Missing: IM5572 Large sand-colored stone statue of a male priest (15.2 x 38 cm), with an inscription on the right shoulder mentioning the goddess Nin-shu-pur, reputedly found in the vicinity of Adab (Bismaiya), datable to the 3rd Early Dynastic Period (c. 2500 B.C.)

Missing: IM5 Headless statue of Entemena, ensi of Lagash in black diorite. The back and shoulder are inscribed in cuneiform characters, recording his name. It was found at Ur and dates back to the middle of the 3rd millennium B.C. (c. 2430 B.C.)

Read:

• Duiker/Spielvogel, pp. 12-25.
• Diamond, pp. 53-92.
• Christian, pp. 207-282.

Written Assignment 3: Due on email by Sunday, 6 pm, January 22.  Evaluate Diamond's argument on the importance, or not, of a "head start" in developing agriculture and then civilization.

Primary Source Questions for Week 3.

While taking account of the various myths and religious stories as important historical sources, historians today tend to develop accounts of "beginnings" using evidence that was not available to the authors of these stories you've read above.  A very interesting discussion of these myths, written by Robert L. Carneiro of the American Museum of Natural History, can be read at "Origin Myths."

The National Geographic Society has applied what these scientists have discovered to create a fascinating interactive map illustrating the climatic changes over that long period of time - with the expanding and shrinking of the ice sheets, and the uncovering of land and its recovering by water over the same period of time.  Click on National Geographic Society, then once on their home page, click on "The Genographic Project", then on "Atlas of the Human Journey",  and then click on the various time periods across the top of the map to see the ice sheets grow and shrink.  You can also click on the dots for additional information about what scientists today believe was happening at various locations at various times. This interactive map can help one visualize some of the arguments Christian and Diamond are making about early human history.

Other interesting websites on this week's topics:

• The British Museum - click on "compass", then "mesopotamia" and/or "Iraq"
• The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania
  
• The Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago - click on the various exhibitions relating to Mesopotamia and/or Babylon and/or Egypt.
• The Oriental Institute hosts a web site devoted to recovering Iraq's lost heritage as a result of the war.
  
• The Louvre in Paris - click on search, then Mesopotamia or any other ancient Middle Eastern topic. You will notice that the home page of the Louvre focuses on ancient Iraq these days!
• There is a project underway to restore the once great Baghdad Museum - that is, great before the looting that occurred in the first days of American occupation of the city.
• If you have high speed connection, this link contains radio broadcasts on the looting of ancient Mesopotamian artifacts and archaeological sites on NPR over the past couple of years.
• "The Threat to World Heritage in Iraq"
• "Stolen Stones: The Modern Sack of Nineveh"
• "The Iraq War and Archaeology" from the University of Vienna
• Full Text of the Code of Hammurabi
  

A couple of examples of very good responses for this week.