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11.1 Toward the ‘Invention’
Before the establishment of the first ‘empire’ (cf. Section 9.1), the steppe was perceived as a kind of void not embedded into the ancient Syro-Mesopotamian mental map, even if it was inhabited from prehistoric periods (particularly in the area of the Map 1). Nevertheless it was not an organic whole.
Besides a kind of silence in the archaeological evidence, texts show how the kings of Akkad and later Ur and Mariconfigured the steppe in a specific -emic view (see following section) as an organic whole susceptible to their control.
This innovation was brought about by a rural population of the Middle Euphrates known in Sumerian as MAR.TU and Amurrum in Akkadian,Note 1 a population labelled in modern times as Amorites,Note 2 borrowing a term from the Hebrew of the Bible.Note 3
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11.2 Beyond ‘the Four River Banks’
In the steppe region, there was no concept of ‘territorial state’ and archaeologically no sites belonging to this period have been uncovered; also in royal inscription of Naram-Sin, and many others, we cannot find any mentions to cities but just to geographical entities (like the mount Basha, very likely the modern Jebel Bishri (for which see supra); furthermore, king Shar-kali-sharri refers to population he pursued towards the area of the mount Basha(r) as ‘Amorites’.
The expeditions of Naram-Sin and Shar-kali-sharri in this area to define determined boundaries over which they had a direct control remained unique for more than a millennium.
The need of the ‘empire’ to retain a strong control over all the ‘territories’ is now also involving, for the first time, also the steppe.
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11.3 The Imperial Genius
The campaigns of the kings of Akkad against the people of the steppe were not defensive in their very nature and not specifically a political enterprise towards a temporary control; they are insted to be understood as indicative of an impulse for a universal state.
It was also an ideological purpose, aiming at internalizing the new ‘invented’ steppe within the cosmos and the boundaries of the ‘empire’, an act interpreted in modern times through the concepts of manifest destinyNote 4 and Lebensraum.Note 5
Thus, the actual (-etic) world became an ‘idealized’ (-emic) entity; it is in this moment that we can observe a shifting from the ideology of the ‘four river banks’ (cf. Section 10.5) to that of the ‘four regions/boundaries of the world’ (cf. Section 10.6).
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11.4 The Roots of a Counter-State
Along with the need of expanding the boundaries to new ‘territories’, a new concept of solidarity and of administration of power came about: it can be labelled as ‘counter-state’, a definition which implies at the same time both a concurrency and an inevitable relationship with the opposed entity.
This new political configuration is the tribe (cf. Section 16.6.
The documentation from the Akkad period is not sufficient to better define this new political entity; so, we have to wait until the end of the third and the first half of the second millennium BC in order to have a clearer framework of this political evolution (cf. Section 16.8.
Nevertheless, even the scanty documentation of the period of Akkad is relevant, since it testifies that this new political process started in concomitance with the apex of the imperial experiment. Quoting openly G. Buccellati:
“In my opinion, in fact, the tribe is not the survival of prehistoric systems of shared life, but rather, perhaps in continuation with these, a new model for social and political formation. This model is forcefully opposed to the territorial one, and therefore it is not accidental that it should have begun in opposition with the most evolved implementation of that model, the empire” (Buccellati, Origins, p. 155).
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Notes
- Note 1: the Sumerian MAR.TU = Akkadian Amurru(m) basically indicated the ‘Westeners’; see e P S D 2, sub voce; cf. also Marchesi 2006 Lumma, p. 11, fn. 30 and Sallaberger 2003- 2004 J E O L, pp. 55, 57, 59. Back to text
- Note 2: about the Amorites, see Section 16.8; cf. also the dedicated monograph; further literature on this topic: Buccellati 1963 Testi; Buccellati 1966 Amorites (with review in Liverani 1968 Review-g B 1966); Buccellati 1966 Names; Buccellati 1992 Ebla Amorites; Buccellati 1993 Amorrei (specifically on the concept of the ‘domestication’ of the steppe); Buccellati 1995 Eblaite; Buccellati 1997 Akkadian & Amorite; Buccellati 2008 Origin; Burke 2021 Amorites; Burke 2021 Mercenaries. Back to text
- Note 3: see e.g. Gen. 10:16-20, Gen. 14:13, Gen. 15:16,21, Ex. 3:8,17, Ex. 13:5, Ex. 23:23, Ex. 33:2, Num. 21:25,34, Num. 22:2, Josh. 5:1, Josh. 10. Back to text
- Note 4: about the concept of ‘manifest destiny’ (coined by John O’Sullivan in 1845 or, according to other historians, by Jane Cazneau) see e.g. Heidler 2003 Manifest. Back to text
- Note 5: on the topic of Lebensraum (a concept developed in the last century within the Nazi ideology), its historical origin and development, see e.g. Smith 1980 Ratzel. Back to text
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