Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Ideology Ch. 3-5

In chapters 3-5, Liverani explains how ideology drove the development of Uruk into an urban city. This brings into question which was the prime factor that drove Uruk’s development: economy, which he explained in chapters one and two, or ideology. Which came first? Liverani does not answer this question, instead, he begins to talk exclusively about the temple and how it is the “central agency” that acquired the farmers’ surplus and used it for other skilled labor to build the city. However, Liverani’s explanation is too simple. Farmers giving away their surplus out of religious conviction is an explanation that is difficult to believe. And, later on, when trade to acquire necessary goods that cannot be produced in Uruk, merchants of Uruk were required to give a certain percentage of the goods to the state. Liverani does mention that the temple enforced theses quotas with methods ranging from “physical coercion to ideological persuasion”. However, he does not spend time describing how the temple used physical coercion. Did they have an army?

Liverani’s theories seems to involve too much scheming between the leaders of the temple and too much generosity of the laity. In earlier chapters, Liverani described how the temple grew in size compared to the houses after 4500 B.C.E. His socialistic theory is too theoretical. Ironically, Liverani describes how guards were used to protect the temples’ wealth or goods from the people. This suggests, in contrast to Liverani’s view that resistance to the central authority and how the central authority fought back played a more dominant role in Uruk’s development,

What Uruk fails to describe in more detail is what services the temple provided to the people. Besides ceremonial services, did it provide social welfare or health services, which convinced people that it was in their interest to give some of their wealth to the temple.

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