The Origins of Cities in Dry-farming Syria and Mesopotamia in the Third Millennium B.C. PDF Download

Author: Harvey Weiss
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 184

View

Book Description
The mid-third millennium is marked by unprecedented urban growth from Egypt and the Levantine coast to the Iranian plateau and the Indus valley. Although urbanization in the southern Mesopotamian alluvium is reasonably well understood, details of the emergence of cities in other regions remain sketchy. When did cities first appear on the dry-farming plains of Syria and Mesopotamia and what accounts for their development? How might northern urbanization be a response to or in what ways might urbanization in the two regions reflect independent social and economic processes? Recent excavations provide new data that force reconsideration of ancient urbanization within the dry-farming zone along the interior of the Zagros-Taurus arc in Syria and Iraq. The essays in this volume, which grew out of a symposium hosted by the American Schools of Oriental Research in Chicago in December 1984, specifically treat third-millennium urbanization in the dry-farming zones of Syria and Iraq. The contrast of north and south informs each essay, and this focus points to additional issues and problems likely to dominate future archaeological research agendas.

Author: Norman Yoffee
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316297748
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 597

View

Book Description
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.

Author: Mark W. Chavalas
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 9780567082312
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 404

View

Book Description
The study of Syro-Mesopotamian civilization has greatly advanced in the past twenty-five years. In particular the renewed interest in Eastern (or Mesopotamian) Syria has radically altered our understanding of not only the ancient Near East, but of the Bible as well. With Syria east of the Euphrates becoming one of the most active areas of archaeological investigation in the entire Near East, the need for a synthesis of this research and its integration with the Hebrew Bible has greatly increased.This volume charts the state of our knowledge, following a general chronological flow, and will appeal not only to scholars of the ancient Near East but also to Biblical specialists interested in the historical and religious backgrounds to the Israelite and Judahite kingdoms.

Author: Marjan Mashkour
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1782978453
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 869

View

Book Description
This two part volume brings together over 60 specialists to present 31 papers on the latest research into archaeozoology of the Near East. The papers are wide-ranging in terms of period and geographical coverage: from Palaeolithic rock shelter assemblages in Syria to Byzantine remains in Palestine and from the Caucasus to Cyprus. Papers are grouped into thematic sections examining patterns of Palaeolithic and Neolithic subsistence in northern Mesopotamia, Anatolia and the Iranian plateau; Palaeolithic to Neolithic faunal remains from Armenia; animal exploitation in Bronze Age urban sites; new evidence concerning pastoralism, nomadism and mobility; aspects of domestication and animal exploitation in the Arabian peninsula; several case studies on ritual animal deposits; and specific analyses of patterns of animal exploitation at urban sites in Turkey, Palestine and Jordan. This important collection of significant new work builds on the well-established foundation of previous ICAZ publications to present the very latest results of archaeozoological research in the prehistory of this formative region in the development of animal exploitation.

Author: Dominique Garcia
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1789691338
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 210

View

Book Description
This volume assembles contributions on the place of agricultural production in the context of the urbanization of Late Bronze and Early Iron Age Mediterranean, concentrating on the second-millennium Aegean and the protohistoric north-western Mediterranean.

Author: Laura Culbertson
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 1501517651
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 322

View

Book Description
This book provides an overview of social life in ancient Mesopotamia, bringing together leading experts to survey key social domains of daily life as well as major non-dominant social groups. It serves as a point of entry to the current research in this field.

Author: Walter E. Aufrecht
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 0567269884
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 297

View

Book Description
The origin and growth of cities in antiquity. The origin and growth of cities forms one of the most important chapters in human history. In this volume, 17 researchers present archaeological, epigraphic and textual data on the rise of urbanism in the ancient Near Eastern world, Cyprus to Mesopotamia and from Crete to Egypt. Topics addressed include the influence of agriculture intensification, of trade, of craft specialization and of writing on the rise of cities. The roles of cultural elites, of ideologies and of relations between proximal urban centres are also examined. The contributors to this volume include such well-known scholars as William Dever and Donald Redford.

Author: Sarah M. Nelson
Publisher: UPenn Museum of Archaeology
ISBN: 9781931707091
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 166

View

Book Description
This book brings together several new ways of thinking about pigs in the past, creating a dialogue by drawing on several kinds of approaches—from geography, ethnography, zoology, history, and archaeology—to enrich the way we all understand the evidence found in archaeological sites. MASCA Research Papers in Science and Archaeology 15

Author: Harriet Crawford
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136219110
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 936

View

Book Description
The Sumerian World explores the archaeology, history and art of southern Mesopotamia and its relationships with its neighbours from c.3,000 - 2,000BC. Including material hitherto unpublished from recent excavations, the articles are organised thematically using evidence from archaeology, texts and the natural sciences. This broad treatment will also make the volume of interest to students looking for comparative data in allied subjects such as ancient literature and early religions. Providing an authoritative, comprehensive and up to date overview of the Sumerian period written by some of the best qualified scholars in the field, The Sumerian World will satisfy students, researchers, academics, and the knowledgeable layperson wishing to understand the world of southern Mesopotamia in the third millennium.

Author: Harvey Weiss
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199329192
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 345

View

Book Description
Megadrought and Collapse is the first book to treat in one volume the current paleoclimatic and archaeological evidence of megadrought events coincident with major prehistoric and historical examples of societal collapse. Previous works have offered multi-causal explanations for collapse, from overpopulation, overexploitation of resources, and warfare to poor leadership and failure to adapt to environmental changes. In earlier synthetic studies of major instances of collapse, the full force of climate change has often not been considered. This volume includes nine case studies that span the globe and stretch over fourteen thousand years, from the paleolithic hunter-gatherer collapse of the 12th millennium BC to the 15th century AD fall of the Khmer capital at Angkor. Together, the studies constitute a primary sourcebook in which principal investigators in archaeology and paleoclimatology present their original research. Each case study juxtaposes the latest paleoclimatic evidence of megadrought (so-called for its severity and its decades - to centuries-long duration) with available archaeological records of synchronous societal collapse. The megadrought data are derived from all five archival paleoclimate proxy sources: speleothems (cave stalagmites), tree rings, and lake, marine, and glacial cores. The archaeological records in each case are the most recently retrieved. With Megadrought and Collapse, Harvey Weiss and his team of expert contributors have assembled an authoritative investigation that is certain to engage environmental history readers across disciplines in the sciences and social sciences.