Book
Early Mesopotamia: society and economy at the dawn of history
Routledge • London • Published In 1992 • Pages:
By: Postgate, J. N..
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
Postgate discusses Mesopotamia from the Halaf/Ubaid period starting around 5000 B.C. through to the end of the Old Babylonian period around 1500 B.C. (7000 B.P. to 3500 B.P)., but the main emphasis is Mesopotamia from 3000 B.C. to 1500 B.C. (5000 B.P. to 3500 B.P.). The area discussed covers the land from the mouth of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers at the Persian Gulf upstream to Turkey and into the Diyala and Hamrin valleys. Only the information pertaining to the Early Dynastic period or the data that probably pertain to the Early Dynastic period were marked for Outline of Cultural Materials (OCM) codes. As several time periods may be discussed in one paragraph the reader should use caution when reading or using this source. Two tables may help: the dates for the different time periods are listed on page 22 and the dates for many of the rulers and dynasties can be found on page 39. Postgate wrote this book as an introduction to Mesopotamia, an early state society, for both the general reader and the begining student. As such, this book provides an extensive overview of that society and covers the full range of subjects from households to urbanization and cities, from temple and palace politics to village level cooperative projects, from writing to international trade, from farming to diet, etc. Portions from many translated Sumerian texts will be found throughout this book.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Topography and geology
- Vocabulary
- Writing
- Tillage
- Water supply
- Settlement patterns
- Real property
- Buying and selling
- External trade
- Labor supply and employment
- Wages and salaries
- Slavery
- Chief executive
- Prayers and sacrifices
- Priesthood
- Congregations
- Organized ceremonial
- Texts translated into english
- traditionCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Early Dynastic Mesopotamia
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2003
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Middle East
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Middle East
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- Book
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Archaeologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Sarah Berry ; 2001
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- no date
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- Early Dynastic periods or 4900 BP - 4334 BP (2900 B.C.-2334 B.C.)
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Mesopotamia including the Diyala and Hamrin valleys; Iran, Iraq, and Syria
- NotesAdditional notes
- Nicholas Postgate
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 331-355) and index
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 91033767
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Iraq--Civilization--To 634