Carpe Diem #1374 The Levant

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

First I have to apologize for being this late with publishing our new episode of our journey along the Ancient Silk Road, that renown trade route straight through Asia. As I was doing my research for our yesterday's post I ran into what is known as The Levant. As I read that name I thought it was a kind of warm wind, but it turned out that it was a region in Asia. I was immediately triggered, because I think there are many around that have the same idea about The Levant. So here it is our new episode about The Levant and I hope it will be an interesting episode.

The Levant ... Land of the Morninglight

The Levant is a term in geography that refers to an area in the Middle East which includes the historic areas of Palestine, Israel and Syria. The Levant is bounded by the Taurus Mountains to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the west, the northern Arabian Desert to the south and Upper Mesopotamia to the east.
The word "Levant" entered the English language in the 16th century, together with the first English merchant adventurers in the region. English ships appeared in the Mediterranean in the 1570s and the English merchant company signed its agreement ("capitulations") with the Grand Turk in 1579.
Today, the word "Levant" is usually used by archaeologists and historians who are talking about the prehistory and the ancient and medieval history of the region, as when discussing the Crusades. The term is also used sometimes to refer to modern or contemporary events, peoples, states, or parts of states in the same region, such as Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories.

The Levant has been described as the "crossroads of western Asia, the eastern Mediterranean, and northeast Africa", and the "northwest of the Arabian plate".The populations of the Levant share not only the geographic position, but cuisine, some customs , and a very long history. They are often referred to as Levantines.

The Levant has a rich history

In this "crossroads"- idea we can see that The Levant was part of the Silk Road, so this region was rich and their main goal was trading. The Levant is also a region in which we see Islam as a leading religion. So maybe ... Islam came along the Silk Road too as did Buddhism and Christianity.
What an awesome idea that these religions were spread along the Silk Road ... as a kind of trading ideas and philosophies.

ancient crossroads
buried beneath the desert
raging sandstorms

© Chèvrefeuille

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until February 27th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, Petra, later on. For now .... have fun!