# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
See all the wonderful things Mrs. Ennett has made

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Exploring Chinese History :: Culture :: Archaeology :: Oracle Bones

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Cuneiform is a system of writing first developed by the ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia c. 3500-3000 BCE. It is considered the most significant among the many cultural contributions of the Sumerians and the greatest among those of the Sumerian city of Uruk which advanced the writing of cuneiform c. 3200 BCE.

The name comes from the Latin word cuneus for 'wedge' owing to the wedge-shaped style of writing. In cuneiform, a carefully cut writing implement known as a stylus is pressed into soft clay to produce wedge-like impressions that represent word-signs (pictographs) and, later, phonograms or `word-concepts' (closer to a modern-day understanding of a `word'). All of the great Mesopotamian civilizations used cuneiform until it was abandoned in favour of the alphabetic script at some point after 100 BCE, including:

When the ancient cuneiform tablets of Mesopotamia were discovered and deciphered in the late 19th century CE, they would literally transform human understanding of history. Prior to their discovery, the Bible was considered the oldest and most authoritative book in the world. The brilliant scholar and translator George Smith (l.1840-1876 CE) changed the understanding of history with his translation of The Epic of Gilgamesh in 1872 CE. This translation allowed other cuneiform tablets to be interpreted which overturned the traditional understanding of the biblical version of history and made room for scholarly, objective explorations of history to move forward.

Early Cuneiform

The earliest cuneiform tablets, known as proto-cuneiform, were pictorial, as the subjects they addressed were more concrete and visible (a king, a battle, a flood) but developed in complexity as the subject matter became more intangible (the will of the gods, the quest for immortality). By 3000 BCE the representations were more simplified and the strokes of the stylus conveyed word-concepts (honour) rather than word-signs (an honourable man). The written language was further refined through the rebus which isolated the phonetic value of a certain sign so as to express grammatical relationships and syntax to determine meaning. In clarifying this, the scholar Ira Spar writes:

This new way of interpreting signs is called the rebus principle. Only a few examples of its use exist in the earliest stages of cuneiform from between 3200 and 3000 B.C. The consistent use of this type of phonetic writing only becomes apparent after 2600 B.C. It constitutes the beginning of a true writing system characterized by a complex combination of word-signs and phonograms-signs for vowels and syllables-that allowed the scribe to express ideas. By the middle of the Third Millennium B.C., cuneiform primarily written on clay tablets was used for a vast array of economic, religious, political, literary, and scholarly documents. (1)

The great literary works of Mesopotamia such as the famous Epic of Gilgamesh were all written in cuneiform.

Development of Cuneiform

One no longer had to struggle with the meaning of a pictograph; one now read a word-concept which more clearly conveyed the meaning of the writer. The number of characters used in writing was also reduced from over 1,000 to 600 in order to simplify and clarify the written word. The best example of this is given by the historian Paul Kriwaczek who notes that, in the time of proto-cuneiform:

All that had been devised thus far was a technique for noting down things, items and objects, not a writing system. A record of `Two Sheep Temple God Inanna' tells us nothing about whether the sheep are being delivered to, or received from, the temple, whether they are carcasses, beasts on the hoof, or anything else about them. (63)

Cuneiform developed to the point where it could be made clear, to use Kriwaczek's example, whether the sheep were coming or going to the temple, for what purpose, and whether they were living or dead. By the time of the priestess-poet Enheduanna (l.2285-2250 BCE), who wrote her famous hymns to Inanna in the Sumerian city of Ur, cuneiform was sophisticated enough to convey emotional states such as love and adoration, betrayal and fear, longing and hope, as well as the precise reasons behind the writer experiencing such states.

Sign up for our free weekly email newsletter!

The great literary works of Mesopotamia such as the Atrahasis, The Descent of Inanna, The Myth of Etana, The Enuma Elish and the famous Epic of Gilgamesh were all written in cuneiform and were completely unknown until the mid 19th century CE, when men like George Smith, the Reverend Edward Hincks (l. 1792-1866 CE), Jules Oppert (l. 1825-1905 CE), and Henry Creswicke Rawlinson (l.1810-1895 CE) deciphered the language and translated it into English.

Rawlinson's translations of Mesopotamian texts were first presented to the Royal Asiatic Society of London in 1837 CE and again in 1839 CE. In 1846 CE he worked with the archaeologist Austin Henry Layard in his excavation of Nineveh and was responsible for the earliest translations from the library of Ashurbanipal discovered at that site. Edward Hincks focused on Persian cuneiform, establishing its patterns and identifying vowels among his other contributions. Jules Oppert identified cuneiform's origins and established the grammar of Assyrian cuneiform. George Smith was responsible for deciphering The Epic of Gilgamesh and in 1872 CE, famously, the Mesopotamian version of the Flood Story, which until then was thought to be original to the biblical Book of Genesis.

Many biblical texts were thought to be original works until cuneiform was deciphered.

Many biblical texts were thought to be original until cuneiform was deciphered. The Fall of Man and the Great Flood were understood as literal events in human history dictated by God to the author (or authors) of Genesis but were now recognized as Mesopotamian myths which Hebrew scribes had embellished on in The Myth of Etana and the Atrahasis. The biblical story of the Garden of Eden could now be understood as a myth derived from The Enuma Elish and other Mesopotamian works. The Book of Job, far from being an actual historical account of an individual's unjust suffering, could now be recognized as a literary piece belonging to a Mesopotamian tradition following the discovery of the earlier Ludlul-Bel-Nimeqi text which relates a similar story.

The concept of a dying and reviving god who goes down into the underworld and then returns, presented as a novel concept in the gospels of the New Testament, was now understood as an ancient paradigm first expressed in Mesopotamian literature in the poem The Descent of Inanna. The very model of many of the narratives of the Bible, including the gospels, could now be read in light of the discovery of Mesopotamian Naru Literature which took a figure from history and embellished upon his achievements in order to relay an important moral and cultural message.

Prior to this time, as noted, the Bible was considered the oldest book in the world, the Song of Solomon was thought to be the oldest love poem; but all of that changed with the discovery and decipherment of cuneiform. The oldest love poem in the world is now recognized as The Love Song of Shu-Sin dated to 2000 BCE, long before The Song of Solomon was written. These advances in understanding were all made by the 19th century CE archaeologists and scholars sent to Mesopotamia to substantiate biblical stories through physical evidence.

Along with other Assyriologists (among them, T. G. Pinches and Edwin Norris), Rawlinson spearheaded the development of Mesopotamian language studies, and his Cuneiform Inscriptions of Ancient Babylon and Assyria, along with his other works, became the standard reference on the subject following their publication in the 1860's CE and remain respected scholarly works into the modern day.

George Smith, regarded as an intellect of the first rank, died on a field expedition to Nineveh in 1876 CE at the age of 36. Smith, a self-taught translator of cuneiform, made his first contributions to deciphering the ancient writing in his early twenties, and his death at such a young age has long been regarded a significant loss to the advancement in translations of cuneiform in the 19th century CE.

The literature of Mesopotamia informed all the written works which came after. Mesopotamian motifs can be detected in the works of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman works and still resonate in the present day through the biblical narratives which they inform. When George Smith deciphered cuneiform he dramatically changed the way human beings would understand their history.

The accepted version of the creation of the world, original sin, and many of the other precepts by which people had been living their lives were all challenged by the revelation of Mesopotamian - largely Sumerian - literature. Since the discovery and decipherment of cuneiform, the history of civilization has never been the same.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Cuneiform is a system of writing first developed by the ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia c. 3500-3000 BCE. It is considered the most significant among the many cultural contributions of the Sumerians and the greatest among those of the Sumerian city of Uruk which advanced the writing of cuneiform c. 3200 BCE.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A well-planned street grid and an elaborate drainage system hint that the occupants of the ancient Indus civilization city of Mohenjo Daro were skilled urban planners with a reverence for the control of water. But just who occupied the ancient city in modern-day Pakistan during the third millennium B.C. remains a puzzle.

"It's pretty faceless," says Indus expert Gregory Possehl of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

The city lacks ostentatious palaces, temples, or monuments. There's no obvious central seat of government or evidence of a king or queen. Modesty, order, and cleanliness were apparently preferred. Pottery and tools of copper and stone were standardized. Seals and weights suggest a system of tightly controlled trade.

The city's wealth and stature is evident in artifacts such as ivory, lapis, carnelian, and gold beads, as well as the baked-brick city structures themselves.

A watertight pool called the Great Bath, perched on top of a mound of dirt and held in place with walls of baked brick, is the closest structure Mohenjo Daro has to a temple. Possehl, a National Geographic grantee, says it suggests an ideology based on cleanliness.

Wells were found throughout the city, and nearly every house contained a bathing area and drainage system.

Archaeologists first visited Mohenjo Daro in 1911. Several excavations occurred in the 1920s through 1931. Small probes took place in the 1930s, and subsequent digs occurred in 1950 and 1964.

The ancient city sits on elevated ground in the modern-day Larkana district of Sindh province in Pakistan.

During its heyday from about 2500 to 1900 B.C., the city was among the most important to the Indus civilization, Possehl says. It spread out over about 250 acres (100 hectares) on a series of mounds, and the Great Bath and an associated large building occupied the tallest mound.

According to University of Wisconsin, Madison, archaeologist Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, also a National Geographic grantee, the mounds grew organically over the centuries as people kept building platforms and walls for their houses.

"You have a high promontory on which people are living," he says.

With no evidence of kings or queens, Mohenjo Daro was likely governed as a city-state, perhaps by elected officials or elites from each of the mounds.

A miniature bronze statuette of a nude female, known as the dancing girl, was celebrated by archaeologists when it was discovered in 1926, Kenoyer notes.

Of greater interest to him, though, are a few stone sculptures of seated male figures, such as the intricately carved and colored Priest King, so called even though there is no evidence he was a priest or king.

The sculptures were all found broken, Kenoyer says. "Whoever came in at the very end of the Indus period clearly didn't like the people who were representing themselves or their elders," he says.

Just what ended the Indus civilization-and Mohenjo Daro-is also a mystery.

Kenoyer suggests that the Indus River changed course, which would have hampered the local agricultural economy and the city's importance as a center of trade.

But no evidence exists that flooding destroyed the city, and the city wasn't totally abandoned, Kenoyer says. And, Possehl says, a changing river course doesn't explain the collapse of the entire Indus civilization. Throughout the valley, the culture changed, he says.

"It reaches some kind of obvious archaeological fruition about 1900 B.C.," he said. "What drives that, nobody knows."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Lost City of Mohenjo Daro Puzzles Archaeologists

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A well-planned street grid and an elaborate drainage system hint that the occupants of the ancient Indus civilization city of Mohenjo Daro were skilled urban planners with a reverence for the control of water. But just who occupied the ancient city in modern-day Pakistan during the third millennium B.C.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
...on intricate engineering in building dikes and embankments, canals and aqueducts (with lengthy stretches underground to prevent loss by evaporation), and the use of water-raising devices such as the shadoof, a balanced beam with a counterweight on one end and a bucket to lift the water on the other.

...of agriculture. The simplest method of irrigation was to dip water from a well or spring and pour it on the land. Many types of buckets, ropes, and, later, pulleys were employed. The ancient shadoof, which consists of a long pole pivoted from a beam that has a weight at one end to lift a full bucket of water at the other, is still in use. Conduction of water through ditches from streams...

All early people used the lever in some form, for example, for moving heavy stones or as digging sticks for land cultivation. The principle of the lever was used in the swape, or shadoof, a long lever pivoted near one end with a platform or water container hanging from the short arm and counterweights attached to the long arm. A man could lift several times his own weight by pulling down on the...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
on intricate engineering in building dikes and embankments, canals and aqueducts (with lengthy stretches underground to prevent loss by evaporation), and the use of water-raising devices such as the shadoof, a balanced beam with a counterweight on one end and a bucket to lift the water on the other. ...of agriculture.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Code of Hammurabi was one of the earliest and most complete written legal codes, proclaimed by the Babylonian king Hammurabi, who reigned from 1792 to 1750 B.C. Hammurabi expanded the city-state of Babylon along the Euphrates River to unite all of southern Mesopotamia. The Hammurabi code of laws, a collection of 282 rules, established standards for commercial interactions and set fines and punishments to meet the requirements of justice. Hammurabi's Code was carved onto a massive, finger-shaped black stone stele (pillar) that was looted by invaders and finally rediscovered in 1901.

Hammurabi

Hammurabi was the sixth king in the Babylonian dynasty, which ruled in central Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) from c. 1894 to 1595 B.C.

His family was descended from the Amorites, a semi-nomadic tribe in western Syria, and his name reflects a mix of cultures: Hammu, which means "family" in Amorite, combined with rapi, meaning "great" in Akkadian, the everyday language of Babylon.

In the 30th year of his reign, Hammurabi began to expand his kingdom up and down the Tigris and Euphrates river valley, overthrowing the kingdoms of Assyria, Larsa, Eshunna and Mari until all of Mesopotamia was under his sway.

Hammurabi combined his military and political advances with irrigation projects and the construction of fortifications and temples celebrating Babylon's patron deity, Marduk. The Babylon of Hammurabi's era is now buried below the area's groundwater table, and whatever archives he kept are long dissolved, but clay tablets discovered at other ancient sites reveal glimpses of the king's personality and statecraft.

One letter records his complaint of being forced to provide dinner attire for ambassadors from Mari just because he'd done the same for some other delegates: "Do you imagine you can control my palace in the matter of formal wear?"

What Is the Code of Hammurabi?

The black stone stele containing the Code of Hammurabi was carved from a single, four-ton slab of diorite, a durable but incredibly difficult stone for carving.

At its top is a two-and-a-half-foot relief carving of a standing Hammurabi receiving the law-symbolized by a measuring rod and tape-from the seated Shamash, the Babylonian god of justice. The rest of the seven-foot-five-inch monument is covered with columns of chiseled cuneiform script.

The text, compiled at the end of Hammurabi's reign, is less a proclamation of principles than a collection of legal precedents, set between prose celebrating Hammurabi's just and pious rule. Hammurabi's Code provides some of the earliest examples of the doctrine of "lex talionis," or the laws of retribution, sometimes better known as "an eye for an eye."

Did you know? The Code of Hammurabi includes many harsh punishments, sometimes demanding the removal of the guilty party's tongue, hands, breasts, eye or ear. But the code is also one of the earliest examples of an accused person being considered innocent until proven guilty.

The 282 edicts are all written in if-then form. For example, if a man steals an ox, then he must pay back 30 times its value. The edicts range from family law to professional contracts and administrative law, often outlining different standards of justice for the three classes of Babylonian society-the propertied class, freedmen and slaves.

A doctor's fee for curing a severe wound would be 10 silver shekels for a gentleman, five shekels for a freedman and two shekels for a slave. Penalties for malpractice followed the same scheme: a doctor who killed a rich patient would have his hands cut off, while only financial restitution was required if the victim was a slave.

Stele of Hammurabi Rediscovered

In 1901 Jacques de Morgan, a French mining engineer, led an archaeological expedition to Persia to excavate the Elamite capital of Susa, more than 250 miles from the center of Hammurabi's kingdom.

There they uncovered the stele of Hammurabi-broken into three pieces-that had been brought to Susa as spoils of war, likely by the Elamite king Shutruk-Nahhunte in the mid-12th century B.C.

The stele was packed up and shipped to the Louvre in Paris, and within a year it had been translated and widely publicized as the earliest example of a written legal code-one that predated but bore striking parallels to the laws outlined in the Hebrew Old Testament.

The U.S. Supreme Court building features Hammurabi on the marble carvings of historic lawgivers that lines the south wall of the courtroom.

Although other subsequently-discovered written Mesopotamian laws, including the Sumerian "Lipit-Ishtar" and "Ur-Nammu," predate Hammurabi's by hundreds of years, Hammurabi's reputation remains as a pioneering lawgiver who worked-in the words of his monument-"to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak and to see that justice is done to widows and orphans."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Code of Hammurabi was one of the earliest and most complete written legal codes, proclaimed by the Babylonian king Hammurabi, who reigned from 1792 to 1750 B.C. Hammurabi expanded the city-state of Babylon along the Euphrates River to unite all of southern Mesopotamia.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Egyptian Book of the Dead is a collection of spells which enable the soul of the deceased to navigate the afterlife. The famous title was given the work by western scholars; the actual title would…

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.ancient-egypt-online.com/ancient-egypt-social-structure.html

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Egyptian society was structured like a pyramid. At the top were the gods, such as Ra, Osiris, and Isis. Egyptians believed that the gods controlled the universe. Therefore, it was important to keep them happy. They could make the Nile overflow, cause famine, or even bring death.

In the social pyramid of ancient Egypt the pharaoh and those associated with divinity were at the top, and servants and slaves made up the bottom.

The Egyptians also elevated some human beings to gods. Their leaders, called pharaohs, were believed to be gods in human form. They had absolute power over their subjects. After pharaohs died, huge stone pyramids were built as their tombs. Pharaohs were buried in chambers within the pyramids.

Because the people of Egypt believed that their pharaohs were gods, they entrusted their rulers with many responsibilities. Protection was at the top of the list. The pharaoh directed the army in case of a foreign threat or an internal conflict. All laws were enacted at the discretion of the pharaoh. Each farmer paid taxes in the form of grain, which were stored in the pharaoh's warehouses. This grain was used to feed the people in the event of a famine.

The Chain of Command

Ancient Egyptian royalty, nobility, and clergy enjoyed lives of wealth and comfort while farmers and slaves struggled to subsist.

No single person could manage all these duties without assistance. The pharaoh appointed a chief minister called a vizier as a supervisor. The vizier ensured that taxes were collected.

Working with the vizier were scribes who kept government records. These high-level employees had mastered a rare skill in ancient Egypt - they could read and write.

Noble Aims

Right below the pharaoh in status were powerful nobles and priests. Only nobles could hold government posts; in these positions they profited from tributes paid to the pharaoh. Priests were responsible for pleasing the gods.

Religion was a central theme in ancient Egyptian culture and each town had its own deity. Initially, these deities were animals; later, they took on human appearances and behaviors. Seated here is Thoth, the god of learning and wisdom, carrying a scepter symbolizing magical power.

Nobles enjoyed great status and also grew wealthy from donations to the gods. All Egyptians - from pharaohs to farmers - gave gifts to the gods.

Soldier On

Soldiers fought in wars or quelled domestic uprisings. During long periods of peace, soldiers also supervised the peasants, farmers, and slaves who were involved in building such structures as pyramids and palaces.

Skilled workers such as physicians and craftspersons made up the middle class. Craftspersons made and sold jewelry, pottery, papyrus products, tools, and other useful things.

Naturally, there were people needed to buy goods from artisans and traders. These were the merchants and storekeepers who sold these goods to the public.

The Bottom of the Heap

At the bottom of the social structure were slaves and farmers. Slavery became the fate of those captured as prisoners of war. In addition to being forced to work on building projects, slaves toiled at the discretion of the pharaoh or nobles.

Farmers tended the fields, raised animals, kept canals and reservoirs in good order, worked in the stone quarries, and built the royal monuments. Farmers paid taxes that could be as much as 60 percent of their yearly harvest - that's a lot of hay!

Social mobility was not impossible. A small number of peasants and farmers moved up the economic ladder. Families saved money to send their sons to village schools to learn trades. These schools were run by priests or by artisans. Boys who learned to read and write could become scribes, then go on to gain employment in the government. It was possible for a boy born on a farm to work his way up into the higher ranks of the government. Bureaucracy proved lucrative.

The Social Pyramid
The pharaoh was at the very top of ancient Egyptian society, and servants and slaves were at the bottom. Who was in the middle? Click on this interactive pyramid to find out how merchants, artists, farmers, and others stacked up. Links at the bottom of the page lead to other facts about ancient Egypt. This page comes from Odyssey Online, a website for kids produced by Emory University.

Report broken link

If you like our content, please share it on social media!