Mesopotamia (1/21)

REQUIRED

(In addition to the notes, 15 pages)

• * Lecture Notes on Sumer

• * Jursa, Michael and Juan Carlos Moreno García (2015). "The Ancient Near East and Egypt," in Andrew Monson and Walter Scheidel, eds., Fiscal Regimes and the Political Economy of Premodern States, Cambridge University Press, Chapter, 4, 121-129:  "Fiscal structures in ancient Mesopotamia..

• * Ur, Jason (2010). "Southern Mesopotamia," Sections 3 and 4 (540-545).

• * Ur, Jason 2016. “Commentary to Jennings and Earle, "Urbanization, State Formation, and Cooperation: A Reappraisal".” Current Anthropology, 57, Pp. 487-488.

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

Some of this material is used in the lectures. It is written for professionals, not for the level of the class. You may have a look, but you also may safely ignore it.

• Allen, Robert, C., Mattia C. Bertazzini, and Leander Heldring (2023). “The Economic Origins of Governments,” American Economic Review, 113(10): 2507-2545. 

• Ur, Jason (2013). " Patterns of Settlement in Sumer an Akkad," Chapter 7 in Harriet Crawford, ed, The Sumerian World, Routledge.

• Garfinkle, Joe (2013). "Ancient Near Eastern City-States", Peter Fibiger Bang and Walter Scheidel, eds, chapter 3 in The Oxford Handbook of the state in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean.

•  Bin Liu et al. (2018). “Earliest hydraulic enterprise in China, 5,100 years ago,” PNAS, 115(4), 13637-13642.

Egypt (1/26)

REQUIRED

• * Preparation (see the main page): pages form Jursa and Moreno Garcia (8 pages)
•  Lecture notes: this is actually not required (written some time ago and needs revisions). Browse as a complement to the slides in the lectures, which ARE required material.

• The Nile and the social organization of Egypt: Joe Manning (Yale)