Mesopotamia

julian R eade
LITERA S C RIPTA MANET

Reed College Library

MESOPOTAMIA.

DS69.5 .R43 2000

Reade, Julian
Mesopotamia

Contents I
1991 The Tru stees of the British
Museum

Introd uctio n 6

Published by British Museum Press

A division of The British Museum
Company Ltd
38 Russell Square, London

Toward s agricu lture 14

Towards cui tural segregation

18

Towards civilization 28

The emergence of city states

38

From estate to empire 62

The emegence of the

indiv idual 74

Epilogue 84

WCIB3QQ
fir st published 1991
Second edition 2000
Reprinted 2005
Julian Reade has asserted his right
to be identified as the author of this
work.
A catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library
ISBN 0 7141 2181 9
ISBN 9 780714 121819

Further reading 88

Designed by t-.lanin Richards

Series des ign by Carroll Associates
Typeset in Van Dijck
Printed in C hina by Imago

Chronology 89
List of ill ustrations with
dimensions 93
Index 95

Right Marsh scene in south-east

Mesopotamia, with date palms, reed
buts and a boat.

Fronr cover Sumerian feast and

supplies of food. From the Standard
of Ur (see p.52).

.-

Towards agricultu re

Chapter Two I Towards agriculture

he prehistory of Mesopotam ia is an exciting period wh ich saw

some of t he most fundame ntal developmen ts in the his t ory of
mankind. Yet many d ivergent in ter p re t at ions of t he evidence
are possible, and much basic know ledge has still to be recovered. Two
simple factors bear a considerable part of t he responsibility.
One is that people have repeatedly, over thousand s of yea rs, chosen
to settle in p laces wh ich arc naturally inviting, with good water, land
and commu n ications. The p laces with the best resources tend to become
t he most impor tant ccn tres, and even when such a p lace is abandoned
for some good reason, it is usually reoccupied eventually. So, th rough
interminable demolition and recon struction, the rema ins of the early
preh istoric settlements in t he best positions have gradually been buried
many me t res below the sur face. Even if they were all located an d archaeologists anx ious to excavate t hem were free to des t roy the remains of
later civilizations above, the demands on time and labou r would be
proh ibi rive.
T he second factor which restricts resea rch on the prehistoric
pe riod is that, in south Mesopot amia especiall y but also in parts of the
north, many sett lements have been b uried by natura l causes. T he ri vers
ca rry quantities of si lt whi ch are deposited in the flood-plains, accum ulating to such an extent over the centuries that the entire landscape is
transfo rmed. Though the effect is irregular, most of the small pre historic
sites of south Mesopotamia have been concealed in this way. Only a few
ha:e been discovered, a t iny percentage of those wh ich undou b tedly
exJSt.

Our information therefore derives main ly from small village se ttlements, which arc easy to find in the north Mesopotamian steppe, and
from a handfu l of sites e lsewhere. T hough hardly represen ta tive, these
partial r ema ins ill ustrate t he fu ndamen t a l subsis tence act iv ities of prehistoric people. T heir beliefs and methods of social organi7.ation are less
accessible.
The first few thousand years (say, 10,000-6000 Be, but dates at th is
remote period can easily be out by a t housand years or more) cover
what is often called the Neo lith ic revolut ion. T his t erm oversimplifies a
complica ted process t hat began earlier and is st ill incomplete today, but
essentially it describes t he crit ical phase duri ng wh ich man ceased to rely
on hunting wild animals and collecting wi ld p lants to eat, and instead
carne to re ly mai n ly on herded ani mals and de liber ately p lanted food
crops.
The t ran sition from hunting to herd ing is an obvious one, as
people followed or waylaid anima ls on t he ir seasona l migra tions, and
method ical exploitation became deliberate management. Often t hese
activities involved movement over long distances, as an imals needed
c.. _ _, _

and retiring to t he river va lleys and hi lls in summer and au t um n . I t is a

way of life wh ich makes excellent use of ava ilable resou rces, and it has
persisted to this day.
Not all member s of a hunting commu nity, however, migh t need to
move far. Campsites cou ld be establis hed in conven ie nt places, especially
places with access to a varied range of food resources. S k~lfu lly chosen
campsites wou ld be used over many years. In particularly lavoured !?cations, and in places close to rivers whe re fish were abundan t, the re m1gh t
be little incentive for movemen t at all.
Around all these camps, at appropriate t imes of year, people would
collect the best wi ld p lants t hey could fi nd to eat, and seeds of the preferred varieties were dropped, year in year out, at first inadvertently,
in the same vicin ity. The process of selec tion favoured t he survival,
around camps, of c rop varieties preferred by man , and the del iberate
encouragement and support of these varie ties became, im perceptibly so
far as we can observe t he change, t he practice of agric ulture. What is
more, unusually p rod uctive varieties of particu lar p lan ts, which would
not have flourished in the wild, migh t and d id fi nd human protection.
Subsequently seeds coul d be, and were, t ransported to areas where they
would not normally have grown at all. When adequate techniques of food
storage had been developed, pres umab ly through cent ur ies or millen n ia
of trial and error, there was p ractically no limit to the number of people
who could reside permanc:;ntly in one p lace as settled villagers instead of
itinerant hunters and herd smen .
It can not be claimed that t he process summa ri zed above i s a full
explanation of t he Neolit hic revolution, which seems to have occurred
independently in many pa rts of the world, but it is broadly compatible
with the evidence t hat exists in and around Mesopotamia. It a lso poin t s
to the very ea rly origin of one of the most characteristic featu res of
Mesopotamian civilization, the antipat hy and in terrelat ion ship of two
lcinds of lifestyle, one primarily dependen t on herd ing and t he other primarily dependen t on cultivation. Us ually, in the archaeological record,
only the permanent settlements can be seen, solid monuments to t he
enviable success of those communities which practised agriculture at the
same time as they kept an imals. On t he fringes of settlc?.l i f~, meanwh ile,

11 Stone fi'ieze, framed in coppet;

from the Ninburrag temple focade
at Tell al-' Ubaid. On the right a
cow ir being milked, while itr
muzzled calf lookr on. In the centre
ir a form rbed. Tbe men on tbe left,
balding large jarr and tramferrinr,
liquid from one container to
anotber, are probably making butter
for rtorage. About 2300 llC.