West Asian government: the stele of Naram-Sin shows the king leading his troops to victory. Empires and city-states Since the time of the Akkadians, about 2300 BC, West Asian government has [...]
Earliest known dice (Iran, ca. 2600 BC) See that the six is already opposite the one, as on modern dice? But check out this Harappan die. The people of West Asia really [...]
Sumerians sipping beer through straws (ca. 2500 BC) The people of West Asia traditionally divided themselves into two groups who had very different eating and drinking habits. These two groups thought [...]
Snow in Afghanistan Afghanistan West Asia is a dry place, where it's always hard to get enough water and there are a lot of fights over water. The easternmost part [...]
Black Sea coast (from Turkey) The Black Sea was originally a fresh-water lake. In the Stone Age, many people lived around the edge of this lake. But around 7000 BC, as the [...]
Coin of the Sassanian king Hormizd V (ca. 593 AD?) The most important part of the Sassanian economy, as in all other states in Late Antiquity, was farming - most people still were farmers, growing [...]
Iron Age economy: Phoenician glass - a face pendant of an African man. 400-200 BC Traders in the Mediterranean The rise of the Assyrian empire (in modern Iraq) and of the Phoenicians (in modern [...]
Obsidian tools West Asia is located in the middle of the very wide land mass we call Europe and Asia and Africa, and so it has always played an important part [...]
Dark Age economy: The temple of Goliath's town, Gath - apparently founded by the Philistines, when they fled the economic problems at home and arrived in Israel around 1100 BC [...]
West Asian economy: Bronze Age tin ingots from a shipwreck near Haifa Trading for tin When people first began to use bronze, about 3000 BC, they had to trade a lot more [...]
