In Search of the First Empires

Abstract

The correlation of archaeological evidence with political phenomena is notoriously difficult and has rarely been seriously addressed in a Mesopotamian context. Here the complex relations between the political and cultural regions attested for early historical times in ancient Mesopotamia are reviewed, and how they might be reflected in the archaeological record is considered. Two or three culturally defined regions (southern Mesopotamia, the middle Euphrates, and northern Mesopotamia) are recognized in the third and early second millennia B. C., and are compared with the political realities claimed in the public statements of ruling dynasties. Cultural homogeneity and political regimes of different kinds should have different archaeological correlates, and we should be looking for them. Such a comparison with the historical record may well suggest interpretations for the effective prehistoric archaeology of the formative Uruk period in the later fourth millennium.

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