00:00Eridu, a megacity older than the first known civilization, and older than the pyramids of Giza,
00:08was buried in the sands of the Mesopotamian desert for over 2,000 years.
00:13Now, scientists have made a discovery that changes what we know about the ancient city.
00:19They found over 4,000 canals around Eridu that brought water to more than 700 farms
00:25where people worked between the 6th and the early 1st millennium BCE.
00:30Now, Eridu was founded around 5,400 BCE and was the city of the first kings
00:36and history's first city according to the Sumerian king list, an ancient text on a clay tablet.
00:44Ancient Sumerians believed that deities created this city when they decided to settle on Earth.
00:51Eridu plays such a big role in Sumerian myths and legends that, at some point,
00:56people used to think it was just a mythical location.
00:59The most famous Eridu myth says that the skies got angry because humans were too noisy,
01:05so they decided to send a great flood to wipe them out.
01:09A new study showed that the Euphrates River served as the source of water for the entire city.
01:15The researchers mapped what remains of the ancient landscape
01:18and found a well-developed network of artificial irrigation canals.
01:23They discovered 200 large main canals pulling water from the Euphrates,
01:28and those canals fed another 4,000 smaller canals.
01:32The team used everything from satellite images and drone footage
01:36to soil analysis, old records, and remote sizing tech to map out the area.
01:41The 700 farms that used the water from the system were different in size,
01:46from about 5,000 square feet to over 200,000 square feet.
01:51The main canals were a little over a half mile long,
01:55and some stretched more than 5 miles.
01:57The smaller canals could be as short as 32 feet.
02:02Rivers in Mesopotamia were the main water sources for farming,
02:06so ancient farmers had to learn how to guide water from the river to their fields.
02:10It all started with simple methods, like digging small canals.
02:15But over generations, they learned how to build massive canals up to 62 miles long.
02:22The Euphrates itself helped the farmers.
02:25Water was moving thanks to gravity down its elevated riverbanks,
02:28and natural breaks in the banks let it spill onto the land.
02:32Researchers aren't sure when each canal was in use,
02:35and it's unlikely that all 4,200 canals were active at the same time
02:39during that long period.
02:43Now, Eridu used to be an important religious and trade center
02:46because of its strategic location on the Persian Gulf.
02:50Its economy mostly had to do with fishing, thanks to the Euphrates River.
02:55Researchers found fishing nets and weights
02:57and whole bales of dried fish at the site.
03:00And there were even models of reed boats,
03:03the earliest physical evidence we have for constructed boats anywhere.
03:08The city was thriving until people abandoned it around the year 600 BCE.
03:13And scientists still aren't sure why they did it.
03:16The local residents, plus the visiting pilgrims and merchants,
03:20had just exhausted all the resources of the land.
03:23They had to let it rest several times before abandoning the city for good.
03:27It happened when the Euphrates changed its course,
03:31and they lost their main source of water.
03:35Now, many centuries later, in 1854,
03:38a British official was on a mission to this area
03:40to check out a remote place that had a bunch of mounds called tells,
03:45which are piles of debris left behind by ancient human settlements.
03:49At first, Taylor wasn't impressed.
03:52He had been hoping to find something big,
03:53maybe statues, ancient writing, or ruins of palaces and temples.
03:58But with the brief time he had,
04:00all he found were things like walls, drains, stone platforms,
04:04and pieces of limestone columns decorated with tiny mosaic cones.
04:10But he didn't know that these boring mounds
04:13were hiding one of the oldest cities on Earth, Eridu.
04:17The people at the British Museum got interested in the finding,
04:20but the first full-scale excavations took place here only around a century later.
04:26The local Iraqi authorities got really interested in the excavations
04:30as they were hoping to find more about the earliest days of Mesopotamian history.
04:36So they focused on Mound 1,
04:38a massive tell as tall as an eight-story building.
04:43Soon they uncovered part of an unfinished step pyramid
04:46from the end of the 3rd millennium BCE.
04:48As they dug deeper,
04:51they found layers of human life going back in time.
04:54There were levels from the Uruk period
04:56and even remains from a time before the Sumerians called Proto-history.
05:02In those lower layers,
05:03they discovered multiple rebuilds of the Temple of Enki,
05:07the city's main deity.
05:09People rebuilt this temple again and again for over 2,000 years.
05:13Every time the temple collapsed,
05:15they built a new one right on top.
05:17Each new version of the temple was bigger and more impressive than the last.
05:22From the middle of the 4th millennium BCE,
05:25these temple buildings became massive,
05:28more advanced than anything else humans had built up to that point.
05:31The city in Eridu was also becoming more complex,
05:35with clear social classes.
05:38Eventually, they stopped rebuilding the temple
05:40and put up a step pyramid on top of the ruins.
05:45Even though Eridu faded,
05:46it likely stayed important as a religious site.
05:50Archaeologists found pottery from the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE
05:53during excavations,
05:55although there were no signs of houses.
05:57The Sumerians were an innovative civilization,
06:01as you can tell.
06:02By 1500 BCE,
06:04they invented the cedar plow,
06:06a tool that let farmers plow and plant seeds
06:09at the same time,
06:10using animals like oxen to pull it.
06:13This gear even came with instructions.
06:15The Sumerian Farmers' Almanac gave farmers advice
06:20on how to grow more crops
06:21with proper tilling and irrigation.
06:24These smart farming tricks helped feed more people,
06:28which led to larger cities,
06:29an organized ruling system,
06:31and more focus on religion.
06:33And as their cities expanded,
06:35so did their work in writing, math, and spiritual life.
06:395,000 years ago,
06:41the Sumerians had already produced cuneiform,
06:43one of the first writing systems in history.
06:47So, another recent find from the same part of the world
06:51proves that bureaucracy existed already 4,000 years ago.
06:56Archaeologists found ancient administrative tablets
06:59in another ancient Sumerian city.
07:01These clay tablets are the oldest solid proof we have
07:04of the world's first empire,
07:06the Akkadian Empire.
07:09The tablets were inside a state archive building
07:12made of mud bricks,
07:13which had different rooms that acted like offices.
07:17Now, before this discovery,
07:19archaeologists didn't really understand
07:21how the first known empire in the world,
07:23the Akkadian Empire,
07:24worked behind the scenes.
07:26But now, thanks to the recent Gerso excavations,
07:29we have the first real and unambiguous evidence
07:33of the empire's administrative system.
07:35They tracked everything—deliveries, spending, and inventory—
07:41from fish to sheep to grains, fabric, and even gems.
07:45The tablets also include population records,
07:48with names and jobs of men, women, and kids,
07:51an ancient version of a census.
07:53From these records, scientists found out
07:55that women played a key role in Akkadian society.
07:58Some women had powerful positions,
08:00like high priestesses.
08:01The tablets also show a wide range of jobs,
08:06from skilled workers, like stonecutters,
08:08to people with simpler roles,
08:10like temple floor sweepers.
08:12Some even included building blueprints,
08:15field layouts, and canal maps,
08:17proving that the empire had serious organization
08:19and planning.
08:21Eventually, the city rebelled and gained its independence,
08:25and the Akkadian Empire's 150-year rule ended.
08:28Now, researchers are carefully cleaning
08:31and translating the tablets
08:32to fully understand what they say.
08:36These new finds will replace
08:37older, incomplete ideas about the empire,
08:40and give us a way more accurate picture
08:42of how Akkadian power
08:44and the ruling system actually worked.
08:48That's it for today.
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