Early Mesopotamia: The Presumptive State*

Richardson, Seth

doi:10.1093/pastj/gts009

Cited by 51 publications

(15 citation statements)

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“…At last, encouraged by the recent trend of social scientifically informed discussions of early Mesopotamian history (Barjamovic 2012;Fleming 2014;Garfinkle 2012;Mann 1986;Richardson 2012;von Dassow 2012), and in line with this understanding of the emergence of the primary state in early Mesopotamia, a call for the future may be made that we may need to 'bring the empire back in' for a better interpretation of the beginning of state and state politics in the rеmote ancient world, paraphrasing but fully appreciating Theda Skocpol's appeal three decades ago (Colomer 2008;Skocpol 1985).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The city of Uruk in the Late Uruk Period, then, could be accorded as an economic empire with its major difference from the Sargonic case in its lack of an infrastructure typically political and the capability to recourse to military power presumably for fiscal purposes. The earliest primary state in the form of an empire is thus no surprise since its emergence was necessarily 'utopic' or 'telescopic' (Dillehay 2007;, or 'presumptive' to use Richardson's (2012) term, when the other organizational means failed to sustain itself. Empires were natural while the particular form of empire, the state in it was primary an invention as well as the art of politics.…”

Section: State and Empire In Early Mesopotamiamentioning

confidence: 99%

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State and Empire in Early Mesopotamia

Wang¹

2019

SEH

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Regarded as one of the few regions in the world that saw civilization, early Mesopotamia has been featuring heavy in discussions of the important 'firsts', the most significant of which would be the emergence of the primary state (Childe 1952; Trigger 2003; Wittfogel 1957). In our division of academic labour, the emergence of the primary state is mostly a topic for the archaeologists and anthropologists, while the traditional historian seldom gets his hands dirty in such theoretical issues. In light of recent rethinkings of fundamental assumptions in modern historiography (Smail 2005; Smail and Shryock 2013), however, it becomes urgent to look for an integrated view of history from its rightful beginning. The following is one attempt as such at the dynamic emergence and the characteristics of the earliest state societies in early Mesopotamia with special attention to the integration of theoretical discussions and insights from philological research (cf. Forest 2005; Postgate 1994a; Stein 2005). INTRODUCTORY NOTES In discussions of the earliest state societies in the ancient Near East early Mesopotamia is often spoken of without further temporal differentiation, though the focal time period is usually the Middle to Late Uruk Periods when the earliest primary state is supposed to have taken its place (Postgate 1994a; cf. Richardson 2012). In philological circles, when coming to the question of the earliest political for

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: State and Empire In Early Mesopotamiamentioning

confidence: 99%

State and Empire in Early Mesopotamia

Wang¹

2019

SEH

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“…Further, they pushed the emergence of private property and competition over scarce resources back into the Neolithic, a view that is also held by some colleagues in archaeology (Mattison et al, 2016). In doing so, they not only legitimize modern economic and social practices by suggesting that they are part and parcel of human history from the very beginning, but they also ignore the work of scholars who have studied these ancient societies up close and argue that ancient states were extremely weak and incapable of modern forms of exploitation (Richardson, 2012), and that there is no evidence for persistent (intergenerational) social inequalities in many Neolithic and Chalcolithic (that is pre-urban) societies (Price & Bar-Yosef, 2010;Hodder, 2014;Kohler et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Crafting Values in Chalcolithic Cyprus and Anatolia

Düring

2021

Frontiers in Economic History

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In the Chalcolithic of Cyprus and Anatolia, we can document the emergence of exchange networks that were centred on highly standardized craft products. These exchange systems, organized around figurative items crafted from stone, set the stage for the later development of long-distance exchange networks of 'prestige goods' made from metals and gemstones of often distant provenance. This earliest exchange of figurative stone objects, which occurred in egalitarian societies, remains poorly investigated. Why were such objects considered desirable in the first place? How can we understand the rise of the shared regimes of value that they objectify? In this paper, I will present some first ideas to understand this problem in relation to anthropological studies on value, and I will argue that the initial creation of value was rooted in shared cultural repertoires of craftsmanship.

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“…209-10). Or in the words of Richardson, "the full control of early states over their own rural zones and border marches remained an unfinished project more than a millennium after they first appeared" (Richardson 2012). Rather than behaving as binary opposites, state-centred and nomadic or non-state formations, as Porter (2012) insists, have frequently enjoyed relations of mutual influence and exchange-one of the morals of Gilgamesh and Enkidu mythical liaison.…”

Section: Holocene Legacies Planetary Futuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

(Un)Earthing Civilization: Holocene Climate Crisis, City-State Origins and the Birth of Writing

Clark

2019

Humanities

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Today, concern about population displacement triggered by climate change is prompting some sovereign states to tighten security measures, as well as inciting ethically and politically motivated calls to relax border controls. This paper explores resonances between the current climate predicament and events in the mid-Holocene. Paleoclimatic and archaeological evidence is reviewed, suggesting that an abrupt turn to cooler, drier weather in the 4th millennium BCE triggered high volume migration to fertile river valleys—most fully documented in Mesopotamia but also visible in other regions around the world. This unprecedented agglomeration of bodies has been linked to the emergence of intensive irrigated agriculture and the rise of city-states. In conversation with the ancient Sumerian Gilgamesh epic, this paper draws upon archaeological research to conceptualize urban wall building and emergent practices of graphical notation as different forms of mediation. Both city walls and early writing, it is argued, deal with the interplay of mobilism and sedentarism, and both ‘media’ entail tactile, plastic use of local materials—namely riverbank clay. This paper addresses the paradox that the underpinning of ‘civilization’ by these once experimental media may now be fundamentally restricting socio-political, cultural, cognitive and embodied capacities to engage effectively with climate-driven upheaval. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Early Mesopotamia: The Presumptive State*

Cited by 51 publications

References 0 publications

State and Empire in Early Mesopotamia

State and Empire in Early Mesopotamia

Crafting Values in Chalcolithic Cyprus and Anatolia

(Un)Earthing Civilization: Holocene Climate Crisis, City-State Origins and the Birth of Writing

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