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Mesopotamia

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by Induna_ (U3844879) on Monday, 18th September 2006

  After watching the recent "Lost Cities of the Ancients" series, talking about Hittite culture, it has wet my appitite for more ancient history. I wish the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ would commission a documentary on the ancient history of Mesopotamia. It's always documentaries on Romans, Egyptians ect... I want to discover about the Babylonians, Assyrians, Hurrians, Akkadians, Sumerians, Elamites ect..
  
  Also I'd like to hear about how the various Semite people came to be such as the Hebrews, Amorites, Aramaeans, Chaldeans, Canaanites.
  
  Does anybody eles think the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ should do this instead of concentrating on the 'usual' ancient history?

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  Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Monday, 18th September 2006

  Basically I agree that the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ, and other broadcasters, do tend to concentrate on Roman and Egyptian history, to the exclusion of others. It is easy to see why, because Rome and Egypt built impressive, photogenic, monuments which are still standing (though mostly in ruins). In Rome's case, loads of their literature and artefacts have come down to us so there is plenty to see and refer to.
  
  But there are substantial remains from other civilisations, though it would take a bit more work to present the evidence.
  
  Actually, I find it curious that Greek civilisation (by which I mean the Hellenistic culture that flourished in Greece and Asia minor before the Romans came) is hardly touched upon by broadcasters nowadays, despite the extent of the remains.

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  Posted by thesilverserpent (U1108041) on Monday, 18th September 2006

  I couldn't agree more! The history of of the region of the near east including Assyrians, Babylonians, Persian/Greek wars and the neighbouring cultures is, when looked into in detail, fascinating and certainly would make an entertaining and informative series. How about doing something in the style of Simon Schama's History of Britain?
  I remember Michael Wood doing something in the past on the history of various civilisations including visiting Ur and also his Alexander the Great series touched on some history of the region, but not a lot else mainstream.
  The problem is TV is still driven (Obsessed?) mainly in looking at Classical and Egyptian history for many predictable reasons (costs/sources/ready made audience etc.)
  

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  Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Monday, 18th September 2006

  I am also supporting the idea of focusing a bit more on the civilisations of Mesopotamia (all tribes semitic and non-semitic), there is reeally a lot to it as in those times this place presented civilisations of equal strength (and at times even larger) than Egypt. It is just that their monuments were built with less strong materials and thus suffered more from time and the geopolitical changes.Reasons for that are the local economies, the materials found in the area and of course the reduced interest on building monuments that would last... an eternity. However, it is all about equally fascinating civilisations and ones that constitute one of the birthplaces of after-cataclysmic cultures.
  
  My personal favourites are Persians of course but in their region there were a large number of previous cultures like the Elamite (of non indoeuropean, non semitic language) who are said to had been related to the westwards movement of people from India (that hosts even more ancient cultures).
  
  About Hellenistic civilisation what else can I say? I have been repeatedly warned people of overfocusing on classical Athens and Sparta that have been only a very very small part of the history of Greeks and certainly not the most significant (that is the Hellenistic period) but it seems that 2000 years of propaganda (even by generally Greek-hating christians that nonetheless had found Socrates and his student Aristotle as good enough) cannot change that silly notion any more despite the fact that in those times, the land with the highest number of Greeks was actually South Italy, the land that produced the most powerful Greek state was Macedonia, the states with the least of restrictions on freedom of thought had been Syracuse or Corinth (usually led by tyrrans and nojt democratics - Athens was really a very conservative society), the states with the most scientific production had been in Asia Minor and South Italy (later Hellenistic Egypt and followingly Syria and Minor Asia) and then the most important part of the Greek history has been of course the Byzantine Empire (1000 years of continuity) which was of course responsible for the 'hellenic' basis of modern Europe and not that much ancient Greece (otherwise poor Gauls and Iberians and others would had done it since Pre-roman times, times that they were already in good contact with the Greeks).
  
  The issue of overemphasis on classical culture is mainly political as for the last 2000 years even the most bold socialistopoliticoreligious analyst feels obliged to run back and give an example based on the Athens-Sparta conflict.

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  Posted by Rob042 (U5722084) on Tuesday, 19th September 2006

  I too watched the lost cities programs,and went an bought the book 'the secret of the Hittities'.
  ( having read some if it I get the feeling the program makers were after a certain look to the Hittities)
  I would like to see a series showing the growth of the all the peoples of the area. To show how they are interlinked and how they effected eachother.
  
  Put a good presenter in the front of good hard facts we could have a great 12 week series ,something to look forward too.

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  Posted by Crystal Clear (U1010754) on Tuesday, 3rd October 2006

  It would be wonderful to watch a program on the Mesopotamian empire. Unfortunately there could be no broadcast from actual archaeological sites, particularly Ur and what could be Akkad as its smack bang in the middle of Iraq. It is rumoured that Akkad is underneath modern day Baghdad. However the Syrians were still part of this history but that would be as far as it would get. Unless there is archive tv footage there would be absolutely nothing new to bring to such a documentary. It would be a hotchpotch of pictures from books and museum collections, not the actual archaeology which would be disappointing to say the least

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  Posted by TonyG (U1830405) on Tuesday, 3rd October 2006

  There has been a programme made about this. I am sure it was on one of the Discovery channels some months ago. Quite interesting as a broad brush, but they had to cram a couple of thousand years of history into one hour, so obviously not very much in depth stuff. Used a lot of "re-enactments" as I recall, but it managed to get a fair bit of information over.

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