Lecture 2 Sumeria Imagining the City HUM 101 September 26, 2018, Edw. Mitchell 1
SUMERIA AND URUK Sumeria: the first city societies > the first civilization, beginning 4000-3000 BCE follows the neo-lithic [ new stone-age] agricultural revolution in Mesopotamia 9000-5000 BCE agriculture domestication of animals settled societies (permanent villages and towns) Before this agricultural revolution, human communities lived as hunters and gatherers 2
19th-century archaeology: digging up Mesopotamia (Between the Rivers) uncovering the history of civilization 3
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Storage technology essential for agricultural societies and civilization 7
History of Civilization: objectified in objects of storage technology 8
Writing a key storage technology Clay tablet USB 9
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What does Sumeria represent to the modern era? a starting point of civilization: - the first 'city' societies - new technologies - the first writing a story of progress: Stone Age > Bronze Age > Iron Age >... 11
clay tablet a fragment from the epic of Gilgamesh: the Great Flood 12
Cities of ancient Mesopotamia 'Bronze Age' 13
Gilgamesh, the historical person: King of the city of Uruk about 2700 BC Gilgamesh, the legend: represented in mesopotamian art the hero of epic poems story poems 14
Gilgamesh in Mesopotamian art 15
But there is another new 'technology' that begins with Sumeria a new social / political form: hierarchy 16
For the first time in human history: society is divided into classes, organized by class Hier-archy [original meaning: rule by the high priest] organization by class or status. high status rules low status. The higher class has the power to command. The higher class has political authority. This conception of authority begins with Sumeria. 17
Hierarchy Sumeria and after 18
The Sumerian Heritage: Commands come from the top and go down 19
The Sumerian Heritage: Commands come from the top and go down 20
Property stone: the king gives land to his warriors. The warriors take taxes from the peasants on that land. 21
Sumerian ziggurat a monument to hierarchy 22
HOW TO BUILD A ZIGGURAT 23
THE WRONG WAY 24
Palace of the Soviets, Moscow -1930 s (not completed) 25
Sacramento, California 26
Since 4000 BC the basic elements of every well organized society exist: Priests, slaves, police, and prostitutes. And we do not know how or why this occurred. -- Cornelius Castoriadis 27
property [Latin: proprius ] -- one s own; what is proper (appropriate) to oneself; a quality or state that belongs to something (this stone is hard, this table is flat, etc) Gilgamesh has the power to bind and to loose -- to determine the properties of his subjects, to decide what is proper / appropriate for each. >> authority 28
Hammurabi s Code (1770 BCE) 29
Shamash gives Hammurabi the right to rule The gods told me, Hammurabi, to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil-doers; so that the strong should not harm the weak; so that I should rule over the black-headed people like Shamash, and enlighten the land to further the well-being of mankind. 30
196. If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out. 198. If he put out the eye of a freed man [a former slave], or break the bone of a freed man, he shall pay one gold mina. 199. If he put out the eye of a man's slave, or break the bone of a man's slave, he shall pay one-half of its value. 31
202. If any one strike the body of a man higher in rank than he, he shall receive sixty blows with an ox-whip in public. 203. If a free-born man strike the body of another free-born man of equal rank, he shall pay one gold mina. 204. If a freed man strike the body of another freed man, he shall pay ten shekels in money. 205. If the slave of a freed man strike the body of a freed man, his ear shall be cut off. 32
209. If a man strike a free-born woman so that she lose her unborn child, he shall pay ten shekels for her loss. 212. If this woman die, he shall pay half a mina. 213. If he strike the female-servant of a man, and she lose her child, he shall pay two shekels in money. 214. If this female-servant dies, he shall pay onethird of a mina. 33
URUK: the organization of difference. gardens houses temples fields divided into three parts and sacred center 34
In Uruk he built walls, a great rampart, and the temple of blessed Eanna. Look at it still today The Sumerian city: a representation of totality Inside the walls: food - shelter - authority order > civilization Outside the walls? Outside the circle? 35
Outside the walls: Otherness mythic space where human imagination is projected into the unknown, the uncontrolled: gods, monsters, unconquered Nature. Outside the city: limits are discovered, tested, transgressed. 36
In the Epic of Gigamesh, you won t find the well-ordered society. The Epic looks back to an earlier time to the mythic pre-conditions of social order a time when natural and political limits had to be discovered Nature < > Civilization Order < > Disorder (just rule < > unjust rule) Life < > Death (immortality < > mortality) These oppositions are represented in the epic, where possibilities and limits are experienced and tested. 37