ARCHÉO-NIL Revue De La Société Pour L’Étude Des Cultures Prépharaoniques De La Vallée Du Nil

ARCHÉO-NIL Revue de la société pour l’étude des cultures prépharaoniques de la vallée du Nil

Naissance de l'état, naissance de l’administration : le rôle de l'écriture en Égypte, au Proche-Orient et en Chine

Emergence of the state and development of the administration: the role of writing in Egypt, Near East and China

numéro 26 Juin 2016 65 bis, rue Galande 75005 PARIS BUREAU LISTE DES AUTEURS LUCA PEYRONEL Président : Dipartimento di Studi Classici Yann Tristant Matthieu BEGON Umanistici e Geografici Università Présidente d’honneur : Université Paris IV-Sorbonne IULM Milano Béatrix Midant-Reynes Paris (France) Via Carlo Bo, 1 Vice-présidente : Evelyne Faivre-Martin [email protected] 20143 Milano (Italy) Secrétaire : [email protected] Marie-Noël Bellessort Wouter CLAES Secrétaire adjointe : Musées Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire OLIVIER ROCHECOUSTE Laëtitia Maggio Parc du Cinquantenaire, 10 Department of Ancient History Trésorière : 1000 Bruxelles (Belgique) Macquarie University Chantal Alary [email protected] Sydney (Australia) [email protected] COMITÉ DE RÉDACTION François DESSET Directeur de publication : Tehran University (Iran) Yann TRISTANT Béatrix Midant-Reynes Rédacteur en chef : [email protected] Department of Ancient History Yann Tristant Macquarie University MARCELLA FRANGIPANE Sydney (Australia) COMITÉ DE LECTURE Sapienza University John Baines Rome (Italy) Pascal VERNUS Charles Bonnet [email protected] École Pratique des Hautes Études Nathalie Buchez Paris (France) Isabella Caneva Caleb R. HAMILTON [email protected] Josep Cervelló Autuori Monash University Éric Crubézy Melbourne (Australia) Wang HAICHENG Marc Étienne Renée Friedman [email protected] University of Washington Brigitte Gratien Box 353440 Nicolas Grimal Stan HENDRICKX Seattle, WA 98195 (USA) Ulrich Hartung Sint-Jansstraat 44 [email protected] Stan Hendrickx B-3118 Werchter (Belgique) Christiana Köhler [email protected] Bernard Mathieu Dimitri Meeks Béatrix MIDANT-REYNES Catherine Perlès Erratum Dominique Valbelle CNRS, UMR 5608 TRACES Pierre Vermeersch Maison de la Recherche 5, allée Antonio-Machado Il a été porté à notre attention que deux Pascal Vernus erreurs se sont glissées dans l’article intitulé Fred Wendorf 31058 Toulouse Cedex 09 (France) « The Significance of Predynastic Canid Dietrich Wildung [email protected] Burials in Ancient Egypt » publié par Mary Hartley dans le volume 25 (2015) de notre S SOCIAL IÈGE Juan Carlos MORENO GARCÍA revue. Page 59, à la fin du 5e paragraphe, Abs. Cabinet d’égyptologie UMR 8167 Orient & Méditerranée l’intention de l’auteur était de faire référence Collège de France CNRS/Université Paris IV à Van Neer et al. 2004: 120 au lieu de Place Marcelin-Berthelot Friedman et al. 2011: 120. Le nom de l’auteur Paris (France) 75005 Paris (France) a aussi été mal orthographié (« Freidman » [email protected] au lieu de « Friedman »). La rédaction ADRESSE POSTALE d’Archéo-Nil présente ses excuses pour les Archéo-Nil HANS J. NISSEN désagréments occasionnés. abs / Marie-Noël Bellessort The Free University of Berlin It was brought to our attention that two errors 7, rue Claude Matrat (Germany) occurred in the article entitled “The Significance 92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux [email protected] of Predynastic Canid Burials in Ancient Egypt” (France) published by Mary Hartley in the volume 25 COURRIEL : (2015) of our journal. On page 59, end of the [email protected] fifth paragraph, the author’s intent was to reference Van Neer et al. 2004: 120 instead COTISATIONS of Friedman et al. 2011: 120. The name of Membres titulaires : 35 € the author was also regrettably misspelt Membres étudiants : 25 € (“Freidman” instead of “Friedman”). Archéo- Membres bienfaiteurs : Nil’s team sincerely apologises for any hurt or 40 € et plus confusion these errors may have caused.

MAQUETTE Anne Toui Aubert PHOTO DE COUVERTURE Michel Gurfinkel Archéo-Nil est une revue internationale et pluridisciplinaire à comité de lecture (« peer review ») dans le respect des normes interna- Tous droits de reproduction réservés. tionales de journaux scientiﬁques. Tout article soumis pour publication est examiné par au moins deux spécialistes de renommée internationale reconnus dans le domaine de la préhistoire ou de l’archéologie égyptienne. L'analyse est effectuée sur une base anonyme (le nom de l'auteur ne sera pas communiqué aux examinateurs ; les noms des examinateurs ne seront pas communiqués à l'auteur). Archéo-Nil uses a double-blind peer-review process. When you submit a paper for peer review, the journal’s editors will choose technical reviewers, who will evaluate the extent to which your paper meets the criteria for publication and provide constructive feedback on how you could improve it. Sommaire du n°26

5 Introduction par Béatrix Midant-Reynes

Dossier : Naissance de l'état, naissance de l’administration : le rôle de l'écriture en Égypte, au Proche-Orient et en Chine Emergence of the state and development of the administration: the role of writing in Egypt, Near East and China

9 The Origins of administrative practices and their developments in Greater Mesopotamia. The evidence from Arslantepe par Marcella Frangipane

33 Uruk: Early Administration Practices and the Development of Proto-Cuneiform Writing par Hans Nissen

49 Tablets, Sealings and Weights at Ebla: Administrative and Economic Procedures at the beginning of the Archaic State in Syria par Luca Peyronel

67 Proto-Elamite Writing in Iran par François Desset

105 La naissance de l'écriture dans l'Égypte pharaonique : une problématique revisitée par Pascal Vernus

135 Administrative Reach and Documentary Coverage in Ancient States par Wang Haicheng

149 Early writing, archaic states and nascent administration: ancient Egypt in context (late 4th-early 3rd millennium BC) par Juan Carlos Moreno-García Études et essais

173 Aux origines de l’exploitation pharaonique des carrières d’Assouan? Retour sur la lecture de l’inscription du bas-relief de Nag el-Hamdulab (NH 7, tableau 7a) par Matthieu Begon

185 Enlightening the Enduring Engravings: The Expeditions of Raneb par Caleb Hamilton

205 Bibliography of the Prehistory and the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt and Northern Sudan. 2016 Addition par Stan Hendrickx & Wouter Claes

Lectures

225 À propos de Angela Sophia La Loggia, Engineering and Construction in Egypt's Early Dynastic Period, Peeters, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 239. Leuven, Paris, Bristol, CT, 2015. par Olivier Rochecouste

227 À propos de Frank Förster & Heiko Riemer (eds), Desert Road Archaeology in Ancient Egypt and Beyond, Heinrich-Barth Institut, Africa Praehistorica 27. Cologne, 2013. par Yann Tristant

229 À propos de Pierre Tallet, La zone minière pharaonique du Sud-Sinaï II. Les inscriptions pré- et protodynastiques du Ouadi ‘Ameyra (CCIS nos 273-335), Institut français d’archéologie orientale, Mémoires de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale 132. Le Caire, 2015. par Yann Tristant The Origins of administrative practices and their developments in Greater Mesopotamia. The evidence from Arslantepe Marcella Frangipane, Sapienza University, Rome, Italy

The debate on the origins of administrative be delegated to individuals who were not nec- practices in the Near East has often over- essarily blood-related, and who were bound lapped and coincided with the debate on the to the leader by relations of subordination and origins of the State, since the formation of faithfulness (Claessen & Skalnìk 1978). bureaucratic-administrative structures under- Contributions from more recent archaeo- pinned the political structure of the early logical research in the Near East, which was centralised societies, and led to a radical, and a ‘primary’ State formation area, has never- often irreversible, change in the system of theless shown that the need to ‘administer’ relations. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, goods arose long before that transformation the origins of “bureaucracy” was considered occurred, from the time of the Early Neolithic to be an essential indicator of the presence of communities in Upper Mesopotamia (Jezi- the State, in that it revealed the typical ways in rah) at the end of the 7th millennium BCE which central politics were managed (Wright (Akkermans & Duistermaat 1996). And it is & Johnson 1975; Wright 1977). Quite rightly, very interesting to see that even though that the existence of administrative systems was need must have arisen in connection with the considered to reflect a system of delegated production of food surpluses, as cropping and powers vested in individuals and institutions livestock raising took root, it was not found in with specific administrative functions, which all, but only in certain, types of Neolithic com- brought about a historic transformation from munities. being tribal societies, in which the authority We must therefore ask ourselves: (1) what were of a paramount chief was inalienable and non- the needs, and the contexts, in which control- transferable and legitimised on the basis of ling the movement of goods, and possibly the the social and kinship relations on which the need to record them, became necessary; (2) structure of the community itself was based, what was the impact on the social and political to becoming centralised political societies in relations of the groups in which those needs which the all-embracing central power could arose and became established.

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The origin of administration family?), but not open to collective sharing in the Neolithic by the whole community or large sections of it (Hodder 2006; Hodder & Pels 2010; The unexpected discovery of hundreds of Düring 2006). Even on the westernmost cretulae in the so-called “burnt village” of sites in the so-called Lakes Region, such the Early Ceramic Neolithic at Sabi Abyad, as Hacilar, Bademağacı, or Höyücek, or in on the River Balikh in western Jezirah, gave the Izmir province, such as Ulucak (Duru rise to new ideas regarding the economic 2008; Çilingiroğlu et al. 2012; Özdoğan and social reasons for the origins of admin- et al. 2012), the domestic equipment and istration (Akkermans 1996; Akkermans & traces of activities have always been found Duistermaat 1996; Frangipane 2000). Even either inside the house or just outside it, though seals, or pintaderas, have been found adjoining the perimeter walls. In such in various Neolithic sites in the Near East – contexts, in which foodstuffs seem to have from Upper Mesopotamia to Anatolia and been processed and stored in the home, and the Levant – it is only in certain contexts were therefore under a household manage- that we find any evidence of the ‘adminis- ment system, it is hardly surprising that no trative’ use of seals. administrative control systems developed, In the central-western Anatolian sites, the for they would have been of no use with this seals found there have not (at least, so far) type of economic management of the con- been matched by corresponding seal impres- sumption and circulation of goods. We have sions, and are often made of terracotta. This no idea what the central and western Ana- material would not have been appropriate tolian stamps were used for, but it is rather if the seals were expected to be preserved unlikely that they indicate any full-fledged for a long time; and if they were intended administrative activities. for administrative use as a means of iden- Conversely, the Neolithic societies that tifying individuals (or groups, should the developed in the Syro-Iraqi Jezirah after seals be appended by a representative of a the end of Pre-pottery Neolithic were quite whole group), they would have had to last at different. Here, as early as the first occupa- least for the lifetime of the individual using tion of the region in the 7th millennium, them and keeping them safe. The motifs the archaeological data reveal the exist- found on the seals, moreover, were mostly ence of agro-pastoralist societies made of very simple geometric designs and in some small groups with a possible high degree of cases repeated identically in different con- mobility and forms of group specialisation, texts and on different sites, which would who seem to have been organised on the mean that they did not symbolise any spe- basis of very close cooperation between vil- cific personal identity (Fig. 1). At all events, lages within the territory. Evidence has been the Neolithic societies in both central and found of the specialised hunting of gazelle western Anatolia seem to have been seden- and wild asses both in the pre-Hassuna phase tary family-based agricultural communi- (7th millennium BCE), at Umm-Dhabaghi- ties, where families appear to have played a yah (Kirkbride 1975), and in the later Halaf crucial role as the basic economic and social period (6th millennium BCE) (Akkermans unit. This is shown from (a) the domestic 1993; Akkermans & Wittman 1993), which architecture, in which the house was the suggests that these products circulated, hub around which all their daily activities, perhaps with others, between different vil- including storage, revolved, (b) the funerary lages within the territory (Frangipane 2007; ideology in which the home was used for 2013; Nieuwenhuyse et al. 2013). The wide burials, (c) the almost total absence of com- extent of the cultural areas sharing ways of mon areas, except for the large courtyards life, types of economies, types of dwellings, at Çatal Höyük, which at all events were ceramics and other objects are evidence enclosed spaces shared by several houses of intense interaction between the groups (perhaps belonging to the same extended throughout an extremely vast region, while

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Fig. 1 Baked clay stamps (‘pintaderas’) from Neolithic sites in Central and Western Anatolia. a-d. from Çatal Höyük (a-c. Redrawn from Mellaart 1967: fig. 121; d. Redrawn from Hodder 2006: fig.75); e-f. from Bademag˜acı (redrawn from Duru 2008: fig. 189).

the layout of the villages, which included as Yarim Tepe (Yoffee & Clark 1993), where wide open spaces for activities in common large cell-buildings might have been used as (with numerous outdoor implements and collective storage facilities. equipment that cannot be precisely related The ultimate proof of a full-fledged admin- to any specific houses) and large storage istrative system for controlling the circula- buildings, perhaps for the whole commu- tion of staple products in the Neolithic of nity or for broad sections of it, suggest that Upper Mesopotamia has however emerged the main production and consumption from the findings in the earliest Neolithic unit (Flannery 1972) must have been the phase at Sabi Abyad, in the famous “burnt group as a whole, whether the entire vil- village” of level 6 (Akkermans 1996: 38-63; lage, or other large social entities, such as an Verhoeven 1999), in which a complex of extended clan. stores made up of adjacent cell buildings has It was within this socio-economic context been brought to light containing hundreds that the use of seals and sealings became of cretulae. Most of them were piled up in very widespread. We have significant, albeit a small room without any containers, sug- indirect, evidence from the Halaf period of gesting that they must have been kept there the widespread use of these practices: large after being used and then removed (Fig. 2c) numbers of stone seals, mostly bearing geo- (Akkermans 1996; Duistermaat 1996). The metric motifs, but with a wide variety of discovery and study of the thousands of sealing surface shapes probably intended later cretulae at Arslantepe (Frangipane et to better distinguish between the different al. 2007) has also enabled us to understand seals, was associated with the presence of a the way this very ancient system operated. number of clay-sealings (von Wickede 1990) It indeed appears to have been almost cer- (Fig. 2a). Large store-buildings have also tainly based on the same principles: 1- The been identified in some villages, such as at seal was applied by the person withdrawing Sabi Abyad, where a large storage structure the goods – and the very large number of has been also brought to light in an Early different seal designs (about 65) recognised Halaf phase (level 3) (Akkermans 1996: from the impressions at Sabi Abyad demon- 84-105), and most likely on other sites, such strates that, since so many individuals had

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Fig. 2 Administration in Upper Mesopotamia in the Neolithic period (7th-6th millennia BC). a. Stone seals from the Halaf period (from von Wickede 1990: ns. 183, 166, 155, 207, 143, 150, 164, 57, 161, 171 – from top to bottom and from left to right); b. Seal designs recognized from the impressions (cretulae) found in the store buildings in the Early Neolithic village (level 6 ) at Sabi Abyad (from Duistermaat 1996: fig. 5.3); c. The store buildings at Sabi Abyad, level 6 (from Akkermans 1996: fig. 2.7). The dark grey colour indicates the room with the maximum concentration of cretulae.

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applied a seal, they would not have been the circulation of products that we have the store-keepers but the users of the stores; suggested for the pre-Hassuna, Hassuna and 2- The attached seal on the cretula was the Halaf societies, based on other archaeologi- proof of the transaction performed and cal evidence (Frangipane 2007; 2013). This identified the person performing it, in other type of organization alone might explain the words it was the equivalent of placing a sig- need for a Neolithic agro-pastoralist society nature (the seal impression) on a receipt to share goods in common, then finding (the cretula). And this is the reason why the ways and means of managing them properly cretulae were kept aside after being removed and fairly. to testify the legitimacy of the operations In this case, then, the social, political, and carried out by the storekeeper. As we have economic function of administration was seen at Arslantepe, after removal, the cretu- to maintain relations of equality and equity lae were almost certainly stored for a certain within the group by enhancing coopera- period as a record of the operations carried tion and collectivisation in the management out and were kept in a controlled place, of goods (Frangipane 2000; 2007). There which, in the Sabi Abyad case, was the store would have been no point in sealing con- itself. The majority of thecretulae found in tainers and putting in place sophisticated the ‘burnt village’ actually came from a small instruments of control in a purely family- cell-room in the storage building complex based economy and society, where the food where there were no containers nor stored was stored in the house, as was the case in cereals (Akkermans & Duistermaat 1996; other Neolithic societies in the Near East Verhoeven 1999), thus suggesting the cretu- and the Mediterranean regions. lae were piled up there after being removed (Fig. 2c). It is interesting to notice that the numer- The development ous iconographies were grouped together of administrative systems by categories of similar motifs (Duistermaat th 1996) (Fig. 2b). Considering the egalitarian in the 5 millennium structure that have probably typified this Straddling the 6th and 5th millennia in north- 7th millennium Neolithic society, the differ- ern Mesopotamia, a far-reaching change ent iconographic groups may have referred occurred in the societies occupying Jezirah to family or clanic groups, whereas the indi- which, for reasons that are still unclear and vidual seals, differing in their details, would the subject of debate, increasingly resem- have distinguished the individual members bled the southern model of Ubaid society of these groups operating in the stores with as their economic and social structures ‘administrative’ responsibilities. became more hierarchical and internally The reason for pooling goods (perhaps unequal (Breniquet 1996; Forest 1996: harvests) in these contexts has been con- 53-115; Frangipane 2007). In these regions, vincingly suggested by Akkermans & Duis- this process marked the starting of political termaat (1996), who argue that it was a and to some extent economic centralisation, society with a mixed economy and a dual revolving around new ‘temple’ institutions production structure (cropping and ani- and probably high status persons perform- mal husbandry), in which some members ing the rituals, which were wholly unknown of the group would have to leave the village in the Halaf phases. Collective stores dis- as transhumant pastoralists and therefore appeared, and large tripartite houses were have to entrust their property to others (the adopted in the north – although they were store-keepers), ensuring that they would be smaller than their prototypes in the south able to retrieve it on their return to the vil- – in various regions, from the areas lying lage. This type of organisation is perfectly east of the Tigris (Tepe Gawra, lev. XV-XII: consistent with the type of economy and Tobler 1950; Rothman 2002) to the Turk- territorial organisation of production and ish Upper Euphrates valley (Değirmentepe,

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in the Malatya plain: Esin 1994; Gurdil gained prestige, authority and consensus 2010), and in all the phases of the so-called thanks to these redistributions, or members “Northern Ubaid” period. Archaeologi- of pre-eminent families who had acquired cal evidence of the increasing inequalities more resources and means of production, between the members of society is shown, and needed the work of other less fortunate especially in the final phase of this period, members of the community to make these by the existence of few houses which were means fully productive. In these contexts, as larger than others (see Gawra XII) and by a matter of fact, cretulae were always found the beginning of the mass production of associated with large numbers of mass-pro- bowls (known as the Coba bowls), probably duced bowls, suggesting that the main type to be used to distribute food in non-house- of activity subject to administrative control hold environments, perhaps by preeminent was the distribution of meals. persons or families, who operated in both The motifs found on the seals, which were the public and private spheres. still stamp-seals, gradually became more The new ‘Northern Ubaid’ societies adopted frequently figurative, depicting both animal from the Neolithic communities of the and human figures and even scenes, albeit region the use of seals for administrative schematic, codified, and compressed on purposes (which had been unknown until the seals (Fig. 3). At both Tepe Gawra and the very end of the Ubaid period in the Değirmentepe, where numerous assem- southern Mesopotamian alluvial plain), but blages of cretulae have been unearthed, these the administrative procedures were now bore complex and differentiated images, mainly used in the temple or public areas, while widely shared iconographic codes (for where food seems to have been ceremonially example, the way of representing figures in redistributed in feastings and commensal space or recurrent animal types) and ‘styles’ events (Helwing 2003; Pollock 2012), and in expressing specific cultural identities were the tripartite houses (Esin 1994), in which at the same time being developed. The glyp- plentiful concentrations of administrative tic production, in other words, was increas- materials have been found in the larger ingly defining more highly specialised and most important buildings, such as the craftsmanship that was taking on increasing ‘White Room’ in level XII at Tepe Gawra social importance, probably linked to the (Rothman 2002). The procedures and the increasing economic and political impor- administrative technology developed in the tance of administration. Even the sealed Neolithic age in these regions to meet the containers, in the few cases in which they need to guarantee the equitable distribution have been identified, varied considerably in of primary goods between socially equal terms of their categories and the type of clo- groups in egalitarian societies with a col- sures (Esin 1994). lective management of the staple economy, The main concentration of cretulae in the appear to have remained unchanged, while areas connected with cultic buildings and in the economic and social function of the certain tripartite houses seem to have been sealing operations was reversed: the earlier consistent with the gradual establishment, purpose of seals as a means of maintain- throughout the broader Mesopotamian ing equality and equal access to the goods world (the so-called Greater Mesopotamia), and commodities produced, now became a of a system of increasingly centralised staple tool for the discriminatory distribution of economy in the hands of leaders and socially resources by preeminent persons to further pre-eminent individuals. These, in the exer- enhance their privileges (Frangipane 2000). cise of their authority, appear to have used The concentration and redistribution of highly effective instruments of ideological/ food no longer took place in collective religious legitimisation, but must also have structures, but by now they were probably been able to exploit the economic inequali- controlled by “élite” groups, whether they ties which were being created to their advan- were the leaders of the community, who also tage in the ‘private’ sphere. This system was

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Fig. 3 Seal designs from the Ubaid Period at Tepe Gawra (from Forest 1996: fig. 77).

to become the main feature of Mesopota- & van Driel-Murray 1983; Frangipane & mian societies, and between the end of the Palmieri 1988-89), and the economic choices 5th and the beginning of the 4th millennium, of the ruling class that they embodied, whose societies with forms of economic and insti- political economy was based on the centrali- tutional-political control exercised by the sation of staple products. most powerful members of the community Once again, not all the Late Chalcolithic over the weaker ones began to be developed. and Early Bronze hierarchical societies with Administration played a key role in this political leadership of the Near East adopted process, by contributing as before to main- administrative systems based on the use of taining the social order which, nevertheless, cretulae and seals. Throughout the th4 mil- had radically changed. The people using lennium and in part of the third, there was the administrative tool no longer did so to nothing of the kind, for instance, in Western guarantee meeting the common needs of and Central Anatolia, and only to a small the community but to work on behalf of extent in the Levant. In these regions, we certain social categories, who used these presume that there were also hierarchical tools to enhance their privileges and govern societies headed by élites, but their relations their prerogatives. with the population and their economic poli- cies appear to have been very different, and there is no evidence of any central interfer- The total establishment of ence in the staple economy of their commu- centralised administration nity (Frangipane 2010). The sophisticated administration system that developed in and bureaucracy in the th th the 4 millennium Mesopotamian societies 4 millennium BCE were bound up, as we have already pointed The authority and economic domination of out, with their specific economic system that the élites expanded considerably in the course was based on the centralised management of of the 4th millennium, and is manifested in staple goods, the means for producing them both their daily life activities (the evidence (land and livestock), and the labour force. from the pre-eminent residential area at Jebel The Mesopotamian ruling classes, by making Aruda is significant in this respect: van Driel the system financing them and their public

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activities revolve around the staple economy, of staple products, was established as early accumulated perishable goods (the central as the end of the fourth millennium (Wen- stores in the Uruk world, where they have grow 2006; Wenke 2009). Here, given the been brought to light, seem to have been use strongly top-down character of Egyptian to keep foodstuffs), and had continuously to society, which was less ‘stratified’ than Mes- reinvest them in the form of remuneration opotamian society and with less widespread for work, making foodstuff production to distribution of power, the system seems to further expand in a self-perpetuating circuit. have been essentially concentrated in the In other words, it was a kind of ‘entrepre- hands of the central institutions. neurial’ system in which the outgoing goods Administration thereby became an instru- were as important as the incoming goods, ment of power and even the imagery on and, with the expansion of the activities the seals radically changed from originally and sectors kept under control, the admin- being simply icons and symbols of personal istrative management of these movements or group identities, to becoming “narra- became increasingly more crucial to the tives” which expressed and entrenched the sound operation of the system as a whole. ideology of power (Fig. 4). And it is quite The systematic use of administrative prac- likely that the emergence of the cylinder tices also made it possible to delegate tasks seal around the mid-4th millennium BCE and powers to officials who were now able had to do with this new ‘secondary’ function to manage goods on behalf of the central (but of primary importance) of supporting authority. By doing so, they also became a kind of “state art”. Recent studies on the Fig. 4 a tool of third-party political control over glyptic looking beyond the traditional art- Seal designs from territories and people, creating a network history approach, have widely examined the the Uruk period in Southern of institutional intermediaries and codes various different functions of the images on Mesopotamia of conduct forming the core of the birth the seals, as the expression of ideological and Susiana. of the State. And it is no coincidence that aspects relating to the exercise of power, or a-c. from Uruk- Warka (a. from the only other area of the Near East where as ways of representing possible social cate- Boehmer 1999: this system was soon adopted – probably by gories and activities perceived as important Abb. 121; b. from M.A. Brandes acquiring it, directly or indirectly, from the in the economic systems involved, while at 1979: taf.30; Mesopotamian world – was Egypt, where a the same time looking at the seals as reflec- c. from Boehmer 1999: Taff. highly centralised State structure, probably tion of interregional relations (Pittman 17 and 35); also largely based on the control of the flows 1993; 1994; 2001). d. from Susa (Amiet 1972: n. 646).

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It is possible that the prior knowledge of the 2001; 2002), focused on the value of the cre- seal as an administrative tool in the Neo- tula as an administrative and economic tool, lithic of Jezirah drove its adoption and sub- which, being the material proof of transac- sequent development in the Mesopotamian tions, became full-fledged “documents” of world, albeit in widely different contexts. the transactions themselves, and not merely But this adoption was certainly the result the means of protecting the goods against of needs brought about by a particular eco- violations. nomic and political system in which the The political and economic significance of centralised management of the movement the use of cretulae varied, as already men- of primary goods prevailed, as had also been tioned, depending on the societies in which the case in the widely diverse environments they were used and on the dominant social in which the seal came into being. and economic relations within those socie- Centralisation in both contexts entailed the ties. But once codified, their administra- accumulation of goods for redistribution, tive meaning and significance remained but in the new Early State society, the central- unchanged for a long time. As Enrica Fian- ised economy would appear to have mainly dra has pointed out many times, the cretula revolved around the control of the labour is a neutral tool in se, but it acquires extraor- force, suggesting that the means of produc- dinary potential for revealing economic tion which that labour force was expected to models and relations as soon as it is studied render productive, were probably also being in terms of its specific applications and in centralised. The regular “redistribution” of specific contexts. part of the incoming goods was the core of The object and contexts of the sealing pro- the economic and administrative activity cedures (public, private, communal), the of the first central institutions (temple and number of people involved with responsibil- palace), which made it possible to remuner- ities to apply seals, the type of container that ate and support the labour force (with food each of them sealed, the ways the sealings distributions) and to finance the activities were attached, removed and possibly stored of the ruling élites (with the distributions temporarily after removal, the particular of resources to be put to use, such as lands places in which they were used, their con- of be farmed, raw materials to be processed, centration and their subsequent dumping, livestock to be tended, etc.). It is therefore are all crucial elements for an understand- the outgoing goods that became the focal ing not only of the way the administrative point of the “central” economies in the Mes- procedures operated, but also of the organi- th millennium opotamian world from the 4 sation of “bureaucracy” and the very nature BCE, and this required the further develop- of the economic systems which were gov- ment of administrative tools to be used for erned by these procedures. controlling these movements and accounting for them. The Arslantepe cretulae: The cretula: The reconstruction of a features and functions sophisticated administrative system in the era of State Pioneering functional studies conducted formation on cretulae by Enrica Fiandra in the 1960s on items unearthed in the palace at Festos, The painstaking and interdisciplinary study in Creta, and, later, on many other assem- of the vast corpus of thousands of cretulae blages from the Near East (Fiandra 1968; (almost 2200 pieces still bore the impres- 1975; 1981; Ferioli et al 1994; 1996), which sions of the seals and the sealed objects) have more recently been followed by other found in the late 4th millennium monumental scholars from different countries (Reichel public area at Arslantepe-Malatya (Turkey)

n°26 - juin 2016 ARCHÉO-NIL 17 Fig. 5 Arslantepe, period VIA (Late Chalcolithic 5, 3370-3100 BC). Plan of the palace with the indication of the areas where cretulae were mainly concentrated.

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(period VI A, Late Chalcolithic 5, Late Uruk in terms of three main typologies: (a) cre- in Mesopotamia), has made it possible to tulae still in use on containers (found on thoroughly investigate the structure of this the ground near the containers, under col- very ancient centralised administrative lapsed buildings), found in the rooms where system, and to understand the way it oper- the transactions were performed; (b) cretu- ated, while also recognising its structural lae momentarily set aside after removal and and functional features. These features can found piled together in the same places in therefore be generalised and extended to which the operations had taken place; (c) apply to other similar contexts in the Meso- cretulae discarded in large numbers in spe- potamian world and, in more general terms, cial spaces within the palace complex, which to the first Early State societies in the Near had been re-used specifically for the dump- East (Frangipane et al. 2007). Thecretulae ing of this particular administrative mate- at Arslantepe, which were all found in situ rials, thus preventing them to be dispersed in substantial assemblages concentrated in and, on the contrary, maintaining them several different points in the early palatial ‘under control’, even after they were not in complex (Fig. 5), have enabled us to recog- use any more. In some cases, these dumps, nise and confirm clearly and with documen- which also included other discarded items tary evidence the procedures and the phases such as pottery, animal bones and seeds, in the administrative activities performed seem to have also had a secondary purpose, in a centralised political system, at a time namely, to fill up small spaces no longer in when the institution of the state was coming use, preparing the areas for future building into being. The analysis has also confirmed reconstructions or modifications. This is the the insight of E. Fiandra regarding the mul- case of room A430, which was divided into tiple functions of the cretulae, as a means two halves by building a dividing wall, with of guaranteeing the goods conserved and one part of the room being partially filled as the document of the transactions con- up and no longer used (Fig. 6). The discard- ducted on them (Fiandra 1981), making it ing of the cretulae almost certainly took quite clear that this object category would, place after checking them, and “accounting” on its own, provide data of primary impor- for them, as shown by their ‘orderly’ distri- tance for an understanding of the opera- bution in the stratigraphy of the dumps, and tion of early administrative systems before may have marked the end of the cycle of and without writing. Since it was not diffi- operations or perhaps the end of an adminis- cult to break a clay-sealing, the purpose of trative period. There were actually two main sealing the goods was not only to prevent types of cretulae dumps in the Arslantepe theft, but also to provide evidence of the palace: 1- Small groups of fairly homogene- integrity of the contents and give proof of ous materials resulting from similar types lawfully performed transactions to the per- of operations, perhaps accounted for and sons who owned the goods. In order to give immediately discarded after completing a “legitimacy” to the opening of a particular specific series of transactions (A434, Fran- container, the clay sealing that had been gipane et al. 2007: 145-147); 2- The system- removed, or some part of it, had to be tem- atic and final dumping of all the materials at porarily kept as a document-receipt for the the end of a whole cycle of transactions or transaction. of a particular administrative period (A206 The cretulae at Arslantepe comprised six and A77) (Frangipane et al 2007: 68-111; main assemblages, composed of thousands 126-136; 425-465) (Fig. 6). of fragments found in different places within the large palatial complex, and were the The Cretulae in situ in the rooms in result of different operations conducted in which the operations were transacted various operational phases in the sequence The first type of findings (a), that is to say, of administrative activities (Fig. 5). These cretulae which must have originally been assemblages can in fact be grouped together still attached to the containers, was almost

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Fig. 6 • Arslantepe, period VIA. The administrative dumps in the palace.

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Fig. 7 • Arslantepe, period VIA. The storeroom A340 with materials in situ: plan (a), photo (b), and reconstruction (c). © Drawing by A. Siracusano.

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entirely discovered in the re-distribution fallen debris of the room of numerous cre- store A340, where numerous cretulae were tulae mostly bearing the impressions of the found on the ground beside the contain- same seals and the same containers as those ers to which they were presumably linked found on the ground moreover suggests that (fig. ) 7 (Frangipane et al. 2007: 31-38; the materials may have subsequently been 11-126; 415-425). The fact that this room taken to an upper storey or balcony, from was used for food redistribution was evi- where they must have fallen down (Fig. 7c). denced precisely by these cretulae and by A total of 175 cretulae were found in the more than 100 wheel-made mass-produced storeroom A340, which, taken as a whole, bowls (fig. ).8 Only two cretulae-stoppers on are evidence of ongoing activities and the necked jars were found close to the contain- temporary setting-aside of the cretulae after ers in the main room of Temple B (A450), removal. where no distribution practices were per- Inside the stores no substantial storage of formed involving the population (Frangi- seeds have been found – despite the fact pane et al. 2007: 43-47). that they remain preserved for millennia In the same places – storeroom A 340 and once they have been charred – but only Temple B – the second type of materials a few fragments of wheat and barley that (b) were unearthed, namely, the removed were possibly leftovers from grinding. The cretulae set aside temporarily. Once again, numerous containers, varying in shape and in Temple B, the operations had been con- size (Fig. 8b), however, show that food was ducted on a smaller scale, perhaps only stored there, obviously already processed or occasionally, and the procedure of setting milled into meal, of which no archaeological aside the cretulae is somewhat uncertain traces remain1. Liquids must also have been because only a small group of materials have plentiful there, judging from the numerous been found there, perhaps kept in a bag ceramic bottles, often with a spout for pour- (there are also vestiges of straw or fabric) ing, mostly found in the large store. near one of the two windows connecting The small group of grape pips found in a the main room A450 with a side entrance bowl in the distribution store also shows room (A809). that the grape or grape products were kept A large quantity of removed cretulae were there. conversely found in A 340, in the corner Meat must also have played an important near the door/window leading to the court- part in the food distribution system, judg- yard, through which various categories of ing from the large numbers of animal bones individuals (workers?) entered the room (more than 1,000) found in room A340. to withdraw food (Fig. 7 a, c). The mas- The fact that large numbers of people went sive presence of cretulae in this corner of regularly to the palace to receive food rations the room, where there were no containers, or daily meals indicates the total or partial clearly shows that this material had been “handing-over” of labour services for the temporarily set aside, judging from the benefit of the central institutions and their fact that many of them had certainly been rulers. Regular services provided by large removed from the same containers in the sections of the population were therefore room, as evidenced from an analysis of the probably mainly remunerated with food dis- Fig. 8 impressions left by the containers on their tributions, not only in occasional or ceremo- Arslantepe, period VIA. Sealings, back side. The containers seem therefore to nial events, but in the form of proper “wages”, seal designs and have been repeatedly opened and re-sealed, distributed in ‘secular’ areas of the palace pottery from the redistribution perhaps by the same individuals, on succes- complex (storerooms and courtyard) under room A340. sive days. The presence in the layers of the the close control of a network of officials.

1. Bio-chemical analyses have been attempted at the time of the discovery of the storerooms, but, probably due to less sophisticated analytical methods at the time of the storerooms discovery, the results were unsatisfying. The completed restoration of the vessels (now kept in the Malatya museum) makes new analyses rather impossible.

22 ARCHÉO-NIL n°26 - juin 2016 The Origins of administrative practices and their developments in Greater Mesopotamia © drawings by T. D’Este and M. Cabua; © photos by R. Ceccacci) © drawings by T.

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We do not know if the leaders imposed (Fig. 9c). At least 11 different types of sealed tributes to the population, but they cer- objects and ways of closing them have been tainly organized in a new way labour ser- recognised: vases closed with cloth, leather vices as the managers of public affairs. This and lids, sacks, perhaps baskets, and doors, indirectly means that they must have had each closed in different ways (Fig. 9a). Eight possessions to be made productive by this different specific doors have been recog- labour force: fields to be farmed, flocks to be nised by E. Fiandra and P. Ferioli, closed in grazed, and raw materials to be processed two different ways: with door pegs and with into finished products. It was by controlling wooden locks, the latter indicating a more such a large labour force that they gradually complex access system (Fig. 9b) (Frangipane increased their wealth and power. et al. 2007: 61-111). What is interesting here, as Enrica Fiandra has pointed out many Cretulae discarded after preliminary times, is that the strings were never knot- ordering ted, but were only plaited or placed together, Most of the cretulae (1934 well-preserved showing that the main purpose of the cre- fragments) were found in dumps, where, as tulae was not so much to make the closure already indicated, they had been discarded safe, but rather to document the legitimacy in several successive layers of waste of of the opening and closing operations. administrative materials. These places were There were the impressions of 127 dif- in small rooms or spaces set aside for the ferent seals, indicating that there were at purpose in various parts of the palace. The least 127 people performing administrative main dump was in a small long and narrow duties, probably comprising internal offi- room (A206) set into the western wall of the cials and representatives of groups of the large access corridor, where almost 5000 population or teams of workers who had fragments of cretulae had been dumped served during the relatively short period of together with hundreds of mass-produced time to which the archive refers (the rela- bowls and other discarded waste, in 18 suc- tively short duration of the entire dumping cessive thin layers. Among these fragments, process is indicated by the presence of the 1728 cretulae still bore the legible impres- same seal impressions in both the upper and sion of the seal and/or the sealed container. lower layers of the dump). The other two dumping places contained a The operations that can be inferred from the far smaller number of cretulae – 136 in one discarded archive seem to refer to different narrow room in Temple A (A77) and 70 types of transactions grouped in order and in room A430 – suggesting that the cretu- discarded one after the other, perhaps after lae were discarded in different ways prob- having been checked and/or accounted: In Fig. 9 Arslantepe, ably according to different types or areas of the upper layers (4 to 8) the large majority period VIA. activity, perhaps varying in duration and of vessel sealings (Fig. 9c) together with a a-b. Sealed intensity of operations. very large number of seals impressed on the containers and doors identified Dump A206, must have been the final waste cretulae, used often only once or two-three from the of an “administrative period” and/or a series times (Fig. 11b), suggest that the materi- impressions by E. Fiandra and of several types of transactions, judging by als found in these layers may refer to regu- P. Ferioli the number of the accumulated layers, the lar distributions of goods, very likely food (drawing by T. D'Este); vast number of cretulae, their variety in (indicated by the vessels), to large numbers c. The stratigraphic terms of seals and sealed containers, and of people (indicated by the very numerous section of the from the way they were ordered in recognis- persons responsible of the withdrawals). main cretulae dump A206 with able groups in the various successive dump- The substantial prevalence of sacks and the the indication of ing operations. high number of door sealings in the middle cretulae sealing different objects The layers can be grouped into series of suc- (14-26) and lower (17-18) layers, combined in the three main cessive piles, each of which was character- with a sharp reduction in the number of the groups of layers. From Frangipane ised by cretulae bearing the impression of seals employed, almost each of which was et al. 2007. the same seals and the same sealed objects affixed many times, may conversely sug-

24 ARCHÉO-NIL n°26 - juin 2016 The Origins of administrative practices and their developments in Greater Mesopotamia © drawing by T. D'Este © drawing by T.

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Fig. 10 • Arslantepe, period VIA. Cretulae and seal designs recognized from the impressions from the main dump A206. © drawings by T. D’Este and M. Cabua; © photos by R. Ceccacci. © drawings by T.

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Fig. 11 • Arslantepe, period VIA. a. The proposed hierarchy of officials based on seals sealing doors; b. The distribution of seal designs in the layers of A 206 dump. From Frangipane et al. 2007.

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gest these cretulae refer to particular with- on different types of transactions or super- drawals carried out on special occasions visors with broader powers, suggesting for internal movements of goods, feasts or the rise of high-rank figures in the palace ceremonies by internal palace officials, who administration and the emergence of a com- sealed both the containers and the store plex hierarchical bureaucracy (Fig. 11a). doors. The use of the same clay type, prob- This system, mainly used to control the ably the same clay mass used until it was withdrawals of goods for redistribution pur- completely used up, and the frequency of poses to people working for the palace, may deformed cretulae (that means they were have involved a large number of individuals removed within the 24 hours after having perhaps of different origins. The study of the been put on the container) in the middle seal designs has made it possible to recog- and lower layers moreover reveal the inten- nise several and clearly distinct styles and sity of these operations and their concentra- iconographic patterns, a trait that is pecu- tion in a short period of time (Frangipane liar to the Arslantepe glyptic in comparison et al. 2007: 425-459). There were also inter- with other Near Eastern contexts (Fig. 10) esting differences between these two groups (Pittman, in Frangipane et al. 2007: 284- of layers, because in the middle layers most 338). This variety probably had to do with of the cretulae were attached to locks and the low level of urbanisation at the site and in most cases the sacks were sealed on the with the inclusion of various communities inside, while in the lower layers the major- from the surrounding territory (rural vil- ity were closures with door pegs and the lages, pastoralist groups, etc.) in the central- sacks were sealed on the outside. This might ised economic-administrative system of the indicate that the operations reflected in the Arslantepe palace. materials from these two groups of layers referred to different stores and or different types of transactions (relating to different The 4th millennium goods?), which had been counted and then disposed of successively. administrative systems at In all, or virtually all cases, the operations Arslantepe: a few concluding had been performed locally, as evidenced remarks from the results of the analyses of the clays used, all of which came from the Malatya The economic and administrative cen- plain (Blackman et al. 2007). tralisation at Arslantepe had an important The dump therefore appears to have been precedent in the occurrence of substantial the result of the final disposal of a sort of assemblages of cretulae in two imposing ‘archive’, where the different types of trans- buildings, which we can today consider as actions performed within the palace in a part of a mid 4th millennium temple area given area or period or both have been con- (period VII, Late Chalcolithic 3-4), prior to trolled and probably accounted by check- the layout of the period VIA palace (Fig. 12). ing the cretulae, before discarding them. Groups of seal impressions were found in The cretulae may indeed attest the num- two small rooms, one in each building: in ber of operations carried out by each indi- the so-called Temple C, which has been vidual, and the clusters of similar cretulae fully excavated, the cretulae were found Fig. 12 in the dump layers indicate they had been in one of the side rooms, perhaps held up Arslantepe, period VII (Late previously ordered according to both the after removal and apparently having fallen Chalcolithic 3-4, operations carried out and the officials per- from an upper storey; in Temple D, which 3700-3450 BC). a. Cretulae from forming them. came to light in the 2015 campaign and is the temple area; At least 3 of the 32 official’s sealing doors only partially excavated, numerous cretulae b. Plan of were responsible for controlling several had been conversely dumped to feel a little Temples C and D with the location different stores (different doors), and were corner room, presumably a stairwell, and of cretulae. therefore people with more responsibility probably marked the final destination of the

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discarded materials following the comple- latest discoveries, in the last two excavation tion of all the operations. Given the siting of campaigns, of an imposing non-religious these cretulae in cultic public environments, building (Building 37) (Fig. 5) facing a large and given their association with hundreds of courtyard to receive people, in the most bowls used to distribute food in both build- internal political core of the complex, which ings, it is clear that, also at Arslantepe as in confirm the basically secular nature of the Mesopotamia, ceremonial redistribution new public area. practices were performed in the first half of The emergence in the palace of a class of the 4th millennium inside ‘sacred’ buildings. officials with a sophisticated organization, Even though the study of the dump in Tem- aimed at administering the goods of the rul- ple D has only just begun and the excavations ers, documents the rise of bureaucracy and are still waiting to be completed, the simi- a system for delegating power to an increas- larity that is already clear between the ways ingly large number of individuals, which is a in which cretulae were used and dumped trait typical of a State organization. both in these contexts and in the later pal- This very efficient 4th millennium adminis- ace, once again emphasises the continu- trative system however had a weakness: the ity of the development of this system from sealings were unable to provide the informa- the very earliest periods, due to its operation on the quantities of goods withdrawn tional efficiency. But, also in this case, the and the time of the withdrawal. Therefore, change in the socio-political and economic being unable to preserve the memory of the context led to an increasing complexity and operations performed, if mixed with seal- to changed effects and spin-offs on all the ings from later years they would upset the social, economic and political relations that accounting system; the “archive” therefore the system regulated. The administrative had to be regularly emptied, and this was procedures, passing from being applied to probably the reasons why we found so many ceremonial – and hence occasional – food sealing discarding places. distributions in sacred environments to reg- It was the advent of writing in Mesopotamia ular and routine redistribution practices in around 3100 BC that, enabling to record a non-religious and radically transformed quantities and keep the documents of trans- palace-like public complex, seem to have actions for a longer time, gave a major new in turn contributed to a significant socio- impetus to the development of administra- political change by giving a major boost tive systems. to the growth of a new class of bureaucrats Would writing have eventually developed and their role in the society. The fundamen- at Arslantepe if the palace and its organisa- tally secular nature of the new public area tion had not been abruptly destroyed? This at Arslantepe has been confirmed not only is one of the many unanswered questions of by the changed function of the temples in history, which is fraught with interrupted the period VIA palace (Temple A and Tem- progress and unfulfilled potential. The State ple B), that became places for cultic pur- formation process was nevertheless already poses and activities reserved to only a few in progress, and the society and its political (Frangipane ed. 2010), but also by the very relations deeply transformed.

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