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Class notes Anthropology-327 Lecture 2
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Lecture Notes – 2Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
o Fertile Crescent area (Iran, Turkey)
o Stands for Land between the rivers
Tigris River and Euphrates River
Sumer to the south
Assyria to the north
Cultural Historical Sequence
o Increasing complexity through time
o Period of time right before state-level societies and then during state-level societies
Ubaid Period
5900 – 4100 BC
o precursor to state-level society
subsistence
o food collectors: foraging and fishing
o food producers: domestic cattle herding and early intensive agriculture (irrigation
canals)
Sumer gaining power – political and demographic center for 4,000 years
Eridu site
o Pre-4500 BC a small village and temple
Temple – mud brick, antecedent of temples that follow
After rain, mud brick begins to melt away
o Post-4500 BC became large town/city (3000+ people)
Public buildings, temples, craft specialties, burials with status
differentiation
People taking charge and acquiring more wealth
Working class; organization; people building public buildings
Beginning to see state-level, civilization characteristics
Priests – important role as land and labor managers, food distributors,
religious rites/rituals
Eridu temple is expanding and importance is increasing
20 superimposed temples built over 2000 years
continued to add on over time
temple became rather large
through time, as priests became more powerful, temples became
larger
elite lived closer to temples
Enki (water god) – fish bone offerings for the god found in temples
Temples/priests critical in early Mesopotamia:
Ziggurat – large pyramid temple with many stepped levels
Priests
, o redistributing resources
o organized canal building for intensive irrigation – hydraulic
society
don’t just throw corn out to let it grow, cities are
becoming larger and the way to do that is with
intensive irrigation
canals built to bring water from rivers
religious ceremonies
Uruk Period (4200 – 3000 BC)
o first state-level society/civilization in the area
o intensive agriculture
wheat, barley, flax, dates, cattle
plow created and other metal tools – increased agricultural yield
irrigation canals, fishing – must maintain canals
o powerful rulers – priests have less power
o redistributed and traded surplus to bring in wealth item, increase their potential
status
o warfare – incorporated north of Mesopotamia (expanding power base)
building fences, standing armies
using surplus of redistributed resources to pay for these things
o Cities are continuing to get larger and more complex
Urban environments with narrow and winding streets
Districts/neighborhoods
Eanna/Ishtar – goddess of love and war
Houses – whitewashed mud brick
Craft workers – middle class
Paid by state/elite
Making items for the elite that make them stand out and grow in
status
Molds and pottery wheel for mass production
o Supplying to masses by using molds and pottery wheel
o Allowing them to make them much more quickly
o Very utilitarian, undecorated, but served society
Trade
o Persian Gulf was important – shell, silver gold, lapus lazuli
(type of stone), timber, skins
Lapus lazuli stone had to have been traded from far
areas because it was not available in mespotamia
Used to adorn and increase status
o Copper used and other metals
Late Uruk Period (3500 – 3000 BC)
o Beginning of writing
Cuneiform = “wedge-shaped” pictographs (n=850)
, Earliest writing in Mesopotamia
No grammar – readable by more people
Written with stylus on clay tablets when they were wet
Used for economic/administrative record keeping
o Quotas, counting flocks
Hammurabi
Babylonian King/conqueror
Written code of law
Inscribed on statue that was preserved
Wrote down to have record of laws
o 3 classes below king: freemen, unclear status, slaves
o eye for eye
o divinely sanctioned ruler – art at top of stone of god giving
hum symbols of justice (way to increase legitimacy)
Discovered in ancient city of Susa (Iran) by chance and was brought
back as a prize when invaded Mesopotamia in the 12th century BC
Cylinder Seals
Round pieces rolled onto clay
Validation of authority identification
o City of Uruk
Warka (modern names) vs Erech (biblical name)
First genuine city of world
High population
Cities – houses, temples, craft areas (stone and metal working),
districts
Multiplicity of functions separates from earlier cities like
Catalhoyuk
Gilgamesh – a king, first written-down story
Early Dynastic Period (2900 – 2350 BC)
o Dynasty – succession of rulers from same family or line that maintained power for
several generations
Hereditary succession – independent city-states
Kings (powerful) – not temples, no need for priests any more, role and
influence is dwindling compared to kings
Military and defensive walls
Must be able to provide food to feed soldiers - required intensive
agriculture
Wheel – invented, wheeled chariots
Intensive agriculture – irrigation from Tigris and Euphrates rivers
Mass amounts of barley, wheat, fruits and vegetables
76.1 times more harvest than planted
o surplus stored like for rainy days or for elite to facilitate
trade or pay armies
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