ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a period of sweeping socio-economic and cultural transformation with the rise of urbanism and the integration of Susa and the surrounding plain into the Uruk-centered Mesopotamian network. Both the number and size of the settlements in Susiana increased substantially, with Susa doubling its inhabited area to reach 25 ha. or more and starting to expand in an easterly and southerly direction. Ceremonial and administrative activities continued to center on the Acropole, and the High Terrace supported renewed monumental architecture and modest residences, workshops, and administrative complexes. Following the disappearance of the distinctive Susa I pottery and glyptic, the Susa II period brought forth new styles with clear Uruk parallels. No longer used as a canvas for artistic display, the pottery is characterized by more efficient manufacture methods. In Susiana, this revolution came accompanied by an outburst of glyptic imagery exhibiting a dynamic “working class” consumed by the manufacture, processing, management, and storage of goods. Behind these activities lay an emergent social complexity paralleled by the development of an administration system leading into the revolutionary invention of writing and the increased rationalization and control of wealth by elites and religious institutions.
