Order, Legitimacy, and Wealth in Ancient States

Order, Legitimacy, and Wealth in Ancient States PDF

Author: Janet Richards

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2000-12-07

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 9780521776714

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Three terms, Order, Legitimacy and Wealth, delineate a comparative approach to ancient civilizations initially developed by John Baines, Professor of Egyptology at the University of Oxford, and Norman Yoffee, Professor of Archaeology and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan, in 1992. In an influential paper, they compared and contrasted the nature of social and political power in Egypt and Mesopotamia. This was the first analysis of the impact of wealth and high culture on the development of states. The contributors to the present book, first published in 2000, apply the classic Baines/Yoffee model to a range of ancient states around the world, providing documentary and archaeological evidence on the production and uses of 'high culture', literature and monumental architecture. There are chapters on Mesoamerica, the Andes, the Indus Valley, the Han Dynasty of China, and Greece during the Roman empire, while others expand on the original Egypt-Mesopotamia comparison.

In the House of Heqanakht

In the House of Heqanakht PDF

Author: M. Victoria Almansa-Villatoro

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2022-11-28

Total Pages: 625

ISBN-13: 9004459537

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In the House of Heqanakht: Text and Context in Ancient Egypt gathers Egyptological articles in honor of James P. Allen, Charles Edwin Wilbour Professor of Egyptology at Brown University.

Ancient Egyptian Administration

Ancient Egyptian Administration PDF

Author: Juan Carlos Moreno García

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2013-06-03

Total Pages: 1111

ISBN-13: 9004250085

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Ancient Egyptian Administration provides the first comprehensive overview of the structure, organization and evolution of the pharaonic administration from its origins to the end of the Late Period. The book not only focuses on bureaucracy, departments, and official practices but also on more informal issues like patronage, the limits in the actual exercise of authority, and the competing interests between institutions and factions within the ruling elite. Furthermore, general chapters devoted to the best-documented periods in Egyptian history are supplemented by more detailed ones dealing with specific archives, regions, and administrative problems. The volume thus produced by an international team of leading scholars will be an indispensable, up-to-date, tool of research covering a much-neglected aspect of pharaonic civilization.

Writing and the Ancient State

Writing and the Ancient State PDF

Author: Haicheng Wang

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-05-12

Total Pages: 435

ISBN-13: 1107028124

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Writing and the Ancient State is a comparative study of the use of writing to create and maintain order in early states.

Violence, Kinship and the Early Chinese State

Violence, Kinship and the Early Chinese State PDF

Author: Roderick Campbell

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-05-03

Total Pages: 363

ISBN-13: 110818717X

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Situated between myth and history, the Shang has been hailed both as China's first historical dynasty and as one of the world's primary civilizations. This book is an up-to-date synthesis of the archaeological, palaeographic and transmitted textual evidence for the Shang polity at Anyang (c.1250–1050 BCE). Roderick Campbell argues that violence was not the antithesis of civilization at Shang Anyang, but rather its foundation in war and sacrifice. He explores the social economy of practices and beliefs that produced the ancestral order of the Shang polity. From the authority of posthumously deified kings, to the animalization of human sacrificial victims, the ancestral ritual complex structured the Shang world through its key institutions of war, sacrifice, and burial. Mediated by hierarchical lineages, participation in these practices was basic to being Shang. This volume, which is based on the most up-to-date evidence, offers comprehensive and cutting-edge insight into the Chinese Bronze Age civilization.

Shamanism and the Origin of States

Shamanism and the Origin of States PDF

Author: Sarah Milledge Nelson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-07-23

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 1315420279

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Sarah Milledge Nelson’s bold thesis is that the development of states in East Asia—China, Japan, Korea—was an outgrowth of the leadership in smaller communities guided by shamans. Using a mixture of historical documents, mythology, archaeological data, and ethnographic studies of contemporary shamans, she builds a case for shamans being the driving force behind the blossoming of complex societies. More interesting, shamans in East Asia are generally women, who used their access to the spirit world to take leadership roles. This work challenges traditional interpretations growth of Asian states, which is overlaid with later Confucian notions of gender roles. Written at a level accessible for undergraduates, this concise work will be fascinating reading for those interested in East Asian archaeology, politics, and society; in gender roles, and in shamanism.

Ancient Pakistan - An Archaeological History

Ancient Pakistan - An Archaeological History PDF

Author: Mukhtar Ahmed

Publisher: Amazon

Published: 2014-10-18

Total Pages: 477

ISBN-13: 1496082087

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This is the fourth volume of the Ancient Pakistan - An Archaeological History. It deals with a number of issues of the Indus Civilization, which are primarily of theoretical importance. The main topics that have been discussed are the social and political organization of the Harappan society, the Harappan religion, the Indus script and language, the beginning and the end of this vast civilization, and the recent attempts in creating some myths around the Indus Civilization. Since this volume is primarily dedicated to the theoretical and the abstract, descriptive material is kept to a minimum.

Social Theory in Archaeology and Ancient History

Social Theory in Archaeology and Ancient History PDF

Author: Geoff Emberling

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015-11-24

Total Pages: 583

ISBN-13: 1316453553

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At a time when archaeology has turned away from questions of the long-term and large scale, this collection of essays reflects on some of the big questions in archaeology and ancient history - how and why societies have grown in scale and complexity, how they have maintained and discarded aspects of their own cultural heritage, and how they have collapsed. In addressing these long-standing questions of broad interest and importance, the authors develop counter-narratives - new ways of understanding what used to be termed 'cultural evolution'. Encompassing the Middle East and Egypt, India, Southeast Asia, Australia, the American Southwest and Mesoamerica, the fourteen essays offer perspectives on long-term cultural trajectories; on cities, states and empires; on collapse; and on the relationship between archaeology and history. The book concludes with a commentary by one of the major voices in archaeological theory, Norman Yoffee.

Archaeology and State Theory

Archaeology and State Theory PDF

Author: Bruce Routledge

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2013-11-21

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 1472504100

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After neo-evolutionism, how does one talk about the pre-modern state? Over the past two decades archaeological research has shifted decisively from check-list identifications of the state as an evolutionary type to studies of how power and authority were constituted in specific polities. Developing Gramsci's concept of hegemony, this book provides an accessible discussion of general principles that serve to help us understand and organise these new directions in archaeological research. Throughout this book, conceptual issues are illustrated by means of case studies drawn from Madagascar, Mesopotamia, the Inca, the Maya and Greece.

Archaic States

Archaic States PDF

Author: Gary M. Feinman

Publisher: School of American Research Ad

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 476

ISBN-13:

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In this volume, the authors highlight the diversity and instability of ancient states and how widely they have varied through time and across space. Archaic States presents new comparative studies of early states in the Old and New Worlds, including the Near East, India and Pakistan, Egypt, Mesoamerica, and the Andes. In the process, it helps to define key avenues for research and discussion in the decades ahead.

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