Research Network Imperium & Officium
'Imperium and Officium' is a research network funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). Uniting Ancient Historians, Papyrologists and Assyriologists, the Network studies aspects of the official administration of several ‘empires’ which flourished in the Near East and eastern Mediterranean from the first millennium BC to the first millennium AD, namely, the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and Achaemenid empires, the Roman Empire (in particular in Egypt), and the emerging Muslim empire in Egypt. Working within a Weberian conceptual framework, we investigate concrete administrative practice, but also the origins, social status and economic background of the officials in question. We are interested in the fashioning of these officials’ individual and collective identities, their self-perception, and the grounds for their loyalty towards their superiors, or towards the ‘system’. Thereby our work transcends the borders of straightforward administrative history and aims at contributing to the history of bureaucratic mentalities. Over-arching questions and aims of the Network's research include: the issue of the development of economic and bureaucratic rationality and the degree to which ‘traditional’ forms of dominion and governance were substituted by truly bureaucratic forms of organisation and control; a study of the very nature of ‘empires’ in antiquity based on the interplay between ideological super-structures and administrative practice, and the wish to create a fruitful interdisciplinary dialogue between Ancient History, Epigraphy, Papyrology (including Arabic Papyrology) and Assyriology. All project parts are committed to integrating philological research on the primary sources with an interest in a wider-reaching historical synthesis.
The Research Network's spokespersons are Michael Jursa and Bernhard Palme; leaders of project parts (past and present) include Heather D. Baker, Michael Jursa, Bernhard Palme, Stephan Procházka and Sven Tost, who all can be reached through their email address at the University of Vienna ([email protected]).
This site presents the published results of our work; pre-papers can be seen at http://iowp.univie.ac.at/
The Research Network's spokespersons are Michael Jursa and Bernhard Palme; leaders of project parts (past and present) include Heather D. Baker, Michael Jursa, Bernhard Palme, Stephan Procházka and Sven Tost, who all can be reached through their email address at the University of Vienna ([email protected]).
This site presents the published results of our work; pre-papers can be seen at http://iowp.univie.ac.at/
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The main focus points will be "Patterns of Communication, Publication and Documentation", "Rulers and Subjects" and "State Power, Fiscal Regimes and the Recruitment of Manpower" as well as "Gifts, Bribes and Corruption in the Ancient and Post-ancient World".
Economic and Administrative texts are from Sippar, Babylon, Kish, Dilbat, Nippur, Drehem, Uruk, and other sites in Babylonia and ancient Iran. First millennium B.C. royal inscriptions date to the reigns of Ashurnasirpal, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, Ashurbanipal, Nebuchadnezzar, and Nabonidus. The texts are organized in five parts: Part One contains Neo- and Late Babylonian economic and administrative tablets and fragments from the archives of the Ebabbar temple in Sippar. Part Two includes Neo- and Late Babylonian period economic and administrative tablets from Babylonia and other sites. Part Three includes Late Babylonian administrative and archival tablets from Babylon. Part Four contains royal and non-royal brick, stone, bulla, cylinder, and prism inscriptions from the second and first millennia B.C. A final section (Part Five) includes three proto-cuneiform archaic tablets and two Ur III administrative tablets.
Papers forthcoming by Research Network Imperium & Officium
The main focus points will be "Patterns of Communication, Publication and Documentation", "Rulers and Subjects" and "State Power, Fiscal Regimes and the Recruitment of Manpower" as well as "Gifts, Bribes and Corruption in the Ancient and Post-ancient World".
Economic and Administrative texts are from Sippar, Babylon, Kish, Dilbat, Nippur, Drehem, Uruk, and other sites in Babylonia and ancient Iran. First millennium B.C. royal inscriptions date to the reigns of Ashurnasirpal, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, Ashurbanipal, Nebuchadnezzar, and Nabonidus. The texts are organized in five parts: Part One contains Neo- and Late Babylonian economic and administrative tablets and fragments from the archives of the Ebabbar temple in Sippar. Part Two includes Neo- and Late Babylonian period economic and administrative tablets from Babylonia and other sites. Part Three includes Late Babylonian administrative and archival tablets from Babylon. Part Four contains royal and non-royal brick, stone, bulla, cylinder, and prism inscriptions from the second and first millennia B.C. A final section (Part Five) includes three proto-cuneiform archaic tablets and two Ur III administrative tablets.
comparative approach to documentation from three distinct periods of the history of Egypt
and the Ancient Near East, from the Iron Age Near East, through Late Antiquity to the early
Islamic period, we show how data derived from ancient administrative documents can be
juxtaposed, despite their different linguistic and historical backgrounds, in order to highlight
aspects of the material that do not necessarily attract attention when a more strictly synchronic
approach is adopted. From a methodological point of view, we will use selected text corpora
(clay tablets and papyri) for case studies that throw light on the overarching historical
questions we wish to address. The two main topics are the importance of the written word in
administrative contexts (contributions by Lucian Reinfandt, Heather D. Baker and Sven Tost),
and the degree to which central governments mobilized the societal surplus of labour and
produce through direct administrative interference at the source, or, indirectly through
processes that systematically “outsourced” the task of resource extraction, thereby easing the
burden placed on the central government’s administrative resources (contributions by Michael
Jursa and Bernhard Palme).
consideration the different modes of rulership in this period, it examines Assyrian court officials
active in the south, also by comparing them with their counterparts employed in the Assyrian
heartland. This study aims to contribute to a better understanding of the Assyrian policy towards
Babylonia and of the royal courts in first millennium BC Mesopotamia. It adds to my doctoral thesis
“The organisation and structure of the Neo-Assyrian Royal Household”, comprising an analysis of
the officials, professionals and other personnel active for and within the household of the Assyrian
king and a reconstruction of the royal household’s composition as well as a discussion about Neo-
Assyrian officialdom (addressing issues such as appointment, remuneration and tenure of office).
The thesis was written in the framework of the project “Royal Institutional Households in First
Millennium BC Mesopotamia” led by Heather D. Baker at the University of Vienna as part of the
NFN “‘Imperium’ and ‘Officium’. Comparative Studies in Ancient Bureaucracy and Officialdom”.
By examining the rhetoric (e.g. self-justification, argumentation and expressions of emotions) employed by these two officials in their correspondence with each other, as well as with other temple and palace officials, we can get a better understanding of Babylonian bureaucracy and “ethos of service”.
Features of Islamic culture that are reminiscent of the traditional dominance of orality include the oral passing-on of historical accounts (isnād), and the preference for oral testimony over the written document in a legal context (šahāda). Even the Qur’an oscillates between oral preaching on the one hand, and the high esteem allotted to its written form and to the physical book, on the other. In the case of administrative communication, there are indications – disturbing and fascinating at the same time – that Arabic official letters, from the first 150-200 years at least, do not reflect actual administrative practice, which was in essence conducted orally. This would apply to all documents aiming at future action (letters, edicts) rather than at conveying or storing information about the past (lists, notes). The (modern) assumption of Aktenmässigkeit, which is to a certain extent justified for the Roman and Byzantine state, seems anachronistic for the early Islamic administration. Although the relationship between messenger and letter, as well as between the oral and written portions of the message, have not been systematically studied for the early Islamic period, preliminary analysis outlined in this paper suggests that the situation was analogous to what has been established for medieval Europe.
For the analysis of early Islamic communication, the following points are to be noted as important:
Contrary to what might be expected on the basis of Greco-Roman parallels, early Islamic administration did not produce a particularly dense “papyrus trail.” Thus the correspondence of the governor Qurra ibn Sharīk with his pagarch Basilius in Aphrodito, in both Greek and Arabic, seems at first sight to be a dense exchange of letters documented for the narrow time span from December 25, 708 to February 4, 711, but in fact Basilius’ chancery received, on average, just one letter per week from the governor.
The importance of messengers, as opposed to documents, in diplomatic exchanges of the 7th and 8th centuries between Arabs and Byzantium.
The unrefined character of early Arabic letters when compared to the Greek material. The complexity of Arab letters gradually increased over the centuries, until in the later Middle Ages a streamlined letter – without a courier – sufficed. This development is reflected in chancery manuals (e.g. Qalqašandī), and underscores the relative simplicity of early Arabic administrative letters and their dependence on additional human intervention.
Stylistic and grammatical features of the letters point to their oral character.
A comparison of the Greek and Arabic letters in the multilingual Qurra archive suggests that they were presented in different ways. For a similar argument, the paper draws on the evidence of two additional archives: of Apollonos Ano (Edfu, late 7th c, Greek), and Nāǧid b. Muslim (Fayyum, middle 8th c, Arabic-Greek). Arabic letters simulated direct (oral) encounters and exhibited few specifically ‘textual’ qualities.
These peculiarities of early Islamic administrative epistolography, and the administrative system that produced its letters, are thrown into sharp relief by a comparison with Ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman data."
Previous studies in ancient history and papyrology have focused mainly on parts of this aforementioned timespan. The military organisation of Egypt in the time of Diocletian and Constantine, and in the 6th and 7th centuries have been researched in detail sixty and one hundred years ago. Modern scholars have focused on particular decades and documents. A continuous history of Roman military organisation in late antique Egypt is still missing – a gap to be filled by the present dissertation. The study is mainly based on Egypt’s papyrological tradition, complemented with literary, juristic and epigraphical evidence.
The individual chapters comprise the political and administrative organisation of Egypt at a given point, as well as events of military importance. They trace the units’ deployment along the Nile and investigate the strategy behind their military disposition.
The deployment of the Roman units proves itself to be well-adjusted to the internal and external situation. If the traditional disposition seemed out of date it was simply updated. At least once – in the 6th century – this seems to be verifiable. But the new 6th century deployment seems not to have been the perfect solution – the Roman military was no match for the Persian and the Arab conquests in the first half of the 7th century. Literary evidence suggests that the problem lay mainly with the senior military commanders in Egypt.
The sections concerned with units and garrison places are to be seen as the practical part of the dissertation. Papyrologists and ancient historians will be able to find all the information about a unit stationed in Egypt and a garrison location at a glance. When did a certain unit begin to be present, where was it stationed, are there any traceable movements, how long did it stay in Egypt, which units were stationed at a certain garrison location either parallel to or relieving each other?
The diachronic research from Diocletian to the Arab conquest allows the discernment and refinement of continuities and linear developments. Thereby the present dissertation, with its focus on units, garrison places and strategy, fills a gap in the ancient historical and papyrological research.
the interest of public security, indicating that these Tasks are likely to be associated with the office of the pagarch itself rather than being backed up by the respective officeholder’s personal authority.
The present master’s thesis aims at defining the extent as well as the significance of the pagarch’s institutionalized executive powers by deriving benefit from the rich papyrological evidence. What exactly was the pagarch’s rôle in maintaining public order? What kind of tasks was he authorized or expected to perform? Is it possible to establish a certain evolution regarding the different areas of authority? To what extent was he integrated into the local and regional security apparatus? And what are the consequences for our perception of late antique administration?
It turns out that the pagarch of the Byzantine Era cannot simply be described as a fiscal authority, but that he was rather entitled to extensive executive powers concerning the arrest of individuals, the confiscation of individual property, and the administration of
prisons. While all these responsibilities, however, were at least vaguely related to the fiscal background of the charge, the pagarch’s position expanded distinctly under Arab administration. His executive powers now exceeded the area of taxation more obviously.
Moreover, careful analysis of the evidence reveals the flexibility and even the Absence of rigorously sanctioned administrative regulations, yet it points to an unsuspected awareness of ‘public’ and ‘private’ spheres of interest.
This study has been conducted under the auspices of the project S 10809-G18 “Police Authorities in Late Antique Egypt” which itself is connected to the Research Network
“Imperium & Officium. Comparative Studies in Ancient Bureaucracy and Officialdom” funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).