Books by Edward P Stratford
Weights and Marketplaces from the Bronze Age to the Early Modern Period. Proceedings of Two Workshops Funded by the European Research Foundation (ERC). Weight & Value 1. Kiel/Hamburg: Wachholtz Verlag, , 2019
The full book can be downloaded for free in high quality at the attached URL at wachholtz-verlag.... more The full book can be downloaded for free in high quality at the attached URL at wachholtz-verlag.de.
How can we identify balance weights in the archaeological record? What economic changes did such objects bring about? And were formal marketplaces a usual area where such devices were used? What variety can we observe in pre-modern marketplaces worldwide? These are some of the questions which were investigated in two workshops held in 2016 and 2017 in Munich and Göttingen in Germany. The volume ‚Weights and marketplaces‘ presents 21 contributions. The theme of the first part of the volume is the identification and use of early weights from the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age in Western Asia to the Early Medieval period in Northern Europe. In the second part, the phenomenology of marketplaces from the Bronze Age to the modern period is discussed within a global perspective. Both workshops were funded by the ERC-2014-CoG 'WEIGHTANDVALUE': Weight metrology and its economic and social impact on Bronze Age Europe, West and South Asia' [Grant no. 648055]. The new series ‚Weight and Value‘ publishes research stemming from this project and related investigations.
The early second-millennium Assyrian trading colony at Kaneš/Kültepe has yielded a wealth of text... more The early second-millennium Assyrian trading colony at Kaneš/Kültepe has yielded a wealth of textual information. This volume focuses on a set of documents pertaining to a series of events that took place in one year. They reveal a tapestry of trade disruptions, illnesses, and commerce, as well as illuminate the relationships between texts and their material context, between narrative and time, and between economic forces and individual agency.
Articles and Book Sections by Edward P Stratford
Weights and Marketplaces from the Bronze Age to the Early Modern Period. Proceedings from Two Workshops funded by the European Research Council (ERC), 2019
(The uploaded document is only the first page. For a copy of the complete article, please contact... more (The uploaded document is only the first page. For a copy of the complete article, please contact me at edward_stratford@byu.edu)
The appearance of an annual chronology from Old Assyrian records in the form of eponym lists, around 2000 (AD) has had a significant impact on the quest to anchor early second millennium chronology. Old Assyrian specialists have produced a series of refinements on the list of eponyms (year names). The editors of the Revised Eponym List (REL) support a chronology of the early second millennium BCE that is close (or identical) to the Middle Chronology, and militates against the high, low and ultra-low chronologies, based on the relation between archaeological stratigraphy, texts, and dendrochronological results from the so-called Waršama palace at Kültepe. Since its appearance a number of authors have proposed minor, but mutually exclusive, modifications to REL. For the foreseeable future the evidence from Kültepe will remain pivotal. At the same time, the annual chronology has also opened the door to studies on the social and economic history of the period by aggregating the dated texts and observing archival and meta-archival patterns. However, work on the eponym lists has yet to yield a more rigorous temporal framework for contextualizing the individual commercial activities of merchants, particularly within the constraints of the shipping season as determined by the progression of seasons. There remains a need to more concretely work out the progression of the Old Assyrian calendar in relation to a solar calendar (such as the Julio-Gregorian) from year to year during the best attested years of Old Assyrian commercial activity (REL 80-110). While previous attempts to discuss the matter have used the successor eponyms as evidence, a lingering doubt of where to anchor the calendar has remained. It now appears that much of that doubt can be laid to rest.
Proceedings of the 1st Kültepe International Meeting Kültepe, 19-23 September, 2013: Studies dedicated to Kutlu Emre, Subartu 35, (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols), Jul 2015
While it is clear that there was a range of competencies of writing expressed in the Old Assyrian... more While it is clear that there was a range of competencies of writing expressed in the Old Assyrian tablets, it is worth querying how broadly these skill were both learned and employed on the ground. The review of several individual's letters from the Pūšu-kēn archive permit the opportunity to review this question. It will be shown that in terms of ductus and language, some individuals clearly did not write all their own letters, leading to the question whether or not those individuals wrote any. Though the answer to that question is thorny, the method for distinguishing hands in the Old Assyrian documentation advocated here, described as chirography, promises a way forward in providing more substantive answers to questions of individual and collective literacy in the Old Assyrian trade.
Journal of Cuneiform Studies
Projects by Edward P Stratford
Talks by Edward P Stratford
This talk was given during the opening workshop of a project entitled, "Economic Analysis of Anci... more This talk was given during the opening workshop of a project entitled, "Economic Analysis of Ancient Trade:
The Case of the Old Assyrian Merchants of the Nineteenth Century BCE." The project is generously funded by the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society at the University of Chicago. The focus of the remarks surrounded how to curate the Old Assyrian historical record to produce economic data through the database project associated with the project, the Old Assyrian Research Environment. Parts one and two were given by Gojko Barjamovic and Thomas Hertel respectively.
The question 'Where was this text written?' is one that cannot always be answered with great conf... more The question 'Where was this text written?' is one that cannot always be answered with great confidence when dealing with the documentation of the Old Assyrian trade. However, what the question means for each document is merely a reflection of the two interrelated problems of a project to map the social geography of the old Assyrian trade. In regard to the first problem, the question reflects the desire to relate the actions taken within our understanding of the settlements of the Old Assyrian trade. Trade between Assur and Kanesh sent many along the paths between the two cities. But many merchants also circulated around the Anatolian plateau. Better understanding the relative location of actions taken place them more firmly in a context that allows us to understand the trade, but also how the actors organized themselves.
In regard to the second problem, the question reflects an ongoing desire to more confidently relate the settlements recorded in the Old Assyrian texts to specific locations across the topography of Anatolia, the Taurus Mountains, and the Jezireh. Significant progress was made by Barjamovic (2011), but corroboration of his model is still desired.
Initial forays into pXRF analysis of the merchant letters shows that it is possible to use this method to posit and answer questions related to both of these two problems.
There are texts that connect us to the human condition through millennia of time: the Epic of Gil... more There are texts that connect us to the human condition through millennia of time: the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Illiad. But these literary voices from the past increasingly harmonize with a chorus of ancient everyday documents, documents that reveal glimpses of a distinctively human condition in new and often intimate ways. Scholars have been studying the business letters and documents from merchants in the trans-Taurus Assyrian trade (1920- 1870 BC) for over a century. What has not been yet widely understood is that this dense corpus of letters is the first time in history we can read a community of individuals projecting and contesting intentions: merchants complain about late shipments, wives pine for their husbands, and fathers chide their sons for laziness. What makes their intentions so compelling is that some correspondence can be re-connected to reveal not only quintes- sential emotions, but also the circumstances and stories of individual merchants, rendering them all the more human. And narrating their dealings with each other reveals perhaps the most human of conditions: the negotiation with time itself.
NOTE: There is a link to the Prezi for this presentation. Follow it to see the 'slides' used in t... more NOTE: There is a link to the Prezi for this presentation. Follow it to see the 'slides' used in the presentation.
What is the significance of the level of literacy in the Old Assyrian trade? While readily admitting others, two aspects seem particularly important. First, the degree to which the larger population may have had to rely on a smaller segment of the population for access to the technology of writing would have had an effect on social structures and the modes of communication we continue to investigate. This suggests the second aspect, which can be expressed in the form of a question. How closely do we have contact with the intents of the authors of the thousands of letters from the old Assyrian trade? Do we need to account for potential shaping of the message in the hand of the scribe if the author is unable to write their own letters?
Thus literacy is an important dimension of the social aspects of the Old Assyrian trade. Today, my remarks are not aimed at surveying the evidence for literacy on a large scale in the Old Assyrian trade. A number of studies have highlighted both the logic of the circumstances of that demanded widespread literacy in the trade, and noted its expansion into the Anatolian population that interacted with the Old Assyrian merchants (Michel 2008, Kryszat etc. Michel 2012). The regular travel of many merchants made it impracticable to depend on scribes, particularly their own scribes in the course of trade. Michel has argued for the need for families to communicate and the presence of women's letters has also been cited as evidence of literacy training even within homes.
Instead my remarks focus on the task of analyzing the evidence for literacy on particular individuals. A review of the hands (cf. to handwriting, but with cuneiform), demonstrates that in some cases, as in the case of Salim-ahum, more than one person was involved in the writing of his letters. While we cannot we determine when a particular person held the stylus him or herself, we can see cases where it is clear that it was not always the same person. This suggests the viability of further inquiry into Old Assyrian literacy from the bottom up.
An overview of the Old Assyrian Research Environment, a project within the Online Cultural and Hi... more An overview of the Old Assyrian Research Environment, a project within the Online Cultural and Historical Research Environment
Today, my aim is to bring together a few trajectories in archaeological work with that of my own ... more Today, my aim is to bring together a few trajectories in archaeological work with that of my own work on the Old Assyrian trade in order to address the economic impact of the Old Assyrian trade on settlements in northern Syria along the road to the Euphrates. My comments will primarily consist of applying my own rough estimate of the average volume of Assyrian trade with the work done on the Northern Jezireh Project directed by Tony Wilkinson and the survey work done around Hamoukar performed by Jason Ur. Many variables in this exploratory project remain too broad for comfort, but a model of sorts is worth exploring to further refine. My initial inquiry suggests that, given estimates of subsistence outlined in the survey projects, the trade was voluminous enough to provide significant incentive for small towns to work to attract its consumption, but not so voluminous that it would have demanded economic integration across such towns, rendering a potentially political dimension to the trade. My inquiry focuses on the area near Hamoukar, but I think that the mode of interaction suggested has applicability to other areas of the route as well. After a brief review of the trade, I’ll roughly sketch the route near Hamoukar and the border between modern Iraq and Syria and discuss pertinent findings of the Northern Jezireh and Tell Hamoukar surveys. Then I will discuss my estimate of volume in Assyrian trade based on several indicators. Finally, I will briefly explore the implications of the two trajectories have for understanding the political nature of the economy and the political landscape across northern Syria and northern Mesopotamia during the Assyrian trade.
Book Reviews by Edward P Stratford
Papers by Edward P Stratford
Journal of Cuneiform Studies, 2014
Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 2015
Uploads
Books by Edward P Stratford
How can we identify balance weights in the archaeological record? What economic changes did such objects bring about? And were formal marketplaces a usual area where such devices were used? What variety can we observe in pre-modern marketplaces worldwide? These are some of the questions which were investigated in two workshops held in 2016 and 2017 in Munich and Göttingen in Germany. The volume ‚Weights and marketplaces‘ presents 21 contributions. The theme of the first part of the volume is the identification and use of early weights from the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age in Western Asia to the Early Medieval period in Northern Europe. In the second part, the phenomenology of marketplaces from the Bronze Age to the modern period is discussed within a global perspective. Both workshops were funded by the ERC-2014-CoG 'WEIGHTANDVALUE': Weight metrology and its economic and social impact on Bronze Age Europe, West and South Asia' [Grant no. 648055]. The new series ‚Weight and Value‘ publishes research stemming from this project and related investigations.
Articles and Book Sections by Edward P Stratford
The appearance of an annual chronology from Old Assyrian records in the form of eponym lists, around 2000 (AD) has had a significant impact on the quest to anchor early second millennium chronology. Old Assyrian specialists have produced a series of refinements on the list of eponyms (year names). The editors of the Revised Eponym List (REL) support a chronology of the early second millennium BCE that is close (or identical) to the Middle Chronology, and militates against the high, low and ultra-low chronologies, based on the relation between archaeological stratigraphy, texts, and dendrochronological results from the so-called Waršama palace at Kültepe. Since its appearance a number of authors have proposed minor, but mutually exclusive, modifications to REL. For the foreseeable future the evidence from Kültepe will remain pivotal. At the same time, the annual chronology has also opened the door to studies on the social and economic history of the period by aggregating the dated texts and observing archival and meta-archival patterns. However, work on the eponym lists has yet to yield a more rigorous temporal framework for contextualizing the individual commercial activities of merchants, particularly within the constraints of the shipping season as determined by the progression of seasons. There remains a need to more concretely work out the progression of the Old Assyrian calendar in relation to a solar calendar (such as the Julio-Gregorian) from year to year during the best attested years of Old Assyrian commercial activity (REL 80-110). While previous attempts to discuss the matter have used the successor eponyms as evidence, a lingering doubt of where to anchor the calendar has remained. It now appears that much of that doubt can be laid to rest.
Projects by Edward P Stratford
Talks by Edward P Stratford
The Case of the Old Assyrian Merchants of the Nineteenth Century BCE." The project is generously funded by the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society at the University of Chicago. The focus of the remarks surrounded how to curate the Old Assyrian historical record to produce economic data through the database project associated with the project, the Old Assyrian Research Environment. Parts one and two were given by Gojko Barjamovic and Thomas Hertel respectively.
In regard to the second problem, the question reflects an ongoing desire to more confidently relate the settlements recorded in the Old Assyrian texts to specific locations across the topography of Anatolia, the Taurus Mountains, and the Jezireh. Significant progress was made by Barjamovic (2011), but corroboration of his model is still desired.
Initial forays into pXRF analysis of the merchant letters shows that it is possible to use this method to posit and answer questions related to both of these two problems.
What is the significance of the level of literacy in the Old Assyrian trade? While readily admitting others, two aspects seem particularly important. First, the degree to which the larger population may have had to rely on a smaller segment of the population for access to the technology of writing would have had an effect on social structures and the modes of communication we continue to investigate. This suggests the second aspect, which can be expressed in the form of a question. How closely do we have contact with the intents of the authors of the thousands of letters from the old Assyrian trade? Do we need to account for potential shaping of the message in the hand of the scribe if the author is unable to write their own letters?
Thus literacy is an important dimension of the social aspects of the Old Assyrian trade. Today, my remarks are not aimed at surveying the evidence for literacy on a large scale in the Old Assyrian trade. A number of studies have highlighted both the logic of the circumstances of that demanded widespread literacy in the trade, and noted its expansion into the Anatolian population that interacted with the Old Assyrian merchants (Michel 2008, Kryszat etc. Michel 2012). The regular travel of many merchants made it impracticable to depend on scribes, particularly their own scribes in the course of trade. Michel has argued for the need for families to communicate and the presence of women's letters has also been cited as evidence of literacy training even within homes.
Instead my remarks focus on the task of analyzing the evidence for literacy on particular individuals. A review of the hands (cf. to handwriting, but with cuneiform), demonstrates that in some cases, as in the case of Salim-ahum, more than one person was involved in the writing of his letters. While we cannot we determine when a particular person held the stylus him or herself, we can see cases where it is clear that it was not always the same person. This suggests the viability of further inquiry into Old Assyrian literacy from the bottom up.
Book Reviews by Edward P Stratford
Papers by Edward P Stratford
How can we identify balance weights in the archaeological record? What economic changes did such objects bring about? And were formal marketplaces a usual area where such devices were used? What variety can we observe in pre-modern marketplaces worldwide? These are some of the questions which were investigated in two workshops held in 2016 and 2017 in Munich and Göttingen in Germany. The volume ‚Weights and marketplaces‘ presents 21 contributions. The theme of the first part of the volume is the identification and use of early weights from the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age in Western Asia to the Early Medieval period in Northern Europe. In the second part, the phenomenology of marketplaces from the Bronze Age to the modern period is discussed within a global perspective. Both workshops were funded by the ERC-2014-CoG 'WEIGHTANDVALUE': Weight metrology and its economic and social impact on Bronze Age Europe, West and South Asia' [Grant no. 648055]. The new series ‚Weight and Value‘ publishes research stemming from this project and related investigations.
The appearance of an annual chronology from Old Assyrian records in the form of eponym lists, around 2000 (AD) has had a significant impact on the quest to anchor early second millennium chronology. Old Assyrian specialists have produced a series of refinements on the list of eponyms (year names). The editors of the Revised Eponym List (REL) support a chronology of the early second millennium BCE that is close (or identical) to the Middle Chronology, and militates against the high, low and ultra-low chronologies, based on the relation between archaeological stratigraphy, texts, and dendrochronological results from the so-called Waršama palace at Kültepe. Since its appearance a number of authors have proposed minor, but mutually exclusive, modifications to REL. For the foreseeable future the evidence from Kültepe will remain pivotal. At the same time, the annual chronology has also opened the door to studies on the social and economic history of the period by aggregating the dated texts and observing archival and meta-archival patterns. However, work on the eponym lists has yet to yield a more rigorous temporal framework for contextualizing the individual commercial activities of merchants, particularly within the constraints of the shipping season as determined by the progression of seasons. There remains a need to more concretely work out the progression of the Old Assyrian calendar in relation to a solar calendar (such as the Julio-Gregorian) from year to year during the best attested years of Old Assyrian commercial activity (REL 80-110). While previous attempts to discuss the matter have used the successor eponyms as evidence, a lingering doubt of where to anchor the calendar has remained. It now appears that much of that doubt can be laid to rest.
The Case of the Old Assyrian Merchants of the Nineteenth Century BCE." The project is generously funded by the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society at the University of Chicago. The focus of the remarks surrounded how to curate the Old Assyrian historical record to produce economic data through the database project associated with the project, the Old Assyrian Research Environment. Parts one and two were given by Gojko Barjamovic and Thomas Hertel respectively.
In regard to the second problem, the question reflects an ongoing desire to more confidently relate the settlements recorded in the Old Assyrian texts to specific locations across the topography of Anatolia, the Taurus Mountains, and the Jezireh. Significant progress was made by Barjamovic (2011), but corroboration of his model is still desired.
Initial forays into pXRF analysis of the merchant letters shows that it is possible to use this method to posit and answer questions related to both of these two problems.
What is the significance of the level of literacy in the Old Assyrian trade? While readily admitting others, two aspects seem particularly important. First, the degree to which the larger population may have had to rely on a smaller segment of the population for access to the technology of writing would have had an effect on social structures and the modes of communication we continue to investigate. This suggests the second aspect, which can be expressed in the form of a question. How closely do we have contact with the intents of the authors of the thousands of letters from the old Assyrian trade? Do we need to account for potential shaping of the message in the hand of the scribe if the author is unable to write their own letters?
Thus literacy is an important dimension of the social aspects of the Old Assyrian trade. Today, my remarks are not aimed at surveying the evidence for literacy on a large scale in the Old Assyrian trade. A number of studies have highlighted both the logic of the circumstances of that demanded widespread literacy in the trade, and noted its expansion into the Anatolian population that interacted with the Old Assyrian merchants (Michel 2008, Kryszat etc. Michel 2012). The regular travel of many merchants made it impracticable to depend on scribes, particularly their own scribes in the course of trade. Michel has argued for the need for families to communicate and the presence of women's letters has also been cited as evidence of literacy training even within homes.
Instead my remarks focus on the task of analyzing the evidence for literacy on particular individuals. A review of the hands (cf. to handwriting, but with cuneiform), demonstrates that in some cases, as in the case of Salim-ahum, more than one person was involved in the writing of his letters. While we cannot we determine when a particular person held the stylus him or herself, we can see cases where it is clear that it was not always the same person. This suggests the viability of further inquiry into Old Assyrian literacy from the bottom up.