Western Egypt Research Paper

Described as the "crossroads of western Asia" the Levant surrounded by Turkey to the North, Egypt to the south, Mediterranean Sea to the west, Iraq and northern Saudi Arabia to the east. The Levant consists of the countries of Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, the northeastern tip of Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria. Geographically, this area became divided between the coastal plans of the west and the hill country of the East. As a result of rainfall, which decreases from the north to the south, the northern regions quickly became more economically developed than the southern regions. Derived from the Italian word "levante," which describes the rising of the sun in the east. From 1300 to 1400AD, the Levant became part of the Italian trade market in the eastern Mediterranean, including Greece, Turkey, Syria, Palestine, Jordan and Egypt. Eventually the term became synonymous with the counties along the eastern coastline of the Mediterranean
The empire began to collapse, toward the end of the 700BC, and was defeated by an alliance of armies from Neo-Babylonian and the Medes from what is now modern Iran. Later in 500BC, the Persians revolted against the Medes to gain control of the Levant area along with Anatolia, Damascus, Babylonia and Egypt and established Zoroastrianism as the predominant religion of the land. Persia was defeated by Alexander the Great and the Selecuid kingdom began to decline with much of Greeks province being controlled by the Roman Republic. The Sassanids from Persians, from 421 to 440BC, began conflicts against Rome and later with the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine Empire from Eastern Rome controlled the majority of the Levant, along with both the Kingdom of Israel and Kingdom of Judah, until 636AD, when the Arabs invaded, conquered the Levant and unified the area under Islam. By 650AD, the Arab forces had conquered all of Persia, Syria and