Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T04:19:18.320Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Wealth Inequality in the Ancient Near East: A Preliminary Assessment Using Gini Coefficients and Household Size

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2020

Pertev Basri Open the ORCID record for Pertev Basri [Opens in a new window]  and
Dan Lawrence
Pertev Basri
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, Durham University, South Road, DurhamDH1 3LE, United Kingdom, Email: pertev.basri2@durham.ac.uk
Dan Lawrence
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, Durham University, South Road, DurhamDH1 3LE, United Kingdom, Email: dan.lawrence@durham.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Investigating how different forms of inequality arose and were sustained through time is key to understanding the emergence of complex social systems. Due to its long-term perspective, archaeology has much to contribute to this discussion. However, comparing inequality in different societies through time, especially in prehistory, is difficult because comparable metrics of value are not available. Here we use a recently developed technique which assumes a correlation between household size and household wealth to investigate inequality in the ancient Near East. If this assumption is correct, our results show that inequality increased from the Neolithic to the Iron Age, and we link this increase to changing forms of social and political organization. We see a step change in levels of inequality around the time of the emergence of urban sites at the beginning of the Bronze Age. However, urban and rural sites were similarly unequal, suggesting that outside the elite, the inhabitants of each encompassed a similar range of wealth levels. The situation changes during the Iron Age, when inequality in urban environments increases and rural sites become more equal.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Archaeological Journal , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , November 2020 , pp. 689 - 704
Copyright
Copyright © 2020 McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Algaze, G., 2018. Entropic cities: the paradox of urbanism in ancient Mesopotamia. Current Anthropology 59(1), 23–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Altaweel, M. & Squitieri, A., 2018. Revolutionizing a World: From small Sstates to universalism in the pre-Islamic Near East. London: UCL Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourguignon, F. & Morrisson, C., 2002. Inequality among world citizens: 1820–1992. American Economic Review 92(4), 727–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cowgill, G., 2004. Origins and development of urbanism: archaeological perspectives. Annual Review of Anthropology 33, 525–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Creekmore, A. & Fisher, K., 2014. Making Ancient Cities: Space and place in early urban societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daviau, P., 1993. Houses and Their Furnishings in Bronze Age Palestine: Domestic activity areas and artefact distribution in the the Middle and Late Bronze Ages. Sheffield: JSOT Press.Google Scholar
Dennehy, T., Stanley, B. & Smith, M., 2016. Social inequality and access to services in premodern cities. Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 27(1), 143–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Düring, B. & Stek, T., 2018. The Archaeology of Imperial Landscapes: A comparative study of empires in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fochesato, M., Bogaard, A., & Bowles, S., 2019. Comparing ancient inequalities: the challenges of comparability, bias and precision. Antiquity 93, 853–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gates, C., 2011. Ancient Cities: The archaeology of urban life in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece and Rome. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaydarska, B., 2016. The city is dead! Long live the city! Norwegian Archaeological Review 49(1), 40–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hardoon, D., 2015. Wealth: Having it all and wanting more. Oxfam International. https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/wealth-having-it-all-and-wanting-moreCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heinrich, E., 1984. Die Paläste im alten Mesopotamien. Berlin: Walter De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Herzog, Z., 1997. Archaeology of the City: Urban planning in ancient Israel and its social implications. Jerusalem: Graphit Press.Google Scholar
Herzog, Z. & Singer-Avitz, L., 2016. Beer-Sheba III. The Early Iron IIA enclosed settlement and the Late Iron IIA–Iron IIB cities. Winona Lake (IN): Eisenbrauns.Google Scholar
Kempinski, A. & Katzenstein, H., 1992. The Architecture of Ancient Israel: From the prehistoric to the Persian periods: In memory of Immanuel (Munya) Dunayevsky. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society.Google Scholar
Kintigh, K., Altschul, J., Beaudry, M., et al. , 2014. Grand challenges for archaeology. American Antiquity 79(1), 5–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kohler, T. & Smith, M., 2018. Ten Thousand Years of Inequality: The archaeology of wealth differences. Tucson (AZ): University of Arizona Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kohler, T., Smith, M., Bogaard, A., et al. , 2017. Greater post-Neolithic wealth disparities in Eurasia than in North America and Mesoamerica. Nature 551(7682), 619–22.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kuijt, I., Guerrero, E., Molist, M. & Anfruns, J., 2011. The changing Neolithic household: household autonomy and social segmentation, Tell Halula, Syria. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 30(4), 502–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lawrence, D., Philip, G., Hunt, H., Snape-Kennedy, L. & Wilkinson, T., 2016. Long term population, city size and climate trends in the Fertile Crescent: a first approximation. PloS ONE 11(3), e0157863.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leppard, T., 2019. Social complexity and social inequality in the prehistoric Mediterranean. Current Anthropology 60(3), 283–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lobo, J., Bettencourt, L., Smith, M. & Ortman, S., 2019. Settlement scaling theory: bridging the study of ancient and contemporary urban systems. Urban Studies 57(4), 731–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milanovic, B., 2005. Can we discern the effect of globalization on income distribution? Evidence from household surveys. The World Bank Economic Review 19(1), 21–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milanovic, B., 2006. An estimate of average income and inequality in Byzantium around year 1000. Review of Income and Wealth 52(3), 449–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milanovic, B., 2009. Global Inequality and the Global Inequality Extraction Ratio: The story of the past two centuries. Washington (DC): World Bank.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milanovic, B., 2013. The Inequality Possibility Frontier: Extensions and new applications. (Policy Research Working Paper 6449.) Washington (DC): World Bank.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milanovic, B., Lindert, P. & Williamson, J., 2010. Pre-industrial inequality. The Economic Journal 121(551), 255–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris, I., 2013. The Measure of Civilization: How social development decides the fate of nations. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ortman, S., Cabaniss, A., Sturm, J. & Bettencourt, L., 2015. Settlement scaling and increasing returns in an ancient society. Science Advances 1(1), e1400066.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ortman, S., & Coffey, G., 2017. Settlement scaling in middle-range societies. American Antiquity 82(4), 662–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ortman, S., Davis, K., Lobo, J., Smith, M., Bettencourt, L. & A.Trumbo, 2016. Settlement scaling and economic change in the Central Andes. Journal of Archaeological Science 73, 94–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pamuk, S., Van Zanden, J., Broadberry, S. & O'Rourke, K., 2010. Standards of living, in Cambridge Economic History of Modern Europe, eds Broadberry, S. & O'Rourke, K.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 217–34.Google Scholar
Papadopoulos, J. & Urton, G., 2012. The Construction of Value in the Ancient World. Los Angeles (CA): Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piketty, T. & Zucman, G., 2014. Capital is back: wealth-income ratios in rich countries 1700–2010. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 129(3), 1255–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pitkänen, P., 2019. Migration and Colonialism in Late Second Millennium BCE Levant and Its Environs: The making of a new world. Abingdon: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Postgate, N., 2017. Early Mesopotamia: Society and economy at the dawn of history. London: Taylor & Francis.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pucci, M., 2008. Functional Analysis of Space in Syro-Hittite Architecture (BAR International series S1738.) Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheidel, W., 2018. The Great Leveler: Violence and the history of inequality from the Stone Age to the twenty-first century. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Schloen, J., 2001. The House of the Father as Fact and Symbol. Patrimonialism in Ugarit and the ancient Near East. Winona Lake (IN): Eisenbrauns.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, E., Borgerhoff Mulder, M., Bowles, S., Gurven, M., Hertz, T., & Shenk, M., 2010. Production systems, inheritance, and inequality in premodern societies: conclusions. Current Anthropology 51(1), 85–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, M., 1987. Household possessions and wealth in agrarian states: implications for archaeology. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 6(4), 297–335.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Summers, G., & Summers, F., 2008. A preliminary interpretation of remote sensing and selective excavation at the palatial complex, Kerkenes. Anatolia Antiqua. Eski Anadolu 16(1), 53–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Szuchman, J., 2009. Nomads, Tribes, and the State in the Ancient Near East: Cross-disciplinary perspectives. Chicago (IL): Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Timmins, G., 2013. Housing industrial workers during the 19th century: back-to-back housing in textile Lancashire. Industrial Archaeology Review 35(2), 111–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ur, J., 2010. Cycles of civilization in northern Mesopotamia, 4400–2000 BC. Journal of Archaeological Research 18(4), 387–431.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van de Mieroop, M., 2007. A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000–323 BC (2nd edn). Malden (MA): Blackwell.Google Scholar
Van Zanden, J., Baten, J., Foldvari, P. & Van Leeuwen, B., 2011. The Changing Shape of Global Inequality: Exploring a new dataset. (Working Papers 0001.) Utrecht: Utrecht University, Centre for Global Economic History.Google Scholar
Veenhof, K., 1996. Houses and Households in Ancient Mesopotamia. Istanbul: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul.Google Scholar
Wengrow, D. & Graeber, D., 2015. Farewell to the ‘childhood of man’: ritual, seasonality, and the origins of inequality. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 21(3), 597–619.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilkinson, T., 2003. Archaeological Landscapes of the Near East. Tucson (AZ): University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, T., 2010. The tell: social archaeology and territorial space. The development of pre-state communities in the ancient Near East, in Studies in Honour of Edgar Peltenburg, eds Bolger, D. & Maguire, L.. Oxford: Oxbow, 55–62.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, T., Ur, J., Wilkinson, E. & Altaweel, M., 2005. Landscape and settlement in the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 340, 23–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woolley, L., 1974. Ur Excavations Vol. VI. The buildings of the Third Dynasty. London: British Museum Publications.Google Scholar
Woolley, L. & Mallowan, M., 1976. Ur Excavations Vol. VII: The Old Babylonian period. London: British Museum Publications.Google Scholar
Wright, K., 2014. Domestication and inequality? Households, corporate groups and food processing tools at Neolithic Çatalhöyük. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 33, 1–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yassur-Landau, A., Ebeling, J.R. & Mazow, L.B., 2011. Household Archaeology in Ancient Israel and Beyond. Leiden: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yon, M., 2006. The City of Ugarit at Tell Ras Shamra. Winona Lake (IN): Eisenbrauns.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Basri and Lawrence supplementary material

Basri and Lawrence supplementary material 1

Download Basri and Lawrence supplementary material(File)
File 28.8 KB
Supplementary material: File

Basri and Lawrence supplementary material

Basri and Lawrence supplementary material 2

Download Basri and Lawrence supplementary material(File)
File 57.3 KB