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Newsletter, Number 69 (APRIL 1969)
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The officers and the Board of Directors of the American Research Center in Egypt once more have the sad duty of announcing to the members the death of one of the founders of the Center, its first President, Edward Waldo Forbes, who died on March 11, 1969, in his ninety-sixth year.
Few men have had as long or as distinguished a career in the fine arts as had Mr. Forbes. He was, as is generally known, Director of the William Hayes Fogg Art Museum of Harvard University for thirty-five years. Under his leadership that museum became internationally known, not only for its collections but as a training school for young men and women who intended to devote their lives to research, teaching, and museum work. He and Professor Paul D. Sachs probably did more than any other two persons in the United States towards raising museum careers from an amateur to a professional basis.
Newsletter,13 march 1952
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Since our last letter was sent to you, the Directorship of the Center has shifted from w. s. Smith to Arthur E. R. Boak, of the University of Michigan. Dr. Smith left Egypt in January, met Professor Boak In Rome, and acquainted him with the operations of the Center so that upon his arrival in Cairo, on February loth, he was well-prepared to carry on. A final report of the Centerا s activities under the aegis of Dr. Smith must wait upon his return to good health, as unfortunately soon after his arrival in the States he was hospitalized. As of this writing. Dr. Smith is making good progress toward recovery and I am sure that all members will join with me in wishing him a speedy return to good health. A report from Director Boak will form part of our next newsletter.
Mortuary Variability and Social Diversity in Ancient Greece: Studies on Ancient Greek Death and Burial
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This volume is born out of the international workshop for early career scholars entitled ‘Mortuary Variability and Social Diversity in Ancient Greece’ that was held at the Netherlands Institute at Athens, Greece on December 1-2, 2016. The idea for this workshop stemmed from our mutual interest in ancient Greek death practices, and in understanding how the political, economic, and social realities that characterized Greek history related to funerary ideology and informed the ways in which the Greeks dealt with their dead. Two main questions are central to this problem: 1) how were local social structure and social roles – for example those the elderly or children, men or women, locals or migrants, or the poor or the wealthy – reflected in and motivated the way people were treated in death, and 2) how did large-scale developments such as political change and processes of ‘globalization’ influence death practice on the level of the individual, the social group, the local community, and the region.
Why did ancient states collapse? : the dysfunctional state
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Ancient states were rooted in agriculture, sedentism and population growth. They were fragile and prone to collapse, but there is no consensus on the causes or meaning of collapse, and there is an ongoing debate about the importance, nature and even existence of state-wide collapse
Explanations of collapse in terms of competing mono-causal factors are found inferior to those incorporating dynamic, interactive systems. It is proposed that collapse should be explained as failure to fulfil the ancient state’s core functions: assurance of food supplies, defence against external attack, maintenance of internal peace, imposition of its will throughout its territory, enforcement of state-wide laws, and promotion of an ideology to legitimise the political and social status quo.
To fulfil these functions certain necessary conditions must be met. The legitimacy of the political and social status quo, including the distribution of political power and wealth, needs to be accepted; the state should be able to extract sufficient resources to fulfil its functions such as defence; it must be able to enforce its decisions; the ruling elite should share a common purpose and actions; the society needs to reflect a shared spirit (asibaya) and purpose across elites and commoners who believe it is worthy of defence.
Weaknesses and failure to meet any condition can interact to exacerbate the situation: maladministration, corruption and elite preoccupation with self aggrandisement can induce fiscal weakness, reduced military budgets and further invasion; it can induce neglect of key infrastructures (especially water management). Inequality, a commonly neglected factor despite ancient texts, can erode asibaya and legitimacy and alienate commoners from defence of the state.
These themes are explored in relation to the Egyptian Old Kingdom, Mycenae, the Western Roman Empire (WRE), and the Maya. They all exhibit, to varying degrees, weaknesses in meeting the above conditions necessary for stability. (Some of the explanatory political and social factors involved have modern analogies but that issue is not examined).