Metatron | Ancient Greece and THIS Civilization Had More in Common Than You Think... @metatronyt | Uploaded May 2024 | Updated October 2024, 7 hours ago.
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The Urban Revolution of the Ancient Near East and the Birth of the Poleis in Greece
The birth of the Sumerian Culture, corresponding to the archaeological facies known as the Uruk Culture, begins with the 4th millennium BC, through a transition from the previous culture, that of Ubaid, which does not happen in a traumatic way, but simply shows a natural evolution and an increase in complexity.
The idea of the city-state is intrinsically linked to the Sumerian Culture, which defines itself, asserts itself and above all recognizes itself through the urban revolution.
The exemplification of the process that sees the birth of what we could call "proto-cities" is the parable of the center of Uruk, from which the Sumerian culture takes its archaeological classification.
Uruk, which the Orientalist Mario Liverani has defined as "the first city", is born by constituting itself around two entities, the temple and the palace, which will be a constant in the Sumerian world and whose functions, not yet completely defined, are intertwined.
Centers and extent of the Ur Culture
The temple and the palace, in addition to serving as centers of cohesion and cultural irradiation, order society, managing the creation and maintenance of fields and canals conducive to the accumulation of a surplus, in turn a necessary element for the maintenance of the classes of specialized workers who, engaged in other activities, cannot directly produce their own food needs.
The need to preserve and administer the surplus (usually accumulated in the palace), and to keep an updated account of it together with the tools and resources necessary for its production and management, leads to the development of writing, and the creation of a code whose initial purposes are organizational is the keystone that leads to the birth of urban centers proper, which arise in the 3rd millennium BC and which are characterized by the birth of an organic political system, a temple, a palace and an administrative and cultural organization that is based on the use of writing .
If the Greek polis is ideally similar from an epidermal point of view to the Sumerian city-state, its phenomenology is quite different.
In addition to being chronologically placed in a much later era, the Greek polis as a city is not a completely innovative element: the Greek world had already gone through an urban revolution for some time, with the previous Mycenaean period (1600-1100 BC), but the upheavals that occurred during the Bronze Age Collapse had fragmented the various proto-state realities of Greece, and the population had dispersed, giving life to small settlements made up of a small number of family units.
he return to the formation of important urban centers, precisely the poleis, which will be even more flourishing and populous than the ancient Mycenaean city-states, takes place with the transition from the Hellenic Middle Ages to the Archaic Age, and various factors allow it, such as greater political stability , a return to the flourishing of trade with the Near East through the Phoenicians and the gradual transition from an economy that in the Mycenaean era was mainly based on animal husbandry to an economy mainly based on agriculture.
If the Sumerian city-state revolves around the palace and the temple, the Greek polis revolves around the agora and the acropolis.
If the acropolis, like the temple, is a place with a strongly religious character, where the sanctuaries of the deities are located, the agora is a political and economic center like the Sumerian palace.
The substantial difference is that if the palace is an aristocratic place, the agora is a popular place.
The political organization of the Sumerian City States and the Greek Poleis
According to the Danish Assyriologist Thorkild Jacobsen (cf. "Primitive Democracy in Ancient Mesopotamia), the Sumerian proto-urban centers must have been ruled by an assembly made up of the most illustrious members of the community, with the task of leading and organizing internal and external political and social life, but with the formation of urban centers proper, consisting of ever more important numbers, the figure of a sovereign emerges, probably initially elected by the assembly, later an hereditary office.
In the various Sumerian city-states, initially the sovereign seems to have a different title:
In Uruk he is called EN, "Priest/Lord"
in Lagash and Umma ENSI, literally "Priest/Lord of agricultural lands", by extension "Factor, Administrator of the farm"
in Kish and Ur LUGAL, "Great Man"
statuette of Gudea, ENSI of the city of Lagash
#ancientgreece #historyfacts #metatron
if you like these videos and would like to support the production please check out my Patreon! Or consider becoming a member of the channel through the "join" button. Thank you so much for making these videos possible. patreon.com/themetatron
The Urban Revolution of the Ancient Near East and the Birth of the Poleis in Greece
The birth of the Sumerian Culture, corresponding to the archaeological facies known as the Uruk Culture, begins with the 4th millennium BC, through a transition from the previous culture, that of Ubaid, which does not happen in a traumatic way, but simply shows a natural evolution and an increase in complexity.
The idea of the city-state is intrinsically linked to the Sumerian Culture, which defines itself, asserts itself and above all recognizes itself through the urban revolution.
The exemplification of the process that sees the birth of what we could call "proto-cities" is the parable of the center of Uruk, from which the Sumerian culture takes its archaeological classification.
Uruk, which the Orientalist Mario Liverani has defined as "the first city", is born by constituting itself around two entities, the temple and the palace, which will be a constant in the Sumerian world and whose functions, not yet completely defined, are intertwined.
Centers and extent of the Ur Culture
The temple and the palace, in addition to serving as centers of cohesion and cultural irradiation, order society, managing the creation and maintenance of fields and canals conducive to the accumulation of a surplus, in turn a necessary element for the maintenance of the classes of specialized workers who, engaged in other activities, cannot directly produce their own food needs.
The need to preserve and administer the surplus (usually accumulated in the palace), and to keep an updated account of it together with the tools and resources necessary for its production and management, leads to the development of writing, and the creation of a code whose initial purposes are organizational is the keystone that leads to the birth of urban centers proper, which arise in the 3rd millennium BC and which are characterized by the birth of an organic political system, a temple, a palace and an administrative and cultural organization that is based on the use of writing .
If the Greek polis is ideally similar from an epidermal point of view to the Sumerian city-state, its phenomenology is quite different.
In addition to being chronologically placed in a much later era, the Greek polis as a city is not a completely innovative element: the Greek world had already gone through an urban revolution for some time, with the previous Mycenaean period (1600-1100 BC), but the upheavals that occurred during the Bronze Age Collapse had fragmented the various proto-state realities of Greece, and the population had dispersed, giving life to small settlements made up of a small number of family units.
he return to the formation of important urban centers, precisely the poleis, which will be even more flourishing and populous than the ancient Mycenaean city-states, takes place with the transition from the Hellenic Middle Ages to the Archaic Age, and various factors allow it, such as greater political stability , a return to the flourishing of trade with the Near East through the Phoenicians and the gradual transition from an economy that in the Mycenaean era was mainly based on animal husbandry to an economy mainly based on agriculture.
If the Sumerian city-state revolves around the palace and the temple, the Greek polis revolves around the agora and the acropolis.
If the acropolis, like the temple, is a place with a strongly religious character, where the sanctuaries of the deities are located, the agora is a political and economic center like the Sumerian palace.
The substantial difference is that if the palace is an aristocratic place, the agora is a popular place.
The political organization of the Sumerian City States and the Greek Poleis
According to the Danish Assyriologist Thorkild Jacobsen (cf. "Primitive Democracy in Ancient Mesopotamia), the Sumerian proto-urban centers must have been ruled by an assembly made up of the most illustrious members of the community, with the task of leading and organizing internal and external political and social life, but with the formation of urban centers proper, consisting of ever more important numbers, the figure of a sovereign emerges, probably initially elected by the assembly, later an hereditary office.
In the various Sumerian city-states, initially the sovereign seems to have a different title:
In Uruk he is called EN, "Priest/Lord"
in Lagash and Umma ENSI, literally "Priest/Lord of agricultural lands", by extension "Factor, Administrator of the farm"
in Kish and Ur LUGAL, "Great Man"
statuette of Gudea, ENSI of the city of Lagash
#ancientgreece #historyfacts #metatron
