Ancient Near East

The ancient Near East was home to many cradles of civilization, spanning Ancient Mesopotamia,^[1]^[a] the ancient Levant,^[b] ancient Egypt, ancient Elam, ancient Anatolia or Asia Minor, the ancient South Caucasus and Armenian highlands,^[2]^[c] and ancient Northern Arabia (including Dilmun).^[d] It is generally not considered to include Pre-Islamic Arabia as a whole, the ancient Berbers, or ancient Nubia, though it is sometimes classified as encompassing ancient Iran^[e], ancient Cyprus, and the Aegean civilization^[f]. Given the nature and scope of their subject matter, the fields of ancient Near East studies and Near Eastern archaeology, including the subfields of Assyriology and Egyptology, are among the most prominent with regard to research in the realm of ancient history, alongside such disciplines as Classics, Classical archaeology, biblical studies, biblical archaeology, Jewish studies, Christian studies, Iranology, Sinology, and Indology, some of which overlap with them. Historically, the Near East denoted an area roughly encompassing central West Asia and Egypt, having been focused on the lands between Greece in the west, Iran in the east, the Caucasus in the north, and Arabia in the south. It therefore largely corresponds with the central core area of the modern-day geopolitical concept of the Middle East. It was strongly influential on the later Islamic and Western worlds and Islamic and Western civilizations.

The history of the ancient Near East begins with the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BC, though the date that it ends is a subject of debate among scholars; the term covers the region's developments in the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, and is variously considered to end with either the establishment of the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BC, the establishment of the Macedonian Empire in the 4th century BC, or the beginning of the early Muslim conquests in the 7th century AD.

It was within the ancient Near East that humans first practiced intensive year-round agriculture, which led to the rise of the earliest dense urban settlements and the development of many now-familiar institutions of civilization, such as social stratification, centralized government and empires, and organized religion (see: ancient Near Eastern religions) and organized warfare. It also saw the creation of the first writing system, the first alphabet (i.e., abjad), the first currency, and the first legal codes, all of which were monumental advances that laid the foundations of astronomy and mathematics, and the invention of the wheel.

During this period, the region's previously stateless societies largely transitioned to building states, many of which gradually came to annex the territories of their neighbouring civilizations. This process continued until the entire ancient Near East was enveloped by militaristic empires that had emerged from their own lands to conquer and absorb a variety of cultures under the rule of a top-level government.

The concept of the Near East

The phrase "ancient Near East" denotes the 19th-century distinction between the Near and Far East as global regions of interest to the British Empire. The distinction began during the Crimean War. The last major exclusive partition of the east between these two terms was current in diplomacy in the late 19th century, with the Hamidian massacres of the Armenians and Assyrians by the Ottoman Empire in 1894–1896 and the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895. The two theatres were described by the statesmen and advisors of the British Empire as "the Near East" and "the Far East". Shortly after, they were to share the stage with ''Middle East'', a term that came to prevail in the 20th century and continues in modern times.

As Near East had meant the lands of the Ottoman Empire at roughly its maximum extent, on the fall of that empire, the use of Near East in diplomacy was reduced significantly in favor of the Middle East. Meanwhile, the ancient Near East had become distinct. The Ottoman rule over the Near East ranged from Vienna (to the north) to the tip of the Arabian Peninsula (to the south), from Egypt (in the west) to the borders of Iraq (in the east). The 19th-century archaeologists added Iran to their definition, which was never under the Ottomans, but they excluded all of Europe and, generally, Egypt, which had parts in the empire.

Periodization

Ancient Near East periodization is the attempt to categorize or divide time into discrete named blocks, or eras, of the Near East. The result is a descriptive abstraction that provides a useful handle on Near East periods of time with relatively stable characteristics.

Copper Age	Chalcolithic (5000–3300 BC)	Early Chalcolithic	5000–4500 BC	Ubaid period in Mesopotamia
Copper Age	Chalcolithic (5000–3300 BC)	Late Chalcolithic	4500–3300 BC	Uruk period of Sumer, Predynastic Period of ancient Egypt, Proto-Elamite period in Iran, Ghassulian, Gerzeh
Bronze Age	Early Bronze Age (3300–2100 BC)	Early Bronze Age I	3300–3000 BC	Jemdet Nasr period in Mesopotamia, Protodynastic to Early Dynastic Period of Egypt, settlement of Phoenicians
		Early Bronze Age II	3000–2700 BC	Early Dynastic Period of Mesopotamia
		Early Bronze Age III	2700–2200 BC	Old Kingdom of Egypt, Akkadian Empire, early Assyria, Old Elamite period, Sumero-Akkadian states, Marhasi Jiroft
		Early Bronze Age IV	2200–2100 BC	Second half of the Sixth Dynasty of Egypt, First Intermediate Period of Egypt
	Middle Bronze Age (2100–1550 BC)	Middle Bronze Age I	2100–2000 BC	Third Dynasty of Ur
		Middle Bronze Age II A	2000–1750 BC	Minoan civilization, early Babylonia, Egyptian Middle Kingdom
		Middle Bronze Age II B	1750–1650 BC	Second Intermediate Period of Egypt
		Middle Bronze Age II C	1650–1550 BC	Hittite Old Kingdom, Minoan eruption
	Late Bronze Age (1550–1200 BC)	Late Bronze Age I	1550–1400 BC	Hittite Middle Kingdom, Hayasa-Azzi, Middle Elamite period, New Kingdom of Egypt

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