ABSTRACT
The Middle East is rightly regarded as the cradle of civilization, and within this enormous and diverse region, which includes part of the Mediterranean littoral and most of Asia Minor, travel and transport systems developed very early but in quite similar ways. It would make no sense to consider the development of travel in Egypt, for example, separately from similar developments in the ‘Fertile Crescent’ of the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates in modern-day Iraq. Moreover, for much of its history the entire region, together with parts of North Africa, has been under a single unified political control, and the whole area is here considered as one region – at least for the purpose of considering its travel history. Different writers use different geographical descriptions, so in order to avoid complications in trying to define the boundaries between the Near and Middle East, Asia Minor, the Levant, etc., the whole region is considered together here under the general heading of ‘Middle East and North Africa’ (Map 2.1).
