The Milestones of Civilization

The Milestones of Civilization (Assurbanipal, Alexandria and the Internet) The past is the key to the future. The purpose of this book is to briefly display the emergence and development of human culture and civilization and the dramatic changes these have undergone throughout history to those who are striving to change the world and to gratify humanity. For all the different languages and races there are on earth, there is but one common civilization that humanity has been developing for ten thousand years. And that is the process of development as formulated ten years ago by the United Nations and published every year as a report. The goal of nations is to reach that level of development. Just as we cannot discriminate between civilizations as Western and Eastern Civilization, we cannot defend the thesis of 'the clash of civilizations and the establishing of a new world order.' What is known as Western Civilization today is the ultimate state that Eastern Civilization has reached in its process of development. The Revolution of Irrigation, one of the greatest milestones of human history, started in the valleys of Yellow River in China ten thousand years ago. It then spread to the west toward the Indus in India, the Euphrates and the Tigris in Mesopotamia, and to the valleys of the River Nile in Egypt respectively. The culture of irrigation certainly continued its development in these regions. Civilization was enriched as it fed from additional sources it encountered on the way throughout its journey from the East to the West. Having completed its cycle on earth with a gradually increasing pace in ten thousand years, today it has reached the Eastern shores of Asia, where it was born. In this long journey, libraries present themselves as the places where civilization stopped on its way and gave a break, both to rest and nourish. We shall review three libraries which have been identified as playing a great role in the development of civilization. These are, in chronological order, the Libraries of Assurbanipal in Mesopotamia, Alexandria in Egypt, and the Internet, which has been spreading to all corners of the world. The Library of Assurbanipal is a centre for storing information that supplies us with a cultural corpus of peoples located in the valleys of the Euphrates and the Tigris from the times of Sumerians onward. The cultural corpus of Mesopotamia emerged in two main branches. The first of these is the scientific and technical branch forming the foundation of our civilization today: in addition to mathematics, astronomy, and technical inventions such as the wheel, the plough and the aqueduct were put in the service of humanity here for the first time in history. In the same vein, myths, epics and laws, which fall into the second category, were embedded in the Old Testament and stayed with us. This has been verified by Abrahamic holy books in many ways. Scientific research and projects in The Library of Alexandria continued for approximately seven hundred years. The foundations of today's science were laid in this library and the main principles of geometry, mechanics, hydraulics, medicine and astronomy were discovered. The length of the perimeter of the Earth and its distance from the Sun were calculated, and steam was utilized. However, the Church, which had been gaining power in Rome, was irritated by these new thoughts and experiments. In the fifth century B.C., the library and its workers were accused of iconoclasm, the head of the library, a female scientist Hypatia was lynched cruelly, and the library was set ablaze. The torching of the library by fanatical Christians marked the beginning of the Dark Ages. After this incident, nobody could mention the roundness of the Earth anymore; nor could they conduct any scientific studies for a long time. The Industrial Revolution in Western Europe only became possible one thousand years later, after the beginning of Renaissance and Enlightenment, and the scientific developments these entailed. Internet libraries are libraries found online, the Internet being one of the infinite opportunities provided by the Communication Revolution. In addition to the mass of information we have so far obtained, what used to be known as 'the secrets of nature' are just one click away now. As our knowledge increases, we are relieved of our fears and start living knowingly, guided by reason. Our beliefs are changing, and to a great extent disappearing together with our fears. We have also been witnessing that libraries over the Internet are accelerating the development of civilization by providing endless opportunities for humanity. The research presented here, which takes a look at the spreading of civilization toward the West and the significant phases in its history, redefines civilization by presenting its measurable values. January 18th, 2006 Latif Mutlu PREFACE It was nothing but a great honor for me when the great educationalist Latif Mutlu requested that I write a preface for his book. I would like to start with a confession. It has been a while since computers became commonplace; yet, I insisted on using a typewriter up until ten years ago. (I even wrote my drafts by hand). Then I agreed to use the computer only like a type-writer, making use of its word-processing properties. In time, I learnt how to send and receive e-mails. Then my friends told me about a tool that came really handy while searching for information. Yet, search engines were quite primitive at the time, or that was how it seemed to me. I tried 'surfing the Internet' a couple of times, but I came to the conclusion that sites worked with the logic of 'we don't have any toilet paper left, would you like some sandpaper instead?'. Later on, I discovered that those students of mine who were submitting assignments well beyond their capability, were downloading these from the Internet, and I became angry with them. I said, and still say, that for information to become knowledge, it must be thought over, digested or taken in. However, until very recently, I did not myself make use of these opportunities that are developing at a dizzying rate. Let my old age take the blame for that. Yet, although Mr. Mutlu is older than me, he has managed to master this miracle called the Internet. And what is more, he is even giving guidance to the young about this issue. As to his present study, I must say that before everything else, I admire his unwavering determination and passion to learn both new and old things. Latif Mutlu does not only strive to learn more, he also knows how to think creatively, and derive conclusions. (And didn't Immanuel Kant define Enlightenment as 'daring to think and know'?) For one thing, his observations on how various cultures and civilizations that emerged in different places and times have affected each other are spot on. Documents stored in the library that the scholar Assurbanipal (one of the last Assyrian kings in the seventh century B.C., mentioned as Osnappar in the Book of Ezra of the Old Testament [4.10]) founded in the capital of Nineveh, and that consisted of approximately 30,000 cuneiform tablets were considered to be 'antiques' even by then. They included stories such as the Epic of Gilgamesh which can be found in a variety of sources from Samash the Sun-God cult ('Şems' in new Sami languages like Arabic) to ancient Greek mythology and to the myths of all monotheistic religions. These documents contained not only religious myths but also the early origins of contemporary law dating back to the time of Hammurabi, and even before. The sciences of astronomy, mathematics and medicine as well as the preliminary technologies of irrigation and the practical knowledge of mining emerged in ancient Mesopotamia. Since I am not competent in economics, I cannot pass a judgment on how valid the theses and suggestions on economics, which Mr.Mutlu included as a general introduction to the topic, are. Yet, I must say that I find them interesting and worth thinking about as well. Later in his book, Mr. Mutlu writes with vigor on the library constituted during the reign of Ptolemies in the city of Alexandria, which had been built on the orders of Alexander the Great. Although the Hellenistic Period and the reign of pharaohs came to an end with Cleopatra VII in 30 B.C., the Library of Alexandria continued to develop under the Roman reign as well and reached a capacity of 700,000 books, most of which were in the form of parchment rolls. During the Library of Alexandra phase between the third century B.C. and the fourth century A.D., the entire Near East were dominated by Greek Culture, and even the Judaists, who were the most civilized peoples of the region, switched from Hebrew to Hellenistic Greek. (In the same vein, Christianity can be defined as a Greek-ised Judaist belief) The texts in Greek in the Library of Alexandria were the true origins of modern knowledge in all fields, of philosophy, literature, geography, mathematics and hard sciences. As Mr. Mutlu tells in his book, this library was destroyed as a result of Christian bigotry. However, this incident also had a fabricated, anti-Islam version that was once quite widespread. The story goes that the library was still standing when the Muslims invaded Alexandria during the times of Umar ibn al- Khattāb, the second caliph. Muslims went to Umar and asked him what to do with the books there. And he said, 'They either contain some information already included in Qoran, in which case they are unnecessary; or, they contain some information that is not mentioned in Qoran, in which case they are wrong.

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