Discussions surrounding the State in contemporary archaeology range from a complicit acceptance of the state as a thing to attempts to remove the label 'state' from our discourse and focus instead on the inner workings of polities (e.g. Smith 2003; Yoffee 2005). Even with this general shift towards understanding particular polities (to use Smith's (2003) preferred terminology) in their own right, and emphasizing such things as the role of place and landscape in the formation and running of particular polities, there is still a tendency to focus on the symbolism (couched in terms such as politics) without incorporating the techniques of the body in a reciprocal process of constitution (cf. Bourdieu). In keeping with the emphasis on landscapes in recent scholarship, this paper will attempt to look at the relationship between large-scale polities and small-scale practices as they work in a fully integrated process. This, I suggest, enables the minutiae of the quotidian to be applied to landscapes broadly, such that intentionality of landscape alteration is brought in sync with the actual process of engaging with those landscapes.
Smith (2003) nicely points out the need for a polity to have a spatial component. So too does this paper. As such, I will focus on the Hittite landscapes of central Anatolia, drawing on a rich array of material from a polity capital (Hattusha), acts of inscribing the landscape (rock reliefs, large-scale landscape alteration), and the intersection between these landscapes as places of political and social control and sites of daily practice. The Hittites example is intriguing because it involves an expanding and contracting polity that left evidence behind of its engagement with both the landscapes and people encountered. My own experiences from this past summer will be drawn on to elucidate much of this material.
Preliminary Bibliography:
Bourdieu, P.
Ehringhaus, Horst. 2005. Gotter, Herrscher, Inschriften: die Felsreliefs der hethitischen Grossreichszeit in der Turkei. Mainz am Rhein. Philipp von Zabern.
Smith, Adam T. 2003. The Political Landscape: constellations of Authority in Early Complex Polities. Berkeley. University of California Press.
Yoffee, N. 2005. Myths of the Archaic State: evolution of the earliest cities, states, and civilizations. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.
Constructing an Empire.ppt