The earliest Egyptian complex sign system was ancestral to the scripts that developed from around 3100 BCE onward. In China the first writing is not securely attested until c. 1400-1250. In both civilisations the principal writing media were perishable and are lost but must be allowed for. Both systems had two realisations, one more pictorial and less cursive than the other. Egypt retained this feature, whereas it disappeared in China from c. 1050. Display inscriptions included titles relating to king and court. Shang (sic) dynasty titles written with pictorial signs are generally termed 'clan emblems'. Interpretation as titles provides a more consistent reading, rendering desirable a rethinking of administrative structures. Kings manipulated titles as an instrument of control, as is exemplified by rather later inscriptions.

Our target article empirically tested the Big Gods Hypothesis which proposes that beliefs in moralizing supernatural punishment (MSP) contributed to the evolution of socio-political complexity (SPC) in world history. We tested this hypothesis using a suite of measures of MSP, SPC, and other potential evolutionary drivers coded in Seshat: Global History Databank. Our analyses indi-cate that intensity of warfare and productivity of agriculture were major drivers in the evolution of both SPC and MSP. The correlation between social complexity and moralizing religion resulted from shared evolutionary drivers, rather than from direct causal relationships between these two variables. Most commentaries on the target article broadly accept our conclusions, but some argue that alternative measures might be used in future studies before the Big Gods Hypothesis can be conclusively rejected. In this response, we argue that while some of these alternative measures should be developed, they are closely related to the ones we have already adopted. Thus, it seems unlikely that further research will give rise to substantially di ff erent outcomes. A particularly fruitful aspect of the discussion is that it illustrates both the pitfalls and productive a ff or-dances of transdisciplinary research that seeks to bridge the “ two cultures ” of the humanities and sciences. Our target article has

The causes, consequences, and timing of the rise of moralizing religions in world history have been the focus of intense debate. Progress has been limited by the availability of quantitative data to test competing theories, by divergent ideas regarding both predictor and outcomes variables, and by differences of opinion over methodology. To address all these problems, we utilize Seshat: Global History Databank, a large storehouse of information designed to test theories concerning the evolutionary drivers of social complexity in world history. In addition to the Big Gods hypothesis, which proposes that moralizing religion contributed to the success of increasingly large-scale complex societies, we consider the role of warfare, animal husbandry, and agricultural productivity in the rise of moralizing religions. Using a broad range of new measures of belief in moralizing supernatural punishment, we find strong support for previous research showing that such beliefs did not drive the rise of social complexity in world history. By contrast, our analyses indicate that intergroup warfare, supported by resource availability, played the most significant role in the evolution of both social complexity and moralizing religions. Thus, the correlation between social complexity and moralizing religion would seem to result from shared evolutionary drivers, rather than from strong direct causal relationships between these two variables. The data, methods, and results presented in this paper have been made publicly available online for others to inspect and critique, allowing additional analyses to be run and alternative assumptions to be tested, prior to peer review and publication.

This ‘Retake’ article presents a corrected and extended version of a Letter published in Nature (Whitehouse et al., 2019) which set out to test the Big Gods hypothesis proposing that beliefs in moralizing punitive deities drove the evolution of sociopolitical complexity in world history. The Letter was retracted by the authors in response to a critique by Beheim et al. (2021). Correction of errors in the coding and analysis of missing data to address this critique does not significantly change the main findings of the original Nature Letter. We report the results of a major reanalysis of Seshat data following expansion of the codebook and database and substantial improvements to our data management methods. We also employ a more direct statistical methodology to test theories of evolutionary causality. Together, these results show a compellingly convergent picture, confirming the headline finding of the original Letter in Nature, which shows that the largest increases in social complexity do indeed precede Big Gods in world history and that Big Gods did not contribute to the evolution of sociopolitical complexity as predicted by the Big Gods hypothesis.

The origins of religion and of complex societies represent evolutionary puzzles. The ‘Big Gods Hypothesis’ offers a solution to both puzzles by proposing that beliefs in moralizing supernatural punishment culturally evolved to facilitate cooperation among strangers in large-scale societies. Although previous research has suggested an association between the presence of Big Gods and big societies, the relationship between the two is disputed, and attempts to establish causality have been hampered by limitations in the availability of detailed global longitudinal data. To address these issues, we analyze data in the Seshat Global History Databank that coded 309 past societies for variables capturing beliefs in moralizing supernatural punisment and social complexity. The longitudinal (time-resolved) nature of Seshat data enables us to test evolutionary hypotheses about processes generating social change and distinguish between competing causal scenarios. We find that beliefs in moralizing supernatural punishment only appear after the largest increases in social complexity and that a formal analysis designed to test for causal relationships failed to detect a statistically significant effect of moralizing supernatural punishment on social complexity.

This article is a response to Slingerland et al. who criticize the quality of the data from Seshat: Global History Databank utilized in our Nature paper entitled “Complex Societies Precede Moralizing Gods throughout World History”. Their critique centres around the roles played by research assistants and experts in procuring and curating data, periodization structure, and so-called “data pasting” and “data filling”. We show that these criticisms are based on misunderstandings or misrepresentations of the methods used by Seshat researchers. Overall, Slingerland et al.’s critique (which is crosslinked online here) does not call into question any of our main findings, but it does highlight various shortcomings of Slingerland et al.’s database project. Our collective efforts to code and quantify features of global history hold out the promise of a new era in the study of global history but only if critique can be conducted constructively in good faith and both the benefits and the pitfalls of open science fully recognized.

This article introduces the Seshat: Global History Databank, its potential, and its methodology. Seshat is a databank containing vast amounts of quantitative data buttressed by qualitative nuance for a large sample of historical and archaeological polities. The sample is global in scope and covers the period from the Neolithic Revolution to the Industrial Revolution. Seshat allows scholars to capture dynamic processes and to test theories about the co-evolution (or not) of social scale and complexity, agriculture, warfare, religion, and any number of such Big Questions. Seshat is rapidly becoming a massive resource for innovative cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary research. Seshat is part of a growing trend to use comparative historical data on a large scale and contributes as such to a growing consilience between the humanities and social sciences. Seshat is underpinned by a robust and transparent workflow to ensure the ever growing dataset is of high quality.

This comparative volume of the Journal of Egyptian History is in the excellent spirit of an aside in a 2016 article of Norman Yoffee on studying ancient Egypt’s parallel civilization: “… I am of the school that believes that no one knows Mesopotamia who knows Mesopotamia only.”1 Contributors to this volume may substitute Egypt, China, Tenochtitlán or—for several of them—a whole range of polities or societies, for the Mesopotamia of Yoffee’s aphorism; but all of them will agree with its spirit. I would add that those who think they know only Egypt—the perhaps endangered species of

The origins of religion and of complex societies represent evolutionary puzzles(1-8). The 'moralizing gods' hypothesis offers a solution to both puzzles by proposing that belief in morally concerned supernatural agents culturally evolved to facilitate cooperation among strangers in large-scale societies(9-13). Although previous research has suggested an association between the presence of moralizing gods and social complexity(3,6,7,9-18), the relationship between the two is disputed(9-13,19-24), and attempts to establish causality have been hampered by limitations in the availability of detailed global longitudinal data. To overcome these limitations, here we systematically coded records from 414 societies that span the past 10,000 years from 30 regions around the world, using 51 measures of social complexity and 4 measures of supernatural enforcement of morality. Our analyses not only confirm the association between moralizing gods and social complexity, but also reveal that moralizing gods follow-rather than precede-large increases in social complexity. Contrary to previous predictions(9,12,16,18), powerful moralizing 'big gods' and prosocial supernatural punishment tend to appear only after the emergence of 'megasocieties' with populations of more than around one million people. Moralizing gods are not a prerequisite for the evolution of social complexity, but they may help to sustain and expand complex multi-ethnic empires after they have become established. By contrast, rituals that facilitate the standardization of religious traditions across large populations(25,26) generally precede the appearance of moralizing gods. This suggests that ritual practices were more important than the particular content of religious belief to the initial rise of social complexity.

As we noted prominently, our initially uploaded preprint was a "non-peer-reviewed draft subject to revision". We have now recognized and corrected an important error in our data and code (details at https://github.com/pesavage/moralizing-gods) leading us to withdraw this version of the manuscript. Correcting this error does not change any of the conclusions of our original article1. A correction notice and an updated version of this manuscript2 have been submitted for peer review and will be posted publicly once they have completed peer review.Please do not cite, use or distribute the previous version further. We apologize for any confusion caused.

Historical Consciousness and the Use of the Past in the Ancient World offers linked essays on uses of the past in prominent and diverse cultures in ancient civilizations across the world. The contributors are leading experts in Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Sinology, Biblical Studies, Classics, and Maya Studies. This volume addresses crucial questions in current scholarship on historical consciousness and historiography. These questions include the formation of different traditions and the manifold uses of the past in particular socio-political contexts or circumstances; the ways in which these traditions and these types of cultural memory informed or contributed to the rise of more formal modes of historiography; interactions between formal modes of historiography and other traditions of historical consciousness during their transmission; and the implications of such interactions for cultural heritage, collective memory, and later understandings of history. By taking an interdisciplinary approach, this volume situates the rise of formal modes of historiography within a larger context of developments in historical consciousness and a wider web of intercommunicating discourses. It also uncovers intellectual processes, literary mechanisms, and social institutions involved in the construction of history. During the construction of ancient historiographies, while many local traditions persisted, some ancients gradually went beyond the temporal and spatial limitations of their local traditions, arriving at a more extended and unified timespan, a wider geographical region, and a common origin.

Seshat: Global History Databank, established in 2011, was initiated by an ever-growing team of social scientists and humanities scholars to test theories about the evolution of complex societies (Francois et al. 2016; Turchin et al. 2015). Seshat reflects both what is known about global history (within certain practical constraints, discussed below) and also what is unknown, or poorly known. Seshat is a continuously growing dataset incorporating evolving interpretations, highlighting persisting controversies, and contextualizing enduring ambiguities. The quantitative data, suitable for statistical analysis, is buttressed by qualitative nuance embedded in descriptive paragraphs along with references to pertinent scholarship.

No AccessRuler, Court, and Power: The King and Institutions in Early EgyptJohn BainesJohn BainesSearch for more papers by this authorhttps://doi.org/10.14220/9783737010740.239SectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail AboutAbstract: The elite surrounding a king, and its necessary presence for the institution of kingship, can be explored through archaeology, pictorial evidence, and texts. This article uses these categories of evidence to study late fourth- and third-millennium bce Egypt. Probable kingship can be identified by the Naqada II period (c. 3400 bce), notably in cemeteries at Hierakonpolis, where styles of display changed between one generation and the next. Naqada IIIA–B, which was the period of state formation and a shift in the polity’s centre to the region of Memphis, produces evidence ranging from tombs, through decorated knives and palettes, to an incipient writing system. A complex symbolism of palaces and thrones emerged, while the Narmer Palette displays the king’s cosmological dependence on the gods and bears a depiction of him and his ritual entourage that associates victory in battle with sunrise. Cemeteries and inscriptions of the following Early Dynastic period (c. 3050–2625 bce) attest to a hierarchically structured elite, primarily focused on Memphis. Official titles point to the importance of proximity to the king’s person and of ritual, as well as the significance of countryside activities as a locus of prestige. It is uncertain how far administrative structures had developed, but official roles, rather than lineages, were a prime focus of elite display. Here, a valuable parallel is offered by late second-millennium bce China, where an elite administrative structure has been proposed as complementing lineage structures. The Old Kingdom period of the pyramids (c. 2625–2140 bce) sawan initial focus on the royal family alongside continuing development of official hierarchies. Pictorial compositions and narrative inscriptions of high officials document the significance of the king’s person through formalized interactions during rituals and other events, notably hunts and other celebrations. The protagonists of some elite inscriptions claimed to have outperformed their allotted roles and thus to have gamed the system in the interest of personal advancement. Such practices have parallels in many other state societies. While the motivations of individual actors cannot be accessed through available sources, the patterns that emerge from them show how king and court depended on one another. Previous chapter Next chapter FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Download book coverMacht und HerrschaftVolume 4 1. AuflageISBN: 978-3-8471-1074-3 eISBN: 978-3-7370-1074-0HistoryPublished online:December 2019 PDF download