La Mésopotamie - De Gilgamesh à Artaban

Mondes anciens

by Bertrand Lafont, Aline Tenu, Francis Joannes

Entre désert aride et riches vallées fluviales, se sont développés des civilisations brillantes et ouvertes. Au tout début du IIIe millénaire avant notre ère, les Sumériens y ont inventé l'écriture cunéiforme, l'agriculture céréalière irriguée, la civilisation urbaine autour de vastes palais ainsi que les premières formes de l'État. Par la suite, alors que les caravanes des marchands allant de l'Anatolie jusqu'à la vallée de l'Indus dessinent les routes commerciales et transportent métaux et produits précieux, les rois font mettre par écrit la législation, établir les règles de la comptabilité publique et de la diplomatie... Au tournant du Ier millénaire, la Mésopotamie est le centre de gravité de grands empires : assyrien, babylonien, puis perse achéménide. Leurs capitales ont laissé des vestiges impressionnants et l'activité de leurs scribes nous a transmis l'essentiel de leur tradition écrite, associant les Annales royales assyriennes, l'Épopée de Gilgamesh ou l'astrologie mésopotamienne…
Depuis la redécouverte, au milieu du XIXe siècle, des restes architecturaux de cette civilisation et le déchiffrement de milliers de textes cunéiformes, les historiens ont pu reconstituer l'essentiel des événements qui ont scandé 3
000 ans de l'histoire du Proche-Orient mésopotamien. Cet ouvrage a pour ambition de présenter, sur la longue durée, une vision des lieux et des acteurs de cette histoire, de mettre en évidence l'inventivité de leurs réalisations et l'importance de l'héritage matériel et culturel qu'ils nous ont laissé.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

704 pages, Paperback

First published September 18, 2017

Reviews

[Sense of History]

I've been delving into the history of the ancient Near East for some time now, an area that is sometimes referred to as the cradle of civilization. From a chronological point of view that is more or less correct: it was in Mesopotamia and Egypt that the first more complex states of humanity came into existence. But that doesn't mean at all that civilization was "invented" there and then spread to the rest of the world. And, of course, you can question whether state formation can be regarded as the only form or criterion of civilization.

Anyway, I have learned a lot from this almost exhaustive yet very didactic work (unfortunately only available in French). It is limited to Mesopotamia and the surrounding area, and largely follows a chronological line, starting with the Uruk culture (c. 4,000 BCE) and ending with the occupation of Mesopotamia by the Sassanides (c. 120 BCE). But some short contributions at the end of the book deal with interesting methodological and thematic issues. I would like to have seen more of the latter, to be honest. Another small point of criticism is that this book mainly focuses on the political-military evolution of the area, and much less attention is paid to socio-economic, cultural and ordinary daily life. But despite these shortcomings, this still is an impressive book, also because of its balanced and careful approach: it is constantly indicating how the scientific view of certain phenomena is shifting, and on which topics there still is debate. This is science the way I like it: transparent, almost complete, balanced and emphasizing the strengths and weaknesses of certain views, or the lack of sources.

To end, just a brief consideration of what struck me the most and was relatively new to me. If you plow through this thick book, you will notice how dynamic and changing the successive peoples and cultures in Mesopotamia were, and at the same time how they managed to keep a very high degree of continuity spread over thousands of years. Until now I thought that only the Egyptian Nile Valley was characterized by such manifest homogeneity over such a long period of time. But that is equally the case with Mesopotamia, despite the fact that the area was almost continuously taken over by new, often (semi)-nomadic peoples. This book emphasizes how gradual these processes of migration and acculturation were, and thus how other peoples apparently easily adapted to the existing culture while also adding their own accent to it. In that regard, it is a pity that this book has not yet incorporated the recent insights of the Ancient DNA revolution. I suspect that the results of this research will not be fully integrated until the next decade, and I should not be surprised that they will highlight the complex demographic and cultural dynamics of Mesopotamia even more than before. Seeing how the historical science keeps on evolving truly makes me happy. It’s a rare ray of light in these gloomy times.

[Marc Lamot · Rating 4 out of 5]

If ever a book deserved the qualification 'doorstopper', it is this one: more than 1,000 pages long, and almost 2 kilograms in weight. That's quite something, indeed, but then it covers more than 3,000 years of human history in the wide region of the land of Tigris and Euphrate, present-day Iraq, with excursions to Syria, Southeast Turkey, the Levant and Iran. A top team of French specialists in the history of this area contributed to this book, but this is not an academic work at all, on the contrary: the whole set-up is very didactic, with legible texts, and a lot of Maps, frame pieces and lavish illustrations. But because it is very exhaustive and at the same time very nuanced, it doesn't make for an easy read. Some chapters dive very deeply into the complex history of this area, with an abundance of details. Overall, I was very excited (as my high rating shows), but it took me over a month to get through it all. In short: exhaustive, balanced, and awesomely illustrated, this is just great. It's a pity it isn't translated (yet). As far as I know there isn't an equivalent English study that can match this one (except for the earliest - Sumerian -period this one: The Sumerian World). More on that in my History account on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....

[Said]

thank you. very good sit.