Sümer-Think & You

Established 3000 BCE

Uruk New York London Rome Istanbul Berlin

Edw. MitchellSeptember 25, 2013

Gilgamesh, the historical person:

•King of the city of Uruk about 2800 BC

Gilgamesh, the legend:

•represented in mesopotamian art

•the hero of epic poems – story poems

Gilgamesh in Mesopotamian art Gilgamesh kills the Bull of Heaven [ = drought]

Enkidu and Gilgamesh kill the Bull of Heaven

clay tableta fragment from Gilgamesh: the Great Flood

SUMERIA AND URUK

Sumeria:– the first “city” societies > the first “civilization”, beginning

4000-3000 BC

– follows the neo-lithic [ new stone-age] revolution > the agricultural revolution in Mesopotamia 9000-5000 BCagriculturedomestication of animalssettled societies (permanent villages and towns)

Before this agricultural revolution, human societies lived as “hunters and gatherers”

Major cities of the Sumerian and Babylonian era

URUK: divided into three parts and sacred center

houses

gardens

fields

temples

The Sumerian city: a representation of totality

Inside the walls: life, agriculture, labor, authority > order > civilization

Outside the walls?Outside the circle: ???

Outside the walls: Mythic Space

where human abilities to create and to destroy are projected into the unknown, the uncontrolled: gods, monsters, unconquered Nature.

liminal [threshold / eșik] space: we look back to the mythic past, but the mythic past calls forward to the present and future.

Outside the walls: Humbaba, guardian of the great cedar forest

Nature’s challenge to civilization; a useful resource to be conquered and exploited

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What’s new about Sumeria?

New technologies in– war– agriculture– labor

Especially, storage technology.

Storage of necessities until the next harvest – essential for agricultural societies and civilization

History of Civilization: “objectified” in objects of storage technology

Writing – a key storage technology

Clay tablet USB

But what is really new about Sumeria?

a new social form:

hierarchy

For the first time in human history: society is divided into classes

Hier-archy [original meaning: rule by the high priest]

organization by class or status.

high status rules low status.

The higher class has the power to command. The higher class has political authority.

This conception of authority begins with Sumeria.

authority

author = [the one who is the origin of something]

> > writer

The one who writes the law = authority

The right to speak is potentially the power to command.

Authority / Power claims to be innocent.

Power claims to be serving a greater Authority, outside the person of the ruler.

The god Enlil has given Gilgamesh the power “to bind and to loose” -- to rule his subjects.

A king claims to be innocent because he is the first son of the last King – a unique position that he did not choose.Elected politicians claim to rule in the name of 51% of the people.

Hierarchy – Sumeria and after

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Hierarchy:Iso-morphs of imaginary order

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patriarchal family

cosmos / gods

Knowledge/hierarchies of truthFill in the blank

The Real Sumerian Heritage II:

Commands come from the top and go down

Sumerian ziggurat – monument to hierarchy

Palace of the Soviets, Moscow -1930’s (never completed)

Sacramento, California

Since 4000 BC the basic elements of every well organized society exist:

Priests, slaves, police, and prostitutes.

And we do not know how or why this occurred.

-- Cornelius Castoriadis

The Real Sumerian Heritage II:

Commands come from the top and go down

Political Theory of pre-modern civilizations

Property stone: the king gives land to his warriors. The warriors collect taxes from the peasants on that land.

property [Latin: ‘proprius’ ] -- one’s own; what is proper (appropriate) to oneself; a quality or state that belongs to something (this stone is hard, this table is flat, etc)

Gilgamesh has the power “to bind and to loose” -- to determine the properties of his subjects, to decide what is proper / appropriate for each. >> authority_______________

state [Latin: ‘status’] -- condition or quality of something;

state – political state [from status / estate] – political organization according to social status, according to what is proper for each class, according to the social properties of each class.

Hammurabi’s Code (1770 BCE)

Shamash gives Hammurabi the right to rule

The gods called me, Hammurabi,

to bring about the rule of

righteousness in the land, to

destroy the wicked and the evil-

doers; so that the strong should

not harm the weak; so that I

should rule over the black-

headed people like Shamash,

and enlighten the land… to

further the well-being of

mankind.

1. If a man accuses another man of a (capital) crime, but cannot prove it, he, the accuser, shall be put to death.

196. If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.

197. If he break another man's bone, his bone shall be broken.

198. If he put out the eye of a freed man [a former slave], or break the bone of a freed man, he shall pay one gold mina.199. If he put out the eye of a man's slave, or break the bone of a man's slave, he shall pay one-half of its value.

202. If any one strike the body of a man higher in rank than he, he shall receive sixty blows with an ox-whip in public.

203. If a free-born man strike the body of another free-born man of equal rank, he shall pay one gold mina.

204. If a freed man strike the body of another freed man, he shall pay ten shekels in money.

205. If the slave of a freed man strike the body of a freed man, his ear shall be cut off.

209. If a man strike a free-born woman so that she lose her unborn child, he shall pay ten shekels for her loss.

210. If the woman die, his daughter shall be put to death.

211. If a woman of the free class lose her child by a blow, he shall pay five shekels in money.

212. If this woman die, he shall pay half a mina.

213. If he strike the female-servant of a man, and she lose her child, he shall pay two shekels in money.

214. If this female-servant dies, he shall pay one-third of a mina.

The Net of the Sumerian Social Imaginary

Sümer-Think

property authorityhierarchy

Hunter – Gatherers in the Amazon(the anti-sumerians)

Among hunter-gatherers:

• The chief must give gifts to the others. For this reason he works harder than others.

• The chief must give speeches everyday. It is his duty – not his right.

• But the chief has no power to command. No authority.

• When the chief speaks, the others do not listen. Or they pretend not to listen.

The City is the place and symbol of the state -- of hierarchy

houses

gardens

fields

temples

order

disorder = chaos

order

Sumer-think 101: • Everyone, everything has an identity• Every identity has a function• Every function has its place

Symbolic-Identitary Operations

identity means sameness: the same as, identical to A = A A is identical to A A ≠ -A A is not identical to not A this = this

this ≠ thatThis cannot be this and that.___________________________

Our hunter-gatherers say: In truth, we are this and we are that. It is language that prevents us from being this and that.

Everyone has a social identity/ status/function

Every function has an appropriate place

Identitary logic of ancient civilization

Like properties go with like properties

The imaginary order of authority is made visible in the ancient City

• identity = function = proper place• each identity group dresses (by law) in the proper manner.

The ancient City makes the principle visible – a spatial order of political and economic hierarchy.

A place for every function. And everyone in his/her proper place.

The Well Ordered Society -- M.C. Escher