| # | Polity | Coded Value | Tags | Year(s) | Edit | Desc |
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According to Coningham, there is no evidence of centralized systems of government during this period. Attempts by scholars such as Maurizio Tosi to find evidence of differentiation and increasing complexity were not born out by the evidence. While recording systems are present, stamp seals and sealing, these appeared to be quite localized in terms of their production.
[1]
There is one building that might have fulfilled some sort of administrative role during Pirak II. PK.C building complex surrounded by monumental wall, with, inside seals and seal impressions
[2]
.
[1]: (Coningham pers. comm. interview with Harvey Whitehouse and Christina Collins: Jan 2017) [2]: Ceccarelli, pers. comm. to E. Cioni, Feb 2017) |
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Not enough data, though it seems to reasonable infer absence.
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The house of the Ohene doubled as court: ’The place of trial is usually the house of the Ohene, and is open to everybody. It has been observed by Cruickshank, among others, that in addition to these official members, any person of respectability in the community has the right to attend the court of the ruler and councillors. Causes of great public importance are heard in the open air, and in the presence of as many as it pleases to attend. On such occasions, any one-even the most ordinary youth-will offer his opinion or make suggestion with an equal [Page 34] chance of its being as favourably entertained on its merits as if it proceeded from the most experienced sage, for in the multitude of people is the king’s honour, and there is safety in the multitude of counsellors. To prevent this license being abused, to the interruption of business by the interposition of crude and absurd opinions, a sufficient check is supplied in the general ridicule with which they are received, the offensive forwardness of the fool is jeered at and reprobated in no measured terms, while approbation and loud expressions of applause reward the prudent adviser. Mr. Justice Macleod, in Amocoo v. Duker, * correctly stated, decisions of these tribunals should not be lightly set aside. And in land cases especially, judges ought to be guided by what was laid down by the court in Asraidu v. Dadzie, † namely, give the same judgment that a native court judging honestly and in accordance with native law and custom ought to give.’
[1]
[1]: Sarbah, John Mensah 1968. “Fanti National Constitution: A Short Treatise On The Constitution And Government Of The Fanti, Asanti, And Other Akan Tribes Of West Africa Together With A Brief Account Of The Discovery Of The Gold Coast By Portuguese Navigators, A Short Narration Of Early English Voyages, And A Study Of The Rise Of British Gold Coast Jurisdiction, Etc., Etc.”, 33p |
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There is little evidence of buildings set aside exclusively for administrative purposes in the Xiongnu Empire. A possible exception, in Ivolga, "one house (dwelling 9) occupied an area of more than 100 sq. m and apparently served as a administrative center."
[1]
Ivolga is from the 2nd or 1st century BCE. "It is synchronous with the Ivolga fortress and cemetery from East Bailkal region. All of these sites are attributed to approximately II-I centuries B.C.E. and assigned by the author to the epoch of the Western (early) Han."
[2]
[1]: (Kradin 2014, 91) [2]: (Kradin 2014, 105) |
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This quotation suggests that there were no specialized government buildings (the ’palace yurt’ doubled as an elite residence and was also non-permanent): "Local officials were responsible for keeping their people in line and reporting external or internal disorder. The commoner officials were required to assemble periodically at the palace-yurt (örgöö) of their noyon, and otog elders had to assemble the demchis; failure to appear was subject to a fine."
[1]
[1]: (Atwood 2004, 421-422) |
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Wright and Johnson have argued that ’specialized governments’ did not develop until the 4th millennium BCE in southwestern Iran.
[1]
In the early 5th millennium BCE, Chogha Mish’s monumental ’Burnt Building’ was burned down (hence its name), and the Late Susiana I phase in general saw the abandonment of Chogha Mish. [2] Moreover, even the large Burnt Building was likely not a specialized administrative building: it showed signs of having been used as a lithic workshop. [3] Susa was founded during the late 5th millennium and a large monumental building was constructed on the haute terrasse, ’but we remain uncertain of its nature’. [4] A monumental building was constructed at Farrukhabad during the Late Susiana I period, but the evidence does not seem strong enough to code this as a specialized government building rather than, say, an elite residence where administrative activities involving seals also took place. [4] Administrative conventions and writing, for example, developed in Uruk period c3800-3100 BCE. [5] Possibility of "agents responsible for the coordination of social organisation and decision-making processes (mainly centred on the leading role of temples), and the progressive social stratification of communities." [6] Though the reference concerns the Ubaid there was a large temple complex in Susiana e.g. Choga Mish. Still inferred absent, however, as these buildings associated with temples are unlikely to be specialized government buildings. [1]: (Wright and Johnson 1975, 267) Wright, Henry T., and Gregory A. Johnson. 1975. “Population, Exchange, and Early State Formation in Southwestern Iran.” American Anthropologist 77 (2):267-89. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/7B3EQPRT. [2]: (Alizadeh 2008, 13, 16) Alizadeh, Abbas. 2008. Chogha Mish II: The Development of a Prehistoric Regional Center in Lowland Susiana, Southwestern Iran. Final Report on the Last Six Seasons of Excavations, 1972-1978. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/D9Z3T2K7. [3]: (Alizadeh 2008, 11-13) Alizadeh, Abbas. 2008. Chogha Mish II: The Development of a Prehistoric Regional Center in Lowland Susiana, Southwestern Iran. Final Report on the Last Six Seasons of Excavations, 1972-1978. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/D9Z3T2K7. [4]: (Alizadeh 2008, 16) Alizadeh, Abbas. 2008. Chogha Mish II: The Development of a Prehistoric Regional Center in Lowland Susiana, Southwestern Iran. Final Report on the Last Six Seasons of Excavations, 1972-1978. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/D9Z3T2K7. [5]: (Leverani 2014, 79) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. [6]: (Leverani 2014, 54) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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Inferred from the fact that full-time specialised bureaucracy does not seem to have emerged in the broader Great Lakes region prior to the colonial era. For example, in Nkore, "The royal court served as a judicial and political center, but not as a bureaucratic focal point. The Mugabe’s chief minister, the Enganzi, was not a prime minister in the usual sense of leader of government business. He was merely the King’s favorite. Neither was there a cabinet nor governmental bureaux [...]. No distinction between the royal and state treasury was made and the heads of local administrative units were not required to attend court or reside at the capital as in Buganda, for instance."
[1]
In Rwanda: "In this sort of government, administration was not yet institutionalized."
[2]
In Burundi, the king seemingly entrusted administration mostly to close relatives and local chiefs: "Ntare relied on his sons as administrators: he was strong enough to set up his sons, but not strong enough to incorporate these regions fully within central control. [...] During the late nineteenth century, under the reign of Mwezi Gisabo, a four-tiered system of administration emerged: a central area around Muramvya under the control of the king; an area under the administration of his sons or brothers most closely allied to the king; a broad swath further east and south administered by Batare chiefs, the descendants of Ntare; and another zone, covering the western and northwestern areas of the country, under the administration of others, not Baganwa (in fact, they were mostly Hutu authorities). [...] Administrative authorities in the east and south- east, often Batare (descendants of Ntare Rugamba), simply retained their administrative autonomy while acknowledging nominal central court ritual hegemony. Those in the northeast more characteristically undertook open revolt, often by those who sought to overthrow Mwezi."
[3]
[1]: (Steinhart 1978: 144) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/D3FV7SKV/collection. [2]: (Vansina 2004: 63) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5J4MRHUB/collection. [3]: (Newbury 2001: 283-284) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/J5A6DM3P/collection. |
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Inferred from the fact that full-time specialised bureaucracy does not seem to have emerged in the broader Great Lakes region prior to the colonial era. For example, in Nkore, "The royal court served as a judicial and political center, but not as a bureaucratic focal point. The Mugabe’s chief minister, the Enganzi, was not a prime minister in the usual sense of leader of government business. He was merely the King’s favorite. Neither was there a cabinet nor governmental bureaux [...]. No distinction between the royal and state treasury was made and the heads of local administrative units were not required to attend court or reside at the capital as in Buganda, for instance."
[1]
In Rwanda: "In this sort of government, administration was not yet institutionalized."
[2]
In Burundi, the king seemingly entrusted administration mostly to close relatives and local chiefs: "Ntare relied on his sons as administrators: he was strong enough to set up his sons, but not strong enough to incorporate these regions fully within central control. [...] During the late nineteenth century, under the reign of Mwezi Gisabo, a four-tiered system of administration emerged: a central area around Muramvya under the control of the king; an area under the administration of his sons or brothers most closely allied to the king; a broad swath further east and south administered by Batare chiefs, the descendants of Ntare; and another zone, covering the western and northwestern areas of the country, under the administration of others, not Baganwa (in fact, they were mostly Hutu authorities). [...] Administrative authorities in the east and south- east, often Batare (descendants of Ntare Rugamba), simply retained their administrative autonomy while acknowledging nominal central court ritual hegemony. Those in the northeast more characteristically undertook open revolt, often by those who sought to overthrow Mwezi."
[3]
[1]: (Steinhart 1978: 144) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/D3FV7SKV/collection. [2]: (Vansina 2004: 63) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5J4MRHUB/collection. [3]: (Newbury 2001: 283-284) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/J5A6DM3P/collection. |
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Inferred from the fact that full-time specialised bureaucracy does not seem to have emerged in the broader Great Lakes region prior to the colonial era. For example, in Nkore, "The royal court served as a judicial and political center, but not as a bureaucratic focal point. The Mugabe’s chief minister, the Enganzi, was not a prime minister in the usual sense of leader of government business. He was merely the King’s favorite. Neither was there a cabinet nor governmental bureaux [...]. No distinction between the royal and state treasury was made and the heads of local administrative units were not required to attend court or reside at the capital as in Buganda, for instance."
[1]
In Rwanda: "In this sort of government, administration was not yet institutionalized."
[2]
In Burundi, the king seemingly entrusted administration mostly to close relatives and local chiefs: "Ntare relied on his sons as administrators: he was strong enough to set up his sons, but not strong enough to incorporate these regions fully within central control. [...] During the late nineteenth century, under the reign of Mwezi Gisabo, a four-tiered system of administration emerged: a central area around Muramvya under the control of the king; an area under the administration of his sons or brothers most closely allied to the king; a broad swath further east and south administered by Batare chiefs, the descendants of Ntare; and another zone, covering the western and northwestern areas of the country, under the administration of others, not Baganwa (in fact, they were mostly Hutu authorities). [...] Administrative authorities in the east and south- east, often Batare (descendants of Ntare Rugamba), simply retained their administrative autonomy while acknowledging nominal central court ritual hegemony. Those in the northeast more characteristically undertook open revolt, often by those who sought to overthrow Mwezi."
[3]
Moreover, it is curious that, despite the wealth of literature available on this polity, so far we have been unable to find mentions of a bureaucracy, which strongly suggests (without outright confirming) that it was simply not present at this time.
[1]: (Steinhart 1978: 144) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/D3FV7SKV/collection. [2]: (Vansina 2004: 63) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5J4MRHUB/collection. [3]: (Newbury 2001: 283-284) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/J5A6DM3P/collection. |
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The White Rajahs built formal government buildings for their growing administrative body (see above): ’The main government buildings include the Astana (“Palace”; 1870) and Supreme Court (1874).’
[1]
Specialized government buildings were absent from Iban villages, which were residential only. We have assumed that Iban had little to no access to these government buildings. We have therefore chosen to code the variable ’absent’.
[1]: http://www.britannica.com/place/Kuching |
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"During this time [1200 to 800 BC] no communities seem to have assumed the role of regional centre, and none had civic-cerimonial architecture".
[1]
[1]: (Evans 2004: 151) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/EWW3Q2TA. |
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There were public buildings and evidence for group organisation (for construction of public buildings and defensive palisade at San José Mogote) but no evidence for governmental organisation.
[1]
[2]
[1]: Marcus, J. and K. V. Flannery (1996). Zapotec civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley, Thames and Hudson London, p87-8 [2]: Flannery, K. V. and J. Marcus (1983). "The Cloud People." New York. |
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A few buildings existed, to which administrative function was assigned because of their architecture - bigger than for a typical household - and the findings from inside them. Example: the palace/administrative structure at HK34 at Hierakonpolis
[1]
or building complex in Naqada, South Town, associated with significant amount of seals, clay sealings, counters and tokens
[2]
[1]: Friedman, R. 2011. "Hierakonpolis". [in:] Before the Pyramids.The Origin of Egyptian Civilization. Teeter, E.[ed.]. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. pg: 35. [2]: Köhler, E. C. "Theories of State Formation". [in:] Wendrich, W. [ed.]. Egyptian Archaeology. Chichester: Blackwell Publishing. pg: 41. |
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The following quote suggests that official kingdom functions took place in the house of the jogomaay and not in a specialized government building. “Finally, the jogomaay, who had as its own state the village of Tungen in Jurbel, the capital, was personally tied to the brak. All the meetings, and all receptions at the court, were conducted in the home of the jogomaay.”
[1]
[1]: (Barry 2012, 46) Barry, Boubacar. 2012. The Kingdom of Waalo: Senegal Before the Conquest. New York: Diasporic Africa Press. Seshat URL:https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/9KV5MEKN/collection |
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The following suggests that the only identified buildings were houses, and that houses fulfilled multiple purposes ("economically generalized”). ”The community [of Kirikongo] was founded by a single house (Mound 4) c. ad 100 (Yellow I), as part of a regional expansion of farming peoples in small homesteads in western Burkina Faso. A true village emerged with the establishment of a second house (Mound 1) c. ad 450, and by the end of the first millennium ad the community had expanded to six houses. At first, these were economically generalized houses (potting, iron metallurgy, farming and herding) settled distantly apart with direct access to farming land that appear to have exercised some autonomy."
[1]
[1]: (Dueppen 2015: 21-22) |
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The following directly applies to northern Sierra Leone, but, based on Fyle and Foray’s assertion that "[p]olitical systems in the Sierra Leone area were fairly similar in structure,"
[1]
it seems reasonable to infer that it can be applied to the whole of Sierra Leone’s interior. "The precolonial sociopolitical organization of northern Sierra Leone is difficult to characterize, in part because of the limited information available prior to the late nineteenth century. [...] Features of centralized political authority (e.g., Cohen 1991; Southhall 1988, 1991), such as institutionalized bureaucracy, taxation, centralized redistribution of goods and labor, stratified accumulation of wealth, and military control, that have been traditionally seen as markers of state-level organization were limited."
[2]
[1]: (Fyle and Foray 2006: xxx) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM. [2]: (DeCorse 2012: 285) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/7FGSKCDI/collection. |
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"The court gradually settled in one area somewhat to the north and west of the Isingiro heartland. Each new ruler was obliged to move to a new capital site on his accession and may have found it convenient to shift his capital to a more suitable grazing ground from time to time. Thus, while court attendance was encouraged, the capital did not emerge as an urban or administrative center, merely as the site of the large and prestigious royal kraal where other less imposing structures were erected. [...] The royal court served as a judicial and political center, but not as a bureaucratic focal point."
[1]
[1]: (Steinhart 1978: 143-144) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/D3FV7SKV/collection. |
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Some of the monumental architecture at Koktepe may have had administrative functions, but the evidence is not strong enough to demonstrate that there were specialized government buildings.
"Reflecting the major social and political development of the region, this monumental architecture is evidence of a strong local state organization. The inner buildings of these courtyards are at present difficult to reconstruct. Although this question has still to be resolved, it would seem that the courtyards of Koktepe housed earlier religious and administrative institutions." [1] [1]: (Rapin 2007, 35) Rapin, Claude. "Nomads and the Shaping of Central Asia: from the Early Iron Age to the Kushan Period." in Cribb, Joe. Herrmann, Georgina. 2007. After Alexander: Central Asia before Islam. British Academy. |
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’The break with the complex, rural Stirling phase [c. 1050-1150 CE] bureaucratic structure was total and complete - in an archaeological instance all the specialized facilities and elites disappeared’.
[1]
Moreover, ’Current data suggest that this was a period of minimal activity at the site of Cahokia. Mantles may have been added to some of the mounds, but there is little evidence of elite activity at the site.’
[2]
The Sand Prairie phase was one of disintegration and decline at Cahokia. Emerson describes the results of archaeological excavations of Sand Prairie sites in the American Bottom region: ’Sand Prairie phase sites showed no evidence for political activities of either a community-centered or elite nature; instead, the focus was on community-centered mortuary ceremonialism’.
[3]
The overall pattern is one of ’social segmentation and community autonomy’.
[4]
[1]: (Emerson 1997, 260) Thomas E. Emerson. 1997. Cahokia and the Archaeology of Power. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. [2]: (Emerson 1997, 53) Thomas E. Emerson. 1997. Cahokia and the Archaeology of Power. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. [3]: (Emerson 1997, 148) Thomas E. Emerson. 1997. Cahokia and the Archaeology of Power. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. [4]: (Milner 1983, 298 in Emerson 1997, 53) Thomas E. Emerson. 1997. Cahokia and the Archaeology of Power. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. |
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Traditionally, Chuukese lineages had meeting-houses rather than administrative buildings: ’A large and important lineage might have a meeting house, wuut. In some districts only the chief’s lineage has one; in others only the well established lineages. At one time or another every lineage on Romonum has had its own wuut. When a man’s lineage is without a meeting house, he attends that of his father’s or his wife’s lineage.’
[1]
’Under aboriginal conditions a lineage’s wuut was not necessarily located near its jimw. It frequently stood by the shore, where it served as a canoe house ( wutten waa) as well as a meeting house ( wutten mwiic). A meeting house was not in itself taboo to women, although normally they did not enter it if men other than their husbands were present. Both men and women, however, could be present together at such feasts and dances as did not exclude one sex and were held in the meeting house. During certain ceremonies, men kept away from the meeting house and it was used exclusively by women. The women of a lineage could hold meetings of their own in its wuut.’
[1]
’Its wuut was the place where the unmarried young men of a lineage slept. Its older men, and at times the husbands of its women, also slept there whenever they were observing important sexual taboos. A meeting house was the lounging place for men during the evening, where they visited and told stories. In it visitors from other islands and districts were received, entertained, and put up for the night.’
[1]
[1]: Goodenough, Ward Hunt 1951. “Property, Kin, And Community On Truk”, 68 |
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Council houses were residential buildings doubling as gathering and ceremonial places: ’In 1818, Timothy Alden (1827:54-55) described a similar council house at Tonawanda. It was fifty feet long and twenty wide. On each side of it, longitudinally is a platform, a little more than one foot high and four feet wide, covered with furs, which furnishes a convenient place for sitting, lounging, and sleeping. A rail across the centre separates the males from the females, who are constant attendants and listen, with silence, diligence, and interest, to whatever is delivered in council. Over the platform is a kind of galley, five or six feet from the floor, which is loaded with peltry, corn, implements of hunting, and a variety of other articles. At each end of the building is a door, and near each door, within, was the council fire. . . . Over each fire several large kettles of soup were hanging and boiling. The smoke was conveyed away through apertures in the roof and did not annoy. The chiefs and others, as many as could be accommodated, in their appropriate grotesque habiliments, were seated on the platform, smoking calumets, of various forms, sizes, and materials, several of which were tendered to me in token of friendship. Profound silence pervaded the crowded assembly.’
[1]
[1]: Tooker, Elisabeth 1970. “Iroquois Ceremonial Of Midwinter”, 19 |
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There is little direct evidence for bureaucracy during this period.
[1]
However, Charles Spencer commented: ’One cannot fail to be impressed by the amount and variety of public/institutional architecture constructed between B.C. 300 and A.D. 800 in and around the Main Plaza at Monte Alban. The archaeological data indicate that much of this architectural complexity was in existence by Monte Alban II (100 B.C. through A.D. 200). Many of these buildings do not appear to have been residential and most likely served an array of religious (e.g., the various structures associated with two-room temples), military (such as Building J and perhaps the Ballcourt), and other "administrative" functions (including a variety of other public/institutional buildings the functions of which are still unclear). At the same time, it is probably also appropriate to consider the quihuitao (royal palace) to be another example of a public/institutional building. Both the main candidate for a quihuitao at Monte Alban (the Patio Hundido complex, according to Flannery) and also the example recently excavated at El Palenque (which was probably the capital of a rival independent state polity in Late Formative times) near San Martin Tilcajete (see Spencer and Redmond 2004 in Lat Am Antiq, and Redmond and Spencer 2017 PNAS) were not associated with tombs like other elite (and non-elite) residences; also, both examples had "residential" as well as "ceremonial/governmental" components. Note that the El Palenque quihuitao is securely dated to the Late Monte Albán I phase (300-100 B.C.)’.
[2]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. [2]: Charles Spencer, pers. comm., January 2018. |
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Karlsson mentions the seat of the royal administration in Bessastadir: ’It was in the years after 1300 that seasonal fishing stations became esablished on the southwest coast, and the wealthiest sector of society began to congregate in this region. The most powerful chieftains had almost all been based inland. Now the prosperous élite began to settle along the coast between Selvogur in the southwest and Vatnsfjördur in the West Fjords. Hvalfjördur and Hafnarfjördur developed into Iceland’s most important trading centres. The royal administration in Iceland was located at Bessastadir [...] This period saw the development of the mixed agrarian/fishing society that typefied the Icelandic economy for centuries. In January and Feburary, people travelled from rural areas to the fishing stations, where they remained until spring, fishing from small boats. This was the most favourable fishing season, as fish stocks were plentiful, the weather was cool enough to permit fish to be dried before spoiling, and relatively few hands were required on the farm. People were thus domiciled in rural areas, on farms.’
[1]
This was the residence of the royal governor rather than an administrative building in the strict sense of the term: ’Bessastaðir was the king’s property but was not used as a seat of government until the mid 14th century and then only when the governor was not Icelandic. Icelandic governors used their homes to conduct the business of government.’
[2]
[1]: Karlsson, Gunnar 2000. "A Brief History of Iceland", 24p [2]: Árni Daniel Júlíusson and Axel Kristissen 2017, pers. comm. to E. Brandl and D. Mullins |
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Though the following is relevant, here we are interested in buildings that were used solely for administrative purposes. Charles Spencer commented: ’One cannot fail to be impressed by the amount and variety of public/institutional architecture constructed between B.C. 300 and A.D. 800 in and around the Main Plaza at Monte Alban. The archaeological data indicate that much of this architectural complexity was in existence by Monte Alban II (100 B.C. through A.D. 200). Many of these buildings do not appear to have been residential and most likely served an array of religious (e.g., the various structures associated with two-room temples), military (such as Building J and perhaps the Ballcourt), and other "administrative" functions (including a variety of other public/institutional buildings the functions of which are still unclear). At the same time, it is probably also appropriate to consider the quihuitao (royal palace) to be another example of a public/institutional building. Both the main candidate for a quihuitao at Monte Alban (the Patio Hundido complex, according to Flannery) and also the example recently excavated at El Palenque (which was probably the capital of a rival independent state polity in Late Formative times) near San Martin Tilcajete (see Spencer and Redmond 2004 in Lat Am Antiq, and Redmond and Spencer 2017 PNAS) were not associated with tombs like other elite (and non-elite) residences; also, both examples had "residential" as well as "ceremonial/governmental" components. Note that the El Palenque quihuitao is securely dated to the Late Monte Albán I phase (300-100 B.C.)’.
[1]
[1]: Charles Spencer, pers. comm., January 2018. |
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Palaces. The most important elements in the larger cities were palaces, which in textual sources are characterized with the Sumerogram É.GAL = great house. The palaces were a crucial element for the administration and organisation of the Hittite state. However, they were not specialized government buildings.
Hittite palaces: (1) Büyükkale/Bogazköy-Hattusa [1] (2) Masat Höyük-Tapikka [2] (3) Ortaköy-Sapinuwa, Building A [3] (4) Alaca Höyük [4] (5) Inandıktepe [5] [1]: Seeher J. (2002) ‘Großkönigliche Residenz - Mittelpunkt staatlichen Lebens. Die Palastanlage in der hethitischen Hauptstadt’, [In:] Die Hethiter und ihr Reich. Das Volk der 1000 Götter, Katalog der Ausstellung, Bonn 18. Januar-28. April 2002, Bonn, pp. 94-99. [2]: Özgüç, T. (1982) Masat Höyük II. Bogazköy’ün kuzeydogusunda bir Hitit merkezi. Masat Höyük II. A Hittite Center Northeast of Bogazköy (Turk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlari V.38a)Ankara [3]: Süel A. (2002) ‘Ortaköy-Sapinuwa’. [In:] K.A. Yener and H.A. jr Hoffner (eds.) 2002: Recent Developments in Hittite Archaeology and History. Papers in Memory of Hans G. Güterbock,Winona Lake, IN., pp 157-65. [4]: Bittel K. (1976) Die Hethiter, Munich, Abb. 111 [5]: Özgüç, T. (1988) Inandıktepe. Eski Hitit çagında önemli bir kült merkezi. An Important Cult Center in the Old Hittite Period (Turk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlari V.43) Ankara. |
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"Some evidence suggests that each village included a very large lodge used for ritual and perhaps for a council house".
[1]
[1]: (Callendar 1978: 678-80) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/LAJ7JQRL. |
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No information found in relevant literature.
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"Buildings remains are numerous at Sarazm. They comprise housing, workshops for craftsmen, storage (granaries), as well as palatial and cult buildings. All are mainly built with earth-brick (adobe) that allowed flexibility in the architecture with a variety of uses, sizes and shapes."
[1]
Three types of monumental buildings were found at Sarazm: a religious building, a palatial complex and a communal granary.
[2]
[1]: (Sarazm Management Plan 2005, 17) [2]: (Razzokov and Kurbanov 2005: 19) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/IDTTJNJT. |
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No evidence for employment specialization characteristic of a developed urban society. Agricultural and herding would be typical occupations with "some internal differentiation ... in view of the sophistication of craft production documented at Mehrgarh.”
[1]
[1]: Agrawal, D. P. (2007) The Indus Civilization: An interdisciplinary perspective. Aryan Books International: New Delhi. |
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No evidence for employment specialization characteristic of a developed urban society. Agricultural and herding would be typical occupations with "some internal differentiation ... in view of the sophistication of craft production documented at Mehrgarh.”
[1]
[1]: Agrawal, D. P. (2007) The Indus Civilization: An interdisciplinary perspective. Aryan Books International: New Delhi. |
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inferred from discussion in sources of development/introduction in later periods
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Peiligang had no government or chiefs. There was a pile-dwelling in Jiahu Phase I that was not a residence. No ritual or domestic artifacts were found under the structure.
[1]
[1]: (Liu 2005: 75) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/Q77FKW2H?. |
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inferred from discussion of sources of development/introduction in later periods
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"East St. Louis started out as a residential group, but evolved into an administrative/storage like complex."
[1]
However, the identification of any Mississippian-period structures in the Cahokia region as specialized government buildings is far from clear. The sites of activity within the "central administrative complex"
[2]
could have largely been of religious significance and perhaps communal or elite storage rather than used as sites for the administration or processing of taxes and management of records (for which we have no evidence). In general, the identification of any Mississippian-period structures in the Cahokia region as specialized government buildings is far from clear. The sites of activity within the"Central administrative complex". could have largely been of religious significance and perhaps communal or elite storage rather than used as sites for the administration or processing of taxes and management of records (for which we have no evidence).
[2]
[1]: (Peregrine/Emerson 2014, 14) [2]: (Peregrine/Emerson 2014, 14) Peregrine P, Ortman S, Rupley, E. 2014. Social Complexity at Cahokia. SFI WORKING PAPER: 2014-03-004. Sante Fe Institute. |
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According to Coningham, there is no evidence of centralized systems of government during this period. Attempts by scholars such as Maurizio Tosi to find evidence of differentiation and increasing complexity were not born out by the evidence. While recording systems are present, stamp seals and sealing, these appeared to be quite localized in terms of their production.
[1]
The remains of terracotta and bronze/copper seals, and numerous impressions of them, "...lead us to suppose that some form of commercial business was carried on in this part of the site [PK.C]"
[2]
; and processing remains suggest that there were craft specialists at Pirak.
[3]
However, this evidence does not seem strong enough to code for specialized government buildings: as Coningham stated, even the existence of a government is in doubt.
[1]: Coningham pers. comm. interview with Harvey Whitehouse and Christina Collins, Jan 2017 [2]: Jarrige, J-F. (1979) Fouilles de Pirak. Paris : Diffusion de Boccard. p368 [3]: Jarrige, J-F. (2000) Continuity and Change in the North Kachi Plain (Baluchistan, Pakistan) at the beginning of the Second Millennium BC. In, Lahiri, N. The Decline and Fall of the Indus Civilization. Permanent Black, Delhi., pp345-362. |
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Non-domestic architecture has been found which may have had administrative functions, but the degree of state organization among the Tairona is disputed
[1]
and the lack of evidence of administrative record-keeping tools
[2]
means that it is difficult to identify ’government’ buildings with any degree of confidence. "The ambiguous and imprecise nature of Spanish accounts regarding socio-political structure, in conjunction with the archaeological discovery and study of unusually large, well-structured stone masonry towns featuring canals, plazas, reservoirs, bridges, sidewalks, and administrative sectors has led to what Robert Drennan (1995: 322) calls “interpretive schizophrenia” in archaeologists working on the Tairona."
[3]
"This terrace is the only structure found to date in Pueblito that does not have a circular structure emplaced upon it, having what appeared to be a roughly rectangular building approximately 20 meters long and 10 meters wide, the roofed area covering 192 square meters.18 Yet it was built alongside the Eastern Plaza and its three staircases give it direct access to and from the feasting/ceremonial building directly south of it. An additional entrance to the north connects it to a paved pathway leading west towards the road or east towards a cluster of terraces and dwellings higher up on the adjacent hill slope. This indicates that it was a building with high levels of traffic, probably serving some administrative purpose, rather than a residence."
[4]
[1]: (Bray 2003, 302) [2]: (Hudson 2010, 5) [3]: (Giraldo 2010, 59) [4]: (Giraldo 2010, 165) |
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Historians and archaeologists appear to disagree about the function of excavated non-domestic Erlitou stuctures, proposing a range of uses from administration to communal gatherings and rituals.
"A cluster of rammed-earth foundations enclosed by rammed-earth walls about 2 m in width situated more or less at the center of the site and known in the literature as the “palace city” or “palatial area” (gongcheng 宫城) (Zhongguo 2003) are seen as evidence of intrasite stratification. The largest foundations inside this area, labeled Palace I and Palace II, stand on top of rammed earthen platforms 9600 m2 and 4200 m2 in size, respectively, and are said to have been the seat of the leader (or king) of the state. [...] Criticism has been leveled at different elements of this reconstruction. For example, the identification of the main public structures in Erlitou as palaces has been challenged: palaces are usually defined as multifunctional buildings, serving as the king’s residence and also as the central hub of state administration (Flannery 1998, pp. 22-36). The Erlitou complexes, despite being composed of large walled courtyards with roofed buildings, are actually quite small. As Thorp (1991) has suggested, these structures are better explained as locations of public gatherings or rituals, where large audiences convened in the courtyard, rather than as the residences of kings." [1] "It is important to note, however, that despite their characterization as gongdian “palaces” in Chinese or “palace-temples” in the English literature, there is very little evidence other than later traditions to suggest their function (Thorp 1988), and indeed, as Xu et al. (2004, 2005) suggests, that function may have changed over the life of the site, never mind the course of the second millennium BCE. Do their large courtyards suggest the open spaces of public architecture and collective ritual, or does their limited access through a single entrance suggest more restricted use (see Figures 2.3-2.5)?" [2] "Bronze and turquoise workshops are located in an enclosed region south of the enclosed palace region, so the excavator XU Hong concluded that they were government owned. The nature of the ceramic workshops are unclear." [3] [1]: (Shelach and Jaffe 2014, 330) [2]: (Campbell 2014, 27) [3]: (Xie, Liye. Personal correspondence, 2016) |
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There were public buildings and evidence for group organisation (for construction of public buildings and defensive palisade at San José Mogote) but no evidence for governmental organisation.
[1]
[2]
[1]: Marcus, J. and K. V. Flannery (1996). Zapotec civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley, Thames and Hudson London, p87-8 [2]: Flannery, K. V. and J. Marcus (1983). "The Cloud People." New York. |
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Sources speak only of longhouses inside the palisaded villages of the Iroquois, and mention that most buildings were used for living in shared families or for farming. Most settlements were nothing more than "villages consisting of clusters of longhouses surrounded by palisades."
[1]
[1]: (Hasenstab 2001: 453) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/EQZYAI2R. |
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inferred from discussion of sources of development/introduction in later periods
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Government buildings, such as council houses, are known by Teotihuacan (ca. 250-550 CE).
[1]
"The essential elements of altepetl organization were concentrated in the structures of the civic-ceremonial core, including marketplaces fundamental to the economy system, palaces serving as administrative loci".
[2]
[1]: (Carballo, David. Personal Communication to Jill Levine and Peter Turchin. Email. April 23, 2020) [2]: (Carballo 2016: 44) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/7B7A8KA6. |
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A Middle Archaic example of open-air site is Gheo-Shih [Oaxaca Valley], which is a field marked by boulders and kept clean. This is considered to be one of Mesoamerica’s earliest example of a community-focus structure, such as the plaza, temple-pyramid, and palace, all of which developed in the Formative and later periods.
[1]
[1]: (Evans 2004: 92) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/EWW3Q2TA. |
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"Exemplified by Zhengzhou and Anyang, each city was composed of a centrally situated ceremonial and administrative enclave occupied primarily by royalty, priests and a few selected craftsmen... (Wheatley 1971: 30-47)."
[1]
Were there specialized buildings for administration, set apart from palaces?
[1]: (Liu and Chen 2012, 295) Liu, Li. Chen, Xingcan. 2012. The Archaeology of China: From the Late Paleolithic to the Early Bronze Age. Cambridge University Press. |
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Inferred from the fact that full-time specialised bureaucracy does not seem to have emerged in the broader Great Lakes region prior to the colonial era. For example, in Nkore, "The royal court served as a judicial and political center, but not as a bureaucratic focal point. The Mugabe’s chief minister, the Enganzi, was not a prime minister in the usual sense of leader of government business. He was merely the King’s favorite. Neither was there a cabinet nor governmental bureaux [...]. No distinction between the royal and state treasury was made and the heads of local administrative units were not required to attend court or reside at the capital as in Buganda, for instance."
[1]
In Rwanda: "In this sort of government, administration was not yet institutionalized."
[2]
In Burundi, the king seemingly entrusted administration mostly to close relatives and local chiefs: "Ntare relied on his sons as administrators: he was strong enough to set up his sons, but not strong enough to incorporate these regions fully within central control. [...] During the late nineteenth century, under the reign of Mwezi Gisabo, a four-tiered system of administration emerged: a central area around Muramvya under the control of the king; an area under the administration of his sons or brothers most closely allied to the king; a broad swath further east and south administered by Batare chiefs, the descendants of Ntare; and another zone, covering the western and northwestern areas of the country, under the administration of others, not Baganwa (in fact, they were mostly Hutu authorities). [...] Administrative authorities in the east and south- east, often Batare (descendants of Ntare Rugamba), simply retained their administrative autonomy while acknowledging nominal central court ritual hegemony. Those in the northeast more characteristically undertook open revolt, often by those who sought to overthrow Mwezi."
[3]
[1]: (Steinhart 1978: 144) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/D3FV7SKV/collection. [2]: (Vansina 2004: 63) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5J4MRHUB/collection. [3]: (Newbury 2001: 283-284) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/J5A6DM3P/collection. |
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Inferred from the fact that full-time specialised bureaucracy does not seem to have emerged in the broader Great Lakes region prior to the colonial era. For example, in Nkore, "The royal court served as a judicial and political center, but not as a bureaucratic focal point. The Mugabe’s chief minister, the Enganzi, was not a prime minister in the usual sense of leader of government business. He was merely the King’s favorite. Neither was there a cabinet nor governmental bureaux [...]. No distinction between the royal and state treasury was made and the heads of local administrative units were not required to attend court or reside at the capital as in Buganda, for instance."
[1]
In Rwanda: "In this sort of government, administration was not yet institutionalized."
[2]
In Burundi, the king seemingly entrusted administration mostly to close relatives and local chiefs: "Ntare relied on his sons as administrators: he was strong enough to set up his sons, but not strong enough to incorporate these regions fully within central control. [...] During the late nineteenth century, under the reign of Mwezi Gisabo, a four-tiered system of administration emerged: a central area around Muramvya under the control of the king; an area under the administration of his sons or brothers most closely allied to the king; a broad swath further east and south administered by Batare chiefs, the descendants of Ntare; and another zone, covering the western and northwestern areas of the country, under the administration of others, not Baganwa (in fact, they were mostly Hutu authorities). [...] Administrative authorities in the east and south- east, often Batare (descendants of Ntare Rugamba), simply retained their administrative autonomy while acknowledging nominal central court ritual hegemony. Those in the northeast more characteristically undertook open revolt, often by those who sought to overthrow Mwezi."
[3]
[1]: (Steinhart 1978: 144) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/D3FV7SKV/collection. [2]: (Vansina 2004: 63) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5J4MRHUB/collection. [3]: (Newbury 2001: 283-284) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/J5A6DM3P/collection. |
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The first senate building, the Curia Hostilia, existed from about 600 BCE.
[1]
The first paving of the Roman Forum occurred around 575-625 BCE.
[2]
The first coin minted in Rome occurred about 269 BCE (one in Neapolis produced coins slightly earlier, around 281 BCE) and the first state archives was created in 78 BCE. Other possible buildings include: granaries and storehouses.
[1]: (Cornell 1995, 94) [2]: (Cornell 1995, 100) |
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Though administrative artifacts have been found dating to the entire Uruk sequence (see e.g. Pollock 1992, 314-320 for a summary), sources do not indicate that these artifacts have been found in buildings that appeared to specialise in administrative activities; instead, whenever sources associate these kinds of artifacts to a specific kind of building, it is a building that likely also fulfilled ritual functions, e.g.:"Seeking to reconcile the tripartite floor plan of many of the Eanna buildings with the widespread evidence for contemporary administrative activities found in their general vicinity (below), many archaeologists refer to the Eanna structures simply as ’religious/administrative’ in nature."
[1]
[1]: (Algaze 2008: 77) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/FJ63HECN. |
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Palaces. The most important elements in the larger cities were palaces, which in textual sources are characterized with the Sumerogram É.GAL = great house. The palaces were a crucial element for the administration and organisation of the Hittite state. However, they were not necessarily specialized buildings--expert confirmation required.
Hittite palaces: (1) Büyükkale/Bogazköy-Hattusa [1] (2) Masat Höyük-Tapikka [2] (3) Ortaköy-Sapinuwa, Building A [3] (4) Alaca Höyük [4] (5) Inandıktepe [5] [1]: Seeher J. (2002) ‘Großkönigliche Residenz - Mittelpunkt staatlichen Lebens. Die Palastanlage in der hethitischen Hauptstadt’, [In:] Die Hethiter und ihr Reich. Das Volk der 1000 Götter, Katalog der Ausstellung, Bonn 18. Januar-28. April 2002, Bonn, pp. 94-99. [2]: Özgüç, T. (1982) Masat Höyük II. Bogazköy’ün kuzeydogusunda bir Hitit merkezi. Masat Höyük II. A Hittite Center Northeast of Bogazköy (Turk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlari V.38a)Ankara [3]: Süel A. (2002) ‘Ortaköy-Sapinuwa’. [In:] K.A. Yener and H.A. jr Hoffner (eds.) 2002: Recent Developments in Hittite Archaeology and History. Papers in Memory of Hans G. Güterbock,Winona Lake, IN., pp 157-65. [4]: Bittel K. (1976) Die Hethiter, Munich, Abb. 111 [5]: Özgüç, T. (1988) Inandıktepe. Eski Hitit çagında önemli bir kült merkezi. An Important Cult Center in the Old Hittite Period (Turk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlari V.43) Ankara. |
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No evidence has been found of state organisation at Mehrgarh.
[1]
[2]
An urban community of thousands suggests Mehrgarh likely had some degree of hierarchy for dispute resolution, perhaps a chief or collective decision making body. Evidence of dispute exists in the changing use of communal storage. In the previous periods Mehrgarh residents had organized communal food storage facilities. In this period food storage was located in individual houses. [3] Why was this change necessary? The growth in size and population of Mehrgarh does not imply that communal organization decreased - which is what is immediately suggested by loss of communal granaries. Possibly a greater degree of communal organization now existed, that replaced communal granaries, in form of cooperation with a chief or collective decision making body. However we have no evidence of state organisation at Mehrgarh. [1] [2] At this stage such a formal organization, if it existed, might best be classed as emergent and without institutional architecture. [1]: Gregory L. Possehl. The Indus Civilization. A Contemporary Perspective. Walnut Creek, Altamira, 2002, p. 6 [2]: Petrie, C. A. (in press) Chapter 11, Case Study: Mehrgarh. In, Barker, G and Goucher, C (eds.) Cambridge World History, Volume 2: A World with Agriculture, 12,000 BCE - 500 CE. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge [3]: Wright, R. P. (2010) The Ancient Indus: urbanism, economy and society. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. p53 |
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Council houses were residential buildings doubling as gathering and ceremonial places: ’In 1818, Timothy Alden (1827:54-55) described a similar council house at Tonawanda. It was fifty feet long and twenty wide. On each side of it, longitudinally is a platform, a little more than one foot high and four feet wide, covered with furs, which furnishes a convenient place for sitting, lounging, and sleeping. A rail across the centre separates the males from the females, who are constant attendants and listen, with silence, diligence, and interest, to whatever is delivered in council. Over the platform is a kind of galley, five or six feet from the floor, which is loaded with peltry, corn, implements of hunting, and a variety of other articles. At each end of the building is a door, and near each door, within, was the council fire. . . . Over each fire several large kettles of soup were hanging and boiling. The smoke was conveyed away through apertures in the roof and did not annoy. The chiefs and others, as many as could be accommodated, in their appropriate grotesque habiliments, were seated on the platform, smoking calumets, of various forms, sizes, and materials, several of which were tendered to me in token of friendship. Profound silence pervaded the crowded assembly.’
[1]
[1]: Tooker, Elisabeth 1970. “Iroquois Ceremonial Of Midwinter”, 19 |
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Inferred from the fact that full-time specialised bureaucracy does not seem to have emerged in the broader Great Lakes region prior to the colonial era. For example, in Nkore, "The royal court served as a judicial and political center, but not as a bureaucratic focal point. The Mugabe’s chief minister, the Enganzi, was not a prime minister in the usual sense of leader of government business. He was merely the King’s favorite. Neither was there a cabinet nor governmental bureaux [...]. No distinction between the royal and state treasury was made and the heads of local administrative units were not required to attend court or reside at the capital as in Buganda, for instance."
[1]
In Rwanda: "In this sort of government, administration was not yet institutionalized."
[2]
In Burundi, the king seemingly entrusted administration mostly to close relatives and local chiefs: "Ntare relied on his sons as administrators: he was strong enough to set up his sons, but not strong enough to incorporate these regions fully within central control. [...] During the late nineteenth century, under the reign of Mwezi Gisabo, a four-tiered system of administration emerged: a central area around Muramvya under the control of the king; an area under the administration of his sons or brothers most closely allied to the king; a broad swath further east and south administered by Batare chiefs, the descendants of Ntare; and another zone, covering the western and northwestern areas of the country, under the administration of others, not Baganwa (in fact, they were mostly Hutu authorities). [...] Administrative authorities in the east and south- east, often Batare (descendants of Ntare Rugamba), simply retained their administrative autonomy while acknowledging nominal central court ritual hegemony. Those in the northeast more characteristically undertook open revolt, often by those who sought to overthrow Mwezi."
[3]
[1]: (Steinhart 1978: 144) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/D3FV7SKV/collection. [2]: (Vansina 2004: 63) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5J4MRHUB/collection. [3]: (Newbury 2001: 283-284) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/J5A6DM3P/collection. |
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Inferred from the fact that full-time specialised bureaucracy does not seem to have emerged in the broader Great Lakes region prior to the colonial era. For example, in Nkore, "The royal court served as a judicial and political center, but not as a bureaucratic focal point. The Mugabe’s chief minister, the Enganzi, was not a prime minister in the usual sense of leader of government business. He was merely the King’s favorite. Neither was there a cabinet nor governmental bureaux [...]. No distinction between the royal and state treasury was made and the heads of local administrative units were not required to attend court or reside at the capital as in Buganda, for instance."
[1]
In Rwanda: "In this sort of government, administration was not yet institutionalized."
[2]
In Burundi, the king seemingly entrusted administration mostly to close relatives and local chiefs: "Ntare relied on his sons as administrators: he was strong enough to set up his sons, but not strong enough to incorporate these regions fully within central control. [...] During the late nineteenth century, under the reign of Mwezi Gisabo, a four-tiered system of administration emerged: a central area around Muramvya under the control of the king; an area under the administration of his sons or brothers most closely allied to the king; a broad swath further east and south administered by Batare chiefs, the descendants of Ntare; and another zone, covering the western and northwestern areas of the country, under the administration of others, not Baganwa (in fact, they were mostly Hutu authorities). [...] Administrative authorities in the east and south- east, often Batare (descendants of Ntare Rugamba), simply retained their administrative autonomy while acknowledging nominal central court ritual hegemony. Those in the northeast more characteristically undertook open revolt, often by those who sought to overthrow Mwezi."
[3]
[1]: (Steinhart 1978: 144) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/D3FV7SKV/collection. [2]: (Vansina 2004: 63) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5J4MRHUB/collection. [3]: (Newbury 2001: 283-284) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/J5A6DM3P/collection. |
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Inferred from the fact that full-time specialised bureaucracy does not seem to have emerged in the broader Great Lakes region prior to the colonial era. For example, in Nkore, "The royal court served as a judicial and political center, but not as a bureaucratic focal point. The Mugabe’s chief minister, the Enganzi, was not a prime minister in the usual sense of leader of government business. He was merely the King’s favorite. Neither was there a cabinet nor governmental bureaux [...]. No distinction between the royal and state treasury was made and the heads of local administrative units were not required to attend court or reside at the capital as in Buganda, for instance."
[1]
In Rwanda: "In this sort of government, administration was not yet institutionalized."
[2]
In Burundi, the king seemingly entrusted administration mostly to close relatives and local chiefs: "Ntare relied on his sons as administrators: he was strong enough to set up his sons, but not strong enough to incorporate these regions fully within central control. [...] During the late nineteenth century, under the reign of Mwezi Gisabo, a four-tiered system of administration emerged: a central area around Muramvya under the control of the king; an area under the administration of his sons or brothers most closely allied to the king; a broad swath further east and south administered by Batare chiefs, the descendants of Ntare; and another zone, covering the western and northwestern areas of the country, under the administration of others, not Baganwa (in fact, they were mostly Hutu authorities). [...] Administrative authorities in the east and south- east, often Batare (descendants of Ntare Rugamba), simply retained their administrative autonomy while acknowledging nominal central court ritual hegemony. Those in the northeast more characteristically undertook open revolt, often by those who sought to overthrow Mwezi."
[3]
[1]: (Steinhart 1978: 144) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/D3FV7SKV/collection. [2]: (Vansina 2004: 63) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5J4MRHUB/collection. [3]: (Newbury 2001: 283-284) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/J5A6DM3P/collection. |
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Temples and palaces both doubled as administration buildings--inferred from knowledge of preceding and succeeding periods, as well the following quote: "the transmission of one’s professional knowledge from father to son was not a particularly negative tendency for the palace. In the long run, however, it transformed the palace and temple personnel into a series of closed corporations."
[1]
[1]: (Liverani 2014, 196) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/7DRZQS5Q/q/liverani. |
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"Rather than governors appointed by the kingdom, temples acted as the real centres of local resources and activities. Indeed, temples could rely on their millenary tradition, administrative structure, prestige, and ability to motivate the population. They therefore required and obtained from the kings (probably the weakest ones) a certain degree of autonomy and various exemptions from tributes and obligations (defined with the terms kidinnu in Kassite and zakûtu in Akkadian). They also had a certain degree of self-government for the administration of justice and of the cities’ internal affairs."
[1]
[1]: (Liverani 2014, 471) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/7DRZQS5Q/q/liverani. |
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Ruler’s residence was also an administrative building:"The palace (Sumerian e.gal, Akkadian ekallum) was the residence of the royal family in city-states and imperial capitals, such as Mari and Nineveh, and of governors in provincial cities and towns, such as Eshnunna. It was also an administrative, industrial, and economic center."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2005: 153) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/KK2E3KMD. |
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Temples and palaces both doubled as administration buildings--inferred from knowledge of preceding and succeeding periods, as well the following quote: "the transmission of one’s professional knowledge from father to son was not a particularly negative tendency for the palace. In the long run, however, it transformed the palace and temple personnel into a series of closed corporations."
[1]
[1]: (Liverani 2014, 196) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/7DRZQS5Q/q/liverani. |
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Temples and palaces both doubled as administration buildings--inferred from knowledge of preceding and succeeding periods, as well the following quote: "the transmission of one’s professional knowledge from father to son was not a particularly negative tendency for the palace. In the long run, however, it transformed the palace and temple personnel into a series of closed corporations."
[1]
[1]: (Liverani 2014, 196) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/7DRZQS5Q/q/liverani. |
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"Building A at Abada, located in the center of the settlement (figure 4), is the largest house at the site, more than three times the size of the smallest houses. This house shows evidence for unique burial practices, high concentrations of stone artifacts such as maceheads, carved gypsum vessels, and stone palettes, and most significantly, administrative artifacts such as tokens and clay ’proto-tablets’ which are also only found in this structure (figure 5), (Jasmin 1985: 174)."
[1]
[1]: (Stein 1994: 38) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/V94SXJRJ. |
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Sources do not suggest there is evidence for full-time bureaucracy during this period. A degree of complex organisation is inferred to have existed, based on the construction of Monte Alban, but no written records or specialised administrative buildings have been identified.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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present in Mongol Empire and Yuan but that is because they conquered territories where they would have been present. Difficult to infer that the Khalkhas also had specialised government buildings.
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’There were no specialized government buildings. Even the Alþingi or general assembly was held in open air. although on a designated place. The participants brought their own tents.’
[1]
There were no formal state institutions in Commonwealth-Era Iceland: ’One of the peculiarities of early Iceland was the lack of formal state institutions. The legislature, extensive law code, and judicial system of local and higher courts left prosecution and the enforcement of settlements in the hands of individuals. From an early date, the country was divided into Quarters. Each quarter constituted a broad community with three assemblies (ÞINGS), with the exception of the Northern Quarter that had four, and a system of local courts. Once a year the General Assembly (ALÞINGI) met in the southwest of Iceland. Judicial cases that could not be resolved in local quarters were heard and the parliament (LÖGRÉTTA) convened. The parliament was the principal legislative institution and was responsible for the introduction and maintanence of law. It consisted of chieftains (GOÐAR) from the local quarters. After the conversion to Christianity, the two Icelandic bishops were each given a seat in the parliament. The institution of chieftaincy (GOÐORÐ) was the main locus of political leadership in the country. Originally there were 36 but this number was later expanded. Chieftaincies themselves were a form of property and could be alienated and even divided among multiple individuals. In some cases, individuals asserted power beyond the scope of the political system and controlled multiple chieftaincies. All independent farmers had to be affiliated with a chieftain, although they could choose among any of the chieftains in their quarter and could switch allegiances if they did not feel that their needs were being met. Other than a seat on the parliament, chieftains had few rights beyond those of other independent farmers and few institutional means of dominating others. Chieftains derived much of their authority from their ability to broker support as advocates for their constituents in legal disputes or feuds.’
[2]
Chieftains and assemblies fulfilled political leadership roles, but these institutions were not bureaucratic in nature: ’Following the establishment of the Althing in 930, executive power at the regional level was vested in the goðar, whose possession of goðorð and common participation in the judicial and legislative branches of the general assembly defined them as chieftains. However, the chieftains were not linked hierarchically. After A.D. 965 Iceland was divided into thirteen assembly districts, each with three chieftainships and a district assembly site. The assembly districts were in turn grouped into four quarters. While goðar were tethered to particular districts by law, the political office of chieftainship, the goðorð, did not imply control over a defined territorial unit. It was instead a shifting nexus of personal, negotiated alliances between a chieftain and those bœndur who became his supporters or pingmenn through public oaths of allegiance.’
[3]
There was no centralized institution for the purpose of law enforcement: ’Iceland had established systems of laws, assemblies, and judicial institutions to serve in resolving conflict but no centralized power to enforce order or verdicts. Everyone was legally required to belong to a farming household and individual farmers had authority over and responsibility for their households. Disputes, including injuries and killings, were settled through arbitration. The offending party paid compensation to the offended party. In more extreme cases the offending individual was outlawed, either for three years or permanently, and was official cast out of society and any right to compensation. Prosecution and collection of settlements was up to private individuals. Conflicts often overstepped institutional boundaries into blood feuds. Feuds could escalate well beyond the immediate individuals or households until the involved whole social networks. With the rise of chiefly power and territoriality in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries regional conflicts developed that eventually encompassed t he entire island. The decades of civil strife ended in 1262 A.D. when Iceland came under the authority of the Norwegian crown.’
[2]
[1]: Árni Daniel Júlíusson and Axel Kristissen 2017, pers. comm. to E. Brandl and D. Mullins [2]: Bolender, Douglas James and Beierle, John: eHRAF Cultural Summary for Early Icelanders [3]: Smith, Kevin P., and Jeffrey R. Parsons 1989. “Regional Archaeological Research In Iceland: Potentials And Possibilities”, 182 |
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Absence of full-time specialised bureaucracy (which would have likely required specialized government buildings) inferred from the fact that the king seemed to struggle to maintain control over provinces, and left them either in the hands of close relatives, or those of local chiefs: "Though Ntare Rugamba is said to have doubled the area of the country, the administrative legacy of Ntare’s rule was at least as important history to Burundi political history as were his military exploits. With such rapid expansion, Ntare relied on his sons as administrators: he was strong enough to set up his sons, but not strong enough to incorporate these regions fully within central control. [...] During the late nineteenth century, under the reign of Mwezi Gisabo, a four- tiered system of administration emerged: a central area around Muramvya under the control of the king; an area under the administration of his sons or brothers most closely allied to the king; a broad swath further east and south administered by Batare chiefs, the descendants of Ntare; and another zone, covering the western and northwestern areas of the country, under the administration of others, not Baganwa (in fact, they were mostly Hutu authorities). (See Figure 8.) From this pattern, three types of political relations emerged. Administrative authorities in the east and south- east, often Batare (descendants of Ntare Rugamba), simply retained their administrative autonomy while acknowledging nominal central court ritual hegemony. Those in the northeast more characteristically undertook open revolt, often by those who sought to overthrow Mwezi. [...] In the northwest, by contrast, pretenders to royal power had more tenuous claims to Ganwa identity; they drew on local traditions of resistance and benefited from the resources of the Lake Tanganyika trade network (as well as support from other states such as the Shi kingdoms west of Lake Kivu)."
[1]
Note, too, that bureaucracy did not clearly emerge in neighbouring, culturally related polities. For example, in Nkore, "The royal court served as a judicial and political center, but not as a bureaucratic focal point. The Mugabe’s chief minister, the Enganzi, was not a prime minister in the usual sense of leader of government business. He was merely the King’s favorite. Neither was there a cabinet nor governmental bureaux [...]. No distinction between the royal and state treasury was made and the heads of local administrative units were not required to attend court or reside at the capital as in Buganda, for instance."
[2]
In Rwanda: "In this sort of government, administration was not yet institutionalized."
[3]
Indeed, no information could be found on the existence of full-time specialised bureaucracy in the Ugandan kingdoms of Buganda and Bunyoro, both particularly well studied.
[1]: (Newbury 2001: 283-284) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/J5A6DM3P/collection. [2]: (Steinhart 1978: 144) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/D3FV7SKV/collection. [3]: (Vansina 2004: 63) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5J4MRHUB/collection. |
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Inferred from the fact that full-time specialised bureaucracy does not seem to have emerged in the broader Great Lakes region prior to the colonial era. For example, in Nkore, "The royal court served as a judicial and political center, but not as a bureaucratic focal point. The Mugabe’s chief minister, the Enganzi, was not a prime minister in the usual sense of leader of government business. He was merely the King’s favorite. Neither was there a cabinet nor governmental bureaux [...]. No distinction between the royal and state treasury was made and the heads of local administrative units were not required to attend court or reside at the capital as in Buganda, for instance."
[1]
In Rwanda: "In this sort of government, administration was not yet institutionalized."
[2]
In Burundi, the king seemingly entrusted administration mostly to close relatives and local chiefs: "Ntare relied on his sons as administrators: he was strong enough to set up his sons, but not strong enough to incorporate these regions fully within central control. [...] During the late nineteenth century, under the reign of Mwezi Gisabo, a four-tiered system of administration emerged: a central area around Muramvya under the control of the king; an area under the administration of his sons or brothers most closely allied to the king; a broad swath further east and south administered by Batare chiefs, the descendants of Ntare; and another zone, covering the western and northwestern areas of the country, under the administration of others, not Baganwa (in fact, they were mostly Hutu authorities). [...] Administrative authorities in the east and south- east, often Batare (descendants of Ntare Rugamba), simply retained their administrative autonomy while acknowledging nominal central court ritual hegemony. Those in the northeast more characteristically undertook open revolt, often by those who sought to overthrow Mwezi."
[3]
[1]: (Steinhart 1978: 144) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/D3FV7SKV/collection. [2]: (Vansina 2004: 63) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5J4MRHUB/collection. [3]: (Newbury 2001: 283-284) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/J5A6DM3P/collection. |
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"Rather than governors appointed by the kingdom, temples acted as the real centres of local resources and activities. Indeed, temples could rely on their millenary tradition, administrative structure, prestige, and ability to motivate the population. They therefore required and obtained from the kings (probably the weakest ones) a certain degree of autonomy and various exemptions from tributes and obligations (defined with the terms kidinnu in Kassite and zakûtu in Akkadian). They also had a certain degree of self-government for the administration of justice and of the cities’ internal affairs."
[1]
[1]: (Liverani 2014, 471) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/7DRZQS5Q/q/liverani. |
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Wright and Johnson have argued that ’specialized governments’ did not develop until the 4th millennium BCE in southwestern Iran.
[1]
During the Middle Susiana period, a monumental structure known as the Burnt Building was built at Chogha Mish (the largest settlement in the region), including a room full of storage jars and evidence of flint tool manufacturing.
[2]
Though it testifies to a high degree of social stratification, the precise function of this building is unclear, and Alizadeh speculates that it was a ’chiefly residence’ (i.e. not set aside for administrative activities).
[3]
The indications of industrial activity within its walls also suggest that we cannot view the Burnt Building as a specialized government building. It was burned down in the early 5th millennium BCE.
[3]
’The size and nature of its architecture and material remains indicate that Chogha Mish [during the Middle Susiana period] was an important regional administrative center. However, the precise nature of the administrative activities carried out there remains unclear ... The excavators have suggested that the monumental architectural precinct may have had both an industrial and religious focus ... Although likely, this has not yet been fully demonstrated in the literature. It is interesting to note, however, that the majority of the published objects which appear to have functioned as tokens all cluster around a single Middle Susiana structure ... A small number of sealings were also recovered from this context’. [4] This quote suggests possibility of specialized administrative buildings at Choga Mish: "Although they are sparse, the published findings imply that Choga Mish was a center of regional importance. It remains to be determined how large and extensive the elaborate architectural precinct is and precisely what activities occurred there. Uses as an administrative and temple center have been suggested (Kantor 1976: 28) but neither can be demonstrated on the basis of presently available evidence.” [5] For neighbouring Mesopotamia: administrative conventions and writing, for example, developed in Uruk period c3800-3100 BCE. [6] Possibility of "agents responsible for the coordination of social organisation and decision-making processes (mainly centred on the leading role of temples), and the progressive social stratification of communities." [7] Though the reference concerns the Ubaid there was a large temple complex in Susiana e.g. Choga Mish. [1]: (Wright and Johnson 1975, 267) Wright, Henry T., and Gregory A. Johnson. 1975. “Population, Exchange, and Early State Formation in Southwestern Iran.” American Anthropologist 77 (2):267-89. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/7B3EQPRT. [2]: (Alizadeh 2008, 11-13) Alizadeh, Abbas. 2008. Chogha Mish II: The Development of a Prehistoric Regional Center in Lowland Susiana, Southwestern Iran. Final Report on the Last Six Seasons of Excavations, 1972-1978. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/D9Z3T2K7. [3]: (Alizadeh 2008, 13) Alizadeh, Abbas. 2008. Chogha Mish II: The Development of a Prehistoric Regional Center in Lowland Susiana, Southwestern Iran. Final Report on the Last Six Seasons of Excavations, 1972-1978. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/D9Z3T2K7. [4]: (Peasnall 2002, 181) Peasnall, Brian L. 2002. “Iranian Chalcolithic.” In Encyclopedia of Prehistory, Vol. 8: South and Southwest Asia, edited by Peter N. Peregrine and Melvin M. Ember, 160-95. New York: Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/32Z6KKJA. [5]: (Hole 1987, 40-41) [6]: (Leverani 2014, 79) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. [7]: (Leverani 2014, 54) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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A few buildings existed, to which administrative function was assigned because of their architecture - bigger than for a typical household - and the findings from inside them. Example: the palace/administrative structure at HK34 at Hierakonpolis
[1]
or building complex in Naqada, South Town, associated with significant amount of seals, clay sealings, counters and tokens
[2]
[1]: Friedman, R. 2011. "Hierakonpolis". [in:] Before the Pyramids.The Origin of Egyptian Civilization. Teeter, E.[ed.]. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. pg: 35. [2]: Köhler, E. C. "Theories of State Formation". [in:] Wendrich, W. [ed.]. Egyptian Archaeology. Chichester: Blackwell Publishing. pg: 41. |
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Ruler’s residence was also an administrative building:"The palace (Sumerian e.gal, Akkadian ekallum) was the residence of the royal family in city-states and imperial capitals, such as Mari and Nineveh, and of governors in provincial cities and towns, such as Eshnunna. It was also an administrative, industrial, and economic center."
[1]
"practice of the early Akkadian elite of using Akkadian structures and record-keeping techniques"
[2]
[1]: (McIntosh 2005: 153) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/KK2E3KMD. [2]: (Foster 2016, 50) Foster, Benjamin R. 2016. The Age of Agade. Inventing Empire In Ancient Mesopotamia. Routledge. London. |
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No bureaucracy. The chief of the village "worked to maintain peace and was the authority in regard to all matters legal or moral, including land ownership, religion, and ceremonies."
[1]
[1]: (Keil 2012, 108) Sarah Keil. Bambara. Andrea L Stanton. ed. 2012. Cultural Sociology of the Middle East, Asia, and Africa: An Encyclopedia. Sage. Los Angeles. |
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The earliest evidence for a “bureaucratic machinery” dates to the late fifth century CE.
[1]
[1]: (Steenstrup 1996: 11) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/7YDV5KGG |
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There were likely no government buildings in this period. The first senate building, the Curia Hostilia, existed from about 600 BCE.
[1]
The first paving of the Roman Forum occurred around 575-625 BCE.
[2]
The first coin minted in Rome occurred about 269 BCE (one in Neapolis produced coins slightly earlier, around 281 BCE) and the first state archives was created in 78 BCE. Other possible buildings include: granaries and storehouses.
[1]: (Cornell 1995, 94) [2]: (Cornell 1995, 100) |
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There were likely no government buildings in this period. The first senate building, the Curia Hostilia, existed from about 600 BCE.
[1]
The first paving of the Roman Forum occurred around 575-625 BCE.
[2]
The first coin minted in Rome occurred about 269 BCE (one in Neapolis produced coins slightly earlier, around 281 BCE) and the first state archives was created in 78 BCE. Other possible buildings include: granaries and storehouses.
[1]: (Cornell 1995, 94) [2]: (Cornell 1995, 100) |
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Inferred from the fact that even when this polity grew in complexity following the reforms of the 18th century, it still lacked a bureaucracy: "The royal court served as a judicial and political center, but not as a bureaucratic focal point. The Mugabe’s chief minister, the Enganzi, was not a prime minister in the usual sense of leader of government business. He was merely the King’s favorite. Neither was there a cabinet nor governmental bureaux, although the colonial era saw the formation of a council of chiefs (Eishengyero) claiming traditional status. No distinction between the royal and state treasury was made and the heads of local administrative units were not required to attend court or reside at the capital as in Buganda, for instance. In fact, the only governmental business conducted at court was the hearing of cases, often involving the disputed possession of cattle or women by the Hima. The appointment and dismissal of military and administrative functionaries from among those aristocratic Hima and Hinda princes who regularly attended court was the Mugabe’s sole administrative function."
[1]
[1]: (Steinhart 1978: 144) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/D3FV7SKV/collection. |
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Inferred from small nature of royal household and that no direct evidence for specialized government buildings has been found.
[1]
[1]: Burjor Avari, India: The Ancient Past: a History of the Indian Sub-continent from c. 7000 BC to AD 1200 (London: Routledge, 2007), p.73; Upinder Singh, A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century (New Delhi: Pearson Education, 2008),p.201. |
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Mints for the (limited amount of) coinage.
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It appears that temple structures were used for the purposes of state administration. Livernai writes that the temple ’was the unit at the heart of the state administration, and was only accessible to the sons of the ruling class (sons of ensi and high officials, as well as scribes)’.
[1]
[1]: (Liverani 2014, 166) Liverani, Marco. 2014. The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy. Translated by Soraia Tabatabai. Abingdon: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/7DRZQS5Q/. |
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Indigenous coins are present, which implies the presence of mints.
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"The main instrument of public administration and governance under the long history of the federal state of Elam was the bureaucracy, which also played a powerful role under the Median and the Persian empires."
[1]
[1]: (Farazmand 2009, 21) Farazmand, Ali. 2009. Bureaucracy and Administration. CRC Press. Boca Raton. |
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"The main instrument of public administration and governance under the long history of the federal state of Elam was the bureaucracy, which also played a powerful role under the Median and the Persian empires."
[1]
[1]: (Farazmand 2009, 21) Farazmand, Ali. 2009. Bureaucracy and Administration. CRC Press. Boca Raton. |
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"While internal independence of the member states was respected, intergovernmental relations on civil administration were regulated by various administrative rules and ordinances."
[1]
[1]: (Farazmand 2001, 536) Farazmand, Ali in Farazmand, Ali ed. 2001. Handbook of Comparative and Development Public Administration. Marcel Dekker, Inc. New York. |
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Papal palace complexes, in particular the Lateran palace, doubled as administrative centers; the papal curia was usually based in the Lateran.
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I count here papal fortified enclaves (such as Castel Sant’Angelo) and palaces as specialized government buildings.
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The first senate building, the Curia Hostilia, existed from about 600 BCE.
[1]
The first paving of the Roman Forum occurred around 575-625 BCE.
[2]
The first coin minted in Rome occurred about 269 BCE (one in Neapolis produced coins slightly earlier, around 281 BCE) and the first state archives was created in 78 BCE. Other possible buildings include: granaries and storehouses.
[1]: (Cornell 1995, 94) [2]: (Cornell 1995, 100) |
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daimyo could mint coins.
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If still in use from the previous period, the sunken plaza at Monte Alban (50m wide and 4m deep) could be interpreted as a governmental structure, along with a smaller structure (20m wide) at San José Mogote, as suggested by Marcus and Flannery for the previous period.
[1]
More generally, Charles Spencer commented: ’One cannot fail to be impressed by the amount and variety of public/institutional architecture constructed between B.C. 300 and A.D. 800 in and around the Main Plaza at Monte Alban. The archaeological data indicate that much of this architectural complexity was in existence by Monte Alban II (100 B.C. through A.D. 200). Many of these buildings do not appear to have been residential and most likely served an array of religious (e.g., the various structures associated with two-room temples), military (such as Building J and perhaps the Ballcourt), and other "administrative" functions (including a variety of other public/institutional buildings the functions of which are still unclear). At the same time, it is probably also appropriate to consider the quihuitao (royal palace) to be another example of a public/institutional building. Both the main candidate for a quihuitao at Monte Alban (the Patio Hundido complex, according to Flannery) and also the example recently excavated at El Palenque (which was probably the capital of a rival independent state polity in Late Formative times) near San Martin Tilcajete (see Spencer and Redmond 2004 in Lat Am Antiq, and Redmond and Spencer 2017 PNAS) were not associated with tombs like other elite (and non-elite) residences; also, both examples had "residential" as well as "ceremonial/governmental" components. Note that the El Palenque quihuitao is securely dated to the Late Monte Albán I phase (300-100 B.C.)’.
[2]
[1]: Marcus, J. and K. V. Flannery (1996). Zapotec civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley, Thames and Hudson London, p179 [2]: Charles Spencer, pers. comm., January 2018. |
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There is little direct evidence for bureaucracy during this period.
[1]
However, Charles Spencer commented: ’One cannot fail to be impressed by the amount and variety of public/institutional architecture constructed between B.C. 300 and A.D. 800 in and around the Main Plaza at Monte Alban. The archaeological data indicate that much of this architectural complexity was in existence by Monte Alban II (100 B.C. through A.D. 200). Many of these buildings do not appear to have been residential and most likely served an array of religious (e.g., the various structures associated with two-room temples), military (such as Building J and perhaps the Ballcourt), and other "administrative" functions (including a variety of other public/institutional buildings the functions of which are still unclear). At the same time, it is probably also appropriate to consider the quihuitao (royal palace) to be another example of a public/institutional building. Both the main candidate for a quihuitao at Monte Alban (the Patio Hundido complex, according to Flannery) and also the example recently excavated at El Palenque (which was probably the capital of a rival independent state polity in Late Formative times) near San Martin Tilcajete (see Spencer and Redmond 2004 in Lat Am Antiq, and Redmond and Spencer 2017 PNAS) were not associated with tombs like other elite (and non-elite) residences; also, both examples had "residential" as well as "ceremonial/governmental" components. Note that the El Palenque quihuitao is securely dated to the Late Monte Albán I phase (300-100 B.C.)’.
[2]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. [2]: Charles Spencer, pers. comm., January 2018. |
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There is little direct evidence for bureaucracy during this period.
[1]
However, Charles Spencer commented: ’One cannot fail to be impressed by the amount and variety of public/institutional architecture constructed between B.C. 300 and A.D. 800 in and around the Main Plaza at Monte Alban. The archaeological data indicate that much of this architectural complexity was in existence by Monte Alban II (100 B.C. through A.D. 200). Many of these buildings do not appear to have been residential and most likely served an array of religious (e.g., the various structures associated with two-room temples), military (such as Building J and perhaps the Ballcourt), and other "administrative" functions (including a variety of other public/institutional buildings the functions of which are still unclear). At the same time, it is probably also appropriate to consider the quihuitao (royal palace) to be another example of a public/institutional building. Both the main candidate for a quihuitao at Monte Alban (the Patio Hundido complex, according to Flannery) and also the example recently excavated at El Palenque (which was probably the capital of a rival independent state polity in Late Formative times) near San Martin Tilcajete (see Spencer and Redmond 2004 in Lat Am Antiq, and Redmond and Spencer 2017 PNAS) were not associated with tombs like other elite (and non-elite) residences; also, both examples had "residential" as well as "ceremonial/governmental" components. Note that the El Palenque quihuitao is securely dated to the Late Monte Albán I phase (300-100 B.C.)’.
[2]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. [2]: Charles Spencer, pers. comm., January 2018. |
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Government buildings (council houses) are known by Teotihuacan (ca. 250-550 CE). The information for this code is based primarily on art and are less secure than what we know from the Aztec Period (1450-1521).
[1]
[1]: (Carballo, David. Personal Communication to Jill Levine and Peter Turchin. Email. April 23, 2020) |
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Inferred from existence in previous periods.
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The Cappadocian kings minted their own coins, but there is some disagreement as to how many mints there were and which settlements they were located in.
[1]
[1]: Iossif, P. P and Lorber, C. C. (2010) Hypaithros: A Numismatic Contribution to the Military History of Cappadocia. Historia, Band 59/4, Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart. p440 |
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c1150 CE produced coins and determined their designation
[1]
so must have had mints and control over currency.
[1]: (Bosworth 2012) Bosworth, Edmund C. 2012. GHURIDS. Encyclopaedia Iranica. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ghurids |
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Evidence of a street layout with the speculation of specialized governmental buildings in at least some Greco-Bactrian Cities
[1]
[1]: Mairs, R. "The’Temple with Indented Niches’ at Ai Khanoum: Ethnic and Civic Identity in Hellenistic Bactria.”." Cults, Creeds and Contests in the Greek City After the Classical Age. |
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The historical consensus is divided as to whether they were even sedentary, let alone using specialized buildings.
[1]
The Hephthalites made use of specialized buildings for governmental purposes. They had coins so at the least they had or commissioned the use of mints for coinage.
[1]: Litvinsky B.A.,Guang-da Zhang , and Shabani Samghabadi R. (eds)History of Civilizations of Central Asia, pp. 141-144 |
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cities were laid out with organized areas for administration.
[1]
Empire’s founder "Kujala issued the first Kushan coins from Taxila, which were patterned on the Roman coinage."
[2]
[1]: Roudik, Peter. The History of the Central Asian Republics. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007. p. 22 [2]: (Samad 2011, 81) Samad, R. U. 2011. The Grandeur of Gandhara: The Ancient Buddhist Civilization of the Swat, Peshawar, Kabul and Indus Valleys. Angora Publishing. |
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Mints.
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mints.
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Wei had state workshops supervised by officials (artisans were often convict labourers). These state workshops included coin mints, bronze foundries, and lacquer or pottery workshops.
[1]
[1]: (von Glahn 2016, 70-71) Glahn, Richard von. 2016. The Economic History of China: From Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/T48IRKXI. |
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A few buildings existed, to which administrative function was assigned because of their architecture - bigger than for a typical household - and the findings from inside them. Example: the palace/administrative structure at HK34 at Hierakonpolis
[1]
or building complex in Naqada, South Town, associated with significant amount of seals, clay sealings, counters and tokens
[2]
[1]: Friedman, R. 2011. "Hierakonpolis". [in:] Before the Pyramids.The Origin of Egyptian Civilization. Teeter, E.[ed.]. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. pg: 35. [2]: Köhler, E. C. "Theories of State Formation". [in:] Wendrich, W. [ed.]. Egyptian Archaeology. Chichester: Blackwell Publishing. pg: 41. |
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A few buildings existed, to which administrative function was assigned because of their architecture - bigger than for a typical household - and the findings from inside them. Example: the palace/administrative structure at HK34 at Hierakonpolis
[1]
or building complex in Naqada, South Town, associated with significant amount of seals, clay sealings, counters and tokens
[2]
[1]: Friedman, R. 2011. "Hierakonpolis". [in:] Before the Pyramids.The Origin of Egyptian Civilization. Teeter, E.[ed.]. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. pg: 35. [2]: Köhler, E. C. "Theories of State Formation". [in:] Wendrich, W. [ed.]. Egyptian Archaeology. Chichester: Blackwell Publishing. pg: 41. |
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Town Halls, civic buildings.
[1]
[1]: (Escobar 2016, 260) Escobar, Jesús. 2016. "Architecture in the Age of the Spanish Habsburgs." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 75(3): 258-261. https://www.zotero.org/groups/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/F2BFHI82 |
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Buildings of the government bureaucracy, such as the Office of Accountants.
[1]
State controlled economy with buildings of "such state industries as weaving, salt provision, mining, and iron-making." [2] [1]: (Subramaniam 2001, 79) Subramaniam, V. in Farazmand, Ali. ed. 2001. Handbook of Comparative and Development Public Administration. CRC Press. [2]: (McClellan III and Dorn 2015, 164) McClellan III, James E. Dorn, Harold. 2015. Science and Technology in World History: An Introduction. JHU Press. |
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The most important government buildings were the senate or council house (bouleuterion), the town-hall set of prytanes (prytaneion), the men’s hall used for public meals (andreion), the official court of justice (dikasterion), and the place of assembly (agora).
[1]
There was also a building where the public archives of the city were held.
[1]: Willetts, R. F. 1965. Ancient Crete. A Social History, London and Toronto, 74-5. |
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The most important government buildings were the senate or council house (bouleuterion), the town-hall set of prytanes (prytaneion), the men’s hall used for public meals (andreion), the official court of justice (dikasterion), and the place of assembly (agora).
[1]
There was also a building where the public archives of the city were held.
[1]: Willetts, R. F. 1965. Ancient Crete. A Social History, London and Toronto, 74-5. |
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The central complexes of large urban centers may have served for governmental purposes.
[1]
[2]
[1]: See the various contributions in Hägg, R. and Marinatos, N. (eds), The Function of the Minoan Palaces. Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium at the Swedish Institute in Athens, 10-16 June, 1984 (SkrAth 4o, 35), Stockholm [2]: Driessen, J., Schoep,I. and Laffineur, R. (eds), Monuments of Minos. Rethinking the Minoan Palaces. Proceedings of the International Workshop “Crete of the Hundred Palaces?” Held at the Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, 14-15 December 2001 (Aegeaum 23), Liège. |
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The Arthaśāstra, which "probably arose in the first half of the first millennium AD" but probably largely "derive[s] from older handbooks" includes instructions for the proper layout of cities, including "public edifices such as treasuries, storehouses for material and food, arsenals, and prisons".
[1]
[1]: (Schlingloff 2013: 15) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/DAMFF2NV. |
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The Arthaśāstra, which "probably arose in the first half of the first millennium AD" but probably largely "derive[s] from older handbooks", includes instructions for the proper layout of cities, including "public edifices such as treasuries, storehouses for material and food, arsenals, and prisons".
[1]
[1]: (Schlingloff 2013: 15) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/DAMFF2NV. |
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Post-Mauryan kingdoms had mints for coinage: "Two aspects of the pre-Satavahan situation need to be emphasised in the development of the early historical sites in the Central Deccan... One was the particular natural of the economy which rested on the small-scale production of iron-related artefacts. The other was the substantial evidence found from sites like Kotalingala of pre-Satavahana coinage (Krishnasastry, 1983), indicating that there was a mobilization of resources at a local level, which meant that the political elite had the ability to issue their own coins. Though this is most striking in the Central Deccan because these coins are found along with the early coins of the Satavahana"
[1]
[1]: (Parasher-Sen 2000, 242) Parasher-Sen, Aloka. "Origins of Settlements, Culture and Civilization in the Deccan" Gupta, Harsh K. Parasher-Sen, Aloka. Balasubramanian, D. eds. 2000. Deccan Heritage. Indian National Science Academy. Universities Press (India) Limited. Hyderabad. |
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The Arthaśāstra, which "probably arose in the first half of the first millennium AD" but probably largely "derive[s] from older handbooks" includes instructions for the proper layout of cities, including "public edifices such as treasuries, storehouses for material and food, arsenals, and prisons".
[1]
[1]: (Schlingloff 2013: 15) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/DAMFF2NV. |
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The Arthaśāstra, which "probably arose in the first half of the first millennium AD" but probably largely "derive[s] from older handbooks" includes instructions for the proper layout of cities, including "public edifices such as treasuries, storehouses for material and food, arsenals, and prisons".
[1]
[1]: (Schlingloff 2013: 15) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/DAMFF2NV. |
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The Arthaśāstra, which "probably arose in the first half of the first millennium AD" but probably largely "derive[s] from older handbooks" includes instructions for the proper layout of cities, including "public edifices such as treasuries, storehouses for material and food, arsenals, and prisons".
[1]
[1]: (Schlingloff 2013: 15) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/DAMFF2NV. |
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The Arthaśāstra, which "probably arose in the first half of the first millennium AD" but probably largely "derive[s] from older handbooks" includes instructions for the proper layout of cities, including "public edifices such as treasuries, storehouses for material and food, arsenals, and prisons".
[1]
[1]: (Schlingloff 2013: 15) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/DAMFF2NV. |
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Town and city halls; ministeries; parliament buildings. “To keep up with their growing responsibilities and functions, communal administrations expanded and diversified, hiring increasing numbers of educated staff. In 1896 the town of Aussig / Ústí already employed a hundred people. As became typical, by 1900 the town had found it necessary to hire a director to supervise the growing personnel, and in 1911 the town inaugurated a new town office building because the old town hall had no space for increased office demand.”
[1]
“Expanding infrastructures and new public entitlements compelled the governments of Austria and Hungary to add layers of bureaucrats to fulfill new functions, and then more layers to monitor the effectiveness of the first layers. Competence in producing desired outcomes became critical to maintaining political legitimacy, in local town halls and in imperial ministries alike. Parliaments, crownland diets, and town halls now engaged in archival record- keeping on a scale as yet unknown, while enforcing a maze of legal standards for everything from workplace safety to public health to transportation to conditions of emigration. Bureaucracy begat more bureaucracy as popular expectations fueled the state’s expansion into the everyday lives of its citizens.”
[2]
“Symbol of that transformation was Franz Joseph’s decision in 1857 to tear down the colossal fortifications—evidence of the city’s former position near the perilous frontier of the Ottoman Empire—and build the roughly circular boulevard known as the Ringstraße. Over the next several decades a series of imposing structures were erected along this street, in historicist styles that referenced the dynasty’s geographic reach and centuries’-old authority. The Votive Church was erected in gothic style as a thanksgiving for Franz Joseph surviving the 1853 assassination attempt. A permanent parliament was constructed to look like a Greek temple. The city hall echoed in an elephantine fashion Brussels’ medieval city hall.”
[3]
[1]: (Judson 2016: 356-357) Judson, Pieter M. 2016. The Habsburg Empire: A New History. Cambridge, USA; London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/BN5TQZBW [2]: (Judson 2016: 336) Judson, Pieter M. 2016. The Habsburg Empire: A New History. Cambridge, USA; London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/BN5TQZBW [3]: (Curtis 2013: 289) Curtis, Benjamin. 2013. The Habsburgs: The History of a Dynasty. London; New York: Bloomsbury. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/TRKUBP92 |
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"The main instrument of public administration and governance under the long history of the federal state of Elam was the bureaucracy, which also played a powerful role under the Median and the Persian empires."
[1]
[1]: (Farazmand 2009, 21) Farazmand, Ali. 2009. Bureaucracy and Administration. CRC Press. Boca Raton. |
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"Cuneiform texts found in the building suggest part of the complex was used to hold the records of an administrative authority capable of disbursing, receiving, and storing large amounts of precious metals, foodstuffs and animal products. Many of the Maluan tablets found in IVA were impressed with a single distinctive punctate seal (fig. 11)."
[1]
"Parallels with Khuzistan finds and the C-14 evidence indicate a date just before 1100 BC for level IVA destruction."
[1]
[1]: (Carter and Stopler 1984, 173) |
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"The main instrument of public administration and governance under the long history of the federal state of Elam was the bureaucracy, which also played a powerful role under the Median and the Persian empires."
[1]
[1]: (Farazmand 2009, 21) Farazmand, Ali. 2009. Bureaucracy and Administration. CRC Press. Boca Raton. |
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"The main instrument of public administration and governance under the long history of the federal state of Elam was the bureaucracy, which also played a powerful role under the Median and the Persian empires."
[1]
[1]: (Farazmand 2009, 21) Farazmand, Ali. 2009. Bureaucracy and Administration. CRC Press. Boca Raton. |
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e.g. the mint at Seleucia "largest in the Parthian empire".
[1]
[1]: Lukonin, V.G., ‘Political, Social and Administrative Institutions: Taxes and Trade’, in The Cambridge history of Iran: the Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian periods. Part 2, ed. by Ehsan Yar-Shater (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), vol. III, p.719 |
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The first senate building, the Curia Hostilia, existed from about 600 BCE.
[1]
The first paving of the Roman Forum occurred around 575-625 BCE.
[2]
The first coin minted in Rome occurred about 269 BCE (one in Neapolis produced coins slightly earlier, around 281 BCE) and the first state archives was created in 78 BCE. Other buildings include: granaries and storehouses.
The Curia Julia was one of the main meeting places of the Roman Senate (later rebuilt under Diocletian after a fire in 283 CE). [3] The Senate also often met in appropriate temples. [4] The old Roman treasury - the aerarium Saturni - was housed in the basement of the Temple of Saturn. There were lots of multi-purpose government buildings: basilicas, imperial fora, and porticos, which were utilized for government functions, such as official meetings or court hearings. [1]: (Cornell 1995, 94) [2]: (Cornell 1995, 100) [3]: (http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Forum/reconstructions/CuriaIulia_1) |
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The first senate building, the Curia Hostilia, existed from about 600 BCE.
[1]
The first paving of the Roman Forum occurred around 575-625 BCE.
[2]
The first coin minted in Rome occurred about 269 BCE (one in Neapolis produced coins slightly earlier, around 281 BCE) and the first state archives was created in 78 BCE. Other buildings include: granaries and storehouses.
The Curia Julia was one of the main meeting places of the Roman Senate (later rebuilt under Diocletian after a fire in 283 CE). [3] The Senate also often met in appropriate temples. [4] The old Roman treasury - the aerarium Saturni - was housed in the basement of the Temple of Saturn. There were lots of multi-purpose government buildings: basilicas, imperial fora, and porticos, which were utilized for government functions, such as official meetings or court hearings. [1]: (Cornell 1995, 94) [2]: (Cornell 1995, 100) [3]: (http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Forum/reconstructions/CuriaIulia_1) |
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The central administrative, executive, and judicial government was based inside the Ducale Palazzo, the palace of the doge.
[1]
. However, due to the complexity of regional governments and number of minor offices in the central government, we infer the presence of separate government buildings.
[1]: (Howard, Quill, and Moretti 2002: 102) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/WCTSCW9X |
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The central administrative, executive, and judicial government was based inside the Ducale Palazzo, the palace of the doge.
[1]
. However, due to the complexity of regional governments and number of minor offices in the central government, we infer the presence of separate government buildings.
[1]: (Howard, Quill, and Moretti 2002: 102) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/WCTSCW9X |
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Mint.
“Furthermore, Odovacer bestowed the Senate with the right to mint coins and to lobby the church (although possibly only theoretically and as part of a royal campaign, respectively).” [1] [1]: (Radtki 2016: 127) Radtki, C. 2016. The Senate at Rome in Ostrogothic Italy. In Arnold, Bjornlie and Sessa (eds) A Companion to Ostrogothic Italy pp. 121-146. Brill. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XRH6FW4T/item-list |
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"[T]he Gahadavalas either themselves evolved an elaborate taxation system or improved upon the existing practices. As far as the official records are concerned, we can say that they had a large number of revenue terms such as bhaga-bhoga-kara, hiranya, pravanikara, turuskadanda, jalak ara, gokara, visayadana, kumaragadyanaka, yamali-kambala, kutaka, valadi, vimsaticchavatha (vimsatyathu, visatiathuprastha), aksapataladaya (ak shapatalaprastha), pratiharaprastha, varavajjhe (varavajha), dasabandha, loha-lavanakara, parnakara, taradaya, svanaukabhataka, dagapasadidir gha-govica, vahyavahyamtarasiddhi, etc. No doubt, all these myriad terms if collected in word and deed would have accounted for a handsome royal share of revenue. Such a large number of taxes would have required a well-qualified class of officials involved in tax collection and maintenance of accounts and records. U.N. Ghoshal has credited the Gahadavala kings for having made remarkable changes in the prevailing revenue system."
[1]
[1]: (Kumar 2015: 30-31) Kumar, S. 2015. Rural Society and Rural Economy in the Ganga Valley during the Gahadavalas. Social Scientist , May–June 2015, Vol. 43, No. 5/6 (May–June 2015), pp. 29-45. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/PQEZNJ3T/library |
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Mint (or equivalent).
“[T]he Five Dynasties[…] period saw extensive internecine warfare that brought copper mining to a near standstill in the north. Because copper was becoming more and more scarce, almost all the contending warlords of the time attempted to prevent bronze coinage from flowing into their rivals’ hands as a result of cross-border trade. Their respective kingdoms—Southern Han, Min, Wu Yue, Southern Tang, Chu, Later Tang, Later Shu—cast heavily debased or token coinage from lead, iron, or even clay so that it could be used domestically, for example, to pay soldiers’ salaries. These coins were, of course, of very little intrinsic value, and ipso facto constitute the first step toward ridding Chinese currency of its metallic anchorage.” [1] [1]: (Horesh 2013: 375-376) Horesh, N. 2013. ‘CANNOT BE FED ON WHEN STARVING’: AN ANALYSIS OF THE ECONOMIC THOUGHT SURROUNDING CHINA’S EARLIER USE OF PAPER MONEY. Journal of the History of Economic Thought 35(3): 373-395. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/6PGHSGRX/library |
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"During the excavations conducted by the Royal Ontario Museum in Zabïd, traces of a workshop from the fourth-sixth/tenth-twelfth centuries were found and Edward Keall suggests that it may have produced copper coin blanks (1989: 66). This is the only archaeological evidence of a mint in Zabïd. For the moment, no copper coins minted in Zabïd have been recorded, except a debased dirham struck in the name of the Najahid Jayyash b. al-Mu-ayyad (Tübingen 93.18.114). Keall also suggests that this area was the ’government quarter of the town since at least the time of the Ayyubid conquest of the Yemen’ (1989: 66)."
[1]
Andrey Korotayev confirmed with us that specialized government buildings, separate from the ruler’s residence, were present in the Ziyad state. [2] [1]: (Peli 2008: 258) Peli, A. 2008. A history of the Ziyadids through their coinage (203—442/818—1050). Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies , 2008, Vol. 38, Papers from the forty-first meeting of the Seminar for Arabian Studies held in London, 19-21 July 2007 (2008), pp. 251-263. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ADM7C94B/library [2]: Andrey Korotayev, pers. comm., February 2018. |
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Mints.
“Turning now to consider where coin was produced across the Frankish regions in the course of the ninth century, Figure 12.5 shows the mints striking Charlemagne’s Monogram coinage, Figure 12.1 those producing Louis the Pious’s second type, and Figure 12.6 all those known to have been active between 840 and 864. The mints of the two short-lived Portrait coinages have not been mapped, nor is it possible to plot the mints striking Louis the Pious’s Christiana religio coinage, since it is not known how many there were, let alone where they were all located. A comparison of Figures 12.1, 12.5 and 12.6 shows a measure of continuity over the 70 years between 794 and 864, in terms of both the most prolific mints and the regions where coinage must have been scarce. Dorestad and Melle remained by far the most important mints throughout the period, and the Italian mints of Milan and Pavia also maintained significant economic roles. In the west, Bourges, Tours and Toulouse all appear to have been consistently productive, albeit on a considerably smaller scale than Dorestad and Melle. Louis the Pious clearly sought to expand the empire-wide network of mints, and very probably did so further when minting the Christiana religio type, but several regions evidently remained poorly monetised throughout: Brittany and Lower Normandy in the west; Frisia north and east of Dorestad (although the emporium’s massive output may well have made up for that); and the area east of the Rhine and north of Italy (even if the unidentified Alaboteshain, Aldunheim and Stottenburg were located in this region, they are all characterised by an absence of provenanced finds). […] If we then compare a map of mints striking after 864 these trends continue, with the contrast between the economically thriving west and the monetarily impoverished south and east becoming even more pronounced. A plethora of mints sprang up between the Loire and the Rhine, first in the West Frankish kingdom and then in Lotharingia as well, while in the eastern kingdom and Provence only a few coins were struck at a very limited number of mints." [1] [1]: (Coupland 2014, 277-279) Coupland, S. 2014. The Use of Coin in the Carolingian Empire in the Ninth Century. In Naismith, Allen and Screen (eds) Early Medieval Monetary History: Studies in Memory of Mark Blackburn pp. 257-293. Ashgate. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/C47XJWW8/library |
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Mint.
“From this it is known that the currency had been unified into metals, and the coin money into chien. The same system was followed by the subsequent Han dynasty. For the following two thousand years until the latter years of the Ching dynasty, the Chinese currency saw the chien rated as its standard money.” [1] [1]: (Hozumi 1954: 19-20) Hozumi, F. 1954. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE HISTORY OF CHINESE MONEY. Kyoto University Economic Review 24(2): 18-38. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/BGDN5V7V/library |
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Mints.
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Mints.
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A sunken plaza (50m wide and 4m deep) is interpreted as a governmental structure by Marcus and Flannery. A similar but smaller structure (20m wide) has also been found at San José Mogote dating to this period.
[1]
More generally, Charles Spencer commented: ’One cannot fail to be impressed by the amount and variety of public/institutional architecture constructed between B.C. 300 and A.D. 800 in and around the Main Plaza at Monte Alban. The archaeological data indicate that much of this architectural complexity was in existence by Monte Alban II (100 B.C. through A.D. 200). Many of these buildings do not appear to have been residential and most likely served an array of religious (e.g., the various structures associated with two-room temples), military (such as Building J and perhaps the Ballcourt), and other "administrative" functions (including a variety of other public/institutional buildings the functions of which are still unclear). At the same time, it is probably also appropriate to consider the quihuitao (royal palace) to be another example of a public/institutional building. Both the main candidate for a quihuitao at Monte Alban (the Patio Hundido complex, according to Flannery) and also the example recently excavated at El Palenque (which was probably the capital of a rival independent state polity in Late Formative times) near San Martin Tilcajete (see Spencer and Redmond 2004 in Lat Am Antiq, and Redmond and Spencer 2017 PNAS) were not associated with tombs like other elite (and non-elite) residences; also, both examples had "residential" as well as "ceremonial/governmental" components. Note that the El Palenque quihuitao is securely dated to the Late Monte Albán I phase (300-100 B.C.)’.
[2]
[1]: Marcus, J. and K. V. Flannery (1996). Zapotec civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley, Thames and Hudson London, p179 [2]: Charles Spencer, pers. comm., January 2018. |
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Mints.
"Numismatic evidence suggests that the first [silver] Ottoman coin was struck in the Hegira year of 727 (1326-27) during the reign of Orhan Gazi (1324-62). […] Numismatic catalogs and textual documents indicate that the earliest Ottoman coinage was struck in Bursa, Edirne, and in other unspecified places around the Marmara basin. In addition. They circulated together with the coinage of the other Anatolian principalities, the Ilkhanid Empire and the Byzantine Empire. As the Ottoman state began to expand its territories, new mints were established in commercially and administratively important cities and close to silver mines. In this period the aqcha was minted in Bursa, Edirne, Constantinople, Ayasoluk, Serez, Uskup, Novobrdo, Tire, Amasya, Balat, Karahisar, Engiiriye and Germiyan. By the middle of the fifteenth century aqcha had become the basic monetary unit of the southern Balkans, western and central Anatolia." [1] [1]: (Akkaya 1999, 19-20) Akkaya, T. 1999. THE EVOLUTION OF MONEY IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE, 1326-1922. Master’s Thesis, University of Bilkent. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/QZJDKCRJ/library |
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Storage depots, mints.
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Storage depots, mints.
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Inferred from presence of administrative system of states- "During the Spring and Autumn Period, the powerful states such as Qin and Chu set up a new administrative system of provinces and counties in each of the places they conquered through wars of annexation. In general, counties were based in the center of the state, while provinces were based in the outlying areas. The governorships of the provinces and counties were no longer hereditary positions. Rather governors were appointed and dismissed directly by the kings or lords. These governors in the provinces and counties comprised the first bureaucracy in Chinese history."
[1]
[1]: (Zhang 2015, 144) Zhang, Qizhi. 2015. An Introduction to Chinese History and Culture. Springer. |
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Government archive building for records.
[1]
"The king was served by officials who held specialized positions of authority and function"
[2]
[1]: (Keay 2009: 49) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/Z4ACHZRD?. [2]: (The Shang Dynasty, 1600 to 1050 BCE. Spice Digest, Fall 2007. http://iis-db.stanford.edu/docs/117/ShangDynasty.pdf) |
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’The dīwāns were relatively small. They do not appear to have been housed in large or permanently designated buildings; indeed the sources rarely mention government buildings.’
[1]
However, though bureaucratic officials perhaps lacked permanent, specialized buildings dedicated to their activities, other types of government building were probably present, such as structures associated with the mint: Ehrenkreutz argues that ’the Egyptian mint of Cairo [in the Ayyubid period] must have been a well organized, permanent establishment, and not an improvised workshop’.
[2]
[1]: (Chamberlain 1998, 234) Chamberlain, Michael. 1998. “The Crusader Era and the Ayyūbid Dynasty.” In The Cambridge History of Egypt, Vol. 1: Islamic Egypt, 640-1517, edited by Carl F. Petry, 211-41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/XQVWZ4VA. [2]: (Ehrenkreutz 1953, 443) Ehrenkreutz, Andrew S. 1953. “Extracts from the Technical Manual on the Ayyūbid Mint in Cairo.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 15 (3):423-47. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/RE98NUHD. |
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Government offices, customs offices, postal stations, offices of military administration.
Register of the army, in Cairo. |
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In a chapter on administrative departments during the Old Kingdom, Papazian writes that ’the government was composed of several major administrative departments, such as granaries and treasuries, each with its own broad responsibilities’. Especially during the early Old Kingdom, the same structures appear to have served multiple purposes as royal residences and administrative buildings at the centre, but it seems that there were other specialized government buildings in provincial contexts. For instance, provincial (but state-controlled) granaries included ’in addition to the storage silos, a measuring or tallying court ... It was in that specific area that most scribal and supervisory activities took place’.
[1]
Treasury building. Permanent officials in law courts.
[2]
[1]: (Papazian 2013: 43-67) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/8252XTHU. [2]: (Chadwick 2005, 139) |
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"The late Old Kingdom kings had transformed provincial rule ... by creating a new class of provincial administrators, i.e. the nomarchs ... Although these functionaries are not attested everywhere, they existed in most Upper Egyptian provinces and continue to appear throughout Upper Egypt in early First Intermediate Period documents. However, in the areas conquered by the Theban rulers ... the evidence for their existence gradually stops."
[1]
[1]: (Lloyd 2010, 84) |
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Accounting office for royal domain.
[1]
"Instructions of ’nh-Ssnky (C.III.1)" refers to a prison. [2] However not all scholars date text to Saite Period. [2] [1]: (Agut-Labordere 2013, 996) [2]: (Pagliari 2012, 192) Pagliari, Giulia. 2012. Function and significance of ancient Egyptian royal palaces from the Middle Kingdom to the Saite period: a lexicographical study and its possible connection with the archaeological evidence. Ph.D. thesis. University of Birmingham. |
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For example, buildings were the coins were minted and buildings for document storage. However, the distinction between many other specialized government buildings and church buildings could be blurred.
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Mints, municipal archives.
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Mints at oppida close to Paris Basin region: Villeneuve-Saint Germaine, Boviolles, Sainte-Germaine, and Pommiers.
[1]
[1]: (http://www.oppida.org/page.php?lg=fr&rub=00&id_oppidum=168) |
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e.g. the Magistrate’ yamen
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Mints. "Elymais coined its own money, conducted its own public works programs"
[1]
Documents from Susa and Dura Europus show "the governments of these places preserved the pattern of the Hellenistic city state." [2] Mints for bronze coinage. [1]: (Wenke 1981, 306) Wenke, Robert J. 1981. Elymeans, Parthians, and the Evolution of Empires in Southwestern Iran. Journal of the American Oriental Society. Vol. 101. No. 3. Jul-Sep. American Oriental Society. pp. 303-315. http://www.jstor.org/stable/602592 [2]: (Debevoise 1938, xli) Debevoise, Neilson C. 1938. A Political History of Parthia. University of Chicago Press Chicago. https://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/political_history_parthia.pdf |
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Mints.
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Government offices, customs offices, postal stations, offices of military administration.
Register of the army, in Cairo. |
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In a discussion of the early 2nd millennium BCE: "Elaborate administrative and religious buildings of the second millennium once crowned the Susian Acropole and possibly the Apadana area. These Elamite structures were pillaged by the Assyrians, then damaged by deeply implanted Achaemenid-Seleucid period foundations. Thus, few remains of Elamite public buildings have survived at Susa."
[1]
"The main instrument of public administration and governance under the long history of the federal state of Elam was the bureaucracy, which also played a powerful role under the Median and the Persian empires."
[2]
[1]: (Carter and Stolper 1984, 147) [2]: (Farazmand 2009, 21) Farazmand, Ali. 2009. Bureaucracy and Administration. CRC Press. Boca Raton. |
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"The main instrument of public administration and governance under the long history of the federal state of Elam was the bureaucracy, which also played a powerful role under the Median and the Persian empires."
[1]
In a discussion of the early 2nd millennium BCE: "Elaborate administrative and religious buildings of the second millennium once crowned the Susian Acropole and possibly the Apadana area. These Elamite structures were pillaged by the Assyrians, then damaged by deeply implanted Achaemenid-Seleucid period foundations. Thus, few remains of Elamite public buildings have survived at Susa."
[2]
[1]: (Farazmand 2009, 21) Farazmand, Ali. 2009. Bureaucracy and Administration. CRC Press. Boca Raton. [2]: (Carter and Stolper 1984, 147) |
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Inferred from previous periods.
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Mints
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Government buildings, such as council houses, are known by Teotihuacan (ca. 250-550 CE).
[1]
"The essential elements of altepetl organization were concentrated in the structures of the civic-ceremonial core, including marketplaces fundamental to the economy system, palaces serving as administrative loci".
[2]
[1]: (Carballo, David. Personal Communication to Jill Levine and Peter Turchin. Email. April 23, 2020) [2]: (Carballo 2016: 44) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/7B7A8KA6. |
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"Qhapaqkancha has an architectural compound indicative of public or administrative functions (Fig. 10). This compound is an intrusive construction within a large Killke Period village, and comprises three rectangular structures attached to a 2700 m2 platform. The two flanking structures face the village, while the central one opens onto the platform. Based on architectural style and surface ceramics collected by the SVAP, this platform was probably built between A.D. 1200 and 1400, and it represents an open space that would have been used for public events that could have involved an entire subject polity (for the proxemics of Andean plazas, see Moore, 1996)."
[1]
Location of administrative and temple buildings [2] [3] Qhapaqkancha Markasunay Pukara Pantillijlla Kaytamarka Warq’ara Ankasmarka [1]: (Covey 2002, 341) [2]: (Covey 2006a, 129) [3]: (Covey 2003, 340) |
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The colonial administration erected patrol houses in pacified areas, and probably relied on government buildings in colonial settlements, such as Port Moresby: ’Koropata was one of the earliest inland Orokaivan villages to co-operate with the newcomers. Their men carried for patrols in 1901, and around 1902 village policemen or constables were appointed and the government claimed a reliable friendship with the community. In 1905, a patrol house was built on 2½ acres of village land at Koropata. Village men were used to build the house and make gardens for which they received tobacco and other goods (Griffin, in File 412, Box 6549, G91; Elliot in 6548, 684C, G91).’
[1]
More information on patrol houses is needed.
[1]: Newton, Janice 1985. “Orokaiva Production And Change”, 55 |
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"Many inscribed materials, including seals, copper tablets, and stoneware bangles, hint at a well developed bureaucracy organized from this center."
[1]
"Also characteristic of Indus towns and cities were several negative features, notably the apparent paucity or absence of substantial administrative and religious buildings and of readily identifiable elite residences. Few large-scale storage facilities have been identified. [...] The tiny settlement of Allahdino did not have a separate citadel (or it was all citadel), but its layout and buildings suggest that it fulfilled an administrative role. [...] In the area to the north of the Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro, there was a block of eight bathrooms, arranged in two rows of four, each with a flight of stairs leading to an upper story. It has been plausibly suggested that this housed people (priests?) associated with the Great Bath. A nearby open courtyard may have been associated with the block but was separated from it by the street that ran between the east side of the Great Bath and a large complex known as the College. In the latter there were many small rooms, often faced with brick, and several courtyards, including a large one surrounded by a fenestrated walkway. At least seven entrances gave access to this complex, suggesting it was composed of a number of individual residences or fulfilled a number of functions, perhaps related to administration. [...] The Granary at Harappa has also been suggested to have been a palace or administrative building. [...] "
[2]
[1]: (McIntosh 2008, 212) Jane McIntosh. 2008. The Ancient Indus Valley. Santa Barbara; Denver; Oxford: ABC-CLIO. [2]: (McIntosh 2008, 210-233) Jane McIntosh. 2008. The Ancient Indus Valley. Santa Barbara; Denver; Oxford: ABC-CLIO. |
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Preiser-Kapeller says present.
[1]
Customs building. "The route by which oriental goods came is well known. All ships coming from Syria and Egypt had to go to Attaleia, the great harbour in south-west Asia Minor. Only then were they allowed to continue their journey to Constantinople. At Atteleia the customs officials came on board and entered against the list of goods the duty payable to the customs. The rate of duty was very high."
[2]
[1]: (Johannes Preiser-Kapeller 2015) Institute for Medieval Research, Division of Byzantine Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences) [2]: (Haussig 1971, 172) Haussig, H W.trans Hussey, J M. 1971. History of Byzantine Civilization. Thames and Hudson. |
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"East St. Louis started out as a residential group, but evolved into an administrative/storage like complex."
[1]
The identification of any Mississippian-period structures in the Cahokia region as specialized government buildings is far from clear, but the sites of activity within the ’central administrative complex’
[2]
may have combined administrative and ceremonial functions. Peter Peregrine discussed the evidence in an email to us: ’There are a few larger buildings that could have been "meeting rooms", but were those ceremonial or administrative, or just big houses (they have fire pits)? Was there a difference? There were also the henges and secondary plazas. I guess I would argue that there are multi-use administrative "places" throughout the Cahokia, but maybe not formal buildings as such.’
[3]
[1]: (Peregrine/Emerson 2014, 14) [2]: (Peregrine/Emerson 2014, 14) Peregrine P, Ortman S, Rupley, E. 2014. Social Complexity at Cahokia. SFI WORKING PAPER: 2014-03-004. Sante Fe Institute. [3]: Peter Peregrine, pers. comm., February 2018. |
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"Some evidence suggests that each village included a very large lodge used for ritual and perhaps for a council house".
[1]
[1]: (Callendar 1978: 678-80) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/LAJ7JQRL. |
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"East St. Louis started out as a residential group, but evolved into an administrative/storage like complex."
[1]
However, the identification of any Mississippian-period structures in the Cahokia region as specialized government buildings is far from clear. The sites of activity within the "central administrative complex"
[2]
could have largely been of religious significance and perhaps communal or elite storage rather than used as sites for the administration or processing of taxes and management of records (for which we have no evidence). In general, the identification of any Mississippian-period structures in the Cahokia region as specialized government buildings is far from clear. The sites of activity within the"Central administrative complex". could have largely been of religious significance and perhaps communal or elite storage rather than used as sites for the administration or processing of taxes and management of records (for which we have no evidence).
[2]
[1]: (Peregrine/Emerson 2014, 14) [2]: (Peregrine/Emerson 2014, 14) Peregrine P, Ortman S, Rupley, E. 2014. Social Complexity at Cahokia. SFI WORKING PAPER: 2014-03-004. Sante Fe Institute. |
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Royal mint. Offices of the government departments in Paris.
[1]
Philip II made an effort to preserve registers and government records for finance and justice in a dedicated archive.
[2]
[1]: (Spufford 2006, 148) [2]: (Bradbury 2013, 249) Jim Bradbury. 2015. Philip Augustus: King of France 1180-1223. Routledge. |
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Mints, local archives.
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The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs was founded on 8 September 1802 by the Manifest of Tsar Alexander I.
In June 1918, the Regulation on the work of the RSFSR’s PCFA was approved, which determined the structural composition of the agency and the order of organisation of representative offices abroad. The generalised experience of the work of the Commissariat became the basis for the Regulation on the RSFSR’s PCFA, which was adopted in June 1921. Due to the establishment of the Soviet Union the RSFSR’s PCFA was reorganised into the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs of the USSR. In 1923, a new "Regulation on the USSR’s PCFA" was adopted. The Collegium as a governing body of the people’s commissariat was restored. From January 1990 to the August Coup of 1991 of the so-called State Committee on the State of Emergency, the MFA was headed by Alexander Alexandrovich Bessmertnykh, who was then replaced by Boris Dimitrievich Pankin. At the beginning of November 1991 the state government made a decision on a "radical reorganisation" of the MFA and its transformation into the Ministry of Foreign Relations (MFR) with a simultaneous transfer to it of the functions of the Ministry of Foreign Economic Ties. Eduard Shevardnadze, who had returned to diplomatic work for a short time, became the head of this "experimental" structure until its abrogation in December 1991. [1] [1]: https://mid.ru/en/about/social_organizations/ |
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The Twelve Colleges
The building, which is over 400 meters long, was commissioned by Peter in 1718 to house the new structures of government - the Senate, the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, and the nine Colleges or Collegia, which served the function of modern ministries. The original architect of the project was Domenico Trezzini, who had also designed the Peter and Paul Fortress, and building began 1722. It took 20 years to complete the building, during which time construction was supervised by Theodor Schwertfeger, Mikhail Zemtsov, and Domenico Trezzini’s nephew (and son-in-law) Giuseppe Trezzini. [1] [1]: “Twelve Collegia - Peter The Great Way,” accessed December 11, 2023, http://eng.petersway.org/monuments/russia/saint-petersburg/twelve_collegia/. Zotero link: C78KHQD7 |
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‘This court was housed in a building in Hakata,21 and this office served as the governmental organ responsible for enforcing tokusei measures as well as delivering judicial decisions.’
[1]
While specialized government buildings were numerous in the Heian (794-1185CE) period it appears harder to find evidence of as extensive buildings in the Kamakura, however, it is possible that the sources I have consulted simply do not see the need to distinguish between ‘offices’ as physical structures and ‘offices’ as organizations. It is also possible that governmental functions were moved to the houses of the post holders.
[1]: Yamamura, Kozo (ed). 2008. The Cambridge History of Japan. Vol. 3. Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press [sixth edition].p.149 |
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"Present in large numbers in the administration, the army and the diplomatic service, the Sogdians were also present as simple merchants."
[1]
"In the kingdom of Gaochang (Turfan) during the first half of the 7th century, the Türks had functionaries respon- sible for the supervision and taxation of commerce.38"
[2]
[1]: (De la Vaissière 2005, 204) [2]: (De la Vaissière 2005, 208) |
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The religious education centre of Ta Prohm. ’One of the major temples of Jayavarman VII - in fact, a temple-monastery - Ta Phrom features a set of concentric galleries with corner towers and gopuras, but with many additional buildings and enclosures. [...] Ta Phrom’s original name was Rajavihara, ’the royal monastery’. In the initial plan for Ta Prohm, 260 divinities were called for; many more were added later.’
[1]
.
[1]: (Freeman and Jacques 1999, p. 136) |
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The religious education centre of Ta Prohm. ’One of the major temples of Jayavarman VII - in fact, a temple-monastery - Ta Phrom features a set of concentric galleries with corner towers and gopuras, but with many additional buildings and enclosures. [...] Ta Phrom’s original name was Rajavihara, ’the royal monastery’. In the initial plan for Ta Prohm, 260 divinities were called for; many more were added later.’
[1]
.
[1]: (Freeman and Jacques 1999, p. 136) |
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Malleret excavated one of the central mounds, revealing brick foundations and and walls associated with ceramics figures of a lion, a unicorn-like animal, and a monster. one ceramic tile was embellished with a cobra. The bricks were also decorated with geometric designs in low relief. He was left to speculate on the function of these constructions. Could they have been shrines, or mortuary structures? The decorated tiles, bricks, and moulded animals suggested a religious or ritual function, a possibility supported by the recovery of a stone linga.
[1]
[1]: (Hihgam 2004: 26) |
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"The scope of using the servile labor among Kitans was limited by housekeeping in case of private individuals and by service of the imperial tombs, palaces, administrative buildings and cloisters. The slaves could be also attributed to ordo of nomads and they could be used in construction works or even for service in army."
[1]
[1]: (Kradin 2014, 160) |
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Mint present for producing coins
[1]
[1]: Porter, Venetia Ann (1992) The history and monuments of the Tahirid dynasty of the Yemen 858-923/1454-1517, Durham theses, Durham University, p. 166, Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/5867/ |
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Megaron in Karataş - Semayük
[1]
A large, independent megaron structure was constructed on the highest point of the mound, overlooking the settlement. The court along three sides of the megaron was on an earthen embankment.
[2]
[1]: Warner J., " The Megaron and Apsidal House in Early Bronze Age Western Anatolia: New Evidence from Karataş", In: "American Journal of Archaeology", Vol. 83, No. 2 (Apr., 1979). [2]: Sagona A. and P. Zimansky, "Ancient Turkey", USA 2009, p. 197. |
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Buildings of the civil service, mints, customs offices etc.
Palace enclosure in Cairo contained administrative offices. [1] Different departments of Fatimid central administration included "military, treasury, religious, missionary, and judiciary." There was also a harem. [2] [1]: (Nicolle 1996, 81) [2]: (Hamblin 2005, 748) Shillington, K. ed. 2005. Encyclopedia of African History: A - G.. 1. Taylor & Francis. |
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Lysimachus began striking coins at his capital Lysimacheia after the Battle of Ipsis (306 BCE)
[1]
and he established or used mints in fifteen cities to produce his coins.
[2]
[1]: Hadley, R. A. (1974) Royal Propaganda of Seleucus I and Lysimachus. The Journal of Hellenistic Studies. Vol.94. p55 [2]: Lund, H. S. (1992) Lysimachus: A study in early Hellenistic kingship. Routledge: London and New York. p131-132 |
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Preiser-Kapeller says present.
[1]
Customs building. "The route by which oriental goods came is well known. All ships coming from Syria and Egypt had to go to Attaleia, the great harbour in south-west Asia Minor. Only then were they allowed to continue their journey to Constantinople. At Atteleia the customs officials came on board and entered against the list of goods the duty payable to the customs. The rate of duty was very high."
[2]
[1]: (Preiser-Kapeller 2015) Institute for Medieval Research, Division of Byzantine Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences) [2]: (Haussig 1971, 172) Haussig, H W.trans Hussey, J M. 1971. History of Byzantine Civilization. Thames and Hudson. |
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Preiser-Kapeller says present.
[1]
Customs building. "The route by which oriental goods came is well known. All ships coming from Syria and Egypt had to go to Attaleia, the great harbour in south-west Asia Minor. Only then were they allowed to continue their journey to Constantinople. At Atteleia the customs officials came on board and entered against the list of goods the duty payable to the customs. The rate of duty was very high."
[2]
[1]: (Preiser-Kapeller 2015) Institute for Medieval Research, Division of Byzantine Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences) [2]: (Haussig 1971, 172) Haussig, H W.trans Hussey, J M. 1971. History of Byzantine Civilization. Thames and Hudson. |
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Palaces. The most important elements in the larger cities were palaces, which in textual sources are characterized with the Sumerogram É.GAL = great house. The palaces were a crucial element for the administration and organisation of the Hittite state.
Hittite palaces: (1) Büyükkale/Bogazköy-Hattusa [1] (2) Masat Höyük-Tapikka [2] (3) Ortaköy-Sapinuwa, Building A [3] (4) Alaca Höyük [4] (5) Inandıktepe [5] [1]: Seeher J. (2002) ‘Großkönigliche Residenz - Mittelpunkt staatlichen Lebens. Die Palastanlage in der hethitischen Hauptstadt’, [In:] Die Hethiter und ihr Reich. Das Volk der 1000 Götter, Katalog der Ausstellung, Bonn 18. Januar-28. April 2002, Bonn, pp. 94-99. [2]: Özgüç, T. (1982) Masat Höyük II. Bogazköy’ün kuzeydogusunda bir Hitit merkezi. Masat Höyük II. A Hittite Center Northeast of Bogazköy (Turk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlari V.38a)Ankara [3]: Süel A. (2002) ‘Ortaköy-Sapinuwa’. [In:] K.A. Yener and H.A. jr Hoffner (eds.) 2002: Recent Developments in Hittite Archaeology and History. Papers in Memory of Hans G. Güterbock,Winona Lake, IN., pp 157-65. [4]: Bittel K. (1976) Die Hethiter, Munich, Abb. 111 [5]: Özgüç, T. (1988) Inandıktepe. Eski Hitit çagında önemli bir kült merkezi. An Important Cult Center in the Old Hittite Period (Turk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlari V.43) Ankara. |
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Dio Chrysostom tells the story of Alcmeon given a gift from Croesus. "They say that the Lydian allowed him to open his treasuries and carry off all the gold he wanted. He, they say, went in and loaded himself with the king’s gift with a will, filling the deep womanish folds of the lengthy tunic tht he wore and the large spacious boots which he had put on purposefully."
[1]
Lydian coinage
[2]
must have required government mints.
[1]: Pedley, J.G. 1972. Ancient Literary Sources on Sardis. Achaeological Exploration of Sardis. Monograph 2. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. p.28 [2]: (Broodbank 2015, 556) Broodbank, Cyprian. 2015. The Making of the Middle Sea. Thames & Hudson. London. |
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"East St. Louis started out as a residential group, but evolved into an administrative/storage like complex."
[1]
The identification of any Mississippian-period structures in the Cahokia region as specialized government buildings is far from clear, but the sites of activity within the ’central administrative complex’
[2]
may have combined administrative and ceremonial functions. Peter Peregrine discussed the evidence in an email to us: ’There are a few larger buildings that could have been "meeting rooms", but were those ceremonial or administrative, or just big houses (they have fire pits)? Was there a difference? There were also the henges and secondary plazas. I guess I would argue that there are multi-use administrative "places" throughout the Cahokia, but maybe not formal buildings as such.’
[3]
[1]: (Peregrine/Emerson 2014, 14) [2]: (Peregrine/Emerson 2014, 14) Peregrine P, Ortman S, Rupley, E. 2014. Social Complexity at Cahokia. SFI WORKING PAPER: 2014-03-004. Sante Fe Institute. [3]: Peter Peregrine, pers. comm., February 2018. |
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Mints. "The Sogdian coins were simple tokens of account issued by city-states with feeble political power and were intended solely for economic exchange in Sogdiana, in contrast to the Sassanid coins, which were instruments of dynastic prestige whose value remained more or less accurate over the long term."
[1]
[1]: (De la Vaissière 2005, 173) |
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E.g. mints. "The third factor was the competition between the numerous mint houses in the Low Countries, which were buying silver in the market at a premium."
[1]
[1]: (Wolters 2008: 40) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/UT69DCSD/collection. |
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“In 1520, the Portuguese priest Francisco Alvares spent a month there and described its ‘fortress’-like government buildings and the richness of the surrounding agricultural land.”
[1]
[1]: (Connell and Killion 2011, 162) Connell, Dan and Killion, Tom. 2011. Historical Dictionary of Eritrea. Second Edition. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/24ZMGPAA/collection |
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The following quote suggests the likelihood of civic/government buildings in area F at the archaeological site of Harlaa. “Since 2015, excavations over five fieldwork seasons have revealed a mosque (area A), a workshop complex (area B, except labelled A in 2016) cemeteries (area C and D), a house with an associated industrial/kitchen facility (area E) and part of an extensive building complex- probably with a civic function (area F).”
[1]
[1]: (Insoll et al. 2021, 488) Insoll, Timothy et al. 2021. ‘Material Cosmopolitanism: the entrepot of Harlaa as an Islamic gateway to eastern Ethiopia’. Antiquity. Vol 95: 380. Pp 487-507. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/GGUW3WRZ/collection |
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In a chapter on administrative departments during the Old Kingdom, Papazian writes that ’the government was composed of several major administrative departments, such as granaries and treasuries, each with its own broad responsibilities’.
[1]
Especially during the early Old Kingdom, the same structures appear to have served multiple purposes as royal residences and administrative buildings at the centre,
[2]
but it seems that there were other specialized government buildings in provincial contexts. For instance, provincial (but state-controlled) granaries included ’in addition to the storage silos, a measuring or tallying court ... It was in that specific area that most scribal and supervisory activities took place’.
[3]
[1]: (Papazian 2013, 43) Papazian, Hratch. 2013. “The Central Administration of the Resources in the Old Kingdom: Departments, Treasuries, Granaries and Work Centers.” In Ancient Egyptian Administration, 41-84. Leiden: Brill. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/8252XTHU. [2]: (Papazian 2013, 50-53) Papazian, Hratch. 2013. “The Central Administration of the Resources in the Old Kingdom: Departments, Treasuries, Granaries and Work Centers.” In Ancient Egyptian Administration, 41-84. Leiden: Brill. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/8252XTHU. [3]: (Papazian 2013, 66-67) Papazian, Hratch. 2013. “The Central Administration of the Resources in the Old Kingdom: Departments, Treasuries, Granaries and Work Centers.” In Ancient Egyptian Administration, 41-84. Leiden: Brill. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/8252XTHU. |
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Mints for coinage in all regions.
[1]
[1]: (Zeimal 1996, 132-133) Zeimal, E. V. The Kidarite Kingdom In Central Asia. in Litvinsky, B. A. ed. and Iskender-Mochiri, I. ed. 1996. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. pp.123-137. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf |
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Governor’s residence in the capital city mentioned by Abdoullaev in his review of Chinese chronicles.
[1]
Presence of governor in a residence in the city would suggest some inheritance of centralized institutions from earlier Greco-Bactrians, which might also included specialised governmental buildings.
[1]: (Abdoullaev 2001, 202) |
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"Exemplified by Zhengzhou and Anyang, each city was composed of a centrally situated ceremonial and administrative enclave occupied primarily by royalty, priests and a few selected craftsmen... (Wheatley 1971: 30-47)."
[1]
Were there specialized buildings for administration, set apart from palaces?
[1]: (Liu and Chen 2012, 295) Liu, Li. Chen, Xingcan. 2012. The Archaeology of China: From the Late Paleolithic to the Early Bronze Age. Cambridge University Press. |
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Historians and archaeologists appear to disagree about the function of excavated non-domestic Erlitou stuctures, proposing a range of uses from administration to communal gatherings and rituals.
"A cluster of rammed-earth foundations enclosed by rammed-earth walls about 2 m in width situated more or less at the center of the site and known in the literature as the “palace city” or “palatial area” (gongcheng 宫城) (Zhongguo 2003) are seen as evidence of intrasite stratification. The largest foundations inside this area, labeled Palace I and Palace II, stand on top of rammed earthen platforms 9600 m2 and 4200 m2 in size, respectively, and are said to have been the seat of the leader (or king) of the state. [...] Criticism has been leveled at different elements of this reconstruction. For example, the identification of the main public structures in Erlitou as palaces has been challenged: palaces are usually defined as multifunctional buildings, serving as the king’s residence and also as the central hub of state administration (Flannery 1998, pp. 22-36). The Erlitou complexes, despite being composed of large walled courtyards with roofed buildings, are actually quite small. As Thorp (1991) has suggested, these structures are better explained as locations of public gatherings or rituals, where large audiences convened in the courtyard, rather than as the residences of kings." [1] "It is important to note, however, that despite their characterization as gongdian “palaces” in Chinese or “palace-temples” in the English literature, there is very little evidence other than later traditions to suggest their function (Thorp 1988), and indeed, as Xu et al. (2004, 2005) suggests, that function may have changed over the life of the site, never mind the course of the second millennium BCE. Do their large courtyards suggest the open spaces of public architecture and collective ritual, or does their limited access through a single entrance suggest more restricted use (see Figures 2.3-2.5)?" [2] "Bronze and turquoise workshops are located in an enclosed region south of the enclosed palace region, so the excavator XU Hong concluded that they were government owned. The nature of the ceramic workshops are unclear." [3] [1]: (Shelach and Jaffe 2014, 330) [2]: (Campbell 2014, 27) [3]: (Xie, Liye. Personal correspondence, 2016) |
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Royal archives.
[1]
A generic term for the Zhou government was the "hundred bureaus".
[2]
Li Feng argues that gong 宫 may have served as locations for "official functions" related to palaces and temples
[3]
"Western Zhou royal house also kept sizeable territory around the capital region under its direct control. By the mid-Zhou period, some bureaucratic structures had developed in this royal domain." [4] [1]: (Shaughnessy 1999, 326) Shaughnessy "Western Zhou History" in Loewe, Michael. Shaughnessy, Edward L. 2009. The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 BC. Cambridge University Press. [2]: (Feng 2006, 101) Feng, Li. 2006. Landscape and Power in Early China: The Crisis and Fall of the Western Zhou 1045-771 BC. Cambridge University Press. [3]: (Li Feng. 2001. " ’Offices’ in Bronze Inscriptions and Western Zhou Government." Early China 26/27: 4. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/collectionKey/XDQ9AKTJ/itemKey/FVR2NVJ3)). [4]: (Zhao 2015, 56) Zhao, Dingxin in Scheidel, Walter. ed. 2015. State Power in Ancient China and Rome. Oxford University Press. |
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Government offices, customs offices, postal stations, offices of military administration.
Register of the army, in Cairo. |
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In some districts, events pertaining to local governance continued to be held in meeting-houses in the colonial period: ’All the old lineage meeting houses of Romonum are gone today. All over Truk, however, every district still maintains at least one meeting house. Women enter them more freely now than they used to, because the unmarried men no longer sleep there. The latter now go to sleep in the houses of non-taboo relatives. Several unmarried men may together occupy a small hut for sleeping purposes, the hut being built in the style of an jimw rather than of an wuut. The district meeting house is still the place where the men sleep before a ball game or track meet. Guests are still entertained there, and it still is the place for feasts and district meetings. All local governmental functions are carried on in the district wuut.’
[1]
[1]: Goodenough, Ward Hunt 1951. “Property, Kin, And Community On Truk”, 68 |
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inferred continuity with earlier/later periods, with no clear evidence of discontinuity
Mints and municipal archives. |
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’Palaces" seems to be main governmental buildings of the Old Palace "states". There is no evidence for other buildings which might have been used by the governing institution, although Protopalatial cities are poorly investigated.
|
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The large-scale complex built at the core of the "towns" of the Prepalatial period (Knossos, Phaistos, Malia and Petras)was probably the seat of the political group/s controlling each region.
[1]
[2]
[3]
[1]: Tomkins, P. 2012. "Behind the horizon: reconsidering the genesis and function of the "First Palace" at Knossos (Final Neolithic IV-Middle Minoan IB)," in Schoep, I., Tomkins, P. and Driessen, J. (eds), Back to the Beginning. Reassessing Social and Political Complexity on Crete During the Early and Middle Bronze Age," Oxford and Oakville, 32-80 [2]: Todaro, S. 2010. "Craft production and social practices at Prepalatial Phaistos: the background to the First "Palace,"" in Schoep, I., Tomkins, P. and Driessen, J. (eds), Back to the Beginning. Reassessing Social and Political Complexity on Crete During the Early and Middle Bronze Age," Oxford and Oakville, 195-235 [3]: Whitelaw, T. 2010. "The urbanization of prehistoric Crete: settlement perspectives on Minoan state formation," in Schoep, I., Tomkins, P. and Driessen, J. (eds), Back to the Beginning. Reassessing Social and Political Complexity on Crete During the Early and Middle Bronze Age," Oxford and Oakville, 115-76. |
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e.g. the mint at Seleucia "largest in the Parthian empire".
[1]
[1]: Lukonin, V.G., ‘Political, Social and Administrative Institutions: Taxes and Trade’, in The Cambridge history of Iran: the Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian periods. Part 2, ed. by Ehsan Yar-Shater (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), vol. III, p.719 |
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Includes mints, such as one established at Seleucid-on-the-Tigris by Seleucus I
[1]
, and garrisons which ‘…might also serve as local administrative centres, treasuries and depots of supplies and material for the administration and army.’
[2]
It is also likely that specialized council buildings (bouleuterion) were used in cities such as Antioch-in-Persis, based on evidence for council meetings and the existence of similar buildings under Greek rule.
[3]
[1]: Aperghis, G. G. 2004. The Seleukid Royal Economy: The Finances and Financial Administration of the Seleukid Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p214 [2]: Aperghis, G. G. 2004. The Seleukid Royal Economy: The Finances and Financial Administration of the Seleukid Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p199 [3]: Kosmin, P. J. 2013. Alexander the Great and the Seleucids in Iran. In, Potts, D. T (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Iran. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.671-689. p682 |
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Town halls. “The towns had held on to their rights and administrative principles, as well as their judicial code, from the 13th century, but where possible they tried to gain further economic and political privileges. They especially canvassed for the strengthening of autonomous town councils at the expense of the authority’s representative, the magistrate (rychtář). As a result of this pressure, the right to establish a town hall as the centre of autonomous administration was given first to the Old Town in Prague (1338), and inside ten years, to the Moravian towns of Brno and Olomouc; of the Bohemian towns, Slaný, Žatec, Most and others.”
[1]
[1]: (Pánek and Oldřich 2009: 143-144) Pánek, Jaroslav and Oldřich, Tůma. 2009. A History of the Czech Lands. University of Chicago Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/4NAX9KBJ |
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The capital had federal government buildings, the states and counties had their own government buildings.
|
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The first senate building, the Curia Hostilia, existed from about 600 BCE.
[1]
The first paving of the Roman Forum occurred around 575-625 BCE.
[2]
The first coin minted in Rome occurred about 269 BCE (one in Neapolis produced coins slightly earlier, around 281 BCE) and the first state archives was created in 78 BCE. Other buildings include: granaries and storehouses.
The Senate also often met in appropriate temples. [3] The old Roman treasury - the aerarium Saturni - was housed in the basement of the Temple of Saturn. There were lots of multi-purpose government buildings: basilicas, imperial fora, and porticos, which were utilized for government functions, such as official meetings or court hearings. [1]: (Cornell 1995, 94) [2]: (Cornell 1995, 100) |
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The first senate building, the Curia Hostilia, existed from about 600 BCE.
[1]
The first paving of the Roman Forum occurred around 575-625 BCE.
[2]
The first coin minted in Rome occurred about 269 BCE (one in Neapolis produced coins slightly earlier, around 281 BCE) and the first state archives was created in 78 BCE. Other buildings include: granaries and storehouses.
Buildings of the imperial bureaucracy, such as the Curia Julia. The Curia Julia was one of the main meeting places of the Roman Senate (later rebuilt under Diocletian after a fire in 283 CE). [3] The Senate also often met in appropriate temples. [4] The old Roman treasury - the aerarium Saturni - was for a time housed in the basement of the Temple of Saturn. There were lots of multi-purpose government buildings: basilicas, imperial fora, and porticos, which were utilized for government functions, such as official meetings or court hearings.Offices of local magistrates and town council buildings were housed in separate buildings. There were market buildings (the Markets of Trajan in Rome). Bathhouses proliferated. Other buildings include: granaries and storehouses, mints and state archives. [1]: (Cornell 1995, 94) [2]: (Cornell 1995, 100) [3]: (http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Forum/reconstructions/CuriaIulia_1) |
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For example’To carry out its functions, Kamakura-fu created a full assemblage of administrative offices based on the model of the Muromachi headquarters.’
[1]
’Therefore, the shugosho had an urban function as the nucleus of provincial administration, but their economic functions were important as well. One was the function of the district deputy’s administrative office as a centralized base for mobilizing labor for military corvee (gunyaku) and ordinary corvee (buyaku). Post horses, too, were initially requisitioned at the district deputy’s office and then sent to the shugoshos main castle or to neighboring provinces, as needed. Thus the number of people and horses that might gather at the district deputy’s office must have been considerable.’
[2]
[1]: Yamamura, Kozo (ed). 2008. The Cambridge History of Japan. Vol. 3. Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press [sixth edition].p.203 [2]: Yamamura, Kozo (ed). 2008. The Cambridge History of Japan. Vol. 3. Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press [sixth edition]. p.252 |
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e.g. royal treasury.
|
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Suspected unknown at least for the period up to 500 CE.
c500 CE and after: "It may be assumed that by then some of the Juan-juan already lived a settled life and practised agriculture. The original sources repeatedly mention that their khagans obtained ‘seed millet’ from China (some 10,000 shi each time). This shows that the Juan-juan society and state had gradually developed from nomadic herding to a settled agricultural way of life, from yurts to the building of houses and monumental architecture, from the nomadic district to towns. They had invented their own system of writing and developed their own local culture and Buddhist learning flourished." [1] [1]: (Kyzlasov 1996, 317) |
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The capital had federal government buildings, the states and counties had their own government buildings.
|
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"Nobles lived and worked in [...] palaces. These served as residencies and as administrative buildings where the lord attended to the affairs of whatever social and political institution [...] was under his direction".
[1]
Government buildings (such as council houses) present in this period. "There certainly were specialized government building by this definition in the Aztec period. There were council houses that were separate from the ruler’s palace and akin to a "senate" in Classical Med societies. There were also state run schools in two tiers: the lower one more vocational/military and the higher one training the scribal, priest, and administrator classes."
[2]
[1]: (Smith 1996: 153) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/6XJ65SKB. [2]: (Carballo, David. Personal Communication to Jill Levine and Peter Turchin. Email. April 23, 2020) |
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The first senate building, the Curia Hostilia, existed from about 600 BCE.
[1]
The first paving of the Roman Forum occurred around 575-625 BCE.
[2]
The first coin minted in Rome occurred about 269 BCE (one in Neapolis produced coins slightly earlier, around 281 BCE) and the first state archives was created in 78 BCE. Other buildings include: granaries and storehouses.
Buildings of the imperial bureaucracy, such as the Curia Julia. The Curia Julia was one of the main meeting places of the Roman Senate (later rebuilt under Diocletian after a fire in 283 CE). [3] The Senate also often met in appropriate temples. [4] The old Roman treasury - the aerarium Saturni - was for a time housed in the basement of the Temple of Saturn. There were lots of multi-purpose government buildings: basilicas, imperial fora, and porticos, which were utilized for government functions, such as official meetings or court hearings.Offices of local magistrates and town council buildings were housed in separate buildings. There were market buildings (the Markets of Trajan in Rome). Bathhouses proliferated and, at Rome, were built on an ever-increasingly enormous scale (Baths of Diocletian, opened in 306 CE, occupied an area of almost 35 acres). Other buildings include: granaries and storehouses, mints and state archives. [1]: (Cornell 1995, 94) [2]: (Cornell 1995, 100) [3]: (http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Forum/reconstructions/CuriaIulia_1) |
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Evidence of a street layout with the possibility of specialized governmental buildings in the Indo-Greek cities.
[1]
[1]: Mairs, Rachel (2009) "The ’Greek Grid-Plan’ at Sirkap (Taxila) and the Question of Greek Influence in the North West," in Michael Willis (eds.), Migration, Trade and Peoples: European Association of South Asian Archaeologists, Proceedings of the Eighteenth Congress, London, 2005, 135-147. London: The British Association for South Asian Studies; The British Academy |
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"Many inscribed materials, including seals, copper tablets, and stoneware bangles, hint at a well developed bureaucracy organized from this center."
[1]
"Also characteristic of Indus towns and cities were several negative features, notably the apparent paucity or absence of substantial administrative and religious buildings and of readily identifiable elite residences. Few large-scale storage facilities have been identified. [...] The tiny settlement of Allahdino did not have a separate citadel (or it was all citadel), but its layout and buildings suggest that it fulfilled an administrative role. [...] In the area to the north of the Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro, there was a block of eight bathrooms, arranged in two rows of four, each with a flight of stairs leading to an upper story. It has been plausibly suggested that this housed people (priests?) associated with the Great Bath. A nearby open courtyard may have been associated with the block but was separated from it by the street that ran between the east side of the Great Bath and a large complex known as the College. In the latter there were many small rooms, often faced with brick, and several courtyards, including a large one surrounded by a fenestrated walkway. At least seven entrances gave access to this complex, suggesting it was composed of a number of individual residences or fulfilled a number of functions, perhaps related to administration. [...] The Granary at Harappa has also been suggested to have been a palace or administrative building. [...] "
[2]
[1]: (McIntosh 2008, 212) Jane McIntosh. 2008. The Ancient Indus Valley. Santa Barbara; Denver; Oxford: ABC-CLIO. [2]: (McIntosh 2008, 210-233) Jane McIntosh. 2008. The Ancient Indus Valley. Santa Barbara; Denver; Oxford: ABC-CLIO. |
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During the Russian period, towns with council buildings were established. Sakhas accused of a crime were occasionally held there: ’In the Yakut settlements there are no special places set up for the maintenance of prisoners; consequently, they are kept until the final decision of their case in the houses where the trial is taking place. For thievery of any kind and similar big crimes, they are kept with wooden blocks on their legs, or with handcuffs on their arms, or, for petty misdemeanors, without anything special. if the trial takes place in town, the accused is kept in the town council building. The reasons for which the Sakha are arrested and imprisoned are as follows: 1) a discovered crime; 2) suspicion of any crime prior to the final investigation and decision of the case; 3) disobedience and insubordination to the clan-chiefs; 4) nonpayment of taxes and duties in the allotted time, and also just and proved debts to private individuals; 5) drunkenness, uproarious behavior, and playing with dice; and , finally, 6) according to the decision of the clan-chiefs or the authorities, as a punishment for any crime.’
[1]
[1]: Samokvasov, D. I. A. 1876. “Collection Of Customary Law Of The Siberian Natives”, 5 |
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“Maximilian’s greatest material legacy was his plan to redesign Mexico City (Chapman 1975, pp. 105–10). Developed in 1866, the 4-phase, 22-item plan traced new avenues, squares, utilities, and many improvements around the city. Of these, Maximilian only laid out the new Paseo de la Emperatriz (today Paseo de la Reforma) evoking Vienna’s Ringstraße. Subsequent regimes have implemented much of this plan, opening avenues west and south of the main plaza (5 de Mayo, Juárez, and 20 de Noviembre avenues), re-paving streets, adding gas lights, meatpacking plants, a ring-road (today’s circuito interior), fire stations, hospitals, cemeteries, and government ministries.”
[1]
[1]: (Bunker and Macias-Gonzalez 2011: 56) Bunker, Steven B. and Macías-González, Víctor M. 2011. “Consumption and Material Culture from Pre-Contact through the Porfiriato,” in A Companion to Mexican History and Culture, ed. William H. Beezley. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. pp54–82. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/SDIQ5VE7 |
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Government buildings throughout the UK and all of the Empire’s territories.
|
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“At Westminster might be found a complex of buildings which formed the nation’s administrative heart (see plate 12). First, there was Westminster Abbey, where English monarchs were crowned and, prior to 1820, buried. Close by was Westminster Hall, originally a part of Westminster Palace but in 1603 the site of the courts of King’s Bench, Common Pleas, and Chancery. The law courts drew the elite to London, for the complications of land inheritance and purchase caused frequent litigation. Another such drawing card was Westminster Palace, located on the river, which was the home of the Houses of Parliament. This ancient structure was donated by Henry VIII to Parliament when he acquired Whitehall, just a few yards away, in 1529… But the most significant attraction to London for the upper classes was the court at Whitehall. This massive, disorganized series of riverside buildings, consisting of well over 1,000 rooms, had been built for Cardinal Wolsey as York Place. Henry VIII confiscated it, renamed it, expanded it, and made it the sovereign’s principal London residence in 1529. Henceforth, Whitehall was the place where the great offices of Tudor and early Stuart government, such as the Privy Council and Exchequer, met; indeed, to this day the word “Whitehall” is synonymous with government in Britain. Thus, this was where the monarch’s chief ministers and foreign ambassadors might be found and conversed with, privately if necessary.”
[1]
[1]: (Bucholz et al 2013: 199) Bucholz, Robert, Newton Key, and R.O. Bucholz. 2013. Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=1166775. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XQGJH96U |
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“During Maria Theresa’s reign, for example, several new buildings had sprung up in Vienna and in the crownland capitals to house the offices where her bureaucrats came to work every day. Although some aristocrats continued to work from home (as late as the post- Napoleonic period Metternich frequently received colleagues at home in his pajamas), the new trend demanded a strict separation of workplace from home. One Viennese observer in 1787 described seeing at half past nine daily ‘an army of ca. four and a half thousand men marching; it is the army of the bureaucrats. After these follow three hundred wagons… All of these headed for the Department of State, the Imperial Chancellery, the Department of War, the Austrian- Bohemian Chancellery, the Hungarian- Transylvanian Chancellery, the Netherlandish Chancellery, the Town Hall, etc.’ After the 1780s, bureaucrats worked at home only in times of emergency— during the Napoleonic Wars— when the regime wanted to save on light and heat costs.”
[1]
[1]: (Judson 2016: 60) Judson, Pieter M. 2016. The Habsburg Empire: A New History. Cambridge, USA; London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/BN5TQZBW |
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At the capital, Meknes: “To the southwest of the town lay a city of pleasure, Madinat al-Riyad, where the officials had palaces, where Mawlay Ismail himself had his mosque, his madrasa, his hammam, his funduqs and the offices of the umana of the Treasury, with the shops of the Sharifan tailors.”
[1]
[1]: (Bosworth 2007: 399) Bosworth, Clifford Edmund. 2007. ed., Historic Cities of the Islamic World. Leiden; Boston: Brill. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/HGHDXVAC |
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“The hotel was but one of the building operations carried on by the government in the reign of Kamehameha V. Comparable in scope was the erection of the government office and legislative building, Aliiolani Hale. Its construction was related to plans for a new royal palace. For a new palace the legislature of 1866 appropriated $40,000. A site was selected in the Makiki district and part of the land purchased, but various circumstances prevented the carrying on of the project, although the legis- latures of 1868 and 1870 each appropriated $60,000 and that of 1872 appropriated $50,000 for the purpose. The 1870 session furthermore appropriated $60,000 for ‘New Government Offices’.”
[1]
[1]: (Kuykendall 1938: 174) Kuykendall, Ralph Simpson. 1938. The Hawaiian Kingdom. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii. http://archive.org/details/hawaiiankingdom0002kuyk. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/QJ4Z7AAB |
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“The basis of the internal organization of both the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and those of their Celtic neighbours was a large rural territory which contained a number of subsidiary settlements dependent upon a central residence which the Anglo-Saxons called a villa in Latin and a tun in Old English.55 These vills were centres of royal administration and visited by the kings and their entourages on regular circuits of their kingdoms when food rents which had to be rendered at the royal vill would be consumed.56 In Anglo-Saxon England of the seventh and eighth centuries groups of royal vills and their dependent territories formed regiones, discrete territories within kingdoms for administrative purposes.57 If this recent research is correct it suggests that the basic infrastructure of the early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms was inherited from late Roman or subRoman Britain.”
[1]
[1]: (Yorke 1990: 8) York, Barbara. 1990. Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203447307. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/YXTNCWJN |
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Specialized government buildings have not been mentioned in the sources consulted.
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"Contexts that could shed light on the dynamics of social structure and hierarchies in the metropolis, such as the royal burial site of Oyo monarchs and the residences of the elite population, have not been investigated. The mapping of the palace structures has not been followed by systematic excavations (Soper, 1992); and questions of the economy, military system, and ideology of the empire have not been addressed archaeologically, although their general patterns are known from historical studies (e.g, Johnson, 1921; Law, 1977)."
[1]
Regarding this period, however, one of the historical studies mentioned in this quote also notes: "Of the earliestperiod of Oyo history, before the sixteenth century, very little is known."
[2]
Law does not then go on to provide specific information directly relevant to this variable.
[1]: (Ogundiran 2005: 151-152) [2]: (Law 1977: 33) |
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Most government activities at Kumasi were associated with the ruler’s palace and other royal structures.
[1]
The above-mentioned treasury was located there as well.
[2]
. Specialised buildings for administration of the state that are within the grounds of a palace do count as government buildings. A room within the main palace residence would not.
[1]: McLeod, M. D. (Malcolm D.) 1981. “Asante”, 43 [2]: (Wilks 1975, 376-78) Wilks, Ivor. 1975. Asante in the Nineteenth Century: The Structure and Evolution of a Political Order. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/STV5JW6V. |
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Suspected unknown at least for the period up to 500 CE.
c500 CE and after: "It may be assumed that by then some of the Juan-juan already lived a settled life and practised agriculture. The original sources repeatedly mention that their khagans obtained ‘seed millet’ from China (some 10,000 shi each time). This shows that the Juan-juan society and state had gradually developed from nomadic herding to a settled agricultural way of life, from yurts to the building of houses and monumental architecture, from the nomadic district to towns. They had invented their own system of writing and developed their own local culture and Buddhist learning flourished." [1] [1]: (Kyzlasov 1996, 317) |
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previous code: inferred present | Indigenous coins are present, so we can infer that mints are present? |
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The earliest evidence for a “bureaucratic machinery” appears to date to the late fifth century CE
[1]
"it is difficult to see any evidence for a political unification of a large part of Japan as early as A.D. 369, or shortly thereafter. Yamao (1977) argues, on documentary grounds, that unification was not achieved until about A.D. 531."
[2]
[1]: (Steenstrup 2011, 11) [2]: (Ikawa-Smith 1985, 396) Ikawa-Smith, Fumiko in Misra, Virenda N. Bellwood, Peter S. 1985. Recent Advances in Indo-Pacific Prehistory: Proceedings of the International Symposium Held at Poona, December 19-21, 1978. BRILL. |
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Sources do not provide explicit and clear descriptions of "government buildings" in Susa or its environs.Temple complex based government. "Temple complexes, such as the temple of the goddess Inanna at Eana in Uruk (3200 BC), were large-scale enterprises, dealing in considerable quantities of goods and labor."
[1]
"the Sumerian civilisation which flourished before 3500 BC. This was an advanced civilisation building cities and supporting the people with irrigation systems, a legal system, administration, and even a postal service. Writing developed and counting was based on a sexagesimal system, that is to say base 60."
[2]
[1]: (Joseph 2011, 135) Joseph, George Gheverghese. The Crest of the Peacock: Non-European Roots of Mathematics (Third Edition). Princeton University Press. [2]: J J O’Connor, J J. Robertson, E F. December 2000. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Babylonian_mathematics.html |
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Not mentioned by sources.
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There were monumental structures at Susa during the Susa I period, but their precise function is unclear.
[1]
Potts notes that ’in the course of over a century, the Susa excavations have yielded no fewer than 261 stamp seals and sealings dating to the Susa I period ... and the variety of sealing types would certainly suggest that the seals were being employed by persons in positions of administrative authority ... to control the flow of goods in and out of one or more offices or centres of redistribution. Certainly some of the Susa I sealings came off doors which had been locked and sealed’.
[2]
However, because if they existed these ’centres of redistribution’ would have doubled as warehouses for food and goods, they would be coded under the ’food storage sites’ variable.
For neighbouring Mesopotamia: Administrative conventions and writing, for example, developed in Uruk period c3800-3100 BCE. [3] Possibility of "agents responsible for the coordination of social organisation and decision-making processes (mainly centred on the leading role of temples), and the progressive social stratification of communities." [4] Though the reference concerns the Ubaid there was a large temple complex in Susiana e.g. Choga Mish. This quote suggests possibility of specialized administrative buildings at Choga Mish: "Although they are sparse, the published findings imply that Choga Mish was a center of regional importance. It remains to be determined how large and extensive the elaborate architectural precinct is and precisely what activities occurred there. Uses as an administrative and temple center have been suggested (Kantor 1976: 28) but neither can be demonstrated on the basis of presently available evidence.” [5] JR: I think this quotation may be referring to an earlier period, when Chogha Mish was the main urban centre in Susiana. [1]: (Potts 2004, 47) Potts, D. T. 2004. The Archaeology of Elam: Formation and Transformation of an Ancient Iranian State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/WDUEEBGQ. [2]: (Potts 2004, 50) Potts, D. T. 2004. The Archaeology of Elam: Formation and Transformation of an Ancient Iranian State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/WDUEEBGQ. [3]: (Leverani 2014, 79) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. [4]: (Leverani 2014, 54) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. [5]: (Hole 1987, 40-41) |
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There was a king in Gordion, and the other cities had local authorities and governments,
[1]
but this does not necessarily mean there were specialized government buildings.
[1]: Atasoy, E., S. Buluç, 1982, "Metallurgical and Archaeological Examination of Phrygian Objects", Anatolian Studies, Vol. 32, pg:158 |
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unknown. Evidence for bureaucracy during this period is mainly limited to the documents written after the Spanish invasion.
[1]
Our understanding of precolonial Zapotec administrative structures (both in terms of official positions and built architecture) is limited, and Gary Feinman commented that ’My own view is that 16th century governance was rather different from that at Monte Albán in that the 16th century governance was centered more expressly on palaces, while earlier Monte Albán phase governance was less so’.
[2]
If this was the case for this period, administrative buildings may not have existed independently of elite residences.
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. [2]: Gary Feinman, pers. comm., January 2018. |
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Might have had administrative center at Slack Farm, which was centrally located.
[1]
[1]: (Pollack 2006: 317) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/6FUV3LXY. |
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"the retention of the Luwian language and script in various parts of the Neo-Hittite world until the end of the 8th century attests the existence of a professional scribal class trained in reading and writing the language."
[1]
However, we have found no references to specialized government buildings in the sources consulted.
[1]: (Bryce 2012, 60) |
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A large, terraced platform was excavated at Middle Formative Aguacatlita,
[1]
clay-surfaced earthen platforms were excavated at Early Formative Tlatilco,
[2]
[3]
[4]
and exposed Late Formative architecture (including a ballcourt) was found in the Middle and Late Formative site of Temamatla (Chalco region) may indicate prior construction phases during the Middle Formative (as is common).
[5]
[6]
Although much of the public architecture at Tlatilco and Ayotla/Tlapacoya have been destroyed, figurines representing ball players, musicians, dancers suggest that ball courts and plazas existed from Early Formative times to house these elaborate public ceremonies.
[2]
A large-scale earthen platform was also exposed at Tlapacoya/Ayotla, which has a Middle Formative occupation.
[2]
All these threads of evidence seem to point towards Early and Middle formative antecedents to Late Formative public buildings, but the lack of excavation makes inferences about their dimensions and functions impossible.
[1]: Santley, Robert S. (1977). "Intra-site settlement patterns at Loma Torremote, and their relationship to formative prehistory in the Cuautitlan Region, State of Mexico." Ph.D. Dissertation, Depatartment of Anthropology, The Pennsylvania State University, pp. 365-75. [2]: Niederberger, Christine. (2000) "Ranked Societies, Iconographic Complexity, and Economic Wealth in the Basin of Mexico Toward 1200 BC." In Olmec Art and Archaeology in Mesoamerica, edited by John E. Clark and Mary E. Pye. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 169-192. [3]: Porter, Muriel Noe (1953). Tlatilco and the Pre-Classic Cultures of the New World. Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology, no. 19. New York: Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. [4]: Grove, David C. (2000) "The Preclassic Societies of the Central Highlands of Mesoamerica." In Richard Adams and Murdo MacLeod (eds.), The Cambridge History of The Native Peoples of the Americas, Volume II: Mesoamerica, Part I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pg.122-151. [5]: Parsons, Jeffrey R., Elizabeth Brumfiel, Mary R. Parsons, and David J Wilson. (1982) Prehispanic Settlement Patterns in the Southern Valley of Mexico: The Chalco-Xohimilco Region. Memoirs of the Museum of Anthropology University of Michigan No. 14. Ann Arbor, pg. 93-7. [6]: Carballo, David M. (2016). Urbanization and Religion in Ancient Central Mexico. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p.73-84, 81-2. |
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According to Alan Covey: "Veronique Belisle (2011) has large-ish structures at Ak’awillay that she interprets as public (they are larger than houses), and Bauer and Jones (2003) dug a structure at Peqoykaypata in the Cuzco Basin that might have had EIP corporate architecture. We don’t know a lot about burial or architecture at this time, as there have only been test pits done in the Cuzco Basin."
[1]
[1]: (Alan Covey 2015, personal communication) |
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There is little evidence of buildings set aside exclusively for administrative purposes in the Xiongnu Empire. In Ivolga, "one house (dwelling 9) occupied an area of more than 100 sq. m and apparently served as a administrative center."
[1]
Ivolga is from the 2nd or 1st century BCE. "It is synchronous with the Ivolga fortress and cemetery from East Bailkal region. All of these sites are attributed to approximately II-I centuries B.C.E. and assigned by the author to the epoch of the Western (early) Han."
[2]
[1]: (Kradin 2014, 91) [2]: (Kradin 2014, 105) |
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"It is certain, however, that Karabalghasun developed into quite an impressive city. It contained a royal palace, which appears from the Shine-usu inscription (south side, line 10) to have been built at about the same time as the city itself, and was completely walled. ... He adds that it was dominated by a golden tent, which could be seen from some distance outside the city. It stood on the flat top of the palace and could hold 100 people."
[1]
[1]: (Mackerras 1990, 337-338) |
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"Often, one house appears to be more important than the others, displaying specific and distinctive attributes (dominant position, more rooms, grander entrance, etc.). This suggests that there was a system of hierarchy within the community."
[1]
Alexander Sedov confirmed that it is not known whether there were any specialised administrative buildings in Yemen between the fourth and first millennia BCE.
[2]
[1]: (De Maigret 2002: 153) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/X3MRZCH5. [2]: (A. Sedov: pers. comm. to E. Cioni: September 2019) |
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levels. "We emphasise from the beginning that our historical knowledge of kings and the length of their reigns, and of the political structure and organisation of Kaabu remains very limited."
[1]
[1]: (Giesing and Vydrine 2007: 4, quoted in Green 2009: 92) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/V2GTBN8A/collection. |
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No information found in sources so far.
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Many governmental functions were carried out by temples and the palace; whether there were distinct governmental buildings is unclear.
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Not mentioned by sources.
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The near-absence of archaeologically identified settlements makes it particularly challenging to infer most building types. "While the historical sources provide a vague picture of the events of the first 500 years of the Kanem-Borno empire, archaeologically almost nothing is known. [...] Summing up, very little is known about the capitals or towns of the early Kanem- Borno empire. The locations of the earliest sites have been obscured under the southwardly protruding sands of the Sahara, and none of the later locations can be identified with certainty."
[1]
[1]: (Gronenborn 2002: 104-110) |
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