1177 B.C.

Unlike the other sanctuaries dotting the Arabian landscape—each dedicated to a local deity—the Ka‘ba was unique in that it claimed to be a universal shrine. Every god in pre-Islamic Arabia was said to reside in this single sanctuary, which meant that regardless of their tribal beliefs, all peoples of the Arabian Peninsula felt a deep spiritual obli

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Physical and social stress induced by the failure not just of a single harvest but of two or more failures within five years, followed by plague, are likely drivers of tensions among and between lordships, of reinforced psychological dependence on credible leadership and religion. The last imports of exotica from the Mediterranean landed on Britain

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The situation of the Yamnaya chiefs might have been similar to that described by Barth in his account of the Yusufai Pathan invasion of the Swat valley in Pakistan in the sixteenth century. The invader, “faced with the sea of politically undifferentiated villagers proceeds to organize a central island of authority, and from this island he attempts

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