Reconstructing the World of Ancient Mesopotamia: Divided Beginnings and Holistic History

Abstract

Since its inception in the nineteenth century, ancient Mesopotamian studies has recognized a division of labor between archaeologists and philologists/ historians that has often skewed histories of the Òland between the rivers.Ó Recent efforts, inspired in part by the Sumerologist Thorkild Jacobsen, offer hope for more holistic histories. Three case studies-on the Inanna temple at Nippur under the Third Dynasty of Ur, abrupt climate change in the late third millennium and its social impact as reconstructed from environmental proxy data and textual sources, and the Sumerian Agriculture GroupÕs collaborative research on subsistence -typify efforts to integrate material culture and texts. D s le d but des tudes sur la M sopotam ie ancienne au 19 me si cle, un foss sÕest creus entre les arch ologues et les philologues/ historiens, et les travaux historiques portant sur le Òpays entre les euvesÓ en ont souvent t in uenc s. De r cents efforts, inspir s en partie par le sum rologue Thorkild Jacobsen, perm ettent dÕesp rer une histoire plus compr hensive. Trois tudes de cas caract risent les efforts dÕint gration des donn es de la culture mat rielle et des documents crits: le temple dÕInanna ˆ Nippour sous la troisi me dynastie dÕUr; le brusque changem ent de climat survenu vers la n du troisi me mill naire et son impact social reconstruits ˆ partir de textes et de donn es indirectes d riv es de lÕenvironnement; en n la recherche en interdisciplinaire du Sumerian Agriculture Group sur les ressources alimentaires.

Contextualizing Early Urbanization: Settlement Cores, Early States and Agro-pastoral Strategies in the Fertile Crescent During the Fourth and Third Millennia BC

“…In climatically marginal areas of the north, not only did large settlements grow up rapidly, but some appear to have grown during periods of increased rainfall, whereas others, such as Tell es-Sweyhat, apparently grew and declined during phases when the data from both Van and Soreq (Lemcke and Sturm 1997;Bar-Matthews and Ayalon 2011) suggest that rainfall was declining. Within the moister parts of the Khabur plains, the relationship between settlement growth or decline and climate change is also unclear (Zettler 2003;Pfälzner 2010;McMahon 2012, pp. 664-667).…”

“…Therefore, in contrast to the apparent stability of the Late Chalcolithic landscape, the pattern of settlement and landscape development of the third millennium BC across the entire region was remarkably dynamic, with the explosive growth and collapse of cities, the settlement of climatically marginal lands, and an apparent increase in connectivity over the entire region. Whereas the collapse of parts of the settlement system has been discussed from numerous perspectives (Weiss et al 1993;Zettler 2003;Kuzucuoglu and Marro 2007;Wossink 2009;Pfälzner 2010;McMahon 2012), the growth part of the cycle has received less attention. As discussed below, such cycles are, in part, dependent upon the size of the settlements being discussed.…”

Nothing Lasts Forever: Environmental Discourses on the Collapse of Past Societies

“…Zettler (2003) acknowledged the importance of Weiss' efforts to bring together multiple types of evidence from a range of disciplines but questions Weiss' textual interpretations, the reliability of the absolute chronology, and the central question of Akkadian economic dependence on the Habur region. In terms of historical reconstruction, some note that Weiss fails to consider that the unity imposed by the Akkadian dynasty was itself an anomaly in the usually fragmented political organization of Mesopotamia (Liverani 2001, pp.…”

Factoids of Assyrian presence in Anatolia: towards a historiography of archaeological interpretation at Kültepe-Kaneš

“…It is in this sense the interpretative benchmark against which subsequent reiterations of the Kültepe discourse can be gauged as we follow how this particular narrative of Assyrian invisibility was sustained over the next six to seven decades of scholarship. Özgüç's dichotomous view of Assyrian presence at Kaneš also has a methodological bearing on the treatment of the evidence, as it reinforces the long-standing fissure between archaeology and philology (Zettler 2003;Lumsden 2008).…”