ARCH 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Ubaid Period, Uruk Period, Fertile Crescent

• School: Simon Fraser University
• Department: Archaeology
• Course: ARCH 100
• Professor: David Maxwell

Document Summary

Arch 100 chapter 9 part 1: elaborated political and religious power, clear social ranking. Planned public architecture: a group of highly specialized craftsmen, control and active participation in inter-regional trade networks, complex intellectual achievements, such as a sophisticated, codified iconography for the permanent recording of certain concepts or events. Desert area that the "fertile crescent" arcs around. When a series of city-states developed in southern mesopotamia. Series of temples built atop one another, dedicated to enki, the water god. Temples were key part of origin of complex society. Priests and administrators oversaw land & labour management, food distribution, ritual. Burials often contained grave goods, including figurines with lizard-like heads. Successive temples of the ubaid period at eridu, south iraq: temples of increasing size & elaboration were built atop each other over a period of several centuries. Culminates in the grand structure of level vii. This architectural sequence is good evidence for continuity of cult in a specific location.