2Rivers, Cities, and First States

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An ancient artifact with three rows of images. The images show both war and peace. The top row depicts a line of human figures with walking sticks walking in a line and a horse-drawn chariot with person holding the reins walking behind it. The middle row depicts a line of warriors marching in a line. At the front one is restraining a prisoner and another is holding a weapon in his hand as though he is about to stab the human figure on the ground in front of him. The bottom row depicts three horse drawn chariots with two humans riding in each chariot. A person is being trampled beneath the hooves of the horses pulling one of the chariots.

One of the first urban centers in the world was the ancient city of Uruk. Located in southern Mesopotamia on a branch of the Euphrates River, it was home to between 25,000 and 50,000 people by the late fourth millennium BCE and boasted many large public structures and temples. One temple, erected to house and honor the city’s patron deity Inanna, had stood there since before 3000 BCE; with plastered mud-brick walls that formed stepped indentations, it perched high above the plain. In another area, administrative buildings and temples adorned with elaborate façades stood in courtyards defined by tall columns. Colored stone cones arranged in complex geometric patterns covered parts of these buildings. An epic poem devoted to its later king, Gilgamesh, described Uruk as the “shining city.”

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A computer generated reconstruction of a religious festival in Uruk. Many Priests are walking behind the king towards the central Ziggurat and the people standing outside the holy district celebrate.

Over the years, Uruk became an immense commercial and administrative center. A huge wall with seven massive gates surrounded the metropolis, and down the middle ran a canal carrying water from the Euphrates. On one side of the city were gardens, kilns, and textile workshops. On the other was the temple quarter where priests lived, scribes kept records, and the lugal (“big man” in the Sumerian language) conferred with the elders. As Uruk grew, many small industries—including pottery crafting, metalworking, stone bowl making, and brickmaking—became centralized in response to the increasing sophistication of construction and manufacturing.

Uruk was the first city of its kind in world history. Earlier humans had settled in small communities scattered over the landscape. As some communities gradually became focal points for trade, a few of these hubs grew into cities with large populations and institutions of economic, religious, and political power. Most inhabitants no longer produced their own food, working instead in specialized professions.

Between 3500 and 2000 BCE, a handful of remarkable societies clustered in a few river basins on the Afro-Eurasian landmass. These regions—in Mesopotamia (between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers), in northwest India (on the Indus River), in Egypt (along the Nile), and in China (near the Yangzi and Yellow Rivers)—became the heartlands for densely populated settlements with complex cultures. Here the world saw the birth of the first large cities that exhausted surrounding regions of their resources. One of these settings (Mesopotamia) brought forth humankind’s first writing system, and all laid the foundations for kingdoms radiating out of opulent cities. This chapter describes how each society evolved, and it explores their similarities and differences. It is important to note how exceptional these large city-states were, and we will see that many smaller societies prevailed elsewhere. The Aegean, Anatolia, western Europe, the Americas, and sub-Saharan Africa offer reminders that most of the world’s people dwelt in small communities, far removed culturally from the monumental architecture and accomplishments of the big new states.