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A NEW LOOK at the SUMERIAN TEMPLE STATE* by BENJAMIN FOSTER Yale University, New Haven, Conn. for the Past Hundred Years, Histor

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A NEW LOOK at the SUMERIAN TEMPLE STATE* by BENJAMIN FOSTER Yale University, New Haven, Conn. for the Past Hundred Years, Histor A NEW LOOK AT THE SUMERIAN TEMPLE STATE* BY BENJAMIN FOSTER Yale University, New Haven, Conn. For the past hundred years, historians have relied upon Assyriolo- gists for the interpretation of some three millennia of Mesopotamian political, intellectual, social, and economic history. Of these, social and economic history have been the slowest of synthesis because of the often meagre gleanings from the enormous bulk of documentary evi- dence. Despite this, several theses concerning early Mesopotamian social and economic history have been formulated 1). One of the most important of these, the "temple-state hypothesis", is concerned with the organization of Sumerian society in the third millennium B.C. This thesis has had far-reaching implications for studies on early Mesopo- tamian society as well as for modern historiography of the ancient Near East. The present study examines the temple-state hypothesis in order to show that it was not adequately demonstrated at the time of its for- mulation, nor has it been since. This essay first reviews the origin and development of the temple-state hypothesis and then considers various reactions to it, both in western and in Marxist scholarship. Finally it tests the validity of the hypothesis using the same evidence on which it was originally based. Briefly stated, the temple-state hypothesis holds that most or all agricultural land in mid-third millennium Sumer belonged to temples, *) For abbreviated references to primary sources in Sumerian, the system of R. Borger, Handbuch der Keil.rchriftliteratur (Berlin, 1967) is used. i). For further discussion, see M.A. Powell, Jr., "Gotter, Konige und 'Kapitalis- ten' im Mesopotamien des 3. Jahrtausends v. u. Z.", Oikumene, 2 (1978) : 127-144; N. Yoffee, "The Decline and Rise of Mesopotamian Civilization: An Ethnoarchaeolo- gical Perspective on the Evolution of Social Complexity", American Antiquity, 44 (1979): 1-3 J. 226 which thereby controlled the economy of southern Mesopotamia. Cities and city states functioned as theocentric manors in which politi- cal leaders derived their authority from management of the gods' households. The temple-state hypothesis was first propounded by Anton Deimel in a series of pioneering studies of early Sumerian archival records 2). According to Deimel 3), when the Sumerians first settled in southern Mesopotamia, they had to irrigate their agricultural lands because of inadequate annual rainfall and unpredictable flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates. To construct and maintain the necessary irrigation works, labor of the entire population was needed. Land could be exploited e?ciently only of it was considered property of the gods, rather than of individuals or families. In the last quarter of the third millennium B.C., secularizing tendencies caused the Sumerian theocratic order to disintegrate. This order, Deimel thought, was replaced by an all- encompassing state organization that closely regulated the economy, much as the temples had done. A modified version of this hypothesis was set forth in an influential essay by Adam Falkenstein 4). He was convinced that the development 2) Deimel's summary of his conclusions will be found in a monograph entitled Sumerische Tempelwirtschaft zur Zeit Urukaginas und seiner T?orgdnger,Analecta Orientalia 2 (Rome, 1931), 71-113. This was based on seventeen articles: two preliminary studies published in Orientalia Series Prior, 2 (I 920) : 3- 3 1 ,3 2- 5 1 and; fifteen conse- cutive studies published in Orientalia Series Prior, 42 S2 6 (1923): 1-32, 7 (1923): 14 (1924): 26-38, 16 (192$): 1-87, 17 (I925)' 1-33, 20 (1926): I-6I, 21 (1926): 1-40, 21 (1926): 40-83, 26 (1927): 1-29, 29-62; 28 (1928): 2$-7o, 32 (1 9 2 8) 1 1 -8 3 , 3 4)(1928): 3 j 1 1 - 1 2 2, 4 3 )44 ( 1 1-131;9 29) Analecta Orientalia 2 (1931), 1-70. A. Schneider, an economist, published a book based largely on Deimel's manuscript, but her defence of the hypothesis was more balanced than Deimel's : Die Anfdnge der Kulturwirtschaft, Die Sumerische Tempelstadt, Plenge Staats- tvissenscbaftlicbeBeitrage Heft IV (Essen, 1920). In fairness to a distinguished scholar, one will readily grant that Deimel's articles still are the foundation of all subsequent work on this material and are the indispensible vade mecum of all students of early Mesopotamian society. 3) See "Tempelwirtschaft", 72 f., 78; Orientalia Series Prior, 42(1942), 1 ff., 39 if.; compare Schneider, Tempelstadt, 8, 2I ff., 98 f., io6. 4) A. Falkenstein, "The Sumerian Temple City", trans. M. de J. Ellis, Sources and Monographs, Monographs in History : Ancient Near East rli (Los Angeles, 1 974). 227 of civilization in Mesopotamia was closely connected with the growth of temples. According to him, this led naturally to the creation of a temple-centered state. This temple state was peculiarly Sumerian, he believed, and it existed in one form or another throughout the third millennium B.C., with a brief "interruption" at the time of the Sargonic empire. Ultimately, under the kings of Ur, it evolved into a state-managed economy. As for the details of the temple-state organization, Falken- stein accepted Deimel's conclusions with little change and wrote as follows: As the immediate result of the fact that the temples were the sole or in any case the major land holders, they disposed of the combined labor forces of the city state. Only this condition permitted the cultivation of temple lands, the creation and maintenance of irrigation works, the security measures such as the defense works of cities and the recruiting of troops, and finally the building projects in the sanctuaries themselves 5). Before considering the temple-state hypothesis itself, one should note that it posits a chain of highly questionable antecedents. Two major difficulties are the "Sumerian problem" and the relationship between irrigation agriculture and social order. As for the Sumerian problem, one now doubts that the settlement of the Sumerians in Mesopotamia is historically or archeologically an identifiable event 6). Falkenstein's essay was originally published as "La Cite-Temple Sum6rienne", Cahiers de l'Histoire Mondiale, 1 784-814. Ellis' English version was based on a 1965 revision of the German original, made by the author himself. j) "Temple City", 9. Compare also the remarks of H. Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods (Chicago, 1948), 221 f. 6). The "Sumerian problem" began with the identity of the Sumerians as an ethnic group, moved to the question of when the Sumerians settled in Mesopotamia, and in recent years has reverted to the original problem of what and whom can be identified as Sumerian and when such an identification is meaningful. See Tom B. Jones, ed., The Sumerian Problem (New York, 1969). The "Sumerian problem" has most recently become a "Sumerian versus Akkadian" problem. For discussion of the issues, see J. S. Cooper, "Sumerian and Akkadian in Sumer and Akkad", Orientalia Nova Series, 4z (1973) : 239-246; E. Sollberger, ed., "Aspects du contact sum6ro-akkadien", (= IXe Rencontre Assriologique Internationale, Gen6ve, 20-23 juin y6o), Genava, n.s. 8 (y6o), 241-3 14, and the important review article of that publication by 1. M. Diakonoff, "Êtni?eskij i socialnyj faktory v istorii drevnego mira (na materiale 9umera)", Vestnik Drevn j Istorii y63 No. z, 1 67-1 79 F.; R. Kraus, 228 The specifically Sumerian character of the temple state is therefore debatable. The importance of irrigation and water control in Mesopo- tamian history has often been stressed, especially by proponents of the "hydraulic state", an early version of which may be seen in Deimel's hypothesis 1). Archeological survey in Mesopotamia has shown, how- ever, that large-scale irrigation works are known in Mesopotamia only long after autocratic government and complex bureaucracy had evol- ved 8). No causal connection, therefore, between regulation of water resources and despotic or theocratic rule can plausibly be traced. Two major challenges to the hypothesis itself have been raised. Both of them take issue with Deimel's proposal that all, or nearly all, land in southern Mesopotamia was considered by the inhabitants to be the property of gods. 1. M. Diakonoff challenged Deimel's calculation of the amount of land held by the particular temple that Deimel had studied 9). By recomputing areas of temple land, the size of the temple labor and these staffs'-,.and dependent forces, by comparing figures Sumerer und Akkader: Ein Problem der altmesopotamischen Geschichte, Mededelingender Koninklyke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, AFD Letterkunde, NR 3 3 No. 8 (197°). 7) K. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism (New Haven, J. H. Steward. ed., Irrigation Civilizations: A Comparative Study, Social Science Monographs i (Washington, D.C., I 9 j j ).For a review of the literature on this subject from a Marxist viewpoint, see A. I. Pavlovskija, "0 koncepii 'gidravliceskogo obscestvo' K. Vitfogelja", Vestnik Drevnej Istorii, 1965No. 4, Compare Schneider, Tempelstadt, i o6 : "Die Tempelstadte Sumers sind ganz urw3chsige Bildungen, aus der wegen des Bewasserungswesen notwendigen Zusammensiedlung der ersten Kolonisten des Landes entstanden. Stadtwirtschaften, die eben wegen dieser Urw3chsigkeit mit Resten der Stammesgemeinschaft, die durch den Kanalbau und die Sakralwirtschaft erhalten und vermehrt werden, noch stark durchsetzt sind". 8) R. McC. Adams, The Evolution of Urban Society (Chicago, I96j). The sort of specific data on which Adams based his conclusions for Mesopotamian urbanism will be found in his Land Behind Baghdad. A History of Settlement on the Diyala Plain (Chica- go, I 96 j ) ;The Uruk Countryside : The Natural Setting of Urban Societies (Chicago, 1 9 72) (with H. J. Nissen); and for the region of Kish M. Gibson, The Cio and Area of Kish (Miami, 1972). 9) "0 ploscadi i sostave naselenija sumerskogo 'goroda-gosudarstva"', Vestnik Drevno Istorii, 1952 No. z, 77-93, expanded and revised as Chapter i of his Obf- l`estvennyji Gosudarstvennyje Stroj Drevnego Dvure? ja Sumer (Moscow, Diako- noff's argumentation was not much more firmly based than Deimel's, but refuted his using essentially the same data and logic.
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