Limestone
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Limestone is a sedimentary rock, composed mainly of skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral, forams and molluscs. Its major materials are the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate, about 10% of sedimentary rocks are limestones. The solubility of limestone in water and weak acid solutions leads to karst landscapes, most cave systems are through limestone bedrock. The first geologist to distinguish limestone from dolomite was Belsazar Hacquet in 1778, like most other sedimentary rocks, most limestone is composed of grains. Most grains in limestone are skeletal fragments of organisms such as coral or foraminifera. Other carbonate grains comprising limestones are ooids, peloids, intraclasts and these organisms secrete shells made of aragonite or calcite, and leave these shells behind when they die. Limestone often contains variable amounts of silica in the form of chert or siliceous skeletal fragment, some limestones do not cons
3.
Cutting the limestone blocks at a quarry in
Gozo,
Malta
4.
Limestone as building material
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 app
1.
26th century BC Sumerian document
2.
This proto-literate tablet records more than just the transfer of land – the beginning of the transition from a pictograph to phonetic writing system can be seen here.
Walters Art Museum,
Baltimore. ca. 3100 – 2900 BC.
3.
Letter sent by the high-priest Lu'enna to the king of
Lagash (maybe
Urukagina), informing him of his son's death in combat, c. 2400 BC, found in
Telloh (ancient Girsu)
Cuneiform script
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Cuneiform script, one of the earliest systems of writing, was invented by the Sumerians. It is distinguished by its wedge-shaped marks on clay tablets, made by means of a blunt reed for a stylus, the name cuneiform itself simply means wedge shaped. Emerging in Sumer in the fourth millennium BC, cuneiform writing began as a system of pictograms. In the third millennium, the pictorial representations became simplified and more abstract as the number of characters in use grew smaller, the system consists of a combination of logophonetic, consonantal alphabetic and syllabic signs. Cuneiform writing was replaced by the Phoenician alphabet during the Neo-Assyrian Empire. By the second century CE, the script had become extinct, between half a million and two million cuneiform tablets are estimated to have been excavated in modern times, of which only approximately 30,000 –100,000 have been read or published. Most of these have lain in these collections for a century without being translated,
2.
Sumerian inscription in monumental archaic style, c. 26th century B.C.E.
3.
Letter sent by the high-priest Lu'enna to the king of
Lagash (maybe
Urukagina), informing him of his son's death in combat, c. 2400 B.C.E., found in
Telloh (ancient Girsu).
4.
Cuneiform inscriptions, Stela of Iddi-Sin, king of Simurrum.
Early Dynastic Period (Mesopotamia)
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The Early Dynastic period is an archaeological culture in southern Mesopotamia, generally dated to approximately 2900–2350 BC. It was preceded by the Uruk period and Jemdet Nasr period, which saw the formation of the first states, the first cities, and the invention of writing. The ED period itself was characterized by the existence of multiple city-states and this development ultimately led to the unification of much of southern Mesopotamia under the rule of Sargon of Akkad, the first king of the Akkadian Empire. Despite this political fragmentation, the Early Dynastic city-states shared a relatively homogeneous material culture, Sumerian cities like Uruk, Ur, Lagash, Umma and Nippur, located in the south of Mesopotamia, were very powerful and influential. To the north and west stretched states centered on such as Kish, Mari, Nagar. The study of central and southern Mesopotamia has long been given priority over neighboring regions, as a result, this area was always better known than n
1.
Early Dynastic period
2.
Sumerian Worshiper
3.
An Inscribed stand's head, early dynastic period.
Girsu
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Girsu was a city of ancient Sumer, situated some 25 km northwest of Lagash, at the site of modern Tell Telloh, Dhi Qar Governorate, Iraq. Girsu was possibly inhabited in the Ubaid period, but significant levels of activity began in the Early Dynastic period. At the time of Gudea, during the Second Dynasty of Lagash, Girsu became the capital of the Lagash kingdom, during the Ur III period, Girsu was a major administrative center for the empire. After the fall of Ur, Girsu declined in importance, excavations continued under Abbé Henri de Genouillac in 1929–1931 and under André Parrot in 1931–1933. It was at Girsu that the fragments of the Stele of the Vultures were found, the site has suffered from poor excavation standards and also from illegal excavations. About 50,000 cuneiform tablets have been recovered from the site, media related to Girsu at Wikimedia Commons Ningirsu Statues of Gudea Short chronology timeline Cities of the ancient Near East Harriet Crawford, The Construction Infé
Iraq
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The capital, and largest city, is Baghdad. The main ethnic groups are Arabs and Kurds, others include Assyrians, Turkmen, Shabakis, Yazidis, Armenians, Mandeans, Circassians, around 95% of the countrys 36 million citizens are Muslims, with Christianity, Yarsan, Yezidism, and Mandeanism also present. The official languages of Iraq are Arabic and Kurdish, two major rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, run south through Iraq and into the Shatt al-Arab near the Persian Gulf. These rivers provide Iraq with significant amounts of fertile land, the region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, historically known as Mesopotamia, is often referred to as the cradle of civilisation. It was here that mankind first began to read, write, create laws, the area has been home to successive civilisations since the 6th millennium BC. Iraq was the centre of the Akkadian, Sumerian, Assyrian and it was also part of the Median, Achaemenid, Hellenistic, Parthian, Sassanid, Roman, Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, Ay
4.
Bill of sale of a male slave and a building in
Shuruppak, Sumerian tablet, circa 2600 BCE
Mesopotamia
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In the Iron Age, it was controlled by the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires. The Sumerians and Akkadians dominated Mesopotamia from the beginning of history to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC. It fell to Alexander the Great in 332 BC, and after his death, around 150 BC, Mesopotamia was under the control of the Parthian Empire. Mesopotamia became a battleground between the Romans and Parthians, with parts of Mesopotamia coming under ephemeral Roman control. In AD226, eastern part of it fell to the Sassanid Persians, division of Mesopotamia between Roman and Sassanid Empires lasted until the 7th century Muslim conquest of Persia of the Sasanian Empire and Muslim conquest of the Levant from Byzantines. A number of primarily neo-Assyrian and Christian native Mesopotamian states existed between the 1st century BC and 3rd century AD, including Adiabene, Osroene, and Hatra, Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC. The regional
1.
Known world of the Mesopotamian, Babylonian, and Assyrian cultures from documentary sources
2.
Map showing the extent of Mesopotamia
4.
One of the
Nimrud ivories shows a lion eating a man. Neo-Assyrian period, 9th to 7th centuries BC.
Lagash
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Lagash/ˈleɪɡæʃ/ is an ancient city located northwest of the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and east of Uruk, about 22 kilometres east of the modern town of Ash Shatrah, Iraq. Lagash was one of the oldest cities of the Ancient Near East, the ancient site of Nina is around 10 km away and marks the southern limit of the state. Nearby Girsu, about 25 km northwest of Lagash, was the center of the Lagash state. Lagashs main temple was the E-Ninnu, dedicated to the god Ningirsu, from inscriptions found at Girsu such as the Gudea cylinders, it appears that Lagash was an important Sumerian city in the late 3rd millennium BC. It was at that time ruled by independent kings, Ur-Nanshe and his successors, who were engaged in contests with the Elamites on the east and the kings of Kienĝir and Kish on the north. After the collapse of Sargons state, Lagash again thrived under its independent kings, Ur-Bau and Gudea and his was especially the era of artistic development. We even have a goo
1.
Relief of
Ur-Nanshe. At the top he creates the foundation for a shrine, at the bottom he presides over the dedication (
Louvre).
Umma
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Umma was an ancient city in Sumer. There is some debate about the Sumerian and Akkadian names for this site. Until recently Umma was identified with Tell Jokha, less than 7 km to its northwest, in the early Sumerian text Inannas descent to the netherworld, Inanna dissuades demons from the netherworld from taking Shara, patron of Umma, who was living in squalor. They eventually take Dumuzid king of Uruk instead, who lived in palatial opulence, best known for its long frontier conflict with Lagash, the city reached its zenith c.2275 BC, under the rule of Lugal-Zage-Si, who also controlled Ur and Uruk. Under the Ur III dynasty, Umma became an important provincial center, most of the over 30,000 cuneiform tablets recovered from the site are administrative and economic texts from that time. They permit an excellent insight into provincial affairs in Umma, the Umma calendar of Shulgi is the immediate predecessor of the later Babylonian calendar, and indirectly of the post-exilic Hebrew calen
Vultures
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Some traditional Old World vultures are not closely related to the others, which is why the vultures are to be subdivided into three taxa rather than two. A particular characteristic of many vultures is a head, devoid of normal feathers. Although it has been believed to help keep the head clean when feeding. Vultures have been observed to hunch their bodies and tuck in their heads in the cold, a group of vultures is called a wake, committee, kettle, venue, or volt. The term kettle refers to vultures in flight, while committee refers to vultures resting in trees, wake is reserved for a group of vultures that are feeding. The word Geier does not have a meaning in ornithology, it is occasionally used to refer to a vulture in English. The Old World vultures found in Africa, Asia, and Europe belong to the family Accipitridae, which includes eagles, kites, buzzards. Old World vultures find carcasses exclusively by sight, however, recent DNA evidence suggests that they should be included amon
1.
Vulture
2.
Griffon vulture soaring
Stele
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A stele is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected in ancient Western culture as a monument. Grave steles were often used for funerary or commemorative purposes, Stelae as slabs of stone would also be used as ancient Greek and Roman government notices or as boundary markers to mark borders or property lines. The surface of the stele usually has text, ornamentation, or both, the ornamentation may be inscribed, carved in relief, or painted. Traditional Western gravestones may technically be considered the equivalent of ancient stelae. The most famous example of an inscribed stela leading to increased understanding is the Rosetta Stone, an informative stele of Tiglath-Pileser III is preserved in the British Museum. Two steles built into the walls of a church are major documents relating to the Etruscan language, unfinished standing stones, set up without inscriptions from Libya in North Africa to Scotland were monuments of pre-literate Megalithic cultures in the
3.
Chinese ink rubbings of the 1489 (left) and 1512 (right) steles left by the
Kaifeng Jews.
4.
Grave Stela of Nehemes-Ra-tawy, ca. 760-656 B.C.E.,37.588E,
Brooklyn Museum
Ernest de Sarzec
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Ernest Choquin de Sarzec was a French archaeologist, to whom is attributed the discovery of the civilization of ancient Sumer. He was in the French diplomatic service, on being transferred to Basra in 1872 as a vice-consul, he interested in the excavations at Ur. In 1877, he began a dig at Telloh, the site, in present-day Iraq in the southern delta lowlands, had been drawn to his attention by local dealers in antiquities. During the 1880s he succeeded in finding evidence of the reign of Gudea and he continued to work on the site until 1901
1.
Ernest de Sarzec
2.
5-mina weight with the name of Shu-Shin, king of
Sumer and
Akkad
British Museum
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The British Museum is dedicated to human history, art and culture, and is located in the Bloomsbury area of London. The British Museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the physician, the museum first opened to the public on 15 January 1759, in Montagu House, on the site of the current building. Although today principally a museum of art objects and antiquities. Its foundations lie in the will of the Irish-born British physician, on 7 June 1753, King George II gave his formal assent to the Act of Parliament which established the British Museum. They were joined in 1757 by the Old Royal Library, now the Royal manuscripts, together these four foundation collections included many of the most treasured books now in the British Library including the Lindisfarne Gospels and the sole surviving copy of Beowulf. The British Museum was the first of a new kind of museum – national, belonging to neither church nor king, freely open to the public, sloanes collection, whil
1.
British Museum
2.
The centre of the museum was redeveloped in 2001 to become the
Great Court, surrounding the original
Reading Room.
Victory Stele of Naram-Sin
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The Victory Stele of Naram-Sin is a stele that dates to approximately 2254-2218 BC, in the time of the Akkadian Empire. The relief measures six feet in height and was carved in pink limestone and it depicts the King Naram-Sin of Akkad leading the Akkadian army to victory over the mountain people, the Lullubi. Naram-Sin in shown as by far the most important figure, he is shown towering over his enemy and troops and this is supposed to convey their uncivilized and barbaric nature making the conquest justified. The stele is unique in two regards, most conquest depictions are shown horizontally, with the King being at the top-center. This stele depicts the victory in a fashion with the King still being at the top-center. The second unique aspect of the piece is that Naram-Sin is shown wearing a helmet or shown as the face of lion. Helmets of this type at the time when this stele was commissioned were only worn by the Gods and this stele is in essence telling the viewer that Naram-Sin is a
1.
The Victory Steele of Naram Sin
Akkadian Empire
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The empire united all the Akkadian and Sumerian speakers under one rule. The Akkadian Empire controlled Mesopotamia, the Levant, and eastern and southern parts of Anatolia and Iran, sending military expeditions as far south as Dilmun and Magan in the Arabian Peninsula. During the 3rd millennium BC, there developed an intimate cultural symbiosis between the Sumerians and the Akkadians, which included widespread bilingualism. Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as a spoken language somewhere between the 3rd and the 2nd millennia BC, the Akkadian Empire reached its political peak between the 24th and 22nd centuries BC, following the conquests by its founder Sargon of Akkad. Under Sargon and his successors, the Akkadian language was imposed on neighboring conquered states such as Elam. Akkad is sometimes regarded as the first empire in history, though there are earlier Sumerian claimants, the Bible refers to Akkad in Genesis 10,10, which states that the beginning of Nimrods kingdom was in
1.
Map of the Akkadian Empire (brown) and the directions in which military campaigns were conducted (yellow arrows)
2.
Bronze head of an Akkadian, probably an image of Manishtusu or Naram-Sin; descendants of Sargon (
National Museum of Iraq)
3.
Kings of the Akkad Dynasty
Zu (mythology)
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Anzû, before misread as Zû, also known as Imdugud, is a lesser divinity or monster in several Mesopotamian religions. He was conceived by the waters of the Apsu and the wide Earth. Anzû was seen as a bird who can breathe fire and water. However, the Anzu character does appear briefly in some other writings. In Sumerian and Akkadian mythology, Anzû is a divine storm-bird and the personification of the southern wind and this demon—half man and half bird—stole the Tablet of Destinies from Enlil and hid them on a mountaintop. Anu ordered the gods to retrieve the tablet, even though they all feared the demon. According to one text, Marduk killed the bird, in another, Anzu appears in the Sumerian Lugalbanda and the Anzud Bird. Anzu also appears in the story Inanna and the tree, which is part of the Akkadian story of Gilgamesh in the section called Gilgamesh, Enkidu. The shorter Old Babylonian version was found at Susa, the longer Late Assyrian version from Nineveh is most commonly called The
3.
Inscribed head of a mace with Imdugud (Anzu) and Enannatum, the British Museum, London.
4.
Frieze of Imdugud (Anzu) grasping a pair of deer, from Tell Al-Ubaid.
Vulture
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Some traditional Old World vultures are not closely related to the others, which is why the vultures are to be subdivided into three taxa rather than two. A particular characteristic of many vultures is a head, devoid of normal feathers. Although it has been believed to help keep the head clean when feeding. Vultures have been observed to hunch their bodies and tuck in their heads in the cold, a group of vultures is called a wake, committee, kettle, venue, or volt. The term kettle refers to vultures in flight, while committee refers to vultures resting in trees, wake is reserved for a group of vultures that are feeding. The word Geier does not have a meaning in ornithology, it is occasionally used to refer to a vulture in English. The Old World vultures found in Africa, Asia, and Europe belong to the family Accipitridae, which includes eagles, kites, buzzards. Old World vultures find carcasses exclusively by sight, however, recent DNA evidence suggests that they should be included amon
1.
Vulture
2.
Griffon vulture soaring
Eannatum
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Eannatum was a Sumerian king of Lagash, he established one of the first verifiable empires in history. One inscription found on a states that Eannatum was his Sumerian name. Eannatum, grandson of Ur-Nanshe, was a king of Lagash who conquered all of Sumer, including Ur, Nippur, Akshak, Larsa and he also annexed the kingdom of Kish, which regained its independence after his death. Eannatum expanded his influence beyond the boundaries of Sumer and he conquered parts of Elam, including the city Az off the coast of the modern Persian Gulf, allegedly smote Shubur, and demanded tribute as far as Mari. However, revolts often arose in parts of his empire, during Eannatum’s reign, many temples and palaces were built, especially in Lagash. The city of Nina, probably a precursor of Niniveh, was rebuilt, with many canals, the so-called Stele of the Vultures, now in the Louvre, is a fragmented limestone stele found in Telloh, Iraq, in 1881. The stele is reconstructed as having been 1.80 metres high
Phalanx formation
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The phalanx was a rectangular mass military formation, usually composed entirely of heavy infantry armed with spears, pikes, sarissas, or similar weapons. In Greek texts, the phalanx may be deployed for battle, on the march, even camped and they marched forward as one entity. The word phalanx is derived from the Greek word phalangos, meaning finger, the term itself, as used today, does not refer to a distinctive military unit or division, but to the general formation of an armys troops. Thus a phalanx does not have a combat strength or composition but includes the total number of infantry. Many spear-armed troops historically fought in what might be termed phalanx-like formations, the word has come into use in common English to describe a group of people standing, or moving forward closely together, c. f. This article focuses on the use of the phalanx formation in Ancient Greece, the Hellenistic world. The earliest known depiction of a phalanx-like formation occurs in a Sumerian stele
2.
A reconstitution illustration of the Greek
hoplites marching in a phalanx formation.
3.
Two standard Macedonian enomotiæ (32 men each) in loose formation 2m. apart (32 ranks).
4.
The same in dense formation; each file 1m. apart (16 ranks).
Libation
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A libation is a ritual pouring of a liquid as an offering to a god or spirit, or in memory of those who have passed on. It was common in many religions of antiquity and continues to be offered in various cultures today, various substances have been used for libations, most commonly wine or olive oil, and in India, ghee. The vessels used in the ritual, including the patera, often had a significant form which differentiated them from secular vessels, the libation could be poured onto something of religious significance, such as an altar, or into the earth. In East Asia, pouring an offering of rice into a stream, symbolises the unattachment from karma. Libation was part of ancient Egyptian society where it was an offering to honor and please the various divinities, sacred ancestors, humans present and not present. It is suggested that libation originated somewhere in the upper Nile Valley and spread out to other regions of Africa, isaiah uses libation as a metaphor when describing the end
4.
Scene of sacrifice, with a libation poured from a jug (Pothos Painter,
Attic red-figure krater, 430–420 BC)
JSTOR
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JSTOR is a digital library founded in 1995. Originally containing digitized back issues of journals, it now also includes books and primary sources. It provides full-text searches of almost 2,000 journals, more than 8,000 institutions in more than 160 countries have access to JSTOR, most access is by subscription, but some older public domain content is freely available to anyone. William G. Bowen, president of Princeton University from 1972 to 1988, JSTOR originally was conceived as a solution to one of the problems faced by libraries, especially research and university libraries, due to the increasing number of academic journals in existence. Most libraries found it prohibitively expensive in terms of cost and space to maintain a collection of journals. By digitizing many journal titles, JSTOR allowed libraries to outsource the storage of journals with the confidence that they would remain available long-term, online access and full-text search ability improved access dramatically. B
International Standard Serial Number
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An International Standard Serial Number is an eight-digit serial number used to uniquely identify a serial publication. The ISSN is especially helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title, ISSN are used in ordering, cataloging, interlibrary loans, and other practices in connection with serial literature. The ISSN system was first drafted as an International Organization for Standardization international standard in 1971, ISO subcommittee TC 46/SC9 is responsible for maintaining the standard. When a serial with the content is published in more than one media type. For example, many serials are published both in print and electronic media, the ISSN system refers to these types as print ISSN and electronic ISSN, respectively. The format of the ISSN is an eight digit code, divided by a hyphen into two four-digit numbers, as an integer number, it can be represented by the first seven digits. The last code digit, which may be 0-9 or an X, is a check digit. Formally, the form
1.
ISSN encoded in an EAN-13 barcode with sequence variant 0 and issue number 5
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial
1.
A 13-digit ISBN, 978-3-16-148410-0, as represented by an
EAN-13 bar code
