HIST 10800 Lecture 15: Mesopotamian Art
Document Summary
Pictograph symbols originated from uruk, in 3300 b. c. e. Poetry was written about the destruction of ur at around 2000 b. c. e. Hammurabi was a babylonian conquerer, whose conquests fit into a pattern of invasions; he claimed his empire had approval of the gods, though it was quickly overturned after his death. Earliest tablets told us of accounting, and the lament of ur told us of the horrors of conquest. Mesopotamia records teach a lot about their lives. Scripts sometimes are completely unrelated with language. They are so closely entwined we forget any language can be written in almost any script. Akkadians who ruled mesopotamia after sumerians took over cuneiform script, even though the languages were different. The earliest phoenician inscriptions date back to the 11th century, found in archaeological sites around the mediterranean. Art was extremely important in societies with low literacy, as they contain testimonies, records, and propaganda of events and status.
