Palace Ware Across The Neo Assyrian Imperial Landscape

In Palace Ware Across the Neo-Assyrian Imperial Landscape, Alice Hunt investigates the social and symbolic meaning of Palace Ware by understanding these vessels as a vehicle through which intricate interregional, intercultural relationships were negotiated, established and maintained.

Situates a hotly contested section of Isaiah within its historical and cultural contexts, correcting misunderstandings of older scholarship.

A comprehensive history of a state on Judah’s border Edom at the Edge of Empire combines biblical, epigraphic, archaeological, and comparative evidence to reconstruct the history of Judah's neighbor to the southeast. Crowell traces the material and linguistic evidence, from early Egyptian sources that recall conflicts with nomadic tribes to later Assyrian texts that reference compliant Edomite tribal kings, to offer alternative scenarios regarding Edom's transformation from a collection of nomadic tribes and workers in the Wadi Faynan as it relates to the later polity centered around the city of Busayra in the mountains of southern Jordan. This is the first book to incorporate the important evidence from the Wadi Faynan copper mines into a thorough account of Edom's history, providing a key resource for students and scholars of the ancient Near East and the Hebrew Bible.

The Neo-Assyrian empire — the first large empire of the ancient world — has attracted a great deal of public attention ever since the spectacular discoveries of its impressive remains in the 19th century. The southwestern part of this empire, located in the lands of the Bible, is archaeologically speaking the best known region in the world, and its history is described in a plethora of texts, including the Hebrew Bible. Using a bottom-up approach, Avraham Faust utilises this unparalleled information to reconstruct the outcomes of the Assyrian conquest of the region and how it impacted the diverse political units and ecological zones that comprised it. In doing so, he draws close attention to the transformations the imperial take-over brought in its wake. His analysis reveals the marginality of the annexed territories in the southwest as the empire focused its activities in small border areas facing its prospering clients. A comparison of this surprising picture to the information available from other parts of the empire suggests that the distance of these provinces from the imperial core is responsible for their fate. This sheds new light on factors influencing imperial expansion, the considerations leading to annexation, and the imperial methods of control, challenging old conventions about the development of the Assyrian empire and its rule. Faust also examines the Assyrian empire within the broader context of ancient Near Eastern imperialism to answer larger questions on the nature of Assyrian domination, the reasons for its harsh treatment of the distant provinces, and the factors influencing the limits of its reach. His findings highlight the historical development of imperial control in antiquity and the ways in which later empires were able to overcome similar limitations, paving the way to much larger and longer-lasting polities.

The ancient historians considered the Assyrian empire the crucial starting point of a new political system which was adopted by later empires. In modern historical research, this problem still needs to be investigated in a global perspective that studies the development of the imperial model through ages. Abundant epigraphical and archaeological sources can be used in investigating the expansionistic tacticts, the control structures, and the administrative procedures implemented by the Assyrians through a continuous effort of adaptation to evolving situations and changing needs. The book provides an updated outline of the history of the Assyrian empire and its neighbours, a detailed analysis of the technical and ideological aspects of the construction of the Assyrian empire, and of its long-lasting legacy in the Near East and in the West. For its broad theoretical framework, which includes the reference to studies of ancient and modern empires and imperialism, the book is intended not only for the specialists of Ancient Near Eastern history, but also for a wider public of Classical and Medieval historians and of historians interested in world and global history.

The first volume of the series EMMS, ‘Études Mésopotamiennes – Mesopotamian Studies’ presents a collection of articles, communications and preliminary reports representing the advancement, in recent years, of human sciences - archaeological, historical, philological and cultural researches –concerning ancient Mesopotamia area studies.

Nineveh, Iraq, is one of the longest occupied cities in the world, dating at least back to the mid-7th millennium BC. UC Berkeley excavations uncovered a district of large dwellings and wide streets near the Maški Gate (MG22), providing a stratigraphic history of Late Assyrian ceramics at the centre of the empire through to the 7th century BC.

This Handbook is a state-of-the-field volume containing diverse approaches to sensory experience, bringing to life in an innovative, remarkably vivid, and visceral way the lives of past humans through contributions that cover the chronological and geographical expanse of the ancient Near East. It comprises thirty-two chapters written by leading international contributors that look at the ways in which humans, through their senses, experienced their lives and the world around them in the ancient Near East, with coverage of Anatolia, Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Persia, from the Neolithic through the Roman period. It is organised into six parts related to sensory contexts: Practice, production, and taskscape; Dress and the body; Ritualised practice and ceremonial spaces; Death and burial; Science, medicine, and aesthetics; and Languages and semantic fields. In addition to exploring what makes each sensory context unique, this organisation facilitates cross-cultural and cross-chronological, as well as cross-sensory and multisensory comparisons and discussions of sensory experiences in the ancient world. In so doing, the volume also enables considerations of senses beyond the five-sense model of Western philosophy (sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell), including proprioception and interoception, and the phenomena of synaesthesia and kinaesthesia. The Routledge Handbook of the Senses in the Ancient Near East provides scholars and students within the field of ancient Near Eastern studies new perspectives on and conceptions of familiar spaces, places, and practices, as well as material culture and texts. It also allows scholars and students from adjacent fields such as Classics and Biblical Studies to engage with this material, and is a must-read for any scholar or student interested in or already engaged with the field of sensory studies in any period.