Bureaucracy and Bureaucratic Change in Hittite Administration.

The Hittite civilization, which flourished in mid-second millennium BCE for a period of approximately five hundred years, developed from a small Anatolian state into a multiethnic empire. The administrative needs of the state grew parallel to the expansion of its territory, but nevertheless its governmental structure remained a patrimonial system where the authority of the king remained constant. Textual sources from the period provide the names and titles of a large group of officials who were active within the administrative system. This study inspects the Hittite administrative system from the beginning of the state’s formation until its collapse, and evaluates the changes in the system through a prosopographic analysis of the high-level administrative officials, offices, titles, and the specific genre of administrative documentation. Growth in number of offices more or less parallels the growth of the state into an empire, and therefore it is a sign of enlarging bureaucracy. However, the rationality of this bureaucracy is questioned through the analysis of various feature , particularly kinship, hierarchy, and specialization. This investigation reveals that the extent of the royal family’s involvement in all levels of the organization was high. Visible rules of hierarchy seem to be related the court protocol, the order of which was determined by the personal ties of the individuals with the king, rather than the offices they occupy. There is also no clearly visible division of duties among the high officers, who had overlapping areas of responsibilities in administrative, military, religious, and judicial domains. Particularly in the higher circles of the administration, examples of training, regulation, fixed amounts of compensation, and regular promotions are few and insufficient to demonstrate the existence of a properly functioning bureaucracy. Instead the state possesses a multitude of features that are expected to be present in a system that tries to preserve its patrimonial system. Overall this analysis of the high offices and officials of the Hittite administration portrays it as an organization more in line with the features of a patrimonial organization as described by Weber.PHDNear Eastern StudiesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/116773/1/rtbilgin_1.pd

Vancomycin versus Linezolid in the Treatment of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Meningitis

Abstract Background: Vancomycin is the mainstay of treatment for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) meningitis. However, successful outcomes with linezolid have not been reported in a large series of patients. We conducted a single-center retrospective cohort study to compare vancomycin with linezolid in the treatment of MRSA meningitis. Methods: We extracted data and outcomes for all adult patients (age > 18 years) with culture-proved MRSA meningitis who received vancomycin or linezolid between January 2006 and June 2011. A definite diagnosis of meningitis was based on the isolation of MRSA in at least one cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) culture and findings in CSF that are typical of the infection. Linezolid was given intravenously (IV) at a dosage of 600 mg q12h and vancomycin IV at 500 mg q6h. Results: A total of 8 patients with MRSA meningitis (5 male, 3 female; age [mean -SD] 61.6 -13.2 years) received vancomycin and 9 patients (7 male, 2 female; age 59.1 -15.6 years) received linezolid. All isolated strains of MRSA were susceptible to both vancomycin and linezolid. The rates of microbiologic success with linezolid or vancomycin, in terms of clearance of MRSA from CSF on day 5, were 7/9 and 2/8 (p = 0.044, Fisher exact test). No severe adverse events occurred in either treatment arm of the study. One-month survival of the patients in whom treatment was successful microbiologically was 2/2 in the vancomycin-treated group and 4/7 in the linezolidtreated group. Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) data for vancomycin were available for 5/6 treatment failures with vancomycin, and vancomycin MIC values of these five strains were 2 mg/L. Conclusion: Analysis of the findings in the limited cohorts in our study suggests that linezolid is superior to vancomycin for treating MRSA meningitis, especially in cases in which there is a high MIC (2 mg/L) for vancomycin. A clinical study involving larger cohorts may increase the evidence available in relation to this question

Great Temple of Hattusa, also known as “Temple 1”

The Great Temple, also known as Temple I, was built by the Hittites around 1600 BCE at their capital city Hattuša, located by the modern day town of Boğazkale in the central Anatolia region of Turkey. It is by far the largest of over 30 temples uncovered within the city. The Great Temple was probably referred to as the “Great House” in Hittite texts. Like all of the temples of Hattuša, it belonged to the Hittite state cult that served to the royal administration and was not open to the public. Without any major structural modifications, the temple was in use for four centuries until the end of the Hittite empire in the early years of the 12th century BCE. It appears to have been already emptied and abandoned prior to the destruction by fire. The temple complex is built on artificial terraces in the area called Lower City and is mainly composed of three structures: (1) the temple proper, (2) surrounding storerooms, and (3) an administrative building in the south area. All together they cover an area of 200 m by 130 m (about 6.5 acres). A building on the east side named “House on the Slope” may also have a functional association with the complex. Today, the only remains are the foundations, the human-high base blocks of the walls, and massive door thresholds. Nothing remains of the upper structures that were built of unfired mud-bricks enforced with wood. The temple was probably a single-story structure estimated to be about 5-meters-high, while the storerooms built on lower terraces for the most part had two-, and at the northern end probably threestories. The temple had 49 rooms of various sizes that surround a courtyard which was entered through a gateway at the southwest end. The largest two rooms, the double adyta, at the northeast end of the temple were accessed from the courtyard by passing through a pillared portico and a couple of small auxiliary rooms, and are believed to have served as the cult rooms for the two top deities of the Hittite pantheon, the Storm God of Hatti and the Sun Goddess of Arinna. Built of dark green gabbro blocks, these two rooms are distinguished from the white limestone of the rest of the temple. While the west adyton is largely destroyed, remains of a stone base that can be seen in the eastern adyton must have been where the cult statue of the deity was placed. Furthermore, five or six other rooms of the temple were likely to have been cult rooms of other major deities of the pantheon. All cult rooms were innermost sanctuaries that could be accessed only by a select few that included the royal family and the priests. In contrast to the Mesopotamian or Egyptian temples, there were several windows that illuminated the cult rooms and the cult statues, although this was probably controlled with wooden shutters on them. The storerooms surrounding the temple numbered at least 200 with the upper stories and were mostly served as depots for various types of goods. Several large pithoi were found in situ, some with a capacity of 2000 liters. Thousands of inscribed clay tablets, mostly fragmented, were recovered from eastern storerooms. The annex building to the south must have been the administrative center of the temple. A text that has been associated with this structure refers to it as the “house of work” and lists over 200 personnel.Non UBCUnreviewedPostdoctora