At the outset we must establish why the question of public versus private in the Ancient Near East is important to us. Our study of the distant past is often a search for our own origins, or at least for the origins of certain aspects of our society. It has become ever clearer that the roots of many of the most prominent institutions and activities of today, with writing and urban society among the best examples, lie in the Ancient Near East. This raises the question of whether we can trace the development of certain ideas from the ancient world to our own. This inquiry, though, may introduce evolutionary or teleological notions that can distort our study of antiquity. The fact that familiar institutions existed in the ancient world does not mean there is a direct genealogical connection between our society and theirs. In particular, the belief that there is a logical pattern of social development that is discernible in history, for example in the movement from a public to a private economy, can substantially prejudice our approach to the ancient world.
In the Ancient Near East we observe the development of public institutions, such as the temple and palace, that have a tremendous impact on the growth of society. We also see the appearance of various forms of ownership that allow property to be held by individuals separately from a group or community. These developments also have an impact on the creation of identity. The appearance of public institutions helps to foster a larger cultural identity that can be shared over great distances, in both space and time. At the same time, the creation of individual property, that is, the discrete ownership of goods that can be sold and inherited, also creates different levels of identity. Obviously, these ideas of public and private are the antecedents of related beliefs in our own world.
And yet, this realization of our connection with the Ancient Near East has perhaps led us to be too quick in asserting parallels between our experiences and those of the ancients. This is a particular danger in the area of economic history where we are inclined to describe activity in familiar terms, and then to ascribe the modern definitions of the terms to the ancient activity. This is more than just a problem of terminology. We cannot escape our own language and vocabulary, but we must be especially cognizant of the impact of language on our discussions of the ancient economy.
World History
