better an artifact’s significance, to appreciate the skill of those who used it, and to grasp the substantial social and moral authority wielded by village craftspeople. Study of the manufacture, use, and disposal of modern artifacts has indicated problems of interpretation sometimes overlooked in archaeological contexts. Above all, I believe these studies allow for a fuller understanding of the complexities involved in the process of change in an artifact’s function, value, and spatial relationships in defined settings.
Clearly many details of modern village life had parallels in the archaeological record. Arched reed houses and buildings of mud brick and pisé are well attested in antiquity, and we can conclude that they were built in a very similar fashion to the way they are built today, in part because of the nature of the raw materials and in part because of direct evidence of manufacture from ancient strata. Some of the forms of sun-dried mud pottery are attested in Sumerian times by finds in the excavations at al-Hiba, and they have preserved details of construction which show that they were made in the same way as modern examples. Mud storage containers, jars, conical ovens, ammunition for slings, and children’s toys are widely known in antiquity from many sites. Ancient models of outside mud and reed bed platforms, perhaps made as toys, show the same raw materials used in the same fashion as those in modern courtyards. Impressions of ancient reed baskets and mats exhibit the same construction techniques as do modern ones. Models of ancient boats show that they were very similar to modern ones and built of the same materials.
Even without corroborating evidence some ancient parallels with modern functions can be assumed. Although the materials did not exist in antiquity, the functions of some modern aluminum, tin, plastic, and porcelain containers are probably generally the same as the functions of the pottery of antiquity. The physical requirements of animals would lead us to believe that ancient animal husbandry had much in common with the modern. In some cases, for instance in weaving, we can restore parts of the process and artifacts missing in the archaeological record. Through the restoration of the entire process involved in the manufacture of an artifact we can estimate the actual value of that artifact to the people who made and used it by measuring the skill and time required for its production. We can infer other details of life in Sumerian times from the ethnographic information. We can understand and better appreciate, for instance, the degree of coordination and skill required for everyday activities in ancient times because both modern and ancient peoples used similar artifacts for similar purposes. Indeed the physical and mental energy expended by young men in mastering the throw-net, spear, and sling is akin to the effort put forth today by first-class athletes. Like modern young Iraqi villagers who, at the age of eight or younger, have jobs which are important to the survival of their families, Sumerian children were probably productive members of society, in contrast to modern Western society where we appear to think that work deprives children of their childhood and there is little work that children can profitably do in any case.
More speculative, perhaps, are such things as the role of individuals or groups of people. For instance, Iraqi villagers and ancient Sumerian craftspeople dealt in raw materials and artifacts crucial to the survival of the entire community. It is possible therefore that similar groups in antiquity may have enjoyed similar respect and played similar roles in preserving traditional morality and work ethics.
Nippur
The value of this research is significantly enhanced by a decision of the University of Pennsylvania to let me use the previously unpublished 19th century photographs of John Henry Haynes (see Chapter 14). He was an acutely sensitive man who served as business manager, photographer, and eventually director during the first four seasons conducted by the University of Pennsylvania at Nippur in Iraq, situated some 80 miles to the northwest of al-Hiba and in the late 19th century lay on the edge of the same vast marshes which al Hiba bordered during the course of my study.* The older material from Nippur gives me a unique opportunity to illustrate a general continuity in artifact form, function, and details of manufacture over a period of nearly 100 years.
Change, Change, Change
In contrast to the general continuity which would appear to have existed among artifacts and functions from the late 19th century as evidenced by the photographs of John Henry Haynes compared to my initial studies in 1968, a great many changes would take place during the next 22 years. In 1968, at the beginning of this study, the majority of the inhabitants still lived in isolation from mainstream Iraq. Few of the people of tribes other than the Bedouin had visited any place more distant than Shatra, a three-hour trip in good weather, and they clearly resisted outside influences in their daily lives.
Fundamental and far-reaching changes took place during the following years. Inexpensive goods appeared in the markets of nearby towns and encroached on the production of local households or craftspeople. Schools were built in the area and were obligatory for the young. Although at first most of the students would follow in their fathers’ footsteps, teachers awakened in them a curiosity about the outside world and inspired some to try their hands at non-traditional endeavors. The authority of the sheikhs began to disappear in intra-village and inter-group relations, but the cohesiveness of family and village life was still strong due to a firm belief in the Quran and the moral authority of village elders and of craftspeople.
By the middle of the 1970s some of the traditional crafts and practices had completely disappeared, and barter was increasingly replaced by a cash-driven economy. Goods made elsewhere and purchased in market towns became more common, eroding the traditional, almost total, reliance on the material resources of the local area. The strictest possible adherence to village standards was increasingly giving way to a more flexible morality encouraged by more contact with the outside world, a decline in the authority of craftspeople, and a change from an information and entertainment system largely dependent on the Quran, poets, and story tellers to the radio which provided both news and entertainment from within and outside Iraq well saturated with “modern” ideas and political propaganda.
Still, it was the wars and drying up of the marshes, both inflicted by the outside world, that would cause the most serious and far-reaching changes and alter forever these peoples’ ways of life. With the onset of Iraq’s war with Iran in the 1980s, the pace of change increased with electrifying speed. Conscription took hundreds of young men from the marshes and turned them into soldiers. Their experience and associations with men from other areas in Iraq permanently altered the outlook of those who returned. The fact that many did not return had a devastating effect on the families they left behind who had no other resource but the father’s labor to ward off hunger or even starvation. It put a great strain on the principles of hospitality and community welfare one saw at work in the communities and changed, probably forever, many of the divisions of labor that previously existed.
It was the purposeful drying up of the marshes that clearly had the most devastating effect for everyone in the area was dependent on them in one way or another. Even those in the community who eventually benefited by the draining of the marshes mourned their passing as a way of life and a thing of beauty.
The Eden of Old
In 1968 al-Hiba was surrounded by contiguous areas of permanent, seasonal, and temporary marsh. Melting snow in the mountains to the north caused annual floods. The inundation reached its height in May and began to recede in June. By August the temporary marsh was covered with a growth of sedges and grass ready to welcome the nomadic Bedouin who arrived with their herds of goats, sheep, and camels to take advantage of the pasturage. The waters reached their lowest point in September and October. In November the water level rose slightly, and, with the rainy season in late December or early January, sudden short floods could occur.
Weather provides a definite summer and winter with transitions between the two in November-December and March-April. Spring weather brings brief but violent thunderstorms with high
