I am looking for some expert advice on a documentary narration I am
writing for a school resource pack. It must condense human history in
the Middle East from the beginning of time til the modern period into
5-6 minutes! (Modern history - including nationalism and colonialism -
will be covered separately) It will definitely not be able to cover
everything but I would like to know:
1) whether there are any obvious and important gaps, and
2) if it is misleading or creates misconceptions.
It can't be much longer that it already is and must use language and concepts which will be understood by 11-15 year olds.
Thanks!
The History of the Middle East
The Middle East is an ancient land
– modern humans probably crossed from Africa into what is now Yemen 70,000
years ago. There is evidence across the Middle East
of human settlement from this time onwards. And it was from here that the human
race initially spread out to populate Asia, Europe, Australia,
the Americas and, much more
recently, New Zealand.
For thousands of years people
lived a nomadic lifestyle, moving from place to place and not living in
permanent houses. Until recently, there were still many nomadic people in the Middle
East, particularly in the deserts to the south.
Around 12,000 years
ago, humans
first began to take control of their environment and the earliest
evidence of
farming has been found by archaeologists in the river valleys east of
the Mediterranean. 6000 years later the wheel, the plough and
irrigation were invented making larger scale farming possible.
Farmers were now able to produce
more food than they could eat, which meant others no longer had to produce
their own food – they were able to specialise in one job and exchange their
work for food. People had time to perfect their skills – they created great
works of art and beautiful gardens.
In order to farm, people needed to
live in one place rather than moving around. 5,500 years ago, the earliest
cities in the world were founded - in Mesopotamia, now Iraq. Evidence
of the first writing was also appears around this time – called cuneiform.
Great civilizations developed in the Middle East – like the city-states of Sumer in Mesopotamia, the Egyptians, the
Achaemenids in Persia
and the sea-faring Phoenicians.
As civilizations grew, people
wanted products that were not available in their own lands, such as exotic
spices, silks, metals, and animals.
Products were first traded within the community, or with individuals
from neighbouring communities. However, complex long distance trading routes
soon developed. Specialized traders known as merchants organized caravans that
covered distances of thousands of miles, bringing the products of one society
to trade them for products from another society. The Phoenicians controlled
much of the southern coast of the Mediterranean
by creating colonies, or towns, through which they traded. They brought with
them their alphabet from which most of today's alphabets are derived.
The Greeks also created trading
colonies around the Mediterranean – many of these in the Middle
East. After Alexander the Great conquered much of the north of the
Middle East, Greek culture became influential
in these regions and the Greek language became the language of trade. Much like
the dominance of American culture today, the Greeks did not rule over the
Middle East, instead local people adapted Greek culture and mixed it with their
own traditions.
Later, the Roman Empire invaded
and controlled areas in the west but many people in the Middle
East remained free of Roman occupation. The Jews of Judea resisted
occupation and it is believed that many were forced to leave their country.
Christianity became the official religion of Rome in the 4th century and other religions
became less tolerated. Under the enforced peace of Rome, trade expanded and...
...contact between
peoples and the
use of a common Greek language meant that ideas could be shared – great
advances were made in philosophical, medical, mathematical and
scientific
knowledge. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, this knowledge was
lost to Europe, until the invasions by the Crusaders in the 11th
century. In the Middle East, however, people
continued to expand on this knowledge.
In the 7th century,
Islam was founded in what is now Saudi Arabia. Arabs, who lived mostly in the
south and as far north as Petra in Jordan,
moved north. In a little over a century they conquered or converted a vast
region which became a series of Muslim empires. Many in these empires were Christian and
Jewish and often continued to practice their religion. Persia, modern day Iran, converted slowly from
Zoroastrianism to Islam over 400 years. Islam united a large area of the world
and Arabic became the common language. Some, like the Persians of Iran and the
Kurds, retained their identity and language. Many people, Muslims, Christians
and Jews, came to consider themselves Arabs.
With Muslim unity and a common
language, came great advances in Science, technology and the Arts. Thousands of
universities, hospitals, and libraries were established. Following trade
routes, such as the Silk Road, people and ideas from Asia, Africa and Europe
came together in the Middle East. This Golden Age ended after a series of
attacks from Asia and Europe, and a change in trade routes which bypassed the Middle East.
Most of the Middle East was
dominated by the Ottoman Empire and successive empires in Persia until
the 20th century.