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Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 14:49:55 GMT
To: andrei@rsuh.ru
From: Mitch Allen <mitch@altamira.sagepub.com>
Subject: Re: AXIAL AGE WORLD SYSTEM
No question that spices from South Arabia, both those that originated there
and those that travelled through Arabia from South Asia and East Africa,
were clearly one of the more important trade goods circulating through the
Bronze and Iron Age Near East. Assyrians and Romans alike used them in
religious rituals and as elite goods. I'm not sure what Dr. Lloyd-Jones'
problem is with that. Whether this allowed S. ARabia to "exploit" from the
periphery is a different question, but that would be no different than the
Phoenicians exploiting the Assyrian empire with tons of silver from Spain or
the people of the Iranian plateau exploiting ED Mesopotamia with tin, gold,
and lapis from Afghanistan. I think the power dynamics would have more
likely gone the other way in the case of S. Arabia (from Meso/Levant ---> S.
Arabia), but that spices had critical social and economic functions in the
Ancient Near East system is unquestionable.
mitch
At 07:41 PM 6/3/96 +0300, Korotaev A. wrote:
>On Tue, 28 May 1996 20:42:59 David Lloyd-Jones wrote:
>
>> I think your problem is that the proposition that the South Arabian
>> frankincence monopoly was exploitative of the metropolitan centre looked
>> like satire. I mean _frankincense_? Wasn't the stuff cross elastic with
>> myrrh, fer goshsakes? How can you run a monopoly when there are substitutes
>> on every bush? To say nothing of the guy with the funny complexion and the
>> tired camel selling something he calls tiger balm...
>>
>> Look at it this way: if somebody had set out deliberately to write a send-up
>> on this inbred flock of loons, could they possibly have come up with
>> anything as wonderful as your story?
>
Mitch Allen
Publisher
AltaMira Press
1630 North Main Street, Suite 367
Walnut Creek, California 94596
510 938-7243 (voice) 933-9720 (fax)
mitch@altamira.sagepub.com