MT1 Week2 Mesopotamia Flashcards
• States have what characteristics?
- Large dense populations living in cities
- A true political authority
- A specialized labour force (for example craft workers)
- Social inequality
- Political ideology
- Long distance trade
- Possibly metallurgy, writing systems and a bureaucracy
- Mesopotamia: the first urban population in the world (city states)
- Origins: one theory to look at is Wittfogel’s hydraulic state
Mesopotamia (from the Greek): ‘land between the two rivers’)
Alluvial plain between Tigris and Euphrates rivers (modern states of Iraq, Syria & southeastern Turkey)
The Fertile Crescent
Fertile Crescent – plants and animals are domesticated in this area beginning about 10000 BCE
¨Near Eastern domesticates include wheat, barley, dates, lentils, olives, oranges, onions, cattle, goats, sheep, & pigs
Greater Mesopotamia
- Northern plain: foothills of the Taurus and Zagros mountains – enough rain in winter to grow crops without irrigation
- Akkad and Sumer plains: flat and very dry floodplain
- Rich new soil (alluvium) is deposited by rivers in annual floods
- Rich soils + irrigation produce enough food to feed dense populations
- Floodplain is also a source of clay, palm trees, reeds, natural bitumen
Phases of development on floodplains: Neolithic communities 6500-4200 BCE
¨Halaf, Hassuna, Samarra & Ubaid phases
¨Farmers are now scattered in villages throughout the fertile crescent living in small farm villages including on the northern and southern plains
¨Villages are linked in network of trade for obsidian and precious stone and copper (mainly for small objects)
¨Farmers living on the floodplain begin to use canal irrigation
Halafian phase: 6100-5100 BCE
¨Foothills/uplands northern Iraq and Syria
¨Area has rain-fed farming so no need for irrigation
¨The Halaf phase develops from earlier groups in this region
¨Halaf produced very fine painted pottery and keyhole shaped buildings called tholoi used for public ritual and storage
Hassuna phase ~6500-5300 BCE
¨Farm villages on the Akkad plain
¨Built mud-walled buildings with open courtyard
Samarra phase 6500-5900 BCE
Samarra also on the Akkad plain
¨Choga Mami site has the earliest evidence of canal irrigation
¨At the site of Tell es-Sawwan there are several buildings, including a T-shaped buildings possibly used for grain storage that were fortified with a wall (e.g. community organized labour)
¨rich burials with trade goods: copper, turquoise, carnelians, obsidian
¨Samarra pottery is the first style traded widely
Early settlement on the Sumer plain
¨Scrub areas and marshlands in the southern floodplain supported hunter gatherer populations
¨Farmers began to settle along the rivers (earliest settlements are now deeply buried under silt)
¨The first farmers arrived with pottery and copper technology from the north
¨Traded for copper ore and obsidian from Anatolia
Sumer Plain: Ubaid Phase 6000-4200 BCE
¨The Ubaid Phase is the foundation for Mesopotamian civilizations
¨The Ubaid is characterized by:
¡1. the first villages with farming based in irrigation
¡2. The beginning of the temple institution and the expansion of irrigation agriculture that produced surplus food
Ubaid Phase
¨The earliest Ubaid village is Oueili (Ubaid 0)
¨Located near marshland (fish, reeds) but the farmers relied on irrigation to grow their crops
¨But irrigation was likely used by earlier farmers on the Sumer plain
¨Ubaid period settlements did not have walls and were involved in more extensive long-distance trade that eventually spread throughout Mesopotamia
Eridu Ubaid 1 phase
According to the Sumerian creation story, Eridu was the first settlement to rise from the primordial sea
- The Sumerians claimed that Eridu was created by the gods and was the home of the god Enki (Ea)
- Sumerian texts pre-date the writing of the Book of Genesis in the Bible
This suggests a long oral tradition existed in this region
• It is believed that Eridu was the model for the Garden of Eden
Eridu during Ubaid times
First temples were built in Ubaid period
¨At Eridu the evidence of the first temple is a sequence of mud-brick buildings with niches, buttresses and altars raised on mud-brick platforms
¨These are the precursors to the temples of the later historic period
¨Eridu temple was dedicated to the god Enki
Eridu temple
• The temple was built in many phases with each phase being larger, taller and with more buildings
¨Eventually there were elaborate residences for
priests/priestesses located around the temple
¨Each centre would have its own patron gods and goddesses
Temple Institution
¨Temples were the hub of Ubaid society and they made life on the floodplain possible
¨The temple housed the community’s patron gods and religious authority
¨Temple authorities organized irrigation, water allocation and trade (storage facilities)
¨They were large land-holders and employers (important economic and religious institutions)
Temple authority: priests and priestesses
Early temple officials had limited influence
• As settlements grew, authorities became more powerful
- Temples allocate water rights, which is a source of power on the floodplain
- Religious role was also powerful
- Temples produced and also received surplus to obtain luxury items to reinforce their status
Long-distance exchange
¨Ubaid settlements produced agricultural surplus and pottery but they lacked certain resources on the floodplain
¨Traded for stone, timber, copper and precious stone in uplands to east & along Persian Gulf coast to south
¨Ubaid pottery spread rapidly north and south through trade along the river and the gulf (sailing was practiced from earlier times)
What was Ubaid society like?
Most settlements were self-sufficient in the needs of daily life (pottery, food production, cloth production, storage)
¨Evidence of some groups with more wealth than others but not lavish
¨However some differences in status between temple and common people was emerging in Ubaid times
Summary Ubaid Phase or period
¨Ubaid phase developed in the southern plain
¨It is the beginning of the temple institution
¨This institution organizes community labour and exchanges surplus food production and results in some social differences
¨Links Mesopotamia as a whole into a trading network
¨Provides the foundation for Mesopotamian civilizations that begin in the Uruk period
Uruk ‘Revolution’ 4200-3100 BCE
¨First cities and city states emerge as political centers in the southern plains
¨Many important developments: wheel, writing, plough, mathematics
¨Craft specialization in cities (specialized economy)
¨Distinct centralized religious and secular authorities
¨Expansion of trading networks
¨Clear evidence of social hierarchy
Tells
What remains of Mesopotamian cities are tells
¨Tells are artificial mounds on the plain that were created by the build-up and collapse of mud-brick buildings and rubbish of city dwellers over time
¨Many became stranded in desert as rivers changed their course
Uruk (Warka)
Development of first true urban centers (central places) with full time bureaucracy, military, and a social hierarchy
- Uruk is world’s first true city and largest in Uruk Period 40-80,000 people at peak
- 4-tiered settlement hierarchy
- Massive increase in number of settlements after 4000 BCE
- Why this occurs is not clear
Settlement excavations
• Cities appear to have developed unplanned with temple & palace complexes at the core surrounded by crowded narrow streets
packed with rectangular white-washed mud brick houses
- City populations numbered in the thousands
- Smaller satellite towns up to 10 km away provided food to support cities
- People developed a common identity based on their city and its deities
Uruk’s White Temple and Anu Ziggurat
- The temple is dedicated to the main god Anu (sky god) and the Eanna precinct to the goddess Inanna goddess of love, war, and ripening crops
- Temple and ziggurat were built in stages from ‘Ubaid times
- The last temple built is the White Temple
The White Temple
¨Like other mud brick temples, the White Temple was decorated with cone mosaics (cones of different colours of clay)
¨Earliest evidence of cuneiform writing from this complex
Temple construction becomes more monumental (Anu ziggurat)
- Ziggurats are stepped platform pyramids presumably with temples on top
- Required increasingly larger amounts of labour and materials and a centralized authority to construct them
- Power of the authority (e.g. the city-state) was reflected in the size of the ziggurat
Temples and Ziggurats
Why build big?
- Visible over long distances on the floodplain (up to 10 m tall)
- Possibly represent mountains or stairways for gods to descend to earth or to ascend to heaven
- Temple was place where deities lived and held court
- Increasing separation of general populace and temple administration (walls around elite residences, higher ziggurats)
Public architecture (uruk)
Separate palaces were also built on top of high mud-brick platforms near temples
- Spatial separation of palace from temple infers separation of secular and religious power
- Unlike large Ubaid towns, Uruk period cities are surrounded by walls up to 15m thick and built of kiln-fired mud brick (symbol of power and wealth and for protection)
New authorities: Secular rulers
- Clear evidence of government organization in Uruk Period with secular ruler and bureaucracy to govern large populations
- Images of these rulers subduing enemies, taking prisoners
- Ruler appears to be male individual (long hair, beard, net skirt)
- Most imagery is of men (possibly politics dominated by men)
- Secular rulers ruled by charismatic power or military prowess and were legitimated by priestly authorities
- Commanded tribute in labour and surplus production
- Responsible for providing offerings to city’s gods/goddesses
- Mesopotamians believed god-world was a mirror of living world
- Patron god defended their city in council of gods
- Rulers made offerings to the patron god to keep them happy
City cult deities
Sumerian written records indicate images of gods were made from wood and covered in gold
- None of these remain today
- Gods thought to dwell in these objects and these were brought out for festivals and rituals when they were carried through communities
Priests
Priests remain important and divine future through dreams and reading entrails of sacrificed animals
- Records kept of sacrifices, divinations and the events that followed
- Secular rulers held in check by priests who could usurp their power
Other authorities
Early texts indicate that local kin groups also were large land holders
¨By late Uruk times clan leaders were selling and purchasing land
¨Rare excavation of Uruk non-elite structures at Abu Salabikhshows that people were living in extended family units (about 20 people) in large houses
Uruk economy
• City and its satellites linked together in network of interdependence
Satellites taxed for food and labour by the city authorities
- Each center specialized in goods for trade with other cities
- Craft production was increasingly under administrative control (more efficient movement of raw materials and products)
- Goods moved by donkey caravans and by boat on the rivers
Long-distance exchange
- Increased craft specialization is marker of increasing complexity
- Huge expansion of long-distance trade to obtain materials for luxury items (lapis lazuli, onyx, gold, carnelian, silver, alabaster, copper)
- Uruk traded grain and pottery for these goods
Uruk innovations
- Invention of the potter slow wheel & molds to increase volume of production
- Undecorated utilitarian wares
- Bevel-rimmed bowls (ration bowls) to feed labourers – huge numbers indicates scale of centralized labour
- Probably bread baking molds
Copper
widespread by 3000 BCE
• Tools for agriculture and warfare
The development of writing
- Important tool of bureaucracy
- Documentation of events and transactions
- Promotes efficient management of trade, taxation collection and political control
- By Sumerian times it was used to write poetry and histories
Evolution of writing in Mesopotamia
Notation systems began in Neolithic 7000 BCE
- Baked clay tokens in 16 shapes (spheres, pyramids, cubes, animals, pottery jars)
- Different sizes denote quantity of a good
- Shape represents different types of a good
Found in Neolithic sites from Turkey to Pakistan
- 3-D shapes correspond to 2-D ideographs/signs found on later clay tablets
- ~4000 BCE explodes to 300 forms with markings for more detailed records
Stage 2: bullae
- After 3500 BCE tokens were encased in clay bullae
- Bullae are impressed with the outline of tokens before sealing them closed (if shape didn’t impress well they were incised)
- X-rays show content of bullae do not always correspond with impressions
- Likely represent single transaction
Stage 3: tablets
- Shift to tablets (3000-2000 BCE)
- Easier to handle
- 80% of tablets from Uruk were economic in nature and others had lists of professions
- Early inscriptions are shapes of earlier tokens;; later signs are language sounds (syllabic)
- Gradually replaced with stylized writing called cuneiform (~3100 BCE)
Cuneiform
From Latin cuneus meaning ‘wedge shaped’ referring to the wedge-shaped stylus used to make symbols in clay tablet
- Scribes were highly trained professionals, occupation often ran in families
- Most people were illiterate
- Scribes were usually men, but Enheduanna, daughter of King Sargon, was a famous author of hymns and laments
Highly efficient form of record keeping (standardized)
- Used for 3000 years (until 1st century CE)
- 600-700 signs of sounds and ideographs
- Used to write different languages (Sumerian, Akkadian, Semitic)
Cylinder Seals
Developed in Uruk times
- Rolled over clay lumps or slabs to seal cargo for trade
- Seals are an administrative device used to seal containers, even rooms
- Seals were a status symbol used by person who had the authority to witness trade transactions
- Loss of seal was like losing a credit card – had to be announced in town to prevent owner from accruing debts of thieves
Other achievements
- Systems of measurement, mathematics, astronomy
- Sexagesimal system (measurement based on 6) still used in West to measure time (60 seconds/minute) and 360º in a circle
Plough and wheel
- Plough pulled by draft animals increased production on alluvium
- Wheeled vehicles were important for transporting goods and in warfare
- wooden wheel with leather tires
- Warfare increased in Uruk period (fortified villages, large walls around cities)
- Conflict over land
Religion: reconstructed from cuneiform documents
Mesopotamian religion has oldest literature of any religion
¨Polytheistic: over 2100 deities (human form)
¨Deities were feared & had to be obeyed (all-knowing, powerful, immortal)
¨Initially gods were not ordered, but eventually came to be ranked (like society)
Deities
¨Deities lived in statues in the temples: they were present!
¨Gods were taken to hunting parties & other events
¨Served by temple household
¨Dressed and served banquets twice a day and provided with animal sacrifices, incense, privacy in eating
¨King ‘s authority legitimated by his ritual role: he mediated between deities and people
End of Uruk
Some suggest Uruk ended because of abrupt cold and wet period that disrupted agricultural production
¨OR By the arrival of the East Semitic tribes
¨They are followed by the Sumerian Civilization
Early Dynastic Period
2900 – 2350 BC
3rd millennium BC
This is the beginning of the historical period
¨Written records extend beyond economic administration: king-lists, literature, poetry
¨Great age of southern Sumerian city states
¨Southern plain divided into Sumer in the south, Akkad in north
Nature of Sumerian civilization
¨Sumer had a cosmopolitan population
¨Multi-ethnic, many different languages
¨Major ethnic group was Sumerians, possibly ancestors occupied marshes (ancestors of Marsh Arabs)
¨All groups shared common culture, writing system, pantheon of gods
¨Sumerian was ancient language of southern Mesopotamia – no modern related languages
¨Northern Mesopotamia were Semitic speakers
Control of Nippur
¨Nippur was the most important religious centre in Mesopotamia
¨Essential for political control
¨Nippur is home of the god Enlil (god of the gods)
¨God-world mirrors living world
Sumerian city states
¨Defensive brick wall, central temple and palace, city divided into neighbourhoods partly by occupation, 4 tiered settlement hierarchy
¨Cities often faced the river where they had a harbour or quay
¨Houses were mud-brick, multi-storied, central courtyard, possibly markets but no evidence
¨As cities increased in size/rural settlements declined (and vice-versa)
Sumerian Rulers
About 20 Sumerian city states
• Rulers now were hereditary dynasties but temples were still important
Sumer
Ur was one of these city states
- Sumer was linked to other polities through trade (Near East, Indus Valley, Levant, Anatolia, Nile Valley)
- Trade expands with increased demand for luxury goods as society becomes more hierarchical
- Includes expansion of maritime trade
Trade
Lapis lazuli from Afghanistan
- Obsidian, chert from Anatolia (Turkey)
- Lead, gold, silver, copper from Anatolia
- Persian Gulf: copper, pearls
- Southern Arabia: steatite, diorite, copper
- Carnelians from India
Technology and economy
Agriculture was biggest industry and some river settlements had large scale grain storage facilities
- These settlements were founded by the state as part of state-organized control of grain supply
- Textiles were second industry (images of women weaving fabrics (wool, linen) and possibly carpets
- Pottery trade declines possibly with rise of metal and stone vessels)
Bronze Age
- Bronze metallurgy was introduced in this period
- Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin
- Bronze tools are stronger and more durable than copper ones
- Improved agricultural production and warfare
- Bronze weaponry and wheeled vehicles revolutionize warfare
- Carts pulled by donkey or oxen
Bronze
Metal was heavy – likely smelted elsewhere and imported as ingots
¨Expansion of metallurgy overall (gold, silver, copper, bronze)
¨Bronze cast in molten form: creates truer blade edge
Sumerian texts
¨Cuneiform texts in Sumerian and later Akkadian
¨King-list – list of ruling cities and kings in 2 broad periods: before and after the great flood
¨Several versions of the Great Flood in the Near East between the 3rd to 2nd millennia BCE
¨King-list shows concept of unified kingships: one city was ruling dynasty and city over others in a hierarchy
¨Constantly shifting power between city states: e.g., Kish was struck down by Gilgamesh, king of Uruk
Utnapishtim and the great flood
¨Sumerian version of a ‘great flood’ is part of the Epic of Gilgamesh
¨Gods of Shuruppak decided to get rid of people (too noisy)
¨Utnapishtim was warned by the god Ea (created humans) and told to build an ark for himself, his family and other living creatures
¨The flood comes and kills everyone and everything except those on the ark
¨When gods discovered that Utnapishtim survived they were angry but then relieved that he had saved animals and humanity, so they granted Utnapishtim and his wife immortality in paradise
¨Gods then restored kingship and civilization with a dynasty at Kish, one of its kings was Enmegaragesi – an historic king dated to 2600 BCE
Epic of Gilgamesh
¨Gilgamesh was an historic king of Uruk ~2600 BCE and was considered part god, part human (Epic also describes the city of Uruk)
¨He was a young king who exploited his people building his great city and its walls, so his people appealed for help from the sky god Anu
¨Anu creates a wild man called Enkidu in the forest who eventually goes to Uruk and meets Gilgamesh
¨After a good fight, the two become best friends and have many adventures
¨In one adventure Gilgamesh rejects the amorous advances of the goddess Innana, who seeks her revenge by killing Enkidu
¨Gilgamesh realizes his own mortality, and Enkidu reveals to him that the afterlife is a horrible place so he sets out find immortality
¨So he goes to Utnapishtim, but fails every test he is given, and then is told to accept mortal life and appreciate what he has!
Cemetery of the city of Ur
- The cemetery is just outside of the sacred precinct of Ur excavated by Woolley in 1922
- 2500 burials: the majority are simple pits, dead wrapped in mats or placed in wooden coffin (commoners)
- 16 graves are ‘royal’ with lavish grave goods, buried in brick or stone chambers with human sacrifices, prestigious objects
Royal burials: Prince Meskalamdug (sumerian)
Tomb with objects of gold
- Name on these objects and title of king
- Possibly ruler of city state of Kish
- Wore gold helmet and sheet-metal mask
- Musical instruments, models of boats, and games
Queen Puabi (sumerian)
Stone burial chamber at bottom of deep shaft with ramp
- Puabi on wooden bier, cloak of lapis, gold & carnelian beads, wig, gold bands, 3 attendants
- ‘death pit’ of 59 human sacrifices: men , female attendants, grooms, oxen: many wearing gold and silver jewelry
- Beneath her tomb is that of a man (her husband?) with 19 female and 2 male sacrifices, 6 oxen, chariots, musical instruments, and silver objects
- How they died is disputed
- Human sacrifice not found in burials after the Early Dynastic period
Puabi’s tomb, Jewellery
- Lost wax technique
* Gold, silver, copper, bronze, electrum
Sumerian Society
• Clear and extreme differences in wealth/status in burials between ordinary people and the top elite
Afterlife
- Written records show that Sumerians believed that afterlife was unpleasant (no food or comforts)
- Needed to bring items, food, gifts to give to lords of underworld to improve one’s situation
- Burial goods indicate differences in diet with elite having a varied diet and workers eating barley, beer, fish
Akkadian Empire 2334-2230 BCE
¨The Akkadian Empire develops a new form of power and kingship that uses propaganda in monuments, inscriptions and titles of divinity to legitimate its authority
¨Empire is an imperial power: kingship previously was ranked and shifted among city states/dynasties – NOW – one King rules all city states (king of kings!???)
¨Akkadian language is part of Semitic languages
Sargon
¨Legend that Sargon was son of a priestess in the temple of Ishtar
¨Priestess had son in secret and then set him adrift in a reed basket on the Euphrates
¨Baby was found, raised at court and became ruler of his people
¨Strong parallels to the story of Moses in Old Testament
¨Sargon: means ‘legitimate ruler’
¨Sargon conquers the king of Uruk (High king at end of Uruk period) and becomes ruler of Akkad and Sumer
¨Capital at Agade (Akkade) located near modern Baghdad
¨Sargon sets out to build his empire by attacking its neighbours
¨Expansion of empire makes Akkadian language the lingua franca of Near East for 2000 years
Naram-Sin of Akkad
Declares himself divine (husband of Ishtar) and wears divine horned crown
“king of the 4 quarters, king of the universe’
¨Undermines competing authority of the temple
¨Ruler is now both spiritual and secular authority
¨Unclear if authority exerted over larger city states (defeated but not necessarily controlled)
¨New rulers intensified irrigation expansion to increase wealth but hard to sustain empire – only lasts for a century
Imperial Ur 2112-2004 BCE
¨Established by Ur-Nammu who founds 3rd dynasty of Ur
¨Ur was a very important port for Indian Ocean trade
¨Extended influence through diplomacy and religion rather than warfare
¨Built large ziggurats and wrote earliest law codes (found in tablets at Nippur)
Ur-Nammu (or Shulgi’s law code)
Divides society into 2 groups: free and slaves
¨Written in first person of the king as the voice of justice for all, even widows and orphans
¨Monetary fines to compensate for bodily injury and capital punishment for murder, robbery, adultery and rape (punishment graded by class)
¨Basis of later law codes include that of Hammurabi (Babylonian king 300 years later)
Code of Hammurabi (~1800 BC)
¨Little later in time
¨Law code very similar to that of Ur but more detailed
¨Penalties for perjury, robbery, murder;; the responsibilities of builders if their houses collapse, regulations for slaves, marriage, etc.
Society (based on law codes)
¨Indicates social hierarchy but not rigid
¨Labour was sometimes enforced but also participated in for rations
¨Free men and women could improve their social standing by accumulating wealth
¨Slaves were a large part of labour force but also owned property and could buy freedom from owners
King Shulgi
¨His son Shulgi made Ur capital of extensive empire: standardized administration by appointing governors, regularizing tax and tribute payments
¨Built great ziggurat at Ur and patronized artists who wrote of his prowess in war and hunting
¨Wool textiles remained major industry with women and children weavers in state production centers
¨Weak kings after Shulgi – empire declines
