In this week of the course, you will be studying the history of the Ancient Near East. 
Civilization originated in this area approximately five thousand years ago.  As in most
other areas of the world where civilization originated, early Near Eastern civilization
was centered on a major river valley, in this case the Tigris-Euphrates basin, and, as
such, the civilization is often called riverine (because it was centered around a river) or
hydraulic (because it centered on control of a river for irrigation).  To successfully build
dams and create irrigation systems required an ordered society, a hierarchical society,
organized to accomplish this complex task.  Many historians have connected the
origins of civilization with the demands of a river environment because a society living
along a river needed to develop complex, and specialized occupations to successfully
harness a river, and that required leadership.  To build, and maintain, dams and
irrigation systems was no simple task.

If you look closely at the history of the ancient Near East, you will see that there was a
successive rise and fall of centers of civilizations (or civilizations themselves), such as
Sumerian, Babylonian, Chaldean and Persian.  The textbook contains sufficient
information about these kingdoms, and I do not want to get drawn too deeply into their
details, but I would like to point out that these early societies (four to five thousand
years ago) had a dramatic impact on the future of Western civilization.  Consider such
important developments as the creation of a written alphabet and complex
mathematics, not to mention the setting of the stage for future religious developments
in the West.

The history of the Ancient Near East is often compared with that of its closest neighbor,
Ancient Egypt, and it is a common assertion that ancient Egypt experienced cultural
connectivity and homogeneity over its three thousand year, while civilization in the
Ancient Near East exhibited cultural breaks and dichotomies because of the warlike
nature of existence in Mesopotamia (the frequent invasions since Mesopotamia lacked
the physical desert barriers that shielded Egypt).  Historians have then concluded that
this distinction led to different political conceptions and practices:  kings, or pharaohs,
in ancient Egypt tended to be seen as gods, whereas kings were not usually seen as
godlike in Mesopotamia, although the Gilgamesh epic provides somewhat contradictory
evidence in this regard.  

Your assignment for this week focuses on your reading of the Gilgamesh epic.  Please
remember that you are reading the epic as a historian and not as a literary critic. 
You are searching the story for evidence that reveals Sumerian practices and attitudes
in regard to kingship and the powers and role of the king in society.  You are not going
to be writing about the search for immortality or about the bonds of friendship between
Gilgamesh and Enkidu.  You might be writing about the relationship between the king
and the council of elders.  Please focus your paper on the assigned question, include
an introduction, use paragraphs (each of which deals with a specific point of your
introductory thesis), review the style rules for history papers in the course and include
short pieces of quoted evidence from the document to support your analysis.