Document Type
Journal Article
Date of this Version
2-2011
Publication Source
Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research
Issue
361
Start Page
1
Last Page
31
Abstract
The emergence of political complexity in northern Mesopotamia ca. 2600 b.c. constituted an important cultural revolution which transformed how people within nascent states understood their communities. This study explores the relationship between inclusive and exclusive political strategies and free and limited access to a range of political and ritual spaces in cities and the countryside. First, it considers how the spatial organization of new cities constructed a particular type of political authority. Second, it reanalyzes several cultic monuments in light of the Ebla texts and Syrian ritual scenes and suggests that they formed pilgrimage networks that were interconnected with the economic and political systems of emerging states. Movement through newly created political landscapes was thus critical to the development of a cognitive schema that made sense of these polities.
Copyright/Permission Statement
© 2011 American Schools of Oriental Research. All rights reserved. Republished here by permission of the American Schools of Oriental Research.
Recommended Citation
Ristvet, L. (2011). Travel and the Making of North Mesopotamian Polities. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, (361), 1-31. Retrieved from https://repository.upenn.edu/anthro_papers/29
Date Posted: 17 July 2014
This document has been peer reviewed.