October 03, 2006

5,000 years of Middle East history in 90 seconds a flash-based movie showing who's occupied the Middle East lands over time. G'wan, learn something today. via the MetaFian Empire
posted by petebest 18 years ago
  • petebest...great link for those of us that need the visuals! I passed this along to some teacher folks I know! Thanks...
  • Much cool, petemeister. *salutes*
  • ze best of the Web! Long live the Monkeyfian Empire! Hail, Centurion Prefect PeteBest!
  • *salutes, accidentally slaps self in face* Agh. Um, who was there before the Egyptians? Didn't they beat up somebody to get it? Why not go on back to the "cradle of civilization" point? Why start with the Egyptians?
  • I bow in your general direction, Caliph Petebest
  • I saw the flash from across the room. Looked like a nuclear Armageddon, so I ducked.
  • from the wiki place, petebest... "Ancient Egypt developed over at least three and a half millennia. It began with the incipient unification of Nile Valley polities around 3500 BCE" ..looks like the culture evolved from native peoples, as opposed to the "come in and beat them up" philosophy of change we now accept as the norm in our world..
  • Ahh, so there were people being beaten up for that land before Egypt, they just didn't have a flag. Got it. Thanks HB!
  • petebest... actually, from what I read, it didn't sound so much like "beat them up", with or without a flag. It sound more like a long evolution and a unification of cultures.. but, i'm willing to bet there were a few fist fights involved...probably at least a slap or two...
  • crap dosen't work on firefox. Tragic. =P
  • Works in firefox for me. I love to see complex information presented simply. Nice!
  • vertex...worked on firefox on my mac... I also mirrored it on my blog, if you can't get the regular site, try here
  • Cool, but a little odd. For some reason it seems to imply that before the modern era there was only ever a single empire in control of the middle east. As others have sort of noted, it's weird to exclude (for example) the Babylonian Empire from early history, especially when its 'ole Babylon that's now the center of contention. The politics of maps like these are interesting to consider. I for one am a little skeptical of the decision here to omit small states from the map early-on and suddenly to include them post-1950. The effect of doing this, it seems to me is to dissassociate today's American imperialism with previous imperial conquest, but maybe that's just me.
  • Good point.