"any Semitic people comes from 30th century BC Mesopotamia, with the East Semitic-speaking peoples of the Kish civilization, entering the region originally dominated by the people of Sumer (who spoke a language isolate). Between the 30th and 20th centuries BC, Semitic languages covered a broad area covering much of the Ancient Near East, including the Levant, Mesopotamia, Arabia and the Sinai Peninsula. The earliest written evidence of them are found in the Fertile Crescent (Mesopotamia) c. the 30th century BC, an area encompassing Sumer, the Akkadian Empire and others civilizations of Assyria and Babylonia along the Tigris and Euphrates (modern"
"academic usage, the term ""Mesopotamia"" often also has a chronological connotation. It is usually used to designate the area until the Muslim conquests, with names like ""Syria"", ""Jazira"", and ""Iraq"" being used to describe the region after that date. It has been argued that these later euphemisms are Eurocentric terms attributed to the region in the midst of various 19th-century Western encroachments. Mesopotamia encompasses the land between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, both of which have their headwaters in the Taurus Mountains. Both rivers are fed by numerous tributaries, and the entire river system drains a vast mountainous region. Overland"
"The western zone around the Jordan and upper Euphrates rivers gave rise to the first known Neolithic farming settlements (referred to as Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA), which date to around 9,000 BCE (and includes sites such as Göbekli Tepe and Jericho). This region, alongside Mesopotamia (which lies to the east of the Fertile Crescent, between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates), also saw the emergence of early complex societies during the succeeding Bronze Age. There is also early evidence from the region for writing and the formation of hierarchical statelevel societies. This has earned the region the nickname ""The cradle of"
"part of the larger Fertile Crescent, it saw the earliest emergence of literate urban civilization in the Uruk period, for which reason it is often described as a ""Cradle of Civilization"". In the 1980s, this ecoregion was put in grave danger as the Iran–Iraq War raged within its boundaries. The wetlands of Iraq, which were inhabited by the Marsh Arabs, were almost completely dried out, and have only recently shown signs of recovery. The Tigris–Euphrates Basin is shared by Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Kuwait. Many Tigris tributaries originate in Iran and a Tigris–Euphrates confluence forms part of the Kuwait–Iraq"
"Tigris and Euphrates Tigris and Euphrates () is a tabletop eurogame designed by Reiner Knizia and first published in 1997 by Hans im Glück. Before its publication, it was highly anticipated by German gamers hearing rumors of a ""gamer's game"" designed by Knizia. ""Tigris and Euphrates"" won first prize in the 1998 Deutscher Spielepreis. A card game version was released in 2005. The game is set as a clash between neighboring dynasties at the dawn of civilization and is named after the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, in the region now called the Middle East. The rivers together formed natural borders"
"civilization"". It is in this region where the first libraries appeared, some 5,000 years ago. The oldest known library was found in northern Syria, in the ruins of Ebla, a major commercial center that was destroyed around 1650 BCE. Both the Tigris and Euphrates start in the Taurus Mountains of what is modern-day Turkey. Farmers in southern Mesopotamia had to protect their fields from flooding each year, except northern Mesopotamia which had just enough rain to make some farming possible. To protect against flooding, they made levees. Since the Bronze Age, the region's natural fertility has been greatly extended by"
"referred to as Uqair, or Gerrha, long before the fort was built. The lost city of Gerrha according to Danish archeologist Geoffrey Bibby, however, ""still awaits its discoverer."" (Bibby, p. 325) Trade and commerce of early civilizations in the Persian Gulf region was both the umbilical cord to surrounding cultures and the eventual physical link that has allowed scientists and researchers to literally piece together its murky history. The greatest regional center of civilization lay only 300 miles north of Uqair at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Mesopotamia, a very fertile region north of this confluence in"
"Tigris–Euphrates river system The Tigris and Euphrates, with their tributaries, form a major river system in Western Asia. From sources originating in eastern Turkey, they flow by/through Syria through Iraq into the Persian Gulf. The system is part of the Palearctic Tigris–Euphrates ecoregion, which includes Iraq and parts of Turkey, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Jordan. From their sources and upper courses in the mountains of eastern Anatolia, the rivers descend through valleys and gorges to the uplands of Syria and northern Iraq and then to the alluvial plain of central Iraq. The rivers flow in a south-easterly direction"
"Tigris–Euphrates river system The Tigris and Euphrates, with their tributaries, form a major river system in Western Asia. From sources originating in eastern Turkey, they flow by/through Syria through Iraq into the Persian Gulf. The system is part of the Palearctic Tigris–Euphrates ecoregion, which includes Iraq and parts of Turkey, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Jordan. From their sources and upper courses in the mountains of eastern Anatolia, the rivers descend through valleys and gorges to the uplands of Syria and northern Iraq and then to the alluvial plain of central Iraq. The rivers flow in a south-easterly direction"
"More usually, these regions are included in greater Syria, a name used to refer to the whole area between Anatolia, Mesopotamia and Arabia. The Mediterranean coast of Lebanon, the Syrian Arab Republic and parts of Northern Israel are also known as Phoenicia, after the ancient kingdom. However, this term suffers from the same problems as Canaan and equivalents and so is generally now only used in a strict historical sense. The landmass of Anatolia, most of modern Turkey, is bordered by several seas and includes parts of Northern Mesopotamia. The Tigris and Euphrates rise in Turkey and flow south into"
"Old Babylonian remains at Nippur and Ur. Among the textual sources on building construction and associated rituals are Gudea's cylinders from the late 3rd millennium are notable, as well as the Assyrian and Babylonian royal inscriptions from the Iron Age. Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region in Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in modern days roughly corresponding to most of Iraq, Kuwait, parts of Northern Saudi Arabia, the eastern parts of Syria, Southeastern Turkey, and regions along the Turkish–Syrian and Iran–Iraq borders. The Sumerians and Akkadians (including Assyrians and Babylonians) dominated Mesopotamia from the beginning of written"
"Aram-Naharaim Aram-Naharaim ( ""’Aram Naharayim""; Aramaic: ארם נהריים) is the biblical term for a region in Upper Mesopotamia along elbow of the Euphrates River. It is mentioned five times in the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. In Genesis, it is used somewhat interchangeably with the names ""Paddan Aram"" and ""Haran"" to denote the place where Abraham stayed briefly with his father Terah's family after leaving Ur of the Chaldees, while ""en route"" to Canaan (Gen. 11:31), and the place from which later patriarchs obtained wives, rather than marry daughters of Canaan. Both Josephus and the Septuagint translate the name as"
"a wilderness. North of the plateau rises a well-watered and undulating belt of country, into which run low ranges of limestone hills, sometimes arid, sometimes covered with dwarf oak, and often shutting in, between their northern and northeastern flank and the main mountain line from which they detach themselves, rich plains and fertile valleys. Behind them tower the massive ridges of the Euphrates and Zagros ranges, where the Tigris and Euphrates take their rise, and which cut off Assyria from Armenia and Kurdistan. The name Assyria itself was derived from that of the city of Assur or Asur, now Qal'at"
"the Tigris and Euphrates originally emptying into the Persian Gulf via a channel further to the west. The Karun River, a tributary which joins the waterway from the Iranian side, deposits large amounts of silt into the river; this necessitates continuous dredging to keep it navigable. The area is judged to hold the largest date palm forest in the world. In the mid-1970s, the region included 17 to 18 million date palms, an estimated one-fifth of the world's 90 million palm trees. But by 2002, war, salt, and pests had wiped out more than 14 million of the palms, including"
"Samaria Samaria (; , ', ""Šōmərôn""; , ' – also known as """", ""Nablus Mountains"") is a historical and biblical name used for the central region of ancient Land of Israel, also was known as Palestine, bordered by Galilee to the north and Judaea to the south. For the beginning of the Common Era, Josephus set the Mediterranean Sea as its limit to the west, and the Jordan River as its limit to the east. Its territory largely corresponds to the biblical allotments of the tribe of Ephraim and the western half of Manasseh; after the death of Solomon and"
"Hilly Flanks The Hilly Flanks is an area curving around the Tigris, Euphrates, and Jordan valleys in Western Asia. It was the location of one of the world’s first civilizations, Mesopotamia, and was the origin of the idea of irrigation. The people in this early civilization were surrounded by water from the rivers, so it was easy to divert water and form ""man-made"" rivers for trade and irrigation. Eventually these man-made rivers connected the two rivers which helped with trade and travel. This area is known for its sufficient rainfall which leads to the over abundance of wild wheat and"
"them above the level of the surrounding plain, making it easy to irrigate the land surrounding them. However, it also meant that their floods had the potential to cause serious damage and could cover a vast area. The flatness of the region also meant that the phreatic zone and the stream bed were very close, causing them to rise in periods of flooding. In modern times, the Tigris and Euphrates join together to form the Shatt al-Arab which then debouches in the Persian Gulf, but in antiquity, their delta did not reach so far south, because it was created slowly"
"of the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (the region known as ""mat Kaldi"" ""Chaldaea"" in the Iron Age). The later kings bore fanciful pseudo-Sumerian names and harked back to the glory days of the dynasty of Isin. The third king of the dynasty was even named for the ultimate king of the dynasty of Isin, Damiq-ilišu. Despite these cultural motifs, the population predominantly bore Akkadian names and wrote and spoke in the Akkadian language. There is circumstantial evidence that their rule extended at least briefly to Babylon itself. In later times, a Sealand province of Neo-Babylonian Empire also"
"Tigris and Euphrates. Michael the Syrian mentions a 9th-century AD dispute between Jacobite Syrians with Greek scholars, in which the Jacobites claimed Assyrian continuity. ""That even if their name is now ""Syrian"", they are originally ""Assyrians"" and they have had many honourable kings... Syria is in the west of Euphrates, and its inhabitants who are talking our Aramaic language, and who are so-called ""Syrians"", are only a part of the ""all"" (the all meaning Aramaic speaking Christians), while the other part which was in the east of Euphrates, going to Persia, had many kings from Assyria and Babylon and Urhay..."
"Aram (region) Aram is a region mentioned in the Bible located in present-day central Syria, including where the city of Aleppo now stands. At its height, Aram stretched from the Lebanon mountains eastward across the Euphrates, including parts of the Khabur River valley in northwestern Mesopotamia on the border of Assyria. The region was known as ""The Land of the Amurru"" during the Akkadian Empire (2335-2154 BC), Neo-Sumerian Empire (2112-2004 BC) and Old Assyrian Empire (2025-1750 BC) in reference to its largely Amorite inhabitants. During the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911-605 BC), Neo-Babylonian Empire (612-539 BC) and Achaemenid Empire (539-332 BC) Aram"
"this region can be mentioned Ur, the birthplace of the patriarch Abraham, as well as Erech (or Uruk), which was founded by Enoch. To the south of the Euphrates river and sinus Persicum (Persian Gulf), Arabia was located, a desert region whose southern part (present-day Yemen) received the name of Arabia Felix, Happy Arabia. It was a rich, fertile land where precious stones, myrrh and incense abounded. In it lived the fabulous bird phoenix, which after dying surrounded by fire was reborn of its ashes. On the northeast border of Arabia, already in territories of the old Roman Empire, extended"
"Upper Mesopotamia Upper Mesopotamia is the name used for the uplands and great outwash plain of northwestern Iraq, northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey, in the northern Middle East. After the Arab Islamic conquest of the mid-7th century AD the region has been known by the traditional Arabic name of al-Jazira ( ""the island""), also transliterated ""Djazirah"", ""Djezirah"", ""Jazirah"" & the Syriac (Aramaic) variant ""Gāzartā"" or ""Gozarto"" (). The Euphrates and Tigris rivers transform Mesopotamia into almost an island, as they are joined together at the Shatt al-Arab in the Basra Governorate of Iraq, and their sources in eastern Turkey are"
"even propaganda. The geostrategy of location include river valleys, inland sea, world ocean, world island, and so on. For instance, the start of Western civilization was located in the river valleys of the Nile in Egypt and the Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia. The Nile and Tigris and Euphrates not only provided the fertile soil for crop production, but also allowed for the floods that taxed the ingenuity of the inhabitants. The climate of the area was conducive to an existence based primarily upon agriculture. The rivers also provided the avenues of trade in a period when muscles of man"
"the Euphrates. The red stripes, whose blood red hue stands for courage, glory and pride, represent the Tigris. The white lines in between the two great rivers symbolizes the Great Zab; its white colour stands for tranquility and peace. Some interpret the red, white and blue will gather all the Assyrians back to their homeland to stand strong and fight for what they want and what they have gained. The star on the flag is the old star symbol associated with Shamash, also known as Utu, the sun deity also associated with the planet Saturn. He was worshipped in the"
"as the Khabur River Valley in Syria speak varieties of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic while the Assyrians in Turkey and Syria mainly speak Turoyo, a dialect of Central Neo-Aramaic. Other prominent ethnic groups present in Beth Nahrain include: Arabs, Armenians, Yazidis, Turkmen, Kurds and Turks. Beth Nahrain occupies the land between two rivers - referring to the Euphrates and Tigris. The Tigris-Euphrates river system covers 35,600 km² and forms a major river system originating from the Taurus mountains of Eastern Turkey through Syria and Iraq towards the Persian Gulf. Beth Nahrain Beth Nahrain (, ); ""house of (two) rivers"" is the name"
"Apamea (Babylonia) Apamea or Apameia () was an ancient city – and possibly two ancient cities lying close together – of Mesopotamia mentioned by Stephanus of Byzantium and Pliny as situated near the Tigris near the confluence of the Euphrates, the precise location of which is still uncertain, but it lies in modern-day Iraq. Stephanus (s. v. Apameia) describes Apamea as in the territory of Mesene, and surrounded by the Tigris, at which place, that is Apamea, or it may mean, in which country, Mesene, the Tigris is divided; on the right part there flows round a river Sellas, and"
"landscape consists of plains and low hills, rivers being Euphrates and Balikh. Part of the Fertile Crescent, its climate is mostly ""warm mediterranean"" on the Köppen climate classification, as opposed to the colder, semi-arid regions in its and further to the south and east. The current population of Euphrates Region is unknown due to substantial refugee movements; however, the population of the territory before 2014 was estimated at roughly 400,000, with an ethnic Kurdish majority. Due to intense fighting at least three-quarters of the population fled across the border to Turkey in 2014; however, many returned in 2015. Cities and"
"Edonis (region) Edonis or Edonida (), also transliterated as Edonia, was an ancient region of Thrace which later became a district of Macedon. Its name is derived from the ancient Thracian inhabitants of the region, the Edonians. It was bordered by Odomantice in the north, Bisaltia in the west, and the Aegean Sea in the south, and was separated from Thrace proper by the river Nestos in the east. Edonis stretched from the lake Cercinitis (later Achinos) and the mouth of the Strymon river in the west, to Nestos river in the east (natural border between the regions of Macedonia"
"Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region in Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in modern days roughly corresponding to most of Iraq, Kuwait, parts of Northern Saudi Arabia, the eastern parts of Syria, Southeastern Turkey, and regions along the Turkish–Syrian and Iran–Iraq borders. The Sumerians and Akkadians (including Assyrians and Babylonians) dominated Mesopotamia from the beginning of written history (c. 3100 BC) to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC, when it was conquered by the Achaemenid Empire. It fell to Alexander the Great in 332 BC, and after his death, it became part of the Greek Seleucid"
"east, rising from 200-500 m in altitude, and which are now known as Jazirah (from the Arabic, ""al-jazayra"", 'the island'). Thus, the rivers flow through valleys which are 1-10 km wide. The southern half of Mesopotamia, which is the part properly called Mesopotamia from a geophysical point of view, since it is where the Tigris and Euphrates flow close to one another, is a vast plain, which is 150-200 km wide and has only a very slight incline, decreasing to the south until it is nearly non-existent. This encourages the development of river braiding, sudden changes of course, and the"
"Euphrates north of Hit, is known as Al Jazira (the island) and is part of a larger area that extends westward into Syria between the two rivers and into Turkey. Water in the area flows in deeply cut valleys, and irrigation is much more difficult than it is in the lower plain. The southwest areas of this zone are classified as desert or semi-desert. The northern parts, which include such places like the Nineveh Plains, Duhok and Zakho, mainly consist of Mediterranean vegetation. The vegetation cyclically dries out and appear brown in the virtually arid summer and flourish in the"
"This irrigation is aided by a high water table and by melting snows from the high peaks of the northern Zagros Mountains and from the Armenian Highlands, the source of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers that give the region its name. The usefulness of irrigation depends upon the ability to mobilize sufficient labor for the construction and maintenance of canals, and this, from the earliest period, has assisted the development of urban settlements and centralized systems of political authority. Agriculture throughout the region has been supplemented by nomadic pastoralism, where tent-dwelling nomads herded sheep and goats (and later camels) from"
"the southwestern highlands of the Zagros mountain range, the coast of Fars and the alluvial plain drained by the Karun-Karkheh river system. Knowledge of Elamite history remains largely fragmentary, reconstruction being based on mainly Mesopotamian (Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian) sources. The history of Elam is conventionally divided into three periods, spanning more than two millennia. The period before the first Elamite period is known as the proto-Elamite period: Proto-Elamite civilization grew up east of the Tigris and Euphrates alluvial plains; it was a combination of the lowlands and the immediate highland areas to the north and east. At least"