Ancient Orient

Sumerians. Akkadians. Babylonians. Assyrians. Hittites.

How well do you remember your Civ classes? The stuff in this building made me remember a lot of what I'd forgotten.

Most of the stuff in the Museum of the Ancient Orient were from ancient Mesopotamian civilizations. Turkey's not that far from there, you know...

Sumerians developed a writing system called "cuneiform". The letters were formed by sticking a wedge-shaped stick (like an exacto-knife) into clay at different angles. The museum had writs from King Nebuchadnezzer, genealogy of Assyrian kings, and a set of ancient laws called the Code of Hammurabi (shown above).

Here's the first known peace treaty, called the Kadesh Treaty. It spells out the terms between Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II and Hittite king Hattusilis III. There's an Egyptian version (more slanted toward Ramses) carved on the walls of a temple in Luxor, Egypt.

The treaty was about the size of an index card.

On the other end of the size spectrum, this is a Hittite wall mural.