Nippur: Sacred City of Enil

A Virtual Visit to the Mesopotamian city of Nippur

http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/PROJ/NIP/Nippur.html

Questions for exploration:

Why can it be said that Nippur was different from other ancient cities of Mesopotamia? What ceremonies took place there? How does the city’s relationship with Christianity reflect its past? How did it achieve its special status? What other ancient cities did it resemble and what characteristics does it share with them?

Epic of Gilgamesh

This site examines the Epic of Gilgamesh as history and as literature.

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/MESO/GILG.HTM

Questions for exploration:

Viewed as literature, what are the themes, structure and worldview expressed in Epic of Gilgamesh? What relationship between God and humanity is revealed by the story of the great flood?

Indian and Chinese Medicine

This site illuminates early Indian and Chinese medical traditions.

http://www.getnet.com/~labores/china.html

Questions for exploration:

What aspects of Chinese medical tradition made its way to the Islamic world and hence on to Europe? What does the term Ayurveda mean? According to the Charaka Samhita, medicines fall into three types. What are they and how do they reflect a traditional worldview? Would you find such an approach to medicine useful today? What Chinese doctor gave one of the earliest diagnoses of smallpox?

The Babylonians

http://www.getnet.com/~labores/babylonia.html

This site examines medicine and surgery in ancient western Asia.

Question for exploration:

How does Hammurabi’s Code of Law indicate that medical and surgical practices were centuries old by the writing of the Code in approximately 1800 BCE?

Babylonian and Egyptian Mathematics

An exploration of the mathematical achievements of the Babylonians and Egyptians.

http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Babylonian_and_Egyptian.html

Questions for exploration:

Why can it be said that the Babylonians’ calculating skills were in some ways more advanced that our contemporary mathematical systems? How did they figure time? What was major disadvantage suffered by Babylonian mathematicians? In what significant way was Egyptian mathematics different from Greek mathematics?

Why were Egyptian and Roman numerical systems ill suited to mathematical calculations, such as multiplication?

The International Museum of the Horse

This site offers an exhibit on the legacy of the horse.

http://www.imh.org/imh/exh1.html

Questions for exploration:

Scroll down below the historical outline to find the text that will supply the answers to the following questions: How did Cro-Magnon man originally view the horse? When did the first four-wheeled wagon appear? What did King Tutankamen hunt from his chariot? What made the Scynthians so powerful and why should we be grateful for the forms for dress they adopted? How did horsemen change the history of China?

Daily Life in Ancient Egypt

A brief overview of daily life in Egypt

http://www2.sptimes.com/Egypt/EgyptCredit.4.2.html

Questions for exploration:

What were the roles of women, the view of marriage, and the place of cosmetics in the daily life of ancient Egyptians?

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

This exhibit offers an examination of what were considered to be the seven wonders of the ancient world as conceived by pre-modern Europeans.

http://ce.eng.usf.edu/pharos/wonders/

Questions for exploration:

What are the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World? What element did all these sites have in common? Which of them survives to this day? What other sites would be considered for this status?

Collapse: Why do Ancient Civilizations Fail?

This site offers an accessible comparative approach to the study of the decline of civilizations.

http://www.learner.org/exhibits/collapse/mesopotamia.html

Questions for exploration:

Why did Mesopotamian civilization decline? Can its decline be related to that of the Anasazi, or were the causes of decline entirely different? How can the decline of Mesopotamia be linked to a possible decline of agriculture in the United States?