brought home the complexity of behavioral and cultural choices and their impacts
in ways that would be almost impossible to decipher from the archaeological record
alone. Shortly after change occurred the reasons for it often disappeared as part of
a new mythology. Sometimes highly visible change is of little cultural significance,
while major cultural change is accompanied by little or no change in the material
record.
( 1998 b: 39 )Nonetheless, ethno-archaeology can provide a useful guide to past practices. However,
it is often the case that studies, such as Ochsenschlager’s, have been conducted in village
settings and any conclusions are simply transferred to life in towns and cities as if the
two modes of living are identical. As Van De Mieroop puts it,
non-monumental sectors of [ancient Mesopotamian] towns – if considered at
all – are portrayed very much like the present-day villages we encounter on the tells
we excavate: poor, dirty, and totally unaware of the existence of majestic complexes
nearby. Ethno-archaeologists have tried to institutionalize this portrayal by tell-
ing us that modern Middle Eastern villages provide an insight into Ancient
Mesopotamian city life, as if these cities were just large villages.
( 1997 : 4 )Cross-cultural work in urban settings, such as the study of religious practices in India
by Irene Winter ( 2000 ), may begin to help to rectify this imbalance. This is important
if we are to fully understand the Sumerian world, as it was based largely in an urban
setting.
Rather than attempting to explore daily life, with its almost countless interlocking
activities determined by age, gender and profession, I will here focus on a more limited,
and perhaps achievable goal: what archaeology and, where relevant, ethno-archaeology
may be able to tell us about the world of the Sumerian home based on evidence from
the heartland of southern Mesopotamia.
FIFTH AND FOURTH MILLENNIUM HOMES
From at least the seventh millennia BC, the people of southern Iraq had lived in small
communities; villages of farmers and fishers, that were interconnected through systems
of ideology and exchange. The evidence from sites such as Qalinj Agha, Grai Resh and
Kheit Qasim shows that, by the fifth millennium BC, mud brick homes had a common
layout of a central T-shaped or modified rectilinear central hall flanked by smaller
rooms. Forest ( 1983 ) has interpreted this layout as reflecting a division between the
sexes, though other divisions are of course possible. Whatever the meaning of this
particular arrangement of rooms, their layout was determined to some extent by speci-
fic activities that took place within them (often conditioned by social conventions) and
as a response to environmental conditions (especially extremes of heat and cold).
A significant social change occurred during the fourth millennium BCthat resulted
in the defining characteristic of the Sumerian world; large numbers of people came to
live within an urban setting. The possible reasons for this have been explored elsewhere
in this volume but towns and cities became the focus of political and economic
–– Paul Collins ––