The First Literate Societies: Power and Social Structure in the Great Ancient Civilization of the Near East
Our knowledge of the humans who came before us becomes much more precise when the past can be reconstructed using written documents left by our predecessors. Thus, once a group discovers writing, it is said to have entered the historical era.
Writing only appears in societies featuring advanced degrees of civilization. Thus, the oldest written records conserved come from the first great civilizations known, which appeared—in what was no accident—in the most fertile lands of the Middle East, ones generally benefitting from major rivers. Among these regions Sumer is of particular note, arising in the territory lying between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers (“Mesopotamia” meaning “the land between the rivers”), and that of Egypt, which arose along the Nile. Both civilizations developed between the fourth and third millennia bc. Somewhat later came the Harappan and the Mohenjo-Daro civilizations, which appeared along the Indus and Ganges Rivers, dating from 2800 bc, and the Chinese civilization along the Yangtze, as of the second millennium bc.
2.2.1 The Civilizations of the Indus Valley
Of these great civilizations the one featuring the most highly developed social structure was that which appeared in the Indus Valley, in the twin cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, from 2500 to 1500 bc. Both succeeded and were based upon a previous civilization whose characteristics are recorded in the religious texts known as the Vedas.[12] Factors leading to the social cohesion of both cities included their beliefs in myths and religious ceremonies, leading them to be classified as theocracies. From the point of view of their social development, they were never unified under the leadership of a common political power,[13] although it is possible that they featured some early version of the social classes upon which the current Indian caste system is based.[14]
2.2.2 Egypt Under the Pharaohs
The case of Egypt is the most interesting in terms of the history of social structures because of its uniqueness.
Unlike the Indus Valley civilization, Ancient Egypt was not urban. The villages which emerged along the shores of the Nile, circa 4000 bc, had not evolved into cities a 1,000 years later, despite their spectacular demographic growth (Smith 1972). This is why it was relatively simple to unify Egypt under the theocratic power of a pharaoh, who was called upon to assure the economic survival of his people, which depended on the organization of the cultivation system exploiting the Nile’s annual flooding. To this end the pharaoh governed through “divinely-inspired decisions” which assured the cohesion of Egyptian society.The pharaoh based the legitimacy of his wielding of supreme power upon his role as the representative of the Divine. Egypt, thus, was a “theocracy”. It is telling that during the era of Egyptian civilization’s greatest splendor, that of the New Kingdom (1570-1070 bc), the capital Thebes (present day Luxor) arose around the Karnak Temple Complex, dedicated to the God Amun,[15] located on the shore opposite where the royal necropolis (the Valley of the Kings) was excavated. It was religious belief in the hereafter which made it possible to mobilize tens of thousands of Egyptians during the pharaoh’s reign to build the pyramids and the temples, whose dimensions continue to awe the world. Egypt was a society hierarchically structured from the top. There were, in fact, no social classes, only the rulers and the ruled. The male children and male relatives of the pharaoh occupied the highest posts in the bureaucracy and priesthood, while secondary positions were held by less immediate family.
2.2.3 Power in Ancient Mesopotamia
The case of the civilizations which appeared in ancient Mesopotamia is different. In this region between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, especially apt for agriculture, the urban model was that which determined the social structure—at least in the first stage, called the “dynastic” (2900-2500 bc), when some 20 independent cities (Kish, Wark, Lagash, Ur) coexisted in the southern Mesopotamian area.
However, unlike the Indus Valley cities, it appears that the Mesopotamian ones did develop a degree of social structure which could be considered to constitute a precursor of the state, probably because military confrontations between these cities (Pollock 1999, 9) favored the emergence of a military caste led by a strong political power, perhaps a hereditary monarchy. In fact, one of the most important characteristics of these societies is their remarkable and early stratification. At the top there was a ruling class composed of the prince and a few aristocratic families, dominating a much broader strata made up of peasants and artisans served, in turned, by a slave class.[16]The process forging the “state” accelerated when the dynastic era gave way to the “imperial era”, during which the different cities fell under the dominion of a single and very powerful king. This would first occur with the Akkadian Empire of
Sargon, circa 2400 bc.[17] Mesopotamia came to be governed by a successive series of monarchs, such as Babylon’s Hammurabi, author of one of the first known compilations of laws known, the famous code bearing his name, promulgated in approximately 1760 bc. Then came the Assyrians, followed by the Neo-Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar, who destroyed Jerusalem and deported the Jewish population to Babylon in 587. The last link in this chain, marked by its centralizing, state-like centralizing traditions was the Persian Empire, which would face off against the Greek polis, eventually being conquered by Alexander the Great when the Macedonian king occupied Babylon itself in 331 bc.
2.2.4 Confucius and the Origin of the State in China
Of all the ancient eastern civilizations, that which probably boasted the most advanced degree of state development is that which appeared in china in the especially fertile region found on the Great Bend of the Yellow River. Chinese society began to take on its structure around 2200 bc during the Hsia (or Xia) Dynasty, which lasted until 1766 bc, successively supplanted by the Shang Dynasty (up to 1122 bc) and the Chou (1000-256 bc).
In the latter period the pivotal figure of Confucius (551-479) would appear, a contemporary of Pericles and Buddha, who would transform the spiritual and organizational foundations of Chinese society.confucius is important when considering political history because of the way he sought to mitigate the negative effects of the spread of feudalism during his era. At the time of his birth china was dominated by powerful rulers at war with one another.[18] To rectify this situation Confucius endorsed the idea of a single empire headed by a sole sovereign. It is interesting to note that Confucius did not base the social structure he envisioned on any divinity. China was not a theocracy, as its religion consisted essentially of the veneration of one’s ancestors and a morality according to which rulers were to be accepted by the people because they were virtuous, not because they had imposed themselves upon them by military force.[19] According to Confucius, government should be based not on force, but on the encouragement of just and good conduct. From a practical point of view he defended a centralized model of governmental organization, presided over by an emperor who would administer and govern the state through a bureaucratic class. Confucius, however, argued that these bureaucrats should be selected based on merit, and not simply drawn from the hereditary nobility; thus, appeared the famous “mandarins”, who obtained their posts only after passing very difficult tests requiring years of study.[20]
Confucius’s ideas on government and the state were, for the first time, placed into practice by the Chin Dynasty (223-206 bc), whose emperors were so important that the line would give the country its name today: China. They were the first rulers who managed to impose a strong and centralized government with an organized and permanent imperial army and a new imperial bureaucracy that developed an efficient administration. This achievement, among others, made colossal public works such as the “Great Wall” possible. The Chin was succeeded by the Han Dynasty, which in the first century bc created the first stable and efficient state. Thanks to it, of all the great eastern civilizations, China was the most structured and stable, as the Japanese empire appeared much later.[21]
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