I really should be more vocal about getting you on Archaix. Do you have any published books?
I know you'd both have a good time dismantling the magical 10500BC date. In fact, he's recently released a video analysing and disproving Hancock's theories in "Fingerprints of the Gods" by citing the ancient authors Hancock cites (like Eudoxus, Diodorus, Eusebius etc) and showing how each of them were aware that the Egyptians considered a the moon in their timekeeping, with their year being a moonth, rather than the 365 day solar year.
Excellent work showing us the origins of these mysteries. A lot more is making sense.
But how did this assassination work? Was Menes given a Hippopotamus ride by the Sethites as a gift with said hippo being trained to run wild and attack its rider? Perhaps after the hippo-mauling the Sethites get a hold of Menes and deal the finishing blow.
Or maybe, the hippo riding was a challenge? Maybe it was a sort of game or contest and Menes was to prove his valour. Being carried away rather than attacked seems to carry this sense.
I just can't deal with Jason's chronology. He throws absurd dates up without realizing they require the entire reworking of Egypt's proven timeline that is backed up by king lists, archaeology, cross-references from neighboring cultures, C-14 dating, and 200 years of peer-reviewed academic scholarship. So he has a few good ideas that I agree with, but his overall project is a mess.
Regarding the hippo reference, your ideas made me chuckle... I suppose anything is possible because we just don't know for sure... but I would guess that the hippo is entirely symbolic. Narmer was probably killed by a mob that had ringleaders from the tribe of Seth. Or maybe his wife was in on it and she planned the whole thing and her lamentations afterward were theatrical. Maybe the tribe of Seth was a patsy? Lots of options here, but the end result was a dead corpse on the banks of the Nile.
But why the hippo? How does the hippo factor into it? Why is Poseidon made to create the hippo by the Greeks?
And about Jason's chronology, he frequently cited up to four or five sources each time, his explanation offers neat connections between events like the flood, sea people's invasion, flight of the Hyksos and the Egyptian plagues. He's recently released a video exposing the arbitrary reason inherent in relative dating methods, check it out: https://www.youtube.com/live/5KWqrMnDpEs?si=_qmWkft-tUO3OqeE
The section on relative dating methods specifically is towards the last 20minutes, but you could obtain a lot from the whole video. For instance, if you reckon Solon's 9000 years as moonths, then the fall of Atlantis becomes 750years prior to 600BC.
It examines the shift in ideologies in Egypt around 1350BC, can't be a coincidence. It's probable that whatever disaster collapsed Atlantis was far-reaching to the point that it could give people ample grounds to claim "the old gods hath fallen, hearken to me".
I have yet to really incorporate an understanding of Egyptian symbolism into my system (MSA). But I do like that you are doing this research. It helps. Good writing as always! Thanks for mentioning Graham Hancock et al and contextualizing him. Cayce, and the Freemasonic use of Atlantis is another thorny area for me.
I quoted from your article on Homo Domesticus for my book OMGdess and it started me on a Sumer chapter that's now 4000 words in. David Graeber and David Wengrow have a different perspective on Uruk as an egalitarian society where the administrative records are for self-governance and fairness. It was the mountain clans of a few hundred people where the first palace is found, with elaborate and wasteful burials of warrior-heroes.
I write: "The concept of kingship went literally in ships from Sumer to Egypt shortly before 3000 BCE. The Egyptians call the invaders the Shemsu Hor or people of Hor. Their sun god, called Hor-Wer or Great Hor, rode in a boat, like the Sumerian Enki. The father god became the Egyptian Shu, Lord Air [Heir/Ar] with the glyph for air as a sail and for gods as pendants or banners. Merlin Stone quotes archeologist Walter Emery:
'Whether this incursion took the form of gradual infiltration or horde [Hor] invasion is uncertain but the balance of evidence, principally supplied by the carving on an ivory knife handle … and by paintings on the walls of a late predynastic tomb at Hierokonpolis, strongly suggests the latter. On the knife handle we see … a scene which may represent a battle at sea against invaders, a theme which is also crudely depicted in the Heirokonpolis tomb. In both representations we have typical native ships of Egypt and strange vessels with high prow and stem of unmistakable Mesopotamian origin.
"At any rate, towards the close of the fourth millennium BC we find the people known traditionally as the ‘Followers of Horus’ apparently forming an aristocracy [Ar/ heir] or master race ruling over the whole of Egypt. The theory of the existence of this master race is supported by the discovery that graves of the late predynastic period in the northern part of Upper Egypt were found to contain the anatomical remains of a people whose skulls are of greater size and whose bodies were larger than those of the natives, the difference being so marked that any suggestion that these people derived from the earlier stock is impossible. [88]"
The death of the consort is Dammuzi, the son/lover of Inanna in Sumer who sat on her throne and disrespected her. The historians can't speak of it because it indicates Goddess as the primordial deity, not a god. In Egypt shortly after 3000 BCE, red-headed men were sacrificed at the 'grave of Osiris', according to later records. This does reinforce the Atlantean narrative.
Thanks for the thoughtful response! I'm definitely with you regarding the Shemsu-Hor as invaders of Egypt. And I agree that Uruk became much more enlightened with a strong social contract per Graeber and Wengrow, but that was only after the imperial collapse circa 3100 BCE. Prior to that Uruk was predatory and expansionist, even though they claimed to honor the goddess Inanna as their primary deity. But this goddess was an imperial corruption of the primordial mother goddess honored by egalitarian matriarchal communities. Uruk's Inanna was a taker, not a giver. The story of Inanna being established in Uruk by the priest-king Enmerkar is in the Sumerian myth "Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta." Uruk co-opted the mother goddess and put her in service to Empire. The myths of Inanna and Dumuzi explain the fall of Inanna's Uruk in a very clever way, and it's part of Egypt's story as well, just from a different perspective.
Interesting, Peter. Wouldn't the Shemsu-Hor sky father Hor-Wer indicate that Horus was the god of Menes/ Narmer Horus? I know that there's a distinction made between Horus the elder and Horus son of Osiris and Isis. But Isis and Osiris don't appear until much, much later. Very intriguing, with the hippo. You're putting a lot together and may be right. Both Shem and Seth are the One Heir (heiros/ Aryan) of YHWH, and 'Jesus' is often seen as a later version of Horus.
What Wengrow and Graeber write about Uruk 3300 BCE is "There was also a Great Court comprising an enormous sunken plaza, 165 feet across, entirely surrounded by two tiers of benches and equipped with water channels to feed trees and gardens, which offered much-needed shade for open-air gatherings. This sort of arrangement—a series of magnificent, open temples accompanied by a congenial space for public meeting—is exactly what one might expect were Uruk to have been governed by a popular assembly … [305]"
They then write, "Around 3200 BC the original public buildings of the Eanna sanctuary were razed and covered with debris, and its sacred landscape redesigned around a series of gated courts and ziggarats. By 2900 BC, we have evidence for local kings of rival city-states battling it out for supremacy over Uruk, in response to which a five-and-a-half mile fortification wall (whose building was later attributed to Gilgamesh) went up around the city’s perimeter. [306]"
That seems like 3100 BCE would be in the midst of the takeover of Uruk, after the Goddess society was destroyed. 'Egalitarian' and 'matriarchy' are mutually exclusive, since women had no means to control men, unless sex is seen as a man's right and a woman's obligation. But W&G see women as organizing labor in 3300 Uruk. They write, "It is often hard to determine exactly who these temple labourers were, or even what sort of people were being organized in this way, allotted meals and having their outputs inventoried—were they permanently attached to the temple, or just ordinary citizens fulfilling the annual corvee duty?—but the presence of children in the lists suggests at least some may have lived there. If so, then this was most likely because they had nowhere else to go. [308]" How does Scott determine that they're slaves?
It's absolutely a pattern that the priest-kings and mythmakers usurped the mother goddess and put her in service to the empire. But W&G question whether 3300 Uruk was predatory and expansionist. They see those outposts along the trade route as evangelism of an idea rather than imposed through violence. The mountain clans were the warrior aristocracies, not Uruk. One last quote:
"… when top-down rule does emerge in the region of ancient Mesopotamia, it’s not in the ‘complex’ metropolises of the lowland river valleys, but among the small, ‘heroic’ societies of the surrounding foothills, which were averse to the very principle of administration and, as a result, don’t seem to qualify as ‘states’ either. … political leadership lay in the hands of a boastful and vainglorious warrior aristocracy, competing in extravagant contests over titles, treasures, the allegiance of commoners and the ownership of slaves. …If it is possible to have monarchs, aristocracies, slavery and extreme forms of patriarchal domination, even without a state (as it evidently was); and if it’s equally possible to maintain complex irrigations systems, or develop science and abstract philosophy without a state (as it also appears to be), then what do we actually learn about human history by establishing that one political entity is what we would like to describe as a ‘state’ and another isn’t? [361-362]"
That's a good response, Tereza, thanks for bringing this insight into the conversation. I'm on the island of Molokai right now so I don't have access to "Dawn of Everything." Its been a few years since i read it and I did not realize they had so much to say about early Uruk. Just keep in mind that their project is to demonstrate that functional harmonious complex societies can exist without the toxic baggage of "the state." I support their contention and I agree that such a thing is possible! I'll re-read their material but you can probably tell I'm thinking that they over-reached in trying to use Uruk as one of their examples. But thanks again and I'll get back to you on this after I get home this weekend!
I'll look forward to that, Peter! One of my good friends is from Molokai. It has quite a history in its fight for sovereignty.
My reading of the final quote is that they're distinguishing between an administrative bureaucracy that tracks things and keeps them fair, and a hierarchy of power that enslaves others. I think they're saying the word 'state' conflates the two. The 'heroic' (going back to heiros) warriors of the mountains--including Arslantepe where the world's first palace is found--are the toxic hierarchies. The functional society of 3300 BCE Uruk may be called a state but has no evidence of being toxic--unless there's more that Scott brings as evidence of violence.
So I was able to read the Wengrow section on Uruk and I have a response. First of all, let’s be clear that I view you as an ally. We may disagree on how to get there but I believe we’re both focused on liberation and enlightenment and tearing down the pyramid structure of Empire and Patriarchy and their hegemonic dogmatic materialistic “belief systems.”
I do believe, as Wengrow proves in history, that it is possible to have a thriving harmonious complex society without the toxic baggage of the State, so that is the goal. But how did humanity jump from self-governing, stateless, self-sufficient and largely egalitarian communities to a form of civilization that was ruled by the State, with taxation, slavery, overt coercion with standing armies, and an insular elite class at the top ruled by a monarchy?
I’ve studied the Uruk Expansion phenomenon for several decades now and I’m familiar with the source material and the early scholars such as Algaze and Adams who established the “overt imperialism” model at first, and then the others who pushed back such as Stein and Rothman. Wengrow is at the far end of the non-imperialist model, but he is not an Uruk expert, rather he is a generalist and an opportunist trying to use Late Uruk as an example of a stateless society. He goes too far, in my opinion. I could refute him point-by-point but for now let me just state where I stand, which has evolved based on your welcomed pushback on me:
So my idea is that Uruk is the hinge point of the transition between self-sufficient communities that were stateless, and the later monarchies that ruled directly and overtly over subjugated populaces. The trend is from no domination, to subtle domination, to overt domination. The urban revolution centered on Uruk, that was able to project outward as the Uruk Expansion, was an expression of subtle domination that occurred largely through deception and seduction in the form of ideology. Inanna was central to this ideology.
What distinguishes Uruk from both earlier stateless communities and later coercive States is precisely this intermediate phase of subtle domination. Uruk did not initially rule through kings, standing armies, or explicit systems of taxation. Instead, it pioneered a form of power that worked through participation rather than subjugation. Administrative technologies, redistribution systems, monumental ritual architecture, standardized measurements, and shared symbolism created a world in which individuals and communities were gradually drawn into dependency networks while still experiencing themselves as voluntary participants in a meaningful cosmic order. This was not yet the State in its later, nakedly coercive form, but neither was it a continuation of genuinely egalitarian self-governance. It was something more dangerous precisely because it did not yet look like domination.
The Uruk Expansion should therefore be understood not as a peaceful diffusion of culture nor as a fully formed empire, but as an ideological experiment in scaling power without openly naming it as such. Inanna was central to this experiment. As a deity who fused fertility, abundance, sexuality, violence, legitimacy, and cosmic authority, she provided the symbolic grammar through which hierarchy could be rendered desirable rather than imposed. Submission appeared as initiation, dependency as blessing, and inequality as alignment with divine order. Only later, especially as the system came under strain and resistance emerged at the periphery, did Uruk’s ideological control require reinforcement through organized violence, fortifications, and armed coercion.
In this sense, Uruk is not evidence against the emergence of domination, but rather the moment when domination learned to disguise itself, paving the way for the overt monarchies and imperial states that would follow once ideology alone was no longer sufficient.
Inanna was the personification of Uruk. That was her role. She was a perfect vehicle for the State to emerge stealthily. Take a look at the Warka Vase that provides images of this stage of Uruk prior to its collapse. Inanna is the central figure. Naked males line up to bring her offerings. Yet there is a singular male figure, the “priest-king of Uruk” who stands apart from the crowd, and he too hands over an offering to Inanna. This priest-king is the image of Dumuzi and it shows up over and over again, even into the Early Dynastic period of Sumer. He’s not a benign figure. He’s the real power behind Inanna’s throne. Inanna is fictitious. The priest-king and the elites of Uruk who harvested the tribute “given to Inanna” are very real.
The rulers of Uruk who created the ideology of Inanna and pioneered the early technologies of domination sent members of their own clan to invade Egypt. But in Egypt they did not need to create an “Inanna” ideology. They simply possessed better technology and were able to conquer through naked aggression. In Egypt, instead of a central goddess figure “receiving and redistributing abundance” as on the Warka Vase, you have the image of Dumuzi as victorious conqueror on the Gebel el-Arak knife handle, and the image of Narmer displayed as all-powerful god-king on the Narmer Palette. My goal is to prove that Narmer is the very same figure as Dumuzi.
The epic collapse of the Uruk World System was sparked by the murder of this figure Dumuzi/Narmer. His death caused chaos in both Egypt and Uruk. In Egypt the unified State was re-established through the efforts of Narmer’s Queen Neithotep and her son Horus the Fighter (Hor-Aha). This is the foundation of the Isis and Osiris myths of Egypt.
In Uruk the city’s far-flung pseudo-imperial network was also thrown into chaos. One of the most mysterious events that happened during this time was the intentional destruction of the E-anna Complex in the heart of Uruk. This was the center of Inanna’s cult that unified politics, commerce, and religion all in one. Yet for mysterious reasons the rulers of Uruk decided that this temple and administrative complex had to be completely leveled and rebuilt on a much smaller scale. I can go on about my theories of credit and debt and how Uruk was over-leveraged, but let me just summarize that, if anything, the choice to destroy the administrative HQ reflects a total failure of ideology. The system was no longer believed anymore, and so a new order had to be set up in its place that was much less ambitious.
The myth of Inanna and Dumuzi is written much later than the events in question, and much is concealed. Yet the fact of the murdered Dumuzi, king of Uruk, remains central. Inanna is a representation of the city of Uruk. When she chooses to leave her temple in Uruk, as well as all the satellite temples that helped to administrate the system, and descend into hell, this is an allegorical treatment of the collapse of the far-flung Uruk World System and the destruction of the E-anna HQ. Read the opening paragraphs of the myth for yourself here with this idea in mind and it may all make sense: https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section1/tr141.htm
In the Inanna-Dumuzi myths the story of the murder of Dumuzi is recast as a necessary sacrifice allowing for the continued life of “Inanna”. So yes, Uruk did survive the collapse of its far-flung pseudo-empire, but it paid a cost. And in the vacuum that it left many new powers arose to fill the void, all of them seeking to imitate Uruk’s original dominance.
Inanna is an iconic and heroic figure and I can understand how my interpretation of her is not attractive at all. I do apologize if my theories undermine what you are working on. But I just wanted to give you a bigger context for how I view her. I don’t have an anti-Inanna agenda at all. I think the myths about her are very entertaining, empowering for women in general, and in many cases offer a positive role model opposed to the image of god that won out after the triumph of the State.
But my larger point is that Inanna had to be seductive for the State to get off the ground in the first place. Deception is a big part of the story of transition. Uruk was a transition period. Humanity would not go from self-sufficient communities to paying taxes to the king in one step. We had to be deceived and seduced into it, and that is where the “symbol of Inanna” was cynically used by the elites that created the Uruk World System.
We may part ways here and that is OK. I respect your voice and your work. I have a bigger ambitious project that depends on this interpretation of the facts as I see them. But I realize you also have your own goals that may require a different interpretation. So I’m not trying to win an argument here but rather to just better express my point of view. Feel free to do the same! In the end I do think our goals converge, so I’m happy for the feedback.
I'm very happy that you see me as an ally, Peter. And I fully concur--when someone is asking the same question, whether or not we come to the same answer, it always moves my ideas forward. I couldn't have asked for anyone to be more exactly researching the same time and place, and asking the same question as you. It seems particularly significant that we are having this conversation while in the process of writing and researching our theses. So I have no desire to part ways.
I have several posts about how to have a better argument. The first rule is like who you're arguing with. Check! Second is state the question, then define the terms, then say why it matters. I don't use arguments to authority, only facts and logic, and I'm happy for challenges to both.
You and I have several overlapping questions. To start by zooming out to the largest metaphysical level, we're asking if reality exists outside of our sensory perceptions. Is there meaning aside from what we make? Is meaning pre-existing to discover, or are we our own gods? You call this, if I'm understanding correctly, NHI or non-human intelligence. So the first question is whether reality is WYSIWYG--what you see is what you get--or if there's meaning independent of our perceptions. I think that's a question no one can answer for anyone else, you have to prove it through your own experiments and experience.
You write, "Inanna is fictitious." We are in 100% agreement that any names or personifications given to NHI are invented by humans. They're all metaphors. But if reality/ truth exists, then some metaphors are going to be closer to the truth than others. I don't believe in believing, because it's making up your mind in advance of knowledge. But I reject all metaphors of supernatural evil. I define evil as causing others to cause harm. Every scripture of a god is a metaphor of evil in a different language. If that's true, we're doomed, so why bother? The gods are a malicious fiction that gives a few people the power to cause vast numbers of others to cause harm. The story of evil creates evil.
The two possibilities that are left are evolution, aka the WYSIWYG world, or an NHI that wants the best for us but can't overtly interfere without taking away our free will. This describes the eternal mother's dilemma, doesn't it? You can never control your kids except through violence, which you don't want. Yet you want them to be fair, kind to each other, take responsibility in the home, and be nice to you. You'd also like them to not thwart themselves in becoming their true emergent beings. That's damn tricky!
As a mom of three daughters, I found it impossible to have a 'stateless' society of five people. With no clear system of rules and rewards, all you have left are threats, bribes, physical force and manipulation. It's exhausting and doesn't work very well! I developed a home economy as a system of reciprocity. There are certainly times my daughters saw it as coercive, when their friends got what they wanted without having to work for it.
My caret economy in How to Dismantle an Empire is a scaled-up decentralized version of my parenting system. You could take the earliest writing from Uruk and it would be a version of my spreadsheet--hours of work done, amounts of grain earned. It's a fair system, not coercive, not welfare, not extractive, not monopoly, not power over others.
If we were to take the mythological out of it, we could refer to 3300 BCE as Eanna Uruk, since the economic system was centered in the temple complex, which was destroyed in 3200 BCE and replaced with ziggurats and gated palaces by 3100. There's no evidence of social stratification in 3300, no extravagant burials, housing differentials, class structures. It was an economic system of organizing labor that created more wealth, which has no record of being monopolized, than a stateless (meaning systemless) community ever could.
Your thesis, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that a system of self-governance--which can't exist without written records, even for a family of five--is the 'gateway drug' to "taxation, slavery, overt coercion with standing armies, and an insular elite class at the top ruled by a monarchy." How do you picture "a thriving harmonious complex society" operating?
The lead figure in the Warka vase certainly represents Damuzi but he's not a priest-king, he's the consort of the head priestess representing Inanna. Damuzi or the son-consort was killed ritually or castrated himself in all of the goddess societies so that he wouldn't usurp the throne. It was a voluntary cohort, from which the head priestess chose. I agree entirely that Narmer Horus may have been the representation of Damuzi who betrayed the Eanna from within, in cahoots with the mountain warrior hierarchies. The son-consort was mourned, because he was choosing the role of passing on the divinity without usurping it. When Damuzi sits on the throne while Inanna is away and disrespects her, he's violated that role.
Can you point me to evidence of rulers taking the tribute to Inanna in E-anna Uruk? In 2300 BCE the reforms say that they're going back to the temple produce being distributed rather than taken by the priests, the word amargi meaning both freedom and return to the mother. That indicates the priests came later. And where is there evidence of violence other than the ritual strangulation or self-castration of the consort?
The passage you linked (thank you!) was very interesting but clearly a product of the later heir/ Aryans. Inanna is a hierodule or temple slave/ prostitute in the passage--they are in the word itself describing her subservience and role. They are now Damuzi sitting on her throne as the priest-king. But Inanna, if there was NHI at work, has taken back her power and gifts rather than letting them be used by the usurpers. This mythology is retroactive because it's given her a father, Nanna or An, when Inanna was she who gives birth to all. Now it's a man who procreates.
The mountain warrior tribe of Arslantepe certainly saw the ideology of Uruk as coercive. They destroyed the outpost and built the world's first palace. They could be compared to bratty adolescents who want to take without giving anything in return. Did a fair system make that inevitable? It hasn't been my experience. Despite their resistance to it at the time, now that my daughters are adults, they all say they'll use some version of my system in raising their kids. E-anna was a mother's economy. I think Inanna the mother represents what we need to return to, not the motherfucker Narmer Horus--and I'm using that as a technical term for the system of rape and violence that destroyed it.
I really should be more vocal about getting you on Archaix. Do you have any published books?
I know you'd both have a good time dismantling the magical 10500BC date. In fact, he's recently released a video analysing and disproving Hancock's theories in "Fingerprints of the Gods" by citing the ancient authors Hancock cites (like Eudoxus, Diodorus, Eusebius etc) and showing how each of them were aware that the Egyptians considered a the moon in their timekeeping, with their year being a moonth, rather than the 365 day solar year.
Excellent work showing us the origins of these mysteries. A lot more is making sense.
But how did this assassination work? Was Menes given a Hippopotamus ride by the Sethites as a gift with said hippo being trained to run wild and attack its rider? Perhaps after the hippo-mauling the Sethites get a hold of Menes and deal the finishing blow.
Or maybe, the hippo riding was a challenge? Maybe it was a sort of game or contest and Menes was to prove his valour. Being carried away rather than attacked seems to carry this sense.
I just can't deal with Jason's chronology. He throws absurd dates up without realizing they require the entire reworking of Egypt's proven timeline that is backed up by king lists, archaeology, cross-references from neighboring cultures, C-14 dating, and 200 years of peer-reviewed academic scholarship. So he has a few good ideas that I agree with, but his overall project is a mess.
Regarding the hippo reference, your ideas made me chuckle... I suppose anything is possible because we just don't know for sure... but I would guess that the hippo is entirely symbolic. Narmer was probably killed by a mob that had ringleaders from the tribe of Seth. Or maybe his wife was in on it and she planned the whole thing and her lamentations afterward were theatrical. Maybe the tribe of Seth was a patsy? Lots of options here, but the end result was a dead corpse on the banks of the Nile.
But why the hippo? How does the hippo factor into it? Why is Poseidon made to create the hippo by the Greeks?
And about Jason's chronology, he frequently cited up to four or five sources each time, his explanation offers neat connections between events like the flood, sea people's invasion, flight of the Hyksos and the Egyptian plagues. He's recently released a video exposing the arbitrary reason inherent in relative dating methods, check it out: https://www.youtube.com/live/5KWqrMnDpEs?si=_qmWkft-tUO3OqeE
The section on relative dating methods specifically is towards the last 20minutes, but you could obtain a lot from the whole video. For instance, if you reckon Solon's 9000 years as moonths, then the fall of Atlantis becomes 750years prior to 600BC.
I came across this article recently: :https://st-hum.ru/content/christensen-cs-atenism-birth-monotheistic-religions-ancient-egypt-around-1350-bc-akhenaten
It examines the shift in ideologies in Egypt around 1350BC, can't be a coincidence. It's probable that whatever disaster collapsed Atlantis was far-reaching to the point that it could give people ample grounds to claim "the old gods hath fallen, hearken to me".
I have yet to really incorporate an understanding of Egyptian symbolism into my system (MSA). But I do like that you are doing this research. It helps. Good writing as always! Thanks for mentioning Graham Hancock et al and contextualizing him. Cayce, and the Freemasonic use of Atlantis is another thorny area for me.
Very interesting, Peter. Many clues here.
I quoted from your article on Homo Domesticus for my book OMGdess and it started me on a Sumer chapter that's now 4000 words in. David Graeber and David Wengrow have a different perspective on Uruk as an egalitarian society where the administrative records are for self-governance and fairness. It was the mountain clans of a few hundred people where the first palace is found, with elaborate and wasteful burials of warrior-heroes.
I write: "The concept of kingship went literally in ships from Sumer to Egypt shortly before 3000 BCE. The Egyptians call the invaders the Shemsu Hor or people of Hor. Their sun god, called Hor-Wer or Great Hor, rode in a boat, like the Sumerian Enki. The father god became the Egyptian Shu, Lord Air [Heir/Ar] with the glyph for air as a sail and for gods as pendants or banners. Merlin Stone quotes archeologist Walter Emery:
'Whether this incursion took the form of gradual infiltration or horde [Hor] invasion is uncertain but the balance of evidence, principally supplied by the carving on an ivory knife handle … and by paintings on the walls of a late predynastic tomb at Hierokonpolis, strongly suggests the latter. On the knife handle we see … a scene which may represent a battle at sea against invaders, a theme which is also crudely depicted in the Heirokonpolis tomb. In both representations we have typical native ships of Egypt and strange vessels with high prow and stem of unmistakable Mesopotamian origin.
"At any rate, towards the close of the fourth millennium BC we find the people known traditionally as the ‘Followers of Horus’ apparently forming an aristocracy [Ar/ heir] or master race ruling over the whole of Egypt. The theory of the existence of this master race is supported by the discovery that graves of the late predynastic period in the northern part of Upper Egypt were found to contain the anatomical remains of a people whose skulls are of greater size and whose bodies were larger than those of the natives, the difference being so marked that any suggestion that these people derived from the earlier stock is impossible. [88]"
The death of the consort is Dammuzi, the son/lover of Inanna in Sumer who sat on her throne and disrespected her. The historians can't speak of it because it indicates Goddess as the primordial deity, not a god. In Egypt shortly after 3000 BCE, red-headed men were sacrificed at the 'grave of Osiris', according to later records. This does reinforce the Atlantean narrative.
Thanks for the thoughtful response! I'm definitely with you regarding the Shemsu-Hor as invaders of Egypt. And I agree that Uruk became much more enlightened with a strong social contract per Graeber and Wengrow, but that was only after the imperial collapse circa 3100 BCE. Prior to that Uruk was predatory and expansionist, even though they claimed to honor the goddess Inanna as their primary deity. But this goddess was an imperial corruption of the primordial mother goddess honored by egalitarian matriarchal communities. Uruk's Inanna was a taker, not a giver. The story of Inanna being established in Uruk by the priest-king Enmerkar is in the Sumerian myth "Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta." Uruk co-opted the mother goddess and put her in service to Empire. The myths of Inanna and Dumuzi explain the fall of Inanna's Uruk in a very clever way, and it's part of Egypt's story as well, just from a different perspective.
Interesting, Peter. Wouldn't the Shemsu-Hor sky father Hor-Wer indicate that Horus was the god of Menes/ Narmer Horus? I know that there's a distinction made between Horus the elder and Horus son of Osiris and Isis. But Isis and Osiris don't appear until much, much later. Very intriguing, with the hippo. You're putting a lot together and may be right. Both Shem and Seth are the One Heir (heiros/ Aryan) of YHWH, and 'Jesus' is often seen as a later version of Horus.
What Wengrow and Graeber write about Uruk 3300 BCE is "There was also a Great Court comprising an enormous sunken plaza, 165 feet across, entirely surrounded by two tiers of benches and equipped with water channels to feed trees and gardens, which offered much-needed shade for open-air gatherings. This sort of arrangement—a series of magnificent, open temples accompanied by a congenial space for public meeting—is exactly what one might expect were Uruk to have been governed by a popular assembly … [305]"
They then write, "Around 3200 BC the original public buildings of the Eanna sanctuary were razed and covered with debris, and its sacred landscape redesigned around a series of gated courts and ziggarats. By 2900 BC, we have evidence for local kings of rival city-states battling it out for supremacy over Uruk, in response to which a five-and-a-half mile fortification wall (whose building was later attributed to Gilgamesh) went up around the city’s perimeter. [306]"
That seems like 3100 BCE would be in the midst of the takeover of Uruk, after the Goddess society was destroyed. 'Egalitarian' and 'matriarchy' are mutually exclusive, since women had no means to control men, unless sex is seen as a man's right and a woman's obligation. But W&G see women as organizing labor in 3300 Uruk. They write, "It is often hard to determine exactly who these temple labourers were, or even what sort of people were being organized in this way, allotted meals and having their outputs inventoried—were they permanently attached to the temple, or just ordinary citizens fulfilling the annual corvee duty?—but the presence of children in the lists suggests at least some may have lived there. If so, then this was most likely because they had nowhere else to go. [308]" How does Scott determine that they're slaves?
It's absolutely a pattern that the priest-kings and mythmakers usurped the mother goddess and put her in service to the empire. But W&G question whether 3300 Uruk was predatory and expansionist. They see those outposts along the trade route as evangelism of an idea rather than imposed through violence. The mountain clans were the warrior aristocracies, not Uruk. One last quote:
"… when top-down rule does emerge in the region of ancient Mesopotamia, it’s not in the ‘complex’ metropolises of the lowland river valleys, but among the small, ‘heroic’ societies of the surrounding foothills, which were averse to the very principle of administration and, as a result, don’t seem to qualify as ‘states’ either. … political leadership lay in the hands of a boastful and vainglorious warrior aristocracy, competing in extravagant contests over titles, treasures, the allegiance of commoners and the ownership of slaves. …If it is possible to have monarchs, aristocracies, slavery and extreme forms of patriarchal domination, even without a state (as it evidently was); and if it’s equally possible to maintain complex irrigations systems, or develop science and abstract philosophy without a state (as it also appears to be), then what do we actually learn about human history by establishing that one political entity is what we would like to describe as a ‘state’ and another isn’t? [361-362]"
That's a good response, Tereza, thanks for bringing this insight into the conversation. I'm on the island of Molokai right now so I don't have access to "Dawn of Everything." Its been a few years since i read it and I did not realize they had so much to say about early Uruk. Just keep in mind that their project is to demonstrate that functional harmonious complex societies can exist without the toxic baggage of "the state." I support their contention and I agree that such a thing is possible! I'll re-read their material but you can probably tell I'm thinking that they over-reached in trying to use Uruk as one of their examples. But thanks again and I'll get back to you on this after I get home this weekend!
I'll look forward to that, Peter! One of my good friends is from Molokai. It has quite a history in its fight for sovereignty.
My reading of the final quote is that they're distinguishing between an administrative bureaucracy that tracks things and keeps them fair, and a hierarchy of power that enslaves others. I think they're saying the word 'state' conflates the two. The 'heroic' (going back to heiros) warriors of the mountains--including Arslantepe where the world's first palace is found--are the toxic hierarchies. The functional society of 3300 BCE Uruk may be called a state but has no evidence of being toxic--unless there's more that Scott brings as evidence of violence.
Safe travels!
So I was able to read the Wengrow section on Uruk and I have a response. First of all, let’s be clear that I view you as an ally. We may disagree on how to get there but I believe we’re both focused on liberation and enlightenment and tearing down the pyramid structure of Empire and Patriarchy and their hegemonic dogmatic materialistic “belief systems.”
I do believe, as Wengrow proves in history, that it is possible to have a thriving harmonious complex society without the toxic baggage of the State, so that is the goal. But how did humanity jump from self-governing, stateless, self-sufficient and largely egalitarian communities to a form of civilization that was ruled by the State, with taxation, slavery, overt coercion with standing armies, and an insular elite class at the top ruled by a monarchy?
I’ve studied the Uruk Expansion phenomenon for several decades now and I’m familiar with the source material and the early scholars such as Algaze and Adams who established the “overt imperialism” model at first, and then the others who pushed back such as Stein and Rothman. Wengrow is at the far end of the non-imperialist model, but he is not an Uruk expert, rather he is a generalist and an opportunist trying to use Late Uruk as an example of a stateless society. He goes too far, in my opinion. I could refute him point-by-point but for now let me just state where I stand, which has evolved based on your welcomed pushback on me:
So my idea is that Uruk is the hinge point of the transition between self-sufficient communities that were stateless, and the later monarchies that ruled directly and overtly over subjugated populaces. The trend is from no domination, to subtle domination, to overt domination. The urban revolution centered on Uruk, that was able to project outward as the Uruk Expansion, was an expression of subtle domination that occurred largely through deception and seduction in the form of ideology. Inanna was central to this ideology.
What distinguishes Uruk from both earlier stateless communities and later coercive States is precisely this intermediate phase of subtle domination. Uruk did not initially rule through kings, standing armies, or explicit systems of taxation. Instead, it pioneered a form of power that worked through participation rather than subjugation. Administrative technologies, redistribution systems, monumental ritual architecture, standardized measurements, and shared symbolism created a world in which individuals and communities were gradually drawn into dependency networks while still experiencing themselves as voluntary participants in a meaningful cosmic order. This was not yet the State in its later, nakedly coercive form, but neither was it a continuation of genuinely egalitarian self-governance. It was something more dangerous precisely because it did not yet look like domination.
The Uruk Expansion should therefore be understood not as a peaceful diffusion of culture nor as a fully formed empire, but as an ideological experiment in scaling power without openly naming it as such. Inanna was central to this experiment. As a deity who fused fertility, abundance, sexuality, violence, legitimacy, and cosmic authority, she provided the symbolic grammar through which hierarchy could be rendered desirable rather than imposed. Submission appeared as initiation, dependency as blessing, and inequality as alignment with divine order. Only later, especially as the system came under strain and resistance emerged at the periphery, did Uruk’s ideological control require reinforcement through organized violence, fortifications, and armed coercion.
In this sense, Uruk is not evidence against the emergence of domination, but rather the moment when domination learned to disguise itself, paving the way for the overt monarchies and imperial states that would follow once ideology alone was no longer sufficient.
Inanna was the personification of Uruk. That was her role. She was a perfect vehicle for the State to emerge stealthily. Take a look at the Warka Vase that provides images of this stage of Uruk prior to its collapse. Inanna is the central figure. Naked males line up to bring her offerings. Yet there is a singular male figure, the “priest-king of Uruk” who stands apart from the crowd, and he too hands over an offering to Inanna. This priest-king is the image of Dumuzi and it shows up over and over again, even into the Early Dynastic period of Sumer. He’s not a benign figure. He’s the real power behind Inanna’s throne. Inanna is fictitious. The priest-king and the elites of Uruk who harvested the tribute “given to Inanna” are very real.
The rulers of Uruk who created the ideology of Inanna and pioneered the early technologies of domination sent members of their own clan to invade Egypt. But in Egypt they did not need to create an “Inanna” ideology. They simply possessed better technology and were able to conquer through naked aggression. In Egypt, instead of a central goddess figure “receiving and redistributing abundance” as on the Warka Vase, you have the image of Dumuzi as victorious conqueror on the Gebel el-Arak knife handle, and the image of Narmer displayed as all-powerful god-king on the Narmer Palette. My goal is to prove that Narmer is the very same figure as Dumuzi.
The epic collapse of the Uruk World System was sparked by the murder of this figure Dumuzi/Narmer. His death caused chaos in both Egypt and Uruk. In Egypt the unified State was re-established through the efforts of Narmer’s Queen Neithotep and her son Horus the Fighter (Hor-Aha). This is the foundation of the Isis and Osiris myths of Egypt.
In Uruk the city’s far-flung pseudo-imperial network was also thrown into chaos. One of the most mysterious events that happened during this time was the intentional destruction of the E-anna Complex in the heart of Uruk. This was the center of Inanna’s cult that unified politics, commerce, and religion all in one. Yet for mysterious reasons the rulers of Uruk decided that this temple and administrative complex had to be completely leveled and rebuilt on a much smaller scale. I can go on about my theories of credit and debt and how Uruk was over-leveraged, but let me just summarize that, if anything, the choice to destroy the administrative HQ reflects a total failure of ideology. The system was no longer believed anymore, and so a new order had to be set up in its place that was much less ambitious.
The myth of Inanna and Dumuzi is written much later than the events in question, and much is concealed. Yet the fact of the murdered Dumuzi, king of Uruk, remains central. Inanna is a representation of the city of Uruk. When she chooses to leave her temple in Uruk, as well as all the satellite temples that helped to administrate the system, and descend into hell, this is an allegorical treatment of the collapse of the far-flung Uruk World System and the destruction of the E-anna HQ. Read the opening paragraphs of the myth for yourself here with this idea in mind and it may all make sense: https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section1/tr141.htm
In the Inanna-Dumuzi myths the story of the murder of Dumuzi is recast as a necessary sacrifice allowing for the continued life of “Inanna”. So yes, Uruk did survive the collapse of its far-flung pseudo-empire, but it paid a cost. And in the vacuum that it left many new powers arose to fill the void, all of them seeking to imitate Uruk’s original dominance.
Inanna is an iconic and heroic figure and I can understand how my interpretation of her is not attractive at all. I do apologize if my theories undermine what you are working on. But I just wanted to give you a bigger context for how I view her. I don’t have an anti-Inanna agenda at all. I think the myths about her are very entertaining, empowering for women in general, and in many cases offer a positive role model opposed to the image of god that won out after the triumph of the State.
But my larger point is that Inanna had to be seductive for the State to get off the ground in the first place. Deception is a big part of the story of transition. Uruk was a transition period. Humanity would not go from self-sufficient communities to paying taxes to the king in one step. We had to be deceived and seduced into it, and that is where the “symbol of Inanna” was cynically used by the elites that created the Uruk World System.
We may part ways here and that is OK. I respect your voice and your work. I have a bigger ambitious project that depends on this interpretation of the facts as I see them. But I realize you also have your own goals that may require a different interpretation. So I’m not trying to win an argument here but rather to just better express my point of view. Feel free to do the same! In the end I do think our goals converge, so I’m happy for the feedback.
I'm very happy that you see me as an ally, Peter. And I fully concur--when someone is asking the same question, whether or not we come to the same answer, it always moves my ideas forward. I couldn't have asked for anyone to be more exactly researching the same time and place, and asking the same question as you. It seems particularly significant that we are having this conversation while in the process of writing and researching our theses. So I have no desire to part ways.
I have several posts about how to have a better argument. The first rule is like who you're arguing with. Check! Second is state the question, then define the terms, then say why it matters. I don't use arguments to authority, only facts and logic, and I'm happy for challenges to both.
You and I have several overlapping questions. To start by zooming out to the largest metaphysical level, we're asking if reality exists outside of our sensory perceptions. Is there meaning aside from what we make? Is meaning pre-existing to discover, or are we our own gods? You call this, if I'm understanding correctly, NHI or non-human intelligence. So the first question is whether reality is WYSIWYG--what you see is what you get--or if there's meaning independent of our perceptions. I think that's a question no one can answer for anyone else, you have to prove it through your own experiments and experience.
You write, "Inanna is fictitious." We are in 100% agreement that any names or personifications given to NHI are invented by humans. They're all metaphors. But if reality/ truth exists, then some metaphors are going to be closer to the truth than others. I don't believe in believing, because it's making up your mind in advance of knowledge. But I reject all metaphors of supernatural evil. I define evil as causing others to cause harm. Every scripture of a god is a metaphor of evil in a different language. If that's true, we're doomed, so why bother? The gods are a malicious fiction that gives a few people the power to cause vast numbers of others to cause harm. The story of evil creates evil.
The two possibilities that are left are evolution, aka the WYSIWYG world, or an NHI that wants the best for us but can't overtly interfere without taking away our free will. This describes the eternal mother's dilemma, doesn't it? You can never control your kids except through violence, which you don't want. Yet you want them to be fair, kind to each other, take responsibility in the home, and be nice to you. You'd also like them to not thwart themselves in becoming their true emergent beings. That's damn tricky!
As a mom of three daughters, I found it impossible to have a 'stateless' society of five people. With no clear system of rules and rewards, all you have left are threats, bribes, physical force and manipulation. It's exhausting and doesn't work very well! I developed a home economy as a system of reciprocity. There are certainly times my daughters saw it as coercive, when their friends got what they wanted without having to work for it.
My caret economy in How to Dismantle an Empire is a scaled-up decentralized version of my parenting system. You could take the earliest writing from Uruk and it would be a version of my spreadsheet--hours of work done, amounts of grain earned. It's a fair system, not coercive, not welfare, not extractive, not monopoly, not power over others.
If we were to take the mythological out of it, we could refer to 3300 BCE as Eanna Uruk, since the economic system was centered in the temple complex, which was destroyed in 3200 BCE and replaced with ziggurats and gated palaces by 3100. There's no evidence of social stratification in 3300, no extravagant burials, housing differentials, class structures. It was an economic system of organizing labor that created more wealth, which has no record of being monopolized, than a stateless (meaning systemless) community ever could.
Your thesis, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that a system of self-governance--which can't exist without written records, even for a family of five--is the 'gateway drug' to "taxation, slavery, overt coercion with standing armies, and an insular elite class at the top ruled by a monarchy." How do you picture "a thriving harmonious complex society" operating?
The lead figure in the Warka vase certainly represents Damuzi but he's not a priest-king, he's the consort of the head priestess representing Inanna. Damuzi or the son-consort was killed ritually or castrated himself in all of the goddess societies so that he wouldn't usurp the throne. It was a voluntary cohort, from which the head priestess chose. I agree entirely that Narmer Horus may have been the representation of Damuzi who betrayed the Eanna from within, in cahoots with the mountain warrior hierarchies. The son-consort was mourned, because he was choosing the role of passing on the divinity without usurping it. When Damuzi sits on the throne while Inanna is away and disrespects her, he's violated that role.
Can you point me to evidence of rulers taking the tribute to Inanna in E-anna Uruk? In 2300 BCE the reforms say that they're going back to the temple produce being distributed rather than taken by the priests, the word amargi meaning both freedom and return to the mother. That indicates the priests came later. And where is there evidence of violence other than the ritual strangulation or self-castration of the consort?
The passage you linked (thank you!) was very interesting but clearly a product of the later heir/ Aryans. Inanna is a hierodule or temple slave/ prostitute in the passage--they are in the word itself describing her subservience and role. They are now Damuzi sitting on her throne as the priest-king. But Inanna, if there was NHI at work, has taken back her power and gifts rather than letting them be used by the usurpers. This mythology is retroactive because it's given her a father, Nanna or An, when Inanna was she who gives birth to all. Now it's a man who procreates.
The mountain warrior tribe of Arslantepe certainly saw the ideology of Uruk as coercive. They destroyed the outpost and built the world's first palace. They could be compared to bratty adolescents who want to take without giving anything in return. Did a fair system make that inevitable? It hasn't been my experience. Despite their resistance to it at the time, now that my daughters are adults, they all say they'll use some version of my system in raising their kids. E-anna was a mother's economy. I think Inanna the mother represents what we need to return to, not the motherfucker Narmer Horus--and I'm using that as a technical term for the system of rape and violence that destroyed it.