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Pottery from Tell Khaiber: A craft Tradition of the First Sealand Dynasty
Author: Daniel Calderbank
The First Sealand period in Babylonia has long been obscure, despite the major changes that occurred in the area at that time. The defining characteristics of its ceramics are almost unknown, making identification of its sites through surface survey almost impossible. However, recent excavations at Tell Khaiber near Ur have uncovered a large fortified building of the period, with a dated administrative archive. The pottery from it represents the first substantial stratified corpus of Sealand period ceramics, providing a solid chronological sequence for the middle centuries of the 2nd millennium in southern Iraq. Using the latest methods and approaches, this volume not only establishes a typology and relative chronology, but also addresses the chaîne opératoire underpinning Sealand period pottery, from clay collection through to vessel use and discard.
ISBN: 978-1-910169-02-5. Hardback. xii +288 pp., 117 colour figures, 15 tables, 77 plates, £35/$48
Available at: http://www.iraqarchaeology.org
Institutional orders to Moonrise Press Ltd: orders@iraqarchaeology.org
Archaeology of Ancient Iraq is a new series dedicated to publishing the latest research on the archaeology and languages of ancient Iraq, from prehistoric to recent times. It aims to provide Iraqi scholars and practitioners with an avenue to international publication and also to ensure that research by international colleagues is distributed in Iraq.
The series has an international editorial board and is peer-reviewed. Titles are published in English and/or Arabic.
Income from international sales will be used to distribute free copies to the State Board for Antiquities and Heritage and to Iraq’s universities.
The Eurasian Steppe: People, Movement, Ideas
Author: Warwick Ball
A geographical area, not a political entity, the steppe connects the western and eastern parts of the Eurasian land mass. The open nature of the steppe has resulted in peoples originating in parts of Asia now forming a permanent part of the European community, and that movement has affected European history and identity since earliest times. Now, Warwick Ball tells the story of that movement from prehistory to the present.
From nomadic peoples to conquering empires, from tales of Amazon women to art nouveau, and from golden grave goods to the formation of countries that still exist today, you’ll discover how the steppe has continually shaped Europe’s destiny. Ultimately, Ball shows that the steppe and the movement of peoples across it are so crucial that they question the very idea of ‘Europe’ as a separate cultural and historical construct.
Publication: October 2021, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 200 colour illustrations, 25 b&w illustrations and 20 maps. Paperback ISBN: 9781474488068. Available in paperback, hardback and ebook, from £19.99 / $24.99.
Read an extract from Chapter 6, ‘Scythian Gold’, on the Edinburgh University Press blog.
Use the launch discount code NEW30 to save 30% on the Edinburgh University Press website.
Middle Assyrian Seal Motifs from Tell Felheriye (Syria)
Author: Dominik Bonatz (with a contribution by Felix Wolter)
Despite ongoing interest in Middle Assyrian glyptic art, the publications of Middle Assyrian seals and seal impressions from excavated sites in the Near East are very rare. The book is the first to offer a comprehensive study on the seal corpus from an archaeological site historically located in the western territory of the Middle Assyrian state.
The seal impressions and few original seals, which were found during the excavations in Tell Fekheriye (Syria), substantially add to our understanding of the iconographic repertory and the use of seals in the Middle Assyrian period. The corpus dates to the reigns of the Assyrian kings Shalmaneser I and Tukulti-Ninurta I in the 13th century B.C. It documents practices of governance and administration in the growing Middle Assyrian Empire, points to activities of high-ranking Assyrian officials and unfolds the pictorial reality of political and ideological intensions.
While finding detailed information on unpublished materials, their archaeological contexts and interpretations, the reader is also invited to follow a discourse on art, state and society for which the Middle Assyrian seal motifs from Tell Fekheriye provide an excellent case study.
Publication: February 2021, printed: Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. 148 pp., 66 figs. /b/w, 41 figs. color, 10 tables. Available both in printed and e-versions. Printed ISBN 978311-0691238. E-publication ISBN 9783110691931. 99.95 €
Orders: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110691931/html
Building between the Two Rivers: An Introduction to the Building Archaeology of Ancient Mesopotamia
Authors: Stefano Anastasio & Piero Gilento
Building between the Two Rivers aims to supply university students and scholars of Near Eastern archaeology with an introduction to ‘Building archaeology’ methods as applied to the context of Ancient Mesopotamia. It helps the reader understand the principles underlying the discipline, which deals with the registration and analysis of all building materials and techniques involved in the assembly and erection of a construction, and to outline what knowledge and skills are needed, beyond those that are specific to archaeologists.
The in-depth registration and analysis of building materials and techniques requires professional skills and experience, which cannot be achieved with only a standard university training in archaeology. However, archaeologists need to know the basics of the classification of building materials, their physical properties, the main techniques of their finishing, as well as the basic principles of statics. They should also be able to let architects understand how to better tune the registration of data to ensure a fruitful archaeological interpretation.
Publication: 2020, Oxford, Archaeopress. 175x245mm; 220 pages; 136 figures. Available both in printed and e-versions. Printed ISBN 9781789696035. Epublication ISBN 9781789696042.
Price and Orders: https://tinyurl.com/9781789696035
Paperback: £34.00; E-publication: private costumers £16.00 Exc. UK VAT; Libraries & Institutional customers: £34.00 (Exc. VAT). Print / EPublication Bundle. Price £39.00 (Excl. VAT).
Atlas Historique du Proche-Orient Ancien
Author: Martin Sauvage (dir.)
With the collaboration of Philippe Abrahami – Damien Agut-Labordère – Raphaël Angevin – Johnny Samuele Baldi – Emmanuel Baudouin – Fanny Bocquentin – Odette Boivin – François Bridey – Pascal Butterlin – Corinne Castel – Barbara Chiti – Philippe Clancier – Laura Cousin – Julien Cuny – Pascal Darcque – Mustapha Djabellaoui – Xavier Faivre – Guillaume Gernez – Bernard Geyer – Bruno Gombert – Anna Gómez Bach – Daniel Helmer – Michaël Jasmin – Mathilde Jean – Francis Joannès – Christine Kepinski – Ergül Kodaş – Bertrand Lafont – Marc Lebeau – Alain Le Brun – Camille Lecompte – Brigitte Lion – Marjan Mashkour – Cécile Michel – Pierre de Miroschedji – Miguel Molist Montaña – Alice Mouton – Hugo Naccaro – Aurélie Paci – Clélia Paladre – Bérengère Perello – Philippe Quenet – Marcelo Rede – Margareta Tengberg – Aline Tenu – Régis Vallet – Julien Vieugué – Emmanuelle Vila.
This Historical and Archaeological Atlas of the Ancient Near East brings together accurate and high-quality maps and reports on the latest research findings. It responds to a pressing need for the entire international scientific community working on the pre-classical Near East. The atlas covers the period from the beginning of the Epipaleolithic, around the 20th millennium BC, to the extinction of cuneiform writing at the turn of our era. The geographical area chosen is globally that of the extension of cuneiform writing: from Eastern Anatolia to Western Iran, the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf.
The maps take into account the relief, the variations in the layout of the coastlines and the course of the rivers. They highlight the boundaries of the different political entities, as well as, in a hierarchical manner, the communication routes and the main cities (the maps of about twenty cities are thus detailed). Each map is accompanied by a short commentary explaining the cartographic choices, the limits of knowledge and the advances in research in the field of historical geography over the last twenty years.
After the map book, a chapter brings together the sources and a selection of the most up-to-date bibliographical references for each contribution. In addition, there is a geographical index listing the modern and ancient names of the sites and their different variants, as well as an index of proper names. In total, the project, directed by Martin Sauvage, an archaeological research engineer at the CNRS, brings together some fifty contributors: university lecturers in France and abroad, CNRS researchers and engineers, students and post-doctoral students, mainly attached to three teams of the UMR (Unité mixte de recherche) ArScAn but also to 5 other UMRs in France and 5 universities abroad.
Publication: November 2020, Paris, Les Belles Lettres. 300 × 375 mm; 236 pages; 150 maps. EAN13 : 9782251451138. 55€
Orders: https://www.lesbelleslettres.com/livre/4343-atlas-historique-du-proche-orient-ancien
A presentation video is online : https://youtu.be/HYf_YwJGBZg
To flip through the first pages : https://fr.calameo.com/read/00529596268643554f2a4
Mesopotamian Sculpture in Colour
Editors: Astrid Nunn & Heinrich Piening
We can now be sure that Mesopotamian sculpture of the human form was
typically coloured. Our project, which set out to reconstruct the polychromy of Meso¬potamian stone statues dating from the fourth to the first millennium BCE, is a part of a slow shift to incorporate more visual evidence in research about colour and perception in the ancient world that has long been dominated by ethno-linguistic studies. Our scientifically grounded reconstructions serve as a prelude to a more comprehensive exploration of the materiality and aesthetics of Meso¬po-tamian sculpture, which open many windows onto historical, cultural, and symbolic issues.
In this study, we trace the chronological development of the use of colours and consider why they changed over time. The manner in which colours served as social markers – of gender, ethnicity and class for example – are explored from the material culture and textual perspectives. When used to describe hair, skin, and garments, Sumerian and Akkadian words for colour denote more than just physical
properties. They also evoke qualities such as lightness or darkness, dullness or glossiness, and encode specific symbolic values that impinge on many aspects of society. In all cultures, the notion of skin colour is subject to social concepts, prejudices, and ideals, and is thus a matter of convention. Our discovery that the face and body in particular were so vibrantly coloured provides an entirely new and
unexpected view of ancient Near Eastern effigies. Through such luminous, radiant and lucid colours, we are now able to recognise the true faces of the statues, and to visualise what was considered beautiful and acceptable to the gods.
With contributions by Sarah Hilker, Barbara Jändl, Béatrice Muller,
Charles Piver and Shiyanthi Thavapalan.
Hardcover, 65,00 €
278 Seiten, 545 farbige Abbildungen im Text, 8 Farbtafeln
ISBN: 978-3-935012-42-3
Price and Orders: https://www.pewe-verlag.de/?page_id=2196
The Atlas of the Ancient Near East (AANE – Atlante del Vicino Oriente Antico, AVOA) is a new archaeological, historical and geographical research project of Sapienza University of Rome. This project has been planned in order to develop and foster a debate on various types of issues related to the landscape archaeology, geographical history and settlement organizations of the Western Asia, from the prehistoric to the Islamic age. A multidisciplinary perspective is being proposed in isolated contributions in the fields of archaeology, art history, history, epigraphy, philology and neighboring fields; the AANE / AVOA project seeks to establish a new space in which such investigations could be collected and at the disposal of researchers, lecturers and students. The AANE / AVOA project was founded and is currently directed by Marco Ramazzotti and has been financed in 2016 by Sapienza University Research Program as Great Project of the Athenaeum.
Address and contacts: Analytical Archaeology and Artificial Adaptive Systems Laboratory (LAA&AAS); Studio 6-7, Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia; Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy; Tel: + 39 0649913171; marco.ramazzotti@uniroma1.it – alessandro.diludovico@uniroma1.it
MAVOA 1: Il Paese di Moab nell’Età del Ferro
Author: Francesco M. Benedettucci
21 × 28 cm; 88 pages, b / w and colors ill., 2017
ISBN: ISBN 9788875752910
Languages: Italian
Retail price: EUR 14,25 excl. taxIn the first monograph of the AANE project the archaeological landscapes of the kingdom of Moab in the Iron Age are outlined and illustrated with a high level of detail, especially regarding the archaeological sites and the information collected during scientific activities on the field. Sites which are part of the ancient Moab, as well as those in which a phase related to it has been recognized or hypothesized are here discussed and analyzed, with a special attention dedicated to their geographical position and historical relevance. This volume is a synthesis of bibliographic and archaeological information about the kingdom of Moab, and also includes original contents.
Link: https://www.artemide-edizioni.it/categoria-prodotto/collane/atlante-oriente/
MAVOA 2: La frontiera nord-orientale dell’Impero Ittita
Author: Antonio Carnevale
21 × 28 cm; 160 pages, b / w and colors ill., 2020
ISBN: ISBN 9788875753061
Languages: Italian
Retail price: EUR 28,50 excl. taxThis second monograph of the AANE project is a study of historical geography, inspired by the national Hittite textual tradition and in continuity with the important work that Massimo Forlanini and Massimiliano Marazzi published in 1986 for the Historical Atlas of the Ancient Near East founded and directed by Mario Liverani, with the collaboration of Lucio Milano and Alba Palmieri. The volume proposes a meticulous and capillary reconstruction of the eastern political and military frontier of the Hittite Empire centered on historical and territorial information from the archive of Mashat-Höyük, the ancient Tapika (a hundred kilometers east of the capital Boğazkale / Hattusa).
Link: https://www.artemide-edizioni.it/categoria-prodotto/collane/atlante-oriente/
MAVOA 3: Il regno di Ammon
Author: Francesco M. Benedettucci
21 × 28 cm; 80 pages, 35 b / w ill., 2020
ISBN: 9788875753597
Languages: Italian
Retail price: EUR 28,50 excl. taxThis third monograph of the AANE monograph’ series represents a real first in the Italian publishing scene, which has never before dedicated a work to the population of the Ammonites, one of the main rivals of the kingdom of Israel, according to the Old Testament. The main objective of the work is to analyze the literary and epigraphic sources, compared with the data of archaeological origin, to try to reconstruct the territorial events that have marked the history of the Ammonite kingdom, of the inhabited centers that were part of it and of the people who they lived in them.
Link: https://www.artemide-edizioni.it/categoria-prodotto/collane/atlante-oriente/