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Do not remove this notice
Course of Study:
(SRA341) The City
Title of work:
The city in history; its origins, its transformation, and its prospects (1991)
Section:
Extract from The city in history: its origins, its transformations, and its
prospects pp. 14--19
Author/editor of work:Mumford, Lewis
Author of section:
L Mumford
Name of Publisher:
Penguin Books in association with Martin Secker & Warburg
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Sanctuary Even the technological complexity
of
the human town does
Village
not lack animal precedent. With certain species, notably the
nd Stronghold beavers, colonization brings a deliberate re-moulding of the
environment :
tree--folling
dam-raism g, lodge-building. These
engineering operations transform a close family congregation
into a somewhat looser association of numerous families, co
operating on common tasks and improving the common habi
tat.
f he beaver colony lacks many
of
the attributes
of
a town,
it is already
dose
to those early villages which also performed
feats ofhydraulic engineering.
or all that, the nearest approach
to
a collective dwelling
place among other animals was a long way from the most rudi
mentary urban community. Rather, it
:is
along a quite different
evolutionary line, represented by the social insects, that one
finds the closest approach
to
both civilized life and the city.
The social functions
of
the beehive, the termitary, and the ant
hil l structures often imposing in size, skilfully wrought - have
indeed so many resemblances
to
those of the city that
rshall put
off further observations till the city comes into view. Even the
division of labour, the differentiation of castes, the practice of
war, the institution
of
royalty, the domestication
of
other
SJ»>
cies,
and
the employment
of
slavery, existed in certain •ant
empires millions
of
years before they coalesced in the ancient
city. But note: there is
no
question here
of
biological
o n ~
tinuity. Rather, this is an example of parallelism and o n v e r ~
gence.
3
emeteries and Shrines
In the development
of
permanent human settlements,
we
find
an
expression of animal needs similar to those in other social
species;
but
even the most primitive urban beginnings reveal
more than this. Soon after one picks up man s trail in the
earliest campfire
or
chipped-stone tool one finds evidence of
interests and anxieties that have no animal counterpart; in
particular, a ceremonious concern for the dead, manifested in
their deliberate burial - with growing evidences
of
pious appre
hension and dread.
Early man s respect for the dead, itself an expression of fas
cination with his powerful images of daylight fantasy and
nightly dream, perhaps
had an
even greater role than more
practical needs in causing him to seek a fixed meeting place and
14 eventually a continuous settlement. Mid the uneasy wanderings
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of palaeolithic man, the dead were the first to have a permanent
Cemeteries
dwelling: a cavern, a mound marked by a cairn, a collective
and Shrines
barrow. These were landmarks
to
which the living probably
returned
at
intervals,
to
commune with
or
placate the ancestral
spirits. Though food-gathering
and
hunting do
not
encourage
the permanent occupation of a single site, the dead at least claim
that
privilege. Long ago the Jews claimed as their patrimony the
land where the graves of their forefathers were situated;
and
that
well-attested claim seems a primordial one. The city
of
the
dead antedates the city of the living.
n
one sense, indeed, the
city
of
the dead is the forerunner, almost the core,
of
every
living city.
Urban
life spans the historic space between the
earliest burial ground for dawn
man and
the final cemetery,
the Necropolis, in which one civilization after another has met
its end.
n all this, there are ironic overtones. The first greeting of a
traveller, as he approached a Greek or a
Roman
city, was the
row of
graves
and
tombstones that lined the roads
to
the city.
s for Egypt, most of what is left of
that
great civilization, with
its joyous saturation in every expression
of
organic life, are its
temples
and
its tombs. Even in the crowded modern city, the
first general exodus
to
a more desirable dwelling place in the
country was the migration of the dead to the romantic Elysium
of
a suburban cemetery.
But there is still another part of the environment that palaeo·
lithic man not merely used but periodically came back
to
the
cave. There is plenty
of
evidence, all over the world,
of
the
aboriginal occupation or visitation of caves.
In
the limestone
caves
of
the Dordogne
in
France, for instance, early man's suc
cessive occupations can be traced in layers, as the erosion of the
rock lowered the river bed, raising old shelters
and
exposing new
platforms lower down. But more important than its use for
domestic purposes was the
part that
the cave played
in·
art
and
ritual. Though caves like those
at
Lascaux and Altarnira were
not inhabited, they seem to have been ceremonial centres of
some kind, as much as Nippur or Abydos. s late as the fourth
century B c one finds the carved representation
of
a cave dedi
cated
to
the Nymphs, showing Hermes
and
Pan
- the carving
itself being found in the Cave of the Nymphs on
Mount
Pen
telicon.
In the inner recesses of such special ritual centres, usually
reached by low passages, demanding a tortuous
and
frequently
dangerous crawl, one finds great natural chambers, covered 5
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Sanctuary with paintings of astonishing vividness of form and facility of
YU/age
design, chiefly
of
exquisitely realistic animals, occasionally
of
mu Stronghold highly formalized and stylized men and women.
In
some
places this art exhibited
an
aesthetic mastery not touched again
till w reach the temples and palaces of a period more than
fifteen thousand years later.
f
he aesthetic design was, as some
hold, only
an
incidental by-product
of
magic, did
it
not never
theless exert a special magic of its own, which drew men back to
the scene
of
this first triumphant expression?
Even in their most primitive form, these practices survived
their period
and
made their way into the later city. A palaeo
lithic drawing in the Caveme des Trois Freres at Ariege depicts
a man dressed in a stag s skin, wearing antlers on his head, pre
sumably a wizard, while a bone engraving
of
the same period in
an English cave depicts a man whose face is masked by a horse s
head. Now as late as the seventh century A D in England, ac
cording
to
Christina Hole, the calends of January were observed
by men dressed in the skins and heads
of
animals, who
ran
leaping and prancing through the streets : the practice was in
fact forbidden by the Archbishop
of
Canterbury because
it
was,
be said, devilish .
f
there is reason for suspecting some dim
ancestral continuity
in
this custom, there is even better reason
for finding in the rites of the cave the social
and
religious im
pulses
that
conspired
to
draw men finally into cities, where
ll
the original feelings of awe, reverence, pride, and joy would be
further magnified by
art,
and multiplied by the number
of
responsive participants.
n these ancient palaeolithic sanctuaries, as in the first grave
mounds
and
tombs,
w
have,
i f
anywhere, the first hints
of
civic
life, probably w ll before any permanent village settlement can
even be suspected. This was
no
mere coming together during the
mating season,
no
famished return
to
a sure source of water or
food,
no
occasional interchange, in some convenient tabooed
spot, of amber, salt, jade, or even perhaps shaped tools. Here,
·
in the ceremonial centre, was
an
association dedicated
to
a life
more abundant : not merely
an
increase
of
food,
but an
increase
of
social enjoyment through the fuller use
of
symbolized fantasy
and
art,
with a shared vision
of
a better life, more meaningful as
well as aesthetically enchanting, such a good life in embryo as
Aristotle would one day describe in the
Politics
the first glimpse
of Eutopia.
For
who can doubt that in the very effort to ensure
a more abundant supply
of
animal food -
i f
that was in fact the
16 magical purpose of painting and rite - the performance of art
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itself added something just as essential to primitive man s life as
emeteries
the carnal rewards of the hunt. All this has a bearing on the and Shrines
nature
of the historic city.
The palaeolithic cave brings to mind many other venerable
shrines
that
likewise embodied sacred properties and powers
and drew men from afar into their precincts: great stones
sacred groves monumental trees holy wells like the Chalice
Well
at
Glastonbury where Joseph of Arimathea supposedly
dropped the Holy Grail. These fixed landmarks and holy meet·
ing places called together periodically or permanently those
who shared the same magical practices or religious beliefs.
Mecca Rome Jerusalem Benares Peiping Kyoto Lourdes
still recall and carry on these original purposes.
While these elemental properties closely tied
to
natural
features are not in themselves sufficient to found or support a
city they constitute the larger part of the central nucleus that
originally dominated the historic city. Not least perhaps the
cave gave early man his first conception of architectural space
his first glimpse of the power of a walled enclosure
to
intensify
spiritual receptivity and emotional exaltation. The painted
chamber within a monntain prefigures the
tomb
of
the Egyptian
pyramid itself a man-made mountain deliberately imitative.
The
variations
on
this theme are endless; yet despite their
differences the pyramid the ziggurat the Mithraic grotto the
Christian crypt all have their prototypes in the mountain cave.
Both the form and the purpose played a part in the ultimate
development of the city.
n
going back so far for the origins of the city one must not
of
course overlook the practical needs
that
drew family groups
and
tribes together seasonally in a common h a b i ~ a t a series of
camp sites even in a collecting or a hunting economy. These
played their parts too; and long before agricultural villages
and
towns became a feature of the neolithic culture the favourable
sites for them had probably been prospected: the
pure
spring
with its year-round supply of water the solid hummock
ofland,
accessible yet protected by river or swamp the near-by estuary
heavily stocked with fish
and
shellfish - all these served already
in many regions for the intermediary mesolithic economy
on
sites whose permanence is witnessed by huge mounds of opened
shells.
But settlement may even have antedated these hamlets: the
remains of palaeolithic buildings seemingly part of a hamlet in
southern Russia warn one against fixing too late a date for the 17
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Sanctuary appearance of the permanent village. Eventually
w
shall find
Village
the hunter s camp sinking into a permanent roosting
spot
a
nd Stronghold dominant palaeolithic enclave walled off from the neolithic
villages
at
its base.
But note that two
of
the three original aspects
of
temporary
settlement have
to
do with sacred things,
not
just
with physical
survival : they relate
to
a more valuable
and
meaningful kind
of
life, with a consciousness that entertains past and future, appre
hending the primal mystery of sexual generation
and
the ulti
mate mystery of death and what may lie beyond death.
s
the
city takes form, much more will be
added but
these central con
cerns abide as the very reason for the city s existence, insepar
able from the economic substance
that
makes it possible.
n
the
earliest gathering about a grave or a painted symbol, a great
stone
or
a sacred grove, one has the beginning
of
a succession
of
civic institutions
that
range from the temple
to
the astrono
mical observatory, from the theatre
to
the university.
Thus even before the city is a place of fixed residence, it
begins as a meeting place
to
which people periodically return
the magnet comes before the container,
and
this ability
to
attract non-residents
to
it
for intercourse
and
spiritual stim
ulus
no
less
than
trade remains one
of
the essential criteria
of
the city, a witness
to
its inherent dynamism, as opposed
to
the
more fixed
and
indrawn form
of
the village, hostile
to
the out
sider.
The first germ
of
the city, then, is
in
the ceremonial meeting
place
that
serves as the goal for pilgrimage: a site
to
which
family or clan groups are drawn back, at seasonable intervals,
because
it
concentrates, in addition
to
any natural advantages
it
may have, certain spiritual or supernatural powers, powers
of
higher potency
and
greater duration, of wider cosmic signi
ficance,
than
the ordinary processes
of
life.
And
though the
human
performances may be occasional
and
temporary, the
structure
that
supports it, whether a palaeolithic grotto
or
a
Mayan ceremonial centre with its lofty pyramid, will be en
dowed with a more lasting cosmic image.
Once detached from its immediate animal needs, the mind
begins
to
play freely over the whole canvas of existence,
and to
leave
its
imprint on
both
natural structures, like caves and trees
and
springs,
and
man-made artifacts, elaborated in their image.
Some
of
the functions and purposes of the city, accordingly,
existed in such simple structures long before complex associa-
8 tion o the city
had
come into existence and re-fashioned the
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whole environment to give them sustenance and support. But omesticatio
this is only
part of
the story: so let us look further.
nd
the
illage
4
omestication and the Village
Though some
of
the seeds
of
later urban life were already
present in palaeolithic culture, the soil
to
nourish them was
lacking. Hunting and food-gathering sustain less than ten
people per square mile:
to
be sure of a living, palaeolithic man
needed a wide range and great freedom of movement. Chance
and luck compete with cunning and skill in early man s econ
omy now he feasts, now he starves: and until he learns to
smoke
and
salt his meat, he must live from day
to
day, keeping
to small, mobile groups, not heavily impeded by possessions,
not tied to a fixed habitation.
The first condition for an ample, reliable food supply arose in
the mesolithic period, perhaps fifteen thousand years ago. At
this point the archaeologist begins
to
find definite traces
of
permanent settlements, from India to the Baltic area: a culture
based on the use
of
shellfish and fish, possibly seaweed, and
planted tubers, doubtless supplemented by other less certain
supplies
of
food. With these mesolithic hamlets come the first
clearings for agricultural purposes : likewise the earliest
domestic animals, the household pets and guardians: pig, fowl,
duck, goose, and above all, the dog, man s oldest animal com
panion. The practice
of
reproducing food plants by cuttings -
as with the date palm, the olive, the
fig
the apple, and the grape
- probably derives from this mesolithic culture. The time re
quired for the growth
of
fruit-bearing trees itself denotes a con
tinuous occupation and persistent care.
The richness
of
this greatly augmented food supply, once the
last Ice Age
had
receded, may have had a stirring effect upon
both
the mind and the sexual organs. The easy picking, the
extra security, afforded leisure; while the relief from forced
fasting, that long-proved diminisher
of
sexual appetite, may
have given to sexuality in ·.every form an early maturation, a
persistence, indeed a potency,
it
perhaps lacked in the anxio.us,
often half-starved life
of
hunting and collecting peoples. Both
the
diet and the erotic customs
of
the Polynesians, as they
existed when Western man discovered them, suggest this meso·
lithic picture.
This process
of
settlement, domestication, dietary regularity,
entered a second stage, possibly ten
or
twelve thousand years 19
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