"As a ceasefire brings a measure of peace to the Dresden-like hellscape that Gaza has become, it is time to take stock of all that has been lost. The human cost of what the UN commission of inquiry recognises as a genocide is of course incalculable, but fewer are aware of how much rich history and archaeology has also been destroyed in these horrific months."
"Palestine is actually one of humanity's oldest toponyms, and records of a people named after it are as old as literacy itself. Palestine was an established name for the coast between Egypt and Phoenicia since at least the second millennium BCE: the ancient Egyptian texts refer to Peleset from about 1450BCE, Assyrians inscriptions to the Palashtu c800BCE, and Herodotus c480BCE to (Palaistine)."
"Gaza was first referenced as a strategic prize in an Egyptian inscription of Thutmose III in the 15th century BCE, where it is referred to as Ghazzati. It is also one of the most fought-over and contested spaces: for more than 4,000 years this area has been an ethnically mixed crossroads, linking Africa with Asia, and the desert with the Mediterranean."
As a ceasefire brings a measure of peace to Gaza, immense human loss and recognition of genocide by a UN commission have occurred. Rich archaeological sites and historical layers have been destroyed in recent months, contradicting assumptions that Gaza is merely a modern refugee camp on recently settled desert. Gaza is one of the oldest urban centers, with Palestine as a longstanding toponym evidenced in Egyptian, Assyrian and Greek sources from 1450 BCE to 480 BCE. Gaza appears in a 15th-century BCE Egyptian inscription as Ghazzati. For over 4,000 years Gaza functioned as a prosperous port, caravan terminus, strategic fortress and ethnically mixed crossroads linking Africa and Asia.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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