The Construction of Value in the Ancient World

by John K. Papadopoulos (Editor), Gary Urton (Editor)

Overview

Recipient of the Jo Anne Stolaroff Cotsen Prize Scholars from Aristotle to Marx and beyond have been fascinated by the question of what constitutes value. The Construction of Value in the Ancient World makes a significant contribution to this ongoing inquiry, bringing together in one comprehensive volume the perspectives of leading anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, linguists, philologists, and sociologists on how value was created, defined, and expressed in a number of ancient societies around the world. Based on the basic premise that value is a social construct defined by the cultural context in which it is situated, the volume explores four overarching but closely interrelated themes: place value, body value, object value, and number value. The questions raised and addressed are of central importance to archaeologists studying ancient civilizations: How can we understand the value that might have been accorded to materials, objects, people, places, and patterns of action by those who produced or used the things that compose the human material record? Taken as a whole, the contributions to this volume demonstrate how the concept of value lies at the intersection of individual and collective tastes, desires, sentiments, and attitudes that inform the ways people select, or give priority to, one thing over another.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781931745901
Publisher:	Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press
Publication date:	12/30/2012
Series:	Cotsen Advanced Seminars , #5
Pages:	664
Product dimensions:	7.10(w) x 10.20(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

John K. Papadopoulos is professor of classics and archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Gary Urton is the Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Pre-Columbian Studies in the archaeology program of the department of anthropology at Harvard University.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations and Tables vii

Contributors xvii

Foreword Gary Urton John K. Papadopoulos xxiii

Introduction John K. Papadopoulos Gary Urton 1

Part I Place Value

Chapter 1 Significant stones, significant places: monumentality and landscapes in Neolithic western Europe Chris Scarre 51

Chapter 2 The negotiation of place value in the landscape John Chapman 66

Chapter 3 Spare values: the decision not to destroy Susan E. Alcock 90

Chapter 4 Emplacing value, cultivating order: places of conversion and practices of subordination throughout early Inka state formation (Cusco, Peru) Steve Kosiba 97

Chapter 5 The revaluation of landscapes in the Inca Empire as Peircean replication Charles Stanish 128

Part II Body Value

Chapter 6 Objectifying the body: the increased value of the ancient Egyptian mummy during the socioeconomic crisis of Dynasty 21 Kathlyn M. Cooney 139

Chapter 7 From value to meaning, from things to persons: the grave circles of Mycenae reconsidered Sofia Voutsaki 160

Chapter 8 Dressing the body in splendor: expression of value by the Moche of ancient Peru Christopher B. Donnan 186

Chapter 9 Interpreting the Paracas body and its value in ancient Peru Lisa DeLeonardis 197

Chapter 10 The value of chorality in ancient Greece Leslie Kurke 218

Chapter 11 Bodies and their values in the early Medieval West Patrick J. Geary 236

Part III Object Value

Chapter 12 Systems of value among material things: the nexus of fungibility and measure Colin Renfrew 249

Chapter 13 Money, art, and the construction of value in the ancient Mediterranean John K. Papadopoulos 261

Chapter 14 The construction of values during the Peruvian Formative Richard L. Burger 288

Chapter 15 Bronze, jade, gold, and ivory: valuable objects in ancient Sichuan Rowan Flad 306

Chapter 16 The value of aesthetic value James I. Porter 336

Chapter 17 Light and the precious object, or value in the eyes of the Byzantines Ioli Kalavrezou 354

Chapter 18 Figurine fashions in formative Mesoamerica Richard G. Lesure 370

Chapter 19 From rational to relational: re-configuring value in the Inca Empire Tamara L. Bray 392

Chapter 20 Competing and commensurate values in colonial conditions: how they are expressed and registered in the sixteenth-century Andes Tom Cummins 406

Part IV Number Value

Chapter 21 Equivalency values and the command economy of the Ur III period in Mesopotamia Robert K. Englund 427

Chapter 22 Constructing value with instruments versus constructing equivalence with mathematics: measuring grains according to early Chinese mathematical sources Karine Chemla 459

Chapter 23 Recording values in the Inka Empire Gary Urton 475

Chapter 24 The varieties of ancient Maya numeration and value David Stuart 497

Chapter 25 Calculative objects: sustaining symbolic systems in the ancient Mediterranean Melissa A. Bailey 516

Consolidated Bibliography 536

Index 596

Color plates 613