Hodgson 000001

At first it was the temple that was the focus of whatever high culture there was. At the temples in ancient Sumeria, where urban life began in the fourth millennium BC, the work of controlling the local flooding and providing for the drought of the Mesopotamian alluvial plain was carried on under the learned priests, who in turn disposed of the surplus. It was they who sent out traders to bring in exotic goods necessary to the developing exploitation of the plain, fertile but lacking in minerals and even stone. When disputes arose with rival towns, perhaps over control of the trade, they organized the fighting men. But then as warfare became more elaborate -each town trying to outdo the others- military affairs and the general control of the town fell into the hands of non-priestly specialists: kings and their dependents. The royal court became a second focus of high culture alongside the temple, and was based like it upon agricultural production. Its revenue, in whatever form it took it, may be called taxes, which came chiefly from the land. Much more gradually, at last, the traders too became independent merchants, doing business on their own account and gaining enough profit to share, if more modestly and indirectly than temple or court, in the revenue of the land. When this happened, rich merchants too became patrons of the arts and the market became a third focus of high culture.