Mortuary Rites, Economic Behaviour and the Circulation of Goods in the Transition from Village to Urban Life in Early Mesopotamia

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6044641
AutoresGareth Brereton (British Museum, autor de correspondencia)
Año2016
Volumen26
Número2
Páginas191-216
Fecha de publicación2016-05-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaCambridge Archaeological Journal (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0959-7743 • E-ISSN: 1474-0540
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0959774316000032
OpenAlexW2329038936
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas9

The large-scale accumulation of goods is a widely recognized, but little studied, feature of early urbanization in Mesopotamia. Current research links the mobilization of goods in early cities to the expansion of cross-regional trade routes. A related aspect of urban growth is the virtual disappearance of intramural burials from the archaeological record. This contrasts with earlier phases where burials were incorporated into the routines of domestic life. Adapting Max Weber's insights regarding the origins of modern capitalist accumulation in changing forms of religious practice, this paper will trace the changing moral context of economic behaviour by examining long-term patterns of burial in the transition from village to urban life. The momentous social changes that accompanied the urban revolution transformed relationships between the living, the dead and the world of goods. Trajectories of accumulation reinforced by the provisioning of the deceased were reversed at the onset of urbanization, as the dead were expelled from the context of the living. The flow of commodities was now regulated by emerging forms of religious institution that fostered a culture of capital accumulation in rapidly developing urban centres

Archaeology · Capital (architecture · Context (archaeology · Economic geography · Economic growth · Economics · Economy · Geography · Mesopotamia · Provisioning · Urbanization · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Engineering · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Islamic Studies and History