Empire, Authority, and Autonomy in Achaemenid Anatolia
Empire, Authority, and Autonomy in Achaemenid Anatolia
The Achaemenid Persian Empire (550–330 BCE) was a vast and complex sociopolitical structure that encompassed much of modern-day Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Egypt, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan and included two dozen distinct peoples who spoke different languages, worshipped different deities, lived in different environments and had widely differing social customs. This book offers a radical new approach to understanding the Achaemenid Persian Empire and imperialism more generally. Through a wide array of textual, visual and archaeological material, Elspeth R. M. Dusinberre shows how the rulers of the Empire constructed a system flexible enough to provide for the needs of different peoples within the confines of a single imperial authority and highlights the variability in response. This book examines the dynamic tensions between authority and autonomy across the Empire, providing a valuable new way of considering imperial structure and development.
- Offers a completely new interpretive model for understanding imperialism ('authority-autonomy')
- Provides the first synthetic overview of a larger region within the Achaemenid Persian Empire
- Unites study of textural, visual and archaeological evidence to provide complete information, and is beautifully illustrated with one hundred and fifty images
- Includes completely new maps, created using NASA radar and lidar data, to offer 3D high-resolution images of the entire Achaemenid Persian Empire - this provides the opportunity to look at land-masses from different directions than the customary ones, offering a revolutionary revision of how we see the landscape both literally and figuratively
Awards
Winner of the 2015 James R. Wiseman Book Award, Archaeological Institute of America
Product details
August 2015Paperback
9781107577152
408 pages
255 × 178 × 21 mm
1.01kg
131 b/w illus. 20 maps 3 tables
Available
Table of Contents
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Governing Anatolia:
- 3. Controlling Anatolia, guarding the empire
- 4. Eating and drinking with class and style
- 5. Dealing with the dead
- 6. Worshipping the divine
- 7. Educating the young and old
- 8. Empire and identity in Achaemenid Anatolia.
