The Babylonian World - Historia Antigua

— The world of Babylonian countrysides —
with this pointed proverb: “No mother would have words with her child, and no
child would disobey its mother.” 119 Yet Gudea’s expressions of unity are betrayed
by his own description of the segmentary constituencies he called on to do the work
of the “land of Lagasˇ.” Gudea had to solicit eleven work-parties, one each from his
“Land” (kalam), his “realm” (ma.da), the “built-up city” (iri.dù.a), the “rural settlements”
(á.dam), five separate “clans” (im.ru.a) under standards of three different gods,
and the areas of the Gu’edenna of Ningirsu and Gu-gisˇbarra of Nansˇe. 120 Politics
required the simultaneous elision and solicitation of local identities.
A second “scene from the land”: Sumu-el of Larsa’s eighth year-name (c.1886 BC)
celebrated a military victory over a place called Pī-nārātim (“Mouth-of-Rivers”). The
place is virtually unknown 121 – and certainly out of company with Sumu-el’s victories
over Kazallu, Uruk, and Kisˇ– but this campaign was important enough to provide
mu.ús.sa names for his next three year-names. Although Sumu-el “destroyed” Pī-nārātim,
the Larsa king Sin-iqīsˇam had to “destroy” it again forty-six years later (before warring
with Uruk, Kazallu, Elam, and Isin). Finally, in 1808 BC, Rīm-Sîn of Larsa had to
fight it again in the year after he defeated “Uruk, Isin, Babylon, Sutu, and Rapiqum.”
Only in year-names is Pī-nārātim ever dignified with the determinative uru , and in
other writings is denied ki . It was hardly even a place – how could it have been a
major enemy? Yet the Larsa kings celebrated year-names recording defeats of a dozen
such little places, sometimes not even bothering with names (e.g., “Euphrates villages”).
That kings warred against hinterland villages at the same time as they contended
against international superpowers is truly arresting. Yet it reminds us of the military
role of rural areas in other Babylonian “scenes from the land”: the Umma-Lagasˇ border
conflict; the collapse of the Akkadian, 122 Ur III, 123 and First Dynasty of Babylon
states; 124 the isolation of Babylonian cities in the post-Kassite. 125 Rural space continued
to play a critical role in the political life of historic states: in times of stability, safe
passage across open space required political negotiation, outreach, and maintenance;
in times of change, the interruption of networks by non-urbanites realigned the
balance of urban states. 126 These facts dispel easy assumptions that rural lives and
places were undifferentiated or unchanging (either synchronically and diachronically),
some substrate culture from which states were secondarily assembled, disassembled,
re-assembled. State–countryside competitions were dynamic processes under way at
the same time as (and in connection with) state–state competitions. To restore telicity
and historical change for the countryside is to give better recognition, in the end, to
the nature of the urban state, and its daily struggle to animate itself.
NOTES
1 The titles of several standard works used herein will be abbreviated as follows: the series
Répertoire Géographique des Textes Cunéiformes (Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag) as RGTC; vol. 2,
Edzard and G. Farber 1974; vol. 3, Groneberg 1980; vol. 5, Nashef 1982; vol. 8, Zadok
1985. The series Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia. Early, Babylonian, and Assyrian Periods
(Toronto: University of Toronto) as RIME, RIMB, and RIMA, respectively: RIME vol. 2,
Frayne 1993; vol. 3/1, Edzard 1997; vol. 3/2, Frayne 1997; vol. 4, Frayne 1990; RIMB vol.
2, Frame 1995; and RIMA vol. 3, Grayson 1996. CAD = Chicago Assyrian Dictionary (Chicago,
IL: The Oriental Institute).
2 Limerick 1987; Kearns 1998.
3 Tilly 1985; Bufon, 1998.
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