Levant

Examples of Levant in the following topics:

• Post-Byzantine Egypt

  • Before the Muslim conquest of Egypt had begun, the Byzantines had already lost the Levant and its Arab ally, the Ghassanid Kingdom, to the Muslims.
  • At its height, the Caliphate controlled an empire from the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant, to the Caucasus in the north, North Africa from Egypt to present-day Tunisia in the west, and the Iranian plateau to Central Asia in the east.
  • At its height the caliphate included in addition to Egypt varying areas of the Maghreb, Sudan, Sicily, the Levant, and Hijaz.
  • Within the span of 24 years of conquest, a vast territory was conquered comprising Mesopotamia, the Levant, parts of Anatolia, and most of the Sasanian Empire.

• Italian Trade Cities

  • The Crusades had built lasting trade links to the Levant, and the Fourth Crusade had done much to destroy the Byzantine Roman Empire as a commercial rival to the Venetians and Genoese.
  • Luxury goods bought in the Levant, such as spices, dyes, and silks were imported to Italy and then resold throughout Europe.

• Enforcing the Navigation Acts

  • Within a few years, Dutch and Spanish merchants overwhelmed English merchants in commerce on the Iberian Peninsula, the Mediterranean, and the Levant.
  • Even the trade with English colonies was dominated by Dutch merchants, who crowded out English direct trade with a sudden influx of commodities from the Levant, the Mediterranean, the Spanish and Portuguese empires, and the West Indies, carried in Dutch ships and ultimately increasing Dutch profit.

• The Hittites

  • The Hittite Empire reached its height during the mid-14th century BCE under Suppiluliuma I, when it encompassed an area that included most of Asia Minor as well as parts of the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia.
  • After 1180 BCE, amid general turmoil in the Levant associated with the sudden arrival of the Sea Peoples, the kingdom disintegrated into several independent "Neo-Hittite" city-states.

• Europe and America from 1850–1900

• Egyptian Pharaohs as God-Kings

  • In the Early Dynastic Period of about 3150 BCE, the first of the Dynastic pharaohs solidified their control over lower Egypt by establishing a capital at Memphis, from which they could control the labor force and agriculture of the fertile delta region, as well as the lucrative and critical trade routes to the Levant.

• Mediterranean Trade and European Expansion

  • The close Italian links to the Levant raised great curiosity and commercial interest in countries that lay further east.

• Elizabeth I and English Patriotism

  • Diplomatic relations were also established with the Ottoman Empire with the chartering of the Levant Company and the dispatch of the first English ambassador to the Porte, William Harborne, in 1578.
  • Diplomatic relations were also established with the Ottoman Empire with the chartering of the Levant Company and the dispatch of the first English ambassador to the Porte, William Harborne, in 1578.

• The Achaemenid Empire

  • Between c. 500-400 BCE, Darius the Great and his son, Xerxe I, ruled the Persian Plateau and all of the territories formerly held by the Assyrian Empire including Mesopotamia, the Levant and Cyprus.

• Greek Dark Ages

  • It was previously believed that all contact had been lost between mainland Hellenes and foreign powers during this period; however, artifacts from excavations at Lefkandi in Euboea show that significant cultural and trade links with the east, especially the Levant coast, developed from approximately 900 BCE onward.