sra341-mumford lewis-the city in history; its origins its transformation and its prospects-extract...

8/18/2019 SRA341-Mumford Lewis-The City in History; Its Origins Its Transformation and Its Prospects-Extract From the City in…

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Course of Study:

(SRA341) The City

Title of work:

The city in history; its origins, its transformation, and its prospects (1991)

Section:

Extract from The city in history: its origins, its transformations, and its

prospects pp. 14--19

Author/editor of work:Mumford, Lewis

Author of section:

L Mumford

Name of Publisher:

Penguin Books in association with Martin Secker & Warburg


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Sanctuary Even the technological complexity

of

the human town does

Village

not lack animal precedent. With certain species, notably the

nd Stronghold beavers, colonization brings a deliberate re-moulding of the

environment :

tree--folling

dam-raism g, lodge-building. These

engineering operations transform a close family congregation

into a somewhat looser association of numerous families, co

operating on common tasks and improving the common habi

tat.

f he beaver colony lacks many

of

the attributes

of

a town,

it is already

dose

to those early villages which also performed

feats ofhydraulic engineering.

or all that, the nearest approach

to

a collective dwelling

place among other animals was a long way from the most rudi

mentary urban community. Rather, it

:is

along a quite different

evolutionary line, represented by the social insects, that one

finds the closest approach

to

both civilized life and the city.

The social functions

of

the beehive, the termitary, and the ant

hil l structures often imposing in size, skilfully wrought - have

indeed so many resemblances

to

those of the city that

rshall put

off further observations till the city comes into view. Even the

division of labour, the differentiation of castes, the practice of

war, the institution

of

royalty, the domestication

of

other

SJ»>

cies,

and

the employment

of

slavery, existed in certain •ant

empires millions

of

years before they coalesced in the ancient

city. But note: there is

no

question here

of

biological

o n ~

tinuity. Rather, this is an example of parallelism and o n v e r ~

gence.

3

emeteries and Shrines

In the development

of

permanent human settlements,

we

find

an

expression of animal needs similar to those in other social

species;

but

even the most primitive urban beginnings reveal

more than this. Soon after one picks up man s trail in the

earliest campfire

or

chipped-stone tool one finds evidence of

interests and anxieties that have no animal counterpart; in

particular, a ceremonious concern for the dead, manifested in

their deliberate burial - with growing evidences

of

pious appre

hension and dread.

Early man s respect for the dead, itself an expression of fas

cination with his powerful images of daylight fantasy and

nightly dream, perhaps

had an

even greater role than more

practical needs in causing him to seek a fixed meeting place and

14 eventually a continuous settlement. Mid the uneasy wanderings


3/7

of palaeolithic man, the dead were the first to have a permanent

Cemeteries

dwelling: a cavern, a mound marked by a cairn, a collective

and Shrines

barrow. These were landmarks

to

which the living probably

returned

at

intervals,

to

commune with

or

placate the ancestral

spirits. Though food-gathering

and

hunting do

not

encourage

the permanent occupation of a single site, the dead at least claim

that

privilege. Long ago the Jews claimed as their patrimony the

land where the graves of their forefathers were situated;

and

that

well-attested claim seems a primordial one. The city

of

the

dead antedates the city of the living.

n

one sense, indeed, the

city

of

the dead is the forerunner, almost the core,

of

every

living city.

Urban

life spans the historic space between the

earliest burial ground for dawn

man and

the final cemetery,

the Necropolis, in which one civilization after another has met

its end.

n all this, there are ironic overtones. The first greeting of a

traveller, as he approached a Greek or a

Roman

city, was the

row of

graves

and

tombstones that lined the roads

to

the city.

s for Egypt, most of what is left of

that

great civilization, with

its joyous saturation in every expression

of

organic life, are its

temples

and

its tombs. Even in the crowded modern city, the

first general exodus

to

a more desirable dwelling place in the

country was the migration of the dead to the romantic Elysium

of

a suburban cemetery.

But there is still another part of the environment that palaeo·

lithic man not merely used but periodically came back

to

the

cave. There is plenty

of

evidence, all over the world,

of

the

aboriginal occupation or visitation of caves.

In

the limestone

caves

of

the Dordogne

in

France, for instance, early man's suc

cessive occupations can be traced in layers, as the erosion of the

rock lowered the river bed, raising old shelters

and

exposing new

platforms lower down. But more important than its use for

domestic purposes was the

part that

the cave played

in·

art

and

ritual. Though caves like those

at

Lascaux and Altarnira were

not inhabited, they seem to have been ceremonial centres of

some kind, as much as Nippur or Abydos. s late as the fourth

century B c one finds the carved representation

of

a cave dedi

cated

to

the Nymphs, showing Hermes

and

Pan

- the carving

itself being found in the Cave of the Nymphs on

Mount

Pen

telicon.

In the inner recesses of such special ritual centres, usually

reached by low passages, demanding a tortuous

and

frequently

dangerous crawl, one finds great natural chambers, covered 5


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Sanctuary with paintings of astonishing vividness of form and facility of

YU/age

design, chiefly

of

exquisitely realistic animals, occasionally

of

mu Stronghold highly formalized and stylized men and women.

In

some

places this art exhibited

an

aesthetic mastery not touched again

till w reach the temples and palaces of a period more than

fifteen thousand years later.

f

he aesthetic design was, as some

hold, only

an

incidental by-product

of

magic, did

it

not never

theless exert a special magic of its own, which drew men back to

the scene

of

this first triumphant expression?

Even in their most primitive form, these practices survived

their period

and

made their way into the later city. A palaeo

lithic drawing in the Caveme des Trois Freres at Ariege depicts

a man dressed in a stag s skin, wearing antlers on his head, pre

sumably a wizard, while a bone engraving

of

the same period in

an English cave depicts a man whose face is masked by a horse s

head. Now as late as the seventh century A D in England, ac

cording

to

Christina Hole, the calends of January were observed

by men dressed in the skins and heads

of

animals, who

ran

leaping and prancing through the streets : the practice was in

fact forbidden by the Archbishop

of

Canterbury because

it

was,

be said, devilish .

f

there is reason for suspecting some dim

ancestral continuity

in

this custom, there is even better reason

for finding in the rites of the cave the social

and

religious im

pulses

that

conspired

to

draw men finally into cities, where

ll

the original feelings of awe, reverence, pride, and joy would be

further magnified by

art,

and multiplied by the number

of

responsive participants.

n these ancient palaeolithic sanctuaries, as in the first grave

mounds

and

tombs,

w

have,

i f

anywhere, the first hints

of

civic

life, probably w ll before any permanent village settlement can

even be suspected. This was

no

mere coming together during the

mating season,

no

famished return

to

a sure source of water or

food,

no

occasional interchange, in some convenient tabooed

spot, of amber, salt, jade, or even perhaps shaped tools. Here,

·

in the ceremonial centre, was

an

association dedicated

to

a life

more abundant : not merely

an

increase

of

food,

but an

increase

of

social enjoyment through the fuller use

of

symbolized fantasy

and

art,

with a shared vision

of

a better life, more meaningful as

well as aesthetically enchanting, such a good life in embryo as

Aristotle would one day describe in the

Politics

the first glimpse

of Eutopia.

For

who can doubt that in the very effort to ensure

a more abundant supply

of

animal food -

i f

that was in fact the

16 magical purpose of painting and rite - the performance of art


5/7

itself added something just as essential to primitive man s life as

emeteries

the carnal rewards of the hunt. All this has a bearing on the and Shrines

nature

of the historic city.

The palaeolithic cave brings to mind many other venerable

shrines

that

likewise embodied sacred properties and powers

and drew men from afar into their precincts: great stones

sacred groves monumental trees holy wells like the Chalice

Well

at

Glastonbury where Joseph of Arimathea supposedly

dropped the Holy Grail. These fixed landmarks and holy meet·

ing places called together periodically or permanently those

who shared the same magical practices or religious beliefs.

Mecca Rome Jerusalem Benares Peiping Kyoto Lourdes

still recall and carry on these original purposes.

While these elemental properties closely tied

to

natural

features are not in themselves sufficient to found or support a

city they constitute the larger part of the central nucleus that

originally dominated the historic city. Not least perhaps the

cave gave early man his first conception of architectural space

his first glimpse of the power of a walled enclosure

to

intensify

spiritual receptivity and emotional exaltation. The painted

chamber within a monntain prefigures the

tomb

of

the Egyptian

pyramid itself a man-made mountain deliberately imitative.

The

variations

on

this theme are endless; yet despite their

differences the pyramid the ziggurat the Mithraic grotto the

Christian crypt all have their prototypes in the mountain cave.

Both the form and the purpose played a part in the ultimate

development of the city.

n

going back so far for the origins of the city one must not

of

course overlook the practical needs

that

drew family groups

and

tribes together seasonally in a common h a b i ~ a t a series of

camp sites even in a collecting or a hunting economy. These

played their parts too; and long before agricultural villages

and

towns became a feature of the neolithic culture the favourable

sites for them had probably been prospected: the

pure

spring

with its year-round supply of water the solid hummock

ofland,

accessible yet protected by river or swamp the near-by estuary

heavily stocked with fish

and

shellfish - all these served already

in many regions for the intermediary mesolithic economy

on

sites whose permanence is witnessed by huge mounds of opened

shells.

But settlement may even have antedated these hamlets: the

remains of palaeolithic buildings seemingly part of a hamlet in

southern Russia warn one against fixing too late a date for the 17


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Sanctuary appearance of the permanent village. Eventually

w

shall find

Village

the hunter s camp sinking into a permanent roosting

spot

a

nd Stronghold dominant palaeolithic enclave walled off from the neolithic

villages

at

its base.

But note that two

of

the three original aspects

of

temporary

settlement have

to

do with sacred things,

not

just

with physical

survival : they relate

to

a more valuable

and

meaningful kind

of

life, with a consciousness that entertains past and future, appre

hending the primal mystery of sexual generation

and

the ulti

mate mystery of death and what may lie beyond death.

s

the

city takes form, much more will be

added but

these central con

cerns abide as the very reason for the city s existence, insepar

able from the economic substance

that

makes it possible.

n

the

earliest gathering about a grave or a painted symbol, a great

stone

or

a sacred grove, one has the beginning

of

a succession

of

civic institutions

that

range from the temple

to

the astrono

mical observatory, from the theatre

to

the university.

Thus even before the city is a place of fixed residence, it

begins as a meeting place

to

which people periodically return

the magnet comes before the container,

and

this ability

to

attract non-residents

to

it

for intercourse

and

spiritual stim

ulus

no

less

than

trade remains one

of

the essential criteria

of

the city, a witness

to

its inherent dynamism, as opposed

to

the

more fixed

and

indrawn form

of

the village, hostile

to

the out

sider.

The first germ

of

the city, then, is

in

the ceremonial meeting

place

that

serves as the goal for pilgrimage: a site

to

which

family or clan groups are drawn back, at seasonable intervals,

because

it

concentrates, in addition

to

any natural advantages

it

may have, certain spiritual or supernatural powers, powers

of

higher potency

and

greater duration, of wider cosmic signi

ficance,

than

the ordinary processes

of

life.

And

though the

human

performances may be occasional

and

temporary, the

structure

that

supports it, whether a palaeolithic grotto

or

a

Mayan ceremonial centre with its lofty pyramid, will be en

dowed with a more lasting cosmic image.

Once detached from its immediate animal needs, the mind

begins

to

play freely over the whole canvas of existence,

and to

leave

its

imprint on

both

natural structures, like caves and trees

and

springs,

and

man-made artifacts, elaborated in their image.

Some

of

the functions and purposes of the city, accordingly,

existed in such simple structures long before complex associa-

8 tion o the city

had

come into existence and re-fashioned the


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whole environment to give them sustenance and support. But omesticatio

this is only

part of

the story: so let us look further.

nd

the

illage

4

omestication and the Village

Though some

of

the seeds

of

later urban life were already

present in palaeolithic culture, the soil

to

nourish them was

lacking. Hunting and food-gathering sustain less than ten

people per square mile:

to

be sure of a living, palaeolithic man

needed a wide range and great freedom of movement. Chance

and luck compete with cunning and skill in early man s econ

omy now he feasts, now he starves: and until he learns to

smoke

and

salt his meat, he must live from day

to

day, keeping

to small, mobile groups, not heavily impeded by possessions,

not tied to a fixed habitation.

The first condition for an ample, reliable food supply arose in

the mesolithic period, perhaps fifteen thousand years ago. At

this point the archaeologist begins

to

find definite traces

of

permanent settlements, from India to the Baltic area: a culture

based on the use

of

shellfish and fish, possibly seaweed, and

planted tubers, doubtless supplemented by other less certain

supplies

of

food. With these mesolithic hamlets come the first

clearings for agricultural purposes : likewise the earliest

domestic animals, the household pets and guardians: pig, fowl,

duck, goose, and above all, the dog, man s oldest animal com

panion. The practice

of

reproducing food plants by cuttings -

as with the date palm, the olive, the

fig

the apple, and the grape

- probably derives from this mesolithic culture. The time re

quired for the growth

of

fruit-bearing trees itself denotes a con

tinuous occupation and persistent care.

The richness

of

this greatly augmented food supply, once the

last Ice Age

had

receded, may have had a stirring effect upon

both

the mind and the sexual organs. The easy picking, the

extra security, afforded leisure; while the relief from forced

fasting, that long-proved diminisher

of

sexual appetite, may

have given to sexuality in ·.every form an early maturation, a

persistence, indeed a potency,

it

perhaps lacked in the anxio.us,

often half-starved life

of

hunting and collecting peoples. Both

the

diet and the erotic customs

of

the Polynesians, as they

existed when Western man discovered them, suggest this meso·

lithic picture.

This process

of

settlement, domestication, dietary regularity,

entered a second stage, possibly ten

or

twelve thousand years 19

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