A 04: The Development of Palace-ResourceCultures in Syria

Summary

The project is concerned with the significance of resources for the developments in smaller and middle-sized states of Syria during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages (2000 – 1200 BC). Resources are not understood in a traditional way as primarily economic factors, but instead as being culturally defined and socially and politically significant. Such culturally constructed resources were deliberately used by the political elites of the Syrian states to construct, establish and administrate political power. By this, these states created a specific system commonly referred to as the ‘Syrian Palace Economy’.

This type of society previously has been defined on purely economic terms, assuming that political power was created through the control of economic activities. In our opinion, according to the approach used by the Collaborative Research Centre, this point of view is over-simplistic, because the mobilisation of socially and politically relevant resources was not taken into acount in an adequate way. The project will attempt to explore and explain, how the states in question were trying to create a distinct identity, to establish an ideology effective internally as well as externally and to structure their foreign relations by consciously culturally valuating specific resources. For this it will be thoroughly investigated, which developments these systems, based on culturally constructed resources, went through in the course of the 2nd mill. BC. and what kinds of comprehensive socio-cultural dynamics were triggered by their specific use of resources. In short, the model of the ‘Syrian Palace Economy’ has to be revised and replaced by the model of a Syrian ResourceCultures.

Scientific Aims

The project will test the hypothesis, assuming that the states of Syria developed a characteristic ResourceCultures, forming the basis of their political system. In this hypothesis it is further assumed, that the characteristic ResourceCultures of smaller and middle-sized Syrian states were fundamentally different from those of the contemporaneous empires (Egypt, Mittani, Assur, Babylonia and the Hittite Empire), where differing ResourceCultures were needed to assist the expansion of power. Since the focus is especially on the dynamics of the ResourceCultures of the Syrian states, their transformation in time, as well as on their relationship with the surrounding dominant empires the project is assigned to project division A DEVELOPMENTS. Thus, the aim of the project is not to deal again with the already well-known economic structures of the Syrian states, but instead to explore their culturally constructed, socially and politically relevant resources. A wide variety of ResourceComplexes, such as gold and silver used for adornments, vessels or parts of weaponry, ivory objects used as containers, parts of furniture, as well as weapons and pins made from bronze fall into this category. They served as favoured prestige objects for the political elite in the Syrian states and were used for gift exchange, conspicuous consumption and in funerals (an impounding of prestige goods).

Impact for the Collaborative Research Centre

The project will analyse the modes of functioning of culturally highly valuated resources in sate societies, highlight the related socio-cultural dynamics and explore in detail the processes leading to a valuation and re-evaluation of resources, adopting a long-term perspective. Thus it will provide considerable input for the aims and discussions central to the Collaborative Research Centre, especially regarding the new understanding of resources.

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