Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States by James C. Scott

Author:James C. Scott [Scott, James C.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, pdf
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2017-08-22T04:00:00+00:00

Figure 12. Prisoners in neck fetters. Photo courtesy of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad, Dr. Ahmed Kamel

A curious confirmation of the conditions of slave and enslaved debtors in Ur III comes from reading a utopian hymn “against the grain.” Prior to the construction of a major temple (Eninnu) there was a ritual suspension of “ordinary” social relations in favor of a radical egalitarian moment. A poetic text describes what does not happen in this ritual of exception:

The slave woman was an equal of her mistress

The slave walked at his master’s side

The orphan was not delivered to the rich one

The widow was not delivered to the powerful one

The creditor did not enter one’s house

He [the ruler] undid the tongue of the whip and the goad

The master did not strike the slave on the head

The mistress did not slap the face of the slave women

He canceled the debts24

The depiction of a utopian space, by negating the ordinary woes of the poor, weak, and enslaved, provides a handy portrait of quotidian conditions.

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