Bronze Age Bureaucracy

Writing and the Practice of Government in Assyria

Nicholas Postgate

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781107043756
• eBook ISBN:
  9781107497450
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book describes ten different government archives of cuneiform tablets from Assyria, using them to analyze the social and economic character of the Middle Assyrian state, as well as the roles and practices of writing. The tablets, many of which have not been edited or translated, were excavated at the capital, Assur, and in the provinces, and they give vivid details to illuminate issues such as offerings to the national shrine, the economy and political role of elite households, palace etiquette, and state-run agriculture. This book concentrates particularly on how the Assyrian use of written documentation affected the nature and ethos of government, and compares this to contemporary practices in other palatial administrations at Nuzi, Alalah, Ugarit, and in Greece.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Bronze Age Bureaucracy
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations (and Credits)
• List of Tables
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• Note on Transcription
• 1 Bureaucracy in the Bronze Age?
• 2 The Land of Aššur in the Late Bronze Age
• 3 Writing in Assyria: The Scribes and Their Output
• 4 Archives at Aššur
• 5 Archives in the Provinces
• 6 The Government of Assyria and Its Impact
• 7 Nuzi, the Nearest Neighbour
• 8 Western Contemporaries: Alalaḫ, Ugarit and Greece
• 9 The Records of Government
• Appendix 1: The Middle Assyrian Kings
• Appendix 2: Eponyms at the End of Shalmaneser’s and Start of Tukulti-Ninurta’s Reigns
• Bibliography
• Akkadian Words
• Toponyms and Ethnonyms
• Personal Names
• Selective Subject Index