Sumerian Kinship: The Systematics and Role of a Basic Social Institution in the Complex Society of Early Southern Mesopotamia

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Kinship is a universal, fundamental and probably the oldest form of social organisation. However, our knowledge of how the earliest stratified urban society of ancient Sumer (4th–3rd millennia BCE southern Iraq) was organised on this basic level remains unsatisfactory. In particular, we do not know what role this "simple" institution played in the emergence of cities, social classes and the state.This project aims to fill in this gap and a) reconstruct the Sumerian kinship system (empirical aspect) and b) clarify the structural and functional role kinship fulfilled on various levels of social and political organisation in early historical southern Mesopotamia (theoretical aspect).To achieve this goal, the applicant uses a combination of philological-lexicographical, historical and anthropological methods as well as modern approaches of Digital Humanities in the collection, analysis and synthesis of data of early cuneiform texts (third – early second millennia BCE). The host at UC Berkeley, Professor Niek Veldhuis, will support the applicant in the digital data collection and the lexical analysis of Sumerian kinship terminology. Professor Benjamin Porter will advise the researcher on the anthropological analysis and interpretation of Sumerian kinship system.The project’s outcome will be disseminated as three articles in high-ranking international journals. They will elaborate on how Sumerian society operated on kinship level and contribute to contemporary debates on the role of kinship in the emergence of early civilizations thus bridging Assyriology with Anthropology and Social History. Finally, the project will allow the applicant to carry out preparatory work for his habilitation and a group research project at a German university.