Olympic Games (interesting, actually)

[Tiglath Pileser III]

And Egypt?

Of course Egypt and Persia also were influenced and influenced the development of our common civilisation however soley due to its ideal location

Anyways, first: that "land between two rivers that is today known as Iraq" is anything but a purely geographical notion, since it housed over the millenia a myriad of different civilizations. We always have to keep that in mind.

The numerous ancient empires that took root in Mesopotamia raised civilisation and transmitted it to the West where it was lost during the dark ages and rediscovered by the ancestors of the Mesopotamians - the Arabs.

Second, perspective: why stop at Mesopotamia? There is always a before. Jericho is five thousand years older than Babylonia and Assyria, and so are a number of proto-cities in what is today Anatolia and Persia. The basics of agriculture, medicine, religion, astronomy, pottery, stone building, town walls, irrigation are far older than the oldest civilizations in what is today Iraq. Does not that put Mesopotamia in the same class of dependent civilization receiver, as some orientalists put the Greeks? I believe very much, if we use a consistent set of criteria.

That is illogical. Besides Jericho is also a part of Mesopotamia. Civilisation began in the Middle East soley due to its ideal location not due to any genetic prediposition and definately not as Zacharia Sitchin will stupidly claim due to alien knowledge transmitted to the ancient Sumerians.

Third, we should be cautious about wholesale credits: the elements you mentioned above, were most certainly all present in Mesopotamia in sometimes more, sometimes less elaborate fashion. At their time very much unsurpassed. But the Greeks gave them a whole new quality by their discovery of critical thought, and that revolutionary development - which today more than ever determines our world views - was genuinely Greek.

That is a subjective opinion reinforced by the framework of Orientalism that surrounds our Western world and is transmitted through our media. Already after having discovered only a very small percentage of all cuneiform tablets and having translated only a fraction of them the so called "pillars of Western civilisation" appear to trace back to the Middle East where they logicaly evolved. Now imagine what would happen if we dedicated a fraction of our time and resources discovering and translating our cuneiform tablets.

I think if orientalists would acknowledge that, just as much as classicists need to value the fundamental contribution of the orient, there would be no need of disagreements.

Perhaps dividing us between the East and West and between Orientalists (which I feel is a derogatory term) and Classicists (or Occidentalists) is the problem. Perhaps a term such as Civilisationist would be more appropriate. That is a term that would better suit the universalism that the Gilgamesh games website is ultimately trying to achieve.

Thanks,
David Chibo
Http://www.gilgameshgames.org