Book Review and Analysis: The Lost Wonders of the World, a Brief History of Cultural Catastrophes of Civilization. (2012) Fernando Baez Work in progress

Book Title:  The Lost Wonders of the World, a Brief History of Cultural Catastrophes of Civilization. (2012)

Author: Fernando Baez

 My Personal Expectation with de Book ( Basically why I Picked it up.): I went and bought this book at my local bookstore because I really enjoyed another book from this author, called the History of Books (Note that I have already reviewed), hoping that this new book would answer some questions that Baez left unanswered or presupposed in his History of Books, so I can  get a better idea of Baez's historical views.  

 Central Thymes and Concepts, that interested me as the reader:

The book is at its best when the author talks about his personal experiences he really adds a very interesting perspective, it's not your ordinary history book, you can tell he's a super dedicated investigator, that cares for his object of study in a good way.

 

Author establishes that 50% of humanities collective memory has been lost.
and Baez affirms that the driving force for this book is the fear of forgetting and it's consequences, on a personal level and as a spices.

Baez defines  civilization, as a plural society that is complex and is interconnected by a series of cultural norms, is tied to a tradition, language  and religion, creating a collective identity.

There is no civilization without culture, this is one of the main starting points for anthropology, and civilization for archeologist there is no civilization if these four components are not found: city, writing, religion and division/specialization of tasks/labor.

But a civilization decline over time and some disappear for diverse reasons, and this book analysis in detail many historic cities, monuments and wonders that are gone, because they were destroyed by war, built over, lost thanks to natural disasters, in some cases completely forgotten...

The Neolithic era which mean new rock, was characterized with many advancements for our species domestication of plants, like cereals, and animals, and also a urban revolution, sedentary life gave way to accumulation on information and knowledge and the search for group security, set forth the evolution for the birth of civilization.

 

Even though the has been very extensive archeological work in the region of Mesopotamia the author establishes that it's possible that we have only uncovered about 50% , and he mentions that they haven't been able to find yet  the city of Dilmun mentioned in the epic poem of Gilgamesh, city that may have inspired the word paradise that etymologically means inside walls or walls all around. Now I find it fascinating to think for the first humans to live in a city to have security gave man peace of mind to be able to developed and evolve culture.

The author talks about the 6 wonders of the ancient world, establishing that no one truly knows who established this list, that possibly it was a poet by the name  Calimaco of Cirene, the original six where the Pyramids of Giza, statue of Zeus, the Colossus, the Mausoleum and the Palace of Artemis
The Seven wonders took form over time, and Baez explains that basically the Greek liked seven more, and they changed over time until we get the one that we have now.

Baez affirm that language is a prosthesis of memory and a fundamental aspect to any culture, from what I understand from the author's work langue is a extension of a collective memory and it's a means to access it. So for the author lost/dead languages are the evidence  that a collective memory has been lost. There are 6800 languages and 3000 are on the verge of being lost, since 1950 humanity has lost 200 languages, 96% of all the languages of the world are only spoken by 4% of the world's population.

Better langue skill gave humans the upper hand of the Neanderthal, be able organize calendars to hunt y collects food. The first writing appeared  4000 years b.C. In Europe but not much is known about this first writing system so the author jumps to cuneiform a subject that he works on in his book the history of books.

 

The Good stuff about the book itself and some interesting facts that learned from it:

The book gets right to business nice and quick, the introduction establishes what the author wants to do, defines the principal terms and explains on a personal level why this subject is important.

  

The city States Uruk and Ur where the place of origin of many inventions like the wheel, writing, books, libraries, archives, maps, codes of law, the chariot, epic tails like the Poem of Gilgamesh, the idea of  a lost paradise, seven day week, the twelve month year, astronomical guides. 

Modern day Ur the place where Abraham was born is now called Tell al Muqayar. Ur was founded 4000 b.C. by the Obeid and one of their lasting constructions is the Zigurat, now the book has a photo of one of these and it's a colossal construction I really wonder why I haven't ever seen it in any documentaries, and I love to see them, these things are just as relevant as the Egyptian pyramids, culturally they are sort of swept under the rug for some unknown reason to me.

Baez present the reader with something really sad the fact that in 2003, the US soldiers actually stole clay bricks from Ur monuments and graffitied some of them. Also Iraq's national museum was looted 25 objects of importance  and 14 thousand less important artifacts were stolen, they even stole some of the science gear and things needed to preserve archeological artifacts. The author really opens this can of worms that is fascinating and very sad ( Note Baez has a book dedicated to the subject), now I always wondered why would the Bush Administration commit such a colossal blunder in not protecting such important things to the human patrimony. But I'm just being stupid because this administration couldn't even prepare the most basic aspects of that war.

 
 When talking about Egypt the author is pretty blunt by expressing how European countries stole as much as they could put their hands on, even a whole obelisk of Luxor that was taken to France as a trophy.The temple of Luxor was used as a roman military base, many years latter a mosque was built in part of the temple called Abu el Hagad, and Christians stole blocks from the structure to build Churches, and it estimated that only 40%  of the original temple is left.

 When Fernando talks about Biblios he has a particular fondness for the place that he also expresses this in his book  "The History of Books". Reading this part of the book is great because it personal for him and he seems to have really enjoyed his trip there and what he had learned there.
Now in Biblios is the place where alphabet was created around 1060 b.C which the Greek copied for their own writing system, but the author mention that about 95% of the original alphabet has been lost over time.


In Petra  the author tell another personal story about his travels to that historic site and how he was infuriated when a local guide tried to sell him a priceless archeological object made by the Nabateans the creators of Petra.

The Tower of Babel mentioned in the bible is refrenced by Baez, the author explains that the story   might have its origen in a Sumerian tale of Enmerkar the lord of Aratta, that thanks to Eridu humanities original langue was divided into many. The bible establishes that Nimrod was the one that built the Tower of Babel   but it was really made by Nabucodonosor II, that also used Jewish slaves to create the Zigurate of Etemenanki in 575 b.C. The tower was a watch tower about 90 meters tall.

Author also references that Noah's ark story also having a Sumerian origin, establishing that there is cuneiform tablet of Ninive, that mentions a great flood and was part  of the poem of Gilgamesh, basically it's a story of a man that survives a flood that was sent against the city of Shuripak, and that had to build a boat in the form of a cube that had seven floors. In another epic poem Atra-has
in Greek mythology Zeus also flooded the earth in anger and boat built by Deucalion, king of Tesalia to survive the tragedy with his wife.

The temple of Salomon orTemple of Jerusalem, also known as Beit Hamikdash, has had three incarnations.First temple was built during the fourth year of the regime of Solomon, this building  goes back to X b.C and had help from the king of Tiro  Hiram, and wood was a big part of the structure, it was the center of the Jewish physical and spiritual world. The Arc of the  Covenant was kept there with the Ten Commandments. In 586 temple was destroyed by Nabucodonosor who made the Jewish people his slave and took them to Babylon. The Jewish people had to wait till Ciro of Persia liberated them in 538. The second temple was built with the help of the Persians, but was left incomplete because Antioco IV Epifanes attacked and enslaved many Jewish people and destroyed the temple and imposed the cult to Zeus in 168 b.C. In both cases the Archeologist have never found  phisical evidence of the original two temples they have been lost in time.

Now the third temple is the legacy of one of the most hated men in Jewish history Herodes the great, governor that's severed the Romans, he built the new temple as a gesture to the Jewish people, and in the year 70  roman soldiers set fire to the temple as payback for the Jewish rebellion of the Zealots.

Baez presents some shoking numbers from Second World War, that  the Germans devastated 1710 cities, 70000 towns and villages, destroyed 6000000 historical buildings, they explicitly tried to inflict as much damage on their adversary as possible sending 4 billion euro on the conflict. They also stole 5 million cultural objects. Author also mention that the Nazi deliberately attacked libraries and archive building, but refers to another one of his  books that's about this subject published in 2004.
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 The Bad:

Book lacks a little balanced the author dedicates a lot in pages  to cities and historical monuments, but very little to langue and art, it feels almost tacked on, he could have left this a out and put this info in another book.

Overall: I'll give this book a 9.5out of 10,  it's a great and easy read, I ate it up and finished it really fast becasuse of how much I liked it and I can't wait to get my hand on another book by this author.