Fertile CrescentGEOFF EMBERLING

A term for the rich agricultural land of the

Tigris-Euphrates floodplain, bounded by the

curve of the Zagros and Taurus Mountains,

that supported the civilizations of Assyria and

Babylonia. It was introduced by James Henry

Breasted in a 1914 book (Outlines of European

History, Part I) andmore broadly disseminated

in his Ancient Times, first published in 1916. It

is a term that captured the public imagination

and is still used in American elementary and

secondary schools, even if its referent is ambig-

uous, with some texts extending it to include

ancient Israel and even Egypt.

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Breasted, J. H. (1914) “Earliest man, the Orient,

Greece and Rome.” In J. H. Breasted and

J. H. Robinson, Outlines of European history,

Part I. Boston.

Breasted, J. H. (1916) Ancient times: a history

of the early world. Boston.

The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, First Edition. Edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine,

and Sabine R. Huebner, print page 2657.

© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

DOI: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah01064

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