The Two Rivers Valley, ancient Syria, Egypt and other ancient Near East regions are the birthplace of the earliest civilizations. Among them, Syria has more than 3,500 monuments, like a huge museum exposed under the blue sky.
The temples, palaces, statues, scrolls of the ancient city of Mali... Flashing the Sumerian cultural characteristics of the Two Rivers Basin;
Ebra's cuneiform clay tablets, lapis lazuli rough, linen fabrics... Recreates the bustling trade scene of Syria around 4,000 years ago;
The Arc de Triomphe, the theater, the amphitheater of the ancient city of Palmyra, a world cultural heritage... Wow the world.
If we can't visit the site for a while to see the beads that have been left in the world, then go into the museum for an immersive experience.
Exhibition site
A few days ago, the "Kaleidoscope of Civilization - Syria's Ancient Cultural Relics Exhibition" was officially opened at the Jinsha Site Museum, with 183 pieces (sets) of exhibits, with the flow of historical time as the main line, telling the historical process of Syria from the Stone Age, through the Bronze and Iron Ages, to the Hellenistic, Roman and Islamic Era. Now, please follow the Red Star News reporter and find out under the leadership of the narrator Lai Roujiao.
Big brain hole! The "bookkeeping book" is novel and the bookkeeping method is wonderful
The ancient Syrian civilization is a typical representative of the civilization of the Near East. The "Exhibition of Ancient Syrian Civilizations" exhibits from 500,000 years to 1516 in modern times, with a large time span. Similar to the development of Chinese history, during these 500,000 years, Syria has also gone through the Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age and modern times, each with different cultural characteristics.
Pottery balls
If you say that as early as the Paleolithic period of ancient Syria, there were "bookkeeping books", can you believe it? The pottery ball, which looks like a small warm yellow ball, has a bumpy surface, like a large walnut, "This is the pottery ball of the Uruk culture, which is an important representative of the Sumerian civilization, at that time, there were cities and large-scale temples and palaces, people needed to sacrifice goods to the temple, and the people in the temple began to use this pottery ball to keep accounts in order to facilitate the recording of goods." Lai Roujiao introduced that the ornaments carved on the surface of the pottery ball represent the type and quantity of sacrificial objects. If there are six sheep inscribed on the pottery ball on display, it should be the item and quantity of the goods. "At that time, the pottery ball was like today's bookkeeping bill, which had the effect of anti-theft and tampering." Lai Roujiao said.
Lai Roujiao
Perhaps to make it easier to write and carry, the pottery ball gradually evolved into a digital clay board. The clay plate ornament on display is depicted in the middle of a snake, two birds, two frogs, and some experts speculate that each figure represents a different numerical unit, such as a snake representing 100, a bird representing 10, and a frog representing 2 or 5. The ancient Syrians recorded more complex accounts in this way, so such ornamentation is considered to be the earliest pictorial text.
Hedgehog type pottery
In the exhibition, there is an artifact that is watched by tourists, because the explanation board is marked with hedgehog-type pottery, but it looks more like a pottery pig. Lai Roujiao explained that this hedgehog-shaped container also comes from the Uruk culture. Animal-shaped vessels like this date back to around the 7th millennium BC in Syria and reached their flourishing stage in the second half of the 4th millennium BC, and many symbolic pottery has been unearthed at the site of the Khalaf period. As can be seen from this artifact, symbolic pottery in animal, bird or human shapes was not used in everyday life, but rather in sacrificial ceremonies.
Beauty Control! Draw eyeliner, make up your eyebrows, and wear a cake skirt
Around 3100 BC, the Sumerians discovered that mixing copper and tin together produced a harder and more durable metal, bronze, and the ancient Syrians moved from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age. To understand this era, you need to know the ancient city of Mali in the middle of the Euphrates River, which is a traffic fortress from south to north, so a large number of artifacts have been unearthed, and the main type of artifacts is the statue of worshipper carved from alabaster.
statue
The statues of worshippers unearthed from the ruins of the ancient city of Mali may be the image of the Sumerians, who have bald heads, big eyes, double moon eyebrows inlaid with blue crystal, beards, and a naked upper body, wearing a sheepskin skirt like cake lace on the lower body. Lai Roujiao said, "These statues are placed in the temple, representing the different identities of the social classes at that time, including administrators, bookkeepers, clerks, and merchants. "But no matter what their status, from the posture of their worship, it can represent their devotion to the temple."
Bird-shaped eyeliner balm container
On the head of a female statue next to it, a spherical ornament was worn, which some experts speculate is a hat or crown. It is worth noting that her eyes and eyebrows are inlaid with gemstones. Why did people pay special attention to the decoration of the eyes at that time? It turned out that people at that time had the custom of drawing eyeliner, not only to draw eyeliner, but also to have special makeup tools! On the side, you can also see the bird-shaped clay eye balm container. Why draw eyeliner? This is due to the Fact that the Sumerians believed in polytheistic worship, worshipping the sun, moon, mountains, animals and plants, and believing that all unexplained phenomena came from the will of the gods. The human eye can see that everything in the world may also be a god-given, so they may want to express their worship of the eye by drawing eyeliner.
In fact, in China, there is also eye worship - the ancient Shu civilization, whether it is Sanxingdui or Jinsha ruins, there are related cultural relics. Archaeology speculates that the ancient Shu people worshiped the eyes, or because of the literature recorded that the Shu king silkworm bushes, may also originate from the worship of the sun, because the sun brings light to the world and the eyes bring light to humans, and the sun is indeed a common theme in the early world culture worship.
Too talented! Invent cuneiform, custom signatures
The beauty-loving Syrians not only made a fuss about their eyes, but by the middle of the Bronze Age, they also began to make jewelry.
Lapis lazuli necklace
Due to the gradual and frequent trade between the regions of the two river basins, as early as the opening of the Silk Road, there were already international trade routes on the Asian continent, of which the lapis lazuli trade was the most famous, known as the "Lapis Lazuli Road". These Afghan ornaments were shipped to Iran, where they were sliced and processed before being transported to the Two Rivers Basin. The lapis lazuli necklace on display silently emits a blue light, and next to it are two very exquisite necklaces, made of carnelian chalcedony, sea shells, crystals, and gold, which not only reflect people's pursuit of beauty, but also a symbol of the noble status of social class.
Cuneiform mudboard
Decoration is derived from the pursuit of human beauty, writing is derived from the pursuit of culture, Sumerian civilization invented the world's earliest script - cuneiform. Lai Roujiao pointed to the cuneiform clay tablets on display and explained that since the Sumerians wrote on soft clay tablets, the pen was made of local materials and used the reeds abundant in the Two Rivers Valley. Because the hard marks of the pen are relatively deep and the pen is thinner when lifting the pen, each stroke presents a long triangle. At the same time, because this long triangle resembles a wedge used in carpentry, it is called a cuneiform script.
Digital clay tablets
With words, people began to think of ways to leave their mark in a unique way. As a result, there was a representative material heritage of the Two Rivers Basin - the rolling seal, the so-called rolling seal, which is the barrel seal used for rolling, and the predecessor of the rolling seal is the pottery ball used for bookkeeping in the Paleolithic period. "By rolling, continuous and complex patterns can appear, and the materials made are limestone, ivory, crystal and so on." Lai Roujiao said that in actual use, the roll printing also assumes a function similar to "signature", which is used to identify someone or to mark goods, letters and official documents, which greatly facilitates the exchange of goods between different regions.
The king and the carriage
By the late Bronze Age, Maritime trade flourished in Syria and multiculturalism flourished.
Ugarit is an ancient city founded by the Phoenicians, and a large number of cuneiform clay tablets have been excavated at the site of Ugalit, which include theology, astronomy, poetry, musical scores, etc. As such, it is considered one of the three pearls in Syrian archaeology. However, this period is about 1,000 years from the cuneiform period that emerged in the middle of the Bronze Age. Lai Roujiao said, "At this time, the Ugalit people simplified the cuneiform script from more than 1,000 ideographs to 30 tabular letters, which is similar to the English language that needs to be arranged and combined through 26 different letters to form different pronunciations." It is considered the beginning of the world alphabet and Syria's contribution to human civilization as a whole. ”
It was beautiful! Court decorations, P-figure statues...
By the late Bronze Age, with the widespread use of iron and the invasion of sea peoples, some of the original city-states and tribes in the Two Rivers Valley declined, such as Ugarit. At the same time, there was also Assyria, which rose as a result. During the Neo-Assyrian period, King Nasirpa II built a large number of palaces and decorated them with reliefs. Therefore, assyria's palace art and relief art are the best vehicles to highlight his glory and hegemony. From the reliefs of the Assyrian kings and carriages on the exhibition, it can be seen that the king holds a scepter and stands on the carriage, while the figure is enlarged and the carriage is reduced, which should be used to express the tall majesty of the king. At the same time, this type of relief also reflects the characteristics of Assyrian reliefs that are basically used to express the praises of the monarch by describing military, war, king hunting and other pictures related to the monarch.
Sphinx
The human-faced sphinx we are familiar with, in fact, there are two forms - the sheep's head sphinx and the eagle's head sphinx, they are called Sphinx, which is an important artistic theme in ancient Eurasia, originally derived from Egyptian mythology, and then spread to the Two Rivers Valley, the Aegean Sea, Central Asia, and The Chinese Loulan and other regions. In this Sphinx sculpture in this exhibition, two sheep-headed lions face each other are depicted, with a sacred plant standing in the middle. The whole item looks exquisite, and the carving process is mature and exquisite.
Limestone statue of a woman holding a spinning thread
By the Time of Rome, there were some amazing artifacts – limestone tomb stone carvings. Inside the exhibition hall, there is a large area where several limestone statues are placed, which were excavated in the burial area of the ancient city of Palmyra, which is a very typical Romanesque statue. "We can see that the statue is delicately carved, and we can clearly see the facial expressions of the characters, the body shape, and even the flow of the folds of the clothes, which is a very three-dimensional and realistic sculpture style in Rome." Lai Roujiao said that these statues are the images of the tomb owner before they were born, and should be beautified on the basis of reality, similar to today's P-map technology. At the same time, through the statue, it is possible to understand the style of the person's clothing, such as the two women wearing headscarves, and one of them also holds two spindles in her hand, speculating that her occupation may be that of a textile worker.
Red Star News reporter | Zeng Qi photo report
Edited | Duan Xueying
According to part of the picture, Zhang Yan, a volunteer | Jinsha Site Museum
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