|
Showing 1 - 4 of
4 matches in All Departments
Although the ancient Near East has been studied by anthropologists,
archaeologists, philologists, and historians, no single work has
explored issues of gender and social identity across the broad
temporal and geographical range of Near Eastern civilizations.
Gender Through Time in the Ancient Near East thus makes a unique
contribution to gender studies. The volume's contributors an
international group of experts from Near Easern, European and
American institutions look at the archaeological and other evidence
to find out how gender roles were constructed in these ancient
worlds and what they meant to the men and women who assumed them.
This early civilization was erased from human memory until 1924,
when it was rediscovered and announced in the Illustrated London
Times. Our understanding of the Indus has been partially advanced
by textual sources from Mesopotamia that contain references to
Meluhha, a land identified by cuneiform specialists as the Indus,
with which the ancient Mesopotamians traded and engaged in battles.
In this volume, Rita P. Wright uses both Mesopotamian texts but
principally the results of archaeological excavations and surveys
to draw a rich account of the Indus civilization s well-planned
cities, its sophisticated alterations to the landscape, and the
complexities of its agrarian and craft-producing economy. She
focuses principally on the social networks established between city
and rural communities; farmers, pastoralists, and craft producers;
and Indus merchants and traders and the symbolic imagery that the
civilization shared with contemporary cultures in Iran,
Mesopotamia, Central Asia, and the Persian Gulf region. Broadly
comparative, her study emphasizes the interconnected nature of
early societies."
This early civilization was erased from human memory until 1924,
when it was rediscovered and announced in the Illustrated London
Times. Our understanding of the Indus has been partially advanced
by textual sources from Mesopotamia that contain references to
Meluhha, a land identified by cuneiform specialists as the Indus,
with which the ancient Mesopotamians traded and engaged in battles.
In this volume, Rita P. Wright uses both Mesopotamian texts but
principally the results of archaeological excavations and surveys
to draw a rich account of the Indus civilization s well-planned
cities, its sophisticated alterations to the landscape, and the
complexities of its agrarian and craft-producing economy. She
focuses principally on the social networks established between city
and rural communities; farmers, pastoralists, and craft producers;
and Indus merchants and traders and the symbolic imagery that the
civilization shared with contemporary cultures in Iran,
Mesopotamia, Central Asia, and the Persian Gulf region. Broadly
comparative, her study emphasizes the interconnected nature of
early societies."
Crafting and craft objects intersect with all cultural domains:
economic, social, political, and rituall. Craft goods are social
objects that assume an importance beyond household maintenance and
reproduction. They signify and legitimize group membership and
social roles, and become reserves of wealth, storing intrinsically
valuable materials and the labor invested in their manufacture.
Specialized craft producers are actors involved in the creation and
maintenance of social networks, wealth, and social legitimacy.
Artisans and consumers must accept, create or negotiate the social
legitimacy of production and the conditions of production and
distribution, usually defined in terms of social identity. The
nature of that process defines the organization of production and
the social relations of production systems and explanations for
their form and dynamic are destined to be unidimensional and
unidirectional, lacking in key elements of social process and
social behavior. This volume addresses the questions of artisan
identify, social identify, and what these inquiries contribute to
understandings about social organization and economic organization.
|
|