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 (“prime-movers”) or pathways to social complexity)

Lower Mesopotamia

Upper 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 city-states 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 Tell-al-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

Clay cylinder seals found associated with temples(early pictographic writing)

TEPE GAWRA (NE IRAQ),Late Ubaid (after 5200 BC)

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 proto-cuneiform (“wedge-shaped”) script by 3000 BC

Uruk: “first genuine city on the world”

Eanna precinct, late Uruk IV (ca. 3200-3000 BC)

Inanna

Uruk IV, 3100 BC

UR

Multi-roomedstructure

Reconstruction of Royal Tomb at Ur

Monuments of Power

• Elite were exalted as semi-divine in life, and in death received special treatment, both in burial and in the afterworld

• monuments, “temple-towers” called ziggurats, originally oriented toward community-based rituals, where increasingly controlled by elite rulers and other high-class individuals (priests and bureaucrats)

Ur-NammuZiggurat

Writing

• 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 writingcuneiform

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

• 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

Early Mesopotamian Tokens

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

Standard of Ur, Early Dynastic Period (2500 BC)

“War” side

Standard of Ur, Early Dynastic Period (2500 BC)

“Peace” side

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 (Afro-Asiatic family)

Sargon the Great ruled Sumer from about 2334-2279 B.C.

Babylon, Sacked by Hittites in 1595 BC

Ishtar Gate

Mari, Upper Mesopotamia (ca. 1750 BC))

Uluburun shipwreck, sank in 14th century BC carrying copper ingotsfrom Cyprus, cobalt-blue and turquoise glass among many other trade goods

Phoenicians (1200-600 BC) from central Levant emphasized commerce, and developed first alphabetic writing systems by 1000 BC

Uluburun

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)