The Ancient Near East: Innovation and Synthesis
The Problem: it is readily observable that the real innovation takes place not in the old urban centers of Mesopotamia and Egypt, but in cultures on the periphery. How can we explain this phenomenon? Consider the cases of writing and metallurgy.
I. Pictographic origins (symbol writing)
II. Symbols extended to cover other notions and abstractions. As they were extended, additional signs were added to explain grammatical relations and to clarify meaning where there could be ambiguity. Produced thousands of characters.
an early numerical text
III. Syllaberies. Reduced character bank from the thousands to the hundreds. Sounds expressed as combination of consonants (that is, no vowels) :
dr bll st rnd
l bll st rndcuneiform text
IV. Alphabet. Distinction between characters for consonants and for vowels. The vowels provide the flexibility. Note the function of i and j; of u and v (Latin uses one symbol respectively for what are two letters n English).
A. Consonant plus vowel
B. Vowel plus consonant
C. Consonant plus vowel plus consonant
V. The Process and this applies also to innovation in other areas like mining and metallurgy (bronze, iron/steel):
A. Once a system developed there was little change within that culture; vested interests (e.g., the scribes and their training) and a natural conservatism about changing the meanings of the symbols; that is symbols that also might have religious meaning .
B. A culture adopting or adapting the idea of writing was more flexible; it looked for simpler solutions. Hence, the great improvements in writing (as well as metallurgy) took place in areas marginal to Mesopotamia, in Phoenicia for writing, then to Anatolia (present day Turkey) for metalurgy.
C. The process was facilitated by the extensive commercial trading system; that is innovative ideas moved along the trading routes, namely the idea of writing arrived before vested interested could become established.
The Ancient Near East: Synthesis
I. Political forms --no clear separation of politics and religion; no concept of citizenship (rights of citizens); individuals subordinate to collective
II. Economy --essentially pastoral and agrarian (85% of population) involved in food production and distribution. Significance of water control as organizing principle. It is absolutely essential to understand that the control of water was both a cause and a consequence of a complex social, economic and legal structure. The more control one had over water, the better the harvest, the greater the specialization of labor, the more complex the social structure, the greater the tendency to establish loyalties beyond the family (i.e., to the state/ruler), the greater the need for social discipline (law), the greater the potential to organize labor and control the environment. Religious sentiment served and the binding force ('glue') for building coherence and unity within a society.
III. Social Structure. Though an oppressive and rigid system with little social mobility, it did provide for essentials of life; that is, the people of the ANE were ready to sacrifice "freedom" to gain security.
IV. Religion: No distinction between human/physical world and that of the divine/spiritual (e.g., if a harvest fails it is because humans did not work the fields properly and because the proper rituals were not performed).
