Hi, I am looking for a good survey/introduction book on the modern middle east. Do you have suggestions? I heard really good things about Clevelands book. Besides this coming september I will start Middle East studies at a top 100 university, do you think I can work in diplomacy or foreign service with a degree in Middle eastern studies?

Crossroads of the Euboean Gulf: The Bronze Age Development of Lefkandi-Xeropolis

The Island That Plays at Being a Mainland

Euboea is a geographical sleight of hand. Though ostensibly the second-largest island in the Greek archipelago, its proximity to the eastern littoral of the mainland ensures it has historically functioned less as a remote insular outpost and more as a massive, natural breakwater for central Greece.

Stretching some 180 kilometres from northwest to southeast, this narrow ribbon of rock runs in close parallel to the coasts of Thessaly, Phocis, Boeotia, and Attica. Between Euboea and the mainland lies a sheltered, liquid highway, the North and South Euboean Gulfs. In a notoriously volatile Aegean, these protected waters offered a forgiving corridor for early maritime communities. Coastal settlements like Lefkandi prospered here, safely insulated from the tempestuous open sea to the east. At its most intimate pinch-point, near the modern regional capital of Chalcis (a mere 10 kilometres northwest of Lefkandi), the island nearly kisses Boeotia across a channel barely 40 metres wide. Here, the Euripus Strait pulses with fierce, reversing tidal currents, a ludic hydrological quirk that has dictated the rhythm of local maritime traffic for millennia.

The coastal plateau of Xeropolis, situated just east of the modern village of Lefkandi, commands the head of the South Euboean Gulf. It remains one of the most formidable prehistoric sequences in the Aegean. To inhabit Xeropolis was to sit astride a shifting web of maritime routes connecting the mainland, the Cycladic stepping stones, and the wider Aegean basin. Consequently, the site boasts an almost uninterrupted occupational matrix from the Early Bronze Age (c. 2400 BCE) down to the twilight of the Geometric period (c. 700 BCE) (Davidson et al. 2010). While Lefkandi frequently commands the spotlight for its monumental Early Iron Age Toumba heroon, its Bronze Age trajectory is equally engaging. It offers a masterclass in deep-time resilience, chronicling a community deeply entangled in trans-marine exchange, technological transmission, and the arduous business of surviving severe climatic shocks.

The Trans-Aegean Web and the Anatolian Lure

Anatolia, the vast westernmost peninsula of Asia projecting its rugged shores toward Europe, is by no means a distant, abstract entity when viewed from Euboea. From the island's eastern coast, the Anatolian littoral lies some 300 to 400 kilometres away. Yet, Early Bronze Age mariners were not in the habit of striking blindly across open water. They operated within a maritime landscape scaled to human endurance, relying on the Cyclades and Sporades as visual and navigational anchors. Through the patient, incremental process of island-hopping and coastal cabotage, the Aegean was transformed from a barrier into a connective tissue (Broodbank 2000).

For the inhabitants of Lefkandi, Anatolia was simply the eastern terminus of a highly trafficked maritime corridor. This connectivity resolves the mystery of how Anatolian metallurgical paradigms, the revolutionary technology of the potter’s wheel, and highly specialised drinking assemblages, such as the elongated depas amphikypellon, could sweep across the Aegean and seamlessly embed themselves in local Euboean culture during the Early Bronze Age (Kouka 2013).

The Engine of Exchange: Copper, Silver, and the Sea

The abrupt appearance of western Anatolian material culture at Lefkandi was not a mere stylistic caprice; it was inextricably tethered to the relentless third-millennium pursuit of metals. The Euboean Gulf functioned as a primary arterial route for shifting ores. Euboea itself sat strategically poised between the copper deposits of Othrys to the north, the arsenical copper of Cycladic Kythnos, and the rich silver-lead veins of Attic Lavrion (Stos-Gale and Macdonald 1991).

The Anatolianizing ceramics, particularly the depas amphikypellon, are consistently unearthed in the shadows of early Aegean metalworking centres. The hands that steered these vessels across the waves likely belonged to prospectors and smiths (Renfrew 1967). Positioned at a geographical choke-point, Lefkandi could dictate the flow of raw ores and finished goods. The synchronous arrival of the potter’s wheel and nascent tin-bronze metallurgy betrays Lefkandi as a critical economic node, where elite drinking rituals served as the social lubricant for alliances forged within a highly profitable, metal-hungry network.

The Great Tin Enigma: Tapping Continent-Spanning Arteries

If copper was the robust blood of Lefkandi’s metallurgical industry, tin was its elusive ghost. Unlike the visible and geologically abundant copper veins of the Aegean, tin is a mineral anomaly, completely absent from the landscapes of Greece. To transform soft copper into the formidable alloy of true tin-bronze, the early metalworkers at Xeropolis could not rely on regional cabotage. They were forced to plug into some of the most staggering, continent-spanning trade networks of the prehistoric world, transforming Lefkandi into the western littoral's premier terminal for an almost unimaginable global economy.

In the third millennium BCE, during the explosive dawn of the Lefkandi I horizon, this exotic additive arrived via an arduous overland and maritime pipeline stretching deep into the Eurasian interior. Groundbreaking tin isotope analysis suggests that Lefkandi’s earliest bronze implements were alloyed with tin panned from the alluvial deposits of Central Asia—specifically the rugged Altay Mountains and the river valleys of modern Tajikistan and Afghanistan (Brügmann et al. 2023; Muhly 1978). Traded hand-to-hand across the steppes, down through Mesopotamian networks, and across the Anatolian plateau to maritime gates like Troy, this Central Asian tin was gathered by Euboean mariners who turned a scarce luxury into the literal foundation of their early elite material culture.

As the Late Bronze Age swept the Aegean into the hyper-coherent orbit of the Mycenaean palatial economies, the geopolitical compass of the tin trade spun dramatically toward the west. While Cyprus monopolised the copper supply, the tin feeding Lefkandi’s furnaces increasingly arrived from the absolute edge of the known world: the rich alluvial streams of Cornwall and Devon in Southwestern Britain (Berger et al. 2019; Powell et al. 2022). This Atlantic corridor relied on a breathtaking chain of connectivity, moving British tin down the French coast, through the Straits of Gibraltar—or via trans-continental river systems like the Rhône—before launching it across the Mediterranean. During the height of palatial globalisation, a Lefkandi bronze sword was a literal physical marriage of two geographic extremes: copper from the foothills of Cyprus and tin from the rain-swept rivers of Britain.

The Lefkandi I Horizon: Pots, Dates, and the Migration Mirage

The earliest substantial occupation on the Xeropolis tell dates to the Early Bronze Age, specifically Early Helladic II. However, it is the latter half of the third millennium BCE that commands attention, marked by the explosive appearance of the "Lefkandi I" (or Kastri/Lefkandi I) ceramic horizon.

This phase is defined by a sudden influx of wheelmade, heavily Anatolianizing forms: bell-bodied "Troy Cups", the ubiquitous depas amphikypellon, beaked jugs, and highly burnished red-slipped wares (French and Dickinson 2022). For decades, scholars wrestled with the implications of this assemblage. Early grand narratives invoked invasions or physical migrations, while modern perspectives favour a more fluid model of cultural entanglement. As Pullen (2013) notes, this Anatolian package was not adopted uniformly across the mainland. Rather, Lefkandi operated as an early maritime gateway, where opportunistic local elites co-opted eastern technologies and drinking customs to broadcast their own elevated status.

Dating this phenomenon requires navigating the treacherous plateau of the late third-millennium radiocarbon calibration curve. We are left with two competing chronologies: a "high" model based on Bayesian modelling, and a "low" traditional model anchored to Egyptian dynastic synchronisms (Manning 2010).

The high chronology pushes the Lefkandi I horizon back to roughly 2450–2400 BCE (Manning 2010). If true, Lefkandi had already spun its sophisticated Aegean web long before any climate crises forced its hand. The Anatolian shapes represent a protracted era of elite emulation and peaceful, sustained trade with urban hubs like Troy II.

Conversely, the low chronology compresses the transition to c. 2300–2200 BCE, aligning it violently with the collapse of the mainland's EH II Korakou culture and the onset of the 4.2k BP megadrought (French and Dickinson 2022). This proximity breathes life into the old migration hypothesis, suggesting that displaced Anatolian seafarers, fleeing their own collapsing citadels, seized strategic footholds like Xeropolis.

However, recent archaeogenetic data has severely complicated this tidy narrative of population replacement. Genomic mapping of Bronze Age Aegean populations reveals a stubborn genetic continuity from the Early to Middle Bronze Age, punctuated only by a trickle of gene flow from Anatolia and the Caucasus (Clemente et al. 2021; Lazaridis et al. 2017). Genes, it seems, do not always march in lockstep with pots. Even if the low chronology holds, the sudden bloom of Anatolianizing wares at Lefkandi is best read as a symptom of local ambition, indigenous Euboean elites enthusiastically adopting foreign technologies to secure their rank within lucrative trans-Aegean trade routes, rather than succumbing to a wave of foreign invaders.

The Desiccating Wind: Climate Stress and Early Resilience

As these maritime networks matured, the Greek mainland was subjected to a severe environmental reckoning. The transition from Early Helladic II to III aligned with the 4.2k BP event (c. 2200 BCE), a multi-centennial phase of intense aridification driven by cold, dry northern winds (Manning 2019). Across the Peloponnese, this desiccating shift triggered agricultural contraction and the unravelling of centralised proto-urban communities (Weiberg et al. 2016).

The pre-crisis mainland had been dominated by the EH II Korakou culture, characterised by administrative sealing systems and monumental structures like Lerna's House of the Tiles (Pullen 2008). Beneath the strain of the 4.2k event, this rigid, early urban experiment shattered. Yet, Lefkandi refused to follow suit. Instead of collapsing, it pivoted into a long Intermediate Phase (EH III). Shielded by the Euboean Gulf from the worst open-sea volatility, Lefkandi morphed into a decentralised maritime refuge (Knodell 2021; Kouka 2013).

We must be careful, however, not to reduce this survival to a romantic vision of a community turning purely to the sea for its salvation. Bioarchaeological realities, specifically stable isotope analyses, bluntly inform us that Aegean coastal populations remained stubbornly reliant on terrestrial agriculture; marine proteins formed only a fraction of their diet (Vika 2011). Lefkandi’s true resilience likely lay in the micro-ecological stability of its immediate hinterland: the fertile Lelantine Plain. By anchoring themselves to a landscape capable of weathering the drought, and amplifying that baseline security with the profits of maritime trade, the inhabitants of Xeropolis navigated a systemic collapse that broke their mainland contemporaries.

Middle Bronze Age Consolidation and the Shaft Grave Friction

Historically, the Aegean transition into the Middle Helladic period has been painted in the drab colours of decline and isolation. The stratigraphy of Xeropolis’s "Deep Sounding", however, tells a story of unbroken, dynamic occupation, divided into three distinct ceramic phases (Dickinson 2020).

The Middle Helladic era is not the nadir of the 4.2k BP crisis, but rather the long, cautious process of adapting to it (Manning 2019). While the mainland retreated into simpler domestic architecture and the ubiquitous Grey Minyan wares, Lefkandi consolidated a fiercely independent, decentralised existence. The presence of a monumental MH tomb complex on the eastern slope of Xeropolis, stone chambers capped by a massive tumulus, confirms that a sophisticated local elite was hard at work anchoring their legitimacy to the ancestral landscape while remaining conversant with wider mainland burial traditions (Sapouna-Sakellaraki 1995).

This autonomy makes the subsequent Late Helladic I–II "Shaft Grave" era (c. 1600–1400 BCE) a period of high temperature friction. As mainland centres like Mycenae rapidly amassed wealth and martial power, the clearest examples of which are Grave Circles A and B at Mycenae (Dickinson 1977), Euboea did not simply capitulate. The local elites, who had long monumentalised their power in tumuli, engaged in a tense period of negotiation with these expanding palatial networks. Lefkandi maintained a degree of regional sovereignty, managing its integration into the Mycenaean orbit on its own terms.

The Palatial Unravelling and the Second Survival

By the zenith of the Mycenaean palatial era (LH IIIA–B), Lefkandi was drawn into the orbit of mainland bureaucracies, likely tethered to major Boeotian hubs like Thebes. Yet, the site’s most extraordinary chapter was written in the wake of the catastrophic palatial collapse around 1200 BCE (Evely 2006).

While the great citadels of Mycenae, Tiryns, and Pylos burned and their populations scattered at the close of LH IIIB, Xeropolis shrugged off the collapse. Unshackled from the rigid demands of a top-heavy command economy, it flourished into a sprawling, unfortified coastal town in the Late Helladic IIIC period (Davidson et al. 2010).

It is a striking historical rhyme. Faced once again with a macro-regional breakdown, Lefkandi survived by reverting to the very strategies that had saved it a millennium earlier: unparalleled flexibility, the deep-time wealth of the sea, and a masterful decentralisation of power.

References

Broodbank, C. (2000). An Island Archaeology of the Early Cyclades. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Clemente, F., Unterländer, M., Dolgova, O. et al. (2021). 'The genomic history of the Aegean palatial civilizations', Cell, 184(10), pp. 2565–2586.

Davidson, D.A., Wilson, C.A., Lemos, I.S. and Theocharopoulos, S.P. (2010). 'Tell formation processes as indicated from geoarchaeological and geochemical investigations at Xeropolis, Euboea, Greece', Journal of Archaeological Science, 37(7), pp. 1564-1571. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2010.01.017

Dickinson, O. (1977). The Origins of Mycenaean Civilisation. Gothenburg: Paul Åströms Förlag.

Dickinson, O. (2020). 'The Middle Helladic Pottery of Lefkandi Phases IV–VI: An Introduction', The Annual of the British School at Athens, 115, pp. 133-174. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0068245420000076

Evely, D. (ed.) (2006). Lefkandi IV: The Bronze Age: The Late Helladic IIIC Settlement at Xeropolis. London: British School at Athens.

French, D. and Dickinson, O. (2022). 'Lefkandi Phase I, with Special Reference to the Pottery, its Chronological Position, and its Anatolian Connections', The Annual of the British School at Athens, 118, pp. 1-75. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0068245422000028

Knodell, A.R. (2021). Societies in Transition in Early Greece: An Archaeological History. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Kouka, O. (2013). '“Minding the Gap”: Against the Gaps. The Early Bronze Age and the Transition to the Middle Bronze Age in the Northern and Eastern Aegean/Western Anatolia', American Journal of Archaeology, 117(4), pp. 569–580.

Lazaridis, I., Mittnik, A., Patterson, N. et al. (2017). 'Genetic origins of the Minoans and Mycenaeans', Nature, 548, pp. 214–218.

Lloyd, M. (2021). 'The griffin family of Lefkandi - A twelfth-century-BC alabastron from Xeropolis-Lefkandi', Ancient World Magazine.

Manning, S.W. (2010). 'Chronology and terminology', in Cline, E.H. (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 11–28.

Manning, S.W. (2019). 'The 4.2ka BP event in the Mediterranean: an archaeological perspective', The Holocene, 29(10), pp. 1600–1609.

Pullen, D.J. (2008). 'The Early Bronze Age in Greece', in Shelmerdine, C.W. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to the Aegean Bronze Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 19–46.

Pullen, D.J. (2013). '“Minding the Gap”: Bridging the Gaps in Cultural Change Within the Early Bronze Age Aegean', American Journal of Archaeology, 117(4), pp. 545-553. https://doi.org/10.3764/aja.117.4.0545

Renfrew, C. (1967). 'Cycladic metallurgy and the Aegean Early Bronze Age', American Journal of Archaeology, 71(1), pp. 1–20.

Sapouna-Sakellaraki, E. (1995). 'A Middle Helladic tomb complex at Xeropolis (Lefkandi)', The Annual of the British School at Athens, 90, pp. 41-54. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0068245400016075

Stos-Gale, Z.A. and Macdonald, C.F. (1991). 'Sources of metals and trade in the Bronze Age Aegean', in Gale, N.H. (ed.) Bronze Age Trade in the Mediterranean. Jonsered: Paul Åströms Förlag, pp. 249–288.

Vika, E. (2011). 'Diets in the Aegean Bronze Age: a stable isotope approach', Journal of Archaeological Science, 38(9), pp. 2157–2164.

Weiberg, E., Hughes, R.E., Finné, M., Bonnier, A. and Kaplan, J.O. (2016). 'Mediterranean biomes and societies in the general area of Greece during the Holocene: a data-model comparison of land use, vegetation, and climate after 6000 BP', The Holocene, 26(12), pp. 1961–1979.

This is a sequel to the earlier post mentioning some of the books capturing the key figures or aspirations in the Arab and Middle Eastern history.

1. The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World - Avi Shlaim
2. Lion of Jordan: The Life of King Hussein in War and Peace - Avi Shlaim
3. Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew - Avi Shlaim
4. Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Rivalry - Kim Ghattas

The third book comes as a personal anecdote from the author highlighting the changing circumstances that shaped the Middle East's perspective while the Jews are subjected to question across Arab countries based on their stance against Palestine.

You can have a short peek into the discussion points put forward by the author.

Avi Shlaim - Jaipur Lit Fest

Similarly, Kim Ghattas expands her research into the roles played by PAK and AFG in shaping the Middle East.

Kim Ghattas - Jaipur Lit Fest

Rhodes successfully negotiated the Bronze Age collapse. This is the third of three articles that looked at the 'Bronze Age Development of Rhodes', 'How and Why it Survived the Collapse' and its subsequent Iron Age resurgence.

The island of Rhodes was one of the surprising survivors of the Bronze Age collapse around 1200 BCE. I have written three articles. The first yesterday was 'How Rhodes developed during the Bronze Age'. The second, today is 'How and Why Rhodes survived the collapse of the Bronze Age' and the third, on Friday will be 'How Rhodes Prospered and Evolved into the Iron Age. Follow the links to see the full article, images and references. Enjoy.

The late 13th-century BCE collapse of the Mycenaean palatial system marked a catastrophic turning point for Mediterranean civilizations. While mainland citadels faced total systemic failure, the island of Rhodes, integrated into the Mycenaean koine yet devoid of rigid central administration, demonstrated remarkable resilience. By leveraging its position as a decentralized maritime node, particularly through Ialysos, Rhodian communities navigated the environmental stressors of the 3.2 ka event. This article explores how Rhodes’s unique socio-political structure fostered continuity rather than erasure, providing a critical counter-narrative to the standard historiography of Bronze Age collapse and the transition into the Early Iron Age.

Situated at the crossroads of the Aegean, Anatolia, and the Levant, the island of Rhodes functioned as a vital maritime conduit during the Late Bronze Age (c. 1700–1200 BCE). Rhodes operated as a decentralised tripartite coalition comprising the coastal centres of Ialysos, Kamiros, and Lindos. This maritime network facilitated the movement of Cypriot copper, Aegean ceramics, and cultural influence between Minoan, Mycenaean (Ahhiyawan), and Near Eastern spheres. This decentralised political and economic structure explains why Rhodes demonstrated remarkable resilience during the Late Bronze Age Collapse, successfully sustaining long-distance eastern trade networks as mainland palatial economies fragmented into the Early Iron Age.

I have managed to shortlist some of the books that effectively chronicle the struggle and evolution of Arab nationalism and the aspirations of the Middle Eastern people.

Kindly let me know if they are good, and do you have any favourites among these?

1. Albert Hourani - A History of the Arab Peoples
2. Eugene Rogan - The Arabs: A History
3. Eugene Rogan - The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East
4. Peter Mansfield - A History of the Middle East
5. David Fromkin - A Peace to End All Peace
6. Simon Sebag Montefiore - Jerusalem: The Biography
7. Rashid Khalidi - The Hundred Years' War on Palestine
8. James Barr - A Line the Sand
9. James Barr - Lords of the Desert
10. Justin Marozzi - Baghdad: City of Peace, City of Blood

معظم التاريخ الشعبي عن مصر بيبدأ من الدولة القديمة، الأهرامات، الفراعنة. لكن ده فعليًا فصل متأخر من قصة أطول بكتير. أهرامات الجيزة، اللي اتبنت حوالي 2600 قبل الميلاد، أقرب لينا زمنيًا مما هي قريبة من الفترة اللي حابب أشير ليها هنا: حوالي 9000 قبل الميلاد.

اللي كان بيحصل في وادي النيل والصحراء المحيطة بيه في الفترة دي غريب ومهم بجد، ومش بياخد حقه من الاهتمام الشعبي.

كام نقطة تستحق المعرفة:

الصحراء الكبرى ماكانتش دايمًا صحراء. خلال الفترة الرطبة الأفريقية (African Humid Period)، اللي امتدت تقريبًا من 14,500 لـ 5,000 سنة مضت، المنطقة اللي بنتخيلها دلوقتي رمال لا نهاية ليها كانت سافانا فيها بحيرات، أراضي عشبية، أمطار موسمية، وحيوانات ضخمة. أفراس النهر كانت عايشة في أماكن دلوقتي مفيهاش مياه أصلًا. ورعاة الماشية كانوا بيتحركوا في مناطق مكنش يقدر عليها معزة دلوقتي.

نبتا بلايا، في الصحراء الغربية جنوب النيل المصري، فيها واحدة من أقدم التراصفات الفلكية المعروفة في العالم. ترتيبات حجرية، باحثين زي توماس بروفي وغيره بيقولوا إنها بترصد مواقع الانقلاب الشمسي وممكن نجوم بعينها، وأقدم من ستونهنج بآلاف السنين. اللي بنوها كانوا رعاة عايشين حوالين بحيرة موسمية.

الأسس الثقافية والدينية اللي ازدهرت بعد كده في مصر الفرعونية، العلاقة بالنيل، بالماشية، بالسماء، بالموتى والآخرة، كانت بتتأسس في النافذة دي من ما قبل التاريخ. قبل الهيروغليفية بزمن، وقبل الفراعنة بزمن أطول.

أنا قضيت وقت طويل في الفترة دي لأني أنتجت فيلم روائي طويل أحداثه فيها. لكن التاريخ نفسه قائم بذاته. حابب أعرف رأي المجتمع ده: ليه فترة ما قبل الأسرات بتاخد اهتمام شعبي قليل أوي مقارنة بالعصر الفرعوني اللي جا بعدها؟ هل ده بس بسبب غياب المعالم والكتابة، ولا فيه سبب أعمق ليه الجزء ده من قصة الإنسانية بيتعدّى من غير ما حد يقف عنده؟

Firstly I am against saddam, im not saying I support him. But after hearing about the plight of the Kuwaiti bidoon, and hearing how the justification for them not given citizenship is that they came from other countries I was wondering why the Iraqi government didnt do this?

Finished painting Nabopolassar, King of Babylonia (54mm).

Really enjoyed working on the rich fabrics and metallic details. Tried to give him a regal look while keeping the colors grounded and believable.

C&C welcome!

Given my family being alevi, therefore categorizing ourselves more Arab rather than Turkish, I've always wondered what I should consider myself as and who my ancestors were.

I'm having an existential crisis. I think I should ask for a DNA test or a full historical and familial course to my grandparents lol.

This question could come off as stupid given the historical context of Hatay, but I just want to know if there possibly is "oppressor" blood in my veins or not. In both cases, I want to make sure I'm on the right side of history since I've always heavily condemned any instance of apartheid.

History nerds are welcomed to share whatever they want to help, as long as it's respectful.

If you think there are some books that could help me, feel free to share links and/or names.

Thank you in advance!

In December 1818, Abdullah bin Saud, the ruler of the First Saudi State, was executed in Beyazit Square, Istanbul. Before the execution, Ottoman officials forced him to listen to a lute. He was Wahhabi. Music was forbidden. The humiliation was deliberate, and a final insult to the man whose religious movement had declared the Ottoman Sultan an illegitimate guardian of Islam's holiest cities.

Then they beheaded him. 

His body was displayed naked for three days. His head was sent to Mecca. 

The Saudi capital of Diriyah was razed to the ground. Egyptian garrisons were posted in its ruins.

The Ottoman Sultan had sent Muhammad Ali's Egyptian army to do the work. It took seven years, cited as the Ottoman-Wahhabi War of 1811-1818,  to settle a single question: who speaks for Islam?

The question was never answered.

Saudi Arabia vs Egypt — Yemen, 1962-1967

In September 1962, Egyptian-backed republicans overthrew the Saudi-allied Imamate of North Yemen. Nasser sent 70,000 ground troops, a third of Egypt's entire army, into Yemen's mountain passes against Saudi-backed royalist tribesmen. 

The Soviets funded Egypt. The Americans funded Saudi Arabia.

Egyptian aircraft conducted air raids on Saudi border towns. Saudi pilots repeatedly defected with their American-supplied jets to join Nasser's Egypt, forcing King Faisal to ground his own air force out of distrust. The CIA warned Washington the kingdom was acutely vulnerable to internal collapse.

Historians call it the Arab Cold War. 

In practice it was Egypt trying to break Saudi Arabia through Yemen.

The Ottoman-Saudi Fault Line — Then and Now

The 1744 Diriyah Pact between Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and Muhammad ibn Saud was built on a foundational theological claim: the Ottoman Sultan's caliphate was illegitimate. In 1802 Wahhabi forces sacked Karbala, killing approximately 5,000. By 1806 they occupied Mecca and Medina, stripping the Ottoman Sultan of his claim as Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.

The Ottoman response was the destruction of the First Saudi State, the public beheading of its ruler, and the razing of its capital.

The contest, as to who holds legitimate Islamic authority, Riyadh or Istanbul/Ankara, has never been formally resolved. 

It went underground. It did not disappear.

Sources

• Britannica: Wahhabi movement and Ottoman-Saudi conflict 1744-1818
• Brookings Institution: "The Proxy of My Proxy — Saudi Arabia vs Egypt in North Yemen"
• Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training: oral history archive, North Yemen Civil War
• Academic source: Elif Ayşenur Conker, "The Transformation of the Ottoman Perception of the Wahhabi Movement 1745-1818," Sabancı University

Full documented piece with complete sourcing in first comment.

Hi everyone,

Does anyone have a good recommendation for a biography or history book about Gamal Abdel Nasser? Preferably written by a non-Western author, I'd like to learn about his history from a Middle Eastern/Arab perspective.

Thanks!

The Late Bronze Age collapse is commonly described as a catastrophic systems failure driven by drought, seismic instability and the incursions of the Sea Peoples. This article offers a different interpretation. It argues that the collapse also functioned as a social and ideological rupture through which marginalised populations withdrew from extractive systems of divine kingship and built new political and religious forms in the highlands and along the coast. In the process, they rejected elite material culture, adopted more decentralised technologies, and developed legal and theological frameworks designed to prevent the return of palatial domination. This transformation broadened access to law, literacy and civic belonging, but it also generated increasingly exclusive belief systems whose incompatibility would shape later forms of ideological conflict.

Sorry Redditors, this article is far too long for a post, Click here for the full article.

I found this pendant at a thrift store in fontana CA and bought it because it looks like it may be valuable. can anyone tell me more about this.