Monuments At the end of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the hero knew that he would not achieve

8.2.2 Monuments At the end of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the hero knew that he would not achieve

immortality and he returned to his home. He said these noble lines: This is the wall of Uruk, which no city on earth can equal. See how its ramparts

gleam like copper in the sun. Climb the strong staircase, more ancient than the mind can imagine, approach the Eanna Temple, sacred to Ishtar; a temple that no

301 king has equaled in size or beauty; walk on the wall of Uruk, follow its course

8.2 LUXURY

around the city, inspect its mighty foundations, examine its brickwork, how masterfully it is built, observe the land it encloses; the palm trees, the gardens, the orchards, the glorious palaces and temples, the shops and marketplaces, the houses, the public squares.

These lines represent the civic pride about the city of Uruk, with monuments that no other city can compare with. These monuments do have some utilitarian function to perform, but they are also designed to give pride to the inhabitants; they are so difficult and expensive to build that they send the message that their rulers are powerful and successful. The city magistrates who build and maintain these public monuments bask in the reflected glory. They are also designed to intimidate the foreigners and barbarians beyond the gates, who should be awed and humbled and thereby would not dare to raid or challenge the leadership.

Some of the oldest public monuments are the ancient megaliths that have been found in many parts of the world, which may have been used for religious, administrative, or funereal purposes. The Gobekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey was erected around 11,000 BCE, with monolithic pillars and walls to form circular and oval structures with diameters of up to 30 m. The monoliths were decorated with carved reliefs of animals and abstract pictograms that might represent sacred symbols. Stonehenge is the most famous European prehistoric monument, and is composed of concentric circular sets of standing stones that may be as old as 3000 BCE. Some of the stones are 7 m tall and are constructed as trilithons with two vertical columns supporting a horizontal lintel. The circles of stones have diameters as large as 120 m. The structure has an orientation toward the northeast, and the Heel Stone was apparently placed to mark the position of sunset at the summer solstice on June 21. Constructing these monuments must have involved the immensely difficult technology of quarrying the megalithic stones and transporting them to the site, as well as standing them upright and lifting and placing the lintels on top of them. Without the benefit of steel tools, dynamite, lifting cranes, and engines, even modern observers are awed by these monuments to say nothing of the ancient visitors.

The Seven Wonders of the World was the name of a list of tourist attractions, first compiled by Antipater of Sidon in the second century BCE, of monuments in the eastern Mediterranean. The oldest of these Wonders were the Great Pyramids of Giza dating from 2550 BCE, which were covered with Greek graffiti at the time of Alexander and are the only surviving wonder today. Chronologically, the five Wonders in the middle of the list range from the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (600 BCE) to the Colossus of Rhodes (292–280 BCE). The youngest was the Light- house of Alexandria (280 BCE), which had a significant practical function of guid- ing ships at sea and was not designed purely for vanity and glory. These monuments all involved the technology of quarrying, transporting, and erecting large blocks of stone. The overall effect was calculated to impress upon the observer that the rulers who decreed this monument must be great leaders with tremendous resources, who should be obeyed and followed.

There are many other famous monuments that are located outside the eastern Mediterranean, such as in Persia, India, China, and the Americas. A list of the