Table of Contents
Fred Snyder argues that cities did not appear from nowhere in a single river valley. By about three hundred thousand years ago, he says, modern humans already shared the world with other human kinds, yet cities, writing, monuments, and organized religion still spread from one belt running through Anatolia and the Levant, then across Mesopotamia toward the Black Sea. Early monuments in that belt include carved pillars crowded with lions, bulls, snakes, and vultures, and a stone tower at Jericho raised long before any Egyptian pyramid. Villages rebuilt on their own ruins became tells, so each generation lived on the remains of the last and lifted towns toward the sky. Inside houses, wild bull heads were mounted as a cult. Cattle and goats later show up in Egypt, which he treats as an import that fed the kingdoms. Ziggurats and pyramids are both presented as artificial mountains. Mesopotamians, he says, took their temple towers for copies of the peaks where gods lived. The one civilization of the title is this long sharing of cattle, bull cult, and building upward.
Key points
- Snyder says complex society had deep roots, yet the first cities still cluster in one region.
- Carved pillars of animals and the Jericho tower are his early monuments.
- Repeated rebuilding is said to have raised tells, with each generation living on the last.
- Household bull skulls are presented as a domestic cult that later myths still echo.
- Cattle in Egypt and artificial mountains in Egypt and Mesopotamia are the later forms.
- Temple towers are described as copies of the mountains where gods were thought to live.
Short quotes
By the time Homo sapiens emerge around 300,000 years ago, they were not alone.
Fred Snyder, Bull cults and mound building
He starts from a world already shared with other human kinds. Watch at 1:03
Carved in lower relief on these pillars are animals like lions, bulls, snakes, and vultures.
Fred Snyder, Bull cults and mound building
The early pillars are covered with animals, bulls among them. Watch at 4:22
These communities developed a tradition of mound building that would echo through the ages.
Fred Snyder, Bull cults and mound building
Mound building is the habit he traces forward from those early towns. Watch at 7:28
Domesticated sheeps, goats, and cattle were present in Egypt by the late 6th millennia B.C.E.
Fred Snyder, Bull cults and mound building
Herd animals are said to be in Egypt by the late sixth millennium. Watch at 13:30
Just as Mesopotamian ziggurats were cosmic mountains for the gods, both these and the Egyptian pyramids were artificial mountains.
Fred Snyder, Bull cults and mound building
Ziggurats and pyramids are both treated as built mountains. Watch at 19:50
Mesopotamians maintain that their ziggurats were imitations of mountains, homes of the gods.
Fred Snyder, Bull cults and mound building
The towers are explained as copies of peaks where gods were said to dwell. Watch at 25:42
Video by Timeless with Fred Snyder. Watch on YouTube.