Aneq2 - Time Periods

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Uruk

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(ca. 4000 to 3100 BC/Mesopotamia)

Named after the city of Uruk, this period saw the emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia. It was followed by the Sumerian civilization. The late Uruk period (34th to 32nd centuries) sees the gradual emergence of the cuneiform script. These early city-states had strong signs of government organization (though social stratification was not strongly evident until very late in this period and the beginning of the Early Dynastic Period, beginning around 3100 BC), evident even in items such as cheap, mass-produced beveled rim bowls which were made to be discarded.

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Proto-Elamite

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(Susa III period 3200 BC to 2700 BC)

Called that because of the tablets. Roughly contemporary of late Uruak period of Mesopotamia. Apparently Elamites in Susa developed their own writing system which was quite different in turns of morphology (form of the signs) and structure of organization of the text. So it’s sort of like picot graphs, but in different language, not Sumerian but Elamite. The accounting system is also different. The systems that the Sumerian used was Sexadecimal, or units of six. But Elamites used the decimal system. Unfortunately we don’t know as much about Elamite language, cause there’s only a small bit of material to study from, but we know it was a functioning system of accounting, and they had notions of sealing important documents. But while we can trace the evolution of Sumerian fro late Uruk period into early dynastic and such, we can’t do that with Elamite. We have proto Elamites tablets then nothing until we get completely different sort of writing or “Linear Elamite”. Which seams to be simplified form of Proto Elamite, and there is a 500 year gap between the altest propt Elamite and the earliest linear Elamite inscriptions.

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Ur III

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(21st to 20th century BC)

Ur-Nammu, the founder of the third dynasty of Ur who built the great Ziggurat of Ur and was responsible for starting the Ur III empire.

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Ubaid

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The late prehistoric and Sumerian site of Ubaid lies in South Iraq. It gives its name to a long phase of Mesopotamian prehistory. Potter from Ubaid gives the basis for the definition of multi-phase Ubaid period lasting from 5500-4000 BC. This period witnessed the earliest human settlement on the alluvium of the south Mesopotamian plain lying between and around the rives Euphrates and Tigris. Modest houses in Late Ubaid around 4000BC.

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Old Babylonian

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First Babylonian Dynasty. 1960-1660 BC.

Until Hammurabi Babylonia had little land. Hammurabi began to establish Babylon as the center of what would be a great empire. Gained control over many lucrative urban centers of Nippur, Ur, Uruk and Isin (pretty much all of Mesopotamia).

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Early Dynastic

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2900 BC-2334BC.

No inscriptions have been found verifying any names of kings that can be associated with this period. The ED I period is distinguished from the ED II period by the narrow cylinder seals of the ED I period and the longer wider ED II seals engraved with banquet scenes or animal-contest scenes.

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Old Elamite

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2600 BC - 2100 BC

Elamites rose in rebellion and overthrew the 3rd Dynasty of Ur. Crushed by Hammurabi.

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Kassite

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1595-1155 BC

The longest ruling dynasty in Babylonian history. Assumed power from Hammurabi. Thirty six kings. Babylonia became a major power in diplomatic and trade contact with the other great powers as revealed in the Amarna Letters

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Old Hittite

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(1720 to 1480 BCE)

Hattusa was the head city. This is the first political organization in Anatolia, although people before Hittites have lived and built here or there, they where far from being a political unity. Labarnas I built a strong state and organized his people under his command and also gave his name to the first dynasty of the Hittites. His successor Labarnas II has moved the capital of the Kingdom from Kussara to Hattusas (modern Bogazkale) which has become later the capital of Hittites for over the centuries. Labarnas II has also made successful campaigns against Aleppo (now in Syria) and captured it. His grandson Mursilis I (1620-1590) after succeeding his grand father has marched towards Babylon and put an end to Hammurabi dynasty.However, he was murdered by his brother in law, and an interregnum period began in Anatolia at the cost of loss of territories captured and conquered earlier. So, this period of intrigues and fights over the throne continued to year 1525 BCE, when Telepinus became the sole ruler over the Hittite Lands. One of the many reforms he has made was the foundation of a high court called Pankus. This court had a power even to judge the King himself. The 20 years following Telepinus' death was a big chaos and disorder.

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Middle Elamite

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1500-1100BC

After two centuries for which sources reveal nothing, the Middle Elamite period opened with the rise to power of the Anzanite dynasty. It is noteworthy that during the Middle Elamite period the old system of succession to, and distribution of, power appears to have broken down. Increasingly, son succeeded father, and less is heard of divided authority within a federated system. This probably reflects an effort to increase the central authority at Susa in order to conduct effective military campaigns abroad and to hold Elamite foreign conquests. The old system of regionalism balanced with federalism must have suffered, and the fraternal, sectional strife that so weakened Elam in the Neo-Elamite period may have had its roots in the centrifugal developments of the 13th and 12th centuries BC.

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Mittani

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1500~ BC

A powerful Hurrian state in north Mesopotamia and Syria. Its kings campaigned against Egypt and Hatti and eventually signed peace treaties with them. The treaty with Egypt was confirmed by a series of diplomatic marriages

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Akkadian

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2335-2100 (Just when the Akkadians were most in power, Sargon and his Successors.) Sargon- From Akkad, but we don’t know where the exact location of Akkad is, somewhere around Babylon and Kish. Akkad was beyond the Sumerian terriotory though, just a little, where there was a congregation of semtic people. Sargon is the Hebrew vversion of his name, but the original Akkadian name is Sarrukin. His birth story is a hecka lot like Moses. So this myth might be something the Hebrew people borrowed from Mesopotamia. Sarrukin isn’t a name, but a title meaning “legitimate king”. We don’t know what his real name was. But the title raises the red flag, cause whenever you hear someone saying “I’m legit!” it means they uspered.
So he expanded his empire fro Sumer to northern parts of Mesopotamia and going into Elam and capturing Susa, and making his way all the way to sothern Anatolia and the Medditerain Coast and probably launching an expedition to Syperus.
This increased of military activities can be seen I more picture tablets, Sargon leading his troups into campaign and brining back prisoners of war as slaves. Is conquests continue under his sucessors, epeically his grandson Naram-Sin. So no we sart seeing Akkadian names emerging .
One interesting picture tablet shows Naram_Sin leading his troops, arching against an enemy in the Zargros mountains ahead of his troops. From an art historical point of view there’s a level of aturalism and realism. They even tried to depeict a sort of perspective, to show that they are marching up a hill. We see symbols of a number of deities. This was not discovered in Mesopotamia but in Susa, it was one of the monuments tht the kings of Elam looted from Mesopotamia and brought back to Susa many years later, to show their vanquishing. So this was discovered by French arcs. The scene upclose shows dvivine symbols, signs of three major deities- God Sin (moon God), God Samas(Sun god) and Goddess Ishtar (Akkadian version of Inanna). Narum Sin is wearing a helmet with horns. In Mesopotamia horned headdresses were reserved for divinity. So anaram Sin was the first Meospotaiman ruler to claim divine status (as far as we know). And hhe got so carried away with this, that toward the end of his reign he elevated himself to those of the other deities. He put himself on par of the old gods. Whether he made people worship him we don’t know. Conquering vast terriotires isn’t enough though. What’s more important is to build the administration to maintain and control the conquered territories. And that’s where the Akkadians failed. It was a militaristic conquest empire and didn’t I whave the necessary administrativeness to keep it. They’d capture the area, loot and plunder and hten as soon as they left people would rebel. So they’d have to go back and put hatt down, then go to the next rebellion, etc. This over extended and ultimately exhausted the Akkadian empire. Holding on to the conquered terriotiry is more important than conquering. But they took the initial steps that later empires learned from. Every emprie semes to be learning from the experiences from te pervioius empire. Akkadian’s laid down the blue print.
One way to make the empire work was to try and boost the power of the royality and lower the power of the temples. So what you do is aquire a lot of land (basic means of production). We see evidence that the royal powers are bying a lot of land, and these lands either belong to temples, families, private individuals, or to kingdoms that they overthrew. So by the time of Naram Sin, the emprie land holding was far greater than what we see in earlier periods. This was to dimish power of religious insitutions.
But Sargon had a clever daughter by the name of Enheduanna who became the high priestess of the moon god (Sin) at Ur. A very important religious function. Another way to extend the influence into the religious estamblishment is to have the royal princess as the high priestest of important gods.
The exhausting of the empire led to it beign taken over by the Gutians- people form the mountains. ((??))
To ancient people they reason why they failed was because the mortal (naram Sin) called himself a diety and the gods were like “hecks no.” Naram Sin might have also laid siege to a god at Nippor. So he sort of decalered war on a god. That’s a big no no.
We have reference to the Gutians from earlier Mesopotamian sources, and they were the scum of the earth, savage barbainas who had no culture and no writings, and a lot of racist stuff.
So we have a downfall, souther Meso is in chaos, and the Gutians have a few kingdoms here and there, but they don’t have the know how to make a emprie or anything like hthat at all. So we start seeing little kingdoms emerging. One of the more important people is Gudea- who is Sumerian and uses the Sumerian lang. He strikes a deal with the Gutians to leave him a alone and gets work done on his city state of Lugash(?).