Cradle of Civilization

A Blog about the Birth of Our Civilisation and Development

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  • The Fertile Crescent

    The Fertile Crescent is a term for an old fertile area north, east and west of the Arabian Desert in Southwest Asia. The Mesopotamian valley and the Nile valley fall under this term even though the mountain zone around Mesopotamia is the natural zone for the transition in a historical sense.

    As a result of a number of unique geographical factors the Fertile Crescent have an impressive history of early human agricultural activity and culture. Besides the numerous archaeological sites with remains of skeletons and cultural relics the area is known primarily for its excavation sites linked to agricultural origins and development of the Neolithic era.

    It was here, in the forested mountain slopes of the periphery of this area, that agriculture originated in an ecologically restricted environment. The western zone and areas around the upper Euphrates gave growth to the first known Neolithic farming communities with small, round houses , also referred to as Pre Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) cultures, which dates to just after 10,000 BC and include areas such as Jericho, the world’s oldest city.

    During the subsequent PPNB from 9000 BC these communities developed into larger villages with farming and animal husbandry as the main source of livelihood, with settlement in the two-story, rectangular house. Man now entered in symbiosis with grain and livestock species, with no opportunity to return to hunter – gatherer societies.

    The area west and north of the plains of the Euphrates and Tigris also saw the emergence of early complex societies in the much later Bronze Age (about 4000 BC). There is evidence of written culture and early state formation in this northern steppe area, although the written formation of the states relatively quickly shifted its center of gravity into the Mesopotamian valley and developed there. The area is therefore in very many writers been named “The Cradle of Civilization.”

    The area has experienced a series of upheavals and new formation of states. When Turkey was formed in the aftermath of the genocide against the Pontic Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians perpetrated by the Young Turks during the First World War it is estimated that two-thirds to three-quarters of all Armenians and Assyrians in the region died, and the Pontic Greeks was pushed to Greece.

    Israel was created out of the Ottoman Empire and the conquering of the Palestinian terretories. The existence of large Arab nation states from the Maghreb to the Levant has since represented a potential threat to Israel which should be neutralised when opportunities arise.

    This line of thinking was at the heart of David Ben Gurion’s policies in the 1950s which sought to exacerbate tensions between Christians and Muslims in the Lebanon for the fruits of acquiring regional influence by the dismembering the country and the possible acquisition of additional territory.

    The Christians are now being systematically targeted for genocide in Syria according to Vatican and other sources with contacts on the ground among the besieged Christian community.

    According to reports by the Vatican’s Fides News Agency collected by the Centre for the Study of Interventionism, the US-backed Free Syrian Army rebels and ever more radical spin-off factions are sacking Christian churches, shooting Christians dead in the street, broadcasting ultimatums that all Christians must be cleansed from the rebel-held villages, and even shooting priests.

    It is now time that the genocide against the Pontic Greeks, Assyrians and Armenians is being recognized, that the Israeli occupation, settlements and violence against the Palestinians stop, and that the various minorities in the area start to live their lifes in peace – without violence and threats from majority populations, or from the West, and then specificially from the US.

    War in the Fertile Crescent

    War in the Fertile Crescent


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    Everyone is free to use the text on this blog as they want. There is no copyright etc. This because knowledge is more important than rules and regulations.

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The Women’s Dance I: Southern Asia

Posted by Sjur Cappelen Papazian on January 16, 2013

So busy, i haven’t posted for months, but here’s a recent photo essay from the Suppressed Histories Archives Facebook page.  To avoid confusion: descriptions and commentary appear under each image. Enjoy… —Max Dashu Women’s circle dance in bronze age rock art from Zerovschan, Tajikistan, with numinous quadrant in center. They appear to be wearing skirts, […]

So busy, i haven’t posted for months, but here’s a recent photo essay from the Suppressed Histories Archives Facebook page.  To avoid confusion: descriptions and commentary appear under each image. Enjoy…

—Max Dashu

Zerovschan, Tajikistan, Central Asia

Women’s circle dance in bronze age rock art from Zerovschan, Tajikistan, with numinous quadrant in center. They appear to be wearing skirts, but the dot between the legs is a very common female sign, or the dot in vulva which may also figure  here.

Iran, site unknown

This is really tiny, grabbed off the web with no info at all, but also from neolithic Iran, and it speaks. The zag patterns around the are also found in Turkmenistan and Iraq in the same late neolithic timeframe.

In Syria, too: left, Halaf; right, Sabi Abyad. More tall headdresses! Both of these sites were important cultural centers in 6000-5000 bce, with their own characteristic styles of ceramic female icons. The Halafian style spread widely in the mid-6th millennium, peacefully, by diffusion from village to village, not centralized trade. Women making their own images, in clearly recognizable styles that still varied from region to region.  The importance of this international neolithic pattern has not been widely recognized, yet; but someday i’ll find color photos of this cultural testimony.

Samarra, Iraq, circa 5000 bce

A classic from Samarra, Iraq, circa 5000 bce. This neolithic town created a long line of splendid painted ceramics and female figurines (which start back in the pre-pottery era, so old is the tradition there). Here women stand in the quadrants, their hair whirling in the Four Winds, circled by a ring of scorpions. Scorpion Goddess is common in ancient Iraq and Iran as well as Egypt — Serqet, the companion of Auset (Isis) — and also known in Central America.

Harappa, Indus River, Pakistan

The women dancing with streaming hair, this time from Harappa, Pakistan. Also neolithic. As in Iraq and Iran, women in the Indus foothill villages painted many pots showing their ceremonial dances. But here, and also in Iran, the ibex and mountain goat are common themes. A Goddess connected with these animals is still revered by the Kalasha who keep alive very ancient forms of culture of this region.

Kulli, Pakistan, before 3000 bce

The Women’s Dance from Kulli, Pakistan. This image was so commonly repeated that it became highly abstracted into a few strokes over time. Artists emphasized the flowing hair and dynamic movement of the Round Dance, still performed by women in the Punjab and among Adivasi (Aboriginal) women in India. These ancient ceramic paintings, fragmentary as they are, speak of a deep history of neolithic village women that has been obscured and overlaid by so many layers that few ever know that it exists.

This entry was posted on January 16, 2013 at 2:10 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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