These are the World's Earliest Surviving Literary Catalogues!

Two cuneiform tablets found at Nippur, (Mesopotamia; now Iraq) are inscribed with a list of Sumerian works of literature in no apparent order. One has 68 titles, the other 48 works. These represent the earliest surviving literary or library catalogues.

A literary catalogue compiled in approximately 2000 BCE (clay tablet 29.15.155 in the Nippur collection of the University of Pennyslvania Museum). The upper part represents the tablet itself; the lower part a copy or transcription of the catalogue for legibility.

Contents of clay tablet 29.15.155 in the Nippur Collection of the University of Pennsylvania Museum:

1. Hymn of King Shulgi (approximately 2100 B. C.).

2. Hymn of King Lipit-Ishtar (approximately 1950 B. C.).

3. Myth, "The Creation of the Pickax"

4. Hymn to Inanna, queen of heaven.

5. Hymn to Enlil, the air-god.

6. Hymn to the temple of the mother-goddess Ninhursag in the city of Kesh.

7. Epic tale, "Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Nether World"

8. Epic tale, "Inanna and Ebih"

9. Epic tale, "Gilgamesh and Huwawa."

10. Epic tale, "Gilgamesh and Agga."

11. Myth, "Cattle and Grain" .

12. Lamentation over the fall of Agade in the time of Naram-Sin (approximately 2400 B. C.).

13. Lamentation over the destruction of Ur. This composition, consisting of 436 lines, has been almost completely reconstructed and published by the author as Assyriological Study No. 12 of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.

14. Lamentation over the destruction of Nippur.

15. Lamentation over the destruction of Sumer.

16. Epic tale, "Lugalbanda and Enmerkar."

17. Myth, "Inanna's Descent to the Nether World"

18. Perhaps a hymn to Inanna.

19. Collection of short hymns to all the important temples of Sumer.

20. Wisdom compositions describing the activities of a boy training to be a scribe.

21. Wisdom composition, "Instructions of a Peasant to His Son."

Casson, Libraries in the Ancient World (2001) 4.

The Oldest-Known List of Titles and Occupations

A proto-cuneiform clay tablet (VAT 15003) from the Eana (Eanna) district, Uruk IV period, preserved in The Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, records the oldest-known version of a list of titles and occupations, known as the Standard Occupations List. 

Clay tablet, Uruk IV period, circa 3200 BCE. From Uraq, Uruk, Eana precinct. 8.7 x 1.8 cm. VAT 15003. This tablet records the oldest-known version of a list of titles and occupations, known as the Standard Occupations List.

"Such lists, known as 'lexical lists,' were used to train scribes and also served to organize knowledge. This scribal exercise from the early Uruk IV writing stage represents what was apparently a favorite version of such compilations. it content was copied many times in the subsequent Uruk III period (about 180 frams of it are preserved), and it was the model for numerous mofied and exapned forms of such lists.

The popularity of such standardized lists is indicated by  the fact that they were repeatedly copied and recopied down through the Akkadian dynasty (twenty-third century BC) nearly a millennium after their creation" (Woods, Teeter, Emberling (eds) Visible Language. Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond [2010] No. 46, with color images of obverse, reverse and a composite drawing of the archaic lexical list).

Source: https://www.historyofinformation.com/detai...

Lost city, a real-life 'Helm's Deep,' possibly discovered in Iraq

The ancient stronghold is believed to be part of the lost city of Natounia.

An aerial view of a fortress believed to be part of the lost city of Natounia, including the (A) Merquly settlement; and the (B) 'barracks' building. (Image credit: © Rabana-Merquly Archaeological Project; Antiquity Journal Ltd.)

Nestled in a valley shadowed by mountains in Iraqi Kurdistan sits an ancient fortress that archeologists think may be the lost, royal city of Natounia, based on the discovery of intricately carved rock reliefs depicting an ancient leader, a new study finds.

The stronghold, known as Rabana-Merquly, was once part of the Parthian Empire (also known as the Arsacid Empire), which reigned(opens in new tab) between 247 B.C. and A.D. 224. The Parthians were bitter enemies of the Roman Empire, and fought various battles against them for over 250 years(opens in new tab). Now, new research at this 2,000-year-old fortress suggests that it served as one of the empire's regional centers.

During a recent expedition, an international team of archeologists discovered twin rock reliefs(opens in new tab) at the two entrances to the settlement, which is situated at the base of Mount Piramagrun in the Zagros Mountains. The matching reliefs are said to depict a king of Adiabene, a kingdom that was part of the Parthian Empire, according to researchers.

A photo (top) of Mount Piramagrun, highlighting the Rabana and Merquly settlements, and a topography (bottom) of Rabana-Merquly. (Image credit: Map by M. Brown; © Rabana-Merquly Archaeological Project; Antiquity Journal Ltd.)

"Based on the dress of the figure, in particular his hat, we think that the fortress was built by the ruling dynasty of Adiabene close to the kingdom's eastern border," study lead researcher Michael Brown, a researcher at the Institute of Prehistory, Protohistory and Near-Eastern Archaeology of Heidelberg University in Germany, told Live Science in an email. "The twin rock reliefs are rare examples of near life-size monuments of rulers from the Parthian period, and they allow us to link the fortress with those who built it."

He added, "Both reliefs are located immediately next to the two gated entrances and were clearly designed to make a political statement — they can be characterized as ancient propaganda."

Prior to this find, the only known depictions of the existence of Natounia (also known as Natounissarokerta), have been documented on several coins dating from the first century B.C., according to a statement.

"The more specific association with the city of Natounia comes from the inscription on that city's rare coins found elsewhere, which locate it 'on the Kapros,' which is the modern Lower Zab River," Brown said. For this reason, the city was sometimes called Natounia on the Kapros.

Here we see the (A) Rabana 'sanctuary'; (B) a staircase at the site; (C) iron arrowheads; and (D) altar (scales = 1 meter) (Image credit: © Rabana-Merquly Archaeological Project; Antiquity Journal Ltd.)

In addition to the reliefs, which possibly depict Natounissar, the city's founder, or a direct descendant, researchers used drones to explore fortifications that measure approximately 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) along with two nearby settlements, Rabana and Merquly, of which the site is named.

These images show the (A) Merquly rock-relief; (B) Rabana rock-relief; and (C) a statue from Hatra of King 'tlw/Attalos of Adiabene. (Image credit: Illustrations by M. Brown; © Rabana-Merquly Archaeological Project; Antiquity Journal Ltd.)

"Rabana-Merquly is by far the largest and most impressive site of the Parthian era in the region, and the only one with royal iconography, so it's by far the best candidate [for being Natounia]," Brown said. "Its fortifications enclose naturally defensible terrain and can be viewed as an extension of the surrounding highland landscape. If you're familiar with Lord of the Rings, it's basically a real-life Helm's Deep."

The reverse side of a coin of Natounia.  (Image credit: Photograph © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license).)

During its reign, the Parthian Empire played a formative role in the development of Eurasian globalization through its complex relations with Rome, India and Han China. "The fortress very likely played an important role in managing these relations through trade and diplomacy, as well as through military force," he said. 

However, it appears that the Parthians abandoned the fortress relatively soon after it was built. "Most of the architecture is single phase (i.e. not much rebuilding) so we think the fortress wasn't used for very long during its main Parthian era occupation. Probably a span of no more than 100 years," Brown said. 

While on site, Brown and his team also found a large waterfall in the valley, which he calls a "seasonal phenomena," since it appears only following a heavy rain.

"It could have held religious significance to Rabana's Parthian-era occupants," he said. "A plausible association can be made in this regard with the Iranian water-goddess Anahita. A small rock-cut altar nearby, most probably for fire, supports the religious interpretation." 

The findings will be published online Wednesday (July 20) in the journal Antiquity(opens in new tab).

Originally published on Live Science.

Kuwait's island of Failaka: Archaeologists have been uncovering a complex history extending back 4,000 years

More than 4,000 years of history in only 16 square miles

An aerial view of Kuwait’s Failaka Island shows four different sites representing thousands of years of civilization. (Courtesy Flemming Højlund, Kuwaiti-Danish Mission)

An aerial view of Kuwait’s Failaka Island shows four different sites representing thousands of years of civilization. (Courtesy Flemming Højlund, Kuwaiti-Danish Mission)

A forgotten sliver of land in the far north of the Persian Gulf, Kuwait’s Failaka Island is home now mostly to camels. Its only town is a sprawling ruin pockmarked with bullet holes and debris from tank rounds, and the landscape beyond seems empty and bleak. Even before Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait prompted its sudden evacuation, Failaka in the past century was little more than a quiet refuge for fishermen and the occasional Kuwaiti seeking relief from the mainland’s fierce heat. But just under the island’s sandy soil, archaeologists are discovering a complex history extending back 4,000 years, from the golden age of the first civilizations to the wars of the modern era.

The secret to Failaka’s rich past is its location, just 60 miles south of the spot where the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers empty into the Gulf. From the rise of Ur, the world’s largest metropolis in the late third millennium B.C., until Saddam Hussein’s attack during the First Gulf War, the island has been a strategic prize. For thousands of years, Failaka was a key base from which to cultivate and protect—or prey on—the lucrative trade that passed up and down the Persian Gulf. In addition, there were two protected harbors, potable water, and even some fertile soil. The island’s relative isolation provided a safe place for Christian mystics and farmers amid the rise of Islam in the seventh and eighth centuries A.D., as well as for pirates a millennium later.

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Currently, archaeological teams from no less than half a dozen countries, including Poland, France, Denmark, and Italy, are at work on Failaka. Given the political volatility of neighboring nations such as Iraq, Iran, and Syria, the island offers a welcome haven for researchers unable to conduct their work in many other parts of the region. “I started encouraging teams to come in 2004,” says Shehab Shehab, Kuwait’s antiquities director. “And I want to encourage more.”

The oldest settlement on Failaka was long thought to have been founded in about 1800 B.C. by the Dilmunites, a maritime people who likely hailed from what are today’s Bahraini and Saudi Arabian coasts, and who controlled Persian Gulf trade. But on Failaka’s southwest corner, a team from Denmark’s Moesgård Museum has uncovered evidence that Mesopotamians arrived at least a century before the Dilmunites. The finds are centered on a recently unearthed Mesopotamian-style building typical of those found on the nearby Iraqi mainland dating from around 2000 B.C. The structure was later partially covered by a Dilmunite temple.

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In the mythology of ancient Sumeria (modern Iraq), Dilmun is described as an Eden-like place of milk and honey. But by 2000 B.C., Dilmunites were leaving their homeland to become seagoing merchants and establish a powerful trading network that eventually stretched from India to Syria. Mesopotamian clay tablets refer to ships from Dilmun bringing wood, copper, and other goods from distant lands. By the nineteenth century B.C., Failaka had become a linchpin in the Dilmunites’ operations. At this point, after the Dilmunites had either ousted the Mesopotamians or merely succeeded them, there are no further signs of a Mesopotamian presence. The Dilmunites constructed a large temple and palace complex almost on top of the houses built by the earlier Mesopotamian residents. A French team that excavated the temple in the 1980s suggested that it was an oddity, possibly related to Syrian temple towers. But recent work by a team from the Moesgård Museum in Denmark points to a building remarkably similar to the Barbar sanctuary in Bahrain, considered the grandest Dilmun structure.

Dilmunite-temple.jpg

Failaka’s name is derived from the Greek word for outpost. But Alexander the Great, according to later classical authors such as Strabo and Arrian, gave Failaka the name Ikaros, since it resembled the Aegean island of that name in size and shape. French archaeologists working on the island in recent years have found several stone inscriptions dating to the fourth and third centuries b.c. mentioning the name Ikaros, as well as architecture and artifacts that reveal a bustling community with international ties during that period. The island’s accessible fresh water, easily defended coastline, and strategic location also attracted the attention of Alexander’s successors, who vied among themselves for control of regional trade routes. Antiochus I, who ruled the Seleucid Empire in the third century B.C., built a 60-foot-square fort around a well on Failaka. Inside the fortress compound, one small, elegant temple has Ionic columns and a plan that is quintessentially Greek, including an east-facing altar. This was no simple import, however, but a fascinating amalgamation of designs. The column bases, for example, are of the Persian Achaemenid style, similar to those in the capital, Persepolis, burned by Alexander’s troops in the fourth century B.C.

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The center of Failaka is a low-lying swampy area that is now the province of mosquitoes and wandering white camels that belong to the Kuwaiti emir. But a millennium ago, this was a three-square-mile pocket of fertile and well-watered plain cultivated by a small community of isolated Christians in a region populated by Muslims. Previous French excavations revealed several villages and two churches, including a possible monastic chapel. A Polish team led by Warsaw-based archaeologist Magdalena Zurek is now busy excavating nearby sites to understand the extent of the settlements that flourished in the eighth and ninth centuries A.D., several hundred years after the faith inspired by Muhammad swept through the region. “We know nothing about Christians on Failaka,” says Zurek, who suspects that a third church lies near her current excavation of a modest farmstead.

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The story of Failaka after the abandonment of the Christian villages remains shadowy. Currently archaeologists are turning their attention to several sites that sit along the northern shore of the island to probe the medieval and early modern periods. The most interesting is located on a high spot overlooking the gulf, facing Iraq. Nearly 30 years ago, a team from the University of Venice surveyed the site, pinpointing a village, called Al-Quraniya, that dates to at least as early as the seventeenth century A.D., and possibly several centuries earlier. In 2010, an Italian team led by Gian Luca Grassigli of the University of Perugia began intensive fieldwork there. The excavators have since uncovered an array of pottery, porcelain, glass bangles, and bronze objects, including nails and coins, dating to between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries A.D. The mound seems to have two large concentrations of building materials, and the archaeologists hope to make a detailed plan of the settlement in future campaigns. Deeper trenches may reveal evidence of earlier settlement, filling in the long gap between the abandonment of Christian villages and more recent times.

Failaka2.png

What is clear is that Failaka was still a notable outpost two millennia after Alexander. Just to the southeast of the village is a small square rock fort dating to about the sixteenth or seventeenth century. Some researchers believe that this structure was constructed by Portuguese soldier-merchants who did frequent business in the region. others suspect that Arab pirates built the base to attack the lucrative shipping lanes that led to wealthy Iraqi cities such as Basra or to ports along the Iranian coast to the east. In this era, european, Iranian, and chinese elites had a growing appetite for the gulf pearls that dominated the region’s economy. Pirates were a constant threat until the nineteenth century; British guns and diplomacy put an end to their raids.

Pirate hideout. (Courtesy Kuwaiti-Italian Mission)

Pirate hideout. (Courtesy Kuwaiti-Italian Mission)

The mainland of Kuwait is mostly harsh desert, with only a handful of significant ancient sites. Even the old town of Kuwait City, dating back two centuries, was long ago demolished to make way for skyscrapers. Thus Failaka is of prime importance to the country’s heritage. Recently, much of the island’s history was threatened by a plan to transform the barren land with its rocky coast into a major tourist magnet, complete with marinas, canals, spas, chalets, and enormous high-rise hotels and condominiums. In the wake of the global economic recession, however, the $5 billion project foundered, and was recently shelved. Shehab has moved into the resulting vacuum, lobbying hard to turn all of Failaka into a protected site in order to enable archaeologists to uncover, study, and preserve this small nation’s past.

The government already sets aside more than $10 million annually to cover the costs of foreign projects in Kuwait, and hopes to promote science as well as encourage heritage tourism. “Shehab’s dream is to create in Kuwait a kind of research center for Gulf basin archaeology,” says archaeologist Piotr Bielinski from the University of Warsaw, who is digging at a prehistoric site on the mainland just north of Kuwait City. And excavators on Failaka are making the most of this unique opportunity, exposing evidence of Mesopotamian merchants, religious structures representing three cultures and spanning more than 2,500 years, a pirate’s lair, and the remains of Failaka’s last battle, ample testimony to the island’s millennia-long endurance.

By ANDREW LAWLER

The Oldest Specimen of Applied Geometry was Discovered in a 3,700-year-old Babylonian Clay Tablet!

It is considered important that the "surveyor" uses the so-called "Pythagorean triples" to create precise right angles. "The discovery and analysis of the plate have important implications for the history of mathematics. "For example, the plaque was created more than a thousand years before Pythagoras was born," Mansfield said.

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A mathematician says he has uncovered the origins of applied geometry and land surveying after the rediscovery of a 3,700-year-old clay tablet.

The Bronze Age relic – know as Si427 – was first discovered in late 19th century Iraq and lay hidden in plain sight in an Istanbul museum for decades.

But detective work by a lecturer from the University of New South Wales in Australia has revealed the artefact's true purpose: to outline precise boundaries and avoid disputes among wealthy landowners in ancient Babylonia.

“Si427 dates from the Old Babylonian [OB] period – 1,900 to 1,600 BC,” says lead researcher Dr Daniel Mansfield from UNSW’s School of Mathematics and Statistics in a study released in the Foundations of Science journal.

“It’s the only known example of a cadastral document from the OB period, which is a plan used by surveyors to define land boundaries. In this case, it tells us legal and geometric details about a field that’s split after some of it was sold off.

“This is from a period where land is starting to become private – people started thinking about land in terms of ‘my land and your land’, wanting to establish a proper boundary to have positive neighbourly relationships. And this is what this tablet immediately says. It's a field being split, and new boundaries are made.”

Dr Mansfield first learnt about the Si427 tablet after reading it had been dig up during the Sippar expedition of 1894, in what is Baghdad province today.

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“It was a real challenge to trace the tablet from these records and physically find it – the report said that the tablet had gone to the Imperial Museum of Constantinople, a place that obviously doesn’t exist any more," he says.

“Using that piece of information, I went on a quest to track it down, speaking to many people at Turkish government ministries and museums, until one day in mid 2018 a photo of Si427 finally landed in my inbox.

“That's when I learnt that it was actually on display at the museum. Even after locating the object it still took months to fully understand just how significant it is, and so it's really satisfying to finally be able to share that story.”

The analysis of the tablet has important implications for the history of mathematics, because it dates from more than a thousand years before ancient Greek mathematician Pythagoras was born.

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“It is generally accepted that trigonometry – the branch of maths that is concerned with the study of triangles – was developed by the ancient Greeks studying the night sky in the second century BC,” Dr Mansfield says.

“But the Babylonians developed their own alternative ‘proto-trigonometry’ to solve problems related to measuring the ground, not the sky.”

Dr Mansfield says the way these boundaries are made reveals real geometric understanding.

“Nobody expected that the Babylonians were using Pythagorean triples in this way,” Dr Mansfield says.

“It is more akin to pure mathematics, inspired by the practical problems of the time.”

Neil Murphy

4,000-Year-Old Babylonian Tablet Have Similar Mythological Patterns with the Old Testament Τale of Noah!

A recently deciphered 4,000-year-old tablet from ancient Mesopotamia reveals striking new details about the roots of the Old Testament tale of Noah.

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 It was a vast boat that saved two of each animal and a handful of humans from a catastrophic flood. But forget all those images of a long vessel with a pointy bow - the original Noah's Ark, new research suggests, was round.

A recently deciphered 4,000-year-old tablet from ancient Mesopotamia -modern-day Iraq- reveals striking new details about the roots of the Old Testament tale of Noah. It tells a similar story, complete with detailed instructions for building a giant round vessel known as a coracle -as well as the key instruction that animals should enter "two by two."

The tablet went on display at the British Museum, and engineers will follow the ancient instructions to see whether the vessel could actually have sailed.

It's also the subject of a new book, "The Ark Before Noah," by Irving Finkel, the museum's assistant keeper of the Middle East and the man who translated the tablet.

The 4000 year old clay tablet containing the story of the Ark and the flood stands on display at the British Museum in London during the launch of the book 'The Ark Before Noah' by Irving Finkel, curator in charge of cuneiform clay tablets at the Br…

The 4000 year old clay tablet containing the story of the Ark and the flood stands on display at the British Museum in London during the launch of the book 'The Ark Before Noah' by Irving Finkel, curator in charge of cuneiform clay tablets at the British Museum, Friday, Jan. 24, 2014. (AP/Sang Tan)

Finkel got hold of it a few years ago, when a man brought in a damaged tablet his father had acquired in the Middle East after World War II. It was light brown, about the size of a mobile phone and covered in the jagged cuneiform script of the ancient Mesopotamians.

It turned out, Finkel said Friday, to be "one of the most important human documents ever discovered."

"It was really a heart-stopping moment -- the discovery that the boat was to be a round boat," said Finkel, who sports a long grey beard, a ponytail and boundless enthusiasm for his subject. "That was a real surprise."

And yet, Finkel said, a round boat makes sense. Coracles were widely used as river taxis in ancient Iraq and are perfectly designed to bob along on raging floodwaters.

"It's a perfect thing," Finkel said. "It never sinks, it's light to carry."

Elizabeth Stone, an expert on the antiquities of ancient Mesopotamia at New York's Stony Brook University, said it made sense that ancient Mesopotamians would depict their mythological ark in that shape.

"People are going to envision the boat however people envision boats where they are," she said. "Coracles are not unusual things to have had in Mesopotamia."

The replica ark and its original design was based on a coracle and the vessel (pictured) has been constructed according to exact instructions marked on clay tablets from ancient Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq)

The replica ark and its original design was based on a coracle and the vessel (pictured) has been constructed according to exact instructions marked on clay tablets from ancient Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq)

The tablet records a Mesopotamian god's instructions for building a giant vessel -two-thirds the size of a soccer field in area- made of rope, reinforced with wooden ribs and coated in bitumen.

Finkel said that on paper (or stone) the boat-building orders appear sound, but he doesn't yet know whether it would have floated.

The flood story recurs in later Mesopotamian writings including the "Epic of Gilgamesh." These versions lack the technical instructions -cut out, Finkel believes, because they got in the way of the storytelling.

"It would be like a Bond movie where instead of having this great sexy red car that comes on, somebody starts to tell you about how many horsepower it's got and the pressure of the tires and the capacity of the boot (trunk)," he said. "No one cares about that. They want the car chase."

Finkel is aware his discovery may cause consternation among believers in the Biblical story. When 19th-century British Museum scholars first learned from cuneiform tablets that the Babylonians had a flood myth, they were disturbed by its striking similarities to the story of Noah.

"Already in 1872 people were writing about it in a worried way -- What does it mean that Holy Writ appears on this piece of Weetabix?" he joked, referring to a cereal similar in shape to the tablet.

Finkel has no doubts.

"I'm sure the story of the flood and a boat to rescue life is a Babylonian invention," he said.

He believes the tale was likely passed on to the Jews during their exile in Babylon in the 6th century B.C. And he doesn't think the tablet provides evidence the ark described in the Bible existed. He said it's more likely that a devastating real flood made its way into folk memory, and has remained there ever since.

"I don't think the ark existed - but a lot of people do," he said. "It doesn't really matter. The Biblical version is a thing of itself and it has a vitality forever.”

Jill Lawless, The Associated Press

Turkey's Ancient Cities Shed Light On Vast Mesopotamian History

Konya's 9,000-year-old Çatalhöyük, Çorum's Hittite ruins and its cultural and artistic center Alacahöyük, Anatolia's first executive military center, and Kayseri's Kültepe, home to thousands of clay tablets, are ancient sites included in Turkey's vast heritage, shedding light on thousands of years of Anatolian and Mesopotamian history.

A man wanders around in the ancient city of Çatalhöyük, a 9,000-year-old UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Çumra district of Konya, central Turkey, April 19, 2021. (AA Photo)

A man wanders around in the ancient city of Çatalhöyük, a 9,000-year-old UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Çumra district of Konya, central Turkey, April 19, 2021. (AA Photo)

Çatalhöyük

The ancient Çatalhöyük site – located in the Çumra district of central Turkey's Konya – is one of the first urbanization models in Mesopotamia's history. It is on the UNESCO World Heritage List, and it is one of the clearest windows into the 9,000-year-old Anatolian lifestyle.

Archaeologist Numan Arslan, from the Çatalhöyük excavation project team, explained that the site was discovered in 1958, with the first excavations starting in 1961, and that the site was dated to the Neolithic period 9,000 years ago.

"Çatalhöyük has offered very intriguing data to the world of archeology. The art, symbolism, their complex societal structure, these kinds of settlements were known to exist in the Near East but not in Central Anatolia," Arslan told Anadolu Agency (AA).

The ancient city of Çatalhöyük, a 9,000-year-old UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the Çumra district of Konya, central Turkey, April 19, 2021. (AA Photo)

The ancient city of Çatalhöyük, a 9,000-year-old UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the Çumra district of Konya, central Turkey, April 19, 2021. (AA Photo)

Arslan then stated that the transition from hunting and gathering to the first urban model occurred in Çatalhöyük. "We now live in metropolises. We have to follow the urban culture given by those crowded metropolises, but the people of Çatalhöyük first tried out an urban city culture here, 9,000 years ago,” he said.

Arslan also noted their societal system. “There was a completely egalitarian social structure. There were no public spaces, no common meeting areas. Lots of houses. It shows us the importance of working together and supporting each other."

Hattusas and Alacahöyük

Çorum is home to many Anatolia “firsts” thanks to its vast ancient history with its ruins of Hattusas, which served as the capital of the Hittite civilization for 450 years, and Alacahöyük, which was the cultural and artistic center of the Hittites and the first administrative-military center in Anatolia, all located within the borders of the northern Anatolian province.

The ancient city of Hattusas, located in the district of Boğazkale and host to the cultural heritage of the Hittites, is the only ancient city in the world to be considered both a UNESCO World Heritage List site and also a part of the Memory of the World Program.

The ancient Hittite sphinx, a special statue from the ancient city of Hattusas, stands at the entrance of the Boğazkale Museum, Çorum, Turkey, April 19, 2021. (AA Photo)

The ancient Hittite sphinx, a special statue from the ancient city of Hattusas, stands at the entrance of the Boğazkale Museum, Çorum, Turkey, April 19, 2021. (AA Photo)

Hattusas is also home to the first known written treaty in history in the form of a cease-fire agreement between the Hittites and Egyptians, called the Kadesh Peace Treaty.

The city is the source of many historical artifacts obtained in the archaeological excavations that have been going on for more than a century in the region, with most being exhibited in the Boğazkale Museum.

The Hittite Sphinx, a special kind of statue belonging to the royal family dating back to 1,300 B.C., could be considered the crowning jewel of the museum's exhibitions.

The limestone sphinx – 258 centimeters (101.5 inches) long, 175 centimeters wide and about 1,700 kilograms (3,747 pounds) in weight – greets its visitors at the entrance of the Boğazkale Museum.

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism brought it back to its homeland in 2011 after 94 years from Germany, where it was taken to be restored in 1917.

Kültepe

Finally, there is Kültepe – also known as Kanesh – which helped unearth history from a different angle with its thousands of clay tablets enlightening the trade and culture in Anatolia, a mere 4,000 years ago.

The first scientific excavations at the site began in 1948 under the leadership of Tahsin Özgüç. They have been ongoing for 73 years about 25 kilometers (15 miles) from the city center of central Turkey's Kayseri.

The ancient city of Kültepe, also known as Kanesh, located 25 kilometers (15 miles) from Kayseri, central Turkey, April 19, 2021. (AA Photo)

The ancient city of Kültepe, also known as Kanesh, located 25 kilometers (15 miles) from Kayseri, central Turkey, April 19, 2021. (AA Photo)

The cuneiform clay tablets unearthed in Kültepe – and exhibited in Ankara, Kayseri and Istanbul – present a history of Assyrian merchants traveling from around Mosul to Anatolia and accepting Kayseri as their capital, thus introducing the Anatolian people to trade and writing 4,000 years ago.

"The Assyrian merchants made trade in the region stretching from Eskişehir to Kütahya, from the lakes region to Samsun," Ankara University's Fikri Kulakoğlu said. He emphasized that the center established in Kayseri played an important role in opening Anatolia to the world.

"The Assyrians paid a part of the profits they earned from their trade here as a tax and ensured the development of local cities. The Assyrians enabled the Anatolian people to meet the global world of those times. At the end of this period, the Hittite Kingdom, which was the first state of Anatolia, was established," Kulakoğlu noted.

BY DAILY SABAH

Source: https://www.dailysabah.com/arts/turkeys-an...

What do we call 'Artificial cranial deformation' in archaeology and why did ancient civilizations practised it?

Artificial cranial deformation or modification, head flattening, or head binding is a form of body alteration in which the skull of a human being is deformed intentionally. It is done by distorting the normal growth of a child's skull by applying force. Flat shapes, elongated ones (produced by binding between two pieces of wood), rounded ones (binding in cloth), and conical ones are among those chosen or valued in various cultures. Typically, the shape alteration is carried out on an infant, as the skull is most pliable at this time. In a typical case, headbinding begins approximately a month after birth and continues for about six months.

Elongated skull of a young woman, probably an Alan

Elongated skull of a young woman, probably an Alan

Intentional cranial deformation predates written history; it was practiced commonly in a number of cultures that are widely separated geographically and chronologically, and still occurs today in a few areas, including Vanuatu.

The earliest suggested examples were once thought to include Neanderthals and the Proto-Neolithic Homo sapiens component (ninth millennium BC) from Shanidar Cave in Iraq, The view that the Neanderthal skull was artificially deformed, thus representing the oldest example of such practices by tens of thousands of years, has since been argued incorrect by Chech, Grove, Thorne, and Trinkaus, based on new cranial reconstructions in 1999, where the team concluded "we no longer consider that artificial cranial deformation can be inferred for the specimen". It thought elongated skulls found among Neolithic peoples in Southwest Asia were the result of artificial cranial deformation.

The earliest written record of cranial deformation—by Hippocrates, of the Macrocephali or Long-heads, who were named for their practice of cranial modification—dates to 400 BC.

Portrait of Alchon Hun king Khingila, from his coinage, circa 450 AD.

Portrait of Alchon Hun king Khingila, from his coinage, circa 450 AD.

In the Old World, Huns also are known to have practised similar cranial deformation, as were the people known as the Alans. In Late Antiquity (AD 300–600), the East Germanic tribes who were ruled by the Huns, the Gepids, Ostrogoths, Heruli, Rugii, and Burgundians adopted this custom. Among the Lombards, the Burgundians and the Thuringians, this custom seems to have comprised women only. In western Germanic tribes, artificial skull deformations rarely have been found.

The practice of cranial deformation was brought to Bactria and Sogdiana by the Yuezhi, a tribe that created the Kushan Empire. Men with such skulls are depicted in various surviving sculptures and friezes of that time, such as the Kushan prince of Khalchayan.

The Alchon Huns are generally recognized by their elongated skull, a result of artificial skull deformation, which may have represented their "corporate identity". The elongated skulls appears clearly in most of the portaits of rulers in the coinage of the Alkhon Huns, and most visibly on the coinage of Khingila. These elongated skulls, which they obviously displayed with pride, distinguished them from other peoples, such as their predecessors the Kidarites. On their coins, the spectacular skulls came to replace the Sasanian-type crowns which had been current in the coinage of the region.

This practice is also known among other peoples of the steppes, particularly the Huns, as far as Europe.

The Iranian hero Rostam, mythical king of Zabulistan, in his 7th century AD mural at Panjikent. He is represented with an elongated skull, in the fashion of the Alchon Huns.

The Iranian hero Rostam, mythical king of Zabulistan, in his 7th century AD mural at Panjikent. He is represented with an elongated skull, in the fashion of the Alchon Huns.

In the Americas, the Maya, Inca, and certain tribes of North American natives performed the custom. In North America the practice was known, especially among the Chinookan tribes of the Northwest and the Choctaw of the Southeast. The Native American group known as the Flathead Indians, in fact, did not practise head flattening, but were named as such in contrast to other Salishan people who used skull modification to make the head appear rounder. Other tribes, including both Southeastern tribes like the Choctaw and Northwestern tribes like the Chehalis and Nooksack Indians, practiced head flattening by strapping the infant's head to a cradleboard.

The practice of cranial deformation was also practiced by the Lucayan people of the Bahamas and the Taínos of the Caribbean. It was also known among the Aboriginal Australians.

Deformed skulls, Afrasiab, Samarkand, Sogdia, 600-800 AD.

Deformed skulls, Afrasiab, Samarkand, Sogdia, 600-800 AD.

Paracas skulls.

Paracas skulls.

In Africa, the Mangbetu stood out to European explorers because of their elongated heads. Traditionally, babies' heads were wrapped tightly with cloth in order to give them this distinctive appearance. The practice began dying out in the 1950s.

Friedrich Ratzel reported in 1896 that deformation of the skull, both by flattening it behind and elongating it toward the vertex, was found in isolated instances in Tahiti, Samoa, Hawaii, and the Paumotu group, and that it occurred most frequently on Mallicollo in the New Hebrides (today Malakula, Vanuatu), where the skull was squeezed extraordinarily flat.

The custom of binding babies' heads in Europe in the twentieth century, though dying out at the time, was still extant in France, and also found in pockets in western Russia, the Caucasus, and in Scandinavia. The reasons for the shaping of the head varied over time and for different reasons, from aesthetic to pseudoscientific ideas about the brain's ability to hold certain types of thought depending on its shape. In the region of Toulouse (France), these cranial deformations persisted sporadically up until the early twentieth century; however, rather than being intentionally produced as with some earlier European cultures, Toulousian Deformation seemed to have been the unwanted result of an ancient medical practice among the French peasantry known as bandeau, in which a baby's head was tightly wrapped and padded in order to protect it from impact and accident shortly after birth. In fact, many of the early modern observers of the deformation were recorded as pitying these peasant children, whom they believed to have been lowered in intelligence due to the persistence of old European customs.

Deliberate deformity of the skull, "Toulouse deformity", France. The band visible in photograph is used to induce shape change.

Deliberate deformity of the skull, "Toulouse deformity", France. The band visible in photograph is used to induce shape change.

Motivations and theories

One modern theory is cranial deformation was likely performed to signify group affiliation, or to demonstrate social status. Such motivations may have played a key role in Maya society, aimed at creating a skull shape that is aesthetically more pleasing or associated with desirable cultural attributes. For example, in the Na'ahai-speaking area of Tomman Island and the south south-western Malakulan (Australasia), a person with an elongated head is thought to be more intelligent, of higher status, and closer to the world of the spirits.

Historically, there have been a number of various theories regarding the motivations for these practices.

It has also been considered possible that the practice of cranial deformation originates from an attempt to emulate those groups of the population in which elongated head shape was a natural condition. The skulls of some Ancient Egyptians are among those identified as often being elongated naturally and macrocephaly may be a familial characteristic. For example, Rivero and Tschudi describe a mummy containing a fetus with an elongated skull, describing it thus:

the same formation [i.e. absence of the signs of artificial pressure] of the head presents itself in children yet unborn; and of this truth we have had convincing proof in the sight of a foetus, enclosed in the womb of a mummy of a pregnant woman, which we found in a cave of Huichay, two leagues from Tarma, and which is, at this moment, in our collection. Professor D'Outrepont, of great Celebrity in the department of obstetrics, has assured us that the foetus is one of seven months' age. It belongs, according to a very clearly defined formation of the cranium, to the tribe of the Huancas. We present the reader with a drawing of this conclusive and interesting proof in opposition to the advocates of mechanical action as the sole and exclusive cause of the phrenological form of the Peruvian race.

P. F. Bellamy makes a similar observation about the two elongated skulls of infants, which were discovered and brought to England by a "Captain Blankley" and handed over to the Museum of the Devon and Cornwall Natural History Society in 1838. According to Bellamy, these skulls belonged to two infants, female and male, "one of which was not more than a few months old, and the other could not be much more than one year." He writes,

It will be manifest from the general contour of these skulls that they are allied to those in the Museum of the College of Surgeons in London, denominated Titicacans. Those adult skulls are very generally considered to be distorted by the effects of pressure; but in opposition to this opinion Dr. Graves has stated that "a careful examination of them has convinced him that their peculiar shape cannot be owing to artificial pressure;" and to corroborate this view, we may remark that the peculiarities are as great in the child as in the adult, and indeed more in the younger than in the elder of the two specimens now produced: and the position is considerably strengthened by the great relative length of the large bones of the cranium; by the direction of the plane of the occipital bone, which is not forced upwards, but occupies a place in the under part of the skull; by the further absence of marks of pressure, there being no elevation of the vertex nor projection of either side; and by the fact of there being no instrument nor mechanical contrivance suited to produce such an alteration of form (as these skulls present) found in connexion with them.

Erbil - One of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world

The first excavations show that urban life in Erbil can be dated back to at least 6000 BC and it is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world.

Erbil or Hawler (Kurdish: ھەولێر ,Hewlêr‎) known in ancient history as Arbela, is the capital and most populated city in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. It has around 1.5 million inhabitants, while Erbil Governorate has 2,932,800 inhabitants as of 2020.

The booming city of Erbil (ancient Arbela) in Kurdistan encircles the ancient citadel where evidence of more than six millennia of human habitation is just beginning to be uncovered.

The booming city of Erbil (ancient Arbela) in Kurdistan encircles the ancient citadel where evidence of more than six millennia of human habitation is just beginning to be uncovered.

The 100-foot-high, oval-shaped citadel of Erbil towers high above the northern Mesopotamian plain, within sight of the Zagros Mountains that lead to the Iranian plateau. The massive mound, with its vertiginous man-made slope, built up by its inhabitants over at least the last 6,000 years, is the heart of what may be the world’s oldest continuously occupied settlement. At various times over its long history, the city has been a pilgrimage site dedicated to a great goddess, a prosperous trading center, a town on the frontier of several empires, and a rebel stronghold.

Yet despite its place as one of the ancient Near East’s most significant cities, Erbil’s past has been largely hidden. A dense concentration of nineteenth- and twentieth-century houses stands atop the mound, and these have long prevented archaeologists from exploring the city’s older layers. As a consequence, almost everything known about the metropolis—called Arbela in antiquity—has been cobbled together from a handful of ancient texts and artifacts unearthed at other sites. “We know Arbela existed, but without excavating the site, all else is a hypothesis,” says University of Cambridge archaeologist John MacGinnis.

Bird-view image of the Erbil Citadel.

Bird-view image of the Erbil Citadel.

Last year, for the first time, major excavations began on the north edge of the enormous hill, revealing the first traces of the fabled city. Ground-penetrating radar recently detected two large stone structures below the citadel’s center that may be the remains of a renowned temple dedicated to Ishtar, the goddess of love and war. There, according to ancient texts, Assyrian kings sought divine guidance, and Alexander the Great assumed the title of King of Asia in 331 B.C. Other new work includes the search for a massive fortification wall surrounding the ancient lower town and citadel, excavation of an impressive tomb just north of the citadel likely dating to the seventh century B.C., and examination of what lies under the modern city’s expanding suburbs. Taken together, these finds are beginning to provide a more complete picture not only of Arbela’s own story, but also of the growth of the first cities, the rise of the mighty Assyrian Empire, and the tenacity of an ethnically diverse urban center that has endured for more than six millennia. Located on a fertile plain that supports rain-fed agriculture, Erbil and its surrounds have, for thousands of years, been a regional breadbasket, a natural gateway to the east, and a key junction on the road connecting the Persian Gulf to the south with Anatolia to the north. Geography has been both the city’s blessing and curse in this perennially fractious region. Inhabitants fought repeated invasions by the soldiers of the Sumerian capital of Ur 4,000 years ago, witnessed three Roman emperors attack the Persians, and suffered the onslaught of Genghis Khan’s cavalry in the thirteenth century, the cannons of eighteenth-century Afghan warlords, and the wrath of Saddam Hussein’s tanks only 20 years ago. Yet, through thousands of years, the city survived, and even thrived, while other once-great cities such as Babylon and Nineveh crumbled.

By ANDREW LAWLER

Erbil Citadel in 1950.

Erbil Citadel in 1950.