cyrus II ‘the Great’, the name Achaemenid coming from King Achaemenes who was said to have ruled Persia between 705 and 675 BC and to have been an ancestor of Cyrus. Despite its description as the First Persian Empire, the Achaemenid actually followed an empire created by another Iranian people, the Medes. They had risen to pre-eminence towards the end of the seventh century BC and the Persians became part of their empire, helping them to defeat the Assyrians.

Cyrus led his men in a rebellion against the Medes in 550 BC, defeating King Astyages (r. 585-550 BC) and uniting the Achaemenid kingdoms of Parsa and Ansan into one Persian state. A number of years later, the Lydian Empire, ruled by King Croesus (r. 560-547 BC), attempted to take advantage of the instability in the region, pushing eastwards and threatening Persian cities. In response, Cyrus led an army into Lydian territory, taking the Lydian capital, Sardis, and completing the conquest of the region in 546 BC. It was now the turn of the Babylonians and the Egyptians who had been allies of Lydia. By 540 BC, Cyrus had taken Elam and the following year routed the Babylonian army at the Battle of Opis. After capturing the city of Babylon itself, Cyrus proclaimed himself ‘king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the four corners of the world’. By the time of his death in 530 BC, he had created the greatest empire the world had ever seen, stretching from Asia Minor to northwest India.

Cyrus’s son Cambyses (r. 530-522) conquered Egypt in 525 BC and when Darius I ‘the Great’ (r. 522-486 BC) came to the throne, his empire included most of West Asia, Thrace-Macedonia and Paeonia in the Balkans, much of the regions bordering on the Black Sea, parts of the North Caucasus, and parts of north and northeast Africa, including Egypt, eastern Libya and the coast of Sudan. He brought stability, building roads to improve communication and introducing a system of governors, known as satraps. He added northeastern India to his vast territory and initiated the construction of royal buildings at Susa as well as the new capital of Persepolis. He spent the early years of his reign subduing rebellions in the empire and even travelled to Greece in an attempt to punish Athens and Eretria for helping rebels in Aeolis, Doris, Cyprus and Caria when they revolted between 499 and 493 BC. He was defeated at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC but succeeded in re-conquering Thrace, Macedon, the Cyclades and the island of Naxos.

His son Xerxes (r. 486-465 BC) vowed to complete his father’s work of forcing Sparta and Athens to acknowledge Persian superiority, but when they refused, he invaded Greece, winning the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC. Defeat at the naval Battle of Salamis, however, forced Xerxes to withdraw. The Persian army he left behind was finally defeated at Plataea and Mycale, encouraging the Greek cities to revolt and throw off the Persian yoke. Persia’s European adventure was at an end.

During the reign of Artaxerxes II (r. 404-358 BC), Egypt declared independence from the empire. But around this time, Philip of Macedon (r. 359-336 BC) was uniting the Greek states in readiness for an invasion of the Persian Empire. In 334 BC, Philip’s son, Alexander III ‘the Great’, carried out his father’s plan by launching an invasion of Asia Minor. In 330 BC, the Persian Empire was added to Alexander’s conquests.

Hellenistic Period

Alexander’s death at the age of only thirty-two in June 323 BC in Babylon, signalled the end of his dream of a huge Hellenistic empire. His generals immediately began to quarrel and divide up an empire that stretched from Persia to Egypt. Ptolemy I (r. 323-283 BC) took over Egypt and founded the Ptolemaic Dynasty, lasting until 30 BC. Antigonus (r. 306-301 BC) took over Asia Minor, establishing the Antigonid Dynasty, lasting until 168 BC. Seleucus I Nicator (r. 306-281 BC), was given Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent and created his Seleucid Empire, lasting until 63 BC.

Two hundred years after the death of Alexander the Great, the Seleucids of Persia were deposed by the Parthians, a nomadic tribe from the region of the Caspian Sea. The Parthians persisted with the Greek method of government and the Greek language was still used as well as their own. Greek influence lasted until the first century AD. In Syria and Palestine, which had been conquered by the Syrians, the Greek influence lasted longer, especially in the north and west, on the Mediterranean coast. But to the east of Mount Lebanon, Greek influence diminished. In the Ptolemaic and Seleucid Empires, senior officials, civil servants, prominent businessmen and merchants, scholars and intellectuals were Greek, even though the Greeks remained a minority in both empires.

The Roman Empire

In 60 BC, after civil war and anarchy had devastated Rome, the triumvirate of Roman generals – Pompey (106-48 BC), Julius Caesar (100-44 BC) and Crassus (115-53 BC) assumed power. To Pompey was allocated the task of establishing the domination of the Roman Empire in Asia Minor and the eastern Mediterranean, work delayed in previous years by Rome’s turmoil. He invaded Syria, capturing the important city of Jerusalem but a heavy defeat by the Parthians led to them holding Syria for a time. Only after the assassinations of Julius Caesar and Pompey, when the Emperor Augustus (r. 27 BC-14 AD) came to power, did the entire Middle East become part of the Roman Empire. The Parthians retained control of Persia and the area of present-day Iraq but Augustus wisely decided that peace should be fostered in the region so that Rome could consolidate its vast new territories.