Tell me about Eridu, the first-ever city.
one of the most developed cities in iraq by todays standards
>>501049
I'm reading 'Babylon' by Paul Kriwaczek; according to him the excavation site is a bunch of successively larger temples built on top of one another, the oldest being a tiny, ten square foot chapel built of sun-dried bricks (significant because every other building would've been a reed hut) dating to ~5400 BCE.
Originally the site was on a freshwater lagoon or marsh with a nearby river and much closer to the ocean, and the abundance of delicious fish and mussels is probably what brought people to the place first. Enormous quantities of ashes and fish bones have been found in every layer of the site, suggesting ritualistic fish feasts were a big part of the culture.
The people called the marsh the 'Apsu' or Apzu, and considered it a literal upwelling of the primordial ocean upon which the world floats in Mesopotamian cosmology.
Today, it is a pile of sand.
One day, our cities too will be piles of sand.
>>501366
Cities are all ready coarse and everywhere.
>>501366
t. Ozymandias
The first ever city was Jericho
>>501049
>...Eridu the first-ever city..
>...Kaaba the navel of flat Earth...
What be next? May be city of first-ever woman?
>>501049
It was loud, smelly and the rent was ridiculous.
Akkad wasn't much better but it had a much better music scene and my apartment was a bit bigger.
>>501366
so deep
>>501634
Dude, suburban Uruk was the best. Cheap as hell riverside property and the city was only a few hours ride in the oxcart. You could keep your well-paying job at the temple while spending your days off on your reed yacht fishing in the Euphrates. Only trouble was the flooding but if you had your hut on a hill you'd be fine and all the cute farm girls came out to help in the fields not long after.
"Cities" until united Babylon state or much later were so small everybody knew each other.
Even later actually. I think only Rome, Alexandria and Jerusalem reached the population/urbanization height in antiquity and become cities as we know them today.
>living on a flood plain
nothanks.jpeg
>>501058
underrated post
>>502578
>Jerusalem
Which period are we talking about? Because it was a total backwater until the Hasmoneans at least.
>>502578
Carthage during Roman times reached 200,000 people at its peak I think
question: why is the area arid as shit these days?
is the climate change due to human agriculture?
>>502877
A mixture of both, plus the continual watering of the land salted the soil, which made it useless.
Also large animals and predators were killed off which affects the ecosystem.
When Thutmosis had campaigns in Syria, he was recorded hunting Elephants. The Syrian Elephant is now extinct.
>>502870
400,000 just for the final battle of Carthage, anon.
>>501539
I hate them.
>>501049
This was built there
>>501049
>it's the first city we know of, so it's the first city ever
anon pls
You guys know Babel?
You guys know of the rat utopia and the Beautiful Ones?
You guys ever read Spengler?
>implying this isn't all relevant
>>502907
How many elephant skeletons do they find there?
Does anyanon know?
>>501325
That's a cute sheep
>>501567
It's the exact opposite of ozymandias you philistine
It's t. Nietzsche
