Slavery during the third dynasty of Ur / [Bernard Joseph Siegel].

  • Bernard J. Siegel
Date:
1947
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Slavery during the third dynasty of Ur / [Bernard Joseph Siegel]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    SOURCES OF SLAVES IN UR III WARS OF CONQUEST THE despotic monarchies and frequent wars of conquest which character¬ ized the formation of states throughout the Near East from the dawn of history and before, provided a veritable breeding ground for the development of slavery. Typical of the region were continual strife and contention between autocratic city-states, the development of kingship and extended power which were ever threatened by groups from within and without, violent dissolution of the empire, a regrouping of forces and a new disposition of power. Such in particular was also the fate of southern Babylonia.1 The usual conception of this area as the scene of violent conflict of earlier Sumerian peoples and later Semitic peoples has been recently challenged by Jacobsen.2 His contention is that both Sumerian-speaking and Semitic-speak¬ ing people lived side by side in a single culture area, and that the sharp lin¬ guistic differentiation between them is no ground for assuming that there were great changes wrought in a conflict of culturally distinct groups. He would thus leave the question of origins in abeyance and accept the fact that a mutually satisfactory adjustment had taken place between two originally dis¬ parate groups, and that at a relatively early date a much stronger traditional bond existed between these two linguistic groups in Babylonia than between either and any non-Babylonian tribe or state.3 The internal conflicts and con¬ tinual internecine strife were rather the attempts of different city-states to jockey into power. No lasting unity was established in this arena of human settlement.4 1 For an historical survey of Babylonia, see Meissner, 1920,1, pp. 23-33; also Meissner, 1926, pp. 1—43. 2 Jacobsen, 1939a. 3 The representation of two or more linguistic stocks in a single culture area is no isolated phenomenon. The coexistence of a considerable number of linguistic groups in California, for instance, and the presence of Athabaskan-speaking enclaves in the southwestern United States are cases in point. There is no necessary conflict between settlement in, and adjustment to, the same locality at different times by different groups. However modified original cultural patterns may become in the new environment, there tends to be a series of similar adjustments to the same ex¬ ternal stimuli by originally disparate groups. This is a result both of imitating a successful adjust¬ ment and of the principle of limited possibilities. 4 The author summarizes the development of events as follows: “ ... we can thus state that in this allegedly racial conflict between Semites and Sumerians the leaders represent themselves in their inscriptions as leaders of political units, not as leaders of racial groups. The Sumerian leader, Lugalzagesi, writes in Semitic in the Sumerian temple of the chief Sumerian god, Enlil, in the Sumerian city of Nippur. Sumerian and Semitic names are given indiscriminately within the same royal family. The Semitic gods stand by passively and take no part in the decisive struggle of their race. The Sumerian gods actively support their racial foes and lead the Semites on to vic¬ tory over their own worshippers. No single trace of animosity between Sumerians and Semites can
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