Greece Stone Bronze Age
The Greece Stone and Bronze Age

The Stone Age civilizations

According to archaeological remains in Thessaly, the earliest stages of settlement is dating from the Palaeolithic era, between 11.000-3.000 BC, when a population coming from the east (and some also says from Central Europe) started to develop stone tools and basic agricultural activities.

According to excavations, the civilization in Greece became more complex between 3500 and 3000 B.C, with larger villages and a social organization turning from the tribalism to chiefdoms with the formation of an elite group.
At the meanwhile, Thessaly, Anatolia, the islands of the Aegean and Crete were colonised around 6000 B.C. and extensive agricultural communities appeared.

These civilizations fished, produced clay pottery and started sea expeditions. These regions offered perfect conditions for human settings: olive trees, grape vines, fertile plains, forests, water… These conditions attracted immigrants and traders from all the Mediterranean.

At the same period, trace of religion appeared: clay figurines of female and animals were placed in sanctuaries and graves.

The Bronze Age civilizations

The metalworking arrived from the east around 3.000 B.C. The use of Bronze in tool making and weaponry gave a new birth to the civilization settled in Greece.
The second millennium B.C gave birth to great civilizations: the Minoan on Crete, the Mycenaean on the Mainland and the Cycladic in the islands of Centre Aegean.

The period is characterized by a rapid growth of population and a rapid development of trade.
The Cyclades islands are located between Crete and the mainland and were an important trade centre between Europe and Asia.

The Cycladic civilization developed rapidly in all domains:
trade, politics and culture with impressive frescoes and marble figurines.

The Minoan civilization, named after the mythical King Minos, developed in Crete about 2.600 B.C. Remains of large villages were found as well as sculpture and pottery.

About 2.000 B.C., the Minoans were characterised by a flourishing economic, political, social and cultural organization. The Minoan period was characterised by important trade activities and the construction of impressive palaces such as Knossos, Malia and Phaistos.
During this period, the first writing in the Greek World appeared for the first time in Crete and is called Linear A.
The Minoan also developed a strong fleet and had power and influence in all the Aegean with many the establishment of many colonies.

According to the remains that was found on the island and the lack of defensive walls, the Minoan civilization must had peaceful relation with the other civilization of the Aegean.

The Minoan civilization disappeared suddenly around 1.500 B.C. It is possibly due to the huge volcanic eruption of the island of Santorini. The eruption must have caused a enormous earthquake and huge tidal waves.
It is after that period, around 1.200 B.C. that the rival Mycenaean civilization took the control of the trade network of Crete.

The Mycenaean civilization

The Mycenaean civilization took it name after the discovery of Mycenae, the first site were this culture was identified.
As shown by the excavations, the Mycenaean society was formed with an elite group organised around the judicial and executive authority of a single figure, with varying degrees of power. Their citadels were fortified with the "Cyclopean" walls, called this way for the reason that Greeks believed that only Cyclopes could have lift stones that large.
The Mycenaean society had a great military excellence and
conquered Crete and took the control of the Minoan trade network.

The Mycenaean also used a written language called Linear B, developed from Minoan Linear A, used only for register the flow of goods and produce into the palaces.

Between 1250 and 1150 B.C., a combination of peasant rebellions and internal warfare destroyed most of the Mycenaean palace and the Mycenaean civilization disappeared.

The Dark Age or the Dorian invasion

The civilizations that flourished during the Bronze Age met an abrupt end in the 12th century B.C. when a Greek speaking civilization, the Dorians, came from the North of Greece.
They scattered the Mycenaean population and decentralized the control that Mycenaean established. Agriculture, industry and trade activities were divided in hundred villages.

The disruption that followed was of great importance. The economy, the politics and the culture declined and all the trade networks with the Near East lapsed.

The art of writing also disappeared and the only witness of that period is the famous Homer and his Trojan War epic, Iliad.

"The beginning is the most important part of the work." [Plato, The Republic]

Overview
First Civilizations in
Tigris-Euphrates River valleys
Nile River valley
Indus River valley
Metals
Copper
Bronze
Fundamental Problems of Large Societies
Government
Food
Work — employment
How to improve life
Preparation for afterlife
Conflict with other societies
Major Bronze Age Civilizations
Middle Eastern river valleys
India
China
Neolithic Revolutions — beginnings of village life — beginning about 8000 B.C.E. stone tools were made by polishing rather than chipping, making them stronger and capable of cutting more deeply. New tools seemed to be a response to the needs of the domestication of plants and animals, which coincided with the New Stone Age.
1. Domestication of animals — 10,000-7,000 B.C.

Domesticated animals and plants brought about by climatic changes and population growth
earliest domesticated herd animal was the sheep
tamed about 9000 B.C. in Zagros Mts of northern Iraq
Goat probably domesticated c. 7,500 B.C.
By taming animals and providing for their needs, herders were able to control the supply of meat much more effectively than hunters. The ability to select a time for slaughter meant that meat production could be scheduled to meet the needs of a village.

"Along with experiments in planting grain came attempts to control animals. By taming animals and providing for their needs, early herders discovered that they could select the time for slaughter and thus control the supply of meat much more effectively than could hunters." [Western Civ.: Origins and Traditions, p. 5.]

beginnings of agriculture
wheat and barley because of brief period of ripening
people relying on what and barley had to do three things
schedule movements — stopped when grain was ripening
must be able to transport harvest
must provide storage facilities
When these factors competed with other needs, people were encouraged to try and plant grain where they wanted to be rather than where grass grew wild.

"After the Ice Age, people in southwestern Asia took the first steps toward agricultre by harvesting wheat and barley — wild grasses that had become more common as the climate changed. Because gatherers have to schedule their movements to fit the demands of the grain (stopping for a harvest when the grain ripens, transporting and storing it until it can be consumed), people were encouraged to try to plant grain where they wanted to be, rather than where the grasses grew wild.

"The transition from wild to domesticated grain was slow. The ears of most wild grain become brittle as the ripen; when harvested with flint sickles, the ears would have shattered and most of the grain fallen to the ground. However, a small percentage of wild grain has tougher ears which would not have shattered, so that the grain could have been carried back to a village. There, whether spilled or deliberately planted, it created new stands of tougher-eared plants that eventually became domesticated grain." [Western Civ.: Origins and Traditions, pp. 4-5.]

First step toward agriculture — wild Barley harvested around Mesopotamia plain by 9,000 B.C. — harvested with bare hands or simple flint sickle
Ali-Kosh — early farming community in foothills of southwestern Iran — 7500-5000 B.C. — obtained resources from four zones
open plain
domestic sheep and goats
Auroch
Onager
Gazelle
Gerbils
Nonita lizard
Wild Cat (Trigoncella)
Weasel (Procepis)
Hyaena
Canary grass
Weeds
ii. Barley Fields

a. Rye Grass

b. Aegilops

c. Wheat

d. Wild oats

e. Bandicoot rat

f. Wild Alfalfa

g. Milk Vetch

iii. marsh

a. Wild boar

b. Duck

c. Turtle

d. Goose

e. Swamp plants

f. Heron

g. Carp

h. Catfish

iv. Salt River

a. Mussels

b. Black partridge

c. Tamarisk

Chenopods

At the same time people were domesticating grain and animals they "began to build small villages and towns. Often these settlements consisted of small tightly packed rooms with mud-brick or stone walls. By about 7500 B.C., early farming communities had emerged. The people that built these villages no longer depended on nomadic movement to secure resources but exploited a wide range of local resources." [Western Civ.: Origins and Traditions, p. 5.]

Scientists from the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute found a protective city wall under a huge mound in northeastern Syria known as Tell Hamoukar. The wall and other evidence indicated a complex government at an early date

Until the discovery in 1999, the only cities dating back to 4000 B.C. were in the south in Sumeria, in southern Mesopotamia. …

The discovery at Hamoukar, dating from the same period, suggests that ideas behind cities may have predated the Sumerians….

Among the features indicating the site was a full-blown city, not just a town: thin, porcelain-like pieces of pottery indicating a sophisticated manufacturing technique, and huge cooking ovens (a commercial bakery), big enough to feed large numbers of people, and the oldest known brewery..

There also were stamps or seals) to make impressions in wet clay — like primitive hieroglyphics — used to make tokens that served as records for trade transactions. These seals, which range from simple stones with incised marking to ornate, beautifully carved figurines, were used for making impressions in clay to seal and identify food and trade goods. The seals suggest a hierarchy of authority with several layers of bureaucracy — a sure sign of civilization.

If Hamoukar was developing into a city at the same time as the Sumerians were building cities, it’s possible that ideas for urban development came from an even earlier culture…. [AP, May, 2000] and Thoms H. Maugh II (L.A. Times)

Primitive Culture and Civilization
Culture — a people’s way of life — that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. "The ways of living built up by a group and passed on from one generation to another." "A culture is the way of life of a group of humans. The group may be a primitive tribe, a large nation, or peoples of diverse origins sharing a civilization that spans a continent or rims an ocean." [Alf J. Mapp, Jr, The Golden Ages: Discovering the Creative Secrets of Renaissance Florence, Elizabethan England and America’s Founding, p. 9.] The culture of a particular group is its total way of life. It includes all the things the group as a whole thinks, believes, and does. It includes its art, literature, religion, philosophy, sports, clothing, politics, customs, and habits. Culture may refer to a country, region of the world or racial group. A culture that is especially large and complex is called a civilization. "the ways of living built up by a group and passed on from one generation to another." "Culture consists of what a group of people eats, wears, speaks, and believes. It also includes how they wage war, view art, use technology, and bury their dead. Culture is, especially, how a group of people views themselves in relation to others." Culture creates discernable patterns that not only aid in understanding civilizations, but also in comparing and contrasting those civilizations. It is neither superior nor inferior — it is simply different and unique. All culture is acquired, either by initiation or through the inheritance, imposition, or absorption of other cultures. It is through an understanding of the multiplicity of world cultures that the keys to unlocking the shackles of bias and prejudice are found and help a person learn the nature of mankind."
Skills
Techniques
Cumulative — grows by
Discovery — finding something that existed previously but was not known to man
Invention — rearranging materials or ideas so as to produce something new
Diffusion — spread of parts of one culture to another culture
Building traits of one culture on another
Characteristics of a Primitive Society
Controls small area of land
Illiterate
no written literature
oral history
Few leaders — little specialization
Nomadic or agricultural village society
Trade by barter
"There is nothing so fragile as civilization and no high civilization has long withstood the manifold risks it is exposed to." [Havelock Ellis]

"What is civilisation? I don’t know. I can’t define it in abstract terms — yet. But I think I can recognize it when I see it…." [Kenneth Clark]

"… civilisation requires a modicum of material prosperity — enough to provide a little leisure. But, far more, it requires confidence — confidence in the society in which one lives, belief in its philosophy;, belief in its laws, and confidence in one’s own mental powers. [It requires a] belief in law and discipline. Vigour, energy, vitality: all the great civilisations — or civilising epochs — have had a weight of energy behind them. People sometimes think that civilisation consists in fine sensibilities and good conversation and all that. These can be among the agreeable results of civilisation, but they are not what make a civilisation, and a society can have these amenities and yet be dead and rigid." [Kenneth Clark]

"A human form of culture in which many people live in urban centers, have mastered the art of smelting metals, and have developed a method of writing." [Perry Rogers, Western Heritage, 5th ed.]

"Civilization is a subdivision of culture, denoting a way of life distinguished by complex advances in the arts, sciences, and technology, and in which there is sufficient diversification of labor to permit a significant number of people to pursue knowledge as well as (or instead of) game and to cultivate the mind as well as the earth." [Alf J. Mapp, Jr., The Golden Ages, p. 9.]

A civilization is a large and complex culture with systems of transportation and communication. It is run by an organized government that makes and keeps the laws. A civilization often has its own written language, religion, literature, and art. There are large buildings , and at least some of the people live in cities [civilization is derived from the Latin word for city]

Civilization: "a human form of culture in which many people live in urban centers, have mastered the art of smelting metals, and have developed a method of writing."

"Civilization is an interlude between ice ages…" [Will Durant]

"Civilization is a movement and not a condition, a voyage and not a harbor. [Arnold Toynbee]

Characteristics of a Civilized Society
City — civilization: civia (citizen) of civitas (city) urbanism — city design and building projects that require complex systems of human mobilization and technological skill. The ascendance of man from the hunter-gather level of existence to the sedentary life of farming sets the stage for the growth of cities. Secure with a constant food supply, people began to develop specialized skills since each individual no longer had to devote most of his or her time to finding food. This development of specialization created certain trades and society was better equipped to expand and develop its repetoire for providing food, shelter, housing, government, and creative outlets for its increasing consciousness. This process has not yet stopped.
Agriculture — subordinate to city
Relatively large population
Controls large territory — state government or polities — right to use force (army and police) arrange for international trade , alliances to ensure success of trade (Solomon and Hiram of Tyre)
Separate, well-defined institutions
Government — degree of political order and power
Economy
Arts — monumental architecture — public buildings and temples erected by king in name of state and financed by taxes and labor of lower classes — pyramids are evidence of the state’s ability to organize and direct massive projects requiring thousands of laborers
Crafts
Literate -- "Civilised man … must feel that he belongs somewhere in space and time; that he consciously looks forward and looks back. And for this purpose it is a great convenience to be able to read and write." [Kenneth Clark] Writing is key to success — complex societies require complex records — paperwork produced by scribes of bureaucracy
sophisticated metallurgy — copper c. 5,500 B.C. metal smiths for bronze 3500-3000 B.C. employed by king to prepare for military campaigns — spear points and arrowheads
A form of religion or theology — establishment of religious centers
specialization of jobs — occupational specialization
class differentiation or stratification
"How did people learn to cultivate ‘the jewel and ornament of the plain,’ … the holy furrows… [where] grain grows?’ How did they learn to live in a ‘well-supplied’ city, ‘awesome in its appearance,’ its temples ‘rich with abundance,’ its laws ‘perfected’?" [Noble, Western Civilization, I, p. 3, citing Sumerian poem from History Begins at Sumer: Thirty-nine Firsts in Man’s Recorded History, 3rd revised edition by Samuel Noah Kraemer, Un. Of Penn. Press, 1981, pp. 91, 94.]

"In the archaeological record the change to civilization comes when humans abandoned living exclusively in small, isolated farming hamlets of a few acres and gathered themselves more compactly into dense settlements based on significant food surpluses. Usually, though not always, this meant the appearance of cities. More importantly were t the emergence of social and economic specialization, the resulting need to exchange goods, and a more sophisticated political organization -- consciously organized state which governs a well-defined territory.

The first states could mobilize sufficient labor to create monumental architecture in the form of temples, palaces, and tombs. A new artistic outlook carefully represented man. And writing appeared for the purpose of keeping accounts and recording the great deeds of rulers. Civilization entailed a great growth of the material equipment of mankind, but even more importantly he developed his intellectual capabilities which enabled him to live within the complicated framework of civilized society. [Starr, Nowell, A History of the World, I, pp. 17-18.]

long-distance trade — business contracts spread beyond kinship — need for bureaucracy of the state to guarantee contracts and maintain records — Governments tried to improve the competitive position of their own businessmen. Traders often had a protected status which allowed them to move freely within hostile societies. The states of the ancient world came to dominate increasingly large territories and populations. The development of widespread trade networks supported by powerful armies helped build the Assyrian, Persian, Greeks and Roman Empire
International diplomacy — effort to improve position in international trade
tribute — large quantities of goods transferred between regions — plundering — sacking of cities
economic ambassadors located in cities of trading partners
skilled artisans needed imported goods — trade networks
12. developed transportation system

13. standards of measurement (including currency) — coinage c. 700 B.C. — governments guaranteed weight of coin by stamping a mark into them

formal legal system — system of judges and courts (king might be court of last resort)
mathematics
astronomy
Savage and barbarian — most primitive of societies
From Neolithic to Civilized Society
Themes
Influence of geography
Cultural cross-fertilization
Development of religion
Government characterized by dynasties or theocracies
Development of writing
Conflict between nomads with superior military vs. Settlers with superior numbers
Technological innovations
Copper — "Traces of metalworking appear as early as 8000 B.C., when people simply cold-hammered native copper. Later, beginning about 6500 B.C., metalworkers improved the hardness of copper by annealing it — heating and then hammering and shaping it. True copper metallurgy began about 5500 B.C., when metalworkers started to smelt (or heat) copper ores to obtain the usable copper. Over the next several thousand years, craftsmen became skillful in the use of other metals, including bronze and gold." [Western Civilization: Origins and Traditions, pp. 8-9.]
Bronze — Around 4000 B.C.E. copper began to be mixed with tin to make bronze. This development occurred around the Black Sear and in Southwest Asia. Use of the metal allowed faster manufacture of a greater variety of tools than those of stone or bone. Metal hoes, plows, and other implements proved useful to both agricultural and nomadic societies. This gave rise to a specialized artisans and encouraged trade because tin, in particular, was difficult to find.
Iron
Wheel
Potter’s wheel
Boats
Third and second millennia in the eastern Mediterranean and western Asia -- ‘Bronze Age,' -- people mastered the technology of making bronze -- alloy of copper and tin -- result, bronze frequently replaced stone as a primary material for everyday, practical use
First millennium -- iron replaced bronze. [Noble, Western Civilization, I, p. 10.]
Additions to Barnyard and Field — agriculture became more complex after the domestication of wheat, barley, sheep and goats. Additional animals and plants were brought under control. Most were used as new sources of food. Others for
use in rituals
use in decoration
for pulling
for riding
for protection
Horse — Ukraine or steppes by 3,000 B.C.
meat
milk
pack animals
important in warfare (chariots) by 1500 B.C.
riding
chicken in Indus Valley by 2000 B.C. — in Mesopotamia by 1400 B.C.
geese by 3000 B.C. in Egypt
Nubian wild ass by 3000 B.C.
food
pack animals
pigs by 6,500 B.C.
meat
nomads did not keep pigs because they are not easily herded and are poorly adapted to arid conditions
cattle — southeastern Europe and Anatolia by 6,500 B.C.
meat
milk
leather
oxen — pulled plows
dogs — highlands around Mesopotamia c. 10,000 B.C.
onions in Near East by 2500 B.C. — also
garlic
leeks
herbs
lettuce
carrots
beets
melons
sesame
pulses and legumes by 6000 B.C.
peas
lentils
vetches
chickpeas and horse beans added later
Barley — porridge and beer
Wheat — two varieties
emmer
einkorn
20 orchards — 3000 B.C.

Early Neolithic Cultures
Nile valley
Mesopotamia
Geographic Setting
Dry region of Arabia
Grasslands of Syria
Fertile Crescent — northward from Persian Gulf region from Tigris-Euphrates River valleys, westward to the grasslands of Syria, Eastern Mediterranean coast, Nile delta
Dangers of River Valleys
Delta areas — swamps
Floods
Wild animals — poisonous snakes
Advantages of River Valleys — fluvial civilizations
Fertile
Fish
Birds
Transportation
"The rivers yielded fish, a major element of the diet of the city's inhabitants. The rivers also provided reeds and clay for building materials. Since this entire region lacked stone, mud brick became the primary construction material of Mesopotamian architecture. [McKay, A History of World Societies, p. 14.]

"In the middle of the fourth millennium B.C. the climate of the Near East, which for some two thousand years had been warm and humid, gradually changed and became cooler and drier. Irrigation agriculture had by then proved so efficient in southern Mesopotamia that immigrants from the dry-farming plains and hills to the north migrated into the lower Euphrates valley, where the number of village-size settlements sharply increased. The new hamlets, like the earlier ones, were located along river banks, but they "tended to cluster around those Ubaid period settlements which were both the abodes of the great gods upon whom all prosperity depended and the centres of sizable agricultural communities. The need to feed a much increased and fast-growing population challenged man’s natural ingenuity, leading to the invention of the plow and also to the sled for dragging grain, the chariot for carrying goods and the sail for water travel. These technical innovations generated a large food surplus that could be stored, redistributed or traded for raw material and luxury imports, "while other inventions — such as the potter’s wheel and the casting of copper alloys — opened the era of industrial production."

Towards the end of the millennium desiccation started to affect southern Mesopotamia. As the Euphrates carried less water, some of its tributaries went dry. The previously familiar landscape of anastomotic watercourses and extensive marshes gradually disappeared to be replaced by a new landscape. This included bands of pal-groves, fields and orchards along the few remaining streams and, in between, patches of steppe or even desert. Many villages disappeared, their inhabitants regrouping themselves within and around the larger towns. Artificial irrigation developed to cultivate larger areas, "but the enormous common effort required to dig and maintain big canals and the need for an equitable distribution of water considerably reinforced the authority of the traditional town chiefs, the high priests. This, combined with the scarcity of fertile land, brought about the concentration of power and wealth. This resulted in continued technical progress, to spectacular architectural and artistic feats, to the invention of writing as a means of recording transactions, but also to armed conflicts. Thus, the genesis of the city-states of ancient Sumer, "with their fortified cities and well-defined territories, with their population of priests, scribes, architects, artists, overseers, merchants, factory workers, soldiers and peasants and their religious rulers or war leaders." [Roux, Ancient Iraq, pp. 66-67.]

"Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts, the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art." [Ruskin]

Lower Mesopotamia: City Kingdoms
Geographic setting
Mesopotamia (Greek origin) — "Land between the rivers" -- "Mesopotamia drew its life from the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Both have their headwaters in the mountains of Armenia in modern Turkey. Both are fed by numerous tributaries, and the entire river system drains a vast mountainous region. Overland routes in Mesopotamia usually followed the Euphrates because the banks of the Tigris are frequently steep and difficult. North of the ancient city of Babylon the land levels out into a barren expanse. The desert continues south of Babylon and still farther south gives way to a 6,000 -square-mile region of marshes, lagoons, mud flats, and reed banks. At last, in the extreme south, the Euphrates and the Tigris unite and empty into the Persian Gulf." [McKay, p. 13.]
"The area called Mesopotamia, which comes from Greek words meaning ‘between the rivers,’ lies between the Tigris to the east and the Euphrates to the west. Both rivers rise in the Armenian highlands and flow southeast to the Persian gulf. In their upper reaches, where the rivers lie far apart, the country is hilly and rolling. This region is watered by a number of major tributaries of the great streams as well as by winter rains, especially in the hills where early farmers raised their crops." [Chester G. Starr, Early Man, p. 76.]

Tigris (TY- grihs) — fed by the waters from the Zagros Mountains and the Armenian Highland
Euphrates River (yoo FRAY teez) — fed by waters from the Taurus Mountains and the Highlands of Asia Minor and Armenia
"The geographical unity of Mesopotamia was matched in pre-Christian times by a striking cultural unity. Within … flourished a civilization which in quality and importance was only equaled by the civilization of Egypt…. From roots set deeply in the darkness of prehistoric times, it slowly grew, blossomed in the dawning light of history and lasted for nearly three thousand years, remaining remarkably uniform throughout, though repeatedly shaken by political convulsions and repeatedly rejuvenated by foreign blood and influence. The centres which generated, kept alive and radiated this civilization over the entire Near East were towns such as Ur, Uruk, Nippur, Agade, Babylon, Assur and Nineveh, all situated on or near the Tigris or the Euphrates, within the boundaries of modern Iraq. At the beginning of the Christian era, however, the Mesopotamian civilization gradually declined and vanished …. Some of its cultural and scientific achievements were salvaged by the Greeks and later became of [western] … heritage; the rest either perished or lay buried for centuries, awaiting the picks of archaeologists. A glorious past was forgotten. In man’s short memory of these opulent cities, of these powerful gods, of these mighty monarchs, only a few, often distorted names survived. The dissolving rain, the sand-bearing winds, the earth-splitting sun conspired to obliterate all material remains, and the desolate mounds which since concealed the ruins of Babylon and Nineveh offer perhaps the best lesson in modesty that" is ever received from history. [Roux, Ancient Iraq, new ed., p. 3.]

Fertile Crescent — "In this rough theatre of teeming peoples and conflicting cultures were developed the agriculture and commerce, the horse and wagon, the coinage and letters of credit, the crafts and industries, the law and government, the mathematics and medicine, the enemas and drainage systems, the geometry and astronomy, the calendar and clock and zodiac, the alphabet and writing, the paper and ink, the books and libraries and schools, the literature and music, the sculpture and architecture, the glazed pottery and fine furniture, the monotheism and monogamy, the cosmetics and jewelry, the checkers and dice, the ten-pins and income-tax, the wet-nurses and beer, from which … European and American culture derive by a continuous succession through the mediation of Crete and Greece and Rome." [Durant, Our Oriental Heritage, p. 116] "The Fertile Crescent is that wide belt of productive land which extends northwestward from the Persian Gulf and then down the Mediterranean coast almost to Egypt. It forms a semicircle around the northern part of the Arabian desert." [Burns and Ralph, World Civilizations, 4th ed., p. 25.]
Lower Mesopotamia
Fertile delta plain
Karkheh River — Elam

Elam: Ancient kingdom at the head of Persian Gulf, east of Babylonia, dating back possibly to 5th millennium B.C.; from c. 3000 BC, there was a conflict between Elamites, non-Semetic inhabitants of Elam, and the Sumerians and Akkadians; with its capital at Susa, The kingdom of Elam flourished c. 1200-c. 640 BC, when it was absorbed by Assyria, which destroyed Susa. Susa later became one of the capitals of the Persian Empire of Cyrus the Great.

"The region of Elam is on the western edge of ancient Persia…. The Zagros Mountains lie east and north while the Persian Gulf is to the south and the Tigris River is on the west. The ancient capital of the area is Susa. The region has been inhabited since before 3000 BC…."

Elam appeared in history when Sargon of Akkad subdued it about 2300 B.C. Soon, though, Elamites reversed the role, sacked Ur, and set up an Elamite king in Eshnunna. The Elamite presence continued in Babylon until the time of Hammurabi about 1700 B.C."

"After Hammurabi, Kassites invaded Elam. Their rule lasted until about 1200 B.C. The next century was the high point of Elam’s power. All of western Iran was theirs. Again the Babylonians brought Elamite power to an end. The Assyrian Ashurbanipal brought an end to the periods of strength and weakness. He swept through the region in a series of campaigns and captured Susa in 641 B.C. He may have moved some Elamites to Samaria at that time (Ezra 4:9). Earlier, Elam had incorporated Anshan, later home of Cyrus the Great, into the kingdom. As Assyria weakened, Elam and Anshan became part of the kingdom of the Medes. Thus, they participated, with the Babylonians, in the defeat of the Assyrian empire. Elam had little subsequent independent history, but it continued to be part of the Medes’ and the Persians’ empire…" [Holman Bible Dictionary, p. 405.]

Early cities near Persian Gulf
Tigris — frequent floods — melting of snows in the mountains of the north (Armenian highlands — Caucasus Mountains) — effect was to enrich the soil with moisture and to cover it over with a layer of mud of unusual fertility
Divisions of Mesopotamia — reached from foothills of the Armenia Taurus Mts. in the northwest to the Persian Gulf in the south. Bounded on the west by Great Syrian Desert, on the east by the Zagros Mts.
Northern Mesopotamia — Assyria
Southern Mesopotamia — Babylonia
Akkad in the north
Sumer in the South
North of Mesopotamia — mountains dividing it from Anatolia — The Amaus (a-ma’nus) Mts. (Alma Dag) are in southern Turkey in Asia and form part of the Taurus Mts; the southern end is in Hatay valley.
East — Elam
South — Arabian Desert
West — Syrian grasslands
Role of Geography
Natural barriers only in the north
Easily invaded — Geography played a major role in dictating the relationship between the inhabitants of the river valley system and the world beyond. "No natural barriers protected Mesopotamia. As a consequence, those who first mastered the Tigris-Euphrates Valley were constantly attacked by tough herders who lived in the Zagros Mountains to the east, by formidable nomads of the Arabian Desert to the west, and by hardy farmers from the plateau land along the upper reaches of the rivers to the north. The constant assaults of these peoples had a significant effect on Mesopotamian society, but they also made possible the spread of Mesopotamian influence outward into these more primitive areas." [Harrison, A Short History of Western Civilization, 6th ed., p. 6.]
Flooding unpredictable
Legend of world flood
Annual flooding of the rivers from snows of Armenian Mountains. Difficult to construct and maintain an irrigation system in the broader plain area of Mesopotamia. As a consequence, an everlasting threat of flood , drought, and famine hung over the inhabitants of Mesopotamia, creating an attitude of uncertainty and fatalism that is reflected in literature and art. [Harrison, A Short History of Western Civilization, 6th ed. P. 6]
Plentiful food
Rich silt and water controlled by irrigation structures to produce grain, fruits, vegetables
fertile soil

In Mesopotamia wheat yielded, says Herodotus, two hundredfold the sower. Pliny wrote that it was cut twice and afterwards yielded good fodder for sheep. There were also abundant palms and many sorts of fruit.

Need for dikes and canals to control water led to elaborate political organization — The banks, or dikes, built by the Sumerians protected their small mud huts and their growing crops from the floods. In the summer, a hole in the dike could release water for the crops. Long, extensive canals, were dug on the flat land. In this way;, water was carried to what otherwise would have been barren land.
Semi-arid climate led to need for irrigation -- "combined flood periods of the Tigris and Euphrates occur between April and June, too late for winter crops and too early for summer crops — problem was accumulation in flat, low-lying areas of the salt brought by irrigation and collected in the water-table which lies just beneath the surface. If no artificial drainage is installed — and it seems that such drainage was unknown in antiquity — fertile fields can become sterile in a comparatively short time." [Roux, Ancient Iraq, new ed. pp. 6-7.]
Need for timber, metals, and semi-precious stones led Sumerians to begin exploitation of the Zagros and Amanus Mountains and to develop more distant trade routs to Persia, Anatolia and Tilmum (Bahrein)
Plain of Shinar — between the rivers
8000 sq. miles
40 miles wide
7 inches annual rainfall
"As the Two Rivers approach most closely to each other (originally about a hundred and sixty or seventy miles from the Persian Gulf — mud carried down by the rivers has since filled up the Persian Gulf, extending the land c. 160 miles) they leave the desert and enter a low plain of fertile soil, formerly brought down by the rivers. This plain, at the eastern end of the Fertile Crescent, is generally known as Babylonia. But during the first thousand years of its history it was called the Plain of Shinar. It was hardly more than forty miles wide at any point and contained probably less than eight thousand square miles of farm land. … It lies in the Mediterranean belt of rainy winter and dry summer, but the rainfall is nevertheless so slight (less than three inches a year) that the fields must be irrigated in order to ripen the grain. When properly irrigated, however, the Plain of Shinar is very fertile, and so the chief source of wealth in ancient Shinar was farming. This plain was the scene of the most important and long-continued of … frequent struggles between the mountaineer and the nomad…." [Robinson and Breasted History of Europe, pp. 40-41.]

"The Tigris-Euphrates valley had "the notable advantage of a limited area of exceedingly fertile soil. … the rivers provided excellent facilities of inland transportation and were alive with fish and waterfowl for a plentiful supply of protein food. The distance between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers at one point was less than twenty miles, and nowhere in the lower valley did it exceed forty-five miles. Since the surrounding country was desert, the people were kept from scattering over two great an expanse of territory. The result … was the welding of the inhabitants into a compact society, under conditions that facilitated a ready interchange of ideas and discoveries." [Burns and Ralph, World Civilizations, 4th ed., pp. 26-27.]

"Another significant geographical aspect of Mesopotamia is its openness. To the south and west are the vast expanses of the Arabian desert, in which lived a semi-nomadic population of Semitic-speaking peoples. From prehistoric times on these peoples entered Mesopotamia, and by the time of Hammurapi they had become the ruling element. To the east and north were the mountains of Iran and Armenia; the leaders in the first stage of civilization, the Sumerians, seem to have come from somewhere in this direction. Traders could make their way down the Persian gulf to the Indus river in India. Up the rivers they sought wood, metals, stone, and other resources. Mesopotamian civilization was far more receptive of external influences and spread its achievements more widely over the Near East than did the secluded population of early Egypt." [Starr, Early Man, pp. 77-79.]

Climate
Summer heat — relentless — temperatures up to 100 degrees F
Humidity is relatively high
tropical diseases
torrid winds from Indian Ocean
enervating to humans
good for ripening date palm fruit

Neolithic Accomplishments in the Area, 7000-3000 BC
At Jarmo — pottery mills and reasonably large community
At Ubaid — pottery and signs of advanced copper-using culture — "The oldest known settlements in the Land between the Rivers were made by people called the Ubaidians (u-BAD-ians). This name was derived from the Tell el-Ubaid, a site near the ancient Sumerian city of Ur. Scholars believe that the Ubaidians probably migrated from the highlands of Iran, to the east of the Tigris River, about 5000 B.C., and that they were the first people to occupy the marshlands of southern Mesopotamia.
The excavations of the site uncovered the remains of a village of mud-brick houses having staircase to the roofs, ovens still containing shells of freshwater fish, slings made from deer antlers, pottery decorated with geometric and animal designs, and a few weapons and tools made of copper. Archaeologist believe that the inhabitants probably cultivated wheat and barley with the help of a simple irrigation system. Small clay figurines found in the ruins may have represented deities." [Howe, The Ancient World, p. 22.]

"There is a controversy about who these Ubaid people were, whether they were direct ancestors of the groups …[seen] when writing was invented. And because of the muteness of the archaeological record, it does not seem likely that the controversy will ever be resolved. It is sometimes termed the Sumerian Problem because it involves the question of where the Sumerians, the first historically attested group in the region, came from. Were they Ubaidians? It seems likely that they were because there are no major archaeological breaks after the Ubaid …." [Snell, Life in the Ancient Near East, PP. 14-15.]

At Uruk (EE rek) — Uruk period (c. 3750-3000 BC)
wheel for pottery-making
temple
Invented earliest known writing — cuneiform writing — of wedge-shaped signs on clay tablets 9c. 3500 BC) — "The most amazing achievement of the period, … is the invention of writing. This appears to have arisen as an aid to memory in connection with administration. As early as 3300 B.C.E, we begin to get what we call numerical notation tablets, small pillows of clay on which there are marks that seem to represent numbers. Sometimes someone will have rolled his cylinder seal over the tablet, as if signing for receipt of this many of something. What exactly was being received was not indicated, but if it was something important, as seems likely, the parties of greater Mesopotamia, from Susa at the eastern edge of the Iraqi plain all the way up to Habuba Kabira, which now lies under Lake al-Assad in central Syria. Sometimes in addition to numbers and sealings the tablets had small tokens stamped in them. Perhaps the tokens made the numbers more explicit and told exactly what was being counted. It may be that scribes eventually found it helpful just to draw the tokens on the wet clay instead of trying to find the very one they wanted, and this may be the origin of writing." The writing system of Uruk was already highly complex and had a great many signs which suggests that there were earlier stages to the system. ‘The signs of the writing system are pictographic, that is, they are little pictures of what is meant, but they are inscribed on the same clay tablets as the numerical notation signs were, though some are bigger." Everything in the texts cannot be understood but the administration of Uruk was "distributing a great variety of items, probably as salaries to people who worked for the administration" [Snell, Life in the Ancient Near East, p. 16.]
buildings constructed of brick
"A second settlement existed at Uruk from about 3500 to 3100 B.C., succeeding that of the Ubaid people. At this site, archaeologists found several large buildings constructed on a high terrace with a stepped altar at one end. As Leonard Cottrell, a British journalist and writer, described these buildings, each included:

examples of what is now recognized as

the characteristic architectural decoration of

the Uruk period. This consisted of thousands

of little cones of baked clay roughly the

shape of a rifle cartridge. The tips of these

were painted in various colors and the cones

driven into the mud-brick wall, forming a

charming mosaic pattern. Originally, these

cones may have been invented to strengthen

the buildings, but later they were developed

as an architectural adornment.

[Leonard Cottrell, The Quest for Sumer(New York: G.P. Putnam’s, 1965), p. 84, in Howe, The Ancient World, p. 22.]

Small statues show that stone was being imported
first appearance of a trinket: the cylinder seal — a small, cylindrical bit of stone or other hard material that was carved so that when rolled on soft clay, made a design
colonies sent forth upriver into Syria and east to Susa
possible desire for permanent relation with trading partners to obtain stone and wood
abandoned toward the end of the period
possibly part of a trade diaspora — settlements established only for trade
8. Uruk people were the first to use the wheel

Agade
Kish
Use of gold, copper, bronze -- "The discovery of the casting of copper appears to belong to the Ubaid-Uruk period in Mesopotamia about 3300 B.C., when small flat objects such as axheads, arrowheads, and spearheads were made from open molds. For casting I the round, molds of two or more parts were used. The cutting edges of copper tools or weapons were hardened by cold-hammering, a treatment which gave them the hardness, though not the tensile strength, of mild steel. Soon after the introduction of copper metallurgy, copper alloys began to be use, the most common of which was the bronze ally of copper and tin. In fact it now appears from recent archaeological discoveries that no true age of copper preceded the Bronze Age anywhere except in Egypt, where the use of bronze did not become widespread until about 2000 B.C. because tin ore does not occur in Egypt." [The 1994 excavation of a tin mining village in the central Taurus Mountains, 60 mile north of the Mediterranean coastal city of Tarsus suggests that a local tin industry existed in the Near East as early as 2870 B.C. — a fully-developed industry with specialization of work.]
Agrarian economic enterprise and creation of capital usually in hands of priests
Perfection of writing technique but not distinct literature
Ruled effectively by kings and priests
Religious beliefs and concepts attempting to explain creation and life
Gradual improvement in agricultural methods
Growth of trade and commerce
Expansions of individual cities — wars with neighboring cities
states or kingdoms developed
"Excavations at Jemdet Nasr have uncovered remains of still another group of people who, like the Uruk people, probably migrated from the area now known as Iran. Between 3100 and 2900 B.C, these people made pottery with a characteristic latticework design and created figurines of cut stone." [Howe, The Ancient World, p. 23.]

Arrived in Mesopotamia between 4000 and 3000 B.C. "Between 3500 and 30000 B.C., a people known as the Sumerians developed the first great civilization in the Tigris-Euphrates valley …." [Howe, The Ancient World, p. 23.] There is no such thing as a Sumerian ‘race’ neither in the scientific nor in the ordinary sense of the term.
Settled on plain of Shinar — The Garden of Eden is derived from the Sumerian edin meaning ‘plain’ or ‘open country’
Came from
East — from Persia
Northern mountains via Elam
origins are obscure
language unrelated to any known tongue

"At a very early period, possibly before 4000 B.C., some of the Highland peoples migrated and settled on the Fertile Crescent. Among them the earliest people clearly revealed … by the excavations in the Plain of Shinar were called Sumerians." There race is still unknown. "Some of them appear on the monuments with shaven heads and without beards, but the monuments show that there were other Sumerians who wore beards and did not shave their heads. Long before 3500 B.C. they had begun to reclaim the marshes around the mouths of the Two Rivers. They finally held the southern portion of the Plain of Shinar, and this region at length came to be called Sumer." [Breasted, Ancient Times, pp. 141-142.]

"Why they eventually left the highlands for Mesopotamia is unclear. The cause may have been population pressure, competition for good land, or soil exhaustion." [Noble, Western Civilization, I, p. 10]

"Whether they came up the Persian Gulf by sea or down from the hills by land, their woolen garments and cloaks seem to suggest origins in the mountains of eastern Iraq or western Iran. They called themselves ‘the black-bearded people,’ but their race, or mixture of races, remains obscure. So does their language, which is neither Semitic nor Indo-European but agglutinative, and has no known affinities. They shared the city states of Mesopotamia with Semitic-speaking peoples of unknown geographical origin (not necessarily nomadic), in a duality more intricate than plain opposition, for race and language did not always coincide; though on the whole Sumerians predominated in the south and Semitic speakers farther up the rivers." [Grant, The Ancient Mediterranean, p. 36.]

The Sumerian language is unrelated to any other but it is the source of the words for "abyss" and "Eden."

"The Sumerian language is ‘agglutinative’, which means that it is formed of verbal radical modified or inter-connected by the apposition of grammatical particles. As such, it belongs to the same category as numerous dialects spoken from Hungary to Polynesia, though it bears no close resemblance to any known language, dead or living. The Sumerian literature presents … picture of a highly intelligent, industrious, argumentative and deeply religious people, but offers no clue as to its origins. Sumerian myths and legends are almost invariably drawn against a background of rivers and marshes, of reeds, tamarisks and palm-trees … as though the Sumerians had always lived in that country, and there is nothing in them to indicate clearly an ancestral homeland different from Mesopotamia." [Roux, Ancient Iraq, pp. 81-82.]

Mixed with natives
Established cities by 3000 BC
"Arnold Toynbee suggested that the Sumerian civilization evolved to meet the challenges of living in the "jungle-swamp" created by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers." [Howe, The Ancient World, p. 23.]

"The civilization of Mesopotamia is built upon clay." [Hecataeus, 5th century Greek geographer]

D. The Sumerian Problem — for some the Sumerians came to Mesopotamia during the Uruk period; for others they were already there in Ubaid times at the latest.

"True, the Sumerian writing appears for the first time at the end of the Uruk period, but this does not imply that the Sumerian language was not spoken before. Again, there are in ancient Mesopotamian literature place names that are neither Sumerian nor Semitic, but do they necessarily represent the traces of an older and exclusive population? As for the change in pottery style which marks the beginning of the Uruk period… it was probably due to mass production rather than to foreign invasion or influence. In fact, in all respects the Uruk culture appears as the development of conditions that existed during the Ubaid period. In any case if … the Sumerians were invaders where did they come from? Some … have sought their origin in the mountainous countries to the east of Mesopotamia where they arrived by land or by sea, while others believe that they came from Anatolia following the Euphrates down to its mouth; but the arguments afforded in favour of these theories are not very convincing. Furthermore … numerous archaeological excavations … has revealed anything resembling, even vaguely, the Uruk and Jemdad Nasr cultures; nor have they produced any inscription written in Sumerian which of course would be the only decisive evidence. In these circumstances, why not turn to Mesopotamia itself?

"… many material elements of the Sumerian civilization — mud-brick buildings, coloured walls and frescoes, stone vases and statuettes, clay figurines, seals, metal work and even irrigation agriculture — originated in northern Iraq during the sixth and fifth millennia B.C., and the excavations at Choga Mami have established a definite link between the Samarra culture and the partly contemporary Eridu and Hajji Muhammade cultures, now recognized as the early stages of the Ubaid culture. To equate the Samarrans with the Sumerians, or even the Ubaidians, on the sole basis of their pottery and extraordinary statuettes would be unacceptably rash, but there is little doubt that the first settlers in southern Mesopotamia were in some way related to, or at least influenced by, their northern neighbors. And the Samarrans, in turn, might have descended from the Neolithic farmers of Hassuna or Umm Dabaghiya. Thus the more we try to push back the limits of our problem the more it thins out and vanishes in the mist of prehistory. One is even tempted to wonder whether there is any problem at all. The Sumerians were, … a mixture of races and probably of peoples; their civilization … was a blend of foreign and indigenous elements; their language belongs to a linguistic group large enough to have covered the whole of Western Asia and much more. They may therefore represent a branch of the population which occupied the greater part of the Near East in early Neolithic and Chalcolithic times. In other words, they may have ‘always’ been in Iraq, and this is all we can say. … ‘The much discussed problem of the origin of the Sumerians may well turn out to be the chase of a chimera.’" [Roux, Ancient Iraq, pp. 82-84.]

Sumer’s Cities —civilization centered in some 12 independent city-states

"About 3500 B.C. the peoples of southern Mesopotamia began to build urban centers. These first cities were supported by the increased food production of commercial agriculture, based on extensive irrigation, and by improved technologies such as metallurgy. Ranked social classes emerged: craft specialists, bureaucrats, and farmers all were ruled b the kings of cities and the priests of the temples. A government bureaucracy controlled the irrigation systems essential to the cities’ survival. The pattern of settlement changed from one of many small independent villages to one of larger, complexly structured cities ruled by kings and surrounded by scattered villages." [Western Civilization: Origins and Traditions, p. 9.]

Agriculture
Date palms — Hecataeus, the 5th-century Greek geographer, visited Mesopotamia "speculated that the people must have had 360 uses for the date-palm tree, which was the only species of tree that grew along the river banks. The fruit of these trees provided nutritious food, while vinegar, thread, fuel, and fodder for animals were derived from the leaves and trunk." [Howe, The Ancient World, p. 24.] "The hot and humid climate of southern Mesopotamia and the availability of ample water supplies in that region … were conditions highly favourable to the cultivation of the date-palm which grows along rivers and canals, ""its feet in water and its head in the scorching sun'’ in the words of an Arabian proverb. ... as early as the third millennium B.C. there were in the country of Sumer extensive palm-groves, and that artificial pollination was already practised."" [Roux, Ancient Iraq, new ed., pp. 8-9.]
Olives
Grapes
Wheat
Barley — main cereal, since it tolerated a slightly saline soil
Livestock — sheep, goats, cows — "The Iraqi plain might seem a forbidding environment in which to raise animals, but human beings brought down from the foothills many of the domesticates that they had there and learned to use their labor and their products in the plain too,. Sheep and goats especially could be pastured on the margins of the cultivated land and on fallow fields in ways that complemented the growing of plants. Children, who would not have been useful in the fields, may have tended the sheep and goats so that in terms of the human labor involved such herding was complementary to sedentary agriculture. Doubtless to settlers on the plain exchanged products with nomads, people who followed their flocks from place to place where grass was to be found. Sometimes nomads were major sources of social tension, though that is not evident around 3100 B.C.E." [Snell, Life in the Ancient Near East, p. 22.]
Dairy — Frieze forming part of a decoration on the front of a little temple of cow-goddess showing a dairy near ancient Ur (c. 3000 B.C.) "It was originally mounted on a plank, edged above and below with a strip of copper. The figures themselves, however, are carved from pieces of shell or limestone and mounted in a thin layer of black bitumen which filled the space between the strips of copper. Above is part of a frieze of marching bulls, while below is the dairy scene. At the right … two cows, each with her calf before her. According to Sumerian custom the milking was done from behind, and … the dairyman, therefore [is] seated behind the cow he is milking. This milking is going on in a cow-yard, of which the gate is seen near the middle, behind the left-hand cow. At this gate two calves are represented with only the fore quarters showing, to indicate that they are coming out of the gate and are only halfway out. At the extreme left four dairymen are at work with the milk. The man at the left plunges his arm deep into a tall pointed jar in order to dip out the last of the milk it contains. Two men in the middle are engaged in pouring the milk through a strainer into a jar on the ground. With his back to the gate the last man sits on a small, square stool while he rolls about on the ground a large jar which serves as a churn and is placed on its side in order that it may more easily be rolled about to produce the agitation of the cream which results in butter. [University Museum of Philadelphia, in Breasted, Ancient Times, p. 143, fig. 83.]
emmer
sesame
vegetables and fruits
pomegranates
grapes
chickpeas
lentils
beans
turnips
leeks
cucumbers
watercress
lettuce
onions
garlic
Meats
dried fish
mutton
pork
duck
Prosperity came to Mesopotamia, according to Sumerian legend, when the gods "made the ewe give birth to the lamb … [and] the grain increase in the furrows."

The Sumerians began almost immediately to create an agricultural system based on irrigation. Their efforts were successful, resulting in a growing population, a need for more farmland, and pressure to extend the irrigation system. The challenge was met by the organization of relatively large and complex city-state communities in which the authority to plan and manage an irrigation-based agricultural system was concentrated in the hands of a small circle of rulers. By 3000 BC. many rich and populous city states had been built on the swampy, flood-threatened land of Sumer…." [Harrison, p. 8.]

One Mesopotamian text described a farmer as "the man of dike, ditch, and plow."

"… control of the Tigris and Euphrates was key to developments in Mesopotamia. The rivers frequently rose in terrifying floods that washed away topsoil and destroyed mud-brick villages. To survive and protect their farmland, villages along the riverbanks had to work together. Even during the dry season, the rivers had to be controlled to channel water to the fields." [World History, p. 32.]

With the help of irrigation, the Sumerians grew wheat, barley, vegetables like onions and leeks and dates. The water also was used by the farm animals — donkeys, cows, goats, pigs, and sheep. With good soil and water from the rivers and the use of an ox-drawn plow, the people of Sumer were able to produce a surplus of grain. Grain was then transported on wagons with wheels —a great technological improvement. This surplus of grain was the foundation of the cities of Sumer. [Chapin, Chronicles of Time, p. 38.]

18th century B.C. farmer’s almanac containing explicit guidance to ensure a successful crop. "The almanac begins with instructions for the inundation of the farmer’s field, probably in May or June, preparatory to plowing, and describes each important step to be taken until the grain is harvested, winnowed and cleaned. In moistening the field for plowing, for example, the farmer is told to ‘… keep a sharp eye on the openings of the dikes, ditches and mounds [so that] when you flood the field the water will not rise too high in it …. Let shod oxen trample it for you; after having its weeds ripped out [by them and] the field made level ground, dress it evenly with narrow axes weighing [no more than] two thirds of a pound each.’ The correct seeding procedure is also described in detail, and the farmer is cautioned to ‘… keep your eye on the man who puts in the barley seed. Let him drop the grain uniformly two fingers deep…. If the barley seed does not sink in properly, change your share, the ‘tongue of the plow.’ Finally, the farmer is warned not to ‘let the barley bend over on itself’ but to ‘harvest it at the moment [of its full] strength." [Kraemer, Cradle of Civilization, Time-Life, p. 80.]

"To channel and collect the flood waters, the officials of the ziggurats directed the engineering and building of a system of earth banks, canals, and underground reservoirs. During the long, dry summer months, the water was then distributed to the farmers’ fields and the herders’ grazing lands. Due to these cooperative efforts, the Sumerians were successful in averting flood disasters and in developing a thriving agriculture. Farmers grew wheat, barley, dates and millet. Herdsmen raised pigs, goats, cattle, and sheep, from which they derived hides and wool for leather- and textile-making as well as food." [Howe, The Ancient World, p. 24.]

"Eventually, with the development of a good irrigation system, the immigrants and their descendants turned the marshes and swamps, the dry plains and sand dunes of southern Mesopotamia, into rich farming soil. Nature, nonetheless, was never to be taken for granted in this land of extreme heat, scorching winds, and flash flood. Nor could the people of Mesopotamia afford to ignore the outside world. They depended on foreign trade for minerals and timber while, at the same time, they became uneasily aware that the neighboring peoples of the mountains and deserts welcomed the opportunity to conquer their cities." [Noble, Western Civilization, I, p. 10.]

"If we conjure up in our mind’s eye one of these city-states, we should find ourselves first walking down a high road with fields stretching out on either side. Man now has imposed order upon nature. The roads are relatively straight, the fields are carefully marked out by the use of geometry, and here and there drainage and irrigation canals cut their regular courses. Farming with stone hoes and wooden plows is still hard work, despite the use of oxen; but the rewards of barley, wheat, and vegetables are relatively sure. Shepherds in the pastures watch the sheep and cattle, which are carefully registered n the temple accounts; groves of date palms and fruit trees stud the landscape." [Starr, Nowell, A History of the World, I, pp. 20-21.]

Appearance of Cities — from 3500 to 3100 BC, the population increased dramatically in the cities of Sumer. With the surplus food, more people were able to tun to occupations other than farming. Specialists began to produce items such as bricks. The potter’s wheel was invented; this in turn started the mass production of pottery in the cities. The period after 3000 BC is also called the Bronze Age because workers began to produce stronger metals.
Narrow streets
Temples
Walls — the wall of Uruk was five-and-a-half miles long and had over nine hundred towers — "Look at it still today: the outer wall where the cornice runs, it shines with the brilliance of copper; and the inner wall, it has no equal…. Climb upon the wall of Uruk [Erech]; walk along it, I say; regard the foundation terrace and examine the building; is it not burnt brick and good?" [Gilgamesh] [Kraemer, Cradle of Civilization, Time-Life, p. 79.]
Large gates
Ziggurat — temple tower
Simple houses — flat-roofed, mud-brick houses of ordinary people — thick-walled compound consisting of several windowless rooms with shoulder-high doors arranged around an open court.
"Since Sumer had no good stone or timber for building, the people adapted the materials at hand to their purposes. To build small homes, they bundled reeds together to form columns. Each bundle was tied securely for a length of several feet, but the tops were left untied. The bottoms were then set into shallow holes in the ground in two parallel rows, and the tops were bent and tied together to form arches. Crosspieces of bundled reeds were lashed into place and the framework was roofed over with reed mats." [Howe, The Ancient World, p. 23.]

The houses of the citizens were "bare rectangular structures of sun-dried brick, each with a court on the north side, and on the south side of the court a main chamber from which the other rooms were entered. At first only a few hundred feet across, the town slowly spread out, although it always remained of very limited extent. Such a town usually stood upon an artificial mound …." [Breasted, Ancient Times, p.150.]

"… while an ordinary member of the working class dwelt in a humble, single-story house of mud-brick, a farmer, merchant, scribe or artisan whose services had earned him prosperity above the average lived in comfortable circumstances. Remains of homes of fairly well-to-do Sumerian citizens found at Ur and dating from around the 20th Century B.C. reflect a surprisingly high standard of living, and they differ only in minor details from most of their later Assyrian and Babylonian counterparts."

"Such a house in its day was a two-story structure made of the kiln-baked and sun-dried brick, neatly whitewashed inside and out and well-insulated against the blazing Mesopotamian sun by walls that were sometimes as much as six feet thick. From a small entrance vestibule one stepped down into a brick-paved court provided with a central drain to carry off water during the winter rainy season. Opening off the court were the doors to the ground-floor rooms. The number of these rooms might vary from house to house, but typically they consisted of a chamber where guests were received and entertained, and where they might spend the night; a lavatory; the kitchen with its fireplaces and utensils of clay, stone and copper; a servant’s room and a general workroom that probably also served as a storeroom. There may also have been on the ground floor a small chapel where the household gods were worshipped, and below some houses were mausoleums for the burial of the family dead.

"A flight of stairs led up to the second story, where a wooden gallery about three feet wide, and supported by wooden poles, ran around the courtyard, leading to the family’s private living quarters. A ladder probably gave access to the flat or slightly sloping roof, on which the family often slept on clear summer nights. The house was simply but comfortably furnished with beds and couches, chairs and tables, and there were wood or wickerwork chests for storing clothes. Rugs covered the floors and colored hangings decorated the walls." [Kramer, Cradle of Civilization, Time-Life, p. 85.]

"Burnt bricks … were in general reserved for the houses of gods and kings, though this was by no means the rule, and the vast majority of ancient Mesopotamian buildings were simple mud bricks. The roofs were made of earth spread over a structure of reed mats and tree-trunks and the floors of beaten earth sometimes with a coating of gypsum. A coat of mud plaster was also usually applied to the walls." [Roux, Ancient Iraq, p. 19.]

"The houses with their thick walls were relatively comfortable, being cool in summer and warm in winter, but they required constant attention. Every summer it was necessary to put a new layer of clay on the roof in anticipation of the winter rains, and every now and then the floors had to be raised. The reason for this was that rubbish in antiquity was not collected for disposal but simply thrown into the street, so that the street level gradually rose higher than the floor level of the house that bordered it, allowing the rain and the filth to seep in. Earth was therefore brought into the rooms, rammed over the old floors and covered with another coat of plaster." [Roux, Ancient Iraq, p. 19.]

"Each city-state consisted of a densely populated central community featuring mud-dried brick buildings surrounded by impressive walls and of adjoining agricultural land controlled by the city." [Harrison, p. 8]

"For more elaborate structures, the Sumerians used bricks made of clay, and they soon learned to bake and glaze the bricks to make a more durable material. Although baked clay was not an ideal material for large structures, they found that they could greatly increase the height and width of their buildings by creating arches in the walls and adding support columns" [Howe, The Ancient World, p. 23.]

"Their settlements of low huts, at first of plaited reeds (wattle) and then of mud brick, crept gradually northward, especially along the Euphrates, for the banks of the Tigris were too high for convenient irrigation. These people learned to control the spring freshets with dikes, to distribute the waters in irrigation trenches, and to reap large harvests of grain. They were already cultivating barley and wheat, which were the two chief grains in Western Asia as they were in Egypt…. They already possessed cattle, as well as sheep and goats. These animals played such an important part in the life of the Sumerians that one of their important goddesses had the form of a cow, and they believed that she protected the flocks and herds. … sculptures in her temple near Ur show … interesting pictures of the dairy industry among the Sumerians of nearly 3000 B.C. Oxen drew the plow, and horses and donkeys pulled wheeled carts and chariots. These Sumerian chariots are the earliest known wheeled vehicles, and the wheel as a burden-bearing device appeared here for the first time. Not long after 3000 B.C. horses from the northeastern mountains were already known, although they continued to be rear for nearly a thousand years. At the same time metal had also been introduced, and the smith had learned to fashion utensils of copper, but he had not yet learned to harden the copper into bronze by admixture of tin…." [Breasted, Ancient Times, p. 142.]

"Sumerian cities were often rectangular in shape, surrounded by high, wide walls. Inside the city gates were broad avenues used for religious processions of victory parades. The largest buildings were ziggurats (ZIHG uh rats), pyramid-temples that soared toward the heavens. Their sloping sides had terraces, or wide steps, that were sometimes planted with trees and shrubs. On top of each ziggurat stood a shrine to the chief god or goddess of the city.

"Rulers lived in magnificent palaces with spacious courtyards. Most people, though, lived in tiny houses packed in a tangled web of narrow alleys and lanes. Artisans who practiced the same trade, such as weavers or carpenters, lived and worked in the same street. These shop-lined streets formed a bazaar…." [Ellis, World History, p. 33.]

"Sumerian cities were surround by walls. Uruk, for example, was encircled by a wall six miles long with defense towers located along the wall every thirty to thirty-five feet. City dwellings, built of sun-dried bricks, included both the small houses of peasants and the larger buildings of the city officials, priests, and priestesses. Although Mesopotamia had little stone or wood for building purposes, it did have plenty of mud. Mud bricks, easily shaped by hand, were left to bake in the hot sun until they were hard enough to use of building. People in Mesopotamia were remarkably creative with mud bricks. They invented the arch and the dome, and they built some of the largest brick buildings in the world…." [Spielvogel, World History, the Human Odyssey, p. 25.]

"In the third millennium B.C. both Sumer and Akkad were divided into political units which we call ‘city states’. Each city-state consisted of a city, its suburbs and satellite towns and villages, and of a well-defined territory comprising gardens, palm-groves and fields of barley and wheat. The open steppe between irrigated areas served as pasture land. The average surface of a city-state is unknown, but one of the largest, Lagash, is said to have measured some 2,880 square kilometres and to have numbered 30,000-35,000 people." [Roux, Ancient Iraq, p. 130.]

"The city-states included the cities and the surrounding supportive villages and farms, united under a single government. Just like those who lived within the city walls, those who lived several miles away in small villages identified with the city — trading there, paying taxes, and attending religious functions. Farmers in the Mesopotamian city of Uruk, … lived within the city walls and walked an hour or so to their fields nearby. As the city grew in population and area, from approximately three and a half to ten miles in radius, outlying villages and fields were incorporated to supply the city’s needs, and farmers participated in civic affairs." [Fields, The Global Past, I, pp. 68-69.]

Houses were close and divided by twisting, narrow, blank-walled streets
lanes with shops of artisans, smiths, potters, etc — "bazaar" —" a maze of narrow passages shielded from the blazing sun by awnings and lined with booths. Here the city dweller could choose his daily groceries from a wide variety of foodstuffs …. Here too, he could find displayed alongside the pots, clothing, and other local products such imported luxuries as ivory combs from Indian or carnelian beads from Iran. Woolley’s findings at Ur also indicate that there may have been restaurants in the vicinity of the bazaar where shoppers could pause for a dish of fried fish or grilled meat." [Kraemer, Cradle of Civilization, Time-Life, p. 80.]
streets — most were narrow, winding lanes, unpaved and untended. Nor was there any municipal sewage or garbage disposal system; all refuse was flung lustily from the close-packed, mud-brick houses into the street, where it accumulated until it rose above the level of the thresholds" [Kraemer, Cradle of Civilization, Time-Life.]
public square — "Here there were many entertainments and amusements — wrestling matches, games of chance, recitations by professional storytellers and the like — to tempt the schoolboy to loiter on his way to classes. As for the restless, pleasure-bent older citizen, there was the roistering tavern where he could enjoy" his local brew. [Kraemer, Cradle of Civilization, Time-Life.]
Canals
Drain off excess water after flooding — floods from melted snows of Armenian mountains
Bring water to fields for irrigation
Political History of the Valley -- "The valley of the Tigris and Euphrates … resembles a wide, shallow trough with few natural defenses, crisscrossed by two great rivers and their tributaries, and easily encroached upon from any direction. Thus the facts of geography tended to discourage the idea of uniting the entire area under a single head. Rulers who had this ambition did not appear, … until about a thousand years after the beginnings of Mesopotamian civilization, and they succeeded in carrying it out only for brief periods and at the cost of almost continuous warfare. As a consequence, the political history of ancient Mesopotamia has no underlying theme… local rivalries, foreign incursions, the sudden upsurge and equally sudden collapse of military power — these are its substance. Against such a disturbed background, the continuity of cultural and artistic traditions seems all the more remarkable. This common heritage is very largely the creation of the founding fathers of Mesopotamian civilization, … Sumerians after the region of Sumer, which they inhabited, near the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates." [Janson, History of Art, p. 70.]
Evolution of a system in which the temples and the nobility shared power in each city and then a system of monarchy.

"… in the early stages of the city-states, priests and priestesses played an important role in ruling. The Sumerians believed that the gods ruled the cities, making the state a theocracy…. Eventually, however, ruling power passed into the hands of … kings." [Spielvogel, p. 25.]

"The complexity of urban life that emerged in southwestern Asia before 3000 B.C. fostered a new form of political and social organization called the state. The unique feature of the state is government — an elaborate bureaucracy run by elite social classes, which manages power to maintain public order and to sustain an economic network. This organization has characterized much of western culture." [Western Civilization: Origins and Traditions, p. 10.]

Theocracy (rule by priests) — en (‘lord’ implying secular and religious functions)
Patesi or high priest — ensi (‘governor’) written as PA,TE, SI
all land owned by patron deity of the city
Patesi ruled by divine right for the deity
Supervised
canal maintenance
irrigation
surplus food and goods
"Records on clay tablets indicate that the governments of the city-states were centralized from a very early time. The ruler of each city derived his authority from the fact that he was considered to be the representative of the god who owned the land. This form of government is known as a theocracy. As stewards of the god, the ruler and his officials allocated land to users, supervised the collection of grain, and directed the maintenance of the irrigation system. They lived and worked within a walled enclosure of the ziggurat and wielded enormous political and economic power over the lives of the ordinary people." [Howe, The Ancient World, p. 26.]

"Each Sumerian city was really an independent city-state. A city state consisted of the city and the surrounding lands. Each city-state had its own ruler. The city-states were rivals for land, power, and trade. Conflicts on rights to water and land frequently arose.

In the early history of Sumer, the highest priest, the priest-kings, had supreme power over the city residents and the people living in the nearby countryside. The priests had power because the Sumerians believed that the land of the city-state was owned by the gods. The priests, therefore, ruled on behalf of the gods. This kind of government, where the ruler is considered a god … or the ruler represents the gods, is called a theocracy. In the theocracy of Sumer, the priests owned the temples and part of the land of both the city and the rural area. They collected rents and taxes from the people for the use of the land.

The priests were the keepers of learning. They and their assistants knew how to measure land, use a calendar, and tell time. More importantly, they knew how to control the irrigation system. They made sure that the canals and dikes were kept in good repair." [Chapin, Chronicles of Time, pp. 38-39]

"Each Sumerian city-state had its own local god, who was regarded as its ‘king’ and owner. It also had a human ruler, the steward of the divine sovereign, who led the people in serving the deity. The local god, in return, was expected to plead the cause of his subjects among his fellow deities who controlled the forces of nature such as wind and weather, water, fertility, and the heavenly bodies. Nor was the idea of divine ownership treated as a mere pious fiction; the god was quite literally believed to own not only the territory of the city-state but also the labor power of the population and its products. All these were subject to his commands, transmitted to the people by his human steward. The result was an economic system that has been dubbed ‘theocratic socialism,’ a planned society whose administrative center was the temple. It was the temple that controlled the pooling of labor and resources for communal enterprises, such as the building of dikes or irrigation ditches, and it collected and distributed a considerable part of the harvest. All this required the keeping of detailed written records. Hence… the texts of early Sumerian inscriptions deal very largely with economic and administrative rather than religious matters, although writing was a priestly privilege." [Janson, p. 71.]

ability to write
Around the palace-temple complex and supported by income from the city-state’s agricultural establishment developed specialists whose skills were needed to conduct the numerous rituals honoring the deity and to plan and oversee the city-state’s economy. Here, too, were cultivated the arts, architecture, writing, learning, and trade — all serving to glorify the patron deity and his or her city and to lift the level of life far above that prevailing in Neolithic villages." [Harrison, p. 8.]

When one city state conquer another — victorious high priest became king of the state — lugal (‘great man’) — gal = great; lu=man — term also used in the sense of ‘master’ and usually translated ‘king’
One of the first lugals about whom much is known was Eannatum (c. 2900 B.C.) of Lagash
Another early ruler of Lagash, Urukagina (c. 2700 BC?) was a social reformer — Urukagina usurped power as lugal of Lagash about 2400 B.C.? and promulgated so many reforms in the interest of the oppressed common people that he has been called the first social reformer in history. "Urukagina’s inscriptions … begin with a description of the abuses which ‘since time immemorial,’ or so it seemed, had been undermining the original ‘divinely decreed way of life.’ It is Urukagina’s view that all the leading elements in society — priests, administrators, powerful men, and even the ensi (‘governor’) and his family — were guilty of acting each ‘for his own benefit.’ Particularly noteworthy among the many resulting abuses -- … partly because Urukagina seems to have taken greatest pride in eradicating it — was the seizure of the property and even the persons of debtors by temple officials working in collusion with corrupt judges (maskim) of special interest also is Urukagina’s use of a contract theory of government to justify both his usurpation of power and his reforms: he made a ‘covenant’ with Ningirsu, patron god of Lagash, and he carried out Ningirsu’s instructions." [Bailkey, Readings in Ancient History, 2nd ed., p. 18.]
c. 2500 BC a lugal of Ur began conquering the other lugals until Sumer was united
ensi was the vassal of a lugal
ruler’s wife known as nin (‘lady’ or ‘queen’)
3. Continuous warfare between city-states during the Early Dynastic Period (c. 3000-2371 BC)

"Indeed each city, as long as it could, maintained a jealous independence, and indulged itself in a private king. It called him patesi, or priest-king, indicating by the very word that government was bound up with religion. By 2800 BC the growth of trade made such municipal separatism impossible, and generated "empires" in which some dominating personality subjected the cities and their patesis to his power, and wove them into an economic and political unity. The despot lived in a Renaissance atmosphere of violence and fear; at any moment he might be despatched by the same methods that had secured him the throne. He dwelt in an inaccessible palace, whose two entrances were so narrow as to admit only one person at a time; to the right and left were recesses from which secret guards could examine every visitor, or pounce upon him with daggers. Even the king’s temple was private, hidden away in his palace, so ;that he might perform his religious duties without exposure, or neglect them inconspicuously." [Durant, Our Oriental Heritage, p. 126]

‘The key to the survival and growth of these city-states was an effective system of government capable of controlling a large population engaged in a variety of mutually supportive activities. Such governments were grounded in religious belief. The Sumerians believed that each city-state had been created by a god or goddess. The city belonged to its divine founder, and its citizens were the slaves of the founder. At an early date the responsibility for making the decisions by which the will of the divine owner of the city would be carried out was concentrated in the hands of a single human leader. This agent of the patron god or goddess, called ensi or lugal, centered his activities in a palace temple located in the heart of the city-state. From there flowed divine order coordinating the numerous activities required to exploit the resources belonging to the patron deities, their house (the temple) , and their servants (the priest king and his aides)." [Harrison, p. 8.]

The rivers made "Sumer a geographical maze. Among the rivers, streams, and irrigation canals stretched open desert or swamp where nomadic tribes roamed. Communication among the isolated cities was difficult and at times dangerous. Thus each Sumerian city became a state, independent of the others and protective of its independence. Any city that tried to unify the country was resisted by the other cities. As a result, the political history of Sumer is one of almost constant warfare. Although Sumer was eventually unified, unification came late and was always tenuous." [McKay, A History of World Societies, p. 15.]

"It was a land where geography was an obstacle to unification and where the scarcity of fresh water led to quarrels among cities over water rights. Separated from each other by desert and swampland, the twelve Sumerian cities were jealous and particularistic, even though they had much in common: language, literature, arts and sciences, and even religion (no small matter in a society that … was deeply religious). These cities, nonetheless, were rivals — sometimes friendly, often at war — and were always stubbornly independent." [Noble, Western Civilization, I, p. 10.]

Council of elders — early period (c. 3000-2700 B.C.)
"The council probably was involved in day-to-day governance"
membership probably restricted to landed elite
Assembly of the people — early period (c. 3000-2700 B.C.)
Called less frequently
appointed and removed kings
approved wars — even over the objection of the council
served as courts
degree of freedom of speech is unknown
how open in membership is not known
Emergence of monarchy — mid 3rd millennium B.C. — "big man" or lugal or "governor" (ensi)
military emergency probably led to centralized rule under a monarch
inter-city warfare was chronic
first and foremost a warrior
claimed to be representative of the gods — "When the Sumerians had established themselves in their new homeland, trade turned into imperialism on a scale which for the first time brought the militarism and aggression of major powers as far as the north-east corner of the Mediterranean. Shortly after 2400 BC the Sumerian monarch of the south Mesopotamian town of Umma claimed divine sanction for his rule ‘from the lower to the upper sea’ — perhaps the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean respectively. Even if this was less an accomplished fact than an unfulfilled hope, the boast implied a historic and sinister assertion of universal monarchy, or at least international acceptability as an arbiter." [Grant, The Ancient Mediterranean, p. 36.]
sponsored irrigation works
raised fortification walls
restored temples
signed peace treaties
leading role in feasts, processions and other religious ceremonies
male god in the Sacred Marriage rite
built splendid palaces — "All had a square central courtyard surrounded by chambers on three sides and communicating on the fourth side, with a long, rectangular room which probably served as an audience hall. Two parallel thick walls separated by a narrow corridor surrounded the building. In Mari, the palace contained numerous ritual installations suggesting royal chapels. In Kish, a second building alongside the palace included a spacious hall with four central mud-brick columns and a pillared loggia." [Roux, Ancient Iraq, p. 134.]
In Ur and Lagash — king’s wife could be a power. In Girsu she managed the affairs of the temple of the goddess Baba
Earliest — 2700-2600 B.C.
Enmebaragesi of Kish
Agga succeeded Enmebaragesi
Gilgamesh of Uruk
Divine kingship theory — "Humanity, however, was but a great, rather stupid flock. It needed shepherds, rulers, priestly kings chosen and appointed by the gods to enforce the divine law. At some remote date, therefore… ‘the exalted tiara and the throne of kingship’ were ‘lowered from heaven’, and from then on a succession of monarchs led the destinies of Sumer and Akkad on behalf of and for the benefit of the gods. Thus was justified … the theory of divinely inspired kingship, current in Mesopotamia from the third millennium onwards." [Roux, Ancient Iraq, p. 107.]
Royal cemetery at Ur
human sacrifice
presence of magnificent objects, ornaments and weapons
theory — more than monarchs: "they were gods, or at least they represented the gods on earth and, as such, were entitled to take their court with them into another life, a life no doubt incomparably more enjoyable than that of the human beings"
general trend towards a gradual separation of the Palace from the Temple
8. Evolution of kingship theory

original political system of Sumer — primitive democracy
monarchy developed comparatively late
warrior chief (lugal) formerly elected by an assembly of citizens for short periods of crisis took power permanently — reflected in creation myth describing the election of Enlil to the rank of ‘champion of the gods’ for a specific purpose — waging war
local assemblies composed of elder existed in Early Dynastic Sumer — probably merely consultative bodies summoned by the rulers on rare occasions
No clear-cut evidence in the Sumerian tradition of a period when the city-states were ruled by collective institutions
"Sumerians viewed kingship as divine in origin. Kings, they believed, derived their power from the gods and were the agents of the gods. Regardless of their origins, kings had power. They led armies, supervised the building of public works, and organized workers for the irrigation projects upon which Mesopotamian farming depended. The army, the government bureaucracy, and the priests and priestesses all aided the kings in their rule. As befitted their power, Sumerian kings, their wives, and their children lived in large palaces." [Spielvogel, p. 25.]

"As Mesopotamian city-states grew and demand for greater public works increased, efficient political organization became essential. The growth of government, therefore, paralleled urban growth. Initially, cities were ruled by councils, usually composed of wealthy elders. Eventually the role of king developed, particularly because of increased hostilities between cities that encouraged people to look to a strong military leader. The king’s authority grew out of three primary responsibilities: military, civic, and religious. The king’s military responsibility gave him authority to lead the army against enemies and to defend the city against attack. The king’s civic responsibility gave him authority to raise taxes, to care for the people’s well-being through public works, and to keep the peace through the enforcement of customary and newly developing law codes. The king’s religious responsibility gave him authority as high priest to oversee all religious practices. The king’s role as high priest and lawgiver legitimized his rule." Field, The Global Past, I, p. 70.]

E. Early Sumerian Cities, 3000 BC

Ur
far south
access to Persian Gulf
Genesis 11:31 — "Terah took his son Abrah, his grandson Lot, the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, Abram’s wife, and they set out from Ur of the Chaldees from the land of Canaan."
First Dynasty of Ur, 2500-2300
Lugal of Ur recognized as lugal of Sumer
Conquests further north up the rivers into Akkad
increased military strength — archers, cavalry, infantry
ruthless taxation
commanded services and obedience from the people
weak lugal of Ur — dynasty falls to the patesi of Umma — Lugal Zaggisi who claimed all valley to source of two rivers (see above)
Shudi-Ad
"The 2500 B.C. city of Ur in Sumer was a stylish place, where music, fashion, and the arts flourished at a level of good taste and quality rivaled only by Egypt. Queen Shudi-Ad was one of Ur’s patrons, perhaps its inspiration….

"No one has ever worn headgear as exquisite as the Sumerians: delicately original creations of beech leaves and flowers in beaten gold, which must have made the most delightful shimmering effect as they moved. The queen herself wore a tall comb with rosettes of gold, carnelian, and lapis lazuli in her dark wig, and great hoops of gold in her ears. Shudi-Ad drank from goblets of worked gold; her wine was stored in tall jars of veined alabaster. She and her entourage played on gaming boards and musical instruments inlaid with mosaics, and rode in carriages carved with lions and other animals. Even the cylinder seals with which she signed her name were works of art."

" But it was music — not only in her circle, but throughout the land of Sumer — that got the most intense attention. Sumerians used the same musical scale [as in the modern era]…. And favored harmony and hot licks on the harp, lyre, pipes, and drums. It’s easy to imagine their sensual poems being sung; both women and men had honored careers as singers."

"As a group, the Sumerians didn’t think much of the afterlife. That disbelief, coupled with the absolute power of the ruling class and a very human desire to attend one’s own funeral, led them to create the world’s first party-and-funeral combination. A pre-death wake, as it were."

"Queen Shudi-Ad would have been pleased with her funeral — she was able to enjoy most of it. She was only about forty when she died, of causes unknown but most probably not natural ones. Marching with Shudi-Ad into the grave site, probably accompanied by music, went sixty-four female attendants, half of them wearing gold hair ribbons, the rest silver; an elaborate wooden carriage of gold and silver drawn by two oxen; four female harpists; and six soldiers. (Besides that of Shudi-Ad, archaeologists have found a number of mass burial sites in Sumer; no one really knows why the Sumerians went in for them.)"

"It appears to have been a cheerful death scene. Everyone was found in perfect repose — not a diadem out of place. … Each member of the funeral party was given a drink in a small cup. The harpists played. The singers sang. The crowd might have even done a little karaoke. After all, who would know? And when the music was done and the room became still with her drowsy and dying subjects… the beautiful queen [might have given] … them a round of applause before she drank down her won cup of nepenthe and lay down in her finery forever." [Leon, Uppity Women, pp. 8-9.]

Erech (Biblical Uruk) — central Sumer
Great white temple — built shortly before 3000 B.C. [at Warka, site of Uruk or Erech] — probably dedicated the Anu — god of the sky. "The mound, its sloping sides reinforced by solid brick masonry, rises to a height of 40 feet; stairs and ramps lead up to the platform on which stands the sanctuary, called the ‘White Temple’ because of its whitewashed brick exterior. Its heavy walls, articulated by regularly spaced projections and recesses, are sufficiently well preserved to suggest something of the original appearance of the structure. The main room, or cella, where sacrifices were offered before the statue of the god, is a narrow hall that runs the entire length of the temple and is flanked by a series of smaller chambers. But the main entrance to the cella is on the southwest side, rather than on the side facing the stairs or on one of the narrow sides of the temple, as one might expect. In order the understand the reason for this,’ the ziggurat must be viewed as a whole: "the entire complex is planned in such a way that the worshipper, starting at the bottom of the stairs on the east side is forced to go around as many corners as possible before he reaches the cella. The processional path, in other words, resembles a sort of angular spiral." [Janson, p. 72.]
using pottery wheel by 3000 BC
population of about 10,000 around 3100 B.C.
By 2700 B.C. population had grown to about 50,000
Nippur (nih PUR)
Kish — very early wheeled vehicles — ruled by Ku-baba (r. ca. 2450 B.C.), the first reigning queen of recorded history
"The Sumerians … seemed … [to have] a powerful thirst, which they quenched with barley beer. Man, woman, and child, the Sumerians loved their suds. They even had a slogan: "Beer makes the liver happy and fills the heart with joy." There was a reasonable rationale for their enthusiasm. In ancient times, water was likely to make your whole system unhappy. Thick barley beer, on the other hand, was relatively germ-free and nourishing too, even if you did have to drink it through a tube. Religion was big with Sumerians, but the taverns probably saw more of them than the temples. Women dominated the beer cycle: They made most of it, sold most of it, and drank their fair share."

"Kubaba, a sharp and sturdy lady … kept a tavern in … Kish…. Then… taverns had a rep for rowdiness, rigged prices, and watered drinks. Although priestesses got as dry as the next Sumerian, they were forbidden by law to stop by for a cool one. Penalties were a bit stiff: death! Yet as ration lists show, priestesses drank beer daily, so barkeeps probably made beer runs to the temples."

"Kubaba herself had higher ambitions than pulling drafts …. With the possible help of some beer-oriented campaign promises, she managed to become queen of Kish, gaining the throne about 2500 B.C. … No splash-in-the-beer-barrel, one-term ruler, Kubaba rose to highest prominence and stayed there. Her sons succeeded her, and the dynasty she founded lasted for one hundred years.

"During her tenure, Kubaba ‘made firm the foundations of Kish.’ … [which] may mean she extended political control over other parts of Sumer. But kegmeister Kubaba never forgot her taphouse background. On the official Sumerian kings’ list, which has survived to this day, she simply styled herself as ‘Kubaba the beer woman.’" [Leon, Uppity Women, pp. 12-13.]

Beer: first breweries flourished in the ancient East. Subsequently in the hostelries of Babylon there were in fact five kinds of beer: ;mild, bitter, fresh, lager, and a special mixed beer for export and carrying, which was also called honey beer. This was a condensed extract of roots which would keep for a long time. All that had to be done was to mix it with water and the beer was ready….

Lagash (LAY gash) -- "History’s earliest known reformer of law and society is Uru-inimgina, king of Lagash around 2400 B.C. Surviving documents describe Lagash as a society in which wealthy landowners encroached on the temples and oppressed the poor, and royal administrators mistreated ordinary people. The king’s aims seem to have been both to correct abuses and to weaken independent sources of power threatening royal authority. Uru-inim-gina attempted to control the bureaucracy, protect the property of humble people, and guard the temples. He also put into effect the first known attempt to control wages and prices. Uru-inim-gina’s proclaimed intention was to promote impartial justice, a goal that he expressed in the formula ‘[the king] will protect the mother that is in distress, the mighty man shall not oppress the naked and the widow.’" [Noble, Western Civilization, I, p. 12.]
Umma
Larsa
Jarmo — pottery mills
Ubaid — pottery and copper
Eridu
located to south with access to Persian Gulf
Temple of Janna erected between 3500 and 3000 BC
temple, perhaps dedicated to the god of fresh water because excavators have found a great many fish bones in it

"The first attempts at shaping a new political order were made by Sumerian cities. At various times between 3000 and 2400 BC, strong kings from Ur, Erech, Lagash, and Umma used military force to establish mastery over other cities, but these "empires" were short-lived. Ultimately, the Semites proved more talented in uniting Mesopotamia politically." [Harrison, pp. 8-9.]

F. Trade

"Although the favorable climate and the irrigation system allowed the Sumerians to develop a surplus of food and textiles, they had very little stone or metal with which to manufacture tools and weapons. For the purpose of developing a trade for these items with their neighbors, the Sumerians built boats and domesticated donkeys for use as pack animals. Their tub-like rowboats plied the rivers and their donkey caravans crossed the Arabian Desert and Zagros Mountains. They traded grain to their neighbors in Egypt and Nubia in return for copper;, ivory, and gold. Their caravans traveled through the passes of the Zagros Mountains to secure semiprecious stones in Iran. From Anatolia and Armenia to the north, they obtained silver and tin." [Howe, The Ancient World, p. 25.]

Sumerian Society — complex arrangement of freedom and dependence — categories —"Mesopotamian farmers and artisans produced a considerable surplus of products beyond their own personal requirements. They were not, however, able to keep this surplus, for the temples and the king channeled it off in each state in the form of rent, taxes, and gifts. These managers invested part of the savings of the whole state in canals, temples, walls, and other socially useful capital structures, and some of the food was also returned to the citizens in the months preceding a new harvest. The priests and king also utilized an appreciable fraction of this surplus to enhance their own comfort, even luxury; the tomb of one queen of Ur astounded the modern world with its wealth of delicate jewelry, harps, and sacrificed servants." [Starr, Nowell, A History of the World, I, p. 28.]
nobles
king and his family
chief priests
high palace officials
"Generally the king, at first elected by the citizenry, rose to power as a war leader. He established a regular army, trained it, and led it into battle. The might of the king and the frequency of warfare quickly made him the supreme figure in the city, and kingship soon became hereditary. The symbol of royal status was the palace, which rivaled the temple in grandeur." [McKay, p. 18.]

Clients
free men and women
dependent on the nobility
"The king and the lesser nobility held extensive tracts of land that, like the estates of the temple, were worked by slaves and clients….. In return for their labor, the clients received small plots of land to work for themselves. Although this arrangement assured the clients of a livelihood, the land they worked remained the possession of the nobility or the temple. Thus the nobility not only controlled most — and probably the best — land but also commanded the obedience of a huge segment of society. They were the dominant force in Mesopotamian society."

rent land from temple or nobles
some were organized in work bands under foremen
"… in the great temple households labor was sometimes drawn from men and women who were called gurus and geme, terms that later refer to laborers who were doing forced labor, or corvee. Sometimes it appears that such work was a tax in labor on otherwise free peasants. We do not know how the labor was coerced, but we know that the laborers were given standard rations during the period of their work at least. Children were sometimes involved in forced labor." [Snell, Life in the Ancient Near East, , p. 21]

Commoners — free citizens — 90%
independent of nobility
belonged to large patriarchal families
owned land in their own right
could sell their land if the family approved
even king could not legally take their land without their approval
had voice in political affairs of the city
full protection under the law
could not rival nobility in social status and political power
merchants -- there was "a vigorous trade in raw materials for luxury items. The gold had to come from elsewhere, perhaps even from Egypt, and stone came from the Iranian mountains or Turkey. Some raw materials may have been passed along from village to village. But there are indications that some people in Mesopotamia were systematically trying to acquire foreign goods. When there are texts, we can read of the existence of people called damgar, which we translate ‘merchant’ because it is an Akkadian loanword, understood as merchant in later related languages. The contexts for the work of these merchants are not clear in the archival lists of the earliest period, and we do not know if the merchants worked only for the city-rulers or if they also could execute private purchase orders. The crucial thing we do not know is whether the merchants themselves traveled anywhere to acquire goods or just took advantage of other people’s travels to buy things." [Snell, Life in the Ancient Near East, p. 23.]
fishers — for fresh, brackish or sea water
craftspeople — artisans — worked partly for private citizens and partly for the state (temple or palace)
pottery
jewelry
wood products
smithing — bronze castings
construction
l. shepherds — for male and female asses

m. snakecharmers

4. Slaves — not an important institution

a. prisoners of war

b. foreigners

c. criminals — lost freedom as punishment

d. debtors — repayment of debts — law required freedom after three

years — some men sold wives and children to keep themselves out of debt slavery

Treatment — not an especially degraded class
at mercy of owners
beaten
branded
rights
could borrow money
received some legal protection
engaged in trade
could make profits
could buy freedom
could marry free women
palace officials used slaves on building projects
temple officials used female slaves to weave cloth and grind grain
rich landowners used slaves to farm their lands
never very numerous
manumission occurred frequently
"There were also slave in Sumer, originally captives from the mountains. Slaves formed a small group, ;much outnumbered by free peasants." [Noble, Western Civilization, I, p. 10.]

"The earliest documented slave sales were in the southern city of Girsu around 2430 B.C.E. Slaves were not held in large numbers and were not very important in supplying labor." [Snell, Daily Life in the Ancient Near East, p. 21.]

"Each Sumerian city-state had a distinct social hierarchy or system of ranks. The highest class included the ruling family, leading officials, and high priests. A small middle class was made up of merchants, artisans, and lesser priests and scribes.

At the base of society were the majority of people, peasant farmers. Some had their own land, but most worked land belonging to the king or temples. Sumerians also owned slaves. Most slaves had been captured in war. Some, though, had sold themselves into slavery to pay their debts." [Ellis, World History, p. 34.]

"The Mesopotamian urban centers incorporated features generally associated with the state. Mesopotamian society fell into two broad divisions — the elite (the nobility and priests), a group with unimpeded access to resources, and the non-elite (craft specialists, workers, bureaucrats, etc.), who obtained goods and services through the exchange of personal labor or capital. At the top of the social order and government was a king. The king arranged for the construction of public buildings, and his government established judicial institutions, governed the economy, and maintained literary and ideological tradition through organized copying done by scribes." [Western Civilization: Origins and Traditions, p. 10.]

Women
worked alongside men in most professions
priestesses were usually noble-women from wealthy families
"In the earliest Sumerian myths, a mother-goddess was the central figure of creation. She may have reflected the honored role of mothers in early farming communities. An ancient proverb advised, ‘Pay heed to the word of your mother as though it were the word of a god.’"

"As large city-states emerged with warrior-leaders at their head, male gods who resembled early kings replaced the older mother-goddess. Still, in the early city-states, wives of rulers enjoyed special powers and duties. Some supervised palace workshops and ruled for the king when he was absent. One woman, Ku-Baba, became a ruler herself, rising from the lowly position of tavern owner to establish a ruling family in Kish.

"Over time, as men gained more power and wealth, the status of women changed. Because they devoted their time to household duties and raising children, women became more dependent on men for their welfare. Despite these changes, women continued to have legal rights. Well-to-do women, for example, engaged in trade, borrowed and loaned money, and owned property." [Ellis, World History, p. 34.]

Early Dynastic III (2500-2334 BC) texts "show that the labor of lower-status women was exploited by the city-state in weaving sheep’s wool. Women wove, perhaps because weaving was a job that could be interrupted and thus was compatible with child care. But women also appear as priestesses and seem to function as high officials at least in some temples at Lagas-Girsu. The wife of the city-governor there was clearly someone to be reckoned with. Women bought and sold land, and they were legally capable persons." [Snell, Life in the Ancient Near East, p. 20.]

"Women participated in the economies of Sumerian cities, although in limited ways. They could own property (but most land remained in the control of men, because property generally passed from father to son). In some cases women controlled the making of cloth and sent it with their merchant husbands to supplement the family income. There are later records of Mesopotamian women demanding that their husbands send them the money their cloth brought at market. Women also engaged in other businesses and exclusively produced the most popular drink, beer."

"Gender roles became increasingly fixed as the civilization developed. Women’s responsibilities remained primarily in the household; the majority of women spent hours gardening, weaving, or grinding on stone grinders." [Field, The Global Past, I, p. 73.]

Legal status in family
Husband with support from his family paid a bride-price to father of the bride
Man breaking his engagement forfeited his bride-price
If woman broke engagement — man received twice the worth of the bride price
signed marriage contract — enumerated conditions
Duties of each
division of property in a divorce settlement
Women were subject to husbands and fathers
Women who bore no children could be divorced

Economy
Primarily agricultural
large estates controlled by rulers, priests and army officers
Temple lands
one-third of all arable land
could not be sold nor exchanged
divided into three parts
Land of the Lord — fed priests and numerous persons employed by the temple
food land — allotted in small parcels to the farmers who worked the ‘land of the Lord’ and to some temple officials for their subsistence — did not fully belong to them and could be taken away at any time
‘plow land’ — let out to tenants against one-seventh or one-eighth of the harvest
4. Exploited or hired out orchards, pastures, fisheries as well as cattle and flocks of sheep and goats

Revenues in kind used
for the maintenance of priests, scribes and other
temple officials

stored for provision against drought and for exchange for imported goods
wages or gratuities to thousands of people — mostly women, but also men and slaves of both sexes — who permanently labored in temple workshops and premises, milling grain, spinning and weaving wool or hair, brewing beer or acting as cooks, gardeners and servants
temple farmers — could be mobilized by the ruler in case of war or for such large-scale public works as the building of sanctuaries and fortifications and the digging of canals
"In theory the state was an earthly estate of the gods, and its early economic activities were focused on the temple. The land, which was owned by the gods, was partly farmed directly for the temple; the rest was allotted to individual farmers, who paid between one-third and one-sixth of their produce to the temple granaries. The temple owned great quantities of livestock, date orchards, and even its own boats and plows; about the temple lived and worked male and female slaves and free people who brewed and baked, carded and wove wool, or made jewelry and statues. Fishers and traders as well carried on their work for the temples. The economy of Babylonia was an intensification of the communal economy of the villages, and even the priests farmed in early days; but more and more the overseers and the priests separated themselves out as a directing element." [Starr, Nowell, A History of the World, I, 22.]

Palace
600 to 700 soldiers — bodyguard
estates — personal and land purchased from wealthy individuals or high officials
Private property — private persons of all ranks could freely sell, exchange, donate or let out houses, fields, gardens, fishery ponds, livestock and slaves belonging to them or perhaps to family communities — wide variation in size of plots depending on social status of owner

b. tenant farmers

serfs — peasants and workers who served the temple or the palace were maintained by them and possessed no land
"You can have a lord, you can have a king, but the man to fear is the tax collector." [Sumerian poem]

Trade with surrounding countries
Exports of agricultural products and manufactured goods — grain, wool, and textiles
Imports of wood, metal (gold, silver, copper, lead), stone, cedar and cypress, luxury items that included ivory, pearls, and shells as well as malachite, carnelian, lapis lazuli and other semi-precious stones
Used bills, receipts, notes, and letters of credit
custom required that deals be confirmed by written agreements, signed by witnesses
merchants employed salesmen who traveled to distant regions and sold goods on commission
bars or ingots of gold and silver served as money — standard unit of exchange — silver shekel (approximately equal in weight to a modern 50-cent piece)

"Besides… metal … the wool from the flocks made possible the development of weaving and the production of plentiful woolen cloth. Metal work, woolen goods, and some native products, like dates and grain, developed active trade with other countries of Western Asia. … this trade extended far into Asia, even reaching the mouth of the Indus and the lower valley of that river. At the same time the discovery in Sumer of a seal from the Indus makes the fact of such trade quite certain. There is every indication that this trade passed between the Tigris and the Indus by land. It is not yet clear whether the Sumerians had been able to develop sea-going ships for traffic on the Persian Gulf and beyond it. The region of the Two Rivers, of which Sumer formed the southern part, lay between the Eastern Mediterranean world on the west and remoter Asia on the east. Between these two widely separated regions the people of the Two Rivers began very early to carry on extensive commerce, which later spread in a great network of roads and sea routes. These communications not only connected the countries of the Near East with each other but likewise linked the Near East as a