Category Lost Civilizations

               The Epic of Gilgamesh is, perhaps, the oldest written story on Earth. It comes to us from Ancient Sumeria, and was originally written on twelve clay tablets in cuneiform script. It is a story about a Sumerian king, Gilgamesh, who seems to have lived in Mesopotamia about 2500 BC.

               The epic begins with Gilgamesh ruling the city of Uruk. He learns about a wild man who is living out in the hills near the city. This wild man’s name is Enkidu. Gilgamesh gets Enkidu to come to the city, and the two become friends. They have many adventures together, and when Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh mourns his friend’s death, and wants to know how he himself can live forever. Gilgamesh finds out that he can become immortal if he can stay awake for a week watching a particular plant. But he falls asleep in the end, and goes back to his city realizing that everyone has to die sometime. Also included in the epic is a legend of the flood, which is very similar to the great flood that is described in the Bible. 

               The ancient city state of Elba in Northern Syria was a major trading centre that rose to become a great economic power. Part of Elba’s prosperity stemmed from its agricultural hinterland, in the rich plain of Northern Syria, where barley, wheat, olives, figs, grapes, pomegranates, and flax were grown. Cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs were also raised. The city proper was a manufacturing and distribution centre. Linen and wool, including damask cloth, were the main products. Trade was the key to Ebla’s economy. Cloth, manufactured goods, and olive oil were its main exports. Imports included gold, silver, copper, tin, precious stones, and sheep. Because of its geographic location, Ebla grew wealthy on trade. 

               Mari became a flourishing city state from about 2900 BC. It enjoyed considerable prosperity, and became an important centre for trade also. The temple of Ishtar and other works of art show that Mari was at this time an artistic centre with a highly developed style of its own. Excavations revealed the remains of a 275 room palace covering 2.5 hectares, with a great library stacked with 20,000 cuneiform tablets.

               The Kingdom of Ugarit, which flourished in the Bronze Age, dates back much further than 3000 BC. It prospered and flourished for a few hundred years, as a centre of trade linking Mesopotamia with the Minoans of Crete. Ugarit also shipped cedar wood to the Egyptian pharaohs. It was famous for its bronze workings as well, and its considerable wealth was reflected in the magnificence of its royal palace and in its gold and silver jewellery, bronze statues, and ornate bowls made from precious metals.

               The Akkadians were a people living on the Arabic peninsula, during the great flourishing period of the Sumerian city-states. In 2340 BC, the great Akkadian military leader, Sargon, conquered Sumer, and built an Akkadian Empire stretching over most of the Sumerian city-states. According to a folk tale, Sargon was a self-made man of humble origins, who became one of the earliest of the world’s great empire builders.

               Sargon made Akkadian the official language of his empire, standardized weights and measures, encouraged trade, and improved the management of water resources. Sargon also brought to West Asia the new idea that a king should be succeeded by his sons. Before this, the new king had been elected by the rich men of each city.

               Sargon based his empire in the city of Akkad, which became the basis of the name of his people. This great capital later became the city of Babylon, which was the commercial and cultural centre of the Middle East. 

               Uruk was a major city in Mesopotamia. It existed around the fifth millennium BC, and was probably the largest city in the world at that time. It was a city famous for its huge monuments that included temples and palaces. Excavations have shown that it was an urban settlement with temples, platforms, ziggurats, and cemeteries, enclosed in a fortification ramp almost ten kilometres in circumference. Uruk was an important centre for religion and science as well, which is confirmed by the thousands of clay tablets that have been dug up at the site.

               The city of Ur was an important Sumerian city state between 2025-1738 BC. It had four main residential areas in the city, and included homes, with baked mud brick foundations arranged along long, narrow winding streets and alleyways. Ur is famous for its burial tombs, which were magnificently furnished. Burials at Ur give us insights into people’s social standing. Kings and queens were buried with treasure. Wealthy people were buried with less.

               Lagash was one of the most important capital cities in ancient Sumer, located midway between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Southeastern Iraq. The inhabitants of Lagash believed in many gods and goddesses. Temples were built and dedicated to a god or goddess. Each deity served a different purpose. Lagash’s kings and their wives reigned over an economy that was ruled by a temple economy.

               The Sumerians lived in the area between the Tigris and the Euphrates in West Asia. The Sumerian civilization probably began around 4000 BC. In the beginning, the Sumerians were farmers. They grew crops, and stored food for times of need. They began big irrigation projects, digging canals and ditches to bring water from the Tigris and the Euphrates to the land between them, so people could grow food there. In this way, more people could live on the same amount of land.

               As more people settled on the land, the ancient Sumerians built many cities along the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers. Archaeologists believe that their largest city, the city of Ur, had a population of around 24,000 residents.

               The ancient Sumerians were very smart. They invented, amongst other things, the wheel, the sailboat, and the first written language, frying pans, razors, cosmetic sets, shepherd’s pipes, harps, kilns to bake bricks and pottery, as well as bronze hand tools like hammers and axes, and the plough.

               They invented a system of mathematics based on the number 60. Today, we divide an hour into 60 minutes, and a minute into 60 seconds. Now, don’t you agree that the Sumerians were truly amazing?

               The river valley between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris is known as Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia is often called ‘the cradle of human civilization’, because it is actually the birthplace of a number of civilizations in history. One of the reasons why the earliest humans decided to settle here was that the land was very, very fertile indeed. Even before the civilizations of Rome, Greece or Egypt came into being, there existed a much more advanced civilization in this region in 4000 BC, known as the Sumerian civilization.

               Agriculture first drew the earliest people to the banks of Mesopotamia’s rivers. But, as they figured out how to reroute some of the water through canals, they were able to irrigate fields farther away. When the food supply became capable of supporting large numbers of people, cities began to develop. As cities grew, and food became plentiful, it became necessary to keep records and this led to the invention of writing, which was a very important step in the development of civilization. 

               We know about ancient civilizations on the Anatolian plateau from murals, and excavations of sites at Gobekli Tepe and Nevali Cori. The mural paintings at Catal Huyuk are the oldest in the world on human built structures. The animals shown have been identified as bulls, horses, stag deer, bear and wild boar. The figures and scenes that are depicted suggest that hunting was very important at that time.

               At a place called Gobekli Tepe, archeologists have discovered massive carved stones about 11,000 years old, crafted and arranged by prehistoric people who had not yet developed metal tools. They believe that this is the site of the world’s oldest temple.

               Discoveries of settlements at Nevali, Cayonu, Hacilar, and Hoca Cesme all are evidence that the Anatolian plateau was the home of the most ancient civilizations.

               Anatolia is the portion of Turkey that extends from the Bosphorus and Aegean coast eastward to the borders of the Soviet Union, Iran, and Iraq. Because of its strategic location, at the intersection of Asia and Europe, Anatolia has been the centre of several civilizations, since prehistoric times. One of the first of these civilizations was at Catal Huyuk. It existed around the 7th millennium BC and was located in Central Anatolia.

               Catal Huyuk was one of the world’s first towns. Its houses were made of mud bricks, and were built touching against each other. They did not have doors, and houses were entered through hatches in roofs. Since, houses were built touching each other, the roofs must have acted as streets!

               The people of Catal Huyuk made clothes woven from wool. They also wore jewellery made of stone, bone and shell, and wove baskets of reeds. They made pottery, and they used obsidian, a hard volcanic rock to make tools and weapons. Craftsmen made dishes and boxes of wood.

               Catal Huyuk was abandoned about 5,000 BC, and then forgotten for thousands of years, till it was rediscovered by James Mellaart in 1958.

               You will find that the first civilizations were built around rivers. Do you know why? One reason was that rivers ensured a supply of water for farming, building, and washing, drinking, and cooking. The flood-waters of rivers made the land very fertile, and the rivers made transportation easy. Consequently, rivers helped in the development of trade and commerce. Rivers also inspired new technological and economic innovations and developments, like dams, dykes, sluices and canals. As a result, between 3000 and 2000 BC, river valley civilizations formed independently of each other along the Indus, the Nile, the Tigris and Euphrates, and the Yellow Rivers. 

               Scientists say that the Earth may be as many as six billion years old, and that human beings in their present form first appeared around 100,000 years ago in Africa. The earliest humans lived by hunting, fishing, and collecting edible roots and fruits. Only some 10,000 years ago did they learn to cultivate plants, herd animals, and make airtight pottery for storage. These discoveries transformed them from gatherers to producers, and allowed them to grow in number and to lead a settled life. People also migrated from Africa to other parts of the world, and adapted to new climates and new conditions.

               Gradually, humans learned how to increase harvests through irrigation and other methods, making possible much larger populations. They came together in towns, cities, and other centres, where they erected impressive structures and where industry and commerce flourished. In time, different civilizations came into existence in various parts of the world.