TERRA E PODER NA ANTIGA MESOPOTÂMIA: UMA ANTROPOLOGIA HISTÓRICA ENTRE OS "PRIMITIVOS" E OS "MODERNOS"

Résumé

What kind of relationship did exist betweem land control and the political power of complex organizations in Ancient Mesopotamia? Generally, assyriologists used to define power as being an effect of direct control over the productive process. Adopting anthropological approaches, the author thinks, instead, that the role of palaces and temples in allocating resources is of central importance to the study of certain Mesopotamian kinds ofpower, as the origin of the latter is not to be sought in the area of economic production but in that of wealth distribution. This paper also asserts the need to develop new instruments of analysis with wich to prove the articulations existing betweem politics, on the one hang and the control of production and appropriation of wealth (as well as the forms, conspicuous sometimes, of expending such wealth), on the other hand.