Take a photo of a barcode or cover
bioniclib 's review for:
Cities: The First 6,000 Years
by Monica L. Smith
Ms. Smith's writing style was funnier than I expected and there were a lot of "I didn't know that!" moments in the book. But, ultimately, I'm not interested enough in non-Indiana Jones style (aka fictionalized) archeology. My attention kept slipping away from this book. This isn't the first time I've picked up a book that uses archeology to prove a point; I read The Horse, The Wheel, and Language about tracing the Indo-European language's origin to a specific geographic region. When that author got talking (and talking and talking) about pottery shards, my interest waned. I get that pottery is often extremely useful in learning about the culture that used it, I'm just not interested enough in it, it doesn't hold my attention for long.
While not as pottery-focused, there was on mention in this book that was fascinating: the BRB. The mountains, almost literally, of this specific piece of pottery, which stands for Broad-rimmed bowl, is proof that the disposable culture dates back many more years than our industrialized society, millennia in fact. These bowls were found in some of the earliest known cities and based on the evidence, they appear to be the ancient-peoples equivalent of the paper cup. Crazy.
And I'll end my review with a few more crazy nuggets:
It should have been called the "Fragile Crescent" not the "Fertile Crescent" because of how unpredictable nature is in the area. It's a wonder those civilizations survived. (page 85)
A good bit of the infrastructure chapter (actually more interesting than it sounds) has to do with walls. That's not something I associate with cities today.
Writing was invented after such cities as Brak and Teotihuacan were built. (136)
Urbanism (aka living in cities) preceded money by more than 3,000 years. (153) The Greeks created the first coined money in the 7th century BCE. And cities date back to 4,000 BCE.
While not as pottery-focused, there was on mention in this book that was fascinating: the BRB. The mountains, almost literally, of this specific piece of pottery, which stands for Broad-rimmed bowl, is proof that the disposable culture dates back many more years than our industrialized society, millennia in fact. These bowls were found in some of the earliest known cities and based on the evidence, they appear to be the ancient-peoples equivalent of the paper cup. Crazy.
And I'll end my review with a few more crazy nuggets:
It should have been called the "Fragile Crescent" not the "Fertile Crescent" because of how unpredictable nature is in the area. It's a wonder those civilizations survived. (page 85)
A good bit of the infrastructure chapter (actually more interesting than it sounds) has to do with walls. That's not something I associate with cities today.
Writing was invented after such cities as Brak and Teotihuacan were built. (136)
Urbanism (aka living in cities) preceded money by more than 3,000 years. (153) The Greeks created the first coined money in the 7th century BCE. And cities date back to 4,000 BCE.