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{
"id": 256,
"polity": {
"id": 145,
"name": "jp_kofun",
"long_name": "Kansai - Kofun Period",
"start_year": 250,
"end_year": 537
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "present",
"comment": "“[T]here is compelling evidence that the kami did consider some interpersonal violations to be punishable by divine intervention. In a twice-yearly purification ritual codified later but thought to have originated in this period, priests performed incantations designed to purge the sins of the entire populace (Anesaki 2012). The word translated here as “sins,” tsumi, in fact comprises all things seen as impure by the kami, including certain human wrongdoings as well as forms of ritual pollution and disasters themselves (Takeshi 1993). The mass purification ritual, however, functioned to purge a number of tsumi that clearly comprised interpersonal violations. These included a set of agricultural transgressions, from breaking down divisions between rice fields to filling in irrigation ditches, as well as a set of nonagricultural transgressions, such as cutting living bodies, witchcraft, and incest. That it was seen as necessary to purge this list of sins from the population suggests that the sins displeased the kami, and if they were not purged, collective punishment would be brought upon the population.[…] [T]hat there existed a centralized ritual to purge the whole country of the above sins twice a year may be taken as evidence that there was at some point likely to have been at least some fear of supernatural punishment for these transgressions.” <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/KPNFBIVN\">[Stanford_et_al 2024, p. 325]</a>",
"description": null
},
{
"id": 257,
"polity": {
"id": 151,
"name": "jp_azuchi_momoyama",
"long_name": "Japan - Azuchi-Momoyama",
"start_year": 1568,
"end_year": 1603
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "present",
"comment": "\"From the sixteenth century onward, neo-Confucian ideas were diffused among a large proportion of the populace for the first time, aided by the publication of large numbers of texts in the vernacular and the founding of Confucian academies throughout Japan (Paramore 2016: 44–5). The concept of Heaven and the Way of Heaven—known in Japanese as tendo—became widespread, including the idea that improper conduct not in accord with tendo would result in negative consequences either for oneself or for one’s descendants.\" <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/KPNFBIVN\">[Stanford_et_al 2024, pp. 241-242]</a>",
"description": null
},
{
"id": 258,
"polity": {
"id": 152,
"name": "jp_tokugawa_shogunate",
"long_name": "Tokugawa Shogunate",
"start_year": 1603,
"end_year": 1868
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "present",
"comment": "\"From the sixteenth century onward, neo-Confucian ideas were diffused among a large proportion of the populace for the first time, aided by the publication of large numbers of texts in the vernacular and the founding of Confucian academies throughout Japan (Paramore 2016: 44–5). The concept of Heaven and the Way of Heaven—known in Japanese as tendo—became widespread, including the idea that improper conduct not in accord with tendo would result in negative consequences either for oneself or for one’s descendants.\" <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/KPNFBIVN\">[Stanford_et_al 2024, pp. 241-242]</a>",
"description": null
},
{
"id": 259,
"polity": {
"id": 139,
"name": "jp_jomon_2",
"long_name": "Japan - Initial Jomon",
"start_year": -9200,
"end_year": -5300
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "unknown",
"comment": "EMPTY_COMMENT",
"description": null
},
{
"id": 260,
"polity": {
"id": 140,
"name": "jp_jomon_3",
"long_name": "Japan - Early Jomon",
"start_year": -5300,
"end_year": -3500
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "unknown",
"comment": "EMPTY_COMMENT",
"description": null
},
{
"id": 261,
"polity": {
"id": 138,
"name": "jp_jomon_1",
"long_name": "Japan - Incipient Jomon",
"start_year": -13600,
"end_year": -9200
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "unknown",
"comment": "EMPTY_COMMENT",
"description": null
},
{
"id": 262,
"polity": {
"id": 141,
"name": "jp_jomon_4",
"long_name": "Japan - Middle Jomon",
"start_year": -3500,
"end_year": -2500
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "unknown",
"comment": "EMPTY_COMMENT",
"description": null
},
{
"id": 263,
"polity": {
"id": 142,
"name": "jp_jomon_5",
"long_name": "Japan - Late Jomon",
"start_year": -2500,
"end_year": -1200
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "unknown",
"comment": "EMPTY_COMMENT",
"description": null
},
{
"id": 264,
"polity": {
"id": 143,
"name": "jp_jomon_6",
"long_name": "Japan - Final Jomon",
"start_year": -1200,
"end_year": -300
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "unknown",
"comment": "EMPTY_COMMENT",
"description": null
},
{
"id": 265,
"polity": {
"id": 148,
"name": "jp_kamakura",
"long_name": "Kamakura Shogunate",
"start_year": 1185,
"end_year": 1333
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "present",
"comment": "“In this period, these beings came to be seen as rewarding good behavior and punishing transgressions generally; this was now referred to as shobatsu, “reward and punishment,” as opposed to the older, but still current, term tatari, that is, causing misfortune as a result of pollution.” <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/KPNFBIVN\">[Stanford_et_al 2024, p. 240]</a>",
"description": null
},
{
"id": 266,
"polity": {
"id": 149,
"name": "jp_ashikaga",
"long_name": "Ashikaga Shogunate",
"start_year": 1336,
"end_year": 1467
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "present",
"comment": "“In this period, these beings came to be seen as rewarding good behavior and punishing transgressions generally; this was now referred to as shobatsu, “reward and punishment,” as opposed to the older, but still current, term tatari, that is, causing misfortune as a result of pollution.” <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/KPNFBIVN\">[Stanford_et_al 2024, p. 240]</a>",
"description": null
},
{
"id": 267,
"polity": {
"id": 263,
"name": "jp_nara",
"long_name": "Nara Kingdom",
"start_year": 710,
"end_year": 794
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "absent",
"comment": "\"As it spread, Buddhist divinities (buddhas, bodhisattvas, and foreign deities associated with Buddhism) were at first seen as “foreign kami,” who differed from Japanese kami only in their geographic origins and the rituals they required; otherwise, like their Japanese counterparts, “they were thought to cause diseases when angered, and to lend their power to the clan that conducted their cult, if only they were worshipped correctly and generously” (Teeuwen and Rambelli 2003: 7).\" <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/KPNFBIVN\">[Stanford_et_al 2024, p. 236]</a>",
"description": null
},
{
"id": 268,
"polity": {
"id": 146,
"name": "jp_asuka",
"long_name": "Asuka",
"start_year": 538,
"end_year": 710
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "absent",
"comment": "\"As it spread, Buddhist divinities (buddhas, bodhisattvas, and foreign deities associated with Buddhism) were at first seen as “foreign kami,” who differed from Japanese kami only in their geographic origins and the rituals they required; otherwise, like their Japanese counterparts, “they were thought to cause diseases when angered, and to lend their power to the clan that conducted their cult, if only they were worshipped correctly and generously” (Teeuwen and Rambelli 2003: 7).\" <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/KPNFBIVN\">[Stanford_et_al 2024, p. 236]</a>",
"description": null
},
{
"id": 269,
"polity": {
"id": 68,
"name": "gr_crete_classical",
"long_name": "Classical Crete",
"start_year": -500,
"end_year": -323
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "present",
"comment": "“Despite the increasing rationalism of educated elites in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE and their skepticism about the traditional gods, belief in divine punishment was exploited by Athenian orators to sway juries. Antiphon wrote a speech for Euxitheus, on trial for murder, claiming that he must be innocent because he and his fellow passengers survived a number of sea voyages (Antiphon, On the Murder of Herodes 82–3; Veyne 2005: 428).” <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/DIRZ999P\">[Larson_et_al 2024, pp. 28-29]</a>",
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 270,
"polity": {
"id": 69,
"name": "gr_crete_hellenistic",
"long_name": "Hellenistic Crete",
"start_year": -323,
"end_year": -69
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "present",
"comment": "\"Especially when the identity of a wrongdoer was unknown, local gods could be enlisted to help with interpersonal justice. A deposit of tablets uncovered in the sanctuary of Demeter at Knidos contained “dedications” of transgressors to the goddess by their victims, expressing the wish that the culprits be afflicted until they came to the sanctuary to confess their guilt (Kotsifou 2016: 187–9; Versnel 1991, 2009). […] These texts differ from standard curse tablets in that they employ moral arguments in the hope of convincing the god or goddess to act.\" <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/DIRZ999P\">[Larson_et_al 2024, p. 31]</a>",
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 271,
"polity": {
"id": 67,
"name": "gr_crete_archaic",
"long_name": "Archaic Crete",
"start_year": -710,
"end_year": -500
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "present",
"comment": "\"Mistreating one’s parents, kin murder, and incest were the most serious kinship-based offenses, considered forms of impiety that could evoke divine anger (Mikalson 2010: 171–7). Mistreating a corpse (particularly by refusing burial or by mutilation) and murder (of kin or nonkin) were crimes that could draw a special type of superhuman punishment: the anger of those murdered or left unburied was liable to awaken superhuman avengers to hound the culprit. For this reason, Archaic Greek custom called for both deliberate and accidental killers to be exiled, lest their pollution bring down disaster on the community (Parker 1983: 107–108). The dead, too, especially the powerful dead worshiped as “heroes,” might themselves play a role in punishing offenders (Saunders 1996: 64).\" <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/DIRZ999P\">[Larson_et_al 2024, p. 26]</a>",
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 272,
"polity": {
"id": 66,
"name": "gr_crete_geometric",
"long_name": "Geometric Crete",
"start_year": -1000,
"end_year": -710
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "present",
"comment": "\"Homer’s Iliad represents the viewpoint of the aristocratic chieftain, who rules over a group of settlements in a warrior culture. In the world of the Iliad, the gods rarely pay attention to the behavior of lowly people. Zeus’s moral concern is usually limited to enforcement of the warrior code and the norms of behavior between elite males in three domains: guest friendship, oaths, and supplication. While violations of these norms reliably draw his attention, the ways of Zeus are difficult to know, and he does not always punish those who deserve it. Where moral transgressions lie outside Zeus’s specific domains of moral interest, a wronged person must pray for justice and persuade Zeus or other gods to get involved (Saunders 1996: 38).\" <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/DIRZ999P\">[Larson_et_al 2024, p. 22]</a>",
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 273,
"polity": {
"id": 510,
"name": "eg_badarian",
"long_name": "Badarian",
"start_year": -4400,
"end_year": -3800
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "unknown",
"comment": null,
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 274,
"polity": {
"id": 473,
"name": "iq_ubaid",
"long_name": "Ubaid",
"start_year": -5500,
"end_year": -4000
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "IFR",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "absent",
"comment": "Iconographic and archaeological data from the Ubaid period strongly suggests belief that gods primarily rewarded those who provided them with correct ritual worship and suitable offerings. <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/9TDGABWZ\">[Hole_Carter_Philip 2010, pp. 228-238]</a>, <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/7SJIX8HS\">[Peasnall_Peregrine_Ember 2002, p. 381]</a>",
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 275,
"polity": {
"id": 474,
"name": "iq_uruk",
"long_name": "Uruk",
"start_year": -4000,
"end_year": -2900
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "absent",
"comment": "Evidence from the Uruk period strongly suggests belief that gods primarily rewarded those who provided them with correct ritual worship and suitable offerings. <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/U43PKNTU\">[Cunningham 2013, pp. 41-48]</a>",
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 277,
"polity": {
"id": 515,
"name": "eg_dynasty_2",
"long_name": "Egypt - Dynasty II",
"start_year": -2900,
"end_year": -2687
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "IFR",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "present",
"comment": "Earliest written attestations of the concept of ma'at (meaning order, including in a moralising sense) date to the Second Dynasty, in the early third millennium BCE. <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/VWKRCV7X\">[Goebs_Wilkinson 2011, p. 276]</a> “The presence of the strongly ethical concept of ma’at by the Second Dynasty opens up the possibility that deities could have had a role in enforcing human morality and punishing transgressions.” <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ZQ2347BZ\">[Cioni_et_al 2025, p. 71]</a>",
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 278,
"polity": {
"id": 516,
"name": "eg_old_k_1",
"long_name": "Egypt - Classic Old Kingdom",
"start_year": -2650,
"end_year": -2350
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "present",
"comment": "Old Kingdom sources are compatible with belief in judgement after death, notably late Fifth and Sixth-Dynasty tomb inscriptions in which the deceased claims to have followed ma'at in life, suggesting the individual’s expectation of reward and/or avoidance of punishment in the afterlife. Some of these inscriptions, as well as others, also say that the deceased acted ethically so that it go well for them before the great god. <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/VSUGDZVB\">[Lichtheim 1992, pp. 10-11]</a>, <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/WXMQC4UD\">[Strudwick 2005]</a>",
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 279,
"polity": {
"id": 517,
"name": "eg_old_k_2",
"long_name": "Egypt - Late Old Kingdom",
"start_year": -2350,
"end_year": -2150
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "present",
"comment": "Old Kingdom sources are compatible with belief in judgement after death, notably late Fifth and Sixth-Dynasty tomb inscriptions in which the deceased claims to have followed ma'at in life, suggesting the individual’s expectation of reward and/or avoidance of punishment in the afterlife. Some of these inscriptions, as well as others, also say that the deceased acted ethically so that it go well for them before the great god. <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/VSUGDZVB\">[Lichtheim 1992, pp. 10-11]</a>, <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/WXMQC4UD\">[Strudwick 2005]</a>",
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 280,
"polity": {
"id": 165,
"name": "tr_neo_hittite_k",
"long_name": "Neo-Hittite Kingdoms",
"start_year": -1180,
"end_year": -900
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "IFR",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "present",
"comment": "“The small polities that occupied the south and southeast of the peninsula during the Early and Middle Iron Age are known as “Neo-Hittite” because they preserved certain aspects of the older Hittite culture, especially the iconography and rhetoric of kingship, but the degree of religious continuity after 1200 BCE remains unclear in many cases.” Nevertheless, it seems reasonable to infer a degree of continuity in this case. <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/NDGF9JRC\">[Cioni_et_al 2025, p. 136]</a>",
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 281,
"polity": {
"id": 344,
"name": "tr_urartu_k",
"long_name": "Urartu Kingdom",
"start_year": -1200,
"end_year": -710
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "IFR",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "present",
"comment": "“Overall, iconography and epigraphy suggest that Urartian religion primarily served to bolster royal legitimacy rather than promote proper moral conduct (Smith 2000). The king occupied a divinely legitimated position like the monarchs of both Ḫatti and Mesopotamia (Kravitz 2003: 90–92; Zimansky 1995: 1144). Haldi, the supreme god, was a warlike deity who supported the king’s conquests; both he and the lesser gods required regular animal sacrifices and festivities in their honor (Taffet and Yakar 1998; Zimansky 1995). However, as in the Hittite case, it should be kept in mind that the surviving sources are heavily biased toward elite ideologies.” <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/NDGF9JRC\">[Cioni_et_al 2025, p. 137]</a> Nevertheless, it seems reasonable to infer some continuity with Hittite religion, which was lightly moralizing; in particular, it seems reasonable to infer the persistence of the belief in supernatural punishment for oath-breakers.",
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 282,
"polity": {
"id": 167,
"name": "tr_tabal_k",
"long_name": "Tabal Kingdoms",
"start_year": -900,
"end_year": -730
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "IFR",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "present",
"comment": "“Phrygian religion is even less well understood than Urartian religion because of the very small corpus of textual evidence.” <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/NDGF9JRC\">[Cioni_et_al 2025, p. 137]</a> Nevertheless, it seems reasonable to infer some continuity with Hittite religion, which was lightly moralizing; in particular, it seems reasonable to infer the persistence of the belief in supernatural punishment for oath-breakers, widespread in the region at the time.",
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 283,
"polity": {
"id": 168,
"name": "tr_lydia_k",
"long_name": "Kingdom of Lydia",
"start_year": -670,
"end_year": -546
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "IFR",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "present",
"comment": "“Though current impressions of Lydia are colored by Greek authors’ stereotypes of Eastern decadence and tyranny, it must be admitted that, again, there is little evidence of any belief in [supernatural moralizing enforcement].” <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/NDGF9JRC\">[Cioni_et_al 2025, p. 137]</a> Nevertheless, it seems reasonable to infer some continuity with Hittite religion, which was lightly moralizing; in particular, it seems reasonable to infer the persistence of the belief in supernatural punishment for oath-breakers.",
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 284,
"polity": {
"id": 243,
"name": "cn_late_shang_dyn",
"long_name": "Late Shang",
"start_year": -1250,
"end_year": -1045
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "absent",
"comment": "“Nowhere in the texts do we see clear indication that the Powers are beneficent …. The Shang rulers seek advance approval for their actions - sometimes, it seems, obsessively - but there is no suggestion that the basis for approval will be anything other than the arbitrary inclinations of the Powers”. <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/HRDEVGKT\">[Eno_Lagerway_Kalinowski 2009, p. 100]</a>",
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 285,
"polity": {
"id": 244,
"name": "cn_western_zhou_dyn",
"long_name": "Western Zhou",
"start_year": -1122,
"end_year": -771
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": true,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "absent",
"comment": "Tian and the Mandate of Heaven may mark the earliest known appearance of belief in supernatural moralizing enforcement in China. However, there is some scholarly debate and question on the nature of Tian. <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/5RG5R4P7\">[Clark_Winslett 2011]</a>, <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/25FF647C\">[Nichols_et_al 2017, pp. 165-166]</a>, <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/62ZUUPPT\">[Nichols_et_al 2021]</a> Robert Eno points to a 998 BCE Western Zhou bronze inscription that quotes a ruler named King Kang claiming the Shang had lost the Mandate of Tian because of its king’s acceptance of poor behavior like drunkenness and overall bad governance; based on this inscription, Eno infers that Tian had “taken onthe role of ethical guardian” and was concerned with moral standards and correct rule. <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/HRDEVGKT\">[Eno_Lagerway_Kalinowski 2009, p. 101]</a> However, the inscription could also be interpreted ascritiquing drunkenness at sacrificial rituals involving wine and the inscriptioncould be referringto correct rites and rituals rather than moral behavior. The first Zhou king received de (merit) from Tian, which was earned by subsequent kings through “military and ritual performances as well as through prescribed sacrifices to the earlier Zhou kings.” <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/B2ZKMSYY\">[Cook_Childs-Johnson 2020, p. 443]</a>",
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 286,
"polity": {
"id": 365,
"name": "ye_warlords",
"long_name": "Yemen - Era of Warlords",
"start_year": 1038,
"end_year": 1174
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "present",
"comment": null,
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 287,
"polity": {
"id": 358,
"name": "sa_rashidun_dyn",
"long_name": "Yemen Hijaz",
"start_year": 632,
"end_year": 661
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "present",
"comment": "\"Allāh demands moral behavior from human beings, using reward (thawāb) and punishment (ʿiqāb) to encourage this behavior (Lange 2016; Nakissa 2020; Rustomji 2010).\" <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/A9X3RAQW\">[Nakissa_et_al 2024, p. 135]</a>",
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 288,
"polity": {
"id": 710,
"name": "tz_tana",
"long_name": "Classic Tana",
"start_year": 1000,
"end_year": 1498
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "present",
"comment": "\"Allāh demands moral behavior from human beings, using reward (thawāb) and punishment (ʿiqāb) to encourage this behavior (Lange 2016; Nakissa 2020; Rustomji 2010).\" <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/A9X3RAQW\">[Nakissa_et_al 2024, p. 135]</a>",
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 289,
"polity": {
"id": 669,
"name": "ni_hausa_k",
"long_name": "Hausa bakwai",
"start_year": 900,
"end_year": 1808
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "present",
"comment": "\"Allāh demands moral behavior from human beings, using reward (thawāb) and punishment (ʿiqāb) to encourage this behavior (Lange 2016; Nakissa 2020; Rustomji 2010).\" <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/A9X3RAQW\">[Nakissa_et_al 2024, p. 135]</a>",
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 290,
"polity": {
"id": 454,
"name": "fr_la_tene_b2_c1",
"long_name": "La Tene B2-C1",
"start_year": -325,
"end_year": -175
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "IFR",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "present",
"comment": "Comparisons of oath formulas across a broad range of Indo-European families suggest that belief in supernatural moralistic enforcement against oath-breakers has deep roots in Indo-European culture. Part of this inheritance is the understanding of the oath as a conditional self-curse in which harm will come to the individual perjurer. The common Celtic vocabulary for swearing and oaths is strong evidence that the practice existed in the prehistoric common ancestor of the Celtic languages. <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/J5XD38NE\">[Koch 2021]</a>, <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/549RFFCJ\">[Koch_Fernández 2017]</a>, <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/IBVJZDPD\">[Koch 1992]</a>",
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 291,
"polity": {
"id": 455,
"name": "fr_la_tene_c2_d",
"long_name": "La Tene C2-D",
"start_year": -175,
"end_year": -27
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "IFR",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "present",
"comment": "Comparisons of oath formulas across a broad range of Indo-European families suggest that belief in supernatural moralistic enforcement against oath-breakers has deep roots in Indo-European culture. Part of this inheritance is the understanding of the oath as a conditional self-curse in which harm will come to the individual perjurer. The common Celtic vocabulary for swearing and oaths is strong evidence that the practice existed in the prehistoric common ancestor of the Celtic languages. <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/J5XD38NE\">[Koch 2021]</a>, <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/549RFFCJ\">[Koch_Fernández 2017]</a>, <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/IBVJZDPD\">[Koch 1992]</a>",
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 292,
"polity": {
"id": 216,
"name": "mr_wagadu_2",
"long_name": "Middle Wagadu Empire",
"start_year": 700,
"end_year": 1077
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "unknown",
"comment": null,
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 293,
"polity": {
"id": 110,
"name": "il_judea",
"long_name": "Yehuda",
"start_year": -141,
"end_year": -63
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "present",
"comment": "[T]he key moral ideals of the Torah, the prophets, and further books on their way to canonization []… were already ostensible in prerabbinic Judaism (Early Judaism, Late Second Temple Judaism, or “Common Judaism”). The reward and punishment system enforcing them originated in Deuteronomic theology (see Jokiranta, Part III, Chapter 3, this volume), most clearly appearing in Deuteronomy 11:\r\n\r\n“’So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today—to love the Lord your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul—then I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so that you may gather in your grain, new wine and olive oil. I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied. Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. Then the Lord’s anger will burn against you, and he will shut up the heavens so that it will not rain, and the ground will yield no produce, and you will soon perish from the good land the Lord is giving you. Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth.’ (Deut. 11:13–21)” <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/D6RSSBZ4\">[Biró_et_al 2024, p. 73]</a>",
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 294,
"polity": {
"id": 647,
"name": "er_medri_bahri",
"long_name": "Medri Bahri",
"start_year": 1310,
"end_year": 1889
},
"year_from": 1310,
"year_to": 1750,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "present",
"comment": "“Although the Orthodox do not adhere to a belief in inherited guilt for Adam’s sin like Western Christians (the concept of ‘oruginal sin’), they do maintain that the unity of humanity is such that what happened to Adam and Eve somehow affects us all. As a result of this first sin all humanity became subject to sickness and death, consumed by a self-love that separates us both from God and from one another.” <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/BKXCW9SQ\">[Siecienski 2019, p. 54]</a>",
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 295,
"polity": {
"id": 103,
"name": "il_canaan",
"long_name": "Canaan",
"start_year": -2000,
"end_year": -1175
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "absent",
"comment": "The following summary—based on admittedly meagre evidence—suggests a belief system that did not feature moralizing supernatural enforcement. “Syro-Canaanite religion can be best summed up as a belief in a group of deities or supernatural beings that were immanent in the natural world, although generally hidden from human view. Their powers were manifested through natural phenomena and in political and military acts of the rulers or kings whom they chose and supported. The gods and humans related in a master-servant relationship. The gods provided blessing and support to the people, and the people were expected to serve the deities, with various gifts and lavish praise. Offending the deities could anger them and bring catastrophe to humans.” <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/A3BCAWIE\">[Wright_Iles-Johnson 2004, p. 179]</a>",
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 296,
"polity": {
"id": 104,
"name": "lb_phoenician_emp",
"long_name": "Phoenician Empire",
"start_year": -1200,
"end_year": -332
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "absent",
"comment": "The following summary—based on admittedly meagre evidence—suggests a belief system that did not feature moralizing supernatural enforcement. “Syro-Canaanite religion can be best summed up as a belief in a group of deities or supernatural beings that were immanent in the natural world, although generally hidden from human view. Their powers were manifested through natural phenomena and in political and military acts of the rulers or kings whom they chose and supported. The gods and humans related in a master-servant relationship. The gods provided blessing and support to the people, and the people were expected to serve the deities, with various gifts and lavish praise. Offending the deities could anger them and bring catastrophe to humans.” <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/A3BCAWIE\">[Wright_Iles-Johnson 2004, p. 179]</a>",
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 297,
"polity": {
"id": 660,
"name": "ni_igodomingodo",
"long_name": "Igodomingodo",
"start_year": 900,
"end_year": 1450
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "unknown",
"comment": null,
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 298,
"polity": {
"id": 665,
"name": "ni_aro",
"long_name": "Aro",
"start_year": 1690,
"end_year": 1902
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "present",
"comment": "“The superior powers most prominent in controlling morality are Ani (the Earth Spirit) and the ancestors. The greatest crimes are offences against Ani; they are abominations (alu, nso-Ani). Alu includes not only patricide, incest and the stealing of yams or sheep, but also giving birth to twins, a woman climbing a palm tree, and the killing of sacred animals, to name only a few. These crimes require special expiatory sacrifices. […] The other spirits also influence morals and distribute punishments. ‘If lightning strikes a man or a house, he is at once judged to be an evil-doer, without question, for he must have offended the gods. Loud recitation of one’s great crimes is expected of very wicked people on their death bed. Also in difficult child birth, the confession of her infidelity, if any, is held to facilitate delivery.’” <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/32F8RSK9\">[Arinze_Internet_Archive 1970, p. 30]</a>",
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 299,
"polity": {
"id": 668,
"name": "ni_nri_k",
"long_name": "Ọ̀ràézè Ǹrì",
"start_year": 1043,
"end_year": 1911
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "present",
"comment": "“The superior powers most prominent in controlling morality are Ani (the Earth Spirit) and the ancestors. The greatest crimes are offences against Ani; they are abominations (alu, nso-Ani). Alu includes not only patricide, incest and the stealing of yams or sheep, but also giving birth to twins, a woman climbing a palm tree, and the killing of sacred animals, to name only a few. These crimes require special expiatory sacrifices. […] The other spirits also influence morals and distribute punishments. ‘If lightning strikes a man or a house, he is at once judged to be an evil-doer, without question, for he must have offended the gods. Loud recitation of one’s great crimes is expected of very wicked people on their death bed. Also in difficult child birth, the confession of her infidelity, if any, is held to facilitate delivery.’” <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/32F8RSK9\">[Arinze_Internet_Archive 1970, p. 30]</a>",
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 300,
"polity": {
"id": 664,
"name": "ni_proto_yoruboid",
"long_name": "Proto-Yoruboid",
"start_year": -300,
"end_year": 300
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "SSP",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "unknown",
"comment": null,
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 301,
"polity": {
"id": 655,
"name": "ni_proto_yoruba",
"long_name": "Proto-Yoruba",
"start_year": 301,
"end_year": 649
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "SSP",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "unknown",
"comment": null,
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 302,
"polity": {
"id": 657,
"name": "ni_formative_yoruba",
"long_name": "Late Formative Yoruba",
"start_year": 650,
"end_year": 1049
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "SSP",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "unknown",
"comment": null,
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 303,
"polity": {
"id": 19,
"name": "us_hawaii_3",
"long_name": "Hawaii III",
"start_year": 1580,
"end_year": 1778
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "present",
"comment": "Illness was often thought to be punishment sent from an offended ‘aumakua. Breaking the food kapus (taboos), bathing in pools that were kapu, violating the kapus of the menstrual period—all could bring reprimands, in the form of physical discomfort. So could behavior that impaired interpersonal relationships—greed, dishonesty, theft. Often these were “diagnostic clues.” A swollen hand pained a thief until he made restitution. <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/TNICV9KB\">[Pukui_Haertig_Lee 1972, p. 38]</a>",
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 304,
"polity": {
"id": 20,
"name": "us_kamehameha_k",
"long_name": "Kingdom of Hawaii - Kamehameha Period",
"start_year": 1778,
"end_year": 1819
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "present",
"comment": "Illness was often thought to be punishment sent from an offended ‘aumakua. Breaking the food kapus (taboos), bathing in pools that were kapu, violating the kapus of the menstrual period—all could bring reprimands, in the form of physical discomfort. So could behavior that impaired interpersonal relationships—greed, dishonesty, theft. Often these were “diagnostic clues.” A swollen hand pained a thief until he made restitution. <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/TNICV9KB\">[Pukui_Haertig_Lee 1972, p. 38]</a>",
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 306,
"polity": {
"id": 18,
"name": "us_hawaii_2",
"long_name": "Hawaii II",
"start_year": 1200,
"end_year": 1580
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "A~P",
"comment": "“[T]he most important ancestral deities, the ‘aumakua, had been transformed by late precontact times into enforcers of “moral law” (Valeri 1985: 24). They were concerned not only with being nourished by offerings but also with their descendants’ adherence to a broader system of norms, which included both ritual and ethical obligations—a distinction between the two was not emic for the Hawaiians. […] What we can say is that Hawaiian religion of the earliest periods represented an intermediate stage between the concepts, deities, and rites inherited from central-eastern Polynesia and the more intricate and formalized system in place by the late eighteenth century.” <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/9MDFMQ73\">[Cioni_et_al 2025, p. 274]</a>",
"description": ""
},
{
"id": 307,
"polity": {
"id": 17,
"name": "us_hawaii_1",
"long_name": "Hawaii I",
"start_year": 1000,
"end_year": 1200
},
"year_from": null,
"year_to": null,
"tag": "TRS",
"is_disputed": false,
"is_uncertain": false,
"name": "Moralizing_supernatural_punishment_and_reward",
"coded_value": "A~P",
"comment": "“[T]he most important ancestral deities, the ‘aumakua, had been transformed by late precontact times into enforcers of “moral law” (Valeri 1985: 24). They were concerned not only with being nourished by offerings but also with their descendants’ adherence to a broader system of norms, which included both ritual and ethical obligations—a distinction between the two was not emic for the Hawaiians. […] What we can say is that Hawaiian religion of the earliest periods represented an intermediate stage between the concepts, deities, and rites inherited from central-eastern Polynesia and the more intricate and formalized system in place by the late eighteenth century.” <a class=\"fw-bold\" href=\"https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/9MDFMQ73\">[Cioni_et_al 2025, p. 274]</a>",
"description": ""
}
]
}