The Construction of Value in the Ancient World
Published on 23. April 2024
Book
Paperback/Softback
664 pages
978-1-950446-52-0 (ISBN)
Description
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 premise that value is a social construct defined by the cultural context in which it is situated, the book 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.
24 pages of colour plates
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 premise that value is a social construct defined by the cultural context in which it is situated, the book 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.
24 pages of colour plates
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Los Angeles
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
ill'd throughout in b&w, and with 24 pages of colour plates
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 34 mm
Weight
1380 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-950446-52-0 (9781950446520)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
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.
Gary Urton is the Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Pre-Columbian Studies in the archaeology program of the department of anthropology at Harvard University.
Content
Table of Contents
Part I: Place Value
Ch. 1: Significant stones, significant places: monumentality and landscapes in Neolithic western Europe by Chris Scarre
Ch. 2: The negotiation of place value in the landscape by John Chapman
Ch. 3: Spare values: the decision not to destroy by Susan E. Alcock
Ch. 4: Emplacing value, cultivating order: places of conversion and practices of subordination throughout early Inka state formation (Cusco, Peru) by Steve Kosiba
Ch. 5: The revaluation of landscapes in the Inca Empire as Peircean replication by Charles Stanish
Part II: Body Value
Ch. 6: Objectifying the body: the increased value of the ancient Egyptian mummy during the socioeconomic crisis of Dynasty 21 by Kathlyn M. Cooney
Ch. 7: From value to meaning, from things to persons: the grave circles of Mycenae reconsidered by Sofia Voutsaki
Ch. 8: Dressing the body in splendor: expression of value by the Moche of ancient Peru by Christopher B. Donnan
Ch. 9: Interpreting the Paracas body and its value in ancient Peru by Lisa DeLeonardis
Ch. 10: The value of chorality in ancient Greece by Leslie Kurke
Ch. 11: Bodies and their values in the early Medieval West by Patrick J. Geary
Part III: Object Value
Ch. 12: Systems of value among material things: the nexus of fungibility and measure by Colin Renfrew
Ch. 13: Money, art, and the construction of value in the ancient Mediterranean by John K. Papadopoulos
Ch. 14: The construction of values during the Peruvian Formative by Richard L. Burger
Ch. 15: Bronze, jade, gold, and ivory: valuable objects in ancient Sichuan by Rowan Flad
Ch. 16: The value of aesthetic value by James I. Porter
Ch. 17: Light and the precious object, or value in the eyes of the Byzantines by Ioli Kalavrezou
Ch. 18: Figurine fashions in formative Mesoamerica by Richard G. Lesure
Ch. 19: From rational to relational: re-configuring value in the Inca Empire by Tamara L. Bray
Ch. 20: Competing and commensurate values in colonial conditions: how they are expressed and registered in the sixteenth-century Andes by Tom Cummins
Part IV: Number Value
Ch. 21: Equivalency values and the command economy of the Ur III period in Mesopotamia by Robert K. Englund
Ch. 22: Constructing value with instruments versus constructing equivalence with mathematics: measuring grains according to early Chinese mathematical sources by Karine Chemla
Ch. 23: Recording values in the Inka Empire by Gary Urton
Ch. 24: The varieties of ancient Maya numeration and value by David Stuart
Ch. 25: Calculative objects: sustaining symbolic systems in the ancient Mediterranean by Melissa A. Bailey
Part I: Place Value
Ch. 1: Significant stones, significant places: monumentality and landscapes in Neolithic western Europe by Chris Scarre
Ch. 2: The negotiation of place value in the landscape by John Chapman
Ch. 3: Spare values: the decision not to destroy by Susan E. Alcock
Ch. 4: Emplacing value, cultivating order: places of conversion and practices of subordination throughout early Inka state formation (Cusco, Peru) by Steve Kosiba
Ch. 5: The revaluation of landscapes in the Inca Empire as Peircean replication by Charles Stanish
Part II: Body Value
Ch. 6: Objectifying the body: the increased value of the ancient Egyptian mummy during the socioeconomic crisis of Dynasty 21 by Kathlyn M. Cooney
Ch. 7: From value to meaning, from things to persons: the grave circles of Mycenae reconsidered by Sofia Voutsaki
Ch. 8: Dressing the body in splendor: expression of value by the Moche of ancient Peru by Christopher B. Donnan
Ch. 9: Interpreting the Paracas body and its value in ancient Peru by Lisa DeLeonardis
Ch. 10: The value of chorality in ancient Greece by Leslie Kurke
Ch. 11: Bodies and their values in the early Medieval West by Patrick J. Geary
Part III: Object Value
Ch. 12: Systems of value among material things: the nexus of fungibility and measure by Colin Renfrew
Ch. 13: Money, art, and the construction of value in the ancient Mediterranean by John K. Papadopoulos
Ch. 14: The construction of values during the Peruvian Formative by Richard L. Burger
Ch. 15: Bronze, jade, gold, and ivory: valuable objects in ancient Sichuan by Rowan Flad
Ch. 16: The value of aesthetic value by James I. Porter
Ch. 17: Light and the precious object, or value in the eyes of the Byzantines by Ioli Kalavrezou
Ch. 18: Figurine fashions in formative Mesoamerica by Richard G. Lesure
Ch. 19: From rational to relational: re-configuring value in the Inca Empire by Tamara L. Bray
Ch. 20: Competing and commensurate values in colonial conditions: how they are expressed and registered in the sixteenth-century Andes by Tom Cummins
Part IV: Number Value
Ch. 21: Equivalency values and the command economy of the Ur III period in Mesopotamia by Robert K. Englund
Ch. 22: Constructing value with instruments versus constructing equivalence with mathematics: measuring grains according to early Chinese mathematical sources by Karine Chemla
Ch. 23: Recording values in the Inka Empire by Gary Urton
Ch. 24: The varieties of ancient Maya numeration and value by David Stuart
Ch. 25: Calculative objects: sustaining symbolic systems in the ancient Mediterranean by Melissa A. Bailey