By Sameh Selim: Lake of ancient civilizations

 

Mr. Sameh Selim

By Sameh Selim: Lake of ancient civilizations

It was said in the ancient Roman myths in ancient history that the Romans made the Mediterranean a large semi-closed lake after most of the countries bordering the Mediterranean were affiliated with the great Roman Empire. They believe that bypassing these columns to the Atlantic Ocean, known as the Sea of ​​Darkness, contains giant sea monsters, dinosaurs, and so on.

Ancient civilizations arose on the shores of this large lake or the Mediterranean Sea. Great religions and empires emerged that invaded and controlled the old world and thus dominated the navigation and trade movement in the Mediterranean.

Among the most prominent and oldest civilizations that appeared successively in that period are the Mesopotamian civilization on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, the ancient Egyptian Pharaonic civilization, the Hittite civilization, one of the Bronze Age civilizations in north-central Anatolia, the Phoenician civilization in the western coastal part of the Fertile Crescent, the Canaanite civilization at the end of the Bronze Age, and the Minoan civilization, which it originated in the island of Crete concerning King Minos and the Greek civilization, which continued until the death of Alexander the Great, who founded the Egyptian city of Alexandria and the archaeological library of Alexandria that exists so far. The Ottoman civilization in Asia Minor at the hands of the Turkish tribes and then turned into a secular state at the hands of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

In our brief presentation of the ancient civilizations on the shores of the Mediterranean, we do not forget what happened in the modern era in southern Europe, specifically in Italy in the contemporary Renaissance, which began in Italy in all parts of Europe. The Renaissance style spread in northern Italy in Milan and Venice by artists, scholars, and thinkers from Florence. Until the epidemic of the Renaissance quickly spread in Europe to other countries such as France, Spain, Portugal, and others, Europe turned upside down until the Industrial Revolution, which ended in World War I.

At the end of my talk, I would like to point out that the Mediterranean was an influential and essential region of the ancient, modern, and contemporary world.