Is the traditional way of exploring history – outdated?
Integrating Gen-AI in historical study brings the ancient alive like never before.
I’ve experienced this transformation firsthand. Want to see how?
I love history.
I saw an article in an email from National Geographic concerning The Marduck Prophecy, spent a few minutes reading over the historical details and decided to write a prompt to try and capture a visual.
• supermacro-photograph of The Marduk Prophecy, Assyrian document, black stone with carvings, The House of the Exorcist, City of Ashur, Temple. –s 250
Though originated by the Assyrians, Marduk as a ‘diety’ had risen in venerated status to the Babylonians under the reign of Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC). The statue had been captured from the sacked city of Babylon in 1595 BC by the Hittites. Nebuchadnezzar I had victory over the Elamites during his reign (1125 – 1104 BC), and brought the once captured statue of Marduck back to Babylon. To celebrate his victory, ol’ Neb commissioned the creation of The Marduck Prophecy, a historical fiction – a propaganda piece.
The ‘author’ placed the events in the past in order to allow for a ‘prophetic vision’ where the present king would restore peace and order to Babylon by bringing home the statue of Marduck.
This document was held in a building in the city of Ashur, known as The House of the Exorcist, next door to the temple in the city there. Just as a cool side note, the Assyrians used cuneiform as their writing system. Cuneiform, which originates from the Latin word “cuneus” meaning “wedge”, is one of the earliest known systems of writing. It was developed by the ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia around 3200 BCE. In the image crafted by Midjourney – much of the writing style represented is cuneiform.
The actual ‘Marduk Prophecy’ was shaped like an elongated rectangle that stood tall (like a shoe box stood on its end, or a small column of black stone). This was an interesting exploration of historical artifacts and gen-AI. Any thoughts on how THIS could be useful to you?