The Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East

["TOWARD CIVILIZATION Below The typical Halaf ho use the Mediterranean coast and t he highlands of t he those at Yarim Tepe II had walls that were only was a round hut, somelimes with central Zagros. In some ways, however, it was 25 centimeters thick and may have been roofed outside the mainstream of development. using timber beams. a rectangular entrance chamber The p lants grown were the same as in the pre- Tholoi have been found throughout the range of or storeroom. T he huts may have ceding Hassuna and Samarra periods: einkorn, t he Halaf cult ure, from the upper Euphrates near been roofed with domes or emmer and hexaploid wheat, two-row hulled and Carchemish to t he Hamrin basin on the Irag- Iran tim bcr beams and often had six-row naked and hulled barley, lentils, bitter border. As well as having circular dwelli ng houses, walls dividing the circular room vetch, chickpeas and flax. The distribution of however, the earliest and latest Ha laf levels at Halaf settlements lay within the area of dry fa rm- Arpachiyeh included rectangular architecture. One into smaller units. ing so that most of the agriculture was probably such building at the latest level had been burned, ca rried out without the aid of large-scale irrigation. with its contents left in situ. On t he l:loor were Domestic anima ls included the typical five species- sheep, goats, cattle, pigs and dogs- but numerous pottery vessels, many of them beauti- also wild animals were hunted. fully decorat ed. There were also stone vessels, jewelry, figurines and amulets as well as thousands During the Halaf period people a bandoned the or flint and obsidian tools. Much of the pottery and rectangular many-roomed houses in favor of a jewelry lay beside the walls, on top of charred return to round huts, called tholoi. These varied in wood that had probably been shelves. The build- size from about 3 to 7 met ers in diameter an d are ing was at first thought to be a potter's workshop, believed to have housed families of one set of but that did not explain the presence of all the parents and their children. The entrance was precious materia ls. It might have been a storeroom through a gap in the outer wall, but the design for t he community's wealth or the t reasury of a varied . Often a rectangular annex was added to the local chief. In any event, there was a remarkable circular structure. At Arpachiych, round buildings concentration of wealt h in this one building. Yarim with long annexes formed keyhole-shaped struc- Tepe also had some rectangular buildings, some or tures almost 20 meters long with stone walls over which were storerooms or h ouses while others, 1.5 meters t hick . Originally the Arpachiyeh build- which had no distinctive plan and contained no ings were believed to be special and used for some domestic debris, had possibly been public religious ritual. However, excavations at Yarim build i n gs . Tepe II have suggested that most of the tho\/oi were used as domestic dwell ings, as the rectangular Little is known about buria l customs in th e Halaf chambers were entered from the circular room and period. In graves at Yarim Tepe I the burial did not serve as an entrance passageway as in an chamber was off the side of a vertical entra nce igloo. The tholoi were made of mud, mud- brick or shaft. Methods of disposing of the dead within t he stone and possibly had a domed roof. However, settlement included s imple inhumation as well as cremation. There were a few insta nces, both at 34\u2022 46\\\" I) __.....\/ CASPI N 38\u00b0 SEA ell ~du OTell Judoideb e Hasan .\/ i'\u2022lal\u2022Sheikh) Marni Uganl ~Shamra) j \/Ham;o\\\\ riouno 34\u2022 Byblo - - southern l mlt of dry farming - .,- - .. --- ..... ~ Ddostribulion of po11ery 6000-5400 BC -_ \\\\ AmuqC \\\\ ,~- T~ I \u25a1 Halal ... \\\\. __ , __ .,, HaJii_M~hamma C J Halal related D Early Ubaicf D Middle Su~ana t and 2 200km .- - - ancientcoast~ne 150mj - - ancient course of river 19","VILLAGES 50","'I Left a11d bdoiv In the lakes and periud (7th cc nlury \\\"\\\") readied Cemetery at Ur, .ind recd hoa L.s TOWARD CI VILIZATION as fa r north as Nippur, it is marshes of souther n lr,19 live Lhc likely 1hat 1here were ;,!ways l ike those dep icted 0 11 lhe cnl in;ly of reeds, very similar to N1<ldcm or M,1rsh Ar,1 b~- Their marsh dwel lers who supported those: depicted on cylinder seals lhcmsclves by fishing. (The Assyrian reliefs (c. 700 R,) arc .,nd on stone reliefs o f 1hc Uruk w.-1y of lir<.\u2022 is no1 based on c..:crcal waler huffalo were probably still used in 1hc marshes. Recd period more Ihan 5,000 yea rs culti va lion bul 011 lishing, introduced from Lhc c~1st in the (1gu. herding wale r buffalo a nd 3rd mille nnium u,\u00b7.) The canoes mall ing is used in the roofs of col lecting reeds for making traditional mud\u2022brick houses, in use today arc almost identical bul reeds .1rc also typic<1l of the m;:Ht ing. Although the posit io ns to mo d els found in 1he Roya l buildings of the m,,rshcs. Thick of the lakes have shifted over the pil lars of bundles of reeds form years, and in the ca.-ly l~l:1111ic the supports for houses made Yarim Tepe and at Arpac hiyeh, of the separate dis- However, very little me tal has been found on Halaf posal of the skulls, another trait which, like the sites and so it is unli kely that copper played an round houses, is reminiscent o[ earlier pe riods. important role in their economy. Thus the view that trade was a major source of Halaf power and The most striking feature of the Halal' culture influence is probably mistaken . was its exquisitely painted pottery fired in two- chamber kilns. The clay used was very fine and By the middle of the sixth millennium the 1-Ialaf often sa lmon pink in color. The ea rlier pots had culture had expanded to the southeast where it simple designs pa inted on the outside in red or came into contact with the Ubaid culture. After a black. The later designs featured elaborate geo- transitional phase that combined clements of both, metric patterns in red and black, overpaintcd with the Ubaid culture became dominant. white, that filled the insides of large shallow bowls. Some painted vessels were made in the The Ubaid period shapes of humans or animals . An analysis of the In the fertile plains built up by silt from the Tigris clay of some of the pottery from Halaf sites has and Euphrates rivers, the earliest known Ubaid shown that pottery vessels we re widely traded. settlements date back to about 5900 BC. Howe ver, Vessels th at were probably made at Arpachiyeh only a few of them have so far been located. The have appeared at Tell Brak and Tell Halaf on the site of Hajji Muhammad had been buried benea th 3 Habur, while some from the Habur region have meters of alluvium and was discovered on ly been found to the west on the Euphrates. because, having been cut by a branch of the Eu ph- rates, it was visi blc at low water in the fal l. Some Despite changes in the styles of 1-Ialaf pottery other early sites have been found beneath the over time and local differences in style, there is a remains of later ones. general uniformity about the culture. Whether, however, the Halaf people formed a separate ethnic One of the sites belonging to the ear liest occupa- tion of southern Mesopotamia is Tell Awayli group who settled in the dry-farming plains is (written by the French excavators as Tell el-Oueili), unclear, as i ndeed are t he boundaries of the Halaf which had affinities with the Samarran culture of region. The distribution of Ha laf sites approached central Mesopotamia. A large building covering some of the obsidian sources in eastern Anatolia more than 200 square meters had rooms of a simi lar and the cop per mines of southeast Turkey. 51","VILLAGES size and shape to those in the early levels at Tell al- and unpredictable flooding of the rivers, sup- Sawwan. Moreover, it had been built of long ported a rich wildlife and natural vegetation. molded mud- bricks that contained finger Today, near t he mouth of the rivers, the action of impressions like t hose from Samarran sites. the tides irrigates the palm groves, where the Another building at Away Ii consisted of a founda- palm's wild ancestors once flourished. In places tion made of walls at right angles enclosing small, where the rivers flooded and spread out into 60-centimeter squares, above which a floor of reed marshes and lakes, fish would have been abun- matting had been placed. This structure is thought dant. Like the Marsh Arabs of today the ancient to have been a storeroom for grain, keeping it away inhabitants probably exported dried fish and mats from the damp ground. woven from the marsh reeds. Southern Irag could always have supported hunter-gatherer and Awayli is the earliest excavated site from lower fishing communities, as well as shepherds grazing Mesopotamia, but there are undoubtedly still their flocks on the spring steppe vegetation and earlier ones buried beneath the alluvial silt. The moving them closer to t he rivers in t he bot well-watered river valleys, despite the damaging central room LevelVII altar offering table U'ft Exca vations beside the Level XVI ziggurat of Ur-Nammu al l;ridu have revealed a sequence of 0 23 superimposed buldings dating to Scale (meters) the Ubaid period. The earliest building, belo nging to t he 52 Ubaid J phase, was a small single~roomcd SI J\\\"ucture, which was rebuil t in level XV I with J n ic he and two platforms. T h e later levels (XI VI), from phases 3 and 4 or the Ubaid per iod, con tained buildings t hat were dearly tem ples. with cl'1bOratc n ic hes a nd buttresses. They had ,1 tripartite plan, consisting or a long central room wit h rooms off either s ide. Inside were offering tables ,md al1ars for the sta111c or emblem or the god, both or wh ic h were standard fillings or later Mesopolamian temples .","The extent or the Uhaid TOWARD CIVILIZATION c:ul1urc In ,1bou1 ~400 oc the I lalaf mail area ol Ubaid pottery cu l1ure, which had domina1cd L J Eatly nonhcrn M esopotamia, w,1s replaced by the Late Uba id cuhurc, a d c vclopmc n1 of 1hc Early Ub,iid c ullurc o f soul hcrn Mesopotamia. The Late Ub,,id period lasted for more 1han a 1housand y ears. As in the 1-talaf period, the peripheral areas show the innuencc, rathe r lh.u1 all 1hc c haracteristics, of Oba id culture. J lowevcr, it is difficult to draw a nrm line d istinguishing Ubaid from Uba id - inOue nced cultures. Uba id pottery has been found as for d own the Gulf as present-day S,rndi Arabia, Bahra in and Qalar, and as for easl as the United Arab Emirates. Ana lysis has sh own that this pottery w, s imported from the region of Or, at the head of1hc Gulf. but there is 01herwisc no trace or the presence or Ubaid cult urc. 30\u2022 Tall\u2022i lblis0 Abu Khamis1 The Gulf L..\\\\, \u00b7,.~rl;\u00b7~,. ,Khursanl;i~\u2022!~\\\\ \u00b7h 26\\\" ~ '\u00bd_._'.,.,-- . : \u2022 \u2022 I ~ Mal1r<h..r~ _ r\u2022s0 \u2022t at\u2022Kho, \\\\ ~:r~ I -\u2022f'\u00a3.\u2022 II A~Oaooa! \u2022 IO lI 22\\\" scale I : 17 000 000 I f scaleL8000000 50' '~ \/ 0 400km II.,--------'-'-'------.----.---~ 0 300mi weather. The introduction of canals and irrigation well founded. The excavation of a deep trench agriculture, however, totally transformed the beside the ziggurat, or tower temple, at the site of settlement pattern. _ Eridu revealed some 14 meters of occupation belonging to the Ubaid period. The latest Ubaid The pottery from the earliest levels at Tell level (level VI) was identified as a temple because Awayli also has connections with the later Ubaid its plan was similar to those of later Mesopotamian pottery. [n fact, French archeologists have ca lled temples. The remains or earlier buildings that were the early levels at Awayli Ubaid 0. The dark- found beneath were divided into four phases, painted pale pottery characteristic of the Ubaid Ubaid 1 to Ubaid 4, each distinguished by different period has been found thoughout Mesopotamia. It pottery. originated in the south, in the region that later became the country of Sumer, and then spread The earliest building discovered at Eridu belong- north and west. The sequence of the whole of the ing to Ubaid l was a small room 2.8 meters square. Ubaid period was excavated at Eridu. At the next level was a build ing t hat housed a podium in a deep recess and another, with traces of Eridu burning on it, in the midd le of the room. This Eridu now lies in the desert to t he south of river building was identified as a temple, as altars and Euphrates, but in ancient times a branch of the offering tables were standard features of later river flowed past the site. It became an important Mesopotamian temples. The dark pai nted pottery religious center for the worship of the water god discovered there, called Erid u ware, has been Enki and according to the Babylonian Epic was the found on only about ten sites, all in the region first city to be created: around Eridu, Ur and Uruk. However, th is docs not necessarily mean that it was confined to the \\\"A reed had not come forth, area, given the heavy silting in southern Iraq. A tree had not been created, A house had not been made, The Ubaid 2 phase was marked by the introduc- A city had not been made, tion of Hajji Muhammad pottery, in wh ich most of All the lands were sea, the surface of the vessel was covered in paint, leav- Then Eridu was made.\\\" ing the design in reverse. There were sites at least The Babylonian beliefin the antiquity of Eridu was as far north as the region of Nippur, and possibly 53","VILLAGES Tell Madhhur The site of Tell Madhhur was excavated as part of the Hamrin Dam Salvage Project, one of the many projects undertaken to investigate sites threatened by modern development, in this case the construc- tion of a dam across the Diyala river. The site was occupied in the Early Dynastic and Islamic periods, but most of the remains belonged to the Late Ubaid period. In the center of the mound was a large house with walls still standing 2 meters high. The house had been burned and the more valuable items had been removed, but everyday household equipment such as pottery vessels were left in the ruins. The building had a long central room flanked by rows of smaller rooms, and its plan is superficially similar to the temples at Eridu and Tepe Gawra. However, the finds within the build- ing clearly showed that it was a domestic dwelling. After the fire the house bad been deliberately leveled, which accounted for its extraordinary state of preser vation. Above Among the finds in t he house were chipped mm tools, called stone hoes by archeologists. Attached to a handle with bitumen and cord, these tools were probably used to break up the soil before planting. contours a1 50cmw11crva1s left The site measured about 90 m in d iameter. Because of the 10 20 30m 50 10011 thick layers of silt deposited in this part of the valley since Ubaid times, most of the 6. 5 m of archeological remai ns was below the level of the surrounding plain. In the Ubaid period tl1c site was a village with about a dozen houses like Tell Abadeh, which was also excavated as part of the Hamrin Dam sa\u00b7lvage Project. 54","Right A small painted cup or TOWARD CIVILIZATION bowl measuring about 10 cm in diameter. Altogether 78 potlery as for as the Hamrin basin. Ilajj i Muhammad-sty le vessels were found in the house, pollery also continued into the Ubaid 3 phase, so ranging from small cups to its presence is no guarantee ofan Ubaid 2 site. Con- enormous storage jars of temporary sites in the lowlands of Iran to the cast 100-liter capacity. had pottery similar to the Hajji Muhammad style, which was perhaps due to the inlluence, dating Right below A pestle made out of from the end of the Samarran period, that the more baked clay. \\\"Bent nail mullers\\\" advanced cultures of the west exerted on the are typical of the L.llc Ubaid villages of the cast. period, when many tools were made out ofbaked clay instead The Ubaid 3 and 4 phases introduced pollery of stone. decorated in a new, simple style or painting. In northern Mesopotamia it replaced the Halaf pottery. In the mountains to the cast, pottery was simi lar to the Ubaid style and in Khuzistan the Midd le Susiana pottery belonged to the same tradition. Farther south, Ubaid pottery (from Ubaid J and later) has been found on some forty sites in eastern Saudi Arabia, two in Bahrain, f1vc in Qatar and even on two as far away as the United Arab Umirates. These were sma ll s ites where people lived mainly by fishing and gathering. \/\\\\n analysis of the clays used in the pottery found there showed them to be similar to those in the region of Ur and Eridu, so it is likely that the vessels were imported. Above The height of the walls in where they\\\" were found. The Above A ,pou1cd jar about 16 cm Ubaid temples this reconstruction of the house room behind the ramp leading high found in the kitchen al Tell at Tell Madhhur was calculated Madhhur. About half of the pots The temples at Eridu of 1hc Ubaid '1 period stood from the volume of the debris up to the roof was probably a found in the house were on platforms about a meter high . Over the that filled the rooms. There was storeroom, and the one on the centuries, these platforms grew until they turned no evidence for a second storey. decorated with painted or into the ziggurats, of which the Tower of Babel is In rhc reconstruction, the objects opposite side ofthe cruciform incised designs and the res1 were the most famous example. have been drawn in the rooms central chamber a kitchen. The left plain. TT1e pols were mos1ly handmade bu1 some show signs At the sou thwest end or the central room of' the size of the dwelling suggests that of being finished on a wheel. temple was an altar, while at the northeast end was ii housed an extended family. a freestanding podium on which, at the latest two temples at Eridu, ashes and fishbones were f'ound. These may have been the remains of' offerings, as Eridu was the home of the water god Enki. Exactly what these ceremonies involved is not known. Very likely, prayers of some form were said, accompanied by singing ;md music. It has been suggested that Ubaid temples were used for cere- monial feasting by the ciders of the community, but there is liule evidence to support this. Eridu was not the only site where religious buildings arc in evidence. Uruk, in the Late Ubaid period, had a simi lar temple and at Tepe Gawra, in the north of' Iraq, the inhabitants built a complex of three temples. Tepe Gawra had been occupied since Jlalaf\\\" times. Six levels belonging to the Ubaid period have been uncovered, each containing buildings that were al first identified as temples, but were probably ordinary village houses. However, in level Xlll, the use of the site changed and a care- fully planned temple complex was bui lt. Three temple buildings filled closely together and were all used al the same time, which suggests that the inhabitants worshiped a pantheon of gods. A wel l in the Northern Temple contained a large collect.ion of' impressions of stamp seals on clay bullae, which probably represented ownership- or some commer- cial transaction, and more generally the growth of bureaucracy. In the level above, Tepe Gawra reverted to domestic housing, suggesting that the temple building had been the mark of a foreign power imposing a tyranny of alien beliefs on the local inhabitants. However, this is perhaps reading too much into the evidence. '>S","VILLAGES Ubaid houses Left l'emale f'igurine of baked The Ubaid temples at Eridu, Uruk and Gawra all clay from Ur dating to the end of had a similar plan. The layout consisted of a long the Ubaid period. The heads of central hall, with side rooms and with buttressed the Ubaid figurines were stylized and recessed facades. A central room l:lanked by like some of those from Choga two rows of rooms is called a tripartite plan, and Mami and look reptilian. For this this was typical of temples of later periods. Houses reason they arc often called at a number of sites in northern Mesopotamia in lizard-headed, but it is probable the Ubaid 3 and 4 periods also often had a tripartite that Jhis stylization was plan. The layout of houses in the earlier Ubaid intended to represent a human periods is not known. being, not a composite being with a human body and an A well-preserved tripartite building dating to a nimal head as in the later the Ubaid 4 period was found at Tell Madhhur in Egyptian gods. Stuck on the the east of Iraq during the Hamrin Dam Salvage shoulders or the f'igure, which Project. It had caught fire and the ruins had been stands a bout 15 cm high, are filled, leaving the walls still standing, in places to a pellets which may represent height of 2 meters. Some of the doors and windows decorative scarring. Other were also still intact..The rooms contained grind- f'igurines have painted stones, mullers made out of baked clay for grind- decorat ion, perhaps indicating ing, stone hoes, spindle whorls and numerous tauooing. pottery vessels for storage, cooking, eating and drinking- indeed, all the equipment needed for have been found at Eridu and Ur. They were everyday life. developments of the Samarra type found at sites such as Choga Mami and Songor A. T he quantity More elaborate tripartite houses, from the Ubaid and quality of the objects buried varied little 3 period, have been excavated at Tell Abadeh and between graves, suggesti ng that there was no great Kheit Qasim. Like the house at Mad hhur the diffe rence in the social status or wea lth of those central rooms were cruciform, not rectangular, but interred. However, it is possible that the ru ling there were also two smaller cruciform rooms on elite were buried in a diffe rent place, as were either side of the central room. At Abadeh, eight or infants, who are known from other sites to have nine tripartite houses were arranged fairly hap- been buried in pottery vessels unde r the l:loors of hazardly in the settlement. One of these may have the houses. been the residence of the headman of the village and was larger than the rest. It had three paralle l The e nd of the Ubaid tripartite units and a buttressed facade, and was Painted Ubaid pottery gradually disappeared, pa rtly protected by a surrounding wall. Another replaced by gray and red burnished pottery. building, w hich served as a communal storehouse Generally, this signaled the end of Ubaid a nd the for the village, had a different kind of layout. Tri- beginning of the Uruk period, but the date of this partite Ubaid buildings are also known from Tepe transition is uncerta in. From radiocarbon evidence Gawra and Telul a l-Thalathat in n orthern Ira q . it probably happe ned around 4300 BC. The Ubaid More recently, they have been found at Degirmen- c ulture had lasted for some 1,500 years, exerting its tepe, a site in southern Turkey, which has Ubaid- influence from the Mediterranean to the Gu lf and related pottery. even onto the Irania n plateau. Inevitably, a culture that lasted so long and spread so wide was not Ubaid houses were quite la rge, occupying about uniform but exhibited different styles both region- 200 square meters, and probably accommodated an ally and across time. Although it is difficult to extended fam ily of around twenty people. The tri- identify a pottery style with a peop le, other attri- partite plan (or the triple tripartite plan of Aba deh butes of the material culture such as the use of tools and Kheit Qasim) must have, in some way, of baked clay or the distinctive tripartite architec- re l:lected the social structure of the time. It has ture of the Ubaid period suggest that there was, been suggested that one side of the house was for indeed, a shared cultural tradition . the men and the other for the women and that they met in the centra l area, but this is conjecture. Graves a nd fig urines At Eridu a cemetery belonging to the same period as the lates t temples was found to contain almost two hundred graves. They were dug into the ground a nd li ned and covered with mud- bricks. The bodies had been laid out on their backs with their heads to the northwest. In some cases, a single grave contained two skeletons, believed to be those of a husband and wife. Skele tons of dogs were also found in two of the graves. As well as personal jewelry, a jar, cup and dish had often been placed at the foot of the grave, and sometimes also fish and animal bones, which might indicate some belief in an afterlife. Near the shoulder of one fema le skeleton was a terracotta male statuette with a lizard-like head . Other similar figurines, but normally of females, 5\/i","PART TWO CITIES","THE URBAN EXPLOSION (4000~3000Bc) The origin of cities by the pottery fragments on the surface of the site In the fourth millennium BC remarkable changes and the pattern of settlement can be reconstructed. took place in southern Mesopotamia, exceeding However, problems h ave arisen in interpreting any expectat ions that might have been raised by survey results. For insta nce, some sites such as the achievements of the Ubaid period. These inno- Hajji Muhammad lie buried under the alluvial s ilt, vations, which occurred in the Uruk and Jemdet and on sites occupied over a long time the earlie r Nasr periods, constituted what has been called the periods are often underrepresented by t he pottery urban revolution. Like the onset of agriculture, sherds found on the surface. urbanization was a crucial step in human progress. On other sites the later levels arc missing. At Most obviously, it involved the development of Choga Marni, for instance, t he only evidence of a cities and the transition toward a society in which Halaf-period occupation was a well s haft contain- large numbers of people lived in small areas, many ing Halafpottery. Furthermore, many s herds found of whom did not take part in subsistence farming. on the s urface of a site cannot be dated reliably, as According to the archeologist Gordon Childe knowledge of the pottery sequence is still patchy. (1892- 1957), however, this was only one of the Some periods arc more recognizable by their pot- characteristics that marked t he urban revolution. It sherds than others. Late Uruk sites, w ith their also involved the substitution of a society organ- numerous beveled-rim bowls, have been easy to ized politically on territorial principles for one identify, but sites belonging to the follow ing Jem- based on ties of kinship. Moreover, this society det Nasr period are harder to recognize. Sites was divided by class and ruled by a religious, mili- belonging to a single period arc often represented tary and political elite, who accumulated wealth on maps as if they were in use at the same time, through the imposition of tribute and taxes, and when, in reality, this need not have been so. This erected monumental public buildings. A further has presented problems in identifying tbc smalJcr feature of urban development was the emergence settle ments, which might have moved more often of full-time professional craftsmen, which, in turn, than the larger towns and cities. Despite these assisted the growth of long-distance trade. The l:arly urban settlcmcnl patterns in sou th ern invention of writing, the beginning of t he e xact 32\u202230\u00b7 scale t : 1300 000 and theoretical sciences and the appearance of 0 20km Mcsopotan1ia The region to the north and east representational art were also an integral part of 15ml ofNippur, where there are traces t he urban revolution. Indeed, all of these features of the meanders left by ancient branches of the rivers flowing were present to varying degrees in the towns of the rhrough the alluv ia) plain, was densely seuled in the Early 10 later fourth millennium in southern Mesopotamia. Middle Uruk period al the beginning of the 4th mil lennium Clearly, some of the ch anges that took place BC. In the Lale Uruk period many of these nor1hcrn sites were depended on others. For e xample, t he erection of abandoned and new sell lemcnls were established furrhcr south in public buildings affirmed the existence of a society the neighborhood of Uruk. The city of Uruk itself more than in which there was a central authority with suffi- doubled in area. This shift of popu lalion from Ihe non h 10 the cient resources to carry out the work. Arguably, south continued in the .lemdet Nasr period al the end of the 41 h the basis of the urban revolution was not so much millennium Re. the formation of cities but a change in the nature of These maps are based on society that encouraged larger political and evidence from an archeological surface survey by the American economic groupings of the population. For this Robert Adams. He visited all the archcological sites in the area reason some archeologists refer to \\\" state forma- and collcc1ed broken pieces of pollcry, from which he could tion\\\" rather than to the \\\"growth of cities\\\". This recogn ize the periods when the site was occupied. The viewpoint emphasizes the interde pe ndence of the distribution of the poL5herds suggested the surface area of a cities and the villages, which provided the given site at a particular period. In this way, Adams has been economic basis for the cities' survival. able 10 map the size and distribution of sites from the Settlements of southe rn Mesopotamia .. Ubaid period to the prcsen l day, The importance of southern Mesopotamia in the showing how the scttlcrne,11 development of urban life is generally acknow- \u2022 . \u2022\u2022 \u2022 201 pallern has changed over the ledged, though some earlier settlements outside Mesopotamia such as Jericho and Chatal Huyuk Early-Middle lkuk ~ie (he<tares) \u2022 Tell Misma, mille nnia. also had some of the characteristics of cities. The 0.1-4.0 crucial transition from village to city took place in \u00b7 \u2022 \u00b7u,uk \u2022 TellAwayi the Early and Middle Uruk periods which, accord- \u2022 4.1- 20.0 ing to radiocarbon dating, probably lasted between \u2022 20.1-40.0 . 700 and 1,000 years (about 4300- 3450 BC). Unfortu- nately, this period is poorly documented by \u2022 g1oa1e, than 40.0 s'\\\"'--~ ,.....,61 archeological excavations. Some information can be obtained from archeological surveys, in which \u2022 unoonflrmed occupation of si1e 45'30' sites occupied at a particular period arc identified - river meander DI~____J suM>yOda,ea area of limited survey 58","THE URBAN EXPLOSION difficulties it has been possible to build up a courses between the Middle and Late Uruk general picture of changes in settlement pattern periodsi forcing the inhabitants of the northern over time. During the Late Ubaid period the sur- region to migrate. The total area occupied in the veyed sites were small (very few sites occupied as Late Uruk period was only slightly larger than that much as 10 hectares) and fairly evenly distributed. in the earlier period. However, in the earlier period Large parts of the noodplain apparently had no 60 percent of the area was in the region of Nippur, permanent settlements, though they might have w hile in the Late Uruk period 60 percent was been used by nomadic herders or hunters. around Uruk. Uruk grew to be almost twice as big Possibly, some of t he larger Ubaid sites served as as any other site, occupying about LOO hectares. focuses for their surround ing areas, acting as market centers, places of pilgrimage, and so on. In the Jemdet Nasr and Early Dynastic I periods that followed, the same trends continued. By the T he Uru k period Early Dynastic I period, the Uruk region had In the Early and Middle Uruk periods there was a expanded to 850 hectares- more than double the vast increase in the number and size of sites. The tQta l area occupied in the Late Uruk period- of northern part of the region near Nippur, where which the site of Uruk itself accounted for a lmost meanders of an old river course can still be seen, half. At the same time, other large centers devel- was particularly well populated . This ancient oped and the number of small villages decreased course was about the same size as the modern sharply. In the Early Dynastic period the sellle- Euphrates. It appears that in Garly and Middle ments were arranged in lines like beads on a string, Uruk times the Tigris and the Euphrates joined superseding the earlier, more random arrangement. farther upstream and then flowed in a number of The pattern might have been due in part to the channels through the alluvial plain. The site or increasing use of long-distance canals. Uruk covered an area of some 70 hectares, while the north had two sites that occup.icd 50 hectares as On the basis or estimates of population, and of well as two 30-hectare sites. Whether this distri- land yields, it has been calculated that in the Uruk bution pattern represents the immigration of period the area of agricultural land needed to people from outside or the natural growth of the provide food for the people of Uruk was about 6 local population during the period is uncertain. kilometers in radius. The formers cultivating the land might have li ved in Uruk itself and then In the Late Uruk period the pattern changed. walked for an hour to the fields, as farmers in the Fewer sites were occupied in the north while the Near East do today. In t he Jemdet Nasr period, the number of sites in the south rose. This develop- area needed was about 16 kilometers in radius. By ment might have been due to a change in the river then, and almost certainly before, much of the produce consumed in Uruk came from outside, scale I : I 300 000 Scale I : I 300 000 32\\\"30' 0 20km 0I-..,..._~_.2_0km, 32'30' 1Smi 0 15ml 0 Ab<J Salabll<h 32:' 1\\\\~\\\\ ~1 I \\\\1 111. Shuruppak 7\u2022 \u2022 \u2022 I \\\\q Tell Slunid I. \u00b7\\\\. . .. Zabalam ., Zabalam I .\\\\ . . ., umma \u00b7 . \u00b7\\\\_( l,umma ....125\u00b0 \\\\ .. ummal\u2022 \u2022 \u00b0'\\\\ 201 Aqa\/ib . \u2022 \u2022 . 125 \u2022 \u2022\u00b7 .-. ~-Vmmal\u00b7 31'30' 31'30' : \u2022\u2022~--. ~ ~ 1\u2022 . Aqarib Lale UrUk sile (heclares) . 0.1-4.0 . \u2022:. Tell Mismar. Jemdel Nasr silt (hec1ares) Tel Ml mOI\u2022 \u2022 4.1-20.0 ..\u2022 0 260 0.1- 4.0 \u2022 20.HO.O \u00b7e Uruk _. 358 \\\\:, \u2022 4.1- 20.0 e grealer than 40.0 \u2022 20.1- 40.0 \\\\.. ,..:.., \u00b7\u00b7. \u2022 greater lhan 40.0 ......_ . :e Uruk \u2022 unconfirmed occupation ol site \u2022 TellAwaytl \u2022 unconfilmed occupation ol silo river meander river meander C ] surveyed area C ] surveye<I area L J area of limited survey D 01ea of Urrlled survey 145'30' 45'30' 59","CITIES Below The ziggurat of the temple of Inanna was built by Uruk Ur-Nammu {2112- 2095 ac). It originally had a triple sta ircase The city wall is about 9.5 km The ancient site of Uruk (now known as Warka) and was about 55 m wide. The long. According to the Epic of was occupied for 5,000 years from early in the surviving remains are made of Ubaid period until the 3rd century AD. In the mud- bricks and the layers of Gilgamesh one-third of the city fourth millennium BC Uruk was the most important reeds and matting between the of Uruk was temples, one-third city in Mesopotamia and included two major courses of brickwork ca n still be religious centers: Kullaba, where there was a seen. houses and one-third gardens. temple of An, the god of the sky, and Eanna, where The excavations have the goddess Inanna (later known as Ishtar) was Al<ltulemple\u25ca worshiped. The earliest evidence for writing was concentrated on the temple also discovered at Eanna. In the Early Dynastic I areas, which occupied tbe center period the city of Uruk covered an area of 400 hec- tares and was surrounded by a city wall, which of the city. The temples were according to later accounts was built by Gilgamesh, extensively rebuilt in the Uruk's legendary \u00b7 k ing. Uruk remained an important religious center and its shrines were Seleucid and Parthian periods embellished by many of the later rulers of (312 BC-AD 224), induding the Mesopotamia. construction of an akiw temple (for the celebration of the New \u00a9~ Year festival) to the northeast of iJ~,., the city walls. 0 250 500m 0 500 1000 1500 ft . \u2022 . u,uk Nb\\\\u,lding~s -~g:~M - - -Kara\u00b7lndashlemple Bit-Resh . , \u2022~_~'~~ ) Above Life-size limestone mask EA N NA found in a pit daling to about , 1o> 3000 BC. II represents a woman K ULL A 8 A and originally had a wig and 'I\u00b7, \\\"~ inlaid eyes and eyebrows. Eyebrows meeting in the middle ~ arc still considered a sign of 7: t ~Wtitel emple- - beauty in the Middle East today. The mask was possibly part ofa ~uratof::t ~ ~I statue of a goddess, perhaps - before2500 ec lnanna. \u2022 2500-5008C after 500 ec Cenier right This statuette of a ~ !\\\"(lunded area late- 4th- millennium .-ulcr of Templeof Gare1Js Uruk shows considerable technical skill and, though idealized, it does seem to represent a particu lar person. Later statues of worshipers intended to be placed in temples hold their hands in front of them. The clenched fists may be an early form of this gesture. 60","Above a11d right The Warka vase THE URBAN EXPLOSION was one of a pair found in the perhaps levied as taxes or tribute, or exchanged for temple treasury hoard of level HI goods that had been made in the city. at Uruk {3000 uc) but it may have bee11 carved earlier. The The modern name of Uruk is Warka and it was whole vase shows a scene of recorded in t he Bible as the town of Erech. In t he Sumerian period it was ca lled Unu, but here it will offerings being presented 10 the be referred to throughout as Uruk . The exceptional goddess lnanna, with the ruler character of the site of Uruk revealed by survey and the goddess depicted in the has been confirmed by excavations. Two different top register. areas belonging to the early periods have been investigated, one near the Eanna temples of Inanna, the Sumerian version of the goddess Ishtar, goddess of love and of war, and the other about 400 meters to the west, in the area of the temple of '?n (or Anum), the god of the sky. Uru k : t he Ea nna temple com p lex Extensive remains of buildings dating t? the Late Uruk period have been excavated in the Eanna precinct, but only fragments of the foundations of the original build ings were left, as they had been knocked down and leveled . The main building of the earliest phase (level V) was the Limestone Temple, which was found to continue through two levels. T he stone foundations lay on a bed of mud and had originally measured 76 meters long by 30 meters wide. Whether it had, in fact, been a temple is uncertain, but its intricate niching and buttress- ing, the regular tripartite plan, and its location in a sacred area were strong evidence for supposi ng that it was. In the following phase (level lVb), two separate comp lexes were enclosed by walls, Lhc larger one to the southeast and a smaller one to the northwest. In the southeast area, buildings were approached by a double staircase some 1.7 meters bigh with two rows of columns (each 2.6 meters wide) at the top. The walls and columns were built of small, square-sectioned bricks (ca lled riemchen bricks by the German archeologists who excavated the site), which are characteristic of Late Uruk architecture. They were then coated with a thick layer of mud- plaster in which thousands of sma ll baked clay cones with red, white and black heads were set in a variety of designs- zigzags, lozenges, triangles and diagonal bands- like those found on woven mat- ting. This building is called the Mosaic Court or Pillar Temple, though it was probably not a temple but a monumental entrance to the rest of the sacred precinct. Beyond this were several rectangu lar tri- partite buildings, some with central rooms in a cross-shape and some with elaborate niches and buttTesses. These have been identified as temples. The three to the northwest were very similar to houses of the same period that have been found in Syria, and it is possible that they were the resi- dences not of the gods but of their officials. To the southwest was the Square Building, which bad a courtyard with four large rectangular halls each set along one side. T he courtyard walls and the outer facade had very elaborate niched brickwork. A square room with a large sunken basin had stood in the north corner. This was not a typical Mesopotamian temple, and its runction was unclear, but it clearly had been a major ceremonial public building. At the west end of the Eanna complex was a separate area that contained the Stone Cone Mosaic Temple. Surrounded by a wall with buttTesses on both sides, the temple had been decorated with 61","CITIES cone mosaics made of red, black and white stone u:frand '1\/xJve A painting or a set in gypsum . Only the limestone foundations of reconstructed column from the the temple, which appeared to follow the plan of e ntrance Lo le vel I V b in the the other temples, have survived, but archeologists Eanna precinct at Uruk. The have found traces of five other buildings which, they believe, may have been earlier versions of this geometric mosaic decoration is temple. composed of the heads of In the next phase of the Eanna complex (level hundreds of painted ba ked cl:iy IVa), t he p lan of the area changed. The more recent cones each abo ut 10 cm lo ng. buildings overlaid, or had cut into, the earlier This ty pe of decoratio n using foundations. These changes had taken place over a either clay cones or colored considerable time, so that some of the buildings attributed to an earlier phase were sta nding at the stone cones stuck into plaster is same time as some of the later buildings. In both ty pica l o f the Late Uruk period. levels the remains were very fragmentry, but a reconstructed plan showed that, once again, the U ruk: the An u te mple Above r ighr The inside walls of area had been divided into two. The largest build- About 500 meters west of Eanna was the Anu the Lale Uruk period te mple at ing, Temple D, had been built on a terrace by fill - temple area. Here, a series or temples set on Tell \\\\Jq air were decorated w ith ing in the courtyard and pillared entrance of the terraces, rather similar to those at Eridu, have been paintings: some geometric wit h earlier phase. T he temple measured about 80 by 50 excavated, t he earliest dating back to the Ubaid pallcnls similar 10 those used in meters and, if the central cruciform hall was roofed period and the latest probably t.o the Jemdet Nasr cone mosaic, oLhcrs of animals . (which is probable, as it had the same plan as other period. The best- preserved among them was the T his o ne sho ws a spo tted animal temples), the beams would have been more t han 10 White Temple, so-called because its walls were t hat has been identified ,i s a meters long. These might have been brought over- coated with a thin gypsum plaster. Measuring 17 .5 leopard ofa 1.ypt: still found in land to the Euphrates from the Amanus mountains by 22.3 meters (almost the same size as the end part and then floated downstream. In the later Sumerian of Temple Cat Eanna), it also had a tripartite plan. the mountains of' rran. Height legends there arc stories about Gilgamesh and The walls were niched and the centers of t he but- others going on expeditions to the Cedar Mountain tresses were grooved, where poles had originally about 90 cm. and these may have already started in the Uruk been set. At the cast corner, space had been left in the wall in the lowest course, where the bodies ofa \/light Plan c,f the earlier (IVb) period. leopard and possibly a young lion had been placed. and later (!Va) levels in the To the northwest of this temple was the better This might have been an early example of a foun- !11, nna precinc t at Uruk in the dation deposit, which in later periods norma lly l-1te Uruk pe riod. T he size, preserved, Tern ple C. (In fact, its clear tripartite included inscriptjons identify ing the temple and its variety and complexity oft he plan and cruciform hall served as a basis for recon- builder. architecture sho ws l hat the structing the plans of other temples.) It measured build ings ha ve been ca refully 54 by 22 meters. A second, smaller tripart ite unit at T he White Temple had an offering table and an desig ned and intended both for altar, the typical furn ishings of a Mesopotamian the northwest end was the same size as the largest temple, though in this case, t he altar had been an religious ccrcmonics ,rnd Lo of the Ubaid temples at Eridu, and of many Late afterthought, as it blocked up a doorway in the end impress the po pulace with the wal l. The temple had been set on a high platform Uruk temples. Contemporary with these two with a sloping fa ce. Reaching a height of some 13 wealth ,,nd po wer <1f those who temples were the Pillared Hall, once again with meters, the p latform was signiflca ntly higher than built them. mosaic decoration made out of stone cones, and a those of tbe Ubaid temples at Eridu. The White squarish area, the Great Court, believed to have Temple was a n early predecessor of tbe ziggurat, which in t he fo llowing three millennia dominated been a sunken plaza, with benches round it, the skyline of Mesopotamian cities. measuring almost 50 meters square. Othe r southern Uruk s ites In the separate northwest complex the Riem- Elsewhere in southern Mesopotamia there were chengebiiude (buildings of riemchen bricks) replaced extensive traces of the Late Uruk period, but those the earlier Stone Cone Mosaic Temple. The Riem- were mostly buried deep beneath the remains of chengebiiude consisted of an inner room surrounded later periods. At the few sites where bui ldings by a corridor, with a second room along the south- have been fo und, the architect ure, as at Uruk, was east side. The corridor su rrounding the central mostly religious. At Erid u the temple platform con- room had been fi lled with stacked pottery flasks taining the long sequence of temples of the Uba id and the northeast corridor contained fragments of a period had been enlarged and decorated with col- statue of a deity about the size of a man. In the umns. Al Tell Uqair, farther north, a temple of the middle room there were large quantities of animal bones and the whole area had been burned and filled in whi le the Dre was burning or still smolder- ing. The remains suggested that some ritua l ha9 taken place there. [t might, for instance, have been the burial place of the ruler or high priest, but th is is uncertain. Above the later phase of the Eanna complex were signs of extensive burning, wh ich might have been the result of burned offerings. The remains of level II[, which belonged to the Jemdct Nasr period, were fragmentary. The principal feature was a raised terrace about 2 meters high, which had remained in use in the following Early Dynas- tic period. One room contained an important hoard of valuable objects, some of which will be described later. 62","THE URBAN EXPLOSION Late Uruk period stood on a high platform approached by steps. The edge of the platform, which was in two stages, had been decorated with mosaic cones. The upper stage was covered with bitumen and the walls of t he temple had been built directly on this. Only half of the temple building was preserved but this showed that it had had a tripartite plan w ith an altar and offering table, like the White Temple at Uruk. The walls were covered with paintings, which- exceptionally- were pre- served because the building had been filled up with mud-bricks as a platform for some later con- struction. The paintings consisted of geometric and pictorial designs. The altar decoration included the figures of a leopard, a bull and possibly a lion- reminiscent of the burial of a leopard and lion in the lowest course of the White Temple. Colo n ies and trade ln the Late Uruk period influence from southern Mesopotamia reached as far as the Mediterranean and the Iranian plateau. Pottery and other objects of southern Mesopotamian styles have been found in regions far away from their place of origin, prompting speculation about how they came there. Some settlements in southwest Iran and in north- ern Mesopotamia along the Euphrates and Tigris rivers s hared so many cult ural traits that they probably had had direct contact with lowland Mesopotamia and might even have been colonies. In other cases, links could have arisen through trade or through the local population imitating the D Level lVb 60 D Lc,e1 1va 0 20 40 0 100 63","CITIES 50' rM\u00a3D!T\u00a3RRANEAN ~~- ~ I i $\u00a3A ~ ian -J- 1 '9' al-Kowm LT1'Nuzi Ger~t~:,'~aD<h11d ( -.....V Tel!Ramacfi Bakrawa .,,-,--..,____~ Mish Mari~ \u2666 I h;,;_.., '\/ell Madhhur Tepe De ',, \u2666, t Tefll Gubba I Eshnunna Kha\u2666 [TI I \u00b7:\u00b7\u00b7:>--------~-=1 I ' \\\"' I '...,' ... ..\\\\ I ,' ,:f Syrian Des~~t, , ',.' . , \u00a721 I ,' , I ... beveled-rimbowl IWld D giealest den~\u00b71yo1 lincls RED SEA inscribed lablel linds I D UruktV D,I I Uruklll fr - P,010-Etamoe 'I ' ' ...... .., - Olherlincls :-,.__ --- ... -- - ....... _... 64 \u2666 impressed 1able1 \u2022 holow clay sphere 23 oomberol linds al sile ==---_ _ ancient coastline , ancientcourse of nver scale 1:8 000 000 200km 0 150ml 0 ~- \u2022","THE URBAN EXPLOS ION 54' ',62\\\" styles of their prosperous neighbors. How much political con trol the rulers of Uruk exercised is not known, but their reasons for establishing fa r-flung outposts of Uruk culture might have been related to t he control of resources s uch as timber, metals and precious stones. I ASP\/AN SEA Susa and Iran The alluvial plains region or southwest lran was called Susiana, after the city of Susa. Susa, founded at the end of the Ubaid period, became the cap ita l of successive kingdoms and was the administrative ) S'-.,the in0ucncc ofearly urban earliest inscribed tablets (Uruk capital of the Persians in the 4th century BC at the IV type) were found at Uruk, time of Alexander the Great. Susiana's history ran oasht\u2022e Kavir cultu res but the sl ightly later tablets of parallel to that or Mesopotamia and in many Beveled-rim bow ls (such as Uruk Ill type have been found respects Sus iana was an extension of lowland \\\\ throughout southern Mesopotamia. In the Late Ubaid period the site of shown above) were Mesopotamia. Finds ofthe Choga Mis h had become a regional center occ upy- mass-produced from coarse contemporary and later ing some 15 h ectares. Later, in th e Susa l (or Susa Proto-Elam ite tablets have been A) period, corresponding to the earlier part of the straw-tempered clay by being made on sites from Susa 10 as Uruk period, the site of Susa grew to the same size. pressed into a mold. The insides fa r east as Shah r-i Sokh tc. often show the marks of the Strangely, the precursors of the Excavations at Susa have uncovered the remains w ritten tablets- hollow clay of a large mud- brick platform measuring at least 80 potter's fingers. In the La te Uruk spheres containing clay tokens by 65 meters and more than 10 meters high, decor- and Jemdet Nasr periods they and tablets impressed with ated with pottery cylinders stuck into the facade . numerals- have a wider occurred in great quantity in distribut ion. southern Mesopotamia and in the region ofSusa. Their presence over a wide area is evidence of the southern Mesopotamian in0uencc. The ...Tepe Sialk The top of the platform was badly eroded, but some storage rooms containing jars and carbon ized grain remained, as well as parts of buildings that might have belonged to a temple complex . At the base of the platform was a large cemetery which contained more t han a t housand graves of adults. Oasht\u00b7 e Lui Some had been buried whole, but others had been exposed and the bones placed in painted ceramic vessels. Most of the graves also contained pottery, including some of t he most elegant painted potlery ever produced. Others held copper objects, n at axes, large and small chisels, pins and pierced disks that possibly served as mirrors. Very probably, Susa was founded as a religious \\\\ center. The large platform might have supported \\\\ an imposing temple as well as storehouses for tithes and wou ld have been visible from afar, above the ., , flat countryside. As with other p laces of pilg rim- I age, the people of the time would have wanted to be buried there. The copper objects in the graves had possibly belonged to the priests who ruled the \\\\ sampus; sanctuary. T hroughout the lowland zone s imilar 0I religious centers acted as foca l points for the sur- rounding regions and concentrated wea lth and power through gifts to the temples or through tax. 1\/18 Gulf This aspect of urbanization, which was apparent in the fifth millennium BC at Choga Mish, Eridu, Uruk, Nippur and Tell Uqair, became increasingly important in the fourth millennium. The subsequen t period at Susa (Susa II) showed the clear influence of the Late Vruk cu lture of Sumer. The pottery included typical Late Uruk pottery, such as jars with drooping spouts, four- lugged jars, and beveled- rim bowls. The small, (} C, crudely made conical beveled-rim bowls were extremely common and have been found in their ,' thousands OJ} s ites in southern Mesopotamia. Exactly what t he bowls were used for, however, is I .,, I not known- whether they were ration bowls for '' t he workforce employed by the state, votive bowls I -, , for presenting offerings to the temple, bowls used --,; J,-,-'' '' -\\\\ \\\\ in official feasts, containers fo r baking bread or given away with some foodstuff such as yoghurt. I Tn any event, at Susa they were not a development 65","CITIES of earlier local styles but had been i ntroduced from probably some of the earliest weapons used in the west. Furthermore, scaled hollow clay spheres warfare. and impressed tablets (the early means of recording accounts), have a lso been found in the latest levels A new style of temple building with a tripartite of the Susa H period. plan and an overhanging porch continued in the levels above. Around and beneath the temples At Godin Tepe, a settlement that lay on the main were numerous graves, which included 80 mud- route from Mesopotamia to Iran, there was a small brick tombs dating from the Gawra period. Some of enclave that may have been a merc_hant colony the tombs contained beads, the most common orna- from Susiana or Sumer. lt contained public build- ments, which were worn on the head, neck, hands, ings and was surrounded by a curving wall. It a lso wrists, waist, knees or ankles. Several tombs had shared the culture of lowland Mesopotamia, with thousands of beads, and one in particular had more pottery as well as seal impressions and impressed than 25,000. They were made of a variety of stones tablets typical of Susa and Uruk. Uruk innucncc in including turquoise, jadeite, carnelian, lapis lazuli the form of beveled- rim bowls has also been found and diorite, white faience, gold, elcctrum, shell and on the Iranian plateau at Tepe Qabrcstan, Tepe ivory. The la pis lazuli beads were the earliest Yahya and Tepe Sialk, on the edge of the Dasht-i examples of the dark- blue sem iprecious stone Kavir desert. found in Mesopotamia. As the closest source of lapis lazuli was the Badakhshan province in north- Tepe Gawra and northern Mesopotamia ern Afghanistan, more than 2,000 kilometers away, Northern Mesopotamia developed its own local the presence of 500 lapis lazuli beads in this tomb culture (called the Gawra culture) at the end of the is evidence of extensive trading links. Gold Ubaid period. Tepe Gawra, in the north of what is rosettes and ivory combs made from boars' tusks present-day Iraq, again became the site of a village were a lso found in the tombs. Perhaps the most in the levels above the exceptional Ubaid temples interesting object uncovered was a tiny wolf's head in level XUI. After the next level, level XII, which made of elcctrum, a naturally occurring alloy of had been destroyed by a huge fire, the rebui lt gold and sil ver. It was formed from a single piece of settlement was dominated by the large Round metal except for the ears, which were fixed by House, which was believed to have been the forti- copper pins, the lower jaw, jointed and held on by fied residence of the chief. Il contained stores of an electrum pin, and the teeth, wh ich were of elcc- grain and pear-shaped mace-heads, which were trum wire. T he eye sockets contained bitumen and had, perhaps, been inlaid with colored stones. i,,Lef1 \/I painted pottery beaker After the Gawra period, northern Mesopota- mia- like Susiana- camc increasingly under the daling Lo about 4000 oc found influence of the southern Late Uruk c ulture. Nine- the cemetery al Susa. \/It the top veh, for instance, which produced pottery that was is a row of long-necked birds typical of southern Late Uruk, might have been the above a row of long- bodied site of a southern colony, as it lay near an important crossing of the Tigris. dogs, perhaps greyhounds. The lower panel shows a bearded Tell Brak in the Habur plains also showed close connections with the south. The Eye Temple was a goat. The meaning of the symbol southern temple in a northern setting. Tts plan between the horns is not known. included a cruciform central hall and the walls Height about 25 cm. were decorated with stone rosettes and terracotta cone mosaics. The a ltar had bands of gold, set between bands of colored stone, that had been fixed in position by gold-headed, silver nails. The temple was given its name after the discovery of the thousands of s ma ll stone images, which arc sometimes called hut symbols and sometimes eye idols, among the ruins. T he size of the site in the Late Uruk period was about 110 hectares, as large as Uruk itself. Th e upper Euphrates Excavations of the Tabqa dam area on the Euph- rates in Syria uncovered Late Uruk period sites, which seemed to be colonies from southern Meso- potamia. The s ite of Habuba Kabira, with its religious acropolis Tell Qannas, stretched for more than a kilometer along the west bank of the Euph- rates and was defended by a fortification wall. Both the wall bricks and those used for the build- ings were the same riemchen bricks characteristic of the Uruk and Jemdet Nasr periods in the south. At Tell Qannas, the plans of the temples and of the houses were sim ilar to those of Uruk and Tell Uqair. Likewise, the pottery included beveled-rim bowls that had been made in a mold, as in Uruk, and other pottery types characteristic of southern 66","THE URBAN EXPLOSION Abnue More 1han lOO \\\"eye Mesopotamia were also common. Tablets im- Egypt idols\\\" (and thousands of pressed with tokens and scaled with cylinder seals The inOuence of Uruk even reached as far west as fr,1g111ents) made of stone or have also been found as well as hollow clay balls Egypt in the Naqada II (or Gcrzcan) period contem- baked clay were found in t.hc containing tokens. Very probably, these sites were porary wih the Late Uruk and Jemdct Nasr 4th-millennium He temple at Tell colon ies that had been established by merchants or periods. Some pottery types found there, such as llrak. It has been calcula1cd 1ha1 the government of Sumer. ledge- hand led jars, derived from the Chalcolithic some 20,000 or these votive period of Palestine, but other features, includ ing symbols measuring bet ween Late Uruk influence stretched up the Euphrates lugged and spouted jars, were characteristic of Late 2 a nd 11 cm in height were into Turkey. Cone mosaic has been discovered at Uruk pottery . Cylinder seals also first appeared in deposited in the temple. Similar Samsat, while Hassck Huyuk, a small fortified site Egypt at that time. Some were imports from the of less than one hectare, included several buildings cast, but others had been made locally and used objects in smaller numbers have of typical Late Uruk design, with clay cone mosaic. Mesopotamian or Iranian motifs. Also, lapis lazuli Further north, at Arslantepe, many typical Late from distant Afghanistan has been found in graves been found o n 01 her sites of the Uruk seal impressions, which probably played a there, as in Mesopotamia. period. part in the local administration, have been found. Also, beveled-rim bowls have been discovered at Late Prcdynastic (before a bout 2920 BC) art from Tepccik in the mountains, near the source of the Egypt also showed some influence from Mesopota- Tigris. mia. In particular, carved ivory knife handles a nd 67","CITIES slate palettes contained Mesopotamian motifs, even though the objects themselvcs were typically Egyptian. For instance, the \\\"master of animals\\\" on the Gebel el Arak knife handle closely resembles the scene on the Lion Hunt stclc from Uruk. Simi- larly, the elaborately niched mud- brick architec- ture of early Egypt and the appearance of writing have also been attributed to influence from the cast. Naqada II pottery has been found at Habuba Kabira and, very recently, baked clay cones of the kind used in mosaic wall decoration in Late Uruk s ites have been d iscovered at Tell al-Fara'in in the Egyptian delta. Palestine During the Uruk period Palestine and Anatolia were largely unaffected by the developments in Mesopotamia . Local cultures based on farming villages thrived wherever the conditions were suitable, and nomadic herdsmen and hunter-gath- erers exploited the environments where farming was not possible. Although not urbanized, these cultures were, in some respects, surprisingly advanccd. The discovery of a collection of more than four hundred copper objects in the cave of Nahal Mishmar in the Judean hills has transformed our knowledge of early metalworking. Altogether, 240 mace- heads, 138 standards and 10 \\\"crowns\\\" were found there along with eight copper jars and other tools. Similar objects have been uncovered at the Late Cbalcolithic settlement and industrial site of Neve Noy, dated to the first half of the fourth millennium BC. It has been suggested that the Naha l Mishmar hoard belonged to a temple treasury, and perhaps came from the small Chalcolitbic sanctuary at En-gedi near the Dead Sea. The Je mdet Nasr period . In southern Mesopotamia the Late Uruk period was followed by the Jemdct Nasr period (about 3100- ,.., 2900 BC). Uruk remained important but little of its I\\\" architecture has been preserved. At the site ofJem- det Nasr in Babylonia a large building, believed to links with Sumer were broken. In Susiana the Lale have been an administrative building, contained Uruk culture of Susa was replaced by the Proto- inscribed tablets of t he Uruk type as well as elabor- Elamite culture, which had closer li nks with the ate painted pottery. Built of riemchen bricks it Iranian plateau. At the same time the city of included a stretch of cascmatc wall almost 90 Anshan (modern Tell Malyan), near Pcrsepolis in meters long with defensive towers set at strategic Fars, expanded dramatically lo occupy 45 hectares . intervals. A seal impression on a tablet found there The union of Anshan and Susa formed the basis for bore the symbols of the gods of several towns the later Elamite state. The rise of the Proto-Elamite including Ur, Larsa, Uruk, Zabalam and either culture changed the geography of the Near East. [ts Umma or Akshak, suggesting that there might have influence, seen particularly in seals, extended from been a league of city states. The archaic sealings the eastern borders of Iran through the Zagros from Ur, which belonged to the slightly later Early mounta ins into northern Iraq and continued into Dynast ic l period, had simi lar groupings or city the Uarly Dynastic period. names, but whether these were political or corp- In northern Mesopotamia some of the southern- mcrcial alliances is uncertain. influenced settlements were abandoned and others .The painted Jemdct Nasr pottery is found developed t heir own local independent cultures, principally in nothern Babylonia, with only occa- sional finds farther south. However, almost identical pottery has been discovered in tombs of the contemporaneous Hafit culture in Oman at the other end of the Gulf, and an examination of the clay has shown that it probably came from Meso- potamia. Some experts have suggested that the pots might have been brought by Sumerian adventurers who were exploiting the rich Omani copper sources. Elsewhere in the Jemdet Nasr period the strong 68","THE URBA N EXPLOSION A bove right all(\/ ubuve Cyliudcr which included traits derived from the Late Uruk t hree thousand tablets have been found at Uruk, sea l and,, dr,1wing of the cu lture. In th is region urban life seems to have 240 from Jcmdet Nasr, four from Tell Uqair, and impression made by it. The been abandoned and cities became important again sct:nc shows a herd of' c~1t1lc only in t he midd le of the third millennium, aga in two from Eslrnunna. They arc believed to date to above with calves and pots in probably as a result of influence from southern the J cmdet Nasr period and to have been contem- recd huts below. The huts Mesopotamia. porary with the earliest Proto-Elam ite tablets from closely resemble those that lran. These were written in a different script but people sti ll bu ild in Ihe marshes Beginnin gs of a w ritte n la nguage of southern lr,,q tod,1y. The sea l By the Late Uruk period, Uruk was a city. IL was a one t hat had the same system of' number signs a nd is made of white. magncsi1e and large s ite, with a concentration of wealth and had showed a similar level of development. o n top is a small figure of a ram, monumental public bui ldings. Uruk was where tbe which has been casl out orsilver earliest known written documents were dis- In the Early Dynastic period (2900 2334 BC) the using the lost-wax pron\u00b7ss. covered. The language of these texts is not known script became more linear. The lines were formed The provenance of lhc seal is and they cannot be \\\"read\\\". However, as the script by pressing an angled instrument on tbe clay to unknown but il probably d,1lcs is largely p ictograph ic (based on recognizable produce the wedge-shaped marks of the cuneiform lo lhe Late Uruk period. Height pictures of real obj ects rather than symbols), they script. Few texts have been found belonging to the o r sea l 5. 3 cm. can at least partly be understood. early part of the Early Dynastic period, but by about the middle of the third millennium 11c t he L,11This s1,1rk. stone he,1d was The ea rly development of the script fe ll into cuneifor m system of writing had become wide- t hree stages. In the first, ca lled Uruk IV, signs were spread and was used to record all kinds of textual found beneath t he Eye Temple ,ll drawn with a pointed stylus on clay (or occasion- material- economic and admin istrative docu- Tell Brak and probably dates 10 ally gypsum plaster) tablets measuring about 5 ments, letters, stories, prayers, build ing inscrip- .,bout 1 100 ll<'. Holes at the top of centimeters across and about half as th ick. The tions, and so on. t he hc,1ddrcss aml the back of script was largely ideographic or logographic, that the neck show t h;it it was is, a sign stood for an idea or a word, not a letter or Whether the elaborate writing system of the o rigin,1lly fixed lo J woodcrt sylla ble. The numerals can be understood with early Uruk texts with its large number of signs was h.1,king. The head was prub,1hly little difficulty, and some of the signs have been the result of a long development or of a rapid recognized either because they look like the object breakthrough, perhaps by a single individual, is part of ;a uH11positc ~tatul;'\u2022 bul they represent or because they have been not known. Already, in earlier periods there bad whether it WilS of a n1t1n or J identified with later signs whose meaning is been pointers to suggest that the idea of writing wo111.,n OJ' h1.HnJn or d iv ine is known. Groups of signs were written together in was in the offing. In fact, there were several boxes, but appeared to be in no fixed order. Some possib le forerunners of the Uruk script. For rtol known. l'ossibly, it belonged six hundred tablets belonging to this stage have insta nce, there were tablets with s ig ns that had to Ihe cult image or a dcity been found at Uruk and one other at Kish, about been im pressed on them rather than written with a worshiped in the lcmplc. 150 kilometers to the northwest. stylus. The signs corresponded to t he measures or Height 17 cm. quantity t hat appeared on t he Uruk tablets. By the second stage (Uru k III) the signs had become more developed and more abstract, with Stamp and cylinder seals for identifying owner- straighter lines and fewer curves. Also, the ship of property, and tokens for recording commo- arrangement of t he s igns on the tablets was more dities, were other possible sources. These mig ht complex and the tablets themselves were larger. have g iven rise to the hollow clay spheres that con- Once again, most o[ the texts were economic tained tokens and were covered with seal records. Some were ration lists, recording alloca- impressions. The next stage, recording the contents tions of goods to different people, while others on t he outside, might, in time, have suggested the were records of livestock hold ings and the d istri- idea that a tablet impressed with the tokens and bution of ani mals for offering to the gods, in the bearing seal impressions was as reliable a record as temples or on festive occasions. Other tablets con- were the clay spheres. The later addition of signs tained lists of place names, professions and representing th ings other than numbers cou ld thus an imals. These were early versions of the lists on which the training of scribes was based unt il the have brought about the Uruk script. This scheme end of the use of cuneiform script. seems plausible but doubt remains as to how widely tokens were used to record commodities. From the textual variants in t hese .lists, scholars Moreover, the impressed tablets and the hollow have decided that the language of the Uruk III clay spheres have been found over a greater area texts was probably Sumerian, the language spoken and covering a longer period than would have in Uruk in the third mill ennium BC. More tha n been the case if they had been merely stages toward the texts. Indeed, both impressed tablets and clay spheres apparently had functioned as recording devices at the same t ime as the more 69","The Origins of Writing The earliest known examples of writing arc found token system with the addition of p ictograph ic on clay tablets from Uruk dating to about 3300 BC. signs. Already it was a complete system with more than 700 different signs. There must have been previous The pictographic signs are often simp le pictures stages in t he development w hich arc still whose meaning is o bvious: t he head of a bull unknown. The first tablets recorded the transfer of stands for cattle, an car of barley for barley. Some- commodities such as grain, beer and livestock or times the meaning of' t he sign was by association: a were lists used by scribes learn ing how to write. bowl meant food or bread; a leg meant to stand and Another system of record ing was also practiced to wa lk. Com binations of signs could express more at the same time, using small clay tokens of' complex notion s, so t hat a head and a bowl meant different shapes and sizes cones, disks, spheres to eat. In time the form of the signs was adapted to Above Gable,! ,1,11np seal and ii\\\\ and cylinders and so on. These may have repre- being written with a rectangular-ended stylus imrrcssio n, mca~uring 4.6 X sented different quantities or d ifferent commod i- made out of a reed. As a result, all the strokes used l .9 cm and 0.9 cm 1hic k. Seals of ties, such as gra in or sheep. Groups of tokens were were wedge-shaped and hence t he script is called placed inside hollow clay s pheres which had cuneiform. In the Early Dy nastic period t he writ- thb type have been found in cylinder seals rolled over them to prod uce records ing changed from downward to across. that could be accessed only by break ing open the uonhern Mesopotamia cHHI sphere. Sometim es tokens were imp ressed into the In the developed cuneiform script word signs surface of the clay spheres or on clay tablets. As could stand for their phonetic value (as if in sou thern Turkey in lhc 41h the shapes of the signs used in the written script English a p icture of a jack could be used for a f:l ag millennium 11c From the 6th for counting are similar to those of the tokens, it is as in Union Jack, the name Jack, or the sy llable jac millennium oc ,1amp seals were probable t hat the written script was based on t he in ejaculate). With the addition of syllabic signs to u,cd for markmg clay. Their the word signs, the scribes were able to render designs prob,1blv indicated the human speech effectively in t heir script. clwncr. Leji This day 1ablc1 ~hows an early form of writing. perhap> earlier th,rn on the 1ablc1s from Uruk since 1he form~ of Ihe signs arc more naturalistic 1h,1n tho::,.c of' the Uruk IV tablets. II was nol found in an archeologic,11 excav<llion and w il\\\\ date is uncertain. The ,ign, 111 1he bollom line may be rc,1d \\\"en\\\" \\\"nun\\\" and ' 'gal\\\", mc.1ni11g pric,L, prince and grcJt, r c s p cc 1ivcly. A bo,.,. I\\\\ hollo w clay sphere and \u00b71' '+, ...., { \/,eft Impression of ,1 1~11c Uruk period cylinder ,cal. Cylinder 1oken, from Susa. More 1han 100 . V, ',;,1 ~ \u00b7 sc,1ls arc round earlier than the such spheres containing 1okens c,1rlle,1 wrillen 1able1s bu t both l, ,.,_..,..., . ' seem to h,,ve been devised for have been found in Ela m and Sumer ,111d a few have been ,\u2022 \u00b7t\u2022..., the bureauc racy o f 1he Late discovered in Syria and on 1he ,,;-, ' Uruk period. The ,i,e or the Iranian pla1eau. One of 1hese scab (this one;. 4 cm high) made Alx!l'e Pyramidal stamp sc,,l ,,nd clay sphc1es had clay token\u2022 ' ii po\u00bbibk to cover lJrge areas Its impression: 2.9 x 2.1 c m, stuc k inlO 1he surface while 16 height 3.0 cm. Stamp scab h,wc bore m.,rks oreither impressed w ith impressions e,,sily. been found from the early l'ollcry Neolith ic period in rnken, or scra1ched sign~. Possibly, seals wi th dil'fcrcm Anl1toli,1 ;ind in MC$OpotJmi,,, design, were used by different where pallcrn, of cross-hatc hed recordini: the tokens in,idc. hnes were common. The branches or the administration. function of1he,c early >1:,1b is not known. P ICTOG R\/ \\\\ l 'H IC * wsur 74tunover -- ,,.,,-,,-,. 1 ~ ry ~ ~ ~ ho,\u2022izon bowl head + !>owl lower leg 7shroudcd 1..cft Table showing the SIGN r. 3100 nc 7,trcam c.ir of bull's head body dcvelopmclll of 1he cune ifo rm ,crip1. The later forms or 1hc INTERPRETATION barley cuneiform ~ign:,, appear to bl\u00b7 abst ract, almost ,wbil rary, CUNcll'ORM +* 6 ' i R '~~ 9 SIGN c. 2400 BC dingir. an combirutions of' vcrticai, ~T Tf ~~ ~t tfJ ~ ~ r ~ CUNEl\u00a31ORM \u2022 M: gu,. nig2, mnda ku2 du. gin, gub lu horizon1al and di,1gonal wedge,. SIGN c. 700 BC u , ud 2 Examination ofearlier 4 (turned tl>rough 901 orin~cription~ ~hows that mo~I PHONETIC 1hc later signs we re derived from V\/\\\\LU(l\u2022 identifiable piclurcs ofreal objects. Over the centuries ,omc MEA NING ~od, sky day, su11 water. b,,rlcy ox food, brc,ul lOC.tl to walk, man of the words ,rnd pho netic ~td, son values repre..cnlcd by the sign, to st.and changed. \u00b7 Some signs have more than one phonetic value and some sounds arc represented by more than one sign. U mc.1ns the founh sign with the phonetic value u. 4 70","THE URBAN EXPLOSION developed texts. Two clay tablets found at Tel l observer. One or these was a mask- like face of a Brak, in northeast Syria, containing what appear to woman, found discarded in a rubbish pit in the be early pictographs, show the whole animal, northwest enclosure or Eanna, wh ich probably instead of just the head, as on the Uru k tablets, once had inlaid eyes and a w ig . lt was approx i- which suggests that the invention of writing was a mately life size, with a broken nose, which complex process. The use of signs to represent originally would have been quite prominent. objects was an important stage; the later use of Another impressive piece was the Lion Hunt slcle. signs to represent sounds was perhaps equal ly The edges were broken and the back was rough important. but it seemed to be a freestanding stclc, an art Corm Art and p ropaganda that continued until the first millennium BC. T he stclc, now 78 centimeters high, showed two scenes: Before the Uruk period there had been a few the upper one was of a bearded man wearing a examples of naturalistic or representational art, [or knee- length skirt whe5 was spearing a lion as it example, the Late.Paleolithic cave art of southwest reared up on its hind legs; the lower showed a man, Rrance, the murals of Chatal Huyuk or, in their probably the same one, aiming his bow and arrow modest way, the paintings of onagers at Umm at a rearing lion. Dabaghiych. These were, however, exceptional, The most fascinating find of th is period from and during the previous thousands of years of Near Uruk was t he Warka vase. A large vessel, more Eastern culture, art had been confined to rather than a meter tall, it had four bands of relief' decor- stylized, human and animal figurines. In the north, ation measuring 92 centimeters in height. At the during the Ubaid period, carvings of scenes of rim, the vase was 36 centimeters across. 11 had been humans and animals had appeared on stamp seals. damaged and repaired in a ntiquity . The lower two Now, however, the cylinder seal- a new invention bands depicted plants and animals. The third of a pecu liarly Mesopotamian kind gave the showed naked servants, possibly priests, carrying opportunity for more ambitious compositions. loaded contai ners, presumably as tribute or ln levels [V and lll at Uruk, sea l impressions offerings. were common both on clay jar stoppers and on The top band, which was the most interesting, tablets. In some of the scenes depicted, a bearded included a ca rving of the same man shown 011 the man wearing a headband and a skirt\\\" was shown Lion Hunt stele, making offerings to the goddess feeding the herds, traveling on a boat, threatening lnanna. The tassels of his skirt were held by \/Jc\/ow Part of the remarkable naked prisoners with a spear or making offerings. another man wearing a short skirt, in front of hoard of meta l objcc is rrom the cave ofNaha l Mishnwr to 1hc Next to him was an emblem consisting of a bundle whom a naked man was ma king an offering to a easl. of the Dead Sea. Da1i11g 10 the first halfof !he ~th of reeds, which later symbolized t he goddess fe male figure standing before the recd bundles that Tnanna, the c hief deity o[ the c ity of Uruk . Clearly, were the symbols or the goddess. Her headdress millennium uc, the collccLion co111,1ined more lhan 400 ohjcc1s the man represented the ru ler or Uruk, who was had been damaged when the vase was first made of copper alloyed wil h her ch ief priest. Similar figures have been found on repa ired, ma king it impossible to ascertain how she M'Scnic. Al the back is one of lhc seals from Susa, which might have represented was dressed. Slightly later Mesopotamian gods and IO \\\"crowns\\\" wilh lost..vh,x cast Susa's ruler or perhaps Uruk's if Susa had, at that goddesses were often shown wearing headdresses time, been under the control of Uruk. with cows' or bulls' horns, so the figure might figures of animals. 11 has been have represented the goddess herself, or she coLild suggested that I hcsc were used Among the earliest pieces of monumental stone have been a priestess. 13ehind t he recd bundles two as drums. Also shown arc sculpture found in Uruk, some arc o[ interest not sheep ca rried platforms on I heir backs where only for t heir antiquity but for the emotional figures or statues were standing. The figure on the s1andards or sccplcrs and response that they can evoke from the modern mace-heads. wh ich would have been fixed lo wooden hafts, ,1nd a hollow horn-shaped objccl. left carried the sign for en, the Sumerian word for the chief priest. Behind the s heep, piled up tribute included two vases o[ a sim ilar shape to the Warka vase and two animal-shaped vessels. Other remarkable finds contemporary with t he Warka vase included a vessel carved with lions and bulls, with the lions on each side of the spout, and a jar with an e laborate inlay of shell and stone. A stone statuette of' a bearded man was found in a vessel dating to the Late Uruk or Jcmdct Nasr period under a wall from the later Seleucid period. It had been broken before being buried and the lower ha lf was missing. Made of gray a labaster and standing I8 centimeters high, the statuette rep- resented the same man as on the Warka vase. T he eyes were of mother-of- pearl set in bitumen, and possibly the pupils were of the blue sem i- precious stone lapis lazuli. At Uruk, for the first time art was used Lo illus- trate the role of the ruler and to reinforce his posi- tion. Art and architecture combined to create an effect of power and wealth to impress the loca l populace and enhance the stability of the ruling group. Political and religious propaganda expressed in the form of works of art have proved to be potent sources of information about the 71","CITlcS Cyl1\u00b7nder Sealsancient Near East, revealing much about the char- acter of the rulers. Technology and transportation During the fourth millennium there were major developments in metallurgy. Some of the objects in the hoard from Nahal Mishmar had been made from smelted copper that possibly came from the mines in the Tirona valley, about 150 kilometers to As their name implies, cylinder seals are cylinders, the south. Many were an alloy of copper and generally of stone but also of faience, glass, baked arsenic, which was easier to cast and harder than clay, wood, bone, shell, ivory or metal, that were pure copper and was often used before tin bronze carved with a design so that when they are rolled (an alloy of copper and tin) became common in the out on clay a continuous impression in relief is pro- second millennium BC. Some of these objects duced. They average about 2.5 centimeters in weighed more than a kilogram and had been made height and l.5 centimeters in diameter and were by a method known as lost-wax casting. First, the generally pierced lengthwise so that they could be shape was modeled in wax, then coated in clay and worn on a pin or string, or mounted on a swivel. heated to harden the mold and melt the wax. Next, Cylinder seals were developed during the second molten metal was poured into the mold, which was half of the fourth millennium BC in southern Meso- broken when the cast metal object was taken out. potamia (Uruk) and in southwestern Iran (Susa) as a Small lost-wax castings are known from the convenient way of covering large areas of clay used considerably later temple treasury hoard found at for sealing storeroom locks, goods carried in jars, Uruk and some striking statuettes from western bags, boxes or baskets and- above all- the clay Syria also date to this period. tablets used for about 3,000 years as the main The people of the time also used other metals vehicle for cuneiform writing. besides copper and its alloys. Gold and silver orna- When the cuneiform system was adapted for ments have been discovered, and silver and lead writing the languages of Mesopotamia's neighbors, were used for vessels. Iron fragments have been the cylinder seal was used as a seal form instead of Cylinder seals were often made found at Jebcl Aruda and Uruk in the Late Uruk the stamp seal. During t he course of the first mil- of hard stones but, given a good abrasive, these could be cul with period, and iron objects were listed on Uruk lII lennium BC, the alphabet replaced cuneiform and Oint or copper tools. (Top and tablets. (However, this iron might have come from the stamp seal once again replaced the cylinder above) Egyptian Lornbs from Saqqara (c. 2450 ec) and Thebes meteorites or been an accidental by-product from seal. The designs on cylinder seals are a valuable (c. l420 nc) show hand- boring smelting copper.) Advances in metalworking might source of information: they chronicle develop- and bow-drilling. The bow-drill have been promoted by the desire of the ruling ments in the iconography of deities, mythology enabled greater speeds Lo be groups for rare materials as status symbols. and daily life as well as recording events such as achieved and, when mounted the first domed buildings, the first lute or the horizontally, greater control. The first use of the plow in the Near East also introduction of the water buffalo from India. They dates to the Uruk period. Plow marks in the soil were frequently inscribed and provide genealogi- Below Cylinder seals were used have been found from the Susa I period and plows cal information concerning their owners. for scaling legal documents such were represented on Late Uruk seals and among the as contracts, sales, ration- lists, Irealies, loans and so on. Al signs on Uruk IV ta blcts. These tablets also con- some periods the tablet itself was scaled; at others the tablet was tained signs for sledges and the first wheeled enclosed in ,1 sealed clay envelope. The seal on 1his vehicles (shown as sledges witb circles beneath) to envelope shows the seated water-god with streams flowing appear in the Near East, which were probably from his shoulders; before him stand a naked, bearded hero and heavy, lumbering carts pulled by oxen. a bull-man flghting with an inverted lion. It was found at In southern Mesopotamia, which was damp and Kanesh in central Turkey, where Assyrian merchants had muddy in winter and crisscrossed by numerous established a trading colony. water channels, boats presented a more practical means of transportation. A model of a boat in baked clay from the Ubaid period has been found at the cemetery at Erid u, and in the Uruk and Jem- det Nasr periods boats were among the signs that appeared on tablets and cylinder seals. Overland transport was by animal caravan, which remained the normal method in much of the Near East until the present century. Donkeys were the most useful beasts of burden in the ancient Near East and are still widely used today. Bones of domesticated donkeys have been found in the Uruk levels at Tell Rubeidheh. The materials used for cylinder The increased use ofstamp seals Plows, wheels, boats and donkeys were almost in the 1st millennium BC led Lo seals varied according to fashion the cy linder seal of the Assyrian certainly in use before the Uruk period. Plow and availability. (Top) Cylinder king Esarhaddon (680- 669 BC) marks found in northern Eu rope have been dated seal from Tell Sleimeh in the being adapted. (Top) Sealing to about 3500 BC, and models of wheeled carts dis- shows that it was fitted with covered in Poland and actual carts buried in graves Hamrin basin made ofroyal blue gold caps, one of which bears a in the southern Soviet Union belonged to approxi- lapis lazuli from Afghanistan. design; both cylinder and stamp mate!y the same period. However, the origin of the show the king fighting a lion. p low (which some experts believe was invented in First cut c. 2250 ec, it was (Above) A piece of leather or northern Mesopotamia before 6000 BC) and the inscribed by two later owners. clotb, stretched over the mouth whee l remain uncertain. of a storage jar, could be sect,red (Above) Assyrian chalcedony by strings covered with clay sea ls of the 8th century BC. sealed with a cylinder seal. 7J.","Below As cylinder seals were Above, lej'c to right Many seals top right,) Middle Assyrian used to protect property and were items ofjewelry. A shell (c. 1300 uc). Chalcedony; safeguard legal transactions, inlay from Mari, c. 2500 oc, they came to be associated with showing a seal hanging from a 2.8 x 1.2 cm. (Above right) the protection of their owner pin; a Syrian hematite sea l (c. Neo-Assyrian (c. 700 uc). and were used in rituals against l 720 BC), with gold caps and a sickness, miscarriage, black loop of wire. (Below) a green Carnelian; J.65 x l.7 cm. (Right) magic or slander. The stones jasper sea l from Syria (c. 1800 uc) from which they were made also with gold caps set in a swivel Achacmenid (c. 450 ac) found at had special properties: lapis (found in a grave dating to the Borsippa, Iraq; detail. lazuli, for example, meant power 7th- or 6th-century BC in Chalcedony; 4.75 x 2.2 cm. and divine favor. This Kassite Carthage, Tunisia). sea l of the 14th century BC is inscribed with a long prayer to Cylinder seals and their the owner's protective god: impressions. (Top) Uruk period Oh Marduk, sublime lord, prince (c. 3300 BC), found near Uruk. i11 whose ha11ds che power oj' Marble with a bronze handle decisio11 i11 heaven a11d on earth shaped like a couchant sheep; has been vesced; the serva11t who 5.4 x 4.5 cm. (Below top) Early worships you, by your look may he Dynastic Ill (c. 2600 sc). Green be happy. It depicts a god, calcite; 5.0 x 2.6 cm. (Above) presumably Marduk, Akkadian (c. 2250 uc). Rock surrounded by symbols. crysta l; 3.2 x 2.2 cm. (Top right) Chalcedony; 3.6 cm high. Old Babylonian (c. 1750 uc). Hematite; 2.5 x 1.3 cm. (Below The use of cylinder seals Cylinder seals are mostly found scale 1: 17000000 400km in those regions where the 300mo cuneiform script was used for 0 'I writing on clay tablets. 0 ~~t:\\\"7rnrr. .1 \\\\ lY(l t ' ~ ) ;;y \\\" ; '.\u00b7 ~~.: iX1 l t\u00b7\u2022. MEDITERRANEAN = Te Sial< SEA __...,_~..t'_ __.,<--...>--... 0 site wilbin area oJ I D cylindersealuse mainarea ol cy1inder seal use The undersides of clay scalings bear impressions ofobjects =i 3500-3001 BC sea led- for instance jars or 1 baskets. Some scalings were used to secure wooden doors fastened 1emi~~~7i--+-------J==~- ---~Ll~~~~~~,_:k-.~~i ~~----;--1__ with a peg and string (iop). The \\\\ Oat surface and gra in of the wood and the shape of peg and \\\\ ~~ii~ string are found on some scalings (above). Whereas sea led jars - 3000-2501 BC _r~: could be imported, doors were sealed locally. Studying the =- 2500- 2001 BC ~ sealings can give information on 2000-1501 BC difforent styles and trade - 1500-1001 BC patterns. - 1000-501 BC - 500-0BC 42' 38\u00b7 73","Religion and Ritual IJelo1v This podium, found in the temple of the goddess Ishtar at Ashur, bears a dedicatory inscription or the Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I to the god Nusku. The king is shown twice, worshiping the tablet and the stylus of the god Nabu set on a similar podium. Height 57.5 cm. As sh own by the religious furnishings of Neolithic IJelo1v Drawings of two seal houses at Qermez Dere and Chatal Huyuk, religion impressions on a tablet of the and ritual, from the earliest times, played a funda- reign ofTukulti-Ninurta I mental role in the lives of the inhabitants of the (1243 1207 nc) found at Ashur. ancient Near East. Indeed some scholars suggest The goatfish was associated with that religion was the motivating force behind the the god Ea and the dog wilh the transformation from village to city life. goddess Gu la. The rulers of the region all considered them- selves to be agents of the gods and an important part of their duties was the performance of cere- monies designed to ward off evil and gain the deities' goodwill. The principal centers for religious activities were the temples, though in certain cultures ceremonies could also take place in sacred groves or on hilltops. The gods were present in the temples in the form of divine statues and the priests were responsible for looking after them. There were different types of priests with different functions including administration, incantations, exorcism, omens, divination and so on. Most of the available information comes from texts dealing with the palace or t he temple; little is known about the religion of the ordinary citizens. Above Limestone relief from Susa Above right A bronze sculpture thaL was made for the Middle with an inscription in 1hc Linear ElamiLc king Shilhak- Elamitc script of Puzur- lnshushinak (c. 1150 nc). Found lnshushinak (c. 2200 11c). A god holds a peg to secure the at Susa encased in gypsum, ii. is foundations of a temple while an the only 3-dimensional scene interceding goddess stands from the ancient Near East to behind. Similar figures were have su,\u00b7vived. It shows two used as foundation figures lo naked priests performing a commemorate the building of slight ly later temples by ccrcmony, perhaps aI dawn, as Naram-Sin. the king of Agade, and Gudea, the ruler of Lagash. the sculpture is ca lled \\\"sunrise\\\" Driving a peg into the ground in t he inscription. The setting probably formed part of an elaborate ceremony connected includes trees, a large vessel and with the purification of the site a variety ofplatforms and altars. before the construction ofa temple. Height 52 cm. ll has been suggested tha1 the larger stepped objects represent ziggurats but it is more like!y that they were high altars. Length 60 cm, width 40 cm. 74","Left Sumerian statues found at Eshnunna some or which were part of a cache buried in the Square Temple at Eshnunna. They represent worshipers and were placed in temples 10 pray perpetually for the life of the donor. The clasped hands are probably a gesture of reverence and prayer. Below Detail of the stelc of king Ur-Nammu (21 12- 2095 nc) found in pieces at Ur. T he scene shows the king making a libation before the moon god Nanna (Sin in Akkadian), the chiefgod of lhe city. T he god holds the rod and ring, perhaps originally a ya rdstick and a measuring rope; the other object may be a necklace. Libations were or water, beer, wine, oil or the blood of a sacrificial animal. Left Impression from a lapis Above Mosaic inlay from the ~io,f?J:G,ti ~to\/V, ~ Early Dynast ic Temple of ->..J lazuli cylinder seal found at Shamash al Mari, possibly Ii' ! Uruk in the temple treasury show ing the sacrifice of a ram. . ~;l)~~ Sacrifices were a regu lar part or .\/_ hoard or the late 4th millennium the temple ceremonies and ,, ~;, 1 oc. The ruler in a high-prowed special sacrifices were made on , boat transports a bu ll carrying particular days. Animals were ~, on ils back a stepped plat form also killed for use in divination with the emblems of the goddess by consulting the entrails. lnanna (as on the Warka vase Righi Statues or the gods being found in the same hoard). In carried off by Assyrian soldiers (c. 730 sc). The statue on the left later limes the statues of the is of Adad, the storm god, who carries a bolt of lightning. The gods were taken in procession deportation or the gods of a from temple to temple on festival captured city was standard practice in Mesopotamia. days, and at the Babylonian New Year festival the stat ues of the gods were brought from other cities to Babylon. Height 4.3 cm. ,. -<.I.,~- 75","Gods and Detnons Hundreds of gods were worshiped in the ancient Left A naked lady holding lions Near East, with each ethnic group and even each and lotus flowers was carved on city having its own gods. In general, there was this Phoenician style ivory considerable religious tolerance, and gods of one harness ornament found at region were often identified with those of another. Kalhu. Nude goddesses are The Sumerian and Akkadian pantheons merged at normally identified with the an early date and their divinities cannot be dis- goddess of love and war known tinguished. Often the prestige of the gods was as lnanna to the Sumerians, as dependent on the fortunes of their home city: thus Ishtar to the Akkadians and as Marduk and Ashur rose to prominence as Baby- Astarte in the Levant. lonia and Assyria thrived. Height 16. 1 cm. The gods normally took human form and were Right A kudurru (boundary believed to behave like humans, with the same stone) of Nebuchadnezzar I emotions and the same needs, though they pos- (1124-1l03 11c) carved with the sessed supernatural powers. Alongside the gods symbols of the gods. In the top were numerous other supernatural beings, both row are the star of Ishtar, the good and bad - demons, spirits, ghosts and so on - crescent of Sin and the solar disc that took on a variety of forms, often combining of Shamash. The three horned human and animal characteristics. Some demons crowns on pedesta ls below may were thought to be responsible for diseases and represent Anu, Enlil and Ea. other misfortunes and elaborate rituals were Height c. 60 cm. undertaken to avert their evil. Left One popular method or divining the future was to examine the entrails of a sacrificed animal. This Babylonian baked clay plaque from Sippar, dating to about 700 nc, illustrates one such examination a nd on the other side t he interpretation of the omen is recorded. The face is identified as belonging to the demon Humbaba who was slain by the epic hero Gilgamesh. Height 8 cm. ~ Right The back of this bronze relief plaque (c. 700 sc) shows .\/ the demon Pazuzu whose head and hands are visible at the top. t It was probably intended as protection against Lamashtu, (~ who attacked pregnant women and newborn children. The ~\\\\~.' ' plaqQ.e shows the symbols of the gods, a row of demons, a sick ~Ii:i< ., ~ person attended by two priests {!' ' \u2022. in fish cloaks, as well as the .. demons Pazuzu and the ~ lion-headed Lamashtu beneath. Height 13.3 cm, width 8.4 cm. ',\/ ,_ Left Winged figure, from the Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal !I (883- 859 nc) at Kalhu, wearing the horned crown that signified divinity in ancient Mesopotamia from the Early Dynastic period on. Many similar figures, some with four wings, some with eagles' heads and some wearing cloaks of fish, carrying a variety of objects - plants, animals, buckets and cones were carved on the walls of the palace. These supernatural beings are associated with the apka1lu, or seven sages, whose figurines were buried beneath the floors of the palaces to protect the palace and its occupants from evil. 76","Beloiv llronze figure representing of the evil demons. Pnuzu was l?ight Bronze 11gure of a god with the wind demon Pazuzu, who thought ofas benevolent. Bronze four faces. 11 was not found in am ulets of Pazuzu's head, worn excavation bu t may have come was normally shown with a to protect women in childbirth from Neribtum (Tcll lshchali) grotesque face, four wings, against the attacks ofthe and date to the early 2nd she-demon Lamashtu, were very millennium Bc. The identity or bird's legs, animal front paws popular in the Late Assyrian and the gocl is not known. and a scorpion's tail. It is Nco-Babylonian periods. Height 17 cm. inscribed \\\"I am Pazuzu. son of Be\/oiv Impression ofa grccnstonc Han bi, king of the evil cylinder seal of the Akkadian wind-demons.\\\" Although king period (c. 2200 BC) showing the water god Ea with his two-faced vizier Usrnu. In front of him the sun god Sharnash emerges from between the mountains with Ishtar to his left. Height 3.9 cm. Right Th is baked clay plaque from Tutub (Tell Khafajeh) shows a warrior god stabbing a one-eyed solar deity. The identities of the figures arc not known. The scene may be from a myth that has not been preserved. Molded plaques depicting gods were popular in the Old Babylonian period (2000- 1600 sc) and were found in both temples and houses. They were probably votive offerings or devotional objects. Height 11 cm. 77","STATES IN CONFLICT (3000;23s0 Bc) Recording early history east from the third to the first millen ium BC. 13ut as The trade in ch lorite vessels of' The invention of writing in the Late Uruk period the texts have not so far been deciphered, this the lnterwllu ral Style brought the people of Mesopotamia to lhc thresh- Carved stone vessels made oul uf old of h istory. However, it was not until almost a cannot be proved. d1lorilc have been found on thousand years later that texts were produced that At Susa 1,400 Proto- Elamite tablets have been many Near Eastern sites of' the can be used to unravel the history of the region. )rd millennium 1i.. One of the The contemporary inscriptions of the rulers of the found and smaller quantities at Tepe Sialk, Tepe city states from late in the Early Dynastic period Yahya and Tall-i Malyan. A single example was mai n sources of chloritc is the arc often uninformative, recording only the name excavated at Shahr-i Sokhtc, far in the east of Iran, of the ruler and a d cdicatiot1 to a god, wh ile infor- near the Afghan border. With these tablets were region near the site of 'l'cpe mation contained in late r texts, wrillcn in retro- seals and seal impressions relating to Jcmdet Nasr Yahya, which was a major spect, tends to be distorted. The chronology, too, is and Early Dynastic I types in Mesopotamia. One production center. In somewhat uncertain. The earliest fairly reliable type of seal was in the shape of a tall, thin cylinder Mesopotamia these luxury date is the accession of Sargon of' Agade in 2334 BC, carved out of chlorite (or steatite), which was vessels have been found in which marks t he end of' the Early Dynastic period heated after the design had been cut in order to in Mesopotamia. This date, however, has been ca l- make the surface harder. The designs on these seals Lcmplcs1 in palaces ,ind in culated by adding up the lengths of t he reigns often had rosettes, batched geometric figures graves. Those from the island of between Sargon and Amm isaduqa of Babylon, 700 including triangles and circles, as well as arches, Tarut in the Gull' were probably years later, and so may be as much as 200 years arcades and other motifs, all of which were com- from graves. but were not adrift. parable with t he signs on Proto-Elamite tablets. recovc,\u00b7cd in a scient ific These \\\"glazed stcatitc\\\" seals have been found excavation. The most frequent The decline of the Late Uruk trading empire le[t throughout the Proto-Elamite zone and along the motif's in the lntcrcultural Style a cultural vacuum, whic h was fi lled locally: in the western edge of the Zagros as far as the Nincvite S arc a type of building that has east by the Proto-Elamite c u.lture, in southern cu lturc of northern Mesopotamia. However, they not yet been identified with any were quite rare in southern Mesopotamia, which known architectural style from that region, and animals, most commonly depict ing a sn,1ke in Combat. One of these found in the lnanna Temple al Nippur was labeled in cuneiform scri pt \\\" l nanna and the serpent\\\", but this inscription may have been add ed ar\\\\er the vessel arrived i11 Mcsopolam ia. Mesopotamia by Jemdet Nasr and Early Dynastic 1, suggests that commercial and political connections and in the Diyala and Hamrin by Late Protoliterate ran parallel with the mountains, rather than radi- and Early Dynastic I. In northern Mesopotamia, ating out from the lowlands (as bad been the case the replacement. cultures were first a derivative of in the earlier Late Uruk period). Late Uruk culture and then Ninevitc S, a nd in The largest know n Proto-Elamitc site was Tall-i other regions Early Bronze cultures. Southern Malyan, 450 kilometers castsoutheast of Susa in the Mesopotamia remained the foc us for\u00b7 civilization, region of' Fars. l n later periods Ma lyan was called with many cities competing for dominance. Only Anshan, and both Susa and Anshan were included the little- known Proto-Elamitc culture, w h ic h within the boundaries of the kingdom of Elc1m. In includ ed at least one major city, approached the the Bancsh period, about 3400- 2600 BC, Ma lyan Mesopotamian in terms of its far-flung contacts. occupied SO hectares. Early in the third millennium Elsewhere the large cities created u nder Late Uruk a defensive wall around the city enclosed an area of influence did not survive. By the end of the Early some 200 hectares, of which about a quarter con- Dynastic period, however, Sumerian inCluence was sisted of permanent settlements. once again being felt throughout Mesopotamia and ln one area excavations have uncovered a well- was affecting the whole of the Near Easl. constructed large building w ith seventeen or more rooms containing wa ll paintings in red, w h ite, Proto-Elamitc culture yellow, gray and b lack . Other buildings, some of At Susa there was a change in the material c u lture which contained Proto-Elamite tablets and clay from Susa LI, w h ic h was similar to the Late Uruk scal ings, included storerooms and workshops culture of StLmcr, to Susa lll, whic h had closer w here there were locally available materials such connections with the highland regions or Iran to as flint, copper ore and bitumen, as well as the east. Much of Susiana was abandoned at this imported materials that included obsidian, mothcr- time, including Susa itself. The people might have of- pearl and shells from the Gulf, carnelian and moved either to southern Mesopotamia or to the lapis lazuli from Badakhshan in northern Afghani- Iranian p lateau, both of which experienced a stan. Lapis lazuli could have reach ed the Near East growth in population. along two main routes: a southern route passing The artifacts most characteristic of t he Susa lfl through Shahr-i Sokhte, then south of the Dasht- i period at Susa arc tablets written in the Proto- Kavir and the Dasht- i Lut to Kerman and Fars and Elamite A script. This script is generally similar to through Khuzistan; and a northern route, which the Mesopotamian, and the weights and measures was followed by the later Silk route, through Khor- systems used are also the same. However, the non- assan, between the Alborz and the Dasht- i Kavir, numerical signs differ and presumably were used and then southwest past Ramadan and Kerman- for writing different languages. In the Uruk III, shah to central Mesopotamia. Along both these and probably Uruk lV, texts the language was routes were sites showing evidence for the import Sumerian. In the Proto-Elamite texts, it was very and working of semiprecious stones including lapis li kely an early form of Elamitc, the spoken lazu li. Near Tepe Yahya t here are r ic h deposits of language of Susiana and of tbe mountai.ns to the chloritc, which was used for seals and bowls in the 7 11","- ,34\u2022 42\\\" .... 50' \\\\ 58\\\" STATES lN CONFLICT 66\\\" r l {\\\\ BLACK SEA \\\\i ''\\\\ \\\\. I \\\"'\\\\..\\\"' ''\\\\ t \u2022$<)\\\\<11 ( ) '1 \\\\ t '\\\\{ \\\\ (l ~.,. \\\\,) J I 11 '{J-,.il\\\\\\\\ \\\\ lr0.,..$ J XI ) \\\\ ) ! \\\"\\\"'hq \\\\ I, J ( '1CASPIAN SEA ' I I I 1\\\\ MEDJT. I \u00b7, L Van ~\\\"'? '. L Urm\/s11 I' 34\u2022 .:j Oasht~e Kavir rab(I) Ummal\u2022Nar Syrian (1 pput(I (I) Shw Ada Desert i ru An Nafud ,;\/ (10) r ) tJ \u2022 \\\\ - - - major trade rou1o Ii~ 1,1,0Mn)OO(aIr)o( \\\\ C J mainchlOli1o sourco area I chlolito vossol lindwith Bam)J)\u25a0 r 26\u00b7 archilectural scene o, pat1em I FIEDSEA .~, llfii\\\"- }I \u2022\u2022 aninal scene \\\"' flo<al <:f ' I- (2) numlle<ollinds I -- ancient coaslline I II scale I : 17000000 400km 0 300mi I 0 ARABIAN SEA Early Dynastic period . Twenty-six inscribed Proto- of these comprised a single large settlement and the Elamite tablets have been found there, together surrounding countryside. From the evidence at with a further 84 blank tablets. The inscribed Eridu there was a continuity from the Uba id period tablets recorded small quantities of goods such as into the Uruk. Similarly, there were no major dis- grain and beer as well as animals, indicating that ruptions from the Uruk to the Jemdct Nasr and their primary use was for local administration, not Early Dynastic periods. In particular, the locations long- distance trade. of temples remained the same, and excavations of successive levels have revealed architectural Early Dynastic I development over hundreds and eveo thousands of Southern Mesopotamia in the Early Dynastic years. During that time there was a gradua l evolu- period was divided up into small city states. Most tion in pottery, as new styles were introduced, but the overall impression is one of continuity . Righr Painted poucry jar from Tell Khafajeh (ancient Tutub) in Excavations in the Diyala region, to the cast of the Diyala region . This style of Baghdad, have established the basic archeological painting in black and red pain! framework. The Early Dynastic period can be is called Scarlet Ware and is divided into an early phase, which is essentially Lypical of the Early Dynas1ic I prehistoric, and a later phase, in which historical period. Both geometric and figures and events can be identified. These phases natura lislic motifs were used but correspond respectively to Early Dynastic I and scenes showing hmnans, as on Early Dynastic III in the Diyala region, with Early this vessel, were rare. Height Dynastic II representing a transitional period in c. 30 cm. between. Early Dynastic I is best known from the Diyala region, and typified by painted pottery known as Scarlet Ware, which is also found in the Hamrin. Once again, temples have provided a useful source of information. A typical temple had a shrine consisting of a long narrow room, which was entered near the end of one of the long sides from a courtyard, w ith an altar at t.he opposite short end. This form of temple, which incorporated a \\\"bent axis\\\" approach, might have developed from the addition of an outer courtyard to the 79","CITIES I34\u00b7 ., 38\\\" u\\\\ 0 Allshar I I '\\\\. \\\\,Gooonlellt MED\/TER~NEAN ~ OTepeGiyan SEA I 200km 150ni Ubaid and Uruk tripartite temples in the J emdet with a wide open space IO meters across in the The distribution of pottery Nasr period. Similarly, the tripartite house of the center. The five curving rooms surrounding it had Ubaid period became a courtyard house, with a corbeled arches like those at Gubba, but in this styles in the 3rd millennium reception room along one side of the courtyard (an case spanning rooms more than 4 meters wide. The architectural plan that is still in use in Iraq today). building might have been a military outpost estab- Although writing was invented Another feature of temples of the Early Dynastic I lished by one of the city states ~o the southwest. A in the 4th millennium 11c, written period, which became very common later, were cemetery found at Kheit Qasim is believed to have documents cannot be used to stone statues that were intended to act as substi- been connected with a nearby walled settlement. tutes for the worshiper. A collection of 12 statues The brick-built graves were surrounded by rect- reconstruct the history of most has been discovered beside the altar of one of the angular brick platforms, and the larger tombs had of the Near f:ast during the 3rd three shrines in the Square Temple at Eshnunna long narrow walls projecting from the south side, (modern Tell Asmar). Originally identified as with a narrow channel between them. The finds in millennium. As in 1hc ,tudy of statues of the gods, they were probably meant to the graves were mainly pottery though some also prehistoric periods, archeologists represent human beings. contained daggers, axes and chisels made from copper mined on the Iran ian p lateau. rely on 1hc distribution of Sites from the Early Dynastic I period in the decorated pottery ty pcs to Hamrin area have shown less evidence for the In northern Mesopotamia, a derivative of the derine the various cultures in the existence of large cities. Tell Gubba, the earliest Late Uruk culture developed into the Ni nevite 5 region. Three main groups can and most impressive site, which dates from the end culture, named after lev,el 5 of the Prehistoric Pit at of the Jemdet Nasr period or the beginning ofEarly Nineveh. There, painted pottery has been found as be distinguished. To the Dynastic l, was once a building consisting of a well as the later fine gray ware decorated with northeast of Sumer ,,ml Akkad series of eight concentric walls with ap outer dia- elaborate incised patterns. None of the sites dating meter of about 70 meters. The walls were corbeled to this period that have been investigated so far red and black painted Scarlet with arched corridors between them covered by show any urban characteristics. The buildings Ware is found. Northwest of pointed roofs, and in the thickness of the walls were all small-scale village buildings, while the were staircases. The function of this structure, graves, though they showed some variation in size there was Nincvite 5 pollcry_ which is unparalleled outside the Hamrin basin, is and wealth, were quite poor when compared with The earlier Ninevitc 5 decorated not known. A pit within contained 16 skeletons, the riches buried in graves further south. The most which had been thrown in one after the other. In elaborate pieces of metalwork known from the pottery was painted but l,Her the corridors, large jars with cereal grains have Ninevite 5 period arc simple copper pins with cast this was replaced by rine gray been found, suggesting that the building had been heads. A fragment of an iron knife blade fou nd in a used for the storage ofsupplies and treasure. grave at Chagar Bazar is said to have been made pollery. which had inched from smelted iron ore, perhaps obtained acciden- Another slightly later building, the Round patterns scratched into the , urface of the vessel. In a great arc around Mesopotamia there were groups using black or red burnished pollery, sometimes decorated with white pallcrns rilled in or with raised relief designs. Thb style wa, derived from ea rly Transcauca,ian pouery. which spread south from the C..ucasus region during the Jrd millen nium oc. Building at Tell Razuk, also had concentric walls, tally when using an iron-ore flux to smelt copper. 80","N ippur STATES IN CONPLICT Below T he ziggurat, built in about 2 100 BC by Ur- Nammu, formed the center of a strong fortress in the 2nd century AD. It is crowned by the house of the American excavators built about AD 1900 as a refuge from the local tri besmen. Nippur was the most important religious center of Below This fragment ofa pai11ted the Sumerians and contained the main temple of and inlaid chlorite vessel made the god Enlil, who in the third millennium oc in southern 'Iran was found in replaced An, the god of the sky, as head of the pan- theon. Although in the historical period the city the ruins of the Early Dynastic was not the seat of an important dynasty, control Temple of lnanna at Nippur. It shows a big cat fighting a snake. The scene is labeled in of Nippur was thought by rulers of other cities to cuneiform \\\" lnanna and t.he confer the right to rule the whole of Sumer and serpent\\\". Akkad. Nippur was occupied from the Ubaid period until about AD 800 and the accumulated debris of 5,000 years of settlements has created a vast field of massive mounds covering an area that exceeds 2 by l.5 kilometers and rises 20 meters a bove the sur- rounding plain. There was an important scribal school at Nippur and many thousands of tablets have been recovered from the site. A unique tablet dating to about 1300 nc has a measured drawing of the city showing the Temple of Enlil, the city walls and gates, and the main water courses. The sharp angle of the city walls shown on the tablet has been found in recen t ex cavations at the southern end of \u2022 the site. Right Contour plan of the s ite of NunMdtJ canal Righi Copper statuette, perhaps Nippur showing the main areas representing king Ur-Nammu excavated s ince 1948. (2112 2095 11c) or Shulgi Superimposed on this arc the (2094 2047 uc), found in the main features of the 1300 BC map fou ndations of the Temple of of Nippur found at the site. lnanna at Nippur. The figure carried a basket on his head and the lower part of the body is shaped like a peg. Height c. 30 cm. 0 100 200 300m ~ t - - --'--r--',-----1 Tv le 0 500 IOOOII D cily wal on tabkll \\\\ ~6}01-f-~s ..J. (fs~~~ ~,~~ q( D city gale oo lilbklt f:} J:\u2022\u2022~ ~ H,n~1,1 (l ~ wate,ways oo 1ablc1 7[ - 1,nnaTem~ ~ excavaled area C'-'\\\"' j ( fmfi Temple cuneiform labels 00 lablel conloors al 4m inlervals A~ r \\\"\\\\~ , ~ 5'- ~ ~C, -. <g 1-En<:los,,reof _ J jJ _} Annigma <;. ( C9W8C, dilch ,,---- : : -. - ,,,., ........- ' t, ,,,,.,, '-~{ \/ ' 81","CITIES Early Transcaucasian culture or those that survived became more massive. In Relot11 The best-preserved copy Farther north, in eastern Turkey, the Early Trans- Syria, cities such as Mari, EbJa, Hama, Ugarit and caucasian cu lture developed. It had probably Byblos flourish ed, and the powerfuJ Egyptian Old or the Sumerian King Li.st is begun in Armenia along the Araxes valley, but at Kingdom strongly influenced Palestine and the the end of the fourth millennium it spread . Tbis coastal cities of the Levant during Early Bronze 3. i11s<::ribcd in cuneiform s<-ripl on expansion is thought to have accompanied a move- ment of people westward and southward lo estab- Sumer and Akkad Lhe Weld nlundc ll p rism. This lish settlements in eastern Turkey, in the upper Southern Mesopotamia divided into two regions: lists the names ol' the rulers of Euphrates valley, and in northern Iran. The char- Sumer in the south, extending from Eridu to Nip- Sumer f'rom before the l'lood tu acteristic black, brown or red burnished pottery pur, and Akkad in the north, from Abu Salabikh to Sin- magir, king of fsin was decorated in relief, sometimes with incised the northern edge of the alluvial plains. The names (1827 1817 nc). More tha n,, designs filled with a white pigment. It has been Sumer and Akkad were first recorded at the end of dozen copies arc known from found in level lV (dating to about 2700 BC) at Godin, the Ea rly Dynastic period. Apparently, in Sumer across the main route from Mesopotamia to Iran. most of the population spoke the Sumerian llahylo nia, Susa a nu the Sim ilar pottery from about the same time has been language, which has no known close relatives. In 7th-century nc Assyrian royal discovered in western Syria as far south as the Sea the north most. people spoke Akkadian, the li brary al Nineveh. Al l of these of Galilee, where it is ealJed Khirbct Kerak ware. ancestor or Babylonian and Assyrian and related to Hebrew and Arabic. derived l'rom an uriRinal thal The people who had occupied these sites also was probably composed in abnut shared a liking for round houses and horseshoe- Sumer and Akkad were not countries in the 2 100 BC in the early parl oflhe shaped hearths decorated with molded reliefs. modern sense, but consisted of several city stales They might have been ancestors of the Hurrians, each of which formed a complet e political unit and Third Dynasty ol' Ur nr ,, lit tic who dominated the northern fringes of Mesopota- had its own ruler. Some city states included several earlier. The purpose o f the mia in the late third and second millennia. How far towns. For instance, the state of Lagash included t his style of pottery reflected political or commer- Girsu (the home of the state god Ningirsu), Lagash, Sumerian King List was to show cial links is unknown, but tbc ring around Meso- which gave it.s name to the state, and Nina, a that, from the nrst lime \\\"when potamia cou Id have isolated the lowlands from the smaller city to the southeast. Sumer and Akkad kingsh ip was lowered from rich resources of the mountains, stimulating trade were each divided into about a dozen city states. he<1vcn'', a particu lar city was by sea along the Gulf in Early Dynastic times. Most of these lay along branches of the Euphrates and were surrounded by uncultivated areas of land chosen to exercise dom inion The Levant (called in Sumerian edin) which acted as grazing In the Levant the Khirbct Kcrak pottery was on ly pastures and as a buffer between the urban settle- over all the 01 her cities. one of a number of local styles prevalent in the ments. The cities were close together. For example, Height 20 111. Early Bronze Age. These v,1riations were not neces- Umma was only 30 kilometers from Girsu in the sarily due to invasions, but may have resulted from state of Lagash, and the inscriptions of' the rulers of local development and foreign influences by Lagash described the continual fighting over the peaceful means over t he period. land between them. Walled setllements have been found as early as the Aceramic Neolithic period at The Early Bronze Age in the Levant fell into four Jericho and Maghzaliyeh and were common in the phases, which corresponded roughly to Lale Uruk, Early Bronze l period in Palestine. Probably most the Jemdel Nasr and Early Dynastic T, Early Dynas- Sumerian cities were fortified by t.he beginning of the Early Dynastic period. The earliest. evidence f'or tic m, and the end of the third millennium, respec- city walls in southern Mesopotamia, however, is from the middle of the Eilrly Dynastic period at t ively. In the first Early Bronze phase the sites Abu Salabikh. Because of shifting all iances and were generally small, except for some that spread military conquests it is difficult to draw a political across 10 hectares or more. One of the most remark- map of Sumer. At times the king of Kish was the able of these was Jawa, in the rocky basalt desert of' overlord of the rulers or states as far away as northeast Jordan. A fortified town occupying some Lagash, and at other times two or more city states J2 hectares, it had been built toward the end of the were ruled by a single individual. fourth millennium in an <1rea where the annual rain rail was less than J50 millimeters. However, by Rulers and gods trapping and storing the runoff from the winter The rulers of the city states had three different rains the people were able to gather enough water titles- en, ensi and \/ugah. which, roughly trans- to last them through the hot, dry summer months. lated arc \\\"lord\\\", \\\"governor\\\" and \\\"king\\\" respec- tively, but what distinguished them from each The second phase, Early Bronze 2, was marked other is uncertain. Different titles were used in different cities. The en had religious duties and by greater contact with the kingdom of Egypt. originally was probably a priest. Lugal, which Palestinian pottery that might have been used for literally meant \\\"big man\\\", was a more secular role. the export of olive oil has been found in tombs or The title might have originated when a war leader the Egyptian First Dynasty in Abydos. Also,. in was elected by a council of elders, as in the Baby- southern Palestine and northern Si nai some sites lonian Epic of Creation when the assembly or the have been identified, from the cylinder-seal impres- gods elected Marduk to wage war against the evil sions and mud-brick buildings found there, as demons. Jn some cases, a fugal had one or more ensi having been Egyptian colonies or trading outposts. subordinate lo him . By the end of the Early Dynas- tic period, secular and religious authorities were Evidence has also been found for the regu lar for- distinct in some cities, but until the very end of tification of town sites in this period and for the Mesopotamian civilization the secu lar rulers held use of gates and towers. Religious buildings, too, their power only as agents of the gods. The ruler have been identified but whether the priests played a prominent part in government is un- certain. Most experts believe that this was a time or city states, with each fortified center controlling the surrounding land. At the end or this phase, many sites were abandoned and the fortifications 82","--138\\\" STATl:;5 I N CONFLICT ~ so\u00b7 CASPIAN SEA Syrian Desert 34\u00b7 , ZAGROS MTS I I ,, ' I city mentioned in lhe I \u2022 Sumerian King Lisi ,, I ,. ,,. , ____.. lradc rou1e \\\\ c:::J aluvium ~ - - - - anctenl coastImo - - ancicn1 course orrive, I .,. r' An Nafud scale 1: 7 000 000 30\u2022 0 200km I 150ml The dtics in the Sumerian was the representative of the god and, to a greater had his chief temple in Uruk. However, the tL1tcl- King I.isl In t he E.1r ly Dy n,istic Il l period or lesser extent, controlled the rcsoL1rccs of the ary deity of the city was not An, but the goddess Sumer and Akkad were divided main temple of the city. This temple was the city's Inanna. During the Uruk period An might have hc1wccn rival city states. J\\\\ccording lo the Sumerian King chief landowner and its richest institution. There been the main deity, but by the middle of the third List, tit any moment one ci1y was also a thriving private-sector economy, but millennium that place had been taken by the god held a preeminent position. In l,1..:l, this seems lo h;1vc been a this is less evident from the tablets, most of which Enlil, or lord of the air, whose wife was called Nin- projctlion inlo Ihe earlier period have come from temple archives. The ownership of Iii. Enlil was the chief god of Nippur, the most In order to legitimize the rule of later d y n,1s tics. As in the Bible, slaves, some of whom were prisoners of war, was northerly of the cities of Sllmcr and one that had a ,-., rly rulers were credited wilh also common in the city states. special role. Any rnler aspiring to control Sumer extremely long re ig ns or Each city had its own gL1ardian god to w hom the had a duty to restore the tem ples of Nippur. Ihou~,1ntls of yc..u\u00b7s. The ruling chief temple was dedicated . Some city gods were The third of the gods was Enki (Ea, in Akka- d tics a nd lc ng1hs of d y nasty ,1t1ri bu1cd to their kinRS arc only important locally. The god Sud resided in dian), whose name in SL1merian means lord of the recorded in the Sumeri,111 King List. Shurnppak, Ball and her husband Ningirsu were earth, though in fact, he was the god of the sweet the chief gods of Girsu, and Zababa was the city waters. He was also the chief god of the city of god of Kish. Other deities exercised a wider Eridu and the god of wisdom and magic. The most dominion, often resL1lting from the power ac9L1ired important goddess was Tnanna (or Ishtar), with by their native cities. For example, in later whom most goddesses in later times were centuries Mardllk of Babylon and AshL1r orthc city identified. She was the goddess of love and of war Ashur came to dominate the pantheon . The cities (the equivalent of the Greek goddesses Aphrodite also had temples dedicated to gods other than the and Athena combined) and the city goddess of city god, in particL1lar to Inanna or En lil. Uruk and of Agade. Perhaps originally she had Sumerian gods, like Greek gods, took human been married to An, but in later myths she was the form and often behaved like people. They wen: wife of Dumuzi, who went to the Netherworld in subject to the same emotions and jealousies, and exchange for Inanna. In later times, he was called the impression given by the myths and legends is Tammuz or Adonis and was a god who died and that they interfered in human affairs in ar bitrary revived each year. The sL1n god, Utu (Shamash), ways. There were gods of the sky and the moon, or who was also god ofjustice and of the cities of Sip- who embodied the powers of other natural pheno- par and Larsa, and Nanna (Sin) the moon god and mena, as well as gods of human institutions and chief god of Ur were other important deities. artifacts. There was a goddess of writing, a god of the plow, and even bricks had their own god. In History and legend fact, hundreds of gods were listed carefully by the The Early Dynastic period provided t he first Sumerian scribes. opportunity to compare archcological findings An was the god of the sky and the heavens, who with historical evidence from t he cL1neiform texts. 83","C I TI ES The most important o[thcsc was the Sumerian King Like the Enmerkar legend, stories about Gilga- List, which recorded the dynasties that had ruled over Sumer from earliest times. The oldest copy of mesh were reworked in later times but probably , this text to have survived dates to the beginning of the second millennium RC, though a version of it contained a kernel of truth. The fullest version of was still being used in the time of Bcrossus, a Baby- lonian scribe of the 4th century BC. Beginnjng with the Epic of Gilgamesh was produced in the early the words, \\\"After kingship had descended from heaven Eridu became (the seat) of kingship\\\", the second millennium BC. It combined earlier legends text recounted the four following dynasties of the cities of Bad-tibira, Larak, Sippar and Shuruppak, to create a myth whose basic theme concerned whose ruler was Ubar-tutu. Finally these entries were summarized as \\\"5 cities, 8 kings reigned human beings' attempts to avoid death. The story 241,200 years. The Flood then swept (over the land).\\\" told how Gilgamesh, the ruler of Uruk, set out on A later tradition made Ubar-tutu the father of an expedition to bring back cedars, needed to Ziusudra (or Ut-napishtim), the Babylonian Noah. Ut- napishtim, according to the Epic of Gilgamesh, build temples, from the \\\"land ofthe living'', which built a boat on the advice of the god Enki and thus survived the deluge that had been sent by the gods possibly referred to the Amanus mountains. There to destroy humankind. Some early archeologists believed that tbis great flood might have accounted he killed the monster Humbaba and, returning to for the layers of watcrlaid silt found deep down at sites such as Ur, Kish and Shuruppak, but these Uruk, spurned the attentions of the goddess were probably due to local inundations at different periods. The antediluvian part of the Sumerian lnanna, as a result of which his friend Enkidu was King List has often been identified with the Early Dynastic I period, but as the list is so far the only killed. Frightened by the image of death, Gilga- source of information this cannot be verified. ln the period after the great flood it includes names mesh sought out Ut-napishtim who had survived for whom there is some corroborative archeologica l evidence: \\\"After the Flood had swept fover t he the Flood and been,granted eternal life. He lived in land! and kingship had descended from heaven, Kish became lthe seat] of kingship.\\\" The list g ives Dilmun (which bas been identified with the island the names of 23 kings of Kish. The 22nd king was named as Enmebaragcsi, \\\"who carried away as o[ Bahrain in the Gull). Ut-napishlim revealed that Above The impression ofa f1nc spoil the weapons of the land of Elam, became king the secret ofeternal life was to obtain the \\\"plant of lapis lazul i cylinder sea l and reigned 900 years\\\". The scribe probably life\\\". This may have referred to a pearl, as it was inscribed '\\\"Puabi. queen\\\" found included the title en as part of the name, as two found at the bottom of the sea and Gilgamesh dived in her lcJrnb in the Royal inscriptions of Mebaragesi have been discovered, for it by tying stones to his feet, in the traditional Cemetery ,,t Ur. In Lhc Ea rly one on a vase that is now in the Iraq Museum and method of Gulf pearl fishers. On his way back to another in the Oval Temple in Khafajeh, to the east Uruk, however, a snake (an animal that coLrld be Oyn<1stic period in southern of Baghdad, in a level belonging to the beginning said to renew its life through sh edding its skin) of the Early Dynastic Ill period. stole the \\\"plant of life\\\" and Gilgamesh had to be Mesopotamia ryl indcr seals satisfied with eternal fame. Although not owned by men normally showed After Mebaragesi came Aka, his son, according men and animals in com baL to the chronicle, and th e kingship passed from Kish historical, such legends renect the preocc upations to Uruk. Among the kings of Uruk listed were of the Early Dynastic period. These included inter- whereas women's sea ls often several who were also mentioned in Sumerian city rivalries, appeasement and glorification of the myths and legends- Enmerkar, Lugalbanda, gods and t he ir representatives through temple- included banquet scenes like Dumuzi and Gilgamesh. A later Sumerian epic building and rich offerings, and acquisition or this. Feasting was or grea t recorded a conflict between Gilgamesh ofUruk and precious and exotic materials by trade or conquest. impnrt,1ncc in M<.\u00b7sopo1t1mirin Aka of Kis h, the son of Mebaragcsi, s uggesting that society where ritual banquets dynasties at Uruk and Kish might have been con- rcinror,\u00b7cd the position or the temporary rather than sequential, as implied by elite. Perhaps the re,lson why t he king list. women were associatc<l with The explo its of the semilcgendary kings of.the First Dynasty of Uruk were recorded by later Ihcse seals was bcca use the Sumerian and Babylonian scribes. In one of these banquet fon11c,i par, of a sacred legends Enmerkar was engaged in a struggle with the city state of Aratta, which was separated from nrnrriagc cen.m1ony~ but this is Sumer by seven mountains, and thus somewhere on the Iranian plateau. Enmerkar needed gold, unproven . I !eight 4 .9 cm. silver, lapis lazuli and carnelian to decorate the temples of Sumer. Eventually, by means of trading The flrsl Dy nasly of Ur grain, by negotiation using envoys and written tablets (in this story Enmerkar is credited with the The nexl dynasty in the Sumerian King List was invention of writing) and by armed conflict, he that of Ur, under king Mes-Anepada, w ho is succeed ed in securing the precious materials from known from inscriptions at Ur and Tell Ubaid and the en of Aratta. from an inscribed lapis lazuli bead found at Mari. This bead refers to Mes- Anepada's father as Mes- kalamdug, king of Kish. Inscriptions of Meskalam- dug have been discovered in two graves in the Royal Cemetery at Ur, which was excavated by the renowned archcologist Sir Leonard Woolley (1880- 1960). The Royal Cemetery is one of the most spcc- tacular archeological finds to date. In most of the graves, the body had been laid on its side, wrapped in a mat or enclosed in a coffin, at the bottom of a vertical shaft. Alongside each body were personal possessions- jewelry, a dagger, and perhaps a cylinder seal. The grave also contained pottery, stone, or metal vessels, which might have held food and drink, as well as weapons, and makeup paints in cockle shells together with t he necessary tools for apply ing them. Si milar graves have also been found at Abu Salabikh, Kish and Khafajch. However, 17 graves were unusual, both in their construction and in the wealth of goods that they held. Some were of stone or mud-brick, some had several chambers and some had vaults. Most of these graves had been robbed in ancient times, but even so what remained was extraordinary, and particularly so in those tombs that were found intact. In some of the Royal Tombs, the principal occupant had evidently been accompanied to the netherworld by dozens of attendants who had been slaughtered during the funeral rites. 84","STATES IN CONFLICT Abot1e Shell in lay of a warrior One Royal Tomb was placed almost exactly brick vaulting. There the remains of several bodies found in the Temple o r Ishtar a t Mari and belonging to the e nd of above another. The lower one, which Woolley were found and copper and silver mod.els o[ boats the Early Dynastic period. It was part of a larger scene showing warriors and bound, naked prisoners. T he man is armed wilh an axe and wears a na t cap ofl hc kind worn by l)arly Dynastic k ings. Heig ht I I cm. Highr This lio n-headed eagle w,os found ,ll M,11\u00b7i in the so-called Treasure of Ur. which indudcd a bead inscribed with the name of Mcs-Ancpada, king of Ur. Whether this was a royal gift or booly from some ra id is unknow n. T he pcntianl is made out or la pis lazul i. brought from Afgha nista n. wi1h the head ,rnd lail of gold held o n by bitu men and copper pi ns. llcigh1 12.8 cm. called t he King's Grave, had a sloping passageway of the same type as t hose used by the Marsh Arabs leading down. At the foot of t he ramp were the of southern Iraq today. Most of the contents of t he skeletons of six soldiers wearing copper helmets tomb chamber, however, had been removed by and armed with copper spears. Farther along were robbers who had entered through a hole in the roof t he remains of two four-wheeled wagons each from a second Royal Tomb directly above. This pulled by three oxen. The reins had been made out had a similar layout to that of King's Grave, but the of lapis lazuli beads and passed through silver tomb chamber and the outer pit had not been rings decorated with statues of oxen. Beyond t he looted . Five bodies lay on t he ramp, before a wagons there were more than fifty male and female wooden sledge ornamented with gold and silver skeletons. The remains of two lyres were found lions' and bulls' heads with mosaics of lapis lazuli next to a group of women. One of the lyres was and shell. Attached to the sledge were two oxen decorated with a gold and lapis lazuli bull's head whose reins passed through a silver ring decorated and a shell inlay showing animals playing musical with a finely modeled eleetrum donkey. Near the instruments, like an ea rly illustration to one of sledge were a gaming board and vessels made of Aesop's fables. gold, silver, copper, obsidian, lapis lazuli, alabaster The tomb chamber had been bui lt of stone with and marble. In the middle of these objects was a 85","CITIES large wooden box, decorated with mosaic, that had the wife of Mes-Anepada, who, according to the Above I\\\\ gold necklace from the been placed over the hole in the ceiling of the Mari bead, was the son of Meskalamdug. The most Tomb of Lhe Lord of the Goa ts chamber of the King's Grave. Probably, the remarRable item found in the grave, however, was benetHh 1he Western Palace:, builders of the later tomb had found the earlier a gold helmet in the form of a wig with every elating lo about I 750 uc. The tomb chamber, and looted it. strand of the hair carefully engraved. There were band in I hrcc sections was made also hundreds of beads, many gold vessels, a silver by coiling. The disks have In the tomb chamber of the later tomb the body belt, a golden dagger and axes of electrum. six- pointed stars decorated with of a woman lay on a wooden bier together with her granulation, a technique two servants. Near the woman's right shoulder a Not everyone agrees with Woolley that his so- developed in Early Dynastic lapis lazuli cylinder seal showing a banquet scene called Royal Tombs were the graves of the rulers of times. bore the inscription \\\"Puabi, queen\\\". Puabi had Ur and his close family. Some think that they been buried dressed in all her finery, including a contain the ritually slaughtered victims of some Right Some of the thousands of gold headdress. A second headdress, found near religious ceremony. The custom of roya l burial inscribed tablets fou nd in the the body, consisted of a backing strip onto which with sacrificial victims is attested in several parts of the world, for example in Early Dynastic Egypt archive room in Palace G. The had been sewn thousands of tiny la pis lazuli beads, and later in the Sudan, in Shang China, and in texts are written either i11 and on top of these were fixed small gold figures of Melanesia in the 13th century AD, but in Meso- Sumerian or in the local stags, gazelles, bulls and goats, separated by plant potamia there is little evidence for it apart from the language, using the same motifs. Royal Cemetery. cuneiform script. Another tomb chamber had been robbed, but Palaces a nd tem ples the outer area, called by Woolley the Great Death The Royal Cemetery belonged to t he first part of Pit, was preserved and in a space measuring less the Early Dynastic Ill period, as did the earliest than 9 by 8 meters no fewer than 74 willing victims palaces found in Mesopotamia. Two of these were had been sacrificed. Six soldiers were stationed in Kish, and one in Eridu, and though the buildings near the ramp. Four fema le musicians were found bore no inscriptions to indicate that they had been near their lyres, of which one instrument had a palaces, several features suggested that th is was so. gold-bearded bull's head, another a silver cow's They were large, monumental buildings, not too head and a third a silver stag's head. A further 64 dissimilar to Early Dynastic temples in their plan, women lay in orderly rows. About their necks they but, unlike temples, after they had been aban- had chokers of lapis lazuli and gold as well as other doned their sites had not been reused for build ing. jewelry and they wore large, crescent-shaped gold earrings and a simplified version of Puabi's head- The piano-convex building at Kish was made out dress. Twenty-eight of the women had gold hair of rectangular bricks with rounded tops typical of r ibbons, and the rest silver. One unfortunate the Early Dynastic period, and surrounded by a woman still had her hair ribbon rolled up. Evi- thick, buttressed wall. Tts fifty or more rooms, dently, she had not had t ime to put on a ribbon, some of which were for storage and others that having arrived late at her own funera l. might have once contained kilns and bitumen- lined basins, were arranged in units separated by Two graves in the Royal Cemetery at Ur had narrow corridors. Another palace at Kish, to the inscriptions with the name of Meskalamdug. In south of the main temple area, comprised three one, which contained the remains of a woman, a units, the earliest measuring about 70 by 40 meters. shell cylinder seal bore the inscription \\\"Meskalam- This conta ined a central square courtyard sur- dug, the king\\\", which might have been an offering rounded by rooms and the whole was enclosed by made on his behalf during the funera l. Another a thick wall, to which had been added a monu- tomb, which has not been classified as a roya l tomb mental entrance approached by a flight of stairs. To as there was no built tomb chamber or evidence of the south of this bui lding had stood a second, con- human sacrifice, contained two gold bowls and a sisting of a pillared portico and a large, pillared hall shell-shaped gold lamp which all carried the name about 25 meters long. Inlaid panels of schist, lime- Meskalamdug, as well as a copper bowl inscribed stone and mother-of-pearl showed scenes like those \\\"Ninbanda the queen\\\". On a cylinder seal found at Ur tbe same name and title bad been recorded for t,ji \/I reconstructed relief r\u00b7rom the Temple of Ninhursag, the goddess of c hildbirth, at Tel l Uba id near Ur. The temple was builL by \/1-Ancpad,1, a king of !he Firs t Dynasty ol' Ur, in abo ut 25()() uc . It s arc hitcctural dccora1io11 haJ been d ismantled and slacked up next lo the s taircase of the platform on which the shrine s tood . This orlarge pane l bc,Hcn copper a ttached lo a wooden hacking may have been placed above a door and supported by two columns wiLh cobred mos~1ic. Why the temple was decorated with a lion-headed eagle a nd Lwo stags is not known. Height 1.07 111, width 2. }I! 111. 86","Ebla t( } 100 200 300m STATES IN CONFLICT In 1968 an Italian expedition excavating Tell Mar- \u00a9 (\\\" 250 500 750ft left Contour plan of site with dikh in Syria showed that it was the site of the principal excavated areas. The ancient city of Ebia. The site was occupied from II ~l f\\\\ sile covers some 55 ha and has the fourth millennium nc to the 7th century AD but an o uter dry wall and a ccntrl1l the most important periods were from the middle ( I \\\\ Clly Wiltl of the third to the midd le of the second millennium citadel mound more than 15 m BC. The Early Bronze Age Palace G, whose destruc- \\\\ high. Much of the city is tion has been attributed to one of the kings of uncxcavatcd. Apart (r\u00b7om Palace Agade, has revealed an archive of cuneiform texts Y(i( \\\\ ~ 'ii' ,0 J G. most of the excavated remains as well as numerous fine objects left behind when rr'fl\\\\\\\"'\\\"'...:,.ij,,\u00b7)t.,:1\u00b7 ir) I' belong to the Midd le Bronze Age the palace was destroyed. The finds from the or later. Middle Bronze Age (200().c-1600 BC) are no less remarkable. Ebia was sacked in about 1600 BC, ,, perhaps by the Hittite king Mursilis I, who went lJ.:zA1~a8 on to capture Babylon. '; \\\\~ \\\\ \\\\~jliI, Gate A \\\\ I D cKC.ivalOO area conlOUfs .11 !>m ,n1erv31S Above leji T he ,1rch ivc room in Above Gold figure of a bull with P,tlace G. The tab lets lie where a human focc (5 cm long) li.>und t hey fell from the shelves when the palace was sacked. The in Palace G. The beard is m,1dc of' presence of a litcralc civilization in I his region at the end or the stone (probably chlori tc). Its Ea rly Dynastic period was appearance is typically unsuspected before this Sumeria n; it may have been discovery. imported from Sumer or made in left A reconstructio n of t he Syria in a Sumerian style. The shelves of the archive room in figure probably represents a Palace G, based o n 1races left divine bei ng associated with the when they burned. The tablets sun god Sh,,mash ,tnd may be were placed on the she!ves like books are today. T he texts are anccstr;il to Ihe enormous mostly economic records. human- headed bulls that were used as guardian figures o n much later Assyrian palaces. Length 5 cm. on the Standard of Ur, and similar inlays have been west of Ur. This had been decorated with inlaid found at Mari and Ebia. The palace at Eridu mosaic pillars, inlaid friezes showing cows being milked and an elaborate high relief, made of ham- included two almost identical buildings side by mered sheet copper, depicting a lion-headed eagle side, both of which had rooms arranged round and two stags. The temple, w hich was enclosed by courtyards, like later Mesopotamian palaces, and an oval wall, had been built by A-Anepada, the son both were surrounded by narrow corridors. of Mes-Anepada, for the goddess Ninhursag. Far more common than palaces were the temples At Khafajeh a temple on a platform was dis- of the Early Dynastic period. Because of the sanc- covered with a double encircling wall. Before tity of the sites and the conservatism of the people, building commenced, t he area that the temple for thousands of years temples were built one would occupy had been dug out to a depth of 4.6 above another, and many such sequences have meters and filled with more than 60,000 cu bic been excavated. In many cases, the ea rlier, t ripar- meters of clean sand. A third oval temple bas been tite plan of Ubaid and Uruk temples had been found at Lagash. Called the Ibgal of Inanna, it was replaced by a courtyard and bent-axis shrine. Another characteristic design was a temple on a built by Enanatum I (c. 2410 nc), the ruler of platform, such as the one at Ubaid, 4 kilometers Lagash, though it may have been fou nded earlier. 87","C I T I ES 1.Rft Sto ne wall- plaque from Girsu showing Ur4 N(inshc the ruler of Lagash (c. 2480 11c) accompanied by his family. In the upper register he is depicted as a builder carrying a basket of bricks. The figure in fro,v may be his wife and behind her arc his sons. The lower register shows Ur- Nanshe on the t hronc. Height 40 cm. Odow Part ofthe Stele of' r:..-1natu111, ruler or Lag.ash (c. 2440 uc), commemorating his v ictory over\u00b7 the city sta te of Umma. The side vn,s found in fragments at Girsu. On the side shown. Ningirsu, Ihe patron god of the city. uses his mace to crush the skuII ofone ofthe enemies he has captured in his ncl. On the 0 1her side l hc arm ies are depicted in b.11tle. The bod ies of the slain arc scavenged by birds and hence the monument is often calle d the Stele or the Vultures. The long inscription records the details of the border conllicl between the two ci1y slat'es of L<1gash and Umma. Width of illustr,1tcd piece c. 80 cm. Late Ea rly Dy nastic Ill contingents to distant countries to fight alongside Inscriptions from the late Early Dynastic period all.ies in their local d isputes. But the perspective of' have shown that the Sumerian King List is incom- Sumer was widening and the d istant contacts that plete. The rulers of several city states were were so important in the Late Uruk period were omitted, including the rulers of Lagash, who arc reawakening. known over more than five generations. Fur1 hcr- morc, inscriptions from Adab and Girsu recorded Sumerian influe nce a broad that Mesalim, the king of Kish, was the overlord of Accord ing lo the Sumerian King List, dynasties the governors of Adab and Lagash, yet Mcsalim from outside Sumcr- Awan and Hamazi in the cast and Mari in the west- ruled Sumer, though there docs not appear in the king list. is little ev idence of this from other sources. Mcsalim had drawn the border between Umma However, there was contact between Sumer and the Iranian plateau. At Shahr-i Sokhtc, the occu- and Lagash, but in the reign of Ur-Nanshe, the pied area grew to more than 45 hectares in Ea rly ruler of Lagash, border d isputes arose and, accord- Dynastic t imes and had almost doubled before tbe ing to his inscriptions, Ur-Nanshe defeated both Ur end of the millennium. At Shahdad, to the cast of and Umma. During this time he built the city wall Kerman, a rich cemetery of the period has yielded and temples at Lagash . Ur- Nanshc's grandson metal vessels, sculptures, copper- bronze tools and Eanatum pursued the conflict with Umma to vic- weapons, as well as stamp and cylinder seals. tory. To celebrate, he erected a monument that Metalworking furnaces have also been found, and bore the inscription \\\"Ningirsu, the lord, crown of areas for making objects out of carnelian, agate, Luma is the life of the Pirigedena-canal\\\" and is chalcedony, calcite, lapis lazuli and chloritc. At now known as the Stele or the Vultures, as it shows Tepe Yahya, farther south, archeologists have birds attacking the corpses of the fallen. Eanatum uncovered numerous chloritc artifacts, some of claimed to have defeated Uruk, Ur, Akshak, Mari, them in an unfinished state. Chlorite vessels decor- ated in the Intcrcultural Style, like those from Susa, Elam, several districts that were probably in Yahya, have been found in the Gulf and at Susa, the Iranian Zagros, and even Subartu, believed to Sumer and Mari, in levels belonging to the IJarly have been in northern Mesopotamia . He also stated Dynastic III period. There has been little ev idence that Inanna had given him the kingship of Kish. for settlement in Fars at this time, and Anshan These claims, however, were exaggerated and seems to have been deserted. there is no evidence to suggest that Eanatum made widespread congucsts. Perhaps, the truth is that he, like rulers in the Old Babylonian period, sent 88","In the Zagros region a new style of painted ST\/\\\\T(:S IN CONf.l.lCT pottery followed the Early Transcaucasian wares found in level IV at Godin Tepe. Known as Godin literary texts written in the Sumerian and Ebla ite III, tbe style survived for more than a thousand languages. years. At Susa the Proto-Ela mite culture of Susa TTJ was replaced by a culture using pottery inspired The texts dated to the reigns of three rulers of' by Godin HI, but there was a growing innucnce Ebla who took the title malikum and had lugals from southern Mesopotamia. serving beneath them . They were Ar-Ennum, I brium and lbbi-zikir, who probably belonged to In northern Mesopotamia, incised Ninevite 5 the end of the Early Dynastic period. Jbbi-zikir's pottery was replaced by a hard metallic ware, a rule may have been brought to an end by Sargon or development para lleled by the growth or large Agade, who cla imed to have r uled Ebia, or by his walled cities in the region. Sumerian-style statues grandson Naram-Sin, who claimed to have have been found at Ashur and at Tell Khucra, and destroyed Ebia. How far the Eblaitc kingdom at Tell Brak and Tell Leilan on the Habur pla ins extended is not certain. IL may have reac hed dov.\u2022n southern inf'luencc is identifiable in the style of the lo Damasc us in the south and certainly had close seal impressions. Mari had long been closely asso- contact with Mari Lo the cast. The gods mentioned ciated with the city states to the south . As well as ri1 the texts incl uded some of the Sumero- Akkadian the evidence of the inscribed bead of Mes-Anepada gods, but many of them - including Baal, Lim, Rasap, and El were known from later periods in of Ur found at Mari, lwo inscriptions from Ur may the west. have been ded icated by a king of Mari. The gods and temples of Mari were in the Mesopotamian Most or the Ebia texts concerned textiles, tradition and many sculptures found in the temples especially from wool - the king owned 80,000 would not have been out of place farther south. sheep and nax. Barley, o lives and grapes were among other crops that were mentioned. Another I nterestingly, there was a related literate c ivi l- text indicated how wealthy Ebia had bee n, by a ization in western Syria. Halfway between Sumer statement that lbbi-zikir received each year the and Egypt. at Ebia (modern Tell Mardikh), south o r Aleppo, some 8,000 clay tablets have been dis- weight equivalent of S kilograms of gold and 500 covered in a royal palace. The tablets, which had kilograms of' si lver. An a labaster jar lid found in the palace has been important in dating the c ivil- been stacked on edge on shelves in an archive ization at Ebia. The lid bore a ca rtouche or the room, were in the Sumerian cuneiform script bul almost all of them had been written in the loca l Egyptian pharaoh Pepi I whose re ign is reckoned la ng uage. At first it was thought that t he Eblaite to have lasted from 2289 to 2255 BC, roughly con- language might have been an early d ia lect of temporary with the Mesopotam ia n kings Sargon Hebrew, but it has since been shown that the (2334- 2279 BC) and Naram-Sin (2254- 2218 nc). language was more closely related to Akkadian. Ano ther importan t f1nd Crom the pa lace was part or More than three-quarters of the texts were to do a limestone inlay, like those from Kish, with rows oC' lion-headed eagles between human-headed w ith administration and the re mainder belonged to the traditional fie ld of scribal learni ng and bulls, a lternating w ith rows of soldiers either included lexical texts, as well as some twenty or so carrying weapons, accompanying prisoners, ki lling prisoners, or carrying the heads of' the slain. Such scenes were typical of the Sumerian world and continued into Late Assyrian t imes. More tha n 20 kilogra ms o[ lapis lazuli have been recovered from the palace, again testifying to the long-dista nce trade practiced at this time. Uigh1 I\\\\ silver v,,sc with ~, i.:oppc,\u00b7 T he e nd of the Ea rly Dynas tic per iod l,asc dcdic,11cd i)y En tcmcna, In the last years of'the Early Dynastic period Sumer ruler of 1,1g,1sh (c. 2400 11c), 10 was in ferment. Uruk and Ur were united under the god Ningirsu. N ingirsu the Lugalkiginecludu, who took the title King of Kish dty god w,,s l,11cr idcntif1cd and formed a pact with the ruler of Lagash. Lagash and Umma continued lo Gght over the land wi1h the warrior god Ninurta, between them, a conf'li ct dating back to the time of' Mcsalim. After severa l changes of ruler in Umma, the son of J:~nlil, a11<l m,,y perhaps brought about by the successes or Lagash, origin;ilJy h,1vc been a storm Lugalzagesi followed his father as king of' Umma god. The lion-headed eagle delicately incised on this v,,sc and sacked Lagash. Lugalzagesi also became king or \\\\>\\\\1,1s a common mot if in the Lhird Uruk before he was overthrown by Sargon or millennium and ofwn identified Agade in 2334 BC. Lugalzagcsi's ru le was recorded with the t\\\\nzu bird (o:.1llcd in the inscriptions on fragments of more than l'ifty lmdugud in Sumcri.,n). This stone vessels found in Nippur, t he city of the god thunder bird (with the Enlil. hi11<1911ar1ers of,, lion) may have \\\"Enlil gave to Lugalzagcsi the kingship of' the rcprcst\u00b7ntcd Ningirsu . l.a lcr, nation, ... put all the lands at his feet, and from when gods were depicted on ly cast to west made them subject to him; then in hu 111.111 form, 1he association from t he Lower Sea [the Gulf], (along) the Tigris of' Ninuna o r N ingirsu w ith the and Euphrates Lo the Upper Sea [the lion-heMlcd c,,gle was explained Mediterranean], he [Enl il[ put their routes in in,, myth in which Ninuna good order for him. From cast to west, Enlil dd'eatcd Ihe t\\\\nzu bird. permitted h im no rival; under him the lands rested contentedly.\\\"","Sutnerian Statues In Early Dynastic Mesopotamia (c. 2900-2334 BC) it was a common practice for rulers and other citizens to erect statues of themselves in the temples. The statues represented them before the gods in a state of continuous prayer. Examples of such statues have been found at Tell Khuera, Mari, Ashur, Susa and many sites in Sumer and Akkad. The same style of sculpture was popular with both Sumerian and Akkadian speakers. Art historians have stressed the change from the stylized sculpture of the Early Dynastic Sumerians to the naturalistic art of the dynasty of Agade (2334- 21 54 BC). However, there is considerable variety within Sumerian art, some of which is very stylized and some quite lifelike, and there is a con- tinuous tradition of sculpture from the Early Dy nastic to the Old Babylonian periods. The bulky rounded shapes that characterized many of the stone statues may have been due to the type of stone available, which was in the form of large river boulders. Left Statue dedicated by Ebih-il, Above Small statue of gypsu m of an official of the Temple of a couple, found buried beneath Ishtar in Mari (c. 2400 BC), where the noor of the shrine of t he it was found . It is made out of lnanna Temple at Nippur. The white stone (perhaps alabaster) eyes are inlaid with shell and and the eyes are inlaid with lapis lazuli set in bitumen. A bitumen, shell and lapis lazu li. similar group was found in the He is shown seated on a stool Temple of Ishtar at Mari. made out of woven reeds, clasping his hands in a gesture of reverence. Although Mari was 450 km upriver from Sumer on Lhe Euph ra tes, it shared many of the characteristics of Sumerian civilization. Height 52.5 cm. 90","left Stone statuette ofa Below A gypsum head ofa human-headed bull wearing a woman found just outside the headdress with horns, normally Ishtar Temple at Mari. Her worn by divine beings. Similar headdress is typical of the s1yle carvings are dated to the reign of worn by women from tha1 city. Gudea, ruler of Lagash (c. 2100 As several Sumerian stau1es arc nc). Height 12 cm. of women, ii is probable that women enjoyed more equal i1y in Right This figure of a man early Sumerian society than in carryini;: a box on his head is made ol arsenical copper, the later periods. Height 15 cm. most commonly used alloy in the 3rd millenn ium uc. Although the statue is of unknown provenance it is similar 1.0 a lost-wax casting of a naked priest found in the Early Dynastic Oval Temple at Tell Khafajeh (ancient Tutub). These objects may have been used as stands in t he temple ceremon ies. Height 38 cm. Below Limestone statue ofa woman found at Girsu. Height 30cm. Far right This seated figure from the Temple of Ishtar at Mari is inscribed \\\"Ur-Nanshe the singer\\\". Although the name is of a man, the features of the figure arc thought to be feminine. It is possible that Ur-Nanshe was a eunuch in the service of the 1emple. 91","The Royal Cetnetery of Ur Sir Leonard Woolley excavated more than a thou- sand graves in the Royal Cemetery at Ur, most of them dating to the later Early Dynastic period (2600- 2400 BC). Seventeen graves were excep- tionally rich and have been called Royal Tombs: three have been identified, those of Queen Puabi, Akalamdug and Meskalamdug. The other tombs have either been given names such as the King's Tomb or the Great Death Pit or arc known by the numbers given to them by the excavator. In some of the Royal Tombs there was evidence of human sacrifice, with as many as 74 servants being drugged and killed in the Great Death Pit. This prac- tice is almost unparalleled in Mesopotamia, though it has been found in other regions of the world. The wealth of the graves in the Royal Cemetery and the quality of the workmanship of the objects found there are remarkable. In particular, the metalwork shows complete mastery of the main techniques ofjewelry making. The craftsmen often made composite objects using various materials on a wooden backing. Inlays of shell and different- colored stones were common, both as geometric designs and as scenes of people and animals. Below I\\\\ cow\u00b7s head made or Above .-ight The \\\"'peace\\\" side ur gold and lapis lazu li attached 10 the so-called Standard of Ur, the sounding box of a lyre round which was probably the in the tomb of Queen Pua bi. The sound ing box of a musical instrument. The inlay of shell lyre was made of wood with in laid borders. Woolley used against a background of lapis plaster of paris and melted lazuli set in bitumen shows ,1 paraffin w,1x Lo preserve and remove 1hcsc dclica1c objects. ba nquct with animals and men carrying goods- perhaps the victory celebrations afler t he successful campaign shown on the \\\"war\\\" side. Length 47 cm, height 20 cm. Above I\\\\ gaming board made 0111 of a mosaic of shell, bone, lapis lazuli, red paste and red limestone. The game was played w ith two sets or seven counters, but the exact rules arc not known. Other examples or these gaming boards were found in the Royal Tombs though this came from a private grave. Length 27 cm, width 12 cm. Left A gold feeding cup with spout from the tomb of Queen Pua bi. Numerous fluted and plai n gold vessels were found in the Royal Cemetery. Height 12.4 cm. night A dagger with a gold blade and a lapis lazuli handle decorated with golden studs. T he outside of t he sheath was made of exquisite filigree gold work with gold gr,111ulat io11. Length ofdagger 37 cm. 92","iDne\/ow Que. en Pu'a\u00b7 b\u00b71 was buricd a mag111ficcn1 gold hcadcl . . dccorat\u2022d . 1css ca rnclia~. :,;~h~~il:s :azuli a nd ' sheet gold leaves. CrIoiwren~1nrogwths of heaIdd dress w\u2022as 'a Ia II comb o f e go ending in seven roscltes. Left I n a corner of1he G i'Dea th p \u00b71--~wo real , s mall slatues of un~ qut1 size were ,1c1111ed b TWhoicoklleety lIhc, Rams Caugh1 iYn 1hc ~.1io '1 ,ough they clcarl w goat s on their h ind Icy . . ,ront of a gold Thegfso1c1c1 en PIant. a nd le, ' gs were made of gold ti Ii orns, eyes, a nd the fl \u2022 \u2022 \u2022 ie the should . f I . cecc over belly ofsile1 o ap1s lazuli, the th 11 , v~r, and t he rest of e_ eccc of white shell Hwght47cm. \u00b7 :~~~,i\/edhclmct in the iomh of el . .' ' m ug was made of cctr um (a 15- carat allo f bY 1iarnmcr.nY,gof gold '\u00b0and .si lver) \u00b7 111 at Id1cIi\u00b7ndsiIde, w1\u00b711, I Iic details , c ater. It ha d a cloth I' . which was attached 10 the 1~1~'i\\\"g, o n the lowc1\u00b7 cdgc. I\u00b7Ie.ight 23 cems . O~erle~f I\\\\ detail from t he \\\"w ,r\\\" ';, c of the S_tanda,\u00b7d of Ur. It ' ' 1 ows the v1c1orious troops or l ie ruler of Ur, who il,1>cars large r tha 11 the o ther r\\\\gu; : \u2022 the top rc,g.i_,tcr. The soldiecrss111 were either on fool or rode i,n baule wagons pu lled by r onager~. Reproduced at our approx1ma1cly twice ,1Cll1ttl size. 93","","","CHARISMATIC KINGS (2Jso~2000 BC) Problems of chronology Sumerians and Akkadians The people of andent Mesopotamia used three In later Mesopotamian tradition the conquests of different methods to record dates. T he sim plest the Akkadian kings marked a complete break with was to count rcgnal years, that is, how long the the previous Sumerian Early Dynastic period. For king had been ruling. This system was adopted in the first time in history the whole of Mesopotamia Early Dynastic Lagash and became standard in was united under one ruler, and the Akkadian Babylonia from the middle of the second mille n- empire was a model that later kings strove to emu- nium BC to the Seleucid period (c. 300 150 uc). An late. Furthermore the r uling power passed from alternative way was to name the year after an Sumerian to Semitic speakers. Until recently this official who held a particular office at that time. change was seen in racia l terms, and changes in the The method was used in Early Dynastic Shuruppak nature of kingship, political organization and even and became the norm in Assyria, where the officia l art were attri butcd to the ethnic background of the was called the limmu official and lists or limmu rulers. Now, however, it seems that the continuity names were kept to record the order of the years. A between the Akkad ian rulers and their Sumerian third way was to name a year after an event or the predecessors was greater tha n had earlier been previous year, such as a military victory, the build- supposed. ing of a temple or the appoin tment of a priest. The In the Early Dynastic period it is difficult to dis- earliest examples date back to the reigns of Enshak- tinguish Sumerians from Akkadians. For centuries ushana and Lugalzagesi and the system became they we re in close contact and words borrowed more widespread und er the kings of Agadc. from Akkadian have been recognized in ea rly These year-names sometimes contain va luable Sumerian texts. The Akkadians to the north historica l information. Unfortunately, complete adopted the Sumerian script for their inscr iptions, lists of year-names for the ea rly periods have not so but as logograms (signs representing words) ca n be far been found, and the absolute dates or the third- read in either Sumerian or Akkadian it has not millennium rulers have had to be calculated from a lways proved possible in short inscriptions to tell the king lists. This can be done by counting back- w hich language was being used. A few Akkadian ward from the Old Babylonian period, using the suffixes in the inscriptions from Mari suggest that fact that Hammurabi, the most important of the Old they were read in Akkadian. Babylonian kings, is reckoned to have ruled from In general there arc more Sumerian names in the 1792 to 1750 BC. Adding up the lengths of the south and more Akkad ian names in the north. reigns recorded in king lists then shows that the However, Queen Puabi, who was buried in the Third Dynasty of Ur lasted from the accession of Royal Cemetery of Ur, may have had an Akkadian Ur-Nammu in 211 2 BC to the capture of Ur by the rather than a Sumerian name, while native kings of Elamites in 2004 BC. Accordi ng to th e Sumerian Kish had both Sumerian and Akkadian names; for King List, between Ur- Nammu and the last king of example Mebaragesi is Sumerian, but En bi-Ishtar is Agade \\\"the kingshjp was carried to the horde or Akkadian. As today in the mi xed populatio ns of Guti urn\\\". The defeat of one or these Gutian kings is the Near East, many peo ple must have bee n bi- mentioned in a yea r- name of Shar-kali-sharri, the lingual, as is shown by the Early Dynastic scribes fifth king o r Agade, though it is unclear which year or Abu Salabikh who had Akkadian names but this was within his 25-year reign. Adding up the wrote Sumerian. Although it is general ly not lengths o f the reigns puts Sargon , the first king or wrong to identify the ethnic affi liation of people orAgade, as having become king between about 2340 through the language their names, in certain and 23 10 BC. The dates that are usually given for cases it may be unjustified. It is, however, almost his reign, 2334- 2279 BC, might therefore be out by the only way to estimate the composition of popu- as much as a quarter-century. If the accepted dates lations of different groups, and so has been used to for Hammurabi should prove to be too late, as c hart the infiltration of Amorites, Hurrians, Ka s- many experts now believe, then Sargon's reign too sitcs and Aramaeans into the literate part of the would have started earlier. Near East in la ter centuries. Kings of Agade SARGON m. Tashlultum Sargon of Agade 2334-2279 The first ruler of the dynasty of Agadc was ca lled RIMGSH Sharrum-kin, w hich in later times was pronounced 2278-2270 I Sharken and is preserved in the Bible in the form I I Sargon. ln Akkadian, Sharrum-kin means the true MANISHTUSHU Enheduanna or legitimate king, which is a strong hin t t hat he was a usurper. There were many stories about his 2269-2255 High pnestess at Ur origins. According to a later account he was placed in a recd baske t sealed with bitumen and, li ke I Moses, allowed to float down the Euphrates. Jie was rescued and trained as a gardener, and, by NARAM-SIN winning the love of Is htar, became king. The 22~2218 I I Enmenanna SHAA-KALI-SHARRI High priestess at Ur 2217-2193","SlUt CHARISMAT IC KINGS MEDITERRANEAN - - - - &nClenleoaSl\/.no 'I SEA - - aneien1 cou,se ot nver -f----- - _____--i(r0 ,,iI~,t~ ~SHElltHUM 4, -+- scale I 16000 000 400km 0 3001111 46' The conquests of the kin,:ts of Sumerian king list stated, more simply. \\\"Sharrum- the name of Sargon has been diffic ult, particularly \/\\\\gade kin, his !father] was a date-grower, cup-bearer of as these were reworked in the Late Assy rian perjod 'rhc kings of \/\\\\gadc not only Ur-Zababa, king of Agade, the one w ho built to glorify Sargon II of Assyria. He is said to have established their rule over the Agade, became king and reigned 56 years.\\\" conquered Puruskhanda on the Anatolian plateau and to have attacked and conquered Elam and cities in Sumer and \/\\\\kbd but An Old Babylonian copy of an inscription found Marhas hi in the mountains of Iran, as well as Dil- c,1111p,1igr1ed r,1r 10 the cast and on a monume nt in the Temple of Enlil at Nippur mun. According to later tra ditions, Sargon rounded we~t. According to their own d id not mention Sargon's ancestry, referring to him a new ca pital ca lled Agadc, where he built a palace, ln,crlpilons, Sargo n, Rimush, as King of Agade, King of Kish and King of the and temples to Ishtar and Zababa, the warrior god M~nishtu,hu ,rnd N,1r.,m-Si 11 Land and recording how, with the assistance of the of Kish. Agadc's precise location is still u nknown, gods, he defeated Uruk in battle and captured but it was probably in the region of Babylon , Kish conquered cities from the Lugalzagcsi, its king. Sargon conque red Ur, Umma and Sippar. It was Agadc, sometimes transcribed Mediterranean coast to the other and Lagash as far as the sea. A fragment of this Akkade, that gave its name to the dynasty and to side of the Gulf. Sargon, whose monument, or of a similar o ne, was found at Susa, the language. inscriptions tlnd monuments having been taken there by the Elamites when they were b<1scd 011 the previous conquered Babylonia in the 12th ce ntury BC. It Sargon appointed his daughter En h eduanna as showed Sargon, under a sunshade, at the head of high priestess of Nanna, the moon god at Ur, and a Sumcrl,m ~lylc~. is sometimes his troops . A second frag ment, which might also circ u la r limestone p laque depi cting Enhcduanna said to be~\\\" E,,rly Dy11,1s1ic have belonged to the same monument, showed a making an offering at a n altar was found there. king. Hvwever, the bre,,dth of god holding defeated enemies in a net, as on the Later rulers continued the custom of appointing his rn119uests ,ind his vbion of Stele of the Vultu res found at Girsu. their daugh ters to be hi gh priestesses at Ur until kingship co11 1ras1 markedly with the time of Nabonidus in the 6th century BC. Enhe- the parochi,11 concerns of niu,1 A second insc ription, also known from an Old duanna was also credited with composing two Babylonian copy, recorded Sargon 's co nta cts wit h hymns in honor of Tnann a, making her th e earliest llal'ly Dyn.istic n dcrs. Later of the few authors of M esopo tamian li terature traditions and legends credilcd distant countries. The ships 01 Meluhha, Magan, whose names have survived. S,1rgo11 with ruling the whole world, from \\\"the sunrise lo the and Dilmun (which have been identified with the Sargon's sons Indus, Oman and Bahrain, respectively) docked at Sargon was succeeded by his son Rimush, who ~un~c;t\\\", but ~ornc of these t he quay of Agadc. In Tuttul (probably Tell Bi'a at continued his father's mil itary advent ures. the junction of the Balikh and Euphrates rivers) According to co pies of his inscriptions, he p ut stories 111,1y have been intended Sargon worshiped the god Daga n who had given down rebellions in Sumer and Akkad and con- to glorify Sargon ti of \/\\\\ssyri,1 him control over the Upper Land (Western Syria), quered Elam and Marhashi (also known as Barah- (721 705 Ill'} who ddOplcd the Mari, Ebia and Yarmuti (probably o n the Mediter- shi). Booty from this campaign has been found in n11111e uf hb illu~trlou~ ranean coast), as far as the Cedar Forest and the Silver Mountain. predecessor. Disentangli ng the later stories associated with 97","CIT IES Marlike 60\\\" 70\\\" IndusSlyle etchod e.mell,l\/1 bead llnda 40\\\" out~de erea of Harappan cfviizatlon C ] Harappan clviizallon TOITay,,0 \u2022 1-10 D :\\\\~,a~~IcuneHorm ~ epeHlssar e mora than 10 ----..._ \u2022 Indus scripl lnaoiplion find outside ~--of-- - -- ancientcoasUlne area of Harappan civilization - - ~-olJM!f \u2022 Guttsl8mp seal find 26\\\" GOl<ho, ofC] area llmUM \/ m -<c,- tcale l.100000 \u2022\u2022 Hill . a \\\"\\\"'\\\"\\\"\\\" ~ 0 10km af\u2022Aln \u00b00 Halil 0 7ml \u2022 \\\\briaDBal o 400ml .&,mad Aasal\u00b7Junayz Nippur, Khafaj ch, and even as fa r away as Tell \\\"god of Agad e\\\". Some early kings of Uruk, such as Trade wl lh lhc Gu lf arid lhc Brak (t hough in t his case it m ight have been Lugalbanda and Gilgamesh, appea red as divine brought t here later). Rimush claimed to control the names in the Early Dy nasti c texts fro m Sh ur uppa k, Indus valley Up per Sea, the Lower Sea, and all the mounta ins. A but Naram-Sin was p robably the first Mesopota- From Early Dynastic times until later text record ed ho w Rimush was killed by his mian mo narch to have claimed d ivine status in his the Old Babylonian period an servants in a palace co nspiracy. li fe t im e . important maritime tra(lc; w,is After Rimush, came his brother Manisht us h u. He ruled over a vast empire. rn his inscriptions pursued in the Gulf. Al one end His name means \\\" who is wit h him'', s uggesting he claimed to have destroyed t he city or Ebia, and lay the cities of southern that he might have been Rimush's tw in bro ther. inscribed bricks found at Susa arc evidence of his M esopotamia, from where goods However, accordi ng to the Sumerian King List, rule t here. At Tell Brak a large building measuring Manish tush u was the elder broth er . In one of his 90 meters by more than 85 meters, w ith o uter wa lls were dispersed Lo the west and insc riptions he claimed to have led an ex pedi tio n more than 10 meters th ick, was built with bricks north. and al the other end lay across t he Gu lf as fa r as t he silver mines (so far bearing his name. This might have been a store- Meluhha, plausibly identified uniden tified) and to have brought back stone for house, military outpost or administrative center with the Harappan civilization. making statues. (This sto ne migh t ha ve been dior- controlling the important trade routes through the ite, wh ich is fo un d in Oman, as dior.ite was used by Habur. A stone relief of Naram-Sin has even bee n Two other imp<lrtJnt regions the kings of Agad c for their sc ul ptures.) He also fo und at Pir H ussein, nort h of Diyarbcki r in sou th- boasted of his conquest o f Anshan and Sherihum, east Turkey. men tioned in the tcxls arc swear ing t hat \\\"these arc no lies. It is absolu tely Dilmun (probably including t r ue!\\\" Another statue of Manishtus hu, found at In the Bassetki district, abo ut 50 kilometers bo1h 1he islands or pl'csent-day Susa, had been dedicated to him by Es hpum, t he north of Nineveh, the base and lower part of a Uahrain ,ind Pa ilak,1) and M,,gdn city governor , an d show ed t hat Akkad ian ru le copper statue were discovered, bearing an inscrip- extended to Susa. Tn the no rth Manishtushu tion o f Naram-Sin's claiming that he won n ine (perhaps Oman). Roya l con trolled Ashur and at Nineveh he renovated the battles in a single year and record ing construction lnscrlp1ions and the economic Ish tar Temple, as witnessed by t he later Assyrian work in the city of Agadc. The statue represented a king Shamshi-Adad I, w ho, in th e cou rse of restor- male fig ure wearing a gi rd le and holding a fo un da- records of the merchants who ing the temp les, fo un d statues of Manishtushu. tion peg of t he sort fou nd in Sum erian fo und atio n went by boat from Ur give de posits. The surviving piece, w hich weighed 160 Naram-Sin the god-ki ng k ilograms, was made of almost pure cop per as a details or 1hc lrddc, The 37-ycar rule of Manishtushu's son Naram-Sin hollow, lost-wax casting. mark ed t he hig h po int of the Ak kadian empire. l'.xcav;1Lions in the Gull' arc Like his predecessors, Na ram-Sin fo ught to main- A nother remarkable cast copper object of th e now providing more evidence tain and ex tend his rule. He also seems to have Akkadi an period- a life-size head- was fou nd in for this trade. In ll,1hr\\\"<1in ,md changed the nature of kingship, by becoming a god the Late Assyrian d estruction level at Nineveh, Fallaka there was l llourl~hing h imself instead of ru ling as an agent of the gods. At where it had p ro bably been r itua lly mutilated by some poin t in his reign Naram-Sin d ecided to call the Median in vad ers. The deta il of the hair is civ ilization which burled Its himself \\\"king of t he fo ur quarters, king of the reminiscen t of the gold helmet of Meskalamd ug at dead in tumuli. The number of universe\\\", prefixing his name with the sign used to Ur, b ut t he natu ra lism an d fine workmanship show these burial mounds on the indicate gods. His officials also addressed him as that it belonged to t he Akkad ian period. The iden- island of Bahrain hJs been ti ty of Lhe fig ure is not certa in, but experts estimated as 150,000. Gulf-style consider th is head to be a likeness of Nara m-Sin. stamp se,1ls or the son probably manufactutc.:d in Oilmun hi1vc been found both in Mesopot amia and In India . lfarappan lypes of weights were In use In Bahrain, and Indus lnscripliOrlS, SCJIS, bead s (including etched carnelian beads] and pottery have been found in Oman, llahrain, Fnilaka and Mesopotamia, The end of 1hc Gulf tr,,dc coincided with the collapse of' Old Babylonian colllrnl of southern Mcsopo1arnl.-1 and the demise of' 1he f 1,1rappan civilizJ tion itself. 9R"]