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Gündoğan, Oğuzeli

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Gündoğan , historically Turbessel ( Syriac : Tel Bshir ; Arabic : Tell Bāshir or Tel-Basheir ; Armenian : Թլպաշար , romanized :  Tʿlpašar ; Turkish : Tilbeşar or Tilbaşar ), is a neighbourhood in the municipality and district of Oğuzeli , Gaziantep Province , Turkey . Its population is 374 (2022). It was originally a fortress that played an important role in the Crusades , remnant of which is a tumulus .

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159-462: The site was occupied at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC through the end of the 17th century BC, after which it was abandoned. It was located 50 km west of Carchemish. By 2600 BC (EBIIIA) the site was about 56 hectares. It had burials showing the emergence of an elite class. By 2450 BC (EBIIIB) it was a planned city. In the EBIV, the city saw heavy destruction, but it was never abandoned. In

318-595: A carnelian bead identified with the Middle Kingdom pharaoh Senusret I , whose reign is dated to 1971–1926 BC. A stela and a statuette of the Egyptian pharaohs Senusret III and Amenemhet III have also been found. However, it is unclear when they first arrived at Ugarit. In the Amarna letters , messages from Ugarit c.  1350 BC written by Ammittamru I , Niqmaddu II , and his queen have been discovered. From

477-618: A "dark period" in ancient Egyptian history, spanned about 100 years after the end of the Old Kingdom from about 2181 to 2055 BC. Very little monumental evidence survives from this period, especially from the early part of it. The First Intermediate Period was a dynamic time when the rule of Egypt was roughly divided between two areas: Heracleopolis in Lower Egypt and Thebes in Upper Egypt. These two kingdoms eventually came into conflict, and

636-560: A 3rd-millennium BC culture postulated based on a collection of artefacts confiscated in 2001. In modern scholarship, the chronology of the Bronze Age Levant is divided into: The term Neo-Syria is used to designate the early Iron Age . The old Syrian period was dominated by the Eblaite first kingdom , Nagar and the Mariote second kingdom . The Akkadians conquered large areas of

795-461: A Turkish and Muslim middle class and build a statist national economy controlled by Muslim Turks. The campaign to Turkify the economy began in June 1914 with a law that obliged many non-Muslim merchants to hire Muslims. Following the deportations, the businesses of the victims were taken over by Muslims who were often incompetent, leading to economic difficulties. The genocide had catastrophic effects on

954-551: A cheap and efficient method, but it caused widespread pollution downstream. So many bodies floated down the Tigris and Euphrates that they sometimes blocked the rivers and needed to be cleared with explosives. Other rotting corpses became stuck to the riverbanks, and still others traveled as far as the Persian Gulf . The rivers remained polluted long after the massacres, causing epidemics downstream. Tens of thousands of Armenians died along

1113-596: A consequence of the sedentarization of Kurdish tribes and the arrival of Muslim refugees and immigrants (mainly Circassians ) following the Russo-Circassian War . In 1876, when Sultan Abdul Hamid II came to power, the state began to confiscate Armenian-owned land in the eastern provinces and give it to Muslim immigrants as part of a systematic policy to reduce the Armenian population of these areas. This policy lasted until World War I. These conditions led to

1272-681: A dilemma: If they obeyed, the Armenians expected to be killed, but if they refused, it would provide a pretext for massacres. Armenians fortified themselves in Van and repelled the Ottoman attack that began on 20 April. During the siege, Armenians in surrounding villages were massacred at Djevdet's orders. Russian forces captured Van on 18 May, finding 55,000 corpses in the province—about half its prewar Armenian population. Djevdet's forces proceeded to Bitlis and attacked Armenian and Assyrian/Syriac villages;

1431-602: A distinction between guilty and innocent Armenians. [To do so] was impossible. Because of the nature of things, one who was still innocent today could be guilty tomorrow. The concern for the safety of Turkey simply had to silence all other concerns. During World War I, the CUP—whose central goal was to preserve the Ottoman Empire—came to identify Armenian civilians as an existential threat. CUP leaders held Armenians—including women and children—collectively guilty for betraying

1590-404: A few weeks, until there were very few survivors. This strategy physically weakened the Armenians and spread disease, so much that some camps were shut down in late 1915 due to the threat of disease spreading to the Ottoman military. In late 1915, the camps around Aleppo were liquidated and the survivors were forced to march to Ras al-Ayn ; the camps around Ras al-Ayn were closed in early 1916 and

1749-834: A growing, exclusionary Turkish nationalism in the Young Turk movement, the ARF decided to ally with the CUP in December 1907. In 1908, the CUP came to power in the Young Turk Revolution , which began with a string of CUP assassinations of leading officials in Macedonia . Abdul Hamid was forced to reinstate the 1876 constitution and restore the Ottoman parliament , which was celebrated by Ottomans of all ethnicities and religions. Security improved in parts of

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1908-511: A minority in most places where they lived, alongside Turkish and Kurdish Muslim and Greek Orthodox Christian neighbors. According to the Patriarchate's figure, 215,131 Armenians lived in urban areas, especially Constantinople , Smyrna , and Eastern Thrace . Although most Ottoman Armenians were peasant farmers, they were overrepresented in commerce. As middleman minorities , despite the wealth of some Armenians, their overall political power

2067-402: A permanence not enjoyed by manuscripts. These inscriptions can commonly be subdivided into four parts: a reference to the date and place, the naming of the event commemorated, the list of gifts given to the artisan in exchange for the bronze, and a dedication. The relative points of reference these vessels provide have enabled historians to place most of the vessels within a certain time frame of

2226-562: A power vacuum in Mesopotamia. At its beginning, Mitanni's major rival was Egypt under the Thutmosids . However, with the ascent of the Hittite empire, Mitanni and Egypt allied to protect their mutual interests from the threat of Hittite domination. At the height of its power during the 14th century BC, Mitanni had outposts centred on its capital, Washukanni , which archaeologists have located on

2385-622: A result of state policy and stated that "humanity, civilizations are shuddering, and forever will shudder, in face of this tragedy". The postwar Ottoman government held the Ottoman Special Military Tribunal , by which it sought to pin the Armenian genocide onto the CUP leadership while exonerating the Ottoman Empire as a whole, therefore avoiding partition by the Allies . The court ruled that "the crime of mass murder" of Armenians

2544-628: A result of the Bolshevik Revolution and the subsequent separate peace with the Central Powers , the Russian army withdrew and Ottoman forces advanced into eastern Anatolia. The First Republic of Armenia was proclaimed in May 1918, at which time 50 percent of its population were refugees and 60 percent of its territory was under Ottoman occupation. Ottoman troops withdrew from parts of Armenia following

2703-461: A series of transit camps were set up to control the flow of victims to the killing site at the nearby Kemah gorge. Thousands of Armenians were killed near Lake Hazar , pushed by paramilitaries off the cliffs. More than 500,000 Armenians passed through the Firincilar plain south of Malatya , one of the deadliest areas during the genocide. Arriving convoys, having passed through the plain to approach

2862-472: A small administrative town) appears on a tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 23rd century BC. The Amorite dynasty established the city-state of Babylon in the 19th century BC. Over a century later, it briefly took over the other city-states and formed the short-lived First Babylonian Empire during what is also called the Old Babylonian Period . Akkad, Assyria, and Babylonia used

3021-503: A substantial decline in the population of the Armenian highlands; 300,000 Armenians left the empire, and others moved to towns. Some Armenians joined revolutionary political parties , of which the most influential was the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), founded in 1890. These parties primarily sought reform within the empire and found only limited support from Ottoman Armenians. Russia's decisive victory in

3180-412: A systematic state policy involving the bureaucracy, police, judiciary, and clergy, was a major structural component of the genocide. An estimated 100,000 to 200,000 Armenians were Islamized, and it is estimated that as many as two million Turkish citizens in the early 21st century may have at least one Armenian grandparent . Some Armenians were allowed to convert to Islam and evade deportation, but

3339-620: Is an argument to be made that the Bronze Age never properly ended in China, as there is no recognisable transition to an Iron Age. Together with the jade art that precedes it, bronze was seen as a fine material for ritual art when compared with iron or stone. Bronze metallurgy in China originated in what is referred to as the Erlitou period, which some historians argue places it within the Shang. Others believe

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3498-565: Is called the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex . The Kulli culture , similar to that of the Indus Valley Civilisation , was located in southern Balochistan (Gedrosia) c.  2500–2000 BC . The economy was agricultural. Dams were found in several places, providing evidence for a highly developed water management system. Konar Sandal is associated with the hypothesized Jiroft culture ,

3657-637: Is conjectured to have been associated with the sudden arrival of the Sea Peoples , the kingdom disintegrated into several independent "Neo-Hittite" city-states, some of which survived into the 8th century BC. Arzawa , in Western Anatolia, during the second half of the 2nd millennium BC, likely extended along southern Anatolia in a belt from near the Turkish Lakes region to the Aegean coast. Arzawa

3816-529: Is debated among scholars. An ancient civilisation is deemed to be part of the Bronze Age if it either produced bronze by smelting its own copper and alloying it with tin , arsenic , or other metals, or traded other items for bronze from producing areas elsewhere. Bronze Age cultures were the first to develop writing . According to archaeological evidence, cultures in Mesopotamia , which used cuneiform script, and Egypt , which used hieroglyphs , developed

3975-517: Is further conjectured that the same migrations spread the Uralic group of languages across Europe and Asia, with extant members of the family including Hungarian , Finnish and Estonian . In China, the earliest bronze artefacts have been found in the Majiayao culture site (3100–2700 BC). The term "Bronze Age" has been transferred to the archaeology of China from that of Western Eurasia, and there

4134-578: Is named after the Korean name for undecorated or plain cooking and storage vessels that form a large part of the pottery assemblage over the entire length of the period, but especially between 850 and 550 BC. The Mumun period is known for the origins of intensive agriculture and complex societies in both the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese Archipelago. The Middle Mumun pottery period culture of

4293-511: Is no consensus or universally used convention delimiting the "Bronze Age" in the context of Chinese prehistory . The "Early Bronze Age" in China is sometimes taken to be coterminous with the reign of the Shang dynasty (16th–11th centuries BC), and the Later Bronze Age with the subsequent Zhou dynasty (11th–3rd centuries BC), from the 5th century, called Iron Age China although there

4452-459: The 1877–1878 war forced the Ottoman Empire to cede parts of eastern Anatolia, the Balkans , and Cyprus . Under international pressure at the 1878 Congress of Berlin , the Ottoman government agreed to carry out reforms and guarantee the physical safety of its Armenian subjects, but there was no enforcement mechanism; conditions continued to worsen. The Congress of Berlin marked the emergence of

4611-653: The Armenian question in international diplomacy as Armenians were for the first time used by the Great Powers to interfere in Ottoman politics. Although Armenians had been called the "loyal millet" in contrast to Greeks and others who had previously challenged Ottoman rule, the authorities began to perceive Armenians as a threat after 1878. In 1891, Abdul Hamid created the Hamidiye regiments from Kurdish tribes, allowing them to act with impunity against Armenians. From 1895 to 1896

4770-577: The Igeum-dong site . Bronze was an important element in ceremonies and for mortuary offerings until 100 BC. Armenian genocide The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I . Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily through the mass murder of around one million Armenians during death marches to

4929-721: The Iranian plateau , centred in Anshan . From the mid-2nd millennium BC, Elam was centred in Susa in the Khuzestan lowlands. Its culture played a crucial role in both the Gutian Empire and the Iranian Achaemenid dynasty that succeeded it. The Oxus civilisation was a Bronze Age Central Asian culture dated c.  2300–1700 BC and centred on the upper Amu Darya ( a.k.a. ). In

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5088-679: The Iron Age . Conceived as a global era, the Bronze Age follows the Neolithic , with a transition period between the two known as the Chalcolithic . The final decades of the Bronze Age in the Mediterranean basin are often characterised as a period of widespread societal collapse known as the Late Bronze Age collapse ( c.  1200  – c.  1150 BC ), although its severity and scope

5247-597: The Kahta highlands, would have found gorges already filled with corpses from previous convoys. Many others were held in tributary valleys of the Tigris , Euphrates , or Murat and systematically executed by the Special Organization. Armenian men were often drowned by being tied together back-to-back before being thrown in the water, a method that was not used on women. Authorities viewed disposal of bodies through rivers as

5406-516: The Kassite period c.  1500  – c.  1155 BC ). The usual tripartite division into an Early, Middle and Late Bronze Age is not used in the context of Mesopotamia. Instead, a division primarily based on art and historical characteristics is more common. The cities of the Ancient Near East housed several tens of thousands of people. Ur , Kish , Isin , Larsa , and Nippur in

5565-512: The Khabur valley, where their bodies would not create a public health hazard. The massacres killed most of the Armenians who had survived the camp system. The Ottoman Empire tried to prevent journalists and photographers from documenting the atrocities, threatening them with arrest. Nevertheless, substantiated reports of mass killings were widely covered in Western newspapers . On 24 May 1915,

5724-568: The Majiayao site in Gansu rather than at Xinjiang . The production of Erlitou represents the earliest large-scale metallurgy industry in the Central Plains of China. The influence of the Saima-Turbino metalworking tradition from the north is supported by a series of recent discoveries in China of many unique perforated spearheads with downward hooks and small loops on the same or opposite side of

5883-767: The Soviet occupation of Armenia prevented another genocide. The victorious nationalists subsequently declared the Republic of Turkey in 1923. CUP war criminals were granted immunity and later that year, the Treaty of Lausanne established Turkey's current borders and provided for the Greek population's expulsion . Its protection provisions for non-Muslim minorities had no enforcement mechanism and were disregarded in practice. Armenian survivors were left mainly in three locations. About 295,000 Armenians had fled to Russian-controlled territory during

6042-491: The Syrian Desert and the forced Islamization of others, primarily women and children. Before World War I, Armenians occupied a somewhat protected, but subordinate, place in Ottoman society. Large-scale massacres of Armenians had occurred in the 1890s and 1909 . The Ottoman Empire suffered a series of military defeats and territorial losses—especially during the 1912–1913 Balkan Wars —leading to fear among CUP leaders that

6201-469: The Triple Entente (Russia, Britain, and France) formally condemned the Ottoman Empire for " crimes against humanity and civilization", and threatened to hold the perpetrators accountable. Witness testimony was published in books such as The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire (1916) and Ambassador Morgenthau's Story (1918), raising public awareness of the genocide. The German Empire

6360-652: The sixth century BCE , about 1,500 years before the arrival of Turkmens under the Seljuk dynasty . The Kingdom of Armenia adopted Christianity as its national religion in the fourth century CE , establishing the Armenian Apostolic Church . Following the end of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, two Islamic empires—the Ottoman Empire and the Iranian Safavid Empire —contested Western Armenia , which

6519-561: The southern Levant in cities such as Hazor , Jericho , and Beit She'an . The Hittite Empire was established during the 18th century BC in Hattusa , northern Anatolia . At its height in the 14th century BC, the Hittite Kingdom encompassed central Anatolia, southwestern Syria as far as Ugarit , and upper Mesopotamia . After 1180 BC, amid general turmoil in the Levant , which

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6678-422: The 16th to the 13th century BC, Ugarit remained in constant contact with Egypt and Cyprus ( Alashiya ). Mitanni was a loosely organised state in northern Syria and south-east Anatolia, emerging c.  1500–1300 BC . Founded by an Indo-Aryan ruling class that governed a predominantly Hurrian population, Mitanni came to be a regional power after the Hittite destruction of Kassite Babylon created

6837-430: The 3rd millennium BC. The Bronze Age is characterised by the widespread use of bronze , though the introduction and development of bronze technology were not universally synchronous. Tin bronze technology requires systematic techniques: tin must be mined (mainly as the tin ore cassiterite ) and smelted separately, then added to hot copper to make bronze alloy. The Bronze Age was a time of extensive use of metals and

6996-766: The 6th century BC attests to knowledge of iron smelting, yet bronze continues to occupy the seat of significance in the archaeological and historical record for some time after this. W. C. White argues that iron did not supplant bronze "at any period before the end of the Zhou dynasty (256 BC)" and that bronze vessels make up the majority of metal vessels through the Eastern Han period , or to 221 BC. The Chinese bronze artefacts generally are either utilitarian, like spear points or adze heads, or "ritual bronzes" , which are more elaborate versions in precious materials of everyday vessels, as well as tools and weapons. Examples are

7155-404: The ARF incite Russian Armenians to intervene on the Ottoman side. Instead, the delegates resolved that Armenians should fight for the countries of their citizenships. During its war preparations, the Ottoman government recruited thousands of prisoners to join the paramilitary Special Organization , which initially focused on stirring up revolts among Muslims behind Russian lines beginning before

7314-420: The Armenian companions who had guided him. He then was called to Edessa by the Armenian Thoros who was threatened by the Seljuks . Baldwin responded to that call and had himself adopted as successor to Thoros, in which he became Count of Edessa in 1098. In 1100, when Godfrey of Bouillon died, Baldwin entrusted the county of Edessa to his cousin Baldwin II , then Joscelin I joined him there in 1101, and

7473-416: The Armenian leadership and anyone capable of organizing resistance, eventually resulted in the murder of most of those arrested. The same day, Talaat banned all Armenian political organizations and ordered that the Armenians who had previously been removed from Cilicia be deported again, from central Anatolia—where they would likely have survived—to the Syrian Desert . We have been blamed for not making

7632-411: The Armenians had to be eliminated to save the empire. Massacres of Armenian men were occurring in the vicinity of Bashkale in Van vilayet from December 1914. ARF leaders attempted to keep the situation calm, warning that even justifiable self-defense could lead to escalation of killing. The governor, Djevdet Bey , ordered the Armenians of Van to hand over their arms on 18 April 1915, creating

7791-455: The Armenians with their Russian oppressors. Nomadic Kurds committed many atrocities during the genocide, but settled Kurds only rarely did so. Perpetrators had several motives, including ideology, revenge, desire for Armenian property, and careerism . To motivate perpetrators, state-appointed imams encouraged the killing of Armenians and killers were entitled to a third of Armenian movable property (another third went to local authorities and

7950-430: The Armenians would seek independence. During their invasion of Russian and Persian territory in 1914, Ottoman paramilitaries massacred local Armenians. Ottoman leaders took isolated instances of Armenian resistance as evidence of a widespread rebellion, though no such rebellion existed. Mass deportation was intended to permanently forestall the possibility of Armenian autonomy or independence. On 24 April 1915,

8109-399: The BMAC had close international relations with the Indus Valley , the Iranian plateau , and possibly even indirectly with Mesopotamia. All civilisations were familiar with lost wax casting . According to a 2019 study, the BMAC was not a primary contributor to later South-Asian genetics. The Altai Mountains , in what is now southern Russia and central Mongolia , have been identified as

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8268-400: The Bronze Age began in the Protodynastic Period c.  3150 BC . The archaic Early Bronze Age of Egypt , known as the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt , immediately followed the unification of Lower and Upper Egypt, c.  3100 BC . It is generally taken to include the First and Second dynasties, lasting from the Protodynastic Period until c.  2686 BC , or

8427-430: The CUP in the perpetration of genocide. The Directorate for the Settlement of Tribes and Immigrants (IAMM) coordinated the deportation and the resettlement of Muslim immigrants in the vacant houses and lands. The IAMM, under the control of Talaat's Ministry of the Interior , and the Special Organization, which took orders directly from the CUP Central Committee, all closely coordinated their activities. A dual-track system

8586-534: The CUP's increasingly repressive governance. When news of the countercoup reached Adana , armed Muslims attacked the Armenian quarter and Armenians returned fire. Ottoman soldiers did not protect Armenians and instead armed the rioters. Between 20,000 and 25,000 people, mostly Armenians, were killed in Adana and nearby towns. Unlike the 1890s massacres, the events were not organized by the central government but instigated by local officials, intellectuals, and Islamic clerics, including CUP supporters in Adana. Although

8745-408: The Early Bronze Age, the culture of the Kopet Dag oases and Altyndepe developed a proto-urban society. This corresponds to level IV at Namazga-Tepe . Altyndepe was a major centre even then. Pottery was wheel-turned. Grapes were grown. The height of this urban development was reached in the Middle Bronze Age c.  2300 BC , corresponding to level V at Namazga-Depe. This Bronze Age culture

8904-409: The Erlitou sites belong to the preceding Xia dynasty . The United States National Gallery of Art defines the Chinese Bronze Age as c.  2000  – c.  771 BC , a period that begins with the Erlitou culture and ends abruptly with the disintegration of Western Zhou rule. There is reason to believe that bronze work developed inside of China apart from outside influence. However,

9063-408: The Hamidiye regiments in reserve. CUP leaders feared that these reforms, which were never implemented, could lead to partition and cited them as a reason for the elimination of the Armenian population in 1915. The 1912 First Balkan War resulted in the loss of almost all of the empire's European territory and the mass expulsion of Muslims from the Balkans. Ottoman Muslim society was incensed by

9222-422: The Levant and were followed by the Amorite kingdoms , c.  2000–1600 BC , which arose in Mari , Yamhad , Qatna , and Assyria . From the 15th century BC onward, the term Amurru is usually applied to the region extending north of Canaan as far as Kadesh on the Orontes River . The earliest-known contact of Ugarit with Egypt (and the first exact dating of Ugaritic civilisation) comes from

9381-419: The MBI, the city was rebuilt in a smaller scale. In the MBII, the city saw major construction work. While the site had been occupied since the Bronze Age , the fort gained importance during the Byzantine Empire and came under control of local Armenian lords in the late 11th century. In 1097, during the First Crusade , Baldwin I took the fortresses of Ravendel and Turbessel, which he left as fiefs to

9540-417: The Maya Sekenler tribe. Bronze Age The Bronze Age ( c.  3300  – c.  1200 BC ) was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of the three-age system , following the Stone Age and preceding

9699-469: The Middle Bronze Age and Babylon , Calah , and Assur in the Late Bronze Age similarly had large populations. The Akkadian Empire (2335–2154 BC) became the dominant power in the region. After its fall, the Sumerians enjoyed a renaissance with the Neo-Sumerian Empire . Assyria , along with the Old Assyrian Empire ( c.  1800–1600 BC ), became a regional power under the Amorite king Shamshi-Adad I . The earliest mention of Babylon (then

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9858-411: The Middle Kingdom. During the Second Intermediate Period , Ancient Egypt fell into disarray a second time between the end of the Middle Kingdom and the start of the New Kingdom, best known for the Hyksos , whose reign comprised the Fifteenth and Sixteenth dynasties. The Hyksos first appeared in Egypt during the Eleventh Dynasty, began their climb to power in the Thirteenth Dynasty, and emerged from

10017-439: The October 1918 Armistice of Mudros . From 1918 to 1920, Armenian militants committed revenge killings of thousands of Muslims, which have been cited as a retroactive excuse for genocide. In 1918, at least 200,000 people in Armenia, mostly refugees, died from starvation or disease, in part due to a Turkish blockade of food supplies and the deliberate destruction of crops in eastern Armenia by Turkish troops, both before and after

10176-401: The Osiris funerary cult rose to dominate popular Ancient Egyptian religion . The period comprises two phases: the Eleventh Dynasty, which ruled from Thebes, and the Twelfth and Thirteenth dynasties, centred on el-Lisht . The unified kingdom was previously considered to comprise the Eleventh and Twelfth Dynasties, but historians now consider part of the Thirteenth Dynasty to have belonged to

10335-415: The Ottoman Empire during the Second Balkan War in mid-1913, there was a campaign of looting and intimidation against Greeks and Armenians, forcing many to emigrate. Around 150,000 Greek Orthodox from the Aegean coast were forcibly deported in May and June 1914 by Muslim bandits , who were secretly backed by the CUP and sometimes joined by the regular army . Historian Matthias Bjørnlund states that

10494-489: The Ottoman armies for the invasion of Russian territory, and tried to encircle the Russian Caucasus Army at the Battle of Sarikamish , fought from December 1914 to January 1915. Unprepared for the harsh winter conditions, his forces were routed, losing more than 60,000 men. The retreating Ottoman army destroyed dozens of Ottoman Armenian villages in Bitlis vilayet, massacring their inhabitants. Enver publicly blamed his defeat on Armenians who he claimed had actively sided with

10653-405: The Ottoman authorities arrested and deported hundreds of Armenian intellectuals and leaders from Constantinople . At the orders of Talaat Pasha , an estimated 800,000 to 1.2 million Armenians were sent on death marches to the Syrian Desert in 1915 and 1916. Driven forward by paramilitary escorts, the deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to robbery, rape , and massacres. In

10812-414: The Ottoman economy; Muslims were disadvantaged by the deportation of skilled professionals and entire districts fell into famine following their farmers' deportation. The Ottoman and Turkish governments passed a series of Abandoned Properties Laws to manage and redistribute property confiscated from Armenians. Although the laws maintained that the state was simply administering the properties on behalf of

10971-424: The Russians, a theory that became a consensus among CUP leaders. Reports of local incidents such as weapons caches, severed telegraph lines, and occasional killings confirmed preexisting beliefs about Armenian treachery and fueled paranoia among CUP leaders that a coordinated Armenian conspiracy was plotting against the empire. Discounting contrary reports that most Armenians were loyal, the CUP leaders decided that

11130-417: The Second Intermediate Period in control of Avaris and the Nile Delta . By the Fifteenth Dynasty, they ruled lower Egypt. They were expelled at the end of the Seventeenth Dynasty . The New Kingdom of Egypt , also referred to as the Egyptian Empire, existed during the 16th–11th centuries BC. The New Kingdom followed the Second Intermediate Period and was succeeded by the Third Intermediate Period . It

11289-402: The Special Organization, and those farther away also involved local militias, bandits, gendarmes, or Kurdish tribes depending on the area. Within the area controlled by the Third Army , which held eastern Anatolia, the army was only involved in genocidal atrocities in the vilayets of Van, Erzerum, and Bitlis. Many perpetrators came from the Caucasus ( Chechens and Circassians), who identified

11448-711: The Syrian Desert, the survivors were dispersed into concentration camps . In 1916, another wave of massacres was ordered, leaving about 200,000 deportees alive by the end of the year. Around 100,000 to 200,000 Armenian women and children were forcibly converted to Islam and integrated into Muslim households. Massacres and ethnic cleansing of Armenian survivors continued through the Turkish War of Independence after World War I, carried out by Turkish nationalists . This genocide put an end to more than two thousand years of Armenian civilization in eastern Anatolia . Together with

11607-731: The Theban kings conquered the north, reunifying Egypt under a single ruler during the second part of the Eleventh Dynasty . The Bronze Age in Nubia started as early as 2300 BC. Egyptians introduced copper smelting to the Nubian city of Meroë in present-day Sudan c.  2600 BC . A furnace for bronze casting found in Kerma has been dated to 2300–1900 BC. The Middle Kingdom of Egypt spanned between 2055 and 1650 BC. During this period,

11766-619: The Turkish army. In July 1111, Mawdud launched a new invasion against the county and laid siege to Turbessel. While Mawdud was besieging Turbessel, Sultan , the Munquidite emir (or ruler) of Shaizar , sent envoys to him, seeking his assistance against Tancred. Mawdud lifted the siege of Turbessel and moved to help Shaizar. Mawdud's invasions devastated the eastern regions of the county, but Joscelin's fief at Turbessel still flourished. In 1113, Baldwin persuaded Joscelin to come to Edessa, saying that he

11925-403: The Turkish authorities eliminated surviving Armenians from southern Turkey, expelling thousands to French-mandate Syria . According to historian Margaret Lavinia Anderson , the Armenian genocide reached an "iconic status" as "the apex of horrors conceivable" before World War II . It was described by contemporaries as "the murder of a nation", "race extermination", "the greatest crime of

12084-609: The Western Zhou period, allowing them to trace the evolution of the vessels and the events they record. The Japanese archipelago saw the introduction of bronze during the early Yayoi period ( c.  300 BC ), which saw the introduction of metalworking and agricultural practices brought by settlers arriving from the continent. Bronze and iron smelting spread to the Japanese archipelago through contact with other ancient East Asian civilisations, particularly immigration and trade from

12243-408: The absent Armenians, there was no provision to return them to the owners—it was presumed that they had ceased to exist. Historians Taner Akçam and Ümit Kurt argue that "The Republic of Turkey and its legal system were built, in a sense, on the seizure of Armenian cultural, social, and economic wealth, and on the removal of the Armenian presence." The proceeds from the sale of confiscated property

12402-581: The age range of conscription. Unlike the earlier massacres of Ottoman Armenians, in 1915 Armenians were not usually killed in their villages, to avoid destruction of property or unauthorized looting. Instead, the men were usually separated from the rest of the deportees during the first few days and executed. Few resisted, believing it would put their families in greater danger. Boys above the age of twelve (sometimes fifteen) were treated as adult men. Execution sites were chosen for proximity to major roads and for rugged terrain, lakes, wells, or cisterns to facilitate

12561-445: The ancient Korean peninsula, and ancient mainland China. Iron was mainly used for agricultural and other tools, whereas ritual and ceremonial artefacts were mainly made of bronze. On the Korean Peninsula, the Bronze Age began c.  1000–800 BC . Initially centred around Liaoning and southern Manchuria, Korean Bronze Age culture exhibits unique typology and styles, especially in ritual objects. The Mumun pottery period

12720-531: The area around Konya in central Anatolia. In late March or early April, the CUP Central Committee decided on the large-scale removal of Armenians from areas near the front lines. During the night of 23–24 April 1915 hundreds of Armenian political activists, intellectuals, and community leaders were rounded up in Constantinople and across the empire . This order from Talaat, intended to eliminate

12879-461: The armistice. Armenians organized a coordinated effort known as vorpahavak ( lit.   ' the gathering of orphans ' ) that reclaimed thousands of kidnapped and Islamized Armenian women and children. Armenian leaders abandoned traditional patrilineality to classify children born to Armenian women and their Muslim captors as Armenian. An orphanage in Alexandropol held 25,000 orphans,

13038-629: The army , but many soldiers of all ethnicities and religions deserted due to difficult conditions and concern for their families. At least 10 percent of Ottoman Armenians were mobilized, leaving their communities bereft of fighting-age men and therefore largely unable to organize armed resistance to deportation in 1915. During the Ottoman invasion of Russian and Persian territory , the Special Organization massacred local Armenians and Assyrian/Syriac Christians . Beginning in November 1914, provincial governors of Van, Bitlis, and Erzerum sent many telegrams to

13197-556: The arrival of Baldwin III forced him to lift the siege. Count Joscelin II was captured shortly after, on May 4, 1150 on his way to Antioch, and Turbessel was again besieged, but fiercely defended by Countess Beatrice of Saone . Eventually, finding her limits in defending the citadel and with the king's consent, she ceded what remains of the county to the Byzantines , but the latter proved unable to defend

13356-613: The assembly in Château Pèlerin in April 1109, to give up Turbessel in return for his restoration to his old domains in the Kingdom of Jerusalem . From 1110, Mawdud , atabeg of Mosul, resumed the offensive against the Franks and attacked the county of Edessa. Mawdûd successively besieged Edessa then Turbessel, but had to lift the siege each time, as Joscelin I succeeded in attacking the rearguard of

13515-538: The atrocities committed against Balkan Muslims, intensifying anti-Christian sentiment and leading to a desire for revenge. Blame for the loss was assigned to all Christians, including the Ottoman Armenians, many of whom had fought on the Ottoman side. The Balkan Wars put an end to the Ottomanist movement for pluralism and coexistence; instead, the CUP turned to an increasingly radical Turkish nationalism to preserve

13674-563: The beginning of 1916 some 500,000 deportees were alive in Syria and Mesopotamia. Afraid that surviving Armenians might return home after the war, Talaat Pasha ordered a second wave of massacres in February 1916. Another wave of deportations targeted Armenians remaining in Anatolia. More than 200,000 Armenians were killed between March and October 1916, often in remote areas near Deir ez-Zor and on parts of

13833-654: The beginning of the Old Kingdom . With the First Dynasty, the capital moved from Abydos to Memphis with a unified Egypt ruled by an Egyptian god-king. Abydos remained the major holy land in the south. The hallmarks of ancient Egyptian civilisation, such as art, architecture and religion, took shape in the Early Dynastic Period. Memphis , in the Early Bronze Age, was the largest city of the time. The Old Kingdom of

13992-667: The camps to buy them from their parents. In the western Levant , governed by the Ottoman Fourth Army under Djemal Pasha, there were no concentration camps or large-scale massacres, rather Armenians were resettled and recruited to work for the war effort. They had to convert to Islam or face deportation to another area. The ability of the Armenians to adapt and survive was greater than the perpetrators expected. A loosely organized, Armenian-led resistance network based in Aleppo succeeded in helping many deportees, saving Armenian lives. At

14151-588: The central government pressing for more severe measures against the Armenians, both regionally and throughout the empire. These requests were endorsed by the central government already before 1915. Armenian civil servants were dismissed from their posts in late 1914 and early 1915. In February 1915, the CUP leaders decided to disarm Armenians serving in the army and transfer them to labor battalions . The Armenian soldiers in labor battalions were systematically executed, although many skilled workers were spared until 1916. Minister of War Enver Pasha took over command of

14310-612: The city and Hanas, a lieutenant of Nur ad-Din, occupied it on July 12, 1151. The area was populated by Christian Armenians during the Crusades. On the eve of the First World War, there were 100 Armenian families in Tilbaşar. They were deported and massacred during the Armenian genocide . The village is inhabited by Turkicized Arabs from the Damalha and Albusultan tribes and Abdals of

14469-429: The concealment or disposal of corpses. The convoys would stop at a nearby transit camp, where the escorts would demand a ransom from the Armenians. Those unable to pay were murdered. Units of the Special Organization, often wearing gendarme uniforms, were stationed at the killing sites; escorting gendarmes often did not participate in killing. At least 150,000 Armenians passed through Erzindjan from June 1915, where

14628-715: The demographics of Anatolia. Armenian homes, businesses, and land were preferentially allocated to Muslims from outside the empire, nomads, and the estimated 800,000 (largely Kurdish) Ottoman subjects displaced because of the war with Russia. Resettled Muslims were spread out (typically limited to 10 percent in any area) among larger Turkish populations so that they would lose their distinctive characteristics, such as non-Turkish languages or nomadism. These migrants were exposed to harsh conditions and, in some cases, violence or restriction from leaving their new villages. The ethnic cleansing of Anatolia—the Armenian genocide, Assyrian genocide , and expulsion of Greeks after World War I—paved

14787-551: The deportation of all Armenians throughout the empire, even Adrianople , 2,000 kilometers (1,200 mi) from the Russian front. Following the elimination of the Armenian population in eastern Anatolia, in August 1915, the Armenians of western Anatolia and European Turkey were targeted for deportation. Some areas with a very low Armenian population and some cities, including Constantinople, were partially spared. Overall, national, regional, and local levels of governance cooperated with

14946-416: The deportees, although some circumvented these prohibitions. Survivors testified that some Armenians refused aid as they believed it would only prolong their suffering. The guards raped female prisoners and also allowed Bedouins to raid the camps at night for looting and rape; some women were forced into marriage. Thousands of Armenian children were sold to childless Turks, Arabs, and Jews, who would come to

15105-525: The development of trade networks. A 2013 report suggests that the earliest tin-alloy bronze was a foil dated to the mid-5th millennium BC from a Vinča culture site in Pločnik , Serbia , although this culture is not conventionally considered part of the Bronze Age; however, the dating of the foil has been disputed. West Asia and the Near East were the first regions to enter the Bronze Age, beginning with

15264-476: The diet of Armenian refugees, to raise money for humanitarian efforts. Between 1915 and 1930, Near East Relief raised $ 110 million ($ 2 billion adjusted for inflation) for refugees from the Ottoman Empire. Intentional, state-sponsored killing of Armenians mostly ceased by the end of January 1917, although sporadic massacres and starvation continued. Both contemporaries and later historians have estimated that around 1 million Armenians died during

15423-706: The discovery of the Europoid Tarim mummies in Xinjiang has caused some archaeologists such as Johan Gunnar Andersson , Jan Romgard, and An Zhimin to suggest a possible route of transmission from the West eastwards. According to An Zhimin, "It can be imagined that initially, bronze and iron technology took its rise in West Asia, first influenced the Xinjiang region, and then reached the Yellow River valley, providing external impetus for

15582-416: The earliest practical writing systems. Bronze Age civilisations gained a technological advantage due to bronze's harder and more durable properties than other metals available at the time. While terrestrial iron is naturally abundant, the higher temperature required for smelting, 1,250 °C (2,280 °F), in addition to the greater difficulty of working with it, placed it out of reach of common use until

15741-412: The eastern provinces after 1908 and the CUP took steps to reform the local gendarmerie , although tensions remained high. Despite an agreement to reverse the land usurpation of the previous decades in the 1910 Salonica Accord between the ARF and the CUP, the latter made no efforts to carry this out. In early 1909 an unsuccessful countercoup was launched by conservatives and some liberals who opposed

15900-487: The empire as the Balkans had. In January 1913, the CUP launched another coup , installed a one-party state , and strictly repressed all real or perceived internal enemies. After the coup, the CUP shifted the demography of border areas by resettling Balkan Muslim refugees while coercing Christians to emigrate; immigrants were promised property that had belonged to Christians. When parts of Eastern Thrace were reoccupied by

16059-832: The empire officially entered the war. On 29 October 1914, the empire entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers by launching a surprise attack on Russian ports in the Black Sea . Many Russian Armenians were enthusiastic about the war, but Ottoman Armenians were more ambivalent, afraid that supporting Russia would bring retaliation. Organization of Armenian volunteer units by Russian Armenians, later joined by some Ottoman Armenian deserters, further increased Ottoman suspicions against their Armenian population. Wartime requisitions were often corrupt and arbitrary, and disproportionately targeted Greeks and Armenians. Armenian leaders urged young men to accept conscription into

16218-511: The empire saw widespread massacres ; at least 100,000 Armenians were killed primarily by Ottoman soldiers and mobs let loose by the authorities. Many Armenian villages were forcibly converted to Islam. The Ottoman state bore ultimate responsibility for the killings, whose purpose was violently restoring the previous social order in which Christians would unquestioningly accept Muslim supremacy, and forcing Armenians to emigrate, thereby decreasing their numbers. Abdul Hamid's despotism prompted

16377-419: The empire's eastern provinces. Ottoman records show the government aimed to reduce Armenians to no more than five percent of the local population in the sources of deportation and ten percent in the destination areas. This goal could not be accomplished without mass murder. The deportation of Armenians and resettlement of Muslims in their lands was part of a broader project intended to permanently restructure

16536-603: The empire, a belief that was crucial to deciding on genocide in early 1915. At the same time, the war provided an opportunity to enact what Talaat called the "definitive solution to the Armenian Question". The CUP wrongly believed that the Russian Empire sought to annex eastern Anatolia, and ordered the genocide in large part to prevent this eventuality. The genocide was intended to permanently eliminate any possibility that Armenians could achieve autonomy or independence in

16695-485: The empire. CUP leaders such as Talaat and Enver Pasha came to blame non-Muslim population concentrations in strategic areas for many of the empire's problems, concluding by mid-1914 that they were internal tumors to be excised. Of these, Ottoman Armenians were considered the most dangerous, because CUP leaders feared that their homeland in Anatolia—claimed as the last refuge of the Turkish nation—would break away from

16854-458: The end of the 2nd millennium BC. Tin's lower melting point of 232 °C (450 °F) and copper's moderate melting point of 1,085 °C (1,985 °F) placed both these metals within the capabilities of Neolithic pottery kilns , which date to 6000 BC and were able to produce temperatures of at least 900 °C (1,650 °F). Copper and tin ores are rare since there were no tin bronzes in West Asia before trading in bronze began in

17013-464: The eve of World War I in 1914, around two million Armenians lived in Ottoman territory, mostly in Anatolia, a region with a total population of 15–17.5 million. According to the Armenian Patriarchate 's estimates for 1913–1914, there were 2,925 Armenian towns and villages in the Ottoman Empire, of which 2,084 were in the Armenian highlands adjacent to the Russian border. Armenians were

17172-691: The fall of the monarchy. The name "Israel" first appears c.  1209 BC , at the end of the Late Bronze Age and the very beginning of the Iron Age, on the Merneptah Stele raised by the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah . The Arameans were a Northwest Semitic semi-nomadic pastoral people who originated in what is now modern Syria (Biblical Aram ) during the Late Bronze and early Iron Age. Large groups migrated to Mesopotamia, where they intermingled with

17331-593: The formation of an opposition movement, the Young Turks , which sought to overthrow him and restore the 1876 Constitution of the Ottoman Empire , which he had suspended in 1877. One faction of the Young Turks was the secret and revolutionary Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), based in Salonica , from which the charismatic conspirator Mehmed Talaat (later Talaat Pasha ) emerged as a leading member. Although skeptical of

17490-558: The genocide , with figures ranging from 600,000 to 1.5 million deaths. Between 800,000 and 1.2 million Armenians were deported, and contemporaries estimated that by late 1916 only 200,000 were still alive. As the British Army advanced in 1917 and 1918 northwards through the Levant , they liberated around 100,000 to 150,000 Armenians working for the Ottoman military under abysmal conditions, not including those held by Arab tribes. As

17649-810: The genocide and ended up mostly in Soviet Armenia . An estimated 200,000 Armenian refugees settled in the Middle East, forming a new wave of the Armenian diaspora . In the Republic of Turkey, about 100,000 Armenians lived in Constantinople and another 200,000 lived in the provinces, largely women and children who had been forcibly converted. Though Armenians in Constantinople faced discrimination, they were allowed to maintain their cultural identity, unlike those elsewhere in Turkey who continued to face forced Islamization and kidnapping of girls after 1923. Between 1922 and 1929,

17808-478: The genocide endured exploitation, hard labor without pay, forced conversion to Islam, and physical and sexual abuse . Armenian women captured during the journey ended up in Turkish or Kurdish households; those who were Islamized during the second phase of the genocide found themselves in an Arab or Bedouin environment. The rape , sexual abuse, and prostitution of Armenian women were all very common. Although Armenian women tried to avoid sexual violence, suicide

17967-656: The headwaters of the Khabur River . Eventually, Mitanni succumbed to the Hittites and later Assyrian attacks, eventually being reduced to a province of the Middle Assyrian Empire . The Israelites were an ancient Semitic-speaking people of the Ancient Near East who inhabited part of Canaan during the tribal and monarchic periods (15th–6th centuries BC), and lived in the region in smaller numbers after

18126-468: The largest number in the world. In 1920, the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople reported it was caring for 100,000 orphans, estimating that another 100,000 remained captive. Following the armistice, Allied governments championed the prosecution of Armenian genocide perpetrators. Grand Vizier Damat Ferid Pasha publicly recognized that 800,000 Ottoman citizens of Armenian origin had died as

18285-466: The last to the CUP). Embezzling beyond that was punished. Ottoman politicians and officials who opposed the genocide were dismissed or assassinated. The government decreed that any Muslim who harbored an Armenian against the will of the authorities would be executed. Although the majority of able-bodied Armenian men had been conscripted into the army, others deserted, paid the exemption tax, or fell outside

18444-644: The logistics of the Ottoman Army. By late 1915, the CUP had extinguished Armenian existence from eastern Anatolia. On 23 May 1915, Talaat ordered the deportation of all Armenians in Van, Bitlis, and Erzerum. To grant a cover of legality to the deportation, already well underway in the eastern provinces and Cilicia, the Council of Ministers approved the Temporary Law of Deportation , which allowed authorities to deport anyone deemed suspect. On 21 June, Talaat ordered

18603-532: The mass murder and expulsion of Assyrian/Syriac and Greek Orthodox Christians, it enabled the creation of an ethnonationalist Turkish state, the Republic of Turkey . The Turkish government maintains that the deportation of Armenians was a legitimate action that cannot be described as genocide . As of 2023, 34 countries have recognized the events as genocide , concurring with the academic consensus. The presence of Armenians in Anatolia has been documented since

18762-450: The massacres went unpunished, the ARF continued to hope that reforms to improve security and restore lands were forthcoming, until late 1912, when they broke with the CUP and appealed to the European powers. On 8 February 1914, the CUP reluctantly agreed to reforms brokered by Germany that provided for the appointment of two European inspectors for the entire Ottoman east and putting

18921-565: The men were killed immediately, many women and children were kidnapped by local Kurds, and others marched away to be killed later. By the end of June, there were only a dozen Armenians in the vilayet. The first deportations of Armenians were proposed by Djemal Pasha , the commander of the Fourth Army , in February 1915 and targeted Armenians in Cilicia (specifically Alexandretta , Dörtyol , Adana, Hadjin , Zeytun , and Sis ) who were relocated to

19080-514: The middle class. Confiscation of Armenian assets continued into the second half of the twentieth century, and in 2006 the National Security Council ruled that property records from 1915 must be kept closed to protect national security. Outside Istanbul, the traces of Armenian existence in Turkey, including churches and monasteries, libraries, khachkars , and animal and place names , have been systematically erased, beginning during

19239-597: The native Akkadian (Assyrian and Babylonian) population. The Aramaeans never had a unified empire; they were divided into independent kingdoms all across the Near East. After the Bronze Age collapse, their political influence was confined to Syro-Hittite states, which were entirely absorbed into the Neo-Assyrian Empire by the 8th century BC. The Mesopotamian Bronze Age began c.  3500 BC and ended with

19398-408: The numerous large sacrificial tripods known as dings ; there are many other distinct shapes. Surviving identified Chinese ritual bronzes tend to be highly decorated, often with the taotie motif, which involves stylised animal faces. These appear in three main motif types: those of demons, symbolic animals, and abstract symbols. Many large bronzes also bear cast inscriptions that are the bulk of

19557-688: The origins of agriculture. Foothill regions and glacial melt streams supported Bronze Age agro-pastoralists who developed complex east–west trade routes between Central Asia and China that introduced wheat and barley to China and millet to Central Asia. The Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC), also known as the Oxus civilisation, was a Bronze Age civilisation in Central Asia, dated c.  2400  – c.  1600 BC , located in present-day northern Afghanistan , eastern Turkmenistan , southern Uzbekistan and western Tajikistan , centred on

19716-470: The perceived success of the Greek deportations allowed CUP leaders to envision even more radical policies "as yet another extension of a policy of social engineering through Turkification ". A few days after the outbreak of World War I, the CUP concluded an alliance with Germany on 2 August 1914. The same month, CUP representatives went to an ARF conference demanding that, in the event of war with Russia ,

19875-576: The point of origin of a cultural enigma termed the Seima-Turbino Phenomenon . It is conjectured that changes in climate in this region c.  2000 BC , and the ensuing ecological, economic, and political changes, triggered a rapid and massive migration westward into northeast Europe, eastward into China, and southward into Vietnam and Thailand across a frontier of some 4,000 mi (6,000 km). This migration took place in just five to six generations and led to peoples from Finland in

20034-817: The process also required the eradication of Armenian names , language , and culture , and for women, immediate marriage to a Muslim. Although Islamization was the most feasible opportunity for survival, it also transgressed Armenian moral and social norms. The CUP allowed Armenian women to marry into Muslim households, as these women would lose their Armenian identity. Young women and girls were often appropriated as house servants or sex slaves . Some boys were abducted to work as forced laborers for Muslim individuals. Some children were forcibly seized, while others were sold or given up by their parents to save their lives. Special state-run orphanages were also set up with strict procedures intending to deprive their charges of an Armenian identity. Most Armenian children who survived

20193-401: The regime insisted on their destruction wherever their numbers exceeded the five to ten percent threshold, or there was a risk of them being able to preserve their nationality and culture. Talaat Pasha personally authorized conversion of Armenians and carefully tracked the loyalty of converted Armenians until the end of the war. Although the first and most important step was conversion to Islam,

20352-521: The region laid the foundations for astronomy , mathematics, and astrology . The following dates are approximate. The Bronze Age in the Near East can be divided into Early, Middle and Late periods. The dates and phases below apply solely to the Near East, not universally. However, some archaeologists propose a "high chronology", which extends periods such as the Intermediate Bronze Age by 300 to 500–600 years, based on material analysis of

20511-466: The regional Bronze Age is the name given to the period in the 3rd millennium BC when Egyptian civilisation attained its first continuous peak of complexity and achievement—the first of three "Kingdom" periods which marked the high points of civilisation in the lower Nile Valley (the others being the Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom ). The First Intermediate Period of Egypt , often described as

20670-648: The rise of the Mesopotamian civilisation of Sumer in the mid-4th millennium BC. Cultures in the ancient Near East practised intensive year-round agriculture; developed writing systems ; invented the potter's wheel , created centralised governments (usually in the form of hereditary monarchies ), formulated written law codes, developed city-states , nation-states and empires; embarked on advanced architectural projects; and introduced social stratification , economic and civil administration, slavery , and practised organised warfare, medicine, and religion. Societies in

20829-530: The rise of the Shang and Zhou civilizations." According to Jan Romgard, "bronze and iron tools seem to have traveled from west to east as well as the use of wheeled wagons and the domestication of the horse." There are also possible links to Seima-Turbino culture , "a transcultural complex across northern Eurasia", the Eurasian steppe, and the Urals. However, the oldest bronze objects found in China so far were discovered at

20988-608: The roads and their bodies were buried hastily or, more often, simply left beside the roads. The Ottoman government ordered the corpses to be cleared as soon as possible to prevent both photographic documentation and disease epidemics, but these orders were not uniformly followed. Women and children, who made up the great majority of deportees, were usually not executed immediately, but subjected to hard marches through mountainous terrain without food and water. Those who could not keep up were left to die or shot. During 1915, some were forced to walk as far as 1,000 kilometers (620 mi) in

21147-682: The socket, which could be associated with the Seima-Turbino visual vocabulary of southern Siberia. The metallurgical centres of northwestern China, especially the Qijia culture in Gansu and Longshan culture in Shaanxi , played an intermediary role in this process. Iron use in China dates as early as the Zhou dynasty ( c.  1046  – 256 BC), but remained minimal. Chinese literature authored during

21306-509: The southern Korean Peninsula gradually adopted bronze production ( c.  700–600 BC ) after a period when Liaoning-style bronze daggers and other bronze artefacts were exchanged as far as the interior part of the Southern Peninsula ( c.  900–700 BC ). The bronze daggers lent prestige and authority to the personages who wielded and were buried with them in high-status megalithic burials at south-coastal centres such as

21465-510: The status of non-Muslims were strongly opposed by Islamic clergy and Muslims in general, and remained mostly theoretical. Because of the abolition of the Kurdish emirates in the mid-nineteenth century, the Ottoman government began to directly tax Armenian peasants who had previously paid taxes only to Kurdish landlords. The latter continued to exact levies illegally. From the mid-nineteenth century, Armenians faced large-scale land usurpation as

21624-436: The summer heat. Some deportees from western Anatolia were allowed to travel by rail . There was a distinction between the convoys from eastern Anatolia, which were eliminated almost in their entirety, and those from farther west, which made up most of those surviving to reach Syria. For example, around 99 percent of Armenians deported from Erzerum did not reach their destination. The Islamization of Armenians, carried out as

21783-413: The surviving body of early Chinese writing and have helped historians and archaeologists piece together the history of China, especially during the Zhou dynasty. The bronzes of the Western Zhou document large portions of history not found in the extant texts that were often composed by persons of varying rank and possibly even social class. Further, the medium of cast bronze lends the record they preserve

21942-450: The survivors sent to Deir ez-Zor. In general, Armenians were denied food and water during and after their forced march to the Syrian desert; many died of starvation, exhaustion, or disease, especially dysentery , typhus , and pneumonia . Some local officials gave Armenians food; others took bribes to provide food and water. Aid organizations were officially barred from providing food to

22101-509: The upper Amu Darya (Oxus River). Its sites were discovered and named by the Soviet archaeologist Viktor Sarianidi (1976). Bactria was the Greek name for the area of Bactra (modern Balkh ), in what is now northern Afghanistan, and Margiana was the Greek name for the Persian satrapy of Marguš , the capital of which was Merv in present-day Turkmenistan. A wealth of information indicates that

22260-641: The war and continuing for decades afterward. The first arrivals in mid-1915 were accommodated in Aleppo . From mid-November, the convoys were denied access to the city and redirected along the Baghdad Railway or the Euphrates towards Mosul . The first transit camp was established at Sibil, east of Aleppo; one convoy would arrive each day while another would depart for Meskene or Deir ez-Zor . Dozens of concentration camps were set up in Syria and Upper Mesopotamia . By October 1915, some 870,000 deportees had reached Syria and Upper Mesopotamia. Most were repeatedly transferred between camps, being held in each camp for

22419-436: The war of independence was "intended to complete the genocide by finally eradicating Armenian, Greek, and Syriac survivors". In 1920 Kâzım Karabekir , a Turkish general, invaded Armenia with orders "to eliminate Armenia physically and politically". Nearly 100,000 Armenians were massacred in Transcaucasia by the Turkish army and another 100,000 fled from Cilicia during the French withdrawal . According to Kévorkian, only

22578-422: The way for the formation of an ethno-national Turkish state. In September 1918, Talaat emphasized that regardless of losing the war, he had succeeded at "transforming Turkey to a nation-state in Anatolia". Deportation amounted to a death sentence; the authorities planned for and intended the death of the deportees. Deportation was only carried out behind the front lines, where no active rebellion existed, and

22737-403: The west to Thailand in the east employing the same metalworking technology and, in some areas, horse breeding and riding. However, recent genetic testings of sites in south Siberia and Kazakhstan ( Andronovo horizon) would rather support spreading of the bronze technology via Indo-European migrations eastwards, as this technology had been well known for quite a while in western regions. It

22896-424: The written East Semitic Akkadian language for official use and as a spoken language. By that time, the Sumerian language was no longer spoken, but was still in religious use in Assyria and Babylonia, and would remain so until the 1st century AD. The Akkadian and Sumerian traditions played a major role in later Assyrian and Babylonian culture. Despite this, Babylonia, unlike the more militarily powerful Assyria,

23055-416: Was "organized and carried out by the top leaders of CUP". Eighteen perpetrators (including Talaat, Enver, and Djemal) were sentenced to death, of whom only three were ultimately executed as the remainder had fled and were tried in absentia . The 1920 Treaty of Sèvres , which awarded Armenia a large area in eastern Anatolia , eliminated the Ottoman government's purpose for holding the trials. Prosecution

23214-399: Was Egypt's most prosperous time and marked the peak of Egypt's power. The later New Kingdom, comprising the Nineteenth and Twentieth dynasties (1292–1069 BC), is also known as the Ramesside period , after the eleven pharaohs who took the name of Ramesses. Elam was a pre-Iranian ancient civilisation located east of Mesopotamia. In the Middle Bronze Age, Elam consisted of kingdoms on

23373-416: Was a military ally of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. German diplomats approved limited removals of Armenians in early 1915, and took no action against the genocide, which has been a source of controversy. Relief efforts were organized in dozens of countries to raise money for Armenian survivors. By 1925, people in 49 countries were organizing "Golden Rule Sundays" during which they consumed

23532-533: Was acquitted by a German jury. The CUP regrouped as the Turkish nationalist movement to fight the Turkish War of Independence , relying on the support of perpetrators of the genocide and those who had profited from it. This movement saw the return of Armenian survivors as a mortal threat to its nationalist ambitions and the interests of its supporters. The return of survivors was therefore impossible in most of Anatolia and thousands of Armenians who tried were murdered. Historian Raymond Kévorkian states that

23691-468: Was dying and wanted to make his last will. Stating that Joscelin had not sent enough food to Edessa, Baldwin had him imprisoned and only released him after Joscelin renounced Turbessel. Following the fall of Edessa in 1144, Joscelin II fled to Turbessel, where he held the remnants of the county west of the Euphrates . In 1150, Nur ad-Din defeated Joscelin II, after allying with the Seljuk Sultan of Rüm , Mas'ud . Then he tried to besiege Turbessel, but

23850-428: Was entrusted with the county of Edessa. In late September 1108, near Turbessel, Tancred , with 1,500 Frankish knights and infantry, and 600 Turkish horsemen sent by Fakhr al-Mulk Ridwan confronted Baldwin II and the 2,000 men of Jawali Saqawa , atabeg of Mosul . Tancred and Ridwan routed Jawali's men who took refuge in Turbessel. Later on, Tancred who had initially refused to abandon Turbessel to Baldwin II, decided at

24009-411: Was founded by non-native Amorites and often ruled by other non-indigenous peoples such as the Kassites , Aramaeans and Chaldeans , as well as by its Assyrian neighbours. For many decades, scholars made superficial reference to Central Asia as the "pastoral realm" or alternatively, the "nomadic world", in what researchers call the "Central Asian void": a 5,000-year span that was neglected in studies of

24168-502: Was hampered by a widespread belief among Turkish Muslims that the actions against the Armenians were not punishable crimes. Increasingly, the genocide was considered necessary and justified to establish a Turkish nation-state. On 15 March 1921, Talaat was assassinated in Berlin as part of a covert operation of the ARF to kill the perpetrators of the Armenian genocide. The trial of his admitted killer, Soghomon Tehlirian , focused on Talaat's responsibility for genocide. Tehlirian

24327-447: Was low, making them especially vulnerable. Armenians in the eastern provinces lived in semi- feudal conditions and commonly encountered forced labor , illegal taxation , and unpunished crimes against them including robberies, murders, and sexual assaults. Beginning in 1839, the Ottoman government issued a series of reforms to centralize power and equalize the status of Ottoman subjects regardless of religion. The reforms to equalize

24486-409: Was often the only alternative. Deportees were displayed naked in Damascus and sold as sex slaves in some areas, constituting an important source of income for accompanying gendarmes. Some were sold in Arabian slave markets to Muslim Hajj pilgrims and ended up as far away as Tunisia or Algeria . A secondary motivation for genocide was the destruction of the Armenian bourgeoisie to make room for

24645-403: Was often used to fund the deportation of Armenians and resettlement of Muslims, as well as for army, militia, and other government spending. Ultimately this formed much of the basis of the industry and economy of the post-1923 republic, endowing it with capital . The dispossession and exile of Armenian competitors enabled many lower-class Turks (i.e. peasantry, soldiers, and laborers) to rise to

24804-545: Was only possible in the absence of widespread resistance. Armenians who lived in the war zone were instead killed in massacres. Although ostensibly undertaken for security reasons, the deportation and murder of Armenians did not grant the empire any military advantage and actually undermined the Ottoman war effort. The empire faced a dilemma between its goal of eliminating Armenians and its practical need for their labor; those Armenians retained for their skills, in particular for manufacturing in war industries, were indispensable to

24963-413: Was permanently separated from Eastern Armenia (held by the Safavids) by the 1639 Treaty of Zuhab . The Ottoman Empire was multiethnic and multireligious, and its millet system offered non-Muslims a subordinate but protected place in society. Sharia law encoded Islamic superiority but guaranteed property rights and freedom of worship to non-Muslims ( dhimmis ) in exchange for a special tax . On

25122-474: Was the western neighbour of the Middle and New Hittite Kingdoms , at times a rival and, at other times, a vassal. The Assuwa league was a confederation of states in western Anatolia defeated by the Hittites under the earlier Tudhaliya I c.  1400 BC . Arzawa has been associated with the more obscure Assuwa generally located to its north. It probably bordered it, and may have been an alternative term for it during some periods. In Ancient Egypt ,

25281-408: Was used to communicate orders; those for the deportation of Armenians were communicated to the provincial governors through official channels, but orders of a criminal character, such as those calling for annihilation, were sent through party channels and destroyed upon receipt. Deportation convoys were mostly escorted by gendarmes or local militia. The killings near the front lines were carried out by

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