You know what is useful in any kind of research endeavor? In addition to the expected copious amounts of caffeine, a disregard for the fact that your life is finite, and the merciful existence of takeaway food services while working overtime, that is.1 Tables! And this got me thinking: when did tabular accounts appear in ancient Mesopotamia? Or in other words: was there a cuneiform alternative for programs like Excel and Calc, that are so ubiquitous today? As with many questions we try to answer here at Bildungblocks – and one of the primary reasons that these blogs are often published irregularly – this matter turned out to be way more complicated then you would expect at first. But one could argue, if only for my own sanity, that such complications make a topic merely more intriguing than it already is.
Category Archives: Ancient Mesopotamia
Forgotten Gods #2: Where Did Marduk Go?
You know what is a sobering fact which keeps me with both my feet firmly on the ground? That there was once a time – unbelievable but true – in which people did not venerate the great and ancient Mesopotamian god Marduk. And you know what’s even more indicative of the mere relative importance of everything? The fact that at one point people stopped venerating Marduk! Today we are going to look at the rise and fall of this imposing Mesopotamian god, of whom no-one in the second millennium BCE would have believed that their prominence could ever diminish.1 But nothing lasts forever and, as one age follows another, even the gods may become a mere historical footnote.Welcome to the second part of my always uplifting series on forgotten gods!
How One Word Enriched Our Understanding of the Gilgamesh Epic
Much of our current knowledge is merely provisional. Specifically in the humanities, we can always encounter new evidence, construct unique theoretical frameworks that support novel interpretations, or make use of the progress in other scientific disciplines.1 And such fresh insights in the humanities can subsequently help us to find even more new evidence, to construct further unique theoretical frameworks, and to aid other scientific disciplines in turn.2 These developments do not always entail that scholars had been wrong before, though – quite the contrary! Our understanding may also be merely expanded or enriched. And this can happen for the most pedestrian of reasons. Even one word can suffice! So today we will discuss how one newly discovered word of the Epic of Gilgamesh ushered in a better understanding of this famous tale from ancient West-Asia.
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Forgotten Gods #1: Did NinSimug Exist?
The bulk of my readers, I assume, have made their peace with eventually being forgotten after their death. Because most of us will seldom be remembered after all that knew us have perished in turn. But one would expect that this could not be the fate of gods! After all, they have regularly amassed lots and lots of followers and their worship was often institutionalized. But even gods tend to be forgotten, be it after a shorter or a longer while. And nowadays many of them only figure in later reconstructions of past religions.1 In this new series, I want to introduce a few of these forgotten gods and through them illustrate some interesting aspects of ancient religious history, practices, and beliefs. This week, we survey the life and times of a deity from ancient west-Asia: NinSimug.
Where Was Ancient Mesopotamia? The Case for Microecologies
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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The Themes of My Favorite Video Games of 2024
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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The Epic of Anzû: One of Ancient Mesopotamia’s Coolest Action Scenes
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 Anzû bird, makes the ancient tale now known as the Epic of Anzû undoubtedly one such story.2
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A.I. and Assyriology
To study Assyriology is both an intellectual joy and an exercise in sadness. The latter may come as a surprise to those who have read my breezy blogs about the fascinating world of the ancient Near East. Because, while it is true that we possess many useful sources from which we have learned a lot over the decades, we still lack a lot of essential information.1 For example, to use the story-based methodologies that can be found within the environmental humanities, with which we aim to establish how the people back then used to think about and deal with nature, we do need some stories.2 When these specific sources have been lost to time, such as with respect to ancient Elam – roughly the southwest and east of modern Iran – applying such methodologies is quite impossible.3 But we should not abandon all hope! Not only are there probably still clay tablets and other documents preserved in undiscovered archeological find spots across the Near East, but there are also thousands of unread fragments of clay tablets, papyri, and the other media just waiting to be studied, which sometimes haven’t been read since they were taken out of the ground. Extensively celebrating the latter reassurance would be premature, though. Because, there are at the moment simply not enough experts to study all these documents – even if they can be read.4 Luckily, we came into some good news recently: A.I., an abbreviation of the term ‘artificial intelligence,’ can be of service! Or can it?
‘Succession’ in the Bronze Age
It is easy to see why HBO’s darkly sardonic ‘Succession’ was one of the most popular tv-series of the last decade.1 We got to experience trappings of wealth that are otherwise unattainable to us – or at least to me – while being invested in a web of intrigue, betrayals, and parental issues that would even impress William Shakespeare. The heart of the show – so to speak, that is – is the relationship between Logan Roy, founder and CEO of a veritable business empire, and three of his four children. Through profanity laden rants and other varieties of abuse, Logan tries to prepare one of his children for the top role, though none of them ever lives up to his expectations.2 But what if I told you that there are not only recent historical parallels to this entwinement of fierce power struggles and dysfunctional family dynamics?3 Indeed, the Roys might feel right at home in the Bronze Age. As the relationships within the royal family in the Bronze Age kingdom of Upper-Mesopotamia were perhaps as volatile as those between the Roys, be it less profanity laden – but only marginally so.
Nature, Culture and the Gilgamesh Epic
What do you do when you have a story about enduring friendship, reckless attempts to win fame and immortality, and the inevitable bleakness of the human condition? You mine it for ecological themes, of course! And that is exactly what we are going to do today with the oldest surviving epic in the world, the ancient Mesopotamian Gilgamesh Epic. Such an undertaking stands in a long tradition, as the Epic both offered its contemporary readers explanations for the world in which they lived, as well as granting us today many insights into the society that conceived of it.1 In this blog we will unearth how the Epic relates to the concept of wilderness and the perceived dichotomy between nature and culture in ancient Mesopotamian thought.