4.39Pendant seals of stone of the Chalcolithic age. Halaf culture, the 104 site of Yarimtepe II

Introduction

This book was written in 1991–1992 but incorporates elements of research that I carried out much earlier, in fact, since the beginning of the 1970s. It is an account of my work over a period of time when I was labouring ad maiorem Orientis antiquissimi gloriam only in my spare time, having had, principally for existential reasons, quite different official commitments. A further impulse towards the writing of this text has been constituted by my lectures on the archaeology of ancient Mesopotamia at the Faculty of Philosophy of Charles University, Prague, in 1982–1983 and then in 1990–1991. Things have changed considerably since 1993 and now courses on ancient Oriental archaeology have been included in the curricula of two other universities in the Czech Republic. I greatly appreciate the interest in my book expressed by colleagues both at home and abroad, as well as the decision by Routledge to launch a new edition of this treatise, on which I worked for most of the years 2000–2001.

As to the spatiotemporal dimension of this book, ‘Mesopotamia’ is to be understood in terms of the present territory of the Republic of Iraq. Sites outside this are cited for parallels but not systematically investigated. ‘Ancient’ means from the earliest human occupation of Mesopotamia down to 2334 BC when a fully fledged territorial state emerged in the territory in question.

In all my subsequent considerations, I view archaeology as the study of material traces of human behaviour in the past. I fear that all definitions concerning only the utilitarian aspects of past human activities are, for one thing, too narrow, and, for another, too much biased by the modern point of view. I believe that there is no a priori division of ancient, and especially pre-literate, human activities into ‘utilitarian’ and those which we have perceived until recently, in coarsest pseudo-Marxist terms, as ‘determined by the economic base’. If we fall prey to putting forward questions determined by our own vision of the past, we clearly run the risk of finding in our materials only answers to precisely this kind of interrogation which, in such a case, will be a loss well merited on our part. For myself, I can only confess that I have never felt conceited enough to prescribe to the ancients what they should and what they should not have done. My chief concern and fascination has always been best expressed by the famous maxim of Vere Gordon Childe, namely ‘what happened in history’. This orientation, in its essence rather palaeo-historic than purely archaeological and incorporating data yielded by written sources as soon as they appear, leads me to rely especially on two categories of evidence: those singular sources that comprise the greatest possible amount of information about human behaviour in the past, and then whole sets of data compared among one another, either on various sites in a single time segment or on a single site throughout subsequent periods of time. In this vision, a single corn of grain gives evidence on the behaviour of whole generations of ancient agriculturalists and is to be preferred to whatever ingenious spiritual constructs may be put forward by modern specialists to classify such evidence as pottery rims, architectural plans or art motifs. Of course, I hasten to add

Figure 0.1 The Mesopotamian alluvial plain. Unlike many other lands of the world, southern Mesopotamia displays only one single precise, definable and certain landscape feature: the line of the horizon, a frontier between two indefinites—the borderless clayey plain and the vast expanses of the sky.

that this statement involves in no way any depreciatory attitude to such pursuits. All I wish to point out is that such procedures, having immense value in terms of individual subhistorical disciplines like archaeology, art history, philology (in relation to written evidence) and the like belong properly to the heuristic phase of historical research while their relevance to the synthetical phases of the historians work is mediated by the amount of historical information they carry.

This essentially comparative manner of viewing the past opens the way to classifications of phenomena which we may not understand presently but which, by their repeated occurrence in well-defined spatiotemporal contexts, supply information relevant to the historical processes. What I have in mind here is a kind of ‘archaeological syntax’ of the individual components of material culture. I fear that up to now, archaeological research has in many instances tended to result in ‘archaeological lexicography’, wherein individual pieces of information are disengaged from their original contexts and rearranged into intellectual constructions that may have little in common with their original environment. A case in point is the current practice of publication of major sites in the form of treatments of individual find categories (pottery, stone or metal artifacts, ecofacts and the like), in which the reconstitution of the original find contexts represents a highly laborious and time-consuming procedure. Even if we do not know what the ancient clay figurines were used for, for instance, their transfer from settlement rubbish to the

proximity of graves or even to their interiors clearly gives palaeohistorical evidence worth registering. It is thus on such highly eloquent sources, broad comparisons and notices of presence or absence that my reasoning is based. I shall be pleased to hear any constructive criticism and, of course, I do humbly confess the authorship of all the errors and inconsistencies. Yet, I do claim the legitimacy of my approach, attempting to integrate all indications of the sphere of material evidence and later of written texts into a coherent pattern of understanding and explanation of the historical course of events. (On modern archaeological method and theory see Kosso 1991.)

The reader may perhaps be surprised to find Neolithic artifacts illustrated in sections on the Chalcolithic. The reason behind this is my desire to provide as many illustrations as possible of the common, ‘ordinary’ artifacts that turn up so frequently in excavations of prehistoric but also later sites. In this manner, the later chapters, dedicated to the emergence and rise of literate society and the state, can feature highly accomplished examples of material culture. In their turn, these will then provide meaningful insights into the dynamics of historical movements of later times.

In the time which has elapsed since the publication of the first version of this book in 1993, a number of excellent studies on the same subject have seen the light of day. Highly inspiring examples of these are Bernbeck 1994; Breniquet 1996; Forest 1996; Frangipane 1996; Maisels 1993; Myers 1997; Pollock 1999; Postgate 1994; and Sasson et al. 1995. It is a considerable honour and pleasure for me to join this modest attempt to the fruit of efforts applied by such distinguished authors. If and when I diverge from their lines of reasoning, I certainly do not do so because of disregard for their conclusions. I rather feel convinced that the many paths we pursue lead to one goal common to all of us—more light on the history of ancient Mesopotamia, one of the pristine civilizations of humankind, to the inhabitants of which we are all so much obliged to this day.

I acknowledge with pleasure my indebtedness to those who have helped me along. My work was carried out in two institutes of the then Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, Archaeological and Oriental. I must begin with thanking cordially Dr Jana Pečirková, Vice-Director of the Oriental Institute in 1993, who initiated a series of events that led ultimately to my finding employment in the latter institute whereby my sixteen-year banishment from ancient Oriental studies ended. In both institutes, I have greatly profited from discussions with, and the suggestions of, a number of learned friends and colleagues. In the Institute of Archaeology, I feel especially obliged to Slavomil Vencl, Natalie Venclová, Zdeněk Smetánka, Jan Klápště and Jan Frolík. In the Oriental Institute, my thanks go to Blahoslav Hruška and Jiří Prosecký, who has been my patient tutor in matters of computer use. A number of questions were clarified as a consequence of my studies in the library of the Seminar für Vorderasiatische Altertumskunde der Freien Universität Berlin, for the kind permission of access to which, as well as for help in a number of interconnected questions, I am obliged to Prof. Dr Johannes Renger of the same university. I have always greatly profited from discussions with, and the suggestions of, Prof. Dr Hans J.Nissen of the Freie Universität Berlin. Roger J.Matthews, Director of the British Archaeological Expedition to Iraq, not only invited me to participate in the 1989 Jemdet Nasr campaign but made accessible to me the rich funds of the Baghdad library of the BAE, wherefore I thank him most cordially. I am obliged for most interesting discussions and hints to Susan Pollock of the State University of New York at Binghamton, NY. For manifold help, a host of interesting suggestions and

assistance in practical matters I am indebted to Jean-Louis Huot of the French Archaeological Institutes in the Near East (Damascus, Amman, Beirut), Annie Caubet of the Louvre Museum in Paris as well as to Jesús Gil Fuensanta, Head of the Spanish Archaeological Mission to Turkey, of which I am now a member. I greatly appreciate the move of Gwendolyn Leick who first suggested that Routledge take up the new edition of this book, and of this book, and thank the anonymous assessor who found such kind words for it.

My wife, Kateřina Charvátová, and both my sons, Jan and Ondřej, had to live with the ancient Mesopotamians for more than a decade. I acknowledge my debt of gratitude to them for all they have done to help me.

This book is dedicated to the memory of Zdeněk Charvát, my father, and Lubor Matouš, my professor and tutor who led my first steps into ancient Oriental history.

Petr Charvát Prague, 23 June 2001

Source. Based on Georges Roux (1966) Ancient Iraq. Harmondsworth: Penguin, pp. 458-459.