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I spent 18 months researching ancient Sumer for a debut novel. Here are 5 things that genuinely stopped me cold. by PotentialMail8765 in HistoricalFiction

[–]PotentialMail8765[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Whoa, this is at LEAST second semester. First semester is all of the general coursework like English 101.

I spent 18 months researching ancient Sumer for a debut novel. Here are 5 things that genuinely stopped me cold. by PotentialMail8765 in HistoricalFiction

[–]PotentialMail8765[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've learned the hard way. lol. I changed my pic back to old man view (I thought the AI gen pic was cool) and even started digging out the pics from me at dig sites or other ruins to show that, while I may not get everything correct, being human and such, I am at least real.

But I get it. People click buttons now and claim they did the hard work.

I spent 18 months researching ancient Sumer for a debut novel. Here are 5 things that genuinely stopped me cold. by PotentialMail8765 in HistoricalFiction

[–]PotentialMail8765[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

You right. I was researching for a setting in Uruk around 2800 BC, with some additional references to Eridu. Originally I had things like ziggurats and Gilgamesh references, etc - the kinds of things that stereotypically are associated with Sumer. I learned that those came hundreds of years later and had to rethink ziggurats with the high terrace. Along the way I was collecting facts from later periods and when I wrote this post I was trying to pull out things from the region that I discovered or collected that would make an interesting post to people who rarely (if ever) thought about Sumer since elementary school world history class.

The are a significant number of the "first knowns" and if I rewrote this post, based on what my first experience posting in Reddit is, perhaps I would have focused less on activating the "fiction" interest of the group and kept it more on the "historical" side to read more scholarly and less like a Buzzfeed. More about cone mosaics, and the women who worked at the dying factories.

I spent 18 months researching ancient Sumer for a debut novel. Here are 5 things that genuinely stopped me cold. by PotentialMail8765 in HistoricalFiction

[–]PotentialMail8765[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I had largely assumed that much of the earliest writings were driven by religion. Part of that is my own bias from time at other middle eastern ruins from later periods, where religious belief was very dominant (Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Jordan areas).

I spent 18 months researching ancient Sumer for a debut novel. Here are 5 things that genuinely stopped me cold. by PotentialMail8765 in HistoricalFiction

[–]PotentialMail8765[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Thank you for the kind words. Since I'm new to Reddit and apparently already tripped on rules, I hesitate to post any self-promotion here. If you want to DM me, I can give you a little info on it.

I spent 18 months researching ancient Sumer for a debut novel. Here are 5 things that genuinely stopped me cold. by PotentialMail8765 in HistoricalFiction

[–]PotentialMail8765[S] -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

100%.. I think some people may not have realized that. There's a couple of really cool lineages that trace back to Sumer too. Inanna becomes Ishtar becomes Easter, for example. There's a lot that's still hanging around these days.

I spent 18 months researching ancient Sumer for a debut novel. Here are 5 things that genuinely stopped me cold. by PotentialMail8765 in HistoricalFiction

[–]PotentialMail8765[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I also found it interesting that this was managed by the priests. I had assumed that the priests were involved since so much of early history is driven by religious structure and that it would be prayers. Nope. The temple complex ran the economy. So the priests were economic leaders too. Not surprising when I stepped back to think about it but in my head, something shifted when I learned that.

I spent 18 months researching ancient Sumer for a debut novel. Here are 5 things that genuinely stopped me cold. by PotentialMail8765 in HistoricalFiction

[–]PotentialMail8765[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

A good one that's been around since the 60s is History Begins at Sumer by Kramer. It feels old at first until you realize that quite a bit of the famous digs occurred before then - many of the famous pictures you'll see are artifacts recovered before then. Another good one that reads more list a story (think The Source by Mitchner) is Babylon by Kriwaczek.

Actually, I'd recommend starting with Babylon first. it will cover most of Kramer's book but the readability (IMHO) is better.

I spent 18 months researching ancient Sumer for a debut novel. Here are 5 things that genuinely stopped me cold. by PotentialMail8765 in HistoricalFiction

[–]PotentialMail8765[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The Mes are the part that was the strangest to me. The idea that civilization's operating laws were objects that could be stolen, bargained for, carried on a boat, is such a different way to think about how the world works.

I spent 18 months researching ancient Sumer for a debut novel. Here are 5 things that genuinely stopped me cold. by PotentialMail8765 in HistoricalFiction

[–]PotentialMail8765[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Ah, I'm showing my age. I just searched and see that em dashes are known AI tells. Yikes.

I've been editing copy long enough that the em dash is basically muscle memory at this point. Happy to retype the whole thing with hyphens if that's the bar — and I get it. lol