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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Shiping of stolen goods

Posted by Sjur Cappelen Papazian on December 7, 2014

RIA Novosti/Igor Russak

Stumbling block: Greeks offended by Brits lending ancient sculpture to Russia

The reclining marble sculpture of the river god Ilissos, which 25 centuries ago decorated the facade of Greece’s Parthenon temple, has now been moved for the first time in some 200 years – from London’s British Museum to Russia’s Hermitage in St. Petersburg.

The British Museum has ‘secretly’ sent a 2,500 years old Parthenon sculpture to St. Petersburg, where Russia’s Hermitage museum are going to celebrate an anniversary. The move infuriated Greeks, who have long tried to reclaim the ancient piece.

The headless Ilissos, which is considered to be one of the greatest works of ancient Greek art, is part of the so-called Elgin Marbles collection, which the British Museum acquired in the early 19th century. The artifacts were brought to the UK by British diplomat Thomas Bruce, the Earl of Elgin, who sold them to the Parliament in 1816, and the collection was then presented to the museum and given the earl’s name.

For decades, the Elgin Marbles have been rocks of offence for Greece and a source of one of the world’s longest-running cultural disputes. With Athens arguing that the art works were removed from their native land illegally, while the country was under Turkish occupation as part of the Ottoman Empire, London says there is no legitimate claim to the statues.

None of Greece’s several high-profile campaigns to have the “stolen” items returned – with UNESCO’s involvement and the recent participation of lawyer and activist Amal Clooney, the wife of actor George Clooney, have ended in Athens’ favor.

The British loan to Russia – with the sculpture having left Britain for the first time ever – only added fuel to the flames, with Greece reacting with fury. Calling the move a “provocation,” Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said the sculpture was part of the country’s history and culture, which “cannot be cut up, borrowed and handed over.”

The minister’s statement also questioned one of the British arguments for keeping the marbles in London and not being moved – for being too fragile. “You see, they can be moved,” head of the New Acropolis museum, Dimitris Pantermalis, told Reuters, expressing hopes that the current loan could demonstrate the collection could one day be displayed in Greece.

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