The Mediterranean Sea: Its history and present challenges

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The Mediterranean Sea : Its History and Present Challenges

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The image conveyed by the apparent death of the silence of the desert was overcome by the force of the overflowing waters that crossed the country from south to north, and became lost in the immensity of the sea. The country was thus was thus constituted in the poetical game of contrasts. Enclosed and protected in its world, Egypt slowly built "bridges" to the outside.

In doing so it created certain routes, paths Trade and the exploitation of mines and quarries determined its steps The Mediterranean allowed the Egyptian world to enter into contact with the Aegean world. Thus, from the Middle Kingdom c.

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Relating to the coast of the eastern Mediterranean, the first contacts date back to the Old Kingdom c. These trade relations would be intensified during the Middle Kingdom and spread to Syria in the New Kingdom c. And finally, in Sinai, in the Eastern Desert and in Nubia activity was concentrated on the exploitation of mines and quarries. With Anatolia Egypt developed another type of relationship based mainly on armed conflict and the dispute over spheres of influence.

And when this conflict did not seem to be heading towards any solution, diplomacy emerged as an extraordinary resource to resolve all the clashes between the empires. So these people, enabled by the Mediterranean Sea to learn about the world, shaped a civilization founded on two types of integrating elements: Among the first we can highlight essentially four: Regarding the second type of integrating elements, these belong to the set of archetypes and messages that the Egyptians bequeathed to the world at the beginning of time.

Ptah, the creator god of Memphis, conceived the cosmos in its different manifestations in his heart and realized it through the creative and operative force of the word.

The doctrine of the creator verb, usually recognized from the biblical text Gen. But the same phenomenon occurs with respect to the explanation of man's creation: The road, which was the Mediterranean, connected Egypt to the world and by doing so carried traces of this civilization to other spaces, other peoples, other cultures. Unlike the Egyptians, the Phoenicians were not protected "by the gods" in terms of geography, but they were also challenged.

The challenge of the Mediterranean pushed them to a destination from which they could not escape. The Phoenicians built their story caught between two worlds: In addition, its beautiful coastline, with its harbours, became the target of many and varied raids over time.

Its boundaries were never barriers, but simply routes to be crossed: To the west, Phoenicia was faced with the "great sea" and turned it into its "privileged dwelling" where it moved at ease. And so the Phoenicians turned the Mediterranean into a second territory, into a path that allowed them to set off in conquest of markets and raw materials. Across the Mediterranean they traced the routes from Tyre to Gadir, the passage of the Strait of Gibraltar, the route from Gadir to Tyre and the Atlantic route.

All of this traversed landscape is not a geographical unit nor is it uniform from the physical point of view This diversity created the wealth necessary for the establishment of the first populations.

The Mediterranean Sea: Its History and Present Challenges | NHBS Academic & Professional Books

This challenge can also be a gift. Thus, the people settled in the coastline building up the height of their cities, which they walled, and which never had a very large area - Byblos, for example. In the 3rd millennium, an Egyptian community was established in Byblos, carrying with them their customs and traditions, which blended with the customs and traditions of the local populations.

Byblos was a city gifted for its agriculture, for the exploitation of forests, ports and metallurgy, but despite this great diversity of resources its "prime" destiny was trade. However, the westward expansion of the Phoenicians marked their decline. Its attitude of neutrality in the face of different invaders did not cause a good impression nor create good neighbours, even though the Phoenician never had had a strong sense of nationhood.

This attitude can be explained by the fact that the "Phoenician political space" was a much wider territory than Phoenicia itself. Rather than feeling a political unity, that had never existed, they were part of a cultural community that had fulfilled a determinant historical mission: In terms of integrating elements, this was the great legacy that Phoenicia left to the world. With this attitude, Phoenicia fulfilled a crucial cultural mission, by establishing contacts, exchanges, intimacies between the East and the far distant West.

Moreover, it took its unifying role even further, by leaving us one of the most remarkable inventions of the cultural history of mankind: This resulted from a long historical process of maturation, which manifested for the first time in the passage from the 2 nd to the 1st millennium. Its history and present challenges. Set up a giveaway.

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