The poem was not just a love poem

No, and it was not a love poem written by Sappho but by Shu-Sin, a Sumerian King who ruled around 2,000 BC. Well, it may not be exactly a love poem but it certainly was a way to celebrate beauty and love. 

A close study has revealed that according to Sumerian belief, it was the sacred duty of the country’s ruler to marry a priestess and votary (i.e. a devote adherent of a cult or religion) of Inanna, the goddess of love and procreation once a year. It was celebrated on New Year’s Day to ensure the fertility of the soil and fecundity in the womb. 

Marriage of Inanna and Dumuzi, TangLung, World History

The ceremony started with festivities and banquets accompanied by music, song, and dance. It was during such a celebration that the ‘bride’ of King Shun-Sin would recite the poem as part of the sacred rite. 

The King would symbolically marry the goddess Inanna, in order to ensure fertility and prosperity for the coming year. 

Bridegroom, dear to my heart,
Goodly is your beauty, honeysweet,
Lion, dear to my heart,
Goodly is your beauty, honeysweet. 

You have captivated me, let me stand tremblingly before you.

Bridegroom, I would be taken by you to the bedchamber,
You have captivated me, let me stand tremblingly before you.
Lion, I would be taken by you to the bedchamber. 

Bridegroom, let me caress you,

My precious caress is more savory than honey,

In the bedchamber, honey-filled,

Let me enjoy your goodly beauty,
Lion, let me caress you,
My precious caress is more savory than honey. 

Bridegroom, you have taken your pleasure of me,
Tell my mother, she will give you delicacies,
My father, he will give you gifts. 

Your spirit, I know where to cheer your spirit,
Bridegroom, sleep in our house until dawn,
Your heart, I know where to gladden your heart,
Lion, sleep in our house until dawn. 

You, because you love me,
Give me pray of your caresses,
My lord god, my lord protector,
My Shu-Sin, who gladdens Enlil's heart,
Give my pray of your caresses.
Your place goodly as honey, pray lay your hand on it,
Bring your hand over like a gishban-garment,
Cup your hand over it like a gishban-sikin-garment

The text appeared on a cuneiform tablet discovered during excavations in Nineveh in 1846-1847 as part of the Library of King Ashurbanipal. It was taken to the Museum of Istanbul where it remained hidden in a drawer until 1951. We have to thank Samuel Noah Kramer for retrieving and translating this lovely work of art. 

[for more details, please refer to this article in World History] 

Healthcare knowledge roughly 300 years before Alexander

Alexander’s medical knowledge is based on the teaching he received from Aristotle. Sophisticated medicine did, however, exist much earlier. Hippocrates of Cos, for instance, lived only one hundred years before their time. The Hippocratic Oath, which may have appeared only after the physician’s death, has survived until today (see: A healthy mind in a healthy body – in early antiquity). This oath was, in fact, a religious document established to ensure that a doctor operated within and for community values. The oath was sworn by Apollo, Hygeia, and Panacea, promising to respect their teacher, not to administer poison or abuse their patients; quite importantly, they swore to keep the confidentiality between doctor and patient. 

[Fragment of a clay tablet from the Library of Ashurbanipal. Kouyunjik (ancient Nineveh), Neo-Assyrian, British Museum]

Three hundred years before Alexander and Aristotle, King Ashurbanipal of the Neo-Assyrian Empire kept the Nineveh Medical Encyclopaedia in his Library. These clay tablets held thousands of remedies and descriptions of the symptoms, which Alexander may have shared with the doctors traveling with the army. His men's lives were precious, and attending to their health and well-being was a priority (see: Alexander caring for the wounded and the dead). 

Plants were most certainly used in early civilizations since their medical effects were recorded around 2000 BC in Mesopotamia. The help of the gods was invoked for more complicated diseases requiring the performance of certain rituals or magic. Throughout antiquity, medicine mainly implied using plants, which were either applied to the affected body part or taken internally as potions. The ancient Egyptians also had a thorough knowledge of medicine, as documented by Herodotus. He reports that each part of the body requires specific treatments. It seems that physicians were actually specialized to treat one particular ailment of any sick patient. 

Anyway, in Mesopotamia, as the collection of medical texts grew over the centuries, the extensive Library of King Ashurbanipal was created in the 7th century BC. Scribes had gathered enough information to compose a medical dictionary, which may well be the first standardized, systematic handbook on therapeutic medicine. 

This Encyclopaedia was divided into twelve sections. The subjects moved from the head, through the torso, to the legs and feet. Each tablet constituted the equivalent of a chapter in our modern books, but some subjects are spread over more than one tablet, and there are 50 tablets in total. These tablets counted at least 250 lines. A note was added at the end of each tablet that referred to its place in the series. 

Today’s merit of this Library is to better understand how people looked at diseases and the best way to treat them in ancient times. Basically, they knew two types of specialists, one corresponding to our modern doctors and the other that could best be described as an alternative healer. 

This precious information collection has only been revealed in recent years because the tablets had been smashed to pieces in 612 BC when Nineveh fell into the hands of the Persians, Medes, and Babylonians. They divided the region between them afterward. Piecing the broken tablets back together was and is a tedious task as only a handful of people can decipher the cuneiform writing and thus reconstruct the texts. 

Once again, it is amazing, to say the least, that such precious knowledge remained hidden from us for 2,600 years! Where would our medical science be if we had continued elaborating and improving on the knowledge from the reign of King Ashurbanipal? Not only was it known to Alexander through Aristotle (and possibly to other physicians) but also to other key figures like King Philip’s doctor who operated on his eye, and Alexander’s own physician Philip of Acarnania (see: Alexander’s near-fatal dip in the Cydnus River at Tarsus)? So much information from antiquity has been sadly lost to us.

An Alexandria in Kurdistan - Iraq?

Two and a half thousand years after his death, the name of Alexander is still making good PR. As soon as some ruins or artifacts are being found somewhere near the presumed route the conqueror took during his campaign through Asia, there is a rush to connect them to Alexander. Maybe wrongly, maybe rightfully so – time will tell.

The lakeside site was discovered by a team of Iraqi and 

British archaeologists led by experts from the British Museum - From Phys.org.

The spot this time is situated in northern Iraq, actually in the Kurdish region near the city of Qalatga Darband which according to some daring researchers could be a city founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BC. Qalatga Darband is located a good one hundred kilometers east of the battlefield of Gaugamela, meaning that the assumption is not entirely improbable. Other theories link the site to the late Hellenistic era or even to the transition period from Hellenism to Parthian rule. The very name translates into Kurdish as “Castle of the Mountain Pass”, a strategic location where the Little  Zab River cuts through the mountain range to empty eventually into the Tigris River.

Qalatga Darband was discovered in 1973, but excavations in this troubled region started  first by the French in 2013 followed by the British in 2016 who used the terrain to train Iraqi archaeologists. Unfortunately the latest unrest after the Kurdish referendum for independence has forced the last foreign experts to leave.

The once so proud archaeological tradition in Iraq is in a very poor state after the Iran-Iraq war, the Gulf War and more recently the invasion of IS. Many sites have been looted or simply bulldozed, meaning that history has been obliterated altogether. Others remain inaccessible and based on aerial and satellite surveys there are still many more to be explored. But the days of excavations by foreign nations are no longer acceptable and the Iraqis will have to do it themselves – hence the training mission of the British Museum that is set to run until 2020.

In the meantime, the discovery of two statues at Qalatga Darband seem to indicate that the site was once a thriving hub on the route from Greece to Mesopotamia and Persia – possibly linking it to Alexander because one of the unearthed statues could be his portrait (a second statue looks like Aphrodite). Of course, it will take far more research and excavations in order to confirm the link with Alexander as there are many gaps in the facts and figures that came to us.

The grass-grown walls of Qalatga Darband, running down to Lake Dokan. 

The fortifications defended the western border of the young Parthian Empire. In the foreground is one of the square towers under excavation. 

Photograph: Mary Shepperson/by permission of The British Museum - From The Guardian

The Kurdish region seems to be rich in archaeological sites as satellite images have found some 354 sites! One of the images taken near Qalatga Darband  and shared in the article from The Guardian shows an overgrown fortification wall interrupted every twenty meters or so by a square projecting tower – a very tempting project!

In the end, I’m afraid that Qalatga Darband is not high on the list of researchers and archaeologists as bigger names from history will claim priority once the staff is properly trained. After all, Iraq is home to rich historical sites like Nimrud, Ctesiphon, Nineveh, Ur, Uruk, Babylon, Borsippa, Hatra, and Seleucia-on-the-Tigris to name just a handful.

Arbela, near the Battlefield of Gaugamela

Erbil or Arbil is the capital of modern Kurdistan, an independent province in northern Iraq. In antiquity the city was named Arbela, situated north of the Mesopotamian plain where the Battle of Gaugamela took place in 331 BC between the armies of Alexander the Great and Great King Darius III of Persia. Erbil claims to be the world’s oldest continuously occupied settlement (older than Damascus, I wonder?) going back at least 6,000 years.

To the naked eye, Erbil has very little to offer to the curious archaeologist as many houses from the 19th and 20th century are cramped inside the old city walls, right on top of previous constructions. Most everything that is known about this city comes from ancient texts and sporadic artifacts found at other sites in Mesopotamia.

Since last year, the first traces of the ancient city have been revealed thanks to ground-penetrating radar. Two large structures in the center of the citadel may be the remains of the well-known temple dedicated to the goddess of love and war, Ishtar, who was consulted by the Assyrian kings for divine guidance. The Temple of Ishtar is mentioned as early as the 13th century BC, although it may rest on a much older sanctuary. It is said that her temple was made to “shine like the day”, a possible indication that it was coated with electrum (a mixture of silver and gold) that reflected the Mesopotamian sun.

Slowly these new finds give us an insight into the history of Arbela and of its growth since the rise of the mighty Assyrian Empire. This old city was located on a fertile plain and was the local breadbasket for thousands of years. It occupied a key position on the road connecting the Persian Gulf to the Anatolian inland. It is obvious that this prime location was coveted by many of its neighbors, of which the Sumerians may have been the first invaders around 2,000 BC. It is here that Alexander the Great became King of Asia in 331 BC after defeating the Persian King Darius in nearby Gaugamela. Later invaders were the Romans, Genghis Khan in the 13th century, the Afghan warlords in the 18th century and the very recent occupation by Saddam Hussein. Yet, Arbela survived, unlike other great Mesopotamian cities like Babylon or Nineveh.

Unfortunately during the twentieth century much of ancient Arbela fell in disrepair as refugees from the region’s conflicts replaced the town’s people who moved to more spacious housing outside the citadel. Now that these refugees also move to more comfortable accommodation, efforts are starting to renovate the largely mud-brick dwellings. Conservation work enables archaeologists to dig deeper into the mound, meanwhile listed as a World Heritage Site. With the help of aerial photos taken by the British Royal Air Force in the 1950’s, American spy satellite images from the 1960’s, and Cold War satellite imagery, combined with the ancient cuneiform tablets help to pinpoint the best locations for future digging.

It is still difficult to have a good comprehensive overview of such a long history. As far as we know now, Arbela was first mentioned on clay tablets unearthed at Ebla (in modern Syria) dating to circa 2300 BC. A few hundred years later, rulers of Ur in southern Mesopotamia claim to have destroyed the city during repeated and bloody campaigns. By 1200 BC, it is known that it prospered as an important Assyrian trading post where copper, cattle, pomegranates, pistachios, grain and grapes were common goods. At the height of its power in the 7th century BC, Assyria was ruled by kings like Sennacherib, Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal. A court poem found in Nineveh praised the city as “heaven without equal, Arbela!”, and its power is supported by a stone relief from the 7th century BC found at Nineveh showing the formidable city walls and arched gate.

By 612 BC the Assyrian Empire was destroyed and the Medes (maybe the ancestors of today’s Kurds), spared and occupied Arbela, which was still intact when the Persian King Darius I came to power about a century later. Soon the Achaemenid Empire stretched all the way from Egypt to India till Alexander the Great defeated King Darius III in the fall in of 331 BC on the plains of Gaugamela. The Persian king fled across the Greater Zab River to Arbela’s citadel to seek refuge in the Zagros Mountains where he was eventually killed by his own men.

Arbela’s oldest fortification had a 20 meters thick wall with a defensive slope, not unlike the one found at Nineveh, for instance. While most fortifications were rectangular, the wall around Arbela was a round one, enclosing both the citadel and the lower town – something we do find more to the south, in cities like Ur or Uruk. As houses in modern Erbil are being abandoned, the archaeologists have a good opportunity to start their investigations. It is very rewarding to discover a tomb with vaulted chamber of baked bricks that can be dated to the 7th century BC and definitely is Assyrian.

Using modern technology, some 77 square miles have been mapped containing some 214 archaeological sites going back as far as 8,000 years! It is not easy to account for a city’s history over such a long period of time, especially when that city is still being inhabited. After the Assyrians were gone came the Persians followed by the Greeks, and eventually Arbela became an essential outpost on the Roman frontier and the capital of the Province of Assyria. With the spreading of Christianity new communities flourished and the Sassanids ruled till the arrival of Islam in the 7th century AD.

Even today, Erbil makes the headlines with the conflicts in northern Iraq. Inevitably a great deal of the city’s heritage is doomed to disappear in modern warfare, but let’s hope for the best. Maybe, just maybe one day we may discover the treasures still buried underneath the old citadel and maybe even a small proof that Alexander and his army were here some 2,400 years ago.

[Pictures from Archaeology]