History and theory of garden design and landscape architecture > Garden and Landscape Articles > West Asian Gardens > Ancient Civilisations

Ancient Civilisations

Civilisation Key Dates Location   Comment
Neolithic Revolution c10,000BC Middle East Agriculture brought about a chain of innovations: settlements, trade, pottery, weaving, stone tools.
Natufian c9,000BC Palestine and south Syria A Mesolithic people who lived partly in caves and partly in incipient villages. a developed Neolithic civilisation existed in Jericho by 8,000BC
Elamite c7,000BC Iran Elam is the Biblical name for the people of south west Iran. There were agriculture and villages.
Summerian c4,000BC Southern Mesopotamia; Umma, Lagash, Uruk and Ur They may have come from the Iranian highlands. As settlers, they cleared forests and built canals. Their innovations included wheeled carts, sailboats, plows, smelting and writing. Power centered on city-states. They built towns, temples and ziggurats.
Egyptian Earliest Dynasties: I, 3200-3000; 11, 3000-2780. Old Kingdom III, 2780-2720; IV, 2720-2560; V, 2560-2420; VI, 2420-2270. Middle Kingdom XI, 2100-2000; XII, Nile Valley  
Phoenician 3000BC Palestine and Lebanon As a seaborne people, they colonised North Africa. Invented a phonetic script c1500BC which became the basis of the western alphabet..
Ayran 3,000BC   The Indo-Europeans (Ayrans) were nomads from near the Caspian Sea. They domesticated the horse c3000BC. They invented a 2-wheeled chariot c1700BC
Hittite 2,000BC Anatolia By 2,000BC the Aryans established a Hittite civilisation in Anatolia.
Akkadian 2385-2200BC Akkad is near Babylon Led by King Sargon of Akkad, the people were semitic and came from further north. Now extinct, the Akkadian language was spoken from 3rd to 1st millennium BC.
Babylonian 1900BC Babylon The Babylonians re-united the Akkadian empire. Hammurabi ruled from 1792BC.
Egyptian New Kingdom : XVIII, 1555-1350; XIX, 1350-1200; XX, 1200-1090; XXI, 1090-945; XXII, 945-c. 745; XXIII, c, 745-718; XXIV, 718-712    
Assyrian 1400BC Iraq, centred on Mosul Introduced cavalry into Middle Eastern warfare and were famed for their cruelty. . Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon II and Sennacherib united most of the region from Egypt to the Gulf. The capital, Ninevah, fell in 612BC
Hebrew 900BC   The tribe of Judah was displaced by the Assyrians and took possession of the Promised land as one of the 12 tribes if Israel
Medes c700BC Media (northwest Iran) An invasion of Assyria, helped by the Babylonians, put an end to the Assyrian empire.
Chaldean 626BC   Took control of Babylon in 626BC.
Persian 559-330BC   The first Persian empire was ruled by the Achaemenids after Cyrus II broke free of the Medes



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