Asia begins near the end of the tenth century with the Assyrian Eponym
lists, that is, lists of annual chief officials; while for Babylonia
there is no certain chronology till nearly two hundred years later. In
Hebrew history sure chronological ground is not reached till the
Assyrian records themselves begin to touch upon it during the reign of
Ahab over Israel. For all the other social groups and states of Western
Asia we have to depend on more or less loose and inferential
synchronisms with Assyrian, Babylonian or Hebrew chronology, except for
some rare events whose dates may be inferred from the alien histories of
Egypt and Greece.

* * * * *

The area, whose social state we shall survey in 1000 B.C. and re-survey
at intervals, contains Western Asia bounded eastwards by an imaginary
line drawn from the head of the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea. This
line, however, is not to be drawn rigidly straight, but rather should
describe a shallow outward curve, so as to include in the Ancient East
all Asia situated on this side of the salt deserts of central Persia.
This area is marked off by seas on three sides and by desert on the
fourth side. Internally it is distinguished into some six divisions
either by unusually strong geographical boundaries or by large
differences of geographical character. These divisions are as follows--

(1) A western peninsular projection, bounded by seas on three sides and
divided from the rest of the continent by high and very broad mountain
masses, which has been named, not inappropriately, _Asia Minor_, since
it displays, in many respects, an epitome of the general characteristics
of the continent. (2) A tangled mountainous region filling almost all
the rest of the northern part of the area and sharply distinct in