Unique Facts About Fertile Crescent

Tap to Read ➤ Azmin Taraporewala

Scour the write-up to explore the depths of this historical concept called fertile crescent. This would indeed be an interesting read for all those, whose forte revels in the study of excavation and exploration of civilization.

Ardent lovers of history may contain a full-fledged elucidation or sustain a scar-tipped reminiscence of the concept termed Fertile Crescent. Chronicled as the cradle of civilization, the region played surrogate to some of the premier civilizations. Technology, too, flourished, tinctured with inventions.

The wheel and the abacus are some of the most noteworthy accomplishments of the era, which have been adumbrated in this write-up. These facts would prove useful in activating your gray cells devoted to the historical jury.

Fertile Facts

☞ The fertile crescent can be defined as the middle-east patch of countries that witnessed the first glimpse of civilization with regard to villages, agriculture, and farming.

☞ The term was constructed and made familiar by James Henry Breasted. The Director of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, this scholar hailing from ancient Egypt explicated this concept for the first time in his book "Ancient Times: A History of the Early World."

☞ Its definition remains incomplete, if the countries belonging to the middle east stretch are not mentioned. The countries that proved testimony to the fact of civilization cropping up were the hilly regions of Palestine extending north towards the Mediterranean coast and stretching further towards Syria.

Navigating southwards to the east of Tigris and Euphrates river, culminating the patch in the Persian Gulf. The region that is covered by the wake of civilization is interestingly in the shape of a semicircle.

☞ The crescent, around 8000 BC, was not well populated nor had agriculture taken a strong stead. However, the region was the first to look into the agricultural front, where wild wheat, barley, pulses of peas, chickpeas, lentils, and flax were the predominant crops that served to be the hallmarks of agricultural practice.

☞ The region has benefited by the irrigation program manifolds. The natural fertility of the crescent has not only been preserved, it has bettered by the day, as well. The richness of the soil continues to enrich the agricultural sector no end.

☞ It was in the crescent region that nomads and hunters took up noteworthy occupations and were coveted the first farmers the world ever had. They now had the resources to settle down and indulge in future planning in terms of family and the required feed.

☞ Catal Huyuk, Jericho, Jarmo, Beidha, Ali Kosh and Hassuna were the first towns to have ever emerged in the wake of civilization.

☞ The term 'fertile crescent' is used sometimes in conjugation with Egypt, as Egypt was also the first civilizations to have been born.

☞ The roots of Horticulture stemmed from this civilization. Figs, pomegranates, grapes, and olives were the first products cultivated in the fertile crescent.

☞ The region near the Persian gulf started to develop first, giving rise to the Sumerian civilization that set sail the primary and the key foundation of alphabets and numerals. The city of Ur was born .. where the wheel was first spun and mathematical questions were first solved.

☞ The Sumerian were the first excavators in their league to have invented the concept of ziggurats or temples. Their purpose in life was to worship the Supreme Power, Who was the creator of every spec that constitutes the cosmos.

☞ The Sumerian went on to extend their region northward, making the region all the more wide and influential. The empire that they built upon and worked for, came to be known as Mesopotamia, which means 'land between two rivers'.

☞ The Akkadians encroached the Sumerian land called Mesopotamia and soon began to mix about with the Sumerian culture. The Akkadians in their process of invasion, invented abacus -- a mathematical tool that makes complex calculations easy.

☞ The fertile crescent is a term that has come under the microscopic lens of critical mutual scrutiny by scholars, historians, and scientists. They strongly opine that the term does not hold any validity in describing the historical phenomenon. Nevertheless, it is a term, to date used widely to denote the spring of villages, cities, and agriculture in the primary stance of civilization.

Thus, the history of fertile crescent ceases to fade from the mind and -- with utmost certainty -- has left behind traces, only to remind us of its 'still' existence.