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By definition, a comparative project presupposes delving deeply into space and sometimes into time. It is based on the empirical observation of at least two social groups, in this case Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. The meaning of the research results depends on ongoing, systematic comparison, which is determined by established epistemological practices. For a specialist in social sciences today, the point of delving into Antiquity is to find the raw materials underlying the formation of political conceptions rather than institutions. The former are easier to compare than the latter, because they fit into systems of thought that can be penetrated by reconstructing their logic and trajectory, whereas the real history that gave rise to them often escapes us. These are the aims of the book La Politique dans l’Ancien Orient (Politics in the Ancient East) “? to which Jean-Jacques Glassner’s commentary, published in this journal, did not do full justice.