Bronze Age Bureaucracy: Writing and the Practice of Government in Assyria.

AuthorMaidman, M.P.
PositionBook review

Bronze Age Bureaucracy: Writing and the Practice of Government in Assyria. By NICHOLAS POST-GATE. Cambridge: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2013. Pp. xi + 484, illus. $99.

The heart of Bronze Age Bureaucracy lies in three central chapters (4, 5, and 6) wherein Postgate treats bureaucratic practice, first in the city of Assur--represented by five archives; then in Assyrian provinces--also represented by five examples: T. Rimah, T. Billa, T. Chuera, T. Ali, and T. Sheikh Hamad. The last of these chapters also reflects on these archives and reaches general, historical conclusions. Framing this core, the volume's first three chapters are an introduction outlining the structure of the enterprise; a wide-ranging survey of Middle Assyrian economic and social patterns; and a description of scribes, their functions and products, as well as technical terminology pertaining to their activities. Sealing practice and thoughts on the nature of archives also come in for treatment here.

Following the core chapters, two further chapters extend the study to peripheral Late Bronze sites and bureaucracies: Nuzi (ch. 7), Alalah, Ugarit, and Greece (ch. 8). (Chapters 7 and 8 are very welcome, but do not entirely cohere with the structure of the volume and its stated goals--see, for example, the volume's subtitle. They appear as afterthoughts. De facto, they are useful appendices to the rest of the book.) A short final chapter summarizes what was established in earlier chapters regarding the nature and taxonomy of bureaucratic record keeping. The book concludes with two appendices (lists of Middle Assyrian kings and late Middle Assyrian eponyms), a bibliography, and four indices (Akkadian words, toponyms and ethnonyms, "selective" subjects, and text citations). Generally outstanding photographs, hand copies, transliterations and translations, and plans punctuate the volume.

The treatment of each archive is marked by detail and thoroughness. A partial outline of one such archive, the offerings house archive of the temple of Assur in Assur (pp. 89-146), may suffice to impart the flavor of the central chapters of the volume. As he does for all the archives, Postgate begins with a synopsis of all that follows. Designed for the non-specialist (p. 4), the synopsis serves also to anchor for all readers the lengthy descriptions, text editions, interpretations, and historical extrapolations that follow. The lemmata following the synopsis are: Deliveries to the Offering House, The Contribution of the Assyrians, The Offering House and Its Facilities, The Commodities and Their Processors, Cereals, Grinders, The Brewers, Honey, Sesame, Fruit, The Confectioner, Presentation of Offerings, External Contacts, The Archive Ass. 18764, The Texts, etc., etc., etc.

A mere review cannot begin to plumb the riches to be found in Postgate's work. I would single out, however, chapter 3, as a very important study of scribal practice and as a crucial preface to the following chapters. Most important is the careful definition of different terms pertaining to the documents. Through sound inductive...

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