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Evolution of agrourban cultures: I The Near East

Denis J. Murphy

in People, Plants and Genes: The Story of Crops and Humanity

In the Near East, farming started in the Levant and northern Mesopotamia and, by 9,000 BP, was established across much of the region. Farming villages grew into towns that gradually increased in size ... More

In the Near East, farming started in the Levant and northern Mesopotamia and, by 9,000 BP, was established across much of the region. Farming villages grew into towns that gradually increased in size and techno-social complexity. This development was punctuated by at least three serious aridification events in 8,200, 5,200, and 4,200 BP that led to the partial abandonment of rainfed farming and dramatic reductions in social complexity. A momentous development was the invention of irrigation by the Samarrans after 8,000 BP. This allowed the colonization of southern Mesopotamia and the evolution of the first true urban cultures in Sumerian centres such as Ur and Uruk. Sumerian agriculture was dominated by intensively farmed barley monocultures controlled by elites who developed writing, organized warfare, imperialism, and ruled over an increasingly coercively managed subject population.Less

The Sumerian Takeoff

in Ancient Mesopotamia at the Dawn of Civilization: The Evolution of an Urban Landscape

This chapter begins with a discussion of how natural and created landscapes determine, reinforce, and compound each other in modern cities and their surrounding areas, which are applicable to earlier ... More

This chapter begins with a discussion of how natural and created landscapes determine, reinforce, and compound each other in modern cities and their surrounding areas, which are applicable to earlier cases of urban transformation. A case in point appears to be the crystallization of early Sumerian civilization in the alluvial lowlands of the Tigris–Euphrates rivers of southern Mesopotamia during the Uruk period, which is radiocarbon-dated ca. 3900/3800 to ca. 3200/3100 bc. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.Less

Early Mesopotamia Urbanism: How?

in Ancient Mesopotamia at the Dawn of Civilization: The Evolution of an Urban Landscape

This chapter presents a speculative scenario to account for how the Sumerian takeoff could have resulted, in part, out of evolving, long-term trade patterns that ultimately favored the development of ... More

This chapter presents a speculative scenario to account for how the Sumerian takeoff could have resulted, in part, out of evolving, long-term trade patterns that ultimately favored the development of societies in the alluvial lowlands of Mesopotamia over that of polities in neighboring regions. This trade was, at first, largely internal and took place principally between individual southern polities exploiting rich but localized ecological niches within the Mesopotamian alluvium during the Late Ubaid and Early Uruk periods. By the Middle and Late Uruk periods, however, external trade between growing southern cities and societies at their periphery in control of coveted resources gained more prominence. As the exchange unfolded over time and as its scale and external scope increased, import substitution processes expanded economic activity in growing Uruk centers and fueled large-scale immigration to those centers and their immediate dependencies.Less

The Synergies of Civilization

in Ancient Mesopotamia at the Dawn of Civilization: The Evolution of an Urban Landscape

This chapter argues that the environmental and geographical advantages accruing to southern Mesopotamian societies and the increases in the density and agglomeration of populations in the alluvium ... More

This chapter argues that the environmental and geographical advantages accruing to southern Mesopotamian societies and the increases in the density and agglomeration of populations in the alluvium throughout the Uruk period that were selected for by those natural advantages represent necessary but insufficient conditions for the Sumerian takeoff. The sufficient conditions were organizational innovations within the nascent city-states of southern Mesopotamian that fall entirely within the realm of Cronon's “created landscape.” Most important among these were new forms of organizing labor that delivered economies of scale in the production of subsistence and industrial commodities to southern societies; and new forms of record keeping that were much more capable of conveying information across time and space than the simpler reckoning systems used by contemporary polities elsewhere. These innovations furnished early Sumerian leaders and polities of the fourth millennium with what turned out to be their most important competitive advantages over neighboring societies.Less

The Uruk Phenomenon

Gebhard J. Selz

in The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East: Volume I: From the Beginnings to Old Kingdom Egypt and the Dynasty of Akkad

The city of Uruk in southern Iraq was the main force for urbanization and state formation in Mesopotamia during the Uruk period (ca. 3800–3300 BC), which takes its name from this “first city.” This ... More

The city of Uruk in southern Iraq was the main force for urbanization and state formation in Mesopotamia during the Uruk period (ca. 3800–3300 BC), which takes its name from this “first city.” This chapter discusses this formative period for the social, political, and cultural history of Mesopotamia and beyond, as well as the ensuing transitional period (Uruk III/Jemdet Nasr period; ca. 3300–3000 BC). The focus lies on the key elements of Uruk culture and its spread across Western Asia, including Syria, Anatolia, and Iran; the invention of cuneiform writing; and aspects of social, religious, and political organization of this emergent state. Contextualized in climatic, demographic, and geographic observations, the chapter evaluates key cultural features, stressing the role of population growth intertwined with technological, agricultural, and administrative improvements. These cultural features’ dissemination along trade routes to the Levant, Anatolia, and Iran is linked to the establishment of strongholds that secured the exchange of goods, with the south of Mesopotamia serving as the commercial hub. While the available sources—both textual and iconographic—provide no unequivocal evidence for the alleged monocratic governance of Uruk-period society, the identifiable political structures were strongly intertwined with religious functions, indicating great societal complexity. The alleged collapse of the Uruk culture was predominantly the breakdown of the Uruk (trade) network. Culturally, however, many features of the Uruk phenomenon provided the founding charter for Mesopotamian social structures in subsequent periods.Less

Uruk

in Abysmal: A Critique of Cartographic Reason

The oldest masterpiece of world literature, the epic poem of Gilgamesh, is an outstanding study of power, fame, friendship, and the fear of death; a remarkable attempt to determine what it means to ... More

The oldest masterpiece of world literature, the epic poem of Gilgamesh, is an outstanding study of power, fame, friendship, and the fear of death; a remarkable attempt to determine what it means to be human; in the words of the expert, a story of growing up; an existential drama of lasting impact, cartographical reason in practice; and an (auto)biographical study of how a violent adolescent matures into a reconciled man. In the prologue the poet stresses that even though Gilgamesh's fame is closely tied to the wall he had built around the city, his greatness is anchored less in his glorious achievements than in his tragic failures. The ultimate fix-points of the mapping expeditions he is about to undertake are well defined, the city of Uruk at the same time both the origin and the destination of his search. The poem mentions “The Deep,” which is in fact another term for the realm of Apsu, the non-classifiable abyss which in Enuma elish was the home of Power itself. And a figure of power is exactly what Gilgamesh is.Less

Scholarly Tablet Collections in First-Millennium Assyria and Babylonia, c.700–200 BCE

Eleanor Robson and Kathryn Stevens

in Libraries before Alexandria: Ancient Near Eastern Traditions

The half-millennium 700–200 BCE was the heyday of the cuneiform ‘library’: Pedersén counts nearly forty of them from that period in his foundational book Libraries and Archives in the Ancient Near ... More

The half-millennium 700–200 BCE was the heyday of the cuneiform ‘library’: Pedersén counts nearly forty of them from that period in his foundational book Libraries and Archives in the Ancient Near East (1998). Yet there have been surprisingly few studies of cuneiform libraries per se. This chapter first summarizes, updates, and evaluates Pedersén’s survey, then uses a selection of this impressive array of evidence to explore some questions, raised in the authors’ respective recent work, about the functions of ‘libraries’ in first-millennium Assyria and Babylonia. The chapter focuses on three case studies which examine the relationships between Mesopotamian ‘libraries’ and two other notoriously complex Mesopotamian institutions: the temple and the scribal school. In particular, it is argued that ‘libraries’ as collections of artefacts were much more mobile within the scholarly community than many have acknowledged. Single archaeological find-spots will rarely reveal an intact collection, even assuming perfect conditions of preservation.Less

Empire Begins at Home: Local Elites and Imperial Ideologies in Hellenistic Greece and Babylonia

Kathryn Stevens

in Cosmopolitanism and Empire: Universal Rulers, Local Elites, and Cultural Integration in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean

This chapter presents four case studies in the self-presentation of local elites and the construction of local cultural memory in the Seleucid empire, two from Babylonia and two from the Greek cities ... More

This chapter presents four case studies in the self-presentation of local elites and the construction of local cultural memory in the Seleucid empire, two from Babylonia and two from the Greek cities of Anatolia. The cuneiforms texts produced by members of the priestly elite in Uruk and the Greek texts inscribed by civic leaders in Lindos and Halikarnassos have at first glance almost nothing in common, but they share a “deeply historicizing localism.” In different but analogous ways, the two groups write “both themselves and contemporary empires into local histories which stretch back to the distant past.” The chapter also shows that the Seleucid rulers collaborated in this process of “assimilating the imperial to the local.”Less

In a Strange Land

Roger Wagner and Andrew Briggs

in The Penultimate Curiosity: How Science Swims in the Slipstream of Ultimate Questions

This chapter considers the origins of the poem The Epic of Gilgamesh, which tells the story of the adventures of Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk, and his friendship with the wild man Enkidu. The version ... More

This chapter considers the origins of the poem The Epic of Gilgamesh, which tells the story of the adventures of Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk, and his friendship with the wild man Enkidu. The version of Gilgamesh discovered by George Smith dates from the seventh century BC and was apparently written by a ‘master scribe and incantation priest’ called Sin-leqe-unnini. Smith conjectured that it was a retelling of a much older story, and some 90 years later he was proved right. The chapter also asks whether there is any evidence within Genesis that suggests a knowledge or awareness of Mesopotamian stories and religions.Less

Royal Symbols from West Asia

Asko Parpola

in The Roots of Hinduism: The Early Aryans and The Indus Civilization

The West Asian “contest” motif came with the Uruk expansion to Upper Egypt, where a royal knife depicts a Sumerian king holding two lions. This representation survived in Mesopotamia until about 2400 ... More

The West Asian “contest” motif came with the Uruk expansion to Upper Egypt, where a royal knife depicts a Sumerian king holding two lions. This representation survived in Mesopotamia until about 2400 BCE, when Harappans borrowed it, replacing lions with tigers. The modified “contest” motif of Akkadian royal seals was also imitated by Harappans. The “double-bun” hairdo, worn by Early Dynastic kings on the warpath, characterizes Harappan warriors and may survive in the Vedic war god Rudra’s kaparda (from Dravidian kavaram, “braided hair,” kavar, “bifurcate”). A Harappan bull statuette with “trefoils” copies a Mesopotamian “Bull of Heaven.” The Indus “priest-king’s” robe with “trefoils” containing red paste resembles the “sky garment” of Mesopotamian kings and gods, decorated with golden stars and rosettes. The Vedic king wore a tārpya garment having images of dhiṣṇyas. Dhiṣṇya denotes “priestly fireplace” and “star,” stars being conceived as fireplaces of pious sacrificers raised to the sky.Less