Michael Kozuh | Auburn University (original) (raw)

Papers by Michael Kozuh

This paper argues that the size, scope, and regularity of Mesopotamian ritual animal consumption ... more This paper argues that the size, scope, and regularity of Mesopotamian ritual animal consumption makes it an apt phenomenon to compare with literature on the rise of the modern slaughterhouse and modern meat consumption. After demonstrating Mesopotamia's uniqueness in this regard in the ancient world, it then shows how that uniqueness created a system of meat production that has modern-seeming characteristics in the origination of the animals, the constant turning over of stock, the anonymous bureaucratization of slaughter, and the use of meat as a commodity. Finally, it briefly gives three parallels one can draw between Mesopotamian and modern meat production and consumption.

Cuneiform Digital Library Notes, 2020

Fierce lions, angry mice and fat-tailed sheep Animal encounters in the ancient Near East, 2021

The Fox in Enki and Ninhursaĝa Dumuzi and the Fly Lugalbanda and Anzu Ninurta and the Anzu's chic... more The Fox in Enki and Ninhursaĝa Dumuzi and the Fly Lugalbanda and Anzu Ninurta and the Anzu's chick Inanna, Šukaletuda, and the Raven Conclusions: magical helpers and the metamorphosis human-animal Chapter 3 Canines from inside and outside the city: of dogs, foxes and wolves in conceptual spaces in Sumero-Akkadian texts 23 Andréa Vilela Canines from the 'inside': dogs Canines from the 'in-between': stray dogs Canines from the outside: wolves and foxes Conclusion Chapter 4 A human-animal studies approach to cats and dogs in ancient Egypt: evidence from mummies, iconography and epigraphy 31 Marina Fadum & Carina Gruber Human-cat relationships in ancient Egypt: the cat as an animal mummy Human-canine relationships in ancient Egypt: the dog as companion animal Conclusion Part II Animals in ritual and cult Chapter 5 Encountered animals and embedded meaning: the ritual and roadside fauna of second millennium Anatolia 39 Neil Erskine Deleuze, Guattari, and reconstructing ancient understanding Landscape, religion, and putting meaning in place Creatures, cult, and creating meaning Folding animals in ritual Bulls, boars, birds Folding animals on the road Human-animal interactions Conclusion vi Chapter 6 The dogs of the healing goddess Gula in the archaeological and textual record of ancient Mesopotamia 55 Seraina Nett The dogs of Gula in Mesopotamian art The Isin dog cemetery The dogs of Gula in Ur III documentary sources Conclusion

A Companion to Ancient Agriculture., 2021

By publisher request this is only a preview -- please order the book for your library, and/or ema... more By publisher request this is only a preview -- please order the book for your library, and/or email me (mgkozuh@auburn.edu) and I'll send you a PDF of my article

Awīlum Ša La Mašê—Man Who Cannot Be Forgotten: Studies in Honor of Prof. Stefan Zawadzki, Presented on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday, edited by Rafał Koliński, Jan Prostko-Prostyński, and Witold Tyborowski, Aoat, 463, 115-28. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, , 2018

It is with pleasure that I publish and analyze the following account settlement of cattle-the rev... more It is with pleasure that I publish and analyze the following account settlement of cattle-the reverse of NBC 4847 (NBK II 32/04/09)-in honor of Prof. Stefan Zawadzki. I originally published a copy and quick transcription of the text in my book, 2 later realizing the uniqueness and importance of the reverse. This uniqueness and importance, I add, comes to the fore only in view of Zawadzki's pioneering work on another Neo-Babylonian accounting text. 3 The text audits the growth of a herd of 100 head of cattle, belonging to the Eanna temple of Uruk but under the control of a man named Nanā-ēreš, over four years. I am not aware of another text like it from first millennium Babylonia.

The study of economy and religion in Babylonia during the first millennium bc is primarily that o... more The study of economy and religion in Babylonia during the first millennium bc is primarily that of two well-documented temples, the Eanna temple of the city of Uruk and the Ebabbar of Sippar. The administrative archives of those temples – consisting of tens of thousands of cuneiform texts – allow us to understand parts of the temple economy in great detail, while at the same time this abundance of material frustrates traditional approaches to Babylonian religion. This essay aims in general to emphasize that Babylonian temples were large-scale, multifaceted religious institutions. Capitalizing on recent advancements in our technical understanding of the temple economy, it integrates these advancements into issues of broader religious, historical, intellectual, and economic significance. In particular, it stresses three points: first, the temples’ amalgamated ruling structure fostered institutional permanence and should therefore be understood as a challenge to the ‘temple-as-household’ metaphor; second, large-scale centralization of wealth in the temples was necessary for advancements in Babylonian learned culture (especially in astronomy and mathematics); and, finally, the centralization of manpower in the temples gave them particular advantages in the politics of the first millennium bc. In the end, I argue that all of these are in fact manifestations of Babylonian religion in themselves.

Ritual Failure: Archaeological Perspectives , 2013

In the mid-first millennium B.C.E., the Eanna temple of Uruk distributed the meat of sheep and go... more In the mid-first millennium B.C.E., the Eanna temple of Uruk distributed the meat of sheep and goats to its associates and dependents. The meat of post-sacrificial lambs went to the Eanna's prebend holding elite, while others received the meat of goats and older sheep without ceremony and on the hoof. Many assume this latter distribution worked to supply the Eanna's lowest classes with substandard meat. I argue, instead, that there was nothing inherently substandard about this meat; moreover, there is little evidence that it was intended for the Eanna's lowest classes. This paper then explores the distribution of meat to the Eanna's sub-elite, especially in place of temple rations and payments of silver.

,ldttttfurcrralive tetlslTorn l/te Eanna lempk ol't/ruk rtJieni/brce trans/alors ro supp/-v an e-... more ,ldttttfurcrralive tetlslTorn l/te Eanna lempk ol't/ruk rtJieni/brce trans/alors ro supp/-v an e-ytra p//rO, usuall-t'rztulere<l .,nhe tentple"-to e/ucidate lhe lransaclions recorded in lhose le.yts. Thal tacitparn,bot/t intermediates belween supplien antl receivers and itself receives comrnodities. T/tis paper aims to harmonize tkose two roles.I argue that one needs to view the generation of texts from the point of view of an erecutive Eanna. It is in untlerstanding the executive Eanna's function as both an auclitor o.f temple departments and a consumer of temple commodities that illuminates the Eanna's processes ancl proclivities o|texr generation.

Extraction & Control: Studies in Honor of Matthew W. Stolper, 2014

Books by Michael Kozuh

http://www.eisenbrauns.com/item/KOZSACRIF

Traders in the Ancient Mediterranean takes a diachronic view of the Mediterranean trader from the... more Traders in the Ancient Mediterranean takes a diachronic view of the Mediterranean trader from the Late Bronze Age through the Roman Imperial period, in an attempt to identify individual behavior and economic choice. The five scholars whose work is presented here, cunningly map ancient trading behavior and in so doing offer a framework on which to hang ancient Mediterranean buying, selling, and transporting of goods.

http://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/saoc68.pdf

Journal Articles and Book Chapters by Michael Kozuh

Studia Orientalia Electronica, 2021

Much of the literature on pastoralists and empire concerns mobile tribes and often focuses on imp... more Much of the literature on pastoralists and empire concerns mobile tribes and often focuses on imperial schemes of resettlement, or tribal thwarting of state initiatives. This submission argues that in mid-first-millennium bce Babylonia, large bureaucratic temples stood between the imperial state and Babylonia's mobile class of shepherds. This article then explores this dynamic further, focusing on the use of administrative information as a point of imperial contestation, examining issues of local control and clashing hierarchies as the shepherds served an imperial obligation in the Mesopotamian hinterland, and finally argues that the pastoral dynamic presented here is of a piece with the larger political role of the temple in Babylonian life-both urban, familiar, and central and at the same time distant, other-like, and enigmatic.

This paper argues that the size, scope, and regularity of Mesopotamian ritual animal consumption ... more This paper argues that the size, scope, and regularity of Mesopotamian ritual animal consumption makes it an apt phenomenon to compare with literature on the rise of the modern slaughterhouse and modern meat consumption. After demonstrating Mesopotamia's uniqueness in this regard in the ancient world, it then shows how that uniqueness created a system of meat production that has modern-seeming characteristics in the origination of the animals, the constant turning over of stock, the anonymous bureaucratization of slaughter, and the use of meat as a commodity. Finally, it briefly gives three parallels one can draw between Mesopotamian and modern meat production and consumption.

Cuneiform Digital Library Notes, 2020

Fierce lions, angry mice and fat-tailed sheep Animal encounters in the ancient Near East, 2021

The Fox in Enki and Ninhursaĝa Dumuzi and the Fly Lugalbanda and Anzu Ninurta and the Anzu's chic... more The Fox in Enki and Ninhursaĝa Dumuzi and the Fly Lugalbanda and Anzu Ninurta and the Anzu's chick Inanna, Šukaletuda, and the Raven Conclusions: magical helpers and the metamorphosis human-animal Chapter 3 Canines from inside and outside the city: of dogs, foxes and wolves in conceptual spaces in Sumero-Akkadian texts 23 Andréa Vilela Canines from the 'inside': dogs Canines from the 'in-between': stray dogs Canines from the outside: wolves and foxes Conclusion Chapter 4 A human-animal studies approach to cats and dogs in ancient Egypt: evidence from mummies, iconography and epigraphy 31 Marina Fadum & Carina Gruber Human-cat relationships in ancient Egypt: the cat as an animal mummy Human-canine relationships in ancient Egypt: the dog as companion animal Conclusion Part II Animals in ritual and cult Chapter 5 Encountered animals and embedded meaning: the ritual and roadside fauna of second millennium Anatolia 39 Neil Erskine Deleuze, Guattari, and reconstructing ancient understanding Landscape, religion, and putting meaning in place Creatures, cult, and creating meaning Folding animals in ritual Bulls, boars, birds Folding animals on the road Human-animal interactions Conclusion vi Chapter 6 The dogs of the healing goddess Gula in the archaeological and textual record of ancient Mesopotamia 55 Seraina Nett The dogs of Gula in Mesopotamian art The Isin dog cemetery The dogs of Gula in Ur III documentary sources Conclusion

A Companion to Ancient Agriculture., 2021

By publisher request this is only a preview -- please order the book for your library, and/or ema... more By publisher request this is only a preview -- please order the book for your library, and/or email me (mgkozuh@auburn.edu) and I'll send you a PDF of my article

Awīlum Ša La Mašê—Man Who Cannot Be Forgotten: Studies in Honor of Prof. Stefan Zawadzki, Presented on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday, edited by Rafał Koliński, Jan Prostko-Prostyński, and Witold Tyborowski, Aoat, 463, 115-28. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, , 2018

It is with pleasure that I publish and analyze the following account settlement of cattle-the rev... more It is with pleasure that I publish and analyze the following account settlement of cattle-the reverse of NBC 4847 (NBK II 32/04/09)-in honor of Prof. Stefan Zawadzki. I originally published a copy and quick transcription of the text in my book, 2 later realizing the uniqueness and importance of the reverse. This uniqueness and importance, I add, comes to the fore only in view of Zawadzki's pioneering work on another Neo-Babylonian accounting text. 3 The text audits the growth of a herd of 100 head of cattle, belonging to the Eanna temple of Uruk but under the control of a man named Nanā-ēreš, over four years. I am not aware of another text like it from first millennium Babylonia.

The study of economy and religion in Babylonia during the first millennium bc is primarily that o... more The study of economy and religion in Babylonia during the first millennium bc is primarily that of two well-documented temples, the Eanna temple of the city of Uruk and the Ebabbar of Sippar. The administrative archives of those temples – consisting of tens of thousands of cuneiform texts – allow us to understand parts of the temple economy in great detail, while at the same time this abundance of material frustrates traditional approaches to Babylonian religion. This essay aims in general to emphasize that Babylonian temples were large-scale, multifaceted religious institutions. Capitalizing on recent advancements in our technical understanding of the temple economy, it integrates these advancements into issues of broader religious, historical, intellectual, and economic significance. In particular, it stresses three points: first, the temples’ amalgamated ruling structure fostered institutional permanence and should therefore be understood as a challenge to the ‘temple-as-household’ metaphor; second, large-scale centralization of wealth in the temples was necessary for advancements in Babylonian learned culture (especially in astronomy and mathematics); and, finally, the centralization of manpower in the temples gave them particular advantages in the politics of the first millennium bc. In the end, I argue that all of these are in fact manifestations of Babylonian religion in themselves.

Ritual Failure: Archaeological Perspectives , 2013

In the mid-first millennium B.C.E., the Eanna temple of Uruk distributed the meat of sheep and go... more In the mid-first millennium B.C.E., the Eanna temple of Uruk distributed the meat of sheep and goats to its associates and dependents. The meat of post-sacrificial lambs went to the Eanna's prebend holding elite, while others received the meat of goats and older sheep without ceremony and on the hoof. Many assume this latter distribution worked to supply the Eanna's lowest classes with substandard meat. I argue, instead, that there was nothing inherently substandard about this meat; moreover, there is little evidence that it was intended for the Eanna's lowest classes. This paper then explores the distribution of meat to the Eanna's sub-elite, especially in place of temple rations and payments of silver.

,ldttttfurcrralive tetlslTorn l/te Eanna lempk ol't/ruk rtJieni/brce trans/alors ro supp/-v an e-... more ,ldttttfurcrralive tetlslTorn l/te Eanna lempk ol't/ruk rtJieni/brce trans/alors ro supp/-v an e-ytra p//rO, usuall-t'rztulere<l .,nhe tentple"-to e/ucidate lhe lransaclions recorded in lhose le.yts. Thal tacitparn,bot/t intermediates belween supplien antl receivers and itself receives comrnodities. T/tis paper aims to harmonize tkose two roles.I argue that one needs to view the generation of texts from the point of view of an erecutive Eanna. It is in untlerstanding the executive Eanna's function as both an auclitor o.f temple departments and a consumer of temple commodities that illuminates the Eanna's processes ancl proclivities o|texr generation.

Extraction & Control: Studies in Honor of Matthew W. Stolper, 2014

http://www.eisenbrauns.com/item/KOZSACRIF

Traders in the Ancient Mediterranean takes a diachronic view of the Mediterranean trader from the... more Traders in the Ancient Mediterranean takes a diachronic view of the Mediterranean trader from the Late Bronze Age through the Roman Imperial period, in an attempt to identify individual behavior and economic choice. The five scholars whose work is presented here, cunningly map ancient trading behavior and in so doing offer a framework on which to hang ancient Mediterranean buying, selling, and transporting of goods.

http://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/saoc68.pdf

Studia Orientalia Electronica, 2021

Much of the literature on pastoralists and empire concerns mobile tribes and often focuses on imp... more Much of the literature on pastoralists and empire concerns mobile tribes and often focuses on imperial schemes of resettlement, or tribal thwarting of state initiatives. This submission argues that in mid-first-millennium bce Babylonia, large bureaucratic temples stood between the imperial state and Babylonia's mobile class of shepherds. This article then explores this dynamic further, focusing on the use of administrative information as a point of imperial contestation, examining issues of local control and clashing hierarchies as the shepherds served an imperial obligation in the Mesopotamian hinterland, and finally argues that the pastoral dynamic presented here is of a piece with the larger political role of the temple in Babylonian life-both urban, familiar, and central and at the same time distant, other-like, and enigmatic.

The Intellectual Heritage of the Ancient Near East: Papers Held at the 64th Rencontre Assyriologique International and the 12th Melammu Symposium, University of Innsbruck, July 16-20, 2018, 2023

This paper argues that the size, scope, and regularity of Mesopotamian ritual animal consumption ... more This paper argues that the size, scope, and regularity of Mesopotamian ritual animal consumption makes it an apt phenomenon to compare with literature on the rise of the modern slaughterhouse and modern meat consumption. After demonstrating Mesopotamia's uniqueness in this regard in the ancient world, it then shows how that uniqueness created a system of meat production that has modern-seeming characteristics in the origination of the animals, the constant turning over of stock, the anonymous bureaucratization of slaughter, and the use of meat as a commodity. Finally, it briefly gives three parallels one can draw between Mesopotamian and modern meat production and consumption.

Revue d'assyriologie, 2021

Tous droits réservés pour tous pays. La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment ... more Tous droits réservés pour tous pays. La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que dans les limites des conditions générales d'utilisation du site ou, le cas échéant, des conditions générales de la licence souscrite par votre établissement. Toute autre reproduction ou représentation, en tout ou partie, sous quelque forme et de quelque manière que ce soit, est interdite sauf accord préalable et écrit de l'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législation en vigueur en France. Il est précisé que son stockage dans une base de données est également interdit.

Accounting and Bookkeeping as Social Practice in Cuneiform Cultures Rencontre Assyriologique Inte... more Accounting and Bookkeeping as Social Practice in Cuneiform Cultures
Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale 68

This session aims to bring together scholars from diverse areas of cuneiform studies to discuss new work on accounting and bookkeeping in cuneiform cultures.

Specifically, we hope to reconsider not only the way that scribes kept their accounts, but also the social practices and uses of accounting. Following the insights of "new accounting theory" (for example, see Fear [esp. Appendix B], Giraudeau, and Urton), we intend to study accounting practices through a multidisciplinary prism, combining philology, economics, social history, and anthropology. We hope to initiate rich discussions and comparisons between periods (from the Early Dynastic to the Parthian), areas, and scientific approaches …

We invite submissions for the workshop with the theme on “Religion and Economy in Ancient Mesopot... more We invite submissions for the workshop with the theme on “Religion and Economy in Ancient Mesopotamia.”

In ancient Mesopotamia, economic factors often affected religious practice. Temples employed numerous people in tasks related to worship, that worship in itself could require the expenditure of considerable goods and services, and the function of some temple administrators often involved
the supervision of these resources. Royal administrations also fulfilled their religious obligations in ways that taxed economic systems, from supplying the goods for offerings at temples to employing religious experts to guide royal policy. Finally, individual piety might prompt the purchase of a sacrificial sheep, the employment of a trained religious expert, the undertaking of a pilgrimage, or the acceptance of a position with administrative duties in a temple. Through this workshop, we would like to explore the interface where religious worship met its associated economic aspects, aiming to gain a better understanding of both religious beliefs and practices as well as economic agency within ancient societies.

The interface between religion and economy has long been the focus of sociological and anthropological studies. Within Assyriology, the study of ancient Mesopotamian religion has long been restrained by Oppenheim’s famous dictum that “an Ancient ‘Mesopotamian religion’ should
not be written.” Indeed, all too often the field contemplates religious practice through a Marxian or modern lens, while the study of ancient economics often trains its focus only on trade, market behavior, or decontextualized data modeling. Recent work in fields such as Classics have taken a
more holistic approach to the topic, as seen in publications such as The Economy of Roman Religion (Oxford 2023), among others.

This workshop will investigate questions such as: What were the beliefs that held this religio-economic fabric together in Mesopotamia? What room did individual agents have to act in the interface between religion and economy? To what extent did economic considerations influence Mesopotamian religious thought and practice? Is the separation between religion and economy too modern an intervention, one that might mislead rather than elucidate?

Topics will include but not be limited to the economy, the individual, and institutional religion in Mesopotamia, religious systems and economic interdependencies in Mesopotamia, theoretical dimensions, case studies, abundance and scarcity and their effects on religious worship.

Submissions should include a 250-300 word abstract, paper title, author(s), affiliation, and contact details.

Please send by November 28th to the organizers:
Nicole.brisch@uni-hamburg.de
Steven Garfinkle (garfins@wwu.edu)
Gina Konstantopoulos (gvkonsta@g.ucla.edu)
Mike Kozuh (mikekozuh@gmail.com)