Evidence found during archaeological explorations at the site of an ancient Mesopotamian settlement known as Shakhi Kora, located near the city of Kalar in Iraq’s Kurdistan region, points to an early experimentation with urbanization in the mid-fourth millennium BC, one that had not been suspected before.
This discovery is not altogether surprising, as the development of the world’s first city-oriented civilization in Sumer took place just to the south around the same time period. But the recently discovered site is most remarkable, because the city that was constructed there only lasted for a few centuries before its residents left it behind, perhaps to return to their roots as farmers in the countryside. This shows that attempts at urbanization in this part of the world were not universally successful, running counter to the historical narrative that has portrayed the march of urban civilization and centralized government in Mesopotamia as an unstoppable force.
“Both the stratified record at Shakhi Kora and regional survey results show that this first experiment with urbanism and public institutions in the Sirwan region was abandoned in the later fourth millennium BC, and seemingly not revisited as a model for local social organization for at least 1,500 years,” the international team of archaeologists responsible for this discovery wrote in an article about their research published by Antiquity. “Frequent site abandonment and small settlement sizes remained a long-term local mechanism to counteract centralization.”
During their latest excavations at Shakhi Kora, these archaeologists, who are affiliated with the Sirwan Regional Project, unearthed a significant number of clay bowls with bevelled rims, which were clearly designed to serve food. Animal bones excavated nearby showed the bowls had likely been used to hold meat stew, as might have been suspected given their shape.
Stacks of upturned bevelled rim bowls found during excavations at Shakhi Kora. (Sirwan Regional Project/Antiquity Publications Ltd.)
This was an especially fascinating find, since the bowls were discovered in the context of structures and facilities that were apparently built to feed a lot of men on a daily basis. The archaeologists believe that these individuals had been brought in from all over the region to aid in the construction of the fledgling city.
Unlike cities associated with the world’s first advanced civilization of Sumer in southern Iraq, however, this settlement would not enjoy an extraordinarily long lifespan. The decision by its residents to leave it behind represented a stunning rejection of a trend that was revolutionizing the way people were living in Mesopotamia in 3000 BC, and would live across the globe in the future.
Embracing, Then Rejecting the Uruk Model
As time passed in Shakhi Kora, the researchers discovered, it went through different developmental phases. Initially, local traditions that had been carried over from the region’s agricultural past prevailed. But as the settlement aged it began to mimic the cultural development of the area’s largest and most important urban outpost, Uruk, which was the core settlement of the Sumerian culture and essentially the world’s first true city.
By the year 3,100 BC Uruk´s population had grown to about 40,000 (80,000 if the immediate “suburban” area is included). It would achieve the pinnacle of its fame about 500 years later, when it functioned as the home base of the legendary Sumerian king Gilgamesh, the hero of the ‘Epic of Gigamesh.’
Uruk was 220 miles (355 kilometers) to the south of Shakhi Kora, not an insignificant difference in the fourth millennium BC. But Uruk’s influence in the region was tremendous, and it inevitably set the standard for urban projects in northern Mesopotamia as well as in the southern part.
And yet, for reasons that are open to speculation, Shakhi Kora proved to be the exception to Mesopotamia’s urbanizing rule, at least in the long-term. After imitating Uruk for a few hundred years its residents left this small urbanized enclave behind around 3,000 BC, according to the archaeological record, with no indication that any particular events had motivated this choice.
"Our excavations at Shakhi Kora provide a unique, new regional window into the development, and ultimately the rejection, of some of the earliest experiments with centralized, and perhaps state-like, organizations," excavation leader Claudia Glatz, an archaeologist from the University of Glasgow, said in a press release."This reaffirms that top-down, hierarchical forms of government were not inevitable in the development of early complex societies. Local communities found ways to resist and reject tendencies towards centralized power."
View of the pillared structure and exposed underfloor drainage system unearthed near food preparation facilities at Shakhi Kora. (Sirwan Regional Project/Antiquity Publications Ltd.)
It should be noted that in the region surrounding Shakhi Kora, small villages and agricultural settlements continued to endure even as their ambitious neighbor was attempting to become a city. This meant the residents of Shakhi Kora would have places to go when they made the decision to give up on urban life.
An Exception to the Ancient Mesopotamian Rule
Professor Glatz and her colleagues have unearthed structures at Shakhi Kora what were constructed in stages over several centuries. Along with the bowls they also found pottery shards and other artifacts that showed how the residents’ way of living changed over time, to more closely match developments in Uruk and Sumer to their south.
While the roots of the Sumerian people reach back into the sixth millennium BC, it was during the so-called “Uruk period” (4,000 to 3,200 BC) that the world’s first advanced civilization truly developed. The Uruk period is sometimes referred to as the “Uruk expansion,” in recognition of the fact that cultural exchanges brought about by interregional trade motivated settlements throughout Mesopotamia to adopt the Sumerian model.
In addition to the various cultural artifacts they found, the Sirwan Regional Project archaeologists also unearthed the ruins of ancient buildings that were large enough to have been public structures. Some featured support pillars and sophisticated underground drainage systems, and one of these was close to facilities that were used to prepare and/or store large quantities of food for mass meals. Assessing the evidence it total, the archaeologists concluded that such discoveries revealed the presence of large teams of workmen in Shakhi Kora, who would have been needed to construct public buildings and monuments.
Cooking and serving areas found east of the pillared hall (A) and storage areas located to its west. (Sirwan Regional Project/Antiquity Publications Ltd.)
Notably, in the period when the city was abandoned, there was no sign to suggest the people had been forced to leave because of environmental pressures or invasion. While the conclusion that people gave up on urbanization voluntarily to return to a more agriculturally-oriented lifestyle has not been proven, it is a logical theory that would explain the curious history of a settlement that ultimately defied the developmental trends that defined civilization in ancient Mesopotamia.
Top image: Aerial view of excavation spot at Shakhi Kora where bevelled clay bows and pillared structures were found. Source: Sirwan Regional Project/Antiquity Publications Ltd.
By Nathan Falde
