Wednesday 16 July 2014

The Ancient Near East, A Very Short History.



This wee book is one of dozens produced in this style.  The intention is to produce a short book to inform the reader of a particular subject, and the subjects range far and near.  It looks a worthwhile series.
This book takes us back before what most folks consider to be history, back before the Romans, the Greek, the Egyptians, those places we consider 'ancient' or 'Classical,' to the generations that lived in Mesopotamia long before.  The poor teaching of history, both professional and popular, leaves out what happened in what is now southern Iraq, even though it is considered to be the place humanity apparently began to settle so long ago.  Certainly where the book begins, 3600 BC, large towns were in existence and the usual problems known to us today bothered them also.  Uruk I think it was had 25,000 folks crammed inside the mud brick walls, although many may have dwelt outside of course. Personally I wanted to go further back but if you have no knowledge this is a good place to begun as here at this time writing begins.
As population growth continued small city states developed into empires.  Some were quite keen on peace and prosperity, others were somewhat rough.  It is interesting to see how many leaders built an empire but encouraged people to live peaceful lives.  The Assyrians however were clearly different in this.  While others revealed their works by carvings on walls depicting the temples and cities they built, the Assyrians depicted the king as waving his bow about, taking cities and chasing wild animals.  His peace was putting hooks in the noses of the rebellious.  
This is an interesting, delightful short read, with takes us from a temple document at Uruk in 3100 BC to the Persians ending the Babylonian empire around 500 BC, ish.  If you know nothing about such an important period, and much of what we know was known then, this book is worth a read.  Of course there are problems, the woman who wrote it was American!  This shows clearly in the grammar ....tut! 

      
Life is not fair.  These chaos arrived to entertain the kids and found rain and gloom.  Some sun on Saturday for them and a wee bit more on Sunday but not much and by teatime they are dismantling everything to head off to the next place.  The town was quiet at the weekend, a Carnival in a nearby town taking the kids away.


Yet when once they leave the sun shines.  Not that I have seen much of this. They claim, as they always do, the sun will be a belter tomorrow and Friday and warnings have been issued.  Climate change is occurring and we had better realise this.  Could it really be the end of the world this time?  Maybe we had better give that some serious consideration.


They done it again.  Out of the blue this appears outside my window, badly parked,  and no polis in sight!  Why?  What were they doing?  Who were they visiting?  Why do they never explain their movements to me, that's what I want to know.  All this integrity for them, they will never get to be Chief Constable if they insist on doing the job properly I'll tell you that! 

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5 comments:

Lee said...

It's funny how the climate is always changing. That never happened before.

I'd slip out the back way if I were you, Mr. Ad-Man; either that or just hand yourself in peacefully...the boys in blue obviously are keeping an eye on you.

On the subject of "peace", as long as there are humans roaming the earth, I doubt very much there will be peace. Of course, if there were only women left to roam the earth there would always be peace...I'm just saying.... ;)

Have a good weekend, Adullamite.

the fly in the web said...

They were saing that we were entering a new Ice Age when I was at school....but if the Gulf ~Stream is shifting as it seems to be doing they could be right...

We learned about what was called the Fertile Crescent in junior school...and it fascinated us...we were all trying to pass notes in those wedge shaped hieroglyphics...

Adullamite said...

Lee, The boys in blue are often around here...

Fly, heiroglyphics?!! You mean Cun-A-form surely! The fertile crescent is far from fertile now.

Carol said...

We had our Agricultural Show (fair) in town last week too. It blacked out our Internet for a week for some reason - it is only a block away.

Adullamite said...

Carol, very annoying! Mine has stopped and started again for no reason today.