Journal of Near Eastern Studies 

About: Journal of Near Eastern Studies is an academic journal published by University of Chicago Press. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Islam & Hebrew. It has an ISSN identifier of 0022-2968. Over the lifetime, 2065 publications have been published receiving 19360 citations.

Primitive Democracy in Ancient Mesopotamia

Abstract: W ORDS which embody the hopes, the fears, and the values of generations are likely to lose in clarity what they gain in depth. One such word is \"democracy,\" which denoted a form of government and now stands for a way of life. It may not be amiss, therefore, first to make clear in what sense we intend to' use the word before we plunge in medias res. We shall use \"democracy\" in its classical rather than in its modern sense as denoting a form of government in which internal sovereignty resides in a large proportion of the governed, namely in all free, adult, male citizens without distinction of fortune or class. That sovereignty resides in these citizens implies that major decisions-such as the decision to undertake a war-are made with their consent, that these citizens constitute the supreme judicial authority in the state, and also that rulers and magistrates obtain their positions with and ultimately derive their power from that same consent. By \"primitive democracy,\" furthermore, we understand forms of government which, though they may be considered as falling within the definition of democracy just given, differ from the classical democracies by their more primitive character: the various functions of government are as yet little specialized, the power structure is loose, and the machinery for social co-ordination by means of power is as yet imperfectly developed.

Climatic Change and the Eleventh-Tenth-Century Eclipse of Assyria and Babylonia

Abstract: AFTER some three centuries of military strength and territorial expansion, in the eleventh century B.C. the Assyrian empire plunged into a state of weakness from which it was not to recover until a century and a half later. At the same time, Babylonia, Assyria's neighbor to the south, was also having difficulties. Textual evidence from the period is relatively scarce, but it is strongly colored by allusions to crop failure, famine, outbreaks of plague, and repeated nomad incursions into settled areas in both countries (see sec. IV and Appendix A, below). The principal events of this troubled period in Mesopotamian history have been ably described and discussed by J. A. Brinkman in his study of the political history of post-Kassite Babylonia.' In considering the reasons for the disastrous nomad invasions, he suggests that they were primarily due to famines simultaneously affecting both the settled regions and the outlying nomad habitats. "The semi-nomads, whether their livelihood was derived at various times from the raising of cattle or from trade, needed to obtain at least some food supplies from the more settled areas .... These raiders were most likely to attack the settled areas of [Assyria and] Babylonia in times of famine, when they were unable to procure food by peaceful means and when the inhabitants of [Assyria and] Babylonia were apt to be weaker than usual."2 In this article, we shall substantiate and further develop this interpretation by considering the causality of the events from the viewpoint of climatology. We hope to show that while irregular nomad razzias into settled areas were, as rightly stressed by Brinkman, a matter-of-course phenomenon well attested throughout the history of Mesopotamia (and not only in time of famine), the massive, devastating incursions of the twelfth through tenth centuries were occasioned by long-term climatic changes

Problems of Protohistoric Iran as Seen from Hasanlu

Abstract: THE essay which follows has been prompted by the concurrence of three circumstances. First, there is the wish to honor the memory of Erich F. Schmidt whose important excavations during the 1930's created the University Museum's Iranian collection and established its continuing interest in Iran as a field of study. Second, there is the publication of Roman Ghirshman's major book The Arts of Ancient Iran (1964), which includes chapters discussing northwestern Iran based on work done prior to 1957. Third, there is the fact that the Hasanlu Project of the University Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art has now completed eight seasons of excavations in Azerbaijan and Kurdistan2 and is now in a position to begin a summing up of its work at Hasanlu, Ziwiyeh, and elsewhere. The moment seems appropriate, therefore, to attempt to summarize the archeological pattern of northwestern Iran as it has emerged since 1957 in relation to the protohistoric problems of that area. The important protohistoric sites at which excavations have been carried out in the recent past include Geoy Tepe, southeast of Rezaiyeh on the west shore of Lake Urmia (Burton Brown, 1951); Hasanlu (Crawford, 1960; Dyson, 1957-1964) and Agrab Tepe (1964, unpublished) in the Solduz valley east of the Kel-i-Shin pass and southwest of Lake Urmia; Yanik Tepe on the northeast shore of Lake Urmia (Burney, 1962, 1963, 1964); Ziwiyeh in central Kurdistan (1964, unpublished); Zendan-i-Suleiman, east of Ziwiyeh (Naumann, 1960, 1964; Oehler, 1962, 1963; Von der Osten, 1961); Marlik Tepe on the route from the southwestern Caspian shore to the plateau (Negahban, 1962, 1964); and Khorvin, about forty miles west of Teheran (Vanden Berghe, 1964). In discussing the discoveries made at these sites the following archeological periods are based on the stratigraphically established sequence at Hasanlu dated by a relative chronology based in so far as possible on typological comparisons. To this basic structure radiocarbon dates have been added as independent evidence.

The Kadizadelis: Discordant Revivalism in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul

Abstract: Il s'agit du conflit souvent sanglant resultant des violentes attaques des predicateurs menes par Kadizade Mehmed ben Mustafa (mort en 1635), dans les mosquees d'Istanbul, contre les " innovations " des soufis et la piete populaire. Le conflit dura pendant tout le dix-septieme siecle et se termina par la defaite de ces musulmans austeres qu'etaient les Kadizadelis

The Ancient Mesopotamian Ration System

Abstract: IN HIS well-known study of the pre-Sargonic texts of the \"temple of Bau\" at Lagash-Girshu, P. Anton Deimel, ?umerische Tempelwirtschaft zur Zeit Urukaginas und seiner Nachfolger (AnOr II [Roma, 1931]), 1 ff., translated the Sumerian term ge-ba as \"Gersten-Lohn,\" and similarly ziz-ba, ninda-ba, and sig-ba as \"Weizen-, Brot-, and WollLohn (or -Lohnung),\" respectively. He had used the same terms previously in Fara III, 15* (for the Fara texts) and in Orient. XXXIV f. and XLIII f. (for the Lagash-Girshu