1.
Uruk
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Uruk is the type site for the Uruk period. Uruk played a role in the early urbanization of Sumer in the mid 4th millennium BC. At its height c.2900 BC, Uruk probably had 50, 000–80,000 residents living in 6 km2 of walled area, the legendary king Gilgamesh, according to the chronology presented in the Sumerian king list, ruled Uruk in the 27th century BC. The site of Uruk was visited in 1849 by William Kennett Loftus who led the first excavations from 1850 to 1854, the Arabic name of Babylonia, al-ʿIrāq, is thought to be derived from the name Uruk, via Aramaic and possibly Middle Persian transmission. In myth and literature, Uruk was famous as the city of Gilgamesh. It is also believed Uruk is the biblical Erech, the city founded by Nimrod in Shinar. In addition to being one of the first cities, Uruk was the force of urbanization and state formation during the Uruk period. This period of 800 years saw a shift from small, agricultural villages to an urban center with a full-time bureaucracy, military. Although other settlements coexisted with Uruk, they were generally about 10 hectares while Uruk was significantly larger, the Uruk period culture exported by Sumerian traders and colonists had an effect on all surrounding peoples, who gradually evolved their own comparable, competing economies and cultures. Ultimately, Uruk could not maintain control over colonies such as Tell Brak by military force. Geographic factors underpin Uruks unprecedented growth, the city was located in the southern part of Mesopotamia, an ancient site of civilization, on the Euphrates river. Through the gradual and eventual domestication of native grains from the Zagros foothills and extensive irrigation techniques and this domestication of grain and its proximity to rivers enabled Uruks growth into the largest Sumerian settlement, in both population and area, with relative ease. Uruks agricultural surplus and large population base facilitated processes such as trade, specialization of crafts, evidence from excavations such as extensive pottery and the earliest known tablets of writing support these events. Excavation of Uruk is highly complex because older buildings were recycled into newer ones, the topmost layer most likely originated in the Jemdet Nasr period and is built on structures from earlier periods dating back to the Ubaid period. According to the Sumerian king list, Uruk was founded by the king Enmerkar, in the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh builds the city wall around Uruk and is king of the city. Uruk went through phases of growth, from the Early Uruk period to the Late Uruk period. The city was formed two smaller Ubaid settlements merged. The temple complexes at their cores became the Eanna District and the Anu District dedicated to Inanna and Anu, the Anu District was originally called Kullaba prior to merging with the Eanna District
2.
Dynasty
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A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family, usually in the context of a feudal or monarchical system but sometimes also appearing in elective republics. The dynastic family or lineage may be known as a house, historians periodize the histories of many sovereign states, such as Ancient Egypt, the Carolingian Empire and Imperial China, using a framework of successive dynasties. As such, the dynasty may be used to delimit the era during which the family reigned and to describe events, trends. The word dynasty itself is often dropped from such adjectival references, until the 19th century, it was taken for granted that a legitimate function of a monarch was to aggrandize his dynasty, that is, to increase the territory, wealth, and power of his family members. The longest-surviving dynasty in the world is the Imperial House of Japan, dynasties throughout the world have traditionally been reckoned patrilineally, such as under the Frankish Salic law. Succession through a daughter when permitted was considered to establish a new dynasty in her husbands ruling house, however, some states in Africa, determined descent matrilineally, while rulers have at other times adopted the name of their mothers dynasty when coming into her inheritance. It is also extended to unrelated people such as poets of the same school or various rosters of a single sports team. The word dynasty derives via Latin dynastia from Greek dynastéia, where it referred to power, dominion and it was the abstract noun of dynástēs, the agent noun of dynamis, power or ability, from dýnamai, to be able. A ruler in a dynasty is referred to as a dynast. For example, following his abdication, Edward VIII of the United Kingdom ceased to be a member of the House of Windsor. A dynastic marriage is one that complies with monarchical house law restrictions, the marriage of Willem-Alexander, Prince of Orange, to Máxima Zorreguieta in 2002 was dynastic, for example, and their eldest child is expected to inherit the Dutch crown eventually. But the marriage of his younger brother Prince Friso to Mabel Wisse Smit in 2003 lacked government support, thus Friso forfeited his place in the order of succession, lost his title as a Prince of the Netherlands, and left his children without dynastic rights. In historical and monarchist references to formerly reigning families, a dynast is a member who would have had succession rights, were the monarchys rules still in force. Even since abolition of the Austrian monarchy, Max and his descendants have not been considered the rightful pretenders by Austrian monarchists, nor have they claimed that position. The term dynast is sometimes used only to refer to descendants of a realms monarchs. The term can therefore describe overlapping but distinct sets of people, yet he is not a male-line member of the royal family, and is therefore not a dynast of the House of Windsor. Thus, in 1999 he requested and obtained permission from Elizabeth II to marry the Roman Catholic Princess Caroline of Monaco. Yet a clause of the English Act of Settlement 1701 remained in effect at that time and that exclusion, too, ceased to apply on 26 March 2015, with retroactive effect for those who had been dynasts prior to triggering it by marriage to a Catholic
3.
Kassites
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The Kassites were a people of the ancient Near East, who controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire c.1531 BC and until c.1155 BC. The endonym of the Kassites was probably Galzu, although they have also referred to by the names Kaššu. They gained control of Babylonia after the Hittite sack of the city in 1595 BC, the horse, which the Kassites worshipped, first came into use in Babylonia at this time. The Kassite language has not been classified, however, several Kassite leaders bore Indo-European names, and they might have had an Indo-European elite similar to the Mitanni, who ruled over the Hurro-Urartian-speaking Hurrians of Asia Minor. The original homeland of the Kassites is not well known, but appears to have located in the Zagros Mountains. However the Kassites were – like the Elamites, Gutians and Manneans who preceded them – linguistically unrelated to the Iranian-speaking peoples who came to dominate the region a millennium later. They first appeared in the annals of history in the 18th century BC when they attacked Babylonia in the 9th year of the reign of Samsu-iluna, the son of Hammurabi. The Hittites had carried off the idol of the god Marduk, but the Kassite rulers regained possession, returned Marduk to Babylon, the circumstances of their rise to power are unknown, due to a lack of documentation from this so-called Dark Age period of widespread dislocation. No inscription or document in the Kassite language has been preserved, Babylon under Kassite rulers, who renamed the city Karanduniash, re-emerged as a political and military power in Mesopotamia. A newly built capital city Dur-Kurigalzu was named in honour of Kurigalzu I and their success was built upon the relative political stability that the Kassite monarchs achieved. They ruled Babylonia practically without interruption for almost four hundred years— the longest rule by any dynasty in Babylonian history, Kassite kings established trade and diplomacy with Assyria. Egypt, Elam, and the Hittites, and the Kassite royal house intermarried with their royal families, There were foreign merchants in Babylon and other cities, and Babylonian merchants were active from Egypt to Assyria and Anatolia. A further treaty between Kurigalzu I and Ashur-bel-nisheshu of Assyria was agreed in the mid 15th century, Babylon was sacked by the Assyrian king Ashur-uballit I ) in the 1360s after the Kassite king in Babylon who was married to the daughter of Ashur-uballit was murdered. Ashur-uballit promptly marched into Babylonia and avenged his son-in-law, deposing the king and installing Kurigalzu II of the royal Kassite line as king there and his successor Enlil-nirari also attacked Babylonia and his great grandson Adad-nirari I annexed Babylonian territory when he became king. Tukulti-Ninurta I not content with merely dominating Babylonia went further, conquering Babylonia, deposing Kashtiliash IV, the Kassite kings maintained control of their realm through a network of provinces administered by governors. Almost equal with the cities of Babylon and Dur-Kurigalzu, the revived city of Nippur was the most important provincial center. Nippur, the great city, which had been virtually abandoned c.1730 BC, was rebuilt in the Kassite period. In fact, under the Kassite government, the governor of Nippur, the prestige of Nippur was enough for a series of 13th century BC Kassite kings to reassume the title governor of Nippur for themselves
4.
Babylon
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Babylon was a major city of ancient Mesopotamia in the fertile plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The city was built upon the Euphrates and divided in parts along its left and right banks. Babylon was originally a small Semitic Akkadian city dating from the period of the Akkadian Empire c.2300 BC, the town attained independence as part of a small city-state with the rise of the First Amorite Babylonian Dynasty in 1894 BC. Babylon grew and South Mesopotamia came to be known as Babylonia, the empire quickly dissolved after Hammurabis death and Babylon spent long periods under Assyrian, Kassite and Elamite domination. After being destroyed and then rebuilt by the Assyrians, Babylon became the capital of the Neo-Babylonian Empire from 609 to 539 BC, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. After the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the city came under the rule of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, Roman, and Sassanid empires. It has been estimated that Babylon was the largest city in the world from c.1770 to 1670 BC and it was perhaps the first city to reach a population above 200,000. Estimates for the extent of its area range from 890 to 900 hectares. The remains of the city are in present-day Hillah, Babil Governorate, Iraq, about 85 kilometres south of Baghdad, comprising a large tell of broken mud-brick buildings, the English Babylon comes from Greek Babylṓn, a transliteration of the Akkadian Babili. The Babylonian name in the early 2nd millennium BC had been Babilli or Babilla, by the 1st millennium BC, it had changed to Babili under the influence of the folk etymology which traced it to bāb-ili. The Gate of God or Gate of El being from the Aramaic Hebrew Bab for Gate and El for God and this being similar to the Hebrew word for confusion Balal. In the Bible, the name appears as Babel, interpreted in the Hebrew Scriptures Book of Genesis to mean confusion, the modern English verb, to babble, or to speak meaningless words, is popularly thought to derive from this name, but there is no direct connection. The remains of the city are in present-day Hillah, Babil Governorate, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad, comprising a large tell of broken mud-brick buildings and debris. The site at Babylon consists of a number of mounds covering an area of about 2 by 1 kilometer, oriented north to south, along the Euphrates to the west. Originally, the river roughly bisected the city, but the course of the river has since shifted so that most of the remains of the western part of the city are now inundated. Some portions of the city wall to the west of the river also remain, remains of the city include, Kasr—also called Palace or Castle, it is the location of the Neo-Babylonian ziggurat Etemenanki and lies in the center of the site. Amran Ibn Ali—the highest of the mounds at 25 meters, to the south and it is the site of Esagila, a temple of Marduk which also contained shrines to Ea and Nabu. Homera—a reddish colored mound on the west side, most of the Hellenistic remains are here
5.
Sumer
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Living along the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, Sumerian farmers were able to grow an abundance of grain and other crops, the surplus of which enabled them to settle in one place. Proto-writing in the dates back to c.3000 BC. The earliest texts come from the cities of Uruk and Jemdet Nasr and date back to 3300 BC, modern historians have suggested that Sumer was first permanently settled between c.5500 and 4000 BC by a West Asian people who spoke the Sumerian language, an agglutinative language isolate. These conjectured, prehistoric people are now called proto-Euphrateans or Ubaidians, some scholars contest the idea of a Proto-Euphratean language or one substrate language. Reliable historical records begin much later, there are none in Sumer of any kind that have dated before Enmebaragesi. Juris Zarins believes the Sumerians lived along the coast of Eastern Arabia, todays Persian Gulf region, Sumerian civilization took form in the Uruk period, continuing into the Jemdet Nasr and Early Dynastic periods. During the 3rd millennium BC, a cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians, who spoke a language isolate, and Akkadian-speakers, which included widespread bilingualism. The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a scale, to syntactic, morphological. This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the 3rd millennium BC as a Sprachbund, Sumer was conquered by the Semitic-speaking kings of the Akkadian Empire around 2270 BC, but Sumerian continued as a sacred language. Native Sumerian rule re-emerged for about a century in the Neo-Sumerian Empire or Third Dynasty of Ur approximately 2100-2000 BC, the term Sumerian is the common name given to the ancient non-Semitic-speaking inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Sumer, by the East Semitic-speaking Akkadians. The Sumerians referred to themselves as ùĝ saĝ gíg ga, phonetically /uŋ saŋ gi ga/, literally meaning the black-headed people, the Akkadian word Shumer may represent the geographical name in dialect, but the phonological development leading to the Akkadian term šumerû is uncertain. Hebrew Shinar, Egyptian Sngr, and Hittite Šanhar, all referring to southern Mesopotamia, in the late 4th millennium BC, Sumer was divided into many independent city-states, which were divided by canals and boundary stones. Each was centered on a dedicated to the particular patron god or goddess of the city. The Sumerian city-states rose to power during the prehistoric Ubaid and Uruk periods, classical Sumer ends with the rise of the Akkadian Empire in the 23rd century BC. Following the Gutian period, there is a brief Sumerian Renaissance in the 21st century BC, the Amorite dynasty of Isin persisted until c.1700 BC, when Mesopotamia was united under Babylonian rule. The Sumerians were eventually absorbed into the Akkadian population, 2500–2334 BC Akkadian Empire period, c. 2218–2047 BC Ur III period, c, 2047–1940 BC The Ubaid period is marked by a distinctive style of fine quality painted pottery which spread throughout Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf. It appears that this culture was derived from the Samarran culture from northern Mesopotamia and it is not known whether or not these were the actual Sumerians who are identified with the later Uruk culture
6.
Ka (cuneiform)
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Cuneiform ka has a secondary use as the pronoun suffix, -yours. For Ayyabs letter, EA364, after addressing the Pharaoh, specifically, Ayyab is from one of the vassal states/city-states/towns in Canaan, thus the relationship to the Pharaoh in the Amarna letters often state a relationship of being the Pharaohs servant. This is dramatically juxtaposed against the Amarna letters from Tushratta of Mitanni, or from Babylon, the letters from those kings have long lists, as part of the Introduction stating, May you have peace. For, wives-yours, for sons-yours, for magnates-yours-, etc, for cuneiform ša, its specific sub-usage, is as a segue form of a conjunction typically at the beginning of a statement, translated as, which. Etc. with the rest of text to follow, for ša, the right section is constructed with two wedge strokes, between the two verticals, at right. For ka, the side mostly, in the Amarna letters has two verticals, with two horizontals that cross both of them. The usage numbers for ka in the Epic of Gilgamesh are as follows, ka-, each item, when addressing the Pharaoh ended with the suffix -yours. The list often ended with. for chariots-yours, for army-yours, for land-yours, an example of the usage can be seen in EA19, with a focus on the beginning of the last line of Paragraph I. The beginning of line 8, Para I is as follows, a-na KUR-ka. and continues, the cuneiform characters being, --, __-- and continues, ----, __-- Moran, William L.1987,1992. Johns Hopkins University Press,1987,1992, the Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, Parpola, Simo, Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, c 1997, Tablet I thru Tablet XII, Index of Names, Sign List, and Glossary-,165 pages
7.
Ru (cuneiform)
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The cuneiform ru sign is found in both the 14th century BC Amarna letters and the Epic of Gilgamesh. As ru it is used for ru, and alphabetic r. In the I-XII Tablets of the Epic of Gilgamesh, it has specific uses showing alternate renderings besides ru,068, ru,250 times, šub,6, šup,3, and as sumerogram ŠUB,1 time. In the Amarna letters, the sign is used for ru, r. The scribal rendering of the ru sign is different in some of the Amarna letters. In Amarna letter EA15, Assur-uballit I of Assyria to Pharaoh, another example letter of usage, is for one line, Line 27 on the obverse of Amarna letter EA147, Biridiya to Pharaoh, titled A Hymn to the Pharaoh, a letter in pristine condition. Of note, in the Akkadian language, using vowels a, e, i, any vowels used in a sign, can be interchangeably substituted for a different vowel. Also u has special uses, and is rarely used for the vowel u. The ú - is the alphabetic u. Aziru was allowed to leave Egypt. Henceforth, Amurru remained firmly in Hittite hands until the reign of the 19th dynasty Pharaohs Seti I, johns Hopkins University Press,1987,1992. The Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, Parpola, Simo, Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, c 1997, Tablet I thru Tablet XII, Index of Names, Sign List, el Amarna Tablets, 359-379, Anson F. Rainey,1970,107 pages
8.
Ia (cuneiform)
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The cuneiform ia sign, is a combined sign, containing i ligatured with a, it has the common meaning in the suffix form -ia, for the meaning of -mine. In the Amarna letters, the letters written to the Pharaoh of Egypt, in Akkadian, the form is Šarru-Bēlu-ia-, since the spelling in some Amarna letters is sometimes ŠÁR-RI for Šarru. Ia is also used in the Epic of Gilgamesh and it is listed in Parpolas Glossary, for Akkadian language words, meaning mine, me, and me, and one usage for the word battering ram, iašubů. The suffix form is common throughout all sections of the Amarna letters, specific examples of the suffix form can be especially seen in letters from Alashiya, and Tushratta, the king of Mitanni. Johns Hopkins University Press,1987,1992, the Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, Parpola, Simo, Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, c 1997, Tablet I thru Tablet XII, Index of Names, Sign List, and Glossary-,165 pages. El Amarna Tablets, 359-379, Anson F. Rainey,1970,107 pages
9.
Sumerian language
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Sumerian is the language of ancient Sumer and a language isolate which was spoken in southern Mesopotamia. During the 3rd millennium BC, an intimate cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians and the Akkadians, which included widespread bilingualism. The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a scale, to syntactic, morphological. This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the third millennium BC as a Sprachbund, then it was forgotten until the 19th century, when Assyriologists began deciphering the cuneiform inscriptions and excavated tablets left by these speakers. It succeeds the proto-literate period, which spans roughly the 35th to 30th centuries, some versions of the chronology may omit the Late Sumerian phase and regard all texts written after 2000 BC as Post-Sumerian. The term Post-Sumerian is meant to refer to the time when the language was already extinct, the extinction has traditionally been dated approximately to the end of the Third Dynasty of Ur, the last predominantly Sumerian state in Mesopotamia, about 2000 BC. The standard variety of Sumerian is called eme-ĝir, a notable variety or sociolect is called eme-sal. Eme-sal is used exclusively by female characters in some literary texts, in addition, it is dominant in certain genres of cult songs. The special features of eme-sal are mostly phonological, but words different from the language are also used. Sumerian is a language, meaning that words could consist of a chain of more or less clearly distinguishable and separable affixes and/or morphemes. Sumerian distinguishes the grammatical genders human/non-human, but it not have separate male/female gender pronouns. The human gender includes not only humans but also gods and in cases the word for statue. Sumerian has also claimed to have two tenses, but these are currently described as completive and incompletive or perfective and imperfective aspects instead. There are a number of cases, absolutive, ergative, genitive, dative/allative, locative, comitative, equative, directive/adverbial. The naming and number of the cases varies in the scientific literature, the different homophones are marked with different numbers by convention,2 and 3 being often replaced by acute accent and grave accent diacritics respectively. For example, du = go, du3 = dù = build, Sumerian is a split ergative language. It behaves as a language in the 1st and 2nd person of present-future tense/incompletive aspect. Similar patterns are found in a number of unrelated split ergative languages
10.
Inanna
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Inanna was the Sumerian goddess of love, beauty, sexual desire, fertility, knowledge, wisdom, war, and combat. She was also the goddess of the E-Anna temple at the city of Uruk. She was one of the most widely venerated deities in the ancient Sumerian pantheon and her Akkadian and Babylonian equivalent was the goddess Ishtar. Several of her most important myths involve the story of her descent into and return from Kur, Inanna was the most prominent female deity in ancient Mesopotamia. As early as the Uruk period, Inanna was associated with the city of Uruk. The famous Uruk Vase depicts a row of naked men carrying various objects, bowls, vessels, and baskets of farm products and this figure was ornately dressed for a divine marriage, and attended by a servant. Especially in the Uruk period, the symbol of a ring-headed doorpost is associated with Inanna, seal impressions from the Jemdet Nasr period show a fixed sequence of city symbols including those of Ur, Larsa, Zabalam, Urum, Arina, and probably Kesh. It is likely that this list reflects the report of contributions to Inanna at Uruk from cities supporting her cult and they had been used to lock storerooms to preserve materials set aside for her cult. Inannas primary temple of worship was the Eanna, located in Uruk and her temple, the Eanna would also seem to have been taken from Anu, the head of the Sumerian pantheon, prior to the rise of Enlil of Nippur. Inannas name derives from Lady of Heaven, the cuneiform sign of Inanna, however, is not a ligature of the signs lady and sky. The view that there was a Proto-Euphratean substrate language in Southern Iraq before Sumerian is not widely accepted by modern Assyriologists, Inanna was one of the most widely venerated deities in the Sumerian pantheon. Many shrines and temples dedicated to Inanna were built along the Tigris, the deity of this fourth-millennium city was probably originally An. After its dedication to Inanna the temple seems to have housed priestesses of the goddess, a Sacred Marriage to Inanna may have conferred legitimacy on a number of rulers of Uruk. Gilgamesh is reputed to have refused marriage to Inanna, on the grounds of her misalliance with such kings as Lugalbanda, Inannas symbol is an eight-pointed star or a rosette. She was associated with lions – even then a symbol of power – and was depicted standing on the backs of two lionesses. Her cuneiform ideogram was a twisted knot of reeds, representing the doorpost of the storehouse. Inanna was associated with the planet Venus, which at time was regarded as two stars, the morning star and the evening star. There are hymns to Inanna as her astral manifestation and it also is believed that in many myths about Inanna, including Inannas Descent to the Underworld and Inanna and Shukaletuda, her movements correspond with the movements of Venus in the sky
11.
Cella
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A cella or naos is the inner chamber of a temple in classical architecture, or a shop facing the street in domestic Roman architecture, such as a domus. Its enclosure within walls has given rise to extended meanings, of a hermits or monks cell, in Ancient Greek and Roman temples the cella is a room at the centre of the building, usually containing a cult image or statue representing the particular deity venerated in the temple. In addition the cella may contain a table or plinth to receive votive offerings such as statues, precious and semi-precious stones, helmets, spear and arrow heads, swords. The accumulated offerings made Greek and Roman temples virtual treasuries, the cella is typically a simple, windowless, rectangular room with a door or open entrance at the front behind a colonnaded portico facade. In larger temples, the cella was divided by two colonnades into a central nave flanked by two aisles. A cella may contain an adyton, an inner area restricted to access by the priests—in religions that had a consecrated priesthood—or by the temple guard. With very few exceptions Greek buildings were of a design that placed the cella in the center of the plan, such as the Parthenon. The Romans favoured pseudoperipteral buildings with a portico offsetting the cella to the rear, the pseudoperipteral plan uses engaged columns embedded along the side and rear walls of the cella. The Temple of Venus and Roma built by Hadrian in Rome had two cellae arranged back-to-back enclosed by a single outer peristyle, according to Vitruvius, the Etruscan type of temples had three cellae, side by side, conjoined by a double row of columns on the facade. The cella, also called the naos, holds many box-like shrines, the Greek word naos has been extended by archaeologists to describe the central room of the pyramids. Towards the end of the Old Kingdom, naos construction went from being subterranean to being directly into the pyramid. The naos was surrounded by different paths and rooms, many used to confuse and divert thieves. In early Christian and Byzantine architecture, the cella or naos is an area at the centre of the reserved for performing the liturgy. In later periods a small chapel or monks cell was also called a cella, list of Greco-Roman roofs This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Cella. Trachtenberg and Hyman, Architecture, From Prehistory to Post Modernity Vitruvius, De architectura, Book IV. ch 7, translation, plans and reconstructions of Tuscan cellae
12.
Bastion
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A bastion is an angular structure projecting outward from the curtain wall of a fortification, most commonly at the corners. The fully developed bastion consists of two faces and two flanks with fire from the flanks being able to protect the wall and also the adjacent bastions. It is one element in the style of fortification dominant from the mid 16th to mid 19th centuries, Bastion fortifications offered a greater degree of passive resistance and more scope for ranged defense in the age of gunpowder artillery compared with the medieval fortifications they replaced. By the middle of the 15th century, artillery pieces had become powerful enough to make the traditional medieval round tower, during the Eighty Years War Dutch military engineers developed the concepts further lengthening the faces and shortening the curtain walls of the bastions. To augment this change they placed v shaped outworks in front of the bastions, Bastions differ from medieval towers in a number of respects. Bastions are lower than towers and are normally of similar height to the adjacent curtain wall, the height of towers, although making them difficult to scale, also made them easy for artillery to destroy. A bastion would normally have a ditch in front, the side of which would be built up above the natural level then slope away gradually. This glacis shielded most of the bastion from the cannon while the distance from the base of the ditch to the top of the bastion meant it was still difficult to scale. In contrast to late medieval towers, bastions were flat sided rather than curved. This eliminated dead ground making it possible for the defenders to fire upon any point directly in front of the bastion, Bastions also cover a larger area than most towers. This allows more cannons to be mounted and provided space for the crews to operate them. Surviving examples of bastions are usually faced with masonry, unlike the wall of a tower this was just a retaining wall, cannonball were expected to pass through this and be absorbed by a greater thickness of hard-packed earth or rubble behind. The top of the bastion was exposed to fire. If a bastion was successfully stormed, it could provide the attackers with a stronghold from which to further attacks. Some bastion designs attempted to minimise this problem and this could be achieved by the use of retrenchments in which a trench was dug across the rear of the bastion, isolating it from the main rampart. Various kinds of bastions have been used throughout history, solid bastions are those that are filled up entirely, and have the ground even with the height of the rampart, without any empty space towards the centre. Void or hollow bastions are those that have a rampart, or parapet, only around their flanks and faces, so that a void space is left towards the centre. The ground is so low, that if the rampart is taken, no retrenchment can be made in the centre, but what will lie under the fire of the besieged
13.
Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin
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The Vorderasiatisches Museum is an archaeological museum in Berlin. It is in the basement of the wing of the Pergamon Museum and has one of the worlds largest collections of Southwest Asian art. 14 halls distributed across 2,000 square meters of exhibition surface display southwest Asian culture spanning six millennia, the exhibits cover a period from the 6th millennium BCE into the time of the Muslim conquests. They originate particularly from todays states of Iraq, Syria and Turkey, starting with the Neolithic finds, the emphasis of the collection is of finds from Sumer, Babylonia and Assyria, as well as northern Syria and eastern Anatolia. Excavations in historically important cities like Uruk, Shuruppak, Assur, Hattusha, Tell el Amarna, Tell Halaf, Samal, Toprakkale, further acquisitions came from Nimrud, Nineveh, Susa and Persepolis. The museum shows finds from the cultures of Sumer, Akkad, Babylonia, Assyria, the Hittites and these finds often found their way to Berlin via the German Oriental Society. In 1899, the Middle East Department at the museums was created. In 1929, they were accommodated in the Bode Museum and the Pergamon Museum. During the Second World War, there were hardly any war-related losses, the mobile exhibits, which were taken as art spoliage to the Soviet Union, were returned to East Germany in 1958. The collection had already opened again as the Vorderasiatisches Museum in 1953, notable pieces of the collection are the Ishtar Gate and Procession Way of Babylon, remainders of the ancient city of Babylon, parts of the Eanna temple and Karaindashs temple to Inanna in Uruk. The museum also has an important number of Southwest Asian stamp and cylinder seals and it has more than 200 of the Amarna letters and the larger fragment of the Sippar tablet from the Epic of Gilgamesh, which includes Siduris advice, unlike later editions of the epic. At present Markus Hilgert is the director of the museum, previous directors were Beate Salje, Walter Andrae, Gerhard Rudolf Meyer, Liane Jakob Rust and Evelyn Klengel Brandt, among others. Nicola Crüsemann, Vom Zweistromland zum Kupfergraben, vorgeschichte und Entstehungsjahre der Vorderasiatischen Abteilung der Berliner Liane Jakob rust et al. Das Vorderasiatische Museum, of Zabern, Mainz 1992, Berlin, Paris, London, New York, eine Standortbestimmung, Kolloquium aus Anlass des Einhundertjährigen Bestehens des Vorderasiatischen Museums Berlin am 7. Mai 1999, of Zabern, Mainz 2001, joachim Marzahn, Beate Salje, Wiedererstehendes Assur,100 Jahre deutsche Ausgrabungen in Assyrien, of Zabern, Mainz 2003. Official site Assyrian origins, discoveries at Ashur on the Tigris, antiquities in the Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries
14.
Pergamon Museum
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The Pergamon Museum is situated on the Museum Island in Berlin. The building was designed by Alfred Messel and Ludwig Hoffmann and was constructed over a period of twenty years, the museum is subdivided into the antiquity collection, the Middle East museum, and the museum of Islamic art. It is visited by approximately 1,135,000 people every year, making it the most visited art museum in Germany, Alfred Messel began a design for the large three-wing building in 1906. After his death in 1909 his friend Ludwig Hoffman took charge of the project and construction began in 1910, continuing during the First World War, the completed building was opened In 1930. The Pergamon Museum was severely damaged during the air attacks on Berlin at the end of the Second World War, many of the display objects had been stored in safe places, and some of the large exhibits were walled in for protection. In 1945, the Red Army collected all of the museum items, either as war booty or, ostensibly, to rescue them from looting. Not until 1958 were most of the returned to East Germany. Significant parts of the remain in Russia. Some are currently stored in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow and the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, the return of these items has been arranged in a treaty between Germany and Russia but, as of June 2003, is blocked by Russian restitution laws. It first became accessible to the public in 1830, when the Altes Museum was opened, the collection expanded greatly with the excavations in Olympia, Samos, Pergamon, Miletus, Priene, Magnesia, Cyprus and Didyma. This collection is divided between the Pergamon Museum and the Altes Museum, as Germany was divided following the Second World War, so was the collection. The Pergamon Museum was reopened in 1959 in East Berlin, while what remained in West Berlin was displayed in Schloss Charlottenburg, when the Bode Museum was opened in 1904, a section for Islamic art was created and later included in the Pergamon Museum. It was a gift from the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II to Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany, parts of the eastern portion of the facade and the ruins of the structure of which it formed a part remain in Jordan. Another unique exhibition is the Aleppo room and this area of the museum features a reception room from a brokers home in Aleppo, Syria, that was commissioned during the Ottoman Period. The Islamic Art Museum also regularly hosts exhibitions of modern art from the Islamic world, such as the 2008 Turkish Delight. In 2008 part of the Keir Collection of Edmund de Unger, formerly housed in his home in Ham, the Middle East Museum exhibition displays objects found by German archeologists and others from the areas of Assyrian, Sumerian and Babylonian culture. Additionally there are buildings, reliefs and lesser cultural objects. The main display is the Ishtar Gate and the Processional Way of Babylon together with the throne room facade of Nebuchadnezzar II, the Vorderasiatisches Museum also displays the Meissner fragment from the Epic of Gilgamesh
15.
Ashur-bel-nisheshu
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He succeeded his father, Aššur-nērārī II, to the throne and is best known for his treaty with Kassite king Karaindaš. As was the practice during this period of the Assyrian monarchy, he titled himself “vice-regent”, or iššiak Aššur. The Synchronistic Chronicle records his apparently amicable territorial treaty with Karaindaš, king of Babylon, contemporary legal documents detail sales of land, houses, and slaves and payment in lead. The Assyrian credit system was fairly sophisticated, with loans issued for such as barley and lead. The security posted for loans could include property, the person of the debtor or indeed his children, there is a discrepancy in the data about his son and eventual successor
16.
Thutmose III
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Thutmose III was the sixth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty. During the first 22 years of Thutmoses reign he was co-regent with his stepmother and aunt, Hatshepsut, while he was shown first on surviving monuments, both were assigned the usual royal names and insignia and neither is given any obvious seniority over the other. He served as the head of her armies, during the final 2 years of his reign, he appointed his son and successor, Amenhotep II, as his junior co-regent. His firstborn son and heir to the throne, Amenemhat, predeceased Thutmose III, when Thutmose III died, he was buried in the Valley of the Kings as were the rest of the kings from this period in Egypt. Thutmose III was the son of Thutmose II by a secondary wife and his fathers great royal wife was Queen Hatshepsut. Her daughter Neferure was Thutmoses half-sister, Thutmosis III had little power over the empire while Hatshepsut exercised the formal titulary of kingship. Her rule was quite prosperous and marked by great advancements, when he reached a suitable age and demonstrated the capability, she appointed him to head her armies. Thutmosis III had several wives, Satiah, She may have been the mother of his firstborn son, an alternative theory is that the boy was the son of Neferure. Thutmoses successor, the prince and future king Amenhotep II, was the son of Merytre-Hatshepsut. Additional children include Menkheperre and daughters named Nebetiunet, Meryetamun, Meryetamun, Merytre-Hatshepsut was the daughter of the divine adoratrice Huy. Nebtu, she is depicted on a pillar in Thutmose IIIs tomb, menwi, Merti, Menhet three foreign wives. Neferure, Thutmose III may have married his half-sister, but there is no evidence for this marriage. It has been suggested that Neferure, instead of Satiah, may have been the mother of Amenemhat, Thutmose III reigned from 1479 BC to 1425 BC according to the Low Chronology of Ancient Egypt. This has been the conventional Egyptian chronology in academic circles since the 1960s and this document has no note of the place of observation, but it can safely be assumed that it was taken in either a Delta city such as Memphis or Heliopolis, or in Thebes. These two latitudes give dates 20 years apart, the High and Low chronologies, respectively, the length of Thutmose IIIs reign is known to the day thanks to information found in the tomb of the military commander Amenemheb-Mahu. Amenemheb-Mahu records Thutmose IIIs death to his masters 54th regnal year, widely considered a military genius by historians, Thutmose III made 16 raids in 20 years. He was an active expansionist ruler, sometimes called Egypts greatest conqueror or the Napoleon of Egypt and he is recorded to have captured 350 cities during his rule and conquered much of the Near East from the Euphrates to Nubia during seventeen known military campaigns. He was the first Pharaoh after Thutmose I to cross the Euphrates and his campaign records were transcribed onto the walls of the temple of Amun at Karnak, and are now transcribed into Urkunden IV
17.
Mitanni
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Mitanni, also called Hanigalbat in Assyrian or Naharin in Egyptian texts, was a Hurrian-speaking state in northern Syria and southeast Anatolia from ca.1500 BC–1300 BC. Mitanni came to be a regional power after the Hittite destruction of Amorite Babylon, at the beginning of its history, Mitannis major rival was Egypt under the Thutmosids. However, with the ascent of the Hittite empire, Mitanni, the Mitanni dynasty ruled over the northern Euphrates-Tigris region between c.1475 and c.1275 BC. Eventually, Mitanni succumbed to Hittite and later Assyrian attacks, and was reduced to the status of a province of the Middle Assyrian Empire. While the Mitanni kings were Indo-Iranians, they used the language of the people which was at that time a non Indo-Iranian language. Their sphere of influence is shown in Hurrian place names, personal names and the spread through Syria, the Mitanni controlled trade routes down the Khabur to Mari and up the Euphrates from there to Charchamesh. For a time also controlled the Assyrian territories of the upper Tigris and its headwaters at Nineveh, Arbil, Assur. To the east, they had relations with the Kassites. The land of Mitanni in northern Syria extended from the Taurus mountains to its west and as far east as Nuzi, in the south, it extended from Aleppo across to Mari on the Euphrates in the east. Its centre was in the Khabur River valley, with two capitals, Taite and Washshukanni called Taidu and Ushshukana respectively in Assyrian sources, the whole area allows agriculture without artificial irrigation, cattle, sheep and goats were raised. It is very similar to Assyria in climate, and was settled by both indigenous Hurrian and Amoritic-speaking populations, the Mitanni kingdom was referred to as the Maryannu, Nahrin or Mitanni by the Egyptians, the Hurri by the Hittites, and the Hanigalbat by the Assyrians. The different names seem to have referred to the kingdom and were used interchangeably. Hittite annals mention a people called Hurri, located in northeastern Syria, a Hittite fragment, probably from the time of Mursili I, mentions a King of the Hurri. The Assyro-Akkadian version of the text renders Hurri as Hanigalbat, Tushratta, who styles himself king of Mitanni in his Akkadian Amarna letters, refers to his kingdom as Hanigalbat. Egyptian sources call Mitanni nhrn, which is pronounced as Naharin/Naharina from the Assyro-Akkadian word for river. The name Mitanni is first found in the memoirs of the Syrian wars of the astronomer and clockmaker Amenemhet. The ethnicity of the people of Mitanni is difficult to ascertain, a treatise on the training of chariot horses by Kikkuli contains a number of Indo-Aryan glosses. Kammenhuber suggested that this vocabulary was derived from the still undivided Indo-Iranian language, the common peoples language, the Hurrian language, is neither Indo-European nor Semitic
18.
Chronology of the ancient Near East
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The chronology of the ancient Near East provides a framework of dates for various events, rulers and dynasties. Individual inscriptions and texts customarily record events in terms of a succession of officials or rulers, thus by piecing together many records a relative chronology is arrived at, relating dates in cities over a wide area. For the first millennium BC, the chronology can be tied to actual calendar years by identifying significant astronomical events. The date can be corroborated with other mentions of events and a secure absolute chronology established. For the third and second millennia, the correlation is not so fixed, in the series, the conjunction of the rise of Venus with the new moon provides a fixed point, or rather three fixed points, for the conjunction is a periodic occurrence. No absolute dates within a certainty better than a century can be assigned to this period, middle to Late Bronze Age, Beginning with the Akkadian Empire around 2300 BC, the chronological evidence becomes internally more consistent. Essentially, for this period, a picture can be drawn of who succeeded whom. The assignment of absolute dates is a matter of dispute, the middle chronology fixes the sack of Babylon at 1595 BC while the short chronology fixes it at 1531 BC. The Bronze Age collapse, a Dark Age begins with the fall of Babylonian Dynasty III around 1200 BC, the invasions of the Sea Peoples and the collapse of the Hittite Empire. Early Iron Age, around 900 BC, historical data, written records become more numerous once more, with the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, classical sources such as the Canon of Ptolemy, the works of Berossus and the Hebrew Bible provide chronological support and synchronisms. An eclipse in 763 BC anchors the Assyrian list of imperial officials, due to the sparsity of sources throughout the Dark Age, the history of the Near Eastern Bronze Age down to the end of the Third Babylonian Dynasty is a floating chronology. In other words, it fits together internally as a relative chronology, the major schools of thought on the length of the Dark Age are separated by 56 or 64 years. This is because the key source for their dates is the Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa, more recent work by Vahe Gurzadyan has suggested that the fundamental 8-year cycle of Venus is a better metric. There have been attempts to anchor the chronology using records of eclipses and other methods. The alternative major chronologies are defined by the date of the 8th year of the reign of Ammisaduqa and this choice then defines the reign of Hammurabi. The middle chronology is commonly encountered in literature, and many recent textbooks on the archaeology, the alternative short chronology is less commonly followed, and the long and ultra-short chronologies are clear minority views. There are also some scholars who discount the validity of the Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa entirely, early twenty-first century dendrochronology has essentially disproved the short chronology. For much of the period in question, middle chronology dates can be calculated by adding 64 years to the short chronology date
19.
Ancient Egypt
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Ancient Egypt was a civilization of ancient Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. It is one of six civilizations to arise independently, Egyptian civilization followed prehistoric Egypt and coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh Narmer. In the aftermath of Alexander the Greats death, one of his generals, Ptolemy Soter and this Greek Ptolemaic Kingdom ruled Egypt until 30 BC, when, under Cleopatra, it fell to the Roman Empire and became a Roman province. The success of ancient Egyptian civilization came partly from its ability to adapt to the conditions of the Nile River valley for agriculture, the predictable flooding and controlled irrigation of the fertile valley produced surplus crops, which supported a more dense population, and social development and culture. Its art and architecture were widely copied, and its antiquities carried off to far corners of the world and its monumental ruins have inspired the imaginations of travelers and writers for centuries. The Nile has been the lifeline of its region for much of human history, nomadic modern human hunter-gatherers began living in the Nile valley through the end of the Middle Pleistocene some 120,000 years ago. By the late Paleolithic period, the climate of Northern Africa became increasingly hot and dry. In Predynastic and Early Dynastic times, the Egyptian climate was less arid than it is today. Large regions of Egypt were covered in treed savanna and traversed by herds of grazing ungulates, foliage and fauna were far more prolific in all environs and the Nile region supported large populations of waterfowl. Hunting would have been common for Egyptians, and this is also the period when many animals were first domesticated. The largest of these cultures in upper Egypt was the Badari, which probably originated in the Western Desert, it was known for its high quality ceramics, stone tools. The Badari was followed by the Amratian and Gerzeh cultures, which brought a number of technological improvements, as early as the Naqada I Period, predynastic Egyptians imported obsidian from Ethiopia, used to shape blades and other objects from flakes. In Naqada II times, early evidence exists of contact with the Near East, particularly Canaan, establishing a power center at Hierakonpolis, and later at Abydos, Naqada III leaders expanded their control of Egypt northwards along the Nile. They also traded with Nubia to the south, the oases of the desert to the west. Royal Nubian burials at Qustul produced artifacts bearing the oldest-known examples of Egyptian dynastic symbols, such as the crown of Egypt. They also developed a ceramic glaze known as faience, which was used well into the Roman Period to decorate cups, amulets, and figurines. During the last predynastic phase, the Naqada culture began using written symbols that eventually were developed into a system of hieroglyphs for writing the ancient Egyptian language. The Early Dynastic Period was approximately contemporary to the early Sumerian-Akkadian civilisation of Mesopotamia, the third-century BC Egyptian priest Manetho grouped the long line of pharaohs from Menes to his own time into 30 dynasties, a system still used today
20.
Burna-Buriash II
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1359–1333 BC, where the Short and Middle chronologies have converged. Recorded as the 19th King to ascend the Kassite throne, he succeeded Kadašman-Enlil I, who was likely his father and he was a contemporary of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten. The proverb the time of checking the books is the shepherds ordeal was attributed to him in a letter to the later king Esarhaddon from his agent Mar-Issar, the diplomatic correspondence between Burna-Buriaš and the pharaohs is preserved in nine of the Amarna letters, designated EA6 to 14. The relationship between Babylon and Egypt during his reign was friendly at the start, and an alliance was in the making. From the time my ancestors and your ancestors made a declaration of friendship, they sent beautiful greeting-gifts to each other. Burna-Buriaš was obsessed with being received as an equal and often refers to his counterpart as brother and they exchanged presents, horses, lapis-lazuli and other precious stones from Burna-Buriaš and ivory, ebony and gold from Akhenaten. But then things began to sour, on EA10, he complains that the gold sent was underweight. “You have detained my messenger for two years. ”He reproached the Egyptian for not having sent his condolences when he was ill and, the bridal gifts filled 4 columns and 307 lines of cuneiform inventory on tablet EA13. Not only were matters of state of concern, what you want from my land, write and it shall be brought, and what I want from your land, I will write, that it may be brought. But even in matters of trade, things went awry and, in EA8 and he demanded vengeance, naming Šum-Adda, the son of Balumme, affiliation unknown, and Šutatna, the son of Šaratum of Akka, as the villainous perpetrators. My ancestor sent this, saying, “Forget about being allied with me. If you become enemies of the king of Egypt, and are allied with anyone else, will I not then come, with regard to the Kassites… Though the house is well fortified, they attempted a very serious crime. They took their tools, and I had to shelter by a support for the roof. And so if he is going to send troops into Jerusalem, and please make the Kassites responsible for the evil deed. I was almost killed by the Kassites in my own house, may the king make an inquiry in their regard. One letter preserves the response from a mārat šarri, or princess, to her mbé-lí-ia. Here he seems to test Akhenaten to shame him into sending gold or perhaps just to gauge the extent of his potential military reach, diplomacy with Babylons neighbor, Elam, was conducted through royal marriages. A Neo-Babylonian copy of a text which takes the form of a letter
21.
Amarna letters
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The letters were found in Upper Egypt at Amarna, the modern name for the ancient Egyptian capital of Akhetaten, founded by pharaoh Akhenaten during the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt. The Amarna letters are unusual in Egyptological research, because they are written in Akkadian cuneiform. The written correspondence spans a period of at most thirty years, the Amarna letters are of great significance for biblical studies as well as Semitic linguistics, since they shed light on the culture and language of the Canaanite peoples in pre-biblical times. These Canaanisms provide valuable insights into the proto-stage of those languages several centuries prior to their first actual manifestation and they had originally been stored in an ancient building that archaeologists have since called the Bureau of Correspondence of Pharaoh. Once the location where they were found was determined, the ruins were explored for more, the first archaeologist who successfully recovered more tablets was Flinders Petrie, who in 1891 and 1892 uncovered 21 fragments. Émile Chassinat, then director of the French Institute for Oriental Archaeology in Cairo, since Knudtzons edition, some 24 more tablets, or fragments, have been found, either in Egypt, or identified in the collections of various museums. The initial group of letters recovered by local Egyptians have been scattered among museums in Germany, England, Egypt, France, Russia, the archive contains a wealth of information about cultures, kingdoms, events and individuals in a period from which few written sources survive. It includes correspondence from Akhenatens reign, as well as his predecessor Amenhotep IIIs reign, the tablets consist of over 300 diplomatic letters, the remainder comprise miscellaneous literary and educational materials. These tablets shed light on Egyptian relations with Babylonia, Assyria, Syria, Canaan, and Alashiya as well as relations with the Mitanni. The letters have been important in establishing both the history and the chronology of the period, letters from the Babylonian king, Kadashman-Enlil I, anchor the timeframe of Akhenatens reign to the mid-14th century BC. Specifically, the letters include requests for help in the north against Hittite invaders. Note, Many assignments are tentative, spellings vary widely, william L. The Amarna archive, it is now generally agreed, spans at most about thirty years, perhaps only fifteen or so. Moran notes that scholars believe one tablet, EA16. However, this speculation appears improbable because the Amarna archives were closed by Year 2 of Tutankhamun, a small number of the Amarna letters are in the class of poetry. EA153, entitled, Ships on hold, from Abimilku of Tyre is a short, lines 6-8, and 9-11 are parallel phrases, each ending with. before the troops of the king, my lord. -. Both sentences are identical, and repetitive, with only the subject statement changing, the entire corpus of Amarna letters has many standard phrases. It also has some phrases, and quotations used only once, some are parables, A bird in a cage —Rib-Hadda subcorpus of letters. A brick may move from under its partner, still I will not move from under the feet of the king, my lord. —Used in letters EA266,292, EA292 by Adda-danu of Gazru
22.
Akhenaten
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Akhenaten known before the fifth year of his reign as Amenhotep IV, was an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty who ruled for 17 years and died perhaps in 1336 BC or 1334 BC. An early inscription likens the Aten to the sun as compared to stars, Akhenaten tried to bring about a departure from traditional religion, yet in the end it would not be accepted. After his death, his monuments were dismantled and hidden, his statues were terminated and he was all but lost from history until the discovery during the 19th century of the site of Akhetaten, the city he built and designed for the worship of Aten, at Amarna. DNA analysis has determined that the man buried in KV55 is the father of King Tutankhamun, the future Akhenaten was a younger son of Amenhotep III and Chief Queen Tiye. The eldest son Crown Prince Thutmose was recognized as the heir of Amenhotep III but he died relatively young, there is much controversy around whether Amenhotep IV succeeded to the throne on the death of his father Amenhotep III or whether there was a coregency. Other literature by Donald Redford, William Murnane, Alan Gardiner, in February 2014, the Egyptian Ministry for Antiquities announced what it called conclusive evidence that Akhenaten shared power with his father for at least 8 years. The evidence came from the found in the Luxor tomb of Vizier Amenhotep-Huy. A team of Spanish archeologists have been working at this tomb, Amenhotep IV was crowned in Thebes and there he started a building program. He decorated the entrance to the precincts of the temple of Amun-Re with scenes of his worshiping Re-Harakhti. He soon decreed the construction of a dedicated to the Aten in Eastern Karnak. This Temple of Amenhotep IV was called the Gempaaten, the Gempaaten consisted of a series of buildings, including a palace and a structure called the Hwt Benben which was dedicated to Queen Nefertiti. Other Aten temples constructed at Karnak during this time include the Rud-menu, during this time he did not repress the worship of Amun, and the High Priest of Amun was still active in the fourth year of his reign. The king appears as Amenhotep IV in the tombs of some of the nobles in Thebes, Kheruef, Ramose, in the tomb of Ramose, Amenhotep IV appears on the west wall in the traditional style, seated on a throne with Ramose appearing before the king. On the other side of the doorway, Amenhotep IV and Nefertiti are shown in the window of appearance with the Aten depicted as the sun disc. In the Theban tomb of Parennefer, Amenhotep IV and Nefertiti are seated on a throne with the sun disk depicted over the king, among the latter-known documents referring to Amenhotep IV are two copies of a letter from the Steward Of Memphis Apy to the pharaoh. The documents were found in Gurob and are dated to regnal year 5, third month of the Growing Season, on day 13, Month 8, in the fifth year of his reign, the king arrived at the site of the new city Akhetaten. A month before that Amenhotep IV had officially changed his name to Akhenaten, Amenhotep IV changed most of his 5 fold titulary in year 5 of his reign. The only name he kept was his prenomen or throne name of Neferkheperure, some recent debate has focused on the extent to which Akhenaten forced his religious reforms on his people
23.
Precinct of Amun-Re
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The Precinct of Amun-Re, located near Luxor, Egypt, is one of the four main temple enclosures that make up the immense Karnak Temple Complex. The precinct is by far the largest of these and the one that is open to the general public. The temple complex is dedicated to the god of the Theban Triad, Amun. The site occupies roughly 250000 m², containing many structures, the main temple itself, Temple of Amun, covers roughly 61 acres and would have been able to hold 10 average European cathedrals. Some parts of the complex are closed or semi-closed, partially large parts of the North/South Axis, the whole southeast corner is semi-closed. The northwest corner is a museum that requires a ticket to visit. Most of the southwest is an area with millions of stone fragments, from small to huge, laid out in long rows. Also in this area can be found the housing of the Akhenaten Temple Project, a long building. The history of the Karnak complex is largely the history of Thebes, the earliest artifact found in the area of the temple is a small, eight-sided column from the Eleventh Dynasty, which mentions Amun-Ra. The tomb of Intef II mentions a house of Amun, which implies some structure, the main temple is laid out on an East/West axis, entered via a quay. The modern entrance is placed over the end of the ancient cult terrace, inscribed into the terrace are the inundation levels for several kings of the Third Intermediate Period, collectively known as the Nile Level Texts. The cult terrace is often thought to be a dock or quay. It was intended for the presentation of cult images, originally the quay led via a corridor of Sphinxes to the entrance to the second pylon, but these were moved aside when the First Pylon was constructed. Construction of the current pylon began in 30th dynasty, but was never totally completed and it is 113m wide and 15m thick. There are large numbers of mud bricks piled up against the inside of the pylon, the construction of the original first pylon and Forecourt in the 22nd dynasty enclosed several older structures, and meant that the original avenue of sphinxes had to be moved. These were built in the time of Seti II, and are dedicated to Amun, Mut, in order to construct this kiosk, the ram-sphinx corridor was removed and the statues moved to the edges of the open court. Only one column remains in place, bearing inscriptions by Taharqa, Psamtik II, on the south side of the forecourt, there is a small temple built by Ramesses III. Inscriptions inside the show the king slaughtering captives, whilst Amun-Re looks on
24.
Karnak
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The Karnak Temple Complex, commonly known as Karnak, comprises a vast mix of decayed temples, chapels, pylons, and other buildings. Building at the complex began during the reign of Senusret I in the Middle Kingdom and continued into the Ptolemaic period, the area around Karnak was the ancient Egyptian Ipet-isut and the main place of worship of the eighteenth dynasty Theban Triad with the god Amun as its head. It is part of the city of Thebes. The Karnak complex gives its name to the nearby, and partly surrounded, the complex is a vast open-air museum, and the second largest ancient religious site in the world, after the Angkor Wat Temple of Cambodia. It is believed to be the second most visited site in Egypt. It consists of four parts, of which only the largest is currently open to the general public. The term Karnak often is understood as being the Precinct of Amun-Ra only, the three other parts, the Precinct of Mut, the Precinct of Montu, and the dismantled Temple of Amenhotep IV, are closed to the public. There also are a few temples and sanctuaries connecting the Precinct of Mut, the Precinct of Amun-Re. The Precinct of Mut is very ancient, being dedicated to an Earth and creation deity, the original temple was destroyed and partially restored by Hatshepsut, although another pharaoh built around it in order to change the focus or orientation of the sacred area. Many portions of it may have carried away for use in other buildings. The key difference between Karnak and most of the temples and sites in Egypt is the length of time over which it was developed and used. Construction of temples started in the Middle Kingdom and continued through to Ptolemaic times, approximately thirty pharaohs contributed to the buildings, enabling it to reach a size, complexity, and diversity not seen elsewhere. Few of the features of Karnak are unique, but the size. The deities represented range from some of the earliest worshiped to those worshiped much later in the history of the Ancient Egyptian culture and it also contains evidence of adaptations, using buildings of the Ancient Egyptians by later cultures for their own religious purposes. One famous aspect of Karnak is the Hypostyle Hall in the Precinct of Amun-Re,122 of these columns are 10 meters tall, and the other 12 are 21 meters tall with a diameter of over three meters. The architraves on top of columns are estimated to weigh 70 tons. These architraves may have been lifted to these heights using levers and this would be an extremely time-consuming process and also would require great balance to get to such great heights. A common alternative theory regarding how they were moved is that large ramps were constructed of sand, mud, brick or stone, if stone had been used for the ramps, they would have been able to use much less material
25.
Philadelphia
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In 1682, William Penn, an English Quaker, founded the city to serve as capital of the Pennsylvania Colony. Philadelphia was one of the capitals in the Revolutionary War. In the 19th century, Philadelphia became an industrial center. It became a destination for African-Americans in the Great Migration. The areas many universities and colleges make Philadelphia a top international study destination, as the city has evolved into an educational, with a gross domestic product of $388 billion, Philadelphia ranks ninth among world cities and fourth in the nation. Philadelphia is the center of activity in Pennsylvania and is home to seven Fortune 1000 companies. The Philadelphia skyline is growing, with a market of almost 81,900 commercial properties in 2016 including several prominent skyscrapers. The city is known for its arts, culture, and rich history, Philadelphia has more outdoor sculptures and murals than any other American city. Fairmount Park, when combined with the adjacent Wissahickon Valley Park in the watershed, is one of the largest contiguous urban park areas in the United States. The 67 National Historic Landmarks in the city helped account for the $10 billion generated by tourism, Philadelphia is the only World Heritage City in the United States. Before Europeans arrived, the Philadelphia area was home to the Lenape Indians in the village of Shackamaxon, the Lenape are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government. They are also called Delaware Indians and their territory was along the Delaware River watershed, western Long Island. Most Lenape were pushed out of their Delaware homeland during the 18th century by expanding European colonies, Lenape communities were weakened by newly introduced diseases, mainly smallpox, and violent conflict with Europeans. Iroquois people occasionally fought the Lenape, surviving Lenape moved west into the upper Ohio River basin. The American Revolutionary War and United States independence pushed them further west, in the 1860s, the United States government sent most Lenape remaining in the eastern United States to the Indian Territory under the Indian removal policy. In the 21st century, most Lenape now reside in the US state of Oklahoma, with communities living also in Wisconsin, Ontario. The Dutch considered the entire Delaware River valley to be part of their New Netherland colony, in 1638, Swedish settlers led by renegade Dutch established the colony of New Sweden at Fort Christina and quickly spread out in the valley. In 1644, New Sweden supported the Susquehannocks in their defeat of the English colony of Maryland
26.
Shutruk-Nakhunte
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Šutruk-Nakhunte was king of Elam from about 1185 to 1155 BC, and the second king of the Shutrukid Dynasty. Elam amassed an empire that included most of Mesopotamia and western Iran, under his command, Elam defeated the Kassites and established the short-lived Elamite Empire, conquered within about 40 years by Nebuchadnezzar I of Babylon, in 1120 BC. Šutruk-Nakhunte was married to the daughter of a Kassite king named Meli-Šipak, the quote from the film is, I am Shutruk Nahunte, King of Anšan and Susa, Sovereign of the land of Elam. By command of Inshushinak I destroyed Sippar, Took the Stele of Niran-Sin, and brought it back to Elam, D. T. Potts, The Archaeology of Elam, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1999, 232-237
27.
Babylonia
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Babylonia was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in central-southern Mesopotamia. A small Amorite-ruled state emerged in 1894 BC, which contained at this time the city of Babylon. Babylon greatly expanded during the reign of Hammurabi in the first half of the 18th century BC, during the reign of Hammurabi and afterwards, Babylonia was called Māt Akkadī the country of Akkad in the Akkadian language. It was often involved in rivalry with its older fellow Akkadian-speaking state of Assyria in northern Mesopotamia and it retained the Sumerian language for religious use, but by the time Babylon was founded, this was no longer a spoken language, having been wholly subsumed by Akkadian. The earliest mention of the city of Babylon can be found in a tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad. During the 3rd millennium BC, a cultural symbiosis occurred between Sumerian and Akkadian-speakers, which included widespread bilingualism. The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian and vice versa is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a scale, to syntactic, morphological. This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the millennium as a sprachbund. Traditionally, the religious center of all Mesopotamia was the city of Nippur. The empire eventually disintegrated due to decline, climate change and civil war. Sumer rose up again with the Third Dynasty of Ur in the late 22nd century BC and they also seem to have gained ascendancy over most of the territory of the Akkadian kings of Assyria in northern Mesopotamia for a time. The states of the south were unable to stem the Amorite advance, King Ilu-shuma of the Old Assyrian Empire in a known inscription describes his exploits to the south as follows, The freedom of the Akkadians and their children I established. I established their freedom from the border of the marshes and Ur and Nippur, Awal, past scholars originally extrapolated from this text that it means he defeated the invading Amorites to the south, but there is no explicit record of that. More recently, the text has been taken to mean that Asshur supplied the south with copper from Anatolia and these policies were continued by his successors Erishum I and Ikunum. During the first centuries of what is called the Amorite period and his reign was concerned with establishing statehood amongst a sea of other minor city states and kingdoms in the region. However Sumuabum appears never to have bothered to give himself the title of King of Babylon, suggesting that Babylon itself was only a minor town or city. He was followed by Sumu-la-El, Sabium, Apil-Sin, each of whom ruled in the same manner as Sumuabum. Sin-Muballit was the first of these Amorite rulers to be regarded officially as a king of Babylon, the Elamites occupied huge swathes of southern Mesopotamia, and the early Amorite rulers were largely held in vassalage to Elam
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Amorites
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The term Amurru in Akkadian and Sumerian texts refers to them, as well as to their principal deity. The ethnic terms Mar. tu, Amurru and Amar were used for them in Sumerian, Akkadian, from the 21st century BC, possibly triggered by a long major drought starting about 2200 BC, a large-scale migration of Amorite tribes infiltrated southern Mesopotamia. Known Amorites wrote in a dialect of Akkadian found on tablets at Mari dating from 1800–1750 BC, since the language shows northwest Semitic forms, words and constructions, the Amorite language is a Northwest Semitic language, and possibly one of the Canaanite languages. The main sources for the limited knowledge about Amorite are the proper names, not Akkadian in style. The Akkadian language of the native Semitic states, cities and polities of Mesopotamia, was from the east Semitic, in the earliest Sumerian language texts, all western lands beyond the Euphrates, including the modern Levant, were known as the land of the mar. tu. This term appears in Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, which describes it in the time of Enmerkar as one of the inhabited by speakers of a different language. Another text known as Lugalbanda and the Anzud bird describes how, fifty years into Enmerkars reign, for the Akkadian kings of central Mesopotamia Mar. tu was one of the Four Quarters surrounding Akkad, along with Subartu/Assyria, Sumer, and Elam. Naram-Sin of Akkad records successful campaigns against them in northern Syria c.2240 BC and these Amorites appear as nomadic clans ruled by fierce tribal chiefs, who forced themselves into lands they needed to graze their herds. TU who know no grain. The MAR. TU who know no house nor town, the boors of the mountains, the MAR. TU who digs up truffles. Elsewhere, the armies of Elam in southern Iran were attacking and weakening the empire, many Amorite chieftains in southern Mesopotamia aggressively took advantage of the failing empire to seize power for themselves. Leaders with Amorite names assumed power in various places, usurping native Akkadian rulers, including in Isin, Eshnunna, Babylon, hitherto a small, politically and military unimportant town was raised to the status of a minor independent city state under Sumu-abum in 1894 BC. The Elamites finally sacked Ur in c.2004 BC, some time later, the Old Assyrian Empire became the most powerful entity in Mesopotamia immediately preceding the rise of the Amorite king Hammurabi of Babylon. There is a range of views regarding the Amorite homeland. One extreme is the view that kur mar. tu/māt amurrim covered the area between the Euphrates and the Mediterranean Sea, the Arabian Peninsula included. The other extreme is the view that the “homeland” of the Amorites was an area in northern Syria. The rise of the Amorite kingdoms in Mesopotamia brought about deep and lasting repercussions in its political, social, the division into kingdoms replaced the Babylonian city-states in southern Mesopotamia. Men, land, and cattle ceased to belong physically to the gods or to the temples, the priest assumed the service of the gods, and cared for the welfare of his subjects, but the economic life of the country was no longer exclusively in their hands. The religious, ethical, technological, scientific and artistic directions in which Mesopotamia had been developing since the fourth millennium BC were not greatly affected by the Amorites hegemony
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Bronze Age
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The Bronze Age is a historical period characterized by the use of bronze, proto-writing, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the principal period of the three-age Stone-Bronze-Iron system, as proposed in modern times by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen. An ancient civilization is defined to be in the Bronze Age either by smelting its own copper and alloying with tin, arsenic, or other metals, or by trading for bronze from production areas elsewhere. Copper-tin ores are rare, as reflected in the fact there were no tin bronzes in Western Asia before trading in bronze began in the third millennium BC. Worldwide, the Bronze Age generally followed the Neolithic period, with the Chalcolithic serving as a transition, although the Iron Age generally followed the Bronze Age, in some areas, the Iron Age intruded directly on the Neolithic. Bronze Age cultures differed in their development of the first writing, according to archaeological evidence, cultures in Mesopotamia and Egypt developed the earliest viable writing systems. The overall period is characterized by use of bronze, though the place and time of the introduction. Human-made tin bronze technology requires set production techniques, tin must be mined and smelted separately, then added to molten copper to make bronze alloy. The Bronze Age was a time of use of metals. The dating of the foil has been disputed, the Bronze Age in the ancient Near East began with the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BC. Societies in the region laid the foundations for astronomy and mathematics, the usual tripartite division into an Early, Middle and Late Bronze Age is not used. Instead, a division based on art-historical and historical characteristics is more common. The cities of the Ancient Near East housed several tens of thousands of people, ur in the Middle Bronze Age and Babylon in the Late Bronze Age similarly had large populations. The earliest mention of Babylonia appears on a tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 23rd century BC, the Amorite dynasty established the city-state of Babylon in the 19th century BC. Over 100 years later, it took over the other city-states. Babylonia adopted the written Semitic Akkadian language for official use, by that time, the Sumerian language was no longer spoken, but was still in religious use. Elam was an ancient civilization located to the east of Mesopotamia, in the Old Elamite period, Elam consisted of kingdoms on the Iranian plateau, centered in Anshan, and from the mid-2nd millennium BC, it was centered in Susa in the Khuzestan lowlands. Its culture played a role in the Gutian Empire and especially during the Achaemenid dynasty that succeeded it
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Iddin-Dagan
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Iddin-Dagan was the 3rd king of the First Dynasty of Isin. Iddin-Dagān was preceded by his father Šu-ilišu, Iddin-Dagān reigned for 21 years He is best known for his participation in the sacred marriage rite and the risqué hymn that described it. His titles included, “Mighty King” — “King of Isin” — “King of Ur” — “King of the Land of Sumer and Akkad. ”The 1st year name recorded on a receipt for flour and dates reads, “Year Iddin-Dagān king and daughter Matum-Niatum was taken in marriage by the king of Anshan. ”Vallat suggests it was to Imazu as he was described as the King of Anshan in a seal inscription, although elsewhere unattested. A fragment of a statue has a votive inscription which invokes Ninisina. A tablet from the Enunmaḫ at the city-state of Ur dated to the 14th year of Gungunum of Larsa, after his conquest of the city, bears the seal impression of a servant of his. A tablet described Iddin-Dagān’s fashioning of two copper festival statues for Ninlil, which were not delivered to Nippur until 170 years later by Enlil-bāni. Belles-lettres preserve the correspondence from Iddin-Dagān to his general Sîn-illat about Kakkulātum and the state of his troops, holy Inanna bathes with soap, and sprinkles the floor with aromatic resin. The king then approached loins with head raised high, Iddin-Dagān approached loins with head raised high. Ama-ušumgal-ana lies down beside her and O my holy thighs, there are 4 extant hymns addressed to this monarch, which, apart from the Sacred Marriage Hymn, include a praise poem to the king, a war song and a dedicatory prayer. Sumer History of Sumer Sumerian people Iddin-Dagān year-names at CDLI, a praise poem of Iddin-Dagān at ETCSL. An adab to Ningublaga for Iddin-Dagān at ETCSL, a namerima for Iddin-Dagān at ETCSL
