How a Village Became a State: Three Theories, One Record

The idea

The exam's Ancient Near East questions start with a change so large it is easy to miss: for most of human existence there were no states, and then in Mesopotamia there were. The anchor offers three explanations and does not choose among them, and the course follows. The first is the hydraulic theory. The Tigris and Euphrates flooded without warning, and the southern plain is so flat that floods moved the rivers. Levees, canals and dikes required labor from many villages at once, and coordination required leaders with authority over more than one village. On this view the state is the irrigation project's management, and the priesthood that directed the work became the first government. The second is the cereal theory, which the anchor presents as newer. Excavation suggests that a mixed life of farming, fishing and gathering in the wetlands persisted for thousands of years without any state. What changed was that a regime imposed hierarchy, taxation, building projects and unfree labor, and it could do so because the crop was grain. Grain ripens at once, stores for years and can be counted, so it can be taxed, and a ruler who controls the granary controls the people. On this view the state came before the surplus made it comfortable, and it came by imposition. The third is defense and resources. Villages clustered where obsidian, water or trade routes concentrated, and a wall around many households beat a wall around one. Çatal Höyük had rich and poor graves and traded obsidian hundreds of miles before any city existed. On this view specialization and inequality preceded the city and the city organized them. The record supports pieces of all three. Uruk redistributed everything through a temple, which fits irrigation management. Writing began as tax records, which fits the cereal theory. Çatal Höyük's trade and graves fit the third.