While the earliest farmers in southwest Asia were found in the hilly upland areas of the "fertile crescent", by 6,000 BC rising population had forced farmers to move down into the flat floodplain's of the Tigris and Euphrates River, where they quickly spread south. (Mesopotamia means "between the rivers.") It was here that rapidly developing chiefdoms first developed into hierarchical intensive agriculture political states (what some call civilization.) Today, much of this area between the rivers is in the modern nation of Iraq. Look at the map of this area in your text on page 441, but also click here for a map showing Mesopotamian sites. In the "choose a map" pull down, you can also find a modern political map of the area, or click directly on the above link to Iraq.
By 5,500 BC, the farmers had moved to the southern most part the floodplain between the two rivers, an area known as Sumer. This area was not previously occupied by farmers, since it lacks much in the way of usable stone, wild animals, or edible plants. Without irrigation, little will grow in most years. With irrigated farming however, the alluvial plains between the rivers became the center of population and power for much of the next 4,000 years.
In the period between 5300-3600 BC, various sites and areas in Sumer developed into elaborate chiefdoms and ultimately incipient states, just as the subsequent developments in Oceania and the North America from the last unit. [Always stay aware of approximate dates and chronology; the developments in Sumer were probably the earliest chiefdoms and incipient states in the world, far earlier than similar developments in Oceania and North America.] Within Mesopotamia, the period is known as 'Ubaid.
As population continued to increase, Sumerians adopted or invented three major technological improvements: bronze metallurgy, the wheel, and the bronze-tipped plow. Together these three increased the productivity of agriculture, necessitated long distance trade, and provided the means for the trade as well as for warfare. Population boomed, and one could argue that the ultimate solution to stave off a decline in standard of living was to change to a new mode of production, the agrarian state.
Bronze is a metal alloy (mixture) made up of 85--95% copper and 5-15% of (usually) tin or arsenic. It is much harder than pure copper. Copper ores often naturally contain either arsenic or tin, but no copper ores are found in Mesopotamia. The development of bronze almost certainly occured further to the north, perhaps in modern Georgia and neighboring areas in Turkey and in the Caucasus Mountains, where the ores are plentiful. Certainly no later than 3,500 BC, arsenical bronze was being imported into Mesopotamia. The smiths who worked with bronze learned early about the toxic qualities of arsenic, which causes nerve damage, and tin became the additive of choice. Along with bronze metallurgy, lead and ultimately the gold and silver found in lead ores, were also smelted.
Bronze proved ideal for two purposes: for plows, and for weapons. After 3,500 BC bronze-tipped plows and bronze weapons were found throughout the eastern Mediterranean; by 2,500 BC they had spread throughout Europe.
While bronze was essentially an import into Mesopotamia, the wheel may well have been a local development late in the 'Ubaid period. There is some evidence that the original invention was a potter's wheel, to make large numbers of pottery vessels more efficiently. Relatively quickly however wheels were used for transportation, on carts drawn by oxen. Just as quickly the wheel became part of horse-drawn chariots, a major innovation for warfare. Like bronze, the wheel spread quickly throughout the Mediterranean, east into central Asia, and northwest into Europe.
Two of the inventions, the wheel and bronze weapons, from Ur, ca.2,500 BC
The first major 'Ubaid settlement, which became a typical (for Sumer) temple city, was at Eridu. Sumerian accounts of creation, written down as early as 3,000 BC, indicate that Eridu was the first community to emerge from a primordial ocean. Established as early as early as 5,300 BC, Eridu contained a small mud-brick structure that appears to be the earliest temple. Both the need for irrigation and the organized communal effort it would have required, and the presence of a temple or similar center for stratified redistributive exchange, indicate that Eridu and other small cities found in southern Mesopotamia were well on their way to becoming incipient states. By 4,000 BC Eridu's temple was on top of a stepped tower,or ziggurat. Your text on p.445 shows a drawing of how the temple at Eridu may have looked; also, click here, then click on "enter" to see a series of drawings on the construction phases of the temple. Eridu and the role of the temple institution in Mesopotamia is also discussed in Chapter 10.
Eridu ultimately covered some 25 acres and probably had a population numbering in the thousands. As the temple grew in size due to frequent rebuilding, the peasants and craftsmen lived at an ever-increasing distance from the core of the settlement. At the same time, similar settlements were developing in Sumer, and some quickly surpassed Eridu in size and ultimately in political significance. Though the entire area shared a common culture and language, politically it was rarely dominated by a single ruler, a tradition which was to continue into the earliest states.
As your text notes, Uruk, north of Eridu on the Euphrates River, is often listed as the first city and the first true agrarian state in the world , reaching this status by 3,600 BC. Sumerian "civilization" had begun. Archaeological evidence of a political state headed by rulers with total power, class stratification, full-time occupational specialization, widespread trade, and writing are all found at this site.
For monumental public architecture, there is the giant stepped pyramid, the Anu Ziggurat, built of whitewashed mud-brick, and decorated with various buttresses and columns. At its largest extent, in 3100 BC, it stood over 40 feet above the ground, and measured 73' by 58' at the base, with a large white (mud-brick) temple at the top. Anu Ziggurat is named for the god Anu, one of the primary gods of Sumerian culture. It is estimated that it would have take 7,500 man years to build (in other words, 7,500 men would have taken a year to build it, or 15,000 men could have built it 6 months.) Associated with the temple are large residential structures, presumably the home of priests. The smaller rectangular houses of common people lined the narrow, crooked streets of the city.
Craft specialization is evident, with specialized areas in the city for stone cutting, metallurgy, and pottery identified archaeologically. Pottery, which in the 'Ubaid period had often been elaborate and painted when found in the burials of chiefs and other higher ranked individuals, became primarily used for the production of simple and rather crudely made bowls and cups for the lower class, produced rapidly due to the potter's wheel. The ruling class used textiles and metal, including bronze, copper, gold and silver, as marks to identify their prestige.
The world's earliest written documents come from Uruk, clay tablets which date from 3,400 BC. Initially a form of pictographic symbols, it developed into the cuneiform associated with the Sumerians. In the earliest pictograph texts, signs for "carpenter", "smith", "plow", "chariot" and 1500 other symbols have been deciphered. The earliest writing records various business transactions, and eventually names and stories related to rulers of the city. Gilgamesh is one such ruler, and eventually stories about him were written in what has come down to us as The Epic of Gilgamesh (see next lesson, and also pp. 451-453 in the text for more information on the development of writing generally.)
Cuneiform Directions for a Sumerian Math Lesson, translate from lower right as: "The side of the square equals one. I have drawn four triangles in it. What is the surface area?" [from The Age of God-Kings, Time-Life Books, 1987 p. 40]
Trade from the Persian Gulf up the Euphrates River included food and raw materials such as shell, silver, gold, lapis lazuli (a blue stone mined in Afghanistan), onyx (variously colored quartzite), alabaster (the mineral calcite), ivory, textiles, and wood, while copper and tin, as well as eventually more gold and silver, came down river from the north. The various sources of many of these materials, which required specialists to mine, specialists to transport, and specialists to make into usable artifacts, is testimony to the social stratification and various full-time occupational specialists (as well as wide spread trade) in Sumerian culture.
Stone statures of people praying were sometimes left in front of alters, when the Sumerians could not be there themselves. [from The Last Two Million Years, Reader's Digest Association, 1973, p.51]
Uruk eventually grew to 1000 acres in size, and may have had 50,000 people by what is called the Early Dynastic period, starting in 3,100 BC. By 3,000 BC, there were probably at least ten or fifteen city-states like Uruk in Southwest Asia, and warfare and economic competition between the city-states seems to have been a fact of life. The constant warfare meant that the rulers of the city caused six miles of mud-brick wall to be built around it. It is likely that much of the warfare was related to agriculture, since irrigation was necessary for its success, and any irrigation canal dug by a city to the north deleted the supply of water reaching the south.
Uruk was at its peak of influence at around 2,700 B.C., when the neighboring state of Ur, some 75 miles away on the river, became the dominant state. Ur will be discussed, mostly in pictures, in the lesson following The Epic of Gilgamesh. Both Uruk and Ur are discussed in Chapter 10 of the text, beginning on page 446.