The scene we have so far surveyed has been somewhat monotonous. The
differences between the various groups of prehistoric farmers are
insignificant beside the overriding similarity of their mode of life,
relatively isolated as they were and almost entirely self-sufficient in
their small villages. But by the middle of the fourth millennium B.C.
this picture changed, first in Mesopotamia and a little later in Egypt;
and the change may be described in terms of archaeological evidence. In
Mesopotamia we find a considerable increase in the size of settlements
and buildings such as temples. For the first time we can properly speak
of monumental architecture as a dominant feature of sizable cities. In
Egypt, too, monumental architecture appeared; and in both countries
writing was introduced, new techniques were mastered, and
representational art—as distinct from the mainly decorative art of the
preceding period—made its first appearance.
It is important to realize that the change was not a quantitative one.
If one stresses the increased food supply or the expansion of human
skill and enterprise; or if one combines both elements by proclaiming
irrigation a triumph of skill which produced abundance; even if one
emphasizes the contrast between the circumscribed existence of the
prehistoric villagers and the richer, more varied, and more complex life
in the cities—one misses the point. All these quantitative evaluations
lead to generalizations which obscure the very problem with which we are
concerned. For a comparison between Egypt and Mesopotamia discloses, not
only that writing, representational art, monumental architecture, and a
new kind of political coherence were introduced in the two countries; it
also reveals the striking fact that the purpose of their writing, the
contents of their representations, the functions of their monumental
buildings, and the structure of their new societies differed completely.
What we observe is not merely the establishment of civilized life, but
the emergence, concretely, of the distinctive “forms” of Egyptian and
Mesopotamian civilization.
It is necessary to anticipate here and to substantiate the contrast. The
earliest written documents of Mesopotamia served a severely practical
purpose; they facilitated the administration of large economic units,
the temple communities. The earliest Egyptian inscriptions were legends
on royal monuments or seal engravings identifying the king’s officials.
The earliest representations in Mesopotamian art are preponderantly
religious; in Egyptian art they celebrate royal achievements and consist
of historical subjects. Monumental architecture consists, in
Mesopotamia, of temples, in Egypt of royal tombs. The earliest civilized
society of Mesopotamia crystallized in separate nuclei, a number of
distinct, autonomous cities—clear-cut, self-assertive polities—with the
surrounding lands to sustain each one. Egyptian society assumed the form
of the single, united, but rural, domain of an absolute monarch.
The evidence from Egypt, which is the more extensive, indicates the
transition was neither slow nor gradual. It is true that towards the end
of the prehistoric period certain innovations heralded the coming age.
But when the change occurred it had the character of a crisis, affecting
every aspect of life at once but passing within the space of a few
generations. Then followed—from the middle of the First until the end of
the Third Dynasty—a period of consolidation and experiment, and with
this the formative phase of Egyptian civilization was concluded. Few
things that mattered in Pharaonic Egypt were without roots in that first
great age of creativity.
In Mesopotamia a parallel development possessed a somewhat different
character. It likewise affected every field of cultural activity at
once, but it lacked the finality of its Egyptian counterpart. It cannot
be said of Mesopotamia that its civilization evolved in all its
significant aspects from the achievements of one short period, decisive
as that had been. Mesopotamian history shows a succession of upheavals,
at intervals of but a few centuries, which did more than modify its
political complexion. For instance, the Sumerian language,[87] which was
dominant throughout the formative phase of Mesopotamian civilization,
was replaced by Semitic Akkadian during the second half of the third
millennium. And the shift of the centre of power, in the third
millennium, from Sumer in the extreme south to Babylonia in the centre,
in the second millennium to Assyria, in the extreme north, brought with
it important cultural changes. Yet notwithstanding all the changes,
Mesopotamian civilization never lost its identity; its “form” was
modified by its turbulent history, but it was never destroyed.
We shall now desist from comparisons and consider the formative age of
Mesopotamia, which is called the Protoliterate period since it witnessed
the invention of writing. To this period the earliest ruins of cities
belong. Now one may say that the birth of Mesopotamian civilization,
like its subsequent growth, occurred under the sign of the city. To
understand the importance of the city as a factor in the shaping of
society, one must not think of it as a mere conglomeration of people.
Most modern cities have lost the peculiar characteristic of
individuality which we can observe in cities of Renaissance Italy, of
Medieval Europe, of Greece, and of Mesopotamia. In these counties the
physical existence of the city is but an outward sign of close communal
affinities which dominate the life of every dweller within the walls.
The city sets its citizens apart from the other inhabitants of the land.
It determines their relations with the outside world. It produces an
intensified self-consciousness in its burghers, to whom the collective
achievements are a source of pride. The communal life of prehistoric
times became civic life.
The change, however, was not without its disadvantages, especially in a
country like Mesopotamia. The modest life of the prehistoric villager
had fitted well enough into the natural surroundings, but the city was a
questionable institution, at variance, rather than in keeping, with the
natural order. This fact was brought home by the frequent floods and
storms, droughts and marsh-fires with which the gods destroyed man’s
work. For in Mesopotamia, in contrast with Egypt, natural conditions did
not favour the development of civilization. Sudden changes could bring
about conditions beyond man’s control.[88] Spring tides in the Persian
Gulf may rise to a height of eight to nine feet; prolonged southerly
gales may bank up the rivers for as much as two feet or more. Abnormal
snowfalls in Armenia, or abnormal rainfall farther to the south, may
cause a sudden rise of level in the rivers; a landslide in the narrow
gorges of the two Zabs or of the Khabur may first hold up, then suddenly
release, an immense volume of water. Any one of these circumstances, or
the simultaneous occurrence of two or more of them, may create a flow
which the earth embankments in the southern plain are not able to
contain. In prehistoric times when primitive farmers sowed a catch crop
after the inundation, it was possible to adapt human settlement to the
ever-changing distribution of land and water, even though the villages
were frequently destroyed. But large permanent towns, dependent upon
drainage and irrigation, require unchanging watercourses. This can be
achieved only through relentless vigilance and toil; for the quickly
running Tigris carries so coarse a silt that canals easily get blocked.
Even when cleaned annually, they rise gradually above the plain as a
result of precipitation; and the risk that they, or the rivers
themselves, may burst through their banks is never excluded. In 1831 the
Tigris, rising suddenly, broke its embankment and destroyed 7000 houses
in Baghdad in a single night.[89]
Small wonder, then, that the boldness of those early people who
undertook to found permanent settlements in the shifting plain had its
obverse in anxiety; that the self-assertion which the city—its
organization, its institutions, citizenship itself—implied was
overshadowed by apprehension. The tension between courage and the
awareness of man’s dependence on superhuman power found a precarious
equilibrium in a peculiarly Mesopotamian conception. It was a conception
which was elaborated in theology but which likewise informed the
practical organization of society: the city was conceived to be ruled by
a god.
Theocracy, of course, was not peculiar to Mesopotamia: Egypt, too, was
ruled by a god. But this god was incarnate in Pharaoh; and whatever may
be paradoxical in a belief in the divinity of kings, it at least leaves
no doubt as to the ultimate authority in the state and subjects the
people unreservedly to the ruler’s command. In Mesopotamia no god was
identified with the mortal head of the state. The world of the gods and
the world of men were incommensurate. Nevertheless, a god was supposed
to own the city and its people. The temple was called the god’s house;
and it functioned actually as the manor-house on an estate, with the
community labouring in its service. We shall describe the organization
of the temple community at the end of this chapter. It is necessary
first to survey the actual remains of the Protoliterate cities—the
earliest cities in Mesopotamia.
In Protoliterate ruins the temples are the most striking feature. We
have seen how, in the Al Ubaid period, temples were erected at Eridu in
the south and at Tepe Gawra in the north. But the edifices of the
Protoliterate period at Erech are much more impressive. The temple of
the god Anu (Figs. 8, 45) was placed upon an artificial mound forty feet
high and covering an area of about 420,000 square feet. It dominated the
plain for many miles around. Near its base lay another great shrine,
dedicated to the goddess Inanna. Several times changed and rebuilt, it
measured, at one stage, 240 by 110 feet; at another it possessed a
colonnade in which each column measured 9 feet in diameter (Figs. 9,
10). Each of these, and also the adjoining walls and the sides of the
platform supporting them, was covered with a weatherproof “skin”
consisting of tens of thousands of clay cones, separately made, baked,
and coloured. These formed patterns of lozenges, zigzags, and triangles,
and so on, in black and red on a buff ground. The cones were stuck into
a thick mud plaster which covered the brickwork. The patterning in
colour enlivened a façade already richly articulated by complex systems
of buttresses, recesses, and semi-engaged columns, and thus achieved an
effect far beyond anything which the exclusive use of mud as building
material would suggest as attainable.
The most characteristic feature of Mesopotamian temple architecture was
the artificial mound, called a ziggurat or temple tower (Figs. 8, 11),
the tower of Babel being the best known, that of Ur the best preserved,
example. However, ziggurats were not found in connection with all
temples. The Protoliterate temple at Tell Uqair, which has the same plan
and even the same dimensions as the contemporary temple on the ziggurat
at Erech, stands on a platform only a few metres high.[90] I am inclined
to see in this an abbreviated rendering of the ziggurat, but the
possibility that the two differed in significance cannot be excluded. We
cannot explain why some temples should lack ziggurats; but we can
understand why so many great shrines were equipped with them, and why
the staggering communal effort which their construction entailed was
undertaken.
The significance of the ziggurats is revealed by the names which many of
them bear, names which identify them as mountains. That of the god Enlil
at Nippur, for example, was called “House of the Mountain, Mountain of
the Storm, Bond between Heaven and Earth.” Now “mountain,” as used in
Mesopotamia, is a term so heavily charged with religious significance
that a simple translation does it as little justice as it would to the
word “Cross” in Christian, or the words “West” or “Nun” (Primeval Ocean)
in Egyptian, usage.[91] In Mesopotamia the “mountain” is the place where
the mysterious potency of the earth, and hence of all natural life, is
concentrated. This is perhaps best understood if we look at a rather
rough relief of terra cotta (Fig. 12) which was found at Assur in a
temple of the second millennium B.C., although similar representations
are known on seals of a much earlier date. The deity represented is
clearly a personification of chthonic forces. His body grows out of a
mountain (the scale pattern is the conventional rendering of a
mountainside), and the plants grow from the mountainsides as well as
from the god’s hands. Goats feed on these plants; and water,
indispensable to all life, is represented by two minor deities flanking
the god. Deities like the main figure on this relief were worshipped in
all Mesopotamian cities, although their names differed. Tammuz is the
best known of them. As personifications of natural life they were
thought to be incapacitated during the Mesopotamian summer, which is a
scourge destroying vegetation utterly and exhausting man and beast. The
myths express this by saying that the god “dies” or that he is kept
captive in the “mountain.” From the mountain he comes forth at the New
Year when nature revives. Hence, the mountain is also the land of the
dead; and when the sun god is depicted rising daily upon the mountains
of the East, the scene is not merely a reminder of the geography of the
country. The vivifying rain is also brought from the mountain by the
weather god. Thus the mountain is essentially the mysterious sphere of
activity of the superhuman powers. The Sumerians created the conditions
under which communication with the gods became possible when they
erected the artificial mountains for their temples.
In doing so they also strengthened their political cohesion. The huge
building, raised to establish a bond with the power upon which the city
depended, proclaimed not only the ineffable majesty of the gods but also
the might of the community which had been capable of such an effort. The
great temples were witnesses to piety, but also objects of civic pride.
Built to ensure divine protection for the city, they also enhanced the
significance of citizenship. Outlasting the generation of their
builders, they were true monuments of the cities’ greatness.
It is in these temples that we find the first signs of a new invention
without which the undertaking of works of this magnitude, or, indeed, of
communal organization on a considerable scale, would not have been
feasible, that is, writing.[92] From the first it appears in the form of
impressions made by a reed on clay tablets. The earliest of the tablets,
found in the temple at Erech, were memoranda—aids for the running of the
temple as the production centre, warehouse, and workshop of the
community. The simplest were no more than tallies with a few numerals.
Others bear, besides the numerals, impressions of cylinder seals to
identify the parties or witnesses to the transactions recorded. Still
others indicate the object of the transaction. For instance, a simple
inscription may consist of the entry: so many sheep, so many goats.
There even occurs a more complex type, namely, a wage-list with a series
of entries—presumably personal names—followed by the indication “beer
and bread for one day.” There is no reason to assume (as has usually
been done) that these earliest tablets represent the last stage of a
long development; the script appears from the first as a system of
conventional signs—partly arbitrary tokens, partly pictograms—such as
might well have been introduced all at once (Fig. 13). We are confronted
with a true invention, not with an adaptation of pictorial art.[93]
As regards the art of the Protoliterate period, the vast majority of the
extant works deals with religious matters. Sometimes ritual acts were
depicted, sometimes an ornamental pattern was built up of religious
symbols; and occasionally it is impossible to be certain whether the one
or the other was intended. But the reference is, in all cases, to the
gods. Among the symbols—on seals[94] and in the mural decoration of
temples—plants and animals, especially those upon which man depends for
his livelihood, were by far the most frequent. These were the emblems of
the great goddess worshipped at Erech and throughout the land. They
occur singly or in combination (for instance an ear of barley and a bull
[Fig. 14; cf. Fig. 44]), the vegetable kingdom often being represented
by rosettes. Friezes of sheep or cattle covered the walls of the
Protoliterate temples—painted at Uqair, inlaid or carved in stone at
Erech (Figs. 17, 18).[95] Implements used in the cult, such as stands
for offerings, were likewise decorated with animals, as were also sacred
vessels: a trough (Fig. 5), from which the temple flock was presumably
fed, shows sheep near their fold—a reed structure (_srefe_) like those
still built by the Marsh Arabs in southern Iraq (Fig. 6); and the
building is crowned by two curiously bound reed bundles which correspond
to the oldest form of the sign with which the name of the mother-goddess
was written. Vases and seal designs showing the performance of ritual
acts (Figs. 15, 44) are also common. Like the symbols used in decorative
art, these acts point consistently to the worship of deities manifest in
nature.
The gods were also symbols of a collective identity. Each city projected
its sovereignty into the deity which it conceived as its owner. There
seems to be a contradiction here: the nature gods whom the Protoliterate
monuments celebrate would seem more suitable for worship by countrymen
and farmers than by townsmen as we know them. But our contrast “town
versus country” is misleading.[96] While it is true that the city in
Mesopotamia was an outstanding innovation of the Protoliterate period,
the great divergence between city and countryside, between rural and
urban life, is, in the form in which we are familiar with it, a product
of the “industrial revolution,” and emphasis on this contrast mars our
perspective when we view earlier situations.
About 400 B.C. roughly three-quarters of the Athenian burghers owned
some land in Attica,[97] and as recently as the European Middle Ages our
contrast “urban-rural” was unknown. At that time the city was as
distinct a social institution as it has ever been, but it was intimately
related with the land. Trevelyan writes:
In the Fourteenth Century the English town was still a rural and
agricultural community as well as a centre of industry and commerce
... outside lay the “townfields,” unenclosed by hedges, where each
citizen-farmer cultivated his own strips of cornland; and each grazed
his cattle and sheep on the common pasture of the town.... In 1388 it
was laid down by Parliamentary Statute that in harvest-time journeymen
and apprentices should be called on to lay aside their crafts and
should be compelled “to cut, gather and bring in the corn”; mayors,
bailiffs and constables of towns were to see this done.[98]
In Mesopotamia, then, many of the townspeople worked their own fields.
And the life of all was regulated by a calendar which harmonized
society’s progress through the year with the succession of the seasons.
A recurring sequence of religious festivals interrupted all business and
routine at frequent intervals; several days in each month were set aside
for the celebration of the completion by the moon of one of its phases,
and of other natural occurrences. The greatest annual event in each
city, which might last as long as twelve days, was the New Year’s
festival, celebrated at the critical point of the farmer’s year when
nature’s vitality was at a low ebb and everything depended upon a turn
of the tide. Society, involved to the extent of its very life, could not
passively await the outcome of the conflict between the powers of death
and revival. With great emotional intensity it participated by ritual
acts in the vicissitudes of the gods in whom were personified the
generative forces of nature. The mood of these urban celebrations, as
late as Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian times, shows that the main issue was
still the maintenance of the bond with nature.
We do not know for what reasons certain of the nature gods became
connected with a given city. We only know that the city, as soon as it
became recognizable, appears as the property of one god, although other
deities were worshipped there as well. The city god was sometimes viewed
as an absentee landlord, always difficult of approach and apt to express
himself somewhat casually in signs and portents, dreams and omens of
dubious meaning. Yet a misunderstanding of the commands thus conveyed
was likely to provoke the calamity of divine anger.
It is in keeping with the tenor of Mesopotamian religiosity at all times
that the relationship between the city and its divine owner could be
conceived only as one of complete dependence.[99] Throughout we meet
with the sombre conviction that man is impotently exposed to the impact
of a turbulent and unpredictable universe. This feeling was rationalized
in theology, which taught that man was created especially to serve the
convenience of the gods. In the _Epic of Creation_ man was brought into
being after Marduk, the creator, had remarked casually:
Let him be burdened with the toil of the gods that they may freely
breathe.
The same view is implied in an older, Sumerian, myth in which Enlil
breaks the earth’s crust with a pickaxe so that men may sprout forth
like plants. And the other gods surround Enlil and beg him to allot to
them serfs from among the Sumerians who are breaking forth from the
earth.[100]
The belief that man fulfilled the purpose of his being by serving the
gods had very remarkable consequences for the structure of early
Sumerian society. Since the citizens projected the sovereignty of their
community into their god, they were all equal in his service. In
practice this service took the form of a co-operative effort which was
minutely organized. The result was a planned society, and the remains of
the Protoliterate period show that it existed then, although it is
better known from Early Dynastic times.[101]
We must start by distinguishing two interlocking but distinct social
institutions. The political unit was the city; the economic-religious
unit the temple community. Each temple owned lands which formed the
estate of its divine owners. Each citizen belonged to one of the
temples, and the whole of a temple community—the officials and priests,
herdsmen and fishermen, gardeners, craftsmen, stone cutters, merchants,
and even slaves—was referred to as “the people of the god X.” Ideally
one can imagine one temple community to have formed the original kernel
of each city; but whether this situation ever prevailed we do not know,
since the Early Dynastic tablets acquaint us with cities comprising
several temples with their estates.[102]
[Illustration: 1. Sickles of bone and wood with flint “teeth”: A, B,
from Carmel, Palestine; C, from Sialk, Persia; D, from Fayum, Egypt;
E, from Saqqara, Egypt.]
[Illustration: 2. Camp site at Hassuna.]
[Illustration: 3. Papyrus swamp on the Upper Nile. (_Courtesy of
American Museum._)]
[Illustration: 4. Chart of the sequence of predynastic and
protodynastic remains by Dr. Helene J. Kantor.]
[Illustration: 5. Sculptured trough, Protoliterate Period.]
[Illustration: 6. Marsh Arabs in Southern Iraq.]
[Illustration: 7. Clay objects of the Al Ubaid period, from Tell
Uqair.]
[Illustration: 8. The “White Temple” on its ziggurat at Erech.]
[Illustration: 9. Semi-engaged columns covered with cone mosaic,
Erech.]
[Illustration: 10. Colonnade on platform, Erech.]
[Illustration: 11. The Ishtar ziggurat at Erech in Assyrian times.]
[Illustration: 12. Fertility god on cult-relief, from Assur.]
[Illustration: 13. The development of Mesopotamian writing.
(arbitrary tokens are not included in column A.—See p. 58 f.)]
Columns:
A _Original pictograph_
B _Pictograph in position of later cuneiform_
C _Early Babylonian_
D _Assyrian_
E _Original or derived meaning_
Rows:
_1_ bird
_2_ fish
_3_ donkey
_4_ ox
_5_ sun, day
_6_ grain
_7_ orchard
_8_ to plow, to till
_9_ boomerang, to throw, to throw down
_10_ to stand, to go
[Illustration: 14-16. Seal impressions of the Protoliterate period.]
[Illustration: 14]
[Illustration: 15]
[Illustration: 16]
[Illustration: 17-18. Stone ram of the Protoliterate period, Yale
Babylonian Collection.]
[Illustration: 17]
[Illustration: 18]
[Illustration: 19. Early Dynastic temple at Khafajah.]
[Illustration: 20. Early Dynastic copper model of a chariot, from
Tell Agrab.]
[Illustration: 21. Early Dynastic figure, from Khafajah.]
[Illustration: 22. Bronze head of an Akkadian ruler.]
[Illustration: 23-24. Knife handle, from Gebel el Arak.]
[Illustration: 23]
[Illustration: 24]
[Illustration: 25. The Hunters’ palette.]
[Illustration: 26. Macehead of king “Scorpion.”]
[Illustration: 27. Reverse of King Narmer’s palette.]
[Illustration: 28. Obverse of King Narmer’s palette.]
[Illustration: 29. Harvesting scenes from the tomb of Ti, Old
Kingdom.]
[Illustration: 30. Agricultural scenes, from the tomb of Menna, New
Kingdom.]
[Illustration: 31. Plan of workmen’s village at Tell el Amarna.]
[Illustration: 32-34. Impressions of cylinders: 32, found in Egypt,
33 and 34, in Iraq.]
[Illustration: 32]
[Illustration: 33]
[Illustration: 34]
[Illustration: 35-39. Protodynastic cylinders and impressions, from
Egypt.]
[Illustration: 35]
[Illustration: 36]
[Illustration: 37]
[Illustration: 38]
[Illustration: 39]
[Illustration: 40-41. Flint knife with handle of gold-foil, from
Gebel el Tarif.]
[Illustration: 42. Mesopotamian seal impression (right) and Egyptian
First Dynasty buildings (left).]
[Illustration: 43. Stele of Djet, First Dynasty.]
[Illustration: 44. Mesopotamian seal impressions (right) and
Egyptian First Dynasty buildings (left).]
[Illustration: 45. “White Temple,” Erech.]
[Illustration: 46. Tomb of Hemaka, First Dynasty, Saqqara.]
[Illustration: 47. Tomb at Abu Roash.]
[Illustration: 48. Recesses with timbers, “White Temple,” Erech.]
[Illustration: 49. Wooden coffin, Tarkhan.]
[Illustration: 50. Recesses with timbers, Abu Roash.]
[Illustration: 51. Map of the Ancient Near East, from the
_Westminster Historical Atlas of the Bible_. (_Courtesy of the
Westminster Press, Philadelphia._)]
Part of the temple land was actually worked by all for all, or again, to
put it in the terms of the ancients, by all in the service of the god.
This part of the land—not more than one-fourth of the whole in a case we
can check—was called _nigenna_-land, a term which may be translated
“Common,” since the land involved was cultivated by the community as a
whole. A second part, called _kur_-land, was divided into allotments
which were assigned to members of the community for their support. A
third part, called _Uru-lal_-land, was let out to tenants at a rent
amounting to from one-third to one-sixth of the yield. Most of this rent
could be paid in grain, but a small part had to be paid in silver.
The temple supplied the seed-corn, draft animals, and implements for the
cultivation of the Common; and high and low worked every year in the
“fields of the god,” repairing the dikes and canals as a _corvée_. The
_sangu_, or priest, who stood at the head of the temple community
assigned the shares in the communal tasks. He appeared as bailiff of the
god and was assisted by a _nubanda_, or steward, who supervised labour,
magazines, and administration. Stores of grain which had accumulated
were not merely used for seed-corn, nor were they exclusively at the
disposal of the priest, to be used for sacrifices and for the sustenance
of the temple personnel. The priests, like everyone else, had their
allotments to support themselves, and the fruits of communal labour
returned in part to the citizens in the form of rations of barley and
wool, which were distributed regularly, and extra rations, supplied on
feast days.
Although the amounts of rations were not equal, nor the tasks assigned
to all men equally burdensome, we observe here a fact unparalleled in
the ancient world, namely, that in principle all members of the
community were equal. All received rations as well as allotments to
support themselves; all worked on the Common and on the canals and
dikes. There was no leisure class. Likewise there were no native serfs.
Some foreigners and prisoners of war were kept as slaves, but private
people possessed very few, if any. Slaves worked in the temple alongside
free-men as porters and gardeners. Slave girls were kept in considerable
numbers as spinners, and they helped in the kitchens, the brewery, and
the sties where pigs were fattened.
The allotments differed in size, even when assigned to men of the same
profession, and we cannot explain the differences. There is no evidence
of large estates in the hands of single members of the temple community,
but we may suppose that the existence of several temple communities in
one city may have made it possible for some men to dispose of allotments
in more than one of them. We know of a _nubanda_ who had about 120 acres
and a supervisor of the herb magazines who owned about 80 acres.[103]
But such conditions represent deviations from the original system. More
significant is the fact that even the smallest allotment entered in the
temple lists—a _gan_, or seven-eighths of an acre—would suffice to keep
a man. Monogamy and the scarcity of slaves would, in any case, limit the
area which one family could cultivate.
Women are also listed as holders of allotments, and this means that they
served the community in some function or other. For the basic rule of
the temple community was that a person received land for his sustenance
because he put his specialized skill at the service of all: the shepherd
and the fisherman, the carpenter and the smith provided the temple
magazines with certain quantities of their produce or simply devoted all
their time to work on temple property.
The magazines (Fig. 19)[104] contained an immense variety of articles:
grain, sesame seed as the raw material for oil, onions and other
vegetables, beer, dates, wine (which was rare), fish (dried or salted),
fat, wool, skins, huge quantities of reeds and rushes used for ceilings
and for torches, temporary structures, mats for floor coverings and
hangings, wood of many kinds, asphalt (used wherever anything had to be
waterproof), valuable stones like marble and diorite, to be made into
statues and cult objects such as offering-stands, ritual vessels, and
the maceheads of the temple guards. The stone, and some of the wood, was
imported by merchants, who also brought from Elam aromatics which, in
the “oil house,” were made into ointments with a base of animal fat.
Tools were owned by the temple in great quantities and given out on
loan.
All these articles and materials were checked and booked upon arrival
and either stored or worked up within the temple precincts. Carpenters
made ploughs and other implements, kept them in repair, and built
chariots, and probably ships. Tanners prepared skins for harnesses and
for leather bottles in which milk and oil were kept. Wool was prepared,
and part of it spun, by slave girls; the Baba temple at Lagash employed
127 of these, with 30 of their children. But only 18 were spinners. The
others cleaned and prepared the wool, of which large quantities were
used in the export trade. A good deal was also distributed as rations to
the members of the community. The shearing of the numerous sheep—or
rather, the plucking of their wool—was done in a special compound
outside the temple precincts, as was, likewise, the milling of the
grain.
Barley constituted the main crop, but spelt and emmer wheat were also
grown. Monthly rations of barley went from the granaries to the brewery
and kitchen of the temple. The brewers also took charge of sheep and
cattle to be fattened. But cattle were scarce, for there was little rich
meadow land for grazing. The steppe in Iraq will sustain sheep in
spring, but the sun burns the grass early in the summer; and even in
antiquity the flocks had to be tided over the worst period with grain.
In some local calendars there is a month “in which barley is given to
the sheep.”
The common protein food was fish rather than meat. We have records of
private fishponds, and fifty different kinds of fishes are named in the
texts. These also distinguish river fishermen, canal fishermen, coast
fishermen, and fishermen of the high seas. Sheep and goats were kept for
milk and wool. Oxen were used for ploughing, as were also asses. Both
oxen and asses were used in teams of four head and fed on barley. The
native breeds, deteriorating in the exhausting climate of the plain,
were periodically invigorated by crossing with animals imported from
Persia. Pigs were kept in the marshes and were also fattened.
Beside extensive cane brakes the temple owned “woods”; these consisted
largely of date groves, and there, between the palms, other plants were
cultivated, such as grapes, figs, pomegranates, and mulberries.[105]
Other groves consisted of timber trees, and there were apple orchards
where, it seems, the blind were put to work.[106]
The citizens, when working for the temple, were organized in groups or
guilds under their own foremen. These divided the tasks among the
members of the group, were responsible for the delivery of the produce,
and received the rations for the group. Other lists, enumerating the
citizens liable for military service, suggest that the men served
guildwise with their foremen as cadre. But there were also professional
soldiers, distinguished in two groups, spearmen and shield-bearers. In
peace time they worked on the Common, harvested reeds in the cane brakes
and assisted in building operations.
The specialization and detailed division of labour of the temple
community, and especially the grouping of all kinds of labourers under
foremen responsible for deliveries and receipt of rations, offered many
opportunities for oppression. But too much can be made of the weaknesses
of the system. To speak of the “surplus” of food which must be produced
in order to maintain officials as well as merchants and craftsmen, and
to imply that the officials must have been a parasitic class which kept
the farmers in subjection,[107] leaves out of account several
circumstances, of which the most important is the climate of the
country. Wherever there is power there is, inevitably, abuse of power.
But the rich soil of Mesopotamia, if well watered, produces food in
abundance without excessive or continuous toil. Labour in the fields was
largely seasonal. At seed time and harvest time every able-bodied person
was no doubt on the land, as was the case in medieval England. But the
farmers were not a separate class or caste. Every citizen, whether
priest, merchant, or craftsman, was a practical farmer who worked his
allotment to support himself and his dependents. Once the seed was sown
and the harvest gathered, plenty of time remained in which special
skills could be developed, taught, and exploited. There are interesting
analogies in villages of our own time, where often enough a farmer or a
labourer is a specialist in some branch of craftsmanship. In Europe this
condition is rapidly disappearing and was never regularized; but we may
quote two modern African instances which will make it easier for us to
imagine how practical husbandry and the exercise of crafts and home
industry can go together. The modern instances differ, of course, in
important details but are instructive nevertheless. It is said about the
Nuer:
There are no specialized and hereditary trades though certain persons
may acquire a local reputation for skill in making such things as
pipes, collars for bulls, canoes or ivory bracelets. These people are
not craftsmen by trade, and their activities centre round their
cattle, like every other Nuer. Their services are normally accepted by
others as part of the integral system of mutual aid which is the basis
of every Nuer community, and they are repaid by assistance in pastoral
or agricultural activities or by reciprocal gifts.[108]
For another instance, with a rather peculiar character:
In West Africa the Pangwe do not make a business of carving and
weaving; all such work is done on the side, in the intervals of
fishing and farming. But in so far as a man does carve he is the
narrowest of experts. He will manufacture tools but will leave bows to
his neighbour, and a spoon carver would never attempt a ladle.[109]
We are reminded of the many names to designate fishermen in Sumerian,
even though specialization was certainly less narrow in the Mesopotamian
cities. But the point I want to make is that, for all the guilds and
professional skills which we find there, the population as a whole was
concerned with the primary business of tillage and cannot be compared
with any modern body of city dwellers.
Since a considerable proportion of agricultural and other produce passed
through the temple magazines, an elaborate system of administration was
set up. To illustrate the kind of careful accounts kept of the expenses,
we shall quote a record of the grain used in a certain operation. To
understand it, it is necessary to know that the fields were ploughed
twice, first to break up the ground, then to sow and cover the seed. For
the second ploughing a seed funnel was attached to the plough to ensure
an even distribution along the furrow. Since the second ploughing was
less heavy than the breaking of the ground, the oxen used for it got
only half the fodder allotted to the teams used in the first. (The
Sumerian measures can be converted by taking the _gan_ at just under an
acre and the _gur_ at about 3⅓ bushels.)
147 _gan_ arable land, the oxen put in the plough and seed:
barley for food of the ploughing oxen 24½ _gur_
barley for food of the sowing oxen 12¼ “
seed-corn 12¼ “
waste 1½ “
36 _gan_ sown in addition:
seed-corn 3 “
fodder 3 “
Together: 183 _gan_ arable land. Its grain 56½ “
Expenditure for the Common[110]
This grain came from the temple magazines which had been filled by the
harvest of the Common.
In order to make it possible to draw up a budget, the yield per acre was
estimated, account being taken of whether the land was good and arable,
newly reclaimed, swampy, or distant from water. The monthly allowances
of functionaries were listed, as were the monthly supplies to brewery,
bakery, and kitchen, and the tasks allotted to the guilds of craftsmen,
shepherds, fishermen; and other specialized workers were also listed in
monthly quotas. All these documents were signed by the _sangu_ and the
_nubanda_. But the absence of money made simplification imperative,
since the accounts recorded a continual intake of all kinds of goods,
and the outflow of similarly varied stores, in the form of rations,
sacrifices, materials for repairs, goods for trade, and so on—which were
not reduced to a common standard of value. It would have been impossible
to budget from month to month and from year to year unless the
book-keeping had been adapted to a somewhat simple scheme with fixed
ratios prevailing throughout. The schematic character of the temple
accounts can be seen in the one instance which we quoted above: the
fodder for the sowing oxen was precisely the same quantity as that used
for seed. The span used to break the ground received precisely twice the
amount allotted to the span following after with the seed funnel.
Similar simple ratios were used for valuations: one _gur_ of barley was
reckoned equivalent to one _gin_ of silver; one _gur_ of barley was
likewise charged as rent for one _gan_ of land. It is obvious that such
equations reduced the innumerable calculations of the temple
book-keeping to manageable proportions. But it is likewise obvious that
these simplified and rigid scales never corresponded to the actual
values of goods or services. The margin cannot have worked consistently
to the detriment of the people, for then the system would have
collapsed. Consequently, the margin must have been disadvantageous to
the temple economy which could well afford it and which was, in a way,
the property of the people as a whole. When in bad years deliveries of
certain goods fell short of the quantities due each month to the temple
magazines, debts arose and were duly booked and were expected,
ultimately, to be paid off. But, on the whole, the organization of the
temple economy aimed at simplicity rather than efficiency; and in the
Sumerian city, although it was a “planned society,” men found
considerable scope for private enterprise.
The margin between the schematic values used in dealings with the temple
and the actual yield of fields, flocks, and workshops must have given
opportunities for some accumulation of private wealth and hence for
barter. Craftsmen could utilize their special skills for private
commissions as long as they used materials not supplied by the temple
magazines. The shepherd could dispose of any increase in his flock
beyond the statutory figure; the fisherman could dispose of the
remainder of his catch after delivering to the temple his monthly quota.
If, therefore, “the people of the god X”—the temple community—can be
said to have lived under a system of theocratic socialism, we must add
that this planned economy formed a hard core which was surrounded by an
ample fringe of private enterprise that remained free.[111]
That the accumulation of private wealth was accepted by the community as
a matter of course is shown by the rule that a proportion of the rent of
_uru-lal_ land had to be paid in silver and not in produce. Moreover,
the variety of imported articles testifies to the scope left to barter.
It is true that the import and export trade was again organized at the
centre. Merchants travelled abroad to obtain stones, gold, silver,
copper, lead, wood, and aromatics for the temple. In exchange they could
offer grain, dates, onions, and similar produce. But their best
opportunities were offered by the produce, not of the rich Mesopotamian
soil, but of the skill of the people. Manufactured goods sent abroad
included, above all (and at all times), textiles—woollen clothing,
hangings, and carpets—and also, to judge by the wide distribution of
Sumerian types of tools, weapons, and jewellery, metal objects fashioned
in the Plain from imported materials. The merchant in those early days
was concerned exclusively with export and import. He did not conduct
trade among members of his own community; he exchanged locally finished
goods for products of other cities in the Plain or of foreign countries
like Elam. It is significant that in return for his effort he received
an allotment of land—certain proof that he was in the service of the
community. Moreover, he had the use of a team of donkeys belonging to
the temple, no doubt in view of his travels (Fig. 20). It seems likely
enough that the merchants found opportunities for private trade on the
side, and it remains uncertain to what extent they supplied directly the
imported articles found in houses. In excavations, for instance,
handmills consisting of flat stones with roundish grinders were found in
every house. Yet the hard volcanic stones used for them must all have
been imported. In the private tombs of the end of the Protoliterate
period lead tumblers and stone vases are common. At Khafajah copper
vessels, and stands for stone food dishes, or drinking cups, or lamps,
are found in graves of the Second Early Dynastic period. The somewhat
later cemeteries at Kish and Ur show even greater luxury and refinement.
There were found copper mirrors; copper and gold toilet sets—tweezers, a
toothpick, and an ear-scoop, fastened on a ring and carried in a small
conical case; pins of copper or silver with round lapis lazuli heads;
beads and animal pendants of alabaster, carnelian, and lapis lazuli, and
other semi-precious stones. The silversmith knew how to make filigrain
pendants and girdle clasps, and even fine-linked chains.
Most of these articles were, of course, luxuries. In matters of
dwelling, food, and clothing, the country was self-supporting. The
houses were built of sun-dried bricks and make an entirely unpretentious
impression. They do not show a regular system of planning. Rooms were
fitted together as the available plot allowed. Doors were low and
arched; one had to stoop to pass from one room to another. Windows were
small and high up in the walls and fitted with wooden bars or with
screens of baked clay. But the ruins of mud brick do not give a fair
impression of the setting in which these people lived. We must imagine
the floors covered with smooth, clean rush mats, the walls and benches
with gaily coloured rugs and blankets.
The people wore a shawl-like dress, wound round the waist, sometimes
with one end pulled round the back and forward over the left shoulder
(Fig. 21). It is rendered on the monuments in a manner which suggests
sheep or goatskin, but this may be a ceremonial dress only, for it is
certain that textiles were worn and they are depicted from the middle of
the third millennium onward.
Thus the actual remains found in the excavations demonstrate that the
temple community did not impose as rigid a form of life on its members
as our description may have suggested; and the texts, in proving the
existence of private property and trade, corroborate the elasticity of
the system. We know, moreover, that it was able to bear the strain of
hard times; for it has been calculated[112] that the temple received a
great deal more grain from the _nigenna_ land and as rent than was
normally needed. The accumulated reserves were made available in an
emergency—a better safeguard of the people’s food supply than reliance
on individual providence might have been. It seems also that the temple
supplied rations during the interval between sowing time and harvest,
when stores were low.[113]
The accounts of the temple do not differentiate between its role as
central store of the community and its religious function; goods
withdrawn for sacrifices are treated exactly like those serving for
rations. The distinction in function was apparently not made. The temple
community was a religious institution regulating the social life of the
community, and the two aspects which we distinguish were apparently
experienced as one and indivisible.
The temple community seems not, however, to have been a political
institution. The oldest such institutions of which traces have yet been
recognized[114] show the same equalitarian spirit as the organization of
the religious community. Political authority seems originally to have
rested with the citizens; sovereign power under the city god lay in an
assembly—presumably consisting of all free males—guided by a group of
elders who seem, moreover, to have been in charge of current affairs.
Since the terms for “assembly” and “elders” occur already in the
Protoliterate tablets, we can surmise that these peculiar political
institutions existed as long as the cities themselves.
It is well to recognize the extraordinary character of this urban form
of political organization. It represents in the highest degree the
intensified self-consciousness and self-assertion which we recognized as
distinctive of the innovations of the Protoliterate period. It is a
man-made institution overriding the natural and primordial division of
society in families and clans. It asserts that habitat, not kinship,
determines one’s affinities. The city, moreover, does not recognize
outside authority. It may be subjected by a neighbour or a ruler; but
its loyalty cannot be won by force, for its sovereignty rests with the
assembly of its citizens. Thus, the early Mesopotamian cities resembled
those of Greece, of the Hanseatic League, of Renaissance Italy, in many
respects. In all these cases we meet local autonomy, the assumption that
every citizen is concerned with the common weal, and a small group of
influential men who deal with current affairs and sometimes impose an
oppressive oligarchy upon the mass of the people.
We do not know whether oligarchic rule ever became a Mesopotamian
institution. Our Protoliterate sources are too scanty to disclose
gradations of power within the existing framework. And in Early Dynastic
times, when the texts became plentiful, the framework had collapsed and
the old institutions were no more than ghostlike survivals of the past.
But it was single rule rather than oligarchy which had supplanted the
assembly.
The reason for the change is clear; the equalitarian assembly possessed
the disadvantages of freedom to an uncommon degree. Subjection to the
will of the majority, as expressed in a vote, was unknown. The assembly
continued deliberation under the guidance of the elders until practical
unanimity was reached. This might be the result of true agreement, or of
mass emotion, or due to a prudent concurrence of the opponents with a
line of action advocated by a powerful group. In any case, it was not
easily attained; and in an emergency when quick decision and purposeful
action was required, the Mesopotamian city, like the Roman republic, put
itself into the hands of a dictator. In Sumer he was called _lugal_,
which means “great man” and is habitually translated “king.”[115]
Kingship was a _bala_, a “reversion,” or “return to origin.” In other
words, the kingly office had a limited tenure; at the end of the
emergency authority reverted to the assembly. But, in practice, the
threat of an emergency was never absent once the cities flourished and
increased in number. Contiguous fields, questions of drainage and
irrigation, the safeguarding of supplies by procuring safety of
transit—all these might become matters of dispute between neighbouring
cities. We can follow through five or six generations a futile and
destructive war between Umma and Lagash with a few fields of arable land
as the stakes. Under such conditions the kingship seems to have become
permanent in certain cities.
Elsewhere the concentrated authority called for by the dangers to which
the community was frequently exposed was conferred upon leaders who held
important permanent offices. Some of these were exalted enough to enable
their holders, when emergencies arose, to exercise power similar to that
of the _lugal_. The _sangu_ or _nubanda_ in the temple of the city god
was the administrative leader of the most important temple community in
the city. For him to become the political leader of the city was
perfectly feasible, but in such a case the official who had usurped the
prerogatives of a ruler assumed, instead of the secular title _lugal_, a
title emphasizing his dependence on the city god and proclaiming, by
implication, the god’s agreement with his rule. This title was _ensi_,
best translated as “governor” (viz. of the god).
Whether _lugal_ or _ensi_, the city ruler in Mesopotamia did not derive
his position from any innate superiority or right of birth. He acted
either on behalf of the assembly, or as steward of the real sovereign,
the city god. In theology, personal rule was sanctioned by a doctrine of
divine election which remained the foundation of kingship down to the
end of the Assyrian empire. Divine approval could be withdrawn at any
time, and the formation of a dynasty, the succession of the son to the
throne of the father, although known already in Early Dynastic times,
had no basis in the theory of kingship but was interpreted in each case
as a sign of favour bestowed by the gods. These limiting conceptions of
the monarchy reflect the preponderant influence of the city in
Mesopotamian thought. Monarchy remained a problematical institution and
failed, therefore, to become an instrument of unity as it did in Egypt.
It carried in some degree the taint of usurpation, especially in early
times.
The task of the _ensi_ in the main was to co-ordinate the temple
communities within the city. To each he assigned a share in the common
tasks on buildings, canals, and dikes. These _corvées_ were then divided
among the guilds and individual members of a community by its _sangu_ or
_nubanda_. The _ensi_ dealt, furthermore, with matters of defence and
trade, in other words, with foreign affairs. The professional soldiers
were under his direct and personal command and formed an important
source of his power within the city. Like every other citizen, he
received an allotment for his sustenance; but his fields were part of
the Common and were cultivated by the people as part of their communal
task. Here, again, was an opportunity for abuse of power. Moreover, it
became customary to acknowledge the _ensi’s_ exalted position by
offering him presents on the festivals of the gods. He also took a fee
for making legal decisions or decreeing a divorce, and imposed certain
taxes. While he administered the main temple of the city, he appointed
members of his family to head other temple communities.
Although the assembly seems not to have been superseded entirely, the
effective power of the _ensi_ was preponderant; and what had been the
original strength of Sumerian society, its integration with the temple
organization, became its weakness when the leaders of the temple
communities utilized the need for leadership, which the growth of the
cities called forth, to oppress the people. We know, for instance, that
one _ensi_ sequestered fields assigned to him on the Common and used
them to build up an independent “estate of the palace,” modelled on that
of the temple. The tablets from Fara show how varied an assortment of
people had become directly dependent upon the _ensi_: scribes,
chamberlains, heralds, pages, cupbearers, butlers, cooks, musicians, and
all kinds of craftsmen.[116] An equalitarian society had been thoroughly
transformed, and the power assumed by the ruler was reflected in the
presumptions and extortions of his officials. In fact, the Early
Dynastic period ends, in Lagash, in an abortive attempt to move against
the current and restore the theocratic form of its ideal prototype to
Sumerian society. An _ensi_, called Urukagina, states that he
“contracted with the god Ningirsu (the city god of Lagash) that he would
not deliver up the orphan and the widow to the powerful man.”[117] He
also put a stop to specific abuses: “he took the ships away from the
master of the boatmen; he took the sheep and asses away from the
head-herdsman.... He took away from the heralds the tribute which the
_sangus_ paid to the palace.” These “changes,” and many like them,
listed in the so-called reform texts, mean that the prerogatives usurped
by the foremen and officials were abolished and that these rights were
vested once more exclusively in the temple as a vital organ of the
community.
Urukagina also ended abuses introduced by his own predecessors; he
forbade, to use his own words, “that oxen of the god plough the onion
plot of the _ensi_.” He lowered the fees for interments and for prayer
services. He vindicated the right of the lowly man to his property:
When a good donkey has been born to a royal soldier (?), and his
foreman has said to him, “I will buy it from thee”—if he then lets him
buy—he shall say: “Weigh out unto me silver as much as is pleasing to
my heart.” And if he does not let him buy, the foreman shall not
molest him.
It is, of course, possible to suppose that Urukagina, by curbing the
power of prominent people, was trying, not only to restore the temple
communities to their original purity, but also to win the support of the
common people for himself. In any case, factors outside his control
interfered with his plans. He was attacked by the ruler of the
neighbouring city of Umma and destroyed.
The abuses Urukagina tried to abolish were, in essence, those which
vitiate the realization of any political ideal. Weaknesses peculiar to
Mesopotamia, however, became clear when serious attempts were made to
establish a unified state comprising all the separate cities. This
change was attempted by Sargon of Akkad and his successors (Fig.
22).[118] Sargon had been a high official under a king of Kish, and
about 2340 B.C. he founded a city of his own, Akkad. He defeated
Lugalzaggesi, the conqueror of Urukagina, and other city rulers who
opposed him, until he was paramount throughout the country. Similar
successes had been achieved before his time, but they had always been
short-lived. And while Sargon’s rise to power conformed entirely to the
older pattern, a piecemeal subjection of other cities, he struck out a
new course in consolidating his position. This time the state survived
its founder for several generations. The novelty of his approach may be
due to the fact that he represented a northern element in the
Mesopotamian population which now became dominant for the first time.
This is indicated by the inscriptions: royal inscriptions and many
business documents began to be written in the Semitic language which is
called Akkadian. This change, in particular, is responsible for the
opinion held by some scholars that the rise of Sargon represents a
foreign conquest;[119] and it is true that the language points to the
middle Euphrates and adjoining territories as its country of origin. But
this region had been permeated by Mesopotamian culture for centuries,
and people from that quarter cannot be called foreigners in the ordinary
sense of the word. Already in Protoliterate times Sumerian civilization
had moved northwards along the two rivers, as the Al Ubaid culture
(probably also Sumerian) had done in prehistoric times. As Roman
influence in barbaric Europe can be traced by means of coins, the
influence of Protoliterate Mesopotamia throughout the ancient Near East
can be traced by the distinctive cylinder seals of the period. They are
found as far to the north as Troy, as far to the south as Upper Egypt,
as far to the east as middle, or even north-east Persia.[120] At Brak,
on the Khabur in northern Syria, 500 miles north of Erech, has been
discovered a temple built on the plan of those in the south, containing
similar objects and decorated with cone mosaics.[121] Later, in Early
Dynastic times, Ishtar temples at Mari on the Euphrates and at Assur on
the Tigris were equipped with statues of Sumerian style, representing
men in Sumerian dress.[122] Thus it is obvious that there existed along
the two great rivers a cultural continuum within which people could move
without creating a disturbance in the fabric of civilization. And the
change of language to which we have referred, points to a gradual but
continuous drift of people towards the south, as if the cultural
influences emanating from Sumer attracted those who had come under its
spell. Evidence of this movement is contained in Early Dynastic
inscriptions. The thoroughly Sumerianized people of Mari, who had
adopted the Sumerian script, inscribed their statues in Akkadian. The
same seems to have happened at Khafajah near Baghdad. At Kish, a little
farther to the south, the population seems to have been bilingual.[123]
These observations in the field of language are valuable pointers; there
may have been other, intangible, differences between the northern and
the southern elements in the population of Mesopotamia, differences
which would distinguish two strains with distinct cultural traditions.
And although the old view that the accession of Sargon of Akkad
represents a foreign conquest is untenable, his reign truly marks a new
beginning. In the arts a new spirit finds magnificent expression, and in
statecraft an entirely new attempt is made to create a political unity
which would comprise the city states but surpass their scope, and which
had no precedent in the past.[124] The house of Sargon appears as a
succession of rulers consistently claiming kingship over the whole land;
and it is possible that their political ideal was not unrelated with the
fact that they were free, as their predecessors were not, from the
traditional viewpoint which grasped political problems exclusively in
terms of the city. For among most semitic-speaking people kinship
provides the supreme bond. It is possible that the Akkadian-speaking
inhabitants of middle and northern Mesopotamia had always acknowledged
loyalties which went beyond the city proper. In Sumer there is no sign
of the existence of such loyalties, nor was there a political
institution which over-arched the sovereignty of the separate cities.
But of Sargon a chronicle reports: “He settled his palace folk for
thirty-three miles and reigned over the people of all lands.”[125] The
first part of this entry suggests that Sargon allotted parts of lands of
temple communities to his own followers, thus overriding the age-old
local basis of land rights. No conqueror could rely on the loyalty of
the defeated cities, and it seems as if Sargon built up a personal
following, perhaps exploiting kinship ties in the wide sense of tribal
loyalty. Under his grandson Naramsin, governors of cities styled
themselves “slave of the king.”
Sargon also seems to have made a bid for the loyalty of the common
people. This appears from a change in the formula for oaths.[126] The
name of the king could now be invoked alongside the gods. This had a
definite practical significance: if an agreement thus sworn to was
broken, or if perjury was committed, the king was involved and would
make it his business to uphold the right of the injured party. This was
of the utmost importance, for the judge had originally been merely an
arbitrator, whose main task was the reconciliation or satisfying of both
parties. He had had no power to enforce his decisions; and if a man
without personal prestige did not have a powerful patron to “overshadow
him,”[127] there was little chance of his finding satisfaction in court.
The new oath formula put the king in the position of the patron of all
who swore by his name; in practice he constituted a court of appeal for
the whole land, independent of the cities—a step of the greatest
importance in the development of Mesopotamian law and society. Another
step towards unification of the country was the introduction of a
uniform calendar. Hitherto each city had had its own, with its own month
names and festivals. Finally, the existence of a single monarch, who
styled himself “King of the Four Quarters of the World,” served as a
perpetual remainder of the unity of the state.[128]
If pressure from the outside world could be relied upon to bring about
national unity, Mesopotamia would no doubt have become a single state on
the lines laid down by the kings of Akkad. For the country was at all
times exposed to great dangers. Civilized and prosperous, but lacking
natural boundaries, it tempted mountaineers and steppe dwellers with the
possibilities of easy loot. Raids could be dealt with by the cities, but
the large-scale invasions, which recurred every few centuries, required
a strong central government to be repelled. The safeguarding of the
trade routes, too, went beyond the competence of individual cities, and
one would expect them to have co-operated in a national effort. Indeed,
we find an epic, “The King of Battle,” which describes how Sargon of
Akkad, at the request of Mesopotamian merchants trading in Anatolia,
went there with an army to champion their cause. The story may well
reflect an actual occurrence, for Sargon’s grandson, Naramsin, built a
strong castle at Brak on the Khabur, and the lumber used in its
construction included not only poplar and plane, but also ash, elm, oak,
and pine, which must have been imported.[129] The Akkadian kings thus
undertook a task which occupied all succeeding rulers of the land. Even
in the first millennium, the annual sweep of the Assyrian army up into
the mountains of Armenia and down towards the west was a sustained and
systematic attempt to keep the mountaineers in check; for, with the
unlimited possibilities of retreat into their remote valleys, it was
impossible to subject them permanently. From Sargon of Akkad on, kings
knew that it was necessary to maintain a unified and centralized state;
it was necessary to dominate the borderlands sufficiently to meet
aggression there; in short, imperialism was the only guarantee of peace.
One would expect to find the people rallying to the new order imposed by
the Akkadian kings, especially since a feeling of national coherence did
exist. The Sumerians had a phrase, “the black-headed people,” to
designate themselves as an ethnic unit; and the gods Enlil and Anu,
among others, were worshipped throughout the land. But this feeling had
never found expression in a political form; it remained without effect,
it seems, on the country’s history. The particularism of the cities was
never overcome. At each new accession of a king in Akkad, the land rose
in revolt. Far from rallying against the barbarians, the people
attempted to revert to the local autonomy which had been the rule before
the rise of Sargon. Similar conditions persisted throughout the
country’s history. For example, the discoveries at Tell Asmar (ancient
Eshnunna) illustrate the prevalence of local over national
considerations. The ruler of that city collaborated with the Amorites
who ravaged the country after the fall of the Third Dynasty of Ur; the
barbarians were tolerated, and perhaps even assisted in their attacks on
neighbouring towns, which were incorporated into the state of Eshnunna
after the Amorites had looted them.[130]
Under the Akkadian kings the tragic pattern of Mesopotamia’s history
became visible. About 2180 B.C. their dynasty collapsed under the
onslaught of the Guti from the Zagros Mountains. Combined invasions of
Elamites and Amorites ended the empire of the Third Dynasty of Ur in
2025 B.C. The invasions of Hittites and Kassites ended the empire of
Hammurabi’s dynasty in 1595 B.C. The invasion of the Medes destroyed the
Assyrian empire (611 B.C.). The attack of Cyrus the Persian ended
Neo-Babylonian rule (539 B.C.).
The absence of safety and stability in the political field is entirely
in keeping with the prevailing mood of the country. Mesopotamia achieved
her triumphs in an atmosphere of deep disquiet. The spirit pervading her
most important writings is one of disbelief in man’s ability to achieve
lasting happiness. Salvation might be experienced emotionally in the
annual festivals of the gods, but was not a postulate of theology.