Download 4200-3000 BC

States and Cities
General features of early states:
• urban (organized into full-blown, formal cities and rural
hinterlands)
• well defined and often large territories (not one or a few
settlements)
• economies based on centralized accumulation of capital through
taxation and tribute
• stratified, with social status largely determined by birth into one or
another well defined social class (some social mobility); e.g.,
ruling elite, bureaucratic and religious officials, warrior, craft
specialist, commoner, slave classes
• legitimate use of coercive force (law) and standing armies
• certain features, such as monumental architecture and public
buildings, writing, sophisticated mathematics, engineering, and
calendars, state religion and arts, etc.
The Urban Revolution
• V. Gordon Childe defined urban societies as a revolution
based on the presence of certain key elements, most
notably: cities, writing, surplus, metallurgy, craft
specialization, and social classes
• he felt that technological innovations (e.g., metallurgy,
writing), craft specialization, and agricultural surplus were
key in the emergence of ancient states
• as in his reconstruction of a “Neolithic Revolution” he felt
that states were an advancement over earlier cultural forms
and given the right conditions a natural development for
humankind
The Hydraulic (Irrigation) Hypothesis
• In 1950s, Karl Wittfogel (Oriental Despotism) suggested a model
for the emergence of the major Asian civilizations (China, India,
Mesopotamia, and also Egypt and others)
• mechanisms of large-scale irrigation closely linked to emergence
of state, including greater planning and coordination (water
scheduling, calendars, construction planning, labor control),
which required strong leadership and administration
• irrigation provided more stable productivity and increased wealth,
and also required defense
• this resulted in increasing differentiation and social inequality
(between leaders, administrators, and other high-ranking
individuals and commoners), ultimately leading to despotic power
by rulers
Wittfogel’s Hydraulic Hypothesis
Warfare and State
Formation
• Carneiro’s (1970) circumscription theory:
– In areas of circumscribed agricultural land,
population growth leads to competition and
conflict;
– this in turn leads to warfare;
– victorious villages subjugate others and develop
regional pyramidal (rank-order) hierarchy
Carneiro’s (1970) Circumscription Theory
• Trade and cultural interaction between
societies also a critical element of the rise
and spread of states, including secondary
state formation
• Current perspectives emphasize variation
of state and urban forms and multi-causal
factors in state/urban formation, rather
than single primary causes (“primemovers”) or pathways to social complexity)
Upper Mesopotamia
Lower Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia: “The Cradle of
Civilization”
•
Mesopotamia, meaning “Land between the Rivers” in Greek,
refers to an area (roughly 600 by 150 miles) from the meeting of
the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, in Iraq
•
First clear states in the world with the emergence of powerful citystates like Uruk, Ur, Eridu and others in the Late Chalcolithic
(4200-3000 BC), which followed the small farming villages and
towns (chiefdoms) of the region, associated with the preceding
Early Chalcolithic “Ubaid” period (5900-4200 BC)
•
By 3200 BC first “true” urban centers in lower Mesopotamia
•
Bronze Age (3000-1200 BC) Mesopotamia included Sumer
civilization and the Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian empires.
alluvium
Ubaid Period (5900-4200 BC)
• Early Chalcolithic; beginning in Lower
Mesopotamia, first identified at site of Tellal-Ubaid in southern Iraq, the Ubaid
culture became widely spread throughout
Lower and Upper Mesopotamia and
adjacent areas, by 5,000 BC
• Early evidence of ranked (complex)
societies and earliest evidence of irrigation
Ubaid: the Roots of
Mesopotamian Civilization
• Ubaid (5900-4200 BC) were generally small farming villages
and towns linked to shared ceremonial centers through kin
relations
• Clear evidence of social ranking as some ceremonial
centers grew in importance, such as Eridu, with significant
differences in amount of wealth in burials and small
monuments
• Craftworkers and artisans lived a short-distance from elite
temples, and food-producers lived farther away
• By late Ubaid, Eridu was urban-scale settlement
characterized by large temples (ziggurats) and
administrative precincts
Eridu, southern Iraq
• Sequence of temples dedicated to Enki, the water god,
were identified at Eridu that spanned much of the Ubaid
and later Uruk period (5,000 to 3,000 BC)
• Shows continuity of religious cult in a specific location
• Temples were highly significant elements in the origins
of complex societies in the region, their priests and
administrators oversaw many aspects of daily life,
including land and labor management, distribution of
food, and, above all, the correct procedures for religious
rites and rituals
• Large temples or “ziggurats” were a critical feature of
Mesopotamian civilization throughout its long history
Sequence of superimposed temples
found at Eridu
TEPE GAWRA (NE IRAQ),
Late Ubaid (after 5200 BC)
Clay cylinder seals found associated with temples
(early pictographic writing)
Tell-al-Ubaid, Uruk, Eridu
Uruk Period (4200-3000 BC)
• Late Chalcolithic; Uruk also widely spread
throughout Mesopotamia and adjacent
areas
• Earliest fully urban societies (city-states),
by 3200 BC in lower Mesopotamia
• Specialized production and administration,
and early pictographic writing and protocuneiform (“wedge-shaped”) script by
3000 BC
Uruk: “first genuine city on the
world”
Inanna
Eanna precinct, late Uruk IV (ca. 3200-3000 BC)
Uruk IV, 3100 BC
UR
Multiroomed
structure
Reconstruction of Royal Tomb at Ur
Monuments of Power
• Elite were exalted as semidivine in life, and in death
received special treatment,
both in burial and in the
afterworld
• monuments, “templetowers” called ziggurats,
originally oriented toward
community-based rituals,
where increasingly
controlled by elite rulers
and other high-class
individuals (priests and
bureaucrats)
Ur-Nammu
Ziggurat
Writing
cuneiform
• By c. 3400 BC the first
evidence of writing appears
(pictographs)
• sophisticated abstract
iconographic writing in
ancient Sumerian
Civilization called cuneiform
(“wedge”), developed by ca.
2500 BC
• complex commercial
transactions (accounting)
are one theory for the
increasing development of
Sumerian writing
Uruk IV tablet, ca. 3100-3000 BC
(Pictographic signs)
Ebla archive,
2400-2350 BC
(Sargon of Akkad)
2100 clay tablets from
Palace G
What Were They Writing About
Early Mesopotamian
Tokens
• In many places, writing
came about as a means to
record the great people
and events: heroic history
• In Mesopotamia, much
early writing reflected
economic concerns:
property ownership and
accounting
• Measurement and
cultivation of fields of
officials, quotas of grain to
laborers, counting flocks
Kings and Classes
• Writing also spoke of the
ascensions and actions of
kings
• ultimately Sumerian rulers
became more despotic
forcibly controlling their
subjects and engaging in
costly wars between
kingdoms
• kings and other elites had
a privileged relation to and
control over divine forces
“War” side
Standard of Ur, Early Dynastic Period (2500 BC)
“Peace” side
Standard of Ur, Early Dynastic Period (2500 BC)
Stone stela of Naram-Sin,
c. 2250 BC, showing his victory
over mountain tribes
Stela of Hammurabi,
c. 1770 BC,
describes gods and cities
that supported him, his
divinely sanctioned rule, social
classes, and his public works
Nippur Map, 1300 BC
Akkadian empire
• Final three centuries of 3rd millennium BC saw
the rise of political entities interpreted as
empires – large-scale political entities
(composed of numerous states) with a core area
and vast areas subject to core
• Akkadian empire was the first of these, initiated
by Sargon the Great (2334-2279 BC) from his
capital near Babylon
• Akkadian also refers to Semitic language (AfroAsiatic family)
Sargon the Great ruled Sumer from about 2334-2279 B.C.
Ishtar Gate
Babylon,
Sacked by Hittites in 1595 BC
Mari, Upper Mesopotamia (ca. 1750 BC))
Uluburun shipwreck, sank in 14th century BC carrying copper ingots
from Cyprus, cobalt-blue and turquoise glass among many other trade goods
Uluburun
Phoenicians (1200-600 BC) from central Levant emphasized commerce,
and developed first alphabetic writing systems by 1000 BC
Isrealites (11-8th Century BC)
• Early Iron Age saw the rise of the
kingdoms of Israel and Judah in highlands
of southern Levant, entities that can be
characterized as nation-states, a stage
beyond the existence of contemporary
city-states sharing a common material
culture
Assyrian Empire (collapsed 612 BC)
The Applied History Research Group (2000)
The Applied History Research Group (2000)
The Applied History Research Group (2000)