Word: mesopotamia
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Canaan and regions beyond, Matthiae insists that tablets from the 3rd millennium B.C. are far too old to have any important links with the much later texts of the Old Testament. Moreover, Ebla's language is problematic. "Eblaite" is a Semitic tongue written in cuneiform characters borrowed from Mesopotamia...
Rabies is one of mankind's oldest and most feared scourges. It was known in ancient Mesopotamia, where a fine of 40 shekels of silver was levied against the owner of any dog whose bite caused a freeman's death (the rate for slaves was 15 shekels). Even today, a century after Pasteur developed the first vaccine, rabies almost always kills its victims unless they are inoculated in the earliest stages of the disease. There were no reported human deaths from rabies in the U.S. last year, thanks to prompt vaccination. But the Federal Center for Disease Control...
They lived in southern Mesopotamia about 5,000 years ago and, according to George Michanowsky, a scholar of cuneiform writing, they called the planet Sag-Ush, regarding it as a male fertility symbol. The Babylonians, who eventually ruled over that part of Mesopotamia, watched the heavens from the tops of their ziggurats. To them Saturn was known as Kaiamanu (the steadfast one), possibly because, in contrast to nearer planets, it moved so slowly across the skies. Kaiamanu was generally associated with the death of cattle, and other calamities. Perhaps in hopes of better luck, one of the names the Egyptians...
Glassmaking is one of the oldest of crafts: it was an estimated 3,500 years ago that some unknown artisan in Mesopotamia pulled a chunk of quartz from a primitive furnace and found that it had become the fascinating molten glob that is glass. There has never been a single museum detailing and displaying this long history. The Corning Glass Works has remedied the situation by opening a stunning new museum in Corning, N.Y., devoted to just this purpose. The building is worthy of its mission. It is an innovative and handsome structure designed by Architect Gunnar Birkerts, sheathed...