Where Was Ancient Mesopotamia? The Case for Microecologies

Ancient Mesopotamia, Antiquity, Environmental Humanities, Methodology

That most people do not spend every waking hour contemplating the ultimate origins and regularly shifting meaning of everyday words – especially those of us who are not writing blogs for other’s infotainment – does not mean that this isn’t a very rewarding activity.1 Especially when it comes to area designations which are so ingrained that we hardly think about them, like the ancient Mediterranean or ancient Mesopotamia. Because it can be interesting to work out under which circumstances such large regions during such long eras can fruitfully be denoted with a single label and when this would obscure important subdivisions or local developments. For instance. if one studies people’s relationship to their immediate environment – be it ideologically, economically, or in any other conceivable way – it may be rewarding to break up familiar areas into what is called microecologies.2 And it is this useful methodological tool that I want to discuss with you today. Through this discussion we will also discover the ultimate origins of the label ‘Mesopotamia’ and encounter some of the conspicuous environmental differences within this region in ancient times.

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Translation as Obfuscation: Is ‘The Second Sex’ by Simone de Beauvoir?

Philosophy, Translation Studies

None of us can read all possible languages. For many of the important books that shaped our lives, from literary works that broadened our minds to philosophy treatises which opened new ways of thinking to us, we had thus to rely on translations. Which in turn meant trusting translators and the choices they made. And though there are many possible and valid ways to translate the written word from one language into another – on a spectrum that runs from ephemeral attempts to craft an equivalent text to complete re-imaginings – sometimes there are obvious mistakes.1 And none of these mistakes are perhaps as remarkable, or as instructive on the noble craft of translation itself, as those that can be found in the two attempts to translate Simone de Beauvoir’s Le Deuxiùme Sexe in English, both called The Second Sex.2

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The Themes of My Favorite Video Games of 2024

Ancient Mesopotamia, Antiquity, Environmental Humanities, Methodology, Philosophy, Video Games

After we discussed my twenty favorite albums of the previous calendar year last week, today I want to introduce you to three games that came out in 2024 and which may be of interest to the readers of this blog. Because the themes present in these products of digital entertainment harken back to subjects that we discussed on Bildungblocks in the past and provide, I hope, a new perspective on them. These are, in my opinion, also the best games of last year. As such, the following discussion doubles as a list with my favorite video games of 2024.

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My Favorite Albums of 2024

Music

2024, what a year! It was, like, a whole 12 months
 In that time span some artists released records and others didn’t. And the former are lucky, because they are eligible to be on the list which relays my favorite albums of the previous calendar year! Remember how I struggled last year to confine this list to ten entries and had to settle for fifteen? Well, this year that did not happen, thankfully. This year I ended up with twenty albums. But before I reveal the list, I would be amiss to not first dedicate a few words on its – naturally painstaking – compilation and on some of the throughlines that can be said to characterize last year’s music. Because, as you might have guessed, this list is not (merely) meant to display my ridiculously refined tastes but to provide you all with some of the excellent music produced in 2024 that you might have missed and which can hopefully help with a good start of the new year.

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Scholarship as an Art Form

Methodology

Scholarship, from the hard sciences to the insightful humanities, has been characterized in many different ways since we started to think about this important human activity as an object of study in its own right.1 To name two acclaimed examples: in the early twentieth century BCE, Max Weber denoted science as a vocation, and a few decades afterwards, Thomas Kuhn revolutionized our theoretical notions about the trajectory of the scientific endeavor with his idea of progress in this regard as the shift from and towards different paradigms instead of incremental steps toward a delineated goal that hardly changes.2 All such grand theories about the pursuit of knowledge in a systematic way through communities of dedicated scholars and scientists have their defenders and detractors, and – as with most bold ideas – we can point to many necessary nuances.3 And this is perhaps what makes the works of theorists like Weber and Kuhn so well-known, that we can endlessly debate them. But today, I want to discuss one adjacent idea which is less famous, that of scholarship as an aesthetic or even an art form.

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The Caring Queen: Puduáž«epa of Hatti

Ancient Anatolia, Antiquity

A few weeks ago we discussed how history regularly does not give equal attention to all those who lived in the ancient past. In part, this is because of the limitations of our sources. Not only were the persons who could write back then often part of merely certain societal groups, but it also matters for whom and about whom they could chose to write within the constraints of their profession and world view. In addition there are the vicissitudes of fortune when it comes to which texts were accidently preserved and subsequently discovered, as well as to which texts kept getting copied and circulated throughout the ages.1 Due to such factors it is difficult to ascertain the lived experience of most women in many eras and areas, for example.2 Especially their inner world has often not survived through the written word. Though scholars did make progress in this regard for several different time periods and societies, including the monumental Women of Babylon by the Assyriologist Zainab Bahrani.3 And there is one prominent woman from ancient Anatolia who we may come to know reasonably well. A queen whose caring attitude shines through both the public and private documents pertaining to her: Puduáž«epa of Hatti.

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The Original Trolley Problem

Philosophy

Some talking points are so deeply entrenched in the public imagination that it is difficult to imagine a time when they were no the go-to argument during all too familiar discussions in academia, on the political stage, or at birthday parties. This is also the case with the so-called trolley problem. When weighing interests, this analogy is never far from people’s minds – and it has even penetrated popular culture treatments of philosophy, like the television series The Good Place.1 One could speak of a proper “trolleyology”, so to say.2 But once upon a time, someone had to come up with this scenario. And this involved way more thinking about speleology, courtrooms, and healthcare than you would probably expect!

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Warlords of Hatti: The Greatest Television Series Never Made

Ancient Anatolia, Antiquity

Some might say that we live in an age of reboots and remakes.1 The adjacent need for already known or otherwise established material often leads those working in media-production to the past. As a result, many historical figures have a section about their appearances in popular culture tacked onto their Wikipedia-page, for example.2 But there is a lot of potential here, be it pertaining to relatively less famous periods and persons, that still remains untapped. Such is the case with the reigns and other adventures of the Hittite king Ơuppiluliuma I and his royal prodigy, who ruled the Kingdom of the Hittites – roughly ancient Anatolia and sometimes parts of Syria – during the fourteenth and thirteenth century BCE.3 These men presided over a period of war, diplomacy, and intrigue that would put the average season of HBO’s famous serial Game of Thrones to shame – and which included court shenanigans in Ancient Egypt, for crying out loud!4 So, consider this my unofficial application for Hollywood and join me in summarizing the outline of the greatest television series never made: Warlords of Hatti.

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The Epic of AnzĂ»: One of Ancient Mesopotamia’s Coolest Action Scenes

Ancient Mesopotamia, Antiquity

It is probably safe to say that every human being – perhaps even any and all hominid! – appreciates a good story.1 We all like to be entertained, to be moved, to shudder with fear, and, when the mood is right, to take away points of view that are presented in the narrative which we can ponder with regard to our own life and the lives of those around us. And sometimes we see, read, or otherwise experience a story that is so good, that one cannot be anything else than in awe of the narrative excellence on display. The clever resolution to an intriguing battle of weapons, magic, and wits between one of the Mesopotamian gods and the fearsome AnzĂ» bird, makes the ancient tale now known as the Epic of AnzĂ» undoubtedly one such story.2

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Firewatch: We Always Take Ourselves With Us

Environmental Humanities, Video Games

Over the course of a human life, most of us will have experienced moments when we yearned to just flee our current problems and predicaments. Such a desire for escape often coincides with an inclination towards seclusion in a more natural environment. To leave our city, town, or hamlet for the open country and find the peace and quiet we are missing in nature, so to say.1 Both the attraction of such a flight and its ultimate futility have perhaps never been portrayed more authentically and bittersweet than in the narrative video game Firewatch.

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