lecture 1 gilgamesh and imagination
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GilgameshSocial
Imaginationand you
Edw. Mitchell, HUM 101 September 21, 2012
Gilgamesh, the historical person:
•King of the city of Uruk about 2800 BC
Gilgamesh, the legend:
•represented in mesopotamian art
•the hero of epic poems – story poems
Gilgamesh in Mesopotamian art Gilgamesh kills the Bull of Heaven [ = drought]
Enkidu and Gilgamesh kill the Bull of Heaven
clay tableta fragment from Gilgamesh: the Great Flood
SUMERIA AND URUK
Sumeria:– the first “city” societies > the first “civilization”, beginning
4000-3000 BC
– follows the neo-lithic [ new stone-age] revolution > the agricultural revolution in Mesopotamia 9000-5000 BCagriculturedomestication of animalssettled societies (permanent villages and towns)
Before this agricultural revolution, human societies lived as “hunters and gatherers”
Major cities of the Sumerian and Babylonian era
URUK: divided into three parts and sacred center
houses
gardens
fields
temples
The Sumerian city: a representation of totality
Inside the walls: life, agriculture, labor, authority > order > civilization
Outside the walls?Outside the circle: ???
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UN-HUMAN
HUMBABA
What’s new about Sumeria?
New technologies in– war
– agriculture
– labor
Especially, storage technology.
Storage of necessities until the next harvest – essential for agricultural societies and civilization
History of Civilization: “objectified” in objects of storage technology
Writing – a key storage technology
But what is really new about Sumeria?
a new social form:
hierarchy
For the first time in human history: society is divided into classes
Hier-archy [original meaning: rule by the high priest]
organization by class or status.
high status rules low status.
The higher class has the power to command. The higher class has political authority. This conception of authority begins with Sumeria.
authority
author = [the one who is the origin of something]
> > writer
the one who writes the law = authority
the one who speaks has the power to command
Sumerian ziggurat – monument to hierarchy
Hierarchy – Sumeria and after
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Hierarchy:Iso-morphs of imaginary order
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patriarchal family
cosmos / gods
knowledge
representations like this one
The real Sumerian heritage:
commands come from the top and go down
taxes and resources come from the bottom and go up
Property stone: the king gives land to his warriors. The warriors collect taxes from the peasants on that land.
The real Sumerian heritage:
commands come from the top and go down
taxes and resources come from the bottom and go up
Palace of the Soviets, Moscow -1930’s (never completed)
Sacramento, California
Since 4000 BC the basic elements of every well organized society exist:
Priests, slaves, police, and prostitutes.
And we do not know how or why this occurred.
-- Cornelius Castoriadis
Hunter – Gatherers in the Amazon(the anti-sumerians)
Among hunter-gatherers:
• The chief must give gifts to the others. For this reason he works harder than others.
• The chief must give speeches everyday.
• But the chief has no power to command. No authority.
• When the chief speaks, the others do not listen. Or they pretend not to listen.
The City is the place and symbol of the state -- of hierarchy
houses
gardens
fields
temples
order
disorder = chaos
order
Sumer-think 101: • Everyone, everything has an identity
• Every identity has a function
• Every function has its place
Symbolic-Identitary Operations
identity means sameness: the same as, identical to
A = A A is identical to A
A ≠ -A A is not identical to not A
this = this
this ≠ that
This cannot be this and that.
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Our hunter-gatherers say: In truth, we are this and we are that. It is language that prevents us from being this and that.
• Everyone, everything has an identity
• Every identity has a function
• Every function has its place
This symbolic order of identity is represented in the pre-modern city: “like goes with like”
artisans
warriors
priestsshopkeepe
rs merchants
Political Theory of pre-modern civilizations
The imaginary order is made visible in the ancient City
•identity -- function -- proper place
• each identity group dresses (by law) in the proper manner.
The “city” is both the place and the visible symbol of pre-modern rule/order
In Uruk he built walls, a great rampart and temples for blessed Eanna and for Ishtar. Look at it still today...
Climb upon the wall of Uruk; walk along it, I say; regard the foundation and examine the masonry.
Is it not burnt brick and good?