Enheduana of Sumer

Enheduana of Sumer was outrageously different, strong in character, intellectual, intelligent, and the first author of history, from both sexes (male and female). She was the daughter of one of the greatest kings of Akkad in Sumer, his name was Sargon. Her father was born the child of a farmer and he worked his way up to the cup bearer of the king and in the end he became king. He had two twin sons and a daughter names Enheduana. Her two brothers had the blood to be king, but they were not strong enough, smart enough or ready to be king. So Sargon put a lot of energy into his daughter. Sh learned how to both read and write (in cuneiform) and later on made her high priestess. While she was high priestess she had to leave Akkad and move to Ur. The people there believed in many gods and goddesses not like today where we believe in one God. She constantly told prayers and did rituals on the zigurats. And at the top of Ziguartes she made sacrifices. To please the gods and goddesses she also burned insets. The most important ritual she had was the annual new year in spring. The people during that time did not celebrate new year when we do because they believed it should be celebrated at a time when everything was new, the crops, the live stock, the animals being born. Almost all her writing had to do with her religious beliefs. She was a high priestess for almost 25 years! Originally she was the high priestess for the moon ogd but she connected more with the noon goddess and because of her the moon goddess Inanna rose to her peak of popularity. Because of her writings we know a lot about Sumer, her and the Sumerian religion. Later on one of her brothers became king and then the second and finally they both died and then her nephew became the leader of Sumer and exiled her into the desert making his own daughter high priestess. But today we know about her and the fact she was the first author this world ever had.

Leon, Vicki. "Enheduana of Sumer." Women of Ancient Times. By Vicki Leon. New York: Hold, 2010.

49-53. Print. 

Hammurabis Laws Fair vs Unfair

Hammurabi I think had an equal share of fair and unfair laws, and most of the unfair laws were not necessarily completely unfair but mainly very harsh. Some examples of unfair laws are:

• a builder who sells a poorly constructed house that collapses and kills its owner may be put to death. If the owners son rather than the owner is killed in the collapse, the builders son may be put to death

I think this law is unfair for a few reasons. One, it may not always be the builders fault if the house collapses, it could be a natural disaster, or a flood that causes leaking and the softening of a house to collapse, or it could be the fact that the owner did some changes and caused it to fall. Also if the owners son is killed I think it is unfair for the builders son to be killed, even if it is because of poor construction because the son had nothing to do with the building of it, therefor he is innocent.  

• If a wife's poor behavior publicly disgraces her husband, he can rid of her with no penalty to himself. However, he must first prove this claim in court. Once his claim is recognized he can either divorce her or marry another woman, reducing the statues of his first wife to that of a household slave girl 

I do not think this law is fair. It is fair up until a certain point, then it becomes unfair. It is obviously understandable that he can divorce and marry again, but then I do not think that he should have the right to make her social statues a household maid.  


Some laws that I think are fair are....

• If a woman is disgraced by her husband, she can also go to court. If her accusations are adequately proven she can leave her husband and take her dowry with her. 

I think this is a fair law because she is simply divorcing her husband for good reasons and moving on with her life like it never even happened. She is not doing anything to harm him. Unlike the fact if he divorces her, she does not move on and instead becomes a household slave which is unfair. 

• If, due to crop failure resulting either from a flood or drought, someone is unable to pay interest on debt, he may b excused from the interest payment that year. 

I think this is a perfectly fair law because something happens that is not his fault he is not forced to pay for something because he cannot, instead he government give him that year off.
So, obviously as you can see Hammurabi has some fair and unfair laws. They can also be very harsh.

Landau, Elaine. "Hammurabi's Babylonia." The Babylonians: 39-44. Print 

Cuneiform Writing/Reading Reflection

The experiences I had in writing in Cuneiform style was a lot more artistic and complicated over regular English. It took me a couple of minutes of painting just to write one cuneiform letter, while in English I write a whole world in a few seconds. For me English is easier than Cuneiform because, number one, the obvious, I already know the language and have many years practicing this form of writing, and  also because the letters are much simpler and easier to read and faster to write, also all the letters have something that separates them in cuneiform some letters are a lot more similar and can sometime be mistaken for another letter. I am glad that I got the chance to write in Cuneiform, but i much prefer to write in English. it was a very fun activity and used my time efficiently. Also reading in Cuneiform, however is even harder than writing. Because it can be a challenge to keep it neet and tidy and lie i said before, it is very easy to mistake one letter for another, makes the words confusing and it takes much longer to read. The reasons are because one you can so easily mix up the letters and it can be a challenge to find the write one and you have to look at the sign and then look back at the translation so it takes a lot of time. The worst part is that who ever wrote it determines if you can read it or not, you have to be really patient so the person can read it.

A Day at the Market in Mesopotamia

Lets say that at the beginning of civilization, you are an artisan, a worker who is specially skilled in crafting items by hand, and you are at the market one day to get the crops and meat that you need. What are the things that you need to have access to them and be able to take them home with you? In Mesopotamia was when trade first started and so during that time many different villages and cities came together to other places to trade their things, so in order to take something you would need to bring something for the switch of items or food. You could bring anything you like, but there is no guarantee that what you want is what the other person needs. At the market you would see new things that your city does not have. That is how ideas and foods spread through cultures, cultural diffusion. Lets Say a village has a surplus of food, that means they can take it to the market and risk giving it away for a smaller value, or raise it higher because they can. It also depends on the village or city that you are taking things from how much or what you would have to give, they will only take what is useful to either them or the village. Obviously there is no complete rule about how the trade worked back then, but there were still laws made by the government and king. So really trade was actually a very universal thing....

From Grunts to Grammar

Grammar is what makes it possible for us to show complicated thoughts and communicate easily. There is also evidence that the Homo Habilis started to developed parts of the brain that allow us to speak. Also partly why the reason is that we can speak and even have the ability to is because we have the larynx is low in the throat for us. For ALL the other animals it is high in the throat and when it is low it allows for a larger sound chamber. When it first even started to descend down lower is when our Genus began (Homo, first ones were Homo Habilis). Also the thing about humans is that we have the ability to breath through both the nose and mouth which is what allowed us to run longer distance and feed, but most mammals only breath through the nose. Since language can be hard to find, because there is no proff if it, there is no need for a written language to mean that that is when you started speaking, The way archeologists find out is if looking ofr sign when there was need for languages. We firsed stated to develop language about 60,000-80,000 years ago. When we first started to develope it was when we started to move out ot (present day) Australia because even though the sea levels wee lower and much nore could have been my foot, there sill needed to be a longer boat journey which required complex communication (language). However, the face was also part of their central communication but when they needed to cross that water, we know for a fact that language was needed then and there, and there was the birth of a distinction between us and animals.

On Our Own Two Feet

How old is bipedal walking? Let me tell you this, it is extremely old and it is much older than modern humans today. Bipedal walking is generally rare among primates, but especially among all species. The amazing part about bipedal walking on humans and our ancestors is that we find it easier to rest our heavy head on our two flat feat than to walk on all fours. We do this for a long period of time without falling. There are many differences between chimpanzees, modern humans, and Australopithecus's. One of them is that we have the flattest face while the chimpanzees sticks out the most, and Australopithecus's face shape is somewhere in between. The chimpanzees even have a small little snout, and the Australopithecus has a small snout, while we humans do not have any snout. Look at these images below to see the difference. Notice how the Australopithecus's face looks more similar to a chimpanzees than a modern day humans?

The human also has the largest brain case while the chimpanzees is the smallest. And once again the Australopithecus's is in the middle. When comparing these three species, the Australopithecus is usually in the middle, however it usually is a little close to a chimpanzees than a modern humans. The brain case of the Australopithecus is only a little larger than the chimpanzees. Also there is something in the brain called a Foramen Magnum which is a hole in the skull where the spinal cord connects the skull and spine. Looking at that you can tell how a species spine is.Obviously a humans is straight and chimpanzees bends. But the true question was, how was the Australopithecus's and how did we find out? Since in an archeological dig we found a skull of an Australopithecus we have access to the Foramen Magnum. Because of this we know that it was straight, so they were bipedal. However we also know that bipedalism started before the Australopithecus. Keep tuned onto my blog and you will find our more about early humans!!

Whitt, Stephen. "On Our Own Two Feet." Odyssey: Adventures in Science Oct. 2009: 26-28. Print. 

Who is Who?!?!?

homo habilis

homo ruolfensis

There have been many early hominins similar to us, however not all are related to us. If you think about it, we are not the stop to evolution, we are just one other step closer to higher evolution, just as we look at homo habilis someone, someday, somewhere, will look at us as one of their ancestors. We are not the final product, nor will there ever be unless we die out. there is still much more to go, specially since we only use about 1-10 percent of our brains. Any early ancestor with with word homo in it, such as homo habilis, are related to us, and are our ancestors. However if they do not contain the word homo, such as Sahelanthropus, or Orrorin, or Ardipithecus, are not our ancestors, they are early hominins, but they are not one of our ancestors, they died out, while we managed to stay alive and adapt. That is what I find very interesting about our kind. We are able to adapt very quickly. When the changes in Africa were going on, many of the early humans died out because they were not able to adapt so quickly and constantly, while we were. We still are as well, we can live anywhere in the world, people live in Russia and in Africa, which both have, what I would call, the opposite climate.  Russia is very cold while Africa is very hot and dry in most places. And yet, our kind can adapt to both. The earliest hominids are the Sahelanthrops which are about 6-7 million years old, and since their name does not contain the prefix of homo, that means that they were not out ancestors. After that comes the Orrorian, which was 5.8-6 million years ago, an if you notice does not contain the prefix of homo, so therefor, must not be related to us, and is not an ancestor. One more example of and early hominin is the Australopithecus, which is 4.4 million years old and without the prefix homo, indicates that it is not one of our ancestors. There are many more early hominins after this that were not related to us, way before the homo era began, but the last one of them was the Australopithecus which was 4-2 million years ago. Now begins the homo era, our ancestors finally start to walk the planet, and it is the beginning of something great. The two very first ones were the homo habilis and then Homo rudolfensis. They were at about the same time, but in different parts of Africa. The Homo rudolfensis was limited to only northern Kenya. The Homo Habilis has more human like feature than the Australopithecus (it has a bigger brain and smaller narrower teeth). Also they made simple tools, but we are not sure if they hunted their own prey, or they would feed off of what other animals killed and left untouched. The homo Rudolfensis has a larger brain than the homo habilis and a broader flatter face, and wider teeth. They made more complex tools and were taller and heavier than other early humans.