Istanbul in Turkey

Istanbul in Turkey
a city poised between east and west
and between the present and the past.
It's a good place to think about where
all this comes from
not the physical structures
of this particular city
but the invisible web that holds
all cities together
and which we humans have been spinning
since the time of the very first cities
some 6000 years ago.
Civilisation is the best word for it
one of the most profound innovations
in our human story.
Historians today have become
a little bit embarrassed
by the word civilisation.
We prefer less exalted terms
such as culture community or society.
But in telling the stories
of the first great civilisations
of the ancient world
I'm going to be making the case
for civilisation itself.
More than 4000 years ago
an unknown poet listed the attributes
of a successful city
the place where civilisation was
first forged and where the aspirations
of a civilisation still find
their most concrete expression.
The details of the poem are so vivid
they could have been written yesterday.
The warehouses are well provisioned
and the houses within the city
are well built.
Those who bathe before the holidays
rejoice in the courtyards.
And foreigners flock to and fro
like exotic birds.
The old women are
full of good advice.
The old men are
full of good counsel.
The young women are
full of dancing spirit.
The young men are
full of fighting spirit.
And the little ones are
full of the spirit of joy.
The people are happy.
Of course
not everybody can be happy.
But I believe that the aspirations
expressed in that ancient poem
make as much sense to us now
as they did years ago.
It's like that when you look down
into the well of history.
It gets dark so quickly.
But then just sometimes
you catch a glimpse of something
at the bottom alive and moving.



Then suddenly you realise that it's
your own reflection looking back at you.
That's the story that I want to
tell to you now.
It's not the story of ancient worlds
long past
it's the story of us, then.