Melammu: The Ancient World in an Age of Globalization Max Planck Research Library for the History and Development of Knowledge Series Editors Ian T. Baldwin, Jürgen Renn, Dagmar Schäfer, Robert Schlögl, Bernard F. Schutz Edition Open Access Development Team Lindy Divarci, Nina Ruge, Matthias Schemmel, Kai Surendorf Scientific Board Markus Antonietti, Antonio Becchi, Fabio Bevilacqua, William G. Boltz, Jens Braarvik, Horst Bredekamp, Jed Z. Buchwald, Olivier Darrigol, Thomas Duve, Mike Edmunds, Fynn Ole Engler, Robert K. Englund, Mordechai Feingold, Rivka Feldhay, Gideon Freudenthal, Paolo Galluzzi, Kostas Gavroglu, Mark Geller, Domenico Giulini, Günther Görz, Gerd Graßhoff, James Hough, Man- fred Laubichler, Glenn Most, Klaus Müllen, Pier Daniele Napolitani, Alessandro Nova, Hermann Parzinger, Dan Potts, Sabine Schmidtke, Circe Silva da Silva, Ana Simões, Dieter Stein, Richard Stephenson, Mark Stitt, Noel M. Swerdlow, Liba Taub, Martin Vingron, Scott Walter, Norton Wise, Gerhard Wolf, Rüdiger Wolfrum, Gereon Wolters, Zhang Baichun Proceedings 7 Edition Open Access 201 7 Melammu The Ancient World in an Age of Globalization Edited by Markham J. Geller (with the cooperation of Sergei Ignatov and Theodor Lekov) Max Planck Research Library for the History and Development of Knowledge Proceedings 7 Proceedings of the Sixth Symposium of the Melammu Project, held in Sophia, Bulgaria, September 1–3, 2008. Communicated by : Jens Braarvig Edited by : Markham J. Geller Editorial Team : Lindy Divarci, Beatrice Hermann, Linda Jauch Image Processing : Christopher Unterste-Wilms Digigroup MPIWG Cover image: Mosaic from the Chora Monastery in Istanbul, dating to 1312 CE. Photo by Florentina Badalanova Geller. 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Each volume of the Sources series typically presents a primary source — relevant for the history and development of knowledge — in facsimile, transcription, or translation. The original sources are complemented by an introduction and by commentaries reflecting original scholarly work. The sources reproduced in this series may be rare books, manuscripts, documents or data that are not readily accessible in libraries and archives. Each volume of the Textbooks series presents concise and synthetic information on a wide range of current research topics, both introductory and advanced. They use the new publication channel to offer students affordable access to high-level scientific and scholarly overviews. The textbooks are prepared and updated by experts in the relevant fields and supplemented by additional online materials. On the basis of scholarly expertise the publication of the four series brings to- gether traditional books produced by print-on-demand techniques with modern information technology. Based on and extending the functionalities of the ex- isting open access repository European Cultural Heritage Online (ECHO), this initiative aims at a model for an unprecedented, Web-based scientific working environment integrating access to information with interactive features. Contents Preface: The Globalization of Knowledge in the Ancient Near East J. Renn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Introduction to Melammu: Early Globalization M. J. Geller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 1 Globalization of Religion: Jewish Cosmology in its Ancient Near Eastern Context Simo Parpola . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 1.1 The Main Features of the Jewish Cosmological System . . . . . . . . . . . 15 1.2 Mesopotamian Parallels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 1.3 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 2 Global Monotheism: The Contribution of the Israelite Prophets Baruch A. Levine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 2.1 On Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 2.2 The Three Phases of Israelite Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 2.3 A Closing Reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 3 Globalization and Imperialism: Political and Ideological Reactions to the Assyrian Presence in Syria (IXth–VIIIth Century BCE) Maria Grazia Masetti-Rouault . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 3.2 Assyrian Imperialism: The Ideology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 3.3 Empire and Imperialism in History and Historiography . . . . . . . . . . . 52 3.4 History, Archaeology and Geography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 3.5 The Lower Middle Euphrates Valley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 3.6 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 viii Contents 4 The Tale of the Wild Man and the Courtesan in India and Mesopotamia: The Seductions of Ṛśyaśṛnga in the Mahābhārata and Enkidu in the Epic of Gilgamesh Tzvi Abusch and Emily West . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 4.2 The Story of Enkidu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 4.3 The Tale of Ṛśyaśṛnga in the Mahābhārata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 4.4 Anomalies in the Tale of Ṛśyaśṛnga . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 4.5 Parallel Elements in the Stories of Enkidu and Ṛśyaśṛnga . . . . . . . . . 77 4.6 Summary of the Comparison of the Two Narratives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 4.7 Description of the Various Indic Versions of the Tale . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 4.8 Assessment of the Relative Ages of the Variants of the Tale . . . . . . . 88 4.9 Summary and Conclusions Regarding the Chronology of the Ṛśyaśṛnga Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 4.10 Internal Analysis of the Mahābhārata ’s Ṛśyaśṛnga Account . . . . . . . 93 4.11 Narrative Layers in the Mahābhārata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 4.12 The Relationship of the Preamble to Other Versions of the Tale . . . . 102 4.13 Origins and Transmission of the Tale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 4.14 The Tale’s Incorporation into the Mahābhārata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 4.15 Mode and Time of Transmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 4.16 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 5 Globalization in Literature: Re-Examining the Gilgameš Affair Cynthia Jean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 5.2 Homer and Gilgamesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 5.3 Continuity in Other Tales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 6 Gilgamesh’s Plant of Rejuvenation and Qāṭīne’s Sīsīsāmbur Nineb Lamassu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 6.1 The Genre of Qāṭīne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 6.2 The Language of Qāṭīne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 6.3 The Name Qāṭīne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 6.4 The Zmīrta D’Qātīne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 6.5 Parallels, Points of Contact and Influences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 7 Some Observations about “Foreigners” in Babylonia during the VI Century BCE Kabalan Moukarzel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 7.1 Sources and Some General Problems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Contents ix 7.2 The “Foreigners” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 7.3 The Ḫadru Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 7.4 The Scope of Social Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 7.5 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 8 The Religious Reform of Nabonidus: A Sceptical View Kabalan Moukarzel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 8.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 8.2 The Verse Account of Nabonidus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 8.3 Early Theories about the “Religious Reforms” of Nabonidus . . . . . . 170 8.4 Some Later Theories about the “Religious Reforms” of Nabonidus . 180 8.5 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 9 New Light on George Smith’s Purchase of the Egibi Archive in 1876 from the Nachlass Mathewson Strahil V. Panayotov and Cornelia Wunsch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 9.1 Peter Mathewson and George Smith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 9.2 The Cuneiform Tablets in Kotel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 9.3 Index of Personal Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 10 Phrygian Bronzes in the Greek World: Globalization through Cult? Maya Vassileva . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 10.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 10.2 Phrygian Belts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 10.3 Visual Representations of Belts. Parallels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220 10.4 Belts and Fibulae Dedicated at Greek Sanctuaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222 10.5 Purpose and Symbolism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 10.6 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230 11 Power and Ritual in the Achaemenian Royalty Antonio Panaino . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 12 Religious Ontology and Taxonomic Structures in Indo-Iranian Oral Poetry Velizar Sadovski . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241 12.1 Cataloguing the Universe – (Re-)creating the Universe: Arrangement of Conceptual Lists and Their Items in Indo-Iranian Ritual/Magic Poetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241 12.2 Structure of Poetic/Magic Lists and Their Contents: Internal and External References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246 x Contents 13 Elements of “Globalization” in Ancient Iranian Numismatics Andrea Gariboldi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287 13.1 The Exchange of Numismatic Patterns between East and West . . . . . 287 13.2 Two International Coinages: “Owls” and “Archers” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290 13.3 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293 14 The Spread of the Cuneiform Culture to the Urartian North (IX–VII Century BCE) Mirjo Salvini . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299 14.1 The Discovery of the Urartian Capital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300 14.2 The Traces of King Minua in the Ancient Capital City of Tušpa . . . . 313 14.3 Argišti I’s Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317 14.4 The Rock Terrace of Hazine Kapısı by Sarduri II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319 15 India and World Trade: From the Beginnings to the Hellenistic Age Klaus Karttunen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329 15.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329 15.2 Early Period: Indus and Sumer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330 15.3 Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian and Old Persian Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332 15.4 Alexander and Hellenism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335 16 Ancient Near Eastern Polities and the Greek Polis: Secondary States, Structural Similarities and the Problem of Diffusion Kristoffer Momrak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341 16.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341 16.2 Methodological Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342 16.3 Eastern and Western Assemblies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344 16.4 The Late Bronze Age Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347 16.5 The Levantine City-States and the Polis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351 16.6 The Problem of Diffusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353 16.7 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355 17 Seeing Otherwise: On the Rules of Comparison in Historical Humanities Amar Annus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359 17.1 The Two Views of History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359 17.2 Comparison Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362 17.3 The Validity Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365 17.4 A Test Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368 17.5 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371 Contents xi Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373 Preface: The Globalization of Knowledge in the Ancient Near East J. Renn This volume on the Globalization in the Ancient Near East offers a unique col- lection of insights into the exchange processes connecting different parts of the Western Eurasian world of the First Millennium BCE. These processes range from military conquest and trade relations to the spread of religious, artistic or sci- entific ideas. The Assyrian Empire, founded at the beginning of the millennium, was the first major empire in this part of the world, extending from the Levant in the West to the Persian gulf in the East. It was the heir of the great Mesopotamian civilizations and, in the second half of the millennium, was in turn followed by the Achaemenid Persian Empire which eventually reached Egypt in the West and the Indus valley in the East. Globalization in this period involved political, economic and cultural dimen- sions and had long-lasting effects, some of which can be recognized even today, among them, the use of the alphabet and coin money. It becomes evident that the histories of the many regions and civilizations that are touched upon in this vol- ume, extending from the Mediterranean world via Mesopotamia and Anatolia to Persia and India, cannot be considered in isolation but are much more intertwined than has hitherto been apparent. Among the many strands of globalization described in the studies here as- sembled, we also recognize a distinct history of the globalization of knowledge. This history takes place against the background of numerous cultural achieve- ments that had become a common property of many cultures in this part of the world by the outset of the First Millennium, among them agriculture, pottery, ar- chitecture with stone and brick, metal working, water management, urbanization and statehood including warfare, sophisticated administration, writing, literature, art and the beginnings of science. The globalization processes described in this volume build on these achievements. In spite of extensive warfare and periods of destruction and decline, such as the so-called Dark Ages of Ancient Greece from 1200 to 800 BCE, the knowledge behind these achievements was spreading in a way that eventually contributed to their long-term stabilization and further evolution. Indeed, when one empire or state collapsed, many of its traditions and achievements were nevertheless con- 2 Preface (J. Renn) tinued by newly emerging power structures or by local residues that were less af- fected by the central power. Trade networks, local forms of social organization, as well as local technological and artistic traditions turned out to be much more resilient than the empires themselves. Globalization was due both to extrinsic processes carrying new forms of societal cohesion (such as that of an empire by force and violence) into new areas and due to intrinsic processes that are marked by the voluntary adaptation and transformation of local resources (such as literary traditions) into more universal cultural assets. We can thus observe processes of sedimentation of knowledge in the sense of a gradual accumulation of collective action potentials embodied in technologies and artifacts, social institutions including empires, as well as networks of trade re- lations or legal frameworks, writings and oral traditions. Some of these represen- tations of shared knowledge have the potential to be reactivated, even after long periods of interruption and oblivion, eventually giving rise to “renaissances” of seemingly forgotten or marginalized traditions, which are then profoundly trans- formed in the process. Others may be definitively lost with the breakdown of the specific knowledge economy on which they depended, or they simply survived in isolated niches from which they could then later be reactivated, albeit with an altered appearance. The globalization of knowledge in the Ancient Near East during the First Millennium, however, was not just an intermittent cumulative process of the ex- change and diffusion of local developments within a much wider sphere of cir- culation, connecting for instance the literary world of India with the cuneiform traditions of Mesopotamia, or the Anatolian cult of the Great Goddess with Greek religious traditions. These exchange processes also involved an active appropri- ation of the transferred cultural achievements on the part of the “receivers,” char- acterized by their transformation and recontextualization. This process not only gave rise to cultural hybridizations, as has often been emphasized, but also to pro- foundly new forms of cultural abstractions, many of them still with us today, from the idea of a democratic state, via a universalist religion, to coin money and alpha- betic writing (with roots in the preceding millennium). All of these achievements, essential to the modern world, result from the translation and recontextualization processes that took place in the Ancient Near East. The First Millennium may therefore be characterized as a period of the sec- ondary globalization of knowledge. Indeed, after the globalization of primary technologies and cultural techniques that took place after the Neolithic and urban revolutions, we now witness societal experiments recombining these resources to create new forms of social cohesion, such as the democratic Greek polis or the monotheist transformation of Judaism. These have not emerged in isolation, but rather constituted creative reactions both to intrinsic developments and to external Preface (J. Renn) 3 influences and challenges, such as the “Oriental” influences at the beginning of the Greek polis, or the Assyrian threat to the Jews at the end of the eighth century. Living through a collective history and looking back on it through the avail- able cultural memory offers a society the possibility to position itself within a historical continuum. This may also stimulate learning processes and give the option to change this history in the future. The intrinsic development of a society may thus give rise to a reflective dimension that is intimately connected to its means of cultural expression and of cultural memory. In the First Millennium, the availability and spread of writing, of literary and artistic traditions that cov- ered not only one’s own but also other people’s history, had become an important component of this cultural memory. Taking the option for change, however, was and is typically the reaction to an external challenge provoking the mobilization of these internal resources. A striking example is the emergence of monotheism as a response to the challenges of Judaism embodied in the physical threat and ideology of the Assyr- ian Empire. Another striking example is the emergence of the Greek polis from a transformation of Near Eastern models of urbanization under the influences of the early Greek colonization and the expansion of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The realization of such innovations, finally, is dependent on the freedom to sustain them for some time, undisturbed by the prevailing power structures. They thus typically emerge at the margin of such structures rather than at their center. The history of the Ancient Near East in the First Millennium BCE comprises several turning points of human history, in particular the rise of the first large empires and of the first world religions. The present volume makes evident the extent to which these turning points are the product of an early globalization of knowledge. Jürgen Renn, Berlin, 9 June 2014 Introduction to Melammu: Early Globalization M. J. Geller The idea of the “first globalization” was chosen as the topic of the sixth Melammu symposium, all of which dealing with Mesopotamia in its broadest geographical and chronological extensions, both actual and metaphorical. 1 The present con- ference was hosted by the Rector of the New Bulgarian University, Prof. Sergei Ignatov (now Bulgarian Minister of Education), and Prof. Teodor Lekov, head of the Institute of Egyptology of that University, and held in Sofia September 1–3, 2008. 2 It was the Persian period which was chosen as the key period, since the mid-first millennium BCE witnessed both unification under a single hegemony (Persia) in the Near East and the vast unplanned spread of Greek colonies in the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions, representing contrasting examples of glob- alization. It was this period which produced great leaps in scientific knowledge, particularly astronomy and mathematical astronomy, geometry, and medicine, accompanied by a general re-evaluation of man’s place in the cosmos, and these new approaches to knowledge continued well into the Hellenistic and Roman periods. 3 The momentum of globalization under Persian rule in the Near East increased geometrically under Greco-Roman rule in Western parts of the region, such as Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine and Egypt, although the Parthian empire in Mesopotamia and Iran mostly resisted Hellenization, with some exceptions (for example, Bactria). Let us examine the situation in more detail. We begin with Mesopotamia, from whence we have the richest documenta- tion of economic and administrative texts from the sixth century BCE, covering the Neo-Babylonian, Persian, and Hellenistic periods, according to the very latest survey of these periods (Jursa 2010). Although everyday business affairs through- out Mesopotamia are recorded in great detail, information relevant to globaliza- tion turns out to be rather scarce, in terms of economic activity. The picture which emerges from cuneiform sources is that most trade and commerce was con- ducted between cities which were immediately neighbors along the great rivers 1 The idea of Melammu was conceived by Simo Parpola of Helsinki and it continues to influence interdisciplinary approaches to antiquity. Details of previous Melammu volumes is to be found on http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu. 2 The conference theme was originally the suggestion of Florentina Badalanova Geller. 3 See (Renn 2012). 6 Introduction to Melammu (M. J. Geller) and canals, with little data from the texts shedding light on more far-reaching exchanges of goods and services which might indicate foreign contacts. 4 The reason for this may be that basic commerce consisted of trade in low-value bulk commodities between cities, such as wool, grain, common agricultural products, and manufactured goods such as textiles (Jursa 2010, 1–61), or even silver, while globalization might have influenced trade in higher value products and services such as materia medica , medical expertise, perfumes and exotic spices, and so forth. This pattern of exchange of goods was predominantly stable and largely unaffected by political changes under Persian rule. Nevertheless, on other levels the Persian Empire did bring large-scale changes to the Near East, occasioned by the extent of the new political unity. The Persian state demanded heavy tribute from its subject peoples, although the information is best documented in Greek sources (Briant 1996, 399ff.). Taxes paid by citizens of Babylonia would probably at first have been comparable to previous regimes, although new tax regimes were introduced under Persian officials and tax offices (Briant 1996, 424–425), and the increasing burden of taxation in the Persian Empire probably had a deleterious effect on economic activity (Jursa 2010, 60). In any case, tribute represented capital flows of wealth between regions and no doubt involved contacts between officials in various regions of the empire. Since we are unlikely to find much evidence of economic globalization dur- ing the Persian period, other areas of investigation may prove more promising, such as comparative law, since contracts and laws are often subject to politi- cal changes under new regimes. For example, Aramaic documents from Ele- phantine in Egypt (Porten and Yardeni 1987) or Afghanistan (Naveh and Shaked 2012) show the official presence of minority communities within this vast empire, united both by official regulations and language, namely Aramaic. The Jewish military colony at Elephantine kept extensive Aramaic records of property trans- actions within the community (including marriage), as well as correspondence with co-religionists in Judea; their use of Aramaic probably reflects their own vernacular (and not Hebrew), rather than any lingua franca. The Aramaic doc- uments from Elephantine have been analyzed extensively from both contempo- rary Akkadian and Demotic analogues (Muffs 2003; Botta 2009), and although Akkadian parallels are more convincing (in the present writer’s view), these re- sults are significant: they indicate that Aramaic contracts from Elephantine are comparable to both Neo-Babylonian and Demotic contracts, with similar clauses in both languages. One inference to be drawn is that Aramaic contract formu- lae within the Persian empire were beginning to reflect somewhat standardized practices throughout the Near East, hence an aspect of globalization. Never- 4 Examples of such documents are discussed in the present volume by Kabalan Moukarzel. Introduction to Melammu (M. J. Geller) 7 theless, the usual pattern is one of conservatism and traditional practices versus change afforded by new political realities and conditions, and Elephantine pa- pyri reflect both approaches. On one hand, Aramaic contracts generally reflect Neo-Babylonian legal clauses but were probably also influenced by the new le- gal environment in Egypt in which these documents were found. Globalization, therefore, can partially be attributed to altered circumstances occasioned by de- mographic changes. Ptolemaic Egypt, in fact, offers many more opportunities for international contacts, both internally and externally, than does Mesopotamia. The prevalence of Demotic, Greek, and Latin sources in great quantities of papyri makes Egypt a primary source for studies of globalized contacts between cultures, with one ad- ditional feature which sets Egypt apart from contemporary Mesopotamia. Egypt was colonized by Greeks after Alexander and later became integrated into the Roman Empire, while Mesopotamia mostly remained beyond the reach of Hel- lenization and Greek science, in many ways resistant to Western thought. The contrast between Egypt and Mesopotamia was fundamental in this respect, since we are unlikely to find any treasure trove of Greek papyri, “an Oxyrhyncus,” in Mesopotamia, since Greek was hardly spoken in the local population. A good example of the difference comes from the Bible itself, which was translated into Greek in Alexandria, but no contemporary Septuaginta is known from the Jew- ish or Christian community in the Parthian or Sassanian empires, because no one would have read this text. 5 Even closer to home, Babylonia shows no real evi- dence of a major Syriac-Greek bilingual scholastic centre equivalent to Edessa in Syria, and Jews and Manichaeans in Babylonia were not directly impressed by Greek learning. Globalization had its limits. Egypt affords the possibility of accurate assessment of relationships between ethnic groups within society based upon their use of languages as reflections of social hierarchies. The evidence is complex, however, since schooling and ac- quired linguistic expertise (in Greek) often enhanced one’s chances of success, although villagers remained predominantly illiterate (Lewis 1983, 82). Major changes in society also took place after the Roman conquest of Egypt, during which time decisions governing Egypt’s economy and law courts were entirely dependent upon directives from Rome or its appointed officials, which also lead to conflict between Rome and the Greek-speaking population of Egypt, including 5 The Septuagint itself is a good example of literary globalization, since Bible stories were suddenly able to circulate throughout the Mediterranean region in Greek translation, and many narratives be- came popular (Barclay 1996); Moses, for instance, gained a reputation in this period as a wonder- worker and magician, and reactions to biblical narratives in Egypt (although preserved in Greek), such as Manetho, attest to proliferation of biblical accounts; Josephus records the debates in great detail in Contra Apionem 8 Introduction to Melammu (M. J. Geller) Jews (Lewis 1983, 185–207). The case for globalization in Egypt is abundantly self-evident. The relatively haphazard spread of Greek colonies also offers many impor- tant models for globalization, reflected in widespread commercial ties as well as the eventual spread of Greek language and literature to an astonishing extent. 6 The significant point about Greek colonies is that prior to the establishment of Alexander’s vast empire, they did not reflect any central planning or scheme promulgated by older cities on the Greek mainland. As Irad Malkin explains, the numerous Greek cities that we call, for lack of a better term, “colonies” were founded during the Archaic period as independent entities along the shores of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. There were a great variety of “mother cities” (that is, home communities recognized as the initiators of settlement), but they rarely had political control over the new settlements. These were largely inde- pendent, sovereign entities with ritual ties to the metropolis (lit. mother city). In fact, this was not just a Greek but a Mediterranean phenomenon: the Phoenicians had set out to found city-states in the western Mediterranean and North Africa, and the Etruscans, influenced by both the Greeks and the Phoenicians, likewise developed a city-state civilization and maritime activity (Malkin 2004, 347). The oikoumene inhabited by the Greeks was itself multilingual and multina- tional, and like the Phoenicians, they used their language as a unifying medium for exchange of commodities, manufactured wares, and ideas. Certain features of Greek culture took the world by storm, such as refinements in ancient architec- ture and the new aesthetic realism of Greek sculpture, which virtually replaced the static figures of Near Eastern art, in addition to the revolutionary artistic qual- ities of Greek vases; nevertheless, these characteristic features of Greek art were originally inspired by motifs originating in the Near East (Martin 2000, 91). 7 The Greek polis differed from Mesopotamian cities in several key aspects, especially in having an agora as the primary public space instead of the city or temple gates, and the scale of Greek temples was relatively small compared with temples in the Near East; there was no Near Eastern counterpart to Greek theatre. Never- theless, the most important common feature of all these societies was the urban setting itself, which provided the environment for many of the significant intellec- tual and artistic developments contributing to globalization (Sinclair et al. 2010, 172–183). The city provided the merchants, schools, law courts, governance, and religious institutions which defined these civilizations. 6 Demographic changes that we see in Greece began taking place in the seventh century BCE, which classical scholars refer to as the “archaic period,” despite corresponding to the Neo-Assyrian empire period in Mesopotamia, which is far from being archaic. 7 It is then interesting to note that Greek art later inspired the art and architecture of Persepolis, see the work of Margaret Cool Root (1985).