#hammurabi

[whencyclopedia]

Utu-Shamash: Sumerian God of the Sun and Justice

Utu-Shamash, the Mesopotamian sun god, was depicted as kind, caring, and helpful, but, as arbiter of divine justice, he could also be wrathful. As the personification of the sun, he was believed to be able to see anything and go anywhere, and so, in some references, he was a comforter of the souls of the dead in the underworld.

Read More

⇒ Utu-Shamash: Sumerian God of the Sun and Justice

[beardedmrbean]

[phownizzz]

The goddess of the vase from Mari's Palace!!! I love the symbol of the water vase, and i adore the fact that this statue was really connected with a water canal through the vase. Zimri-Lim's palace in Mari was huge and sooo well decorated i love it.

[worldhistoryinayear]

World History in a Year (Week 12) - 1700s BC

This week the focus is on central and southern Asia, the Minoans, and Mesopotamia.

First, Central Asia. It appears that, around the 1700s BC, the Sintashta people living in the Urals spread out in multiple directions, both east and south. Eastwards, a Sintashta-related culture (used in the limited archaeological sense of “similar-looking pottery and other artefacts”) called the Andronovo culture spread across the Asian steppes east of the Ural Mountains, as far as areas around the eastern and northern borders of China. This culture was based on cattle and sheep herding in small permanent settlements (5 to 250 people). At the same time, it appears that the urban-oriented society of the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC), south of Sintashta in what is now Turkmenistan, underwent a substantial collapse, with urban populations falling and elaborate pottery types being replaced with simpler ones. The appears to be attributable to a migration or invasion of some of the Sintashta people to the area.

This means that for the first time there were people with some degree of a common culture and livelihood (focused on animal herding and reliant on horses) living from the borders of China to the borders of South Asia to the borders of West Asia. It enabled more rapid diffusion of culture and technology throughout Asia. 

The Harappa civilization completed its fall in this century, with people leaving the cities for rural areas in large numbers. Although Harappa had some kind of contact with horse-riding steppe peoples (e.g., enough to be aware of horses), probably for a few centuries before this, there does not appear to have been any invasion or large movement of new people into the area, and there are few indications of violence. The most probable cause is an environmental disaster - while several have been proposed, ranging from floods to droughts, and multiple elements could have contributed, the big one is the shifting of the Ghaggar-Hakra river to an entirely new course, which would have deprived cities and farms along that river of their water source. 

However, there’s an issue with attributing the fall of states to environmental disasters alone, and it’s illustrated by the Minoans during this period. A time of Minoan advances - importantly, they developed their own writing, called Linear A, in the first half of the 1700s BC - was interrupted by a major earthquake (possibly more than one) that destroyed the Minoan palaces and many other buildings in their cities. There are indications that the disaster may have made some Minoans desperate enough to resort to human sacrifice. And yet, despite this, recovery from the earthquakes was relatively rapid, and rebuilding was underway before the end of the century. The Minoans would go on to centuries more of prosperity. So an ancient state suffering a major natural disaster will not necessarily cause it to collapse.

Linear A, like the Harappan script, remains undeciphered, so we do not know the Minoans’ descriptions of these times. The meaning of a few symbols in Linear A has been determined with some confidence (e.g., person, sheep, goat, pig, cow, wheat, olives, figs, oil, wine, cloth), but not enough to read phrases. There are over 300 symbols, around 90 of which are common.

Moving to Mesopotamia, we’ve got one figure who is famous in world history, and another who is famous on tumblr. This is the age of Hammurabi’s Babylon; it is also the period in which Ea-Nasir lived.

Hammurabi’s Babylon was one of two short-lived empires in the 1700s BC that did not outlast their founders. The first was the state of Northern Mesopotamia (1790s-1776 BC); its ruler Shamshi-Adad conquered northern Mesopotamia and northern Syria, including the state of Mari. After his death, Northern Mesopotamia rapidly fell to Eshnunna (to the east, in western Iran) and Yamkhad (to the west, in northwest Syria), and Mari’s power was restored.

Hammurabi became king of Babylon in 1792 BC. During the 1760s BC, he rapidly built his empire by allying with his neighbours to defeat more powerful states, and then successively turning on those neighbours. First he conquered Larsa, the main state in his region (south-central Mesopotamia). Then he conquered Eshnunna by allying with Elam (also to his east) and Mari, and followed it up by allying with Mari and Yamkhad to conquer Elam. At this point you’d expect people to think twice about being his allies, but it was too late. He finished up by conquering Mari, leaving his empire and Yamkhad as the only two major states in the region stretching from western Iran to the Mediterranean. The famous Code of Hammurabi dates from after his conquests, in the 1750s BC. His empire, for all its size and fame, was very brief, and disintegrated not long after his death in 1750 BC – interestingly, losing control of its territory in south and central Mesopotamia, his former power base, while his successors continued to hang on in some parts of the north like Mari.

The first written records of the Epic of Gilgamesh and the story of the Flood date to Hammurabi’s time: we get them from what were basically students’ school assignments, copying these texts out. It’s as if, in the far future, the record of literature from our era was derived solely from Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. We can also see from school assignments that there were geometry classes, including use of the Pythagorean theorem and determining the height of a stack of grain based on its circumference and slope.

After the fall of Hammurabi’s empire, some previously-major cities like Ur were largely abandoned, and others like Uruk declined in prominence. Cities in northern Mesopotamia also declined in size from around the 1720s BC. This could be because political and economic centralization by Hammurabi reduced the ability of city-states to be economically self-sufficient.

[character-of-all-time]

ROUND 1: HAMMURABI (babylon) VS POWER (chainsaw man)

FIGHT

hammurabi

power

Voting ended onApr 13, 2023

[timetraveltasting]

BABYLONIAN KANASU STEW (c. 1740 BC)

It's been rainy today, and this calls for a warm meal. Today, it is another Tasting History dish: Ancient Babylonian Kanasu Stew (c. 1740 BC), a lamb stew from the era of King Hammurabi of Babylon (known for issuing the Code of Hammurabi, one of the earliest and most complete written legal codes, which established "an eye for an eye" justice). This recipe is one of about 35 different recipes inscribed in cuneiform script on clay tablets found in the Yale University Babylonian Collection. Written in Sumerian, these tablets are among the earliest known cookbooks in history, and would have been used in the temple kitchens to make dishes for royal banquets and religious festivals. While ingredients and some cooking techniques are listed, precise measurements and step-by-step instructions are not included, as it was assumed the cooks already knew how to fill in the blanks. The meanings of some of the Sumerian ingredients listed, particularly kanasu, samídu, and šuhutinnu, are not yet completely clear, as scholars have not agreed upon their definitive definitions. For the purposes of this recipe, kanasu is translated as emmer flour, and samídu and šuhutinnu stand for a root-style vegetable, in this case interpreted as leek. These interpretations of Sumerian words, as well as the specific ratios of ingredients and cooking methods, are, of course, up for debate. Still, the combination of ingredients sounds like it would be delicious, and I absolutely loved the last Mesopotamian dish I made from Tasting History, so I was excited to try this one too. See Max’s video on how to make this dish here or see the ingredients and process at the end of this post, sourced from his website.

My experience making it:

As I usually do, I halved the recipe - this time because my husband was not home for dinner, and I was worried to have too much as leftovers. The fat I used was olive oil, just because it was what I had on hand. For the meat, I secured two lamb shanks, already de-boned, from the local butcher. Otherwise, I used the same ingredients listed in the recipe, including the emmer flour, which I had to go to a special Bio-grocery store to purchase.

I began by preparing all of the ingredients ahead of time: measuring out all the ingredients and chopping those that needed it. By accident, I chopped the whole leek, including the dark green parts at the end, and I used them for the stew as well, even though Max mentions only to use the white and light green parts. My mistake! I ground up the whole coriander seeds and cumin seeds with a mortar and pestle, which smelled divine! Coriander is such a wonderful, fragrant, and tasty ingredient. Next, I got out my large pot, warmed some olive oil, then added the lamb chunks in, turning to brown them on all sides before removing them and setting them aside in a bowl to add back in later. The lamb had left behind some extra grease, so I added more of the olive oil to this, then fried the shallots in it. I sprinkled a bit of the salt on them and stirred them around as they bubbled and seared. It smelled great, and I could see the shallots caramelizing just slightly. As they began to leave a brown residue stuck to the bottom of the pot, I added in half the water, and scraped the bottom of the pot to loosen the residue, deglazing the pot. The residue and fried shallots gave the water a cloudy, light brown colour, similar to beef broth. I stirred in the rest of the olive oil required, then also the salt, ground cumin seeds, and ground coriander seeds. Then, I poured in the rest of the water and whisked in the emmer flour well so that there were no clumps. It was beginning to look like a cloudy soup. Bringing the pot to a light boil, I added the lamb back in, then also the garlic. Turning the heat to low with the lid on, I let it simmer for half an hour, going back to check on it and stir every ten minutes or so. While stirring is not mentioned in Max's recipe, it really did need it, otherwise the emmer flour goop would accumulate along the edges of the pot. I did not add any extra water, because I wanted a thicker stew consistency in the end, instead of a soup consistency.

After 30 minutes had passed, I added in half of the leek and most of the mint, then I let the stew simmer without a lid for 10 minutes. This was what caused it to thicken to a proper stew consistency. Once the 10 minutes had passed, I stirred in the remainder of the leek, then ladled the stew into two bowls (one dinner-sized one for me, and a small snack-size one for my husband to have when he got home later). I was surprised that halving the recipe did not produce two serving portions, as it usually does when I halve Max's Tasting History recipes. For this recipe, I wish I had made the full amount. I used the rest of the mint to garnish the stew on top, along with a pinch of whole coriander seeds (these are fairly strong in taste, so it is important not to add too many). The stew looked very much like a classic winter soup or stew, with the green leeks bringing some much needed colour to the mostly brown broth and meat. It smelled of fresh herbs and spices, which made sense, since it contained both!

My experience tasting it:

I made sure my first spoonful contained a bit of lamb, a bit of leak, a bit of mint, some broth, and a couple whole coriander seeds. The flavour was fantastic! So hearty, warm, savoury, and somehow also fresh-tasting. I was surprised to discover that the lamb was perfectly tender; I thought stew meat normally needed a much longer cooking time to achieve this. What a pleasant texture! The leeks were also nice, as they varied in amount of crunch depending on how long they had been in the stew. The shallots blended almost seamlessly into the brown broth, but it was clear they added a lot of flavour. Most of all, I was impressed with the fresh and zingy taste of the coriander, and partially the cumin and mint. All of them together brought a wonderful freshness to the stew, which otherwise would probably feel heavy and too fatty. Another surprise for me was how well the emmer flour worked to thicken the stew. The texture was silky, and coated my spoon well. I've never used emmer flour before, so I was not sure if it would be easy or difficult to work with. I loved this recipe as much, if not more than the previous Mesopotamian recipe I made, Tuh'u. After finishing the Kanasu Stew, I immediately wrote out the recipe on a card for my recipe book. My husband, when he tried it later, also really liked it and asked if I could make it again sometime, and I undoubtedly will! This recipe is a true winner, and I'm excited to share it with family and friends. If you end up making this dish, if you liked it, or if you changed anything from the original recipe, do let me know!

Kanasu Stew original recipe (c. 1740 BC)

Sourced from a recipe from the Yale Babylonian Tablets (c. 1740 BC) and Max Miller’s version in his Tasting History video.

Kanasu Stew Leg of mutton is used. Prepare water, add fat. Samídu; coriander; cumin; and kanasu. Assemble all the ingredients in the cooking vessel, and sprinkle with crushed garlic. Then blend into the pot šuhutinnu and mint.

Modern Recipe

Based on a recipe from the Yale Babylonian Tablets (c. 1740 BC) and Max Miller’s version in his Tasting History video.

Ingredients:

2 tsp coriander seeds, plus a little more for garnish

1 tsp cumin seeds

3 tbsp (45 g) fat*

1 1/2 lbs (680 g) lamb meat**, cut into bite-sized pieces

1 large shallot, minced

1 quart (1 L) water

1/4 cup (30 g) emmer flour

2-3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 small leek

A handful fresh mint

1 tbsp salt

*A popular fat at the time would have been from fat-tailed sheep, so if you can get it, use it. Tallow, butter, lard, sesame oil, and olive oil are all period-accurate options.

**You could use any cut you like, but shank or shoulder will be the most tender. Pre-cut stew meat would also work well.

Method:

In a mortar, grind the coriander seeds and cumin seeds into a powder.

In a large pot, heat 1 tablespoon of the fat over high heat, then once it’s hot, add the meat. Let it cook for a couple of minutes, then move it around and continue to cook until it has browned a little. Remove the meat from the pot and set it aside.

Add another tablespoon of fat to the pot. Reduce the heat to medium and add the shallots and a pinch of the salt. Stir to coat the shallots in the fat, and cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 to 4 minutes, or until they’re nice and fragrant.

Add half of the water and scrape up the browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Bring it to a simmer, then stir in the remaining fat, letting it melt if it’s a solid. Once it’s melted, stir in the ground coriander and cumin along with the rest of the salt. Whisk in the rest of the water and the emmer flour. Once all is uniform, bring the stew up to a boil and stir in garlic and meat.

Reduce the heat to medium-low and let it come back to a simmer, then cover it and let it cook for about 30 minutes. Check on it every once in a while and add more water if you want a thinner soup-like consistency.

While the stew cooks, chop the mint and the white and light green parts of the leek. I like to wash leeks before and after chopping them to be sure to get rid of any bits of dirt or sand stuck between the layers.

After the stew has cooked for 30 minutes, remove the lid and stir in about half of the leek and most of the mint. You want to save a little of the mint for garnish. Let the stew cook without the lid for about 10 minutes, or until it has thickened however much you like.

Stir in the rest of the leeks, then serve it forth with a little mint and whole coriander seeds for garnish.

[scribledon]

I drew the Mesopotamians due to the disturbing lack of fan art of them.

[whencyclopedfr]

Gouvernement de l'Ancienne Mésopotamie: Assister et servir les dieux

Le gouvernement de l'ancienne Mésopotamie reposait sur l'idée que les êtres humains avaient été créés pour aider et servir les dieux. Le grand prêtre, le roi, l'assemblée des anciens, les gouverneurs et tous les autres fonctionnaires étaient considérés comme des intendants choisis par les dieux pour s'occuper du peuple, de la même manière qu'un père devait s'occuper de sa famille.

Lire la suite...