1,721,008 research outputs found

    From Ebla to Kanesh and Vice Versa : reflections on Commercial Interactions and Exchanges between Northern Syria and Anatolia during the Middle Bronze Age

    No full text
    The article deals with commercial exchanges between Syria and Anatolia during the Middle Bronze Age (c. 2000-1600 BC) taking into account items and raw materials discovered at Ebla and in other Old Syrian centers as well as those indicators of trade relations with Syria attested in Cappadocia. A specific analysis on balance weights and their correlation with different standards shed light on an articulated pattern of metrological interaction, with the presence ‘Anatolian’ weights at Ebla (based on a unit of 11,7 g) and the knowledge of the ‘Syrian’ system with a shekel of 7,8 g at Kültepe. Raw materials such as obsidian and rock crystal, rings and ingots of silver and evidence on metalworking and metal objects (including lead figurines and bronze handled pans) are discussed in order to reconstruct the pattern of exchanges and the main trade routes from Northern Levant towards Cappadocia and the Anatolian plateau

    Libraries in Ancient Egypt, c.2600–1600 bce

    Full text link
    This chapter surveys the textual and archaeological evidence for libraries in ancient Egypt c.2600–1600 BCE, discussing surviving administrative ‘archives’ as models for how literary texts could have been circulated and stored. The implications of the material form of surviving manuscripts for issues of manufacture and storage are discussed. Possible evidence for extensively centralized systems of circulation and storage is reviewed, together with specific case studies of private archives form the town of el-Lahun and examples of Middle Kingdom tomb-libraries—collections of manuscripts deposited in private individual’s burial chambers as displays of culture and prestige
    corecore