Giorgio Buccellati 1999

“Urkesh and the Question of Early Hurrian Urbanism,”
in M. Hudson and B. A. Levine (eds.),
Urbanization and Land Ownership in the Ancient Near East, Peabody Museum Bulletin 7, Cambridge: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography/Harvard University, pp. 229-250.

The author’s aim in this paper is a reconsideration of early urbanization mechanisms at Urkesh and its region. The following topics are discussed: 1) the political development towards the urbanization; 2) the role of the distinctive geographical environment of the city; 3) the importance of ethnic factors shaping cities and market trades.

All the archaeological finds are considered within a context of historical meaning, and the methodology applied is presented at the very beginning, a ‘long-term’ analysis showing “how growth in complexity went hand in hand with a progressive symbolic distancing from the immediacy of natural consequences” (p. 229).

The concepts of urbanization, industrialization and ethnic consolidation are then exposed: the role of the political power in the formation of a city-state as a state-city is defined, and the importance of the palatial system (and its difference with the temple organization) is clarified, being the king able to gain “the greatest concentration of unencumbered wealth” (p. 231), also retaining a coercive force. The concept and the development of the industrialization is then explained with an example from the ancient site of Qraya, near Terqa, a city specialized in the production and trading of salt.

The importance of the hinterland in urbanization processes is then stressed, defining the notion of a ‘para-urban’ relationship between the city and its countryside, underlining both the distance and the dependence of the hinterland; an element of connection between the city and its hinterland is identified with the presence of monumental structures, like the ziggurats, marking the landscape; a comparison between the hinterland of Urkesh (possibly called Nawar in ancient sources) and of that of Nagar is proposed.

The last concept taken into account is that of ethnicity; under a historical perspective, ethnicity represented indeed a mechanism in the urbanization process, being defined by precise criteria (it has to be large and consistent, has to marke identity through cultural traits which are ascribed, nonorganizational and symbolic), which must be confirmed “over a large area and a long period of time” (p. 243).

The last paragraphs deal with the topic of Hurrian ethnicity (expressed in onomastics, myths and cults) which can be also recognized in material culture traits characterizing an homogeneity in the region called ‘Subartu’. One of the most important factors in shaping this Hurrian ethnicity was for sure the Myth of Silver, which is discussed in the very last paragraph.