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"When we imagine what life might have been like thousands of years in the past, the images we often conjure are primitive ones: reed and mud huts or plain brick dwellings, cooking pits, villagers, and simple farms. That was indeed what life was like in the earliest settlements, but by five thousand years ago, life in some places had become much more sophisticated than we might think. Impressive achievements-like stepped temples that towered like mountains, elaborate palaces (some with bathrooms and plumbing), and complex houses-were also a part of life for people who lived in cities that arose thousands of years ago, particularly in the fertile region that emerged along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Welcome to Mesopotamia, the ancient name for the region that is now Iraq, a remarkably advanced civilization that flourished for two-thirds of the time that civilization has existed on Earth. Mesopotamians mastered irrigation agriculture; built the first complex urban societies; developed writing, literature, and law; and united vast regions through warfare and diplomacy. While civilizations like Greece and Rome have an unbroken tradition of written histories, the rich history of Mesopotamia has only been recently rediscovered, thanks to the decipherment of Mesopotamia's cuneiform writing less than 200 years ago. In this 24-lecture course taught by Professor Podany, you'll fill in the blanks of your historical understanding as you witness a whole new world opening before your eyes. Riveting stories about kings and priestesses as well as ordinary people from all walks of life transport you back in time, giving you invaluable insights into the history of a landmark region that has long been known as the cradle of civilization."… (more)
User reviews
But this is not where Amanda H. Podany starts her series - she goes back to the cultures in the area, back to the Natufian villages of around 12,500 BCE and starts the story there. Because the first cities did not just show up out of nowhere in the 4th Millennium BCE - they were a direct result from what happened before that. But once they appeared, there was no way back.
There is a lot we do not know about that period - a lot of the cities that are known to exist had not been excavated yet - some of them because they cannot find them (the geography had changed a bit - although in this region the coastal areas had moved toward the gulf so at least they are not under water as is the case in a lot of other areas), some are under existing cities (making it almost impossible to really excavate) and then there is the little problem of the current situation in the area - the whole region had been in the news in the last decade because of ISIS and their shenanigans. Different historians put the start of the Mesopotamian civilization anywhere between 3,500 BCE (the time of Uruk) to 3,100 BCE (the time we know writing was used extensively) and almost any time within a few centuries of these dates. On the other side, things are a lot better defined: in 539 BCE, after having concurred everything else in the area, the king of the first Persian Empire (known in history as the Achaemenid Empire) Cyrus the Great walks into Babylon unopposed and puts an end to a 2,500-3,000 years of independent local rule in the region. The majority of these lectures deal with these 2,500-3,000 years - the time between the city-states of Sumer to the fall of the Neo-Babylonian empire. When it finally falls to Cyrus, an era finishes - the area will become a province for different empires (with some interludes of local kingdoms in the cases where the ruling empire prefers vassal kingdoms to assigning rulers). But that is a different story.
Amanda H. Podany is a historian, specializing in the Ancient Near East and more specifically in the Hana kingdom (a small Syrian kingdom in the general vicinity of Mesopotamia). That probably makes her one of the best people to develop and deliver these lectures - a specialist in one of the bigger kingdoms can overwhelm the lectures, pulling towards 'their' kingdom. Instead, we get a walk through history - because that continuous local rule was not exactly peaceful - the states changed, the first empires were born (and fell) but the continuity between them was always there - in their beliefs, language(s) and practices. And no matter how you look at it and which dates you prefer, the history of Ancient Mesopotamia spans half the written history of humanity.
You do not need to know anything about the region - the course serves as a perfectly good introduction. If you do know things, it can be an overview (and I suspect you still will learn new things). Podany peppers the story with her own memories of excavation and research - which makes the lectures even better - learning how things are discovered and how a single discovery turns the story on its head makes one understand the whole problem with Ancient History even more. And despite the huge amount of material, it is not just the story of the political entities - it is a story of the peoples and the civilizations of one of the places where urban civilizations began (and of course, it is a story of their neighbors - as the centuries progressed, more and more of them show up and become important). The lectures have all the names everyone had heard of and a lot of name which only a student of the era would know. But they never feel overwhelming.
The Audible version of the course comes with a PDF which has the highlights, the spelling of the names and kingdoms, a lot of maps (relevant maps per lecture) and an extensive bibliography (per lecture and overall).
I really enjoyed that course. Highly recommended.
The complete list of lectures:
1. Uncovering Near Eastern Civilization
2. Natufian Villagers and Early Settlements
3. Neolithic Farming, Trade, and Pottery
4. Eridu and Other Towns in the Ubaid Period
5. Uruk, the World’s Biggest City
6. Mesopotamia’s First Kings and the Military
7. Early Dynastic Workers and Worshipers
8. Lugalzagesi of Umma and Sargon of Akkad
9. Akkadian Empire Arts and Gods
10. The Fall of Akkad and Gudea of Lagash
11. Ur III Households, Accounts, and Ziggurats
12. Migrants and Old Assyrian Merchants
13. Royalty and Palace Intrigue at Mari
14. War and Society in Hammurabi’s Time
15. Justice in the Old Babylonian Period
16. The Hana Kingdom and Clues to a Dark Age
17. Princess Tadu-Hepa, Diplomacy, and Marriage
18. Land Grants and Royal Favor in Mittani
19. The Late Bronze Age and the End of Peace
20. Assyria Ascending
21. Ashurbanipal’s Library and Gilgamesh
22. Neo-Assyrian Empire, Warfare, and Collapse
23. Babylon and the New Year’s Festival
24. End of the Neo-Babylonian Empire