Introdução à Antiguidade Oriental (Aula 1)

Hello everyone Welcome to our Ancient Near East course My name is Juliana Bastos Marques I am a professor of Ancient History At the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Unirio and let's go! Is "let's go" ok? Well, but why is it an Ancient Near East course?

In fact, what do I mean by Ancient Near East? In this course we will talk about Mesopotamia and Egypt What do I mean by Mesopotamia? The region where today is, mainly, Iraq But also the entire region of the Fertile Crescent and the Levant, which I will talk about later and explain.

. . But those are the regions where today we find, for example, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Egypt obviously, which in ancient times would often encompass a little more than the current territory of Egypt, reaching Sudan - we will talk about that as well.

There are some issues here: "Ancient Near East" is not an idea that is simply given, as with everything in History. What do I mean by Ancient Near East? We have a timespan issue here.

I am thinking. . .

Sumer begins in 3,500, 3200 BC, the Egyptians were also there at that time. . .

I will finish this course talking more or less about the period. . .

In Mesopotamia I will address everything until the Persians, up to the conquest of that entire region by Alexander the Great from which point this territory is discussed in Hellenistic studies in Classical antiquity, which is something else. I also go into Hellenistic Egypt, the period in which Egypt is dominated by the Greeks after Alexander's conquest. .

. and I will stop there. What happens in these places during the Middle Ages, what happens there during the Modern Age?

We don't go into that very much, do we? We study ancient Egypt, we study ancient Mesopotamia but we go back to studying the Middle East, the region where today we find the Middle East after the Contemporary period. This is a major problem regarding that region's visibility here in Brazil, in particular.

So I would like us to think a little about why we divide the Ancient times in this way, and why we stop where we do, in short, what is the logic behind all this. And another very important question that I am going pose here. .

. and I want everyone to think a little bit: What do I mean by "East"? When I say "East", when you picture where the "East" is, what do you think of?

What's on your mind? Egypt? The Middle East?

Arabs? China? Japan?

Is Japan in the "East"? Is India in the "East" to you? Let's think a little bit about these divisions.

I'm showing you a map here - what's in blue, dark blue, United States, Canada, Greenland up there, Europe and then on the other side Australia, New Zealand . . .

and then in light blue of course Latin America, including Brazil in the middle, and some gray spots. This map is based on a book by a guy named Samuel Huntington, who wrote this book in 1996, called "Clash of Civilizations"; He is a conservative thinker who, as the name of the book shows, is thinking about the division between West and East, a division that for many may seem obvious but when we wonder what exactly we mean by that. .

. Is Brazil in the West? Okay, I think everyone agrees that Brazil is in the West.

The United States are in the West? Yes. Is Europe in the West?

Yes. Well, but is the West geographic or what, because Australia is in the West, but if you look at Australia on the map, it's on the eastern side. So?

What makes Australia western? Is it because it was colonized by England and because it's full of Australians speaking English? And New Zealand too.

. . Because it's developed?

And Africa, painted gray? Is Africa in the West or East in your opinion? I think for many people here in Brazil we think Africa is in the West.

But this map shows that Samuel Huntington and other people - Americans, many people in the Northern Hemisphere, think of Africa as East, or don't even think of it and aren't able to answer that. In fact, I have met many Europeans and Americans who had a hard time understanding that Brazil was in the West, because the West for these people, many of these people, is the United States and Europe. Canada, close to the United States, right.

But Mexico, Latin America. . .

People were looking at us with bewilderment. . .

It's as if we were that gray on the map there, just like Africa. This idea, this division of West and East, what is Western and what is Eastern, I am trying to get here into a discussion about how arbitrary that division is. But it has a logic behind it.

Here, the first map I'm showing you Guys - I love maps, I will show a lot of maps in this course. . .

This first map here is the division of the Roman Empire between West and East. The Roman Empire was divided by Diocletian in 286 and this map I'm showing you is of the division of the Roman Empire under Theodosius I in 395 - it's written there beneath the map. The region in red would be the Western Roman Empire and the region in purple is the Eastern Roman Empire.

Well, this was an administrative division made by Diocletian, but it also had something to do with the cultural influences of the Roman Empire, which are reflected in the languages spoken. The region in red was more Latin-speaking and the region in purple was more Greek-speaking. The second map is what we will call the Great Schism of the East, the Orthodox Church of the East's first separation, splitting from the church which would become the Catholic Church in 1054.

I will not go into details here , but you can see from that map, by the way, it’s funny that we call it the “Great Schism of the East”, meaning that it was the East that separated from the West. If you go to the East and ask them, they may well say that "the it was the West that separated from us, the East". So.

. . If I say simply "Great Schism" it will be better (but many people will not understand anything if I say what "Great Schism" is.

. . ).

Anyway. . .

Well, on this map we can see that part in orange would be the part that became Catholic and the part in blue would be the part that became Orthodox. This was in 1054, evidently the two parts there in the middle of Hungary that are still all in orange, and some blue dots on the map, and this part all in gray that's nearby, that will become orthodox later. It's gray now on the map because they were regions dominated by Muslims.

Well, see that line, more or less? Now let's move on to the next map, which is the Cold War. We jumped here to the 20th century.

In the 20th century, these blue regions are the areas of NATO, which is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which were the allies of the United States, and the part in red is the Warsaw Pact, which would be the communist countries. I wanted to show you these three maps, because this line is more or less the same there in Europe, between what was conventionally called West and East. Just note that: I'm talking about Europe.

What about the rest of the world? Where is it? If I extend that line down I will divide Africa, so what?

Is Africa half. . .

somewhat West and a little East just because of that line? It doesn't make much sense . .

. Besides that the world is round . .

. The world is round, ok? The world is round, so a round world doesn't really have East and West, only if you imagine a point in the middle where you are making this division.

That's why I'm comparing different maps here. So, why does Ancient Near East, the discipline that i will be teaching you here in these videos, cover Mesopotamia and Egypt but none of those other places that we call the East? Why does the Ancient Near East convention, and it's not just my discipline at Unirio, several others, will deal with Mesopotamia and Egypt?

Why? Well, this has to do with 18th century Europeans, especially. .

. This first image I'm showing you here - the name of this painting is "Two Odalisques Playing Music in the Harem", this is a painting from 1742 that is in a museum in Germany now - you can see here two girls (with heavily European features, but, anyway) playing some instruments and a person is pulling a curtain to reveal the harem to the visitor who is there watching two girls. Well, this picture is from 1742.

What is happening in the 18th century in Europe which will affect the European view of the East? It's the Industrial Revolution. Europe ceases to be just a consumer of resources, as it was before, with the consumption of natural goods for example from Brazil and other places in the world, and also from the East, and becomes an exporter of manufactured goods.

Now, they have to sell to someone. Who? Hmm, the East seems to be an interesting place to sell manufactured goods.

So Europeans begin to make business contacts and deeper diplomatic contacts with whoever was in the Middle East at that time: The people of the Ottoman Empire. And then at the end of the 18th century and in the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire started to lose a lot of territories. They advanced so far in Europe that at one point in the 18th century, they reached the gates of Vienna.

The great national history of these central European countries is the expulsion of Muslims. Romania, for example - Count Drcula is a big one - okay, it's a little bit before that - Count Drcula is a big national hero in Romania because he expelled the Muslims. Imagine .

. . Count Drcula, Vlad Drcul.

You can imagine that these people's idea of the East, in European history, is a little. . .

The idea of ​​the East is somewhat the idea of ​​ expelling non-Christians from Europe. You see, for example, up to a little while ago, and the discussion continues, about whether Turkey belongs to Europe or not. Turkey is Muslim and Europe is predominantly Christian, despite the many Muslims and immigrants in Europe, but officially European religions are Christian religions - Catholic, Protestant, etc.

There is a small piece of Turkey that is geographically located in Europe, which qualifies Turkey to be a European country. But the big dilemma there, and it wasn't hidden in the discussions about it, was whether Turkey was European or not because after all Europe is Christian and Turkey is not Christian. What's up there?

So what is the criterion? Is it geographical, is it religious, is it historical, some of these criteria have to be established for you to say "Well, I am saying that this is the West and this is the East according to this criterion". I might, say, use the religious criterion, but I have to make it explicit: "look, this is the West and this is the East because I am using the religious criterion Then we can discuss whether this religious criterion is valid or not.

Or any other criteria. The geographical criterion, is it valid? Well, first I will say: "this is the West, this is the East and my criterion is geographic according to X", and then we can discuss whether this geographic criterion is valid.

I am meddling with the idea of ​​East and West a little on purpose so we will understand that there is a historicity in this difference. The Europeans arrived there in the 18th century - because they didn't go to those regions for a long time because they were regions with a Muslim majority; after the Crusades, they didn't have great commercial and diplomatic contacts with the Middle East for a while, but then, with this Industrial Revolution process, they regained interest in the East as a possible consumer for their manufactured products, among other reasons, and then European colonialism begins to be interested in the resources of those regions there, which will lead to the process of annexation of the Middle East, especially English but also French, etc. , in the fight that will generate the 1st World War.

Along with these diplomats and traders, and these official missions, scientists, intellectuals, travelers, onlookers, scientific societies also come to know or recognize the East I say recognize because they have within the classical literature that they are reading these centuries all various references about the East. So now they go there . .

. What are the great references? Well, from the Greek world, Herodotus who is going to talk about Egypt, but the Bible; folks, the Bible is the great book that will explain to the Christian European world what the Middle East is.

So they arrive in the Middle East with the Bible under their arms, looking for the East apart from the references that they already know from the Bible. Therefore, the real or indirect dominance of the Middle East regions in the late 18th and early 19th centuries is crucial for Europeans. In this image that I am showing you, here is a picture that shows Napoleon in front of the pyramids - then he is looking at a mummy inside the sarcophagus.

Napoleon is like this, let me see, here he is holding a red hat, looking directly at the mummy. Well, Napoleon was very interested in the region, particularly in the Egypt region, for strategic and commercial reasons. Napoleon went to war against the Ottomans, who at that time already had a weak grip on Egypt, and he also wanted to block the passage of the British to India.

And Napoleon took a gigantic team, not only his army - later he ended up losing the war there in Egypt - but he took a large contingent of scientists and engineers, etc. to study how to build the Suez Canal - the one that is there today which is a very important strategic passage between, well, the West and the East. These scientists, these engineers, etc.

they also went on scientific expeditions of knowledge in Egypt, and, for example, among the things they took from Egypt is the Rosetta Stone. There will be a class that I will talk about the Rosette Stone, read a little bit of her text, but she is super famous, it is there in the British Museum . .

. Wait, but it is not French Napoleon scientists who stole, "took" , they took the Rosetta Stone from Egypt . .

. to France, but the Rosetta Stone is in London . .

. It is because the British captured French ships and stole all the things that the French had stolen from Egypt . .

. and " those things there ", for example, the Rosette Stone, and that is why it is there in the British Museum. But, anyway, the French took several Egyptian pieces to Europe.

Among these pieces, the Rosette Stone is particularly important, which is why I told you its story, because it is the instrument for deciphering hieroglyphics, Egyptian writing, which I I will also tell you later how it was, what it was, the Rosette Stone was found by a French officer and there in Europe the Champollion and other researchers studied the Rosette Stone, it was written in three different languages, one of which was Greek, which they knew, and down there (* up! ) were the hieroglyphs, it was the same text, they compared - it took a while - they compared, tum, they managed to decipher the Egyptian script and finally they managed to read not only the Rosette Stone but the inscriptions on tombs, inscriptions on sarcophagi, inscriptions on papyrus, inscriptions on temples, gigantic, and being able to decipher the Egyptian world through deciphering the reading of the Egyptian. This process will happen in another way, and I will talk about it too, with cuneiform writing in Mesopotamia, around the same time later I will tell the story of how cuneiform writing was deciphered.

All these, this collection of Egyptian objects removed from Egypt because then the French would say, well, "these Egyptians are very primitive, they don't know how to take care of their great ancient civilization, so we are going to take them to study them in Europe ". So that is why today there is a great discussion not only in Egypt - in Greece it is also important, and elsewhere - about these pieces that were - today it is considered, the governments consider that these pieces were stolen from their countries. And then there's a whole big discussion about it .

. . Were these parts stolen?

Do they belong to these countries today? Should they be returned or should they be kept in Europe? And another .

. . and another important document that this Napoleonic expedition produced was a series of volumes, several volumes published since 1809, the "Description de l'Égypte", which has several drawings, several figures, several texts, etc.

and it is still important today as a source of study for Egyptian materials. To speak of the Napoleonic expedition in Egypt is to speak, therefore, of the birth of what we will call Egyptology, that is, the study, the specialists who study Egypt. The third element, the first, was the strategic commercial importance of the Middle East since the Industrial Revolution, then the second, Napoleon in Egypt in particular, you know, there are other expeditions, but Napoleon's was more important.

The third point that I wanted to talk to you about is the emergence of Archeology, the science of Archeology, of archaeological methods. This illustration here is an illustration from 1776 about the excavation of Pompeii. It has a very interesting story about the excavation of Pompeii, it is not the case to talk about it now but it has quite interesting materials on the internet about it.

Here, in this image, it is a representation of the discovery of the Temple of Isis, which incidentally, right, Isis, the Egyptian goddess, there in Pompeii . . .

The emergence of the first archaeological techniques in Pompeii and Herculaneum, the other city that is nearby also, which was excavated in the same period, represents the first techniques that were also used in Mesopotamia, in particular, and also in Egypt to rescue objects. And then the idea is that at that time, 18th century, 19th century also, the idea is to excavate these archaeological sites to take objects of art, valuable objects for European national museums. These museums will want their collections, set up their collections, and each country will want a collection more incredible than the other, you know how it is .

. . What happened in Pompeii and Herculaneum, and it also happened for example in several places in Mesopotamia was a technique that archaeologists nowadays want to remember to remember that in the history of Archeology this type of thing was used, that it was like this: you .

. . you get there in the place that you detect that is an archaeological site.

When you haven't dug, it's a normal place: you're there and you have a little hill. And then for some reason you detect that, or you can guess that the place is there, right . .

. So what did they do? They dug tunnels the tunnel here The thing is that in Pompeii and especially in Herculaneum, they got there, under the tunnel, and there was a hole.

And what was the tunnel hole? It was actually a house that had been buried, so you take the tunnel, break the roof of the house, go down, obviously there is a hole because the hole was the house that was down here. Temples, various places .

. . So it happens a lot.

In Mesopotamian palaces, for example, it is the same thing: people go there, tum, took the tunnel, opened a hole, looked at what was beautiful, some beautiful statues, gold business, a beautiful thing to show at museum. He took it, took everything and left, took it to the museum. What's the problem with that?

Nowadays, archaeological techniques . . .

Archeology is no longer just for, as was thought, imagined, if Archeology was conceived in the 18th and 19th century, it is not just beautiful art objects to place in the museum. Archeology deals with the material culture of a given society. Anything, any object is important to Archeology within its context.

I love talking about Archeology, guys, let's think here. There's a glass of water. Speaking, you know, a talking teacher has to have water.

This glass of water . . .

this glass, right, I have water now, but this glass, it is an object . . .

This is not fancy, this is curd. This cup has a use. I know what the use is, you know what the use is, but suddenly if I take it out of context and get it somewhere else, maybe the person can kick some other use.

Although the glass has a somewhat obvious use, you know, I took a very simple example here. Hmm . .

. Glass, so there is a whole technique of using glass; it’s not very decorated, so I imagine it’s a commonly used glass - the things archaeologists keep thinking about. But let's say I found this glass here.

I am digging, you know, in many thousands of years . . .

I am digging, I found a glass here, a table - the table is wooden, let's pretend that the wooden table has also been preserved. The important thing about the object for the archaeologist today is also its context, the relationship between the object and the environment as a whole, because the relationship between the glass and this environment will tell the story a little, it will help to tell the story of the people who used it things in that environment. If I take a lot of art objects and play in a museum, Cool .

. . Nowadays our goals are a little different.

Anyway . . .

And it was not only these national museums that emerged in the late 18th century that made these collections to show their great power. There were several private collectors, by the way, private collectors are a plague in archeology today, in the world of art in general . .

. Because . .

. I will say that they are a plague because, like this, it takes the objects out of their context, takes the objects of public knowledge, of study, often these objects that end up in private collections, they are smuggled, there is a whole parallel, illegal market, which often involves gangs, it involves a lot of dirty money there in the acquisition of these objects for private collections that God only knows when, in which house, in which safe I don't know how many they are going to shove . .

. Things that would be important for our collective study of the past. This happened to people in the 18th and 19th centuries, including something that is the beginning of museum collections, which are the curiosity offices.

The great nobles, kings, etc. but not only, you know, very rich people in Europe had their curiosity offices that had everything, they had the hand of the mummy, they had a stuffed leopard, anyway. Museums start as .

. . The first national museums, and then the Ashmolean, from Oxford, the British Museum too, started with the Museum of Human History and Natural History.

Natural History is what today would be Zoology, Paleontology, Geology, etc. a little like the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro was still being set up. It had the collections of Ethnography, Archeology, and it had the collections of Paleontology, Geology, etc.

which were the collections of Natural History - all together in the same museum. So, the idea in these curiosity offices was to bring together beautiful art objects, the hand of the mummy, the little mummy of the kitten, etc. which is cute, curious, right, to show how the guy is a connoisseur, how the guy is a great intellectual, how the guy is very rich, how the guy is very powerful, that he will have this whole collection.

That kings - certainly, private collections of kings were very important and in the case of the Eastern world, Mesopotamia and Egypt - I will first talk a little about Mesopotamia. The emergence of Archeology has to do, as I told you, with that great book that was the great source of knowledge of the Middle East for Europeans, which was the Bible. Therefore, biblical archeology is very important as a foundational aspect of studies on Mesopotamia.

This was already in the 19th century, already in the middle of the 19th century, when private initiatives of rich people, especially, are going to do that type of excavation that is very well known in film, that sometimes, that idea of ​​Indiana Jones excavation, which has a small group of, there are two or three archaeologists, some Europeans all there with those sweaty beige clothes on their arms, etc. that are in the stand and a lot of workers from the region that are there digging. "Who knows, maybe the Ark is still waiting to be discovered in an antechamber.

" Nowadays, instead of local workers, people hire archeology students, right, that . . .

But it's true ! ! Anyway .

. . I'm kidding a little, but it has a real background.

In this image here we see - there is an image, a photo of . . .

I don't know exactly the date, I took this image from Wikimedia Commons, and it says "1900", this excavation here was between 1922 and 1934, so it's more or less from that time here. This is an excavation of the city of Ur - we will talk more about Ur in the next classes - which was excavated by Sir Leonard Wooley's team. When they were excavating Ur, they believed that they were looking for the biblical cities, the biblical Ur of Abraham, which was of great interest to the team.

Of course, they found things that don't necessarily have to do with the Old Testament, but the big idea was to illustrate the Bible, the history of the Bible, from archeology - from Mesopotamian archeology, from Israel archeology, etc. This still exists a lot, in fact - especially in Israel's archeology. The documentaries on those cable history channels don't let us lie.

And the other objective, also linked to the Old Testament question, the other objective of these archaeologists in Mesopotamia was to investigate what - well, and then everyone has heard of this conversation because this is a story that does not seem to come off at all: Mesopotamia as "Cradle of Civilization" . . .

Guys, I want to die with this business. It has to do, it's interesting. It is interesting to think so, it is not exactly wrong, but I will think what I mean by "cradle of civilization".

In the next class I will talk a little bit about this business. I don't know if you noticed that until now I haven't said "Mesopotamian Civilization" and "Egyptian Civilization". I think this is such a nineteenth century thing, people, we went through so much of this "Civilization this", "Civilization that" business, as if they were big blocks - the story is not like that .

. . it is not like that .

. . Big blocks closed to civilizations, "these were like this, these were like this".

No, people, there is a development, the temporal changes are very important and also the contacts between these worlds. The idea of ​​"Civilizations", this, that, that, makes us think that they don't have as important a contact as they actually had. So, a great gain in the studies of Archeology, of History, from the second half of the 20th century, and especially today, is to understand that what we understood as closed civilizations in the 19th century that has become popular today - is not very "closed".

In fact, these worlds are in contact with each other. It is not just our world - evidently our world is much more in contact with each other than in the past, right, of course, but that does not mean that the ancients did not maintain large, important, deep contacts and that mediated the changes in these societies. So I'm going to try to speak as little as possible of "Civilizations", try you too, or take that word out of your common vocabulary or use it just when you think about it, like, historically, how this society was thought in the last century - last century is century XX, right - in the 20th century, in the 19th century, because the idea of ​​"Civilization" - behind this idea is an idea of, well, if this is the civilized world, that is the uncivilized world, barbarism, savagery - we will talk about it in the next class on "barbarism", "civilization", we will rethink it there too.

I have rethought what I mean by Oriente here, we will rethink this idea of ​​Civilization later. This course serves a lot for this. Basically, I'm here not to give answers, to ask questions People who came here looking for the course to learn, oh, this happens, this and that will not be found at all because in college we learn to ask questions, more than find answers.

Answers are important, of course, but they only make sense if I ask a question that makes sense. When archaeologists look for this "cradle of civilization" in Mesopotamia, and then the "cradle of civilization", I'm thinking of the map, here is the river, the Tigris and the Euphrates, Mesopotamia is the "land between two rivers", and then they flow down here in Sumeria, and Sumeria is where cities like Ur, for example, and writing, and civilization, arise. Well, the people there in China have nothing to do with it, another idea of ​​the city will come up, another idea of ​​writing, and we are there thinking of the Middle East as the cradle of European civilization, right.

Aren't we thinking about the division between West and East based on Europe's relationship with other places? We are thinking about the European civilization from which Brazil arises . .

. we can think about it another time, certainly not in the course of Eastern Antiquity . .

. In the case of Egypt, I told you about Napoleon, the emergence of Egyptology, but we know very well that we are also talking about the great fashion that has emerged in Europe since the 19th century - and, wow, it hasn't cooled down until today, which is Egyptmania, right . .

. Everyone loves Egypt, people . .

. If I won R $ 10 for each person who comes to say to me, "Oh, I love Egypt", I would be very rich. Everyone loves Egypt .

. . But Egyptmania is everywhere.

Um lugar onde a Egitomania apareceu na Europa, e que foi muito importante, foi dentro das sociedades maçônicas, que surgiram da maneira com gente conhece hoje a partir do século XVIII. Os maçons usavam símbolos egípcios que eles desconheciam o significado, porque os maçons começaram a usar esses símbolos antes da decifração da escrita e portanto da língua egípcia, e é por isso que as referências egípcias tanto na maçonaria quanto em outros lugares, outras ordens, etc. elas têm esse aspecto místico.

Porque acreditava-se que a escrita hieroglífica, porque ela era uma escrita sacerdotal, uma escrita formal, ela tivesse - como era desconhecida, né - ela tivesse algum valor místico. E aí depois que decifraram. .

. Veja bem, ela até uma escrita religiosa, mas né. .

. Esse aqui é o salão egípcio de uma loja, né, que chama "loja" maçônica e esse saguão imita, se você olhar essas arvorezinhas aí, pintadas na parede, são palmeiras, né, estilizadas, como se fosse o dentro de uma tumba egípcia. Esse uso místico, realmente ele é muito divertido, mas não tem exatamente a ver com o que era de fato o Egito e mais com a ideia que se fazia do Egito na Europa a partir do século XVIII quando esse mundo do Oriente Médio entrou de vez no cenário cultural europeu.

E mais uma coisa, bastante interessante e que nos traz uma grande diferença entre o Brasil e outros países especialmente países europeus - países do Ocidente, né, Europa e os Estados Unidos. O currículo brasileiro de História na faculdade. .

. Às vezes acontece de ter - no caso da Unirio a gente tem Antiguidade Clássica e Antiguidade Oriental. Nos cursos de história brasileiros a gente encontra essas duas disciplinas dentro do curso de História da faculdade, o curso superior de História.

Mas isso não necessariamente acontece em outros lugares. Por quê? Pensando em duas coisas aqui: em primeiro lugar, o surgimento - eu vou passar rápido sobre isso, é um assunto muito interessante - sobre o surgimento dos cursos universitários de História.

Porque historiador existe desde Heródoto, sei lá, né, antes de Heródoto. Só que o historiador enquanto pessoa que faz um curso de História na faculdade, ganha um diploma escrito "historiador" é uma invenção do começo do século XIX e surge na Alemanha com as primeiras universidades liberais, científicas, laicas. Especialmente eu estou falando aqui da Universidade Humboldt em Berlim, que foi fundada em 1810 por Wilhelm von Humboldt, esse que tá sentado nessa cadeira aí numa estátua de mármore que está na frente na entrada da Universidade Humboldt.

E esses cursos de História muitas vezes não vão ter o mesmo tipo de estrutura curricular que a gente tem nas faculdades brasileiras. Tem curso de História que começa, fala alguma coisa sobre a Antiguidade, mas que começa especialmente com Idade Média, porque foram cursos para se pensar a História nacional, a história europeia. E a História Antiga, bom, onde é que ela fica?

Ela fica em outro curso que a gente não tem aqui no Brasil da mesma maneira como tem lá, que o curso de Classics, Estudos Clássicos. Aqui no Brasil, você ou vai fazer latim, ou vai fazer grego na Faculdade de Letras, ou você, se você quiser estudar História Antiga, você vai fazer um curso de História e vai se especializar em História Antiga, que foi o meu caso, ou se você quer ser arqueólogo você vai fazer uma pós graduação etc. mas, ou fazer Ciências Sociais mexer com Antropologia etc, ou História, enfim, mas você não tem o curso de Estudos Clássicos como você tem lá fora.

E aí no curso de Estudos Clássicos você aprende sobre Grécia e Roma. E a Mesopotâmia, e o Egito, e os outros lugares fora da Grécia e Roma? Tradicionalmente ficam fora do currículo de Estudos Clássicos.

Evidentemente o problema é que eles não ficavam fora do mundo antigo. Como eu falei para vocês, essa ideia de "civilizações", ela dá uma noção de, "ah, primeiro vamos ver a Mesopotâmia, que é mais antiga," depois o Egito, que é mais ou menos a mesma época, mas você estuda depois, também o Egito, aí depois vem a Grécia, aí depois vem Roma, e depois a Idade Média", como se a "tocha da civilização" passasse - essa ideia eu acho muito interessante - "a tocha da civilização" passasse de uma civilização até outra. até chegar até nós.

Gente, não, não, não. . .

a Mesopotâmia não acabou quando existia o Império Romano, ela continuava lá, e inclusive ela continua lá até hoje. O Egito então, nem se fala, continua lá até hoje também, inclusive as pirâmides continuam lá também. As pirâmides não foram construídas por alienígenas, tá.

. . Acho que é uma das primeiras coisas que eu preciso falar, eu vou falar de Egito lá na frente, mas eu já quero abrir falando isso, que isso é muito importante.

A Terra é redonda e as pirâmides não foram construídas por alienígenas. Então e m alguns desses cursos universitários na Europa e também nos Estados Unidos, se você quiser estudar Mesopotâmia e Egito, você vai para um Instituto Oriental. Por exemplo, o Instituto Oriental de Chicago, que é muito famoso; se você vai estudar em Oxford, você vai para o curso de Estudos Orientais no Instituto Oriental da Universidade de Oxford.

E aí você não estuda Antiguidade Clássica. Então nessas universidades da Europa dos Estados Unidos, se você quiser estudar Mesopotâmia, ser especialista em Mesopotâmia e Egito, você procura esses institutos orientais. E o que acontece é que muitas vezes, essas especialidades, elas ficam muito pouco integradas entre si.

Assim como o problema que eu falei lá das civilizações, os grandes especialistas em Egito às vezes não conversam muito com os grandes especialistas em Grécia, como deveria. Porque é importante conversar: esses lugares, todos esses lugares, como eu falei, estavam integrados entre si. Então a gente tem aqui uma oportunidade muito legal, eu acho, no nosso curso particularmente, de pensar como historiadores a Antiguidade Oriental, e pensando principalmente na questão de integração com.

. . geográfica, na integração temporal, e principalmente no fato de que essa divisão que foi feita, que é uma divisão curricular, que é uma divisão baseada nas histórias dos Estados nacionais europeus e da sua relação com o Oriente Médio, o estudo da Antiguidade Oriental tem em si sua historicidade.

Isso é muito importante conhecer. Por isso que eu falei lá no começo da aula, "não é assim: ah, Antiguidade Oriental, Mesopotâmia, pá, Egito, pá, é assim, assim, assado. .

. " Não! Por quê?

"Por que eu estou estudando Antiguidade Oriental, e por que que o que eu estou chamando de Antiguidade Oriental é isso? " Tem um sentido, por lado. .

. Pode ser aleatório? Sim.

Por outro lado, tem um sentido que é dado pela historicidade, que foi isso tudo que eu falei para vocês. Eu acho essa aula a mais importante do curso, gente. É a primeira, todo mundo esquece dela, chega lá na frente, tá pensando lá no rei não sei que das quantas.

mas para quem evidentemente não se tornar especialista em Antiguidade Oriental depois de fazer esse curso - nem todos os historiadores vão se formar e ser especialistas em Antiguidade Oriental - aliás, bem poucos né - mas o que que você tira de estudar um pouco sobre esse mundo? Coisas como a importância da integração de diferentes sociedades, diferentes culturas e essa historicidade de por que a gente estuda dessa forma. Vale da mesma maneira para a gente pensar por que se estuda Grécia e Roma da maneira como a gente estuda, e o que eu quero dizer com "Grécia" e com "Roma".

Aí é outro assunto para outro curso, mas é mais ou menos esse tipo de reflexão. Três últimos exemplos de como que essas especificidades fizeram com que a gente estudasse Antiguidade Oriental da forma como a gente faz - que são três exemplos de museus nacionais europeus e o que eles mostram para o seu público - de seus países e os turistas que vão lá, evidentemente, da maneira como eles trouxeram para si essa Antiguidade Oriental. Na primeira imagem, a gente tem o Saguão Assírio do Louvre, que tem na exposição peças do Palácio de Dur-Sharrukin, que era o Palácio de Sargão II.

Essas figuras todas. . .

O que que aconteceu aí? Eles escavaram, recortaram, colaram lá no Louvre, o famoso recorta e cola que acontece nesses museus todos. Aliás, quem escavou esse palácio foi um arqueólogo muito importante na França - em 1842 ele escavou.

O nome dele é Paul-Émille Botta. Na verdade ele era italiano, é "Paolo Botta", mas como ele viveu na França era "Paul-Émile Botta" , e Paul-Émille Botta achou que estava escavando a Nínive bíblica - e aí não era, na verdade era o palácio do Sargão II, mas ele achou, escavou, levou lá para a França - depois se descobriu que não era. Como você pode ver aí na imagem, tem esses frisos do interior do Palácio que foram recortados e colocados.

Aí dentro, assim, tem essa janela, mas é um dos saguões internos das dos corredores do Louvre, então isso aí é tudo um pátio interno. Segunda foto: Museu Britânico, Londres. Esse corredor aí também é assírio.

Isso são frisos, recortados e colados, do Palácio de Nimrud, que era o palácio do Assurnasipal II. Esse Palácio aí, o palácio do Assurnasipal II, ele foi escavado por outro grande nome da arqueologia mesopotâmica no século XIX, que é Austen Henry Layard, que de 1845 a 1851 escavou esse palácio - também achando, como o Paul-Émile Botta que ele estava escavando a Nínive bíblica - e não era Nínive. Aí depois se descobriu onde ficava Nínive, que no caso fica perto da cidade do Iraque hoje que é a cidade de Mossul.

Vocês imaginam. . .

você, brasileiro que nunca viajou para fora, ou que viajou e que nunca foi nesses museus, ou que foi no museu e não tinha a menor ideia do que viu, porque viu correndo, que tava cheio de gente, ah, sei lá. Fez lá a sua escola primária, tal - escola primária não, né, Ensino Fundamental 1, 2, Ensino Médio, você não fez uma excursão da escola para o Museu Britânico, né, ou pro Louvre. Porque as crianças desses países fazem.

Então imagina que você vive num país em que você tava na escolinha, "hoje a gente vai no Museu do Louvre". E aí vocês vão no museu ver essas coisas aí. Essas crianças desses países, já desde pequenas estão acostumadas com esses artefatos, acostumadas a ver essa cultura dentro da história que eles estudam.

Não é simplesmente uma coisa que tem no livro didático, tem uma foto e olhe lá. Isso faz parte da educação deles também de uma maneira aqui para gente não tem o menor jeito de ser igual - o que significa, portanto, que (hoje em dia é um pouco diferente porque já é questionado um pouco isso) mas essa ideia de montar um museu nacional como o grande repositório dos objetos que fazem a "grandeza da sua nação" para educar as pessoas, para educar as crianças, os jovens e os adultos sobre a grandeza - "minha nação é tão grandiosa que olha só que a gente fez, a gente recortou esse passado assírio da Bíblia e trouxe aqui para você" A ideia desses museus é mostrar que - foi né, a maneira como esses museus foram construídos e as coleções foram juntadas ali no museu - é mostrar o poderio político, estratégico, diplomático, militar, econômico, cultural desses países que trouxeram essas peças do "berço da civilização" para si. Então é uma concorrência entre entre esses museus.

O terceiro exemplo que eu vou, terceiro e último exemplo que vou mostrar para vocês é essa, essa foto aqui da. . Esse é o Portão de Ishtar, reconstruído, evidentemente, que fica no Museu de Pérgamo em Berlim.

Se chama Auseu de Pérgamo porque tem o Altar de Pérgamo, que era uma cidade que ficava onde hoje é a costa da Turquia, a cidade se chamava Pérgamo, tinha um altar lá gigantesco. Pessoal, os alemães foram lá, recortaram o altar - recorta e cola - colaram nesse museu e chamaram o museu de Museu de Pérgamo, mas é por causa desse altar. E aí tem esse portão gigantesco também - vocês podem ver pelas pessoas que estão andando ali - essa pessoa que tá bem no primeiro plano com o papelzinho na mão sou eu, eu fiquei ali para colocar na escala, para vocês terem uma ideia do tamanho.

Esse portão de Ishtar era o portão, um dos portões da cidade da Babilônia, aquela Babilônia bíblica - por quê escavaram ali também? Mesma coisa. Tinha vários portões, escavaram esse aqui, que inclusive nem era um dos maiores.

Essa parte é a parte externa que era menor, a parte interna do portão, que era maior, também foi escavada, mas ela era tão grande que não conseguiram montar ela nesse museu. Então ela está na reserva técnica do museu. Então colocaram a parte menor desse lado, e aí como vocês podem ver o negócio tá tão bonitinho né, porque na verdade isso aí foi uma reconstrução meio quebra-cabeça aí dessas figuras.

Essa parte super azul - eles realmente usaram essa cor azul, mas uma boa parte desse azul todo é reconstruída, é novo. Olha só que "poder" todo. .

. Eles conseguiram escavar o portão da Babilônia, levaram pra Berlim, reconstruíram desse jeito monumental. Veio o histórico aí das outras fotos, então, o portão de Ishtar foi construído por Nabucodonosor II, aquele lá do jardins suspensos, então, em 575 a.

C. - então aqui gente está falando de arqueologia bíblica mesmo - esse aí acertou pelo menos a Babilônia, o lugar onde ficava a Babilônia. Foi escavado pelo Robert Koldewey de 1899 a 1914.

Ganha um carimbinho de borboleta no caderno quem me explicar porque parou de ser escavado em 1914. Aí no museu você tem, do lado de cá da portinha a porta de Ishtar, aí você passou por lado de cá, o outro lado da parede aqui, tem o Mercado de Mileto. Gente, uma parede gigantesca recortada da cidade de Mileto, na Grécia.

Enorme também, enorme. Então que negócio enorme aqui do lado de cá, você anda para cá e tem um negócio enorme. "Tá vendo como nós somos incríveis e poderosos?

" Essa é a ideia. Recapitulando: o que eu queria trazer para vocês era, bom, primeiro aula né, Antiguidade Oriental, "o que é a Antiguidade Oriental". Eu estou chamando de Mesopotâmia e Egito.

Por quê? Por que eu elegi Mesopotâmia e Egito? O que eu quero dizer com isso?

Na próxima aula a gente vai explicar um pouco. Próxima aula, pré-história, depois a gente vai falar sobre Mesopotâmia, e mais lá para frente vamos falar de Egito - lembrando que as duas coisas aconteceram mais ou menos na mesma época, a gente tá separando por motivos didáticos. "Oriental" porque é uma ideia de Oriente criada pelos europeus no século XVIII, século XIX e levada para a Europa através dos cientistas, das publicações científicas, dos museus nacionais e da formação do currículo acadêmico.

Então por isso que a gente aqui no Brasil hoje está chamando de "Antiguidade Oriental" aquilo que você aprende como "o berço da civilização" Mesopotâmia, depois Egito, enfim. E que tem essa historicidade baseada muito na importância desses lugares para a história bíblica. Então é isso, pessoal, na próxima aula vamos falar sobre pré-história, vamos repensar esse negócio de "civilização", "barbárie", "selvageria", de onde saiu isso, por que inventaram esse negócio, de onde surgiu aquela ideia de Idade da Pedra, Idade do Ferro, Idade do Bronze, que é onde se aprende na escola sobre pré-história e por que a gente começa a falar com a Suméria.

É isso aí.