Arqueólogos encontraron una megaciudad perdida más antigua que cualquier civilización

Eridu, a megacity older than the first known civilization, and older than the pyramids of Giza, was buried in the sands of the Mesopotamian desert for more than 2,000 years. Now, scientists have made a discovery that changes what we know about the ancient city. They found more than 4,000 canals around Eridu, which brought water to more than 700 farms where people worked between the 6th and early 1st millennium BC. Now, Eridu was founded around 5,400 BC and was the city of the first kings and the first city in history, according to the list of Sumerian kings, an ancient text on a clay tablet. The ancient Sumerians believed that the deities created this city when they decided to settle on Earth. Eridu has such an important role in Sumerian myths and legends that, at some point, people thought it was just a mythical place. The most famous myth of Eridu says that the heavens got angry because humans were too noisy, so they decided to send a great flood to finish them off. A new study showed that the Euphrates River served as a water source for the entire city. Researchers mapped what was left of the ancient landscape and found a well-developed network of artificial irrigation canals. They discovered 200 large main canals that brought water from the Euphrates and those canals fed another 4,000 smaller canals. The team used everything from satellite images and drone recordings to soil analysis, old records and remote measurement technology to map the area. The 700 farms that used the system's water were of different sizes, from about 460 square meters to more than 18,500 square meters. The main canals were just over 800 meters long and some extended more than 8 kilometers. The smallest canals could be just 10 meters. The Mesopotamian rivers were the main water sources for agriculture, so the ancient farmers had to learn how to guide the river water to their fields. It all started with simple methods, like digging small canals, but over generations they learned to build massive canals up to 100 kilometers long. The Euphrates itself helped the farmers. The water moved thanks to the gravity of its elevated banks, and the natural ruptures on the banks caused it to spill over the ground. Researchers are not sure when each canal was in use, and it is unlikely that the 4,200 canals were active at the same time during that long period. Now, Eridu used to be an important religious and commercial center due to its strategic location in the Persian Gulf. Its economy had to do mainly with fishing, thanks to the Euphrates River. The researchers found fishing nets and weights, as well as whole flocks of dried fish on the site. There were even models of cane boats, the oldest physical evidence we have of boats built anywhere. The city flourished until people abandoned it around 600 BC, and scientists are still not sure why they did so. The local residents, as well as pilgrims and visitors, had simply exhausted all the resources of the land. They had to let it rest several times before leaving the city forever. This happened when the Euphrates changed course and they lost their main source of water. Now, many centuries later, in 1854, a British officer was on a mission in this area to check a remote place that had a lot of mounds called Tells, which are piles of rubble left by ancient human settlements. At first, Taylor was not impressed. He had hoped to find something big, perhaps statues, ancient writing, or ruins of palaces and temples. But with the little time he had, all he found were things like walls, drainages, stone platforms, and pieces of limestone columns decorated with small mosaic cones. But he did not know that these boring mounds were hiding one of the oldest cities on Earth, Eridu. The people of the British Museum were interested in the discovery, but the first large-scale excavations took place here only a century later. The local Iraqi authorities were very interested in the excavations, as they hoped to find more about the first days of Mesopotamia's history. So they focused on Mount 1, a massive tell, as tall as an eight-story building. Soon, they discovered part of a pyramid that had not been completed until the end of the 3rd millennium BC. As they dug deeper, they found layers of human life receding in time. There were levels of the Uruk period, and even remains of a time before the Sumerians called Proto-History. In these lower layers, they discovered multiple reconstructions of the Enki Temple, the city's main deity. The people rebuilt this temple over and over again for more than 2,000 years. Each time the temple collapsed, they built a new one just above it. Each new version of the temple was larger and more impressive than the previous one. From the middle of the 4th millennium BC, these temple buildings became massive, The city of Eridu was also becoming more complex, with clear social classes. Finally, they stopped rebuilding the temple and put a stepped pyramid on top of the ruins. Although Eridu vanished, it was probably still important as a religious site. Archaeologists found pottery from the 2nd and 1st centuries BC during excavations, although there were no signs of houses. The Sumerians were an innovative civilization, as you can see. By 1500 BC, they invented the cedar plow, a tool that allowed farmers to plow and plant seeds at the same time, using animals as oxen to pull it. This equipment even came with instructions. The Sumerian farmer's almanac gave advice to farmers on how to cultivate more crops with proper plowing and irrigation. These smart agricultural tricks helped feed more people, which led to larger cities, a more organized system of government, and more focus on religion. And while their cities were expanding, they were also working on writing, mathematics, and spiritual life. 5,000 years ago, the Sumerians had already produced the cuneiform, one of the first writing systems in history. So another recent discovery from the same part of the world proves that bureaucracy already existed 4,000 years ago. Archaeologists found old administrative tablets in another ancient Sumerian city. These clay tablets are the oldest solid evidence we have of the first empire in the world, the Akkadian Empire. The tablets were inside a state-of-the-art building made of clay bricks, which had different rooms that functioned as offices. Now, before this discovery, archaeologists really didn't understand how the first known empire in the world, the Akkadian Empire, worked behind the scenes. But now, thanks to recent excavations by Girsu, we have the first real and unequivocal evidence of the empire's administrative system. They recorded everything. Deliveries, expenses, and inventory from fish to sheep, grains, cloth, and even gems. The tablets also include population records with names and jobs of men, women, and children, an ancient version of a census. From these records, scientists discovered that women played a key role in Akkadian society. Some women had powerful positions, such as high priestesses. The tablets also show a wide range of jobs, from specialized workers such as stone cutters, to people with simpler roles such as temple sweepers. Some even included plans of buildings, field designs, and channel maps, proving that the empire had serious organization and planning. Eventually, the city rebelled and gained its independence, and the 150-year-old government of the Akkadian Empire ended. Now, researchers are carefully cleaning and translating the tablets to fully understand what they say. These new discoveries will replace incomplete, older ideas about the empire, and will give us a much more precise picture of how the Akkadian power and government system really worked.