The Drumbeat Forever After

22: Uruk environment & state formation, 3800-3100 BCE (Hoe vs Plow)

Guests: Liyan, Bella, Kirra
First, another debate poem! Hoe, child of the poor, bereft even of a loincloth, starts a quarrel with the Plow. A surprising amount of Sumerian literature boils down to the logistical complexity of various tasks facing early state institutions, not least among them the upkeep of various agricultural tools.
Then: we've made it to the Uruk period! We'll start with a look at the climate of the alluvium during the 4th millennium BCE, focusing on the dense web of rivers and canals crisscrossing the Tigris-Euphrates alluvial plain. Rivers offered the settlements on their banks effortless travel (on reed boats), endless reeds (for building, burning, and making boats), and the best imaginable conditions for large-scale field irrigation (at least in the short term). What happens when they start to dry up?
Then, a tour of the fields in the shadow of the new temples dominating Uruk life. What was the relationship between these new state organs and the millennia-old agricultural villages on their peripheries? How did their irrigation networks adapt to allow new, more efficient, less pleasant methods of year-round cultivation?
Then, we look at the process of state formation during the Middle & Late Uruk period (ca 3800-3100 BCE), starting with a few definitions of the state. We review the process through which particular households (and other household-like social institutions) consolidated social, economic, political, and religious authority among their neighbors and trade partners.
Then, we talk about how regular exchange between households might have developed over time into a permanent tribute obligation to these particular households, and the relationship between more intensive trade and social complexity.
Finally, Enlil (god of kingship, king of the gods) intervenes in the debate between Hoe and Plow. Praise be to Nisaba!
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23: City-states in Late Uruk Mesopotamia, 3400-3100 BCE (Hymns to Inanna)

Guest: Kirra
First, we sing the praises of Inanna, patron goddess of the city of Unug, whose home temple complex was the epicenter of the Uruk-period world system. Which god compares with her?
Then continuing our tour of the Late Uruk period (3400-3100 BCE), we examine the city-state from the top down, from the so-called "priest-king" (alias EN, alias NAMESHDA?), to the bureaucrats who ran temple complexes like the E-anna, to the artisans in these temples' employ (increasingly subject to the forces of commoditization), to the slaves and manual laborers who actually built the cities and grew their food.
Finally, we read some of the milder hymns celebrating the marriage of Inanna and her boytoy Dumuzi. He is well-watered lettuce!
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24: The invention of writing & the Late Uruk industrial revolution, 3400-3100 BCE (Babel & Nisaba)

Guest: Kelten, Kirra
First, a familiar story that just happens to involve monumental construction projects, clay bricks, and universal language. Behold!
Then, we visit the city of Unug (Uruk, Erech, Warka, etc), for which the period is named, and take a tour through the construction and demolition of increasingly monumental edifices in the office complex where written language and architectural columns were invented. What did it take to build all this?
Then, a quick treatment of Uruk pottery production. Wheeled vehicles are much younger (and wine bottles are much older) than you think they are!
Then, at long last, the bureaucrats in the E-anna temple complex finally get around to inventing writing! We take a stroll through the long prehistory of administrative record-keeping, the means by which young scribes learned to write, and the fundamental shift in world history precipitated by the adoption of cuneiform.
Finally, we close with a hymn to Nisaba, goddess of writing (and cereal agriculture, of course)— good woman, chief scribe of An, record-keeper of Enlil, wise sage of the gods!
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25: Wool & weaving in Late Uruk Mesopotamia, 3400-3100 BCE (Sheep vs Grain)

Guests: Jojo, Sami
First, at the dawn of cosmic time, Sheep and Grain descend from the abode of the gods, get drunk, and start a fight.
Then, after a quick historical introduction, we take a thorough look at the Uruk-period wool industry, from gathering sheep in one place for shearing to spinning thread to weaving (on various types of loom) to dyeing, fulling, sewing, and so on.
Then, we look at some other fibers: flax, being older and more firmly entrenched than wool, remained a valuable fabric well into historical times; nettles, on the other hand, had a slightly shorter tenure as a botanical source of textile fibers.
Then, Sheep and Grain take their dispute to the gods, who declare the obvious winner. Praise be to father Enki!
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26: Feasting in Late Uruk Mesopotamia, 3400-3100 BCE (Lugalbanda, part 1)

Guest: Kelten, Bella
First, the fragile peace has collapsed, and the virtuous king Enmerkar leads the army of fair Unug in an invasion of the faraway mountain kingdom of Aratta. However, en route to otherwise certain victory, the king's mightiest warrior, Lugalbanda, falls sick! His fellow soldiers, unable to help him and fearing the worst, lay him in a cave in the mountain wilderness as if it were his tomb.
Then: feasting during the Late Uruk period (3400-3100 BCE), starting with a look at livestock as movable property of these nascent states: history's first farm subsidy (on wool, paid in dairy fat), the particular position of pigs in both the real economy and the iconographic landscape of Uruk cylinder seals, and the long-term effects of large-scale cattle herding on the environment as a whole.
Then, a look at domestic commensality (that is, eating food together at home). What kinds of ingredients did people have access to? How did they prepare their meals? 
Then, a look at the massive temple institutions that found themselves at the center of these sprawling new city-states. How did they organize feasts, and who was invited? What did their official propaganda have to say about them? Who prepared them? Most importantly, how did they parlay their massive grain stores into a permanent class hierarchy undergirded by grinding exploitation at the bottom? Let's find out!
Then, instrumental music: how much of the modern guitar can we credit Uruk society with inventing? The day after recording this, I learned that the European lute isn't just incidentally related to the Arab oud— the word "lute" is literally derived from Arabic "al-'ud"!
Then, Lugalbanda prays to a series of gods, to forestall the funeral feast his friends have already arranged for him. Will he ever leave the mountain cave?
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27: Cities during the Jemdet Nasr period (Lugalbanda, part 2)

Guest: Kelten
(I just finished re-recording episodes 1-10, so there's never been a better time to check them out!)
First, we continue the story of Lugalbanda as he leaves his mountain cave. After he submits to the country of oppression, Zangara, the god of dreams, asks him for a space knife and goats of varying quality.
Then, we start episode 1 of 2 on the Jemdet Nasr period (3100-2900 BCE), bridging the gap between prehistory and the beginning of recorded history. The collapse of the Uruk colonial network heralds massive cultural and demographic upheaval across the Near East, and the Mesopotamian alluvium isn't exempt.
Then, we visit a handful of cities: the eponymous Jemdet Nasr, in the north, with the second-most texts from this period; Unug (with the most texts), whose patron goddess Inanna has already begun to take on her association with the planet Venus; and Ur, Kish, Shuruppak, and Tell Uqair.
Then, we take a look at the advancements made in cuneiform writing during this period. It turns out math with fractions is exactly five thousand years old!
Then, we examine the potential evidence for a league of cities— that is, a single political entity comprising several different city-states, seven hundred years before the conquests of Sargon of Akkad. If there was such an organization, it seems to have included Unug, Ur, Nippur (in the central alluvium), and possibly Eridu, among others.
Finally, we begin the story of Lugalbanda and Anzu. Still lost in the distant mountains, Lugalbanda sets out to ask Anzu (the mythical bird guarding the mountains at the edge of the world) for directions. Stay tuned for part three!
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Works cited

28: Temples & language during the Jemdet Nasr period (Lugalbanda, part 3)

Guest: Kelten
First: Anzu, the mythical bird guarding the mountains at the edge of the world, comes home to find that Lugalbanda has treated his beloved chick with the utmost generosity. In return, he makes several attempts to grant Lugalbanda his destiny.
Then, we continue the history of the temples at the center of the city-states in southern Mesopotamia from 3100-2900 BCE, mostly based on tablets from Unug and the northern site of Jemdet Nasr. What were they for? Who administered them? Whose work kept them running?
Then, we look at language around the turn of the 3rd millennium, starting with a quick look at the evolution of writing in Iran and focusing on the "Sumerian question". We can read these texts, but can we be sure of the language they were written in? Can we even be sure they were meant to represent grammatical language as such?
Then, Lugalbanda rejoins the soldiers who left him for dead in a mountain cave! Can he help Enmerkar win Unug's war against Aratta?
Questions? Feedback? Email us at drumbeatforeverafter@gmail.com.
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Works cited

Update: Rewrites, re-records, & Early Dynastic Sumer

New update, as of July 18:
Episode 17 is entirely new, and episodes 18-20 are mostly new.
I've rearranged the order of episodes 22-26, and I've re-recorded audio for episodes 23-26 that I haven't edited yet. 
Thanks for your patience! Like I mentioned, I have about 22 episodes written on Early Dynastic Sumer (2900-2350 BCE), of which I've recorded 4 so far.
Stay tuned for more content!

30: Waterways of early Mesopotamia: interview with Malath Feadha & Jaafar Jotheri

It's the podcast's first interview!
I talk to Malath Feadha and Dr. Jaafar Jotheri, two Iraqi archaeologists studying ancient Mesopotamia at Al-Qadisiyah University, about the relationship between the early inhabitants of the alluvium (in southern Iraq) and the rivers and wetlands that shaped their landscape.
We talk about the history of irrigation, from a few Ubaid households digging small canals from gaps in the natural levees (in the 5000s BCE) to Sumerian city-states levying armies of manual laborers to incorporate the entire alluvium into a single irrigation network (in the 2000s).
We also talk about a recent paper* they coauthored, a geoarchaeological analysis of ancient human movement through the alluvial wetlands. Both boats and domestic herds of water buffalo stirred up the sediment on the river floor over time, leaving tracks still visible in the modern desert landscape. What can these tell us about daily life in early southern Mesopotamia?
Follow Malath and Grandchildren of the Sumerians on Twitter! 
*Jaafar Jotheri, Michelle de Gruchy, Rola Almaliki, & Malath Feadha. "Remote Sensing the Archaeological Traces of Boat Movement in the Marshes of Southern Mesopotamia" Remote Sensing, 2019, 11, 2474.
Also: look forward to the upcoming sequel, coauthored by our guests (et al), to be published in Sustainability: "Landscape archaeology of Southern Mesopotamia: identifying features in the dried marshes."
Questions? Feedback? Email us at drumbeatforeverafter@gmail.com.
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Works cited

31: Introduction to Early Dynastic Sumer (& the historical Gilgamesh), 2900-2350 BCE (Gilgamesh vs Huwawa, version B)

Guest: Lily
First, we finally meet Gilgamesh! Cherished in Unug, heroic bearer of a scepter of wide-ranging power, noble glory of the gods, angry bull standing ready for a fight, etc. We read one of two Sumerian poems dealing with Gilgamesh's conquest of the remote Mountains of Cedar-felling and his fight against the mighty Ḫuwawa, the demigod who rules the mountains at the edge of the world!
Then: an introduction to the Early Dynastic period (2900-late 2300s BCE) in Sumer. We take a first look at the geography of the 3rd-millennium Mesopotamian alluvium; the nature of temples, palaces, and city-states; the emergence of silver as money; the broader world surrounding Sumer; and language and identity in Mesopotamia.
Then, a look at the Sumerian King List, a writing exercise (and an ideological tapestry of various folklore traditions) which often gets mistaken for an objective historical document. What can it tell us about the Early Dynastic period?
Then, a look at our evidence for a historical King Gilgamesh of archaic Unug (2900-2600 BCE?). What does a king have to do in the 28th century BCE to be worshipped as a god by the 26th century?
Then, we read the rest of this version of the Ḫuwawa story. The half-divine Gilgamesh reifies his power over both humans & the natural world by breaking an oath between gentlemen, on the one hand, and domesticating a demigod and exploiting his homeland for raw resources, on the other. Warrior, you lied!
Questions? Feedback? Email us at drumbeatforeverafter@gmail.com.
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Works cited