12 – Migrants and Old Assyrian Merchants
rebellions, emorite kings risepreviously unimportant city of babylonHammurabi one of its kingsmerchants from assur to kanesh (today turkey)
11 – Ur III Households, Accounts, and Ziggurats
standardize measurements for taxes to be the same taking pride on legal precedents that are the same (if someone killed than he himself is killed…)
10 The Fall of Akkad and Gudea of Lagash
Gudea was so different: he didn’t try to seem terrifying; he didn’t claim to be the king of the Universe; he didn’t tear down city walls and drag kings into captivity in neck-stocks. this model of rule influenced many kings after him.
09 Akkadian Empire Arts and Gods
using Lost-Wax Casting (although it was invented in Bulgaria and Pakistan) Enheduanna the daughter of Sargon was the world’s first author – she wrote hymns in the 23rd century BCE.
08 – Lugalzagesi the first king of the land and Sargon the first emperor
there was a king of the land in Egypt (5th dynasty by that time), but an empire is ruling more than one nation, and Egypt was just one nation, so Sargon had the first Empire. he used propaganda like his name means “true king”, and his legend is the origin of the Moses story (baby […]
01 Analyzing the Pose and Starting the Drawing
finished first lecture in drawing course phew! 🙂
lecture 7 – workers and worshipers
Mesopotamians drank beer all the time. it was safer than drinking water, because the fermentation process sterilized it. drank through straws from big communal pots at banquets. In all 3 ancient places: Mesopotamia, Egypt and China, nobles were buried with dozens of attendants (common people who were killed with poison or bashed on the head), […]
city-state kings and diplomacy
regular exchange of messengers; agreement to abide by treaties; exchange of letters between kingdoms; giving luxury goods to one another; marrying an ally’s daughter.
lecture 5 – world’s biggest city Uruk
invention of the plow (women descrimination); Wheel inventions: wheel pottery (mass production), and from that wheels transport (a boat on land), cylinder seal (identifying signature), and from that a writing system (memory aids numbers) on clay – proto-cuneiform. for names they use Rebus principle (Barbie = bar+bee). in Sumerian language all words are one syllable […]
lecture 4: technological inventions smelting copper, adding arsenic (later tin) to make bronze; making a city Uruk
the inventions have to do with fire all the time: heating / burning limestone to make gypsum; burning ore (rock) to smelt copper; the lecturer asks: why would anyone think to do that?