Very nice work. But the map of Israel's borders at its founding were not the borders shown on the map. If anything you could show Egypt and Jordon swallowing and then losing their land grabs of Gaza and the West Bank. Then Israel's swallowing of Egypt up to Suez and losing it in pieces as part of the peace treaties. And of course Israel annexing the Golan Heights...
To be nitpicky, Jordan and Saudi Arabia have modestly adjusted their border relatively recently
Doesn't this map miss the brief invasion of, and conquest by, the Mongol empire in the region? Or is this less a map of the history of the Middle East and a history of the Levant?
Yes, there are a number of other factions/empires (both large & small) that controlled the Middle East. For the sake of brevity I had to choose which were the more important ones in terms of impact. Maybe for Version 2.0 I will add more!
Israel's brief military conquests were less important in the overall "big picture" of the region's history, so I chose not to highlight them.
Great idea, this developing map, but when did the Jews control the Middle East in the past (as suggested in the blurb at the top of the page). It seems a bit of an exaggeration to include Ancient Israel with Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt, Persia etc, perhaps even self-serviong on someone's part.
Great idea, this developing map, but when did the Jews control the Middle East in the past (as suggested in the blurb at the top of the page). It seems a bit of an exaggeration to include Ancient Israel with Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt, Persia etc, might perhaps even be construed as self-serving on someone's part.
The Kingdom of Israel was in no way more powerful than most of the Middle East's other empires. I highlighted Israel's ancient past in more detail than some other empires because I thought it would give a greater degree of context to recent current events in the Levant. Everyone knows where the state of Israel exists today, but few remember when and where it had previously existed.
Just like our own perception of history, the map is imperfect. The goal of the project was not to create academic perfection, but to communicate two ideas:
(1) The Middle East has been controlled by many different peoples, cultures, and nations - it has never "belonged" to anyone for a terminal period of time.
(2) To subtly ask the question: who will control the Middle East next? (RE: the "Iranian Empire" prediction).
I hope that anyone who views the map will come away bearing these two points in mind, and that this exercise will provide a greater context to world events.
I'm the first and second "anonymous" poster. As a geographer, which is where I can get down to the nitpickyness, its hard to help myself! But I do sincerely appreciate that this animated map communicates very well. Great stuff and well thought out to use this medium.
This is a very nice animation and I won't get into its accuracy, but what made me really mad is the end. WTF is the Iranian Empire, is this a historical animation or are you seeing the future? Why become political insead of sticking to historical facts? I live in Jerusalem and I find this to bhe just a cheap piece of propaganda in the anti-muslim campaign. Such a shame!
As a history buff, I loved this map. I find it so hard to teach history and this visual certaily spells out what the changes were and may continue to be. You even want to include the US in the Iranian empire. You can even include what Israel would look like should there be peace; a divided Israel, secular vs religious. If you look at the sean Hannity site after the 2004 elelction, you can find a divided USA, blue vs red. Just a thought!
I think the omission of the Khans' Mongol empire was a mistake. On one hand, they may have less to do with Baghdad and the Middle East than some of these other empires, but on the ohter hand I believe they controlled the largets area of any single empire in history. I would like to see them put it into the animation. Besides that nitpick I must say this animation was a great idea and executed quite well. Good job.
Also, it would seem to me that inclusion of the expansion of Israel's borders (and subsequent shrinking) would be quite pertinent to this topic. I.e. Golan Heights, Gaza Strip, West Bank, and their brief incursion but signiifcant incursion into Egypt's lands.
The Sassanids were paralell to the Roman Empire and occupied all the way from Afghanistan to Israel depending on which maps you look at! They also left a significant mark on world history... check out wikipedia.
The animation is neat, and worked perfectly as of 09/25/2006 so I sent the URL to my son, but when he got to it it didn't seem to be working properly any more; now, whenever I reload the page (in Firefox) the text shows for a few seconds and then disappears. I can still play the animation by right-click / play, but there's no text at all -- not even in the bubbles that I can get to display over the timeline. I'm using Linux, he's using Windows -- did you change something?
The middle east history in brief is great for so many short-attention-span Americans that know little to nothing about the region.
However, your information about Fallujah is 100% one-sided. Recapture of Fallujah... "recapture" from whom? And you're right that the tactic left no means of escape for those trapped within the city - unfortunately about 40% of those were children, 20% women, many who could not leave because they had no where to go, and many who did not understand the danger when the orders were given to leave their homes. You lumped everyone left within the city as "the enemy". Are all Iraqi's the enemy? I thought U.S. forces were supposed to be "liberators"? Once the city was destroyed and the former residents allowed to return, they were fingerprinted, retina-scanned and given bar codes so they could be identified as residents of Fallujah should they attempt to leave the city. In other words, the city became a prison camp for EVERYONE who lived there. The infrastructure that was destroyed almost two years ago has not been rebuilt. Or maybe I'm wrong about that... how about a map of Fallujah today so we can see the improvements the American occupation has made?
Not sure what the problem could be...works fine everywhere else that I've tested it. Make sure you have the latest version of Macromedia Flash. Also, try clearing your cache and refreshing your browser.
Nice animation work . . . would have liked to see the early empires in the Tigris/Euphrates included (makes it look less Mediterannean-focused). Sumerians?
Also the note of the Sassanids made by another poster seemed valid.
Note that the animation of the Byzantine Empire and Caliphate seems a bit off - Constantinople fought on until the mid-1400s and the animation suggests that when the Crusader States arose there was no Byzantine Empire around.
Finally, BIG NOTE - your embedded version still has the Iranian Empire stinger in it and is inconsistent with the version on the website.
A great macro view of the ebb and flow of power across the region. I have to agree with an earlier comment though, that a micro view based on the more recent changes (over the last 100 years) would be a worthwhile addition.
What the hell? Where did you pull 1979 as the date of Iranian independence from? What are you, some sort of over confident mullah? There are other huge inacuracies, it omits Ashkanids and Sassanids, both more important to the ME than the Roman or Byzentine empires. It also stretches the Ottoman borders way into Persia near the modern Tehran (which never happened). And there was never a unified Mongol Empire in the sense that you've showed it. There were seperate khanates.
Thank for the map, whatever its shortcomings, it is great that someone could do what I have been looking for for some time.
Just a couple of pointers I think may be important, especially when working with kids on history. 1. Could we have a version showing the map with the names of the current countries? This would show kids today how the world changes over long periods of time. 2. I would love to see a map that includes all of Europe, Russia and China..without labels, it's hard to know exactly what I'm looking at.
I am no geographer mpt cartographer but I loved it.
Also, since I am not geeky enough, how does one "embed" map? I would love to embed in my blogs.
An email friend forwarded this to me and I'm blown away. It is fantastic! I showed it to my grandson today, a history buff, and he loved it too. I think some of the negatives I've read are a bit picky. Seems to me your point was to show the great ebb and flow of history over the region. Your skill in ding this is amazing. Thank you! And please do similar maps for other parts of the world--Southeast Asia for e.g.
Lebanon's year of independence is incorrect. It declared in 1941 and was recognized in 1943. Syria's recognized independence was 1946, it's just Lebanon you have wrong. :)
Nice work, but there are some problems. First, how are you defining the Middle East? From what I gather, the focus is on the Levant (or lands bordering the Middle East.) Geograpic regional geography is always controversial. Indeed, do current ideas of a Middle East really work backwards across time? But if we are going to use the term Middle East, don't we really need to look at other subregions it emcompases over time? The current concept of the Middle East extents from Egypt to Turkey through Iran and down to including all the Arabian peninsula.
With that in mind .... certain political entities from the past should be here. What about Mesopotomian Kindgoms from 2000 BCE to 900 BCE? What about Phonecian City states and their cultural empire in the Mediterannean World from 900 CE to 100 CE? What about the Safavid Dynasty in Persia from 1500 to 1750 (roughly.) What about the Seljuk Turk kingdom in the 11 Century? Why not distinguish between the Ummayad and Abassid Caliphates? Plus, these maps over exagerrate the extend of their real political control over areas they claimed.
This is exactly the sort of thing I love to discover. I really want to find a map such as this one that traces the movements and splits of religions. Thank you for this.
Greek empire?!?Tell me who was greek Alexander or his father Filip?!?Why are you writing that greeks have empire!?!Are you greek or member of some greek political party.You making me smile.Greek empire ... hehehhhehee... Macedonian yes but Greek... :-)
I thought that it was very interesting, and I would agree with one of your correspondents that a pause between segments would be useful. As would a commentary. Bill C
I thought that it was very interesting, and I would agree with one of your correspondents that a pause between segments would be useful. As would a commentary. Bill C
A great concept and neat animations! Obviously time will bring greater refinement, such as present and/or contemporaneous borders and capitals overlaid to help as a teaching aid.
Also, as the progression is too fast to absorb and compare properly, the inclusion of a pause button or a fixed pause and print facility at the end of each section would help enormously in providing time to appreciate the developments.
Ultimately it could be interactive at the end of each stage to provide greater background and detail to those who wish to research that particular section.
We look forward to seeing how this intriguing project evolves. Great work - congratulations!
Fascinating. Behind it all I look at the photojournalists' efforts and think "what's the attraction?". I see barren hillsides and deserts where it is difficult or impossible to sustain life, and I wonder just what is the attraction? Is it simply that a "religious" movement which is purely a human invention has inflamed people to the point where power over the traditional territory has become irrationally all-consuming? I see no other attraction. I pity the millions who have been duped.
Love the graphics!!! This is very impressive, and gives one a great perspective of what has gone on in the past.....who will control it in the future??? Good question. Great job, I always enjoy your blogs.
This is very good, but it smooths out a lot of detail. 'The Caliphate' is too general: there was an Umayyad Caliphate, an Abbasid Caliphate, a Fatimid Caliphate, Ilkhanids, Ghaznavids, Mamluks, Ayyubids, there was a small Safavid empire, the Russians penetrated Central Asia and took parts of northern Iran, Iran was never under full colonial rule (hence not 'independent 1979'). Can you squeeze some of this in?
1. The kingdom of the Israelites, shown prior to the expansion of the Assyrian Empire, is the product of fantasy...Eretz Y'Israel is the product of wishful thinking and political propaganda.
2. The Parthian, Arascid, and Sassanid empires are not shown, nor is the Timurid expansion from Central Asia in the 16th century.
EXCELLENT START AND WISH AND HOPE IT WILLI IMPROVE IN TIME. MY EXPECTATION IS THAT, IN TIME IF IT KEEPS ITS NEUTRALITY, IT WILL BE A SOURCE FOR NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC. CONGRATULATIONS!
great stuff..technically walt disney could have done this in the 1930s but instead we got mickey mouse, however this has finaly happened and its giving history a whole new modality , dimension
re the Mideast map animation - it is pretty and informative, yet a bit confusing if you don't know the area well. Many of us need a basemap to orient us otherwise we can't figure out were these various empires are.
1) you should start with Mesopotamian developments at the same time as Egyptian. 2) Most of the empires/states/realms etc. did not simply disappear as your developments indicate. Most shrank or broke apart but some major aspects persisted for very long stretches of time. 3) You completely missed the Parthian Empire and Second Persian Empire. 4) Your original Israel is exaggerated both in time and space, if not completely fictional.
Iran is one of the oldest countries in the world. The independence date (1970) is incorrect, That was the year of recent Islamic revolution in Iran which finished the long 2500 years of Iranian Kingdom and converted the country government to Islamic republic.
It goes too fast to not have a 'pause' button. Better still would be to not have an automatic slide show, but rather a user-operated button to move to the next map.
It is too bad that the time line is not drawn to scale and misrepresents its relative time spans and therefore also the animation. On my screen, a time scale of 5 thousand years is 5 1/2 inches long. The first 3 thousand yeaers are contained in half the scale, 2 1/4 inches, leaving the last 2 thousand years in the remaining 2 1/4 inches. The span from 1140 to 1187 is over one quarter inch while the 1800s seem to have disappeared entirely. I think it is a great representation of history and geography. It could be better by correctly animating the passing time to scale.
Truly a breakthrough way to portray history! I'm 65+, and I've never been well-oriented in time, so I don't have a good sense of what happened when, let alone how it affected geography. This presentation lets me see things I've wondered about since I first learned about maps. Probably detailed snapshot maps are the best way to handle some of the small issues commented on by others. Keep up the good work.
Excellente synthèse : pour savoir où on va, il faut savoir d'où on vient. Quant aux arbres qui poussent haut (et qui vont loin), ils ont tous de solides racines.
"The Caliphate" is vague. Different families ruled (Ummayds, Abbasids, Fatimids, Seljuks), and the early Arab caliphate broke up once the Ummayds rose to the throne. The Fatimids and Abbasids, (Shi'i and Sunni respectvely) were also at war with each other.
Then there are the "slave dynasty" of the Mamlukes that rose to prominence in Egypt.
As a 13-year-old child growing up in Hong Kong and attending a very British King George V high school in Kowloon, I was first introduced to Colin McEvedy’s Penguin Atlas of Medieval History in 1966. I found the cartographic representation of a civilization’s “area of conquest/influence” an invaluable tool to understanding the sequence of historical events down through the ages.
So, in the mid-1990s, at the dawn of the Internet, I envisioned a nifty piece of software/website, that would display the entire world as a slowly spinning globe with the political divisions displayed on it for any time period in world history. With several built-in navigational aids to change the date or focus on a specific part of the world, I thought such a program could be a fantastic resource for historians, and for the world public to become better acquainted with world history.
It also soon occurred to me that companion text would be necessary to explain the changes to world’s political geography. The project, at least in my mind, exploded into a huge undertaking, employing armies of historians with every possibility of current political ramifications and conflicts (think Macedonia). Thus, as a penniless computer support professional, with little programming experience in animation or cartography, the idea wandered to a little niche at the back of my mind, to be continued … maybe … or maybe not …
Thank you for your graphical presentation of the geopolitics of the Middle East and Mesopotamia through time, which prompts this note. It was fun to see a partial realization of this idea, however modest. By the way (you may already know this), amazingly, 40 years later, Colin McEvedy has recently updated his Penguin historical atlases of Europe, which can be purchased on Amazon very reasonably.
Very interesting thanks for sharing. It is amazing to think that all of these kingdoms have came and went. The nation of Israel has withstood all of these empires and are still standing strong.
Hey Althoght couple of persons before me has mentioned this but the error is still there and has not been fixed. Iran has never been colonized;therefore it does not have independence day. 1979 is the year of Iran's revolution not independence year. Also Ottaman empire never get that far into Iran, in fact their eastern borderline was the same as it is today between Iran and Turkey and finally Persian empire territory that you have shown in your work belongs to Acamenid kingdom of Persia and there is another and even bigger kingdom of Sasanid which came after the Greeks and extincted before Arabs and I do not see that there. Thanks
Phoenicians are missing as well as some of the Islamic Empires (Mamlouks, etc.). But a great introduction to anyone who doesn't know the history of the region.
(1) you left out the sejuk empire entirely (it's between the byzantine and ottoman empires)
(2) it's pretty misleading to call a single empire "the caliphate." the borders you show are roughly the borders of the ummayid caliphate. but after only about 100 years it lost most of its territory to the abassid caliphate (the ummayids continued to rule spain and parts of north africa). after that were hundreds of years of different conflicting arab dynasties and polities, each ruled by someone called a caliph. calling them all a "caliphate" because they all call their leader a "caliph" is like labeling all of mideaval and renaissance europe "the kingdom" and pretend it was one single empire.
(3) the byzantine empire existed throughout the existence of the various caliphates, and through the sejuk period. it wasn't until the ottoman empire that the byzantines were finally destroyed.
It is a great job. Well done. But one important fact was missing. The Great SELCHUK Turkish Empire which reigned in Persia and Anatolia, including the Middle East.11-14 th centuries.
Regards. Isik Biren Strategist Ret. Admiral Turkish Navy
Very nice but in "the caliphate" all of the spanish territory is under the rule of this empire, which is not true. A small kingdom in the north (asturias) resisted the invasion and was the starting point of the "reconquista" of spain which lead to the expel of the islamic invaders in 1492 (despite they bring lots of knowledge, arts & culture...barely they could be viewed as invaders at that time).
Hi! This is a wonderful piece of work. Of course it would have been very tedious to include all the smaller empires that are of less relevance today (such as the Mitanni) or the fragmentation of bigger empires (Alexander's empire kept fragmenting and shrinking for more than 400 years). But still, this animation has tremendous pedagogical value.
Saw presentation and all comments. Overall, feel that this gives a wonderful overview and gets the point across that this land has passed many many hands. Was there this summer and visited historical sites form many of the hands it has passed. Thnaks for doing this - alot of hard work - but great for us - wonderful overview. Great job - you are to be commended!
Turkey didn't gain its independence in 1923. In 1923, Republic was proclaimed and sultanate was abolished. Republic of Turkey is the continuation of "independent" Ottoman Empire.
I love this! I knew that the area had been occupied by a lot of different societies, but I never knew exactly who they were or where their boundries were. Thanks for this.
I am 12 years old and I am studying Ancient History. I wish you wouldn't have left out the Akkadian Empire, First Babylonian Empire, Third Dynasty of Ur (or Urian). I liked how the animation overlapped and I liked seeing the Hittite boundaries and the Egyptian holdings on Palestine and Syria. I also liked seeing how large the Mongol Empire was. I didn't know it was bigger than Rome.
Outstanding! Very informative and educational. It should be mandatory for HS history classes. It might miss some brief conquest periods, but does a good job demontrating long term and overall historical changes.
I love the map but the last part with the many changes taking place has no labels - could you do a time laps of the 20th C to the present with the names flashing slowly as it evolves? You could so another entirely new map.
I would love to use the map as a teaching tool. Any way I could download it?
Brilliant! I had this very idea for months but learning Flash was too much for me. I wish you luck, and hope that the map grows in complexity to include all of the world, so that the user can focus on a small part of the world (say, Balkans) and get the year-by-year sequence. Another suggestion is to allow the timer to move slower so that the contrast between "stable" periods vs. war periods is obvious. Thanks for doing this, I will visit often and try to use your sponsers.
An excellent piece of work. Brings to mind some of the oldest plastic 'overlays' I remember from some expensive books from the '70's.
Anytime one looks at history, there will be some analysis from current political viewpoints that suggest change, so that a pet notion seems more persuasive than it really was. Remember, all of the people from all of these empires are long dead, and should be forgotten, if our future is to based on current advanced thinking and human progress and not on 'historical' prejudices.
Otherwise, imagine an overlay that includes only remnants of humanity, and the successful conquest of the land by fauna more appropriate to extended, radioactive desert.
What a fantastic collection of maps. Well done to the creator. Thank-you very much.
As you can see by the history of the region, the growth of nation states in the past century has accelerated.
Nor many of you may be aware, but real Jewish prophecy states that it is only Moshiach who can form a state in the Holy Land, and that it is forbidden to do otherwise.
As prophesied, a Messianic state will supercede the current state of Israel. This transformation will occur probably before 2010, and definately before 2050.
Rather than "forget" history, we ought to realise from this excellent "moving map" that people of different races & religions have washed over this region continually for millennia, so all can claim some kinship to these lands but none can claim exclusive ownership. All were visitors in history. Hopefully this attitude will breed enough tolerance & understanding for peaceful co-existence.
Great tool from a teacher's point of view! Don't worry about the criticism, there is always somebody unhappy for something... Do you have more maps like this one? I am a Year 3 teacher and in this term we are looking at Ancient Egypt, and next term we will see Ancient Greece. Do you have any map focusing on those two? Thank you for your work. I think it is superb!
Inferring that your criteria for inclusion is the conquering of Jerusalem or Baghdad (or pre-Baghdad Mesopotamia)...
The biggest omission at this point is the Mamluks. They ruled Egypt and parts of Syria and the "Holy Land" for some 2 and a half centuries, from the 13th to the 16th. They should be put in between the Mongols and the Ottomans.
(It's amazing that people have brought up the Germans, who never controlled either area, but not the Mamluks.)
The Parthian Empire should probably be shown in the same frame as the Roman Empire, and they should probably be shown controlling Mesopotamia (Iraq), because they did so for more time than the Romans.
Someone else said that Turkey did not become independent in 1923, that should indeed be taken out.
"The Caliphate" is indeed a gross oversimplification, but no more so than the Mongols or "European Colonialism". It seems to me that that last one could be shown in multiple colors for the British, French and Italians.
Great animation.The only correction I would suggest is that the southern part of the Kingdowm of Israel (BC) was called "Judah" (after the tribe which made up its bulk) rather than "Judea" as you have used (which is a region, albeit in the same area) Compare these two links for further clarification: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Judah http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judea
Great to get a 90 second look at change of ocupation over the centuries. Would be much enhanced by a Key explaining what nationalities made up each of the empires.
nice job! However, it would be much more striking if it includes the expansion of current state of Israel. That kind of expansion policy (despite the internationally accepted laws today) is something new! Furthermore,it's more helpful to develop a context that considers both historical and current situation.
This map does not show other empires at the same time, nor does it explain how they ruled. The single kingdom of Israel is overstated and was never an empire and probably never existed as a single entity (lose the theological and stick with the archeological). Identify each of the colonial powers.
Without a volume of information defining each empire and the rule they held, the map is just a just a bunch of nice colors that have no meaning.
Excellent work, congratulations. hope it can get more details i see some controversy, and many opinions. think you did a great work with a outstanding idea. thank you very much
Slight error in the Gulf: You show independence dates of 1971 for Qatar & UAE, and for another spot. I'm not sure if that other spot is supposed to be Bahrain - in which case you are pointing at the wrong spot; or if you mean the last emirate to join the UAE, which I believe should be 1972.
You have forgotten the Great Selcuklu Empire and the Anatolian Selcuklu also. (I do not know the english names of the empires) For your information in 1071 Alparslan the khan of Great Selcuklu had first stepped in Anatolia through winning a battle with Byzantian Emp. It is the period when Omar Hayyam lived and also Hassan Sabbah, the Sheikh of Castle Alamut, of the Hashassıns (pls see the novel of the writer from Lebanon, unfortunately I do not remember the name at the moment) but sure there must have been many other empires.
Great work but there are still mistakes. You argue that "there are a number of other factions/empires" but this time u omitted a great Empire of Middle East - The Seljuks. And so, what is the reason of highlighting the ancient Kingdom of Israel and even its rise and division? Is it more significant than modern Israel's movements after 1948 in the region? Or is it to justify the existence of the present occupier & violence state of Israel? And what about US occupied Iraq?
I truly enjoyed your illustration of the evolution of the Middle East over time. I hope that many will see it and become aware of all the waves of civilizations that came and went over the centuries. Understanding the complexity of the Middle East would help to promote peace, I hope.
I would like to point out that Lebanon became independent in 1943. You may wish to make this correction towards the end of your presentation.
Israel's occupations are neither insigificant nor brief (unless we can fast-forward to a future where the issues are resolved). As a historian you have an obligation to not unfairly depict your subject.
Therefore, showing Israel's territories as larger than they were as decreed in agreements in 1948 not only invalidates your implicit claim to objective truth, but also ignores the cavalcade of condemnation and international outrage regarding Israel's 1967 transgressions. To be less lopsided, you would do well do show Israel's disputed expansion in '67, not stating it as matter-of-fact in '48--and labeling it as such.
In short, "State of Israel" founded with the borders you show is patently false.
The Romans didn't take eastern areas from the "Greek Empire" They took it from the Parthians and Ptolmeys amongst others.
There was no Greek Empire. I suppose there was a Macedonian Empire for a historically miniscule time during Alexander's lifetime, but it certainly didn't survive until the Romans came.
Major players in the east between Alexander's death and the Romans were: The Selucid, Antigonid, and Ptolmaic empires as well as Pergamon and later the Parthians.
The British had control of Iraq through world war two as well as Israel/Palestine and Egypt... That's what all that Rommel stuff was about. Likewise, the French had Syria and Lebanon throughout the war.
It is a very good idea to show. But you can do the same think for other continents like America, Africa and Australi in order to remember the nations who were under attack during the history. And you should check the border of Ottoman (Osmanlı) Empire since it covered also all middle east and Morocco.
Excellent! I am studying World History with my kids and I don't know what I was doing when we covered the early civilizations when I was in school. I assume we did cover it, but maybe that is an invalid assumption. Anyway, I am finding it very interesting this time around and this animation is great for putting the different empires in chronological order and to see how this bit of land has changed hands many, many times. Thanks.
What about five centuries of the Parthian Empire, Rome's most frustrating, costly headache.
And why no Phoenician settlements?
Lastly, your Kingdom of Israel can't be taken seriously. Where exactly is the evidence to support that? What monolithic art and architecture did ancient Jews ever produce? Meanwhile, we have loads of artifacts from their ancient contemporaries.
Can each layer or color be printed out separately to be shown on paper without the animation? I am teaching a history of the region and find the succession of maps interesting.
Whatever the input, and your clever portrayal - This is a very good tool for lovers of history and international politics... Thanks, congratulations, and best wishes.
The empire of Timur was skipped over. This was particularly significant for its incursion into India, but Timur also managed to conquer most of the Persian lands as well as the lands held by the Golden Horde. His empire lasted for some two hundred years, which is not insignificant, given the age of our empire.
Great work. But really u need to remove the Greek word becouse that empire was Macedonian and i also like the idea of making a map like this for the balkans.
Very fine work. It should be seen in every schoolroom. and other maps as well. What a great way to teach history and geography simultaneously. Slowing it down a tad would help to digest the transformation from one domination to the next one - also a way to backtrack would be useful. Thank you anyway for an excellent use of the web George Gaynes, Santa Barbara CA.
Adding to my previous comment: when I mentioned schoolrooms it's because I'm pretty sure this would get the kids' attention. It'something teachers desperately need. George Gaynes, Santa Barbara.
Concerning "Recapture of Fallujah" There are two errors which need comment: First of all, you have 1st Bn 3rd Marines listed twice in the assault of the town in Phantom Fury, 1st Bn 8th Marines should be located between 1/3 and 3/1 (which means Army 2/7 is incorrectly placed as well. Secondly, Bing West's book covers mostly the attack in April 2004 and not Operation Phantom Fury. Bing West is a big LtCol McCoy fan and 3/4 was only involved in the April 2004 offense and not Phantom Fury.
Very impressive and it's obvious you've put a lot of work into it. I'm with several others that say you've made a major omission by not showing Israel's changing borders, i.e., the expansion between the Mandate and "War of Independence," the 1967 occupations of Golan Heights and Sinai, and of course the 1967-present occupation and de facto annexation of the West Bank and Gaza. Those cover 60 years of history and have a *major* impact on the Middle East.
That is an excellent mural of history, though if it is to reflect war why is there no illustration of the first or second world war, simply because their reign did not last?
Someone else already mentioned it, but I'll second it: What's the reason for waiting 'til 117 to show the Roman Empire? Jesus & the events of the New Testament took place around year 0, and Rome's influence was in full swing by then. They destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem before 117!
The error is that Sassanids empire is also The Persian Empire. if one doesn't know would think that they were other than Persian. But I think this was more focused to show Arab Israel than whatever else. In general, Persian Empire existed 1000 years.
When I studied solar engineering in college I was shown a video of the spread of mankind to the new world. The perspective was high altitude and the time was compressed. It was striking to me how much like bacteria colonies this seemed. The resource related groupings and how settlements grew, shrank and interacted was quite enlightening. Perhaps as your project evolves the resolution will sharpen. I am looking forward to the outcome.
I recognize that for brevity's sake you could not possibly include all the minor skermishes here and there of the Middle East, but for the major controllers of the area you missed at least one big one. The Canaanites. See about them in your 2.0 version. Otherwise very impressive and well done.
It is great Idea. And I like the map. But it’s better to mention in front page of website and flash “this website is not historical research institution then any mistake is possible”
Because it is very nice flash for overview but it has a lot of historical mistakes
Pretty nice and relatively accurate. I think modern archeological findings proves a somewhat smaller kingdom of Israel (and even a older separation between "Israel" and "Judea").
It's absolutely true except for the Kingdom of Israel: according to history, it was the Kingdom of Canaan (popularly known as Phoenician), that even spread to Spain from the land of the today's Lebanon.
Very creative BUT... The kingdom of Israel was never that big. It was even smaller than the present state of Israel, and to be accurate, it was a kingdom over some small tribes and in any case wasn’t comparable to its neighbors’ empires rich with their cultures, like Egypt, Mesopotamia and Phoenicia (by the way you missed to mention the great cultural empire of Phoenicia). In fact, it was the wish of some Jewish prophets to spread the kingdom of Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates (what it's symbolized on the current Israeli flag), but the Jewish people, across their history, never fulfilled that wish (it's not a wish for Santa Claus, you Know! The latest confrontation with Hezbollah showed that they couldn't even spread this empire for 100 feet). These are facts that we can still read in the ancient Bible and history is unchangeable (take that example: even the word Bible comes from the name of the Phoenician city of Byblos – where the alphabet was invented – and not from Hebrew)...
Not a bad general overview of the subject. Maps are a bit wrong on a couple points. The most glaringe: the Byzantines didn't lose Egypt unitll the Caliphate.
But overall very cool. Did something like this at Universtiy many years ago, the concept is good, historical maps should change and shift over time. would be nice if the user could use a slider over the map.
very nice; however, the map shows only 1 empire at the time, wgich is not the true case: most of the History, there were at keast 2 empires at the same era. For example: Eygept and the Asurians - co-existed many years;
What amazes me the most in the end is that so few people among the commenters have pointed the fact that there is a SERIOUS issue with Israël 1967 boarders.
You did a great job in term of "how to show" a chronology and maps so people find it easy and attractive to learn about it. You are no historian and it is OK but only as long as you associated with serious historians.
This document is about boarders and it is about Israël. Missing some data only results in the manipulation of History. Being given the current situation, this cannot be just insignificant.
For over 2000 years dates have been identified as B.C. or A.D. Now we are force fed a revision that attempts to whitewash the most significant event in history. The birth of Jesus Christ. Where did the "common era" originate?
it's a nice job to show historical events in a graphical presentation.this will help people to understand historic events much more easily. by the way ,in your time chart you start showing ottoman empire period by 17th century.but as everyone knows ottoman empire was founded in 1299 and devoloped in 15th century after conquering istanbul(constantinapolis) capital of byzantian empire in 1453.so you have to start showing ottoman empire in your chart at least two centuries before.so your map show will be more realistic.
Tried to take your poll but couldn't -- was blocked by a message in red: "The domain of the email address does not exist". It does, I use it all the time. Sorry I couldn't complete the poll'
Excellent. Always wanted to do something like it. But if the map were static, instead of enlarging,reducing and moving, the perception would be better. Second comment, the longest war in history was that of the Romans (and afterwards the byzantines) against the partas of Persia, 600 years of continuous war, and I could not feel the frictions with neighburing countries.
Sad, yet interesting from a historical point of view. Just wanted to point out that the ottoman empire never really extended to Kuwait because of Anglo-Kuwaiti treaty. And I think the Caliphate Empire should been renamed to Umayyad Caliphate Emipre; there is the Caliphate empire before the Umayyad caliphate empire
WOW This is great. I never thought one could condense and display the long history so elloquently in less than 2 hours. 90 seconds is incredible. I will pass the link on to quite a few history teachers in the US.
Lots of nitpickers as well as meaningful comments. In balance, though, it is an excellent display and useful resource. perhaps your best features are feedback your responses. The fact that you make changes from time to time is a major plus. One suggestion: The time line is cute but showing actual date ranges may be more useful, especially when printing. Best wishes, David Silverman Antalya, Turkey
Great job! It may have a few minor inconsistencies, but you can't make everybody happy at once. I think you did what you set out to do very well indeed. Thanks - it put a lot of vague concepts into a degree of perspective.
The first civilizations shown, in order, are the Egyptian Kingdom, the Hittite Empire, and then the Kingdom of Israel. However, the Torah explains that Abraham, the patriarch of the Israelites, migrated from between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Babylon, which is modern day Iraq, into the land of the Philistines (from whence the word Palestine comes), where they then slaughtered the inhabitants, much like today, and took the land from the indigenous peoples. Thus, if the Kingdom of Israel is going to be shown, why isn’t the “Kingdom of Philistine” shown before it?.
The natural response to that question is, “The Philistine’s didn’t have an 'empire' to speak of.” That is correct. But neither did the Israelites. If you look at the map again you will notice that the so-called “Kingdom of Israel” pales by far in comparison to the magnitude of the other great empires, so much so that it begs the question why it is was even included in the map in the first place. And if the Kingdom of Israel constituted a kingdom worthy of inclusion on the map, then wouldn’t it stand to reason that the Kingdom of Philistine would also be worthy of mention since all the Israelites did was take over the Philistine’s land?
Notably, I had an excellent class in ancient history in undergrad by a professor that had a Ph.D. in the subject, and never was Israel recognized nor mentioned along with any of the great kingdoms of antiquity. Lemme' guess. Anti-semitism, right?
567 Comments:
Very nice work. But the map of Israel's borders at its founding were not the borders shown on the map. If anything you could show Egypt and Jordon swallowing and then losing their land grabs of Gaza and the West Bank. Then Israel's swallowing of Egypt up to Suez and losing it in pieces as part of the peace treaties. And of course Israel annexing the Golan Heights...
To be nitpicky, Jordan and Saudi Arabia have modestly adjusted their border relatively recently
Doesn't this map miss the brief invasion of, and conquest by, the Mongol empire in the region? Or is this less a map of the history of the Middle East and a history of the Levant?
Yes, there are a number of other factions/empires (both large & small) that controlled the Middle East. For the sake of brevity I had to choose which were the more important ones in terms of impact. Maybe for Version 2.0 I will add more!
Israel's brief military conquests were less important in the overall "big picture" of the region's history, so I chose not to highlight them.
Great idea, this developing map, but when did the Jews control the Middle East in the past (as suggested in the blurb at the top of the page). It seems a bit of an exaggeration to include Ancient Israel with Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt, Persia etc, perhaps even self-serviong on someone's part.
Great idea, this developing map, but when did the Jews control the Middle East in the past (as suggested in the blurb at the top of the page). It seems a bit of an exaggeration to include Ancient Israel with Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt, Persia etc, might perhaps even be construed as self-serving on someone's part.
The Kingdom of Israel was in no way more powerful than most of the Middle East's other empires. I highlighted Israel's ancient past in more detail than some other empires because I thought it would give a greater degree of context to recent current events in the Levant. Everyone knows where the state of Israel exists today, but few remember when and where it had previously existed.
STATEMENT ON THE HISTORICAL ACCURACY:
Just like our own perception of history, the map is imperfect. The goal of the project was not to create academic perfection, but to communicate two ideas:
(1) The Middle East has been controlled by many different peoples, cultures, and nations - it has never "belonged" to anyone for a terminal period of time.
(2) To subtly ask the question: who will control the Middle East next? (RE: the "Iranian Empire" prediction).
I hope that anyone who views the map will come away bearing these two points in mind, and that this exercise will provide a greater context to world events.
I'm the first and second "anonymous" poster. As a geographer, which is where I can get down to the nitpickyness, its hard to help myself! But I do sincerely appreciate that this animated map communicates very well. Great stuff and well thought out to use this medium.
Two corrections-
1.)The Assyrians never controled Fars-the Persian heartland, as indicated by your map.
2.)Neither the Umayyad or Abbiasids ever controled Asia Minor or the Balkans.
Let's just drop the big one, take their oil, and be done with the whole damn thing.
This is a very nice animation and I won't get into its accuracy, but what made me really mad is the end. WTF is the Iranian Empire, is this a historical animation or are you seeing the future? Why become political insead of sticking to historical facts? I live in Jerusalem and I find this to bhe just a cheap piece of propaganda in the anti-muslim campaign. Such a shame!
As a history buff, I loved this map. I find it so hard to teach history and this visual certaily spells out what the changes were and may continue to be.
You even want to include the US in the Iranian empire.
You can even include what Israel would look like should there be peace; a divided Israel, secular vs religious.
If you look at the sean Hannity site after the 2004 elelction, you can find a divided USA, blue vs red.
Just a thought!
I think the omission of the Khans' Mongol empire was a mistake. On one hand, they may have less to do with Baghdad and the Middle East than some of these other empires, but on the ohter hand I believe they controlled the largets area of any single empire in history. I would like to see them put it into the animation. Besides that nitpick I must say this animation was a great idea and executed quite well. Good job.
Also, it would seem to me that inclusion of the expansion of Israel's borders (and subsequent shrinking) would be quite pertinent to this topic. I.e. Golan Heights, Gaza Strip, West Bank, and their brief incursion but signiifcant incursion into Egypt's lands.
REVISIONS:
Due to some helpful user comments, I've improved the map a bit.
Revisions:
(1) "Iranian Empire" prediction was eliminated - this segment was too political.
(2) Mongol Empire was added
(3) Extend of the Assyrian Empire and Caliphate was reduced to better reflect historical fact
I enjoyed the animation, but it has a lot of historical errors in it.
It misses some major "names" in the history and other issues.
The one that caught my attention was the date of Iran's independent.
Iran has never been part of a colony, like other countries in the region, and saying that Iran became independent on 1979 is a very wrong informaiton.
Best regards,
/Farhad Abdolian
brilliant
Innacurate. Missed out the Sassanids completely!
The Sassanids were paralell to the Roman Empire and occupied all the way from Afghanistan to Israel depending on which maps you look at! They also left a significant mark on world history... check out wikipedia.
Roman empire never went that far to the east!
The whole this has some massive ommissions and is as the above poster said 'innacurate' in a very significant manner.
The animation is neat, and worked perfectly as of 09/25/2006 so I sent the URL to my son, but when he got to it it didn't seem to be working properly any more; now, whenever I reload the page (in Firefox) the text shows for a few seconds and then disappears. I can still play the animation by right-click / play, but there's no text at all -- not even in the bubbles that I can get to display over the timeline. I'm using Linux, he's using Windows -- did you change something?
The middle east history in brief is great for so many short-attention-span Americans that know little to nothing about the region.
However, your information about Fallujah is 100% one-sided. Recapture of Fallujah... "recapture" from whom? And you're right that the tactic left no means of escape for those trapped within the city - unfortunately about 40% of those were children, 20% women, many who could not leave because they had no where to go, and many who did not understand the danger when the orders were given to leave their homes. You lumped everyone left within the city as "the enemy". Are all Iraqi's the enemy? I thought U.S. forces were supposed to be "liberators"? Once the city was destroyed and the former residents allowed to return, they were fingerprinted, retina-scanned and given bar codes so they could be identified as residents of Fallujah should they attempt to leave the city. In other words, the city became a prison camp for EVERYONE who lived there. The infrastructure that was destroyed almost two years ago has not been rebuilt. Or maybe I'm wrong about that... how about a map of Fallujah today so we can see the improvements the American occupation has made?
roman empire never went that far to the north. The never get over the great rivers.
RE: Tom Myers,
Not sure what the problem could be...works fine everywhere else that I've tested it. Make sure you have the latest version of Macromedia Flash. Also, try clearing your cache and refreshing your browser.
Hope this helps!
Nice animation work . . . would have liked to see the early empires in the Tigris/Euphrates included (makes it look less Mediterannean-focused). Sumerians?
Also the note of the Sassanids made by another poster seemed valid.
Note that the animation of the Byzantine Empire and Caliphate seems a bit off - Constantinople fought on until the mid-1400s and the animation suggests that when the Crusader States arose there was no Byzantine Empire around.
Finally, BIG NOTE - your embedded version still has the Iranian Empire stinger in it and is inconsistent with the version on the website.
Finally, BIG NOTE - your embedded version still has the Iranian Empire stinger in it and is inconsistent with the version on the website.
Ah! Thank you. This has been fixed.
A great macro view of the ebb and flow of power across the region. I have to agree with an earlier comment though, that a micro view based on the more recent changes (over the last 100 years) would be a worthwhile addition.
What the hell? Where did you pull 1979 as the date of Iranian independence from? What are you, some sort of over confident mullah? There are other huge inacuracies, it omits Ashkanids and Sassanids, both more important to the ME than the Roman or Byzentine empires. It also stretches the Ottoman borders way into Persia near the modern Tehran (which never happened). And there was never a unified Mongol Empire in the sense that you've showed it. There were seperate khanates.
very nice but it should include the invasion of the nazi party
THIS IS UNBELIEVABLY GREAT, THANK YOU FOR POSTING THIS UP, WONDERFUL INFO
Macedonian and Greek empire?!!!? are you kidding? TGhere is no greek empire.nly Macedonian...
hani amerika ibneler
I don't know for how much it will count, but what about the Germans during WW2?
So, in the earliest times, Israel belonged to the Egyptians, so give it back!
Thank for the map, whatever its shortcomings, it is great that someone could do what I have been looking for for some time.
Just a couple of pointers I think may be important, especially when working with kids on history. 1. Could we have a version showing the map with the names of the current countries? This would show kids today how the world changes over long periods of time. 2. I would love to see a map that includes all of Europe, Russia and China..without labels, it's hard to know exactly what I'm looking at.
I am no geographer mpt cartographer but I loved it.
Also, since I am not geeky enough, how does one "embed" map? I would love to embed in my blogs.
Again, absolutely great job and thank you.
An email friend forwarded this to me and I'm blown away. It is fantastic! I showed it to my grandson today, a history buff, and he loved it too. I think some of the negatives I've read are a bit picky. Seems to me your point was to show the great ebb and flow of history over the region. Your skill in ding this is amazing. Thank you! And please do similar maps for other parts of the world--Southeast Asia for e.g.
Lebanon's year of independence is incorrect. It declared in 1941 and was recognized in 1943. Syria's recognized independence was 1946, it's just Lebanon you have wrong. :)
Very good work, but may I suggest to include the capitals of the various empires and nations.
Nice work, but there are some problems. First, how are you defining the Middle East? From what I gather, the focus is on the Levant (or lands bordering the Middle East.) Geograpic regional geography is always controversial. Indeed, do current ideas of a Middle East really work backwards across time? But if we are going to use the term Middle East, don't we really need to look at other subregions it emcompases over time? The current concept of the Middle East extents from Egypt to Turkey through Iran and down to including all the Arabian peninsula.
With that in mind .... certain political entities from the past should be here. What about Mesopotomian Kindgoms from 2000 BCE to 900 BCE? What about Phonecian City states and their cultural empire in the Mediterannean World from 900 CE to 100 CE? What about the Safavid Dynasty in Persia from 1500 to 1750 (roughly.) What about the Seljuk Turk kingdom in the 11 Century? Why not distinguish between the Ummayad and Abassid Caliphates? Plus, these maps over exagerrate the extend of their real political control over areas they claimed.
This is exactly the sort of thing I love to discover. I really want to find a map such as this one that traces the movements and splits of religions. Thank you for this.
Greek empire?!?Tell me who was greek Alexander or his father Filip?!?Why are you writing that greeks have empire!?!Are you greek or member of some greek political party.You making me smile.Greek empire ... hehehhhehee... Macedonian yes but Greek... :-)
an independent Jewish kingdom existed during the second and first century B.C, before the Roman rule over the land of Israel.
fantastic. Gives me a much better view of where what and how of the whole world.
I thought that it was very interesting, and I would agree with one of your correspondents that a pause between segments would be useful. As would a commentary.
Bill C
I thought that it was very interesting, and I would agree with one of your correspondents that a pause between segments would be useful. As would a commentary.
Bill C
A great concept and neat animations! Obviously time will bring greater refinement, such as present and/or contemporaneous borders and capitals overlaid to help as a teaching aid.
Also, as the progression is too fast to absorb and compare properly, the inclusion of a pause button or a fixed pause and print facility at the end of each section would help enormously in providing time to appreciate the developments.
Ultimately it could be interactive at the end of each stage to provide greater background and detail to those who wish to research that particular section.
We look forward to seeing how this intriguing project evolves. Great work - congratulations!
Fascinating. Behind it all I look at the photojournalists' efforts and think "what's the attraction?". I see barren hillsides and deserts where it is difficult or impossible to sustain life, and I wonder just what is the attraction? Is it simply that a "religious" movement which is purely a human invention has inflamed people to the point where power over the traditional territory has become irrationally all-consuming? I see no other attraction. I pity the millions who have been duped.
You forgot to mention a recent change in borders.
1990-present Iraq is owned by the US.
where are the Illyrians?and pellasges?
Love the graphics!!! This is very impressive, and gives one a great perspective of what has gone on in the past.....who will control it in the future??? Good question. Great job, I always enjoy your blogs.
Lynn
This is very good, but it smooths out a lot of detail. 'The Caliphate' is too general: there was an Umayyad Caliphate, an Abbasid Caliphate, a Fatimid Caliphate, Ilkhanids, Ghaznavids, Mamluks, Ayyubids, there was a small Safavid empire, the Russians penetrated Central Asia and took parts of northern Iran, Iran was never under full colonial rule (hence not 'independent 1979'). Can you squeeze some of this in?
2 corrections
I think Cyprus and Malta should be included in Crusader Kingdom
Iran INdependance date in 1979 is not a serious date
1. The kingdom of the Israelites, shown prior to the expansion of the Assyrian Empire, is the product of fantasy...Eretz Y'Israel is the product of wishful thinking and political propaganda.
2. The Parthian, Arascid, and Sassanid empires are not shown, nor is the Timurid expansion from Central Asia in the 16th century.
3. What happened to the Seljuks and the Mamluks?
How about adding the two modern German Reichs?
EXCELLENT START AND WISH AND HOPE IT WILLI IMPROVE IN TIME. MY EXPECTATION IS THAT, IN TIME IF IT KEEPS ITS NEUTRALITY, IT WILL BE A SOURCE FOR NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC.
CONGRATULATIONS!
great stuff..technically walt disney could have done this in the 1930s but instead we got mickey mouse, however this has finaly happened and its giving history a whole new modality , dimension
The date for Iraqi independent is off by a year...it was 1931, not 1930.
Excellent, interestin and thought-provoking
re the Mideast map animation - it is pretty and informative, yet a bit confusing if you don't know the area well. Many of us need a basemap to orient us otherwise we can't figure out were these various empires are.
1) you should start with Mesopotamian developments at the same time as Egyptian.
2) Most of the empires/states/realms etc. did not simply disappear as your developments indicate. Most shrank or broke apart but some major aspects persisted for very long stretches of time.
3) You completely missed the Parthian Empire and Second Persian Empire.
4) Your original Israel is exaggerated both in time and space, if not completely fictional.
Hi, nice job. Just a short comment; 1979 is the year of Iranian revolution, not Independence. Iran's main land was never colonized.
greetz
I´m sorry but what you call Caliphate never controlled the north of Spain.
Iran is one of the oldest countries in the world. The independence date (1970) is incorrect, That was the year of recent Islamic revolution in Iran which finished the long 2500 years of Iranian Kingdom and converted the country government to Islamic republic.
Iran does not have an independence day. Please fix it.
wow
Wonderful piece of work! I'll treasure it in my library of quality web sites.
nice try-- but all the hard data in the world is not going to convince a religious or political fanatic to change his/her opinions.
It goes too fast to not have a 'pause' button.
Better still would be to not have an automatic slide show, but rather a user-operated button to move to the next map.
It is too bad that the time line is not drawn to scale and misrepresents its relative time spans and therefore also the animation. On my screen, a time scale of 5 thousand years is 5 1/2 inches long. The first 3 thousand yeaers are contained in half the scale, 2 1/4 inches, leaving the last 2 thousand years in the remaining 2 1/4 inches. The span from 1140 to 1187 is over one quarter inch while the 1800s seem to have disappeared entirely. I think it is a great representation of history and geography. It could be better by correctly animating the passing time to scale.
Very Informative & Interesting, Thank you
Welcome to the future we're glad you made it.
I don't know about all the nitpicky things in the other posts but I thought it was great for an average guy like me. Thank you so much.
Truly a breakthrough way to portray history! I'm 65+, and I've never been well-oriented in time, so I don't have a good sense of what happened when, let alone how it affected geography. This presentation lets me see things I've wondered about since I first learned about maps. Probably detailed snapshot maps are the best way to handle some of the small issues commented on by others. Keep up the good work.
iran has not independent day in 1979 it was only islam revoltion but iran was not colony please fix it .reza
Excellente synthèse : pour savoir où on va, il faut savoir d'où on vient. Quant aux arbres qui poussent haut (et qui vont loin), ils ont tous de solides racines.
L'histoire et la géographie sont vitales.
Un grand bravo !
"The Caliphate" is vague. Different families ruled (Ummayds, Abbasids, Fatimids, Seljuks), and the early Arab caliphate broke up once the Ummayds rose to the throne. The Fatimids and Abbasids, (Shi'i and Sunni respectvely) were also at war with each other.
Then there are the "slave dynasty" of the Mamlukes that rose to prominence in Egypt.
But otherwise, a very good idea. Well done!
As a 13-year-old child growing up in Hong Kong and attending a very British King George V high school in Kowloon, I was first introduced to Colin McEvedy’s Penguin Atlas of Medieval History in 1966. I found the cartographic representation of a civilization’s “area of conquest/influence” an invaluable tool to understanding the sequence of historical events down through the ages.
So, in the mid-1990s, at the dawn of the Internet, I envisioned a nifty piece of software/website, that would display the entire world as a slowly spinning globe with the political divisions displayed on it for any time period in world history. With several built-in navigational aids to change the date or focus on a specific part of the world, I thought such a program could be a fantastic resource for historians, and for the world public to become better acquainted with world history.
It also soon occurred to me that companion text would be necessary to explain the changes to world’s political geography. The project, at least in my mind, exploded into a huge undertaking, employing armies of historians with every possibility of current political ramifications and conflicts (think Macedonia). Thus, as a penniless computer support professional, with little programming experience in animation or cartography, the idea wandered to a little niche at the back of my mind, to be continued … maybe … or maybe not …
Thank you for your graphical presentation of the geopolitics of the Middle East and Mesopotamia through time, which prompts this note. It was fun to see a partial realization of this idea, however modest. By the way (you may already know this), amazingly, 40 years later, Colin McEvedy has recently updated his Penguin historical atlases of Europe, which can be purchased on Amazon very reasonably.
Best of luck in your future endeavors on this,
-- Tryon Wells
that was too good man.
i never could quite picture all the empires. nto liek this anyway :)
Very interesting thanks for sharing. It is amazing to think that all of these kingdoms have came and went. The nation of Israel has withstood all of these empires and are still standing strong.
This is fascinating!
Hey
Althoght couple of persons before me has mentioned this but the error is still there and has not been fixed. Iran has never been colonized;therefore it does not have independence day. 1979 is the year of Iran's revolution not independence year. Also Ottaman empire never get that far into Iran, in fact their eastern borderline was the same as it is today between Iran and Turkey and finally Persian empire territory that you have shown in your work belongs to Acamenid kingdom of Persia and there is another and even bigger kingdom of Sasanid which came after the Greeks and extincted before Arabs and I do not see that there.
Thanks
Phoenicians are missing as well as some of the Islamic Empires (Mamlouks, etc.). But a great introduction to anyone who doesn't know the history of the region.
a couple of comments:
(1) you left out the sejuk empire entirely (it's between the byzantine and ottoman empires)
(2) it's pretty misleading to call a single empire "the caliphate." the borders you show are roughly the borders of the ummayid caliphate. but after only about 100 years it lost most of its territory to the abassid caliphate (the ummayids continued to rule spain and parts of north africa). after that were hundreds of years of different conflicting arab dynasties and polities, each ruled by someone called a caliph. calling them all a "caliphate" because they all call their leader a "caliph" is like labeling all of mideaval and renaissance europe "the kingdom" and pretend it was one single empire.
(3) the byzantine empire existed throughout the existence of the various caliphates, and through the sejuk period. it wasn't until the ottoman empire that the byzantines were finally destroyed.
Hi,
didn't the germans in WW 2 control parts of the midle east?
Very nice technical work. Historical work is not bad.
May we infer from this, then, that unless dominated from without, the peoples of the Middle East will always war with one another?
It is a great job. Well done. But one important fact was missing. The Great SELCHUK Turkish Empire which reigned in Persia and Anatolia, including the Middle East.11-14 th centuries.
Regards.
Isik Biren
Strategist
Ret. Admiral Turkish Navy
Very nice but in "the caliphate" all of the spanish territory is under the rule of this empire, which is not true. A small kingdom in the north (asturias) resisted the invasion and was the starting point of the "reconquista" of spain which lead to the expel of the islamic invaders in 1492 (despite they bring lots of knowledge, arts & culture...barely they could be viewed as invaders at that time).
Hi! This is a wonderful piece of work. Of course it would have been very tedious to include all the smaller empires that are of less relevance today (such as the Mitanni) or the fragmentation of bigger empires (Alexander's empire kept fragmenting and shrinking for more than 400 years). But still, this animation has tremendous pedagogical value.
Saw presentation and all comments. Overall, feel that this gives a wonderful overview and gets the point across that this land has passed many many hands. Was there this summer and visited historical sites form many of the hands it has passed. Thnaks for doing this - alot of hard work - but great for us - wonderful overview. Great job - you are to be commended!
Cute how Iraq's explosion has nothing to do with the American invasion. Nice job!
Congratulations: very clear. But I'm not sure the Sassanide empire was so late. Look: they existed from 224 to 642 after J.-C.
Turkey didn't gain its independence in 1923. In 1923, Republic was proclaimed and sultanate was abolished. Republic of Turkey is the continuation of "independent" Ottoman Empire.
Excellent work. So persuasive.
I love this! I knew that the area had been occupied by a lot of different societies, but I never knew exactly who they were or where their boundries were. Thanks for this.
I am 12 years old and I am studying Ancient History. I wish you wouldn't have left out the Akkadian Empire, First Babylonian Empire, Third Dynasty of Ur (or Urian). I liked how the animation overlapped and I liked seeing the Hittite boundaries and the Egyptian holdings on Palestine and Syria. I also liked seeing how large the Mongol Empire was. I didn't know it was bigger than Rome.
Outstanding! Very informative and educational. It should be mandatory for HS history classes. It might miss some brief conquest periods, but does a good job demontrating long term and overall historical changes.
I love the map but the last part with the many changes taking place has no labels - could you do a time laps of the 20th C to the present with the names flashing slowly as it evolves? You could so another entirely new map.
I would love to use the map as a teaching tool. Any way I could download it?
Brilliant! I had this very idea for months but learning Flash was too much for me. I wish you luck, and hope that the map grows in complexity to include all of the world, so that the user can focus on a small part of the world (say, Balkans) and get the year-by-year sequence. Another suggestion is to allow the timer to move slower so that the contrast between "stable" periods vs. war periods is obvious. Thanks for doing this, I will visit often and try to use your sponsers.
great
An excellent piece of work. Brings to mind some of the oldest plastic 'overlays' I remember from some expensive books from the '70's.
Anytime one looks at history, there will be some analysis from current political viewpoints that suggest change, so that a pet notion seems more persuasive than it really was. Remember, all of the people from all of these empires are long dead, and should be forgotten, if our future is to based on current advanced thinking and human progress and not on 'historical' prejudices.
Otherwise, imagine an overlay that includes only remnants of humanity, and the successful conquest of the land by fauna more appropriate to extended, radioactive desert.
Hello from the Great Southern Land !
What a fantastic collection of maps. Well done to the creator. Thank-you very much.
As you can see by the history of the region, the growth of nation states in the past century has accelerated.
Nor many of you may be aware, but real Jewish prophecy states that it is only Moshiach who can form a state in the Holy Land, and that it is forbidden to do otherwise.
As prophesied, a Messianic state will supercede the current state of Israel. This transformation will occur probably before 2010, and definately before 2050.
Prophecy is immutable.
Sincerely
Adam Neira
www.worldpeace2050.com
outstanding
i tried to embed this map on my blogspot-blog, but this doesn`t work. there only appears an empty white spot, even if i wait for ages nothing happens.
where`s the problem? how can i fix it?
Rather than "forget" history, we ought to realise from this excellent "moving map" that people of different races & religions have washed over this region continually for millennia, so all can claim some kinship to these lands but none can claim exclusive ownership. All were visitors in history. Hopefully this attitude will breed enough tolerance & understanding for peaceful co-existence.
Great tool from a teacher's point of view! Don't worry about the criticism, there is always somebody unhappy for something...
Do you have more maps like this one? I am a Year 3 teacher and in this term we are looking at Ancient Egypt, and next term we will see Ancient Greece. Do you have any map focusing on those two?
Thank you for your work. I think it is superb!
Would be helpful if the present day configuration of states is shown throughout the history.
Inferring that your criteria for inclusion is the conquering of Jerusalem or Baghdad (or pre-Baghdad Mesopotamia)...
The biggest omission at this point is the Mamluks. They ruled Egypt and parts of Syria and the "Holy Land" for some 2 and a half centuries, from the 13th to the 16th. They should be put in between the Mongols and the Ottomans.
(It's amazing that people have brought up the Germans, who never controlled either area, but not the Mamluks.)
The Parthian Empire should probably be shown in the same frame as the Roman Empire, and they should probably be shown controlling Mesopotamia (Iraq), because they did so for more time than the Romans.
Someone else said that Turkey did not become independent in 1923, that should indeed be taken out.
"The Caliphate" is indeed a gross oversimplification, but no more so than the Mongols or "European Colonialism". It seems to me that that last one could be shown in multiple colors for the British, French and Italians.
ERASE all man made BORDERS on Earth
see, more info at...
http://www.OneGlobalCommunity.com
R U A Earth Citizen ( Yet ) ?
You made this map, so you have the right to predict the future of your map- why not include the iranian empire ?
Terrific instant history lesson
Hey! Where is Sargon? How about including Sargon I.
Great animation.The only correction I would suggest is that the southern part of the Kingdowm of Israel (BC) was called "Judah" (after the tribe which made up its bulk) rather than "Judea" as you have used (which is a region, albeit in the same area)
Compare these two links for further clarification: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Judah
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judea
Great to get a 90 second look at change of ocupation over the centuries. Would be much enhanced by a Key explaining what nationalities made up each of the empires.
Fascinating 90 second view of history that really brings home the idea there is an ebb and flow to empires. Thank you.
What is happening in the gray areas while the empires are happening in the colored areas? are the uninhabited or are they just indepentent?
Nice Idea, can be much better if it is corrected.
I would like see all the states at the same time around middle east (gray areas).
As far as i know, when the jesus was born at 0, Roma was ruling the middle east.
nice job! However, it would be much more striking if it includes the expansion of current state of Israel. That kind of expansion policy (despite the internationally accepted laws today) is something new! Furthermore,it's more helpful to develop a context that considers both historical and current situation.
This map does not show other empires at the same time, nor does it explain how they ruled. The single kingdom of Israel is overstated and was never an empire and probably never existed as a single entity (lose the theological and stick with the archeological). Identify each of the colonial powers.
Without a volume of information defining each empire and the rule they held, the map is just a just a bunch of nice colors that have no meaning.
I think you had forgottten The Selcukku Turk Emphire. You should rebuild your map.
Excellent work, congratulations.
hope it can get more details
i see some controversy, and many opinions.
think you did a great work with a outstanding idea.
thank you very much
Slight error in the Gulf:
You show independence dates of 1971 for Qatar & UAE, and for another spot. I'm not sure if that other spot is supposed to be Bahrain - in which case you are pointing at the wrong spot; or if you mean the last emirate to join the UAE, which I believe should be 1972.
Awesome! Basic knowledge for anyone who wants to understand the complexity of the world we live in today!
You have forgotten the Great Selcuklu Empire and the Anatolian Selcuklu also. (I do not know the english names of the empires) For your information in 1071 Alparslan the khan of Great Selcuklu had first stepped in Anatolia through winning a battle with Byzantian Emp. It is the period when Omar Hayyam lived and also Hassan Sabbah, the Sheikh of Castle Alamut, of the Hashassıns (pls see the novel of the writer from Lebanon, unfortunately I do not remember the name at the moment) but sure there must have been many other empires.
Nice animation. A few questions.
1. Are you sure the Byzantine Empire included Italy?
2. No body ever controlled the Saudi peninsula?
Great work but there are still mistakes. You argue that "there are a number of other factions/empires" but this time u omitted a great Empire of Middle East - The Seljuks. And so, what is the reason of highlighting the ancient Kingdom of Israel and even its rise and division? Is it more significant than modern Israel's movements after 1948 in the region? Or is it to justify the existence of the present occupier & violence state of Israel? And what about US occupied Iraq?
Great idea and work. But can not be used as a reference for history!..
I truly enjoyed your illustration of the evolution of the Middle East over time. I hope that many will see it and become aware of all the waves of civilizations that came and went over the centuries. Understanding the complexity of the Middle East would help to promote peace, I hope.
I would like to point out that Lebanon became independent in 1943. You may wish to make this correction towards the end of your presentation.
Thanks and regards,
Nice work. But where is the Seljukid Empire?
Israel's occupations are neither insigificant nor brief (unless we can fast-forward to a future where the issues are resolved). As a historian you have an obligation to not unfairly depict your subject.
Therefore, showing Israel's territories as larger than they were as decreed in agreements in 1948 not only invalidates your implicit claim to objective truth, but also ignores the cavalcade of condemnation and international outrage regarding Israel's 1967 transgressions. To be less lopsided, you would do well do show Israel's disputed expansion in '67, not stating it as matter-of-fact in '48--and labeling it as such.
In short, "State of Israel" founded with the borders you show is patently false.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7828123714384920696
The Romans didn't take eastern areas from the "Greek Empire" They took it from the Parthians and Ptolmeys amongst others.
There was no Greek Empire. I suppose there was a Macedonian Empire for a historically miniscule time during Alexander's lifetime, but it certainly didn't survive until the Romans came.
Major players in the east between Alexander's death and the Romans were: The Selucid, Antigonid, and Ptolmaic empires as well as Pergamon and later the Parthians.
The British had control of Iraq through world war two as well as Israel/Palestine and Egypt... That's what all that Rommel stuff was about. Likewise, the French had Syria and Lebanon throughout the war.
It is a very good idea to show. But you can do the same think for other continents like America, Africa and Australi in order to remember the nations who were under attack during the history. And you should check the border of Ottoman (Osmanlı) Empire since it covered also all middle east and Morocco.
This is the most amazing I have ever seen!!!
Just a small clarification and hope you can fix
the mistake: Lebanon took its independance
in 1943, and not 1946.
Excellent! I am studying World History with my kids and I don't know what I was doing when we covered the early civilizations when I was in school. I assume we did cover it, but maybe that is an invalid assumption. Anyway, I am finding it very interesting this time around and this animation is great for putting the different empires in chronological order and to see how this bit of land has changed hands many, many times. Thanks.
About Shiit v Sunni in Baghdad,if you see the map carefully, the most important info is the mixed earea in Baghdad, No?
In fact the river is Tigris not Euphrates as you said.
About Shiit v Sunni in Baghdad,if you see the map carefully, the most important info is the mixed earea in Baghdad, No?
In fact the river is Tigris not Euphrates as you said.
What about five centuries of the Parthian Empire, Rome's most frustrating, costly headache.
And why no Phoenician settlements?
Lastly, your Kingdom of Israel can't be taken seriously. Where exactly is the evidence to support that? What monolithic art and architecture did ancient Jews ever produce? Meanwhile, we have loads of artifacts from their ancient contemporaries.
Great map - thank you, however, where are the Summerians, the Sea Peoples and the Phoenicians?
Can each layer or color be printed out separately to be shown on paper without the animation? I am teaching a history of the region and find the succession of maps interesting.
Whatever the input, and your clever portrayal - This is a very good tool for lovers of history and international politics... Thanks, congratulations, and best wishes.
this map isn't correct.. maybe until 1100's but definitely not after 1100s-1200s..
..and please, the jewish kingdom, what kingdom.. :)
Don't forget; Anatolia since 1071, Istanbul since 1453..
Only thing I saw missing was the Mamluk Sultanate which succeeded the Crusader states but was before the Ottoman Empire.
In your map of Fallujah, the foreground is actually north, not west as it's labeled. Cool site.
it's a cool service but if they were a bit smaller one could embed them nicely into the blogger posting column.
Very nice work.
The empire of Timur was skipped over. This was particularly significant for its incursion into India, but Timur also managed to conquer most of the Persian lands as well as the lands held by the Golden Horde. His empire lasted for some two hundred years, which is not insignificant, given the age of our empire.
I think the Babylonian Empire preceded the Assyrian Empire - the reverse of what you have. Otherwise it's a great work.
Great work. But really u need to remove the Greek word becouse that empire was Macedonian and i also like the idea of making a map like this for the balkans.
very informative
Very fine work. It should be seen in every schoolroom. and other maps as well.
What a great way to teach history and geography simultaneously.
Slowing it down a tad would help to digest the transformation from one domination to the next one - also a way to backtrack would be useful.
Thank you anyway for an excellent use of the web
George Gaynes, Santa Barbara CA.
Adding to my previous comment: when I mentioned schoolrooms it's because I'm pretty sure this would get the kids' attention. It'something teachers desperately need.
George Gaynes, Santa Barbara.
Very nice and informative. Do you ever ost other wars online?
Concise and clear, but the changes should be slower.
Colourful & informative. Nice Work!
awesome!
Sasha from Los Angeles
Concerning "Recapture of Fallujah"
There are two errors which need comment: First of all, you have 1st Bn 3rd Marines listed twice in the assault of the town in Phantom Fury, 1st Bn 8th Marines should be located between 1/3 and 3/1 (which means Army 2/7 is incorrectly placed as well.
Secondly, Bing West's book covers mostly the attack in April 2004 and not Operation Phantom Fury. Bing West is a big LtCol McCoy fan and 3/4 was only involved in the April 2004 offense and not Phantom Fury.
Very impressive and it's obvious you've put a lot of work into it. I'm with several others that say you've made a major omission by not showing Israel's changing borders, i.e., the expansion between the Mandate and "War of Independence," the 1967 occupations of Golan Heights and Sinai, and of course the 1967-present occupation and de facto annexation of the West Bank and Gaza. Those cover 60 years of history and have a *major* impact on the Middle East.
That is an excellent mural of history, though if it is to reflect war why is there no illustration of the first or second world war, simply because their reign did not last?
Really Excellent
Someone else already mentioned it, but I'll second it: What's the reason for waiting 'til 117 to show the Roman Empire? Jesus & the events of the New Testament took place around year 0, and Rome's influence was in full swing by then. They destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem before 117!
Great Job, Thank you!
The error is that Sassanids empire is also The Persian Empire. if one doesn't know would think that they were other than Persian. But I think this was more focused to show Arab Israel than whatever else. In general, Persian Empire existed 1000 years.
When I studied solar engineering in college I was shown a video of the spread of mankind to the new world. The perspective was high altitude and the time was compressed. It was striking to me how much like bacteria colonies this seemed. The resource related groupings and how settlements grew, shrank and interacted was quite enlightening. Perhaps as your project evolves the resolution will sharpen. I am looking forward to the outcome.
Amazingly cool! Can you make one for all the world's empires over time?
I recognize that for brevity's sake you could not possibly include all the minor skermishes here and there of the Middle East, but for the major controllers of the area you missed at least one big one. The Canaanites. See about them in your 2.0 version. Otherwise very impressive and well done.
It is great Idea. And I like the map. But it’s better to mention in front page of website and flash “this website is not historical research institution then any mistake is possible”
Because it is very nice flash for overview but it has a lot of historical mistakes
//Ashim
very nice!
you should add a year counter on the top (it is hard to notice the bar at the bottom...)
Pretty nice and relatively accurate. I think modern archeological findings proves a somewhat smaller kingdom of Israel (and even a older separation between "Israel" and "Judea").
Spell armistice correctly, not armistace.
Excellent. You've done a great job with this.
I've learned more in a couple of minutes about middle eastern history than learned in years of school :)
It's absolutely true except for the Kingdom of Israel: according to history, it was the Kingdom of Canaan (popularly known as Phoenician), that even spread to Spain from the land of the today's Lebanon.
Very creative BUT... The kingdom of Israel was never that big. It was even smaller than the present state of Israel, and to be accurate, it was a kingdom over some small tribes and in any case wasn’t comparable to its neighbors’ empires rich with their cultures, like Egypt, Mesopotamia and Phoenicia (by the way you missed to mention the great cultural empire of Phoenicia).
In fact, it was the wish of some Jewish prophets to spread the kingdom of Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates (what it's symbolized on the current Israeli flag), but the Jewish people, across their history, never fulfilled that wish (it's not a wish for Santa Claus, you Know! The latest confrontation with Hezbollah showed that they couldn't even spread this empire for 100 feet).
These are facts that we can still read in the ancient Bible and history is unchangeable (take that example: even the word Bible comes from the name of the Phoenician city of Byblos – where the alphabet was invented – and not from Hebrew)...
weird - the pool is bigger after occupation.
excellent presentation
Not a bad general overview of the subject. Maps are a bit wrong on a couple points. The most glaringe: the Byzantines didn't lose Egypt unitll the Caliphate.
But overall very cool. Did something like this at Universtiy many years ago, the concept is good, historical maps should change and shift over time. would be nice if the user could use a slider over the map.
that was just aweful!
Very nice, But has no sound, why?
I'm sorry to say but the map has a lot of error about Israel.
you need to fix the boarders because israel still control the Golan Hights if you like it or not, you should change it.
very nice; however, the map shows only 1 empire at the time, wgich is not the true case: most of the History, there were at keast 2 empires at the same era. For example: Eygept and the Asurians - co-existed many years;
It would be nice to have some stop/play buttons
What amazes me the most in the end is that so few people among the commenters have pointed the fact that there is a SERIOUS issue with Israël 1967 boarders.
You did a great job in term of "how to show" a chronology and maps so people find it easy and attractive to learn about it. You are no historian and it is OK but only as long as you associated with serious historians.
This document is about boarders and it is about Israël. Missing some data only results in the manipulation of History. Being given the current situation, this cannot be just insignificant.
Another note: there is no year "0"!
Brilliant!
I would suggest adding Iran's Safavid empire to the map though. It existed at the same as the Ottoman empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safavid_dynasty
Very enlightening. Gives a glimpse of world geography very important in the present era of TV-Internet .
For over 2000 years dates have been identified as B.C. or A.D. Now we are force fed a revision that attempts to whitewash the most significant event in history. The birth of Jesus Christ.
Where did the "common era" originate?
it's a nice job to show historical events in a graphical presentation.this will help people to understand historic events much more easily.
by the way ,in your time chart you start showing ottoman empire period by 17th century.but as everyone knows ottoman empire was founded in 1299 and devoloped in 15th century after conquering istanbul(constantinapolis) capital of byzantian empire in 1453.so you have to start showing ottoman empire in your chart at least two centuries before.so your map show will be more realistic.
Tried to take your poll but couldn't -- was blocked by a message in red: "The domain of the email address does not exist". It does, I use it all the time. Sorry I couldn't complete the poll'
Excellent. Always wanted to do something like it. But if the map were static, instead of enlarging,reducing and moving, the perception would be better. Second comment, the longest war in history was that of the Romans (and afterwards the byzantines) against the partas of Persia, 600 years of continuous war, and I could not feel the frictions with neighburing countries.
Sad, yet interesting from a historical point of view. Just wanted to point out that the ottoman empire never really extended to Kuwait because of Anglo-Kuwaiti treaty. And I think the Caliphate Empire should been renamed to Umayyad Caliphate Emipre; there is the Caliphate empire before the Umayyad caliphate empire
The most fantastic graphical display that summarizes historical content in the Middle East that I have ever seen.
Well done
nice map, but to be extremely picky.. The Romans never crossed the rhine river. They never conquered all of what is now Holland (The Netherlands)
Why only 5,000 years? What do we know about the Americas, Africa, China?
As a matter of fact, how far back can we go?
A pretty good job on a complex subject. Much slower progression of the maps depicting the various empires over the years would be helpful.
WOW This is great. I never thought one could condense and display the long history so elloquently in less than 2 hours. 90 seconds is incredible. I will pass the link on to quite a few history teachers in the US.
Lots of nitpickers as well as meaningful comments. In balance, though, it is an excellent display and useful resource. perhaps your best features are feedback your responses. The fact that you make changes from time to time is a major plus. One suggestion: The time line is cute but showing actual date ranges may be more useful, especially when printing.
Best wishes,
David Silverman
Antalya, Turkey
And the spanish empire under Carlos V?
I'm sure there are inaccuracies and omissions, but the design was great and presented important information with concision.
Great job! It may have a few minor inconsistencies, but you can't make everybody happy at once.
I think you did what you set out to do very well indeed. Thanks - it put a lot of vague concepts into a degree of perspective.
Désolé pour le français :
Très bon (very good), instructif, bien fait (well done), vivant (?)
Intelligent.
The animation (I'm work with Flash) it's a very good job...
But with the History, so sorry, you have one problem, because there are so many wrong things
For me, the worst error is forgeting Spanish Empire, may be because was in many places of the world.
And One question: Why Israel is so important? (may be this job was made with jew money?)
This map has a patently Zionist slant.
The first civilizations shown, in order, are the Egyptian Kingdom, the Hittite Empire, and then the Kingdom of Israel. However, the Torah explains that Abraham, the patriarch of the Israelites, migrated from between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Babylon, which is modern day Iraq, into the land of the Philistines (from whence the word Palestine comes), where they then slaughtered the inhabitants, much like today, and took the land from the indigenous peoples. Thus, if the Kingdom of Israel is going to be shown, why isn’t the “Kingdom of Philistine” shown before it?.
The natural response to that question is, “The Philistine’s didn’t have an 'empire' to speak of.” That is correct. But neither did the Israelites. If you look at the map again you will notice that the so-called “Kingdom of Israel” pales by far in comparison to the magnitude of the other great empires, so much so that it begs the question why it is was even included in the map in the first place. And if the Kingdom of Israel constituted a kingdom worthy of inclusion on the map, then wouldn’t it stand to reason that the Kingdom of Philistine would also be worthy of mention since all the Israelites did was take over the Philistine’s land?
Notably, I had an excellent class in ancient history in undergrad by a professor that had a Ph.D. in the subject, and never was Israel recognized nor mentioned along with any of the great kingdoms of antiquity. Lemme' guess. Anti-semitism, right?
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