ABSTRACT
Before we can turn to the next stage in the spiritualization of the myth and ritual pattern of the ancient Near East, we must first make a very brief survey of its parallel development in the Aegean area. Indeed, as I have already indicated, to think in terms of parallel growth is to do an injustice to the similarities of thought in the various ideologies in the area extending from the valley of the two rivers westward to the Aegean. Surely Professor Persson goes too far, both in ideas and geography, when he speaks of an Afrasian culture; 1 nevertheless, we can see that, despite all the many diversities between the peoples of the most ancient Near East—and these are, of course, fundamental—there are, in the main, certain likenesses in the ways in which they thought and acted; in which they built, created, and wrote; in the kind of problems they faced and the solutions they brought to them; and in their political ideologies, religious ideas, and forms of worship. One of the reasons for the tendency towards homogenity was the similarity in the ways in which they sustained themselves economically; Professor Childe has pointed out that the historic civilizations of the Mediterranean basin, Hither Asia, and India were built upon cereals, particularly wheat and barley; and to the cultivation of these basic crops was added the breeding of animals, horned cattle, sheep, goats, and swine, and later, fowls, for food. The result of this change from an economy based on food-gathering to one based on food-producing was enormous: man had now to settle down in relatively limited areas where food could be steadily produced; he could undertake to breed selectively; he had some degree of control over his food supply; he could accumulate a surplus and thus engage in trade; he could devise instruments to assist him in his tasks, such as the axe or adze, pottery of several kinds, textiles; and with the development of these tools there came into existence a great body of craft lore. The consequence of these momentous changes in the ways in which man lived was that, in time, he was able to live in cities and thereby engage in the most complex of human activities, such as trade, industry, statecraft, and the intellectual pursuits; now came the clearing away of sites where cities could be built so that they would be ensured a regular water and food supply and to do this required both capital and labour; at the same time, with control over the instruments of production there came a corresponding control over the affairs of men; the diet was enlarged to include dates, figs, olives, and other fruits of the grove and orchard; the invention of the brick made possible large-scale building; the working of copper in particular, and the growth of metallurgy in general, the use of the wheel in transport and in industry, and the fundamental improvements in the means of communication all left a permanent and profound effect on the ways of life of the ancient Near East. 1 Another stimulus towards intellectual unity was the intensity and range of trade both in objects and ideas. Dependent as we are on the use of coal, electricity, and gasoline for our transportation and communication, it is difficult for us to realize how much can be accomplished by wheel and sail if to these are added, as they unquestionably were, curiosity, ingenuity, and, above all, daring. The excavations point up the tremendous exchange of artifacts between the peoples of the ancient Near East, and if they carried on the trade in material things with such avidity, there is no reason to suppose that the exchange of ideas was on a lesser scale. 2 Given, therefore, such similarities in material and cultural development, it is not then so surprising that the problems which were faced were pretty much the same and, more important, that the solutions which could be achieved should likewise be of fairly the same sort and relatively on the same level of accomplishment.
