Richard Wrangham, “Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human”,2009 was the topic of an earlier blog post.
Joshua Bowen’ & Megan Lewis, “Learn to Read Ancient Sumerian”, 2020 also was the topic of an earlier blog post.
Here I present: Martin Levey, “Chemistry and Chemical Technology in Ancient Mesopotamia’, 1959.
The “table of contents” of the book is shown BELOW.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter #1. “The Threshold of Chemical Discovery“.
Chapter #2. “Early Chemical Apparatus“.
Chapter #3. “Chemical Furnaces“.
Chapter #4. “Distillations, Sublimation, and Extraction”.
Chapter #5. “Food and its Technology“.
Chapter #6. “Tanning“.
Chapter #7. “Oils , Fats and Waxes“.
Chapter #8. “Dyes and Dying“.
Chapter #9. “Perfumery“.
Chapter #10. “Detergent Materials“.
Chapter #11. “Prelude to Medicine“.
Chapter #12. “Alum“.
Chapter #13. “Gypsum, Salt and Soda“.
Chapter #14. “Silver“.
Chapter #15. ” Gold“.
Chapter #16. “Copper and Bronze“.
Here I presented: Martin Levey, “Chemistry and Chemical Technology in Ancient Mesopotamia’, 1959.
SUMMARY.
The book first describes the apparatus that the Sumerians and Akkadians had. They knew many types of furnaces; and, they had many forms of pots for sublimation and distillation. The author presents a systematic description of several processes, such as tanning, dyeing , and metallurgy. There is a discussion of the technology of food, oils, fats, waxes, detergent, alum, and salt.
COMMENTS.
Sumerian is the world’s oldest written language.
The book on page 52, figure #30 “Frying Pan_3,000 BC” is shown BELOW.
The book gives you a sense of placing yourself in Mesopotamia’with the topics of the book.
The “frying pan” is from Chapter #5. “Food and its Technology (Cookery)” is the best part of the book for me.
BELOW is a “Timeline of Elements” using both “Earliest Element Use” and “Oldest Existing Sample”.
Mesopotamia’ is an area that became inhabited during this period of the 6th Millennium BC; and , later developed Cuneiform writing in 4th BC Middle.
In Mesopotamia’ cookery with metal knives was common (shown BELOW stone-age versus Mesopotamia’ metal knives).
Jean Bottera, “The Oldest Cuisine in the World”, 2011 was the topic of an earlier blog post.
Claude Levi-Strauss, “The Raw and the Cooked: Introduction to a Science of Mythology”, 1964 was the topic of an earlier blog post.
