The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> why Mesopotamia...?

why Mesopotamia...?
Posted by pancho (Moderator) - Saturday, November 22 2014, 17:52:31 (UTC)
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...why did that region become the cradle of civilization...why not anywhere else where there was water?

Watching a documentary on Mesopotamia describing how the ancient people settled, not just passed over back and forth on migrations, the area because of a lucky accident: wild wheat grew in abundance and from this "Einhorn" wheat they were able to make bread and to store food so they didn't have to chase animals etc.

While looking at cuneiform tablets, at the letters, I was struck with how similar the letters are to individual wheat grans, especially of the wild type shown in the documentary. I always wondered at the name cuneiform....meaning "wedge-like"...or as moderns call it "nail" type letters....it's much more likely that the ancients patterned their letters after grains of wheat, something as marvelous and absolutely necessary to creating a true civilization as a written language would become.

Without food there is no life and no civilization...the connection of wheat to letters seems much more likely and certainly more poetic than to either nails or wedges.



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