Mortuary Rites, Economic Behaviour and the Circulation of Goods in the Transition from Village to Urban Life in Early Mesopotamia

Abstract

The large-scale accumulation of goods is a widely recognized, but little studied, feature of early urbanization in Mesopotamia. Current research links the mobilization of goods in early cities to the expansion of cross-regional trade routes. A related aspect of urban growth is the virtual disappearance of intramural burials from the archaeological record. This contrasts with earlier phases where burials were incorporated into the routines of domestic life. Adapting Max Weber's insights regarding the origins of modern capitalist accumulation in changing forms of religious practice, this paper will trace the changing moral context of economic behaviour by examining long-term patterns of burial in the transition from village to urban life. The momentous social changes that accompanied the urban revolution transformed relationships between the living, the dead and the world of goods. Trajectories of accumulation reinforced by the provisioning of the deceased were reversed at the onset of urbanization, as the dead were expelled from the context of the living. The flow of commodities was now regulated by emerging forms of religious institution that fostered a culture of capital accumulation in rapidly developing urban centres.