Margarete van Ess | News from Old Uruk

Presented by Margaret van Ess, German Archaeological Institute
News from Old Uruk
**This is an at home lecture, please excuse the audio and video quality.
Margaret van Ess joins us for a lecture exploring recent fieldwork at the legendary site of Uruk in southern Iraq, the ancient city memorialized in the epic of Gilgamesh as the home of the mythological king. Van Ess examines evidence of monumental construction projects including the city walls and canals, theorizing how ecological factors might have played a role in the construction and development of this ancient center of urbanization.
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2021, OI
Music credit: bensound.com

[@kylehedrick9653]

Thanks to oi, and the history of scholarship, that brings light into our dark world.

[@Ahmedali_-qd9eg]

Thanks to Oi and Dr.Margarete.

[@BluJean6692]

I love this stuff, and I was ready for some dry history... but seeing a wall-line still visible after 3 millennia moved me deeply and was an unexpected wonder. Thank you so much for including those photos, I mean to visit some day!

[@edgarsnake2857]

Thanks Margeret and O.I. for your amazing work in and coverage of the ancient world.

[@gustavderkits8433]

Thank for preserving this great historical site.

[@JustSpectre]

Thank you so much for sharing information about this ancient and fascinating site. Especially about it Early Dynastic I and II construction projects. Reconstruction of Eanna reminded me the story of Enmerkar, who decided to rebuild the sanctuary of Inanna and required precious materials such as lapis lazuli and gold for the project. These materials were in possesion of city of Arrata which lead to conflict between these cities. It's kind of sad that Enmerkar and Lugalbanda, heroes of this story, are hardly ever mentioned in literary tradition as opposed to Gilgamesh, Mesopotamian superhero par excellence. Even so that, in my opinion, Enmerkar was a more competent and proper ruler according to Mesopotamian ideals: he was wise and pious while Gilgamesh was selfish, tyrannical, opposed gods (his cedar forest adventure) and rejected Inanna/Ishar, goddess of the city of Uruk. But again, it is almost impossible to connect mythological narrative with factual data from excavation as was pointed out with regards to the walls.

[@krumminsch]

👏🏻 Vielen Dank! 👏🏻

[@lievenmoelants]

Very interesting! Was the clay for the mudbricks of the citywall dug f

[@lievenmoelants]

from the canals?

[@nilesbutler8638]

Lecture starts 2:25

[@ivardiehl2679]

Ms Van Ess mentions social stratification in early Uruk administration of goods making but doesn’t say what sort of stratification. Her use of the term “complex” there seems like a potentially out of date understanding of the relationship between “complexity” and “stratification”- recent findings indicate that hierarchical “complexity” shows up in the record substantially after the development of the administrative bureaucracy of Uruk’s early period. This oversight positions the “new findings” here in an unfortunate and misleading context. Not impressed

[@fonce9965]

Gilgamesh was NOT a myth. His grave was discovered not too long ago. His femur was 24 in long making him about 18 ft. tall. Often pictured holding a grown Lion by the scruff of the neck was more than likely something a person that weighed well over a ton could EASILY accomplish.

[@kylehedrick9653]

I dont think that most early cuneiform scholars would ever consider gilgamesh as mythological, at the same time, they would never consider him as anything but semi mythological.

[@fonce9965]

@@kylehedrick9653 This VIDEO used that term & that is why I left that comment. The big coverup is the FACT that humans 3 times the size of us roam this planet & the evidence is being suppressed.

[@tomrich4400]

@@fonce9965 ngl chief I'm pretty sure the Assyriologists are a bit more of an authority on the extent to which Gilgamesh can be said to be real, or more specifically if he was a 18 foot tall giant which is never mentioned in any text from the period. I would also posit that the alleged grave was found in the early 2000s and no large humanoid bones were found. Also why in gods name would anyone have any interest in covering up such giants, such things would be extremely interesting for archeologists and various disciplines.

[@fonce9965]

@@tomrich4400 We had a Giant Skeleton right here in our Lake Geneva Museum that was confiscated by the Smithsonian. I live here & have seen pictures a farmer took of elongated skull giant skeletons being removed from a ditch alongside one of his fields in Delevan. There is an entire stepped pyramid at the bottom of Rock Lake just outside of Madison. I m a member of the 4 Lakes Ice Yacht Club & have sailed over the top of it many times. I'm a Scientist for the AAAS in Washington DC, maybe YOU should start reading Science Journal & then YOU can tell me why they would want to cover up the existence of giant humans like the one shot dead in Kandahar after skewing a US Marine with a flagpole sized spear outside of his cave in Afghanistan.

[@ItsMeMissV369]

We have to say sci fi and mythology or we get censored for misinformation. The system is trying to move into a one world religion - humanism.