Democracy's ancient ancestors : Mari and early collective governance / Daniel E. Fleming.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fleming, Daniel E., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Mari (Extinct city)--Politics and government.

Mari (Extinct city).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxiii, 359 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Democracy's Ancient Ancestors examines the political landscape of the ancient Near East through the archive of over 3000 letters found in the royal palace of Mari. These letters display a rich diversity of political actors, encompassing major kingdoms, smaller states and various tribal towns. Mari's unique contribution to the ancient evidence is its view of tribal organization, made possible especially by the fact that its king Zimri-Lim was first of all a tribal ruler, who claimed Mari as an administrative base and source of prestige. These archaic political traditions are not essentially unlike the forms of pre-democratic Greece, and they offer fresh reason to recognize a cultural continuity between the classical world of the Aegean and the older Near East. This book bridges several areas of interest, including archaeology, ancient and classical history, early Middle and Near East, and political and social history.

Contents:

1. Introduction

A. Mari Texts

B. Survey of Mari History

C. Note on Prominent Terms

D. Mari Archives and Political History

E. Text-Based Study: Comments on Methodology

2. Tribal World of Zimri-Lim

A. Tribally Organized Pastoralists and the Amorrites

B. Primary Constituents of the Confederacies: Sim'alite gayum and Yaminite li'mum

C. Local Leader of Tribe and Town: The sugagum in Service to the Mari Kingdom

D. Chief of Pasture: The merhum

E. "Hana" Tent-Dwellers

F. Other Confederacy: The Yaminites

3. Archaic State and the matum "Land"

A. Urbanism and Archaic States

B. matum: The Basic Unit of Regional Politics in the Early Second Millennium

C. Subdividing the Major matums: The halsum District

D. Population Terminology Not Tied to Political Entity

E. Zimri-Lim and the Land of the Tent-Dwellers (mat Hana)

4. Collective and the Town

A. Towns of the Mari Archives

B. Corporate Political Tradition

C. Collective Face of Towns or Lands

D. Elders

E. Heads

F. Words for Assembly

G. Imar, Tuttul, and Urgis: Old Towns with Strong Collective Traditions

H. Mari in Third-Millennium Mesopotamia

I. On Explaining Corporate Power

5. Conclusions

A. Political World of the Mari Archives

B. Democracy's Ancient Ancestors.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 325-343) and indexes.

ISBN:

1-107-14766-2

1-280-51606-2

0-511-18441-7

0-511-16628-1

0-511-16435-1

0-511-31301-2

0-511-49962-0

0-511-16515-3

OCLC:

171138297