Religion and Kingship
[Important Note: When I
talk of “secular” versus “religious” in this course, I refer to the role of the
individual king versus religious establishments in administering the Sumerian
city-state and governing its lands.
This same usage characterizes the “temple” versus “palace”
dichotomy. It should never be thought
that Mesopotamian society ever became “secularized” in a non-religious sense.
Leaders almost always acknowledged abject obedience to the perceived will of
the gods and went to great lengths to discover what this was.]
The cultural background
1.
The traditional Sumerian city-state was conceptualized as a community
ruled by its local divinity. In this
system the community leaders were stewards for a divine ruler - not dominant in
their own right. Thus, ideology as we
begin to see it clearly in the late Uruk in burial data and art emphasized
communal “equality” and back the statements of later myths that earthly society
was directed by a council of elders not an authoritarian ruler.
2.
Art presents a
stylized, de-personalized style on tablets, stelae and seals. Despite some variation according to age and
possibly sex difference burials of the Ubaid and Early Uruk periods (with the
exception of Susa and Eridu where status difference is more marked) evidence
general similarity of grave goods.
Also, the replacement of earlier in-house (kin-local) burial by cemetery
burial in the Ubaid indicates the assumption of the person and spirituality of
the dead by the community. This
collectivity both strengthened the feeling of communal and local autonomy and
the anonymity of individuals.
3.
In the somewhat later, more socially stratified Early Dynastic Period
the head of the temple
hierarchy or chief priest (probably originally ensi) and later the king
(from the original war leader or lugal) was the head of a hierarchical
structure of administrators and workers.
However all of them were servants of the god, retaining this status from
the preceding period. They were never
divine themselves. Thus in the emerging
ideological art of the Early Dynastic, rulers portray themselves as prevailing
in warfare on behalf of their city god, acting as supplicants before the god, or
laboring with their subjects on erecting the temples of the city gods. Their power was subsumed by community
subordination and obedience to the dictates of the divine and their personal
identities as individuals remained part of the collective identity of the town
under its personalized god.
4.
The divine leadership of the Sumerian city-states adds another
counterbalance to the consolidation of centralized political unification. Each city was ruled by its own god, a
situation that both gave it identity and separated it from its neighbors. Thus there was a strong and persisting
religious component to the force against political unity as well as more
material factors noted below.
5. However, the
emergence of art depicting specific named rulers, irrespective of their
ideologically dictated humility before the divine, the appearance of palaces,
and the increasing differentiation of grave good between leaders and the wider
populace that reached its extreme in the Royal cemetery of Ur in late Early Dynastic
Period, does indicate a trend toward the assertion of more centralized and
personalized leadership. We see this
trend developing in competition with persisting localizing forces through the
Early Dynastic. Thus the emergence of centralized government at the end of the
Early Dynastic Period and of territorial unification under the Akkadian Dynasty
must be viewed as an outgrowth of unceasing structural contradiction – that
comprising the struggle between localizing and unifying political tendencies, and
that between the perception of the king as a human steward and the king as
divine ruler.
1. This tension underlay
the attempts of the individual towns to maintain their autonomy under their
city gods and the attempts of ambitious rulers to bring the entire region under
their control.
2. This duality
possessed an environmental aspect that operated within Sumer and between Sumer
and its neighbors. In the wider geo-political context, by the later Early
Dynastic Period (thus considerably later that the formation of the Sumerian
City States) societies beyond the alluvium developed larger, more centralized
polities. That this did not happen sooner
was chiefly because they lay largely in areas of rainfall farming (i.e.
Northern Mesopotamia, Syria, Susa, Anatolia), permitting more space for
settlement, less dense populations and lower potential for local competition
between neighboring communities. Through the late 4th millennium and
early 3rd millennium this situation removed any pressures toward
political unification and centralization and permitted foreign intrusion in the
Uruk Expansion period. Ultimately,
however, when this process did occur the geographical context stimulated a pattern
in which a central town dominated a large rural area, which became its
political hinterland in the context of a large territorial state.
3. By the middle of the 3rd millennium BC the areas
to north and east of Sumer evolved their own form of complex society based on
territorial states centered on a single powerful city (see discussion above)
like Ebla in Syria and Susa in Elam. In
terms of political power these societies came to rival the towns of Sumer,
changing the earlier Uruk period situation when Sumer could easily colonize its
Neolithic neighbors. This led to
southern Mesopotamian towns coming into conflict with their northern and
eastern neighbors in competition for land and economic resources and initiated
their temporary conquest by Sargon of Akkad.
4. In Sumer, by
contrast, the continuing recession of the Persian Gulf in the 3rd Millennium
caused rivers to cut deeper and many of the earlier lakes and rivers branches
disappeared. Most rural settlement
disappeared and the remaining towns were much larger and confined to the few
remaining rivers courses, sharing these with other towns in a pattern where
numerous city-states of roughly equal size and strength were closely strung
along the a few river courses. This
created the potential for competition for land and water.
5. The need to protect these vital irrigation systems encouraged
two mutually contradictory tendencies in Sumer. On one hand, given that most of
the cities were of equal military power and unable to consider conquering their
neighbors, their chief endeavor was to protect their lands, thus maintaining
the pattern of small local political entities.
However, on the other hand, the enforced close proximity of these
"city states" also inevitably initiated competition for the available
agricultural land and the remaining rural populations. Fighting was often initiated by the
threatened down-stream cities, vulnerable to having their water supplies cut by
their neighbors, mounting pre-emtive strikes against their up-stream neighbors.
6. Such an unstable
geo-political situation provided the opportunity for strong and successful
leaders to assert their power. Through
success in war, the ability to protect and feed his subjects, ideological
self-aggrandizement through the erection of great ziggurats, ideological art
and codified dynastic history, and identification as the good steward of the
favoring city god, aspiring Early Dynastic rulers were able to mobilize
increasingly large labor and military forces, monopolize the symbols and
commodities of power and extend their power toward permanent kingship.
6. Endemic warfare naturally led to some towns coming under
dominance of the winners - a tendency for political unity so that control of
the restricted water supplies could be ensured. However, until the end of the Early Dynastic Period the
territorial states resulting from this process remained relatively small.
7. Also the expanding
pattern of foreign relations contributed to wider interactive systems and
economic, later political, unity. The expanding economic system facilitated
centralizing tendencies with several towns working together to send trading
expeditions across the Iranian Plateau.
Clearly such widespread interactions were best enforced by larger
merchant and if necessary coercive agencies than could be always generated by
single towns.
8. Even in writing we
see broader tendencies with the texts of the later Early Dynastic period
incorporating Semetic (northern Sumer and Akkad) as well as traditional
Sumerian linguistic features. This
accompanied broader interaction with the cities of the north and forecast later
unification under the city dynasty of Akkad.
9. Ultimately all of these tendencies culminated in the conquest
by Sargon of Akkad of all of its neighbors both within Sumer and beyond and
formation of the first "empire."
It also led to the assumption by his son Narim-Sin of divine
kingship.
10. Sargon of Akkad, following the pattern of internecine
warfare, vanquished a Sumerian leader of Umma, who had himself extended the
political influence of his city to the north, and conquered the entirety of
Akkad and Sumer, then followed up with conquests of north and south. Sargon created an empire that, in tune with
the continuing localizing forces, had to continually fight internal as well as
external foes. However, it largely held
together for 150-200 years.
8. Akkad achieved direct or indirect influence as far as the
Mediterranean in the north and Oman in the south with intensive trade across
Iranian Plateau and Persian Gulf with Indus Valley.
Religion and Kingship as the Gift of Heaven
1. The traditional
structure of the Sumerian City was that it was owned, together with all its
wealth and lands, by the city god. Thus
the city was the household of the city god and all its inhabitants were part of
this household. As noted above their
personal identities were subsumed in this religious corporate identity. In the late Uruk Period - the earliest
period when images of divinities are clearly depicted, this social hierarchy is
shown in such images as the famous Uruk Vase which shows on several registers
the ascending statuses within the natural/human order, from plants to farm
animals to men and ultimately the goddess. Such images reflect a society where
the forces of nature and their divine representatives were paramount in the
affairs of men and the human order.
This was to modify somewhat in the succeeding periods with the rise of
hierarchical political society and the integration of divine agency in the
specific political interaction and councils of the emerging royal dynasties of
the later Early Dynastic Period.
2. Within this later structure the divine pattern was also one
that replicated the changing earthly one.
Gods were now seen as taking sides in the endemic warfare between the
competing city-states. The older and
more important cities were owned by the more important gods (Enlil, Enki,
Innana) while newer foundations were often owned by secondary gods. Thus a hierarchy of divine relationship
mirrored the earthly one with ranked status being conferred on the towns. This persisted even in the context of the
political eclipse of a city. Kish was
the traditional origin of kingship and remained dominant on the ideological
level throughout Mesopotamian history.
Likewise, the cities devoted to the chief divinity Enlil (Eridu, Nippur)
retained prominence on the religious level and acted for others in their
struggle against centralization.
3. In Sumerian theology kingship was said
to have descended from heaven as gift of the Gods sometime after Creation. This
belief carried two important implications for understanding Kingship. First, unlike Egyptian belief, it meant that
kingship and the king had not always existed as part of original Creation. Second, it means that the institution
of kingship was divine NOT its holder.
Thus Mesopotamians viewed their kings as human leaders endowed with a
divine gift (and burden) that could be removed by the gods at any time.
4. This is further illustrated by the
belief that Early Dynastic and later Mesopotamian kings were chosen by a
council of the gods who then made their wishes known on earth through dreams,
omens etc. There are numerous examples
of kings who acknowledged their common origin and divine choice (Sargon of
Akkad himself was son of a priestess, raised by a gardener before being chosen
by Inanna/Ishtar). Thus kings were
divinely elected NOT divinely born.
6. Kingship and its fortunes were seen as
subject to the whims of the gods. Thus
the constantly changing fortunes of the Early Dynastic City States reflected
similar changes in the divine order.
The gods sitting in council allocated primacy to one, then another in
turn – in Sumer this meant that a dominant city could be suddenly overthrown because
its god had lost his/her preeminence in the divine council.
7. Significantly this change of fortune
for cities and kings had nothing whatever to do with their behavior – it
depended on divine fortune which Man could not understand, direct or oppose. This belief was certainly connected to the
unpredictable environment within which Sumerians lived where irresistible
natural forces could destroy their lands and their homes without notice or
reason. Thus kings could not determine
the fate of their city. They could only
serve as representatives of the gods. In this guise, although they could not
stay the power of the gods, they could by bad behavior bring disaster on their
town (compared with the power of the Egyptian Pharaoh, a lose–lose situation?).
8. The functions of the king were
threefold: to interpret the will of the gods to his people, to represent his
people before the gods in important rituals, and to administer the god’s
realm.
9. The king carried out these duties as
follows:
- He administered his realm by leading and
directing his human administrators, laborers, craftsmen, army etc.
- He learned the will of the gods through
oracles, dreams, cosmic signs etc, and passed these on to his people. Of great importance was the will of the city
god for an imposing home – the temple.
-He represented his people before the gods
by being the chief officiate in rituals of renewal that may have been only time
in most of Mesopotamian history that the king actually entered divine liminal
space to act for the god. For instance
in the divine marriage that culminated the New Year Festival, he released the
imprisoned god Enlil/Marduk (the life principal in nature) from his
imprisonment and permitted the land to bloom again by ritually fertilizing the
Mother Goddess Ninhursaga or Inanna/Ishtar.
10. Thus the assumption of divinity by the
second Akkadian King Narim-Sin must be seen as an exception to the prevailing
Mesopotamian view of Kingship. The next section puts it into its political
perspective.
The Emergence of Divine Kingship
1. Historically these
tensions between the conflicting tendencies noted above regarding political
unification/localization and divine kingship/human stewardship culminated in
the Akkadian Empire and the Ur III State where powerful dynasties temporarily
unified the entire mega-region.
However, the continuing localizing forces worked against long-term
consolidation and played major roles in the periodic collapse of the larger polities.
3. With the advent of
the Akkadian kings this changes with Narim- Sin taking on divinity (as seen in
his depictions on stelae that celebrate his victories).
4. However, this Mesopotamian assumption of divine kingship must
probably been seen as much as a political ploy as a theological
transformation. Some of the Divine
Akkadian and UrIII kings (with the apparent exception of Narim-Sin) were only
worshipped as such in the towns that they conquered NOT the towns of their home
polities, indicating a strategic role associated with political expansion.
Likewise this should be seen within its context as a further move toward the
dominance of palace above temple in the evolving course of southern
Mesopotamian political structure, and of the struggle between local and
centralizing forces that lay at the heart of the Sumerian political
dynamic. It represents the final stage
in the temple (Ubaid) – temple/palace Uruk/E.Dynastic) - palace (Akkad)
transition.
5. Narim-Sin took the title of God of
Akkad from Inanna-Ishtar. By this act he assumed the goddess’s prerogative of
ownership of the city, its lands, and its people, a role performed previously
by the temple on behalf of the City God.
While in practice this temple role had been eroded for a long time by
the secular (palace) institution, it still stood for local city god-focused
authority against wider centralizing power.
Thus Narim-Sin, by assuming the temple/god title himself, took the final
step toward supplanting the traditional system. He now was in a position to assert similar dominance over the
city gods of Sumer and assert the priority of central (secular/palace) power
over local religious/temple) power.
Thus divine kingship became a powerful ideological tool in the hands of
strong leaders wishing to break down the Sumerian tendencies toward the
regionalism and to unify the entire area.
6. This also marks, at
least at the level of leadership, a shift from anonymity within the god's
household/estate to the assertion of the individual identity of the king. This is marked in art specifically by
emphasis of the eminence and individuality of Narim-Sin and generally by more
emphasis on individual characteristics of humans and divinities in art. Also the innovation of the minor god who now
intercedes between humans and superior divinities replaces the direct
relationship of the human and divine members of the City State. Divinity is more distant and transcendental,
just as kingship itself becomes transcendental and removed from the common population.
7. These two approaches
to state government fluctuated in influence with the changing fortunes of
individual leaders and city governments.
Thus, after the fall of the Akkadian state, Gudea of Lagash is shown as
supplicant and servant of his God Ningirsu, a reflection of the re-assertion of
local autonomy under the City-God.
However, he remains more important in and of himself than most of the
Early Dynastic kings, being always named and portrayed as the central figure in
the scenes of his temple construction etc.
8. This process continued throughout the early history of Mesopotamia with progressively more power being transferred to the central authority under Ur III and Old Babylonia. However, there remained a tenacious tendency to local autonomy and the empires that succeeded Sumer were always faced with attack from without and revolt from within.