In this book, author Gwendolyn Leick, an anthropologist and Assyriologist, describes the ancient history of Mesopotamia by way of ten cities: Eridu, Uruk, Shuruppak, Akkad, Ur, Nippur, Sippar, Ashur, Nineveh, and Babylon. The cities are given separate chapters which are arranged roughly chronologically over an immense time span, from the beginnings of Eridu in the fifth millennium BCE to the end of Babylonian culture in the first centuries of the Common Era. The chapter are further divided by topic, including the story of the excavation the site, its history, the place of the city in Mesopotamian literature, etc.
Lieck demonstrates a continuity of some cultural elements despite changing in spoken and written languages and ethnicities of population that stretches across millennia. Even though many of the cities lay forgotten for centuries, the culture that arose in them is not without influence today.
Lieck begins with what she calls the Mesopotamian Eden, Eridu— a city, not a garden. It was built with access to the marshland, to fresh water and to western deserts so that the people could take advantage of all three ecosystems. The invention of the city, the author says in her preface, may well be the most enduring legacy of Mesopotamia. …show more content…
Like most Mesopotamian cities, it underwent periodic declines—some to the point of apparent abandonment—and revitalizations. Specifically in Eridu, there is evidence of occupation during the Chalcolithic period (approx. 6000 BCE), then on and off up until the first millennium BCE when its last revitalization took place under Nebuchadrezzar II (605-562 BCE) before its final decline. The pattern, if not necessarily the longevity, is typical of many Mesopotamian
Lieck demonstrates a continuity of some cultural elements despite changing in spoken and written languages and ethnicities of population that stretches across millennia. Even though many of the cities lay forgotten for centuries, the culture that arose in them is not without influence today.
Lieck begins with what she calls the Mesopotamian Eden, Eridu— a city, not a garden. It was built with access to the marshland, to fresh water and to western deserts so that the people could take advantage of all three ecosystems. The invention of the city, the author says in her preface, may well be the most enduring legacy of Mesopotamia. …show more content…
Like most Mesopotamian cities, it underwent periodic declines—some to the point of apparent abandonment—and revitalizations. Specifically in Eridu, there is evidence of occupation during the Chalcolithic period (approx. 6000 BCE), then on and off up until the first millennium BCE when its last revitalization took place under Nebuchadrezzar II (605-562 BCE) before its final decline. The pattern, if not necessarily the longevity, is typical of many Mesopotamian