Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Oswald Spenglers Kulturmorphologie pp 187–205Cite as

Cultural Morphology and the Comparative Study of Cultures in the Shaping of Political Communities

Wealth Objects and Royal Gift-Giving in the Neo-Assyrian and Inca Empires

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

  • 1132 Accesses

Zusammenfassung

In a paper published some fifteen years ago, Egyptologist John Baines and Assyriologist Norman Yoffee identified an interconnected group of elements that distinguish civilizations from states and other complex social forms. By comparing two early civilizations that arose at about the same time and in close geographical proximity, they sought to develop a comparative method for investigating the evolution of ancient states and civilizations After reviewing and contrasting governmental institutions, urbanization, writing systems, and economies, they proposed that the similar features between the two civilizations lay, in fact, “in the nature of order, legitimacy, and wealth and the interrelations among these,” a set of interrelations they termed “high culture”.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   69.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   89.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Literatur

  • Adams, Robert McC. 1966. The Evolution of Urban Society: Early Mesopotamia and Prehispanic Mexico. Chicago: Aldine.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alcock, Susan E., et al., eds. 2001. Empires: Perspectives from Archaeology and History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Appadurai, Arjun. 1986. Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value. In The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, edited by Arjun Appadurai, 3–63. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Arnason, Johann P., S.N. Eisenstadt, and Björn Wittrock, eds. 2005. Axial Civilizations and World History. Jerusalem Studies in Religion and Culture 4. Leiden: Brill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Arnason, Johann P., and Kurt A. Raaflaub, eds. 2011. The Roman Empire in Context: Historical and Comparative Perspectives. Malden, Mass.: Wiley Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ataç, Mehmet-Ali. 2010. The Mythology of Kingship in Neo-Assyrian Art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bagg, Ariel M. 2011. Die Assyrer und das Westland: Studien zur historischen Geographie und Herrschaftspraxis in der Levante im 1. Jt. v.u.Z. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 216. Leuven: Peeters.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baines, John, and Norman Yoffee. 1998. Order, Legitimacy, and Wealth in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. In Archaic States, edited by Gary M. Feinman and Joyce Marcus, 199–260. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bang, Peter Fibiger, and C. A. Bayly, eds. 2011. Tributary Empires in Global History. New York: Pallgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bang, Peter Fibiger, and Walter Scheidel, eds. 2013. The Oxford Handbook of the State in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bellah, Robert N., and Hans Joas, eds. 2012. The Axial Age and Its Consequences. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blakely, Sandra. 2006. Myth, Ritual, and Metallurgy in Ancient Greece and Recent Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bonatz, Dominik. 2013. The Performance of Visual Narratives in Imperial Art: Two Case Studies from Assyria and the Khmer State. In Rethinking Visual Narratives from Asia: Intercultural and Comparative Perspectives, edited by Alexandra Green, 193–214. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brumfiel, Elizabeth M. 2000. The Politics of High Culture: Issues of Worth and Rank. In Order, Legitimacy, and Wealth in Ancient States, edited by Mary Van Buren and Janet Richards, 131–139. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cummins, Tom. 2002. Toasts with the Inca: Andean Abstraction and Colonial Images on Quero Vessels. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cummins, Tom. 2007. Queras, Aquillas, Uncus, and Chulpas: The Composition of Inka Artistic Expression and Power. In Variations in the Expression of Inka Power: A Symposium at Dumbarton Oaks, 18 and 19 October 1997, edited by Richard L. Burger, Craig Morris and Ramiro Matos Mendieta, 267–311. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection.

    Google Scholar 

  • Curtis, John. 2000. Animal-Headed Drinking Cups in the Late Assyrian Period. In Variatio delectat. Iran und der Westen: Gedenkschrift für Peter Calmeyer, edited by Reinhard Dittman et al., 193–213. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Curtis, John. 2008. Observations on Selected Objects from the Nimrud Tombs. In New Light on Nimrud: Proceedings of the Nimrud Conference 11 th –13th March 2002, edited by John Curtis et al., 243–254. London: British Institute for the Study of Iraq.

    Google Scholar 

  • Curtius, Ludwig. 1920–21. Morphologie der antiken Kunst. Logos 9: 195–221.

    Google Scholar 

  • D’Altroy, Terence N. 2015. The Incas. 2nd ed. Malden, Mass.: Wiley Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • D’Altroy, Terence N., and Timothy Earle. 1985. Staple Finance, Wealth Finance and Storage in the Inka Political Economy. Current Anthropology 26: 187–206.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dean, Carolyn. 2010. A Culture of Stone: Inka Perspectives on Rock. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • DeMarrais, Elizabeth, Luis Jaime Castillo, and Timothy Earle. 1996. Ideology, Materialization, and Power Strategies. Current Anthropology 37: 15–31.

    Google Scholar 

  • Detienne, Marcel. 2008. Comparing the Incomparable. Translated by Janet Lloyd. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Earle, Timothy. 2002. Bronze Age Economics: The Beginnings of Political Economies. Boulder: Westview Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Earle, Timothy. 2002. Forthcoming. Trade-light: The Political Economy of Polynesian and Andean Civilizations. In Trade and Civilisation, edited by Kristian Kristiansen, K. T. Lindkvist, and J. Myrdal.

    Google Scholar 

  • Earle, Timothy, and Kristian Kristiansen. 2010. Organizing Bronze Age Societies: The Mediterranean, Central Europe, and Scandinavia Compared. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ebbinghaus, Susanne. 2008. Patterns of Elite Interaction: Animal-Headed Vessels in Anatolia in the Eighth and Seventh Centuries BC. In Anatolian Interfaces: Hittites, Greeks and Their Neighbours, edited by Billie Jean Collins, Mary R. Bachvarova and Ian C. Rutherford, 181–90. Oxford: Oxbow.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eisenstadt, S.N. 1986. The Origins and Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations. Albany: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gaspa, Salvatore. 2013. “Textile Production and Consumption in the Neo-Assyrian Empire.” In Textile Production and Consumption in the Ancient Near East: Archaeology, Epigraphy, Iconography, edited by Marie-Louise Nosch, Henriette Koefoed and Eva Andersson Strand, 224-47. Oxford: Oxbow Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gehler, Michael, and Robert Rollinger, eds. 2014. Imperien und Reiche in der Weltgeschichte: Epochenübergreifende und globalhistorische Vergleiche. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

    Google Scholar 

  • Guichard, Michaël. 2005. La vaisselle de luxe des rois de Mari. Archives royales de Mari 31. Paris: Éditions recherches sur les civilisations.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gunter, Ann C. 2009. Greek Art and the Orient. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harmanşah, Ömür. 2007. ‘Source of the Tigris.’ Event, Place and Performance in the Assyrian Landscapes of the Early Iron Age. Archaeological Dialogues 14: 179–204.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haubold, Johannes. 2013. Greece and Mesopotamia: Dialogues in Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Herrmann, Georgina, and Stuart Laidlaw. 2013. Ivories from Room SW11/12 and T10 Fort Shalmaneser (1949–1963). Ivories from Nimrud 7. London: British Institute for the Study of Iraq.

    Google Scholar 

  • Herrmann, Georgina, Stuart Laidlaw, and Helen Coffey. 2009. Ivories from the Northwest Palace (1845–1992). Ivories from Nimrud 6. London: British Institute for the Study of Iraq.

    Google Scholar 

  • Herrmann, Georgina, and Alan Millard. 2003. Who Used Ivories in the First Millennium BC? In Culture Through Objects: Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honour of P. R. S. Moorey, edited by Timothy Potts, Michael Roaf and Diana Stein, 377–402. Oxford: Griffith Institute.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hunt, Alice M. W. 2014. Assyrian Palace Ware Definition and chaîne opératoire: Preliminary Results from Nineveh, Nimrud, and Aššur. In Craft and Science: International Perspectives on Archaeological Ceramics, edited by M. Martinón-Torres, ch.15. UCL Qatar Series in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage. Doha, Qatar: Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation. http://dx.doi.org/10.5339/uclq.2014.cas.ch15. Accessed: 12 April 2017.

  • Hunt, Alice M. W. 2015. Palace Ware across the Neo-Assyrian Imperial Landscape: Social Value and Semiotic Meaning. Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 78. Leiden: Brill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hussein, M. M., and Kim Benzel. 2014. The Gold of Nimrud. In Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age, edited by Joan Aruz, Sarah B. Graff and Yelena Rakic, 125–31. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaiserreiner, Ingo. 1994. Kunst und Weltgefühl: die bildende Kunst in der Sicht Oswald Spenglers. Darstellung und Kritik. Frankfurt am Main: P. Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kolata, Alan L. 2013. Ancient Inca. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kristiansen, Kristian, and Thomas B. Larsson. 2005. The Rise of Bronze Age Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lanfranchi, Giovanni B. 2003. The Assyrian Expansion in the Zagros and the Local Ruling Elites. In Continuity of Empire (?) Assyria, Media, Persia, edited by Giovanni B. Lanfranchi, Michael Roaf and Robert Rollinger, 79–118. Padua: S.A.R.G.O.N.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lanfranchi, Giovanni B. 2007. The Luwian-Phoenician Bilinguals of Çineköy and Karatepe: An Ideological Dialogue. In Getrennte Wege? Kommunikation, Raum und Wahrnehmung in der Alten Orient, edited by Andreas Luther, Robert Rollinger and Josef Wiesehöfer, 179–217. Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Antike.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lanfranchi, Giovanni B. 2009. A Happy Son of the King of Assyria: Warikas and the Çineköy Bilingual (Cilicia). In Of God(s), Trees, Kings, and Scholars: Neo-Assyrian and Related Studies in Honor of Simo Parpola, edited by Mikko Luukko, Saana Svärd and Raija Mattila, 127–50. Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lloyd, G. E. R. 2002. The Ambitions of Curiosity: Understanding the World in Ancient Greece and China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mattila, Raija. 2000. The King’s Magnates: A Study of the Highest Officials of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. State Archives of Assyria Studies XI. Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project.

    Google Scholar 

  • McAnany, Patricia A., and Norman Yoffee, eds. 2010. Questioning Collapse: Human Resilience, Ecological Vulnerability, and the Aftermath of Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morris, Craig. 1986. Storage, Supply, and Redistribution in the Economy of the Inka State. In Anthropological History of Andean Polities, edited by John V. Murra, Nathan Wachtel and Jacques Revel, 59–68. Cambridge and Paris: Cambridge University Press; Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murra, John V. 1989. Cloth and Its Function in the Inka State. In Cloth and Human Experience, edited by Annette B. Weiner and Jane Schneider, 275–302. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Niles, Susan A. 1999. The Shape of Inca History: Narrative and Architecture in an Andean Empire. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oates, Joan, and David Oates. 2001. Nimrud: An Imperial City Revealed. London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq.

    Google Scholar 

  • Postgate, J. N. 1994. Rings, Torcs and Bracelets. In Beiträge zur altorientalischen Archäologie und Altertumskunde: Festschrift für Barthel Hrouda zum 65. Geburtstag, edited by Peter Calmeyer et al., 235–245. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

    Google Scholar 

  • Radner, Karen. 2006. “Provinz. C. Assyrien.” In Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie, 42–68. Berlin: DeGruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Radner, Karen. 2007. Abgaben an den König von Assyrien aus dem In- und Ausland. In Geschenke und Steuern, Zölle und Tribute. Antike Abgabenformen in Anspruch und Wirklichkeit, edited by Hilmar Klinkott, Sabine Kubisch and Renate Müller-Wollermann, 213–230. Leiden: E. J. Brill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Radner, Karen. 2008. The Delegation of Power: Neo-Assyrian Bureau Seals. In L’archive des Fortifications de Persepolis: État des questions et perspectives de recherches, edited by Pierre Briant, Wouter F. M. Henkelmann and Matthew W. Stolper, 481–515. Paris: Éditions de Boccard.

    Google Scholar 

  • Radner, Karen. 2009. The Assyrian King and His Scholars: The Syro-Anatolian and the Egyptian Schools. In Of God(s), Trees, Kings, and Scholars: Neo-Assyrian and Related Studies in Honor of Simo Parpola, edited by Mikko Luukko, Saana Svärd and Raija Mattila, 221–238. Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society.

    Google Scholar 

  • Radner, Karen. 2011. Royal Decision-Making: Kings, Magnates, and Scholars. In The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture, edited by Karen Radner and Eleanor Robson, 358–379. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Radner, Karen. 2012. Assyria and the Medes. In The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Iran, edited by D. T. Potts, 442–456. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Radner, Karen. 2014. The Neo-Assyrian Empire. In Imperien und Reiche in der Weltgeschichte: Epochenübergreifende und globalhistorische Vergleiche, edited by Michael Gehler and Robert Rollinger, 101–120. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

    Google Scholar 

  • Richards, Janet. 2000. Modified Order, Responsive Legitimacy, Redistributed Wealth: Egypt, 2260–1650 BC. In Order, Legitimacy, and Wealth in Ancient States, edited by Janet Richards and Mary Van Buren, 36–45. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Richards, Janet, and Mary Van Buren, eds. 2000. Order, Legitimacy, and Wealth in Ancient States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosenwein, Barbara H. 2003. Francia and Polynesia: Rethinking Anthropological Approaches. In Negotiating the Gift: Pre-Modern Figurations of Exchange, edited by Gadi Algazi, Valentin Groebner and Bernhard Jussen, 361–379. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht.

    Google Scholar 

  • Routledge, Bruce. 2014. Archaeology and State Theory: Subjects and Objects of Power, Debates in Archaeology. London: Bloomsbury.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scheidel, Walter. 2009. Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scheidel, Walter, and Ian Morris. 2009. The Dynamics of Ancient Empires: State Power from Assyria to Byzantium. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schwartz, Glenn M., and John J. Nichols, eds. 2006. After Collapse: the Regeneration of Complex Societies. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shafer, Ann. 2007. Assyrian Royal Monuments on the Periphery: Ritual and the Making of Imperial Space. In Ancient Near Eastern Art in Context: Studies in Honor of Irene J. Winter by Her Students, edited by Marian H. Feldman and Jack Cheng, 133–159. Leiden: Brill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sinopoli, Carla. 2001. Empires. In Archaeology at the Millennium: A Sourcebook, edited by Gary M. Feinman and T. Douglas Price, 439–471. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Michael E. 2012. The Comparative Archaeology of Complex Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Michael E., and Peter Peregrine. 2012. “Approaches to Comparative Analysis in Archaeology.” In The Comparative Archaeology of Complex Societies, edited by Michael E. Smith, 4-20. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spengler, Oswald. 2007 [1918–22]. Der Untergang des Abendlandes: Umrisse einer Morphologie der Weltgeschichte. Düsseldorf: Albatros Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spiegelberg, Wilhelm. 1920–21. Aegyptologische Kritik an Spenglers Untergang des Abendlandes. Logos 9: 188–194.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stark, Barbara L., and John K. Chance. 2012. The Strategies of Provincials in Empires. In The Comparative Archaeology of Complex Societies, edited by Michael E. Smith, 192–237. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stone, Rebecca R. 2012. Art of the Andes from Chávin to Inca. 3rd ed. London: Thames and Hudson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whitley, James. Homer’s Entangled Objects: Narrative, Agency and Personhood in and out of Iron Age Texts. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 23: 395–416.

    Google Scholar 

  • Winter, Irene J. 2000. ‘Le palais imaginaire:’ Scale and Meaning in the Iconography of Neo-Assyrian Cylinder Seals. In Images as Media: Sources for the Cultural History of the Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean (1st millennium BCE), edited by Christoph Uehlinger, 51–87. Orbis Biblicus Orientalis 175. Fribourg and Göttingen: University Press and Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yoffee, Norman. 2005. Myths of the Archaic State: Evolution of the Earliest Cities, States, and Civilizations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhou, Yiqun. 2010. Festivals, Feasts, and Gender Relations in Ancient China and Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Arts History, Northwestern University, Evanston, USA

    Ann C Gunter

Authors
  1. Ann C Gunter
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ann C Gunter .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Changes in Sacred Texts and Traditions, Universität Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Sebastian Fink

  2. Alte Geschichte und Altorientalistik, Universität Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

    Robert Rollinger

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, ein Teil von Springer Nature

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Gunter, A.C. (2018). Cultural Morphology and the Comparative Study of Cultures in the Shaping of Political Communities. In: Fink, S., Rollinger, R. (eds) Oswald Spenglers Kulturmorphologie. Universal- und kulturhistorische Studien. Studies in Universal and Cultural History. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-14041-0_7

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-14041-0_7

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer VS, Wiesbaden

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-658-14040-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-658-14041-0

  • eBook Packages: Social Science and Law (German Language)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation