Palace economy

Last updated

A palace economy or redistribution economy [1] is a system of economic organization in which a substantial share of the wealth flows into the control of a centralized administration, the palace, and out from there to the general population. In turn the population may be allowed its own sources of income but relies heavily on the wealth distributed by the palace. It was traditionally justified on the principle that the palace was most capable of distributing wealth efficiently for the benefit of society. [2] [3] The temple economy (or temple-state economy) is a similar concept.

Contents

The concept of economic distribution is at least as old as the advent of the pharaohs. Anthropologists have noted many such systems, from those of tribesmen engaged in common subsistence economies of various sorts to complex civilizations, such as that of the Inca Empire, which assigned segments of the economy to specific villages. The essence of the idea is that a central administration plans production, assigns elements of the population to carry it out, collects the goods and services thus created, and redistributes them to the producers.[ citation needed ]

A palace economy is a specific type of distribution system in which the economic activities of the civilization are conducted on or near the premises of central administration complexes, the palaces of absolute monarchs, or a group of priests in temple-led versions. It is the function of the palace administration to supply the producers with the capital goods for the production of further goods and services, which are regarded as the property of the monarch. Typically this is not an altruistic undertaking. The palace is primarily interested in the creation of capital, which may then be disposed of as the ruler pleases. Some may become merchandising capital, to be sold or bartered for a profit, or some may be reinvested in further centers, including additional production facilities, wars (economic activities from which a profit is expected to be extracted), favorable alliances, fleets, and mastery of the seas.

In ancient palace systems, the producers were typically part of the working capital. From highest to lowest, they were tied to the palace economy by bonds of involuntary servitude or patronage. Any investment in a war would be expected to bring a return of plunder and prisoners, which became part of the endowment of the palace complex. The palace was responsible for meeting the expenses of the producers. It had to provide food, clothing and shelter, which it often did on the premises.

Etymology

Storage "magazine" with pithoi, Palace of Knossos. Knossos1.png
Storage "magazine" with pithoi, Palace of Knossos.
Palace at Alalakh Palast schicht vii.png
Palace at Alalakh

The thread leading to the current use of the terms came from the study of the palaces of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations, which flourished in the Late Bronze Age on Crete and mainland Greece respectively. The term palace economy began as a label for the economic activities of individual palaces, which contained very large areas for the storage of agricultural produce. For example, Sir Arthur Evans would refer to the palace economy, meaning the economy of the palace of Knossos. Others followed suit, without fully exploring what sort of economy that might be.

In 1956 Ventris and Chadwick published an idea that they had been considering previously: [4]

Nor is there any evidence in the tablets of anything approaching currency. Every commodity is listed separately, and there is never any sign of equivalence between one unit and another.

Contemporaneously M. Finley had noticed the evidence of redistribution in the tablets and sought to understand how that could occur in those pre-currency times. In The World of Odysseus he noted that most distribution was internal: [5]

All the production work, the seeding and harvesting and milling and weaving, even the hunting and raiding, though carried on by individuals, was performed on behalf of the household as a whole ... and from the centre they were redistributed ....

Finley further hypothesized that gift-giving, "the basic organizing mechanism among many primitive peoples," [6] had been developed into a system of exchange, without prices, and dependent on the ad hoc valuation of the exchangers:

The act of giving was ... always the first half of a reciprocal action, the other half of which was a counter-gift.

Finley's observations were immediately and almost universally accepted; however, some reservations developed over the decades since then. Mycenaean ships were sent out from the palace complexes laden with ceramics, oils, perfumes and other goods precisely as though they were exports for sale, rather than gift-giving.

Ventris died in 1956. Like the other archaeologists of the time, he never envisioned the palace economy as anything more than the day-to-day economics of the palace, although Ventris and Chadwick did remark on the "similarities in the size and organization of the royal palaces" of Nuzi, Alalakh and Ugarit. [7] Similarly, Finley in the late 1950s did not refer to his system as a palace economy. The status of the word had changed by 1960, when historical theorists had put the two together. [8]

Exactly who was the first is unclear, but the best candidate is Karl Polanyi, the economic typologist, then toward the end of his life and at the peak of his career. He endorsed Finley's work and went further. In the 1960 compendium, City Invincible, [9] written before 1958, he recalled Ventris stating that currency was absent from the tablets, but he phrased it in a different way: "Michael Ventris ... has asserted the absence of money in the palace economy of Mycenaean Greece." Ventris had done no such thing. He never stated that Mycenaean Greece had a palace economy; between 1956 and 1958 a new system had been defined and was being called a palace economy. Most of the theorists followed suit. Grahame Clark (1961) wrote of a "palace economy introduced from Crete ...." [10] Chester Starr (1961) said [11] "Artisans and peasants were largely embraced in a palace economy under royal control, ...." Leonard R. Palmer (1963) [12] referred to the "highly centralized 'palace economy'" of Knossos and Pylos. The word was never just the economic activities at a single site again.

By the time 1965 had arrived, the palace economy was being applied widely over all the Aegean and Near and Middle Eastern civilizations of the Late Bronze Age. It became such a fixture that subsequently it was applied to modern economic system types. There was, however, a notable abstention. Chadwick, who inherited the work and tradition of Ventris, in The Mycenaean World (1976), notably does not refer to a palace economy. Instead he implies questions, such as [13]

... it is not so clear how small a palace can be ... What we can infer from the palace buildings is that there are administrative centres ... each centre of administration implies an administrator, whether he be an independent monarch, a semi-autonomous prince, or a local baron ....

This implying that the palace economy model might be simplistic foreshadowed the current trend. Halstead summarizes a forum begun by Nakassis and others as [14]

The term 'redistribution' has been used with a range of meanings in the context of the Aegean Bronze Age and so obscures rather than illuminates the emergence and functioning of political economies.

Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Bronze Age

Cretan civilization

Middle Minoan Crete

As early as the Middle Bronze Age, roughly the first half of the 2nd millennium BC, the eastern Mediterranean was dominated by a civilization named Minoan by its discoverer, Sir Arthur Evans, excavating the Palace of Knossos, which he termed the Palace of Minos. The civilization was maritime, its fleets were legendary, its settlements were mainly coastal, and its operations were mainly peaceful. There are legends, such as that of Theseus and the Minotaur, which indicate that tribute of some sort was collected by Crete from overseas locations, but its legendary history is far different from the wars and warriors of the mainland.

The evolution of palatial structures, if that is what they were, began on Crete in the Middle Minoan (MM) period of the Middle Bronze Age. The beginning of what Shaw calls "the big three" – Knossos, Phaestos, Malia – is dated to MMI, but others began in MMII. The relationships between all the foundings remain unknown, but a single foundation act is now to be ruled out. [15]

The type of economic system prevailing on Crete and presumably wherever Cretan influence reached is very well documented by hundreds of tablets found at multiple locations in Crete. Only the persistent resistance of the writing script, Linear A, to decipherment prevents these documents from being read, and the information they contain assimilated. Consequently, nothing is known about the economy beyond what can be deduced from the archaeology or inferred by drawing risky parallels to the information presented in Late Bronze Age documents, which can be read. That the Minoans, as Evans called them in the absence of knowledge of their real name or names, may have had a palace economy is pure speculation.

Late Minoan Crete

The economy of the Minoan civilization depended on the cultivation of wheat, olives, grapes and other products and also supported several industries such as the textile, pottery and metalwork industries. Some of the manufacturing industries were based in the palaces. Produce from surrounding farmland was collected, recorded, and stored in the palaces as seen from the large number of storerooms and pithoi (storage jars) recovered. The palaces appear to have had an extent of control over overseas trade. The discovery of Linear A and Linear B tablets, listing commodities in the archive areas of the Palace of Knossos, suggests a highly organised bureaucracy and a system of record keeping that controlled all incoming and outgoing products.

Other locations

The palace economies in Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the Levant were waning in the late Bronze Age, being replaced by primitive market economies led by private merchants or officials who owned private businesses on the side.[ citation needed ] The last holdout and epitome of the palace system was Mycenaean Greece which was completely destroyed during the Bronze Age collapse and the following Greek Dark Ages.

Asia

The mandala model for describing the patterns of diffuse political power in early Southeast Asian history, originated by O. W. Wolters 1982, does not address economic issues. Following British agent John Crawfurd's Siam mission in 1822, his journal describes a "palace economy" that he attributes to rapacity. His mission was delayed at the port of Pak Nam until he had given a satisfactory account of gifts to the palace, ending with interrogation into minute details with regards to the gift of a horse, which Crawfurd considered "but a good specimen of the indelicacy and rapacity which we afterwards found so characteristic of the Siamese Court and its officers, upon every question of a similar nature". [16] This situation began the change to a market economy with the Bowring Treaty, negotiated by free-trade advocate Sir John Bowring with Siam's modernizing King Mongkut, signed on April 18, 1855.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Lukas de Blois; R.J. van der Spek (1997). An Introduction to the Ancient World. Translated by Mellor, Susan. Routledge. pp. 56–60. ISBN   0415127734.
  2. ↑ Blake, Emma; Knapp, A. Bernard, eds. (2005). "The Archaeology of Mediterranean Prehistory". Blackwell Publishing. pp. 275, 287.
  3. ↑ Connor, Andrew James (2006). Temples as Economic Agents in Early Roman Egypt: The Case of Tebtunis and Soknopaiou Nesos. University of Cincinnati. pp. 355–56.
  4. ↑ Chadwick 1973 , p. 198.
  5. ↑ Finley 1979 , p. 62.
  6. ↑ Finley 1979 , p. 64.
  7. ↑ Chadwick 1973 , p. 106.
  8. ↑ Nakassis, Dimitri (2010), "Reevaluating Staple and Wealth Finance at Mycenaean Pylos", in Pullen, D. J. (ed.), Political Economies of the Aegean Bronze Age, Oxford: Oxbow Books, p. 127
  9. ↑ Polanyi, Karl, "On the Comparative Treatment of Economic Institution in Antiquity with Illustrations from Athens, Mycenae, and Alalakh", in Kraeling, Carl Hermann; Adams, Robert McCormick (eds.), City invincible: a Symposium on Urbanization and Cultural Development in the Ancient Near East held at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, December 4–7, 1958, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 329–50
  10. ↑ Clark, Grahame (1961). World prehistory, an outline . Cambridge [Eng.]: University Press. p.  148.
  11. ↑ Starr, Chester G (1961). The origins of Greek civilization: 1100–650 B.C. New York. p. 48.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  12. ↑ Palmer, Leonard R (1963). The interpretation of Mycenaean Greek texts. Oxford: Clarendon.
  13. ↑ Chadwick, John (1976). The Mycenaean World . Cambridge; London; New York; Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. p.  70. ISBN   9780521290371.
  14. ↑ Halstead, Paul (2011). "Redistribution in Aegean Palatial Societies: Terminology, Scale, and Significance" (PDF). American Journal of Archaeology. 115: 229–35. doi:10.3764/aja.115.2.229.
  15. ↑ Shaw, Joseph W (2006). Kommos: a Minoan harbor town and Greek sanctuary in Southern Crete. Athens: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. p. 119.
  16. ↑ Crawfurd, John (21 August 2006) [1830]. "Ch. V. – Rapacity of the court.". Journal of an embassy from the Governor-general of India to the courts of Siam and Cochin China. Vol. 1 (second ed.). London: H. Colburn and R. Bentley. pp. 115–16. OCLC   03452414.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aegean civilization</span> Ancient Greek Bronze Age civilizations

Aegean civilization is a general term for the Bronze Age civilizations of Greece around the Aegean Sea. There are three distinct but communicating and interacting geographic regions covered by this term: Crete, the Cyclades and the Greek mainland. Crete is associated with the Minoan civilization from the Early Bronze Age. The Cycladic civilization converges with the mainland during the Early Helladic ("Minyan") period and with Crete in the Middle Minoan period. From c. 1450 BC, the Greek Mycenaean civilization spreads to Crete, probably by military conquest. The earlier Aegean farming populations of Neolithic Greece brought agriculture westward into Europe before 5,000 BC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linear B</span> Syllabic script used for writing Mycenaean Greek

Linear B is a syllabic script that was used for writing in Mycenaean Greek, the earliest attested form of the Greek language. The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries, the earliest known examples dating to around 1400 BC. It is adapted from the earlier Linear A, an undeciphered script potentially used for writing the Minoan language, as is the later Cypriot syllabary, which also recorded Greek. Linear B, found mainly in the palace archives at Knossos, Kydonia, Pylos, Thebes and Mycenae, disappeared with the fall of Mycenaean civilization during the Late Bronze Age collapse. The succeeding period, known as the Greek Dark Ages, provides no evidence of the use of writing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Ventris</span> British architect who deciphered Linear B

Michael George Francis Ventris, was an English architect, classicist and philologist who deciphered Linear B, the ancient Mycenaean Greek script. A student of languages, Ventris had pursued decipherment as a personal vocation since his adolescence. After creating a new field of study, Ventris died in a car crash a few weeks before the publication of Documents in Mycenaean Greek, written with John Chadwick.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Minoan civilization</span> Bronze Age civilization on Crete and other Aegean Islands

The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age culture which was centered on the island of Crete. Known for its monumental architecture and energetic art, it is often regarded as the first civilization in Europe. The ruins of the Minoan palaces at Knossos and Phaistos are popular tourist attractions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Knossos</span> Bronze Age archaeological site on the island of Crete

Knossos is a Bronze Age archaeological site in Crete. The site was a major center of the Minoan civilization and is known for its association with the Greek myth of Theseus and the minotaur. It is located on the outskirts of Heraklion, and remains a popular tourist destination.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mycenaean Greece</span> Late Bronze Age Greek civilization

Mycenaean Greece was the last phase of the Bronze Age in ancient Greece, spanning the period from approximately 1750 to 1050 BC. It represents the first advanced and distinctively Greek civilization in mainland Greece with its palatial states, urban organization, works of art, and writing system. The Mycenaeans were mainland Greek peoples who were likely stimulated by their contact with insular Minoan Crete and other Mediterranean cultures to develop a more sophisticated sociopolitical culture of their own. The most prominent site was Mycenae, after which the culture of this era is named. Other centers of power that emerged included Pylos, Tiryns, and Midea in the Peloponnese, Orchomenos, Thebes, and Athens in Central Greece, and Iolcos in Thessaly. Mycenaean settlements also appeared in Epirus, Macedonia, on islands in the Aegean Sea, on the south-west coast of Asia Minor, and on Cyprus, while Mycenaean-influenced settlements appeared in the Levant and Italy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mycenaean Greek</span> Earliest attested form of the Greek language, from the 16th to the 12th century BC

Mycenaean Greek is the most ancient attested form of the Greek language, on the Greek mainland and Crete in Mycenaean Greece, before the hypothesised Dorian invasion, often cited as the terminus ad quem for the introduction of the Greek language to Greece. The language is preserved in inscriptions in Linear B, a script first attested on Crete before the 14th century BC. Most inscriptions are on clay tablets found in Knossos, in central Crete, as well as in Pylos, in the southwest of the Peloponnese. Other tablets have been found at Mycenae itself, Tiryns and Thebes and at Chania, in Western Crete. The language is named after Mycenae, one of the major centres of Mycenaean Greece.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aegean art</span>

Aegean art is art that was created in the lands surrounding, and the islands within, the Aegean Sea during the Bronze Age, that is, until the 11th century BC, before Ancient Greek art. Because is it mostly found in the territory of modern Greece, it is sometimes called Greek Bronze Age art, though it includes not just the art of the Mycenaean Greeks, but also that of the Cycladic and Minoan cultures, which converged over time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Minoan pottery</span> Pottery from Bronze Age Crete

Minoan pottery has been used as a tool for dating the mute Minoan civilization. Its restless sequence of quirky maturing artistic styles reveals something of Minoan patrons' pleasure in novelty while they assist archaeologists in assigning relative dates to the strata of their sites. Pots that contained oils and ointments, exported from 18th century BC Crete, have been found at sites through the Aegean islands and mainland Greece, in Cyprus, along coastal Syria and in Egypt, showing the wide trading contacts of the Minoans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amnisos</span>

Amnisos, also Amnissos and Amnisus, is the current but unattested name given to a Bronze Age settlement on the north shore of Crete that was used as a port to the palace city of Knossos. It appears in Greek literature and mythology from the earliest times, but its origin is far earlier, in prehistory. The historic settlement belonged to a civilization now called Minoan. Excavations at Amnissos in 1932 uncovered a villa that included the "House of the Lilies", which was named for the lily theme that was depicted in a wall fresco.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gareth Alun Owens</span> British-Greek academic (born 1964)

Gareth Alun Owens is a British-Greek academic, currently serving as Associate Director and «Erasmus/Socrates» Manager/Tutor of the International Relations Office of the Hellenic Mediterranean University and as Associate Professor of Hellenic Culture -- History, Language and Civilization. He is notable for his contributions to Linear B studies and for his attempts to coordinate the efforts of academics to decipher Linear A.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Minoan religion</span> Prehistoric belief system

Minoan religion was the religion of the Bronze Age Minoan civilization of Crete. In the absence of readable texts from most of the period, modern scholars have reconstructed it almost totally on the basis of archaeological evidence of such as Minoan paintings, statuettes, vessels for rituals and seals and rings. Minoan religion is considered to have been closely related to Near Eastern ancient religions, and its central deity is generally agreed to have been a goddess, although a number of deities are now generally thought to have been worshipped. Prominent Minoan sacred symbols include the bull and the horns of consecration, the labrys double-headed axe, and possibly the serpent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mycenaean pottery</span> Pottery tradition associated with the Mycenaean civilization

Mycenaean pottery is the pottery tradition associated with the Mycenaean period in Ancient Greece. It encompassed a variety of styles and forms including the stirrup jar. The term "Mycenaean" comes from the site Mycenae, and was first applied by Heinrich Schliemann.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stirrup jar</span>

A stirrup jar is a type of pot associated with the culture of Mycenaean Greece. They have small squat bodies, a pouring spout, and a second nonfunctioning spout over which the handles connect like a stirrup. During the Late Bronze Age, they were used in the export of oils, and are found in large numbers at sites around the Eastern Mediterranean and beyond. The term "stirrup-jar" is a translation of German "Bügelkanne", the name assigned to them by Heinrich Schliemann who found the first instances during his excavations at Troy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Minoan palaces</span> Ancient Minoan buildings in Crete

Minoan palaces were massive building complexes built on Crete during the Bronze Age. They are often considered emblematic of the Minoan civilization and are modern tourist destinations. Archaeologists generally recognize five structures as palaces, namely those at Knossos, Phaistos, Malia, Galatas, and Zakros. Minoan palaces consisted of multistory wings surrounding an open rectangular central court. They shared a common architectural vocabulary and organization, including distinctive room types such as the lustral basin and the pillar crypt. However, each palace was unique, and their appearances changed dramatically as they were continually remodeled throughout their lifespans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Throne Room, Knossos</span> Historic site in Knossos

The Throne Room was a chamber built for ceremonial purposes during the 15th century BC inside the palatial complex of Knossos, Crete, in Greece. It is found at the heart of the Bronze Age palace of Knossos, one of the main centers of the Minoan civilization and is considered the oldest throne room in Europe.

The religious element is difficult to identify in Mycenaean Greece, especially as regards archaeological sites, where it remains very problematic to pick out a place of worship with certainty. John Chadwick points out that at least six centuries lie between the earliest presence of Proto-Greek speakers in Hellas and the earliest inscriptions in the Mycenaean script known as Linear B, during which concepts and practices will have fused with indigenous Pre-Greek beliefs, and—if cultural influences in material culture reflect influences in religious beliefs—with Minoan religion. As for these texts, the few lists of offerings that give names of gods as recipients of goods reveal little about religious practices, and there is no other surviving literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eritha</span> Mycenaean priestess (fl. c. 1180 BCE)

Eritha was a Mycenaean priestess. She was a subject of the Mycenaean state of Pylos, in the southwestern Peloponnese, based at the cult site of Sphagianes, near the palatial centre of Pylos.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PY Ta 641</span> Linear B tablet made c. 1180 BCE

PY Ta 641, sometimes known as the Tripod Tablet, is a Mycenaean clay tablet inscribed in Linear B, currently displayed in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens. Discovered in the so-called "Archives Complex" of the Palace of Nestor at Pylos in Messenia in June 1952 by the American archaeologist Carl Blegen, it has been described as "probably the most famous tablet of Linear B".

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.