New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses (the North Island and the South Island) and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some 1,500 kilometres (900 mi) east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly 1,000 kilometres (600 mi) south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. Due to its remoteness, it...
Canaan is a historical Semitic speaking region roughly corresponding to the Levant (modern-day Israel, Palestinian territories, Lebanon, and the western parts of Jordan and Syria). Canaan was of geopolitical importance in the Late Bronze Age Amarna period as the area where the spheres of interest of the Egyptian, Hittite Empire and Assyrian Empires converged. Canaan is historically attested...
Caesarea is a town in Israel located mid-way between Tel Aviv and Haifa (45 km), on the Israeli coastal plain near the city of Hadera. Modern Caesarea as of December 2007 has a population of 4,500 people. It is the only Israeli locality managed by a private organization, the Caesarea Development Corporation, and also one of the most populous localities not recognized as a local council. It lies...
According to Ancient Alien Theory, of which I am a proponent, the Magi, like Jesus, were all aliens – the Star of Bethlehem a UFO. Further, the spirit I call Z, who is mentioned throughout Crystalinks – is Zoroaster the Persian Prophet – my partner on the other side with whom I have dialogued since I was age 11 – and who guided my journey in the myth, math, metaphor, and...
Bethlehem (House of Bread – House of Lahmu) is is a Palestinian city in the West Bank and a hub of Palestinian cultural and tourism industries. It is first mentioned in the Armana letters fourteen centuries BCE. It lies about 10 km (6 mi) south of Jerusalem, standing at an elevation of about 765 m (2 510 ft) above the sea, thus 30 m (100 ft) higher than Jerusalem. The Bethlehem...
Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as a major power when Hammurabi (1792 – 1750 BC or fl. ca. 1696 – 1654 BC, short chronology) created an empire out of the territories of the former Akkadian Empire. Babylonia retained the written Semitic Akkadian language for official use (the...
Babylon was a key kingdom in ancient Mesopotamia. The city was built upon the Euphrates river and divided in equal parts along its left and right banks, with steep embankments to contain the river’s seasonal floods. Babylon was originally a small Akkadian city dating from the period of the Akkadian Empire c. 2300 BC. The town became an independent city-state with the rise of the First...
Assyria in earliest historical times referred to a region on the Upper Tigris river, named for its original capital, the ancient city of Ashur. Later, as a nation and Empire, it also came to include roughly the northern half of Mesopotamia (the southern half being Babylonia). Assyria proper was located in a mountainous region, extending along the Tigris as far as the high Gordiaean or Carduchian...
Assur, Ashur, or Assyria, 110 km south of Mosul and 280 km to the north of Baghdad, was the first capital of the vast Assyrian Empire anciently called “The Land of Subarum” which included Iraq, Syria, Anatolia, Iran, Egypt and parts of Arabia. Historians believe that Assur was inhabited for the first time in the 3rd millennium BC, and went on as an inhabited city up to the 2nd century...
Antioch was an ancient city on the eastern side of the Orontes River. It is near the modern city of Antakya, Turkey. Founded near the end of the 4th century BC by Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander the Great’s generals, Antioch eventually rivaled Alexandria as the chief city of the Near East and was a cradle of Gentile Christianity. It was one of the four cities of the Syrian tetrapolis...