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/lit/ - Literature

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5329645 No.5329645[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

Why start with the Greeks? Why not the Mesopotamians?

>> No.5329652

>>5329645
Okay lets
>reads Epic of Gilgamesh
>um.....

>> No.5329666

>>5329645

You should actually start with cave paintings.


Really though because you're a westerner and the West starts with the Greeks. The East starts with the Persians and relied on the Greeks to a certain extent too. And then you have the Indians by themselves and the Chinese. You should read in your own tradition first and primarily and then go on to other ones if you wish. If you read the Greeks well it is better than reading all of the ancient world as it would probably be superficial. Plus the Greeks are some of the most readable ancients. Stop being a liberal.

>> No.5329669

>>5329652
Enuma Elish.

>> No.5329679

>>5329645
>not starting with God

>> No.5329702

here's some reasons why you must start with the mesopotamians (sumerians onward)

1) you cannot understand egypt fully without it
2) there are literally passages from the bible that are taken from sumerian/akkadian/babylonian literature
3) it is impossible to understand the historical context of the Bible without understanding the region
4) Gilgamesh is an amazing story
5) it's the best example of man coming into civilization. if you have any political pretensions, you must know as much as possible about the earliest civilizations.
6) you can talk with ancient alien believers in an educated way

>> No.5329703

>>5329666
>The East starts with the Persians

you are so wrong

>> No.5329712
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5329712

>starting with greeks
>not starting with strength

>> No.5329744
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5329744

>>5329702
What are some important Mesopotamic texts one should read?

>> No.5329777

>>5329645
Because there really isn't much left of the various Mesopotamian civilizations' literature compared to the Greeks

>> No.5329778

>>5329666
>the Indians by themselves

The Indians actually adopted a great deal from the Greeks following the conquests of Alexander, and there are arguments that the pre-Socratics were influenced by the Upanishads.

>> No.5329784

>>5329702
1) I don't think this is true
2) This I knew. Now what?
3) I don't care about the bible
4) Very valid. Should be read
5) Also valid
6) Fuck them

Here's why you start with the Greeks

1) First Philosophers
2) Birth of science
3) Birth of modern medicine
4) First historians
5) Homer
6) You just might be a westerner (If biblical references mean anything to you, than early Greek cultural references would be just as important)
7) First comedies (?)
8) <-Smiley face

Tear it apart.

>> No.5329790

>>5329645
because the mesopotamians were idiots

>> No.5329791

>>5329777
that's what we thought about a century ago, but now there are tons of inscriptions and that number is quickly increasing

>> No.5329795

hey faggots. dont be plebs. start by reading the first thing ever written, and just go chronologically from there

>> No.5329833

The Greeks are the earliest people who left a rich, detailed and varied account of their philosophical development. It's basically the first glimpse of humanity trying to come to terms with itself. That's why you start with the Greeks.

>> No.5329841

the greeks are the first european civilization that recorded their history. ergo, you begin to learn european civilization by starting with the greeks.

>> No.5329878

>>5329833
A similar development was occurring at the same time in India, the difference is that for the Greeks it took only a few centuries, which might be because Greek philosophical texts did not have religious significance like the Vedas did.

>>5329841
Ancient Greece was just as much a Near Eastern civilization as a 'European' one. Rome is a better candidate for the first European civilization, although you can argue that it was the Carolingians.

>> No.5329915

>>5329878
Ancient Western society was a Mediterranean society. "The West" become "Europe" during the middle ages. If only we could take the near east and maghreb back from from Islam ;_;

>> No.5330445

>>5329645
herodotus didn't even know about the sumerians, but in some sense their legacy survives his own, since part of the flood myth is still a part of the bible today

>> No.5330453

>>5330445
>since part of the flood myth is still a part of the bible today
Protip -- _every_ human culture has a flood myth.

>> No.5330455

>>5330453
yeah but

there're specific reasons why THE one in the old testament is taken from the Akkadian version of Gilgamesh

>> No.5330461

>>5330453
i don't know why that faggot joseph campbell focused on the hero when the flood was universal

>> No.5330464

>>5330461
his fatal mistake was

he didn't start with the sumerians

>> No.5330481
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5330481

>>5330464

>> No.5330489

>>5329666
>And then you have the Indians by themselves and the Chinese.
Oh boy...

>> No.5330510

>>5330489
the indians are by the themselves for a while. so are the chinese. especially the chinese. the indians had interactions with mesopotamia and the persians, but that was later.

>> No.5330531

>>5330510
>''the Indiands''
>''the Chinese''
>modern countries the size of Europe
>just one people living there, guys, they didn't interact or anything, they were all just Chinese and Indian.

>> No.5330535

Because there's a larger, fuller body of Greek works that makes it a better anchor point in history. It's easier to start there and work backwards than to try to find the earliest chronological point in human history (hint: there isn't one) as a point of departure.

>> No.5330540

>>5330531
we're talking about civilizations. cities, states, kingships, etc. those have pretty distinct lineages. most of humanity lived outside of that, but they're completely unaccounted for more or less until they interact with the cities, the makers of history.

>> No.5330545

>>5330540
there were plenty of record producing rural people in history you conceited fuck

>> No.5330549

>>5330545
not in very ancient times

don't get mad. you two-timing whore.

>> No.5330551

>>5330531

>all just Indians

You may want to double check that, akin to saying only Europeans lived in Europe.

>> No.5330552
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5330552

>>5330540
>China and India only had 1 city or civilization

5th century BC Mingh era dynasties in China.

>> No.5330557

>>5330551
I was being sarcastic to the poster I replied to.

>> No.5330561

>>5330552
never said that, friend

i just don't think it sounds ignorant to use a shorthand and say "indians" and "chinese" as long as you know what it means

>> No.5330566

>>5330557

My apologies, just woke up

>> No.5330568

>>5330566
how was your sleep?

>> No.5330572

>>5330568

Deep and surprisingly uninterrupted, thanks for asking Anon

>> No.5330676

Start with the Egyptians. The only reason we don't is racism covered with bad excuses "b-but the greeks record-"

Fuck off, shitlord.

>> No.5330680

>>5330676
What should I read first from them? Need a reading list to search with

>> No.5330702

Gilgamesh is so overated and boring, ok it was the first piece of literature but it's basicaly One Thousand and One Nights but more mythological. It does not have the fully developed themes of epic literature.

Give me Homer and the Bhagavad Gita any day, rather than that.

>> No.5330708

>>5329645
because their literary legacy is much much thiner/lighter. Clay tablets just broke and fell into oblivion.

>> No.5330710

>>5330676

Egyptian thought is too opressive,mystical and syncretic for my tastes. They were a people obsessed with religion and the afterlife. The Egyptians contantly tried to put the world of the Gods in order and symmetry, where as the Greeks wanted to explain how the existing natural world works and what do we do with the human predicament independently of religion.

>> No.5330768

how far do I need to go back to read The Romance of the Three Kingdoms?

>> No.5330769

Question.

Were the egyptians related to the mesopotamians and sumerians? How much did they exchange ideas and technology? Both civs spawned at the same time right?

>> No.5330771

>>5330768

Nothing at all. Maybe read a history book about the late Han dynasty, thats about it. The book is really easy to read.

>> No.5330793

>>5330680
Start by looking at hieroglyphs and religious carvings.

Seriously, hieroglyphs are the beginning of the Western pictural tradition as far as we know.

>> No.5330837

>>5330769
the whole region is connected. there is a clear battle of powering between Egypt and Babylon around the time of Ezekiel. essentially, they struggle over that middle region between them. that struggle is part of the reason Israel and its surrounding kingdoms were sacked so many times. the whole region is tightly interconnected.

>> No.5330842

>>5329702
>if you have any political pretensions, you must know as much as possible about the earliest civilizations.
Not really, no.

>> No.5330847

>>5330842
the less you know, my friend

>> No.5330860

>>5330842
Uh yeah
The problem with most political people (such as yourself) is that they dont know jack about early civs history. Or even history in general

>> No.5330868

>>5330837
But they were ethnically and linguistically different right? Its not like the akkadians, assyrians and babylonians who are related peoples.

Did they identify their gods with the mesopotamian counterparts?

Any good books on egypt? From the earliest dynasty until they become a part of rome?

>> No.5330870

>>5329645
We read greeks because they were the starting points of western civilization and western though and ideals are currently the dominating force on this planet in entirety.

It was also one of the earliest civilisation that recorded their thoughts and that is still left somewhat intact.

>> No.5331433

>Not starting with the Xelernauts

Check your privilege Earth scum

>> No.5331523

>>5329645
>Not starting with the Hittites

>> No.5331536

>not starting with the Xenu holocaust

>> No.5331553

>>5331536
Never again

>> No.5331567

>>5330769
>>5330837
>>5330868

It depends on the historical era.
For geographical reasons Egypt was almost isolated for a very long time. They rarely went very far from the Nile. The Old Kingdom was made along the river.

The indo-europeans invasions (including foremost the Hittites) are the first time Egypt was confronted to a powerful outside force. But after that, Egypt returned to its semi-isolation.

The Egyptians that are mentionned in the Bible past Exodus and by the Greeks were living in a degenerate (in the proper sense) society. The so called New Kingdom had fallen centuries before contact with the Greeks.

>> No.5331585

>>5330702
This.
Ancient Middle East is largely overrated. One of the cause is that the Bible mentions these people and so, for a long time, they were considered a priority. Another was that for a long time they were considered the first semi-civilized people hence muh origin, muh craddle of civilization.

Of course it's been a few decades that we have found traces of writing, complex buildings and other things in Middle Europe, also the Indus Valey civilization has been discovered only a century ago.

>> No.5331596

>>5331585
>Retard not proof reading his posts repoting

Of course in the last sentence I implied that these people have been proven to be much older than Egyptians/Sumerians.

>> No.5331613

Should high schoolers be made to start with the Greeks?

>> No.5331670

>>5331613

Elementary school, just like in Ancient Greece.

>> No.5331851

You can start with the Mesopotamians pretty easily. They're in Bloom's canon. You can read the best stuff they have in like an hour, maybe a week if you actually want to go through a collection of extant poetry/writing. I can recommend the Instructions of Shuruppak on top of the usual stuff.

>>5330769
>Were the egyptians related to the mesopotamians and sumerians?
Egyptians are ethnically and (mostly) linguistically distinct from Mesopotamians. The Hamitic languages (from the Biblical Ham), or Afroasiatic or whatever they're calling them now, include the Semitic languages later dominant in Mesopotamia and Egyptian, but they're pretty distinct.

>How much did they exchange ideas and technology?
It's hard to answer this exactly. It might be better to answer your last question first - aside from some fringe theories, Egypt urbanised, gained literacy and irrigation, and became the traditional Egyptian monarchy everyone knows around 3100 BC, almost overnight, while Mesopotamia had gradually urbanised, gained literacy and irrigation gradually between 4500-3500 (definitely by 3500), to the point that the Sumerians were extremely prolific traders throughout the nearest, and had colonies in Egypt at the time. Currently it's a bit controversial whether Egyptian literacy was inspired by the already fully-formed Sumerian cuneiform syllabary, but it seems very possible. The Sumerians had trade colonies in the Delta before Egypt had united, and after it became a surprisingly energetic and consolidated monarchy, again almost overnight. Wouldn't be surprising if the Sumerian presence gave them lots of ideas, but that's conjecture.

Later, they became much more interrelated, because the contacts never really ceased except for short (read: possibly hundreds of years) periods of instability like Intermediate Periods in Egypt. It was really hard to cross the Sinai and Syrian deserts, so you needed government cooperation and organisation to do it regularly and efficiently, but trade was totally vital to the Bronze Age monarchies and they kept in touch for thousands of years. Eventually to the point that Egypt became a favourite conquest of just about every neighbour it had.

>>5330868
Semitic peoples probably didn't see themselves as all that related, honestly. Sumerian were indigines with a language isolate, and while the others were ethno-linguistically related it was probably more a case of kings seeing their territory as their patrimony and local peoples having very close-knit identities. Egypt definitely saw themselves as distinct, and everyone not on the Nile as an unfortuntae barbarian.

re: religious melding, syncretism is rare at this point. I don't know of any example of it, other than shit like Akhenaten which isn't what you're asking.

If you're interested in Egypt and a total newbie I'd check out Bob Brier's TTC lectures, it's a bit more on the pop documentary side of things but he's a bro and he goes through chronologically from Narmer to Rome.

>> No.5332036

>>5329795
so the bibble

>> No.5332316

>>5329841
Actually it was the Minoans.

>> No.5332341

>>5332316
we can't understand their language so we can't say

even the mycenaeans have no literary/historical remains afaik, just typical bronze age "HRXBLRX FOURTEEN COWS. SEND FIVE COWS. GET BRONZE RING." tablets

>> No.5332395

>yfw you realize 1000 years from now people will be memeing "start with the americans" and all anyone will find is sonic the hedgehog fanfics where tails has 9 dicks instead of tails and she's also a girl and she fucks sonic with her dicktail.

>> No.5332417
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5332417

>>5332395
>tfw that one only won second prize in the deviantart 2014 sonic'n'dicktails contest
>tfw we'll never read first prize unless someone discovers it in an offline siterip of the wayback machine on a disused egyptian harddrive

>> No.5332422

>>5332395
>western civilization will be laughed at and mocked for obsessive consumerism, focus on sexuality, race and gender

>"ha, something called money used to exist? You had to buy stuff? wow" - future kid

>> No.5332443

>>5332422
When our alien overlords show themselves wars will have ended and we will live in harmony.

You really think beings with the means to cross Galaxies are going to use money?

>> No.5332460

>>5332443
I'd sooner not even have someone like you talk to me, let alone have to reply to them. Sickening.

>> No.5332533

>>5332460
Are you in the 1%? or from >>>/pol/

>> No.5332545

>>5331851

Thanks for the reply. Im not a -total- newbie but egyptian history is fucking looooong. Looking for a good thick book to get familiar with. Same with Mesopotamia.

I didnt know egyptian was related to semitic languages (distantly). People forget that the egyptian language is still alive... albeit almost dead. Christian arab egyptians use it in their coptic liturgy.

I know egyptians werent black/subsaharan (minus the nubian reign period) nor what we consider'european white', but were they 'caucasian'? Perhaps related to the native berbers?

>> No.5332549

>>5332443
rofl

when aliens come they are going to wipe us the fuck out

and its for our benefit

>> No.5332718

>>5332549

>implying the doctor wont save us

>> No.5332771

Why not the Minoans?

>> No.5332995

>>5332533
I'm not from /pol/ so it must be the 1%.