The origin of the term “Eden”, which in Hebrew means “delight”, may lie with the Akkadian word edinu, which itself derives from the Sumerian term E.DIN. The Sumerian term means “plain” or “steppe”, so the connection between the words may be coincidental, although this word is known to have been used by the Sumerians to refer to Mesopotamia as the...
Dilmun is associated with ancient sites on the islands of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, the Cradle of Civilization. Dilmun (sometimes transliterated Telmun) is associated with ancient sites on the islands of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. Because of its location along the sea trade routes linking Mesopotamia with the Indus Valley Civilization, Dilmun developed in the Bronze Age, from ca. 3000 BC...
Damascus, Syria is located in a desert oasis east of Lebanon and northwest of Mt Hermon. It is situated on a plateau 680 metres above sea level, bordered by the Anti-Lebanon Mountains to the west, and the desert to the east. It is at the northern end of the King’s Highway and is the connection to the Near East. Damascus is situated at the Ghouta Oasis, fed by the waters of the Baruda River...
A cylinder seal is a cylinder engraved with a ‘picture story’, used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally wet clay. Cylinder seals were invented around 3500 BC in the Near East, at the contemporary site of Susa in south-western Iran and at the early site of Uruk in southern Mesopotamia. They are linked to the invention of the latter...
Cuneiform script is one of the earliest known forms of written expression. Emerging in Sumer around the 30th century BC, with predecessors reaching into the late 4th millennium (the Uruk IV period), cuneiform writing began as a system of pictographs. In the course of the 3rd millennium BC the pictorial representations became simplified and more abstract. The number of characters in use also grew...
Legal System Among the inventions of the Sumerians, the most persistent and far-reaching was their invention of law. While all cultures have some system of social regulation and conflict resolution, law is a distinct phenomenon. Law is written and administered retribution and conflict resolution. It is distinct from other forms of retribution and conflict resolution by the following...
The Chaldeans of ancient Mesopotamia – which today is Iraq, east Syria, and south east Turkey – are a live continuation of all the indigenous people of Mesopotamia whether their tribal names were Sumerians, Akkadians, Amorites, Babylonians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Aramaeans. The language of the Chaldean people is Aramaic, a different dialect than that spoken by Jesus. Tribes of...
Capernaum (Kfar Nahum) was a settlement on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. The site is a ruin today, but was inhabited from 150 BC to about AD 750. Josephus refers to Capernaum as a fertile spring. He stayed the night there after spraining his ankle. It is located in northwestern shore of the Kinneret. A church near Capernaum is said to be the home of Peter himself. Recent excavations have...
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...