The City of Uruk and its Hinterland

The City of Uruk and its Hinterland

Author: Hans J. Nissen

Publisher: Gangemi Editore spa

Published: 2019-09-16T00:00:00+02:00

Total Pages: 30

ISBN-13: 884924410X

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The extent of the Uruk influence on its hinterland during the periods between Late Uruk and Early Dynastic I (late 4th - early 3rd millennia BCE) is marked by a belt void of settlements. The size of the area between the city and the belt is confronted with the size of the population during these periods, and it is suggested that it sufficed to feed both the city and the settlements within this area.


Power and Architecture

Power and Architecture

Author: Joachim Bretschneider

Publisher: Peeters Publishers

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 9789042918313

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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 ...


The Rural Landscapes of Archaic Cyprus

The Rural Landscapes of Archaic Cyprus

Author: Catherine Kearns

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2022-10-31

Total Pages: 375

ISBN-13: 1316513122

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The ninth to the fifth centuries BCE saw a series of significant historical transformations across Cyprus, especially in the growth of towns and in developments in the countryside. In this book, Catherine Kearns argues that changing patterns of urban and rural sedentism drove social changes as diverse communities cultivated new landscape practices. Climatic changes fostered uneven relationships between people, resources like land, copper, and wood, and increasingly important places like rural sanctuaries and cemeteries. Bringing together a range of archaeological, textual, and scientific evidence, the book examines landscapes, environmental history, and rural practices to argue for their collective instrumentality in the processes driving Iron Age political formations. It suggests how rural households managed the countryside, interacted with the remains of earlier generations, and created gathering spaces alongside the development of urban authorities. Offering new insights into landscape archaeologies, Dr Kearns contributes to current debates about society's relationships with changing environments.


Rural Archaeology in Early Urban Northern Mesopotamia

Rural Archaeology in Early Urban Northern Mesopotamia

Author: Glenn M. Schwartz

Publisher: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press

Published: 2015-12-31

Total Pages: 691

ISBN-13: 193877096X

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This book presents the results of the extensive excavation of a small, rural village from the period of emerging cities in upper Mesopotamia (modern northeast Syria) in the early to middle third millennium BC. Prior studies of early Near Eastern urban societies generally focused on the cities and elites, neglecting the rural component of urbanization. This research represents part of a move to rectify that imbalance. Reports on the architecture, pottery, animal bones, plant remains, and other varieties of artifacts and ecofacts enhance our understanding of the role of villages in the formation of urban societies, the economic relationship between small rural sites and urban centers, and status and economic differentiation in villages. Among the significant results are the extensive exposure of a large segment of the village area, revealing details of spatial and social organization and household economics. The predominance of large-scale grain storage and processing leads to questions of staple finance, economic relations with pastoralists, and connections to developing urban centers.


The Early History of the Ancient Near East, 9000–2000 B.C.

The Early History of the Ancient Near East, 9000–2000 B.C.

Author: Hans J. Nissen

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2011-03-04

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 022618269X

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Hans J. Nissen here provides a much-needed overview of 7000 years of development in the ancient Near East from the beginning of settled life to the formation of the first regional states. His approach to the study of Mesopotamian civilization differs markedly from conventional orientations, which impose a sharp division between prehistoric and historic, literate, periods. Nissen argues that this approach is too rigid to explain the actual development of that civilization. He deemphasizes the invention of writing as a turning point, viewing it as simply one more phase in the evolution of social complexity and as the result of specific social, economic, and political factors. With a unique combination of material culture analysis written data, Nissan traces the emergence of the earliest isolated settlements, the growth of a network of towns, the emergence of city states, and finally the appearance of territorial states. From his synthesis of the prehistoric and literate periods comes a unified picture of the development of Mesopotamian economy, society, and culture. Lavishly illustrated, The Early History of the Ancient Near East, 9000-2000 B.C. is an authoritative work by one of the most insightful observers of the evolution and character of Mesopotamian civilization.


Historical Dictionary of Mesopotamia

Historical Dictionary of Mesopotamia

Author: Gwendolyn Leick

Publisher: Scarecrow Press

Published: 2009-11-16

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 0810863243

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The Greek name Mesopotamia means 'land between the rivers.' The Romans used this term for an area that they controlled only briefly (between 115 and 117 A.D.): the land between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, from the south Anatolian mountains ranges to the Persian Gulf. It comprises the civilizations of Sumer and Akkad (third millennium B.C.) as well as the later Babylonian and Assyrian empires of the second and first millennium. Although the 'history' of Mesopotamia in the strict sense of the term only begins with the inscriptions of Sumerian rulers around the 27th century B.C., the foundations for Mesopotamian civilization, especially the beginnings of irrigation and the emergence of large permanent settlements, were laid much earlier, in the fifth and fourth millennium. The second edition of the Historical Dictionary of Mesopotamia defines concepts, customs, and notions peculiar to the civilization of ancient Mesopotamia, from adult adoption to ziggurats. This is accomplished through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, appendixes, and hundreds of cross-reference dictionary entries on religion, economy, society, geography, and important kings and rulers.


Ancient Near Eastern History and Culture

Ancient Near Eastern History and Culture

Author: William H. Stiebing Jr.

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-07-01

Total Pages: 722

ISBN-13: 1315511150

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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.


Climate Change and Cultural Dynamics

Climate Change and Cultural Dynamics

Author: David G. Anderson

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2011-07-28

Total Pages: 603

ISBN-13: 0080554555

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The Middle Holocene epoch (8,000 to 3,000 years ago) was a time of dramatic changes in the physical world and in human cultures. Across this span, climatic conditions changed rapidly, with cooling in the high to mid-latitudes and drying in the tropics. In many parts of the world, human groups became more complex, with early horticultural systems replaced by intensive agriculture and small-scale societies being replaced by larger, more hierarchial organizations. Climate Change and Cultural Dynamics explores the cause and effect relationship between climatic change and cultural transformations across the mid-Holocene (c. 4000 B.C.). Explores the role of climatic change on the development of society around the world Chapters detail diverse geographical regions Co-written by noted archaeologists and paleoclimatologists for non-specialists


The Cambridge World History: Volume 3, Early Cities in Comparative Perspective, 4000 BCE–1200 CE

The Cambridge World History: Volume 3, Early Cities in Comparative Perspective, 4000 BCE–1200 CE

Author: Norman Yoffee

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015-03-19

Total Pages: 597

ISBN-13: 1316297748

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From the fourth millennium BCE to the early second millennium CE the world became a world of cities. This volume explores this critical transformation, from the appearance of the earliest cities in Mesopotamia and Egypt to the rise of cities in Asia and the Mediterranean world, Africa, and the Americas. Through case studies and comparative accounts of key cities across the world, leading scholars chart the ways in which these cities grew as nodal points of pilgrimages and ceremonies, exchange, storage and redistribution, and centres for defence and warfare. They show how in these cities, along with their associated and restructured countrysides, new rituals and ceremonies connected leaders with citizens and the gods, new identities as citizens were created, and new forms of power and sovereignty emerged. They also examine how this unprecedented concentration of people led to disease, violence, slavery and subjugations of unprecedented kinds and scales.