FERTILE CRESCENT

FERTILE CRESCENT: translation

   Term coined by Egyptologist J. H. Breasted to describe the geographical area that stretches in the form of a semicircle from the southeastern regions of the Mediterranean Sea, including Egypt, across Syria and Anatolia to Mesopotamia, leaving the dry expanses of the Arabian desert in the middle. It is determined by the line of a 200-millimeter rainfall isohyet, which can support agriculture without irrigation, and is the homeland of most of the plant and animal species first domesticated in this region.