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00:03Deep in the Iraqi desert, a huge structure rises from the sands, the Great Ziggurat of Ur.
00:13This is the only standing ziggurat in the world.
00:16It towers over the remains of the first civilization ever known, the Sumerians of Mesopotamia,
00:26rulers of what the Bible calls the Garden of Eden.
00:30The ziggurat symbolizes the dawn of civilization.
00:34Long off limits in a violent war zone.
00:38Now our cameras have exclusive access to explore this extraordinary structure
00:45and follow experts as they solve the Great Ziggurat's 4,000-year-old mysteries.
00:51Incredibly exciting. There's a lot more to discover.
00:55Where is the lost city that ancient writings say once surrounds the Great Ziggurat?
01:02What does it take to forge a civilization here?
01:06In a quest for answers, we digitally rebuild the city at the height of its glory.
01:13We unearth the treasure of lost kings
01:16and reveal the real marvels of engineering
01:19that made this one of the first and greatest cities on the planet.
01:32Nosyria, ma'am
01:35Bacchira, ma'am
01:36Courses, ma'am
01:37Bacchira, ma'am
01:42Courses, ma'am
01:54before the ancient Egyptians build their greatest temples and tombs.
02:00Today, it lies abandoned.
02:02But 4,000 years ago, this is the heart of the world's first civilization,
02:08the Sumerians of Mesopotamia.
02:15In 2100 BC, the Great Ziggurat towers over a complex of temples and grand palaces.
02:25Ancient writings say this inner sanctum is surrounded by a sprawling maze of workshops and houses,
02:34all ringed by a defensive city wall.
02:39This is Ur, a place believed to be one of the world's first great cities.
02:44Is Ur a pioneering metropolis? A vast city, as the legends say?
02:50How do the Sumerians create a blueprint for urban life here?
02:58For over 40 years, the dangers of war have restricted the hunt for the truth about this legendary city.
03:05But today, our cameras have been granted exclusive access to follow Abdulamir Hamdani and his team
03:13as they explore this remarkable complex.
03:18Abdulamir thinks this ziggurat is the epicenter of one of the world's oldest cities.
03:24At the base of the ziggurat, the team discovers traces of ancient pottery that can be used to date the
03:31site.
03:33This kind of pottery, the style, the painting on the surface,
03:37it all indicates that it dates back to the 5th millennium BCE, 7,000 years from now.
03:46If the legends are true, traces of a vast metropolis should surround the ziggurat.
03:53Abdulamir has been given exclusive permission to fly a drone
03:57to investigate the desert landscape encircling the great monument.
04:04The internal city is located over there.
04:09As the drone flies further from the ziggurat, an incredible lost urban landscape comes into view.
04:17Destroyed temples and palaces are exposed on the surface.
04:22A huge cemetery lurks beneath the desert sands.
04:26And at the edges of the city, the remains of grand public buildings stand near a sprawling labyrinth of workers'
04:34quarters and private houses,
04:36stretching for thousands of square feet.
04:40This is a true city, buried in the dirt.
04:46Beyond the ruins of the city wall, the team spots a crater in the ground.
04:54Evidence of catastrophic damage caused by explosive fighting here back when Saddam Hussein rules Iraq.
05:02One of the missiles indeed attacked the city, attacked the site, and making a huge hole.
05:09The crater exposes archaeological evidence almost a mile away from the ziggurat, revealing the true scale of the ancient city.
05:18It's filled with, you know, containers, jars, dishes.
05:24That's the indication of a residential area in the private houses.
05:29The site is very huge, almost 500 hectares.
05:33The rare finds here support the legend.
05:37By 2100 BC, the ziggurat is the epicenter of the world's largest city.
05:44Why are the Sumerians the first to build an urban landscape like this?
05:50Abdul Amir thinks they are pioneers of ancient construction.
05:54To prove it, he wants to explore how the night sky could be used to orient their buildings.
06:01He returns to the ziggurat at dusk to plot its position within the landscape.
06:09We do have evidence the moon indeed align with the ziggurat.
06:13When the Sumerians rule Ur, the moon rises to its highest and fullest at 56 degrees north.
06:21This is what's known as a major lunar standstill.
06:25At this moment, after 18 years of rising higher in the night sky,
06:30the moon appears to stand still before it begins a cycle of lower orbits.
06:37Abdul Amir uses a compass to investigate if this phenomenon inspires the construction of the great ziggurat.
06:44So now this is the north, and if you count from 0 to 56,
06:51the orientation when the moon reaches its highest point on top of the ziggurat,
06:56they orient the staircases where it could be aligned with the moon.
07:01They were very advanced using the moon movement to build their cities.
07:074,000 years ago, a structure coated in glistening white lime plaster crowns the summit.
07:16At 100 feet, this is the highest point for hundreds of miles.
07:22Archaeologists believe it is a sacred shrine room where priests worship the night sky.
07:31And every 18 years, the great staircase leading to its entrance aligns perfectly with the moon
07:38as it reaches its highest point in the sky.
07:42Why do the Sumerians build this monumental ziggurat temple around the movement of the moon?
07:52Abdul Amir searches for clues among layers of ancient bricks used to build the great staircase.
07:59Inscribed on the bricks is the first writing system ever known.
08:05What we are seeing now is a stamped brick inscribed with cuneiform writing in Sumerian language.
08:13Cuneiform is a script invented by the Sumerians.
08:16For the first time, humans can record the world as they see it.
08:21Abdul Amir thinks it can reveal why the people of Ur build this gigantic monument.
08:27It mentioned the temple, meaning it is the temple of Nannar, who is the god of the city.
08:33And his upper temple was built on top of the ziggurat.
08:38Unlike the ancient Egyptians who worshiped the sun, for the people of Ur, the moon god Nannar is one of
08:45the most powerful deities.
08:46The great ziggurat is constructed in his honor.
08:52At the shrine room on top of the great ziggurat, priests observe the moon and stars.
08:57They predict their movements and read them as signs from the gods.
09:03The lunar eclipse is a sinister omen, spelling disaster for the king, forcing him into hiding.
09:15A substitute king takes his place, dressing and behaving like the real king to fool the moon god.
09:26When the danger has passed, the substitute king is sacrificed to placate the moon god.
09:36Now imagine at night the priest goes up to the upper temple and all the population of Ur,
09:42they came to celebrate here, they make ceremony of the moon.
09:46It's a magical scene, it's important ritual activities for the worship of the moon.
09:544,000 years ago the great ziggurat is built as a giant temple to worship the almighty moon god.
10:02With it at Ur, the Sumerians change civilization forever.
10:07They build a great metropolis, develop astronomy and invent the first writing.
10:14But shocking evidence could reveal how all this comes at a gruesome cost.
10:21Who are the rulers of Ur?
10:23And what does it take to keep them in power?
10:354,000 years ago the world's first civilization, the Sumerians, build a city called Ur.
10:42It's the largest most important city in the world.
10:46At its core, the great ziggurat is a pyramid-like structure.
10:51The sacred nucleus of power built to honor the almighty moon god.
10:57Who are the rulers of Ur?
10:59What does it take to sustain their growing civilization?
11:07Buried 20 feet beneath the sand, archaeologists unearth a gigantic graveyard.
11:14Inside the mud tombs, they find royal burials with golden treasure,
11:20hordes of silverware, and elaborate headdresses.
11:26Surrounding these regal burial chambers, they discover hundreds of other skeletons,
11:32neatly lined up with damage to their skulls.
11:37Who are these people?
11:40Why are they buried here?
11:52Abdul Amir thinks identifying the mysterious bodies discovered here
11:56can reveal how Sumerian royalty builds and sustains this great city.
12:03He hunts for clues inside the tomb of King Shulgi,
12:08the man responsible for completing the great ziggurat.
12:13Shulgi is a very famous ruler in Mesopotamia.
12:17He was a musician, architect, poet,
12:20going down to see the two chambers, one specifically having the king there,
12:25looting a lot of treasures.
12:29These chambers would have been as lavish as the tombs of Egypt's great pharaohs,
12:34built around the same time.
12:37But opposite the king's tomb is a structure unlike anything found in Egypt.
12:43Another monumental brick chamber,
12:45that when discovered, is packed with mysterious human skeletons.
12:51Abdul Amir thinks he can shed light on the mystery of their identities
12:54by figuring out how they die.
12:58He's convinced they are brutally murdered,
13:01in the same way as the bodies in the death pits.
13:04The way that they kill the people is by hammering them, by killing them, by using a hammer.
13:12Holes puncturing the victims' skulls are gruesome evidence of fatal blows to their heads.
13:18This is shocking proof of human sacrifice.
13:23Abdul Amir thinks these skeletons could be the remains of important people.
13:28He searches for clues on excavation maps that show the location of royal treasure,
13:35and each of the 2,000 bodies in the death pits.
13:38There is a lot of layers, the harps of ore, made of gold and silver.
13:45So it could be an indication of identifying the identity of those people.
13:51We could say they were musicians.
13:56Intricately designed instruments suggest the king's entertainers are entombed here.
14:02Together with soldiers' weaponry, and even a warrior's chariot.
14:08These are high ranking members of Sumerian society.
14:13Why are they all murdered and buried here?
14:17Abdul Amir searches for clues on the walls inside the cemetery.
14:22Clearly here are some inscriptions, some bricks describing or mentioning the name of the king.
14:31Royal inscriptions cover the walls of this structure.
14:35These clues lead Abdul Amir to believe this building is a funerary chapel,
14:40where the victims are sacrificed during a mysterious ritual ceremony.
14:45This one is clear.
14:48We can see the king.
14:51They started from here, doing offering for the dead people,
14:56making a funeral and making kind of ritual activities,
15:00and then taking them down to the tombs.
15:02So it's sacrificing the people to the king.
15:10When the king or queen dies,
15:13the royal household honors the death with days of feasting and revelry.
15:22But then the killing starts.
15:25The entire royal household staff is sacrificed.
15:33Their bodies are doused with mercury to slow them rotting.
15:38Then they are dressed for their roles in the underworld.
15:43Musicians are buried with lyres,
15:46charioteers with mummified oxen,
15:49and fully armed soldiers guard the entrance.
15:54Why does the king order the deaths of so many of his closest subjects?
16:00To hunt for clues, Sumerian specialist George Heath White examines an ancient cylindrical stem
16:08that contains an image of Sumerian royalty.
16:12They would be used to seal or authenticate a document, just like a signature might be today.
16:21He rolls out the image, pressing it into wet clay just as the Sumerians would have done,
16:28to reveal a 4,000 year old scene.
16:31We see two goddesses leading the owner of the seal towards this seated person.
16:37And this seated figure is the king, Ur-Namu.
16:41And here Ur-Namu's put himself there, with the moon god next to him,
16:45saying, I am a god, worship me.
16:48And that's exactly what the goddesses are shown doing in this scene.
16:52Ur-Namu is one of the most powerful Mesopotamian kings ever known.
16:58Behind him are symbols.
17:01Ancient cuneiform writing that helps George unlock the hidden messages in the scene.
17:06The text reads, Ur-Namu, Nita Kalaga, Lugal Urimma.
17:13And that translates as, Ur-Namu, powerful man, king of Ur,
17:19the governor of Ishkun Sin, your servant.
17:24This ancient writing reveals the king's desire to project an image of power and dominance.
17:31George thinks these texts serve the same function as the mass sacrifices discovered in the royal tombs.
17:38Both could have been a way of controlling the population.
17:41It's an immense display of power.
17:43When the king dies, you may well die as well as a sacrifice, so you better obey the king.
17:49Through sinister rituals, the god-kings of Ur rule thousands of obedient citizens without fear of rebellion.
17:57But in order to survive here, they need to build a city without access to stone or wood.
18:05How do the Sumerians construct a huge metropolis in the middle of what today is a barren desert?
18:22In the deserts of southern Iraq, archaeologists reveal a lost world, the city of Ur, unlike anything seen before.
18:32A dominant royal regime rules a growing civilization.
18:37But without access to stone, timber or metal, how do the Sumerians construct a bustling metropolis here?
18:46The secrets of the Sumerian engineers could lie within the greatest structure they ever build.
18:53The towering ziggurat.
18:59The first temple on this site is a much smaller mud brick structure.
19:04Exposed to the elements, within decades it crumbles.
19:09But the sacred ruins are used as foundations for a new temple, slightly bigger and taller than the last.
19:18Over centuries, the Mound of Ruins grows, until it's a 100-foot colossus made from hundreds of thousands of bricks.
19:32How does this massive mud brick monument survive for millennia?
19:42To investigate, Abdul Amir examines the 4,000-year-old bricks used to build the original ziggurat.
19:50They have a huge structure of mud, so clearly you can see the core.
19:56And then it was covered completely by baked brick.
20:02Kiln-fired mud bricks encased the ancient ziggurat to give it a tough exterior.
20:10But mud bricks alone can't keep a structure this size standing for thousands of years.
20:17Abdul Amir thinks the Sumerians developed new ways to hold the giant banks of mud in place.
20:24So, now what we are looking for is layers of bitumen.
20:29Here, you can see it. Mud bricks, bitumen, that's the whole structure.
20:36Bitumen is a tar-like substance that wells up naturally from the ground.
20:40The Sumerians import tons of it from hundreds of miles away and use it as an ancient form of cement
20:47to lock the fired mud brick walls in place.
20:51But Abdul Amir is convinced the ziggurat engineers develop a final innovation to keep the structure standing.
21:01He searches among the ziggurats' ancient brickwork for traces of a material put down in between the layers.
21:10I'm looking here for a layer of reeds over here.
21:17The organic material decomposed long ago.
21:22But Abdul Amir finds evidence of reeds on ancient pieces of bitumen.
21:27What had been left is the impression of the reed mats, as you can see.
21:32This is the only examples we have here in Ur.
21:35The people used reed and reed mats, and nobody used it before the Sumerians.
21:43This innovative use of plant life is key to how the ziggurat stands the test of time.
21:53Without the reed mats, the walls would strain under their own weight and collapse.
22:03The reeds act like steel and reinforce concrete, strengthening the mud, allowing the Sumerian engineers to build tall.
22:14Bitumen waterproofs the exterior when it rains, but the mud core sucks up water from the ground, expanding like a
22:23water balloon.
22:25The Sumerians build hundreds of holes into their brickwork.
22:29They expose the core to the air, and allow any water inside to evaporate.
22:35The technique of using reed mats within the structure is to give it strength.
22:41That's why it's standing for, you know, thousands of years.
22:46The ziggurat is the pinnacle of Sumerian architecture.
22:50But to build a civilization, Ur needs more than just huge temples.
22:56They need homes for the city's tens of thousands of people.
23:01Abdul Amir explores the remains of a building in the shadow of the ziggurat
23:06to investigate how the Sumerians construct their smaller structures.
23:12The importance of this building, the uniqueness of this, it has the oldest arch in the world.
23:18Thousands of years before the Greek and the Roman Arcs.
23:23The arch is revolutionary.
23:26It's used all over the world to help create some of the most iconic structures ever known.
23:33From the gates of Babylon to Rome's Colosseum.
23:38Here, the remains of a temple preserve one of the first ever uses of an arch.
23:44But 4,000 years ago, the Sumerian architects used this feature across the city
23:49to expand the number of people that can live and work within Ur's city limits.
23:55If you have an arch like that, you can extend your building higher as much as two stories.
24:03So instead of having one-story private houses, they would have two stories to house the whole population.
24:12Groundbreaking ancient building technology helps Ur grow huge.
24:19Tens of thousands of people arrive here in search of a new way of life in the city's pioneering urban
24:24landscape.
24:27How do so many people survive here in what today is in the middle of a barren desert?
24:34Could the answers make Ur the richest city in the world?
24:38And inspire the Bible's Garden of Eden?
24:514,000 years ago, pioneering technological innovation helps the Sumerians build a vast metropolis here in the desert of southern
25:01Iraq.
25:03Today, the landscape is dominated by endless dirt and sand.
25:08When you go to Ur now, it looks very desolate.
25:11But we know from the size of Ur that literally tens of thousands of people lived there.
25:16How does the city of Ur thrive here thousands of years ago?
25:21In its prime, Ur is a bustling metropolis.
25:2565,000 people live, work and worship here.
25:30Legend says the surrounding landscape is a lush paradise.
25:34The Bible calls it the Garden of Eden.
25:38Is there any truth to these stories?
25:43Abdul Amir thinks that long ago, the city of Ur stands in a radically different landscape.
25:50To investigate, he hunts for traces of how the Sumerians could have produced food for thousands in this remote location.
25:58Buried in the dirt, he finds the evidence he needs.
26:02This is what's called freshwater shells.
26:06That's from the river or from the marsh.
26:09Many kinds of shells indicate sources for the daily life of the people.
26:15Food, fish, birds, everything related to the marshes.
26:21These shells are deposited here after an ancient waterway dries up.
26:26It's evidence that the Sumerians could grow vital vegetation here.
26:31But how do they produce food on an industrial scale?
26:36Abdul Amir believes they turn the land surrounding Ur into a natural food factory.
26:41He searches for evidence of a massive ancient landscaping project at the edge of the city.
26:48Evidence of proving that this was a canal is the river and sand.
26:57These are traces of man-made canals created in antiquity.
27:02Plants still grow here.
27:05All that remains of a lush landscape that could have inspired stories of the Garden of Eden.
27:13But crops alone can't fuel the rise of Ur's powerful metropolis.
27:19At England's Cambridge University, Sumerian specialist Augusta McMahon
27:26investigates a tablet discovered in the landscape surrounding the ziggurat.
27:33She thinks it can shed light on how the city's lost waterways once connect Ur with other powerful city-states.
27:41It's an incredible vision of what the landscape around Ur was like.
27:46The lines mark out a network of ancient canals dug by Sumerians that weave for miles across the region.
27:55There's also some settlements and in some of the other areas the names of individual fields or field owners.
28:02And they're clearly calculating how much they need to feed the population.
28:08Augusta thinks the sheer scale of the winding canals could be a clue that they are used for more than
28:13just irrigation.
28:15The larger ones could also be used for transportation.
28:18So some of them, you know, they're almost like a sort of a four-lane motorway, big enough for boats
28:24to pass each other.
28:26You can think of it as, in fact, a roadmap.
28:29Like Venice today, evidence of a sophisticated system of marine transport exists in the land around Ur.
28:37But to make it rich, Ur needs direct contact with other cities.
28:43Where do these ancient waterways lead?
28:47To find out, Augusta examines a high-resolution satellite image of the region surrounding Ur.
28:54The dark area that you can see is really the very, very densely occupied core.
28:58And if we go out a little bit further, then you can see this big gray band coming quite near
29:04the site.
29:05Viewed from the air, a faint band appears etched into the ground surface.
29:11Augusta thinks this could be evidence that Ur once sits near the banks of a great river.
29:17In the past, Ur was essentially right next to the Euphrates River.
29:21The river has shifted away, but you can see the sort of ancient water courses.
29:25So the river and the canals connect it to the rest of Mesopotamia, also connect it down to the Gulf,
29:32which gave it access to the Indus Valley.
29:34So it's really at the hub of this huge transport network to bring in really unparalleled riches.
29:42Four thousand years ago, Ur sits on the banks of the great Euphrates River.
29:48It brings riches into the city and sustains acres of lush vegetation.
29:55A green oasis inspiring stories about a prosperous Garden of Eden.
30:02For thousands of years, the people of Ur enjoy a bountiful existence on the banks of the Euphrates.
30:09But shocking evidence reveals a sudden violent end to the reign of the Sumerians.
30:15What does it take to wipe out the world's first civilization?
30:28At the Mesopotamian city of Ur, the Sumerians master their natural environment to unleash a creative explosion in technology, astronomy
30:38and literature.
30:40But in 2004 BC, traces of their civilization vanish from the archaeological record.
30:47How does the great city of Ur fall?
30:51The fall of Ur is a huge moment.
30:57Four thousand years ago, it's believed looters break into the tomb of King Shulgi.
31:03They tunnel down to his lavishly painted burial chamber and destroy the decoration.
31:09They steal all the treasure to leave nothing but a collection of strange stones sourced from hundreds of miles away.
31:17A hand-sized rock with flecks of gold leaf.
31:22Sits next to a collection of pebbles cut in half.
31:28And a handmade clay pellet.
31:32What are these strange stones for?
31:36And why do the robbers leave them behind?
31:41When the stones are excavated, archaeologists believe they are a clue to the end of the Sumerian civilization.
31:49Augusta uses replicas to explore their possible role in the fall of Ur.
31:55You have a hammer stone that has a little flecks of gold potentially breaking apart something that had metal on
32:01it.
32:01Maybe treasures.
32:02Then there were a lot of broken half stones that might have been used to weigh out the loot in
32:08these tombs.
32:09The stones date to the last days of the Sumerian civilization.
32:13They could be tools left behind by looters, using them to break up and distribute King Shulgi's stolen treasure.
32:20But the handmade clay pellet matches hundreds more found across the city.
32:26Leading excavators to believe this could be more than an ancient crime scene.
32:32The clay pellets could actually be sling bullets or sling pellets used in slingshots that represent the remains of a
32:40battle.
32:44Traces of weaponry could be evidence of violence.
32:47But is this a looter's skirmish? Or is the whole city under siege?
32:54Abdulamir hunts for clues that could reveal the true scale of the onslaught.
32:59We do have evidence that Ur has been attacked.
33:03This is kind of evidence of putting fire in the city by outsiders.
33:09Charred fragments of pottery have fallen from an exposed layer of deposits
33:14that date to the same time as the stones found in the tomb.
33:18They form part of a layer of destruction that runs right through Ur.
33:23There is a kind of, you know, an ashy layer covering the whole city.
33:28So, kind of burning the entire city.
33:33The ash is evidence of a great fire that rips through Ur.
33:37An arson attack led by plunderers who break into the royal tombs and steal the king's gold.
33:44Leaving only their tools and weapons.
33:48Who are these mysterious invaders?
33:53George Heath White searches for clues on an ancient tablet that contains shocking details of how Ur falls.
34:01Re-inscribing the ancient symbols helps him decode the poetic script.
34:07The painstaking process gradually reveals the true horror of the last days of Ur.
34:13So, the text reads,
34:23And that translates as,
34:25In Ur, weapons smashed the heads like pottery.
34:29And the next line,
34:34Fire approached.
34:37The archaeological evidence for fire and destruction at Ur matches up with the ancient texts.
34:44As George deciphers the rest of the writing, he finds what he's looking for.
34:49The identity of the invaders.
34:51Final line,
34:57And it translates as,
35:00From the south, the Elamites came up, killing.
35:03It was absolute chaos.
35:06In 2004 BC,
35:08The Elamites are an emerging civilization from a region in what today is Iran.
35:14Knowing they face a formidable foe.
35:17They strike when Ur is at its weakest.
35:24In the 21st century BC, the Sumerians are hit by a severe famine.
35:30Leaving Ur's residents to slowly starve.
35:35Taking advantage of the weakened city, the Elamite tribe lays siege to Ur, and finally conquers it.
35:46They loot the Sumerian treasure, and ransack the city, driving away its people.
35:57They capture the king, taking him to a distant town to die, leaving Ur to turn to dust.
36:07The invasion and destruction of Ur by the Elamites triggers the end of the Sumerian civilization.
36:16Gradually, Ur's mud metropolis crumbles.
36:20Only the ziggurat remains standing as a monument to this once great city.
36:26But now, incredible evidence could reveal how the Sumerians live on through legend,
36:31when their city is rebuilt by a mysterious people.
36:36Thousands of years later, how does Ur rise from the ashes?
36:49In the 21st century BC, the Sumerians build a revolutionary city.
36:54But after centuries of expansion, it burns to the ground in a wave of brutal violence.
37:01Their civilization crumbles.
37:04But its legacy gives rise to legend.
37:08The legend of Ur lives on as the location of where Abraham was born,
37:14the location where the first flood can be identified,
37:16and also where the Garden of Eden might be located.
37:21After their city falls into ruin,
37:24how does the Sumerian world survive to forge a lasting legacy?
37:34Evidence in the walls of the ziggurat itself could reveal how this pioneering metropolis rises from the abyss.
37:43Abdul Amir examines the brickwork of the outer layers of the ziggurat.
37:48If we go up a little bit, this is different style and different materials.
37:53We can see the mud brick that's been used during the New Babylonian period.
38:00These bricks date to the Second Babylonian Era.
38:031,500 years after the end of the Sumerian civilization.
38:08After the city first falls to invaders, Ur rises again in the hands of a new people.
38:16They reclaim the remains of Ur from squatting tribes,
38:21and rebuild the city and the Great Ziggurat.
38:27The legacy of Sumerian kings also lives on, hailed as legendary leaders centuries after they die.
38:35How does their supremacy survive the ages?
38:40George huts for clues on fragments of a statue discovered among the remains of a Babylonian temple at Ur.
38:48If you can kind of work out, we have an arm, a shoulder here, and it would have originally looked
38:53like a man standing tall with his hands clasped together in front of him.
38:58George thinks this could be one of the greatest kings of the Sumerian civilization.
39:02To investigate, he decodes a broken piece that contains Sumerian script.
39:09And the text reads this legible bit here, Shulgi, powerful man, king of Ur.
39:18So we know that this is a statue of the famous king Shulgi of Ur.
39:23Why is a Sumerian statue of the great king Shulgi discovered inside a Babylonian temple built 1,500 years later?
39:33George thinks this is no accident.
39:36This could be evidence of an astonishing link between two ancient civilizations that live thousands of years apart.
39:45These Neo-Babylonians knew the significance of these ancient artifacts.
39:50They're ancient for us, but they were ancient for them as well.
39:52So they brought them up out of the ruins of this temple and put them in a collection.
39:56The people doing this work were potentially the world's first archaeologists.
40:03The Babylonians restore the ziggurat at the heart of Ur, returning it to what they believe is its original state,
40:10with seven levels.
40:15They unearth ancient Sumerian objects from beneath the city, revealing its rich 2,000-year history.
40:25They put the artifacts on display, saving them from the ravages of time by curating the world's first museum.
40:35And clay tablets found near the temple contain students' writing on one side, revealing how Sumerian stories also survived the
40:45ages.
40:47The Babylonians rebuild Ur and communicate its history to the civilizations that follow them, turning stories of this ancient city
40:57into legend.
40:59Across 1,000 years, the Sumerians at Ur build a revolutionary metropolis that transforms the way humans live forever.
41:10Ruled by powerful priest kings, the people of Ur build mega mud monuments.
41:17Aligned with the moon, they master their landscape to inspire stories of a Garden of Eden.
41:23And forge the largest city on the planet, Ur, home of the world's first great civilization.
41:38l
41:38of the banks of theias
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