Grain, storage, and state making in Mesopotamia (3200–2000 BC)

Summary

The states that emerged in Mesopotamia during the fourth and third millennia BC were fundamentally agrarian states. They were built on the production, stockpiling, and redistribution of grain, and they invested an enormous amount of energy in managing and monitoring the grain supply. In this paper, I draw particular attention to grain storage and its pivotal role in the rhetoric and the logistics of state making in Mesopotamia. Grain storage facilities were positioned, both physically and symbolically, at the very heart of the redistributive economy and at the very heart of the state apparatus. Grain storage, therefore, offers a unique vantage point from which to examine not only the nature of state power but also the process of state making. The earliest Mesopotamian states did not simply appear, fully formed and destined for total domination. They were made. These states were complex, often fragile, constructions, and their reach, that is, the actual extent of their authority, seldom matched the breadth of their ambitions. In this paper, I argue that a study of grain storage practices can help us to achieve a more accurate estimation of the shifting limits of state power and state-sponsored redistribution in Mesopotamia.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 17440