The alluvial lowlands of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in southern Mesopotamia are widely known as the “cradle of civilization” owing to the scale... of the processes of urbanization that took place in the area by the second half of the fourth millennium BC.            In Ancient Mesopotamia at the Dawn of Civilization, Guillermo Algaze draws on the work of modern economic geographers to explore how the unique river-based ecology and geography of the Tigris-Euphrates alluvium impacted the development of urban civilization in southern Mesopotamia. He argues that these natural conditions granted southern polities significant competitive advantages over their landlocked rivals elsewhere in Southwest Asia, most importantly the ability to easily transport commodities. In due course, this resulted in increased trade and economic activity and higher population densities in the south than were possible elsewhere. As southern polities grew in scale and complexity throughout the fourth millennium, revolutionary new forms of labor organization and record keeping were created, and it is these socially created innovations, Algaze argues, that ultimately account for why fully developed city-states emerged earlier in southern Mesopotamia than elsewhere in Southwest Asia or the world.

This is an in-depth treatment of the antecedents and first flourescence of early state and urban societies in lowland Mesopotamia over nearly three... millennia, from approximately 5000 to 2100 BC. The approach is explicitly anthropological, drawing on contemporary theoretical perspectives to enrich our understanding of the ancient Mesopotamian past. It explores the ways people of different genders and classes contributed and responded to political, economic, and ideological changes. The interpretations are based on studies of regional settlement patterns, faunal remains, artifact distributions and activity patterning, iconography, texts and burials.

"This splendid work of scholarship . . . sums up with economy and power all that the written record so far deciphered has to tell about the ancient and... complementary civilizations of Babylon and Assyria."—Edward B. Garside, New York Times Book ReviewAncient Mesopotamia—the area now called Iraq—has received less attention than ancient Egypt and other long-extinct and more spectacular civilizations. But numerous small clay tablets buried in the desert soil for thousands of years make it possible for us to know more about the people of ancient Mesopotamia than any other land in the early Near East.Professor Oppenheim, who studied these tablets for more than thirty years, used his intimate knowledge of long-dead languages to put together a distinctively personal picture of the Mesopotamians of some three thousand years ago. Following Oppenheim's death, Erica Reiner used the author's outline to complete the revisions he had begun."To any serious student of Mesopotamian civilization, this is one of the most valuable books ever written."—Leonard Cottrell, Book Week"Leo Oppenheim has made a bold, brave, pioneering attempt to present a synthesis of the vast mass of philological and archaeological data that have accumulated over the past hundred years in the field of Assyriological research."—Samuel Noah Kramer, ArchaeologyA. Leo Oppenheim, one of the most distinguished Assyriologists of our time, was editor in charge of the Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute and John A. Wilson Professor of Oriental Studies at the University of Chicago.

The first book of its kind in English, Ancient Meteorology discusses Greek and Roman approaches and attitudes to this broad discipline, which in... classical antiquity included not only 'weather', but occurrences such as earthquakes and comets that today would be regarded as geological, astronomical or seismological. The range and diversity of this literature highlights the question of scholarly authority in antiquity and illustrates how writers responded to the meteorological information presented by their literary predecessors. Ancient Meteorology will be a valuable reference tool for classicists and those with an interest in the history of science.

Winner of the 2005 Society for American Archaeology Book Award.This authoritative book explores every aspect of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, from... Paleo-Indian times to the sixteenth century. It provides overviews of the best-known regional cultures, such as those of the Olmecs, Maya, Zapotecs, and Aztecs, as well as balanced coverage of Mesoamerica as a whole. The book covers every major site, from La Venta and Monte Albán to Teotihuacan, Palenque, and Tenochtitlan. It includes detailed discussion of major cultural themes, such as the ball game, and is lavishly illustrated with photographs, drawings, and maps. It has now been thoroughly updated to include new interpretations and recent discoveries. 459 illustrations, 80 in color

Based on the unrivaled collections of the British Museum, this extensively illustrated book is a superb introduction to the art of the ancient Near East... from the eighth millennium B.C. to Alexander the Great. Often described as the cradle of civilization, the ancient Near East was the birthplace of writing, monumental sculpture, and wheel-made pottery. Dominique Collon provides a unique view into this ancient world, from village settlements to grand palaces to burial sites.Collon situates the Museum's most beautiful and interesting artifacts against their historical and cultural background. Among the works featured are painted pottery, figurines, cylinder seals, and stone amulets from the earliest village cultures before 3000 B.C. Also here are magnificent finds from graves at Alaca Huyuk in Turkey and the Royal Cemetery at Ur, including jewelry, musical instruments, and the famous Royal Standard. Sculpted reliefs from Assyrian palaces and Sasanian metalwork round out the collection. In her final chapter, Collon shows how art from the ancient Near East resonates in our own world today.A welcome addition is a Mesopotamian chronology summarizing recent astronomical and textual data, compiled by C.B.F. Walker especially for this book.

This general introduction to the history and culture of the Ancient Near East, including Egypt, offers the right amount of detail for the course without... being encyclopedic.   Organized by the periods, kingdoms, and empires generally used in Near Eastern political history, the book interlaces social and cultural history with the political narrative. This combination allows readers to get a rounded introduction to the subject of Ancient Near Eastern history.  

Traces the many parallels between the Old Testament (and Bible as a whole) and the ancient Near East, including creation and flood narratives, common... literary and legal forms, supposed acts of deities and the God of the Bible, and more. Instead of merely studying a random selection of parallels, however, Jeffrey Niehaus proposes that they represent "a shared theological structure of ideas in the ancient Near East, a structure that finds its most complete and true form in the Old and New Testaments." This comprehensive and enlightening resource promises to help students and discerning Bible readers to intellectually grasp and appreciate the overarching story of the Bible within its cultural development.

Much of the Old Testament seems strange to contemporary readers. However, as we begin to understand how ancient people viewed the world, the Old... Testament becomes more clearly a book that stands within its ancient context as it also speaks against it. John Walton provides here a thoughtful introduction to the conceptual world of the ancient Near East.Walton surveys the literature of the ancient Near East and introduces the reader to a variety of beliefs about God, religion, and the world. In helpful sidebars, he provides examples of how such studies can bring insight to the interpretation of specific Old Testament passages. Students and pastors who want to deepen their understanding of the Old Testament will find this a helpful and instructive study.

This book presents new translations of Mesopotamian and ancient Near Eastern historiographic texts, providing the reader with the primary sources for... the history of the ancient Near East.A primary source book presenting new translations of Mesopotamian and ancient Near Eastern historiographic texts, and other related materials. Helps readers to understand the historical context of the Near East. Covers the period from the earliest historical and literary texts (c.2700 B.C.) to the latest Hellenistic historians who comment on ancient Near Eastern history (c.250 B.C.) Texts range from the code of Hammurabi to the Assyrian royal inscriptions. A detailed commentary is provided on each text, placing it in its historical and cultural context. Maps, illustrations and a chronological table help to orientate the reader.

ANCIENT NON-GREEK RHETORICS contributes to the recovery and understanding of ancient rhetorics in non-Western cultures and other cultures that developed... independently of classical Greco-Roman models. Contributors analyze facets of the rhetorics as embedded within the particular cultures of ancient China, Egypt, Mesopotamia, the ancient Near East more generally, Israel, Japan, India, and ancient Ireland. The ten essays examine rhetorics as broadly construed, analyzing texts, addressing silence, as well as considering the placement and use of texts as part of multimedia cultural communication, involving ritual along with oral, visual, sensual, experiential, and architectural elements and performances. CAROL S. LIPSON is Professor of Writing and Rhetoric, and immediate past chair of the Writing Program at Syracuse University. She received her PhD in English at the University of California-Los Angeles, where she began the study of Egyptology. She has published on ancient Egyptian medical rhetoric, on the multimedia nature of ancient Egyptian public texts, and on the central Egyptian value of Maat in relation to the culture's rhetorical principles. With Roberta Binkley, she co-edited RHETORIC BEFORE AND BEYOND THE GREEKS (SUNY Press, 2004). ROBERTA BINKLEY received her PhD in rhetoric from the University of Arizona. Subsequently she has taught at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and at Arizona State University. Her research has focused on Near Eastern rhetoric in early Mesopotamia, with particular attention to the works of the priestess and poetess Enheduanna. With Carol S. Lipson, she co-edited RHETORIC BEFORE AND BEYOND THE GREEKS. CONTRIBUTORS include Roberta Binkley, Richard Johnson-Sheehan, Carol S. Lipson, Yichun Liu, Arabella Lyon, Steven B. Katz, Marie Lee Mifsud, Scott R. Stroud, James W. Watts, Xiaoye You, and Kathy Wolfe.

A clearly written, authoritative synthesis of North American archaeology--the standard textbook on the subject, adopted at hundreds of colleges and... universities.Brian Fagan, one of the foremost living archaeological writers and an authority on world prehistory, has completely revised and updated his definitive synthesis of North America's ancient past. The book offers a balanced summary of every major culture area in North America, and places the continent in its wider context in human prehistory. Lavish illustrations, many new to the fourth edition, draw on North America's rich ethnographic record to illustrate key sites and artifacts. The chapter on first settlement has been heavily revised in light of new discoveries in Siberia and the Americas, and current controversies are surveyed. Chapters on archaeological theory, the Great Basin, the Northeast, the Northwest, and the Archaeology of European Contact reflect major advances, and important new discoveries and scientific methodologies receive full coverage. 400 illustrations

This book discusses the evolution of Nubian culture and history through the Bronze Age and the Napatan-Meroitic Period. It was written to coincide with... an exhibition at the University Museum at Pennsylvania, and the unrivalled Nubian collection of that museum and of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, provides some striking illustrations. Maps, chronological tables and a clearly-written text make this an excellent introduction to Nubian civilisation, while well-illustrated discussions of Nubian art and architecture will make this catalogue a valuable source for Egyptian scholars.

Ancient People of the Arctic traces the lives of the Palaeo-Eskimos, the bold first explorers of the Arctic. Four thousand years ago, these people... entered the far northern extremes of the North American continent, carving a living out of their bleak new homeland. From the hints they left behind, accessible only through the fragmented archaeological record, Robert McGhee ingeniously reconstructs a picture of this life at the margins. He discusses how the Palaeo-Eskimos spread across the entire Arctic, explains how they dealt with sharp climate changes that drastically altered their environment, offers glimpses into their spiritual practices and world view, and speculates about their eventual demise.