The remains of ancient societies often require decades to unearth, but much longer to interpret and understand. The methods of archaeology have progressed dramatically in recent years. Archaeologists have continuously refined their tools, methods, and techniques. Today archaeology is characterized by pottery identification, classification, and cataloging; disciplined excavation of "squares"; use of sophisticated electronics, such as GPS, infrared, and computer-aided design; and the integration of multiple methodologies, such as epigraphy, art history, physical anthropology, paleobotany, and climatology. The interpretation of ancient Near Eastern history and cultures has also progressed. An increasing number of documents has been unearthed. The vast document collections from Tel el-Amarna, Nippur, Mari, Nuzi, Ebla, Ugarit, and the Dead Sea caves are just some of the more spectacular examples. These provide an enormous amount of detail about royal administrations, business transactions, land tenure systems, taxes, political propaganda, mythologies, marriage practices, and much more. And things that sometimes seem unique about one culture at first look often fit into larger patterns of relationship when the surrounding cultures are better understood. The Ancient Near East: Classic Studies (ANECS) reprints classic works that have brought the results of archaeology, textual, and historical investigations to audiences of scholars, students, and the general public. While the discussions continue and the results of earlier investigations are continuously re-examined, these classic works remain of interest and importance. K. C. HANSON Series Editor

This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.

A sequel to Unexpected Links Between Egyptian and Babylonian Mathematics (World Scientific, 2005), this book is based on the authorOCOs intensive and ground breaking studies of the long history of Mesopotamian mathematics, from the late 4th to the late 1st millennium BC. It is argued in the book that several of the most famous Greek mathematicians appear to have been familiar with various aspects of Babylonian OC metric algebra, OCO a convenient name for an elaborate combination of geometry, metrology, and quadratic equations that is known from both Babylonian and pre-Babylonian mathematical clay tablets. The bookOCOs use of OC metric algebra diagramsOCO in the Babylonian style, where the side lengths and areas of geometric figures are explicitly indicated, instead of wholly abstract OC lettered diagramsOCO in the Greek style, is essential for an improved understanding of many interesting propositions and constructions in Greek mathematical works. The authorOCOs comparisons with Babylonian mathematics also lead to new answers to some important open questions in the history of Greek mathematics."

Built upon the flourishing study of costume, this book analyses sartorial evidence provided both by texts of the ancient Near East and the Hebrew Bible. The essays within lend clarity to the link between material and ideological, examining the tradition of dress, the different types of literature that reference the tradition of garments, and the people for whom such literature was written. The contributors explore sources that illuminate the social, psychological, aesthetic, ideological and symbolic meanings of clothing. The topics covered range from the relationship between clothing, kingship and power, to the symbolic significance of the high priestly regalia and the concept of garments as deception and defiance, while also considering the tendency to omit or ignore descriptions of YHWH's clothing. Following a historical sequence, the essays cross-reference with each other to create a milestone in biblical sartorial study.

The volume will appeal to those interested in the biblical text and its place within the wider archaeological and ancient near eastern context. It will appeal to those wishing to understand the diversity of historical approaches to the Bible, and to those utilising the evidence of archaeology, inscriptions, theology and linguistics to the interpretation of the Bible.

The creation of the Library of Alexandria is widely regarded as one of the great achievements in the history of humankind - a giant endeavour to amass all known literature and scholarly texts in one central location, so as to preserve it and make it available for the public. In turn, this event has been viewed as a historical turning point that separates the ancient world from classical antiquity. Standard works on the library continue to present the idea behind the institution as novel and, at least implicitly, as a product of Greek thought. Yet, although the scale of the collection in Alexandria seems to have been unprecedented, the notion of creating central repositories of knowledge, while perhaps new to Greek tradition, was age-old in the Near East where the building was erected. Here the existence of libraries can be traced back another two millennia, from the twenty-seventh century BCE to the third century CE, and so the creation of the Library in Alexandria was not so much the beginning of an intellectual adventure as the impressive culmination of a very long tradition. This volume presents the first comprehensive study of these ancient libraries across the 'Cradle of Civilization' and traces their institutional and scholarly roots back to the early cities and states and the advent of writing itself. Leading specialists in the intellectual history of each individual period and region covered in the volume present and discuss the enormous textual and archaeological material available on the early collections, offering a uniquely readable account intended for a broad audience of the libraries in Egypt and Western Asia as centres of knowledge prior to the famous Library of Alexandria.

What are the borders of the Promised Land in the Hebrew Bible? What drives and characterizes the descriptions given of them? The starting point for this research lies in the premise that, despite their detailed geographical nature, the biblical texts are not genuinely geographical documents. They are more appropriately to be understood and examined as literary texts composed in the service of an ideological agenda. In order to comprehend properly the idea of the Promised Land presented in the Hebrew Bible—its definitions, dimensions, and significance—we must understand that the descriptions belong to diverse literary genres, were composed according to various literary devices that require decoding, and that reflect a range of perspectives, outlooks, and notions. All the Boundaries of the Land provides engaging fresh perspectives on the variant views of the Promised Land in the interface between literature, history, geography, and ideology. It does not intend to answer the question of how the borders of the land altered throughout the course of history. The reader will find no maps or outlines in this book. The emphasis is on the literary tools that were employed by the biblical authors who described the borders, and the ideological motives that guided them. Erratum: All the Boundaries of the Land: The Promised Land in Biblical Thought in Light of the Ancient Near East was published with the support of the Israel Science Foundation (ISF). They funded the translation of the book into English and enabled Nili Wazana to make her research accessible to the wider scientific community. The preface to the book mistakenly fails to mention their contribution, thanking instead the Israel Academy of Science. Future editions will acknowledge the author’s gratitude to the Israel Science Foundation.

In December 2009, an international congress was held at Ghent University in order to investigate, exactly 20 years after the 36th RAI “Mésopotamie et Elam”, the present state of our knowledge of the Elamite and Susean society from archaeological, philological, historical and geographical points of view. The multidisciplinary character of this congress illustrates the present state of research in the socio-economic, historical and political developments of the Suso-Elamite region from prehistoric times until the great Persian Empire. Because of its strategically important location between the Mesopotamian alluvial plain and the Iranian highlands and its particular interest as point of contact between civilizations, Susa and Elam were of utmost importance for the history of the ancient Near East in general.