The 4th millennium saw a new stage in the political development of Near Eastern society after the Neolithic: political power grew stronger, more organised, more centralised, and more visible in the use of space and in art, culminating in the development of a true state by the end of the period. It lasted from around 3000 to 2900 BC. In, Postgate, N. A first group of developments took place in the field of cereal cultivation, followed by the invention of the ard—a wooden plough pulled by an animal (ass or ox)—towards the end of the 4th millennium BC, which enabled the production of long furrows in the earth. With its high transport capacity (about double that of a human), it enabled the further development of trade over short and long distances. Hacinebi and the Uruk Expansion: Additional Comments [article] ... and d) Uruk material is present from the very beginning of phase Bl. On the details and range of changes in this foundational period in Mesopotamia in relation to other civilizations, see especially the contributions in M. Lamberg-Karlovsky (ed. From Telloh, ancient city of Girsu. The Uruk period saw a notable renewal, which accompanied substantial changes in the symbolic sphere. Terracotta with red slip, ca. This theory thus leads the problem of the origin of cities back to the problem of origin of the state and of inequality. Each of these models has been identified as representing a certain numerical value, or a specific type of merchandise. These first two phases are poorly known, and their chronological limits are poorly defined; many different chronological systems are found in scholarship. ... Mientres l'apoxéu d'Uruk, ... gobernábense como colonies. A final remarkable work of the artists of Uruk III is the Mask of Warka, a sculpted female head with realistic proportions, which was discovered in a damaged state, but was probably originally part of a complete body.[141]. El 1810 aC, va Depuis la découverte en Syrie des sites de Habuba Kabira et de Djebel Aruda dans les années 1970, qui ont rapidement été considérés comme des colonies ou comptoirs des porteurs de la civilisation d'Uruk partis s'installer loin de leurs terres, on s'est interrogé sur la nature des relations entre la Basse Mésopotamie et les régions voisines. "The Archaeology of Mesopotamia: Ceremonial centers, urbanization and state formation in Southern Mesopotamia". Uruk fou ocupada pels elamites dirigits pel rei de Simash i, el 1998 aC, va passar a mans d'Isin. 92 les relacions. Sculpture followed the style and themes of seals. Following the same principle, phonetic signs were created (phonograms, one sign = one sound). The term Uruk period was coined at a conference in Baghdad in 1930, along with the preceding Ubaid period and following Jemdet Nasr period. [85] The preceding Ubayd period marked the beginning of what is known as the chalcolithic or 'copper age', with the beginning of production of copper objects. Voir plus d'idées sur le thème histoire des noirs, royauté africaine, histoire de l'afrique. Thus, it increasingly appears that the region's neighbouring Lower Mesopotamia did not wait for the Urukians in order to begin an advanced process of increasing social complexity or urbanisation, as the example of the large site of Tell Brak in Syria shows, which encourages us to imagine the phenomenon from a more 'symmetrical' angle. Although the quality was low, the diversity of shapes and sizes became more important than previously, with the diversification of the functions served by pottery. Cylinder-seal of the Uruk period and its impression, c.3100 BCE. The material culture has some traits which are shared with that of Late Uruk and Susa II. Search metadata Search text contents Search TV news captions Search radio transcripts Search archived web sites Advanced Search The donkey enabled the system of caravans that would dominate trade in the Near East for the following millennia, but this system is not actually attested in the Uruk period. ), harv error: no target: CITEREFJoannès_(ed. Els nens/es es veuran submergits en aquest context de la mà d’algun famós director actual i d’un actor o actriu de renom. Outside Uruk, few sites in southern Mesopotamia have yielded levels contemporary with the Uruk period. [7] Període Uruk XVIII Eridu (c 5000 aC); fundació d'Uruk. The invention of such a system required reflection on the image and the different senses that a sign could bear, notably for representing the abstract.[137]. The relative decline in the cultivation of flax for linen freed land for the growth of cereals as well as sesame, which was introduced to Lower Mesopotamia at this time and was a profitable replacement for flax since it provided sesame oil. [98] He is also found in victory scenes accompanied by prisoners or structures. The Uruk period is traditionally divided into many phases. [16] In Lower Mesopotamia, the researchers identify this as the Jemdet Nasr period, which sees a shift to more concentrated habitation, undoubtedly accompanied by a reorganisation of power;[13][17] in southwestern Iran, it is the Proto-Elamite period; Niniveh V in Upper Mesopotamia (which follows the Gawra culture); the "Scarlet Ware" culture in Diyala. Fassbinder, Jörg W. E.; Becker; Van Ess; Helmut Becker, Margarete van Ess (2003). Further north, in the Zagros, the site of Godin Tepe in the Kangavar valley is particularly important. 3400–3200. [121], Seals were used to secure merchandise that had been stocked or exchanged, to secure storage areas, or to identify an administrator or merchant. It rapidly transitions to LC 5 (Late Uruk), which continues until 3000 BC. The region around Susa in the southwest of modern Iran, is located right next to lower Mesopotamia, which exercised a powerful influence on it from the 5th millennium BC, and might be considered to have been part of the Uruk culture in the second half of the 4th millennium BC, either as a result of conquest or a more gradual acculturation, but it did retain its own unique characteristics. Paléorient 39(1): 15–22. 2015 - La Mésopotamie (du grec Mesopotamíos, le pays « entre les fleuves ») est une région historique du Moyen-Orient située dans le Croissant fertile, entre le Tigre et l'Euphrate. [99] These works also foreground an authority figure who carries out military exploits and manages religious cults. The best known site is Habuba Kabira, a fortified port on the right bank of the river in Syria. series a2 = idu . These texts were misunderstood by their first publisher in the 1930s, Adam Falkenstein, and it was only through the work of the German researchers Hans Nissen, Peter Damerow and Robert Englund over the following 20 years that substantial progress was made. We are therefore poorly placed to evaluate the impact of the development of southern Mesopotamia, since we have almost no archaeological evidence about it. Pottery was simply coated with slip to smooth the surface and decoration became less and less complex until there was basically none. 331-344: Humanities 367: offprint files: Amiet, P. 1986: L'age des échanges inter-iraniens: Humanities 367: offprint files: Amiet, P. 1992 [2] The late Uruk period (34th to 32nd centuries) saw the gradual emergence of the cuneiform script and corresponds to the Early Bronze Age; it has also been described as the "Protoliterate period". ser ocupada per Larsa i el 1763 aC va passar a Babilònia. The excavators of the site wanted to see them as 'temples', influenced by the fact that in the historic period, the Eanna was the area dedicated to the goddess Inanna and the other sector was dedicated to the god An. Uruk period vase. [75] As for the date palm, we know from archaeological discoveries that these fruits are consumed in Lower Mesopotamia in the 5th millennium BC. It has proven difficult to make the levels at different sites correspond closely enough to attribute them to a single period, making the elaboration of relative chronology very complicated. [46], Several sites have been excavated in the Euphrates valley in the south east of Anatolia, near the region of the Urukian sites of the middle Euphrates. Two standardised forms of molded mud-brick appear in these buildings from Uruk: little square bricks which were easy to handle (known as Riemchen) and the large bricks used to make terraces (Patzen). P. Butterlin has proposed that the links tying southern Mesopotamia to its neighbours in this period should be seen as a 'world culture' rather than an economic 'world system', in which the Uruk region provided a model to its neighbours, each of which took up more adaptable elements in their own way and retained some local traits essentially unchanged. Va arribar fins al punt d’establir noves colonies fora dels seus territoris immediats. The religious universe of the Late Uruk period is very difficult to understand. The scribal class were involved in understanding and managing the state, in the exploitation and production capacity of the fields, troops, and artisans, for many years, which involved the production of inventories, and led to the construction of true archives of the activities of an institution or one of its subdivisions. These are clay balls on which a cylinder seal has been rolled, which contain tokens (also referred to as calculi). University of Arizona Press, … Their scribes produced administrative documents relating to the management of land, the distribution of rations (barley, wool, oil, beer, etc.) [115], In the Late Uruk period, the urban site of Uruk far exceeded all others. They also began to waterproof the bricks with bitumen and to use gypsum as mortar. Les Temps Proto-Urbains de Mésopotamie: Contacts northern borders of Greater Mesopotamia. [138] This is visible primarily in the artistic media: the forms of pottery became more rudimentary, after the development of the potter's wheel, which allowed mass-production without a focus on decorative elements. [117][118] This model of a house with a central space remained very widespread in the cities of Mesopotamia in the following periods, although it must be kept in mind that the floor plans of residences were very diverse and depended on the development of urbanism in different sites. Tell Brak has also produced evidence of writing: a numeric tablet and two pictographic tablets showing some unique features in comparison to those of southern Mesopotamia, which indicates that there was a distinct local tradition of writing. The most remarkable find are over two hundred "eye figurines" which give the building its name. In any case, the wheel spread extremely rapidly and enabled the creation of vehicles that enabled much easier transport of much larger loads. [89] Towards the end of the Uruk period, cylinder seals depict sleds, which had hitherto been the most commonly depicted form of land transport, less and less. The 'Eye Temple' (as its final stage is known) has walls decorated with terracotta cones which form a mosaic and with inlays of coloured stones and a platform which might have been an altar and is decorated with gold leaf, lapis lazuli, silver nails, and white marble in a central T-shaped room. Sota els Harmansah, Ömür (2007-12-03). [102], With respect to this development of a more centralised control of resources, the tablets of Late Uruk reveal the existence of institutions that played an important role in society and economy and undoubtedly in contemporary politics. series a2 || A = naqu; MSL 14, 201ff.. AAA: Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology (Liverpool 1908 -1948) . At some other sites, construction from this period has been found, but they are usually known only as a result of soundages. Abstract. The sacred quarter of Eridu, site of the main monumental structures of the Ubaid period in Lower Mesopotamia, is poorly known for the Uruk period. Uruk va mantindre una gran organització administrativa i social, o el que es podria anomenar un “protoestat”. Art also reflected a society more heavily shaped by political power, and religious cults grew more impressive and spectacular than previously. It is possible that these sites were part of a state implanted in the region by people from south Mesopotamia and were developed in order to take advantage of important commercial routes.[42]. [61], Other explanations avoid political and economic factors in order to focus on the Uruk expansion as a long term cultural phenomenon, using concepts of koine, acculturation, hybridity and cultural emulation to emphasise their differentiation according to the cultural regions and sites in question. [124] But this is very contested because there is no obvious correspondence between the tokens and the pictograms that replaced them. ), Centre et Péripherie: Approches Nouvelle des Orientalistes, Actes du Colloque Organisé par l'Institut du Proche Orient Ancien du Collége de France, la … Fragments of clay cones from a wall mosaic were found. [14], Some other chronological proposals have also been put forward, such as by the ARCANE team (Associated Regional Chronologies for the Ancient Near East).[15]. However, although long-distance trade is undoubtedly a secondary phenomenon for the south Mesopotamian states compared to local production and seems to follow the development of increased social complexity rather than causing it, this does not necessarily prove a process of colonisation. Some religious installations like altars and basins have been found here. The monumental architecture is more imposing than that of the preceding period; 'Temple D' of Eanna covers around 4600 m2—a substantial increase compared to the largest known temple of the Ubayd period, level VI of Eridu, which had an area of only 280 m2—and the Eanna complex's other buildings cover a further 1000 m2, while the Ubayd temple of Eridu was a stand-alone structure. and are characteristic of Mesopotamian civilization. L'altiplà iranià durant aquest període contempla la formació d'una espècie de koiné : totes les cultures diferents que sorgeixen tenen relació entre elles, i les influències recíproques són fortes. J.-D. Forest, "The State: The Process of State Formation as Seen from Mesopotamia," S. Pollock and R. Bernbeck (ed.). University of Mainz, Germany. [50][51] But in this region, the Urukian influence becomes increasingly ephemeral, as one gets further from Mesopotamia. The latter come in various forms: balls, cones, rods, discs, etc. [45] Nearby, Tepe Gawra, which was also important in the Ubayd period, is an important case of the changing scale of monumental architecture and of political entities between the end of the 5th millennium and the first half of the 4th millennium BC (Level XII to VIII). Scholarship is therefore interested in this period as a crucial step in the evolution of society—a long and cumulative process whose roots could be seen at the beginning of the Neolithic more than 6000 years earlier and which had picked up steam in the preceding Ubayd period in Mesopotamia. From Telloh, ancient city of Girsu. The development of religious thought in this period remains very poorly understood. Some bas-reliefs are found on steles like the 'Hunt stele'[98] or the great alabaster vase representing a scene of a man giving an offering to a goddess, undoubtedly Inanna. During the first half of the 4th millennium BC, this site was dominated by a building called 'Temple C' by the excavators, which was built on a platform. Urnamu es va proclamar rei i va heretar així With the development of institutions and long-distance trade, their use became widespread. Lower Mesopotamia is the core of the Uruk period culture and the region seems to have been the cultural centre of the time because this is where the principle monuments are found and the most obvious traces of an urban society with state institutions developing in the second half of the 4th millennium BC, the first system of writing, and it is the material and symbolic culture of this region which had the most influence on the rest of the Near East at this time. The site was abandoned at the end of the 4th millennium BC, apparently without violence, during the period when the Uruk culture retreated. The majority of the texts of the Uruk period are concerned with management and accounting, so it is logical to imagine that writing was developed in response to the needs of the state institutions which engaged in more and more management over time, since it offered the possibility of recording more complex operations and of creating an archive. (eds. Les nouvelles données provenant des sites de Girdi Qala et Logardan (Kurdistan d’Irak) commencent à offrir une image renouvelée de l’expansion de la culture d’Uruk, qui débute, dans le piémont mésopotamien du Zagros central, dès la seconde moitié du Chalcolithique récent 2 local (LC2), contemporain de l’Uruk ancien du Sud mésopotamien. The material remains of the period are very limited, but beveled rim bowls, an accounting bulla, and a numerical tablet characteristic of the Late Uruk period have been found. Recent excavations have focused on sites outside Mesopotamia, as a 'periphery', and with an interest in how they related to the 'centre', which is paradoxically the region in this period which is least well-known—limited to the impressionistic discoveries of the monuments of Uruk. Parcourir les collections . The site covered roughly 40 hectares—the whole area of Tell Kuyunjik. It is likely that several of these explanations are relevant. According to M. Liverani, these replaced the earlier basins irrigated laboriously by hand. A little further north, is a third possibly Urukian colony, Sheikh Hassan, on the middle Euphrates. There is new progress in the development of state-societies, such that specialists see fit to label them as 'complex' (in comparison with earlier societies which are said to be 'simple'). Some residences from the period have been uncovered, along with pottery typical of Uruk, but what has received the most attention is a succession of monuments which are definitely for cultic purposes. [64] In the Levant there was no stratified society with embryonic cities and bureaucracy, and therefore no strong elite to act as local intermediaries of Urukian culture and as a result Urukian influence is especially weak. It is beyond doubt that this city too was built by 'Urukians'. M. Müller-Karpe, "Aspects of early metallurgy in Mesopotamia", S. Pollock, M. Pope and C. Coursey, "Household Production at the Uruk Mound, Abu Salabikh, Iraq,". Plan. [12][13] Its exact nature is highly debated, and it is difficult to clearly distinguish its traits from those of the Uruk culture, so some scholars refer to it as the "Final Uruk" period instead. In an urban society with a community so much larger than village societies, the relations with people outside the household became more distant, leading to this separation of the house. The causes and course of the origins of writing are disputed. It is probably best to understand an organisation in 'city-states' like those that existed in the 3rd millennium BC. Irrigation techniques also seem to have improved in the Uruk period. These are thus very hierarchical habitats, indicating the social differentiation that existed in the urban centres of the Late Uruk period (much more than in the preceding period). Whether these institutions were temples or palaces is debated. [20] It may also have become a highly populated and urbanised region in the 4th millennium BC,[21] with a social hierarchy, artisanal activities, and long-distance commerce. Terracotta, ca. Soundages carried out on the sites of most of the key cities of Mesopotamia in the historic period have revealed that they were occupied in this period (Kish, Girsu, Nippur, Ur, perhaps Shuruppak and Larsa, and further north in Diyala, Tell Asmar and Khafajah). It may have covered 230–500 hectares at its peak during the Late Uruk period, more than the other contemporary large settlements, and it may have had a population of between 25,000 and 50,000 people. This realism indicates a true shift, which might be called 'humanist', because it marks a turning point in Mesopotamian art and more generally a change in the mental universe which placed man or at least the human form in a more prominent position than ever before. [66], It might be added that an interpretation of the relations of this period as centre/periphery interaction, although often relevant in period, risks prejudicing researchers to see decisions in an asymmetric or diffusionist fashion, and this needs to be nuanced. The sources relating to the Uruk period derive from a group of sites distributed over an immense area, covering all of Mesopotamia and the neighbouring regions up to central Iran and southeastern Anatolia. [90][79], For transport at the local and regional level in Lower Mesopotamia, boats made from reeds and wood were crucial, on account of the importance of the rivers for connecting places and because they were capable of carrying much larger loads than land transport.[91]. This material co-exists with local pottery, which remains dominant throughout. Thus the old rural house was adapted to the realities of urban society. These problems are largely linked to the difficulty specialists have had establishing synchronisms between the different archaeological sites and a relative chronology, which would enable the development of a more reliable absolute chronology. [107] But these documents represent relatively rudimentary accounting, indicating a smaller scale of economic activity. ), et Acculturation à L’ Époque d’Uruk Au Moyen-Orient. Around 20 residences of various sorts have been excavated. Further to the north, the site of Arslantepe, located in the suburbs of Malatya, is the most remarkable site of the period in eastern Anatolia. The layout of the buildings was also novel, since they did not continue the tripartite plan inherited from the Ubayd period: buildings on the Eanna at this time had labyrinthine plans with elongated halls of pillars within a rectangular building. Temple Lugalirra i districtes de la Porta de Samas.[10]. The excavations there have revealed some very rich tombs, different kinds of residence, workshops, and very large buildings with an official or religious function (notably the 'round structure'), which may indicate that Tepe Gawra was a regional political centre. The change in size reflects a step-change in the ability of central authorities to mobilise human and material resources. It was the first domesticated equid in the region and became the most important beast of burden in the Near East (the dromedary was only domesticated in the 3rd millennium BC, in Arabia). This was possible due to the progressive development of more management tools, especially true writing. Forest who prefers to see the Empire of Akkad in the 24th century BC as the first true state and considers Late Uruk to have known only "city-states" (which are not complete states in his view). It is thought that notches would be placed on the surface of the clay balls containing the calculi, leading to the creation of numerical tablets which served as an aide-mémoire before the development of true writing (on which, see below). Enlil era el déu dels vents, Isthar era la deesa de la guerra, l’amor i la fecunditat, Anu: déu del cel, Ashur: déu assiri, Enlil: déu del clima, Inanna: deessa de l’amor i la guerra, protectora d’Uruk, Marduk: déu babiloni, Nanna: deessa de la lluna, Nusku: déu de la llum i el foc, Shamash: déu del sol i la justícia. The second monumental sector was attributed to the god Anu by the excavators of the site, because it was the location of a sanctuary for this god some 3000 years later. Their wheels were solid blocks; spokes were not invented until c. 2000 BC. [30] More recently, a level belonging to the Uruk period has been revealed on the tell southeast of the site of Abu Salabikh ('Uruk Mound'), covering only 10 hectares. This is especially the case in English-language scholarship, in which the theoretical approaches have been largely inspired by anthropology since the 1970s, and which has studied the Uruk period from the angle of 'complexity' in analysing the appearance of early states, an expanding social hierarchy, intensification of long-distance trade, etc.[52]. A: tablets in the collections of the Oriental Institute, Univ. [3][4], It was during this period that pottery painting declined as copper started to become popular, along with cylinder seals.[5]. [43] A little to the east of Tell Brak is Hamoukar, where excavations began in 1999. 20 juil. Out of these urban agglomerations, it is Uruk, the period's eponymous site, which was the largest by far, according to our current knowledge, and it is the main one from which the chronological sequence of the period has been constructed. Al lloc d'Uruk hi ha la població d'al-Warka. (acadi: Bit RES) va ser introduït al nord-est al districte [132], The texts of this period are mostly of an administrative type and are found principally in contexts that seem to be public (palaces or temples), rather than private. There is no agreement on the archaeological evidence for a migration, or on whether the earliest form writing already reflects a specific language. LEufrates (en àrab الفرات, al-Furāt; en turc i en kurd Fırat; en persa فرات, Furât; en arameu, en l'Antic Testament, Prath; en assiri Pu-rat-tu; en persa antic Ufratu; en siríac, Frot o, Prât; en grec antic Ευφράτης, Eufrates) és un riu que en gran part discorre per l'Iraq. Additionally, real and fantastic animals were always present on seals, often as the principle subject of the scene. El 1925 aC, va ser conquerida per Larsa. Their interpretation is equally problematic, on account of their archaic character. But the texts of Uruk, which constitute the majority of the total corpus for this period, were discovered in a trash heap rather than in the context in which they were produced and used; this makes it difficult to identify them. These have been the object of numerous studies because they are very good evidence for the mental universe of the people of this period and a means for diffusing symbolic messages, as a result of the possibility of representing more complex scenes than on stamp seals, since they could be rolled out indefinitely, creating a narration with more dynamism than stamps. The interpretation of the expansion of the Uruk culture into neighbouring regions poses numerous problems and many explanatory models (general and regional) have been proposed in order to explain it. [106] Some archives were probably produced in a private context in residences of Susa, Habuba Kabira, and Jebel Aruda. La producció cinematogràfica de tot el món ha omplert les nostres pantalles de gèneres, escenaris i situacions diverses, fantàstiques o reals, presents, passades o futures. La zona arqueològica, Tell al-Warka, mesura uns 5,5 km² i ha estat explorada des de meitat del segle xix. After the discovery in Syria of the sites at Habuba Kabira and Jebel Aruda in the 1970s, which were rapidly decided to be colonies or trading posts of the Uruk civilisation settled far from their own lands, questions arose about the relationship between Lower Mesopotamia and the neighbouring regions. [123][124][125], The development of writing, whether or not it derived from accounting practices, represented a new management tool which made it possible to note information more precisely and for a longer-term. The cylinder seals of Susa I and Susa II have a very rich iconography, uniquely emphasising scenes of everyday life, although there is also some kind of local potentate which P. Amiet sees as a 'proto-royal figure,' preceding the 'priest-kings' of Late Uruk. This is notably the case with the cylinder seals and prints of cylinder seals found at Susa (level II), which are the most realistic of the period: they represent the central figure of society as the monarch, but also some ordinary men engaged in everyday life, agricultural and artisanal work (pottery, weaving). Susa I saw the beginning of monumental architecture on the site, with the construction of a 'High Terrace', which was increased during Susa II to measure roughly 60 x 45 metres. As for the site of Jemdet Nasr, which has given its name to the period of transition from the Uruk period to the Early Dynastic period, it is divided into two main tells and it is on the second (Mound B) that the most important building has been brought to light, which contained a substantial cache of administrative documents—more than 200 tablets with impressions of cylinder seals.[13][32].