Art of the Ancient Near East

Art of the Ancient Near East
Author: Kim Benzel
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
Total Pages: 138
Release: 2010
Genre: Art, Ancient
ISBN: 1588393585

"Provides the cultural, archaeological, and historical contexts for a selection of thirty works of art in the Metropolitan Museum's collection"--Slipcase.

Deciphering the Indus Script

Deciphering the Indus Script
Author: Asko Parpola
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2009-10-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780521795661

Of the writing systems of the ancient world which still await deciphering, the Indus script is the most important. It developed in the Indus or Harappan Civilization, which flourished c. 2500-1900 BC in and around modern Pakistan, collapsing before the earliest historical records of South Asia were composed. Nearly 4,000 samples of the writing survive, mainly on stamp seals and amulets, but no translations. Professor Parpola is the chief editor of the Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions. His ideas about the script, the linguistic affinity of the Harappan language, and the nature of the Indus religion are informed by a remarkable command of Aryan, Dravidian, and Mesopotamian sources, archaeological materials, and linguistic methodology. His fascinating study confirms that the Indus script was logo-syllabic, and that the Indus language belonged to the Dravidian family.

Ancient Near Eastern History and Culture

Ancient Near Eastern History and Culture
Author: William H. Stiebing Jr.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 684
Release: 2023-07-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000880664

Ancient Near Eastern History and Culture offers an historical overview of the civilizations of the ancient Near East spanning ten thousand years of history. This new edition is a comprehensive introduction to the history and culture of the Near East, from prehistory and the beginnings of farming to the fall of Achaemenid Persia. Through text, images, maps, and historical documents, readers discover the material, social, and political world of cultures from Egypt to India, allowing students to see how these intertwined cultures interacted throughout history. Now fully updated and incorporating the latest scholarship on society, religion, and the economy, this book highlights the changing fortunes of these great civilizations. A special feature of this book is its many "Debating the Evidence" sections, where the reader becomes familiar with scholarly disputes concerning the interpretation of textual and archaeological evidence on a variety of topics and case studies. The fourth edition of Ancient Near Eastern History and Culture remains a crucial textbook for undergraduates and general readers studying the ancient Near East, particularly the political and social history of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, as well as students of archaeology and biblical studies who are working on the region.

Language, Literacy, and Technology

Language, Literacy, and Technology
Author: Richard Kern
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2015-05-28
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1107036488

Language, Literacy, and Technology explores how technology matters to language and the ways we use it.

Writing and Ancient Near Eastern Society

Writing and Ancient Near Eastern Society
Author: E.A. Slater
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2005-10-27
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0567236129

This book honors the significant and enduring work of Old Testament scholar Alan Millard. The contributors to this festschrift take up all of his concerns with the relationship between writing, the development and Israel, and ancient Near Eastern society.

Seals and Sealing in the Ancient World

Seals and Sealing in the Ancient World
Author: Marta Ameri
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 524
Release: 2018-05-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1108173519

Studies of seals and sealing practices have traditionally investigated aspects of social, political, economic, and ideological systems in ancient societies throughout the Old World. Previously, scholarship has focused on description and documentation, chronology and dynastic histories, administrative function, iconography, and style. More recent studies have emphasized context, production and use, and increasingly, identity, gender, and the social lives of seals, their users, and the artisans who produced them. Using several methodological and theoretical perspectives, this volume presents up-to-date research on seals that is comparative in scope and focus. The cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approach advances our understanding of the significance of an important class of material culture of the ancient world. The volume will serve as an essential resource for scholars, students, and others interested in glyptic studies, seal production and use, and sealing practices in the Ancient Near East, Egypt, Ancient South Asia and the Aegean during the 4th-2nd Millennia BCE.

Ancient Near Eastern History and Culture

Ancient Near Eastern History and Culture
Author: William H. Stiebing Jr.
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2016-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 1315511169

This introduction to the Ancient Near East includes coverage of Egypt and a balance of political, social, and cultural coverage. Organized by the periods, kingdoms, and empires generally used in Near Eastern political history, the text interlaces social and cultural history with the political narrative. This combination allows students to get a rounded introduction to the subject of Ancient Near Eastern history. An emphasis on problems and areas of uncertainty helps students understand how evidence is used to create interpretations and allows them to realize that several different interpretations of the same evidence are possible.This introduction to the Ancient Near East includes coverage of Egypt and a balance of political, social, and cultural coverage.

What Makes Civilization?

What Makes Civilization?
Author: D. Wengrow
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2018
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199699429

A vivid new account of the 'birth of civilization' in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia where many of the foundations of modern life were laid

Life in the Ancient Near East, 3100-332 B.C.E.

Life in the Ancient Near East, 3100-332 B.C.E.
Author: Daniel C. Snell
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 310
Release: 1997-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780300076660

In this sweeping overview of life in the ancient Near East, Daniel Snell surveys the history of the region from the invention of writing five thousand years ago to Alexander the Great's conquest in 332 B.C.E. The book is the first comprehensive history of the social and economic conditions affecting ordinary people and of the relations between governments and peoples in ancient Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey. To set Near East developments in a broader context, the author also provides brief contrasting views of India, China, Greece, and Etruscan Italy. Snell organizes his book chronologically in time spans of about five hundred years and considers broad continuities. Drawing on the latest scholarship in many fields and in many languages, he sets forth a detailed picture of what is known about the demography, social groups, family, women, labor, land and animal management, crafts, trade, money, and government of the ancient Near East. For general readers with an interest in historical events that have influenced the development of Europe and the Middle East, for specialists seeking a broader understanding of early periods of Middle Eastern history, and for anyone with an interest in the Bible, this book offers a fascinating tour of life in ancient Western Asia.

Ancient Mesopotamia

Ancient Mesopotamia
Author: A. Leo Oppenheim
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 494
Release: 2013-01-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 022617767X

"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 Review Ancient 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, Archaeology A. 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.