Catherine Costew
Pronouns: she/her
Research Mentor(s): Jessie DeGrado
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Middle East Studies / LSA
Program:
Authors:
Session: Session 3: 11:00 am – 11: 50 am
Poster: 25
Abstract
Most Americans today are familiar with territorial maps that show nations as contiguous territory with clear boundaries. There are, however, many cases in which this form of mapping does not capture the reality of how states were formed or governed. The Assyrian Empire (900–600 BC), for example, ruled over a network of client cities and provinces, connected by roads or rivers sometimes with vast swatches of uncontrolled territory between cities. Even though most historians are aware of this, they often to produce maps that show ancient empires as continuous and discretely bounded shapes. This project will show the expansion of Assyria and its changing relationship with client states in the late 8th century BCE. The resulting set of maps show the empire as a network, giving the viewer a clearer sense of how power and governance actually worked in the ancient world.
