Abstract
The research project aims at investigating the administrative and economic organization of the top tier of society in the large territorial states which interacted and competed in the Mesopotamian and Anatolian politicalarena during the second half of the second millennium BC. We focus on the organizational chart of courts and the role of court officials in the management of the economy of the Great Kingdoms of the Late Bronze Age inAnatolia and Mesopotamia. Starting from the most recent finds of large corpora of sealings (both inscribed and uninscribed) at Karkemish and in other major Hittite centers, which provide a lot of new information on theflows of commodities and their management by high-ranking officials, and extending our research horizon to the Mesopotamian-Anatolian region, we aim at investigating the interlocking economic networks operating atlocal and regional levels that involve court officials, as well as the roles and the spheres of activity of these magnates in the state administration (fiscal, military, cultic, legal). Imperial courts functioned through an overlap ofadministrative networks each overseeing specific key areas of imperial economy, with some of the top officials being involved in multiple organizations but at the same time set within a web of formal relations with otherpeers or lesser officials who at times were required to countersign (i.e. stamp) economic transactions within a system that has yet be properly understood. We seek to discern patterns in the management of state resources, and to show similarities and differences in the way power (with ensuing economic control) was exercised by the “great kings”. In consideration of the fields of expertise of the participants in the project both textual documentation and archaeological evidence will be examined with a focus on Hatti, Kassite Babylonia and the Middle Assyrian kingdom. The setting of different datasets will be the first step. Through prosopographical and social-network analysis we will also try to establish the identities of members of the royal entourage, magnates, courtiers,high-ranking managers, palace functionaries, and military officers in order to outline the administrative hierarchy of the individual regional polities. A study case of particular importance will be that of the administrative documentation recently discovered at Karkemish. In addition, spin-off topics of the project will be the following researches: land tenure and the land donations in Anatolia and Mesopotamia; the inscriptions of the officials of the Kassite kingdom; the participation of the royal family and the courtiers in Hittite religious ceremonies.
Project duration
May 2022 – May 2025
Local national responsible
Nicolò Marchetti
Partnership
Università di Bologna
Università di Torino
Università di Firenze
Università di Roma Sapienza
Università di Padova
Budget 250.000 euro
ERC sectors II level**:
SH6_3 General archaeology, archaeometry, landscape archaeology
SH6_5 Ancient history