Uruk: A Journey Into Life 5,000 Years Ago

Travel back more than 5,000 years to Uruk, in ancient Mesopotamia. We follow clay bowls, food accounts and early writing to explore how people helped keep an ancient city working. Who received food? What did the tablets record? And how much can a name such as Kushim really tell us about a person? We follow the evidence—and the questions it leaves open. CHAPTERS 00:00 Welcome to Uruk 01:19 The City and Its Workers 02:44 The Bowl: Rations or Bread? 03:57 The Tablets: Keeping Count 05:13 Kushim: A Name or Something Else? 06:07 Food, Wool and Workers’ Shares 08:04 Connections Beyond the City 09:06 The People Behind the Numbers SOURCES AND FURTHER READING The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Uruk: The First City https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/uruk... The Metropolitan Museum of Art — The Origins of Writing https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/the-... CDLI — Beer distribution account, P005322 https://cdli.earth/cdli-tablet/39 CDLI — Barley account associated with Kushim, P005340 https://cdli.earth/artifacts/5340 A NOTE ON THE EVIDENCE The function of bevelled-rim bowls remains debated. Kushim may represent a personal name, a title or an institution. Not every tablet discussed has a secure excavated origin at Uruk. The illustrations are interpretive reconstructions, not photographs of the ancient city. VISUAL AND AUDIO CREDITS AI-assisted illustrations and short illustrative animations; synthetic male narration. Museum objects: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access/Public Domain, accession numbers 62.70.25, 1988.433.1 and 1988.433.3. These museum objects are distinct from the CDLI tablets discussed above. Physical map base: Natural Earth, public domain. Uruk location reference: Pleiades, place 912986, CC BY 3.0; https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/912986 Music: “The Dance Before” — Nathan Moore; “Impossible Sacrifice” — Asher Fulero, YouTube Audio Library. Additional sound effects created for this episode. #Uruk #Mesopotamia #AncientHistory