Persian Gulf - a region where long ago there were a variety of civilization.Back in the late 4th millennium BC on the Gulf coast, at the confluence of the Tigris and the Euphrates (then these rivers flow into the bay separately) rose numerous cities of the Sumerians, according to one version, present themselves here with the islands in the Gulf.Later, on the coast there was the Elamite state Median kingdom.Finally, a small coastal area of Persia grew huge Achaemenid Empire, later crushed hoplites of Alexander the Great."Persian kingdom," as they called the Greeks and Macedonians empire stretching from Asia Minor and the Bosphorus to India, covering the northern coast of the Persian Gulf.Internal areas of the Arabian Peninsula the Persian no interest - the natural wealth there was a bit of oil and then had no strategic value.
Persians established in the territory of a giant empire perfect order and iron discipline.In figurative remark contemporaries, a virgin with a sack of gold could pass behind the empire from end to end without fear for his honor or property.But the Achaemenid Empire, inhabited by a large number of people belonging to a completely different cultures, could not be sustained for a long time.Nomads-saki and the Greeks from Asia Minor coast of policyholders, the hegemony-the Persians and related, but have a lower social status of the Medes, who remember former glory Egyptians and Indians, have always gravitated more akin to the civilizations of the Indian subcontinent.
small but perfectly cohesive monoethnic army of Alexander the Great in a few years to the nines defeated the Persian army, located disproportionately large human and economic resources.
Persian Gulf more than once became the arena of the struggle of local residents and various conquerors - not only the Greeks and Macedonians, and Saks, and Arabs, Assyrians and Babylonians, and many others.In the end, the north-east coast is left for the Iranian peoples, and later formed a single Persian ethnicity, and on the southwest firmly anchored Arabs.
the beginning of the XIX century the gulf coast states controlled by the second, and even third-tier - decrepit Ottoman Empire, Iran, and small Arab theocratic monarchy.Gulf so would have remained on the margins of world history and politics, if not for the huge hydrocarbon deposits.Oil are used in antiquity, but the mining boom began in the late XIX century, when Europe and then in America were first internal combustion engines.
Since that time, the Persian Gulf has acquired strategic importance and a zone of attention of leading world powers.He was repeatedly the scene of confrontation between different forces, and sometimes the opposition of "cold" phase becomes "hot".There is hardly a person who has the words "Arabian Gulf" is associated primarily with the nature of a tropical sea, not with oil.
Meanwhile, the Persian Gulf, a photo which can decorate any exhibition of natural beauty, is a place where the great world-class resort.Fans of tropical holiday does not stop even the fact that they are in orthodox Muslim countries (UAE, Qatar, Kuwait), establishing a dress code sometimes even for the appearance of the street.Not to mention the use of alcohol.
