When one takes a long look at the Middle East (not to get into Indonesia, etc.), one can see how someone like Rufus Fears reiterates the adage, the Middle East is the 'graveyard of empires'.
It had also been if not 'the' cradle of empires, certainly one such cradle.
What else emerges about it?
It has long been an area tormented by the close proximity of diverse human civilized habitation, small alien tribes, each very different from its neighbor, various small warlike and aggressive temple cults, etc.; and poor, impotent, and draining ancient agriculture.
It has been an area amid and between developing larger civilizations, on all sides, and subject to movements across its regions, both by armies and merchants, for thousands of years.
One might call it the first 'multicultural' culture.
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