ERC laureate JASON SILVERMAN VISITS THE POLIN INSTITUTE

The ERC (European Research Council) laureate Prof. Jason Silverman visits the Polin Institute on 8th of May, 2025.

Warmly welcome to the open lecture by Prof. Jason Silverman (University of Helsinki) on

Studying labor as a social key to the ancient temple economy in the Persian Empire

on Thursday May 8, 2025, at 14.15-15.45 in Auditorium Theologicum, Annexet, Piispankatu 16, Turku.

Abstract

Ancient Near Eastern temples were centers of labor, physical and intellectual. They have long been engulfed within scholarly controversy; their supposed structures featured in the Marxist “Asiatic Mode of Production” and Weber’s “Patrimonialism.” Polanyi discussed their role in “exchange”; Finley thought the region was dominated by them. Within the Persian Empire temples have been a flash point concerning imperial control, social structures, and taxation. By focusing on issues of forced labor and informal taxation, analysis of temples in the southwestern corner of the Persian province of Across-the-River provide a potent case-study for re-evaluating the inter-relations between social and economic structures in the Near East.

Bio

Jason M. Silverman is Professor of Ancient Near Eastern History and Culture at the University of Helsinki, and holds a docentship in the Cultural History of Ancient Persia from Turku University and in Old Testament Studies from Helsinki. He is the PI of an ERC Advanced Grant WORK-IT and of a team in the Research Council of Finland’s Centre of Excellence in Ancient Near Eastern Empires. He received his PhD from Trinity College Dublin in 2010.