On Nov 14, 2008, at 8:45 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
There's something endearing about a romantic, and we have a resident romantic in Michael.
Is that some kind of gentle put-down, the "endearing ... romantic"? Please. That doesn't become you.
Don't you feel the awe for the discovery and an impressive admiration for the archaeologists' work?
Most books list Damascus as the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, dating to c. 5000 BC--at least it was a few decades ago when I was learning this stuff. Catal Huyuk, also in Anatolia, dates to 6500 BC, but it is only an archaeological site, and not inhabited.
Lewis Mumford, in The City in History, begins with the earliest organized, permanent sites, which was made possible by the domestication of plants and animals, i.e., the beginnings of agriculture. He puts the date about 12,000 years ago, in line with the current information.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady [EMAIL PROTECTED]
