Early Antiquity

I. M. Diakonoff, Alexander Kirjanov

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780226144672
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

The internationally renowned Assyriologist and linguist I.
M. Diakonoff has gathered the work of Soviet historians in
this survey of the earliest history of the ancient Near East,
Central Asia, India, and China. Diakonoff and his
colleagues, nearly all working within the general Marxist
historiographic tradition, offer a comprehensive, accessible
synthesis of historical knowledge from the beginnings of
agriculture through the advent of the Iron Age and the Greek
colonization in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea areas.Besides discussing features of Soviet historical
scholarship of the ancient world, the essays treat the
history of early Mesopotamia and the course of Pharaonic
Egyptian civilization and developments in ancient India and
China from the Bronze Age into the first millennium B.C.
Additional chapters are concerned with the early history of
Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine, the Hittite civilization,
the Creto-Mycenaean world, Homeric Greece, and the Phoenician
and Greek colonization.This volume offers a unified perspective on early
antiquity, focusing on the economic and social relations of
production. Of immense value to specialists, the book will
also appeal to general readers.I. M. Diakonoff is a senior research scholar of ancient
history at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Leningrad
Academy of Sciences. Philip L. Kohl is professor of
anthropology at Wellesley College.

1
General Outline of the First Period of the History of the Ancient World and the Problem of the Ways of Development

I. M. DIAKONOFF

Preconditions for the Formation of the First Class Society

The genus Homo separated out of the rest of the animal kingdom roughly two million years ago. Our species, Homo sapiens sapiens, has existed at least since the end of the Middle Palaeolithic, some forty thousand years. From his ancestors, who belonged to more ancient human species, Homo sapiens sapiens inherited the ability to produce simple tools for labor. But for thirty thousand years of history, humans, with the aid of the tools they made, still derived benefits solely from nature, just like their ancestors; for thirty thousand years, they did not sow or reap. Their means of sustenance were gathering wild plants, hunting, and fishing, all of which are activities that are certainly work. In order to exist, however, it was not sufficient for them to merely produce the necessary work tools: they had to be reproduced. But they could not reproduce the products they had extracted from nature. For this reason, the life of human groups (communities usually based on kinship) depended largely on environmental conditions, such as climate, on the abundance or scarcity of game, and on pure luck. Successes alternated with periods of hunger; mortality was very high, especially for children and the elderly. The surface of the enormous planet was inhabited by very few people, and if their number increased at all, it did so very slowly; indeed, sometimes it may have even decreased.

This situation changed about ten to twelve thousand years ago, when in certain ecologically favored regions, some human communities learned to plant grain, ensuring their year-round food requirements, and to raise sheep, goats, and cattle, allowing for regular consumption of meat, as well as for provision of milk and cheese (curds). The domestic animals also provided leather, which was superior to that from hunted animals, and supplied wool, which people learned to spin and weave. Soon after, humans were able to abandon cave dwellings, twig and mud huts, or dugouts and to live in permanent houses made of clay or clay-coated rocks and, later, of adobe bricks. Community life became safer: the mortality rate decreased somewhat. Population growth, though never exceeding about 0.01 percent, became noticeable from generation to generation, and the first farmers and livestock herders began to expand gradually over the earth’s surface.

The first humans to achieve these successes inhabited the North Temperate Zone of the Eastern Hemisphere. This was the epoch when the great Ice Age was not yet over in northern Europe and Asia, but to the south of the glacial zone the cold dry climate of the Pleistocene had passed. A significant portion of the Eurasian landmass was covered by pine forests, separated from the glacial zone by a zone of tundra. The peninsulas of Italy, Greece, Asia Minor, and most of China were all covered with deciduous forests. The expanse of North Africa, Arabia, and other Near Eastern regions as far as northern China (covered today by dry steppes or scorched deserts) was mostly mixed forest and steppe. Farther to the south, in Africa, southern India, southern China, and Indochina, lush tropical forests were growing.

The partly wooded steppe regions were the most favorable areas for human life, but not everywhere even in this zone were the conditions sufficiently conducive for a transition to agriculture and livestock raising. A region was suitable when it offered wild grains appropriate for consumption and later for artificial sowing (as documented by N. I. Vavilov in 1926), as well as wild animals that could be domesticated. The first grains harvested in their wild state (aided by wooden or bone sickles with embedded flint blades) and later cultivated were barley and einkorn and emmer wheat. Wild stands of barley and these early wheats grew in the uplands of Asia Minor, Palestine, Iran, and southern Turkmenia, as well as in northern Africa. Other cereals were domesticated later. Though it is difficult to determine where this phenomenon occurred for the first time, it is certain that cereals were already being sown between the tenth and eighth millenia B.C. in Palestine, in Asia Minor, and on the western slopes of the Iranian uplands. In Egypt, along the Danube River, in the Balkans, and in southern Turkmenia, grains were being sown no later than the seventh to sixth millennia B.C. At about the same time, these regions saw the domestication of goats and sheep. (Late Palaeolithic hunters had tamed dogs much earlier.) Cattle and, sporadically, pigs were domesticated later. The standard of living improved even more during the eighth to sixth millenia B.C. when people learned to make polished stone tools, woven baskets, woven fabrics, and fired pottery, which permitted better food preparation and storage.

With the disappearance of the northern glaciers, the climate in the temperate zone of the Northern Hemisphere gradually became drier. Foothill agriculture depended less and less on natural rain irrigation and more on damned brooks channeled to the fields. For a long time, the population of the northern and southern forest zones was still very scanty and was not able to adopt the achievements of the inhabitants of the forest-steppe and the steppe-uplands; with the tools then available, it was still impossible to clear forests for tilling the land.

Archaeologists attribute significant technological progress to three important periods: to the final stage of the Old Stone Age—the Upper Palaeolithic—when Homo sapiens sapiens began to prevail; to the Mesolithic Age, which in the temperate zone coincides with the development of agriculture and animal husbandry; and to the Neolithic Age, which saw the development of polished stone implements and the invention of weaving and pottery. But even the most advanced Neolithic communities of northern Africa, the Near East, and the Middle East were unable to reach the level of production necessary for the creation of a civilization. The goal of their agricultural production and animal husbandry was, as before, solely to ensure the survival of the community and its members. Reserves were accumulated only for extreme emergencies, such as unexpected natural disasters. Working the soil with hoes made of stone or horn was very arduous, even in the softest of soils, and provided very meager, although reliable, nutrition. Domesticated goats and sheep still supplied only small quantities of wool and milk. Dairy products and milk had to be consumed quickly, because long-term storage methods were unknown. It was only in Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine that during the eighth to sixth millennia B.C., there arose wealthy villages with considerable populations and sometimes even surrounded by walls (which means that there was something to protect!). These, however, were exceptions, and the oldest of these cultures—Jericho in Palestine and Çatal-Hüyük in Asia Minor—did not develop into civilizations.

With the growth of agricultural populations in the foothills, some people had to migrate deeper and deeper into the steppes. As these clan or tribal groups migrated away from regions with more or less efficient pluvial or brook irrigation, animal husbandry became a more important factor in their economy, while the cultivation of barley and emmer wheat became economically less reliable and less important. However, since humans had not yet domesticated the horse or the camel, the shepherds were not able to manage the long seasonal migrations necessary for the restoration of the grassland used to graze sheep and cattle; that is, they were not nomads. And since they could not move too far away from water sources, they did not entirely abandon agriculture. When it became impossible to feed the animals as a result of the sheep and goats completely overgrazing the meager southern grasslands or after a catastrophic drought, the shepherds migrated to other places. Thus, during the eighth to the sixth millennia B.C., tribes speaking Afrasian (Afro-Asiatic, Semito-Hamitic) dialects (who, in the opinion of A. Yu. Militarev and V. A. Shnirelman, were the descendants of the Mesolithic population of the Near East) expanded over northern Africa and over the steppe regions of Western Asia (Arabia, Syria, and Upper Mesopotamia, where tribes of the Semitic language family of the Afrasian languge phylum had remained or had immigrated). Beginning with the fifth to third millennia B.C. (i.e., at the beginning of the age of metal), related groups speaking Indo-European languages migrated in different directions from their homeland. Their homeland was previously thought to be between the Elbe and the Vistula (eastern Germany and Poland), but more likely, one should locate it in more southerly areas nearer the Black Sea; for example, in the Danube Valley, the Balkans, or on the Eurasian steppes.¹ By the second millennium B.C., these tribes had passed their languages to the local populations affected by their movements, and these then have passed them on again, over a vast area stretching from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean.

Minor migrations contributing to the vast spread of language families were, of course, by no means fortuitous. They were mainly connected with secular fluctuations of the climate. Thus, the sixth and the late third to the second millennia B.C. were periods of drought that may have stimulated tribal migrations in search of better living conditions. Drought may have caused the decline of the Early Neolithic agricultural villages in Asia Minor and the rise of animal husbandry and agriculture in the still-forested Balkans or the Danube Valley. But in the fifth and fourth millennia B.C. the climatic conditions were more favorable; the mortality rate in the agricultural pastoral tribes decreased somewhat, and a relative population surplus was created. The population gradually spread in different directions within the general climatic zone favorable to the type of economy of such tribes.

It must be understood that the earth at that time was very thinly populated and that as shown by the data of historical linguistics, the migration of peoples did not result so much in the total destruction or displacement of native tribes as in the assimilation of the new arrivals with the natives, so that the wave of a further migration could differ ethnically, though not linguistically, from the original one. People who in the sixth and fifth millennia B.C. brought Afrasian languages deep into Africa and those who in the second to first millennia B.C. brought Indo-European languages to the shores of the Bay of Bengal (present-day Bangladesh) were not at all similar in their culture and physical features to those who started the first wave of migration of tribes engaged in agriculture and animal husbandry.

Although these relatively mobile pastoral tribes, who also always practiced some form of subsidiary agriculture, were not true nomads, one is justified in stating that the people permanently settled on fertile, irrigated land were a population group opposed to shepherds, cattle raisers, and semiagricultural transhumants; this separation or opposition represents the first great division of labor. Exchange was already established at this early age between the groups engaged in agriculture and those engaged in animal husbandry. Moreover, there was need for such an exchange even earlier, because even during the late Old Stone Age, no group of people was able to provide itself with all the necessities without exchange. Materials for exchange included relatively scarce stones suitable for making implements (flint and obsidian). Later, the newly discovered metals—gold, copper, and silver—began to be exchanged for various handiwork products, such as textiles. These exchanges involved several intermediaries and covered great distances.

We can trace several ways of the development of stratified (class) societies; each way depended on a specific combination of two economic sectors, and their ratio, in turn, probably depended on specific ecological conditions.

Societies in Early Antiquity: The First Way of Development

During the resettling of communities from the original agricultural centers (in the foothill regions of the Near and Middle East), other events took place imperceptibly. It is possible that they had an even greater significance for human history.

Between the sixth and third millennia B.C., agriculturalists settled the valleys of three great rivers in Africa and Asia: the Nile, the Lower Euphrates, and the Indus.² While part of the population belonging to agricultural communities in the foothills either was displaced or voluntarily migrated further into the steppes, a few were forced to retreat toward the plains of Lower Mesopotamia. There they found extremely unfavorable conditions owing to the periodic flooding of the land by three rivers—the Euphrates, the Tigris, and the Karun. All three flow through a desert area or through very hot and dry steppes where grain cannot be grown without artificial irrigation. Yet, all three rivers had yearly periods of flood, inundating vast areas for long periods of time and converting them into swamps. Thus, the fields were either flooded at the wrong time (during the spring harvest) or were parched by the sun once the floodwaters receded, making agriculture much less successful here than in the foothills, and food supplies much less secure. The Lower Euphrates Valley lacked building timber (only giant reeds were available) and stone suitable for manufacturing tools. Since there were also no metals, the inhabitants of this valley had to depend on implements made of reeds and clay or had to obtain stone by bartering with neighboring groups. Meanwhile, their neighbors had long since mastered copper smelting. The inhabitants of the Lower Euphrates also, of course, knew copper as an exotic material, but it was much more difficult for them, compared with other groups situated closer to the source areas, to obtain it through exchange. Many dozens of generations passed before the inhabitants of the great river valleys of Mesopotamia managed to take practical advantage of the floods for agricultural purposes. This then became the first victory of humans over the natural elements.

Control over the water supply was accomplished in various ways. In the Nile Valley of Egypt, the river begins to flood in June and remains at a high level until October. People learned to divide the fields with earthen dikes. After the trapped Nile floodwaters deposited their fertile silt, the water was released, leaving the trapped silt with enough moisture to serve as an excellent fertilizer not only for germination but also for the entire growing period of the grain. In Sumer (i.e., the Lower Euphrates Valley) the river overflowed its banks in the spring, but at rather irregular times. Its water was diverted to special reservoirs, and from there it was supplied to the fields several times during the growing season. Special methods of taming rivers were also employed on the Kerkheh, Karun, and Indus rivers (the last of which was brought under control only in the middle of the third millennium B.C.).

It must not be assumed that irrigation and land reclamation systems were being created for the entire lengths of the rivers; only local systems, such as were within the capabilities of a community or an association of a few communities, were developed. But this alone was an enormous accomplishment, which the inhabitants owed to persistence and cooperation. We do not know how this work was actually organized, because writing did not yet exist, and thus, no records have reached us. However, it has been noticed that in those areas where the creation of a productive agriculture required the cooperation of numerous communities at the earliest stages of civilization, the power and wealth of temples and cultic chiefs were much more conspicuous than in regions where agriculture was based on rain or stream irrigation, neither of which required large-scale work projects. It has, therefore, been postulated that the land improvement and irrigation tasks must have been placed under the management of the priests. This is reasonable, since the task of the priests was to ensure the general well-being of the community by way of cultic activities and propitiation of deities. Considering the Weltanschauung or Weltgefühl at the level of human development in those times, cultic actions were no less important and effective than technical ones, and it was only natural to put the most respected and wisest persons in charge of organizing both the cultic activities and the technical enterprises. The priest-chief, precursor of kings, is represented on some of the most ancient reliefs of Egypt and Sumer performing an agricultural ceremony, and this is significant.

Mastering fluvial irrigation at that level of development of the forces of production (the Chalcolithic Age) was possible only where the soil was sufficiently soft, the riverbanks not too steep and rocky, and the river flow not too swift. This meant that many rivers, including the Tigris, Araxes, Kura, Syr Darya, and Amu Darya rivers, were not suitable for the creation of irrigation-based societies, not even where they flowed through subtropical desert, desert-steppe, steppe, and forest-steppe country. People began to make use of their waters only during much later periods.

But where organized fluvial irrigation was feasible and where the soil was composed of fertile silt deposits, harvests began to increase rapidly. The growth of labor productivity also contributed to more abundant harvests. In addition to tilling with hoes, plowing was practiced (with donkeys or with oxen). There was an overall improvement in soil-working techniques, and these techniques have remained almost unchanged through millennia. In Egypt and Sumer by the end of the fourth millennium B.C., harvest yields had increased tenfold to twentyfold. This meant that each person began to produce significantly more than needed for personal sustenance. The increased harvests were also especially conducive to the development of livestock raising. And a well-developed livestock economy contributed to an even higher standard of living. The community was then able to feed not only the laborers but also those incapable of production, such as children and the elderly, and to create a reliable food reserve, as well as to free some of the able-bodied from agricultural work. This labor reserve fostered the rapid growth of specialized crafts: pottery, textiles and basketry, shipbuilding, stonecutting, copper working, and so forth. The mastering of copper was of the utmost importance. Copper was first used as just another variety of stone, but eventually, it was forged and, finally, cast. Numerous implements and weapons that could not be made of stone, wood, or bone began to be manufactured from copper. Moreover, such objects could be remelted when broken and the raw metal used for new implements. The separation of the crafts from agriculture marked the second great division of labor.

The increased surplus of agricultural and livestock-raising products freed some of the community members from having to perform productive labor. Who were these people who could be so liberated and maintained at the expense of other people’s labor? The formation of a ruling class was certainly a complex and nonlinear process. Already in primitive society, the structure of human groups was not homogeneous. The primitive community could be divided into different age-groups and male, female, and cultic associations. Military leaders could keep their own personal armed followers, recruited from among the community members. Sometimes the lives of prisoners taken in skirmishes with neighbors were spared, and they were adopted into the households, acquiring the status of community members. In other cases, they became slaves. However, no antagonistic socioeconomic classes existed during the Chalcolithic Age. (By classes we mean here historically developed groups of pe...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1. General Outline of the First Period of the History of the Ancient World and the Problem of the Ways of Development
• 2. The City-States of Sumer
• 3. Early Despotisms in Mesopotamia
• 4. The Old Babylonian Period of Mesopotamian History
• 5. Sumerian Culture
• 6. The Predynastic Period and the Early and the Old Kingdoms in Egypt
• 7. The Middle Kingdom of Egypt and the Hyksos Invasion
• 8. The New Kingdom of Egypt
• 9. The Culture of Ancient Egypt
• 10. The First States in India and the Pre-Urban Cultures of Central Asia and Iran
• 11. Asshur, Mitanni, and Arrapkhe
• 12. Mesopotamia in the Sixteenth to Eleventh Centuries B.C.
• 13. The Hittite Kingdom
• 14. Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine in the Third and Second Millennia B.C.
• 15. The World of Crete and Mycenae
• 16. Greece of the Eleventh to Ninth Centuries B.C. in the Homeric Epics
• 17. Phoenician and Greek Colonization
• 18. India, Central Asia, and Iran in the First Half of the First Millennium B.C.
• 19. The First States in China
• 20. China in the First Half of the First Millennium B.C.
• Notes
• Maps
• Index