Paléorient
Of storage and nomads. The sealings from Late Neolithic, Sabi
Abyad, Syria.
Kim Duistermaat, Peter M. M. G. Akkermans
Abstract
Recent excavations at the late Neolithic site of Tell Sabi Abyad in northern Syria have yielded hundreds of clay sealings in welldefined
contexts. It is argued that these sealings facilitated the communal storage at the site of all kinds of products and claims
by a nomadic population of considerable size. In this respect, the sealings are indicative of the symbiosis between the sedentary
and nomadic populations in the Late Neolithic.
Résumé
Les fouilles récentes sur le site néolithique récent de Tell Sabi Abyad, Syrie du nord, ont révélé des centaines de scellements en
argile. Nous argumentons que ces scellements ont facilité à Sabi Abyad le stockage communal par une population nomade très
étendue de toute sorte de produits et de créances. Aussi considérons nous que les scellements sont les témoins de la symbiose
entre les populations sédentaires et nomades du Néolithique Récent.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Duistermaat Kim, Akkermans Peter M. M. G. Of storage and nomads. The sealings from Late Neolithic, Sabi Abyad, Syria.. In:
Paléorient, 1996, vol. 22, n°2. pp. 17-44.
doi : 10.3406/paleo.1996.4635
http://www.persee.fr/doc/paleo_0153-9345_1996_num_22_2_4635
Document généré le 07/01/2016
Of storage and nomads
The sealings from late Neolithic
Sabi Abyad, Syria
P.M.M.G. AKKERMANS and K. DUISTERMAAT
Abstract : Recent excavations at the late Neolithic site of Tell Sabi Abyad in northern Syria have yielded hundreds of clay sealings
in well-defined contexts. It is argued that these sealings facilitated the communal storage at the site of all kinds of products and
claims by a nomadic population of considerable size. In this respect, the sealings are indicative of the symbiosis between the
sedentary and nomadic populations in the Late Neolithic.
Résumé : Les fouilles récentes sur le site néolithique récent de Tell Sabi Abyad, Syrie du nord, ont révélé des centaines de
scellements en argile. Nous argumentons que ces scellements ont facilité à Sabi Abyad le stockage communal par une population
nomade très étendue de toute sorte de produits et de créances. Aussi considérons nous que les scellements sont les témoins de la
symbiose entre les populations sédentaires et nomades du Néolithique Récent.
Key-words : Sabi Abyad, Syria, Late Neolithic, Sealings, Storage, Nomads.
Mots clefs : Sabi Abyad, Syrie, Néolithique Récent, Scellements, Stockage, Nomades.
INTRODUCTION
The excavations at the five-hectare site of Sabi Abyad, located
in the Balikh valley of northern Syria, have revealed a
continuous sequence of eleven superimposed and generally wellpreserved
building levels dated between ca. 5,700 and
5,000 B.C. (6,500-5,800 calBC)1. Perhaps the most
spectacular of these prehistoric settlements is building level 6 or
the 'Burnt Village', the earliest of the so-called Transitional
levels (6-4), which represent an intermediate stage between
the lower, pre-Halaf Neolithic (levels 11-7) and the topmost
Early Halaf (levels 3-1)2. The level 6 remains, partially
standing to a height of 1.40 m, consist of a number of
rectangular, multi-roomed houses built of pisé along very
regular lines and surrounded by smaller circular structures,
ovens and hearths (fig. 1). Some of the tiny rooms had
'normal' but narrow doorways (occasionally with pivot
1. In order to adjust our dates to the existing chronological frameworks and
our earlier reports (and so to avoid general confusion), all dates are used in
a "traditional' manner, i.e. uncalibrated, in this article. Dates in calibrated
years are given between brackets, whenever it seems useful.
2. Cf. Akkermans and Verhoeven, 1995; Akkermans (éd.), 1996.
stones), whereas others had doorways of such restricted size
that one had to crawl through them on hands and knees
(portholes). In addition, it appeared that some rooms did not
have a doorway at floor level at all ; these rooms must have
been accessible from the roof of the building. The settlement
was heavily affected by a violent fire, which swept over
the village and reduced most houses to ashes around
5,200 B.C. (6,000 calBC). Vast quantities of in-situ finds
were recovered from the burnt buildings, including ceramic
and stone vessels, flint and obsidian implements, ground-stone
tools, human and animal figurines, labrets, axes, personal
ornaments and, most excitingly, hundreds of clay sealings.
These sealings consist of lumps of clay either pressed on the
fastening of a container or closing this container entirely, and
most of them carry stamp-seal impressions3. Most
remarkably, however, not a single stamp seal has so far been found
in the houses of the Burnt Village4.
3. See Duistermaat, 1996, for an exhaustive description and analysis of the
Sabi Abyad sealings.
4. So far, stamp seals have only appeared in debris contexts in somewhat
later levels of occupation at Sabi Abyad; Akkermans, 1993
:
85; Akkermans
and Le Mière, 1992
:
10, 21
;
Duistermaat, 1996
:
339-341.
Paléorient. vol. 22/2. p. 17-44. © CNRS Éditions 1997 Manuscrit reçu le 27 août 1996; accepté le 21 octobre 1996.
18 P.M. M. G. Akkermans and К. Duistermaat
Fig. 1 : Plan of the 'Burnt Village' at Sabi Abyad. Stars and numbers indicate the findspots and amounts of sealings.
Traditionally, glyptic studies in Near Eastern archaeology goods5. So far, the first (stamp) seal impressions, on plaster,
emphasise matters of iconography or art history. However, in were found at late 7th millennium Tell Bouqras and Tell
the last fifteen years a shift towards a more functional ap...
-, i r
•
i i r i 5. See e.g. Alizadeh,
1
988; Ferioli and Fiandra, 1 979, 1 983; Ferioli
proach has become perceptible, focussing on the role of seals et aL l979; Frangipane and PalmieR]) ]992- Matthews, 1989, 1991;
and sealings in systems of administration and control of Rothman and Blackman, 1990; Zettler, 1987.
Paléorient. vol. 22/2, p. 17-44 © CNRS Éditions 1997
Of storage and nomads - The sealings from late Neolithic Sabi Abyad, Syria 19
el-Kowm6 but the earliest sealings in clay previously known
stem from the final stage of the Halaf period, i.e. from the
early 5th millennium B.C., and have been found at very few
sites only. Arpachiyah produced 41 sealings (26 of which
were found in the TT6 Burnt House, the remainder in debris
contexts), whereas 3 examples were found in the trenches in
Area A and the Northeast Base at Tepe Gawra and another
40, in a very late Halaf context, at Khirbet Derak7. The 300
clay sealings uncovered at Sabi Abyad, in a well-defined
stratigraphie and spatial context, date from several hundred
years earlier, and have made it clear that the deliberate sealing
of products was already extensively practiced in pre-Halaf
times.
THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE SEALINGS
The majority of the level 6 sealings has been found in rooms
6-7 of building II and rooms 6-7 of building V. In addition,
some sealings occurred in other rooms of buildings II and V,
as well as in building IV and the circular structures VI and
IX (fig. 1). Two-thirds of the sealings (n = 201) stem from
room 6 of building II. Actually, the floor of this room (and,
to a lesser extent, rooms 6 and 7 of building V) was literally
crammed with all kinds of small finds, including miniature
vessels, tokens, discs, and human and animal figurines. A
similar association of sealings and other items has been
attested in one of the structures of the Early Halaf level 3 at
Sabi Abyad (building III, room II)8, and appeared at other
sites mainly in garbage deposits9. However, in view of their
location, the Sabi Abyad finds cannot be considered to
represent mere refuse nor can the rooms with these items be
regarded as dumps; the various objects seem to have been
deliberately stored in a few selected rooms and must still
have had a certain 'value'. The sealings, mostly broken and
in a fragmentary state, were found to have been kept
separately from the containers which they had sealed. Particularly
in the case of room 6 of building II, measuring hardly 3 m2,
it is obvious that this room was much too small to contain
the hundreds of containers originally associated with the
sealings found in this room. The exact meaning of this
6. P.A. Akkermans et ai, 1983: 356-57 and fig. 42; Maréchal, 1982:
223-224 and fig. 3-4.
7. Mallowan and Rose, 1935: 98-99; Tobler, 1950: 177; Breniquet,
1990: 165; see also Campbell, 1992; Von Wickede, 1990, 1991.
8. Cf. Akkermans, 1993
:
304; Akkermans (éd.), 1996.
9. E.g. in Bronze Age loci at Abu Salabikh and LJruk loci at Sharafabad;
Matthews, 1989
:
94-95 ; Wright et al., 1980
:
277-278.
association of small finds still eludes us but it has been
suggested10 that the items functioned together in an
administrative system, some representing either goods (tokens,
miniature vessels and animal figurines) or services (human
figurines), others controlling or recording the circulation of
these products (sealings, which are the sole pieces of evidence
left of whatever transactions had been completed after the
opening of the containers).
Interestingly, the sealings differ in various respects from
each other per building or per room ' ]
.
First, it appeared that
building II, room 6, and building V, room 6, mainly contained
sealings used in association with basketry, while the other
structures and rooms predominantly yielded sealings used on
ceramics. The preference for a particular kind of container
may be related to the storage of specific commodities ; if so,
it seems that the rooms 6 of both building II and building V
were concerned with products different from those of the
other structures (or, at least, these buildings stored these
products in much larger quantities). Second, most sealings
from building II carried stamp-seal impressions, while the
other features contained much larger amounts of sealings
without impressions ; it is not excluded that these latter items,
when used on pottery, may have functioned as mere lids
instead of as true sealings (this holds in particular for the
so-called jar stoppers). Third, the sealings stored in building
II showed different impressions from the ones found in the
other buildings, although they sometimes showed a similar
(but not identical) general type of design (see below) ;
apparently, the various buildings at Sabi Abyad were used by
different sealing agencies ' 2.
THE SEALED OBJECTS
The reverse of most sealings carries an impression of the
object originally sealed, which allows determination of the
method of sealing and identification of the sealed object13.
In the case of Sabi Abyad, all sealings are associated with
small, transportable containers; no door sealings have been
found (in view of the extensive area of excavation and the
widespread burning, it seems that negative evidence is
significant, and that door sealings were not in use in this village
at this time). At least five kinds of containers can be
recognised : baskets, plaited mats, ceramic vessels, stone bowls
10. Matthews, 1989: 94-95; Schmandt-Besserat, 1992: 178.
11. See Duistermaat, 1996, for a detailed account.
12. See Duistermaat, 1996 and tables 5.5-5.6 for a detailed account.
13. See e.g. Ferioli and Fiandra, 1979, 1983.
Paléorient. vol. 22/2. p. 17-44 © CNRS Editions 1997
20 P.M. M. G. Akkermans and К. Duistermaat
Table 1 : Numbers and percentages of sealings
per type of container.
Container type
basketry
pottery
plaited mats
stone vessels
bags
unidentified objects
damaged reverse
total
number
112
93
6
4
3
72
10
300
%
373
31.0
2.0
13
1.0
24.0
33
100
and leather bags (table 1 ; in addition, some impressions cannot
yet be identified while others are damaged). The majority of
the sealings is associated with baskets and ceramics, which
were sealed in a variety of ways. So far, 18 different ways
of sealing have been recognised.
Basketry
Over one-third (37.3 %) of the sealings gave evidence of
impressions of coiled basketry (fig. 4 : 3-5, 7-13; fig. 5 : 6),
which was widely used in the Near East from very early times
onwards14. The basketry was made of long, narrow strips of
vegetal fibres (straw, grasses or reeds) and seems to have been
of a fine quality, with the narrow coils very neatly stitched
together; the manufacture must have required a considerable
amount of time and skill15. Little can be said about the shape
of the baskets, since the sealings only show the topmost rim
coils or the centre of the lid. However, it seems that there
were at least two different shapes of baskets and lids, i.e.
baskets with a flat lid laid upon the container's opening and
rim, and baskets with a flat lid sunk into the container's
opening (fig. 2). Most containers seem to have had a circular
or, less commonly, oval mouth, less than 20 cm in diameter.
Impressions of damaged coils (fig. 4 : 12) prove that some
baskets had been used intensively before the sealing took
place.
14. Compare e.g. the late 7th millennium White-Ware vessels from Tell
el-Kowm; Maréchal, 1982, fig. 10.
15. W. Wendrich, pers. comm. ; see also Wendrich, 1991.
1 2
Fig. 2 : Two different ways of sealing basketry at Sabi Abyad.
The Sabi Abyad basketry was sealed in three different
ways. The most popular method (n = 100) was to close the
container with a flat basketry lid fastened with a piece of thin
rope (cf. fig. 2:1; generally, the ropes were about 1.5 mm
thick, spun in Z-direction and plied in S-direction).
Subsequently, the sealing was placed on the knot in the rope,
near the centre of the coiled lid (e.g. fig. 4:4; fig. 5 : 6).
The second, much lesser used (n = 11), method was to close
the container with a flat basketry lid which did not rest on
the top of the rim but was sunk into the mouth (fig. 2 : 2).
Probably a protruding coil was originally present on the inside
of the basket's opening, in order to prevent the lid from falling
into the vessel. Subsequently, the clay used for sealing was
pressed both on the edge of the lid as well as against the
interior of the basket wall, preventing the removal of the lid.
Obviously, these sealings never show rope impressions
(fig. 4 : 3). The third way of sealing is an exceptional one,
attested only once. The sealing represents an oval-shaped clay
lid, about 2 cm thick, placed on an oval basketry container
while the clay was still wet.
Plaited mats
Six sealings (2 %) were used to seal plaited mats (fig. 4 : 6, 14).
The reverses of these sealings show vegetal fibres 1-1.5 cm
wide, perhaps the same material as was used for the coiled
basketry. These mats may have been used for the production
of baskets and bags, or served to pack solid products. Most
sealings show rope impressions, indicating that the mats were
apparently closed or tied by a piece of rope before sealing.
Pottery
Another third (31 %) of the sealings was used to seal ceramic
vessels, showing impressions of these vessels' rim and neck.
It appears that mainly small vessels carried sealings : rim
diameters vary around 10 cm, and rim thickness varies
around 0.5 cm. Ten different ways of sealing pottery can be
Paléorient, vol. 22/2, p. 17-44 © CNRS Éditions 1997
Of storage and nomads - The sealings from late Neolithic Sabi Abyad, Syria 21
'
s 10
Fig. 3 : Ten different ways of sealing pottery at Sabi Abyad.
distinguished (fig. 3). Many pottery sealings are 'mushroom'shaped
(fig. 3 : 3)
:
a pre-shaped clay ball with one flattened
side was pressed with this flat side onto the rim of a ceramic
vessel16. Other types of sealings consist of massive lumps of
clay, some with a flat reverse but others irregularly shaped,
either wholly pushed into the mouth of the vessel (fig. 3 : 7)
or partly hanging over the rim (fig. 3 : 2). Convex clay slabs,
with an even thickness of ca. one centimetre, were also used
for sealing purposes; they were either simply placed on the
rim of the vessel or hung partly over the rim, covering part
of the vessel neck (fig. 3 : 4, 6). In some cases, the sealing
consists of a lump of clay attached to a more or less circular
sherd possibly serving as a lid. The sealing covered both this
lid and the vessel's rim and neck, thus preventing the lid
from being removed (fig. 3 : 9). Some sealings consist of
conical or slightly rounded lumps of clay, with a flat or
concave back. They have certainly been pre-formed, as
appears from the prominent finger impressions on the reverse
(fig. 3
:
5, 10). A very rare kind of sealing consists of a
lens-shaped lump of clay pressed onto a thick rope, which
fastened a piece of leather closing the vessel (fig. 3, 8).
Generally, the various types of pottery sealings cover the
mouth of the vessel entirely, in a more or less airtight way.
An exception is the kind of sealing shown in fig. 3 : 1, and
fig. 4
:
1 : this vessel had first been closed with a lid or
stopper and subsequently the clay sealing was placed against
the outer surface of the jar neck, covering both the vessel
rim and part of the lid, thus preventing removal of the lid17.
Remarkably, the pottery sealings often lack seal
impressions. In the case of the type of sealings represented by figure
3:1, about half of the sealings shows stamp-seal impressions,
but in the case of the other types (fig. 3 : 2-10) only a quarter
is impressed. This may partly be due to matters of
preservation but some items, in particular the so-called 'jar stoppers'
(fig. 3 : 2-7, 10), may have functioned as mere lids rather
than sealings in the true sense of the word.
Stone bowls
Four sealings originally sealed one or more stone vessels.
Actually, two sealings fitted a small and oval, grooved bowl
made of gabbro (fig. 6; the grooves and rim of the bowl
have clearly left their impressions on the reverse of the
sealings). Both the sealings and the bowl were found in the
same level 6 house II but in different rooms (the sealings
were found in room 6, the bowl in room 12). Interestingly,
only one of the sealings gave evidence of stamp-seal
impressions. Apparently, the bowl originally carried a sealing with
a stamp-seal impressions but was re-sealed later, for one
reason or another, without renewal of the seal impressions.
This repeated sealing of the same container may indicate that
the actual sealing was carried out at the site itself.
Leather bags
One sealing shows a pleated hairy surface on its reverse, tied
tightly with a piece of rope 2 mm thick. Most likely, this
sealing originally sealed a leather bag, which was closed with
a rope at its opening. The leather must still have had some
hairs attached to it. Other bag sealings at Sabi Abyad are
perhaps represented by two impressions of finely woven cloth.
Unidentified objects
Unfortunately, identification of the sealed objects has not been
possible in many cases (27.4 %); some sealings have surfaces
16. Cf. Zettler. 1989: 373. 17. Cf. Zettler, 1989: 374.
Paléorient. vol. 22/2. p. 17-44 <O CNRS Editions 1997
22 P.M. M. G. Akkermans and К. Dutstermaat
too damaged to allow further determination, others show
reverses which cannot with any certainty be associated with
any of the kinds of containers distinguished so far. In some
cases the sealing reverses are flat or slightly concave and
carry rope impressions (fig. 4 : 2, 15; fig. 5 : 2, 4); perhaps
these items were once attached to a piece of leather closing
a pottery vessel18. Others have a triangular section and a
convex reverse which shows a considerable quantity of straw
impressions, all oriented in the same direction; they may have
sealed baskets or basketry lids.
SEAL IMPRESSIONS
Most sealings at Sabi Abyad (n = 189, or 63 %) carry one
or more stamp-seal impressions on the obverse. At least
67 different stamp seals must have been in use (this on the
basis of seal size, shape and details in design; cf. fig. 4 : 2,
4, 9-13), which may be grouped into 27 different seal designs,
some of which occur only once or twice, others in
considerable quantities. At present, no clear relationship is found
between a particular kind of seal design and a particular type
of container19. The major design categories each show one
or more varieties, which appear to have been used
simultaneously. Below, some designs will be briefly commented on.
The 'capricorn' (fig. 4 : 1-5) is by far the most common
design at Sabi Abyad (n = 51, or 27 % of the total number
of impressed sealings). It depicts a goat-like animal with long
horns curved backwards, bent hindlegs and stretched forelegs.
The forefeet are divided into two halves, indicating the
hooves. The animal has a fairly long neck, a short tail and
two ears. In front of the animal, a lenticular motif (a
weapon ?) fills in the stamp surface. The capricorn design is
associated with at least eight different seals, each of which
is circular or slightly oval but different in size and design
configuration.
Another common design (n = 15 or 8 %) is characterised
by zigzag lines in combination with triangles along the edge
of the impression (fig. 4 : 6-8). This design is associated with
nine different seals, some circular, others rectangular.
Thirty sealings (16 %) showed impressions of an S-shaped
or, rarely, Z-shaped stamp seal with a design, varying in
degree of elaboration, basically consisting of continuous lines
following the shape of the stamp surface (fig. 4 : 9-12). Nine
different seals can be distinguished. In one case, the S-shaped
design is used, on one and the same sealing, in combination
with the zigzag motif.
The rather complex 'bucranium' design occurred 14 times
(7 %) and is associated with a circular stamp surface (fig. 4 :
7, 9, 13). The main Y-shaped element is combined with
triangles and curved lines in a variety of ways. The bucranium
design sometimes occurs together with the S-shaped and the
zigzag designs; in most cases, these combined impressions
result from the use of the same pair of seals.
Circular impressions depicting a tree or other plant-like
motif appeared five times (2.5 %); each is represented by a
different seal (fig. 4 : 15). The design shows a vertical stem,
with a series of leaves on each side, pointing either
downwards or upwards. In some cases, the tree stands on a striped
ground surface, and above the tree two triangles pointing
downwards are shown, possibly depicting flowers or fruit.
Four impressions (2 %) show a rather complex design :
toothed ellipses connected by another ellipse or straight line,
dividing the seal area in two parts. Each part carries one or
two 'bow-tie' motifs and, occasionally, an ellipse (fig. 5 : 2).
Two variants can be distinguished, each occurring twice.
One sealing (0.6 %) shows a series of cowrie-shell
impressions (fig. 5:1). Originally, the shell must have been attached
to a string of beads : next to each impression the beads have
left a row of small concave imprints. In addition to sealing
purposes, the shell (and perhaps stamp seals in general) seems
to have been used as a pendant or, possibly, an amulet as
well, worn around the neck or wrist.
Most intriguing are the nine sealings (5 %) with very large
impressions (over 9 cm long) depicting an anthropomorphic
figure standing upright with a wide head and conical headgear
or hairdress, rudimentarily depicted arms and straight legs
(fig. 5 : 7)20. Facial features have not been rendered except
18. Cf. Ferioli and Fiandra, 1983
:
486, fig. 12b.
1 9. See Duistermaat, 1 996
:
342ff and table 5.4.
20. Some fragmented impressions indicate that the legs originally carried a
herringbone pattern (not visible in the case of the shallow impression of
fig. 5, no. 7). Cf. Duistermaat, 1996, fig. 5.6.
Fig. 4 : Selection of Sabi Abyad clay sealings.
Paléorient, vol. 22/2, p. 17-44 © CNRS Éditions 1997
14
24 P.M. M. G. Akkermans and К. Duistermaat
for the elongated, sharply delineated eyes with pronounced
eyebrows. A similar design resembling a human face with
eyes and eyebrows is represented by two circular seal
impressions (1 %; fig. 4
:
14).
Finally, a few impressions carry rather simple designs such
as pointed stars, concentric circles, crosshatching, diamondshaped
lines encircling each other or longitudinal lines, with
short lines in perpendicular position to the long ones (cf.
fig. 5 : 3-6).
THE SEALINGS IN A WIDER PERSPECTIVE
Sealings are commonly associated with the recognition and
administration of property, the protection of containers against
unauthorised opening, the organisation of storage and the
control over exchange networks. In addition, the occurrence
of sealings is usually linked with a hierarchically-organised
'complex society', the appearance of well-established elites
and bureaucratic institutions serving these elite groups21.
Basically, sealings serve two aims, both very often linked :
on the one hand they define the property of a person or group
of persons, on the other hand they explicitly deny outsiders
access to this property. Sealings thus imply the unequal
distribution of goods, with the various sealed products not
simply accessible to all members of the society but to their
owners only; the sealings serve as control devices assuring
this restricted access. In this respect, sealings can hardly have
served within small social units or at the household level,
where the control over products can proceed much more
efficiently through mechanisms other than the formal
application of sealings (e.g. verbal announcements). Therefore, it
seems that the sealing of goods is necessary only if the
handling or circulation of these goods involves persons
beyond the own domestic unit22. However, at the same time
only the responsibility for the well-being of the goods is
handed over to these persons, not the property itself or any
property claims. This arrangement is not merely based on
mutual trust but secured in a formal manner through the use
of sealings. The original (i.e. unbroken) sealing authenticates
the sealed container and its content; it makes clear that the
item given in custody is in its original state and that no fraud,
tampering or theft has taken place. Evidently, abuse cannot
entirely be prevented by sealings; one can easily break the
sealing of a container and take whatever one likes. However,
broken sealings immediately indicate an unauthorised opening
and allow rapid, specific intervention from the side of the
proprietor. This system of control over goods and people
operates in a very simple and flexible manner, easily
recognizable to a wide audience; it is exactly this simplicity and
clarity which accounts for the success and widespread use of
the practice of sealing in the prehistoric Near East.
Sealings as devices of control may have served the needs
of elite groups in society to a considerable extent. Although
there is no reason to assume a priori that seals and sealings
were the prerogative of elites, it appears that the practice of
sealing has an enormous potential in terms of power and
manipulation. Above it has been pointed out that sealings
imply an unequal distribution of goods. Any elite group would
pursue such differentiated access, since exclusion of the
commoners enables leaders to mobilise considerably more
wealth and prestige to their own economic and social
advantage23. However, in the case of Sabi Abyad solid proof for
the presence of any elites or an intra-site hierarchical
organisation is absent so far. The lack of evidence for distinct
institutions of power and control at the site suggests that
social differentiation was very modest24. Consequently, it
seems unlikely that the Sabi Abyad sealings served in some
kind of status or prestige context or that they were the product
of elite-directed control.
Elsewhere, it has been argued that in the case of Sabi
Abyad the actual sealing did not take place at the site itself
but was carried out somewhere else, and that the sealings
arrived at Sabi Abyad as parts of long-distance trade or
exchange products25. Indeed, many items found at the site
could not have been locally won but must have been obtained
through extensive exchange networks, with the goods
travelling over great distances from one social unit to another :
obsidian, copper ore, basalt and other stones were brought in
from Anatolia ; cedar wood, Dark-Faced Burnished Ware and,
perhaps, tabular flint came from the Levant; and Samarra
and Hassuna-pottery was obtained from eastern Syria or
north-central Iraq26. Sealings may have facilitated this
exchange, particularly when the goods were transported by
middlemen (the sealings allowed the proprietor of the goods
21. E.g. Ferioli and Fiandra, 1983; Zettler, 1987; Alizadeh, 1988;
Rothman and Blackman, 1990.
22. Cf. Charvát, 1988: 57.
23. See e.g. the various contributions in Earle (éd.), 1991.
24. Akkermans and Verhoeven, 1995
:
28ff; see also Akkermans, 1993
:
289.
25. Akkermans and Verhoeven, 1995
:
21 ff; Duistermaat, 1996.
26. Cf. Le Mière, 1989; Le Mière and Picon, 1987; Akkermans, 1993;
and the various contributions in Akkermans (éd.), 1996. However, it is not
excluded that some products were obtained by direct expeditions, or during
visits by community herders scheduled into their normal seasonal movements.
Paléorient, vol. 22/2, p. 17-44 © CNRS Éditions 1997
Fig. 5 : Selection of Sabi Abyad clay sealings; no. 7 with human representation.
26 P.M. M. G. Akkermans and К. Duistermaat
to control his middlemen and the circulation of his products).
However, some recent analyses of the clays used for the
manufacture of the sealings made it clear that the sealings
almost certainly came from within the Balikh basin, very
likely even from the site of Sabi Abyad itself27. If, indeed,
the sealings were produced at the site, they cannot have
operated in the exchange network : at the site level, the sealing
of products was wholly unnecessary since the handling and
exchange of products could easily and much more effectively
proceed face-to-face, with both the quantity and quality of
the exchanged goods immediately arranged according to
mutual satisfaction. Any exchange between the few sites existing
in the Balikh valley around 5,200 B.C. (6,000 calBC) most
likely took place at the face-to-face level as well, when taking
into account the very restricted distance between these sites :
20 km or a four hours' walk at the most. In this respect, it
seems that intra-regional exchange hardly contributed to the
practice of sealing at Sabi Abyad, or not at all28.
If elite groups or the exchange network did not (or not
exclusively) underlie the practice of sealing at Sabi Abyad,
one may wonder what other variables required the use of
sealings. In the case of Sabi Abyad, it appears that sealings
were used in massive numbers by numerous people and very
frequently. Hundreds of sealings have been found at the site
so far, almost two-thirds of which carry stamp-seal
impressions. The impressions display a wide variety of seal shapes
and designs, indicating that at least 67 different stamp seals
were used for sealing purposes. When assuming that each
seal was used by a single person or institution (which,
moreover, made use of one seal only), it follows that dozens
of individuals were involved in the sealing of commodities.
Interestingly, the sealings were not found randomly
distributed throughout the settlement at Sabi Abyad but largely
restricted to two buildings only. In addition, it appears that
the sealings are mainly restricted to one or two rooms only
27. This conclusion is based on the results of the recent clay analysis of 170
Sabi Abyad sealings, 166 of which carried seal impressions, as well as a
number of comparative samples. Sincere thanks are due to Gerwulf Schneider,
Freie Universitat Berlin, and Marie Le Mière, Maison de l'Orient, Lyon, who
both took care of the analyses. Detailed results will be published in due time;
see Duistermaat and Schneider, in prep. For a similar approach concerning
the sealings of Tepe Gawra, see Rothman and Blackman, 1990
:
19-45.
28. Actually, many others have already argued that there is very little evidence
at present to support the role of sealings in exchange relationships; see e.g.
Ferioli et al., 1979; Breniquet, 1984; Rothman and Blackman, 1990;
Frangipane and Palmiert, 1992; Schmandt-Besserat, 1992. But see Alizadeh,
1988, for an opposite view
:
while discussing the sealings from
prehistoric Tall i-Bakun A, he suggests that these items were in the hands of elites
and used for the administration of production and trade.
within these two structures, and that each of the buildings
was used by different sealing persons29. In short, it seems
that the sealings were not mere refuse but items deliberately
taken out of circulation and stored, together with numerous
other small items, in specific 'archive rooms' in a few
structures only. It cannot yet be established whether this storage
in 'archives' was only temporarily or, in contrast, more or
less permanent. The occurrence of sealings in refuse deposits
at sites like Arslantepe, Tepe Sharafabad, Nippur and Abu
Salabikh suggests that the former was the case30.
It seems reasonable to assume that the sealings were
removed from the containers (and subsequently preserved)
near or at the spot where they have been found; if so,
hundreds of sealed containers must originally have been kept
in buildings II and V at Sabi Abyad, suggesting that these
two structures served as storehouses (next to the other
buildings which may have served for living or other purposes).
Moreover, these storage buildings must have been in use at
the supra-household or communal level, when taking into
account (a) the general observation that sealings are only of
use if the responsibility for one's property is transferred into
the public sphere, and (b) the fact that numerous people
dispatched sealed items to these storehouses.
Simultaneously, these storehouses must have acted as
distribution centres
:
before it was suggested that the sealings
were removed from their containers in the buildings,
indicating that the products left the building in an unsealed state.
When taking into account that the goods were initially kept
in sealed condition, i.e. in the shape of individual properties,
it seems clear that the distribution was not meant to take
place at random to whoever needed it but was restricted to
the seal holders only.
At this point, one may speculate on the identity of those
who actually used the 'communal' storehouses at Sabi Abyad.
At present, there is no reason to assume that every individual
or social unit at the site simply brought their belongings to
the storehouses; after all, the various domestic buildings
surrounding the storehouses seem to have had more than
enough space to contain the supplies of each household31.
Collective storage of properties, under the supervision of
external custodians, is then mainly relevant whenever one is
not able to take care of these properties oneself. The latter
29. See the extensive discussion in Duístermaat, 1996 and tables 5.5-5.6.
30. Frangipane, 1994: 125; Wright et ai, 1980; Zettler, 1987: 208;
Matthews, 1989
:
93-95.
31. Cf. Akkermans and Verhoeven, 1995.
Paléorient, vol. 22/2, p. 17-44 © CNRS Éditions 1997
Of storage and nomads - The sealings from late Neolithic Sabi Abyad. Syria 27
can hardly have held for all people in the case of permanently
occupied settlements such as Sabi Abyad; even if the main
proprietor was not available for one reason or another, close
kin might have taken over his responsibilities. In this respect,
it appears, once again, that the Sabi Abyad storehouses with
their sealed containers only served the needs of particular
social groups, i.e. those who were not physically present to
guard their assets. Let us consider the possibility that the
population at Sabi Abyad was not composed entirely of
permanent residents, but had a considerable mobile or
transhumant component which made use of the site for specific
purposes at specific times. If the above is true, this mobile
part of the population would not simply consist of some
individuals otherwise fully associated with the permanently
settled domestic units but comprised entire 'families' or
'households'. Before, at least 67 sealing agents were recognised,
each making use of the storehouses at Sabi Abyad. If each
of these agents not only represents an individual (i.e. the seal
holder) but entire family units of perhaps 6-10 people, it can
be argued that the storage facilities at the site were used by
a non-residential group of some 400 to 670 people32. Even
if the estimated number of indiviuals per family unit is
considered to be much too high and is therefore halved, it
appears that hundreds of non-residents must have relied upon
the settlement at Sabi Abyad. The fact that, despite the
hundreds of sealings, not a single stamp seal has been found
in the Burnt Village so far might support the hypothesis that
seals and sealings at Sabi Abyad mainly served the needs of
non- residential people33.
If, one step further, the above figures hold some validity
for the Balikh valley as a whole as well, the number of
mobile people can be increased to a considerable extent.
Survey evidence indicates that, apart from Sabi Abyad, four
other sites in the valley were occupied on a permanent basis
at around 5,200 B.C. (6,000 calBC)34. All except one of these
32. Cf. Sumner, 1994
:
61.
33. Cf. Alizadeh, 1988, on the interaction between sedentarists and nomads
at the 4th millennium site of Tall i-Bakun A, and the role of seals and sealings
herein. However, in contrast to our view, he suggests that the Bakun sealings
served an elite-directed administration of production and trade at the site,
with the nomad population participating on the one hand as a market for
craft and subsistence products and on the other hand as a source of foreign
commodities. The absence of seals in the Burnt Village at Sabi Abyad may
also be due to other reasons
:
perhaps the seals were made of perishable
materials such as bone (as at Tepe Gawra) or wood, or should be seen as
precious items carried on the body of the owners, which consequently had
left the site at the time of its destruction. See e.g. Von Wickede, 1990, and
Ferioli et al., 1979.
34. Akkermans. 1993: 175-176.
other sites are very small, each probably representing a hamlet
occupied by two or three households at the most; these sites
may have been able to support a small number of nomad
families (if any at all). However, Tell Mounbatah in the central
Balikh valley seems to have been of the same size and nature
as Sabi Abyad in the late Neolithic and may have served
similar purposes in socio-economic terms. Likewise, this site
Fig. 6 : incised stone bowl and associated clay sealing
from building if at Sabi Abyad.
Paléorient. vol. 22/2. p. 17-44 <D CNRS Éditions 1997
28 P.M.M.G. Akkermans and К. Duistermaat
may have served the needs of a mobile population of at least
the same size as at Sabi Abyad35. For the nomads, moving
around in a sparsely populated region, the settlements may
have been true landmarks, existing since 'time immemorial'.
It has been suggested that pastoral nomadism, in the sense
of sheep-goat pastoralism entailing seasonal movements, first
developed in the early 6th millennium B.C., perhaps as a
response to a declining environment and an increasing
population pressure36. Our present interpretation of the Sabi Abyad
sealings as well as some survey evidence from the Balikh
perfectly fit within this hypothesis37. Elsewhere it was
pointed out that it was the Halafian society in the Balikh region
in the early 5th millennium B.C. that increasingly relied upon
pastoralism in combination with small-scale agriculture38 but
this symbiosis may very well have started on a considerable
scale already in the 6th millennium B.C.39.
The non-residential groups may have relied mainly upon
a pastoralist mode of subsistence, exploiting the extensive
steppe in the Balikh valley and adjacent regions, but at the
same time must have been closely engaged in all sorts of
economic and social relationships with the sedentary
population at the various sites. Integration of agricultural and
pastoral economy proceeds most efficiently at the community
level, with the community either split up into specialist
sections or alternating in its entirety between pastoral and
agricultural pursuits within a single year4(). The former option,
with one group relying on cultivation and permanently settled,
the other relying on pastoralism and living at the site during
certain times of the year only, seems to fit the Sabi Abyad
evidence best. It should, however, be taken into account that
this social partition is not necessarily durable but often only
lasts for a single annual cycle, and that the pastoralist group
may easily change place with the sedentary group and vice
versa41. It has been argued that this often weak dichotomy
between the nomadic and sedentary groups in society is
characteristic of the Neolithic42; if so, the 'nomads' of Sabi
Abyad may have both farmed and tended herds, and may
have held houses, land or other properties at or near the site,
used during particular times of the year. Ethnographically, the
role of nomads as landlords or house-owners is widely
attested in the Near East43; archaeologically, it finds support at,
e.g., Neolithic 'Ain Ghazal in Jordan, where it has been
suggested that many of the houses were not necessarily
inhabited on a year-round basis but only seasonally44.
Historical and ethnographic evidence indicate that in the
19th and 20th century nomads in the Jezirah spent the winters
along the Euphrates, Balikh and Khabur, where there was
water, fuel and pasture, and where agricultural supplies were
stored to survive the lean months. Subsequently, when
climatic conditions improved and crops started to grow, the
pastoralists moved away from the rivers into the steppe but
during the hot summer the herds were restricted to the land
situated at a day's walk at the most from the watercourses45.
Similar observations hold for other regions. For example, in
southeastern Anatolia, wintering nomads maintain
long-standing relationships with certain villages to which they
habitually return, drawing on their services and land resources
and coming under the authority and protection of the village
chiefs46. If this picture has some significance for the late
Neolithic as well, it is not unlikely that large sites like Sabi
Abyad and Mounbatah acted as winter camps for pastoralists,
providing these people with food, shelter, security and other
facilities. In short, the larger villages may have acted as points
of exchange, storage and distribution centres and as the scenes
of marriage contracts, communal festivities and ceremonies.
They may have provided the pastoralists with temporary or
seasonal means to augment their income (particularly in times
of crisis), e.g. by assisting during harvests, guarding winter
35. Actually, a fragment of a clay sealing, undoubtedly of prehistoric date,
was found on the surface of Mounbatah during our recent survey work.
36. E.g. Oates and Oates, 1976
:
101-102; Voigt, 1983
:
322; Kóhler-Rollefson,
1992.
37. Akkermans, 1993: 173, 186ff.
38. Akkermans, 1993: 1.91; see also Hijara, 1980: 252ff; Hole and
Johnson, 1986/87.
39. Actually, ongoing analysis of the Sabi Abyad faunal material seems to
wholly support this hypothesis; cf. Cavallo, in prep.
40. Cribb, 1991
:
25.
41. Cribb, 1991
:
25; see also Rosman and Rubel, 1976: 556, discussing
the Berovand tribe of Lurs in western Iran
:
"They are sedentary
agriculturalists but still retain long-range nomadism (...). They have formed family
corporations which are comprised most frequently of men who are brothers,
though they may be cousins or just members of the same tribal subsection.
One brother will form while his partner takes care of the sheep, migrating
to Khuzistan in the winter with the herds and returning the following spring.
The next year, the partners will reverse their roles, the partner who farmed
taking over the animals and going on the migration".
42. See, e.g., Cribb, 1991
;
Kôhler-Rollefson, 1992; and other contributions
in Bar-Yosef and Khazanov (eds), 1992.
43. See e.g. Barth, 1961
:
9, on the landlords among the Basseri in
southwestern Iran, and Kôhler-Rollefson, 1992
:
1.4, on the Marrai'e in Jordan
:
"There are still a number of families associated with Suweimra who specialize
in pastoral production and who own large herds (...). While they never actually
live in Suweimra, they own houses there which they use for storage only".
Cribb, 1991
:
69, points out that "In contrast to one of the earlier myths
about pastoral society, property and domestic goods are individually owned
by each household and not communally". See also the seminal work of
Rowton, 1973, on "enclosed nomadism".
44. Kôhler-Rollefson, 1992
:
14.
45. Hole, 1991
:
19; see also Rowton, 1973
:
15, and Lewis, 1988
:
688ff.
46. Cribb, 1991
:
198.
Paléorient, vol. 22/2, p. 17-44 © CNRS Éditions 1997
Of storage and nomads - The sealings from late Neolithic Sabi Abyad, Syria 29
crops and managing the village flocks47. Elsewhere it has
been argued that a main bottleneck in local late Neolithic
agriculture was the harvest time when labour requirements
may easily have gone beyond the communities' capacities48;
one way to bypass this constraint may have been the
temporarily recruiting of additional labour forces from the nomadic
population. In addition, it seems that agriculture alone was
hardly able to meet the food requirements of local late
Neolithic communities, and that other sources of food, i.e.
livestock, must have contributed to the diet to a considerable
extent49. It may very well have been the nomadic or seminomadic
groups in society who provided these additional
sources of daily subsistence in return for other products for
their needs.
Returning to the storehouses at Sabi Abyad, it appears that
some seal designs or shapes occurred only once or twice,
whereas others were found in considerable quantities;
apparently, some seal holders and their relatives made a much
more intensive use of the storage facilities at the site than
others. Moreover, some of these persons or groups may have
maintained close social or kinship connections, this in view
of the resemblances in seal designs. For example, the
commonly found 'capricorn' design is depicted in various
configurations and associated with at least eight different seals
(see above); each seal may have represented an independent
socio-economic unit but the overall resemblance in design
perhaps suggests that the seal holders and their relatives
formed all part of one extended family, clan, or other group,
with the capricorn acting as a social emblem emphasising
group coherence50. In addition, some sealings carry
impressions of two wholly different seals, suggesting that two seal
holders, on the same hierarchical level, shared responsibility
for the sealed items51. However, this practice must have been
rather loosely structured and informal, since these seals are
also used individually and the number of combined
impressions is low. Anyway, it seems that seals and (impressed)
sealings are not exclusively administrative features but that
they had another, symbolic meaning as well, tying society
together and, perhaps, functioning in ritual, spiritual
frameworks52. Even broken sealings seem to have had some
47. E.g Barth, 1961
:
109.
48. Akkermans, 1993
:
221.
49. Cf. Flannery, 1969; Akkermans, 1993: 21 Off.
50. Cf. Weingarten, 1992
:
26, 34.
51. Weingarten, 1992: 34.
52. Ferioli et ai, 1979; Charvát. 1994. At Sabi Abyad, the impressions
with zoomorphic and, particularly, anthropomorphic representations may point
in this direction.
meaning in this respect, when taking into account that at
various sites broken sealings were not discarded at random
but deliberately kept for some time and subsequently dumped
together in specific garbage areas.
Storage at Sabi Abyad on behalf of the nomadic population
may have taken place in various forms. Basically, it may
refer to specific commodities, i.e. properties in a material
sense. The sealings suggest that mainly small containers had
been sealed. In the case of the many baskets, it appeared that
the rims rarely had a diameter over 20 cm. Ceramic
containers, too, were small, with the rim diameters varying around
10 cm; large, thick-walled storage vessels hardly carried
sealings. Apparently, the containers were all rather easily
transportable. The restricted size of the containers and the general
physical properties of both the containers and the sealings
suggest that mainly solid, dry products in small quantities
were packed. In this respect, storage may have comprised
luxury goods and raw materials, such as precious stones,
obsidian, metal ores, craft products and various finished
articles of a perishable nature. Basic subsistence products like
cereals were not kept in containers but were stored as staples,
as suggested by the considerable quantities of charred grain
found in building II, particularly in its westernmost rooms.
In one room the grain lay almost knee-high and was
surrounded and partly covered by a layer of ashy white fibrous
material of vegetable origin53. No door sealings have been
found, suggesting that these rooms were rather freely
accessible; any administrative control through sealings was
apparently absent in the case of bulk products such as cereals.
However, storage may also have taken place in a wholly
different manner, i.e. in the form of property claims. In this
case, the sealed vessels, baskets, etc., did not contain the
actual products but their symbolic representation in the shape
of tokens54, almost two hundred of which have been found
in association with the sealings. Subsequently, whenever the
need arose, the tokens could be converted at the site into the
actual products each token stood for. In this sense, storage
of tokens may have denoted administrative procedures,
regulating the handling and assignment of properties and balances.
In addition, it may also have included services, animals or
goods which were not immediately required or available but
could be delivered by the settled community within a certain
period of time, because, e.g., the product still had to be
53. Cf. Van Zeist and Waterbolk-Van Rooijen, 1996.
54. Cf. Schmandt-Besserat, 1992
:
167ff, who emphasises the role of tokens
in the communal storage of agricultural products.
Paléorient. vol. 22/2. p. 17-44 <0 CNRS Éditions 1997
30 P.M. M. G. Akkermans and К. Duistermaat
manufactured, had to be brought in from elsewhere or was
available at a particular time of the year only. So far, ten
different kinds of tokens have been distinguished at Sabi
Abyad, including shapes like small spheres, discs, cones,
cylinders and 'vessels'55. If we could assume that each of
these stood for a different product or service56, then it would
seem that the non-residential groups at the site had laid claims
for a wide variety of items. The numerous small spheres
found at our site are particularly relevant in this respect, since
they may have represented specific amounts of cereals57; if
so, grain was (not surprisingly) a product much desired by
the nomads. The sealing of claims instead of the goods
themselves may also account for the storage in bulk of
subsistence products like cereals
:
not only did it make the
rather inefficient individual storage of measured quantities in
small containers superfluous but storage in bulk in specific
areas may have also facilitated the protection of these
products from rot, insect infestation or fungi58. Finally, the
storage of tokens instead of true products could partly account
for the small size of most sealed containers at Sabi Abyad
(they were hardly or not suitable for storage in bulk). A good
example is the oval stone bowl found in building II; its
associated sealing was found in the same building but in
another room (fig. 6). An item stored in this small vessel,
measuring hardly 13 x 7 cm, must have been either very
small or available in very restricted quantities only, tokens
seem to fit this requirement perfectly.
If, indeed, some people stored claims in massive numbers
in sealed containers centrally in specific buildings, it follows
that others had to provide the means for the ultimate
conversion of these claims. This responsibility may have been in
the hands of the settled population at the site but may have
included the nomad groups as well. The proper handling of
the numerous claims, particularly if they referred to the
dividing of the community's staples (like the cereals in
building II), will have required some kind of organisation and
control beyond the individual or household level. Earlier, it
was mentioned that in the case of Sabi Abyad solid evidence
for the presence of elites or an intra-site hierarchical
organisation is absent so far. However, if our line of reasoning has
merit, some kind of authority can be postulated by inference,
which took care both of the collection and the subsequent
distribution of goods at the site. If so, this authority may have
had prestige and may have been able to control or manipulate
the socio-economic relationship between villagers and
nomads to a considerable extent. Further evidence in this
direction is derived from our earlier conclusion that sealings
as control devices operate in the public sphere and serve an
unequal, restricted distribution of goods; apparently, the
society at Sabi Abyad was far from a norm of 'egalitarian' or
'communal' but was organised along lines of inequality and
recognised private ownership. The absence of any other
(material) indication for this inequality may simply be due to a
bias in the present sample but may also result from deliberate
societal choices
:
leaders may have presented an imaginary
social equality, which protected a much more complex and
hierarchical society from evaluation by the commoners59.
Finally, the widespread use of seals and sealings in the
Balikh valley, and in northern Syria in general, around the
middle of the 6th millennium B.C. or slightly afterwards took
place along with considerable changes in local late Neolithic
society. Following a period of site desertion and
accompanying social instability, the late Neolithic communities seem
to have been re-establishing themselves at this time, pursuing
new modes of subsistence strategies and intensifying
interregional relationships60. Pastoral nomadism may have
contributed considerably to the rise of this increasingly complex
society. Seals and sealings as devices of control in their turn
facilitated the relationship between the pastoralists and the
sedentary communities. In this sense, seals and sealings
represent the formal relics of the symbiosis between the
sedentary and nomad populations in the late Neolithic.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Sincere thanks are due to the Directorate General of Antiquities and
Museums of Syria, Damascus, for its continued assistance and
encouragement concerning the excavations at Tell Sabi Abyad. We
also thank the anonymous reviewers and the editors of Paléorient
for their useful comments on an earlier draft of this article.
Peter M.M.G. AKKERMANS
and Kim DUISTERMAAT
National Museum of Antiquities
P.O. Box 11114
2301 EC Leiden, the Netherlands
55. Spoor and Collet, 1996
:
441-43.
56. Cf. Schmandt-Besserat, 1992.
57. Schmandt-Besserat, 1992: 1.50-51, 168.
58. Compare the tholoi used as granaries in the Halaf period; Akkermans
1993: 229-230.
59. Cf. Shanks and Tilley, 1982: 129-154; Shennan, 1982: 155-161;
Miller and Tilley (eds), 1984.
60. See e.g. Akkermans, 1993; Akkermans and Verhoeven, 1995;
Campbell, 1992.
Paléorient, vol. 22/2, p. 17-44 © CNRS Éditions 1997
Of storage and nomads - The sealings from late Neolithic Sabi Abyad, Syria 31
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Comments on P.M.M.G. Akkermans and
K. DUISTERMAAT'S ARTICLE "Of STORAGE AND NOMADS The
sealings from late Neolithic Sabi Abyad, Syria
R. BERNBECK
Hired Herders
The fascinating results from the excavations at Tell Sabi
Abyad provide important new insights into the development
of administrative practices such as the sealing of containers.
Akkermans' and Duistermaat's observations on the nature of
the sealed objects and the purposes of sealing require a
rethinking of a widespread idea, namely that sealing played
a role mainly in regional or interregional exchange systems.
In an analysis of the sealings themselves as well as of their
context, Akkermans and Duistermaat have argued that the
sealings were used to control stored information which was
represented by tokens. In that way, these administrative
devices from Sabi Abyad exhibit some functional similarities to
late 4th millennium clay bullae in their combination of a
storage of information about items and persons ' ; The fact
that several hundred sealings occur in a context where there
is not a single seal suggests that the seal bearers were absent
at the time of the destruction of the village. It is therefore
justified to think that a substantial part of the population which
in one way or another was related to the village of Sabi Abyad
was mobile.
A number of other assumptions underlie Akkermans' and
Duistermaat's interpretation
:
- Sealing is an administrative practice which is always
associated with formal elites in a hierarchically structured
society. That is, wherever sealings are found, a hierarchy based
on more than gender and age differences was present.
- Sealings serve to define property of a person or group
and to deny access to this property to outsiders.
- Such formal means of control of information (and
property) are unnecessary at the household level where other
mechanisms such as verbal communication are more effective.
1
.
See Nissen,
1
993
:
66-68.
- Tokens in sealed containers have the function of
controlling some sort of material exchange.
The interpretation based on a combination of these
assumptions and the archaeological evidence is a model of "delayed
return exchange". In this model, stored and sealed information
is a part of controlling exchange between sedentary
agricultural producers and mobile herders. The group monitoring
exchange between these two groups is the (sedentary) elite.
The model itself is predicated on further assumptions. The
population centered on Sabi Abyad consisted of two almost
completely separate groups : villagers and "nomads". It is
unfortunate that Akkermans and Duistermaat use an imprecise
terminology in this respect. When first dealing with the
relationship between sedentary and non-sedentary groups, they
suggest, based on ethnographic accounts from the Near East,
that one and the same community was made up of mobile
and sedentary people, and that the composition of both groups
could change quite often. Later on, the term "community" is
restricted to mean only the sedentary group living at Sabi
Abyad. This produces a sharp conceptual split between a
formally bounded sedentary and a mobile group. In the
remainder of the paper, relations between these two groups are
depicted as entirely economic in character. Thus, the nomads
used Sabi Abyad as a place for exchange, storage and
distribution center. It is said that this scenario "seems to fit the
Sabi Abyad evidence best", although no further data are
adduced to confirm this.
To specify the kinds of exchanged items, Akkermans and
Duistermaat adopt Schmandt-Besserat's idea that tokens of
different shapes had both a quantitative and a qualitative
meaning, and that they can be read in reference to the earliest
decipherable signs from the late 4th millennium. I find such
a "reading" of discoid tokens as amounts of cereals
unconvincing. If tokens are mnemonic devices with a function
somewhat similar to other symbols, it cannot be expected that their
Paléorient. vol. 22/2. p. 17-44 © CNRS Éditions 1997
34 P.M.M. G. Akkermans and К. Duistermaat
shapes have fixed meanings across time and space2. It is
exactly the arbitrariness of the shape of symbols that prevents
their reading except when they can be systematically related
to other symbols, as is the case with number systems and
writing. At Sabi Abyad, it is more probable that information
about quantities of a single item were stored by means of
tokens, and that the kind of item counted was known by the
contracting parties.
Akkermans and Duistermaat themselves mention one
problem with their interpretation : there are no indications for
the presence of a formally distinct elite which controlled the
exchange of goods between mobile and sedentary groups.
They imply therefore that the elite promoted an egalitarian
ideology to mask inequalities. There are also some other
problems with their interpretation. If the elite at Sabi Abyad
monitored a delayed return exchange between nomads and
non-elite villagers, and if the property controlled belonged to
the nomads, why should their actual property, i.e. grain, be
stored in one of the "storehouses" ? The advantage of
controlling access to the information on property claims is that
the goods themselves do not have to be physically present.
For this reason, the large amounts of cereals found in building
II need not - and probably do not - have anything to do
with the administrative items found in rooms 6 and 7.
Furthermore, if the villagers had incurred debts to the
nomads - as indicated by the fact that sealings but not seals
were found, that is, accounts were open - this implies that
the mobile part of the society had some economic power over
the villagers. One wonders therefore why they would choose
a sedentary elite to take care of their property claims.
This leads me to my main objection. Akkermans' and
Duistermaat's model overstates the difference between
sedentary and mobile groups, between "desert" and "sown". Instead
of conceiving of nomads and sedentary people as "specialist
sections", I would like to propose a slightly different
interpretation based on a different set of assumptions :
1) Tokens are used not to control an exchange between
two formally distinct groups (nomads - villagers) ; rather, they
are mnemonic devices to monitor elements of subsistence
production - specifically animal reproduction - within one
group.
2) The information stored in the form of tokens in sealed
containers does not necessarily represent claims for products
to be handed over in the future. It can as well be a statement
of a starting point of a contract. One partner, the villager,
stays behind, whereas another (or several others) leaves and
takes along a certain number of animals. A record is made
about herd size and different categories of animals (e.g. males
and females), which are represented by different kinds of
tokens, at the time of departure. When the herder returns, the
stored information can be retrieved easily and compared to
the actual herd size and composition. The "profit" in
additional animals can then be distributed, according to social
conventions, between the parties involved in the contract.
3) I assume - in accordance with a model of Meillassoux3
- that control of subsistence production in such societies is
principally a matter of age. People of working age have an
obligation to care for their children as well as for parents
who are no longer working. Old people have no obligations
except towards the ancestors of a village. The younger
generation will eventually take their parents' position, and will
then control the production and distribution of agricultural
products.
4) Contrary to Akkermans and Duistermaat, I assume that
even within kinship units, contracts of a relatively formal
nature are often concluded. The story of Jacob and his
father-in-law Laban in the Old Testament provides a vivid
description of such a contract. Herders and villagers in such
a scheme are part of the same social unit; they are not
economically specialized people. Anyone of working age can
be sent out with herds or stay in the village. Old people,
because of the physical strains of a mobile life, stay in the
village, where one finds the evidence for the "contracts" they
entered into with some people of the younger generation.
Such an integrated system, where part of a kinship unit stays
in a village whereas another part moves with the herds - at
least for some of the year - is defined as "transhumance"4.
The main differences between such an interpretation of
the evidence from Sabi Abyad and Akkermans' and
Duistermaat's are that tokens store information about a starting point
of a contract, not about a future obligation. Furthermore, the
information stored consists of easily counted, relatively
"natural" units, i.e. animals, but not of an artificial unit such as
a volume, weight or other measuring unit for grain.
Differences between mobile and settled parts of a social unit are
not as prominent as in Akkermans' and Duistermaat's model.
According to Lees and Bates5, such specialization is only to
2. Michalowskj, 1990.
3. Meillassoux, 1981.
4. Hûtteroth, 1959: 37; Zagarell, 1982: 98.
5. Lees and Bates, 1974.
Paléorient, vol. 22/2. p. 17-44 © CNRS Éditions 1997
Of storage and nomads - The sealings from late Neolithic Sabi Abyad, Syria 35
be expected in conjunction with high surplus production, for
which there is not much evidence at Sabi Abyad. The finding
of a large amount of grain in House II indicates that this
house was used year round. Since in House II tokens and
sealings were found, one could suspect that this was one of
the houses in which a kinship unit was centered, that is, where
parts of the elder generation lived. Control of herd
reproduction within a kinship unit does not presuppose a tripartite
social structure with a (settled) elite, non-elite villagers and
nomads. Instead, the social hierarchy could have been based
on gérontocratie principles, which do not necessarily translate
into economic inequality in terms of the distribution of
material wealth.
Whichever explanation of the evidence one prefers, the
data from Sabi Abyad and the stimulating interpretations
proposed by Akkermans and Duistermaat provide new
challenges to our understanding of the development of information
storage.
Reinhard BERNBECK
Department of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology
Bryn Mawr 2 College
Bryn Mawr 2 PA 19010-2899 USA
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hutteroth W.-D.
1959 Bergnomaden und Yaylabauern im Mittleren Kurdischen
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Lees S.H. and Bates D.G.
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Meillassoux С
1981 Maidens, Meals, and Money: Capitalism and the Domestic
Economy. Cambridge
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Zagarell A.
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Reichert.
S. Cleuziou
Les scellements de Tell Sabi Abyad fournissent des
informations capitales pour notre approche des sociétés du néolithique
oriental et pour celle du développement des sociétés
complexes dans cette région. Ils apportent non seulement les
preuves d'une utilisation extensive de ces techniques dans les
communautés agricoles de l'extrême fin du VIIe millénaire
mais aussi de précieux renseignements sur le contexte social
de leur utilisation.
Les réflexions sur la fonction sociale des scellements ont
été jusqu'ici associées aux études sur les premières formations
étatiques et, plus particulièrement, au contrôle bureaucratique
de la redistribution des denrées artisanales et agricoles ou des
échanges à longue distance qu'on y restitue. Les auteurs ont
raison de ne pas projeter ces interprétations sur les scellements
de Sabi Abyad, et leur argumentation est d'autant plus forte
qu'elle repose sur des données concernant les contenants, le
contexte de dépôt, l'origine des argiles.
Par leur décor, cachets et sceaux sont investis
symboliquement et leur interprétation postule implicitement qu'ils sont
utilisés dans les moments d'une chaîne d'actions où un
contrôle social peut s'exercer, ce que les spécialistes de la
technologie culturelle nomment des tâches stratégiques. Le
contexte de Sabi Abyad où ils sont associés entre autres à
des figurines le confirme, tout comme il suggère un rôle dans
la gestion de produits par la présence de diverses variétés de
jetons. De même que les idées communément admises sur le
fonctionnement des premières entités étatiques conduisent à
leur attribuer un rôle pour la redistribution et le contrôle des
denrées dans la seconde moitié du IVe millénaire, de même
est-il donc ici logique de leur chercher un rôle en rapport
avec ce que nous savons ou croyons savoir du fonctionnement
d'une société néolithique. L'association des scellements de
Sabi Abyad avec ce que les fouilleurs considèrent comme une
composante essentielle de l'économie locale, à savoir
l'interaction entre fractions nomades et sédentaires de la société,
est de ce point de vue une hypothèse tout à fait séduisante.
Elle est construite par inferences successives à partir des
trouvailles et de leur contexte, et notamment du fait que la
taille restreinte des récipients scellés implique qu'ils ne
contenaient pas des céréales, mais soit des objets d'une certaine
valeur, soit des représentations de celles-ci sous forme de
jetons.
Puléorient. vol. 22/2. p. 17-44 © CNRS Editions 1997
36 P.M. M.G. Akkermans and К. Duistermaat
A partir de là, on ne ne voit pas très bien pourquoi cette
« banque » primitive aurait servi seulement à une fraction
non-résidente de la population, les « titres de propriété » qui
y étaient entreposés n'ayant pas de raison a priori de
concerner des non résidents plutôt que des résidents. L'argumentation
des auteurs tient pour partie au fait qu'aucun cachet n'a été
trouvé sur le site, un argument relativement faible de leur
propre aveu (note 33). Elle est surtout fondée sur l'hypothèse
selon laquelle l'usage des cachets répond à une contrainte
propre aux nomades, à savoir que les denrées stockées ou
représentées dans les bâtiments II et VI quittent par nécessité
la sphère domestique parce que leurs propriétaires ne peuvent
pas les transporter avec eux. Si les « titres de propriété »
réfèrent comme le supposent les auteurs aux ressources
agricoles de la communauté, on peut supposer que le système de
stockage et de « partage » concernait aussi l'ensemble de la
communauté, et l'estimation du nombre de personnes
correspondant aux 67 cachets utilisés devient alors sans objet.
Plus généralement, si nous admettons volontiers que la
société de Sabi Abyad n'était pas égalitaire, c'est
probablement aller trop loin de dire que les cachets témoignent
d'un accès inégal aux ressources et de la reconnaissance d'une
propriété privée individuelle, du moins s'agissant des
ressources. Sans doute faut-il dans l'état actuel des données se
contenter de suggestions plus générales que les hypothèses
élaborées par les auteurs. Les recherches anthropologiques sur
les sociétés inégalitaires suggèrent que dans les sociétés
« transégal itaires », pour reprendre le terme proposé par Hayden1,
c'est-à-dire les sociétés à Grands hommes à Big Men
pour reprendre la terminologie française2, c'est par la création
de dettes, quelle qu'en soit la nature, qu'un certain nombre
d'individus attirent à leur profit le travail et la coopération
des autres membres de la communauté, les ressources de la
communauté restant partagées par tous. Il semble que des
relations liées à certaines formes de dette, ou si l'on préfère
de réciprocité différée, peuvent rendre compte des scellements
de Sabi Abyad, qui n'auraient ainsi pas directement à voir
avec la gestion de la production. Ceci serait cohérent avec le
niveau des inégalités sociales tel qu'on peut le supposer dans
des communautés comme Sabi Abyad, et avec l'idée qu'il y
existait vraisemblablement quelque autorité (i.e. des individus)
en mesure de manipuler les relations socio-économiques entre
les divers membres de la communauté. Une autre voie de
recherche - peut-être complémentaire - pourrait être l'idée
que les « archives » de Sabi Abyad correspondraient à des
contrats à court terme d'individu à individu, portant sur de
petites quantités (un mouton ou quelques mesures de grain)
comme il en existait dans les communautés agricoles
traditionnelles de Jordanie3.
Les données exceptionnelles de Sabi Abyad ouvrent de
nouvelles voies de connaissance sur les communautés
néolithiques du Proche-Orient, le seul piège à éviter étant sans
doute d'y voir les précurseurs directs du système
bureaucratique des premiers états. Peut-être aussi faut-il se garder
d'établir, comme le font en conclusion les auteurs, un lien
trop précis entre ces données et des changements
considérables intervenant alors dans la société néolithique. Le caractère
même de la découverte devrait nous inciter à être prudent sur
ce qui la précède et sur les données qu'il reste à acquérir.
Serge CLEUZIOU
CNRS, ERA 41
Centre de recherches archéologiques
3, rue Michelet
75006 Paris
BIBLIOGRAPHIE
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Lemonnier P.
1990
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M. Frangipane
In their paper, Akkermans and Duistermaat deal with an
extraordinarily early and well-documented case of a massive
use of clay sealings as a form of administrative control over
the distribution of goods in the context of communal storage.
Their interpretation, quite rightly in my opinion, has
superseded the explanation that Akkermans and Verhoeven propo-
1. Hayden, 1995
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L9.
2. Lemonnier, 1990. 3. Mundy, 1984.
Paléorient, vol. 22/2, p. 17-44 © CNRS Éditions 1997
Of storage and nomads - The sealings from late Neolithic Sabi Abyad. Syria 37
sed in an earlier article published in the American Journal of
Archaeology in 1995, that relied on the assumption that
"sealing agencies" had sent goods in sealed containers to Sabi
Abyad. In this paper, after reconsidering both the nature of
the location of clay sealings - concentrated in particular
rooms inside buildings that were clearly intended for the
massive storage of cereals - and the main function of the
seal as an instrument restricting access to goods in situations
involving persons outside the domestic unit, Akkermans and
Duistermaat reconstruct a storage and distribution system at
a supra-household level with which I fully agree.
All the elements they offer indicate a "central" control
procedure for the distribution of goods to a large number of
people (judging from the large numbers of different seals),
reminiscent of all the procedural aspects of more recent
administrative systems (the seal placed by the person
withdrawing goods, repeated sealings of the same container, and the
subsequent "filing" of clay sealings to serve as
receipts/documents). The large number of people involved, the frequency
of operations and the filing away of the clay sealings that
had been removed would in themselves disprove the theory
that the seal was used for exchange activities, which were
certainly secondary in importance in the economic life of the
Neolithic communities of the kind one finds at Sabi Abyad.
For if the function of the clay sealings had been to guarantee
the integrity of goods transferred by middlemen from one
community to another, why should they be kept in store after
being removed ? The whole operation would have been
completed with the delivery of the goods to the beneficiary.
This hypothesis was at all events disproved when it was
shown that the clay used was local.
Due account also has to be taken of the fact that the clay
sealings were associated with buildings whose architectural
features and size, as well as the large quantities of cereals
found in them, indicate they were storehouses serving several
domestic units. One very interesting idea proposed by A. and
D. is that the need of an agricultural community to have a
common management of primary goods must have arisen in
societies with a semi-mobile organization where people had
to temporarily move away from the storage places, making
it necessary to entrust the harvests to officials appointed by
the community itself. A very interesting case of this kind is
that of a modern community in Libya mentioned by D.M.
Hallaq at a recent colloquium '. In this respect the hypothesis
]. Ferioli P., Fiandra E., FissoRE G.G. and Frangipane M. (eds). 1994.
Archives before writing. Rome.
presented is very stimulating : that forms of pastoral
nomadism emerged in Late Neolithic as an adaptive answer to the
growing demands arisen in those communities, and that the
pastoralism, being closely integrated with the agricultural
activities in the same communities made it necessary for at
least some members to temporarily move away from their
places of residence. This model fits in very well, in my
opinion, with the configuration of the Neolithic societies of
Jezira as well as with their Halaf developments, and accounts
not only for the mobility of these communities which can be
archaeologically recognized from the small size of the sites
and their frequent shifting, but also for the possible forms of
community cooperation in subsistence activities, as suggested
by the architectural features (communal storage buildings)
and the specialized economies of some villages. It is therefore
no coincidence that the glyptics and the wholly administrative
use of seals came into being in this northern environment in
"communal centralization" contexts which, as A. and D. say,
entail the transfer to the public sphere of the management
responsability but not the actual ownership of the centrally
stored goods. However, the administrative procedures are very
similar to those found in early state centralized systems, in
which real forms of the central appropriation of goods
developed. The finding of the burnt village at Sabi Abyad would
therefore account for the maturity of an administrative system
of the kind that has come to light at Arslantepe and other
early urban Mesopotamian sites, which E. Fiandra has already
emphasized on many occasions.
Where I cannot entirely agree with the authors of this
article is their assumption that distribution was the result of
an exchange between shepherds and farmers (agricultural
produce exchanged for other goods from the pastoralist
community). I think that the model of centrally managed
stores is much more likely in situations where the producers
themselves put their products into a common store and have
subsequent access to them following specific regulations. The
intensity of the operations as well as the very large number
of people withdrawing the goods suggests that the whole
community was involved following regular procedures on a
continuous basis.
Another rather unconvincing point in the proposal
advanced by A. and D. is their assumption that clay sealings may
have been used to seal the symbolic representation of the
goods withdrawn, namely tokens, rather than the actual goods
themselves. This assumption is based on the small size of
the containers considered to be too small judging from the
impressions left of them on the reverse of the clay sealings ;
Paléorient. vol. 22/2. p. 17-44 <v CNRS Editions 1997
38 P.M. M.G. Akkermans and К. Duistermaat
this, according to the authors, is further supported by the
assumption that the seals have a symbolic value, suggested
by the fact that the clay searings were kept in special places
after their removal. But whereas the "filing away" of the clay
sealings is a well-known administrative procedure in
redistribution systems, the problem of the size of the containers
needs to be rethought out a little. Judging from our experience
with thousands of clay sealings in Arslantepe, we might
suggest that the vast majority of the baskets recognized at
Sabi Abyad were in reality straw or reed lids placed on the
vessels ; if this is the case, necks with diameters of 15-20 cm
can belong to middle-sized or even large vessels. It would
be important, in this connection, to know which kind of pots
were found in the store building at Sabi Abyad. At any rate
in later contexts it was a well-known practice to use rather
small containers in "distribution stores" which were
continually refilled. The western rooms of Building II at Sabi
Abyad with the large quantities of charred grains found in
them could have been stores from which to refill the
containers for distribution.
On the other hand the tokens were not only too few in
proportion to the number of clay sealings to have performed
the function proposed here, but from the description given
by the authors they were not found associated with the vessels
but with the clay sealings that had been set aside. It is
therefore possible that they played the normal function of
counters for internal accounting purposes in the storehouse.
Lastly, if the clay sealings had been used to seal the tokens
as symbolic representations of the quantity and quality of the
goods withdrawn, or even of "property claims", it would not
have been necessary to keep the clay sealings removed after
every reopening of the containers, because the information
on the number and amount of withdrawals would have been
given by the tokens themselves.
With regard to the specific procedures for distribution there
is, of course, a great deal still to reflect upon and investigate
in the different contexts in which there is a good
documentation available, but the general model proposed by A. and
D. in this paper, in my opinion, works very well. It also
accounts, as I have already said, for subsequent developments
of administrative systems in the Near East, opening up new
perspectives for the investigation of the origin of such
systems, as well as for the study of the organizational features
of Late Neolithic societies in northern Mesopotamia.
Marcella FRANGIPANE
Dip. Di Scienze Storiche Archeologické e Antropologiche dell'Antichità
Universita di Roma "La Sapienza"
Via Palestre 63, 00185 Roma, Italia
A. Le Brun
Au scénario « classique » qu'avaient élaboré RM.M.G.
Akkermans et K. Duistermaat pour rendre compte de la
remarquable trouvaille à Sabi Abyad de nombreux scellements
portant des empreintes de cachets et qui suggérait la pratique
d'un système de gestion, la reconnaissance de l'origine locale
de l'argile utilisée pour façonner les scellements les a amenés
à substituer un autre scénario dans lequel un rôle essentiel
est donné à une population non-sédentaire, un scénario
décrivant la symbiose entre des populations d'agriculteurs
sédentaires et des populations de pasteurs nomades.
L'introduction de populations non-résidantes n'est pas sans
soulever des interrogations.
Que l'argile utilisée pour les scellements soit d'origine
locale est une chose, que l'on doive en conclure à
l'intervention dans le système de gestion d'une population ne résidant
pas sur place, en l'occurrence des pasteurs nomades, en est
une autre. D'ailleurs le fonctionnement du système tel que
P.A. et K.D. le décrivent, ne réclame en rien une telle
vention « extérieure » : il n'est, en effet, pas besoin d'être un
non-résident pour avoir à recourir à des « claims of
ownership », si tant est que nous ayons à faire à des documents de
cette sorte, qu'en bonne logique on s'attendrait plus à trouver
entre les mains des créanciers qu'entre celles des débiteurs,
comme ce serait le cas dans le scénario envisagé.
Mais, de plus, les arguments avancés pour démontrer la
nécessité d'impliquer des non-résidents dans cette affaire sont
deux affirmations qui méritent discussion. Car on est bien en
droit de se demander pour quelles raisons l'usage, au niveau
intra-site, de scellements marqués d'un cachet serait à exclure,
comme on est également en droit de se demander pour quelles
raisons il en serait de même au niveau inter-site. On ne voit
pas non plus pourquoi le type d'échange « face to face » qui
aurait prévalu, tant au niveau intra-site qu'au niveau inter-site,
entre des populations sédentaires, ne se serait pas appliqué
tout aussi bien à des échanges entre des sédentaires et des
non-sédentaires. Ce traitement particulier que le scénario imPaléorient,
vol. 22/2, p. 17-44 © CNRS Éditions 1997
Of storage and nomads - The sealings from late Neolithic Sabi Abyad, Syria 39
pose ainsi aux échanges entre ces deux populations, s'
accordant par ailleurs difficilement avec la fragilité, soulignée par
P.A. et K.D., de la partition sociale entre groupes sédentaires
et groupes nomades, fragilité dans le temps : une telle partition
pouvant n'exister que pour un cycle annuel, fragilité des
statuts
:
le groupe sédentaire pouvant devenir pasteur et
inversement. Le recours à des non-résidents n'est pas non plus
conforté par l'absence de cachets. L'absence ou la rareté des
cachets, comme ailleurs celle des sceaux-cylindres, n'a rien
d'inhabituel et l'incendie qui a ravagé le village l'explique
aisément à Sabi Abyad. Pour quelles raisons en effet, au
moment d'abandonner sa maison ou son village en proie aux
flammes, le possesseur d'un cachet se serait-il défait d'un
objet chargé de valeur, de petite taille, donc aisément
transportable et qu'il devait en outre déjà porter sur lui ?
Quant à l'hypothèse selon laquelle les jetons trouvés aux
mêmes endroits que les scellements seraient la représentation
symbolique de denrées ou de services, - à ce propos je n'ose
m' interroger sur la nature des services symbolisés par les
figurines humaines -, j'ignore si elle est pertinente comme
j'ignore aussi pourquoi les petites sphères pourraient avoir
représenté des quantités données de céréales. Mais si tel est
le cas, on ne peut qu'être frappé par la disproportion existant
entre le petit nombre de jetons recueillis, - « almost two
hundred » qui se répartissent en 10 types -, le nombre de
scellements, - 1 89, pour ne compter que ceux qui portent des
empreintes de cachet -, et le nombre de « personnes »
identifiées, de cachets utilisés, - 67 -, représentant un groupe
non-résidant estimé par P.A et K.D. compter entre 400 et 670
personnes.
Alain LE BRUN
UPR 7537 du CNRS
II, rue Mazagran, 75010 Paris
H.J. NlSSEN
Like inventors or people making an unusai spectacular
contribution to a specific field, lucky excavators enjoy a certain
freedom of exaggeration and over-enthusiasm. Quite
obviously, Sabi Abyad is one of the most interesting sites excavated
in recent years which in many respects is liable to change
our picture of life in the Neolithic period, and without any
doubt, Peter Akkermans and the entire crew are to be
congratulated both on their luck and the skill which enabled them
to come up with such magnificent results. Yet, what he and
his present collaborator Kim Duistermaat offer in the article
under discussion is much beyond of what could be conveyed
by the expression of "Narrenfreiheit". In fact, I confess that
I recommended that this article should not be printed. Being
put on the spot, I will briefly outline my reasons which
concern both the form and the line of argument.
As can be seen from a comparison of the plan, figure 1,
with the one published previously in AJA 99 p. 9, figure 3
(apparently there must exist a more recent publication which
so far I have no access to) substantial parts have been added
in the meantime, which as a matter of course cannot be found
discussed in AJA 99. Since during the present interpretation
so much emphasis is placed on the question of the functions
of the rooms/buildings, it would have been absolutely
necessary to at least sketch the new architectural situation
incorporating the new additions. Other than on the AJA 99 plan
the remains now excavated to the west of building units II
and III suggest that these two units belong to the same
compound
:
and to judge from the new plan it even seems
possible that what has now been designated unit X may in
fact be another extension of IMII.
This would have two consequences detrimental to the main
argument put forth later. 1) Even if only П and III belong to
the same compound it would make this unit larger and more
substantial than the others, pointing to social/economic
differences within the settlement. At the same time this would
easily explain why more sealings were found here than in
the smaller units. 2) The combination would result in a unit
consisting of a space for living and household activities and
a large storage area consisting of small cubicles; perfectly
normal
:
cf. for instance, Neolithic Basta. There would be no
need for the totally speculative designation as "communal
storehouse", with all the additional speculations coming along
with it.
One of the basic points for the construct, the assertion
repeated twice "solid proof for the presence of any elites or
an intra-site hierarchical organization is absent so far" (p. 9
and later), however, does not need the counter argument noted
above, but is ridiculed already by the observation that even
with the new additions the area uncovered measures only 878
sqm or 1.75 % of the total area given as 5 ha.
Paléorient. vol. 22/2. p. 17-44 fj CNRS Éditions 1997
40 P.M. M.G. Akkermans and К. Duistermaat
Another basic argument is that "not a single stamp seal
has so far been found in the houses" (p. 1). However footnote
4 tells us that "stamp seals have only appeared in somewhat
later levels" for which we are refered to AJA 96, p. 10, which
tells us that they were found in "level 4 fill". From AJA 99,
p. 8 we learn that during the early excavation three
transitional levels 4-6 had been differentiated of which, however,
later only level 6 turned out to be a building layer. Can it
really be totally excluded that the fill of "levels" 4 and 5 has
connections to level 6 buildings ? But even without this
observation, there are a number of systematic possibilities
why in an area no seals would be found : curiously enough
the authors themselves mention some in footnote 33, without
paying attention to it in the main text.
Another problem is the undifferentiated usage of the word
"sealing" both as equivalent to "fastener", "closing device"
and in the sense of "clay object with seal impressions". On
p. 1 we learn that of "these searings"... "most... carry seal
impressions", but later on it is never differentiated between
sealings with and without seal impressions. If it was through
seal designs that returning nomads were enabled to reconize
their property, then fasteners without seal impression cannot
have had the same function; yet, they apparently were found
together. This problem is not even touched upon.
That means that none of the fundamental arguments
remains as powerful as to allow such far-fetched conclusions
outlined in the second part of the paper. It is not necessary,
therefore, to point out the many unexplained a priori
statements which often contradict our normal assumptions and
therefore would have needed an explanation. As such I may
only cite one example on p. 12 : "Let us consider the
possibility that the population was not composed entirely of
permanent residents but had a considerable mobile or
transhumant component... If the above is true this mobile part
of the population would not simply consist of some
individuals otherwise fully associated with the permanent settled
domestic units but comprised entire "families" or
"households". First of all, the conclusion does not follow from what
was said before; secondly, while such a differentiation by
units may find a parallel somewhere, the normal scheme is
that a varying part of a unit (family; household) migrates
with the herds while another part remains at home and
conducts the settled life of agriculturalists; incidentally, the
authors themselves quote this situation in their footnote 41
but, incomprehensibly, they take this quotation to support
their idea.
A last point concerns the method. While by now it has
been widely accepted that without the use of hypotheses and
even speculations archaeology would remain on a blunt
descriptive level, what none of us would like to return, the use
of models or hypotheses needs to follow strict rules. The
piling of hypotheses on top of each other without the slightest
attempt to give any explanations is simply unscientific; in a
single paragraph on p. Ill counted six superimposed
hypotheses, what within eleven lines transforms the statement that
there were "archive rooms in a few structures only" (itself
disputable because out of twelve units sealings were found
in five : almost half !) into the notion of "storehouses". The
next paragraph takes this designation already for granted, and
without much further arguing this mutates into " 'communal'
store houses", immediately afterwards; and we reach a next
height in the next paragraph when it becomes "Collective
storage of properties, under the supervision of external
custodians".
Hans J. NISSEN
Seminarfur Vorderasiatische Altertumskunde
der Freien Universitat Berlin
Bitterstr. 8-12, D-14195 Berlin, Deutschland
H.T. Wright
The archaeological community can only welcome this prompt
preliminary publication of a remarkable series of sealings
from the time when early village communities were beginning
to develop more complex cultural patterns involving new
forms of political and social organization which we are only
beginning to understand. The several corpora of sealings from
well-defined contexts within the burned community of Sabi
Abyad 6 are key elements of the evidence which we need if
we are to evaluate ideas about community structure, the
storage and transfer of goods, the definition of wealth, and
its relation to emergent authority and processes of social
control. We must thank Akkermans and Duistermaat and the
direction of Paleorient for making this available with dispatch.
I leave to others the discussion of the issues of the social
organization of Sabi Abyad and the role of nomads in the
larger regional system of which Sabi Abyad must have been
Paleorient, vol. 22/2, p. 17-44 © CNRS Éditions 1997
Of storage and nomads - The sealings from late Neolithic Sabi Abyad, Syria 41
a part. Instead, I wish to focus my remarks on the issue of
seals, sealings, and their relation to "administration". Sealings
close things so that they cannot be tampered with. The use
of distinctive marks on sealings places this closure under a
particular authority. Without some knowledge of the seals
themselves, it is difficult to decide whether the authority was
an individual, a group, an office, or an institution, though the
frequencies of impressions can enable us to eliminate some
of these possibilities. But the existence of seals and sealings
alone do not indicate an 'administration', an organization for
making decisions about the relations between activities.
Typically it is the use of certain types of seals on sealings
specialized for the storage or transfer of messages which
manifest the existence of an administration. Without more
detailed reporting of the sealings, the possible tokens, and
their contexts, it is difficult to argue for more than the
authorizing of goods closure at Sabi Abyad 6.
If the reader wishes to know whether there was an actual
administration rather than a set of arrangements for goods
storage by extended families or lineages, they will need more
information on the tokens, and they will need preliminary
data on the seals and sealings comparable to those available
for later corpora of sealings. In particular, while the types of
sealed items (as indicated by the impressions of jars, baskets,
etc. on the backs of sealings) are tabulated, and the seal
impressions are described, illustrated and enumerated, there
is no table cross-tabulating the appearance of the different
seal impressions on the different types of sealed items for
Sabi Abyad. Enrica Fiandra and her colleagues have presented
such tables regularly in their preliminary reports on Arslantepe
and other sites, so that assessments of their idea about
administration are possible. In the future, in addition to the
interesting material and ideas clearly and usefully presented by
Akkermans and Duistermaat, the reader will also need
information on the associations between types of seal impressions
and types of sealings in each major occurrence of sealings at
Sabi Abyad, paralleling those in Fiandra's exemplary
preliminary studies.
Henry T. WRIGHT
Museum of Anthropology
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
Reply
P.M.M.G. Akkermans and K. Duistermaat
Our paper has attempted to bring together a number of
observations, hypotheses and conclusions which contribute to
an understanding of the use of seals and sealings in the
prehistoric Near East. We have argued that the 'traditional'
explanatory models, each mainly relying upon elite groups or
long-distance exchange and each with its own assumptions
and speculations, do hardly or not fit the Sabi Abyad evidence.
Instead we have presented another hypothesis, based on a
different set of assumptions, speculations and factual
evidence, relating seals and sealings to organised storage mainly
on behalf of a nomadic population in Neolithic society.
The responses to our paper are widely divergent and
express mixed feelings, partly perhaps echoing the personal
interests and research topics of our reviewers. Particularly,
the contribution of Hans Nissen reminded us of Kent Flannery's
1976 hilarious parable on the 'Real Mesoamerican
Archaeologist' and his 'Skeptical Graduate Student'... The
comments mainly focus on three issues, i.e. the role of elites,
the use of tokens and the relationship between nomads and
sedentary people, perhaps not unexpected in view of the
controversial character of these themes in archaeology in
general.
Before addressing these themes, it is useful to reply first
to the requests of Henry Wright and Hans Nissen for more
tables and additional architectural details, respectively.
Actually, this information can all be found in a recent monograph
on the work at Sabi Abyad ' ; we felt that repetition of this
information would have enlarged our paper substantially but
unnecessarily. However, we admit that the extensive report
may not have been available to our reviewers in time.
1. Akkermans fed.) 1996; see. e.g., the footnotes 2, 3, 11, 19 and 29 in our
paper.
Paléorient. vol. 22/2. p. 17-44 © CNRS Éditions 1997
42 P.M. M. G. Akkermans and К. Duistermaat
While summarising our basic assumptions, Reinhard Bernbeck
supposes that our interpretation considers sealing to have
been an administrative practice always associated with formal
elites in a hierarchically structured society. However, this
supposition is utterly unfounded; the association of sealings
and elites is entirely his, not ours. On the contrary, we have
said that from a theoretical point of view there is no a priori
need to include elites in any system of sealing, and that from
a practical point of view there is no solid evidence for any
elite group at Sabi Abyad so far. The apparent absence of
any elite groups vis-à-vis the presence of sealings at the site
suggests that both may very well occur independently. Our
model takes full account of this suggestion, and we wish to
emphasise that within our model the system of sealing
basically operates without any elite presence or elite interference
(let alone any "tripartite social structure with a (settled) elite,
non-elite villagers and nomads", to use the words Bernbeck
puts in our mouth). In our view, the practice of sealing initially
had little or nothing to do with any elites, (re)distribution,
indication of quality or quantity of goods stored, or
bookkeeping. Sealings basically served a much simpler aim : the
marking and protection of property (cf. Wright). The
importance of such marks seems evident in the case of the largescale
storage in specific storehouses containing the properties
of numerous individuals; how to recognise otherwise one's
property among the many items stored and how to prove
otherwise that one is indeed the rightful owner ? In this
respect, sealings help considerably to minimalise potential
conflicts on property within a community2. The immediate
benefits do not only concern the owners of the sealed products
but also those in charge of the storage : untouched sealings
show that any item under their care is still in its original
condition and that storage took place as earlier agreed.
Actually, the question whether or not (and in what form)
elite groups were present at Sabi Abyad would require another
paper to do it justice. However, we feel that the considerable
attention given in some comments (Bernbeck, Cleuziou, Nissen)
to this topic is hardly relevant at present. Our model
may easily work in elite-directed societies as well (cf. the
comment of Frangipane), unless these elites make effort to
modify the system of sealing drastically to their advantage;
in the latter case, we are dealing with a wholly new situation.
We fully agree that the practice of sealing has an enormous
potential in terms of power and manipulation, but one cannot
take the use of this potential for granted. Arguing that elites
2. Cf. Hallaq, 1994b
:
394 on the recent use of seals in the Jebel al-Akhdar
of Libya.
were present at Sabi Abyad (cf. Nissen) is one thing, arguing
that they made specific use of the system of sealing to their
advantage is another thing (again, we cannot assume a priori
that sealings served the needs of elite groups ; cf. the comment
of Wright). Anyhow, in the case of Sabi Abyad, we may
wonder how to reconcile the occurrence of a restricted elite
group with the vast numbers of different seal impressions
found at the site, the latter suggesting that the actual seals
were in the hands of many persons.
Some commentors (Cleuziou, Bernbeck, Le Brun) have
misunderstood our intentions when concluding that storage
at Sabi Abyad exclusively comprised the stocking of property
claims and that all sealings functioned only in relation with
tokens. We have suggested that sealed storage at the site may
have taken place in several forms, one of which is the storage
of specific commodities, another the storage of property
claims with the help of tokens. It goes almost without saying
that the system of sealing in its most simple form concerns
the sealing of actual goods, whereas the use of sealings in
association with tokens is a further, complementary
elaboration of the system. Both may have been simultaneously in
use at Sabi Abyad. When accepting that only a part of the
sealings refers to property claims, one may wonder whether
the 'discrepancy' between the numbers of tokens and sealings
noted by both Le Brun and Frangipane is justified. Frangipane
is wholly right when pointing out that many of our basket
sealings may refer to rather large containers and that it is,
consequently, unlikely that these were used in association
with tokens. However, in the case of the pottery (and stone
bowl) sealings, the picture may be different : it is true that
jars of all sizes appear in the level 6 structures but the sealings
mainly concern vessels of small size (rim diameters varying
around 10 cm, and rim thickness around 0.5 cm). Necessarily,
these sealed vessels must have contained items in small
quantities; tokens may have been one option, luxury goods
or the like another. Bernbeck' s suggestion that tokens in
sealed containers served to record agreements on animals sent
along with the herdsmen is highly interesting, since it
accounts for a much more active participation from the side of
the sedentary groups in the practice of sealing ; the initiative
is in the hands of the sedentary group. However, it is not
clear to us why this view should be in conflict with our
'property claims', i.e. why can't tokens serve both purposes
in a complementary manner ? In addition, it seems clear that
Bernbeck's alternative does not account for the sealing and
storage of actual goods. In principle, both ways of sealed
storage (i.e. of actual products and property claims) in
collective storehouses are open to the nomadic as well as the
Paléorient, vol. 22/2, p. 17-44 © CNRS Éditions 1997
Of storage and nomads - The sealings from late Neolithic Sabi Abyad, Syria 43
sedentary groups in society. However, we have argued that
in practice the sedentary community has little or no need to
make use of these facilities; they have other means to store
and protect their properties. The absence of seals is an
additional argument to support our view, not its basic reason as
some commentors (Cleuziou, Nissen, Bernbeck, Le Brun)
seem to have concluded. The sedentary people will certainly
have supported the system, because it facilitated (and
contributed to the continuation of) their relationship with those who
were truly in need of sealed storage, i.e. the nomadic groups.
Considerable attention has been given in our paper to the
relationship between the sedentary and nomadic populations.
Bernbeck (and, in some way, Nissen as well) correctly points
out that the difference between both groups should not be
overstated and that any sharp, conceptual distinction between
the 'sown' and the 'desert' is not justified, and we hasten to
add we did not suggest this. We feel we have taken great
care to describe the close interaction at all levels between
both groups. Bernbeck's criticism that we consider the
relationship between the various groups as merely economical is
incorrect; we explicitly stated that sites like Sabi Abyad may
have acted as points of exchange, storage and distribution
but also as the scenes of all kinds of social engagements,
such as marriages, festivities and ceremonies. We do not
consider the population at Sabi Abyad to consist of "two
almost completely separate groups" (Bernbeck) ; although we
proposed a simple social and economic partition within the
community at Sabi Abyad, we also emphasised the fragile
and often non-durable nature of this division. In turn, this
emphasis underlies - "incomprehensibly" - according to
Nissen our references to some ethnographic cases. We wish to
stress, once again, the fragile division between nomads and
sedentaries; those who were mobile herdsmen at one time,
may have been sedentary farmers at another time, and vice
versa. In this respect, our storehouses were not the exclusive
domain of a few persons only but in principle stood open to
all members of the community, whenever they were in need
of storage space ('today me, tomorrow thou'). Our 'centrally
managed' storehouses simply served to store sealed properties,
nothing more, nothing less. Any subsequent 'distribution'
concerned only the owners of the stored items, who simply
withdrew their belongings; this distribution had nothing to
do with matters like 'exchange' or 'production', as Bernbeck,
Le Brun and Frangipane seem to think. In our view, the actual
origin of the properties or the question of how one acquires
one's property is irrelevant in terms of both storage and
distribution.
Actually, the close relationship at all levels between the
nomads and the sedentary people seems to have been a
prerequisite for the system of sealing to work. While
reflecting on the various comments, it occurred to us that the
practice of sealing, without the use of any additional modes
of control such as written documents, had little to do with
strict and anonymous, businesslike agreements but was based
to a very considerable extent on mutual trust, agreement and
cooperation between the parties involved. Indeed, this trust
is partly bypassed in a formal manner through the use of
sealings; sealings as such allow control over goods and
people. However, the mere fact that a sealed item had been
brought into the storehouses, i.e. that an item had been given
in custody, is nowhere accounted for in the practice of sealing
(more correctly, it cannot be accounted for, without additional
devices of control). Bernbeck and Le Brun partly refer to this
inconsistency when pointing out that one would expect
'property claims' to be in the hands of the 'creditors' instead of
the 'debtors', as is the case in our scenario. However, we
may add that this holds only if the relationship is primarily
businesslike, which we feel is not the case at Sabi Abyad.
When accepting that the sealing of goods and so forth at Sabi
Abyad did not take place on an incidental basis but
represented a continuous and well-structured event, it follows that
the sealing must have served the needs of all participants to
a considerable extent. In other words, the maintenance of the
mutual trust must have been lucrative to all parties; basically,
it ensured collaboration at all levels, then and in the future.
Evidently, any violation of this trust will have put pressure
on the relationship and will ultimately have lead to sanctions
in the form of the severance. Trust based on long-term
cooperation is in the first place found within the own
community; in this respect, we may suggest that our 'nomads' did
not store their properties at any given site but only at their
home base.
Finally, some commentors (Nissen, Cleuziou) considered
some of our suggestions too far-fetched and lacking
foundation. In response, we may refer to two ethnographic cases in
North Africa, where storage and sealing occur side by side
along lines largely similar to those of our hypothesis. First,
the 'high caves' of Jebel al-Akhdar in Libya, which served
as collective cereal storehouses until very recently, each
containing the individual properties of numerous persons
under the supervision of a storekeeper3. Local informants made
it clear that the storekeeper "had to be a person worthy of
3. Hallaq, 1994a.
Paléorient. vol. 22/2. p. 17-44 © CNRS Éditions 1997
44 P.M. M. G. Akkermans and К. Dujstermaat
trast who was known for his honesty and integrity (...). A
poor man was preferred as he would be more likely to carry
out with care a job which guaranteed a living to his family.
(...) He was the person who supervised the grain store, who
protected and defended it and who informed those who had
deposited the grain in the case of any eventuality (...)"4. Our
second example concerns the so-called 'agadir' of
mountainous Tunisia and Morocco. These very extensive storage
buildings, used in many villages until the early decades of
this century, consisted of numerous small rooms, each
containing the individual properties, property claims and food
supplies of both sedentary and (semi-)nomadic families or other
groups. The supervision of the private belongings of these
people was in the hands of a chosen caretaker, living in or
next to the building5. Evidently, one cannot take these
examples as proof of our hypothesis but, nevertheless, they display
certain characteristics (such as the collective storage of private
properties and property claims, the cooperation between sedentaries
and nomads, the importance of trust, the chosen
guard) suggesting that our model may, indeed, have worked
in practice.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Akkermans P.M.M.G. (ed.)
1996 Tell Sabi Abyad-The Late Neolithic Settlement. Report on the
Excavations of the University of Amsterdam ( /988) and the
National Museum of Antiquities Leiden (1991-1993) in Syria.
Istanbul
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Nederlands Historisch-Archeologisch Instituut.
Flannery K.V.
1976 The Early Mesoamerican Village. New York
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Academic Press.
Hallaq D.
1994a The Stone Tablet Registers (Khattâtât). In
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(eds) Archives before Writing
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377-393. Torino
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Scriptorium.
1994b Les sceaux des grottes du Jebel el Akhdar. In
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Jacques-Meunié D.
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Suter K.
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4. Ibid.
:
385
5. Jacques-Meunié, 1949; Suter, 1964.
Paléorient, vol. 22/2, p. 17-44 © CNRS Éditions 1997