People of all ethnic groups in ancient West Asia created splendid culture in long-term social practice, which had a very important impact on the development of world culture.

First, the text

One of the greatest cultural achievements in ancient West Asia was the invention of cuneiform.

As early as the Uruk culture period (3500 BC-3 BC100 BC), Sumerians created hieroglyphics.

This writing is based on the pictographic principle, with one symbol and one meaning.

Such as (head), (sun) and (water).

Later, in order to express more complex and abstract concepts, two or three pictographs were combined together to produce combined words, some of which were combined by meaning (knowing) and some by sound and meaning (pictophonetic words).

There are also some words that seem to refer to things, such as adding the word "mouth" on the basis of (head) and adding two or three paintings.

In addition, there are several (extended) word-making methods, such as the "Gunu" word-making method, that is, adding some combination strokes to a certain hieroglyph to create new words, such as generating on the basis, generating on the basis.

Sumerians used semi-dry clay tablets made of clay as writing materials, and mainly used reed sticks, bone sticks or wooden sticks cut into triangular tips as pens.

Dry naturally after writing, and some dry with fire.

Because the place where the pen is put is deep and wide, and the place where the pen is lifted is narrow and shaped like a wedge, it is called a wedge.

Cuneiform hieroglyphs may have been formed in 3000 BC.

There are many homonyms in Sumerian language, and the reflection of this linguistic phenomenon in the text is the existence of a large number of homonyms (or homonyms), which can be described as a major feature of cuneiform writing.

Another feature is polysemy, polysemy. For example, besides plow, the word "plow" also means "plow" and "tiller", which is obviously an extension of the former.

In order to eliminate the confusion caused by polysemy in the use of words, people invented the "finite symbol".

This symbol itself is silent, and its function is only to remind readers (not listeners) of the meaning of the words it defines.

If the qualifier gis is added in front of it, it means that the word is "plow" here; If you add lú in front of it, it means that the word is "cultivator" here.

Homophone loanwords also appeared very early, but there are not many such examples. A frequently cited example is Ti "Arrow".

The Sumerian word "arrow" is homophonic with "destiny", so "destiny" is also represented by the word "arrow". Not coining new words means "life" is homophonic.

Polysemy refers to the extension of related meanings from the starting point of words (forms), and homophone borrowing refers to the reduction of polysemy from the starting point of sounds to a word.

The latter is undoubtedly a great leap in the development of writing.

The early Sumerian script was ideographic, or as westerners say, ideographic.

By the Akkadian people who spoke Sem, Sumerian ideographs had undergone a qualitative change: except for some of them, all the words became syllabic symbols.

Akkadians also added new sound values to many syllable symbols.

Since then, cuneiform has the function of expressing language accurately or more accurately.

Cuneiform characters were later accepted by Akkadians, Babylonians and Assyrians, and some supplements were made to make it possible to record all complex languages.

Later, Elam, Hittites, Hulites, Maydani and urartu all had slightly different views on this kind of writing according to the needs of their respective languages? Right-handed, 9 shore? Tsukizuka? I'm sorry, but I'm sorry Cough stew? What happened to the money? What's wrong with it? What's wrong with it? Climb high and blow the flag? /FONT & gt；

Although the number of cuneiform symbols as syllables is less than 600, each symbol has at least one or two meanings, representing four or five syllables on average. The grammatical rules of sememe are complicated and it is very difficult to learn.

In 75 BC, cuneiform finally withdrew from the historical stage and was gradually forgotten.

/kloc-At the beginning of the 9th century, German scholar Grotthus Fen began to interpret cuneiform characters and achieved some results.

/kloc-In the middle of 0/9th century, cuneiform characters were finally interpreted and Assyrianism was born.

Assyrian studies is a subject that studies the language, writing, history and culture of the people who use cuneiform characters in the two river basins and their nearby areas.

The birth of Assyrianism opened the door to many mysteries in the history of West Asia.

Second, literature.

In West Asia, the literary works in the two river basins were formed earlier, which had a great influence on later generations.

The literature of ancient two river basins originated from the oral creation of working people.

As early as the Sumerian era, there were myths, legends, epics, fables and other works, which had a great influence on the literary and artistic development of the whole West Asia.

Due to the limitation of the times, few oral works of working people have been handed down, and a large number of them are religious epics and legends adapted by priests.

The most famous is Sumer's Epic of Gilgamesh, which is the earliest known epic in the world.

This epic first appeared in the Uruk period and began to spread orally among the people. After several generations of praise, tempering and processing, it finally became a complete epic in the Babylonian era.

The Epic of Gilgamesh consists of 12 epics, each with about 300 lines, which are written on 12 clay tablets respectively.

The epic mainly describes the deification of one of the forgotten people, King uruk (1/3 is a god, 1/3 is a man).

The epic tells the story that the forgotten people want the residents of uruk to build a wall.

The people can't stand the heavy labor, and pray for Anu God to control him.

Anu saw all this and created a savage Jean to compete with the forgotten.

The two heroes fought fiercely, regardless of the outcome, and finally made up, became close friends, and began to eliminate the scourge for the people of uruk, making great contributions.

They have been catching desert lions that kill people, and then go to Lebanon to kill the monster Humbaba and rescue the goddess Ilanda.

Elanda became angry and asked Anu God to send a minotaur to kill the forsaken.

Minotaur came to uruk, spewing flames to hurt people, but he was killed by Forgotten and Jean.

The actions of the heroes angered the gods, and they decided to end the life of their forgotten close friend Jean, who died after 12 days of illness.

In grief, the forgotten are determined to seek eternal life. After many hardships, I finally got the guidance of my ancestor Utnapiti (Sesutura), overcame many difficulties, and finally picked the fairy grass on the seabed.

Unfortunately, while taking a bath on his way home, the fairy grass he put on the shore was stolen by a snake. The Forgotten returned to uruk helplessly.

The forgotten one is brave in difficulties, dedicated to friendship and won the memory of future generations.

Although this epic has been tampered with by priests and permeated with many religious superstitions, it still retains the theme of the hero's selfless resistance to theocracy, which objectively reflects the perseverance and heroic fighting spirit of the ancient people in their struggle against nature.

The History of Poetry has a great influence on the literary creation of later generations.

The History of Poems of the Forgotten also mentions for the first time the legend of the flood that has a far-reaching influence on later generations.

The epic tells the story of Sezutura who was inspired by God in his dream, built a big ship ahead of time, led his family and various animals to board the ship and was saved in the flood. Since then, God has given him eternal life.

The story of flood water may be related to the history that Sumer area was often flooded at that time.

It is widely spread in all parts of West Asia and has a far-reaching influence on the myths of many ethnic groups in later generations.

Later, the Jews slightly changed the "flood story" and compiled the legend of Noah's Ark, which was recorded in the Genesis of the Old Testament and has been passed down to this day and is known to people of all nationalities in the world.

There are also some fables in Sumer's literary works, which take animals as the theme and aim at satirizing the bad qualities of the exploiting class. For example, the fable of dogs going to dinner to find bones satirizes greed, and the fable of cunning wolves killing sheep to get more trophies satirizes cunning.

These works are humorous and meaningful.

In the ancient literary works of the two river basins, there are also some excellent works reflecting the social contradictions at that time, such as poems describing the sufferings of honest people in Babylon, describing an upright man who is very pious and awe-inspiring to the king, and still endures suffering after doing as many things as God and the king like.

He shouted, "Why are evil things everywhere?" "My hardships are increasing day by day, but I can't get justice!" Finally, he had to doubt God's justice.

He said, "I called my God, but he ignored me. I prayed to my goddess, but she didn't even look up. "

This philosophical poem reveals the psychology of the victims at that time, shows a skeptical attitude towards God and religious beliefs, and clearly reflects the deepening social contradictions at that time.

Another prose work in the Babylonian period, Dialogue between Master and Slave, describes a brief dialogue between master and slave on the topic 12.

Real slaves agree with all the greedy desires of their masters. Every time the master said something to do, the slave agreed and gave reasons. Later, when the master said not to do something, the slave agreed and gave the reasons for not doing it.

These dialogues also vaguely reflected the sharp social contradictions that existed at that time.

In the seventh dialogue, the master said that there would be riots, and the slave agreed, saying, "How can you be a man without riots?" Who feeds your stomach? "The master said that he didn't want to riot, and the slave said that the riot had the pain of being killed and imprisoned.

This shows the irreconcilable contradiction between slaves and slave owners.

In the ninth dialogue, the master said he would sacrifice to God, and then he said he didn't want to do it. The slave agreed, and then he said, "When God wants something from you, you can let God run after you like a dog.

"This not only shows the mutual utilization between the slave owners and the gods, but also shows the slaves' blatant contempt for the gods.

In the dialogue 12, the master felt desperate and didn't know what to do, but the slave replied in a arrogant and sarcastic tone: "Finally, break your necks and throw them into the river. That's good.

"The master said angrily," No, slave, I will kill you and let you die first.

The slave asked, "If I die, can you live for three days?" This is the end of the work.

The author's description of slaves' turning from agreeing with their masters to resisting is profound.

Three. Astronomy and mathematics

In order to meet the needs of agricultural production, the ancient working people observed the astronomical phenomena very early.

Calendar is compiled on the basis of observing astronomy.

As early as the Sumerian Akkad era, people in the two river basins compiled the lunar calendar on the basis of observing the laws of the moon.

They regard the appearance of two new moons as a month, so each month includes 29 or 30 days.

They take 12 months as 1 year (6 months and 29 days, 6 months and 30 days), including 354 days per year.

In this way, each year is shorter than the solar year 1 1 day (5: 48: 46 on 365), and a leap month must be adjusted.

At first, leap was based on experience, one in some years, two in some years, and three leap months in the third dynasty of Ur.

During the Babylonian period, people were able to distinguish the stars among the five planets, and also observed the apparent motion orbit of the sun on the ecliptic, the star background.

Later, the Babylonians distinguished the twelve constellations on the zodiac and drew a picture of the zodiac.

During the Assyrian Empire and New Babylon, people took seven days as a week and named the seven days from Sunday to Saturday with the names of the gods of sun, moon, fire, water, wood, gold and earth.

The method of setting leap is also improving. By the end of the 6th century BC, Babylonians had three leaps in eight years and ten leap in twenty-seven years.

However, there are many superstitious elements in astronomical knowledge in the two river basins, which is closely related to the limitations of scientific level at that time and the gradual monopoly of astronomical knowledge by priests.

The development of astronomy must be based on mathematics.

Building water conservancy, measuring land, measuring volume, building cities and making utensils also require mathematical knowledge.

Therefore, ancient Babylon made great progress in mathematics.

The Babylonians used the decimal system and sexagesimal's double notation.

They use hexadecimal method to calculate time and circumference, such as dividing the circumference into 360 degrees. This method is still used all over the world.

They also began to implement the digital principle. The same number occupies different positions in the connection of numbers, and its value is also different.

The position value principle enables them to write huge numbers with fewer numbers, which is an important contribution in mathematics.

Babylonian mathematicians not only mastered the calculus of four arithmetic sums and fractions, but also were the founders of algebra. They can find square roots and cubic roots, and they can solve three unknown equations.

Babylonian stone tablets have developed multiplication tables, square tables and cubic tables.

In geometry, they have been able to apply the quotient height theorem (hook 2+ rope 2 = chord 2).

In order to calculate the irregular site area, they divided it into many blocks such as rectangle, triangle and trapezoid, calculated them separately, and then got the sum.

Babylonians also calculated pi as 3 (Egyptian mathematicians calculated pi as 3. 16), which solved the problems of measuring the volume of truncated pyramids in solid geometry.

Four. Architecture and sculpture

In the middle of 400 BC, buildings of cities and temples appeared in Sumer area.

Pagoda Temple is the basic form of Sumerian architecture, and all the city-states in Sumerian regard it as the center of urban architecture.

Baota Temple is a shrine built of adobe and placed on the terrace of hierarchy.

By the time of the third dynasty of Ur, the temple of Urta, which represented the achievements of architectural technology at that time, was completed in the 22nd century BC, and the site still exists on the ground.

Urda Baota Temple consists of four upper pagodas, with a base of 62.5 meters and a width of 43 meters.

The surface of each floor is made of sintered bricks, the inner layer is made of adobe made of blue bricks, and the tower doors at all levels are built into arched roofs.

This architectural technology will become a common feature of buildings in the two river basins in the future, and will be widely used in temples and palaces.

The front of the Urda Tower provides a magnificent staircase leading directly to the temple on the top floor.

There are different brick colors on the surface of the four-level earth tower. The bottom layer is black, representing the underworld, the second layer is red, representing the world, the third layer is cyan, representing heaven, and the top layer is white, representing the sun.

Strange flowers and grasses are planted on all floors.

In addition to the pagoda temple, there are buildings such as Wang Guan and Mausoleum, and the palace is also built on a high pedestal.

In terms of sculpture art, the sculpture works of Sumerian Akkad period formed a unique simple style.

For example, the famous vulture monument (pictured above) is the monument of King lagache's victory over Ma Wencheng. This monument shows the infantry led by King lagache in the form of relief, depicts the neat queue and high morale of lagache soldiers, and is also full of vitality in primitive simplicity.

Another sculpture masterpiece is "Nalamusin Victory Column", which was made to commemorate Akkadian King Nalamusin's victory over the mountain tribes.

The whole relief is centered on the king, showing the winner's majestic posture with upward steps.

However, on the whole, the sculpture art in Sumerian Akkad period is monotonous and rigid in expressing characters, and most of the sculptures handed down are rough and rigid.

The relief on the head of the code of hammurabi in the kingdom of Babylon shows that Hammurabi stood devoutly in front of Chamach, the sitting sun god, and accepted the throne (see above).

Skillful carving techniques, strong and concise lines, and finely carved inscriptions have become the most important artistic relics in Babylon.

The Assyrian Palace belonging to Cole Szabad in the 8th century BC was built by Sargon II.

This is one of the Assyrian palaces that have been completely excavated. The palace is built on a high brick platform in the city center, like a fortress, with a height of 14m and an area of about 130 m3.

All palace buildings have 265,438+00 halls and 30 courtyards, mainly made of bricks.

The gate of the palace is resplendent and magnificent, and there is a copper-plated arch between the two white towers.

The top of the arch is decorated with glazed tiles and murals, and there are a pair of stone carvings on both sides of the door: the sphinx, the vulture wing and the big statue of the cow foot monster.

This is the patron saint of the royal palace, about 3.4 meters high, beautifully carved, with solemn expression and bright eyes, and it is a treasure of carving art in West Asia.

In addition to the above decoration, most palace buildings have no external decoration.

The main artistic decoration is the inner hall of the palace.

It is decorated with colorful reliefs, murals and colored glazed tiles, especially the famous Assyrian reliefs. This kind of relief is carved on huge stone slabs and embedded in the walls of quadrangles, which is mostly manifested in the themes of king's expedition, hunting and daily life of the court.

These reliefs depict people in a blunt way, but the animals are very vivid.

In the new Babylonian era, architectural art developed to the highest level.

Represented by the city of Babylon, temples and palaces, it marks the outstanding achievements of architecture in this period.

The city and palaces of Babylon were built more magnificently.

The most famous building in this period is the "Hanging Garden" in the palace.

Berussus, a Babylonian historian at the beginning of the 3rd century BC, said: "He (referring to Nebuchadnezzar) built a towering stone platform in the palace, where he carefully recreated the mountain scenery, planted all kinds of trees on the terrace to make it look perfect, and built a so-called hanging garden, because his wife grew up in rice and had deep feelings for the mountain scenery environment.

"Because of the lack of stones in the two river basins, the buildings are all built of bricks and earth, not as durable as the pyramids and temples in Egypt.

Only with the help of modern archaeological excavations can people have a more specific understanding of the architecture of the ancient two river basins.

In addition, the relief art in the new Babylonian period is the most striking, which is inlaid with patterns of colored glazed tiles.

For example, there are 575 glazed tiles inlaid with white bison and golden plesiosaur on the gate and tower wall of Hista in Babylon.

The cow is the image of God Atta in Babylonian religion: the image of the snake-headed dragon is completely different from that of the dragon. It is a snake-headed animal, with lion's feet on its forelimbs and eagle's claws on its hind limbs. It is the symbol of Marduk, the main god of Babylon.

The whole relief picture is mainly yellow and white, which fully shows the majestic atmosphere of the palace.

100 years later, Herobadus praised Babylon when he visited it: "It is more magnificent than any city in the world.

"In addition, the walls on both sides of the Avenue in Babylon are also decorated with lion patterns in stained glass, which is also quite spectacular.

The invention of glazed tiles can be traced back to the Babylonian period in Cuba and reached its peak in New Babylon. It is widely used to decorate the walls and facades of palaces, shrines and tombs, and has the characteristics of gorgeous image and majesty.

Deeply loved by people.

Glazed tile technology continued to spread in Persia and * * * period, and then it was introduced to China from Central Asia, which was more innovative when combined with traditional crafts in China.

For example, the "Nine Dragons Wall" with China's traditional cultural style is a masterpiece after glazed tiles were introduced into China.

The architecture of the Persian Empire has made new development on the basis of absorbing the consequences of the two river basins and Egypt.

Buildings are usually built on high stone platforms.

Ju Lushi's tomb is a stone house built on a six-story stone platform.

The Persian Palace (pictured above) is also built on a tall stone platform.

The pedestal and walls of the palace are often decorated with stone reliefs, and some are decorated with patterns inlaid with glass bricks.

There are often many tall stone pillars in the halls of Persian palaces.

From the ruins of these palaces, we can also see the grandeur of architecture and the wisdom of working people at that time.

Like other ancient civilizations in the world, the culture of ancient West Asia has had many influences on later generations.

The people of West Asia with a long history and cultural tradition will certainly make new and greater contributions in the contemporary world.