Narratives for the third millennium

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Ray ◽  
Julian Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
External Stimulus ◽  
Social Formation ◽  
Marked Contrast ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Social ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
Third Millennium Bce

By the later part of the third millennium BCE, Britain had become connected to mainland Europe by the so-called ‘Beaker network’. This appears to have involved the circulation of people, materials, and cultural innovations over trans-continental distances. Most tellingly, it included direct evidence for cross-Channel contact and the movement of individual people into Britain who had lived much or most of their lives in continental Europe. However, the evidence for such contact during the previous few centuries is very much sparser. If, as it seems reasonable to infer, developed passage tombs were ultimately an Atlantic European phenomenon that was adopted in idiosyncratic ways in Ireland, Scotland, and finally Scandinavia during the course of the fourth millennium, routine interactions with the Continent are less easy to identify thereafter. In marked contrast with this, the period after 3000 BCE saw the emergence of a range of new interregional connections within Britain and Ireland. These have been less consistently recognized, as they conflict with the traditional narrative in which populations in central and south-west Asia engaged in periodic wholesale migration northward and westward. Such a narrative of external stimulus to change is less secure in this period because we now realize that the social and cultural changes that overtook Britain in the earlier third millennium originated predominantly in the northern and western parts of these islands. Some of the most significant innovations of the third millennium throughout Britain were ultimately generated in the Orkney archipelago and its immediate sphere of contact. While aspects of the unique developments that took place in the Orkneys can be attributed to connections with Ireland and the Western Isles, these contributed to the emergence of a distinctive social formation that was at once highly competitive and spectacularly creative. By the start of the third millennium, Orkney had become a crucible of social and cultural change, but developments in the islands arguably began to diverge from those on the mainland soon after the Neolithic began, perhaps during the thirty-seventh century BCE.

scholarly journals I višap armeni. Appunti per una storia della ricezione

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandra Gilibert
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
South Caucasus ◽  
Political Messages ◽  
Complex Sequence ◽  
The Third ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
Third Millennium Bce ◽  
History Of ◽  
Unknown Point

Vishaps are large-scale prehistoric stelae decorated with animal reliefs, erected at secluded mountain locations of the South Caucasus. This paper focuses on the vishaps of modern Armenia and traces their history of re-use and manipulations, from the end of the third millennium BCE to the Middle Ages. Since their creation at an unknown point in time before 2100 BCE, vishaps functioned as symbolic anchors for the creation and transmission of religious and political messages: they were torn down, buried, re-worked, re-erected, transformed and used as a surface for graffiti. This complex sequence of re-contextualisations underscores the primacy of mountains as political arenas for the negotiation of religious and ritual meaning.

The Early Bronze Age in Southeastern Anatolia

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Tuba Ökse
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
The Third ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
Third Millennium Bce

This article presents data on the Early Bronze Age (EBA) of southeastern Anatolia. The EBA chronology of southeastern Anatolia is parallel to northern Syrian chronologies. The traditional EBA I-III chronology of Anatolia is based on the Tarsus sequence and the EBA I-IV chronology of northwestern Syria on the Amuq and Tell Mardikh sequences. The distribution of ceramic groups and special vessel types reflects geographical and chronological differences throughout the third millennium BCE. The relative chronologies of geographical zones and individual periods are based mainly on ceramic distributions; absolute dates obtained from radiocarbon analyses are rare.

Dynastic Change and Institutional Administration in Southern Mesopotamia in the Later Third Millennium BCE: Evidence from Seals and Sealing Practices

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard L. Zettler
Keyword(s):  
Administrative Practices ◽  
The Third ◽  
Early Dynastic ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
Third Millennium Bce ◽  
Third Dynasty Of Ur

This chapter examines the evolution of seal imagery and sealing practices in southern Mesopotamia during the latter half of the third millennium BCE or the late Early Dynastic period and succeeding Dynasty of Agade and Third Dynasty of Ur. It describes changes in glyptic imagery as well as sealing practices and elucidates the timing of those changes. It concludes that seal imagery and sealing practices were not static, but evolved over the course of the late third millennium and that the introduction of new imagery and changing administrative practices were gradual and seemingly lagged decades behind dynastic change.

The Empires of Western Asia and the Assyrian World Empire

2021 ◽  
pp. 73-110
Author(s):  
Gojko Barjamovic
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
World War ◽  
Political Fragmentation ◽  
The Third ◽  
Western Asia ◽  
Third Millennium Bce ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Empire

The history of empire begins in Western Asia. This chapter tracks developments in the second and first millennia BCE as imperial control in the region became increasingly common and progressively more pervasive. Oscillations between political fragmentation and imperial unification swung gradually toward the latter, from just a few documented examples in the third millennium BCE to the more-or-less permanent partition of Western Asia into successive imperial states from the seventh century BCE until the end of World War I. The chapter covers about a dozen empires and empire-like states, tracing developments of territoriality and notions of imperial universality using Assyria ca. 2004–605 BCE as a case study for how large and loose hegemonies became the normative political formation in the region.

The Rise of Libraries in Western Asia, c.2600–2300 BCE

2019 ◽  
pp. 67-114
Author(s):  
Kamran Vincent Zand
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
The Third ◽  
Western Asia ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
Third Millennium Bce

The chapter compares the find-spots of lexical and literary texts from three different places: Shuruppag and Tell Abu Salabikh in Mesopotamia and Ebla situated in modern-day Syria. In Shuruppag and Ebla lexical and literary texts have been found in official buildings of the ruling elite, also combination with a massive amount of administrative texts. It can be seen that lexical and literary texts were produced, kept, and transmitted by scribes in the context of the administration of the different cities. They played therefore not only an important role in transmission and mastery of the cuneiform writing system, the main administrative tool. Their importance for the elites resulted in the development of a network of knowledge that spread Mesopotamian myths and lore over the Near East in the third millennium BCE.

Babylonian Priesthood during the Third Millennium BCE: Between Sacred and Profane

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 112-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piotr Steinkeller
Keyword(s):  
Social Group ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Small Segment ◽  
The Third ◽  
Sacred And Profane ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
Third Millennium Bce ◽  
City State ◽  
The City ◽  
Managerial Class

Abstract This article offers an overview of the early Babylonian priesthood, as it was organized and operated during the third millennium BCE. It is emphasized that the priests and priestesses proper, i.e., individuals who were specifically concerned with cultic matters, represented a relatively small segment of the employees of temple households. Much more numerous within these institutions (which might more appropriately be termed “temple communities”) were the individuals whose roles were of either administrative or economic character. Focusing on the administrators of temple households, and identifying them as “Managerial Class,” the article argues that, during Pre-Sargonic times, this social group wielded great economic and political power, which at times even exceeded that of the emerging secular leaders (such as ensiks and lugals). To demonstrate this point, an interaction between these two competing centers of powers (particularly in the city-state of Lagaš) is studied in detail. In memory of Itamar Singer

Steady States

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harriet Crawford
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Regime Change ◽  
Near East ◽  
Islamic Art ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Social ◽  
Old Babylonian ◽  
Third Millennium Bce ◽  
Third Dynasty Of Ur

This chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about regime change in the ancient Near East and Egypt. It examines the dynastic change and institutional administration in southern Mesopotamia in the third millennium BCE, the social change and the transition from the Third Dynasty of Ur to the Old Babylonian kingdoms, and the role of Islamic art as a symbol of power. It explores regime change in Iraq from the Mongols to the present.

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