MESOPOTAMIA

Between the rivers: 4500-3100 BC

From about 4500 BC there are settlements on the edges of the marshes where the Tigris and the Euphrates reach the Persian Gulf. Mesopotamia, the region between these two rivers, will be the area of one of the world's first two civilizations, the other being Egypt. Both are established a little earlier than 3100 BC.

Unlike Egypt, where a stable society is established along hundreds of miles of the Nile, Mesopotamia will be characterized by constant warfare and a succession of shifting empires. Towns here shelter within thick protective walls.

Sumer and Gilgamesh: 3100-2500 BC

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Sumer, close to the mouths of the Tigris and the Euphrates, is where the first Mesopotamian towns develop. Each grows up round a local temple, which acts as the centre of the region's economic activity. The Sumerian temple priests, needing to keep accurate accounts, are the first people to develop a system ofwriting.

The region can also claim other significant innovations. The first knownpotter's wheel, dating from around this period, has been found in Mesopotamia. And a Sumerian ruler, the semi-historical Gilgamesh, is hero of the world's earliest surviving work of literature, theEpic of Gilgamesh.

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Gilgamesh is listed in later Sumerian records as the king of Uruk and builder of its great city wall. He may be largely legendary, but his city is real enough as an early centre of civilization. The wall, dating from a little after 3000 BC, is about six miles long. And it is from Uruk that the earliestwritten tabletssurvive.

Uruk is soon eclipsed by a neighbouring city state - that of Ur, famous later for its greatziggurat and (in the Bible) as the home of Abraham. The discovery of The royal cemetery at Ur has revealed an astonishing level of sophistication in objects created in around 2500 BC for the local ruling family. But in about 2300 BC both Ur and Uruk yield to a conqueror from beyond Sumer.

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History of painting

If Neanderthal man created any form of art, no traces of it have yet been found. But with the arrival of modern man, or Homo sapiens sapiens, the human genius for image-making becomes abundantly clear.

In the recesses of caves, people begin to decorate the rock face with an important theme in their daily lives, the bison and reindeer which are their prey as Ice Agehunters. And sculptors carve portable images of another predominant interest of mankind - the swelling curves of the female form, emphasizing the fertility on which the survival of the tribe depends.

Prehistoric cave paintings have been discovered in many parts of the world, from Europe and Africa to Australia. Africa has some of the earliest paintings and rock engravings to have been securely dated. Nearly 30,000 years old, they are discovered in 1969 on the rock face in a cave near Twyfelfontein in Namibia. But the most numerous and the most sophisticated of prehistoric paintings are on the walls of caves in southwest France and northern Spain.

About 150 painted caves have been discovered in this region. Perhaps the most startling of all are the paintings in Chauvet cave, found as recently as 1994 and thought to be as much as 31,000 years old. But far better known, as yet, are the glories of Altamira and Lascaux.

    

The walls and ceilings of these caves are covered in paintings, with shades of red, brown, yellow and black created from powdered minerals, probably mixed with animal blood and fat. The subjects are mainly the animals of the chase - bison, wild cattle, horses and deer. Many of the paintings are deep in the caves, in dark recesses.

The painters do their work by the light of saucer-like stone lamps, burning animal fat. The charcoal wick of one of the lamps at Lascaux has been carbon-dated to about 17,000 years ago. The same process has dated objects found at Altamira to some 13,000 years ago. Around this period cave art in other European sites also reaches its peak.
 
Why do hunter-gatherers paint images of large animals on the walls of caves? The evidence of tribal societies in more recent times makes it certain that the purpose is not merely decorative. Religion and magic are the context, but no one knows the precise motive.

There is no lack of theories. It has been argued that the magic is to aid the hunters in the chase; or that it is to increase the herds of wild animals; or that these images, in the innermost recesses of a mysterious and holy place, are to help the shaman into the state of trance which is essential for his priestly work. Speculation may be endless, but the appeal of this early human art is eternal.

When humans first form settled communities, paintings again play a prominent part in religious life. A good example is the early neolithic town of Catal Huyuk, from about 6000 BC. Many of the houses so far excavated appear to be shrines. Their walls are painted with a wide range of subjects, including hunting scenes, a picture of vultures setting about human corpses, and even an elementary landscape.

As in many early societies, such as Minoan Crete, the bull is here a sacred animal. Bulls' heads and horns project aggressively from the walls and altars of the temple chambers of Catal Huyuk.

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