Land Of Firsts

Educational site Land of Firsts, Mesopotamia, ( أرض الأوائل ) is concerned with ancient history. The page pays tributes to our ancestors.

It is dedicated to the revival of Mesopotamian history to familiarize the world with the remarkable achievements of the nations' civilizers : Sumerians, Akkadians and Babylonians. Written and archaeological documentation has shown time and again that all roads lead to Mesopotamia. Excerpts from history books are posted to entice readers to look for the cited books and read more on a particular topic or personalty .

04/01/2023

The ritual of the substitute king, a custom reflected in numerous Sumerian texts. One of them is found on three cuneiform tablets now in the British Museum, published in 1958 in the article A part of the Ritual for the Substitute King by the Assyrian scholar Wilfred G. Lambert.

Because, as we said before, Assyrians and Babylonians thought that if an evil omen threatened the king, another (usually a person of low origin, a prisoner or a slave) should sit on the throne to receive that evil, leaving the true king safe.

It seems that the Persians kept the custom, since Herodotus tells how Xerxes, before invading Greece in 480 b.C. and harassed by terrible dreams, resorted to the same trick, sitting his uncle Artabanus on the throne.

And even in the time of Alexander the Great an absolutely exceptional event occurred for the Greeks.

It occurred on May 323 B.C., shortly before Alexander left Babylon for Arabia. The Greeks did not understand what had happened, but the explanation is simple: that man was not trying to usurp Alexander’s throne, on the contrary. Following the ancestral custom of the substitute king, he tried to attract upon himself any evil that could stalk the Macedonian.

Between 1805 and 1799 B.C. (according to short chronology) or 1868 and 1861 B.C. (according to medium chronology) King Erra-Imitti ruled in the Sumerian city-state of Isin in present-day Iraq (about 20 miles south of Nippur). His name comes to mean something as a follower of Erra, who was a god o

03/30/2023

From the tablets of the Babylonians to the telescopes of modern science, humans have always looked to the skies for fundamental answers.

The Babylonians had a serious observational program. They mapped in great detail the motions of planets along the Zodiac—the belt about 8 degrees to either side of the ecliptic, and divided into 12 constellations. For example, the Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa, dating from about the mid-17th century BCE, recorded the risings and settings of Venus for a period of 21 years. The main goal was astrological. The Babylonians tried to interpret the planet’s positions as omens for the king.

We have to wonder what inspires this prevalent and constant fascination with the skies. Why, from astrology to astronomy, does it endure?
In ancient times and for many indigenous cultures, the skies were (and still are) sacred. Countless religious narratives and mythical tales from across the planet attest to this. To know the skies was to have some level of control over the course of events that affected people, communities, and kingdoms. The gods wrote their messages on the dark canvas of the night sky, using the celestial luminaries as their ink. The shaman, the priest, the holy man or woman were the interpreters, the decoders. They could translate the will of the gods into a message the people could understand.

From the tablets of the Babylonians to the telescopes of modern science, humans have always looked to the skies for fundamental answers.

03/27/2023

A research published in the journal Science shows that climate change was the proverbial double-edged sword that first contributed to the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and then to its collapse.

Researchers found that the most significant expansion phase of the Neo-Assyrian state occurred during a two-centuries-long interval of anomalously wet climate, as compared with the previous 4,000 years. Called a megapluvial period, this time of unusually high rainfall was immediately followed by megadroughts during the early-to-mid-7th century BC.
These ancient dry conditions were as severe as recent droughts in Iraq and Syria but lasted for decades. The period marking the collapse of the Neo-Assyrian Empire occurred well within this time frame.

In modern times, the same region that once constituted the Assyrian core has been repeatedly struck by multiyear droughts. The catastrophic drought of 2007-2008 in northern Iraq and Syria, the most severe in the past 50 years, led to cereal crop failures across the region.

Droughts like this one offer a glimpse of what Assyrians endured during the mid-seventh century BC. And the collapse of the Neo-Assyrian Empire offers a warning to today’s societies.

Numerous theorists have failed to explain the collapse of the superpower that flourished beginning 912 BCE. Now, we have an answer.

03/26/2023

"In the scent formulas on the clay tablets, information such as how Tapputi conducted her studies in the full moon and how she presented it to the stars is written.
In other words, we don't only see how was the formula but also the way the scent is made. The tiniest details of the making project also take place. A total of 27 pages appeared from the two tablets. It also took pages to interpret the translation. Lemongrass, myrrh, rose, botanical plants are also mentioned here. After this project is finished, we will have 11 clay tablets left."

Stating that Tapputi uses all kinds of flowers, tree resins, spices, plants and substances such as horseradish in the production of perfumes, expert on ancient perfumes Cenker Atila said: "There are two tablets in the world the 'Tapputi' name is written. One of them is in the Louvre Museum in Paris and the other in the Girl Museum in Germany."

Stating that there are two important problems they encountered in the translation of the tablets, Atila said: "One of them is that the tablets are broken and some important parts are lost. The second difficulty is that some plants and containers used 3,200 years ago do not have the exact equivalent now. For example, we do not know exactly what the 'hirsu' container is. However, since it is used in the perfume distillation process, it should be a large pot-like container. In addition, the fact that we do not know the current names of some spices and flowers used in perfume production is an important problem."

One of the scent formulas written in Akkadian on clay tablets by Tapputi, the world's first female perfumer and the first female chemist in...

03/25/2023

Becoming a Scribe—Step by Step

The first step was to cover the basics: transforming a lump of moist clay into a tablet. The next challenge was to use a reed stylus to form intelligible signs on the clay. A famous line from a literary work points out, “The beginning of the scribal art is the single wedge”. To gain some routine, the student impressed his stylus over and over again into the clay (Figure 1), producing the horizontal, vertical, and oblique wedges of which cuneiform characters were comprised.

In the next phase of their studies, the “sons of the tablet house” (Sumerian: d u m u e 2 – d u b – b a – a ) had to expand their vocabulary. This was achieved by copying an important thematic list, a forerunner of what would eventually become a compendium spanning thousands of entries that according to its first entry was referred to as Ura, “loan.”

After Ura, students studied more advanced lists, including metrological lists and mathematical tables, but also syllabaries (such as Ea and Diri) and word lists whose entries are arranged according to their initial signs (for example, Izi, Kagal, and N***a).

Another exercise in a scribe’s education, and at the same time an avenue toward more advanced training in Sumerian literature, involved short sayings or proverbs, many of which were again put together in longer collections.

In the more advanced stages of the scribal education, the use of typical school texts decreased. Students copied instead from memory parts of major Sumerian literary compositions.

Scribes who had finished their training and wished to mark their transition into a new stage in their lives deposited prisms in the local shrine of Nisaba, the goddess of writing, as a sort of “final essay.”

On Aspects of Education and Apprenticeship in Ancient Mesopotamia

03/21/2023

The Sumerian harp is 3500 years old and has nine strings. The human mind was advanced to invent these strings. Depending on the position, different sounds came out. The strings were made from the entrails of animals and the advanced lyre box, which emits the sound. The discovery was invented in the city of Ur.

The bull’s head represents an offering. There is a second blog that contains music that was played in temples, and folk ensembles containing male and female instrumentalists. The dance was in this situation as a physical state of expression that was imaginary. In truth, the harp is the only real object and all the rest of the details are imaginary. The blog in cuneiform contains a series that includes the possibility of tuning the harp. The base is made of lead, the rest is made of wood and mother of pearl. A person’s clothes are like those of that time, and the woman with her soft lines and swing describes the women of all times.

The circles contain other people and describe a memory tape that takes us from place to place, up to the time of the Modern. This shows us several historical projections. The people in the center and outside the circle are contemporary modern people, and the circle thus creates a slow motion so that the people are in a state of weightlessness.

The child with the balloon symbolizes life, and the expected joy and the coming surprise. The color white represents light and luminosity, which essentially shows the aesthetics of other colors. The color gray represents neutral graphics and purple is a sacred color found in icons (in the Byzantine icon). The dance is a movement, and the circle is a movement.

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03/15/2023

𝐀𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐞𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐬𝐨 𝐨𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐛𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐞𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐀𝐬𝐬𝐲𝐫𝐢𝐚 𝐚𝐬 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐍𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐄𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧 𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐞𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐦𝐚𝐣𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐑𝐨𝐲𝐚𝐥 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐑𝐨𝐲𝐚𝐥 𝐰𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧

The tombs of the Assyrian queens are one of the most important and famous Near Eastern archaeological finds from the last 40 years, deservingly so. In this v...

03/12/2023

How the world’s first civilization made laws so powerful, they’re still in use today
Almost 200 years before the creation of Hammurabi's Code, ancient Sumerian King Lipit-Ishtar created a set of laws

King Lipit-Ishtar's legal codes were created to determine the rights of ordinary citizens, including concepts like minimum wage and presumption of innocence, dating all the way back to 2100 BC.

The Code of Lipit-Ishtar (circa 1860 BC) was inscribed on a stone slab, discovered at the site of the ancient Sumerian city of Nippur in modern-day Iraq

The world’s first written laws came from its first civilisation, Mesopotamia, and along with it the earliest judicial proceedings in the presence of a king

03/05/2023

Investigations of archaeologists searching Turkey’s Mount Cudi for the resting place of Noah’s Ark have not turned up any new evidence of the fabled ship.

They have discovered an ancient Assyrian relief, carved into the stone of the mountain.
The figure shows an aged, bearded man standing tall and holding his right hand up in a gesture of reverence, while holding a staff of office in his left.

A Professor of Hebrew and Ancient Semitic Languages at the University of Liverpool believes this is the image of Shamshi-ilu, the Assyrian king who held sway over much of Northern Syria from c. 780 to 745 B.C.

Shamshi-ilu left inscriptions in his own name at Til Barsip (modern Tell Akhmar) on the Euphrates, in which he tells of his victorious campaign against places in southeastern Turkey and the kingdom of Urartu, which would have taken him into the vicinity of Judi Dagh.

While their investigations have not turned up any new evidence of Noah's Ark, archaeologists have discovered an ancient Assyrian relief, carved into the stone of the mountain.

03/03/2023

The award-winning Mosaic Dance Theater Company (MDTC), based in NJ celebrates Women’s History Month and women’s contributions to world culture by taking you on a journey from ancient to modern times, in Through Her Eyes: Women of the Near East Through the Ages, a joyous multimedia dance experience. The performance is scheduled for Thursday, March 23, 2023 at 7:00pm.

Through Her Eyes begins its journey four thousand years ago, portraying two historical women of the ancient Near East, who, despite struggles and repression, triumphed over cultural and religious obstacles to attain greatness in their respective lives and times: Enheduanna, the poet/priestess of Mesopotamia, and the first non-anonymous author in history, and Hatshepsut, the female Pharaoh/King of Ancient Egypt.

Their stories, told in MDTC’s signature style of dance/story theater, embody the majestic power and resilience of the human spirit, providing an illuminating look at women's achievements in ancient times.

(WAYNE, NJ) -- The award-winning Mosaic Dance Theater Company (MDTC), based in Glen Ridge, NJ, in a co-production with WP Presents! of the Shea Center for Performing Arts at William Paterson University, celebrates Women’s History Month and women's contributions to world culture by taking you on a ...

02/28/2023

Until now, there has been scant archaeological evidence about the Amorites.

A new research article about Amorite and Akkadian languages has found evidence of the Amorite language on a pair of ancient Babylonian tablets.

The tablets are believed to be around 4,000 years old.

One tablet is written in the Akkadian language, while the researchers believe the other is written in the Amorite language which is completely different.

They say it is similar to Hebrew and Aramaic.

Many experts didn’t believe the Amorites had their own language

It’s believed the tablets were illegally taken from Iraq following the first Gulf War, three decades ago.

They were found separately in private collections in London and New York

Amorite writing found on 4,000 year old tablets stolen from Iraq after First Gulf War.

02/25/2023

These armies represent the warlike tribal clans of the Zagros Mountains to the north-east of Mesopotamia.

The Guti were the most notable of the three tribal groupings and their king list extends from 2230 BC to 2109 BC. Gutium, a mountainous area in south-west Iran, was a troublesome part of the Akkadian Empire and the year names of the kings of Akkad record campaigns against the region. Around 2200 BC, Gutian raiders descended to the Mesopotamian plain, conquering the weakened Akkadians as their empire began to fall apart.

For about one century, the Guti ruled, but they were ineffective at governing the civilized states of Mesopotamia.

The Lullubi were settled to the north-west of the Gutians, on the Sherizor plain in the Zagros Mountains of western Iran. Said to be conquered by Sargon the Great, they fought both with and against their larger neighbor, Guti. Under their king Anubanini, they were most famously defeated by Naram Sin who raised his victory stele marking his success. As the Akkadian's grip on power became less effective, the Lullubi became more troublesome. They resisted rule by the Guti and the Neo Sumerian king Shulgi was forced to send up to nine expeditions into Lullubian lands to quell the unrest.

The Hurri were a people located to the east of the Tigris, north of the Lullubi. Not alot is known of them in the third millennium and it is believed they became allied to the Akkadians after the conquests of Sargon the Great. Their presence is most notable by the time of Ur III, but recent studies show that they may have existed much earlier than first thought and possibly even in urban centres such as Urkesh. For now, they remain an enigma and can be considered one of the surrounding tribal peoples that existed alongside the Mesopotamian plain.

(Guti, Lullubi and Hurri 2350 BC onwards) These armies represent the war-like tribal clans of the Zagros Mountains to the north-east of ...

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