The Early History of the Ancient Near East (9000-2000 BC)
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Earlier, we pointed to the special role played by Babylonia which makes it necessary to consider this geographical area as a separate entity. The archaeological record speaks for itself. In all areas of the Near East, we see a trend toward gradually denser settlements and, simultaneously, the rise of structured relationships between the settlement sites. In Susiana, it even seems that a multilevel pattern of settlement had been developing, whereas the growth of settlements in Babylonia seems to have occurred considerably later than in the surrounding areas. Throughout this first, longer, period, the density of settlement also never surpassed that of the first phase, and the settlement sites continued to be so far apart that, as far as we know, no possibility existed for structured relationships among them.
Figure 19. The Near East during the Late Uruk period. Hatched areas: the Late Uruk civilization in Babylonia, and its direct offshoots; circles: finds of cylinder seals; crosses: finds of bevel-rimmed bowls. Author’s original.
This picture changes completely for the period we designate as the beginning of early high civilization, the so-called Late Uruk period (named after the site of Uruk in southern Babylonia). The hinterland of the city of Uruk, one of the most intensively studied areas to date, is eminently suitable for use in studying changing settlement patterns. Within this area more than ten times as many sites appear than before, most of them so close to one another that we can easily recognize connections between them—that is, settlement systems.
These systems were not merely at the same organizational level as that already reached in Susiana, but had, in all likelihood, surpassed it by advancing a step further toward a higher level of organization. Instead of a three-tiered system, we now have a four-tiered hierarchy, with Uruk at its head (see fig. 11). With no apparent transition, Babylonia moved from a phase of individual settlements to one characterized by the most complex organization yet seen. Until recently, this sudden change remained an enigma, but it can now be explained with some degree of probability. Of course, the conclusion had already been reached in studying the evolution of the Babylonian flood plain—as an alluvial deposit at the Tigris and Euphrates—that what had at one time been an area of lagoons and swamps had only gradually been transformed into dry land. However, this did not explain the relatively sudden appearance of large-scale settlement, since such a silting-up process must have required a considerable amount of time, so that any growth in the amount of land suitable for habitation would have been a slow one.
The results of studies of the ancient climate and of changes in the amount of water in the Mesopotamian river system and in the Gulf, as outlined above, now present us with a clearer picture of developments in southern Babylonia. The climatic changes documented for the middle of the fourth millennium seem, within a space of two to three hundred years, to have stemmed the floods that regularly covered large tracts of land and to have drained such large areas that in a relatively short period of time large parts of Babylonia, particularly throughout the south, became attractive for new permanent settlements.
However, in saying this we must continually bear in mind that, given our telescopic view of history, a “relatively short period” can still mean thirty to fifty, or perhaps even a hundred, years. Thanks to the experience in food producing techniques gained beforehand in neighboring areas and to the organizational structures developed there, this “new land” could immediately be occupied on full scale. Hence, the development of settlement systems, to mention only this one aspect, could begin immediately at the stage already reached, for example, in Susiana. In these circumstances, we suddenly see the number of settlements increase more than tenfold from one period to the next and the aggregate settlement area jump from 60 to 440 hectares (fig. 20). In this case, aggregate settlement area should be understood simply as the sum of the surface areas of all sites occupied at any one time. Assuming that, on the average, the number of inhabitants per unit area remained roughly constant, the total area of settlement is a useful gauge by which to measure changes in population, without, however, the possibility of giving actual numbers of inhabitants.
The allure of this new land certainly also brought new population groups into the area, even if the growth in population resulted not from a single wave of immigration but rather from a combination of factors. One possibility may have been an internal population shift. If we compare maps of settlement areas in Babylonia as a whole during the Early Uruk period, which preceded the period of early high civilization, with those of the Late Uruk period in which we have noted the great increase in the number of settlements, we can see that in the earlier period the majority of settlements were clearly located in northern Babylonia.
In the following period, the number of sites in the north decreased, whilst the number of sites in the south far exceeded the number that had previously existed in the north. Along with probable adjustments in settlements between the different parts of the country, it is therefore likely that by the Late Uruk period other groups had also entered the area. If there is any moment in time to which we can assign the arrival of the Sumerians with a high degree of probability, it is this first period of settlements in large areas of the southern Babylonian plain.
Figure 20. The Uruk countryside during (a) Late Uruk, (b) Jamdet Nasr, (c) Early Dynastic I, and (d) Early Dynastic II/III periods; (e) comparison of number and size of settlements over time. Author’s original, based on figs. 3–6 of R. M. Adams and H. J. Nissen, The Uruk Countryside (Chicago, 1972).
The net result was that Babylonia was now much more densely settled than any other part of the Near East had ever been in the previous period. This was one result of the necessity to employ irrigation, the basic techniques of which had long been known, but which never previously had to be used so systematically. As noted, however, irrigation in the earlier periods looked quite different from the way we usually imagine it to have looked in Babylonia. Even though by this time the water had receded so much that the land had become habitable, there was nonetheless for some considerable time so much water still available that nearly every arable plot had easy and direct access to it. This fact, together with Babylonia’s extremely fertile soil, must have produced a “paradise,” with multiple, high-yield harvests each year.
Aided by these external conditions, the amount of cultivated land necessary to support an individual had become extremely small, so that the area around a settlement needed to support its population could be smaller than ever before. In what follows we shall see how this high productivity, coupled with the high density of population it afforded, posed problems for Babylonia, the solution to which finally brought about the complex we call early high civilization.
Despite the fact that research has progressed in certain decisive respects over the past few years, our clearest examples still come from Babylonia, and there primarily from the excavations of the city of Uruk in the southern part of the region. Occupation of this site probably goes back to the very earliest period of settlement in Babylonia and, from at least the Ubaid period onward, has provided information about the chronological sequence of phases of settlement that overshadows all other evidence about Babylonia. As noted, the archaeological investigation of the countryside around the city has been almost as important as the excavations within it.
Stratigraphic excavations at Uruk and other sites in Babylonia have yielded a sequence of pottery types that have proved to be characteristic of particular periods, and that can now be used to date pottery found out of context at other sites. There are numerous sites in the area around Uruk, today mostly desert, that can be identified as ancient settlements on the basis of the visible remains of walls and, more commonly, large quantities of potsherds on the surface. Given a knowledge of the ceramic sequence, it is possible to determine in which periods most of these sites were inhabited. With this information it is then possible to draw distribution maps of the area showing all the sites inhabited in any given period (fig. 20). The comparison of these maps allows us to draw certain conclusi
ons about possible changes in the settlement of the area in question, and has thereby provided us with information that could not have been acquired through excavation. These complementary methods of research—excavation and surface survey—are particularly important in the case of Uruk, since they provide an abundance of information relevant to the problem of the interdependence of center and surrounding area.
Figure 21. Group of settlements northeast of Uruk, during (a) Late Uruk, and (b) Early Dynastic I periods. Settlements abandoned after the Late Uruk period are shown as circles. Author’s original, based on fig. 14 of R. M. Adams and H. J. Nissen, The Uruk Countryside (Chicago, 1972).
On the basis of developments in architecture, pottery, seals, and writing, the period of early high civilization can be divided into three subperiods, conventionally known as the Late Uruk, Jamdet Nasr, and Early Dynastic I periods. Site distribution maps can be drawn for each of these three periods, and their comparison has yielded extremely informative results, showing clear developmental trends. Thus, while the absolute number of settlements decreased markedly between the Late Uruk and Early Dynastic I periods, the average size of individual settlements increased so much that a considerable overall expansion of the inhabited area can be seen if we take into account all the areas inhabited at the same time. Thus there was an increase in population, although this was probably not as spectacular as that which characterized the first phase of settlement in the period of early high civilization. The basic mechanism by which the number of sites decreased and the area of settlement increased can be inferred from several cases in which, during the Late Uruk period, we find a number of small sites clustered around a central one which, by the Early Dynastic I period, had grown much larger and remained virtually the only site in the area still inhabited (see fig. 21).
Though surely too vague, it must be noted that we nevertheless use as our basic assumption that the number of inhabitants per unit of settled area remained roughly constant. As noted above, the expansion or shrinkage of a settlement is taken to indicate an expansion or reduction in population size. It would, in fact, be possible to quote absolute figures if we based our estimates on an average, which has from time to time been suggested, from one to two hundred inhabitants per thousand square meters of inhabited area. Yet, to stay on the safe side, only the specification of relative changes from one period to the other seems in any way acceptable.
Perhaps the most impressive example of the developmental trend we have mentioned is afforded by Uruk itself. The exact limits of the site at any one time are still difficult to determine, because the survey of a city area that was continuously built upon can naturally only provide us with incomplete data. Almost the whole of the surface of the city of Uruk has, however, been subjected to a detailed investigation, so that certain trends do become visible. On the drawings shown here (fig. 22) of the plan of Uruk, only those areas that were definitely inhabited in the different periods are shown. Therefore, for each respective period they only show the minimum dimensions of the area covered by the city. The general tendency is, however, already clear: the city area grows continually into the Early Dynastic I period when its extension is delineated by the city wall, built in this period. This wall enclosed an area of some 5.5 square kilometers. In addition, not all of the area inhabited during this period lay within the wall, since sherd scatter indicates that habitation extended a further two to three kilometers beyond the northeastern section of the city.
Figure 22. Minimal extent of the settled area of Uruk during (a) the Late Uruk and (b) Early Dynastic I periods, on evidence from excavations (black) and concentrations of surface finds (hatched). Author’s original, using additional information provided by Dr. U. Finkbeiner, Tübingen University.
However, this underlines not only the general trend toward an increase in the size of settlements that characterized the period up to Early Dynastic I, but also the more general fact of the extraordinary size of Babylonian settlements. Athens, after the expansion under Themistocles, covered an area of about 2.5 square kilometers—not even half the area of Uruk. Jerusalem, after its extension under Agrippa I around A.D. 43, reached the size of 1 square kilometer. Even the metropolis of Rome at the time of the emperor Hadrian in the first century A.D. was only twice as large as Uruk had been three thousand years earlier. Having said this, it should be noted that the size of Uruk was by no means exceptional, since two subordinate settlements in the Uruk hinterland covered an area of nearly 1.5 square kilometers, which, in other parts of the world, would have been regarded as considerable even for capitals of large regions (fig. 23).
By comparing the maps shown in fig. 20 we can observe gradual changes in the system of water courses. In the Late Uruk period we see a network of small water courses of different sizes spreading out in an irregular fashion and then coming together again, a good illustration of the situation that existed in an area that had just been freed from the problem of a surfeit of water. By the Early Dynastic I period, the picture had changed completely. In this final phase of the development of early high civilization, water was restricted to a few main courses, a pattern that was to characterize the later periods of Babylonian history, when the countryside was traversed only by the major rivers and a number of large artificial canals. Yet this development in the period of early high civilization also fits into the general picture, for the effects of the climatic change initially responsible for the drainage of certain parts of Babylonia continued, causing the ever-increasing recession of the waters from the land.
Figure 23. Comparison of the sizes of some major cities of antiquity. Author’s original.
Figure 24. Marsh settlements in lower Iraq of (a) Jamdet Nasr times in the vicinity of Uruk, and (b) today (Segal in the Hor al-Hammar). Hatched areas were heavily covered with potsherds or mark the settled areas; in the modern case, the intervening spaces stand for water courses. After (a) R. M. Adams and H. J. Nissen, The Uruk Countryside (Chicago, 1972), fig. 12, and (b) S. Westphal-Hellbusch, Die Ma’dan (Berlin, 1962), plan at the end.
One example typifying the situation as a whole is that of a site from the Jamdet Nasr period located roughly ten kilometers north of Uruk (fig. 24a). This site was undoubtedly a marsh settlement, as a comparison between its plan and that of a modern village in the marshes of southern Iraq indicates (fig. 24b). This means that, at a time when, according to our maps, water was beginning to fall back into the limited number of river courses, certain parts of the countryside were still under water. However, the settlement did not survive into the following period, part of a trend in which this region was almost entirely abandoned. The existence of far fewer water courses in the Early Dynastic I period leads one to conclude, among other things, that considerably less water was available than previously and, above all, that large tracts of land could no longer be reached by water.
We hardly need emphasize how great the effects of such a diminution in the available water supply must have been for agriculture, and consequently for the entire economy. In fact, the continued decline in the supply of water during the following periods posed the greatest problem for society. However, for the time being this development only seems to have led to a greater concentration of land used for agriculture along the main water courses, as we can see from the fact that there was a tendency to transfer the growing settlements of the Early Dynastic I period to the remaining waterways, or, preferably, to expand sites already located there.
Figure 25. Cylinder seal and impression from the representational group. Courtesy, Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin.
But let us turn back to the beginnings of early high civilization. Strata from the Late Uruk period have, for the first time, brought to light those things we consider characteristic of Mesopotomian culture in general: writing, cylinder seals, large-scale works of art, and monumental architecture. In the last two cases we should bear in mind that there may be examples from the earlier period that have not yet been found only because the older strata that have been uncovered a
re very limited in size. However, if cylinder seals and writing had existed before, they would have had to have been discovered. Both at first appear to belong to the artistic or literary sphere, but were in reality concrete components of economic administration, a fact established in both cases by an analysis of their use.
Unfortunately we possess only relatively few original cylinder seals from the Late Uruk period, though there are numerous seal impressions on clay. A cylinder seal is a stone cylinder, with a hole bored through it lengthwise, on the surface of which a pattern has been engraved in negative relief. When the cylinder is rolled over a plastic material, the result is a raised relief (fig. 25, 26). The material over which such seals were rolled was a specially prepared, highly plastic clay that dried and hardened quickly in the hot, dry air of Babylonia and preserved a true impression. This clay was used to seal all manner of things. It could be molded over the knot of a bundle bound with rope or around the neck of a jar that had been covered with cloth and tied with string, or it could seal the rope fastening of a door.
Figure 26. Seals of the Late Uruk and Jamdet Nasr periods, from Babylonia. From (a) E. Heinrich, “Kleinfunde aus den Archaischen Tempelschichten in Uruk,” Ausgr. der Deutschen Forsch. gem. in Uruk-Warka 1 (Leipzig, 1936), pl. 17a.; (b) Uruk Vorbericht 5 (1934), pl. 26b; (c) H. J. Lenzen, “Die Tempel der Schicht Archaisch IV in Uruk,” Zeitschr. f. Assyriologie 49 (1949) pl. 3, 5; (d) H. Frankfort, Stratified Cylinder Seals from the Diyala Region, OIP 72 (Chicago, 1955), no. 31. Courtesy, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago; (e) E. Porada, Corpus of Anc. Near Eastern Seals in North American Collections: The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, 1948, no. 29; (f) Frankfort, Stratified Cylinder Seals, no. 49. Courtesy, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago; (g) Porada, Pierpont Morgan Library, no. 15.