The origin of writing by the Sumerians, and its use to record the oral tradition of songs and epics was one of those great leaps forward in human progress. Without it, history wouldn't make sense. There wouldn't be any history, because writing preserves it. Literature, too, started on the banks of the Tigris. What has survived from Sumer until today makes up one of the world's supremem masterpieces. It is "The Epic of Gilgamesh". He ruled the city-state of Uruk around 2,700 BC. This Epic of Gilgamesh" also happens to be the principal source for the biblical book of Genesis, which is the core of the cultural myth around which Western civilization formed. Western Civilization's identity began here.
Probably the last great contribution that ancient Sumer made to collective humanity was to become living proof that there is nothing made perfect that an aging religion cannot corrupt and destroy. I have written before now about how a Great Teacher periodically comes. This Great One showers the power and laws to form a civilization. A religion forms around the teachings and laws, and a priesthood develops which begins to corrupt the original teachings with its esoteric interpretations, and to encrust the pure teachings with dogmas and rituals. Time passes and everything is damaged and not a source of good because of the grip of the priests. That is what happened to wonderful Sumer. A parasitical high priesthood evolved, and before long they were claiming to be the gods on Earth, and the only ones who could understand the ineffable divine will. It was pretty much downhill for Sumer from there on.
In 2,340 the Akkadian, Sargon, overcame Sumer and gathered its city-states into his rapidly growing empire which extended as far as the Lebanon. Empires don't usually last long, and it was only 215 years later that Sargon's empire vanished forever when the Sumerian city of Ur of the Chaldees rose up in revolt. Ur, was eventually the home place of the great Teacher from God, Abraham, who began by destroying the images of gods in the temple there while his priestly family who tended the gods were away. You can imagine that they were angry when they returned! He taught that there was not a multiplicity of gods, there was only One God. Abraham was promised by God that he would become the "Father of Multitudes". Among his descendants were the Teachers from God we know as Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, who founded the Jewish, Christian and Muslim religions.
Sumerian civilization was reunited about six centuries after Ur revolted. This was about 1700 B.C. and accomplished by King Hammurabi. What had been Sumeria was now Babylonia. Its capital was the greatest city of the ancient world. It was called Babylon from "Bab-ili, or Gate of God.)
I have mentioned before that I believe that two Teachers from God came in the nineteenth century. The first had the title "The Bab", which still means "The Gate". He was called that because he was the one who prepared the way (like an entry gate) for the second one who came, whose title was Baha'u'llah, which means The Glory of God. It interested me very much to learn that all that long time ago "Bab" meant "Gate" as it still does, and it was associated then with God, the Supreme Being, too.
Hammurabi, whom you mentioned, Facearmy, was strong, wise, just and visionary. During his long reign the two cultures that compose what is next known as Mesopotamia, which means in Greek "between the two rivers", reached complete and harmonious fusion for the only time. Hammurabi was tireless in his supervision of irrigation and construction projects. He is best known for his codification of the laws governing Babylonian life. It is said that both Mosaic law and the modern legal system are directly descended from Hammurabi's Code, which you, Facearmy, wrote of as called "Hammurabi Corpus Juris, BC 1792-1750." You continued "The earliest law or the earliest corpus juri is the earliest literal corpus juri."
Dissent and squabbling soon tore the Assyrians and Babylonians apart. The Assyrians won and controlled Babylonia until the 6th century, (500 BC). Then a series of revolts put a new dynasty into place that was ruled by Nebuchadnezzar.
It was in his palace that the writing mysteriously appeared on the wall which read "Mene, Mene, Tekal Upharsin." This was interpreted to mean that his reign would fail because of what he had done. He crushed the Assyrians. Then he conquered Judah, razed Jerusalem, removed every trace of Solomon's Temple and carried off the entire Hebrew ruling class, all 15,000 of them, into slavery at Babylon. That is what the popular song of a few years back refers to when we sing: "By the Rivers of Babylon, where we sat down, and wept as we remembered Zion." Evidentally the captivity in Babylon wasn't so bad because the Hebrew's descendants found it hard to leave Babylon and looked back with regret.
The Basic Story of Moses
(Didn't the same thing happen when Moses led the Children of Israel out of the Land of Egypt where they had been enslaved after things got hard for them? They were first invited there because the stolen Joseph, who became a great man in Egypt where he was brought as a slave, rescued them from famine.
This is the famous Joseph, whose brothers were jealous of him because of his "coat of many colours", usually depicted as of multi-coloured stripes, and of his father Jacob's special favour of him, and of his dreams and predictions that he would rule and his brothers would bow down to him. They were all older than him except for his youngest brother Benjamin. Joseph was thrown into a pit by his jealous brothers, and then sold to a caravan that happened by. The caravan went to Egypt. Joseph there was sold as a slave, but was trusted by his master and became his right hand man.
Eventually Joseph was imprisoned because his master's wife kept trying to trap him into making love to her, but he wouldn't. [this story is told in two volumes written by the famous German author Thomas Mann. It is called "With Joseph in Egypt.] Finally she managed to be in a room with him, and as he was rushing out to avoid her she caught his coat, hung on, and screamed. Then she insisted that he had tried to seduce her. This got him put into prison.
While he was there two servants of the Pharoah were cast into prison too. One had a dream which Joseph was able to interpret, and his interpretation came true. His interpretation was that one of them would be executed and the other freed, and so it came about. The freed one finally heard that Pharoah had a dream which no one could interpret. He told of Joseph's ability, and Pharoah had him summoned. Joseph interpreted that there would be seven years of bountiful harvests, followed by seven years of famine when the harvests would fail. This interpretaton impressed the king, and when Joseph advised that the surplus of the bountiful years should be stored for the lean years it was done.
The dream interpretation was correct and the people were saved. There was grain in Egypt while other countries suffered. Pharoah elevated Joseph to a high position. His family who were starving in the lean years in Zion sent his brothers down to try to get grain in Egypt. They didn't recognize the high official they saw but he knew them. It was Joseph. The rest of the story is very interesting and ends that they came to live in Egypt at Pharoah's invitation.
Years passed. Finally the Hebrews were too successful, and jealousy grew. Joseph was forgotten. They were made slaves. Many years of slavery passed making bricks and finally they were to make bricks without straw. I guess this was extremely difficult to do. A time came when Pharoah had all Hebrew male babies killed. I forget why just now. Moses' Hebrew mother put him into a reed basket made watertight with pitch, and set it to float in the reeds in the river, with his sister Miriam watching nearby. Pharoah's daughter came with her ladies to bathe in the river, found the child, wanted to keep it as her son, and the sister stepped forth to say she knew of a wet-nurse. It was, of course, Moses' own mother. So Moses was nursed by his mother and raised as the Pharaoah's daughter's son.
The day came when he was a grown man. He saw an Egyptian overseer mercilously beating a Hebrew labourer. He couldn't bear the injustice and struck the man, who fell dead. Now Moses had to hide from the anger of Pharoah, who soon heard of it, so he fled into the wilderness. He found he was a Teacher of God, and returned and asked Pharaoh to free his people so they could go back to Zion. Pharoah refused, and there were a terrible series of plagues that fell upon his people, which the Hebrews were all spared. I believe that is what they now commemorate with Passover, because they were passed over by the Angel of Death.The series of plagues were truly terrible and could well have taken place according to contemporary scholars. In one there was terrible plague of creaping things that got into everything. In another their drinking water turned to blood. The last I think was the first born sons who died. Pharoah let the people go, but after he led an army after them. The story goes that Moses raised his walking staff and commanded the waters of the Red Sea to part, which they did, and the Hebrews walked through dry-shod. When the army and Pharoah followed, the waters closed, and they were all drowned. Moses led the "Children of Israel" (Israel was the name of an ancestor), in the wilderness in circles for forty years. until the generations that longed for the "fleshpots of Egypt" had died off and they were hardy and faithful to the one Supreme Being. Then he saw the homeland, but died before he could lead them there and his lieutenant took them on into Zion, their former homeland.
Now, Egyptian history is very well documented in old papyrus, and there is no record of this drowning, and so on. It is said that part of it was a parable and not a true happening in the literal sense. It was very, very long ago, and I can't interpret it right now. I will have to think about it. Anyway, I have digressed far from my story of the Iraq area, and may finish it in the next post.
The captivity in Babylon (the first one, not the one involving Moses), lasted 100 years. It was ended by Darius the Great of Persia. Few of the Israelites wanted to leave. When finally a group led by Zorobabel [I don't remember this in the Bible, will look it up.] did return to Zion it was with what amounted to a new religion, one deepened and enriched by its prolonged contact with the profound theology of Zoroastrian Babylon. You may remember that we believe Zoroaster was one of the Great Teachers, and that such teachers inspire civilizations.
Nebuchadnezzar's descendant Nabopolassar, named his own son Nebuchadnezzar. This caused quite a confusion for historians. This second Nebuchadnezzar was the builder of the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. They were about 50 kilometres south of Baghdad on the east bank of the Euphrates. He built them for his wife Amyitis. She had been "brought up in Media and had a passion for mountain surrounds" we're told, referring to the Persian province. The Hanging Gardens were supposedly built to try to recreate, for the homesick queen, those mountain vistas. A person who saw them and wrote at the time said about the famous gardens that they had "plants cultivated above ground level, and the roots of the trees are embedded in the upper terrace rather than in the earth. The whole mass is supported on stone columns. Streams of water emerging from elevated sources flow down sloping channels. These waters irrigate the whole garden, saturating the roots of plants and keeping the whole area moist. The grass is, therefore, permanently green and the leaves of trees grown firmly attached to supple branches... This is a work of art of royal luxury and its most striking feature is that the labour of cultivation is suspended above the heads of the spectators."
Around this time a pattern began that went back and forth for close to 2,000 years. The Babylonians formed an alliance with the Persians, and stomped on the Assyrians. Then the Assyrians recover, form an alliance with Babylonians and stomp on the Persians, who eventually recover and renew their alliance with the Babylonians... etc. Islam arrived to stop this cycle.
