62hx.1708
2024-05-20 04:55:58 UTC
5000 years ago ...
In the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh, a super-alpha male
from Uruk, supposedly 2/3rds god, our hero decided that
he wants the cedars of Lebanon - likely extremely
valuable at the time.
SO ... he and his best bud make a quest to the forest
of cedars. It has guardians/owners. He destroys them
and steals-away their precious trees.
WANTING alone is justification. KILLING/THEFT is the
means to the end. Might makes right.
Just AMAZING how LITTLE has changed in human/social
psychology since then eh ?
The epic of Gilgamesh (and he had lots of adventures)
were writ in Akkadian - the successor empire to the
Sumerians. Some bits were reproduced even later in
Babylonian. Proper transcripts usually have to borrow
from both tellings - and there are blanks in the story
from where ancient tablets crumbled.
Sumer is basically the first known civ. The city of
Eridu - in what would now be Qatar - was the first
real city, but Ur and Uruk did it much bigger and
better and became what at the time were big metros.
All the perks and sciences associated with civ
appeared - and the MISTAKES too.
Was Gilgamesh a real person ? Maybe kinda ... but
more like he was symbolic of original-empire kings
AND their way of thinking. I see him as a composite
figure, the sum of a number of kings/conquerors.
Makes a good story !
Oh, note that Gilgamesh was basically commanded/
compelled to go with a homosexual relationship with
his best bud, the "wild-boy" Enkidu ... specifically
created for him by the gods and "civilized" by a
sexy human woman (to his later lament). Gilgamesh
was SO overpowering/overbearing that the gods were
begged for someone who could become his best bud
and kinda reign him in.
So, no, "queer" has been around since forever and
wasn't always seen as so odd. Doesn't mean "queer"
should RUN everything though ... just that it's
an eternal part of the equation.
What was going on 10,000 years ago ? Hard to say.
No writing, not even much in the way of hieroglyphics.
There were megalithic sites in what's now southern
Turkey - rivals to Stonehenge and LOTS of them - but
we don't know what it was all about. Still, there
WAS "civilization" of a sort - large-scale cooperative
effort and tech/skill we didn't think existed at that
time.
I *suspect* there was more going on before and
just after the ice-age too than we imagine, but time
and nature have hidden most of the evidence. Sea level
came up over 100 meters at the end of the ice-age
and yes there WERE huge floods (just not 'global')
from all that melt-water - drowning many old oceanside
and riverside settlements. We're gonna have to go fish
for them.
The Persian Gulf did not exist during the
ice age ... it was all dry land with one river, the
merger of the Tigris and Euphrates, running down
the middle - fertile and inviting, a perfect spot
for early civs. Sumer was probably NOT the first
civ ... just the earliest we've found good
evidence for. My BEST guess - the seeds of civ
started to the east, the Indus valley/India,
just took longer to get really big.
In the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh, a super-alpha male
from Uruk, supposedly 2/3rds god, our hero decided that
he wants the cedars of Lebanon - likely extremely
valuable at the time.
SO ... he and his best bud make a quest to the forest
of cedars. It has guardians/owners. He destroys them
and steals-away their precious trees.
WANTING alone is justification. KILLING/THEFT is the
means to the end. Might makes right.
Just AMAZING how LITTLE has changed in human/social
psychology since then eh ?
The epic of Gilgamesh (and he had lots of adventures)
were writ in Akkadian - the successor empire to the
Sumerians. Some bits were reproduced even later in
Babylonian. Proper transcripts usually have to borrow
from both tellings - and there are blanks in the story
from where ancient tablets crumbled.
Sumer is basically the first known civ. The city of
Eridu - in what would now be Qatar - was the first
real city, but Ur and Uruk did it much bigger and
better and became what at the time were big metros.
All the perks and sciences associated with civ
appeared - and the MISTAKES too.
Was Gilgamesh a real person ? Maybe kinda ... but
more like he was symbolic of original-empire kings
AND their way of thinking. I see him as a composite
figure, the sum of a number of kings/conquerors.
Makes a good story !
Oh, note that Gilgamesh was basically commanded/
compelled to go with a homosexual relationship with
his best bud, the "wild-boy" Enkidu ... specifically
created for him by the gods and "civilized" by a
sexy human woman (to his later lament). Gilgamesh
was SO overpowering/overbearing that the gods were
begged for someone who could become his best bud
and kinda reign him in.
So, no, "queer" has been around since forever and
wasn't always seen as so odd. Doesn't mean "queer"
should RUN everything though ... just that it's
an eternal part of the equation.
What was going on 10,000 years ago ? Hard to say.
No writing, not even much in the way of hieroglyphics.
There were megalithic sites in what's now southern
Turkey - rivals to Stonehenge and LOTS of them - but
we don't know what it was all about. Still, there
WAS "civilization" of a sort - large-scale cooperative
effort and tech/skill we didn't think existed at that
time.
I *suspect* there was more going on before and
just after the ice-age too than we imagine, but time
and nature have hidden most of the evidence. Sea level
came up over 100 meters at the end of the ice-age
and yes there WERE huge floods (just not 'global')
from all that melt-water - drowning many old oceanside
and riverside settlements. We're gonna have to go fish
for them.
The Persian Gulf did not exist during the
ice age ... it was all dry land with one river, the
merger of the Tigris and Euphrates, running down
the middle - fertile and inviting, a perfect spot
for early civs. Sumer was probably NOT the first
civ ... just the earliest we've found good
evidence for. My BEST guess - the seeds of civ
started to the east, the Indus valley/India,
just took longer to get really big.