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PALÉORIENT, vol. 9/2-1983

EXCAVATIONS AT TELL LEILAN AND THE ORIGINS OF NORTH MESOPOTAMIAN CITIES IN THE THIRD MILLENNIUM B.C.

H. WEISS

1. Northern Mesopotamia

Northern and southern Mesopotamia are distinguished by their rainfall and dependent forms of agriculture, i.e., the 200-300 mm. isohyet, interan- nual variability, and dry farming vs. irrigation agriculture. This regionalization provides for our understanding of early south Mesopotamian city and state formation : the generation and deployment of agricultural surplus, class formation, specialization of labor, economies of scale, and the differentiation of cities from their agricultural hinterlands. Irrigation agriculture played a role essential to the process : "What was the relationship, if any, between a precociously early and long persisting growth of urban life and major reliance on irrigation agriculture ? Probably the most fundamental advantage of irrigation, here as elsewhere, was the relatively high agricultural productivity it permitted. It was unquestionably of great importance that yields were high in relation to land as well as labor inputs" (1).

The precise advantage of irrigation agriculture over dry-farming in ancient Mesopotamia is, however, less than obvious. An understanding of the differences between the two systems of agriculture in Mesopotamia requires that we examine their respective productive capabilities and forms of organization through time. This is, of course, not an easy task. In spite of considerable advances in recent years, our understanding of even the productive yields of irrigation agriculture is still considerably clouded by the ambiguities of textual referents and samples (2). Equally difficult to quantify in the south is the extension of sabkha conditions generated by long-term irrigation (3) and the consequent long-

term diminution of agricultural yields. For north Mesopotamian dry farming, however, still less data is available : the evidence consists solely of the archives from Nuzi, which cannot be considered representative of northern Mesopotamian agriculture.

One clue to the relationship between ancient productive yields of irrigation agriculture and dry farming is the modern relationship between the two systems. Figure 1, derived from data presented in de Brichambaut and Wallen (1963), illustrates the climatic differences between north and south in terms of mean annual rainfall and interannual variability, the two climatic factors which determine the border between Mesopotamian dry farming and irrigation agriculture. The dry-farming regions of Kamishli. Mosul, Erbil, present a cluster of climatic values for the north, with Kamishli in the Habur River drainage and Erbil receiving the highest annual rainfall in Mesopotamia. These centers distinguish themselves from the marginal Kirkuk (ancient Gasur/

Figure 1

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