Ancient Societies and Indo-European Migrations

Reverberations of Urbanization and the Creation of Patriarchy

• Patriarchy in Mesopotamia:
  • Scholars have abundant evidence that Mesopotamian women lived under a system of patriarchy by at least $4000 B.C.E.$.
  • Despite widespread patriarchy, some women wielded power "behind the scenes," and many engaged in diverse professions such as shopkeepers, brewers, bakers, tavern keepers, and textile manufacturers.
  • However, there are no records of women serving as rulers or holding high-level administrative positions.
• Increasing Control Over Women:
  • During the second millennium B.C.E., Mesopotamian men progressively tightened their control over the social and sexual behavior of women.
  • This was primarily to protect family fortunes and guarantee the legitimacy of heirs.
  • Key stipulations included:
    • Insistence on the virginity of brides at marriage.
    • Forbidding casual socializing between married women and men outside their immediate family.
  • By $1500 B.C.E.$, and possibly earlier, upper-class women in Mesopotamian cities began to wear veils when venturing outside their households. This was aimed at discouraging attention from men of other families.
  • This concern for controlling women's social and sexual behavior spread across much of southwest Asia and the Mediterranean basin, reinforcing existing patriarchal social structures.

The Development of Written Cultural Traditions

• The World's Earliest Writing:
  • The world's earliest known writing originated in Mesopotamia, invented by the Sumerians around the middle of the fourth millennium B.C.E.
  • Purpose: Initially developed to keep track of commercial transactions and tax collections.
  • Early Forms: Sumerians first experimented with pictographs, which were visual representations of items prominent in tax and commercial exchanges, such as animals (sheep, oxen), agricultural products (wheat, barley), and trade goods (pots, fish).
  • By $3100 B.C.E.$, conventional signs representing specific words had become widespread throughout Mesopotamia.
• Cuneiform Writing:
  • A writing system based purely on pictures proved cumbersome for abstract ideas.
  • Around $2900 B.C.E.$, the Sumerians developed cuneiform, a more flexible system that used graphic symbols to represent sounds, syllables, and ideas, as well as physical objects.
  • By combining pictographs with other symbols, they created a powerful writing system.
  • Method: Sumerian scribes used a stylus made from a reed to impress symbols onto wet clay.
  • Etymology: The term "cuneiform" comes from two Latin words meaning "wedge-shaped," referring to the distinctive lines and wedge-shaped marks left by the stylus.
  • Preservation: Once dried in the sun or baked in an oven, the clay hardened, providing a permanent record of the scribe's message.
  • Diffusion and Longevity: Babylonians, Assyrians, and other peoples later adapted the Sumerian script to their own languages. The tradition of cuneiform writing endured for more than three thousand years.
  • Thousands of cuneiform clay tablets have survived to the present day.
  • While it began to decline in the fourth century B.C.E. with the advent of Greek alphabetic script (where each symbol represents a distinct sound), scribes continued to produce cuneiform documents into the early centuries C.E.
• Education and Society:
  • Most ancient education was vocational, training individuals for specific trades and crafts.
  • However, Mesopotamians also established formal schools, as learning cuneiform writing required significant time and effort.
  • Most literate individuals became scribes or government officials.
  • A select few pursued further studies to become priests, physicians, engineers, or architects.
  • Formal education was not widespread, but literacy was deemed essential for the smooth functioning of Mesopotamian society by $3000 B.C.E.$.
  • Beyond practical record-keeping, writing allowed Mesopotamians to communicate complex ideas about the world, the gods, humanity, and their interrelationships, thus fostering a distinctive cultural tradition that shaped Mesopotamian values for roughly three thousand years.
• Astronomy and Mathematics:
  • Literacy significantly expanded knowledge, leading Mesopotamian scholars to dedicate themselves to astronomy and mathematics—sciences crucial for agricultural societies.
  • Astronomy: Helped in preparing accurate calendars, charting seasonal rhythms, and determining optimal times for planting and harvesting crops.
  • Mathematics: Used for surveying agricultural lands and allocating them to proper owners or tenants.
  • Lasting Legacies: Some Mesopotamian conventions endure today, such as dividing the year into twelve months and the hour into sixty minutes, each composed of sixty seconds.
• The Epic of Gilgamesh:
  • Mesopotamians employed writing to explore abstract ideas, investigate intellectual and religious problems, and reflect on human beings and their place in the cosmos.
  • The Epic of Gilgamesh is the most renowned work of reflective literature from Mesopotamia.
  • While parts originated from Sumerian city-states, the full epic known today was compiled after $2000 B.C.E.$, during the Babylonian empire.
  • It recounts the experiences of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, delving into themes of friendship, relationships between humans and gods, the meaning of life, and the inevitability of death.
  • These stories resonated widely for approximately two thousand years (from the Sumerian city-states to the fall of the Assyrian empire), serving as primary vehicles for Mesopotamian reflections on moral issues.
• Hammurabi's Laws on Family Relationships:
  • By the time of Hammurabi, Mesopotamian marriages were recognized as significant business and economic relationships between families.
  • Hammurabi's laws aimed to ensure the legitimacy of children and protect the economic interests of both marital partners and their respective families.
  • While placing women under the authority of their fathers and husbands, the laws also provided protection against unreasonable treatment from husbands or other men.
  • Specific laws regarding marriage and family include:
    • $[128]$ If a man takes a woman as his wife but has no intercourse with her, she is not considered his wife.
    • $[129]$ If a man’s wife is caught having sexual relations with another man, both shall be tied and thrown into the water. However, the husband may pardon his wife, and the king may spare her.
    • $[130]$ If a man violates the wife (betrothed or child-wife) of another man, who has never known a man and still lives in her father's house, and is discovered, the man shall be put to death, but the wife is blameless.
    • $[131]$ If a man brings a charge against his wife, but she is not caught with another man, she must take an oath and may then return to her house.
    • $[138]$ If a man wishes to separate from his wife who has borne him no children, he shall give her the amount of her purchase money and the dowry she brought from her father's house, and allow her to leave.
    • $[139]$ If there was no purchase price, he shall give her one mina of gold as a gift of release.
    • $[140]$ If he is a freed man, he shall give her one-third of a mina of gold.
    • $[141]$ If a man's wife, living in his house, wishes to leave, plunges into debt, tries to ruin her house, neglects her husband, and is judicially convicted: if her husband offers her release, she may go without any gift of release. If her husband does not wish to release her and takes another wife, she shall remain as a servant in his house.
    • $[142]$ If a woman quarrels with her husband, stating, "You are not congenial to me," she must present the reasons for her prejudice. If she is guiltless and without fault, but he leaves and neglects her, then no guilt attaches to her; she shall take her dowry and return to her father's house.
    • $[143]$ If she is not innocent, but leaves her husband, ruins her house, and neglects him, she shall be cast into the water.

The Broader Influence of Mesopotamian Society

• Mesopotamian societies, through their cities and regional states, profoundly influenced peoples far beyond their immediate region.
• Mechanisms of Influence:
  • Their wealth and power often attracted the attention of neighboring peoples.
  • Mesopotamians sometimes projected their power through force, imposing their ways on foreign lands.
  • Migrants carried inherited traditions to new regions.
• Selective Adaptation: Other peoples did not merely become "carbon copies" but rather adopted Mesopotamian ways selectively, adapting them to their own needs and interests.
• This demonstrates that even in early times, complex agricultural societies centered around cities possessed significant potential to influence the development of distant human communities.

Hebrews, Israelites, and Jews

• Terminology:
  • Hebrews: Speakers of the ancient Hebrew language.
  • Israelites: A branch of Hebrews who settled in Palestine (modern-day Israel) after $1200 B.C.E.$.
  • Jews: Descendants of southern Israelites who inhabited the kingdom of Judah.
• For more than two thousand years, these groups constantly interacted with Mesopotamians and other peoples, leading to profound consequences for their societal development.
• The Early Hebrews:
  • Initially pastoral nomads residing between Mesopotamia and Egypt during the second millennium B.C.E.
  • As Mesopotamia prospered, some Hebrews settled in its cities.
  • According to Hebrew scriptures (Old Testament), the patriarch Abraham came from the Sumerian city of Ur and migrated to northern Mesopotamia around $1850 B.C.E.$, possibly due to unrest in Sumer.
  • Abraham's descendants recognized many deities, values, and customs common to Mesopotamian peoples.
  • Hebrew law notably borrowed the principle of lex talionis ("law of retaliation") from Hammurabi's code.
  • The Hebrew account of a devastating flood that destroyed early human society is a variation of similar flood stories prevalent since early Sumerian society, with one version appearing in the Epic of Gilgamesh. This familiarity indicates their participation in the broader Mesopotamian society.
• Migrations and Settlement in Palestine:
  • Hebrew scriptures, compiled and edited after $800 B.C.E.$, offer memories and interpretations of Hebrew experiences, not strictly reliable historical accounts.
  • According to these scriptures, some Hebrews migrated to Egypt during the eighteenth century B.C.E.
  • Around $1300 B.C.E.$, this branch, known as Israelites, departed Egypt under Moses' leadership and traveled to Palestine.
  • Organized into a loose federation of twelve tribes, they fiercely fought other inhabitants of Palestine to establish their territory.
  • Eventually, the Israelites transitioned from their tribal structure to a Mesopotamian-style monarchy.
  • During the reigns of King David ($1000$-$970 B.C.E.$) and King Solomon ($970$-$930 B.C.E.$), the Israelites controlled the territory between Syria and the Sinai peninsula.
  • They built an elaborate and cosmopolitan capital city at Jerusalem and engaged in diplomatic and commercial relations with Mesopotamians, Egyptians, and Arabian peoples.
• Moses and Monotheism:
  • The Hebrew scriptures indicate a distinct religious development after Moses' time.
  • Early Hebrews, like their Mesopotamian neighbors, recognized multiple gods (nature spirits in trees, rocks, mountains; deities as clan patrons).
  • Moses, however, championed monotheism, teaching that there was only one god, Yahweh, who was the supremely powerful creator and sustainer of the world.
  • All other gods, including Mesopotamian deities, were considered impostors or human fabrications.
  • Unlike Mesopotamians, Israelite kings in Jerusalem built a magnificent temple to Yahweh, not a ziggurat (which they associated with false Mesopotamian gods).
  • Nature of Yahweh: Omnipotent creator, yet also a personal god who demanded exclusive worship and adherence to high moral and ethical standards.
  • Ten Commandments: A set of religious and ethical principles announced by Moses, warning against destructive behaviors like lying, theft, adultery, and murder.
  • Legal Code: An elaborate legal code, developed after Moses' death, mandated relief and protection for vulnerable groups such as widows, orphans, slaves, and the poor.
  • The Torah: Between approximately $800$ and $400 B.C.E.$, Israelite religious leaders compiled their teachings into the Torah (Hebrew for "doctrine" or "teaching").
    • The Torah laid down Yahweh's laws and described his role in creation and guiding human affairs.
    • It taught that Yahweh would reward obedience and punish disobedience, both individually and collectively for the community.
• Archaeological Insights vs. Scriptures:
  • Archaeological records present a less dramatic history than the Hebrew scriptures.
  • Evidence shows Israelites established communities in the central Palestinian hills after $1200 B.C.E.$ and formed small kingdoms after $1000 B.C.E.$.
  • They experienced intermittent conflicts but did not conquer all of Palestine. Instead, they interacted and intermarried with neighboring peoples, adopting iron technology for weapons and tools.
  • The Hebrew scriptures themselves indicate that Israelites sometimes worshipped deities other than Yahweh.
  • The recognition of Yahweh as the sole true god likely emerged around the eighth century B.C.E., rather than at the very beginning of Hebrew history.
• Assyrian and Babylonian Conquests:
  • Israelites' devotion to Yahweh intensified amid political and military setbacks.
  • After King Solomon's reign, tribal tensions led to a division: the larger Kingdom of Israel in the north and the smaller Kingdom of Judah in the south (Judea).
  • During the ninth century B.C.E., the Kingdom of Israel faced pressure from the expanding Assyrian empire and paid tribute.
  • In $722 B.C.E.$, Assyrian forces conquered the northern kingdom, deporting many inhabitants who then assimilated and lost their Israelite identity.
  • The Kingdom of Judah's independence was temporary; the New Babylonian empire, after overthrowing the Assyrians, conquered Judah and destroyed Jerusalem in $586 B.C.E.$.
  • Many residents were again exiled, but unlike their northern cousins, most maintained their religious identity and eventually returned to Judea, becoming known as Jews.
  • Role of Prophets: Between the ninth and sixth centuries B.C.E., a series of prophets urged Israelites to rededicate to their faith and obey Yahweh's commandments. They were moral and social critics who condemned materialism, neglect of the needy, and interest in neighboring fertility/nature gods.
  • The prophets warned that disobedience would lead to punishment via conquerors, and many Israelites interpreted the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests as validation of these warnings.
• The Early Jewish Community:
  • Exiles returning to Judea after Babylonian conquest maintained hope for self-rule, establishing small Jewish states as tributaries to dominant empires after the sixth century B.C.E.
  • They built a distinct religious community founded on their conviction of a special relationship with Yahweh, adherence to Torah teachings, and a commitment to justice and righteousness.
  • These elements enabled Jews to maintain a strong identity distinct from Mesopotamians while participating in the broader societal development of southwest Asia.
  • Over the long term, Jewish monotheism, scriptures, and moral concerns profoundly influenced the development of Christianity and Islam.

The Phoenicians

• Geography and Identity:
  • Located north of the Israelites' kingdom in Palestine, occupying a narrow coastal plain between the Mediterranean Sea and the Lebanon Mountains.
  • Spoke a Semitic language, identifying themselves as Canaanites, and their land as Canaan. The term "Phoenician" derives from early Greek references.
• The Early Phoenicians:
  • Their ancestors migrated to the Mediterranean coast and established initial settlements sometime after $3000 B.C.E.$.
  • They did not form a unified monarchy but organized independent city-states ruled by local kings (e.g., Tyre, Sidon, Beirut, Byblos).
  • Tyre held considerable influence over southern Phoenicia during the tenth century B.C.E.
  • The Phoenicians generally prioritized commercial opportunities over state-building or military expansion, often being subject to imperial rule from Egypt or Mesopotamia.
• Phoenician Trade Networks:
  • Despite not being numerous or militarily powerful, the Phoenicians significantly influenced Mediterranean basin societies through their extensive maritime trade and communication networks.
  • Their limited agricultural land prompted them to turn to industry and trade after approximately $2500 B.C.E.$.
  • Trade Activities:
    • Traded overland with Mesopotamian and other peoples.
    • Supplied cedar timber, furnishings, and decorative items for the Israelites' temple in Jerusalem.
    • Engaged in maritime trade, importing food and raw materials while exporting high-quality metal goods, textiles, pottery, glass, and works of art.
    • They were renowned for brilliant red and purple textiles, dyed using extracts from specific mollusc species found in Phoenician waters.
    • Provided cedar logs from the Lebanon Mountains for construction and shipbuilding to Mesopotamians and Egyptians.
  • Maritime Dominance:
    • Excellent sailors, building superior ships for their era.
    • Dominated Mediterranean trade between $1200$ and $800 B.C.E.$.
    • Established commercial colonies in places like Rhodes, Cyprus, Sicily, Sardinia, Spain, and North Africa.
    • Sailed extensively in search of raw materials such as copper and tin (for bronze), and exotic items like ivory and semiprecious stones (for decorative art).
    • Their explorations extended beyond the Mediterranean, reaching the Canary Islands, coastal ports in Portugal and France, the British Isles, the Azores Islands, and down the west coast of Africa as far as the Gulf of Guinea.
  • Cultural Adaptation: Like the Hebrews, the Phoenicians largely adapted Mesopotamian cultural traditions to their own needs.
    • Their gods, such as Astarte (equivalent to Sumerian Inanna and Babylonian/Assyrian Ishtar), were mostly derived from Mesopotamia.
    • They associated other deities with natural phenomena like mountains, the sky, and lightning.
    • However, they did not blindly imitate; each city built temples to its favored deities and developed unique rituals.
• Alphabetic Writing:
  • The Phoenician writing tradition also showcases their creative adaptation of Mesopotamian practices.
  • For over a millennium, they used cuneiform for documentation, accumulating a vast collection of religious, historical, and literary writings (though most have perished).
  • After $2000 B.C.E.$, Syrian, Phoenician, and other scribes began developing simpler alternatives to cuneiform.
  • By $1500 B.C.E.$, Phoenician scribes had devised an early alphabetic script composed of twenty-two symbols, representing consonants only (no vowels).
  • This alphabetic system was considerably easier to learn than memorizing hundreds of cuneiform symbols, leading to wider literacy.
  • Spread of Alphabet: Phoenician trade throughout the Mediterranean basin facilitated the wide dissemination of alphabetic writing.
    • Around the ninth century B.C.E., the Greeks modified the Phoenician alphabet by adding symbols for vowels.
    • Romans later adapted the Greek alphabet to their language, passing it to their cultural heirs in Europe.
    • In subsequent centuries, alphabetic writing spread to central Asia, south Asia, southeast Asia, and eventually most of the world.

The Indo-European Migrations

• Mesopotamia was interconnected within a larger world of interaction.
• Among the most influential peoples in the third and second millennia B.C.E. were those speaking various Indo-European languages.
• Their migrations across much of Eurasia significantly influenced historical development in southwest Asia and globally.

Indo-European Origins

• Indo-European Languages:
  • During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, linguists observed striking similarities in vocabulary and grammatical structure among many languages in Europe, southwest Asia, and India.
  • Ancient Examples: Sanskrit (ancient India's sacred language), Old Persian, Greek, and Latin.
  • Modern Descendants: Include Hindi and other languages of northern India, Farsi (modern Iran's language), and most European languages (with notable exceptions like Basque, Finnish, and Hungarian).
  • Due to their geographic distribution, scholars termed them Indo-European languages.
  • Major Subgroups: Indo-Iranian, Greek, Balto-Slavic, Germanic, Italic, and Celtic.
  • Evidence of Relationships (Table 2.1): Similarities in basic vocabulary (e.g., "father," "one," "fire," "field," "sun," "king," "god") across English, German, Spanish, Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit demonstrate a close relationship. English belongs to the Germanic subgroup.
  • Explanation for Similarities: The high degree of linguistic coincidence indicated that speakers of these languages were descendants of ancestors who spoke a common tongue and migrated from an original homeland.
  • As migrants formed separate communities, their languages diverged but retained the basic grammatical structure and much of the ancestral vocabulary, despite changes in pronunciation and spelling.
• The Indo-European Homeland:
  • The original homeland of Indo-European speakers is believed to be the steppe region of modern-day Ukraine and southern Russia, north of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.
  • The earliest speakers established their society there between approximately $4500$ and $2500 B.C.E.$.
  • Subsistence: They primarily herded cattle, sheep, and goats, supplemented by small-scale cultivation of barley and millet. They also hunted horses, which were abundant in the Eurasian steppe.
• Horses:
  • Indo-European speakers domesticated horses around $4000 B.C.E.$, likely first using them as a food source before learning to ride them.
  • By $3000 B.C.E.$, Sumerian knowledge of bronze metallurgy and wheels reached the Indo-European homeland.
  • Soon after, Indo-European speakers developed methods to hitch horses to carts, wagons, and chariots. Their language incorporated words for vehicles and components (wheels, axles, shafts, harnesses, hubs, linchpins), learned from Mesopotamian examples.
  • Impact of Domesticated Horses:
    • Vastly magnified the power of Indo-European speakers.
    • Enabled exploitation of southern Russian grasslands, relying on horses and wheeled vehicles for transport, and cattle/sheep for resources.
    • Provided much faster and more efficient transportation than alternatives using cattle, donkeys, or human power.
    • Gave them a significant military advantage due to horse strength and speed.
    • Many Indo-European groups regarded themselves as superior, with terms like Aryan, Iran, and Eire (Republic of Ireland's official name) deriving from the Indo-European word aryo, meaning "nobleman" or "lord."

Indo-European Expansion and Its Effects

• Nature of Indo-European Migrations:
  • Horses facilitated their expansion far beyond their original homeland.
  • A population explosion in southern Russia prompted movements into the eastern steppe and beyond.
  • The earliest Indo-European society began to fragment around $3000 B.C.E.$.
  • These migrations were not mass movements but gradual, incremental processes that spread Indo-European languages and ethnic communities as small groups established settlements and foundations for further expansion.
  • Intermittent migrations continued until approximately $1000 C.E.$.
• The Hittites:
  • Among the most influential Indo-European migrants.
  • Around $1900 B.C.E.$, they migrated to the central plain of Anatolia (modern Turkey), where they imposed their language and rule.
  • During the seventeenth and sixteenth centuries B.C.E., they built a powerful kingdom and fostered close relations with Mesopotamian peoples.
  • They traded with Babylonians and Assyrians, adapted cuneiform to their Indo-European language, and incorporated Mesopotamian deities into their pantheon.
  • In $1595 B.C.E.$, the Hittites overthrew the Babylonian empire, becoming the dominant power in southwest Asia for several centuries.
  • Between $1450$ and $1200 B.C.E.$, their authority extended across eastern Anatolia, northern Mesopotamia, and Syria down to Phoenicia.
  • After $1200 B.C.E.$, the unified Hittite state collapsed due to waves of invaders targeting societies throughout the eastern Mediterranean.
  • Despite their state's dissolution, a Hittite identity and language persisted through the era of the Assyrian empire and beyond.
• Hittite Technological Innovations:
  • The Hittites were key in two major technological advancements that strengthened their society and influenced the ancient world, building on Mesopotamian precedents but significantly improving them:
  • War Chariots:
    • They developed light, horse-drawn war chariots.
    • Sumerian armies had used heavy chariots with solid wooden wheels, but these were slow and militarily limited.
    • Around $2000 B.C.E.$, the Hittites equipped chariots with newly invented spoked wheels, making them much lighter and more maneuverable.
    • These speedy chariots were critical in establishing their state in Anatolia.
    • Mesopotamians and Assyrians subsequently adopted chariot teams, with the Assyrians effectively using them for empire building.
    • Chariot warfare became a widespread and effective technique, making charioteers elite strike forces across much of the ancient world, from Rome to China.
  • Iron Metallurgy:
    • After approximately $1300 B.C.E.$, the Hittites refined iron metallurgy, enabling them to produce effective weapons cheaply and in large quantities.
    • Earlier attempts to cast iron resulted in brittle tools/weapons.
    • Hittite craftsmen discovered that heating iron in a charcoal bed and then hammering it into shape created strong, durable implements.
    • Hittite iron production methods rapidly diffused, particularly after their kingdom's collapse in $1200 B.C.E.$, which dispersed skilled Hittite craftsmen.
    • This technology eventually spread throughout Eurasia. (Notably, peoples in sub-Saharan Africa and likely China independently developed iron metallurgy).
• Technological Diffusion and Its Effects (Thinking about ENCOUNTERS):
  • Humans have consistently borrowed and integrated useful technologies.
  • Early Indo-European speakers combined Mesopotamian wheeled vehicles and metallurgy with their own domesticated horses.
  • This technological synergy significantly facilitated Indo-European migrations.
• Indo-European Migrations to the East:
  • Some Indo-European speakers migrated eastward into central Asia, reaching the Tarim Basin (now western China) by $2000 B.C.E.$.
  • Archaeological discoveries in the 1980s in China's Xinjiang province revealed well-preserved burials of individuals with European features (fair skin, light hair, brightly colored garments), due to the arid environment.
  • Descendants of these migrants lived in central Asia and spoke Indo-European languages until after $1000 C.E.$, eventually being absorbed into Turkish-speaking societies.
• Indo-European Migrations to the West:
  • Another wave of migration moved westward, with Indo-European speakers entering Greece after $2200 B.C.E.$, and their descendants moving into central Italy by $1000 B.C.E.$.
  • A separate migratory wave established an Indo-European presence from southern Russia into central Europe (modern Germany and Austria) by $2300 B.C.E.$, western Europe (modern France) by $1200 B.C.E.$, and soon after to the British Isles, the Baltic region, and the Iberian peninsula.
  • These western migrants relied on a pastoral and agricultural economy; they did not build cities or organize large states.
  • For most of the first millennium B.C.E., Indo-European Celtic peoples largely dominated Europe north of the Mediterranean, speaking related languages and honoring similar deities across the region.