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00:00:00Sumer, Babylon, the epic of Gilgamesh, the rebel Nimrod, and the legendary Tower of Babel.
00:00:27All these names still resonate today and embody Mesopotamia, the land between the rivers, the Tigris, and the Euphrates.
00:00:39Our civilization was born on the land where Iraq is today.
00:00:46Here, more than 5,000 years ago, humanity organized itself into a society of tens of thousands of people,
00:00:53invented writing, and gave agriculture and architecture unprecedented development.
00:01:00This exceptional, still unknown heritage reminds us of the madness of ISIS,
00:01:05who since 2014 has proceeded with the destruction and systematic theft of mankind's heritage.
00:01:12The main sites of northern Mesopotamia were erased from the archaeological map.
00:01:30Centuries of history reduced to dust in a few days.
00:01:34These exactions were seen around the world and convinced Jawad Bashara, Iraqi writer, exiled in France under Saddam Hussein,
00:01:44to return to his country and call for action.
00:01:48Jawad has an extremely ambitious project to preserve Iraqi heritage.
00:01:53Thanks to new technologies, he hopes to save what still exists and restore what has been destroyed.
00:02:01He asks for help from sight guards, ordinary citizens, archaeologists, and scientists from all over the world
00:02:08to carry out 3D modeling of monuments and objects that had built this civilization's magnitude.
00:02:15A true digital Noah's Ark.
00:02:17When Jawad undertakes his mission in April 2016, archaeological sites are mostly inaccessible.
00:02:42Most of the north of the country is still occupied by ISIS.
00:02:47The centre and the capital of Baghdad are paralysed by political and social tensions.
00:02:55And Jawad decides to start his journey in the more peaceful south.
00:03:01It is in the land of Sumer, the first Mesopotamian civilization, that his adventure begins.
00:03:07Where still today, myth and reality are blurred.
00:03:17Since Sumerian times, 7,000 years ago, the marshy south of Iraq has gradually turned into a desert.
00:03:27Yet the common delta of the Tigris and the Euphrates remains today the largest freshwater reserve of the Near East.
00:03:33The marshes are cut off from the world and governed by tribal laws.
00:03:41Its ecosystem is one of the last survivors of the Sumerian era.
00:03:45There are abundant resources of food and unlimited quantity of clay and reed, the basis of Sumerian civilization.
00:03:52The inhabitants perpetrate daily the Sumerian building techniques, of which the most beautiful example is the mudif.
00:04:06The mudif is an ancestral construction made of reed, where the villagers get together for celebrations or to address matters of the community.
00:04:19Plant-like cathedrals raise up in columns of reed and form monumental arches.
00:04:31They mark out the marshes.
00:04:33This is where the elders recounted stories to their children.
00:04:36They would become the myths of our common history.
00:04:40Stories about floods and arcs built by men to resist them.
00:04:45Stories about floods and arcs built by men to resist them.
00:04:50Stories about floods and arcs built by men to resist them.
00:04:52One of the oldest and well-known stories of Mesopotamia is the Gilgamesh-Epos.
00:04:59In this epos, on the 11th page, there is a very famous story, namely the flood story.
00:05:06All people were destroyed by this flood, including one of the Babylonians, Noah.
00:05:13This story appears in a slightly changed version of the Bible, in Genesis, after the Jews in their Babylonian exile
00:05:24took this story and translated into their own language.
00:05:32Outside the mudif, Jawed allows the children of the marshes to try a virtual reality mask, with footage taken on the boat.
00:05:39In Genesis, humans decide to build a tower that is sufficiently high to go to heaven,
00:05:46especially because they fear that God does not make a second flood.
00:05:51In Genesis, humans decide to build a tower that is sufficiently high to go to heaven,
00:05:58especially because they fear that God does not make a second flood.
00:06:04So, in order to escape the flood, they rise.
00:06:08On these plains subject to flooding, the first human constructions would come from the desire to protect oneself
00:06:16from the anger of the gods and the floods they trigger.
00:06:23This mastery of nature is embodied in an invention as simple as it is great,
00:06:27the basis of all Mesopotamian architecture.
00:06:30Allons, faisons des briques et cuisons-les au feu.
00:06:36Allons, construisons-nous une ville et une tour dont le sommet touche le ciel
00:06:41et faisons-nous un nom afin de ne pas être dispersés sur toute la surface de la terre.
00:06:47Dans la plaine Mésopotamienne, on n'a pratiquement pas de pierre, peu de bois.
00:07:02On a commencé à utiliser la terre comme matériau de construction
00:07:05parce que c'est un matériau qui est disponible partout,
00:07:08qui est facilement exploitable, qui ne coûte pas grand-chose.
00:07:11Et donc, l'intérêt, ça a été de faire des éléments préfabriqués en terre
00:07:16qui vont être ensuite assemblés avec un liant sur un mur.
00:07:20Ces éléments préfabriqués, c'est ce qu'on appelle une brique.
00:07:24Et pour ça, la Mésopotamie, c'est réellement une civilisation de la brique.
00:07:32Les brique ont changé les relations avec son environnement.
00:07:36Avec les brique identiques, tout pourrait être calculé.
00:07:39Les brique identiques, les formes de brique,
00:07:41mais aussi les brique nécessaires pour le brique.
00:07:44Le premier objet que Jawad a scanned pour ses digitales Noah's Ark
00:07:49est un brique engravedé,
00:07:51sur le site de la Tower de Babel.
00:07:59Les données de ce fondement de l'architecture
00:08:02sont envoyées à l'architecture.
00:08:04Le principe du jeu, c'est que vous avez une brique, un module de base,
00:08:16et à partir de là, vous l'associez comme vous l'entendez
00:08:20pour construire le monde que vous voulez imaginer.
00:08:23Ça a permis une gamme de solutions techniques et de tailles de bâtiments,
00:08:29depuis la petite maison du paysan dans son village,
00:08:33jusqu'à une ville entière, des remparts ou une ziggourates
00:08:36dans les grandes capitales mésopotamiennes.
00:08:39La ziggourate, c'est une tour à étage.
00:08:51C'est la marque de fabrique de la civilisation mésopotamienne.
00:08:57C'est le monument original, le plus important que cette civilisation ait produit.
00:09:15C'est un sigour!
00:09:24Pour le momentà de l'architecture, c'est ce qui est un симvels pour l'architecture.
00:09:28The Ziggurats are the most important symbol of their ancient culture.
00:09:34Iraq is a country that is almost without mountains,
00:09:38and these Ziggurats are still still against the sky.
00:09:46For some, the Ziggurats embody the emerging genius of humanity.
00:09:51For others, they symbolize the arrogance of man,
00:09:54who dare to challenge the gods.
00:09:58Destroyed by ISIS in 2015,
00:10:01the Nimrud site in the Mosul region
00:10:03has just been liberated by the Iraqi armed forces.
00:10:07Jawad must act quickly,
00:10:09because after the terrorists, the looters will come.
00:10:14But for him this trip is impossible,
00:10:16since the road that connects Baghdad to the north
00:10:19crosses ISIS-occupied territory.
00:10:23He urgently contacts a Kurdish friend and archaeologist
00:10:26for him to go there, has checked the site.
00:10:35No archaeologist has yet entered this region.
00:10:37Jamal Jamil, Jawad's friend,
00:10:38is the only one who is in the U.S. region.
00:10:40He is the only one who is in the U.S. region.
00:10:42Jamal Jamil, Jawad's friend,
00:10:43is the first to see the destructions perpetrated by the Islamic State.
00:10:46Jamal Jamil, Jawad's friend, is the first to see the destructions perpetrated by the Islamic State.
00:11:11The gray areaп exasin, the Entity of theаемсяerve,
00:11:14is the same one who has been hit.
00:11:15Cure interrogated by the Multi- Patterns
00:11:16differing has been broken around the world and has Henry's target age seek peak.
00:11:20The 노력s have also been awakened.
00:11:22Namrud has been reduced to dust.
00:11:26The Lamassassus, those winged bulls with human heads,
00:11:29are nothing more than a heap of stone.
00:11:31alone. The palace of Ashur Nasirpal II has vanished.
00:12:01It's been a long time for a long time.
00:12:08German miraculously spots a barry leaf spared from the explosions and starts to scan it.
00:12:16But after a few scans, he's interrupted by a fighter of the Popular Mobilization Forces who took him for a looter.
00:12:23After warning shots, tense talks, and some photos, the fighter tells him the reasons that pushed him to leave everything, to watch over what remains of Nimrod.
00:12:36The
00:12:43The
00:12:46The
00:12:48The
00:12:50The
00:12:53The
00:12:56The
00:12:57You can't see it, you can't see it, you can't see it.
00:13:01It doesn't matter.
00:13:04It's all human beings.
00:13:08The hill the fighter speaks of is actually the ziggurat of Nimrod.
00:13:12It was photographed for the last time in 2015 from a long-distance drone.
00:13:19The site of Nimrod gets his name for a mythological king from the Bible,
00:13:24of which ISIS is trying to efface every trace.
00:13:50According to Islamic tradition as well as Jewish tradition,
00:13:53the ancient Mesopotamian civilizations all come to a head in one figure,
00:13:59the figure of the king Nimrod,
00:14:02who is sometimes said to be the king who built the Tower of Babel.
00:14:06Nimrod is a figure that represents the ancient civilizations
00:14:10that existed in Iraq before the advent of Islam.
00:14:16To the south of Baghdad, another place bears his name,
00:14:23Beers Nimrod, or Borsippa, today,
00:14:26whose ziggurat has long been confused with the Tower of Babel.
00:14:30Like here, in Borsippa, the ziggurat embodies this pride,
00:14:36that is this pride, slightly accursed, that all Iraqis recognize.
00:14:46Philip Kenney, an archaeologist from the University of Strasbourg,
00:14:49is trying to understand how and why the ziggurats were built.
00:14:53There are many civilizations that the great public knows,
00:14:58the Greek civilization and the Roman civilization.
00:15:00And these civilizations have for them
00:15:05that have left us in stone,
00:15:08which have greatly resisted the time.
00:15:11The Parthénon, the pyramids,
00:15:14the architecture of the Mésopotamia,
00:15:16which is made of bricks.
00:15:19This civilization is, in fact,
00:15:22at the same time,
00:15:23returned to the stone.
00:15:25In 2017, Philip Kenney finally got permission
00:15:38to resume his archaeological research.
00:15:40He had to give it up for over 30 years
00:15:43because of the conflicts that were tearing Iraq apart.
00:15:47While Jawad is stuck in the north,
00:15:50the French archaeologist goes to the mythical site of Eridu,
00:15:54considered to be Mesopotamia's first city.
00:15:57Here in 1946,
00:16:00Iraqi archaeological excavations
00:16:02had brought to light the remains of a construction
00:16:04dating back 7,000 years,
00:16:07probably one of the first monuments in history.
00:16:09This is not a temple as was first believed,
00:16:12but a community life center,
00:16:14similar to those of the marshes,
00:16:16a gigantic brick modif.
00:16:19Well, on the floor,
00:16:22we are almost there.
00:16:23We are at the foot of the Ziggourate.
00:16:25This is the Ziggourate itself.
00:16:27It dates from the end of the III millennium.
00:16:30And at the time,
00:16:32it was built inside an ancient sacred
00:16:34which we can see here.
00:16:36And this ancient building,
00:16:37at the III millennium,
00:16:39was certainly in the middle of a very big city
00:16:41where we don't know the building.
00:16:43Photogrammetry will really allow us
00:16:46to have a real estate model.
00:16:49It's the first time it's done.
00:16:50We will have a real 3D model
00:16:52of what we have here,
00:16:53in a very strong vision.
00:16:54We will be able to walk with a camera
00:16:56in all the interstices,
00:16:58the crevasses,
00:16:59everything we can see,
00:17:00everything we can explore,
00:17:01we can see virtually.
00:17:02The precise modelling of the site
00:17:04will deduce the outlines of the city.
00:17:06Also, the exploration underground
00:17:08can establish a new statigraphy.
00:17:10On va dépasser la zone de fouille ancienne,
00:17:12c'est ce qu'ils ont fouillé
00:17:13dans les années 40.
00:17:14C'est terminé ici, tu fixes,
00:17:15ouais, c'est sûr.
00:17:16D'une manière ou d'une autre,
00:17:17il y a quelque chose ici.
00:17:18Il est impossible
00:17:19pour faire des déchets
00:17:20d'une manière ou d'une autre,
00:17:21il y a quelque chose ici.
00:17:22Il est impossible
00:17:23pour faire des déchets
00:17:24d'une manière ou d'une autre,
00:17:25il y a quelque chose ici.
00:17:26Il est impossible
00:17:27de déchets
00:17:28de déchets
00:17:29d'une manière ou d'une autre,
00:17:30il y a quelque chose ici.
00:17:31Il est impossible
00:17:32que ce gigantesque Temenos
00:17:34soit ici tout seul
00:17:35au milieu de nulle part.
00:17:36Il y a forcément
00:17:37une ville qui s'étend.
00:17:38Alors jusqu'où on l'ignore totalement.
00:17:47Juste moi.
00:17:48Parce que c'est tout
00:17:49les cinq centimètres
00:17:50qu'ils comprennent une mesure.
00:17:52OK.
00:17:55The surveys reveal
00:17:56a new element
00:17:57that appears on the screen
00:17:58as an enigmatic red mark.
00:18:00Là, on voit en gradio,
00:18:03on voit un peu mieux
00:18:04la limite de la ziggourate.
00:18:06J'ai l'impression là.
00:18:07Mais par contre,
00:18:08il y a cette grosse tâche au milieu
00:18:09là,
00:18:10qui correspond à une grosse masse.
00:18:12Il y a quelque chose
00:18:13qui se passe.
00:18:14Toujours la tâche rouge.
00:18:15Là, la grande tâche rouge
00:18:16au milieu de la ziggourate.
00:18:17C'est carrément la plus grande.
00:18:19Oui.
00:18:20Ça pourrait être
00:18:21un temple du quatrième millénaire
00:18:23dont il ne reste que, évidemment,
00:18:25les sous-bassements.
00:18:26Il y a quelque chose
00:18:27de plus grande.
00:18:29Ce discovery
00:18:30pourrait être le lien
00:18:31entre les restes
00:18:32communautés
00:18:33construites
00:18:34de la région
00:18:35et les ziggourats.
00:18:36Philippe Keney
00:18:37les discoveries
00:18:38confirment
00:18:39une hypothèse
00:18:40supportée par l'archeologiste
00:18:41Abdoulamir Alhamdani.
00:18:43Le plus important
00:18:46discovery
00:18:47dans les expositions
00:18:48de 1946
00:18:49était le point de découvrir
00:18:51d'un rige de temples
00:18:54Le premier
00:18:55est construit
00:18:56d'un rite
00:18:57d'un rite
00:18:58d'un rite d'un rite
00:18:59d'un rite d'un rite d'un rite
00:19:00d'un rite d'un rite d'un rite d'un rite d'un rite
00:19:04be collapsed and then you have to rebuild again or build again and so you
00:19:09will level it up and you build a new temple upon it and by repeating that
00:19:14for in a thousand of years end of the day we would have a huge platform like
00:19:19this one we're standing on it it's a process of thousands of years of
00:19:25building a rebuilding and that's end of the day we have a ziggurat ziggurats are a
00:19:36physical manifestation of a long process of human construction where new
00:19:40generations build on the remains of old ones
00:19:45les ziggurats mesopotamiennes elles ont probablement été toutes construites sur
00:19:49un noyau plus ancien ce qu'il faut bien comprendre dans le principe de l'architecture
00:19:53de terre c'est que quand un bâtiment est ruiné le plus simple c'est d'arrêter
00:19:57l'ensemble et de reconstruire par-dessus siècle après siècle on a une
00:20:01élévation du site qui fait c'est elle caractéristique ces collines
00:20:06artificielle caractéristique des sites archéologiques en mesopotamie dans tout
00:20:11le dans tout proche orient these hills that make up the Iraqi deserts landscape
00:20:17are the memory of a thousand year old history of builders drawing from their
00:20:23origin of communal meeting places the ziggurats become more monumental they
00:20:27would become the symbol of mankind's mastery of the world within a new
00:20:31system urbanization
00:20:36la ziggurat de même que la cathédrale dans les pays d'europe médiéval c'est l'emblème de la ville
00:20:45et dans les textes mesopotamiens ville et tour vont ensemble
00:20:55more than the number of inhabitants what characterizes the passage from village to city
00:21:10is an unprecedented social organization the people divided up the
00:21:15tasks necessary for the life of the city by 3000 BC a specialization of trades
00:21:21appeared population of artisans gardeners winemakers scribes and legislators saw
00:21:29the light of day the city was an artificial enclosure where men organize
00:21:34themselves to eat to produce and live together to document this revolution social organization
00:21:46jawad goes to meet franco d'agostino from the roman university of sapienza who leads excavations
00:21:53on the site of abu t'pera franco d'agostino's research is on social relations in new emerging cities
00:22:00franco d'agostino's research is on social relations in new emerging cities
00:22:04l'uomo mesopotamico si è reso conto che era molto conveniente vivere in una città con molti
00:22:21abitanti quindi per la prima volta nella storia dell'uomo si ha più cibo di quante sono le
00:22:25persone che lo producono ma l'abilità dei sumeri non è stata soltanto quella di nutrire tante persone
00:22:32ma è stata soprattutto quella di organizzare queste persone per un fine comune c'è una città
00:22:38differenziata in cui c'era una organizzazione lavorativa centralizzata una redistribuzione
00:22:44dei prodotti centralizzata è sembrato a loro come il modo più conveniente di superare il collasso
00:22:51alimentare o comunque l'emergenza alimentare the social hierarchy which comes from this and is
00:22:59already accustomed today changes everything and it's to be found on the famous urok vas dating
00:23:07back to 3200 BC it is considered to be the first narrative relief in history on its base one can
00:23:13see the taming of nature symbolized by agriculture and livestock in the middle nine naked men carry
00:23:21on top two clergy members pay tribute to the priest king who alone has the right to be in contact with
00:23:31a goddess mentre si appropriavano del mondo andavano creando anche una ideologia specifica e saranno
00:23:39loro a inventare e la differenziazione sociale ea inventare l'ideologia che difende questa visione del mondo
00:23:47l'uomo ha accettato la differenziazione sociale l'iniquità sociale perché era molto conveniente dal
00:23:55punto di vista della sopravvivenza della della città stessa
00:24:05social inequalities materialized with the accumulation of goods and the markers of ownership
00:24:10the cylinder seal rolled onto fresh clay guaranteed the authenticity of the goods and designated
00:24:17its owner the increasing sophistication of seals showed this transition between a contractual
00:24:25function and the emergence of visual signs with symbolic value from these prestigious works of art
00:24:33an invention was born around 3500 BC which would forever change our relationship with the world
00:24:39and take humanity into another dimension
00:24:44the kalschrift the ensnance in a mining wirtschaftskontext wo also for verwaltungszwecke
00:24:51scharfe und getreidemengen dokumentiert und verwaltet werden mussten und wir haben also dort
00:24:59vor Ort vor uns haben wir texte mit pictogrammen die eben die tiere oder die güter darstellen
00:25:07und zahlzeichen
00:25:10ces pictogrammes sont des signes qui représentent ce qu'ils signifient si on veut noter un poisson on
00:25:18aura un signe qui ressemble à la silhouette d'un poisson et puis petit à petit cette écriture va
00:25:24devenir un peu anguleuse ce qu'on appelle donc l'écriture cuneiforme en forme de coin chaque signe étant
00:25:39composé par des coins qui sont verticaux allongés etc et c'est qu'il s'est à la loro invention un'inventione
00:25:47un'inventione che a permesso a un numero molto grande di popolazioni di poter scrivere la
00:25:54propria lingua hanno cominciato i sumeri un po i babilonesi e assiri egli titi i elamiti i hurriti
00:26:01i urartei grazie all'inventione della scrittura cuneiforme che praticamente ha la stessa importanza
00:26:08nella storia antica che ha avuto l'alfabeto greco e l'alfabeto latino a scopo designé le note de dieu
00:26:16par l'écriture l'ancienne écriture par terre
00:26:19bene questo è il segno che hanno usato i sumeri per indicare il dio è una stella e indica appunto
00:26:31il la parola per dio che in sumerico era dinghyr dinghyr
00:26:35adesso ajavad lei ha disegnato il segno per dio in sumerico
00:26:53cuneiform writing was constantly evolving until its disappearance in favor of the aramaic alphabet
00:26:59it wasn't until 1850 that we managed to decipher it to read written messages by other men four
00:27:07thousand years earlier
00:27:14jawad the exiled writer back on his native soil is heading to the place where writing was born
00:27:19it is here in uruk that the oldest inscribed tablets were found
00:27:33the diversity of the tablets shows how much writing was connected with urban life
00:27:39economic transactions declarations of ownership knowledge royal successions sacred texts
00:27:47and the premises of the law were now engraved in clay and constituted the foundations of a collective life
00:27:54but there were also common legends being conserved in clay
00:27:59in uruk the oldest known literary figure is found
00:28:03gilgamesh
00:28:04this mythical king inscribed his name on the bricks of his city walls
00:28:24gilgamesh's impossible quest for eternity goes through writing and the foundations of his city
00:28:30traces which he hoped would be everlasting he did je veux que pour toujours on puisse contempler
00:28:39l'enceinte que gilgamesh a bati autour d'uk ce qui va rester lui c'est cela
00:28:48c'est l'enceinte de la ville
00:28:54with writing the sumerians rebuilt the world with signs as they had done with bricks
00:29:00a gigantic power has fallen into human hands a few of them at least
00:29:06les scribes décrivent le monde tel qu'il est habité par des objets par des matières par des hommes
00:29:15ces textes mettent le monde à la merci de leurs lecteurs les lecteurs sont des élites sociales on
00:29:23montre à la société qu'on est plus prestigieux que les autres qu'on a entre les mains la
00:29:29description du monde et donc on a le monde à ses pieds
00:29:33yuruk is the first city state with a population of 40 000 inhabitants its area was spread out in
00:29:41the middle of the fourth millennium and almost 400 hectares with brickwork and water control the
00:29:49mesopotamians have laid their foundations with the city and the writing it brought to mankind the dawn
00:29:55of history as we know it
00:30:03the different teams who answer jawad's call are scattered throughout iraq
00:30:09while the bossipper sites near babylon and hrinis in the north are scanned
00:30:14jawad joins a team of the archaeologist sebastian ray from the british museum in gursu
00:30:19gursu was only a village until the construction in the third millennium of a vast network of canals
00:30:29that connected it to the tigris these great works made it an ambitious and dynamic city with an
00:30:34incredibly modern civil engineering structure nous sommes ici devant un des monuments les plus
00:30:39importants de tello de guirsu un monument qui a été fouillé donc par l'émission française genouillac et
00:30:49paro de 1929 jusqu'en 1933 c'est un monument énigmatique il s'agit en vérité du plus ancien pont connu de l'histoire
00:30:58voilà c'est pour vous donner une sorte d'idée de la monumentalité de l'édifice
00:31:05c'est assez impressionnant ça voilà donc et toujours le problème récurrent en mésopotamie comme vous
00:31:13voyez le sillon destructeur ça c'est la plaie des sites de briques en mésopotamie ça c'est intéressant
00:31:22dans une inscription on a exactement le nombre de briques et la quantité de bitume qui ont été
00:31:28utilisés pour la restauration du pont sous les rois de dour donc donc c'est vraiment des informations
00:31:34intéressantes et ce sont les tablettes qui nous donnent ces renseignements l'aspect un peu
00:31:38symbolique c'est que c'est évidemment restaurer un pont en irak après cette phase de chaos total qui ne
00:31:43date pas que de daesh c'est enfin comprendre que l'irak c'est 30 ans de chaos de guerre et donc cette
00:31:49idée là de restaurer ce pont alors évidemment il ya tout l'aspect la technologie la formation des
00:31:53archéologues mais symboliquement c'est puissant c'est ce que c'est le symbole que l'irak a besoin c'est ce
00:31:58pont de guirsou in europe the digital data are collected the sites are modeled the artifacts reconstructed
00:32:17in 3d jawats virtual museum is digital noah's art begins to take shape
00:32:25meanwhile philippe kenny and abdul amir alhamdani go to the or site
00:32:44on
00:32:51on
00:32:53on
00:32:56along with look war is the most important mesopotamian city-state
00:33:00before the rise of babylon it is the embodiment of a power capable of establishing its authority
00:33:06on tens of thousands of city dwellers
00:33:12it is thanks to the discovery of the royal cemetery at or that we have significant information
00:33:19on the political organization of city-states
00:33:25we are passing below a vault which is five thousand years old
00:33:31right
00:33:33the exhumation of these tombs by leonard bully in 1925 is one of the most important archaeological finds
00:33:39of the 20th century the jewelry and works of art that were found there were attributes of a higher social class
00:33:46these elites were distinguished by luxury
00:33:52but these treasures are not the only surprise in the cemetery that at the time of the excavations the english press had named the great death pit
00:34:05dozens of people were buried with queen puerby
00:34:12her servants musicians soldiers and we know they were killed for the occasion of the funerals
00:34:18this will they could observe in the field but we don't have any written documentation that explain us why and how it was done
00:34:31that's true this is something new the first and the only example in the mesopotamian in north history we find a mass grave
00:34:37and the opposite of the egyptians
00:34:44and the opposite of the egyptians
00:34:46mesopotamians said you have a very short you know life and you have to do whatever you can do
00:34:53you have to achieve your goals in this short you know life and they didn't think about the death or what would happen to their bodies after you know life
00:35:06and if you look to the epic of gilgamesh
00:35:09and sidori gave advice to gilgamesh
00:35:12go back to uruk and do whatever you can do and you're going to be lasted forever
00:35:19wali did find only two tombs of the five kings of war
00:35:24we know that last you know king was taken a prisoner by the element
00:35:28but we still have to find the other two tombs
00:35:32one of them was to the founder of or the king or namu you know that would be another big discovery
00:35:42but it was above all the city's spatial organization which showed the extent of its power
00:35:52as in uruk the city has an enclosure which symbolically separates it from nature
00:35:57and inside the city a second enclosure which defines the place of power
00:36:02and inside the city we have two levels of construction
00:36:05what we call the low and the high and the high
00:36:20in the low and the high and the high
00:36:23in the low and the most popular cities
00:36:26after having traveled these areas
00:36:30we had to be able to see
00:36:32the high and the high city
00:36:35what we call the high city
00:36:36what we call the high city
00:36:38it is built on a gigantic platform
00:36:41on this terrace
00:36:43we have two main assemblies
00:36:46one of the treasure
00:36:48the treasure
00:36:49the kings of our
00:36:50the palace
00:36:51and the palace
00:36:52and on the other side
00:36:53the religious complex of the moon
00:36:55the god
00:36:57the god
00:36:59the god
00:37:00the god
00:37:01the god
00:37:02the god
00:37:03the god
00:37:04the god
00:37:05the god
00:37:06the god
00:37:07the god
00:37:08the god
00:37:09the god
00:37:10restored in the middle of the 20th century
00:37:12the ziggurat of ur embodies a monarchy of divine right
00:37:15a human power that claims the authority of the gods
00:37:20if we go back to the time
00:37:22and we go back to the beginning of the 5th millennium
00:37:25when we still had a village community
00:37:27the power was represented by a man
00:37:30perhaps
00:37:32that everyone knew
00:37:34but as soon as the complexification of society
00:37:38these villages will grow
00:37:40the number of inhabitants will grow
00:37:44and from that moment
00:37:46the power must win
00:37:48in abstraction
00:37:51the message that is vehiculated to the entire population
00:37:55which is obviously not literate
00:37:57is vehiculated by the architecture
00:38:00and this acropole
00:38:02is really a set of power at the imperial level
00:38:06these towns of a new type and their ziggurats
00:38:10will at the turn of the second millennium
00:38:12fall under the yoke of the imperial ambitions of one man
00:38:17the empire of Sargon
00:38:19the empire of Sargon
00:38:20was one of the first greats
00:38:22of the ancient empire
00:38:23and the king Sargon
00:38:24the desire to be the world to beher
00:38:30the cosmos to beher
00:38:32that he says explicitly in his writing
00:38:35also it was the intention of this empire
00:38:37that this empire is all-um-fassened
00:38:40this is maybe the first time that this empire will be formulated
00:38:44differently
00:38:46this is the first time that this empire is the first great ruler in history
00:38:51this man of humble beginnings of sematic and non-sumerian origin
00:38:56raised an army and founded a new city, Akkad, his capital
00:39:00in which he built an immense ziggurat
00:39:03his reign began in the 23rd century BC
00:39:06and marks the start of an expansionist ideology
00:39:09which consisted in forcing the surrounding populations into submission
00:39:13the face of the region will be forever transformed
00:39:19following Sargon, Babylonians, then Assyrians
00:39:23will extend their domination from the shores of the Mediterranean
00:39:27to the doors of the Persian mountains
00:39:34One year after the start of his conservation mission
00:39:37Jawad can finally reach Mosul
00:39:39part of which has just been recaptured by ISIS soldiers
00:39:42accompanied by the Iraqi army
00:39:53Jawad goes on to the esplanade of the mosque
00:39:55which overlooks the city
00:39:57according to tradition
00:39:58it housed the tomb of the biblical prophet Jonah
00:40:01before ISIS in its fight against idolatry
00:40:03bombed the site and blockaded it
00:40:12Jawa discovers an inextricable network of tunnels
00:40:38ISIS used them as hideouts
00:40:41it is rumored that the tomb of the prophet Jonah
00:40:43was built here to hide something in it
00:40:52we now know it's the vanished palace of Isaradon
00:40:55great Assyrian ruler who reigned over Mesopotamia
00:40:58in the 7th century BC
00:41:00it was pillaged by ISIS
00:41:18time is against Jawad and the scientific community
00:41:21the tunnels are on the verge of collapse
00:41:24French technicians start scanning the underground passages and artifacts
00:41:28this will allow for the global conservation
00:41:30this will allow for the global conservation
00:41:32and analysis of this miraculous discovery
00:41:36the eastern part of the city just liberated is starting to come back to life
00:41:51but the old town west of the Tigris is still in the hands of ISIS
00:41:55the museum is on the front line
00:41:57the prime target for sniper fire
00:41:59it was devastated by the Islamic State
00:42:02ISIS justifies its acts of destruction
00:42:10by referring to the iconoclastic stories of the Islamic tradition
00:42:13in which Abraham, father of the three monotheistic religions
00:42:18confronts King Nimrod
00:42:28the idols that Ibrahim smashed
00:42:30are the idols that Nimrod used politically
00:42:34to maintain his empire
00:42:36he refuses to give them up
00:42:38because he refuses to give up the earthly power
00:42:43that is built upon them
00:42:45and so the story of Ibrahim smashing the idols
00:42:49is a story about human political power
00:42:54on the one hand
00:42:55and allegiance and submission to God
00:42:58on the other
00:42:59it's a story about whether one submits
00:43:02to political power
00:43:04to human power
00:43:06or whether one submits to God
00:43:12it was in Mesopotamia
00:43:14that imperial power emerged
00:43:16a centralized power
00:43:18which imposes itself on vast territories
00:43:20and over peoples of different cultures
00:43:22along with imperialism
00:43:24cosmopolitanism was also born
00:43:27cultures mixed
00:43:29mythological and religious stories converged
00:43:31on the hill of the prophet Jonah
00:43:42Iraqis of all origins
00:43:44come together
00:43:45and to brave the bans imposed by ISIS
00:43:48the people of Iraq
00:44:01cradle of this multicultural civilization
00:44:03are still struggling to find a common destiny
00:44:05Iraq is made up of a myriad of people
00:44:18along with the Christians
00:44:20Sunni
00:44:21and Shiite Muslims
00:44:22there are the Shabaks
00:44:23the Kurds
00:44:24the Turkmen
00:44:25and the Yazidi
00:44:26if cultural diversity is still symbolized by Babylon
00:44:37and its legendary tower of Babel
00:44:39it was in Nippur
00:44:40that the university was born
00:44:42a place of intellectual effervescence
00:44:47nourished by this mixture of religions and cultures
00:44:50Jawaad is welcomed by Professor Abbas Alizadeh
00:44:59from the Oriental Institute of Chicago
00:45:01for the American professor
00:45:03cosmopolitanism is synonymous with knowledge and science
00:45:07we are now actually standing in the middle of the great trench
00:45:11where they found scribal quarter
00:45:14with a lot of other houses
00:45:17narrow alleys
00:45:18wide alleys
00:45:20dead-end alleys
00:45:21big houses
00:45:22small houses
00:45:23but in a number of these residential areas
00:45:27they found thousands and thousands of tablets
00:45:30literally tablets
00:45:31they had account tablets
00:45:33they had Omen text
00:45:35all sorts of tablets they found here
00:45:38you can really think of this area as major universities
00:45:44say Sorbonne or Harvard
00:45:46or the University of Chicago
00:45:48campus
00:45:49where highly educated people
00:45:51put together to serve the temple
00:45:54and these people
00:45:55because of their education
00:45:57were crème de la crème of the society
00:45:59it was here that the Nippur cubit was invented
00:46:03graduated ruler
00:46:05the oldest standard measure of length
00:46:07all measures were based on this
00:46:09until Roman antiquity
00:46:11this was also where a city was mapped for the first time on a large scale
00:46:15a tablet dated 1500 BC depicts the Euphrates and the canals which carried its waters to the city
00:46:23the city was a center of intellectual production from which scientific standards would emerge
00:46:28which changed our relationship not only to space but also to time
00:46:32Eine sehr wichtige wissenschaftliche und kulturelle Leistung der Mesopotamia
00:46:38die wir vor allem in Nippur auf sehr vielen Tafeln antreffen
00:46:42ist das Zahlensystem der Mesopotamia das auf 60 beruht
00:46:47das sogenannte sexagesimale Zahlensystem
00:46:49wir kennen es ja heutzutage
00:46:53auch noch aus der Zeitrechnung
00:46:55wo wir ja zum Beispiel
00:46:57die Stunde in 60 Minuten einteilen
00:46:59die Minute in 60 Sekunden
00:47:01und genauso bei der Winkelmessung
00:47:03haben wir ja 360 Grad
00:47:05und besteht ein Grad aus
00:47:0760 Bogenminuten
00:47:09in der Astronomie und eine
00:47:11Bogenminute aus 60 Bogensekunden
00:47:13also das sind Techniken
00:47:15Verfahren die wir über
00:47:17über die Griechen aus Babylonien
00:47:19und letztendlich kann man fast sagen
00:47:21aus Nippur übernommen haben
00:47:25The scientific revolution of this measuring system
00:47:27did not just consist in the division of time
00:47:29into regular units
00:47:31but also linked this measure
00:47:33to the movements of the stars
00:47:35In Nippur
00:47:37the foundations of astronomy were born
00:47:41Die Einführung
00:47:43des sexagesimalen Systems
00:47:45und auch die Einführung
00:47:47eines einheitlichen Kalenders
00:47:49der von anderen Städten übernommen wurde
00:47:51Eine Bedingung war
00:47:53dass unterschiedliche Leute
00:47:55unterschiedliche Bevölkerungsgruppen
00:47:57in größeren Zusammenhängen
00:47:59kooperieren konnten
00:48:01und in der Hinsicht kann man das sehen
00:48:03als eine Bedingung
00:48:05für einen multikulturellen Staat
00:48:07für wenn sie wollen
00:48:09Kosmopolitismus
00:48:11aus
00:48:13you know in the Bible
00:48:15they say God
00:48:17got angry and made
00:48:19everybody spoke different languages
00:48:21there is something about that
00:48:23that means in Babylon
00:48:25a lot of people different
00:48:27spoke different languages
00:48:29there were Persians there
00:48:31they were Scythians there
00:48:32they were Akkadians
00:48:33the Semites from Syria
00:48:35they all lived there
00:48:37so they had different languages
00:48:39that actually is reflected in that course of the God
00:48:45on the Bible
00:48:47that they sorted different languages
00:48:49they couldn't understand each other
00:48:51it's a vision
00:48:53that doesn't belong
00:48:55on a historical reality
00:48:57and on the other
00:48:58it doesn't matter
00:48:59of an element
00:49:00that in our eyes
00:49:01is something important
00:49:02and that is also played
00:49:03for the anciens
00:49:04that is the wealth
00:49:05that there is
00:49:06to have different languages
00:49:08even though
00:49:09communication
00:49:10can cause problems
00:49:12a story is told about Victor Hugo's 70th birthday
00:49:22ambassadors from all over the world came
00:49:25to pay homage to the great poet
00:49:27when he was told that the ambassador from England arrived
00:49:30Victor Hugo said
00:49:32England
00:49:33ah Shakespeare
00:49:35when the ambassador from Germany arrived
00:49:37ah Goethe
00:49:39when the ambassador from Spain arrived
00:49:41ah Cervantes
00:49:45and then
00:49:46a man walks in
00:49:48who's announced as
00:49:50the ambassador from Mesopotamia
00:49:53Victor Hugo
00:49:55was unsure for a moment
00:49:58but then
00:49:59he lit up and said
00:50:01Mesopotamia
00:50:03ah
00:50:04humanity
00:50:06after months of travelling in Iraq
00:50:25Jawad takes the road to Babylon
00:50:28his hometown
00:50:29to complete his digital conservation mission
00:50:32the destruction he observed during his trip
00:50:36has given him a new dream
00:50:38to offer Iraqis and the world
00:50:41a realistic virtual reconstruction
00:50:43of the ziggarette of Babylon
00:50:45the legendary tower of Babel
00:50:47Babylon
00:51:00Babylon is a city whose name will remain associated with that of Mesopotamia
00:51:05after the Sumerian city-states
00:51:07the Assyrian and Akkadian empires
00:51:09this is where the civilisation that was born in the marshes
00:51:12saw its finest days
00:51:14here
00:51:16we find enclosures
00:51:18like in Uruk
00:51:19temples
00:51:20universities
00:51:21like in Nippur
00:51:22palaces as majestic as those of Nimrud
00:51:24and Khosabad
00:51:25and a gigantic bridge
00:51:27over the Euphrates
00:51:28like in Gersu
00:51:29everything there was bigger
00:51:31more splendid
00:51:32until its fall
00:51:34in 539 BC
00:51:35and the advent of the Persian Empire
00:51:38Babylon's superiority
00:51:40displayed a hegemonic ambition
00:51:42larger than the Assyrian empires
00:51:44which succeeded
00:51:45for the Babylonians
00:51:46their capital was not that of an empire
00:51:48but of the world
00:51:50on the very first world map known to us
00:51:53which depicted all known peoples
00:51:55inhabiting the earth
00:51:56Babylon was in the centre
00:51:58and the centre of this centre
00:52:00was its ziggurat
00:52:05l'une des ziggurats
00:52:07celle de Babylon
00:52:08porte anon
00:52:09et temen anki
00:52:11la maison
00:52:13du fondement
00:52:14du ciel et de la terre
00:52:18Für die Babylonier
00:52:19war der Turm zu Babel
00:52:20eine ganz wesentliche Struktur
00:52:22für die Stabilität des Kosmos
00:52:25und zwar ist ja
00:52:27das Tempelkomplex
00:52:29des Gottes Marduk
00:52:31der
00:52:32bei den Babylonien
00:52:33als König des Kosmos
00:52:34König der Götter
00:52:36und auch König der Menschen
00:52:37galt
00:52:38Das Tempel,
00:52:40die auf dem
00:52:41hoffen
00:52:42der Tauern
00:52:43der Babel
00:52:44war ihm
00:52:45Marduk
00:52:46der König des Gottes
00:52:47der Pantheon
00:52:48der König der Babylon
00:52:49der König der
00:52:50der König der Jupiter
00:52:51einer der sieben wandern
00:52:52starren
00:52:53die später
00:52:54werden
00:52:55die Planeten
00:52:56die
00:52:57die
00:52:58zum Teil des Tages
00:52:59des Tages
00:53:00das Tempel
00:53:01war der Ort
00:53:02wo die Astronomen
00:53:03tagtäglich
00:53:04ihre Forschung betrieben
00:53:05den Himmel
00:53:06beobachteten
00:53:07die Berechnungen
00:53:08machten
00:53:09und so sehen wir
00:53:10die Entwicklung
00:53:11very complex methods that sometimes rely on complex mathematical methods.
00:53:18So we can model and model the movement of Jupiter and measure.
00:53:23That is a very modern concept,
00:53:26that you can calculate the movement so geometrically,
00:53:30which we can actually reach first 1.200, 1.400 years later
00:53:35again in the Middle Ages.
00:53:38The spectacle of moving stars at night became an object of knowledge.
00:53:45Astronomy, born in Mesopotamia,
00:53:48testifies to the human desire to translate natural phenomena into foreseeable events.
00:53:56As Jawad scans the griffins of Babylon,
00:53:59these chimeras that are a hybrid of the eagle and the lion,
00:54:02the Babylonian intellectual, Salam Harba,
00:54:05committed to the preservation of heritage,
00:54:07paste Jawad a visit.
00:54:11But Babel is a knowledge icon.
00:54:14It's a place for the creatures, the creatures, the creatures and the creatures.
00:54:19It's a place for this earth.
00:54:21Therefore, we say that Babel is a sacred land.
00:54:25Who is here?
00:54:26From this place,
00:54:28the human desire, the words, the words, the knowledge, the knowledge, the knowledge, and everything.
00:54:34The human desire, the human desire, the human desire,
00:54:41for living this town,
00:54:43there is a desire to destroy the town.
00:54:45The human desire,
00:55:15In the summer of 1920, the phreatic has diminished.
00:55:23The archaeologists in the middle of a square, filled with roseaux,
00:55:30the base of a monument entirely in briques.
00:55:36What appeared as a pure myth, appears now as a reality.
00:55:44In the occidental imagination, we had to reconstitue this tour of Babel
00:55:51on a circular plane.
00:55:53This representation comes from comparison to the Colisée of Rome
00:55:58or with the minaret of Samara's mosque.
00:56:03In fact, the ziggurat was a square.
00:56:08We recently found a tablet in a private collection,
00:56:13with a description and with a drawing of the ziggurat
00:56:18and with the plan of the temple of Sommet.
00:56:21This unique representation of the tower would confirm
00:56:24the enigmatic measurements supplied by a tablet discovered in the 19th century
00:56:28and a subject of controversy.
00:56:353 x 60 is the length, 3 x 60 is the large.
00:56:42These dimensions are so 3 x 3 is 9, 9 x 2 is 18.
00:56:48The base of the etémenanqui is so 3 x 4.
00:56:51The height is equal to the length and the width.
00:56:54The sage initié will show this to the initié.
00:56:59The non-initié does not see it.
00:57:01Could the tower of Babel measure 90 meters high, being built of bricks?
00:57:13The ambition of Babylonians wanting to touch the sky
00:57:18seems to clash with the laws of physics.
00:57:20What is the problem is that a tower of 90 meters high,
00:57:29is a monument that cannot stand.
00:57:32We know that it has never been taken for a long time,
00:57:36that it has been created by reparations and reconstructions.
00:57:44Jawad visits the Akarkouf to find out if the ziggurats could reach these proportions.
00:57:51This ziggurat was the tallest ever built, 3,500 years ago.
00:57:57There remains today a core of 57 meters eaten away by erosion,
00:58:02which seems to defy the laws of gravity.
00:58:04The ziggurat is built in a way of a
00:58:24and that it has been built in a way.
00:58:27It has been built in a way.
00:58:28It has been built in a way.
00:58:29It has been built in a way.
00:58:30It has been built in a way.
00:58:34As soon as we built,
00:58:36we added the roof and the roof.
00:58:39We tried to maintain at the horizontal
00:58:42a certain number of elements
00:58:44repetitive in the tower,
00:58:46so that the whole body could move without falling out.
00:58:50This layering of reed mats, clay and straw,
00:58:55could be the solution of the equation of the Tower of Babel.
00:59:00Clay and reed are the ingredients with which the first structures were built on,
00:59:05the marshes up to the Tower of Babel.
00:59:07The Mesopotamians never stopped to hoist the earth up to the gates of the stars.
00:59:23Jawad's mission lasted three years.
00:59:29A large number of sites, inaccessible for a while,
00:59:33have been filmed and surveyed.
00:59:35Many objects have been scanned and virtually reconstructed in 3D.
00:59:40Thanks to the data collected during Jawad's trip,
00:59:45the Tower of Babel can finally be recreated.
00:59:48Its square base, its brick walls and glazes,
00:59:56its seven terraces crowned by the Temple of Marduk.
01:00:00Its elevation symbolizes the will of man to build together.
01:00:06Coming up, discover the incredible architecture hidden within an ancient fortress,
01:00:23in Alhambra, Secrets of the Ancient Builders.
01:00:26Or over on SBS Food, explore the radical views and food of West Virginia,
01:00:30in Anthony Bourdain, Parts Unknown.
01:00:36The
01:00:48The
01:00:52The