"'I Built a Port... and I Made them Trade with One Another:' Empire and Monetization on the Neo-Assyrian Periphery, c.900 - 600"

Rob Jennings

Interdisciplinary Archaeology Workshop

November 13th, 4:30pm

Haskell 315

Abstract

This article discusses the data for early bullion economies operating according to laws of supply-and-demand within the context of the much larger credit and gift economies that in general ran the Ancient Near East until the 9th century BC and later. In particular, I will discuss the role of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in creating bullion economies among the polities of its western periphery, and what, if any connection existed between these weighted-silver bullion economies and the development of coinage in the 7th-6th century BC Aegean region. I will also be engaging the recent work of David Graeber in Debt: The First 5000 Years, and will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of creating streamlined longue durée narratives that inevitably oversimplify the multiple complicated economic histories that preceded the rise of capitalist modernity.