Mesopotamian Interaction Spheres

While traded goods are routinely identified in Nubian archaeology, there have been no comprehensive discussions of economic exchange (“trade”) in ancient and medieval Nubian societies. This chapter introduces some broader perspectives on ancient economies, including Polanyi’s modes of distribution (reciprocity, redistribution, and market exchange), to highlight research questions that Nubian archaeology might begin to ask. The chapter summarizes evidence for routes and modes of transportation, makes some preliminary observations on the history of economic structures in Nubia, and presents more detailed evidence for trade between the Nile Valley and the Red Sea in the Meroitic Period

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Political Economy in Early Mesopotamian States

Yoffee

1995

Annu. Rev. Anthropol.

118

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An enormous amount of work has been done in recent years on what can be called the political economy of the earliest states in ancient Mesopotamia. These investigations appraise the organization of the great manorial estates of temples and palaces and show that local systems of power and authority coexisted with and often resisted centralized governments. It is also apparent that social institutions were permeable and that individuals played multiple and varied roles, reducing risks, cooperating, and competing as political fortunes changed over time. The interaction of autonomous city-states within a Mesopotamian cultural sphere has been foregrounded in certain work. Studies of production, trade, and consumption are reviewed from ca 3200-1600 B.C.

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Mesopotamian Interaction Spheres

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

History Without Texts: Interdisciplinary Interpretive Methods for Understanding the Early Iron Age

History Without Texts: Interdisciplinary Interpretive Methods for Understanding the Early Iron Age

Trade in Ancient Nubia

Political Economy in Early Mesopotamian States

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