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

亲属关系是一种普遍的、基本的、可能是最古老的社会组织形式。然而，我们对古代苏美尔（公元前4 - 3千年的伊拉克南部）最早的分层城市社会是如何在这个基本层面上组织起来的了解仍然令人不满意。特别是，我们不知道这个“简单”的制度在城市、社会阶级和国家的出现中发挥了什么作用。本项目旨在填补这一空白，a)重建苏美尔亲属制度（实证方面），b)阐明早期历史上美索不达米亚南部社会和政治组织中亲属在不同层次上的结构和功能角色（理论方面）。为了实现这一目标，申请人在收集、分析和综合早期楔形文字（公元前三千年至公元前二千年）数据时，结合了语言学、词典学、历史和人类学的方法以及数字人文的现代方法。加州大学伯克利分校（UC Berkeley）的主持人尼克·维尔德胡斯（Niek Veldhuis）教授将支持申请人进行数字数据收集和苏美尔亲属术语的词法分析。本杰明·波特教授将为研究人员提供关于苏美尔人亲属制度的人类学分析和解释的建议。该项目的成果将作为三篇文章在高级国际期刊上传播。他们将详细阐述苏美尔社会是如何在亲属关系层面上运作的，并为当代关于亲属关系在早期文明出现中的作用的辩论做出贡献，从而将亚述学与人类学和社会历史联系起来。最后，该项目将允许申请人在德国大学进行他的康复和小组研究项目的准备工作。

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.