Enheduana of Sumer

Leon, Vicki. "Enheduana of Sumer." Outrageous Women of Ancient Times. New York: Wiley, 1998. 49-53. Print.

Enheduana of Sumer was a remarkable and smart woman. She was a very important part in human history and the history of writing. She was the first ever author in the history of writing to write a book using her own name (the first non-anonymous author)! She wrote them almost 4,300 years ago. There are still signs of some of the poems she wrote al well.
She was the daughter of King Sargon, who established a great Akkadian empire and who appointed her as the High Priestess to Nanna, the moon-god of Sumer. She kept this spot for nearly twenty-five years before her evil nephew replaced her with his own daughter.

After she was replaced, she started writing her books on clay tablets with styli made out of reeds, and she wrote them in cuneiform. It is an ancient alphabet made up of triangles. She was a poet as well, and wrote a set of forty-two poems or hymns to the temples of Sumer and Akkad.

Her father, the King, was from a family of Mesopotamian farmers, and was “a humble cup-bearer for the king of Kish.” Nobody knows how he got have gotten the throne after being a cup-bearer, but he established a huge empire. He had twin sons and his daughter Enheduana, but his sons were terrible kings. A lot of this we know thanks to Enheduana’s stories that were found.

                                                             

Writing in Cuniform Reflection

In class we are learning about the first letters and alphabets. One of the first writing systems was Cuneiform. Many people in Mesopotamia used this system. So we also wanted to experience what it was like writing in Cuneiform. All of us translated a sentence in Cuneiform and painted it on brown paper.

Writing in Cuneiform was very hard. All those shapes took up a lot of time and space. I took a long time to even write one letter. By the time you write one word, a whole minute passed. I also realized that drawing shapes took up a lot of space on my paper. In my writing I made a mistake, I flipped two letters. I wonder what they did in the past when a mistake was made; of course they didn’t have white out like we do now.  But I think that Mesopotamians got used to it and didn’t make as many mistakes.

Right after we finished our sentence, we switched papers with someone else. Looks like just writing the sentence in Cuneiform, wasn’t enough, so we need to understand what it says as well (read Cuneiform). Once we switched we had to decode their sentence. This one also took up a long time but not space, since we were writing in our own language. It took up a lot of time since almost for every letter we had to look over and find what it is.

So that is how our writing Cuneiform experience went. Turns out writing in any typo of language is hard until you get used to it, even though all the answers are right in front of you, like t was for us.

Hammurabi's Code of Law Fair

What was Hammurabi’s Code of Law fair?

Today in class we read a very engaging article. I learned a lot of now interesting facts. It was about the first enforced laws made by the ancient ruler of Babylonia in Mesopotamia, Hammurabi.                                                                                                                                                                             Hammurabi wanted to make his civilization Babylonia just, which means he wanted to make it impartial for everyone. While Hammurabi was sitting on the throne of Babylonia, he made the civilization thrive. Hammurabi brought together all the different city-states, which were living upon their own rulers and own rules. Since Hammurabi combined the city states, he also combined the different laws of the city states creating what is now known as the “Hammurabi’s code”. It was a list containing 280 sections. Hammurabi wanted all other rulers of Babylonia/Mesopotamia, to fight for the same reasons and use the same punishments as he did.                                                                                                                                                                         The article gave us examples of some laws Hammurabi enforced, but I thought that most of them mean and unfair for people. Hammurabi made his code of laws following the phrase “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth”. For example, If a person destroys a gentleman’s eyes, his eye may be destroyed in turn, or if he breaks a gentleman’s bone, his bone may also be cut off in turn. I don’t like this cruel way of punishing incent people, but I really do understand why Hammurabi thought that it is fair for everyone. Still, I am glad that in the countries we all live in, don’t have laws that work the same way. Another example of an unfair law is when a person gets killed, because his/her house collapses over them, the constructor of the house will be killed, too. If the person’s son or daughter dies, the constructor’s son or daughter will be killed, too. That rule is mostly unfair to the little kids who don’t have anything to do with it. It would be a shame if the constructor has a little baby child that needs to get killed. How is it a kids fault if his/her father made the building unstable? Even the part where the constructor of the house would be killed is unfair, from my point of view at least.                                                                                                                                                                                         Some of the laws of Hammurabi are fair to all people. For example “if a slave strikes at a free man, his ear may be cut of”. I think that this is fair because if the slave strikes at a person for no reason, there must be a punishment. This punishment is neither bad nor good. “If two equals engage in a fair fight and one is injured, the person causing the injury may have to pay for the others medical treatment. However he cannot be punished further for having caused the injury”. This is fair because the person causing the injury won’t need to be punished severely for what he had caused. After all the other person was also continuing the fight knowing he could get hurt. hurt.                                                                                                                                                                        Something that was mentioned as well, is that the punishment is different if a person strikes at a gentleman (upper-class people), a commoner (a worker of some kind) or a slave. It is unfair that the punishment is harder for killing a gentleman than for killing a slave or commoner. They are both people with the same fears, rights, dreams and bodies, just that one of them was born into a wealthier family and the other one into a normal family.                                                                                                                                                                   From my point of view Hammurabi’s is trying to make his laws fair, but most of them are unfair and really disgusting (e.x. one person’s hand or any other part of the body gets cut off if he/she does certain things). I really like that slaves can buy their freedom or even go to other families and work for them. Over all I think that Hammurabi’s code of law fair is fairer to the high class people compared to the slaves and commoners. I also think it has very harsh punishments for some little things that people have done.  

Landeau, Elaine. "Hammurabi's Babylonia." The Babylonians. Print.

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The Bronze Age

It is 3000 B.C., the New Stone Age societies grew into civilizations. Societies grew cities. There is a central government run by leaders who manage their cities and protect them. The government is responsible to keep the society in order, to provide help if needed and to administer large public buildings with irrigation projects that took place. Other than government jobs, there are many different professions as well, that people dedicate their time to. For example, there are many writers, artists, and architectures in the city. Aside from doing their regular job, they are also describing the civilization that Delena lives in. Delena is a 12 year old girl, her dad Adalfuns is an architect, and her mother Aelia is a writer. She is an only child and always gets whatever her heart desires.

A long time ago during 6600B.C. humans discovered that melting a certain rock at an incredibly high temperature, would separate the metal copper from the rock. That is when the first person from Delenas family tree started making tools out of copper. From then on all of Delenas male relatives are using copper tools and make them on their own. In Delenas world it is already known that mixing copper with tin becomes bronze. That gave Delenas dad Adalfuns a very good idea. Adulfuns started dabbling in tool making just like his dad did, he wanted to follow his footsteps. Although that is not the only reason he started working with tools. Adalfuns wanted to get more coins by trading those tools, so he could provide a great life for the 2 women in his life. He didn’t want to disappoint them.

Adalfuns started getting into tool making. It was like the tools were appearing on the table, so many were made in only 2 hours, he made more and more every minute, Adalfuns ended up having too much. Since him and his family were out of food for lunch, he needed to trade. He took the tools that were unnecessary, and traded them for food with many faraway cities. Aelia did the same with her pottery, weaved baskets, and cloths that weren’t needed. All the goods that they were trading were loaded into carts using an axle and a wheel. They were pushed to the faraway city but to the market as well. With this, Adalfuns was able to easily transport more goods to faraway cities.

This evening as in many evenings before ships carried goods and different products. Together with them lots of information traveled with the ship, which implies that more ideas were shared between cities. During the same evening just after dinner, Delena enjoyed watching out of her window at all the ships coming in her community, bearing all the heavy loads of goods and ideas that need to be shared. She supported her father Adalfuns while he was communicating with the foreign people. Discussing different tool ideas and trading other information along with goods.

Even though Delenas father was working very hard and trying his best, her family is not very prosperous, unlike some other families in their city. There are several social classes in the city, every family belongs to one of them. For example the priests of the cities religion are highly ranked members. However common workers and farmers were the lowest ranked of the society. Of course Delena wanted to be in the high class like the kings and queens in other cities, but that will never be possible, at least for now, however there is still hope in her far future. She positions her self in her bed and went right to sleep.
 

Birth of Humanity: Last Human Standing

There are many early humans that died out. Even some of them may have lived on earth much longer than us, why were we the last humans standing? Are we special or just had more developed brains and thoughts? 

Neanderthals had a survival almost twice as long as us today. They were very sophisticated early humans, with a bit bigger brains than ours. They were the most advanced humans on Earth until we came along. There are many reasons that caused their extinction. I believe that as they ate only meat, they spent much more time hunting their prey and using up energy compared to eating and resting. Or maybe we invented much more techniques for survival since our brains are more complex. 

Our last common ancestor is Homo heidelbergensis. Over time species needed to adapt to the different changes on Earth, for example the need to expand their diet. Homo heidelbergensis was the first to eat sea food. Also needed to expand their tools, language, art, or moving to different places, like how homo heidelbergensis moved out of Africa because of the droughts and loss of water. And lastly expanding their rituals. It is thought that Homo heidelbergensis had burial ritual. They would bury their loved ones along with some precious belongings such as tools  made out of quarts. Homo heidelbergensis evolved into Neanderthals in Europe and into H. sapiens in Africa. Unfortinatully, where ever we (the Homo sapiens) came, we pushed everyone out, that is another theory for why we are the last humans standing. 

Even if some of our ancestors had bigger brains than us, we still have more developed brains at use all parts of it. We also have more developed bodies, foods/diets, language and culture, that is why we are the last humans standing. But who knows if that is true, there could be a very simple explanation like, there might have not been enough food, or all the ancestors were killed by predators, sicknesses, or just being unable to adapt to the different environmental changes. Who knows, maybe someday it will be us on the edge of extinction.

                

"Last Human Standing." Becoming Human. PBS/NOVA. 31 Aug. 2011. Television.

From Grunt To Grammar: The Evolution Of Language

From Grunt To Grammar: The Evolution Of Language
By:Jeanne Miller
October 2009
Odyssey magazine: Adventures in science
pg 34-36

Language provides for humans to express their thoughts and feelings. The questions are when was the brain ready and developed enough to understand grammar. And when was the voice box/larynx able to sound out all the different words. 

The skulls of the brains and the brain hollows show how the brains of our ancestors changed and developed over time in size and complexity. Comparing the brains of early human and us, they are not that different. Some parts of the brain in homo Habilis Show speech. So maybe even two and a half million years ago our ancestors started communicating threw speech.  

The larynx plays a big role in speech, just like the brain. The larynx holds the vocal cords that allow us to make sounds. To animals, making sounds is pretty limited because their larynx is high in the throat. However over the years our larynx started going down. "The larynx disengaged from the back door of the nasal cavity" said Laitman. This detachment changed the way we eat, breath and make sounds. Having a large space above their larynx allowed them to breath easily threw their mouth. Also sounds made by the vocal cord could be modified. 

Trying to know when language started is a hard task. That is because there is no direct evidence to prove it. Speech can’t be found underground like bones and skulls. Researchers have to interpret archaeological in terms of weather language would be necessary to produce them". For example stone tools. Some stone tools require more and some less communication to make them. Communication is not only talking, its is gestures and speech. Even if we can’t know the right date when language started, we can still write down our own thoughts and ideas. We can take prehistory time events, and draw a conclusion. For example when Homo sapiens spread into the whole world. We don't know if that needed a little or a lot of communication. Much of their journey could have been along the water. The would need water craft to pass it for example a boat. Making boats takes a lot of communication and speech. So that means that is is clear that by 35,000 or 40,000 years ago, Homo sapiens were using fire. 

Even if we never find out when speech started, there is no reason to give up. We know ourselves and our abilities. We also have monkey still around. But what happened in the past will be revealed slowly during the years. We have gone so far with our communication. From grunts to grammar, all the way to twitter. But what interests us is how it all started. 

Miller, Jeanne. "From Grunts to Grammar: The Evolution of Language ." Odyssey :Adventures in Science