We’re living in what was once the Persian Empire. And you could say that this empire was late in the history of the region. The Persian Empire lasted from 550 to 330 BCE but there are signs of human habitation in what is now the mountainous area of Iran going back for a hundred thousand years with settlements occurring ten thousand years ago. The fertile basin of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, located in present day Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Türkiye, was the cradle of the ancient Mesopotamian civilisation where grain was harvested and preserved 12,500 years ago. Mesopotamia meaning literally middle of rivers, just as Mediterranean means literally middle of the land. Somehow the translations lose all the romance.
Just beginning to read Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones’s book Persians, “a definitive history of the Persian Empire, the world’s first superpower”. (Only the Welsh can fit three double L’s into one name).
And terrace warming up nicely in response to spring. Tiles warm on my bare feet this morning.
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