Drought in Iraq reveals tombs created 2,300 years ago
105 points - yesterday at 5:12 PM
Sourcealsetmusic
yesterday at 6:31 PM
I hope it's not considered inappropriate to mention the Fall of Civilizations podcast ep about Assyria here. I'm not affiliated. I just love history and this podcast is deeply researched and highly entertaining to a history nerd.
https://soundcloud.com/fallofcivilizations/13-the-assyrians-...
jtwaleson
yesterday at 9:11 PM
It's an incredible podcast. A great combination of research, history, and nostalgia. The versions with accompanying video on YouTube are good too.
adolph
yesterday at 7:54 PM
They are thought to be more than 2,300 years old, likely from the Hellenistic period, when Iraq was under the rule of the Seleucid empire.
So similar territory and genetic people but well after the Assyrians.
Assyrian city-state: 2100 - 1400 BC
Assyrian empire: 1400 - 700 BC (thru the Bronze age collapse circa 1200 BC)
Seleucid empire: 312 - 63 BC
(rough dates from wikipedia)
expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC to the 7th century BC
Tangentially but somewhat interestingly, I was reading the other day that the field of "Assyriology" goes all the way up to the Islamic conquest, about a thousand years after the end of the Neo-Assyrian Empire mentioned above.
There is an amazing bit in the fall of civs podcast of a Greek military leader’s account who over 2000 years ago is retreating from battle in Iraq and comes across an entire ancient city. He doesn’t know it but the ruins for him are already over a 1000 years old.
In addition to archeology, ancient Greeks (and undoubtably others) also did paleontology:
Like their modern counterparts, the ancient fossil hunters collected and
measured impressive petrified remains and displayed them in temples and
museums; they attempted to reconstruct the appearance of these prehistoric
creatures and to explain their extinction. Long thought to be fantasy, the
remarkably detailed and perceptive Greek and Roman accounts of giant bone
finds were actually based on solid paleontological facts. By reading these
neglected narratives for the first time in the light of modern scientific
discoveries, Adrienne Mayor illuminates a lost world of ancient paleontology.
https://classics.stanford.edu/publications/first-fossil-hunt...
staplers
yesterday at 7:19 PM
It might be inappropriate to advertise it without explaining why it's relevant to the subject..
boringg
yesterday at 7:41 PM
The Assyrians were an ancient civilization in the area about the same time...
somewholeother
yesterday at 11:13 PM
One thing that seems to link many past great civilisations is their discovery of forces or powers that eventually consume them.
The challenge seems to be how to wield the fire without yourself getting burned. Some would say this is an impossible task given the relative nature of our definitition of what is considered "new", as once again we extend our hand to the flame.
What past lessons may we bring to this experience which can allow us deeper insights, and the hope of a less destructive outcome?
hydrogen7800
yesterday at 8:47 PM
Was this site known before the Mosul dam was built? It's only been about 40 years.
zamadatix
yesterday at 9:10 PM
It seems they knew there were hundreds of sites to be inundated and there was an effort to investigate as many as they could before the damn was built https://www.jstor.org/stable/25182504
It's very common that both historical artifacts and natural wonders have been consumed by reservoirs, I suspect it would be almost impossible to avoid this.