A Year of Vengeance : Time, Narrative, and the Old Assyrian Trade 1

Despite siginificant advances in annual chronology, the Old Assyrian trade fundamentally lacked a regime of time at the level of the merchant's commercial and personal activities. In this book, Stratford sets out to recapture time through narrative, drawing on the relationship between the two described by the philosopher Paul Ricouer. Investigating a possible case of revenge leads to weaving together more than a hundred mostly undated documents to form a narrative within the course of a single year of vengeance, including trade disruptions, illnesses, and commerce. This process demonstrates relationships between document and material context, and time and narrative. Along the way, Old Assyrian commercial time and its tempos become more clear, leading to descriptions of the scale of the trade and the nature of Old Assyrian archives as they have survived. Ultimately, the Assyrians involved appear as the earliest historical individuals in world history. The treatment of Salim-aḫum's apparent revenge comprises a practicuum in historical interpretation in the ancient world of interest to practitioners and theoreticians of both the ancient world and world history. Preface......Page 7 Contents......Page 11 Abbreviations......Page 15 Chapter 1. Šalim-aḫum’s Revenge......Page 21 Chapter 2. Structures of the Trade......Page 41 Chapter 3. Ilabrat-bāni’s Arrival......Page 55 Chapter 4. A Scale of Time......Page 76 Chapter 5. Šalim-aḫum and Ilabrat-bāni Make a Deal......Page 94 Chapter 6. Puzur-Istar and Šalim-aḫum’s Gold......Page 104 Chapter 7. Dān-Aššur’s Travels......Page 119 Chapter 8. Seizing Ilabrat-bāni’s Goods......Page 131 Chapter 9. The Bulk Caravan Hiatus......Page 147 Chapter 10. Tempo of Transport......Page 166 Chapter 11. Tempo of Communication......Page 181 Chapter 12. Prodigal Son......Page 199 Chapter 13. Pūšu-kēn’s Pressures......Page 216 Chapter 14. A Joint Venture......Page 235 Chapter 15. Disruptions in the Supply......Page 246 Chapter 16. Vengeance of the Gods......Page 269 Chapter 17. Pūšu-kēn’s Revenge?......Page 292 Chapter 18. The Volume of Trade......Page 307 Chapter 19. Archives and the Deformation of Time......Page 334 Chapter 20. A Year of Vengeance......Page 353 Appendix 1: Analytic Ledger of Šalim-aḫum’s Assets During the Year of Vengeance......Page 364 Appendix 2: Temporal Ledger of Šalim-aḫum’s Assets During REL 82......Page 373 Appendix 3: Initial Analysis of Pūšu-kēn’s reconstructed archive in relation to the Year of Vengeance and other periods......Page 380 Bibliography......Page 383 List of Figures......Page 402 Keyword Index......Page 403 Selective Index of Personal and Divine Names......Page 407 Index of Geographical Places......Page 413 Despite siginificant advances in annual chronology, the Old Assyrian trade fundamentally lacked a regime of time at the level of the merchant’s commercial and personal activities. In this book, Stratford sets out to recapture time through narrative, drawing on the relationship between the two described by the philosopher Paul Ricouer. Investigating a possible case of revenge leads to weaving together more than a hundred mostly undated documents to form a narrative within the course of a single year of vengeance, including trade disruptions, illnesses, and commerce. This process demonstrates relationships between document and material context, and time and narrative. Along the way, Old Assyrian commercial time and its tempos become more clear, leading to descriptions of the scale of the trade and the nature of Old Assyrian archives as they have survived. Ultimately, the Assyrians involved appear as the earliest historical individuals in world history. The treatment of Šalim-aḫum’s apparent revenge comprises a practicuum in historical interpretation in the ancient world of interest to practitioners and theoreticians of both the ancient world and world history. Despite siginificant advances in annual chronology, the Old Assyrian trade fundamentally lacked a regime of time at the level of the merchant's commercial and personal activities. In this book, Stratford sets out to recapture time through narrative, drawing on the relationship between the two described by the philosopher Paul Ricouer. Investigating a possible case of revenge leads to weaving together more than a hundred mostly undated documents to form a narrative within the course of a single year of vengeance, including trade disruptions, illnesses, and commerce. This process demonstrates relationships between document and material context, and time and narrative. Along the way, Old Assyrian commercial time and its tempos become more clear, leading to descriptions of the scale of the trade and the nature of Old Assyrian archives as they have survived. Ultimately, the Assyrians involved appear as the earliest historical individuals in world history. The treatment of Salim-ahum's apparent revenge comprises a practicuum in historical interpretation in the ancient world of interest to practitioners and theoreticians of both the ancient world and world history