June 2022

Modern era The growing naval prowess of the European powers confronted further rapid Ottoman expansion in the region when the Battle of Lepanto checked the power of the Ottoman navy. However, as Braudel argued forcefully, this only slowed the Ottoman expansion instead of ending it. The prized island of Cyprus became Ottoman in 1571. The […]

Late Middle Ages The “Repubbliche Marinare” (Maritime republics) of Amalfi, Gaeta, Venice, Genoa, Ancona, Pisa and Ragusa developed their own empires in the Mediterranean shores. The Islamic states had never been major naval powers, and trade from the east to Europe was soon in the hands of Italian traders, especially the Genoese and the Venetians,

Another power was rising in the east, that of Islam, whilst the Eastern Roman Empire and Sassanid Persian empires were both weakened by centuries of stalemate warfare during the Roman–Persian Wars. In a series of rapid Muslim conquests, the Arab armies, motivated by Islam and led by the Caliphs and skilled military commanders such as

Classical antiquity Two of the most notable Mediterranean civilizations in classical antiquity were the Greek city-states and the Phoenicians. The Greeks expanded throughout the Black Sea and south through the Red Sea. The Phoenicians spread through the western Mediterranean reaching North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula. From the 6th century BC up to including the

◊ The cultural stage of civilization (organized society structured around urban centers) first arises in Southwest Asia, as an extension of the Neolithic trend, from as early as the 8th millennium BC, of proto-urban centers such as Çatal Hüyük. Urban civilizations proper begin to emerge in the Chalcolithic, in 5th-to-4th-millennium Egypt, and in Mesopotamia. Gold artifacts

◊ The history of the Mediterranean region and of the cultures and people of the Mediterranean Basin is important for understanding the origin and development of the Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Canaanite, Phoenician, Hebrew, Carthaginian, Minoan, Greek, Persian, Illyrian, Thracian, Etruscan, Iberian, Roman, Byzantine, Bulgarian, Arab, Berber, Ottoman, Christian, and Islamic cultures. The Mediterranean Sea was the