Hi, Paul, sorry for the delay.

I think you have the time line reversed. The area was originally agregrarian / matralinear and grew into priest-king control as they grew patriarcal. Something is ringing in my head about it, but I'll have to look at my books later. I think I'm remembering something from a Journal, but I'll get back to you.

Michele

hi paul,
do a google search on the priestess enheduanna. there are some 'scholarly' sites that have translated her hymns...
(i believe it was the opposite turn of events you described in your post, and it coincided with akkadian invasion, then philistine wars...? don't remember.) in her paeans to the goddess inanna, she describes the events from her perspective & the cultural stuff that accompanied the political change. enheduanna is also the first 'signed' author in history... cool stuff.
inanna was a goddess of war AND fertility.
n

Hey matey, as it happens I am moving to Australia tomorrow... and I wrote my main undergraduate thesis on deity and hierarchy in proto-Arabaic polytheistic and polydaemonic religions - this basically looked at the events on the ground and showed how they were reflected in the changing order of the gods of the time.

The others who answered you are right to say the shift moved from matriarchal to patriarchal and from earth-based and diparate fertility to either rain or river-based centralised culture. The shift is gradual to the landowner economy from the state civil service (essentially the priesthood) and is not uniform over the region in fact there is a large time and space overlap but the Semitic (Akkadian-Babylonian) era entrenched the earlier shifts with land and property rights granted to private individuals - most probably due to the fact that priviledged families did not all turn to the priesthood but needed other means to protect their priviledge.
Happy to chat more on the subject. Take care and hope to hear from you soon.
Yasir