The Uruk Phenomenon

Abstract

The city of Uruk in southern Iraq was the main force for urbanization and state formation in Mesopotamia during the Uruk period (ca. 3800–3300 BC), which takes its name from this “first city.” This chapter discusses this formative period for the social, political, and cultural history of Mesopotamia and beyond, as well as the ensuing transitional period (Uruk III/Jemdet Nasr period; ca. 3300–3000 BC). The focus lies on the key elements of Uruk culture and its spread across Western Asia, including Syria, Anatolia, and Iran; the invention of cuneiform writing; and aspects of social, religious, and political organization of this emergent state. Contextualized in climatic, demographic, and geographic observations, the chapter evaluates key cultural features, stressing the role of population growth intertwined with technological, agricultural, and administrative improvements. These cultural features’ dissemination along trade routes to the Levant, Anatolia, and Iran is linked to the establishment of strongholds that secured the exchange of goods, with the south of Mesopotamia serving as the commercial hub. While the available sources—both textual and iconographic—provide no unequivocal evidence for the alleged monocratic governance of Uruk-period society, the identifiable political structures were strongly intertwined with religious functions, indicating great societal complexity. The alleged collapse of the Uruk culture was predominantly the breakdown of the Uruk (trade) network. Culturally, however, many features of the Uruk phenomenon provided the founding charter for Mesopotamian social structures in subsequent periods.

Introduction: Graphemic classifiers in complex script systems

“…Sumerian, the language of the earliest Mesopotamian documents, shows many such classifiers, even while their precise number is still disputed. Based on earlier accounts, Selz compiled a new list of semantic classifiers (Selz, 2021;Selz et al, 2017;Selz and Zhang, 2024). Selz described the semiotic role the semantic classifiers play in Sumerian when compared to Egyptian.…”

“…Selz described the semiotic role the semantic classifiers play in Sumerian when compared to Egyptian. He also advocates for the Sumerian system's possible pronounced origin, which leans strongly on various compounding processes (Selz, 2021).…”

Egipto, Africa Nororiental y Oriente Medio durante la Edad del Bronce Temprano: Geopolítica e Intercambios

“…Un primer rasgo sería la discontinuidad de los contactos más tempranos entre Egipto y los núcleos principales de comercio eurasiático, situados en una cadena que se extiende desde el valle del Indo hasta Mesopotamia, Anatolia y el Levante septentrional, pasando por Irán y Asia Central. La intensificación de los contactos por tierra y mar a través de este espacio queda patente en fenómenos tempranos, detectables gracias a la arqueología pero difíciles de interpretar, como el denominado Fenómeno de Uruk (Selz, 2020;Butterlin, 2018;Schneider, Gill, Rajagopalan & Algaze, 2021). En otros casos, la estandarización de sistemas de pesos y el uso de metales preciosos como medio de pago en el tercer milenio antes de Cristo indican la necesidad de contar con medios de intercambio conocidos y, a la vez, aceptables por poblaciones muy diversas para, de este modo, favorecer transacciones habituales (Rahmstorf, 2016;Ialongo, Hermann & Rahmstorf, 2021).…”

“…Tradicionalmente interpretados como colonias egipcias, recuerdan la modalidad de expansión de la cultura de Uruk, centrada en esta localidad de la Mesopotamia meridional, por amplias zonas del Oriente Medio en torno a mediados del cuarto milenio antes de Cristo. El así denominado "Fenómeno de Uruk" aún plantea numerosos interrogantes, aunque parece fuera de duda que esta ciudad del sur de Mesopotamia terminó por encabezar una red de centros comerciales extendida por amplias regiones del Oriente Medio y dominada por príncipes mercaderes (Butterlin, 2018;Selz, 2020). ¿Constituye el caso egipcio una réplica de este fenómeno, si bien algo más tardío y a una escala más modesta (Nicolle, 2009)?…”

Mapping the Ancient Mind: iClassifier, a New Platform for Systematic Analysis of Classifiers in Egyptian and beyond

“…For a recent contribution on this topic, Polis 2018. For an overview of classifiers in the Egyptian scripts, Goldwasser, in press a.3 Selz, Grinevald, Goldwasser 2018;Selz and Zhang, in press; Payne 2017, for Chinese, Chen 2016; Handel, in press and Myers 2019. For a general survey of the history of classifier studies, see Kilarski 2014 and Bauer 2017.…”