As you remember, in the last lesson we maintained that in every culture there is the perception of the existence of a past, which is neither mysterious nor incomprehensible but is related to the present, it is in continuity with the present, and it is the root of the present self. Every culture perceive the past as basic, because they find the reason for their present in it, and they don't want to explain its origin, because it is well known, but they wish to take care of the preservation, because it is valuable for their survival. The great civilizations of the Mediterranean regions, forerunner of the Greek-Roman civilization, have left unexpected strong and clear evidence for their will to keep the past, and the ways to carry out its preservation, both in Egypt and in Mesopotamia. The first documented attempt at restoration dates to the 15th century BC, when the young Pharaoh, Thutmosis IV gathered a team and, after much effort, managed to dig out the front paws, between which he placed a granite slab known as the Dream Stele. The Sphinx represented, in an extraordinary monument, Pharoah Khefren of the Fourth Dynasty who lived in the 26th century BC and was represented as the guardian of the extensive dead town of Giza, in the outskirts of Memphis the royal town of the Old Kingdom of Egypt. This Stele says that the young Thutmosis, Crown Prince, enjoyed running with this chariot in the desert, chasing lions, and one day, tired, he rested in the shade of the venerable monument, and fell asleep. Then, the great God Harmakhi-Atum whom in, those times they believed was represented in the Sphinx, appeared in his dreams, and said to him: “Look at me, oh my son Thutmosis. I am your father Harmakhi-Atum. I give you kingship on the Earth, over all living creatures. But look at the condition I am in, and how my body is suffering, I, who am the lord of Gizah highlands! The desert sands advance over me!” And the god himself asked the young prince, in exchange for the kingship he guaranteed him for the future, to free the monument from the invading sand, giving it back its splendor of the ancient times. And until today the stele remembers the restoration of the Sphinx Thutmosis IV has to accomplish, as soon as he ascended to the throne. Even more impressive is the extensive group of restoration works and of preservation initiatives accomplished, in the 13th century BC, by prince Khaemwaset, Ramses II’s beloved son. Khaemwaset was, for a long time, Crown Prince of the great Pharaoh of the 19th Dynasty, but, however, he couldn't succeed his father, because he didn't survive his extremely long life. Khaemwaset was charged by his father, Ramses II, to make a restoration everywhere in the cult places of the celebrated royal necropolis, and of the Sun Temples of the ancient Memphis, from Saqqara to Meidum, to From Giza to Abu Gurob. The active and cultivated Prince Khaemwaset was Great Priest of the creator god Ptah, and in every place where he restored ancient monuments, often more than 1,000 years old, he left an inscription including: the name of the Pharaoh who had built the monument in the past, the restoration work of the prince in the present, and the endowment of lands and personnel necessary to take care of the monument in the future. In some of the inscription commemorating his findings and his restorations, Khaemwaset reminds the reasons of his initiatives: “To this extent, he loves Noble Ancestors (namely the ancient Pharaohs), who lived in an ancient time, of whom every deed was memorable”. These very ancient descriptions allow some consideration. First, the reason for the will in keeping works of the past, descends from the fact that the legitimization for the present condition of the world lies in the glorious past. The gods of Egypt had created kingship at the beginning of time, and gave her the duty to keep the world order the gods had established in those same times. Second, the scope of the will to keep works of the past lies in the belief that, keeping those works, they could prevent chaos from advancing, they could prevent evil forces from subverting the primordial order, forces represented by world nature, which can steal land from agriculture and human foes, who can invade civilized Egypt upturning the sacred laws, which ensure its welfare. Third, the perspective of the will to preserve works of the past is projected into the future, because, by means of the allotment of cultivable land, and of the attribution of personnel, they wished that the restoration were kept in a good state also in the future: as we would say nowadays, they were not mere restorations, but rather an act of preservation and safeguard of works of the past. The strong relation among past, present, and future comes out with evidence from these inscriptions of Ancient Egypt, more than 3000 years old: The memory of the past could not be violated, and rather it had to be venerated, restored, and preserved for the future. A similar feeling inspired the kings of ancient Mesopotamia, when they engaged themselves in the restoration of the temples of their Land, in Babylonia as well as in Assyria. At least since the mid third millennium BC, the Sumerians, who, during the second half of the fourth millennium BC created the first towns of history, believed that their towns had been founded by the gods at the beginning of time, who had chosen those cult places as their residences. So, the most important deity of the Sumerian world, the god Enlil of Nippur decided, in the mythical time before the creation of humankind, that his sanctuary would be the temple Ekur, the “Temple Mountain”, and that it would be built in the sacred quarter called Duranki, the “Link between the star, sky and earth”, in the town of Nippur, the god Enlil himself, moreover, created at same time, the sanctuary Ekur, the cult area Duranki, the town of Nippur. Afterwards, humankind was created in order to serve the gods. The temple, in the belief of the dwellers of ancient Mesopotamia, was conceived as a living body, whose voice is represented by cult hymns, and whose physical body is the architectural structure, as explicitly maintained in the oldest Sumerian hymns. The temple shares the superior and everlasting qualities of the deity who created it in the mythical time. Thus, the temple is the deity’s residence, but also an emanation, and image of his; therefore, it's obvious that the king, in historical times, has its care as his priority, as his central and main function. The sanctuary is the link between gods and humans, on the side of the divine word, while the king is the link between the humans and deities on the side of human world. Yet, in the preservation and restoration of temples, the kings of the historical time could not innovate the work of the gods of the mythical times. For this reason, the kings of the Neo-Babylonian Dynasty of the first half of the VI century BC, who accomplished An amazing program of restoration to many of the most important and venerated temples of Babylonia, largely decayed, were all engaged first and foremost, it identified on the ground, the remains of the ancient sanctuaries: the god's work had to be carefully reconstructed on the same remains of the presumed divine foundations. Any mistake, as well as any innovation, would be severely punished by the gods. The kings of Babylon, from Nabopolassar to Nabuchodonosor to Nabonedus,
were inspired by the gods, often by means of dreams, to start the restoration of a very ancient temple, they made excavations in the ruins, in order to find the foundations of cult buildings and in order to be sure not to make mistakes, they tried to find the foundation inscriptions of ancient kings. So, in the wish to restore the famous temple Ebabbar, of the Sun God Shamash in the town of Sippar, the great Nabuchodonosor found the foundation inscription of the Cassite king Burnaburiash, but he didn't succeed in finding an inscription by an older king in order to be more certain. Only his successor Nabonedus boasted he found in his excavation, an inscription of the great Hammurabi, “700 years older than Burnaburiash”, as himself he said, and he was, at moment, sure of the place where the famous sanctuary
had to be rebuild. Certainly, this ideology brewed to the excavations made by Nabonedus’s collaborators in the main religious centers of Babylonia, but, there are also sure hints for a true antiquarian interest, which inspired the last king of Babylonia. First, he didn't limit himself to research on the ground, in order to identify the foundations of the cult buildings he aimed at restoring, but he also engaged himself in excavations in order to find palaces of famous ancient kings, like, for instance, Naram-Sin of Akkad’s royal palace, in the town of Akkad. whom he dated 3200 years before himself, more than twice, the real distance. Second, while he was looking for the foundations of the temple Eulmash of the goddess Ishtar in the town of Akkad, he found a statue of the Great Sargon, and the ancient text refers the event in these terms: “Half of his head was broken and it was so worn that its face could not be recognized; because of his reverence for the gods and his respect for kingship, he summoned the skilled craftsmen, renovated the head of that statue and restored the face of it”. Third, in the excavations, and in reading the ancient documents, written in both Sumerian and Akkadian, in archaic characters, he surrounded himself with experts of high level. About one of them, Nabu-zer-lishir, descendent of a famous scribes’ family, himself a scribe in Babylon, we know that he made field research at Akkad, and read inscriptions of ancient kings from Sargon to Kurigalzu. The ritual and religious reasons for the archaeological research by the Neo-Babylonian kings in the sites of the most famous sanctuaries of Babylonia certainly intertwined with antiquarian, and political interest. Certainly the great Nabuchodonosor wished that to proclaim the legitimacy of the Chaldaean Dynasty to reign over Babylon, and the divine will that his empire had its capital in Babylon, considered the centre of the world. The unlucky Nabonedus, who wished to show that the Babylonian empire was the heir also of the Assyrian empire, tried, in two well documented instances, to connect himself with more ancient and glorious Akkad Dynasty, for reasons which were certainly more political than religious.
