History of the Mediterranean region

The history of the Mediterranean region and of the cultures and people of the Mediterranean Basin is important for understanding the origin and development of the Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Canaanite, Phoenician, Hebrew, Carthaginian, Minoan, Greek, Persian, Illyrian, Thracian, Etruscan, Iberian, Roman, Byzantine, Bulgarian, Arab, Berber, Ottoman, Christian and Islamic cultures.

The Mediterranean Sea was the central superhighway of transport, trade and cultural exchange between diverse peoples encompassing three continents:[1] Western Asia, North Africa, and Southern Europe.

There is evidence of stone tools on Crete in 130,000 years BC,[4][5] which indicates that early humans were capable of using boats to reach the island.

[10] As of 1990, gold artifacts found at the Wadi Qana cave cemetery of the 4th millennium BC in the West Bank were the earliest from the Levant.

In the 2nd millennium, the eastern coastlines of the Mediterranean are dominated by the Hittite and Egyptian empires, competing for control over the city states in the Levant (Canaan).

Many of the most important Phoenician settlements had been established long before this: Byblos, Tyre, Sidon, Simyra, Arwad, and Berytus, all appear in the Amarna tablets.

The Greeks spread to the shores of the Black Sea, Southern Italy (the so-called "Magna Graecia") Gaul and Asia Minor.

Both the Phoenicians and some of the Greek city states in Asia Minor provided the naval forces of the Achaemenid Persian Empire.

The empire, founded by Cyrus the Great, would include Macedonia, Thrace and the western Black Sea coast (modern day southeastern and eastern Bulgaria), Egypt, Anatolia, the Phoenician lands, the Levant, and many other basin regions of the Mediterranean later on.

[17] Both the Phoenicians and the Greeks provided the bulk of the naval forces of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, alongside the Cypriots and Egyptians.

Their Macedonia empire included present-day Greece, Bulgaria, Egypt, the Phoenician lands and many other basin regions of the Mediterranean and Asia Minor.

By 435 AD it had lost southern France and all of Iberia to the Visigoths, and much of North Africa to the Vandals, thus ending its monopoly over the Mediterranean coast.

The rule through the 6th century AD saw climatic instability, causing inconsistent production, distribution, and a general economic decline.

Venetian ships from the 9th century armed themselves to counter the harassment by Arabs while concentrating trade of oriental goods at Venice.

[22] The powerful and long-lived Bulgarian Empire was the main European rival in the region of the Mediterranean Balkan peninsula between the 7th and the 14th centuries, creating an important cultural, political, linguistic and religious legacy during the Middle Ages.

The Byzantine provinces of Roman Syria, North Africa, and Sicily, however, could not mount such a resistance, and the Muslim conquerors swept through those regions.

[23] Much of North Africa became a peripheral area to the main Muslim centers in the Middle East, but Al Andalus and Morocco soon broke from this distant control and became highly advanced societies in their own right.

The Fatimids maintained trade relations with the Italian city-states like Amalfi and Genoa before the Crusades, according to the Cairo Geniza documents.

Motivated by religion and dreams of conquest, the kings of Europe launched a number of Crusades to try to roll back Muslim power and retake the Holy Land.

[26] The Zirid state in eastern Maghreb developed around the great metropolis of Kairouan collapsed in mid 12th century, with a henceforth fragmented Ifriqiya becoming a ground for competing external powers from then on.

[27] The high Middle Ages also saw the successive rise of two Berber powers, the Almoravids and the Almohads, in the Western Maghreb, fostering the developments of cities such as Marrakech and Fez upon their control over Trans-Saharan trade.

[31] The "Repubbliche Marinare" (Maritime republics) of Amalfi, Gaeta, Venice, Genoa, Ancona, Pisa and Ragusa developed their own empires in the Mediterranean shores.

The Islamic states had never been major naval powers, and trade from the east to Europe was soon in the hands of Italian traders, especially the Genoese and the Venetians, who profited immensely from it.

While once all trade from the east had passed through the region, the circumnavigation of Africa allowed gold, spices, and dyes to be imported directly to the Atlantic ports of western Europe.

France spread its power south by starting their conquest of the Regency of Algiers in 1830 and later gaining control over the Beylik of Tunis.

The Mediterranean countries were preferred because of the shorter route, and port cities such as Trieste with their direct, fast access to Central and Northern Europe were booming.

During the first half of the twentieth century the Mediterranean was at the center of the expansion of the Kingdom of Italy, and was one of the main areas of battle during World War II between the Axis and the Allies.

Cold War tensions split the Mediterranean into pro-American and pro-Soviet factions, with Turkey, Greece, Spain, Italy and France being NATO members.

American naval power made the Mediterranean a base for the United States Sixth Fleet during the Cold war.

Today, the Mediterranean Sea is the southern border of the European Union and represents one of the largest area by Trade in the World.