Life and Thought in the Ancient Near East

Physical Background: Landforms, Climate, and Hydrology of the Near East

Physical Background Landforms, Climate, and Hydrology of the Near East T hink of the Near East as a single piece in the gigantic jigsaw puzzle of the earth’s surface, the piece that joins the immense region of western Asia to the edges of Europe and northeastern Africa, respectively. These edges do not connect to Europe or to Africa in a ‹rm or continuous way. The land mass at the European edge is interrupted by the Bosporus Strait, a narrow and treacherous waterway that connects the Black Sea on the north to the Sea of Marmara and the Mediterranean Sea on the south. The connection to Africa is a narrow coastal land bridge, which links Palestine to the northern Sinai Peninsula. Altogether the Near East is a sort of “island,” whose boundaries are great bodies of water, imposing mountain ranges, and deserts: on the west, looking from south to north, the Red Sea, including the Nile and its contiguous desert wastes, the eastern Mediterranean, the Aegean Sea, and the Bosporus; on the north the Pontic Mountains, which front the Black Sea; to the east the Zagros Mountains range, which divides present -day Iraq from Iran; and to the south the Persian/Arabian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, and the Gulf of Aden. Our imagined island is composed of two geologically contrasted regions. The northernmost region, comprising what is today Turkey and including the border zone between present-day Iraq and Iran as well as the ranges of Lebanon and lower Palestine, is densely mountainous. The southernmost areas are underpinned by very ancient and stable rock structures. Differences in climate covering the entire territory of the 137 Near East account for surface differences between a verdant north and a desert south. Rain rarely falls in the Near East below the six-inches-peryear isohyet line except in the Mediterranean coastal areas, where winter and spring rains can produce raging ›oods. Where rain is absent, rivers and their tributaries and seasonal watercourses nourish crops; high water tables allow well-digging in the desert. Even morning dew can cause the desert surfaces to bloom as well as provide water for animals and their masters. All other conditions being considered, it is the presence or absence of water, in whatever available amounts and frequencies of occurrence, that determined the styles of life of ancient Near Eastern peoples. Egypt Beginning with Egypt, we note that the Nile, its eternal benefactor, ›ows a thirty-‹ve-hundred-mile course on its way to the Mediterranean from its sources in the highland regions of east central Africa. Emerging from a vast watershed, two principal branches, the White Nile and the Blue Nile, unite at Khartoum to form the greater river itself. Between Khartoum and Aswan lies a zone in which six cataracts form impediments to travel. From Aswan northward, the Nile has cut a bed through a narrow, cliff-edged valley, whose width is about six miles until it broadens into the Delta below Cairo. At Cairo the Delta region begins, and the Nile ›ows to the sea in two main channels, the Rosetta Branch on the east and the Damietta Branch on the west, while innumerable little streams, larger lakes, and standing swamps cover the almost nine hundred square miles of Delta land and make it a formidable barrier to communication . In the Nile Valley human life is oriented principally to the north and south, for the river is the main avenue of every habitable community. All villages, towns, and cities are thus inevitably connected by a common artery, whose rate of ›ow is easy and inviting to sailing craft. From the Nile Valley a small number of important routes lead to the outside. On the west caravan tracks connect to the northern oases of Natrun and the Fayyum, while at the latitude of Thebes they reach to the more southerly one of Kharga. To the east of the valley stand the eastern highlands , which are cut by a number of extremely deep wadis that serve to connect the Nile and the Red Sea. The one chie›y used in antiquity was the Wadi Hammamat, which lies slightly to the north of Thebes. Toward the south, river traf‹c can come without dif‹culty as far as the 138 LIFE AND THOUGHT IN THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST island of Elephantine, which lies at Aswan above the First Cataract, but further progress is possible along caravan routes leading into the Sudan, or the river may continue to be followed...