In the past, we often referred to Babylon, Ancient Egypt, Ancient India, and Ancient China as the four ancient civilizations in the world, but this statement is very wrong because there are many ancient countries. Later, it was changed to the "Five Cradles of Civilizations" of ancient Egyptian civilization, Lianghe civilization, Indus civilization, Chinese civilization and Aegean civilization. But this statement is still not very accurate, because the two rivers civilization is only limited to the two rivers, and the surrounding Phoenician, Assyrian, Persia, etc. should belong to a series of civilizations, so the most popular statement is the West Asian civilization.
West Asia should be the origin of world civilization. Almost all of the world's most important civilization inventions first appeared in West Asia. West Asia is one of the three largest agricultural origins in the world. It was the first to grow barley and wheat and raise livestock. The earliest copperware was found in the Xiaoya Peninsula, 10,000 years ago; the earliest ironware was found at the Hittite site on the Turkish Peninsula, 4,500 years ago; the earliest writing, cuneiform writing, was found in the Mesopotamia, 5200 years ago.
About 3500 years ago, Sumer in Mesopotamia entered the city-state era and discovered 12 city-state sites, and left behind the "Epic of Gilgamesh" and The world's earliest code (recorded by cuneiform writing). Around 2371 BC, the Akkadian Kingdom emerged and unified the lower reaches of the Mesopotamia, and then went through the Third Dynasty of Ur and the Babylonian Dynasty. Opposing the lower reaches of the two rivers is the upper Assyrian kingdom (3000 BC-609 BC). They united the entire Mesopotamia basin in the 8th century and established the "Assyrian Empire". In 626 BC, the Chaldeans established the new Kingdom of Babylon.
Around the Mesopotamia, there are a large number of ancient kingdoms. From the first 3000 years, Phoenician city-states began to rise, they continued to colonize the Mediterranean area, and later established Carthage in North Africa. In the Persian plateau there are the ancient kingdoms of Elam (3000-639 before) and the Kingdom of Medes (700-550 before), and the Hittite Kingdom (1800--8th century before) which is good at fighting in the Xiaoya Peninsula and developed industrial and commercial The Kingdom of Lydia (1000 BC-546 BC); In Palestine, there is also the Hebrew Kingdom (1025-586 BC) that has an important influence on Western religion.
West Asia civilization is one of the sources of world civilization. It is the origin of metal smelting and the origin of raising animals. It is also the origin of Western alphabetic characters. Phoenician characters were later transformed into Greek alphabets by Greece. Hebrew Judaism is the source of Christianity and Islam. Almost all Western astronomical achievements are based on the stability of Lianghe. In terms of time, the 60-digit system also originated from the Mesopotamia and has been adopted by the world.
Counting down, the countries in West Asia that appeared earlier than the Xia Dynasty include the Sumerian City-State, the Akkad Kingdom, the Assyrian Kingdom, the Phoenician City-state, and the Eland Kingdom. There are 5 in total, plus Egypt (11 dynasties have passed through before the Xia Dynasty) and the Indus Civilization (which rose about 2300 years ago). Then there are at least seven kingdoms in the world whose history predates the Xia Dynasty, and they are still based on the recognition of the existence of the Xia Dynasty. At the same time as the Xia Dynasty, there were also the Cretan civilization, the Hittite Kingdom, and the Middle Kingdom of Egypt. Therefore, as a Chinese, you must not be arrogant.
