Origins of Western Civilization

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>>2741050
We begin with Sumer and the Sumerians.

The Sumerians were the most extraordinary people who ever lived on the face of the earth. They seemed to come from out of nowhere, and they single-handedly invented civilization when most of the rest of the world was still living in the Stone Age. What’s more, they did it thousands of years before anyone else. In regard to the Sumerians, you will need to revise your concept of ancient in comparison to the "ancient" Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians. The Sumerian civilization was already ancient when it ended in 2004 B.C., twenty centuries before Julius Caesar, sixteen centuries before Socrates, and seven centuries before Tutankhamen

http://sumerianshakespeare.com/21101.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywNoks1ZwqY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47qcqcBKueY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FszJjY4wCnw

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>>2741064

Unfortunately for Sumer, the eternal Semites smelled the wealth that such a highly organized and productive civilization had created, and naturally invaded and assimilated into Sumer, giving us Assyria and Babylonia.

The Akkadian Empire was the first ancient Semitic-speaking empire of Mesopotamia, centered in the city of Akkad and its surrounding region, also called Akkad in ancient Mesopotamia and Accad in the Bible (Genesis 10:10). The empire united all the Akkadian and Sumerian speakers under one rule. The Akkadian Empire controlled Mesopotamia, the Levant, and eastern and southern parts of Anatolia and Iran, sending military expeditions as far south as Dilmun and Magan (modern Bahrain and Oman) in the Arabian Peninsula.

During the 3rd millennium BC, there developed a very intimate cultural symbiosis between the Sumerians and the Akkadians, which included widespread bilingualism. Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as a spoken language somewhere between the 3rd and the 2nd millennia BC.

The Akkadian Empire reached its political peak between the 24th and 22nd centuries BC, following the conquests by its founder Sargon of Akkad (2334–2279 BC). Under Sargon and his successors, the Akkadian language was briefly imposed on neighboring conquered states such as Elam and Gutium. Akkad is sometimes regarded as the first empire in history, though there are earlier Sumerian claimants.

After the fall of the Akkadian Empire, the people of Mesopotamia eventually coalesced into two major Akkadian-speaking nations: Assyria in the north, and, a few centuries later, Babylonia in the south.

>>2741092
Upvote

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>>2741050

Not posting a European Civilization from 5200 to 3500 BC.

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ768_cwOiM

Talking about anthropology and not mentioning Bell Beakers.

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>>2741092
Here are some more resources on Mesopotamia:

http://www.ancient.eu/Mesopotamia/


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtVT2EqsQuE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJTWai6xKM4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpHIw-NPGJI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnQGjmdUGCI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPle6IzDuoU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a_F2y5e5Ls

>>2741111
dude the bell beaker culture did not evolve into a proper civilization with cities, kings, planned agriculture, courts and laws, and (most importantly) a written language. What contribution have they made besides making a bunch of stupid clay pots?

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>>2741111

cont-

>>2741129
>dude the bell beaker culture did not evolve into a proper civilization with cities, kings, planned agriculture, courts and laws, and (most importantly) a written language
Yes they did, they were the ancestors of Western Europeans, we're their descendants.

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>>2741133
cont-
Europe had the some of the largest cities in the world around 4000BC

>>2741140
>>2741133
>>2741111

Paper here on this culture which proposes that Indo European languages spread into Europe through this culture/civilization.
> http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0172952

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>>2741111
>>2741133
>>2741137
>>2741140
>>2741200


The very fact that you and I are using the phonetic alphabet to communicate with each other, use the Sumerian base 12 system for time and some aspects of mathematics (like the degrees to a circle), and use a modified Egyptian solar calendar of 365 days proves that our culture is the direct result of the civilizations that I mentioned and not some proto-ukr pottery merchants that >One of the most notable aspects of this culture was the periodic destruction of settlements, with each single-habitation site having a lifetime of roughly 60 to 80 years

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucuteni-Trypillian_culture#Vin.C4.8Da-Turda.C5.9F_script

>>2741137
>Yes they did, they were the ancestors of Western Europeans, we're their descendants.

Members of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture shared common features with other Neolithic societies, including:

An almost nonexistent social stratification

Lack of a political elite

Rudimentary economy, most likely a subsistence or gift economy

Pastoralists and subsistence farmers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucuteni-Trypillian_culture#Economy


Looks like this culture never got past the stone age. They were most likely conquered by stronger, more innovative peoples i.e. the Greeks, Huns, Byzantines, Ottmans, Russians

>>2741137
>>2741251
I stand corrected: They just BARELY made it into the bronze age before getting dominated by the Indo Europeans

>Toward the end of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture's existence (from roughly 3000 BC to 2750 BC), copper traded from other societies (notably, from the Balkans) began to appear throughout the region, and members of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture began to acquire skills necessary to use it to create various items. Along with the raw copper ore, finished copper tools, hunting weapons and other artifacts were also brought in from other cultures. This marked the transition from the Neolithic to the Eneolithic, also known as the Chalcolithic or Copper Age. Bronze artifacts began to show up in archaeological sites toward the very end of the culture. The primitive trade network of this society, that had been slowly growing more complex, was supplanted by the more complex trade network of the Proto-Indo-European culture that eventually replaced the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture

OP
I'm a 18 year old syrian kid that lived my whole life in brazil. Seeing how Syria is almost gone,
I now want to know more about the roots of my ancestry and the knowledge of my ancient people, also their philosophy and spirituality
Can you guide me? Are sumerians, babylonians and assyria ancient syrians?

>>2741092
>Unfortunately

They were good successors to the Sumerians

>>2742050
>Are sumerians, babylonians and assyria ancient syrians?

No

>>2742114
what are they then?

Something that you haven't put in is the origin of Greek people and their ties with Indians and Mongols/China.

Greeks were part of the Indo-aryan tribe that came from the Yamna tribes, which resided somewhere around central asia. It was a nomadic group of people that lived in those area. One of the branch moved across west to Greek areas, another tribe moved east towards China, and another moved south towards India.

On the west, these nomadic tribesmen establishes Greek cities and learns from the neighboring Mesopotamian culture and the Egyptian culture. In the south, the nomadic tribesmen establishes northern Indian civilization and learns from the old dravidian indus valley civilization. Things like meditation, yoga, etc are probably part of that culture.

So fastforward, bit around 600BCE and you have the the Median empire, which connects two of the long lost senpaitachi, the Greeks and the Indians. Median empire allows transmigration of ideas between the two, they are now aware of each other and in contact with each other through ideas/trades/etc. And later on couple during Alexander's conquest did another second flow of cultural information exchange.

Fast forward to ~200 BCE, the tribesmen who went east towards China are growing large, they are the powerful Yeuzi nomadic horde. However they were defeated by another rising star, the Xiongnu. As they went west, they met and defeated the Scythians and pushed Scythians further west. However Yeuzi went southwest to Bactria and established what is known as Kushan empire.

The a brief/short/poorly connection between the EastAsia/Western Europe/SouthAsia.

>>2742397
The with the Scythians/Sakas, pushed to the European frontier, they then did the classic nomad thing.

With the Yuezi, Kushans, gone from Xiongnu area, the Xiongnu tried expanding south towards China. They lost badly. They were pushed west as far as Chinese could extend, and the remnants of the Xiongnu later became ruling class of the Hun empire that terrorized the west once more. The Huns also happen to terrorize the Kushans(Yeuzi), their former enemies, and India as well.

With the power vacuum created by the destruction of Xiongnu from the central asia, the Xianbei group established power over the region. They later formed the Rouran khaganate. Gokturk khaganate rose to power within Rouran and tookover. Like the Xiongnu of the past, it was a confederacy of indo-european and asiatic people in ruling structure. When the Gokturk split, the Mongols rose up. Who then terrorized much of the known world.

The interactions between the cultures of east/west are more connected than people think. The uniquess of "asia" and uniqueness of "west" and the uniqueness of "south asia" are myths. All three of those culture are linked either directly or indirectly.

>>2742494
>uniqueness of west/east are myths
that is true of central asia/mena/indus area but less true of china.

>>2742263
OP here. To my best understanding, the people of modern day Syria are the result of thousands of years of different cultures and civilizations. I mean, maybe some Syrians can trace their ancestry exclusively to the original Sumerians, but most likely they have roots from other influences.

The Sumerians generally are associated with southern Iraq, and were conquered by semitic peoples from the eastern Mediterranian which then eventually formed in the two states of Assyria and Babylon. A lot of influence from the Hittites, Egyptians, and Phonecians as well.

Then came the Persian and Greek conquests of Syria. Then the Romans and later Christian crusades. Then the Islamic conquests (which still today probably have the greatest influence on Syrian culture). Even the Mongols invaded Syria, so you probably have Khan blood as well. Then finally came the Ottomans.

So in short, the modern state of Syria is a melting pot of dozens of empires and cultures, with Islam and Arabs being the greatest influence and not the Sumerians/Akkadians.

>>2741050
The comments on that video are cancerous.

"Western civilisation" is such a vague term. It's almost always used in an Orientalist context to portray the "West" as superior to mysterious but backwards "East".

WRONG! It was actually in FRANCIA that Western Civilization was born.

>>2741050
>These cultures laid the foundations for our way of life and are sadly overlooked and forgotten.

What? Those are some of the most well-known and famous civilizations ever to exist you retarded flatcap drong.

>>2743809
>The Sumerians generally are associated with southern Iraq

No, central Iraq. The southern part was underwater during the Sumerian period.

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>>2744928
I mean overlooked and forgotten on /his/. It's always about the Romans and Hitler
>>2744937
what you're referring to is the alluvial plain, but Sumer was still in southern Iraq

What we call Western Civilization starts with the Franks, we are as much greco-roman as the romans were trojans.

>>2745131
see>>2741209

>>2745131
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Western_civilization_before_AD_500

>>2741050
Isn't it true that Ancient Egypt had an understanding of general relativity before Einstein

>>2745191
lol no