Early Civilizations (Summary)

Odin Waters

Please describe what life was like in some of the first cities and towns in Mesopotamia. In addition, please describe the technologies that were developed, the political organizations that formed, and the religious practices that evolved in the first cities and towns in the Fertile Crescent. Please refer to class readings in your discussions.

In the first cities and townships of Mesopotamia, a mutualism of sorts was developed between artisans, farmers, and trades people. The citizens of those city-states shared territories by which they developed a common sense of identity. For some inhabitants, the opportunity arose to venture out from their pre-determined roles into different arenas of exploration and invention. A middle class emerged that was composed of scientists, technicians, as well as bureaucratic and religious administrators. That class varied in size depending on the surplus or lack of surplus in commodities. The religious or bureaucratic administrations allocated the fruit of the plebian labor to erect edifices of worship, academic institutions, or courthouses. The high demand of goods for trade between different city-states and their surrounding villages or towns increased the pressure for higher rates of reproduction by the agricultural and manufacturing sectors of that civilized society.

The buildup of a military force allowed the religious and political hierarchy to flourish despite an eventual disparity between the wealthy elite and a majority of the population that extracted and produced the materials that supported that civilization. Military leaders, who had commanded armies in times of war, appointed themselves kings of those novel city-states. They would order the building of forts to defend the city from invasion with the added benefit of enclosing their subjects. Powerful priests managed centrally located temples of worship and endorsed the pecking order, via separation of citizens' status through class, for those monarchies. For a time, control was shared between the mystics and strong men.

Non-agricultural professions materialized in those urban centers. Writing produced scribes. Metallurgy produced blacksmiths who smelted and shaped metals. Sailing would proliferate human communication and trade to new heights. Although farmers still stood as the backbone of all those Neolithic civilizations, the tools that were designed during the urban revolution, like plows, grass cutting devices and stone mortars, became catalysts of the intricate delegation of labor and the administrative processes that were necessary when keeping inventory of high grain yields and seminal amounts of foods and materials from domesticated animals. Taxation would prove to be an ingenious scheme that bolstered the fade that the people at the bottom needed the people at the top to manage their resources. Much of those taxes were used to fund the construction of extravagant temples for priests and palaces for royalty and their entourage.

Trade and crafts people, as well as artisans, were the true beneficiaries of the civilian lifestyle. Unlike the upper classes, with all their pretensions or the farmers or slaves who toiled with little respite, those citizens were able to delve into experimental stages that generated merchandise and the prototype for the market system that defines many of our modern republics. Those folks who specialized in the manufacturing of pottery, tools, artwork, etc., along with the shopkeepers and entertainers, were the first small business owners and entrepreneurs who probably experienced degrees of autonomy that the other class groups did not. The opportunity to create useful implements or goods from materials of diverse origins, and then be able to sell in a bustling city center, was truly revolutionary. Coin currency introduced purchasing power to humans and catapulted commerce to the far reaches of the world.

Most inhabitants of those first Mesopotamian city-states relied on religious institutions that were aligned with and modeled the hierarchy of political institutions. Slaves and laborers in urban or rural areas, faced with an exhausting lifestyle and preordained identities, turned to religion as a means of escape. They were taught to cope with and accept their position as subservient figures by members of the priesthood. The spiritual beliefs of a primitive yet inquisitive community were transformed into the anodyne pretense of pious rhetoric. The privileged classes, on the other hand, enthusiastically lauded and praised religious leaders and the monarch that had been anointed with the status of a god amongst lesser beings. This would eventually be the case in Assyria and Egypt.

References

Wallech, S. et al. (2013). World History: A Concise thematic analysis. West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. p.33-51.