Archive for the ‘History’ Category

Notes on the Nature and Administration of Law in the Isin-Larsa Period

Sunday, October 18th, 2015

In this period there seems to have been increasing disillusionment with operation of a system in which the institutions of the temple were held to be mainly responsible for ensuring economic security for the citizens. The cause of this is likely to have been the increasing influence of individual interests, ...

Notes on the Cult of the Isin-Larsa Period

Saturday, October 3rd, 2015

Ur-Nammu appointed his son to be high priest of Inanna at Uruk, and his daughter to be high priestess of Nanna at Ur.[1] This custom was begun by the Akkadians and was doubtless intended to facilitate the control of the resources of the temple estates by the secular power, as ...

Notes on the Economy of the Isin-Larsa – Old Babylonian Period

Sunday, September 27th, 2015

Tendencies in the changing economy which had been noted in the Neo-Sumerian period strengthened in the Isin-Larsa and Old Babylonian periods. Much of the information for this period comes from the very large number of ‘Old Babylonian Contracts’ that have been recovered. This is particularly the case for the private ...

Notes on the Nature of Authority in the Isin-Larsa Period

Saturday, September 19th, 2015

The influx of Semitic elements, of which the Amorites were the latest, led to alterations in the political forms of Sumer. Tribal Authority Whereas there is no trace of residual tribal structure in Sumero-Akkadian society of the third millennium BC, the Amorites, as relative newcomers to the Land and arriving in such ...

Notes on the Demography of the Land in the Isin-Larsa Period

Sunday, September 13th, 2015

  The principal cause of the ‘End of Sumer’ was the influx of new people. It has already been noted that there had always been, so far as we can tell, a mixture of populations in the Land. Besides the ethnic Sumerians (the original speakers of Sumerian) themselves, there is strong ...

Notes on the Social Structure of Third Millenium BC Sumer

Tuesday, March 10th, 2015

  The People (sag-giga) The principal identity of the people seems to have been with the city itself. One sign of this is the tendency to take names incorporating the name of the city.[1] There is no evidence that alternative identities actually opposed to the city played any significant role in Sumerian ...

Notes on the Justice System of the Ur III State

Tuesday, February 24th, 2015

In this period there seems to have been increasing disillusionment with operation of a system in which the institutions of the temple were held to be mainly responsible for ensuring economic security for the citizens. The cause of this is likely to have been the increasing influence of individual interests, ...

Notes on the Administration of the Ur III State

Sunday, February 22nd, 2015

The structure of the administration of Ur III and some of its administrative initiatives also played a role in avoiding internal rebellions. Many of these features of Ur III were foreshadowed in the structure and administration of the Akkadian empire, but appear to have been much more thorough and perhaps ...

Notes on architectural novelties of Ur III

Thursday, January 15th, 2015

Architecture Ur-Nammu’s determination to display his piety and to repair the damage done by the Guti (or by neglect in the interregnum) showed itself in reconstruction efforts all over Sumer in the name of his god ad of the local gods of the cities. Most elements of the architecture, such as ...

The Unlikely Ideologies of Yoga

Friday, December 26th, 2014

Retention of bindu In its earliest formulations, hatHa was used to raise and conserve the physical essence of life, identified in men as bindu (semen), which is otherwise constantly dripping downward from a store in the head and being expended. (The female equivalent, mentioned only occasionally in our sources, is rajas, ...