Power and Architecture

Power and Architecture
Author: Joachim Bretschneider
Publisher: Peeters Publishers
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2007
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9789042918313

The idea that societies and rulers express their power through monumental architecture is not a new one, but this collection of essays, the result of a 2002 conference in Leuven, takes the arguement back to the very beginnings of monumental architecture in the Bronze Age Near East and Aegean, to ask if this process can be linked to a particular ...

Ǧamdat Naṣr

Ǧamdat Naṣr
Author: Uwe Finkbeiner
Publisher:
Total Pages: 394
Release: 1986
Genre: Civilization, Assyro-Babylonian
ISBN:

At the Dawn of History

At the Dawn of History
Author: Yağmur Heffron
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 850
Release: 2017-03-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 157506474X

Nearly 50 students, colleagues, and friends of Nicholas Postgate join in tribute to an Assyriologist and Archaeologist who has had a profound influence on both disciplines. His work and scholarship are strongly felt in Iraq, where he was the Director of the British School of Archaeology, in the United Kingdom, where he is Emeritus Professor of Assyriology in the University of Cambridge, and in the subject internationally. He has fostered close collaboration with colleagues in Turkey and Iraq, where he has been involved in archaeological investigation, always seeking to meld the study of texts with that of material remains. The essays embrace the full range of Postgate’s interests, including government and administration, art history, population studies, the economy, religion and divination, foodstuffs, ceramics, and Akkadian and Sumerian language—in a word, all of ancient Mesopotamian civilisation.

State and Society

State and Society
Author: John Gledhill
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 366
Release: 1995
Genre: Political anthropology
ISBN: 0415122554

The traditional Eurocentric view of state formation and the rise of civilization is challenged in this broad-ranging book. Bringing archaeological research into contact with the work of ethno-historians and anthropologists, it generates a discussion of fundamental concepts rather than a search for modern analogies for processes that occurred in the past.

Strings and Threads

Strings and Threads
Author: Wolfgang Heimpel
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2011-06-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 1575066610

Anne Draffkorn Kilmer has had a long and fruitful career as an academic in Assyriology. After receiving her doctorate in Philadelphia and serving as assistant to Benno Landsberger in Chicago, she came to Berkeley in 1963 and stayed there for the long term, despite offers from other universities. During her career, in addition to her many contributions to Assyriology and ancient musicology, she served the university in various administrative functions. In Assyriology, her wide and varied interests included lexical texts, mathematics, animals, entertainment, and especially music. Her discoveries were often unexpected and dramatic. In this volume, the essays presented in her honor focus on many of Prof. Kilmer’s primary interests. The contributions are divided into two sections, reflecting the title, “Strings and Threads.” The “strings” portion of the volume collects essays that follow her interest in musicology and related matters, especially “music archaeology.” It is well known that she studied ancient Hurrian, Mesopotamian, and Ugaritic texts containing musical notations and/or songs, and has been at the forefront of decipherment and explanation of these texts. And a number of essays in this volume address various aspects of ancient music, whether it be the lyrics of the songs or the pictorial representation of music-making or the language in which music is described. In the “threads” portion of the volume are collected essays on various aspects of Mesopotamian narrative literature, an area to which Anne contributed significant insight on the structure of compositions and verbal wordplay used by ancient authors. A number of the articles in the volume follow up on or parallel Prof. Kilmer’s work in this area. Contributors include: G. Azarpay, D. Collon, J. Cooper, R. L. Crocker, D. Foxvog, E. Hickmann, A. B. Knapp, E. Leichty, S. L. Macgregor, S. B. Noegel, D. Pickworth, E. Robson, J. C. Ross, D. Schmandt-Besserat, D. Stronach, and R. L. Zettler. The volume concludes with a bibliography and an index of the works of A. D. Kilmer.

The Origins of Monsters

The Origins of Monsters
Author: David Wengrow
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2020-04-28
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0691202397

It has often been claimed that "monsters"--supernatural creatures with bodies composed from multiple species--play a significant part in the thought and imagery of all people from all times. The Origins of Monsters advances an alternative view. Composite figurations are intriguingly rare and isolated in the art of the prehistoric era. Instead it was with the rise of cities, elites, and cosmopolitan trade networks that "monsters" became widespread features of visual production in the ancient world. Showing how these fantastic images originated and how they were transmitted, David Wengrow identifies patterns in the records of human image-making and embarks on a search for connections between mind and culture. Wengrow asks: Can cognitive science explain the potency of such images? Does evolutionary psychology hold a key to understanding the transmission of symbols? How is our making and perception of images influenced by institutions and technologies? Wengrow considers the work of art in the first age of mechanical reproduction, which he locates in the Middle East, where urban life began. Comparing the development and spread of fantastic imagery across a range of prehistoric and ancient societies, including Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and China, he explores how the visual imagination has been shaped by a complex mixture of historical and universal factors. Examining the reasons behind the dissemination of monstrous imagery in ancient states and empires, The Origins of Monsters sheds light on the relationship between culture and cognition.

Mesopotamia Before History

Mesopotamia Before History
Author: Petr Charvát
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 453
Release: 2003-09-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 1134530773

Mesopotamia was one of the earliest regions to produce writing, literature and the fine arts, as well as being one of the first areas to construct states. This comprehensive and detailed survey of the region's prehistory and protohistory shows how these fascinating developments were possible. Petr Charvát explores the economic, social and spiritual spheres in Mesopotamia from the Palaeolithic to the time of the early states, c. 100,000 BC to 2334 BC. The narrative is supplemented by numerous descriptions of the principal archaeological sites for each phase, and by conclusions outlining the most important developments and changes.

Euphrates River Valley Settlement

Euphrates River Valley Settlement
Author: Edgar Peltenberg
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Total Pages: 503
Release: 2007-07-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 178297511X

Pre-state ceremonial monuments, rich mortuary arrangements, forts, walled settlements and temples: all these occur in a narrow stretch of the Euphrates River valley prior to the rise of Carchemish, one of the major capital cities of the Ancient Near East. This well-illustrated book examines recently discovered evidence from the hinterlands of archaeologically inaccessible Carchemish in its regional context. Amongst the 18 contributors Tony Wilkinson characterizes the neighbouring regions of Carchemish, Guy Bunnens elaborates on a site hierarchy within the valley and Gioacchino Falsone appraises unpublished records from excavations at Carchemish itself. These material culture studies are important for those interested in the emergence of complex societies that do not conform to the Mesopotamian paradigm.

The Asvan Sites 3

The Asvan Sites 3
Author: A. G. Sagona
Publisher: British Institute at Ankara
Total Pages: 276
Release: 1994-12-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1912090686

The three sites discussed in this volume provide a series of overlapping sequences that flesh out the cultural developments in East-Central Anatolia during most, if not all, of the third millennium BC. The ceramic evidence, forming the greater part of the material remains, is generously illustrated.

Connections and Complexity

Connections and Complexity
Author: Shinu Anna Abraham
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 372
Release: 2016-06-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1315431831

This compilation of original research articles highlight the important cross-regional, cross-chronological, and comparative approaches to political and economic landscapes in ancient South Asia and its neighbors. Focusing on the Indus Valley period and Iron Age India, this volume incorporates new research in South Asia within the broader universe of archaeological scholarship. Contributions focus on four major themes: reinterpreting material culture; identifying domains and regional boundaries; articulating complexity; and modeling interregional interaction. These studies develop theoretical models that may be applicable researchers studying cultural complexity elsewhere in the world.