Chapter 5: The Bronze Age Near East
[Burroughs
240 Mesopotamia. description of harsh climate conditions,]
As
noted in previous chapter sustained agricultural settlement arose globally
around 5000 BC in broad flat river valleys where large scale irrigation
projects were possible. Farmers settling in river valleys had the advantage of
obtaining control over their water supply by trapping and storing floodwaters
for sustained use in crop production. The inhabitants of Mesopotamia, for
example, learned to conserve flood waters by opening networks of canals between
the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The vestiges of these vast canal networks are
today visible in aerial and satellite photography.
Flooding
in Mesopotamia tended to come in two phases, the first was generated by winter
rains in the distant mountains of Anatolia, the second
phase came with the Spring snow melt in the same highlands. Given the fact that
the origins of these flooding events lay far beyond the horizon of Mesopotamian
settlements, the flooding appeared to the inhabitants to arrive violently and
unpredictably. Otherwise the climate had little to recommend. The land between
the rivers presented itself as a hot, dry, flat, seemingly barren stretch of
desert. Natural resources such as stone, timber, or metals, were nonexistent
and needed to be imported from afar. Mesopotamia's chief natural resource, the
deep layers of soil deposited by the rivers at the end of the Ice Age, served multiple
purposes. Through irrigation the earth furnished abundant food supplies.
Through the adaptation of frame-formed, dried mud bricks it furnished an
essential construction material. And through its flat, hard desert surface it
offered mobility - essentially an open highway - to assorted peoples who
migrated into the region. The inhabitants of Mesopotamia produced abundant
surpluses of food, principally grain, but a host of garden crops as well, to
sustain an estimated population of 1-2 million people by Roman times.
Additional surpluses were exchanged for resources unavailable locally. With
temperatures attaining 140 degrees F. during the summer months, the climate can
best be described as daunting. Shade furnished by date palm trees, lush
canal-fed gardens and domestic quarters, not to mention abundant food and
water, made it bearable.
Archaeological
investigation indicates that the process of urbanization in Mesopotamia began
as early as 5800 BC, with several large centers of population arising in southern
Mesopotamia by 4300 BC. Village sized Ubaid culture
(5800-4000 BC) first took hold where the lower arms of the Tigris and EuphratesRivers reached the Persian Gulf. Geological
evidence indicates that the sea level ceased to rise around 5000 BC, causing
the mouths of the rivers to silt in. This impeded natural drainage and formed a
large area of inland lagoons and marshes. As the climate became drier
communities adapted to small scale irrigated farming in areas where water
tables were already high. Crop yields soon rose dramatically. Mesopotamian
texts dated to 2100 BC record yield to seed ratios of 30:1 and even 50:1. With
the advent of bronze tools around 3500 BC, the labor intensive aspects of
irrigation work became manageable, stimulating the rise of large urban
settlements. By 3200 BC the city of Uruk sustained an
estimated population of 50000 living behind massive city walls.
SIDEBAR; SUMERIAN
Sumerian society emerged as
a cluster of small urban settlements each of which was independent and
autonomous from the others. The tendency to refer to this form of polity as a
city state, arises from the Classical Greek expression
for this entity, namely, the polis. Our words politics and political likewise
arise from this Greek expression. Each city state maintained and controlled a
surrounding hinterland to generate food resources necessary to sustain its
population. At the center of each Mesopotamian city state typically was a
temple complex, directed by priests or ens
and dedicated to the cult of the city's patron deity. The patron deity of
Nippur, for example, was the Sumerian sky god, Enlil.
This relationship between city-state and patron deity was viewed as so significant that
whoever dominatedNippur controlled all of Sumeria.
HISTORICAL OUTLINE OF BRONZE
The
accompanying table presents an historical outline of Bronze Age Near East
chronology.
BRONZE
· Sumeria
3300-2300 BC (Death Pit at Ur, 2600 BC)
· Akkadia
2300-2150 (Sargon the Great, 2371-2316 BC, Naram-Sin
2291-2255, 4 corners of the earth)
· Third Dynasty of Ur 2100-2000
· Amorite Invasions c. 2000 (Egypt, Hyksos
Invasions c. 1900)
· Hammurabi's Babylonia c. 1700
· More Invasions, Hurrii,
Kassites, Mitanni (Indo-Europeans) 1600-1400
· Late Bronze Age - 1500-1200 BC
· Petty Kingdoms, Mitanni, Assyria and
Babylonia are secondary powers influenced by the dominant empires of the
Hittites and New Kingdom Egypt
The
broader historical narrative of Mesopotamian civilizations can be summarized as
follows. By 3300 BC a cluster of urban communities in southern Mesopotamia
emerged to form a civilization known as Sumeria. By
2700 BC textual sources indicate that neighboring city states in Sumeria became increasingly embroiled in conflict. At this
time King Emmerbaragesi of the city of Kish
overwhelmed his neighbors to create a regional empire. His example set a
pattern followed by later warlords, including King Gilgamesh of Uruk, King Mesannepadda of Ur
(ca. 2600), King Eannatum of Lagash (2450-2360), and
King Lugalzagesi of Umma
(2360-2350). Empire came to be an expected political formation in the Ancient
Near East. Sumerian dominance was, nonetheless, suddenly overturned around 2250
BC by a usurper named Sargon of Akkad (Agade). Sargon represented the political
emergence of Semitic population elements that had migrated into Mesopotamia
over time and assimilated Sumerian urban culture. Accordingly to legend, Sargon
defeated and captured Lugalzagesi of Umma in battle. He dragged him by the neck to the holy city
of Nippur where he placed him in a cage by the city gate to be reviled by
passers-by. Sargon of Akkad extended his authority throughout the region of
Mesopotamian and beyond, claiming ultimately to have conquered states as far
removed as Ebla in the northwestern Syria and Elam in the southwestern Iran.
His grandson Naram Sin (2190-2154) boasted that his
rule extended to the "four corners of the earth.” The Akkadian
dynasty thus created a model for Near Eastern empire building that would be
imitated in centuries to come.
The
Akkadian empire collapsed around 2100 BC due in part
to an influx of marauders from the neighboring Zagros Mts. (the Gutians). By 2050 BC regional stability was restored by
King Ur-Nammu, the powerful leader of the third
dynasty at Ur (2050-1940). This brief interlude was overturned by another
influx of migrating Semitic peoples known as the Amorites (Amurru).
For more than two centuries (1940-1740) confusion prevailed as rival powers in Sumeria, Amorite Babylonia, and Elam (a long-standing rival
of Sumeria), vied for regional domination. This
confusion was put to rest around 1700 BC by King Hammurabi of Babylon
(1728-1686), arguably the greatest ruler of the entire era. Hammurabi
successfully reasserted control over the territorial extent of Mesopotamia. The
peace and stability that he enforced was reflected in his law code, to be
considered below. Like Sargon's Akkad, however, Hammurabi’s empire collapsed
within a two generations. By 1600 BC the region was again overrun by migrating
peoples, this time arriving largely from mountainous regions to the North.
Infiltrators included such poorly understood peoples as the Kassites
and the Hurrians, as well as Indo-European invaders
who later merged with these others to forge a northern Mesopotamian hegemony
known as the Mitanni.
During the Late Bronze Age (1500 - 1100 BC) Mesopotamian suzerainty was
divided among rival local powers, including the Mitanni, the Assyrians, the Babylonians
and the Elamites. None of these, however, was
as strong militarily as the empires to the West -- the New Kingdom Empire of
Egypt, the Hittite empire of Anatolia, or the Mycenaean principalities of the
Aegean. Closest to the sea, the Mitanni were defeated and dominated first by
King Tuthmose
Despite
the brevity of this historical outline, two points seem immediately evident.
The general tendency toward consolidation of power into imperial dynasties in
Mesopotamia was repeatedly offset by countervailing forces of sudden political
collapse and invasions by migrating peoples. The ebb and flow of these
phenomena prohibited the rise of a sustained era of stability comparable to
that of Old Kingdom Egypt. In time newly arrived elements assimilated the prevailing Sumero-Akkadian culture
even as they furnished it with fresh ideas and technologies. With
each resurgence of empire -- Sargon of Akkad, the Third Dynasty of Ur,
Hammurabi of Babylon -- the number of cities that dotted the plain of
Mesopotamia increased. The prevailing mood of Mesopotamian chroniclers remained
pessimistic, nonetheless
CULTURAL ATTRIBUTES OF
ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIAN PEOPLES
The
historical outline presented above raises a number of issues that require
sorting out. First, we need to identify as best we can the cultural
distinctions that separated the Sumerians from neighboring peoples such as the Elamites, the Semitic Akkadians
and Amorites, and the Indo-European influenced Mitanni. To do this, one must
inevitably address the matter of language families as they are used to identify
cultural heritage. Invariably when investigating early historical societies
investigators rely heavily on linguistic tools.
Ancient Near Eastern
Language Families
Although
the precise origins of the Sumerians remains
uncertain, they were the first to organize themselves into an urban
civilization complete with written language. The Sumerians devised a system of
writing known as cuneiform, based on wedge-like characters impressed on clay
tablets with a reed stylus. Hence, the Latin, cuneiform, "wedge-like
characters". The earliest preserved Sumerian records were little more than
temple inventories detailing the assets, labor force, and stored resources at
the disposal of priestly establishments. Temple priests attempted to catalogue
these resources using pictographic representations of items such as sheep or
measures of grain. Eventually they were able to create 'shorthand' symbols
representing the same. From these pictographic characters early chroniclers
came to the realization that the symbol for something such as the human foot
could also represent the action of "walking', and hence, that written
characters could assume more flexible, abstract functions as ideograms.
Eventually hundreds of such characters were devised rendering Sumerian
cuneiform a difficult, highly complex language requiring years of training to
master. As a result writing, and with it literacy in Mesopotamia, remained an
exclusive technology of a limited elite, such as the priestly authorities
mentioned above, political and military leaders, and the scribal elements that
supported these authorities. As Semitic speaking peoples settled into the region
they gradually adapted Sumerian cuneiform script to a Semitic spoken language,
namely Akkadian. Numerous clay-tablet
"dictionaries" have been recovered demonstrating the laborious
efforts required of students to master the written translation of one spoken
language to another. Due to the imperial success of the Akkadians,
this new, hybrid Sumero-Akkadian written language
gradually became the international language of the region. In fact, Akkadian script remained the primary written language, or
lingua franca, of the Ancient Near East for centuries, and was used until the
collapse of the Persian Empire (330 BC). Making things more complicated still,
Indo-European elements in the region such as the Mitanni, the Luwians, and the Hittites likewise adapted Akkadian cuneiform to their spoken languages, adding yet
another layer of complexity and diversity to the resulting script. Despite its
modern status as a "dead language", in other words, cuneiform enjoyed
long and widespread use for nearly 3000 years in the Ancient Near East.
SIDEBAR:
DECIPHERMENT OF CUNEIFORM, the
Behistun Inscription
We owe our
understanding of the cuneiform script to Sir Henry Rawlinson, a British
diplomat and classicist who carefully recorded three inscribed texts of the
royal inscription of king Darius I of Persia at Behistun
in 1838. The accomplishments or Res Gestae of the
Persian emperor, Darius i were inscribed
in three languages; in Babylonian (Akkadian),
old Persian, and Elamite, below a relief portraying
the king paying homage to the Iranian deity Ahura
Mazda. The relief and inscriptions were recorded on a cliff face of a large
mountain at the gate to one of the passes leading from Mesopotamia into Iran.
At considerable risk to his own person Sir Henry Rawlinson allegedly scaled the
face of the cliff using ropesand planks to carefully transcribe the inscribed
texts. Rawlinson and others were able to use the knowledge of Persian Sanskrit
to decipher the cuneiform version of the text.
From
surviving texts linguists have determined that Sumerian was an agglutinative
language of a class more commonly encountered in northern Asia, namely, among
the sub families of the Altaic language family, such as Turkish and Mongolian.
As such Sumerian language would not appear to have been "native" to
the region of Mesopotamia. Sumerian texts seem to confirm as much by insisting
that the Sumerians arrived in Mesopotamia from across the sea. This in turn
raises the questions which languages were 'native' to the Ancient Near East and
how do they inform us about cultural origins of Ancient Near Eastern peoples?
Theories
based on historical linguistics are highly speculative, to be sure, and the
information they bring to the history of the Ancient Near East must be utilized
with reservation. Today more than 5000 languages are spoken worldwide.
Linguists who tend to 'lump' languages together argue that all spoken languages
arose from common root languages which lend themselves to reconstruction.
According to this line of reasoning all existing languages descend from some
nineteen original language families. Moreover, at the foundation of each
language family existed an original proto-language
that was spoken by a small isolated population living in a specific place
during prehistoric antiquity. Changes in languages and movement of languages
over time are believed to have been governed by three basic mechanisms:
colonization, divergence, and replacement.* Adding to the complexity of this
question is the fact that several languages once written in the Ancient Near
East and elsewhere are now "dead languages," including Akkadian and Hittite, mentioned earlier. Those
civilizations that preserved written records of themselves furnish us with
insight to their cultural attributes, undeniably in far greater detail than
that which can be obtained solely from their material remains. This is why
investigators place so much emphasis on the language properties of early historical
peoples
[*Colonization,
humans entering a new area introduce their language.
Divergence, language spoken by different groups
changes over time, replacement, a group of people adopts a new language
introduced or imposed by another group.]
Apart
from Sumerian the two principal language families of the Ancient Near East were
Semitic languages and Indo-European languages. A third language family, Elamite, appears also to have been native to the region.
Each will be considered in turn.
Semitic languages represent the largest sub
family of the Afro-Asiatic family of languages spoken throughout the Middle
East and northern Africa. Ancient Semitic languages included Akkadian, Babylonian, Ugaritic, Canaanite, Phoenician,
Hebrew, Moabite, Aramaic, Nabataean,
from which arose modern Arabic, Hebrew, Ethiopic, and Amharic. As one scholar
has observed, Semitic language speakers have furnished us with the Old
Testament (Hebrew), the New Testament (Aramaic) and Koran (Arabic).
Afro-Asiatic languages are believed to have descended from a single language
originally spoken in a narrowly conscribed region. The question remains where.
One theory holds that Semitic languages descend from the language spoken by the
Natufians in Israel and that they spread out across
the region in conjunction with the diffusion of Natufian
agricultural technology. Others point to the Red Sea shore, where highland
rainfall along the dry Red Sea coast presented humans with an extremely fragile
habitat. Excess population arising from the limited carrying capacity of this
region may explain the recurring pattern of migration among Semitic peoples,
not only toward Mesopotamia, as we have seen, but also into the Nile delta of
Egypt (the Hyksos, on which see below). Historical linguists who have examined
the root words of Semitic languages suggest that the Proto Afro Asiatic
language was older than neighboring Proto Indo European. They have observed,
for example, that ancient Semitic languages contain fewer words for
domesticated plants and animals and accordingly appear to predate agriculture
itself. Other cultural attributes ascribed to "Semitic" peoples
include prohibitions against eating pork and the tendency to revere individual
warrior deities who protect the migrations of specific pastoral tribal
elements. The problem with assigning cultural attributes such as these to
ancient peoples based solely on language affinities seems evident, however.
Usually by the time a given population attained literacy, it had assimilated a
broad range belief systems from neighboring peoples. For example, by the time
we possess written testimony nearly all known Ancient Near Eastern peoples
worshiped pantheons of gods and tended to designate one such deity as a patron.
The patron deities of Sumerian city states readily present themselves,
particularly the heightened importance placed by all Sumerian inhabitants on
the cult of the storm god, Enlil, at Nippur. Another
problem lies in the tendency to confuse language heritage with ethnicity. As
with all cultural attributes Semitic languages, particularly Akkadian, were borrowed and/or assimilated by people
bearing non "Semitic" ethnic backgrounds,
such as the Elamites, the Hurrians,
the Luwians, and the Hittites. To suggest that people
who spoke the same language necessarily shared the same culture remains
inherently flawed. Accordingly, it becomes dangerous to read into language
heritage anything beyond what the languages themselves have to offer. in the final analysis one must remain conscious of the fact
that the evidence under consideration furnishes insight into linguistic
heritage rather than ethnicity or race.
Elamite offers some alternative
insights to the cultural origins in the Ancient Near East. Linguists have
suggested that Elamitic is most closely related to
Dravidian languages that are more generally spoken in southern India. Based on
the location of ancient Elam along the southern flank of the Zagros Mts. in
southwestern Iran, none too far from the Persian Gulf,
some have suggested that Elamitic-Dravidian languages
were once widespread along coastal lowlands from the Persian Gulf to India.
According to this scenario Elamitic-Dravidian
languages were spoken by inhabitants of the maritime lowlands of this region
prior to the rise in sea level around 8000-5000 BC. This last event conceivably
isolated these populations from one another. Another possibility is that the Elamitic-Dravidian language family expanded as population
elements migrating eastward from an origin near Mesopotamia. Around 2000-1800
BC Elamite-Dravidian language speakers were then
driven farther eastward and southward by northern invaders speaking
Indo-European languages.
Where
Indo European languages are
concerned, scholars have known for centuries that most of the languages spoken
across western Eurasia (from Britain to India) are derived from a common
ancestral language referred to as proto-Indo European. Today Indo European
languages are spoken by more people on the planet than any comparable family of
languages. Indo European languages include Indic languages such as Hindi and
Urdu, Iranian languages such as Farsi and Kurdish, Slavic languages such as
Russian, Polish, and Serbo-Croatian, ancient and modern Greek, Latin and its
derivative 'romance" languages (French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and
Romanian), Germanic languages such as German, Norwegian and English, and Celtic
languages such as Irish. Linguistic historians believe that these languages
were all descended from a single language originally spoken by a small group of
people, probably a few thousand, living somewhere in the vicinity of the Black
Sea. According to one theory around 4000 BC the proto-Indo Europeans lived
along the northern shores of the Black and Caspian Seas. According to another
they originated from Anatolia proper, near Chatal Huyuk, for example. Either way, around 2200-2000 BC these
people began to radiate outward in various directions -- southward to the
Balkans, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Iran and the Indus, northward to the Baltic and
Scandinavia, westward to Europe and Britain. Based on the reconstructed
proto-Indo European language, placing particular emphasis on the survival of
commonly shared words and multiple words for the same things, investigators
argue that Indo Europeans raised cattle, grew crops, kept dogs as pets, used
bows and arrows in battle and worshiped a male god associated with the sky.
Similarly, Indo Europeans were presumed to have been the first to domesticate
horses. Indo European languages bear several related words for wool, for
example, and an equally rich vocabulary for trees, indicating the likely
importance of herding and wooded environments to their origins. Naturally, the
reservations expressed earlier about Semitic language heritage apply equally as
well to Indo European. Notwithstanding the need for caution, from the Sumerians,
the Elamites, the Semitic Akkadians
and Babylonians, the Indo European Hurians and
Mitanni, and still other peoples of unresolved origins, we obtain a fairly good
idea not only of the points of origin of peoples who migrated into Mesopotamia,
but also their remarkable diversity.
POLITICAL STRUCTURE IN
MESOPOTAMIAN SOCIETIES
The
structure of Mesopotamian urban societies, and regional empires, needs also to
be addressed in this section. By the time of the earliest Mesopotamian empire (2700 BC), the character of political institutions
was essentially formed. The earliest Sumerian communities emerged under the
aegis of religious authorities who most probably furnished sanctuary to people
fleeing various dangers. Priestly authorities claimed the ability to mediate
with divine entities, thereby obtaining religious sanction for human endeavors
such as farming and related matters such as the need for favorable weather and
the avoidance of floods and earthquakes. Priests also claimed to possess the
power to channel harmful supernatural energy toward their adversaries, as we
shall see. In short, the earliest Mesopotamian societies appear to have been
ruled by priests called ens. As noted earlier each Sumerian community, and
nearly every ancient community for that matter, perceived itself as obtaining
supernatural protection from a particular patron deity. To a large degree the
relationship between patron deity and chief priest or priestess was viewed in
sexual terms, with male priests presiding over cities protected by female
deities and vice versa.
No
sooner had stratified societies emerged in Mesopotamia, however, than political
power began to shift elsewhere, particularly as inhabitants came to acquire
independent assets. Vague authorities referred to asenlils
began to emerge, and more significantly, military warlords named lugals. Perhaps recruited originally by priestly
authorities to address the threat of border wars with neighboring communities,lugals quickly
exploited their military power to seize control of their respective
communities. Establishing themselves as formally sanctioned monarchs, lugals drew on popular support within their cities to
supplant rival religious authorities with more pliant representatives. Both the
Gilgamesh epic, which clearly existed in written form by 2600 BC and
Hammurabi's law code, written nearly a millennium later, offer the same
tripartite organization of political organization in Mesopotamian cities. The
Mesopotamian political flowchart typically resembled the following.
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF
MESOPOTAMIAN COMMUNITIES
|
|
KING |
|
|
NOBLES |
|
PRIESTS |
|
SOLDIERS |
MERCHANTS, ARTISANS,
TRADERS |
SCRIBES, HIERODULES,
SERVANTS |
|
FARMERS |
FARMERS |
FARMERS |
At the top stood the king with absolute authority. Directly
beneath him stood 3 entities: the nobility, the city councils, and the priestly
authorities. Beneath each of these in turn were dependent elements.
Beneath the nobles, for example, stood the kings' professional soldiers;
beneath the city council stood financiers, merchants, and artisans; beneath the
priests stood an array of religious staff -- servants, hierodules, scribes,
"nuns", temple prostitutes, and slaves. Beneath all
of these elements in hierarchical order stood farmers who labored in the
fields. Farmers furnished the backbone to Babylonian society
representing perhaps 85% of the overall population. These laborers quietly
produced the food resources that supported everybody else. All of this
information is obtainable from the Law Code of Hammurabi. Before exploring what
the law code informs us about social status in Mesopotamian cities, though, we
need to put the text itself into historical perspective.
Hammurabi's
Law Code (lex talionis)
Ancient
law codes serve as useful barometers of the political health of societies
undergoing transition from rural to urban lifestyles. The same pattern can be
demonstrated for law codes recorded in Mesopotamia, Hittite Anatolia, and Iron
Age Israel, and archaic Greece and Rome.
On the surface ancient law codes demonstrate the existence of a rigid
social hierarchy, usually entailing brutal disregard for human rights. The
codes typically reflect the dominance of a hierarchy based on autocratic or at
best aristocratic rule. Falling back on the Latin expression, lex talionis,
the law code of Hammurabi, for example, imposed punishments based entirely on
one's status in the Babylonian society. If a noble destroyed the eye, broke the
bone, or knocked out the tooth of another noble, according to the code, state
authorities would destroy the eye, break the bone, or knock out the tooth of
that noble (196). In other words, justice was meted out according to the
biblical dictum, "an eye for an eye." However, the law code goes on
to assert that if a noble were to commit these same offenses against a
"commoner', he would pay 1 mina of silver for the damaged eye or broken
bone, and 1/3 mina of silver for the damaged tooth. Moreover, were a noble to
destroy the eye or break the bone of a slave belonging to another noble, that
noble would pay 1/3 the monetary value of the slave. (No mention is made of
damage to a slave's tooth, probably because this offense was deemed
insignificant.)
To
comprehend fully the significance of this logic, one must know that a mina
represented a "standard" weight of precious metal such as gold or
silver used as a medium of exchange. In essence, 60 mina equaled a talent (approximately
30 kg of silver), which was the largest weight standard used in transactions.
In addition, a mina equaled 60 shekels, with a shekel (ca. 8 grams of silver)
representing what was essentially a day's wage for everyday unskilled labor. A
mina thus equaled approximately a third of a year's income and was no trifling
amount. Notwithstanding the value of the imposed penalty, the fact remains that
the punishment meted out for personal injury, as well as for other similar
offenses, was calibrated according to one's rank in Babylonian society.
Aristocrats enjoyed higher status than ordinary citizens, whose status in turn
ranked above that of slaves. Modern notions of equal rights before the law
simply did not exist; moreover, ancient notions of status were based on arcane
criteria such as aristocratic in-breeding. The importance of law codes as a
progressive influence on society seemingly becomes lost in all this, and yet it
remains a salient truth. To return to our main point, by their very promulgation,
that is by the very fact that political authorities went to the effort to
"publish" law codes, harsh though they may seem, these codes advanced
the cause of everyday people.
This
becomes clear as we consider the more immediate context of Hammurabi's law
code. Several copies of the code have survived, indicating that its publication
was widely disseminated for public consumption throughout the empire. The most
famous copy is that recorded on a stearate stone unearthed in 1901 during the
French excavations of the Elamite capital of Susa.
This polished black stone stele bears the cuneiform text of the code as well as
a relief at the top of King Hammurabi receiving the code from Shamash, the
Babylonian god of justice. The prologue and several of the initial "edicts"
in the code indicate that the king felt compelled to publish his law code to
appease popular discontent, particularly among his soldiers. Several of the
initial rulings refer to punishments meted out to corrupt aristocratic judges
and to equally corrupt aristocratic military officers. The implication was that
both of these elements were guilty of expropriating land, wealth, and
privileges from the troops. Apparently abuses by aristocratic authorities,
especially abuses perpetrated in the name of the king against his own soldiers,
had brought matters to such a state that the king felt compelled to intervene.
The
likely origin of the problem lay with the monarchical tendency to delegate
judicial and military authority to aristocratic retainers. Primitive societies
tended to rely on aristocratic justice in part because the latter claimed a
close connection to the gods, in their minds a blood connection. Aristocratic
judges also tended to be patriarchs of extended property-holding families or
clans and could impose their authority by means of superior force or
"self-help." We will discuss these aspects of aristocratic status in
further detail below. During judicial proceedings judges typically rendered
judgments according to the logic of unwritten law or custom. The inherent
danger of customary law lay with its impermanence. Aristocratic
”law givers” could orally modify customary law
to accommodate changing circumstances, invariably to their own advantage. This
sort of abuse had apparently reached a boiling point in Hammurabi's Babylon,
and the king intervened by publishing his own rulings in plain view for
everyone's benefit. This eliminated the possibility of "legal
modification," or to put it another way, the very real likelihood that
aristocratic judges were making up the law as they went along. By publishing a
written law code, in other words, the king rendered his law public and
permanent, thereby, protecting and preserving everybody's rights such as they
were. Despite the apparent harshness of the king's rulings and the starkness of
the disparities in status hierarchy that they reveal, therefore, the
promulgation of Hammurabi's law codes marked a decided innovation in the
development of civil rights.
FORMAT OF THE LAW CODE
Before
considering in greater detail what the law code reveals about status hierarchy
in Babylonian society we also need to assess the code as a legal document. In
structure Hammurabi's law code presents itself as a list of seemingly unrelated
rulings of the kind that in some respects resemble US Supreme Court decisions.
Presumably disputed legal decisions had been appealed to the king and he in
turn handed down his decisions to serve as precedent for all time. There is no
actual 'code" in other words, but rather a list of punishments to be
imposed for various types of infractions. Legal historians argue that in each
instance the king was reacting to actual crimes that had occurred with
sufficient regularity to warrant his intervention. By rendering his judgment
the king thereby established precedent to be enforced throughout the realm. Inductive reasoning warrants, in other words, the assumption that
such offenses were sufficiently problematic to require the king’s intervention.
In other respects the manner of presentation in Hammurabi's law code leads many
to believe that the law code lacks any underlying legal principles. Close
inspection of the code does seem to indicate, however, that the king's rulings
are arranged according to “types" of offenses. It begins with a section
addressing abuses by aristocratic legal authorities and progresses through
abuses by aristocratic military authorities, fraudulent aristocratic business
dealings (again indicating that aristocratic abuses formed a large part of the
problem), fraudulent contracts, issues of marriage disputes, divorce, widow and
child support, crimes of passion, inheritance disputes, and it ends finally
with a list of punishments for acts of physical abuse and negligence such as
the examples of lex talionis
noted above. The organization of the code appears to contain
"bracketed" rubrics of legal precedents that in many respects sound
similar to classic Roman notions of the 'Laws' of person, property, obligation,
and actions. In the western world at least the act of legal formulation and
compilation has been an on going endeavor since
earliest times: fragments of Sumerian law codes predating that of Hammurabi
survive and most probably offered models for his code.
SOCIAL STATUS ACCORDING TO
THE LAW CODE
The
law code essentially demonstrates that the king enjoyed extremely close ties
with his nobility and his army. Nobles enjoyed privileges of appointed
positions of authority as noted above. They descended from wealthy landholding
families typically related by blood to the royal family itself. Aristocrats
enjoyed feudalistic relationships with the king, pledging him loyalty and
service in exchange for offices, commissions, and gifts of land and wealth. As
generations passed these resources became hereditary within specific
aristocratic families, however, inevitably weakening the king's hold on his
nobility. The less the king was able to control his retainers the more likely
the tendency for the abuse of power indicated above. Aristocrats remained
privileged elements in all ancient societies. Nearly every urban society was
dominated by a local land holding aristocracy. Aristocrats based their status
on seemingly intangible qualities such as noble birth, in most instances traced
through descent to some mythological hero who in turn was descended from the
gods. Aristocrats also controlled extensive tracts of land that formed the
basis of their wealth. It is impossible to determine within any ancient society
which came first: aristocratic land holdings or aristocratic birth. As noted in
Chapter Two, aristocracy not only dominated the hierarchies of most ancient
societies but their mindset also set the tone of the records that have
survived.
Beneath
the aristocracy but standing in similarly close relation to the king was the
army. Individual soldiers tended to be free born citizens who pledged
unquestioned loyalty and service to the king in exchange for allotments of
land, granted by the king personally. These land grants sustained the soldier
and his family and enabled him to maintain his abilities as a professional
soldier. In addition to the land the king might award the solder farmers,
slaves, and livestock to work the land. With respect to the land allotments the
law code indicates that the king maintained firm control over land and its assets
including fields, orchards, domestic structures, and livestock, prohibiting
their sale or lease under rigorous penalties. What would happen to the royal
land grant when a soldier passed away remains obscure; most likely the estate
remained hereditary so long as the soldier's family furnished recruits for the
king's army. In one article the law code stipulates
that the widow of a soldier be allowed to keep one third the estate for the
purposes of raising the soldier's son, for example. Soldiers formed the
backbone of the king's power and authority, and the law code details at
considerable length the kinds of abuses they typically endured: taken prisoner
in battle and ransomed, missing in action for years on end, and forced to sell
their property and livestock to corrupt officers to make ends meet. In every
instance the king took measures to protect the soldier's interest and the
king's own land allotments by demonstrating firmness. In one article the king
declared that a noble who purchased a soldier's livestock would forfeit his
money and the animals; in another he decreed that the temple treasury of a
captured solder's home town would be used to defray the cost of his ransom,
'since the soldier's own field, orchard, and house may not be ceded for his ransom.'
This demonstrates that the king not only viewed the soldier's land allotment as
royal property, but also that he regarded the soldier's service as a civic
burden that all institutions, including temple complexes, must bear.
With
respect to 'city councils' the law code demonstrates that the king delegated
considerable authority and responsibility to this hierarchy insofar as
governing the urban population was concerned. In the law code city councils
were repeatedly commissioned with resolving judicial disputes, particularly for
administering "trials by ordeal" to be mentioned below. Contractual
disputes, marriage and divorce disputes, and various offenses concerning women
were assigned by the king to the adjudication of city councils. Even disputes
involving nobles were sometimes adjudicated by the councils. The role of city
councils was obviously pivotal to the maintenance of public order in various
Mesopotamian cities within Hammurabi's empire. Nonetheless, the law code
furnishes little concrete information about the council's composition. Since
nobles themselves were subject to its authority, it stands to reason that the
councils consisted of patriarchs representing the wealthiest noble families of
each respective city. Membership in the councils was probably determined by
election or cooption to municipal offices, such as judge, festival manager, or
tax collector, after the tenure of which the ex magistrate
would enter the council for life. Whether or not the councils co-opted wealthy
non aristocrats such as financiers and merchants remains an open question, but
it stands to reason that the latter professionals enjoyed extensive dealings
with the councils merely to engage in their professional activities. One needs
to distinguish, in any event, between the nobility that staffed the city
councils of individual cities subservient to the king and the aristocrats who
served as courtiers for Hammurabi's wider empire. Imperial authorities enjoyed
much greater status as will become apparent below.
Since
the councils were charged with maintaining the public peace in their respective
cities, they appear to have exercised extraordinary authority over the
activities of the urban population. Two things that become evident from the law
code in this regard are the rich array of professionals who worked in the city,
and the heavy reliance placed on contracts in the conduct of their business. At
the top of the heap of urban professionals the law code records the activities
of merchants and traders, the distinction between which becomes less apparent
when rendered into English. Merchants are better translated as moneylenders or
“venture capitalists." Typically they were self made
businessmen who began their careers as traders and toiled successfully to
accumulate abundant assets which they lent at high rates of interest to traders,
soldiers, and in particular to nobles. Rates as high as 20%
are specifically mentioned by the law code (88). Much of the material
loaned and returned represented trade in kind -- measures of grain, etc. The
fact remains that merchants successfully transformed excess capital into
precious metal bullion in order both to store it and to make use of it in
future transactions.
Traders
were more typically small scale businessmen who borrowed extensively from
merchants to purchase commodities with which to traffic abroad through caravan
trade. These were the professionals largely responsible for conveying resources
such as metals, stone, and timber to the cities. In addition to these two
recurring professionals, the law code mentions a plethora of artisans,
including boatmen, ferrymen, builders, contractors, carpenters, hired
cultivators, livestock branders, cattle herders, shepherds,wagoners,
laborers, brick makers, weavers, seal cutters, jewel makers, smiths, leather
and basket makers. Cities were places where the activities of 'skilled
professionals' were typically found. According to the law code all dealings
between these professionals required the completion of formally witnessed
contracts.
SIDEBAR; THE
IMPORTANCE OF CONTRACTS
In one
instance a noble deposited bullion with another noble
for safekeeping. The law code asserts, “if he gave it for safekeeping without
witnesses and contracts and they have denied (its receipt) to him at the place
where he made the deposit, that case is not subject to claim" (123).
UNDERCLASSES IN THE LAW CODE
Typically
skilled professionals, including merchants and traders, began their careers as
slaves, or were otherwise of slave origin. They likewise purchased additional
slaves to work as laborers. The matter of fact acceptance of slavery remains
one of the most unfamiliar characteristics of ancient societies to modern
students. Slavery reflected the cold, harsh reality that even humans were
considered potential commodities in antiquity and were exploited for manifold
purposes -- from use as skilled and unskilled labor to abuse as sexual objects.
Investment in slaves reaped greater benefit the more unique skill the laborer
exhibited. The most highly prized slaves were those who could earn greater
profits for their masters, such as accountants, financiers, traders, jewelers,
gem cutters, not to mention, teachers, artists, performers philosophers,
gourmet cooks, prostitutes and undertakers. To hone these skills through
apprenticeship represented an investment that was more safely rewarded through
ownership of the apprentice's labor than by contracting out for the same.
Skills led to profits and from early antiquity slave owners came to understand
that they could reap more profit from their slave laborers by allowing them to
keep some small portion of their earnings. Over the course of a career a
skilled slave could expect to save a sufficient amount of profits eventually to
purchase his or her freedom. Manumission was a common component to slavery in
all ancient societies, some more than others as we shall see.
Where
did slaves come from? Largely from conquest in warfare.
Whole populations were enslaved by victorious kings and their armies. Rural
farming populations were probably the most vulnerable group since they could be
easily rounded up during razzias. During sieges of
cities on the other hand looting armies tended to eliminate the male
populations while enslaving females and children. Warfare, whether large scale like
this or small scale conflict between neighboring urban populations who took
prisoners and sold them to outside slave traders, was the main source of slave
labor in all eras. Other sources included debt-bondage and foundlings abandoned
by families who could not afford to raise them. Either way, through warfare,
financial exigency or impoverishment, slavery necessarily began under tragic
circumstances.
Seemingly at the bottom of Babylonian society stood a vast silent
population of farmers. Given the fact that they represented perhaps 85% of the overall
population it is disconcerting that we know so little about them. Presumably
uneducated and illiterate they tend to represent elements of "indigenous'
populations that sustained the cosmopolitan elites of the cities. Later
Hellenistic Greek sources would refer to the broad farming populations of the
rural landscape rather generically as the “laoi,” a
nameless, faceless population (typically autochthonous as opposed to the
immigrant Greek city dwellers) that tilled the land. Largely it would appear
that they worked incessantly in the fields not only to sustain their own
immediate families but also to provide surpluses to social elements who stood above them -- soldiers, priests, nobles, and
kings. Some significant portion of their yield was seized by the hierarchy in
the form of rent, taxes, tribute, and interest. Unlike skilled slaves, we hear
nothing about farmers growing rich and rising socially into higher status
orders. Their role in society tended to be fixed and their places "locked
in," that is, tied to the land. To make matters worse, they were usually
the element most threatened by the consequences of warfare, facing destruction
and plundering of their stored food supplies, cattle, and farms, not to mention
the very real threat of capture and enslavement. With little other recourse but
to labor and to pay taxes one may legitimately wonder why the rural population
so readily accepted its plight. Therein lies one of
the odd discontinuities that separate the attitudes of the ancient world from
the present one. Ancient farmers possessed what could best be described as a
'peasant' mentality. They saw the land and its proceeds as their means to
survival. Kings could come and go, cities could rise and fall, but so long as
the farmer maintained control over his land and its crops he could survive. In
essence, farmers were tied to the land but they were not slaves. Barring
warfare, they could not be bought and sold nor could their land be taken away
from them and given to someone else. Although we might say that they were tied
to the land they would have argued that they and only they had the right to
farm their particular allotments of land. This gave them a certain degree of
hold on their societies not to mention their own immediate futures. Hierarchies
depended on the back-breaking efforts of these rural populations to sustain
their urban societies. It was counter productive
actually to disturb them in any way apart from efforts at making sure the
maximum surplus possible had been attained from them. In the Ancient Near East
in particular farmers enjoyed the unique position of staying put, securely
harnessing the land, enjoying the benefits of family and community while
watching the recorded elements of society pass by. As societies grew
increasingly complex and empires came to control large swaths of distant rural
terrain, the dislocation between the laoi of local
farming communities and the ruling classes in distant urban centers became
extreme.
Status of Women in the Law
Code
The
stereotype, women were handed from the protection of their fathers to that of
their husbands, through exchange of dowry and a purchase price. All those not
existing under the protection of the family lived potentially in "ill
repute", for example, the case of woman wineseller
and hierodule or "nun" who entered a wine
shop. Nevertheless, there is evidence in the law code of female adultery,
divorce initiated by women, insanity protection for women, child support, and
inheritance protection. Hammurabi displayed a keen interest in protecting the
rights and resources of women, and displayed numerous examples of awareness for
the extenuating circumstances entailed by crimes of passion. Note punishments
for incest.
Despite
harsh character of social hierarchy, Hammurabi’s law code displayed a
conceptual understanding of equity.
SIDEBAR:
Babylonia in the Age of Hammurabi
Hammurabi's
Babylon - (based on description of 6th century BC Babylon)
The city
represented a vast square straddling the Euphrates River, surrounded by a broad
deep moat of water. There were 100 brazen gates, 25 per side, and numerous
right angle street intersections. The city was divided by the Euphrates; river
banks were supported by brick sustaining walls and equipped with quays. There
was one bridge. Herodotus describes the circuit wall as 400 stadia or 56 miles
in circumference. The outer wall was 50 cubits thick & 200 tall. Total area
represented 500 acres, surrounded by double walls of burnt brick so thick that chariots
could pass along its top. The Royal Procession way was 63 ft
wide, paved in red and white stone. The Ziggurat stood 300 ft.
at its base, and was 7 stories tall. The Palace contained 5 courtyards with
offices and a reception room. The River facade was terraced; by means of
subterranean waterworks a vast park was created on the rooftops overlooking the
Euphrates (i.e, hanging gardens). The estimated
Population stood in excess of 100,000.