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Homepage of the Gilgamesh Games

 

Gilgamesh Games link discovered by Assyriologist in 1999

The Gilgamesh Games website has recently been contacted by Dr. Vladimir V. Emelianov an Assyriologist who we are happy to see also noticed the similarity in the athletic events described in the Sumerian Death of Bilgames translation with the ancient Greek Olympic Games. [More]

The Alphabet

[T]he argument employed with great success at one time, that the great differences which appear from the start among local Greek alphabets presupposes a “long development” stretching over many decades, if not centuries, has been firmly refuted by Lilian Jeffery. The so-called development, or rather the process of transmission, including some errors in copying, idiosyncrasies of “hands,” and some intentional additions did happen extremely fast, within a few decades, if not years, reaching even the Phrygians in one direction and the Etruscans in the other near simultaneously. [More]

Alleged Assyrian Cruelty

Largely in consequence of the Bible and of Byron's poem, the Assyrians have a reputation in the English-speaking world for ruthless barbarity. They have been maligned. Certainly they could be rough and tough to maintain order, but they were defenders of civilization, not barbarian destroyers. [More]
 

The Assyrian Army

In the 8th century B.C., when the entire Assyrian army included 150,000-200,000 men, a combat field army of 50,000 men would be equal to 5 modern American heavy divisions, or 8 Soviet field divisions.
When arrayed for battle, a field army occupied an area of 2,500 yards (almost 1.5 miles) across and 100 yards deep. After the fall of Rome, it was not until Napoloen's re-institution of conscription that armies of such a size would be mustered. he so-called “European” honeybee (apis mellifera) is found in the Near East from central Iran, across the Zagros and Taurus mountains. [More]

Prisoners Of War in Ancient Mesopotamia

It is interesting to note that even in New Assyrian period, at the height of Assyrian military power, captured populations were not enslaved, but deported and resettled throughout the empire. Also the fact that slave rebellions are not attested for ancient Mesopotamia speaks against the widespread application of slavery in that country, or for that matter anywhere else in the ancient Near East, as well as India and China, by contrast, e.g., with classical Greece and Rome, where the existence of masses of slave labor led to frequent rebellions, sometimes on a catastrophic scale. [More]

Apiculture

The so-called “European” honeybee (apis mellifera) is found in the Near East from central Iran, across the Zagros and Taurus mountains into Anatolia and the Levant and into Egypt (but not in Iraq or the Arabian desert).

The earliest evidence for hive beekeeping (apiculture) comes from the Old Kingdom of ancient Egypt. In the Old Kingdom (5th dynasty – 25th/24th centuries BC) a stone bas relief from the sun-temple of Niuserre Any at Abu Gurob shows a scene of the gathering, filtering and packing of honey,[1] demonstrating that from a very early period, beekeeping was already well established in Egypt. [More]

 

Doctors in Assyria Practised Good Medicine

While doctors were priests and believed illness was divine punishment, they also treated night blindness by feeding patients with liver, now known to be rich in vitamin A.

Greek medicine, which became the model in the West for more than 2,000 years, was a step backward.

"Their best known treatments were bleeding, purging with laxatives, puking and starving," said Andersen. "We now know, of course, all four of those are injurious and very seldom helpful in any circumstance." [More]

The Babylonian Cadeceus

In the early twentieth century A. J. Frothingham presented to the Philological Association and the Archaeological Institute that the real character of Hermes and his kerykeion could be traced back to early Mesopotamia. He believed that the Babylonian Caduceus evolved to the Greek Caduceus. A libation vase which is stored on exhibit in the Louvre was excavated from the ancient Mesopotamian city of Lagash. [More]

 

The Mesopotamian Soul of Western Culture

The worn-out phrase, “Already the ancient Greeks...,” involves attitudes and views that make an Assyriologist stir uneasily. Its basic message is that Western culture was born in ancient Greece. The little word “already” betrays, on the one hand, admiration of the achievements of the Greeks, and on the other hand disparagement of previous cultures, as if nothing worth mentioning had been accomplished before the Greeks. Such attitudes are rooted in remote antiquity and derive from Greek antagonism towards “the barbarians” after the Persian Wars, as well as from notions of Greek superiority over “the barbarians” after the conquests of Alexander. [More]

 

The dawn of Democracy

The West’s erroneous belief is that democracy miraculously sprang out of Greek civilization in the fifth century B.C. and was utilised by the Roman Empire and arguably gave rise to the great moments in the construction and propagation of Western civilization.

 

Modern Western myths further purport that modern Democracy in the Middle East is undermined by the fact that the people of the Middle East have historically been accustomed to “autocracy and passive obedience.”

 

All of these arguments and more are debunked by Benjamin Isakhan’s latest article. [More]

 

The Gilgamesh Games Interview

On the eve of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games one of Zinda's own reporter from Australia, David Chibo, published an archaeological article, with help from Assyriologist Professor Simo Parpola, showing that the ancient Olympic Games were in fact based on the older Gilgamesh Games. We managed to secure this exclusive interview with David Chibo on this startling revelation. [More]

 

Letter - The Last Pharaoh's Randall Wallace and Will Smith

I recently read that you are currently penning The Last Pharaoh, which revolves around Taharqa, the pharaoh who will be played by Will Smith, who battled Assyrian invaders, under the command of King Esarhaddon, in ancient Egypt beginning in 677 B.C. [More]

 

Review - Iraq Olympics

Well, the Olympic Games, as the name shows, is a Hellenic thing, originating in Greece in 776 BCE and continuing till 393 AD/CE. But, however, nevertheless, notwithstanding (though sitting at the computer is what gives me a pain in the bottom) be prepared to be amazed at the discovery that has been made by David Chibo (in Victoria, Australia). This is not one of Ripley's "Believe it or not" pieces, but a case of "You had better believe it or else". It all began in ancient Iraq, with the Gilgamesh Games. [More]

 

Review - Olympics in Iraq?

The Olympic Games were an invention of the ancient Greeks, right? Perhaps you've read that the oldest games we know about were held in Olympia in 776 B.C. Au contraire, says David Chibo, who recently posted an analysis of five ancient epics about the semi-divine hero called Gilgamesh by the Babylonians and Assyrians, and Bilgames by the Sumerians. [More]

 

Review - Mesopotamian Olympics?

The modern Olympics are not the subject of ancient history and under normal circumstances, I would not have mentioned the Games at all. But here's a subject that I like to mention: Mesopotamian influences on the origins of the Greek Olympic Games. This is the link <http://www.gilgameshgames.org> to a new website that presents the evidence for cultural borrowing; the author, David Chibo, claims to have found eleven parallels between oriental and Greek athletic contests. [More]