Chapter 2 Documents: What understanding of the afterlife does the epic suggest?

From reading "The Epic of Gilgamesh" there is a part in the story where Enkidu tells Gilgamesh about the dream he had about the afterlife. In his dream, he stood before a scary creature. The creature then took him to the palace of Irkalla where the Queen of Darkness was. While there, he saw all the kings who ruled the earth. Each and every one of them became servants. From how Enkidu described his dream of the afterlife, I can tell that he and the people were afraid of death. The way he described death is similar to the way people describe hell. After, Enkidu goes on his quest for immortality. By Enkidu wanting immortality, that proves that he was afraid of the afterlife. He didnt want to be mortal because he knew that someday he'd have to die. I think that from this epic, it is understood that the afterlife is feared.

Chapter 2

Reading about all these ancient civilizations in chapter 2 made me think about how all these great civilizations like Rome, Greece, and Mesopotamia are no longer that great. Right? Growing up, in history class all you would hear about is "Rome this" or "Mesopotamia that." Its weird how these great civilizations basically shaped history by their acts. The Mesopotamians with their writing and the Egyptians with their pyramids. But nowadays, Egypt is having political problems and Mesopotamia isnt even here anymore. Its just weird to know that these formidable civilizations crumbled at some point and withered away. If you think about it, the United States wasnt even formed until years and years later. Maybe other civilizations copied the ways of these great countries and somehow took them over? Its a good thing that these civilizations fell because it allows us to learn from their mistakes. They say that history repeats itself. What if the United States follows in their footsteps and crumbles? Anyways, I also read that slavery wasn't really associated primarily with "blackness." I think thats weird. If those ancient societies didnt really use black people, where did we Americans get the idea that "black" people were to be slaves? Thats really weird.

Claudius vs. Xinchen

As I read about both Shao Xinchen and Emperor Claudius, one thing stood out like a sore thumb. I couldn't help but notice that Xinchen cared more about the welfare of this people than Claudius. Yes its true that both of them helped their people, but the difference is how they went about it. Claudius gave his people the Claudian aqueduct and the channel of the New Anio. Both of these were enormous and flowed into fancy fountains. He attempted to dry out Lake Fucine causing 30,000 men to work all the time. (Lewis&Reinhold pp 151-152) Claudius did all of these things for his people, but was it really necessary? Personally, I don't think that big aqueducts need to be poured out into fancy fountains. As a matter of fact, I dont even think that an aqueduct needs to be all that big. It just needs to do what it is meant to do which is to transport water. I think that Claudius was a very proud man. Thats why he did things the way he did them. I feel like he wanted people to look at the things he built and be in awe of him and his accomplishments. I think that he cared more about the legacy that he left than his people. Xinchen on the other hand was the opposite. First off, I'd like to note that Shao Xinchen wasnt even an emperor like Claudius. Xinchen was a grand administrator of Nanyang. Source 11 written by Cho-yun Hsu says that Xinchen would partake in manual labor for the benefits of his people. Xinchen has done all these things like digging and inspections by himself. He didnt do anything fancy and still got the job done. Props to him.

Agriculture and such

When I think about agriculture and how it was first formed, the first question that comes to my mind is, "how did they know which plants were okay to eat and which were not?" Now, Im talking about when it first started out. I wonder if they ever tried to eat some kind of random plant and ended up dying or getting really sick from it. It must have been really hard to start farming and domesticating animals in a brand new place. At the end of the ice age, there must've been tons of new plants that were covered by the ice. There must have been a lot of trial and error with choosing plants but they prevailed and got humans to where we are today. I am also intrigued to find out that the best place for agriculture back then was in Southwest Asia. I am shocked to hear that because nowadays, Southwest Asia is made up of countries like Iran, Iraq, and Turkey. This whole area is basically all desert with not much wetlands. But the book also states that around 10,000 to 5,000 years ago, there was no Sahara desert which leads us to believe that maybe the whole geographic region of the Middle East was flipped back then. Reading about the Catalhuyuk village was very interesting. I found it interesting to read about a village with no real leadership. All the people in that village lived with equality among each other and among their genders. Men had their role of hunting and women had their role of farming. Men had no dominance over females. However, this village did not survive which means that maybe the lack of leadership was the cause of their downfall. As history progresses, more towns and villages start to form including the Greek and Roman empires. Both of these nations basically controlled everything back then which makes me believe that the reason they did so well was because of their leadership and Chiefdoms.

Reading

Reading from the textbook provided a different perspective on the worlds history. I find it interesting and useful how the author of the book decided to create a calendar of the worlds history. It helps us to get a feel on a time system that we are used to. The part that really interested me was reading that the whole history of the United States of America would be the last second of the last day in December. I find this interesting because as I look back at the history of our country, so much has happened. To know that all that time amounts to only a second on the calendar amazes me. I cant even imagine how much has gone on from the beginning of the world till now. Humans have inhabited the earth for about 250,000 years now and its crazy to think how much the homo sapien has changed the world. From the stone age to the agricultural revolution to the modern industrial era, great advances in humankind were created in such a little span of time because we are able to make comparisons and connections with various things and people. The question that comes to my mind is, "what made these early creatures like the homo habilis and the homo erectus want to travel and expand?" I think this because why would anyone want to keep migrating to an unknown world? None of them knew what was out there. They didnt know what they would be facing, yet they still went. It makes sense on how their brains and body structure started to change as they moved to different places. They obviously changed because of the new experiences and challenged that they faced.

First Blog :)

Yay Im done