From Alexander the Great to Hannibal, from Nebuchadnezzar and Archimedes to Lord Byron and Dante, an arc over the millennia of conquerors Romanians, Byzantines, Arabs and nomads whose triumph? ˆ in ?eight?. Power and ephemeral glory? of empires, a shiny, sophisticated book? And still: Tyre, Carthage, Syracuse, Ravenna and Antioch rivaled only by Rome, Constantinople and Jerusalem.
A mythical land, a land that witnessed the most grandiose civilizations of the world, from conception to to the desolation, what hides in the depths the ruins of lost civilizations and ships full of treasures.
An immensity of water ? what was once the key to global power, a space of crossing and meeting, in fact the center of the world for vessels loaded from all directions, and to all directions, with Cultures, ceramics, foods, crafts and people who brought with them languages, cultures, ideas and sometimes weapons.
Along these ancient ruins shone the oldest fogs And in the world, nothing has survived from those greatnesses, because the distance from greatness to anonymity is surprisingly fragile. These cities are true palimpsests, with layers upon layers of history, culture? and identity, each making the one before it incomprehensible, without s? exclude? Sudden splashes on the surface.
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Author:
Katherine Pangonis studied literature and history at Oxford University and University College London. Is he a specialist? î in the history of the medieval world of the Mediterranean and the Middle East.