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Lecture 3. Rise of Urbanism

HIST 213 Spring 2012

Transition from Stone Age to Bronze Age

Important developments in burial tradition:

1. communal graves give way to individual burials with prestige burial gifts signifying status

2. Male graves include weapons and polished metal daggers, signifying warrior status

Hassunna Culture (6000-5500 BCE)

• earliest sedentary culture in N. Mesopotamia

• wheat and barley

• no irrigation

• simples house/villages

– 2 ha vs. Jericho (4 ha)

• painted pottery

• kilns

seated Hassuna figurine 6000 BCE

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Samarra Culture (6000-5500 BCE)

• contemporary with Hassuna

• farming partially based on irrigation (dry land)

• pottery dynamic style

• T-shaped houses

• complex economic features – stamp seals

– dedicated artisans

• complex religious practice

– alabaster figurines

Alabaster figurines from Tell es-Sawwan

dynamically- painted ceramic plates

5500 BCE

Halaf Culture (5500-4500 BCE)

N. Mesa and Syria

• new migration?

in East

– domed round houses

in West

– rectilinear

• shaft-grave burials

• fine monochrome pottery

• elaborate jewelry

A necklace of obsidian beads, cowrie shells and a stone pendant from Arpachiyah

Halaf Culture

Halaf fertility goddess sculptures ca. 5000 BCE

Elaborately decorated vessels with animals in both animalistic and schematic styles

from Arpachiyah

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Ubaid Culture True irrigation farming

• grain surplus

• gave the people of Sumer the time to develop new skills – inventive and thoughtful

– first artisans, traders, priests, scribes and merchants started to appear

System of government emerged

• organized religious practices

• new order of social classes – all the elements of what would come to be recognized

as civilization.

Ubaid period house (early phase)

• entrance hall, staircase and

living rooms on either side. • This house found at Tell

Madhhur had been destroyed by fire and abandoned in around 4500 BCE

• Household domestic utensils include painted pots, grindstones, hoes – over 3,800 sling bullets were

scattered across the floors

• Beneath the floor of one of the side rooms the body of an infant had been buried in a pottery jar.

• Burial within the family living quarters was a common practice among these early settlers.

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Sumerian Timeline

5900-4000 Ubiad (city of Eridu)

4000-3300 Early Uruk

– 70 hectares: population 7,000-10,000

– ----------------------------------------------------------

3300-2900 Late Uruk

• 200 hectares: population 40,000-50,000

– population explosion indicates greater social organization, plant propagation and irrigation technology

2900-2350 Early Dynastic Period

Aspects of “Civilization”

1. Urbanization

– Monumental Architecture

2. Social hierarchy

– political

– religious

– military

3. Writing

– Literacy

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Uruk (Warka) Vase alabaster, 1 meter high

• from Uruk III period

• stolen from the National Museum of Iraq in 2003

Warka Vase

• depicts procession of naked men carrying farm produce

• Goddess Inana

• form EN (lord)

– indicative of religious/social hierarchy

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Cuneiform “wedge-shaped writing” on clay tablets

II. The Development of Writing

When it Becomes Cuneiform

At first, the images were drawn with the pointed end of the stylus

Cuneiform: the images are created when the edge of the stylus is

impressed in the clay

The Origin of Cuneiform Signs

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Evolution of Cuneiform Signs

god

place

person

woman

foreign

female slave

head

mouth

food

Uruk IV c. 3200

Jemdet Nasr c. 3100-2900

Ur III 2112-2004

Neo-Assyrian 1st millennium

How Cuneiform Signs Were Used

I. Logograms: Word Signs

ig = “door”

šu = “hand”

du = “to go”

lu = “person, human”

dingir = “god”

gish = “wood, tree”

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II. The Movement to Syllabograms: Sound Signs

How Cuneiform Signs Were Used

= “door”

= “hand”

= “to go”

ik - šu - du ikšudu = “they conquered”

Sumerian ig šu du

Akkadian daltu qatu alaku

Development of Writing

• precursor to writing (tokens)

• Pictograms and Ideograms

Bee leaf

BELIEF

Epic of Gilgamesh written c. 2600 BCE

12 Tablets

preserved by Assyrians in 7th C. BCE

• Battle between Gilgamesh and Enkidu

• Flood Story

• Inability to conquer “Death”

• Struggle with Inanna (jealousy)

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What were the differences between nomadic/pastoral cultures and Uruk/Sumer?

1. Increased agricultural efficiency

• use of technology (irrigation)

2. Controlled regional territories

• anchored in place

3. ruled by theocracies

• religious function of kingship

4. centralized economies

• taxation and tribute patterns allowing for specialization

5. social stratification

• based on wealth and slavery

6. Improved technology

• travel and military

7. Long-distance trade

• supplementation of agriculture

8. Writing

• literature

9. Monumental architecture

• organization of population and resources