Because this city has been in operation for nearly 4,000 years in history, it is natural that many ruins have been repeatedly used by multiple civilizations over time. So for Liang En and his team, once they learned that this place was Uruk, apart from a few members of the Golden Dawn who went to study the city walls, everyone else focused their attention on the various temples.
In ancient times, these temples were not just religious sites but also cultural centers and repositories of wealth. Therefore, the most important clay tablets inscribed with writing should be found in this place.
For the earliest inhabitants of these cities, they clarified the meanings hidden behind the early ambiguous sacrificial sites, clay statues, and the ground plans of temples or shrines.
For example, based on the conditions presented by these ruins, it can be seen that in the early days of Uruk, the entire city had already displayed a high level of skill in organizing dialogues with the supernatural.
Although so ancient, its sophisticated complexity is rarely matched elsewhere in the world. Temples had become the focal points of early cities, growing larger and more magnificent over time.
People held rituals in these temples to ensure harvests, and as time passed, the ceremonies became more complex, with larger and more grand temples being built as far north as Assyria, 300 miles from the Tigris River.
It is said that cedar wood for their construction was transported from Lebanon, and copper came from Anatolia. At that time, no other ancient society gave religion such an important status or invested so many collective resources to maintain it.
This indicates that, compared to Sumerian city-states like Uruk and Ur, other ancient societies only regarded gods and religion as one important part of life, rather than allowing people's emotions to be entirely dependent on divine will.
In ancient times, Lower Mesopotamia was a flat land of marshes, swamps, and rivers. There were no mountains where gods could reside like humans, only the vast heavens, the relentless sun, and the howling winds ravaging the unprotected land. Floods were an irresistible force, and droughts brought devastating wilting. Under the mighty power of nature, humans of the time had no ability to resist, so it is not surprising that the Sumerians were so devout in their belief in gods.
According to their legends, gods lived in such natural environments or on lonely "high grounds" in the plains, much like the brick towers and ziggurats recorded in the Biblical Tower of Babel.
The temples in Uruk were also built according to this design, and based on their previous excavation experience, there were often ash pits near these buildings specifically used to hide these clay tablets.
This might be because the Sumerians considered writing sacred, so these inscribed items had to be stored near equally sacred temples.
Of course, not all clay tablets were buried in this way. Some were simply abandoned on-site by invaders who found them useless.
Considering the weight of these clay tablets, invaders certainly wouldn't have carried these heavy items elsewhere, so they were also buried near the temples.
As they had previously speculated, it only took three days for them to find several ash pits from multiple temple sites and nearby areas.
From any perspective, items inscribed with writing were very important to ancient people, so even if they were no longer needed, they wouldn't be randomly discarded but would be buried together.
This indeed facilitated Liang En and his team's actions. Except for a few broken pieces mixed in with building debris, they were able to easily acquire a large number of these important clay tablets at once.
Moreover, unlike the previously completely shattered tablets, many of the ones in these ash pits were relatively intact.
From the intact clay tablets, most of the records can now be classified into encyclopedic categories, such as the "List of Hundred Crafts," which records over a hundred professions, and the "List of Vessels," which lists 116 types of pottery. There are even natural history books like the "List of Fish," the "List of Plants," and the "List of Birds." In a way, after mastering writing, the Sumerians recorded everything they knew.
In addition to these valuable records of various aspects of that era, the most important find in this search was a complete set of the "Epic of Gilgamesh" from the Babylonian era found in the Temple of Gilgamesh.
Unlike previously discovered epic tablets, these come from the 9th century BC and are considered the earliest and most complete epic known today.
Unlike the currently most complete "Epic of Gilgamesh," which is only two-thirds complete, the one Liang En's team found is at least 90% intact, allowing people to truly see the appearance of the epic from that time.
So, on the evening after dinner, Liang En was chosen to give a small speech about this newly discovered epic.
It must be said that their ability to translate so quickly was all thanks to Liang En's mastery of this language at a native level. What might take others months to translate, he could understand at a glance.
While many movies depict archaeologists smoothly reading ancient texts upon discovering them, this is merely an artistic creation.
In reality, studying ancient texts is very complex, and most archaeologists do not possess the skills to translate ancient languages.
In the past, after finding important documents, archaeologists would often mail them to ancient language experts for translation before proceeding with further research.
Although technological advancements have provided more means of communication, such as fax and the internet, which have sped up information transmission, translation still takes time.
Since these are ancient, dead languages, most professional scholars read them more like decoding than actual reading, so the process is naturally slow.
From this perspective, Liang En's translation speed is indeed astonishing. However, given his previous demonstrations of his linguistic talent in deciphering various dead languages, no one found it unusual.
Additionally, Liang En's proficiency in Chinese, English, French, and even Arabic at a native level brought great convenience to their work.
For most people, research using one's native language is much easier than using other languages, so Liang En's approach greatly enhanced the team's overall research efficiency.
During this period, Liang En also wrote some Arabic summaries for the items found at the request of the Iraqi authorities, for future museum use.
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