Prices and Values: Origins and Early History in the Near East

Warburton, David A.

doi:10.1017/9781108340946.004

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…It is more probable that the concept of equivalencies was developed during the third millennium BCE. 18 There does not appear to be any evidence of equivalencies in the earliest archaic documents from Mesopotamia, 19 whereas the administrative documents from the Ur III period are teeming with what appear to be commercial equivalencies based on weights in silver. 20 From the Old Babylonian period onwards, the bureaucratic administrative texts of the states use the same type of price systems as the commercial systems.…”

Section: Interconnections In the Bronze Agementioning

confidence: 96%

Egypt’s Role in the Origins of Science: An Essay in Aligning Conditions, Evidence and Interpretations

Warburton

2016

Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections

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The author argues that the evidence of observation in Egyptian third millennium BCE medicine and astronomy should allow ancient Egypt an important place in the history of science. The argument is primarily based on the absence of evidence of scientific observation in Mesopotamia preceding the Egyptian material, which renders the Egyptian observations of the movements of celestial bodies and trauma the earliest signs of science. While assigning “predictions” and “mathematical astronomy” a more important place, Assyriologists also date what they can document to long after the Egyptian observations and predictions, highlighting the chronological precedence of Egypt. Furthermore, the author stresses a complicated discourse involving the exchange of ideas that was ultimately stymied by the growing importance of religion and magic. Yet the development was not as linear as the usual versions suggest.

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Section: Interconnections In the Bronze Agementioning

confidence: 96%

Egypt’s Role in the Origins of Science: An Essay in Aligning Conditions, Evidence and Interpretations

Warburton

2016

Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections

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“…Considerations of market prices and 'values' have preoccupied humans since the Bronze Age, always entwined with moral issues of justice and even religion (Warburton 2018). From the third millennium BCE, there are documented concerns in Mesopotamia and Egypt with equivalences between weights in silver and wool, volumes of grain, surface areas of fields, labour time, and other measures, suggesting that silver served as money and a measure of exchange-value for estimating market-based prices and even wages (ibid., 57, 61-62, 67).…”

Section: World-systems From the Bronze Age To The Industrial Revolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transhistorical perspectives on commodities, fetishism, and world-systems

Hornborg

2023

Locus

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“…Many of his models and concepts are still useful, as summarized in 'Modes of trade and their spatial implications' (Renfrew 1975: figure 10). Furthermore, his critique of Polanyi´s scepticism of pre-state market exchange remains relevant (Larsson 2005; Warburton 2018;Kristiansen and Demps and Winterhalder 2019). While human social activity is somewhat lost in Renfrew's subsystems and quantitative models, they remain useful for archaeological theory building, an approach that has seen a recent revival (Demps and Winterhalder 2019).…”

Section: Long-distance Exchange and The Rise Of Social Complexitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Due to critique of its system-based top-down perspective (Stein 1999;Wilkinson 2018), a more contextualized world system approach was developed and applied to the Bronze Age (Kristiansen and Larsson 2005;Warburton 2018), even if not accepted by all (Harding 2013).…”

Section: Long-distance Exchange and The Rise Of Social Complexitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Trade before Civilization

2022

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Trade before Civilization explores the role that long-distance exchange played in the establishment and/or maintenance of social complexity, and its role in the transformation of societies from egalitarian to non-egalitarian. Bringing together research by an international and methodologically diverse team of scholars, it analyses the relationship between long-distance trade and the rise of inequality. The volume illustrates how elites used exotic prestige goods to enhance and maintain their elevated social positions in society. Global in scope, it offers case studies of early societies and sites in Europe, Asia, Oceania, North America, and Mesoamerica. Deploying a range of inter-disciplinary and cutting-edge theoretical approaches from a cross-cultural framework, the volume offers new insights and enhances our understanding of socio-political evolution. It will appeal to archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, conflict theorists, and ethnohistorians, as well as economists seeking to understand the nexus between imported luxury items and cultural evolution.

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Prices and Values: Origins and Early History in the Near East

Cited by 5 publications

References 24 publications

Egypt’s Role in the Origins of Science: An Essay in Aligning Conditions, Evidence and Interpretations

Egypt’s Role in the Origins of Science: An Essay in Aligning Conditions, Evidence and Interpretations

Transhistorical perspectives on commodities, fetishism, and world-systems

Trade before Civilization

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