Shelby Bray

Professor Kimberly Lark

Hist 134. Sec 112382.

March 19th, 2020

My chosen theme for this project is education/writing. I chose this in particular because I

find the story-telling aspects of these ancient civilizations interesting. We have learned many

different things through ancient ‘languages’, for lack of a better term, and have pieced together

knowledge based on the signs and symbols that were left behind on ancient artifacts. A large

reason that we understand so much history behind things that happened BCE is because of the

evidence left behind, most importantly these images and ancient text that we see below. It’s a

beautiful story telling experience that allows us to really grasp how things were ran and whether

or not they found success in that.

Cylinder Seal from 2600-2350 BCE. Artists would carve these

images onto their clay objects and would ‘produce’, almost like a
movie, what was going on usually politically or culturally. These
kinds of things are the reason we are able to predict how our
history happened based on the scene in the images. This one
particularly shows one important person in the middle and a crowd
of people surrounding, which for example could imply a god or someone in power being
worshipped.

Banquet Scene from 2600-2500 BCE. This is a scene of multiple people

attending a gathering which could of either depicted some important event in this
civilizations lifespan. It could have also very well served as an art piece for one of
the city’s homes. The importance and relevance of this scene could suggest that
like we, modern day folk, prefer to get together for major events and celebrate or
memorialize or even gather for meetings and important information share.
 Relief of Soldiers from 668-627 BCE. As well as the previously listed piece, this
‘portrait’, although a little different than were used to nowadays, would have
been considered an art piece if hanged in the home. In this particular image we
see what looks like to be soldiers are transporting captives while commuting by
boat. They used these slabs of stone to carve scenes of how politics and
punishment came to be during the current times.

The name document I chose was the Litigation Document from specifically 1726
BCE. This looks to be like an important Doctrine of sorts, very similar to old US
documents like the Declaration of Independence. Similar as to how they do it now,
people used to record all of their information just as we do, like court information or
other legal documentations. These are so crucial to history, really giving us insight
on how some of the old governments and tyranny’s were run. They allow a better
understanding of their politics, and therefore give us a reason to research and comparatively, if
that, for a better understanding of our politics today.

This is a legal document from specifically 190 BCE. This is, similar to the
previously listed document, this is a clay tablet full of the ancient script of a
legal dispute. This allows us to understand some of the decision making
process of how crimes and punishments were ran and what kind of crimes
were being committed. This makes for a very educational breakthrough in
understanding ancient civilizations.

Ancient Will from specifically 2041 BCE. And lastly, this is someone's will and
the language that we see it’s written in cuneiform which is a language used in
mesopotamia. This educates us of the currency used during this time and
what sort of wealth they had back in these times.