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refers to early civilizations in a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq and Syria), Persia (modern Iran), Armenia, Anatolia (modern Turkey), the Levant (modern Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan), and Ancient Egypt, from the beginnings of Sumer in the 6th millennium BC until the region's conquest by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC.
The ancient Near East is considered the Cradle of Civilization. It was the first to practice intensive year-round agriculture; it produced the first writing system, invented the potter's wheel and then the vehicular- and mill wheels, created the first centralized governments, law codes and empires, as well as introducing social stratification, slavery and organized warfare, and it laid the foundation for the fields of mathematics, medicine and astronomy.
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Selected article
The Hittites were an Anatolian people who spoke a language of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. They established a kingdom (ca. 1800 – 1180 BC) centered at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia and reached its height ca. the 14th century BC, encompassing a large part of Anatolia and interacting with Assyria, Mitanni and ancient Egypt. The collapsed ca. 1180 BC, during the upheavals of the Bronze Age collapse; a number of independent " Syro-Hittite" city-states then emerged, some surviving until as late as the 8th century BC.
Although belonging to the Bronze Age, the Hittites were forerunners of the Iron Age, developing the manufacture of iron products from as early as the 14th century BC, when letters to foreign rulers reveal the demand for their iron goods. The Hittites were not, however, the first to work iron, and iron remained a precious metal throughout the history of their empire.
Selected biography
Darius I, the Great ( Old Persian: Dārayavahuš, "upholder of good", reigned 522 – 486 BC) ascended the Achaemendi throne amid controversy and bloodshed that claimed two sons of Cyrus the Great, but managed to expand the Achaemenid Empire to its greatest extent, being stopped by the Greeks at the Battle of Marathon. He reformed the army and navy, as well as commerce and coinage, built roads throughout his empire, and a canal from the Nile river to Suez. He also founded the city of Persepolis, built a palace in Susa, and commissioned the Behistun Inscription, which would become the modern key for deciphering the cuneiform script.
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