The Birth of the State

Charvát, Petr

        Přeložil: Morgan, Daniel           brožovaná, 358 str., 1. vydání   vydáno: září 2013

                                 This book targets the problems of emergence and stabilization of the earliest state bodies in the pristine statehood foci of the Old World - Egypt, Mesopotamia, India and China. Charvát takes his readers through the essential economic, political and intellectual transformations induced in those societies by their transformations into early states. The author also provides a comprehensive view over the entire range of the discussed problems, attempting to perceive the process of establishment of the earliest states of the Old World in its complexity. The book gives the word to ancient statesmen, as well as to men of religion and letters of yore, voicing their alarm in crisis situations of their states, when they feared collapse of what they understood as "civilized society". Addressing their admonitions to kings, managers, generals and, where possible, the widest circles of society, such thinkers urged their contemporaries to defend the ideals on which their civilizations wer e built. The book is addressed to all those interested in the emergence and development of humankind´s earliest states including university students of humanity disciplines.

Preface

Acknowledgements

ANCIENT EGYPT

The Natural Environment

The Roots and Origin of All Things: The Productive Economy In Egypt

(Neolithic Age, ca. 5500-4500 BC)

The Chalcolithic Age or Building Inequality:

The Badari Culture (4500-3800 BC)

Embryonic Signs of the State: Naqada I, II and III

(4th millenium BC)

Economy

The embryos of cities

Social differentiation: the elite and the others

Egyptian society of the pre-state period in burial rituals

Lower Egypt: Between the Pharaoh and the Red Sea

Economy

Settlements

Burials

Beyond everyday borders: contact with Asia

Confronting the Enemy: Nubia

The Burial of the Famous and Powerful in the Northern Part of Upper Egypt: Abydos

Burial Grounds Of The Southern Kingdom of Upper Egypt: An Elite Burial Site In Hieraconpolis

"Simple" Egyptians

The Dawn Of The Egyptian Writing System

The Birth of the Egyptian State

Stabilization of the Early Egyptian State

Characteristics of the Early Egyptian State

ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA

The Natural Environment

The Dawn of a More Advanced Social Structure (the Halaf culture, 6000-5000 BC)

Early Historiography: Susa at the Close of the 5th Millenium BC

Mausoleum of Susa

Painted pottery of Susa: the people and their communities .

Painted pottery of Susa: the people and their work

Painted pottery of Susa: deities

Painted pottery of Susa: Why?

Susa at the Dawn of the Uruk Period: First Reports from the Creation of the State (early 4th millenium BC)...

The sacral face of the age: activating fertility powers

The secular face of the age: building, protection, tradition..

Sumer, the Southern Part of Mesopotamia:

While This Was Happening

Activating the potential of fertility powers

Writing! Writing?

The enchantment of cylinder seals

"You will not be like gods"

Behold, Civilization: the Greater Community of the Late Period Of Uruk Culture (3500-3200 Bc) - En, Nin, Nameshda

Economy: redistribution prevails

Spiritual and political leaders: EN, NIN, NAMESHDA

Innovations at the dawn of the 3rd millenium BC: LUGAL, NIN, NAMESHDA

The wise Owl of Minerva flies at dusk: the crisis of the 27th century BC and what came of it - LUGAL, ENSI2, EN

"The End of the Beginning": the Sumerian State at the Close Of The Early Dynastic Period (ca. 2500-2334 BC)

The king and his court

The powerful and revered

Careful and resourceful

"He who shackles slaves..."

Conclusion

ANCIENT INDIA

The Natural Environment

Prehistoric Beginnings

The Preparatory Period

The Proto-Indian Culture (2500-1900 BC)

Economy

City life

Mohenjo-daro

Harappa

Towns and cities

Rural life

A state organism?

The spiritual culture

The Demise of Proto-Indian Culture

ANCIENT CHINA

The Natural Environment

Prehistoric Beginnings: "Mesolithic-Neolithic" - Hunters, Gatherers and Farmers

The Neolithic Period in southern China

The Chalcolithic Period (We Are No Longer All Equal) .

China's Northern Regions during the Chalcolithic Period ..

The Beginnings of the State

The Traditional Interpretation of Chinese History

The Erlitou Culture

In the cities and peripheral areas of the first state

Zhengzhou

Anyang

Western Zhou

The Economy of the First Chinese State

Society

Characteristics of the first Chinese state

A state arises from kinship

What followed?

What the elite took with them on their journey to the next world

The spiritual world

HOW THEN IS A STATE BORN?

First, a Brief Review

Subsistence

Agriculture

Craft

Trading

Settlements

Burials

Society

Organizational centers of the Chalcolithic societies and their facilities

Courtiers of the first rulers: clever, resolute and foresighted. Courtiers of the first rulers: those who speak with the gods.

Egypt

Sumer and Akkad

What was the deification of the Mesopotamian rulers like?

India and China

Three social estates and the birth of the state

Metaphysics

The human world, space, time and their nature

The non-human world

Is the world around us composed of the elements?

Powers of the overworld

Art

Conclusion

Appendix: the State in Trouble

Egypt

Mesopotamia

India

China

Bibliography

Index