J. G. Manning

Land and power in Ptolemaic Egypt : the structure of land tenure

List of maps, figures and tables Preface Abbreviations Units of measure Maps Part I. Issues and Historical Background: 1. Issues and methodologies 2. The Ptolemaic state and its antecedents Part II. Regional Case Studies of Land Tenure: 3. The land tenure regime in Upper Egypt 4. The land tenure regime in the Fayyum depression Part III. Interpretation: 5. The Ptolemaic state, the land tenure regime, and economic power 6. The private transmission of land 7. Conclusions Appendices List of references Index of sources General index.

Quantitative historical analysis uncovers a single dimension of complexity that structures global variation in human social organization

Significance Do human societies from around the world exhibit similarities in the way that they are structured and show commonalities in the ways that they have evolved? To address these long-standing questions, we constructed a database of historical and archaeological information from 30 regions around the world over the last 10,000 years. Our analyses revealed that characteristics, such as social scale, economy, features of governance, and information systems, show strong evolutionary relationships with each other and that complexity of a society across different world regions can be meaningfully measured using a single principal component of variation. Our findings highlight the power of the sciences and humanities working together to rigorously test hypotheses about general rules that may have shaped human history. Do human societies from around the world exhibit similarities in the way that they are structured, and show commonalities in the ways that they have evolved? These are long-standing questions that have proven difficult to answer. To test between competing hypotheses, we constructed a massive repository of historical and archaeological information known as “Seshat: Global History Databank.” We systematically coded data on 414 societies from 30 regions around the world spanning the last 10,000 years. We were able to capture information on 51 variables reflecting nine characteristics of human societies, such as social scale, economy, features of governance, and information systems. Our analyses revealed that these different characteristics show strong relationships with each other and that a single principal component captures around three-quarters of the observed variation. Furthermore, we found that different characteristics of social complexity are highly predictable across different world regions. These results suggest that key aspects of social organization are functionally related and do indeed coevolve in predictable ways. Our findings highlight the power of the sciences and humanities working together to rigorously test hypotheses about general rules that may have shaped human history.

Volcanic Suppression of Nile Summer Flooding Triggers Revolt and Constrains Interstate Conflict in Ancient Egypt

Volcanic eruptions provide tests of human and natural system sensitivity to abrupt shocks because their repeated occurrence allows the identification of systematic relationships in the presence of random variability. Here we show a suppression of Nile summer flooding via the radiative and dynamical impacts of explosive volcanism on the African monsoon, using climate model output, ice-core-based volcanic forcing data, Nilometer measurements, and ancient Egyptian writings. We then examine the response of Ptolemaic Egypt (305–30 BCE), one of the best-documented ancient superpowers, to volcanically induced Nile suppression. Eruptions are associated with revolt onset against elite rule, and the cessation of Ptolemaic state warfare with their great rival, the Seleukid Empire. Eruptions are also followed by socioeconomic stress with increased hereditary land sales, and the issuance of priestly decrees to reinforce elite authority. Ptolemaic vulnerability to volcanic eruptions offers a caution for all monsoon-dependent agricultural regions, presently including 70% of world population.The degree to which human societies have responded to past climatic changes remains unclear. Here, using a novel combination of approaches, the authors show how volcanically-induced suppression of Nile summer flooding led to societal unrest in Ptolemaic Egypt (305–30 BCE).

Law and legal practice in Egypt from Alexander to the Arab conquest : a selection of papyrological sources in translation, with introductions and commentary

1. Introduction and historical framework 2. The historical development of the form, content and administration of legal documents 3. The languages of law 4. The family 5. Capital 6. Sale 7. Leases 8. Labor 9. Slavery and dependency in Greco-Roman Egypt 10. The judiciary system in theory and practice.

Coinage as 'Code' in Ptolemaic Egypt

In this paper I survey the use of money in Ptolemaic Egypt with a particular focus on the introduction of coinage by the Ptolemies. I draw connections between monetization of the economy with other institutional reforms, especially as they concern the legal reforms of Ptolemy II.

Reply to Tosh et al.: Quantitative analyses of cultural evolution require engagement with historical and archaeological research

We thank Tosh et al. (1) for their interest in our research (2) but note that their analyses do not undermine the main findings of our article. Their suggestion that polity population divided by polity area should be one of the social complexity dimensions raises a number of issues. What does this ratio mean at large spatial scales, where populations are concentrated in large urban centers and much of the territory is not heavily populated? How are societies distributed across this variable and why? For example, a small-scale “simple” society could have a very high population density if it has access to a rich resource base. Tosh et al. (1) do not provide sufficient information or context to meaningfully … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: t.currie{at}exeter.ac.uk. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

“Getting Things Done in the World:” New Perspectives on History and Theory

The structure of ancient economies offers an important window onto ancient life more broadly. But agreement on what one sees through this window has never existed. To say that the subject has been a “battleground” for a century is an understatement (Scheidel and Von Reden 2002, p. 2). The battle lines have been drawn with opposed conceptual pairs: primitivism/modernism, substantivism/formalism, pessimists/optimists, usevalue/exchange-value, status/contract, oikos/polis, classical/near eastern, sort of like us/not like us at all. This poverty of thought (and of language) belies the ancient world’s richness, complexity, and diversity over 4,000 years. (Typically, we focus on the ancient Near East to the end of Rome, but a broader perspective would include prehistoric economies.) Neither third millennium BC Sumeria nor the Roman Empire can be characterized as a world of hunter-gatherers or of venture capitalists. We can do better. The real challenge is to find the right “analytic narrative” (Bates et al. 1998), combining deep knowledge of the society with the explanatory power of theory. The volumes under review here focus on specific features of the ancient economies. But they also raise broader questions: what is the value of the ancient world for the economic historian and the economist, and what is the value of economics to ancient historians? The usual answer to the first question has generally been: “not very much.” After all, any glimpse at a chart of economic growth in human history clearly shows what really made a difference in human lives: the Industrial Revolution. Before then, there was not much growth to speak of, it was, at best, short-lived, and it was always constrained by the Malthusian trap. And the common answer to the second question has also been: “not very much.” Economics and ancient history, thus, rarely came together. But in the last twenty years, this has changed; now it is not uncommon to see economists and ancient historians at the same conference. It is fair, I think, to say that until recently if economic historians knew anything of the “ancient economy,” it was almost exclusively through Moses Finley’s very influential The Ancient Economy (1973, updated edition 1999). Finley argued that because the ancient world (by which Finley meant the classical Greek and Roman worlds—to him, the economies of Egypt and the Ancient Near East were structurally very different) was configured so differently, there was no “economic sphere,” and little data amenable to quantitative analysis. Thus economics and economic theory could not be applied. Finley’s has remained until recently the orthodox view. Recently, however, there has been a major historical turn in economics, driven largely by the New Institutional Economics (NIE). Although there has been much criticism of the various applications of NIE to ancient economies, some of it fair, this development has brought ancient history back into long-run historical arguments about institutions, and has sharpened explanations for change over time. This development has also forced scholars to define terms and categories carefully and to argue clearly what is at stake, even though NIE may not explain all features of ancient economic life. All three of the books reviewed briefly here are engaged in historical economic analysis and acutely concerned with why ancient history matters. Ian Morris works within the world history framework, and emphasizes evolutionary theory; Walter Scheidel has produced a good overview of key issues in the Roman economy; and Peter Temin applies the economist’s toolkit to ancient market data in a forceful argument that the Roman economy was a market economy.

Introduction and historical framework

The study of ancient law has blossomed in recent years. In the English language alone there have been dozens of monograph-length studies devoted to classical Greek and Roman law, to the Roman legal codes, and to the legal traditions of the ancient Near East including ancient Egyptian, biblical, and Coptic law, among many other topics. In 1995, an important conference was held at the University of California at Berkeley’s law school (Boalt Hall) that brought together specialists in ancient legal documents and legal historians (Chicago-Kent Law Review 70–71 [1995]). Among the many important outcomes of that conference, two stand out. The first was the realization that ancient legal sources have value outside of the realm of those who specialize in the language and scripts of the ancient texts themselves. The second, and more immediately important, outcome for this volume was that pre-Roman legal systems could and indeed should be studied out from under the shadow of Roman law. Legal documents written on papyrus began to be published in some abundance by the end of the nineteenth century – not of course in time to be used by Henry Maine in his great Ancient Law: Its Connection with the Early History of Society, and Its Relation to Modern Ideas (1861). Even after a substantial history of publication down to the present time, however, legal papyri have not received due attention from legal historians, and have only gradually been incorporated into broader synthetic work. The legal papyri remain by and large in their own world although that world has now expanded beyond the Nile River valley. The legal texts from Egypt, taken

Texts, Contexts, Subtexts and Interpretative Frameworks: Beyond the Parochial and Toward (Dynamic) Modeling of the Ptolemaic State and the Ptolemaic Economy

My concern in this paper is the historical interpretation of the Greek and demotic documentary papyri of the Ptolemaic period, the role of Archaeology in the context of Ptolemaic economic history, and the application of social science theory towards an understanding of Ptolemaic Egypt.

The Ptolemaic Economy, Institutions, Economic Integration, and the Limits of Centralized Political Power

In this paper I discuss the relationship between the Ptolemaic state and economic development. My approach is informed by New Institutional Economics (NIE) and also by insights offered by Economic Sociology. I argue that the incentive structures that the Ptolemies established probably did not allow sustainable, or aggregate, economic growth despite important new fiscal institutions, some capital investment in new agricultural areas, and the possibility of new technology. I begin with a discussion of institutions and the Ptolemaic state, and move on to discuss, briefly, developments and the structure of the economy, before ending with an examination of the land tenure regime and how it relates to performance.