9.9 Eridu

From about 5,500 BC, when the Ubaid Culture influenced only Southern Mesopotamia in the Gulf area, their lead settlement (Capital) was Eridu, which may have been on the Gulf coast in this period (the coastline having moved because of sea-level changes and sediment build-up). Eridu covered some 25 acres with a population of around 4,000 people. Excavation in Eridu took place beneath the Ziggurat that was built in the 3^rd millennium BC. A Ziggurat was the large, flat-topped, stepped pyramid that they had developed by this period with a temple on the summit dedicated to a particular god. In the case of Eridu it was probably dedicated to the god of water/wisdom, Enki. The excavations showed that some 18 temples had been built on that spot, with the earliest built on the original sand, probably before 5,000 BC. This illustrates over 3,000 years of continuity of tradition in one of the earliest city-states. Each temple would have been used for 150 to 200 years. The middle Ubaid period, also called the Hadji Muhammad period (4,800-4,500 BC) was when much of the previously mentioned irrigation work took place. They mastered the arid floodplain by controlling the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, building a system of canals, dykes and reservoirs, giving them considerably more control of agricultural production.

9.10 Ubaid Pottery

Eridu, early Uruk, male and female
figures 4,000-3,500 BC - source
National Museum of Iraq, Baghdad

The Ubaid pottery culture was the fourth in the series, although their earliest pottery can be linked with that of the Samarran Culture, pointing to this area being a melting pot of different races and tribes. There were six phases in the Ubaid period, each characterized by a somewhat different style of pottery. Early Ubaid painted pottery was very fine greenish ware for beakers and large thin-walled bowls, which would have been too fragile to transport except by boat. Also there was coarse red or reddish-brown ware for cooking pots – often with lugs for lifting on and off the fire. The latter was without decoration except for basket impressions that seem to be from their method of manufacture using baskets, probably as moulds. They also produced figurines with slender bodies and protruding features, often depicting females, some suckling infants, others with outstretched arms, together with female heads, possibly all as cult objects. Similar figures were made between 6,000 and 4,000 BC throughout Mesopotamia, and some appear to show that the people used body paint or tattoos.

Ubaid painted pot 4,500 BC

Models of sailing vessels dated to around 5,000 BC have also been discovered. A characteristic of Ubaid pottery is the dramatically stark geometric patterns that they used in decoration. A shallow bowl painted with crescent motifs and a spouted vessel dated to 4,000 BC and two terracotta female heads dated to 4,500 BC have been found at al’Ubaid itself.

Eridu, early Uruk, painted vase 4,000-3,500 BC
- source National Museum of Iraq, Baghdad

Ubaid Culture, influence and pottery spread throughout Mesopotamia displacing Halaf pottery from around 5,000 to 4,000 BC, and it has been found in the south all along the Arabian Gulf, and in the north into Anatolia. It is likely that Ubaid pottery was being traded for the many raw materials needed in Southern Mesopotamia, as its only real indigenous raw material was clay. Later Ubaid painted pottery had a pale buff body with brown or black decoration. Around 4,500 BC in Eridu there were quantities of high quality painted pottery with a uniformity and cursive nature of the decoration that points to them being made by specialists. Pottery found in temples in Eridu had pink, greenish or buff bodies, depending on the degree of firing, with cream or greenish slip and black or brown geometric decoration.