The patrimonial household in the kingdom of Ugarit: A Weberian analysis of ancient Near-Eastern society

The use of a Weberian "interpretive" approach to the socio-historical analysis of ancient Near Eastern evidence is defended, in place of the "reductionist" and "functionalist" approaches that have usually been employed. In particular, the textual and archaeological evidence from the Late Bronze Age kingdom of Ugarit on the Syrian coast (dating from ca. 1340-1180 scBCE) is interpreted in terms of Weber's "patrimonial household model." It is argued that Ugarit was integrated by means of a unitary hierarchy of "households" (of which the king's was the most inclusive), and that there was no structural or symbolic dichotomy between the urban and rural components of the kingdom. Joint-family agricultural households therefore predominated in the walled city of Ugarit, as well as in much smaller villages. Previous "feudal" and "bureaucratic" interpretations of the evidence from Ugarit are criticized, especially the influential "two-sector" model, which is related to Marx's concept of the "Asiatic mode of production." A survey of other Bronze Age regimes shows that the "patrimonial household model" is broadly applicable to all Near Eastern polities before the first millennium scBCE; indeed, it seems likely that the patrimonial understanding of political and economic relationships did not give way to a more bureaucratic conception until the Hellenistic period in the latter part of the first millennium.