The Trade-based State of Harappa and
the Rise of Iron Age Civilization
Agriculture on Rain-Watered Lands in
Mesopotamia
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Outline
• 1) Akhenaton’s failure
• 2) Indus Valley civilization
– Trade and equality
• 3) Mesopotamian evolution
– New elements in history
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1 Meaning of monotheism
• Akhenaton’s religion of the Sun – the first
monotheistic religion
• One God for all people in all parts of the
Empire
– Historical context: religion of empire
• But the Sun is still animistic, a part of the
natural world,
– “animistic monotheism”
– and so reflects Egypt’s peculiar history
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Akhenaton’s failure
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Memory obliterated
Hostility of priests of old order triumphs
Reflects continued power at local level
Akhenaton’s isolation, pacifism “threatened the
stability of Egypt’s empire.” (Spodek, 78)
But the empire needed a new ideology
Local powers block this evolution
> Decline and final fall of Egypt
Who wins? Mesopotamia or Egypt?
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Opposition to change
• Major losers in Akhenaton’s revolution: priests
of different gods, local powers
• The people too are conservative.
– Why change the old beliefs for some remote,
abstract purpose?
– Because of the beauty of the poetry, the appeal of
the idea?
• Akhenaton is ahead of his time
– His concept will later be successful in
Mesopotamia itself
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2 Harappa: Free, Egalitarian
Civilization?
• “While Egypt had a state but, perhaps, few
cities, Indus valley had cities but no clearly
delineated state.” (Spodek, 83)
• “Interpretations of Indus valley artifacts stress
the apparent classlessness of the society, its
equality, efficiency, and public conveniences.”
(Spodek, 83)
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Division of surplus
• Peasant labor divided in two parts
– Minimum necessary for survival of peasants: the
poor
– Surplus – basis of “civilization”
• Surplus permits
– specialization in craft work not directly related to
agriculture
– People who do not work productively at all: the
rich
• > Division of countryside and city
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Uniqueness of Harappan Society
• Has the technical and cultural features of
civilization
– Advanced crafts of the city
• Not the social-political features
– No sharp class hierarchy, no impoverishment of
peasants
– No armed state power: “Government,” not “State”
• Shows that a “state” is not necessary for
organization of large populations
• How explain this?
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Herding people at first
• “Over the millennia, people moved down into
the plains and river valley. At first, they may
have moved into the forested river valley only
in the colder months, herding their flocks of
sheep and cattle, including the humped zebu,
back to the hills for the summer. (cont.)
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They became farmers, and then traders
• “Over time they may have decided to farm the
river-watered alluvial lands of the valley. They
began to trade by boat along the Indus and
even down the Indus into the Arabian Sea
and, further, into the Persian Gulf and up the
Tigris and Euphrates into Mesopotamia.”
Spodek, 80-1.
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Trade-based Civilization
• 1) Free herding people
• 2) become (free) farmers
– Maintain mobility: no civilization trap
– Mesopotamia: farmers versus herders
• 3) and traders (merchants)
• 4) Wealth from
– 1) river-valley plains as in Mesopotamia
• But agricultural surplus is kept by Indus valley peasants
– 2) trade: surplus from peasants in other states
• 5) = freedom, equality for local peasantry
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Interpretations
• “Some interpreters view these qualities
[classnessness, etc.] negatively, equating them
with oppressively rigid governments and drab
lives. While some scholars emphasize that the
Harappans apparently survived and prospered
for centuries, others argue that the cities
changed little over long periods of time and
lacked the dynamism of the cities in
Mesopotamia and Egypt.” Spodek 83.
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Two ways of looking at it
• 1) “oppressively rigid governments and drab
lives”
– Note: “governments” not “states”
– What kind of government?
• 2) or preservation of ancient liberty?
– i.e., community remains in control
– No seizure of surpluses by elites
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Alternative paths
• Dominant path: hierarchical state
– In Mesopotamia: constant war between city-states leads to
faceless bureaucratic State
– In Egypt: breakdown, invasion > Empire
– But insufficiently imperial: no unifying belief system
• Alternative: Indus Valley preserves ancient equality
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While incorporating the technical advances of civilization
it avoids the social and political aspects of civilization
= the U theory of history, ahead of its time?
Or the \ (reverse slash) theory?
• Hence:
L
U
\
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Causes of “dynamism”
• = Two paths of historical development:
– Forced unity through war
– Free cooperation (thanks to wealth from trade)
• Advanced technology with greater social
equality is possible
• But not for long.
• Indus Valley society dies out (or was it destroyed
by invaders?)
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3 New Elements in History
• 1) From bronze age to iron age:
– New material technology
• 2) Growing trade between societies
– New social elements: merchants
• 3) From hieroglyphics to the alphabet:
– New mental technology
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Third Agricultural Revolution
• >Evolution of agriculture:
– 1) simple hoe agriculture (slash and burn)
– 2) irrigation state
– 3) agriculture on rain-watered land (animal drawn
iron “scratch plow”)
• Two ways in which revolution takes place
– 1) Within the old system > Persian empire
– 2) Outside the old world: As an independent way
of life > Greece, Rome
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Dynamics of Mesopotamian Civilization
• Basic dynamics due to divisions of city-states
– Connected to geographical conditions
– Creation of centralized bureaucratic state
– Progressive expansion through wars
• New technological development: shift from
bronze to iron
– How will this impact the established pattern?
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Effects of the Iron Age
• Begins about 1000 BC in Egypt and Mesopotamia
(See chart: 83)
– Hittite invention (territory of present-day Turkey)
(map 131)
• High cost of producing bronze from copper and
tin—only possible for the rich
• Iron ore is abundant, cheaper
• > From power of aristocracy to power of peasants
• > Freedom from irrigation state control
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Explanations of Irrigation States
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1) Technological assistance for irrigation
2) Need for defense
3) Religion
4) Forced exploitation of peasant surpluses by
powerful elites
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1) Iron-age agriculture
• Can take water from the sky, free of charge
– No need for State to organize irrigation
• Can leave “civilization trap” of Mesopotamia
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2) Self-defense and increasing
violence by the state
• Peasants can defend themselves against
herders with iron weapons
• Choice for State:
– 1) let them go;
– 2) use force to stop them
• >State becomes increasingly oppressive to its
own people
– Assyria pushes the Faceless Centralized
Bureaucratic State system to extreme
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3) Religion
• Anthropomorphic polytheism: the people are
slaves of the gods
• Displaces freedom of animistic religion
• Iron age agriculture on rain-watered lands offers
freedom to peasants
• Do they stay slaves of the old order, and remain
in place?
• Or do they seek independence, and become open
to new beliefs that support desire for freedom?
• Is religious revolution in the air?
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4) Response of the Assyrian State
• Intensified violence of Assyria (860-650)
– Forced deportations of peoples
– The lost 10 tribes of Israel (721 BCE)
– = intensification of Faceless Bureaucratic
Centralized State
• = > Carries warfare against local powers to
extreme
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People Fight Back
• Destruction of Ninevah (612 BCE)
– By united front of Babylonians, Scythians, Medes
• Babylon continues Assyrian policies
– Destruction of the Jewish temple (586 BCE)
– “Babylonian captivity”
• > Welcome Persian conquest: see map 133
– Note: Persians defeat Egypt
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Cyrus the Shepherd, the Great
• Cyrus the Shepherd (nomadic herder) creates
new more decentralized, moderate regime
– Allows local bureaucracies to continue
– Toleration toward local religions
• Recall role of Enkidu in Gilgamesh
• “Cyrus’ legend had grown so great that the
Babylonians welcomed their new foreign king
without even giving battle.”
– (Spodek, 3rd edition, 134-5; paragraph dropped
from later editions)
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New Religion of Empire:
Zoroastrianism
• Cyrus, Darius adopt Monotheism of Zoroaster (630553)
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One God of Light/goodness (Ahurah Mazda)
fighting a separate power of Evil, darkness (Ahriman)
Recall Akhenaton’s Aton, the Sun, which sets at night
History is a conflict > Final victory of the Light, the Good
• Zoroastrians = Parsis of India today
• Friedrich Nietzsche: Thus Spoke Zarathustra
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Influence on Judaism
• Restoration of the temple in the Bible:
– “[The Lord] says of Cyrus,
– ‘He is My shepherd,
– and he shall perform all My pleasure,’
– saying to Jerusalem, ‘You shall be built,’
– and to the temple, ‘Your foundation shall be laid.’”
• Isaiah (44:28)
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Influence on Christianity?
• “God is Light and in Him is no darkness at all.”
(1 John 1:5)
• Three wise men, “Magi”
– = Priests of Zoroaster: the magha or maga, known
to the Greeks as the magi
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Monotheism as religion of empire
• 1) Animism (of Persian nomads)
• 2) Anthropomorphic polytheism (of Mesopotamia)
• 3) (Animistic) monotheism (of new Persian State)
– Ethical religion of Light versus Darkness
– Moral good versus evil
• Repeats Egyptian pattern of Akhenaten, but
more successfully. Why?
– Recall: Akhenaten was ahead of his time.
– His revolution was based on poetic intuition, not
the urgency of practical life
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Advantages of New Religion
• Advantages for Persians
– Old animism is place related
– Conquering Persian rulers leave old places
– So open to new belief in a God of Light
– Preserves animistic (naturalistic) character
• Advantages for Mesopotamians:
– Old Mesopotamian gods are arbitrary, oppressive,
– not ethical (recall explanation of the Flood)
– Desire for freedom on rain-watered lands > openness to a
freer religion
• I.e., practical urgency for a new belief system
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Failure or Victory for Iron Age
Mesopotamian Peasants?
• 1) Seek complete freedom on rain-watered
lands
• 2) Provoke intensified violence of Assyrians
• 3) Final result: moderate rule of Persia
• > Great power of Persia dominates vast
territory (map, 133)
• > Confronts new iron age city-states of Greece
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