Middle East
"They say in the Middle East - a pessimist is simply an optimist with experience."
- – Ehud Barak
The Middle East is a region that broadly spans from Egypt in the west to India in the east with northern and southern borders being the Black & Caspian sea and the Arabian Sea respectively. In the middle of all of this is over 6000 years of civilization, at least half-a-dozen awesome and significant cultures, more history than you can shake a...anything at really and also a fuckton of culture, wars and mineable stuff. The importance of the region and it's myriad of cultures has not lessened in the 20th and 21st centuries as the region continues to be, if not exactly influential, then influenced due to the resources and politics going on around it and within it.
Since it is Europe's closest neighbour, the region and it's societies have been interacting with the smorgasbord of Europe's cultures since at least the Bronze Age so there are a number of analogues of Middle Eastern societies in fantasy and even sci-fi. Dungeons and Dragons has Al-Qadim, Lord of the Rings has Harad, Game of Thrones has Mereen and so on. And this is not even counting Video Games either.
Middle Eastern History
The Middle East, being one of the ¨cradles of civilization¨ has metric gigatons of history under it's belt, more than even China so the sections below will be the broadest overviews by necessity. Still the history van be roughly divided into 4 periods with a number of sub-periods within each. So strap yourself in as we dive into the deep end of history.
- Ancient History (4000 BC - 500 AD) -
Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis and the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of...
- Sumer and Akkad -
- Assyrians, Persians and Romans -
- Medieval History (500 - 1300) -
You want it? It's yours sadiq, so long as you have enough gold!
- Pre-Islamic period -
- Islamic Caliphates -
- Early Modern History (1300 - 1918) -
- The Ottoman Empire -
- Modern History (1918 - 20XX) -
Middle Eastern Culture
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Middle Eastern Religion, Gods and Mythology
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Middle Eastern Magic
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Middle East Analogs in Fantasy
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