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History of the Mediterranean region

(Redirected from History of the Mediterranean)

The history of the Mediterranean region and of

the cultures and people of the Mediterranean Basin is
important for understanding the origin and
development of the Mesopotamian, Egyptian,
Canaanite, Phoenician, Hebrew, Carthaginian,
Minoan, Greek, Persian, Illyrian, Thracian, Etruscan,
Iberian, Roman, Byzantine, Bulgarian, Arab, Berber,
Ottoman, Christian and Islamic cultures. The
Mediterranean Sea was the central superhighway of
transport, trade and cultural exchange between diverse
peoples encompassing three continents:[1] Western
Asia, North Africa, and Southern Europe. Bacino del Mediterraneo, dall’Atlante manoscritto
del 1582–1584 ca. Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale
Early history Vittorio Emanuele II, Rome (cart. naut. 2 – cart.
naut 6/1-2).

Lézignan-la-Cèbe in France, Orce[2] in Spain, Monte

Poggiolo[3] in Italy and Kozarnika in Bulgaria are
amongst the oldest Paleolithic sites in Europe and are located
around the Mediterranean Basin.

There is evidence of stone tools on Crete in 130,000 years

BC,[4][5] which indicates that early humans were capable of
using boats to reach the island.

The cultural stage of civilization (organised society structured

around urban centers) first arises in Southwest Asia, as an
extension of the Neolithic trend, from as early as the 8th
millennium BC, of proto-urban centers such as Çatalhöyük.
Urban civilizations proper begin to emerge in the Chalcolithic,
in 5th-to-4th-millennium Egypt and in Mesopotamia.

The Black Sea area is a cradle of the European civilization.

The site of Solnitsata (5500 BC - 4200 BC) is believed to be
the oldest town in Europe - prehistoric fortified (walled) stone The Fertile Crescent in the 2nd
settlement (prehistoric city).[6][7][8][9] The first gold artifacts millennium BC.
in the world appear from the 4th millennium BC, such as
those found in a burial site from 4569–4340 BC and one of
the most important archaeological sites in world prehistory – the Varna Necropolis near Lake Varna
in Bulgaria, thought to be the earliest "well-dated" find of gold artifacts.[10]

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As of 1990, gold artifacts found at the Wadi Qana cave cemetery of the 4th millennium BC in the West
Bank were the earliest from the Levant.[11]

The Bronze Age arises in this region during the final centuries of the 4th millennium. The urban
civilizations of the Fertile Crescent now have writing systems and develop bureaucracy, by the mid-
3rd millennium leading to the development of the earliest empires. In the 2nd millennium, the
eastern coastlines of the Mediterranean are dominated by the Hittite and Egyptian empires,
competing for control over the city states in the Levant (Canaan). The Minoans are trading
throughout much of the Mediterranean.

The Bronze Age collapse is the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age, expressed
by the collapse of palace economies of the Aegean and Anatolia, which were replaced after a hiatus by
the isolated village cultures of the ancient Near East. Some have gone so far as to call the catalyst that
ended the Bronze Age a "catastrophe".[12] The Bronze Age collapse may be seen in the context of a
technological history that saw the slow, comparatively continuous spread of iron-working technology
in the region, beginning with precocious iron-working in what is now Romania in the 13th and 12th
centuries.[13] The cultural collapse of the Mycenaean kingdoms, the Hittite Empire in Anatolia and
Syria, and the Egyptian Empire in Syria and Israel, the scission of long-distance trade contacts and
sudden eclipse of literacy occurred between 1206 and 1150 BC. In the first phase of this period, almost
every city between Troy and Gaza was violently destroyed, and often left unoccupied thereafter (for
example, Hattusas, Mycenae, Ugarit). The gradual end of the Dark Age that ensued saw the rise of
settled Neo-Hittite Aramaean kingdoms of the mid-10th century BC, and the rise of the Neo-Assyrian
Empire.

While the cultural advances during the Bronze Age had mostly been confined to the eastern parts of
the Mediterranean, with the Iron Age, the entire coastal region surrounding the Mediterranean now
becomes involved, significantly due to the Phoenician expansion from the Levant, beginning in ca. the
12th century. Fernand Braudel remarked in The Perspective of the World that Phoenicia was an early
example of a "world-economy" surrounded by empires. The high point of Phoenician culture and sea
power is usually placed ca. 1200–800  BC. Many of the most important Phoenician settlements had
been established long before this: Byblos, Tyre, Sidon, Simyra, Arwad, and Berytus, all appear in the
Amarna tablets.

The Phoenicians and the Assyrians transported elements of the Late Bronze Age culture of the Near
East to Iron Age Greece and Italy, but also further afield to Northwestern Africa and to Iberia,
initiating the beginning of Mediterranean history now known as Classical Antiquity. They notably
spread alphabetic writing, which would become the hallmark of the Mediterranean civilizations of the
Iron Age, in contrast to the cuneiform writing of Assyria and the logographic system in the Far East
(and later the abugida systems of India).

Classical antiquity
Two of the most notable Mediterranean civilizations in classical antiquity were the Greek city states
and the Phoenicians. The Greeks expanded throughout the Black Sea and south through the Red Sea.
The Phoenicians spread through the western Mediterranean reaching North Africa and the Iberian
Peninsula. From the 6th century BC up to including the 5th century BC, many of the significant
Mediterranean peoples were under Persian rule, making them dominate the Mediterranean during
these years. Both the Phoenicians and some of the Greek city states in Asia Minor provided the naval
forces of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Persian dominance ended after the Greco-Persian War in

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the 5th century BC and Persia was crippled by Macedonia in

the 4th century BC. The Odrysian Kingdom existed between
the 5th century BC and the 1st century AD as the most
important and powerful thracian state formation.

Persian period

From the 6th century BC up to including the first half of the Greek colonies during the 8th and 7th
4th century BC, many of the significant Mediterranean centuries BC.
peoples came under Achaemenid Persian rule, making them
dominate the Mediterranean during all these years. The
empire, founded by Cyrus the Great, would include Macedonia, Thrace and the western Black sea
coast (modern day southeastern and eastern Bulgaria), Egypt, Anatolia, the Phoenician lands, the
Levant, and many other basin regions of the Mediterranean later on.[14][15][16] Darius the Great
(Darius I) is to be credited as the first Achaemenid king to invest in a Persian fleet.[17] Even by then no
true "imperial navy" had existed either in Greece or Egypt. Persia would become the first empire,
under Darius, to inaugurate and deploy the first regular imperial navy.[17] Both the Phoenicians and
the Greeks provided the bulk of the naval forces of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, alongside the
Cypriots and Egyptians.[18] Full Persian dominance in the Mediterranean ended after the Greco-
Persian War in the 5th century BC, and Persia eventually lost all her influence in the Mediterranean in
the late 4th century BC following Alexander's conquests.

Hellenistic period

In the northernmost part of ancient Greece, in the ancient

kingdom of Macedonia, technological and organizational
skills were forged with a long history of cavalry warfare. The
hetairoi (Companion cavalry) was considered the strongest of
their time.[19] Under Alexander the Great, this force turned
east, and in a series of decisive battles, it routed the Persian
forces and took over as the dominant empire of the
Mediterranean. Their Macedonia empire included present-
day Greece, Bulgaria, Egypt, the Phoenician lands and many
other basin regions of the Mediterranean and Asia Minor.

The major centres of the Mediterranean at the time became

part of Alexander's empire as a result. His empire quickly The Mediterranean region in 220 BC.
disintegrated, and the Middle East, Egypt, and Greece were
soon again independent. Alexander's conquests spread Greek
knowledge and ideas throughout the region.

Roman–Carthaginian rivalry

These eastern powers soon began to be overshadowed by those farther west. In North Africa, the
former Phoenician colony of Carthage rose to dominate its surroundings with an empire that
contained many of the former Phoenician holdings. However, it was a city on the Italian Peninsula,

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Rome, that would eventually dominate the entire Mediterranean basin. Spreading first through Italy,
Rome defeated Carthage in the Punic Wars, despite Hannibal's famous efforts against Rome in the
Second Punic War.

After the Third Punic War, Rome then became the leading force in the Mediterranean region. The
Romans soon spread east, taking Greece, and spreading Latin knowledge and ideas throughout the
place. By this point the coastal trading cultures were thoroughly dominant over the inland river
valleys that had once been the heart of the great powers. Egyptian power moved from the Nile cities to
the coastal ones, especially Alexandria. Mesopotamia became a fringe border region between the
Roman Empire and the Persians.

Roman Mare Nostrum

When Augustus founded the Roman Empire, the

Mediterranean sea began to be called Mare Nostrum (Latin:
"Our Sea") by the Romans. Their empire was centered on this
sea and all the area was full of commerce and naval
development. For the first time in history, an entire sea (the
Mediterranean) was free of piracy. For several centuries, the
Mediterranean was a "Roman Lake", surrounded on all sides
by the empire.
The Mare nostrum, surrounded by
The empire began to crumble, however, in the fifth century Roman territory in c. 400 AD.
and Rome collapsed after 476 AD.

Sasanian and Byzantine times

The Eastern Roman or Byzantine empire began its domination of the Levant during its wars with
neighbouring Sassanid Persia. The rule through the 6th century AD saw climatic instability, causing
inconsistent production, distribution, and a general economic decline.[20] The Sasanians gained
territory on Mediterranean land regularly, but the Eastern Romans remained superior in the
Mediterranean sea for centuries. In the first quarter of the 7th century CE, the Sasanians took swaths
of the Mediterranean region from the Eastern Romans during the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–
628, though the Sasanians lost territories by the end of the war. Ultimately, Byzantine domination in
the region was forever finished by invasions of the Arabs and later the Turks.[21]

Middle Ages
Another power was rising in the east, that of Islam, whilst the Eastern Roman Empire and Sassanid
Persian empires were both weakened by centuries of stalemate warfare during the Roman–Persian
Wars. In a series of rapid Muslim conquests, the Arab armies, motivated by Islam and led by the
Caliphs and skilled military commanders such as Khalid ibn al-Walid, swept through most of the
Middle East; reducing Byzantine lands by more than half and completely engulfing the Persian lands.

The Arab invasions disrupted the trade relations between Western and Eastern Europe while cutting
the trade route with Oriental lands. This however had the indirect effect of promoting the trade across
the Caspian Sea. The export of grains from Egypt was re-routed towards the Eastern world. Oriental
goods like silk and spices were carried from Egypt to ports like Venice and Constantinople by sailors
and Jewish merchants. The Viking raids further disrupted the trade in western Europe and brought it
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to a halt. However, the Norsemen developed the trade from

Norway to the White Sea, while also trading in luxury goods
from Spain and the Mediterranean. The Byzantines in the
mid-8th century retook control of the area around the north-
eastern part of the Mediterranean. Venetian ships from the
9th century armed themselves to counter the harassment by
Arabs while concentrating trade of oriental goods at
The expansion of the Caliphate in the
Venice.[22]
Mediterranean region from 622 to 750
AD.
The powerful and long-lived Bulgarian Empire was the main
European rival in the region of the Mediterranean Balkan    Expansion under Muhammad, 622–
peninsula between the 7th and the 14th centuries, creating an 632
important cultural, political, linguistic and religious legacy    Expansion during the Rashidun
during the Middle Ages. Caliphate, 632–661
   Expansion during the Umayyad
In Anatolia, the Muslim expansion was blocked by the still Caliphate, 661–750
capable Byzantines with the help of the Tervel of Bulgaria.
The Byzantine provinces of Roman Syria, North Africa, and
Sicily, however, could not mount such a resistance, and the Muslim conquerors swept through those
regions. At the far west, they crossed the sea taking Visigothic Hispania before being halted in
southern France by the Franks. At its greatest extent, the Arab Empire controlled three-quarters of
the Mediterranean coast, and fostered an economic interrelationship between the Indian Ocean and
Mediterranean.[23] Much of North Africa became a peripheral area to the main Muslim centers in the
Middle East, but Al Andalus and Morocco soon broke from this distant control and became highly
advanced societies in their own right.

Between 831 and 1071, the Emirate of Sicily was one of the major centres of Islamic culture in the
Mediterranean. After its conquest by the Christian Normans, the island developed its own distinct
culture with the fusion of Latin and Byzantine influences. Palermo remained a leading artistic and
commercial centre of the Mediterranean well into the Middle Ages.

The Fatimids maintained trade relations with the Italian city-

states like Amalfi and Genoa before the Crusades, according
to the Cairo Geniza documents. A document dated 996
mentions Amalfian merchants living in Cairo. Another letter
states that the Genoese had traded with Alexandria. The
caliph al-Mustansir had allowed Amalfian merchants to reside
in Jerusalem about 1060 in place of the Latin hospice.[24]
Map of the main Byzantine-Muslim naval
More organized and centralized states gradually began to operations and battles in the
form in Europe during the later Middle Ages. Motivated by Mediterranean, 7th to 11th centuries
religion and dreams of conquest, the kings of Europe
launched a number of Crusades to try to roll back Muslim
power and retake the holy land. The Crusades were unsuccessful in this goal, but they were far more
effective in weakening the already tottering Byzantine Empire that began to lose increasing amounts
of territory to the Seljuk Turks and later to the Ottoman Turks. They also rearranged the balance of
power in the Muslim world as Egypt once again emerged as a major power in the eastern
Mediterranean.

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The Crusades led to flourishing of trade between Europe and the outremer region.[25] Genoa, Venice
and Pisa created colonies in regions controlled by the Crusaders and came to control the trade with
the Orient. These colonies also allowed them to trade with the Eastern world. Though the fall of the
Crusader states and attempts at banning of trade relations with Muslim states by the Popes
temporarily disrupted the trade with the Orient, it however continued.[26]

The Zirid state in eastern Maghreb developed around the great metropolis of Kairouan collapsed in
mid 12th century, with a henceforth fragmented Ifriqiya becoming a ground for competing external
powers from then on.[27] The high middle ages also saw the successive rise of two Berber powers, the
Almoravids and the Almohads, in the Western Maghreb, fostering the developments of cities such as
Marrakech and Fez upon their control over Trans-Saharan trade.[28] Cities in southern Iberia such as
Almería (under Almoravid rule) also thrived in the high middle ages.[29] The 12th century also saw
increasing naval and trading progress on the part of Christian powers in the northern shores of the
Mediterranean (including Genoa, Pisa, and Aragon), seemingly offering a challenge to the balance of
power in the Western Mediterranean.[30]

Slavery

Slavery was a strategic and very important part of all

Mediterranean societies during the Middle Ages. The threat of
becoming a slave was a constant fear for peasants, fishermen
and merchants. Those with money or who had financial
backing only feared the lack of support, should they be
threatened with abduction for ransom.

There were several things which could happen to people in the

Slave market in Algiers, c. 1684
Mediterranean region of the Middle Ages:

1. When Corsairs, pirate, Barbary corsairs, French corsairs

or commerce raiders plied their trade, a peasant, fisherman or coastal villager, who had no
financial backing, could be abducted or sold to slave traders, or adversaries, who made large
profits on an international market;
2. If the captive was wealthy or had influential supporters, the captive could be ransomed. This
would be the most advantageous plan, since the money exchange was immediate and direct, not
long and drawn out as in the slave market business;
3. The captive could be used immediately by the corsair for labour on the ship rather than traded. In
battles during this era, prisoners of war were often captured and used as slaves.

Emperors would take large numbers of prisoners, parade them through the capital, hold feasts in
honour of their capture and parade diplomats in front of them as a display of victory.[31]

Late Middle Ages

The "Repubbliche Marinare" (Maritime republics) of Amalfi, Gaeta, Venice, Genoa, Ancona, Pisa and
Ragusa developed their own empires in the Mediterranean shores. The Islamic states had never been
major naval powers, and trade from the east to Europe was soon in the hands of Italian traders,
especially the Genoese and the Venetians, who profited immensely from it. The Republic of Pisa and
later the Republic of Ragusa used diplomacy to further trade and maintained a libertarian approach in
civil matters to further sentiment in its inhabitants.
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The Republic of Venice got to dominate the eastern

mediterranean shores after the Fourth Crusade.[32]

Between 1275 and 1344 a struggle for the control of the Strait
of Gibraltar took place. Featuring the Marinid Sultanate, the
Nasrid Kingdom of Granada, the Crown of Castile, the Crown
of Aragón, the Kingdom of Portugal and the Republic of
Genoa, it was characterized by changing alliances between the
Genoese (red) and Venetian (green)
main actors.[33] The iberian cities of Tarifa, Ceuta, Algeciras
maritime trade routes in the
or Ronda and the African port of Ceuta were at stake.[33] The
Mediterranean.
Western Mediterranean sea was dominated by the Crown of
Aragon: thanks to their possessions of Sicily, the Kingdom of
Naples, the Kingdom of Sardinia, the Balearic Islands, the Duchy of Athens the Duchy of Neopatria,
and several northern African cities.

In 1347 the Black Death spread from Constantinople across the mediterranean basin.[34]

Ottoman power continued to grow, and in 1453, the Byzantine Empire was extinguished with the fall
of Constantinople. The Ottomans already controlled Greece, Bulgaria and much of the Balkans and
soon also began to spread through North Africa. North Africa had grown wealthy from the trade
across the Sahara Desert, but the Portuguese, who, along with other Christian powers, had been
engaged in a long campaign to evict the Muslims from Iberia, had found a method to circumvent this
trade by trading directly with West Africa. This was enabled by a new type of ships, the caravel, that
made trade in the rough Atlantic waters profitable for the first time. The reduction in the Saharan
trade weakened North Africa, and made them an easy target for the Ottomans.

Ceuta was ultimately taken by the Kingdom of Portugal in 1415, searching to undermine Castilian,
Aragonese, and Genoese interests in the area.[35]

During the Middle Ages, rival Christian and Muslim kingdoms forbade the trade of particular goods to
enemy kingdoms including weaponry and other contraband items. The popes forbade the export of
these commodities to the Islamic world. The Ottomans too forbade the export of weapons and other
strategic items, declaring them memnu eşya or memnu olan to Christian states even in peace treaties,
however friendly states could import some of the prohibited goods through capitulations. Despite
these prohibitions, trade of contraband occurred on both sides. The European merchants traded in
illegal goods with Muslims. The Ottomans were unable to suppress the trade with smuggling being
undertaken mainly in the winter when the Ottoman Navy stationed at the Istanbul Arsenal was
unable to stop Ottoman and non-Ottoman vessels from indulging in the trade.[36]

Modern era
The growing naval prowess of the European powers confronted further rapid Ottoman expansion in
the region when the Battle of Lepanto checked the power of the Ottoman navy. However, as Braudel
argued forcefully, this only slowed the Ottoman expansion instead of ending it. The prized island of
Cyprus became Ottoman in 1571. The last resistance in Tunisia ended in 1574 and almost a generation
long siege in Crete pushed Venetians out of this strategic island in 1669.

A balance of power was then established between the Spanish Crown and the Ottoman Empire until
the 18th century, each dominating their respective half of Mediterranean, reducing Italian navies as
naval powers increasingly more irrelevant. Furthermore, the Ottoman Empire had succeeded in their
objective of extending Muslim rule across the North African coast.
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The development of long range seafaring had an influence

upon the entire Mediterranean. While once all trade from the
east had passed through the region, the circumnavigation of
Africa allowed gold, spices, and dyes to be imported directly
to the Atlantic ports of western Europe. The Americas were
also a source of extreme wealth to the western powers, from
which some of the Mediterranean states were largely cut off.

The base of European power thus shifted northward and the

once wealthy Italy became a peripheral area dominated by
foreigners. The Ottoman Empire also began a slow decline
that saw its North African possessions gain de facto
independence and its European holdings gradually reduced
by the territorial gains of Austria and the Russian Empire. In Ottoman Empire territories acquired
the wake of the aftermath of the 1768–1774 Russo-Turkish between 1300 and 1683.
War, the Russian empire gained direct access to the Black
Sea.[37]

By the nineteenth century the European States were vastly

more powerful, and began to colonize North Africa. France
spread its power south by starting their conquest of the
Regency of Algiers in 1830 and later gaining control over the
Beylik of Tunis. Following the British capture of Gibraltar
(1713), Malta (1814) and Cyprus (1878), the British Empire
occupied Egypt as a result of the 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War. Greatest extent of Italian control of the
The Suez Canal was opened during this period, with far- Mediterranean littoral and seas (within
reaching consequences for trade between Asia, East Africa green line & dots) in summer/fall 1942.
and Europe. The Mediterranean countries were preferred Allied-controlled areas in red.
because of the shorter route, and port cities such as Trieste
with their direct, fast access to Central and Northern Europe
were booming.[38] Italy conquered Libya from the Ottomans in 1911. Greece achieved independence
in 1832. The Ottoman Empire finally collapsed in the First World War, and its holdings were carved
up among France and Britain. The rump state of the wider Ottoman Empire became the independent
state of Turkey in 1923. Yugoslavia was created from the former Austro-Hungarian empire at the end
of the First World War.

During the first half of the twentieth century the Mediterranean was at the center of the expansion of
the Kingdom of Italy, and was one of the main areas of battle during World War II between the Axis
and the Allies. Post-world war period was marked by increasing activity in the Eastern
Mediterranean, where naval actions formed part of ongoing Arab–Israeli conflict and Turkey had
occupied the northern part of Cyprus. Cold War tensions split the Mediterranean into pro-American
and pro-Soviet factions, with Turkey, Greece, Spain, Italy and France being NATO members. Syria
was socialist and a pro-Soviet regime, offering the Soviets a port for their navy from an agreement in
1971. Yugoslavia was Communist but in neither the Soviet nor American camps. Egypt tilted towards
the Soviets during the time of Nasser but then turned towards American influence during the time of
Sadat. Israel and Egypt both received massive American military aid. American naval power made the
Mediterranean a base for the United States Sixth Fleet during the Cold war.

Today, the Mediterranean Sea is the southern border of the European Union and represents one of
the largest area by Trade in the World. The Maltese prime minister described the Mediterranean sea
as a "cemetery" due to the large amounts of migrants who drown there.[39] Following the 2013
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Lampedusa migrant shipwreck, the Italian government, has decided to strengthen the national system
for the patrolling of the Mediterranean Sea by authorizing Operation Mare Nostrum, a military and
humanitarian operation in order to rescue the migrants and arrest the traffickers of immigrants.[40]

See also
Eastern Mediterranean
History of Anatolia
History of Europe
History of the Middle East
History of North Africa
History of the Levant
History of Western civilization
Life zones of the Mediterranean region
Mediterranean Basin
Union for the Mediterranean

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books?id=QsJ183uUDkMC&pg=PA345) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20170224121356/
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Bibliography
Banaji, Jairus (2007). "Islam, the Mediterranean and the Rise of Capitalism" (http://eprints.soas.a
c.uk/15983/1/Islam%20and%20capitalism.pdf) (PDF). Historical Materialism. Leiden: Koninklijke
Brill. 15: 47–74. doi:10.1163/156920607X171591 (https://doi.org/10.1163%2F156920607X17159
1). ISSN 1465-4466 (https://www.worldcat.org/issn/1465-4466).
López, María Dolores (1996–1997). "De nuevo sobre la "guerra del Estrecho" la contribución
financiera del reino de Valencia en la última fase del conflicto (1332–1344)" (https://rua.ua.es/dsp
ace/bitstream/10045/6840/1/HM_11_23.pdf) (PDF). Anales de la Universidad de Alicante. Historia
medieval. Alicante: University of Alicante (11): 405–416. ISSN 0212-2480 (https://www.worldcat.or
g/issn/0212-2480).
Sola, Emilio (2006). "The Mediterranean, dynamic centre of the 14th century". In María Jesús
Viguera Molins (Coord.) (ed.). Ibn Khaldun: The Mediterranean in the 14th Century: Rise and Fall
of Empires. Foundation José Manuel Lara. pp. 40–49. ISBN 84-96556-34-4.

Further reading
Abulafia, David (2011). The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean. Oxford University
Press. ISBN 978-0-19-532334-4.
Braudel, Fernand. The Mediterranean in the Age of Philip II. 2 vol 1972), the classic history by the
leader of the French Annales School; excerpt and text search vol 1 (https://www.amazon.com/Me
diterranean-World-Age-Philip-Vol/dp/0520203089/); excerpt and text search vol 2 (https://www.am
azon.com/Mediterranean-World-Age-Philip-II/dp/0520203305/)
John A. Marino, "The Exile and His Kingdom—The Reception of Braudel’s Mediterranean,"
Sixteenth Century Journal (2003) 34#4
Burke, III, Edmund. "Toward a Comparative History of the Modern Mediterranean, 1750–1919,"
Journal of World History (2012) 23#4 pp. 907–939 | DOI: 10.1353/jwh.2012.0133
Chambers, Iain. Mediterranean Crossings: The Politics of an Interrupted Modernity (Duke
University Press, 2008).
Horden, Peregrine and Nicholas Purcell. The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History.
Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000.
Horden, Peregrine and Purcell, Nicholas. "The Mediterranean and 'the New Thalassology'"
American Historical Review (2006) 111#3 pp 722–740 online (https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1
086/ahr.111.3.722)
Rogerson, Barnaby. The Last Crusaders: The Hundred-Year Battle for the Center of the World
(Overlook Press; 2010) 482 pages. Traces power struggles in the Mediterranean between 1450
and 1590.
Thiollet, Jean-Pierre. Je m'appelle Byblos.
Philip V. Bohlman, Marcello Sorce Keller, and Loris Azzaroni (eds.), Musical Anthropology of the
Mediterranean: Interpretation, Performance, Identity, Bologna, Edizioni Clueb – Cooperativa
Libraria Universitaria Editrice, 2009.
Schlicht, Alfred, "Die Araber und Europa" Stuttgart 2008 (Kohlhammer Verlag)
Sorce Keller, Marcello. “Mediterranean”, Janet Sturman (ed.) The SAGE Encyclopedia of Music
and Culture. Los Angeles: SAGE Reference, 2019, Vol. III, 618-623.

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5/21/23, 9:20 AM History of the Mediterranean region - Wikipedia

Broodbank, Cyprian (2013). The Making of the Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean from
the Beginning to the Emergence of the Classical World. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-
999978-1.

External links
Ancient Mediterranean Civilizations Timeline (10000 BC to 700 AD) (https://web.archive.org/web/2
0080417092230/http://tam.arbolingo.com/timeline/)
Ancient Mediterranean History Encyclopedia (http://www.ancientopedia.com/)
History of the Mediterranean (http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid
=ab44) at historyworld.net

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