Changing societies

In Van de Mieroop’s book, King Hammurabi, the author gives a lay out of where the prominent cities are located in the Middle East and the significances of some of the cities. He gives a brief background information of King Hammurabi and other important kings. The most interesting part is the later section of the first chapter goes in to detail of how kings operated in the Middle East.

At this time there are many more states located close to each other which seem to bring more conflict among neighboring states. Mieroop described how “conflict was a regular part of their interactions” because of the proximity of the states there was tension over the land as that was an increasing demand with the rising population (2). This burden is put on the kings so it was common for one state to take over territory of another. This made the states seem “that they were constantly at war wit each other” (2) This situation is so different compared to the time period earlier when Uruk first became a city. Wars were not a constant occurrence and the focus seems to be more on how to sustain the city and not how to expand. Meiroop mentioned how Shamshi-Adad “seem to have been occupied with continuous campaigning against people from the Zagros mountains” (8). It seems that after civilization has been established, it had developed from a community of people with the temple as the center to whole cities. As the cities became more developed and there were establishments of kingships the cities were able to put focus beyond trying to make the city sustainable. I cannot say that this fact but it is an idea that could explain how characteristics of societies changed. The perfecting of civilization allowed room for kings to expand and go out to conquer other land, search for anything beyond the walls of the city searching for any usuable land or new resources to support their state.