17 research outputs found
Recommended from our members
Cultic resilience and inter-city engagement at the dawn of urban history: protohistoric Mesopotamia and the âcity sealsâ, 3200-2750 BC
Within the context of early urbanism, elite groups developed the worldâs earliest writing in Mesopotamia, 3200-2750 BC, comprising administrative documents in the form of inscribed clay tablets. How did these proto-literate urban communities engage with each other and what strategies did they employ to address major challenges to their survival? The âcity sealâ evidence survives as seal impressions on clay bureaucratic artefacts, both inscribed tablets and impressed sealings. These impressions feature signs representing the names of Mesopotamian cities, many of them identifiable with known sites. The documents stand at the threshold of history, as the earliest evidence for inter-city engagement. Using an innovative methodology and interpretive framework of cultic resilience, we integrate archaeometric, iconographic, and functional analyses of the earliest stages of writing and sealing, to argue that the city seal evidence provides unique insights into inter-city cooperation by Mesopotamian cities during a critical episode of early urban development
Colliding Worlds: Asteroid research and the legitimization of war in space
Accepted versio