Download Lecture 6: Ur III and Neo

1/29/2012
Lecture 6: Ur III and Neo-Sumerian Empire
Plan of the city of Umma, with indications of property boundaries during the Third Dynasty of Ur. Paris, Louvre.
HIST 213
Spring 2012
Post Akkadian (Gutian)
Sumerian Revival (Ur III)
2160-2100
2100-2000
• Last Akkadian King Shar-kali-sharri overthrown
• Series of Gutian Warlords from Zagros Mountains
– capital at Agade
– proved to be very poor rulers of Sumer
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crude administrators
prosperity declined
canal network failed
famine
lack of literature
let south rule themselves
Lagash assumes control
over S. Mesopotamia
– 2nd Dynasty of Lagash
• Gudea (2144-2124 BCE)
Seated Statue of
Gudea
from Lagash
Neo-Sumerian
c. 2100 BCE
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Gudea foundations of temples
• Gudea built
numerous temples
• rekindled religious
practice
Sumerians rise again in Ur III period
• Utu-hegal of Uruk fends of Gutians and takes over
several other city-states
– installs brother Ur-Nammu as ensi of Ur
• When Utu-hegal dies, Ur-Nammu takes new title
– King of Sumer and Akkad
– 5 generations of same family (70 years)
– starts Ur III Period
Detail of reconstructed stele of Ur-Nammu
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Ur III Dynasty (2112-2004 BCE)
Sumerian “Renaissance”
• 5 generations of Sumerian rulers over unified
Mesopotamia
• improvements in:
– bureaucracy
– urban density
– literacy
– centralized administration
– religious practices
Ur III Empire
Smaller than Akkad
• more centralized
3 districts
A. heartland
– 20 provinces
– ensi ruled on behalf
of king (hereditary)
B. military zone
– generals
– foreign names
C. trade zone
Ur
Ur III (Sumerian Renaissance)
Incredible amount of extant written records
– 40,000 texts published
– comparable to what remains of Greece and Rome
• military campaigns
• building activity
– fabulous ziggurat at Ur
• economic and bureaucratic texts
• religious hymns
– hymns of Shulgi
• Law Codes
– Ur-Nammu
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Long-Range Economic planning
Textiles were a particularly important industry
in Ur
• run by the state
• Men, women, and children alike were
employed to produce wool and linen
clothing.
– startling amount of centralization
– scholars have gone so far as to say no other
period in Mesopotamian history reached the
same level.
Trading was another huge industry.
• The state employed independent merchants
to run such commercial activities through a
barter system.
• A standard system of weights was
established to aid this process.
– Coins made of copper, bronze, gold, or silver
were produced in certain, pre-set weights so
merchants could easily discern values
Plan of a real estate of the city of
Umma, with indications of the
surfaces of the parts. Ur III
Louvre.
Standardized Weights and Measures
5-mina weight with the
name of Shu-Shin, king of
Sumer and Akkad.
Diorite, ca. 2030 BCE
From Telloh, ancient
Girsu.
• Akkadian form of bureaucratic centralization
• measurement used all over the Empire
Ur III Economy: the bala-fund
System of taxation called bala (exchange)
• each province gave what resource they had in
abundance
– Girsu gave grain
– Umma gave manufactured goods
• each province’s contribution was calculated in
advance on the basis of it’s production
potential
• Royal chancellor (sukka-mah) represented the
interests of the crown supervised the system
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Ur III Economy: Labor
Highest level of urbanization and population
density in Mesopotamia
• men and women conscripted into the bala-fund
2 classes of workers
A. labor all year round
B. ½ year labor
Paid in rations from the bala-fund
• barley, oil, wood
• specific tasks: weaving, harvesting, cutting reeds
Methods of Centralization
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Uniform writing system
schools established
system of weights and measures
standardized calendar
– Nippur became of standard
– for official business only
• Religious worship
– children placed as high priests and priestesses
– deification of King Shulgi
Kings of the Ur III Period
• Ur-Nammu (2112-2095 BCE)
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Founded dynasty
Moved capital to Ur
United Sumerian and Akkadian cities
First law-code
Constructed ziggurat at Ur
• Shulgi (2094-2047 BCE)
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Greatest king
Patron of the arts
Court poetry and literature
Sumerian disappeared as a spoken language
Created a highly organized hierarchical state
Defeated northern and eastern barbarians
Built a great defensive wall 120 mile long
• Shu-Sin (2037-2029 BCE)
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Ziggurat at Ur
built by King Ur-Nammu
Ziggurat at Ur
70 feet high
150 x 200 foot base
8’ thick layer of brick
• set in bitumen
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Significance of
Monumental Architecture
Indicates social and cultural sophistication
• control of resources from distant lands
• control of science needed in construction
– applied mathematics and technical skill
• control of labor force (population)
Centralized governmental and taxation system
The Deification of Shulgi
• his first 20 years are concerned with cultic
matters
• becomes “divine” in the middle of his reign
• names such as “Shulgi is my god” becomes
popular
• one of many innovations during his rule
• scholars see this as a “reinvigoration of the state”
• main architect of the Ur III Period
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Divine Kingship
• What were the perks of “divine” kingship?
– we don’t know
• What difference did it make how a ruler
portrayed himself?
– seem purely ideological
• What was the difference to the average
peasant?
– very little
Hymn to Shulgi
I am accomplished in wisdom, I vie with wisdom´s true word, I
love justice, I do not love evil, I hate the evil word, I, Shulgi,
a mighty king, supreme am I.
Because I am a powerful man rejoicing in his loins, I enlarged
the footpaths, straightened the highways of the land, I
made travel secure, built there big house [rest houses for
travelers] Planted gardens alongside of them, established
resting places there Settled there friendly folk
I will raise my spear against the enemy I will set my banner
against the border of a foreign land I will fill my quiver. My
bow is ready to shoot like a raging serpent. The crushed
people of the rebellious land. I will cut them down with my
bow and sling like locusts.
The inscription on the door-socket of King Shu-Sin reads:
For the god Shara, distinguished one of the god
An, beloved son of the goddess Inanna, his
(Shu-Sin’s)
father,
the
divine
Shu-Sin,
purification priest of the god An, anointed
priest with clean hands for the gods Enlil, Ninlil,
and the great gods, the king whom the god
Enlil lovingly chose in his (own) heart for the
shepherdship of the land, mighty king, king of
Ur, king of the four quarters, when he built the
Amorite wall (called) “It keeps Tidnum at a
Inscribed Door-Socket of a Temple
Umma, Sumer, modern Iraq, reign
of King Shu–Sin (2037–2029 BCE),
Ur III Period (2112–2004 BCE).
Stone.
distance” and returned the foot of the
Amorites to their land, he built for him (Shara)
and for his (own) life, E-shage-pada, his
beloved temple.
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Life of the Average Peasant
• Crowded urban life
• houses:
– 1- or 2- story houses made of thick mud brick
– shared common walls
– garden attached
• staple was barley
• vegetables, cheese fish milk and beer
• children could be disinherited or sold into
slavery
• schools for promising students
– temple or palace bureaucracy
The Lament for Urim (~2000 BCE)
lines 218-229:
The heads of its men slain by the axe were
not covered with a cloth. Like a gazelle
caught in a trap, their mouths bit the
dust. Men struck down by the spear
were not bound with bandages. As if in
the place where their mothers had
labored, they lay in their own blood. Its
men who were finished off by the
battle-mace were not bandaged with
new (?) cloth.
important trading post on
the Middle Euphrates
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