The ancient Near East

THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST

I. PRETEXT EXERCISES

Ex. 1. a) Make sure you know how to pronounce the following proper names:

b) Sort the words from a) into groups of:

1) place names;

2) personal names;

3) nationality words.

Ex. 2. Practice the pronunciation of the following words:

rare, cuneiform, eclipse, literate, governed, syllabic, burials.

Ex. 3. Guess the meaning of the words:

manufacture, Neolithic, urbanization, accompanied, obsidian, lapis lazuli, theocratic, empire, stylus, to stylize, satrap.

Ex. 4. Look at the title of the text. Can you predict its contents?

Ex. 5. Answer the following questions:

1. Where is Mesopotamia located?

2. What country did Xerxes rule?

3. What countries of the Ancient East do you know?

II. TEXT I

THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST

It was in the ancient Near East - the region stretching from the Per­sian Gulf in the east to Palestine and Anatolia in the West - that the first signs of the Neolithic revolution appeared: the beginnings of agriculture, the manufacture of pottery and the first steps towards urbanization were accompanied by trade in rare goods such as obsidian, bitumen and lapis lazuli. This in turn led to the development of craft skills, and by 3500 ВС mining, smelting and the working of metals had been mastered.

The first true city-dwellers lived in Mesopotamia, the region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, during the fourth millennium ВС. Cen­tred around their temples, Sumerian cities of the third millennium ВС appear to have been theocratic states governed by rulers who were more priests than kings. Excavations at the wealthy Sumerian city of Ur in the 1920s revealed a series of magnificent burials suggesting the existence of a powerful ruling class. Vast pits containing objects of tremendous wealth and beauty also held the bodies of the main occupants and up to seventy-four attendants - soldiers, musicians and maidservants - as well as ox-drawn chariots.

Control of Mesopotamia was an elusive prize vied for by many cities: the Akkadians, Assyrians and Babylonians were all successful contestants in the years up to 1500 ВС. However, powerful civilizations were develop­ing in other parts of the region. In Anatolia the Hittites established an empire that stretched into.Syria as far as the borders of Egyptian-cont­rolled Palestine, whose city-states — well-positioned for trade with both Egypt and Mesopotamia - also enjoyed some military and economic weight in the area. In the early first millennium, the Assyrians rose to prominence once more: ruling from their magnificent capitals at Nimrud, Khorsabad and Nineveh, they dominated the Near East for three centuries before a resurgent Babylonia under King Nabopolassar defeated them and took over their empire.

Mesopotamian societies were the first to be literate. Writing started in Sumer, with the development of straightforward symbols used for account­ing purposes: an ox's head to indicate an ox, a rising sun for a day, and so forth, and circles and half-circles for numbers.

By the early third millennium, these symbols, impressed on wet clay with the wedge-shaped end of a reed stylus, had become highly stylized and unrecognizable as pictures. Syllabic symbols developed from these 'cu­neiform' patterns made it possible to write in sentences and express ideas. Although it is quite a complex system, cuneiform became the all-purpose script of the Near East, adapted to the writing of many different languag­es. Avast range of written material survives on clay and stone, including diplomatic letters, astrological and mathematical texts, annals and myth­ological tales, laws and decrees.

The mid-first millennium ВС saw the eclipse of the old powers of the Near East at the hands of Persia, though it was their neighbors the Medes who first extended their dominion beyond present-day Iran into eastern Anatolia. In the sixth century the Persian king Cyrus defeated the Medes and took over their territories. Building himself a grand capital at Pasar-gadae, he subsequently captured Babylon and established an empire stretching from the Mediterranean to eastern Iran. Later Darius was to cement this huge inheritance by crushing rebellion and establishing a sys­tem of'satraps', or local governors. His lavish building projects included a new capital at Persepolis and the 'Royal Road' between Susa and Sardis. Although Persian power was at its height, neither Darius nor his suc­cessor Xerxes were able to conquer mainland Greece, despite sustained attempts in the early fifth century ВС. (The splendor and wealth of their rule made the name of the King of Persia — more frequently simply 'the King' — a byword for luxury and power among Greeks.) Meanwhile, Per­sian subjugation of the Greek cities of the Aegean coast of Anatolia con­tinued to rankle. In 334 AC Alexander the Great crossed into Asia, liber­ated the Greek cities and plunged into the heart of the Persian empire, finally defeating and killing its ruler Darius III in 331. Crowned King of Persia, he married a Persian princess and proclaimed the unity of the Greeks and Persians - though he did not scruple to burn Persepolis. After Alex­ander's death his empire crumbled; much of the Near Eastern parts came into the hands of the Seleucid dynasty, who founded Greek cities, spread­ing Greek culture as far east as the Hindu Kush and even into India. However, most of the population was unaffected, and when the Seleucids lost Persia to a Parthian dynasty from the north in 238 ВС, the area remained as hostile to Western powers as ever. Rome was destined to fight several bitter wars against the Parthians and their successors, the Sasanians, who retained control of the region until the Islamic conquest of AD 657.

Notes

The East is the eastern part of the world as seen from Europe, especially Asia. More formal and literary synonym is the Orient. The antonyms are the West or the Occi­dent., In the East we distinguish:

• the Middle East — the region of Southwest Asia and North Africa, around the east­
ern end of the Mediterranean, from Libya to Iran and including the Arabian penin­sula;

• the Far East, that includes the countries in Asia that are east of India, such as Chi­
na, Japan, etc.

• The definition for the Near East you can find in the text. Near Eastern is an adjective. The population of the region is called the Near Easterners.

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