Previous lecture: order and chaos

On the books and reading assignments:

The Ancient Near East
The Geography and the Geographical Imperative:
"War is God's way of teaching geography to Americans" Ambrose Bierce.
The shape of the ancient empires reflects the needs of the imperial powers to control not only the fertile and populous areas of the 'Fertile Crescent', but also the (mineral, timber) natural resources available only on the periphery. Vegetation. Farming (during the Neolithic Revolution!!) . Natural Resources. Rainfall. The weather map. Significance?

Urbanization: The problem. "Western Civilization" is the history of cities and civic culture. What factors explain the rise of cities and the characteristic features of civilized life in the Ancient Near East?

1. The roots of urbanization...progression from nomadic to urban culture can be traced but it was inevitable. Tho there were many cities, there remained also many more semi nomadic peoples throughout the history of the ANE and western Europe.
   1. Semi-nomadic culture: The decision to settle may not have been consciously made; groups recognized the advantages of certain particularly favorable locations [another] tended to inhabit them more continuously. Social structure was patriarchal and based on clan ("al-Tikriti") .
   2. Villages: settlements with at least semi-permanent buildings. Still, no town planning, no public buildings or walls; little evidence of specialization of labor or of a complex social organization, or capacity to produce regular agricultural surpluses. Note the relationship between fields and village at the Egyptian town of Edfu
   3. Towns: The characteristic features of urbanization at most fundamental level. Private housing (general; ancient and modern) but for extended family.
      1. Physically one finds buildings of a public character (palace; temple) and a defensive wall.
      2. Specialization of labor possible where there were agricultural surpluses, surpluses sufficient to allow for the training of scribes, architects and craftsmen capable of constructing items like the splendid ceramic tile Ishtar Gate of Babylon (now in Berlin) and the Hanging Gardens.
      3. As loyalties shift from tribe/clan to urban community, the political structure begins to change (see below).
2. The factors that contributed to the formation of urban-states
   1. The first factor: the control of water: Three physiological facts (as true for cities in American west as for the ANE).
      1. to survive humans need water for self and for food supply; irrigation (systems and management). Ancient irrigation systems required that labor be organized for a common purpose. An aside: consider the Iraqi marshes and the fate of the Marsh Arabs before Saddam and under Saddam.
      2. to flourish, communities of humans need a clean water supply;
      3. human beings produce potentially harmful excretions. The health of the community is directly linked to its ability to dispose of human waste without contaminating its water supply.
   2. The larger the population, the more organization is required to ensure that these conditions are met and vice versa. Second Factor: The ability of some groups to discipline themselves ("law and order") and construct wells, to maintain dikes and drainage allowed them to flourish (i.e., to produce a dependable food supply) and even to generate a surplus. Consequences:
   1. Because the survival ot the community depended on its ability to organize labor it was critical to insure that all its members contribute to the maintenance of the dikes, the cleaning of irrigation ditches. How would this be done? Compulsion? Voluntarism? Intimidation? And what happens to the community when clan fights clan?
   2. Because the survival of the community required the maintenance of social order and discipline, lawgivers became the only prominent individuals in these early states. They were, like Sennacherib, revered for establishing social peace. Inscription bearing Sennacherib's laws.
      Assura: I.13. If the wife of a man go out from her house and visit a man where he lives, and he have intercourse with her, knowing that she is a man's wife, the man and also the woman they shall put to death. Standard weights. Note also the evidence given in DWP 1, §8 If a man neglects his dike ... and he is not able to replace the grain [the water has carried away] they shall sell him and his goods.
   3. Once law and order were secured, the food supply had been guaranteed (and the earliest cities were essentially fortified storehouses), there could then be sufficient surpluses to support differentiation in labor. One could have professionals, engineers, potters or priests, scribes or warriors and their friends. Pyramids at Geza. Temple at Karnak (proportions); temple / palace complex of Persepolis.
   4. Because the maintenance of ''order and law'' was so important to the society (for reserves could not be protected without it), those vested with civic authority took on a sacrosanct status (priest-king / protector to kingship), for even a bad king was better than chaos. Another modern comparison. More on this subject in the next lecture.
3. Mesopotamia Timeline
   1. Evidence for Mesopotamian history: archaeological, tablets, and Greek.
   2. From 3000 to 1000: a collection of intensely competitive regional powers. Most of these states developed along the same lines as illustrated by this map of the Empires of the Ancient Near East). When one compares this map with the one above on natural resources one understands why assumed the same pattern, namely timber and metals are not found naturally in the Mesopotamia, but on the periphery.
   3. Foreign relations: The major political problem for the urbanized Mesopotamian population was holding its own against the periodically expanding semi nomadic tribes (note story of Abraham) coming from the west and the north east .
   4. Forms of government:
      1. the temple state: the role of the priest-king like Gilgamesh. Or Kyros.
      2. regional empires of the Assyrians and Persians. An Assyrian king had to display his valor, as at a lion hunt; Assyrian soldiers, seen here carrying heads of the defeated, stressed their brutality as a method of imperial intimidation. Sargon
      3. In brief, empire based on intimidation and force, not consensus. Some were more brutal than others.
4. Egypt
   1. Physical Structure: Critical to understanding Egypt is the recognition of the importance of the Nile not only as a source of irrigation through its annual inundation, but also for the ease of transportation with the falucca. The Nile from 'on high' indicates clearly what a small proportion of the country can be cultivated. Note the sharp contrast in lower Egypt and between the desert and the irrigated landscape
   2. Population: homogeneous and rarely invaded.
   3. Patterns: (2800 to ca. 350 B.C. ). On dynasties...
      1. Though Egypt appears ideal for formation of regional state, there were centrifugal tendencies, most clearly the division between upper and lower Egypt =>symbolized by double crown. Moreover, at various times nobility gained control of the many 'nomes' or districts of Egypt.
      2. Foreign relations: Only rarely an aggressor and then limited objective: to control the access from northeast and the supply of wood from Lebanon. Invasion from outside possible but rare.
      3. In brief there are periods of unified stability (the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms) punctuated by periods of dislocation, regionalism and even foreign control.
      4. Evidence for Egyptian history:
5. Other images from the ANE: The tile work of "Nabbuco"; a couple; marriage market
6. Significance and Conclusions.
   1. "We the People...in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of..." Those societies that were best able to discipline themselves through constraints both legal and authoritarian enjoyed a competitive advantage over their neighbors in that they were able to gain some control over their environment and acquire the surpluses necessary to support and protect a growing population and to provide a higher standard of living and culture. We will be exploring how this happened in other societies.
   2. Note especially the kinds of evidence used in this lecture.
   3. And so we fade into the sunset...