An early city in the tigris euphrates valley summary

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An early city in the tigris euphrates valley summary

By about 300 B.C., the Tigris-Euphrates Valley was divided into a number of city-states, each one consisting of a city and the surrounding country it controlled. IN the excerpt below from The Rise and Fall of the Ancient World, historian Chester G. Starr describes an imaginary tour around a typical city-state of this period. As you read the excerpt, ask yourself how a Mesopotamian city was similar to and different from modern cities

We should find ourselves first walking down a high road, with fields stretching out on either side….The roads are relatively straight, the fields are carefully marked out by the use of geometry, and here and there drainage and irrigation canals cut their regular courses. Farming with stone hoes and wooden plows is still hard work, despite the use of oxen; but the rewards of barley, wheat, and vegetables are relatively sure. Shepherds in the pastures watch the sheep and cattle, which are carefully registered in the temple accounts; groves of date palms and fruit trees stud the landscape.
But one cannot stay in the fields, though they are the backbone of [the] economy. Some of the farmers still live in minor villages, but many trudge out to their small plots every day from the city proper. Framed by a moat and a high brick wall, the city has heavily fortified gates which are guarded by the soldiers of the state; the wall of [Erech] was five-and-a-half miles long and had over nine hundred towers. When one passes within the gates, the difference from a purely agricultural village is extraordinary. The mud-brick, flat-roofed houses of the ordinary inhabitants are still primitive , but they press closely on one another and are divided by twisting, narrow, blank-walled streets. One [city-state] king…boasts himself master of thirty-six thousand souls. This may be a purely conventional figure, but many of the cities must have had populations of about this size.
In one part of the city are lanes of artisans, smiths, potters, and the like, who live by making and exchanging their wares for barley, fish, and so on. In another is the palace of the king. Looming over all are the temples, very literally conceived as the “houses of the gods.” What we would call the temple proper was frequently built on an artificial mound, beside which might loom up in later days a stepped tower….Within the palace of the deity are also the abodes of the priests, wool-workers, brewers, and countless other servants of the temple complex….
In theory the [city-]state was an earthly estate of the gods, and its early economic activities were focused on the temple. The land, which was owned by the gods, was partly farmed directly for the temple; the rest was allotted to individual farmers, who paid between one-third and one-sixth of their produce to the temple granaries. The temple owned great quantities of livestock, date orchards, even its own boats and plows; about the temple lived and worked…slaves and free people who brewed and baked, carded and wove wool, or made jewelry and statues. Fishers and traders as well carried on their work for the temples.

Reading Review

According to the excerpt, what was the most marked difference between a purely agricultural village and a city-state?
What were the most prominent buildings in the city-state? Why?
How were the cities of ancient Mesopotamia different from modern cities? (b) How were they the same?

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