Mythology
3069 BCE to Now
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A lion headed figure, first called the lion man (German: Löwenmensch, literally "lion person"), then the lion lady (German: Löwenfrau), is an ivory sculpture that is the oldest known zoomorphic (animal-shaped) sculpture in the world and one of the oldest known sculptures in general.
The sculpture has also been interpreted as anthropomorphic, giving human characteristics to an animal, although it may have represented a deity.
The figurine was determined to be about thirty-two thousand years old by carbon dating material from the same layer in which the sculpture was found.
It is associated with the archaeological Aurignacian culture.
Its pieces were found in 1939 in a cave named Stadel-Höhle im Hohlenstein (Stadel cave in Hohlenstein Mountain) in the Lonetal (Lone valley) Swabian Alb, Germany.
Due to the beginning of the Second World War, it was forgotten and only rediscovered thirty years later.
The first reconstruction revealed a humanoid figurine without head.
During 1997 through 1998, additional pieces of the sculpture were discovered and the head was reassembled and restored.
The sculpture, 29.6 centimeters (11.7 inches) in height, 5.6 centimeters wide, and 5.9 centimeters thick, was carved out of mammoth ivory using a flint stone knife.
There are seven parallel, transverse, carved gouges on the left arm.
After this artifact was identified, a similar, but smaller, lion-headed sculpture was found, along with other animal figures and several flutes, in another cave in the same region of Germany.
This leads to the possibility that the lion-figure played an important role in the mythology of humans of the early Upper Paleolithic.
The sculpture can be seen in the Ulmer Museum in Ulm, Germany.
Uruk, situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates river, on the ancient dry former channel of the Euphrates River, some thirty kilometers east of modern As-Samawah, Al-Muthann, Iraq, is eponymous of the Uruk period, which is the protohistoric Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age period in the history of Mesopotamia spanning from around 4000 BCE to about 3100 BCE.
It is succeeded by the Jemdet Nasr period of Sumer proper.
In myth, Uruk was founded by Enmerkar, who brought the official kingship with him, according to the Sumerian king list.
He also, in the epic Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, constructs the Eanna (Sumerian: E2-ana, 'House-of-Heavens') temple for the goddess Inanna in the Eanna District of Uruk.
Uruk plays a leading role in the early urbanization of Sumer in the mid-fourth millennium BCE.
Starting from the Early Uruk period, Uruk exercises hegemony over nearby settlements.
At this time (about 3800 BCE), there are two centers of twenty hectares, Uruk in the south and Nippur in the north, surrounded by much smaller ten-hectare settlements.
Land transport vehicles in Sumer include sledges and the earliest known wheeled carts, which appear around 3150, representing the first use of the wheel for transportation.
A clay tablet from the period 3200—3100 (found by twentieth century archaeologists in the courtyard of the Eanna Temple in Uruk) contains a pictograph of a wheeled cart.
The so-called White Temple at Uruk, constructed about 3000 and dedicated to the god Anu, is elevated by a forty-foot- (twelve and to tenths meters) high artificial mound and approached by a ramp.
Anu's ziggurat began with a massive mound topped by a cella during the Uruk period, around 4000 BCE, and was expanded through fourteen phases of construction, labeled L to A3 (L is sometimes called X).
Interestingly, the earliest phase, used typology similar to PPNA cultures in Anatolia; a single chamber cella with a terrazzo floor, beneath which bucrania were found.
The White Temple was built in phase E, corresponding to the Uruk III period in about 3000 BCE.
The designer of the White Temple clearly meant it to be seen from a great distance across the plain of Sumer, as it was elevated twenty-one meters and covered in gypsum plaster that reflected sunlight like a mirror.
For this reason it is believed the White Temple is a symbol of Uruk's political power at the time.
In addition to this temple, the Anu Ziggurat also had a monumental limestone paved staircase used in religious processions.
A trough running parallel to the staircase was used to drain the ziggurat.
The Mesopotamian cult of Nanna, or Innana (Ishtar) and Tammuz records the tale of the earth goddess’s search for her lost lover, brother, or child who either has been killed or has disappeared from Earth; this archetypal fertility myth symbolizes death and the return of vegetation and life.
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The Near and Middle East (2637 – 910 BCE): Bronze and Early Iron — Empires, Incense, and the First Great Corridors
Regional Overview
During the Bronze and Early Iron Ages, the Near and Middle East stood at the center of Afro-Eurasian innovation.
From the Tigris–Euphrates to the Nile, from the Caucasus uplands to the Arabian Sea, irrigation, metallurgy, and overland and maritime trade linked highlands, deserts, and fertile deltas into a single interdependent world.
By the close of this epoch, the region had evolved into a mosaic of palace-states, caravan polities, and incense ports that prefigured the classical empires of the first millennium BCE.
Geography and Environment
The region spanned three great ecological belts:
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the alluvial lowlands of Mesopotamia and Egypt,
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the mountain and plateau arcs of Iran, Armenia, and Anatolia, and
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the arid steppe and coastal deserts of Arabia and the Levant.
Rivers such as the Tigris, Euphrates, Nile, and Jordan supplied irrigation, while the Zagros and Caucasus offered pastures and metals.
The Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and eastern Mediterranean served as maritime corridors binding these lands into one economic sphere.
Climate and Environmental Shifts
Late-Holocene arid pulses intensified after 2000 BCE.
Mesopotamian salinization and river avulsion forced canal redirection and crop rotation, while the Caucasus and Zagros pastures remained comparatively stable.
Along the Red Sea and Arabian coasts, fog oases and mountain terraces mitigated drought.
This interplay of aridity and adaptation produced the region’s hallmark—hydraulic ingenuity.
Societies and Political Developments
In the Mesopotamian and Iranian highlands, Elamite, Susian, and Zagros polities balanced urban irrigation systems with pastoral hinterlands.
Metal-rich Transcaucasia (Trialeti, Kura–Araxes legacies) supplied arsenical bronzes and stimulated north-south trade.
By the late second millennium BCE, the foundations of Assyria, Urartu, and Syro-Anatolian kingdoms were emerging.
To the south and east, Southeast Arabia developed terraced oases in Hadhramaut and Dhofar, expanding goat-camel herding and pioneering the frankincense and myrrh trades.
Socotra’s resins and dried fish entered long-range exchange networks that reached the Gulf and the Red Sea.
In the Near East proper, the Nile and Aegean worlds intertwined.
Egypt’s New Kingdom power extended into the Levant, while Aegean mariners and Anatolian city-states (Minoan–Mycenaean, later Aeolian and Ionian) connected the Mediterranean coasts.
Tyre, within this subregion, grew into a Phoenician entrepôt, while western Arabia’s oases and Yemeni highlands cultivated incense gardens and terraced cereals—the first outlines of the later incense road.
Economy and Technology
Across the region, Bronze-Age craft economies reached maturity.
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Bronze metallurgy dominated tools, weapons, and luxury goods; iron-smelting appeared near the end of the period in Anatolia and Iran.
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Wheeled transport and pack-camels widened caravan trade.
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Canal agriculture, terrace farming, and oasis irrigation supported dense populations.
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Sewn-plank dhows and sail-rigged ships carried pearls, dates, metals, and incense along the Gulf and Red Sea.
The interplay of highland ores, lowland crops, and coastal markets created a vertically integrated economic web unmatched elsewhere in the ancient world.
Belief and Symbolism
Ritual and kingship centered on divine mediation of fertility and order.
Highland peoples carved rock reliefs and tended fire altars; Mesopotamian and Levantine cities built temple precinctsaligned with stars and rivers.
In Egypt, solar and funerary cults radiated outward; in Aegean Anatolia, maritime sanctuaries honored capes and storms; in Arabia, ancestor tombs and incense offerings sacralized the desert routes.
The region’s mythic imagination—of gods ruling sky, sun, and flood—underpinned later Zoroastrian, Hebrew, and Hellenic traditions.
Movement and Interaction Corridors
Trade and migration moved through a network of interlocking routes:
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Overland Zagros–Tigris and Caucasus–Ararat–Urmia corridors moved metals and livestock.
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The Royal Road precursors tied Susiana to Anatolia.
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The Gulf and Red Sea coasts hosted pearl fishers, incense ports, and ferry routes linking Arabia, Egypt, and the Levant.
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Nile–Aegean maritime lanes ferried copper, tin, and luxury goods.
Together these paths created the first durable framework of continental-scale commerce.
Environmental Adaptation and Resilience
Societies balanced extremes through ecological complementarity:
mountain pastures fed lowland markets; oases and terraces offset desert risk; multi-crop rotations and canal maintenance curbed salinity.
Pastoral mobility and diversified trade insulated economies from drought and political upheaval.
By coupling agriculture, herding, and commerce, the region sustained continuity through climatic and dynastic flux.
Regional Synthesis and Long-Term Significance
By 910 BCE, the Near and Middle East had matured into a highly interconnected world system.
Its urban irrigation states, steppe-oasis alliances, and maritime incense routes linked Africa, Asia, and Europe.
The technological and cultural legacies of this era—bronze metallurgy, writing, monumental architecture, and long-distance exchange—formed the enduring template for the imperial and religious civilizations that would dominate the first millennium BCE and beyond.
Middle East (2,637 – 910 BCE) Bronze and Early Iron — Highland–Oasis Symbiosis, Steppe Links
Climate & Environment
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Aridity pulses increased; alluvial avulsion and salinization risks rose; Caucasus/Zagros pastures remained reliable.
Societies & Settlement
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Elamite–Susiana sphere influenced Khuzestan; Zagros polities (Lullubi, Gutian forebears) persisted; northern Syrian/Cilician towns grew; Transcaucasian metal zones (Trialeti, Kura–Araxes legacies) supplied copper/arsenical bronzes.
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Nomadic/pastoral networks (steppe links via Caspian–Caucasus) interacted with oases.
Technology
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Bronze weaponry/tools; early iron appears by the end; wheeled transport; canalized agriculture scaling.
Corridors
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Zagros–Tigris caravan lines; Caucasus–Ararat–Lake Urmia nodes; Gulf coasting (pearls, dates) with the Arabian littoral.
Symbolism
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Highland rock reliefs; fire altars; ancestor cults; temple precincts in oases.
Adaptation
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Highland–oasis complementarity (pasture vs. irrigation); distributed canal networks and multi-crop rotations resisted salinization.
Transition
By 910 BCE, the matrix exists for the Neo-Assyrian, Urartian, and Syro-Anatolian polities that will dominate early Iron Age corridors intersecting our region.
Gubla is the first Phoenician city to trade actively with Egypt and the pharaohs of the Old Kingdom (2686-2181 BCE), exporting cedar, olive oil, and wine, while importing gold and other products from the Nile Valley.
Byblos is the Greek name of the Phoenician city Gebal (earlier Gubla).
Located on the Lebanese coast at present Jebeil, Byblos is believed to have been founded around 5000 BCE, and, according to fragments attributed to the semi-legendary pre-Trojan war Phoenician historian Sanchuniathon, was the first city ever built, and even today is believed by many to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world.
During the third millennium BCE, the first signs of a town can be observed, with the remains of well-built houses of uniform size.
The hinterland remains heavily forested; the Egyptians sponsor seafaring expeditions to Byblos to bring back "cedars of Lebanon.”
Commercial and religious connections, probably by sea, between Phoenicia and Egypt are in place by the time of the Fourth dynasty.
Canaanite civilization begins to develop.
Tyre and Sidon are important maritime and trade centers; Gubla (later known as Byblos and now as Jubayl) and Berytus (present-day Beirut) are trade and religious centers.
The site of Lagash (modern al-Hiba), located about one hundred and twenty miles (two hundred kilometers) northwest of Basra, Iraq, may have been first occupied about 3000.
The dynasty of Lagash, though omitted from the king list, is well attested through several important monuments and many archaeological finds.
Sumerian pictographs are evolving into phonograms during the period of about 2900 BCE to 2400 BCE.
Several centuries after the invention of cuneiform, the use of writing expands beyond debt/payment certificates and inventory lists to be applied for the first time, about 2600 BCE, to messages and mail delivery, history, legend, mathematics, astronomical records, and other pursuits.
Forms of the Genesis story and the tale of the Flood (the earliest parts of the Bible) are written in Mesopotamia around this time.
Conjointly with the spread of writing, the first formal schools are established, usually under the auspices of a city-state's primary temple.
Kingship is said to have resumed at Kish after a great flood occurred in Sumer.
The earliest Dynastic name on the list known from other legendary sources is Etana, whom it calls "the shepherd, who ascended to heaven and consolidated all the foreign countries".
He was estimated by Roux to have lived approximately 3000 BCE.
Among the eleven kings who followed, a number of Semitic Akkadian names are recorded, suggesting that these people made up a sizable proportion of the population of this northern city.
The chronology of this age is particularly uncertain due to difficulties in our understanding of the text, our understanding of the material culture of the Early Dynastic period and a general lack of radiocarbon dates for sites in Iraq.
In addition, the multitude of city-states made for a confusing situation, as each had its own history.
The Sumerian king list is one record of the political history of the period.
It starts with mythological figures with improbably long reigns, but later rulers have been authenticated with archaeological evidence.
However, one complication of the Sumerian king list is that although dynasties are listed in sequential order, some of them actually ruled at the same time over different areas.
This illustrates a weakness of the Sumerian king list, as contemporaries are often placed in successive dynasties, making reconstruction difficult.
The earliest monarch on the list whose historical existence has been independently attested through archaeological inscription is En-me-barage-si of Kish, who flourishes around 2550–2450 BCE, or perhaps later.
The first historical personality of Mesopotamia, Enmebaragesi is known from inscriptions about him on fragments of vases of his own time, as well as from later traditions.
He is the next-to-last ruler of the first dynasty of Kish.
He “despoiled the weapons of the land of Elam,” one inscription asserts, and is said to have built the temple of Enlil in Nippur.
His son, Agga, is the last king of the dynasty, owing to his defeat by Gilgamesh of Uruk, the fifth king of that city, according to the Sumerian epic Gilgamesh and Agga of Kish.
From this time, for a period Uruk seems to have had some kind of hegemony in Sumer.