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The Collapse of Civilization in Southern Mesopotamia

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Abstract

In the late ninth century, rural settlement, agriculture, and urbanization all collapsed in southern Mesopotamia. We first document this collapse using newly digitized archaeological data. We then present a model of hydraulic society that highlights the collapse of state capacity as a proximate cause of the collapse of the economy and a shortened horizon of the ruler as a potential driver of the timing of the collapse. Using cross sections of tax collection data for 27 districts in southern Mesopotamia in 812, 846, and 918, we verify that the proximate cause of the crisis was the collapse in state capacity, which meant that the state no longer maintained the irrigation system. A particularly destructive succession struggle, shortening the investment horizon of rulers, determined the timing of the crisis.

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Notes

  1. There is considerable debate over the extent of the collapse, and in which domains of society the collapse was strongest. Science, for example, may have endured past the collapse of material society. In the context of this paper, we focus on the collapse of settlement and irrigation south of Baghdad.

  2. Scholars have proposed explanations besides those considered here. Christensen (1993, pp. 81–3, 100–4) suggests the Justinian Plague (541-2AD) and subsequent outbreaks through 749 played an important role by reducing the population and labour force needed to maintain the canals. Our view of the population of Iraq is much more endogenous. Van Bavel (2016, pp. 40–94) emphasizes many of the same factors modelled in this paper but sees the decline as happening somewhat later.

  3. Kuran (2010) offers another political approach.

  4. See Blaydes and Chaney (2013) on slave armies.

  5. See Blaydes and Chaney’s (2013, p. 21), Fig. 2.

  6. Von Kremer (1875, pp. 268–270) and von Kremer (1887). The first list we date to 780 was discovered by the famous historian Ibn Khaldun (von Kremer 1875, pp. 266–7). The list has been frequently reproduced with some variations (e.g. Levy, 1957, pp. 317–20). There are several manuscript sources for the list or perhaps for independent lists dating to the same era (Saleh 1971). The income from 893 is the income of the state budget translated by Busse (1967).

  7. Treadgold (1988, p. 453) put the population of the Caliphate at 30 million in 780. Assuming that the adult male labour force made up one quarter of the population implies that Harun employed .5/(.25*30) = 7% of the adult males.

  8. The differential taxation of Muslims and non-Muslims played out in complicated ways that have a large literature. See, for instance, Dennett (1950), Morimoto (1981), Saleh (2018).

  9. There is considerable variation among scholars in the date they assign to Ibn Khordadbeh’s revenue figures ranging from 846–7, the date of the first edition of his book, to 885 when the second edition appeared. The political history of the 860 s makes no sense if we assume the figures apply to that period (El-Samarraie 1972, pp. 200–1).

  10. El-Sammaraie (1975, p. 173). Economou and Kyriazis (2019) recount similar behaviour by Indian rulers, who had short-term interests in their lands and consequently exploited it for immediate profit rather than developing its infrastructure.

  11. Price (1994) defends Wittfogel, Butzer (1996) debunks him, and Mabry (2000) is in the middle. Scarborough (2003) surveys the debate on a world-wide canvas, while Rost (2017) reviews the debate in light of the history of irrigation in Mesopotamia.

  12. See, for instance, Adams (1966, 1981) and Millon (1971), respectively. Scarborough (2003) gives many more examples of both positions.

  13. If the state failed to tax away the agricultural surplus, the farm population would expand until total output divided by the enlarged population equalled w.

  14. 253 kg = (2000*365/3600)/.8, Wilkinson (1994, p. 495) also assumed consumption was 250 kg per person per year.

  15. Willcocks’ estimates are in accord with modern measurements. Thus, Willcocks’ (1917, p. 9) monthly calculations of the Euphrates’ discharge at Hit imply an annual flow of 34.5 billion cubic metres. This compares well with Kolars and Mitchell’s (1991, p. 307–8) estimate of the ‘natural flow’ (i.e. abstracting from human interventions) at Hit of 33.69 billion cubic metres.

  16. The figures appear to derive from the survey of Egypt (Willcocks 1899, p. 142) where the ratio is given as one cubic metre per 3000 acres. This may correspond to the 1250 hectares of millet, etc. watered in the summer. If the summer lasted six months, which was the usual usage of the term, Willcocks’ calculation assumes 1.25 cubic metres were applied to each square metre, but the details remain obscure. Jackson (1885, pp. 186–7) reports that basins in Upper Egypt were flooded to a depth of about one metre, and the water was allowed to soak into the ground. Egyptian basin irrigation involved no losses in distribution canals or flow back into the river, so water requirements would have been less than in Mesopotamia. The calculations with modern rules of thumb allow for these losses.

  17. The annual flow is available only if a dam is constructed that can contain the entire annual flow. That was not the case in ancient times.

  18. Women are assumed to have been confined to domestic quarters, so all harvesting was, indeed, done by men. While this may not be the most realistic assumption, it is made here for analytical convenience. Relaxing this assumption does not meaningfully change the conclusions in this paragraph.

  19. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1027&context=driftlessconference Accessed 12 January 2020.

  20. http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FBS

  21. Shimizu (1966) reviews the administration of tax farms in detail and concludes that they were tightly controlled to prevent abuse. Controls did slacken, however, by the tenth century.

  22. An odd feature of McEvedy and Jones’ (1978, p. 151) estimates is that they show only a small fall in the population between 800 and 1000 AD from 2.5 million to 2.0 million.

  23. Map 1 also shows that the area around the Nahrawan canal, which had been densely settled in the middle Islamic period (Map 3), was depopulated in 2000. The canal was breached in a civil war in 937 and never effectively repaired, so agriculture was rendered impossible. This is a further example of the negative effect of the collapse of state capacity on long run economic development.

  24. It is theoretically possible that a rise in the rate of return might increase income over the years so much that the Caliph might decide to consume more in the present than in the future. However, econometric investigations with isoelastic utility functions rule out this possibility in practice.

  25. The data set is mapped and documented in the Appendix.

  26. El-Samarraie (1972, p. 30) discusses the changing meaning of the word qantara since Abbasid times.

  27. This is greater than the 48% drop in total tax collections in the Sawad since the data set being analysed here excludes districts where drainage rather than water supply was the issue as well as districts affected by the construction of Samarra, which entailed water diversion.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Global Distinguished Professor of Economic History, Faculty of Social Science, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    Robert C. Allen

  2. Donald P. Jacobs Scholar, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, USA

    Leander Heldring

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  1. Robert C. Allen
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Correspondence to Robert C. Allen.

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We thank James Alt, Jeff Jenson, Chris Paik, Ron Ragowski, and David Stasavage for comments, Mattia Bertazzini for outstanding research assistance, and the Research Endowment Fund of New York University Abu Dhabi for financial support.

Appendix

Appendix

1.1 The Sawad tax districts

Our database derives from tax lists originally compiled by Kodama, Ibn Khordadbeh, and Ali ibn Isa and apply to the years 812, 846, and 918, as discussed in the main text. These lists were published in German translation by von Kremer (1875, 1887). El-Samarraie (1972, pp. 99–103) recompiled Kodama’s and ibn Khordadbeh’s lists. El-Samarraie’s figures occasionally differ from von Kremer’s, and we use El-Samarraie’s in those few cases.

There is no published map showing the locations of these districts, although there is discussion by some authorities who locate some of them on maps. There is no agreement among historians on how to render the district names in modern European languages. We use anglicized versions of von Kremer’s designations. These are usually similar to LeStrange’s (1905) rendering. The following map shows the approximate locations we have assigned to the districts:

figure a

The following table shows districts, the coordinates (in degrees) used to plot them, and the sources on which we relied:

figure b

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Allen, R.C., Heldring, L. The Collapse of Civilization in Southern Mesopotamia. Cliometrica 16, 369–404 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11698-021-00229-2

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