1

Canaan

Canaan was the name of a large and

prosperous country (at times independent, at others a tributary to Egypt) which

corresponds roughly to present-day Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel and was

also known as Phoenicia. The origin of the name `Canaan’ for the land comes

from various ancient texts (among them the Hebrew Bible) and there is no

scholarly consensus on precisely where the name originated nor what it was

intended to convey about the land. According to the Bible the land was named

after a man called Canaan, the grandson of Noah (Genesis 10). Other theories

cite `Canaan’ as derived from the Hurrian language for `purple’ and, as the

Greeks knew the Canaanites as `Phoenicians’ (Greek for `purple’ as the

Phoenicians worked, primarily at the city of Tyre, in purple dye and so were

called by the Greeks `purple people’) this explanation is the most probable

but, by no means, provable.

2

Attica

Attica is a triangular peninsula juttinginto the Aegean Sea. It is naturally divided to the north from Boeotia by the10 mi (16 km) long Cithaeron mountain range. To the west, it is bordered by thesea and the canal of Corinth. The Saronic Gulf lies to the south, and theisland of Euboea lies off the north and the eastern coasts. Mountains separatethe peninsula into the plains of Pedias, Mesogaia, and Thriasion. The mountainsof Attica are the Hymettus, the eastern portion of the Geraneia, the Parnitha(the highest mountain of Attica), the Aigaleo and the Penteli. Fourmountains—Aigaleo, Parnitha, Penteli and Hymettus (clockwise from thesouthwest)—delineate the hilly plain on which the Athens-Piraeus metroplex nowspreads. The plain of Mesogaía, now called Mesógeia, lies to the east of MountHymettus and is bound to the north by the foothills of Mount Penteli, to theeast by the Euboean Gulf and Mount Myrrhinous (modern Merenta), and to thesouth by the mountains of Laurium (modern Lavrio). Athens' water reservoir,Lake Marathon, is an artificial lake created by damming in 1920. Pine and firforests cover the area around Parnitha. Hymettus, Penteli, Myrrhinous andLaurium are forested with pine trees, whereas the rest are covered byshrubbery.

The Kifisos is the longest river of Attica.

According to Plato, Attica's ancient

boundaries were fixed by the Isthmus, and, toward the continent, they extended

as far as the heights of Cithaeron and Parnes. The boundary line came down

toward the sea, bounded by the district of Oropus on the right and by the river

Asopus on the left.

3

Western Asia

Western Asia, West Asia, Southwestern Asiaor Southwest Asia is the westernmost subregion of Asia. The concept is inlimited use, as it significantly overlaps with the Middle East (or Near East),the main difference being the exclusion of Egypt (which would be counted aspart of North Africa). The term is sometimes used for the purposes of groupingcountries in statistics.

The total population of Western Asia is anestimated 300 million as of 2015.

In an unrelated context, the term is alsoused in ancient history and archaeology to divide the Fertile Crescent into the"Asiatic" or "Western Asian" cultures as opposed to ancientEgypt.

As a geographic concept, "WesternAsia" includes the Levant, Mesopotamia, the Arabian peninsula, Anatolia,Iran, Armenian Highlands and South Caucasus. The Sinai Peninsula belongs toWestern Asia, making Egypt a transcontinental country.

Although, the term "Western Asia"is mostly used as a convenient division of contemporary sovereign states into amanageable number of world regions for statistical purposes; it is sometimesused instead of the more geopolitical term "Middle East", for exampleby the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) statistics office or Canada'sgovernment.[1]

The term is used pragmatically and has no

"correct" or generally agreed-upon definition. The government of

Canada and also, for example, the National Geographic Style Manual only

includes the nations of Turkey, Iran, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Lebanon,

Syria, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Iraq, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Cyprus, Oman, and Yemen

as part of West Asia, excluding Israel and West Bank/Gaza.[2] As a further

example, Maddison, The World Economy: Historical Statistics (2003) includes

Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi

Arabia, Syria, Turkey, UAE, Yemen, and West Bank/Gaza.[3] The United Nations

Industrial Organization includes Azerbaijan, Iran, Armenia, Oman, Yemen,

Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Iraq, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait,

Saudi Arabia, and Jordan when listing the nations of the West Asia region, and

leaves Turkey and Georgia out.[4] The UNSD leaves out Iran but includes all

other commonly West Asian listed nations.

4

Mesopotamia

Widely considered to be one of the cradlesof civilization by the Western world, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer andthe Akkadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian empires, all native to the territory ofmodern-day Iraq. In the Iron Age, it was controlled by the Neo-Assyrian andNeo-Babylonian Empires.

The Sumerians and Akkadians (includingAssyrians and Babylonians) dominated Mesopotamia from the beginning of writtenhistory (c. 3100 BC) to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC, when it was conquered bythe Achaemenid Empire. It fell to Alexander the Great in 332 BC, and after hisdeath, it became part of the Greek Seleucid Empire.

Around 150 BC, Mesopotamia was under thecontrol of the Parthian Empire. Mesopotamia became a battleground between theRomans and Parthians, with western parts of Mesopotamia coming under ephemeralRoman control. In AD 226, eastern part of it fell to the Sassanid Persians.Division of Mesopotamia between Roman (Byzantine from AD 395) and SassanidEmpires lasted until the 7th century Muslim conquest of Persia of the SasanianEmpire and Muslim conquest of the Levant from Byzantines. A number of primarilyneo-Assyrian and Christian native Mesopotamian states existed between the 1stcentury BC and 3rd century AD, including Adiabene, Osroene, and Hatra.

Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest

developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC.[citation

needed] It has been identified as having "inspired some of the most

important developments in human history including the invention of the wheel,

the planting of the first cereal crops and the development of cursive script,

mathematics, astronomy and agriculture.

5

Hittites

The Hittites (/ˈhɪtaɪts/) were an AncientAnatolian people who established an empire centered on Hattusa in north-centralAnatolia around 1600 BC. This empire reached its height during the mid-14thcentury BC under Suppiluliuma I, when it encompassed an area that included mostof Anatolia as well as parts of the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia.Between the 15th and 13th centuries BC the Hittite Empire came into conflictwith the Egyptian Empire, Middle Assyrian Empire and the empire of the Mitannifor control of the Near East. The Assyrians eventually emerged as the dominantpower and annexed much of the Hittite empire, while the remainder was sacked byPhrygian newcomers to the region. After c. 1180 BC, during the Bronze Agecollapse, the Hittites splintered into several independent"Neo-Hittite" city-states, some of which survived until the 8thcentury BC before succumbing to the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

The Hittite language was a distinct memberof the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family, and along withthe related Luwian language, is the oldest historically attested Indo-Europeanlanguage.[2] They referred to their native land as Hatti. The conventional name"Hittites" is due to their initial identification with the BiblicalHittites in 19th century archaeology. Despite their use of the name Hatti fortheir core territory, the Hittites should be distinguished from the Hattians,an earlier people who inhabited the same region (until the beginning of the 2ndmillennium BC) and spoke an unrelated language known as Hattic which wasprobably a language isolate but may have been a Northwest Caucasianlanguage.[3]

During the 1920s, interest in the Hittitesincreased with the founding of the modern Republic of Turkey and attracted theattention of archaeologists such as Halet Çambel and Tahsin Özgüç, leading tothe decipherment of Hittite hieroglyphs. During this period, the new field ofHittitology also influenced the naming of institutions, such as the state-ownedEtibank ("Hittite bank"),[4] and the foundation of the Museum ofAnatolian Civilizations in Ankara, located 200 kilometers west of the Hittitecapital and housing the most comprehensive exhibition of Hittite artifacts inthe world.

The history of the Hittite civilization is

known mostly from cuneiform texts found in the area of their kingdom, and from

diplomatic and commercial correspondence found in various archives in Assyria,

Babylonia, Egypt and the Middle East, the decipherment of which was also a key

event in the history of Indo-European linguistics. The Hittite military made

successful use of chariots,[5] and although belonging to the Bronze Age, the

Hittites were the forerunners of the Iron Age, developing the manufacture of

iron artifacts from as early as the 18th century BC; at this time, gifts from

the "man of Burushanda" of an iron throne and an iron sceptre to the

Kaneshite king Anitta were recorded in the Anitta text inscription.

6

Babylonia

Babylonia was an ancient Akkadian-speakingstate and cultural area based in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-dayIraq). A small Amorite-ruled state emerged in 1894 BC, which contained at thistime the minor city of Babylon.[1] Babylon greatly expanded during the reign ofHammurabi in the first half of the 18th century BC, becoming a major capitalcity. During the reign of Hammurabi and afterwards, Babylonia was called MātAkkadī "the country of Akkad" in the Akkadian language.[2][3] It wasoften involved in rivalry with its older fellow Akkadian-speaking state ofAssyria in northern Mesopotamia. Babylonia briefly became the major power inthe region after Hammurabi (fl. c. 1792 – 1752 BC middle chronology, or c. 1696– 1654 BC, short chronology) created a short-lived empire, succeeding theearlier Akkadian Empire, Third Dynasty of Ur, and Old Assyrian Empire; however,the Babylonian empire rapidly fell apart after the death of Hammurabi.

The Babylonian state, like Assyria to thenorth, retained the written Akkadian language for official use (the language ofits native populace), despite its Northwest Semitic-speaking Amorite foundersand Kassite successors, who spoke a language isolate. It retained the Sumerianlanguage for religious use (as did Assyria), but by the time Babylon wasfounded, this was no longer a spoken language, having been wholly subsumed byAkkadian. The earlier Akkadian and Sumerian traditions played a major role inBabylonian and Assyrian culture, and the region would remain an importantcultural center, even under protracted periods of outside rule.

The earliest mention of the city of Babylon

can be found in a clay tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad (2334–2279 BC),

dating back to the 23rd century BC. Babylon was merely a religious and cultural

centre at this point and neither an independent state nor a large city; like

the rest of Mesopotamia, it was subject to the Akkadian Empire which united all

the Akkadian and Sumerian speakers under one rule. After the collapse of the Akkadian

empire, the south Mesopotamian region was dominated by the Gutian people for a

few decades before the rise of the Third Dynasty of Ur, which, apart from

northern Assyria, encompassed the whole of Mesopotamia, including the city of

Babylon.

7

Asiatic

Asiatic refers to something related toAsia.

Asiatic may also refer to:

Asiatic style, a term in ancient stylisticcriticism associated with Greek writers of Asia Minor

In the context of Ancient Egypt, Asiatic is

used to mean beyond the borders of Egypt and the continent of Africa to the

east, but only of western Asia, or of what may now be considered the Middle

East.

8

Jerusalem

is a city located on a plateau in theJudaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. One of the oldestcities in the world, Jerusalem was named as "Urusalima" on ancientMesopotamian cuneiform tablets, probably meaning "City of Shalem"after a Canaanite deity, during the early Canaanite period (approximately 2400BCE). During the Israelite period, significant construction activity inJerusalem began in the 9th century BCE (Iron Age II), and in the 8th centurythe city developed into the religious and administrative center of the Kingdomof Judah.[5] It is considered a holy city in the three major Abrahamicreligions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Israelis and Palestinians both claimJerusalem as their capital, as the State of Israel maintains its primarygovernmental institutions there while the State of Palestine ultimatelyforesees the city as its seat of power; however, neither claim is widelyrecognized internationally.

During its long history, Jerusalem has been

destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured

and recaptured 44 times.[6] The part of Jerusalem called the City of David was

settled in the 4th millennium BCE.[7] In 1538, walls were built around

Jerusalem under Suleiman the Magnificent. Today those walls define the Old

City, which has been traditionally divided into four quarters—known since the

early 19th century as the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Quarters.[8]

The Old City became a World Heritage Site in 1981, and is on the List of World

Heritage in Danger.[9] Modern Jerusalem has grown far beyond the Old City's boundaries.

9

Battle of Megiddo

This Battle of Megiddo is recorded ashaving taken place in 609 BC when Pharaoh Necho II of Egypt lead his army toCarchemish (northern Syria) to join with his allies, the fading Neo-AssyrianEmpire, against the surging Neo-Babylonian Empire. This required passingthrough territory controlled by the Kingdom of Judah. Judaean King Josiahrefused to let the Egyptians pass, perhaps thinking that the Assyrians andEgyptians were weakened by the death of the pharaoh Psamtik I only a yearearlier (610 BCE) and also attempting to help the Babylonians.[1] The Judaeanforces battled the Egyptians at Megiddo, resulting in Josiah's death and hisKingdom becoming a vassal state of Egypt. The battle is recorded in the Bible,the Greek 1 Esdras, and the writings of Josephus.

While Necho II gained control of the

Kingdom of Judah, the combined Assyrian-Egyptian forces failed to defeat the

Babylonians, after which Assyria largely ceased to exist as an independent

state

10

Euphrates

The Euphrates (Listeni/juːˈfreɪtiːz/;

Sumerian:𒌓𒄒𒉣: Buranuna, Akkadian:𒌓𒄒𒉣: Purattu, Arabic:الفرات‎‎: al-Furāt, Syriac: ̇ܦܪܬ‎: Pǝrāt, Armenian:Եփրատ: Yeprat, Hebrew:פרת‎‎: Perat, Turkish: Fırat, Kurdish: Firat‎) is the longest and one

of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Together with the

Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia. Originating in

eastern Turkey, the Euphrates flows through Syria and Iraq to join the Tigris

in the Shatt al-Arab, which empties into the Persian Gulf

11

EgyptianPharaoh.

odern lists of pharaohs are based onhistorical records: Ancient Egyptian king lists and later histories, such asManetho's Aegyptiaca, as well as archaeological evidence. Concerning ancientsources, Egyptologists and Historians alike call for caution about thecredibility, exactitude and completeness of these sources, many of which werewritten long after the reigns they report.[2] An additional problem is that ancientking lists are often damaged, inconsistent with one another and/or selective.

The following ancient king lists are known(given here by dynasties):[3]

Den seal impressions (1st dynasty); foundon a cylinder seal in Den's tomb. It lists all 1st dynasty kings from Narmer toDen by their Horus names.

Palermo stone (5th dynasty); carved on anolivin-basalt slab. Broken into pieces and thus today incomplete.

Giza King List (6th dynasty); painted withred, green and black ink on gypsum and cedar wood. Very selective.

South Saqqara Stone (6th dynasty); carvedon a black basalt slab. Very selective.

Karnak King List (18th dynasty); carved onlimestone. Very selective.

Abydos King List of Seti I (19th dynasty);carved on limestone. Very detailed, but omitting the First Intermediate Period.

Abydos King List of Ramses II (19thdynasty); carved on limestone. Very selective.

Saqqara King List (19th dynasty), carved onlimestone. Very detailed, but omitting most kings of the 1st dynasty forunknown reasons.

Turin King List (19th dynasty); writtenwith red and black ink on papyrus. Most possibly the most complete king list inhistory, today damaged.

Manetho's Aegyptiaca (Greek Period);

possibly written on papyrus. The original writings are lost today and many

anecdotes assigned to certain kings seem fictitious.

12

Amorites

he Amorites (/ˈæməˌraɪts/; Sumerian𒈥𒌅MAR.TU; Akkadian Tidnum or Amurrūm; Egyptian Amar; HebrewאמוריʼĔmōrī; Ancient Greek: Ἀμορραῖοι) were an ancient Semitic-speaking

people[1] from Syria who also occupied large parts of southern Mesopotamia from

the 21st century BC to the end of the 17th century BC, where they established

several prominent city states in existing locations, notably Babylon which was

raised from a small administrative town to an independent state and major city.

The term Amurru in Akkadian and Sumerian texts refers to them, as well as to

their principal deity.

有邻如此，不如独居。

明天还要去给资本家卖命，先困觉去啦。明天在书签位置继续往后查。