Ancient Levant - gap in history

 

'm not sure about my facts there as I haven't done much on this period for ages, but again, much of this period is, even more so than ancient Egypt, extremely obscure - much more so than ancient Egypt! Egypt's architectual and artistic legacy has been extremely vibrant and captivated the minds of many 17-19th century Europeans - in a sandy land with large quantities of limestone and sandstone, their legacy is simply physically more. In Mesopotamia, with a much more sporadic political history of late, ever-changing water courses and a lack of many natural resources - including stone, wood and metals, it's not suprising that only civilisations in the north-west such as the Assyrians got much of a glance from the public's eye in a popular understanding of history. Moreover, many of the discoveries in this period were made comparitively recently - Nineveh, Ur and Hattasus as late as the 1920s. The earliest reference to archeological interest in the area that I've heard of is some 18th century gentleman finding some bricks with strange writing on them and taking them back to England to his curiosity cabinet. A great deal of the problem is that, whereas ancient Egypt provides us with a great deal of architectual evidence and textual information, there is not a great deal of either in ancient Mesopotamia - I seem to remember that Gurney states in his book on the Hittites that all the archeologists initially had to go on was tales of strange carvings in the Anatolian valleys and a few biblical references. Moreover, the state that controlled that area from the 1520s onwards - the Ottoman empire - were not terribly interested in archeological excavation of pre-classical (or even classical) civilisations, and it's no coincidence that with the collapse of Ottoman power and the French and British mandates of Iraq and Syria in the 1920s and immediately after world war one, we see a boom in archeological research. I'm glad that you're showing an interest though...there is a theory that the initial Pharonic culture and dynasty was imported from Mesopotamia, and the earliest work of literature - the epic of Gilgamesh, earliest form c.2500 BC - comes from this area!

 

Actually, as I understand it, the Assyrians put together quite the library -- in the form of a collection of tablets -- during the reign of Ashurbanipal. Also, wasn't Egyptian history notorious -- even among the propagandistic history of this period -- for leaving out unpleasant details? This doesn't mean that they were the only ones who did so; indeed, the historical documents and epigraphical evidence from this period generally speaks to a desire to glorify whoever was setting it up. I guess I just don't see what you are trying to demonstrate. Not being combative, or anything, I assure you; just curious.

 

-Akolouthos