3. Old Babylonian cities

2016 ◽  
pp. 33-39
Author(s):  
Trevor Bryce
Keyword(s):  
Tower Of Babel ◽  
Old Babylonian ◽  
Royal City ◽  
The City ◽  
Urban Sites

What did the city of Babylon look like? There are very few material remains of the royal city from this period, but more can be discovered about Old Babylonian cities from other urban sites in the kingdom, notably Ur and Uruk in its southern part. ‘Old Babylonian cities’ explains that each city had a major temple, or temple precinct, dedicated to its patron or tutelary deity, but the most striking monument in a number of Babylonian cities was a ziggurat: a sacred, stepped building, of between three and seven levels, ascending pyramid-like towards the heavens. The ziggurat of Babylon became notorious in biblical tradition as the ‘tower of Babel’.

scholarly journals Enkidu and the Harlot: Another Fragment of Old Babylonian Gilgameš

2018 ◽  
Vol 108 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-21
Author(s):  
A. R. George
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Intercourse ◽  
Psychological Development ◽  
Narrative Strategies ◽  
Wild Man ◽  
Old Babylonian ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

Abstract This article presents a newly deciphered Old Babylonian fragment of the Epic of Gilgameš. The passages of text preserved on it tell of Enkidu’s encounter with the prostitute and of his arrival in the city of Uruk, and clarify the relationship between other sources for the same episode. The perceived difference between the Old and Standard Babylonian poems’ treatment of Enkidu’s seduction disappears. The extant versions can be reconciled in a single narrative, common to all versions, that holds two different weeks of sexual intercourse. The different narrative strategies deployed in describing them are one of the ways in which the poem explores Enkidu’s psychological development as he changes from wild man to socialized man.

scholarly journals Analysis of the potential of near ground measurements of CO<sub>2</sub> and CH<sub>4</sub> in London, UK for the monitoring of city-scale emissions using an atmospheric transport model

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (22) ◽  
pp. 33003-33048
Author(s):  
A. Boon ◽  
G. Broquet ◽  
D. J. Clifford ◽  
F. Chevallier ◽  
D. M. Butterfield ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Reference Site ◽  
Emission Inventory ◽  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Transport Model ◽  
Mixing Layer ◽  
Horizontal Resolution ◽  
The Other ◽  
Model Data ◽  
The City ◽  
Urban Sites

Abstract. Carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) mole fractions were measured at four near ground sites located in and around London during the summer of 2012 in view to investigate the potential of assimilating such measurements in an atmospheric inversion system for the monitoring of the CO2 and CH4 emissions in the London area. These data were analysed and compared with simulations using a modelling framework suited to building an inversion system: a 2 km horizontal resolution South of England configuration of the transport model CHIMERE driven by European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) meteorological forcing, coupled to a 1 km horizontal resolution emission inventory (the UK National Atmospheric Emission Inventory). First comparisons reveal that local sources have a large impact on measurements and these local sources cannot be represented in the model at 2 km resolution. We evaluate methods to minimise some of the other critical sources of misfits between the observation data and the model simulation that overlap the signature of the errors in the emission inventory. These methods should make it easier to identify the corrections that should be applied to the inventory. Analysis is supported by observations from meteorological sites around the city and a three-week period of atmospheric mixing layer height estimations from lidar measurements. The difficulties of modelling the mixing layer depth and thus CO2 and CH4 concentrations during the night, morning and late afternoon led us to focus on the afternoon period for all further analyses. The misfits between observations and model simulations are high for both CO2 and CH4 (i.e., their root mean square (RMS) is between 8 and 12 parts per million (ppm) for CO2 and between 30 and 55 parts per billion (ppb) for CH4 at a given site). By analysing the gradients between the urban sites and a suburban or rural reference site, we are able to decrease the impact of uncertainties in the fluxes and transport outside the London area and in the model domain boundary conditions, and to better focus attention on the signature of London urban CO2 and CH4 emissions. This considerably improves the statistical agreement between the model and observations for CO2 (model–data RMS misfit of between 3 and 7 ppm) and to a lesser degree for CH4 (model–data RMS misfit of between 29 and 38 ppb). Between one of the urban sites and either reference site, selecting the gradients during periods wherein the reference site is upwind of the urban site further decreases the statistics of the misfits in general even though not systematically. In a final attempt to focus on the signature of the city anthropogenic emission in the mole fraction measurements, we use a theoretical ratio of gradients of CO to gradients of CO2 from fossil fuel emissions in the London area to diagnose observation based fossil fuel CO2 gradients, and compare them with the modelled ones. This estimate increases the consistency between the model and the measurements when considering one of the urban sites, but not when considering the other. While this study evaluates different approaches for increasing the consistency between the mesoscale model and the near ground data, and manages to decrease the random component of the analysed model data misfits to an extent that should not be prohibitive to extracting the signal from the London urban emissions, large biases remain in the final misfits. These biases are likely to be due to local emissions, to which the urban near ground sites are highly sensitive. This questions our current ability to exploit urban near ground data for the atmospheric inversion of city emissions based on models at spatial resolution coarser than 2 km.

THE SURVIVAL FITNESS OF MEMES IN THE INHERITANCE DIVISIONS FROM OLD BABYLONIA SIPPAR

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 318-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susandra J. Van Wyk
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Algorithm ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Oral Culture ◽  
School Practices ◽  
Old Babylonian ◽  
City State ◽  
The City

Today, the clay tablets chiselled by Old Babylonian scribes from the city-state of Sippar are our only evidence of the legal conventions from oral agreements between family members in the division of their inheritance. But why would the Old Babylonians, a predominantly oral culture, go to the expense of hiring a scribe? On face value, it seems understandable that the recording of the division of the inheritance was for the sake of standardisation, legibility and simplification (Yoffee 1991). However, there is more to it. In this paper, I present Dawkins’ meme theory (1976) and assert that the legal conventions of division agreements and scribal school practices in Old Babylonian Sippar are a “meme complex”, a group of memes that co-adapt in order to ensure their own replication (Blackmore 1999, Dawkins 1976, Dennett 1991). The question still remains: why do these memes survive? I propose that the structures of the filters of such memes — driven by simplicity — are standardisation, certainty and legibility. They promote the memes in their evolutionary algorithm of variation, selection and retention. Thus, the recording of the oral division agreement is merely a record designed to protect and carry on the division agreement’s scribal school practices and, to a lesser degree, its legal conventions.

Urban Sites of the Everyday and the International

2021 ◽  
pp. 292-306
Author(s):  
Matt Davies
Keyword(s):  
Rio De Janeiro ◽  
The Other ◽  
Urban Setting ◽  
Research Paradigm ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Performance As Research ◽  
The City ◽  
Urban Sites

The Other City is a downloadable audio play performed by the listener in an urban setting. Its performance opens an opportunity to explore perceptions of the city through comparisons with urban experiences in Rio de Janeiro. The cities are thus encountered as aesthetic subjects, or subjects who “articulate and mobilize thinking.” This chapter begins with an overview of the field of aesthetic research into cities and how methods that have emerged in the performance-as-research paradigm have helped illuminate urbanism and critique received wisdom about contemporary urbanization. It goes on to explain The Other City and how the play mobilizes and challenges notions of performance as research. By examining how the performance of the everyday became a political gesture in Rio in preparation for the Olympics, it shows how politics can be inaugurated in the everyday. It concludes more cautiously, however, insisting that performance cannot provide political guarantees.

The City of Meroe

2021 ◽  
pp. 544-561
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Grzymski
Keyword(s):  
Historical Development ◽  
Astronomical Observatory ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Cattle Breeding ◽  
Gradual Decline ◽  
Early 19Th Century ◽  
Main Period ◽  
Royal City ◽  
The City ◽  
The Temple

Meroe, the ancient Medewi/Bedewi, was a capital city of the kingdom of Kush. Its remains were discovered by the late 18th- to early 19th-century European travelers who relied on descriptions left by Classical authors such as Herodotus and Strabo. Thanks to the excavations carried out by British, Sudanese, Canadian, and German archaeologists we know the general layout of the city and have a basic grasp of its historical development. The earliest remains go back to the 10th century bce, but the main period of its development was from the 6th century bce to the 2nd century ce. The site of Meroe comprises four main areas: the walled Royal City, the Temple of Amun and surrounding religious complex, and two large mounds covering the domestic remains. Among the most important finds were numerous palaces, an astronomical observatory and iron production facilities. The inhabitants of Meroe relied on agriculture and cattle breeding. The gradual decline of the city began in the 3rd century ce but was given a final blow with the Axumite invasion in the 4th century ce.

TWO OLD BABYLONIAN MARRIAGE CONTRACTS FROM ISIN

Iraq ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 82 ◽  
pp. 125-137
Author(s):  
Mohannad Kh. J. Al-Shamari ◽  
Muzahim Al-Jalili
Keyword(s):  
Proper Names ◽  
Equal Treatment ◽  
Marriage Contracts ◽  
Old Babylonian ◽  
Military Campaign ◽  
The City

Our study establishes that two tablets from the Iraq Museum are marriage contracts dating to the Old Babylonian period and in particular from the city of Isin. The dating formula of IM 201688 refers to a hitherto unpublished year name for Erra-imittī, who became king of Isin in 1868 BC. The event concerns the making of four large copper lions as a votive offering. This might have been done in preparation for a military campaign in connection with the rivalry between Isin and Larsa. The dating formula of IM 183636 is completely damaged. However, the text includes a witness described as a citizen of Isin. These two tablets are a very useful addition to the limited number of published OB marriage contracts and especially those from Isin. The tablets were written using formulaic legal expressions in Sumerian throughout with the exception of proper names. Both texts show a remarkably equal treatment of the two spouses in matters relating to compensation in the event of divorce.

Mapping Interstitial Urban Spaces through Performing the City

Leonardo ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (5) ◽  
pp. 490-491
Author(s):  
Chengzhi Peng ◽  
Adam Park
Keyword(s):  
Public Perception ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Performance Practices ◽  
Transformative Potential ◽  
Theatre Company ◽  
Research Propositions ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The City ◽  
Urban Sites

The project investigates how public perception of interstitial urban spaces could be elicited and recorded through Performing the City - participatory ‘walkabout’ performance practices produced and staged for specific urban sites. Interstitial urban spaces are ‘forgotten’ underused spaces awaiting public re-imagination and interventions. Following an ethnographic study of the UK theatre company Slung Low's Mapping the City production in May 2011, the authors reflect on how the research propositions should be refined to better capture the transient transformative potential of spatial urban mapping through performing the city.

TRANSFORMATIONS OF THĂNG LONG: SPACE AND TIME, POWER AND BELIEF

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
John K. Whitmore
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Strong Sense ◽  
Cyclical Pattern ◽  
External Power ◽  
Provincial Capital ◽  
Royal City ◽  
The City ◽  
Local Base ◽  
Administrative Center

2010 saw the millennial celebration of Thăng Long/Hà Nội as capital of an independent Vietnam, and archaeology has tended to confirm this strong sense of continuity. Yet study of written texts shows us how political power, administrative style, and religious belief have shaped the city and how a cyclical pattern in this history has appeared twice and may be in its third time. In this pattern, each cycle saw the city begin as the provincial capital of an external power before becoming capital of an independent Vietnamese state. Then a local base draws power to itself and displaces Thăng Long, eventually dismantling it, before a new external power enters and begins the cycle anew. In this way the Tang and Ming dynasties of China and the French made the site their local administrative center. Lý Công Uẩn, Lê Lợi, and Hồ Chí Minh in succession drove them out and established Thăng Long/Hà Nội as their capital, bringing Buddhism, Confucianism, and Socialism to it. But first the Trần and Hồ, then the Mạc, Trịnh, and Nguyễn, shared power with, and eventually displaced, the Royal City. Will it happen again?

When Absence Means Things Are Going Well: Waste Disposal in Roman Towns and its Impact on the Record as Observed in Aquileia

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guido Furlan
Keyword(s):  
Waste Disposal ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Roman Archaeology ◽  
Great Caution ◽  
Economic Trends ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City ◽  
Urban Sites ◽  
Historical Periods

Scholars of Roman archaeology, epigraphy, and history are increasingly discussing urban maintenance and waste disposal, but the impact of these phenomena on the archaeological record remains largely understudied. The presence of waste disposal systems in Roman towns entails that a large part of what was discarded was periodically removed from the urban area. This in turn implies that whole historical periods may be underrepresented by the finds recovered within the city. This aspect can be apprehended through the post-excavation analysis of the House of Titus Macer in Aquileia, whose mid-imperial phase, during which the domus was inhabited and regularly maintained, is poorly represented. What has been observed suggests that great caution must be exercised when using data collected within urban sites to draw conclusions on ancient economic trends. To tackle this problem, our research agendas should target large extra moenia dumps more frequently.

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