Curated playlist
Levant
- SumerSumerian farmers grew so much extra grain that they built the first cities.
- GalileeGalilee's name appears in Egyptian inscriptions from the 15th century BC. Scholars still debate their meaning.
- LevantThe Levant gets its name from a word meaning "rising," as in where the sun rises.
- SyriaIn December 2024, rebels took Damascus and ended the Assad family's 53-year rule of Syria.
- EuphratesIn 2014 Turkey cut the Euphrates off completely at its border with Syria.
- LebanonLebanon takes its name from a Phoenician root, lbn, which means white. The word apparently describes the snow on its mountain peaks. The name is far older than the modern country. It turns up in Middle Bronze Age texts from the library of…
- PetraPetra, the ancient stone city of southern Jordan, was unknown to the western world until the year 1812. That year a Swiss traveller named Johann Ludwig Burckhardt was heading toward the Niger River when he heard stories of a dead city that…
- DamascusDamascus once drew an extravagant outburst from Mark Twain in his travel book The Innocents Abroad. He addressed the city directly. "Though old as history itself, thou art fresh as the breath of spring," he wrote. He went on to call it…
- IsraelIsrael sits at one of the strangest addresses on the planet. Its eastern side drops to the Dead Sea, the lowest point on the surface of the Earth. Its western coast meets the Mediterranean, and its southern tip touches the Red Sea. On land…
- PalmyraQueen Zenobia of Palmyra seized Egypt from Rome in 270. Emperor Aurelian later crushed her revolt.