Week One - Pre-industrial Cities and Technology - Part 1 Ancient Cities

Chapter 1: The Near East
1:1 Introduction
This introduces the area known as the fertile crescent, a series of river valleys and alluvial plains stretching from the Tigress and Euphrates in Mesopotamia(modern Iraq) along the Jordan to the Nile in Egypt. It is suggested that urbanisation in this area from the fourth millennium BCE gave rise to the eventual urban developments in Europe. Mention is made of the difficulty in obtaining data from this period due to the variations in materials used, their requirements for preservation and the way in which the new is often built upon the old thus making it irretrievable.
Map showing fertile crescent.
















1:2 The emergence of cities: a technological revolution?
The beginnings of technology
This section recounts the activities of early humans during the Palaeolithic period emerging from Africa across the world, and the adaption by use of simple technologies to survive and provide food, shelter and warmth. As hunter-gatherers they were nomadic although mention is made of the cave dwellers (with wall paintings) in France. Population density would rarely have exceeded one person per ten square kilometres.

Childe's Neolithic Revolution
The historian Childe is quoted and his ideas and theories used in explaining the emergence of agriculture i.e. the growing of food, notably man choosing what to plant where and tending the plantation as opposed to gathering from wild pants. The domestication of animals used for food and clothing and as work beasts, such as pulling a plough or cart. The domestication of animals around 8,000 BCE with goats followed by sheep, cattle and pigs. This ability to greatly improve the productivity of food stuffs led to other specific skills such as pottery making and textiles. With the ending of the last ice age the climate in the fertile crescent was conducive to these agricultural developments along with plentiful supplies of wood.

Catal Huyuk and Jericho
A short section reviewing the discovery of these two large agricultural communities with populations of between 2,000 and 6,000. Claims have been made that these were the first cities but with no evidence of specialised occupations other than agriculture, it was thought they were essentially large agricultural villages.

Childe's Urban Revolution
This section specifically examines the development of marsh drainage and irrigation of plantations in Mesopotamia particularly along the river Euphrates and the emergence of the first cities in these areas, thanks to the plentiful and surplus food production, Such schemes required both a substantial work vision and workforce, and probably led to the emergence of the ruling classes who undertook and oversaw such projects. Mention is made of the ancient cities of Uruk and Ur. These areas however, didn't have a ready supply of all materials, and the section records the development of trade in items such as malachite and obsidian from neolithic villages and hunter-gatherers as far afield as Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean.

The technologies of the Urban Revolution
This section reviews the technologies required to bring about the urban revolution and to allow city life to develop. In a number of cases there is some dispute as to whether these technologies allowed cities to develop or if they developed because of cities.

• Metallurgy - the development in metal working and crafting, particularly of copper during the first half of the fourth millennium highlights the need for specialization of skills i.e. miners, smelters, smiths and the requirement for trade to obtain the ore particularly as this was not available close to the fertile crescent but from the mountains, and highland plateau's.


• Transport - the need to trade to obtain items meant surplus food stuffs needed to be moved and traded for items such as mineral ore. Initially this would be human carriers and pack animals such as donkeys and later mules (camels were not used until the first millennium). Transport routes were available along the river valleys, this also allowed the development of water transport with boats carrying and towing items such as timber.



• The Wheel - Childe records 'the wheel was the crowning achievement of pre-historic carpentry' (Bk1,p11). This was particularly used in areas with suitable domesticates (oxen etc) but needed level, durable roads.
  

The production of surplus food and its requirement to support trade, merchants, transporters, specialists, craftsmen etc also led to an increased need for recording and the communication of information. This and the desire to protect settlements, trade routes, merchants or possibly to control and enforce rivals developed the military, which further developed metallurgy and weaponry. These combined forces brought about the stratification of society, hierarchy and monarchy.

Activity -According to Childe, the main technological preconditions of the Urban Revolution included: the cultivation of plants; the domestication of animals; irrigation and other water-management technologies; household crafts (pottery, carpentry, textiles); metallurgy; wheeled carts and wagons; sailing ships; and the beginnings of information technology (writing, weights and measures, numerals, clay tablets and reed styluses). (SG1,p8)

Administrative clay tablet, Uruk Era

1:3 The emergence of cities: a social revolution?

In the previous sections, written much from the view of Childe, technological innovations are regarded as the fundamental issue in bringing about an urban revolution, and the emergence of cities. This section introduces us to an alternative view as put forward by Adams that social changes were fundamental to this revolution. Mention is also made that Childe focuses on the developments in Mesopotamia whereas these technological innovations were simultaneous in many areas and can be viewed not as a revolution but ongoing development. A view is also expressed that many of the social aspects of urbanisation were already in place scattered throughout the rural communities.

Technological determinism
This section reviews the different views held by historians on the issues regarding technological and social innovation in bringing about urban development. Much emphasis is placed on the views as to whether or not technological innovation is autonomous or part of a wider social issue. 'This ascription to technology of a fundamental role in the dynamics of historical change is commonly labelled technological determinism' (bk1,p15) Mention is also made of humans free will in accepting and applying or not applying technology.

Technology and society:some alternative approaches

This section focuses on historians who have taken a more all encompassing view of both the technological and social influences. 'They are ready to move towards a synthesis of technological determinism and social constructivism, whereby socially shaped technologies are accorded their due weight as instruments of social change' (Bk1,p18).

The Wittfogel thesis

Wittfogel's thesis is that the need in Mesopotamia to drain swamps and control rivers was the prime cause of the autocratic nature of its government. By implication it supports the view that the need for centralizing water management prompted the social organisation necessary for the emergence of cities. This is part of the deep differences between historians over the relationship between irrigation technology and the origins of cities. Many scholars think that such major projects would have required the previous and political structure, and think that the emergence of the city in Sumer and a centralized monarchy in Egypt preceded the achievement of irrigation on a large scale.

The function of cities

The debate about the causes of the emergence of cities overlaps with another about the primary function of the first cities: did they originate for environmental, technological, economic, military or religious reasons. Many appear to have developed at religious sites, an idea supported by many archaeological excavations, showing a temple with a city around it. Others appear to be dwellings around a military establishment, but this could be because of the durability of the military and religious buildings. Many cities were renowned for the presence within them of one or two main technologies e.g. glassware, pottery etc and it is likely that these were the reasons for development in transport, trade and a market place for the buying and selling of food. The emergence of cities linked to anyone of these central features is not consistent throughout the world and the debate between technological determinism and social constructivism is one that continues throughout this course.

Extract 1.1 Oates (Book1,p43)

In this extract Oates makes the point that it was within the areas less favoured environmentally that the urbanisation and cities developed. This he says was due to the fact that technology needed to be developed and applied to improve the agricultural output. This led to surplus and the opportunity for specialisation in occupations and the requirement for administrators etc. to oversight the application of technology (irrigation) and food surplus distribution. The lack of local resources also led to trade development and an outward looking political view.

1.2 Extract Flannery (Bk1,p44) - The 'rank revolution'

This extract reviews Childe's conclusions of the evolution of society brought about by improved technology and surplus food production and his egalitarian (socially equal) view of these societies. The article sees Childe as ignoring warfare and violence and the 'rank' revolution that established social divisions, clan chiefs and elite groups etc. The point is made that in Peru and Mexico complex cities and urban communities developed with outstanding buildings etc without having achieved the agricultural surpluses discusses by Childe.

1.3 Extract - Butzer (Bk1,p45)

This extract reviews the theories put forward by Chide and Wittfogel regarding agricultural development particularly irrigation and water management. It claims that both took something of a Marxist historian view, but that their work has led to increased investigations into the development of Urban societies and their socio-political structures.

Reader Urban Origins: A Review of Theories by Harold Carter

'Social scientists, including historians and archaeologists, have proposed four explanations for the emergence of towns:

1. Hydraulic theories or environmental bases to urbanism;

2. Economic theories or the growth of markets;

3. Military theories or growth about defensive strong-points;

4. Religious theories or growth about shrines.

The article reviews each of these points but concludes in quoting Wheatley by saying 'It is doubtful if a single autonomous, causative factor will ever be identified in the nexus of social, economic and political transformations which resulted in the emergence of urban forms ... whatever structural changes in social organization were induced by commerce, warfare or technology, they needed to be validated by some instrument of authority if they were to achieve institutionalized permanence.' (Reader,p13)

Questions:

1. What are the main objections to Childe's concept of an Urban Revolution?

a) Doubts about accuracy of evidence.

b) Too much emphasis on the idea that technologies spread, they may have been invented independently in several places.

c) Word 'revolution' is inappropriate for changes taking place gradually.

d) Suggestion that Childe exaggerated technological innovations to explain the origins of cities.

2. How do 'technological determinism' and social constructionism' differ, and how might they be reconciled?

a) Technological determinist's focus on the effects of technology. They see societies characteristics caused and changed by technology.

b) Social constructionists focus on the origins of technology seeing successful technology not as the outcome of an objective process but as a compromise between interested social groups.

c) Some social historians seek to combine the emphasis on effects and origins both views being given their due weight in explanations of social change.

3. What are the main objections to technological determinism and social constructionism?

Arguments as in 2, however other historians see both as too narrow a focus and underestimating the importance of human agency in the process of social negotiation.

4. Which of the following authors come closest to technological determinism, and which are furthest away: Adams, Butzer, Carter, Childe, Flannery, Hodges Oates, Wittfogel?

Although some of these historians favour one argument against the other, all of them can be interpreted as keeping something of an open mind. Technological determinists would appear to be Childe, Wittfogel, Oates and Hodges. Adams, Flannery and Butzer more social constructionists. Carter occupies the middle ground taking a much wider view of a number of possible contributing factors, which all tend to be circular arguments i.e. chicken and egg debates.

1.4 Technology and city-building in Mesopotamia

This section includes a guide to the chronological periods in ancient Mesopotamia from 5,000 BCE. It introduces two analytical concepts used by urban geographers urban morphology which is the study of the layout and physical form of a city and land-use, the question of whether the function of a building or district of a city is for example, residential, commercial, industrial or public. There is then a brief description of the layout of an early Sumerian city.

Building technology and building types

This section looks at the types of building materials used in cities such as Uruk and Ur in Mesopotamia, which lacked large resources of wood and building stone. The main material used was mud-brick usually sun-baked, which did not give much protection against erosion. Fired or baked bricks were much better -preserved. This section also looks at early building techniques which developed the brick arch and vault. Relationship is noted between the building of defences and walls and development of technology for warfare. Cities were built in layers, the temple perched at the top of several layers which were known as ziggurats. These mud cities have overtime eroded into mounds known as tels. The various layers of the numerous temples build at Uruk which cover the cities 5,000 year history, show an increasing technological ability in decoration with materials such as mother of pearl, stone and shell friezes and copper over a bitumen core. It records that there developed in various city states and empires a strong form of monarchy and that the centralisation of power is a recurrent feature of these early urban civilisations.

ziggurat at Ur (dating from the Third Dynasty of Ur).

Transport

A note on the manner in which modes of transport or lack of them influenced the physical form and fabic of cities. The early cities in this chapter appear to have accommodated no form of wheeled transport only pedestrians and pack animals.

Water supplys

It is noted that each city was located by a freshwater spring and that water was raised from wells that were usually lined with baked bricks, there was also storage in the form of cisterns. In later history of the Ancient Near East there appeares earthenware pipes, masonary sewers, water closets and drains in the rule of Sennecherib (c.704-681 BCE). It mentions the Syrian empires based in Assur, Nimrud and Ninevah. There is considerable detail given of the construction and planning of Nebuchadnezza's Babylon mentioning the Tower of Babel and the Hanging Gardens.

Reader 2 Bricks and Brickmaking in Mud and Clay - P.S.R. Moorey

This article reviews brick manufacture and use.

Reader 3. History - Herodotus

Amazing record by the Greek historian of the feats of engineering and construction and to a lesser extent of the lifestyle of the Babylonians and of the pyramid construction in Egypt.

Wiki link on Herodotus

Activity

1. What were the main technologies of ancient Mesopotamian cities?

'The principle materials of city-building were bricks, mortar and plaster made from mud; reed matting and bitument were also used to bind and to waterproof brick walls. Using this earth-based method of construction, Mesopotamian builders developed some of the fundamental structural forms of architectural technology - arches, vaults and domes. The main source of energy was human muscle power, as Roger Moorey makes clear in his description of brick-making. This was sometimes extended by mechanical devices such as levers and pulleys, or supplemented by draught- and pack- animals. The most important mode of transport was by water; the Mesopotamians were often very ingenious in adapting to the difficulties invloved in moving goods on the Tigris and Euphrates, as in evident from Herodotus' account of the transport of wine to Babylon (paragraph 194). Chemical energy was harnessed for crafts such as metalworking, pottery, baking, brewing and dyeing. In the later history of the ancient Near East, some cities invested in drainage systems and piped water supply.

2. In what ways can these technologies be said to have ben socially shaped?

Irrigation and surplus production was probably shaped by either coercion from the ruling class or religious duty. A social context within construction is even more evident with effort and expense channelled into the construction of royal palaces, divine temples and massive walls and gates to protect the property of the élite. This is reinforced by the ceremonial image of the king as builder. (Bk1,p27,fig1.17).

3. How typical was Babylon of ancient Mesopotamia cities, and how reliable is Herodotus' description of it?

Babylon with its palaces, religious structures, defences and riverside location was typical of ancient Mesopotamian cities. Although granting some insight it is pointed out that the descriptions by Herodotus may have been secondhand and embellished.

4. Is Herodotus a primary or a secondary historical source?

First reaction may be that Herotus must be a primary source, as he was an ancient author. However, he was writing about Nebuchadnezza's Babylon well over a hundred years later, and so should realy be regarded as a secondary soource for that subject. This all goes to show that the distinction between primary and secondary sources is a relative one, in that a given source can be primary with regard to one topic and secondary to another, Herodotus would certainly be regarded as a primary source for an account of Greek travel, and also for many aspects of Greek history.

Audio Activity

1. What does the programme add to your knowledge of Babylonian technologies?

'It illustrates one use of animal power in agriculture (mules for threshing), and an aspect of irrigation technology (the irrigation wheel in the palm grove). It shows how bitumen was sometimes used as mortar, and illustrates the Babylonians' skill in producing glazes of various colours. You are given details of the construction of Babylon's bridge (to add to the information furnished by Herodotus) and the kind of sanitary arrangements found in the best-appointed Babylonian buildings'.

2. What does it tell you about the political, religious and environmental contexts of these technologies?

Emphasizes the role of a centralized numerate administration. It also provides a view of the religious context of building construction. The ideological impetus is conveyed in the subordinate relationship of all to the city god e.g. Marduk, even the king who has to account yearly for his stewardship. Significance of environment highlighted by contrast between irrigated and non-irrigated land and the forward looking use of scarce timber in house-building.

Detail from the 'Ur-Nammu Stela' found at Ur, showing King Ur-Nammu (c2112-2095) ceremoniously carrying the tools of a builder.

1.5 Egypt: a civilisation without cities?

This section reviews the evolution of civilisation in Egypt and makes comparions with the same in Mesopotamia. The ecological and environmental situation differs greatly from our earlier studies. Egypt consists at its heart of a fertile strip no wider that 50kms running along the banks of the Nile, and into the marshlands of the Nile delta. The Nile follows a regular flooding pattern and this sequence became a vital element in the devlopment of agriculture. The application of technology to overcome difficulties was not required in the same manner and hence irrigation although used to improve crop production was not needed as in Mesopotamia. The Nile with its gentle northern flow and southerly wind direction became the highway of Egypt and led to the development of boats and sails, allowing traffic in both directions. Other technologies such as the wheel appear to have come to Egypt from other areas e.g. the Levant. There is little evidence to support any major cities in the Nile valley, but there still emerged the Pharohic rulers and a social stratification.

Building Technology

As in Mesopotamia the most common building material was sun-dried mudbricks which appear to have been used in all buildings other than funery buildings i.e. pyramids and for any buildings needing to be durable and weatherproof. This availablitiy of stone appears to have stopped the development of kiln-fired bricks. The outcome of this is that what survives today are primarily the pyramids and objects that point towards an Egyptian obsession with the after-life, as many of the ordinary buildings have disappeared. The article records considerable information on the pyramid building projects and from the pyramids explains that more detailed information is available on the development of craft skills and technologies in Egypt from their wall illustrations. The bulk of the population lived in rural agricultural villages divided into areas known as 'nomes' each with a Pharaoh appointed govenor. Each Pharaoh tended to build their own capital for each 'nome' so prolonged settlement of one site to develop into a city was unusual. Memphis in the Lower Nile area appears to be an exception.

Thebes

This section looks at the 'city' of Thebes (not to be confused with the city of Thebes on the Greek mainland), although there is debate as to whether this was a true city or a community of officials and workmen connected with the palace, temples and tombs dedicated to the after-life of the Pharoah. It was the princes of Thebes who reunited the country and inaugurated the Middle Kingdom bringing prosperity and building activity that resulted in 'the first known major city to be laid out on axial lines in ancient times' (Bk1,p39). It is also here that the 'New Kingdom' Karnak temple complex is found with its huge stone columns and temple buildings. Alongside this has been discovered the evidence of an original mud walled settlement thought to have been the workmans town.

Reading 4 Deir El-Medina by A.R. David

This is primarily a detailed account of the town which was purpose built for housing workmen and craftsmen working on the nearby pyramid. It describes both the construction of the town and the lifestyle and conditions experienced by the inhabitants.

1.6 Conclusion

This chapter considers the emergence of Near East cities and highlights the debate on the roles of technological determinism and social constructionism in their development. It further states that environmental and geographical influences cannot be uncoupled from technological development but that the main issue as for the physical form and fabrics of cities is concerned with the social relations of technology.