{"id":52382,"date":"2024-09-12T01:00:49","date_gmt":"2024-09-12T05:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=52382"},"modified":"2024-09-11T08:53:58","modified_gmt":"2024-09-11T12:53:58","slug":"qotd-the-collapse-of-early-civilizations-in-mesopotamia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2024\/09\/12\/qotd-the-collapse-of-early-civilizations-in-mesopotamia\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: The collapse of early civilizations in Mesopotamia"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:left; padding: 0px 25px 10px 0px\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-48672\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png 400w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-50x50.png 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a>Early states were pretty time-limited themselves. [In <em>Against The Grain<\/em>,] Scott addresses the collapse of early civilizations, which was ubiquitous; typical history disguises this by talking about &#8220;dynasties&#8221; or &#8220;periods&#8221; rather than &#8220;the couple of generations an early state could hold itself together without collapsing&#8221;.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>Robert Adams, whose knowledge of the early Mesopotamian states is unsurpassed, expresses some astonishment at the Third Dynasty of Ur (Ur III), in which five kings succeeded one another over a hundred-year period. Though it too collapsed afterward, it represented something of a record of stability.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Scott thinks of these collapses not as disasters or mysteries but as the expected order of things. It is a minor miracle that some guy in a palace can get everyone to stay on his fields and work for him and pay him taxes, and no surprise when this situation stops holding. These collapses rarely involved great loss of life. They could just be a simple transition from &#8220;a bunch of farming towns pay taxes to the state center&#8221; to &#8220;a bunch of farming towns are no longer paying taxes to the state center&#8221;. The great world cultures of the time \u2013 Egypt, Sumeria, China, whereever \u2013 kept chugging along whether or not there was a king in the middle collecting taxes from them. Scott warns against the bias of archaeologists who \u2013 deprived of the great monuments and libraries of cuneiform tablets that only a powerful king could produce \u2013 curse the resulting interregnum as a dark age or disaster. Probably most people were better off during these times.<\/p>\n<p>Scott Alexander, <a href=\"https:\/\/slatestarcodex.com\/2019\/10\/14\/book-review-against-the-grain\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Book Review: <em>Against The Grain<\/em>&#8220;, <em>Slate Star Codex<\/em><\/a>, 2019-10-15.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Early states were pretty time-limited themselves. [In Against The Grain,] Scott addresses the collapse of early civilizations, which was ubiquitous; typical history disguises this by talking about &#8220;dynasties&#8221; or &#8220;periods&#8221; rather than &#8220;the couple of generations an early state could hold itself together without collapsing&#8221;. Robert Adams, whose knowledge of the early Mesopotamian states is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,7,370,41],"tags":[288,1139,495,1337,396,118],"class_list":["post-52382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-history","category-middle-east","category-quotations","tag-archaeology","tag-bronzeage","tag-civilization","tag-mesopotamia","tag-monarchy","tag-taxes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-dCS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52382"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91435,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52382\/revisions\/91435"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}