Didn't we have tens of thousands of years of History before this we just have no record of it? I wonder how rich of a society before the genetic bottleneck occurred...
Yes, there would have been thousands of years of unrecorded history. Though it would have been less eventful than during the time of the first literate the high cultures.
@@obiwahndagobah9543 I don't want to be *that guy*, but unrecorded history is no history. And there is no way to tell wether it was uneventful or not. To be honest, there are a lot of interesting archaeological sites in the Near East alone predating Mesopotamian history, Göbleki Tepe and Chatal Höyuk being the two best examples. Mesopotamians did write, in later periods than described in the video, large series of multiple tablets on history, called chronicles. There are quite a lot of those, with an impressive time-span: if you count the Sumerian King List, it goes back, reliably, to Sargon, at the very least. Most of them were about first and second millennium kings though. You also had the Astronomical Diaries, a series of celestial observations paired with stuff like market prices and interesting happenings. Those last from about 700-100BC. When Alexander of Macedon entered Babylon they actually recorded it. (Sorry, I'm really passionate about this stuff.)
In a university course I took on this topic, my professor said the environmental factors you refer to included rivers spontaneously diverting. The two rivers are quite different. The Euphrates in the south is slow and meandering. It's shallow and sits on top of the flood plains. When it flooded, a very wide area would be inundated, and when the flood waters receded, the river may have changed course by many kilometers. A city that was once built on the river's edge may now be a day's walk from the river's new location. Understandably, this made it very difficult to keep the city going, and some would be abandoned. The Tigris river is different, but comes with its own problems. The Tirgis runs straight and quickly. It cuts a deep channel into the plains, which means it doesn't change course or flood as much. The floods are what make lands fertile, so you have use the water differently. Springy wood was used to make water-lifting cranes, since the actual water level was much lower than the surrounding farm land. Water would be poured into channels to flood fields in order to water them. All throughout mesopotamia, huge channels and canals were dug to funnel water onto farmland. Building and maintaining these canals was back breaking work, as they silted up very quickly. Some mesopotamian religious myths even focus around desilting these canals, and how humans were created by the gods in order to do it for them. Anyway, the land in Mesopotamia held a terrible secret though: deep underground, it was quite salty. Every time they flooded their crops, the water would percolate down through the soil. The salt would be brought a bit higher each time. Over the course of years, this makes the earth saltier and saltier. Some crops handle salt better than others. The first crop to succumb is wheat, which couldn't handle salt very well. So they switched to growing barley in fields which wouldn't grow wheat. But eventually, barley would struggle to survive, and they would switch to date palms, which handle the salt better than barley (though you can't make bread out of dates). Eventually, the soil would be too salty for the dates as well. At that point, the land wasn't suitable for any crops. She showed us photos she'd taken on site at her digs of all the salt that can be found. It almost looked like snow. The water lifting cranes are still used today: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadoof
@Dunkleosteus thx for that read. Interesting. "Funny" thing, that farmland getting saltier isn't a new thing. It happens today as well, though for different reasons. The consequences though are the same: The land becomes unusable and those who live there have to move or starve.
@@anonymousfellow8879 not sure what you mean by Ur(uk). Ur and Uruk are two different cities though, if you were implying they might be the same. I don't know the specific story of Abraham and Ur/Uruk.
My favorite story about ancient Sumeria is the room full of tablets from a sumerian merchant conman who, for some reason, kept all of his reciepts and complaints in a single room of what was believed to be his home. Most of what we know about Sumeria at that time period is thanks to this one merchant's hoarding lol
In the first place I wanted to speak about Mesopotamia but the Subject was taken by you, and it seems I couldn't have present it better! Nice job man ! :)
Just so you know, Dude with poorly named channel, I unsubscribed from your channel and stopped watching any of your videos when I found out you were a Trump-humper.
8:28 That's a really fascinating composition for ancient art. I've never seen something that makes such use of the vertical dimension until well after the middle ages.
Oh hey! Mesopotamia! Home of Ishtar. You know what that reminds me of? Of needing a T-shirt or Mug that says: "I'm Magic, Ishtar loves me, and even the Queen of Hell thinks I'm hot."
When I deployed to Iraq, I was stationed at COB Adder. It is a mile away from the Ziggurat of Ur. We got to go on a tour of the site lead by the grandson of the archaeologist who first dug at the site.
"If only there was an easier way to carry stuff around! Darn it!" _kicks over turntable on its side_ "...Oh my Marduk, THAT'S IT!" _guys stands amongst crowd of people wearing sunglasses and headphones with turntables_ "ARE Y'ALL READY TO GET CRUNK?!" "The last time we did that, the gods tried to kill us with all their water! Also, records haven't been invented yet! Ya schmuck." "...Oh. Oh yeah. Fiiiiiiine. I guess we could use these as wheels, then."
“The David and Goliath dealio should show that the sling was no laughing matter.” Absolutely, that shit was powerful enough to apparently render a giant unconscious, allowing David to finish the job with Goliath’s own sword.
Much funny meme very haha. Seriously tho, "Barbarian" is a pretty stupid term the Romans and Greeks used to describe everyone who isn't Roman or Greek, because all the other languages basically sounded like "bar bar bar" Barbarians are not an actual thing, it's just an over simplified and a of a bit racist term to describe nomadic groups of people who had rich oral traditions but no permanent place to call home. Usually, after a big empire collapses because of the usual mix of corruption, power lusting and inefficient beurocrasy, the huge and now unguarded swaths of land of the former empire would get populated by those "barbaric" nomadic societies who would then form their own empires and kingdoms after some while. Long before the collapse of the Roman empire you would've been able to see those called "Barbarians" serving at the highest ranking military and political positions.
Building cities in layers on top of themselves is just the natural way to do it. Until relatively recently, you didn't need to dig far into the ground to make a foundation. You just tore down a building, maybe fill the remains in with a few more rocks and then some dirt, and you've got a foundation - sure, it won't meet modern building codes, or support a skyscraper, but moving out all those rocks out of town just to move in some new rocks would seem silly. Also, cities tend to fill up with detritus. Instead of clearing it all out, you could just resurface the roads, which would necessitate building new buildings on top of the old ones instead of at the same level.
7:12 In Hebrew (a related Semitic language) you could say "שר הגון" (Sar hagun, Just king) which sounds really similar to "Sargon" This kind of thing is why I'm studying Babylonian Akkadian rn.
@@phinhager6509 it also means minister (i.e. minister of education = שר החינוך = sar hahinuh) also, sar hagun didn't come after sargon, it's probably a coincidence, since both words are used mostly seperately
I got to visit a European Museum over the Fall break and I got to see one of the first Mesopotamian law obelisks. It was very fascinating, and quite interesting how complex they were.
That’s awesome! If you get a chance you should visit some of Britain’s natural history museums. They have incredibly intricate head busts from the Mesopotamian era.
@@huntersmith8586 how are unstandardized illogical values objectively more useful than Metric? I find 0°C as freezing point and 100°C as boiling point easier to understand and remember than 32°F & 212°F. And always requiring a factor 10 of a unit to go up to a higher unit (for length & mass) also is more logically sound and easier to use (some measurement units are barely used or only used by jobs requiring high precision). It's also easier if you need a half or fourth. And conviently 1 litre of water = 1kg. Example: 1km = 1000m = 100.000cm (every unit is simply multiplied by a factor of ten every time. This keeps things consistent and easy to understand.) But if you grow up with Imperial then I guess it might be easier for you to use that since you're used to it. But it's easier to convert from Imperial to Metric than Metric to Imperial. And my final point. Only 3 countries use the Imperial system, it's easier to have a tool you can used anywhere than one you only used in those specific instances. (Which is why I'd rather used English instead of my native language, you can use English in about half the world) Sorry for this behemoth of a comment just saying what needs to be said.
@@sennemichiels6748 As a human I like that 0F = hella cold and 100F = hella hot Also, adding a factor of ten, then prefixing the term that means it's a factor of ten higher isn't a "new unit." You could just as validly have a kilopound or kilomile. Also also, how is it easier to have a half or quarter? A foot divides by 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6, and we use halfs, quarters, eights, etc of inches for precision.
Do you ever wonder how the people from the past would feel, if they came to the present? Like imagine if the founder of the very first city ever to exist were to see our sprawling and huge cities today? Would they be struck with wonder, awe, and curiosity? Would they condemn us as witches? Would they even understand, on a basic level, what it is they were seeing? Ah, to be able to interact with those who lived in the past.
theyd see mysterious colors, unlike any seen on earth. aka another possibility is going insane at being unable to comprehend what theyre seeing, eldritch lovecraft vibes
I'm so glad you covered Mesopotamia, it's amazing and I love hearing about its history. (Also I love that the background was literal writing I screeched)
Oh cool, a historical video referencing the historical Sargon of Akkad, I'm sure the fandom can be mature about it and not immediately descend into insults and a flame war! *Two hours later* Humanity was a mistake...
This may be a semantic issue, but you mentioned how difficult forging bronze was with such civic separation; bronze is cast, not forged. Sorry. Carry on. Love the vids
7:57 yeah it easy. Just punch a tree, then punch some rocks, and then you kinda just lay some twigs and pebbles next to each other then presto! Stone tool!
Sargon of Akkad is also the one who invented the famous time mesurement unit known as "A Sargon", you have to give credit were credit is due ! No wait...
I find the Bronze Age one of the most fascinating periods of human history, mainly due to how little we know for sure (it really sparks the imagination), and because it is responsible for most of the innovations that we completely take for granted today. They were all well ahead of their time, and just think how much more advanced we'd be today if it didn't collapse.
One time, we had an assignment about Mesopotamia, cuneiform, etcetera. It was a pretty easy assignment, and I’m not here to talk about that. I’m here to tell you that one guy turned in his assignment: a) in cuneiform and b) on an actual clay tablet. This is the same guy that would regularly bring a typewriter to school and wore ascots to P.E.
I'm actually glad you mentioned this sling because when I was in seminary we discussed the fact that David choice in a sling versus Goliath spear and sword was actually very wise. David allowed Goliath to throw the spear first which negated Goliath's Long Reach capability and before Goliath to get close enough to strike on the sword David Nailed him the face with a rock to knock him silly it didn't kill him. He went and took Goliath's big ass sword and cut his head off. Also little known fact David was actually pretty tall infact he and Saul were Head and Shoulders taller than the rest of the Israelites they were the two tallest people in the entire nation and David would have been around 17 to 19 years old when he did it.
I know Im very late to the party but the roman's wall did work for quite a while. It slowed traffic through the area just like they wanted, was a show of strength, and didn't let any major parties through. They never expected it to stop boats, they just wanted to stop or atleast slow down any direct assault, not to mention they also taxed anyone who wanted to go through.
I just went over to the compilation, really good job guys. I'm Blown Away by so many different people collaborating and covering so many topics so quickly. Much appreciated considering I love the Bronze Age. It's like a late birthday present.
The modern Sargon would deny that the climate has changed and instead blame economical reformist (everyone but himself) while his kingdom falls to pieces around him.
One of the best Mesopotanian myths that i've found in modern day culture was the tale of Lugalbanda, the king of Uruk who won a war through peace and wisdom and filled the culture of Uruk with the Legendary Anzu bird as part of a deal he made with it
@@KhanhNguyen-mh5ec Thanks. I'm dreading when it comes to Tiamat and further beyond the last Singularity. I just pray I could finish everything before Shinjuku releases.
Ok thank u for this I needed this because I have to study the Fertile Crescent because I am in my schools social studies and ELA ( English language Arts ) academic teams and this just sums stuff up so I’m not doing as much stuff Love you guys pls keep making videos
Off topic I know but can we get some more Latin America and episodes on Mansa Musa or Shaka Zulu? Not that these aren't amazing bc obviously all of this channel's output is amazing!
historical Sargon > (insert some internet mess that this joke is referencing) Change my Mind. EDIT A year later: The fact that this created a 44 comment long thread of BS just goes to show how messy the internet can be, therefore my mission was accomplished in showing one thing y'all need to remember: Politics suck and is the no fun police of anything you want to do on the internet.
@@festethephule7553 He's referring to the youtuber Sargon of Akkad. A guy who build his channel debating against SJW's, LGBT, anti-racist and Brexit remainers and is involved with the likes of neo-nazi Richard Spencer
@@dimitriosdrossidis9633 Mate, I rarely let curiousity stop me. I have already been corrupted, you have nothing to worry about. Besides, if you don't tell me I'm just gunna look it up myself.
Dose eridu remind anyone else of that one Futurama episode where bender is pharoh and repeated builds statues of himself only to tear it down and make it bigger
I’m curious if you could do a video on the Tower of Babel. I know there is a debate on whether it was symbolic structure for the sake of telling a story within the bible or not but I’d be curious what you could pull together for a video on the Tower of Babel. Your channel is awesome and please keep up the saint work!
