Читать книгу A History of Ancient Egypt - Marc Van De Mieroop - Страница 59

The 4th millennium was also a period of crucial change in Babylonia – the region of southern Iraq and western Iran – that culminated in the appearance of the state. In contrast to Egypt, the focus of the state in Babylonia was the city, and several city‐states existed side by side. But many characteristics of the ancient Egyptian state appeared in Babylonia as well, such as social stratification, monumental architecture, bureaucracies, and writing. The development in Babylonia seems to have been more gradual than in Egypt, and may have concluded slightly earlier, around 3200 rather than 3000. But the absolute dating of the archaeological data that underlies our reconstructions has such a margin of error that it is not a reliable means to determine precedence.

Fourth‐millennium Babylonia was dominated by the Uruk culture, which had a widespread regional impact from its core in the south of Iraq. By 3200, Uruk itself was a large city with many monumental buildings and a distinct culture that is visible in its material remains. One of the culture’s most remarkable features was its influence throughout western Asia, a phenomenon of the mid‐4th millennium we call the Uruk expansion. People living in the peripheries of southern Iraq – in Iran, northern Iraq and Syria, and southern Turkey – adopted elements of the Uruk culture to different degrees. Some people in northern Syria surrounded themselves fully with Uruk‐style goods, and many scholars think that they were colonists coming from southern Iraq. In other places, Uruk and local cultural features occur in varying proportions. Some elements of the Uruk culture, especially a type of container we call the Beveled Rim Bowl, appear over an enormous area from Pakistan to the Syrian coast, and historians assume that trade relations caused this widespread cultural influence. It is thus logical that the Uruk expansion may have reached Egypt as well.

In the art and architecture of late Predynastic Egypt appear several elements that have a strong Babylonian flavor. Their foreign origin is suggested by the fact that they existed only briefly in Egypt whereas in Babylonia they became part of the defining features of the culture. A common scene in the rich visual record of the period is the domination of animals by one or two men. The “master of animals” already appears in the wall painting of tomb 100 at Hierakonpolis of the Naqada II period, and in some examples of the image the men seem to wear distinctly Babylonian clothing. The motif soon disappeared from Egyptian art but flourished in later Babylonia. Similarly short‐lived in Egypt was the use of the cylinder seal, a small stone carved with a picture that becomes visible only when rolled on clay. The Egyptians used cylinder seals in the 3rd millennium only, whereas the Babylonians continued to produce large numbers of them for 3000 years. Also the use of mud‐brick niched façades in Predynastic and Early Dynastic tombs, and most likely palaces, resembles Babylonian architecture where mud‐brick construction dominated throughout its history. These elements have motivated many scholars to suggest a strong Babylonian influence on early Egypt. Some have credited Babylonians with inspiring Egyptian ideas of the state and writing even though these differed in nature from their Babylonian counterparts. But others point out how limited the Babylonian material is and that Babylonian practices do not necessarily predate Egyptian ones. They also stress that no evidence of the Uruk expansion appears in the region between northern Syria and Egypt, which would have been the natural passage from Babylonia to Egypt. It is interesting that no Egyptian or Egyptian‐style material occurs in Babylonia. Today scholars prefer to stress indigenous forces in the evolution of early Egypt and they see the Babylonian features as the result of intermittent trade contacts, which may have been across the Persian Gulf and Red Sea rather than overland via Syria.