Mari and the Development of Complex Defensive Systems in Mesopotamia at the Dawn of History

Butterlin, Pascal; Rey, Sebastien De

doi:10.2307/j.ctvh1dv3d.7

Cited by 3 publications

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“…While there is considerable evidence in the Mesopotamian context that by the 3rd millennium BCE escalating conflict between kingdoms was manifest in an arms race between siege-craft and urban defenses, this is not incompatible with the idea that the scale and splendor of city walls may originally have exceeded military requirements (Sloterdijk 2014, pp. 254-67;Butterlin and Rey 2016). The townsfolk of Uruk, we recall from the Gilgamesh tale, seemed to say as much.…”

Section: Shifting Grounds Of Fortificationmentioning

confidence: 95%

(Un)Earthing Civilization: Holocene Climate Crisis, City-State Origins and the Birth of Writing

Clark

2019

Humanities

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Today, concern about population displacement triggered by climate change is prompting some sovereign states to tighten security measures, as well as inciting ethically and politically motivated calls to relax border controls. This paper explores resonances between the current climate predicament and events in the mid-Holocene. Paleoclimatic and archaeological evidence is reviewed, suggesting that an abrupt turn to cooler, drier weather in the 4th millennium BCE triggered high volume migration to fertile river valleys—most fully documented in Mesopotamia but also visible in other regions around the world. This unprecedented agglomeration of bodies has been linked to the emergence of intensive irrigated agriculture and the rise of city-states. In conversation with the ancient Sumerian Gilgamesh epic, this paper draws upon archaeological research to conceptualize urban wall building and emergent practices of graphical notation as different forms of mediation. Both city walls and early writing, it is argued, deal with the interplay of mobilism and sedentarism, and both ‘media’ entail tactile, plastic use of local materials—namely riverbank clay. This paper addresses the paradox that the underpinning of ‘civilization’ by these once experimental media may now be fundamentally restricting socio-political, cultural, cognitive and embodied capacities to engage effectively with climate-driven upheaval. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Section: Shifting Grounds Of Fortificationmentioning

confidence: 95%

(Un)Earthing Civilization: Holocene Climate Crisis, City-State Origins and the Birth of Writing

Clark

2019

Humanities

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“… See Fontain and Helas (2016) for discussion. 6 For the link between urbanism and fortifications seeButterlin and Rey (2016) 23-33. Jeremy Armstrong and Matthew Trundle -9789004413740 Downloaded from Brill.com10/18/2021 04:14:17AM via free access…”

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confidence: 99%

Sieges in the Mediterranean World

Armstrong¹,

Trundle²

2019

Brill's Companion to Sieges in the Ancient Mediterranean

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Urban warfare in the Middle East today is characterised by the increasing use of an ancient form of urban warfare: the siege. In 2016, eastern Aleppo was subjected to a well-known siege that lasted 190 days; the obstruction of humanitarian assistance caused massive suffering among civilians in many other Middle Eastern towns and cities as well, such as Fallujah, Taiz, Deir Ezzor, Foua, Kefraya and Madaya. In the Syrian Old City of Homs, which was under siege from May 2012 to May 2014, cart seller Abu Hani says that his family gathered firewood in the streets at night, as there was no diesel or gas to be had and they could not move around during the day because of the fighting. Because of shortages of food, he adds, people tried to grow their own vegetables but they often had to resort to eating partially rotten lentils and plants growing in the street that, in normal circumstances, were not considered edible. 'We lost a lot of weight [during this time],' Hani says. 'One does not think about food when one is afraid, one meal is enough.' In some cases, cities in conflict are virtually under siege because of the extreme difficulty of taking goods in or out. The partial siege imposed on Taiz since the summer of 2015 has brought the local economy to the point of collapse. 'Most markets in the city have closed, and in those that still have some food, the prices are so high that people do not have enough money to buy anything,' says Nancy Hamad, who runs the ICRC's office in Taiz. 'Malnutrition cases have gone up very sharply, especially among children.' 'People are eating from the garbage because they can't get food,' she adds. 'We've seen women boiling tree leaves just to give children some hot soup.' Fighting in or around a besieged city can also cause the destruction of harvests in fields within the city or on its outskirts, or make the fields inaccessible. At one camp for internally displaced people, children who had recently left a city under siege recall times of bitter hunger. 'I can't remember the last time I saw a chicken or a sheep,' says one child.1

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Warfare in Mesopotamia

Melville¹

2020

A Companion to the Ancient Near East

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Mari and the Development of Complex Defensive Systems in Mesopotamia at the Dawn of History

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

(Un)Earthing Civilization: Holocene Climate Crisis, City-State Origins and the Birth of Writing

(Un)Earthing Civilization: Holocene Climate Crisis, City-State Origins and the Birth of Writing

Sieges in the Mediterranean World

Warfare in Mesopotamia

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