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Perhaps the site of the Biblical Garden of Eden, Mesopotamia is where culture, as we describe it, all began. The beginning of political systems and the rise of kingship comes alive in the clay plaque of Gilgamesh. Students experience the birth of a system of writing with lessons designed to use the cylinder name seal, the bulla and tokens, a syllabary alphabet, and finally the cuneiform tablet. In their study of this early polytheistic society comes the earliest hero myth in the world, that of Gilgamesh, which predates Homer by 2000 years. From city-states to empires we see the blossoming of legal systems, the codification of laws, great growth in the field of medicine, an explosion of architectural marvels, the growth of technology, and the desire for conquest. |
