Which are the deepest roots of that mix of cultures that we use to call ‘Mediterranean Civilization’? Which are comminglings and exchanges which produced its most complete fruit, i.e. the city, a place for landscape-modelling communities? And which elements did contribute to build up that baulk of customs, ideas, and innovations which compelled to confrontation and hybridizations different peoples for millennia? What did it made, from pottery to metallurgy, from gastronomy to architecture, from art to religion, of a sea a cradle of civilization? Archaeology may help in disentangling such questions, seeking unexpected answers , by tinkering what ancient Mediterranean peoples left buried in the ground. A privileged point of view of our course is the ancient Phoenician city of Motya, located exactly at the centre of the “sea in the middle”. Throughout the live experience of excavation, with images taken on the field, this course will let you touch the many tesserae of the great mosaic of the Mediterranean Civilization. The field diary of the archaeologist, and the handpick will be the two tools, which will lead us across the sea to discover what such early cities actually were, and how their contribute is still a major part of our shared memory.
1.3 Concept of the city
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來自 Sapienza University of Rome 的課程
At the Origins of the Mediterranean Civilization: Archaeology of the City from the Levant to the West - 3rd-1st millennium BC
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Sapienza University of Rome
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從本節課中
Towards the West
與講師見面
Lorenzo NigroProf.
Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia
[MUSIC]
The city was the model that definitions carried from the east to the west.
But how it functioned, how it was organized,
this society of the ancient Near East, which was almost unknown to the West.
We have an example which can help us to understand this model,
this social organization.
And the example is exactly that one that we could studied in Jericho, in Palestine.
At the heart of the city we have a source of fresh water, and we will see
that ultimately this was a major issue, a major resource for the community.
Water was a basic resource in antiquity.
Because not only it was of course necessary for human life, but
it also was needed for animal breeding, for
irrigation in the sense that the property of land and
the intensive agriculture was made able only if you have a great source of water.
And of course, also earthen architecture which was
a basic system of organizing the city space
was made possible by the availability of a great quantity of fresh water.
Because you cannot build bricks with salt water, so they needed fresh water.
Then, of course, water is connected with social hierarchy,
because who controls water, of course, is in a power position and
can distribute water as you can distribute power in the society.
Then, of course,
there is also the matter of the land property because the distribution of
water immediately determines the value of the land, and of course,
who is the owner of that land which is irrigated is in a better position.
So all this was connected in a system which is what we
call the system of the early city in the Near East.
Jericho is only an example, and
the oldest example we know is dated to the third millennium BC,
that in archaeological terms is called the Bronze Age, the early Bronze Age.
So the Levant gives us a lot of these examples.
We just go through the basic parameters which can define
a city in the early Bronze Age of the Levant.
The first one is the dimension of the site.
The site is a city if it has a dimension
which can go from 5 to 500 hectares.
So it's not a matter of the overall extension, but
is a matter of scale and of the dimension respect
of the small side of the same area because the city is not living alone.
It's living in a territory, in a landscape, and
the city is conceived as the center of this territory.
So the dimension of a city, what makes a city a city,
is its dimensions with respect of the land that the city pretends to control.
And this of course made it necessary, what is called, landscape archaeology.
The study of a land and
all of the sites of the same periods which were living together in the same time.
So here you see the example of Khirbet al-Batrawy in Jordan, but
we can have many of these sites in different situations.
And even an island has its own catching area, the area which is
under the control of the island, which is not only a land area.
It is a sea area.
And so, in the case of Motya,
the area under the control of the city extends over the sea.
And the second major parameter,
the second major feature which gives a city
the status of city is the so-called city wall.
That means something encompassing the whole inhabited area, or more precisely,
the whole area in which the functions of the city have been gathered.
And we have a very important examples of city walls like this which is Jericho.
Jericho of the third millennium, and you see, and these are,
or in the case of Batrawy, you have a stone city wall.
And in some cases, these city walls are multiple city walls.
The meaning of the city wall is connected to representation of power,
because if such a work was built with great economic force,
so they needed a strong power to build up a city wall.
And that's why the city wall is also the symbol of the power, a symbol of the city.
And also because it actually was the,
let's say the facade with which the city was seen from outside.
So it was in some ways the way in which the city was showing
itself to the landscape that it wanted to control.
And here, of course, the third element is the urban layout.
That means that there is someone that is the power in the city
who is establishing how the city is composed,
how is the different function are gathered and organized in the space.
These are very early examples from Palestine, for example,
in which there is the area of temples, the area of the water reservoir,
the area, of course, of the city wall, the area of the market.
That means that the community has decided how to distribute over an area,
an encircled area, the different functions which made the city a city.
Then the city was a place in which the wealth of the country,
of countryside was gathered.
This is another basic point for making a city a city.
The city's a center in the sense that it's an economic center in
which stuff is collected and wealth is collected.
So it includes of course storerooms and places in which
what in antiquity was thought to be the wealth, such as agricultural products,
was gathered and reinvested in the form of labor.
By giving this food to people and or exchanged with traded material.
And here you have again the example of Batrawy,
the site in Jordan in the third millennium in which a palace full of this pottery,
full of cereals and barley have been found,
showing that the city at its power was collecting food, simply.
Which was very simple wealth to be redistributed in the country.
Then, of course, as the city and the palace inside it is the center of power,
some ways of controlling, of administrating the landscape and
the area under the city control are found in the archaeological record.
Such as tokens, sea shells, sealing impressions, or, of course,
written documents which were used to control the city and its administration.
Because one of the major roles of the city was to administrate a landscape,
a community, a land, and especially to administrate economic
production of primary production of food and other services.
So this was centrally organized.
And this makes the difference between the economy of a village,
in which each family, each unit, each clan has its own economic organization for
catching what is needed for surviving.
While the city is responsible for everybody and is giving
advice to everybody, how to do, how to produce, how to cultivate, and so on.
Then, of course, this led the community to have a shift,
to jump up because they can reach other stuff,
other materials which a village could not afford such as metal items.
For producing these metal items you needed caravans,
donkeys, merchants, people who was able to
deal with metals and fusion for example.
So all this technology, all this new technology was prompted
by the city because the city had gathered the economic
surplus to support this endeavor that is extracting copper,
transforming copper into tools and introducing it.
For this reason is it called Bronze Age, introducing something new,
which is metal in the daily life of the community.
So metal is the turning point is one of the demonstration that the city
has grown up.
There has a been a step towards a more complex social organization.
And of course, as soon all these phenomena took place there is
an immediate reorganization of this society in a hierarchic system,
in a very well-structured system that you cannot even imagine.
But if we look, for example, to Egypt,
we have a very clear idea that the society was structured in different classes.
And this, which is called the social differentiation,
is shown by some special finds, some luxury items that we
found in excavations which, such as in this case,
this beautiful necklace which of course, also have a relative value.
For example, this necklace is a very rich item in Central Jordan but
would have been, let's say, middle class in Egypt.
But this is not the focus.
The focus is the fact that, in this society, there are differences.
And there are people who is now wearing things, using tools for
showing that they are different from others.
That they are more rich, or that they belong to a new class.
A class who has the access to some precious materials such as carnelian,
amethyst, rock crystal, that is, precious stones which were
which were not self produced by the community but were imported.
So that means that they were in the heart of the organization of the power.
All these finds are indicators of what the city was,
a complex system with many features and
many factors interacting to letting the community grow.
Another very important issue is that of labor.
Labor means the organization of labor.
And from architectural monuments such as the city wall,
which are very complex structure, which have a width of around 15 meters.
We understand that the people in the city was organizing groups and
that they used to work with a master, with someone who was directing them.
That means that there was a social organizational labor,
and that labor had become something which was a major part
of the economy of this society.
So the king who was in charge of the power
had to give labor to the population.
And also the organization of labor is very interesting in groups of workers,
for example producing the bricks,
the millions of bricks that they needed to encircle the city with the city wall.
That's why the city wall is a very important feature showing that the city,
in the sense of a social organization was born.
Then of course there are some outcomes of the city.
One of these outcomes is specialized work,
craftsmanship, the production of luxury and medal items.
We have some examples which affect all the produced
items by the city, but especially what was used by the upper class.
Because new technology was applied to products which were just for
showing that the upper class of the society was able to
improve the technological value of these object.
And this is shown by pottery, by metal craft,
by other crafts such as the works of bones, ivory, and other tools.
So something new is appearing with the city that is,
let's say a launch at a really prompt
towards technological innovation.
And as we finish, then,
at the end of the process the city has established sort of social classes.
Also connected with different social, let's say,
jobs that have been established like the warrior,
the priest, the scribe.
So some very important social activities such as,
for example, that of the administration or wealth or
healthcare are given to special groups in the society and
these special groups use tools, mark tool,
show their own roles by means of tools,
by means of items, by means of way of life.
And this is, just exactly, what is called a social class acting.
So the city is not only a place, is not only something encircled by your
city wall, but is a social institution, which is going to be exported
from the east to the west through the incredible work of the Phoenicians.
