Middle Eastern ethnicity indicates genetic origins in the “Middle East”. While the geopolitical term “Middle East” originally referred to the area between the eastern shores of the Mediterranean (the “Near East”) to India and China (the “Far East”), people of Middle Eastern heritage trace their ancestry to the Levant: the area comprising modern-day Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, and Israel. Together with Anatolia and Egypt, the Levant is at the heart of the Fertile Crescent, the area known as the “Cradle of Civilization,” where early instances of plant and animal domestication took place and some of the first human civilizations and empires emerged. Since the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the seventh century, Islam has been the most prevalent religion in the area and Arabs form the largest cultural-linguistic group. The region also houses Jews, Christians, Druze, and Yazidis, while other cultural-linguistic groups include Kurds, Turks, Assyrians, and Armenians, among others. Since the nineteenth century, Middle Eastern people have emigrated across the globe, forming significant communities in Europe, the Americas, and the Gulf States.
Research your ancestors on MyHeritage
Middle Eastern history
Starting around 12,500 B.C.E., the Natufian culture appears to have been the first to significantly incorporate non-nomadic elements to complement hunting and gathering as part of their lifestyle. Natufians also domesticated the dog, and later developed the first fully agricultural society. By 9000 B.C.E., the ancient city of Jericho in the Jordan Valley was the first site to be surrounded by a defensive wall, protecting a valuable fresh water spring. The fourth millennium B.C.E. saw the rise of Sumer, one of the world’s first complex human societies. Situated along the valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq), the agricultural innovations of the Sumerians allowed them to produce surplus crops, which in turn enabled them to form large-scale urban settlements. During the third millennium B.C.E., the Akkadian Empire emerged as the world’s first empire, extending across Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the Levant.
Two major empires emerged in the wake of the Akkadian Empire: the Assyrian Empire in the north, and the Babylonian Empire in the south. Among its many technological and cultural achievements, Assyrian culture birthed the Epic of Gilgamesh, considered the earliest surviving example of epic literature, and one of the world’s oldest religious texts. In the Second millennium B.C.E., the Babylonian King Hammurabi issued the Code of Hammurabi: one of history’s earliest and most complete written legal codes. According to biblical accounts, the Israelite United Monarchy existed between the eleventh–tenth centuries, before splitting into the Kingdom of Israel in the north and the Kingdom of Judah (containing Jerusalem) in the south.
After a prosperous period under Assyrian vassalage, the Kingdom of Judah found itself caught in the crossfire between the Egyptian and Neo-Babylonian Empires, culminating in the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem in 587 B.C.E. Shortly after, the Achaemenid Empire of Persia overran the ancient Near East, establishing itself as the region’s sole major power for 2 centuries, until the mercurial rise of Alexander the Great in the fourth century B.C.E. The following 300 years saw Hellenistic (Greek) cultural and political dominance in the Levant, first with Alexander’s Macedonian Empire and then its successor, the Seleucid Empire. In 63 B.C.E., Roman general Pompeius Magnus routed the Seleucid forces, formally annexing Syria as a Roman province, with Judea to follow in the year 6 B.C.E.
Over the following centuries, the Romans consolidated their control over the Levant, connecting the region through technologically advanced infrastructure projects including roads and aqueducts. In the Third century C.E., the Sassanid dynasty came to power in Persia and put the Romans under increasing pressure from the east. Hostilities between the Romans and the Persians persisted after the partition of the Roman Empire, coming to an end only with the Muslim conquests of the seventh century. In a burst of military expansion no less stellar than that of Alexander almost 1,000 years prior, inspired by a new religious faith espoused by the Prophet Muhammad in Arabia, Arab forces swept through the Byzantine heartland and claimed the Levant for the newly-established Caliphate.
The gradual adoption of Arabic and Islam as the primary language and religion of the region fundamentally reshaped the cultural and geographical landscape of the Levant. The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750) set its capital in the ancient city of Damascus in Syria. Its successor, the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258), founded the city of Baghdad in Iraq, which served as a backdrop for the Islamic Golden Age: a period of spectacular cultural, economic, and scientific flourishing. Starting in the eleventh century, a series of military expeditions by Christian Europeans, known as the Crusades, challenged Muslim rule in the Levant. The crusaders successfully established the Crusader states of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, but the lands were ultimately reconquered by Muslim forces. In 1516, the Ottoman Empire conquered the Levant, maintaining Turkish rule between Anatolia and Arabia for the next 400 years.
Under Ottoman rule, territories were divided into provinces and districts, with each religious group — including Shi‘a Muslim, Greek Orthodox, Maronite, Armenian, and Jewish — granted their own millet: an independent court of law to oversee their affairs according to their own tradition. At the outset of the First World War, the Ottoman Empire fought alongside the Central Powers. British intelligence officers, including the legendary Lawrence of Arabia, stirred up an Arab revolt against the empire led by Faisal bin Hussein al-Hashemi, son of the Grand Sharif of Mecca. Following the war and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Levant was divided into mandate states along the lines of the British-French Sykes-Picot agreement. Members of the al-Hashemi family were instated as kings in newly-formed Syria, Jordan, and Iraq. By the early 1950s, the Arab countries had gained independence, and the State of Israel was established.
Most Arab monarchies were short-lived: within the next 2 decades, coups d’état in Syria and Iraq saw the rise of authoritarian military regimes. During the Cold War, the Middle East served as a proxy ground of contention between the two major world powers: the Arab countries broadly aligned with the Soviet Union against the U.S.-backed State of Israel. In the early 2010s, the Arab Spring — a series of anti-government protests that spread across much of the Middle East — saw millions of citizens take to the streets in demand to see democratic changes in their countries. The protests bore fruit in some parts of the region, but prompted a long and protracted civil war in Syria, whose ramifications continue to reshape the Middle East today.
Middle Eastern culture
It would be hard to overstate the contribution of the Middle East to world history. The people of ancient Mesopotamia developed essential technologies, such as metalworking, glassmaking, textile weaving, grain and water storage, and irrigation. Mesopotamians also invented one of the world’s first writing systems, as well as the wheel and the sexagesimal number system (dividing time into 60, including 60-second minutes and a 60-minute hour). By the 8th century, with western Europe slipping into decline, the Middle East became the global epicenter for scientific and philosophical knowledge. Under the Abbasid Caliph’s patronage, the House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikma) in Baghdad became the world’s largest and richest library, containing volumes collected from Greece, Persia, India, and beyond. Consequently, Muslim scholarship was foundational in the resurgence of Western thought during the renaissance.
The cultural legacy of the Middle East does not fall short of its scientific one. Arabesque, Islamic decorative patterns in the form of interlacing foliage or seamlessly repeated geometric shapes, has inspired European decorative arts. The folktale collection ‘Alf Laylah wa-Laylah (One Thousand and One Nights), is among the most influential literary works in world history, including classics such as Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and the tales of Sinbad the Sailor. Lebanese poet Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) achieved worldwide acclaim in praise of his book The Prophet, which has since become one of the bestselling books of all time. Syrian composer, singer, and actor Farid al-Atrash (1910–1974) is regarded as one of the most important figures of modern Arab music. The work of Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said (1935–2003) has tremendously impacted the Western academia: his 1978 book Orientalism is regarded among the most influential and controversial cultural critiques of the twentieth century.
Finally, it would be impossible to talk about Middle Eastern culture without mentioning food. Middle Eastern cuisine incorporates Mediterranean elements such as olives, olive oil, chickpeas, and sesame seeds, with elements imported from Arabia such as dates and an emphasis on rice. Famous dishes, such as hummus (a chickpea dip usually served with pita bread), falafel (a deep-fried ball made from ground chickpeas), kebab (skewered seasoned meat), and baklava (a sweet pastry made of layers of filo dough filled with sweetened ground nuts) has made Middle Eastern food among the most popular cuisines in the world.
Middle Eastern languages
Middle Eastern people mainly speak Semitic languages: a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. Levantine Arabic is the most common language in the region, with Northern Levantine dialects common in Syria and Lebanon, and Southern Levantine dialects common in Jordan, Israel, and the Palestine territories. Other languages spoken in the region include Hebrew, Armenian, Greek, Circassian, French, and English.
Explore more about ethnicity estimates
- MyHeritage DNA at MyHeritage
- Ethnicities around the world at MyHeritage
- What Is My Ethnicity? How MyHeritage Estimates Ethnicities at MyHeritage Knowledge Base
- Where's My Ethnicity?!: Why An Ethnicity Might Not Show Up In Your DNA (and How To Find Evidence Of It Anyway) at MyHeritage Knowledge Base