States of Clay: Integrated Scientific Approaches to Clay Bureaucratic Objects from Early Mesopotamia, 3700-2700 BCE

粘土状态：公元前 3700-2700 年早期美索不达米亚粘土官僚物品的综合科学方法

• 批准号: AH/X001717/1
• 负责人: Roger Matthews
• 金额: $ 34.74万
• 依托单位: University of Reading
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FX001717%2F1
• 关键词: States; Clay; Integrated; Scientific; Approaches

The world's first system of bureaucratic recording was developed during 3700-2700 BCE by the societies of ancient Mesopotamia (Iraq and NE Syria). In the context of the development of the earliest cities and states, elite groups used sophisticated recording methods to control the production, storage and redistribution of many commodities, including land, crops, animals, people and other resources. Fortunately for the archaeologist and historian, the physical medium employed by these early bureaucrats was clay, which they modelled into three major forms: (1) tokens used in counting, (2) sealings bearing seal impressions, used to secure storage facilities such as pots, baskets and storeroom doors, and (3) tablets bearing seal impressions, number signs and pictographic signs in the so-called proto-cuneiform style. This integrated system of counting, sealing, and writing with clay was so successful that it endured for more than 3000 years as the bureaucratic framework across Mesopotamia and adjacent regions of the ancient Near East. In the States of Clay project, we propose for the first time to develop and apply an integrated scientific methodology to the full spectrum of clay bureaucratic objects, or CBOs, to maximise their interpretive potential for understanding early urban and state level societies of Mesopotamia. Our focus is on the millennium 3700-2700 BCE, when major sites such as Uruk (often cited as 'the world's first city'), Ur, Jemdet Nasr, Fara, Brak, Nineveh and many others rose to prominence within networks of interregional engagement across Mesopotamia and adjacent regions. While all these centres used CBOs to administer their resources in a range of ways, they each developed divergent patterns of CBO usage through space and time. In this project we propose to articulate these patterns of clay use across a thousand years of urban rise and fall, region by region. In so doing we will address major societal issues, including (1) the significance of gender in use of CBOs, considering new evidence for a major role for females within ancient bureaucracy, (2) the choice and use of clays for specific roles city by city across Mesopotamia, interrogating evidence for mobility of CBOs within and between contemporary settlements, and (3) the associations of CBOs with contextual evidence relating to their use, including within domestic households and within higher status contexts such as temples and palaces. To address these issues, we will apply a highly innovative methodology, synthesised through a GIS-related database and interpretive Network Analysis, which will maximise the combined potential of a range of scientific approaches to CBOs. We propose to study a total of 6500 CBOs housed principally in the Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin and in other museum collections in Germany, Iraq, Holland and the UK. Our methods will comprise: (1) recording of CBO attributes, including archaeological context, seal impression iconography, fingerprints, textual content, and evidence for function; (2) application of high-resolution imaging to CBOs for reconstruction of details such as fingerprints (indicators of age and sex) and fragmentary seal impressions; (3) a range of archaeometric analyses of CBO clays, including portable x-ray fluorescence and destructive analyses of tiny clay fragments from selected CBOs, plus microscopic analysis of micro-fauna and micro-flora within the clays to build up a reference library of clays city by city, region by region; (4) use of Network Analysis through a GIS-database to generate and interpret divergent and shifting patterns of usage of CBOs in spatial and chronological patterns across the study sites and regions, addressing the societal issues articulated in the preceding paragraph. Finally, the project's results and interpretations will be publicly shared both as Open Access research resources, and as an online exhibition hosted by the German Digital Library.

世界上第一个官僚记录系统是由古代美索不达米亚（伊拉克和叙利亚东北部）社会在公元前 3700-2700 年开发的。在最早的城市和国家的发展背景下，精英集团使用复杂的记录方法来控制许多商品的生产、储存和再分配，包括土地、农作物、动物、人口和其他资源。对于考古学家和历史学家来说幸运的是，这些早期官僚所使用的物理介质是粘土，他们将其建模为三种主要形式：（1）用于计数的令牌，（2）带有印章印记的密封件，用于保护罐子等存储设施、篮子和储藏室门，以及（3）刻有印章、数字符号和所谓原始楔形文字风格的象形符号的石碑。这种用粘土计数、印章和书写的综合系统非常成功，作为美索不达米亚和古代近东邻近地区的官僚框架持续了 3000 多年。在粘土国家项目中，我们首次提出开发一种综合的科学方法并将其应用于所有粘土官僚物体（CBO），以最大限度地发挥其解释美索不达米亚早期城市和国家层面社会的潜力。我们的重点是公元前 3700-2700 年的千年，当时乌鲁克（通常被称为“世界第一城市”）、乌尔、杰姆代特·纳斯尔、法拉、布拉克、尼尼微等主要遗址在区域间参与网络中崭露头角。横跨美索不达米亚及邻近地区。虽然所有这些中心都使用 CBO 以多种方式管理其资源，但它们各自在空间和时间上都形成了不同的 CBO 使用模式。在这个项目中，我们建议阐明这些粘土在一千年来城市兴衰过程中的使用模式，逐个地区。在此过程中，我们将解决重大社会问题，包括（1）性别在社区组织使用中的重要性，考虑女性在古代官僚机构中发挥重要作用的新证据，（2）针对城市特定角色的粘土的选择和使用横跨美索不达米亚的城市，询问当代住区内部和之间 CBO 流动性的证据，以及 (3) CBO 与其使用相关的背景证据的关联，包括在家庭内部和较高地位的背景下，例如寺庙和宫殿。为了解决这些问题，我们将采用高度创新的方法，通过地理信息系统相关数据库和解释性网络分析进行综合，这将最大限度地发挥社区组织一系列科学方法的综合潜力。我们建议研究总共 6500 个 CBO，主要收藏在柏林 Vorderasiatisches 博物馆以及德国、伊拉克、荷兰和英国的其他博物馆藏品中。我们的方法将包括：（1）记录 CBO 属性，包括考古背景、印章图像、指纹、文本内容和功能证据； (2) 将高分辨率成像应用于 CBO，以重建指纹（年龄和性别指标）和碎片印章印痕等细节； (3) 对 CBO 粘土进行一系列考古分析，包括对选定的 CBO 中的微小粘土碎片进行便携式 X 射线荧光和破坏性分析，以及对粘土内的微型动物和微生物区系进行微观分析，以建立一个参考库粘土 一个城市一个城市，一个地区一个地区； (4) 通过 GIS 数据库使用网络分析来生成和解释跨研究地点和区域的空间和时间模式中 CBO 使用的不同和变化模式，解决上一段中阐述的社会问题。最后，该项目的结果和解释将作为开放获取研究资源和由德国数字图书馆主办的在线展览公开共享。