Descent, private and public: Social environments in early Mesopotamia (Old Babylonian period)

Abstract

Elaborating this theme, my definition of 'space' and borderlines is cognitive rather than architectural, i. e. it does not refer to built environment but to space as a basis for distinctions so that once a distinction is drawn, the spaces, states, or contents on each side of the boundary, being distinct, can be indicated. 4 1 This is a somewhat extended version of a paper given during the 1999 Berlin-Copenhagen seminar. I am thankful to Jakob Dahl, Chiara de Cesari, Hans-Georg Gebel, Hartmut Kühne, Mogens T. Larsen, Bernd Müller-Neuhof, and Hans J. Nissen for helpful comments. Gebhard Selz' and Norman Yoffee's sceptial suggestions via e-mail helped me rethink my original argumentation. Without Emily Schalk's corrections of the original draft my prose would have remained much more opaque than it still is. 2 See e.g. the debate on the so-called "Clinton videos" (Maresch 1998). 3 Baecker 1999-4 Brown 1979:1.