The Origins and Ancient History of Wine

Food and Nutrition in History and Antropology

Patrick E. McGovern, Stuart J. Fleming, Solomon H. Katz, Patrick E. McGovern, Stuart J. Fleming, Solomon H. Katz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781135300944
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This volume presents contemporary evidence scientific, archaeological, botanical, textual, and historical for major revisions in our understanding of winemaking in antiquity. Among the subjects covered are the domestication of the Vinifera grape, the wine trade, the iconography of ancient wine, and the analytical and archaeological challenges posed by ancient wines. The essayists argue that wine existed as long ago as 3500 BC, almost half a millennium earlier than experts believed.
Discover named these findings among the most important in 1991. Featuring the work of 23 internationally known scholars and writers, the book offers the first wide ranging treatment of wine in the early history of western Asia and the Mediterranean. Comprehensive and accessible while providing full documentation, it is sure to serve as a catalyst for future research.

III

The History and Archaeology of Wine

The Near East and Egypt

CHAPTER 8

Fourth Millennium B.C. Trade in Greater Mesopotamia: Did It Include Wine?

Guillermo Algaze

1.
Introduction

The second half of the 4th millennium B.C. was a pivotal time in the development of complex societies in the Near East. Nowhere is this clearer than in the alluvial lowlands of southern Iraq, where Mesopotamian civilization had its origins. The process whereby this occurred is only beginning to be fathomed, but it is clear that communities in the southern Mesopotamian alluvium were expanding rapidly. Internally, this is discernible in the explosive growth of cities and their dependencies, as documented in surveys by Adams (1981). The city of Warka (ancient Uruk), for example, grew to an estimated 200 hectares by the Late Uruk period (Finkbeiner 1987), largely by incorporating rural populations from the surrounding countryside. Rapidly developing social and political differentiation is also observable within alluvial polities at this time. This may be inferred from architectural complexes at Warka and Eridu, where earlier prehistoric temples give way without interruption to ever more massive and complex Uruk administrative structures (Heinrich 1982; Safar et al. 1981). Other innovations include new forms of economic arrangements and record keeping, possibly for the first time in human history (Nissen 1985, 1986). Pertinent archaeological, representational, and textual evidence (such as Warka’s Archaic Texts) suggest that by the Uruk period the state held control of a portion of the means of production (encumbered labor) and of its surplus (Zagarell 1986), and that craft and occupational specialization on an industrial scale had been developed (Nissen 1970, 1976). These changes were accompanied by the creation of new forms of symbolic representation that were presumably needed to validate the transformations taking place in the realm of social and political relationships. In turn, this led to the creation of an artistic tradition and iconographical repertoire that was to set the framework for pictorial representation in Mesopotamia for millennia to follow.

The internal processes just described, however, could not and did not occur in isolation. Save for the products of irrigated agriculture and animal husbandry, the alluvial lowlands of southern Iraq are devoid of almost all the material requirements needed to sustain complex civilizations. Thus, while many endogenous factors may have contributed to the increasing complexity of societies in the Mesopotamian alluvium prior to and in the early stages of the Uruk period, the emergence of Sumerian city-states in the later part of the period was unintelligible outside of a framework of interaction with communities in the resource-rich areas at the periphery of the alluvium, principally in the Zagros highlands of Iran and the Taurus highlands of Anatolia. These regions supplied alluvial societies with the key commodities they required (principally metals and wood) and furnished alluvial elites with the prestige goods they demanded. Some evidence exists to suggest that wine may have been traded as part of this procurement effort, but more research is needed to clarify whether or not this was indeed the case.

Map 8.1. Trade routes in the late 4th millennium.

2.
Trading Settlements

The mechanisms whereby the needed resources were procured at the onset of Mesopotamian civilization have become clear only recently, largely as a result of an array of archaeological salvage programs necessitated by the construction of a number of dams alongside the most important waterways crisscrossing the fertile plains of northern Mesopotamia (Demirji 1987), northern Syria (van Loon 1967), and southeastern Anatolia (Ozdogan 1977; Algaze et al. 1991). This evidence has contributed to a more precise understanding of the nature, intensity, variety, and direction of contacts between communities in the southern Mesopotamian alluvium and surrounding areas in the Uruk period. As a result, it now appears certain that in the late 4th millennium B.C. Mesopotamian societies acquired the resources they needed by means of outposts placed at key junctions in the surrounding periphery. As I have argued at greater length elsewhere (Algaze 1989, 1993), these settlements served to mediate contacts between core and peripheral groups; no doubt to the long term benefit of the former, since commerce between the two groups was unequal by its very nature, involving as it did the exchange of core manufactured products for raw peripheral resources. Such outposts are often encountered in situations of initial contact between societies at markedly different levels of sociopolitical evolution, and allow well-organized core polities maximum access at minimal expense to less developed peripheries (Smith 1976).

Analysis of the locational circumstances of late 4th millennium Uruk Mesopotamian settlements in peripheral areas suggests that they occur only at selected nodes in connection with well established trade routes (Map 8.1). Three distinct types may be recognized, each characterized by material culture that is largely of southern Mesopotamian/southwestern Iranian Uruk affiliation: outposts, stations, and enclaves. Outposts are small isolated Uruk installations within indigenous sites in intermontane valleys that traverse the surrounding highlands. Attested examples include Godin Tepe (V) in the Kangavar valley of the Zagros, where a small Uruk fort dominating a larger local site was uncovered (Weiss and Young 1975; see chapter 4 by Badler, this volume), and Tepe Sialk (IV.1) near Kashan in the Iranian Plateau (Amiet 1985), each alongside the principal routes across the Iranian plateau.

Stations are also relatively small but are only found within the Mesopotamian plains, commonly along the principal routes in and out of the Mesopotamian alluvium, which followed the Tigris and the Euphrates northwards. Excavated examples include Hassek Höyük in southeastern Turkey (Behm Blancke et al. 1984) and Tell Qraya (Simpson 1988) in northeastern Syria, both along the Euphrates.

The enclaves are much larger than either of the preceding. Examples recognized thus far are urban in size, and appear to have been considerably larger and more complex than indigenous societies in the midst of which they were implanted. Enclaves are found principally at the intersection of the most important east/west overland routes across northern Mesopotamia and the main north/south waterways. Until now, none is attested away from the waterways. The best known, but by no means only examples, are Habuba Kabira-süd (Strommenger 1980) and the associated site of Jebel Aruda on the Euphrates in Syria (van Driel and van Driel-Murray 1979, 1983), Tell Brak on the Upper Khabur (Oates 1986), also in Syria, and Nineveh (Algaze 1986) on the Upper Tigris in northern Iraq. Best understood is Habuba Kabira-süd, where extensive horizontal exposures of Uruk levels were practicable. These exposures revealed that an earlier, apparently small and short-lived occupation was replaced by a well-planned fortified city, which was minimally 18 hectares in extent. Excavations at this site have exposed carefully laid-out streets and well differentiated residential, industrial, and administrative quarters—all apparently constructed as part of a single master plan. The material culture recovered at the site and at nearby related settlements such as Aruda and Arslan Tepe is wholly southern Mesopotamian in type, and leaves no doubt that their inhabitants were colonists from the southern lowlands (Strommenger 1980; Sürenhagen 1986) (Fig. 8.1).

Because of their carefully selected positions at locations of considerable transportational significance, it must be inferred that the network of Uruk enclaves, stations and outposts must have exercised considerable control over the flow of goods in and out of the alluvium, the highlands, and across the northern plains. Because of their isolated positions in the midst of an alien hinterland, however, it must be presumed that, initially at least, the less developed societies in the midst of which they were located were amenable to trade.

Figure 8.1. Uruk spouted jars and bottles from Period VIA levels at Arslan Tepe. Scale approximately 1:5 (after Palmieri 1989: fig. 3, 4–7.)

3.
The Nature of the Trade: Imports

If the primary rationale of Uruk outposts in the periphery was indeed trade, then what exactly were the commodities being traded? The answer may be inferred from two complementary data sets: (1) the range of imported peripheral resources in Uruk sites, and (2) traces of Uruk material culture in peripheral sites attesting to contacts with the Uruk world, contacts that were no doubt mediated through the outposts and enclaves described above. While some of the commodities imported into the Uruk core in the late 4th millennium had been imported before, their variety—and presumably quantity—in Uruk times appear to represent a sharp increase over previous conditions, although, admittedly, fully representative and quantifiable samples are not yet generally available. The imported commodities may be divided into two types: (1) essential, unprocessed resources that are necessary for the day-to-day operation of complex social organizations in the resource-poor alluvial regions, and (2) non-utilitarian, prestige commodities that are necessary for the consolidation and maintenance of social and political relationships within elite groups.

Of all the essential resources brought in by Uruk societies, the most difficult to discern in the archaeological record is wood. There can be no doubt, however, that timber must have been imported in substantial quantities to satisfy the architectural requirements of rapidly growing Uruk urban centers (Margueron 1992). It is likely that the eastern Taurus region of the Anatolian highlands was the primary source. Trunks cut in the Malatya and Keban areas could have been easily and cheaply floated downstream on the Euphrates (Rowton 1967), and this may well have been a factor influencing the location of Uruk enclaves along its banks. A second import that is difficult to detect, but of potentially considerable economic impact, was dependent labor: slaves acquired in exchange for other goods or as prisoners of war. The signs for slaves that are specifically stated to be of foreign origin (i.e., from the mountains) can be recognized already in the Archaic Texts from the Eanna Precinct at Warka (Eanna IV/III), which are partly contemporaneous with the Uruk outposts (Vaiman 1976).

More easily traced in the archaeological record are other essential imports, such as bitumen, common stones, and base metals—particularly copper, which figures prominently in the Archaic Texts (Nissen 1985). Copper objects, vessels, and tools are amply documented in Uruk contexts both in the Mesopotamian alluvium and in Khuzestan (Heinrich 1938, Lenzen 1958; Le Brun 1971, 1978), and numerous unworked copper lumps and metallurgical installations were recognized at Warka (Nissen 1970). Copper was obtainable either from sources in central Iran (Caldwell 1967) or in the Ergani Maden area of the eastern Taurus (de Jesus 1980). The importance of copper in the exchange networks of the late 4th millennium is additionally borne out by small amounts of Uruk pottery found at various indigenous sites which exploited known copper mines in Iran and Turkey, such as Tal-i-Iblis in Kerman (Caldwell 1967), Tepe Ghabrestan in Qasvin (Majidzadeh 1979), and Tepecik in the Keban/Altinova area (E...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Series Editor's Preface
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Acknowledgments
• List of Contributors
• I. Ancient Sayings About Wine
• II. Grapes and Wine: Hypotheses and Scientific Evidence
• III. The History and Archaeology of Wine The Near East and Egypt
• IV. The History and Archaeology of Wine The Mediterranean
• Bibliography
• Index