Ancient West Asia

Western Asia or West Asia is the westernmost subregion of Asia. It comprises of the four ancient regions of Anatolia, Arabia, Levant and Persia and Mesopotamia.

History
The world's earliest civilizations developed in Western Asia. For most of the last three millennia, the region has been united under one or two powerful states; each one succeeding the last, and at times, eastern and western based polities. The major states and powers in this regard were the Assyrian Empire, the Babylonian Empire, the Achaemenid Empire, Ancient Israel, the Seleucid Empire, the Parthian Empire, the Roman Empire, the Sassanid Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Umayyad Caliphate, the Abbasid Caliphate, the Safavid Empire, the Afsharid Empire, the Ottoman Empire and Hittite Empire.

Geography
Western Asia is located directly south of Eastern Europe. The region is surrounded by seven major seas; the Aegean Sea, the Euxine Sea, the Caspian Sea,the Persian Sea, the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea.

To the north, the region is delimited from Europe by the Caucasus Mountains, to the southwest, it is delimited from Africa by the Isthmus of Suez, while to the east, the region adjoins Central Asia and South Asia. The Dasht-e Kavir and Dasht-e Lut deserts in eastern Iran somewhat naturally delimit the region from Asia itself.

Climate
Western Asia is primarily arid and semi-arid, and can be subject to drought, but it also contains vast expanses of forest and fertile valleys. The region consists of grasslands, rangelands, deserts, and mountains. Water shortages are a problem in many parts of West Asia, with rapidly growing populations increasing demands for water, while salinization and pollution threaten water supplies. Major rivers, including the Tigris and Euphrates, provide sources for irrigation water to support agriculture.

There are two wind phenomena in Western Asia: the sharqi and the shamal. The sharqi (or sharki) is a wind that comes from the south and southeast. It is seasonal, lasting from April to early June, and comes again between late September and November. The winds are dry and dusty, with occasional gusts up to 80 kilometers per hour (50 miles per hour) and often kick up violent sand and dust storms that can carry sand a few thousand meters high, and can close down airports for short periods of time. These winds can last for a full day at the beginning and end of the season, and for several days during the middle of the season. The shamal is a summer northwesterly wind blowing over Iraq and the Persian Gulf states (including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait), often strong during the day, but decreasing at night. This weather effect occurs anywhere from once to several times a year.

Topography
Western Asia contains large areas of mountainous terrain. The Anatolian Plateau is sandwiched between the Pontus Mountains and Taurus Mountains in Anatolia. Mount Ararat in Anantolia rises to 5,137 meters. The Zagros Mountains are located in Persia, in areas along its border with Mesopatamia. The Central Plateau of Persia is divided into two drainage basins. The northern basin is Dasht-e Kavir (Great Salt Desert), and Dasht-e-Lut is the southern basin.

In Southern Arabia, elevations exceed 3,700 meters in many areas, and highland areas extend north along the Red Sea coast and north into the Levant. A Geological fault-zone also exists along the Red Sea, with continental rifting creating trough-like topography with areas located well-below sea level. The Dead Sea, located in the Levant, is situated at 418 m (1371 ft) below sea level, making it the lowest point on the surface of the Earth.

Rub' al Khali, one of the world's largest sand deserts, spans the southern third of the Arabian Peninsula, parts of South East Arabia, is a small range of mountains located in northeastern Oman, bordering the Gulf of Oman.

Anatolia
The prehistory of Anatolia stretches from the beginning of man through to the appearance of classical civilisation in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. It is generally regarded as being divided into three ages reflecting the dominant materials used for the making of domestic implements and weapons: Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age. The term Copper Age (Chalcolithic) is used to denote the period straddling the stone and Bronze Ages.

Anatolia (Turkish: Anadolu), known by the Latin name of Asia Minor, is considered to be the westernmost extent of Western Asia. Geographically it encompasses the central uplands of modern Turkey, from the coastal plain of the Aegean Sea east to the mountains on the Armenian border and from the narrow coast of the Black Sea south to the Taurus mountains and Mediterranean coast.

The earliest representations of culture in Anatolia can be found in several archaeological sites located in the central and eastern part of the region. Stone Age artifacts such as animal bones and food fossils were found at Burdur (north of Antalya). Although the origins of some of the earliest peoples are shrouded in mystery, the remnants of Bronze Age civilizations such as the Hattian, Akkadian, Assyrian, and Hittite peoples provide us with many examples of the daily lives of its citizens and their trade. After the fall of the Hittites, the new states of Phrygia and Lydia stood strong on the western coast as Greek civilization began to flourish. Only the threat from a distant Persian kingdom prevented them from advancing past their peak of success

Persia and Mesopatamia
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