In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

10 Kingship as Racketeering The Royal Tombs and Death Pits at Ur, Mesopotamia, Reinterpreted from the Standpoint of Conflict Theory d. bruce dickson Here the question arises; whether it is better to be loved than feared or feared than loved. The answer is that it would be desirable to be both but, since that is difficult, it is much safer to be feared than to be loved, if one must choose … Men have less hesitation in offending a man who is loved than one who is feared, for love is held by a bond of obligation which, as men are wicked, is broken whenever personal advantage suggests it, but fear is accompanied by the dread of punishment which never relaxes. — Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince This chapter focuses on the connection between sovereignty, violence , and inequality—and fear—evident in the ancient Mesopotamian institutions of kingship. The Royal Tombs and Death Pits of the Early Dynastic IIIb period (ca. 2450–2350 BCE, see Marchesi and Marchetti 2011:8, 64–65) at the site of Ur are used as an exemplar. Until the recent discovery of proof to the contrary (Baadsgaard et al. 2011), the interpretation of the Royal Tombs and Death Pits at this site by their excavator, Sir Leonard Woolley (1934), was long influential. Woolley 312 D. Bruce Dickson implies that the people sacrificed when the Ur dynasts were buried went willingly to their deaths out of loyalty, devotion, and faith in the dead monarchs. In this chapter, Conflict theory is used to re-interpret the early Mesopotamian kingship and state and to suggest that these twin institutions constitute a kind of racketeering. Conflict theory presumes that profound inequalities in power exist, both between social systems and within them. Such inequality fosters competition over scarce resources of all kinds between individuals and between groups of individuals . Conflict theorists consider that the primary role of the state is to maintain the dominance of one segment of society over the others. Ur’s kings may indeed have been strong and their subjects loyal, but it is equally likely that these rulers were weak and vulnerable and practiced ritual sacrifice in order to terrorize a restive citizenry and thereby preserve elite dominance of society. L’unité se fait toujours brutalement For the 19th century French savant Ernest Renan, historical (and, by extension , archaeological) research has a serious public relations problem: inevitably such investigation digs up the acts of violence that occur at the beginning of any political unit, even those which have had the most beneficial consequences. Unity is always achieved brutally (Renan 1947[1882]: 891, author’s translation). The public relations problem faced by those who would excavate (figuratively or actually) this foundational violence stems from what Farmer calls the “erasure of social memory” (2004:307). Simply put, the perpetrators —or at least the winners—have chosen to forget and their descendants prefer to keep it that way. But toujours? Always? Perhaps. Or perhaps not. That, surely, is a critical theoretical and empirical question. Let us approach it first theoretically and then empirically. Two Theories Accounting for the Rise and Persistence of States Understanding and explaining the emergence and survival of complex states and civilizations in the ancient Near East has long been a scholarly preoccupation . In his review of the contribution of anthropology to the question, Kingship as Racketeering 313 Elman Service (1977) recognizes two major theoretical approaches: Integration theory and Conflict theory. Integration theory is derived from functionalism or structural functionalism as well as general systems theory and cultural ecology. In this perspective, state institutions emerge as a more complex level of social and economic integration in response to new problems and challenges presented by, for example, the requirements of irrigation (Wittfogel 1957), population growth (Carneiro 1967), competition with other social systems (Carneiro 1970, see Dickson 1987), the need to organize long-distance trade (Rathje 1971), the interaction over time in Egypt between the quality of leadership, external warfare, level of upper class extraction, and fluctuations in the Nile river’s seasonal inundation of its floodplain (Butzer 1980), and so forth. Thus, in Integration theory, the state emerges as a mechanism through which its citizens adapt to their social and physical environment. The effectiveness (or lack of same) of its institutions and its leaders in performing those adaptive tasks determines whether any particular state will survive. Conflict theory begins with the presumption that profound inequalities in power exist, both between social systems and within them. Such inequality fosters competition over...

Share