The actual progress in the study of social and economic structures of Late Bronze Age societies requires a general overview of the historical process in the area of the Eastern Mediterranean as a whole. This was the purpose of the symposium the proceedings of which are collected in the form of articles in the present volume. They are studies dealing with the Mycenaean world, with the Hittite Empire, Nuzi, Emar, Alalakh, Ugarit, the Pharaonic lands in the Izreel Valley. Particular attention is paid to the trade between the Aegean and the Levant, as well as to the Sea-Peoples. The proceedings give a comprehensive view of the social and economic historical process in the Eastern Mediterranean between 1500 and 1000 B.C. and constitute an important contribution to the study of this crucial period in the history of the Ancient Middle East.

Claude Cahen's book on Crusader Antioch cast a long shadow. His thorough monograph seemingly leaves little more to be said. Decades may pass before scholars return to the topic. The long shadow fell even on the Wisconsin History of the Crusades which still seeks, essentially, to stich the written sources together into traditional narrative history, only to do it better. But topics such as architecture, or coins are optional extras and not much integrated into the whole picture. A thorough analysis of political and military developments is indeed the essential groundwork of most medieval history. But high politics was not the whole of life; and charters and texts are not the only witnesses to that life. Social and economic life has its own momentum and its own continuity. Its moral and spiritual aspects deserve historical study, and impose new historical disciplines. Crusades studies have become more interdisciplinary, and less monolithic. That new style of enquiry is fully reflected in the range and variety of the papers, tightly focussed on Antioch, printed in this volume.

This book is the first comprehensive study of debts and credit system at Emar. It focuses on the socio-economic aspects of credit access and indebtedness as well as on the motivations behind debts and debt settlement in the city of Emar. The credit system is analyzed through several factors: the purpose of debts, i.e., productive or consumptive; the procedures for granting loans; the strategies put in place to meet an obligation and to cope with economic difficulties; the consequences of non-fulfillment, which may lead to servitude or slavery; the different types of slavery; slave prices; the mechanisms of enslavement; and termination of slavery. Moneylending practices and the formation of servile conditions at Emar are studied in the context of the Syrian economy aiming to understand whether the Emar evidence conforms with a socio political and economic crisis that is generally acknowledged to have struck Syria, Anatolia and Northern Mesopotamia at the end of the Late Bronze Age. This work is of sure relevance for scholars interested in socio-economic history, not only of the pertinent historical-geographical area.

The remarkable extension in depth and width of Muslim intellectual life can be fathomed and measured only against the background of what went on immediately before, and simultaneously elsewhere, or it will remain, in any real sense, unexplored." This statement by the late Franz Rosenthal is, in a sense, the red thread of the present volume which unites 35 articles by renowned scholars of Islamic Studies, Middle Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and various allied fields of research in honour of a scholar congenial to Franz Rosenthal and exemplary in his scientific carefulness and integrity: Dr Gerhard Endress, Professor of Oriental Philology and Islamic Studies at the Ruhr University Bochum. Central topics of the contributions include Arabic philosophy and its Greek sources and Latin reception, the history and historiography of Arabic-Islamic science, and Islamic concepts of language, knowledge, science and pedagogy. Other articles deal with qur'anic studies, Arabic lexicography and linguistics, the history of Middle Eastern civilizations, the medieval translation movements from Greek into Arabic and from Arabic into Latin as well as with political and eschatological theories of medieval Islam. Rooted in different scientific traditions and methodological approaches the studies collected in this Festschrift form a vivid and stimulating synopsis of more than 1000 years of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean intellectual, social and cultural history.

For more than a decade the European Seminar in Historical Methodology has debated the history of ancient Israel (or Palestine or the Southern Levant, as some prefer). A number of different topics have been the focus of discussion and published collections, but several have centered on historical periods. The really seminal period--one of great debates over a number of different topics--is the four centuries between the Late Bronze II and Iron IIA, but it seemed appropriate to leave it toward the end of the various historical periods. It was also important to give a prominent place to archaeology, and the best way to do this seemed to be to have a special Seminar session devoted entirely to archaeology.

Food and feasting are key themes in the Hebrew Bible and the culture it represents. The contributors to this handbook draw on a multitude of disciplines to offer an overview of food in the Hebrew Bible and ancient Israel. Archaeological materials from biblical lands, along with the recent interest in ethnographic data, a new focus in anthropology, and emerging technologies provide valuable information about ancient foodways. The contributors examine not only the textual materials of the Hebrew Bible and related epigraphic works, but also engage in a wider archaeological, environmental, and historical understanding of ancient Israel as it pertains to food. Divided into five parts, this handbook examines and considers environmental and socio-economic issues such as climate and trade, the production of raw materials, and the technology of harvesting and food processing. The cultural role of food and meals in festivals, holidays, and biblical regulations is also discussed, as is the way food and drink are treated in biblical texts, in related epigraphic materials, and in iconography.

The first two volumes on patrimonialism in Ugarit and the ancient Near East, this book opens with a lengthy introduction on the interpretation of social action and households in the ancient world. Following this foundation, Schloen embarks on a societal and domestic study of the Late Bronze Age kingdom of Ugarit in its wider Near Eastern context.

The second volume covers the first two and a half thousand years of recorded history, from the start of the Bronze Age 5,000 years ago to the beginnings of the Iron Age. Written by a team of over sixty specialists, this volume includes a comprehensive bibliography and a detailed index.

This study considers the maritime economy of ancient Cyprus from 1450 BC to 295 BC, combining, for the first time, three distinct disciplines, that is History, Archaeology and Economic theory. The principles of New Institutional Economics are used to trace the island’s institutions and their continuity and to reconstruct its maritime history.

The Ancient Near East embraces a vast geographical area, from the borders of Iran and Afghanistan in the east to the Levant and Anatolia, and from the Black Sea in the north to Egypt in the south. It was a region of enormous cultural, political and linguistic diversity. In this authoritative new study, Amélie Kuhrt examines its history from the earliest written documents to the conquest of Alexander the Great, c.3000-330 BC. This work dispels many of the misapprehensions which have surrounded the study of the region. It provides a lucid, up-to-date narrative which takes into account the latest archaeological and textual discoveries and deals with the complex problems of interpretation and methodology. The Ancient Near East is an essential text for all students of history of this region and a valuable introduction for students and scholars working in related subjects. Winner of the AHO's 1997 James Henry Breasted Award.