8. The Sumerians - Fall of the First Cities

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In 1625 an Italian nobleman named Pietro Della Vali went on a tour to the Middle East Della Valle was a seasoned Rahal. Travel across Asia and South Africa And even India. He married an Assyrian Christian A princess in Damascus, and they travel together On the back of camels and horses They were accompanied by local guides. And at that time, travel in the area It was very dangerous. The Ottoman and Persian states, Kano In a war, they fight over who will rule in Baghdad. Meanwhile, local bandits took advantage of the chaos and attacked travelers. In those days, even the lions galled hills. And because of these risks, Della Valley guides were always on the alert on the 18th of June. In 1625, when they noticed a group of tribesmen far in sight.

The guides decided they might be in danger They looked for a place to hide and from afar, they saw a large group on the horizon Of the shattered relics, as Della described it Vale later in his memoirs Because we were suspicious of some Arab Bedouins And for security reasons, we went a mile longer And we took up our position under the hills, next to some ancient ruins The traces we saw from afar. The Della Valley group stayed at these ancient ruins for several nights While negotiating Della Valle's guides for the local governor, Asking for a safe passage. During the day, under the Iraqi sun Scorching, Della Valle spent his time taking a walk Among these giant monuments And with our fate still postponed, I went early in the morning to get A nicer view, for the antiquities the article is about is very old What were these traces, I can't comprehend But I found it built of good stones Most of these stones were engraved with unknown letters that appeared on them foot.

I noticed that they were installed With some, not with lime, but with tar and bitumen. Della Valle was stunned by the fragments of choppy graffiti that were scattered over the The land of these ancient relics. Then explore more and write some of Of these symbols that he saw over and over again engraved On these stones and clay pieces, and after scanning the antiquities again, I found on The floor is some pieces of black marble, hard and in good condition, engraved on it The same letters that were on the bricks that looked to me like a stamp of sorts. With some symbols I discovered in that short time Two things I found in most areas.

One of them was like a pyramid and the other one He was an 8-head star Della Valle and his wife never knew it, but they found The historical city of Ur. The city that formed the center of one of the The first civilizations of human history. This civilization It was known as Sumer, which is the place where is life as we know it now I started. And in the end, negotiations with the local leader It didn't work, and the Della Valley guides didn't feel safe if they stayed camped in antiquities. They left in the dark of the night And they fled fleeing in the desert in search of safety. And there were some in Della Valley's bag The clay tablets he found were scattered all over the place Ruins of the city of Ur. These tablets are the first examples of Europeans saw it about a language that has become dead And forgotten by thousands of years.

On the way home, contemplate and heart Della Valle These tablets are with his own hands, marveling at the strangeness of these icons. And he sat asking himself who built this giant buildings of bricks and stones, Alone like this in the middle of the desert? What do these symbols on the crushed clay tablets mean? And is it possible that in the past there was a great city standing in this place! What in the world has happened to her? My name is Paul Cooper, and you're listening to a podcast Civilizations fall in every episode, I look at a civilization From the past that blossomed to the top and then collapsed like ashes in history.

I want to ask, what do all of these have in common? civilizations? What led to their downfall, and what is it? How would you feel if you were someone who lived at that time? When his world ends? In this episode, I want to go back to the beginning And looking at a society, it is considered a candidate to be One of the first advanced civilizations in human history These are the people of Sumer, we call them Sumerians Over the course of a millennium, the Sumerians will build a civilization It will be the blueprint for all the civilizations that follow I want to show you how they flourished in the invention of writing And mathematics and the wheel and they built the largest cities that mankind has seen that time.

And I want to find out what happened Which caused their severe and final destruction In the southeast of the Highlands of Turkey, a series of snow-capped limestone peaks It rises 3000 meters above the plains below it These are the Taurus Mountains, these Turkish mountains are rising sharply Even rainy clouds find it difficult to pass through them These clouds gather over valleys and hollows of mountains And these hills give an intense annual rainfall In spring and summer, warm air means that the clouds will be more dense And severe thunderstorms also hit these mountains It resonates among the rocks of the mountains, as a result, creating a terrain from water. Sloping sides of the Taurus Mountains It has eroded, to form rivers and waterfalls, while underground rivers It cut its way out among the rocks and formed One of the largest caves in Asia. Just as water shaped rocks, it shaped beliefs for the residents of this area. The name of these mountains Taurus, comes from the Latin word for bull, The reason for this is not difficult to see. Temples have been discovered all over these mountains, Decorated with clay figurines of bulls.

Since ancient times, the people who live here have worshiped the Storm God teashop. They thought he rode on the back of an ox, Probably because the sound of thunderstorms reminded them By striking massive hooves. Accompanied by the cracking and roaring of these thunderstorms, This heavy spring rain pours into the streams, And joins to the already flowing rivers of snowy mountain passes in Armenia. And soon these little rivers unite It flows from the mountains outward to the wide, flat plains Under two great magical watercourses working together in parallel for nearly 2000 kilometers of the vast floodplains of these rivers Today it is the land we call Iraq. In Arabic, this region is called Bilad Mesopotamia, the land of the two rivers. In the West, it has been known since ancient times The Greek name that used to combine the two words mesos It means the middle, and the potamos means the river. Mesopotamia, the land between the two rivers. These two great waterways are known as the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. For thousands of years, these rivers have brought life Down to the flat plain of Iraq, and the source of that life comes from Some more dead things.

The rocks of the mountains themselves. Almost all rocks are held together by small patches of two different types Materials called quartz and feldspar. Quartz is a sparkling clear crystal composed of oxygen and silicon, While feldspar is a complex mineral derived from silicon. Together, they make up more than 60 percent of the Earth's crust. And when rivers cut their roots through mountain canyons, And underground streams run their waters Over the rocks, their soluble parts are dissolved. But quartz and feldspar do not dissolve in water, Thus, these small crystals carry along the river In a cloud of shimmering particles. We call this material silt. Silt is sometimes known by a more poetic name, A rock flower and its particles are smaller than a grain of sand. But these little spots can have a massive impact. Soils with a high content of silt tend to retain water better, It enhances air circulation.

For this reason, clay soil forms An ideal habitat for most plants. It transports the Tigris and Euphrates rivers Huge amounts of silt in the lowlands of Iraq Every year, as a result, this flat, barren expanse She became exceptionally fertile. For the history of this region and the history of all mankind, These tiny particles will prove to be very important. Other than its rich clay soil, the desert plains of southern Iraq It is a hospitable place. In fact, this might be the last place I might We expect the emergence of the first human civilizations in it For one thing, the climate in this area is extremely hot And dry. Summer temperatures can reach over 52°C or or 126 degrees Fahrenheit, precipitation is rare, especially in the summer. Coupled with the strong winds that blow across these plains, meaning the soil is barren and pilot . Despite this monsoon flood Rivers bring life back to Earth, and these floods are also unpredictable. In Egypt, the Nile River flows directly from the Great Lakes of Africa which acts as a stabilizing and regulating force. But the Tigris and Euphrates depend on the amount of rain that fell on the mountains of Turkey, Armenia and Kurdistan, The amount varies greatly from year to year.

Years of drought are often followed by years of devastating floods. During the winter the whole plain is covered With a thick layer of clay. Also, the southern region of Iraq is poor in natural resources. The earth is basically nothing but a flood plain Made of clay and silt. There were no minerals to be mined here, There are no stones. Because of all these challenges, It took the first man a long time to reach this hostile environment. In far prehistoric times, ancient humans Like Homo erectus, it competed for survival in the upper reaches from the rivers. Archaeologists found stone axes and Other artifacts dating back nearly half a million year. But the river lands are from southern Iraq It was not suitable for this lifestyle of hunting and gathering. But about 13,000 years ago, things started to change. The first nomadic hunter-gatherers began to settle down in permanent villages. These are the early innovators They might have noticed something interesting; They saw it when they threw The discarded seeds of edible plants, the same plant will sprout later from their landfills. This gave them an idea. They realized that if you bury the seeds of a plant in the ground, Feed and water them, more of the same plants will grow.

These were among the first farmers, and as soon as they found a good plot of land, It's totally understandable that they don't want to move. And soon they built houses nearby, and stores to keep food during the winter. gathered together into larger communities in order to divide the labor of agriculture And to protect their pills if anyone else tries to take them. They learned how to take clay from the ground and shape it into pots, But it was still confined to areas where the rains were heavy. Which mountains and slopes. Since about 6500 BC, These human settlements began to spread. Century after century, millennium Millennium, they made their way between two great rivers, and in an inhospitable land in southern Iraq. Who are these people, what language do they speak, and what were they? They call themselves, we have no idea. today, We call this stretch for several thousand years The Ubaid period, arbitrarily named after the location where “Tel al-Ubaid” was Where artifacts were found. When the sons of this period moved in the rivers of Iraq, They started noticing other things, too. Note that palm trees grow In some areas of the river, which saved them Rich and delicious source of calories.

They soon find out that it can also be cultivated It is grown in orchards. They also noticed that these palms It can provide shade for other, more fragile plants, To allow them to grow under the harsh Iraqi sun. They made another important discovery, too. They realize that they don't have to grow their plants only on the banks the river. With a little hard work, they can dig Canals that diverted life-giving water For inland lands, they can grow almost all crops Anywhere, as long as you can dig a long channel suitable .

People in this area soon They will be very good at digging canals. If done correctly this way, this scene It can be very productive. In the fields, people planted here Wheat, millet, sesame. In the gardens under The shade of their palms, as they planted pomegranates, grapes and figs, as well as chickpeas, lentils and leeks, Garlic, cucumber and watercress. But there was a noticeable green spot In the middle of all this desert. In southern Iraq, the Tigris rivers And the Euphrates splits into deltas and shallow lakes before they meet the ocean, creating an ancient marsh landscape. Here grows a thick forest of reeds, so long that you cannot see the last one , inhabited by buffaloes, wild boars, and swamp birds. Since ancient times, people here built their homes from reeds, They tied them together in incredibly strong beams up to a meter thick, And they built great vaulted houses out of nothing but reeds.

In this southern view, the greatest of what the Sumerians built from cities flourished As he watered Mesopotamia two great rivers, Its lands were also inhabited by two great peoples. These are the people of Sumer and the people of Akkad. Throughout their history, the Sumerians and Akkadians They grow together in a symbiotic way that it's impossible to tell a story one without the other. we know A fair amount about the Akkadian people in the north. They spoke a language of the Semitic family, meaning that it belongs to the same family of the Aramaic language in the Bible, and later Hebrew and Arabic. It seems that this language was Native to the region, it shares grammar and words Many other languages ​​have surrounded it. But the Sumerian people were more mysterious than So much.

In fact, they are like a puzzle They made archaeologists point to the so-called Sumerian problem. The Sumerians spoke what we call an isolated language. That is, it has nothing to do with any language around it, It mainly belongs to its own language family. Sumerian was so alien to the region that the first scientists who discovered this The texts did not believe it could be real language at all. They believed that it was a kind of blade used to communicate in secret. This alone has prompted some historians to question Whether the Sumerians reached southern Iraq from somewhere else.

Sumerian culture centered on the sea coast In the far south of Iraq, and so, some suggested They may have come by boat. Some support for this theory may come in The writings of the Roman historian Flavius ​​Josephus who He wrote a Babylonian legend that he heard in the first century AD. It is about a story of half man and half fish His name is Unas, who came out of the sea and taught the people of Mesopotamia Culture Secrets. And bring them the knowledge of letters, sciences and technologies of all kinds. He also taught them how to establish cities, building temples, laying down laws, and measuring plots of land. he is Show them how the land works and gather the fruits. After teaching humans these secrets, Unas jumps again into the sea This legend may be old It came from storytellers keeping some memory of access The Sumerians took them down en masse by boat, and brought With them is their advanced urban culture. Some have even argued that the Sumerians may have come From as far afield as India.

More evidence for migration theory seems to come from words that the Sumerians used in their professions. For the most common jobs, those that involve manual labour, The Sumerians used ancient pre-Sumerian words. Meanwhile, they brought with them new words to describe more complex and urban occupations. For example, the words 'writer' and 'winemaker' are Both are Sumerian. But others have proposed a more interesting theory Which seems to resolve some of these contradictions. Although it seems a bit far-fetched, I think it's worth be mentioned here. The evidence for this theory comes, again, from mythology. The Sumerian version of history dominated A devastating event of horrific proportions. If you grew up reading Bible stories, you can You find this familiar. The Sumerians believed that earlier, In the time of their most distant ancestors, A great flood has swept the globe. This same story will move later to Legends of the Babylonian Empire and from there to the Hebrew poets who They wrote the first books of the Bible.

This is why the flood story It is perhaps the oldest continuously told story, perhaps in this Legend, the origin key falls Sumerians. The story of the flood is so amazing That many historians have varying degrees of credibility Try to create some historical events that you may have inspired, and history is actually full of great floods. When the last Ice Age ended around 10,000 BC, Global temperatures rose by four to seven degrees over a period of about five thousand years. Up until that point, vast ice sheets had covered the land in the north The planet reaches south to Berlin But as temperatures rose, these ice caps melted, Their waters flowed back into the oceans.

Global sea levels rose by an average of one and a half centimeters per year, In the end, the sea rose incredibly About 120 meters is enough to flood About 30 floors. All over the world, flooded the vast sea coastal areas. The land bridge that was up Between Russia and Alaska has become submerged, separating Asia and Americas forever. Lowlands of what is now The lands north of the sea in Europe were flooded, turning Great Britain into Island. In the Middle East, the influences were Feeling just as dramatic. During the low sea levels of the Ice Age, The Tigris and Euphrates rivers flow for another 600 km, To become one river, and meanders along a valley A depression crammed between what is now Iran and Kingdom Saudi Arabia. This great river was going to meet The Indian Ocean around Dubai today.

Some historians have argued that humans are from the Neolithic period Perhaps they made their home in this fertile valley, After they came down from the mountains of Iran. But as the glaciers melt, so does the sea. Slowly at first, but with Speed ​​increase. Over the next five thousand years, it was The shoreline would have moved at an average rate of 120 meters per year. That's more than a kilometer every ten years, or one meter every three days. If there were humans They live in this low area at that time, This event must have been absolutely terrifying. The following centuries would see these people pushed north Because of the creeping waves that swallowed whole forests and villages. These people would have been squeezed into increasingly dense populations, Always forced to adapt.

They could have been A wandering group of refugees, can never settle anywhere for long Before the sea makes its next advance. This exodus was going to continue until The planet's temperature has stabilized and the sea coast has arrived farthest point, around 5000 BC, Only at a time when the Sumerian culture as we know it was stormed the historic theatre. I think this is a theory that deserves some study. That like waves of Semitic farmers From the mountains in the north, They met other residents from the south, Destructive and violent people speak a language Each one evolved independently telling stories About a flood drowned the whole world. This theory can be supported by that legend For fish man amphibian Unas. Is it possible that the Sumerians came? To southern Iraq, not by boat, but by walking Whose land now lies at the bottom of the sea? Another legend called the legend of Enki and Nhursaj It tells the story of creation in which the god Enki Man is created in a land called Dilmun.

Dilmun is like the Garden of Eden earthly paradise. In Dilmun, the Atdo bird does not shriek or scream, and the lion does not kill. The wolf does not prey on the lamb, and the wild dog, Devouring children, they did not know him. It is believed that Dilmun was what is now Bahrain. An island in the middle of the Persian Gulf, That body of water that was once a fertile river valley. All we have on this subject is speculation, And until no other evidence is found, this It will remain just a theory. But as a narrator, I can't help but be drawn to this colorful interpretation. When we try to find out what really happened In this incredibly distant past, we remember that history is not static A bunch of dates and facts, but it's a process Constant inquiry and discussion. can sometimes Feels like you're mapping the surface of a planet in Another solar system, or like exploring the depths of darkness In the deep sea, all we have to work with is Little points of light provided by history.

We may never know the truth about where the Sumerians came from, But there is a lot we do know. The Sumerians referred to themselves as ùĝ saĝ gíg ga, or "black-headed", and the Akkadians called them Tsimiyat-Qaqadi, Which means the same thing in their language. From the carvings depicting the Sumerians, we can see how they styled their hair; Curly on top, and cut on the sides. While ordinary men wore sheepskin skirts The richer people wore colorful knitted fabrics Made of wool, decorated with tassels and beads. Among the wealthy, both men and women wore jewelry; Anklets, bracelets, necklaces, ear trinkets, Made of copper and sometimes gold. Remarkably, we also have a great deal of Evidence for Sumerian Music. like everything Finally, the Sumerians wrote their music On clay tablets, we also discovered other texts She explains how to play them, including how to tune the instruments. Today, we are able to hear the sounds of music Which used to play in temples and squares Cities such as Eridu, Ur and Uruk. These two great peoples, the Semitic Akkadians The Sumerians formed a coexistence over the following centuries in which we see their cultures working in parallel, Just like their two great rivers.

Share their successes and achievements, They shared cities that were in the midst of growth To become the biggest ever, but they also participated their failures. As a result, their fate has become inseparable tangled. The Sumerians believed that the world was roughly A circular land mass surrounded on all sides by a huge water body. They believed that another ocean also lay above their heads, held in place by the steel structure of the sky Which sometimes allows some of this water to pass through rain. They divided the water into two types. rainwater, rivers and fresh water, Sea water is bitter water. The Sumerians called their home Ki-en-gi (-r), means "land of the nobles". To describe the settled societies of the Sumerians and Akkadians, They used the word "kalam" in the sense of "civilized", While they used the word "kur" to describe mountainous areas on the borders of the plains. "Kur", in the Sumerian language, " It meant "mountain," but also meant "rebellious," "barbarian," and "wild." At this time, he should have looked at the outside world.

In the south and west, the vast desert of Arabia yawned, A rolling sea of ​​sand dunes where nothing grows, Home of the fierce Bedouin tribes. To the north of these tribes are the Taurus Mountains in Turkey and Kurdistan have completely encircled them Full of rugged mountain dwellers, while the Zagros Mountains are in Iran It formed the edge of their world in the East. Today, the Arabic word for Upper Mesopotamia He still carried within him that sense of isolation. They call it the island, but despite the challenges The Sumerians thrived in difficult lands. they did not have stone to build with, so they learned to make bricks instead of river mud, mixing them with straw, pebbles and pottery Crushed and put in the oven. Made of clay Everything utensils and plates to sickles and plates Writing. They didn't have wood, so instead they are They harvested great numbers of reeds, tied them together in bundles, and Lay them together in mats. The Sumerians invented or adopted the pottery wheel, The cart wheel, the plow, and the sailboat. In their buildings, complex arches and domes were used.

They figured out how to cast metals like copper, And later, bronze. So were the Sumerians Avid mathematicians. They developed complex measurement systems, Methods for dividing, multiplying and calculating angles. Even writing the first multiplication tables on clay tablets. We actually use Sumerian mathematics every day. It was the Sumerians who divided time into minutes and seconds that are still We use it, since their number system It is a system based on the number 60, we are on the system of the number 10 We have 60 minutes in an hour. The reason for using 60 Cass Their number system is very simple, and it is rooted in designing our bodies.

If you extend your hand Now in front of you, you will notice that each of the four Fingers are divided into three sections. The ancients are believed to have done this Use the thumb of his right hand to tap each part of his finger Counting to 12. When they reach 12, they'll raise a finger On their left hand, counting up to 12 seconds. when you have Five fingers on your left hand is going to be 60 fingers, and you have to start over. The fact that there are 12 cycles of the moon every year He would assure the Sumerians that this was the number system Which is meant by the gods.

The 360 ​​degrees we still use to measure the angle It is the last remnant of this system. Because of this spark of ingenuity, the Sumerian society grew At a slow but steady pace. They dug extensive irrigation networks Canals extended to agricultural areas around rivers, and also allowed them to transport goods In canal boats. They built dams to regulate the flow rivers and ensure the arrival of spring floods in a more controlled manner. In fact, the Sumerian language has a wide range of words to describe different types of Channels, reservoirs, dams and gates required for control with their water. Gradually, the landscape of southern Iraq Transformed from dusty salt flats and swamps To a green mixture of agricultural land. Many historians have argued that he dug these canals and The waterways are what led to the biggest Social organization during the Sumerian period.

These extensive water management systems required careful planning, Engineering expertise and mathematical calculations. The work teams needed to organize and pay And food and beer. Foremen and foremen had to be appointed, and all that It led to a kind of early bureaucracy that led to the emergence of the States The first real. In the 1930s, historian Arnold Toynbee famously argued It is these environmental challenges in southern Iraq that created the conditions under which civilization can be created. The drought of the region pushed the fathers of the Sumerian civilization To control the swamp of the forest in the lower valley of the Tigris and The Euphrates and its transformation. This is an ordeal and a difficult achievement Transmitted by the fathers of the Sumerian civilization It was celebrated in the Sumerian myth. The god Marduk killed the dragon Tiamat He created the world from her remains Denotes the subjugation of the primal wilderness And the creation of the land by diverting water and Soil drying.

The harsh semi-desert landscape created what he called The 'stimulus-response effect' in these first subjects. Toynbee argues that in circumstances that are most comfortable, People have little need for increased social organization or technological development. In very harsh conditions, Society finds it impossible to develop. argue that in environments Like southern Iraq, where the challenges are many, but It's not overwhelming, that the cradle of civilization could happen. According to Sumerian texts, the first city in the region The city of Eridu was a controversial document known as The Sumerian King List describes the place Eridu as the place In which the god Enki decided that the king should rule.

When the monarchy was taken down from heaven, the monarchy was in Eridu. In Eridu, a yulum became ruler for 28,800 years Al-Najjar ruled for 36000 years For obvious reasons, many historians have questioned reliability of this source. Some have even gone so far as to call it A piece of sheer fantasy, or an afterthought piece Designed to legitimize the usurper of the throne. But the king list tells us how the Sumerians, Think about their history. Many have argued that she could be Eridu The first city in the world. Eridu was founded around 5400 BC That's about 7,500 years ago At this time, the flocks of Woolly Mammoths, survivors of the end of the Ice Age, They still roam the most remote parts of the world.

Eridu was inhabited by Sumerian-speakers, and soon it will become only a part of A whole constellation of small towns that are scattered in The land of southern Iraq. These independent countries The city-states centered around their temples, It is ruled by priests of kings known as Ensi. Records show that these The Onsi were often assisted by a council of sages That included both men and women. Most of the major cities in this The period may not have been more than 10,000 people The borders of these civil states determined by the paths of canals and specially created boundary stones, Carved traces were left protruding from the ground to identify The dividing line between one region and another. Slowly, these cities began to overtake the ancient "Tal al-Ubaid" culture that preceded them.

Art and architecture began to take the form that we rightly call Sumerian Technology has also started to take huge leaps forward. Looks like this first period was a time of relative peace. There is little evidence On organized war or keep professional soldiers In these ancient cities. Most cities during this period went without war. One of the extraordinary ancient Sumerian legends It's called Inanna's gifts seem to pick up Some spirit of this transitional period. Describes the technology and the transition to the civilization that he transmitted Anki, king of the gods, His daughter, the goddess Inanna. Then she transferred them to the Sumerian people . Holy Inanna received craft Carpenter, brass craft, craft scribe, blacksmith's craft, craft Leather maker, builder craft, craft reed agent. Holy Inanna received wisdom, and Shepherd's law, coal accumulation to make it Glow, pasture law Enki Inanna teaches about family, proper inheritance laws, The art of good governance. But he also goes on to give her other gifts, Some show that the dark side of civilization It is already beginning to reveal itself. Holy Inanna received deception and rebellious lands.

The sacred Inanna received heroism, strength, evil, plundering cities and making lamentations. It may be that the ancient Sumerians They have known, since the dawn of civilized man Societal, what the scientist Walter Benjamin will say Once upon a time there is no record of a civilization Not at the same time a record of barbarism. It is true that during this period the Sumerians began Practices that will start a sad phase from human history. Among them is the enslavement of people. They arrested men and women from the hill countries beyond their borders, And they used their labor to fuel growth their economy. In the last episode, I used the metaphor for the death of stars To talk about the life cycle that empires often go through, But we may also think of the birth of civilizations in the same way. The first stars were born from compressed gas clouds Together under the weight of their attraction in a rotating ball of matter. Under sufficient pressure, the temperature is Gem nucleus has increased and finally nuclear fusion have started.

The first stars burst into the light. When enough people get together in one place, that meeting gets kind of from gravity. Attracts others towards him, and as The size of the settlement increases and the pressure on its various systems increases. In some cases, this pressure results in people merging In more complex but orderly forms. Sometime around 3200 BC, the first stars of these settlements were Humans are beginning to emerge. This light was an invention Writing. One of the Sumerian epic poems called Enmerkar and the ruler of Arata Gives the first known stories about the invention of writing. This poem attributes the invention to a king Who sends so many messages to his messenger that his messenger cannot remember them all.

Because the Messenger's mouth was heavy and he could not repeat the message. The ruler of Colaba engraved on some clay and put words on it that became like a tablet. Until then, there were no words to put on the clay. The Sumerians had two things around them There is no limit to their abundance of first mud under their feet, And the reeds that grew in the marshes and on the banks of rivers.

It is these two resources that come together to form The first human writing. Sumerian scribes were picking up a piece Large enough to fit in their hands. In fact, about the size Modern smartphone. They will take a piece of reed wedge-shaped, repeatedly printed in clay to form icons. Distinctive wedge shapes of the cane This form of writing gives what we call it Cuneiform. He pays him half a mina of silver. No. 19: The oldest cuneiform clay tablets come from Uruk, dating back to Late fourth millennium, probably around 32nd or 31st centuries. This text originally consisted of pictograms, Small pictures designed to depict things for everyone to understand . This was first used for tracking Everyday things like rations and supplies.

On each other These very early tablets, you can still see what they are very clearly A bowl of food pictured with a mouth eats next to six expressions, next to Five bundles of wheat. This indicates that the worker can Replace this tablet with six bowls of food and five sheaths of wheat. The scribes had to work quickly, He copied hundreds of tablets throughout their day. Slowly, this pressure meant that the marks It should become simpler and more abstract. Before long, things don't come back It is described as it looks. After the year 3000, Tokens reduced from about 1500 to about 600, And someone else had a bright idea that each symbol It can represent a specific sound rather than a whole idea.

This was the beginning of the first alphabet, But this means that now only a few are educated They understand writing, and soon a separate class of scribes appeared. The human brain will never be the same again. People can now read the words of kings and scribes who died hundreds of years ago. They can also start typing Everything they learned so it can be remembered, and more Most importantly, it is buildable. Because of this ability to record knowledge, Sumer technology I started taking bigger leaps forward. This next period of history would be known as the Uruk period. The period is named after the city of Uruk, which by the middle of the fourth millennium BC, It has grown into the largest and most powerful city in Mesopotamia. One of the main ways historians refer to Turning to the Uruk period is by noticing a radical change Around this time in the pottery of the region.

If I were You think that pottery should be more intricate and ornate because Technology improves, you are wrong. In fact , The pottery of the Tal al-Ubaid period was exceptionally beautiful. has been made On a device known as a slow wheel, painted in a distinctive geometric shape Designs in brown or black. They were luxurious pieces for the chosen few. Transformation to Uruk period experienced a significant increase in the amount of pottery produced, But the quality has significantly decreased. Thanks to a technology known as the fast wheel Wheel, clay jars and pots can now be made In large numbers by workers in intensive workshops. This was the first era of mass production. The booming economy of the Sumerian cities Come to life in their blogging. And the clay tablets tell us that in The city of Gersu, for example, has employed 15,000 women textile industry. One factory produced eleven hundred tons of flour a year, as well as bread, beer and linseed oil. This factory employs 134 specialists and 858 skilled workers. that the vast majority of them were women. Since there is no currency at this time, Workers get paid directly in food and other goods.

Minimum wage For an unskilled factory worker who makes up to 20 liters of barley per month, With 2 liters of oil and 2 kilos of wool annually. Meanwhile, their supervisor earns almost double that share. The poor in Sumerian society were oppressed Perhaps they were very miserable. They often had to borrow Food or silver from predatory moneylenders At overwhelming interest rates of up to 30 per cent. But despite this growing disparity, by the middle Fourth millennium BC, economic progress It meant that the city of Uruk had grown into the largest and most powerful city In southern Mesopotamia. This was around 3500 BC, Or more than 5,000 years ago. By this time, it had already been nearly 2000 years Since the original founding of the city of Eridu That's enough time to move us from our present day to the era of Julius Caesar. By the time of Caesar, the Sumerian civilization was Really old, oldest pyramids Egypt will not be built in another 900 years.

In Britain, the Neolithic Stonehenge monument At that time it was just a series of wheelbarrows and earthworks, And his big stone was not moved to a place For another 1,300 years. When writing was invented in Uruk in Thirty-second century BC, the last herds Mammoths were alive at the end of the Ice Age She was still clinging to life on a rocky island In the eastern Siberian Sea known as Wrangel Island. By this time, Uruk had about 50,000 Of the population. This is just enough to fill in the blank Medium sized modern football field. But at that time it was the largest city Earth saw her.

The oldest surviving piece in the world from Literature, known as the Epic of Gilgamesh, in This city. It's the story of the king of Uruk named Gilgamesh, who probably ruled some time in the third Millennium. Whatever his historical facts are King, Gilgamesh made enough impression as ruler He became a legendary hero, Two thirds of God and one third of human. Although there is much more myth than The truth in this ancient tale, the Epic of Gilgamesh tells us A little about how Sumerian society has changed In the first centuries of the third millennium.

For one thing, the war has obviously started to increase in the region. The tale begins in the mighty city of Uruk, One feature of the city has been mentioned as a source of great pride. These are enormous fortified walls in the shape of a ring As these lines appear from the Epic of Gilgamesh. See its surah, which is like a shiny thread He gazed at his unrivaled balconies Hold the lintels, they are of old, rise above the wall of Uruk, and walk back and forth. Check the base and check the milk Is there no reward for its milk? It is clear that the city walls are now A necessity, but we can say it's great pride It appears in the Uruk fortifications that it may have been very rare such fortifications.

In fact, throughout the story, the city was mentioned over and over again as 'Uruk of the mighty walls'. We also get to know what the city was like Divided during this time, indicating a certain level of urban planning of its rulers. These parts consist of Uruk. one-third k The city, a third is like a garden, and a third is like a field. And part of the sanctuary of the Temple of Ishtar. At the height of the Uruk period, it was The area of ​​the city is two and a half square kilometers. It had a port on the river, along with workshops and crowded homes. In the center of the city was the famous White Temple of Uruk. It was 21 meters high and covered in white gypsum reflecting sunlight It would have caused the temple to glow during the day. If you walk the streets of Uruk during this time, You would see markets full of products like beans and lentils, Pomegranate and dates, jars of date molasses, and oil. In the more affluent parts of the city, houses would be built of burnt bricks.

But in other places they will be mud dried in the sun. Homes are likely to be They are arranged in a chaotic manner, creating a maze of alleys Covered with reed mats to preserve them Cool in the heat of the day. Cultivators were carrying large packages of reeds and wheat on their backs, and the shepherds attend Sheep and long-haired cows to the city. Here and there, you will see men sitting in circles On shaded patios, they share a large pitcher of beer in the middle, It is all sipped through a long straw made of hollow reeds. While the Sumerians imported some wine from the northern regions, The beer was a favorite over anything else. They had more than 30 different species, With names like "white," "dark," "cloudy," and "sweetened with honey." Some of the beer was flavored with herbs. Brewed directly from Wheat and barley are from the fields, and if you buy from them the cheapest types Cereal seeds often remain floating at the bottom. Cuneiform inscription preserved With a text telling us about a song for the drink song says. I'll call the brewers and the bartenders to Bring us a flood of beer and pass it on to each other! What a pleasure! What a joy! happily we publish it, To sing rejoicingly with this noble wine, sculpting our hearts and souls radiate.

We can imagine the conversations these old people could have had about their beer bowls; Probably no different from conversations Which you would find in any bar or pub today. Some of these everyday interests have been preserved in ancient tablets About the proverbs of Sumerian. These groups are beer drinkers They undoubtedly complained of being underappreciated at work. I am a thoroughbred mare but related to a mule, And you must draw a cart and carry the reeds and planting remains. Others may sympathize with one of the oldest preoccupations of man; Not having enough money.

A dead poor is better than a living poor. If he had bread, He has no salt. If he has salt, he has no bread. As with drinkers throughout history, they had fallen, They shouted insults in the streets. If you are placed in water, the water may be damaged. If you put it in a garden, the fruit will rot. Usually people sleep at night on the roofs of their homes, Because the heat inside the houses was very high on them. The city was a pungent mixture of smells. Pottery kilns and brickwork would smoke all day long. There were no sewage systems in the roads, people were throwing Their waste is on the street. at home People laid layers of clay and crushed gypsum dust, and reed mats to create a soft, carpet-like effect.

From the center of this great city, The Uruk civilization sent ripples across the world, And in the end, a number of similar great cities rose around. But as the fourth millennium draws to a close, Another Sumerian city was increasing in power, Soon it will take the place of Uruk as the center Neo-Sumerian culture. You will thrive in untold worlds of wealth, pushing the limits of what humans thought impossible It happens in the fields of art and architecture.

It is the city that we opened this episode with its monuments, And the name of that city is Ur. Ur was located at the point where the Euphrates River meets the sea. 1:02:18.7991:02:23.760 It was a trading port and a fishing town where seagulls were flying over, The fishermen bring their catch of fish. Oysters and turtles. Its location on the sea The river would have made it a thriving center in the trade area. As we have already seen, if you need clay Or Al Qasab, Southern Iraq was the place for you. But for almost everything they needed, the Sumerians had to import from other countries. But luckily for them, they always had something to trade in. They were alone among almost all the ancient nations In the Middle East, where they produced a large and varied surplus of food.

Archeology shows that due to their agricultural capabilities, The people of Mesopotamia in ancient times enjoyed a richer and more varied diet than their neighbors in Turkey or Iran. We even discovered some ancient Sumerian recipes Written on clay tablets. This is the recipe for the dish that It's called Tuh'u, and it gives you a sense of diversity which they enjoyed. Prepare the water. add lard, salt, beer, onions, arugula and coriander, Semolina, cumin and beetroot. Add them to the cooking pot, then combine Shallots and garlic together and add them. Let everything mix and turn into a paste, then Sprinkle them with coriander and carrots. Boats full of wheat, grain, dried reeds and figs Now they were ascending the rivers, bringing food to all the neighboring lands. In return, other resources flowed in again. Copper descended from the mountains of northwestern Iran, And then by ship from the island of Cyprus. The fig mineral traveled through the long mountain passes of Afghanistan, As it was throughout the Late Bronze Age. While silver descended on the Euphrates River on boats from the Turkish Taurus Mountains Gold came from Egypt and on ships from India.

Plain wood Used in everyday buildings from the Zagros Mountains In Iran to the east. But for luxury constructions. for palaces And the city gates ornate only precious cedar wood . Came by ship from Lebanon, Where it grew among the high mountain passes. In fact, one tablet in the Epic of Gilgamesh It tells of the king's quest to slay a beast in the mountains of Lebanon, And he steals this beautiful wood from his forest. The ancient Sumerians traded in what we consider a truly globalized method. Their ships sailed from their small coasts on the Persian Gulf to trade In the modern ports of Bahrain and Oman. From there, sail along Sahel to trade with one of the oldest and darkest worlds and cultures, the people we know today as the Indus Valley Civilization. And from there, the Sumerians got all kinds of spices, Precious stones such as carnelian, as well as brilliant blue lapis lazuli The Sumerians loved it.

They used it to make jewelry and amulets, Inlay in game boards, musical instruments, and figurines Stunningly beautiful. All this trade would have passed through Ur The city has swelled to a fortune that is likely not to It is replicated by no other civilization at all. The merchandise shows the tombs that have been uncovered in Ur-Less Not only the enormous wealth of its rulers, but also the exquisite craftsmanship that Denotes an advanced community of artists. One of these artifacts found in a royal tomb at Ur gave us incredible insight From the life and literature of the ancient Sumerians.

It is a decorative piece of furniture, It is inlaid with a mosaic of mother-of-pearl, red limestone and lapis lazuli. Shows a detailed picture of daily life About 4600 years ago. Today, it is called the Ur standard. On the one hand, the artifact shows images of the Sumerians at war; Donkey carts and soldiers wearing leather capes and And helmets and men carrying spears and axes. On the other hand, the Sumerians are depicted in peace. Peasants and shepherds work on the same level, and above them are the scribes who are friends Bald heads sitting at their desks. At this time, urbanization in the Sumerian world was reaching its peak. By the end of the third millennium, the majority of the region's population They will live in cities, and in this civilized world Modern, the economic power of Ur remained ruling.

Over the following centuries, its power expanded and contracted, At one time, some of its kings wrote inscriptions They call themselves the king of Ur and the king of Kish, Kish is another city located nearby. This indicates that Ur It may have brought some of its neighbors under its political control. But by the middle of the third millennium, the influence of Ur appears It started to fade. This was a new era of military life, when the power of trade was Diplomacy is no longer enough. One city called Lagash really stood out In this age of violence. Lagash was a city of slaves. You have amassed riches by raiding villages in The hills, kidnapping and selling people across the region. Sometime around 2500 BC, Lagash fell out with its neighbour, a city called Uma. The dispute seems to be It was a stretch of farmland along the river, It caused a war between the two cities.

One of the carved stone monuments from this time, known as obelisks, captures something from spirit of this era. It is known as the obelisk the Eagles. The top is natural stone. The king of Lagash appears, a man named Aanatum He leads his soldiers into battle. They wear leather helmets and skirts made of Cane on their shoulder their spears. These spears Probably topped with copper or bronze blades, It flashed red in the sun as they walked. The king was riding before them in a chariot, He wears animal skin slung across his chest, With a spear and a bowl of spears beside him.

When the armies gathered, the painting was showing King Eannatum of Lagash He got off his chariot and drove his men By foot. Advancing in a battalion, a narrow square of men in broad shields To protect their foreheads, the porcupine protrudes from a short spear straight ahead. The fight was bitter. Anatom He was hit in the eye by an arrow, but he lived to see his army Victory, where the inscription was recorded on the plates.

Enatum struck the Uma army. were the corpses 3600 in number. I am anatum like a fierce gale wind, Unleashed the storm! As the nation's soldiers tried to flee from the bloody battlefield, The painting shows unarmed soldiers stopping them And trample them under their feet. There is something to this sculpture indicative For me, it is a bit of a change in the spirit of the Sumerian war. It is a special kind of filth that reveals in the sufferings of your enemies, This becomes clearer in the sculpture section who gives it its name. These are the eagles flying over us, Carrying the severed heads of Uma soldiers In their beaks, they capture their tongues and eyes. It clearly shows the kind of massacre he committed Lagash City, and it does so with relish. Because of military victories of this kind, Lagash City for slavery I went to conquer a large part of southern Mesopotamia. Lagash established what some historians called the first A real empire in the world, but her rule was short-lived. In these ancient times, Managing even one city was difficult, And the Lagash Empire despite its military success, Soon it was overextended.

To make matters worse, King Eannatum His rule was through what amounted to a campaign horror. Unsurprisingly, his rule was unpopular, And revolutions broke out. caused the rupture and collapse of the hated Lagash Empire, Captured by the ruler of one of the conquered cities Chance. He was the king of Uma, the defeated and humiliated city As shown on the Obelisk of the Eagles His name was Lugalajizzi It is not clear exactly what made Loglagize Successful like that, but obviously motivated Through a burning desire to take revenge on the Lagash Empire. Perhaps he was even in battle when King Eannatum was It slaughters thousands of its citizens. He revolted against Lagish, and soon overthrew the kings of Kanna They are still loyal to the empire in the cities of Kish and Larsa. Then he walked to the great city of Ur itself, Uruk's mighty walled fortress. Both fell in turn, Lugalagizhi moved his capital to Uruk. Finally he walked to the city of Lagash itself, He defeated the Empire, and here the fiery vengeance calmed in his heart . Lagash did not hold out for long.

Lugalagizi stormed its walls and destroyed the city and burned it to Earth. Even by the standards of the time, this seems shocking He also remembers Sumerian poetry with sadness. Because the Uma man destroyed a brick of Lajsh, he committed a sin against the city god. God cut off any hand raised to it. Mai Nedaba, the goddess of Lulagizi Make him bear all these sins.

Lugalagizi Momentum after destroying Lagash It seemed unstoppable. made his way north, On the course of the two rivers, and soon conquered all the areas that It was once under the command of Lagash. One inscription written by He claims to have conquered all the lands between what he calls The upper and lower seas, meaning from From the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean coast. The great god Enlil gave him property His land, the area from below the sea through The Tigris and Euphrates rivers to the upper seas. thirty two kings They gathered on him, but he defeated them and hit them their cities, their masters killed, and the whole countryside destroyed Even silver mines. Admittedly, this is probably a bit of an exaggeration. The Sumerians were not able to maintain remote colonies Or lands far away, it is likely that Lugalajize He did something like a successful raiding group on the coast, maybe He plundered some towns and cities, and returned the treasures to Uruk.

But this is the first time that a Sumerian prince has made this claim. To them, this upper sea was the western edge of their entire world, And the idea of ​​a king who might conquer all the lands between the seas He began to possess the imagination of all the kings who came after that. But King Lugalagizi, like rulers of Lagash before him, He made the fatal mistake of exhausting his resources. This empire was simply too big. It did not last long, civil wars and rebellions It broke out between various Sumerian cities.

In this time of chaos, the greats of the people of Mesopotamia They began to fantasize about their chances of governing. These are the people who up until this point were something of a beginner A partner in the civilization of southern Iraq. These are the people of Akkad. Soon one man led them in outright rebellion against the Sumerian Empire. It will go down in history as In Akkadian it means "the only true king". this name It was Sargon, and twilight was ushered in From the Sumerian era. Like many episodes in Sumerian history, the origin of Sargon's story is the Akkadian You might find it familiar if you grew up on Stories Bible. Born sometime in the middle 24th century BC, and legend has it that he was a baby Found in a basket of reeds on the banks of the Tigris River. found By a gardener who worked in the palace in the city Kish, who raised him to be his son. But like the biblical Moses, this foundling child He had great ambitions.

There seemed to be something special about him. Something about his charming manners meant that he was quickly taken to work As a sommelier in the palace, he brings wine to lords and kings in the Kingdom. This was a high-ranking position, and she was A way for a young man to gain influence in the palace. Young Sargon He must have proven himself in other ways, too. This is because he was soon assigned a top-secret mission and importance. At that time, Kish was still part of the Sumerian Empire of Lugalagizi. It extends over all the lands between Bahrain. The Sumerian king Lugalagizi was far away on a distant campaign, Maybe fight in the territory of Syria or put down a rebellion in a remote province. Young Sargon was given a small group of fighting men He ordered to travel to the city of Uruk, where Lugalagizhi kept his royal court. Their plan was to strike the city with a surprise attack, To strike the capital of this new empire, The liberation of Kish from imperial control. It was a bold plan. The towering walls of Uruk, Immortalized in legends, it must have seemed hard work to young Sargon And his men as they prepare for their attack.

But Lugalajizzi took with him much of his army on the campaign, He left little to defend his capital. The attack came as a complete surprise. Sargon's men overcame their defenses, And they poured on their walls, and the defenders fled. Sargon captivity The city before reinforcements arrived He demolished several sections of the walls of that famous city It was a very symbolic act, and Strike against the power of the Lugalagizi Empire King Lugalagezi must have been angry. And he returned, troubled from the distant war, and walked home, Gather all his kings subject to him. By recording inscriptions of as many as 50 kings marching under his banner, And their task was easy enough; to crush strong small country. But it seems that Sargon was one of those characters from History, one of those geniuses like Hannibal or Napoleon, who is able to turn the battles into Valid regardless of the odds. We don't know how he did it, But in a pitched battle with all the combined power of the Empire, It was Sargon's army that appeared victorious. Lugalagizhi and Sargon were captured He walked him through the gates of the holy city of Nippur Wearing a neck cuff, a heavy piece of wood It is applied around his neck and shoulders like bulls.

This was humiliating of course, but here it is again Sargon distinguishes himself from other rulers of that time. This is because he seemed to have a merciful streak. Ancient King Lugalagezi was not killed. Incredibly, he was allowed to continue Kwali Uruk as long as he takes the oath for King Sargon. Sargon founded a new city to serve as The capital of the empire, it was named Akkad. From there, he will continue to conquer many previous empires It was before, as a relief carving under a statue in the city of Nippur Says. Sargon, king of Kish, won 34 battles over all the cities. To the edge of the sea, their walls were destroyed. And he bowed to the gods, and the gods gave him the highest earth To the cedar forest and ascended to the silver mountain. Sargon did not make the mistakes of his predecessors. In every city he occupied, he worked to destroy the city walls. To reduce their ability to defend themselves, thus reducing the possibility of exit One of them rebelled against his rule. He held a party symbolizing him Sovereignty over the whole earth.

Wash his weapons in the waters of both the Persian Gulf and The Mediterranean Sea. But as soon as the dust of war subsided, Achievements continued. Make efforts to centralize Empire, and even reform the timing and date. Reforms strengthened the central state and It increased the stability of the empire. In many ways, it was A progressive and enlightened ruler. But Sargon was also an Acadia, It was what we might call national today. Until now, the Sumerian language was the official language of royal inscriptions In palaces and temples.

But in the reign of Sargon, The use of Akkadian in official inscriptions first began. The cuneiform alphabet has now been re-engineered to write Akkadian, Sargon also called himself a new title, King of Akkad. He appointed only fellow Acadians to positions task in the government, and filled the Sumerian cities b Akkadian forces to secure their loyalty. The people of Mesopotamia who lived and grew together for thousands of years, They are now starting to drift away. discontent in the south Sumerian-speaking cities began to reach a boiling point. Sargon ruled for 55 years, and at the end of his reign Resentment erupted, as one later Babylonian text mentions. In his old age all lands revolted against him, And besieged him in the city of Akkad. But he went to war and defeated them . He overthrew them and destroyed their huge army. Meanwhile, Sargon's propensity for battle is evident He kept his empire together, but with the old king weak, Almost all southern cities broke out in open rebellion. When Sargon of Akkad died around 2284 B.C. His two sons had to take matters into their own hands and try to fix the mess he left behind. The first of these sons was called Rimush.

Ruled for nine years Most of them died in bitter battles to regain the rebellious Sumerian cities in the south. Crush the rebellions at Ur, Aluma, Lagash, And literature and one of the years in which he ruled Also known as "The Year I Ruined Literature". When Rimush, Sargon's other son, Manishtushu, died, took over. Looks like he's resorting to all kinds of terrorist tactics That once made the kings of Lagish so hated. Sargon's grandson was a man named Naram-Sin, He is the one who will restore the empire to its former greatness. He managed to suppress the Sumerian rebellion in its southern strongholds, He restored the Akkad Empire to stability. Naram Sen did not rule only by force. Looks like he put in some effort to Reconciling the intertwined peoples of Mesopotamia, He renounced the title of his grandfather, King of Akkad, and ruled under The diplomatic title is King of Sumer and Akkad. But this has not cured the existing rift so far Continuous growth between these two peoples. Part of the problem was that the Sumerian people did not return The main cultural force in the region.

For centuries, Akkadian was gradually replacing the Sumerian language as a spoken language. Some of this may be due to the official policies of the Akkadian Empire, Discouraging the use of the Sumerian language in official documents. But it was also affected by the increasing makeup of for the empire. The Sumerian language, as we have seen, was a language Insulated with different structure and different sound About all the languages ​​around it. But the people who lived in each The surrounding lands spoke languages ​​that were linguistic Akkadian cousins, all of the Semitic language family. They had the same grammar, even sounds and words in common with the Akkadians. Learning Akkadian for them was like an English speaker Learn French or Spanish while Sumerian It would be like learning Korean. Learning Akkadian was easier Thus, it becomes natural for the Akkadian to become The language of commerce. The people of Mesopotamia were largely bilingual for several centuries, but gradually, all Sumerians will have The skill of speaking the Akkadian language, and the number of Akkadians will decrease Learners of Sumerian.

Slowly the Sumerian language began to fade. But the days of the Akkadian Empire Counted also, the Sumerians got Another opportunity to make their mark on world history. When the great Akkadian king Naram-Sin died, His son, Shar Kali Shri, took power. He was the great-great-grandson of Sargon of Akkad, Four years in his reign, a great heavenly sign It will appear in the sky above us. Far in the depths of space, approximately 200 million kilometers from Earth, A giant ball of ice and dust 40 kilometers wide He appeared above us, sometime around 2213 BC. this Comet was Hale-Bopp. He will spend the next four thousand years swims in our solar system in A deep elliptical orbit, until it flew over the Earth again as A line of glowing light in 1997. It was the brightest comet and the longest tail Observed in our night sky. It remained visible to the naked eye for 18 months. In 1997, the site of the comet in San Diego, California The suicide of 39 members of the Apocalypse cult who called themselves Heaven's Gate By drinking a deadly mixture of vodka and phenobarbital.

They thought their souls would be On board a spaceship that was hidden behind time A comet's tail, and we can only imagine the effect Sight this comet on ancient people. Some may have seen and seen the blessings of the gods, She smiles on the lands of Sumer and Akkad. Others may stare at it The only cosmic as a sign of doom. In the end, these latter are the ones who were right. During the reign of King Char Kali Shri, The world's climate has undergone a mysterious state of a sudden shift. This change is known only by the name The "vague" event of the year of the kilo 4.2 Changes in sea ice in the North Atlantic Ocean, Caused ripples around the world of sensitive and closely interconnected climate systems .

But whatever the causes, the effects dramatic. in different places around the world, Coincided with periods of low rainfall. Dust layers studies in Iraq and the Middle East showed that around this time, the annual precipitation decreased dramatically, The climate became drier. The annual flooding of the rivers on which it is Much of the agriculture depends on the area You will now routinely fail, and the famine will begin. The dry period was not short. In fact, it will last for more than century, and some believe that it may even lasted For the next 300 years. This is a period of drought and famine It was mentioned in the Egyptian texts of the time, Also, it has influenced cultures all over the world. It has been linked to the civilizational collapses in the ancient kingdom of Egypt.

Indus Valley Civilization in India, Liangzhou Culture in China. In Mesopotamia at this time, which was still ruled by the Akkadian Empire, Obviously, resources are suddenly scarce. Gone are the days of the booming flood of food, It was around this time that the first cities and towns appeared It began to be abandoned in the drier regions of the north. After the death of King Shar Kali Shri about the year 2193 BC. A period of chaos and bitter civil war befell the Akkad Empire. The Sumerian King List tablet records this period Almost sarcastic. Then who was the king? Who was not the king? Four of them ruled in just three years. All this chaos did not go unnoticed. In the mountains overlooking the plains Mesopotamia, a nomadic tribal people known as Gotti were watching Who are the Gutians, what language do they speak and which deities do they worship, we do not know. It seems that they were nomads, uncivilized, The ancient Sumerian texts hold a special contempt for them. The Gutians were unhappy people, unaware of how to venerate the gods, They are ignorant of correct religious practices. The Gutians raided and plundered along the frontiers of the Akkadian Empire over the course of Years, burning villages and stealing cattle.

One great letter, dating back to the reign of the king Char Kali Char, written by a master Akkadian who owned a land on the border Goti territory. He asks his workers to ignore the Gutien And their attacks and continue to work, although it is clear that He sends this message while keeping himself at a safe distance. Plant the field and watch the livestock. Don't tell me, 'Goat enemies are around. I couldn't cultivate the field.' Post the guards within a mile, and if the Gutien try to attack you, Take all the cattle to the village.

Now I swear on the life of King Shar Kali- - Shri that if the Guti men steal the cattle and you can't pay for it By yourself, I won't pay you any silver when I come to the city. For years now, the people of the hills have been watching Drought swept through these sedentary communities in the river valley. And they watched the townspeople fight over increasingly scarce farmland, In this moment of weakness, they chose to strike. The Guttites gathered their forces and marched from the hills To the lands of Sumer, this time not to raid, but to conquer and seize it and make it theirs.

One of the wonderful literary texts describes the tragic events of those days. It was written several centuries later, and is called Acad curse. In this version of the great story Lord Enlil is angry with the king of Akkad Because of his disrespect for the gods, he invoked the Gutians as punishment. The inhabitants of the hills are depicted as savage creatures, Half an animal, their language seemed to the Sumerians Like dogs barking. Enlil... What a devastation you have caused. He raised his eyes to the mountain, and The whole mountain rallied as one.

The rebellious people, the land that Its population is unlimited. Gotium, that uncontrolled land, Who perceives a human being, but his appearance and his stammering words indicate dog. Enlil I have them from mountain in large numbers. Like locusts they covered the ground. Nothing escaped them. No one escaped from their arms. All the lands cried bitterly at the walls of their cities. It is not clear how many men were in the Guthian army, But it was enough to quickly overcome weak forces I could hardly. The Gutians seem to have practiced hit-and-run tactics, Raid the supply lines and leave the scorched earth behind.

Their attacks destroyed Akkad's economy. And a society already suffering from drought and war-torn It began to collapse. For the first time since cities were built and founded, Large agricultural tracks do not produce grain, The flooded areas did not produce any fish, and the irrigated orchards did not produce any Drink or wine. The clouds did not rain, and The plants did not grow. Who slept on the roof died on Surface. Whoever slept in the house was not buried. People were full of hunger. The weak Akkadian society collapsed completely Under the pressure of the Gutien attacks. The disappointed Akkadian army came out To face this fearsome enemy in battle and defeated. soon, The Gutites overran the city of Akkad, And they burned it to the ground. They destroyed the city of Sargon So completely that its ruins were not found Never, ever, the Gutites tried to start their own dynasty And they rule the lands of Sumer but to a number Of the reasons, their attempt was not successful.

After all, As empires have discovered to this day, it is much easier to conquer a country than to conquer a country her rule. Cuneiform sources indicate that the rule of the Jutians Show little interest in maintaining cultivation, written records, or safety the public. Gotti were not educated, and they would have suffered To rule an empire for more than a thousand years It relied on the power of the written word. For reasons only they know, and Perhaps related to their Bedouin lifestyle, They did not believe in keeping animals in barns. And they released all the cattle of the land to roam the countryside free.

And soon their policies brought more of hunger, and caused a massive increase in Grain price. In light of neglect and lack of investment, Earth's infrastructure began to collapse. Akkad's Curse Poetry shows how the ways of the empire began It disintegrates, becomes full of weeds, while Long grass grew on the paths where the oxen were dragged gigs.

Grass grows tall on your canal driveway, grass Mourning grows on your wagon highways! Wild rams and snakes in the mountains do not allow anyone to pass in the paths And filled with sediments canal. Destruction of the central authority of the Akkadian Empire Means that during this time, there were a number of Sumerian city-states They regained their independence. Looks like the Gutien have weakened them Failed attempt to rule the empire They couldn't do much to stop them. The Gutites occupied southern Iraq for more 150 years ago, and this period was by all sources A time of suffering. It was a dark age of ignorance where Written records are uncivilized, as well as few and unconnected. But as resentment against their rule grew, rebellions escalated across the country, And a Sumerian man will see that this is an opportunity for him . He was full of desire to return the lands of Sumer To rule a Sumerian king and his name It was Otto-Hengal.

Little is known about Otto Hengall's life. He was Sumerian, and may have been the ruler of Uruk During the last years of the Gutian era. He must have seen the constant famine sweeping his people, And the arrogant Goti kings refused to do anything about it, And punish any resistance to them violently. At this time, a new king of the Jotians had just ascended to the throne of Sumer and cad.

His name was Terrigan, and it looks like he was A traditional model of the Juti rulers. was little Concern for the preservation of the land infrastructure, He even destroyed some infrastructure to punish the people who rebelled against him , as mentioned in the Sumerian King List Tablet. Terrigan's forces settled everywhere. No one will leave their cities to face him. in the south, In Sumer, water cut off the fields.

In the heights, close the roads., Because of him the grass grew high in the roads. Terrigan sat on the throne for only forty days, He was still in the middle of consolidating his rule. It is clear that Otto-Hengal, ruler of Uruk, I think this is the time to take that step. He's likely been planning this for years. He may have sent secret envoys to other southern Sumerian cities, He asks them to prepare for war the moment a new king rises to the throne. Then when everything was in place It was time for him to be beaten. When Terrigan heard about this rebellion, he must have been angry. But it does not seem that he was the bravest of kings. He sent two of his generals, men named Ur Ninazu and Prophet Enlil, To lead his armies in his place while he stayed at home in his palace. Meanwhile, rebel leader Otto Hengall mobilized his forces and marched to meet Gutien generals in the field.

On his way to the decisive battle, Stop at the temple of Ashkur, the Sumerian god of thunderstorms An offering was made. He may have sacrificed a lamb or a goat, and sang an ancient prayer in Sumerian tongue in front of the altar of the god. then, He went out to meet Terrigan's armies. And after he left the temple of Ishkur, on the fourth day, he set up a camp In Naisu on Surongal Channel. Terrigan's generals were arrested Envoys to Sumer, and put handcuffs on their hands. Otto-Hengal was victorious, once again we see that King Terejan was not The brave type. After receiving news of his generals defeated, fled north to a city called Dabrom. The Sumerian King List tablet records what happened next. Then Terrigan, the king of the Gotti, fled, Alone on foot. It was believed that he was safe in Dabrom, Where he fled to save his life, but since the people of Dabrom knew that Otto-Hengal He was a blessed king of Enlil by force, they didn't let him get away with his act An Otto-Hengal envoy was arrested Terrigan, with his wife and children, in Dabrom.

They put handcuffs on his hands and blindfolded him. Centuries later, the Sumerians finally refused The rule of both the Gutien and the Akkadians. For the first time since the era Sargon, a Sumerian king will once again rule over the lands Sumer. Otto-Hengal, the Jutian, made the fanged serpents prepare for the mountains to drink again of rock crevices. He repossessed Sumer. The successful Otto-Hengal rebellion heralded the beginning of an era Today it is known as the Third Dynasty of Ur, sometimes called the Sumerian Empire New.

Others even called it Sumerian Renaissance. This was the last flowering of culture Sumerian, but he would flourish He left an indelible mark on human history. Although ownership was returned to Sumer, The rebellious king Otto of Hengal did not rule for long. He died in unusual circumstances after only seven years, He died while inspecting a river dam It exploded, and was swept away in the flood. If you think this is suspicious, it is. Because one of Otto Hengal's most ambitious men Came to judgment, a man named Ur Namu Soon, some historians certainly raised questions about whether he had a hand in the bursting of that dam, Did any dam ever explode? No matter how he came to power, Ur-Nammu proved to be an experienced ruler, An outstanding official.

He standardized the bronze weights Used in the market by merchants and make it a uniform weight so It will lay the foundations for the first coins. Divide silver into a unit known as manna. Which was 60 shekels. Ur-Nammu also wrote a code of laws It is the oldest surviving example of a legal code, Three centuries older than the most famous Hammurabi Code. Here are some examples of the laws contained therein. Number 17: If a slave escapes from the city limits and someone returns him, The owner pays two shekels to whoever returns it.

Number 18: If a man hits another man's eye, If a man cuts off another man's foot, he must pay 10 shekels. In addition to all his other accomplishments, Ur Namu was also amazing by construction. Buildings were built in the cities of Nippur, Larsa, Kish, Adab, Uma, and rebuilding the roads of the kingdom and Irrigation canals after decades of neglect under Jutian rule. But more than anything, I love Ur Namo Ziggurat construction. These are the buildings graded constellations that were the hallmark and The heyday of Sumerian architecture. Each one formed from three layers like a wedding cake, Steps leading to the top. It was probably white Gypsum paint. The priests who kept them may have planted Plants and trees on the lined terraces In front of them and the birds nested high in the These towers are tall.

Under Ur-Nammu, Every Sumerian city will have a ziggurat, They formed the focal points of cities. The greatest of these was the ziggurat built by Ur-Nammu In his hometown of Ur. The Ziggurat of Ur is enormous. At her dearest glow, she could have risen to 30 meters high or nearly 10 floors high Above all other buildings in the city. It was built purely of roasted clay bricks, And knit from bitumen tar. It is believed that it would have taken at least 1,500 workers Just over five years to build its base. Cultivators 20 kilometers away could see this enormous edifice rises on the horizon. For them, This would have attested to the power of the city of Ur, And the power of the god who lived in it. But despite this late boom, the The age of the Sumerians is about to end, and part of the reason is It lies in the soil under their feet. All river water contains small amounts of salt and other minerals, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Flowing over the limestone boulders of the Taurus Mountains, It contains too much salt. When ancient farmers diverted this water into their fields to feed their crops, the scorching sun will evaporate this water, It will leave traces of salt behind.

In places where there is a fair amount of rain, the rain may wash away this salt , but in Iraq's arid conditions, the salt stays in place. Over time, these small amounts accumulate on the surface of the soil, And eventually, the plants find it difficult to grow. The records of the Sumerian scribes present a bleak picture of this. Since they kept accurate notes about crop yields, annual. Since about 2350 BC, their texts show the tapering off of crops across the region. One of the details shows us that the salt In the soil content may be the reason. While their main crop of wheat gradually declined over the centuries, Barley production rates remained stable.

Barley, as we know today, is particularly resistant to salt-rich soil. The texts discovered from the city of Girsu show that around 3550 BC, Wheat and barley were produced in equal quantities. But after a thousand years From irrigation, wheat took only one-sixth of the crop. Only a few centuries later, In the twenty-first century BC, wheat was less than two percent of annual harvest. All this indicates a sharp increase in Salt content in the soil. You can sometimes hear very naive stories about soil salty in southern Iraq. The Sumerians are depicted in them as Stupid or greedy people harm the earth through their ignorance This is not entirely fair. Although they did not have our understanding Speaking, they knew the soil needed rest Several seasons to remain fertile, and they have taken steps to adapt With the changing state of the soil, transformation Exclusively for barley, replacing the role of wheat in their diet. They also developed drying methods soil and reduce salinity, But soil salinity is a challenge that continues to cause problems for farmers in Iraq today despite all our technology and scientific knowledge. While the ancients worked hard for Mitigating declines and falls, and over the centuries the decline was inevitable It was a slow descent but could not be stopped.

The soil was gradually deteriorating, and with the increase of the Sumerian population , the long drought that extends The demand for this agricultural land was only increasing. In the end, a thick layer of salt envelops the topsoil, And only a little insufficient will grow. Today when you roam the deserts of Iraq, Soil in some areas has a crumbly crust This cracks under the feet, peeled off like old varnish. This is the salt slowly beginning to stifle life from the earth, And in the end stifles life from civilization Sumerian. But the end of Sumerian culture will not come from the soil, but shaft offspring. The Sumerians struggled to eat the ever-decreasing barley crops from The saline soil again seems to be hostile forces outside I started to feel weak at what It was once a great empire. After their unsuccessful attempt to Ruling the empire, the Goti nomads had retreated to their country And they returned to their nomadic ways. But they still posed a threat to the Sumerian lands, Just as it has always been; Raiding cities and stealing cattle. Putting an end to these raids was an important goal during the reign of King Ur-Nammu.

He formed an army and marched into the Gutien lands With the goal of putting an end to the threat forever. It's unclear whether he actually met them in battle Or whether he fell into one of their ambushes Court In both cases, Ur-Nammu was killed in the mountains far from home. The death of this king will begin The chain of final death of Sumerian culture as mentioned in a lengthy epic poem Known for the death of Ur-Nammu.

Whoever was loved by the forces can That he does not raise his neck anymore. Wise lay down. Silence descended The window into the ground has fallen. The earth was devastated like a mountain. like a cypress forest She was stripped and her appearance changed. The poem tells the story of Ur-Nammu's descent into the underworld, and He gives his offerings to the gods who dwell there. In the afterlife, the poem gives Ur-Nammu This last lament. Now, as the rain that falls from heaven cannot return, I can't go back to see the beautiful Brick of Ur! Four Sumerian kings will follow Ur-Nammu. Some enjoyed, like King Shulgi With successes on the battlefield, the development and reform of the economy as they can. But the periods of their rule were marked With constant threats from the wild mountainous areas. The drought was still severe. The soil was becoming increasingly choked with salt, and with food scarcity, More and more savages were pushed to raid and plunder to feed themselves.

The Gutites were not the only ones who threatened the borders of Sumer and cad. One tribe in particular, known as the Martu, poses a particular threat. Almarto was a great shepherd People from the mountains of Syria and Lebanon. Like the Guti, the Sumerians considered them savages and barbarians, They were described with contempt, But also in a tone of fear of them. Marto, strong south wind, which, From ancient times, cities were not known. Martus who do not know the grain. Almarto, who knows no house or town. monsters mountains. Martus who eat raw meat are the ones who don't They are buried after their death. Another text describes them similarly In animal terms such as gutti. hostile marto Enter the plains. Almarto, violent people Their instincts are like wolves. It is clear that at this time of Drought and famine, the Martus were finding their lives In Syria increasingly impossible.

Environmentally Pressure was pushing them south to Rich agricultural land from river valley to land Sumerians. Although weak strength The Sumerian state, the subsequent kings of Sumer were determined To stop the raids of the Martu. One king named Shu Sen commanded The construction of a wall extending approximately 300 km Between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. It will be called Marto's Wall, and Sometimes "the wall facing the higher ground". What exact shape this wall took is unknown, Because his remains weren't found, but it's likely that he was a mound It is interspersed with forts, and perhaps a trench that feeds it channels. It was more than twice the length Hadrian's wall, rich farmland is fundamentally transformed Between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to a fortified island with rivers On both sides, the sea to the south, and the wall to North.

Likely it was An enormous feat of engineering, and it shows that even in recent years, The Sumerian state still controlled a large manpower and energy. But in the end, the wall will stick It is useless. Like all walls, it was only effective with a permanent protector in place. And soon it turned out that the construction of this wall It was not an act of strength, but a last resort A retreating empire. The last king of Sumer was a man named Abi Sin.

Who took the throne in 2028 BC, and as soon as he was crowned, The empire began to collapse. In the first year of his rule, the eastern city of Ashunah Freed from the empire, Susa, a city in the Elam region of The Iranian lowlands, successfully rebelled in the third year. These Elamites were an ambitious people. They were rivals to the later Assyrians and the Babylonian empires, but at this point he had They started to show their muscles. Their rise means the end Sumerian era. The cracked Sumerian Empire could not By maintaining its defenses along 300 km of Sur Marto the Great, and so in the fifth year of his reign, The wall built by Abi Sen's father failed. And the Martos poured out on the defenses and overran the rich farms that were there behind him. The effects of this loss were immediate and devastating. Food shortages are rampant. In the seventh and eighth years of the rule of Ibi-Sin, The price of grain increased to 60 times the usual cost.

People were starving in the streets. The famine was hitting the capital Particularly difficult, obviously in At this point, King Ibi Sen started to lose his mind. In a desperate attempt to feed his people, King Ibi-sin summoned one of his generals He ordered him to travel north to Essen To buy grain, pay twice their usual cost. This general was a man named Ishbi Ara, obviously not the most They trusted him from the king's generals. In another message, even the king He doubted that Ishbi-Era was an Akkadian and not a Sumerian, questioning his loyalty It might lie somewhere else. But at this point, Obviously, the king didn't have much choice. One remarkable message has survived these events. General Ishbi Era sent him to King Ibi Sen, Once he arrived in the city of Essen. Paints a vivid picture of the collapse of society Sumerian. She ordered me to travel to Asean and Kazula to buy grain. With the grain reaching the price of one shekel of silver per Gore, 20 talents of silver were invested in the purchase. But I heard news of the entry of hostile "Marto" into your lands.

I entered the amount of whole grains. Currently, I let the martus, all of them, burrow into the ground. Because of the marto, I can't get into delivering these pills. They are stronger than me, while I am doomed wait. This message shows that the double pressures of invasions famine-accompanied marto, They began to tear the fabric of the kingdom . Akkadian general Ishbi Era urges the king to send a fleet of 600 A boat up the river to transport grain.

He is too Prefer to stay in Asein, and help defend it against invasion. I must guard your cities Essen Unbroe; Make it my responsibility, my king ! It's possible that Ashby Ira knew that Asking for 600 boats was impossible. In fact, he did not have No intention of returning to the hungry city of Ur. He stayed in Essen with all the grain, and soon declared himself its king. This is just one story among many that really show the Sumerian state how began to disintegrate. When faced with threats from multiple sides, King Abi Sen He entered into a frantic series of actions emergency. He ordered the construction of fortifications in the important cities of Ur and Niebuhr, but these efforts were in vain. In the end, the Sumerian empire collapsed One city after another, until only the capital of Ur remained surrounded by hostile forces. Soon it was the Elamite people, these former subjects of the Sumerians In the foothills of Iran, they walk along the ridges of the hills, They gather with them an army of tribesmen, and besiege the great city of Ur.

King Abi Sen made one last attempt to defeat them, and it seemed clear How miserable he was. try to use With the help of his great enemy, Marto the Wild, who They broke into his father's wall. Offer to pay them in exchange help them. He even swallowed his pride and begged Helped by Ishbi Era, the general who stabbed him Back in that trip for pills, and now He rules as the king of Essen.

But it was everything Useless. The Elamites broke through the walls of Ur, and set it on fire The city is on fire. And overran her sacred sanctuary, and They stole it from all its possessions. We can imagine steps Their storming of the great Ziggurat of Ur, killing and plundering the priests of treasures. They burned the surrounding fields and Waterways have become contaminated with disease. The armies of Elam stormed the royal palace, And the capture of King Abi Sen. They took him in chains and walked with him They take him back to their homeland and imprison him there. this was The last king of Sumer, a civilization that endured For thousands of years, its last king died in chains, and imprisoned him His enemies are in a foreign land. The ancient Sumerians who saw the destruction of their cities They react to their grief in the same way that humans have always reacted; They wrote poetry, for each of their great ruined cities, They wrote a lament.

One of these poems, titled Lament of Ur, With tangible pain describes the horror of that time. The gods have forsaken us. Like migratory birds They have gone. Ur was destroyed. Bitter lamentation. the blood of the country Now she fills her holes like hot bronze in a mould. Corpses They melt like fats in the sun. Our temple was destroyed. Smoke scattered over our city like a shroud. blood flows like a river, Lamentation of men and women. Sadness prevails. Ur Lim no longer exists. The fall of Ur was one of the biggest turning points in ancient history. It marked the end of the unified Sumerian state.

The region entered a small dark age that was the single country Compete once again for control of the ruins of the former empire. The wars of this period transformed the Sumerian cities to black piles of burnt bricks. People grieved. Its people are like shrapnel Broken scattered . The walls were disconnected. high gates And the roads were littered with dead people. In all the streets And the corridors of corpses lay. In the open fields that were filled with Dancers, the people were piled on top of each other. Meanwhile, the drought continued, and the fields full of salt were no longer Produce enough barley.

In the face of these problems the Sumerians They began to pour out of the area in large numbers; Refugees carry their small size with them Their belongings, crying over the house they left behind. Over the following centuries, a large population movement From southern Mesopotamia to the north. Some of these Sumerian speakers They will settle in the Akkadian lands, As their connection to their motherland is gone, so will their language. They learned the Akkadian language for the northerners, And they left their language behind in the wreckage of their smoke-filled cities.

The Martu, these wild hill-dwellers so hated by the Sumerians, They will settle in the cities they have occupied along the river valley. Marto the Immigrants, The Sumerians and the Akkadians They will meet together. They will mix their cultures As the people of this area have always done. The foundations they laid will be built upon The next chapter of the history of Mesopotamia and mankind, the formulation of The next great powers. The sun will rise The empires of Babylon and Assyria, but they One of the stories I will save for another time. Sumerian was now a dead language. He will never hear from her again In the streets and markets, but remained in use For at least another 2,000 years, preserved in temples and healings for later empires, just as Latin once survived in The Churches of Medieval Europe After the Fall of Rome. For these later people, Sumerian became the language of the gods, The language of myth and magic. The kings of Ur are these great Sumerian rulers They became legends, and some of them will be venerated later as the gods themselves. All the kings of Mesopotamia in Babylon and Assyria for the next two thousand years, They will rule under a title that gives them a kind of historical legitimacy, It dates back to the first era, the dawn of the human race's journey to a civilization; King of Ur, King of Sumer Waked.

Even after the fall of the Sumerian Empire, Many of its major cities will continue to be population centers in the post-Sumerian era. Among these was the great coastal city Ur located at the mouth of the Euphrates. that will flourish and fall several times throughout its history. But in the end, it was the nature of the earth that gave birth to Ur, It was the nature of the earth that would lead to its demise. Today, if you stand among the ruins of Ur, the sea that once wrapped its shores can not see. In fact, the first archaeologists were Amazed to see the remains of millions of Seashells in the sand here on this Extension of the desert. With the passing of thousands of years, keep going Silt deposition, along with changes in global sea levels, They combined to push the Iraqi Gulf coast back to its present location, about 150 kilometers to the south. The Euphrates River, which once led to a decline in the wealth of trade from The north has also disappeared, its path has gone changed over the centuries. Indeed, in the barren hills of The land where Ur was once, no There is absolutely nothing but sand Iraqi desert, borderless and empty for miles.

Water has always been the lifeblood of this city, Losing the river and the sea means slow death for ur. Soon people left their homes and streets. stop About working in its fields and maintaining its irrigation Soon the ground dried up and the topsoil was blown away by the wind. The priests put out the burning fire In the upper chamber of Ur's great ziggurat, And they stopped leaving their offerings there to Moon God Sen. Markets and brick city gates were closed began to crumble.

Wooden ceiling beams rotted and fell. The sand and desert winds rolled through its streets, The dunes buried their fallen walls. Not long after, the greatest city in the world Never known like her ever became just a pile of rubble where A desert traveler passes by it from time to time, no more. Where is the Italian traveler Pietro della Valle? He will one day take refuge with his wife, threatened by a group of bandits, And his discovery of scattered parts of writing which the Sumerians left in their forgotten language. Buried in the rubble, was the mud slab Who wrote it lament the destruction of the city. May the storm never pounce on your city again. May the door be shut upon her like the gate of a great city at night. Even days far away, other days, days to come. In your city which has been reduced to piles of ruins you will be lamented. Oh Unana, may your restored city shine before you. After plundering the city of Ur around 2000 BC, Uruk has fallen steeply, Many of its residents fled.

Uruk had another period of Prosperity when the Assyrian Empire was rebuilt later as a regional capital. But because of the change in the course of the Euphrates River Uruk, too, will be completely abandoned. Today, the walls of Uruk, the same walls they boast about In the Epic of Gilgamesh is still visible, Piles of old bricks lined up on a line, Huge views of the desert. Still With a height of 15 meters, the entire city is now surrounded and washed by a wave of fragments Pottery and bone. English archaeologist William Loftus is the first European to rediscover the ruins of Uruk. He was touched by the agonizing sight of the vast rubble In the middle of the desert, later wrote about how the parallax affects it.

Of all the awe-inspiring sights I have seen, the sight of Uruk is immeasurably superior. The process of decay in all the cities of ancient Sumer, In Nippur, Eridu, Kish, Ur and Uruk it would have been gradual but unstoppable. Sand and wind will accumulate on the floor and the walls that remain, It will fill the streets. Meanwhile, rainwater and wind erosion remaining structures. The sight of these ruins was astonished Travelers who passed by, such as the Italian della Valle And he saw the only edifices standing in horizon. Tell people stories about what can be It happened to those people who built such gigantic constructions Then they disappeared forever. The echoes of these stories are still alive Tales like the Tower of Babel about the people Who built a tower up to the sky, then their wrath God because of their pride. With the loss of their cities, the Sumerian people died in history. And the civilizations that replaced them, keeping their language alive In their temples and still tell the stories of their kings, They will pass themselves to ruin. Knowing how to read Sumerian It was completely forgotten and its history turned to dust.

Nothing remains of them except their pottery slabs buried in the sands of Iraq. Fragments containing the voices of an entire people, waiting for archaeologists to discover them and, Through hard and painstaking work, to learn how to read it. These fragments give us little bursts of light, To see at the bottom of this dark ocean of The distant past, gives us the records and recipes of the Sumerian people, Their music, their prayers, their love and their sorrows, Their victories and their beauty lament their sorrow To lose the first world civilization. It also gives us The philosophies of these ancient people, such as these lines from the epic Gilgamesh. No one sees death, no one sees the face of death, No one hears the sound of death. Only brutal death can destroy humanity. Sometimes we build a house and sometimes we make a nest, Then the brothers divide it by inheritance. Sometimes there is a runner in the ground, but then the river rises and brings Flood water. Dragonfly fly on the river Faces look at the face of the sun, but suddenly there is nothing. Sometime around 1700 BC, when the last king of Ur Already a distant memory, somewhere on the other side of the world, in A small rocky island on the edge of the Arctic Ocean The last woolly mammoth that lived on the ground lay and died.

Sumerian society arose, in its imperial form, and lived its golden age, And he died before the last woolly mammoth. I want to end the episode with Excerpts from that great Sumerian poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh. This section It narrates one of the episodes which I think is one of the most amazing sequences In any piece of ancient literature. King Gilgamesh appears crying Loss of his dying friend and his friend reaches him and He tells him that he dreams of the afterlife, He saw what awaits him after death. This passage is a sad meditation for loss. It shows all the kings of the earth who have ever ruled, Those who live in this dark and silent place, their crowns will one day be taken off forever. As you listen, imagine how it would feel to live In the great cities of Ur and Uruk, watching the twilight of the beginning of a fall Sumerian era. Imagine how you will feel when you see The crops are doubling every year as the white salt crust begins to appear On the ground, the people of the city starved in Streets, crying year after year to the gods to help them.

Imagine how you will feel when you see The armies of the mountain people gathered on the horizon, and you had to flee From the city and your possessions on your back, Leaving your home behind forever while the wind blows through the dying reeds, And the priests' chanting continues from the height of the ziggurat When the sun begins to set over the desert. My friend, I had a dream in my night. There was a dark-faced person with a storm bird's face He led me while holding me to the House of Wisdom, the place of the gods Erkla, to the house where there is no exit for those who enter it To the road that has no return to his journey. To the house whose inhabitants are deprived of light Where dust is their food and mud is their food And they wear them like birds, weaving wings. And Nora they do not see, And in the dark they dwell, to the house of dust, which I entered, I looked and saw crowns gathered. There were crowns who ruled the country since the old days The gods now stood like servants. In the house of dust that I entered He resides as Khenna Walger, the exorcist priests The queen of the underworld resides the goddess Irish Kejal Hell, it is she who keeps the books of the dead.

She raised her head. She saw me and spoke, "Who brought this here?" Then I Wake up like a man lost in blood Alone in the waste. Thank you again for listening to the Fall of Civilizations podcast. I would like to thank my voice actors in this episode, Ray Brinell, Jake Barrett Mills, Shem Jacobs, Nick Bradley, and Emily Johnson. I'd love to hear your thoughts and responses on Twitter, so come visit us and Tell me what you think. You can follow me on PaulMMCooper and If you want to get updates about podcasts, and announcements about new episodes too As pictures, maps and reading suggestions, you can Follow the podcast at Fall_of_Civ_Pod, with the underscores separating the words. This podcast can only continue with the support of our generous subscribers on Patreon.

You keep me going, you help me cover costs, and help keep the podcast ad-free. You also let me devote more Searching, writing, recording time and Edit episodes for you faster Make it taller, bring it more life and detail them as much as possible. I want to thank all my subscribers make this happen. If you enjoyed this podcast, please Consider heading over to patreon.com/fallof Civilizations_podcast, or just Google Fall From Patreon Civilization.

This is Patreon. This episode has touched on the power and necessity several times A written word, a gift once given by ancient Iraq The world, I thought it would be appropriate Take a moment here to promote a charity that really needs your help today. it's a The name is Book Aid. In 2015, The terrorist organization ISIS burned more than a million books In the library of the University of Mosul, Iraq. Today the Book Aid team is trying to rebuild that library, And give the students of Mosul some hope for their future.

If you think you can keep anything, please head over to bookaid.org And see how you can help today. For every 2 pounds you give, they can Send another book to Mosul University Library. There is also a list of other ways you can help save resources, Equipment, and even training to give the gift of the written word Back to where you first started. Now, bye and thanks for listening. Subtitles with Arabic subtitles by Majd Al-Bashir.

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