Logistic Growth for the Nuzi Cuneiform Tablets: Analyzing Family Networks in Ancient Mesopotamia

TL;DR

This paper models the publication of Nuzi cuneiform tablets using logistic growth, revealing social and land concentration dynamics in ancient Mesopotamia through reconstructed family networks.

Contribution

It introduces a method to estimate tablet publication years by integrating logistic growth models with family trees and social networks.

Findings

Tablet publication follows logistic growth until saturation.

Family networks help estimate publication years accurately.

The approach uncovers land and social concentration trends.

Abstract

We reconstruct the year of publication of each cuneiform tablet of the Nuzi society in ancient Mesopotamia. The tablets, are on land transaction, marriage, loan, slavery contracts etc. The number of tablets seem to increase by logistic growth until saturation. It may show the dynamics of concentration of lands or other properties into few powerful families in a period of about twenty years. We reconstruct family trees and social networks of Nuzi and estimate the publication years of cuneiform tablets consistently with the trees and networks, formulating least squares problems with linear inequality constraints.