In July, 2009, the International Association for Assyriology met in Paris, France, for 5 days to deliver and listen to papers on the theme “La famille dans le Proche-Orient.” This volume, the proceedings of the conference, contains 53 of the papers read at the 55th annual Rencontre, including primarily papers directly connected with the theme and some on areas of related interest. The papers covered every period of Mesopotamian history, from the third millennium through the end of the first millennium B.C.E. The photo on the back cover shows only a representative portion of the attendees, who were warmly hosted by faculty and students from the Collège de France.
This collection of papers is primarily concerned with transport by wheeled vehicle in antiquity. They shed much light on the construction of the vehicles, the ways their draught animals were harnessed and controlled, and the uses to which the equipages were put. The evidence discussed includes actual remains of vehicles and bridles, as well as figured and textual documents. Ridden animals and their gear also feature in this collection of papers. The Selected Writings of Mary B. Littauer and Joost H. Crouwel are important for all those interested in the cultures of the ancient Near East, Egypt and Cyprus and of Bronze Age Greece.
The present volume offers a collection of essays that examines the mechanisms and strategies of collecting, displaying and appropriating Islamic art in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Many studies in this book concentrate on lesser known collections of Islamic art, situated in Central and Eastern Europe that until now have received little attention from scholars. Special attention is given to the figure of the Swiss collector Henri Moser Charlottenfels, whose important, still largely unstudied collection of Islamic art is now preserved in the Bernisches Historisches Museum, Switzerland. Contributors to the volume include young researchers and established scholars from Western and Eastern Europe and beyond: Roger Nicholas Balsiger, Moya Carey, Valentina Colonna, Francine Giese, Hélène Guérin, Barbara Karl, Katrin Kaufmann, Sarah Keller, Agnieszka Kluczewska Wójcik, Inessa Kouteinikova, Axel Langer, Maria Medvedeva, Ágnes Sebestyén, Alban von Stockhausen, Ariane Varela Braga, Mercedes Volait. Les contributions de l’ouvrage examinent le mécanisme et les stratégies relatifs à la collection, la présentation et l’appropriation des arts de l’Islam au XIXe siècle et début du XXe siècle. Elles mettent l’accent sur des collections situées en Europe centrale et orientale, lesquelles ont été peu étudiées jusqu’à présent. Une attention particulière est dédiée à la figure du collectionneur Suisse Henri Moser Charlottenfels, dont les objets se trouvent aujourd’hui au Bernisches Historisches Museum (Suisse) et qui ont été de même peu étudiés. Les textes émanent de jeunes chercheurs comme de chercheurs confirmés, basés en Europe occidentale et orientale, et au-delà.
The Art of Elam ca. 4200-525 BC offers a view of, and a critical reflection on, the art history of one of the world’s first and least-known civilizations, illuminating a significant chapter of our human past. Not unlike a gallery of historical paintings, this comprehensive treatment of the rich heritage of ancient Iran showcases a visual trail of the evolution of human society, with all its leaps and turns, from its origins in the earliest villages of southwest Iran at around 4200 BC to the rise of the Achaemenid Persian empire in ca. 525 BC. Richly illustrated in full colour with 1450 photographs, 190 line drawings, and digital reconstructions of hundreds of artefacts—some of which have never before been published—The Art of Elam goes beyond formal and thematic boundaries to emphasize the religious, political, and social contexts in which art was created and functioned. Such a magisterial study of Elamite art has never been written making The Art of Elam ca. 4200-525 BC a ground-breaking publication essential to all students of ancient art and to our current understanding of the civilizations of the ancient Near East.
Following the tradition and style of the acclaimed Index Islamicus, the editors have created this new Bibliography of Art and Architecture in the Islamic World. The editors have surveyed and annotated a wide range of books and articles from collected volumes and journals published in all European languages (except Turkish) between 1906 and 2011. This comprehensive bibliography is an indispensable tool for everyone involved in the study of material culture in Muslim societies.
