oi.uchicago.edu STUDIES IN ANCIENT ORIENTAL CIVILIZATION • No. 46 THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO Thomas A. Holland • Editor with the assistance of Thomas G. Urban oi.uchicago.edu oi.uchicago.edu THE ORGANIZATION OF POWER ASPECTS OF BUREAUCRACY IN THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST Edited by MCGUIRE GIBSON and ROBERT D. BIGGS SECOND EDITION WITH CORRECTIONS THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO STUDIES IN ANCIENT ORIENTAL CIVILIZATION • No. 46 CHICAGO • ILLINOIS oi.uchicago.edu Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 91-60541 ISBN: 0-918986-72-9 ISSN: 0081-7554 The Oriental Institute, Chicago © 1987, 1991 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. Published 1991. Printed in the United States of America. Second Edition with Corrections oi.uchicago.edu TABLE OF CONTENTS Symposium Program vii Editors' Preface to the Second Edition ix Editors' Preface to the FirstEdition x List of Abbreviations xi Introduction. McGuire Gibson 1 1. "In a City Without Watchdogs the Fox is the Overseer": Issues and Problems in the Study of Bureaucracy. Michael G. Morony 5 2. The Administrative and Economic Organization of the Ur III State: The Core and the Periphery. Piotr Steinkeller 15 3. Ur III Bureaucracy: Quantitative Aspects. Miguel Civil 35 4. Charisma and Control: On Continuity and Change in Early Mesopotamian Bureaucratic Systems. Piotr Michalowski 45 5. Legitimation of Authority Through Image and Legend: Seals Belonging to Officials in the Administrative Bureaucracy of the Ur III State. Irene J. Winter 59 6. Administration of the Temple of Inanna at Nippur under the Third Dynasty of Ur: Archaeological and Documentary Evidence. Richard L. Zettler 101 7. The Organization and Functioning of the Royal Mortuary Cults of the Old Kingdom in Egypt. Ann Macy Roth 115 8. Ptolemaic Bureaucracy from an Egyptian Point of View. Janet H. Johnson 123 9. Some Perspectives on Byzantine Bureaucracy. WalterEmil Kaegi, Jr. 133 10. The Role of Bureaucracy in the Provisioning of Cities: A Framework for Analysis of the Ancient Near East. Robert C. Hunt 141 V oi.uchicago.edu oi.uchicago.edu SYMPOSIUM PROGRAM* THE ORGANIZATION OF POWER: ASPECTS OF BUREAUCRACY IN THE ANCIENT, MEDIEVAL, AND OTTOMAN NEAR EAST Sponsored by The Oriental Institute and the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago, April 16-17,1983 PROGRAM Saturday, April 16 McGuire Gibson, University of Chicago Opening Statement Michael G. Morony, University of California, Los Angeles ^Issues and Problems in the Interpretation of Bureaucracy Piotr Michalowski, University of Michigan ^Discontinuity and Change in Early Mesopotamian Bureaucratic Systems Miguel Civil, University of Chicago *Toward an Economic History of Ur III Piotr Steinkeller, Harvard University *The Administrative Organization of the Ur III State: The Core and the Periphery Marc Cooper, Southwest Missouri University Ur III Royal Admimstration Centered on Puzrish-Dagan Irene Winter, University of Pennsylvania *The Relationship of the King to his Officials in UrIII Richard L. Zettler, University of Chicago *The Structure of the Inanna Temple in UrIII Ann Roth, University of Chicago *The Administration and Functioning of Old Kingdom Royal Mortuary Temples *Papers preceded by an asterisk are included in this volume, though not necessarily with the same title. Among the papers not included here are several which were committed elsewhere. vn oi.uchicago.edu Vlll THE ORGANIZATION OF POWER Sunday, April 17 Janet Johnson, University of Chicago *Ptolemaic Administration from the Egyptian Point of View Walter E. Kaegi, University of Chicago *Some Perspectives on Byzantine Bureaucracy Lawrence Stager, University of Chicago Ancestral Estates and State Formation in Ancient Israel Fred 3VL Donner, University of Chicago Administrative Bureaucracy in the Umayyad State Roy P. Mottahedeh, Princeton University Administration in Western Iran and Southern Iraq, 900-1050 A.D. John Woods, University of Chicago The Life Cycle of Nomadic-Sedentary Empires: Anatolia to Central Asia in the Middle Islamic Periods Carter Findley, Ohio State University Personal Policy in Transition from Patrimonialism to Rational-Legalism: Asgi Dede Ibrahim Halil (ca. 1828-1910) Albertine Jwaideh, University of Toronto The Land Commission of Baghdad Province and the Administration of the Ottoman Land Code, 1869- 1914 Robert McC. Adams, University of Chicago General Summation Robert Hunt, Brandeis University Commentary oi.uchicago.edu EDITORS' PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION The original edition of this volume sold out rather quickly. Because orders continued to come in for it, it was decided to reprint the volume. We have taken advantage of this opportunity to correct a few typographical errors that had been found. At the same time, we gave authors an opportunity to make corrections of their own and to update references in their footnotes (especially in the case of articles that were not yet published at the time of the original edition). Several corrected readings have been made in Appendix 1 in the article of Irene Winter. The font of the original edition was Bookman. The font now used in Oriental Institute publications is CuneiformOrientai. The entire volume has been reformatted, resulting in different pagination from the original edition. Consequently, when The Organization of Power is cited in the future, it will be necessary to specify when the second edition is the one being used. Once again we wish to thank Thomas G. Urban for his help in preparing this revised edition. McGuire Gibson Robert D. Biggs IX oi.uchicago.edu EDITORS' PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION In editing the papers in this volume, we have not tried to impose a rigid consistency in the spelling of personal names or place names, preferring to leave such matters to the preference of the individual authors. Thus, for example, one will find Amar-Sin, Amar-Su>en, Ur-Nammu and Ur- Namma. Nor have we insisted on capitalization of the first letter of personal and geographical names in transliteration. For the sake of typographical simplicity, h is given throughout as h in Sumerian and Akkadian. As is customary in cuneiform studies, Akkadian words are given in italics and Sumerian words in roman. We have not italicized Akkadian elements in personal names, however. In general, the abbreviations are those of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, especially for citing cuneiform texts. In several articles additional abbreviations are used and these are listed separately in the individual articles. Some other frequently-used abbreviations which are not given in CAD or which differ from those in CAD are given on pp. xi-xii. We are grateful to Janet H. Johnson, Director of The Oriental Institute, for agreeing to have this volume appear in this series. We are indebted to Thomas A. Holland, Oriental Institute Publications Coordinator, and John Palmer, Publications Assistant, for the work they have done to produce this volume. David Baird was responsible for the computer composition. We are very grateful to him. Thomas Urban, coming to the articles with fresh eyes, gave us very valuable help with the final proof­ reading. McGuire Gibson Robert D. Biggs X oi.uchicago.edu LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS List of abbreviations not found in the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary ASJ Acta Sumerologica (Hiroshima, Japan, 1979-) AUAM Unpublished tablets in the Andrews University Archaeological Museum Boehmer, Glyptik R. M. Boehmer, Die Entwicklung der Glyptik wahrend der Akkad-Zeit (Berlin, 1969) Buchanan, Early Seals B. Buchanan, Early Near Eastern Seals in the Yale Babylonian Collection (New Haven and London, 1981) Collon, British Museum 2 D. Collon, Catalogue of the Western Asiatic Seals in the British Museum, Cylinder Seals, vol. 2, Akkadian-Post Akkadian Ur III Periods (London, 1982) Frankfort, Cylinder Seals H. Frankfort, Cylinder Seals (London, 1939) Frankfort, Stratified Cylinder Seals H. Frankfort, Stratified Cylinder Seals from the Diyala Region, OIP 72 (Chicago, 1955) Garelli, Le Palais et la royaute P. Garelli, he Palais et la royaute, RAI 19 (Paris, 1974) Moortgat, Rollsiegel A. Moortgat, Vorderasiatische Rollsiegel (Berlin, 1940) Oppenheim, Eames A. L. Oppenheim, Catalogue of the Cuneiform Tablets of the Wilberforce Eames Babylonian Collection of the New York Public Library, AOS 32 (New Haven, 1948) von der Osten, Newell H. H. von der Osten, Ancient Oriental Seals in the Collection of Mrs. Edward T. Newell, OIP 22 (Chicago, 1934) Owen, NATN D. I. Owen, Neo-Sumerian Archival Texts Primarily from Nippur in The University Museum, The Oriental Institute and the Iraq Museum (Winona Lake, Indiana, 1982) Parrot, MAM A. Parrot, Documents et monuments, Mission Archeologique de Man, vol. 2/3 (Paris, 1959) Porada, Corpus E. Porada, Corpus of Ancient Near Eastern Seals in North American Collections, vol. 1, The Pierpont Morgan Library Collection (Washington, D.C., 1948) XI oi.uchicago.edu Xll THE ORGANIZATION OF POWER PRAK H. de Genouillac, Premieres recherches archeologiques a Kich, 2 vols. (Paris, 1924 and 1925) Sauren, NY Public Library H. Sauren, Les Tablettes cuneiformes de Vepoque d'Ur des collections de la New York Public Library (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1978) Seals and Sealing M. Gibson and R. D. Biggs, eds. Seals and Sealing in the Ancient Near East, Bibliotheca Mesopotamica, vol. 6 (Malibu, 1977) Sigrist, NSAT M. Sigrist, Neo-Sumerian Account Texts in the Horn Archaeological Museum, Andrews University Cuneiform Texts, vol. 1 (Berrien Springs, 1984) Wiseman, Seals D. J. Wiseman, Cylinder