Vikings tend to be medieval, and from Scandinavia.
Why did I pick the Near East? People who study the Near East are a far smaller candidature than those who study Greece/Rome/Egypt. At the Sydney Uni open day my friend and I were the only two in the room who had studied Ancient Persia. Therefore to a degree it makes you feel special studying it, because it is not so well-known.
I doubt anyone who has studied Ancient Persia as a historical period will find it uninteresting. The Persians controlled the largest land-based empire ever stretching from the Indus river in northern India to the mountainous regions of northern Greece, from the steppes of central Russia to northern Ethiopia. Goods were traded from as far away as Ceylon and Carthage. The Persians amalgamated a variety of different cultures into the empire - Babylon, Sardis, Memphis, Susa and Jerusalem were all regional capitals. Persians feature heavily and influence the Bible (Book of Ezra, Book of Nehemiah). They built monuments in Egypt, where they took on the pharonic title. Their capital cities of Persepolis and Pasargadae were amazing in their feats of engineering and architecture.
At the end of it all we study history not with an interest specifically in particular events, but rather hoping to understand how that event affected all that happened around it, and subsequently how it affected our world. The Persian Empire brought together a group of microcosms, and for a short time made a unified whole. The view a lot of people get of Persia is often very skewed towards the Greek angle (the majority of our sources for the Persian wars are Greek) and therefore the Persians are demotic tyrants who kill indiscriminately. People have an obsession with the Greek world and speak ad nauseum about the enlightenment of ‘Athenian democracy’ which was great if you were lived in Athens, were male, were a citizen and had enough money to be able to spend your days talking over issues. Such is the case with the majority of eastern (or unwestern) cultures, the Persians do not write stuff down as their Greek neighbours did. Many of the ruins of the Persian Empire still stand today in Iran, but are slowly being eaten away because of disrepair. During the ‘War on Iraq’ many priceless Persian artifacts were lost forever from Baghdad museum, itself situated not that far from the ancient city of Babylon. I think it especially interesting and topical today to study the Near East – whether it is Persia, Babylon or Assyria. It gives you an insight into a time when the Middle East was a very different world to today.
Well that's my opinion....
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