The history, myths and achievements of the Assyrians and Babylonians have amazed posterity with their antiquity, greatness and power, and the relics of humanity they left behind. The depopulation of once majestic cities and the overlapping of different cultures have contributed to the constant and inexorable dilution of historical memory, which has resulted in the widespread use of the term Assyro-Babylonian culture and history only a few centuries ago. However, it is often vague and imprecise, with a decidedly mythological content and, in some cases, incorrect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Western tradition has bequeathed episodes that have been largely reduced to anecdotes, i.e. their cultural context is very different from the original, and they do not represent a valid historical record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Greeks, Romans, Judeo-Christian world contributed significantly to the idea that the Middle East is on the one hand \"soft\", lecherous and slovenly, and on the other hand a terrifying, evil and cruel executor of divine retribution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The break in tradition and the destruction of ancient works about the East have left a permanent \"black hole\" in the writings and sources, leaving the truth about the culture of these distant peoples in a permanent state of obscurity. When contacts between East and West were reopened in the second half of the Middle Ages and the modern era, interest in the ancient Near and Middle East was revived. The 17th century saw the beginning of an influx of written sources from the original sites into Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pietro della Valle, a Roman aristocrat who made long pilgrimages through the Middle and Near East, reported on fascinating ruins and a mysterious writing system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other travellers were deeply impressed by the ancient Persian cities and, to varying degrees, contributed to the discipline known today as Assyrology.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Such as Carsten Niebuhr, the 18th century geographer who produced an astonishing body of written sources on the ancient Near East, who managed to identify Nineveh near present-day Mosul. But those who devoted their energies to researching and documenting the ancient Near East included not only scholars but also merchants, diplomats and artists. Archaeological discoveries and the deciphering of cuneiform inscriptions brought with them a rapid growth in the data set, and civilisations such as Sumerian, previously shrouded in obscurity, were unearthed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The term \"Assyrian-Babylonian civilisation\" thus refers literally to the set of historical events, facts and people that played a prominent role in the development of Mesopotamia in the 2nd and 1st millennia BC (c.2000-5000). It should be noted, however, that the origins of these cultures go back to the preceding millennia (3000-2100), which witnessed the rise of the Sumerian and Akkadian civilisations. No wonder, therefore, that the first important factor that most arouses our curiosity and imagination is the Assyrian-Babylonian civilisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"The name 'Mesopotamia' comes from the fact that the 'land between the rivers' lies between the Tigris and the Euphrates, in what is now Iraq. The Sumerians created the first civilisation recorded in written sources in the southern part of Mesopotamia, in the present-day Dhi Qar (Nasiriyah) provincial governorate. Where the Sumerians came from is not known, and the language they spoke is not related to any known language. Further north, the Akkadians settled there, speaking a Semitic language related to those spoken today, such as Arabic, Aramaic and Hebrew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In later times, the Akkadian language was divided into two dialects. In the north, between Mosul and Kirkuk, the Assyrian. While in the south, Babylonian was spoken in what is now Diyala, Baghdad and Babil provinces, as well as in the outlying provinces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Akkadian-speaking peoples took over the Sumerian-speaking peoples, or more precisely, the southern Akkadians, or Babylonians, effectively replaced the Sumerians. The latter in turn bequeathed their language and literature to the conquerors , becoming the language of the Sumerian and learned people, similar to Latin in later Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The history of Assyria and Babylonia is characterised by events and diversity, as well as complex political and cultural complexity. In Mesopotamia, a wide variety of ethnic and cultural groups played a role. There were the Amur, the Aramaeans, the Chaldeans and other Western Semitic peoples who lived a semi-nomadic lifestyle and a kind of aristocratic society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Hurri and other groups, mostly from the mountainous areas, came from the north, and the Hittites and Urartians from Turkey. From the east came the Kassus and the elite Indo-Aryan elite of the Mitanni, peoples from the Zagros Mountains, such as the Lullubites and the Guti, and the Elamites, whose centre was in Susa, in what is now Kuzistan (Iran).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Egypt played a special, albeit measured, role, with which Mesopotamia often had lively trade and diplomatic relations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although the Assyrian-Babylonian civilisation survived until the beginning of the Christian era, political independence was already lost in 536, the Persians under Cyrus the Great took Babylon and set about creating one of the most powerful empires in history, which united the Near and Middle East under more or less direct control, extending its political and cultural influence to the Mediterranean. Persian culture took up many features of Babylonian civilisation and played a mediating role between Middle Eastern and Greek culture. The Babylonian heritage has been preserved through Roman and Greek culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Throughout the centuries, the Bible has been the primary narrative of the vicissitudes and characteristics of civilisation. One of the most serious problems facing scholars of the Middle East is the lack of a stable and certain chronology. The dates for the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC cannot be regarded as approximate, but must be understood as based on consensus. Thanks to some texts dating back to the 17th century by Ammisadouqa, a ruler of the 1st Babylonian dynasty, which contain observations on the planet Venus, scholars have developed hypothetical chronological reconstructions with absolute dates. However, only one time interval has been identified within which the phenomena described in the texts occur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0That is why there is a \"maximum\" date, i.e. an oldest date, on the basis of which scientists have created the long chronology, and a minimum date on which the chronology is based.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Learn about the history, myths and achievements of the Assyrians and Babylonians. The origin, development and cultural impact of ancient civilisations in Mesopotamia. How has their heritage survived to the present day?<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kultura"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kozelkeletblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kozelkeletblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kozelkeletblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kozelkeletblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kozelkeletblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kozelkeletblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":218,"href":"https:\/\/kozelkeletblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions\/218"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kozelkeletblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kozelkeletblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kozelkeletblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kozelkeletblog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}