Early World History. Costs and Benefits of Urbanization in Early Riverine Societies

Essay Question: 1
Answer the following in a short essay. (several college-level paragraphs) Do not expect full credit if it is not an essay.
Remember this is worth 25 points.
Based on these three documents (if your response is not based on the sources provided, do not expect full credit) , evaluate the costs and benefits of urbanization in early Riverine societies.
Background: The three documents in this exercise illustrate the complexity and tensions in early Riverine societies from the growth of cities. Document 1 is an excerpt from a debate in Sumerian literature between two types of tools, one associated with an agrarian lifestyle and the other with an urban constituency. The second document is an excerpt from a satirical Egyptian poem where a father tries to convince his son that almost all occupations are terrible. The final document is a picture of artifacts unearthed at the site of Harrapa, located in modern-day India, which shows the craftsmanship and resources available to Indus Valley jewelers in the third millennium BCE.
DOCUMENT 1, The Debate between the Hoe and the Plough, dates to 2100 BCE and is one of seven major philosophical debates in Sumerian literature. Translated from cuneiform tablets found at the temple library in Nippur, this text illustrates the tension between the urban and rural elements of society in the late third millennium BCE.DOCUMENT 2, The Satire of the Trades, was written during Egypt's Middle Kingdom, between 2025 and 1700 BCE, and presents the point of view of a father talking to his son.
DOCUMENT 3 depicts a small pot containing 133 beads and other small decorations excavated from a Harrapan cemetery house, dating from around 1700 BCE. The beads are made of a wide variety of materials. Most of the beads are carnelian and faience; however, there are also amazonites, banded agate, jasper, and even beads made to resemble other natural stones such as lapis lazuli and turquoise. Several of the beads were drilled with tapering holes and suggest the use of a tubular or tapered cylindrical drill. Included in the pot was an unfinished bead with the hole only partially drilled. 
DOCUMENT 1The Debate between the Hoe and the Plough
O the Hoe, the Hoe, the Hoe, tied together with thongs; the Hoe, made from poplar, with a tooth of ash; the Hoe, made from tamarisk, with a tooth of sea-thorn; the Hoe, double-toothed, four-toothed; the Hoe, child of the poor, . . . the Hoe started a quarrel . . . with the Plough.
The Hoe having engaged in a dispute with the Plough, the Hoe addressed the Plough: "Plough, you draw furrows—what does your furrowing matter to me? You break clods—what does your clod-breaking matter to me? When water overflows you cannot dam it up. You cannot fill baskets with earth. You cannot spread out clay to make bricks. You cannot lay foundations or build a house. You cannot strengthen an old wall's base. You cannot put a roof on a good man's house. Plough, you cannot straighten the town squares. . . ."
The Plough addressed the Hoe: "I am the Plough, fashioned by great strength, assembled by great hands, the mighty registrar of father Enlil. I am mankind's faithful farmer. . . .
"My threshing-floors punctuating the plain are yellow hillocks radiating beauty. I pile up stacks and mounds for Enlil. I amass emmer and wheat for him. I fill the storehouses of mankind with barley. The orphans, the widows and the destitute take their reed baskets and glean my scattered ears. People come to drag away my straw, piled up in the fields. The teeming herds of Cakkan thrive.
"Hoe, digging miserably, weeding miserably with your teeth; Hoe, burrowing in the mud; Hoe, putting its head in the mud of the fields, spending your days with the brick-moulds in mud with nobody cleaning you, digging wells, digging ditches, digging . . .! . . ."
Then the Hoe addressed the Plough: "Plough, what does my being small matter to me, what does my being exalted matter to me, what does my being powerful matter to me?—at Enlil's place I take precedence over you, in Enlil's temple I stand ahead of you.
"I build embankments, I dig ditches. I fill all the meadows with water. When I make water pour into all the reed-beds, my small baskets carry it away. When a canal is cut, or when a ditch is cut, when water rushes out at the swelling of a mighty river, creating lagoons on all sides [?], I, the Hoe, dam it in. Neither south nor north wind can separate it.
"The fowler gathers eggs. The fisherman catches fish. People empty bird-traps. Thus the abundance I create spreads over all the lands. . . ."
"I am the Hoe and I live in the city. No one is more honoured than I am. I am a servant following his master. I am one who builds a house for his master. I am one who broadens the cattle-stalls, who expands the sheepfolds.
"I spread out clay and make bricks. I lay foundations and build a house. I strengthen an old wall's base. I put a roof on a good man's house. I am the Hoe, I straighten the town-squares.
"When I have gone through the city and built its sturdy walls, have made the temples of the great gods splendid and embellished them with brown, yellow and decorative [?] clay, I build in the city of the palace where the inspectors and overseers live.
"When the weakened clay has been built up and the fragile [?] clay buttressed, they refresh themselves when the time is cool in houses I have built. When they rest on their sides by a fire which a hoe has stirred up, you do not come to the joyous celebration [?]. They feed the labourer, give him drink and pay him his wages: thus I have enabled him to support his wife and children.
"I make a kiln for the boatman and heat pitch for him. By fashioning magur and magilum boats for him, I enable the boatman to support his wife and children."I plant a garden for the householder. When the garden has been encircled, surrounded by mud walls and the agreements reached, people again take up a hoe. When a well has been dug, a water lift constructed and a water-hoist hung, I straighten the plots. I am the one who puts water in the plots. After I have made the apple-tree grow, it is I who bring forth its fruits. These fruits adorn the temples of the great gods: thus I enable the gardener to support his wife and children.
"After I have worked on the watercourse and the sluices, put the path in order and built a tower there on its banks, those who spend the day in the fields, and the field-workers who match them by night, go up into that tower. These people revive themselves there just as in their well-built city. The water-skins I made they use to pour water. I put life into their hearts again.
"Insultingly you call me 'Plough, the digger of ditches.' But when I have dug out the fresh water for the plain and dry land where no water is, those who have thirst refresh themselves at my well-head. . . ."
The Hoe having engaged in a dispute with the Plough, the Hoe triumphed over the Plough—praise be to Nisaba!
CREDIT "The debate between the Hoe and the Plough: translation," from The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/), Oxford 1998-2006. Copyright © J.A. Black, G. Cunningham, E. Robson, and G. Zólyomi 1998, 1999, 2000; J.A. Black, G. Cunningham, E. Flückiger-Hawker, E. Robson, J. Taylor, and G. Zólyomi 2001; J.A. Black, G. Cunningham, J. Ebeling, E. Robson, J. Taylor, and G. Zólyomi 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005; G. Cunningham, J. Ebeling, E. Robson, and G. Zólyomi 2006. The authors have asserted their moral rights. Reprinted by permission of Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford.
DOCUMENT 2
The Satire of the Trades
 I have seen many beatings—
Set your heart on books!
I watched those seized for labor—
There's nothing better than books. . . .
 
But I have seen the smith at work
At the opening of his furnace;
With fingers like claws of a crocodile
He stinks more than fish roe.
The carpenter who wields an adze,
He is wearier than a field-laborer;
His field is the timber, his hoe is the adze.
There is no end to his labor. . . .
 The jewel-maker bores with his chisel
In hard stones of all kinds;
When he has finished the inlay of an eye,
His arms are spent, he's weary;
Sitting down when the sun goes down,
His knees and back are cramped. . . .
 The potter is under the soil,
Though as yet among the living;
He grubs in the mud more than a pig,
In order to fire his pots.
His clothes are stiff with clay, . . .
 The carpenter also suffers much. . . . 
The weaver in the workshop,
He is worse off than a woman;
With knees against his chest,
He cannot breathe air.
If he skips a day of weaving,
He is beaten fifty strokes;
He gives food to the doorkeeper,
To let him see the light of day. . . .
 See, there's no profession without a boss,
Except for the scribe; he is the boss
Hence if you know writing,
It will do better for you
Than those profession I've set before you,
Each more wretched than the other.
 Lo I have set you on god's path,
A scribe's Renenet* is on his shoulder
On the day he is born.
When he attains the council chamber,
The court. . . .
Lo, no scribe is short of food
And riches of the palace.
*Egyptian goddess of bounty and luck
CREDIT "The Satire of the Trades," Ancient Egyptian Literature, Volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms by Miriam Lichtheim. © 1973, 2006 by The Regents of the University of California. Published by the University of California Press. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
DOCUMENT 3
Harrapan pot with beads.
Harrapan bead with partially drilled tubular hole
Essay Question 2: 
Answer the following in a short essay. (several college-level paragraphs) Do not expect full credit if it is not an essay.
Remember this is worth 25 points.How was the Indus Valley region impacted culturally and politically by the invasions of Alexander the Great?