Ancient Near East

This chapter discusses how people in the ancient Near East lived their day to day lives. Walton begins by fully explaining divination. According to John Walton, “Divination produced the only divine revelation known in the ancient Near East. Through its mechanisms, the ancients believed not that they could know the deity, but that they could get a glimpse of the designs and will of the deity.” Walton splits divination into two categories labeled “inspired” and “deductive”. Inspired divination is divine communication using human intermediary e.g., prophecy or dreams, whereas deductive divination is divine communication through events and phenomena --- also provoked situations. For example, lots or extispicy using animal entrails, or passive, such as celestial observation. Nevertheless, its revelation is communicated through events and phenomena that can be observed. Inspired divination consists of official and informal prophecy, and dreams. Deductive divination comes through two types of events. Both are observed in the physical realm, the active such as extispicy or casting of lots, and the unprovoked…

In the study of the history of the Ancient Near East, the year 1200 B.C. marks a profound and unexpected shift in the balance of power among the various empires of the region. For the previous 2,000 years, the region of the world bounded by the Mediterranean Sea and by Egypt to its west, caressed by the mountains of Cappadocia and Armenia and the River Araxes to its north, rebuffed by the deserts of Arabia to its south, and blessed with the rivers Tigris and Euphrates and their many tributaries…

Throughout the course of human history, the use and influence of language have long stood at the forefront of how societies operate. The Ancient Near East represents no exception to this reality. Given the widespread emergence of state societies in the region, the development of language and complimentary writing systems served as integral to societal sustainability and progression. While many languages used throughout the era have been thoroughly uncovered and systematically deciphered, one…

The Ancient Near East: Power and Social Order in the Early Middle East The Mesopotamia was a region located in what is now known as Iraq and part of Turkey and Syria. It is between the two major rivers called the Tigris and the Euphrates. Mesopotamia means, "the land between rivers" in ancient Greek. The residents who live in the Northern area could grown wheat and raise cattle; the Southern areas are rich in soil for farming. There were a lot civilizations during this time such as the…

LaSandra Stallworth Andre Lapalme English 271 19 October 2015 Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Literature The invention of writing in the earliest Literatures Writing is a physical manifestation of a spoken language. The first system of writing was known as cuneiform, which consists of making marks in wet clay. The earliest form of writing was pictographs, which are symbols that represent objects. It is wet clay that is drawn in, and then they would put it out to dry. This writing system…

The Ancient Records of Assyria point out the strategic importance of ancient Assyria, Egypt, and Babylonia. The Ancient Records of Assyria are extremely hard to accurately depict because the historians in these civilizations did not detail enough information of these places and the people who lived there. These records detail the history of the ancient Near East civilizations. (Larsen 2000) The records of Ancient Assyria go far beyond the history of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome; they records…

In the article “Cuneiform and the History of Civilization” Ephraim Avigdor Speiser, a world renowned Assyriologist argues that the survival span, influence, and legacy of Mesopotamia, a historic civilization is unmatched. After extensive research, Speiser came to the conclusion that Mesopotamian Laws were the most influential of the Cuneiform laws. It’s legal traditions set the precedent for other civilizations and heavily impacted later cultures. Our world as we know it today is culturally…

The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest written story in human history that has survived since the third millennium BCE. The Epic of Gilgamesh is an ancient Mesopotamian poem of telling a story about the epic adventures of a man named Gilgamesh, who is the King of Uruk, and his companion Enkidu. The word meaning of Mesopotamia means the “land between the rivers” in ancient Greek language and the location of Mesopotamia is land near between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers which in present-day are…

another ancient civilization is also distinctly prominent in our modern society. The Egyptian idea of burial was the first movement of burying deceased bodies ever found. The ancient Egyptians believed that when someone died, their soul left their body. Then, the soul would return to be reunited and reincarnated. However, the soul needed to be able to find and recognise the body in order to live forever. The belief included mummifying the body, casting of magic spells, and burial with specific…

about the many different characteristics of civilizations in Ancient Mesopotamia. The major characteristics include cities, religion, writing, government, social structure, and art. Each of these characteristics were demonstrated through the game. These characteristics are what make up a civilization. Ancient Mesopotamia was located within the Fertile crescent, in between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Civilizations from Ancient Mesopotamia invented many different things. For example, the…