Markets and Exchanges in Pre-Modern and Traditional Societies

Markets and Exchanges in Pre-Modern and Traditional Societies PDF Author: Juan Carlos Moreno Garcia
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1789256127
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
Markets emerge in recent historical research as important spheres of economic interaction in ancient societies. In the case of ancient Egypt, traditional models imagined an all-encompassing centralized, bureaucratic economy that left practically no place for market transactions, as many surviving documents only described the activities of the royal palace and of huge institutions, mainly temples. Yet scattered references in the sources reveal that markets and traders were crucial actors in the economic life of ancient Egypt. In this perspective, this volume aims to discuss the role of markets, traders and economic interaction (not necessarily organized through markets) and the use of “money” (metals, valuable commodities) in pre-modern societies, based on archaeological, anthropological, and historical evidence. Furthermore, it intends to integrate different perspectives about the social organization of transactions and exchanges and the different forms taken by markets, from meeting places where exchanges operated under ritualized procedures and conventions, to markets in which profit-seeking activities were marginal in respect with other practices that stressed, on the contrary, community collaboration. The book also deals with social forms of pre-modern exchanges in which trust and ethnic solidarity guaranteed the validity of commercial operations in the absence of formal codes of laws or accepted authorities over long distances (trade diasporas, guilds, etc.). Finally, the volume analyzes a critical aspect of small-scale trade and markets, such as the commercialization of agricultural household production and its impact on the peasant economic strategies. In all, the book covers a diversity of topics in which recent research in the fields of economic sociology, archaeology, anthropology, economics, and history proves invaluable in order to analyze the role of Egyptian trade in a broader perspective, as well as to suggest new venues of comparative research, theoretical reflection, and dialogue between Egyptology and social sciences.

Markets and Exchanges in Pre-Modern and Traditional Societies

Markets and Exchanges in Pre-Modern and Traditional Societies PDF Author: Juan Carlos Moreno Garcia
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1789256127
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 330

Get Book Here

Book Description
Markets emerge in recent historical research as important spheres of economic interaction in ancient societies. In the case of ancient Egypt, traditional models imagined an all-encompassing centralized, bureaucratic economy that left practically no place for market transactions, as many surviving documents only described the activities of the royal palace and of huge institutions, mainly temples. Yet scattered references in the sources reveal that markets and traders were crucial actors in the economic life of ancient Egypt. In this perspective, this volume aims to discuss the role of markets, traders and economic interaction (not necessarily organized through markets) and the use of “money” (metals, valuable commodities) in pre-modern societies, based on archaeological, anthropological, and historical evidence. Furthermore, it intends to integrate different perspectives about the social organization of transactions and exchanges and the different forms taken by markets, from meeting places where exchanges operated under ritualized procedures and conventions, to markets in which profit-seeking activities were marginal in respect with other practices that stressed, on the contrary, community collaboration. The book also deals with social forms of pre-modern exchanges in which trust and ethnic solidarity guaranteed the validity of commercial operations in the absence of formal codes of laws or accepted authorities over long distances (trade diasporas, guilds, etc.). Finally, the volume analyzes a critical aspect of small-scale trade and markets, such as the commercialization of agricultural household production and its impact on the peasant economic strategies. In all, the book covers a diversity of topics in which recent research in the fields of economic sociology, archaeology, anthropology, economics, and history proves invaluable in order to analyze the role of Egyptian trade in a broader perspective, as well as to suggest new venues of comparative research, theoretical reflection, and dialogue between Egyptology and social sciences.

Susa and Elam II

Susa and Elam II PDF Author: Jan Tavernier
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004541438
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 568

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Book Description
Susa and Elam II contains 16 contributions presented at an international conference on Susa and Elam (SW Iran) in 2015 in Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium). They cover various themes on Susian and Elamite history, language, religion, and culture.

Weights and Marketplaces from the Bronze Age to the Early Modern Period

Weights and Marketplaces from the Bronze Age to the Early Modern Period PDF Author: Lorenz Rahmstorf
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783529035401
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description


Economic Life at the Dawn of History in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt

Economic Life at the Dawn of History in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt PDF Author: Refael (Rafi) Benvenisti
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3111065537
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
The book is a study of the emergence of market economy with modern economic institutions in the early civilizations of Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt from the third and early second millennium B.C.E. The study covers the Sumerian, Old Assyrian and Old Babylonian periods. The economic analysis is based on Institutional Economics theory, and the data on the Old Assyrian period is based on the work of many scholars that transliterated, translated and studied many of the 23,000 documents of the Old Assyrian traders found in old Kanesh in Central Turkey. The book includes chapters on the institutions of: property rights; the markets and means of exchange; the organization and finance of trade; and enforcement institutions from the judicial, social and political systems. In addition, it gives a detailed analysis of: the early means of exchange (money) like the use of volume measure of barely and weight measure of copper and silver in Sumer; various instruments establishing property rights such as Kuduru border stones, seals and inserted cones in walls; detailed analysis of the communication system and its components; and the description of the modern financial instruments used to include, for example, limited partnerships.

Bronze Age Egypt and Globalisation

Bronze Age Egypt and Globalisation PDF Author: David A. Warburton
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527592162
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
The state and the city were born in fourth millennium BC Mesopotamia, leading the way to trade routes and empires, awakening the lands around it. Around 3000 BC, Egypt created the first territorial nation state in human history, consisting of the Nile Valley north of the first cataract and the Nile Delta on the shores of the Mediterranean. The whole area was governed by a king whose lineage created kingship, while building up a bureaucracy managing the country so that, in the late second millennium BC, Egypt was the greatest of the great powers when international politics were born. This volume hints at the political context of these earliest international relations, and examines how the system functioned. It also explores what can be said of ancient Egyptian society – and stresses the contributions that Egypt made to our own contemporary world. As one of the two earliest major civilisations, Egypt contributed to the birth of warfare, literature, art, science, economics, ideology, love poetry and much more.

Ancient Urban Globalisation and Economic Development

Ancient Urban Globalisation and Economic Development PDF Author: David A. Warburton
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527593347
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 615

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Book Description
This volume is dedicated to the historical context forming the background of contemporary philosophical, social and economic issues. It summarises the origins of economic activity in Eurasia and Egypt with an interpretation of the development of economics, economic thought and social thinking that takes us up to the present day. It argues that globalisation is not really new. Transpacific communications began shortly after the first states appeared in the Near East and continued intermittently during the following millennia, leaving curious traces. The book’s fundamental claim is that lessons be learnt from deep history about wealth, the nature of money, and the understanding of justice, and interpreting their importance is essential. Some of the book’s points are relevant to archaeological theory, and some are central to understanding human social organisations. Debating the claims made, and their potential significance, will interest archaeologists, historians, social scientists, and policy makers.

The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East

The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East PDF Author: Karen Radner
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190687592
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 977

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Book Description
This groundbreaking, five-volume series offers a comprehensive, fully illustrated history of Egypt and Western Asia (the Levant, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Iran), from the emergence of complex states to the conquest of Alexander the Great. Written by a diverse, international team of leading scholars whose expertise brings to life the people, places, and times of the remote past, the volumes in this series focus firmly on the political and social histories of the states and communities of the ancient Near East. Individual chapters present the key textual and material sources underpinning the historical reconstruction, paying particular attention to the most recent archaeological finds and their impact on our historical understanding of the periods surveyed. The second volume covers broadly the first half of the second millennium BC or in archaeological terms, the Middle Bronze Age. Eleven chapters present the history of the Near East, beginning with the First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom Egypt and the Mesopotamian kingdoms of Ur (Third Dynasty), Isin and Larsa. The complex mosaic of competing states that arose between the Eastern Mediterranean, the Anatolian highlands and the Zagros mountains of Iran are all treated, culminating in an examination of the kingdom of Babylon founded by Hammurabi and maintained by his successors. Beyond the narrative history of each region considered, the volume treats a wide range of critical topics, including the absolute chronology; state formation and disintegration; the role of kingship, cult practice and material culture in the creation and maintenance of social hierarchies; and long-distance trade-both terrestrial and maritime-as a vital factor in the creation of social, political and economic networks that bridged deserts, oceans, and mountain ranges, binding together the extraordinarily diverse peoples and polities of Sub-Saharan Africa, the Near East, and Central Asia.

Historical Culture in Iron Age Italy

Historical Culture in Iron Age Italy PDF Author: Seth Bernard
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197647464
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
"This book describes the historical culture of Italy from the Early Iron Age to the Roman conquest, covering a period from roughly 900 - 300 BCE. By historical culture, I refer throughout to a broader concept of social engagement with the past than is sometimes meant by the word "history." But this move permits us, following Sahlins' suggestion, to consider all kinds of new things. There exists a substantial corpus of material, much of it archaeological, some of it newly discovered, which speaks to us about how local communities in early Italy thought and talked about their history and how they articulated their past and present. This material has yet to have much impact on the typical ways in which we reconstruct the process of "becoming historical" in Italy. Instead, the story tends to be told almost exclusively from the Roman perspective and in a teleology"--

Copper in Ancient Egypt

Copper in Ancient Egypt PDF Author: Martin Odler
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004527699
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 861

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Book Description
The first comprehensive and up-to-date overview of what we know about the use of copper by the ancient Egyptians and Nubians, from the Predynastic through the Early Dynastic until the end of the Second Intermediate Period (c. 4000-1600 BC). The monograph presents a story, based on the analysis of available evidence, a synchronic and diachronic reconstruction of the development and changes of the chaîne opératoire of copper and copper alloy artefacts. The book argues that Egypt was not isolated from the rest of the ancient world and that popular notions of its "primitive" technology are not based on facts.

The Cambridge Companion to the Ancient Greek Economy

The Cambridge Companion to the Ancient Greek Economy PDF Author: Sitta von Reden
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108278507
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 509

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Book Description
This is the most comprehensive introduction to the ancient Greek economy available in English. A team of specialists provides in non-technical language cutting edge accounts of a wide range of key themes in economic history, explaining how ancient Greek economies functioned and changed, and why they were stable and successful over long periods of time. Through its wide geographical perspective, reaching from the Aegean and the Black Sea to the Near East and Egypt under Greek rule, it reflects on how economic behaviour and institutions were formed and transformed under different political, ecological and social circumstances, and how they interacted and communicated over large distances. With chapters on climate and the environment, market development, inequality and growth, it encourages comparison with other periods of time and cultures, thus being of interest not just to ancient historians but also to readers concerned with economic cultures and global economic issues.