Assyrian Collective Identity in the Second Millennium BCE: a Social Categories Approach
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Assyrian Collective Identity in the Second Millennium BCE: A Social Categories Approach By Jonathan Valk A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Institute for the Study of the Ancient World New York University May, 2018 ___________________________ Professor Beate Pongratz-Leisten © Jonathan Valk All Rights Reserved, 2018 Dedication To the two most important women in my life: my mother Tamara, and my wife Avichag. In thinking of either of them I can do no less than echo the praise of the goddess Nanaya: ela šâša, mannu mīna eppuš? Without her, who can do anything? - SAA III, 4: r ii 9' iii Acknowledgements This project represents not the culmination of a long journey, but an important waystation on the road. The path has been muddy and riddled with potholes. It has, on occasion, been lost altogether, only to reappear in an unexpected place, meandering in an here I am! – with my offering in hand. I first set out – הנני ,unanticipated direction. Nevertheless on this journey many rotations around the sun ago. When I left the safety of the maternal nest, I had only just begun to realize that I do not know much. Now, I am acutely aware of it. All to the better. My awareness of my own ignorance has been helped along by many people whom I have been fortunate to know and to learn from. Before moving to New York and deciding to pursue research in the ancient world, I had the opportunity to work closely with Martin Goodman and Bernard Wasserstein at the universities of Oxford and Chicago respectively. Both of them pointed the way to better, sharper, more critical thinking. In Chicago, too, Seth Richardson helped spark an Assyriological fire in my mind. It was some time before this fire turned into a blaze, but when it did it was Seth’s kindness that helped me find terra firma. In the interim, I spent a number of years outside of the academy, trying my hand at other things and doing away with any outstanding doubts about what it was I wanted to do. The Švejkian experience of military service was instructional, if only in how not to think; the same is true of my taste of a political world uninterested in self-reflection and the common good. The iv incomparable turn in my life, however, was the birth of my eldest daughter, and my subsequent undertaking to follow Siduri’s sage advice: ṣubbi ṣeḫram ṣābitu qātīka, marḫītum liḫtaddâm ina sūnīka (gaze upon the little one who holds your hand, let a wife enjoy your repeated embrace).1 An academic context struck me as precisely the right one in which to live by those words. I will always be grateful to New York University’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World for giving me the opportunity and freedom to do what I wanted to do, and for paying me to do it. The six years I have been at ISAW are the longest time I have ever spent in a single place. ISAW has become a home away from home, and I could not have hoped for a more pleasant sojourn. From the regular provision of peerless victuals to the company of colleagues, ISAW has been good to me. I thank its staff and the community collectively. Individually, I gratefully acknowledge Marc LeBlanc, who has worked assiduously to help me with every manner of administrative obstacle, and Gabriel McKee, who has gone out of his way to provide me with whatever obscure books and articles I have needed. I am especially indebted to the steadfast generosity and support of David Ratzan, who is ever ready to help me, and to follow it up with a kind word or three. ISAW’s visiting scholars are a tremendous asset, and I have enjoyed and profited from their presence. Although I am thankful to many of them, from the point of view of the dissertation and its associated travails I must single out Eva von Dassow, Gina Konstantopoulos, 1 As per Andrew George’s edition and translation of the Old Babylonian Sippar Tablet in George 2003: 278-279. v Emily Cole, Yitzchak Jaffe, and above all Martin Worthington. Martin was kind enough to read drafts of some of the material that follows and to provide characteristically valuable commentary. Knowing him is an unqualified delight. I have enjoyed and profited in equal measure from the friendship and collegiality of my fellow students at ISAW and in other departments at NYU. There is a long list of names, which I refrain from reproducing here for fear of inadvertently missing anyone. The omission of this list in no way diminishes my fondness for the people who populate it. You have my thanks. I do, however, single out two people. Georgios Tsolakis, for help with Greek – ευχαριστώ! And Nancy Highcock, who has been a welcome partner in the race to completion: trouble shared is trouble halved. There are many among the faculty at ISAW and NYU who have exercised significant influence over my scholarly development. Outside of my doctoral committee, I thank Mark Smith, as well as those with whom I have taught: David Ratzan, Roger Bagnall, David Levene, and Dan Potts. In my committee, I thank Lorenzo d’Alfonso, who has been kind, supportive, and insightful; Rod Campbell, whose theoretically informed approach to the ancient world has been illuminating and exemplary; Dan Fleming, for always being prepared to help and for his methodical approach to scholarship; Jacob Lauinger, for agreeing to serve as external reader and contributing his time, expertise, and intelligence; and last but by no means least, my primary supervisor Beate Pongratz-Leisten, who invited me to ISAW six years ago, expressed vi confidence in my work, supported me throughout, and is an outstanding guide in Assyriology. Thank you. Being a father to three munchkins aged six and under is the great delight of my life. All that I do is inflected by the thought of my children. Fatherhood does, however, present certain logistical challenges in the context of writing a dissertation. I count myself exceptionally fortunate to have been able to call on loved ones, who helped me make time when it was in short supply. In chronological order, my mother-in-law Xavière Hassan, my mother Tamara Fai, my brother-in-law Samuel Claus, and my father Ferdinand Valk each visited New York separately to take over some of my domestic duties. My in-laws also took in my family for a considerable time, allowing me to finish everything as deadlines loomed. Beyond the production of time, my mother and father offered their thoughts and comments on drafts of each chapter of this work, improving the final product and giving me the confidence to keep at it. There is no end to my love and gratitude for them. None of this would have been possible without my loved ones. It is by my parents, my brothers and their families, and my family by marriage that I know my place in the world. It is their approval that I seek, their support that I lean on, and to them that I return. But it is with my wife Avichag and my three daughters that I share my life most intimately. Nothing makes me happier than the love of my children, Aya, Nava, and Sequoia. It is with them in mind that I have come to be where I am today, and I hope that they may one day take pride in this work. vii My wife Avi is a great blessing. She is an unrivaled companion, a marvelous mother to our children, and simply a wonderful human being. Her keen eye has read drafts of this dissertation and helped improve it, she has sacrificed endless hours to facilitate its creation, and any success is hers as much as it is mine. Odysseus’s words ring true: οὐ μὲν γὰρ τοῦ γε κρεῖσσον καὶ ἄρειον, ἢ ὅθ᾿ ὁμοφρονέοντε νοήμασιν οἶκον ἔχητον ἀνὴρ ἠδὲ γυνή· πόλλ᾿ ἄλγεα δυσμενέεσσι, χάρματα δ᾿ εὐμενέτῃσι, μάλιστα δέ τ᾿ ἔκλυον αὐτοί. For there is nothing better than when a man and a woman share their home, united in purpose and mind. A source of hardship to their enemies, a source of joy to their friends, their own best claim to glory. - The Odyssey, 6.182-185 viii Abstract Assyrians are attested as a social category throughout the second millennium BCE. Although this category is often regarded as ethnic and unchanging, a closer examination of the evidence indicates that what it meant to be Assyrian underwent a radical transformation in this time. Interpreting the Assyrian social category through the modern paradigm of ethnicity obscures much more than it enlightens. To understand the changing form and function of the Assyrian social category in the second millennium, the present dissertation instead develops a broad theoretical framework for the study of collective identity that focuses on the role of categories in structuring the social landscape. This framework – termed the social categories approach – builds on current research from various fields of inquiry, outlining how and why collective identities develop out of categories. It also elucidates how and why such categories and their attendant identities are inseparable from the creation and perpetuation of inequalities in the social world. The application of the social categories approach to the Assyrian evidence from the second millennium illuminates the dynamic character of the Assyrian social category and its relationship to the social worlds in which it operated. It also enables a more profound understanding of how Assyrians conceived of themselves that is unburdened by the conceptual baggage of the modern ethnic paradigm, and thus more sensitive to the construction of idiosyncratic social boundaries and their relationship to prevailing conditions.