The Development of Pre-State Communities in the Ancient Near East

The Development of Pre-State Communities in the Ancient Near East
Author: Diane Bolger
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2010-04-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 1842178377

This book explores the dynamics of small-scale societies in the ancient Near East by examining the ways in which particular communities functioned and interacted and by moving beyond the broad neo-evolutionary models of social change which have characterised many earlier approaches. By focusing on issues of diversity, scale, and context, it considers the ways in which economy, crafts, technology, and ritual were organised; the roles played by mortuary practices and households in the structure and development of ancient societies; and the importance of agency, identity, ethnicity, gender, community and cultural interaction for the rise of socio-economic complexity. The contributors to this volume are well-known archaeologists in the field of Near Eastern studies; all are currently engaged in fieldwork or research in Cyprus, the Levant, or Turkey. The variety and depth of the research they present here reflect the richness of the archaeological record in the 'cradle of civilisation' and convey the vibrancy of current interpretive approaches within the field of Near Eastern prehistory today.

Making Ancient Cities

Making Ancient Cities
Author: Andrew Creekmore
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 443
Release: 2014-04-28
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1107046521

Investigates how the structure and use of space developed and changed in cities, and examines the role of different societal groups in shaping urbanism.

Receptions of the Ancient Near East in Popular Culture and Beyond

Receptions of the Ancient Near East in Popular Culture and Beyond
Author: Agnes Garcia-Ventura
Publisher: Lockwood Press
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2020-03-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1948488256

This book is an enthusiastic celebration of the ways in which popular culture has consumed aspects of the ancient Near East to construct new realities. The editors have brought together an impressive line-up of scholars-archaeologists, philologists, historians, and art historians-to reflect on how objects, ideas, and interpretations of the ancient Near East have been remembered, constructed, reimagined, mythologized, or indeed forgotten within our shared cultural memories. The exploration of cultural memories has revealed how they inform the values, structures, and daily life of societies over time. This is therefore not a collection of essays about the deep past but rather about the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves.

Overturning Certainties in Near Eastern Archaeology

Overturning Certainties in Near Eastern Archaeology
Author: Çiğdem Maner
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 717
Release: 2017-09-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004353577

This volume, Overturning Certainties in Near Eastern Archaeology, is a festschrift dedicated to Professor K. Aslıhan Yener in honor of over four decades of exemplary research, teaching, fieldwork, and publication. The thirty-five chapters presented by her colleagues includes a broad, interdisciplinary range of studies in archaeology, archaeometry, art history, and epigraphy of the Ancient Near East, especially reflecting Prof Yener’s interests in metallurgy, small finds, trade, Anatolia, and the site of Tell Atchana/Alalakh. "The richness of this volume inevitably emerges from those contributions on exchange and technology using philology and/or archaeology." - David A. Warburton, Institute for the History of Ancient Civilizations, Northeast Normal University, in: Bibliotheca Orientalis 76,1-2 (2019)

Origini - XXXVI

Origini - XXXVI
Author: Lorna Anguilano
Publisher: Gangemi Editore spa
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2017-03-03T00:00:00+01:00
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 8849293976

THIS ISSUE CONTAINS INVESTIGATING DOMESTIC ECONOMY AT THE BEGINNING OF THE LATE CHALCOLITHIC IN EASTERN ANATOLIA: THE CASE OF ARSLANTEPE PERIOD VIII Cristiano Vignola, Francesca Balossi Restelli, Alessia Masi, Laura Sadori, Giovanni Siracusano KURA ARAXES CULTURE AREAS AND THE LATE 4TH AND EARLY 3RD MILLENNIA BC POTTERY FROM VELI SEVIN’S SURVEYS IN MALATYA AND ELAZIg, TURKEY Mitchell S. Rothman CULTURAL ENTANGLEMENT AT THE DAWN OF THE EGYPTIAN HISTORY: A VIEW FROM THE NILE FIRST CATARACT REGION Maria Carmela Gatto PASTORAL STATES: TOWARD A COMPARATIVE ARCHAEOLOGY OF EARLY KUSH Geoff Emberling A CLAY DOOR-LOCK SEALING FROM THE MIDDLE BRONZE AGE III TEMPLE AT TEL HAROR, ISRAEL Baruch Brandl, Eliezer D. Oren, Pirhiya Nahshoni CASE BASTIONE: A PREHISTORIC SETTLEMENT IN THE EREI UPLANDS (CENTRAL SICILY) Enrico Giannitrapani, Filippo Iannì, Salvatore Chilardi, Lorna Anguilano OLD OR NEW WAVES IN CAPO GRAZIANO DECORATIVE STYLES? Sara T. Levi, Maria Clara Martinelli, Paola Vertuani, John Ll.Williams

Ur in the Twenty-First Century CE

Ur in the Twenty-First Century CE
Author:
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 525
Release: 2021-02-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 1646021509

The city of Ur—now modern Tell el-Muqayyar in southern Iraq, also called Ur of the Chaldees in the Bible—was one of the most important Sumerian cities in Mesopotamia during the Early Dynastic Period in the first half of the third millennium BCE. The city is known for its impressive wealth and artistic achievements, evidenced by the richly decorated objects found in the so-called Royal Cemetery, which was excavated by the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania from 1922 until 1934. Ur was also the cult center of the moon god, and during the twenty-first century BCE, it was the capital of southern Mesopotamia. With contributions from both established and rising Assyriologists from ten countries and edited by three leading scholars of Assyriology, this volume presents thirty-two essays based on papers delivered at the 62nd Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale held in Philadelphia in 2016. Reflecting on the theme “Ur in the Twenty-First Century CE,” the chapters deal with archaeological, artistic, cultural, economic, historical, and textual matters connected to the ancient city of Ur. Three of the chapters are based on plenary lectures by senior scholars Richard Zettler, Jonathan Taylor, and Katrien De Graef. The remainder of the essays, arranged alphabetically by author, highlight innovative new directions for research and represent a diverse array of topics related to Ur in various periods of Mesopotamian history. Tightly focused in theme, yet broad in scope, this collection will be of interest to Assyriologists and archaeologists working on Iraq.

Evolution of a Taboo

Evolution of a Taboo
Author: Max D. Price
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2021-01-07
Genre: SOCIAL SCIENCE
ISBN: 0197543278

"From their domestication to their taboo, the role of pigs in the ancient Near East is one of the most complicated topics in archaeology. Rejecting monocausal explanations, this book adopts an evolutionary approach and uses zooarchaeology and texts to unravel the cultural significance of swine from the Paleolithic to today. Five major themes emerge: The domestication of the pig from wild boar in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, the unique roles that pigs developed in agricultural economies before and after the development of complex societies, the raising of swine in cities, the shifting ritual roles of pigs, and the formation and development of the pork taboo in Judaism and, later, Islam. The development of this taboo has inspired much academic debate. I argue that the well-known taboo described in Leviticus reflects the intention of the Biblical writers to develop an image of a glorious pastoral ancestry for a heroic Israelite past, something they achieved by tying together existing food traditions. These included a taboo on pigs, which was developed early in the Iron Age during conflicts between Israelites and Philistines and was revitalized by the Biblical writers. The taboo persisted and mutated, gaining strength over the next two and a half millennia. In particular, the pig taboo became a point of contention in the ethno-political struggles between Jewish and Greco-Roman cultures in the Levant. Ultimately, it was this continued evolution within the context of ethnic and religious politics that gave the pig taboo the strength it has today"--

Storage in Ancient Complex Societies

Storage in Ancient Complex Societies
Author: Linda R. Manzanilla
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2016-05-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1315520958

The ability to accumulate and store large amounts of goods is a key feature of complex societies in ancient times. Storage strategies reflect the broader economic and political organization of a society and changes in the development of control mechanisms in both administrative and non-administrative—often kinship based—sectors. This is the first volume to examine storage practices in ancient complex societies from a comparative perspective. This volume includes 14 original papers by leading archaeologists from four continents which compare storage systems in three key regions with lengthy traditions of complexity: the ancient Near East, Mesoamerica, and Andes. Storage in Ancient Complex Societies demonstrates the importance of understanding storage for the study of cultural evolution.

Plain Pottery Traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean and Near East

Plain Pottery Traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean and Near East
Author: Claudia Glatz
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2016-07-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1315422557

The evolution and proliferation of plain and predominantly wheel-made pottery presents a characteristic feature of the societies of the Near East and Eastern Mediterranean since the fourth millennium B.C. This plain pottery has received little detailed archaeological attention in comparison to aesthetically more pleasing and chronologically sensitive decorated traditions. Yet, their simplicity and standardization suggest they are products of craft specialists, the result of high-volume production, and therefore important in understanding the social systems in early complex societies. This volume-reevaluates the role and significance of plain pottery traditions from both historically specific perspectives and from a comparative point of view;-examines the uses and functions of this pottery in relation to social negotiation and group identity formation;-helps scholars understand cross-regional similarities in development and use.

Economics and Empire in the Ancient Near East

Economics and Empire in the Ancient Near East
Author: Matthew J. M. Coomber
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2023-02-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1532658001

Over the past few decades biblical economics has developed into an important subfield of biblical studies. Through examining the economic realities that lay behind Hebrew biblical texts and archaeological findings, biblical economics has led to greater understandings of the cultures and experiences of ancient Hebrew communities, the legal and religious texts they produced, and of how those texts may or may not relate to the experiences of communities who continue to receive them, today. Economics and Empire in the Ancient Near East has brought together ten scholars of biblical economics and one economic anthropologist to create a repository of what is understood about the economic realities of Southwest Asia in the late second and first millennia BCE. In addition to furthering the research and teaching interests of biblical scholars, this volume has also been created for the benefit of economic historians, anthropologists, and sociologists.