FHS 4

urbanism and society

Butuan

Phillippines, 600-1600CE; “amphibious urbanism” w/ raft-dwellings, boats, contacts as far as China. Lack of walls, irrigation, monumental architecture or writing. Occupied over multiple centuries, successful, long-lasting + mobile.

Great Zimbabwe

Occupied from 1100CE, capital of the Kingdom of Great Zimbabwe in the south-eastern hills of modern Zimbabwe. Hill Complex, Valley Complex, Great Enclosure + disagreements about the “functions” of these complexes

expansive trading networks

White government of Rhodesia pressured archaeologists to deny construction by black Africans

Huffmn: comprehensive structural analysis of use of space + proposal of “Zimbabwe pattern”

Chirikure: critical of Huffman’s research: suppression of variability + inappropriate use of Venda ethnography; instead seeking definition + understanding in Shona philosophies: guta had 3 overlapping definitions: large settlement w/ big population, large village, chief’s village

Tiwanaku + Khono Wankane

Janusek: pre-Columbian site near western Bolivia emerging between 500-600CE in Andean high plateau. Traditional studies generally approach cities as spatially coherent + centralised phenomena, but in the late formative era, distributed network of centers + settlements transforming the southern Andes: paired centers sharing a landscape of productive resources. Creation of rural landscapes within + outside the city: productive systems surround monumental complexes: rural / urban dichotomies characterising Western ideas do not make sense. 2 monumental campuses dominant the urban core + offer a northeast-southwest ritual axis → movement into + through ritual space = critical. at any one time, as much as 50% of urban periphery = abandoned

Teotihuacan

Northeastern basin of Mexico est 150BCE. Ceremonial center w/ major monuments: Sun, Mood + Feathered Serpent Pyramids all built along the Avenue of the Dead. Nichols: demolition of FSP as change of government. Influx of people prompting reorganisation. Cowgill: systematic planning: standard grid plan, orientation of 15.5 degrees East to North. Multiethnic communities; Sugiyama: city began under strng governmental control as a public ceremonial complex; 200CE, city-wide construction plan to materialse worldview.

Mesopotamian Language

Ur - looking at Schloen’s work on BA texts; lack of language equivalent to “state” or other bureaucratic terms. Rather “household” used at multiple levels; easier to understand why people were willing to accept new forms of hierarchy / inequality. cylinder seals = issued to high-ranking elite by kings upon change of rule even if bearer’s rank remained the same: no need for this if authority derived exclusively from a position in bureaucratic society.

Caravan trade in Near East + Negev

• culmination of millennia of cumulative social + technological development: rise of market demand in the Classical Med for goods like spices + incense; geographic context of Negev as a land bridge between the Tropics + the Med.

• Nabateans = desert tribal group who happened to be in the right place in the 2nd ½ of the 1st mil BCE to establish control over the land route between the Red Sea + the Med; Nabateans developed into major state covering much of modern Jordan as market in Roman world so lucrative;

• what is seen today (caravanserais, marked desert roads, wells, cisterns) = cumulation of earlier trade systems: origniate as early as Neolithic: small scale goods like green stones. donkey domestication + integration changing nature of desert exchange: increase in numbers of objects traded + mass of individual objects (basalt bowls in Chalcolithic → equivalent weight + many more by 3rd mil BCE).

• donkeys = shift from rare to everyday objects. introduction of camel = economic justification; saddle = more effective

Pazyryk area horses

strong evidence for trade + exchange; increase in individual mobility to include distant realms: people moving at the speed of the horse. drastic alteration of trajectories of societies in north-central Asia: initially part of foodways, but after a few hundred yrs, transformation of interaction + connectivity: spread of material culture; millet cultivation + dried goods as well as technological advances in riding equipment

Ancient Roman Grain Trade

Rickman - variable + vulnerable wheat: after harvesting, continues to take in oxygen + give off carbon dioxide + water: papyri + inscriptions: grain forever being measured + checked. staple + vital part of Med diet: provisioning armies + promising grain to population of the capital: free distribition under Caesar + Augustus.

Roman Seafaring

Meijer: rapid increase in trade as they conquered large parts of the Med; almost all cities had a specialty which found ready market among the elite; unthinkable for a member of the elite to participate in trade, but indirect involvement occurred; slavery as sector of trade directly involving elite interests

Robinson + Wilson: benefit of sea transport = abundantly clear: efficient access to wider markets for larger quantities of goods at a lower cost. Different levels at which Med trade operated: long distance transport of wine, tiles, stone + then mroe regional patterns observable in amphorae . Complementary cargoes: Leptimus: oil transported from inland production sites decanted into amphorae produced in industrial zones around the city - then loaded onto vessels for export ; direct trade intensification: state role in regulating + facilitating maritime trade; transformation in hull construction coinciding w/ increase in shipping of bulk cargoes especially amphorae in multiple layers → laced vessels ill-adapted, so mortoise + tenon. Dockside infrastructure and heavy lifting equipment = loading + unloading support. . Development of hydraulic pozzolanic concrete ROMACONS

Kanesh

large BA tell site in Anatolia - largest Assyrian trading colony in Anatolia in the early 2nd mil BCE. donkeys formed caravans moving goods from Assur to Kanesh and beyond; cuneiform archive detailing activities of merchants: anatolian gold + silver traded in exchange for Mesopotamian tiles + Afghan tin

Abu Ballas Trail - Egypt; journeys needing great preparation - hyperaridity of Sahara; donkey tracks, bones, dung, marker cairns, slabls + supply depos equipped w/ pottery contianers + bread-making facilities

Amarna Gift Exchange

archive written on clay tablets primarily consisting of diplomatic correpondance between Egyptian admin + representatives in Canaan + Amurru / neighbouring kingdom leaders during the New Kingdom. letters found in Upper Egypt at el-Amarna. Written in Akkadian. C14th BCE; most common subjects = negotiations of diplomatic marriage, friendship statements, exchanged materials. culmination in Amarna system over time - expansion of relationships establishing terms of equaity.

Uluburun Shipwreck

C14thBCE

Bachhuber: inventory of Uluburun objects mirroring palatial gift exchange recorded in Amarna letters - massive cache of copper + tin ingots fitting into the ratio for bronze production

large pithoi filled w. chealpy-produced cypriot pottery: non-elite consumers

fixed destinations + elite cargo: 24 logs of ebony from Africa

Liverani: “irrational trade” → great cost of delivering ivory to Egypt: economic motivation transcended in ensuring friendly relations between participants.

The Poor in Ancient Egypt

Driaux: in archaeology, attention generally on the “elite”; the poor = much less archaeologically visible, but also more numerous than the wealthy, but the mortuary sphere generally preserves the dominant group: “surface graves” of the poor contianing few → no burial goods - eg in Harageh cemetaries

Satire of the Trades - Khety: social glorification of the elite + expression of -ve judgement about ordinary people: praise for scribal profession + presents harsh realities of manual occupations

iconography: regular people depicted in tombs (Theban tomb 181): unkeptness, thinness

Amarna: South Tombs Cemetary: high risk of early death, poor diet, freq injuries + presence of anemia; spinal cord injuries (eg collapsed vertebrae). Amarna houses, differences between wall thickness: wealthy people had 2-3 layers of mudbrick. Absence of zoning at Amarna; eg houses attached to Thutmose estate: attachment to estate = obligation to work

Lahun, contrast: Pyramid town built specifically to hosue priests + necessary personnel; strict orthogonal plan + dwellings grouped together in pre-established plan.

Memphis

Baines: transformation at the beginning of the 1st Dynasty: construction of colossal tomb on western escarpment; primary evidence from necropolis + ritual areas in desert rather than settlement itself

royal residence, admin + monuments distributed across the landscape in configurations which changed between reigns; mobility of power displays; movement of royalty around the country - visible interdependence between the rural + the urban

Abydos: construction of tombs + seperate cult enclosures: royal funerals among the most important performances of power

Thebes

Baines: development of Karnak: progressively formed the heart of ritual + ceremony; development of dense group of monumental temples + vast necropolis of elite tombs; kings seeking to bolster legitimacy participating in the Opet festival: annual festival w/ procession from Karnak to Luxor + back

changes: Amenhotep IV: extravagant building of residence for newly proclaimed god; stelae dedicating area + agricultural land to the god + devotion of city to temples + admin buildings

Assyrian Peripheral Monuments

Shafer: 1st mil BCE, creation of unified Assyrian empire encompassing much of the ancient Near Eastern world; in the process of territorial expansion, carving of stelae + rock reliefs by rulers to commemorate victories along newly established borders

engagement w/ predecessor’s movements by placing monuments in the same locations w/ direct address to future visitors

larger body of images making up Assyrian palace visual culture: depictions of rulers = mirrored: physical fitness, robe, divine emblem, necklace, conical crown, cultic robe of high priest

Iron Age Zincrili

Bachhuber: ritual deposition of statuary is not isolated, but part of broader Syrio-Hittite hegemony in the region; missing features / damage to hands + face: depriving of senses + animacy: contraditions in kingdom’s relationship w/ the past

Kulamuwa stele: Assyrianising self-presentation: choices made by a singular ruler to break rank from anti-Assyria policies; “fraught position” of rulers who share ideals / aspirations but seen to be distancing from anti-Assyrian policies of ancestors; maintenance of decorum.

Augustan Rome

Wallace-Hadrill: Battle of Actium = act of salvation + central in Augustus’ new order for the Roman world: he = rescuer of Rome from destruction + victor in battles for values of Rome; had to eke out a suitable place for himself: Roman tradition had no place for champions: must eliminate himself - appealing to traditional Roman set of ideals. Deprivation of citizen’s power + loyalty of citizen-soldier must be beyond question

turning Rome into architectural showplace: erection of celebratory temple of Phoebus Apollo, inscription of triumphal arch w/out room for any new victors: culmination of Roman achievement

Augustan Forum as museum of the past + dynastic monument to his own family; Dio Cassius describes how this = center of admin for provinces, where commanders sent abroad to begin missions + where Senate voted triumphs to victorious generals…

House of Augustus on the Palatine hill w/ immediate access to the Forum: associations w/ Romulus: city’s original nucleus

Ara Pacis: altar inside open air space bounded by an enclosure wall; relief sculpture decorates entire monument + serves to commemorate the peace Augustus brought to the Roman state; personification of goddess Roa sitting on pile of armour; procession

Teotihuacan

est 100BCE in Basin of Mexico; at its zwnith, largest city in the Americas

Pyramids of the Sun, the Mood, FS. sacrificial burial complexes, obsidian figurines, bifacial knives, worked shells, greenstone mask.

Cowgill: highly systematic urban planning: grid plan w/ orientation of 15.5 degrees East → NorthL took into account setting sun on 12th August (beginning of the world) + April 29th. basic mesurement of 83cm

Sugiyama: grand-scale construction programme in 200CE: city-wide construction accomplished by leaders to materialise a worldview

Price et al: at least 2 distinctive ethnic compounds: houses in residential enclaves constructed w/ “foreign” architecture + contianing artefacts that = distinctive to distant areas → isotopic measurements: number of individuals born outside the city