ShallowTime

The Shinarians

By Vern Crisler

Copyright, 2006

Rough Draft

 

1.  The Sumerian Problem

2.  Differences in Race

3.  The Issue of Language

4.  The Arrival of the Sumerians

5.  Archaeology of the Jemdet Nasr Period

6.  New Excavations

7.  Courville and the Dispersion, Revisited

8.  Urbanization in the Holy Land

9.  The Rise of Egypt

10.  The Square-Boat People

11.  Other Connections

 

 

1.  The Sumerian Problem

 

We have argued that the Sumerians entered into Mesopotamia during the Jemdet Nasr period.  This is not the most recent view among scholars who have studied the archaeology of Mesopotamia.  They think the Sumerians entered into Mesopotamia either during the Ubaid period or during the Uruk period.  The view that the Sumerians arrived during the Jemdet Nasr period was the view of an earlier generation of scholars, such as Eduard Meyer, but most scholars opt for either of the previous periods.  It is our contention that the earlier view was correct, and that the arguments for Sumerian migrations during Ubaid or Uruk are without sufficient support.  Indeed, if the evidence was sufficient one way or another, there would not be any scholarly disagreement among the Ubaid or Uruk suppporters.  It is precisely the lack of evidence that gives rise to the disagreement.  The following represents a chart of the major views on the timing of the Sumerian migration:

 

 

Ubaid	Uruk	Jemdet Nasr
Frankfurt	late Speiser	Meyer
Oates	Landsberger	early Speiser
Roux	Moortgat	New Courville
Rohl	Kramer
	Parrot

 

 

The “Sumerian Problem” in its most simple form is this: when did the Sumerians arrive in Mesopotamia, and where did they come from?  What is the homeland of the Sumerians?  One might wonder why there is a problem here in the first place.  The short answer is that the timing of the Sumerian entrance into Mesopotamia in either the Ubaid or Uruk period creates nothing short of paradox.  The linguistic evidence makes it almost certain that the Sumerians could not have been the first inhabitants of the land.  This is why scholars want to know about their original homeland.  However, if the Sumerian migration occurred later in the Uruk period, the continuities between Ubaid and Uruk would really require that the Sumerians entered during the Ubaid period.  But then an entrance in the Ubaid period would contradict the evidence from language.  Either choice would result in antinomies that undermine the basic premises of each theory.  It does not seem to have occurred to advocates of their respective theories that the solution to the paradox is to deny that the Sumerians arrived during the Ubaid or Uruk periods.  The most plausible solution is simply that the Sumerians arrived in Mesopotamia during the Jemdet Nasr period.

 

2.  Differences in Race

 

Writing in 1906, the historian Eduard Meyer looked at the archaeological material from Mesopotamia with special attention to how the gods were portrayed, and the way in which different ethnic groups were represented.  (Sumerians and Semites in Babylonia, Berlin, 1906.)  The three different groups he noticed were:

 

a)  Sumerians – shaven heads, no beards or mustaches

b)  Canaanite (Bedouin) – beards, no mustache, short hair

c)  Semites – long hair and beards

 

It is important to keep in mind that the earliest Sumerians are depicted as shaven-headed whereas other (Semitic) people in the land are depicted with hair and beards.  It was pointed out by Meyer that the deities worshiped in Mesopotamia were represented with long hair and beards, in the “Semitic” manner.  This was true even for the gods worshipped by the Sumerians.  Meyer started with the anthropological view that men create gods in their own image, and raised the question why the Sumerians did not make their own gods with shaven heads.  Surely, it goes against experience to think that these shaven-headed Sumerians would worship gods who looked like non-Sumerians.  The conclusion was that the “Semites” and their gods had occupied southern Mesopotamia before the arrival of the Sumerians.  L. W. King summarized the theory:

 

“Professor Meyer had sought to show that the Semites were not only in Babylonia at the date of the earliest Sumerian sculptures that have been recovered, but also that they were in occupation of the country before the Sumerians.”  (L.W. King, History of Sumer and Akkad, 1910; cf. Tom Jones, The Sumerian Problem, p. 54; hereafter TSP.)

 

Under this theory, the Sumerians were thought of as a “warrior folk” who invaded the country and overwhelmed the “Semitic” population, resulting in their northward movement.  King says, “[Meyer] would regard the invaders as settling mainly in the south, driving many of the Semites northward, and taking over from them the ancient centres of Semitic cult.  They would naturally have brought their own gods with them, and these they would identify with the deities they found in possession of the shrines, combining their attributes, but retaining the cult-images, whose sacred character would ensure the permanent retention of their outward form.”  (Cf., Jones, The Sumerian Problem, pp. 57-58.)

 

New Courville also accepts this understanding of the historical situation, though we would prefer to use the term “Shinarian” in place of the term “Semite.”  Of course, the term “Shinar” is probably derived from “Shumer” or “Sumer,” but we are using the word “Shinarian” in a special sense to refer to the peoples who lived in Mesopotamia prior to the Dispersion from Babel.  Under the New Courville theory, the pre-Dispersion peoples of Mesopotamia were not the “Sumerians” of later times.  Rather, the pre-Dispersion peoples were “Shinarians” (as we call them).  They had the standard “Semitic” look in terms of dress and fashions, of wearing long beards and long hair, and the majority probably spoke a Semitic language (post-Babel).  The Shinarians also invented the technology of writing but had no interest, or no time to develop it beyond the pictographic stage.  It is likely that the Dispersion did not affect the Semitic-speaking Shinarians as much as it did non-Semitic Shinarians.  Once the latter had dispersed throughout the world, their place was taken by the historical Sumerians, who then imposed their language, to some extent, on the remaining Shinarians.  The Sumerians, like the Egyptians, took the idea of writing and developed it in their own characteristic way—cuneiform.

 

Special Notes: (a) Samuel N. Kramer uses the term “pre-Sumerian” to refer to the people who inhabited Mesopotamia before the Sumerians arrived.  Earlier, Benno Landsberger had used the term “Proto-Euphratean.”  (Kramer, The Sumerians, 1963, pp. 40-41.)  We are using the term Shinarian in a somewhat similar manner, except that we place the Sumerian migration at a later point in the archaeological record than these two researchers would.  (b) Thomas B. Jones has provided a compilation of articles or book chapters from the writings of archaeologists on these questions, and the resulting book was called The Sumerian Problem, 1969.  We are using Jones’ book as a convenient reference on this topic.

 

3.  The Issue of Language

 

The first symbols used for writing were something like pictures—to represent livestock or agricultural products, etc.  These Uruk pictures may have had ideographic values–similar in concept to the icons used on our modern computers, e.g., an hour-glass symbol meaning to wait, or a floppy disk symbol meaning to save a file.  It seems more likely, however, that the Uruk symbols were a phonetic system rather than a purely ideographic script.  In the subsequent Jemdet Nasr period, the symbols used for writing were more abstract, i.e., the familiar cuneiform wedges impressed on clay tablets.  In regard to the language expressed by these scripts, E. A. Speiser says,

 

“[T]he language used in the texts of the Jemdet Nasr period is demonstrably Sumerian.  Since the first tablets are only slightly older, and since they are all but identical with those of the Jemdet Nasr age, they can scarcely represent any other language [sic].”  (“The Beginnings of Civilization in Mesopotamia,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, LIX, 1939, pp. 17-31; Jones, TSP, p. 87.)

 

We agree with the first statement that the earliest Jemdet Nasr texts are in Sumerian, but the notion that the earlier Uruk script is Sumerian has not been established.  Henri Frankfort, writing in the Cambridge Ancient History (1971; Vol. 1:2; p. 80), said that the script found in Late Uruk 4 was a developed rather than a primitive script, and warns against premature conclusions about which language is represented by the Uruk symbols:

 

“That in the subsequent stage (tablets of the Jamdat Nasr period) the language is Sumerian has been sufficiently demonstrated, but if it be true that an ethnic substratum existed in the land before a (hypothetical) immigration of the Sumerians, the Uruk 4 tablets could be imagined as expressing that earlier language.  At present such questions are quite beyond determination….”  (CAH, 1971; 1:2, p. 81.)

 

A limestone tablet dated to the Ubaid-Uruk transition was found at ancient Kish (Tell el-Oheimir), and contained pictographs along with marks signifying numbers. Possibly, these symbols represent an accounting system rather than a writing system.  Denise Schmandt-Besserat has studied the idea of a pre-linguistic accounting system in Mesopotamia in her book Before Writing, Vol. 1, 1992.  She thinks the “token” system of accounting in early Mesopotamia led to the development of writing.  The three-dimensional shapes of the accounting tokens (used to represent various commodities) were reproduced in two-dimensional signs on clay tablets.  Thus the earliest writing symbols developed within an established accounting system and were used as phonetic values at the very start, not as ideographic symbols.  (Ibid., p. 5.)  The Uruk script was therefore a fully delineated phonetic script, and the subsequent Jemdet Nasr script need not have “evolved” out of a presumably earlier ideographic script.  As we have maintained, the Sumerians merely adopted the idea of a phonetic script from the Shinarians and developed the symbols in their own way, just as the Egyptians did.

 

There is strong evidence for a pre-Sumerian language existing in Mesopotamia prior to the arrival of the Sumerians.  According to Speiser:

 

“[D]ue weight must be given to the combined linguistic-geographic testimony of the place names.  It is certainly very suggestive that nearly all, if not all, of the known oldest cities of Sumer have proved to bear non Sumerian names….Since the very prominence and antiquity of the cities involved pointed to the logical conclusion that non-Sumerian meant in this case pre-Sumerian, the further assumption was in order that we were faced here with a pre-Sumerian linguistic substratum.”  (Ibid., 1951, in Jones, TSP, p. 99.)

 

Frankfort argued that the oldest cities may have had Sumerian names originally, but then the Sumerians were supplanted by a foreign group that gave non-Sumerian names to the cities.  When the Sumerians retook their lands, they did not change the names of the cities back to their Sumerian originals.  This view, however, was rather ad hoc, and Speiser somewhat laconically said, “The explanation, in short, is highly improbable”  (Ibid., Jones, TSP, p. 101.)  Following up on Speiser’s point regarding a pre-Sumerian linguistic substratum, Benno Landsberger made an interesting discovery in his analysis of the earliest language in Mesopotamia.  He noted that the substratum language had a different base vocabulary than the Sumerian language.  As Speiser summarizes it, “The substratum was thus credited with the basic vocabulary for farming, gardening, brewing, pottery, leather work, and building.  To the Sumerians, on the other hand, have been assigned, by the same methodical procedure, the terms involving shipping, cattle feeding, jewelry, sculpture, glyptics, land measurement, writing, education, and law.”  (Jones, TSP, p. 102.)  Landsberger’s results can be tabulated as follows:

 

 

Semitic	Sumerian
farming	shipping
gardening	cattle feeding
brewing	jewelry
pottery	sculpture
leather work	glyptics
building	land measurement
	writing
	education
	law

 

 

It appears from the above that most of the pre-Sumerian speakers were concerned with subsistence occupations—food, clothing, shelter–and were predominantly rural or non-urban.  The Sumerians, however, appear to have been an urban ruling class, their prime concern being with commerce rather than agriculture.  As a ruling class, they were concerned with education, law, art, political propaganda (in glyptic and writing), etc.  The subsistence nature of the substratum language suggests that the speakers of the substratum language were indigenous to Mesopotamia, and this combined with the Semitic names of the oldest cities, adds to the evidence that the Semites were in Mesopotamia prior to the arrival of the Sumerians.  Given some indications in the Sumerian king list, it appears that the Sumerians intermarried with the indigenous elements, and southern Mesopotamia became a mixed population during Jemdet Nasr and after. 

 

The names of the two most important rivers in Mesopotamia are the Tigris and Euphrates, neither name being Sumerian.  As noted, the oldest cities in Mesopotamia (e.g., Eridu, Uruk, Ur, Lagash, Larsa) are not Sumerian.  (For further, see Jack Finegan, Archaeological History of the Ancient Middle East, 1979, p. 17.)  Regarding the secondary nature of the Sumerian presence, M. Jastrow says,

 

“Whether the Sumerians already found the Semites in possession of Babylonia and then conquered them, or whether the Sumerians were the earliest settlers and founded the culture in that district is another question that has not been definitely decided, with the evidence, however, in favor of the view that the Semites were the first on the ground and that they had already made some advance in culture when the Sumerians swept down upon them and imposed their rule and such culture as they brought with them on the older settlers.”  (The Civilization of Babylonia and Assyria, 1915, pp. 103-107; Jones, TSP, 65.)

 

The Sumerian language is an isolate and cannot be related to or derived from any other known language (though Indo-European has been suggested).  From the New Courville perspective, it is important to reiterate that the Sumerian language is not itself Semitic, but incorporates elements of a Semitic language.  As we’ve seen, this underlying Semitic language is regarded as a linguistic substratum and shows that the Sumerians were not the first settlers in Mesopotamia.  Given the existence of this substratum, it follows that if more than one language was already present by the time the Jemdet Nasr script was used to represent these languages, then the Dispersion must have happened before this time.  The Bible says that during the building of the tower and city of Babel, the world was speaking one language, not several.  So it follows by logical necessity (indeed, by pure deduction) that the building of the Tower of Babel would have to be pre-cuneiform, or pre-Jemdet Nasr.

 

4.  The Arrival of the Sumerians

 

This is a major issue in the discussion of the “Sumerian Problem.”  Speiser had long ago identified Jemdet Nasr as the period that saw the arrival of the Sumerians into Mesopotamia.  On the opposite end of the spectrum, Henri Frankfort traced the arrival of the Sumerians all the way back to the Ubaid period.  Jones says, “Speiser, incidentally, had been acquainted only with the Ubaid and Jemdet Nasr cultures: he concluded, as we have seen, that the Sumerians had arrived in the Jemdet Nasr period.  Frankfort agreed that the Sumerians were present in the Jemdet Nasr period, but he insisted that they were also present in the lower valley in the Uruk phase and had actually inaugurated the habitation of the region in the Ubaid period.”  (Jones, TSP, p. 74.)

 

Frankfort’s conclusion was based on a non-sequitur—“vague and incomplete skeletal evidence” in Jones’ words  (TSP, p. 74).  Because this putative evidence seemed to have an “Iranian” connection, and since the Ubaid period also had an “Iranian” connection in its pottery, the Sumerians, in Frankfort’s view, had to have arrived in Ubaid.  We will see that some modern scholars have revived Frankfort’s view regarding the early arrival of the Sumerians.  In arguing for his theory, Frankfort noticed the continuity between Jemdet Nasr and the Early Dynastic period, and this indicated to him that the Sumerians were in Mesopotamia at least by the time of Jemdet Nasr.  According to Jones:

 

“Frankfort based his argument on what he interpreted as a continuity of culture in the south.  The Sumerians, he said, were known to be in Sumer in the Early Dynastic Age.  Since there was no cultural break between the Early Dynastic and the Jemdet Nasr, the Sumerians must have been there in Jemdet Nasr times.”  (Jones, TSP, p. 74.)

 

This is a very important point.  The continuity between Jemdet Nasr and the Early Dynastic period is admitted to by all, and because the Early Dynastic period is Sumerian, the continuity between the two periods requires that Jemdet Nasr culture be Sumerian as well.  This is not a fallacy of asserting the consequent, since it is not a deductive argument.  Rather, the conclusion about Jemdet Nasr being Sumerian is an inductive argument based upon the fact of empirical continuity (i.e., “no cultural break”).  Nevertheless, Speiser would later change his mind about how early the Sumerians entered the county.  While accepting that they were in country by Jemdet Nasr times, he also argued that they were in country during the Uruk period.  He says, “The Sumerians are definitely in Lower Mesopotamia in the latter half of the Uruk period, when the cylinder seals and writing first appear.  Now Uruk B is characterized also by significant changes in pottery and architecture and the appearance of a pronounced naturalistic style in sculpture, a style which dominates, furthermore, the contemporary glyptic art.  Now these changes, and particularly the abandonment of the earlier stamp seal, are radical enough to betray the intrusion of a forceful and heterogeneous ethnic group.  The most logical candidates for that event are the Sumerians.”  (“The Beginnings of Civilization in Mesopotamia,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, LIX, 1939, pp. 17-31; Jones, TSP, p. 90.)  Speiser continues,

 

“Geographically, the historic Sumerians are first seen concentrated at the head of the Persian Gulf, whence they advance gradually up the Tigris-Euphrates valley.  Their script and their cylinder seals are the tracers that enable us to follow the spread of Sumerian civilization….Yet the Sumerians themselves were never entrenched past the confines of Lower Mesopotamia.”  (“The Sumerian Problem Reviewed,” Hebrew Union College Annual, 23 Part One, 1950-1, pp. 339-355; Jones, TSP, p. 99.)

 

Turning now to Samuel N. Kramer’s theory about a Sumerian heroic age, we conclude that while it is interesting, it is also much too a priori of a theory to solve the question of when the Sumerians first arrived in Mesopotamia.  Kramer in fact places the arrival of the Sumerians in the Late Uruk phase, and therefore places his Sumerian “heroic age” in this period as well.  The Sumerian heroes of Kramer’s “heroic age” are Enmerkar, Gilgamesh, et al., so obviously Enmerkar, Gilgamesh, and their contemporaries, must be placed in the latest Uruk phase, where the arrival of the Sumerians is placed.  (Kramer, “New Light on the Early History of the Ancient Near East,” American Journal of Archaeology, LII, 1948, pp. 156-64; Jones, TSP, p. 122, ftn. 52.)  We have already given reasons for rejecting this in our discussion of Rohl’s theory.  Basically, the archaeological evidence links Gilgamesh and his predecessors to the transitional phases of Early Dynastic 2 and 3, not to the much earlier Uruk period.  Nevertheless, despite our disagreement with Kramer’s “heroic age” placement, he is right that the Sumerians were not the first in the land, but were preceded by a “more civilized power of considerable magnitude.”  (Kramer, Ibid.; Jones, TSP, p. 111.)

 

On the other hand, Joan Oates revived Frankfort’s views and placed the Sumerian migration in the Ubaid period.  This meant that the Sumerians were really the first in the land.   Her conclusion is based primarily on the archaeological continuity between the Ubaid and Uruk periods.  (“Ur and Eridu; the Prehistory,” Iraq, 22, 1960, pp. 32-50; Jones, TSP, p. 126ff.)  Summarizing the implications of the Eridu excavations, Oates says:

 

“It is extremely difficult to believe that the location of the temple, its cult, and even its architecture would have continued in an unbroken tradition from al ‘Ubaid to Sumerian times if there had been during this period any major change in the character of the population.”  (TSP, p. 128.)

 

We agree with Oates regarding the continuity of Ubaid and Uruk, but her placement of the Sumerians in the Ubaid period requires her to downplay the evidence of a pre-Sumerian linguistic substratum.  She instead postulates that the population in Mesopotamia was mixed from the very start.  (Jones, Idem.)  However, this does not explain why the oldest city names are Semitic rather than Sumerian (cf., Speiser), nor why the subsistence vocabulary is Semitic rather than Sumerian (cf., Landsberger).  The “Sumerian Problem” is ably summarized by Jones:

 

“The fragmentary pieces of the puzzle that we now possess seem to admit of two hypothetical constructions of the whole: (1) that the Sumerians were present at the beginning of the peasant village state (Eridu) or (2) that they arrived during the Uruk period.  If we accept the philological arguments of Speiser and Landsberger, the Sumerians were not the first settlers; if we incline to the archaeological interpretation of the Eridu material, we must conclude that the Sumerians were the first arrivals.”  (Jones, The Sumerian Problem, p. 139.)

 

In our view, the partisans of Ubaid and Uruk did not consider that this paradox was unsolvable on any view that brought the Sumerians into Mesopotamia prior to the Jemdet Nasr period.  If our theory is correct that Jemdet Nasr represents the first migration of the Sumerians into Mesopotamia, what does the archaeology of Jemdet Nasr look like?  Will it support our conclusion of a migration?

 

5.  Archaeology of the Jemdet Nasr Period

 

Jemdet Nasr is the modern name of a site located between Baghdad and the site of ancient Kish.  The earliest excavators were Stephen Langdon (1926) and Louis Watelin (1928).  (Cf., Roger J. Matthews, “Jemdet Nasr: the Site and the Period,” Biblical Archaeologist, 1992, p. 196ff.)  The archaeological phase “Jemdet Nasr” was chosen to represent the cultural phase occurring between the Late Uruk 4 period and the Early Dynastic period.  This Mesopotamian “Jemdet Nasr” begins at the same time that the Early Bronze Age begins in the Holy Land, and is also equivalent to the pre-dynastic period in Egypt.  It should be noted that the Early Bronze Age is used to describe an archaeological phase in the Holy Land, and should not be confused with the Early Dynastic period in Mesopotamia.  The use of the term “Early” in both cases can lead to confusion.  The Early Bronze Age does not begin at the same time that the Early Dynastic period begins in Mesopotamia, but rather begins at the same time that the Jemdet Nasr period begins in Mesopotamia.  The Mesopotamian dynastic period only comes after Jemdet Nasr, and therefore after the beginning of the Early Bronze Age in Palestine.

 

With more excavations, it appeared that the Jemdet Nasr culture was only a local phase in Mesopotamia, and scholars began to question whether it was even a real chronological phase.  A conference in 1983 was held to discuss this issue and led to the publication of papers in 1986, Gamdat Nasr: Period or Regional Style?, edited by Uwe Finkbeiner and Wolgang Rollig.  One of these papers was by J. N. Postgate, titled “The transition from Uruk to Early Dynastic: continuities and discontinuities in the record of settlement” and summarizes his excavations at Abu Salabikh.  In a chart of page 91 of his article, Postgate shows the main architectural breaks within the Uruk to Early Dynastic sequence.  He notes that for many sites, the break at the end of Late Uruk 4 was a “major discontinuity” and signified a “change of use” of the architecture.  With regard to the transition between the later Jemdet Nasr phase and the Early Dynastic phase, there was an “architectural break” but also a “continuity of use.”  Postgate says,

 

“Despite the inadequacy of the evidence, it does look as though the discontinuity between Uruk and GN [Jemdet Nasr] was at least as marked as that between GN and E[arly] D[ynastic] I on most sites.  Where there is a GN-ED I discontinuity, it tends to be the re-building of an area already built up; whereas at Ur, Kafajah, and Asmar the GN buildings were apparently erected upon rubbish-tips of the Uruk period….”  (Gamdat Nasr, p. 92.)

 

This could mean that either the Late Uruk sites were deserted for a time, with no continuity of use, or that the sites remained inhabited and population pressure led to the construction of new buildings on previously unoccupied spaces between buildings.  “In either case,” says Postgate, “we receive a picture of the intensification of urban settlement at the beginning of the GN period….”  (Idem.)  In the Diyala region, a significant number of sites were abandoned at or before the end of the Late Uruk phase, but “virtually every site occupied during the GN remained in occupation during ED I.”  (Ibid., p. 93.)  Those sites that continued on from the end of the Late Uruk into the ED 1 period were the largest cities.  Postgate concludes that the transition from the Jemdet Nasr to the ED 1 period was not a period of disruption but reflects “prosperity and peace.”  (Idem.)  However, it is different with the Late Uruk to Jemdet Nasr transition:

 

“[T]he Uruk to GN transition can be seen as a time in which rural settlement in these areas was severely disrupted, with village populations killed, driven away altogether, or confined in the cities.”  (Gamdat Nasr, p. 93.)

 

Both the end of the Late Uruk phase and the Jemdet Nasr/ED transition reflect a “widespread abandonment of sites” but for different reasons.  Postgate says, “[W]hereas for 48 sites abandoned by the end of the Uruk, 54 new sites are recorded in the GN; at the end of the GN 53 sites were abandoned but only 5 new villages are recorded for ED I.”  (Idem.)  This latter phenomenon for the Jemdet Nasr/ED transition is interpreted by Postgate as the abandonment of smaller sites in favor of urbanization, where “outlying sites were abandoned as the population concentrated into larger centres….”  (Ibid., p. 95.)  The Uruk to Jemdet Nasr transition, however, was not the result of prosperity or urbanization.  It appears that the original populations were replaced by the new Jemdet Nasr populations.  Postgate summarizes the archaeological evidence as providing:

 

“clear evidence for a major social disruption towards the end of the Uruk period.  Ceramic criteria are not precise enough to tell us whether this widespread abandonment of villages took place before, after, or at the same time as the striking contracting of foreign connections observed by other contributors to the colloquium in all directions except the Gulf.  Couched in historical terms, I would visualize the situation as an abandonment of the country-side, accompanied by the encapsulation and transmission of the culture of Uruk IV by a reduced and beleaguered urban population, followed by a gradual re-colonization of the intervening lands as some measure of peace and stability was re-introduced.”  (Gamdat Nasr, p. 96.)

 

The striking contraction of foreign connections is, of course, the collapse of the Uruk World System that we have spent so much time discussing earlier.  We disagreed with Algaze’s explanation for the collapse, that it was something inherent in the Uruk trade system, and argued instead that the market collapse was due to the abandonment of the country after the divine judgment, i.e., the Dispersion.  With regard to the “re-colonization” of the country noted in the above summary, Postgate does not commit himself to any theory of a foreign incursion, but he does comment earlier that the disruption is similar to the results of a foreign invasion:

 

“In historical terms, one would expect such a configuration to correspond to the kind of disruption associated with, for example, the take-over of Amorites at the end of the Ur III, or of Kassites at the close of the Old Babylonian dynasty.”  (Gamdat Nasr, p. 93.)

 

Thus, all the ingredients seem to be in place for a new way of looking at the Uruk to Jemdet Nasr transition.  If we are even close to being right in identifying the Late Uruk 4 period as the time of Nimrod and the building of the Tower of Babel, then the subsequent disruption at the end of the Uruk phase can be interpreted as the result of the Dispersion rather than from foreign conflict or invasion.  As a further aspect of our theory, the country was not abandoned for long, for when it became known that the population of the country had been severely reduced, the Sumerians migrated into the land, and became the ruling class during the Jemdet Nasr period.  The subsequent prosperity led to greater urbanization during the transition between Jemdet Nasr and the Early Dynastic phases.  Postgate’s “beleaguered” urban groups were probably a remnant of the Shinarians who moved into the cities after many of their fellow citizens abandoned the country.  The patriarch Abraham was a descendent of Semitic-speaking Shinarians who remained in the land of Mesopotamia.

 

6.  New Excavations

 

In response to the questions raised by the conference in 1983, new excavations were undertaken at Jemdet Nasr, and the excavators concluded that the Jemdet Nasr period “has a valid meaning only within fairly limited geographical boundaries, encompassing southern and central Mesopotamia with some influence to the northeast.”  (Matthews, Biblical Archaeologist, 1992, p. 201.)   According to Matthews:

 

“The Jemdet Nasr period, then, covers a time span, probably brief, that immediately follows a collapse of widespread Late Uruk influence.”  (Biblical Archaeologist, 1992, p. 202.)

 

It should be noted that some things that were previously dated to the brief Jemdet Nasr phase have been redated to the Late Uruk phase.  These include cylinder seals once interpreted as evidence of a “widespread expansion of Jemdet Nasr material culture.”  Further research, however, showed that these “so-called Jemdet Nasr seals were found at sites that from other evidence, principally pottery, were securely dated to the preceding Late Uruk period.”  Matthews continues: “It is clear, therefore, that the stylized drilled seals belong primarily, if not exclusively, to the Late Uruk period.  (BA, p. 200.)  Algaze has also reported that the Eye Temple, the White Temple, and the Painted Temple (of Mesopotamia) have been redated from the Jemdet Nasr phase to the Late Uruk phase.  (The Uruk World System, 2005, pp. 39-40, 106.)  “[T]he main argument used by [M.E.] Mallowan to assign the Eye Temple to the Jemdet Nasr period was the similarity of its plan, platform, and wall decoration to corresponding features of the White Temple at Warka and the Painted Temple at Tell Uqair, both also considered to be of Jemdet Nasr date by Mallowan….This argument, too, can no longer be supported.  Recent reconsiderations of the evidence from Warka now indicate that the White Temple must be redated to the Uruk period [citing Schmidt, Strommenger].  The situation at Uqair is similar.  Although the ‘Chapel’ by the side of the temple platform is certainly of Jemdet Nasr date, the Painted Temple itself and associated platform, which form the core of Mallowan’s parallels, are stratigraphically earlier and unquestionably Uruk in date, as correctly noted by the original excavators [citing Lloyd and Safar].”   (TUWS, pp. 159-160, ftn. 11.)

 

From this we see that the Jemdet Nasr culture was localized to southern and central Mesopotamia, and was of short duration, and followed the collapse of the Late Uruk 4 phase.  In Mesopotamia proper, it reflects a process of re-urbanization rather than dispersion.   The dispersion or “abandonment of the country-side” took place at the end of the Late Uruk 4 period, not during the Jemdet Nasr period.  Moreover, with the redating of several “Jemdet Nasr” structures to the Late Uruk period, the Jemdet Nasr phase appears to lack any significant architectural representation, whether monumental or on smaller scale, and has populations moving into the surviving major cities, with subsequent re-colonization of the countryside as peace and prosperity return to the land.  Given the localization of Jemdet Nasr, evidence of this period found in other countries does not require a very long Jemdet Nasr phase in those countries.  Rather, we should see such evidence as indicative of the presence of Late Uruk émigrés settling into their new homelands rather than trade with new Mesopotamian businessmen of the Jemdet Nasr phase.  Of course, not all immigration was from Mesopotamia.  Since linguistic confusion fell upon all mankind, we can expect to find migratory movements from other countries besides Mesopotamia.

 

7.  Courville and the Dispersion, Revisited

 

How does our interpretation of the data from Uruk and Jemdet Nasr compare with Courville’s interpretation of the data?  As we noted at the beginning of our discussion, Courville believes that the Dispersion took place a few years before the unification of Egypt under Mena.  It was also noted that if the Dispersion took place before the unification of Egypt, it should show up in the archaeological record shortly before this unification, with signs pointing to Mesopotamia as the source of the new culture.  It would involve a series of migrations and displacements of people, and this would take place at the beginning of the Early Bronze Age, coincident with the archaeological phase in Mesopotamia known as Jemdet Nasr.  Courville referenced Garstang, Albright, Kenyon, et al. to show that there was migration from Mesopotamia to the surrounding countries during this period.  In Syria, the Jemdet Nasr émigrés founded Atchana level 14, and replaced the Kherbet Karak people at Tabarah.  In Egypt, Mesopotamian influences during the pre-dynastic period are correlated with Jemdet Nasr, and new sites in Anatolia at this time may have been an indirect result of the Dispersion.

 

We noted our disagreement with Courville on the identification of Mena with biblical Mizraim and then asked whether Courville was right in locating the Dispersion event in the Jemdet Nasr cultural phase.  The question was also asked if it was possible to find a more precise time for the building of the city and tower of Babel, and whether the Dispersion was of short or long duration.

 

The New Courville answer to the question regarding the time of the building of the Tower has already been given in an earlier paper.  There does not seem to be any logical or empirical alternative to the building of the city and tower of Babel during the Late Uruk period.  Anything after that is too late, if biblical history is taken at face value.  With regard to the length of time of the Dispersion, there is no a priori reason for assuming the Dispersion was of long duration.  In fact, we have identified it as the cause of the collapse of the Mesopotamian world system at the end of the Late Uruk period, and there is little reason for thinking this involved any great length of time.  There remains the question of whether Courville was right to identify the Dispersion with the Jemdet Nasr period.  When we first began our study of Mesopotamian chronology, this question was not easy to answer.  The reason was that there appeared to be two contradictory situations during the Jemdet Nasr period.  Yes, Courville was right that some countries of the ancient world show evidence of migrations during Jemdet Nasr.  However, Mesopotamia itself did not show this migration, but quite the opposite—Mesopotamia was experiencing an incoming migration of its own, of a new culture moving into the southern alluvium with a renewal of urbanization.  How could these two situations be reconciled?

 

Now that New Courville has adopted the view that the Sumerians arrived in southern Mesopotamia during Jemdet Nasr, this problem has a ready solution.  When the Shinarians migrated out of southern Mesopotamia at the end of the Late Uruk period—creating something of a vacuum in the country—they show up in the archaeological record of surrounding nations as Jemdet Nasr émigrés.  Shortly after the Shinarian dispersion into all the world, the Sumerians migrated to southern Mesopotamia, and intermingled with the remaining Shinarians to create their version of the Jemdet Nasr period, and the subsequent Early Dynastic phase.  Thus, from our point of view, it was only after the incident of the Dispersion, that Sumerian civilization could begin and dominate the region for some time after.

 

In the meantime, the Dispersion must have had some observable effects upon at least some of the regions near Mesopotamia, such as Palestine, Iran, or further east into India, etc.  This would have taken place at the end of Late Uruk, or during Jemdet Nasr, and would eventually lead to the rise of the Early Bronze 1 phase in the archaeological record.

 

8.  Urbanization in the Holy Land

 

Kathleen Kenyon described the beginning of the Early Bronze Age in the Holy Land as the “Proto-Urban” period, one in which the beginnings of cities in Palestine are seen.  She described this in terms of an “invasion” of new peoples:

 

“The new period is ushered in by the invasion of a number of new groups….The settlements they established grew into the city states of the Early Bronze Age.”  (Kathleen Kenyon, Archaeology in the Holy Land, p. 84.)

 

Kenyon based her view about new groups invading the land primarily on the evidence found in tombs:  “The appearance of the tombs is of interest in itself, and is strong additional evidence, over and above the new types of pottery, of the arrival of entirely new groups….With the newcomers…comes the new practice of multiple tomb-burial…associated with the practice of peace offerings to accompany the dead….It is probable that the newcomers came from the north and east….” (Ibid., pp. 84-85.)

 

Interestingly enough, the Israeli archaeologist Yohanan Aharoni had no trouble in correlating the newcomers with such regions as Anatolia, Syria, and Mesopotamia: “The burnishing technique is reminiscent of an Anatolian tradition….The forms of some vessels point to a connection with Mesopotamia in the Uruk period.  The painted wares have some analogies in northern Syria.”  (The Archaeology of the Land of Israel, 1978, p. 56.)  Unpacking Aharoni’s comments, we can see that aside from the decorations and burnishing techniques—the frosting so to speak—the actual form or structure of some of the pottery of these migratory groups shows a connection with Late Uruk of Mesopotamia.

 

According to Kenyon, Jericho provided a convenient point of entry for peoples migrating from the east.  Tomb A94 at Jericho is regarded as representative of the new peoples, and its pottery can be correlated with pottery at Tell Nasbeh tombs 32, 52, and 67.  (Kenyon, p. 88.)  However, at Tell Nasbeh cave tomb 5-6 and at Ai tombs B, C, and G, this same pottery is found with a distinctive type of decorated pottery.  For convenience, we can call the first type of pottery “Representative” and the second type “Decorated,” following Kenyon’s descriptions.  (Note: G. E. Wright had earlier described this “Decorated” pottery as Early Bronze Age Ia, Ibid., p. 99.)  In addition to the “Decorated” pottery found at Tell Nasbeh and Ai, similar pottery was found at Jericho tomb A13. This tomb was above levels containing the A94 “Representative” pottery, and this allows for a slight stratification of these pottery types.  However, the mixture of Representative and Decorated at Tell Nasbeh, Ai, Tell-Far‘ah, and Megiddo shows that they were still largely contemporary.  “At Jericho,” says Kenyon, “and in some of the Tell Nasbeh tombs they are distinct, but they must have been living side by side, and on the evidence of Tell Nasbeh Cave tomb 5-6 and of the ‘Ai tomb they must in due course have mingled.”  (Kenyon, p. 90.)

 

The first type of pottery (Representative) is described by Kenyon as Proto-Urban A and the second type (Decorated) as Proto-Urban B.  At Tell el Far‘ah, the level known as “Upper Chalcolithic” (UC) contains pottery in tombs that can be correlated to Proto-Urban A at Jericho.  (Kenyon, pp. 90-92.)  The Proto-Urban A tombs found at Tell el Far‘ah also contain what has been called “Esdraelon ware.”  The following shows the correlations of these contemporaneous peoples, but with a presumed sequence starting from earliest to latest, i.e., the lowest row in the chart is the earliest level and the highest row is the latest level.

 

Esdraelon	Proto-Urban C			Tell Far‘ah-UC
Decorated	Proto-Urban B	Jericho A13	Tell Nasbeh	Tell Far‘ah-UC
Representative	Proto-Urban A	Jericho A94	Tell Nasbeh	Tell Far‘ah-UC

 

For these sites, then, the people are contemporary but appeared to have arrived at slightly different times.  Megiddo also has a combination of Proto-Urban A with Proto-Urban C, and other sites such as ‘Affuleh and Beth-shan have Proto-Urban C.  (Ibid., pp. 92; 96.)  Jericho, however, lacks Proto-Urban C at its own site (Tell es Sultan), but it is found a mile away beneath Herodian Jericho.  Kenyon says, “Since the Tell el Far‘ah evidence shows that the two groups must have been approximately contemporary, the complete contrast between two sites so close together may suggest hostility between them in this area.”  (Ibid. p. 96.)  We suggest, however, that it may simply have been that the two groups spoke different languages, and thus did not interact. 

 

Kenyon believes that the “interlocking” of the three Proto-Urban groups (A, B, & C), possibly with some indigenous people, shows that a “complex intermingling was going on.”  (Idem.)  She continues:

 

“[W]e can translate our A, B and C pottery types into three groups of people who appear in Palestine at this time.  They come in as independent groups, as the Jericho evidence shows, and as they penetrate into the country some of them intermingle…Jericho was actually the point of entry of these [A & B] groups, indicating that they came from the east, as so many groups did in the later history of Palestine.”  (Kenyon, Archaeology in the Holy Land, p. 97.)

 

The Proto-Urban C group came from the north, either from Lebanon or Syria, but Kenyon is reluctant to identify the homelands of any of the groups, A, B, and C, and thinks such identification awaits further excavation.  (Idem.)  In any case, these were the groups who moved into the Holy Land and built settlements that would eventually lead to the great cities of ancient Palestine.  According to Amihai Mazar:

 

“Numerous EB I settlements were established in the fertile regions of the country: the coastal plain, the northern plains, the central hill country, the Shephelah, and the Jordan Valley.  Many of the sites were established near land and water resources and close to important roads—the three basic requirements for continuous settlement.”  (Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, 1990, p. 94.)

 

Despite the evidence of new groups entering into the Holy Land, as presented by Kenyon or Mazar, is it possible that these new groups really were not émigrés but rather were indigenous to the Holy Land?  Could not the process simply be an internal, intra-settlement process, with native groups moving about within country?  Ram Gophna, in his discussion of the beginnings of the Early Bronze Age in Palestine, answers this in the negative by pointing out the independence of the new settlement patterns from the old:

 

“The EBIa sites that were not established at earlier Chalcolithic sites attest a new settlement process apparently unconnected with the former Chalcolithic settlement system;…they also indicate that the post-Ghassulian resettlement process in some areas of the southern Levant did not reach the semi-arid zone of the Beersheva-Arad Valley….A similar phenomenon may also be observed in the western Golan Heights.  All this signals the total collapse of the Chalcolithic settlement from north to south….”  (T. E. Levy, ed., The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land, 1995, pp. 269-271.)

 

Gophna allows for the possibility that the “settlement gap” between the earlier period and the new period was caused by a “disintegration” of the Chalcolithic settlement system in the Holy Land before the arrival of the new peoples.  In other words, the “severe demographic and sociocultural crisis” that took place in the Holy Land at the beginning of the Early Bronze Age may not have involved any clashes between the old and new peoples.  (Ibid., p. 272.)  By contrast, the “settlement crisis” that took place at the end of the later EB1 period is described as primarily an “intra-regional” process where the “material culture of EBII is a direct continuation of that of the pre-urban EBI.”  (Ibid., p. 274; cf. Mazar, pp. 94-95.)  Gophna does not say what caused this later migratory process and consequent urbanization but there are hints that it may have had something to do with the rise of Pharaonic Egypt.  (Ibid., pp. 275, 277.)

 

In further support of the view that Canaan was influenced from the outside at the beginning of the Early Bronze Age, Ruth Amiran points out that elements of the material culture of Canaan were brought in by “migratory-infiltrating movements from Sumerian [sic] higher urban society.  (“The Beginnings of Urbanization in Canaan,” in J. A. Sanders, ed., Near Eastern Archaeology in the Twentieth Century, 1970, p. 85; Glueck Festschrift.)  Reference is made to the EB1 spouted vessels [citing H. Kantor], which are known in Mesopotamia during the Uruk and Jemdet Nasr phases.  (Ibid., pp. 86, 87.)

 

The evidence from Palestine is therefore consistent with the concept of a migration out of Mesopotamia at the end of the Late Uruk and during the Jemdet Nasr phases.  If the Dispersion took place during these phases, then the archaeological material provides a good match for the events as described in the Bible.  We should also expect to see migratory patterns in other countries as well, such as in Egypt, that would further support Courville’s view that the effects of the Dispersion are correlated to the Jemdet Nasr period.

 

9.  The Rise of Egypt

 

Donald Redford is puzzled by the quick advance of Egypt out of the primitive past into the urban future, in comparison to the gradual, linear progress of Mesopotamia:

 

“…Egypt bounced overnight, as it were, out of the Stone Age and into urban culture.  High-rises suddenly replaced mud huts; a civil service superseded the village elders.  A new sophisticated focus for human organization filled the void where only chiefdoms had occasionally appeared: a king sat over Egypt.”  (Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times, 1992, p. 3.)

 

When did this “quantum leap” out of the stone age take place?  The answer is that the “Gerzean” period in Egypt shows advances in culture that are the products of the Late Uruk period in Mesopotamia.  Redford says, “Thanks to the German excavations at Warka in Iraq and the French excavations in Iran, convincing parallels to most of these new features can be found in that region of western Asia dominated by the late Uruk culture of Mesopotamia….Few would dispute…the obvious conclusion that we are dealing with the comparatively sudden importation into Egypt of ideas and products native to Mesopotamia.”  (Ibid., pp. 17-18.)

 

Among these ideas and products are the facade architecture of early Egyptian buildings, which are copied from Mesopotamian models, the Hero of the Gebel el-Araq knife, with antithetical animals on each side, familiar as the priest-king (or better, Hunter-King) of the Late Uruk phase.  (Ibid., p. 19.)  And there are the Mesopotamian ships that are depicted in Egyptian art, which “bear a striking resemblance to vessel shapes known from Uruk and Jemdet-Nasr sealings.”  (Ibid., p. 20.)  Redford sums up his discussion:

 

“Although it is perhaps premature to arrive at conclusions, the evidence for contact with Mesopotamia is more extensive and specific than can be accommodated by a theory of intermittent and casual trade.  It would seem that besides trade items, a human component of alien origin is to be sought in the Gerzean demography of Egypt.”  (Egypt, Canaan, and Israel, p. 22.)

 

Of course, Redford quickly rejects the cause of this as the so-called “dynastic race” entering Egypt during Jemdet Nasr—political correctness being what it is today—but he still warns against ignoring or misinterpreting the evidence, which seems to support some sort of an ethnic incursion into Egypt in the pre-dynastic period.  On a New Courville basis, we would say it is the Shinarian migration after the Dispersion, but Redford declines to speculate about who the “aliens” are.  Nevertheless, he does point to political parallels between the first Pharaonic monarchy and various Mesopotamian and Susiana themes—the white bulbous crown, the prisoner execution scenes, the head-bashing scenes of kingly triumph, motifs involving lions and bulls, etc.  Egyptologist Michael Rice agrees that there was more than just commercial contact between Egypt and Mesopotamia:

 

“[C]ontact was established very early on between the Predynastic Egyptians and the Mesopotamians, seemingly in sufficient depth for the later people to have left unmistakable material evidence of their influence on Egypt….It is particularly at this point, as the Naqada II horizon appears in the latter part of the fourth millennium [sic], that men who were either Sumerians [sic] or who knew Sumer well entered the Nile Valley and contributed uniquely to the foundation of the most monolithic political society known until perhaps the present day.”  (Egypt’s Making: The Origin of Ancient Egypt, 1991, pp. 37; 39.)

 

Rice does not specifically advocate the dynastic race theory to account for the material evidence of Mesopotamians in Egypt during Naqada 2.  On the other hand, David Rohl has joined the lists of those advocating it in his book Legend: The Genesis of Civilisation, 1998, p. 307ff.  The theory basically holds that an ethnic group, a superior race, came into Egypt from the outside and contributed to the jump-starting of Egypt’s culture.  This is intended to explain what Redford called the quantum leap of Egypt out of its provincial past into the full-blown Pharaonic civilization.   In advocating this theory, Rohl rejects any racist associations the theory might have had in the past.  Unfortunately, most modern-day Egyptologists reject this theory, or try to distance themselves from it.  Even those who acknowledge a foreign influence, or actual foreigners entering into Egypt during the pre-Dynastic period, such as Redford above, try to distance themselves from the theory.  Quite sensibly, Rohl reminds us that just because a theory may have early on been influenced by bad ideas, this does not invalidate the basic theory:

 

“[A]lthough the Dynastic Race theory was undoubtedly influenced by the colonial world in which Petrie and his colleagues had worked all their archaeological lives, it does not follow that we must instantly dismiss the archaeological evidence produced by them simply because their historical conclusions were tainted.”  (Legend, p. 315.)

 

Of course, we can rightly reject the notion that this dynastic race was more intelligent than the Egyptian race, or that their skull size indicated superiority over Egyptians.  Such notions would be typical examples of vulgar Darwinism.  However, a race can certainly be technologically superior to another race, or culturally superior, or even morally superior.  This is just a fact of life, especially in the ancient world.  Such superiority in our day is greatly reduced by access to education, technical training, information technology, and so on.  Moral differences, at least in some ways—and sadly with notable exceptions—have been reduced in our day.  Gone are the Aztecs, for instance, a vile, bloodthirsty, child-sacrificing race of people—who were morally inferior even to the Spanish.  Gone too, are the Amorites who sacrificed their children to Molech.  That we no longer sacrifice children to the gods should be seen as a slight improvement in public morals, though obviously offset in other areas.  In regard to economic freedom, the real superiority here is a matter of who can best meet the needs or wants of the market, and while Japan, for example, started out after World War II with almost nothing, and with very little by way of land or resources, it certainly showed that it could become a major player in the world economy.  India also has now become a nation of economic influence, and no doubt there will be many others to prove that economic superiority is not inherent in any race.  Cultural superiority has been somewhat reduced as well, though mainly in the last few hundred years.  No one thinks any longer that the French are culturally superior to every other country.  And not since H. L. Mencken’s day does anyone really think German culture is superior to (say) American culture.

 

As Rohl says, “the past is the past and lessons learnt from the present cannot change that bloody past one iota.”  (Ibid., p. 315.)  He points out that the theory is still feasible and that the archaeological evidence supports it, but recommends discarding the term “dynastic race” in favor of the term “foreign elite.”  (Ibid., p. 316.).  However, this term will also sound patronizing and racist in the ears of our “exploitation” theorists, so even minimal kowtowing to political correctness gains nothing.  Without replacing either term, we recommend simply “the Shinarian race” as an equally accurate term,, since that is who we think this foreign elite, or dynastic race, was.  It was the Shinarians fleeing from their homeland in Mesopotamia who inaugurated Egypt’s great leap forward out of its “primitive” past.  This hypothesis is supported to some extent by Egypt’s language, which one would expect to be a “Hamitic” language but turns out to have a strong “Semitic” component.  According to the Bible, the Egyptians (Mizraim) were descendents of Ham, so this tells us that the land of Egypt was originally settled by a Hamitic or African-speaking people (Gen. 10:6; 13).  An influx of new people is the only thing that could explain the existence of the Semitic element, and we think this finds an explanation in terms of the Dispersion of Semitic-speaking Shinarians from Mesopotamia into Egypt during the Jemdet-Nasr phase.  According to Elise J. Baumgartel:

 

“With the civilization of Naqada II a new and strong impulse seized the people of Upper Egypt.  A foreign people, more advanced and with an urge to develop and spread, may first have arrived as peaceful traders in the Nile Valley and then have been tempted by its riches…to make it their home.  We do not know what was the country of their origin.  Some have suggested they came from the Delta, but recent excavations have not confirmed this conjecture.  Others think they came from some part of western Asia, for it is generally assumed that the strong Semitic element in the Egyptian language is due to them and that the Hamitic element is due to the older population: the archaeological evidence would agree with this theory.”  (Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. 1, Part 1, 1970, p. 481.)   

 

Given that the Shemites originally settled into Mesopotamia and Iran during Ubaid and Uruk, rather than into Egypt, and given that late Naqada 2 is correlated to Uruk and Jemdet Nasr, it seems likely to us that the foreign elite, or dynastic race, or even “peaceful traders” who entered into Egypt during the pre-Dynastic period were Semitic-speaking Shinarians.  They were fleeing from the wrath of God, as it were.  It was the Semitic-speaking Shinarians who permanently influenced the original Hamitic language of Egypt, as well as the politics and culture of the Black Land.  With regard to “peaceful traders” Ram Gophna has some interesting comments about what happened during this time:

 

“During the critical period of the takeover of Lower Egypt by the bearers of the Naqada IIc-d culture, after the total desertion of Maadi…did the connections with southern Canaan not break off….[D]id the Naqadians manage to keep the momentum of trade relations with southern Canaan going during the takeover period?”  (Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land, p. 278.)

 

A “takeover” certainly does not sound like the result of peaceful trade.  Is there any evidence of a “takeover” vis-à-vis mere commercial ties?  The answer is yes, as long as the evidence is allowed to speak for itself.  During the time in question, there is evidence of a naval battle (or several) between Mesopotamian conquerors and native Egyptians.

 

10.  The Square-Boat People

 

Despite the lines of evidence for discontinuity in Egyptian civilization, it should be pointed out that some Egyptologists, among them Henri Frankfurt, refused to commit themselves to the idea of Mesopotamian immigration into Egypt.  (The Birth of Civilization in the Near East, 1951, pp. 135, 136.)  However, Frankfort still acknowledged a Mesopotamian “influence” upon the Egyptians during the Jemdet Nasr phase, who in turn transformed new ideas into their own way of doing things.  Many Egyptologists are willing to accept Frankfort’s views and tend to focus on “developmental continuities” rather than invasion theories in explaining Egypt’s dynastic origins.  This emphasis on continuity has gone so far that one Egyptologist, Toby Wilkinson, could deny that the “square boats” found in Egypt were Mesopotamian in origin.  He argues instead that they were originally Egyptian.  (Genesis of the Pharaohs, 2003, p. 72.)

 

Arthur Weigall was the first archaeologist to make a significant recording of some of the rock art of Egypt, and he was followed later by Hans Winkler.  It was in the Eastern Desert at Wadi Abbad that the square-boats were first found.  They were painted onto the rock cliffs in the desert and show high prows and sterns, and they often have straight hulls or decks, thus suggesting the name “square-boat.”  Later, Winkler’s work would take him to the Wadi Hammamat in the Eastern Desert of Egypt where more art work was found.  In 1997, David Rohl led an expedition to the Eastern Desert and found even more of the rock art (reported in his book Legend: the Genesis of Civilization, 1998).  Egyptologists working on this subject credit Rohl with re-stimulating scholarly interest in the rock paintings, even if they disagree with his conclusions.  Wilkinson says: “The credit for reawakening interest in Egypt’s Eastern Desert and its remarkable prehistoric rock art must go to David Rohl.” (Genesis of the Pharaohs, p. 7)

 

Obviously, those who emphasize continuity in Egypt, must reject an invasion of Egypt during this period, and therefore must also deny that the Eastern Desert square-boats are Mesopotamian in origin.  After all, it is unlikely that Egyptians would be sailing on the Wadi Hammamat in Mesopotamian boats.  Previous scholars, however, had interpreted these boats as reflective of Mesopotamian origins.  According to Wilkinson: “Both Winkler and Rohl were particularly struck by the square-hulled boats in the desert rock art.  They reminded both scholars of similarly shaped craft: on seal-impressions from Mesopotamia; and on the famous carved ivory knife-handle from Gebel el-Arak in Egypt.”  (Genesis of the Pharaohs, p. 71.)

 

The latter ivory shows a naval battle between these “square-boats” and the typical Egyptian “banana boats.”  Wilkinson cannot deny the basic fact that the boats resemble Mesopotamian boats, so he denies their invention to the Mesopotamians:

 

“The presence of a square-hulled boat on a Nagada I pot from Egypt proves that the motif was part of the native Egyptian artistic repertoire long before it became popular in Mesopotamia.  Winkler’s argument could be turned on its head: the square-hulled boats of Mesopotamian imagery could be evidence of Egyptian inspiration, rather than the other way around.”  (Genesis of the Pharaohs, p. 72.)

 

In order to cover himself completely, however, Wilkinson even denies that the artwork records any actual occurrence, and will later argue that they only have religious significance:  “The decoration [on the Gebel el-Arak knife] includes the figure of a ruler wearing a Mesopotamian-style turban and holding apart two lions; and a naval battle between, on the one hand, square-hulled boats with Mesopotamian attributes and, on the other, ‘banana-shaped’ vessels of the typical Nagada II Egyptian type.  This has been interpreted as the record of a conflict between ‘Eastern Invaders’ and native Egyptians in the later Predynastic period.  However, given what we know of Egyptian art…the decoration is highly unlikely to record a real event, especially one in which the Egyptians came off worse.”  (Genesis, p. 71.)  This was also the view adopted earlier by Beatrix Midant-Reynes, who denied that the art found at tomb 100—the Painted Tomb–portrays history.  She regarded it as an expression of ideology, the restoration of a figurative order.  (Cf., The Prehistory of Egypt [1992], 2000, p. 208.)

 

Wilkinson attempts to separate the dates for the rock art and the Gebel el-Arak knife in order to deny any historical connections between them.  In our opinion, this is done on the basis of questionable dating methods, e.g., comparing depicted “fauna” with “data” about ancient climates.  (Ibid., p. 60.)  What of radiocarbon dating?  In fact this dating method (problematic as it is) cannot be used because it is, according to Wilkinson, of “limited use when it comes to rock art.”  (Ibid., p. 55.)  This is due mainly to the lack of any surviving organic compounds in the paint used for the artwork.  What about other dating methods?  Appeal is made to a new Australian technique of “microerosion analysis” which involves measuring the rate of weathering on a rock surface.  Unfortunately, Wilkinson admits that this method has never been used on Egyptian rock art, and remains only a hope.  (Ibid., p. 56.)  Next, it is claimed that we have to rely on the rock art itself for clues as to its age.  The first method considered is the use of “patination” as a tool for determining the age of the art, based on J. Dunbar’s use of it in Nubia in the 1930’s.  Yet Wilkinson had to reject this method as well because the minerals give rise to a variety of surface colors, and environmental conditions affect the rock art so much that “patination could not be taken as a reliable indicator of age….”  (Ibid., p. 57.)  The next theories discussed are Winkler’s “position” theory and Whitney Davis’s “elevation” theory, only to be rejected in their turn.  (Ibid., p. 58.).  We are thus left with the fauna-ancient climate method:

 

“By examining the fauna and comparing them with the known scientific data about ancient climate change, we can in this way date some of the petroglyphs to a period before 3500 BC.”  (Genesis of the Pharaohs, p. 61.)

 

Some petroglyphs can be dated?  Does that include the boats?  Even if this method were not so questionable—what fauna, what weather data, which petroglyphs?—we need to know the dates of the boats in particular.  Wilkinson then appeals to “art history.”  Some of the rock art shows Arab invaders riding on horses with saddles.  Obviously, such drawings can be dated to the seventh century A.D. or later.  It is also thought that camels on the rock art can be dated to the fourth or third century B.C. or after since that is supposedly when camels were first introduced into Egypt.  (Ibid., p. 61.)  Of course, these are not problematic in themselves because we already know the absolute dates (more or less) of the Arab conquest,  and of Egyptian history of the fourth and third centuries B.C.  But again, what of the boats?

 

Wilkinson proceeds to a discussion of relative chronology derived from pottery evidence and refers to the Badarian and Naqada phases, dating them in accordance with conventional C-14 dates.  He focuses on the Naqada 1 phase (C-ware) and says many of the animals found on the rock art are similar to those found during Naqada 1.   While gazelle, crocodile, hippos, giraffes, and long-horned sheep are interesting, we ask the question again, what of the boats?  Nothing so far has been provided to date the square-boats on the rock art.  Thus, Wilkinson’s confident claim that the rock art is a thousand years earlier than the Gebel el-Arak knife appears to be unfounded.  Moreover, even if the rock art in general were a thousand years earlier than the events depicted on the knife, this would not prove that the specific rock art related to the square-boats was over a thousand years earlier than the knife.  We need to know the date of the boats.  In addition, even if the rock art in general were separated from the artwork on the knife by centuries, it would not prove that the events depicted were unhistorical, or were merely examples of early Egyptian religious imagery.

 

The reason Wilkinson is so eager to deny the Mesopotamian origin of the square-boats is that he is following the theory of Emile Massoulard, who in his book Préhistoire et protohistoire d’Egypte (1949) argued that the rise of Egypt was an “indigenous development.”  He thus rejected the “dynastic race” theory of foreign invasion, going so far as to say that the dynastic race theory espoused by Petrie, Emery, and I. E. S. Edwards has been “discredited.”  (Wilkinson, Early Dynastic Egypt, 2001, pp. 14, 15.)  With such an a priori starting point, it is no wonder that Wilkinson would need to explain away the significance of the rock art, which is very difficult to account for in light of a gradualist theory of Egypt’s dynastic origins.

 

In arguing for his theory, Wilkinson often uses tendentious arguments, and a rather disquieting use of ad hominem, especially against Winkler.  It is true that Winkler was a German soldier during World War II, and was killed while stationed in Poland.  It seems also true, as Wilkinson has it, that Winkler took the “greatest pains” to copy the swastika-like symbols he found on the walls of the rock cliffs.  (Genesis, p. 21.)  One would think that a scholar is to be commended for taking at least some pains in recording what he saw, whether a swastika symbol or not.  My impression is that Winkler took great pains to record all that he saw, not just swastika symbols.  Nevertheless, Wilkinson ladles in such intriguing information about what Winkler took great pains in copying because he then will use it to imply that Winkler was preoccupied with the idea of “Aryan” racial superiority.  On the basis of these “great pains” of Winkler, it is concluded that:  “Nazi ideology had clearly imprinted itself on Winkler’s mind.”  (Genesis, p. 21.)  No statements by Winkler are adduced to support such a conclusion, only the “great pains” business.  Moreover, Wilkinson is also able to determine Winkler’s psychological state—read his mind, so to speak—concluding that Winkler was lonely and obsessed with ideas of Aryan racial superiority.  “During his many lonely months in the Eastern Desert, he seems to have grappled with the implications of racial supremacy, seeking evidence to prove or disprove the associated theory [sic] that the great civilization of ancient Egypt was the creation, not of ‘savage’ Africans, but of enlightened invaders from the ‘Aryan’ world to the east.”  (Ibid., pp. 21-22.)  How Wilkinson can know the state of Winkler’s mind is not made very clear.  And what about this “associated theory” that Wilkinson speaks of?  Somehow, Wilkinson is able to make a connection between a theory of Aryan racial superiority and the traditional Invasion theory of Egypt’s dynastic origins, for the latter is what the “associated theory” happens to be.

 

Just to get our bearings, it should be pointed out that the Invasion theory predated Nazi ideology and long outlasted it as well.  It was first formulated by William Petrie, the Father of Egyptian archaeology, and was held by the giants of the field who followed him.  I am not aware that these scholars ever connected their invasion theory with Neitzsche’s crazy Übermensch philosophy.  In terms of longevity, the invasion theory can be found in the latest edition of the Cambridge Ancient History, 1970.  Also, Wilkinson is well aware of the fact that Winkler was a Communist.  This certainly puts a crimp in the argument for Winkler’s supposed advocacy of Aryan superiority, though Wilkinson introduces the term “temporary” to describe how long Winkler held to his views on Communism.  No evidence is introduced, however, to prove that Winkler’s Communist faith was short-lived.  A further problem in the argument is the fact that Winkler was purged from the teaching staff at Tubingen in 1933, when Hitler came to power.  (Ibid., p. 19.)  Would not these facts be enough to exonerate Winkler of the charge of racism or Aryanism?  Not in the least in Wilkinson’s view.  The fact that Winkler “fell foul of the Nazi ideologues” is obviously the reason Winkler supposedly became a Nazi ideologue.  Wilkinson says:  “The myth of ‘Aryan’ supremacy was, none the less, to haunt Winkler’s work for the rest of his life.”  (Idem.)  We have to confess that the logic of Wilkinson’s argument is beyond our ability to follow (beyond anyone’s ability to follow it would seem), so we shall have to move on in a different direction.

 

The Eastern Desert square-boats stand out as particularly distinctive vessels, along with the high-prowed boats.  In addition to these boats, a certain type of boat referred to as “banana-boats” was found painted on tomb 100 at Hierakonpolis, along with a dark high-prowed boat.  These were dated to the Naqada 2 period, which correlates to the Uruk and Jemdet Nasr phases in Mesopotamia.  The Gebel el-Arak knife shows Mesopotamian square-boats fighting with Egyptian banana-boats.  This knife is dated to Naqada 2 as well.  The Hierakonpolis wall painting, like the Arak knife, shows the famous Mesopotamian motif of a hunter standing between two lions.  (R. Schulz & M. Seidel, eds., Egypt: The World of the Pharaohs, p. 21.)  On the painting, the figure is rather indefinite as to race, but the figure on the Arak knife is clearly copied from the Uruk motif of the Master of Animals, i.e., the Hunter King whom we (and Rohl) have previously identified as Nimrod.  On the basis of similar Mesopotamian motifs of the Uruk and Jemdet Nasr phases, Rohl dated the Eastern Desert boats to the same general period.  (Legend, p. 289; 290.)

 

Against this dating of the Eastern desert boats, Wilkinson refers to a single vessel dated to the late Naqada 1 phase, “which bears a pot-mark in the form of a square boat and gazelle….”  (Ibid., p. 71.)  Wilkinson’s whole theory of the Egyptian origin of square boats is almost entirely based on this one fragmentary drawing.  It shows a gazelle standing on something that looks like half of a boat with a horizontal deck, then a prow or stern that juts up vertically.  This is not exactly overwhelming proof that the square-boat was an Egyptian invention.  The reason Wilkinson attempts this rather attenuated trace is that he denies that the East Desert boats can be dated to the Naqada 2 period.  By doing so, he can separate the naval battle on the Arak knife from the ships depicted on the rock cliffs of Wadi Hammamat, and the Naqada 2 ships depicted on the wall of tomb 100 at Hierankopolis.  It seems to us, however, that if Wilkinson’s earlier arguments about art-historical synchronization are to be taken seriously, it would require that the boats of the Eastern Desert should be correlated to the Naqada 2 boats of Tomb 100 and to those in the naval battle scene on the Arak knife.

 

Wilkinson’s theory regarding the square-boats is not entirely original.  Earlier, W. Helch claimed that the putatively Mesopotamian boats on the Eastern Desert rock cliffs were really Egyptian in origin.  (Die Beziehungen Agyptens zu Vorderasien im 3. und 2., 1962; cf., Robert Ehrich, Chronologies in Old World Archaeology, 1965, pp. 11.)  One of his arguments was that a ship on an Amratian sherd showed that the high-hulled boat was Egyptian in origin, but Helene Kantor responded that the Amratian sherd “is both incomplete and not clearly Mesopotamian in type….”  (COWA, p. 12.)  She also regards the relevant ships in the Eastern Desert as “overwhelmingly similar to Mesopotamian ones and unlike standard Gerzean representations.”  (Idem.)  Unfortunately, Helch had also denied that the niched architecture found in Egypt during this time was of Mesopotamian origin.  Kantor replied:

 

“Egyptologists have long hesitated to accept the idea that such a significant feature of Egyptian civilization could have been borrowed from abroad…but the evidence set forth by Frankfort is receiving increasing acceptance and seems indisputable, particularly when considered together with all the other signs of Mesopotamian connections.”  (Chronologies in Old World Archaeology, pp. 12-13.) 

 

In addition to affirming the Mesopotamian origins of the square-boat, Kantor contrasts the “diffusion of Mesopotamian influence” found in Egypt with the evidence found in Syria or Palestine.  In Egypt the influence is unmistakable, whereas in Syria and Palestine, there isn’t a “hint of the rich complex of Mesopotamian features” that can be found in Egypt.  (Ibid., p. 13.)  Nevertheless, we would point out vis-à-vis Kantor that there are some correlations between Mesopotamia and the surrounding regions (in the form of pottery primarily) but we agree that the contrast between Egypt and these other areas is very striking.  The New Courville theory is that the breakup of Nimrod’s empire led to more than just cultural or material influences from Mesopotamia reaching into Egypt.  The break-up of empire also led to the spread of Mesopotamian military and political ideas.  Just as the conquering king standing between the antithetical lions provides evidence for southern military and political control over northern Mesopotamia (as we have argued), so the same symbol provides evidence for the triumph of a similar ideology in Egypt.  Describing the influence of Mesopotamia and Susa on Egyptian culture, Kathryn Bard says:

 

“Mesopotamian motifs also appear in Upper Egypt (and Lower Nubia), including the motif of the héros dompteur (a victorious human figure between two lions/beasts), painted on the wall of Tomb 100 at Hierakonpolis, which dates to Naqada II.  Other typically Mesopotamian motifs, such as the niched palace façade, and high-prowed boats, are also found on Naqada II and III artefacts and also in the rock art.”  (“The Emergence of the Egyptian State,” in Ian Shaw, ed., The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, 2000, p. 66.)

 

Notice that we have here the familiar Mesopotamian symbol of the Hunter-King, ruler of wild beasts (i.e., foreign enemies)–and his symbol happens to be in Egypt just before Egypt’s unification into an empire.  It is tempting to ascribe the invasion and subsequent unification of Egypt to Nimrod, but surely the Bible would have mentioned something of such importance in connection with Nimrod.  True, this might not rule out the possibility that Nimrod was directly responsible for Egypt’s state formation, but it is a good reason to be cautious.  It is more likely that a son of Nimrod, or perhaps a royal protégé, made his way down to Egypt, along with a large contingent of Shinarians.  Whoever it might have been, they appear to have adopted Nimrod’s politics, for the south-to-north unification of Egypt is almost a carbon copy of the south-to-north unification of Mesopotamia only a few years earlier.  And both were accompanied by the Hunter-King motif.  Both saw the development of their respective countries into powerful kingdoms, and just as Mesopotamia became a world-system, so also can we speak of the development of an Egyptian world-system.

 

In his discussion of the dynastic race theory of Egypt’s pharaonic civilization, W. B. Emery says, “Another feature on which scholars hold widely divergent views is the existence or otherwise of the so-called ‘Dynastic Race’.  Contrary to the theory expressed in the present work [Archaic Egypt], that the rapid advance of civilization in the Nile valley immediately prior to the Unification was due to the advent of the ‘dynastic race’, some scholars believe that outside influence was limited and that the cause was primarily a natural development of the native culture of the Predynastic period….[N]evertheless we are faced with the fact that Mesopotamia can show a background of development, whereas Egypt cannot….” (Archaic Egypt, 1961, pp. 30-31.)

 

Nevertheless, most modern scholars (post-1960’s at any rate) are reluctant to adopt an invasion theory, and prefer alternative explanations of Egypt’s rise to power.  Alan Gardiner allowed for an “infiltration” of “Mesopotamian craftsmen” into Egypt, but was not willing to commit himself to an invasion theory.  (Egypt of the Pharaohs, 1961, p. 397.)  Barry Kemp acknowledges that Egypt lacked the conditions for the quick development of the state.  It lacked, for instance, large populations, external military threats (supposedly), and abundant natural resources.  (Ancient Egypt, 1991, p. 31.)  He invokes “game theory” as an explanation of Egypt’s rapid development.  The cause of state formation was “psychological” in that the Egyptians gained territorial self-confidence leading to greater competition.  (Ibid., p. 32.)  B. G. Trigger acknowledges Egypt’s “intensive” contact with Mesopotamia, including the influence of the Mesopotamian idea of writing:

 

“[G]eneral similarities in the two systems of writing have suggested that stimulus diffusion from Mesopotamia may have played a role in the origin of the Egyptian script.  It has also been argued that some signs appear to have been invented by Semitic, rather than Egyptian, speakers.  This, plus a possible influx of words of Semitic and Sumerian [sic] origin and Semitic grammatical forms at this period, suggest the possibility of yet more Near Eastern influence.  It is significant that no evidence of reciprocal Egyptian influence has been noted in Mesopotamia at this time.”  (Trigger, ed., et al., Ancient Egypt: A Social History, 1983, p. 37.)

 

In place of an invasion, it is held that a gold rush of sorts was the thing that brought Mesopotamian influence into Egypt.  (Ibid., p. 39.)  There was an “influx of foreign specialists”—e.g. adventurers or traders—but not any invasive groups.  (Ibid., p. 40.)    Nicolas Grimal interprets the Mesopotamian material in Egypt as too isolated to support the invasion hypothesis.  He favors a theory of trade or commercial links and even goes to the extreme of denying that the idea behind the Egyptian system of writing was derived from the Mesopotamian concept.  (A History of Ancient Egypt, 1992, p. 31.)  The late Michael Hoffman made no secret that he was a continuity theorist, that the aim of his book Egypt Before the Pharaohs, 1979, was to “demonstrate the continuity in Egyptian prehistory and history…”  (p. 305.)  In the course of his book, he discusses several theories brought forth to explain the sudden formation of dynastic Egypt.  These include a hydraulic theory involving control of irrigation (p. 312), a surplus theory leading to elite rulers  (p. 318), population pressure leading to increased friction (p. 343), and a trade network theory  (p. 246)  Also discussed is Colin Renfrew’s so-called systems-theory approach (cf., Renfrew, The Emergence of Civilisation, 1972.)  Sounding something like a Keynesian, Renfrew spoke of “propensities” within a social system, and a “multiplier effect” that eventually transforms the social system.  Hoffman applies Renfrew’s ideas to Egypt and claims that a “conquering elite” would be swamped by the conquered culture, and thus would not be a sufficient basis for initiating change.

 

The major problem that all of these non-invasion theories have is that they do not answer the question that was asked.  The question was how did the Egyptian civilization rise so fast?  Redford called it a “quantum leap.”  All the explanations given above, by themselves, or in combination, are sufficient to explain a gradual, indigenous pattern of state formation, but they fail to explain the underlying issue, which is the rapidity of Egypt’s rise to power without the usual conditions that lead to such growth.  The problem to be explained is the “overnight” nature of the jump from a largely rural to the dynastic phase in Egypt.  Michael Hoffman also raised this question, but his continuity theory would not allow him to provide a satisfactory answer to it.  Instead, he merely discusses at length theories that fail even to recognize what the problem is.  In addition, the Renfrew argument that conquerors end up being conquered (culturally) is an odd historical viewpoint.  After all, the Hyksos adopted the ways of Egyptian culture during the 15^th dynasty, but this did not prevent scholars from recognizing that the Hyksos invaded Egypt.  Why then, should scholars not recognize the existence of a new people in Egypt during the pre-dynastic period, where there is plenty of evidence for cultural influence.  In any case, Hoffman would doubtless agree with Redford that the problem is to explain the “embarrassment of riches” that marks the material culture of Egypt during the late Proto-dynastic period, “in terms of a sophisticated, multifaceted explanation.”  (Egypt Before, p. 305.)  It would seem, however, that the simple, mono-causational explanation involving an invasion of Egypt during the pre-dynastic period, correlated to the Jemdet Nasr phase in Mesopotamia, is the best explanation, and much more sophisticated and multifaceted, than what has been provided so far to account for all the evidence by the continuity theorists.

 

So far we have only mentioned political correctness as a cause of scholarly dissatisfaction with the “dynastic race” theory (i.e., the invasion hypothesis).  Rohl has another explanation that appears to explain many recent interpretations of ancient history.  He argues that contemporary scholars have adopted “anthropological models” as a way of explaining causation in ancient history:

 

“Such anthropological models generally require slow evolutionary changes in the development of civilization.   Rapid and violent events are no longer to be regarded as satisfactory mechanisms for cultural change in ancient-world history.”  (Legend, p. 329.)

 

Our view is that the use of evolutionary theory to explain the events of ancient history is based on a false analogy.  Whatever one might think of the Darwinian theory, it is proffered as an explanation of change over great magnitudes of time.  George G. Simpson talks about rates of evolutionary change and uses terms such as “rapid” to describe it in some cases.  However, even Simpson’s “fast” evolution is denominated in terms of millions of years.  (“Rates of Evolution,” in Mark Ridley ed., Evolution, 1997, pp. 239-243.)  It is simply a false analogy to attempt to apply a theory about change over millions of years to archaeological changes over centuries or even millennia.  This was the great fallacy of nineteenth century historicism.  As William F. Albright says,

 

In biblical research historicism has led to an exaggerated emphasis on the evolutionary principle in which unilinear schemes have become beds of Procrustes.  All social, religious, or institutional phenomena must be made to fit into a given bed, regardless of the chronology or function which tradition accords them.  If a phenomenon seems too advanced for its traditional phase it is assigned ‘on internal evidence’ to a later stage; if it appears too primitive it is pushed back into an earlier phase, regardless of extrinsic evidence or lack of evidence.”  (From the Stone Age to Christianity, 1957, p. 84.)

 

For this reason, an a priori anthropological interpretation should not become another Procrustean bed by which to stretch and strain the archaeological evidence to a preconceived pattern.  Though we disagree with Rohl on many things, we think he was correct to reject the anthropological model, and per contra to stress the external nature of the causation that led to the rise of the Egyptian state:

 

“Common sense tells you that there is nothing inherently unhistorical in the proposition that Egypt was invaded by a technologically superior foreign elite just before the dawn of pharaonic civilisation and the archaeological evidence genuinely supports such an invasion hypothesis.”  (Legend, p. 331.)

 

Rohl’s rejection of a priori gradualistic models in explaining cultural change echoes the view of Amihai Mazar from a different context.  Mazar said:  “The general tendency to emphasize indigenous processes in explaining cultural changes is currently fashionable in scholarly circles.  This approach forms the basis of current explanations of a series of other cultural changes and transitions in a number of regions.”  (Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, 1990, pp. 170-171.)  In a footnote, Mazar lists these transitions as involving the Neolithic to Chalcolithic, the Chalcolithic to Early Bronze 1, and from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age 1.  The immediate context of his discussion involved the transition from the end of the Early Bronze Age to the subsequent EB4/MB1, which he described–vis-à-vis the gradualists–as one of the greatest crises in the history of Palestine.  (Ibid., p. 173.)  We think it is probable that Egypt also faced a crises in the pre-Dynastic period that would not be matched until the end of the Old Kingdom—which corresponds to the end of the Early Bronze age.  The Hyksos invasion, correlated to the MB2c archaeological phase in Palestine, is probably the closest parallel.

 

11.  Other Connections

 

Besides the connections to Egypt and to the Holy Land, Jemdet Nasr also correlates to the same stratigraphic phase in many other countries, and we should at least give a summary of the archaeology of these various locales.

 

Anatolia: The primary dispersion was from southern Mesopotamia to surrounding regions, though this does not rule out other migratory events in countries far distant from the Uruk region.  Nevertheless, the political unification achieved by the Shinarians was not repeated elsewhere during the Late Uruk period, so the need for migrations was much less in other countries.  That is why we do not see Anatolians, Egyptians, et al., migrating into Mesopotamia.  Egypt itself was not unified during the Late Uruk period, and was separated into local clan groups controlling various sections of the Nile.  The linguistic difficulties at the end of the Late Uruk period would have had little effect upon the already divided Egyptians.  In Anatolia, there were no major city states or unified political polities, so there were no major migrations out of Anatolia, and only some local migrations within country.  During the time of Mersin 12, for instance, new people came into the region from further north with a new white-painted pottery.  According to James Mellaart:

 

“There [at Mersin] we find once again (in level XII) an intrusive element in the form of black burnished ware with new shapes, ornamented with white-painted designs, occurring side by side with a persistent late ‘Ubaid painted pottery….Both the Mersin XII and the ‘Final Chalcolithic’ culture of Tarsus were soon to be submerged by a further wave of immigrants from the same area [the Konya plain], who introduced the Cilician Early Bronze Age at a date which would seem to correspond with the end of the Uruk or the beginning of the so-called proto-literate period in southern Mesopotamia.”  (Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. 1, Part 2, 1971, p. 364.)

 

The Cilician plain also received a similar wave of immigrants:  “Besides lingering local Halaf and ‘Ubaid traditions, new wares appear spontaneously throughout Cilicia in the later phases of the Chalcolithic, and once more Mersin receives a northern culture in level XII.  Finally, a wave of migration from the same source overruns the whole of the Cilician plain and imposes an Early Bronze Age of southern Plateau type.”  (Ibid., p. 365.)

 

These migrations appear to have originated in the Konya plain, northwest of Mersin.  The white-painted ware of Mersin 12 was also found in the Konya plain though at a richer level.  Mellaart thinks overpopulation was the cause of these migrations, but we obviously think it had another basis:  “The reason for these migrations is obscure, but the very large number (over one hundred) and especially the great size of Early Bronze Age (1-2) mounds in the Konya plain might conceivably suggest the possibility of overpopulation.”  (CAH, p. 366.)

 

Anatolia lacked a unified government, or city-state structure during this time, and this may explain why there is little evidence of a major break-up of the country, or of Mesopotamian immigration into Anatolia.  Apparently, only a few population shifts took place within country, primarily in the southeastern portion of Anatolia (from Konya into Cilicia).  Except in these areas, the Early Bronze Age was a continuation from the Late Chalcolithic, and we see the marked development of metallurgy along with more settled and peaceful conditions.  (Ibid., p. 369.)  Further west, the culture of Kumtepe 1b preceded Troy 1, which is correlated to the beginning of the Early Bronze Age.  (Ibid., p. 372.)  The Troy 1 culture appears to be derivative of the Kumtepe culture and may have arrived as immigrants.  Carl W. Blegen says:    

 

“Kum Tepe might well be the place where an enterprising band of migrants, arriving by ship, made good their first foothold on the land….[P]erhaps learning from experience that the spot was low-lying and subject to frequent destructive inundations, they may have judged it advisable to move their main installation to the…eastern side of the river valley.  A local shift of this kind is plausible enough, but it gives no answer to the question of the remoter origin of the immigrants.”  (Troy and the Trojans, 1963, p. 40.)

 

The remoter origin of the Kumtepe culture may have been from the southeast: “A suggestion made long ago is still tenable: that the arrival of these settlers formed one wave of a large-scale movement of peoples, coming by sea from the southeast and slowly rolling northward along the west coast of Asia Minor as well as west-ward across the Aegean, where intermediate islands provided stepping-stones to Crete and the Greek mainland.”  (Ibid., p. 41.)

 

Syria: The ancient land of Syria was divided into three regions, the Phoenicia coast, the Irano-Turanian steppe-lands, and the Jazirah desert.  Courville discusses Syria in his chapter on the Dispersion from Babel (EP, 2:147), basing his interpretation of the archaeological evidence on the work of Sir Leonard Wooley from his book, A Forgotten Kingdom, 1953.  Wooley had excavated the ancient Syrian site of Alalakh, which was located just north of the river Orontes.  Three adjacent sites were excavated, Tell esh Sheikh, the site of Tabarah, and Tell el-Atshana, with a total of seventeen levels in sequence.  The following shows the progression, starting with Sheikh as the bottom of the tell, and then upward to Atshana 14 which correlates with the Jemdet Nasr phase:

 

Syrian site	Pottery	Description
Atshana 14	Jemdet Nasr	newcomers build town
Tabarah	Khirbet Kerak	city deserted
Sheikh

 

 

The earliest levels had Khirbet Kerak ware, who were replaced by a “new race.”  Tabarah became uninhabited after this point and the new group built the town at Atshana.  Because Atshana 14 was contemporary with Jemdet Nasr, Courville argued that this level was contemporary with the Dispersion from Mesopotamia.  (EP, 2:147.)  With regard to Atshana 14, D. J. Wiseman also notes connections with Mesopotamia:

 

“These early levels (for example, XIV) show affinities with the equivalent Ur and Nineveh levels….”  (D. W. Thomas, ed., Archaeology and Old Testament Study, 1967, p. 119.)

 

Courville argues that because the upper levels of Tabarah and the lower levels of Atshana show evidence of extensive migration—i.e., there were migrations before the Jemdet Nasr phase—this means the Dispersion must have happened over a period of “several years.”  (EP, 2:148).  Since we have argued that the Dispersion began at the end of the Late Uruk phase, not during the Jemdet Nasr phase, it is not surprising that evidence of migratory movements would be found prior to the Jemdet Nasr level at Alalach.  The Dispersion had already occurred before Jemdet Nasr, so the Jemdet Nasr phase outside of Mesopotamia represents the after-effects of the original Dispersion.  From our survey of the Proto-Urban period in Palestine, in which at least three migratory groups were found to be mainly contemporaneous, it appears that migratory movements that happen in succession need not be separated by any great length of time.

 

Pottery from the Nineveh 5 period (Jemdet Nasr) was found in north Syria at Chagar Bazar, and during the same phase, influence from southern Mesopotamia can be found at Byblos.  It is not clear, however, whether these are the results of commercial ties or of population movements.  (Cambridge Ancient History, 1971, Vol. 1:2, pp. 305; 345.)  More research will need to be conducted in order to confirm, or rule out, actual migration to these areas from Mesopotamia.

 

Assyria:   As noted, Nineveh 5 correlates to Jemdet Nasr, but also to the beginning of the Early Dynastic 1 phase where, according to Max Mallowan, “many objects of a Sumerian character were found.”  (CAH, 1971, Vol. 1:2, p. 301)  The pottery of this period in Nineveh is of a decorated type that may have some connection with Iran, specifically at Sialk and Hisar, but Mallowan regards it as of native origin, where it was also found further south at Tell Asmar.  This pottery had no antecedents in either Assyria or in Nineveh and is rarely found in southern Mesopotamia.  It was widely distributed in both Iraq and in north Syria, but its main concentration is at Nineveh and in the surrounding area.  (Ibid., pp. 302, 303.)  Oddly enough, Mallowan feels it necessary to reject a proposed interpretation of the pottery evidence: 

 

“There is no need to suggest that the appearance of this pottery presupposes immigration, or the displacement of older occupants of the country….”  (CAH, 1:2, p. 304.)

 

Instead he regards the new pottery as implying an awareness among the Ninevites of changes in technology, as well as widespread commercial contacts.  We wonder, however, why immigration and displacement were ruled out, given the widespread migrations that were happening in other countries at this time.  Apparently, someone had noticed the evidence and suggested migration and displacement to explain the new pottery, but Mallowan prefers to interpret the pottery as suggestive of commerce.  We will, unfortunately, have to leave it to future research to settle the issue between migration or commerce.

 

Iran or the Susiana Plain:  In the Bible Iran is known as Elam, whose ancestor was a son of Shem.  Iran is the home of the eastern part of the great Zagros Mountain range that borders Mesopotamia.  It was also the location for one of the great empires of ancient history, the Persian empire.  For our purposes, the most important stratified sites correlating to Jemdet Nasr include Tepe Sialk 4, Susa Cb-c, Hissar 2a, amd Yarim Tepe 5.  (R. H. Dyson, Jr., COWA, p. 216; 249.)  During Jemdet Nasr, Susa Cb-c indicates that:

 

“[A] diffusion from Susa northwest along the overland route to northern Mesopotamia.  Pottery now includes rare true black-and-red Jamdat Nasr polychrome sherds and a variety of forms related to Protoliterate…Jamdat Nasr, and Telloh E….Stage Cc is thus also well connected with the Jamdat Nasr of Mesopotamia.”  (COWA, p. 225.)

 

Proto-Elamite tablets were found in both the Susa Cc and Cb phases.  (Idem.)  Tepe Sialk 4, along with the Susa levels, is related to Gawra 6-3 in northern Mesopotamia.  (Ibid., p. 226.)  “These parallels,” says Dyson, “indicate contacts with the Gawran of northern Iraq equated by [Ann] Perkins to Uruk and Jamdat Nasr in the south.”  (Ibid., p. 227.)  The previous phase of Sialk 3 indicated a “strong cultural influence from Mesopotamia” (Ibid., p. 237), but Dyson, unfortunately, does not provide any conclusions about whether these correlations were the result of trade or of migration.

 

Indus Valley, etc.—According to George Dales, the Jemdet Nasr phase in the Indus Valley evidences the “threshold of ‘civilization.’” This leads to the “establishment of the large urban settlements in the Indus Valley and to what is called the Indus or Harappan civilization.”  (COWA, p. 268.)  Moreover, “Many features and trends recall the Late Uruk-Jemdet Nasr…phase in Mesopotamia.”  (Idem.)  It is also distinguished into two parts, an earlier and a late part of the phase:

 

“The style employed in depicting animals (and birds) on painted pottery of Early Phase E provides a valuable comparative element for reconstructing the internal chronology of our area and for assessing the chronological connections with southern Iran and Mesopotamia.  (COWA, pp. 269-270.)

 

Citadels were established in Afghanistan at Mundigak and Kot Diji, and potter’s marks at Mundigak suggest the start of writing.  (Ibid., pp. 268.)  The Kulli culture of southern Baluchistan has “important south Iranian and Mesopotamian parallels.”  (Ibid, p. 270.)  It was partly contemporary with the beginnings of Harappan culture in Pakistan, and served as the middlemen in trade with the Harappans and Mesopotamia.  (Ibid., p. 272.) 

 

Other correlative sites are Quetta Damb Sadaat 2, Zhob-Loralai Sur Jangal 3a, and Indus Valley Amri Intermediate.  It is hoped that future excavations will concentrate on these sites in order to determine if the Mesopotamian contacts were merely trade related contacts, or whether they represent actual immigration from Mesopotamia into these areas.  The latter view would, of course, be consistent with the theory that the Dispersion took place at the end of the Late Uruk period in Mesopotamia and showed up in other lands during the Jemdet Nasr Period.

 

End, Part 3