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People of the Bronze and Iron Ages thought the world was flat, and they knew only a little bit of the world, the small part where they lived; and they thought that if you went too far the world came to an end where you would
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If we should go up in an airplane and look down on the world at the place where the first civilized people once lived, we should see several rivers, seas, and a gulf, and from so high up in the air they would look something like this:
Map of Mesopotamia and Mediterranean
Now, you probably have never even heard of these rivers and seas, and yet they have been known longer than any other places in the world. One of these rivers is the Tigris River, and another is the Euphrates. They run along getting closer and closer together until at last they join each other and flow into what is called the Persian Gulf.
You might make these two rivers in the ground of your yard or garden or draw them on the floor if your mother will let you. Just for fun you might name your drinking cup Tigris and your glass Euphrates . Then you might call your mouth, into which they both empty, the Persian Gulf , for you will hear a great many new names by and by, and as grown-up people give names to their houses and boats, to their horses and dogs, why shouldn’t you give names to things that belong to you? For instance, you might call your chair, your bed, your table, your comb and brush, even your hat and shoes, after these strange names.
Then, if we flew in our airplane to the west, we should in the northeast corner of Africa see a country called Egypt, a river called the Nile, and a sea now named the Mediterranean. Mediterranean simply means between the land, for this sea is surrounded by land. It is, indeed, almost like a big lake. It is supposed that long, long ago in the Stone Age, there was no water at all where this sea now is, only a dry valley, and that people once lived there.
Along the Nile in what is now Egypt, and along the Tigris and Euphrates in what was then Babylon, Assyria, and Syria, lived people who were recording their activities in writing and pictures that have survived to this day.
Certainly there were cave men and other primitive peoples who were drawing pictures of their way of life. But because travel was not easy in those days, people in one region didn’t know a great deal about people in another part of the world. This was soon to change.
Many different groups of people lived in the country of the Tigris and Euphrates and along the Nile, and all of them wanted to own the best land. There were many battles. People moved around a lot—because they lost a battle and had to move or just because they were looking for a better place to live.
One group or family of people called Semites lived in the land that today we call the Middle East, near the Mediterranean Sea and the Tigris and Euphrates. Modern Arabs and Jews are Semites. They speak Semitic languages that are part of one language family and sound very similar. Here’s an example. In Hebrew, the word for peace is shalom . In Arabic, the word for peace is salaam .
Another group of people lived along the Nile. In Egypt and other parts of North Africa, Egyptians and people called Berbers were related to the Middle Eastern Semites. Nubians who came from the part of Africa south of Egypt belonged to a group of people called Nilo-Saharans. If you look at a map, you can see how they got this name. They lived along the Nile River and near the Sahara Desert. These Nubians traveled northward along the Nile Valley into Egypt. And sometimes Egyptians traveled south into Nubia.
Another group of people came from the area that is now Iran. They are called Indo-Europeans, and they spread eastward into northern India and westward into Europe. Today, people in Europe, Iran, and India are descended from these early Indo-Europeans. Just like the Semites, they speak languages that are related to each other.
We know now that these ancient peoples moved around a lot more than we used to think they did. They taught each other to grow different kinds of food. They exchanged goods with each other. And sometimes people settled down in the new land and stayed there. Just as the United States has seen many nationalities of people move here and become Americans, people in ancient times also migrated and settled down in a new land.