- •Introduction
- •1 Physical geography
- •5 The Sumerian language
- •6 History and chronology
- •15 Calendars and counting
- •17 Everyday life in Sumer
- •19 A note on Sumerian fashion
- •21 Death and burial
- •22 Sumerian mythology
- •23 Trade in the Sumerian World
- •26 Sumer, Akkad, Ebla and Anatolia
- •27 The Kingdom of Mari
- •29 Iran and its neighbors
- •30 The Sumerians and the Gulf
- •32 Egypt and Mesopotamia
- •POSTSCRIPT
THE SUMERIAN WORLD
The Sumerian World explores the archaeology, history and art of southern Mesopotamia and its relationships with its neighbours from c.3000 to 2000BC. Including material hitherto unpublished from recent excavations, the articles are organised thematically using evidence from archaeology, texts and the natural sciences. This broad treatment will also make the volume of interest to students looking for comparative data in allied subjects such as ancient literature and early religions.
Providing an authoritative, comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the Sumerian period written by some of the best-qualified scholars in the field, The Sumerian World will satisfy students, researchers, academics and the knowledgeable layperson wishing to understand the world of southern Mesopotamia in the third millennium.
Harriet Crawford is Reader Emerita at UCL’s Institute of Archaeology and a senior fellow at the McDonald Institute, Cambridge. She is a specialist in the archaeology of the Sumerians and has worked widely in Iraq and the Gulf. She is the author of Sumer and the Sumerians (second edition, 2004).
THE ROUTLEDGE WORLDS
THE REFORMATION WORLD
Edited by Andrew Pettegree
THE MEDIEVAL WORLD
Edited by Peter Linehan, Janet L. Nelson
THE BYZANTINE WORLD
Edited by Paul Stephenson
THE VIKING WORLD
Edited by Stefan Brink in collaboration with Neil Price
THE BABYLONIAN WORLD
Edited by Gwendolyn Leick
THE EGYPTIAN WORLD
Edited by Toby Wilkinson
THE ISLAMIC WORLD
Edited by Andrew Rippin
THE WORLD OF POMPEI
Edited by Pedar W. Foss and John J. Dobbins
THE RENAISSANCE WORLD
Edited by John Jeffries Martin
THE EARLY CHRISTIAN WORLD
Edited by Philip F. Esler
THE GREEK WORLD
Edited by Anton Powell
THE ROMAN WORLD
Edited by John Wacher
THE HINDU WORLD
Edited by Sushil Mittal and Gene Thursby
THE WORLD OF THE
AMERICAN WEST
Edited by Gordon Morris Bakken
THE ELIZABETHAN WORLD
Edited by Susan Doran and Norman Jones
THE OTTOMAN WORLD
Edited by Christine Woodhead
THE VICTORIAN WORLD
Edited by Marin Hewitt
THE ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN
WORLD
Edited by Augustine Casiday
Forthcoming:
THE MORMON WORLD
Edited by Carl Mosser, Richard Sherlock
THE BUDDHIST WORLD
Edited by John Powers
THE ETRUSCAN WORLD
Edited by Jean MacIntosh Turfa
THE SUMERIAN
WORLD
Edited by
Harriet Crawford
First published 2013 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2013 Harriet Crawford for selection and editorial matter; individual contributions, the contributors.
The right of Harriet Crawford to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978–0–415–56967–5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978–0–203–09660–4 (ebk)
Typeset in Adobe Garamond
by Keystroke, Station Road, Codsall, Wolverhampton
CO N TE N TS
|
List of illustrations |
IX |
|
List of contributors |
XV |
|
Chronological framework for fourth millennium southern Mesopotamia |
XXI |
|
Historical phases and kings of the third millennium BC |
XXIII |
|
Introduction |
1 |
|
Harriet Crawford |
|
|
PART I: THE BACKGROUND 1 1 |
|
1 |
Physical geography |
13 |
|
Jennifer R. Pournelle |
|
2 |
Hydraulic landscapes and irrigation systems of Sumer |
33 |
|
Tony J. Wilkinson |
|
3 |
Sumerian agriculture and land management |
55 |
|
Magnus Widell |
|
4 |
The end of prehistory and the Uruk period |
68 |
|
Guillermo Algaze |
|
5 |
The Sumerian language |
95 |
|
Graham Cunningham |
|
6 |
History and chronology |
111 |
|
Nicole Brisch |
|
V
|
–– Contents –– |
|
|
|
PART II: SUMERIAN SOCIET Y: |
|
|
|
THE MATERIAL REMAINS |
1 2 9 |
|
7 |
Patterns of settlement in Sumer and Akkad |
|
131 |
|
Jason Ur |
|
|
8 |
The organisation of a Sumerian town: the physical remains of ancient |
|
|
|
social systems |
|
156 |
|
Elizabeth C. Stone |
|
|
9 |
Public buildings, palaces and temples |
|
179 |
|
Marlies Heinz |
|
|
10 |
Kings and queens: representation and reality |
|
201 |
|
Claudia E. Suter |
|
|
11 |
The Sumerian sacred marriage: texts and images |
|
227 |
|
Kathleen McCaffrey |
|
|
12 |
In the service of the gods: the ministering clergy |
|
246 |
|
Joan Goodnick Westenholz |
|
|
|
PART III: SYSTEMS OF GOVERNMENT 2 7 5 |
|
|
13 |
Democracy and the rule of law, the assembly and the first law code |
277 |
|
|
Marc Van De Mieroop |
|
|
14 |
Administrators and scholars: the first scribes |
|
290 |
|
Jon Taylor |
|
|
15 |
Calendars and counting |
|
305 |
|
Tonia Sharlach |
|
|
16 |
Seals and sealings in the Sumerian World |
|
319 |
|
Holly Pittman |
|
|
|
PART IV: LIFE AND DEATH |
3 4 3 |
|
17 |
Everyday life in Sumer |
|
345 |
|
Paul Collins |
|
|
18 |
Women and agency: a survey from Late Uruk to the end of Ur III |
359 |
|
|
Julia M. Asher-Greve |
|
|
19 |
A note on Sumerian fashion |
|
378 |
|
Lamia al Gailani Werr |
|
|
20 |
Sumerian and Akkadian industries: crafting textiles |
|
395 |
|
Rita P. Wright |
|
|
VI
|
–– Contents –– |
|
21 |
Death and burial |
419 |
|
Helga Vogel |
|
22 |
Sumerian mythology |
435 |
|
Benjamin R. Foster |
|
|
PART V: THE NEIGHBOURS 4 4 5 |
|
23 |
Trade in the Sumerian World |
447 |
|
Harriet Crawford |
|
24 |
North Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC |
462 |
|
Augusta McMahon |
|
25 |
Cultural developments in western Syria and the middle Euphrates |
|
|
Valley during the third millennium BC |
478 |
|
Lisa Cooper |
|
26 |
Sumer, Akkad, Ebla and Anatolia |
498 |
|
Christoph Bachhuber |
|
27 |
The Kingdom of Mari |
517 |
|
Jean-Claude Margueron (translated by Harriet Crawford) |
|
28 |
Ebla |
538 |
|
Frances Pinnock |
|
|
PART VI: THE ENDS OF THE SUMERIAN WORLD |
5 5 7 |
29 |
Iran and its neighbors |
559 |
|
C.C. Lamberg-Karlovsky |
|
30 |
The Sumerians and the Gulf |
579 |
|
Robert Carter |
|
31 |
Mesopotamia, Meluhha, and those in between |
600 |
|
Christopher P. Thornton |
|
32 |
Egypt and Mesopotamia |
620 |
|
Alice Stevenson |
|
|
POSTSCRIPT 6 3 7 |
|
|
The Mesopotamian marshlands: a personal recollection |
639 |
|
Azzam Alwash |
|
|
Index |
643 |
VII
I L LUS TR ATI O N S
FIGURES
1.1 (a) The Mesopotamian Zone geosyncline. (b) Mesopotamian Zone tectonic subunits. (c) Mesopotamian alluvial topology. (d) Boundary uplands. (e) The Shatt al-Arab deltaic system. (f) Contemporary
(1) Levees, (2) Crevasse splays, (3) Alluvial soils, (4) Bird’s foot delta. 1.2 (a) Tigris south of Amara (Qalat Salih-al-Azair). (b) Outlines
demarcate relict levee between sites WS375 and WS400. (c) The Kut barrage on the Tigris between Sheikh Sa’ad and Ali al-Gharbi.
(d) A relict avulsion south of Wilaya
1.3 (a) Amara, straddling Tigris distributaries arrayed in a bird’s foot delta. (b) Warka (ancient Uruk), straddling a relict bird’s foot
1.4 The Mesopotamian Delta, c.5000–3000 BC 1.5 Sumerian cities founded within marshlands
1.6 (a) Hundreds of thread-like channels suggesting levee cultivation combined with intensive marshland exploitation. (b) ES156 in the Eridu Basin. (c) Abu Dakar in the al-Khuraib (Tigris) marshes south of Amara. (d) Desiccated water channels (white) infilled with dry sand skirt EP156. (e) Dendritic water channels (black) through reed beds skirt Abu Tanam
1.7 Changing shape of the Mesopotamian Delta
2.1 Section through levees showing the deposits of canals and ancient channels
2.2 Levees and flood basins in the southern alluvium around modern Suq al-Shuyukh
2.3 Archaeological sites of the Ur III, Larsa and Old Babylonian periods and associated channels in the area of Umma
2.4a Layout of an ancient canal system
IX
–– Illustrations ––
2.4b Diagrammatic layout showing the possible distribution of lateral canals and their associated irrigated land versus a single longitudinal canal
2.5 Ottoman irrigation system around Qal’a Sussa on the Shatt al Kar 2.6 Bulk transport of reeds by boat
3.1 Chronological distribution of tablets during the five kings and 106 years of the Ur III state
3.2 Size measurements (in Sumerian iku) of the 452 fields (a-ˇas3) measured in the Lagash cadastral texts
3.3 Shapes of the 269 fields (a-ˇas3) measured in the Lagash cadastral texts 3.4 Organisation of the supervision of fields and field workers in the
Ur III period
3.5 Administrative division of a ‘field’ (a-ˇas3) in the Ur III period 4.1 Reconstructed plans of Late Uruk monumental buildings in
Eanna Area at Uruk/Warka
7.1 Southern Mesopotamia and adjacent regions
7.2 Surveys and site density in Sumer, Akkad, and adjacent regions 7.3 Late fourth millennium (Late Uruk period) settlement in Sumer
7.4 Urbanization and rural abandonment in the early third millennium 7.5 Mid-third millennium (Late Early Dynastic period) settlement in
Sumer and Akkad
7.6 The late third/early second millennium settlement in Sumer 7.7 Settlement and regional abandonment in the Old Babylonian
period
7.8 Later second millennium BC (Kassite) settlement, including Adams’ proposed watercourses
7.9 Number of sites (left y-axis) and settled area (right y-axis) in three surveyed regions
7.10 Urbanization and ruralization in Sumer in the fourth through second millennium BC
8.1 Comparative plans of three Protoliterate towns
8.2 Plan showing an Uruk to Early Dynastic I landscape
8.3 Plans showing the locations of Oval temples at Khafajah, Pashime, Lagash, and Ubaid
8.4 Comparative views of Eridu and Kish
8.5 Late Early Dynastic residential districts at Lagash and Nippur Survey Site 1271
8.6 Plan of Mashkan-shapir
8.7 Comparative plans of third millennium Khafajah and second millennium Ur
8.8 Early second millennium residential districts at Tell Asmar and Tell Halawa
9.1 City map of Uruk
9.2 City map of Khafajah
9.3 Sin Temple and Small Temple of Khafajah 9.4 Temple Oval Khafaje phase 2
9.5 The ziggurat at Ur and its surroundings
X
–– Illustrations ––
10.1 Vase from Uruk
10.2 Stela of Ur-Nanshe from al-Hiba
10.3 Door plaque of Ur-Nanshe from Tello 10.4 Seal of Gudea from Tello
10.5 Stela top from Susa
10.6 Seal from the Royal Cemetery at Ur 10.7 Seal from Uruk
10.8 Inlaid box from the Royal Cemetery at Ur 10.9 Stela of Naramsin from Susa
10.10 Rock relief of Anubanini at Sarpol-i-zohab 10.11 Seal of unknown provenience
10.12 Seal given by Shu-Suen to Ayakalla, governor of Umma 10.13 Seal given by Shulgi to his consort Geme-Ninlila
10.14 Seal given by Sharkalisharri to his consort’s estate manager Dada 10.15 Terracotta plaque from Tello
11.1 Neo-Sumerian palm vase libation
11.2 ED III palm vase libation
11.3 Side B of the Stele of the Vultures
11.4 The Lion-Hunt Stele from Protoliterate Uruk (3300–3000 BC) 11.5 Registers of the Uruk vase
12.1 Disk of Enheduana
12.2 Statuette of Enanatuma
12.3 Cylinder seal, Post-Akkadian/Ur III
12.4 Cylinder seal from Ur
12.5 Drawing after seal impressions of seal of Ur-DUN isˇib-dNingˆirsu 12.6 Drawing of seal impression of seal of Geme-Lama, eresˇ-digˆir priestess
of BaU
15.1 An Early Dynastic tablet from Girsu 15.2 2 sheep...; 1 lamb...
15.3 60 birds (musˇen tur-tur)
15.4 3(60) + 20+ 9 (gur)
15.5 2 (gur) 2 (PI) $e gur, units of barley in the gur system
16.1 Drawing of an ancient clay jar stopper impressed multiple times with a stamp seal
16.2 Cylinder seal carved from obsidian of the Uruk/Jemdet Nasr period, c.3100 BC
16.3a Cylinder seal of speckled black and white diorite 16.3b Modern impression of cylinder seal of Kalki
16.4 Modern impression of a highly schematic seal showing an animal and a star
16.5 Modern impression of a highly schematic seal showing a file of three horned quadropeds
16.6 Modern impression of a cylinder seal showing a presentation scene 16.7 Drawing of a modern impression of a cylinder seal from Telloh
carved in the baggy style
16.8 Drawing of an ancient impression of a cylinder seal from Susa showing a scene of administration
XI
–– Illustrations ––
16.9 Modern impression of a cylinder seal showing the “priest-king” offering vegetation to sheep with a pair of Inanna gate posts
16.10 Modern impression of a cylinder seal of the proto-Elamite period showing a scene of administration
16.11 Modern impression of an Early Dynastic I cylinder seal carved in the Brocade style
16.12 Modern impression of an Early Dynastic I cylinder seal carved in the Glazed Steatite style
16.13 Ancient impression of City Seal on clay mass
16.14 Drawing of an ancient impression of a cylinder seal from Fara 16.15 Drawing of seal impression of Mesannepadda
16.16 Modern impression of seal found near Puabi’s body in PG 800 16.17 Drawing of a modern impression of a cylinder seal
16.18 Modern impression of Early Dynastic III cylinder seal
16.19 Modern impression of a cylinder seal having the classic Akkadian combat scene
16.20 Modern impression of an Old Akkadian cylinder seal 16.21 Cuneiform tablet impressed with an in-na-ba seal 18.1 “Blau plaque”, Jemdet Nasr period
18.2 Statuette of woman from Khafajah, Jemdet Nasr period 18.3 Stele of Ushumgal, Early Dynastic I
18.4 Early Dynastic statues from Sin temple at Khafajeh
18.5 Votive relief from Inana temple at Nippur (7N 133/134), Early Dynastic III
18.6 Akkadian seal with inscription and libation scene 18.7 Seal of Ninkalla, midwife of Bau, Neo-Sumerian 19.1 Cylinder seal impression from Warka
19.2 Hoard of Sumerian statues from Tell Asmar, Iraq
19.3 A 2009 reconstruction of the beaded cape and headdress of Lady Pu-abi
19.4 Statue of King Enmetena
19.5 The ‘War’ side of the Standard of Ur 19.6 Ur III impression of cylinder seal
19.7 Cylinder seal impression of Akkadian presentation scene of females 19.8 Impression of Akkadian greenstone cylinder seal
19.9 Statue of Gudea of Lagash
19.10 Ur III statue of a female
19.11 Early Dynastic stele in the Iraq Museum
25.1 Map of Syria, showing the location of sites discussed in the chapter 25.2 Chronology of western Syria and the middle Euphrates region 26.1 Map showing key sites mentioned in text
26.2 Chronological chart for the third millennium
26.3 Depas cups and their distribution
26.4 Syrian Bottles and their distribution
27.1 Plan of the Euphrates valley around Mari showing the four canals 27.2 Monuments in the centre of Mari
27.3 Schematic plan of Mari
XII
–– Illustrations ––
27.4 Plan of City II
27.5 Reconstruction of Mari
27.6 The Man of Mari
27.7 Plan of City III
27.8 Reconstruction and plan of the palace of Zimri-Lim 27.9 The goddess with the flowing vase
28.1 The northeast rampart of Old Syrian Ebla 28.2 The Temple of the Rock in Area HH
28.3 Plan of the Red Temple in Area D on the Acropolis 28.4 Plan of the Temple of the Rock in Area HH
28.5 General plan of the Royal Palace G
28.6 Blocks of raw lapis lazuli from the Administrative Quarter in the Royal Palace G
28.7 Steatite and lapis lazuli hair-dresses from the storeroom L.2982
28.8 Reconstruction of the maliktum’s standard, from the Royal Palace G 28.9 Fragments of shell inlays from Building P4 in the Lower Town north 28.10 Fragment of painted plaster decoration from the Hall of Painted
Plasters (Chapel FF2)
28.11 Reconstruction of a cylinder seal impression on clay bullae, from the Royal Palace G
28.12 Fragment of a wooden piece of furniture, from the Royal Palace G 28.13 Fragment of a carved limestone plaque, from the Royal
Palace G
28.14 Fragment of a carved and inlaid wooden chair from the Royal Palace G 30.1 Map showing geographical areas discussed in the text
30.2 Late Uruk or Jamdat Nasr cylinder seal found near Abu Dhabi, UAE 30.3 Map of the Gulf showing sites of the Uruk to ED II periods
30.4 Previously unpublished pottery of Jamdat Nasr to ED II date found in the Gulf
30.5 Site HD-6, Ras al-Hadd, Oman
30.6 Detail of Building 5 at HD-6, showing Mesopotamian-style tripartite architecture
31.1 Map of the regions discussed in the text 31.2 A hoard of copper bun ingots
31.3 Some classic indicators of the Harappan Civilization
31.4 Map showing the various “domains” of the Harappan Civilization 31.5 Two Jemdet Nasr/Early Dynastic I-style rim sherds from Matariya 31.6 Examples of Harappan-style sherds from Bat in northern Oman 31.7 Harappan-related material from one compound at R’as al-Jinz in
eastern Oman
31.8 Examples of third millennium Southeastern Iranian pottery
32.1 Portion of the painted wall of Naqada IIC tomb 100 at Heirakonpolis 32.2 Decorated pottery vessel from Predynastic Egypt, Naqada II, with
triangular lug handles
32.3 First Dynasty niched mastaba at Saqqara
XIII
–– Illustrations ––
TABLES
0.1 Chronological framework for fourth millennium southern Mesopotamia
0.2 Historical phases and kings of the third millennium BC 2.1 Range of gradients of floodplain and levee slopes
3.1 Proportions (length: width) of the 269 fields in the Lagash cadastral texts
6.1 Chronological framework for southern Mesopotamia
6.2 Periods of third and early second millennium southern Mesopotamia 6.3 Some kings of Early Dynastic III
6.4 Kings of the Dynasty of Akkad
6.5 Kings of the Third Dynasty of Ur (Ur III) 12.1 Sumerian ecclesiastic hierarchy
12.2 The nomenclature of the high priesthood
20.1 Ur III – ratio of warp/weft, size, weave, wool quality, time spent in production
20.2 Colors, uses, and classes
24.1 Current approximate chronological label equivalencies, Sumer and North Mesopotamia
32.1 Absolute and relative dates compared
MAPS
0.1 The Sumerian world
0.2 Ancient Mesopotamia
XIV
CON T R IBUTO R S
Guillermo Algaze obtained a Ph.D. in Mesopotamian and Near Eastern Archaeology from the University of Chicago in 1986, and has taught in the Department of Anthropology of the University of California, San Diego since 1990. He is interested in the comparative archaeology of early civilisations and, in particular, in how pristine states form, and how those states, once arisen, spur the further growth of secondgeneration states in their vicinity.
Azzam Alwash left Iraq in 1978 to escape the Baathist regime, taking with him impassioned memories of times with his father among the resilient Marsh Arabs that would inspire a life of environmental activism aimed at restoring, protecting and preserving the delicate balances within Iraq’s ecosystem. Prompted by the release of a United Nation’s Environmental Program’s report in 2001 that detailed the desiccation of the Mesopotamian Marshlands, he and his wife, Dr Suzie Alwash, founded the Eden Again Project, now Nature Iraq, of which he is director.
Julia M. Asher-Greve has received a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Archaeology, Assyriology and Classical Archaeology from the University of Basel; she also studied art history and has co-directed a transdisciplinary research programme for the Swiss National Foundation of Sciences. She taught as lecturer in gender studies at Hamburg University, as associate professor and research associate at Harvard University, and recently at the University of Vienna. She is the author of Frauen in altsumerischer Zeit (1985), which has recently been chosen by the American Council of Learned Societies to be included in the History E-Book Project. She was the co-founder and editor of NIN
– Journal of Gender Studies in Antiquity (Styx/Brill) and has published a variety of both specialised and transdisciplinary articles on women, men, gender, and body and has just finished a book on goddesses co-authored with Joan G. Westenholz.
Christoph Bachhuber is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Archaeology at the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown University. He has held fellowships and teaching positions at the British Institute at Ankara and the University of Oxford, where he completed his doctorate in 2008.
XV
–– Contributors ––
Nicole Brisch (PhD University of Michigan 2003) is an independent scholar. Her research interests include Mesopotamian literature, the socio-economic history of the Ur III period, and Mesopotamian religion. She is the author of Tradition and the Poetics of Innovation: Sumerian Court Literature of the Larsa Dynasty (c.2003–1763 BC) (2007) and the editor of Religion and Power: Divine Kingship in the Ancient World and Beyond
(2008). She is currently preparing a study of ritual and divinity in early Mesopotamia.
Robert Carter specialises in the archaeology of Arabia and Mesopotamia, with particular interests in the Ubaid period and early seafaring. He has previously published extensively on maritime trade networks of the Ubaid period and the Bronze Age, but has broad interests that extend from the Arabian Neolithic to the Late Islamic period, encompassing archaeological ceramics, interregional interaction, cultural transmission, urbanism, state formation and pearl fishing. He has recently taken up a new role as Senior Lecturer in the Archaeology of the Arab World, at UCL Qatar, a new campus of University College London, which is part of Hamad bin Khalifa University.
Paul Collins is Assistant Keeper for Ancient Near East at the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford. He has a Ph.D. from University College London and has worked as a curator in the Middle East Department of the British Museum and the Ancient Near Eastern Art Department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Lisa Cooper is an Associate Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Her research interests include the material culture of the Bronze and Iron Ages of Syria, as well as the history of archaeological exploration in Mesopotamia during the twentieth century. Her book Early Urbanism on the Syrian Euphrates (2006) investigated the appearance and demise of urban settlements in the Upper Euphrates River Valley of Syria during the third millennium
BC.
Harriet Crawford specialises in the later prehistory of Mesopotamia. She has worked extensively in Iraq, Bahrain and Kuwait. She taught at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL, and remains an Honorary Visiting Professor there. She is also a Senior Fellow at the McDonald Institute, University of Cambridge. Her publications include Sumer and the Sumerians (2004) and Dilmun and its Gulf Neighbours (1998).
Graham Cunningham is a research fellow at the University of Cambridge, specializing in the linguistic and cultural history of the ancient Middle East. In addition to his own publications, he has contributed to three major collaborative projects: A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian, the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature and the Corpus of Ancient Mesopotamian Scholarship.
Benjamin R. Foster is Laffan Professor of Assyriology and Babylonian Literature and Curator of the Babylonian Collection at Yale University. He is author of a number of books on the social and economic history of early Mesopotamia and Akkadian literature. Publications include Before the Muses (third edition, 2005), The Epic of Gilgamesh (2001), Akkadian Literature of the Late Period (2007) and Civilizations of Ancient Iraq (2009).
XVI
–– Contributors ––
Lamia al Gailani Werr is an Iraqi archaeologist living in London. She is an honorary associate research fellow at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL. She worked in the Iraq Museum in the 1960s, and returned to Baghdad again in 2003–04 after the looting to assist her former colleagues. She is an expert on cylinder seals and has published many articles on the subject. She also runs the specialist NABU publishers.
Marlies Heinz has been Chair of Near Eastern Archaeology at the Albert LudwigsUniversity, Freiburg, Germany since 1995. Research interests include architecture and space design; the worlds of power and ideology; materiality and the world behind; and tradition and change. She has been involved in the excavation of Kamidel-Loz in Lebanon since 1997.
C.C. Lamberg-Karlovsky is the Stephen Phillips Professor of Archaeology and the past Director of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University. Over the years he has directed archaeological survey and excavations in Syria, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, Pakistan and Iran. His interests focus upon the nature and interactions that brought different archaic states into spheres of cultural interaction.
Jean-Claude Margueron has been Directeur d’Etudes à l’Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes since 1985 and has directed excavations at a number of sites including Larsa, Emar and Ras Shamra. He was the director of the French archaeological Mission to Mari for twenty seasons from 1979 to 2004 and has published extensively on his work there. His most recent book on the site is Mari, métropole de l’Euphrate, au IIIe et au début du IIe millénaire av. J.-C. (2004).
Kathleen McCaffrey studied religion at Claremont Graduate University and ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Using a synthesist approach that integrates textual and material evidence with gender theory, she focuses on intersections of gender and religion in early Mesopotamian culture and on studying the most curious historical artefact of all, the modern Assyriologist. Her latest publication, The Female Kings of Ur, examines how twentieth-century gender expectations filtered and framed interpretations of texts and artefacts from the Royal Cemetery at Ur.
Augusta McMahon is a Senior Lecturer in Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology and History at the University of Cambridge. She has a Ph.D. (1993) and MA (1986) from the University of Chicago and a BA (1983) from Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania. She has participated extensively in archaeological fieldwork in Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Yemen, at a range of sites from a Neolithic village through complex urban centres. Since 2006, she has been Field Director of the Tell Brak Excavations, Syria. Her research interests include early urbanism, urban landscapes, prehistoric violent conflict, and human response to climate change.
Frances Pinnock is Associate Professor of Near Eastern Archeology in the Sapienza University of Rome, and is the Vice-Director of the Italian Archaeological Expedition to Ebla. Her main interests are Ebla and the pre-classical cultures of Syria, ancient
XVII
–– Contributors ––
Mesopotamia, women’s roles in Syria and Mesopotamia. She has published a number of books and essays on Near Eastern art and archaeology.
Holly Pittman is Bok Family Professor at the University of Pennsylvania where she teaches the art and archaeology of the Ancient Near East. She also serves as Curator in the Near East Section in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Her work focuses primarily on the visual art of the Bronze Age Near East and especially on the imagery of glyptic art.
Jennifer R. Pournelle develops multidisciplinary international research programs for the University of South Carolina’s Environment and Sustainability Program. She has conducted fieldwork in nine countries, including Iraq. She currently leads The Sealands Archaeology and Environment Program in the south of that country. Her work has been featured in Science and The New York Times, and on The Discovery Channel and National Geographic Television.
Tonia Sharlach, a specialist in the Third Dynasty of Ur, holds degrees from Cambridge and Harvard. She is currently an Associate Professor of Ancient History at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater.
Alice Stevenson is currently a researcher in World Archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. Educated at the University of Cambridge (BA, Ph.D.), she specialises in the analysis of mortuary practices of the Egyptian Predynastic period and is presently undertaking research into Nubian A-group rituals. She has worked for the Egypt Exploration Society and has held teaching and research positions at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL. Her recent publications include The Predynastic Cemetery of el-Gerzeh (2009) and a co-edited volume on the Pitt Rivers Museum’s World Archaeology collections (forthcoming).
Elizabeth C. Stone is a Professor at the Department of Anthropology, Stony Brook University. She has focused her research on the organisation of ancient Near Eastern
– especially Mesopotamian – cities with an emphasis on the residential component. She has directed excavations at ‘Ain Dara in Syria, at the Ayanis Outer Town in Turkey and at Mashkan-shapir and Tell Sakhariya in Iraq.
Claudia E. Suter studies ancient Near Eastern images and texts. Among her interests are visual and verbal communication, cultural identities and ideologies of ruling classes in pre-modern societies. Her publications include Gudea’s Temple Building: The Representation of an Early Mesopotamian Ruler in Text and Image, “Between Human and Divine: High Priestesses in Images from the Akkad to the Isin-Larsa Period”, and “Luxury Goods in Ancient Israel: Questions of Consumption and Production”.
Jon Taylor is Curator of Cuneiform Collections in the Department of the Middle East at the British Museum. His research interests include literacy and education in the ancient Near East, the palaeography of cuneiform, and the non-textual features of clay documents. Currently he is investigating attitudes towards and uses of the past in the ancient Near East itself.
XVIII
–– Contributors ––
Christopher P. Thornton is a Consulting Scholar of the Asian Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum, where he received his Ph.D. in Anthropology in 2009. He has published a number of papers on early metallurgy and on the late prehistory of Oman, Iran, and Southern Turkmenistan. He is currently director of the Bronze Age site of Bat in northern Oman, where he has been excavating since 2007.
Jason Ur is the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University. He specialises in early urbanism and landscape archaeology and has conducted field surveys in Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Iran. He is the author of Urbanism and Cultural Landscapes in Northeastern Syria: The Tell Hamoukar Survey, 1999–2001 (2010). He is currently preparing a history of Mesopotamian urbanism.
Marc Van De Mieroop is Professor of History at Columbia University in New York. He has also taught at the University of Oxford and at Yale University, and has authored numerous books and articles on the histories of the Ancient Near East and Egypt.
Helga Vogel is assistant professor at the Institute of Near Eastern Archaeology at the Free University Berlin. Her research interests include mortuary practices, state formation, and gender archaeology. She specialises in the visual cultures of the ancient Near East and has published articles on topics ranging from women’s history in Mesopotamia to visual culture and politics in the ancient Near East.
Joan Goodnick Westenholz is Visiting Research Scholar at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University. She has served as Chief Curator at the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem from 1988 to 2008 and as Senior Research Associate on the Assyrian Dictionary Project of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago. She has published extensively on ancient Mesopotamian studies, especially on Babylonian religion and literature. Her special research interests are Mesopotamian theological conceptions, Akkadian heroic traditions and the conceptualisation of the female role in Mesopotamian society as well as lexicographical research.
Magnus Widell is Lecturer in Assyriology in the Department of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology at the University of Liverpool. His research focuses on the history, languages and texts of ancient Mesopotamia, and he is particularly interested in the Sumerian material and in socio-economic, cultural, environmental and agricultural issues of the third millennium BC.
Tony J. Wilkinson is a Professor in the Department of Archaeology, Durham University, UK. Having trained as a geographer, he moved into archaeology where he worked on regional landscape projects in the UK and the Middle East. He was formerly Assistant Director of the British Archaeological Expedition to Iraq, in Baghdad, Research Associate (Associate Professor) at the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, and Lecturer and Professor in the Department of Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, and he is a Fellow of the British Academy. His book, Archaeological Landscapes of the Near East, received the Book Prize of the Society for American Archaeology (2004) and the Wiseman Book Award of the Archaeological Institute of America (2005).
XIX
–– Contributors ––
Rita P. Wright is a Professor of Anthropology at New York University. She conducts field research in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, focusing on the Indus civilisation and third and early second millennium BC trade. The focus of her research is on South Asian and Near Eastern urbanism, early states, climate change, ceramics, textiles and gender issues in archaeology.
XX
CHRONOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK FOR FOURTH MILLENNIUM
SOUTHERN MESOPOTAMIA
Table 0.1
Date BC |
Southern Mesopotamia |
Uruk (Eanna) |
‘Late Chalcolithic’ |
|
|
|
|
|
|
3000 |
|
IVA |
|
|
|
Late Uruk |
Eanna |
LC 5 |
|
|
|
IVB–V |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Late |
|
|
Eanna |
|
|
|
|
VI |
|
|
3400 |
Late Middle Uruk |
Eanna |
LC 4 |
|
|
|
VII |
|
|
3600 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Early Middle Uruk |
Eanna IX–VIII |
LC 3 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
3800 |
|
Eanna XI–X |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Late |
|
Early Uruk |
Eanna XII |
||
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|
LC 2 |
4000 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Early |
4200 |
|
Eanna XVI–XIV |
|
|
|
Ubaid transitional |
|
|
LC 1 |
|
Ubaid 4? |
|
|
|
c.3150/3100–2900 |
Jamdat Nasr Period |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Source: After Rothman 2001: 7.
XXI
HISTORICAL PHASES AND KINGS OF
THE THIRD MILLENNIUM B C
Table 0.2
Dates BC (all dates |
Historical phase including kings (if known) |
|
||
are approximate) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
3150/3100–2900 |
Jamdat Nasr Period (‘Uruk III’) |
|
|
|
2900–2600 |
Early Dynastic I–II |
|
|
|
2600–2500 |
Early Dynastic IIIa |
|
|
|
2500–2350 |
Early Dynastic IIIb |
|
|
|
|
Early Dynastic rulers in selection |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ur I |
Lagasˇ I |
Proposed |
ED IIIa/IIIb? |
|
|
|
Synchronisms |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Meskalamdug |
Ur-Nansˇe |
Ur-Nansˇe and |
ED IIIb begins |
|
‘king of Kisˇ’ |
|
Akurgal = |
either with |
|
|
Akurgal |
Meskalamdug |
Ur-Nansˇe of Lagasˇ |
|
Akalamdug |
|
and Akalamdug |
or with |
|
‘king of Ur’ |
Eannatum |
|
Mesanepada of |
|
(Meskalamdug’s |
|
Mesanepada of |
Ur and Eannatum |
|
son?) |
Enannatum I |
Ur = Eannatum |
of Lagasˇ |
|
|
|
of Lagasˇ |
|
|
Mesanepada |
Enmetena |
|
|
|
‘king of Ur’, son |
|
|
|
|
of Meskalamdug |
Enannatum II |
|
|
|
Aanepada, ‘king |
Enentarzid |
|
|
|
of Ur’ son of |
|
|
|
|
Mesanepada |
Lugalanda |
|
|
XXIII
–– Historical phases of Kings ––
Table 0.2 (continued)
|
Meskiagnun |
UruKAgina/ |
|
‘king of Ur’ |
IriKAgina |
|
Elili ‘king of Ur’ |
|
2350–2200 |
Dynasty of Akkad / (Old) Akkadian Period |
|
|
Sargon |
2334–2279 |
|
Rı¯musˇ |
2278–2270 |
|
Manisˇtusˇu |
2269–225 |
|
Nara¯m-Sîn |
2254–2218 |
|
ˇ |
2217–2193 |
|
Sar-kali-sˇarrı¯ |
|
|
Igigi |
|
|
Naniyum |
2192–2190 |
|
Imi |
|
|
Elulu |
|
|
Dudu |
2189–2169 |
|
ˇ |
2168–2154 |
|
Su-Turul |
|
|
(after Brinkman 1977) |
|
2200–2112 |
Second Dynasty of Lagasˇ |
|
|
Gudea of Lagasˇ (contemporary with Ur-Namma?) |
|
2112–2004 |
Third Dynasty of Ur / Ur III Period |
|
|
Ur-Namma |
2112–2094 |
|
ˇ |
2095–2046 |
|
Sulgi |
|
|
Amar-Suen |
2045–2037 |
|
ˇ |
2036–2028 |
|
Su-Sîn |
|
|
Ibbi-Sîn |
2027–2004 |
(after Brinkman 1977)
Note: Royal names in bold script are mentioned in the Sumerian Kinglist.
XXIV
INTRODUCTION
Harriet Crawford
The heartland of the Sumerian world lay in what is today southern Iraq, an area of parched but potentially fertile silt and marshland which lies between two great rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris. Its first inhabitants were a group of people who seem to have been of mixed origins and who were probably attracted to the region by the rich reserves of game and fish, but we cannot tell what languages they spoke or where they came from as they have left few archaeological traces and no written records. By the end of the fourth millennium, when we have written records which can be read with a degree of confidence, some of these people were writing in the Sumerian
language.
The initial settlers were constantly augmented by incomers, some of whom apparently spoke Semitic dialects, the ancestors of modern Arabic. It is inaccurate to describe this world as purely Sumerian. It is more accurate to say, as Cooper has recently done (Cooper 2010: 333), that we should think of southern Mesopotamia in the third millennium, the period which concerns us, as a region ‘where Sumerian and Semitic speakers together formed a remarkably unified culture’. Because of this, the phrase ‘Sumerian world’ is used here as shorthand to describe the culture which was developed in this region inhabited by a linguistically diverse group of people.
The region is a harsh one with a limited range of natural resources beyond the reeds and wildlife in the southern marshes (but see Pournelle this volume), little rainfall, and scorching summer heat. In spite of these conditions, the Sumerian plain saw major achievements in almost every area of life from technology to social organisation and Algaze (this volume) discusses some of these major innovations at the end of prehistory. Arguably, the greatest of these was the invention of a writing system which when fully developed was flexible enough to represent simple commercial transactions, historical data and abstract thought. The script used small wedge-shaped signs, often impressed onto clay tablets, to record a wide variety of languages and became the Sumerian world’s most important export. (For example, diplomatic tablets found in Egypt during the Amarna period, more than one thousand years later, are written in this ‘cuneiform’ script ). A complex mathematical system, using a base six as well as a base ten, was also developed and traces of this can still be found today; for instance, in the number of degrees in a circle. Both script and mathematical systems were used by what became the first civil service, staffed by professional scribes (see Taylor this volume). Almost equally important was the development of a complex irrigation system using
1
–– Introduction ––
gravity feed, weirs, dams and lifting devices to bring fertility to the area and to hold back the floods (see Wilkinson this volume).
The social organisation of the Sumerian world also saw important innovations as it moved from a society characterised by farmers and mobile herders living in small communities, to complex urban ones which, although still agriculturally based, required more sophisticated systems of governance than that provided by the heads of the families who lived in the smaller settlements (Algaze this volume). These new towns and cities saw the first formal systems of government led initially by a figure usually referred to today as the priest king (see Brisch this volume). He seems to have had military, administrative and religious duties. The priest king was succeeded by dynastic rulers whose power was to some extent balanced by that of the priesthood, and perhaps of an assembly of citizens (Ridley 2000; Van De Mieroop this volume). The societies over which they ruled became increasingly specialised and hierarchical with the emergence of highly skilled professionals who included merchants, potters, metalworkers, weavers and many others, as well as the increasingly ubiquitous scribes (Wright and Taylor this volume).
The bulk of the population was still engaged in agriculture and in these communities the basic unit of settled society continued to be the extended family (see Widell this volume). Nomadic and semi-nomadic groups supplied additional animal products to the settled population. It is difficult to find traces of these animal herders in the archaeological record and it is only with the rich textual evidence from Mari in the early second millennium that we begin to learn about them in any detail (Edzard
1981).
The new cities of south Mesopotamia began to compete amongst themselves for political primacy, a situation which is reflected in the Sumerian King list (Jacobsen 1939; Michalowski 1983 for contrasting views) and for control of vital but scarce resources such as water and irrigable land (Cooper 1983). By c.2300 BC the Semitic kings of Akkad, a city whose exact location is still unknown, conquered the old Sumerian cities of the south and united them into a single rather fractious kingdom, the first in the region. Naram-Sin, the fourth king of the dynasty, declared himself the god of his city, thus uniting what might simplistically be called secular and religious powers in his own person. The dynasty was brought to an end by invasions from the east and it was only c.2100 BC that the dynasty of Ur, known as Ur III, was once again able to unite the south and to conquer territory outside Mesopotamia as well. This ‘empire’ was of short duration, lasting little more than a century. A process of political fusion and fission seems to be typical of the region throughout much of the third millennium and into the first quarter of the second (Brisch this volume).
The cities of the Sumerian plain were complex organisms whose internal workings are still not fully understood (Van De Mieroop 1997). It seems likely that by the end of the millennium the different neighbourhoods within the city walls were inhabited by people who shared a trade and were probably in many cases members of an extended family (Stone this volume). Some administrative and legal duties seem to have been devolved to local governing councils which were probably made up of the heads of the main families, while other matters could be referred up to the king as supreme judge.
One of the most important professions in these early cities was that of priest. The priests and the ruler were charged with the vital task of ensuring that the complicated pantheon of gods remained well disposed towards the city (Westenholz this volume).
2
–– Introduction ––
The ruler was seen as perhaps the most important conduit through which the gods made their wishes known and he then had to implement their commands with the help of the priests. Failure to do so in the appropriate way led to tragedy and devastation such as that seen at the end of the Agade period.
The trades represented within the cities included those which relied on local raw materials such as the potters and the weavers and the latter also produced textiles of various qualities for export. Others such as the metalworkers used imported raw materials, and the more valuable the materials, the tighter was the control exercised by one of the two great public institutions generally referred to as the palace and the temple. By the end of the third millennium, there is some evidence for the emergence of private enterprise as well; merchants, for example, seem to have worked both on behalf of the temple and for themselves (Crawford this volume). In spite of our lack of information in some areas, it is obvious that the cities of the late third millennium were among the most sophisticated and prosperous in their world and that they marked a remarkable development from the small settlements of the earlier Ubaid.
The adjective ‘Sumerian’ is used in three different ways: to describe a language, a culture, and a people, but these terms are not coterminous. The language is the easiest to define, but it too probably came in part from the amalgamation of earlier languages (see below) and was written and probably spoken by people of different ethnic backgrounds. For example, texts written in Sumerian and dating from the middle of the third millennium were signed by scribes with Akkadian names, suggesting that they were Semites rather than Sumerians (Biggs 1967).
The Sumerian language has a number of very specific characteristics which distinguish it from any other known language ancient or modern (Cunningham this volume). It also has a number of loan words which provide some of the strongest evidence we have for the varied origins of the inhabitants of south Mesopotamia (Black 2007: 6, 12; for a classic exposition cf. Oppenheim 1964: chapter 1).These words appear in the earliest texts which we can decipher with any certainty and date to the late Uruk period, that is to say, to the last quarter of the fourth millennium (Rubio 1999: 2). It has also been suggested that the decimal system found in some of these very early texts is a pre-Sumerian substrate survival. Some profession names are also generally thought to be pre-Sumerian, while the undoubtedly Sumerian ones tend to be for more sophisticated urban-based professions such as that of scribe, perhaps suggesting that society was not very well developed before the Sumerians immigrated to the area. Attempts have been made by some scholars to identify one or possibly two preSumerian languages but their findings have been challenged in more recent times (Rubio 1999: 3ff.). Some non-Sumerian place names may also be evidence for preSumerian inhabitants and it is clear that words associated with imported technologies such as wine-making were brought in with the technology and suggest a patchwork of languages and dialects throughout the greater region.
The question of when the Sumerian element of the population arrived in southern Iraq has been much debated. Arguments have been made for their presence from the time of the earliest inhabitants, based on the perceived continuity in the pottery styles and of monumental architecture. Others would date their arrival to the beginning of the fourth millennium in the early Uruk phase, or even to the beginning of the third. There is no clear evidence from either the archaeological or the textual record in the period of fourteen or so centuries from the late Uruk period to the advent of the first
3
–– Introduction ––
Amorites rulers in the early second millennium to indicate the arrival of a large group of incomers who might be the Sumerians. This negative evidence suggests that they were already well established in the southern plain by the late Uruk period. However, once the previously assumed link between specific groups of people, on one hand, and material culture, on the other, is broken, as it is by most scholars today, the question of the arrival of the Sumerians becomes less significant because the culture concerned no longer has to be equated with the arrival of a single group.
The second use of the word ‘Sumerian’ is to describe a culture, that is to say, the sum total of the evidence from texts and archaeology for a way of life, its beliefs and customs. The Sumerian culture is still only partially known because the evidence we have is incomplete, mediated by the twin accidents of discovery and survival. It is also strongly skewed in favour of urban settlements and public buildings (Adams 2008). Unlike the Assyrians with their magnificent stone wall reliefs and huge fortifications, the inhabitants of the south built in mudbrick, which made the retrieval of all but the thickest walls and the largest structures almost impossible when using the crude excavation techniques of the first explorers. In addition much of the material culture was made of perishable materials such as reeds and palm wood which do not survive either, leaving further gaps in our knowledge.
However, in spite of this, by the middle of the nineteenth century the great ziggurat at Ur and the sites of Uruk, Babylon and Nineveh, amongst others, had been identified, and the first inscriptions in the Sumerian language discovered, although its decipherment was to take a little longer. Excavation in the twentieth century saw far more sophisticated techniques of recovery used, intensive study of tablets and a rapid expansion in our information. As our knowledge grows, a strong case can now be made for saying that Sumerian culture was, as Cooper proposed (see above), the product of an extraordinarily productive mixing of a wide variety of different elements.
It is Sumerian culture as described above which will be explored in most of the chapters in this book. It is ironic that as our information improves many of the old certainties become blurred. The tidy groups which help us reconstruct ancient societies are now becoming fuzzy. The old oppositional categories of human and divine, palace and temple, church and state, urban and rural, nomad and settled, no longer fit our more nuanced understanding of the evidence. For example, Steinkeller (2007) sees town and country as a continuum with all land owned by temples. As boundaries between such categories are becoming unclear and our understanding of the textual and iconographic evidence improves, we hope that we are edging closer to a realistic portrait of the Sumerian world.
The most contentious use of the word ‘Sumerian’ is to describe a people. There may have been such a people, but there is no physical anthropological evidence to support this, no separate groups of long heads or round heads as some early anthropologists thought (Soltysiak 2006). In the future it may be possible to group skeletal remains by DNA analysis, but human bones are badly preserved in the area, and even if different DNA groups were identified, it would still be impossible to know which represented the earliest Sumerians. This use of the word will not be dealt with here.
The present volume will present some of the most recent findings as well as summaries of the existing state of our knowledge. It will also set the Sumerian world in its contemporary context and in some cases reassess the influence it had on its neighbours. It is hoped that this mixing of clearly presented old and new data will be
4
–– Introduction ––
of use to a wide range of readers interested in ancient Mesopotamia and will also provide comparative data to experts in other cognate fields.
PART I
This book is divided into six sections each linked by a common theme the first of which is the physical, linguistic and historical background against which Sumerian culture emerged. In spite of the difficulty of working in Iraq over the last twenty years or so, much new work has been done, especially on landscape archaeology using modern remote sensing techniques. This work has made us rethink many of our assumptions on fundamental issues such as the locations of the first major settlements and the movements of the Euphrates and Tigris (see esp. Pournelle, Stone and Wilkinson this volume). Widell looks at the agriculture which was the backbone of the economy, while a chapter by Cunningham discusses the Sumerian language and one by Brisch gives an overview of the history.
PART II
This section looks at the material remains of Sumerian towns and cities in the landscape (Ur), at their internal organisation (Stone), and at some of their important institutions (Suter, McCaffrey and Westenholz). The analysis of the use of space, both at settlement scale and at the level of individual buildings, is also offering new insights (Heinz).
PART III
In this section the focus is narrowed to look at the governance of the cities and at the development of sophisticated legal and administrative systems within them. The scribes who developed these systems formed what was effectively a highly trained civil service (Van De Mieroop, Taylor). The tools of the administrators’ trade are discussed by Sharlach, who looks at calendars and methods of counting, and by Pittman, who presents the evidence for the many usages of cylinder seals.
PART IV
Here the focus changes to look at everyday life through the evidence of housing (Collins), and at the role of women in the third millennium when they played an important role in public life, at odds with their position in later periods (Asher-Greve). This is followed by a chapter by al Gailani on a topic which is often overlooked, fashion. To illustrate some of the complexities the evidence for one of the region’s most important industries, weaving, is presented by Wright. The end of life and the rituals associated with it are presented by Vogel and, finally, some of the myths which the people used in their attempts to make sense of their condition are presented by Foster.
PART V
Contacts between Sumer and its neighbours were of many kinds, and these are explored by Crawford. The virtual cessation of work in Iraq after 1990 has led to work
5
–– Introduction ––
being intensified in the surrounding areas such as Syria to the north and west (Cooper, McMahon and Pinnock) and Iran (Lamberg-Karlovsky). As a result, we can now present the Sumerian world in its historical context more accurately than previously and can assess its achievements in the light of those of its neighbours. It is becoming clear that its influence in the first half of the millennium was perhaps less important than was previously thought. There are surprisingly few traces of Sumerian influence at sites such as Mari and Brak (Margueron, McMahon).
PART VI
Tenuous links also existed with countries even further away from Sumer, countries which may have seemed semi-mythical to its inhabitants. Dilmun in the Arabian Gulf was one of these, and its relations are discussed by Carter, while those of the Indus valley, which was perhaps as sophisticated as Sumer itself, is described by Thornton. The complex question of the possible relations between Egypt and Mesopotamia is explored by Stevenson.
POSTSCRIPT
It has often been suggested that the life of the Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq must resemble that of the first inhabitants of the region. There is no direct link between the past and the present, but describing the life of the traditional Marsh Arabs, and especially their technology, gives us a new perspective on the lives of their early forebears. The postscript is written by a man who has done more than anyone else to return the marshes to their original state and to allow the Sumerian homeland to be reborn (Alwash).
The Sumerians have never had the high public profile which the Egyptians enjoy and it is interesting to speculate on why this should be so. Perhaps it is connected to the durability and high visibility of such magnificent monuments as the pyramids and the Sphinx; perhaps it relates to a public fascination with mummies; perhaps it is fuelled by the lively paintings in many of the tombs. Mesopotamia has none of these things, but it has many less striking remains which paint a fascinating picture of one of the most interesting periods in the history of man, a time when innovations which would shape the future of the world can be identified for the first time. It is hoped that this book will help to restore the Sumerians to their rightful place and make their achievements more accessible to a wide range of people.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank all my authors for allowing themselves to be bullied into writing such excellent chapters for this book and the team at Routledge, especially Matt Gibbons, Amy Davis-Poynter and Janice Baiton, for making it happen.
6
–– Introduction ––
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adams, R.McC. 2008. An interdisciplinary overview of a Mesopotamian city and its hinterlands.
Cuneiform Digital Library Journal 2008, 1: 1–23.
Biggs, R.D. 1967. Semitic names in the Fara period. Orientalia (NS) 36, 55–66.
Black, J. 2007. Sumerian. In Languages of Iraq. ed. J.N. Postgate, 5–30. London: British Institute for the Study of Iraq.
Cooper, J. 1983. Reconstructing History from Ancient Inscriptions: the Umma/Lagash war. Malibu, CA: Undenu.
—— 2010. “I have forgotten my burden of former days!” Forgetting the Sumerians in ancient Iraq.
JAOS 103: 27–335.
Edzard, D.O. 1981. Mesopotamian nomads in the third millennium B.C. In Nomads and Sedentary Peoples, ed. Silva Castillo, 37–45. Mexico: El Colegio de Mexico
Jacobsen, T. 1939. The Sumerian King List. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Michalowski, P. 1983. History as charter. J.American Oriental Society 103: 237–248. Oppenheim, A.L. 1964. Ancient Mesopotamia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ridley, R.T. 2000. The saga of an epic: Gilgamesh and the constitution of Uruk. Orientalia 69 (4):
341–367.
Rubio, G. 1999. On the alleged ‘Pre-Sumerian substratum’. J. of Cuneiform Studies 51: 1–16. Soltysiak, A. 2006. Physical anthropology and the ‘Sumerian problem’, Studies in Historical
Anthropology 4: 145–158 (www.antropologia.uw.edu.pl).
Steinkeller, P. 2007. City and countryside in third millennium south Babylonia. In Settlement and Society: essays dedicated to Robert McCormick Adams, ed. E. Stone. Chicago: Oriental Institute.
Van De Mieroop, M. 1997. The Ancient Mesopotamian City. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
7
Map 0.1 |
The Sumerian world. |
By kind permission of |
the late G. Possehl. |
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Shortughai |
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Harappa |
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Ganweriwala |
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Gilund |
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Aral Sea |
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Sarazm |
Altin |
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Mundigak |
ARATTA |
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Mohenjo-daro |
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MELUHHA |
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Dholavira |
Lothal |
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Shahr-i |
Sokhta |
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A |
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Namazga |
Hissar |
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Anshan |
Shahdad |
Yahya |
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M |
al’JinzRas |
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lf |
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Susa |
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Asmar |
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Kish |
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IA |
Uruk Ur |
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Birak |
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O |
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P |
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Sea |
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O |
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Black |
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Ebla |
Mari |
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Red |
Se |
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Mediterranean Sea |
Giza |
EGYPT |
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Luxor |
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RUSSIA |
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Maikop |
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C |
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Black Sea |
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p |
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S |
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Istanbul |
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C |
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a |
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U |
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G |
AS |
US |
MTS |
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O |
R |
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Tbilisi |
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Troy |
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GI |
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Poliochni |
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A |
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Ankara |
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Alaca Höyük |
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A |
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A |
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Athens |
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TURKEY |
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M |
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E |
R |
BA |
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E |
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IJAN |
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N |
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ANATOLIA |
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I |
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Aigina Cyclades |
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Acemhöyük |
Kültepe |
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Lake |
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Van |
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S |
MTS |
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T |
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U |
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igris |
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Tabriz |
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R |
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A |
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Lake |
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Tell Brak |
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CRETE |
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Aleppo |
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Great |
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Urmia |
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Mochlos |
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r |
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Mosul |
Zab |
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Ebla |
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CYPRUS |
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K |
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Deir ez-Zor |
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Ashur |
it |
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LEBANON |
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SYRIA |
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a |
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Mediterranean Sea |
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Mari |
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l |
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R. |
Eu |
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iya |
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D |
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ph |
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Damascus |
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Jerusalem |
Amman |
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Kish |
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IRAQ |
Nippur |
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Alexandria |
ISRAEL |
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Uruk |
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Cairo |
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JORDAN |
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SINAI |
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KUWAIT |
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Kuwait |
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N |
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EGYPT |
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Medina |
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Riyadh |
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Red |
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Modern capital |
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Sea |
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Mecca |
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Modern city |
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Ancient site |
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1000 |
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Kilometres |
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Map 0.2 Ancient Mesopotamia. By kind permission of the Metropolitan Museum, New York. |
PART I
THE BACKGROUND