States of Clay: scientific and digital approaches to the beginnings of bureaucracy

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• Dr Amy Richardson (University of Reading)
• Tuesday 28 October 2025, 17:15-19:30
• McDonald Seminar Room, Department of Archaeology.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Lucy Emanuel.

The early state was underpinned by a bureaucratic system of controls mediated in clay, which included tablets, sealings, tags, hollow clay balls and tokens. Through investigations of clay use across the bureaucratic corpus and the demographics of participants in these practices, we can shed light on the people who participated in early administrative activities in the late fourth and early third millennium BCE . Here, we introduce new evidence from geochemical and fingerprint analysis of administrative objects from Mesopotamia, 3700-2700 BCE , which reveals organisational variability between communities engaged in shared systems of practice.

To attend the talk via Teams, please use the following link: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/3676416346181?p=4yFs9uFXTggNRe6Luo Please note that you will need to be logged into a Cambridge account to attend on this occasion. Please contact Lucy Emanuel (le301) if you have difficulties accessing the meeting on the day.

This talk is part of the Ancient Near East Seminar Series series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• Ancient Near East Seminar Series
• McDonald Seminar Room, Department of Archaeology

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