Notes to Chapter 5. The Outlet into History

April 2024

ERRORS in databases:

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"Bottero1992Reasoning.d": duplicate bibliography "Bottero1992Reasoning" for site "Mes-rel".
"Buccellati1972Teodicea.d": duplicate bibliography "Buccellati1972Teodicea" for site "Mes-lit".
"Cauvin2000Birth.d": duplicate bibliography "Cauvin2000Birth" for site "Mes-rel".
"DMB.d": duplicate bibliography "DMB" for site "Mes-rel".
"Edzard2003Sumerian.d": duplicate bibliography "Edzard2003Sumerian" for site "Mes-rel".
"Oshima2014Sufferers.d": duplicate bibliography "Oshima2014Sufferers" for site "Mes-rel".
"Trinkaus1983Shanidar.d": duplicate bibliography "Trinkaus1983Shanidar" for site "Mes-rel".

On city.states, see e.g. Nichols 1997 City-states.
– [ Marco De Pietri, February 2024]

Barjamovich 2013 Mesopotamian Empires, p. 122, randomly refers to ‘face-to-face communities’.
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, July 2020]

For the concept of ‘built environment’, see the Grammar (particularly Chapter 1.22) of the Urkesh website.
– [ Marco De Pietri, December 2023]
On canals and canalization systems, see e.g. Liverani 2018 Paradiso, ch. 3.5.
– [ Marco De Pietri, December 2023]

On the topic of urban revolution, see Buccellati 1977 Urban Revolution.
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, July 2020]
On the ‘pluralization of political activities’, see Simoncini 2011 Esperienza Elementare, p. 29.
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, July 2020]
For a definition of state, see e.g. Scheidel 2013 State, pp. 5-6.
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, July 2020]

Gramsci 1977 Quaderni, Quaderno 13, § 1, compares Machiavelli’s myth-prince with the “modern prince”, who “non può essere una persona reale, un individuo concreto, può essere solo un organismo un elemento di società complesso nel quale già abbia inizio il concretarsi di una volontà collettiva riconosciuta e affermatasi parzialmente nell’azione. Questo organismo è già dato dallo sviluppo storico ed è il partito politico, la prima cellula in cui si riassumono dei germi di volontà collettiva che tendono a divenire universali e totali” (p. 1558, emphasis mine). Gramsci goes on to indicate how the directional presence of an individual is possible only in exceptional cases: “Nel mondo moderno solo un’azione storico-politica immediata e imminente, caratterizzata dalla necessità di un procedimento rapido e fulmineo, può incarnarsi miticamente in un individuo concreto. … Ma un’azione immediata di tal genere, per la sua stessa natura, non può essere di vasto respiro e di carattere organico…” (ibid., emphasis mine).
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, July 2020]
About the relationship between politics (or, more generally, power) and religion, see e.g. Yildirim 2017 Political.
– [ Marco De Pietri, February 2024]

Right as a ‘prediction of the judgment’ (“predizione del giudizio”): see Simoncini 2011 Esperienza Elementare, p. 25.
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, July 2020]

For the ancient kudurrus, see e.g. Gelb Steinkeller Whiting 1991 Ancient Kudurrus.
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, July 2020]
On this topic, specifically in the Kassite Babylon, see the importance and (even artistic) role and relevance of the kudurru stones, monumental documents of land donations previously (wrongly, since they were found in secondary deposition) retained as land markers and currently re-defined as land-donation documents usually preserved in the temple, where many of them have been recently found in situ (see, about these artifacts, e.g. Gelb Steinkeller Whiting 1991 Ancient Kudurrus).
– [ Marco De Pietri, December 2023]

On the concept of public vs. private, see e.g. Buccellati 1996 Public Private.
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, July 2020]
About the Code of Hammurapi, see e.g. Harper 1904 Code.
– [ Marco De Pietri, February 2024]

See Nissen 1986 Uruk. Cf. also the concept of ‘digital thought’: e.g. CAR, chapter 11 (cf. also the editor’s website at this link). See also the MESOP website on “digital discourse”.
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, July 2020]
For an example of seals and sealings, see Urkesh website.
– [ Marco De Pietri, December 2023]

A particularly significant one is provided by the diffusion of a type of vessels, the beveled-rim bowls, associated with the sites of the protoliterate period. See article Buccellati 1990 Salt. Cf. also 5.19.
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, July 2020]

On slavery: see Sandel, Mitcheld J. 2012, “What Isn’t for Sale”, The Atlantic. On depersonalization see also Hochschild 2012 The Outsourced Self.
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, July 2020]

About the process and the dynamics represented in the schematic theory about social development (Buccellati, Origins, Chapter 5.16), there is an intersting concept, i.e. the ‘self-categorization Theory’ described in Turner 1987 Rediscovering, pp. 44-67, which can be useful to understand the psychological process through which an individual comes to perceive himself/herself as a member of a group.
– [ Jessica Scaciga, April 2024]

On primary perception, see Simoncini 2011 Esperienza Elementare and Cartabia 2011 Esperienza Elementare.
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, July 2020]
On the concept of ‘absolute’, see the related monograph in Mes-Rel.
– [ Marco De Pietri, December 2023]
About the relationship between religion and politics, see Berlin 1996 Religion; cf. also Brisch 2008 Religion.
– [ Marco De Pietri, February 2024]

About household and household economies in 3^rd millennium Syro-Mesopotamia, see Buccellati F 2014 House.
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, July 2020]
On babtum, see Buccellati 1996 Grammar, section 21.3 (with note 7).
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, July 2020]
On the andirons at Urkesh (area A16), see Kelly Buccellati 2004 Andirons; cf. also Akar Kara 2020 Formation.
– [ Marco De Pietri, March 2024]

Cf. 5.12.
– [ Giorgio Buccellati, July 2020]
For the notion of ‘broken tradition’, see the dedicated theme in CAR.
– [ Marco De Pietri, December 2023]
About ancient, pre-classical chronology and the many problems connected to it, see e.g. Gasche 1998 Chronology.
– [ Marco De Pietri, February 2024]