Societal Conditions and Conditioning Associated with National Building Projects in Ancient Mesopotamia

Ancient Mesopotamia is widely known for giving rise to some of the earliest and most enduring and influential urban civilisations in the world. This talk seeks to explore the social production of space in ancient Mesopotamia from a historical and historiographic perspective. It examines a long-standing practice of a series of socio-economic governance measures, ranging from controlling market prices, remission of debts and exemption of duties, to social justice and equality, during national building projects in Sumerian, Babylonian and Assyrian cities, as reflected in royal inscriptions, archival documents, and other written sources from the third millennium BC to the first millennium BC. Whilst exploring the functions of these socio-economic measures in service to the building and urban development projects, the study seeks to uncover the broader purposes of these measures beyond the building process. Together with the building and urban development projects, these socio-economic measures and other societal conditions and conditioning (e.g., ritual) practices were intended to create and renew cities and states as exemplary societies with inspiring urban forms and model social organisation and practices. As such, they played a vital role, both ideologically and in practice, for urban and state socio-political and cultural establishment, reform, and transformation. Parallel practices from other parts of the ancient world as well as the modern world will be provided for comparison.