Tate Paulette
I am an archaeologist, specializing in Mesopotamia, Cyprus, and the ancient Near East. My work revolves around inequality, state making, and the politics of food, with a particular focus on agricultural practices and the production/consumption of alcoholic beverages. I am an Assistant Professor in the History department at NC State. I received my PhD from the department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago, where I completed a dissertation about grain storage in Early Bronze Age Mesopotamia. I am currently co-directing an archaeological research project and field school at the site of Makounta-Voules-Mersinoudia in western Cyprus (makountavoules.com). In recent years, I have also spearheaded a collaborative effort to recreate Mesopotamian beer using authentic ingredients, equipment, and brewing techniques. My first book, titled In the Land of Ninkasi: A History of Beer in Ancient Mesopotamia, will be published by Oxford University Press in the summer of 2024. I am also editing A Cultural History of Wine in Antiquity for Bloomsbury Publishing.
Address: North Carolina State University
350 Withers Hall
Campus Box 8108
Raleigh, NC 27695-8108
Address: North Carolina State University
350 Withers Hall
Campus Box 8108
Raleigh, NC 27695-8108
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Rigorous in its scholarship, yet staunchly unpretentious in style, In the Land of Ninkasi weaves together insights drawn from archaeological remains, ancient works of art, and cuneiform texts. Paulette uses a series of narrative vignettes and thought experiments to interrogate specific pieces of evidence and pull the reader, step-by-step, into the process of analysis and interpretation, explaining exactly what we know and how we know it. Paulette also recounts some of his own experiences recreating ancient beer and provides a brew-it-yourself recipe to try at home. A feast for beer geeks and history buffs alike, In the Land of Ninkasi reveals the fascinating secrets of one of the oldest brewing traditions in recorded history.
I argue that the archaeological evidence for grain storage facilities – extra-household facilities, in particular – offers one means of addressing this deceptively simple question. My study is built around a series of site-based case studies drawn from Northern and Southern Mesopotamia. The focus is explicitly quantitative. In each case, I provide a detailed description of the available evidence, but I focus on compiling information about storage capacity. I then perform a series of calculations to estimate the number of people and the percentage of the population that could have been supported with the stored grain. I emphasize the uncertainty involved in these calculations and also the importance of taking the risk-buffering function of grain storage into account. Overall, the evidence that I have collected is extremely diverse and does not map easily onto the idealized image of a centripetally organized storage economy. This mismatch could be explained in a number of ways, but I suggest that we may need to reconsider both the structure and the magnitude of the institutional storage economy.
results, and describe our plan for future work at the site. We also present the results of a rescue project that we conducted on behalf of the Department of Antiquities: surface survey and geophysical study at the site of Stroumpi-Pigi-Agios Andronikos, a small prehistoric site just outside the town of Stroumpi.
Rigorous in its scholarship, yet staunchly unpretentious in style, In the Land of Ninkasi weaves together insights drawn from archaeological remains, ancient works of art, and cuneiform texts. Paulette uses a series of narrative vignettes and thought experiments to interrogate specific pieces of evidence and pull the reader, step-by-step, into the process of analysis and interpretation, explaining exactly what we know and how we know it. Paulette also recounts some of his own experiences recreating ancient beer and provides a brew-it-yourself recipe to try at home. A feast for beer geeks and history buffs alike, In the Land of Ninkasi reveals the fascinating secrets of one of the oldest brewing traditions in recorded history.
I argue that the archaeological evidence for grain storage facilities – extra-household facilities, in particular – offers one means of addressing this deceptively simple question. My study is built around a series of site-based case studies drawn from Northern and Southern Mesopotamia. The focus is explicitly quantitative. In each case, I provide a detailed description of the available evidence, but I focus on compiling information about storage capacity. I then perform a series of calculations to estimate the number of people and the percentage of the population that could have been supported with the stored grain. I emphasize the uncertainty involved in these calculations and also the importance of taking the risk-buffering function of grain storage into account. Overall, the evidence that I have collected is extremely diverse and does not map easily onto the idealized image of a centripetally organized storage economy. This mismatch could be explained in a number of ways, but I suggest that we may need to reconsider both the structure and the magnitude of the institutional storage economy.
results, and describe our plan for future work at the site. We also present the results of a rescue project that we conducted on behalf of the Department of Antiquities: surface survey and geophysical study at the site of Stroumpi-Pigi-Agios Andronikos, a small prehistoric site just outside the town of Stroumpi.
After an introduction to the basic principles of fermentation, we will move through a series of regional case studies. In each, we will piece together evidence for the places where alcoholic beverages were produced, as well as the technologies and techniques employed. As far as possible, we will consider the beverages themselves – their tastes, textures, and alcohol content – and their effects on imbibers. We will also examine the broader context of consumption, that is, the places, events, and occasions where alcohlic beverages were consumed, often in symbolically loaded circumstances. And we will consider the broader significance of alcoholic beverages on the social, cultural, political, and economic stage.
This lecture- and discussion-based course provides an introduction to the history of agriculture in global perspective. The course is organized around a series of big questions. We will explore each of these questions (broken down into sub-topics) by engaging with case studies drawn from diverse places and times. Over the course of the semester, you will complete three take-home, written exams that ask you to craft your own answers to the big questions, drawing on the assigned readings, as well as in-class lectures, videos, and discussions.
This is a writing-intensive course. Alongside our collective exploration of urban history and the archaeology of urbanism in Mesopotamia, you will be tasked with producing an original research paper of 4,800–6,000 words (approximately 16–20 pages, double-spaced). A significant proportion of your time, both in and out of class, will be devoted to this paper, and the course is designed to guide you through the research and writing process.
You will leave this course with a solid grounding in the history, archaeology, and art of the ancient Mediterranean world. You will also leave with an appreciation for the ways in which developments in this key region – often considered the cradle of western civilization – have helped to define and give shape to the modern world. In the process, you will learn to engage critically with a wide variety of historical sources, and you will emerge with a deeper appreciation for the particular challenges and potentials of these different types of evidence and different modes of engaging with the past.
In many cases, the brewery was also the kitchen, and brewing was simply another method of preparing food. With the exception of specialized, institutional breweries, it is unlikely that brewing was strictly segregated or required a completely distinct set of equipment. As a result, archaeologists have had trouble identifying the physical remains of brewing in Mesopotamia. In this paper, we argue that a focus on the material dimensions of beer production can help us to recover traces of the knowledge, expertise, and ingenuity that emerged and evolved within the space of the brewery (or kitchen). We piece together archaeological and written evidence for the people who produced beer, the tools and techniques that they employed, and the places where they worked their magic.
First, we discuss the difficulty of identifying archaeological evidence for the production and consumption of beer, and we describe some of our own efforts to make progress in this direction. The point here is straightforward. Archaeology has the potential to transform our understanding of the spaces where beer was produced and consumed in Mesopotamian cities and towns, but we need a better means of identifying the relevant material culture assemblages.
Second, we draw attention to a more challenging issue: the archaeological invisibility of intoxication; that is, the invisibility of alcohol and its effects. For the Mesopotamians – as much as for us – what gave beer its distinctive power and appeal was its psychoactive nature. Beer was intoxicating, and, because of this, it was associated with drunkenness, disorientation, sex, prostitution, music, carousing, arguments, ideas, attraction, intrigue, trickery, seduction, anger, jubilation, fellowship, and mysticism. How can archaeologists access and analyze the intoxicated atmosphere that must have pervaded and, indeed, defined many parts of the urban landscape? How can we recover this “angels’ share,” this spirit that has evaporated into the ether, leaving us with a stripped down, sanitized vision of production and consumption – a vision that, ultimately, has little to do with beer?"
In this paper we focus on fire installations, one of the most important components of the brewing assemblage. The cuneiform evidence suggests that at least two types of oven were involved in the brewing process: the udun.bappir and the udun.titab. Using a contextual analysis that combines archaeological, written, and ethnographic evidence, we attempt to identify the physical remains of these ovens in the archaeological record. We argue that a more complete knowledge of the material culture of brewing can transform our understanding of the role of beer in Mesopotamia.
My presentation focuses on grain storage, a technology that had long served as a risk buffer at the household level but that was increasingly playing a role within the institutionally managed redistributive economy. I discuss the preliminary results of an effort to draw together archaeological and written evidence for grain storage practices from across northern and southern Mesopotamia. Because of its ambivalent role as both a safety net and a tool of domination, grain storage provides an ideal point from which to open up a series of questions about household autonomy and the shifting boundaries of institutional domination in Mesopotamia. In the current presentation, I will emphasize, in particular, the value of stepping back to adopt a regional perspective on the evidence for grain storage in third-millennium Mesopotamia.
In this presentation, I will be highlighting some preliminary results of a broader project that is drawing together a wide range of archaeological and written evidence for grain storage in northern and southern Mesopotamia during the third millennium BC. This project aims to distinguish among the different systems of centralized storage, to chart their development over time, and to identify some of the basic parameters that governed their operation. At the same time, it is an investigation of the ways in which these centralized systems articulated with, came into conflict with, or were bypassed and subverted by the practices of households and communities that were only nominally or partially subsumed within the institutional sphere.
• The last image uploaded by Jabhat Ansar al-Din and Jabhat al-Nusra to document their destruction of the Nabhaniyeh shrine (cf. Weekly Report 24 Incident Report SHI15-009) is a photo of a participant holding up an edict, which according to online sources indicates their sanction by the Sharia Court in Aleppo and the Countryside.
• An ISIL video released on Youtube shows the deliberate, performative destruction of five religious sites in Iraq occurring in 2014. IHI Incident Report IHI15-013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xKJZ1dJrg8 (pp. 23–27)
•Digital Globe satellite imagery reveals large-scale looting and earthmoving activity with heavy machinery at the Bronze Age mound of Tell Bi’a in Raqqa Governorate starting in October 2013 and ongoing looting. SHI Incident Report SHI 15-023.
•Increased combat in Damascus, Aleppo, and the Dead Cities region markedly increased rates of damage in Aleppo, Damascus, and the Dead Cities region of Idlib Governorate.
•ISIL militants deliberately destroyed library collections in Mosul’s Central Library system. IHI Incident Report IHI 15-017
● Sources in Syria (APSA) provided data on the condition of archaeological sites in rural areas affected by prolonged conflict, demonstrating that small-scale looting and damage from agriculture are proliferating in the absence of central oversight in Syria.
● Recent preliminary analysis of Digital Globe satellite imagery of the Tell Abyad District of Raqqa Governorate shows recent damage to archaeological sites linked to militarization and unregulated digging since the start of the conflict. Damage has increased since ISIL secured its control over the district in late June 2014. Tell Abyad is widely reported as a center for cross-border smuggling, and the same satellite images show likely breaches in the border fence and well-worn footpaths leading from Akçakale in southern Turkey to a militarized archaeological mound west of the town of Tell Abyad. See Incident Report SHI 15-026 and 15-029.
● Recent Digital Globe satellite imagery confirms recent DGAM reporting of damage to the site of Resafa (Sergiopolis) in Raqqa Governorate. The images show abundant evidence of militarization, probably linked to control of the area by ISIL and its affiliates. See Incident Report SHI 15-025.
• The Syrian Regime 2015 southern campaign (“Ali Allahdadi for Quneitra Martyrs”) jeopardizes heritage in southwestern Syria’s Hauran Plain. See the special report contained here for events and the sites involved since the start of the offensive on February 7, 2015. SHI Incident Report SHI15-0032 to 15-0041
• The British House of Commons undertook a general debate on the destruction and looting of historic sites in Syria and Iraq.
•Sources inside and outside Iraq continue to release reports of intentional destructions of heritage places in northern Iraq by ISIL. Many reports remain unconfirmed and have not been assessed due to a lack of photographic evidence and recent high-resolution satellite imagery or the absence of visible damage in recent high-resolution satellite imagery. In some cases of reported but unconfirmed damage to archaeological sites, ISIL has not yet claimed responsibility. ASOR CHI and other monitoring groups urge that caution be exercised in reporting on these alleged incidents. ASOR CHI Incident Reports IHI 15-0050, 15-0071, 0072, and 0073.
The results of the first rapid response survey designed by ASOR CHI and implemented by the Syrian Research and Evaluation Organization (SREO) are now available (see below). This ten-question survey is designed to investigate antiquities looting, sales, and trafficking, in Syria and northern Iraq. The first survey comprising 100 responses from the area of Raqqa, Syria confirms the ubiquity of antiquities theft, its profitability, and its facilitation by foreigners — here understood to be Islamic State. The survey supports previous claims of Islamic State taxing revenues/rights to loot, traffick, and sell antiquities and the organization’s outsourcing of cultural property crime.
•The Idlib Museum in Syria is increasingly threatened by the recent capture of the city by rebel forces — the museum is currently under the control of the Islamist/Salafist group Ahrar ash-Sham.
•The capture of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Ancient City of Bosra by rebel forces may place this site at heightened risk of destruction. Recent combat in the area has impacted the site.
•The Syrian Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums recently released new information on looting at the UNESCO World Heritage Site Ancient City of Palmyra.
• In Iraq, ISIL continued its campaign of performative deliberate destructions of heritage places and the release of associated branded media highlighting ISIL attacks. The recent ISIL attack on the Mosul Museum and archaeological site of Nineveh were featured in the ISIL publication Dabiq 8 accompanied by what has become a typical ISIL Jihadist-Salafist ideological “justification” for these blatant war crimes. On its affiliated websites, ISIL released a new video showing the intentional destruction of ancient sculptures and standing architectural elements at the UNESCO World Heritage Site Ancient City of Hatra.
• The Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums of Syria (DGAM) released its Quarterly Report (January 1–March 31, 2015) on heritage damage in Syria.
ISIL deliberately destroyed the Shia Shrine of Sheikh Mohammad ibn ‘Ali near Tadmor, Syria.
ISIL deliberately destroyed the Tomb and shrine of Shagaf/Nizar Abu Behaeddine, located south of modern Tadmor.
ISIL engaged in the destruction of modern graves in the cemeteries of Tadmor, Syria.
Additional information documenting the damage to the Ma’arat al‐Numan Archaeological Museum in Syria caused by SARG forces.
John Whittingdale, UK Secretary of State for Culture, Media, and Sport, announced the UK will ratify the 1954 Hague Convention.
This workshop explores the evidence for beer cultures in Bronze Age Mesopotamia, that is, distinctive ways of making, drinking, appreciating, and understanding beer. Decades of painstaking research into the production and consumption of beer in Mesopotamia have laid a solid foundation, and the time is now ripe for a detailed consideration of variability in space and time. It has long been clear that the beer scene was neither homogeneous nor static across the millennia of Mesopotamian history, but only rarely has the archaeological and written evidence been brought to bear on this issue in a detailed and sustained fashion. This workshop aims to take a first step toward recognizing the diversity of brewing and drinking cultures in ancient Mesopotamia. To this end, we ask participants to focus their attention on the people behind the artifacts and texts: on practices, customs, conventions, bodies of knowledge, routines, rules of thumb, preferences, movements, gestures, techniques, and traditions. We envision a multidisciplinary conversation that brings archaeologists, Assyriologists, and art historians together into productive dialogue, with an eye toward possibilities for collaboration.