This is the first systematic attempt to survey in detail the archaeological evidence for the crafts and craftsmanship of the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians in ancient Mesopotamia, covering the period ca. 8000-300 B.C.E. As creators of some of the earliest farming and urban communities known to us, these people were among the first pioneers of many crafts and skills that remain fundamental to modern ways of life. Many of the raw materials for crafts had to be imported from outside the river valley of the Tigris and Euphrates, providing an unusually sensitive indicator of the commercial and cultural contacts of Mesopotamia. In this book, Dr. Moorey reviews briefly the textual evidence, and then goes on to examine in detail the material evidence for a wide range of crafts using stones, both common and ornamental, animal products--from hippopotamus ivory to ostrich egg-shells--ceramics, glazed materials and glass, metals, and building materials. With a comprehensive bibliography, this will be a key work of reference for archaeologists and those interested in the early history of crafts and technology, as well as for specialist historians of the ancient Near East.

This volume's 23 contributions from senior and younger researchers working with the Ancient Near Eastern heritage are based on the hypothesis of a general empiric attitude of Ancient Mesopotamian scholarship. The articles try to elucidate these underlying principles, making use of various sorts of modern theories and methods. The book covers a broader range of topics: astronomy, politics, agriculture and irrigation, linguistics, architecture, medicine and others.

Archaeology from Every Angle brings together a wide range of scholars whose work has been influenced by Richard Zettler's career in Near Eastern archaeology. The volume includes work from various archaeological specialties including ceramics, small finds, seal impressions, mortuary practice, social identity, and zooarchaeology. Several contributors provide broader overviews of sites, architecture, and landscape features. Chronologically, this book spans the 5th millennium BCE through the Iron Age in the Near East. The breadth of the contributions to this book speak to the lasting and far-reaching impact Zettler has had on the field. Archaeology from Every Angle does what it says and brings together disparate topics and scholars to form a volume in honor of an archaeologist with a long and storied career.

From 1923 to 1933, the Chicago Field Museum and the University of Oxford conducted archaeological excavations at the site of Kish, located on the floodplain of the Euphrates River in modern Iraq approximately 80 kilometers south of Baghdad. Over the course of ten years of work, the expedition explored seventeen different mounds both inside and outside the ancient boundaries of Kish. The finds were divided at the end of each season, with the Iraq Museum retaining half of the objects and any one-of-a-kind items and the two excavating institutions splitting the remainder. Beginning in 2004, the Field Museum undertook a reevaluation of its Kish holdings. To highlight new research and insights into the material culture from Kish and our understanding of the importance of the site to Mesopotamian archaeology, the Field Museum held a symposium in 2008 that brought together an international group of scholars who presented papers on various aspects of the ancient city. This volume, which grew out of that symposium, presents a wide array of studies on the excavated material remains from Kish, including cuneiform texts, animal figurines, human remains, lithics, figural stucco wall decorations, and more.

Innovative study of the early state and urban societies in Mesopotamia, c. 5000 to 2100 BC.