D Brandherm; E Heymans; D Hofmann, Gifts, Goods and Money. Comparing currency and circulation systems in past societies. p. 9-44, Oxford: Archeopress, British Archaeological Reports International Series 2386 (with link to the full book), 2018
Research on weight systems used during the Bronze Age, prior to the introduction of writing, gene... more Research on weight systems used during the Bronze Age, prior to the introduction of writing, generally assumes that the widespread use of metal as ‘commodity currency’ eventually resulted in the adoption of widely shared scales of measurement. Many studies aimed at the identification of recurrent weight values as multiples and/or submultiples of theoretical standard units. This approach faces two limitations: 1) the absence of written sources, or at least statistically sound samples, makes it difficult to either validate or reject any reconstruction of prehistoric systems; 2) in the literate Ancient World, different polities usually retained distinct systems. Here an alternative analytical framework is outlined, making use of elementary statistics and cross-historical comparisons, and relying positively on ‘indeterminacy’ and ‘approximation’ rather than on ‘exactness’. Recurrent weight measures can correspond to ‘Standard Average Quantities’, rather than representing arrays of exact multiples/submultiples of given units. By departing from a ‘fractional’ theoretical logic, one can observe that constant exchange practice may have produced the normalisation of ‘tradable quantities’ and that this can happen without necessarily implying the unification of local systems.
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the Erbil Plain, 28 km south-west of the modern city of Erbil, Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The site is
investigated by the Italian Expedition in the Erbil Plain (MAIPE) of the University of Milan, directed by
prof. L. Peyronel. The site of Helawa is occupied from the Neolithic to the Late Chalcolithic 3 (VII-IV
millennium BC); it seems then abandoned in the course of the Late Chalcolithic 3 and later reoccupied
during the Late Bronze Age (II millennium BC). During the 2018 campaign, 37 clay bullets were found
in Ubaid levels, investigated in the long step trench opened along the southern slope of the main mound.
Widely distributed in different contexts across the ancient Near East and beyond, it is still unclear how
they were produced and used. In this article, we analyze evidence of clay bullets from different ancient
Near Eastern contexts, taking into account morphological, functional and contextual data with the aim
of proposing techno-functional interpretations through the examination of the clay bullets found at
Helawa.
point of view. The National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen legally hosts a collection of around 5000 artefacts dating from Period J, which were left largely unpublished after Ingholt’s and Fugmann’s preliminary studies between the 1930s and the 1950s. Therefore, in 2015 the present authors began to undertake a complete re-examination of the Hama Bronze Age corpus, based on the artefacts and the field documentation stored at the museum, aiming at a comprehensive publication of these records. This article
presents the first results of this joint initiative, focusing on a group of 14 vessels and sherds from Phases
J6–3 (dated to late Early Bronze IVA and B, ca. 2400–2000 BC) that reveal a thus far unexploited potential of the Hama corpus in Copenhagen for the discussion of inter-regional connections during the Early Bronze Age. In fact, the location of Hama contributed to its importance in communication routes, and the wealth of imported ceramics in Period J attests to its connections to multiple networks.
the Erbil Plain, 28 km south-west of the modern city of Erbil, Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The site is
investigated by the Italian Expedition in the Erbil Plain (MAIPE) of the University of Milan, directed by
prof. L. Peyronel. The site of Helawa is occupied from the Neolithic to the Late Chalcolithic 3 (VII-IV
millennium BC); it seems then abandoned in the course of the Late Chalcolithic 3 and later reoccupied
during the Late Bronze Age (II millennium BC). During the 2018 campaign, 37 clay bullets were found
in Ubaid levels, investigated in the long step trench opened along the southern slope of the main mound.
Widely distributed in different contexts across the ancient Near East and beyond, it is still unclear how
they were produced and used. In this article, we analyze evidence of clay bullets from different ancient
Near Eastern contexts, taking into account morphological, functional and contextual data with the aim
of proposing techno-functional interpretations through the examination of the clay bullets found at
Helawa.
point of view. The National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen legally hosts a collection of around 5000 artefacts dating from Period J, which were left largely unpublished after Ingholt’s and Fugmann’s preliminary studies between the 1930s and the 1950s. Therefore, in 2015 the present authors began to undertake a complete re-examination of the Hama Bronze Age corpus, based on the artefacts and the field documentation stored at the museum, aiming at a comprehensive publication of these records. This article
presents the first results of this joint initiative, focusing on a group of 14 vessels and sherds from Phases
J6–3 (dated to late Early Bronze IVA and B, ca. 2400–2000 BC) that reveal a thus far unexploited potential of the Hama corpus in Copenhagen for the discussion of inter-regional connections during the Early Bronze Age. In fact, the location of Hama contributed to its importance in communication routes, and the wealth of imported ceramics in Period J attests to its connections to multiple networks.
The paper seeks at revising the evidence of seal impressed cooking pots from Hama J (8-1), making use of both published and unpublished vessels, now kept at the Nationalmuseet of Denmark. The technical characteristics of the seal impressions (i.e. position and orientation) and the iconography will be correlated with any variation in the physical features of the vessels – such as ware, dimensions, or shape – in order to detect possible statistically meaningful associations useful for reconstructing the dynamics of production and distribution of the seal impressed pots in the Northern Levant, throwing also new light on the purpose(s) of impressions.
their most practical meaning, weight standards serve the purpose of allowing the commensuration between goods and value to
be quantified against an objective frame of reference, and noted down in administrative records. Weight standards were issued
as “norms”, and as such they were often ratified through royal edicts and enforced by public officers. But how far do official
standards concur in shaping the practical experience, in particular in economic transactions, and ultimately in producing the
materiality we observe in the archaeological record?
Is there any regular pattern we may observe in weighed goods, that we can use to infer normatively-induced economic
behaviour? In the attempt to answer such questions, this study is set to empirically address the relation between norm and practice
in the formation of the archaeological record, in instances of economic behaviour of Near Eastern Bronze Age states. The study
of coherent assemblages of balance weights reveals much about official standards,how widely were they acknowledged within
a given territory and how far were different official systems reciprocally interconnected. However, from a material perspective,
the relation between balance weights and weighed goods remains somewhat obscure. In order to address such a relation, a
comparative statistical analysis of two coherent material assemblages will be presented, from the Middle Bronze Age levels at Tell
Mardikh/Ebla (2000-1600 BC): 1) the assemblage of balance weights found in different buildings (palatial, religious, defensive and
domestic) throughout the Old Syrian town and 2) the unpublished silver hoard containing 171 pieces (ingots, rings, chains, scrap
metal) found beneath the floor of a dwelling located on the south-eastern slopes of the Acropolis.
The hypothesis to be tested is that the distribution of the weight values of the silver ingots, scraps and fragments – which the
hoard is composed of – may reveal substantial analogies with that of the balance weights from the same site. The choice to focus
on a silver hoard is dictated by the fact that this metal was, at the time, the main medium of exchange and standard of value, and
thus the distribution of silver objects is most likely to reflect normatively-induced behaviour.
The two contexts will be analyzed through quantal analysis and frequency distribution, and the results will be compared. The
former method stands as a standard in Ancient Eastern and Mediterranean metrology in the study of balance weights, whereas
the latter was refined by one of the Authors in previous researches on Bronze Age Europe, where the lack of balance weights urges to focus, instead, on weighed metal.
In interpreting our results, we acknowledge that norm and practice are the two sides of a same coin, in that they stand as complementary aspects of real-world economies; therefore, understanding the interplay requires first to tackle each aspect
through the appropriate methodology.
four-folded division (Ubaid 1–4), based on the reanalysis of the long stratified sequence from Eridu.
This chronology has been further refined, introducing two more phases, that is the Ubaid 0 or Oueili
period and the Ubaid 5 or Terminal Ubaid. The first occupation of the southern alluvial plain dates back
to the Ubaid 0, while it is during the Ubaid 3–4, that many elements of the southern material culture
spread over a broad geographical area, extending far beyond Mesopotamia into Syria, southeast Anatolia
and Iran. From the 1970s the intensification of field activities in the latter areas made the focus shift
away from the Mesopotamian heartland, allowing to better define the Late Ubaid period (Ubaid 3–4 or
‘Northern Ubaid’ in Upper Mesopotamia) out of the southern alluvial plain and to elaborate different
interpretative models on the so-called ‘Ubaid phenomenon’. New researches in Southern Mesopotamia
are crucial in order to bring the focus back on the Ubaid period in its core area; data from Nigin are all the
more relevant, since they contribute to better define this period in the area of Lagash, barely touched by
previous researches, which focused instead on the areas of Ur, Eridu, ‘Oueili and Uruk.
The paper will analyse the elements of connectivity between the two regions in order to determine where the exchange of materials and circulation of ideal models—as well as technological and cultural information—took place, which resulted in communal practices between the two regions.
Given the impact of the new higher chronology for EB III and EB IV in the southern Levant and the consequent new synchronization with the northern Levant, the reasons for this connectivity will be explored in the context of the early urbanization in the northern Levant and of the socio-economic landscape of the southern Levant during EB III.
During this well documented phase, roughly covering half a century of the palace life, Ebla was the seat of a powerful kingdom. Both textual and archaeological data provide evidence of an earlier period, preceding that of the State archives, in which the formative stages of the Eblaite State might be placed. The archaeological excavations, carried out at several locations on the Ebla Acropolis, brought to light a seamless stratified sequence of several overlapping floors pertaining both to Palace G itself and to two different large-scale structures preceding the construction of the palace; the discovery of such a sequence provides support to the historical reliability of the Kings List of Ebla, mentioning 23 kings before the last three documented in the State Archives. Particularly noteworthy is the discovery, two decades ago, of Building G2 and Building G5, located on the Ebla Acropolis and dating back to the EB III and EB IVA1 periods. A detailed analysis of the stratigraphic sequences uncovered in Building G2 and G5, as well as in Area CC at Ebla, together with the seriation of stratified ceramic materials,allows to propose a relative chronology for this period (EB III-EB IVA1) and to add detail to the knowledge of a long (although only partially known) architectural sequence. The study of the EB III-IVA1 chronology is integrated with the addition of the stratified materials retrieved in the deep sounding in the Lower Town of Tell Tuqan (Area P South); the resulting sequence, therefore, makes for a possible frame of reference for the definition of early 3rd millennium phases of Western Inland Syria, generally poorly defined due to the lack of extensive excavations and publications of stratified contexts.
The workshop aims at bringing together an international group of scholars who are currently working on Levantine Early Bronze III-IV ceramic assemblages and chronology from different areas – from northern Syria, to Lebanon, to Jordan. This will provide the opportunity for the presentation of data and the exchange of views on methodological approaches to ceramic records and to the analysis of ceramic developments and inter-regional connections in the greater Levantine area. Open discussion through the workshop is scheduled to actively engage undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students in the debate on how to achieve new and more nuanced definitions of ceramic horizons, production modes, and inter-regional connections through different sets of ceramic data.