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Lecture 2

Sumeria

Imagining the City

HUM 101 September 26, 2018, Edw. Mitchell

SUMERIA AND URUKSumeria: – 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”

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uncovering the history of civilization

19th-century archaeology: digging up Mesopotamia (Between the Rivers)

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Storage technology – essential for agricultural societies and civilization

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History of Civilization: “objectified” in objects of storage technology

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Writing – a key storage technology

Clay tablet ➔➔ USB

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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:

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Stone Age > Bronze Age > Iron Age > . . .

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clay tablet a fragment from the epic of Gilgamesh: the Great

Flood

Cities of ancient Mesopotamia 'Bronze Age'

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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

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Gilgamesh in Mesopotamian art

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But there is another new 'technology' that begins with Sumeria

a new social / political form:

hierarchy

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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

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The Sumerian Heritage:

Commands come from the top and go down

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The Sumerian Heritage:

Commands come from the top and go down

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Property stone: the king gives land to his warriors. The warriors take taxes from the peasants on that land.

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Sumerian ziggurat – a monument to hierarchy

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HOW TO BUILD A ZIGGURAT

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THE WRONG WAY

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Palace of the Soviets, Moscow -1930’s (not completed)

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Sacramento, California

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

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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

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Hammurabi’s Code (1770 BCE)

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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.

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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.

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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 one-third of a mina.

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URUK: the organization of difference.

houses

gardens

fields

temples

divided into three parts and sacred center34

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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 totalityInside the walls: food - shelter - authority

order > civilization

Outside the walls? Outside the circle?

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.

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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