by Mary Harrsch © 2025
“Seven thousand years ago, twice-daily tides in the shallow,
narrow Persian Gulf would have pushed saltwater up the Tigris and Euphrates,
forcing freshwater back the way it came.
As tides move up the river, “saltwater is heavier than
fresh, so it stays at the bottom and lifts the freshwater up,” says Liviu Giosan,
co-author of a new paper on the study of deep soil samples from ancient Lagash .
“When you have water rising twice a day, you can tap it for agriculture very
easily.”
Even far from the coast, communities would have been able to
see a regular rise and fall in the river’s level and divert it to water wheat
fields, date palm groves, and vegetable gardens, paving the runway for what
scholars sometimes call the “Mesopotamian takeoff.” As populations grew and
settled, the river kept bringing fresh soil and sediment downstream as part of
annual spring floods, opening new, rich farmland.
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Archaeologist Jennifer Pournelle points out the findings upend the idea that cities arose from huge state-organized infrastructural projects but instead developed naturally as people settled next to each other to let the Tigris nourish their crops. This article, using findings in Giosan et al’s research, that appeared in the online journal Science makes the case for tidal irrigation being the trigger for state formation in ancient Mesopotamia. But it stops short of explaining the subsequent steps in state development.
However, I propose as irrigation produced surplus, elites
arose to manage the distribution of the surplus, both within the community and
with external partners, forming an early network of economic and social
dependences. These activities generated the need for more specialists including
soldiers, artisans, administrators and traders. To legitimize their authority,
elite administrators also begin to intertwine their efforts with priests or
shamans of existing deeply-rooted religious beliefs, thereby organizing
religion to facilitate cooperation of the populace to fund tax systems used to
pay standing armies and finance large-scale canal projects when tidal forces
begin to diminish.
Scholars like archaeologist Stephanie Rost argue that
irrigation, while important, could not have been the sole cause.
She suggests the wetlands' natural wealth (fish, birds, reeds, etc.) might have
been sufficient on its own to support early urbanism. But, could these
activities have produced the amount of surplus requiring the rise of
administrators and other specialists to manage its distribution across a wide
area?
The new evidence from the Lagash core provides a elegant,
bottom-up mechanism for how that surplus could have been achieved before kings
and bureaucracies.
Since my research has indicated the rise of surplus
administrators also leads to development of religion as a behavioral tool to
manage the laboring population, I was curious if archaeologist have found
evidence of early developing religion during the time period covered by the
core samples. This era is termed the early Ubaid Period (c. 6500-3800 BCE). The
first permanent, large villages established in southern Mesopotamia have been
found to contain the earliest known temple structures in the region, like the
one at Eridu. These early temples were small, single-room structures, but
they were rebuilt and enlarged over centuries on the same sacred spot, showing
a long-standing and deepening religious tradition.
Numerous stylized, clay figurines have been found, often
with reptilian or abstract features, and frequently female. They often have
applied bitumen "hair" and clay pellets for shoulders. Their exact
meaning is debated, but they are widely interpreted as representing a mother
goddess or a fertility deity—a concept directly linked to the concerns of an
agricultural society dependent on water and land fertility. "Ophidian"
(snake-like) figurines are also common finds, male figurines with
elongated heads and a snake-like appearance. These may be precursors to later
gods of water, wisdom, or the underworld.
Scholars assume the religion of this tidal period was
likely animistic and centered on fertility and the forces of nature. The
construction of temples suggests a developing communal investment in a shared
belief system, and the figurines represent a conceptualization of divine forces
that were critical to their survival—forces that would later be formalized into
the gods Enki (god of fresh water and wisdom) and Inanna (goddess of fertility
and love).
The development of religion appears to mirror the development of the state itself. It began as a localized, bottom-up set of beliefs centered on natural forces (fertility, water) that were vital to the tidal agricultural system. As society became more complex and faced environmental and social challenges, this religious system became more formalized, hierarchical, and integrated with political power, eventually producing the iconic art and inscriptions of the classic Sumerian state.
References:
Adams, R. McC. (1981). Heartland of cities: Surveys of ancient settlement and land use on the central floodplain of the Euphrates. University of Chicago Press.
Carter, R. A., & Philip, G. (Eds.). (2010). Beyond the Ubaid: Transformation and integration in the late prehistoric societies of the Middle East. The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.
Childe, V. G. (1950). The urban revolution. The Town Planning Review, 21(1), 3–17. https://doi.org/10.3828/tpr.21.1.k853061t614q42qh
Giosan, L., & Goodman, R. (2025). Morphodynamic foundations of Sumer. PLOS ONE, 20(8), e0329084. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0329084
Oates, J. (1960). Ur and Eridu: The prehistory. Iraq, 22(1/2), 32–50. https://doi.org/10.2307/4199667
Service, E. R. (1975). Origins of the state and civilization: The process of cultural evolution. W. W. Norton & Company.
Stein, G. J. (1994). Economy, ritual, and power in 'Ubaid Mesopotamia. In G. Stein & M. S. Rothman (Eds.), Chiefdoms and early states in the Near East: The organizational dynamics of complexity (pp. 35–46). Prehistory Press.
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