Enemies of Civilization: Attitudes toward Foreigners in Ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China

2. In Search of Cultural Identity

23 Geography When the Egyptian soldier went up to Syria, the journey on which he was about to embark was characterized as full of dangers, taking place in a foreign environment that was quite hostile. His identity as an Egyptian was keenly felt when encountering a very different terrain in a faraway place. Distance and terrain, therefore, are two important physical factors that influenced communication between different human groups in the ancient world. Lack of communication often led to hostility or other, curiosity-driven actions. The formation of a cultural identity among group(s) of people, on the other hand, rests upon the necessary condition of easy communication. Geographic factors, according to this line of thinking, bear important implications on the formation of cultural identity, and, by extension, attitudes toward foreigners. Discussions of the origin of civilization in Mesopotamia often point out that the natural terrain of lower Mesopotamia was the major reason for the development of city-states.¹ From an ecological point of view, the southern part of the ancient alluvial plain—Sumer as it was called—was divided in ancient times by several branches of the Euphrates that formed some natural barriers that prevented territorial 2 In Search of Cultural Identity The soldier, when he goes up to Syria, has no staff and no sandals . He knows not whether he be dead or alive by reason of the (fierce?) lions. The foe lies hidden in the scrub, and the enemy stands ready for battle. —Do Not Be a Soldier, Egyptian text, c. 300 BCE 24 Enemies of Civilization unity. The existence of strips of desert and marshes along the rivers also created obstacles for the formation of large communities or territorial states.² As a result, from very early on, the people of this area developed a sense of group identity built around the city. An indication of the existence of a group identity among the scattered city-states is the worshiping of a particular protecting deity.³ Moreover, because of the close similarity of their living environment and therefore lifestyle, these city-states actually shared quite similar cultural characteristics. A telling sign of their common cultural background was the worshiping of the god Enlil at Nippur. During the third millennium BCE Nippur was a major religious center that was recognized by most other Sumerian cities and received offerings from them. Thus one could say that, despite their independent positions, the city-states shared a common religious and cultural heritage.⁴ The intriguing thing is that this shared cultural heritage did not guarantee a peaceful relationship among the city-states. Plenty of evidence shows that conflicts often occurred between the Sumerian cities—for example, between the cities of Lagash and Umma, and between Uruk and Ur. These conflicts were mainly caused by disputes over water rights and borderlands. The leaders of the cities engaged in military confrontations with each other no less vehemently than when they faced invaders from outside Mesopotamia.⁵ Toward the end of the Sumerian period, a number of rival political groups were formed, with Kish in the north, Lagash in the middle, and Ur-Urk-Umma in the south as the centers. From the use of the prestigious title of “King of Kish,” it can be surmised that a hegemonic position must have been attained, at one time or another, by a number of these cities during this time, indicating a certain amount of intracity conflict.⁶ One kind of physical evidence for such conflict is the building of the city walls. In lower Mesopotamia, for example, walls were built for individual cities as early as 2700 BCE, indicating a need for protection against the constant threat of enemies and to keep off the foreigners, or outsiders.⁷ These walls, therefore, are the material manifestations of the development of a group identity. On the other hand, when one looks at the larger environment, the sharp division between the generally flat alluvial plain and the rugged mountains to the north and east, as well as climatic variations, entailed different lifestyles that in turn fostered different cultures and created different ethnic and political groups. There were, as a result, two kinds of lifestyles in and around ancient Mesopotamia that were competing In Search of Cultural Identity 25 with each other: the nomadic and the agricultural.⁸ Nomadic peoples, notably the Gutians who caused the downfall of the Kingdom of Akkad...