The Drumbeat Forever After

32: Early Sumerians in Ur, 2900-2600 BCE (Gilgamesh vs the Bull of Heaven)

Guest: James
First: To punish Gilgamesh, Inanna sends the massive Bull of Heaven to ravage Unug. But, as it destroys farmland and drinks the rivers dry, Gilgamesh sits idle, drinking beer and listening to music!
Then, we visit Ur during the Archaic period (2900-2600 BCE) and finally take a look at the first certainly Sumerian writing. Administrative texts record a complex economy centered on the temple of the moon god Nanna, school tablets give us a look at scribal education, and the first lists of deities give us a faint glimpse of early Sumerian religion (although most of the gods listed are obscure).
Also: was Ur part of a league of Sumerian cities? Scattered evidence from the first half of the 3rd millennium BCE points to a confederation of city-states in southern Sumer (Ur, Unug, Nippur, Larsa, etc), who may have allied with each other to counterbalance the power of Kish (a large kingdom in the northern alluvium and our destination next episode!).
Finally, Gilgamesh faces off against the Bull of Heaven! We discuss the logistics of animal sacrifice and what may be a Sumerian euphemism describing Gilgamesh slapping Inanna with a wet bull pizzle.
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33: The golden age of Kish, 2900-2600 BCE (Gilgamesh vs Aga of Kish)

Guests: Kelten, James
First, Gilgamesh ignores the branch of the government standing between him and a unilateral declaration of war on King Aga of Kish, the mightiest kingdom in the Mesopotamian alluvium at the time. Infrastructure is boring, kings are always right, and war is always glorious!
Then, we look at the city of Kish during the Archaic period (2900-2600 BCE), which was apparently the seat of a powerful kingdom controlling much more territory than any other Sumerian city-state at the time.
Then, we look at the oldest historical document from Mesopotamia, and our only historical document from this period of Kish's history. The "Prisoner plaque" totals 36,000 prisoners of war taken from at least 25 towns and villages during a series of military campaigns. Zababa is the god of manhood!
Then, a look at the institution of the kingship of Kish (which, as you may know, long outlasted the kingdom of Kish as such). After revisiting the Sumerian King List, we meet two of our best candidates for the first kings to appear in both the Sumerian legendary tradition and the historical record: Enmebaragesi and his son Aga (or Akka), both of whom appear in this episode's Gilgamesh story.
Speaking of which, because this is a Sumerian epic poem, it turns out that kings are always right and war is always glorious (for our heroes)! Gilgamesh captures his rival Aga, son of Enmebaragesi, and refers to a lost historical tradition of past interaction between Unug and Kish in deciding how to treat his prisoner.
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6: Çatalhöyük, the Domuztepe death pit, & Late Neolithic Anatolia, 7400-5500 BCE (Nergal & Ereshkigal)

(Re-recorded as of December 3, 2022)
Guest: Victoria
First: Having insulted Ereshkigal (queen of the Sumerian underworld) by offending her messenger's honor at a dinner party in heaven, Nergal (god of war, plague, and death) has to travel down to the underworld to apologize to her in person. Will he be able to restrain his overweening libido?
Then, we tour Çatalhöyük (in modern south-central Turkey), one of the biggest and densest communities in the world during the late 6,000s BCE. What can their patterns of burial tell us about their social organization? What did this dense concentration of people portend for public health? What do the few murals with photographic documentation imply about the history of volcanic eruptions in the region?
Then, the adoption and spread of the Neolithic lifestyle had a variety of effects on the human body, including a few useful adaptations, like lactase persistence. However, the combination of a grain-based diet, daily interaction with new species of livestock, and the growth of large, dense settlements also exposed people to countless new (or newly common) diseases: anemia, brucellosis, malaria, tooth decay, and more!
Then, we look at the evidence for warfare during the 8.2-kiloyear climatic event, which affected societies across the Near East during the late 7th millennium BCE.
Then, we visit a singular burial installation in southeastern Anatolia: a death pit containing the remains of about three dozen people and several dogs, not to mention the bones of the animals eaten for their funerary feast. What were they doing with all these bones?
Finally: even though their relationship seems unsalvageable by the end of the second act, Nergal & Ereshkigal find a way to patch up their issues by the middle of the third act!
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34: The Lower Diyala & the foundation of Mari, 2900-2600 BCE (Ningishzida’s journey to the nether world)

Guest: Annika
First, a classic sitcom setup: Ningishzida plans to sail a boat to hell with his friend (an ill-intentioned demon), but his sister Ama-shilama wants to tag along!
Then, we visit the construction site of Mari, a city built from scratch in the middle of nowhere around 2900 BCE, along with 150 km (90 mi) of canals to connect it to both the Euphrates and the Khabur river. You can do the math: the perfectly circular outer walls, with a diameter of 1.9 km, enclose an area of about 280 hectares! (The inner walls enclose about 130 ha.) Who built it? Who built Thebes of the seven gates? So many questions!
Then, we head west to the lower Diyala river, to see the temples in Tutub and the statuary in Eshnunna. What can famous art tell us about the chronology of the late early Early Dynastic period?
Also, skipping forward in time: you're never going to guess where this textile worker who died young under unclear circumstances got her pendant from.
Finally: the text is broken, but Ningishzida receives a blessing, possibly from Ereshkigal, the underworld goddess who fell in love with Nergal back in episode 6.
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35: Shuruppak & the first Sumerian literature, 2600-2500 BCE (Instructions of Shuruppak)

Guest: Lily
First: the world's oldest known wisdom literature, in the form of a series of proverbs delivered from the eponymous Shuruppak (king of Shuruppak) to his son Zi-ud-sura (alias Utnapishtim, the Noah figure from the Sumerian flood myth). Only insults and stupid speaking receive the attention of the Land!
Then we visit the city of Shuruppak, in central Sumer. After a quick look at its early administration during the Jemdet Nasr and "Archaic" periods, we introduce the Fara period (roughly 2600-2450 BCE), a phase in the development of cuneiform writing that more or less corresponds to the Early Dynastic IIIA period. Most importantly, we have literature now! 
Then, we look at Shuruppak's place in the world, including the copious evidence for intensive trade with the broader region. What was its relation to the "city league"? Was it part of the kingdom of Kish? Who destroyed Shuruppak, and why?
Then: more proverbs from Shuruppak of Shuruppak. You should not beat a farmer's son; he has constructed your embankments and ditches!
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36: Eridu at the dawn of time: interview with Karrar Sabah

I interviewed Karrar Sabah Al Ramahi, PhD student at Baghdad University, about his research on the city of Eridu! Furqan Salam helped with the translation.
We talk about its earliest settlement during the Ubaid period, its prominence as a temple town, the building projects of the kings of Ur, and the reason for its primacy in the Sumerian King List.
Thanks to Karrar & Furqan for the interview!
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37: The decline & fall of Kish, 2600-2300 BCE (Hymn to Shamash, Kesh temple hymn)

(Sorry I disappeared for three months! I burned myself out working on rewriting old episodes and had to focus on other stuff for a couple months. I'm back in the saddle now, with episodes written up to the end of the Sargonic / Old Akkadian period! Also, I switched my scripts from bullet-point outlines to full paragraphs written out, in hopes that it will take less time to edit audio. Let me know if you think it sounds too robotic.)
First, a hymn to the Semitic sun god Shamash, possibly the earliest known work of literature written in the Akkadian language, produced by the culture centered on the kingdom of Kish during the 2500s BCE. The TI.URU.DA is the SHU.AG of prince Ea, the god of rejoicing!
Then, we return to Kish now that we have more documentary evidence to make sense of its kingdom. During the Fara period (2600-2450 BCE, named after the site of Shuruppak), texts from the so-called "Kish tradition" appear to reflect Kish's hegemony over much of central Mesopotamia. We take a look at the List of Geographic Names, which may be a list of the settlements in this kingdom.
Then, we look at the geological differences between Kish (and the delta plain in the northern alluvium) and the Sumerian cities (situated in the floodplain in the southern alluvium), and the resulting differences in settlement hierarchy and political organization.
Then, we look at the city of Kish itself: its two major temple complexes (the Hursang-kalama of Ishtar and the E-kishib-ba of Zababa), its cemeteries (including the cart burials, with parallels at Ur and Susa), and its palace complex, which was sacked late in the Early Dynastic IIIB period.
Then, we examine our scanty evidence of Kish's political history during this period: two kings of Kish known from their own inscriptions, various Sumerian kings who called themselves Kings of Kish, the elusive queen Ku-Baba (alias Kug-Bau), and a few foreign kings who may have actually ruled Kish before Sargon.
Finally, we finish up with the Kesh temple hymn. Earlier versions of this text refer to a ritual performed in Kesh (with an E) by the king of Kish; later versions (produced after Kish's heyday) remove this explicit reference. Will anyone else bring forth something as great as Kesh (with an E)? 
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38: Abu Salabikh and the first Semitic-language literature, 2600-2500 BCE (Debate between two women, Lugalbanda & Ninsuna)

Guests: Lily, Annika
First: a literary debate between two women (much of its meaning hidden beneath several layers of abstraction). It tells us a lot about public expectations of Sumerian housewives, but one could argue that it tells us more about their private anxieties (as envisioned by their husbands): sex, property, and enslaved women.
Then, we visit Abu Salabikh, the first major city downriver from Kish, in the north-central alluvium. We're primarily here for its Fara tablets (from the 26th century BCE), which are primarily scribal rather than administrative, for what may turn out to be interesting reasons. 
After wondering why they moved the entire city shortly after 2900 BCE, we take a look at these tablets and their contents: gods, languages, advancements in the cuneiform writing system, and so on. Then, we look at the texts from Abu Salabikh that belong to the "Kish tradition" we talked about last time, many of which were apparently written in the local East Semitic language (which some scholars call Akkadian).
Then, a brief detour through various types of bird skeletons found at Abu Salabikh: ducks, geese, doves, crows, and a complete goshawk buried in a child's grave.
Then, we tackle the question of which city this might have been. Was it Gishgi (which I mentioned offhand in a different section)? Or Kesh (with an E)? Personally, I think it's most likely to have been Eresh, home of Nisaba, the patron goddess of scribes and writing. (Is that an interesting reason?)
Finally: a story I've been talking about forever and finally including here, because this tablet from Abu Salabikh marks the earliest known narrative about the kings of Unug, a tradition most famous for the later epic of Gilgamesh.
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39: Temples of Early Dynastic Nippur, 2900-2300 BCE (Enlil & Ninlil)

Guest: Stacy
First, a story about Enlil, the Sumerian god of kingship, and his future wife Ninlil; he sees her bathing in a canal in their hometown of Nippur, and the narrative isn't especially concerned how consensual the resulting sexual encounter is. 
Then, we visit Nippur, a temple center which one scholar called the "Mesopotamian Vatican", starting with a cylinder seal from a very early level of the later Inanna Temple complex. Then, we look at the first certain temple from that complex, including what may be a shrine to the mother/crafting goddess Nin-SAR.
Then, we visit level VIIB of the same temple, dating to around the same time as the Fara texts from Shuruppak and Abu Salabikh, and look at the various inscribed objects dedicated to Inanna (and Nin-SAR).
Then, we look at a few less-documented aspects of this period of Nippur's history: Enlil's E-kur temple complex (archaeologically invisible before the late 2200s), its municipal government (we know the names of a few ensis, but not much more), and a handful of burials (nothing fancy, compared to what's coming next episode).
Finally, we finish with a short incantation from around this time.
Questions? Feedback? Email us at drumbeatforeverafter@gmail.com.
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Works cited