1.
The Tower of Babel (Bruegel)
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The Tower of Babel was the subject of three paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The first, a painted on ivory, was painted while Bruegel was in Rome and is now lost. The two surviving paintings, often distinguished by the prefix Great and Little are in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, both are oil paintings on wood panels. The Rotterdam painting is about half the size of the Vienna one, in broad terms they have exactly the same composition, but at a detailed level everything is different, whether in the architecture of the tower, the sky and the landscape around the tower. In Vienna the tower rises at the edge of a large city, Bruegel had visited Rome in 1552–1553. The Tower was also symbolic of the turmoil between the Catholic church and the polyglot Protestant religion that was increasingly popular in the Netherlands. The subject may have had a specific topicality, as the famous Polyglot Bible in six languages, although at first glance the tower appears to be a stable series of concentric pillars, upon closer examination it is apparent that none of the layers lies at a true horizontal. Rather the tower is built as an ascending spiral, the workers in the painting have built the arches perpendicular to the slanted ground, thereby making them unstable and a few arches can already be seen crumbling. The foundation and bottom layers of the tower had not been completed before the layers were constructed. Lucas van Valckenborch, a contemporary of Bruegels, also painted the Tower of Babel in the 1560s and later in his career, both were part of a larger tradition of painting the tower during the 16th and 17th centuries. The story of the Tower of Babel was interpreted as an example of pride punished, moreover, the hectic activity of the engineers, masons and workmen points to a second moral, the futility of much human endeavour. Nimrods doomed building was used to illustrate this meaning in Sebastian Brants Ship of Fools Bruegels knowledge of building procedures and techniques is considerable and correct in detail. Both towers are shown partly-built with stone facings over a massive brick framework, grand and formal architecture of this sort is not a usual interest of Bruegel in either paintings or drawings, although it was typical subject matter for many of his contemporaries. There are no surviving drawings that are studies for this or any other of Bruegels paintings and this is despite indications that Bruegel did make use of preparatory studies. Both Tower versions are full of the type of details which are likely to have worked out in sketches first. Except for a lack of mountains, the paintings contain the ingredients of the world landscape. The Vienna tower is built around a very small mountain. The Vienna painting is signed and dated Brvegel, M. CCCCC. LXIII, on the stone block directly in front of the king
2.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder
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He also painted no portraits, the other mainstay of Netherlandish art. After his training and travels to Italy, he returned in 1555 to settle in Antwerp and he does the same with the fantastic and anarchic world developed in Renaissance prints and book illustrations. He is sometimes referred to as Peasant Bruegel, to him from the many later painters in his family. From 1559, he dropped the h from his name and signed his paintings as Bruegel, the two main early sources for Bruegels biography are Lodovico Guicciardinis account of the Low Countries and Karel van Manders 1604 Schilder-boeck. Guicciardini recorded that Bruegel was born in Breda, but van Mander specified that Bruegel was born in a village near Breda called Brueghel, nothing at all is known of his family background. Van Mander seems to assume he came from a peasant background, in keeping with the over-emphasis on Bruegels peasant genre scenes given by van Mander and many art historians. Breda was already a significant centre as the base of the House of Orange-Nassau, with a population of some 8,000, from the fact that Bruegel entered the Antwerp painters guild in 1551, it is inferred that he was born between 1525 and 1530. His master, according to van Mander, was the Antwerp painter Pieter Coecke van Aelst, between 1545 and 1550 he was a pupil of Pieter Coecke, who died on 6 December 1550. Bruegel possibly got this work via the connections of Mayken Verhulst, maykens father and eight siblings were all artists or married an artist, and lived in Mechelen. In 1551 Bruegel became a master in the Guild of Saint Luke of Antwerp. He set off for Italy soon after, probably by way of France. He visited Rome and, rather adventurously for the period, by 1552 he had reached Reggio Calabria at the tip of the mainland. He probably continued to Sicily, but by 1553 was back in Rome, there he met the miniaturist Giulio Clovio, whose will of 1578 lists paintings by Bruegel, in one case a joint work. These works, apparently landscapes, have not survived, but marginal miniatures in manuscripts by Clovio are attributed to Bruegel, with one exception, Bruegel did not work the plates himself, but produced a drawing which Cocks specialists worked from. In 1563 he was married in Brussels, where he lived for the rest of his life, while Antwerp was the capital of Netherlandish commerce as well as the art market, Brussels was the centre of government. Van Mander tells a story that his mother-in-law pushed for the move to him from his established servant girl mistress. By now painting had become his main activity, and his most famous come from these years. His paintings were sought after, with patrons including wealthy Flemish collectors and Cardinal Granvelle, in effect the Habsburg chief minister
3.
Hebrew language
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Hebrew is a language native to Israel, spoken by over 9 million people worldwide, of whom over 5 million are in Israel. Historically, it is regarded as the language of the Israelites and their ancestors, the earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date from the 10th century BCE. Hebrew belongs to the West Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family, Hebrew is the only living Canaanite language left, and the only truly successful example of a revived dead language. Hebrew had ceased to be a spoken language somewhere between 200 and 400 CE, declining since the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt. Aramaic and to a lesser extent Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among elites and it survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy, rabbinic literature, intra-Jewish commerce, and poetry. Then, in the 19th century, it was revived as a spoken and literary language, and, according to Ethnologue, had become, as of 1998, the language of 5 million people worldwide. After Israel, the United States has the second largest Hebrew-speaking population, with 220,000 fluent speakers, Modern Hebrew is one of the two official languages of the State of Israel, while premodern Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world today. Ancient Hebrew is also the tongue of the Samaritans, while modern Hebrew or Arabic is their vernacular. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Leshon Hakodesh, the modern word Hebrew is derived from the word Ivri, one of several names for the Israelite people. It is traditionally understood to be a based on the name of Abrahams ancestor, Eber. This name is based upon the root ʕ-b-r meaning to cross over. Interpretations of the term ʕibrim link it to this verb, cross over, in the Bible, the Hebrew language is called Yәhudit because Judah was the surviving kingdom at the time of the quotation. In Isaiah 19,18 it is called the Language of Canaan, Hebrew belongs to the Canaanite group of languages. In turn, the Canaanite languages are a branch of the Northwest Semitic family of languages, according to Avraham ben-Yosef, Hebrew flourished as a spoken language in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah during about 1200 to 586 BCE. Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew was a vernacular in ancient times following the Babylonian exile. In July 2008 Israeli archaeologist Yossi Garfinkel discovered a ceramic shard at Khirbet Qeiyafa which he claimed may be the earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, dating around 3000 years ago. The Gezer calendar also dates back to the 10th century BCE at the beginning of the Monarchic Period, classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew, the calendar presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that through the Greeks, the Gezer calendar is written without any vowels, and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places where later Hebrew spelling requires it
4.
Book of Genesis
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The Book of Genesis is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. The basic narrative expresses the theme, God creates the world and appoints man as his regent. The new post-Flood world is also corrupt, God does not destroy it, instead calling one man, Abraham, to be the seed of its salvation. At Gods command Abraham descends from his home into the land of Canaan, given to him by God, Genesis ends with Israel in Egypt, ready for the coming of Moses and the Exodus. The narrative is punctuated by a series of covenants with God, the books author or authors appear to have structured it around ten toledot sections, but modern commentators see it in terms of a primeval history followed by the cycle of Patriarchal stories. In Judaism, the importance of Genesis centers on the covenants linking God to his chosen people. It is not clear, however, what this meant to the original authors, while the first is far shorter than the second, it sets out the basic themes and provides an interpretive key for understanding the entire book. The primeval history has a symmetrical structure hinging on chapters 6–9, God creates the world in six days and consecrates the seventh as a day of rest. God creates the first humans Adam and Eve and all the animals in the Garden of Eden but instructs them not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. A talking serpent portrayed as a creature or trickster, entices Eve into eating it anyway. Eve bears two sons, Cain and Abel, Cain kills Abel after God accepts Abels offering but not Cains. Eve bears another son, Seth, to take Abels place, after many generations of Adam have passed from the lines of Cain and Seth, the world becomes corrupted by the sin of man and Nephilim, and God determines to wipe out mankind. First, he instructs the righteous Noah and his family to build a huge boat, then God sends a great flood to wipe out the rest of the world. When the waters recede, God promises that he not destroy the world a second time with water with the rainbow as the symbol of his promise. But upon seeing mankind cooperating to build a great tower city, God instructs Abram to travel from his home in Mesopotamia to the land of Canaan. Abrams name is changed to Abraham and that of his wife Sarai to Sarah, because Sarah is old, she tells Abraham to take her Egyptian handmaiden, Hagar, as a second wife. God resolves to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for the sins of their people, Abraham protests and gets God to agree not to destroy the cities if 10 righteous men can be found. Angels save Abrahams nephew Lot and his family, but his wife back on the destruction against their command and is turned into a pillar of salt
5.
Human race
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Modern humans are the only extant members of Hominina tribe, a branch of the tribe Hominini belonging to the family of great apes. Several of these hominins used fire, occupied much of Eurasia and they began to exhibit evidence of behavioral modernity around 50,000 years ago. In several waves of migration, anatomically modern humans ventured out of Africa, the spread of humans and their large and increasing population has had a profound impact on large areas of the environment and millions of native species worldwide. Humans are uniquely adept at utilizing systems of communication for self-expression and the exchange of ideas. Humans create complex structures composed of many cooperating and competing groups, from families. Social interactions between humans have established a wide variety of values, social norms, and rituals. These human societies subsequently expanded in size, establishing various forms of government, religion, today the global human population is estimated by the United Nations to be near 7.5 billion. In common usage, the word generally refers to the only extant species of the genus Homo—anatomically and behaviorally modern Homo sapiens. In scientific terms, the meanings of hominid and hominin have changed during the recent decades with advances in the discovery, there is also a distinction between anatomically modern humans and Archaic Homo sapiens, the earliest fossil members of the species. The English adjective human is a Middle English loanword from Old French humain, ultimately from Latin hūmānus, the words use as a noun dates to the 16th century. The native English term man can refer to the species generally, the species binomial Homo sapiens was coined by Carl Linnaeus in his 18th century work Systema Naturae. The generic name Homo is a learned 18th century derivation from Latin homō man, the species-name sapiens means wise or sapient. Note that the Latin word homo refers to humans of either gender, the genus Homo evolved and diverged from other hominins in Africa, after the human clade split from the chimpanzee lineage of the hominids branch of the primates. The closest living relatives of humans are chimpanzees and gorillas, with the sequencing of both the human and chimpanzee genome, current estimates of similarity between human and chimpanzee DNA sequences range between 95% and 99%. The gibbons and orangutans were the first groups to split from the leading to the humans. The splitting date between human and chimpanzee lineages is placed around 4–8 million years ago during the late Miocene epoch, during this split, chromosome 2 was formed from two other chromosomes, leaving humans with only 23 pairs of chromosomes, compared to 24 for the other apes. There is little evidence for the divergence of the gorilla, chimpanzee. Each of these species has been argued to be an ancestor of later hominins
6.
Genesis flood narrative
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The Genesis flood narrative makes up chapters 6–9 in the Book of Genesis, in the Torah. Thus, the flood was a reversal of creation, although many religious groups consider the story to be largely allegorical, there are still many groups and individuals who believe the story to be literally true. Genesis 6, 1–4 presents the reason for the flood, the Sons of God marry the daughters of men and sire a race of giants, mighty men which of old, men of renown. Genesis continues, And GOD saw that the wickedness of man great in the earth, God decides to destroy the world in a reversal of creation. The flood occurs because God judges humanity, in Genesis 6, 5-8, the LORD judged man for being wicked and evil. In verses Genesis 6, 11-22, God judged all flesh for being corrupt, the judgment in verses 6, 5–8 is thought to have been written earlier and later combined with the second. This element of judgment makes the flood story different from the flood in the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh. In the Gilgamesh story, the flood is mentioned only in passing as part of the Epic tale itself, beginning with Genesis 6,14, God instructed Noah to build an ark to save his immediate family, along with samples of animal life. The ark was to be made of wood covered with pitch inside and outside. The ark was 300 cubits long,50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high, and it had an opening for daylight near the top, an entrance on its side, and three decks. God told Noah that he, his sons, his wife, his sons wives, and two of each kind of beast – male and female – would survive in the ark. The Priestly source, Genesis 7,11,8, 1-2, describes the nature of the waters as a cosmic cataclysm, by the opening of the springs of the deep. This is the reverse of the separation of the waters recounted in the Genesis creation narrative of chapter 1. After Noah and the remnant of animals were secured, the fountains of the great deep, the waters elevated, with the summits of the highest mountains under 15 cubits of water, flooding the world for 150 days, and then receding in 220 days. The Jahwist version of how the waters came to be is indicated in Genesis 7,12. During this time, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat, then he sends out a dove to see if the waters had decreased from the ground, but the dove could not find a resting place, and returned to the ark. He waited another seven days, and again sent out the dove, and he waited another seven days and sent out the dove, and it did not return. When Noah removed the covering of the ark, he saw that the ground was drying, God makes a pledge of commitment to Noah in Genesis 9, 1–17
7.
City
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A city is a large and permanent human settlement. Cities generally have complex systems for sanitation, utilities, land usage, housing, a big city or metropolis usually has associated suburbs and exurbs. Such cities are associated with metropolitan areas and urban areas. Once a city expands far enough to another city, this region can be deemed a conurbation or megalopolis. Damascus is arguably the oldest city in the world, in terms of population, the largest city proper is Shanghai, while the fastest-growing is Dubai. There is not enough evidence to assert what conditions gave rise to the first cities, some theorists have speculated on what they consider suitable pre-conditions and basic mechanisms that might have been important driving forces. The conventional view holds that cities first formed after the Neolithic revolution, the Neolithic revolution brought agriculture, which made denser human populations possible, thereby supporting city development. The advent of farming encouraged hunter-gatherers to abandon nomadic lifestyles and to settle near others who lived by agricultural production, the increased population density encouraged by farming and the increased output of food per unit of land created conditions that seem more suitable for city-like activities. In his book, Cities and Economic Development, Paul Bairoch takes up position in his argument that agricultural activity appears necessary before true cities can form. According to Vere Gordon Childe, for a settlement to qualify as a city, it must have enough surplus of raw materials to support trade and a relatively large population. To illustrate this point, Bairoch offers an example, Western Europe during the pre-Neolithic, when the cost of transport is taken into account, the figure rises to 200,000 square kilometres. Bairoch noted that this is roughly the size of Great Britain, the urban theorist Jane Jacobs suggests that city formation preceded the birth of agriculture, but this view is not widely accepted. In his book City Economics, Brendan OFlaherty asserts Cities could persist—as they have for thousands of years—only if their advantages offset the disadvantages, OFlaherty illustrates two similar attracting advantages known as increasing returns to scale and economies of scale, which are concepts usually associated with businesses. Their applications are seen in more basic economic systems as well, increasing returns to scale occurs when doubling all inputs more than doubles the output an activity has economies of scale if doubling output less than doubles cost. To offer an example of these concepts, OFlaherty makes use of one of the oldest reasons why cities were built, in this example, the inputs are anything that would be used for protection and the output is the area protected and everything of value contained in it. OFlaherty then asks that we suppose the protected area is square, the advantage is expressed as, O = s 2, where O is the output and s stands for the length of a side. This equation shows that output is proportional to the square of the length of a side, the inputs depend on the length of the perimeter, I =4 s, where I stands for the quantity of inputs. So there are increasing returns to scale, O = I2 /16 and this equation shows that with twice the inputs, you produce quadruple the output
8.
Tower
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A tower is a tall structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant margin. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, Towers are specifically distinguished from buildings in that they are not built to be habitable but to serve other functions. Towers can be stand alone structures or be supported by adjacent buildings or can be a feature on top of a structure or building. Old English torr is from Latin turris via Old French tor, the Latin term together with Greek τύρσις was loaned from a pre-Indo-European Mediterranean language, connected with the Illyrian toponym Βου-δοργίς. The oldest known may be the stone tower in walls of Neolithic Jericho. Some of the earliest towers were ziggurats, which existed in Sumerian architecture since the 4th millennium BC, the most famous ziggurats include the Sumerian Ziggurat of Ur, built the 3rd millennium BC, and the Etemenanki, one of the most famous examples of Babylonian architecture. The latter was built in Babylon during the 2nd millennium BC and was considered the tallest tower of the ancient world, some of the earliest surviving examples are the broch structures in northern Scotland, which are conical towerhouses. These and other examples from Phoenician and Roman cultures emphasised the use of a tower in fortification, for example, the name of the Moroccan city of Mogador, founded in the first millennium BC, is derived from the Phoenician word for watchtower. The Romans utilised octagonal towers as elements of Diocletians Palace in Croatia, which monument dates to approximately 300 AD, while the Servian Walls, the Chinese used towers as integrated elements of the Great Wall of China in 210 BC during the Qin Dynasty. Towers were also an important element of castles, other well known towers include the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Pisa, Italy built from 1173 until 1372 and the Two Towers in Bologna, Italy built from 1109 until 1119. The Himalayan Towers are stone towers located chiefly in Tibet built approximately 14th to 15th century, up to a certain height, a tower can be made with the supporting structure with parallel sides. However, above a height, the compressive load of the material is exceeded. This can be avoided if the support structure tapers up the building. A second limit is that of buckling—the structure requires sufficient stiffness to avoid breaking under the loads it faces, many very tall towers have their support structures at the periphery of the building, which greatly increases the overall stiffness. A third limit is dynamic, a tower is subject to varying winds, vortex shedding and these are often dealt with through a combination of simple strength and stiffness, as well as in some cases tuned mass dampers to damp out movements. Varying or tapering the outer aspect of the tower with height avoids vibrations due to vortex shedding occurring along the building simultaneously. Although not correctly called towers many modern skyscraper are often called towers, in the United Kingdom, tall domestic buildings are referred to as tower blocks. In the United States, the original World Trade Center had the nickname the Twin Towers, the tower throughout history has provided its users with an advantage in surveying defensive positions and obtaining a better view of the surrounding areas, including battlefields
9.
Heaven
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According to the beliefs of some religions, heavenly beings can descend to earth or incarnate, and earthly beings can ascend to Heaven in the afterlife, or in exceptional cases enter Heaven alive. Some believe in the possibility of a Heaven on Earth in a World to Come, another belief is in an axis mundi or world tree which connects the heavens, the terrestrial world, and the underworld. In Indian religions, Heaven is considered as Svarga loka, and this cycle can be broken after a soul achieves Moksha or Nirvana. Any place of existence, either of humans, souls or deities, the modern English word heaven is derived from the earlier heven, this in turn was developed from the previous Old English form heofon. By about 1000, heofon was being used in reference to the Christianized place where God dwells, all of these have been derived from a reconstructed Proto-Germanic form *Hemina-. In Ancient Egyptian religion, belief in an afterlife is much more stressed than in ancient Judaism, Heaven was a physical place far above the Earth in a dark area of space where there were no stars, basically beyond the Universe. Their heart would finally be weighed with the feather of truth, almost nothing is known of Bronze Age Canaanite views of Heaven, and the archeological findings at Ugarit have not provided information. The 1st century Greek author Philo of Byblos may preserve elements of Iron Age Phoenician religion in his Sanchuniathon, in the Middle Hittite myths, Heaven is the abode of the gods. In the Song of Kumarbi, Alalu was king in Heaven for nine years before giving birth to his son, Anu was himself overthrown by his son, Kumarbi. The Baháí Faith regards the description of Heaven as a specific place as symbolic. The Baháí writings describe Heaven as a condition where closeness to God is defined as Heaven. For Baháís, entry into the life has the potential to bring great joy. Baháulláh likened death to the process of birth and he explains, The world beyond is as different from this world as this world is different from that of the child while still in the womb of its mother. Accordingly, Baháís view life as a stage, where one can develop. The key to progress is to follow the path outlined by the current Manifestation of God. Baháulláh wrote, Know thou, of a truth, that if the soul of man hath walked in the ways of God, it will, assuredly return, in Buddhism there are several Heavens, all of which are still part of samsara. Those who accumulate good karma may be reborn in one of them, however, their stay in Heaven is not eternal—eventually they will use up their good karma and will undergo rebirth into another realm, as a human, animal or other being. Because Heaven is temporary and part of samsara, Buddhists focus more on escaping the cycle of rebirth, Nirvana is not a heaven but a mental state
10.
Ziggurat
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A ziggurat was a massive structure built in ancient Mesopotamia and the western Iranian plateau. It had the form of a step pyramid of successively receding stories or levels. Notable ziggurats include the Great Ziggurat of Ur near Nasiriyah, the Ziggurat of Aqar Quf near Baghdad, Ziggurats were built by the ancient Sumerians, Babylonians, Elamites, Akkadians, and Assyrians for local religions. Each ziggurat was part of a complex which included other buildings. The precursors of the ziggurat were raised platforms that date from the Ubaid period during the fourth millennium BCE, the earliest ziggurats began as a platform, the ziggurat was a pyramidal structure with a flat top. Sun-baked bricks made up the core of the ziggurat with facings of fired bricks on the outside, each step was slightly smaller than the step below it. The facings were often glazed in different colors and may have had astrological significance, kings sometimes had their names engraved on these glazed bricks. The number of floors ranged from two to seven, according to archaeologist Harriet Crawford, It is usually assumed that the ziggurats supported a shrine, though the only evidence for this comes from Herodotus, and physical evidence is nonexistent. It has also suggested by a number of scholars that this shrine was the scene of the sacred marriage. Herodotus describes the furnishing of the shrine on top of the ziggurat at Babylon, the god Marduk was also said to come and sleep in his shrine. The likelihood of such a shrine ever being found is sadly remote, erosion has usually reduced the surviving ziggurats to a fraction of their original height, but textual evidence may yet provide more facts about the purpose of these shrines. Access to the shrine would have been by a series of ramps on one side of the ziggurat or by a ramp from base to summit. The Mesopotamian ziggurats were not places for worship or ceremonies. They were believed to be dwelling places for the gods and each city had its own patron god, only priests were permitted on the ziggurat or in the rooms at its base, and it was their responsibility to care for the gods and attend to their needs. The priests were very powerful members of Sumerian society, one of the best-preserved ziggurats is Chogha Zanbil in western Iran. The Sialk ziggurat, in Kashan, Iran, is the oldest known ziggurat, Ziggurat designs ranged from simple bases upon which a temple sat, to marvels of mathematics and construction which spanned several terraced stories and were topped with a temple. An example of a simple ziggurat is the White Temple of Uruk, the ziggurat itself is the base on which the White Temple is set. Its purpose is to get the temple closer to the heavens, the Mesopotamians believed that these pyramid temples connected heaven and earth
11.
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 toponym Mesopotamia comes from the ancient Greek root words μέσος middle and ποταμός river and it is used throughout the Greek Septuagint to translate the Hebrew equivalent Naharaim. In the Anabasis, Mesopotamia was used to designate the land east of the Euphrates in north Syria, the Aramaic term biritum/birit narim corresponded to a similar geographical concept. The neighbouring steppes to the west of the Euphrates and the part of the Zagros Mountains are also often included under the wider term Mesopotamia. A further distinction is made between Northern or Upper Mesopotamia and Southern or Lower Mesopotamia. Upper Mesopotamia, also known as the Jazira, is the area between the Euphrates and the Tigris from their sources down to Baghdad, Lower Mesopotamia is the area from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf and includes Kuwait and parts of western Iran. In modern academic usage, the term Mesopotamia often also has a chronological connotation and it is usually used to designate the area until the Muslim conquests, with names like Syria, Jazirah, and Iraq being used to describe the region after that date. It has been argued that these later euphemisms are Eurocentric terms attributed to the region in the midst of various 19th-century Western encroachments, Mesopotamia encompasses the land between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, both of which have their headwaters in the Armenian Highlands. Both rivers are fed by tributaries, and the entire river system drains a vast mountainous region. Overland routes in Mesopotamia usually follow the Euphrates because the banks of the Tigris are frequently steep and difficult. The climate of the region is semi-arid with a vast desert expanse in the north which gives way to a 15,000 square kilometres region of marshes, lagoons, mud flats, in the extreme south, the Euphrates and the Tigris unite and empty into the Persian Gulf. In the marshlands to the south of the area, a complex water-borne fishing culture has existed since prehistoric times, periodic breakdowns in the cultural system have occurred for a number of reasons. Alternatively, military vulnerability to invasion from marginal hill tribes or nomadic pastoralists has led to periods of trade collapse and these trends have continued to the present day in Iraq
12.
Marduk
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Marduk was a late-generation god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon. In the city of Babylon, he resided in the temple Esagila, Marduk is associated with the divine weapon Imhullu. Marduk is the Babylonian form of his name, according to The Encyclopedia of Religion, the name Marduk was probably pronounced Marutuk. The etymology of the name Marduk is conjectured as derived from amar-Utu, the origin of Marduks name may reflect an earlier genealogy, or have had cultural ties to the ancient city of Sippar, dating back to the third millennium BC. In the perfected system of astrology, Jupiter was associated with Marduk by the Hammurabi period, Marduks original character is obscure but he was later associated with water, vegetation, judgment, and magic. His consort was the goddess Sarpanit, there are particularly two gods—Ea and Enlil—whose powers and attributes pass over to Marduk. In the case of Ea, the transfer proceeded pacifically and without effacing the older god. Marduk took over the identity of Asarluhi, the son of Ea and god of magic, father Ea voluntarily recognized the superiority of the son and hands over to him the control of humanity. Babylon became independent in the early 19th century BC, and was initially a city state, overshadowed by older and more powerful Mesopotamian states such as Isin, Larsa. The only serious rival to Marduk after ca.1750 BC was the god Aššur which was the dominant power in the region between the 14th to the late 7th century BC, in the south, Marduk reigned supreme. When Babylon became the city of southern Mesopotamia during the reign of Hammurabi in the 18th century BC. In order to explain how Marduk seized power, Enûma Elish was written and this can be viewed as a form of Mesopotamian apologetics. Also included in this document are the fifty names of Marduk, in Enûma Elish, a civil war between the gods was growing to a climactic battle. The Anunnaki gods gathered together to one god who could defeat the gods rising against them. Marduk, a young god, answered the call and was promised the position of head god. Then he sets out for battle, mounting his storm-chariot drawn by four horses with poison in their mouths, in his lips he holds a spell and in one hand he grasps a herb to counter poison. Under his reign humans were created to bear the burdens of life so the gods could be at leisure, Marduk was depicted as a human, often with his symbol the snake-dragon which he had taken over from the god Tishpak. Another symbol that stood for Marduk was the spade, Babylonian texts talk of the creation of Eridu by the god Marduk as the first city, the holy city, the dwelling of their delight
13.
Nabopolassar
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Nabopolassar was a king of Babylonia and a central figure in the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The death of Assyrian king Ashurbanipal around 627 BC resulted in political instability, in 626 BC, a native dynasty arose under Nabopolassar, a former Assyrian official. Nabopolassar made Babylon his capital and ruled over Babylonia for a period of twenty years. He is credited with founding the Neo-Babylonian Empire, by 616 BC, Nabopolassar had united the entire area under his rule. Nabopolassar formed an alliance with Cyaxares of the Medes to confront the Assyrians, by 615 BC he had seized Nippur. He then led his forces to assist the Medes besieging the city of Ashur, assyria, weakened by internal strife and ineffectual rule, was unable to resist the Babylonians and the Medes, who united to sack the Assyrian capital of Nineveh in 612 BC. Following a prolonged siege at the Battle of Nineveh, Nabopolassar took control of the city, Ashur-uballit II was a member of the Assyrian royal family and a tartan in the army. He became king after Sin-shar-ishkun, who may have been his brother, Ashur-uballit II rallied his troops at the city of Harran in northern Syria. The following year the Babylonians plundered the region of Harran, and in 610 BC, in the spring of 609 BC, Necho II of Egypt led a sizable force to help the Assyrians. At the head of an army, consisting mainly of mercenaries, Necho took the coastal Via Maris into Syria. He prepared to cross the ridge of hills which shuts in on the south the great Jezreel Valley and their king, Josiah, sided with the Babylonians and attempted to block his advance at Megiddo, where a fierce battle was fought and Josiah was killed. Necho continued on and joining forces with Ashur-uballit, they crossed the Euphrates, failing to capture Harran, they retreated to northern Syria. In 605 BC, Nabopolassars son, crown prince Nebuchadnezzar fought Necho, within months of his abdication in 605 BC, Nabopolassar died of natural causes at about 53 years of age, and Nebuchadnezzar II hurried to Babylon to secure the throne. During Nabopolassars reign, there was a boom of Neo-Babylonian building projects that would continue through the reign of his son, the first mention of Nebuchadnezzar II comes from the records of Nabopolassar, saying he was a laborer in the restoration of the temple of Marduk. A cylinder found in 1921 in Baghdad, Iraq is attributed to Nabopolassar and he is described therein as extremely pious, and that he sought out the temples. and the complete performance of their rites. He attributes his success to Shazu, throughout the inscription, Nabopolassar describes some of his greatest military conquests and submits himself to Marduk and other deities
14.
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
15.
Alexander the Great
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Alexander III of Macedon, commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon and a member of the Argead dynasty. He was born in Pella in 356 BC and succeeded his father Philip II to the throne at the age of twenty and he was undefeated in battle and is widely considered one of historys most successful military commanders. During his youth, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle until the age of 16, after Philips assassination in 336 BC, he succeeded his father to the throne and inherited a strong kingdom and an experienced army. Alexander was awarded the generalship of Greece and used this authority to launch his fathers Panhellenic project to lead the Greeks in the conquest of Persia, in 334 BC, he invaded the Achaemenid Empire and began a series of campaigns that lasted ten years. Following the conquest of Anatolia, Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of battles, most notably the battles of Issus. He subsequently overthrew Persian King Darius III and conquered the Achaemenid Empire in its entirety, at that point, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River. He sought to reach the ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea and invaded India in 326 BC and he eventually turned back at the demand of his homesick troops. Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BC, the city that he planned to establish as his capital, without executing a series of planned campaigns that would have begun with an invasion of Arabia. In the years following his death, a series of civil wars tore his empire apart, resulting in the establishment of several states ruled by the Diadochi, Alexanders surviving generals, Alexanders legacy includes the cultural diffusion which his conquests engendered, such as Greco-Buddhism. He founded some twenty cities that bore his name, most notably Alexandria in Egypt, Alexander became legendary as a classical hero in the mold of Achilles, and he features prominently in the history and mythic traditions of both Greek and non-Greek cultures. He became the measure against which military leaders compared themselves, and he is often ranked among the most influential people in human history. He was the son of the king of Macedon, Philip II, and his wife, Olympias. Although Philip had seven or eight wives, Olympias was his wife for some time. Several legends surround Alexanders birth and childhood, sometime after the wedding, Philip is said to have seen himself, in a dream, securing his wifes womb with a seal engraved with a lions image. Plutarch offered a variety of interpretations of dreams, that Olympias was pregnant before her marriage, indicated by the sealing of her womb. On the day Alexander was born, Philip was preparing a siege on the city of Potidea on the peninsula of Chalcidice. That same day, Philip received news that his general Parmenion had defeated the combined Illyrian and Paeonian armies, and it was also said that on this day, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, burnt down. This led Hegesias of Magnesia to say that it had burnt down because Artemis was away, such legends may have emerged when Alexander was king, and possibly at his own instigation, to show that he was superhuman and destined for greatness from conception
16.
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
17.
Bible
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The Bible is a collection of sacred texts or scriptures that Jews and Christians consider to be a product of divine inspiration and a record of the relationship between God and humans. Many different authors contributed to the Bible, what is regarded as canonical text differs depending on traditions and groups, a number of Bible canons have evolved, with overlapping and diverging contents. The Christian Old Testament overlaps with the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Septuagint, the New Testament is a collection of writings by early Christians, believed to be mostly Jewish disciples of Christ, written in first-century Koine Greek. These early Christian Greek writings consist of narratives, letters, among Christian denominations there is some disagreement about the contents of the canon, primarily the Apocrypha, a list of works that are regarded with varying levels of respect. Attitudes towards the Bible also differ amongst Christian groups and this concept arose during the Protestant Reformation, and many denominations today support the use of the Bible as the only source of Christian teaching. With estimated total sales of over 5 billion copies, the Bible is widely considered to be the book of all time. It has estimated sales of 100 million copies, and has been a major influence on literature and history, especially in the West. The English word Bible is from the Latin biblia, from the word in Medieval Latin and Late Latin. Medieval Latin biblia is short for biblia sacra holy book, while biblia in Greek and it gradually came to be regarded as a feminine singular noun in medieval Latin, and so the word was loaned as a singular into the vernaculars of Western Europe. Latin biblia sacra holy books translates Greek τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια ta biblia ta hagia, the word βιβλίον itself had the literal meaning of paper or scroll and came to be used as the ordinary word for book. It is the diminutive of βύβλος byblos, Egyptian papyrus, possibly so called from the name of the Phoenician sea port Byblos from whence Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece, the Greek ta biblia was an expression Hellenistic Jews used to describe their sacred books. Christian use of the term can be traced to c.223 CE, bruce notes that Chrysostom appears to be the first writer to use the Greek phrase ta biblia to describe both the Old and New Testaments together. The division of the Hebrew Bible into verses is based on the sof passuk cantillation mark used by the 10th-century Masoretes to record the verse divisions used in oral traditions. The oldest extant copy of a complete Bible is an early 4th-century parchment book preserved in the Vatican Library, the oldest copy of the Tanakh in Hebrew and Aramaic dates from the 10th century CE. The oldest copy of a complete Latin Bible is the Codex Amiatinus and he states that it is not a magical book, nor was it literally written by God and passed to mankind. In Christian Bibles, the New Testament Gospels were derived from traditions in the second half of the first century CE. Riches says that, Scholars have attempted to reconstruct something of the history of the oral traditions behind the Gospels, the period of transmission is short, less than 40 years passed between the death of Jesus and the writing of Marks Gospel. This means that there was time for oral traditions to assume fixed form
18.
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
19.
Adam and Eve
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Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, were the first man and woman and the ancestors of all humans. It provides the basis for the belief that humanity is in essence a single family, with everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors. It also provides much of the basis for the doctrines of the fall of man and original sin that are important beliefs in Christianity. In the Book of Genesis of the Hebrew Bible, chapters one through five, in the first, Adam and Eve are not mentioned. Instead, God created humankind in Gods image and instructed them to multiply, in the second narrative, God fashions Adam from dust and places him in the Garden of Eden. Adam is told that he can till the ground and eat freely of all the trees in the garden, except for a tree of the knowledge of good, subsequently, Eve is created from one of Adams ribs to be Adams companion. They are innocent and unashamed about their nakedness, however, a serpent deceives Eve into eating fruit from the forbidden tree, and she gives some of the fruit to Adam. These acts give them additional knowledge, but it gives them the ability to conjure negative and destructive concepts such as shame, God later curses the serpent and the ground. God prophetically tells the woman and the man what will be the consequences of their sin of disobeying God, then he banishes them from the Garden of Eden. The story underwent extensive elaboration in later Abrahamic traditions, and it has been analyzed by modern biblical scholars. The story of Adam and Eve is often depicted in art, the story of the fall of Adam is often understood to be an allegory. There is no evidence that Adam and Eve ever literally existed. In the Book of Genesis, the Genesis creation narrative tells of the creation of the first humans, humankind, in Genesis 1, scholars recognize two separate accounts of the creation in the Old Testament. In the Priestly narrative, God creates the world in six days, culminating in the creation of humanity, here, in the Priestly narrative, the emphasis is on the entirety of the universe and its creation. Here, in the Jahwist narrative, the emphasis is on the Earth within the universe, and humankinds residence on the Earth. Contrast, for example, the order of terms in Genesis 1,1 where it says that God made the heavens and the Earth with Genesis 2,4 where it says God made the Earth and the heavens. In the Jahwist version of the story, God places the man in a garden in Eden where he is permitted to till the land and tend the garden and animals, Genesis 2, 8–15. But none of the animals are found to be a companion for the man, so God causes the man to sleep
20.
Garden of Eden
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The Garden of Eden or often Paradise is the biblical garden of God, described most notably in the Book of Genesis chapters 2 and 3, and also in the Book of Ezekiel. The garden of God, not called Eden, is mentioned in Genesis 13, the Book of Zechariah and the Book of Psalms also refer to trees and water in relation to the temple without explicitly mentioning Eden. Traditionally, the derivation of the name Eden was from the Akkadian edinnu. Eden is now believed to be closely related to an Aramaic root word meaning fruitful. The Hebrew term is translated pleasure in Sarahs secret saying in Genesis 18,12, in the Hebrew Bible, Adam and Eve are depicted as walking around the Garden of Eden naked due to their innocence. Eden and its rivers may signify the real Jerusalem, the Temple of Solomon and it may also represent the divine garden on Zion, and the mountain of God, which was also Jerusalem. The imagery of the Garden, with its serpent and cherubs, has compared to the images of the Solomonic Temple with its copper serpent. The second part of the Genesis creation narrative, Genesis, opens with Adonai Elohim creating the first man, the man was free to eat from any tree in the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Last of all, the God made a woman from a rib of the man to be a companion the man, cherubim were placed east of the garden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep him away from the tree of life. Genesis lists four rivers in association with the garden of Eden, Pishon, Gihon, the Tigris, and it also refers to the land of Cush - translated/interpreted as Ethiopia, but thought by some to equate to Cossaea, a Greek name for the land of the Kassites. These lands lie north of Elam, immediately to the east of ancient Babylon, in Antiquities of the Jews, the first-century Jewish historian Josephus identifies the Pishon as what the Greeks called Ganges and the Geon as the Nile. According to Terje Stordalen, the Eden in Ezekiel appears to be located in Lebanon. According to the Bible, the location of Eden is described in the Book of Genesis, chapter 2, verse 10-14, A river flowed from Eden to water the garden, and from there it divided to make four streams. The first is named the Pishon, and this winds all through the land of Havilah where there is gold, the gold of this country is pure, bdellium and cornelian stone are found there. The second river is named the Gihon, and this winds all through the land of Cush, the third river is named the Tigris, and this flows to the east of Ashur. The fourth river is the Euphrates, the city of Dilmun in the Sumerian mythological story of Enki and Ninhursag is a paradisaical abode of the immortals, where sickness and death were unknown. In this painting, only the action takes place there identifies the setting as distinct from the Garden of the Hesperides. The Persian term paradise, meaning a garden or hunting-park
21.
Josephus
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Josephus claimed the Jewish Messianic prophecies that initiated the First Roman-Jewish War made reference to Vespasian becoming Emperor of Rome. In response Vespasian decided to keep Josephus as a slave and interpreter, after Vespasian became Emperor in 69 CE, he granted Josephus his freedom, at which time Josephus assumed the emperors family name of Flavius. Flavius Josephus fully defected to the Roman side and was granted Roman citizenship and he became an advisor and friend of Vespasians son Titus, serving as his translator when Titus led the Siege of Jerusalem. Since the siege proved ineffective at stopping the Jewish revolt, the citys destruction, Josephus recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the first century CE and the First Jewish–Roman War, including the Siege of Masada. His most important works were The Jewish War and Antiquities of the Jews, the Jewish War recounts the Jewish revolt against Roman occupation. Antiquities of the Jews recounts the history of the world from a Jewish perspective for an ostensibly Roman audience and these works provide valuable insight into first century Judaism and the background of Early Christianity. Josephus introduces himself in Greek as Iōsēpos, son of Matthias and he was the second-born son of Matthias. His older full-blooded brother was also called Matthias and their mother was an aristocratic woman who descended from the royal and formerly ruling Hasmonean dynasty. Josephuss paternal grandparents were Josephus and his wife—an unnamed Hebrew noblewoman, distant relatives of each other and he descended through his father from the priestly order of the Jehoiarib, which was the first of the 24 orders of priests in the Temple in Jerusalem. Josephus was a descendant of the high priest Jonathon, born and raised in Jerusalem, Josephus was educated alongside his brother. In his early twenties, he traveled to negotiate with Emperor Nero for the release of 12 Jewish priests, Josephus successfully fought the Roman army in Galilee, until he was captured by the Romans during the height of the war. After the Jewish garrison of Yodfat fell under siege, the Romans invaded, killing thousands, according to Josephus, he was trapped in a cave with 40 of his companions in July 67 CE. The Romans asked the group to surrender, but they refused, Josephus suggested a method of collective suicide, they drew lots and killed each other, one by one, counting to every third person. Two men were left, who surrendered to the Roman forces, in 69 CE, Josephus was released. According to his account, he acted as a negotiator with the defenders during the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, in which his parents and first wife died. While being confined at Yodfat, Josephus claimed to have experienced a divine revelation, after the prediction came true, he was released by Vespasian, who considered his gift of prophecy to be divine. In 71 CE, he went to Rome in the entourage of Titus, becoming a Roman citizen, in addition to Roman citizenship, he was granted accommodation in conquered Judaea and a decent, if not extravagant, pension. While in Rome and under Flavian patronage, Josephus wrote all of his known works, although he uses Josephus, he appears to have taken the Roman praenomen Titus and nomen Flavius from his patrons
22.
Hubris
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Hubris describes a personality quality of extreme or foolish pride or dangerous overconfidence. The adjectival form of the noun hubris is hubristic, Hubris is usually perceived as a characteristic of an individual rather than a group, although the group the offender belongs to may unintentionally suffer consequences from the wrongful act. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of ones own competence, Hubris is generally considered a sin in world religions. In ancient Greek, hubris referred to actions that shamed and humiliated the victim for the pleasure or gratification of the abuser, the term had a strong sexual connotation, and the shame reflected on the perpetrator as well. Violations of the law against hubris included what might today be termed assault and battery, sexual crimes, two well-known cases are found in the speeches of Demosthenes, a prominent statesman and orator in ancient Greece. These two examples occurred when first Midias punched Demosthenes in the face in the theatre, and second when a defendant allegedly assaulted a man, aeschines brought this suit against Timarchus to bar him from the rights of political office and his case succeeded. In Ancient Athens, hubris was defined as the use of violence to shame the victim, Hubris is not the requital of past injuries, this is revenge. As for the pleasure in hubris, its cause is this, crucial to this definition are the ancient Greek concepts of honour and shame. The concept of honour included not only the exaltation of the one receiving honour and this concept of honour is akin to a zero-sum game. Rush Rehm simplifies this definition of hubris to the concept of insolence, contempt. In its modern usage, hubris denotes overconfident pride combined with arrogance, Hubris is often associated with a lack of humility. The proverb pride goeth before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall is thought to sum up the use of hubris. Hubris is also referred to as pride that blinds, as it causes a committer of hubris to act in foolish ways that belie common sense. In other words, the definition may be thought of as. Victor in Mary Shelleys Frankenstein manifests hubris in his attempt to become a great scientist by creating life through technological means, but eventually regrets this previous desire. Chinua Achebes novel Things Fall Apart has been called a modern Greek tragedy, the characters Pride and Father in the popular manga Fullmetal Alchemist were inspired by the sin of hubris. One notable example is the Battle of Little Big Horn, as General George Armstrong Custer was apocryphally reputed to have there, Where did all those damned Indians come from. In business word many cases of social scandals were explained by managerial hubris, more recently, in his two-volume biography of Adolf Hitler, historian Ian Kershaw uses both hubris and nemesis as titles
23.
Nimrod
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Nimrod, a biblical figure described as a king of Shinar, was, according to the Book of Genesis and Books of Chronicles, the son of Cush, the great-grandson of Noah. The Bible states that he was a mighty hunter before the Lord, began to be mighty in the earth. Extra-biblical traditions associating him with the Tower of Babel led to his reputation as a king who was rebellious against God, attempts to match Nimrod with historically attested figures have failed. These include Tukulti-Ninurta I of the Middle Assyrian Empire, the Assyrian god Ninurta, the first biblical mention of Nimrod is in the Table of Nations. He is described as the son of Cush, grandson of Ham, and great-grandson of Noah, and as a mighty one in the earth and a mighty hunter before the Lord. Owing to an ambiguity in the original Hebrew text, it is whether it is he or Ashur who additionally built Nineveh, Resen, Rehoboth-Ir. Sir Walter Raleigh devoted several pages in his History of the World to reciting past scholarship regarding the question of whether it had been Nimrod or Ashur who built the cities in Assyria. In Hebrew and Christian tradition, Nimrod is considered the leader of those who built the Tower of Babel in the land of Shinar, Nimrods kingdom included the cities of Babel, Erech, Accad, and perhaps Calneh, in Shinar. Several of these early Judaic sources also assert that the king Amraphel, since Accad, was destroyed and lost with the destruction of its Empire in the period 2200–2154 BCE, the stories mentioning Nimrod seem to recall the late Early Bronze Age. The association with Erech, a city that lost its importance around 2,000 BCE as a result of struggles between Isin, Larsa and Elam, also attests the early provenance of the stories of Nimrod. According to some theorists, their placement in the Bible suggests a Babylonian origin—possibly inserted during the Babylonian captivity. Some rabbinic commentators have also connected the name Nimrod with a Hebrew word meaning rebel. In Pseudo-Philo, Nimrod is made leader of the Hamites, while Joktan as leader of the Semites, versions of this story are again picked up in later works such as Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius. The Book of Jubilees mentions the name of Nebrod only as being the father of Azurad and this account would thus make him an ancestor of Abraham, and hence of all Hebrews. Josephus wrote, Now it was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and he was the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah, a bold man, and of great strength of hand. He persuaded them not to ascribe it to God, as if it were through his means they were happy, but to believe that it was their own courage which procured that happiness. He also gradually changed the government into tyranny, seeing no way of turning men from the fear of God. He also said he would be revenged on God, if he should have a mind to drown the world again, and that he would avenge himself on God for destroying their forefathers
24.
Cultural diversity
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Cultural diversity is the quality of diverse or different cultures, as opposed to monoculture, the global monoculture, or a homogenization of cultures, akin to cultural decay. The phrase cultural diversity can also refer to having different cultures respect each others differences, the phrase cultural diversity is also sometimes used to mean the variety of human societies or cultures in a specific region, or in the world as a whole. Globalization is often said to have an effect on the worlds cultural diversity. There are many societies that emerged around the globe differed markedly from each other. Cultural diversity can be seen as analogous to biodiversity, firstly, like most evolutionary accounts of human nature, the importance of cultural diversity for survival may be an un-testable hypothesis, which can neither be proved nor disproved. In the same manner that the promotion of poverty in underdeveloped nations as cultural diversity is unethical and it is unethical to promote all religious practices simply because they are seen to contribute to cultural diversity. Particular religious practices are recognized by the WHO and UN as unethical, including female genital mutilation, polygamy, child brides, with the onset of globalization, traditional nation-states have been placed under enormous pressures. Today, with the development of technology, information and capital are transcending geographical boundaries, in particular, the growth of the mass media industry has largely impacted on individuals and societies across the globe. Although beneficial in some ways, this increased accessibility has the capacity to affect a societys individuality. With information being so easily distributed throughout the world, cultural meanings, as a result, the strength of identity of individuals and societies may begin to weaken. Nowadays, communication between different countries becomes more and more frequent, and more and more students choose to study overseas for experiencing culture diversity. Their goal is to broaden their horizons and develop themselves from learning overseas, for example, according to Fengling, Chen, Du Yanjun, and Yu Mas paper Academic Freedom in the Peoples Republic of China and the United States Of America. They pointed out that Chinese education more focus on traditionally, teaching has consisted of spoon feeding, chinas traditional system of education has sought to make students accept fixed and ossified content. And In the classroom, Chinese professors are the laws and authorities, on another hand, in United States of America education American students treat college professors as equals. Also American students are encouraged to debate topics, the free open discussion on various topics is due to the academic freedom which most American colleges and universities enjoy. Discussion above gives us an idea about the differences between China and the United States on education. But we cannot simply judge which one is better, because each culture has its own advantages and features, thanks to those difference forms the culture diversity and those make our world more colorful. Especially, with current process of global economics, people who owned different perspectives on cultures stand at a competitive position in current world
25.
Cradle of civilization
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The cradle of civilization is a term referring to locations where, according to current archaeological data, civilization is understood to have emerged. Current thinking is that there was no single cradle, but several civilizations that developed independently, other civilizations arose in Asia among cultures situated along large river valleys, notably the Indus River in the Indian Subcontinent and the Yellow River in China. The extent to which there was significant influence between the early civilizations of the Near East and those of East Asia is disputed, scholars accept that the civilizations of Mesoamerica, mainly in modern Mexico, and Norte Chico in present-day Peru emerged independently from those in Eurasia. The concept cradle of civilization is the subject of much debate, the figurative use of cradle to mean the place or region in which anything is nurtured or sheltered in its earlier stage is traced by the OED to Spenser. Charles Rollins Ancient History has Egypt that served at first as the cradle of the holy nation, the phrase cradle of civilization plays a certain role in national mysticism. It has been used in Eastern as well as Western cultures, for instance, in Hindu nationalism, the terms also appear in esoteric pseudohistory, such as the Urantia Book, claiming the title for the second Eden, or the pseudoarchaeology related to Megalithic Britain. The earliest proto-urban settlements with several thousand inhabitants emerged in the Neolithic, the first cities to house several tens of thousands were Memphis and Uruk, by the 31st century BCE. Historic times are marked apart from times when records of the past begin to be kept for the benefit of future generations. A civilized way of life is linked to conditions coming almost exclusively from intensive agriculture. A traditional theory of the spread of civilization is that it began in the Fertile Crescent, scholars more generally now believe that civilizations arose independently at several locations in both hemispheres. They have observed that sociocultural developments occurred along different timeframes, sedentary and nomadic communities continued to interact considerably, they were not strictly divided among widely different cultural groups. Current scholarship generally identifies six sites where civilization emerged independently, Mesopotamia, the Nile River, the Indus River, the Yellow River, the Central Andes, one of the most notable PPNA settlements is Jericho in the Levant region, thought to be the worlds first town. In Mesopotamia, the convergence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers produced rich fertile soil, the civilizations that emerged around these rivers are among the earliest known non-nomadic agrarian societies. It is because of this that the fertile crescent region, the period known as the Ubaid period is the earliest known period on the alluvial plain although it is likely earlier periods exist obscured under the alluvium. It was during the Ubaid period that the movement towards urbanization began, eridu is the oldest Sumerian site settled during this period, around 5300 BCE, and the city of Ur also first dates to the end of this period. In the south, the Ubaid period had a long duration from around 6500 to 3800 BCE. Named after the Sumerian city of Uruk, this saw the emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia and, during its later phase. Proto-writing in the dates to around 3500 BCE, with the earliest texts dating to 3300 BCE
26.
Torah
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The Torah is the central reference of Judaism. It has a range of meanings and it can most specifically mean the first five books of the twenty-four books of the Tanakh, and it usually includes the rabbinic commentaries. In rabbinic literature the word Torah denotes both the five books and the Oral Torah, the Oral Torah consists of interpretations and amplifications which according to rabbinic tradition have been handed down from generation to generation and are now embodied in the Talmud and Midrash. According to the Midrash, the Torah was created prior to the creation of the world, traditionally, the words of the Torah are written on a scroll by a scribe in Hebrew. A Torah portion is read publicly at least once every three days in the presence of a congregation, reading the Torah publicly is one of the bases for Jewish communal life. The word Torah in Hebrew is derived from the root ירה, the meaning of the word is therefore teaching, doctrine, or instruction, the commonly accepted law gives a wrong impression. Other translational contexts in the English language include custom, theory, guidance, the earliest name for the first part of the Bible seems to have been The Torah of Moses. This title, however, is neither in the Torah itself. It appears in Joshua and Kings, but it cannot be said to refer there to the entire corpus, in contrast, there is every likelihood that its use in the post-Exilic works was intended to be comprehensive. Other early titles were The Book of Moses and The Book of the Torah, Christian scholars usually refer to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible as the Pentateuch, a term first used in the Hellenistic Judaism of Alexandria, meaning five books, or as the Law. The Torah starts from the beginning of Gods creating the world, through the beginnings of the people of Israel, their descent into Egypt, and it ends with the death of Moses, just before the people of Israel cross to the promised land of Canaan. Interspersed in the narrative are the teachings given explicitly or implicitly embedded in the narrative. This is followed by the story of the three patriarchs, Joseph and the four matriarchs, God gives to the patriarchs a promise of the land of Canaan, but at the end of Genesis the sons of Jacob end up leaving Canaan for Egypt due to a regional famine. They had heard there was a grain storage and distribution facility in Egypt. Exodus begins the story of Gods revelation to his people of Israel through Moses, Moses receives the Torah from God, and teaches His laws and Covenant to the people of Israel. It also talks about the first violation of the covenant when the Golden Calf was constructed, Exodus includes the instructions on building the Tabernacle and concludes with its actual construction. Leviticus begins with instructions to the Israelites on how to use the Tabernacle, leviticus 26 provides a detailed list of rewards for following Gods commandments and a detailed list of punishments for not following them. Numbers tells how Israel consolidated itself as a community at Sinai, set out from Sinai to move towards Canaan, even Moses sins and is told he would not live to enter the land
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Moses
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Moses is a prophet in Abrahamic religions. Also called Moshe Rabbenu in Hebrew, he is the most important prophet in Judaism and he is also an important prophet in Christianity, Islam, the Baháí Faith as well as a number of other Abrahamic religions. Moses Hebrew mother, Jochebed, secretly hid him when the Pharaoh ordered all newborn Hebrew boys to be killed in order to reduce the population of the Israelites. Through the Pharaohs daughter, the child was adopted as a foundling from the Nile river and grew up with the Egyptian royal family. After killing an Egyptian slavemaster, Moses fled across the Red Sea to Midian, God sent Moses back to Egypt to demand the release of the Israelites from slavery. Moses said that he could not speak with assurance or eloquence, so God allowed Aaron, his brother, to become his spokesperson. After the Ten Plagues, Moses led the Exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt and across the Red Sea, after which they based themselves at Mount Sinai, after 40 years of wandering in the desert, Moses died within sight of the Promised Land on Mount Nebo. According to archaeologist William G. Rabbinical Judaism calculated a lifespan of Moses corresponding to 1391–1271 BCE, Jerome gives 1592 BCE, the Biblical account of Moses birth provides him with a folk etymology to explain the ostensible meaning of his name. He is said to have received it from the Pharaohs daughter and she named him Moses, saying, I drew him out of the water. This explanation links it to a verb mashah, meaning to draw out, the princess made a grammatical mistake which is prophetic of his future role in legend, as someone who will draw the people of Israel out of Egypt through the waters of the Red Sea. Abraham Yahuda, based on the spelling given in the Tanakh, argues that it combines water or seed and pond, expanse of water, the Hebrew etymology in the Biblical story may reflect an attempt to cancel out traces of Moses Egyptian origins. The Egyptian character of his name was recognized as such by ancient Jewish writers like Philo of Alexandria and Josephus. Philo linked Mōēsēs to the Egyptian word for water, while Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews, claimed that the element, -esês. Hizkuni suggested she either converted or took a tip from Jochebed, the Israelites had settled in the Land of Goshen in the time of Joseph and Jacob, but a new pharaoh arose who oppressed the children of Israel. At this time Moses was born to his father Amram, son of Kehath the Levite, who entered Egypt with Jacobs household, his mother was Jochebed, Moses had one older sister, Miriam, and one older brother, Aaron. One day after Moses had reached adulthood he killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew, Moses, in order to escape the Pharaohs death penalty, fled to Midian. There, on Mount Horeb, God revealed to Moses his name YHWH and commanded him to return to Egypt and bring his people out of bondage. Moses returned to carry out Gods command, but God caused the Pharaoh to refuse, from Egypt, Moses led the Israelites to biblical Mount Sinai, where he was given the Ten Commandments from God, written on stone tablets
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Documentary hypothesis
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All three agree that the Torah is not a unified work from a single author but is made up of sources combined over many centuries by many hands. They differ on the nature of these sources and how they were combined, according to the documentary hypothesis there were four sources, each originally a separate and independent book, joined together at various points in time by a series of editors. Fragmentary hypotheses see the Torah as a collection of small fragments, of its constituent sources, Deuteronomy is generally dated between the 7th and 5th centuries, there is much discussion of the unity, extent, nature, and date of the Priestly material. The Torah is the name for the first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers. As a result, the Mosaic authorship of the Torah had been rejected by leading scholars by the 17th century. Later still the Elohist was split into Elohist and Priestly sources and these documentary approaches were in competition with two other models, the fragmentary and the supplementary. The table is based on that in Walter Houstons The Pentateuch, note that the three hypotheses are not mutually exclusive. In 1878 Julius Wellhausen published Geschichte Israels, Bd 1, the edition he printed as Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels in 1883. Wellhausens documentary hypothesis owed little to Wellhausen himself but was mainly the work of Hupfeld, Eduard Reuss, Graf, and others and he accepted Hupfields four sources and, in agreement with Graf, placed the Priestly work last. Wellhausens explanation of the formation of the Torah was also an explanation of the history of Israel. The consensus around the documentary hypothesis collapsed in the last decades of the 20th century and this led to the current position which sees only two major sources in the Pentateuch, the Deuteronomist and the Priestly. Most scholars also agree that some form of Priestly source existed, although its extent, the remainder is called collectively non-Priestly, a grouping which includes both pre-Priestly and post-Priestly material. There is also a recognition that Genesis developed separately from Exodus-Leviticus-Numbers. A revised version of the documentary hypothesis still has adherents, especially in North America and its resurrection of an E source is probably the single element most often criticised by other scholars, as European scholars have largely rejected it as fragmentary or non-existent
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Julius Wellhausen
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Julius Wellhausen, was a German biblical scholar and orientalist. In the course of his career, he moved from Old Testament research through Islamic studies to New Testament scholarship, Wellhausen contributed to the composition history of the Pentateuch/Torah and the formative period of Islam. For the former, he is credited with being one of the originators of the documentary hypothesis, Wellhausen was born at Hameln in the Kingdom of Hanover, the son of a Protestant pastor. He later studied theology at the University of Göttingen under Georg Heinrich August Ewald, in 1872 he was appointed professor ordinarius of theology at the University of Greifswald. Since then my theological professorship has been weighing heavily on my conscience, among theologians and biblical scholars, he is best known for his book, Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels. The resulting argument, called the hypothesis, remains the dominant model among biblical scholars. In the realm of Arabic studies, Wellhausens greatest achievement remains The Arab Kingdom And Its Fall, Wellhausen was famous for his critical investigations into Old Testament history and the composition of the Hexateuch. Thurston, H. T. Colby, F. M. eds and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Wellhausen, Julius. Works by Julius Wellhausen at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Julius Wellhausen at Internet Archive
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Comparative mythology
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Comparative mythology is the comparison of myths from different cultures in an attempt to identify shared themes and characteristics. Comparative mythology has served a variety of academic purposes, the anthropologist C. Scott Littleton defined comparative mythology as the systematic comparison of myths and mythic themes drawn from a wide variety of cultures. By comparing different cultures mythologies, scholars try to identify underlying similarities and/or to reconstruct a protomythology from which those mythologies developed. To an extent, all theories about mythology follow an approach, as the scholar of religion Robert Segal notes, by definition. However, scholars of mythology can be divided into particularists. Comparative approaches to mythology held great popularity among eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scholars, many of these scholars believed that all myths showed signs of having evolved from a single myth or mythical theme. For example, the nineteenth-century philologist Friedrich Max Müller led a school of thought which interpreted nearly all myths as poetic descriptions of the suns behavior, according to this theory, these poetic descriptions had become distorted over time into seemingly diverse stories about gods and heroes. However, modern-day scholars lean more toward particularism, feeling suspicious of broad statements about myths, one exception to this trend is Joseph Campbells theory of the monomyth, which is discussed below. Another recent exception is the approach followed in E. J. Michael Witzels reconstruction of many subsequent layers of older mythologies, a total science of mythology must give attention, as far as possible, to all three. Comparative mythologists come from various fields, including folklore, anthropology, history, linguistics, and religious studies and these are some important approaches to comparative mythology. Some scholars look at the relationships between the myths of different cultures. For example, the similarities between the names of gods in different cultures, one particularly successful example of this approach is the study of Indo-European mythology. Scholars have found striking similarities between the mythological and religious terms used in different cultures of Europe and India, for example, the Greek sky-god Zeus Pater, the Roman sky-god Jupiter, and the Indian sky-god Dyauṣ Pitṛ have linguistically identical names. Some scholars look for underlying structures shared by different myths, the folklorist Vladimir Propp proposed that many Russian fairy tales have a common plot structure, in which certain events happen in a predictable order. In contrast, the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss examined the structure of a myth in terms of the relationships between its elements, rather than their order in the plot. In particular, Lévi-Strauss believed that the elements of a myth could be organized into binary oppositions and he thought that the myths purpose was to mediate these oppositions, thereby resolving basic tensions or contradictions found in human life or culture. Some scholars propose that myths from different cultures reveal the same, or similar, some Freudian thinkers have identified stories similar to the Greek story of Oedipus in many different cultures
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Ancient Mesopotamian religion
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The religious development of Mesopotamia and Mesopotamian culture in general was not particularly influenced by the movements of the various peoples into and throughout the area. Rather, Mesopotamian religion was a consistent and coherent tradition which adapted to the needs of its adherents over millenia of development. The earliest undercurrents of Mesopotamian religious thought date to the 4th millennium BCE, in the 3rd millennium BCE objects of worship were personified and became an expansive cast of divinities with particular functions. Mesopotamian religion finally declined with the spread of Iranian religions during the Achaemenid Empire, as with most dead religions, many aspects of the common practices and intricacies of the doctrine have been lost and forgotten over time. Mesopotamian religion is thought to have been an influence on subsequent religions throughout the world, including Canaanite, Aramean, Mesopotamian religion has the oldest body of recorded literature of any religious tradition. Other artifacts can also be useful when reconstructing Mesopotamian religion, as is common with most ancient civilizations, the objects made of the most durable and precious materials, and thus more likely to survive, were associated with religious beliefs and practices. It has also inspired various contemporary Neo-pagan groups, in the fourth millennium BCE, the first evidence for what is recognisably Mesopotamian religion can be seen with the invention in Mesopotamia of writing circa 3500 BCE. The people of Mesopotamia originally consisted of two groups, Akkadian speakers and the people of Sumer, who spoke a language isolate and these peoples were members of various city-states and small kingdoms. The Sumerians left the first records, although it is not known if they migrated into the area in prehistory or whether they were its original inhabitants and they resided in southern Mesopotamia, which was known as Sumer, and had considerable influence on the Akkadian speakers and their culture. Akkadian names first appear in the lists of these states circa 2800 BCE. They created the first city-states such as Uruk, Ur, Lagash, Isin, Kish, Umma, Eridu, Adab, Akshak, Sippar, Nippur and Larsa, each of them ruled by an ensí. The Akkadian Empire endured for two centuries before collapsing due to decline, internal strife and attacks from the north east by the Gutian people. Following a brief Sumerian revival with the Third Dynasty of Ur, Assyria asserted itself in the north circa 2100 BCE in the Old Assyrian Empire and southern Mesopotamia fragmented into a number of kingdoms, the largest being Isin, Larsa and Eshnunna. In 1894 BCE the initially minor city-state of Babylon was founded in the south by invading West Semitic-speaking Amorites and it was rarely ruled by native dynasties throughout its history. Some time after this period, the Sumerians disappeared, becoming absorbed into the Akkadian-speaking population. Assyrian kings are attested from the late 25th century BCE and dominated northern Mesopotamia and parts of Anatolia, the Amorite dynasty was deposed in 1595 BCE after attacks from mountain-dwelling people known as the Kassites from the Zagros Mountains, who went on to rule Babylon for over 500 years. Assyria defeated the Hittites and Mitanni, and its growing power forced the New Kingdom of Egypt to withdraw from the Near East, the Middle Assyrian Empire at its height stretched from the Caucasus to modern Bahrain and from Cyprus to western Iran. During the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Mesopotamian Aramaic became the lingua franca of the empire, the last written records in Akkadian were astrological texts dating from 78 CE discovered in Assyria
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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
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Eridu
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Eridu is an archaeological site in southern Mesopotamia. Eridu was long considered the earliest city in southern Mesopotamia and is still today argued to be the oldest city in the world. Located 12 km southwest of Ur, Eridu was the southernmost of a conglomeration of Sumerian cities that grew around temples and these buildings were made of mud brick and built on top of one another. With the temples growing upward and the village growing outward, a city was built. In Sumerian mythology, Eridu was originally the home of Enki, later known by the Akkadians as Ea and his temple was called E-Abzu, as Enki was believed to live in Abzu, an aquifer from which all life was believed to stem. The site at Tel Abu Shahrain, near Basra, has been excavated 4 times and it was initially excavated by John George Taylor in 1855, R. Campbell Thompson in 1918, and H. R. Hall in 1919. Excavation there resumed from 1946 to 1949 under Fuad Safar and Seton Lloyd of the Iraqi Directorate General of Antiquities, Eridu, also transliterated as Eridug, could mean mighty place or guidance place. In the Sumerian King List, Eridu is named as the city of the first kings, the king list continues, In Eridu, Alulim became king, he ruled for 28800 years. 2 kings, they ruled for 64800 years, then Eridu fell and the kingship was taken to Bad-tibira. The king list gave particularly long reigns to the kings who ruled before a flood occurred. Adapa, a man of Eridu, is depicted as a culture hero. Identified with U-an, a creature from the sea, he was considered to have brought civilization to the city during the time of King Alulim. In Sumerian mythology, Eridu was the home of the Abzu temple of the god Enki, like all the Sumerian and Babylonian gods, Enki/Ea began as a local god who, according to the later cosmology, came to share the rule of the cosmos with Anu and Enlil. His kingdom was the waters that lay below earth. The stories of Inanna, goddess of Uruk, describe how she had to go to Eridu in order to receive the gifts of civilization. At first Enki, the god of Eridu, attempted to retrieve these sources of his power but later accepted that Uruk now was the centre of the land. This seems to be a reference to the transfer of power northward. Babylonian texts talk of the foundation of Eridu by the god Marduk as the first city, the holy city, according to the Sumerian kinglist Eridu was the first city in the World
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Enki
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Enki is a god in Sumerian mythology, later known as Ea in Akkadian and Babylonian mythology. He was originally god of the city of Eridu, but later the influence of his cult spread throughout Mesopotamia and to the Canaanites, Hittites. He was the deity of crafts, mischief, water, seawater, lakewater, intelligence and he was associated with the southern band of constellations called stars of Ea, but also with the constellation AŠ-IKU, the Field. Beginning around the second millennium BCE, he was referred to in writing by the numeric ideogram for 40. The planet Mercury, associated with Babylonian Nabu was in Sumerian times, a large number of myths about Enki have been collected from many sites, stretching from Southern Iraq to the Levantine coast. He figures in the earliest extant cuneiform inscriptions throughout the region and was prominent from the third millennium down to Hellenistic times, the exact meaning of his name is uncertain, the common translation is Lord of the Earth. The Sumerian En is translated as an equivalent to lord and was originally a title given to the High Priest. Ki means earth, but there are theories that ki in this name has another origin, possibly kig of unknown meaning, in Sumerian E-A means the house of water, and it has been suggested that this was originally the name for the shrine to the god at Eridu. It has also suggested that the original non-anthropomorphic divinity at Eridu was not Enki. The main temple to Enki was called E-abzu, meaning abzu temple and it was the first temple known to have been built in Southern Iraq. Four separate excavations at the site of Eridu have demonstrated the existence of a shrine dating back to the earliest Ubaid period, over the following 4,500 years, the temple was expanded 18 times, until it was abandoned during the Persian period. On this basis Thorkild Jacobsen has hypothesized that the deity of the temple was Abzu. P. Steinkeller believes that, during the earliest period, Enki had a position to a goddess, taking the role of divine consort or high priest. The Enki temple had at its entrance a pool of fresh water, carp are shown in the twin water flows running into the later God Enki, suggesting continuity of these features over a very long period. These features were found at all subsequent Sumerian temples, suggesting that this established the pattern for all subsequent Sumerian temples. All rules laid down at Eridu were faithfully observed, Enki was the keeper of the divine powers called Me, the gifts of civilization. His image was a snake, or the Caduceus, sometimes confused with the Rod of Asclepius used to symbolize medicine. He is often shown with the crown of divinity dressed in the skin of a carp
35.
Subartu
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The land of Subartu or Subar is mentioned in Bronze Age literature. The name also appears as Subari in the Amarna letters, and, in the form Šbr, Subartu was apparently a polity in Upper Mesopotamia, at the upper Tigris. Its precise location has not been identified, from the point of view of the Akkadian Empire, Subartu marked the northern geographical horizon, just as Mar. tu, Elam and Sumer marked west, east and south, respectively. The Sumerian mythological epic Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta lists the countries where the languages are confused as Subartu, Hamazi, Sumer, Uri-ki, and the Martu land. Similarly, the earliest references to the four quarters by the kings of Akkad name Subartu as one of these quarters around Akkad, along with Martu, Elam, Subartu in the earliest texts seem to have been farming mountain dwellers, frequently raided for slaves. Ishbi-Erra of Isin and Hammurabi also claimed victories over Subar, three of the 14th century BC Amarna letters, Akkadian cuneiform correspondence found in Egypt, mention Subari as a toponym. There is also a mention of Subartu in the 8th century BC Poem of Erra, Subartu may have been in the general sphere of influence of the Hurrians. There are various alternate theories associating the ancient Subartu with one or more modern cultures found in the region, Subartu is a toponym mentioned in the Amarna letters, the letters were written in the short period approximately from 1350–1335 BC. It is commonly accepted that the region referenced was Subartu, Subartu is only referenced in three of the Amarna letters, EA100,108, and EA109. All three letters state that people, or items are needed to be sold in Subaru, for money, Subaru of the letters is only referenced in three Amarna letters, and with no links to any rulers of Subaru. I fall at the feet of my lord, my Sun,7 times and 7 times, moreover, is it pleasing in the sight of the king, who is like Baal and Šamaš in the sky, that the sons of Abdi-Aširta do as they please. They have taken the kings horses and chariots, and they have sold into captivity, charioteers, ši-x-y, in whose lifetime has such a deed been done. False words are now being spoken in the presence of the king, I am your loyal servant, and whatever I know or have heard I write to the king, my lord. Wh are they, the dogs, that they could res the archers of the king, I wrote t - your father-, and he he my wors, and he sent arers. Did he not take Abdi-Aširta for h, moreover, since the mayors have not oppo th, they are stron. The army furnishes whatever they ne, and so they are not afra of the magnate, because they have taken the hors, they are bold. Because we know that they are strong, we have to the king, They are strong, Truly, when I sent 2 messengers to Sumur-, I retained this man in order to report to the king. Moreover, why do you listen to other men, the kings messengers must bring by night and bring back by night because of the dog
36.
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 the land of Akkad. Nimrod is a Hebrew name not attested in Mesopotamians sources, many have pointed out similarities with the legend of Gilgamesh who founded Uruk, which is said to be the city Nimrod came to power. Today, some 7,000 texts from the Akkadian period alone are known, many later texts from the successor states of Assyria and Babylonia also deal with the Akkadian Empire. Understanding of the Akkadian Empire continues to be hampered by the fact that its capital Akkad has not yet been located, likewise, material that is thought to be Akkadian continues to be in use into the Ur III period. Many of the recent insights on the Akkadian Empire have come from excavations in the Upper Khabur area in modern northeastern Syria which was to become a part of Assyria after the fall of Akkad. For example, excavations at Tell Mozan brought to light a sealing of Taram-Agade, an unknown daughter of Naram-Sin. The excavators at nearby Tell Leilan have used the results from their investigations to argue that the Akkadian Empire came to an end due to a sudden drought, the so-called 4.2 kiloyear event. The impact of this event on Mesopotamia in general, and on the Akkadian Empire in particular. The Akkadian Period is contemporary with, EB IV, EB IVA and EJ IV, the absolute dates of their reigns are approximate. The Akkadian Empire takes its name from the region and city of Akkad, although the city of Akkad has not yet been identified on the ground, it is known from various textual sources. Among these is at least one text predating the reign of Sargon, together with the fact that the name Akkad is of non-Akkadian origin, this suggests that the city of Akkad may have already been occupied in pre-Sargonic times. Sargon of Akkad defeated and captured Lugal-Zage-Si in the Battle of Uruk, the earliest records in the Akkadian language date to the time of Sargon. Sargon was claimed to be the son of Laibum or Itti-Bel, a humble gardener, One legend related of Sargon in Assyrian times says that My mother was a changeling, my father I knew not
37.
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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Assyria
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Assyria was a major Mesopotamian East Semitic-speaking kingdom and empire of the ancient Near East and the Levant. Centered on the Tigris in Upper Mesopotamia, the Assyrians came to rule powerful empires at several times. Assyria is named after its capital, the ancient city of Aššur. In the 25th and 24th centuries BC, Assyrian kings were pastoral leaders, Assyria can also refer to the geographic region or heartland where Assyria, its empires and the Assyrian people were centered. The indigenous modern Eastern Aramaic-speaking Assyrian Christian ethnic minority in northern Iraq, north east Syria, southeast Turkey, in prehistoric times, the region that was to become known as Assyria was home to a Neanderthal culture such as has been found at the Shanidar Cave. The earliest Neolithic sites in Assyria were the Jarmo culture c.7100 BC and Tell Hassuna, during the 3rd millennium BC, a very intimate cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians and the Akkadians throughout Mesopotamia, 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 third millennium BC as a sprachbund and it is highly likely that the city was named in honour of its patron Assyrian god with the same name. The city of Aššur, together with a number of other Assyrian cities, however it is likely that they were initially Sumerian-dominated administrative centres. In the late 26th century BC, Eannatum of Lagash, then the dominant Sumerian ruler in Mesopotamia, similarly, in c. the early 25th century BC, Lugal-Anne-Mundu the king of the Sumerian state of Adab lists Subartu as paying tribute to him. Of the early history of the kingdom of Assyria, little is known, in the Assyrian King List, the earliest king recorded was Tudiya. According to Georges Roux he would have lived in the mid 25th century BC, Tudiya was succeeded on the list by Adamu, the first known reference to the Semitic name Adam and then a further thirteen rulers. The earliest kings, such as Tudiya, who are recorded as kings who lived in tents, were independent semi-nomadic pastoralist rulers and these kings at some point became fully urbanised and founded the city state of Ashur in the mid 21st century BC. During the Akkadian Empire, the Assyrians, like all the Mesopotamian Semites, became subject to the dynasty of the city state of Akkad, the Akkadian Empire founded by Sargon the Great claimed to encompass the surrounding four quarters. Assyrian rulers were subject to Sargon and his successors, and the city of Ashur became an administrative center of the Empire. On those tablets, Assyrian traders in Burushanda implored the help of their ruler, Sargon the Great, the name Hatti itself even appears in later accounts of his grandson, Naram-Sin, campaigning in Anatolia. Assyrian and Akkadian traders spread the use of writing in the form of the Mesopotamian cuneiform script to Asia Minor, the Akkadian Empire was destroyed by economic decline and internal civil war, followed by attacks from barbarian Gutian people in 2154 BC. The rulers of Assyria during the period between c.2154 BC and 2112 BC once again fully independent, as the Gutians are only known to have administered southern Mesopotamia
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Sayce, Archibald Henry (1878), "Babel", in Baynes, T.S., Encyclopædia Britannica, 3 (9th ed.), New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, p. 178
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