Harvard History and Archaeology of Ancient Near Eastern Societies Workshop and the Harvard Semitic Museum present a lecture by:

Andrew McCarthy

CAARI Director, Fellow of School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh

THE GATEKEEPERS OF ŠEḪNA: ACROPOLIS AND GATE ADMINISTRATION IN THIRD MILLENNIUM BC TELL LEILAN, SYRIA

Interpretations of early state formation often focus on urban centers and their abilities to organize labor and resources, as well as create social, political and economic structures that reinforced group identities and hegemony. Insight on these emerging structures is provided by glyptic objects, both the obverse impressions, which reveal qualitative artistic and stylistic indicators of identity, as well as reverse impressions, which can provide quantitative information on what kinds of commodities were being controlled. In northern Mesopotamia, bureaucratic artifacts from 3rd millennium BC urban centers have come primarily from centralized administrative centers and/or palaces. At Tell Leilan, administrative remains have been found in two contemporary locations: the Acropolis Northwest palace and the City Gate complex. The comparison of the sealings and their contexts can provide new insight into the nature of early state administration and how the systems changed through time.