Gods, Kings, and Merchants in Old Babylonian Mesopotamia

Gods, kings and merchants, a way of designating religion, politics and the

economy: three spheres which in the modern world are quite distinct, even

if they do interact constantly. The aim of this book is to show that their

boundaries were far more fluid in the Mesopotamian civilisation: gods

could act as money lenders, kings could invoke divine will to refuse

extradiction, the dead could serve as a reference for how the living

should behave, and wealthy merchants could live in residences modelled on

those of kings… This civilisation preceded the Greek miracle which

Jean-Pierre Vernant has quite correctly defined as a process of change

which led to the emergence, as distinct areas, of the blueprints for the

economy, politics, law, art, science, ethics, and philosophy . In a direct

continuation of his earlier book published in 2010, Writing, Law, and

Kingship in Old Babylonian Mesopotamia, D. Charpin here examines in

greater depth the situation which existed in Mesopotamia in the first half

of the second millennium BC, using texts discovered in numerous archives

throughout the entire Near East, especially those found at Mari eighty

years ago.