The Ancient Near East (to the extent considered in this book) covers a relatively confined area of roughly 2,000,000 km2. It is therefore slightly smaller than Western Europe. Despite its limited size, this region contains a variety of areas characterised by different types of land, rainfall levels, climates, vegetation, and habitability levels (Figure 2.1). Mountain ranges can reach 3,500 m and 4,000 m in the Taurus, Pontic, and Zagros Mountains, 5,000 m in Armenia (Mount Ararat), while the land depression of the Dead Sea (—395 m below sea level) is the deepest in the world. The landscape of the Near East is thus composed of a mixture of mountain ranges, alluvial plains, and desert plateaus. The Mediterranean climate of the western coasts swiftly changes into the arid climate of the Syro-Arabian desert or, elsewhere, into a cold mountain climate. Rivers, such as the Tigris and Euphrates, cross regions otherwise condemned to total aridity. Similarly, densely populated areas are in close contact with sparsely populated ones.
A common simplification of the geography of the Near East is that of the ‘Fertile Crescent’, namely, a semicircle of fertile irrigated lands prone to agricultural and urban settlements extending from the Levant to Syria and Mesopotamia. This area borders the Syro-Arabian desert to the south and the Anatolian, Armenian, and Iranian highlands to the north. A closer look at this territory, however, reveals a more complex situation, characterised by an intricate mixture of eco-regions. For instance, highlands contain several basins that recreate, on a smaller scale, the characteristic features of the Fertile Crescent. Similarly, fertile areas are interrupted by hills, mountains, and deserts, while arid plateaus present a constellation of oases and wadis. This ecological variety is a structural trait of the Near East and is particularly important from a historical point of view, since it entails a close interaction between areas with different potential. For this reason, the concepts of interfaces, borders, and niches become useful tools for the understanding of this network of relations.
An interface is the conjunction of two different zones. Through an interface, a range of products, people, expertise, technologies, and developments that belong to one area, but are not available in the other, can be exchanged. The exchange process normally causes a visible change in expressions and valuations, from which both parties gain mutual enrichment, comparison, and adjustment. This interaction, then, contributed to the evolution of communities from their earliest stages. At times, phenomena resulting from the intersection of two areas lead to the movement of human groups, such as in the case of seasonal migrations, very common in pastoral groups exploiting interfaces between mountains and plains, or fertile valleys and arid lands. More often than not, sedentary communities take advantage of their convenient position
Figure 2.1 The environmental foundations. Above: Annual rainfall levels. Below: Natural (post-glacial) vegetation.
Near an interface, benefiting from its privileged access to different, yet complementary resources. In terms of cultural development, then, the presence of many interfacing areas close to each other made the Near East a highly dynamic environment.
While interfacing areas are an environmental phenomenon, borders are more historical and cultural in nature, being a concept rather than a feature of the environment. A border zone is located along the boundaries of a given community, beyond which — according to the members of that community — there is nothing, or the generally inferior ‘other’. This is an appealing area for its raw materials, accessed through unequal exchange, or military conquest and imperialistic expansion. While an interfacing area works both ways, a border is univocal, being a point of view or, better, an idea.
An interface is relatively stable and centred on its natural resources and their exploitation. On the contrary, a border can be moved, becoming the object of outward expansion if its central community is strong. However, a border is also prone to being violated and removed if the ‘chaotic’ forces from the outside prevail over the stability of the community within that border. In addition to that, there can be internal borders within the community itself that can become, in the course of time, ‘invisible frontiers’. These frontiers are untraceable on maps, but can only be detected in the community’s degree of cultural diversity. ‘Invisible frontiers’ can include linguistic and religious frontiers, and differences in modes of production and lifestyle, as well as social and political structures.
The niche (ecological or cultural) constitutes a completely different concept, which stresses the value of well-defined and relatively isolated zones with their own social structures, resources, and modes ofproduc-tion. Niches can be small territorial units (a valley or an oasis) whose impact seems minor when compared to the large-scale economic and historical processes that we know today. However, the processes affecting the history of the Near East were of a much smaller scale than the processes we see today. Therefore, the development and location of human settlements, the accumulation of surplus, craftsmanship, and trade had a strong influence on the history of the area despite their relatively limited scale.
Consequently, a secluded and protected area, well connected to its surroundings, could experience a more effective and productive development than a larger, but fragmented area. The latter could only arise after the development of a more organised and efficient network of communication, a more compact population, and a more pressing need for imported materials and resources. The optimal size of a niche is therefore prone to changes in response to its historical context. For instance, the oasis ofJericho was an optimal niche for the Neolithic period, while Assyria, which included a large number of cities, became an optimal niche in the Iron Age.
Through this articulation in niches, interfaces and borders, the Ancient Near East acquires a considerable degree of complexity. This explains (as will be explored in detail in the analysis of its history) its varying degrees of development, its versatility in terms of political structures, and its constant cultural interactions. However, in the case of a general overview of Near Eastern history, this complexity also runs the risk of becoming an inextricable mess. Simplifications can therefore illuminate this complex picture in a viable and powerful way, providing clarifications and explanations for many aspects of the history of the Near East. The protagonists of the history of the Near East themselves already put forward similar ideological simplifications of this complex reality through their own worldview. Some of these ideologies were to be picked up by modern historiography, at times unaware of their ideological nature.
This is the case of the most powerful of these ideas, namely, the one that sees the Near East as a contraposition of centre and periphery. The centre constitutes the settled and civilised space. Its ideal nucleus is the city (with its main temple or palace), which is at the heart of a network of irrigated fields and villages. The periphery is the area surrounding the centre. This area is characterised by steppes or mountains, and a sparse, nomadic population of shepherds, refugees, and robbers. Being further away from the centre, the periphery is less inhabited and acts as a mere supplier of natural resources such as timber, metals, and semiprecious stones. Similar ‘mental maps’ can be easily found in ancient sources (Figure 2.2), such as in the case of Gudea (ca. 2100 bc), ruler of the city of Lagash. He saw his own city as the centre of the world, and the temple of the god Ningirsu as the centre of Lagash. The materials needed for the construction of the temple came from the surrounding areas. This periphery was seen as a series of territories each providing a specific type of metal or wood, and each linked to the central plain by a river that conveniently brought the raw materials to the centre. In this way, the surrounding lands were seen as being provided with a purpose they would have lacked otherwise.
Figure 2.2 Maps from the Ancient Near East.
Modern historiography has implemented a similar point of view, envisioning the Ancient Near East as centred in the Lower Mesopotamian plain. This area had the largest fields and urban settlements, and was surrounded by sparsely populated steppes and mountains. The latter provided raw materials and were culturally and politically dependent on the centre. It is clear that this kind of simplification can be fairly acceptable from the viewpoint of the centre, but cannot be accepted for the periphery. In fact, in terms of written sources, this was a typically Mesopotamian worldview.
However, the communities living elsewhere also felt at the centre of their own world, which they organised, with more or less success, in response to their own needs. They therefore protected their identity even at the cost of drastically changing the characteristics and traditions of other communities. Consequently, this opposition of centre and periphery runs the risk of forcing modern historiography to focus too much on Mesopotamia (clearly visible in the modern use of the term ‘Greater Mesopotamia’, indicating Mesopotamia and the surrounding regions). This approach, however, flattens out the unique traits of the surrounding communities and regions, the diverse and reciprocal nature of cultural interactions, and the complexity of trade, exchange, and politics. Despite still using, at least partly, a similar point of view on the Near East, it is necessary to adjust it in its articulation. Therefore, one must take into consideration the diversity of the territory and its diachronic development, locating the many rising centres that were emerging through time, and bearing in mind the subjectivity and relativity of the concept of periphery.
From a purely descriptive point of view, a strong complementarity between the areas with high concentrations of people and those rich in raw materials remains. This makes the opposition between centre and periphery a useful, yet simplified, model. In fact, population density is directly correlated to agriculture and is therefore found in fertile areas (i. e. plains), especially if irrigated. Alluvial plains consequently attract the majority of cultivations and urban settlements. However, such areas lack a wide range of raw materials, such as forests for wood, pasturelands for wool, metals and stone. These resources are predominantly located on the mountains and semi-arid plateaus, areas that are unsuitable for urban settlements and agricultural activities.
These two complementary areas experience an unequal level of exchange. The periphery, rich in resources, provides goods to the densely populated centre. In turn, the centre provides a return in the form of ideologies and cultural influence. Since history is concerned with human groups, this unbalanced perspective favouring the densely populated areas and marginalising the areas providing material resources is both reasonable and inevitable. However, if taken too far, this dichotomy would result in a loss of the overall balance between the two, and an impoverishment of the wealth of different experiences that shaped the history of the Near East.
So far, we have considered the Near East as a complex environment in geographical terms, but seemingly stable through time. This apparent stability, however, is only a rough approximation. It is true that the climate of the Near East in its 10,000 years of history was similar to today’s climate, indicating that the whole history of the area developed within the same interglacial phase. However, within this phase there have been medium-sized fluctuations in rainfall levels and temperature. The latter had a particularly strong impact on areas with critical habitability levels, thus shifting the borders of a number of eco-regions (such as the western edge of the Syro-Arabian Desert, located between Syria and the Transjordan plateau) and causing fluctuations between the presence of sedentary and transhumant communities. Modern historiography is very aware of the historical impact of these fluctuations, and has often considered climate factors as the main reason for regional collapses and migrations of people. However, the effects of these climatic factors were not always as immediate as is often believed.
Be that as it may, the most significant factors influencing the changing landscape of the Near East were human activities. At times, these activities led to a savage exploitation of certain resources, kickstarting often irreversible processes of decline. In this regard, the process of deforestation was particularly damaging. Its impact can be noted when comparing maps reconstructing the original forested areas with their extension today. From the Neolithic period, the creation of farmlands and pasturelands through the removal of forests constituted a factor that has deeply marked the history of the Near East. The first acts of deforestation from that time were mainly aimed at clearing limited portions of land in a virtually intact territory. They were followed by the deforestation of wider areas in the Bronze Age. In fact, the needs of urban centres led to the deforestation of mountain forests for building purposes, as well as the remainders of forests on the plains for agricultural purposes.
In the Iron Age, the agro-pastoral exploitation of the mountains and hills increased. Deforested areas were now used for intensive grazing, causing an irreversible damage to the land both in terms of vegetation and soil depth. On the irrigated plains, interventions were mainly focused on the construction of canals, the regulation of water flow, and the drainage and diffusion of water. These interventions first affected specific areas, then vast portions of the territory. Consequently, the irrigation system of the Near East experienced various stages of growth and decline (especially in Lower Mesopotamia), including the retransformation of vast areas into marshes. Moreover, the intensive cultivation of the land led to a salinisation of the soil. Due to these constant fluctuations, it is necessary to reconstruct the landscape of each historical period analysed, at least as far as possible. While in certain cases the ancient landscape is very similar to the current one, in others it is drastically different, especially if the modern landscape is the outcome of decline and desertification processes, or modern interventions in the land.
In this regard, paleobotanic and palynologic data play an essential role in a historical reconstruction of the Near Eastern landscape. This evidence allows us to identify the most common plant species (both natural and cultivated) in the area, and their fluctuations. In addition to that, archaeological evidence provides useful insights on the chronology of human interventions, such as the construction of canal systems, agricultural terraces, wells, and so on. Written sources and depictions are normally given great importance for a reconstruction of the landscape, despite the fact that this evidence is intrinsically biased. Administrative texts are far more reliable and play a fundamental role in the understanding of agriculture and livestock in the Near East, often providing us with quantitative data. From a linguistic point of view, however, this kind of evidence is difficult to interpret, since an exact and reliable translation of ancient terminology (botanical, zoological and technological) is not always available.
Literary accounts and depictions portray a highly deformed reality, both culturally and ideologically, and require careful interpretation. The landscapes presented are usually misrepresented, both in terms of size and of exotic and unusual features. They often present utopic connotations, depicting or describing landscapes which were an interpretation of real landscapes, with strong political, celebrative, or normative overtones. They consequently do not faithfully describe a landscape, but show how this landscape was seen. These literary and iconographic landscapes therefore belong more to the realm of art and literature than to a solid reconstruction of a specific environment. Nonetheless, if appropriately interpreted, they can provide useful information that can be used for a historical reconstruction.
World History
