ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF ANCIENT TRADE

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2017
Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society | 5701 S. Woodlawn Avenue | Chicago, Illinois 60637.

This workshop will include presentations and discussions of the results from Economic Analysis of Ancient Trade, an interdisciplinary research project at the Neubauer Collegium, now entering its third year. This project brings together economists who study modern trade and scholars who study ancient economic documents and archaeological remains. Using a 4,000-year-old archive of cuneiform tablets found in present-day central Turkey, members of the research team are investigating the applicability to ancient trade of mathematical models and computational methods employed by economists. A primary area of focus is the relationship between social institutions and economic behavior, past and present.

Program:

9:00-9:15
Welcome and Introduction (David Schloen, Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology, University of Chicago)

9:15-10:00
Lost Cities of the Bronze Age, Part II: Continuities of Wealth, Routes, and Settlement
Gojko Barjamovic, Senior Lecturer on Assyriology, Harvard University
Thomas Chaney, Professor of Economics, Sciences Po, Paris
Kerem Coşar, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Virginia
Ali Hortaçsu, Ralph and Mary Otis Isham Professor of Economics, University of Chicago

10:00-10:15
Discussion

10:15-10:30
Coffee break

10:30-11:15
Network Analysis of Coinage Circulation: A Regional Approach
Alain Bresson, Robert O. Anderson Distinguished Service Professor of Classics and History, University of Chicago
Walter Shandruk, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Chicago

11:15-11:30
Discussion

11:30-12:15
New Perspectives on Trade and Markets in First Millennium BCE Babylonia
Reinhard Pirngruber, Research Associate, University of Vienna

12:15-12:30
Discussion

12:30-1:30
Lunch

1:30-2:15
Placing Historical Evidence in Space and Time: A Status Report on the Old Assyrian Research Environment and pXRF Analysis of Old Assyrian Tablets
Edward Stratford, Assistant Professor of History, Brigham Young University

2:15-2:30
Discussion and Concluding Remarks