"Encounter mesopotamia - Exhibition of Ancient Syrian Cultural Relics" was held at the National Library of Beijing. Standing in the exhibition hall, I was shocked, it seems to be the alpine water source of civilization, a drop of water merges into a river of culture, its branches flow to constellations, letters, architecture... Cultural relics for thousands of years, such as lonely stars, record the ups and downs, convergence and integration of too many civilizations.
If heaven is in the sky, Damascus will be as high as her
When people think of Syria, they think of Damascus. Damascus has a history of more than 4,000 years as a world-famous ancient city. There is a saying in the ancient Arabic books: "If there is heaven on earth, Damascus will be among them." If heaven is in the sky, Damascus will be as high as her. For this reason, the city is praised as "the city of heaven." Damascus has historically been recognized by Greece and Rome. The Byzantine and Ottoman Turkish Empires ruled for many years.
The origin of the zodiac sign
In Mesopotamia, the ancient Sumerians and Babylonians regarded the night starry sky as a prophecy of the gods. Looking at the starry sky on Earth, you can see that each star maintains its position relationship with other stars, which is why people can recognize each constellation composed of constellations. These constellations are named after mythical people, animals, and things, such as Hercules and Pegasus. The Babylonians focused on the spherical bodies of the planets and stars around the Earth, and gave each object a corresponding divinity. Around the 6th century BC, Babylonian scholars corresponded it to 12 months of the year, creating the first known celestial coordinate system. They set the sun rising on the day of the spring equinox as the starting point of the zodiac sign.
The oldest alphabet on the Ugalit alphabet
It is described in the exhibition as a technetium script, but Syria: The Ancient Story of the Lost Civilization describes it as the "Ugalit alphabet". The article says: "Ugalit was not a great power in the history of the ancient Near East, nor did it have a prominent hegemony and history, and its main civilization history existed for only more than two centuries (about 14-12 centuries BC), but its writing system, borrowing the cuneiform writing method of the Two Rivers Valley, created what is likely to be the oldest alphabet in the world, the Ugalit alphabet, slightly earlier than the more famous Phoenician alphabet." However, according to scholars, the Ugalit alphabet has an influence on the Phoenician alphabet, as well as the ancient Persian alphabet and even the Arabic alphabet, and is considered to be the "source of the alphabet".
Agatha Christie's Wedding Journey To the Fan-Like "Temple of Eyes"
The eyes of the Syrian doll carvings occupy more than two-thirds of the face. In many of the portraits on display, different forms of the eye can be found. Early Syrians were fascinated by the eye, and the novelist Agatha Christie's only collection of essays, Say, Syria, chronicled her and her husband, archaeologist Max Mallovan, who went to Syria to archaeology, and their most important work at that time was the excavation of the temple of the eye.
The first hegemonic state, the Kingdom of Assyria
The exhibition uses reliefs and light and shadow to show the historical hegemonic kingdom of Assyria. The historical Assyrian dynasty was quite domineering, and the kings and families did not care about deer and wild boars when hunting. They wrestle with lions in order to prove their power beyond ordinary people and their ability to subdue wild beasts. The Assyrians did not reincarnate, did not build mausoleums, and their architectural art was found only in luxurious palaces. Developed around palace architecture, reliefs and frescoes. The Assyrian palaces are decorated with a large number of marble relief panels, and each palace has a relief of up to 2 meters high to record the military crusades and major events of the assyrian kings.
The exhibition is divided into five units: "Dawn", "Change", "Hegemony", "Integration" and "Dialogue", spanning syria's Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, as well as the Greek, Roman and Islamic ages.