The Early History of the Ancient Near East (9000-2000 BC)

by Hans J Nissen

  This hypothesis has two weaknesses, however, one of them being that in the field of architecture the chronological succession can in no way be proved, because we do not have the relevant criteria for differentiation and our material for the early period is far too fragmentary. We can underscore our helplessness in the face of such terms with the random references to the large buildings in the central area of Uruk in the Late Uruk period as “temples” and “palaces” (see pp. 96–98).

  As far as both terms for the holders of the highest offices are concerned, it is perfectly possible that the difference was regional, without the two functions having been greatly differentiated from each other. In addition, the entire concept rests solely on a few texts from the Early Dynastic III period in Girsu (see the detailed discussion on pp. 47–49), and was applied uncritically to other parts of the country and, above all, to the earlier stages in development. Though there are no complete and relevant texts from these earlier phases, we do have evidence in a very few cases that would suggest that conditions then were completely different from those in the following phases. Examples of this have already been provided in chapter 4, so that here we need only note that in an economic text from the Jamdet Nasr period, en and lugal appear together in a nonconspicuous position, and that, second, it is highly probable that the title of the actual highest representative of a political entity is the first entry in the list of names of professions and public offices (fig. 31) that has nothing to do with either en or lugal. Both titles in the Jamdet Nasr period clearly had different meanings from those they acquired later. These terms probably acquired their later significance only very gradually by functional and/or regional differentiation.

  The evidence pointing to a contrast between “king” and “high priest” can thus no longer be sustained. In spite of this, we do find other references in the later Early Dynastic period directly suggesting that there must have been different forms of political leadership, of which at least one can be designated as “theocratic,” whereas the other cannot be characterized so unambiguously. However, in order to elaborate on these contrasts, and possibly even to be in a position to define their origins, we must go somewhat further back in time.

  I have already spoken of the manifold effects on agriculture, the structure of settlements, and politics caused by the changeover from a land on a broad plain interlaced with countless watercourses to a situation in which canal systems, branching off from one or two rivers, irrigated the land that had previously been watered naturally. One further consequence was that now the borderlines between canal-irrigated and unirrigated land, between land suitable for agriculture and land that could not be cultivated, became increasingly fixed.

  This arable land was certainly not all to be found in regular strips on both sides of the main watercourses. It is rather more likely that at places where canal systems branched off, the limits of arable land were far removed from the main watercourse, whilst in between these limits came closer to it. If we now assume that the density and size of such canal systems was especially great near important settlements, we get a picture of irrigation oases threaded like pearls along the main watercourses. In the center of these was found the largest settlement of each respective area.

  Of course, it was in the interest of every center to control and consolidate the prosperity and the integrity of its irrigation area—that is, of its own surrounding land. Thus, the survival interests of each center were first and foremost related to these immediate surroundings, and not, for example, to the whole irrigation area or to Babylonia as a whole. In this we catch a glimpse of the main reason for the pronounced particularism of the Babylonian cities, which we shall frequently encounter in the remainder of this work.

  Figure 55. Scheme of a dendritic irrigation network. Author’s original.

  A system in which the idea of a city god—that is, a deity who most emphatically represented the local characteristics of a city, and with them the idea of a demarcation vis-à-vis other entities of the same sort—was quite clearly established had no trouble in adjusting to the conditions that had arisen during the course of an ever-increasing recession of the waters. It was this situation, bringing with it the ever-growing need for some sort of demarcation from other units of power and the need to define boundaries between the settled peoples (living in irrigated areas) and the nonsettled peoples (who lived outside these areas), that may have led to a consolidation of the principle of the city god.

  Apart from the primary necessity of having to take care of one’s own environment, there were obviously other interests to be considered. We have already discussed the question of whether the expansion of trade necessary for survival because of Babylonia’s lack of raw materials was directed by the individual cities or by some sort of higher authority, whatever form that may have taken. In that discussion, it was suggested that the so-called “city seals”—especially those we know from Ur, but also those from other cities—might be the distinguishing marks of trade associations made up of the cities named individually on the seals (see p. 79 and fig. 29c above). In addition, we may suppose that the increasing dependence of all the local irrigation systems on the one river system of the Euphrates made agreements between, and also perhaps associations of, all the inhabitants involved increasingly necessary.

  As the clearest example of an attempt at creating at least a temporary higher institution, we have a report of a procedure in which the ruler Mesalim, although domiciled in the north of Babylonia, functioned as an arbitrator in the abovementioned conflict between the cities of Umma and Girsu. The conflicts built into the political system from the Early Dynastic II period on could only be resolved by the establishment of a higher authority—in effect, the creation of a new ruling center. During the following period, this led to what were at first faint-hearted, and then more and more lasting, attempts to create political unions in a land that, however, had to struggle for centuries with particularist interests. These were so strong that for a very long period any larger political alliance in Babylonia collapsed after only a short while into individual local units.

  The important role played in this development by the city gods, or rather by their priests, demonstrates very clearly their partiality in these conflicts. For reasons that are not known to us at the moment, but that must surely be looked for in the political environment, hierarchies were fixed among the individual city gods in the form of a construct of family relationships, whereby presumably the position of a god within the family of gods corresponded to the importance of his home city. Lists with such groupings appear for the first time among the texts from Shuruppak, from the end of the Early Dynastic II period. Subsequently, the chief god of this so-called pantheon occasionally appears as the representative of the interests of the gods as a whole. We shall hear of examples in which the chief god of the Babylonian pantheon, Enlil, the city god of Nippur, attempted, in the abovementioned function, to mobilize the individual cities, but also groups coming from outside them, against the current ruler of a centralized state, and often enough was successful in this.

  Inasmuch as the conflict between particularism and the central state was directly connected with changes in the settlement and irrigation systems during the first part of the Early Dynastic period, it should come as no surprise that the first obvious effects appear in the shape of increasing attempts to bring about supraregional political alliances toward the end of that period, when brought about primarily by changes in the course of the river over a considerable time.

  The first known attempt of this kind was made by Eannatum of Lagash, who was gradually able to draw all the cities of Babylonia, even Mari on the middle Euphrates outside Babylonia, into his sphere of influence, at least for a short time. Although very little is known about the details, we do find from inscriptions that toward the end of Eannatum’s reign his sphere of influence had shrunk back to its original size. We know nothing about the background of, and motivation for, Eannatum’s actions, but on the whole they conform t
o the reasons for centralization outlined above. In one case, however, we do find more direct reference to Eannatum, where, at the time of his conquests in northern Babylonia, he is called the “king of Kish.” Kish was one of the great, ancient sites in northern Babylonia, and was thus not a place Eannatum could have ruled jointly from his own territory. In fact, Eannatum was not the only ruler of a southern Babylonian city who held this title. The matter becomes even more puzzling when we consider that we occasionally hear of rulers from the same period who actually ruled over Kish, and others who merely had the same title as Eannatum. In what follows we shall see that there is a complicated problem lurking behind these inconsistencies.

  One thing that all those who held this title in addition to their own titles had in common was that they were important rulers and were more powerful than their respective neighbors. This has been interpreted to mean that a title whose prestige went back to the importance of an earlier role played by the city of Kish, perhaps even to the existence of an earlier kingdom of Kish, can be seen in this term. A world fragmented into many individual spheres of influence might have longed for the advantages of an earlier centralized government and have expressed this by using the name of the old capital city. Thus, “king of Kish” may be a title that had acquired an independent existence and may merely have been a symbol of the extent of the power of each respective ruler, which was true of the following Akkad Dynasty period as well. Quite apart from the fact that the process of development in settlement and irrigation conditions in Babylonia allows no room for such an early empire of Kish, its importance should in any case probably be looked for in another direction. For this purpose, we shall first take a short look at Babylonia’s geographical situation.

  Although Babylonia counts as part of Mesopotamia, the land created by the Tigris and Euphrates, the area that is inhabitable and arable is, with very few exceptions, identical with the area irrigated by the Euphrates. The reason for this is that the water level in the Euphrates, at least from the point at which it flows into the Babylonian plain, lies only slightly below the surface of the surrounding land, whereas the Tigris cuts deeply into the land. Hence, water for irrigation could be obtained from the Tigris only with great effort, and then only in small quantities, whereas it was no problem to divert water from the Euphrates.

  The area irrigated by the Euphrates takes on changing forms in Babylonia, and we can distinguish two major parts. These parts, northern Babylonia and southern Babylonia, differ in that in northern Babylonia the river flows through a relatively narrow plain where changes in the river bed that would be normal for a slowly flowing river with almost no gradient had little latitude to develop—with one exception, discussed below. In contrast to this, southern Babylonia is a very broad plain, which was always crisscrossed by several parallel arms of the Euphrates (see fig. 73). As we have seen already, shifts in the course of the river were capable of changing the settlement and irrigation systems of a whole countryside. At times when all the watercourses were carrying an abundance of water, shifts in the course of the river naturally had only a limited impact. On the other hand, where canal systems were laid out—and settlements and population were concentrated in the immediate vicinity of the canals—they were connected for better or for worse with the few rivers that bore water. In this case it was a vital necessity for the individual settlements to prevent changes in the course of the river, so as to avoid the waters being carried into areas that were less settled or not settled at all.

  Although these shifts in the course of the river affected the Babylonian south more than any other region, the actual source of the shifts lay not in the south, but in the north. The danger was not only that the river might find another bed, but that, on top of this, the water would flow off uselessly into the depression to the southwest, near the present-day city of Nejef, where there had been a marshy area on the edge of the desert for ages.

  This was, as noted, not so much a danger to the cities of northern Babylonia as a threat to the cities of the south, which depended on the Euphrates flowing in its normal bed for survival. Because the river was especially low-lying in northern Babylonia, the possibility existed that the annual floods might lead to a change of this sort in the river’s course, if, after the floodwaters had receded, the water found a different course. Thus, from the time of the consolidation of the irrigation system on, it was of decisive importance for the south of the country for the river to be kept under control at this danger point. Kish, the former capital of northern Babylonia, occupied a key position in this.

  The fact that, when there was any doubt, the Euphrates could only be controlled there was certainly not the least of the reasons why southern Babylonian rulers made repeated attempts to advance into the north. The title “king of Kish” would in this case have been the well-earned distinction of the southern Babylonian ruler who carried out this function, so important to the survival of the south. In this case, too, the title would have been one of prestige, but the reason for the prestige would have been rather different from what we have assumed it to be up until now.

  We know considerably less about a whole series of other rulers who bore this title, though it in no way seems to have been connected only with the short-term possession of the whole country. However, we do know that Eannatum also found successors in his attempt to bring larger areas of the country under his rule. True, we do not learn more details about another attempt until the time of Lugalzaggesi, the last ruler of the south before the whole of Babylonia was conquered by Sargon of Akkad. But first we must talk of another development.

  Figure 56. Chronological chart containing the names of rulers and dynasties mentioned in the text. Author’s original.

  We have a whole series of texts from Girsu when it was capital of the city-state of Lagash, both “royal inscriptions,” which tell us, for example, about the deeds of Eannatum, and a large number of economic texts that date mainly from the period of the last rulers of this city before its conquest by Lugalzaggesi. Many of these economic texts clearly stem from a complex of buildings used mainly during the reigns of the last three independent rulers of this place—Enentarzi, Lugalanda, and Urukagina. They deal, for the most part, with the administration of a building referred to as é-mí—“house of the woman,” which was clearly under the direction of the ruler’s wife. Many different economic transactions, administrative decisions, and so forth were, for example, carried out under the direction of Baranamtara, wife of Lugalanda. This complex of buildings, or parts of it, are expressly referred to as “the property of Baranamtara, the wife of Lugalanda.” However, in the following reign, that of Urukagina, a remarkable change takes place in that the same complex of buildings now appears in the texts as é-dba6-ba6 “economic unit of goddess Baba.” This change of name must surely be connected with a formulation in this ruler’s so-called “Reform texts,” where it is stated that:

  In the house [household] of the ruler, in the fields of the ruler, he [the ruler] confirmed the god Ningirsu [city god of Girsu] as lord.

  In the house of the woman, in the fields of the woman he confirmed the goddess Baba [the wife of Ningirsu] as their lady.

  In the house of the prince, in the fields of the prince, he confirmed the god Shulshagana [the son of Ningirsu] as lord.

  This passage is always interpreted as meaning that the economic units and fields in question had formerly belonged to the gods, were then usurped by the ruler and his family, and were now being returned to their original owners by this especially devout ruler, Urukagina, in an attempt to restore the old order.

  On the other hand, let us remind ourselves that in the repeated attempts made during this period to create larger areas of control, centralistic aspirations took on a more concrete form as against the autonomy of the cities and the ideology of city gods that was so closely bound up with it. It would have been only natural if this development had set off another, opposing development emphasizing more strongly a phenomenon that already existed—parti
cularism. In fact, this counterform is known to us in the type of state mentioned above. It is a kind of particularism, overemphasized for the sake of definition. We encounter it, in texts from Girsu dating from the last phase of Early Dynastic III. The central idea was that the city, together with its inhabitants and lands, was actually the property of the city god. Seen from this point of view, this form of state would be the result of one last attempt to unite all its forces against centralization and give them a structure. This interpretation would mean that we could determine precisely the historical place where this rigid form, the “temple city,” was created, and that we could interpret it as the reaction to increasing attempts at centralization and thus also fix its chronological framework as being the last phase of the Early Dynastic III period. If Urukagina’s “Reform texts” produce the impression that the restoration of an old order is being described, this probably conforms precisely to their original intention. In this case this text can be placed in the category of attempts to legitimize personal conceptions or new ideas by pointing to a fictitious “tradition.”