Complexity of Crafts

In order to strengthen his claim about Uruk being the first complex city, Liverani talks about the incorporation of crafts in chapter 3, The Administration of a Complex Economy. After discussing various points about the roles of barley and wool in the economy, as well as types of commerce, he goes on to explain the evidentiary complexities that the crafts provide in distinguishing the difference between villages and cities.

According to Liverani, “the specialization of crafts has always been considered an element that qualifies… the emergence of a socio-economic organization of the complex type” (44). He also goes on to state, “in the ‘Neolithic village’ every family nucleus by itself produced the domestic and working tools it needed” while “in the ‘city’ a social division of labor came about, with the consequent exchange of food for specialized products” (44). What Liverani means is that crafts are considered a luxury; villagers would have to devote some of their time to producing tools themselves whereas people living in a city where there is a division of labor that specialized in making those tools could simply exchange food for those tools. The complexity is evident through the exchange one has to carry out in order to receive pre-made tools, rather than having to make it on their own.

In addition to tools, the crafts also included ceramic products like jars and bowls, bowls that apparently characterize the Uruk period (48). Large jars were used for storage and bowls were used to distribute rations. The demand for such products led to the arrival of mass production, which was permitted by the adoption of the fast wheel (48). Private commission from selling the pottery and ceramics also allowed for savings, which deprived ceramic production of local and family varieties from the Neolithic period (48). Here, Liverani explains the complexity that the ceramics contribute to the city while contrasting the division of labor in the city with local and family varieties of the village.

Although a few components of his argument occurred before the urban revolution, it was the difference in how organized the factors were that made Uruk a great and complex city.