Royal Institutional Households in First millenium BC Mesopotamia

The NFN studies aspects of the official administration of several `empires` which flourished in the Near East and eastern Mediterranean from the first millennium BC to the first millennium AD, namely, the Neo-Assyrian, Neo- Babylonian, and Achaemenid empires, the Roman Empire (in particular in Egypt and in Asia Minor), and the emerging Muslim empire in Egypt. Administrative practice will be investigated, as will the origins, social status and economic background of the officials in question. The fashioning of these officials` individual and collective identities, their self-perception, and the grounds for their loyalty towards their superiors, or towards the `system`, are to be studied. Thereby the NFN will transcend the borders of straightforward administrative history and contribute significantly to the history of bureaucratic mentalities. Over-arching questions and aims include: the issue of the development of economic and bureau-cratic rationality and the degree to which `traditional` forms of dominion and governance were substituted by truly bureaucratic forms of organisation and control; a study of the very nature of `empires` in antiquity based on the interplay between ideological super-structures and administrative practice, and the wish to create a fruitful interdisciplinary dialogue between Ancient History, Epigraphy, Papyrology (including Arabic Papyrology) and Assyriology. Thus the NFN builds on the particular strengths of the Austrian academic setting: all of these disciplines are represented by groups of scholars who are committed to building on their philological expertise in dealing with the primary sources in order to contribute to a wider-reaching historical synthesis.