Michael Hudson
Hudson 2024 Temples
Temples of Enterprise. Creating Economic Order in the Bronze Age Near East,
Baskerville: ISLET
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Excerpts
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Ch. 10
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First cities and political institutions
| First cities and political institutions | pp. 213-214 |
"From Sacred Enclave to Temple to City"Note 1 IntroductionNote 2 The social sciences have long viewed the earliest cities as playing much the same role as they do in modern times: to serve as centers of government and to undertake commerce and industry, reflecting the economies of scale resulting from their population growth. Such speculation assumes an almost automatic and inevitable urbanization stemming from material causes, a combination of increasing population density and new technologies (the agricultural revolution). To the extent that the political and military dynamics are recognized, their character is regarded as being like that of classical antiquity, not as having cosmological roots in Neolithic Asia Minor and Early Bronze Age Mesopotamia where civilization's earliest urban centers began – as gathering places before becoming year-round occupation sites with specialized economic functions. Pre-modern cities: development and features To be sure, not all pre-modern cities developed in the same way. Each region had its own peculiar characteristics. But from the vantage point of our modern civilization, the first great catalytic urbanization occurred in Mesopotamia. What gave its cities their distinctive character was their commercial and industrial role – by which I mean the specialized handicraft industries organized primarily by the temples and palaces. The unique way in which these urban functions developed was influenced strongly by southern Mesopotamia's ecological imperative to trade. The town The word "town" derives from the German Zaun (fence), typically referring to the walled military camps planted across Europe by the Roman emperors in standardized designs. But the first urban areas were not that kind of town. From Ice Age caves ti sites such as Çatal Hüyük in the sixth millennium BC, they seem to have had a cosmopolitan neutrality from local tribal or other tribal centers, apparently sanctified from raids and typically unwalled. (Although Jericho appears to have been a walled center to about 9000 BC, its walls may have been floos walls.) Walled fortifications to defend inhabitants gathering in towns do not appear in southern Mesopotamia until relatively late, circa 2800 BC (Adams 1981). City-temples Centered on their city-temples, archaic urban sites served as neutral zones for diverse groups to come together to transact arms-length commerce under an umbrella of common agreed-upon rules.Note 3 I therefore suggest that if we are to take our clues from classical time, the model to be examined should be the amphictyonic sites such as Delphi and Delos, where diverse groups seem to have come together freely without fear of attack – until they became the treasuries for rival Greek city-states. Location and political control To perform this neutral role, such sites tended not to develop at the center of their communities, but at boundaries or natural crossroads between diverse communities, or on island.Note 4 Assur, for instance, sat astride the Tigris intersecting central Mesopotamia's major east/west trade route, and many other entrepots likewise were situated near the sea or on major transport rivers. The landlocked town of Çatal Hüyük seems to have been the center of its own regionwide trading network (see Gelb 1986:165 for some qualifications). Being host to a diversity of groups, such towns hardly would have been centers of political control over the land. This paper therefore focuses on the public ceremonial character of the earliest cities as gathering places and ritual centers,Note 5 and on the role played by their temple precincts. |
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Notes
- Note 1: «[…] One change that I have made throughout this new edited version from the original presentation is to avoid the term “public” to describe Bronze Age palaces and temples. Subsequent assyriological studies have shown that the word “public” has too many modern connotations foe these institutions, which came to be organized corporately distinct from their community’s family-based sector on the land. The term “large institutions” is now the preferred term to describe them» (p. 213, fn. *; bolded mine). Back to text
- Note 2: The headings in bolded italics have been added by the author of the present page. Back to text
- Note 3: Cf. this concept to that of “primitive democracy”, advanced by Thorkild Jacobsen. Back to text
- Note 4: In a way, this was the situation of ancient Urkesh/Tell Mozan, located, in effect, in the Upper Khabur, in an area today known as the “Jazirah” (island in Arabic), for which see the bibliography in the Urkesh electronic-Library. Back to text
- Note 5: Cf. on this topic also the Anatolian sites of Göbekli Tepe and Nevalı Çori. Back to text