Fertile Crescent

History lovers may contain a full-fledged or sustain a scar-tipped reminiscence of this concept. This article is here to revamp the idea of fertile crescent. You are about to read some facts on fertile crescent that will prove useful in activating your gray cells devoted to the historical jury.

Fertile Crescent Facts

• The fertile crescent can be defined as the middle east patch of countries that witnessed the first glimpse of civilization with regards to villages, agriculture and farming.
• Its definition remains incomplete if the countries belonging to the middle east stretch are not mentioned. The countries that proved testimony to the fact of civilization cropping up were the hilly regions of Palestine extending north towards the Mediterranean coast and stretching further towards Syria, navigating southwards to the east of Tigris and Euphrates river, culminating the patch in the Persian Gulf. The shape of the region that is covered by the wake of civilization are interestingly in the shape of a semi-circle.
• The term was constructed and made familiar by James Henry Breasted. The director of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, this scholar hailing from ancient Egypt explicated this concept for the very first time in his book "Ancient Times: A History of the Early World".
• The crescent, around 8000 BC was not well populated nor had agriculture taken a strong stead. However, the region was the first to look into the agricultural front, where wild wheat, barley, pulses of peas, chickpeas, lentils and flax were the predominant crops that served to be the hall marks of agricultural practice.
• It was in the crescent region that nomads and hunters took up noteworthy occupations and were coveted as the first farmers that the world ever had. They now had the resources to settle down and indulge in future planning in terms of family and the required feed.
• Catal Huyuk, Jericho, Jarmo, Beidha, Ali Kosh and Hassuna were the first towns to have ever emerged in the wake of civilization.
• The term fertile crescent is used sometimes in conjugation with Egypt, as Egypt was also the first civilizations to have been born.
• The roots of Horticulture stemmed from this very civilization. Figs, pomegranates, grapes, and olives were the first cultivated products in the fertile crescent.
• The region near the Persian gulf started to develop first, giving rise to the Sumerian civilization that set sail the primary and the key foundations of alphabets and numbers. The city of Ur was born where the wheel was first spun and mathematical questions were first solved.
• The Sumerian were the first excavators in their league to have invented the concept of ziggurats or temples. Their purpose in life was dedicated to worshiping the ultimate supreme power, who was the creator of every spec that constitutes the land, the sea and the sun.
• The Sumerian went on to extend their region northward, making the region all the more wide and influential. The empire that they built upon and worked for, came to be known as Mesopotamia, which means 'land between two rivers'.
• The Akkadians encroached the Sumerian land called Mesopotamia and soon began to mix around with the Sumerian culture. The Akkadians in their process of invasion, invented abacus. A mathematical tool that makes complex calculations easy.
• The fertile crescent is a term that has come under the microscopic lenses of critical mutual scrutiny by scholars, historians and scientists. They strongly opine that the term does not hold any validity in describing the historical phenomenon. However, the IT is a term that is still used widely to denote the spring of villages, cities and agriculture in the primary stance of civilization.

Thus, the concept of fertile crescent will not fade from the minds and -- with utmost probabilities -- remain the term that will leave behind traces, reminding us of its 'still' existence.