book looks at the material culture of peoples living near the excavations at al-Hiba from 1968 to 1990 and focuses on the ethnoarchaeological question of what can the present tell us about the past. The findings recorded here were extremely helpful in interpreting the context of ancient material remains and gave us some insights into everyday life in antiquity. Careful observation of these people’s ways of life also served to muddy the waters of archaeological interpretation. It brought home the complexity and impact of behavioral and cultural choices in ways that would be almost impossible to decipher from the study of material remains alone.
These studies give us some clues to the nature of change in human society. Because research took place over a period of 22 years we saw a great many changes, both minor and major, and because of our long-term involvement we were better able to document their causes and effects.
Our research demonstrated the problems of understanding the reasons for change and the difficulty of evaluating the magnitude of its cultural effect. We discovered that it was not always easy to understand reasons for modern change initiated within the community unless one was present and privy to conversations concerning it immediately before and during the process of the change itself. Shortly after change occurred the previous justifications given sometimes disappeared to be replaced by a new set of justifications more culturally acceptable. In a way, then, the enduring reasons for change became part of a new mythology. These studies also remind us that our knowledge of the past sometimes relies on shaky interpretations and cavalier assumptions, and shows us that it is altogether too easy to misunderstand the significance of physical evidence. Change in personal attitude, in the availability of trained craftspeople or raw materials or in circumstances of life can alter traditions overnight, make cheap things expensive and expensive things cheap, make something either more or less desirable, and modify or change the roles of men, women, or children in society. Sometimes highly visible change is of little cultural significance, while major cultural change can be accompanied by little or no change in the material record.
These studies have an unintended benefit in that they preserve an account of aspects of the interrelated daily lives of the Mi’dan and the Beni Hasan who lived here year-round and the Bedouin who pitched their tents on the dried-up seasonal marshland during the fall of each year. The way of life embodied in these studies, and especially the interplay between the three different peoples, has ceased to exist.
These study gave me an opportunity to come to know a large number of remarkable, industrious, and steadfast people from whom I learned much more than the secrets of their crafts.
After briefly discussing the people living in the area and the way I collected the information, I divided the book into a series of chapters based on the nature of the material resource we investigated. Resources such as mud and reeds were used for so many purposes that they are the subjects of more than one chapter. In addition to discussing how individual artifacts functioned I try to give a detailed account of how they were manufactured. I then deal with what changed and what persisted in both techniques of manufacture and function over the 22 years of the project. Finally I try to give some idea of the impact this information can have on the study of the past.
I would like to thank Vaughn Crawford of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Donald P. Hansen of the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University, who put the facilities of the al-Hiba expedition at my disposal and encouraged me in every way. I am deeply indebted to Robert Ehrich, who helped me refine successful applications for funding to the City University of New York and the National Endowment for the Humanities, Claireve Grandjouan for the deep wisdom embedded in her highly entertaining lecture on the Archaeology of the Modern City of New York, and the interest of Edith Poroda, Ralph and Rose Solecki, and Richard Ellis, who helped fuel the expansion of my inquiries. I am deeply indebted to Bonnie Gustav for allowing me to use the material we previously worked on and published. Special thanks are also due to Ann Farkas, Qais Al-Awgati, Mary Strong, Selma al-Radi, and James Pidala, who read parts of the manuscript and helped me improve them immeasurably, and to Richard Zettler, who insisted that I pull this information together and helped me at every turn. Above all I am deeply appreciative of the significant contributions to this project of Marjorie Venit and Sidney Babcock who examined the text and made many valuable suggestions. Others to whom I owe a debt of gratitude include Tony Frantz, Anna Grifiths, Abdullah Khalil, Annie Searight, Alex Pezzati, and of course Muhammad el-Dukkhan, my guide, informant, and friend, without whose generosity and sensitive help the project would have been doomed. I am most grateful to my editor Walda Metcalf and Matthew Manieri for their encouragement and cogent scrutiny of every aspect of the text in putting this study into a publishable form.
1
IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN
In 1968 a discovery that would change my research focus from ancient pottery to ethnoarchaeology occurred during my second week as part of a team excavating at al-Hiba, an eroded mound on the edge of the marshes of southern Iraq. The mound contained the remains of the ancient Sumerian city of Lagash which reached its greatest size in the Early Dynastic III (ED III) period, ca. 2600–2300 BC. At the end of Early Dynastic IIIB (2400–2300 BC), or sometime during that period, the city’s occupation declined rapidly and the Sumerian capital was apparently transferred to ancient Girsu, now the nearby mound of Tello.* The surrounding marshes consisted of a series of interconnected permanent marshes and lakes covering some 8,800 km2 in the dry season and expanding to 20,000 km2 when their banks overflowed in the spring inundation.
The Garden of Eden is the name given to the “earthly paradise” where Adam and Eve are thought to have lived before their Fall (Genesis 2 and 3). From the exact details recorded, it would seem that the writer of the Biblical story conceives of the Garden of Eden as an actual locality on earth. Many attempts have been made to determine its exact geographic position, and writers and scholars have located it in many parts of the world. Since the discovery of ancient civilizations in modern Iraq scholars have leaned toward the sites of southern Sumer, which includes the al-Hiba area. Indeed, it is conceivable that the word “Eden” is derived from the Sumerian word “edinu” which meant field, plain, or depression. One of the most prominent theorists on this topic, Juris Zarins, believes the Garden of Eden lies some 200 miles south of Sumer under the waters of the Persian Gulf, and he thinks that the story of Adam and Eve, both in and out of the Garden, is a highly condensed and evocative account of the shift from hunting / gathering to agriculture.*
Al Hiba
Al-Hiba is situated on the alluvial plain of southern Mesopotamia. Located on the southeastern edge of the marshes, it is surrounded by water and is one of the largest, if not the largest, archaeological sites in southern Iraq. It is over two miles long and a mile wide. Findings of Ubaid and Jamdat Nasr artifacts indicate the site’s early occupation, but it is in Sumerian times that the site grew in size and importance. Vaughn E. Crawford for the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Donald P. Hansen for the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University began excavating the mound in the fall and winter of 1968–69, and I was a member of their team. Major efforts of the first season included the excavation of the temple platform in a temple oval and several soundings in other areas to help explore more fully the nature of the mound.
The Find
Many important discoveries took place on this site over the next two decades. I especially remember two of them from the first season. The first was the excavation of a foundation deposit, in the temple oval, which consisted of human torso made of copper whose lower body, from the waist down, terminated in a large cone-shaped nail that pierced the lowest course of the foundation. Behind the torso was a stone brick, which, like the figurine, bore an inscription telling us that the statue was a representation of the god Shulutula placed here by the king Enannatum I to stand forever in prayer before
